Center on Wealth & Poverty
The 5 Big Lies About American Business: Combating Smears Against the Free-Market Economy—by Michael Medved (Crown Forum, $26.99). Must reading for the White House and every anticapitalist politician, pundit and economist. Employing a mother lode of facts, Medved, with verve and wit, thoroughly demolishes five myths about business: capitalism is dying because of the economic crisis; when the rich get Read More ›
For the last ten years or so, I have been urging drastic reductions in the U.S. payroll tax, which funds Social Security. If we want to reduce tax rates without falling into the rhetorical trap of “tax cuts for the rich,” then the payroll tax is our best target — and the one that will affect the most employment decisions. Read More ›
Jay Richards, I am glad to report, is now back at Discovery Institute full-time, having left a few years ago to work at Acton Institute on issues of entrepreneurship and free markets (among other things, he helped produce the films The Call of the Entrepreneur and The Birth of Freedom, and the book, Money, Greed and God), to start a blog for AEI’s The American and Read More ›
In this intriguingly contrarian rework of the Thomas Friedman “hot and flat” motif, Gregg Easterbrook asserts that venture capitalists are no better than lottery players when it comes to choosing new technology companies. He reports that leading stock analysts outperform broad market-index funds only one-third of the time. He adds that the preeminent financial pundits break into two groups — Read More ›
While attempting to appease a long list of utterly unappeasable foes — Iran, North Korea, Hamas, Hezbollah, and even Hugo Chávez — today the U.S. treats China, perhaps our most crucial economic partner, as an adversary because it defies us on global warming, dollar devaluation, and Internet policy. It started last June in Beijing when U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner Read More ›
Why is Ayn Rand so popular today? “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal,” Jesus commanded his disciples, “but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven … For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Some take this biblical passage and others like Read More ›
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders announced Wednesday that he is stepping into the path of Ben Bernanke’s nomination to a second term as Federal Reserve chairman. If Sanders sticks to his guns, Bernanke’s supporters will need 60 Senate votes to confirm the nomination. Good for Sanders. We need a robust Senate debate about Bernanke’s policies, since they helped to create the Read More ›
This article, published by The Jewish Press, provides a review of Discovery Institute Senior Fellow George Gilder and his book The Israel Test: George Gilder’s latest book, The Israel Test (Vigilante Books), is so unabashedly pro-Jewish and pro-Israel that it would make many Jews blush. The rest of the article can be found here.
Many of us have had flu shots this fall, but what about an inoculation against the hate-America economics that many colleges teach? Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and not the Problem, by Jay Richards (Harper One, 2009), undercuts myths that students might otherwise accept as facts.
Among the myths Richards demolishes: The Nirvana Myth (contrasting capitalism with an unrealizable ideal rather than with its real alternatives), the Piety Myth (focusing on good intentions rather than results), and the Materialist and Zero-Sum Game Myths (believing that wealth is not created but simply transferred).
Richards, one of that rare breed with a theology doctorate but an understanding of economics, also points out the errors of the Greed Myth (believing that the essence of capitalism is greed), the Usury Myth (that charging interest on money is immoral), and the Freeze-Frame Myth (that what’s happening now regarding population, income, natural resources, or so on, will always happen).
After knocking down the concept of Christ against capitalism, Richards summarizes proven ways to alleviate poverty: Teach that the universe is meaningful, thrift is good, and the rule of law is essential. He discusses the importance of delaying gratification, establishing property rights, and building stable families. An appendix helpful to libertarians shows why “spontaneous order” in economics does not argue against Intelligent Design in biology.
Another new defense of free markets, Guy Sorman’s Economics Does Not Lie(Encounter, 2009), lacks Christian understanding but shows how economic freedom has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty: He notes that our goal now should be “to secure and protect the system that has served humanity so well, not to change it for the worse” because it is not perfect.
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