It’s no secret that the modern American conservative movement is divided today. Issues like the role of government, the place of the nation-state, and the extent to which free markets should prevail in economic life have become major points of fracture across the right that seem unlikely to be resolved soon. Continue Reading...
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September 02, 2022
Is It Time for a Minimum Corporate Tax?
Big reforms should be based on wide consensus. At the height of an economic crisis caused by the combined effects of the pandemic lockdowns and sanctions for Russia’s war in Ukraine, further economic experiments such as a global minimum corporate tax could easily become another example of the law of unintended consequences in action. Continue Reading...
September 01, 2022
Reading an immigrant’s love letter to the West
For regular listeners of the Triggernometry YouTube podcast, much of the content and tone of co-host Konstantin Kisin’s just-published nonfiction book, An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, will come as no surprise. Continue Reading...
August 31, 2022
Despite the critical backlash, Persuasion largely persuades
Can an unmarried woman become a guide to romance? It certainly appears so with Jane Austen (1775–1817), spinster author of sharp, witty novels of manners set in early 19th-century England, who has become something of a belated authority on navigating the rocky shores of modern romance. Continue Reading...
August 30, 2022
Student loan forgiveness is unforgivable
The first iron law of economics is that we live in a world of scarcity. Because of this, economics puts constraints on our utopias. Rinse and repeat. This is how we discern between good and disastrous policies. Continue Reading...
August 26, 2022
Pope Francis wants us to pray for small and medium-sized enterprises
Who would ever have guessed this would happen? Well, it did. And in the quiet month of Rome’s roasting August, when the city experiences a near-total exodus to cooler climes. Very few journalists, in either the religious or secular press, noticed. Continue Reading...
August 25, 2022
The Trump raid will only harden Americans’ positions
It’s 1973. The Watergate scandal that would ultimately doom the presidency of Richard M. Nixon is roiling that administration. But it’s not the only breach of public trust dogging the Nixon White House. Continue Reading...
August 25, 2022
Would Prophet Muhammad punish Salman Rushdie?
It seems that the infamous “death fatwa” that Ayatollah Khomeini issued against Salman Rushdie back in 1989 for his novel The Satanic Verses, which most Muslims found offensive, finally reached it mark on August 12 in upstate New York. Continue Reading...
August 24, 2022
When a Joke is the difference between freedom and tyranny
This year, at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the major film attraction in Eastern Europe, there was a memento of the Prague Spring: a newly restored version of the 1969 movie The Joke, directed by Jaromil Jireš and adapted by him and Milan Kundera from the latter’s eponymous debut novel. Continue Reading...
August 23, 2022
Customers put product value ahead of political values
For years American business has allowed itself to be swayed by the push and pull of political culture. Investment decisions, corporate donations, and hiring practices have been made in response to a culture that demands acquiescence or cancellation. Continue Reading...