Record unemployment rates in Europe have been published and they should alarm Americans. Why? Because we are headed in the same direction. Nile Gardiner, of The Telegraph, is quite sure of this:
Read more on New E-Zone Unemployment Rates Should Raise American Alarm…
It’s no secret that certain parts of the world have been losing population for some time. The tightly-controlled Chinese birthrate is the first thing that comes to most minds regarding this topic. However, large parts of Asia, Europe and now even the United States are beginning to see clear danger signs when it comes to economies and low birth rates.
Taiwan’s birthrate is “dropping like a stone…” says an editorial in the Taipei Times. The majority of people realize there is a demographic problem. It could hardly be otherwise, since the total fertility rate—the number of children per woman—is an anemic 0.9. Few are motivated to do anything about it, however. Taiwan is now heavily urbanized, and city folk tend to have very small families. When asked, younger Taiwanese say that they are not interested in having children because they cost too much money, or take too much time. Women are more motivated to get a college degree and seek professional employment than to marry and have children. In this highly secularized society, children are not seen not as a blessing, but as a burden tying down the women who bear them. Goodbye, Taiwan.
Read more on ‘Goodbye, Taiwan’: No Babies Means No Economic Base…
Writing on The Corner over at National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg points to the election and, refreshingly, tells us that, “I’m not one of those who, in recent days, have seemed inclined to indulge their inner curmudgeon, apparently convinced that it’s more or less game-over for America and we’re doomed to Euro-serfdom.”
Over at Crisis Magazine, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg has an analysis of a recent, and little noticed, article that Pope Benedict XVI published on, among other things, “the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions.” Gregg writes:
Read more on Samuel Gregg: Benedict XVI and the Pathologies of Religion…
Acton’s Director of Research, Samuel Gregg, notes in a recent NRO article that vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan has avoided “emotivist nonsense” and presented a clear moral vision for our country.
Among other things, Ryan, ever so politely but unambiguously, underlined the immense damage inflicted by sometimes well-intentioned government welfare programs upon those in need. Yet he did so in a manner that detailed the economic costs but also went beyond a narrowly materialist reckoning. Ryan pointed to the manifold ways in which government programs have undermined the dignity of those in need and constrained their opportunities for human flourishing.
Is the “secular vs. sacred” worldview struggle just another first-world problem? Join us in a discussion of this topic in the AU Online series Freedom and Virtue in the Developed World. The first lecture of this AU Online series will be held on Tuesday October 23 at 6:30pm EDT. Don’t miss your chance to explore this important topic!
On National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg offers an analysis of last night’s debate between President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney. Gregg begins with the assertion by Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post that the candidates are ignoring poor and working-class Americans. Gregg responds:
World Politics Review recently interviewed Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg about the Vatican’s foreign policymaking:
WPR: What are the main policy initiatives that the Vatican is currently promoting on the international stage, and how receptive are other nations to its interests?
Read more on Samuel Gregg on the Vatican’s Role in Global Diplomacy…
Writing in National Review Online, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg weighs in on Mitt Romney’s remarks about the “47 percent”:
Ever since the modern welfare state was founded (by none other than that great “champion” of freedom Otto von Bismarck as he sought, unsuccessfully, to persuade industrial workers to stop voting for the German Social Democrats), Western politicians have discovered that welfare programs and subsidies more generally are a marvelous way of creating constituencies of people who are likely to keep voting for you as long as you keep delivering the goods. In terms of electoral dynamics, it sometimes reduces elections to contests about which party can give you more — at other people’s expense.
Writing in the American Spectator, Acton’s Director of Research Samuel Gregg says the “enlightened” Western mind can no longer think seriously or coherently about religion:
Given the decidedly strange response of the Obama Administration and much of the Western commentariat to the violence sweeping the Islamic world, one temptation is to view their reaction as simple incomprehension in the face of the severe unreason that leads some people to riot and kill in a religion’s name. But while the Administration’s response has plenty to do with trying to defend a foreign policy that has plainly gone south, it also reflects something far more problematic: the Western secular mind’s increasing inability to think seriously and coherently about religion at all.
Read more on Samuel Gregg: Islam and the Closing of the Secular Mind…
