The Acton Institute is pleased to announce that registration is now open for the 2013 Acton University (AU), which will take place on June 18-21 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Space and scholarship funds are limited – so register or apply now! Please visit university.acton.org where you will find the online registration form along with complete conference information.
The Goldwater Institute has released a new study showing that states with a larger share of entrepreneurs do a better job at reducing poverty than states with fewer entrepreneurs.
There is a strong connection between a state’s rate of entrepreneurship and declines in poverty. Statistical analysis of all 50 states indicates that states with a larger share of entrepreneurs had bigger declines in poverty. In fact, comparing states during the last economic boom—from 2001 to 2007—data show that for every 1 percentage point increase in the rate of entrepreneurship in a state, there is a 2 percent decline in the poverty rate.
Read more on Want to Lower Poverty Rates? Increase Entrepreneurship…
Waning evangelical influence
Anthony Bradley, World
With these cultural dynamics, Republicans, in order to take back the White House, are going to have to start appealing to their new actual base: deistic fiscal moderates.
We need to trim government programs today in order make way for bigger government tomorrow.
That seems to be the message former treasury secretary and Obama economic advisor Larry Summers delivered today at the Washington Ideas Forum:
Read more on The Contending Realities of Progressive Economics…
Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty … Lyndon B. Johnson’s Special Message to Congress, March 16, 1964
Anthony Bradley, commenting on the preference black voters showed for President Obama, points out that Lyndon Baines Johnson’s War on Poverty policies “introduced perverse incentives against saving money, starting businesses, getting married, and they discouraged fathers from being physically and emotionally present for their children — resulting in generational welfare dependence — black voters are lured to choose dependence over liberation.” The full text of his essay follows. The full text of his essay follows. Subscribe to the free, weekly Acton News & Commentary and other publications here.
Read more on Acton Commentary: The LBJ Curse on the Black Vote…
Catholic bishops fail to agree on statement on the economy
A divided Catholic hierarchy on Tuesday (Nov. 13) failed to agree on a statement about the economy after a debate that revealed sharp differences over the kind of social justice issues that were once a hallmark of the bishops’ public profile.
Here is the comment posted this this morning on the National Catholic Reporter article titled, “Statement on economy denounced by archbishop fails to pass.”
Full statement follows:
An important clarification.
Archbishop Fiorenza’s assertion that the Acton Institute views Rerum Novarum as “no longer applicable today” is incorrect. The archbishop is most likely basing this claim on a June 2012 America Magazine blog post by Vincent Miller titled, “Sirico Completely Wrong on Church’s Social Teaching.”
One night during either my sophomore or junior year of college, while delaying the doing of homework by walking around the upstairs of Taylor University’s library looking for embarrassing books I could hide in friends’ backpacks so the alarm would go off when we walked out together and they’d have to sheepishly present them at the front desk, I stumbled upon a little treatise called The Law by some French dude named Frederic Bastiat I had never heard of. I checked it out, cautiously put it in my own backpack as I checked for retaliatory plants, and headed back to the dorm for a spirited bout of Mario Kart 64.
Later that same week, while sitting in my “International Business” class (and wishing Jesus would return at that precise moment to end my boredom), I pulled Bastiat out and began reading these opening words . . .
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
Powerful stuff. I kept wondering, “Where had such clear-headed rhetoric like this been my entire life?” Read more on Bastiat on My Mind…
“Forever stamps” are a form of non-denominated postage first introduced in 2006. The U.S. Postal Service recently issued a “Four Flags” version which “continues [the U.S. Postal Service's] tradition of honoring the Stars and Stripes.” But there seems something peculiar—even a bit ominous—about the new stamps.
Read more on Is The Post Office Trying to Send Us a Message About Freedom?…
I will not indulge in any sort of “what would Dorothy Day do” when it comes to thinking about the current US Catholic Bishops’ Conference taking place in Baltimore. However, it is interesting to ponder this woman who exemplifies so much of 20th century Catholicism and the bishops’ agenda, especially as the bishops discuss cause for her canonization, while on the same day failing to pass a pastoral message on economics.
Read more on Dorothy Day and the US Bishops’ Conference 2012…
