Financialization of Economics

Excellent piece in The National Post today by Fr. Raymond de Souza on his recent trip to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences for a conference on Economics.  It's hard to imagine a more beautiful place than the Vatican for an academic meeting...he mentions the gardens in the piece and I pulled up a few of my snaps from our recent travels.  We didn't actually get a tour of the gardens.  The only way you can actually enter the gardens is with a guided tour, but we saw bits of it as we toured the Vatican Museum.

But more to the point, Fr. de Souza talks about the lack of discourse in economics of moral hazard and the philosophical dimension in general.  How does the notion of gifts fit?  Or working for the common good?  Or the relationship between doctor and patient, husband and wife?  What does it mean that corporations have become entities to buy and sell, rather than produce something of concrete value?  

Very thought provoking piece, and I'm sure that being in beautiful gardens would make it even more pleasant to contemplate.