Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'economics'

June 05, 2013

‘Economic Examination of Conscience’

Kishore Jayabalan, Rome director of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, clarified remarks made by Pope Francis at a May 16 reception of new Vatican ambassadors. The pope, calling for an examination of the world’s relationship with money, said we are facing “dire consequences” due to the power we give money. Continue Reading...
June 03, 2013

You Say You Want A Revolution? Count The EU Out

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble is a frustrated man. With unemployment rates in Germany hovering at around 8 percent, and Greece and Spain at almost 60 percent, he believes the EU is on the brink of “revolution.” His answer is not to scrap the welfare model however; he wants to preserve it. Continue Reading...
May 09, 2013

The Market is a Moral Teacher

Does the free market encourage moral behavior? Virgil Henry Storr, Research Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at George Mason University, recently wrote a report called “The Impartial Spectator and The Moral Teachings of Markets.” He addresses critics’ concerns that the free market brings out and nurtures human vices. Continue Reading...
May 07, 2013

Idle Young Americans: Are We Becoming Europe?

If  you’re a young American adult (the 25-to-34 age range), and you have a good job, count yourself blessed. Most of your peers aren’t so lucky. The New York Times reports that “[o]ver the last 12 years, the United States has gone from having the highest share of employed 25- to 34-year-olds among large, wealthy economies to having among the lowest.” Of course, young Europeans have been dealing with this for years. Continue Reading...
April 17, 2013

Think (and Read) before You Blog: A Response to Michael Sean Winters

Over at the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters makes some comments about my book Becoming Europe based on a review he had read by Fr. C.J. McCloskey. Here are the most pertinent of his observations: I know that American exceptionalism lives on both the left and the right, but when did the right become so Europhobic? Continue Reading...
April 17, 2013

Bitcoin as ‘Super Fiat’ Currency

Joe has done us all a real service in putting together his three part (1, 2, 3) primer on Bitcoin (full PDF here). I am curious, though, what the justification is for referring to Bitcoin as a “commodity” currency. Continue Reading...