It’s not easy to make a living in Libya, one of the world’s poorest nations. However, Libya has one thing going for it: its proximity to Europe. This is making smugglers rich. Quentin Sommerville of the BBC reports his interaction with one of the smugglers. People smugglers don’t take too kindly to enquiries about their business but, after weeks of searching, one agreed to speak to me if he could remain anonymous. He’s grown rich out of the trade. “The...

Even children intuitively understand that exchange can and often does mutually benefit those who trade, says Dylan Pahman in this week’s Acton Commentary. “As it turns out, that mutual benefit is often not only material but, at its base, moral as well.” I am unsure how it is that Rita ended up with a peanut butter and M&M sandwich in the first place. Certainly not under our current First Lady’s watch — that’s for sure. Perhaps Rita’s mother let her...

This is a post about that time that President Obama quoted Luther (Martin, the reformer, not the anger translator). Okay, maybe the President didn’t quote the monk with a mallet, but suspend your disbelief for a few more paragraphs at least. Remember the kerfuffle when President Obama uttered those infamous words, “You didn’t build that”? It was, granted, a long time ago (3 years, in fact). But as I argued at the time, there was some truth in the basic...

This past week, The Huffington Post’s Paul Blumenthal offered up a piece of agitprop masquerading as trenchant political analysis. It seems – well, not seems inasmuch as Blumenthal pretty much declares outright – that he isn’t much of a fan of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s antipathy toward shareholder proxy resolutions promoting political spending disclosure policies. Likewise, writes Blumenthal, three other “usual suspects” – the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers and The Wall Street Journal – are aligned...

In his review of the Acton Institute’s film series, For the Life of the World: Letters to the Exiles, Andy Crouch noted itsartistic merits, observinghow well it conveyed “deeply Christian themes in widely accessible ways.” “I can only hope that many of us will indeed watch and learn,” he writes, “and that we will then give ourselves away, as skillfully, promptly, and sincerely as these filmmakers have done, for the life of the world.” Now, in response to the series,...

François Michelin (1926-2015), former leader of the the world’s second-largest tire maker, died early today at the age of 88. Michelin was actively involved in the French pany, Group Michelin, until 2002, driving unprecedented growth for pany. His “passion for innovation” and “his promising attention to quality” no doubt caused the pany to thrive. Automotive News reported a statement from current Group Michelin CEO Jean-Dominique Senard: “On behalf of the Group’s employees, I would like to pay special tribute to...

Victor Davis Hanson, writing for National Review, takes up the immigration issues facing the West. His assessment is that the West suffers from a “schizophrenia” of a sort, where those of us in the West accept “one-way” immigration as a given. Westerners accept that these one-way correspondences are true. Nonetheless, they are incapable of articulating the social, economic, and political causes for the imbalances, namely the singular customs and heritage that make the West attractive: free-market capitalism, property rights, consensual...

Of all the disheartening scenes of ing out of Baltimore this week, few havebeen asdispiriting as the imageof a church project that was set ablaze. For the past eight years the Southern Baptist Church in East Baltimore has been working on a project that would provide munity center and e housing in the form of 60 senior-citizen apartments. The construction was expected to pleted in December. And last night it all burned to the ground. Those associated with the project...

Recently, Rev. Robert Sirico spoke in Chicago. He was asked a question regarding e inequality. His answer was that he didn’t care how much money Bill Gates had, nor did it matter to him the difference between Gates’ e and say, Warren Buffet’s. Nor did he care about the difference between how much wealth Gates has and his own personal e. No, Sirico said, what he cared about were the poor: those people so disconnected from the global marketplace that...

Do you remember trying to find that first job? You’d be told you needed experience by an would-be employer, but no one would hire you so you could get the experience. Finally, a burger joint or a summer ice cream shop or a retailer would give you a chance, usually beginning at minimum wage. At AEI, Mark J. Perry looks at the world of the minimum wage worker. Here are a few facts: While teens are the ones who typically...