In addition to my post yesterday and other education related posts on the Powerblog (here, here, here, here, and here), I highly recommend this analysis of the higher ed bubble from educationviews.org if anyone is interested in learning more.

Read more on Understanding the Higher Ed Bubble…

Mayor Mike Bloomberg is beginning to take his self-appointed role as Nanny-in-Chief of New York a bit too literally:

Mayor Bloomberg is pushing hospitals to hide their baby formula behind locked doors so more new mothers will breast-feed.

Read more on The Nanny State Wants You To Breastfeed…

“The darkening of sin obstructs the acquisition not of the knowledge of the details but knowledge in its more exalted and nobler sense.” (Abraham Kuyper, Wisdom & Wonder Pg. 56)

Each of us is detail-oriented in our own way. Some remember dates and numbers with amazing accuracy. Others remember relational information from conversations they had two weeks ago. Still others have a knack for remembering trivia of all sorts.

Read more on My Mind in God’s Hands…

The folks over at the Comment magazine site have generously run an essay by me, “Business and the Development of Christian Social Thought.” This piece is a web-friendly version of my editorial from the current issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality, which highlights the call for papers for next spring’s issue on the theme “Integral Human Development.” If you have an interest in this theme as it appears particularly in the Roman Catholic social encyclical tradition, or analogous ideas from other religious traditions, including notably the idea of “integral mission” as appears in the evangelical ecumenical movement, be sure to check out and share the CFP.

One of the points I highlight in this essay is what biblical scholar Craig Blomberg, in his paper in the issue’s “Theology of Work and Economics” Symposium, identifies as the “theory of limited good.” He describes this perspective as that of the biblical world, when

most people were convinced that there was a finite and fairly fixed amount of wealth in the world, and a comparatively small amount of that to which they would ever have access in their part of the world so that if a member of their society became noticeably richer, they would naturally assume that it was at someone else’s expense.

Read more on Murray, Mariana, and Montaigne’s Fallacy…

The lowering of education quality has been noted in the recent past on the PowerBlog (here and here). Last Saturday, Casey Harper noted at educationviews.org that even students are complaining about the declining rigor of American education.

Read more on Education and Consumerism: Confessions of a Slacker…

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat tackles the topic of religious liberty with his most recent column, “Defining Religious Liberty Down.” In it, Douthat highlights the public nature of the Bill of Rights’ guarantee of the “free exercise of religion”:

Read more on Douthat: Zeitgeist vs. Religious Liberty…

In his new book, Defending the Free Market: the Moral Case for a Free Economy, the Rev. Robert Sirico points out that capitalism has been given a bad name that it truly doesn’t deserve:

Read more on What Gave Capitalism a Bad Name?…

Building a Culture of Religious Freedom
Charles J. Chaput, Public Discourse

If we want a culture of religious freedom, we need to begin it here, today, now. We live it by giving ourselves wholeheartedly to God with passion and joy, confidence and courage; and by holding nothing back. God will take care of the rest.

Read more on PowerLinks – 07.30.12…

That seems to be the story, based on what Veronique de Rugy has written at National Review Online. Calling for tax increases in an economic downturn doesn’t make any sense, even under Keynesian theories. So why do so many Keynesians seem to be supporting the idea of allowing tax increases for those earning more than $250,000 a year?

Reason Magazine expanded on this question on their blog. They argue that this trend reveals more about neo-Keynesians like Paul Krugman than it does about the actual accomplishments or shortcomings of John Maynard Keynes. Read more on When Politics Trump Economics…

Over on the Library of Law and Liberty’s website, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg reviews political philosopher John Tomasi’s new book Free Market Fairness:

Rather than attempting a synthesis of competing schools of liberal thought, Tomasi outlines what he is very careful to specify as a “hybrid” (87) political theory that draws upon classical liberalism and libertarianism on the one hand, and what he calls high or left liberalism on the other. Tomasi does not seek to somehow ground classical liberal institutions on the basis of left liberal moral imperatives, or vice-versa. Instead he argues for what he calls market democracy as a “justificatory hybrid . . . which combines insights from the classical and liberal traditions at the level of moral foundations” (95). Market democracy, as Tomasi describes it, reflects what he describes as his “simultaneous attraction” (xiv) to left-liberal and libertarian ideas. Free Market Fairness, however, also relies upon the insight that classical, libertarian, and left liberals may have more in common than they often realize or are willing to admit. This may explain why much of Tomasi’s book explicates in considerable and revealing detail the present “state-of-play” inside the sandpit of liberal political theory.

Read more on Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Good Ship Liberalism…