Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Lipton Matthews
“Jamaica is currently in the midst of constitutional reform, a process being hailed as a watershed moment in the island’s history. Much of the public debate has been consumed by two proposals: the desire to become a republic and the replacement of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London with the Caribbean Court of Justice as the final appellate court. These ideas are being advanced with great fanfare, yet they are driven more by sentiment than by sober reasoning. They are products of anti-colonial rhetoric rather than serious engagement with the principles that should guide a modern constitution.” (10/13/25)
“Crowds protesting a spike in fuel prices spilled into the streets of Ecuador’s capital of Quito Sunday, burning tires, blocking roads and facing off against police officers who responded with volleys of tear gas. It was the latest confrontation in a series of nationwide demonstrations testing President Daniel Noboa. … Ecuador’s largest Indigenous organization called the strikes 21 days ago in response to the removal of a fuel subsidy that raised the price of diesel from $1.80 per gallon to $2.80.” (10/12/25)
“The founder and CEO of First Brands resigned Monday, weeks after the auto parts supplier filed for bankruptcy protection amid an accounting scandal that has left lenders scrambling for more than $2 billion in missing funds. Patrick James, who founded the company in 2013, will be replaced on an interim basis by Charles Moore, who was appointed as chief restructuring officer last month to sort out the company’s financial and potential legal troubles and prepare it for a possible sale. … Raistone Capital filed an emergency motion last week requesting the appointment of an independent examiner, saying that First Brands-appointed ‘independent’ directors were insufficient considering the amount of money — as much as $2.3 billion — that had ‘simply vanished.’” (10/13/25)
“Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, worries that the United States could become a dictatorship. At a press conference on Wednesday, he warned that ‘a Marxist ideology [is] taking over the Democrat party’ and could soon be ‘turning us into a Communist country.’ On Thursday, as he fielded calls on C-SPAN, Johnson invoked the language of The Communist Manifesto: ‘What if the socialists take over the Senate, and Democrat socialists are in charge, and they want to grow government and take over the means of production?’ Johnson isn’t wrong to fear dictatorship in this country. He’s just wrong about where that threat is coming from. It’s coming from his own party. And he’s paving the way.” (10/13/25)
“Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt won the Nobel memorial prize in economics Monday for ‘having explained innovation-driven economic growth.’ Mokyr is from Northwestern University, Aghion from the College de France and the London School of Economics, and Howitt from Brown University. The Nobel committee said Mokyr ‘demonstrated that if innovations are to succeed one another in a self-generating process, we not only need to know that something works, but we also need to have scientific explanations for why.'” (10/13/25)
“The main Nobel laureate in economics announced this morning is Joel Mokyr, an economic historian at Northwestern University. In his 2016 book, A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy (Princeton University Press), Mokyr explored why economic growth started in the West (Northern Europe and its offshoots) at a rate that the world had never seen before. The explanation is not as simple as a straight connection from technological innovations to economic growth. In human history, episodes of scientific or technological advances were not typically followed by significant changes in the generalized poverty of ordinary people, including famously in China. To translate into economic growth, Mokyr explained, scientific discoveries need to be accompanied by a culture of growth, which in turn is generated by intellectual and economic entrepreneurship in open societies with fragmented political power.” (10/13/25)
“California has become the latest state to age-gate app stores and operating systems. AB 1043 is one of several internet regulation bills that Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on Monday, including ones related to social media warning labels, chatbots and deepfake pornography. … Unlike with legislation in Utah and Texas, children will still be able to download apps without their parents’ consent. The law doesn’t require people to upload photo IDs either. Instead, the idea is that a parent will enter their child’s age while setting up a device for them — so it’s more of an age gate than age verification. … In addition, SB 243 prohibits chatbots from being marketed as health care professionals. … Newsom also signed a bill concerning deepfake pornography into law. AB 621 includes steeper potential penalties for ‘third parties who knowingly facilitate or aid in the distribution of nonconsensual sexually explicit material.'” (10/13/25)
