Trafficking in persons is estimated to be one of the top-grossing criminal industries in the world (behind illegal drugs and arms trafficking), with traffickers profiting an estimated $32 billion every year. So what can be done to end this scourge? A recent report from the Heritage Foundation mends an oft-overlooked solution: adopting policies that promote economic freedom. A close examination of human trafficking and the principles of economic freedom—especially strong rule of law—reveals the robust connections between these two desirable...

Religious shareholder activist group As You Sow released its 2016 Proxy Preview last week, and it’s a doozy. Tellingly, AYS has dropped religious faith as a rationale for its climate-change and anti-lobbying efforts. From the panying press release: More 2016 shareholder proposals than ever before address climate change — pared with 82 in 2015. Of the resolutions, 22 ask energy extractors and suppliers to detail how the warming planet will affect their operations and how they will respond if governments...

Most Americans believe that it is very important for them to be a generous person. Yet almost half did not give to charity in the past year, and less than a quarter gave more than $500. That’s the latest findings in a new Science of Generosity survey. An even more disconcerting discovery is that quarter of Americans were neutral on the importance of generosity and 10 percent disagreed that generosity was not a very important quality. As David Briggs of...

“Most of economics can be summarized in four words: ‘People respond to incentives,’” says economist Steven E. Landsburg. “The rest mentary.” When governments create a regulation, they are creating an incentive for individuals and businesses to respond in a particular way. But the people who create the regulations —government regulators — also respond to incentives. As Elon Musk, the CEO of Space X and Tesla Motors, explains, There is a fundamental problem with regulators. If a regulator agrees to change...

Can the government ever be too big? How much spending is enough spending? And if there can be too much spending, where is that point? “When was the last time you heard a liberal politician say, ‘Yeah, we solved that social ill. We’re just going to close up that government agency now, zero out the budget and move on to another problem,'” asks William Voegeli, Senior Editor of the Claremont Review of Books. In the video below, Voegeliexplains why our...

UPDATE: (3/17/16) United States: Islamic mitted genocide against Christians, Shi’ites. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry: “The fact is that Daesh kills Christians because they are Christians. Yazidis because they are Yazidis. Shi’ites because they are Shi’ites,” Kerry said, referring to the group by an Arabic acronym, and accusing it of crimes against humanity and of ethnic cleansing. Video of Secretary Kerry giving his statement on the Islamic State is now included at the bottom of this post. ✶✶✶✶✶ In...

Todd Huizinga, Acton’s Director of International Outreach, joined host John J. Miller of National Reviewto discuss his new book,The New Totalitarian Temptation, on the Bookmonger Podcastat Ricochet.They discussed the problems afflicting the European Union, the potential Exit of the UK from the EU, and whether or not the United States faces the same problems with unaccountable government that bedevil Europe. You can listen to the podcast here. If you find the topic interesting, you can join us tomorrow here at...

What is Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? The definition is rather straightforward: GDP is the market value of all finished goods and services, produced within a country in a year. But that’s not very useful in trying to understand the concept. In this video by Marginal Revolution University, they mend thinking ofthe economy as a giant supermarket, with billions of goods and services inside. At the checkout line, you watch as the cashier rings up the price for each finished good...

Since its development as a political movement in the 1700s, socialism has spread to numerous nations, especially in Asia and Africa. Yet even when the U.S. government began adopting socialist policies (see: the New Deal), Americans tended to reject any direct connectionsto socialism. Why is that? One possible answer may be that America is simply too religious. As Andrew R. Lewis and Paul A. Djupe of FiveThirtyEight explain: To understand the relationship between socialist values and religion, we used the...

Acton Building located in downtown Grand Rapids’ Heartside District A two-year dispute between the Acton Institute and the City of Grand Rapids over the non-profit’s exempt status under state property tax law is over, with Acton emerging the victor. In 2014, the City rejected Acton’s request for a tax exemption on its building, parking areas, and personal property at 98 E. Fulton. Acton purchased the property in 2012 and spent much of the next year renovating the property. An appeal...