So … what happened? With regular coverage of the US “Fiscal Cliff” running up to the new year, PowerBlog readers may be wondering where the discussion has gone. While I am by no means the most qualified ment on the matter, I thought a basic summary and critique would be in order: With six minutes to read this 157 page bill, the US House of Representatives passed it. (Note: either I’m an exceptionally slow reader or none of them could...

It’s that time of year: we’re making resolutions to get on the treadmill, join the gym, eat an apple every day. And yet, Americans are getting fatter and fatter. Is it the government’s fault? Dr. Jenna Robinson, at The Freeman, believes so. The food pyramid, farm subsidies: it’s all failing us. In the 1990s, American women blindly gobbled up low-fat Snackwells desserts masquerading as sensible treats. After all, Snackwells cookies met government standards: they were low in fat and contained...

America’s recent fiscal crisis has been delayed, not averted. Even if action is taken within the next few months to cut spending and/or raise taxes, the day of reckoning will only be slightly delayed since no one is willing to touch the three programs that constitute almost half the federal budget: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. As Collin Garbarino argues, this situation will likely continue because “most Americans aren’t ready to have granny living in the spare bedroom.” Everyone, not...

I recently discussed the importance of aligning ourselves to God before getting too carried away with our own plans for economic restoration. We should instead seek to supplant the personal for the divine, embracing a transcendent framework through which we can pursue what we already recognize to be transcendent ends. This is particularly difficult in a society that persistently glorifies a misguided conception of the self, and it’s not much better in broader Christian culture, where an increasing number of...

“Hell hath no fury like a tax-and-spend liberal scorned” -Me (like ten minutes ago) ————- In the on-going debate between proponents of Big v. Limited government, it can often be too easy to dismiss the other side on partisan, emotional grounds. The Left accuses the Right of possessing callous hearts toward the poor, indifference toward the “infrastructure” of our nation, and a blind allegiance to nefarious, shadowy 1%-ers who pull the strings of Big (insert any word but “Government” here)....

We humans have a pesky tendency toward earthbound thinking. The natural es more easily to us, for obvious reasons, and thus, even when we aim to e our disposition and contemplate ways to improve things beyond the immediate, it’s hard for us to break out of the box. Much like Judas Iscariot, who reacted harshly to Mary’s outpouring of expensive ointment on Jesus’s feet, we are prone to react only to the material implications,ignoring altogether whether God might prefer us...

Record unemployment rates in Europe have been published and they should alarm Americans. Why? Because we are headed in the same direction. Nile Gardiner, of The Telegraph, is quite sure of this: The United States isn’t just gliding towards a continental European-style future of vast welfare systems, economic decline, and massive debts – it is accelerating towards it at full speed. Or as Acton Institute research director Samuel Gregg puts it in his excellent new book published today [January 8]...

In one of my favorite exchanges on the Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer and Jerry Seinfeld have the following discussion about tax write-offs: Kramer: “It’s a write-off for them.” Jerry: “How is it a write-off?” Kramer: “They just write it off.” Jerry: “Write it off what?” Kramer: “Jerry, all these panies, they write off everything.” Jerry: “You don’t even know what a write-off is.” Kramer: “Do you?” Jerry: “No, I don’t.” Kramer: “But they do. And they’re the ones writing it off.”...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “The Mundane Morality of Les Misérables,” I explore the new musical film and in particular a transitional episode where the main protagonist, Jean Valjean, is faced with a moral dilemma: “If I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned!” Here’s a performance of the scene from the musical’s 10th anniversary, featuring Colm Wilkinson as Valjean: What we see is Valjean consider, and then reject, an avenue of moral reasoning that would...

Note: This is the third in a series on developing a Christian mind in business school. You can find the intro and links to all previous posts here. When people ask me what business school was like, I’m tempted to say, “A lot like a medieval university.” Unfortunately, parison makes people think b-school is dark, musty, and full of monks—which is not quite what I mean. In medieval universities, the three subjects that were considered the first three stages of...