The Pope’s “missive” has caused quite some reaction.

I enjoyed this informative post in the Wonkblog at the Washington Post. Pope Francis has a few thoughts about the global economy. We added these 13 charts.

It’s an excellent recital of the Pope’s main claims about the big current economic trends and about inequality. It then shows charts of evidence from all over the place about those claims. It’s quite a long post, but you can breeze through the charts quickly and get the gist if you are time poor. It’s information, not biased commentary.

We need more leaders like the Pope. But whilst he has huge moral force, he doesn’t have obvious political or economic clout.

Obama showed early promise, but appears over the years to have been “defeated” by the entrenched elites’ “system” (Wall Street power, for example). If the leadership doesn’t come from the White House, where then?

Maybe Russell Brand is right … a revolution will come from the people … or maybe this comment at the end of the above Wonkblog (that I wish I could claim authorship of!) is the answer:

Capitalism, like democracy, really only works morally when engaged in by moral people. Both are by definition, freedom. When moral people have freedom, they tend to make moral decisions. The immoral, immoral decisions. The corporations, and the voting masses, are both now overrun by the immoral. This is why the corporations make decisions that are so greed oriented, and the voters vote for the welfare state. The solution needs to be found in the hearts of men, one man at a time.

… but if one at a time is the way, we’d better get a move on!