Speaking of Thomas Piketty, here’s a very helpful and revealing interview with Matthew Yglesias, “Thomas Piketty doesn’t hate capitalism: He just wants to fix it.” (HT: PEG) A few highlights with ment: On the need for a historical perspective in economics: Thomas Piketty: … It’s not only economists’ fault. Historians and sociologists are too often are leaving the study of economic issues to economists. Sometimes nobody does it. This is a really important point. We need not only economic analysis...

Poor us. We women are being told we aren’t getting equal pay, and now we’re apparently lagging in confidence. The Atlantic recently published “The Confidence Gap,” saying we not only lack confidence, but it’s an “acute lack of confidence.” We “feel like an imposter” as we do our jobs, we can’t bring ourselves to ask for a raise, we are forever underestimating ourselves. As my incredibly confident mother would say, “Horse feathers.” Who are these women? Where are these women?...

From the fiscal to the familial, conservatives have the right answers, says Kevin D. Williamson: The conservative hesitancy to put the issue of poverty at the center of our domestic economic agenda, rather than tax rates or middle-class jobs, is misguided — politically as well as substantively. Any analysis of the so-called War on Poverty, officially at the half-century mark this year, will find that the numbers are very strongly on the side of the conservative critique of the welfare...

255 Triathlons (6 Ironman distances, 7 Half Ironman), 22 Duathlons, 72 Marathons (32 Boston Marathons), 8 18.6 Milers, 97 Half Marathons, 1 20K, 37 10 Milers: That’s a lot of miles. A lot of training. A lot of numbers. It’s an economy of sorts for athletic achievement. These are some of the stats for Team Hoyt, the father-son team of Dick and Rick Hoyt who have raced together for 37 years. Rick was born with cerebral palsy in 1962, and...

“What is our salvation actually for?” It’s a question that many Christians neglect to ask or seriously consider, and even for those of us who do, we tend toward answers far too focused on ourselves — our personal well-being, piety, or pathway to heaven. But what if salvation isn’t just about us? What if it’s about something deeper, wider, and richer? This is the question at the center of For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles, a...

In conjunction with Arbor Day — a day dedicated annually to public tree-planting in the U.S. and other countries — Ashley Evaro offers a brief theological reflection on the role of trees in the story of our salvation: Christians should care about National Arbor Day (to those who don’t know, that is today). Even if you are not a devoted celebrator of trees, it is worth your time to stop and consider what wonderful things trees are. Not only are...

“The goal of all good laws is first and foremost the glory of God, then the good of one’s neighbor, privately and, most important, publicly.” –Girolamo Zanchi The following es from Thesis 3 (above) of Girolamo Zanchi’s newly translated On the Law in General.Though the work passes a range of topics, from natural law to human laws to divine laws, this particular es in his first foundational chapter on what the law actually is—its goals, classifications, and functions. If the...

Istituto Acton in Rome has released the following video statement from Kishore Jayabalan on the persecution of Christians worldwide and threats to religious freedom, previewing the ‘Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives from East and West’ conference happening next week. ...

Religious shareholder activism continues its war on affordable, domestically produced energy in a campaign that can only be described as unholy. The first casualties of this war are the nation’s 10.5 million job seekers, the millions more who have quit looking for work, and the poor. The 2014 proxy resolution season finds the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia joining other shareholders to force a May 2014 vote at Chevron Corp., which would require pany to report hydraulic fracturing (aka...

Aleteia’s Mirko Testa recently interviewed Samuel Gregg about the state’s role in defending religious liberty, the appropriate response of the Church to the growing welfare state, cronyism, and the ing conference hosted by the Istituto Acton: ‘Faith, State, and the Economy: Perspectives from East and West.’ What’s John Paul II’s legacy on the connection between limited government, religious liberty, and economic liberty? [Gregg:] When you live much of your life under Communism, it is bound to accentuate your appreciation of...