This is only one powerful and horrific story that highlights the severe problems with Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. Unfortunately, there are easily thousands of stories like the one experienced by this veteran. Kay Daly sums it up well in the article from the American Thinker, Fighting a bureaucracy the size of the VA leviathan is not only physically exhausting, it is soul crushing as well. My brother was literally losing his will to live. That’s what I saw in the...

The Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington is led by Robert Woodson who founded it in 1981 to help neighborhoods where what he calls “the poverty industry” doesn’t seem to help much. He’s torqued that many fellow African Americans have abandoned their poor brothers except to exploit them noting that 70 cents of every welfare dollar goes to social workers, counselors and others. His organization has trained 2,500 field workers in 39 states. He believes that instead of more government...

You’ve probably never heard of Tony Castillo. Even if you live in West Michigan and have eaten at one of his three McDonald’s franchises you probably don’t recognize the name. But an inspiring profile of Castillo by MLive provides a number of lessons about economics and business that everyone should learn from this entrepreneur. Lesson #1: To be a successful business owner you should care about your stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, etc.) Ask Tony Castillo what he loves about owning...

I am not now nor have I ever been a helicopter parent. With five kids, I often depended on them to keep an eye on each other. They had the usual share of bumps, bruises, stitches and lowered grades because of forgotten homework that I refused to bring to school (failure is a good teacher.) Since they’ve all reached adulthood or near adulthood, I believe my husband and I followed the right path. But helicopter parenting (you know, those moms...

The Acton Institute Mini-Grants on Free Market Economics Program accepts proposals from business and economics faculty members at Christian colleges, seminaries, and universities in the United States and Canada in order to promote the scholarship and teaching of market economics. This program allows for collaboration between faculty from different universities, as well as allow future leaders to emerge, strengthen, and expand the existing network of scholars within economics. Entrants may submit proposals in two broad categories: Course development and faculty...

“All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s munion with God…God blesses everything He creates, and, in biblical language, this means that He makes all creation the sign and means of His presence and wisdom, love and revelation.” -Alexander Schmemann, from For the Life of the World In Episode 1 of For the Life of the World, a new series from the Acton Institute, Evan Koons discovers...

The revitalization of cities has e a significant focus among today’s Christians, with many flocking to urban centers filled with lofty goals and aspirations for change and transformation. Last summer, James K.A. Smith expressed concern that such efforts may be overly romanticizing certain features (community!) to the detriment of others (government), concluding that “farmer’s market’s won’t rescue the city” but “good government will.” Chris Horst and I followed up to this with yet another qualifier, arguing that while both gardens...

Religious polarization is taking place in the munity, with the shrinking majority of Hispanic Catholics holding the middle ground between two growing groups (evangelical Protestants and the unaffiliated) that are at opposite ends of the U.S. religious spectrum, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Here are seven figures you should know from that report: 1. Because of the growing Hispanic population, a day e when a majority of Catholics in the United States will be Hispanic,...

We Americans like choices. Go to any large grocery store and stand in awe at the vast array of cereals: everything from regular old oatmeal to some sort of toasted rainbow sprinkles of joy. The market economy is built upon choice: not only does the consumer have a choice in what she wants, she can stay away from things she doesn’t want, like bad service or poorly prepared food. Yes, we like choices. Obamacare is built on fewer choices, however....

The rich get richer and the rest of us…well, we struggle along. Shouldn’t those with more money be spreading it out a bit more? My coffers clink with spare change; I sure could use some of that money. It only seems fair, right? Peter Morici, at Breitbart News, tackles the truth of e inequality. Those of us in the “rest of us” category are getting crushed by monopolies, unjust taxation, and political corruption. That, Morici says, is the truth of...