Source: The Daily Economy
by Vincent Geloso
“Land use regulation keeps poor families from moving to areas where there’s more opportunity, reducing their lifetime earnings.” (12/26/24)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/an-overlooked-killer-of-income-mobility/
Source: The Dispatch
by Jonah Goldberg
“[T]he Republican Party now has two masters with different goals. Musk’s stated mission was to impose fiscal restraint and greater efficiency on government (though his unstated motives are a matter of speculation). Trump’s objective was to avoid the hassles of a debate over raising the government borrowing limit early in his term, freeing him to rack up more debt through spending and tax cuts. Based purely on the political result, Musk won and Trump lost.” (12/26/24)
Source: Washington Post
by David Goldhill
“Consider this: Health insurance is a product so terrible that few Americans voluntarily buy it without receiving a sizable subsidy. ‘No one would design a system like the one we have. And no one did,’ UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty wrote this month. ‘It’s a patchwork built over decades.’ Today, insurers are accused of pushing up prices for medical care and then denying legitimate claims. Their leaders are said to be greedy or incompetent. In reality, we have a more fundamental problem: Health insurance can no longer pay for or manage modern health care, and the patchwork that Witty described is not fixable. It makes no sense to try.” (12/26/24)
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob
“Her ‘constituents in Texas Congressional District 12 have asked, ‘Where is Congresswoman Kay Granger?’
Some Tarrant County residents,’ The Dallas Express further reports, ‘have begun to speculate.’ ‘I’m hearing she’s in a memory care unit,’ one posted on X. Express reporter Carlos Turcios explains that ‘the Congresswoman has been residing at a local memory care and assisted living home for some time after having been found wandering, lost, and confused in her former Cultural District/West 7th neighborhood.’ Granger, 81, did not seek re-election last November after 28 years in Congress. Thankfully. She has not voted in Congress since July 24 of this year. Which, given the circumstances, is also a good thing.” (12/26/24)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2024/12/26/missing-in-congress/
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Michael D Swaine
“Overall, the primary threat to U.S. (and global) interests derives not from China or the United States separately, but from the deeply negative and worsening nature of the U.S and Chinese interaction, in which each side: worst cases the motives and intentions of the other, ignores how they themselves contribute to this spiral, and one-sidedly stresses deterrence over reassurance in many policy spheres (especially regarding Taiwan), which could lead to conflict. This interactive dynamic is driven by two sets of largely zero-sum views: In the U.S.: the quixotic U.S. belief that it still retains Cold War-level dominance or absolutely needs such dominance or sole leadership to sustain an acceptable global order. … In China: a belief that U.S. decline is underway, is systemic, and benefits China, and (more importantly) a belief that the U.S. is committed to undermining China’s overall development and collapsing the Chinese Communist Party.” (12/26/24)
Source: CounterPunch
by Grant Inskeep
“Religious prophets, far from the nonsensical concoctions most have come to understand them as, were really radical dissidents — potentially militant given the times — and who supported, belonged to or led working class movements fighting for more egalitarian measures against tyrannical state power. All throughout organized human history, people have sought saviors whom they imagine will appear in the form of prophets, who will articulate our goals in clear language, and guide our practical action with such clear methods, that all we need do is surrender with a full heart, commit entirely to ‘the cause,’ and then continue to act in accordance with a sense of the principles we have attributed to ‘the Prophet,’ whose fulfilment guarantees us an eternal paradise. This paradise can be here on earth, as in the case of Orthodox Marxism, or, more frequently, in a promised ‘afterlife,’ as in the case of most organized religions throughout history.” (12/26/24)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/12/26/on-organized-religion-and-prophets-in-history/
Source: Law & Liberty
by Elizabeth Corey
“In 1954, Walker Percy published a short philosophical essay called ‘The Loss of the Creature,’ arguing that modern man had given up sovereignty over his own existence. Advertisements, magazine articles, and television all offered up ersatz experiences to a passive and compliant public. That public in turn increasingly found direct, unmediated experience disappointing and anticlimactic. If only he could see us now!” (12/26/24)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/rage-against-the-machines/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Lawrence W Reed
“In many homes worldwide, the day after Christmas is nearly as festive as the day before. December 26 is a holiday in the UK and many Commonwealth nations. People everywhere look forward with hope to the New Year just days away. That may not have been true on December 26, 1948, for a Catholic prelate in Hungary named Cardinal József Mindszenty (1892–1975). Arrested that day by communist authorities, he was sentenced to life in prison on concocted charges of ‘treason and conspiracy.’ Beatings and torture followed. This was not Mindszenty’s first arrest.” (12/26/24)
Source: The Atlantic
by Arthur C Brooks
“Aristippus was a student of Socrates who founded a minor school of philosophy called Cyrenaicism. As Cyrenaic thinking evolved, it centered on two ideas. First, objective reality is unknowable, so we should pay attention only to our own subjective experience of that reality. Second, that experience should be as pleasant as possible, meaning that we should maximize immediate pleasure and avoid pain. Aristippus himself focused especially on the first part, pleasure — preferably involving young courtesans and old wine. Cyrenaic hedonism still pops up as a significant cultural influence from time to time, as it did during the hippie era in America. That pleasure-first principle sounds a bit quaint today, given all the talk of a sex recession and young people being less adventurous than they used to be. But another form of Cyrenaicism is currently very strong: the idea that besides seeking pleasure, we should avoid pain.” (12/26/24)
Source: Orange County Register
by Veronique de Rugy
“It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and Santa is done checking his list and deciding who’s been naughty and nice. Of course, whenever he stops by the U.S. Capitol, he finds evidence of a lot of naughty fiscal irresponsibility that has given us a budget and government that overflow with inefficiency and waste. So my holiday wish is that, one way or another, we get some fiscal cheer by putting a few government-run programs under the privatization tree. Let’s unwrap the possibilities!” (12/25/24)
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/12/25/wishing-for-santa-like-efficiency-in-the-usa/