Can Wal-Mart Scale L.A.’s Great Wall of Regulation?
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L.A. Chinatown residents want a Wal-Mart. L.A. won’t let Wal-Mart in to serve them. While Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) has decried Wal-Mart’s “ability to…drive all other competitors away” with rock-bottom prices, many Chinatown residents, suffering for years from gouging by the local markets, would probably say “good riddance.” In what must frustrate the unions most, [...]
Is the Obama Administration Politically Manipulating the Poverty Data?
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I can imagine the campaign verbiage already: “Who first broached the idea of eliminating part of the payroll tax? Why, it was Barack Obama, who singlehandedly moved millions into the middle class in one bold move, undoing much of the damage of the past decade’s misguided policies.
Why I love Walmart despite never shopping there
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But my esthetic and aspirational standards are those of a comparatively wealthy person even in U.S. terms, let alone world terms. To the people who use Walmart and belong there, Walmart is a tremendous boon that stretches their purchasing power, enabling them to have things that don’t suck.
Lets get real about poverty in America
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Walter E. Williams, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, summarizes 3 recent papers about poverty in America: “Understanding Poverty in the United States: Surprising Facts About America’s Poor”, “The Material Well-Being of the Poor and the Middle Class Since 1980″, and “Income Mobility in the U.S. from 1996 to 2005″.
The truth is that there …
How to Do Real Social Justice and Feed Africa's Millions
For the last couple of years, I’ve been unhappy with the ”short term missions” model that many churches use. It seems to involve a lot of good feelings about going somewhere else to experience ”true poverty”, working there for 1-3 weeks, coming home, showing lots of pictures of really poor people, and talking about the …
Capitalism Will Feed the World's Poor
I talked earlier this week about capitalism and its blessings, in regard to cleanliness. Consider this, about the blessings of capitalism in regard to food.
What’s so tragic about this is that we know from experience how to fix the problem. Wherever the rural poor have gained access to improved roads, modern seeds, less …
Destroying "Clunkers" for Cash
Does this make you sad, or is it just me? I think there’s something incredibly barbaric and degrading about destroying a perfectly good piece of machinery. A well maintained engine can run for more than a hundred thousand miles. It seems almost sacreligious to just destroy it out of hand.
To receive government reimbursement, …
Free Trade and Christian Charity
It’s popular among the Christian left to talk up the ”Old Testament” values of social justice: caring for the poor, paying fair wages, not perverting justice, etc. They’re fond of the Old Testament prophets and the prophets jeremiads against wealth and privilege.
Increasingly, the Christian left is also fond of promoting Democrat candidates and talking about …
Doing Good for the World, The Right Way
Beth Hanley, I weep for thee.
Armed with a Georgetown University diploma, Beth Hanley embarked in her 20s on a path hoping to become a professional world-saver. First she worked at nonprofit Bread for the World. Then she taught middle school English in central Africa with the Peace Corps. Finally, to certify her idealism, …
Poverty in America
What causes poverty in America? Greedy capitalistic businessmen? Unethical financiers? How about marriage?:
For the most part, long-term poverty today is self-inflicted. To see this, let’s examine some numbers from the Census Bureau’s 2004 Current Population Survey. There’s one segment of the black population that suffers only a 9.9 percent poverty rate, and only …