Americans Worried about Housing Costs, Open to YIMBY

Policymakers across the country should marshal current public support for building more homes and make zoning reform a policy priority. Doing so would unlock opportunity for a wide variety of people.

https://www.cato.org/blog/americans-worried-about-housing-cost-open-yimby

Ray Bradbury and Roald Dahl

“I’ve warned my publishers that if they later on so much as change a single comma in one of my books, they will never see another word from me. Never! Ever!” [Dahl] said. With his typically evocative language, he added: “When I am gone, if that happens, then I’ll wish mighty Thor knocks very hard on their heads with his Mjolnir. Or I will send along the ‘enormous crocodile’ to gobble them up.”

https://www.cato.org/blog/ray-bradbury-roald-dahl

Wage and Price Controls Are Not the Answer to Inflation

Price controls have been thoroughly debunked by history and economic theory. In fact, one of the first lessons in a standard freshman introductory microeconomics class is explaining how controls on prices (and wages, hereinafter, just “price controls”) cause shortages and surpluses. 

New York’s Ultra-Broad Definition of “Blight” Continues to Enable Eminent Domain Abuse

In this case, it enables the state to declare the area around Penn Station in New York City “blighted” and thereby authorize the use of eminent domain to take property for transfer to private interests.

In addition to harming local property owners, such condemnations often actually destroy more economic value than they create. Among other things, rendering property rights insecure undermines incentives to invest, and thereby impedes longterm economic development.

https://reason.com/volokh/2022/12/30/new-yorks-ultra-broad-definition-of-blight-continues-to-enable-eminent-domain-abuse/

Charity and Capitalism Are Better Than Government

When I was young, I assumed government would lift people out of poverty. But those policies often do more harm than good.

Businesses do better things because competition forces them to spend money well. If they don’t spend well, they disappear. Government never disappears. When politicians fail, they force us to give them more of our money so they can do it again.

https://reason.com/2022/12/28/charity-and-capitalism-are-better-than-government/

New York City’s Foie Gras Ban Once Again Deemed Illegal by New York State

The city has not yet announced whether it will fight the order in court.

The order blasts “the City’s effort to use its police powers and business regulatory authority to bar the sale of a lawfully produced farm product—not for reasons of the health, safety, or welfare of its citizens—but to change animal husbandry practices occurring on farms outside its jurisdiction to which it objects.”

https://reason.com/2022/12/24/new-york-citys-foie-gras-ban-once-again-deemed-illegal-by-new-york-state/