Religion & Liberty Online Archives

International Trade

April 25, 2008

Straight talk on trade

My reaction to any politician claiming to offer “straight talk” is a knowing chuckle (“yeah, right”), and that includes John McCain. So I’ve got to give credit to the so-called Straight Talk Express for a recent campaign stop in Youngstown, Ohio, where the Republican presidential candidate offered some honest and accurate comments on a contentious subject in politically risky circumstances—straight talk, if you will. Continue Reading...
March 18, 2008

Bashing globalization in the name of European ‘values’

Hostility towards globalization is not the exclusive territory of the left in Italy. Giulio Tremonti, a former minister of the economy in Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right government, has written a book called Fear and Hope (La Paura e la Speranza), largely arguing against free trade and the opening of international markets. Continue Reading...
February 26, 2008

Free Cubans by dropping trade restrictions

In today’s Detroit News, Rev. Robert Sirico, president of the Acton Institute, argues for the end of the trade restrictions against Cuba. Fidel Castro, recently retired from the position of el lider maximo, held the small island nation in the tight grip of his totalitarian regime, effectively stagnating all economic development for the past 50 years. Continue Reading...
February 19, 2008

Orthodoxy and economic globalization

AGAIN Magazine has published my “Conflicted Hearts: Orthodox Christians and Social Justice in an Age of Globalization.” The magazine is produced by Conciliar Press Ministries, Inc., a department of the self-ruled Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church of North America. Continue Reading...
February 07, 2008

Economists are people too

In any period of economic transition there are upheavals at various levels, and winners and losers (at least in the short term). We live in just such an age today in North America, as we move from an industrial to a post-industrial information and service economy, from isolationism to increased globalization. Continue Reading...
January 29, 2008

CFR debate: Free trade or fair trade?

The Council on Foreign Relations is hosting an online debate (in blog form!): “Policy for the Next President: Fair Trade or Free Trade” (HT). From the introduction: “Jonathan Jacoby, associate director of international economic policy at the Center for American Progress and Robert Lane Greene, an international correspondent for the Economist, debate the shape of trade policy for the next U.S. Continue Reading...
December 07, 2007

Farm Subsidies Follow-up: Feed the Rich

In one of this week’s Acton Commentaries, Ray Nothstine and I juxtapose a static, sedentary dependence on government subsidies with a dynamic, entrepreneurial spirit of innovation. The impetus for this short piece was an article that originally appeared in the Grand Rapids Press (linked in the commentary). Continue Reading...