---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Week (Assai) <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 11:19 PM Subject: World economic system is 'madness', puts money ahead of people, Pope Francis says - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) To: Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> An unlikely ally? ;-) D http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pope-francis-says-global-economy-disca... World economic system is 'madness', puts money ahead of people, Pope Francis says Updated 40 minutes ago [image: Pope Francis] <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pope-francis-says-mass-in-jeruselum/5523242>* Photo:* Pope Francis says the global economy puts money ahead of people and discards the young and old. (Reuters: Jack Guez, file photo) <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-13/pope-francis-says-mass-in-jeruselum/5523242> *Related Story:* Pope says Israeli, Palestinian presidents 'must respond' to yearning for peace <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-09/pope-urges-courage-for-peace-at-prayer-with-abbas-peres/5509016> *Related Story:* Pope in Bethlehem urges end to Middle East conflict <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-25/pope-francis-in-bethlehem-urges-an-end-to-the-middle-east-confl/5476600> Pope Francis has launched a sweeping attack on the world's economic system, saying it discards the young, puts money ahead of people and survives on the profits of war. The 77-year-old leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics said some countries had a youth unemployment rate of more than 50 per cent, with many millions in Europe seeking work in vain. "It's madness," the Pope said in an interview with the Barcelona-based Vanguardia daily's Vatican correspondent Henrique Cymerman. "We discard a whole generation to maintain an economic system that no longer endures, a system that to survive has to make war, as the big empires have always done," he said. "But since we cannot wage the third world war, we make regional wars. "And what does that mean? That we make and sell arms. And with that the balance sheets of the idolatrous economies - the big world economies that sacrifice man at the feet of the idol of money - are obviously cleaned up." Pope Francis says there is enough food to feed all the world's hungry. The rich and the rest <http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4024239.htm> <http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4024239.htm> French academic and economist Thomas Piketty talks to the ABC's PM about the world's growing inequality. <http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4024239.htm> "When you see photographs of malnourished children you put your head in your hands, you cannot understand it," he said. "I think we are in a global economic system that is not good." The Pope says the people's needs should be at the heart of the economic system. "But we have placed money in the centre, the god of money. We have fallen into the sin of idolatry, the idolatry of money. The economy moves by the desire to have more and paradoxically it feeds a disposable culture," he said. The pontiff said the young were discarded when "the birth rate is limited" and the old were discarded when they no longer were considered productive. "By discarding children and the old, we discard the future of a people because the young will pull us strongly forward and the old will give us wisdom," he said. *AFP* *Topics:* catholic <http://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/catholic>, religion-and-beliefs <http://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/religion-and-beliefs>, unemployment <http://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/unemployment>, globalisation---economy <http://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/globalisation---economy>, holy-see-vatican-city-state <http://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/holy-see-vatican-city-state> First posted Fri 13 Jun 2014, 9:59pm AEST -- *Please note an intrusion wiped out my inbox on February 8; I have no record of previous communication, proposals, etc ..* P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/