People with jobs, children, and actual responsibilities might not have noticed, but Hollywood is nearly shut down right now thanks to both a writers’ strike and an actors’ strike. Or more accurately: only the writers and actors who are members of unions are on strike. Members of SAG-AFTRA (SAG) and the Writers Guild of America (WGA) are refusing to work until TV and movie studios agree to a variety of demands.
This year during Mises University, we want to share the perspective of students in the program. The following are YouTube shorts from some of this ye ar’s Mises Apprentices asking fellow students about the highlights from Tuesday, which included an evening pool party.
Mises University is going on the entire week. You can watch live from home at mises.org/live.
A federal judge this week vacated the desertion conviction of former US Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl, who was convicted in 2017 of desertion for leaving his post in Afghanistan. Bergdahl was then captured by Taliban forces, tortured, and imprisoned for four years before being freed by a prisoner exchange in 2014.
The price of a McDonald’s hamburger in the United States has inflated 3.75 percent annually over the last seventy years. McDonald’s has grown from a tiny hamburger stand in Des Plaines, Illinois, to the second largest fast-food chain on earth. Scale economies alone (never mind process and productivity improvements) should’ve allowed the price of a burger to decline materially over this period.
The PGA Tour and the Saudi-owned LIV Golf are seeking to move past their cutthroat competition and merge together, but United States regulators are stepping in and framing the potential merger as a threat to US sovereignty and an expansion of Saudi Arabian influence, citing the Saudi regime’s brutality and alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.
There is little doubt that the institution of the family in the West is in crisis. Birth rates have been declining in the USA, and most Western countries have fertility rates below replacement level. Abortions number over five hundred thousand per year, most of which are concentrated among low-income individuals.
