In a surprising turn of events, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of Catholic Social Services (CSS) and against the City of Philadelphia. Upon learning that the Catholic agency would not place children with same-sex couples as a part of its foster care work, the city did not renew its contract with CSS, citing antidiscrimination laws.

“Homebuilding rebounded less than expected,” NBC reported recently, “as very expensive lumber and shortages of other materials continued to constrain builders’ ability to take advantage of an acute shortage of houses on the market.”

The United States retail sales and jobless claims weakness, significantly below estimates, coincides with the largest fiscal and monetary stimulus in history. Something is not right when these figures come significantly below estimates in an environment of massive upgrades to gross domestic product (GDP). Why?

Last week, the Federal Reserve announced it will maintain an interest rate target of zero to 0.25 percent for the rest of 2021. The Fed said it will also continue its monthly purchase of 120 billion dollars of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities.

Minimum-wage laws are again in the news, as Joe Biden and his political allies in Congress seek to push the national minimum from its current level of $7.25 per hour up to $15 per hour. Some politicians, Sen. Bernie Sanders for one, declare that people can barely survive even on $15 per hour. If the law takes the minimum up to $15, we can expect pressure to raise it still further in the future.

In our world, there is very little people agree upon. One thing that seems to be an exception is that having an open mind is almost universally well regarded, while having a closed mind is almost universally criticized. However, such rhetoric presumes that what we are open or closed to is the truth. That leads to some problems of understanding, because we are routinely exposed to a great deal of nonsense, which we do not want to be open to, as well as truth.

[This article is excerpted from a talk given June 17, 2021, at the Mises Institute’s Medical Freedom Summit in Salem, New Hampshire.]

Ladies and gentlemen, why are we here today?