The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been criticized recently for its handling of the Ebola cases in the United States, and for its lax suggestions regarding travelers from countries where Ebola is rampant. In today’s City Journal, Heather Mac Donald suggests that the CDC’s lack of leadership has more to do with political correctness in the public health arena and their version of “social justice” than with science. Science would assert that people make choices that have an effect...

Italian edition of “The Good That Business Does” by Robert G. Kennedy (Fede e Cultura, 2014) On Oct. 23, before a capacity-audience at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, the Acton Institute and Italian publishing house Fede e Cultura launched Robert G. Kennedy’s Il bene che fanno gli affari (original title “The Good That Business Does,” Acton, 2006, Christian Social Thought Series). The pontifical university’s research center, Markets, Culture and Ethics, acted as co-sponsor with its vice academic director...

Children in poor and war-torn countries are often trafficking victims. They are lured from their homes with promises of making money in factories or at farms. Sometimes they are kidnapped. And sometimes, they are recruited for war. Tom Burridge of BBC News reports on the war in South Sudan, and the prevalence of “recruiting” young boys to fight. On a normal school day, Burridge says that more than 100 boys are kidnapped from their classroom and told they must fight...

Christian’s Library Presshas now released the third part in its series of English translationsof Abraham Kuyper’s most famous work,Common Grace, a three-volume work of practical public theology. This release,Abraham-Parousia, is the third and final part of Volume 1: The Historical Section, following Part 1 (Noah-Adam) and Part 2 (Temptation-Babel). Common Grace (De gemeene gratie)was originally published in 1901-1905 while Kuyper was prime minister. This new translation offers modern Christians a great resource for understanding the vastness of the gospel message,...

Acton’s Director of Research, Sam Gregg, ponders “Envy In A Time Of Inequality” in today’s American Spectator. Envy, he opines, is the worst human emotion. From the time that Cain killed Abel to today’s “near-obsession with inequality,” Gregg says envy is driving public policy…and that’s not good. The situation isn’t helped by the sheer looseness of contemporary discussions of economic inequality. Inequality and poverty, for instance, aren’t the same things. That, however, doesn’t stop people from conflating them. Likewise, important...

The Obama administration has created a policy wherein foreigners who purchase a baby via an American surrogate will be able to claim U.S. citizenship for the child. According to the Daily Caller: The fertility clinics will be able to pocket the profits, after granting access to American education, health, welfare and retirement services to the foreign children and the foreign parents. The giveaway is plished by a surprise change in regulations, which redefined the term “mother” to include women who...

Over at The Federalist today, I ruminate on a conversation I overheard at an airport recently. I was an innocent auditor, I assure you. In the words of Sam Gamgee to Gandalf, “I ain’t been droppin’ no eaves sir, honest.” The conversation had to do with the prices of goods and services on offer atairports. To simply blame (or credit) capitalism with the situation is misleading. As I conclude, “We should try to understand the words people are using, the...

What’s the perfect minimum wage? $10 an hour? $20? $50? Economist David Henderson explains why it should be “zero.” As Henderson explains, when the state mandates a minimum wage (or an increase), it makes harder for unemployed people to find work and forces business owners to cut the hours of lower-skilled employees. ...

Family structure is one of the most significant, though oft-overlooked, factors that affect the economic fortunes of Americans. A new study from AEI titled “For Richer or Poorer” documents the relationships between family patterns and economic well-being in America and shows how radically it can affect e. Here are seven figures you should know from the study: 1. The growth in median e of families with children would be 44 percent higher if the United States enjoyed 1980 levels of...

Gerard Lameiro speaks at the 2014 Acton Lecture Series Earlier this month, Acton ed Gerard Lameiro to the Mark Murray Auditorium to deliver a lecture as part of the fall 2014 Acton Lecture Series. He spoke on the topic of “Renewing America and Its Heritage of Freedom,” which also happens to be the title of his latest book. Following his lecture, I sat down with Lameiro to discuss his thoughts on the gradual loss of freedom we’ve experienced in the...