Between the Trees

Interesting excerpt I came across today in Fareed Zakaria’s book The Post-American World (which, by the way, is an excellent read) :
For a century after 1894,  most of the cars manufactured in North America were made in Michigan. Since 2004, Michigan has been replaced by Ontario, Canada. The reason is simple: health care. In America, [...]

I’m planning to put up a couple posts over the next week or so on economics. Those of you who are long-time readers know that I’ve been interested in the topic, and with the government about to interject $800 billion, give or take the GDP of a couple small nations, it seemed like an opportune [...]

A Wal-mart employee was trampled to death earlier today by over-anxious shoppers. And a 28-year-old pregnant woman caught in the charge may have lost her baby.
“They are born into privilege. Into lives of parties and presents and pretty pink toes. They are the center of worlds, the apples of eyes. They are the feet stomping [...]

As I write this, I’m sitting in Love Library, the library of UNL’s City Campus that has over 3 million volumes. If you need a book for class, Love has it. And it probably has books about that book.
And if that isn’t enough, it has wireless connections for those of us with laptops. And it [...]

A very good dose of economic sense into the discussion of the Christian duty to the poor is up over at Jesus Creed.

Listening to NPR this morning, I became very frustrated by the tenor of conversation. Absolutely everyone – politicians, pundits, even radio hosts – seemed intent on playing the economic blame game. What’s worse, as I’ve read the Christian blogosphere over the last few weeks, it seems that this blame game is being played by us [...]

This is a fascinating interview in the Wall Street Journal with Rick Warren on politics and other things. In his classically nice fashion, Warren talks about his personal political opinions, and it’s interesting to see how wrong the media tends to get him. I was especially intrigued by the following:

The media assume that when religious [...]

“Nothing should be of higher value to the reflective Christian in difficult circumstances than an unqualified desire to see truth triumph. One should wish passionately that it prevail, should love it more than one’s own prestige or sense of security. Nothing will set you apart more clearly. The average person, observes Kierkegaard, ‘lives in the [...]

“‘I don’t create institutions; that’s an occupation for those who want to play God. So no, I’m not too big on religion,’ Jesus said a little sarcastically, ‘and not very fond of politics or economics either.’ Jesus’ visage darkened noticeably. ‘And why should I be? They are the man-created trinity of terrors that ravages the [...]

“Blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways! You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you.”
-Psalm 128:1-2
One of my reading projects for the summer has been several books on economics. One of the things I have been [...]