Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Business and Society

December 22, 2009

The Regressive Carbon Tax

A new NBER working paper promises to blow up the myth that it is primarily the wealthy that will bear the cost of taxes on carbon emissions. In “Who Pays a Price on Carbon?” Continue Reading...
December 15, 2009

Wealth and Fidelity, Golf and Marriage

Amidst all the craziness of l’affaire d’Tigre there are some important questions being raised about the linkage between power, wealth, and faithfulness. The Wealth Report at The Wall Street Journal asks, “Is it harder to stay faithful with large wealth?” Continue Reading...
December 07, 2009

Bernanke Versus the Austrians

My essay in today’s American Spectator Online looks at why Ben Bernanke should not be confirmed to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Two planks in Bernanke’s recovery strategy: Expand the money supply like a banana republic dictator and throw sackfuls of cash at failed companies with a proven track record of mismanaging their assets. Continue Reading...
December 04, 2009

Rand Redivivus?

Heather Wilhelm of the Illinois Policy Institute examines the usefulness of Ayn Rand for political engagement by friends of the market economy in a WSJ op-ed, “Is Ayn Rand Bad for the Market?” Continue Reading...
November 25, 2009

Acton Media Alert: Talking Health Care in South Florida

Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico joined host Dennis O’Donovan this morning on Religion, Politics and the Culture on WLVJ in south Florida for a wide ranging, hour-long discussion on health care reform and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ role in the debate, among other topics. Continue Reading...
November 25, 2009

The Novelty of ‘New’ Economics

Some of the aspects of the movement in ‘new economics’ highlighted by Sumita Kale sound quite promising. For instance, it is true that “many issues of economic policy (traditionally called ‘welfare economics’) are primarily ethical-economics in nature, and should be informed by moral philosophy rather than economics in isolation.” Continue Reading...
November 23, 2009

Hell and Capitalism

Contrary to the belief of some, the two realities referred to in the title of this post are not identical. But the discussion around a recent Boston Globe article reminds me of the saying from Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, “Capitalism without the threat of bankruptcy is like Christianity without the threat of hell. Continue Reading...