China’s Economic Facade is Cracking

[China] is reaping the whirlwind of conscious decisions on Beijing’s part over the past 15 years to embrace more state-centric economic policies. …Problems, however, are to be expected when the government plays a heavy-handed role in directing investment — a process which steadily accelerated in China after Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

Will the Supreme Court Let Sylvia Gonzalez Sue the Political Enemies Who Engineered Her Arrest?

“Gonzalez was so hurt by the experience and so embarrassed by the media coverage of her arrest,” the petition says, that “she gave up her council seat and swore off organizing petitions or criticizing her government.”

https://reason.com/2024/03/21/will-the-supreme-court-let-sylvia-gonzalez-sue-the-political-enemies-who-engineered-her-arrest/

Uber and Lyft Drive Out of the Twin Cities

Left to their own devices, employers and workers will inevitably come to an answer that serves both of their interests. But that sort of mutually beneficial arrangement has never made politicians all that happy, as it invariably proves that people don’t need them all that much.

Dynamic Pricing Puts the “Fast” Back in Fast Food

Every fast-food restaurant already has a form of dynamic pricing… You pay in the next-highest-valued use of your time, also known as opportunity cost.

Predictable pricing does not mean predictable cost, which includes things like wait times at the drive-thru.

Roommates Are Now Legal In Ohio

In a Jan. 30 decision, [Portage C]ounty court holds that the City of Kent’s restriction on the number of unrelated persons who may reside together to be unconstitutional.

With the series of decisions from 2006 to present, the Ohio courts are cementing an OH-PA-NJ property rights judicial axis based upon rights identified in state constitutions which, courts have held, go beyond those in the federal constitution.

This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things (Digital Trade Version)

Why is the US Trade Representative opening the door to other countries slapping tariffs on e‑commerce that benefits American workers, American businesses, and American consumers?

https://www.cato.org/blog/why-we-cant-have-nice-things-digital-trade-version

How Rich People Create Poverty

The real gains come from people moving to where their labor is more valuable — and that’s in high-income countries like the United States. The problem is, we rich Westerners won’t let them come. We consign them to lives of low productivity and the attendant poverty by building walls and saying, “No foreigners allowed.” The kicker? We impoverish ourselves in the process. We impoverish ourselves by keeping markets from working and, therefore, keeping others poor.

https://www.aier.org/article/how-rich-people-create-poverty/

Why Is Panera Exempted From California’s New Minimum Wage Law?

Probably because Greg Flynn, who operates 24 of the bakery cafes in California, is a longtime friend of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The deeper lesson is that giving the government more power to set wages (or regulate other aspects of the economy) creates the conditions for exactly this sort of thing to happen…

And the more the government does that, the more opportunities there will be for officials to reward their friends and punish their enemies.

https://reason.com/2024/02/28/why-is-panera-exempted-from-californias-new-minimum-wage-law/

China’s Fertility Flip-Flop Shows the Folly of Legislating Family Sizes

If communists are consistent on one point, it is that the state knows best. Always. Even when it comes to how many children each couple should bring into the world. Where communists have been inconsistent, though, is on whether that number ought to be higher or lower.