Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Avoiding the Fate of Europe
Avoiding the Fate of Europe
Nov 23, 2024 2:28 PM

At The American Spectator, Jackson Adams reviews Samuel Gregg’s new book, ing Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future:

“Europe” is a concept Europeans are still getting used to. It should not, therefore, be surprising that it took a book written primarily for Americans to determine the sort of morass into which Western European social democracies have stepped.

In his new ing Europe, Samuel Gregg provides a detailed dissection of Europe’s economic climate and the culture that has created it. The analysis offers few surprises for anyone who has followed European news closely for the last five or so years: European governments, entitlements, and spending are out of control, and politicians cannot create the political will to do anything substantial about it. Here the topic is systematically demonstrated with facts and figures in a manner that is never boring and often insightful.

Read more . . .

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Explainer: Christmas 2017 by the Numbers
As the most widely observed cultural holiday in the world, Christmas produces many things—joy, happiness, gratitude, reverence. And numbers. Lots of peculiar, often large, numbers. Here are a few to contemplate this season: $74.70– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on real Christmas trees in 2015. $98.70– Average amount U.S. consumers spent on fake Christmas trees in 2015. 34,500,000 – Number of real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. each year. 10,000,000 – Number of fake Christmas trees sold each year....
What would a renewed Europe look like?
Theresa May began this week by meeting with her Brexit cabinet to determine whether to embrace a “soft Brexit” (with maximum access to mon market and a heavy regulatory regime imposed by Brussels) or a “hard Brexit” (triggering EU protectionist policies but freeing the UK to pursue economic dynamism). But thinking about the European Union should be more fundamental, re-examining its drive to build a secular utopia through ever-more-burdensome supranational government. In a new essay for Acton’s Religion & Liberty...
The awesomely boring future of driverless cars
As fears loom about a future filled with robot overlords, innovation continues to accelerate at breakneck pace. When es to self-driving cars, for example, panies are making significant strides with the technology, even as the masses continue to fret over a handful of related accidents and the potential for human abuses. With Waymo’s Chrysler Pacifica now plishing Level 4 autonomy, just how afraid should we be? Is a world of autonomous cars destined for apocalyptic catastrophe or dystopian indolence? According...
The economics of Bedford Falls (Part 1 of 3)
Upon it’s initial release in 1946, Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life was something of a financial flop,failing to reach the break-even point of $6.3 million. Although it was nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, it wasn’t until subsequent decades that it became recognized as one of the greatest Christmas films ever made.* The movie is long overdue for another reappraisal, for it’s also one of the best films ever created about economics and financial services. In a...
Is the ‘Bitcoin bubble’ immoral?
What is behind the cryptocurrency Bitcoin’s phenomenal rise in values, from $800 last year to $17,000 today? Is this a bubble or a durable value, and what are the ethical implications behind using a currency that may aid such causes as organized crime and North Korea’s nuclear program? What is Bitcoin, anyway? Philip Booth answers these questions in a new essay for Acton’sReligion & Liberty Transatlantic website. In a fascinating look at the new frontier of currency, Booth examines whether...
Reimagining work in the coalfields
The American coal industry is facing serious challenges. In states like West Virginia, the effects have been particularly painful, causing munities to struggle under a projected 23% decline in related jobs and leading vast numbers of residents to leave the state altogether. This is the story of Bluefield, a West Virginia coal-mining town facing decades-long economic decline, with the population of the surrounding county dwindling from 100,000 in the 1980s to less than 20,000 today. Thankfully, for the churches and...
On the real meaning of Christmas
“Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall,” says Rev. Robert A. Sirico in this week’s Acton Commentary, “but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.” In 1776, there were fewer than one billion people on Earth. A vast majority of them were poor, and living under tyrannies. Just over two centuries later, there are more than seven billion human beings. Rapid medical discoveries and inventions have helped to double the average lifespan, vastly reduce infant mortality,...
Radio Free Acton: Alex Chafuen on the birth and work of the Acton Institute; Upstream on Star Wars: The Last Jedi
On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Fr. Ben Johnson, Senior Editor at the Acton Institute, speaks with Alex Chafuen, President of the Atlas Network and as of January 1, 2018, Acton’s new Managing Director: International, on his past and ing work with Acton. Then, on the Upstream segment, Bruce Edward Walker hosts a roundtable discussion with Acton staff on the recently released Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Learn more...
5 Facts about the Bill of Rights
Today is Bill of Rights Day, memoration first established byPresident Franklin D. Rooseveltto cherish the ‘immeasurable privileges which the charter guaranteed’ and to rededicate its principles and practice.” Here are five facts you should know about the Bill of Rights: 1. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, George Mason of Virginia said that he “wished the plan had been prefaced by a Bill of Rights,” because it would “give great quiet” to the people. A motion was made that mittee...
Study: Anti-profit beliefs cause people to neglect the societal benefits of profit
From Pope Francis to Occupy Wall Street, there has been a notable trend recently of considering all forms of business profits to be harmful to society. Business profits—the money that remains when a business’s revenues exceed expenses—are condemned as, at best, a driver of inequality, and, at worst, an inherently unjust form of theft. This view not only persists, but seems to be growing during a period when the benefits of the profit-driven economic system should be obvious to all...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved