More on Moral Hazard

The UK government's attitude to moral hazard seems always to be
to feather bed the profligate at the expense of
the careful thus encouraging profligacy and deterring
prudence.

For example the government
created a pension contingency panel to assist in bailing
out bankrupt pension trusts but funds the panel from
the pension trusts which have been careful enough to maintain
sufficient cash to pay their pensioners.

Politicians invariably keep an eye on their own positions
and re appointment/election prospects so are apt to take
decisions based more on those than on what is right.

Church leaders who have no such potential for personal gain have
no such excuse. I suppose their resounding silence on the moral hazard
aspects of the nation/global financial crisis might be explainable
with reference to the fact that national/world financial regulation is more a
matter for Caesar's laws than God's but the same cannot be said
of such moral hazardous issues such as Catholic adoption agencies
being disenfranchised from the Catholic Church by
government imposed secular principles being given precedence over
Catholic ethos. Earlier generations of Catholics within the UK
died rather than accede to such government dictat.

Where is the view of Catholic leaders in answer to the
points raised during the summer holidays that(courtesy BBC):

"Accord, a new coalition of secular and religious figures, wants the government to stop state-funded schools engaging in what they say is "discrimination".

It argues that all children should have equal access to good local schools and that segregating them on religious grounds harms community cohesion."

Secular government leaders in the UK seem weak on moral hazard issues
at the moment but this would not be so bad if the UK Catholic
leaders in England anyway demonstrated more strength and
a willingness to insist publically that Catholic institutions
must not have their religious ethos diminished by the secular state.