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"In a major encyclical addressing the economic questions raised by the upheaval in Eastern Europe in 1989, Pope John Paul II warned capitalist nations yesterday against letting the collapse of Communism blind them to the need to repair injustices in their own economic system. "The encyclical, "Centesimus Annus" ("The Hundredth Year"), includes the fullest, and in many ways the most positive, treatment of the market economy in any papal document. But praise is typically followed with qualifications and ringing reminders about economic failures in both developing and developed countries."

'Capitalism must be corrected: The social doctrine of the Church stands above existing economic systems, since it confines itself to the level of principles. An economic system is good only to the extent that it applies the principles of justice taught by the Church. As Pope John Paul II wrote in 1987, in his encyclical letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis: "The tension between East and West is an opposition... between two concepts of the development of individuals and peoples, both concepts being imperfect and in need of radical correction... This is one of the reasons why the Church's social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism." '

Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the "bottom" 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans. That, of course, will never happen because there are trillions of dollars of assets, from Shanghai skyscrapers to Fortune 1000 stocks to the latest housing market "recovery," artificially propped up by the Fed's interest-rate repression. The United States is broke - fiscally, morally, intellectually - and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is.

'Last week, at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Kent Conrad, the chairman of that committee, laid out the issue as many Americans see it: "The growing gap between the very wealthy and everyone else has serious ramifications for the country. It hinders economic growth, it undermines confidence in our institutions, and it goes against one of the core ideals of this country - that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed and leave a better future for your kids and your grandkids."

Study, conducted by Stanford University and released by the Russell Sage Foundation and Brown University in Nov., 2011... shows a changed map of prosperity in the United States over the past four decades, with larger patches of affluence and poverty and a shrinking middle.... The study also found that there is more residential sorting by income.... It raises, but does not answer, the question of whether increased economic inequality, and the resulting income segregation, impedes social mobility.

>"Between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted, after-tax income of Americans in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. The equivalent number for the richest 0.1 percent rose 400 percent. For the most part, these huge gains reflected a dramatic rise in the super-elite's share of pretax income. But there were also large tax cuts favoring the wealthy. In particular, taxes on capital gains..... >"Few of the 0.1% are in professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone's income and his economic contribution.... [So we] But they should ignore all the propaganda about "job creators" and demand that the super-elite pay substantially more in taxes."

Murray ignores economic/government reasons for "collapse of middle class" and focuses only on "social structure"

FINANCIAL PAGE about the contradictions of economic populism…

China has nothing comparable to the research, industrial and economic resources of the United States. Yet the Chinese are blowing us away in the technology race to the future

Growing, young, innovative society has economic advantages over contracting societies of Europe & Japan

"So perhaps, it might be argued, abortion can be safely limited only when the government does more to cover women's costs in other ways - in which case Texas might still be flirting with disaster. But note that this is a better argument for liberalism than for abortion. It suggests, for instance, that liberal donors and activists should be spending more time rallying against Perry's refusal to take federal Medicaid financing than around Wendy Davis's famous filibuster. It implies that the quest to "turn Texas blue" should make economic policy rather than late-term abortion its defining issue. And it raises the possibility that a pro-life liberalism - that once-commonplace, now-mythical persuasion - would actually have a stronger argument to make than the one Texas's critics are making now.

'A few drugs - such as beta-blockers, statins and glycogen control medications - have proved very effective at managing hypertension, heart disease, diabetes and strokes. Most insurance plans charge something for them. Why not make drugs like these free? Not for everyone, but just the groups for whom they are provably effective. In traditional economics, such a policy creates waste. The basic principle is moral hazard: consumers overuse goods that are subsidized. But people don't always follow a cost-benefit logic. The problem is basic human psychology. Heart disease is silent, with few noticeable symptoms. You feel fine most of the time, so it's all too easy to justify skipping the statin. The problem here is the exact opposite of moral hazard. People are not overusing ineffective drugs; they are underusing highly effective ones. This is a quandary that ... call "behavioral hazard." We've found that co-payments do not resolve behavioral hazard. They make it worse. They reduce the use of a drug that is already underused. My proposal is targeted: Take drugs that are shown to be of very high benefit to some people, and make those drugs free for them. All co-pays should depend on measured medical value; high co-pays should be reserved for drugs and medical services that have little proven value. Why not focus instead on the behaviors - eating unhealthy foods or shunning exercise - that created the conditions we must now treat with drugs? [This]has some merit. But [it] fails the "perfect as the enemy of the good" test.

Justifying economic beliefs by religion. Does Christianity require special care for poor?

>"...Offering a default option of opting in, rather than opting out (as many have suggested with organ donations as well) doesn't take away choice but guides us to make better ones, according to Richard H. Thaler, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, and Cass R. Sunstein, a professor at Chicago's law school, authors of "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness". Making choices can be most difficult in the area of health. While we don't want to go back to the days when doctors unilaterally determined what was best, there may be ways of changing policy so that families are not forced to make unbearable choices. >Professor Iyengar and some colleagues compared how American and French families coped after making the heart-wrenching decision to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from an infant. In the United States, parents must make the decision to end the treatment, while in France, the doctors decide, unless explicitly challenged by the parents. >French families weren't as angry or confused about what had happened, and focused much less on how things might have been or should have been than the American parents.

Given time, American Muslims, like all other religious minorities before them, will adjust their legal and theological traditions, if necessary, to accord with American values. America's exceptionalism has always been its ability to transform itself - economically, culturally and religiously. In the 20th century, we thrived by promoting a Judeo-Christian ethic, respecting differences and accentuating commonalities among Jews, Catholics and Protestants. Today, we need an Abrahamic ethic that welcomes Islam into the religious tapestry of American life. Anti-Shariah legislation fosters a hostile environment that will stymie the growth of America's tolerant strand of Islam. The continuation of America's pluralistic religious tradition depends on the ability to distinguish between punishing groups that support terror and blaming terrorist activities on a faith that represents roughly a quarter of the world's population.

'Pope Francis presented the vision for his papacy on Tuesday, calling on Catholics to battle what he called the "globalization of indifference" to create a more compassionate church that champions the poor as it works to achieve social justice in an increasingly secular and money-oriented society. Called "Evangelii Gaudium," (the Joy of the Gospel), the document ... a papal pronouncement known as an apostolic exhortation, was the first major written work Francis has created since he was chosen eight months ago to lead the 2,000-year-old church. 'It challenges the church to "abandon the complacent attitude that says: 'We have always done it this way,'" to find novel, "bold and creative" ways to speak to the faithfuland to make the church more meaningful. '

In China, 42 high-speed rail lines have opened or are set to open by 2012; the U.S. hopes to build its first high-speed line by 2014. The Chinese bullet train, which has the world's fastest average speed, travels 664 miles from Guangzhouon the coast to Wuhan, deep in the interior. In a little more than three hours. Travelling the same distance from Boston to southern Virginia, the train takes less time than Amtrak's fastest train, the Acela, takes to go from Boston to New York. By comparison, the United States hopes to build its first high-speed rail line by 2014 - linking only the 84 miles between Tampa and Orlando, Fla.