“Money does not grow on trees” is an old expression of wisdom that seems to have been disregarded by 21st century American policymakers. People all over the world and throughout time base their decisions primarily through lived experience. The US dollar became the world’s reserve currency in the aftermath of World War II, which is now almost eighty years ago. There is virtually no one in power at the American government or in leading institutions who has a living memory from before that period.

For more than four years now, the Biden Administration has been insisting that the state of small business in America is better than it has ever been. This claim, however, is based on a single government statistic: the business applications metric published by the Census Bureau, which is a record of applications for an employer identification number (EIN).

Common Law Liberalism: A New Theory of the Libertarian Society by John Hasnas. Oxford University Press 2024. 328pp.

Sabrina Carpenter has been a star since she was 12, staring on Disney’s Girl Meets World. Now she’s a singer and, I’ve heard, she has broken records set by the Beatles. She’s recorded a catchy cover of Nancy Sinatra‘s 1965 hit “These Boots Are Made For Walking.” 

Americans from Florida to North Carolina continue to deal with the devastating consequences of Hurricane Helene, now the deadliest hurricane to hit the US since Katrina. The stories emerging from the region are heart breaking. The economic damage to property and the infrastructure will take years to recover from. Large parts of the area will never return to what they were.

Donald Trump’s ascendancy in the Republican Party fissured the GOP. Increasingly alienated, the GOP’s neoconservative wing flocks more and more to the Democrats.

Labor unions are exempted from federal antitrust laws including the Sherman Antitrust Act, which outlaws “conspiracies in restraint of trade.” This is not a bad thing: Everyone should be exempted from antitrust laws. They are an assault on property rights and because their rulings are so arbitrary they are incompatible with justice and fairness. They are also a tool of rent-seeking businesses who practice “lawfare” by routinely suing their superior competitors for dropping their prices, improving their products, and serving their customers better than they do.