Appropos of Rob's post, MOJ-readers may be interested in this, from John Allen of NCR, 9/15/06:
I was forced to miss this week's trip
by Benedict XVI to Bavaria due to lectures I had agreed months ago to
give in Irvine , California , and Cleveland. Among other things, this
means I had to pass up the world's best sausage and beer, and as I told
both groups to which I spoke, they will never need additional evidence
of the full measure of my devotion to their cause.
(It turns out that local Bavarian authorities banned the sale of
beer during events on the papal itinerary, but the word from colleagues
on the trip is that this did not prove an insurmountable obstacle).
Even at a distance, it's possible to offer some general observations about the Sept. 9-14 homecoming of Benedict XVI.
I have written before that Benedict XVI is not a PC pope. By that, I
don't mean that he sets out to give offense; on the contrary, he's one
of the most gracious figures ever to step on the world stage. Instead,
he simply does not allow his thinking to be channeled by the taboos and
fashions of ordinary public discourse.
For example, any PR consultant would have told the pope that if he
wanted to make a point about the relationship between faith and reason,
he shouldn't open up with a comparison between Islam and Christianity
that would be widely understood as a criticism of Islam, suggesting
that it's irrational and prone to violence. Yet that is precisely what
Benedict did in his address to 1,500 students and faculty at the
University of Regensburg on Wednesday, citing a 14th century dialogue
between the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and a learned
Persian.
News headlines immediately focused upon the pope's use of the term
jihad and its implied swipe at Muslim-influenced terrorism, shaping up
as something of a replay of the Danish cartoon controversy.
Yet he brought up the dialogue between Paleologus and the Persian to
make a different point. Under the influence of its Greek heritage, he
said, Christianity represents a decisive choice in favor of the
rationality of God. While Muslims may stress God's majesty and absolute
transcendence, Christians believe it would contradict God's nature to
act irrationally. He argued that the Gospel of John spoke the last word
on the biblical concept of God: In the beginning was the logos, usually translated as word, but it is also the Greek term for reason.
The lecture, titled "Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and
Reflections," ran to almost 4,000 words (more than a half-hour of
speaking time), and its main concern was with what Benedict sees as an
artificial truncation of human reason in the West. Since the
Reformation, he argued, Western thinkers have come to regard theology
and metaphysics as unscientific.
That is problematic, Benedict said, on two counts.
First, it leaves reason mute before the great questions of life and
death, questions about why we are here and how we should act.
This is a dangerous state of affairs for humanity, the pope said, as
we see from the disturbing pathologies of religion and reason which
necessarily erupt when reason is so reduced that questions of religion
and ethics no longer concern it. Attempts to construct an ethic from
the rules of evolution or from psychology and sociology, end up being
simply inadequate.
Second, its logically self-defeating for science itself, which
depends upon the assumption of order and reason in the universe, but
cant explain why things should work that way in the first place.
The question why this has to be so is a real question, and one which
has to be remanded by the natural sciences to other modes and planes of
thought to philosophy and theology, the pope said. For philosophy and,
albeit in a different way, for theology, listening to the great
experiences and insights of the religious traditions of humanity, and
those of the Christian faith in particular, is a source of knowledge,
and to ignore it would be an unacceptable restriction of our listening
and responding.
Ultimately, Benedict argued, a form of reason which rejects
religious and philosophical thinking cannot promote dialogue with other
cultures.
In the Western world, it is widely held that only positivistic
reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are universally valid,
he said. Yet the world's profoundly religious cultures see this
exclusion of the divine from the universality of reason as an attack on
their most profound convictions. A reason which is deaf to the divine
and which relegates religion into the realm of subcultures is incapable
of entering into the dialogue of cultures.
Whatever the merits of Benedict's argument, it is a subtle and
carefully modulated analysis of Western intellectual history head and
shoulders above the standard fare most leaders offer on the stump. Of
course, that's not what the world is talking about right now, raising
the question of whether Benedict could do with a dash more sensitivity
to how wires in today's hair-trigger world are tripped.
The Vatican on Thursday issued a statement insisting that Benedict
had no intention of giving offense, and that part of his argument at
Regensburg was precisely in favor of respect of the religious
convictions of humanity. _______________ mp
Given the prominence of Just War Doctrine in Roman Catholic thought, it's at least a little surprising that there hasn't been more discussion here of the Bush Administrtration's decision in March 2003 to commence war against Iraq. I'm sure that some of us supported and others of us opposed that decision. I doubt that those of us who opposed the decision now think that our opposition as mistaken, but I suspect that some of us who supported the decision now think that our support was mistaken. NYT columnist Tom Friedman is a prominent political liberal who supported the decision--and, so far as I am aware, he has not said that his support was mistaken. Listen to some of what Friedman said in his column yesterday (9/8/06):
We are stalled in Iraq not because of something some fringe antiwar
critics said, or did, but because of how the Bush team, the center of
U.S. policy, approached Iraq from the start. While it told the public —
correctly, in my view — that building one example of a tolerant,
pluralistic, democratizing society in the heart of the Arab-Muslim
world was really important in the broader war of ideas against violent
radical Islam, the administration acted as though this would be easy
and sacrifice-free.
Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld told us we are in the fight of our lives
against a new Islamic fascism, and let’s have an unprecedented wartime
tax cut and shrink our armed forces. They told us we are in the fight
of our lives against a new Islamic fascism, but let’s send just enough
troops to topple Saddam — and never control Iraq’s borders, its ammo
dumps or its looters. They told us we are in the fight of our lives
against a new Islamic fascism, but rather than bring Democrats and
Republicans together in a national unity war coalition, let’s use the
war as a wedge issue to embarrass Democrats, frighten voters and win
elections. They told us we are in the fight of our lives against a new
Islamic fascism — which is financed by our own oil purchases — but
let’s not do one serious thing about ending our oil addiction.
Donald Rumsfeld demonizes war critics as “morally confused.” But it
is the “moral confusion” at the heart of the Bush policy — a confusion
between its important ends and insufficient means — that has hobbled us
from the start. It truly, truly baffles me why a president who bet so
much of his legacy on this project never gave it his best shot and
tolerated so much incompetence. He summoned us to D-Day and gave us the
moral equivalent of the invasion of Panama. _______________ mp
Yesterday I posted a link to David Brook's NYT column about the income inequality debate (here). In his NYT column today, Princeton economist Paul Krugman responds to Brooks (without naming him) and others. MOJ-readers who are not NYT subscribers won't be able to access the column, so here it is:
Whining Over Discontent
By PAUL KRUGMAN We are, finally, having a
national discussion about inequality, and right-wing commentators are
in full panic mode. Statistics, most of them irrelevant or misleading,
are flying; straw men are under furious attack. It’s all very confusing
— deliberately so. So let me offer a few clarifying comments.
First, why are we suddenly talking so much about inequality? Not
because a few economists decided to make inequality an issue. It’s the
public — not progressive pundits — that has been telling pollsters the
economy is “only fair” or “poor,” even though the overall growth rate
is O.K. by historical standards.
Political analysts tried all sorts of explanations for popular
discontent with the “Bush boom” — it’s the price of gasoline; no,
people are in a bad mood because of Iraq — before finally acknowledging
that most Americans think it’s a bad economy because for them, it is.
The lion’s share of the benefits from recent economic growth has gone
to a small, wealthy minority, while most Americans were worse off in
2005 than they were in 2000.
Some conservatives whine that people didn’t complain as much about
rising inequality when Bill Clinton was president. But most people were
happy with the state of the economy in the late 1990’s, even though the
rich were getting much richer, because the middle class and the poor
were also making substantial progress. Now the rich are getting richer,
but most working Americans are losing ground.
Second, notice the amount of time that inequality’s apologists spend
attacking a claim nobody is making: that there has been a clear
long-term decline in middle-class living standards. Yes, real median
family income has risen since the late 1970’s (with the most convincing
gains taking place during the Clinton years). But the rise was very
small — small enough that other considerations, like increasing
economic insecurity, make it unclear whether families are better or
worse off. And that’s the point: the United States as a whole has grown
a lot richer over the past generation, but the typical American family
hasn’t.
Third, notice the desperate effort to find some number, any number,
to support claims that increasing inequality is just a matter of a
rising payoff to education and skill. Conservative commentators tell us
about wage gains for one-eyed bearded men with 2.5 years of college, or
whatever — and conveniently forget to adjust for inflation. In fact,
the data refute any suggestion that education is a guarantee of income
gains: once you adjust for inflation, you find that the income of a
typical household headed by a college graduate was lower in 2005 than
in 2000.
More broadly, right-wing commentators would like you to believe that
the economy’s winners are a large group, like college graduates or
people with agreeable personalities. But the winners’ circle is
actually very small. Even households at the 95th percentile — that is,
households richer than 19 out of 20 Americans — have seen their real
income rise less than 1 percent a year since the late 1970’s. But the
income of the richest 1 percent has roughly doubled, and the income of
the top 0.01 percent — people with incomes of more than $5 million in
2004 — has risen by a factor of 5.
Finally, while we can have an interesting discussion about questions
like the role of unions in wage inequality, or the role of lax
regulation in exploding C.E.O. pay, there is no question that the
policies of the current majority party — a party that has held a
much-needed increase in the minimum wage hostage to large tax cuts for
giant estates — have relentlessly favored the interests of a tiny,
wealthy minority against everyone else.
According to new estimates by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, the
leading experts on long-term trends in inequality, the effective
federal tax rate on the richest 0.01 percent has fallen from about 60
percent in 1980 to about 34 percent today. Meanwhile, the U.S.
government — unlike any other government in the advanced world — does
nothing as more and more working families find themselves unable to
obtain health insurance.
The good news is that these concerns are finally breaking through
into our political discourse. I’m sure that the usual suspects will
come up with further efforts to confuse the issue. I say, bring ’em on:
we’ve got the arguments, and the facts, to win this debate. _______________ mp
About that "depressing map showing income drop under Bush" (here): A MOJ-reader has called this critical comment to my attention. I also noticed this column by David Brooks in yesterday's Times: "The Populist Myths on Income Inequality" (here). _______________ mp
MOJ-readers may be interested in this piece by Julie Byrne, who is the Msgr. Thomas J. Hartman Professor of
Catholic Studies at Hofstra University.
Sightings 9/7/06
The Pittsburgh Twelve and Catholic "Fringes" --
Julie Byrne
In July, aboard a boat sailing Pittsburgh's Monongahela
River, three female bishops ordained twelve women to the priesthood and
diaconate. The bishops traveled from Germany as part of Roman Catholic
Womenpriests, a group that advocates lifting the Roman ban on women's
ordination. The candidates gathered from all parts of the U.S., saying
that being among the "Pittsburgh Twelve" -- their nickname echoing the similarly
ordained "Danube Seven" of 2002 -- meant fulfilling their true vocations to God
and church.
But the candidates had no illusions about what
reaction would follow. After the ceremony, Roman Catholic officials said
that the ordinations were not recognized, and, moreover, that in taking a public
position against church teaching, the Pittsburgh Twelve had effectively
excommunicated themselves.
The immediate context of the story was well
addressed by the media. Since Vatican II, wrote Michelle Boorstein,
"many people who have watched the debate about women's roles in the Catholic
church say the Pittsburgh ceremony is part -- albeit on the fringe -- of an
unsquelchable movement for women's equality in leadership" (Washington
Post, July 30).
The wider historical scope of groups like Roman
Catholic Womenpriests, however, remains unmentioned. Long before Vatican
II, hundreds of small Catholic groups courted excommunication from Roman
Catholicism in order to follow what they believed to be true
Catholicism. Always they sought valid ordination of their own priests and
bishops; always they said it was possible to be Catholic apart from Rome.
If the Pittsburgh Twelve are the "fringe," this fringe has more of a history
than we thought.
Traditionalist groups on the right -- such as the small
breakaway church attended by Mel Gibson -- are only part of the story. The
"independent Catholic movement" -- a tag used by American participants for their
moderate-to-left groups -- dates to eighteenth-century disputes with Rome in the
Dutch See of Utrecht. The Utrecht version of Catholicism, or "Old
Catholicism," spread after Vatican I, arrived in the U.S. at the turn of the
century, revived after Vatican II, and morphed into the independent Catholic
movement of today.
Independent Catholicism in the U.S. currently includes
at least 150 jurisdictions, most with somewhere between one and five
churches. But they vary widely, ranging from the large, historic Liberal
Catholic Church International, to the smaller, well-organized Catholic Apostolic
Church of Antioch, to formerly Roman Catholic congregations like Spiritus
Christi (Rochester, N.Y.) and the Imani Temple (Washington, D.C.). Many,
including all of the above, ordain women. Independent Catholics add at
least 100,000 members to traditionalist Catholicism's approximately 100,000 in
the U.S. Additionally, the Polish National Catholic Church, whose bishops
were originally consecrated by Old Catholic bishops, serves another 30,000
Catholics not in communion with Rome.
This history puts groups like Roman
Catholic Womenpriests in a tiny but enduring tradition of Catholicism outside
Rome that is much broader than advocacy of women's ordination. Scholars
and journalists have overlooked these groups, however, for reasons that are not
particularly compelling.
First, the numbers are small, and second, the
history is chaotic. True enough. But fascinating stories can rise
above shrimpiness and jumble: the harbouring of hundreds of former Roman
Catholics, including priests and nuns; the trajectory of the Church of St. John
Coltrane, now part of the independent African Orthodox Church; the stint of
Irish singer Sinead O'Connor as an independent Catholic priest; and the
defection of Archbishop Emmanuel Milingo just weeks before the Pittsburgh
ordinations. Milingo, a Zambian in good episcopal standing, announced he
would join the Imani Temple, which, after his own heart, makes alliance with Sun
Myung Moon's Unification Church and permits clerical marriage. Milingo has
said he will live in Washington with his wife, whom he married in a
Moon-officiated wedding in 2001, and continue his healing and exorcism
ministries.
The third reason follows from frequent reactions to
the Milingo story: independent Catholicism is full of crazy people and crazy
scenarios. But this reason does not hold water. What religious group
is not full of craziness? Not to mention that one person's craziness is
another person's Š faith. Enough
said.
The fourth reason why Catholics outside Roman
jurisdiction go unnoticed is that most of us -- scholars, reporters, and general
public alike -- have gotten used to assuming that Catholic means Roman
Catholic. This is understandable, since Roman Catholicism dwarfs all other
kinds. But it is inaccurate, even for practicing Roman Catholics, whose
communion includes over twenty non-Roman Catholic churches, such as the
Maronite, Coptic Catholic, and Melkite Greek Catholic
churches.
Meanwhile, if we remember that "Catholic" is a name
hotly contested among Roman, traditionalist, and independent Catholics; critical
for other Catholic churches in communion with Rome; essential for
Anglo-Catholics and Continuing Anglicans; and even increasingly self-identifying
for a variety of Protestants, our accounts of Catholicism will start to reveal
the broad -- if not quite universal -- appeal that its many
manifestations have generated for centuries.
[Sightings comes from the Martin Marty Center at the
University of Chicago Divinity School.] _______________ mp
THEOLOGICAL STUDIES--widely regarded as one of the premier theological periodicals in the United States--is published on behalf of the Jesuits in North America. The editor, a Jesuit priest, is a member of the Department of Theology at Marquette University.
I want to call the attention of MOJ-readers to an article In the most recent issue--an article by two Catholic theologians: Todd A. Salzman, who is Chair of the Department of Theology at Creighton University, and Michael G. Lawler, Director of the Center for Marriage and Family Life at Creighton (and an emeritus professor in the theology department there). Salzman and Lawler are co-authors of the forthcoming volume, Committed Love: A Catholic Sexual Morality. The title and citation: "Catholic Sexual Ethics: Complementarity and the Truly Human," Theological Studies, 67 (2006), 625-52.
In their article, Salzman and Lawler explain why the Catholic Church's official position on the morality of homosexual sexual intimacy--the intimacy that Robby George dismissively calls "sodomy"--is deeply problematic.
In their conclusion, Salzman and Lawler write:
This disputatio is an inquiry into the nature of the truly human sexual act. We inquired, first, into the types of complementarity--heterogenital, reproductive, communion, affective, and parental--that the magisterium finds in a truly human sexual act and challenged the primacy granted to heterogenital complementarity as the sine qua non of such a truly human sexual act. We suggested that the scientific evidence for the genetic, physiological, psychological, and social loading that creates either hetersexual or homosexual orientation as a part of a person's sexual constitution requires the addition of orientation complementarity to the equation. This addition yielded our concklusion that an integrated orientation, personal, and biological complentarity is a more adequate sine qua non of truly human sexual acts. The truly human sexual act is doubly defined, therefore, as an act that is in accord with a person's sexual orientation and leads to the human flourishing of both partners. If accepted, that definition will lead to the abandonment of the absolute norm prohibiting homosexual acts for persons with a homosexual orientation. We repeat, the integration and expressionj of holistic complementarity, that is, the integration of orientation with personal and biological complementarity determines whether or not a sexual act is moral or immoral.
Interested readers may also want to consult this article by another Catholic theologian, Stephen J. Pope, of the Department of Theology at Boston College: "The Magisterium's Argument against 'Same-Sex' Marriages: An Ethical Analysis and Critique," Theological Studies, 65 (2004), 530-65.
But what about scripture? Those who wrote the Bible did not know that the earth revolves around the sun; they understandably presupposed with others of their time that the sun revolves around the earth. Nonetheless, we now know that their presupposition was mistaken. Similarly, those who wrote the Bible did not know what we are now learning about the determinants and character of homosexual orientation. Let me quote, as I did in an earlier post, Galileo: The
reason produced for condemning the opinion that th earth moves and the
sun stands still is that in many places in the Bible one may read that
the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the Bible cannot err,
it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes an erroneous
and heretical position who maintains that the sun is inherently
motionless and the earth movable.
With regard to this
argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and
prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth--whenever
its true meaning is understood. But I believe that nobody will deny
that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite
different from what its bare words signify. Hence if in expounding the
Bible one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical
meaning, one might fall into error. Not only contradictions and
propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible,
but even grave heresies and follies.
[David Gregory, of St. John's University School of Law, would like to call these forthcoming events to our attention:]
Craig Mousin at DePaul U has put together quite a two-day conference on the Living Wage and the faith communities, Sept. 28-29 at DePaul.
On November 16, David Gregory is hosting Lisa Wagner from Chicago at St. John's; Wagner is returning to perform her internationally acclaimed one woman, one act play on Dorothy Day (Haunted by God).
And, October 26-27 (2007), David Gregory is co-chairing, and St. John's law school is hosting, the annual meeting of the Society of Catholic Social Scientists.
[David Gregory, of St. John's University School of Law, sent me the following message:]
Dear Michael,
So, as an at best infrequent skimmer of the MOJustice, at the beginning of the academic year I thought I'd see what some forthcoming conference highlights might be.
I see quite a bit of discussion on the MOJ blog re: your alma mater, Gtown, and the current issues re: the Campus Ministry.
Having deposited my one and only child last weekend at Gtown (premed, Gtown Class of 2010, double major in biochemistry and philosopy, with sights set on an MD/PhD in bioethics (or, so he thinks----it is a long way from 'here to there'!!!!) (and a grad of Regis HS, Class of 2006), and having sat through a weekend of orientation and welcomes, I must say I was very impressed with the outstanding emphasis on Ignatian principles throughout the orientation weekend. The Jesuits with the office of Mission and of Ministry were stunningly impressive (and I am not easily impressed). The few questions from parents about the current issues re: the Protestant component of the C. Ministry were direct, and were handled with great insight and decency (or so it surely seemed to me).
My son reports that the Catholic Mass at 11:15 PM every evening on campus is among the most moving and reflective liturgies he has thus far experienced (and he has been to some pretty amazing liturgies, from Mass with Pope JPII to the Catholic Worker to Opus Dei).
My impressions, thus far, is that the Gtown C. Ministry is doing superb work, and with exquisite and enlighted ecumenical sensitivity to all (I am always on alert for the ecumenical dimensions, since my father was a non-Christian Cherokee and my wife is Jewish) (I was a bit surprised, however, in that there was no mention in all of the orientation events with Campus Ministry about the 450th and 500th year anniversary events re: e.g., the death of Ignatius, etc.) _______________ mp
Thanks, Robby, for your comments. (Though you needn't use Rick as an intermediary; you can simply send your comments on my postings to me, and I'll happily post them for you.)
In 2002 (which is the last time I looked), I wrote that recent pieces defending the reading of the Bible according to which homosexual sexual conduct is always immoral include:
Charles L. Bartow, "Speaking the Text and Preaching the Gospel," in Choon-Leong Seow, ed., Homosexuality and the Christian Community at 86 (1996).
Richard B. Hays, "Awaiting the Redemption of Our Bodies: The Witness of Scripture Concerning Homosexuality," in Jeffrey S. Siker, ed., Homosexuality in the Church: Both Sides of the Debate at 3 (1994).
Ulrich W. Mauser, "Creation, Sexuality, and Homosexuality in the New Testament," in Seow, supra, at 39.
Thomas E. Schmidt, "Romans 1:26-27 and Biblical Sexuality," in John Corvino, ed., In Same Sex: Debating the Ethics, Science, and Culture of Homosexuality at 93 (1997).
At the same time (2002), I wrote that recent pieces dissenting from the traditional reading in favor of a different reading--a reading according to which the Bible does not teach that homosexual sexual conduct is always immoral--include:
Brian K. Blount, Reading and Understanding the New Testament on Homosexuality," in Seow, supra, at 28.
Victor Paul Furnish, "The Bible and Homosexuality: Reading the Texts in Context," in Siker, ed., at 18.
Daniel A. Helminiak, "The Bible on Homosexuality: Ethically Neutral," in Corvino, supra, at 81.
Bruce J. Malina, "The New Testament and Homosexuality," in Patricia Beattie Jung with Joseph Andrew Coray, eds., Sexual Diversity and Catholicism: Toward the Development of Moral Theology at 150 (2001).
Choon-Leong Seow, "A Heterotextual Perspective," in Seow, supra, at 14.
Jeffrey S. Siker, "Homosexual Christians, The Bible, and Gentile Inclusion: Confessions of a Repenting Heterosexist," in Siker, supra, at 178.
There is--and it is undeniable that there is--an increasingly widespread, transdenominational disagreement among Christians over whether, according to the Bible, homosexual sexual conduct is invariably immoral--immoral without regard to any particularities of context.
Something Galileo Galilei wrote is worth pondering here:
The reason produced for condemning the opinion that th earth moves and the sun stands still is that in many places in the Bible one may read that the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the Bible cannot err, it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes an erroneous and heretical position who maintains that the sun is inherently motionless and the earth movable.
With regard to this argument, I think in the first place that it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth--whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe that nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from what its bare words signify. Hence if in expounding the Bible one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. _______________ mp
With the economy beginning to
slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained
period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a
prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.
That situation is adding to fears among Republicans
that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm
elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the
last five years.
The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent
since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially
notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an
average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a
nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.
As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the
nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording
the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest
share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”
Until the last year, stagnating wages were somewhat offset by the
rising value of benefits, especially health insurance, which caused
overall compensation for most Americans to continue increasing. Since
last summer, however, the value of workers’ benefits has also failed to
keep pace with inflation, according to government data.
At the very top of the income spectrum, many workers have continued
to receive raises that outpace inflation, and the gains have been large
enough to keep average income and consumer spending rising.
In a speech on Friday, Ben S. Bernanke,
the Federal Reserve chairman, did not specifically discuss wages, but
he warned that the unequal distribution of the economy’s spoils could
derail the trade liberalization of recent decades. Because recent
economic changes “threaten the livelihoods of some workers and the
profits of some firms,” Mr. Bernanke said, policy makers must try “to
ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are
sufficiently widely shared.”
[The entire article is well worth a read. Click here.] _______________ mp
