Pursuit of wealth 'led to downturn'

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The Archbishop of York has claimed the financial crisis was inevitable because of society's obsession with making money.
The Archbishop of York castigates bankers for the economic downturn in his Easter message

Dr John Sentamu castigated financiers for abandoning all fear of risk and being blind to the dangers of unregulated markets.
In a strongly worded Easter message, he also pointed the finger at society as a whole, arguing that a greed culture had led to the downturn.
He said bankers should have heeded the words of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of America, who said that banks without proper regulation had the power to "destroy individuals, communities and nations".
"As a society our collective pursuit of making money reaped its reward and a collapse was unavoidable."
He continued: "Did we really think that interest rates, house prices and mortgage offers would go on rising without a limit, like a juggler optimistically adding more and more balls to his act with only the same two hands to catch them?"
Dr Sentamu said that the dangers of seeking personal gain in a "culture of bonuses" should have been avoided, while opportunities to do good should have been taken up.
"God's intervention in the system is not by underwriting avarice but by calling us to account," he said.

Pursuit of wealth 'led to downturn' - Yahoo! News UK

[Guest]

Re: Pursuit of wealth 'led to downturn'

The Church does not do too badly at making money either.

There is an organisation called the Church Commissioners. The Commissioners' role is to manage the Church's historic assets, today invested in stock market shares and property, to produce money to support the Church's ministry. They are not permitted to engage in short selling, but they do have the ability to invest in instruments to protect funds under their management against adverse currency movements. There are no positions in hedge funds or direct exposure to sub-prime assets. Ethical investment has been the cornerstone of the Church of England's Commissioners for many years, dating back to the 1940s.

The Commissioners' fund was worth £3.9 billion at the end of 2003, £4.2 billion at the end of 2004, £4.8 billion at the end of 2005, £5.3 billion at the end of 2006 and £5.7 billion at the end of 2007. The Church Commissioners achieved a return of 9.4 per cent on their investments in 2007. This far exceeded the return of 7.0 per cent from the fund’s comparator group for that year. Over the past 10 years, the Commissioners’ total return on their investments has averaged 9.5 per cent per year – placing them in the top two per cent of funds in the comparator group for the decade.

Avarice or not, they have never had it so good.