At least Obamacare comes at us head on. The greater legislative threat may be the one that most Americans have never heard of. Economist Scott Powell and Acton friend Jay Richards explain in a new piece in Barron’s:

While Obamacare received more attention, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, also known as Dodd-Frank after its Senate and House sponsors, … unleashed a new regulatory body, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, to operate with unprecedented power.

Dodd-Frank became law in 2010 and is supposed to avert the next financial crisis. Yet banks are still too big to fail and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac remain wards of the state, while the CFPB has been given sweeping authority over consumer credit and other financial products and services that played no significant role in the crisis of 2008.

Powell and Richards then offer some specifics:
Read more on Dodd-Frank: The Other Serious Threat…

Acton Institute is once again offering a free ebook; this time, Banking, Justice and the Common Good. From now until May 5, 2012 at 3 a.m. EST, you can click on this link and download the monograph for free.

Read more on Free ebook: Banking, Justice and the Common Good…

My sister has a small pillow in her bedroom that’s embroidered with the words “She who dies with the most shoes wins.” I’m sure Lloyd Blankfein’s daughter has one just like it. And you’d think that the patchouli-scented Occupy Wall Street crowd might not like such a pillow, but you’d be wrong, as Ray Nothstine pointed out in this week’s Acton Commentary. The anger at Zuccotti Park isn’t sparked by greed on Wall Street, it’s sparked by greed in Zuccotti Park.

Read more on Unions Go Shoe Shopping…

My commentary this week addresses the demonstrations in New York and in other cities against free enterprise and business. One of the main points I make in this piece is that “lost in the debate is the fundamental purpose of American government and the importance of virtue and a benevolent society.” Here is the list of demands by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. It is in essence a laundry list of devastating economic schemes and handouts. Additionally, the demands are counter to America’s founding principles. The commentary is printed below:

Read more on Class Warriors for Big Government…

On the Sojourners blog, Shane Claiborne marks the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi by absurdly wondering if “he’d be on Wall Street protesting today.” This follows the practice of shrinking Jesus Christ and various saints of the church down to pocket size (What Would Jesus Cut?) in order to fit them into whatever pet political project is at hand, in this case the Occupy Wall Street antics. Not the whole saint in the context of history, mind you, which could be inconvenient, but a happy little Smurf-Saint you can use to practice ventriloquism.

Read more on St Francis on Wall Street…

For some, in our still largely affluent society, there is a deep seated need to be a member of the victim class. The background of your socioeconomic privilege is no obstacle, as they must create a narrative that points to being a victim. While some might aspire to sainthood, others aspire to victimhood. This video and report courtesy of The Blaze sums it up well. It would be unfortunate if charades like this drown out the real instances of injustice and those that are truly marginalized.

Read more on The Need to be a Victim…

When we think of rule of law failure, countries like Zimbabwe and Somalia come to mind. But as Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg points out in his latest piece over at Public Discourse, rule of law can also be subtly eroded in wealthy countries. The negative consequences for risk-taking, entrepreneurship, and long term investment, he says, can be far-reaching.

Read more on Risk, Uncertainty, and Rule of Law…

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, delivered a talk on theology and economics at New York’s Trinity Church last week. The historic Wall Street church was the site of the Building an Ethical Economy: Theology and the Marketplace conference which promised to “bring together leading theologians and economists to talk about the relationship between economics and Christian belief and action.”

Read more on Rowan Williams on Wall Street…

In a new essay at The American, Jay Richards explains why capitalism isn’t based on greed.

In Acton’s first documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur, Richards along Rev. Robert Sirico, Sam Gregg, Michael Novak and others touch on this matter in making the moral case for the free economy.

Read more on Capitalism is Not Based on Greed…

“The Deal Professor,” Steven M. Davidoff, has a good piece at The New York Times website about the indispensability of finance to our economy. It briefly rebuts the view popularized in the Oliver Stone movie Wall Street, in which financiers are portrayed as greedy parasites. I left a comment at the web page, noting that our documentary The Call of the Entrepreneur makes a similar case. I include the comment below, since it may not pass muster with the page’s comment moderator:

Read more on The Inevitability of Finance And The Call of the Entrepreneur…