Last month marked the 75th anniversary of the beginning of FDR’s “New Deal”. The Great Depression is the most famous event in U.S. macro-economic history. Most or all of my students know that it happened in the first half of the 20th century. They have no sense of what caused it– except perhaps to lay blame on the 1929 stock market crash. And they have a vague sense that the New Deal policies of FDR were helpful in ending it....

Last night as I was driving to an appointment, I was listening to our local NPR affiliate here in Grand Rapids, and specifically to the show Marketplace. I happened to hear a story about how the government and economists were concerned that the money given to taxpayers via the “economic stimulus package” may actually be used for purposes other than retail spending, thereby not causing the intended “stimulus.” Not the first story of this sort that I’ve heard over the...

In recent years the UK has emerged as a key player in both genetic experimentation and in corresponding legal battles over the extent to which the government ought to regulate such research. The latest ing from across the pond involves passage of a bill legalizing the creation of human-animal hybrids with certain restrictions (regarding type and length of survival). Three members of the governing cabinet were “reportedly considering resignation if forced to back the Bill.” Controversy arose over the call...

It’s been a while since we’ve seen pletely meaningless gesture on behalf of the unsinkable global warming consensus. As such, it’s my pleasure to announce that the next meaningless gesture will occur… last Saturday? Oops. Yes, Saturday evening saw the arrival of Earth Hour, an 8-9 pm extravaganza of switching off lights that apparently not many people knew about. For example, here’s the local reaction from the Grand Rapids Press: …some of Grand Rapids’ most prominent environmentalists, including Mayor George...

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal Europe, Alberto Mingardi of Istituto Bruno Leoni (and long-time Acton friend) lists some of the reforms Italy needs to boost economic growth, which is forecast at a measly 0.6 – 0.8 percent for 2008. Mingardi advocates a number of tax cuts and a more determined privatization of state assets. Some of these issues are being discussed – timidly – in the current election campaign; Mingardi also focuses on de-regulation and de-bureaucratization, issues heretofore neglected by...

Last week the Providence Journal ran a piece by me on the ing “rebate” checks from the government intended to be an economic stimulus, “The mandate is to ‘spend all you can’.” I take issue with the idea that the government gives us money that is our own in the first place, and then tells us how we ought to spend it: on consumables and retail goods to spur growth in the economy. Instead, I propose that people “should use...

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has released their “Pig Book” for 2008, which is an pilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget. The 2008 Pig Book identified 11,610 projects at a cost of $17.2 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2008. A ‘pork’ project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.” According to CAGW, “despite last year’s ethics and lobbying ‘reform,’ pork-barrel...

Rod Dreher links to a piece by Cato’s Brink Lindsey, “Culture of Success.” The conclusion of Lindsey’s piece is that familial culture is more important to child success in school and economic achievement than external assistance, in the form of tuition grants or otherwise: If more money isn’t the answer, what does have an impact? In a word: culture. Everything we know about high performance in all fields of endeavor tells us that, while natural talent is a plus, there...

Rev. Robert A. Sirico in Chicago This afternoon, Acton President Rev. Robert A. Sirico took his most recent address from the 2008 Acton Lecture Series on the road to Chicago, Illinois. Sirico addressed an audience at the University Club of Chicago on The Rise and Eventual Downfall of the New Religious Left. If you were in attendance and would like to listen again, or weren’t able to attend today either today or at last month’s ALS event, you can listen...

Ted Turner in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution today: (via) One way bat global warming, Turner said, is to stabilize the population. “We’re too many people; that’s why we have global warming,” he said. “Too many people are using too much stuff.” Turner suggested that “on a voluntary basis, everybody in the world’s got to pledge to themselves that one or two children is it.” Admitting that he’s “always suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease,” Turner added, “I’ve gotten a lot better, though. It’s...