Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Micro-Lender

"[F]ar from being a practice of pure welfare, the micro-credit will be the way to make the creativity and ingenuity of our people emerge again," said His Eminence, Archbishop of Naples — Cardinal Donates Savings to Start Bank for Poor.

This is part of an Italian "crusade of charity and assistance" to combat the economic crisis, about which His Eminence says, "We agree that we have built our society on sand and not on rock and, basing ourselves solely on economic calculation, have built the umpteenth tower of Babel."

There are those who might take issue with this statement: "We thought that the globalization of markets would bring us further well-being, wealth for all, and instead we globalized poverty." But even free-traders can agree that what we really have is what Jeffrey Tucker called "mercantilism in disguise" — Free Trade versus Free-trade Agreements.