Last April, NJ Transit officials dropped a bombshell. Round-trip tickets from New York Penn Station to MetLife Stadium for World Cup games would cost $150 a piece. No discounts would be given for children or anyone else. That’s $150 for a 15-minute ride that covers all of 9 miles. The fare is usually $12.90. Due to the immediate outrage, the ticket price was lowered to $105. Then $98. One suspects this may have been the plan all along, to begin with a very crazy price to make a less extreme but still crazy price more palatable. Boston followed suit, announcing that train tickets from Boston to Gillette Stadium in Foxborough would cost $80, quadruple the $20 fans usually pay to attend New England Patriots games.

There are some good reasons for the price increases. Hosting the World Cup is a demanding task. FIFA has many requirements that host cities need to follow. Still, one has to wonder how the state of New Jersey plans to spend a claimed $60 million transporting fans to the tournament. MetLife Stadium has a capacity of 82,500 and is hosting eight World Cup games. Assuming that every person were to take public transit and every game is sold out, that equates to $90 in costs per person per ride. To take people a total of 18 miles. It’s hard to take these people seriously.

Part of the reason for the pinch is that there won’t be much traditional parking for fans. For reasons unclear to me, FIFA has severely limited the parking availability. Due to “security concerns,” only a few of the 23,000 parking spaces at MetLife will be available to fans. Never mind that MetLife has hosted plenty of high-profile events previously, including the Super Bowl and several Taylor Swift Eras Tour concerts.

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The economic arguments for charging these extreme prices are straightforward. This World Cup is unlike any other. At other World Cups locals could buy tickets relatively easily. This World Cup has extreme prices. To see many games in the United States, fans can expect to shell out hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. There has never been a soccer tournament like this. Clearly, many of those attending are relatively affluent, or at least have money to burn. Second, groups like NJ Transit know that a lot of the fans are coming from out of town. They are not New Jerseyans going to or from work, or New Jerseyans at all. Given the limited parking, it makes sense from an economic perspective to charge a lot of money.

There are two problems with using this argument, however.

The first is itself economic: competition. Noticing that $98 for less than 20 miles is exorbitant, several other groups have sensed a moneymaking possibility. The State of New York stepped in, initially with its own $80 bus that would pick up at various points in New York City. This prompted it’s own chorus of howls from affronted New Yorkers, who reasonably expect their sky-high taxes to pay for regular-priced services. The State retreated and announced that the new bus price would be $20, and that a fifth of the seats would be reserved for New York residents.

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Uber also noticed an opportunity to make a quick buck. The ride-sharing company announced it would offer buses from various New York City pickup points to MetLife for $49. It goes without saying that when Uber, one of the more reviled companies in the US, is undercutting public transportation, something isn’t right.

Given the State of New York and Uber’s alternatives, NJ Transit risks being left with serious egg on its face. If the state really is spending $60 million on World Cup infrastructure (it isn’t), then it does need to recoup a lot of that investment and have trains packed with farepayers. If those trains travel mostly empty and fans choose alternative options, then charging such a high fare will backfire.

The second, more important problem with charging $98 for a short train ride isn’t economic; it’s existential. Public transportation is not justified based on supply and demand. Government employees are not trying to maximize profits or minimize costs when designing routes and setting fares. Public transportation is meant to provide the public with an affordable way of traveling from A to B while reducing congestion.

There are many, many bus and train routes that are far from capacity. These routes cost millions of taxpayer dollars per year. When small-government types bring this up and advocate for cutting routes, the response is that public transit is not meant to make money. That many half-empty buses serve low-income areas, and while they may not be full, those on them need those routes to get to work or other necessary appointments.

By attempting to charge a market rate for high-income riders, NJ Transit risks undermining the raison d’être of its existence. If the Penn Station to MetLife route needs to recoup costs, why not other routes? If the taxpayer can’t be expected to subsidize sports fans, why should they be expected to subsidize anyone else?

Other governments understand this. Far from charging inflated prices, transit authorities in other countries have recently gone the other direction. Fans who bought tickets to see the World Cup in Qatar were given free access to Doha’s metro system for the entire tournament. During the 2024 UEFA Euro tournament in Germany, all tickets included free public transit on the day of the match. This attitude helps people buy into the idea that public transit should be for everyone, and encourages fans who can afford to drive to instead take the train.

It’s easy to mentally carve out fans who paid thousands of dollars to watch grown men kick a ball around. To say they should pay nearly $100 for a short train ride. Those who support public transit should be wary of this argument. Once that box is open, it will be expanded. People will begin to question why the state should subsidize some riders while charging others through the nose. If the World Cup fans can be charged high prices, maybe others should as well. If World Cup routes need to recoup their costs, then so too should others. It’s not worth undermining a pillar of public transit to make a few bucks on gameday.

As travel season begins in the Northern Hemisphere, I thought it would be useful to combine my two favorite topics, economics and travel, and write an article about how to use economics when travel planning. This won’t list where to go or where to avoid, where the “10 best cutest authentic German villages of 2026!” are. Instead, some simple advice on how to use economics to maximize the value of a trip.

1. Two constraints

Every trip has two constraints: money and time. People are generally good at evaluating the former. How much will a trip cost is often the first question asked when trip planning. Time, however, is more likely to fall by the wayside. Most recognize that a direct eight-hour flight for $500 is better than a two-stop flight that will take a total of 15 hours and costs $400, but this logic should be applied to all parts of a vacation.

I often meet Americans who are going to Europe for a ten-day vacation. Their itinerary comprises seven cities across five countries. This type of trip is obviously expensive monetarily, but so too is it expensive temporally. Visiting that many cities requires countless hours spent on planes, trains, and automobiles. What people often don’t properly account for is that every hour spent in an airport costs an hour in a museum or wandering a beautiful neighborhood or even just sitting at a café.1 I once met someone who visited seven European countries over eight days. She spent far more time on trains than in neighborhoods.

This isn’t an argument for “slow travel” or taking things easy. One can easily spend a week in cities like Rio de Janeiro and tour from dawn to midnight. Rather, the time cost of spending seven days in five different Brazilian cities instead of seven days in two cities needs to be properly accounted for. For someone who has this one chance to see Brazil and wants a sampler tour of “A Terra do Futebol”, then constant moving may be worthwhile. For most, however, it makes far more sense to maximize the value of a trip by spending less time in airports and more time sitting on the beach.

This is why I recommend only going to Australia or New Zealand from North America or Europe on 14-day trips or longer. The travel time to Australia, door-to-door from the US, can easily hit 30 hours. It is simply not worth it to leave home on a Saturday and return a week later, having spent 60 hours traveling. That’s two and a half days! Include the jet lag as well, and a week-long trip to the opposite side of the world is a poor use of time. Far better to travel from the United States to Buenos Aires or from Europe to South Africa and not spend a good chunk of a trip in airports.

Every traveler should think about their money and time constraints. Which is the more binding of the two? As a professor with a decent income but incredible vacation time, my constraint when traveling is money. I am constantly looking for the best deals and figuring out ways to stretch my dollar. I don’t, however, have much of a time constraint. As long as class isn’t in session, I can easily take a two-week vacation. I’m more willing to do layovers to save some money, as the main downside to an additional flight is hassle, not lost vacation time.2

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For others, the main constraint is time. This sometimes manifests itself when a location gets on the jet set itinerary. Flights from New York to the Caribbean generally cost around $600. Around Christmas, however, the cost can top $2,000. Now, flights usually go up in price during the holidays, but a trebling is insane. Why does it happen? The demand. Thousands of ultra-high-net-worth New Yorkers who work in finance and private equity are often off work between Christmas and New Year’s. These are people who get two weeks of vacation a year and make at least mid six-figure salaries. They have virtually no monetary constraint. Instead, their constraint is time. They would rather pay outrageous amounts to visit a nearby island destination quickly than spend a few extra hours on a plane or have to deal with jet lag. When you have more money than God but only a precious few weeks to kick back and relax, spending an extra $1,400 on a flight is easily worth it.

2. Bang for your buck

Travel articles often talk about the best budget destinations or the best luxury destinations. This has its use, but a better metric is value for money (VfM). VfM doesn’t refer to how much or how little something costs, but what that dollar can obtain. As a general rule, at least within a region, more expensive travel destinations have better amenities. They are safer, have more to do, etc. Germany is more expensive than Bosnia, and most people prefer to visit Germany. This rule, however, does not always hold. Some places are simply overpriced. It could be because the cost of living is high, tourism is more of a niche industry, or geography. Other places are great values. They offer much for tourists and cost relatively little.

I am always on the lookout for high VfM destinations. This does not stay constant. Some destinations become more or less expensive over time. Japan, for example, is currently fantastically cheap for Americans to visit. The Japanese Yen, which for years traded at around 110 for 1 US dollar, is now trading at above 150 per US dollar. For American tourists, it’s as if everything were 30-40 percent cheaper than it would have been in 2021. This makes it a great VfM destination. Other places become more expensive, especially if they enter mainstream tourism. Prague, while still relatively cheap, is nowhere near the bargain it was. Twenty years ago, Prague was mainly sought out by backpackers on a budget. Today, it is an A-list European capital. As more affluent travelers have visited Prague, prices have followed.

This requires some experience to parse, but it’s worth attempting to discern where VfM will be high and where it will be low before visiting. After booking flights but before traveling to Belize, a friend warned me the dollar value there was low. I enjoyed Belize a lot, but this is accurate. Belize is still very much a developing country with the infrastructure to boot. The tourist areas, however, are on islands off the coast that cater primarily to tourists, mainly Americans. Thus they charge inflated prices. There are still some decent deals to be had by American standards, but restaurant prices are snorkel trips can cost as much in Belize as in the US, and the quality is lower.

Similarly, the British Isles are a bad value for money. England, Scotland, and Ireland are worth visiting. Great cities, millennia of culture, etc. But they are very expensive. Not as bad as Norway or Switzerland, but a lot. Trains, rental cars, meals, and especially lodging cost far more than in, say, France or Italy. On top of that, the food is terrible. Again, that isn’t to say don’t go to the British Isles. I’ve visited multiple times and plan to return. It’s just recognizing that you pay a lot of money for what you get.

On the opposite side of the spectrum is Southeast Asia. World-class beaches in Thailand, the legendary temples of Cambodia, and plentiful scenery in Vietnam. Great tourist infrastructure. Relatively safe. And cheap. Laughably, unbelievably cheap. Oceanfront rooms in nice hotels for under $100 a night. Meals for under $10, sometimes under $5. Southeast Asia is by far the best bang for your buck destination. Unfortunately it’s far away.

Other good VfM destinations include the Baltics, Italy, South Africa, Peru, and New Mexico.

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3. Weather

Weather can make or break a trip. There’s nothing worse than spending a whole trip in the rain, only to have the sun appear hours before heading to the airport. Since the weather is somewhat idiosyncratic, most tourists don’t think a ton about it when choosing a destination. The general traveler consensus is to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

This is wrong.

There are some places that have reliably good weather during certain times of the year. This should not be discounted when trip planning. The Algarve in Portugal is a great example. Lagos, one of the most popular destinations in the Algarve, offers some of the most dependable weather on Earth during the summer. The average high temperature is 81°F (27°C). The nearby ocean generally prevents the oppressive heatwaves that hit the interior of the Iberian Peninsula.

The average amount of precipitation in Lagos in July is zero. Nada. Zero days of rain, zero millimeters of rain. Lagos averages an astonishing 12 hours of sunshine a day in July. If you want sun, withstandable heat, and no rain, the Algarve offers the closest to a guarantee as you can get. This makes it a great beach destination. No worrying about days of rain or unseasonal coolness ruining a trip. This is a serious advantage.

Other locations are much more variable. About a decade ago, a friend and I backpacked the W trek through Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. It was a fantastic trip. Absolutely jaw-dropping scenery, including from the British Lookout at the top of the French Valley, one of the coolest places I’ve ever stood. We even saw a few avalanches from a safe distance. We had amazing views of the Cordillera Paine mountains and surrounding lakes the entire trip.

We got incredibly lucky.

Even during the height of summer, the weather in Torres del Paine is unpredictable. Sunny, calm days can quickly give way to intense storms. Worse yet, the valleys and mountains are often socked in with clouds. A group of hikers that visited the French Valley the day before us saw nothing the entire time. No avalanches, no mountains, nothing more than the ground in front of them, because of dense cloud cover. This happens all the time. Guides often recommend lining your backpack with a garbage bag because it rains so much. Torres del Paine without the views is not worth it. And all this ignores the ferocious winds, which even during our beautiful weather were strong enough to knock down a grown adult in places.

This contrasts strongly with my favorite hike of all time - the Santa Cruz trek in the Cordillera Blanca mountains of Peru. In July and August, the weather is pristine. Every morning is sunny. Temperatures are cold at night but perfect for hiking during the day. In the afternoon, clouds often form and rain showers hit infrequently, but they pass quickly. Most of the hike will be in sunshine at a comfortable temperature. You can depend on it.

Not accounting for these differences is a mistake. That isn’t to say one should always do the Santa Cruz trek in Peru and never the W trek in Chile. It’s just that being able to plan a trip and knowing the weather will be good is a huge bonus. It is wise to avoid planning trips where bad weather could derail the entire itinerary.

Traveling always has unknowns. The best laid plans of even the most fastidious traveler will often go astray. Delayed or canceled flights cost time and money, even if the traveler isn’t at fault. Budgeting is difficult - I always recommend travelers bring half the stuff and twice the amount of money as planned. Outside of a few locations, the weather is always a bit of a question mark. That said, using some basic economics can help ensure a good trip. Consider the risk of variable weather. Get a sense of how much a place costs versus what it delivers. Make sure to incorporate time cost into travel plans. This will help you get the most out of your trips.

Bon voyage.

For most of the Middle Ages, England had two distinct social classes. At the top was the nobility. These were the dukes and earls, the marquises and barons. These few individuals, less than one percent of the population, ruled over the peasants. Although poor by today’s standards, the medieval nobility had immense relative wealth, more than the other 99 percent of the population combined. The rest were commoners. A lucky few of the commoners were merchants or tradesmen, but all the rest were farmers. They tilled the land of the nobility, surviving on whatever scraps they could manage to scrounge.

Then, during the 15th century and the early Renaissance, a new class began to form: the landed gentry. The landed gentry did not have titles or hopes of becoming royals. Instead, they were landowners with means but no official social status. Although they comprised less than 3 percent of the population, even when broadly defined, they changed England forever. No longer were people either rich and titled or poor and untitled. Now, there was a new breed: those who were rich but untitled.

The landed gentry became a powerful force in English life. They were not the nobility, but they slowly accrued enough wealth to develop their own spheres of power. Some families of the landed gentry married into the nobility. Others slowly faded into poverty. But many families kept their status for centuries. Generation after generation, families kept substantial land holdings and wealth. They were a dominant force of the local community, handing power down from father to eldest son. Those born into the landed gentry weren’t guaranteed success, just as those born as simple commoners weren’t guaranteed poverty, but the odds were certainly stacked for and against. Culture and regulation meant the eldest sons of the gentry would inherit a fortune. Those born into peasant families were likely to live and die as peasants themselves.

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This was not a good system. For centuries, wealth stagnated. Those living in the 17th century didn’t have a significantly higher standard of living than those who lived in the 7th. There were many reasons for this, but one was a lack of economic mobility. The haves were able to keep, and the have-nots unable to procure.

The United States is showing signs of heading that direction.

To be sure, this comparison is limited. America of the 21st century is far, far more equal than England of the 16th century. Income mobility is exponentially higher. Every year, millions of Americans increase (and decrease) their incomes by substantial amounts. It’s useful to use American presidents as a barometer. Some, such as Trump and the Bushes, came from money. Others, like Biden, were middle-class. Then some, like Obama and Clinton, were lower-class, at least for part of their childhoods. America is not medieval England.

That said, it’s impossible to look at the wealth of the United States and not recognize that property has become a potentially self-propelling engine of wealth. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $84 trillion is going to be passed on to Gen Xers and Millennials over the next 20 years from the older generations. This has been dubbed “The Great Wealth Transfer”. The Baby Boomers are beginning to die of old age. Some of their wealth is going be spent maintaining a high standard of living and consuming healthcare, but much will be passed on to the younger generations.

A lot of this wealth being passed down isn’t going to be in the form of equity or gold bars. It’s real estate. Housing. There are literally millions of millionaires in the United States today whose main source of wealth is their house. These aren’t mansions or private islands. They are above-average single-family homes that are now in highly desirable areas. Homes once owned by factory workers but are now bought by doctors and lawyers.

The children of these individuals will someday inherit an immensely valuable asset. Not because their parents worked harder or smarter. But because their parents bought property in the 1980s in a place that both 1) became popular to live in and 2) curtailed new housing from matching demand. The housing market nationwide has increased by almost 500 percent over the last forty years. What was once a simple and wise investment has become a good financial investment. Those who chose to buy property decades ago stand to bequeath immense wealth to their children. Those who didn’t buy in the 1980s will, by and large, not. Property ownership will become the primary driver of inequality. Those who have property will be able to borrow against it, increase their wealth, and bequeath similar amounts to their children. The rest will be on the outside looking in.

This is already happening in California. Due to a series of laughably short-sighted regulations clearly crafted to make the rich richer, the children of property owners in the Golden State now have an immense advantage in life.

California starts out by doing one thing right: setting the assessed value the same as the sale value. If someone buys a house in California for $700,000, then the assessed value is $700,000. Property taxes are generally around 1.2 percent of assessed value.

Then the system breaks down.

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Proposition 13, passed by referendum by California voters in 1978, limits assessed value to a two percent increase per year. Even if property values increase by five percent a year, which is conservative by California standards, the assessed value only increases by two percent. Over decades, this adds up to a huge difference. Someone who bought a house for $200,000 in 1995, its assessed value today would be at most $362,000, even if the home’s value on the open market is $1.5 million. People living on the same block, in identical houses, could be paying $170 a month in property taxes. Or they could be paying $1,000 a month. All depending on when they bought the house.

Worse yet, this same assessed value is passed on if a child inherits a primary residence from their parent and moves there themselves. There is a $1 million value-added cap, so a house valued at $400,000 that sells for $1.5 million would be reassessed as $400,000+$100,000=$500,000, but the advantages of having property-owning parents are massive. Two identical homes could have carrying costs that differ by a thousand a month. And that doesn’t include the value of the inherited house!

These rules follow the landed gentry playbook. In both today’s California and yesteryear’s England, one of the main reasons behind this perpetual wealth was regulatory. For centuries, English estates had “entailments”. These entailments stipulated that an estate had to be kept in one piece. It was illegal to split up or partially sell off. Thus, only one person could ever inherit. This clearly was not optimal. It meant younger sons and daughters had to scramble to secure their place in life, while the oldest son could sit back and wait for his parents to die. So too is it in California. It isn’t just the economy or climate making California housing unaffordable; it is deliberate government action.

This creates a massive misallocation of resources. Children are heavily incentivized to live where their parents did, regardless of what job market best matches their skills. If a child doesn’t live in their parent’s property, then they have to navigate the California housing market, where the median house now costs over $900,000 and property taxes push $1,000 a month. Stay in the same house as your parents, and those costs disappear. Thus, market distortions result in people living in suboptimal places.

Having an estate handed to you as the eldest son in 1674 shouldn’t have guaranteed wealth then. Having parents who bought a house in the San Fernando Valley in 1987 shouldn’t ensure wealth now.

In the 1960s, the federal government of Mexico decided it needed to generate more tourism, specifically tourism from the United States. At the time, international tourism to Mexico underperformed. There were a few hot areas. Acapulco had been a jet set destination for decades. Tijuana always drew in day-trippers and weekenders from California. But given the sheer amount of coastline, Mexico was leaving a lot on the table. Acapulco was great for West Coast Americans, but was a haul for those from the East Coast. Tijuana was seedy and not pulling in serious money. Americans were beginning to head en masse to Miami, the Bahamas, and Jamaica. Mexico wanted to get into the action.

The government fed a bunch of statistics from existing tourist hotspots along with data from various Mexican seashores into a computer. Data about climate, hurricane risk, oceanic conditions, etc. The computer helped identify places that could be developed into tourism areas. Then Mexican officials went to these areas to see first-hand what could be done. They met with locals, walked the beaches, and considered what areas would benefit most from tourism.

After careful study, the government decided to develop a tourist area near the northeastern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, on a large barrier island off the coast. At the time, the barrier island had only three residents, all caretakers for the only development there: a coconut plantation. Nearby, on the mainland, was a small fishing village with a population of around 100. Otherwise, the place was empty. The entire state of Quintana Roo, which is larger than the state of Maryland, only had a population of about 88,000 people in 1970. Most of the interior was dense jungle. Most of the coast, deserted. This was not sparsely populated agricultural land; it was wilderness. The state capital of Chetumal was hundreds of miles away. It was here that the Mexican government decided it would create a destination for American tourists.

They named it Cancún.

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It was a smashing success. Despite having to finance the first group of hotels with government money because no private bank would agree to lend to such a hair-brained scheme, Cancún took off immediately. An airport was hacked out of the jungle, hotels were built, and an entire city was constructed for hotel employees. Americans arrived by the thousands, then hundreds of thousands, then millions. A mere 50 years after the first hotel opened its doors, Cancún now has over 30,000 hotel rooms and welcomes an astounding 10 million visitors a year. Take a look at this time-lapse footage. The expansion isn’t the hotel zone or tourist area, which is the thin strip of land to the right of the lagoon. This is the growth of the city of Cancún, which exists solely to staff the hotels on the aforementioned barrier island:

Those tens of thousands of hotel rooms occupy skyscrapers being pumped with air conditioning in the tropical heat. Millions and millions of gallons of water are pumped into hundreds of gigantic swimming pools. Every night, performers sing and dance in front of throngs of crowds. The whole thing is insane.

It’s hard to think of a place that rivals Cancún as far as government successes. Many, many other governments have tried to turbocharge tourism. Some have succeeded, but these were usually only in places that already had, you know, people living there. The Algarve Coast in Portugal was mostly sleepy fishing villages 50 years ago, but it wasn’t empty. Tavira, Faro, and Lagos were small cities, but still cities nonetheless. The Algarve also developed somewhat organically, with help from the government but no master plan. Perhaps one of the few exceptions is Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt, which was a small village in the 1970s but is now the premier North African beach destination.

In some ways, Cancún is like Las Vegas. A Las-Vegas-by-the-Sea. A century ago, both were desolate places. The small fishing village of Puerto Juárez and the railroad town of Las Vegas were mere hamlets in 1910. Both had geography working against them. Las Vegas is in a brutally hot desert. Cancún a brutally hot jungle. Both take extravagance to extremes, offering anything and everything under the sun - for a price. Both have evolved and changed with the times, Vegas from gambling mecca to family-friendly wannabe destination to corporate convention hub. Cancún from all-you-can-eat-and-drink bargain destination to upscale locale.

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Neither place should exist. They are both ludicrous aberrations that would be declared unrealistic if put into a novel. A giant road in the middle of the desert that goes by a giant pyramid, half-sized statue of liberty, and artificial lake with a dancing fountain? Tens of thousands of hotel rooms built on top of a small barrier island surrounded by nothing but jungle? Neither Las Vegas nor Cancún should be real places.

This really hits home for those who drive. Driving east from Barstow, California, is like leaving civilization (some might argue Barstow already is outside civilization). For over two hours, one drives through empty desert, punctuated by minuscule towns and the occasional gas station. Then, out of nowhere and in the middle of the desert, appears a city with over a million people. Not only that, but a city with the greatest architectural absurdities man has ever dreamed of building. Cancún is the same. There is very little to see from Merida, the only city not dominated by tourism on the Yucatan peninsula, and Cancún. Just mile after mile of endless jungle. But suddenly, you are not only at the ocean, but at the place of a thousand swimming pools.

Yet exist they do. Both Las Vegas and Cancún have found their niche. Vegas became America’s playground when the state of Nevada bucked the trend and legalized gambling. At first Southern Californians flocked to Sin City. Then the country. Then the world. Cancún began as a strip of fewer than ten hotels in the 1970s. One of the first, now the Temptation Cancun Resort1, is still open for business. Millions of Americans flock to both. May they forever prosper.

The school bus of the skies is no more. On Saturday, May 3rd, after 34 years in business, Spirit Airlines shut down. The company had been circling the drain for months, and filed for bankruptcy in both November 2024 and August 2025. A failed merger with JetBlue tightened the screws. Finally, rising fuel prices proved to be the final nail in the coffin. Hemorrhaging money and unable to keep the lights on, the closure stranded thousands of passengers who flew on an outbound Spirit flight only to discover no plane would be there to take them home.

How things have changed. A pioneer in the ultra-low-cost airline model, Spirit offered barebones flights at rock bottom prices. Passengers had to pay for everything, from checked bags to bottles of water to printed boarding passes. Decried by many for nickel and diming their customers, these low prices helped usher in the current age of flying, open to anyone who can scrounge together a small chunk of change.

Only a decade ago, Spirit Airlines was putting serious pressure on the competition. Their cheap fares undercut all other airlines. The “Spirit effect” had been noted for years by airline industry watchers. When Spirit Airlines began a new route, other airlines immediately lost business. This forced all airlines, including often Spirit itself, to lower fares. This usually worked to Spirit’s advantage. The airline regularly turned a profit until Covid hit all airlines with a sledgehammer. We may look back to the 2010s as the cheapest time to fly in history. If so, Spirit Airlines was one of the root causes.

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There are several reasons for Spirit’s demise. The first, which often goes overlooked, is that the airline business is brutal. Massive fix costs, never-ending maintenance, and unreliable demand have always made it tough to be profitable. Less we forget, Pan Am, one of the most recognizable American companies and unofficial flagship carrier for the US, closed its doors in 1991 after more than 60 years. Other airlines have come and gone since. Far from being a bad thing, this is the sign of a healthy market. Incumbent firms get complacent and are disrupted by new entrants.

Second, there were a lot of people who hated Spirit Airlines. Some of this distaste was misplaced. Contrary to popular belief, their efficiency and safety were above average. The airline never had a crash, even a minor one. On-time arrival percentages were about average, with Spirit Airlines below Delta and Southwest but above United and American in 2025. When it came to satisfaction, however, Spirit was dismal. According to JD Power’s 2026 North America Airline Satisfaction Study, Spirit only ranked above WestJet and Frontier. It turns out that customers may take the cheapest option when buying a ticket but then regret it later. Having low prices is nice, but over time, airlines need customer loyalty, and Spirit had not built up any goodwill. At times they seemed to be intentionally making life difficult for customers. And low prices need not beget unhappy customers. Allegiant Air, another low-cost carrier similar to Spirit, has an average customer satisfaction rating. Spirit really went out of its way to make customers angry.

Having flown Spirit around five times in the last decade, I found the experience to be acceptable. The lack of legroom was never any fun, and the absence of a large tray table was annoying, but you get what you pay for. One thing I liked about Spirit that most others hated was the aggressive flight attendants. There is nothing more infuriating than when boarding passengers act like they are the only ones on the plane and block the aisle to slowly reorganize their belongings into the overhead bins. Every flight is assigned a roughly 10-minute departure window. Miss that, and your plane gets bumped to the back of the queue. Spirit flight attendants were the only ones I’ve seen to forcefully tell passengers to clear the aisle as they try to fish their headphones out of the bottom of their backpack and block everyone else from reaching their seat. That made the planes board quicker and reduced delays.

The third reason for Spirit’s demise was changes by the competition. Legacy carriers began to offer “basic economy”, which copies the Spirit approach of a low price with many add-ons. Combined with their loyalty programs, this removed one of the key reasons to fly Spirit. Customers could now pay a low price and fly with a legacy carrier, avoiding the stigma of a low-cost carrier while, at least in some cases, still earning mileage points. Without a competitive edge, Spirit was doomed.

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Unfortunately, this all may have been avoided. In 2022, Spirit announced that it would be bought by JetBlue. The proposed merger would have created the nation’s fifth-largest airline, behind American, Delta, Southwest, and United. The Biden Administration aggressively opposed the merger, saying it would reduce competition and increase prices. In January 2024, Judge William G. Young sided with the government and blocked the merger.

Let the Monday morning quarterbacking begin.

Republicans immediately began blaming Democrats, specifically former President Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for Spirit’s demise. Obviously, the argument goes, the Biden administration was wrong to sue to prevent Spirit and JetBlue from merging, and the judge was wrong to side with the government. Spirit said they would go bankrupt if the merger was blocked, and they did. This argument has its merits, but is heavily biased by hindsight. It is common for companies to say they need to merge to prevent bankruptcy. That doesn’t mean it’s true. On top of that, JetBlue stated they would change Spirit’s business model to be like theirs, which is an implicit admission that fares would rise.

The better argument for allowing the merger is that by creating a fifth airline that would rival the existing big four, fares may go up in some markets, but overall the industry will benefit and consumers will not be significantly harmed. It seems odd to block any merger that will create the fifth-largest firm in the industry. At the time it looked to many that the Biden Administration was being overly aggressive and singling out a merger unnecessarily. Spirit’s bankruptcy just two years later doesn’t prove that to be true, but does put a bit of egg on everyone’s face. Yes, allowing the merger may have caused fares to rise. But it’s incorrect to draw the conclusion that blocking the merger will keep fares low. As it turns out, that was going to happen in either case.

The result is the demise of America’s least liked airline. Yet, it is a bit of a sad day. Spirit was not pleasant to fly. But it allowed people to fly who were otherwise priced out of the market. It was a disrupter, to the point that its competitors copied its strategies even while ridiculing its business model. As a recent Atlantic headline puts it, “The Only Thing Worse Than Spirit Airlines… is a world without Spirit Airlines”.

Go on Google Maps and look up a popular nearby brewery. One that has a nice outdoor space. Most reviews will be positive. People will compliment the beer, the friendly staff, and the patio. They will extol the return of the craft brewery, once a staple of American life before Prohibition, which has now returned for a second act. There will also, without fail, be a complaint about the brewery allowing children.

This has always been an issue, but in recent years, it has become the biggest controversy in the brewery scene. Like everything else in America, both sides have turned things up to 11. There are a lot of people out there who wish for breweries, and in fact most third places, to be children-free spaces, the preserve of adults alone. Then there are parents who treat breweries, and all other businesses, as personal playgrounds and let their kids roam free and wreak havoc. Now that breweries have become a staple third place in American life, it’s worth working through the problem, because a lot of people on both sides of the issue are clutching their pearls and responding with knee-jerk impulse.

First, every brewery has the right to only serve customers who are 21 years of age or older. In fact, many bars do just that. Anyone under 21 years of age is not allowed on the premises. This shields the bar from liability issues from serving underage patrons. By being 21+ bars can keep out children entirely. The fact that most breweries, especially those with outdoor spaces, are not 21+ signifies that the business itself is welcoming to children. In fact, many breweries have high-chairs and changing tables in the bathrooms, which explicitly signals they want families to patronize the business. Customers who want a child-free space while drinking should go to a child-free bar. There are plenty, either by explicit rule or through local custom. Or go to the family-friendly brewery, but go at night after the children have gone to bed. Those going to a brewery that allows children, especially during the day, should expect children to be there.

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Second, those who are against children in breweries have concocted a false history. A common complaint in online reviews is some variant of, “parents should leave their kids at home like they used to. Breweries are meant for adults.” This is totally false. First, to almost anyone older than 30, your parents did not regularly go to brewpubs when you were a kid and leave you at home. They didn’t exist! The craft brewery craze began in the 1990s, but even then, most craft breweries were in industrial parks and indoor only. The purpose-built, outdoor-space microbrewery didn’t become a common thing until the 2010s.

This type of brewery has always been child-friendly. There was never a time when breweries with outdoor spaces were for adults alone. Ever. Those claiming otherwise are making up a false reality. Older Zoomers and young Millennials who are now having children of their own should salute Gen Xers for establishing, from the get-go, that outdoor breweries are fun for the whole family. Those arguing that breweries should be adults-only are the ones trying to change the status quo, not the opposite.

Third, the constant gripes about children at breweries are a bit odd. There is a lot of bad behavior at breweries, but most of it is not from misbehaving children. It’s from misbehaving adults. Having a child run into you because they are running through a brewery and not looking where they are going is bad behavior, and something one can legitimately complain about. But so too is having an adult walk into you because they aren’t looking where they are going. Or having an adult spill beer on you because they are drunk. All these things happen, but people only go to the keyboard to complain when it’s a child. I’ve yet to read a negative review about a brewery that complains another adult customer was having a conversation on speaker phone at max volume, and that made the brewery unpleasant. Those who are more annoyed by unruly children than by unruly adults need to reexamine their priorities.

That said, breweries that welcome children are not playgrounds. One of the top breweries in the New Haven area, New England Brewing Co., widely known as NEBCO, recently opened a second location with a large outdoor space. After a few months they put up this sign all around the premises:

This is a great sign. Some parents let their kids roam entire breweries and treat them like McDonald’s PlayPlaces. This is not appropriate. While taking the “arm’s reach” literally is probably a bit much, having children nearby and making sure they are well-behaved is a must for parents. Climbing all over the jungle gym at a local park is great. Climbing on top of tables at a brewery and jumping off is unacceptable. Parents need to make clear to their children what type of behavior is expected. This, of course, is what parenting is all about. Many a time I have seen parents at one table talking and drinking, with kids at the next table playing games. Perfect.

Kids will of course misbehave, but as long as the parents quickly rein in bad behavior, it needs to be tolerated. This is how typical children become well-adjusted adults. Sometimes kids will act out, but as long as a parent is on hand to correct them, the system is working. For those who don’t want to deal with even the smallest of inconveniences regarding children, go to the local dimly lit hole-in-the-wall and drink with all the alcoholic barflies that have been at the same stool for decades. No kids will be there and you can have your adult-only space.

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More broadly, the rights and toleration of children need to be about balance and awareness of the type of establishment. Adults and children should be welcome in public parks. However, adults need to hold themselves to a higher standard when in spaces designed for children. It is not appropriate to swear like a sailor next to the swing set. On the other hand, even if a sports bar allows children, parents need to be aware that they are entering a primarily adult space. When watching a big game on a Friday night, adults are going to misbehave and act like adults. Those not comfortable with their kids seeing those behaviors should watch the game at home.

Breweries are a great middle ground. During the day they are a great space for parents to take their children and meet up with other parents. It’s also a great place for adults to meet up and share a beer. America has a severe lack of businesses with outdoor spaces where people are free to circulate. Breweries are one of the few, and a great place for all people to mingle. Dividing all venues into places where either children reign supreme or are banned entirely is not good for society. Parents should take their children to breweries and make sure they are behaving. Adults should expect children to be well-behaved but extend some latitude. It’s not that complicated.

The rich don’t pay taxes.

It’s a totem recited again and again. People post it online, discuss it with Ezra Klein, and make YouTube videos that hit one million views. Almost as if saying it enough times will make it come true.

It isn’t.

The idea the rich don’t pay taxes is a total shibboleth, right up there with “public schools are underfunded” and “Americans don’t care about senior citizens”. The rich do pay taxes. Not only do they pay taxes, but they pay a lot in taxes. Proportionally, rich Americans pay a higher percentage of taxes collected than just about any other country.

The United States is relatively unusual in that there isn’t a national sales tax. If you buy a steak dinner at a restaurant or a sweatshirt at a store, the federal government doesn’t see a dime. In most other wealthy countries, this would trigger a value-added tax (VAT), which is similar to a national sales tax. Such taxes are often regressive, in that lower income individuals have to pay a higher percentage of their income. Instead, the US, especially the federal government, relies heavily on personal income taxes. Most countries have some sort of personal income tax, where people pay a direct tax not on what they buy, but on the money they earn. These systems are usually designed to be progressive. Not progressive in the political sense, but progressive in an economic sense. That is, the rich pay more. Not only more in dollars and cents, but more proportionally.

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Consider a few simple examples. A single American who made $25,000 last year would pay about $900 in personal income tax. Social security and Medicare (FICA) add another $1,913. Across income tax and FICA, that’s a tax rate of 11.3 percent. Which is fairly low. Making $25,000 a year as a single adult is lower-class, but isn’t living in poverty. Especially for those living in areas with robust welfare programs, life would be adequate, albeit not particularly pleasant. Importantly, someone in this situation keeps 89 percent of their income.

Let’s say our individual making $25,000 a year gets a raise that doubles their income to $50,000. What happens to the taxes owed? They more than double. Income tax increases to $3,871. FICA to $3,825, for a total of $7,696. Income doubled, but taxes due almost tripled. Combined, our worker’s effective tax rate is now 15.4 percent. Our worker is now firmly in the middle class, and still keeps about 85 percent of their earnings.

Now let’s say our individual gets their dream job and gets a raise from $50,000 to $200,000. They have graduated from the middle class to the upper class. Great job! But their taxes increase a tremendous amount. Personal income taxes are now $37,067. FICA is $13,818. Total federal taxes paid are now $50,885, for an effective tax rate of 25.4 percent.

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For an individual who goes from $50,000 a year and the middle class to $200,000 a year and the upper class, taxes paid go up by a factor of 6.6. A quadrupling of income leads to a more than sextupling of taxation. None of this is necessarily unfair. But it is inaccurate to say the rich don’t pay taxes, when someone who is upper class pays a significantly higher percentage of their income than someone who is middle class.

Because the United States relies so much on income tax, this leads to a highly progressive system. Europe, with its high national sales tax, disproportionally taxes the poor and the middle class, who have to spend a higher percentage of their income on consumption. Now, those same people get the taxes they pay back in terms of the vaunted European social safety net we always hear about. But they are paying for that privilege, and paying a lot. The European middle class gets hit especially hard. An American who makes $50,000, someone firmly in the middle class, only pays $7,696 in income tax and FICA. A Dutchman, on the other hand, who makes €50,000 a year, a middle-class Dutch salary, would pay €18,056 in taxes, over double the amount of an American.

Again, there are plenty of other factors at play. The Dutch have a robust social safety net. There are other taxes that need to be considered as well. The US has state income and sales tax in most states. The Dutch have a high value-added tax. But from an income perspective, the differences aren’t even close. The Dutch middle class pays far more in taxes than the American middle class. The American rich pay a much larger share of taxes than the rich in other countries. Just look at this chart:

The top one percent, that is, just one out of every 100 people, singlehandedly pay 38.5 percent of all income taxes! That one person pays more than the bottom 90 people combined. This is not to argue that this taxation is unfair. That one person also makes over a fifth of the total adjusted gross income, a tremendous amount. The point is that it is untrue to say the rich don’t pay taxes. They not only pay taxes, they pay a lot.

So why is there such a disconnect? Why do people claim the rich don’t pay any tax when the statistics say they do? A few reasons. First, organizations like ProPublica run a disingenuous series of articles titled “The Secret IRS Files” and “Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax”, using stolen tax documents. They correctly document that in some years, the richest Americans have paid very little in income tax. In some cases, zero dollars. That income tax is then compared to how their wealth has grown to calculate a “True Tax Rate”.

It is not a true tax rate.

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First, to figure out a “true tax rate”, one must know how much someone paid in tax. ProPublica does not know this information. ProPublica knows how much these individuals paid in income tax, but not how much they paid in things like property tax, let alone sales tax. So their true tax rate is based on only a partial accounting of how much they have paid in tax.

Second, their “true tax rate” is calculated based on their increase in wealth, which is an irrelevant concept when it comes to taxation in America. Wealth is not taxed. Income is taxed. Capital gains are taxed. But if you bought $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2013, and it’s now worth $1,000,000, that isn’t taxed. Nor should it be. After all, you haven’t made any money yet. That $1,000,000 wealth is just a digital asset. Once the bitcoin is sold, then the $999,000 in gains is taxed. That’s how it works for everyone.

This is all very frustrating because there are good arguments for raising taxes on the wealthy. The top income tax rate, which is currently 37 percent and begins for those making $626,351, could be raised to a higher rate at a lower income. Make the top tax rate 40 percent have it begin at $300,000. No complaints here - although many who make $300,000 will shamelessly claim to be middle class and plead poverty. Inheritance tax also needs to be completely overhauled, so that the wealthy can no longer buy-borrow-die and bequeath their riches to relatives without paying tax.

To make this happen, however, we need to have an honest conversation about where taxes come from. We need to make clear that yes, there are a few very high net worth individuals who pay seemingly low taxes, but that our tax system, far from coddling the rich, depends on them. The top 10 percent of Americans pay 70 percent of income taxes. Obscuring this reality makes change harder to achieve.

It’s a common complaint. Tourists show up at a far-flung destination and immediately want to experience “the authentic”. They want to “avoid tourist traps” and “travel like a local”. This can be exasperating. Plenty of Reddit threads complain about it. I’ve traveled with people who are obsessed with finding “authentic spots”. To which I say, then why are you staying in South Beach? The worst is when people I’ve traveled with want to find “local shops” to pick up a souvenir. Local shops, almost by definition, don’t have souvenirs. They have canned tomatoes and blue jeans and power tools. You know, the exact same things YOU buy when you’re at home. As one friend of mine put it, “You want the local experience… so you want to go to the Jiffy Lube with me and watch them change my oil?” Often, the same people that claim the want a local experience would be aghast at staying at an Airbnb in a local suburb that’s 60 minutes from the airport and 30 minutes from the downtown. Never mind that that’s where all the locals live.

So yes, some tourists can be annoying this way. Especially when they insist on simultaneously having authentic experiences and staying in the most tourist-friendly part of a city. There really isn’t such thing as a local restaurant in South Beach or Cinque Terre. Of course a restaurant with great views of the ocean is going to be overpriced and chock full of tourists. But eating fresh seafood with a panoramic view of the ocean is awesome. Do I really care if the person at the table next to me is a local accountant or another foreigner? Not really. The locals mostly work minimum wage jobs in the hospitality industry. They aren’t interested in spending $100 a person at dinner with a view that they can look at every day on their way to work.

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Additionally, there’s a reason that tourist attractions are tourist attractions. Will you find many locals in Notre Dame Cathedral? No. But Notre Dame is still one of the most beautiful buildings ever constructed by man. It’s one of the best things to see in Paris. Also, and this is important, almost all Parisians have visited Notre Dame themselves at some point, so it isn’t a “tourist trap” built to ensnare foreigners who don’t know any better. One of the best tourist things to do in Chicago is to take an architecture river cruise. At the same time, most Chicagoans have done it as well. Tourism and localism are not always mutually exclusive.

That aside, I think complaining about tourists wanting the authentic experience is being a bit obtuse. Of course tourists don’t want to ride the commuter rail or go to the dentist’s office. When a tourist says they want to see how locals live, they want to see how locals play. And that, in my opinion, is a sensible way to travel. When I visit a new city, whether it be in America or abroad, I generally want to see the tourist attractions. But I also want to know what leisure is like for those who live there. I don’t want to see the office buildings or the DMV, but I absolutely want to see the parks, restaurants, and bars. I want to see the libraries, college campuses, and main streets. Even supermarkets and post offices can be interesting. I want to see the third places locals spend their leisure time in.

I think back to a group trip I took to San Antonio several years ago. After seeing it on TV for many years, usually in a short clip before a sporting event, I wanted to see the San Antonio River Walk. Yes it was touristy. Yes it was expensive. There was a Bubba Gump Shrimp restaurant. I doubt most of the people I rubbed shoulders with were from San Antonio. At the same time, it was spectacular. The San Antonio River Walk should be studied by urban planners everywhere. It’s one of the most unique places I’ve ever been in my life. The dinner was excellent. The piano bar a blast. I even saw one guy who jumped in the river to try to recover a cell phone. I didn’t go to the San Antonio River Walk to live like a local. I went because it kicks ass.

At the same time, yes, I wanted to have an “authentic” San Antonio experience. I wanted to see what the locals did for fun. So we ordered puffy tacos. We visited the Pearl District, which seemed to have a mix of tourists and locals. And we went out one night on St. Mary’s Strip, where the locals go on their Saturday nights. It was great, but in a different way than the River Walk.

I think doing both makes sense. I want to see the tourist attractions. Visit the Bean in Chicago. Drink on the Bourbon Streets of the world. And I also want to see what locals do for fun. When they are celebrating a birthday or going out on Friday night, where do they eat? Where do they drink? What do they do on pleasant Saturday afternoons? I look forward to this almost as much as the sites.

So yes, tourists can be annoying when they insist on the “local experience”. Tourist attractions are tourist attractions for a reason. But local experiences are worth having. Local recreation is a lot different in Chicago than Boulder. The authentic experience for an Alaskan is exotic for a Texan, and vice versa. Enjoy both.

After a seven-month pilot program, autonomous vehicles (AVs) are no longer roaming the streets of New York. Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet, had been testing eight autonomous vehicles around the five boroughs. Their permit to do so was granted under the Adams administration and has not been renewed with Zohran Mamdani as mayor. Going forward, a spokesman for the New York City Department of Transportation said, “Our top priority for AV testing is public safety and, as the mayor has made clear, any AV policy decisions will center workers and their well-being.”

Well, which is it? This is a great example of what Ezra Klein has called “everything-bagel liberalism”. This is where progressives try to accomplish many goals at once, to the detriment of the actual objective of a single project. In this case, the two goals are public safety and labor conditions. The City of New York is understandably concerned with both. But AVs present a case where the two conflict.

AVs are indisputably safer than cars being driven by humans. With millions of miles of testing and hundreds of rides taken every day by AVs, the differences are substantial. Detractors will moan that many of these studies come from the companies themselves, which is a fair critique, but the differences are massive. Some studies have found a 90% decrease in serious injury or fatal crashes. If the mayor’s office is concerned with public safety, then it should be embracing AVs with open arms. Given the nanny-state attitude the New York government often embraces, it could even go a step further. Perhaps AVs should be mandated, and human-driven cars banished from the city like the horse and carriage.

Unfortunately, this would not be good for workers.

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Tens of thousands of New Yorkers make their living as drivers. There are around 180,000 people with active Taxi & Limousine Commission licenses. AVs represent an existential threat to their interests. Now, in a sensible world, people would recognize that this is just the price of progress. AVs will destroy many jobs, but so too has the self-checkout lane at the supermarket. The existence of a job in 2025 does guarantee the existence of a job in 2030 any more than the existence of a job in 1926 guarantees its existence in 2026. Economists have understood for decades that growth often comes through creative destruction, whereby cobblers become a thing of the past, and people now make a living designing cell phone apps.

This not being a sensible world, a government official can openly say they will not hesitate to prevent progress if it means protecting jobs. One is instantly reminded of the delightful story of Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman visiting India in the 1960s. During his tour, he was taken to see a canal being built. To Friedman’s surprise, all the digging was being done by hand, despite the presence of at least rudimentary machinery nearby. When Friedman asked why the workers were using shovels instead of machines, he was told it was because the road was being built as part of a jobs program. Using machinery to build the road would mean fewer jobs. Thus, the workers used shovels. Friedman replied, “Oh, I see. I thought you were trying to build a canal. If you really want to create jobs, then by all means give these men spoons, not shovels.”

It isn’t surprising that the New York government would explicitly state that regulatory approval will take into account how many jobs a new technology would destroy, but it is disappointing.

Of course, the greatest irony is that the very people who are protesting AVs were themselves the object of protests a mere decade ago.

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When UberX launched in 2012, it immediately prompted howls of protest from taxi drivers. They launched protests across the country, blocking access to various airports and harassing Uber drivers. At the time, many left-of-center Americans took their side. This never made any sense to me. Taxi drivers were the worst. Despite enormous restrictions keeping out competitors, taxi drivers around the country (and the world) were arguably the most dishonest profession. Taxi drivers were known for deliberately taking took a circuitous route to a destination or futzed with the meter. I remember trying to get a taxi to New Jersey from the Lower East Side in Manhattan late one night. The bars were letting out, and the streets were packed. Taxi drivers, in flagrant violation of their agreement with the city, would roll down their window and would only accept passengers going to a destination in an area where a lot of other people would be looking for cabs. It took forever to find a cabbie willing to drive us to Jersey City, and even then, he turned off the meter and we had to pay him an inflated rate in cash.

Yet despite the constant hassle and corruption, many supported the taxi drivers. They were against Uber, a model proven to be indisputably better, if for no other reason than its skyrocketing popularity. It made no sense. Protesting that Uber drivers will hasten the demise of taxi drivers is like protesting that Airbnb will end the market for time shares. These are good things! The reality was, of course, people are reflexively against all change and wanted to use the government to enforce the status quo.

Today, those very Uber drivers are trying to throw roadblocks in the way of AVs. In a mere decade, they have gone from the scrappy upstart trying to overthrow vested and corrupt interests to a corrupt interest themselves. What a turnaround. Of course AVs are bad for Uber drivers. Uber drivers were bad for taxi drivers. Taxi drivers were bad for the horse and carriage. If we ever get around to building highly walkable cities, those will be bad for AVs. This is how the system should work.

Instead, an instrument for change has become an instrument of stagnation. The disrupters have become the blockaders. It is likely they will lose in the end. But millions of dollars and countless years will be wasted in the process.

When the NCAA announced in 2021 that athletes would be able to benefit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), it sent shockwaves through college athletics. For years this was the most controversial issue in college sports. Despite earning millions for their schools, athletes had been prohibited from signing endorsement deals or profiting from their success. No other college student, from aspiring actors who performed in school plays to aspiring physical trainers who assisted with the gymnastics team, faced the same restrictions. Now those restrictions were lifted. All of a sudden, college athletes could be on commercials and Wheaties boxes.

One of the arguments against allowing NIL deals was that it would ruin athletic competitions like the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament, known as “March Madness”. One of America’s premier sporting events, every year 68 teams compete to be crowned the king of college basketball. The concern was that allowing athletes to make money would ruin “Cinderellas”, teams from small schools most have never heard of that beat famous athletic programs.

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Every college basketball fan can name their favorite Cinderella school. One of the most famous is little-known George Mason University, which in 2006 went on one of the most astonishing runs of all time. As a low-ranked 11-seed, this school named for a secondary founding father beat powerhouses Michigan State, North Carolina, and Connecticut before falling to Florida in the semi-finals, also known as the Final Four. In 2018, UMBC became the first 16-seed (the worst seed) to defeat a 1-seed (the best seed) in the first round, dominating Virginia 74-54. What does UMBC stand for, you ask? Exactly, I reply. In 2022, Saint Peter’s became the first 15-seed to make the Elite 8, or quarter-finals, beating powerhouses Kentucky and Purdue before losing to North Carolina. Speaking of Purdue, who could ever forget what many have deemed the greatest upset in college basketball history? The Boilermakers, as a 1-seed, lost to 16-seed and yes-this-is-a-real-college Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round, a team that only made it into the tournament through an odd quirk in qualification rules. That year, Purdue had the tallest average height in the entire tournament. Fairleigh Dickinson was the shortest. David beat Goliath and entered college basketball history.

Those against NIL deals pointed out that with a profit motive, these Cinderellas would cease to exist. Before the NIL, second-tier players would often prefer to attend smaller programs because it meant they would get a chance to start rather than ride the bench. With NIL, if even bench players at the big schools are being paid six-figures to sit on the sidelines, that’s going to be a powerful motivator for a teenager when picking a school. Students who would have formerly attended Saint Peter’s with the goal of being a regular player may now choose to attend Kentucky and sit all the way to the bank.

Over the last few years, it’s begun to look like the naysayers were right. College basketball is divided into two informal groups: schools that play for the power conferences (the Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big East, and before it imploded, the Pac-12) and mid-major conferences (all the other conferences with Division I basketball programs). Historically, there was usually one mid-major conference that would make it to the Elite Eight. Often, one would make it to the Final Four. These were usually deemed Cinderellas, especially if they had a seed outside of the top five.

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Over the past three tournaments, however, no team has been putting on a glass slipper. In 2024, all eight teams in the Elite 8 were from the power conferences. Clemson was an underdog as a 6-seed, but is from the SEC. 2025 was even worse, with 3-seed Texas Tech the biggest Elite 8 underdog. 2026 was a bit better, with 9-seed Iowa and 6-seed Tennessee making it to the quarterfinals, but again, both these schools are from power conferences. Not many fans are pulling up Wikipedia when they see “Texas Tech” on the bracket. The only hope for a low seed to make a deep run in 2026 was 11-seed Texas, hardly an anonymous institution.

Those critical of NIL have been taking a victory lap, pointing out that, lo and behold, paying players has doomed mid-major teams from making a run, just as they said. While the evidence is beginning to accumulate, it’s a bit premature.

First, NIL deals are not the only change that college basketball has undergone in recent years. In fact, opponents of NIL often omit that another massive change happened at the same time - a rewriting of transfer rules. Before Covid, most college basketball players had to sit out a year if they transferred. This was a high cost. Almost all basketball players would stay on the same team they originally signed with. Few wanted to spend a year watching from the sidelines. Today, however, players can transfer as much as they want and never have to sit out. This has led to some absurd situations, with some high-profile athletes playing for four different schools over their four years of eligibility.

The change of the transfer rules may be contributing more to the lack of Cinderellas than the NIL rules. Previously, a mid-major program could find an overlooked player or develop a good player into a great player and keep him on the team. This is how Steph Curry, the future NBA all-star, wound up at little Davidson College in North Carolina for his entire college career. The son of an NBA player and a star high school player himself, Curry was overlooked because he was only six foot two and weighed 160 pounds.

In 2007, Curry set the NCAA record for freshman three-pointers and was named his conference’s freshman of the year. If that happened today, power schools would be banging down his door trying to get him to transfer. At the time, however, that would mean sitting out a year, so he stayed at Davidson. He exploded onto the national scene in 2008, when he took 10-seed Davidson all the way to the Elite 8. In today’s world, Curry probably wouldn’t have stayed at Davidson to make such a run.

This is a great example of multi-causality. It could be true that allowing NIL deals doomed Cinderellas. But it also could be true that allowing unlimited transfers did the same. Since they happened at the same time, it’s likely impossible to decipher which is mostly responsible. Perhaps Cinderellas were doomed from either. Maybe even without NIL, the transfer rules would have ended Cinderella runs.

It’s also possible writing an obituary to Cinderella teams is premature. Three data points are the beginning of a trend, but just the beginning. Perhaps the next few seasons will see a return of mid-major teams making deep runs in the tournament. After all, the NIL and transfer rules went into effect in 2021, and the 2023 tournament saw 5-seed San Diego State and 9-seed Florida Atlantic make it all the way to the Final Four, with the former losing to UConn in the National Championship game.

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Finally, it’s important to consider the effects this had on the players. Much has been written about whether NIL deals and the transfer portal are good for college sports. Much less about whether it’s good for college athletes. There will certainly be both good and bad outcomes from letting players transfer at will, but in this tournament, we saw a clear example of a positive outcome. 9-seed Iowa made it to the Elite 8 this year, upsetting 1-seed and defending champion Florida in the second round. Leading the way for the Hawkeyes was Bennet Stirtz, one of the best shooters in college basketball.

Stirtz was not highly recruited out of high school. He played his first year at Division II Northwest Missouri State and was named his conference’s freshman of the year. He then transferred to Division I Drake and was named their conference’s player of the year. He then transferred to Iowa for his junior year and was named to the All-Big Ten team. He’s currently projected to be a first-round NBA draft pick. One could pooh-pooh this as the professionalization of colleges sports. Three schools in there years? Has he ever stepped foot in a classroom?

At the same time, what an amazing story. A kid who got no attention from any college program proves himself and excels at every level. With the previous transfer rules, it’s likely Stirtz spends his entire college career under the radar. He certainly isn’t getting drafted in the first round. The new rules allowed him to develop his talent and maximize his potential, which, of course, is what college is all about.

A loyal Econ Soapbox reader recently sent me the following article from the New York Times, “How a Family of 3 Lives on $500,000 on the Upper West Side,” part of their recent “Affording New York” series, which features individuals living in the Big Apple on vastly different incomes. Now, most people know that a family with two adults and one child and an annual income of $500,000 in Manhattan is going to be significantly different from anywhere else in the world. The amount of money New Yorkers often spend on necessities is in the stratosphere compared to the rest of the nation. The couple interviewed in the article, Anala Gossai and Brendon O’Leary, spend $3,900 a month for their one-bedroom rented apartment and $4,200 a month on childcare. That would be extreme in Middle America, but seems reasonable for Manhattan. It certainly isn’t unusual. The kicker, though, comes about halfway down the article, where Mr. O’Leary claims, “I think we’re middle class for this area. We’re doing OK.” As the Econ Soapbox reader put it, “This has to be trolling.”

I promise you, it is not.

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As I’ve written about before, people have lost complete sight of what it means to be middle class. Families living on $140,000 are not poor. Families making $500,000 are not middle class. Not even close. First, the whole idea, as the NYT article says, that “In New York City, wealth is often viewed in relation to your neighbors, and many of theirs make more money,” is totally bogus. Under this definition, anyone can move to a wealthier neighborhood and then define themselves as lower or middle class. Make $1,000,000 a year? Move to a private community in Malibu. All of a sudden you’re poor! This is clearly nonsense. No one has the right to live in one of the nicest neighborhoods (the Upper West Side) on one of the most sought-after islands in the world (Manhattan). What an insane framing.

The double-whammy is that even with this framing, Ms. Gossai and Mr. O’Leary are wrong. They may feel like all their neighbors make more money, but that’s inaccurate. According to the N.Y.U. Furman Center, the median household income on the Upper West Side is $155,710. So even if we using the most cherry-picked statistic possible, this family is still upper class. They make over triple the median household income. This makes sense, given that a different article in the “Affording New York” series highlights Gaya Palmer, a 76-year-old artist who also lives on the Upper West Side on only $36,000 a year. She seems to be doing just fine.

The point is that saying, “We’re middle class conditional on only comparing ourselves to the insanely rich,” is not only meaningless, but it’s deceitful.

There is a difference between upper class and rich, just as there is a difference between lower class and poor. A family making $500,000 a year is definitely upper class, and plausibly rich. Claiming to be middle class because you chose to live in a super exclusive building is no different from claiming to be middle class because you spend $1,000 on Kobe beef every night for dinner. Both housing and food are human needs. Living in an incredibly expensive one-bedroom apartment and dining on steak every night are not. If the apartment in question isn’t all that nice, maybe it’s a bad financial decision. It certainly doesn’t change your income class.

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Beyond living in one of the most desirable places on planet Earth, the Gossai-O’Leary family exhibits all the trappings of an upper-class lifestyle. They somehow spent $9,000 on baby supplies last year. Their dog costs another $4,440 a year. A drop-off laundry service is another $1,800 a year, which is used despite having laundry in the building. The family used to take trips to Switzerland, but now trips are “mainly” to visit family - destination unspecified. Most of these are individually defensible as an extreme splurge by a barely-plausibly middle class household. Taken together, however, it paints the picture of a family that is living well beyond the median.

The kicker is that the family is putting their excess cash into long-term savings, to the tune of $10,000 per month! Which is a great thing. Good for them. It should go without saying, however, that middle-class families do not save anywhere close to $120,000 a year. That’s just about equal to the median household wealth of $124,041 across the United States. In one year, this family is saving up the typical amount a household accumulates over its entire life. While paying $46,800 on rent. In fact, having a salary of $120,000 alone would put this family well within the middle class. They could literally support an entire additional household with their income. Again, this family is not rich by Upper West Side standards, but nor are they typical. Even in the rarified air near Central Park, they are upper class. People who live in Iowa, make $300,000 a year, and live in a two-bedroom cabin are not middle class just because they live in a two-bedroom cabin. The same applies to New Yorkers.

This matters because at some point push is going to turn to shove. The United States is going to have to make some tough financial decisions. The Federal government cannot run a multi-trillion-dollar deficit forever. That means either cutting the big welfare programs or increasing spending. The odds of Congress ever slashing Social Security or Medicare/Medicaid are low. There’s no support for it from either party. Thus, it’s going to come to tax increases. Those tax increases cannot only come from the super-rich. Even if you somehow took all of Elon Musk’s wealth and somehow put it towards the budget deficit, it would only keep the government above water for about six months. Not only is the upper class going to have to pay more taxes, but the middle class as well. That means recognizing who is in the upper class, and not credulously listening to people in the top 1% who claim not to be.

The United States has undergone several distinct phases of immigration throughout its history. These include migration from Europe to the US, which began in the 16th century and continued through the 20th century. Then there was the westward migration, which began in the 18th century and arguably continues to this day. Finally, over the last half-century, there has been a mass migration of people from Central and South America to the United States. Then there was the Great Migration, the movement of Black Americans from the South to the North in the 20th century.

Over the last few years, however, a new migration trend has begun, a movement south. The above map, provided by HireAHelper, tells the story of 2025. States that are red have more people moving out than moving in. States that are green have more people moving in than moving out. The Northeast is seeing outmigration at a prodigious rate. Massachusetts, despite being home to the world’s best universities and one of America’s most popular cities, is losing people at a faster rate than any other state. The Midwest is treading water, with states like Illinois losing people while Minnesota is gaining. Then there’s the West Coast. Washington, Oregon, and California used to add people at a fast clip. From the days of the Oregon Trail, Americans would head westward looking for a better life. Today, however, the trend has reversed. Fewer people are moving in than moving out in all three states.

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On the opposite end of the spectrum is the Southeast. The part of the country traditionally seen as somewhat of a backwater outside of a few cities like Atlanta has suddenly become a magnet for Americans on the move. Consider the traditional Southeast: North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee. All nine of these states had a net migration gain in 2025. No other region has such consistency over so many states. Even in the aforementioned Northeast, in which most states had a net migration loss, New Hampshire and Maine bucked the trend and gained residents. In the Southeast, however, there isn’t a single exception to the rule. And not only did all gain residents, but most did at a significant rate. North Carolina gained about 29 residents per 10,000. Tennessee, 43.6. The biggest winner, however, was South Carolina, which gained a massive 79.7 residents per 10,000 in 2025, more than any other state. Only sparsely populated Idaho, which gained 63.2 residents per 10,000 people, comes close.

It’s worth noting that geographic trends in the US population have been remarkably consistent since World War II. One of my favorite stats is the “Mean Center of Population for the United States”, that is, the point around which an equal amount of Americans live. This has been tracked since 1790, and is displayed on the below map:

Every single census, from 1790 to 2020, has shown a population that is moving west. In the 19th century, Americans flocked westward as fast as they could. Then, during the World Wars and Great Depression, the westward drift slowed markedly. Since World War II, the population of America has continued its westward movement, but has also begun to move steadily south. Now, this is not just because of people moving. Births and deaths play a greater role than migration when determining the mean center of population. Still, given that southern states generally have higher birth rates than states on the West Coast and in the Northeast, it is possible that for the first time in US history, there is no westward trend to the population. The 2030 census could be a watershed moment.

So, what is behind the migration to the southeastern United States? There are likely a few reasons.

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The first, as those on conservative social media like to constantly mention, is government. The top 10 states for net migration gain on a per capita basis are South Carolina, Idaho, Delaware, Tennessee, Alabama, Maine, Arkansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Wyoming. Eight of those 10 have Republican control in both houses of the state legislature, and the same eight voted for Trump in 2024. Eleven and twelve on the list are Montana and Texas, so this isn’t a cherry-picked stat. The 10 biggest net migration losers are Massachusetts, New York, Maryland, California, Kansas, New Jersey, Alaska, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Eight of those 10 states have Democratic control across both houses of the state legislature, and the same eight voted for Harris in 2024. Looking across states, it’s striking that regardless of region, people are leaving Democratic states and moving to Republican ones. Virginia, for example, is the one traditional southern state that is still blue. It is also the only southern state that had a net migration loss in 2025. New Hampshire and Maine, meanwhile, are the only states in New England that are gaining population. They are also the two most conservative. Idaho has the second-largest net migration gains and is one of the most right-leaning states in the US, having voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since the 1964 trouncing of Barry Goldwater by Lyndon Johnson.

The more interesting question, however, is what policies are Democrats enacting that drive people away? The primary one is housing. This is beginning to shift as more and more people move south, but housing in blue states costs more than housing in red states. Entire regions of the country had effectively priced out middle-class Americans. California and New York, the two biggest engines of American growth, have become unsustainably expensive. People can moan all they want about geographic restrictions caused by the ocean and mountains and national parks, but the reality this is a political decision. Manhattan has a population density of roughly 70,000 people per square mile, and it’s one of the most sought-after places to live in the world. Contrast the Big Apple with San Francisco, which has a population density of roughly 17,000 people per square mile. Clearly, far more housing could be built in the Golden State, but the government has made it functionally illegal to do so. As a result, people have moved south. Today, however, the housing gap has narrowed. Now that some southern cities like Charleston, SC, have become as expensive as their northern peers, it will be interesting to see if the southern migration trend lessens.

Another factor is climate. It may seem odd, but the full effects of air conditioning are still being adjusted for in housing decisions. Even in the 1990s, a significant portion of homes and businesses in the South did not have air conditioning. The air conditioning they had was often substandard. For northerners, this alone was enough to make living in the deep south untenable. Today, however, almost all homes and businesses have AC, and the AC they have is frequently Arctic. The presence of near-universal air conditioning has removed one of the biggest downsides of living in the American South. People are responding and beginning to move there.

It will be interesting to see what the next decade holds. If housing prices continue to stay elevated in the north and remote work continues to be a viable option for many white-collar workers, it is likely the popularity of the Southeast will continue. If the trend accelerates, we could see the end of the longest migration trend in the country’s history: westward migration.

On February 28, Israeli and American forces launched an attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Israel and Iran have angrily circled each other for decades, with Iran often fighting through proxies. Yet, until recently, there hadn’t been much direct aggression between the two nations. The lack of direct conflict until last year’s joint Israeli-American bombing campaign could be attributed to several factors, not least of all the tremendous risk of a large-scale Middle Eastern conflict, but one economic factor always loomed large: the price of oil.

Iran is located, depending on your point of view, either conveniently or inconveniently, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which is named the Strait of Hormuz. About 20 percent of the world’s oil passes through this narrow channel before it is refined and processed around the globe. This gives Iran tremendous leverage. Even if the country is crippled militarily, it can effectively close the strait by threatening to sink any ship that tries to sail through. This happened on March 2nd, when a senior Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official stated, “If anyone tries to ​pass, the heroes of the Revolutionary Guards and the regular navy will set ​those ships ablaze.” The strait has effectively been blocked, with only a trickle of tankers wanting to risk passing through. This, until last month, partially protected Iran from attack. No longer.

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The price of oil has soared. In under 10 days, the price of Brent crude oil increased from $73 to $99 a barrel. Prices have since fallen to $85 a barrel, but everyone is nervously looking to see what the next few weeks hold. Much of the developed world is in the economic doldrums. A sustained increase in oil prices could trigger a recession. President Trump has tried to calm markets by claiming the war will be over soon, but people are justifiably nervous.

Prices at the pump have already begun to rise. According to AAA, the price of a gallon of gas has increased from $3.11 to $3.54 in just the last week. This may seem odd, as it takes some time, at least two weeks, for crude oil to work its way through the supply chain. The gas being sold at the pump today is made from oil that was sold before the attacks even started. How is it that prices have risen so quickly? This is because gas prices suffer from asymmetric price transmission, more colorfully known as “rockets and feathers”. When oil prices increase, gas prices tend to increase sharply and immediately, like a rocket. When oil prices decrease, however, gas prices tend to fall gradually and with a delay, like a feather. The exact causes aren’t fully understood, but the theory is that gas station owners can tell upset consumers that gas prices had to be increased because oil prices increased, even though the gas station owner hasn’t had to pay more for gas yet. When oil prices fall, the same gas station owner can claim gas prices can’t come down until the cheaper oil is refined and resold as gas.

It may also seem odd that gas prices in the United States are increasing when the supply issue is in the Middle East. Contrary to the narratives of the 20th century, the US is not dependent on foreign oil. America is now the world’s largest producer of oil and is a net exporter of petroleum products. More oil is produced each year in the US than is consumed. The fracking revolution of the 2000s now means the US produces more oil than Saudi Arabia. So why are we affected by a war halfway around the world? Because oil is traded on a world market. When there is a supply issue in the Middle East, some refineries are willing to pay more for oil from elsewhere. Sellers of oil then raise their prices to meet this increased willingness to pay.

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An interesting additional wrinkle to the US oil industry is that although the US is a net exporter of petroleum products, we still are a net importer of crude oil. A lot of the oil pumped from North Dakota is high-quality, while the refineries in Louisiana are designed to refine low-quality oil. Thus, a lot of American oil is exported abroad to be refined, while foreign oil is refined in the US. As long as international shipping is functioning well this isn’t a problem. To the contrary, it allows different countries to specialize in different types of refineries and avoids unnecessary duplication of refinery capacity. When something like the closure of the Strait of Hormuz occurs, however, it causes problems.

If oil prices stay high, the political pressure to end the war will certainly rise. Even those who support the war in Iran will not want to pay $3.50 or $4.00 for a gallon of gas. If this comes to pass, it will be interesting to see how the administration responds. They could end the war preemptively.

Another option would be to revisit the Jones Act, an absurd rule that mandates that ships that travel between two US ports be American vessels. US ship construction is in dire straits, and there aren’t nearly enough ships to transport oil between various American ports. Thus, American refineries are often forced to source oil from abroad rather than buy American oil. This paradoxically increases our reliance on foreign oil and increases prices. One study found that in 2018-2019, gas prices on the East Coast would be a full $0.60 a gallon cheaper if the Jones Act were repealed, and gas could be transported from the Gulf Coast to New England on a foreign vessel.1 So if gas prices stay high, the Trump Administration has a few levers to bring prices back down.

After months of waiting, the Supreme Court decision was what most expected: the President of the United States cannot unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). This invalidated hundreds of tariffs that President Trump had initiated during his second term, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars worth of revenue that now likely needs to be returned.

Thank God.

Tariffs are bad. Period. They punish Americans and prevent the US economy from leveraging comparative advantage around the globe. One study found that, contrary to Trump’s assertions that foreigners pay for the tariffs, roughly 90 percent of the burden was borne by American companies and consumers. As predicted, the Trump tariffs have been hurting the US economy.

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The legal reasoning, which was decided in a 6-3 vote, was straightforward. IEEPA never mentions tariffs. Tariffs are a tax, and taxes are under the purview of Congress. Unless the legislature specifically delegates taxation authority to the executive branch, it remains with the legislature. IEEPA does give the president the authority to regulate trade with a foreign country, but not impose tariffs. The court did not address the blatant falsehood that there was any kind of emergency to begin with that would warrant IEEPA’s usage.

The three liberal judges, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, joined Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett in the majority. Conservative judges Thomas, Kavanaugh, and Alito were in the dissent. In his dissent, Kavanaugh claimed:

Interpreting IEEPA to exclude tariffs creates nonsensical textual and practical anomalies. The plaintiffs and the Court do not dispute that the President can act in declared emergencies under IEEPA to impose quotas or even total embargoes on all imports from a given country. But the President supposedly cannot take the far more modest step of conditioning those imports on payment of a tariff or duty.

I am not a lawyer, but this type of reasoning never made any sense to me. It may seem odd that IEEPA allows the president to embargo a country entirely, but cannot place even a one percent tariff on a nation. But these inconsistencies are everywhere. The Federal Government can literally execute people, and it does, but is not allowed to parade a convicted felon through the streets while the populace throws old vegetables at him, as was done in the days of old. Granting authority for one course of action does not implicitly grant authority over every lesser course.

The spiciest part of the decision came from Justice Gorsuch, who called out almost every fellow justice for being a hypocrite in his concurrence. Over the last few decades, justices have increasingly relied on the “major questions doctrine”. Not present in any textual document, the major questions doctrine says that any action taken by the executive branch that has major political or economic implications must have explicit authorization from Congress. During the Biden administration, Republican-appointed justices often relied on the major questions doctrine to rein in Biden policies. For example, the Supreme Court struck down Biden’s student debt relief plan, in part, because the Department of Education was not given explicit authority to forgive student debt by Congress. During the Biden administration, however, the three Democrat-appointed justices disagreed with the major questions doctrine rationale.

Today the shoe is on the other foot. The liberal justices, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson, suddenly decided the major questions doctrine now applied. Meanwhile, former staunch defenders of the major questions doctrine Kavanaugh, Alito, and Thomas, conveniently found it didn’t apply in this case. As Gorsuch states, “It is an interesting turn of events. Each camp warrants a visit.”

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In a more sane world, this would be the end of the Trump tariffs. They were always a bad idea. The Supreme Court effectively handed Trump a get out of jail free card. He could say, “I wanted the tariffs, but the Supreme Court won’t let me do them.” This is effectively what Biden did with the student debt issue. Letting the Supreme Court allow you to save face is a blessing for presidents who need to backtrack from bad policies but don’t want to be seen as weak.

Trump, of course, has no such trepidations. He truly believes that tariffs are good no matter what, and that any country with a trade surplus with the United States must be “ripping off” the American people. No amount of common sense or simple reasoning will convince him otherwise. It’s an insane shibboleth on par with another Trump totem, “low interest rates good,” or one commonly heard from the left, “billionaires bad”.

Thus, Trump immediately said he would use a different law, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, and apply a blanket 10 percent tariff on every country. Then he said the tariff would actually be 15 percent. Then the tariff actually instituted was 10 percent. Wide carveouts have been instituted, but the typical product now has a 10 percent tariff on it, regardless if it’s coming from Canada or China.

These are not serious people.

Section 122 does allow the president to impose such tariffs, but only for 150 days. Things will likely come to a head then, when Trump will undoubtedly try to just restart the clock. It will be up to the courts to determine whether that is allowed. Similar to the endless, and not allowed, extensions of a TikTok ban, Trump will likely just keep restarting the 10 percent tariffs under Section 122 and claim the clock resets until the end of his second term in January of 2029. Companies will undoubtedly sue, and it will be up to the courts to decide how often the clock is allowed to reset.

In the interim, Trump has threatened to actually-for-realsies-this-time institute a 15 percent global tariff, the maximum allowed under Section 122. If this comes to pass, it would reach a new level of stupidity, as it would violate the deals that his own administration negotiated. Countries like Colombia and the United Kingdom already had 10 percent tariff rates under the IEEPA tariffs. If they are increased to 15 percent over Section 122, the deals they made with the Trump administration less than a year ago would be invalidated. Regardless of your feelings on tariffs, this is not the way to conduct trade policy.

Pad Thai. It’s one of the most famous Asian meals in the US. Right up there with the Chinese dish General Tso’s chicken and the Indian chicken tikka masala. Of course, many are aware that General Tso’s chicken isn’t a traditional Chinese meal. There are conflicting claims about who originated the recipe, but it first appeared in Chinese restaurants in New York City in the 1970s. Chicken tikka masala is also more modern than some might guess. No maharaja ever enjoyed it. In fact, it was first popularized in Indian restaurants in that most exotic of locations: Glasgow, Scotland.

At first glance, pad Thai seems more authentic than its ersatz counterparts. For starters, pad Thai was invented in Thailand. Americans first discovered it in the 1960s, when American GIs would vacation there during leaves from Vietnam. The ingredients also appear genuine, as opposed to the dairy-heavy and clearly foreign chicken tikka masala. However, just as the emperor of China never polished off a plate of General Tso’s chicken, no king of Siam ever ate pad Thai. The origins of the dish, and its success, is a fascinating story of top-down cultural persuasion.

In the 1930s, Siam and much of Southeast Asia were becoming a nation-state in a 20th-century-sense. After centuries of feudal kingdoms vying for power and various leaders who sometimes ruled vast areas, borders were finally coalescing around ethnic groups. Cambodia became Cambodia, Vietnam became Vietnam, etc. A military officer named Plaek Phibunsongkhram, known as Phibun, in 1938 became the third prime minister of Siam and soon a military dictator. At the time, Thais were the dominant ethnic group in Siam, but there was also a large Chinese minority that was politically and economically powerful.

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Phibun decided his nation needed to be for the Thais, with a strong national identity and a more homogenous culture. Thus, Siam was renamed Thailand. Thai identity was encouraged and promoted. The Chinese were sidelined. To accompany this newfound ethnic pride, Phibun wanted Thailand to have a national dish. Exactly how he settled on pad Thai or where the original recipe came from is unknown. Dishes similar to pad Thai had been eaten around Thailand for centuries, ironically as a Thai-Chinese fusion meal of Thai sauces over Chinese noodles. What we know as pad Thai today, however, appeared in Phibun’s kitchen and quickly spread across the country. Despite being somewhat unusual for Thai cuisine, which is based on rice rather than noodles, it was embraced by locals. The prime minister literally took a niche recipe and made it the national dish overnight.

The giveaway is in the very name: “pad Thai”. Generally, meals that are popular in a country don’t contain the nationality in the name, at least not domestically. You might find “French fries” and “Belgian waffles” on a menu in the United States, but in France, they are “pommes frites,” and in Belgium, it is simply “wafels”. No one calls a Brazilian steakhouse a “Brazilian steakhouse” in Brazil (it’s a churrascaria). The leader of Thailand decided to invent a national dish and literally named it “stir-fried Thai”. And it took. That is amazing.

Phibun’s overall program of “Thai-fication” might be the most successful culture-building program in world history, at least as far as those that don’t also entail massacring a significant portion of the population. Thai culture became paramount. The Thai language was standardized, with dialects falling by the wayside. Today, the results speak for themselves. Thailand, if anything, has too much national spirit, with strict laws banning any criticism of the Thai king and a hair-trigger reaction to any perceived slight by their Cambodian neighbors.

As unusual as pad Thai’s origin is, its second act belies belief. Pad Thai is no longer just one of the most popular meals in Thailand; it’s one of the most popular meals in the world. And that too is no accident. Towards the end of the 20th century, Thai food slowly gained popularity abroad, with the number of Thai restaurants in America growing from an estimated 500 in 1990 to 2,000 in 2002. Then the Thai government began a bold new program to expand the number of Thai restaurants around the world.

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Called “Global Thai,” the government of Thailand would provide loans, technical advice, and access to ingredients to any Thai citizen who wanted to start a Thai restaurant abroad. The idea was to increase the “soft power” of Thailand. By opening Thai restaurants around the world, foreigners would become more familiar with Thai culture. They would be more likely to watch Thai movies, listen to Thai music, and, most importantly, visit Thailand. The program was a smashing success. In the United States alone, there are now over 10,000 Thai restaurants.

This is the face of some serious headwinds. First, although Thailand isn’t an off-the-radar destination, it isn’t popular among Americans. You’ll find far more Europeans than Yankees in Phuket. Second, there isn’t a large Thai diaspora in the US. Depending on the source, there are anywhere from 200,000 to 340,000 Thais living in America. This is nowhere close to the number of individuals needed to create a thriving national restaurant industry. The number of Thais in America is comparable to the number of Hmong and Indonesians. Yet only Thais have created a vast restaurant industry on par with any other ethnic cuisine.

Part of the reason for this stunning success is that Thai food is both delicious and inoffensive. There aren’t many who would label Thai their favorite cuisine, but few hate it. Thai food is palatable to both Midwestern Grandparents and Bushwick polycules. It’s familiar yet exotic. That said, a lot of cuisines fall into this bucket. Most have dishes that will be broadly palatable to Americans. Yet only Thai food punches so far above its weight. Even small towns will often have a Thai restaurant, while those seeking Indonesian food need to visit a major city. That success, at least in part, can be credited to the Global Thai initiative. It’s the most successful government culture program you’ve never heard of, and it would behoove nations around the world looking to elevate their culture to study such a unique achievement.

Note: None of this post deals with the pros and cons of the electoral college. If you’re against the electoral college, resist the urge to viscerally disagree with what’s written below. This post is about the realities of the 2016 election. I’m not making an argument about what should or shouldn’t be. I’m stating what is.

I hear it constantly. “Hillary Clinton would have won in 2016 if America decided presidential elections by popular vote!” I’ve seen it on Reddit. I’ve heard well-informed people say it. Even my beloved CGP Grey has a video about it. Either because of denial or wishcasting, people have convinced themselves that in a just world, Hillary Clinton would have won the 2016 election if only America had a different way of determining the winner.

It’s not true.

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Fine. I suppose there is one possible world in which it’s true that Hillary Clinton becomes president if the popular vote determined the winner. If, on November 9th, 2016, the day after the election, congress would have come together and voted to add an amendment to the constitution saying that the rules that governed the election the day before were wrong, and that whoever got the most votes would be sworn in that January, then yes, Hillary Clinton would have become president in 2017 instead of Donald Trump. Obviously this was never going to happen for a host of reasons. Most importantly, it would be grossly unethical to change the rules for winning an election after said election.

Of course, people don’t mean that Congress should have changed the Constitution after the 2016 vote to retroactively change the rules. They mean the constitution should have been changed before 2016 so the winner of the popular vote becomes president. Again, the point of this post is not to opine on whether that would be a good idea (I think there are good arguments for both keeping the electoral college and moving to a popular vote). The point is to say that it is objectively incorrect to say that had the 2016 election been determined by the winner of the popular vote, Hillary Clinton would have become president. The reality is there’s no way to know who would have won.

The reasoning is obvious. If the popular vote carried the election, the entire approach to elections would be different. One of the lead questions for any candidate would be “can they win the popular vote?” The Democratic and Republican primaries in 2016 would have a totally different focus. They would have different rules, and party insiders would be pushing for different nominees. Maybe one or both parties removes the winner-take-all approach in many states when choosing a candidate during the primaries. Likability polling would be a key metric for evaluating candidates. It’s quite possible that with a popular vote structure, neither Clinton nor Trump are even their parties’ nominees in 2016.

But fine. Let’s say that with the 2016 election being decided by popular vote, Trump and Clinton are still their respective party’s nominees. Even so, it would still be incorrect to say that Clinton would have won had the rules been different. Currently, the election rests on a handful of swing states. After securing their nominations, presidential candidates spend their time in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. These states are likely to determine the election. Other states are roundly ignored. Trump, for example, spent little time campaigning in California. That may seem odd, given that he secured more votes in California than in all but two states.1 Under the electoral college system, it makes perfect sense. Trump didn’t spend time campaigning in California because he knew there was no way he won the state. Ditto for Clinton in Texas. If the winner was determined by popular vote, this would be far, far, different. Republican candidates would spend a lot of time in California, and Democratic candidates would campaign in Texas because there are millions of voters in those states. That would change the election significantly.

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Crucially, the people who vote would change dramatically if the popular vote carried the day. Republicans in San Francisco and Democrats in Dallas don’t have much of a reason to vote for president these days. For better or worse, the residents of their states have decided they will vote D or R, respectively, even if their party’s candidate is a dead raccoon. If the winner was decided by popular vote, millions of additional Americans would cast their ballot in a close race, knowing that their vote could have an impact. There would be no such thing as a safe state or swing state, because states would no longer decide the election.

Finally, one of the most important aspects of the 2016 election is that no one “won” the popular vote. At least not in the sense that other countries use to determine their president. Not Clinton or Trump or anyone else. No candidate earned a majority of votes in the 2016 election. Clinton won a plurality of votes, but at 48.2 percent, a plurality is not a majority. The same thing happened to Trump in 2024, who won 49.8 percent of the popular vote. A majority of people who voted in 2016 voted against Hillary Clinton and a majority of voters in 2024 voted against Donald Trump. In every country I’m aware of that uses the popular vote to determine their head of government, an election that results in no one having a majority of the votes goes to a runoff election between the top two vote getters. In a runoff between Clinton and Trump in 2016, who would have won? Likely Clinton, but again, that’s not known with certainty.

On one hand, Clinton won a plurality in the initial election, giving her an edge. Winning a plurality in the first round, however, does not guarantee a victory in a runoff between the top two candidates. Just ask Keiko Fujimori of Peru. In the 2016 Peruvian elections, Fujimori dominated the first round, winning 39.86 percent of the vote. In a distant second was Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, who won 21.05 percent of the vote. In the second round, Kuczynski pulled off the upset, eking out the vote 50.12 percent to 49.88 percent.2 The same thing happened in Poland in 2025, when the winner of the first round came in second during the runoff.

The same could have happened to Clinton. After coming in second in the first round, Trump could have pulled the upset in the second round. In the 2016 election, Clinton won 65.9 million votes to Trump’s 63.0 a difference of 2.9 million votes. Other candidates received 7.8 million votes. Would those 7.8 million voters have broken towards Clinton or Trump? How many people would have changed their vote? We will never know.

Saying that Donald Trump only became president in 2016 because of the electoral college is like saying Stephen Curry is only a superstar because the NBA values shots made from a long distance at three points while shots made from a short distance are only valued at two points. One could say that Curry wouldn’t be as good of player if there was no such thing as the 3-point line. That his stats would be much worse. This thinking ignores the reality that Curry takes so many long shots because they are valued 50 percent higher. Obviously NBA players would not take nearly as many shots from 3-point range if there was no such thing as the 3-point line. In the same way, if the US didn’t have the electoral college, campaigns would be very different.

Ultimately, the United States has never decided its president by popular vote. That system is not likely to change. Small states have a disproportionate amount of sway in the electoral college, and they will never give that up. Winning the electoral college means winning the presidency. Winning the popular vote by a minute amount signifies little, results in nothing, and people should stop pretending otherwise.

On November 6, 2012, Colorado and Washington became the first states to vote to legalize recreational marijuana. It was the first time in history a drug had been legalized by referendum. For years, medical marijuana had been legal to different degrees in several states, but no state had ever made it legal to use marijuana for enjoyment. Since 2012, the dam has broken. Today, the majority of Americans can toke without violating state or local law.

The arguments for marijuana legalization are well established. The ethical arguments are that drug use is a victimless crime and people should be allowed to grow whatever plants they want. The legal arguments are that marijuana prohibition consumes limited resources that would be better allocated to fight violent crime, and that by making marijuana illegal, it creates opportunities for organized crime. The economic argument is that people are going to use marijuana either way, so it might as well be taxed. For decades, marijuana advocates used reason and persuasion to advocate for their cause. Over the decades, they slowly won people over. People from across the ideological spectrum began to support marijuana legalization, even if they weren’t users. Mainstream media also began to support legalization. This led to the new status quo.

Today, some of those groups are feeling a bit of buyer’s remorse.

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Simple economics suggests that if a drug is legalized, demand will likely increase. By legalizing a product, the risks of purchasing it have been reduced. Even if the price in dollars stays the same, or even rises, not having to worry about going to jail for using a plant is going to increase demand. However, the demand for drugs is thought to be inelastic. That is, the demand is going to be mostly the same regardless of cost. People who want to do drugs are going to do so. The thinking was that under the old regime, there weren’t a lot of people who wanted to use marijuana but didn’t because it was illegal. By legalizing the drug, the market can be brought out of the shadows, but demand won’t increase much because everyone who wants to use already does.

With hindsight, it looks marijuana is considerably more elastic than originally thought. Over a decade after recreational legalization began, surveys consistently show that marijuana use has gone up dramatically. Anecdotally, Americans have begun to notice the same thing. It is normal to smell marijuana smoke in any major city where the drug is legal. The results from a recent study are striking. First, the rate at which people use marijuana has gone up dramatically over the last 25 years:

A few trends stand out. First, it is clear that the war on drugs, contrary to popular belief, appears to have worked to some degree. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, those using marijuana anywhere from daily to at least once in the past year declined until the early 1990s. Now there may be some measurement error here, especially as the crackdown on drugs incentivizes people to not acknowledge drug use. Still, the trend is interesting. Since the 1990s, however, and especially since 2010, marijuana use has skyrocketed. It’s now higher than at any point since data collection began. Those who have used marijuana in the past month has more than doubled, those reporting daily or near-daily marijuana use has more than tripled. All in less than 15 years.

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Also troubling is that the relative intensities have flipped. From the 1970s until the 2000s, annual users were more common than monthly users and monthly users were more common than daily users. This points to a drug that most users take in moderation, with few addicts. In the 21th century, however, the paradigm flipped. Now there are more daily users than monthly users and more monthly users than annual users. And the gaps are widening at a fast clip. Now, the norm is for a marijuana user to be at least a near-daily user, defined as having used marijuana at least 21 days in the previous month. Translating it into numbers, in 1999, roughly 4 million Americans reported using marijuana 1-3 days in the last month. Now, it is 11 million. About 2.5 million people in 1999 used marijuana at least 21 days a month. It is now 18 million. That’s more than one in every 20 people.

Equally striking is when marijuana is compared to alcohol. In 2005, the ratio was 3:1 in favor of alcohol. For the first time ever, there are now more daily or near-daily users of marijuana:

It turns out those against legalization were correct: it has turbocharged demand. Far from being an inelastic drug with a mostly fixed demand, the demand for marijuana is heavily dependent on external factors. What got overlooked was not the problem of illegality - it still seems unlikely there were many people who wanted to use marijuana but refrained because it was illegal. Rather, legality changed the bigger hurdle: accessibility. Acquiring marijuana used to have significant transaction costs. In an age when millions of items can be ordered to your door with the click of a button, procuring some bud used to be a cumbersome process, involving word of mouth, phone calls, and often a trip to an unsavory part of town. Today, those accessibility issues are largely gone. Allowing people to go to the corner pot store made the drug much more popular than most had envisioned.

As the saying goes, the haters said this would happen. And they were correct. Honestly great call from the haters.

What to do going forward? First, we shouldn’t go back to the old regime. Devoting significant resources to stop people from consuming a plant is still as absurd as it ever was. However, there are options for harm reduction. First, and counterintuitively, marijuana should be legalized at the federal level. The Trump administration has taken steps in the right direction by urging the federal bureaucracy to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule III drug, rather than the most extreme Schedule I. By making marijuana legal entirely, it will remove its status in the grey area. Normally, we would expect to see significant research, public messaging, and standards developed around a legal drug. Because marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, that isn’t happening. Grant money is hard to come by, national ad campaigns about the dangers of marijuana are absent, and there aren’t any standards.

Second, the media needs to updates it’s priors. A recent New York Times article does just that, discussing how America has a marijuana problem. A lot of other media outlets, having embraced marijuana legalization and afraid of a return of carceral penalties for users, have been hesitant to do so. Even the NYT article states, “We want to emphasize that occasional marijuana use is no more a problem than drinking a glass of wine with dinner or smoking a celebratory cigar.” This is, frankly, not true. A glass of wine with dinner is nothing like occasional marijuana use. A typical adult can easily have a glass of wine with dinner and drive home without being the least bit impaired. Those who consume marijuana are rarely, if ever, showing such temperance. As Barack Obama famously said when asked if he inhaled when using marijuana as a young man, “That was the point.” As many have remarked, this isn’t your father’s weed. THC levels are much higher, sometimes exponentially higher, than the weed of the 1980s. Using marijuana today means being mentally impaired for hours. That isn’t to say it turns your brain into a fried egg, but the accurate comparison to a joint is a full bottle of wine, not a single glass.

Third, standards are needed. Research is needed. What are the physical and mental health risks of daily marijuana use? What is the best treatment for those suffering from addiction? What should be considered a single THC dose? Answers will not be discovered overnight. Researchers have examined alcohol for decades, and until recently, many thought dehydration was the primary cause of hangovers. Today we know better. Similar research into THC will take years and needs to start now. Marijuana is here to stay. It’s time to decide how it should be governed before too much addiction leads to significant societal problems.

A recent New York Times (NYT) article by Priya Krishna discusses the current state of the food delivery industry. The headline statistic is that three in four restaurant orders are now either carry-out or delivery. Many restaurants have now become caterers with a physical premise. Below are some excerpts from the article, along with my comments.

There’s pasta in the pantry and jarred sauce in the refrigerator. So what compels Kiely Reedy to keep having spaghetti with marinara delivered from the restaurant down the street, for several times the cost of cooking the dish herself?

It’s not that the restaurant dish is particularly good, she said. “It’s the instant gratification.”

From her roughly $50,000 annual salary as a data processor in San Diego, Ms. Reedy, 34, spends at least $200 to $300 a week on food delivery. Ordering in has eaten away at her savings, she said, and led her to socialize less. She tips generously, but worries that the delivery drivers are poorly paid.

Bruh. $250 a week on food delivery is $13,000 a year. After accounting for taxes and welfare programs, that’s roughly 30% of her take-home pay. On food!

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In 2024, almost three of every four restaurant orders were not eaten in a restaurant, according to data from the National Restaurant Association. The number of households using delivery had roughly doubled from 2019, just before the pandemic, the group said. And in a survey last year, about one-third of American adults told the association that they ordered food for delivery at least once a week.

Those are surprising numbers. One caveat - how are orders being calculated? People are more likely to order takeout solo and eat in restaurants in groups. So if four people each ordering out count as four orders, but the same four people sitting at the same table count as one order, that would skew the stats. Regardless, it’s indisputable that takeaway orders have become much more popular.

I find the second stat more surprising. One-third of Americans get food delivered at least once a week? That’s a tremendous shift in how prepared meals are transported and consumed.

We asked New York Times readers to share their feelings about food delivery. Most of the nearly 900 who responded said they prized the extra time and freedom it gives them, but expressed misgivings about the costs for delivery drivers, the environment and their own wallets at a time when affordable living feels increasingly out of reach.

New York Times readers are an interesting bunch. They patronize a company, but then have misgivings about it. What a great example of performative guilt. Obviously, if customers had true misgivings, they would not purchase a superfluous good. It would be like avid golfers complaining about the amount of water a golf course uses. If you don’t like it, stop golfing.

The environmental concerns, which are mentioned several times in the article, are also performative. Eating foods like beef or almonds is more damaging to the environment than a to-go container. While all that plastic isn’t good, it also isn’t meaningfully contributing to global warming or most other environmental problems. Like paper straws, it’s a small issue that ignores the much bigger one: fossil fuels.

That message has a special resonance for the working parents we heard from. Between raising two young boys and putting in long hours at a marketing job in Atlanta, Kevin Caldwell can almost never find the time to make dinner. So he and his husband spend about $700 a week to order in…

…His 4-year-old son doesn’t read yet, “but he can put together an order” on the Chick-fil-A app, said Mr. Caldwell, 39. “I am impressed, but I am also terrified.”

Again, holy cow! That’s $36,400 on delivery. Must be nice to have that much disposable income. There’s no way to say this without sounding snotty, but maybe raising two young boys includes teaching them how to cook, rather than teaching them how to use Uber Eats.

Missy Auge, who recently moved home to Santa Fe from Los Angeles to work as a sommelier, has most of her food delivered. She no longer feels the social pressure she once did to meet friends for dinner.

Food delivery is yet another force pushing our society towards atomization. Even the sommeliers are eating at home by themselves.

Still, such an on-demand lifestyle can keep consumers from developing critical skills like problem solving, planning ahead or making tough decisions, said Huy Do, a research and insights manager at the market research firm Datassential. That’s why so many young people are “choosing to make financial and food-based decisions in the moment that feel good now,” said Mr. Do, even though it can prevent them from making longer-term financial investments.

This is a good point and an underdiscussed downside to new technology: it increases dependence. Now, often the gains outweigh the losses. I’m totally dependent on my washing machine to do my clothes, the electric company to keep the lights on, the plumber to fix my boiler, etc. 100 years ago I would have had a much better understanding of the inner workings that keep my world in orbit. The difference between other conveniences and food delivery is the former save money in the long run, especially when including time costs. A washing machine is expensive, but it automates unskilled labor that would take a person hundreds of hours a year. Food delivery both fosters dependence and costs a pretty penny.

Food delivery services offer convenience, but at a high cost. If used constantly, it also destroys a skill: preparing your own food. Being able find a recipe, buy things from a store, and cook a meal might not sound like much, but being able to regularly do so likely correlates strongly with a lot of other positive attributes. Food preparation requires discipline day in and day out. Unhealthy or expensive alternatives are always readily available. It requires flexibility. When the supermarket doesn’t have an item, one has to audible to a reasonable substitute. And of course cooking itself is a useful skill. It can take years of practice, but being able to look at a pantry and create a meal on the fly is incredibly useful. Having a general sense of how long to cook each ingredient and in what order to cook them, without a recipe, will always be a worthwhile skill.

Austin Layne, 31, who drives for Uber Eats in Los Angeles, said he needs that extra income to supplement his salary as a data analyst…Another reason Mr. Layne stays at it is to pay off his debt from ordering too much food delivery. He has since cut back on the habit.

A good dealer doesn’t use his own product.

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Will Parks, 36, decided to pare back after looking at his annual credit card report in 2024 and realizing that he had spent about a third of his money on ordering in.

“Food delivery is a scam,” he said. “It is incredibly expensive, the quality has gone down precipitously and with costs being so high, I took a hard look at it and was like, ‘This is a waste of my cash and time.’”

“You feel kind of tricked,” added Mr. Parks, who works in strategy for an entertainment company in Los Angeles. “You have reshaped your life based on their business model.”

I disagree that the delivery apps are “tricking” anyone. One can gripe that the fees are added at the end, making something they are getting a meal for $40 when it actually will cost $50, but this is the same as hotel rooms, concert tickets, or even eating at a restaurant. I also don’t think the quality has “gone down precipitously”. It’s still the same delivery service and the same restaurants. Unless the delivery time has increased dramatically or something like that, prices have gone up, but quality has stayed the same.

The prices, however, are astonishing. It’s hard to believe how much people are willing to pay for delivery. How do more not have a basic common sense alarm that goes off when they are paying a massive premium for a burrito taxi:

How much are people paying? Here’s one example. In New Haven, Connecticut, there is a popular chain called Haven Hot Chicken. It’s a counter joint with pretty good hot chicken sandwiches. To have a single hot chicken sandwich delivered to my door, no fries, drink, or anything like that, costs an exorbitant $20.81. And that’s with $1.98 saved via “promotions”, whatever that means. For a hot chicken sandwich! Buying the sandwich at the restaurant would only cost $14.43, which is already quite expensive. $20.81 is a 44% markup. Not including tip. For a chicken sandwich. I don’t want to go full-blown Caleb Hammer, but what are you people thinking? Even going to the restaurant yourself would save quite a bit of money over time.

In weaning himself from delivery, he has discovered a new passion — something that allows him to step away from his phone, focus on a task and feel a sense of accomplishment: cooking.

Preparing a meal takes far more time than ordering dinner with the press of a button. But “it feels good,” he said. “It feels more adult, frankly.”

This is a point that needs to be repeated. Cooking is a great skill. It’s practical. It saves money. It’s useful in building social capital. Plus, cooking after a long day at the office, far from being an additional stressor, can be a great way to wind down, especially if done with a familiar recipe and beer in hand.

Overall, I thought the New York Times article did a good job explaining an important evolution in the industry. However, there were two omissions I would have included.

First, food delivery vs. cooking at home is a false dichotomy. There are other options. Trader Joe’s has dozens of cheap, edible, frozen meals that need a few minutes in the microwave and are ready to go. Costco as well. Now, these aren’t particularly healthy. The sodium content can be off the charts, but then again, restaurant food isn’t exactly the gold standard of nutrition.

Plus, cooking doesn’t have to mean slaving away for hours and making pasta from scratch. There are many meals people can make at home that barely qualify as cooking, if they qualify at all. A rotisserie chicken can be shredded and added to a salad, combined with cheese and mayo to throw in a chicken salad sandwich, dipped directly into BBQ sauce, etc. Cooking noodles and combining with jarred sauce and a baguette takes less than 30 minutes. I suspect most of the people quoted in the interview have made these easy meals at least once, so it isn’t ignorance, but laziness, that’s behind the constant food delivery.

Second, I wish the article would have compared today’s delivery services to the delivery services of yesteryear. It isn’t as if food delivery is a new thing. Every family used to have a stack of menus in a kitchen drawer for just such an occasion. Pizza was the most common delivery option, but plenty of other places delivered as well. Often, for a small flat fee, ordering delivery was cheaper than eating at a restaurant after including the higher tip for a server compared to a delivery driver.

It would be nice to try to get a sense of how many people ordered out once a week in 2005 and to compare those numbers to today. I’m sure the current numbers are higher, but there have always been people who claim to never have any money but are constantly grabbing Chinese takeout or having calzones delivered to their door. Chilis had dedicated spots for pickup in their parking lot in the mid-2000s. Eating restaurant food at home is not new or unprecedented.

The apps, however, have changed things in two ways. As already mentioned, the markup has exploded. No longer is there a small delivery fee. The prices on food delivery apps, before delivery fee, tax, fees, etc., are sometimes significantly higher than what the restaurant lists directly.

The biggest evolution, however, is how the range of delivery options has increased. Delivery food used to be almost exclusively for cheap eats. This is why it shocked Mrs. Doubtfire to learn how much it cost to have a proper meal delivered to her door. Back then, that simply wasn’t done. People paying for good food wanted the restaurant experience, not eating tepid takeout alone from a container. Today, there are many midrange and even upscale restaurants that will happily cook food, throw it in a bag, and leave it on the shelf for DoorDash. As long as people are willing to pay 44% more for it, why not?

AIs are officially acting as healthcare providers. As reported by Politico, AI is not just transcribing doctor-patient interactions or helping to write notes. The state of Utah has initiated a pilot program in which an AI is renewing medical prescriptions. At the beginning, humans reviewed the renewals. Now, however, patients across the state are able to pick up medication from the pharmacy without any human approving the script.

To be sure, these are baby steps. The prescription process is fairly automated anyway. Patients can request medication refills via the internet, phone, or even text message from their pharmacy. The pharmacy then sends a request to a medical provider, who can then approve the request in less than a minute. It’s a fairly streamlined system that technically has oversight, but is more or less people clicking through the same boxes over and over again. The exact type of behavior, in other words, AI can easily take on.

Of course, not everyone is totally keen on this development. Some people are inherently uneasy about having a computer program making healthcare related decisions. This understandable, and nothing new. People, after all, were against the idea of having elevators go up and down without an attendant. It seemed risky, allowing a machine to decide when to open and shut doors while hanging hundreds of feet off the ground. Having an elevator operator manage the doors and movement of the machine seemed safer to most people. Of course, now it seems anachronistic to even have an elevator operator.

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Over the coming decade, similar to elevator automation, people will be uncomfortable with the automation of healthcare. With elevators, people weren’t able to stop the march of progress. After all, companies didn’t want to have to staff elevators 24 hours a day. That gets expensive. Elevator companies recognized what their customers wanted and designed elevators that operated themselves. Everyday people may not have liked it, but the profit motive won out. Today, people don’t think twice about letting a machine whisk them high up into the sky.

What the elevator operators didn’t have was a powerful union. Elevator operators did have a union, which made specious claims about how many people would die if elevators were allowed to operate on their own. About how elevator operators are part of a proud, working tradition, and that automatic elevators will continue to result in the destruction of jobs and destitution of hardworking Americans. About how elevator operators give a personal touch that no machine can ever help to replicate. This wasn’t successful, however, because ultimately there wasn’t the political will to force buildings to have staffed elevators, and the free market is always going to bend towards progress. A weak elevator operators’ union led to technological advancement.

Doctors in the 21st century might not have a powerful union, but they do have one of, if not the most, powerful industry groups in the United States: the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA has successfully fought for decades to keep prices sky-high. They have limited the number of residencies the federal government will pay for, set up an obscene gauntlet for those who want to become doctors, and successfully lobbied the government to ban most foreign competition. Unsurprisingly, the AMA is not keen on handing over some if it’s duties to machines. At least not any duty that would result in less money for doctors:

In a statement, Dr. John Whyte, CEO and executive vice president at the American Medical Association, said: “While AI has limitless opportunity to transform medicine for the better, without physician input it also poses serious risks to patients and physicians alike.”

One concern is misuse or abuse, including the possibility that people struggling with addiction could try to game automated systems to obtain drugs inappropriately. Another concern is missing subtle clinical red flags or drug interactions that a doctor would catch.

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These are serious concerns…when humans are running the system. Automated systems, if designed improperly, can absolutely be gamed. But so too, as we’ve seen to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dead Americans, human systems. How doctors have avoided almost all blowback from the opioid crisis should be studied by public relations firms. Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family were raked over the coals for developing and aggressively marketing OxyContin. Pharmacists were sent to prison. Yet the middle link, the doctors who wrote the prescriptions patients needed to get the drugs in the first place, have largely avoided censure.

If you wanted to make the case for requiring human medical providers, it would be that they will notice addictive tendencies in their patients in a way no robot ever could. The argument would be that without humans, people will figure out how to game the system, and there will be a massive epidemic of overdoses. Lo and behold, that did happen, but not because of computers. The opioid epidemic, the biggest medical scandal in US history, occurred not despite humans, but because of them. The medical professional failed utterly and without qualification. A well-designed automated system never would have allowed millions of Americans to become addicted to opioids. To say otherwise is refuse to learn from an industry’s greatest failure.

It is also ridiculous to argue that “another concern is missing subtle clinical red flags or drug interactions that a doctor would catch.” This is exactly where machines dominate people. It is through AI that we will learn about entirely new negative drug interactions. AI will recognize patterns that no human would ever see. Computers are able to effortlessly sift through millions of patients and drug histories to warn providers of possible pitfalls. No human can come even close.

The AMA is looking out for doctors. As well they should. We shouldn’t expect the AMA to look out for patients any more than we would expect teachers’ unions to look out for students. That’s not the point of the organization. Instead, we need to recognize that the AMA is a special interest group devoted to increasing the incomes of current medical providers. AI poses a threat to those incomes, the same way automatic elevators threatened the livelihoods of elevator operators. Let’s hope progress wins out.

Several years ago, it was Airbnb. Housing prices were skyrocketing while Airbnb’s were proliferating. People concluded, understandably but incorrectly, that the latter was responsible for the former. Various cities decided that short-term rentals were at least partially responsible for the increase in housing prices, and steps were taken to either limit or ban them. New York went the furthest, resulting in around 10,000 short-term rentals disappearing overnight.

Of course, that didn’t solve the problem. Short-term rentals were never the main or even secondary cause of rising housing prices in most US neighborhoods. Because short-term rental bans didn’t do the trick, people began to cast about for a new bogeyman. They soon found one: institutional investors. Large corporations were buying up hundreds of thousands of properties and renting them out. Hardworking Americans were priced out. Soon, members of both parties, as well as President Trump, argued that institutional investors should be banned from buying houses. This will then lower housing prices.

It isn’t going to work.

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First, institutional investors don’t own much of the US housing stock. Real estate investors bought 18.4 percent of the homes in the fourth quarter of 2021. That is a significant chunk, but most of these homes were not bought by “institutional investors”, that is, companies with at least 100 properties. They were bought by individuals who started LLCs and have a portfolio of ten or fewer homes. When it comes to institutional investors, the numbers are much smaller. Estimates vary, but one study found that about three percent of all homes are owned by large corporations. Three percent isn’t nothing, but especially as it’s spread out across hundreds of firms, isn’t enough to generate any significant market power. The biggest villain, according to the narrative at least, is the investment firm Blackstone, which owns around 275,000 rental properties. That might sound like a lot, but it pales in comparison to the 146,770,711 housing units estimated to exist by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The problem, as I’ve written about previously, is the lack of supply. Cities across America have made it impossible to build new housing. The only way, the only way, to make housing affordable is to allow people to build. Banning Airbnbs or institutional investors or foreign owners is bailing water out of the sinking Titanic. Sure prices might decrease a percent or two if institutional investors are banned from buying residential real estate, but it won’t ever solve the problem. It can’t solve the problem.

The truth is that residential real estate investors are a symptom, not a cause. There is a reason that one in every six homes is now being sold to investors: owning homes is a good investment. Over the last 15 years, those who have invested in real estate have made a fortune. In fact, other than 2006-2016, people who have invested in residential real estate have printed money for the last 40 years. It used to be that owning rental properties was hard work. You bought a house, dealt with tenants, and made a bit of money on the side. It wasn’t a way to make significant cash. Now, anyone who bought rental properties before Covid is in the money.

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This is a major problem. Housing cannot be both a high-return investment and affordable. Period. It has to be one or the other. As a society, we have decided that housing should be a high-return investment. We have enacted rules that ensure housing prices go up, and those who buy homes accrue wealth at a rate not dissimilar from picking a good stock. Anyone who bought several rental properties outside of the housing bubble has done very well. Good for them, but this is not good for society, and is only happening because the government has made it so.

Housing should not be a high-return investment. It should be a wise investment, in that it should be a way for middle-class families to slowly build a moderate store of wealth over decades. That’s how the system worked until the 1980s. People bought homes, those homes appreciated at similar rates to inflation, and then families retired with a decent asset in their back pocket. Some unlucky families bought homes that lost value, and stayed underwater for years or even a decade. Some lucky families bought homes in areas that suddenly became more desirable and made a decent chunk of change. The norm, however, was neither. Then, homeowners realized they could use the law to punish those who wanted to build housing, and the whole system unwound. Slowly but surely, homeowners blocked more and more development, forcing up prices.

Don’t blame Airbnb. Don’t blame Blackstone. Certainly don’t blame BlackRock, another investment company that doesn’t own single-family homes but is constantly confused with Blackstone. Blame city hall.