Thomas Sowell does a good job of explaining in a recent column how costs are not reduced simply because you pay them in another form. We are incessantly being told that the cost of medical care is “too high”– either absolutely or as a growing percentage of our incomes. But nothing that is being proposed […]
Archives for November 2009
Five Recommended Books on Theology
This list could get very long, and could be sub-divided into many different areas. So I’ll just limit this list to five of the most helpful and shaping books on the nature of God and the work of redemption that I’ve read. 1. The Pleasures of God by John Piper 2. Systematic Theology: An Introduction […]
This is Not Science
What is contained in the 3,000 emails and documents that were released last week after the Climate Research Unit’s emails were hacked? The Wall Street Journal gives a brief overview, and you can find even more details here. Here’s one part of the overview from the WSJ: Yet even a partial review of the emails […]
Why Third-World Capitalism is Not Flourishing
Here’s a quick statement of the reason, from my notes on the subject: The mystery of capital is this: Assets (property, money, the means of production) are not automatically capital. Capital is like electricity. Until it is there, the assets are dead. Property rights are what close the circuit and bring dead assets to life. […]
What is a Virtue?
From Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions (Contours of Christian Philosophy) by Arthur Holmes: [There are] motives, intentions, and underlying dispositions. What these have in common, first, is that they are all inner states rather than overt behaviors and, second, that they are affective rather than purely cognitive states. A virtue is a right inner disposition, and […]
Freakonomics on Buying a Home
I made note of these two interesting points when I read the original Freakonomics a few years ago, to remember whenever buying and selling a home. They are from pages 7-9 and 71-76. 1. On Incentives Incentives not aligned between seller and real estate agent—if the agent sells your house for $10,000 less, they lose […]
Materialism Cannot Explain Consciousness
Below is an interesting paragraph I jotted down a few years ago from a book called The Mind and the Brain. It’s dense but makes a really good argument against materialism. Materialism is the view that only matter exists, and thus people do not have souls (OK, I grant that no materialist would put it […]
What the Health Reform Bill Really Says
The Wall Street Journal has an important article from a few days ago highlighting some of the important passages in the 2,000 page legislation. Here are the first two highlights: Sec. 202 (p. 91-92) of the bill requires you to enroll in a “qualified plan.” If you get your insurance at work, your employer will […]
20 Years Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, here is the critical segment from Reagan’s famous “tear down this wall” speech:
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey on Health Reform
This is John Mackey’s Wall Street Journal column on health reform from last August. Mackey proposes health savings accounts as a key part of the solution and talks a bit about how they have made things more cost effective at Whole Foods. You can also read the very good interview that the WSJ did with […]