Donald Trump has just left Brussels after a two-day NATO summit after he raised two key issues. Here’s what you need to know. What were the main two key issues raised at the NATO summit? President Trump objected to Germany’s agreement to build an energy pipeline with Russia, and he repeated his insistence that member nations spend at least two percent of GDP on national defense. Why did he say Germany is “controlled by Russia”? Donald Trump opened the summit...

Debates continue to rage about immigration policy and the best way to manage our range of migrant and refugee crises. Yet much of our solution-seeking seems intently focused on the levers of government. Whatever side of the political divide,we continue to hear Biblical justifications for a range of policy solutions. But however important those political considerations may be, we should remember that our basic ethic of Christian hospitality doesn’t rely or depend on decisions or decrees from the halls of...

The digital currency Bitcoin has not only attracted a lot of interest from investors, but it has raised some intriguing economic and financial questions. Economists and other theorists have long grappled with problems such as inflation, counterfeiting or money laundering. When we are talking about money in a digital world, however, we may have specific problems like scarcity and trust issues. Inflation Bitcoin is based on the underlying block chain technology (see this explainer). Each time a user discovers a...

Note: This is post #84 in a weekly video series on basic economics. What spurs the growth of new ideas? The vital factor is institutions, which serve as the soil where ideas are planted, says Alex Tabarrok in this video by Marginal Revolution University. While it may seem like ideas grow at random, the truth is you need a set of key ingredients, say Tabarook, or what we call “institutions.” (If you find the pace of the videos too slow,...

All our politics is religious, says Jonathan Leeman. “Neutrality is a bluff, he adds, “We are all sectarians (and conversations in the public square will e more honest when everyone names their ‘sect’). . . . Whoever gets to define which issues are ‘religious’ gets to rigs the game.” Should we therefore conclude that the the U. S. Constitution’s “no religious test for public office” clause is nothing more than an ideological power play? “Not at all,” says Leeman: In...

Birthrates across the Western world are in free-fall, with more and more adults opting for fewer and fewer kids (if any at all), and making such decisions later and later in life. In 2017, fertility rates in America hit a record low for the second year in a row. The reasons for the decline are numerous, ranging from expansions in opportunity to increases in gender equality to basic shifts in personal priorities. According to a recent survey conducted by the...

During the 38th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), on June 18 – July 6, 2018, the UN Special Rapporteur, an Englishman by the name of Philip Alston, presented a report on poverty in the United States, the full text of which may be read here. This report, based on a two-week fact-finding mission to various locations in the United States and interviews with local, state, and federal politicians and civil servants, represents the official UN view...

At Acton University, Turkish Islamic scholar, Mustafa Akyol, gave multiple lectures on Islam, discussing topics ranging from its history to its controversial practices. Akyol has been speaking at Acton University for many years now and is a respected scholar in fields of Islam, politics, and Turkish affairs. He is a critic of Islamic extremism and the author of the influential book Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty. After attending both of Akyol’s lectures, a few points stood out...