“Scotland’s Scottish Nationalist Party-led coalition imploded Thursday after a three year-long power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens that kept the SNP in power collapsed in a row over the scrapping of carbon emissions targets. First Minister Humza Yousaf said he had told the Scottish Greens leadership their coalition was over and that he was ending their so-called Bute House agreement, telling a press conference that the compromises the pact involved were no longer worth it. … Yousaf, who replaced Nicola Sturgeon as first minister after she unexpectedly stepped down in March 2023, will now lead a minority government with the 39-year-old hailing the step as a ‘new beginning’ for his party.” (04/25/24)
“In the US, free speech is protected by the First Amendment, which restricts the ability of government to limit citizens’ speech, with exceptions for speech that incites violence, represents a true threat to safety by narrowly defined criteria, or constitutes fraud or defamation. Hate speech, even if vile, is protected under the First Amendment. First Amendment protections don’t apply to private institutions, like many universities, though most universities voluntarily establish free speech rights for their communities. Academic freedom is a more limited concept, protecting scholars, researchers, and educators from censorship, discipline, or retaliation by their institutions. Academic freedom is essential to the pursuit and transmission of knowledge and to critical thinking.” (04/25/24)
“One of the ideas that economists are most sure of is that when the price of something rises, other than due to something that shifts the whole demand curve, the quantity demanded falls. Conversely, when the price of something falls, the quantity demanded increases. This is not controversial in economics. Moreover, it’s so clear that it is part of our mutual understanding, even for non-economists. … The law of demand applies to virtually everything: the demand for steaks, the demand for cars, the demand for houses, and, yes, the demand for labor. That means that when governments raise the price of relatively unskilled labor by substantially raising the minimum wage, the number of unskilled workers employed will fall.” (04/25/24)
“U.S. births fell last year, resuming a long national slide. A little under 3.6 million babies were born in 2023, according to provisional statistics released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about 76,000 fewer than the year before and the lowest one-year tally since 1979. U.S. births were slipping for more than a decade before COVID-19 hit, then dropped 4% from 2019 to 2020. They ticked up for two straight years after that, an increase experts attributed, in part, to pregnancies that couples had put off amid the pandemic’s early days.” (04/25/24)
“This April, a Nashville homeowner shot an intruder intent on burglary. Also this month, a St. Louis apartment dweller shot an intruder who threatened to kill his family. A Newport Beach homeowner recently shot an intruder as well. Aside from the obvious, what do such incidents, often in newspapers, have in common? The government is hiding research about them. In December 2022, Fox News reported that to appease gun control activists, the Centers for Disease Control had deleted reference to a study on how often guns are used in self-defense from its published research.” (04/25/24)
“Southwest Airlines announced Thursday that the carrier is pulling out of several airports as it contends with financial fallout from Boeing delays. CEO Bob Jordan warned in Southwest’s latest earnings report that the carrier has intensified its network optimization efforts to address underperforming markets. As a result of these efforts, the Texas-based carrier is closing operations at Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, the Bellingham International Airport in Washington, the Cozumel International Airport in Mexico and the Syracuse Hancock International Airport in New York. … Southwest is the latest carrier to face setbacks due to Boeing. In early March, United Airlines announced it was temporarily pausing pilot hiring due to new aircraft certification and manufacturing delays at Boeing. It also recently asked pilots to take unpaid time off as delays persist.” (04/25/24)
Source: American Institute for Economic Research
by Peter C Earle
“Zimbabwe’s historical relationship with money has been inundated with mistakes, recklessness, and hardship. During the peak of its 2008 hyperinflation, the nation experienced a catastrophic economic downturn, characterized by the issuance of billion- and trillion-dollar banknotes that were, despite their nominal enormity, virtually worthless. Recent economic challenges have revived painful memories of that era with the resurgence of inflation (currently at 55 percent), a return to the US dollar, euro, and South African Rand as de facto currencies, and the necessity of using large physical stacks of bills to purchase basic commodities like bread and eggs. On April 5, a new currency was announced.” (04/25/24)
