The Archbishop of Canterbury says that bankers should repent over their mistakes which led to a global financial crisis, but he fears that the financial industry is returning to business as usual.
Archbishop Rowan Williams, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, said in an interview Tuesday that he senses a feeling of “diffused resentment” against bankers for failing to accept responsibility and that the government should act to cap bonus payments.
“There hasn’t been a feeling of closure about what happened last year,” Williams said in an interview on BBC television.
[blockquote] We haven’t heard people saying ‘well actually, no, we got it wrong and the whole fundamental principle on which we worked was unreal, was empty.'”[/blockquote]
I believe this report neglected to mention that Williams had a solution as well. It is that as the excesses of capitalism have rendered the fabric of our community of nations, as a matter of great urgency, a panel of reference should be convened to look into individual cases of excess. Of course, as there is no global leader or “pope” of the financial system to enforce any discipline, participation in the process or the result of the panel is purely voluntary. And of course, no solution can violate any of the polity of individual corporations, which is determined as anything they say it is. The older American corporations particularly are to be given authority over the process, given their financial generosity to the elements which would establish the panel. Coincident with this, any activities by those opposing such excesses outside of the proper channels approved by the older American corporate interests must, of course, be discouraged at all costs.
That should fix things.
#1, correct. There has been insufficient dialogue about the matters at hand and no one has really considered or talked enough about what has happened. The complete lack of inadaba is truly appalling, is it not. Perhaps the ABC should consult with KJS as they formulate a plan with the unique American polity at its core so they can ubuntu this on down the line?
On the other hand, the qualifications of overspending the Lambeth budget and large blue tents need to be addressed. Why blue? Was it the cheapest or did it carry a secret symbolic message? Was it in fact a visual metaphor for the reality of incipient collapse and destruction or more of an English Advent coloration about impending judgement?
I do not think that the ABC has yet adequately exercised his largely squandered but miniscule remnant of moral leadership in this crisis because of his belief in the need to keep all at the table in dialogue. Perhaps he can call a Primates of the Capitalists meeting and subvert it to complete the charade?
Well I certainly have plenty of “diffused resentment” over here in the US . . . against the State for bailing out the banks that made the horrible decisions for which Rowan Williams is now claiming that are not accepting responsibility.
I’ve got an idea. How about the State not bail out businesses that get themselves into trouble, and then there will be no need to “cap bonus payments” with the added bonus of our not having to fear their making further horrible decisions down the road.
Then we can all have that blessed “feeling of closure.”
A silly thing like capping bonus payments — which merely makes recruiting experienced people for State-controlled businesses even more challenging — doesn’t bring a “feeling of closure” at all for me.
When one does something stupid and the punishment is getting trillions of dollars shoveled into your business, can someone tell me why anyone would refrain from doing something stupid again?
and even before the shoveling, they were told to lend $$ to people who could not afford to pay it back, which precipitated the need to do the shoveling. your government at “work” for you…..
Authentic Christians to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Repent.
Hey, what about a covenant? If we carefully craft something that is so ambiguous that anyone can read whatever they want into it and ensure that it has absolutely NO consequences if anyone violates it we should be able to fix these unfortunate problems. If anyone should object, we could always go to two tracks! On second thought, does anyone REALLY care anymore what the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks?
In a free market, stupidity earns it’s own reward. No gov’t needed.