Word: freedoms
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...delight of investors, BofA was pushing for the freedom to make risky loans at the same time it was aggressively repurchasing shares. Since 1998, it has spent $62 billion on share buybacks, according to S&P. The result is that over the past decade, BofA's tangible-capital ratio - the amount of tangible equity in relation to tangible assets - has nearly halved from 5% in 1998 to 2.8% in the third quarter of 2008. It became a bank built on air. (See pictures of scared traders...
What comes next may be even more troubling. Since the lifting of the excommunication is just a first step in what would be a long process of reconciliation - including the thorny issue of the Lefebvrites' recognition of Vatican II (interfaith dialogue, religious freedom, et al.). It will ultimately fall to these same Vatican offices shut out from the original decision to work out the details. It may turn out that the Pope has introduced into the already difficult work of Church unity a problem that simply cannot be resolved...
...Hefner for 10 Questions [Jan. 26]. His statement "Embracing sexuality is part of what it means to be free" makes sense until one remembers that actions have consequences. Many of our moral, social and health challenges today--unplanned pregnancies, poverty, AIDS, STDs, etc.--are a result of the sexual freedom Hefner so eagerly promotes. These problems will not be solved by encouraging more sexual freedom. Allison McKee, ARLINGTON...
...While it would be absurd for blacks to practice “shadism”—the great Harvard graduate W. E. B. DuBois, intellectual and freedom fighter, had the blood of two continents in his veins—it would be naïve to ignore the weighty significance of the truth: that many black political “firsts” in America, such as Marshall, have been light-skinned mulattoes, like Obama...
...erred by failing to vest leaders with the authority to make common-sense judgments: "America has never figured out the relationship between authority and freedom. Throughout the history of our country, Americans have believed that authority is the enemy of freedom...authority is not the enemy of freedom, but its protector. Law is not supposed to be a sword against authority. Law is supposed to define the scope of proper authority...