After weeks of bad omens, we finally have the autumn budget. Yes, it is as bad as predicted—more taxes, more spending, more empty promises. Nothing new or unexpected. The funny thing is that the government keeps claiming that they will deliver more growth and less inflation.
Until the Industrial Revolution came along, communities could only grow and thrive if they first managed to push agricultural productivity well beyond bare subsistence. Italy’s late-medieval and Renaissance ascent—from 1250 to the mid-16th century—demonstrates how a functioning rural economy could break the cycle of the chronic poverty that had shackled mankind for millennia.
[Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity by Omri Boehm (New York Review of Books, 2025; 192 pp.)]
A few days ago, cannabis stocks surged after news broke that President Donald Trump is considering ordering his administration to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a move that would represent a significant shift in US policy.
Due to wartime inflation of bills of credit (“Continentals”) during the American war for independence and the predictable economic effects, an old American colloquialism developed, “not worth a Continental” (although this phrase may have come about much later than the Revolutionary era).
Many view Charles Dickens as the inventor of modern Christmas. This is largely due to his beloved 1843 novella A Christmas Carol. Given his association with the holiday, Christmas is an appropriate time to reassess the man. Rather than a kindhearted champion of the oppressed, Dickens was a monstrous villain who taught millions to hate capitalism.
[This article was originally published in December 2006.]
Many democratic socialists in America claim that the path to their ideal utopia has already been paved and walked within the Scandinavian Nordic Model. Politicians like Mandami and AOC claim to be inspired by this “socialism” and use it as a guideline for their horrific policies and central planning. However, their “Nordic Model” actually serves as a perfect example as to why socialism fails.
Our plane landed at JFK at 10:30 p.m. after a nine-hour flight from Istanbul. Our day had begun in Riga, Latvia, where my wife, me, and our adopted Latvian daughter had been visiting, the Latvia trip being her high school graduation present.
