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What Christmas 1925 can teach us today

11/26/2025

By the time I started work this morning, I already had dozens of emails waiting to leap at me with breathless exclamation marks.
“Season of savings!” “New deals just dropped!” “Score early deals now!”
Strolling through these daily missives is like walking down the midway of a carnival. I am warned not to pass up great offers. Money? Don’t worry, I’m told, I can pay later.
Which is what many people do, by the way. At the start of the annual holiday shopping season, it’s worth noting that a survey from Consolidated Credit found 36% of respondents admitting they still are paying for purchases from the 2024 holiday season.

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Why tariffs are hurting U.S. toy sellers at Christmas

11/26/2025

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In 1934, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration set up intricate and complicated rules for small businesses in a misguided effort to fight the Great Depression. As a result, four Jewish brothers, the Schechters, who ran a kosher butcher shop in New York City, were arrested for not following these rules, set up under the first phase of the New Deal.
In short, new laws forbade them from letting customers select individual chickens from a coop for slaughter, which was what customers preferred. Instead, they had to select either a full coop or half a coop. Kosher rules governing the health of the birds were not allowed.

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Why tariff rebates are a bad idea

11/17/2025

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In 2022, researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management studied why the nation was reeling under inflation, which peaked that year at 9.1% in June.
Their conclusion was emphatic. The No. 1 culprit was federal spending, and specifically the stimulus checks every American received to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. It wasn’t corporate greed. It wasn’t supply chain disruptions.

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Has Utah's .05 alcohol law made roads safer?

11/10/2025

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Washington state’s patrol chief, John Batiste, made an impassioned plea to his state’s lawmakers a few days ago: Follow Utah’s lead.
It’s been almost seven years since the Beehive State reduced its legal blood alcohol level for drivers to 0.05%, down from the nation’s standard of 0.08.
It was supposed to start a stampede of 49 other states, like when Utah was the first to adopt .08 many years ago.

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Are zoning laws a liberal plot, or a way to save cities?

11/10/2025

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Too many conservatives believe local government zoning reform — perhaps the kind of state reform Utah’s governor has been talking about — belongs to liberals.
Instead, if done correctly, it could restore property rights and basic freedoms, two things that perk ears on the right.
That was the gist of an essay published a few years ago by the free-market-promoting Cato Institute, written by Vanessa Brown Calder, who at the time was director of opportunity and family policy studies at the think tank.

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The twice yearly time change ritual will never end

11/10/2025

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Those of you who are bound to protest about the biannual time change that comes due this Sunday morning (even though it results in an extra hour of sleep) ought to consider your ancestors’ role in all of this.
Fifty-two years ago this coming January, the nation adopted a year-round daylight saving time schedule. It was supposed to be a two-year experiment to help alleviate the energy crisis gripping the United States at that time.

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What Christmas 1925 can teach us today

Why tariffs are hurting U.S. toy sellers at Christmas

Why tariff rebates are a bad idea

Has Utah's .05 alcohol law made roads safer?

Are zoning laws a liberal plot, or a way to save cities?

The twice yearly time change ritual will never end

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