When Britons voted on June 23, 2016 on whether or not to leave the EU there was no discussion of a “hard or soft Brexit”. These terms were invented after Brexit passed by a surprisingly large margin and the mostly anti-Brexit Tory Party government, especially its leadership, decided that it needed to negotiate the terms of leaving. Brexit supporters regard such terms as betraying the 2016 Brexit referendum itself. These 17.4 million Britons undoubtedly believed that Brexit would mean exactly that: Britain would no longer be governed by any EU laws, regulations, etc.

In her essay “Redeeming the Industrial Revolution“ Wendy McElroy notes how industrialization provided choices to women which had never been available before:

January’s report on fertility from the CDC set off a new wave of speculation in the media about the alleged “fertility crisis.”

An old friend of mine, who taught political science for 25 years at the University of Colorado, was known to tell his students that the real reason they were there was to marry people from the right social class.

p> A European court has ruled that people can be fined and prosecuted in criminal court for saying things about religious figures. Specifically, saying things about the Muslim prophet Mohammad is verboten, and state punishment is appropriate:

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a woman convicted by an Austrian court of calling the Prophet Mohammed a paedophile did not have her freedom of speech rights infringed.

While one often hears a lot of talk about the virtues of “mom and pop” shops (and the evils of “big box” stores) policy makers do remarkably little to encourage the growth and health of small businesses. While the federal government has created a federal boondoggle ostensibly designed to favor small business — known as the Small Business Administration — only a tiny number of businesses ever benefit from anything the agency does.

Subjective value is not objective. Sounds obvious, but the distinction is lost on most — scholars and practitioners alike.

People seem to think subjective value is simply a person’s ‘willingness to pay’ a price. Well, it’s not. Subjective value cannot be expressed in dollars and cents, because that would simply mean subjective value is an expression in terms of objective market purchasing power.