http://thepolicyforums.com/ The PubPolicy.com Discussion Forum en-US Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:35:47 +0000 http://bbpress.org/?v=1.0.1 q http://thepolicyforums.com/search.php http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/why-cheap-is-good#post-30 Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:25:20 +0000 Charles 30@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/images/bookshelf.jpg"><img class="alignright" title="Hand-Crafted Amish Furniture" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/bookshelf.jpg" alt="" width="250" height="250" /></a>It&#8217;s probably not fair to comment on a book I&#8217;ve never read, but here I go. I am basing most of my specific comments off of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/us/30iht-letter.html?_r=1&amp;em" target="_blank">Richard Bernstein&#8217;s piece in the New York Times</a>. In any case, Ellen Ruppel Shell, a correspondent for <em>the Atlantic</em>, has written a book called<em> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cheap-High-Cost-Discount-Culture/dp/159420215X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1249000297&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture</a></em>, in which she argues that America&#8217;s drive to cheap, discounted good is detrimental to society overall. Her main point is that cheap goods end up lowering wages, preventing innovation, and hurting the environment.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">I have not read the book, but her arguments are certainly not her&#8217;s alone, and the first two points, at least, seem to stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. Simply put, there is no reason to think that cheap goods lower wages. The implication is that if people purchased an expensive bookshelf that is handmade, workers would earn more money than if someone purchases an Ikea bookshelf. This logic is faulty in at least two point. First, is that wages are not based on the end product&#8217;s price. Wages are based on the relative levels of supply and demand for labor for that particular job. In other words, if Ikea were to double its prices, the factory worker who makes the bookshelf would see exactly zero dollars of that increase.</p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/30/why-cheap-good/">Why Cheap is Good</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/missing-the-point-on-the-gates-arrest#post-24 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:20:15 +0000 Charles 24@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p>Today, President Obama attended the White House press briefing to state that he &#8220;could have calibrated those words differently&#8221; when he stated that the Cambridge police officer who arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. acted stupidly. To sum up what happened, Gates, a Harvard professor and leading authority on race, locked himself out of his house. Neighbors witnessed two black men (Gates and an associate) breaking into a house and called the police. The police arrived, questioned Gates, who took offense, and eventually the police arrested Gates. Both sides claim that the other was at fault, and many of the claims center around the police being racist and Gates refusing to cooperate. This matter, however, is not only about civil rights, it is about civil liberties.</p> <p>Now it is certainly plausible to think none of this would have happened if Gates were white. It might be less likely that neighbors would have called the police if they saw a white person locked out of their house. It&#8217;s also plausible that the interaction between Gates and police would have gone differently if they were of the same race, but all of that misses the point. Because we are so worried about race we are failing to question why the police even have the right to question or arrest a person who refused to show ID. I am not a Constitutional or Massachusetts law expert,  but I question to authority of the police to ask you to produce ID simply because a neighbor called. In other words, what would happen if, every time I see someone I don&#8217;t know (or don&#8217;t like) doing something, I would call the police.</p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/24/missing-point-gates/">Missing the Point on the Gates Arrest</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/papal-encyclical-pope-benedict-and-the-economy#post- Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:35:47 +0000 Anonymous @http://thepolicyforums.com/ http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/venn-diagrams-and-free-speech#post-23 Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:15:02 +0000 Charles 23@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/images/venn.jpg"><img class="alignright" style="margin-left: 8px; margin-right: 8px;" title="Venn Diagram" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/venn.jpg" alt="" width="267" height="230" /></a>Fred Kaplan has written an interesting <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/opinion/21kaplan.html?pagewanted=1&amp;_r=1" target="_blank">history of the legal case</a> that struck down many of America&#8217;s obscenity laws, particularly the ability of the US Postal Service to confiscate items from the mail it deemed obscene. The case revolved around a publisher, Grove Press, that sued the Postal Service for confiscating copies of the D. H. Lawrence novel <em>Lady Chatterley’s Lover</em> under the law that prevented the shipment of materials the Post Office deemed to be obscene, lewd, lustful, lascivious, or prurient. Previously, the Supreme Court had ruled that free speech, protected by the First Amendment, did not cover obscenity.</p> <p>The interesting part of the case, for this website, was that the lawyer for Grove Press, Charles Rembar, used a Venn Diagram to point out the logical flaw in the current interpretation of the law. In the case <a title="Roth Vs. the US" href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&amp;vol=354&amp;invol=476" target="_blank">Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476 (1957)</a>, Justice William Brennan wrote,</p> <blockquote><p>All ideas having even the slightest redeeming social importance &#8211; unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of opinion &#8211; have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable because they encroach upon the limited area of more important interests; but implicit in the history of the First Amendment is the rejection of obscenity as utterly without redeeming social importance.</p></blockquote> </blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/21/diagrams-speech/">Venn Diagrams and Free Speech</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/how-to-solve-the-health-care-crisis#post-22 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:53:43 +0000 Charles 22@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;"><img class="alignright" style="margin: 2px 5px;" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/shoulder2.jpg" alt="acromioclavicular separation" width="258" height="299" />I <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">recently</span> got in a bike crash and separated my shoulder, and my trips to the emergency room and various doctors got me thinking about how difficult to navigate the US health care system really is. Going to the ER, in a great amount of pain required me to wait around for hours before before being seen by a doctor. They were quick to make sure I have insurance, and that opened up levels of care not afforded to the myriad of uninsured patients. After visiting the ER, I called my orthopedist, but he no longer accepts my insurance, so I had to go to the website, find a new orthopedist, make an appointment, realize I didn&#8217;t like him, find a new doctor, and so on.</p> <p class="parseasinTitle" style="text-align: justify;">Of course, life does not have to be this difficult. When I go buy a car, I don&#8217;t have to work nearly as hard, so why should buying healthcare be any different? In his brilliant book,<em><span id="btAsinTitle"> <a title="The Undercover Economist by Tim Harford" href="http://www.amazon.com/Undercover-Economist-Exposing-Poor-Decent/dp/0345494016/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1212794746&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, the Poor Are Poor&#8211;and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!</a>,</span></em><span id="btAsinTitle"> Tim Harford lays out the difficulties of health care policy as well as how to overcome many of the problems in the US system. This post recounts his solution with some comments of my own.</span></p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2008/06/06/solve-health-crisis/">How to Solve the Health Care Crisis</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/how-to-get-your-wallet-back#post-21 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 14:38:37 +0000 Charles 21@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/images/wallet.jpg"><img class="alignleft" style="margin: 2px 8px;" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/wallet.jpg" alt="" width="225" height="169" /></a>Richard Wiseman, the psychologist who brought us <a href="http://www.laughlab.co.uk/" target="_blank">LaughLab, and their quest to find the world&#8217;s funniest joke</a>, has come out with another piece of interesting research. Professor Wiseman tried to determine what factors increased the chances of getting a lost wallet returned. He found that wallets containing baby pictures were returned at a significantly higher rates than other wallets.</p> <p>To perform the experiment, Wiseman and his team planted over 500 wallets around different parts of Edinburgh with different objects behind the clear plastic window. Overall, 42 percent of the wallets were returned, but those with a baby picture were returned at a much higher rate &#8212; 88 percent. Next came a puppy photo (53 percent), followed by a family photo (48 percent), and finally a photo of an elderly couple (28 percent). Trailing all other objects, at 20 per cent, was a card identifying the wallet owner as a recent charitable donor. Curiously, the lowest overall return rate was experienced by the control wallets &#8212; indicating that having something in the wallet is better than nothing at all. Perhaps this is because empty wallets may be considered as discarded.</p> <p>Possibly, the reason for baby pictures doing so well is that humans have an innate desire to protect babies, and returning money to their parents is one way to do so. Dr. Wiseman stated, &#8220;If you want to increase the chances of your wallet being returned if lost, obtain a photograph of the cutest baby you can find, and ensure that it is prominently displayed.&#8221;</p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/20/wallet/">How to Get Your Wallet Back</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/happy-moon-day#post-20 Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:26:57 +0000 Charles 20@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="350" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/RMINSD7MmT4" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/RMINSD7MmT4"></embed></object></p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/20/happy-moon-day/">Happy Moon Day</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/how-the-recession-affects-me#post-19 Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:03:33 +0000 Charles 19@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p>On my bike ride this morning, I passed through several of Chicago&#8217;s northern suburbs, and I noticed the horrendous condition of many of the roads. Over the 50 miles of riding, I had to pass over pot holes, rough patches, and cracks that are worse than any time in recent memory. Of course, this should not be surprising. State and local governments, who are largely responsible for maintaining the roads, are undergoing severe budget problems &#8212; high deficits resulting in large spending cuts. It is quite clear to me that one of the cuts is road maintenance. Now I understand that Illinois roads are never going to be in good shape because of the large temperature swings in the spring, but it is now mid-July, and it is clear that no repair attempts have been made in many of the towns.</p> <p>There are lots of places that spending has been cut, and repairing roads can probably wait, but this is a great example of what happens in a recession. As the economy becomes depressed, incomes drop, and tax revenues drop, and government coffers empty &#8212; leaving the roads in shambles. This affects state governments the most, as local government earn most of their income from property taxes. Local governments are not immune, however, as tax assessments often drop in during recessions, and another large source of income, grants from the state and Federal government disappear.</p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/18/recession-affects/">How the Recession Affects Me</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/incentives-how-to-outrun-an-army-with-three-arrows#post-18 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:58:07 +0000 Charles 18@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p align="justify"><img style="margin: 8px;" title="Can you out run an army?" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/soldier.jpg" alt="Can you out run an army?" width="253" height="222" align="right" />Economic thought provides the ability to solve problems that lie outside the areas generally covered in economics textbooks. Today&#8217;s entry is an example of this. This question and answer is taken from a wonderful book called <em>Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life</em> by David D. Friedman.</p> <p align="justify">Q: A soldier has escaped from an enemy prison and is being chased by ten enemy soldiers. If he can make it to the border, he will be safe, but if he is caught, he will be killed. The soldier&#8217;s horse is tiring, and at the current pace, it will grow too tired before the border. Therefore, he will be unable to out run the soldier that are chasing him. His only assets, besides his wits, are three arrows in a quiver (the fact that the soldier has only three arrows is visible to the pursuers). He can shoot three of the chasing soldiers, but then the other seven will catch him. How can the solder use economic thought to escape?</p> </blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2005/02/06/incentives-how-to-outrun-and-army-with-three-bullets/">Incentives: How to Outrun an Army with Three Arrows</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/one-small-step-for-man#post-17 Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:35:31 +0000 Charles 17@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/images/moon.jpg"><img class="alignleft" style="border: 5px solid black; margin-right: 5px; margin-left: 5px;" title="The Moon" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/moon.jpg" alt="" width="183" height="185" /></a>July 20 marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The New York Times has a nifty little interactive <a href="http://www.nytimes.com//interactive/2009/07/13/science/20090714-voices-interactive.html?ref=science" target="_blank">piece</a> which gives a short account of the recollections of the landing by 24 different people. All the people are either famous (Tom Seaver, Gloria Steinem, Barney Frank) or otherwise involved with space, physics, and NASA. The recollections are interesting because they range from awe to anger &#8212; large amounts of money being spent to send someone into space when there are so many problems on Earth.</p> <p>There are lots of justifications for the space program, manned, and un-manned space travel. The normal ones revolve around scientific justification; the technology from the space program filters its way down to the rest of the world, and we get to benefit. I am pretty sure that this is how we got Teflon. There are probably other technologies from the space program, but I have never seen a credible cost-benefit analysis of the Apollo Program that says we received anything close to a positive return on sending men to the moon. Perhaps Tom Wolfe&#8217;s royalties on <em>The Right Stuff</em> serve to make it all worthwhile.</p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/15/small-step/">One Small Step for Man</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/cap-and-trade-carbon-markets#post-8 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:14:10 +0000 Charles 8@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><div class="wp-caption alignleft" style="width: 185px"><img style="margin: 5px;" title="Smoke of Chimneys is the Breath of Soviet Russia" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/soviet_pollution.jpg" alt="Smoke of Chimneys is the Breath of Soviet Russia" width="175" height="239" /><p class="wp-caption-text">&quot;The Smoke of Chimneys is the Breath of Soviet Russia&quot;</p></div> <p>There is an interesting <a title="The Big Money" href="http://www.thebigmoney.com/articles/hey-wait-minute/2009/07/10/coming-carbon-bubble?page=full" target="_blank">post</a> on Slate&#8217;s &#8220;The Big Money&#8221; website that points out what it believes to be a hidden secret about the recently passed (in the House) climate bill. It is a well-thought-out piece, and it makes many good point &#8212; though I think it requires some discussion. To recap, the House bill establishes a cap and trade program for carbon emissions as a method to eventually limit CO2 emissions` to a level scientists tell us are environmentally sustainable.</p> <p>In general, a cap and trade system is the system preferred by economists. In an influential <a title="Environmental Economics: A Survey" href="http://www.jstor.org/pss/2727701" target="_blank">article</a> (JStor access required) in the Journal of Economic Literature, Maureen Cropper and Wallace Oates cover cap and trade systems in their original form, which were SO2 permits. Quickly, let us review how the cap and trade system works (I have detailed the system in <a title="Cap and Trade Permits" href="http://pubpolicy.com/2006/08/02/tradable-permits-how-to-save-the-world/" target="_self">this post</a>). We start from the premise that there is some lesser amount of emissions that we want reach. There are lots of ways to arrive at this amount, we could tax the pollution, we could give ownership of the air to somebody that would charge polluters, or we could simply state &#8211;by law &#8212; that polluters can only emit so much junk into the air.</p> </blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/13/trade-carbon-markets/">Cap and Trade Carbon Markets</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/papal-encyclical-pope-benedict-and-the-economy#post- Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:35:47 +0000 Anonymous @http://thepolicyforums.com/ http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/tradable-permits-how-to-save-the-world#post-9 Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:14:18 +0000 Charles 9@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><p align="justify"><img width="258" height="183" align="left" title="Do you want to save the world?" alt="Do you want to save the world?" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/savetheearth.jpg" />There is a growing consensus among the scientific community that we need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the very, very near future. I will leave it up to those who know more about atmospheric science to debate that point. If we take the claim to be true, then, as policy makers we want to decide on the best course of action to accomplish the goal. There are many ways to reduce emissions, and they are not at all mutually exclusive. In general, solutions revolve around forcing fewer emissions by regulation, using technology to require fewer emissions or lessen the impact of existing emissions, or using taxation and fee schemes to make it expensive to emit greenhouse gasses (The prevailing solution, up to the present, however, is to do nothing about emissions). One solution, in the eyes of economists, holds more promise for saving the world than any other&#8211;tradable emissions permits.</p> <p align="justify"></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2006/08/02/tradable-permits-how-to-save-the-world/">Tradable Permits: How to Save the World</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div> http://thepolicyforums.com/topic/papal-encyclical-pope-benedict-and-the-economy#post-6 Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:26:06 +0000 Charles 6@http://thepolicyforums.com/ <blockquote><div class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 133px"><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/images/benedict.jpg"><img style="margin: 8px;" src="http://pubpolicy.com/images/benedict.jpg" alt="" width="123" height="164" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Benedict XVI</p></div> <p>Pope Benedict XVI has issued a Papal <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html" target="_blank">encyclical </a>that gives the Vatican&#8217;s stance on the need to rethink the world economy. The Pope is critical of markets and calls for an international organization to regulate markets world-wide. Why exactly the Pope is weighing in on economic issues is a bit beyond me. Part of it may have to do with the fact that the Vatican is a country too, and the Pope is essentially its elected king. Heads of state have more business opining on global economics than heads of religion.</p> <p>Another reason is the title of the encyclical, which translates to &#8220;Charity in Truth.&#8221; Charity is more the purview of the Roman Catholic church, and in the encyclical, the Pope calls for debt forgiveness to poor nations and greater social responsibility on the part of business.</p> <p>One funny note, is that, apparently, the Vatican is having a difficult time translating the 144-page document into Latin, from the original German in which it was written.</p></blockquote> <p><br/><a href="http://pubpolicy.com/2009/07/08/papal-encyclical-pope-benedict-and-the-economy/">Papal Encyclical: Pope Benedict and the Economy</a></p> <div class="addtoany_share_save_container"><ul class="addtoany_list"><li><a class="a2a_dd addtoany_share_save" href="http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=&amp;linkname="><img src="http://pubpolicy.com/wp-content/plugins/add-to-any/share_save_171_16.png" width="171" height="16" alt="Share/Save/Bookmark"/></a></li></ul></div><div class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo">User information<ul><li><span class="wpbb_anonymous_userinfo_key">Author</span>: <span></span></li></ul></div>