The Aug. 26 edition of the Wall Street Journal features pelling opinion piece by Susan Combs, the ptroller of public accounts. Ms. Combs correctly assesses the inherent responsibility of public pension funds to the businesses in which they hold shares. Namely, they should pany profitability rather than push agendas that may harm market share and growth. Just so. Writes Combs: “Not long ago, people who used their few shares to push a point at shareholder meetings may have been marginalized...

What is going on in Syria? In 2011, during the Middle Eastern protest movement known as the Arab Spring, protesters in Syria demanded the end of Ba’ath Party rule and the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad, whose family has held the presidency in the country since 1971. In April 2011, the Syrian Army was sent to quell the protest and soldiers opened fire on demonstrators. After months of military sieges, the protests evolved into an armed rebellion and has spread...

Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” is steeped in American patriotism, the American Founders, and the Judeo-Christian worldview. Today marks the 50th anniversary of his speech, and King’s remarks are receiving considerable attention. As I mentioned in a mentary, King made no reference to contemporaries except for passing references to his children and Alabama’s governor. He homed in on the significance of the American Founding and the Emancipation Proclamation while lamenting that there was a check marked with...

A recent story from Catholic News Service highlights an interesting encounter between markets and monasticism, a subject that I mented on before, this time centered around the Monastery of St. Benedict in Norcia: The monks in Norcia initially were known for their liturgical ministry, particularly sharing their chanted prayers in Latin online – – with people around the world. But following the Rule of St. Benedict means both prayer and manual labor, with a strong emphasis on the monks earning...

In light of the ongoing discussion over fast-food wages, I recently wrote that prices are not play things, urging that we reach beyond the type of minimum mindedness that orients our imaginations around artificial tweaking at the bottom instead of authentic value creation toward the top. Prices don’t equip us the whole story, but they do tell us something valuable about the needs of others and how we might maximize our service to society. But though I have a hearty...

In a symposium at National Review Online about where Dr. King’s dream stands, 50 years after his historic speech, Anthony Bradley writes: Fifty years ago, Dr. King provided America with a provocative vision, in which our republic would e a place of greater political and economic liberty for African Americans. However, in 2013, when we examine the black underclass in cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., we can see how the politics of progressivism singlehandedly turned King’s dream into...

“Opportunity looks a lot like hard work,” says Jordan Ballor, echoing Ashton Kutcher, in this week’s Acton Commentary. “A culture of entitlement and privilege will end in failure.” The full text of his essay follows. Subscribe to the free, weekly Acton News & Commentary and other publications here. Working Harder and Smarter: What Ashton Kutcher and Mike Rowe Have to Teach Us byJordan Ballor As the American economy sputters along in the wake of the Great Recession, younger generations are...

NRO’s Mark Steyn minces no words when es to his distaste for Obamacare: “a hierarchy of privileges,” he calls it, along with “crappy” and “inefficient.” First, Steyn points out that it’s doubtful anyone has read the prehensive” health care act: it’s a thousand pages long. As he says, the problem with something so prehensive” is that “when everything’s in it, nothing’s in it.” But worst of all, it means whatever the government wants it to mean: The Affordable Care Act...

Over the weekend, BBC Africa did a report on the second-hand clothing industry in Africa and looked at some possible negative consequences of donating clothes to poor countries. BBC Correspondent, Ann Soy, describes a flea market in Malawi. She says that it is “vibrant, noisy and crowded with customers hunting for bargains and cheap clothes. It is the key market from where most Malawians living in the city buy their clothes and shoes – all of them already worn...

As we mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream Speech,” we find reason for pause, for praise, and for lament. There is much to celebrate because MLK’s dream has been experienced for many blacks, albeit imperfectly, especially for the black middle-class. There have been some racial tensions along the way, but the black, middle-class, Civil-Rights generation has plished great things since the 1960s. The private sector has demonstrated some of the greatest gains because skill...