The call to “buy American” is one we hear frequently or see plastered on the bumper of the car in front of us. Donald Boudreaux, senior economics advisor at Mercatus Center, explains the problem with this ideal in a letter to the Washington Post: Let’s make a deal. Government will agree to protect only those American workers and small-business owners who in return agree to stop buying foreign-made products. For example, American steel workers will get protection from steel imports...

Our changing culture and society has now largely pushed Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s notable and resolute prayer over to the side of partisan politics. Today is of course the 69th anniversary of American, British, and Canadian forces landing at Normandy, a day Roosevelt declared in 1944 would preserve our way of life and “religion.” But tributes and recognition of FDR’s prayer are often regulated to conservative blogs, news sources, and politicians now. There is even a bill that was passed by...

Jordan Ballor wrote a provocative post about fusionism today, titled “Libertarians in Black,” modifying Jonah Goldberg’s suggestion that there should always be a libertarian in the room during political discussions with a little help from Johnny Cash: I think we might be able to bring Jonah Goldberg and Johnny Cash together on this point, to say that there always ought to be a “libertarian in black” in the room, asking the right questions about what government policies do for the...

The newest issue of The Economist features a story that suggests we are nearing the end of abject poverty – the dire, horrid poverty that leaves people stuck in agonizing, short lives. The good news is that we know how to fix this problem: A lot of targeted policies—basic social safety nets and cash-transfer schemes, such as Brazil’s Bolsa Família—help. So does binning policies like fuel subsidies to Indonesia’s middle class and China’s hukou household-registration system (see article) that boost...

The conservative-libertarian fusionism conversation is gaining new life as discussions and reflections about the state of the Republican party reverberate after last year’s election. Ben Domenech has a particularly worthwhile outline of what he calls a “libertarian populist agenda.” Last month’s discussion at Cato Unbound also focused on fusionism, and in this post I’d like to bring together some of the various threads to conclude for a vision of conservative-libertarian fusionism (or at least co-belligerence) in the economic sphere. In...

The nuns who taught environmental science at the high school your writer attended would preface discussion of natural disasters as “acts of God.” Apparently much has changed in the past few decades as Sr. Patricia Daly, OP, is declaring recent hurricanes and tornadoes the result of greenhouse gases. In other words: “acts of Exxon.” Daly, a member of the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, N.J., is the spokesperson for her order, which is among several groups that submitted proxy...

What do markets have to do with monasticism? Quite a lot to the Benedictine monks of St. Andrew’s Abbey in Southern California, according to a recent press release. Their prior Fr. Joseph Brennan describes MonksInk, the monks’ business selling ink and toner cartridges: Every monastery has something unique about them. For example, a monastery in Louisiana makes soap. Some make jellies and jams. The Camaldolese make amazing fruitcake. But we never developed anything like that. Until now, we only produced...

One of the most basic concepts in economics and business is marginal or incremental cost, the additional cost needed to produce or purchase one more unit of a good or service. For example, if a business can produce 100 widgets at a total cost of $5,000 and 101 widgets for $5,500, the marginal cost of the 151st unit is $500. At that rate, pany has a disincentive to produce more than 100 widgets since the cost rises sharply (an average...

Last night in Dublin I was having a conversation with a 65-year-old man who was ranting about the high unemployment rate in the European Union, which in the 17-nation currency area rose to 12.2 percent in April. The current unemployment rate is a new record since the data series began in 1995. My new friend was very open about being an outright socialist and said that Europe’s problem is that people are not being treated fairly. Capitalism, he explained, promotes...

The Washington Post has an interesting story on young people who feel their vocation is “earning to give”—making as much money as possible in order to give away as much as possible to worthy causes. An example is Jason Trigg, an puter science graduate who works as a programmer for a high-frequency trading firm: Trigg makes money just to give it away. His logic is simple: The more he makes, the more good he can do. He’s figured out just...