The number of Americans dining out just hit a new low.

In the early days of the pandemic, restaurants went into survival mode to stay afloat. It may be safe to grab a bite to eat out of the house these days, but with fewer Americans able to afford the luxury of eating out, business is drying up again.

The percentage of Americans who say they dine out at least once a week slid almost 10% between 2022 and 2026, according to a new Gallup poll. In 2019, just prior to the pandemic, more than half of people surveyed reported eating out at a restaurant at least one time per week. By 2021, that percentage dipped 10%, to 43%, before perking up to 47% in 2022. In the 2026 version of the same poll, Gallup found that only 39% of people dine out weekly—fewer than in the first year following the COVID outbreak.

“Weekly dining out fell during the pandemic, partly recovered by 2022, and has since dropped to a new low, with the latest decline concentrated among middle- and upper-income Americans,” Gallup wrote in its new report. The analytics company cited the “cumulative effect of price increases over the past four years” as the main driver that’s keeping people at home.

They aren’t just staying in and ordering takeout, either. The number of Americans who say they get takeout weekly slipped to 31% in 2026, down from 26% in 2022 and 39% in 2021—a strong sign that the affordability crisis is behind the shifting trends. That percentage of Americans ordering takeout in 2026 is now even with what it was pre-pandemic in 2018.

Dining out across income levels

Unsurprisingly, people in different income brackets have different habits when it comes to eating out. Americans in upper-income households dine out much more often than those making less money, an intuitive finding given that higher costs don’t sting nearly as much when you’ve got more financial padding.

Just prior to the pandemic, Gallup found that 40% of people in a lower-income group dined out on a weekly basis, compared with 54% in a middle-income group and 65% in an upper-income group. By 2021, weekly dining rates had dropped across the board, but they began to rise again in 2022—but only for higher-income Americans. Now, weekly dining is sliding again, this time falling for middle- and upper-income adults, with 38% and 48% of people in those categories eating out at least once a week, respectively. For lower-income Americans, the percentage stayed stable at 32%.

“For restaurants, the challenge is less that Americans have stopped eating out than that they are doing so less often,” Gallup wrote in the report. “And with restaurant takeout falling from its pandemic-era high, weekly takeout or delivery does not appear to be making up the difference.”

Food safety worries

The current Gallup survey was conducted in July of this year, drawing on data from a random sample of 1,200 adults across all 50 states. The company does note that its polling coincided with the cyclosporiasis outbreak that had Americans skittish about lettuce this summer, as the food safety scare may have impacted eating habits, too.

The outbreak—traced to iceberg lettuce recalled by food supplier Taylor Farms—officially ended in September, but not before it sickened almost 13,000 people and sent 579 to the hospital. In a separate survey, Gallup found that Americans distrust the federal government on food more than ever, with only 47% feeling confident about food safety protocols.

With more people holed up at home with their groceries, restaurants have been forced to improvise. Some, like fast-casual pillars Noodles & Company and Chipotle, are getting creative with innovative menu items to bring diners back into the fold. Others, like McDonald’s, opted to make fast food feel cheap again with a $5 meal deal. But local restaurants and fine dining options don’t have as much breathing room as their corporate peers, with many folding to a lethal combination of higher ingredient prices and shrinking customer budgets—and little relief in sight.

Fast Company Magazine Staff

The Vatican Secretariat of State told the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage’s chief organizer that their procession is banned from St. Peter’s this year, according to a new report.

The faithful attending this weekend’s Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage will no longer be permitted to enter St. Peter’s Basilica, per a Friday report.

Vatican journalist Diane Montagna, citing Christian Marquant, the pilgrimage’s chief organizer, reported Friday that the Vatican will bar priests, religious, and lay faithful participating in the 15th annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage from entering St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday, Oct. 24, as originally scheduled.

This notably expands restrictions on the traditionalist pilgrimage, as Bishop Athanasius Schneider had already been denied permission to celebrate the October 24 Mass at St. Peter’s, but pilgrims were still scheduled to process into and pray at the ancient basilica on Saturday afternoon.

“Your procession is not allowed to enter into St. Peter’s Basilica,” a letter from the Vatican Secretariat of State said per Marquant.

“We will not enter into St. Peter’s tomorrow,” Marquant read to pilgrims Friday per Montagna, adding that accusations had been made that the 2025 Mass at St. Peter’s  was “instrumentalized.”

This story is developing…

Antonio Cambria, Lifesite News

A 17-year-old McKinney resident has been arrested and charged by the FBI for planning to assassinate U.S. Rep. Keith Self and carry out an allegedly ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in North Texas.

According to reports, the bureau arrested the would-be assassin on October 5 after the individual obtained a firearm. Investigators said they believed the suspect planned the assassination for October 17. The suspect had been monitored by federal agents for some time at that point, and was believed to have been radicalized by online ISIS material.

In a post to X on Wednesday, Self (R–McKinney) expressed his gratitude to the FBI and law enforcement for their role in preventing the threat.

“My family and I are safe,” Self wrote. “And I remain focused on serving the people of Texas’ 3rd District. Preserving our constitutional republic from radical Islam means accepting the costs that come with it—name-calling, threats, and worse.”

“This only strengthens my resolve. I will not back down,” Self added.

Self has been an outspoken opponent of a controversial Islamic Association of McKinney mosque project. At the city council meeting that approved the site plan for the new mosque, Self warned of radical Islam, stating, “Child marriage, honor killings, don’t tell me it can’t happen here.” The comments garnered Self a standing ovation at the meeting.

Additionally, Self, along with U.S. Rep. Chip Roy (R–Austin), launched the Sharia-Free America Caucus in late 2025. The caucus has “sparked conversations throughout Congress and across the country, drawing attention to concerns surrounding Sharia and its incompatibility with the principles enshrined in the United States Constitution.”

Politicians, some from across the aisle, have come forward publicly to express their solidarity with Self in light of the thwarted assassination.

“The FBI stopped this radical Islamic terrorist before he could strike,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, praising the agency. “Radical Islamic terrorism has no place in Texas. We will combat radical Islam in all forms and eliminate every threat it poses.”

Roy posted to X Wednesday in response to news of the suspect’s arrest, saying, “I stand proudly with [Self]. ‘His Truth is Marching On.’”

Democrat nominee Evan Hunt, Self’s midterm opponent in the race for Texas’ 3rd Congressional District, stated in response to the news that “there is no place for violence in our politics. No political disagreement ever justifies threatening someone’s life. Every elected official, their family and their staff deserve to be safe, regardless of party.”

Self and Roy, along with two other Texas congressmen, recently asked U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate several Islamic groups for potential abuse of taxpayer-funded grants and ties to terrorism.

Radical Islam is drawing increasing scrutiny in Texas, with Republican primary voters overwhelmingly voting in favor of a non-binding ballot proposition calling for an end to Sharia law.

Recently, businessman Elon Musk warned of “jihadis” after claiming he had fired Ndiaga Diagne from Tesla for assaulting a woman for stepping on his prayer rug. Diagne was later charged for a mass shooting in Austin. He wore a “Property of Allah” sweatshirt while carrying out the shooting that claimed the lives of three victims.

A representative of the FBI’s Dallas office gave no further comment when asked by Texas Scorecard.

Hunter Burney, Texas Scorecard

Hillsdale College shows how teacher education can thrive without the mandates of state certification and national accreditation.

In 2012, Dr. Daniel Coupland, professor of Education at Hillsdale College, published a Martin Center (then the Pope Center) article entitled “A College Reinvents Teacher Education.” That piece described how Hillsdale’s Education Department resisted the state of Michigan’s mandate that all teacher certification programs in the state be nationally accredited. 

Coupland wrote that following the decision to move away from state certification, Hillsdale’s faculty “began to think about what teacher education could be without the ideological straitjacket (i.e., ‘standards’) from the state.”

A glance at the standards listed on the website of CAEP (the largest national accreditation agency for education programs) shows why that was a sound move. Of its seven standards required for “initial” accreditation, only one is devoted to “content and pedagogical knowledge.” And rather than focusing on actual topics teachers need to know, it involves “facilitat[ing] candidates’ reflection of their personal biases to increase their understanding and practice of equity, diversity, and inclusion.” 

In sum, adherence to the “diversity” agenda is all that matters.

CAEP’s other standards require programs to overcome elaborate bureaucratic obstacles that do little to help teachers to become stewards of knowledge and effective leaders of the young. 

Hillsdale faculty and administration quickly recognized that this push for national teacher education accreditation represented not only a significant added financial strain for smaller institutions such as Hillsdale, but also a threat to teacher preparation programs that want to follow their institution’s mission and the principles of the liberal arts tradition.

Dr. David Whalen, a professor of English at the college and provost during the period described above, observes that Hillsdale’s transition away from state certification was “like a caterpillar to a butterfly—the elements for the change were there all along. But we decided that we needed to change the way we did things so that it truly comported with our principles.” 

Indeed, Hillsdale College resists (what Whalen terms) “the bureaucracy of experts” that dominates mainstream teacher preparation. Rather, it required future teachers to complete a rich and rigorous core curriculum and to major in an academic subject just like any other student at the college.

Even before leaving state certification behind, Hillsdale did not offer a major in education. Rather, it required future teachers to complete a rich and rigorous core curriculum and to major in an academic subject just like any other student at the college. This broad and deep formation provided by the core was not to be sidelined by an over-emphasis on education courses based on whatever fads were favored by the education establishment.

Free from the education establishment, Hillsdale’s Education Department was able to draw from the college’s mission to develop a deeper and more robust teacher education experience that was grounded in time-tested, historical principles of education. 

The department created a 19-credit-hour minor in Classical Education, which includes a core of four courses plus two electives. 

One required course is English Grammar, which prepares teachers to understand and communicate the structure of language at a deep level, enabling their students to develop clear and polished communication. A common complaint among college professors these days is that their students can scarcely write, but that won’t be a problem with Hillsdale-trained teachers. 

Another core course is Philosophy of Education, which uses classic texts to delve into perennial questions about the nature and purpose of the educational task. 

Examples of electives include Explicit Phonics Reading Instruction, which tackles the nation’s literacy crisis head-on through learning the traditional method of sounding out phonemes; and Classical Pedagogy, in which future teachers learn techniques of classroom leadership rooted in attention to the cultivation of character, respect, and thoughtfulness in students. 

Students who complete the Classical Education minor have contemplated broad, serious, and humane ideas rather than whatever is in vogue according to the education establishment. They are infused with a passion for cultivating the hearts and minds of the next generation instead of preparing young people for social activism. 

It is no wonder that schools that recognize the need for educational reform are so interested in hiring Hillsdale graduates rather than the products of accredited schools of education.

Building on the success of its undergraduate program, Hillsdale College launched the Diana Davis Spencer Graduate School of Classical Education in 2022 and welcomed its first cohort of students in the Master of Arts in Classical Education (MACE) program, a two-year, full-time, residential graduate program. In the summer of 2025, Hillsdale added a second graduate program in classical education specifically designed for practicing educators who want to serve as leaders in the growing classical education movement (Master of Classical Education Leadership, or MCEL). 

Graduates of these programs are equipped not only to teach but also to serve as school leaders, policy advisors, curriculum developers, and other important roles in the renewal of classical K-12 education.Hillsdale has shown that institutions of higher education can meet the needs of those who will do the noble work of educating the next generation of Americans.

What does this mean more generally for teacher preparation in America? Unburdened by the onerous and often unnecessary mandates of the education establishment, Hillsdale has shown that institutions of higher education can meet the needs of those who will do the noble work of educating the next generation of Americans.

Davis C. Smith is a classical Humanities teacher and a 2026 MA graduate of Hillsdale College’s Graduate School of Classical Education.

Here’s one war that should’ve started years ago: Team Trump’s drive to stamp out fraud is still ramping up, but is already saving the public billions.

This week alone, federal, state and local authorities conducted a string of fresh raids and made arrests, including in New York and California, as part of a nationwide crackdown on Medicaid fraud.

Homeland Security also launched a massive operation to snare illegal immigrants who fraudulently stole $40 million in food stamps, bringing the total in food-stamp fraud ID’d so far to $641 million.

The feds have also destroyed more than 2,200 illegal merchant SNAP devices and disabled more than 2,000 retailer authorization numbers, heading off an estimated $5 billion in potential fraudulent transactions, Fox New reported.

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s sweep in Gotham alone saw more than 80 adult-day-care centers hit in Brooklyn and Queens.

And in Staten Island, prosecutors arrested two operators for $530,000 in billings for hundreds of phantom seniors.

All this follows the epic fraud scheme uncovered last year in Minnesota, where billions are said to have vanished.

One day-care center there alone, made famous by its misspelled name, the “Quality Learing Center,” was caught collecting millions for nonexistent kids.

Last month, a LexisNexis Risk Solutions study put the true cost of food-stamp fraud — including the costs of uncovering it — at more than four times the amount of the theft itself.

The company’s Haywood Talcove says such fraud is now running at “a trillion dollars a year.” Ouch.

The people stealing the funds, he warns, are “real criminal groups doing real damage to our democracy.”

One key problem: While Washington picks up much of the tab for welfare programs, states administer them — so don’t much care about waste or theft.

That’s especially true in blue states, where pols view the growing ranks on the dole as a plus.

In Minnesota, a report found Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison not only turned a blind eye to the thefts, they actually “retaliated against employees who tried to raise concerns.”

In New York, which spends more on Medicaid than any other state, Attorney General Letitia James’ Medicaid Fraud Control Unit has the worst prosecution record in the country.

Fortunately, President Donald Trump’s crackdown, under the leadership of Vice President JD Vance, will send an unmistakable message to the scammers: The jig’s up.

Trump is even offering $30,000 bounties (plus 1% of funds recovered) for tips leading to fraud indictments.

By nabbing current fraudsters and frustrating future ones, this war on fraud should keep paying off for generations — as long as Democrats don’t quietly undo the good work.

For now, it’s hats off to Trump, Vance and the rest: At last, someone is fighting for taxpayers.

New York Post

France’s collapse will create a red, Republican wave? I doubt it will help. The ignorance and cognitive chaos in average Americans when it comes to politics, ethics and economics are worse than anyone realizes. The people voting Democrat are thinking (if you can call it thinking): “Affordability good. Cannot afford anything, even though I continue to buy everything. Trump’s fault. Trump must go. Democrats not Trump. Therefore, Democrats make things affordable.” And then there are the marginal issues like transgender children and the like, but mainly this is how you get Independents who voted Trump in 2024 swinging to openly socialist, even Communist Democrats just two years later. They don’t focus on Democrats having gone Communist and probably don’t care. They just want affordability. “Affordability good.”

It’s a contradiction, by the way, to say you cannot afford things which you continue to buy in the same or even greater quantity than before (evidenced by the fact we are not in a depression or recession). Prices only go up when supply (despite the incentive of profit) cannot keep up with demand. The best and ONLY way to more affordability is get government out of the way. Reduce or eliminate taxes — especially for the wealthiest because they invest and spend the most, and are paying most of the taxes already. And massively cut or eliminate regulations, way beyond anything DOGE started. Government agencies have become politicized and weaponized against American citizens. The federal government should focus on defense, border control and assisting Medicare and Social Security (both going bankrupt within a decade) on the road to gradual privatization. To be fair, Republicans have focused on defense and borders, but nothing else. Trump can only do so much.

Democrats propose the polar, 180 degree opposite of everything I just wrote. Everything they want is wrong; absolutely everything. They mean it. They will torch America if they get away with it, and IF they win in both 2026 and 2028 they will torch America. For good, this time. Neither election has yet occurred, and we will soon know where we’re headed.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The reported DSA-linked planning treats the Insurrection Act as a trap that works only if Trump walks into it on their timetable and terms.

Over on X, DataRepublican’s reporting on documents and recordings from the Democratic Socialists of America and allied networks lays out a calculated strategy for the run-up to the 2028 elections. The goal is sustained mass violence and street clashes designed to push President Donald Trump into invoking the Insurrection Act. Once invoked, Democratic governors and progressive organizations would treat the order itself as evidence of “fascism” and a reason to undermine federal authority.

Groups including the United Democracy Alliance, invoking Erica Chenoweth’s 3.5 percent rule, appear ready to coordinate the street actions, legal support, and media framing. Neville Roy Singham, operating from Shanghai and connected to the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, is positioned to amplify the disruption from abroad.

The plan assumes Trump will choose immediate order over patience, and hand his opponents the optics they have prepared. Whether that assumption holds depends on the costs of each path.

Policing power in America is overwhelmingly local. The FBI fields about 13,700 special agents nationwide. The New York Police Department alone has more than 34,700 sworn officers. A president can protect federal property, personnel, and functions without becoming the default response for every city whose leaders have weakened policing and tolerated disorder. Broader federal action is also available. Both options carry consequences, and progressive networks are organized to contest either one.

One set of costs is political. Invoking the Insurrection Act and placing federalized National Guard or active-duty forces in law-enforcement roles inside Democratic cities would supply the “fascism” narrative. Local Democratic officials who have criticized aggressive policing and treated destructive unrest as legitimate expression would likely resist or litigate the deployment. That resistance would become part of the story.

The 1992 Los Angeles riots illustrate a different situation. After the Rodney King verdict, the LAPD initially pulled back. Democratic Mayor Tom Bradley requested help. Republican Gov. Pete Wilson activated the California National Guard. President George H.W. Bush then invoked the Insurrection Act. I was a National Guard captain then, leading patrols with live ammunition in the Crenshaw district. Residents thanked us. Visible force restored order with relatively few rounds fired. The local, state, and federal-level agreement mattered. But today’s Democratic mayors and governors are more likely to oppose federal assistance in restoring order, turning the deployment itself, not the violence, into the central political fact.

The alternative — limiting federal action to clear federal interests and leaving local order to the officials voters elected — also has costs. Residents of Democratic cities and states would live with the results of reduced policing capacity, progressive prosecutors, and a political culture that has treated sustained disorder as expression. Burning businesses, looting, and overstretched local police would be visible realities. That visibility could accelerate the ongoing migration of residents and businesses toward states that prioritize public safety.

Those effects are not cost-free. Destroyed property, disrupted commerce, injured officers and civilians, and longer-term damage to major cities affect people who did not vote for the governing approach, workers who commute in, and markets that still depend on those cities. Progressive media and political groups would work to reframe the disorder as the product of federal non-intervention or systemic factors rather than local choices.

Recent unrest in France offers a different kind of parallel. Cost-of-living protests were joined by organized groups that torched buildings, looted shops, and injured officers. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez later said police “lost control” in major cities despite large deployments. European governments have often hesitated to apply sustained force when violence can be framed as protest. The result has been prolonged disorder followed by recrimination. American leaders watching that record face a version of the same tension — how much disorder to accept before the practical price of inaction exceeds the political price of action.

The reported DSA-linked planning treats the Insurrection Act as a trap that works only if Trump walks into it on their timetable and terms. Refusing the invitation does not require ignoring anarchy. Accepting it does not guarantee a clean narrative win. Protecting federal interests while the consequences of progressive local governance stay localized is one coherent approach. Direct intervention to restore order, even against the wishes of the elected officials of the affected jurisdictions, is another. Both carry political, economic, and human costs.

The left’s apparent intent is to force the decision and then contest whichever path is chosen. How much disorder materializes, how local authorities respond or decline to respond, and how voters process the resulting images will shape the outcome. The planning is the warning.

Chuck DeVore, The Federalist

Dracula is a Democrat. He wants. The Democrats want. He is not willing to work to satisfy his wants. The Democrats are not willing to work to satisfy their wants. Dracula feeds off of others to satisfy his wants and to exist. The Democrats feed off of others to satisfy their wants and to exist. Dracula is stealthy so he can be in society and yet take from you without getting a stake through the heart. The Democrats are stealthy so they can be in society and take from you without getting a stake through their hearts. Dracula turns those he feeds off of into his servants. The Democrats turn those they feed off of into their servants. If you hold a mirror up to Dracula, he will screech and run away. If you hold up a mirror to the Democrats, they will screech and run away. Dracula leaves people in a zombie like state or dead. The Democrats leave people in a zombie like state or dead. Dracula will temporarily change into something else to escape tough predicaments. The Democrats will temporarily change into something else to escape tough predicaments. Dracula cannot stand the light of the sun (the truth of who he is).The Democrats cannot stand the light of the sun (the truth of who they are). Dracula uses his victims emotions to entrap them. The Democrats use their victims emotions to entrap them. Dracula shrinks from the sight of The Cross. The Democrats shrink from the sight of The Cross. There is nothing good about Dracula. There is nothing good about the Democrats. You have to drive a wooden stake through Dracula’s heart to be rid of him. Not a man made metal stake, but a God made wooden stake. You must drive a God made stake (you) through the hearts of the Democrats to be rid of them. Vote against them. Refuse to be their slave. Oppose them. Ignore them and they will suck the life out of you and your children and your friends and neighbors. Be strong. The Democrats want to climb out of their coffins.

Blueunicorn6, Muse

French economist Gabriel Zucman has come to California bearing a familiar French solution to a fiscal problem: another tax.

Once based at the University of California, Berkeley, Zucman is back and campaigning for Proposition 40, which would impose an allegedly one-time 5 percent tax on the net worth of Californians worth more than $1 billion. Zucman, who coauthored the proposition, estimates that the tax could raise about $100 billion and claims that 90 percent of the proceeds would go to health care.

The California Legislative Analyst’s office is far more cautious, saying it would raise only “tens of billions” and could cause a long-term loss of income-tax revenue as wealthy people leave the state with the companies they created.

I’ve written plenty about why wealth taxes are economically destructive, administratively nightmarish, and unlikely to achieve anything close to what their advocates promise. But Zucman’s prescription is wrong for a more fundamental reason, as his (and my) native country shows: Raising taxes to fuel ever-larger demands for government spending is a recipe for disaster.

Unless you’ve been living in a remote cave recently, you’ve likely seen all the protests and destruction in France. But do you know why it’s happening?

As another economist, Paul Krugman, rightly noted back in 2017, “France offers a social safety net beyond the wildest dreams of U.S. progressives: guaranteed high-quality health care for all, generous paid leave for new parents, universal pre-K, and much more.”

For decades, France has answered any perceived desire with government spending, then responded to the resulting fiscal problem by seeking new revenue sources. Today, French government spending consumes roughly 58 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Krugman gloated that France wasn’t suffering social collapse and speculated that it was due to all the spending. He certainly can’t say that anymore. In fact, he is now worried that France may be on the precipice of a debt crisis. The truth is that France hasn’t done well for some time, even when Krugman cheered its spending.

One of the groups in the street today, young people, has faced widespread unemployment for a long time. The youth unemployment rate in France (ages 15-24) has hovered between 17 percent and 27 percent since 2000. In the second quarter of 2026, it was 21.6 percent, against 14.8 percent in the Eurozone and 9.9 percent in the U.S.

French people also pay some of the highest taxes in the developed world, and they’re not happy with the return. The government already takes more than 52 percent of the country’s output in revenue, runs deficits exceeding 5 percent of GDP, and has accumulated debt approaching 120 percent of GDP. Nonetheless, French students complain that the government is shortchanging schools, while everyone sees that it is shortchanging its army and police.

The students aren’t wrong to feel left out. At The Two Cents Substack, Hoover Institution scholar Hanno Lustig calculates that, between 1995 and 2024, spending on social protection and health (most of which benefits older people) rose from 53.1 percent to 58.7 percent of all French government spending. The share devoted to education, defense, and public order fell from 15.2 percent to 13.7 percent. Transportation fell from 5.3 percent to 3.8 percent.

In other words, France has built an enormous welfare state, much of it devoted to older citizens, while letting other state capacities and basic services fall apart. As transfers of wealth swallow a larger share of the budget, everything else gets squeezed.

That is the fiscal ratchet Californians should worry about when Zucman tells them Proposition 40 is necessary to “save” health care. Proponents claim Washington “cut” Medicaid, but that language is misleading. California’s deficit started long before any Washington spending reductions. Besides, federal Medicaid spending isn’t falling—not even close. The Congressional Budget Office estimates it will reach $708 billion in 2026, 8 percent more than in 2025. What Washington did in the 2025 budget reconciliation law was reduce Medicaid’s future growth relative to previous projections, partly by changing eligibility and enrollment rules and financing arrangements.

This is how the ratchet works. Once the government projects a spending increase, anything less becomes a cut. And once Washington fails to finance the entire projected increase, Californians are told that Sacramento must backfill the missing money. And how should it do that? Conveniently, by creating an entirely new tax.

France has run this experiment for decades. It has an incredibly generous welfare state paid for with very high taxes; it’s even tried a wealth tax and has a value-added tax, yet somehow it’s never enough. Its welfare state has not eliminated scarcity. It has merely transferred the job of rationing scarce resources to politicians.

Zucman looks at California and sees hundreds of billions of dollars of private wealth waiting to solve a public finance problem. Californians should look across the Atlantic and ask a different question: What happens after politicians decide that every spending adjustment can be delayed until tomorrow by finding another pot of private wealth?

France should not be sending California tax advice. It should be sending a warning.

COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM

Reason Magazine

Oil flows out of the Persian Gulf in October nearly returned to levels seen before the start of the Iran war, but traders remain wary about a fragile recovery.

Total crude exports in the region, or flows coming out of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, recently recovered to within 10% of their previous levels in January and February, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence firm tracking crude oil shipments (see chart below).

Iran exported around 1.5 million barrels of crude oil a day before the war, but that has fallen to zero since the U.S. reimposed its blockade in mid-July. Yet exports from Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, have jumped 10% above their prewar average.

So it’s fair to say that tanker traffic has almost completely normalized, which raises the question: Why this isn’t reflected in lower oil prices?” said Robin Brooks, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.

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Oil prices have surged again in October, with both West Texas Intermediate CL00+2.01% CLZ26+2.01% and Brent crude BRN00-0.17% BRNZ26-0.17% up nearly 10% in the month to date. The Brent contract for December delivery ended nearly flat on Wednesday, at $108.82 a barrel, after hitting its highest level since May just last week, while WTI’s December contract was off 0.7%, to settle at $97.15, according to FactSet data.

Thursday morning, both WTI and Brent futures were rising more than 2%.

“Yes, we are starting to see recovery, but the issue is a large portion of those barrels have to take a more convoluted route,” said Ben McMillan, chief investment officer at IDX Advisors. “You have a lot of oil still going through over-the-ground pipelines, shuttle tankers and even dark-fleet tankers, so there’s still a premium in getting oil out of the Gulf, and there’s an elevated cost to do so because the shipping is not fully resumed,” he told MarketWatch Wednesday.

Indeed, the resumption of more robust oil flows hasn’t been enough to bring oil prices down significantly, as continued attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline have kept the cost of shipping crude elevated. President Donald Trump’s promise not to attack Iran before the midterm elections slightly tempered the rise in crude prices earlier this month, but fears that U.S. military operations could resume after Nov. 3 are still keeping geopolitical risks elevated.

If markets were saturated, that would not be a big problem, but with inventories so thin, even the loss of 5-10 million barrels a week will keep prices elevated,” he told MarketWatch.

U.S. commercial crude-oil inventories fell by 3.1 million barrels for the week ending Oct. 16, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This marked the third consecutive weekly decline, pushing total crude stocks to roughly 412.5 million barrels.

The Middle East can’t seem to go a day without another escalation. On Wednesday afternoon, Reuters reported that the State Department was planning to order the departure of some personnel from U.S. embassies in the Persian Gulf, including the evacuation of all embassy staff and their families from Saudi Arabia, citing U.S. government officials. AFP then reported that a diplomatic source said U.S. embassy staff and their families in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain have been ordered to leave.

Separately, a source at Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Energy said air defenses intercepted a drone that attempted to attack a facility at Saudi Aramco’s 2222-0.70% Shaybah field, according to the Saudi Press Agency.

Still, the recent uptick in oil flows could be just the beginning of the normalization. Michael Hsueh, commodities analyst at Deutsche Bank Research, said further normalization of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz would see the oil market swing into a large surplus, which could eventually bring oil prices down to $74 a barrel next year.

“A negotiated ceasefire leading to broader talks remains the path in our base case of Brent at $74 a barrel in 2027, while an extended war throughout 2027 would suggest Brent moving higher toward $130,” he said in a Wednesday client note. “In the meantime, restored crude-oil flows remain precarious and refinery crack spreads are likely to stay high.”

A crack spread is the difference between the price of one barrel of crude oil and the price of the refined products made from it, such as gasoline or diesel.

Isabel Wang

Isabel Wang is a Markets Reporter for MarketWatch.

Myra P. Saefong

Myra P. Saefong, assistant global markets editor, has covered the commodities sector for MarketWatch since 1998. She has been writing the Commodities Corner column since 2005.