Tag Archives: Democrat

News

First Things reviews Jay Richards’ Money, Greed and God

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Short book review here.

Here’s the full text:

Jay W. Richards channels the spirit of Michael Novak and provides a basic introduction to how and why a Christian can be a capitalist. Because man is made in the image of a creative God, he has the potential to create and multiply wealth. The core components of capitalism—free exchange, limited government, private property—allow this potential better than any alternative system. Although he shows that self-interest is not necessarily selfish, Richards also explains that the market can, in fact, channel selfish actions into positive outcomes. Responding to such critics as Ron Sider and Jim Wallis, Richards argues that the creation of wealth helped by economic freedom and the rule of law provides the best means of raising the poor out of poverty, in contrast to government-based redistribution of wealth or regulations of minimum wage.

Richards also offers critiques of communism, developmental aid to impoverished countries, and global warming, along with an extended argument against the notion that capitalism allows the unchecked depletion of natural resources. Because human beings are creative, Richards reminds us, they are not mere consumers but active producers. In response to charges of consumerism, Richards notes that consumerism comes from gluttony, not from free enterprise itself. The book concludes with a chapter on the workings of the free market as a sign of God’s provident care for sinful man. For those looking to wed faith and economics, the book provides a welcome challenge to reigning orthodoxies.

To understand what capitalism is, you can watch this lecture entitled “Money, Greed and God: Why Capitalism is the Solution and Not the Problem” by Jay W. Richards, delivered at the Heritage Foundation think tank, and televised by C-SPAN2. (Link below)

If you can’t see the Richards video, here is an audio lecture by Jay Richards on the “Myths Christians Believe about Wealth and Poverty“. Also, why not check out this series of 4 sermons by Wayne Grudem on the relationship between Christianity and economics? (a PDF outline is here)

Here’s a lecture with Jay Richards from the libertarian Cato Institute.

UPDATE: From a helpful comment below.

Updated link for video (link in blog results in an error).

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/10489/Money+Greed+and+God+Why+Capitalism+is+the+Solution+and+Not+the+Problem.aspx

Commentary

Cato Institute asks how many senators are more liberal than the socialist one?

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Article here about the self-described socialist senator Bernie Sanders. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

According to the National Taxpayers Union, 42 senators in 2008 voted to spend more tax dollars than socialist Bernie Sanders. They include his neighbor Pat Leahy; Californians Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, who just can’t understand why their home state is in fiscal trouble; and the Eastern Seaboard anti-taxpayer Murderers’ Row of Kerry, Dodd, Lieberman, Clinton, Schumer, Lautenberg, Menendez, Carper, Biden, Cardin, and Mikulski. Don’t carry cash on Amtrak! Not to mention Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who apparently think Arkansans don’t pay taxes so federal spending is free. Sen. Barack Obama didn’t vote often enough to get a rating in 2008, but in 2007 he managed to be one of the 11 senators who voted for more spending than the socialist senator.

Meanwhile, the American Conservative Union rated 11 senators more liberal than Sanders in 2008, including Biden, Boxer, Feinstein, and again the georgraphically confused Mark Pryor. The Republican Liberty Caucus declared 14 senators, including Sanders, to have voted 100 percent anti-economic freedom in 2008, though Sanders voted better than 31 colleagues in support of personal liberties.  The liberal Americans for Democratic Action provides more support for the Post’s claim, rating Sanders 100 percent liberal. Most raters, though, don’t see it that way. In this compilation of ratings from left-leaning interest groups, 17 senators get higher scores than Sanders.

Socialism is actually the mainstream position of Senate Democrats. The rest of them just don’t label themselves as such.

Commentary

Thomas Sowell urges us to reflect on economic trade-offs and incentives

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Thomas Sowell

Article here on Creators.

Excerpt:

With all the laments in the media about skyrocketing unemployment among young people, and especially minority young people, few media pundits even try to connect the dots to explain why unemployment hits some groups much harder than others.

Yet unusually high unemployment rates among young people is not something new or even something peculiar to the United States. Even before the current worldwide recession, unemployment rates were 20 percent or more among workers under 25 years of age in a number of Western European countries.

The young have less experience to offer and are therefore less in demand. Before politicians stepped in, that just meant that younger workers were paid less. But this is not a permanent situation because youth itself is not permanent, and pay rises with experience.

Enter politicians. By mandating a minimum wage that sounds reasonable for most workers, they put a price on inexperienced and unskilled labor that often exceeds what it is worth.

Mandated pay rates, like mandated insurance coverage, impose on buyers and sellers alike things that they would not choose to do otherwise.

Workers of course prefer higher wage rates. But the very fact that the government has to impose those wage rates means that workers were unwilling to risk not having a job by refusing to work for less than the wage rate that has been mandated. Now that choice has been taken out of their hands, with the hidden cost in this case being higher unemployment rates.

The law of unintended consequences – hurting the very people they intended to help, because of their economic ignorance. They priced the youngest and most vulnerable workers out of a job, by mandating a minimum wage that no employer will pay to an inexperienced worker. During a recession, you LOWER minimum wage in order to make sure that those most in need can find a job rather than depend on the government.

When people have jobs, they have confidence to spend more money. Making sure that no policy harms job creation is a primary responsibility of government. Jobs, jobs, jobs. No one (especially Christians) should be dependent on the government for money – because the one who pays the piper calls the tune. And no Christian should dance to the tune of a secular leftist government.

If you are a Christian, but not yet a solid small-government fiscal conservative, then read the WHOLE thing. Christians need to understand that the free market is the best guarantor of our freedom of conscience.

Thomas Sowell is my favorite living economist. Walter Williams is number 2. If you click this link, you can read something from Walter Williams about the economic problems that are created by forcing insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

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