Economics

[1] U2 singer Bono has become well-known in recent years for his tireless work to raise awareness of poverty through the “Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa” campaign. Fewer people are aware of the role economist Jeffrey D. Sachs has played in providing the economic grounds for Bono’s work. In his book The End of Poverty, for […]

[1] Famously, Jesus said, “You will always have the poor with you.” Well, not if economist Paul Collier has his way. In The Bottom Billion Collier makes the case that a research-based, carefully applied set of instruments targeting specific traps that keep the global poor in poverty could actually work to eliminate poverty as we […]

[1] Rigorous self-discipline is somewhat alien to contemporary American religiosity. Perhaps on account of cultural affinities, or an unspoken assumption that the soul is not affected by the body and its experiences, the very obvious benefits of diligent practice do not seem so obvious to us. I have often witnessed this aversion to rigor as […]

[1] It might take the worst financial crisis in eighty years, but it seems that the message is finally sinking in: markets are not moral. However, it is unfortunate that such a realization is needed at all. Characterization of the “the market’s” actions or changing moods may just be just figures of speech, but this […]

A New Deal for the Global Economy The Current Crisis “Money is a singular thing. It ranks with love as man’s (sic) greatest source of joy. And it ranks with death as his greatest source of anxiety.”[1] [1] The current global crisis began as a crisis about money but quickly became a pandemic global economic […]

[1] It was at the 11 o’clock Eucharist on a recent Sunday. The presiding minister was in the middle of the Great Thanksgiving. “In the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread and gave thanks,” he read taking the host in his hand for us all to see. “This is my […]

[1] Luther has always been a difficult read, as Martin Marty has informed us.[1] His worldview changed repeatedly. It follows that his writings are filled with contradictions and paradoxes.[2] Samuel Torvend appears to have missed the counsel of Benne, Marty and Edwards for he sees Luther as a whole intellect from the pounding on the […]

Samuel Torvend. Luther and the Hungry Poor: Gathered Fragments (Fortress Press, 2008). 978-0-8006-6238-7. [1] With the negative externalities of globalization ever more present in the United States due to the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and its effects on the United States banking and finance infrastructure and individual lives affected, social ministry is more relevant than ever. […]

[1] The unemployment rate—the fraction of adults currently working for pay among those who are either working or actively looking for a job the nation’s labor force that is unable to find work—was officially measured at 7.6 percent in January of 2009 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the federal agency tasked with measuring […]

In a companion article, I examined how the current recession compares with previous U.S. recessions, and explored the reasons why the economy is in its current state. In this article, I describe and explain the various remedies by which the federal government is attempting to slow the economy’s downturn. What is being done to turn […]