Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'economics'

January 27, 2006

Foreign aid vs. economic freedom II

Jay Richards’ previous post on Richard Rahn’s article “Not Rocket Science” illustrates Huxley’s famous statement about a fact destroying a theory. Jay quotes Rahn’s lists of the politicians and development experts who support increased foreign aid. Continue Reading...
January 23, 2006

Everyone is valuable

An excellent post by Bryan Caplan at EconLog examines the intentions of eugenics against the actual effects of the implementation of such policies. His point? “Even if genetics explained ALL differences in success, many policies that raise average genetic quality would backfire.” Continue Reading...
January 18, 2006

Does American charity cheat the tax man?

A Stanford expert on philanthropy argues that tax-deductible American charity is actually a government subsidy and that philanthropy is not ‘redistributive’ enough. Acton’s Karen Woods points out (obvious to most) that helping the needy is not the exclusive domain of the state. Continue Reading...
January 13, 2006

A harsh but good market

Apologies for a second Apple-related post in a row, but I thought this example might prove to be a decent case-study of competition in the marketplace. One of the new products that Apple recently introduced was iWeb, a new program that makes it easy “to create websites and blogs — complete with podcasts, photos and movies — and get them online, fast.” Continue Reading...
January 11, 2006

Speaking of oil

Arnold Kling at the excellent EconLog says that “the government should empty its strategic petroleum reserve and buy energy futures contracts instead. At some point, the futures market has to be taken seriously.” Continue Reading...
January 09, 2006

A tale of two monopolies

Monopoly #1: I was somewhat shocked the other day when I heard a strong critique of the much-vaunted Canadian national health care system on NPR. I wasn’t dreaming – here’s the link to prove it. Continue Reading...
January 05, 2006

2006 Index of Economic Freedom

The new Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal report on economic freedom is out, and the findings couldn’t be more straightforward. “The countries with the most economic freedom also have higher rates of long-term economic growth and are more prosperous than are those with less economic freedom,” the report says. Continue Reading...
January 04, 2006

Steyn on secularism and demographics

There’s a lot of buzz in the blogosphere on Mark Steyn’s “It’s the Demography, Stupid”, which appears in today’s OpinionJournal.com and is originally published in the January 2006 issue of The New Criterion. Continue Reading...
January 03, 2006

One man’s trash…

Sometimes one man’s trash is just trash. “Most people have no clue what’s involved with taking a garbage bag of stuff and getting it to the person who needs it,” said Lindy Garnette, executive director for SERVE Inc., Continue Reading...
January 02, 2006

The stewardship of space

As the newly-burgeoning field of space tourism takes the first steps towards reality, elements of the federal government are already pushing for stringent regulation. In a 60 Minutes report last night, the Ansari X Prize, “an extraordinary competition created in 1996 to stimulate private investment in space,” has spawned the new space race. Continue Reading...