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Can We Teach the “Federalist Papers” Today?

“The virtues of a bourgeois republic – honesty, compromise, tolerance, and fair-dealing – seem pale in comparison to the demands for social justice here and now.  As a student of mine once said, ‘I need something to help me get up in the morning.’” ~ Steven B. Smith

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Real Retail Sales Are Trending Flat

“Retail sales rose in March but fell after adjusting for price changes. Ongoing labor and materials shortages, turmoil from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and a new Fed tightening cycle all raise risks for the outlook.” ~ Robert Hughes

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Back in the USSR

“Beach Boy Mike Love said: ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.’ was a helluva song, and it’s lasted longer than the country.’ But, joking aside, Thies’s list is worth an hour of contemplation. The set of ten songs is a noble effort against tyranny.” ~ Daniel B. Klein

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Suffering from Sunk Costs

“Understanding how to understand and apply sunk costs is important in many ways. And one of those ways is to recognize that when we make a mistake in such efforts, we can’t retroactively fix those mistakes, but we can use them to learn better.” ~ Gary M. Galles

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Inflation and the Meaning of Anything

“With the real actors and mechanisms of inflation hidden from public view by language, those who truly fuel it are free to carry on the same policies in relative obscurity and little-noted infamy.” ~ Laura Williams

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A Tale of Two Statutes

“In the end, Title IX has always had two faces. Either it is a law with content to be respected, or it is a blank slate whose meaning is in the eye of the beholder.” ~ Elizabeth Kaufer Busch

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