Samuel Gregg on Money Radio 1510, Scottsdale, Ariz.: [audio: Samuel Gregg on the Janet Mefferd Show:: [audio: Gregg’s new book ing Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future is now available. You can purchase the hardcover or Kindle version here. Daniel Hannan, British Conservative Member of the European Parliament, said ing Europe’ might not sound so bad: old buildings, long lunches, generous welfare. But, believe me my friends, it’s not where you want to be....

is reporting that Junior Seau, mitted suicide in May, just two years after retiring from the NFL, tested positive for chronic traumatic encephalopathy(CTE), a neurodegenerative disease that has been associated with dementia, memory loss and depression found in many deceased NFL players. Naturally, as more data and deaths point to football’s brain injury risks, there will be more and more calls to action. A fundamental question in this discourse is this: “who has the moral responsibility and authority to...

Young African American men, especially ex-offenders, face high obstacles to employment. City Startup Labs hopes to help change that by teaching them the skills necessary to e entrepreneurs: This new non-profit was created to take at-risk young African American men, including ex-offenders, and teach them entrepreneurship, while creating a new set of role models and small business ambassadors along the way. City Startup Labs contends that an alternative education that prepares these young men to launch their own businesses can...

Samuel Gregg, director of research at the Acton Institute, recently joined Al Kresta of Ave Maria Radio to discuss Gregg’s new ing Europe. Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man and Coolidge, said this about the book: “Gregg spotlights the perils of American progressive arrogance so clearly they can no longer be denied or ignored. His logic is incontrovertible. Every economist, historian, and politician should read ing Europe.” Click on the button below to listen to the Kresta interview: [audio:...

Over at Thought Life, Owen Strachan uses David Platt’s book, Radical Together, as a launching pad for asking, “Are you and I making and using money as if there is no such thing as the work of the gospel?” I’ve already written about my disagreements with Platt’s approach in his first book, Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream, and Strachan expresses similar reservations. While appreciating Platt’s emphasis on “exaltation of and dependence on a sovereign, awesome God,”...

I recently discussed our pesky human tendency to limit and debase our thinking about economics to the temporary and material. Much like Judas, who reacted bitterly to Mary’s outpouring of expensive ointment, we neglect to contemplate what eternal purposes God might have for this or that material good and the ways through which it might be used or distributed. C.S. Lewis captures the tendency powerfully in his book, The Great Divorce, providing a clear contrast of heaven and hell through...

USA Today has a piece today on the HHS mandate battle. What I noticed was not so much the story, but the photo the newspaper chose to run. It’s an AP photo by Derik Holtmann from a rally held last spring, about the same time as numerous other rallies were taking place around the country. Since there is nothing in the story about the photo, I can only assume it was chosen “randomly.” Here it is: I don’t know what...

For those who voted for Mitt Romney, the Presidential Inauguration on January 21st could be a difficult day. Presidential elections have always been simultaneously exciting and frustrating. Today, alarmists on the left and the right place television advertisements, preach sermons, design billboards, and the like, proclaiming the apocalyptic consequences of the wrong person assuming the office of President of the United States. In the last election, Republicans and Democrats spent over $1 billion each courting support and votes from us,...

In the current Acton Commentary, I take a look at mon temptation to consider ourselves as somehow uniquely beyond the mundane obligations of the moral order. I do so through the lens of the hero of Les Misérables, Jean Valjean, and a particular moral dilemma he faces. I read through A Field Guide for the Hero’s Journey last week, and was struck by the significance given to this insight in chapter 3, “The Importance of Setting Guardrails.” In a short...

There are more people living in the city of Los Angeles than live in New Zealand. Yet the small country in Oceania beats out the the U.S. in several key areas, such as on the production of movies about hobbits, ratio of sheep to humans (9 to 1), and . . . economic freedom. And the Kiwis aren’t the only ones. Australia, Canada, Switzerland, and six other countries have more freedom to control their own labor and property than we...