Thought you’d get a kick out of this (heard today on RBN’s podcast of GlobalResearch.ca (The Global Research News Hour, 2009-11-04 11:01:40) with John Bellamy Foster who is Editor of Monthly Review and Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon where he combines research on capitalism’s economic, political and ecological contradictions with teaching sociology, social theory, Marxism and political economy. Who quoted “sermon’s” given by John Varley Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer where he stood at the wooden lectern in St. Martin-in-the- Fields on London’s Trafalgar Square last night and told the packed pews of the church that “profit is not satanic.”

The 53-year-old head of Britain’s second-biggest bank said banks are the “backbone” of the economy. Rewarding high- performing bankers with more pay doesn’t conflict with Christian values, he said. Varley was paid 1.08 million pounds ($1.77 million) and no bonus in 2008.

Varley joins Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths and Lazard International Chairman Ken Costa as London bankers who’ve gone into London churches in recent weeks and invoked Christianity to defend a banking system that critics say has created wealth and inequality in the U.K.

But, Mr. Varley did not out due Mr. Brian Griffiths of Goldman’s who just a week prior stated: “The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”

All the Best!

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