Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Economics

February 26, 2019

Google and surveillance capitalism

Business Insider reported last week that Google failed to disclose the existence of a microphone in their home security system, NestSecure. This came as a surprise to many Nest customers who complained that they were not informed that the security system even had a microphone. Continue Reading...
February 20, 2019

Democrats proposed subsidies do not make the rent any less high

Democratic Senators and Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Cory Booker have both recently proposed legislation to address the issue of rising housing costs. Senator Harris’ bill ‘The Rent Relief Act’ and Senator Booker’s bill ‘Housing, Opportunity, Mobility, and Equity Act’ both focus on assisting people who pay more than 30% of their gross income on rent or, in the case of Senator Harris’s bill, rent and utilities. Continue Reading...
February 11, 2019

The false promise of an ‘ultramillionaire’ tax

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is running for president in 2020, and she has gained attention for proposing an “ultramillionaire” tax: a 2 percent tax on households with a net worth over $50 million and an additional 1 percent on households worth over $1 billion. Continue Reading...
February 11, 2019

Socialism, by any other name

At the end of January I had the pleasure to speak with my friend of many years Ricardo Ball about the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.  The conversation was livestreamed from the Acton Institute allowing an international audience to listen in as we discussed recent developments from the streets of Caracas. Continue Reading...
February 07, 2019

A world of economic miracles: The power of human cooperation

Surrounded by economic abundance, it can be easy to be distracted by what we see—products, tools, technology, resources—and assume our newfound prosperity stems from material causes. In turn, given the stability of many institutions and the increasing pace of innovation, continuous economic progress now seems somewhat inevitable. Continue Reading...