Perhaps it’s easy to see how the two men’s theological differences inform their views of family, but they also yield different understandings of the path to economic advancement.

Mr. Cain’s church subscribes to traditional Christian theology, which sees the black experience in light of scripture. Mr. Obama’s former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, on the other hand, is known for teaching black liberation theology, which sees scripture in light of the black experience. It seeks to create a direct correlation between the black condition and the light of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. The freedom they gained from whites is a part of the freedom Jesus promised.

According to Antioch’s website, its early leaders “stressed the dignity of work and honest labor.” By contrast, Trinity’s website emphasizes God’s displeasure with “America’s economic mal-distribution.” It’s not surprising, then, that President Obama would see a government-run jobs program as the key to ending the current economic recession whereas Mr. Cain would look to private industry…

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Many of the proposals, which were compiled by a special church commission, seem in keeping with Christian mores: no investing in companies that manufacture guns or pornography; avoid investing in countries that are considered dictatorships or that present a risk to the environment.

The guidelines say investing in the alcohol industry is appropriate, so long as the beverages contain no more than 15 percent alcohol by volume.

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He considered moving to a Zen monastery before shifting his sights to Silicon Valley, where he became a brash businessman.

He preached about the dangers of desire but urged consumers to covet every new iPhone incarnation.

“He was an enlightened being who was cruel,” says a former girlfriend. “That’s a strange combination.”

Now, we can add another irony to the legacy of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs: Since his death on Oct. 5, the famously private man’s spiritual side has become an open book.

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Writing in the Church Times today, Canon Fraser says that the “very difficult” situation at St Paul’s is “a historic opportunity for the Church to reset its relationship with the marketplace. . . For too long the Church has been obsessed with its own internal workings and with silly arguments about sex. Now is the time for a new debate and a new emphasis.”

The director of the Christian Socialist Movement, Andy Flan­nagan, said on Tuesday: “We don’t have to sign up to the protesters’ complete agenda to engage with what they are talking about. Church and politicians need to get back into this debate about morality in markets.”

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What happens when you get George Soros, Tom Harkin, Bill Gates, Ralph Nader and the Archbishop of Canterbury together in a French hotel room with a stick of incense and a magnum of champagne””and turn off the lights?

Answer: the…[Financial Transaction] Tax.

OK, so we need to work on our punchlines. But a tax on financial transactions is exactly what these characters have all endorsed in one form or another as the miracle cure to the world’s economic ills. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have also picked up the cause, and they are leaning on President Obama to endorse it at this week’s G-20 summit in Cannes, France.

So here we go again.

Readers of the blog will know I do not like to call this the Tobin Tax since strictly speaking Tobin originally was focused explicitly on something else less broad than the current proposal. Read it all–KSH.

Consumers might feel like they’re playing Whac-A-Mole when it comes to shenanigans involving the banking industry. Just as one issue gets resolved, something else pops up.

Bank of America retreated this week from its planned introduction of a $5 monthly fee for many customers to use their debit cards. The bank said it “listened to our customers very closely” and decided that charging people money to access their money maybe wasn’t the best idea after all.

At the same time, Chase credit card customers are receiving a letter about their privacy preferences. The letter says that even though the bank’s records “indicate that you are not being mailed any offers from Chase,” the bank wants “to be sure that you know about available offers and that you have the opportunity to consider them.”

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Americans put the most trust in the ideas and opinions of small-business owners and local business leaders on how best to create jobs. Americans have progressively lower levels of trust in the opinions of President Obama, economists, major-corporation executives, congressional leaders, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

The public’s trust in politicians, business leaders, and others on job creation in the U.S. is of particular importance at a time when Americans view jobs as the most important problem facing the nation.

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Pope Benedict XVI prayed that a summit of the leaders of countries with the world’s largest economies would find ways to overcome the current economic crisis and promote real development.

At the end of his weekly general audience Nov. 2, the pope issued a special appeal to the leaders of the G-20 nations scheduled to meet Nov. 3-4 in Cannes, France.

“I hope the meeting will help overcome the difficulties, which — on a global level — block the promotion of an authentically human and integral development,” the pope said.

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…local protests, in order to be effective, must have a specific local object; in this case, they are presented with one that could indeed make an immense global difference.

the Occupy movement… is remarkably a spontaneous populist expression, not clearly linked to any established political tendencies….

[In a general sense]…its implicit rejection of the alliance of financial and bureaucratic oligarchies aligns it naturally with the new “post-liberal” politics….

Yet it is only if they adopt some such more specific goal that the protestors will be equal to the symbolic resonance of the local hornet’s nest where they find themselves encamped.

And curiously, it is the same lamentable failure to be alert to symbolic resonance which has characterised the official Anglican response so far – though, in this respect, it limps behind the vast majority of Anglican clergy and laity.

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The lesson of LTCM was that no trading operation is better than its ability to withstand losses. This lesson was proved in spades, in 2008, at highly leveraged banks such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers.

A second lesson is that seemingly unlikely events may be more likely than market history suggests. Russia had not defaulted since 1917, but that didn’t stop it from happening in 1998.

And a further lesson of LTCM’s demise was that the widespread belief that liquidity offers safety is, in fact, an illusion, and a terribly dangerous one at that.

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In response to the package, the bond market has not changed its tune. The new 50% “haircut” to private sector investors in Greece hasn’t altered the conviction of traders that the troubles in Athens will inevitably be contagious. Pricing of Spanish, Italian and even French bonds reflect this pessimistic outlook.

Europe’s politicians are aware of what the markets have long known: Patches are destined to fail. But the urge to pass the hot potato without instituting meaningful structural change is, evidently, irresistible. So instead of muscular reforms, we see the same unsuccessful rescue packages supersized. Sunny optimism and mutual back-patting continue, paired with pep talks from the rescue fund controllers at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The latest steps don’t end the Greek crisis. A Eurozone-wide problem requires a Eurozone-wide solution. The European Central Bank should be creating something along the lines of the U.S. TARP program, buying bonds to calm the volatility until a bold, permanent solution is crafted. Greece and the rest of Europe would ultimately survive the disintegration of the Eurozone and the death of the euro. But the end of a unified Europe would leave the entire world poorer.

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The chairman was asked if the outlook of the U.S. economy was so gloomy, why would the Fed wait to enact more monetary policy. Bernanke said the Fed has been very aggressive. He said what the Fed has are projections, so “it’s important to see what happens.” One thing economists have said over the past few months, is that the Fed is running out of economic tools. But Bernanke ruled that out, saying the Fed still has a “broad range of policies” to stimulate the economy.

However, he called on the political arm of the United States to help the Fed.

“I hope there will be a broad range of actions that complements” Fed policy, he said.

”” On Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, Bernanke said their woes have been drag on a U.S. recovery, but it’s up to Europe’s leaders to make the decisions.

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Representatives from the United Kingdom’s main Christian denominations and charities submitted a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (treasury secretary) on 31 October, urging the government to tackle tax avoidance in order to “Close The Gap” between rich and poor.

“Tax evasion and avoidance is estimated by the Treasury to cost the U.K. at least 35 billion British pounds [US$56.4 billion] annually. This is nearly nine per cent of U.K. tax revenue. The efficient collection of this revenue would lessen the demand to cut social and welfare expenditure which is hurting the poorest in our communities so much,” the letter read.

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“Survivor” is considered a watershed in paid product placements, opening the floodgates to a projected $2.75 billion in spending this year on such shows as “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” WWE’s “Monday Night Raw,” “American Idol” and “Celebrity Apprentice.” Before “Survivor,” brands got promotional placements in exchange for use of a prop, such as a car, or as a bonus for buying commercial time.

[Mark] Burnett is now trying to bring that formula to the Web through his investment in the Vimby digital production studio. The Van Nuys venture launched in 2005 with a network of filmmakers around the country who create original, short-form videos for Vimby’s website that now also may find a home on other sites including YouTube and Myspace. As part of Burnett’s investment in 2010, Vimby began rubbing elbows with such major advertisers as Aflac, General Mills, Macy’s, McDonald’s, Pepsi and Puma ”” helping these brands create their own content for distribution on YouTube or on a company’s Facebook page.

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[The Church of England]…has long since turned its back on its core competence of bread and butter theology and helping its members navigate life, preferring instead to turn itself into a politicised advocacy group. It is more interested in fighting capitalism, calling for ever more government spending and higher taxes and jumping onto every fashionable left-wing bandwagon (the most recent being banker-bashing and Tobin taxes), rather than talking about God (whom its clerics presumably still believe in), the difference between right and wrong in personal decisions, and how responsible individuals can do good themselves through their behaviour, choices and private charity….

Everybody knows that the peculiar economic system that we had during the noughties ”“ its strange combination of big government, free markets, rigged markets and ultra-low interest rates ”“ failed and needs reform. My view is that we need to embrace the discipline of real capitalism ”“ and banish the moral hazard and risk-taking that corporatism and bailouts guarantee ”“ and return to sound money with properly priced credit. Others prefer different solutions. But everybody with a heart wants to fight unemployment, improve the prospects of the poor, and make the world a better place. It is just that we disagree on the means to achieve this.

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One is something we have now heard clearly from many sources ”“ a plea endorsed by the Vickers Commission that routine banking business should be clearly separated from speculative transactions. The rolling-up of individual and small-scale savings into high-risk and high-return adventures in the virtual economy is one of the more obvious danger areas. Early government action in this area is needed. A second plea is to recapitalise banks with public money. Banks should be obliged in return to help reinvigorate the real economy.

The third suggestion is probably the most far-reaching. The Vatican statement strongly backs the proposal of a Financial Transaction Tax ”“ a “Tobin Tax” or, popularly, a “Robin Hood Tax” in the form in which it has been talked about most recently. This means a comparatively small rate of tax (0.05 per cent) being levied on share, bond, and currency transactions and their derivatives, with the resulting funds being designated for investment in the “real” economy, domestically and internationally. The modest rate of taxation conceals the high levels of return that could be expected (some $410bn globally on one estimate)….

Read it all. [Please note that the FT subscriber only link is there.]

Another note: Alert blog readers may recall that Rowan Williams’ arguments here are not new but they have been stated a number of times before.

A further update: I see Ralph Nader is in the Wall Street Journal making a similar argument for the Financial Transaction Tax.

Americans must not be smug about the suffering of Europeans””our financial system is thoroughly integrated with theirs. Moreover, the International Monetary Fund will most likely be involved in the event of future bailouts and will likely need large funds from its members, which ultimately means the taxpayers.

And, of course, the U.S. has its own large and growing public debt burden. We have not gone as far down the road to entitlements, but we are catching up. If you want to know how the debt crisis will play out here, watch the downward spiral in the EU.

Meanwhile, expect more volatility in financial markets. U.S. traders in particular simply have not grasped the enormity of the EU debt crisis.

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The crisis of the euro zone has finally hit the potholed road of real politics, with the Greeks now openly questioning whether their commitment to Europe and its single currency still matters more to them than control over their own future and economic well-being.

During the two-year financial crisis, the wealthier countries of northern Europe, led by Germany, have insisted that their heavily indebted brethren in the south radically cut spending in return for emergency loans. They have stuck to that prescription even though austerity has undermined growth and increased unemployment in Greece, Spain, Portugal and now Italy, betting that people in those countries will swallow the harsh medicine because their only alternative is to default and possibly leave the euro zone altogether.

The turmoil in the government of Prime Minister George A. Papandreou means that Greece is about to call that bet. Many Greek politicians appear to be calculating, at this late stage, that they have more to lose by sticking to Germany’s terms than by risking a messy default, and even going it alone with their old currency, the drachma, outside the euro zone.

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Medicare inspectors must do a better job of tracking reports of serious mistakes in care at the nation’s hospitals, as well as of informing rating agencies of the errors, according to a report released today by the agency’s inspector general.

Hundreds of serious errors go unrecorded, the report found, because the inspectors who find problems at hospitals don’t tell the national agencies that accredit hospitals. That means that those hospitals continue to participate in Medicare and that they don’t learn from their mistakes, Inspector General Daniel Levinson wrote.

Also, Levinson wrote, no one tracks the effectiveness of policy changes or how the hospitals actually correct mistakes.

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Shaken by criticism of its handling of anticapitalist protesters on its doorstep, St. Paul’s Cathedral said it is suspending legal action to have the Occupy London camp evicted.

Reversing course after appearing to side against the protesters, St. Paul’s said it decided to drop legal measures after late-night talks with the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who loosely oversees the cathedral.

The move prompted the City of London to “press pause” on its own, separate legal action to evict the campers, though it suggested it may go to court if negotiations don’t lead to the campers moving. “We’re hoping to use a pause””probably of days not weeks””to work out a measured solution,” the City said on Tuesday.

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Bank of America has cancelled plans to charge consumers a $5 (£3) monthly fee for making debit card purchases, citing customer feedback.

The bank announced it was abandoning its fee plan amid growing anger around the move and consumer calls to take banking business elsewhere.

A company spokeswoman declined to comment on account closure figures.

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South Carolina’s teachers and state employees are willing to pay more to fix the retirement system ”” but only if they get a raise first.

That’s the plan endorsed by the S.C. State Employees Association and the S.C. Education Association, which together represent 30,000 of the state’s 141,000 teachers and state employees.

The plan, which the groups submitted in writing to House and Senate subcommittees studying the retirement system, says teachers and state employees are willing to increase their contribution to the retirement system by 0.5 percent, but only if they receive at least a 2 percent raise ”” a “cost-of-living adjustment” for state employees and a “step increase” for teachers.

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St Paul’s appeared today to try to wash its hands of responsibility for the enforcement action to evict the economic protesters camped outside the cathedral.

A spokesman for St Paul’s said that the cathedral was not taking joint action with the Corporation of London, which is expected to serve notices on the protesters today.

“The Chapter have not yet sought an injunction, nor are they serving notices on the protesters today,” the spokesman said.

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A crisis of leadership enveloped the Church of England yesterday, after the resignation of the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral over his handling of the protest camp on its doorstep.

The Archbishop of Canterbury was facing criticism for his failure to intervene earlier in the protracted decision-making process over whether to evict demonstrators or to engage with them.

But as the Church struggled to contain the fallout from the Occupy protest, some genuine campaigners left the camp in disgust over its descent into what one described as a place for bawdy hedonism, drink and drugs.

Interested readers may note that this was the top story on the front page of he ipad edition of the Times for me this morning. Read it all –KSH(requires subscription).

Germans expressed fury and frustration at Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s shock decision to call a referendum on the latest aid package, with some saying the gamble would push Greece out of the euro zone.

“You can’t help thinking that they should be grateful as Europe is trying to help,” said Konstanze Pilge, a 26-year old student, walking near the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin. “Now it looks like they are going to mess things up.”

Papandreou dropped his bombshell on Monday evening, less than a week after European leaders agreed the outlines of a second bailout for Athens.

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More Oregon public schools are opening up their buildings for church services to bring in extra income.

Eight of the state’s 10 biggest districts rent out buildings for services.

While some believe that school-based churches violate the Constitutional separation between church and state, courts generally have found the practice to be legal. The U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that as long as districts are renting out spaces to outside organizations, it would be discriminatory to ban religious groups.

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St Paul’s, 31 October 2011 The Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, the Rt Rev Graeme Knowles, announced his intention to resign from his post this afternoon. He made his decision known to the Chapter and to the Bishop of London last night and has removed himself from Cathedral operations with immediate effect. He intended to submit his resignation as Dean of St Paul’s to HM the Queen today.

In the light of the Dean’s resignation, the Chapter has unanimously voted to request the Bishop of London to assist them in providing an independent voice on the ongoing situation at St Paul’s. The Bishop has had no part to date in the discussions and decisions made by Chapter and it is felt his input is now required.

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Scott Hoyt, an economist at Moody’s Analytics who specializes in consumer spending, said there were two competing hypotheses as to why the savings rate had dropped. “One is that consumers have just decided that they need to spend ”” they need to replace the car, the appliance, they want a new wardrobe.” The other, he said, is that the data, which is often revised months down the road, is simply incorrect.

“There have been several times where we spent a year or more talking about a negative savings rate” ”” meaning consumers spent more than they took in ”” “only to get benchmark revisions to the data,” Mr. Hoyt said. “The savings rate’s never been negative.”

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The aging of the human race has been faster than anyone could have imagined a few decades ago. Fertility rates have plunged globally; simultaneously, life spans have increased. The result is a re-contoured age graph: The pyramid, once with a tiny number of old folks at the peak and a broad foundation of children, is inverting. In wealthy countries, the graph already has a pronounced middle-age spread.

This is, in many respects, very good news. Longer life is a blessing of modern medicine and improvements in nutrition. Lower fertility rates have corresponded to more educational opportunities for women and greater prosperity for societies in general.

But the unexpectedly abrupt demographic transition has created economic upheaval. For the countries that hit the fertility brakes the hardest, the graying of society has become a full-blown crisis. They’re suddenly desperate for babies. They need more workers to provide goods and services to huge numbers of pensioners….

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For most of its 75-year history, the program had paid its own way through a dedicated stream of payroll taxes, even generating huge surpluses for the past two decades. But in 2010, under the strain of a recession that caused tax revenue to plummet, the cost of benefits outstripped tax collections for the first time since the early 1980s.

Now, Social Security is sucking money out of the Treasury. This year, it will add a projected $46 billion to the nation’s budget problems, according to projections by system trustees. Replacing cash lost to a one-year payroll tax holiday will require an additional $105 billion. If the payroll tax break is expanded next year, as President Obama has proposed, Social Security will need an extra $267 billion to pay promised benefits.

But while talk about fixing the nation’s finances has grown more urgent, fixing Social Security has largely vanished from the conversation.

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