Homeless foreign nationals (i.e., “illegal aliens”) began arriving last week at a makeshift shelter in a Staten Island neighborhood. The arrivals come after New York City Mayor Eric Adams decided that a shuttered Catholic school on Staten Island would be used to house some of the more than 100,000 migrants who have arrived in New York City since the spring of 2022. 

Earlier this month, I completed a three-week road trip across America’s east coast, driving through the states of New York, Pennsylvania, the Virginias, and the Carolinas, reaching as far south as Jekyll Island, Georgia. The American road trip is an enriching experience that provides ample opportunity for contemplation about economics and the structure of society.

Our friends at the Cobden Centre have produced a new documentary, Ex Nihilo: The Truth About Money, available on YouTube. It premiered last month in the British Parliament, in the House of Lords.

The concept of the “fair wage” or the “just wage” is centuries old. It dates back at least to the Middle Ages and was founded on the idea that “just” prices of goods must be sufficient to provide “a reasonable wage to maintain the craftsman or merchant in his appropriate station of life.” 

In the last century, states have had great control over channels of media.