Bøger af Michael Bindner

This book is a repacking of THE CATHOLIC LEFT RESPONDS TO THE PAPAL ANACHRONISTS. A more dramatic title seemed necessary. I use the term ILLUMINATI in this second edition because it shows that enlightenment thinking in the Church started way before Vatican II or Garibaldi's efforts to end the papal government of Italy. We are, instead, the intellectual children of Erasmus.The Papal Anachronists are popes and their ghost writers in the Curia that write about the unchangeability of both natural law and human nature, in defense of the infallibility of the Papal Magisterium, in opposition to liberalism and democracy, the theory of evolution as it impacts the creation story, which they believe is historic, the unchangeability of marriage and divorce between now and the time of Christ, the evil of sodomy and abortion and the Medieval structure of the Church at large. They also reject any scientific analysis of when life begins, and certainly when it reflects the views of Lambeth.They could easily be called the anti-Modernists, but it is intellectually sloppy to define someone in terms of what they are not. Even in their own writing, Modernism is a slippery concept. As it is written in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, it is very specifically described by St. Pius X, although history records no Catholic modernists that quite fit his straw man. Within a few weeks, Lamentabili Sane defines the errors of modernism a bit more broadly, but by the same Pope and Curia. I am not sure I would call anyone a Modernist according to the first encyclical. I think most modern Catholic Theologians would call themselves Modernists, if only because many of the errors St. Pius lists are now standard practice in theology and biblical scholarship. I became interested in this topic while commenting on the National Catholic Reporter comments page, where some traditionalists like to throw the term modernist out as an insult, including some who are so extreme as to reject modern biology because it conflicts with some the included Encyclicals. This seems to be the key feature of Anachronists, to put loyalty to the Church above the truth. Sadly, some of these people are bishops in charge of disciplining abusive priests. Why am I the one to write this book? As I engaged in arguments over modernity, it wrote itself as related documents emerged. I am not a professional theologian, but a professional theologian could not publish this book without retribution, although the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faithful seems to be holding off on most disciplinary action. I have included those Encyclicals that are particularly strident in defending papal authority as a means to silence further debate or thought, from Gregory XVI and his attack on liberalism to Pius IX and St. Pius X on how Academy should leave some knowledge alone as the province of the Church to Pius XII's last gasp against evolution, to Humanae Vitae by Paul VI and Evangelium Vitae by St. John Paul II, which defend the asexual morality of the celibate clergy Veritatis Splendor which is one last gasp at papal supremacy of theology. I also included contemporaneous comments on Dignitas Personae and the Five Dubia, which take the same Anachronist line.Topics include natural law, natural rights (and why they are not the same), democracy, when life begins, who can be ordained to best preach the Gospel of Life (women), living wages, capitalism, papal teaching authority, scientific inquiry, evolution, the Garden of Eden, original sin, theories of salvation and justification, euthanasia, suicide, abortion, whether God is an Ogre. By raising the topics, you can probably guess what I have to say, especially if you have read my other books (like The Conscience of a Catholic Radical). I will not break the suspense here, for the text awaits.

This version is a bit more radical. The age of Trump will do that to you. Chapter 1 is an Executive Summary.Chapter 2 includes election and campaign finance reform; appointing better bureaucrats; civil service reform; and regional government with seven regions of about 71 electoral votes each. If you want to cut budgets, make regions responsible to enact and fund them with higher or lower value added taxes. (doing so will require the 29th Amendment - ERA is 28). Chapter 3 covers discretionary spending: budget and appropriations reform (realistic caps and automatic appropriations if Congress does not finish in time); a bottom line in government (comparing administrative cost), and regional defense spending. Chapter 4 covers entitlements, from the real cause of the Social Security crisis (which is aging, not funding), cost savings through medical lines of credit and health savings accounts, a compromise using single payer catastrophic and how this will lead to single payer comprehensive anyway when a public option is added to the current system (catastrophic is the Republican solution that they won't talk about). Senior healthcare - aka - Medicare Part E to take senior Medicaid off the states financial ledgers is probably the most essential piece. Chapter 5 rewrites Macroeconomics as we know it. I discuss how fiscal policy affects economic growth by regressions using the financial margin (deficit/surplus + net interest as a percentage of GDP) correlated with economic growth in the next year to allow for multiplier effects, using data from Reagan to Obama and enactment of the TCJA. I then repeat a lot of nasty stuff about the TCJA (as well as what worked about it - which is the confluence of tax rates on capital gains and returns. The Trump economy that resulted is described. It was breaking before COVID. Chapter 6 is a total rewrite of what was Chapter 9, which was a one page summary of the current debt has turned into a book in its own right, Settling (and Squaring) Accounts: Who Owns the National Debt? Who Owns It? This is the updated version of Class Warfare 101, with Advanced Class Warfare on how much the rich earn and owe included in this volume. Chapter 7 addresses how the accumulation of wealth and the creation of money creates leverage over workers, how a Wealth tax could be levied and why doing so won't work. We lay out what will work: our tax reform plan. Our Tax plan includes a receipt visible invoice value added tax (I-VAT); a carbon VAT; a wage surtax, an employer-paid subtraction VAT; and an asset VAT. The last bit is marked to market at option exercise and the first sale after gift or inheritance (or loss of tax records) and it is zero rated for sales to a broad based ESOP. The surtax could be married into the Subtraction VAT, although the highest rates would be separately collected, with the option of purchasing tax prepayment bonds. The SVAT will also be the key feature in state and local finance (allowing many social welfare and education costs to be privatized.

Why should we bother with an analysis of Big Oil and the taxes they pay (or don't pay)? Is there any hope in changing the status quo, or is the TINA correct, that there is no other way? If we don't examine the question, we will never know. Robert Reich posted the now familiar figures on May 5, 2019 about how much Exxon Mobil and other oil companies pay (or rather do not pay) in corporate income taxes. What he writes is absolutely true from a cash basis because current year taxes are reduced by past accrued losses. This actually is reasonable from an accounting view point. Companies operate on an accrual basis, so tax payment should match their accounting system. It seems TINA is correct, or is it. It depends upon your point of view. We are never going to force Big Oil or Big Business to abandon an accounting system that works for us as well. Economists, particularly Marxians, look at additional perspectives. When we do so, we can explore how things really work (what the powers that be do not want you to know) and how things can be done differently (what they really, really, really don't want you to know). There is a better way after all (TIBWA). Oil companies are both a government agency that provides oil and a massive cooperative which also employs teachers, clergy, farmers, food processors, builders, bankers, etc. Either viewpoint is a social or socialistic accounting of their activities. Both viewpoints reflect decisions made in both the public sector and by management. The value in this analysis is to lay bare these decisions and explore options.