We haven’t really touched on the economy in a while, so I’ll briefly hit some of the latest news and invite your discussion in the comments. First up is the state of the markets. Many Berean readers know that I’m suspicious of the markets, and have been for years, since valuations by most conventional measures […]
Archives
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Bigger government means less tolerance
28 Jul 2017
Many Americans of all political stripes consider the heated level of political rhetoric to be harmful to our country, and the recognition that we’re very divided is not generally seen as a good thing. Yet I think we often fail to see the reason why there is seemingly more division. We blame the 24 hour […]
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Dick Armey, the former majority leader of the House of Representatives during the 90s, used to say something to the effect of “Republicans are always afraid you won’t understand the issue; Democrats are always afraid you will” Democrats seemingly could care less about reams of data, but live and die by the anecdote–they just need […]
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Please, let me pay more taxes!
18 Jul 2017
And it must be compulsory, through taxation, as government is “what we do together.” So this past week we saw Seattle pass an income tax (which may be unconstitutional), amid the cry of its citizens to be allowed to pay their fair share. …backers of the measure rallied supporters, including software developer Carissa Knipe, who […]
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From Russia with Love
12 Jul 2017
I don’t pretend to know what is going on in the Russia/Trump imbroglio, but we ought to have a bit of discussion on this, since its all the media will cover in the headlines. First, I will say that I think there is a lot of room for Christians to disagree on the seriousness of the […]
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Henry Hazlitt said: The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists of tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups. The drumbeat gets louder daily about Amazon crushing retailers, and it is […]
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In a response to a recent post on the need for us to pray for the poor people of Venezuela, one poster suggested the problems weren’t socialism, but over-dependence on one export–oil. And since the price of oil has dropped so dramatically, that has caused the problems. While that is a superficial reason, one has to […]
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Venezuela is starving, please pray
05 May 2017
From today’s WSJ, Venezuela is starving (gated). No political economy discussion really needed here. The socialist experiment is turning Venezuela into North Korea, with all the attendant misery. This is potentially going to be worse than Syria. This is an unmitigated, albeit predictable, disaster. No need to discuss the issue as to why, just pray for […]
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Puerto Rico is trying to use a bankruptcy provision approved last year to ameliorate its $123B debt. Now this is important for many reasons but I just want to focus on one. This bankruptcy, and the potential of stiffing the bondholders, will be beneficial in the long run. Why? I mean, we all think […]
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Trumpian Tax Triumph?
29 Apr 2017
Mr. Trump unveiled his tax plan earlier this week, and there was something for almost every conservative to like. Our current obscene corporate tax rate of 39% is the highest among industrial nations (only exceeded by Chad and the UAE), but doesn’t yield all that much revenue, so Mr. Trump proposes drastically reducing it to […]