Tuesday's assorted links

Swiss salt, inflation relief, New Deal, car payments, and bookstores

Hi y’all! Here are the 5 stories from the past week that I really enjoyed:

1. Switzerland has a government-controlled monopoly on salt. Swiss Saltworks AG (owned by the 26 Swiss Cantons and Liechtenstein) has the legal right to produce and import salt into Switzerland.

2. “Inflation relief” money could drive prices even higher [Podcast]

3. A web map of every New Deal project!

4. Monthly car payments have crossed a record $700 [Podcast]

5. Brick-and-mortar bookstores are booming and becoming more diverse

---

Yesterday I wrote about the insulin oligopoly and the way that one state has decided to address that market’s monopolistic behavior:

California Governor: Nothing epitomizes market failures more than the cost of insulin

---

Week 27 is over and I’m up to 28 books for the year. I’m finally back on track for 52, but I usually use the summer to get ahead so that I can slow down some in the Fall. One of the books I finished this past week that I’d like to share was called Arbitrary Lines by M. Gray Nolan. I picked up the book at the end of June after it came out and finished it quickly once I started reading it.

The book looks at some of the arbitrary features of zoning that have resulted in forcing cities into a pattern of growth that is segregated and sprawling. Gray is a professional city planner and is completing his Ph.D. in urban planning at UCLA. He provided a lot of examples from around the country and dedicated a section of the book to Houston’s lack of zoning, which I appreciated a lot.