Rabbi Yitzchak Brand Tackles the Shidduch Crisis

The countless mitzvos in getting married are shoved aside in favor of pride and peripheral religious issues with full Rabbinic sanction. The “Shidduch Crisis” is caused by truly distinguished Roshei Yeshivah who unabashedly encourage their students to delay the age of Shidduchim, thus wrongly preferring the entire Yeshiva’s benefit over the Torah study and observance of individual man and women.

And as a symptom of the imbalanced present approach to money matters, the youth are made to reject any Shidduch that does not include a “deserved” apartment. Destitute fathers can hardly marry off their daughters without pledging money they don’t have — and are unable to obtain — without taking out questionable loans.

See Rabbi Brand’s masterful overview of the halachos hot off the press here: המצווה להתחתן, והעיכובים.

Everyone Acts in Their Own Interest, Including Politicians

Solving Whose Problem?

Thomas Sowell | Posted: Nov 24, 2009

No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems– of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.

Many of the things the government does that may seem stupid are not stupid at all, from the standpoint of the elected officials or bureaucrats who do these things.

The current economic downturn that has cost millions of people their jobs began with successive administrations of both parties pushing banks and other lenders to make mortgage loans to people whose incomes, credit history and inability or unwillingness to make a substantial down payment on a house made them bad risks.

Was that stupid? Not at all. The money that was being put at risk was not the politicians’ money, and in most cases was not even the government’s money. Moreover, the jobs that are being lost by the millions are not the politicians’ jobs– and jobs in the government’s bureaucracies are increasing.

Continue reading…

From Town Hall, here.

Government Monopolies: You Can’t Have It Both Ways…

The argument for decriminalizing nonviolent alternatives to government services is always the same unbeatable ‘Mimah Nafshach’ (technical or ethical)?

  • If the government program in question is doing such a splendid job, why need it fear competition from nongovernmental alternatives?
  • And if the government program in question is not doing such a good job, why should anyone object to its replacement?

(Based on a quote from Milton Friedman)