money

Be Glad You Didn’t Win the Lotto

Experience shows that acquiring a large sum of money can be a problem. But, especially today, it is easy to miss or forget problems associated with money. Unless we have a rare level of virtue, we are prone to the magnetic pull of precious metals. Money has a uniquely powerful hold on our imaginations and desires. … Read more

Mother Russia Needs More Mothers

According to the Christian Science Monitor, the Russian Prime Minister is seeking re-election to the presidency (for a third term) and is setting out his policy platform.  The fourth of his programmatic articles trying to convince Russians to vote for him in three weeks time (or else!) deals with his plans to reverse Russia’s population … Read more

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) was marked out for greatness at a very young age.  The son of a well-known sculptor, he arrived with his family in Rome as a young boy, and had soon captivated the city with his artistic genius.  Pope Paul V, amazed at such skill in one so young, said of him: … Read more

The Spirit of Metroplex II

There are many good arguments against quickly convening a Third Vatican Council—a notion beloved of Catholics who occupy the portside cabins on the Barque of Peter. The most obvious is that Catholicism has barely begun to digest the teaching of Vatican II on the nature of the Church, the universal call to holiness, and the … Read more

Complexity Compounded

  In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama used billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s secretary, Debbie Bosanek, as a prop to illustrate the unfairness of our tax system. “Right now,” he said as Bosanek sat near first lady Michelle Obama, “Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.” Commentators spent … Read more

Getting Nowhere, Very Fast

  California has a huge state debt and Washington has a huge national debt. But that does not discourage either Governor Jerry Brown or President Barack Obama from wanting to launch a very costly high-speed rail system. Most of us might be a little skittish about spending money if we were teetering on the brink … Read more

The State of the Union: An Inside Report

On Tuesday evening, I had the honor of attending the State of the Union address as the guest of Congressman Mike Kelly (PA-03). Here are my impressions in abbreviated form. The address seemed more like a rewrite of previous speeches than an original work. Sure, there were new anecdotes and fresh twists on old policy … Read more

The Pretense of ‘Independent’ Campaign Spending

  Winning Our Future, a “super PAC” that supports Newt Gingrich’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, is spending more than $1.2 million on ads in South Carolina, which holds its primary on Saturday. That fact requires some explanation. First, why would anyone want Newt Gingrich to be president? Second, what is a super PAC? … Read more

Vulture Capitalism or Populist Demagoguery?

  “They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick, and then they swoop in … eat the carcass … and … leave the skeleton.” So Rick Perry colorfully characterized the private equity firm Bain Capital, once run by Mitt Romney. How did Bain prosper? Says … Read more

In Defense of Christopher Dawson

I would like to present a qualified defense of Christopher Dawson and his essay, “Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind.” Jeffrey Tucker, John Zmirak and Fr. John Peter Pham each mount a strong defense of the bourgeois and the world they created, and Tucker in particular argues that thinkers like Dawson are dangerously reactionary world when … Read more

Big Government Cannot Pay Its Bills, Again

  Since Barack Obama became president on Jan. 20, 2009, the federal government has not had a budget. It did not have one for the first two years of his presidency, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, and it did not have one for 2011, when the Democrats controlled the Senate and the Republicans … Read more

Obama Gives Gambling Tycoons a Christmas Present

  Just before sneaking off to Hawaii, where he barred news photos on the golf course, President Obama overturned a longstanding U.S. policy that prohibited Internet gambling. In yet another presidential shenanigan that bypasses U.S. law, Obama used the device of a secret Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel opinion, dated in September and quietly … Read more

Of Good News and Bad News

Have you heard any good news lately? Bad news abounds. It’s been another tough year. Economic woes continue. Greece and Italy are on the verge of bankruptcy. Unemployment is still high in the United States (around 8.6 percent), and the stock market has taken a beating. With approximately $108 billion in insured catastrophic losses, 2011 … Read more

Virginia is for Insiders

  When I managed Pat Buchanan’s presidential campaign in 1996, I learned that some states conducted fair and honest caucuses and primaries and that some did not. Iowa, historically the first caucus state, and New Hampshire, historically the first primary state, conducted their political business fairly. New York did not. Today Virginia’s political system is … Read more

In Defense of Bourgeois Civilization

The following essay was commissioned as part of this week’s symposium on “the bourgeois spirit.” See also Dawson’s Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind, and Gerard Russello’s account of Dawson’s contribution.   Tell me this. Would you rather that your neighbor had a Serta brand iComfort mattress with Cool Action Memory Foam nicely elevated above a … Read more

Random Thoughts

  Random thoughts on the passing scene: Talk show host Dennis Miller said, “I don’t dig polo. It’s like miniature golf meets the Kentucky Derby.” Nothing illustrates the superficiality of our times better than the enthusiasm for electric cars, because they are supposed to greatly reduce air pollution. But the electricity that ultimately powers these … Read more

Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind

This essay is reprinted from Christopher Dawson, The Dynamics of World History, ed. John J. Mulloy. It previously appeared in the print edition of Crisis Magazine, with permission of  its publisher Sheed and Ward, and was placed online by the good people at CatholicCulture.org–who provide an excellent archive of Catholic classics. It is part of … Read more

Brave Newt World

  If you’ve been watching cable television regularly, you’ve heard from many analysts who know Newt Gingrich personally. They either call him the smartest man in the room or they tell us Gingrich believes he’s the smartest man in the room. Gingrich has always been a government ideas man, and whenever he says something odd, … Read more

Free To Die?

  Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column titled “Free to Die” (9/15/2011), pointed out that back in 1980, his late fellow Nobel laureate Milton Friedman lent his voice to the nation’s shift to the political right in his famous 10-part TV series, Free To Choose. Nowadays, Krugman says, “‘free to … Read more

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