Note: This is post #111 in a weekly video series on basic economics. The long-run aggregate supply curve can show us an economy’s potential growth rate when all is going well. bining the long-run aggregate supply curve with the aggregate demand curve can help us understand business fluctuations. For example, while the U.S. economy grows at about 3 percent per year on average, it does tend to fluctuate quite a bit. What causes these fluctuations? As Alex Tabarrok explains in...

Yesterday in Forbes, Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, International, weighed in on Jair Bolsonaro’s new administration in Brazil. Bolsonaro’s coalition includes people of many different backgrounds and ideas, and collaboration among them will be key for the administration’s success. Brazil may soon e the fastest-growing of the major Western economies. This is not the first time that investors have looked to this South American giant with hopefulness. There is a temptation to think that Brazil is entering into a new...

At First Things last week,in his essay “Our Poor,” economist Andrew M. Yuengert reflected upon his 2004 Acton monograph Inhabiting the Land, questioning whether his economic analysis (that immigration is a net gain for both immigrants and natives) needs more nuance in the light of our current political climate: In Inhabiting the Land I concluded that we could only argue against immigration if we were willing to “weigh the wage decrease for native unskilled workers more heavily than the significant...

I was glad to be able to engage P. J. O’Rourke in a wide-ranging discussion for the Acton podcast this week. In this episode of Acton Line, P. J. and I talk about “mutant” capitalism, cryptocurrency (neither of us really understand it), the state of the middle class, the Trump phenomenon, and much more, based on his latest book,None of My Business: P.J. Explains Money, Banking, Debt, Equity, Assets, Liabilities, and Why He’s Not Rich and Neither Are You. One...

Democratic Senators and Presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Cory Booker have both recently proposed legislation to address the issue of rising housing costs. Senator Harris’ bill ‘The Rent Relief Act’ and Senator Booker’s bill ‘Housing, Opportunity, Mobility, and Equity Act’ both focus on assisting people who pay more than 30% of their gross e on rent or, in the case of Senator Harris’s bill, rent and utilities. The details of exactly who would be eligible to receive tax credits are...

Today is the U.S. federal holiday known as Washington’s Birthday (not “Presidents Day—see item #1). In honor of George Washington’s birthday, here are 5 things you should know about the day set aside for our America’s premier founding father. 1. Although some state and local governments and private businesses refer to today as President’s Day, the legal public holiday is designated as “Washington’s Birthday” in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code. The observance of Washington’s birthday...

I often notice that whenever we talk about faith and business, the discussion is mostly about businessmen and their faith. But what about women who seek to live a life of holiness in business? It’s not an exaggeration to say that they receive much less attention. I recently read an article published on the French-language version of the Catholic website Aleteia which provides a e corrective to this tendency. Entitled “Businesswoman et bienheureuse, c’est possible!” and authored by Agnès Pinard...

Today is the 199th anniversary of the birth of Susan B. Anthony. In honor of her legacy, here are five facts you should know about the great American social reformer: 1. Anthony was born in Massachusetts in 1820 to a family of devout, radical Quakers. Her parents raised her and her siblings to have a passion for social reform, and stressed the importance of issues such as prison reform and the abolishment of slavery.Although she continued to describe herself as...

Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiled a plan for universal child care, to be funded by a national wealth tax, late Monday night. Here are the facts you need to know. What are the details of Warren’s universal child care proposal? The program’s funding formula resembles ObamaCare for preschool. Warren’s “Universal Child Care and Early Learning Act” would provide daycare services “from birth to school entry” by creating a federally regulated system of “Child Care and Early Learning Centers” and “Family Child...

On this episode of Acton Line, research associate at the Acton Institute, Jordan Ballor, talks with best-selling author and leading political satirist, P.J. O’Rourke, about his newest book, “None of My Business.” O’Rourke will be giving a talk at Acton’s ing event in Chicago on March 7 and registration is still open. Register at the link below to save your seat. In the second segment, Acton’s director munications, John Couretas, speaks with Ray Nothstine, editor at Civitas Institute, about the...