Paying for Population

Late last week, an innovative scheme to attract new residents hit the wires. The city of Cumberland, Maryland, is offering a $10,000 payment if you will just move to their fine city and either buy or build a house there, and up to a further $10,000 in matching grants...

National 711 Day: A Practical Guide

July 11 is National 7-Eleven Day. For the past few years, the chain has been rewarding customers by giving them a free small Slurpee to celebrate. Free sounds good, doesn’t it? But even free comes at a cost. What if you live 20 miles from the nearest 7-Eleven. Is it...

Minimum Wages: Harmful or Helpful?

In modern political discourse, there are often promises to help the working poor by increasing the minimum wage. In California, the recently enacted minimum wage law for fast food workers has been the subject of some discussion. Unlike most minimum wage laws which...

ICSC 2024

By mid-morning on the Tuesday of the annual pilgrimage to ICSC Vegas, my body harshly reminds me that humans were not designed to walk for hours on concrete floors. And by mid-afternoon, driving south on I-15 towards the California state line as if the local sheriff...

The Office Conundrum: A Broader Perspective

In 2017, about 7 million workers (4.4%) did so from home. In 2023, over 17% of the labor force was found working at home, well over 30 million total. Office buildings which were formerly bursting at the seams are now substantially underutilized, and the bean counters...