A recent study by Millennial Branding reveals that

“Owner” is the fifth most popular job title [listed on Facebook] for Gen-Y [i.e., Millennials] because they are an entrepreneurial generation. Even though most of their companies won’t succeed, they are demonstrating an unprecedented entrepreneurial spirit.

The study does not speculate on the causes of this upsurge in enterprise and creativity among 18-29 year-olds, but no doubt “Mother Necessity” has her hand in it somewhere. Our country and world are facing serious financial crises and offering us little assurance of any positive resolution before we are handed the reins of the world. This last summer’s gridlock in Congress over our looming default was a case-in-point, and the Eurozone crisis continues to cast a gloomy shadow on our economic future.

Read more on Millennials Embrace the Entrepreneurial Vocation…

The fall 2011 issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality has now been finalized and will be heading to print. It is a bit overdue, but this issue is one of our largest ever, and it includes a number of noteworthy features on the special theme issue topic “Modern Christian Social Thought.” As I outline in the editorial for this issue (PDF), 2011 marked a number of significant anniversaries, including the 120th anniversaries of Rerum Novarum and the First Christian Social Congress in Amsterdam.

Read more on Preview of JMM 14.2: Modern Christian Social Thought…

Well, that wasn’t a serious title: After an hour of reflection, I am forced to admit that pizza qua pizza is a morally neutral proposition. We might have thought it was politically neutral too, until Congress decided this week that pizza sauce still counts as a serving of vegetables in public school lunch lines.

Read more on Pizza qua Vegetable: Acton Finds the Moral Dimension…

Congress insults our intelligence when it tells us that Chinese currency games are to blame for our trade deficit with that country and unemployment in our own. Legislators might as well propose a fleet of men-o’-war to navigate the globe and collect all its gold: economics is not a zero-sum game.

Read more on Trade with China, or Blockade Their Ports?…

Faith leaders protest budget cuts (at U.S. Capitol, not NCC meeting)

A “budget is a moral document,” right?

The Institute on Religion & Democracy reports that following the loss of a major donor, the National Council of Churches (NCC) finds itself “closer than ever before to the precipice” of financial collapse. The progressive/liberal church coalition, comprised largely of mainline Protestant and Orthodox churches, is running out of dough. IRD’s Barton Gingerich:

Read more on National Council of Churches ‘balancing the budget on the backs of the poor’?…

President Obama wants his American Jobs Act passed immediately. You know this already—he made sure he delivered that message in his speech: “Pass this jobs plan right away” was his refrain. President Obama has definitely not read the Federalist Papers in a while. If he had, he would not be encouraging Congress to pass half-a-trillion dollars of new spending at a moment’s notice.

Read more on Jobs Act Usurps Liberty, Christian Charity…

Justin Constantine has written an excellent piece on the high cost of war in the Atlantic titled “Wounded in Iraq: A Marine’s Story.”

Constantine, who was shot in the head in Iraq, notes in his essay,

Read more on The High Cost of War…

Last week I wrote a commentary titled the “The Folly of More Centralized Power,” making the case against ceding anymore power to Washington and returning back to the fundamental principles of federalism.

Read more on Rep. Justin Amash on Government Dysfunction…

The next skirmish over the country’s financial direction will come in September as Congress tries to prepare for the federal government’s new fiscal year, which starts October 1st. The Christian Left has quoted the Bible quite freely during the budget battle, throwing around especially the “red letter” words of Christ in its campaign to protect all of the federal government’s poverty programs (even those so riddled with fraud that the White House wants to cut them). It seems bizarre, then, that they never make reference to the most obviously political passage of the Gospels—Christ’s dictate to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s…”

Read more on What Would Jesus Cut? Who’s Asking, the Pharisees?…

My commentary this week addresses the importance of federalism and our fundamental founding principles in relation to the problems that plague the nation. There was once plenty of commentary and finger pointing in regards to setting a new tone of political and civil discourse in the nation. However, the more the Washington power structure is threatened by those unsatisfied with where the leadership is taking us, the more those demanding a return to first principles will be splattered with, at times, revolting words and admonishment from those who think they know best. The commentary is printed below:

Read more on The Folly of More Centralized Power…