For years I have held up Venezuela in my economics classes as an example of bad government policy. Now it appears that the fallout from those policies has led to more crime being exported to cities across the US. Perhaps unsurprisingly, due to our proximity to the border, San Antonio is one of those cities.SAPD, along with “multiple state and federal agencies,” arrested several people in a northside apartment complex last weekend on suspicions of human trafficking, among other offenses. Four of those were members of the notorious Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA). This came right on the heels of the president of the SA Professional Firefighters Association cautioning firefighters to stay vigilant in the area. This is a cautionary tale for San Antonians.Since

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

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I attended a neighborhood association meeting recently on the inner west side of San Antonio. The concerns were probably not unlike those of residents in other United States urban centers: crime, public intoxication, vagrancy, etc.One that drew a notable response from the local councilwoman was the cost of housing. This issue provides a good example of how actions of the federal government trickle down and leave collateral damage in our neighborhoods.Housing is a basic good, susceptible to normal market fluctuations just like any other. When government intervenes, though, things get a little more volatile.Out in California, regulations are stifling the addition of more housing. Rent controls do the same. The overarching problem in every state for the last several

“Who controls the past now, controls the future. Who controls the present now, controls the past.”
That is from “Testify,” a song by newly minted rock ‘n’ roll Hall of Famers Rage against the Machine. I don’t know if Phillip W. Magness of the American Institute for Economic Research is fan enough to be familiar with that, but I bet he knows the original source: George Orwell’s 1984.
Whether or not it informed a recent study he coauthored is unclear, but that line has been ringing in my head ever since I read Magness’s summary.
Magness, along with Jeremy Horpedahl and Marcus Witcher, professors of economics and history respectively at the University of Central Arkansas, discovered differences between how college-level introductory economics and history textbooks

My oldest turned seventeen last month. To commemorate the occasion, she and I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I’d taken her to her first (allegedly) rated-R movie a couple years ago to see the quite good Baby Driver, but this was Tarantino.
Brad Pitt won an Oscar for portraying Cliff Booth, the personal stuntman for Leonardo DiCaprio’s struggling actor Rick Dalton. Early on, Cliff consoles Rick after Rick interprets a dinner meeting as a signal that he is officially a “has-been.” The next morning, as he’s dropping Rick off on set, Cliff reassures him that “you’re Rick [expletive] Dalton. Don’t you forget it.”
I turned to my daughter and said “(Rick)’s his meal ticket,” to which she responded “Huh?”
The coronavirus scare has laid bare the tradeoffs