WSJ: Pope denounces the profit-at-all-cost mentality

MADRID—Pope Benedict XVI on Thursday began his third official visit to Spain, a trip observers say they expect will smooth strained ties between the Socialist government and the Roman Catholic Church.

For Pope Benedict, the trip will also serve as a return to a country that many in the Vatican see as a crucial battleground against secularist trends that have taken a toll on European Catholic communities. Spain was until recently a key Catholic stronghold, but has lately introduced policies the Vatican strongly opposes.

Thousands line the streets of Madrid as Pope Benedict visits the historic city against a backdrop of protests over the cost of the Pontiff's trip in the financially-challenged country. Video courtesy of Reuters.

Earlier, the pope denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality he said is behind Europe's economic crisis, saying morals and ethics must play a greater role in future policies, the Associated Press reported.

"The economy doesn't function with market self-regulation," he told reporters on the papal plane, "but needs an ethical reason to work for mankind," the AP reported. He added that the current crisis shows that a moral dimension is "interior and fundamental" to economic problems.

Pope Benedict's visits to Spain over his six years as pope compare with just five visits in 26 years of papacy of his predecessor, John Paul II.

The visit, which sparked clashes between secularist groups and Catholic pilgrims late Wednesday, comes ahead of general elections set for Nov. 20. The latest opinion polls show the conservative, pro-Catholic Popular Party may return to power after seven years of Socialist Party rule.

Over the next three days, the pope plans to meet with Mariano Rajoy, the Popular Party candidate for prime minister. Pope Benedict will also meet twice with the current premier, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero—a stark contrast with his previous Spanish visit, in 2010, when they met briefly at Barcelona's airport as the pope was about to depart.

This, observers say, is a sign of a conciliatory attitude on both sides after recent high-profile rows, in particular over the 2005 approval of gay marriage. It also shows a delicate balancing act for the Socialists as they try to attract votes in a country that remains predominantly Catholic, as Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, the Socialist candidate, said he doesn't plan to meet the pope.

The Pope in Madrid

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Claudio Onorati/European Pressphoto Agency

Pope Benedict XVI greeted a crowd at Barajas International Airport, in Madrid Thursday.

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In the 1960s, more than 90% of Spaniards defined themselves as Catholics, but in the latest polls, 72% do. That is down eight percentage points in the past decade alone, as Spain has moved from being one of the most conservative countries in Europe to one generally in favor of causes like abortion rights.

Jesús Bastante, a prominent Spanish Catholic blogger, said this is a concern for the Spanish Catholic Church, traditionally one of the most influential in Europe, only behind the church in Italy. But an additional worry is the possible spread of such secularist trends into Latin America, which keeps close cultural ties with Spain, and is home to almost half of the world's Catholics.

"There's a fear that this secularism is exported to the Americas, just like Catholicism itself was a Spanish export there," Mr. Bastante said.

The pope's visit forms part of the Catholic Church's weeklong World Youth Day, which has attracted hundreds of thousands of young Catholics from across the world. Speaking on his arrival in Madrid, he expressed concern about youth unemployment—a burning issue in crisis-hit Spain, where nearly half of all 15- to 24-year-olds don't have a job.

"Many young people look worriedly to the future, as they search for work, or because they have lost their job or because the one they have is precarious or uncertain," the pope said.

In spite of the social rhetoric, the visit has stirred an unusual degree of street-level opposition from secularist and activist groups, which previously rallied against government economic-austerity measures. Several thousand of those opposing the trip rallied in Madrid on Wednesday, and exchanged insults and taunts with Spanish and foreign pilgrims in Madrid's central Puerta del Sol square.

Echoing a common complaint among the secularists, Antonio González, an official at Spain's Secularist Watch, an organization that helped organize the protests, said the pope's visit will have a significant cost for Spanish taxpayers at a time of painful belt-tightening. However, both the Catholic Church and Madrid's local government have said the costs will be fully covered by pilgrims and private sponsors, while spending by the large influx of visitors will provide needed revenue to Madrid's local economy.

For the Vatican, the visit also represents a rare moment of relief—since accusations of child abuse became a top item in the agenda of papal visits in recent years—as the event is a show of global strength with the city of three million people flooded by youngsters from more than 100 countries.

"The World Youth Day brings us a message of hope…which fill us with confidence on the future of the Church and the world," the pope said on Thursday.

Write to David Roman at david.roman@dowjones.com

USA's Economic Myths Bite The Dust

How many in the USA want to face the truth about where we stand economically? The fact that the distortions and sheer lies put out about health care (propaganda promulgated by powerful interests dedicated to destroying the common good) are believed by so many, reveals the truth that too many U.S. citizens have no knowledge or understanding of our economic situation. Read on. - Rick
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Published on Friday, August 14, 2009 by The Guardian/UK

US Economic Myths Bite the Dust

by Mark Weisbrot http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/14-6

The Great Recession is allowing some widely held beliefs about the US economy – which were the source of much evangelism over the last few decades – to run up against a reality check. This is to be expected, since the United States has been the epicentre of the storm of policy blunders that caused the world recession.

This month my CEPR colleagues John Schmitt and Nathan Lane showed that the United States is not the nation of small businesses that it is regularly dressed up to be for electoral campaign speeches and editorials. If we look at what percentage of our overall labour force is self-employed, or what percentage of manufacturing workers or high-tech workers are employed in small businesses – well, the US ranks at or near the bottom among high-income countries.

As economist Paul Krugman noted after reading the study: "One more American myth bites the dust." Indeed it has. And as both the authors of the paper and Krugman note, there is a plausible explanation for the US's low score in the small business contest: our lack of national health insurance. There are enough risks associated with choosing to start a business over being an employee, but the Europeans don't have to worry that they will go bankrupt for lack of health insurance.

A number of other alleged advantages of America's "economic dynamism" are also mythical. Most people think that there is more economic mobility in America than in Europe. Guess again. We're also near the bottom of rich countries in this category, for example as measured by the percentage of low-income households that escape from this status each year.

The idea that the US is more "internationally competitive" has been without economic foundation for decades, as measured by the most obvious indicator: our trade deficit, which peaked at 6% of GDP in 2006. (It has fallen sharply from its peak during this recession but will rebound strongly when the economy recovers).

And of course the idea that our less regulated, more "market-friendly" financial system was more innovative and efficient – widely held by our leading experts and policy-makers such as Alan Greenspan, until recently – collapsed along with our $8tn housing bubble.

On the other hand, most Americans pay a high price for the institutional arrangements that bring us these mythical successes. We have the dubious honour of being the only "no-vacation nation", ie no legally required paid time off and of course some weeks fewer actual days off per year than our European counterparts enjoy. We have a broken healthcare system that costs about twice as much per capita as that of our peer nations and delivers worse outcomes, as measured by life expectancy and infant mortality. We are near the top in terms of inequality among high-income countries and at the bottom for parental leave policies and paid sick days. The list is a long one.

Yet it was just two years ago that Nicholas Sarkozy successfully won the presidency of France by arguing that the French could not afford their welfare state and had to adopt a series of reforms that would make the French economy more "dynamic" like that of the US. These included tax cuts for the rich and labour law changes that would make it easier for employers to fire people.

Many French are now sorry they voted for this guy and very glad that they have more protection than most Americans have from the ravages of the recession. Of course they could also use a larger economic stimulus, but the fact that they don't have one is due to the neoliberal policies of their own government and those of the European Union, especially the European Central Bank.

There is another area where the comparison between the American and European model has serious implications for the future of the planet: climate change. "Old Europe" uses about half as much energy per capita as the US does. A big part of this difference is because Europeans, in recent decades, have taken much more of their productivity gains in the form of increased leisure time, rather than working the same (or longer) hours in order to consume more.

We estimated that the US would consume about 20% less energy if it had the work hours of the EU-15. This would have a significant impact on world carbon emissions. Furthermore, when the world economy recovers, there are a number of middle-income countries that will approach high-income status in the not-too-distant future (South Korea and Taiwan are already there). Whether they choose the American or the European model will have an even bigger impact on global climate change.

The major media in both Europe and the United States have played an important role, for decades, in helping politicians capitalise on economic mythology to push policy in economic and socially destructive directions on both sides of the Atlantic. It remains to be seen how much the Great Recession will influence the thinking and reporting of these influential institutions.

© Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC