Christianity, Culture, Vocation
It’s illegal to buy a car direct from the factory or over the internet. You have to go through a local dealer. The electric car company Tesla is trying to change that. But state and local governments are resisting. That, arguably, goes against the free market and against the trends of the new technology. But do we really want online commerce to kill off small businesses that are the backbone of many small town economies? [Read more...]
As an example of how government spending mushrooms due to unnecessary duplication, bureaucratic turf protection, and lack of assessment, consider the varieties of camouflage the military has been using for uniforms over the past decade. (For the ten patterns, go here.) The story about this in the Washington Post is quite instructive and might make you indignant at the waste of money it chronicles, but it also has its hilarious moments, which I have put in bold print for your convenience after the jump. [Read more...]
My colleague Mark Mitchell has co-edited a new book entitled The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and Politics: The Modest Republic. It’s not just about women’s fashions. From the description at Amazon:
The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and Politics is a collection of thirteen essays from a broad range of scholars and independent authors, evaluating the prevalence of immodesty in various aspects of American life and culture. Contributors diagnose immodesty through the lens of corporations that are ‘too big to fail,’ consumption inspired by excessive greed, art and fashion that lack beauty and taste, government budgets resulting in perennial deficits, and foreign policy that meddle in the affairs of other nations. Going beyond mere diagnosis of societal ills, The Culture of Immodesty in American Life and Politics provides a prescription for cultural impropriety: promoting a framework for the rejection of immodesty and greed in contemporary life.
Robert J. Samuelson sees a shift underway in Americans’ expectations:
We are passing through something more than a period of disappointing economic growth and increasing political polarization. What’s happening is more powerful: the collapse of “entitlement.” By this, I do not mean primarily cuts in specific government benefits, most prominently Social Security, but the demise of a broader mind-set — attitudes and beliefs — that, in one form or another, has gripped Americans since the 1960s. The breakdown of these ideas has rattled us psychologically as well as politically and economically. [Read more...]
Feds spend at least $890,000 on fees for empty accounts – The Washington Post. (Every time the federal government sets up a grant, it opens an account. When the grant money is spent, the account can’t be closed, according to government rules, until a full accounting of the program has been made. That takes time and money. So some 13,712 accounts with no money in them still exist, at the cost of $65 per year.)
The IRS paid $11 billion in faulty Earned Income Tax Credits last year. (Not because taxpayers did anything wrong but because the rules for the EITC are so complicated that IRS officials calculated them incorrectly.)
In $75 billion program to prevent mortgage defaults, 46% of participants are defaulting.
In my field of higher education, the big idea is assessment. Accreditors are requiring that we assess what we do; that is, that we give evidence for the quality and effectiveness of our programs and operations. Businesses too are measuring product quality and customer satisfaction. But there is almost no assessment of government programs. Very little data is gathered to determine whether or not a program works or fulfills its purpose. As a result, once a program is enacted, it is almost impossible to kill. But now some economists are proposing ways to bring assessment to the government. [Read more...]
The U.S economy is still in the doldrums. But former general and CIA director David Petraeus and Brookings scholar Michael O’Hanlon see the possibilities of a new economic boom on the horizon. IF the government doesn’t mess it up. [Read more...]
Did you know that you don’t own your DNA? Different companies hold the patent to about 41% of your genes. That means whenever those DNA strands are tested by a doctor, the company collects a royalty. Later this month, the Supreme Court will hear a case that will potentially rule on whether human DNA can be patented. [Read more...]
Most diagnoses of what ails the Republican party have been focusing on social conservatism, saying that Republicans need to stop opposing gay marriage and abortion if they want to start winning national elections. But now some are arguing that the Republican commitment to libertarian economic policies–that is, a commitment to an untrammeled free market–that’s really to blame. [Read more...]
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