I raise chickens. No, I don’t own a farm, but for the four hens that live in my backyard, it might as well be one. And as you would expect with chickens, my wife and I receive a steady stream of edible eggs that will never hatch. Not having a rooster will do that.
What do leprechauns, ghosts, and economic benefits from sports stadiums all have in common? They lack any substantive evidence for their existence.
Kansas City voters face four questions on the April 4 ballot that could commit them to years of higher taxes. All four are very unlikely to live up to their supporters’ claims.
Kansas City’s elected leaders have been speaking far and wide about the GO Bond before voters on April 4. Their presentations focus on what could be done with the money, and attendees often ask about the amounts that will be spent on sidewalks, streets, and an animal shelter.
In many Eastern religions, practitioners use mantras to calm and center themselves while meditating. If the school choice movement needs a mantra right now, it just might be:
Regulating a market is not the same as regulating a monopoly.
Marketing professionals and politicians alike will tell you that framing is everything. A half-carat diamond ring looks huge if you zoom in close enough. Tom Cruise looks tall on camera. And a public policy looks successful if you focus on the benefits but not the costs.
Last fall, at the same time the University of Missouri announced the first decline in enrollment in 15 years, Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, announced record-breaking enrollment.
As someone who ran his own business for many years, I am aware of the difference between cost and price, even if it is something that eludes many political leaders and more than a few businesspeople with their noses in the public trough.
Oh, Missouri lawmakers, it is me, the Ghost of a Christmas Yet-to-Come, who whispers in your ear this wintry night. I come not to frighten you (like the baleful ghost in Dickens’s tale), nor to load you down with unearned and therefore inconsequential and soon-to-be-forgotten gifts.
Planning for retirement is no small task, and when news comes that a public pension plan is in financial trouble, both plan employees and local taxpayers should be concerned, because one of the two is going to have to pick up the tab.