In the Vice-Presidential debate, the Democratic candidate Tim Walz used shouting fire in a crowded theater to justify limitations on free speech. Ironically, he resembles a man shouting fire in a crowded theater. The history of this phrase traces to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in the 1919 Supreme Court case Schenck v. United States, in which he said it is wrong to “falsely” shout fire. The case concerned the right to protest war. Schenck was later largely overturned by Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969.

The Athletics’ time in Oakland has come to a close. After several attempts to relocate the A’s since 2006, the team will finally depart from the city they called home for 57 years. 

There are some big signs that the people of Las Vegas and the state of Nevada are getting genuine buyer’s remorse over the Oakland Athletics. Last summer, Nevada’s state legislature approved a $380 million bill toward funding a proposed $1.5 billion new stadium for the A’s in Las Vegas. In November 2023, the A’s secured the unanimous approval of Major League Baseball owners to relocate from Oakland, California, to Las Vegas, Nevada, where the team would begin playing at its new stadium in 2028.

Thursday, September 26, 2024, marked the end of a 56-year-long era for fans of the Oakland A’s. The Major League Baseball team played their last game at the Oakland Coliseum.

We evolved with the Earth to our current advanced technological state thanks to our ability to find and utilize new sources of energy for productive work. A million years ago, proto humans began burning wood for warmth, cooking, and safety. Homo Sapiens adopted and improved consumption of that hydrocarbon before advancing to coal, which drove machines to replace manual labor, to oil and gas, whose superior energy density allowed planes, ships, and trucks to move people and cargo quickly around the world. 

It’s a mistake to think the unemployment insurance fraud permitted during 2020’s pandemic has stopped imposing costs on its victims: American taxpayers. A new majority report by the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Accountability highlights the official estimates of the magnitude of the fraud:

In many Western countries, governments are enacting draconian speech laws. Politicians argue that these measures are necessary to combat misinformation and hate speech spread through social media. Nowadays, even mild insults are often labeled as “hate speech.” Illiberal politicians, government officials, and special interest groups frequently use this term to silence anyone who criticizes them. Those who dare to question their politics risk destroying their reputation and being “canceled.”

As economic educators, we wonder if we have let our students down.

Our nation is in the middle of a presidential campaign featuring campaign proposals that would be laughed out of the public square if we had an economically aware electorate. Had economic educators succeeded over the years, we would not have seen so many discredited policies from the past.

Edmundo González Urrutia, the real winner of Venezuela’s presidential election in July, has decided to go into exile in Spain, disheartening many Venezuelans. For many, he was the last hope of halting the country’s descent into chaos. According to official tallies obtained and published by the opposition, González secured nearly seventy percent of the vote. However, he was forced to spend weeks holed up in the Dutch embassy after his victory.

The U.S. government has paid its creditors more than $1 trillion in interest during its 2024 fiscal year. CNBC reports on Uncle Sam’s new grim fiscal policy milestone: