Living in community means that the very nature of the case requires that we submit to demands from outside our selves. These demands encompass every aspect of our lives, and this means that our use of money is included. No man is an island, as Donne put it, and so we don’t have the right …
Confusions About Economic Freedom
I have written many times that free markets depend on free men, and free men are not to be had apart from the gospel. Another way of putting this is that men who are slaves to sin will not be able to create or sustain any kind of significant liberty anywhere else. Freedom from sin …
Real Wealth Hasn’t Gone Anywhere
In these, the golden years of congressional farce, we need periodically to be reminded of a few basic economic realities. Here is just one of them. I will try to offer up others from time to time, but I keep getting distracted by the glorious theatrics all arouund us. It is hard to keep my …
Bertie Comes Through
Things are in a parlous state when Bertie Wooster understands economics better than all the smart johnnies running the Western world . . . Orlo Porter, an old school acquaintance and ardent leftist, speaks to Bertie, and Bertie thinks sense to himself: “‘He has a big house in the country with a stable of racehorses, …
Grabby Grabby
In this our financial crisis, an archbishop has stepped forward to thunder out a message of selective repentance. The meltdown has led him to observe, and it was a pretty fair shot too, that a lot of people out there were worshiping a lot of money. Look where that got us, hey? But then he …
Gravity and Supply and Demand
The law of supply and demand is not a mere cultural artifact. In short, it is not comparable to the decision-making process that the lords of etiquette went through when deciding where the dessert fork should go relative to your plate. A moment’s reflection should tell you that they could have decided pretty much anything, …
Maybe I Don’t Wonder Why
The inflation rate in Zimbabwe was last month at about 2.3 million percent, thanks to their ruler-thug who refuses to leave office. And strident insistence, such as we might find proceeding from an Anglican episcopal seat, that we apply the ethics found in the parable of the Good Samaritan to international situations such as this …
Pinched Faces, Dehydrated Hearts, and Sticky Fingers
On Friday, a student asked me a good question at our weekly disputatio, a question concerning the Trinity in the world of giving and generosity. Does the free market, where each person is watching out for number one, undercut the work of the Trinity in our lives, as He works to make us overflow in …
Bar Stool Economics
A friend sent me this little thing making the Internet rounds. Thought I would pass it on. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first …
What Hath All the Smart People Wrought?
Just a few random notes on the unfolding debacle in our financial markets. Further bulletins will be forthcoming as events warrant. First, I wonder how much longer it will be before both presidential candidates realize that this is a complete game changer. To watch both sides in this thus far is like seeing the Martians …