Do you consider gasoline to be a gift from God? You should.
Andy Crouch, editorial director of the Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today, writes in a recent Books & Culture piece, “As our family sits together, eyes closed, we say grace. Today it’s Timothy’s turn. ‘God, thank you so much for all we have,’ he begins in what turns into a typically prolix nine-year-old’s prayer. Eventually he is done—’in Jesus’ name, Amen’—and I turn the key. We have just filled up our car with gasoline.”
In today’s NYT: “Oxfam Suggests Benefit in Africa if U.S. Cuts Cotton Subsidies.”
“Eliminating billions of dollars in federal subsidies to American cotton growers each year would reduce American cotton production and exports, raise world prices by about 10 percent and modestly improve the incomes of millions of poor cotton farmers in Africa, according to a new study by Oxfam, the aid group.”
On today’s Diane Rehm Show, a panel of experts discussed the pending energy policy legislation in the US Congress. Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Counsel talked about the need to join the concepts of national security and climate change when discussing energy policy (RealAudio).
As developing countries turn increasingly to private capital markets, the World Bank is facing not only a steep decline in demand for its loans but a crisis of relevancy. Sam Gregg looks at the changing market and how the rules of private lending might also provide a better check on corruption in the developing world. Adieu, World Bank?
Today’s Dilbert is a good one: “green” consulting, Dogbert-style.
Lawrence Lessig, a legal scholar and high-profile advocate of copyright reform, has decided to “shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues.”
At last year’s Acton University, a few Austrian attendees made an interesting youtube video celebrating their rediscovery of the huge and obvious contributions Austria has made to free-market economics. But what about the countries that don’t have an entire school of economic thought named after them? My conversations with international participants at this year’s conference underscored two themes over and over again. First, that even the unlikeliest countries have some philosophical heritage undergirding capitalist thought. Second, that AU attracts the kind of people who want to recapture — not necessarily import — foundational principles to apply them within their own cultural context.
From Poland, a place where communism was much more than a nebulous ideology not so long ago, Jakob Baltroszewicz learned at AU how to frame capitalism in a more positive light for those in his country who are still “infected” with traces of the old regime’s tendencies. Despite Pope John Paul’s profound contributions to the capitalist legacy, “People still think in Poland that being a good Catholic and being a good capitalist are incompatible,” said Baltroszewicz. “We have a word for it — homo sovieticus. It means someone who is still sick with the Soviet way of thinking about the market and his role in it.” Baltroszewicz is currently studying Michael Novak’s moral theology at the Pontifical Academy in Krakow. He plans to stay connected to Acton as he works to revive Poland’s interest in the principles of its own free-market philosophers, especially as expressed in John Paul’s Centesimus Annus. Read more on No Place Like Home…
Here is an index of posts from last week’s Acton University:
Acton University 2007 came to a close this evening with another stirring address by Rev. Robert Sirico which capped a great week in Grand Rapids for all involved. It’s getting late and I can’t hope to top what Father Robert had to say this evening, so I’ll refer all of you to the audio link below.
Today’s lectures from Acton University 2007 (updated as more audio becomes available):
