Shall we let our financial "experts" do the commentary? How about Ken Lay of Enron, or the leaders of Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, WorldCom, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual or Countrywide Finance? Their expertise was advertised as financial. How about Alan Greenspan or George W. Bush? Do you still want to listen to their financial commentary? They have long claimed that their expertise was directing the economy. I have not noticed any great competence among our so-called financial experts, either in business or government.

My faith system tells me that greed is sinful, that fairness is a virtue. We have seen plenty of the first with the result that the assets in retirement accounts owned by people of all ages have been decimated through gross mismanagement, some of it possibly, even probably, criminal. Yet we have seen huge compensation packages, enormous bonuses and rich golden parachutes given to those who have been guilty of this mismanagement. I hope we are now entering a stage where fairness will again be seen as a virtue. That is why I have the right, and my study gives me the competence, to speak out on issues to which my faith system demands a response.