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January 31, 2018

What would John Dewey do about automation?

“If you know the name John Dewey, you may associate him with the decline of American education,” says Winston Brady in this week’s Acton Commentary. “Many believe that the absence of intellectual rigor and the lack of responsibility in schools can be blamed on Dewey, who has been called the ‘father of progressive education.’” Continue Reading...
January 31, 2018

Radio Free Acton: The fight for $15, stock market boom and Oxfam’s 2018 inequality report

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Caroline Roberts talks to Joe Carter, Senior Editor at Acton, about minimum wage and the debate surrounding the “Fight for $15.” Then on the Econ Quiz segment, Dave Hebert, Professor of Economics at Aquinas College, speaks with John Couretas, Executive Editor and Director of Communications at Acton, about the stock market boom (segment was recorded before the Jan. Continue Reading...
January 31, 2018

Should we be worried about inequality?

Inequality has become the West’s all-consuming focus. Economic inequality has become the prism through which the media report on every story from the annual Oxfam report and Davos forum to last night’s State of the Union address, health care, gender relations, blockchain – even the proper amount of homework to assign and whether parents should read their children bedtime stories. Continue Reading...
January 30, 2018

Why is the State of the Union always ‘strong’?

I have a can’t miss prediction: tonight, when President Trump gives his first State of the Union address, he will describe the state of the union as “strong.” (I’ve made this prediction on this blog the past several years, so I’m hoping for a quadfecta of prescience tonight.) Continue Reading...
January 30, 2018

What is moral hazard?

Note: This is post #66 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Imagine you take your car in to the shop for routine service and the mechanic says you need a number of repairs. Continue Reading...
January 29, 2018

The greatest foe of poverty

Winston Churchill once said, “Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.” Continue Reading...