Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'poverty'

A Few Notable Quotables

Jim Wallis: “I’m believing more and more that politics alone cannot overcome poverty and our other great social problems.” (See also: Pentecost 2007, featuring Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Barack Obama.) Continue Reading...

Poverty and the Christian left

There is clearly a “Christian Left” growing among evangelicals in America. We have heard a great deal about the “Christian Right” for more than two decades. I frequently critique this movement unfavorably. Continue Reading...

‘Reverse’ subsidies

A couple weeks ago the NYT magazine ran a piece by contributing writer Tina Rosenberg, which attempts to outline some of the ways in which “everyone in a wealthy nation has become the beneficiary of the generous subsidies that poorer countries bestow upon rich ones.” Continue Reading...

Kristof on Kiva

Today’s NYT has an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof recommending the work of micro-finance organizations, like Kiva, whom we’ve mentioned before. Kristof writes in “You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor” (TimesSelect) that “Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty.” Continue Reading...

Acton wins third Templeton Freedom award

The Acton Institute won first place in the Free Market Solutions to Poverty category in the 2007 Templeton Freedom Awards competition. The award, managed by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, recognized Acton for its use of the “power of the popular media to challenge common beliefs about how to alleviate poverty.” Continue Reading...

Trickle-down decadence

Anthony Esolen, from the March issue of Touchstone: The most bountiful alms that the rich can give the poor, apart from the personal donation of their time and means, are lives of virtue to emulate. Continue Reading...

Images of plenty and want

The conflicting images I spoke about last week, the obesity of poor children in America, are the subject of a weekend piece in the NYT, “India Prosperity Creates Paradox; Many Children Are Fat, Even More Are Famished.” Continue Reading...

Poor Kids in America are Fat

A new study finds that children growing up in poverty in America are disproportionately more likely to be obese, compared to other income groups (HT: God’s Politics). So, poor kids in the US are fat…and in this they are just like the rest of America: “The whole country is struggling with this,” said Virginia Chomitz , senior scientist at the Institute for Community Health at the Cambridge Health Alliance . Continue Reading...

Who Really Cares for the Poor?

Syracuse University professor Arthur Brooks challenges perceived mainstream social orthodoxy in his new book, Who Really Cares: America’s Charity Divide – Who Gives, Who Doesn’t and Why It Matters. For generations it has been assumed that political and social liberals are generous towards the poor while conservatives are proverbial tightwads. Continue Reading...