The news from across the pond today is that the UK government is announcing that it will miss its target set in 1999 to reduce the number of children in poverty by 1 million. According to the BBC, “Department for Work and Pension figures show the number of children in poverty has fallen by 700,000 since 1999, missing the target by 300,000.” This has resulted in the typical responses when government programs fail: calls to “redouble” efforts and to increase...

A mentary of mine was featured in a recent book, Democracy: Opposing Viewpoints, published earlier this year by Greenhaven Press, an imprint of Thomson Gale. My contribution appears as part of Chapter 2: What Should Be the Relationship Between Religion and Democracy? Following a pair of items by Clark Moeller and Bill O’Reilly arguing that democracy is based on secular and religious foundations respectively, I take the affirmative side of my issue in a section titled, “Politicians Should Voice Their...

In a recent post on the evangelical outpost, Joe Carter makes the case for discarding, or at least severely restricting, the use of the descriptive term supernatural by Christians. He notes that in using the term to refer, for example, to angels and demons, “we are implying that they belong on the same plane or realm of existence as God.” One source of this implication is due to the fact that “we buy into the modernist notion that all of...

If you think the justice system lacks a sense of humor, you better reappraise that thinking. Exhibit A: the 2-page opinion in a recent bankruptcy court motion in San Antonio (PDF). Be sure to read the footnote on page 2. “Deciphering motions like the one presented here wastes valuable chamber staff time, and invites this sort of footnote.” Classic. ...

In her column this week, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, Acton senior fellow in economics, takes Linda Hirshman, a retired professor at Brandeis University, to task. Hirshman has been making the news circuit touting her claims about negative trends among working women. She says that educated women who e stay at home moms will create the future result that “expensively educated, upper-class moms will be leading lesser lives.” According to an ABC News article, Hirshman views this as “a tragedy not...

. . . Or so claims Robert Newman in this article in The Guardian from February 2. It makes a great subject for a game of “Find-the-Fallacy.” Newman’s breezy inferences are reminiscent of The Communist Manifesto, edited to conform to trendy deep ecology. Here’s my favorite line: “Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet.” Well, I guess somebody has to shoot fish in...

Bono and the One Campaign want us to sign a petition encouraging the government to spend 1 percent of the U.S. budget for aid to developing countries. The One Campaign states that this would “transform the futures and hopes of an entire generation of the poorest countries.” Now I admire the intentions of Bono to fight against poverty and he puts his money where is mouth is. But how do we know that increased aid will make a difference? How...

Here’s a brief note about a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, “Service Offshoring and Productivity: Evidence from the United States.” According to the NBER digest, “service outsourcing is doing more than fueling an economic boom in the tech-savvy provinces of India. It is also playing a major role in one of the big economic stories of the last decade: the surging productivity of American manufacturing firms.” For more on this, check out Anthony mentary, “Productivity and the...

“It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs.” –Adam Smith It’s nice to know our leaders are no longer...

In the Acton Commentary this week, Dr. Samuel Gregg examines the “Historic Catholic Statement of Principles” released by House Democrats last week. Following is a brief statement of purpose from the official press release: …Signed by 55 House Democrats, the statement documents how their faith influences them as lawmakers, making clear mitment to the basic principles at the heart of Catholic social teaching and their bearing on policy – whether it is increasing access to education for all or pressing...