That’s likely to be the result in the U.N.’s upcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” if this sneak preview reported in the WSJ is true. Indeed, the benefits of global warming could be greater than the harm: Therefore, the new report is effectively saying (based on the middle of the range […]
Archives
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Capitalist Virtues: An Oxymoron?
12 Sep 2013
I am in the middle of reading a couple of really interesting and controversial books on capitalism. One is Deidre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for An Age of Commerce. University of Chicago Press, 2006. This is a big book on big subject, a grand sweep type of book with high ambition. McCloskey is currently a […]
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Back to Obamacare
11 Sep 2013
It’s hot here in DC, really hot–96 degrees and humid. How did people function here before air conditioning? Wait, they didn’t. Government was much smaller and those who could left town for the summer. Jefferson had two homes in Virginia. Congress had a longer vacation. Those were the good old days. But here we are […]
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Christianity, Culture and Russell Moore
10 Sep 2013
I had the privilege of attending the inauguration in Washington, DC of Russell D. Moore as the new president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. The service (and it was a worship service more than merely an inauguration) at the historic Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Speakers included a former […]
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Random Thoughts
07 Sep 2013
Actually I have two topics, one more important and the other just an illustration of how bureaucractic organizations can become pathological or dysfunctional. So let’s begin with Syria. My colleague Mark Smith enumerated well the various issues and positions on the question of whether we should use force against Assad’s ruling regime. It is indeed […]
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A very interesting and a very telling bit of research from Sentier Research was released two weeks ago. Sentier analyzes data from the Current Population Survey to estimate trends in median household income. Yesterday, Steven Moore at the Wall Street Journal, published an op-ed piece based on Sentier’s analysis: Obama’s Economy Hits His Voters Hardest. During […]
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Ronald Coase-RIP
04 Sep 2013
It is a sad but joyous day to report the passing of another economic giant. Ronald Coase was a seminal figure in economics, a Nobel Laureate who truly changed the way all of us think about the world. It is sad with the loss of any great figure, and yet Professor Coase was not quite […]
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The Politicization of Marriage
29 Aug 2013
J.D. Vance wrote an interesting piece in the recent issue of National Review on the importance of mobility as an indicator of opportunity in America. His point is that while we may be seeing some signs of life in the economy due to growth—that growth does not necessarily mean that opportunity is expanding. According to […]
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Despite the temptation to address President Obama’s most recent foray into higher education–which, by the way, if implemented by Congress, would only drive up costs more and eviscerate much of what is left that works–I will examine a different issue, one that for Christians poses an even bigger problem in the long run. It goes […]
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A Moral Case for Markets?
20 Aug 2013
Some of you who read this blog and some who have read the recent works by Robert Sirico and Arthur Brooks know that the need of the hour seems to be to make a moral case for markets. Nearly everyone admits their efficiency and ability to create massive wealth. But the criticism on ethical […]