Latest Posts

August 16, 2017

On modern economics and the reading of old books

I was living with thousands of Marines on a base in Japan when I discovered a novel about a handful of Classics students living at a small, elite Vermont college. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History instantly became on of my favorite books, partially because at the time (1993) I was dreaming of leaving the Corps and attending St. Continue Reading...
August 16, 2017

Kuyper on Christians’ twofold citizenship

In 1887, Abraham Kuyper helped lead a secession from the mainline Reformed church in the Netherlands. A few months later at the Free University in Amsterdam, Kuyper delivered a speech entitled “Twofold Fatherland,” in which he describes the earthly and heavenly citizenship of Christians, and how these realities impact our understanding of our responsibility and identity in this world. Continue Reading...
August 15, 2017

Entry, exit, and supply curves: Constant costs

Note: This is post #45 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Industries that have a flat supply curve are called “constant cost” industries. An example is domain name registration: to increase the supply of domain names, we must only increase the inputs by a negligible amount. Continue Reading...
August 15, 2017

Thoughts on Christians and race-identity issues

Here’s the deal, short and straight to the point, in light of the events in Charlottesville: Christians should not be within ten miles of this race-identity stuff. Something like “white nationalism” cannot be reconciled with the Gospel’s leap across racial and national barriers. Continue Reading...
August 15, 2017

The self-defeating nature of sin taxes

Rev. Ben Johnson, senior editor at the Acton Institute, writes at CapX that bishops should refrain from encouraging sin taxes. Recently in Poland, a letter written by bishop Tadeusz Bronakowski was read aloud in many Catholic churches, stating that the “state has a ‘responsibility’ to pass laws limiting alcohol’s ‘physical and economic availability,’ and to back them up with ‘ruthless enforcement.'” Continue Reading...