Jeffrey Polet

2013 Academy of Philosophy and Letters Conference

May 16, 2013

The Academy of Philosophy and Letters will have its annual conference in Baltimore on June 7-9 on the theme “Cheerfulness Keeps Breaking In: Light in the Darkness.” Sharp readers will recognize the phrase as one of Russell Kirk’s, and Annette…

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Dodd-Frank Follies

May 3, 2013

When things go wrong we generally ask “What can we do to keep that from happening again”? It’s a normal human reaction, but a prideful one. Those of us who are parents will generally admit that we struggled to correct…

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Bigger is Better

April 16, 2013

Comes the report from the Grey Lady that the Fed’s habit of pumping obscene amounts of money into the economy has the effect of increasing the profits of large companies while insuring that small businesses stay “dead in the water.”…

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Capital Offense

April 14, 2013

Washington, DC…
I’ve been spending my semester in exile in our nation’s capital. My apartment is in Arlington, on a ridge overlooking the city. From that spot I have a clear view of the Pentagon, the Capitol dome, the Washington

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…And Marry Young.

April 2, 2013

Mark Mitchell has recently posted about marrying young. This becomes a topic of conversation, of course, when no one is doing it. I find in my conversations with students that one of the reasons for this is confusion about the…

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Time To Stop Hooking Up

April 2, 2013

Donna Freitas writes in The Washington Post about the sorrows, travails, and confusions of the hook-up culture (if it can be called such).
I am reminded when reading her article that one problem with the idea of personal autonomy or…

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Piers Sits Ryan in the Corner

March 28, 2013

Ryan Anderson may be the most courageous person in America. Who would willingly place himself in the company of Piers Morgan and Suze Orman for the sole purpose of being their punching bag – something he had to know was…

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At only $8000, A Real Bargain

March 27, 2013

If this isn’t the height of decadence I don’t know what is:
Putting aside those with fibromyalgia, how could anyone justify this purchase? Is it free “white glove” installation? Are the people who can afford such a chair the ones…

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Fragility and Scale

March 26, 2013

There is an interesting interview over at Reason with Nassim Taleb, author of Black Swan, a book which presciently described the economic disorder preceding the financial collapse. I haven’t read the book, but there are some pretty arresting observations in the interview.…

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Men of the World, Pick Up Your Brooms

March 15, 2013

Alexandra Bradner, a philosophy professor at the University of Kentucky, has a piece at The Atlantic on women’s “second shifts.” Noting that women, mothers in particular, are both “important” and “exploited,” she asks why exactly men are so dense when it…

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Less is More.

March 12, 2013

What happens when a really rich dude meets Olga and learns that companionship is better than toys? We get lectured.

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Do It For Your Country

baby-and-flag-1a February 21, 2013

Washington, DC. …Parents are admonished to care for their children. Nature and scripture alike testify to the unique bond of filial love. Philosophers, prophets, and saints have long insisted that the household presents a unique complex of moral demands, and

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The Budget Redux

February 7, 2013
Thumbnail image for The Budget Redux

So I’ve recently written about the GAO’s overview of the US Economy. The CBO has just released its own report projecting economic activity and the budget for the next ten years. It is, again, a bracing report. Despite the President’s…

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Being Catholic

February 6, 2013

For those who are Catholic, or at least have an interest in the fate of the Catholic Church in our contemporary political environment, Chad Pecknold has an interesting piece over at Ethika Politika where he encourages us to think about…

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The Taxman

February 5, 2013

A few readers in response to my most recent piece expressed some incredulity about the chart showing that Americans paid, on average, about 30% of their income in taxes. This seemed low to them. In truth, it seemed low to…

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The Budget: A Citizen’s Guide?

February 2, 2013

The Department of the Treasury recently released its “Citizen’s Guide to the 2012 Financial Report of the United States Government.” At 246 pages of relatively dense economic analysis I’m guessing not too many citizens have read it. It has all…

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