Your Questions About Moral Responsibility Of Banks

Pip answers:

Oh….

So we’ve gone from FAMILY finances to MY finances vs. YOUR finances.

Honey, you need a gucci about as much as you need a second head.

That’s why he’s pissed.

Do your husband a favor…open your own account. It’s cold, cruel, and against everything a marriage should stand for….

…but at least he’ll know where he stands. He’ll get the clear message that your wants and needs are, in your mind, more IMPORTANT that the Family’s needs.

You even managed to cast the blame for your purchase on him (he gets me cheap bags).

I can’t imagine actually being married to you! You’re ridiculously selfish, self absorbed, and capable of ducking any responsibility for this.

When he confronted you…..did it ever occur to you to say “I’m sorry honey. It was a good deal and I got excited. But I’ll discuss other luxury items with you before I spend OUR money.”

Don’t you expect the same from him? You should!

Doesn’t he work hard too? What about his contribution to the family? Isn’t there frivolous things he’d like to have that he doesn’t get?

Lady, I wouldn’t bet 10 cents for your marriage in 10 years. It’s clear you’re only married because your husband has a bigger heart, stronger back, and more moral fiber….

…than you do!

Now think about it!

Pip answers:

Depends. What is the goal? If the goal is to ‘painlessly’ get rid of the debt, it should go with expansionary monetary policy. Of course, to do so would be to effectively steal spending power from the poor and shovel it into banks and the stock market. So, if the goal is to have a fair economic playing field that doesn’t steal from the poor. It should go with contractionary.

One should ask this moral question: When you or I go into debt on our credit card or a home mortgage, we are accepting the responsibility to pay back in the future. When the nation goes into debt, especially generational debt, the responsibility to pay back for the spending of the present falls on future generations – generations that may never have had the opportunity to protest the spending as it occurred.

Is it fair to our future generations to spend away their hard earned labor to pay for our contemporary lifestyles?

Pip answers:

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Because we love and respect St. Simon Peter. The pope is akin to St. Peter, who Jesus Christ appointed to leader the worldwide Church as it was when it started in the 1st Century. Peter started the process of naming a successor to himself (Linus I believe), and on and on. But each pope is deeply considered holy on a personal level because a) he’s a person created in the image of God just like the rest of us b) he has demonstrated holiness to an extent that extremely knowledgeable and holy men have decided he best represents the faith that St. Peter represent to Our Lord and hence was tapped (on the head no doubt) as the Rock of Salvation. Peter, like Mary the Mother of God — well, KIND of like Mary, I mean Peter’s human cells were not the source of Jesus Christ’s human cells — but on a respect level, like Mary is loved as a real presence in our lives, a gift directly from Jesus Christ via the holy Spirit, which is the love and obedience that Jesus Christ had for God the Father.

Also on a temporal level, the pope is the leader of a unique outfit. Look at the links below to see what I’m talking about. Here’s some excerpts:

On what amounts to a pretty puny economy, the Holy See under the papal leadership, is the foremost charity outfit on this planet. From the State Department of the US government:
“”Economy
Budget: Revenues (2009; latest year for which figures are available)–€250 million (approx. $314.4 million); expenditures (2008)–€254 million (approx. $319.6 million).
Industries: Printing; production of coins, medals, postage stamps, a small amount of mosaics, and staff uniforms. This unique, noncommercial economy is also supported financially by contributions (known as Peter’s Pence) from Catholics throughout the world, by worldwide banking and financial activities, the sale of postage stamps and tourist mementos, fees from admissions to museums, and the sale of publications. The incomes and living standards of lay workers are comparable to those of counterparts who work in the city of Rome.”

And, as the leader of most Christians, the pope has a special responsibility that requires our prayers on a daily basis. Prayers to Our Father, prayers to the saints for intercession, prayers to Jesus and the holy Spirit. Of course I’m speaking of his unique role as leader of the Catholic Church, which as defined by the CIA, a pretty smart objective source, writes:
“Catholicism (or Roman Catholicism): This is the oldest established western Christian church and the world’s largest single religious body. It is supranational, and recognizes a hierarchical structure with the Pope, or Bishop of Rome, as its head, located at the Vatican. Catholics believe the Pope is the divinely ordered head of the Church from a direct spiritual legacy of Jesus’ apostle Peter. Catholicism is comprised of 23 particular Churches, or Rites – one Western (Roman or Latin-Rite) and 22 Eastern. The Latin Rite is by far the largest, making up about 98% of Catholic membership. Eastern-Rite Churches, such as the Maronite Church and the Ukrainian Catholic Church, are in communion with Rome although they preserve their own worship traditions and their immediate hierarchy consists of clergy within their own rite. The Catholic Church has a comprehensive theological and moral doctrine specified for believers in its catechism, which makes it unique among most forms of Christianity.”
— CIA World Factbook

Also some links below for your consideration:

Pip answers:

Liberals tend to believe in the social contract, that we are stronger as a nation when we empower each other and conduct our government for broad social benefit rather than for individual benefit. Liberals do not believe that the end justifies the means. Liberals believe in the common good. They care about their own neighbors, their own communities and people who are different than they are.

They strive to enfranchise as many people as possible. They led the fight for black Americans and women to get the right to vote. Liberals believe in the separation of church and state. They led the fight for older and disabled Americans who wanted public restrooms and sidewalks to accommodate wheelchairs. They fought for American workers who wanted a decent minimum wage and a forty-hour work week. They outlawed child labor so children wouldn’t have to work like slaves in factories and mines. They stand for working mothers who need equal pay and decent childcare and helped institute safe retirement plans from employers. They support preschool nutritional programs and after-school programs for the poor. They fight for prenatal care programs and health care for all so our children can grow up healthy.

Liberals support homosexuals who want to be able to rent a house or an apartment or get a job or adopt a child or form a civil union without discrimination. They fight for police organizations that plead for a ban on the guns that slaughter police officers and over 40,000 Americans every year. Liberals believe in taking care of the environment and protecting our people from pollution and poisons that are being put in the air and water. They led the fight for the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and protection of our national parks from development and degradation.

They stand for protecting our Constitutional freedoms, including freedom of speech. They want the Internet to remain free. They want to strengthen the study of science and technology so that our young people will be able to pass the new global job market tests and have bright futures.

Liberals fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry and to have products properly labeled for our protection. Liberals fought for affordable public transportation, workers’ compensation and unemployment benefits. Liberals instituted the federal insurance of the FSLIC to protect our money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. They fought for student loans, mortgage assistance, rural electrification and Social Security.

These are some of the reasons I’m proud to be a liberal because, as a Christian, these issues represent my moral values: caring about the less fortunate, being tolerant of my fellow humans, taking good care of the planet God gave us.

Pip answers:

This is an interesting question. I’m presuming this is a question about economics and not about health care.

I have observed over the years that some people are able to manage their lives, and some aren’t. I think the question you raise is, should everybody be given access to the cure even though some — even though they may be cured of some disease — are likely die anyway, or to simply find some other way to ruin their lives?

It may seem rather arbitrary to deny access to “the cure” to some. But we have seen the results of helping “those in need.”

The government bailed out banks that were so poorly managed that they effectively were bankrupt. The rationale, we were told, was that if the banks folded, the economy would fold. So the money was given to the poorly-managed banks. The poor management wasn’t fixed. The effort merely provided a lot of money the banks could mismanage. What would be an alternative? Maybe let the banks go under. Other investors would buy them up for their actual value (practically nothing compared to the inflated value their managers conned their stockholders into believing), and being given an opportunity to manage their new holdings into a viable economic entity.

The government bailed out manufacturers who had run their companies into the ground. Those lousy managers simply mismanaged that money too, and the economy suffered from it. Outsourcing is of absolutely no value to our economy. It simply shows what appear to be lower costs and higher profits. But none of the money spent and none of that saved shows up in our economy… It shows up in the economies of the countries to which work is outsourced.

There is practically nowhere in the US where one is absolutely safe from disaster of some kind. Yet people build cities behind levees on the other side of which the water is 20 feet over the roofs of the buildings. They build cities on earthquake faults. They build subdivisions in areas that are loaded with fire hazards and to which access by emergency equipment is limited. People build cities in areas that are frequently hit by heat, cold, wind, and rain. It’s all simply gambling. They’re gambling that “it won’t happen to them,” and that somebody else will foot the bill if they lose their bets. When it does happen to them, they get all upset at the government, as if was the government’s fault they lost a bet they couldn’t win. And when they lose their bets, instead of giving up gambling, they rebuild more expensive structures in the same locations. What they should do is take responsibility for their own actions. Want to live behind the levee, build cheaply, save your money, so when waters rise, the fires burn, the earth shakes, or the winds blow, and you have to rebuild… And you WILL have to rebuild… You won’t have lost much, and you don’t have to go crying to the government and further burden the economy.

These gamblers, the folks who “think” they can manage money, or who “think” somebody should pay their gambling debts, in my humble opinion, have to be made to realize that I don’t want to pay for their stupidity. I would suspect that most taxpayers feel similarly. Those who want to help them out are, of course, free to do so… And I wish them well. But I’m not able to afford being very philanthropic.

My answer is that in economics, it’s a matter of “survival of the fittest.” Businesses should be able to hire the best qualified for a job. It should be allowed to be discriminatory against the lazy, stupid, and incompetent… Regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin. It should be encouraged to employ practices that benefit THIS nation’s economy. It should be discouraged from worrying about some other nation’s economy, or employing practices that aren’t in the best interests of this nation’s economy as a whole.

No. I think the cure needs to be meted out to those who have a chance of living, and not wasted on those who are going to die anyway. It seems harsh, but sometimes what’s best for the nation isn’t the easiest — or most popular — path to take.