Which of his points do you disagree with?

After 35 years in prison, Charlie Vaughn is free Vaughn, an Arkansas man with a severe intellectual disability, spent decades in prison for a murder he did not commit. He was finally released on Friday.

I promised you some good news after a bleak week.

Here it is. This is one of the most wrenching wrongful convictions I've ever written about.

It is wonderful to see Charlie out and off to his new home.

radleybalko.substack.com/p/after-35-y...

Why the NYC congestion pricing plan is bad - Marginal REVOLUTION I am seeing some critical comments on my latest column, mostly from people who are not reading it through, or in some cases they are making basic mistakes in economics.  Let me start with part of my c...

He opposed the particular plan, not congestion pricing generally:

marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevo...

Wow

UPDATED: Tariffs “Funded” Everything in 2025—Will the Fantasy Continue in 2026? 2026 will almost certainly bring more (fantastical) proposals for funding new federal programs and policies through tariff revenue.

"UPDATED: Tariffs “Funded” Everything in 2025—Will the Fantasy Continue in 2026?"

ANSWER: YES www.cato.org/blog/tariffs...

University to Pay $500,000 to Professor It Fired Over Charlie Kirk Post

Austin Peay State University in Tennessee also reinstated Darren Michael, a tenured acting professor whose post about Charlie Kirk’s killing inflamed conservatives. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/u...

A heck of a chart: in every single one of the 10 major US cities that built the most housing between 2017 and 2023, rents for older, existing units fell—often by quite a bit.

REALLY important to note homicide has dropped sharply all OVER the place, in places that have a lot of diff policing tactics.

That doesn’t mean that what the NYPD did was irrelevant, but also def means that you can’t simply say “we did x, then crime fell,” bc a lot of not-xs saw similar drops.

Turning Point finally found the voter fraud they have been searching for

Trump goes full socialism:

"that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!"

Contrast with Afghanistan: a clear failure, as liberal democracy (what little they had) collapsed after the occupation ended

Mission accomplished? Iraq is more of a liberal democratic state than it was before the US invasion

To better days ahead, hopefully

Still waiting on final data for some cities, but murder fell a lot in in 2025 in the 30 cities with the most murders in 2024. Down 19.2% in those cities, down 19.7% counting just the 24 cities with data through at least mid-December.

I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.

Your Fridge Is Bigger and Cheaper Today, Thanks to Global Trade and Innovation

www.cato.org/blog/fridge-...

The Poverty Line is Not $140,000 A recent essay by Michael W. Green makes a very bold claim that the poverty line should not be where it is currently set — about $31,200 for a family of four — but should be much higher…

A recent essay claims the poverty line for a family of four should be $140,000. I disagree:

economistwritingeveryday.com/2025/11/26/t...

People have been saying "past immigration was good, but immigrants today aren't the same" for a very long time. For example, this is from Grover Cleveland's veto of a 1897 bill that would have imposed a literacy test on new immigrants:

www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/ve...

Crime is one campaign issue where Trump is just barely treading water

These were Trump's major campaign issues

The increase in life expectancy is not solely a function of reduced child mortality. Life expectancy at age 15 has also increased dramatically in the past 100-200 years.

Not Everything You Dislike Is a "Negative Externality" Not everything that annoys us or seems inefficient is a negative externality, yet policymakers often misuse this concept to justify costly and misguided interventions.

I am now writing occasionally for Cato as an adjunct scholar. Here is my first blog post, on the misuse of negative externalities:

www.cato.org/blog/not-eve...

A parking lot turns into 75 homes over shops in Sacramento. (2017➡️2020)

Thanks Walter, I am excited!

Leip's Atlas seems to be the most complete count: uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/nati...

As a % of the voting eligible population, this is about 63.5% turnout. Other than 2020, that's the highest since 1960 (63.8%), and the 3rd highest since 1908

election.lab.ufl.edu/national-tur...

Remember "20 million missing votes" in the days after the election?

Now that most ballots have been counted, there were about 3 million fewer votes in 2024 than 2020: 155.5 vs 158.6 million

That's notable, but 2024 still has one of the highest turnout rates in 100 years

He shared it on Facebook and X

Here's a post that I wrote on the changing composition of spending

economistwritingeveryday.com/2023/11/22/l...

Has economic progress stopped since 1971? No. Most goods and services are more affordable for the average worker today than 1971. Housing is a notable and important exception

economistwritingeveryday.com/2024/12/04/t...

People have long complained about the rising cost of food. And in the 1970s families were well within their rights to complain: grocery prices indeed rose much faster than wages!

Contrast that with the most recent decade...