Jay Richards and I have an Ignatius Press book on mitment to ing out soon, so we’ve been following developments in the Hobbit film trilogy more closely than we might otherwise. A recent development is director Peter Jackson announcing a subtitle change to the third film—from There and Back Again, to Battle of the Five Armies. That’s maybe a bit narrow for a novel that’s also about food, fellowship and song, but I think it’d be going too far to...

I don’t know any terrorists, but they seem to be very fearful people. They are afraid of new ideas, other religions, air strikes, and bathing. Nicholas Kristof, of The New York Times, says that what terrorists are really afraid of are educated women. Kristof points out that the Boko Haram did not choose to bomb a church or go after politicians. They targeted a girls’ school. The biggest threat to a terrorist is a woman who can read, write, work,...

The Center for Neighborhood Enterprise in Washington is led by Robert Woodson who founded it in 1981 to help neighborhoods where what he calls “the poverty industry” doesn’t seem to help much. He’s torqued that many fellow African Americans have abandoned their poor brothers except to exploit them noting that 70 cents of every welfare dollar goes to social workers, counselors and others. His organization has trained 2,500 field workers in 39 states. He believes that instead of more government...

America could have saved more jobs if, prior to the Industrial Revolution, politicians had banned the use of tractors. But that would have made everyone (especially those of us living in 2014) much worse off. Many Americans understand this point and yet still believe that when workers lose their jobs, we automatically e worse off. Economist Bryan Caplan explains the problem with this ‘make-work’ bias, and why we are better off because of 19th century workers who lost their farm...

You’ve probably never heard of Tony Castillo. Even if you live in West Michigan and have eaten at one of his three McDonald’s franchises you probably don’t recognize the name. But an inspiring profile of Castillo by MLive provides a number of lessons about economics and business that everyone should learn from this entrepreneur. Lesson #1: To be a successful business owner you should care about your stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, etc.) Ask Tony Castillo what he loves about owning...

The revitalization of cities has e a significant focus among today’s Christians, with many flocking to urban centers filled with lofty goals and aspirations for change and transformation. Last summer, James K.A. Smith expressed concern that such efforts may be overly romanticizing certain features (community!) to the detriment of others (government), concluding that “farmer’s market’s won’t rescue the city” but “good government will.” Chris Horst and I followed up to this with yet another qualifier, arguing that while both gardens...

The rich get richer and the rest of us…well, we struggle along. Shouldn’t those with more money be spreading it out a bit more? My coffers clink with spare change; I sure could use some of that money. It only seems fair, right? Peter Morici, at Breitbart News, tackles the truth of e inequality. Those of us in the “rest of us” category are getting crushed by monopolies, unjust taxation, and political corruption. That, Morici says, is the truth of...

We Americans like choices. Go to any large grocery store and stand in awe at the vast array of cereals: everything from regular old oatmeal to some sort of toasted rainbow sprinkles of joy. The market economy is built upon choice: not only does the consumer have a choice in what she wants, she can stay away from things she doesn’t want, like bad service or poorly prepared food. Yes, we like choices. Obamacare is built on fewer choices, however....

Religious polarization is taking place in the munity, with the shrinking majority of Hispanic Catholics holding the middle ground between two growing groups (evangelical Protestants and the unaffiliated) that are at opposite ends of the U.S. religious spectrum, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Here are seven figures you should know from that report: 1. Because of the growing Hispanic population, a day e when a majority of Catholics in the United States will be Hispanic,...

Kishore Jayabalan, director of the Istituto Acton in Rome, recently wrote an article at Aleteia, titled ‘Freedom, Truth, & State Power: The Case for Religious and Economic Freedom.’ He begins his piece with a statement Gerald R. Ford made soon after ing president: “A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.” Jayabalan continues: Trust in our political leaders increased around the time of the September 11,...