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March 08, 2016

Alabama Church Pays Off Payday Loans

About twenty years ago I made some terrible choices and found myself in a serious financial bind. The amount I needed wasn’t much — about $200 — but without it I wouldn’t have been able to pay my rent. Continue Reading...

June 12, 2015

Explainer: What You Should Know About the OPM Hack

What is the “OPM hack”? The “OPM hack” refers to a massive data breach in which hackers, believed to be based in China, acquired personnel records of federal employees from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Continue Reading...

April 30, 2015

Why is the Episcopal Church Working as a Debt Collector?

For decades The Episcopal Church (ECUSA) has faced declining membership (in 1966, the ECUSA had 3,647,297 members; by 2013, the membership was 1,866,758, a decline of 49 percent.) But even when people are leaving the pews someone still has to pay for those pews, as well as the other overhead costs that come with running a large organization. Continue Reading...

February 25, 2015

How Churches Can Protect the Poor Against Predatory Lending

Near the top of the list of things I despise is companies that take advantage of the plight of the poor and desperate. But just above that on my list is something I hate even more: being poor and desperate. Continue Reading...

July 07, 2014

The Economic Legacy of World War I

The Great War began 100 years ago last week. From an economic perspective (from Pulitzer Prize economist Liaquat Ahamed) the European nations paid for WWI not with taxes, but with massive debts financed largely by America. Continue Reading...

December 10, 2013

Redeeming the DIA

Most commentators, apart from Virginia Postrel and the like, seem to think that it would be tragic for the city of Detroit to lose the art collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) in the city’s bankruptcy proceedings. Continue Reading...

October 18, 2013

The Moral Complexity of Inflation and Default

As the US federal government sidled up to the debt ceiling earlier this week without quite running into it, one of the key arguments in favor of raising the debt ceiling was that it is immoral to breach a contract. Continue Reading...

October 07, 2013

A Failure to Save

This first appeared in my newsletter, Economic Prospect, in late 2008. Looking back after five years I still like it. The American failure to save is matched by our insistence on spending to have it all. Continue Reading...

September 27, 2012

Is Student Loan Debt an Avoidable Crisis?

At the height of the housing crisis, it was estimated that 11 million homes in America were mortgaged for more than they were worth. That debt crisis may soon be dwarfed—if it hasn’t been already—by the student loan debt problem: With college enrollment growing, student debt has stretched to a record number of U.S. Continue Reading...

May 17, 2011

Samuel Gregg: Debt, Finance, and Catholics

In Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg has a new article that looks at how Catholics reflect on a wide range of financial questions ranging from the federal government’s fiscal woes to consumer debt to a fragile banking system. Continue Reading...

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