Latest Posts

August 15, 2017

Entry, exit, and supply curves: Constant costs

Note: This is post #45 in a weekly video series on basic microeconomics. Industries that have a flat supply curve are called “constant cost” industries. An example is domain name registration: to increase the supply of domain names, we must only increase the inputs by a negligible amount. Continue Reading...
August 15, 2017

Thoughts on Christians and race-identity issues

Here’s the deal, short and straight to the point, in light of the events in Charlottesville: Christians should not be within ten miles of this race-identity stuff. Something like “white nationalism” cannot be reconciled with the Gospel’s leap across racial and national barriers. Continue Reading...
August 15, 2017

The self-defeating nature of sin taxes

Rev. Ben Johnson, senior editor at the Acton Institute, writes at CapX that bishops should refrain from encouraging sin taxes. Recently in Poland, a letter written by bishop Tadeusz Bronakowski was read aloud in many Catholic churches, stating that the “state has a ‘responsibility’ to pass laws limiting alcohol’s ‘physical and economic availability,’ and to back them up with ‘ruthless enforcement.'” Continue Reading...
August 14, 2017

5 facts about the alt-right

A rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia this weekend ended in violence and domestic terrorism, as white nationalist groups clashed with counter-protestors. The Unite the Right rally was intended, as co-promoter Matthew Heimbach explains, to unite the alt-right around the “14 words”: “We must secure the existence of our people and the future for white children’—as our primary motivating factor.” Continue Reading...
August 14, 2017

A call to reaffirm the rational roots of Western identity

In an article published at the Witherspoon Institute, Samuel Gregg argues for the reaffirmation of Western civilization, its roots and its accomplishments. We need not be “faithful Jews or orthodox Christians to affirm Western civilization’s achievements,” but it is vital that we realize “these faiths’ indispensable role in the growth of Western culture,” he writes. Continue Reading...
August 11, 2017

Brexit’s £1.5 billion boon to charities

In the United States, it is considered scandalous when a partisan public official tries to deny a charity its tax-exempt status. But a combination of EU and UK law forces British charities to pay £1.5 billion in taxes to the government every year – something a leading charitable coalition says that Brexit could change. Continue Reading...
August 11, 2017

The J. Wellington Wimpy crony capitalist policy

“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today,” was a catchphrase made famous by J. Wellington Wimpy, a character in the comic strip Popeye. But it also describes, with slight modification, the attitude of crony capitalist companies to American taxpayers: “I’ll begrudgingly pay you in the future for services provided today.” Continue Reading...