Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Business and Society

February 25, 2013

The Wealth of Nations Depends on the Health of Families

Family, church, and school are the three basic people-forming institutions, notes Patrick Fagan, and they produce the best results—including economic and political ones—when they cooperate. Even if all the market reforms of the Washington think tanks, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes Magazine were enacted, we’d still need to kiss the Great American Economy goodbye. Continue Reading...
February 21, 2013

Like Putting a Beret on a Cowboy

“[He] belongs more in an insane asylum than at the head of a multinational corporation.” That was the reaction by a French union official to an amusingly harsh letter by Maurice Taylor, chief executive of tire maker Titan. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2013

Toiling for Pharaoh

My friend John Teevan of Grace College sends out a monthly newsletter, “Economic Prospect.” He passes along this in the current edition: I found this note from a newly retired accountant (age 66) who has not gone on social security yet. Continue Reading...
February 18, 2013

Conscious Capitalism and the Higher Purpose of Business

In 1978, John Mackey was 25-year-old college dropout who believed that democratic socialism was a more “just” economic system than democratic capitalism. But his views soon changed after he and his girlfriend borrowed $45,000 from family and friends to open a small vegetarian grocery store in Austin, Texas. Continue Reading...
February 14, 2013

Karate Chopping Lil’ Wayne

It is arguable that celebrated rapper Lil’ Wayne has completely lost his mind. In his newly released, grossly pathetic song “Karate Chop” the rapper spits in the face of the family of civil rights martyr Emmett Till by juxtaposing a reference to sexual conquest with the brutal race-driven murder of the teenager in 1955. Continue Reading...
February 13, 2013

The Minimum Wage Workforce Myth

During his recent State of the Union address, President Obama argued for increasing the federal minimum wage: Even with the tax relief we put in place, a family with two kids that earns the minimum wage still lives below the poverty line. Continue Reading...
February 13, 2013

Rationing by Rudeness

In “The Moral Meanings of Markets,” in the latest issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality, Ryan Langrill and Virgil Henry Storr argue that markets ought to be understood and defended not simply as amoral, or merely moral, but as robustly moral spaces. Continue Reading...
February 08, 2013

Northern Ireland: Coming to America?

After decades of bloody turmoil between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, on March 26, 2007, Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams, sitting side-by-side at Stormont confirmed that power-sharing will return to Northern Ireland on May 8th of that same year. Continue Reading...
February 07, 2013

Privilege: The Real Postal Problem

Regarding the USPS decision Wednesday to stop Saturday mail delivery, Ron Nixon at the New York Times writes, The post office said a five-day mail delivery schedule would begin in August and shave about $2 billion a year from its losses, which were $15.9 billion last year. Continue Reading...