Back in 2011, then-Bishop Timothy Dolan pointed out that our nation’s budget is not simply a matter of numbers and balanced books.  “It reflects the very values of our nation. As many religious leaders have commented, budgets are moral statements.”

Read more on ‘A Budget is Not Just About Numbers’…

On Sunday Saddleback Church pastor Rick Warren appeared on ABC’s This Week and was asked if he agreed with President Obama’s economic gospel. As Kathryn Jean Lopez says, “I’m thinking the president probably wishes he picked a different pastor for the inaugural prayer.” Warren’s answered the question by saying:

Read more on Rick Warren on Obama’s Economic Gospel…

In a world in which experience and reality drove political decisions on the economy, the claims made in the recent op-ed by Sen. John Kyl would be considered too obvious to warrant publication. Unfortunately, we don’t live in such a world, which is why it’s important to have politicians willing to point out the obvious:
Read more on The Correlation Between Prosperity and Economic Freedom Is No Coincidence…

Whether the lottery is, as the old adage states, a tax on people who are bad at math, it is most certainly a tax on the poor. Those who have the least spend an inordinate percentage of their income every year on lottery tickets (estimates vary from 4-9%). Yet while it is irrational for those in poverty to waste their limited resources on a one in 176 million chance, there is something almost rational in the reasoning for doing so. As The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson points out:
Read more on The Lottery as Aspirational Insurance…

Thanks to George McGraw, Executive Director of DigDeep Right to Water Project, for his kind and thoughtful Counterpoint to my original post.  He and his organization are clearly dedicated to the noble cause of providing clean water and sanitation to all, a cause which everyone can and should support.  It is also a very sensible objective that would aid the world’s poor much more than trendier causes such as “climate change” and “population control” which tend to view the human person and his industriousness as fundamental problems to be solved through central planning, birth control, sterilization and abortion.

Read more on Reply to George McGraw and Catholic World News on ‘The Right to Water’…

Not surprisingly, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace (PCJP)’s latest document on water has garnered scant media attention. Why, after all, would journalists, already notorious for their professional Attention Deficit Disorder and dislike of abstract disputation, report on something named “Water: An Essential Element of Life,” especially when it is nothing more than an update of a document originally released in 2003, and then updated in 2006 and 2009, with the exact same titles?

Read more on Does the Vatican think water should be ‘free’?…

Which does a better job helping the impoverished people around the globe—free trade or fair trade? The American Enterprise Institute recently held a debate on that topic at John Brown University entitled “Free Trade vs. Fair Trade: What Helps the Poor?” Click here to watch the debate between scholars Claude Barfield, Paul Myers, and Victor Claar.

Read more on Can Fair Trade End Poverty?…

In The American Spectator, Acton Institute’s Michael Matheson Miller throws his hat into the ring as he launches a tongue-in-cheek candidacy for World Bank president, but also raises serious questions about the institution’s poverty fighting programs. Miller is a research fellow at Acton, where he directs PovertyCure, an initiative that promotes enterprise solutions to poverty. Jeffrey Sachs — are you listening?

Read more on Miller: Here I Come to Save the World Bank…

Rudy Carrasaco, US Regional Director for Partners World Wide speaks today at the Acton Lecture Series about Business as Mission 2.0.

Take a look at this short video of Rudy on Business as Mission and Transforming Communities that we did for PovertyCure. Rudy will be featured in the forthcoming PovertyCure curriculum.

Read more on Business as Mission 2.0…

Michael Matheson Miller, Acton’s Director of Media, recently made an appearance on NPO Showcase, a community access show here in the Grand Rapids area, to discuss the PovertyCure initiative. The full 15 minute interview is available for viewing below:

Read more on Video: Michael Matheson Miller on PovertyCure…