Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“In a year as chaotic, violent, and economically destructive as this one has been, it is interesting that, to many Americans, the great villain of 2026 is turning out to be a traffic camera. But, indeed, we are seeing visceral, cross-partisan opposition to so-called Flock cameras—named after the leading manufacturer of these automated license plate readers—take hold in communities across the country. And that opposition is, to be sure, entirely legitimate.” (08/19/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by George D O’Neill Jr.
“Now that the lofty 250th-anniversary rhetoric about the greatness of our country has faded, it is time to face the reality of our country’s actual behavior. The U.S. fashions itself as a generous and benevolent world leader enforcing the ‘rules-based order’—a deceptive construct used by globalist elites to bully other countries. The rules are arbitrarily changed to suit the bullies and are regularly fashioned into pretexts for military action against uncooperative nations. In short, it is a hoax, untethered from the principles and ideals of our founders.” (08/19/26)
“As many criticize higher education for pursuing indoctrination over education, Oregon State University (OSU) appears to be doubling down on a mandatory woke curriculum. The university is under fire for its mandatory undergraduate courses on ‘Difference, Power & Oppression’ (DPO). Much of the rhetoric on the university’s website reads more like the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) than an institution of higher education. OSU requires all undergraduate students who enrolled after the summer of 2025 to complete two DPO courses as part of its Core Education curriculum, including ‘Difference, Power & Oppression Foundations’ and ‘Difference, Power & Oppression Advanced’. This is all part of what OSU calls a ‘core curriculum’ that teaches students to be ‘adaptive, proactive members’ of society to ‘build a better world’.” (08/19/26)
“‘Borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry,’ wrote the 16th-century economist William Shakespeare, who went on to advise: ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ Americans, who like to talk about their Christian faith more than study it (‘The wicked person borrows and does not repay, but the righteous one is gracious and giving’) have twice elected the self-proclaimed ‘king of debt,’ an infamous deadbeat and serial bankrupt, as president of the United States, while entrusting the national purse strings to the control of his self-abasing toadies in Congress. That’s going about as well as you would imagine.” (08/19/26)
“Businesses are increasingly judged by ethical scorecards. But when virtue becomes a target, firms learn to optimize the metric — crowding out what actually matters.” (08/19/26)
“Global inequality of income has been falling this past forty and fifty years. No, it’s not all about China either. The poor countries have been growing faster than the rich countries – inequality is falling. As Branko Milanovic has proven, this is also true if we consider inequality directly between people, not just as national units. This is even true of capital – as Milanovic again has proven, capital incomes are becoming more equally distributed. Agreed, agreed, from a very high level but still, that direction of travel is there. So, we know how to do global inequality reduction. Exactly what we’ve been doing. The Washington Consensus stops poor country governments doing stupid things, globalisation distributes the work and the incomes and, Tadah! global inequality reduces. Great, get really neoliberal on that global economy and Bob’s your parent’s sibling of choice. The usual suspects are demanding that all of this stop of course.” (08/19/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Nayler
“Quality of life in Spain is among the highest in the world, but that isn’t enough to prevent young Spaniards from seeking careers abroad. The country has always struggled with high unemployment rates, especially among 15–25-year-olds, almost a quarter of whom are currently out of work. As a result, many young Spaniards, especially those with a university education, seek opportunities elsewhere: according to a 2023 survey, more than half of Spanish youth plan or would like to move to a different country. Those who do remain are often wildly overqualified for the jobs available to them.” (08/19/26)
Source: The American Prospect
by Katie Rose Quandt
“When Jerome Wright hears from people incarcerated in New York prisons, they describe a system in crisis. ‘I can tell you, unequivocally, from people in maximum, medium, every type of security they have in there, that the system has devolved into basically a lockdown,’ said Wright, co-director of the HALT Solitary Campaign, who spent more than seven years in solitary confinement in New York prisons. ‘It’s almost like the entire system is in solitary confinement … People are losing their minds, literally. Some people are committing suicide.’ … This should not be the case in New York, where lawmakers in 2021 passed the HALT Act, designed to limit which infractions can be punished with solitary confinement, cap stints in solitary to 15 days (after which people can be moved to special, non-isolation units), and ban certain vulnerable populations from solitary altogether.” (08/19/26)
