Le vrai miracle aujourd’hui, c‘est pas la croissance économique, c’est la pauvreté. Leon Louw (Free Market Foundation of Southern Africa)
Aimez la pauvreté comme une mère. Pape François
L’Église qui vit à Cuba est une Église pauvre, et le témoignage de pauvreté de nos prêtres diocésains et religieux, des diacres et des personnes consacrées, est admirable. Peut-être que c’est justement la pauvreté qui contribue de façon singulière à la solidarité et la fraternité entre tous. Nous espérons que votre témoignage personnel nous stimulera tous à aimer cette pauvreté belle et fructueuse de l’Eglise dans notre terre (…) La pauvreté est le mur et la mère de la vie consacrée, car elle la protège de toute vie mondaine. Combien de vie qui commencent bien, d’âmes généreuses, se perdent dans l’amour pour cette vie mondaine, riche, et qui se terminent mal, sans amour. (…) La richesse appauvrit. (…) Quand une communauté religieuse commence à compter l’argent à épargner, Dieu est bon de lui donner un économe désastreux pour la mener à la ruine, pour la rendre pauvre ! Dieu veut notre Église pauvre ! Comment est mon esprit de pauvreté ? Pape François
I recognize that globalization has helped many people to lift themselves out of poverty, but it has condemned many other people to starve. It is true that in absolute terms the world’s wealth has grown, but inequality and poverty have arisen. Pape François
Mais à quoi joue le pape François ? L’annonce dans la presse américaine, mercredi 30 septembre, de sa rencontre secrète avec l’égérie des opposants les plus radicaux au mariage homosexuel aux Etats-Unis a brouillé le message qu’il semblait avoir délivré tout au long de son séjour sur place. Les quelques minutes qu’il a passées jeudi 24 septembre à Washington, avec Kim Davis, une greffière du Kentucky, brièvement emprisonnée au début du mois pour avoir obstinément refusé de délivrer des certificats de mariage aux couples homosexuels, n’ont été ni démenties ni commentées par le Vatican. Mais ce soutien de poids à la frange la plus ultra des chrétiens conservateurs américains, donne en tout cas une dimension politique à un séjour aux Etats-Unis que le pape avait qualifié de purement « pastoral ».Si l’opposition du pape au mariage gay ne fait aucun doute, son choix de conforter une fonctionnaire controversée et désavouée même par une partie du camp conservateur, ne semble pas cadrer avec ses propos d’ouverture, appelant à une Eglise catholique plus inclusive, engagée « dans la construction d’une société tolérante », ainsi qu’il l’a déclaré à la Maison Blanche. Une position qu’il a réitérée tout au long de son voyage aux Etats-Unis, où il a paru éviter avec soin de prendre partie dans « la guerre culturelle » que la hiérarchie catholique sur place, et plus largement les mouvements chrétiens évangéliques – Mme Davis est elle-même chrétienne apostolique –, alimentent au nom de la liberté religieuse. Particulièrement attendu à ce propos, François s’était appliqué à une défense large et globale de ce principe, sans citer d’exemples précis. Il avait notamment dénoncé « un monde où diverses formes de tyrannie moderne cherchent à supprimer la liberté religieuse, ou bien cherchent à la réduire à une sous-culture sans droit d’expression dans la sphère publique, ou encore cherchent à utiliser la religion comme prétexte à la haine et à la brutalité ». Il avait certes rendu une visite surprise à des religieuses, au centre d’une bataille juridique contre le système de santé américain, dit Obamacare, qui oblige les employeurs – y compris leur congrégation – à participer au financement des moyens de contraception de leurs salariés. Mais, parallèlement, il avait aussi loué le travail d’autres congrégations religieuses américaines, réputées elles bien plus libérales sur ces sujets. C’est dans l’avion qui le ramenait à Rome qu’il a été le plus explicite sur le fond, tout en restant ambigu sur la réalité de sa rencontre avec Kim Davis. « L’objection de conscience est un droit », a-t-il répondu à un journaliste qui lui demandait de réagir expressément au cas d’un(e) fonctionnaire qui refuserait de délivrer des certificats de mariage à des couples homosexuels. « Je n’ai pas en mémoire tous les cas d’objection de conscience », a étonnamment éludé le pape, qui a tout de même insisté sur le fait que « dans chaque institution judiciaire, doit exister un droit de conscience ». Le Monde
La brève entrevue entre Madame Kim Davis et le pape François à la nonciature apostolique de Washington D.C., continue à susciter des commentaires et des débats. Afin de contribuer à une compréhension objective de ce qui a été révélé, je suis en mesure d’éclaircir les points suivants : Le pape François a rencontré plusieurs dizaines de personnes qui avaient été invitées à la nonciature afin de le saluer alors qu’il s’apprêtait à quitter Washington pour la ville de New York. De telles salutations brèves se passent lors de chaque visite du pape et sont dues à la gentillesse et la disponibilité caractéristiques du pape. La seule véritable audience que le pape a accordé à la nonciature, le fut pour un des ses anciens étudiants et sa famille. Le Pape n’est pas entré dans les détails de la situation de Madame Davis et sa rencontre avec elle ne doit pas être considérée comme un appui à sa position dans tous ses aspects particuliers et complexes. Père Federico Lombardi (service de presse du Vatican)
L’extrême pauvreté devrait reculer cette année à un niveau sans précédent et frapper moins de 10% de la population mondiale en dépit d’une situation encore « très inquiétante » en Afrique, selon un rapport de la Banque mondiale (BM) publié dimanche. « Nous pourrions être la première génération dans l’histoire qui pourrait mettre un terme à l’extrême pauvreté », s’est félicité Jim Yong Kim, le président de l’institution qui tient la semaine prochaine son assemblée générale à Lima, au Pérou, avec le FMI. Selon les projections de la BM, quelque 702 millions de personnes, soit 9,6% de la population mondiale, vivent sous le seuil de pauvreté, que l’institution a d’ailleurs relevé de 1,25 à 1,90 dollar par jour pour tenir notamment compte de l’inflation. En 2012, date des données disponibles les plus récentes, les plus défavorisés de la planète étaient 902 millions, soit près de 13% de la population mondiale, une proportion qui atteignait encore 29% en 1999. (…) Si la tendance est à une nette baisse en Asie orientale — et spécialement en Inde — ou en Amérique du Sud, l’extrême pauvreté s’enracine en Afrique subsaharienne où elle frappe encore cette année 35,2% de la population. Selon la Banque, la région abrite ainsi, à elle seule, la moitié des plus défavorisés du globe. (…) La situation est particulièrement préoccupante dans les deux pays les plus touchés sur le globe, Madagascar et la République démocratique du Congo, dont quelque 80% de la population vit sous le seuil de pauvreté, d’après le rapport. L’institution reconnaît par ailleurs qu’elle ne dispose pas de données fiables sur la pauvreté au Moyen-Orient et au Maghreb en raison des « conflits » et de « la fragilité » dans les principaux pays de la région. AFP
Les derniers chiffres de la Banque mondiale communiqués à la presse ce 4 octobre sont explicites et encourageants : le nombre de personnes qui vivent dans l’extrême pauvreté a été largement diminué, passant de 37 % de la population mondiale en 1990 à moins de 10 % aujourd’hui, alors que, dans le même temps, cette dernière a augmenté de 2 milliards d’habitants. Le phénomène s’est accéléré pendant ces quatre dernières années : ces personnes totalement démunies, sujettes aux famines ou aux épidémies, qui étaient encore 902 millions en 2012 (12,8 % de la population), ne sont plus que 702 millions en 2015, soit 9,6 % de la population mondiale. On apprend également que ce seuil de l’extrême pauvreté a été relevé par la Banque mondiale de 1,25 dollar à 1,90 dollar par jour dès 2011, en raison, selon le président de la Banque, Jim Yong Kim, « de l’évolution de l’inflation, du prix des matières premières et des taux de change » constatée entre 2005 et 2011 dans les quinze pays les plus pauvres de la planète. Ce seuil n’est donc plus de 1 dollar par jour comme on nous le serine parfois, mais de près du double. Le Point
The thing that always strikes me when we get into these discussions is the United States takes in more people every year legally than the rest of the world combined. You start from that premise — it was 1.7 million last year, you want to add another 400,000 to 600,000 that came in without the benefit of doing it the right way. What is the right number? If over 2 million is not enough, would someone please tell me what that right number is, and would other countries act accordingly. Rep. Michael Burgess (Texas)
The Vatican, for its part, welcomes millions of visitors a year — but allows only a very select few, who meet strict criteria, to be admitted as residents or citizens. Only about 450 of its 800 or so residents actually hold citizenship, according to a 2012 study by the Library of Congress. That study said citizens are either church cardinals who reside in the Vatican, the Holy See’s diplomats around the world, and those who have to reside in the city because of their jobs, such as the Swiss Guard. Spouses and children who live in the city because of their relationship with citizens — including the Swiss Guard and workers such as the gardener — have also been granted citizenship. But that means few of the Vatican’s citizens are women. The Washington Times
A fair-minded person might infer from his advice that capitalism is more prone to impoverish than to create enough wealth to bring the underclass out of poverty. Yet the poor in the free-market United States are mostly better off than the middle classes in Pope Francis’ homeland. Argentina’s statism has transformed one of the most resource-rich countries in the world into an impoverished nation. Are the wages of socialism therefore less than Christian? Authoritarian regimes such as the Castro dynasty in Cuba or Iran’s theocracy do not receive much criticism from the pope for their administration of state justice. Yet Francis blasted capital punishment, which in America is mostly reserved for first-degree murderers, not the perpetrators of thought crimes as in Cuba and Iran. (…) Hundreds of thousands of migrants are now swarming illegally into the West, whether into Europe mostly from the Middle East, or into America from Latin America. They arrive in numbers that make them difficult to assimilate and integrate, with radical repercussions on the host country’s ability to serve the social needs of its own poorer citizens. Yet Francis reserves most of his advice for host countries to ensure that they treat the often-impoverished and mostly young male newcomers with Christian humanity. That advice is admirable. But the pope might have likewise lectured the leaders of countries such as Syria and Mexico to stop whatever they are doing to heartlessly drive out millions of their own citizens from their homes. Or he might have suggested that migrants seek lawful immigration and thereby more charitably not harm the interests of immigrants who wait patiently until they can resettle lawfully. Or he might have praised the West for uniquely creating conditions that draw in, rather than repel, the world’s migrants. (…) If a Christian truly believes that capitalism is the world’s only hope, that illegal immigration is detrimental to all involved, or that the Iranian nuke deal is a prelude to either war or nuclear proliferation, is he thereby somewhat less Christian or Catholic? (…) Would an American president dare to visit the Vatican to lecture the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church about their blatant sex and age discrimination, and to advise Francis that his successor should be female or under 50? (…) In this new freewheeling climate of frank exchange, should Protestant friends now advise Catholic dioceses to open their aggregate 200 million acres of global church lands to help house current migrants? Or should Francis first deplore the capitalist business practices in the administration of the so-called Vatican Bank? Should the Church turn over to prosecuting attorneys all the names of past and present clergy accused of criminal sexual abuse, and cede all investigation and punishment entirely to the state? (…) But do we really want a priest in the role of Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz, dressed in ancient Roman miter and vestments, addressing hot-button issues with divine sanction? Victor Davis Hanson
Pope Francis has created political controversy…by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. …putting aside religious or philosophical questions, we have more than two centuries of historical evidence… Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining. …which has a better track record of helping the less fortunate — fighting for a bigger slice of the economic pie, or producing a bigger pie? …the official poverty level in the U.S. is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the U.S. has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left. Pope Francis’ own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world. Thomas Sowell
He has been called the « slum pope » and « a pope for the poor. » And indeed, it’s true that Pope Francis, leader to 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, speaks often of those in need. He’s described the amount of poverty and inequality in the world as « a scandal » and implored the Church to fight what he sees as a « culture of exclusion. » Yet even as he calls for greater concern for the marginalized, he broadly and cavalierly condemns the market-driven economic development that has lifted a billion people out of extreme poverty within the lifetime of the typical millennial. A lack of understanding of even basic economic concepts has led one of the most influential and beloved human beings on the planet to decry free enterprise, opine that private property rights must not be treated as « inviolable, » hold up as the ideal « cooperatives of small producers » over « economies of scale, » accuse the Western world of « scandalous level[s] of consumption, » and assert that we need « to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits. » Given his vast influence, which extends far beyond practicing Catholics, this type of rhetoric is deeply troubling. It’s impossible to know how much of an impact his words are having on concrete policy decisions—but it’s implausible to deny that when he calls for regulating and constraining the free markets and economic growth that alleviate truly crushing poverty, the world is listening. A man Politico described as insisting « reality comes before theory » could not be more mistaken about the empirical truth of capitalism’s role in our world. While income inequality within developed countries may be growing, the income gap between the First World and the rest of the world is decreasing fast. As the World Bank’s Branko Milanovic has documented, we are in the midst of « the first decline in global inequality between world citizens since the Industrial Revolution. » In 1960, notes the Cato Institute’s Marian Tupy, the average America earned 11 times more than the average resident of Asia. Today, Americans make 4.8 times as much. « The narrowing of the income gap, » Tupy found, « is a result of growing incomes in the rest of the world, » not a decline in incomes in developed nations. (…) In just two decades, extreme poverty has been reduced by more than 50 percent. « In 1990, almost half of the population in developing regions lived on less than $1.25 a day, » reads a 2014 report from the United Nations. « This rate dropped to 22 per cent by 2010, reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty by 700 million. » How was this secular miracle achieved? The bulk of the answer is through economic development, as nascent markets began to take hold in large swaths of the world that were until recently desperately poor. (…) There are moments when Pope Francis seems to comprehend all this. In his encyclical, he quotes the now-sainted Pope John Paul II that « science and technology are wonderful products of a God-given human creativity, » and asks, « How can we not feel gratitude and appreciation for this progress? » But a few short pages later he suggests that « a decrease in the pace of production and consumption » would yet be for the best. The lasting impression is not of a staunch anti-capitalist tirelessly advocating for a well-thought-out alternative to the present system, but of a man confused about how to achieve the things he wants. Nowhere is that confusion clearer than when Pope Francis discusses the environment, the overarching topic of Laudato Si. To preserve the earth he wants us to live simpler lives, as by the example he’s set by eschewing the lavish trappings of the papacy. But he goes further than that, not just calling for individual restraint but also for government enforcement of what amounts to a reduction in overall economic activity. It does not seem to occur to him that this prescription might have adverse effects for the people still struggling to pull themselves out of desperate conditions and into the type of comfortable life he’s asking the rest of us to forgo. For the poor, the problem isn’t too much consumption, but too little wealth to afford the basic things the First World takes for granted. (…) Over and over throughout Laudato Si, he writes about the importance of protecting « God’s handiwork, » of providing access to green spaces, of « learning to see and appreciate beauty, » and of living in « harmony with creation. » But over and over we’ve seen that the type of concern for the environment he’s describing is a luxury good—that is, a thing people consume more of as they become richer. This should be surprising to no one. It’s been more than 70 years since Abraham Maslow introduced the idea that human needs can be organized into a hierarchy—and that until a person has satisfied her basic requirements for food, shelter, safety, and the like, she won’t be motivated to pursue higher-level needs, like friendship and « self-actualization. » While Pope Francis is not wrong to suggest that clean air and beautiful vistas matter, he seems to overlook how much less they matter to the mother in Burundi who cannot feed her children than they do to the white-collar professional in the U.S. or his native Argentina. (…) The World Health Organization (WHO) released data last year showing that the most air-polluted cities on the planet are all in India, Pakistan, and Iran. The lowest concentrations of particulate matter are meanwhile found in Iceland, Australia, and Canada. Both the economics and the history are clear: The more prosperous the developing world becomes, the more it too will be able to demand and achieve livable conditions. If your goal is to move the world to concern for the preservation of biodiversity, the answer is economic growth. If you want to increase access to clean water, the solution is to increase global wealth, and the consumer power that comes with it. Stephanie Slade
Il y a un siècle, l’Argentine et les États-Unis étaient à peu près aussi riches (ce qui veut dire, à bien des égards, qu’ils étaient tout aussi pauvres). Au cours des 115 dernières années, l’écart est frappant. Et il est pas accidentel. Comme Ronald Bailey l’a expliqué dans sa critique du livre de 2002 d’Hernando de Soto, Mystères de la capitale, Dans les années 1920, l’Argentine était l’une des plus grandes économies du monde, avec un revenu moyen à peu près équivalent à celui de la France. Riche comme un Argentin était un slogan souvent utilisé dans les cafés parisiens pour qualifier une personne particulièrement riche. (…) Depuis les années 1940, l’Argentine s’est engagée dans une série de politiques – nationalisation des industries, expansion des services de l’Etat et emprunts massifs à l’étranger – qui l’a fait rétrograder dans le monde. Au cours des dernières années, le revenu par habitant argentin s’est effondré, passant de 8 909 dollars – le double de celui du Mexique et trois fois celui de la Pologne – en 1999 à 2500 dollars aujourd’hui, à peu près à égalité avec la Jamaïque et la Biélorussie … Nick Gillespie
Argentina actually was slightly richer than the U.S. back in 1896. But that nation’s shift to statism, particularly after World War II, hindered Argentina’s growth rates. And seemingly modest differences in growth, compounded over decades, have a huge impact on living standards for ordinary people (i.e., inflation-adjusted GDP per person climbing nearly $27,000 in the U.S. vs an increase of less than $6,700 in Argentina). (…) To help make the bigger point about the importance of economic liberty, let’s now compare the United States with a jurisdiction that consistently has been ranked as the world’s freest economy. Look at changes in economic output in America and Hong Kong from 1950 to the present. As you can see, Hong Kong started the period as a very poor jurisdiction, with per-capita output only about one-fourth of American levels. But thanks to better policy, which led to faster growth compounding over several decades, Hong Kong has now caught up to the United States. What’s most remarkable, if you look at the table, is that per-capita output over the past 65 years has soared by more than 1,275 percent in Hong Kong. (…) In 1900, only 3% of American homes had electric lights but more than 99% had them before the end of the century. Infant mortality rates were 165 per thousand in 1900 and 7 per thousand by 1997. By 2001, most Americans living below the official poverty line had central air conditioning, a motor vehicle, cable television with multiple TV sets, and other amenities. A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the U.S. is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the U.S. has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left. Pope Francis’ own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world. Ronald Bailey
Attention: un miracle peut en cacher un autre !
Au lendemain de la tournée « Danse avec les tyrans » d »un prétendu chef de la chrétienté …
Qui avait non seulement refusé de rencontrer les dissidents cubains mais nie à présent tout soutien à une greffière anti-« mariage pour tous » rencontrée secrètement juste avant son départ des Etats-Unis …
Et qui oubliant, à la tête d’une église possédant l’un des plus riches patrimoines de la planète (combien de divisions de réfugiés accueillis ?), les persécutions ou même le véritable génocide que subissent actuellement les chrétiens à travers le monde du Moyen-Orient à la Chine …
N’avait pas de mots assez durs pour fustiger la richesse et le seul capitalisme qui semblent attirer tant de ses chers réfugiés y compris cubains …
Et de mots assez doux pour louer le miracle de la pauvreté dont les même réfugiés semblent si pressés de séparer …
Comment ne pas voir, avec la revue américaine Reason, le miracle encore plus extraordinaire …
De la pauvreté continuée ou même retrouvée, en ces temps qui ont vu l’extrême pauvreté diminuer de moité en à peine deux décennies, de tout un ensemble de pays…
Dont, suite au même malencontreux choix de l’étatisme que propose aujourd’hui la gauche britannique,… l’Argentine natale dudit pape ?
Poor Planning
How to achieve the miracle of poverty
Ronald Bailey
Reason
September 18, 2002
In his wonderful bookThe Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else, the Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto notes: « The cities of the Third World and the former communist countries are teeming with entrepreneurs. You cannot walk through a Middle Eastern market, hike up to a Latin American village, or climb into a taxicab in Moscow without someone trying to make a deal with you. The inhabitants of these countries possess talent, enthusiasm, and an astonishing ability to wring profit out of practically nothing. » It’s possible to keep such people down only if governments dedicate themselves to the pursuit of really bad policies for decades at a time.
Most notorious, of course, was the grinding poverty sustained for seven decades in the communist bloc. The phrase rich communist country has always been an oxymoron. We still have illustrations of communism’s brilliance at sustaining poverty in Cuba and North Korea. Today, even though Cuba has opened a bunch of swank hard currency beach resorts, its GDP per capita is still only $1,700 at purchasing power parity. Per capita GDP in North Korea, which is asking again this year for food aid, is only $1,000.
But policies don’t have to be as bad as totalitarian communism to make people poor. Consider the case of Argentina. In the 1920s Argentina’s was one of the largest economies in the world, with an average income about the same as France’s. Rich as an Argentine was a catch phrase often used in Paris cafés to describe an especially wealthy person.
Since the 1940s Argentina has embarked on a series of policies—nationalization of industries, expansion of state services, and vast overseas borrowing—that has eroded its rank in the world. In recent years, Argentina’s per capita income has collapsed, falling from $8,909—double Mexico’s and three times Poland’s—in 1999 to $2,500 today, roughly on par with Jamaica and Belarus.
Or take Sweden. Long gone are the arguments about the success of that kingdom’s alleged « middle way » between capitalism and communism. In 1970 Sweden was ranked third in per capita income among industrialized nations; today it ranks 17th. The country’s welfare state is strangling its economy. Taxes consume 55 percent of Sweden’s GDP, while public spending equals 65 percent of GDP.
Finally, there is the heartbreak of Africa, where average per capita incomes have been falling for three decades. African politicians have embraced at one time or another all of the policy prescriptions for poverty listed below. In between, they have fought numerous civil wars and engaged in various bloody tribal pogroms.
Some recipes guaranteed to get lean results
Here, then, is a short guide for kleptocrats and egalitarians who want to keep their countries poor. All of these policies have stood the test of time as techniques for creating and maintaining poverty. The list is by no means exhaustive, but it will give would-be political leaders a good idea of how to start their countries on the road to ruin.
First, make sure that your country’s money is no good. Print money like there’s no tomorrow. Hyperinflation is one of the easiest and most popular ways to dismantle an economy. Another popular monetary gambit is to make sure your currency is not convertible. This guarantees that no one will ever want to invest in your country.
To further discourage investment, be sure to nationalize all major Industries. Nationalization has additional poverty-enhancing benefits. For example, it will ensure that the nationalized industries never improve technologically or become more efficient, and it makes workers pathetically dependent on their political masters, namely you.
Of course, you may find it too tiresome to nationalize everything, in which case it is very important that you establish high tariffs that insulate your country’s remaining private industries (usually owned by your cronies anyway) from competition.
In addition, your legal system should make it nearly impossible for anyone to license a new business, however small. This will offer opportunities for your bureaucrats to make a living through corruption and will protect your cronies from domestic competition. An added advantage is that most commerce will be made illegal and subject to arbitrary enforcement.
This leads to the point that property is critical. Once people start to own something, they invest in it and improve it, leading inexorably to the creation of wealth. Again, the legal system can help to make it impossible to issue clear titles so that your citizens can’t buy, sell, or borrow against their « property. » Also, force your farmers to sell their crops to government commodity boards at below-market rates. This will discourage them from investing in anything more advanced than subsistence agriculture, and you will be able to sell whatever crops you do seize at low prices to keep the urban populations quiet.
Some Last Advice
Another popular policy is confiscatory taxes. This strategy, which allows you to claim that you are soaking the rich in the name of equity, has long been fashionable among the genteelly stagnating economies of Europe.
Finally, you may have missed the golden age of international graft, when the World Bank and even commercial banks showered the governments of poor countries with loans. But if the opportunity arises, you should follow in the footsteps of two deceased leaders whose fortunes are now being divvied up in « Please Help » spams: Zairean dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and Nigerian General Sani Abacha. Take a page from their book by redirecting international loans directly to your Swiss bank accounts, sticking your citizens with the bill.
Unlike Mobutu, however, make sure to give up the pleasures of arbitrary power before you’re old (or overthrown in a coup), and move to Provence to enjoy your ill-gotten gains. Of course, be sure to invest your purloined riches only in countries with stable money, strong property rights, and honest bureaucracies.
Keeping people poor is hard work, but following the above policies will achieve that goal. Modern poverty is a miracle that only you can make happen.
Maybe Pope Francis Doesn’t Understand Capitalism Because He Confuses It with Argentine Corporatism
100 years ago, « rich as an Argentine » was a catchphrase. That hasn’t been true for a long time.
Nick Gillespie
Reason
Sep. 24, 2015
As my colleague—and devout Roman Catholic—Stephanie Slade has argued, Pope Francis doesn’t really understand capitalism, especially its role in lifting up the poor from poverty and deprivation.
The folks at Human Progress, a site operated by the Cato Institute’s Marian Tupy, suggest that the pope’s Argentine origins might be one source of confusion. Argentina is not a capitalist state but a corporatist one. If you mistake corporatism for capitalism, you would surely have a bad view of the latter. A century ago, Argentina and the United States were about equally wealthy (which is to say, in many ways, that they were equally poor).
Over the past 115 years, the divergence is striking. And it’s not accidental. As Ronald Bailey explained in a review of Hernando de Soto’s 2002 book, Mysteries of Capital,
In the 1920s Argentina’s was one of the largest economies in the world, with an average income about the same as France’s. Rich as an Argentine was a catch phrase often used in Paris cafés to describe an especially wealthy person.
Since the 1940s Argentina has embarked on a series of policies—nationalization of industries, expansion of state services, and vast overseas borrowing—that has eroded its rank in the world. In recent years, Argentina’s per capita income has collapsed, falling from $8,909—double Mexico’s and three times Poland’s—in 1999 to $2,500 today, roughly on par with Jamaica and Belarus.
No one is using « rich as an Argentine » these days, that’s for sure. The country’s economy lurches from one crisis to another, so much so that residents now are turning to Bitcoin as a way to escape Argentina’s constantly inflating and deflating currency.
Voir encore:
Pope Wrongly Blames Capitalism For Ills Of Poor
Thomas Sowell
Investor’s Business daily
09/21/2015
Pope Francis has created political controversy, both inside and outside the Catholic Church, by blaming capitalism for many of the problems of the poor. We can no doubt expect more of the same during his visit to the United States.
Pope Francis is part of a larger trend of the rise of the political left among Catholic intellectuals. He is, in a sense, the culmination of that trend.
There has long been a political left among Catholics, as among other Americans. Often they were part of the pragmatic left, as in the many old Irish-run, big-city political machines that dispensed benefits to the poor in exchange for their votes, as somewhat romantically depicted in the movie classic, « The Last Hurrah. »
But there also has been a more ideological left. Where the Communists had their official newspaper, « The Daily Worker, » there was also « The Catholic Worker » published by Dorothy Day.
A landmark in the evolution of the ideological left among Catholics was a publication in the 1980s, by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, titled « Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy. »
Although this publication was said to be based on Catholic teachings, one of its principal contributors, Archbishop Rembert Weakland, said: « I think we should be upfront and say that really we took this from the Enlightenment era. »
The specifics of the bishops’ « Pastoral Letter » reflect far more of the secular Enlightenment of the 18th century than of Catholic traditions. Archbishop Weakland admitted that such an Enlightenment figure as Thomas Paine « is now coming back through a strange channel. »
Strange indeed. Paine rejected the teachings of « any church that I know of, » including « the Roman church. » He said: « My own mind is my own church. » Nor was Paine unusual among the leading figures of the 18th-century Enlightenment.
To base social or moral principles on the philosophy of the 18th-century Enlightenment and then call the result « Catholic teachings » suggests something like bait-and-switch advertising.
But, putting aside religious or philosophical questions, we have more than two centuries of historical evidence of what has actually happened as the ideas of people like those Enlightenment figures were put into practice in the real world — beginning with the French Revolution and its disastrous aftermath.
The authors of the « Pastoral Letter » in the 1980s and Pope Francis today blithely throw around the phrase « the poor, » blaming poverty on what other people are doing to or for the poor.
Any serious look at the history of human beings over the millennia shows that the species began in poverty. It is not poverty, but prosperity, that needs explaining. Poverty is automatic, but prosperity requires many things — none of which is equally distributed around the world or even within a given society.
Geographic settings are radically different, both among nations and within nations. So are demographic differences, with some nations and groups having a median age over 40 and others having a median age under 20. This means that some groups have several times as much adult work experience as others. Cultures are also radically different in many ways.
As distinguished economic historian David S. Landes put it, « The world has never been a level playing field. » But which has a better track record of helping the less fortunate — fighting for a bigger slice of the economic pie, or producing a bigger pie?
In 1900, only 3% of American homes had electric lights but more than 99% had them before the end of the century. Infant mortality rates were 165 per thousand in 1900 and 7 per thousand by 1997. By 2001, most Americans living below the official poverty line had central air conditioning, a motor vehicle, cable television with multiple TV sets, and other amenities.
A scholar specializing in the study of Latin America said that the official poverty level in the U.S. is the upper middle class in Mexico. The much criticized market economy of the U.S. has done far more for the poor than the ideology of the left.
Pope Francis’ own native Argentina was once among the leading economies of the world, before it was ruined by the kind of ideological notions he is now promoting around the world.
Pope Francis’s Hypocritical Politicking
Victor Davis Hanson
National Review Online
October 2, 2015
Unpopular though it may be to say so, I, for one, grew exhausted by the non-stop pronouncements /commentaries of Pope Francis. The spiritual leader of 1 billion Catholics — roughly half of the world’s Christians — Francis just completed a high-profile, endlessly publicized visit to the United States.
But unlike past visiting pontiffs, the Argentine-born Francis weighed in on a number of hot-button U.S. social, domestic, and foreign-policy issues during a heated presidential-election cycle.
Francis, in characteristic cryptic language, pontificated about climate change. He lectured on illegal immigration. He harped on the harshness of capitalism, as well as abortion and capital punishment.
A fair-minded person might infer from his advice that capitalism is more prone to impoverish than to create enough wealth to bring the underclass out of poverty. Yet the poor in the free-market United States are mostly better off than the middle classes in Pope Francis’ homeland. Argentina’s statism has transformed one of the most resource-rich countries in the world into an impoverished nation. Are the wages of socialism therefore less than Christian?
Authoritarian regimes such as the Castro dynasty in Cuba or Iran’s theocracy do not receive much criticism from the pope for their administration of state justice. Yet Francis blasted capital punishment, which in America is mostly reserved for first-degree murderers, not the perpetrators of thought crimes as in Cuba and Iran.
Francis believes — and ipso facto puts the church behind the creed — that global warming is man-caused. It is supposedly ongoing and can be addressed only though radical state intervention.
Francis, who arrived in the U.S. in a carbon-spewing jet, seems to leave no room for other views. If the climate really is becoming warmer, it cannot be because of naturally occurring cycles of long duration.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants are now swarming illegally into the West, whether into Europe mostly from the Middle East, or into America from Latin America. They arrive in numbers that make them difficult to assimilate and integrate, with radical repercussions on the host country’s ability to serve the social needs of its own poorer citizens.
Yet Francis reserves most of his advice for host countries to ensure that they treat the often-impoverished and mostly young male newcomers with Christian humanity. That advice is admirable. But the pope might have likewise lectured the leaders of countries such as Syria and Mexico to stop whatever they are doing to heartlessly drive out millions of their own citizens from their homes.
Or he might have suggested that migrants seek lawful immigration and thereby more charitably not harm the interests of immigrants who wait patiently until they can resettle lawfully.
Or he might have praised the West for uniquely creating conditions that draw in, rather than repel, the world’s migrants.
In sum, Francis did not fully understand a country founded on the principle of separation of church and state. And he has tragically harmed that delicate American equilibrium.
If a Christian truly believes that capitalism is the world’s only hope, that illegal immigration is detrimental to all involved, or that the Iranian nuke deal is a prelude to either war or nuclear proliferation, is he thereby somewhat less Christian or Catholic?
Is Francis aware of age-old hospitality adages about guests and hosts, or warnings about those who live in glass houses?
Would an American president dare to visit the Vatican to lecture the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church about their blatant sex and age discrimination, and to advise Francis that his successor should be female or under 50?
Should Americans urge the pope to adopt the supposedly enlightened Western doctrine of disparate impact, which might fault senior Vatican clergymen for failing to promote diversity in matters of sex, race, or age?
In this new freewheeling climate of frank exchange, should Protestant friends now advise Catholic dioceses to open their aggregate 200 million acres of global church lands to help house current migrants? Or should Francis first deplore the capitalist business practices in the administration of the so-called Vatican Bank?
Should the Church turn over to prosecuting attorneys all the names of past and present clergy accused of criminal sexual abuse, and cede all investigation and punishment entirely to the state?
Lots of hypocrisy inevitably follows when churches and their leaders politick.
Conservatives who object to Francis’s sermonizing often enjoy it when the moral majority and born-again Evangelicals stamp their own social agendas with Protestant piety.
Liberals might applaud the pope when he weighs in on global warming and cutthroat capitalism but perhaps want him to stick to religion when he frowns on abortions or female priests.
Because Pope Francis has shed the Catholic Church’s historic immunity from American politics, for good or bad, he and the church are fair game for political pushback.
But do we really want a priest in the role of Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz, dressed in ancient Roman miter and vestments, addressing hot-button issues with divine sanction?
Voir de même:
Pope Francis is just another liberal political pundit
John Podhoretz
The New York Post
September 25, 2015
Pope Francis is unquestionably a man of uncommon personal grace, the possessor of a genuinely beautiful soul. “On Heaven and Earth,” his book-length exchange with Rabbi Abraham Skorka first published in 2010, is a remarkable testament to the breadth of his perspective.
But that’s not exactly the guy who showed up Friday at the United Nations. That pope endorsed the Iran deal, the UN’s environmentalist goals and what amounts to a worldwide open-borders policy on refugees — and offered a very specific view of how to promote development in the Third World that’s straight out of a left-wing textbook.
“The International Financial Agencies,” the pope said, “should care for the sustainable development of countries and should ensure that they are not subjected to oppressive lending systems which, far from promoting progress, subject people to mechanisms which generate greater poverty, exclusion and dependence.”
We’re told we must not view the pope’s expression of views on contemporary subjects through the lens of day-to-day issues — that we belittle him and ourselves by examining his words through an ideological filter.
Because of the awesome position he holds, and by dint of his own teachings and his life and teachings before he rose to service as the Vicar of Christ, Francis is said to be deeper and loftier than mere politics.
Sorry: When the pontiff sounds less like a theological leader and more like the 8 p.m. host on MSNBC or the editor of Mother Jones, what’s a guy to do?
Pope Francis is entirely within his rights to become the world’s foremost liberal. But, since that’s what he is, it can’t be wrong to say so.
It is undoubtedly the role of theological leaders to speak to our highest selves, to remind us of eternal moral teachings, to remove us from the everyday and put us in touch with the divine. We look to leaders to tell us what our faith traditions expect of us — what we should do and what we must do.
And, of course, it is impossible to do so without touching on the behavior of people and nations in the present. A leader whose role it is to save the souls of his flock must take account of the particular temptations that beset them and the particular challenges they face.
But that’s wildly different from specifically embracing a UN document, or endorsing a specific agreement between nations. And this is what Francis told us:
“The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at the World Summit, which opens today, is an important sign of hope. I am similarly confident that the Paris Conference on Climatic Change will secure fundamental and effective agreements.”
When a leader speaks in these sorts of bureaucratic specifics, he is descending from the highest heavens into ordinary, even trivial, reality. He’s using his authority in the realm of the spiritual to influence the political behavior of others.
He becomes just another pundit. And who needs another one of those?
« Les faits concernant la rencontre avec Kim Davis ont été déjà racontés, mais nous allons de nouveau énoncer les détails de cette rencontre en y ajoutant un nouvel élément.
La rencontre avec Kim Davis a été initiée le 14 septembre. Bien que nous ne connaissons pas toutes les personnes qui ont pris part à cette invitation, nous savons tout à fait que le nonce apostolique du Saint-Siège, l’archevêque Carlo Maria Vigano, s’est personnellement entretenu avec Kim Davis sur cette invitation. Cette invitation portait sur une rencontre privée avec le pape François à l’ambassade du Vatican à Washington D.C. le jeudi 24 septembre dans l’après-midi. Il s’agissait une rencontre privée. Aucun autre membre du public [invité] n’y était présent.
Dans la soirée du 23 septembre, Kim Davis a reçu un nouvel appel téléphonique au sujet de la rencontre du lendemain. On lui demanda de se coiffer en ramenant ses cheveux sur le haut de la tête car elle était trop reconnaissable. Vers 8 h du matin, samedi 24, Kim a reçu un autre appel téléphonique lui confirmant qu’on viendrait la chercher à 13 h 15.
À 13 h 15, Staver a accompagné Kim et Joe Davis pour leur faire rencontrer deux hommes du service de sécurité vêtus de costumes et dotés d’oreillettes. Staver a confirmé qu’ils venaient chercher Kim Davis. Ils s’exprimaient avec un très fort accent italien. Staver a accompagné Kim et Joe vers une fourgonnette qui les attendait et est resté à l’hôtel tout en se tenant en contact permanent avec Kim.
Kim et Joe ont été introduits dans une pièce [un salon de la nonciature] dans laquelle il n’y avait aucune autre personne présente. Plus tard, le pape y est entré : il n’était accompagné que d’une seule personne de la sécurité du Vatican ou de l’ambassade. [Le pape] lui a tendu les mains. Kim les lui a saisies et il lui a demandé de prier pour lui. Elle lui a répondu qu’elle le ferait puis a demandé au Pontife de prier pour elle ce à quoi le pape a répondu qu’il le ferait. Le pape François a alors remercié Kim pour “son courage”. Ils se sont étreints. Le pape a déclaré : “Restez forte”. Puis il a offert à Kim et à Joe deux chapelets.
Il n’y avait pas de gens faisant la queue ou d’autres personnes du public visibles quelque part. Kim étant si reconnaissable, il aurait été impossible de garder secrète cette rencontre si d’autres personnes invitées s’étaient trouvées quelque part à proximité du pape ou de Kim Davis.
L’encouragement donné par le pape à Kim et son avertissement à “rester forte” souligne le fait que le pape et d’autres responsables du Vatican connaissaient sa défense de la liberté religieuse. La réponse du pape faite à la question d’un journaliste [à bord de l’avion qui le ramenait à Rome] pour savoir si un fonctionnaire gouvernemental avait le droit à l’objection de conscience pour la délivrance de certificats de mariage, correspond bien à la connaissance [qu’en avait le pape] ».
Liberty Council a maintenu le silence sur cette rencontre jusqu’à ce qu’on lui en autorise la divulgation le mardi 29 septembre. D’où le communiqué du même jour de Liberty Council que nous avons signalé ici le lendemain, mais, avec le décalage horaire, Robert Moynihan, directeur à Rome de Inside the Vatican, en avait largement parlé dans sa Lettre n° 29 sur Internet, dès le 29 au soir…
À chacun désormais de juger au vu des pièces que nous mettons à votre disposition…
Voir enfin:
En ligne le 7 octobre 2015
Le Parti communiste chinois a pratiquement toujours combattu toutes les religions, dénoncées toutes comme opium du peuple. S’agissant du christianisme, il déclare le suspecter de surcroît de fonctionner comme « agent de l’étranger » entreprenant de saper sa mainmise idéologique.Dans Le Figaro du 5 octobre Sébastien Falletti publie un reportage sur la ville de Wenzhou, 9 millions d’habitants dont 11 % de chrétiens, épicentre de la persécution.Depuis 2013, souligne-t-il, les autorités ont abattu 1 200 croix et détruit plusieurs églises :La cathédrale de Fuyin Jang est une citadelle assiégée, agrippée à la campagne moite du Zhejiang. « Nous ne savons pas combien de temps nous pourrons résister. La croix est le symbole de Jésus-Christ. Sans elle, nous ne pouvons vivre notre foi », explique M. Lin, à l’intérieur de l’église transformée en camp retranché. Sous les ventilateurs, un paroissien en pantalon de flanelle et chemise de ville ronfle sur un matelas de fortune, avec en fond de la musique évangélique. « À l’arrière, nous sommes protégés par la rivière. Ils ont installé des caméras de surveillance pour attendre le moment propice. Chaque nuit, nous nous relayons pour dormir ici et empêcher toute intrusion », explique ce fidèle de cette communauté protestante de 500 âmes, installée depuis plus d’un siècle dans ce bastion chinois de la foi chrétienne. Un bras de fer lancinant de vingt mois, déclenché en mai 2014, lorsque les autorités ont tenté de décapiter l’église de son immense croix, à l’aide d’une grue. La communauté est entrée en résistance, comme la plupart des églises du comté de Pingyang, à 40 minutes à l’ouest de Wenzhou. Ce port surnommé la « Jérusalem chinoise », est la cible d’une campagne antichrétienne sans précédent depuis la Révolution culturelle, lorsque les églises furent saccagées par les gardes rouges maoïstes.Depuis 2013, les autorités ont arraché 1 200 croix et détruit plusieurs églises, dont la plus grande de la ville, selon l’Association des chrétiens du Zhejiang. Cette province côtière du sud-est de la Chine compte plus de 300 000 catholiques et 1 million de protestants, enracinés depuis l’arrivée de missionnaires anglais dès 1860 dans ce port commerçant ouvert aux vents du large. Depuis l’accession au pouvoir du président Xi Jinping, l’un de ses fidèles lieutenants, Xia Baolong, devenu le secrétaire du Parti de la province, fait la chasse aux « constructions illégales », interdisant les croix sur les toits des églises, exigeant qu’elles ne dépassent pas un dixième de la taille de l’édifice sur les murs, selon de nouvelles règles édictées en mai. Ces croix ostentatoires suscitent « l’inconfort » des non-croyants, affirme le quotidien Global Times, contrôlé par le Parti communiste.Mais le pouvoir fait face à une résistance pugnace de nombreuses communautés, formant des boucliers humains autour de leur paroisse. Comme au village crotté de Wuxi, en bout de piste de l’aéroport, où les paysans protestants ont réinstallé leur croix rouge en fer, ce 20 août, dix jours après sa « décapitation » et veillent chaque nuit contre les descentes de sécurité. Depuis l’été, le régime a changé de tactique en procédant à des arrestations aussi brutales que discrètes des leaders de la cause. Au moins dix-neuf chrétiens ont « disparu » sans laisser de trace depuis juillet, selon les témoignages recueillis sur place par Le Figaro.. Comme le pasteur Huang Yizi, cueilli chez lui dans sa petite ville de Shitau, début septembre. « Des hommes ont frappé à sa porte, se faisant passer pour des réparateurs, et ils l’ont embarqué. Depuis, sa famille n’a aucune nouvelle », confie un paroissien sous le choc. Un autre prêtre de la ville de Mapou, Zhang Chongzhu, a lui disparu au volant de sa voiture alors qu’il rentrait de Shanghaï, suivi par un mystérieux véhicule.À Xian Quiao, à quelques kilomètres de là, le silence règne sur la maison ocre de quatre étages posée au bord des rizières, accolée à l’église élancée. À ses pieds, une imposante croix rouge en béton, comme tombée piteusement du clocher. Elle est la cause des malheurs de Zhang Zhi, père d’un bambin de 2 mois et missionnaire ardent. Le 4 septembre, ce trentenaire avait défié le pouvoir en remontant le symbole de sa foi sur le toit de l’église, déposé l’an dernier. Trois jours plus tard, à l’aube, cinq hommes en civil débarquent chez lui pendant qu’il fait sa toilette et l’emportent de force sans explication. « Ses pieds ne touchaient même pas terre, ils ont dû le porter car il refusait de bouger », raconte un voisin témoin de la scène, sous le couvert de l’anonymat. Une descente orchestrée par les services de sécurité publique du comté, qui interdisent à sa femme tout contact avec des médias étrangers. Depuis, la jeune maman se claquemure avec son nourrisson et n’a aucune nouvelle de son mari, incarcéré dans un lieu secret à Wenzhou.L’arrestation la plus spectaculaire a eu lieu, au cœur de la ville, dans la nuit du 26 août. Peu avant minuit, une dizaine d’hommes en civil enjambent le mur protégeant l’arrière de l’église Xia Ling et s’infiltrent dans la pénombre jusqu’au quatrième étage. Quelques minutes plus tard, ils ressortent en encadrant l’avocat Zhang Kai, sous les ordres d’un homme coiffé d’une casquette de police, montrent les images de caméra de surveillance. « Je n’ai rien entendu », se désole le veilleur de la communauté de 400 fidèles, abasourdi. Zhang était le champion de la cause chrétienne défiant devant la justice les ordres de destruction. « Le tribunal nous a dit que nous n’avions pas droit à un avocat », explique un fidèle de la communauté qui s’est opposée par la force à la démolition de « sa » croix. L’escalier défoncé menant au parvis témoigne de l’affrontement. Le juriste chrétien, basé à Pékin, venait régulièrement à Wenzhou mener la bataille, jusqu’à cette nuit fatale. Depuis, même son père n’a pu obtenir de nouvelles. Zhang est accusé d’avoir « perturbé l’ordre public » et « livré des secrets d’État », selon les services de sécurité. Des accusations graves qui autorisent les autorités à le garder au secret pendant six mois. »Le gouvernement a peur, car la population chrétienne est énorme à Wenzhou et risque d’échapper à son emprise. Mais nous ne sommes pas contre le Parti. Le royaume de Jésus est au Ciel, il n’est pas de ce monde » Ces méthodes rappellent celles infligées à un autre avocat chrétien, nommé pour le prix Nobel de la paix. Gao Zhisheng vient de raconter ses tortures à coups de décharges électriques au visage subies pendant une incarcération de trois ans dans une prison du Xinjiang. Il avait lui aussi « disparu » en 2009, embarqué par les services de sécurité à la suite de ses activités de défense des églises chrétiennes et de la secte Falun Gong.Cette vague de « kidnappings » sème l’inquiétude car elle signale une détermination nouvelle du régime à contrôler les religions, depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de Xi. « Nous avons déjà fait face à des arrestations de quelques jours par le passé, mais c’est la première fois que nous voyons des disparitions ici », explique le dirigeant d’une communauté du district de Pingyang. Pour certains, la campagne est le fruit des ambitions politiques du secrétaire Xia et de sa femme, dévote bouddhiste, visant à plaire au président Xi, pour lequel il a travaillé lorsque ce dernier était gouverneur de la province voisine du Fujian. Pour beaucoup d’autres, il s’agit d’une campagne orchestrée par Xi lui-même, dont l’éventuel succès risque d’être appliqué ensuite dans le reste du pays. « Officiellement, le secrétaire du Parti mène cette campagne, mais il a l’appui du pouvoir central et cela s’inscrit dans une campagne de grande ampleur. Leur objectif réel n’est pas de détruire des croix, mais de siniser le christianisme, à la sauce maoïste », explique M. Lin.Depuis son arrivée à la tête de « l’empire rouge », Xi impose une reprise en main idéologique, bâillonnant toutes les voix discordantes qui menacent la mainmise du Parti, de la presse à l’université en passant par l’art. « Nous devons activement incorporer les religions dans le cadre de la société socialiste », a déclaré le président en mai, devant les représentants des religions, toutes étroitement surveillées par le Parti, athée.Une campagne qui n’ose dire son nom dans le Zhejiang, où les autorités ont recours à des hommes de main et des flics en civil. « Ils n’ont aucun ordre officiel écrit!», s’insurge M. Lin. Une ambiguïté d’ordre tactique. « Ils savent que s’il y a des ordres du pouvoir central, cela entraînera des réactions internationales », analyse un leader de communauté à Pingyang.
Car le Parti a toujours suspecté le christianisme d’être « agent de l’étranger », visant à saper sa mainmise. Une menace agitée par Xi Jinping, dont le « rêve chinois » orchestre un retour au confucianisme et sonne l’alarme contre « les forces occidentales hostiles qui infiltrent constamment la sphère idéologique », selon un document interne distribué aux hauts cadres en 2013.
La popularité du christianisme à Wenzhou, où de nombreux fonctionnaires et cadres sont membres d’Églises richement dotées par leurs prospères fidèles, semble donner corps au spectre de l’infiltration. Mais ces soupçons sont de l’ordre de la paranoïa aux yeux des fidèles de la plupart des Églises « officielles », pourtant sous la coupe du Parti. « Le gouvernement a peur, car la population chrétienne est énorme à Wenzhou et risque d’échapper à son emprise. Mais nous ne sommes pas contre le Parti. Le royaume de Jésus est au Ciel, il n’est pas de ce monde », explique un paroissien, se préparant à une nouvelle nuit de veille incertaine.
jcdurbant 
An urban myth that survives to this day is the one about Henry Ford and the high wages he paid his employees. We learn in history class and out in the wider world that Ford compensated his employees well so that they would buy his cars. Who cares that Ford sold exponentially more cars than he had employees, the myth lives on.
In truth, and as Mark Spitznagel writes about Ford Motor Company in his spectacular 2013 book The Dao of Capital, “When profits swelled, he paid well for labor, creating an uproar when he doubled the basic wage to $5.00 a day, which triggered a virtual stampede of job seekers.” Was Ford simply feeling generous, or better yet, “altruistic”? No, he was actually feeling profit motivated. Thanks to annual employee turnover of 370% in 1913, it was too expensive for Ford to do anything but overpay his employees. As Spitznagel put it, Ford “effectively lowered his costs because higher wages reduced turnover and the need for constant training of new hires.”
A century-old story of a great American businessman rises in importance thanks to the presidential candidacies of Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. While they’re not terribly similar in terms of policies, each has chosen to pander to an apparently easy to gull middle class. Bush has talked about “growth that lifts up the middle class” as opposed to just the rich, while Clinton has called for tax increases on the rich given her view that boosting incomes for all Americans is “the defining economic challenge of our time.” Just last week, and in the rollout of her economic plan, Clinton said to boisterous applause that “Hard working Americans deserve to benefit from the record corporate earnings they help produce.”
Were both Clinton and Bush more economically attuned, and perhaps a bit more honest, they would correctly say that the best and only way to achieve their goals would be to substantially reduce the tax burden foisted on the rich and big corporations alike. Nothing could be simpler, yet each candidate seems rather eager to not be seen as too cozy with the successful. That’s odd, and not just when we consider the net worth of Clinton and Bush, along with those donating to Clinton and Bush.
To see why, we need only return to Ford. Lest we forget, it was rising profits that made it possible for him to initially offer raises to his employees. It’s expensive for companies to lose workers, it’s also expensive for them to pay taxes, so why not substantially reduce the tax burden levied on corporations so that they have more in the way of funds to actively bid up the wages of workers?
If Clinton remains skeptical, she need only ask her many very well-to-do supporters in Hollywood about how they respond to taxes. They’ll tell her that they actively shop their movies to all 50 state film offices with an eye on securing the best tax deal ahead of uncapping the camera lens. This matters to middle class workers because as the increasingly libertarian actor Rob Lowe recalled in his 2011 book Stories I Only Tell My Friends:
“It takes an army to make a movie. Camera crews, lighting crews, wardrobe crews, makeup crews, hair crews, painters, builders (called grips), a crew to provide the props, a crew to provide the furnishings (the art department), electricians, special-effects people, stunt performers….”
Readers surely get the picture, as should Clinton and Bush. As Lowe’s quote makes quite clear, there are a lot of well-paid middle class jobs created when movie moguls and studios get to keep more of their money. And as the Ford example yet again makes plain, this is true for all industries.
What Bush and Clinton must understand, and this is an ironclad tautology, is that there are quite simply no companies and no jobs without investment first.
Since they almost by definition can’t spend it all, the wealth of the superrich doesn’t lay untouched; rather it’s deposited in banks, invested in the stock market, or placed in private equity or venture capital funds. In short, the wealth of the rich, when left in the hands of the rich, is quickly redistributed through loans and investment to those who aren’t rich …
John Tamny (Forbes)
J’aimeJ’aime
Voir aussi:
American capitalism has always been distinct from continental European capitalism. We’ve had more entrepreneurial creativity but less security. Our system has favored higher living standards for consumers while theirs has favored stability for employees and producers. For the past several decades, the United States has had a bipartisan consensus that we should stick to our style of capitalism and our style of welfare state. There has always been a broad consensus that a continent-size nation like ours had to be diverse and decentralized, with a vibrant charitable sector and a great variety of spending patterns and lifestyles. American values have always been biased toward individualism, achievement and flexibility — nurturing disruptive dynamos like Bell Labs, Walmart, Whole Foods, Google and Apple — and less toward dirigisme, order and economic equality. It’s amazing that a large part of the millennial generation has rejected this consensus. In supporting Bernie Sanders they are not just supporting a guy who is mad at Wall Street. They are supporting a guy who fundamentally wants to reshape the American economic system, and thus reshape American culture and values. As he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, he wants to make us more like northern Europe. When you make risk-taking less rewarding, you get fewer risk-takers, which is exactly what you see across the Atlantic. When you raise taxes that high, the Elon Musks of the world find other places to build their companies.(…) It’s amazing that so many young people want to mimic a continent that has been sluggish for decades. It’s amazing that so many look to the future and want a country that would be a lot less vibrant.
David Brooks
J’aimeJ’aime