As the Brexit debacle monopolizes UK news, the government quietly released a consequential announcement: The National Health Service (NHS) is considering repealing requirements that emergency rooms in England treat or release patients within four hours. The new guidelines vindicate critics of single-payer health care, who say the government inevitably rations care, downgrades its own standards, and then declares victory. The UK’s goal of a four-hour wait in accident and emergency rooms (A&Es) is roughly twice as long as patients wait...

The latest Marvel film has done well at the box office, and for good reason. It is a solid entry in the MCU, and an introduction to a new character that promises to be central to the ongoing narrative arc following Avengers: Infinity War (some spoilers follow). There are quite a few notable themes in Captain Marvel, and I’ll highlight a couple here. First, we learn a fair amount more about the Kree, the civilization introduced in Guardians of the...

When es to policy choices, professional economists are famous for being overly circumspect. President Harry Truman plained, “Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, ‘on one hand . . . on the other.’” There are some areas, though, where basic economic theory is so obvious that it’s not hard to find a majority of economists to agree. A prime example is the popular, but misguided, proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15. A recent survey of 197...

Earlier this month a French court convicted Cardinal Philippe Barbarin for failing to report alleged sexual abuse by a priest of his archdiocese. This has further fueled the sense that the Church faces one of its most serious crises since the Reformation, says Samuel Gregg in a new article for the Catholic Herald: Barbarin himself has been a larger-than-life figure in French Catholicism. Gifted in languages, an engaging public speaker, a missionary in Madagascar, and a marathon runner, he publicly...

Note: This is post #115 in a weekly video series on basic economics. The “real” part of the real business cycle (RBC) refers to real shocks to an economy, specifically to supply shocks. As Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution University says, RBC is useful for plex supply shock, such as a sudden rise in oil prices. But it can also explain many of the economic downturns throughout human history. For instance, in ancient times when economies relied primarily on agriculture,...

Every day we receive innumerable blessings from God. We receive these blessings apart from our individual standing before God or our membership in any munity. These blessings are rooted in God’s creation itself. They are a form of what the Reformed theologian Abraham Kuyper called ‘Common Grace’: The divine covenant in the Mediator in turn has its background in the work of original creation, in the existence of the world, and in the life of our human race. As individuals...

Brazil was rocked last week by a deadly shootout in a high school in Suzano, a suburb of Sao Paolo. Two former students armed with a gun, crossbows and axes killed nine people and mitted suicide. Immediately, the media began another campaign against Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, leading people to believe that the massacre had something to do with his pro-gun policies. There is, of course, an elementary problem of logic in this argument: Bolsonaro assumed the presidency 63 days...

Russ Roberts — economist and host of the excellent EconTalk podcast — wrote a penetrating essay on what we can learn from Adam Smith’s first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. According to Roberts, [N]ot everything that is important can be quantified. I worry that as economists, we too often are like the drunk at 1 am looking for his keys under the glare of a streetlight. You go over to help and when you fail to find the keys...

In today’s global economy, pany that provides a successful product or service can earn billions of dollars a year. Governments steal a greedy glance and ask how they can get their “fair share” of this money. The latest example is the EU attempting to create “tax harmonization” among its members as it imposes a digital tax on “Big Tech” firms. The proposal is currently stalled, as more fiscally responsible nations like Ireland object to the EU’s plan to tax tech...

It’s no secret that as the Chinese economy enters a slowdown, the Chinese government has been taking an ever-more authoritarian approach towards virtually every aspect of life in the People’s Republic. In this regard, few areas have received more attention than religion. This ranges from the imprisonment of anywhere between 800,000 and 2 million Uighur Muslims (something explored at length by leading Islam and liberty scholar Mustafa Akyol) to the burning and demolition of Protestant and Catholic churches. Things are,...