Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson One factor that should be considered during the ongoing congressional debate about spending and raising the debt ceiling is the declining value of the dollar. Each year the dollar is losing value. Unfortunately, many Americans may think the problem with rising inflation and the decreasing value of the dollar is a recent phenomenon. Let’s start with the standard graph using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows the decline in the value of the dollar from…

Kerby Anderson Last year, when I was speaking at an open forum, I was asked a question about the ESG Index, which I answered. After the session, I had several people come up to me and express their surprise that I knew what these ESG rules were and had an answer for the questioner. I suspect those people know quite a bit more about ESG now. Stephen Moore, for example, warns: “Biden’s ESG Investment Rules Threaten Your Retirement Savings.” The…

Penna Dexter Last month the White House and the Consumer Product and Safety Commission denied that they’ve been working with climate groups to ban gas stoves after the GOP called them out on it. But, in a recent column, The Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel warns readers that, “A ban is the plan.” She describes last month’s White House “electrification summit” and says there is “a coordinated, calculated — and well-funded — strategy” to kill off gas stoves and all “‘combustion…

Kerby Anderson As more research studies are done on the impact of the Covid pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, we are getting a better picture of what happened in America. Two studies look at excess deaths and excess retirements. One study compared deaths from the virus to deaths due to the draconian steps to mitigate it. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the economists found that there were nearly 100,000 “non-Covid excess deaths.” They also issue the…

Kerby Anderson Teresa Mull wrote a fascinating article with an intriguing title: “Why lumberjacks are happy and you’re not.” A Bureau of Labor Statistics survey reported that lumberjacks and farmers are the happiest, least stressed, and most fulfilled workers.” The reason is simple: they work outside. It also illustrates that what provides the most joy and satisfaction isn’t manmade. This is one of the reasons I am such a supporter of Christian camps and any outdoor activity that connects God’s…

Kerby Anderson Why are food prices so high, especially in places where there are few or no grocery stores? Phillip Longman tackles that economic problem in his article “Everyday High Prices.” He begins with a story of the only supermarket serving an Indian reservation in South Dakota. It looks like any other grocery store with clean floors and well-stocked shelves and an abundance of fruits and vegetables. Those in the community face extreme poverty. They don’t own cars, and the…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about social media and the teen brain. Today I want to talk about social media and its impact on teenagers’ mental health. An article in Axios reminds the reader that experts have been “increasingly warning of a connection between heavy social media use and mental health issues in children.” Apparently, there are lawsuits against social media producers that accuse them of contributing to a youth mental health crisis. One of the experts quoted is Jean…

Kerby Anderson What is the effect of social media on the brain? Nicholas Carr made this observation fourteen years ago in an article in Atlantic. “Over the past few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory.” In a book he later wrote, he blamed the internet and social media. We now have studies that seem to confirm what most of us suspected. Neuroscientists at…

Penna Dexter New numbers from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show that the ruling Communist Party has gotten too much of what it wished for. In the late 1970s, in order to slow the country’s rapid population growth, the Chinese state began limiting how many children families could have. This became China’s one-child-per-family policy, which was sometimes administered via community policing, draconian fines, and forced abortion and sterilization. Chinese parents, anxious for sons, engaged in sex-selective abortion which accounts for…

Kerby Anderson Two decades ago, Barbara Dafoe Whitehead was on my radio program. At the time, she was one of the co-authors of a study done by the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University that came to this conclusion: “Cohabitation is replacing marriage as the first living together experience for young men and women.” What was true then is true today, but there is even more evidence of changing attitudes as well as additional social research on cohabitation. A survey…

Kerby Anderson The Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David Foundation announced that the Pool of Siloam will soon be opened to the public. This is the first time in 2,000 years that anything, but a small section has been visible. The pool is significant to both Jews and Christians. This is where Jewish pilgrims cleansed themselves prior to entering the Second Temple. And this is also the site where Jesus healed the blind man as recorded in John…