AmericanPapist Comments
Which crash? This speech was given in 1985; the Wall Street slide of October 1987 was yet to come.
That's not so much a prophecy as a truism.
If you've followed Ron Paul's career, you'd be able to add another notable prophet to your list.
Sad that so many Catholics turned their back on Ron Paul, when he was one of their best allies in the election.
Don't say this too loudly or the National News of the Idiotic is going to trumpet this in the headlines, just like they do with Geronimo, Tecumseh, Mother Teresa, William Shakespeare and Edgar Cayce. That the then-Cardinal Ratzinger was being matter-of-fact isn't going to get in the way of a good ballyhoo.
of course it wasn't government forcing lenders to do unethical things or face fines/going out of business....no, it was for-profit companies doing things that were guaranteed to lose them money, totally on their own.
Next to general greed and incompetence, The Federal Reserve and the fiat based currency we use is the ultimate reason for all of these problems.
A non-fiat based currency (that is, a gold or silver based currency) forces financial discipline in the economy. The ability to creation money out of thin air by fiat, as the Federal Reserve does unchecked (and unconstitutionally!) encourages an undisciplined economy. Ergo all the problems we're facing today.
For more information, check out:
Ron Paul
Daily articles on www.lewrockwell.com
And great resources at the Ludwig von Mises Institute: http://mises.org/
Not to take credit away from Ratzinger for his statements, but that understanding/teaching is constantly in modern social teaching on economy that goes back to Leo XIII's Rerum novarum. JPII confirmed the same thoughts in Centesimus annus when he said that w/o obedience to transcendent truth, socio-economic balance is not possible [check out CA #44] - we merely fall into a relativistic pursuit of 'self-interest' which is the basis of our free market in the first place.
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