Delamaide: Pope joins bank critics
WASHINGTON — As President-elect Barack Obama prepared to take office at the height of the financial crisis in 2008, his then-chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously said that no serious crisis should go to waste, suggesting that it would now be possible to put in long-needed reforms.
But in the view of many critics, the crisis was indeed wasted, and the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform act, whatever its merits, fell short of the radical restructuring needed to forestall a repeat of the crisis, perhaps in the very near future.
"The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and new ways of regulating speculative financial practices and virtual wealth," one of the newest critics of financial reform wrote last week. "But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking the outdated criteria which continue to rule the world."
This was not another broadside against the banks from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., or another blast at Wall Street from independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders as he seeks the Democratic nomination for president.
This was the verdict of Pope Francis, who couched his urgent call for a more vigorous response to climate change in terms of subordinating economic growth and financial power to the welfare of humankind and the future of the planet.
The pope, a Jesuit and former archbishop of Buenos Aires, criticized the political response to the financial crisis in words that perfectly described the actions of the Obama administration.
"Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price, foregoing a firm commitment to reviewing and reforming the entire system," Francis wrote in his second papal encyclical, "only reaffirms the absolute power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery."
Focusing on the need to combat climate change, the pope rejected the neoliberal mantra that uninhibited economic growth and unrestricted free markets are the keys to long-term prosperity.
"Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems," Francis wrote, "that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth."
But their actions belie their words, he continued, "by showing no interest in more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations."
The pope's encyclical — "Laudato Si', On Care for Our Common Home" — is not intended as a dogmatic pronouncement but as a pastoral admonition, a moral call to action not only for Catholics but for society as a whole.
The pope's ready acceptance of the science on climate change — Francis was trained as a chemist — and his rejection of Darwinian capitalism strike progressive notes that create difficulties for Catholic politicians in this country who until now have looked to a reliably reactionary Vatican to support their conservative views.
Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush showed something less than the zeal of a convert in offhandedly dismissing the thoughts from his pastor in chief.
"I hope I'm not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don't get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinals or my pope," Bush said on the campaign trail in New Hampshire. "I think religion ought to be about making us better as people, less about things (that) end up getting into the political realm."
Other Republican hopefuls who are Catholic — Marco Rubio, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie — have already distanced themselves from the pope's message on climate change or will likely do so when given the opportunity.
As Bush implied, they will no doubt reject his thoughts on the economy and financial system as well. But in the pope's view they are all inextricably linked.
"The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental deterioration," Francis wrote.
He minced no words, saying it is "remarkable" how weak the political responses — to the financial crisis, to climate change — have been.
"The failure of global summits on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance," he says in the encyclical. "There are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected."
Ironically, it is Sanders, who is Jewish and who called the pope a "miracle for humanity" in a television interview Friday, who was the first of the presidential candidates to wholeheartedly embrace the pope's message.
It remains to be seen if the head of the Roman church has also struck a chord with a majority of Americans, who may well be ahead of their politicians in their concern for the environment and their dissatisfaction with the inequality resulting from an economy of greed.
Francis used the megaphone of the papacy to broadcast a message on the environment and the economy that will have repercussions in our own politics. As the 2016 election approaches, candidates will ignore it at their peril.
Business columnist Darrell Delamaide has reported on business and economics from New York, Paris, Berlin and Washington for