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Japanese Comics and Cultural Economics

A few weeks ago I was listening to a very engaging American RadioWorks documentary, rebroadcast from last October, “Japan’s Pop Power.” The show focused on the increasing cultural imports to America coming from Japan, which by some estimations will soon dwarf industries typically associated with American-Japanese trade like automobiles, technology, and electronics. Continue Reading...

The New (Green) Robber Barons

What do you call titans of industry who influence governmental regulation to provide them with tax and subsidy incentives to make a business venture profitable? They used to be called robber barons…now apparently they’re “eco-millionaires.” Continue Reading...

John Wesley, ‘The Rich Man and Lazarus’

Readings in Social Ethics: John Wesley, “The Rich Man and Lazarus.” References below are to page numbers. A warning on the dangers of riches: “‘There was a certain rich man.’ And it is no more sinful to be rich than to be poor. Continue Reading...

Confessing Evangelical Economics

A number of comments have been floating around the blogosphere related to the news coming out of Colorado last week that a professor at Colorado Christian University was terminated because “his lessons were too radical and undermined the school’s commitment to the free enterprise system.” Continue Reading...

STAND on ‘Wristband Activism’

STAND, the Student Anti Genocide Coalition, is discussing Kaylin Wainwright’s Acton commentary about Darfur and campus activism on its blog. STAND, which says it has founded 700 chapters, answers Kaylin’s criticisms about campus “slacktivism” by pointing to its effective engagement on the Darfur issue. Continue Reading...

CARE Says ‘No’ to Federal Money

From today’s NYT: “CARE, one of the world’s biggest charities, is walking away from some $45 million a year in federal financing, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but also may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help.” Continue Reading...

Global Warming Consensus Alert: Blast From the Past

Jeff Jacoby, writing yesterday in the Boston Globe, takes a pleasant stroll down memory lane: INTRODUCING Newsweek’s Aug. 13 cover story on global warming “denial,” editor Jon Meacham brings up an embarrassing blast from his magazine’s past: an April 1975 story about global cooling, and the coming ice age that scientists then were predicting. Continue Reading...