Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'poverty'

July 16, 2014

A Better Way to Fair Trade?

A few months ago, the Fairtrade movement came under fire after a British study stated that fairtrade certified farmers were actually making less  and were working in worse conditions than non-certified farmers. Continue Reading...
June 16, 2014

Audio: Sirico on Poverty, Pope Francis & Obamacare in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

This morning, Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took some time away from his preparations for Acton University to speak with Jim Engster, host of The Jim Engster Show on WRKF radio in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, discussing how to address the issue of poverty in society, and the approach taken by Pope Francis and the church in general to that and other issues. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2014

Why Does No One Believe Extreme Poverty Has Declined?

Would you say that over the past three decades (since about the mid-1980s) the percentage of people in the world who live in extreme poverty — defined as living on less than $1.25 per day — has: A) Increased B) Decreased C) remained the same The right answer is B: extreme poverty has decreased by more than half. Continue Reading...
May 12, 2014

Want To Change A Nation? Give A Girl A Book

I don’t know any terrorists, but they seem to be very fearful people. They are afraid of new ideas, other religions, air strikes, and bathing. Nicholas Kristof, of The New York Times, says that what terrorists are really afraid of are educated women. Continue Reading...
May 08, 2014

Deirdre McCloskey on Ethics and Rhetoric in the ‘Great Enrichment’

In a marvelous speech on the origins of economic freedom (and its subsequent fruits), Deirdre McCloskey aptly crystallizes the deeper implications of her work on bourgeois virtues and bourgeois dignity. For example, though many doubted that those in once-socialistic India would come to see markets favorably, eventually those attitudes changed, and with it came prosperity. Continue Reading...
April 24, 2014

Conservatives Have the Right Answers on Poverty

From the fiscal to the familial, conservatives have the right answers, says Kevin D. Williamson: The conservative hesitancy to put the issue of poverty at the center of our domestic economic agenda, rather than tax rates or middle-class jobs, is misguided — politically as well as substantively. Continue Reading...