A Company Liberals Could Love

FOR a generation now, liberals have bemoaned the disappearance of the socially conscious corporation, the boardroom devoted to the common good. Once, the story goes, America’s C.E.O.s recognized that they shared interests with workers and customers; once wages and working hours reflected more than just a zeal for profits. But then came Reagan, deregulation, hostile takeovers, and an era of solidarity gave way to the age of Gordon Gekko, from which there’s been no subsequent escape.

There are, however, exceptions: companies that still have a sense of business as a moral calling, which can be held up as examples to shame the bottom-liners.

One such company was hailed last year by the left-wing policy website Demos “for thumbing its nose at the conventional wisdom that success in the retail industry” requires paying “bargain-basement wages.” A retail chain with nearly 600 stores and 13,000 workers, this business sets its lowest full-time wage at $15 an hour, and raised wages steadily through the stagnant postrecession years. (Its do-gooder policies also include donating 10 percent of its profits to charity and giving all employees Sunday off.) And the chain is thriving commercially — offering, as Demos put it, a clear example of how “doing good for workers can also mean doing good for business.”

Of course I’m talking about Hobby Lobby, the Christian-owned craft store that’s currently playing the role of liberalism’s public enemy No. 1, for its successful suit against the Obama administration’s mandate requiring coverage for contraceptives, sterilization and potential abortifacients.

Read the rest here.

This thoughtful article has been getting a lot of attention on the blogosphere, but I thought I'd bump it for the benefit of anyone who missed it.

Welcome to the Everything Boom (or Bubble?)

In Spain, where there was a debt crisis just two years ago, investors are so eager to buy the government’s bonds that they recently accepted the lowest interest rates since 1789.

In New York, the Art Deco office tower at One Wall Street sold in May for $585 million, only three months after the going wisdom in the real estate industry was that it would sell for more like $466 million, the estimate in one industry tip sheet.

In France, a cable-television company called Numericable was recently able to borrow $11 billion, the largest junk bond deal on record — and despite the risk usually associated with junk bonds, the interest rate was a low 4.875 percent.

Welcome to the Everything Boom — and, quite possibly, the Everything Bubble. Around the world, nearly every asset class is expensive by historical standards. Stocks and bonds; emerging markets and advanced economies; urban office towers and Iowa farmland; you name it, and it is trading at prices that are high by historical standards relative to fundamentals. The inverse of that is relatively low returns for investors.

Read the rest here.

Memory Eternal!

Metropolitan Volodymyr, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (the real one), has reposed after a long illness. May his memory be eternal!

Many Years....

To Archbishop Joseph who was elected to be the new Metropolitan of the Antiochian Archdiocese in North America. He replaces the late (and controversial) Metropolitan Philip.

Supreme Court Backs Christian College on Contraception Sparking Sharp Dissent

The three female justices of the Supreme Court sharply rebuked their colleagues Thursday for siding with a Christian college in the latest battle over providing women with contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act, saying the court was retreating from assurances offered only days ago.

In a short, unsigned opinion, the court said that Wheaton College in Illinois, at least temporarily, does not have to comply even with compromise provisions in the law that the college says still violate its religious beliefs.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the action cast doubt on the very accommodation the court’s majority seemed to endorse Monday in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which concerned businesses that objected to providing birth control that offends the owners’ beliefs.

“Those who are bound by our decisions usually believe they can take us at our word,” wrote Sotomayor, who was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. “Not so today.”

She said Thursday’s order “evinces disregard for even the newest of this court’s precedents and undermines confidence in this institution.”

Read the rest here.

WAPO's Hit Piece on a Libertarian Camp Rally

The bias is so naked and extreme  it could pass for comedy.

Feast of St. John Maximovitch

Some Perspectives on The Great War

AG has posted links to several reflections on the Great War that are well worth a read. It is quite impossible to understand modern history without grasping the catastrophe of 1914-18. Nor is it an exaggeration when we say that almost all of the evils of the last century can be traced to this calamity.

BIS Sounds Cautionary Note to Central Bankers

The Bank for International Settlements — the Swiss-based financial institution that acts as a counterparty to national central banks — has declared that stock markets are in a "euphoric" state and has urged central banks globally to begin tightening interest-rate policies now while economies are growing rather than wait for another recession, when it will be too late.

Those are scary words coming from a set of economists whose job it is to monitor how capable central banks are of responding to economic conditions with flexible monetary policy.

The subtext (and not so subtext) of BIS's annual report is that, because many central banks have reduced interest rates to zero — the U.S. and Japan included — they are without weapons to boost the economy should another crisis hit. You can't go lower than zero, basically.

These words from the BIS ought to terrify anyone who thought central banks were unprepared for the last recession in 2007, when U.S. interest rates were "high" at about 5.3%:

Financial markets are euphoric, but progress in strengthening banks’ balance sheets has been uneven and private debt keeps growing. Macroeconomic policy has little room for manoeuvre [sic] to deal with any untoward surprises that might be sprung, including a normal recession.

Read the rest here.

Memo to Pope Francis and Patriarch Kyril

Communism is not compatible with Christianity. It is arguably the most patently evil ideology yet devised and widely subscribed to by human beings. How these two men could not grasp that is a mystery to me. I am especially embarrassed by Patriarch Kyril's action which I find indefensible. But the Pope should know better too.

Two More Big Wins from the Supreme Court

Unlike the two big ones from last week, today's decisions were not unanimous. But in a pair of 5-4 rulings the court limited the power of public sector unions to force non-members to pay union fees and also ruled in the much anticipated Hobby Lobby case that "closely held" private companies with a strong religious ethos cannot be compelled to pay for employee contraceptives.

100 Years Ago: The Beginning of the End of Civilization

Go here to read the entire edition of The New York Tribune from June 29, 1914.

Ukraine's Ancient Hatreds

IN 1708, Charles XII of Sweden invaded Ukraine. His aim was to use it as a base for a final advance on Peter the Great’s Moscow. The Cossack hetman, Ivan Mazeppa, decided to throw his lot in with the Swedes in a bid to secure Ukraine’s complete independence. His decision split the Cossacks; while some followed Mazeppa, others elected a new leader, Ivan Skoropadsky, who reaffirmed his loyalty to the Cossack alliance with Russia. The following year, Charles was defeated by Peter at the climactic Battle of Poltava, Russia emerged as a player in European affairs, Ukraine was brought under closer control by the imperial government and Mazeppa fled into exile.

Was he a traitor who received his just rewards for his perfidy? Or was he a freedom fighter? The former is a more prevalent attitude in eastern Ukraine as well as the dominant narrative in Russia itself. The Russian Orthodox Church thus anathematized Mazeppa for breaking his oath of loyalty to Peter, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which remains affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate, continues to refuse to lift this sentence. Mazeppa is held up as an example of traitors who would sunder the unity of the East Slavic peoples. For Ukrainians who seek to join the Euro-Atlantic community, conversely, Mazeppa is a tragic hero who failed to bring Ukraine out from under Russian domination through an alliance with Western powers. His portrait graces the Ukrainian ten-hryvnia note. (Keep in mind that neither Benedict Arnold nor Robert E. Lee can be found on U.S. money.) However, a street named in his honor in Kiev was changed after the government of Viktor Yanukovych came to power in 2010.

Read the rest here.
HT: Dr. Tighe

On the Eve of the End of the World

The news coverage was remarkably pedestrian.

Yet another great court ruling

Here's to another great decision from the courts for personal freedom, and a black eye for the nanny state.

The Bloomberg big-soda ban is officially dead.

The state’s highest court on Thursday refused to reinstate New York City’s controversial limits on sales of jumbo sugary drinks, exhausting the city’s final appeal and handing a major victory to the American soft-drink industry, which bitterly opposed the plan.

In a 20-page opinion, Judge Eugene F. Pigott Jr. of the New York State Court of Appeals wrote that the city’s Board of Health “exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority” in enacting the proposal, which was championed by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

Read the rest here.

OK. Let's be brutally honest here. Soda is one of the worst things sold for human consumption that doesn't come with a health warning label attached. But while the government is within its rights to warn the citizenry about the health risks of certain products, in the end what people choose to eat or drink is their own business. So for those craving a super sized cup of liquid diabetes, drink up and rejoice! It's still a semi free country, even in New York.

Three Big Wins for Constitutional Government

The US Supreme Court has delivered a series of rare unanimous decisions that curb the power of the state and protect civil liberties.

In the first case the 9-0 ruling said that cops must get a warrant before they can go looking through someone's cell phone, even if that person has been arrested. The court held that in the modern world people keep much of their lives on their cell phones and that this clearly was the sort of thing the framers had in mind when they wrote the Fourth Amendment.

In the second case, the court delivered a stinging rebuke to President Obama's claim that he had the authority to decide when the Senate was or was not in session and could make recess appointments when he said so. Bottom line; no Mr. President, you don't get to decide when Congress is in session or not.

And in the third case, the still unanimous court struck down buffer zones set up around murder factories er... abortion mills to keep protestors away. The court, ruled that this violates the First Amendment rights of anti-abortion protestors.

All in all its been a great 24 hours for civil libertarians, constitutional government and the rule of law in general.

Archbishop Leo of Finland: Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches form fullness of Orthodoxy

Helsinki: In his speech during the reception provided to the Patriarchs of Alexandria on 23rd June 2014, Archbishop Leo of Karelia and All Finland stated that Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches form the fullness of Orthodoxy. He also recalled that late lamented Patriarch Athenagoras, always stressed on the true essence and fullness of Orthodoxy in Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches.

Archbishop Leo stressed that the relationship between the Church of Finland and Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate is very deep. There are large numbers of Coptic communities living in different parts of Finland. He recalled meeting with the predecessors of Coptic (Pope Shenouda III) and Alexandrian Patriarchates (Parthenius III & Peter VII).

The Primate of Finnish Church thanked Pope Tawadros II and Pope Theodore II for their historical visit to Finland and blessed presence in the country.

Several Orthodox Prelates, faithful and high level delegations from different organizations attended the events.

Source

60 Minutes Story on the Persecution of the Copts

Embed is not working. Go here to watch the segment.

Yet another schism in the Ukraine

This time it's among the Greek Rite Catholics . I am starting to wonder if there might be something in the water over there. It seems that whatever its political problems, it is also the land of ecclesiological chaos.