Author: Thomas L. Knapp

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Ninos P Malek

“In a free market, businesses must satisfy customers to earn profits. Persistent losses can signal that resources would be better used elsewhere. Rather than rescuing failing firms with taxpayer money, the free-market perspective is to allow the market process to work. As I sometimes jokingly tell my students when explaining this principle, it’s time to say, ‘Bye-bye, die-die!’ to businesses that fail to satisfy consumer needs. (Figuratively speaking, of course.) Some call government favoritism crony capitalism. I dislike that expression because it still associates the problem with capitalism.” [editor’s note: Free markets and capitalism (“a mixed, state-regulated, industrial economy”) are opposites, and “crony capitalism” is a redundancy – TLK] (10/14/26)

https://fee.org/articles/stop-calling-it-capitalism-when-its-government-favoritism/

Source: Wired
by Noah Shachtman

“A mysteriously named political action committee has started running ads reminding voters in Colorado about that time GOP representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado and her date were caught on camera in 2023 getting handsy during a performance of the musical Beetlejuice. That same PAC is producing a spot hitting Anthony Constantino, a Trumpist congressional candidate in upstate New York, because someone used his sticker-printing company to briefly make stickers that read, ‘Kill the Police.’ Attack ads are everywhere in the last month ahead of November’s election. But these spots are a little different. The semi-anonymous PAC that’s funding and making the ads, the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition, is a pro-solar-energy outfit.” (10/14/26)

https://archive.is/KY37i

Source: Independent Institute
by Brady Leonard

“All eyes are on the Upper Midwest as both parties battle for control of Congress this November. Democrats need to flip four Senate seats to take control of the upper chamber, and the hotly contested race between former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers and progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan could be the deciding factor. The RealClearPolitics polling average has El-Sayed up by over three points, although many recent polls have the race well within the margin of error. Interestingly, in an attempt to make up ground, Mike Rogers has released a new ad this week that directly breaks with President Trump’s trade policies, explicitly targeting the 50% tariff imposed on Canadian goods.” (10/14/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/10/14/republican-candidates-trump-tariffs/

Source: EconLog
by Jon Murphy

“Under the Keynesian model, a given increase in income will mechanically generate a given increase in consumption, and thus national output. Readers with a background in economics will recognize this as the Keynesian multiplier. But what Hall showed, building off Friedman, is that such a mechanical relationship is conditional, at best. Whether the change in income was anticipated or unexpected, permanent or temporary, will influence how effective the policy will be.” (10/14/26)

https://www.econlib.org/econlog/a-nobel-for-microfoundations

Source: Law & Liberty
by James Hankins

“William F. Buckley may not have fully subscribed to liberal principles, but he lived them.” (10/14/260

https://lawliberty.org/forum/the-liberal-gentleman/