The Economic Crisis, St. Basil, Aliens, and Greg Farrell's Prediction

Reading The Fathers, a collection of Pope Benedict's homilies about the Church Fathers, I have consistently been struck by how much these of these men's wisdom relates to modern life.

For instance, reading about St. Basil yesterday, this instantly made me think of the economic crisis and the greedy, selfish, thoughtless people whose desire for gain has hurt so many.

In times of famine and disaster, the holy bishop exhorted the faithful with passionate words "not to be more cruel than beasts ... by taking over what people possess in common or by grabbing what belongs to all."

Or as Ellen Ripley paraphrases pithily in Aliens (you didn't know that St. Basil was in there, did you?):

I don't know which species is worse. You don't see them f*****g each other over for a goddamn percentage!

Ah yes. That about sums it up.

Finally, I listened to the Monday morning memo yesterday and it has a fascinating revelation that goes to the point I made when talking about that economic crisis explanation video. This is everybody in Congress's fault. Everybody.

Greg was America’s only reporter in the courtroom for every minute of the trials of Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Martha Stewart. As an investigative reporter Greg dug deep, full time, year after year. “Roy, the SEC is being set up to take the fall for a series of financial disasters,” he said. “This whole Enron thing is just the tip of the iceberg.”

“What do you mean?”

“The number of publicly traded companies has grown exponentially in recent years, yet the budget for the SEC had been increased by only a small amount. Think of it this way,” Greg said, "Andy and Barney did a pretty good job patrolling Mayberry, but now they’re being told they have to patrol Los Angeles without any additional help, and without any bullets for their guns.”

Go read it all and check out the links.