Opioid deaths hit an all-time high in Massachusetts in 2016, likely reaching close to 2,000, state health officials said.
State health officials predict the final number for 2016 will include about a 13 percent increase over 2015, using confirmed cases and pending cases that will likely be attributed to opioids
Michael Novak died on February 17. He was an intellectual giant – the finest writer on public policy, faith, and social issues in decades. It is hard to believe that he is no longer with us, but his thought and his books will affect America for years to come.
Of his dozens of books, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is his greatest legacy. It is in some ways the best book on capitalism since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. In this magisterial work, Novak describes the moral case for capitalism in the most compelling manner. No, it is not the importance of greed, or the profit motive, as many would have you believe. Novak wrote that despite its many imperfections, capitalism has been shown, by centuries of empirical data, to better help the poor escape poverty than any other system. He also argued convincingly that capitalism appears to be a necessary condition for the success of democracy.
