Circumstances: Looking at the Newspapers, 2/12/19 (International)

Nikkei Asian Review, "Election risks reigniting Philippines inflation: Failure to fix economic bottlenecks leaves country vulnerable to price pressure"

What might Milton Friedman make of the Philippines today? The Nobel economist popularized the theory that inflation is "always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." Since the 1960s, his argument that demand for money controlled all prices won converts from London to Tokyo. Look no further than the Bank of Japan's deflation battle and you see the American's outsized influence 12 years after his death. But events in Manila show that even the great man was not always right. Last month, President Rodrigo Duterte's team demanded that the Manila central bank explain why the nation suffers the highest inflation in Southeast Asia. Though price pressures cooled in late 2018, the 5.2% annualized rate far exceeded the 2.9% gain in 2017. The response from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas was to say to Duterte's team, in effect, -- look at yourselves in the mirror. [link]

Vatican Insider, “'Catholic and Muslim theologians allied to build cohesion”

In Europe - a land dominated by a culture obsessed with self-care, independence from all constraints and optimization of enjoyment as a strategy of happiness – it is a well-known fact - experienced on a daily basis - that social bonds are increasingly disintegrating. While the fact that many people commit themselves every day, with joy and hard work, passion and self-denial, to mending this Europe is perhaps less known evidence. It is this fine work of mending, this generous work of care and safeguard attentive to all that prevents the European world from sinking, that encourages and restores life and vigor to the souls prostrated by bullying and disheartenment, as well as to the souls dazzled by idols and addicted to indifference and narcissism. This weaving of good bonds takes many forms: one, which is still taking its first steps, is represented by an Islamic-Christian theological dialogue group made up of Catholic and Muslim intellectuals (ten, mostly resident in France) who work together to build social cohesion. This group includes Father Claudio Monge, a 50 years old Dominican priest particularly involved in dialogue between Christians and Muslims, he has lived in Istanbul for 15 years where he is parish priest of the Saints Peter and Paul church and head of the DoSt-i Study Center (Dominicans Study Istanbul, an acronym that means "friend, partner" in Turkish), both located in the Galata district, where Dominicans have been present since 1233. Author of the recent volume "The Martyrdom of Hospitality" (Ed. Dehoniane), in this conversation with Vatican Insider Father Claudio tells of the life and work of this group. [link]

BBC News, "The library of forbidden books"

T“The literature… mainly consists of books that were published long before 1933 but then became a thorn in the Nazis’ side for different reasons,” says Gerhard Stumpf, librarian at the University of Augsburg. “Most of them were Jewish authors – others were socialist or Communist authors – and also anti-war authors who experienced the pain of World War One.” From 1976 until his death in 2013, Georg P Salzmann collected about 12,000 books that had been banned – and burnt – by the Nazis for being ‘un-German’. His father – a Nazi – had shot himself in 1945, when Georg was a teenager. What became known as the Library of Burnt Books was sold to the University of Augsburg in 2009 – and is now open to the public. Stumpf describes the first book that Salzmann bought, as well as how one author witnessed his own books being burnt. [link]

Crux, "A simple defrocking won’t mean the McCarrick case is over"

ROME - Various news agencies have reported, and Crux has confirmed, that the Vatican will shortly announce a ruling in the case of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused of sexual abuse of a 16-year-old boy more than 50 years ago as well as various incidents with adult priests and seminarians. By all accounts, McCarrick will lose his clerical status, more commonly known as being “laicized” or “defrocked.” When that decision is involuntary, it’s considered the death penalty for a cleric in Church law, the most severe punishment that can be imposed for especially heinous offenses. McCarrick already received an unusual sanction in July, when he became the first cardinal in a century to lose his red hat. Assuming the laicization happens, he would also be the highest-ranking Catholic cleric in modern times to suffer that penalty. Much of the reporting has indicated that the timing of the announcement is deliberate, in that Pope Francis and his Vatican team want the McCarrick case to be resolved before a high-profile summit of presidents of bishops’ conferences from around the world on the clerical abuse scandals set for Feb. 21-24. Here’s the thing, however: Even if McCarrick is defrocked, that hardly would mean his case is over. [link]

The New York Times, "For Decades, the United States and Russia Stepped Back From the Brink. Until Now."

Before the fear of being blown up on a plane, or a train, or a sidewalk gave millions of people sleepless nights, before the threat of global climate disaster stirred dread, nuclear annihilation was the stuff of nightmares. By the mid-1980s, the United States and the Soviet Union had amassed 63,000 nuclear weapons, with the promise of mutually assured destruction if even one were ever used, even accidentally. Then, after years of global protests and skyrocketing budgets, American and Soviet leaders stepped back from the brink and began a process of arms control diplomacy, accelerated by the fall of the Soviet Union, that shrank those arsenals by nearly 90 percent. For decades, that process and that diplomacy continued … until now. President Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who control 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, are preparing to abandon the 1987 treaty that eliminated ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 310 miles to 3,100 miles. They have yet to begin serious talks on extending a 2010 treaty that reduced the nuclear warheads deployed on intercontinental ballistic missiles and other strategic systems, and the Americans, in particular, don’t appear to have any interest in doing so. Washington and Moscow are also modernizing old weapons systems and building new ones, at a cost of $494 billion over the next decade in the United States alone. [link]

Asia Times, "Jordan Peterson has a Confucian streak"

Canadian clinical psychiatrist Jordan Peterson created a firestorm last year when he published 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. Peterson claims that the welfare state, radical feminism, and identity politics have undermined traditional Western values of self-reliance. In the past 50 years, Peterson argues, Marxism and Post-Modernism have taken over academia and produced a monoculture in the humanities that silences dissenting (conservative) voices. Moreover, radical feminism and its mantra of “toxic masculinity” have made men insecure and defensive. 12 Rules for Life has made Peterson public enemy No. 1 among progressives, leftists and feminists. Ask progressives what accounts for Peterson’s appeal and they argue that his followers are sexist, bigots and racist. But it is easy to make the case, as Peterson does, that the West is in crisis, paralyzed by social and economic problems that democracy seems unable to solve. Wealth disparity has resulted in massive social dislocation, a lowering of living standards, alienation and widespread drug addiction. Suicide rates in the US have caused a reduction in life expectancy. San Francisco, the epicenter of the digital revolution, has more drug addicts than high school students. Peterson’s bête noire is the various “isms” that have dominated the intellectual debate in recent decades: Marxism, Post-Modernism, and feminism. [link]