In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith described many ways in which people solve problems to be able to work with other people. Trust is a key theme which Smith returns to throughout his works. “We trust our health to the physician; our fortune and some­times our life and reputation to the lawyer and attorney.

A Peru-born friend of mine complains that Christmas trees have become popular in his native country. Given that Douglas firs aren’t exactly part of the indigenous flora in Peru, the (mostly artificial) firs and pines used as Christmas trees in homes across the country strike him as incongruous with local customs and the local environment.

He has a point. But he may be fighting a losing battle.

After all, over the past four hundred years, the Christmas tree has taken the world by storm, spreading from northern Europe to the Americas and beyond.

Is more gun control legislation coming to Congress?

The 2018 midterm elections produced a split Congress with Democrats gaining control of the House and Republicans gaining seats in the Senate.

Against the wishes of Donald Trump and many investors, the Powell Fed followed through on its projected interest rate hike — its fourth for 2018. The targeted federal funds rate now stands at 2.25 - 2.5, which still remains historically low.

New York City is gearing up to tighten state controls on the curriculum at private schools for Orthodox Jews known as yeshivas.

Some activists against these so-called “ultra-Orthodox” schools claim that they spend too much time on religious and cultural instruction, and too little time on more “secular” topics.

The city has now taken up the cause and plans a wide-ranging review of yeshivas.

The role of gas taxes in sparking the recent Yellow Vest protests in France pushed the political climate change agenda back into the spotlight.

One of the more persistent myths about capitalism is that wealth and resources are “wasted” when spent on luxuries.

At the core of this myth is the idea that when you buy, say, a $5,000 75-inch LED television, the money you spend on that item goes only to improve the life of the person who ends up owning the television. “Look at those rich people and their expensive televisions! Don’t they know that some people in the world don’t have televisions at all?”