Philip Pullella — Pope offers rare 'mea culpa' about neglect of middle class

Pope Francis acknowledged on Monday he had neglected problems of the middle class and said he was willing to have a dialogue with Americans who disagree with his criticism of capitalism.

Francis, speaking to reporters on the papal plane returning from a grueling 8-day trip to Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay, also said he hoped the Greek crisis could lead to more oversight so other countries would not experience the same problems.

During the hour-long conversation with the Francis, who has made defense of the poor a major plank of his papacy, a reporter asked why he had hardly ever spoken about the problems of the "working, tax-paying" middle class.

He offered a rare papal mea culpa, thanking the reporter for his "good correction."
"You're right. It's an error of mine not to think about this," he said.

"The world is polarized. The middle class becomes smaller. The polarization between the rich and poor is big. This is true. And, perhaps this has led me to not take account of this (the problems of the middle class)," he said.

Francis said he spoke about the poor often because they were so numerous but that ordinary working people had "great value."

"I think you’re telling me about something I need to do. I need to do delve further into this ....," he said.

I would not be surprised to see an eventual papal encyclical on political economy that updates Catholic social teaching with respect to inequality. Evangelii Gaudium was a beginning and Laudato Si' elaborated some on it, but I doubt that we have heard the last word from the pope on it.

The Vatican needs better economists though.

Reuters
Pope offers rare 'mea culpa' about neglect of middle class
Philip Pullella

Mayor DeBlasio goes gutless and heralds deal that will ask nothing of the rich for his universal pre-k

Politicians never get tired of putting their cowardice, their lack of balls, on display when it comes to asking anything from the rich. New York Mayor, Bill DeBlasio, was elected in a landslide, in part due to his pledge to raise taxes on the wealthy in order to pay for universal pre-K. However, he is now heradling a great victory because the state legislature decided it will give him the money, but it won't come from higher taxes on the rich, it will  come from "state money."

WTF is state money? There is no such thing as state money. The state is not the Federal government. The state has no money. State money is literally our money: it's the money the state gets through taxation or the money it holds on to when it chooses not to recycle it back to us in the form of spending.

This was a sneaky and clever little plan and DeBlasio fell for it. He apparently doesn't see that funding universal pre-k with state money means once again, of course, that this plan will be paid for by the middle class and poor because it will ultimately come from budget money that was or would have been allocated to programs for the middle class and the poor.

I have to admit I have gone back and forth on DeBlasio. I supported him, then I thought he quickly sold out, but recently I thought he was getting better. Now I'm back to thinking he's a weak, poorly advised, gutless sellout.

Obama caves again to the wealthy. Raises taxes on middle class and poor!

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, with his latest fiscal cliff offer, proposes extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone earning less than $400,000 a year, and paying for it by increasing taxes on the middle class and cutting Social Security and Medicare. Obama's offer would allow the payroll tax holiday to expire, meaning middle class workers will see smaller paychecks in 2013. Economists have warned that the recovery is too fragile to risk a broad tax hike on workers. It would also gradually reduce Social Security, pension and Medicare benefits seniors are due to receive, taking a small bite up front, but building up to much larger cuts over time.

He does it again! Raises taxes on the middle class and poor and caves to the wealthy. Boehner and the GOP had NO CARDS and Obama still manages to lose this one! Unreal!!!

Collapse of the US Middle Class — Ehrenrichs unload on the 1%

The old conservative dictum -- that it was unwise to criticize (or tax) the rich because you might yourself be one of them someday -- gave way to a new realization that the class you were most likely to migrate into wasn’t the rich, but the poor.

Read it at TruthOut
The Making of the American 99 Percent and the Collapse of the Middle Class
by Barbara Ehrenreich and John Ehrenreich, TomDispatch/The Nation | Op-Ed

Pretty scathing indictment.

Where other once-wealthy nations have a safety net, America offers a greased chute, leading down to destitution with alarming speed.

I experienced this first-hand a couple of years ago when I helped out a guy who I was vaguely acquainted with in the Sixties. He had become a millionaire and had accumulated lots of toys. But then he used up most of his funds paying for treatment of his sister's debilitating illness which ran up huge bills before she succumbed. He then got caught in a downward spiral due to a business deal gone bad. It proceeded so fast he was unable to liquidate stuff fast enough to meet his cash flow requirement. So he found himself on the street, where he eventually got beat up. It was a really ugly scene that no one should ever have to go through. But there are also a lot of people that live in these circumstances from childhood. All they get to experience is the down. No excuse for it.