Do you ever walk into a business and see a license on the wall and wonder if that specific industry really needs to be licensed by the state? I know I have thought that, if just a few times. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal looks at how licensing laws hinders low prices and competition in the marketplace. In a piece titled, License to Kill Jobs, Fund also explains how over regulation has stymied job growth and the ability of new entrepreneurs to become more self reliant.

Read more on Job Licensing and ‘The Children’…

It’s been at least a few months since I admitted abandoning all of my principles and ethics in favor of rolling around in great piles of filthy Exxon lucre, and I’ll be honest with you here – I haven’t even gotten so much as a thank you note from Rex Tillerson. Meanwhile, Al Gore appears to have offset his carbon emissions by planting a forest of magical money trees, and it’s HARVEST TIME, BABY!

Read more on And I Still Haven’t Seen Dime One From Exxon……

Earlier this month, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson complained about the lack of creative thinking concerning the issue of social security. “Washington’s vaunted think tanks — citadels for public intellectuals both liberal and conservative — have tiptoed around the problem,” he wrote. “Ideally, think tanks expand the public conversation by saying things too controversial for politicians to say on their own. Here, they’ve abdicated that role.”

Read more on Pensions, Population, and Prosperity…

Ryan T. Anderson over at the First Things blog, takes a look at the Acton documentary The Call of the Entrepreneur and wonders:

Countless movies and sitcoms portray businessmen as greedy, conniving, self-serving agents of exploitation who sully the air, melt the ice caps, and abuse the poor. The news media is even worse: Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom—watching the nightly news and reading the morning paper, one gets the impression that businesses are run solely by the corrupt, the vile, and the base. With headlines announcing scandal after scandal, one wonders if anyone of moral principle inhabits the Financial District.

He concludes:

Read more on The Call of the Entrepreneur at First Things…

This summer I’m working on developing the syllabus for a class that I’ll be helping to lead in the Fall. The course will focus on readings in social ethics, with a general theme on church and culture, and a particular theme on church and poverty.

Read more on Readings on Church and Poverty…

One of the sad legacies of the civil-rights movement is that anyone who makes a critical comment about bad dimensions of black life in America is automatically branded a racist. This is silly. The New York Times reports today on the uproar regarding a recent BET satirical cartoon called “Read A Book” which is circulation in YouTube.com. Some are claiming that the video is racist.

Read more on BET’s “Read A Book” Is Satirical Not Racist…

Dr. Jay W. Richards

Dr. Jay W. Richards gave an impassioned address at the heavily attended Acton Lecture series yesterday titled, “Myths Christians Believe about Wealth and Poverty.” This topic was especially relevant for me because I graduated from a Wesleyan Evangelical seminary, which constantly preached and proclaimed so many myths Richards addressed, especially “the piety myth.” This was a big problem in seminary, as the gospels were often linked to promoting the modern welfare state, and its goals of wealth redistribution.

Read more on Myths Christians Believe about Wealth and Poverty…

Acton Media’s documentary, “The Call of the Entrepreneur,” is slated as the first item on the 2007 Agenda for the Annual Gilder/Forbes Telecosm Conference, to be held in Lake George, NY this October. The theme for the 2007 Conference is “Pursuing opportunities, celebrating entrepreneurship, and seeking the upside surprises surrounding the coming end of the local area network.” Visit the Conference website for more information and to register.

Read more on COE at Gilder/Forbes Tech Conferece…

Railing against corporate dictatorship, delocator.net helps consumers find locally-owned cafes, bookstores, and movie theatres in their area — alternatives to the “invasion” of Starbucks, Borders, and their ilk. The site itself is actually quite an interesting capitalist idea in its freshness and creativity, and people certainly should eat or drink or shop where they are most comfortable. That’s the beauty of competition! And the kind of community-building that often takes place at familiar, time-tested, local shops is to be encouraged.

Read more on Coffee, Capitalism, and Corporate Encroachment…

A letter to the editor in today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution in response to two op-eds in that paper: “Global Warming: No urgent danger; no quick fix,” by Patrick J. Michaels and “Global warming: Don’t take skeptics at face value,” by John Sibley.

Read more on AJC Letter to the Editor…