"The American economy increasingly serves only a narrow part of society, and America's national politics has failed to put the country back on track through honest, open, and transparent problem solving. Too many of America's elites-among the super-rich, the CEOs, and many of my colleagues in academia-have abandoned a commitment to social responsibility. They chase wealth and power, the rest of society be damned." Jeffrey Sachs, The Price of Civilization, January 2012
The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.
"In the Incarnation the whole human race recovers the dignity of the image of God. Thereafter, any attack even on the least of men is an attack on Christ, who took on the form of man, and in his own Person restored the image of God in all. Through our relationship with the Incarnation, we recover our true humanity, and at the same time are delivered from that perverse individualism which is the consequence of sin, and recover our solidarity with all mankind." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Sometimes God must first break a heart to enter it. And what remains afterwards, when the crisis is passed, offers us the way to become fully human. And we are called to stand and witness to the fully human life, in grace that is given not cheaply by ourselves, but by our resolve to follow Him in our calling. Where there is sickness bring healing, where there is despair bring hope. A candle in the darkness allows others to find and ignite their own— and then there is light." Jesse 2016
"A credibility trap is when the managerial functions of a society have been sufficiently compromised by corruption so that the leadership and the professional class cannot reform, or even honestly admit and address, the problems of the corrupted system without implicating a broad swath of a powerful elite, including themselves.