Economics in One Cold, Creamy Lesson

The Salem News, my hometown paper since it swallowed the once-good Beverly Times (former home of Ben Bradlee and Joe Klein and, less notably, me during my high-school newspaper days), has a mindblowingly cool article on some above- and below-the-board tactics employed by two ice-cream vendors in Peabody, Ma., where I spent my first three years of life.

It's a great quickie read that involves broader issues of competition, rent seeking and regulation, and ends on this note:

The ice cream truck season ends later this month, and the children have managed to come out the winners, at least with their spare change. The competition has created lowered ice cream prices.

Whole thing here.

[Cross-posted at The Agitator.]