Category: The Economy

Business, Entrepreneurship and a Vatican Think-Tank
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Business, Entrepreneurship and a Vatican Think-Tank

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by on Apr 06, 2013 in Featured, International Issues, The Economy, The Social Order
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“Am I creating wealth, or am I engaging in rent-seeking behavior?” If this question would be asked during a course of business ethics at George Mason University (GMU), few would be surprised. “Rent-seeking” is a term used often in “Public Choice” economics, and GMU has been the home of an academic center with that focus. [...]

Pope Francis - Speaking to College of Cardinals - March 15, 2013
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Social Justice and Pope Francis: Choosing Freedom Over Serfdom

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by on Mar 22, 2013 in Creative Solidarity, Featured, Law & Justice, The Economy, The Social Order
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Society ensures social justice when it respects the dignity and the rights of the person as the proper end of society itself.

Is the Default Position Shifting to Subsidiarity?
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Is the Default Position Shifting to Subsidiarity?

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by on Feb 25, 2013 in Agrarianism & Distributism, Creative Solidarity, Featured, Government & Politics, The Economy
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Not so long ago, most ecclesiastical officials and Catholic academicians emphasized solidarity as a political ideal. Owing to a common misunderstanding of both government and solidarity, that emphasis was almost always at the expense of subsidiarity. In recent years, however, the tide in favor of subsidiarity has begun to turn. It remains true that concern for [...]

Plutonomy
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Plutonomy

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by on Feb 24, 2013 in Agrarianism & Distributism, Featured, The Economy, The Social Order
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Plutocracies are societies where majority wealth is controlled by a shrinking minority. They are driven by economies powered and consumed by the wealthiest class over a mass population dependent upon their fortunes. Wealth creation is the principal motivator in these economies and corporations are their vital actors. Snatching public policy away from the hands of [...]

Pope Benedict XVI with Coat of Arms
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A Catholic Third Way: Pope Benedict and the Crisis of Global Capitalism

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by on Feb 21, 2013 in Featured, Law & Justice, The Economy, The Social Order
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Benedict’s vision for an alternative political economy resonates with people of all faiths and none.

Vatican and Global Financial Contexts of Pope’s Resignation
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Vatican and Global Financial Contexts of Pope’s Resignation

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by on Feb 12, 2013 in Featured, The Economy
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Today the Vatican announced that its ability to process credit card transactions, interrupted since January 1 by a decision of the Bank of Italy, had been restored. The renewed access to international financial networks comes one day after Pope Benedict announced that he will step down from his office as successor of Peter on February [...]

Learning to Love Sequestration
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Learning to Love Sequestration

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by on Jan 30, 2013 in Featured, The Economy
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Paul Ryan says it’s going to happen, the sequestration, that is. One can hardly imagine any alternative scenario, in which Democrats and Republicans work it all out, and come out singing Kumbaya with a deal to avert the workings of the automatic cuts, share and share alike, to domestic and defense discretionary spending. Certainly, it would be better a) [...]

Distributism and the Local Organic Food Movement
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Distributism and the Local Organic Food Movement

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by on Jan 05, 2013 in Agrarianism & Distributism, Featured, The Economy
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Great change for the good often comes slowly. It creeps up through the cracks in a broken system, and begins to take the place of its previous forms. Slowly, public opinion, public actions, and individual sentiments begin to be formed in a new way. This is exactly what is happening in America today. The Local [...]

The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker
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The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker

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by on Dec 20, 2012 in Agrarianism & Distributism, Featured, MyChurchParish.com, The Economy, The Social Order
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There is a well-known passage in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (book I, chapter 2) that runs thus: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and [...]

America’s Growing Government Class
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America’s Growing Government Class

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by on Dec 16, 2012 in Columnists, Featured, Government & Politics, The Economy, The Social Order
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The latest unemployment figures are again depressing, but not for the usual reasons. They provide further confirmation of Barack Obama’s fundamental transformation of America, specifically through his creation of a growing government class. The numbers show a massive increase in government jobs created over the last five months—621,000, to be exact, dwarfing private-sector job growth. [...]

Government Subsidies Not So Sweet for Health
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Government Subsidies Not So Sweet for Health

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by on Dec 11, 2012 in Cooking & Food, Featured, The Economy
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It’s yet another example of the unintended consequences of government meddling in the economy, a new study shows that large amounts of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) found in national food supplies across the world may be one explanation for the rising global epidemic of type 2 diabetes and resulting higher health care costs. The [...]

Welfareship Wordle
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Welfareship: France’s Status Quo, America’s Future?

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by on Dec 10, 2012 in Featured, Government & Politics, The Economy, The Social Order
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Welfare has become a characteristic of President Obama’s domestic policies. There has been a surge in American citizens on welfare over the last four years, including a 50-percent increase in people on food stamps (from 32 to 47 million). It is a form of “welfareship.” As a citizen of France, I know such a society [...]

Twinkie Killers, Part 2: Long Live the Twinkie!
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Twinkie Killers, Part 2: Long Live the Twinkie!

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by on Nov 30, 2012 in Featured, The Economy
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Can the Twinkie and other famous Hostess brands be saved? I hope so, and I’ll offer my own two cents’ on one possible way of doing so. First, though, I’d like to address two of the criticisms of my previous article—namely, that I confined my comments to the Bakery union and the allegation that I [...]

Too Few Capitalists or Too Much Capitalism?
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Too Few Capitalists or Too Much Capitalism?

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by on Nov 29, 2012 in Agrarianism & Distributism, Featured, The Economy
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There is a saying of G.K. Chesterton’s about economics that one finds frequently quoted, but often it seems with little attempt to understand what Chesterton meant or might have meant, especially in the context of his entire economic thought. Now most people know that Chesterton was a Distributist, but since there is some confusion in [...]

Blasted Twinkie Killers!
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Blasted Twinkie Killers!

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by on Nov 27, 2012 in Featured, The Economy
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Drat! I’m bummed—saddened by the news that the Hostess company, home of the Twinkie and other venerable sugary snacks, is shutting down. I’ll bet I haven’t eaten more than three or four Twinkies in the last 30 years, so the demise of Hostess doesn’t adversely impact my lifestyle. It’s just that, for baby boomers like [...]

An Inhuman Economic System
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An Inhuman Economic System

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by on Nov 17, 2012 in Columnists, Featured, On the Job, The Economy
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If someone is looking for material for a book with a title like Profiles of an Inhuman Economic System, consider what follows to be a contribution to the cause. It’s about a man I know whom I’ll call Joe. His wife told me his story. Joe is an honest, conscientious guy who, a couple of [...]

Two Percent Economic Growth: Real or Apparent?
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Two Percent Economic Growth: Real or Apparent?

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by on Nov 13, 2012 in Featured, The Economy
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The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) has just announced that GDP grew at a rate of 2 percent during the last three months. Keynesians like Paul Krugman should be happy, and the so-called “market monetarists” like Scott Sumner should be happy. When we mistake GDP for the economy, a 2 percent quarterly growth rate [...]

Practical Economics Wordle
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Practical Economics: How Things Work, Why There is Room for Morality, Where to Go from Here

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by on Nov 01, 2012 in Featured, Government & Politics, The Economy
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There is a great deal of debate over the economy in the current Presidential election. Indeed, the Republican ticket has focused the election on economic issues, and particularly on government spending, by adding Paul Ryan as its Vice Presidential candidate. This enables the Democratic Party to take shots at Republican economic ideas, in the hope [...]

Book Review: Indivisible, by James Robison and Jay W. Richards
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Book Review: Indivisible, by James Robison and Jay W. Richards

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by on Oct 22, 2012 in Creative Solidarity, Featured, Government & Politics, History, International Issues, Law & Justice, Leadership, Live in Christ, On Books, The Economy, The Social Order
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In these final few days of election season, wouldn’t it be a relief to read something informative, constructive, and positive? The political scene this year is filled with negativity and misinformation; yet, we are presented with two very clear choices, at least when it comes to the presidential race. The book Indivisible provides a positive [...]

The Politically Incorrect Billionaire
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The Politically Incorrect Billionaire

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by on Oct 07, 2012 in Featured, The Economy
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Two news items about “the rich” recently popped up online within a couple of hours of each other. Story No. 1: Pew Research Center found that non-rich Americans have ambivalent feelings toward the rich: On the positive side, there was admiration for those “who get rich by working hard” and a sense that rich Americans [...]

The Winners and Losers From QE3
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The Winners and Losers From QE3

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by on Sep 20, 2012 in Featured, The Economy
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The only doubt about the Federal Reserve’s decision to embark on a third round of quantitative easing was about when it would begin. It was a foregone conclusion that Chairman Ben Bernanke’s Fed would resort to more quantitative easing. Under his leadership, the Federal Reserve has become a one-trick pony. Their solution for every economic [...]

The Moral Status of Market Competition
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The Moral Status of Market Competition

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by on Sep 10, 2012 in Featured, Leadership, The Economy
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One of the main criticisms of the market economy leveled by people of faith is that the market thrives on competition, incentivizing the voracious and oppositional features of human existence. Walter Rauschenbusch captured this concern in his classic exposition of what he called “the law of tooth and nail” in Christianizing the Social Order (1912). “The moral [...]

Does Paul Ryan Want to Take Medicare Away From Seniors?
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Does Paul Ryan Want to Take Medicare Away From Seniors?

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by on Sep 01, 2012 in Featured, Government & Politics, The Economy
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A year ago, opponents attacked Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), claiming that his plan to reform Medicare would kill grandma by taking away her benefits. Mitt Romney, who, of course, has chosen Ryan as his running mate, is proposing similar changes to Medicare. Does Ryan want to gut Medicare? To the contrary, Ryan’s intention is to [...]

What’s In a Recovery?
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What’s In a Recovery?

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by on Aug 08, 2012 in Featured, The Economy
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Thomson Reuters’ latest survey of Wall Street analysts’ expectations about next quarter’s corporate earnings has prompted some to wonder whether the canary in the coal mine is beginning to feel lightheaded. According to the Wall Street Journal, those in the know are expecting decreased earnings in the third quarter, the first quarterly decline since the [...]

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