With little more than two weeks to go until the midterm elections, it seems increasingly possible that the Democrats, already a big favorite to win control of the House of Representatives, will also take charge of the planet's most elite nursing home, the United States Senate, where the median age is 64 years old. RealClearPolitics' poll aggregator has moved control of "the world's greatest deliberative body" (as its members are grandiosely wont to call it) to "toss up," status and prediction markets are now breaking big toward a blue wave. As of this writing, Kalshi has its Senate odds at 63 percent for the Dems vs. 37 percent for the GOP; Polymarket is at 62 percent vs. 39 percent.

As gratifying as it might be to see unprincipled Trump enablers reduced to minority status after signing off on economy-wrecking tariffs, inhumane immigration detentions, and wars of choice, there's at least one good reason to dread a Democratic majority too: Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts progressive who is spending the run-up to the midterms freaking out over possible consolidation in the condiments business and accusing private equity firms of gutting such shopping-mall favorites as Claire's and Toys R Us. There's every reason to believe that a Senate run by Warren and other economic interventionists will waste time, money, and resources trying to prevent a world in which, per the X wag Iowahawkblog, "a panopticon conglomerate owns two brands of hot sauce."

On October 13, Warren posted this dire warning to X:

Hellmann's mayo
McCormick spices
Cholula hot sauce
Frank's RedHot

What do these products have in common? One company could soon control them all.

I have concerns that McCormick and Unilever's $45 billion merger could increase YOUR grocery prices.

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 13, 2026

It's hard to think of a more competitive and varied market than the one for hot sauces, which is expected to more than double over the next decade. The barriers to entry are generally low, as are the key ingredients, and new entrants can easily market and sell online, avoiding the costs of buying shelf space in conventional supermarkets. Yet Warren is urging regulators at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to halt mergers of both product makers like McCormick and Unilever and grocery stores like Kroger and Giant Eagle.

The latter complaint is particularly picayune. Kroger is one of the country's largest supermarket chains, operating around 2,800 stores under its own name as well as Harris Teeter, Ralph's, and others. Giant Eagle operates about 170 stores. This merger is no more the stuff of nightmares than a single company producing both Cholula and Frank's RedHot. If Warren gains more clout from being in the majority, expect her to butt in more and more on such mergers.

Making it harder for businesses to adapt is not a recipe for making goods and services more affordable. But Warren is keen to blame economic creative destruction not on "new forms of industrial organization that capitalist enterprise creates" (as Joseph Schumpeter would have it), but on pure greed. In a TikTok released earlier this month, she shows a poster board with corporate logos from once-thriving companies that she says have been "gutted" by "private equity" firms.

"Here's your local mall," she piously intones. "Now, private equity wants you to believe that Red Lobster went bankrupt because of their endless shrimp….They want you to believe that Claire's went bankrupt because teens stopped shopping at the mall." In Warren's telling, private equity firms magically take over thriving businesses and then strip them bare. The typical pattern is that private equity enters the picture after a business is failing.

Virtually all accounts of the decline of, for example, Red Lobster, note that the chain had been spiraling for several reasons before the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital got involved in 2014. As this CNN article notes, the chain, which started in 1968, had seen drops in sales as customer desires changed. Management compounded the difficulties with a series of bad decisions, including continuing various all-you-can-eat menu specials, before coming out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

Similarly, it's true that some teens still go to malls and get their ears pierced at Claire's. But anyone who has spent time in retail America over the past few decades knows that malls are no longer the destination that they once were. As CapitalOne Shopping Research documents, "in 1986, there were 25,000 malls, large and small, nationwide." By 2023, that number had shrunk to just 1,200. While some malls are coming back, most are not, and for reasons that have nothing to do with private equity. Online retails plays a role (though a smaller one than usually imagined, with e-commerce accounting for less than 20 percent of all retail sales). But mostly, it's that people today tend to want a different sort of retail environment. Anchor stores—think Macy's and J.C. Penney—are shadows of themselves, and younger people have less unstructured time in which to prowl food courts and arcades.

For politicians like Elizabeth Warren, though, there can be no financial gains or losses that aren't the result of shadowy, conspiratorial forces. If her party takes control of the Senate, her words will carry more weight. But it will be American consumers that ultimately shoulder the burden of an even-more-regulated economy. The market for hot sauces will almost certainly stay spicy, but many other parts will surely suffer.

The post Be Prepared for Elizabeth Warren's Reign of Economic Error appeared first on Reason Magazine.

In recent years, one of the predominant policy initiatives of the progressive left has been raising the minimum wage in locales around the country. At the same time, left-leaning politicians have sought the elimination of what's known as the tip credit, which allows employers to pay restaurant servers and other tipped employees a lower hourly base wage that they then bolster with gratuities.

Just a few years into this experiment, however, policymakers are showing signs of an about-face on the tip credit's abolition as they grapple with the unfortunate, and predictable, economic results.

In 2022, Washington, D.C., made news headlines when voters passed Initiative 82. As originally designed, it would have repealed the tip credit and required servers to be paid the District's full statutory minimum wage by 2027. (D.C.'s minimum wage was $16.10 per hour in 2022, but has since risen to $18.40 due to inflation indexation.) Prior to Initiative 82, D.C. servers could be paid a $5.35 tipped wage, so long as they earned enough tips to make up the difference between the lower tipped wage and the higher traditional minimum wage.

D.C.'s Initiative 82 was just the beginning. One Fair Wage, a progressive group that lobbies against subminimum wages, quarterbacked an all-out push to eliminate the tip credit in jurisdictions across America. Chicago became the second prominent city to follow suit. States like New York, Connecticut, and Illinois also quickly saw legislation introduced to eliminate the tip credit at a statewide level. (Apart from this recent wave, a small handful of American states—including California, Oregon, and Alaska—have long operated without a tip credit).

But just when it seemed like momentum against the tip credit had reached its apex, progressive politicians started to see the writing on the wall. In the aftermath of the tip credit's repeal, D.C. saw a close to 5 percent decline in full-service restaurant jobs. Tipped worker earnings also dropped by just under $12 million—likely a result, at least in part, of restaurants reducing hours for staff in the face of higher labor costs. At the same time, many D.C. restaurants began implementing service fees or so-called auto-gratuity policies that added mandatory 10-20 percent charges onto customers' bills.

Mugged by this economic reality, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called for the full repeal of Initiative 82. Ultimately, the D.C. Council settled for a partial repeal in 2025, maintaining at least some semblance of a tipped wage that sits below the traditional minimum wage into the years ahead (although the tipped wage eventually rises to 75 percent of the traditional wage by 2034). This was a familiar story: The council had previously repealed Initiative 77, a near-identical attempt to abolish the tipped wage that voters passed in 2018.

After Chicago moved to eliminate the tip credit, the Illinois Restaurant Association found that 89 percent of Windy City restaurants raised menu prices; another 79 percent responded by reducing worker hours. Again bowing to economic reality, the progressive Chicago City Council voted to freeze the tip credit's planned elimination, only to see the effort vetoed by Mayor Brandon Johnson. Eventually, a compromise was brokered to at least pause the tip credit at its current level for two years—which punts the issue until after Johnson stands for election again, allowing a potential successor to endorse a more lasting reversal.

In Michigan, a 2024 state supreme court ruling set the tip credit on the path toward elimination by 2030. But state lawmakers intervened last year, deciding to maintain a 50 percent tip credit in perpetuity after 2031. Notably, Michigan is currently governed by a Democratic trifecta in the governorship and both houses of the Legislature. The tip credit's revival garnered key support from Republican lawmakers to pass in a bipartisan fashion, before being signed into law by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

While progressive efforts to eliminate the tip credit may be motivated by an earnest desire to ensure waiters are paid more, the math isn't that simple. Requiring a server to be paid a $16 traditional minimum wage—up from a $5 tipped wage—might appear to raise their pay on paper. But this fails to consider several important factors.

Under our "No Taxes on Tips" new normal, raising the minimum wage for servers could lead to a partial reduction in tips, which under certain scenarios can result in less take-home pay for waiters once the taxman takes his cut. If more server earnings come in the form of "auto-gratuity" policies—which are treated as taxed wages under the law—then the tax repercussions may grow even grimmer.

But more broadly, these laws attempt to subvert basic economics. As of 2025, Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that D.C. restaurants shed over 1,600 jobs in aftermath of Initiative 82; meanwhile, between 2022 and 2025, restaurant job growth in the District declined by more than 8 percent. This is just one example. The fallout is the inevitable result of restaurants responding to labor costs that suddenly skyrocket, forcing establishments to cut worker hours and sometimes transition to quick-service models that require less hourly staff. And that's to say nothing of the diners who bear the cost with higher prices and new service fees.

"We're watching a beloved bar back, a beloved busser, a dishwasher have their jobs taken away," D.C. restaurant worker Valerie Graham told Reason in 2024. "Not because our owner-operator is an evil billionaire but because they're an independent business owner who had to make some business decisions and there's a callousness with which our industry is talked about."

To be sure, the tip credit has only survived in modified and reduced form in D.C., Chicago, and Michigan—and in the case of Chicago, the about-face is only temporary. But the partial reversals show the tip credit's elimination is not a foregone conclusion. Economic reality continues to rear its head.

The post Some Progressives Tried To Abolish the Tipped Minimum Wage. Now They're Backtracking. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

This week, the Trump administration announced it's expanding its stake in semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries. This brings the government's share of the company to over $2 billion, according to President Donald Trump, and it's only one of roughly three dozen companies in which this White House has acquired a piece of the action. This is a disturbing development for Americans who favor free enterprise and don't want the government to control the means of production.

While it may be a while before the opportunity arises to roll back state intervention in the economy, given the drift of both major parties away from faith in the marketplace, the Cato Institute has launched a project to get the process started.

$2 Billion Government Stake in One of 35 Once-Private Firms

"The U.S. Department of Commerce will receive equity in GF of approximately four percent, further enabling the American public to share in GF's growth," GlobalFoundries announced Monday in a press release about a U.S.–Japanese initiative to open two new semiconductor manufacturing facilities.

"This brings our total Investments to 1.63 Billion Dollars, and now, the U.S. Government's stake is worth over 2 Billion Dollars," Trump confirmed on Truth Social.

The announcement's triumphant tone isn't necessarily shared by people who wonder what the government's ownership stake in one company will do to regulation and investment in the industry. Will fully private firms challenging a state-backed player experience an even playing field?

In a July CNBC survey of 1,000 U.S. voters, 49 percent of respondents said it is "not appropriate for the federal government to own a portion of a U.S.-based company." Nineteen percent considered it appropriate, and 32 percent had no opinion.

"Washington's expanding involvement in the businesses it regulates threatens the competition and innovation that underpin American prosperity," warns the Cato Institute's Tad DeHaven on the launch of the Restoring Free Enterprise project. "Our project will examine the consequences of that involvement and chart a path toward getting Washington out of the boardroom."

Restoring Free Enterprise's Government Ownership Dashboard shows the U.S. government owning shares in 35 companies. The recent deal with GlobalFoundries comes on top of an earlier equity stake, giving the government 7 percent ownership of the firm. Other big deals include an 8.4 percent stake in Intel, a claim on 20 percent of distributions above $17.5 billion in Westinghouse, and an arrangement granting the U.S. government the right to appoint a director for U.S. Steel and to veto decisions over matters including investment and production.

Why might this be a problem?

When Government Enters the Market, Competition Is Undermined and Decisions Politicized

In an analysis for the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Sujai Shivakumar, Charles Wessner, and Christina Tutino cautioned that direct government ownership could create "conflicts between the role of the government as an investor in a particular company and its role as a regulator (e.g., regarding export controls) of firms across the wider industry." They added that preferential treatment for state-linked forms could "distort competition, stifle innovation, and potentially lead to monopolies or market concentration in strategic sectors."

"Once government crosses the line into equity ownership, the game changes," agreed economist Vance Ginn in a 2025 piece for the American Institute for Economic Research. "It's no longer about setting fair rules of the road—it's about Washington joining the race as a participant. That undermines competition, politicizes corporate decisions, and exposes taxpayers to risks they never agreed to take."

Basically, when the government gets involved in any industry, it complicates matters for the companies in which shares are held, for competitors who must worry that regulators will put their thumbs on the scale to help favored firms, and for the market in general. Overall, government interference of any sort in market transactions does more harm than good, and direct ownership makes things even worse.

"Federal rate controls, excessive taxes, barriers to restructuring, and rigid labor rules weakened private railroads in the mid-20th century, just as automobiles, buses, trucks, and airlines were intensifying competition," Cato's Chris Edwards points out in a case study for the Restoring Free Enterprise Project. Congress then created Amtrak to maintain the passenger train service its red tape had helped strangle, but despite plans for the railroad to be self-sufficient, "it has never earned a profit and has received tens of billions of dollars in subsidies."

Proposals for Reform, but Is Anybody in D.C. Interested?

The project acknowledges the Trump administration's intention to encourage U.S. manufacturing and to meet strategic defense goals. But it points out that private, profit-seeking firms are what made the U.S. prosperous and dominant in so many fields to begin with. The government should get out of the way of the market if it wants the country to continue to thrive.

As alternatives to state ownership of companies, Restoring Free Enterprise proposes permitting and regulatory reforms that "shorten reviews, remove unnecessary requirements, reform the Jones Act, and recognize out-of-state licenses" for workers. The project also recommends free trade agreements that reduce barriers to international commerce, the removal of export and procurement barriers, tax reforms involving expensing, and immigration reforms that simplify processing and make it easier for foreign-born college graduates to remain in the U.S.

The obstacles to implementing these reforms are substantial. The administration, while criticizing the Democratic Party's growing affection for socialism, itself embraces government ownership of companies, mercantilism, and heavy state intervention in economic decisions and activities. The Democratic Party has long been less market-oriented than the Republicans, and despite the GOP's transformation, a growing share of Democrats are openly socialist advocates for state control.

"American political leaders on the left and right are rebelling against the market-first consensus that dominated Washington for four decades," concluded Axios's Courtenay Brown and Neil Irwin in July. "It's evident in everything from the Trump administration taking government stakes in dozens of private companies to socialist candidates winning Democratic primaries promising a more active government role in the economy."

U.S. politicians are happily adopting damaging policies that are at odds with the country's prosperity-building tradition of free markets. The Restoring Free Enterprise project would reverse that unfortunate trend, but it's not obvious that many people in D.C. are interested in joining the fight.

The post As D.C. Embraces State Economic Control, a Hopeful Project Seeks to Restore Free Enterprise appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Pretty Woman is the best romantic comedy of all time. In it, the actress Julia Roberts plays Vivian, a Los Angeles prostitute who stumbles into a weeklong escort gig for a well-to-do businessman. This requires a new wardrobe, ideally something where her legs are covered less by thigh-high boots and more by, well, actual clothes. Upon entering a shop on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, it is quickly apparent she is not welcome.

She later returns—this time looking less hooker with a heart of gold, more polo match—to deliver one of the more legendary lines in movie history. "Big mistake," she tells the saleswoman who spurned her, flexing her shopping bags full of spoils. "Big. HUGE!"

Life imitates art; art imitates life. Accordingly, we now have a new Vivian, updated for the 21st century: an American Idol winner shopping not for Chanel and Valentino but for a yellow animatronic bird (naturally). This not being 1990, she also has social media.

"Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn't afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me," the singer Kelly Clarkson wrote on X. "Wow, dude. You're an idiot and just lost a huge sale. But y'all should go check out Art of Play in Brooklyn if you enjoy being treated like Julia Roberts [sic] character in Pretty Woman."

Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn't afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me. Wow, dude. You're an idiot and just lost a…

— Kelly Clarkson (@kellyclarkson) October 10, 2026

As of this writing, that post has been seen about 44 million times. It has inspired a news cycle, a public response from Art of Play, a counter-response from Clarkson, a counter-counter-response from Art of Play, and a lot of negative online reviews from people who have probably never been. It is a stark example of how Vivians of times past have been brought into the present. A comeuppance moment—"Big mistake!"—in response to an unpleasant experience with an allegedly rude employee can now become a national story that puts a small business in the crosshairs or the limelight, depending on whom you ask.

Some additional details, for your edification: The store noted that Clarkson wanted "Molly," that crooning fowl, which "is permanently attached to the wall and isn't for sale." Drat. Clarkson: "So the whole conversation we had when I asked you if it was for sale whilst pointing to the price tag hanging on the wall with the title Singing Bird didn't happen as you elevator eyed me saying in a condescending tone 'yes, it's for sale but it costs 15,000 dollars so if you'd like me to find something comparable for you I can.' That all never happened and now it's not for sale."

Now we're really cooking. The store: "We explained that while Molly is permanently attached to the wall and serves as a de facto mascot for our shop, a nearly identical automaton is owned by the creator of the machines, a brilliant artist named Bliss Kolb who lives in Seattle. He told us he would be willing to part with Molly's twin for $15,000." Art of Play also said it "explained all of this to Kelly Clarkson" and "offered to show her a different singing bird automaton…that she could have taken home with her that day" for the low, low price of $2,000. A steal. But, alas, "She did not stick around long enough to see it."

So we have overlapping but ultimately divergent accounts of this era-defining, avian warfare, which was almost certainly captured by a camera on the ceiling. Curious.

Let us acknowledge a few things. For one: How iconic is it that Clarkson prefaced her beef with the fact that she "drove all the way to Brooklyn," likely from Manhattan (where she keeps an apartment), as if she had just crossed the Darién Gap? We're talking approximately 35 minutes from Central Park to Cobble Hill. There is a storied history of extreme melodrama in great American cities when traversing neighborhood boundaries—try convincing an Angeleno to leave West Hollywood for lunch in Koreatown. Clarkson is truly an American idol.

For two: Why are we as a nation litigating a pop star's journey to buy a warbling robot? I now know as much about the origin story of Molly—the bird that broke America—as I do my sister's, who shares the same name. (It's a good name.) I will give Clarkson the benefit of the doubt that this employee may have been less than bubbly. It is Brooklyn, after all, where icy customer service from women with very short bangs and vocal fry is sometimes seen as an asset. But did we really need to mobilize millions of people against a random toy store because of an unfortunate five-minute exchange? Could Clarkson not have left a Google review? (Speaking of those, the fakes have been steadily disappearing, although a new evaluation from "Baba Baka" instructs users not to patronize the store because the owner "called me slurs." I have my doubts.)

What made Vivian's moment on Rodeo Drive so captivating? It was personal. She marches into the store—eyes trained on the elitist clerk with the braided updo, the short bangs of the late '80s and early '90s—and tells it like it is. She does not marshal all of Los Angeles into the store to do it with her.

Clarkson has the right, of course, to say whatever she wants, however she wants. But that does not necessarily make it wise. Her effort legitimately may backfire—despite the avalanche of online hate, Art of Play has gained thousands of social media followers and will likely become a brief destination, even out of morbid fascination. In general, though, unbecoming moments and misunderstandings between individuals do not need to become seismic—and potentially life-ruining—national affairs, as we've seen happen from time to time over the last several years. We can turn back.

Not this time, though. It's too late. The nation has been brought into the discussion, and the nation therefore needs closure. Art of Play is thus cosmically obligated to release security footage of the exchange. Was Clarkson more Vivian Ward or Veruca Salt? ROLL THE TAPES!

The post Release the Kelly Clarkson Tapes appeared first on Reason Magazine.

The Republican congressman who hopes to be the next governor of Michigan has a plan to help American businesses hurt by President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Is he proposing to abolish those tariffs? Hahahaha, oh please. 

Instead, Rep. John James (R–Mich.) has introduced a bill that would use some tariff revenue to offset the economic harm being caused by…the tariffs.

James' proposal, the Tariff Relief for American Development and Employment Act of 2026, would create a new tariff relief fund to be accessed by American businesses that "demonstrate actual tariff-related economic injury."

"Michigan is disproportionally affected by the trade war, so it's reasonable to use tariff revenue to reduce the effect on Michigan businesses and workers," James said in a statement announcing the legislation.

To qualify for the money, businesses would also have to pledge to maintain existing production and employment levels. The bill instructs the Treasury Department, which would administer the fund, to give priority to businesses with larger numbers of American workers and those that avoid layoffs and boost worker pay.

In other words: Pay the tariffs first, then do a bunch of paperwork and cross your fingers that the bureaucrats at the Treasury decide that you qualify for reimbursement. And in the meantime, don't cut production or lay off workers—things a business might naturally do in response to a new tax burden—or the federal overseers might not favor you.

"You guys remember when Republicans used to criticize Democrats for imposing costly, convoluted taxes and then giving some Americans their own money back?" asks Scott Lincicome, vice president for general economics at the Cato Institute, in response to James' proposal. Indeed.

For that matter, remember when Republicans understood that concentrating more economic decision-making power in Washington wasn't the way to help American businesses? This bill requires businesses to jump through a series of hoops—a process that will add more costs and complexity on top of the tariffs—and creates more incentives for executives to work harder at currying favor in Washington rather than succeeding in the marketplace.

The fact that James is running for governor in Michigan—and trailing in the polls—likely sheds some light on his motivations here.

This does not seem like a bill meant for Congress to seriously consider or pass. In all likelihood, it exists solely so James can tell voters in Michigan that he's trying to ease the pain caused by Trump's tariffs—which are deeply unpopular and increasingly seem to be strangling the GOP's prospects in the midterms.

In Michigan, manufacturing employment has declined since April 2025, when Trump launched his second-term tariffs on what the White House dubbed "Liberation Day." Meanwhile, Michigan households have paid more than $23 billion in tariff-related costs since January 2025, according to a tracker maintained by the National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

By acknowledging that the tariffs are hurting businesses in Michigan, James becomes the latest Republican to openly break with the president over his signature policy. Former congressman Mike Rogers, who is running for Senate in Michigan, has TV ads calling for an end to what he calls the "tariff war."

It is good that Republicans are finally admitting the reality of the tariffs. Study after study has shown that the import taxes are imposing costs on American businesses and consumers. Last week, the New York Federal Reserve concluded that the average price of 67 common household goods would have fallen over the past year, if not for the tariffs. Instead, those prices increased by about 3 percent.

Fixing that requires repealing Trump's tariffs, rather than constructing a new labyrinthine process for funneling some of the tariff money back to certain businesses.

James' bill is a deeply silly proposal, but there's also something quite pathetic about this. James is, after all, a member of Congress. You know, the branch of government that the U.S. Constitution vests with control over trade and tariffs. You don't need to build a bureaucratic Rube Goldberg machine to "reduce the effect [of tariffs] on Michigan businesses and workers."

You just have to do your constitutionally appointed job and tell the president that he can't unilaterally raise taxes on Americans whenever the mood strikes.

The post Michigan Congressman Proposes Using Tariff Revenue for Tariff Relief Fund appeared first on Reason Magazine.