Economics

December 07, 2015

The Federal ‘Anti-Poverty’ Program that Taxes the Poor

Imagine you’re at the checkout line at the supermarket and the clerk asks how much income your family earns each year. Offended, you ask why that is any of her business. Continue Reading...

December 01, 2015

Why the ‘Proto-Communism’ of Early Christians Doesn’t Work for Modern Society

“There are solid grounds for believing that the first Christian believers practiced a form of communism and usufruct [i.e., the right to enjoy the use and advantages of another’s property short of the destruction or waste of its substance],” wrote Peter Marshall in Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. Continue Reading...

December 01, 2015

How a College Is Partnering with Churches to Boost Employment for the Disabled

Contrary to popular perceptions, people with disabilities are equipped with unique skills and creative capacity, giving them a powerful role to play in the world economy, whether as restauranteurs, goldsmiths, warehouse workers, marine biologists, car washers, or Costco employees. Continue Reading...

November 18, 2015

How Basic Economics Reveals the Connection Between Legalized Prostitution and Sex Trafficking

Reality has no shortage of enemies. In America alone there are millions of people who will throw away common sense, empiricism, and established economic principles when it conflicts with their pet political ideology. Continue Reading...

November 17, 2015

How Property Rights Saved the Pilgrims

This week school children across the country will be hearing the tale of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. You probably heard a similar story when you were in a kid that went something like this: The Pilgrims sailed over to America from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower. Continue Reading...

November 16, 2015

Bourgeois Equality: The Modern World Can’t Be Explained By Material Causes

Economist Deirdre McCloskey is set to release the long-anticipated conclusion of the Bourgeois Era trilogy sometime next spring. The book, Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World, will build on her thesis that our newfound prosperity is not primarily due to systems, tools, or materials, but the ideas and rhetoric behind them. Continue Reading...

November 12, 2015

Over-Educated and Under-Trained: Mike Rowe on the Need for Philosophizing Welders

Marco Rubio has inspired plenty of chin-stroking over his recent remarks about welders earning more than philosophers. “We need more welders and less philosophers,” he concluded in a recent debate. Continue Reading...

November 12, 2015

3 questions to counter arguments from the economic left

Over the past few decades, economist Thomas Sowell has been one of the most effective, yet under-appreciated, proponents of conservative and libertarian economic thought. He is also one of our most powerful critics of the often destructive and harmful effects of liberal economic policies. Continue Reading...

November 11, 2015

Ben Carson is Right: Minimum Wage Laws Hurt Black Workers

In last night’s GOP presidential candidate debate, Dr. Ben Carson was asked if he would raise the federal minimum wage. Carson said that he would not do so because the minimum wage hurts workers, especially those in the black community: People need to be educated on the minimum wage. Continue Reading...

November 09, 2015

What If There Were No Prices?

I’m something of a cheapskate (or as I prefer to think of myself, prudentially frugal) and so I take special pleasure in finding a good deal. I’m also, by nature, rather grateful and so I frequently thank God for helping me to find goods and services at bargain prices. Continue Reading...

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