The Simple Pastor

I recently posted about a series of articles I’ve written on inequality so here are a few links, notably from the always fascinating Freakonomics blog. But first start here with Foreign Policy’s ‘We’re all the 1 percent‘ which demonstrates how even the middle class are globally sitting pretty at the top of the pile. But [...]

He’s done it again, with a sharp pen and elbow, Doug Wilson has wound me up. Fortunately for me, I’m right and he’s wrong. I think. In this post (HT: Andrew Wilson) Wilson poses a thought experiment where you can double the incomes and welfare of the least but in doing do increase the wealth of [...]

The financial crisis affects everybody but not everybody equally. Working in the charity sector (and more specifically, the church) insulated us from much of it and our church was fortunate in that very few were hit by redundancies. Now that we’re in a blissful mortgage free state (and house free state) in another country I thought [...]

The top issue in this election campaign (whether we like it or not) is going to be the economy. Who can we trust to run our nations finances and deal with the nations debt? The state of the economy decides what can be paid for and what must be borrowed for. We’re emerging from a [...]

Blog convergence today as numerous bloggers hit the same subject from different angles: Cranmer castigates Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor for claiming capitalism is dead (we should be so lucky) Make Wealth History takes a look at ethical banking and Dave is forced to vomit after seeing this advert (I agree)

The Archbishop of Canterbury has called the current financial crisis a reality check to a society driven by unsustainable consumption. Which would be nice if we did wake up to that. At the moment though our solutions are turning a blind eye to greed and overconsumption and the only way out it seems is to [...]

Actually I don’t know if that is entirely accurate but they could certainly help. Apparently, according to this report women only wear 30% of their clothes. Women also it seems spend £1000 a year on average (really?) on new clothes. So here’s my reasoning. There are 60 million people in the UK Roughly 50% are [...]

The BBC’s business editor Robert Peston has produced a report on the causes of the current financial crisis and the likelihood of an emergence of a new kind of capitalism. Eye catching stuff with lines like ‘monumental financial folly and ‘over-consumption and a high reliance on credit is the cause of the…financial crisis’. He writes: [...]

Jeremy quotes Andrew Simms on the problems in our economy, “Relentlessly, the UK government presses every button to try to reboot the economy to business-as-usual. They miss that the current, extraordinary period is the best, possibly last and only chance we will have to change our economy and lifestyles. It’s time to get off the [...]

Here’s an arresting chart from Make Wealth History and here’s an eye catching fact: AIG spend on a luxury corporate retreat the same week as the bailout: $440,000 US food aid to Lebanon: $440,000″ Excellent value for money all round I’m sure. Read the whole thing here

It says a lot about the mess our economy (and others like ours) is in when the only way out of depression is if the public continue to rack up enormous personal debt. If we all start to save and pay off debts it will put money back into banks but bankrupt retailers, if we [...]

Matt Hosier preached on this subject at Alder Road. He says, “If you understand God – what Jesus has done, and will do; the awesome majesty of the Father – then you are not going to worry so much about money! Christmas often minimizes Jesus. We see images of the crib and the cattle. We [...]