Economics & Morality

Govtrack.us - A civic project to track Congress

OpenSecrets.org - Center for Responsive Politics

The Tax Foundation

The Mint Act of 1792

Contacting the Congress

Government Spending.com

Articles from the Parish Priest

• Is "Social Credit" a Catholic Alternative? (to the Federal Reserve)
• Caritas in Veritate? July Comment
• The Morality of the Great Depression - October AD 2008 -- ?? (In Progress)
• Yeah, but they did make the trains run on time October 08 "Comment"
• A deceitful balance is an abomination before the Lord 9/08 "Comment"
• Politics, Abortion, War, Torture, Usury, and Theft (9/08 "Comment"
• The Enron Debacle - NP -September AD 2008
• Morality of Speculating - August-September AD 2008
• Timeline of the Great Depression
• “The Just Price?” - July AD 2008
• Bears, Bailouts, and Banking - Federal Reserve  June AD 2008
• Usury and Interest - NP - circa May AD 2005
• Money: Usury:  Has the Church Changed the Moral Law? - April AD 2005
• Review - Thomas E. Woods, Jr. - The Church and thhe Market:  A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy - June AD 2005
• Distributism? June AD 2000

• Henry Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson  [online] [another online]
• Thomas E Woods, The Church and the Market: A Catholic Defense of the Free Economy
• H.W. Brands, The Money Men: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years' War over the American Dollar
• Murray N. Rothbard, A History of Money and Banking in the United States.  [free .pdf file]
• Ron Paul, M.D., The Revolution: A Manifesto
• G. Edward Griffin, The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
• Robert P. Murphy, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism  [With minor reservations about "free trade."]
• Anthony C. Sutton, The War on Gold
• Murray N. Rothbard, America's Great Depression  But first read this brief article by Rothbard.
• Jim Powell, FDR's Folly
• John T. Flynn - The Roosevelt Myth (online)
• Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression (online)

Foundation for Economic Education Online Library

The First Great Depression

Timeline of the Great Depression (Under Construction)

• Bob Murphy - "correcting Paul Krugman's faulty ghost stories of Herbert Hoover."
• Murray N. Rothbard - "The Great Depression of the 14th Century"  Even "firster"
• Patricia Wagner - Depression Era Recipes
• Ralph Raico - "Facism Comes to America" (Roosevelt)
• Thomas E. Woods - "The Lifeblood of the Empire
• Thomas E Woods - "The Great Gold Robbery of 1933"
• Wikipedia s..v. "Herbert Hoover"
• Thomas J. DiLorenzo - "The New Deal Debubnked"
• Jim Powell "How FDR's New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People" 
• Samuel Francis "The Real Legacy of FDR"
• Thomas E. Woods "The Truth about FDR"
• Cole, Harold L and Ohanian, Lee E. New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis, (U of Hawaii, 2004.   [pdf.]

    President Andrew Jackson, in discussing the Bank Renewal bill with a delegation of bankers in 1832,  said, "Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out."

Dare We Call This One a Depression?

David Gordon Bibliography on the Great Depression

• Dale Steinreich - "100 Years of US Medical Fascism"
• Peter Schiff - "The Fed’s Last Hurrah" [socialist student loans]
• David Friedman - "A Tale of Two Great Depressions.
• John Silveira - "A quick tour of hyperinflation and the possible consequences for America"
• William Buppert - "Green Is Red"  3 October AD 2009
• Peter Schiff - "The Recovery That Isn't"
  [The jobless "recovery"]
• Bloomberg - "Obama Raises ‘10 Deficit Outlook 19% to $1.5 Trillion" Aug 25 '09 [Unemployment up too]
• Jim Quinn - "The Federal Reserve Must Die"
     Long but good - history and nature of the problem of the FED.
• Johnny Kramer - "Tom Woods vs. the Fed"
• Thomas J. DiLorenzo - "Fascialism: The New American System"
• Federal Reserve Hiring Lobbyist for Political War
• Fed's Fisher Says Bank Rescue Plan Would Worsen Fiscal `Chasm'
• Gary North - "California's Day of Reckoning: May 19"
• Thomas E. Woods, Jr. - "No, the Free Market Did Not Cause the Financial Crisis"
• Thomas E. Woods Jr. -"Don’t Know Much About Capitalism" April 28, AD 2009
• Gary North - "The Economics of the Free Ride"
• Chuck Baldwin - "The Big Business/Big Government Axis Of Evil"
• Steve Bierfeldt (C4L) - "Three Health Care Myths"
• Tom Mullen (C4L) - "The Forgotten Right" On property, morality, and society
• Jared Polis - "The Bailouts Are Devouring the Economy"
• Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - "Bailout Bonds?"
• Mr. Obama, "Who is to blame for the financial crisis?" [Contains a nasty word or two]
• Thorsten Polleit -"There will be [Hyper]Iinflation"
• Robert Murphy - "The Threat of Hyper-Depression"
• Bill Bonner - "The Feds Take On the Auto Industry"
• Patrick Buchanan - "Should We Kill the Fed?
• William Anderson -"Stimulating the Economy Into the Ground"
• Anthony Gregory - "The Mixed Economy in Crisis"
• Mark Sanford - "Why South Carolina Doesn't Want 'Stimulus'"
• Jacob Hornberger - "Obama the Socialist and the Cause of Poverty"
• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - "US backing for world currency stuns markets"
• Rep. Michelle Bachmann challenges UN global currency
• AFP - "UN panel touts new global currency reserve system"
• Walter Williams - "The Hell With Our Constitution"
• Gary North - "The FOMC's Plan to Buy $1.1+ Trillion of T-bonds, Mortgage Debt, and "Other Financial Assets""
• AFP -"Was Financial Collapse an Orchestrated Event?"
• Jeff Tucker - 'The Sartorial Silver Lining in the Depression"
• Michael Beitler - "Fannie & Freddie: Why Should You Care?" 
• Serenity Wang (CfL) - "Death by Treasuries"
• Peter Schiff - "It May Surprise Obama" [and Bush]
     But an economy cannot run on consumer loans.
• Robert Higgs - "It Would Be Cheaper to Fight World War II Again" - 26 Feb AD 2009
• Congressman Ron Paul - 25 February AD 2009
• Llew Rockwell - "Hitler Was a Keynesian"
• Michael S. Rozeff - "The FED's Unsound Theories"
• Vladamir Putin Warns US About Socialism
• Michael R. Sesit (Bloomberg) - "Bank Recovery Stalls on Donations to Congress" February AD 2009 
• Floy Lilly - "Thin Air Meets Hot Air"
• Judy Shelton (WSJ) - "We Need a Gold Standard'
• Thomas Woods - "Fed Up With the Fed"
• Michael Beitler - "Roots of the Banking Crisis"
• Jake Towne - "Why Obama's Stimulus Plan Will Fail... and a Better Alternative"
• Reuters - "U.S. governors seek $1 trillion federal assistance"  2 Jan AD 2009
• Rep. Ron Paul - to Congress Nov 20 AD 2008
• George W. Bush Repents:  "the greater threat to economic prosperity is not too little government involvement in the market, it is too much government involvement in the market."
• George Reisman - "The Myth That Laissez-Faire Caused the Economic Crisis"
• Thomas J. DiLorenzo - "How Crackpot Egalitarianism Caused the Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis"
• H.R. 2755: Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act
• Murray Sabrin - "Blame the Government"
• Clueless
• Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
• Barney! "Government is not the solution...."
• WSJ - Fannie Mae's Patron Saint
• ACORNs and Rotten Mortgages.
• Zenit - Novus Ordo Bishops on the US Economy!!
• 1999 NY Times on Fannie and Freddie giving it away.
• AP - "US Mint suspends sale of 24-karat gold coins" (9/26/08)
• Joel Stein - "Bailout? Just do Nothing."
• Gary North - Blaming the Victim: The Free Market
• States prepare for home heating crisis
• Bill Huff - "A Run on the Srate"
• House Republican Plan (9/26/08)  (.pdf)
• The Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President, Former Treasury Secretary, Head of the Congressional Budget Office and Leading Economists All Slam Bailout
• BusinessWeek -Bailout Outrage Races Across the Web
• "$20 million for 17 days on the job" at WaMu!!
• Ten Things You Should Know About Bush's Trillion Dollar Fleecing Plan
• Money and Votes Aligned in Congress's Last [1999] Debate Over Bank Regulation - How the banks got so large
• Ron Paul - "The Austrian School and the Meltdown"
• JP Morgan Chase Buys Troubled Washington Mutual Bank
• Wachovia Shares Plunge as investors question fate
• Lew Rockwell On the President's 9/24 Speech
• Jim Quinn - "US Titanic" Making sense of the Bailout
• President George W. Bush -  9/24/08 Speech
• Tom DiLorenzo - "The Community Reinvestment Act"
• Ron Paul - Creation of the Second Great Depression
• Lila Rajiva - Questions for the Treasury Secretary
• Ron Paul - Statement before the Financial Services Committee;  Statement before the Joint Economic Committee (9/24/08)
• Lila Rajiva - "Putting Lipstick on an AIG"
• Michael S. Rozeff - Paulson's bailout vs. FDIC bailout (9/23/08)

The Gold Standard

• Nixon Shock: 40 Yrs. End of Gold Standard
• Lew Rockwell - "The Death of the Dollar"  The case for  gold and competitive currencies.
• Why is the Price of Gold Exploding While Your Paycheck is Crashing? <4 minute video

• Jacob Hornberger - "Thanks to the Fed, They Already Are Defaulting"

• Tom Woods - "Life With the Fed: Sunshine and Lolipops?"

• Bob Murphy - "David Frum, Neoconservative New Dealer"

• Robert P. Murphy - "The Gold Standard and the Great Depression" October 30, 2009 

• Robert P. Murphy - "Rejoinder to David Frum on the Gold Standard"  January 03, 2008

•  

• Ann Coulter - "Washington Takes a Break from Porn Surfing to Bail out Wall Street"
• Timothy P. Carney (Wash. Examiner) - "Goldman rallies for Obama in Wall Street 'reform'"
• Jack Kenney (New American) - "Finance 'Regulatory Reform' Would Extend to Main Street"
• Jack Kenney (New American) - "Bet 'Short' on Government Credibility"
• Thomas R. Eddlem - "Global Bank Tax Will Be Subject of June G-20 Summit"
• Peter Schiff (Euro pacific) -"New financial regs will likely increase severity of next crisis"
• Sheldon Richman (Campaign For Liberty) — "The Washington-Wall Street Kabuki Dance"
• Reuters - "Goldman Sachs charged with fraud by SEC"
• Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr. (Cato Institute) - "An Economy of Liars"
• Cliff Kincaid (AIM) - "Obama's Wall Street Bill Lets Crooks Escape"
• Vitaliy Katsenelson - "How stealing Chrysler threatens our markets"
•  

Articles Off Site  (Caveat Lector!)

• How Hyperinflation Could Start in America
• America's Next TARP Model - U.S. government loaned banks $7.7 trillion in secret bailout funds at no interest and then borrowed the money back at interest!

• MF Global steals from....

• To my Valued Employees

• Heidi's bar

• "Whose Bread I Eat - His Song I Must Sing"

• Economist Says National Debt Really $211 Trillion
• Economic De-population of the Heartland
• The Problem With Public Housing
• Four Big Lies in Debt Limit Debate
• Obama Needs a Course in Economics 101
• Fueling High Gas Prices
• Doug Bandow - "Rescue the Republican Party from the Interventionists"
• Bob Adelmann (TNA) -"The Government and Goldman Sachs" 6 April AD 2011
• Charles Scaliger (TNA) -"The Government and Goldman Sachs"
• Peter Schiff -"Why Not Another World War?'
• Walter Williams - "Government Aggravated Tragedy" 
• William Anderson - "Another Look at Enron"

• Walter Williams - "Free Markets: Pro-Rich or Pro-Poor" 6/12/10

• Sheldon Richman - "You Really Want Government Drilling for Oil?"

• Lew Rockwell - "Hazlitt's Battle with Bretton Woods" 06/12/10

• Jacob Hornberger (FFF) "The Liberal Assault on the Poor'
• Jacob Hornberger (FFF) - "Minimum Wage Protects the Rich" 05/05/10 And hurts the poor.
• Michael Pollaro (True/Slant) - "Money supply metrics, the Austrian take"
• Art Carden (Mises Institute) - "Why Economics Is Crucial for Ethics"
• New American - "Austrian Economics Rising"
• Floy Lilley - "The Economics of Recycling"
• Thomas Woods - "Intervention and Economic Crisis"
• Robert P. Murphy (Mises Institute) - "DeLong on the Austrians"
• Vedran Vuk - "When Soda Was a Nickel and Social Security Wasn’t Much More"
• Murray Rothbard = "The Value-Added Tax Is Not the Answer"
• Thomas R. Eddlem (New American) - "Austrian Economics Rising"

• Paul Craig Roberts - "Truth Has Fallen and Has Taken Liberty With It
   Good-bye" 24 Maech AD 2010
  [Possibly Roberts' last column]

• Ron Paul - "Healthcare and Economic Realities"
• Lawrence W. Reed - "7 Fallacies of Economics"
• Tyler Durden - "It's Official - America Now Enforces Capital Controls"  03/28/2010
• Martin Masse (NP) "75 years of funny money ...  Since the Bank of Canada was created, the dollar has lost 94% of its value." March 10, 2010 
• Murray Rothbard - "The Philosopher Theologian: St. Thomas Aquinas
• Bill Walker - "The Dead Hand of Foreign Aid"
• Thomas E. Woods, Jr.(LewRockwell) - "Catholic Social Teaching and the Market Economy Revisited: A Reply to Thomas Storck"
• Walter Williams - "Modern Day Lunacy" (Insurance for pre-existing conditions)  13 Teves 5770
• Brian Wilson (Lew Rockwell.com) Prophet Profit
• Bill Walker - "Yet More Aid To Dependent Dictators"  24 December AD 2009
• Ron Paul - Statement Introducing the Free Competition in Currency Act
• Murray N. Rothbard - "The Great Depression of the 14th Century"

• James Pethokoukis (Reuters) China questions costs of U.S. healthcare reform November 16, 2009

• A.P. "[Failed] Olympic pitch cost at least $1 million" 10/2/09
  ** and **
  "Obama's two day trip deposited as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 430 American families do in an entire year.... 
  ** and **
  "The cost of Obama’s trip will not be close to $1 mil.  It is well over $10 mil if it is a dime."
  ** Send the Bill to Chicago! **

• The Fed Fighter: DealBook’s Ron Paul Interview October 2, 2009

• Gabriel Fink  IN gOD WE TRUST

• Michael O'Brien (The Hill) - "Obama open to newspaper bailout bill" 09/20/09
• Craig Torres and Robert Schmidt (Bloomberg) -  Fed Rejects Geithner Request for Study of Governance, Structure
• Michael S. Rozeff - "Bernanke's Collectivism"
• J. H. Huebert - "Hillary Out to Strong-Arm Swiss"
• Thomas J. DiLorenzo - "Socialized Healthcare vs. the Laws of Economics"  29 July AD 2009
• Peter Schiff - "Minimum Wage, Maximum Stupidity"
• Gary North - It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted.
• Sandro Magister (Cheisa) - "Eve of an Encyclical. And from Germany, Marx Reappears"
• Gary North - "Why Gold Owners are Targets of the Government"
• Gary North - The Gold Wars (.pdf)
• Robert Murphy -"A Moment's Reflection"
• Albert Esplugas Boter - "Ten Easy Arguments against Government Intervention"
• Anthony Gregory - "The Mixed Economy in Crisis"
• Mark Sanford - "Why South Carolina Doesn't Want 'Stimulus'"
• Jacob Hornberger - "Obama the Socialist and the Cause of Poverty"
• Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - "US backing for world currency stuns markets"
• Rep. Michelle Bachmann challenges UN global currency
• AFP - "UN panel touts new global currency reserve system"

• Benjamin C. Richards Science Is as Science Does

• Joseph Sobran: The Reluctant Anarchist

• Walter Williams - "Prosperity Lost"

• Lord William Rees-Mogg - "Is Gold Money?"

• Bert. Zamichow - "Wonderland"  October 2008

• R. MAK - "A Brief History of Banking System" February 9, 2009

• R. MAK - 'Monetary Experiment at “the States of Guernsey”' March 9, 2009

• Ron Paul, MD - "End the Fed's Secretiveness" 26 Feb AD 2009

• Scheuttinger and Butler - "Wage and Price Controls in the Ancient World"

• Wilton D. Alston - "What the Heck is "Predatory" Lending?"

• Another Airliner Downed by Federal Policy

• A.D Lelong The Takeover of New York Harbor

• Dr Paul on Enron

• Anderson - "Krugman and the Nobel Fraud"

• Washington Post - "Lehman Credit-Default Swap Payout Could Climb as High as $365 Billion"

• Time - "Credit Default Swaps: The Next Crisis?"

• Thomas DoLorenzo - A Fake Banking History of the United States [in the Wall Street Journal]

• Carden and Murphy on the usefulness to the economy of Short Selling.

• Thomas DiLorenzo - Hamilton "Our Founding Financial Dictator?"

• Why is government SO bad with money?

• Alexander Tabarrok - Separation of Commercial and Investment Bamking:  The Morgans vs. The Rockefellers  [.pdf]

• Thomas Jefferson on Money and Banking

• Michael Rozefff - "Public outrage over bailout,"

• CNN: Commentary: Bailout will lead to rough times
  Note reference to "Community Reinvestment Act required banks to make loans to previously underserved segments of their communities, thus forcing banks to lend to people who normally would be rejected as bad credit risks." 

• Ron Paul - Time is Running Out."

• Jim Quinn - "The Mugging of America"

• Lila Rajiva - "Putting Lipstick on an AIG"

• Multi-Mega-Dollar Fraud at "Fannie" in 2006

• Ron Paul - "Fannie and Freddie" 2003

• Michael Rozeff - The Fed's Failure 17 Sept AD 2008

• Llew Rockwell - "The Social Imperative of Sound Money" On the "stabilizing conservatorship" of Fannie and Freddie.

• George F. Will - "Pencils And Politics. Who commands the millions of people involved in making a pencil? Who is in charge? Where is the pencil czar?  Newsweek Sep 13, 2008

• Bob Higgs - "Ticking Time Bomb Explodes, Public Shocked"  [Fannie and Freddie]

• Mark Thornton - "How to Avoid Another Depression"

• Ron Paul - "In Government we Trust?"
       on Sound Money   [Part 1]    [Part 2]  [Part 3]

• WSJ - ''Their Fair Share"  (Taxes and the Rich)

• Vin Suprynowicccz - " Inflation Rate is 5.6%... and Other Nonsense"

• Isaac M. Morehouse - Government Projects do not "Create Jobs" 

• Dissent on I.O.U.S.A.

• Thomas J. DiLorenzo - "The Myth of the Independent Fed"

• Friedrich August von Hayek  - "The Pretense of Knowledge" (Nobel Prize lecture)

• Lew Rockwell - The Heart of the State [the Fed]

• Rep. Ron Paul - "The Real Meaning of Inflation"

• Who Pays the Income Tax? The "rich" or the poor?

• Who Doesn't Pay Taxes

• History of US Income Tax Rates

•  

• Ron Paul, MD - Money for the Blind

• Time to Bury Fannie & Freddie, Not Praise Them

• Murray N. Rothbard, "Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure'

• Murray Rothbard, "Herbert Hoover's Depression

• William Anderson, Fannie, Freddie, and a Primer in Finance  July AD 2008

• WSJ Where is the Outrage? July AD 2008

• Jesus Huerta de Soto, Juan de Mariana: The Influence Of The Spanish Scholastics 

• Becky Akers - "Wretched Rangel’s Angles and Wrangles" [Rent Control] 19 July AD 2008

• William N. Grigg - "Women and Children Last" On redsitributing the blame for the current economic disaster

• Llew Rockwell _"War and Inflation"   6 June AD 2008

• Thomas E. Woods - "Economics as a Science: A Catholic Defense of the Free Market  1 May AD 2008

• Ron Paul - "Bailing out Banks"

• Ron Paul - "Has Capitalism Failed?"  9 July AD 2007

• Mateusz Machaj  "Oh Keynessian, Where Art Thou?"  8 April AD 2008

• Gary North - "Moral Hazard and Really Stupid Loans"  5 April AD 2008

• Nicholas & Appleyard - "Meet the families where no one's worked for THREE generations - and they don't care"

• Ron Paul - "What the Price of Gold is Telling Us"  15 March AD 2008

• Stan Liebowitz - The Real Scandal" NY Post  February 5, AD 2008
        Those loan defaults were often the result of Cultural Marxism!

• Seven Wonders of Socialism - Deserted Buildings, Bases and More  Web Urbanist  2008

• Sub specie legis - Under the guise of law. Feds raid private mint. NY Sun 16-18 November Ad 2007

• Cheap Labor?

• Thomas E. Woods, Jr. - "What the Warfare State Really Costs"  12 September AD 2007

• Rockwell's Thirty Day Plan

• Robert Murphy - Reading List on Magic Money  20 August AD 2007

• Lew Rockwell, Jr. - "Reality vs. the State" 14 August AD 2007

• Robert Wallach - "Behind the Subprime Crash"  11 August AD 2007

• Richard Owen - "Pope condemns "socially unjust" tax evasion" 11 August AD 2007

• Paul Craig Roberts - "Uncle Sam, Your Banker Will See you now." - 8 August AD 2007

• Gary North - "If the Post Office Ran Wall Street...  (6 August AD 2007)

• Juan Fernando Carpio & Manuel Lora - What if Rousseau and Marx had never existed?" (August 3 AD 2007)

• Adam Brodsky (NY Post) - "The Nanny in Green" (Mama Mike Bloomberg)

• Mark Levin - Fan Forum "Intimidator" -- "This is what happens when ... you've never opened a book on business or exonomics."

• Bob Murphy:  "Economic Growth Doesn't Cause Inflation (The Fed Does)"

• Ron Paul - "The 2008 Federal Budget"

• Greg Perry:  "Fill Up Your Tanks on Gas Boycott Day" [For all of you who sent that mindless e-mail without thinking]

Church Documents on Economics and Morality
Popes, Bishops, Priests, and Religious—much like Politicians— often write about what "ought to be," without careful consideration of how what ought to be can be achieved in actual practice, and what secondary effects it will produce—one cannot change economic reality by decree.  Particularly with some of the earlier documents, one must recognize that the use and nature of money has changed over the centuries.

John XXII

• Quia vir reprobus (1329) Condemning mandatory poverty

Lateran V- Pope Leo X

• Lateran V, Session 10, 4 May 1515 Usury

Pope Benedict XIV

• Vix pervenit (1745)  Usury

Pope Leo XIII

• Quod Apostolici muneris (1878) Condemnation of Socialism
• Aeterni Patris (1879)  Christian philosophy
• Rerum novarum (1891)
• Longinqua oceani (1895) Church in the USA

Pope Saint Pius X

• Pascendi Dominici gregis (1907) Condemnation of Modernism, a philosophical shift toward cultural Marxism
• Singulari quadam (1910) Labor organizations

Pope Pius XI

• Quadragesimo anno (1931) Fortieth anniversary of Rerum novarum.
• Nova Impendet (1931) The Economic Crisis 
• Divini Redemptoris (1937) Atheistic Communism

Pope Pius XII

• Humani generis (1950) Marxism, existentialism

Post Vatican II—Caveat lector
Politely stated, the Vatican II era represents "a Gestalt shift" in the Catholic approach to reality—less politely, one would say "a heresy."  The Modernism condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi  and the Marxism and Existentialism condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani generis are evident in many of the writings of the period.  Modernism, Marxism, and Existentialism all assume a flexible reality dependent on human actions, opinions, and consensus, quite at odds with the fixed reality in the mind of an unchanging God.  "Caveat lector—let the reader beware."

Pope John XXIII

• Mater et Magistra (1961) Christianity & Social Progress
• Pacem in terris (1963) Work, private property

Pope Paul VI

•  Populorum Progressio (
•  Octogesima Adveniens (1971) 80

Pope John Paul II

• Centesimus Annus (1991) 100th Anniversary of Rerum Novarum
• Laborem Exercens (1981) On Human Work

Pope Benedict XVI

• "Fighting Poverty to Build Peace"
     (January 1 AD 2009)
• Caritas in Veritate 29 June AD 2009