tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708139263643046536.post4518888379701630130..comments2024-03-28T05:34:06.484-04:00Comments on Kresta In The Afternoon: Today on Kresta - June 16, 2010Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7708139263643046536.post-62381735381983537062010-06-17T10:17:15.876-04:002010-06-17T10:17:15.876-04:00Mr. Kresta, I enjoyed your talk with Dr. Gregg alt...Mr. Kresta, I enjoyed your talk with Dr. Gregg although you didn't touch much on "Globalization", which I was hoping y'all would be able to do. Are you familiar with Dr. Gregg's book "The Commercial Society"? I would love to at least peruse it, but I can't find any free previews online and no local bookstores/libraries carry it. Your recommendation, however, would be a solid one.<br /><br />I was very unimpressed with Dr. Claar and his discussion of Fair Trade coffee. You even asked him something like "so there needs to be more demand [I'm assuming you meant good practicing Christians taking solidarity to heart] for this coffee?" and he went into a tangent about supply, demand, price, and an extra "$.23". Granted, he's an economist, probably of the neoclassical bent, whose job it is to propogate certain notions about supply and demand; but as a Christian I'm surprised he didn't point-blank answer you in the affirmative. I remember some time ago I posted this link to your website (http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0904038.htm) and you said that you were hoping to interview Msgr. Schaffer, but I've not heard anything about this since! It seems to me that here is a man, and his people, who are living what Venerable John Paul II called us to live when he exhorted us to recognize that certain practices/products/needs/goals must fall outside the confines of the "market" because of the market's iron-adherence to ideas like the supply- and demand-curves (Cent. Ann. #34) Here is a link to Msgr. Schaffer's San Lucas Mission, which is the nexus of his coffee exploits: http://www.dnu.org/service/sanlucas.html . Furthermore, here in Dallas there is a wonderful, yet small, group of people sacrificing time and capital to start a similar business of coffee. For Mr. Claar to simply dismiss such ideas as "inefficient" or "not in line with demand" doesn't reach the primary "ought" of whether these practices are good, which should then motivate us to find creative, Christian ways of bringing them to fruition.<br /><br />I don't mean to sound polemical, but as you can tell this interview rubbed me the wrong way. I remain <br /><br />Sincerely yours in Christ,<br /><br />Matthew WadeMatthew Wadehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17048985128891457311noreply@blogger.com