Acton’s director of research Samuel Gregg is up at Public Discourse, with a piece titled “Monetary Possibilities for a Post-Euro Europe.” With his usual mix of sophisticated economic analysis and reference to deep principles, Gregg considers European countries’ options should the eurozone fail. If that happens, he says, “European governments will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rethink the type of monetary order they wish to embrace.”

Read more on Samuel Gregg: Freedom in a Post-Euro Europe…

In a recent article in the Washington Post, Juan Forero and Michael Birnbaum recommend that in the face of the looming specter of Greek debt default, Europe may learn a few lessons from South America. In particular, they point to the good example of Uruguay and the bad example of Argentina.

Read more on Fiat Currency, the Euro, and Greek Default…

I was listening to news radio and heard an update in which the senate majority leader Harry Reid gave his interpretation of events on the debt ceiling negotiation. The part that really got my attention was where he insisted that further committee work would go after those “millionaires and billionaires.”

Read more on Is Making Money Evil, Harry Reid?…

Camarin M. Porter of the Department of History at University of Wisconsin-Madison reviews a text edited by Stephen J. Grabill, Sourcebook in Late-Scholastic Monetary Theory: The Contributions of Martin de Azpilcueta, Luis de Molina, and Juan de Mariana (Lexington, 2007). The review appears courtesy of H-Net, a unique and indispensable set of list-servs hosted by Michigan State University.

Read more on ‘A Broadened Perspective on the Ethics of Early Modern Exchange’…

As we begin the New Year, I find myself thinking about books that fill the conservative armamentarium for resisting the left-liberal onslaught on the past handful of years. I’ve omitted some categories, like military and foreign policy, because they are outside my areas of expertise and don’t apply as much to the Acton mission, anyway. Here are my recommendations:

Read more on Books for the Arsenal of Ordered Liberty…

Amidst all the craziness of l’affaire d’Tigre there are some important questions being raised about the linkage between power, wealth, and faithfulness.

The Wealth Report at The Wall Street Journal asks, “Is it harder to stay faithful with large wealth?”

Read more on Wealth and Fidelity, Golf and Marriage…

Got the socialism blues? Worried that a friend or maybe a teenage son or daughter may contract a nasty case of it? Marvin Olasky at World magazine recommends former Acton research fellow Jay Richards’ 2009 HarperOne book, Money Greed and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and not the Problem:

Read more on Socialism Flu Shots for Christmas…

I have been thinking a lot about the way we sell church-related goods and services.

I have been thinking about that and about Jesus overturning the tables of the money changers and sacrificial animal sellers in the temple.

Read more on Sacred Selling…

Sports are still able to foster human virtues, especially classical virtues like courage and fortitude. Like any good thing, sport all too often risks becoming an idol, not because of any fault within the institution itself so much as the fault lying within each human participant.

Read more on PBR: Glory and Money…

By happy serendipity two books of related interest caught my attention today.

The first is David Cowan’s Economic Parables: The Monetary Teachings of Jesus Christ (Paternoster, 2007). Michael Kruse recommends the book in a brief review.

Read more on Jesus and the Parables…