Economics
Essays on finance and public policy.
Economic Clarity
Over the course of his twelve-year run as pope, Francis has made it pretty clear appeasing First World sensibilities is not his top priority. We here in the United States have not always known what to make of this, since his lack of deference can seem like disrespect at times.
An Incoherent Argument Against Higher Minimum Wages
A day after the Ross Douthat – J.D. Vance interview appeared in The New York Times, Eric Boehm writing for the Reason website chimed in to question Vance’s idea of economic populism, by offering the standard libertarian defense of letting market forces determine wages.
Political Economy at Christendom College
Christendom College is a small liberal arts school whose rural campus is located just outside the sleepy little town of Front Royal, Virginia. It prides itself on not taking any government funding, which allows it to dodge unwanted federal mandates on curriculum.
Labor Freedom
“Labor freedom” was recently cited by The Wall Street Journal in a short editorial criticizing the nefarious efforts of Big Labor and its Democratic allies in Congress to unionize the new, government-subsidized auto plants in our Southern states.
Forgiving Student Loans
The student loan forgiveness plan the Supreme Court threw out last week, just before adjourning for the summer, was one of the Biden administration’s more ambitious and controversial proposals. So it should come as no surprise this latest ruling is generating such a passionate response.
Capitalism Condones Bad Behavior
My thesis this morning is how easily our version of capitalism condones behavior that is fundamentally inconsiderate of others. And how this is not just a case of bad manners, but rises to the level of injustice.
Why Libertarian Catholics are Wrong on Economics Part 4
As my little amateur history draws to a close, I will be offering two concrete suggestions for improving the economic status quo. As a preface to making those suggestions allow me to state for the record I do not disagree with the libertarian premise about regulation stifling innovation and undermining incentives that drive capitalism. Or that capitalism is the best economic system for “freeing” large masses of human beings from lives of misery and poverty.
Why Libertarian Catholics are Wrong on Economics Part 3
My goal in assembling this very amateur and oh-so-brief history is three-fold. To disabuse everyday conservative Catholics (my friends and neighbors) of the notion economics has nothing to do with morality. To challenge the contention of intellectual conservative Catholics (the scholars I have been reading for the last thirty years) that free market capitalism is inherently moral. And lastly to assure both groups (and any other readers who may wander in) that I am not suggesting any form of socialism as an alternative.
Why Libertarian Catholics are Wrong on Economics Part 2
In analyzing the ideological schism that plagues present-day Catholicism, we tend to focus on the fall-out from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and the sexual revolution of the 1960s that surrounded it. With good reason, since both did indeed play a large role in splintering Catholics into the current opposing camps of “liberal” and “conservative.”
Why Libertarian Catholics are Wrong on Economics Part 1
First Things has always been a classy journal featuring quality contributions from orthodox scholars and academics. Father Richard John Neuhaus (1936-2009), the founding editor and famous Lutheran convert to Catholicism, was a prose stylist par excellence. Anything he chose to write about in his monthly dairy entries was a pleasure to read.
Eliminating the Middle Class
September 6, 2021 (1,812 words)
I.
These days contrarians of all stripes are a little obsessed with keeping government out of our lives. When the talk…
Affluent and Bankrupt
June 6, 2021 (49 words)
These two terms would seem to be mutually exclusive, yet they can both be applied to us. Large swatches of our society are undeniably affluent, positively swimming in disposable…
A Market Disrupter meets the Common Good
May 29, 2021 (370 words)
The goal of any responsible journalist is to shed new light and increase understanding. Along those lines my own particular interest is trying to get friendly readers to reconsider their most cherished liberal or conservative…
Confronting Economic Unworthiness
February 20, 2021 (807 words)
Those who scoff at the term “social justice” cannot all be dismissed as callous and crusty. The disdain is not always a sign of hard-heartedness. Deep down…
Wages: Expense or Investment?
December 27, 2020 (2,022 words)
Try to imagine a scenario in which a big, successful, publically-traded company – say a tech giant such as Amazon, for example – might decide on its own to pay its low-wage workers…
Rich People Things
April 20, 2020 (1,384 words)
Here we are, just a few weeks into the coronavirus stay-at-home order, and already I’ve started the once every ten years, clear-out-the-attic, no holds barred, major life…
Business Owner as Teacher
December 21, 2018 (1,004 words)
Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime. While this is undeniably true, it’s still a lot easier to just hand over a cod filet and leave it at that, since teaching…
Taxation without Representation
December 16, 2018 (1,248 words)
Our youngest is a senior in high school this year. He is studying the War of 1812 in History, and writing about it in English. The other night we both found ourselves standing in the kitchen, waiting…
Class Reunion
November 23, 2018 (47 words)
We are all a tribute to our parents. Who in turn are, of course, a tribute to their parents. Who then are a tribute to – oh, well, you get the picture…
Tariffs and Trade Wars
July 13, 2018 (1,658 words)
Given the contentious nature of our adversarial political system, the custom has always been for the opposition party, the one not currently in power, to go out of its way to find fault with the ruling…
Raise Taxes, Lose Taxpayers
June 10, 2018 (2,244 words)
This pithy formula is favored by economists of a libertarian bent, erstwhile academics specializing in theoretical constructions based on elaborate data. Data, as we know, has firmly established itself…
Fabric Merchants and Fairness
March 1, 2017 | (1,803 words)
At this late date no reasonable person disputes the broad outline of the positive effects of free enterprise, expressed by Arthur Brooks in his essay “Confessions of a Catholic Convert to Capitalism,”…