Pope Benedict offers a 79-point list of problems and recommendations on the economic crisis, drawing from previous popes and the Bible.  Philly Inquirer seeks financial book author comments.

Jay Michaelson surveys the Bible’s prohibitions against usury and call’s today’s financial regulation “nothing more than an update of the ancient prohibitions on usury, or the unfair charging of interest.”
Today’s derivatives market, for example, is precisely about “making money from money” — but taken to new and ludicrous extremes. The credit default swaps which were largely [...]

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach spoke with BiblEconomy about the roots of the financial crisis and how we transcend it.
“The collapse of our economy was caused not by an economic crisis but a spiritual crisis called greed, where you become voracious and insatiable. I believe that the Jewish community, and the Jewish religion has unique values that need [...]

The Dallas Morning News’ Religion Blog convened a “Texas Panel” to ruminate over faith and the famous CNBC Rick Santelli monologue. Deal Hudson, director of InsideCatholic.com made this observation:
There is no obligation whatsoever for the government to “bail out” banks, investment firms, or individual homeowners who can’t pay their mortgages. The reason the government has started [...]

The Salt Lake Tribune reports on the religious debate: should responsible taxpayers who took out affordable mortgages bail out those who didn’t?
Is it ethical for others to foot the bill for your bad financial decisions? And is it ethical to say no to those pleas for help?
The article quotes Mu Soeng, a Buddhist studies [...]

In his Washington Post/On Faith column, “Our Brothers’ Keepers, Not their Guarantors,” Rabbi Brad Hirschfield cites the Cain and Abel story to support bailing out even those who behaved irresponsibly, offering a different take than this famous TV clip arguing the government’s subsidy of “losers’ mortgages” promotes bad behavior.
When God asks him where his brother is, Cain [...]

Politico reports the American Issues Project has put out a TV spot measuring stimulus dollars spent against the amount of time that has passed since the birth of Jesus:
“Suppose you spent $1 million every single day starting from the day Jesus was born — and kept spending through today,” says the announcer as an image [...]

Update: TIME Magazine writes about renewing Sunday alcohol sales in states besides Georgia.
A handful of state legislatures have declared it’s closing time for Sunday alcohol sales restrictions, saying an extra day of sales could give their foundering budgets a much-needed shot of revenue. Those states — Georgia, Connecticut, Texas, Alabama and Minnesota — enjoy overwhelming [...]

Fox News points out Democrats’ recurrent use of a colorful phrase to criticize Republicans who highlighted the absurdity of passing a 1,071 page stimulus bill without enough time to read the minutiae.
Fox quotes Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Florida):
“”Even if they had read every jot and tittle, they still ain’t gonna vote for it,” Hastings huffed, referring [...]