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I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
— Ulysses S. Grant
Reading Time: 5 minutes 10 seconds
Today is Thursday, August 24th, the 236th day of 2023. There are 129 days left in the year. It is Can Opener Day, Weather Complaint Day, Shooting Star Day, National Knife Day, and National Peach Pie Day.
On This Day
In 1516, the Ottoman Empire under Selim I defeated the Mamluk Sultanate, capturing present-day Syria at the Battle of Marj Dabiq.
In 1682, William Penn received the area that is now the state of Delaware, and added it to his colony of Pennsylvania.
In 1821, the Treaty of Córdoba ended the Mexican War of Independence.
In 1857, the Panic of 1857 began, setting off one of the most severe economic crises in U.S. history.
In 1909, workers began to pour concrete for the Panama Canal.
In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the United States nonstop.
In 1942, the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō was sunk and the USS Enterprise was heavily damaged during the Battle of the Eastern Solomons.
In 1970, Vietnam War protesters bombed Sterling Hall at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union redefined the term “planet,” such that Pluto became relegated to a dwarf planet.
Today’s Birthdays
Pro-wrestling impresario Vince McMahon is 78. Former boxer Gerry Cooney is 67. Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. is 63. Actor Jared Harris is 62. Comedian Dave Chappelle is 50. Actor Rupert Grint is 35.
The Links
Free to Offend Episode 85 | Guest: Dowd Muska, Southwest Public Policy Institute (Nevada Policy)
“I won’t talk about New Mexico and California right now, but most of our states, six of our eight, implement a lot of sound policies. Some better than others, of course.”
Tax Policy Questions That 2024 Presidential Candidates Should Address (Tax Foundation)
“Beyond the TCJA policies, the next president will have to contend with several other critical tax policy issues, including a global tax deal that threatens job opportunities and wages in the United States, an ongoing trade war with billions of dollars in import taxes burdening U.S. consumers, the implementation of a set of new, complex taxes on U.S. businesses from the Inflation Reduction Act, and a resurgence of misguided industrial policy.”
Further Thoughts on Industrial Policy (American Institute for Economic Research)
“Perhaps the most obvious of these fallacies is the failure to ask the economist’s core question: ‘As compared to what?’ Had the government not directed resources away from Smith to Jones for the latter’s better-mousetrap project, these resources would have been used in some other ways. What these other ways are we’ll never know. But the possibility must be admitted that, had he been allowed to keep the money that the government took from him, Smith — either directly or through a financial intermediary — would have used these funds in ways to generate results even more valuable to society than is Jones’s better mousetrap.”
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