Trevor Kraus

What I Learned: LibertyCon International, 2025

February 19, 2025

Economics

As a way to empty out my notebook after SFL events, these What I Learned columns have become a favorite tradition of mine. And since this is LEARN Liberty, after all … let’s go. I learned what a Venezuelan 100-Bolivar bill looks and feels like. It was given out as a tangible reminder of the damage inflicted by central banks and governments because, as I also learned, we could afford to hand them out like candy: 100 Venezuelan Bolivares are worth about $1.60. I learned what the World’s Smallest Political Quiz is, and where I land on the triangular chart that lists left, right, statist,

Roundtable: Should National Banks Hold Bitcoin as Reserves?

February 11, 2025

Blockchain

Governor of the Czech National Bank Ales Michl recently suggested that the CNB might consider including Bitcoin in its reserves. Is this a good idea? Should the CNB invest in this digital asset? Five Students For Liberty volunteers from Czechia weighed in. Filip Blaha The CNB's main and most important function is to ensure price and financial stability, as mandated by law. Unfortunately, it has failed to fulfill this mandate in recent years. Let us be clear, however, that the establishment of Bitcoin reserves would not contribute in any way to the fulfillment of this mandate. Nor will

Quick Take on the 2024 Presidential Election

November 7, 2024

Election

Trump won, Kamala lost, and you can read the analysis anywhere you look on the internet. One detail I can add, however: Let’s call it the Ghost of Election Nights past … memories of 2004 and 2008, in particular. I watched the coverage as a supporter of Barack Obama, although I wasn’t old enough to have voted for him. I so clearly remember hearing the pundits say that more Latinos were coming to America every year, and they tend to vote Democrat, so Obama’s wins were just the beginning of a dynasty for Democrats. I was thrilled! Democrats were destiny. As it turns out, though, you

Would Trump Really Demolish the Deep State?

October 18, 2024

Civil Liberties

Donald Trump famously promised to “drain the swamp” upon his election in 2016. And if you’ve ever been to Washington, D.C. in the summer, you know that’s not just a metaphor for the convoluted, bureaucratic political system: D.C. is a literal, humid, marshy swamp! Geography aside, now that the possibility of another Trump administration is looming, federal employees are probably getting nervous. Trump's promises to "demolish the deep state" and target agencies like those enforcing environmental regulations are leading many workers to rethink their futures, from delaying big purchases

Should You Be Able to Pay for Sex?

September 24, 2024

Civil Liberties

Short answer: Yes, you should be able to pay for sex. When two consenting people (a prostitute and her client) agree to a trade (money for sex), and that trade doesn’t immediately, directly, or violently affect a third party, they should be free to make that trade.  By the way, you should also be able to pay for other things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g1huugJPmA Longer answer: People do a lot of things I don’t like. For example, when I see people gambling on sports, it makes me feel like they’re tarnishing the games I love. When I see people smoking, it makes me sad,

Trail of Tears

September 12, 2024

Civil Liberties

The Trail of Tears is the common name for the network of routes the United States Federal government forced the Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw to travel between 1830 and 1850. As the National Park Service map below shows, the trail began largely in Georgia and Tennessee, traverses the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri, and ends in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Trail of Tears map It was the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed by President Andrew Jackson, that formally gave the US Government the power to expel Native Americans from their homes.

Donald Trump, Elon Musk and What It Says about Government

August 22, 2024

Announcement

Donald Trump just told Reuters that he would consider naming Elon Musk to an advisory or cabinet role if he is reelected in November. Although a man like Elon Musk shouldn't work on legislation that directly affects his finances, it happens more often than you might think. Look no further than the story of how the Federal Reserve was created: Essentially, the Rockefellers and Morgans got together and drafted a bill — a bill that directly affected them. (See the full story at the beginning of our video on Everything Wrong with the Fed). In Elon’s case, he holds a $245 billion fortune that

Presidents and Their Wars on the Press

August 15, 2024

Free Press

Sixteen prisoners were recently released from Russian prisons in the biggest exchange deal between Russia and the West since the Cold War, involving seven countries in total. Among them are Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Marine veteran Paul Whelan, Russian-British political activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Russian-American journalist from Radio Free Europe Alsu Kurmasheva. "Now their brutal ordeal is over, and they're free," said President Joe Biden in a speech from the White House State Dining Room, flanked by family members of the released prisoners. But while the “brutal

Ukraine’s Offensive Might Play into Putin’s Hands

August 14, 2024

Peace and Liberty

Ukrainian troops launched a surprise offensive on Aug. 6, crossing the Russian border into the Kursk region before expanding the campaign to the neighboring Belgorod region. It was Ukraine’s army’s most significant incursion into Russian territory since Putin’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.  However, Vladimir Putin is now suggesting this attack is a strategy on Ukraine’s part to strengthen its position for future negotiations. More troubling, he added: “But what kind of negotiations can we even talk about with people who indiscriminately attack civilians, or threaten our

What Can One Do?

August 7, 2024

Artistic Freedom

Thoughts on life from around the world The last pick in the final round of the yearly NFL Draft has long been known as “Mr. Irrelevant” because it’s so unlikely he’ll ever make an impact on an NFL field. But the league’s dominance in the sports media landscape means that anything about the NFL gets clicks. That, plus the surprising success of one recent Mr. Irrelevant — Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers — have led to an interesting dynamic: With so many annual stories about the last pick in the draft, it’s now the second-to-last pick who’s truly irrelevant. Second-to-last

What I Learned in Nairobi

August 6, 2024

Civil Liberties

I spent a week in Nairobi, Kenya, covering the latest Prometheus Fellowship retreat. This blog being Learn Liberty and all, I thought I’d write about what I learned. I learned that all the signs in Kenya, as well as official political documents, are in English, but that most people speak a mixture of English, Swahili, and the local dialect. And I learned that this is known as Sheng, something akin to ‘Spanglish.’ I learned that trash cans are almost impossible to find in Kenyan hotels, but that the pens they provide write like a dream. I learned how João Menezes articulated Ayn

The Ambulance Ride of His Life

July 30, 2024

Civil Liberties

How One Student Defied the Bangladeshi Government, Snuck Out of the Country, and Has 9 Cups of Noodles to Show for It Have you ever wanted to ride in an ambulance … for more than 5 hours? I mean gone out of your way, done everything in your power to lie on that gurney in the back. Have you ever wanted to sit on death’s doorstep — or pretend to — in the middle of the night, beneath the blaring sirens, surrounded by flashing lights? Would you ever pay big bucks to do it, and consider it not only a privilege, but a mission? Rashid Shahriar did. He had a conference to get to, and nothing

Foreign Agents Bill in Georgia: What to Know and Why It Matters

May 16, 2024

Civil Liberties

I was wearing sandals. I was wearing sandals … and I was scared. That’s why, when I had the chance to protest in front of the Georgian parliament one night in Tbilisi, I didn’t go. Because … What if I had to run? Now, I’m regretting it. I think. On Tuesday, May 14, 2024, 84 members of Georgia’s parliament voted to pass a bill that will require organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from foreign sources to declare themselves as such. Only 30 members voted against it. The terminology is a tell: As I learned from the safety of a hotel bar about a mile from

An American at LibertyCon Europe: What I Learned

May 9, 2024

Civil Liberties

You won’t believe how much this here dumb American, pictured above, learned as one of the MCs at LibertyCon Europe, from April 19-21, 2024.  In no particular order: I learned that Local Coordinator Jack Hare is a tall, mustachioed Brit who always wears a brown blazer, whom some of his friends call the Ron Swanson of Students For Liberty. And I learned that he rides a government-funded bus in his hometown of Brighton, that it’s usually empty except for him, and that the absurdity of this situation is one of the reasons he wants to fight the local aldermen. I learned not to eat

Searching for the Heart of LibertyCon Europe: A Recap

Education

If, after a long flight, you stepped wearily off the plane and squinted into the sun; if, bone-tired, you slogged through the empty airport concourse; if you then wondered whether you were in the right place at all, whether the pilot had made some horrible mistake, or whether you had in coming, your doubt and that fatigue should have dissipated as soon as you emerged from passport control. That’s where you saw the ad for “the leading investment bank in Georgia.” Galt & Taggart. For those who traveled to Tbilisi for the 12th edition of LibertyCon Europe, that sign was the unofficial

How gun control might be seen 100 years from now

June 1, 2023

Civil Liberties

Author’s note: The book Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen was assigned to me during my senior year of high school. I still reflect on its lessons and have found them applicable not just to the past, but, in some cases, to the future. The book analyzes 18 different U.S. history textbooks and is scathing in its assessment. As stated on the back cover: “Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these [text]books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past … From the truth about

Rob Your Neighbor: the philosophy of publicly funded projects

December 19, 2022

Basic Economics

You’ve probably heard of “Rob Your Neighbor.” You might know it as “White Elephant” or another name, but the gist of it is: a family gets together for the holidays and everyone brings a wrapped gift — usually with a limit of, say, $30.  All the gifts are put on a common table, or under the Christmas tree, and each family member draws a number. Number 1 gets to choose first. She chooses the biggest, or shiniest, or most interesting-looking gift, and opens it in front of everyone. Number 2 then has two options: he can either “steal” that gift, or select a new one from the

Why economics is not just graphs and charts

November 29, 2022

Basic Economics

What American universities are doing to economics students is shameful. I can’t speak to universities in other countries, but I’ll bet the same applies in most of them. When I was a freshman in college, for example, I enrolled in a class called Econ 1051. I wasn't interested in economics; it was just a prerequisite for my journalism major, but obviously I still wanted to do well. I still have many of my notes from that class. Here’s the study guide I put together for an exam: I’m pleasantly surprised to see some mention of concepts like division of knowledge/labor, comparative

Western cultural myths about China prevent us from seeing reality

October 1, 2022

Philosophy

One way or another, the “wise, old Chinese man” became one of Western pop culture’s oldest tropes.  I think part of the trope comes from two fictional characters: one is Charlie Chan, whose alliterative name even evokes his heritage; the other, Mr. Miyagi, gave us the memorable tagline “wax on, wax off,” even though he’s actually Japanese. His wisdom and power became associated with Eastern culture. Even the sitcom Seinfeld poked fun at the trope way back in 1994: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es5na8WQLJI I think that trope is a big part of why we in the

How the government is fueling the obesity epidemic

May 31, 2022

Lobbying & Special Interests

Americans are famous for their poor diets. We eat far too much high-fructose corn syrup, overly processed foods, and one of our most iconic corporations, McDonald’s, is the poster-child for junk food. I was no exception as a child. My diet consisted of macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, pizza, ice cream, potato chips, and little else.  And of course, McDonald’s. But, like so many Americans, I didn’t want anything to do with lettuce, pickles, and onions, so I ordered plain cheeseburgers: bun, meat, and cheese; they came with a Coke, naturally.  I was young and

1984 is as relevant as ever in 2022

May 13, 2022

Censorship

There are a few books that almost every American high schooler has to read. Lord of the Flies is one. The Catcher in the Rye seemingly becomes every freshman’s favorite. Then there’s To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, and Huck Finn.  But there’s only one book I was assigned in high school that I go back to again and again: George Orwell’s 1984. I wound up reading 1984 twice more, including once in a foreign language — I remain fascinated by Orwell’s appendix on “Newspeak.” Did it secretly signal a different, more uplifting

Favelas and rental cars: lessons about property rights

April 26, 2022

Basic Economics

My friend and I were road tripping through the Southwestern U.S. and were passing through Utah — the prettiest state in the U.S., if you ask me.  My friend had rented the car instead of using his own. He turned to me and said, “I’ll Venmo you for half.”  “Sure thing,” I replied. “But just out of curiosity, why did you rent a car instead of using yours?” “I don’t wanna put all these miles on mine, man. The rental…we can just beat the crap out of it.” “Fair enough,” I said, but suddenly I was no longer admiring the mountains; my mind was spinning. He

Legends of Liberty: Thomas Sowell

November 11, 2021

Liberty

Last week, we wrote about Frederic Bastiat, the king of communicating economic and philosophical ideas in simple, direct (and often funny) ways. Of course, in the 19th century, Bastiat’s medium was the printed word. But if you had to find an heir to his throne in the social media era, Thomas Sowell would be a leading contender. The only catch is that, having been born in 1930, Sowell isn’t on social media himself. For a lesser writer, economist, and social theorist, that would be a problem. Sowell, however, throughout a career that spans 51 books (including an astonishing eight since