Thursday, August 16, 2012

John Carney — Paul Ryan's Catholic Capitalism


John takes the other side from  Victoria Beklempis and sees no fundamental disconnect between Aquinas and market capitalism.

CNBC NetNet
Paul Ryan's Catholic Capitalism
John Carney | Senior Editor

This is not an argument that we have heard the end of yet, and I suspect that Ryan will be drawn into it as people look for clarification.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Really, really bad article. All Carney can talk about is securities markets, and even then he's really pushing it in terms of his argument. Then of course he says Aquinas would approve of them (selling high, buying low) BECAUSE, he says, BECAUSE they're doing it for the sake of making their livelihoods better....LOL! Yeah, sure they are Carney. Completely bogus article.

Jamie Newman said...

So it's possible to reconcile two completely irrational faiths? Wow, who knew?

Adam2 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Adam2 said...

ncronline.org, the National Catholic Reporter, has many articles about Ryan's budget and Catholicism.

Matt Franko said...

Vatican producing more Monetarists:

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2011/10/monetarists-surface-at-vatican.html

rsp

Matt Franko said...

Hard to refute Carney's analysis of Aquinas' vs the part of Ryan's platform that advocates for "markets", etc..

But that is not the part of Ryan's platform that most have a problem with.

The problem most have with Ryan is the cuts/austerity that comes with Ryan's budget, which is based on falsehoods such as "borrowing
from the future" "we're out of money", etc.. and without these truths, then leaves it over to the doctrine of Ayn Rand ie 'Social Darwinism' for humanity... this is a demonic doctrine that Ryan is caught up in, and he is left too stupid to figure this out...

This is the part that is impossible to reconcile with true Christian doctrine.

Carney avoids this issue of course...

rsp

Tom Hickey said...

Matt, I completely agree with you that John's point evades the chief issues, but I think it is has flaws also. Aquinas was talking about goods markets and not financial markets in the first place, and in the second place, financial markets are not the paragons of virtue that John makes them out to be, at least not in the current environment — and even retail investors — the rubes that are usually easily fooled — are rejecting them en masse on the perception that they are rigged.


Good heavens, there is even the perception that Ryan himself was involved in some insider trading, which John is trying to counter, not completely successfully given the push back he is receiving on it. I am not going to wade in on this, but as a savvy pol ryan should have known that this was an area of possible conflict of interest that he should have avoided.

Even if one claims that the instruments were in a blind trust and he did not know, if I were a pol I would be letting my financial managers know what I had a finger in at the office and that they should stay away from anything having to do with it, regardless of the possible monetary gains.

Matt Franko said...

Right Tom, I dont think Aquinas was talking about "derivatives" ... rsp.