This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel. Civitas Institute, located at the University of Texas at Austin,

and I welcome a research fellow at the Civizas Institute, Michael Toth, also with experience of general Counsel many years for corporations and litigation experience,

but right now he's here to convince me, I don't need it, but I'm going to pretend that the state

of Texas is the future for the United States of America. Michael, a very good evening to you.

Your piece entitled, Escape from New York, got my

attention because I spent 50 years of Manhattan. I'm not there now, but I'm well informed

of the troubles of Manhattan. You're quite right to point to a movie in the 20th century that

won a lot of attention at the time, escaped from New York, because we didn't need to imagine that was the future.

We thought it was the present.

New York went through bad patches, and then it went through a really good patch from, say, about Giuliani time, through Bloomberg time, and then it hit the bumps again.

We know that, and they now have a mayor election that's turning on worse or

worser in terms of a future. However, you have a Texas I want to celebrate. First, what is it

about Texas that makes you so successful? Is there a formula, or is it just a lot of good people

accidentally came together?

Good evening to you, Michael.

Good evening to you, too, John.

It is a pleasure to be on with you.

And so glad you saw the piece.

So glad you liked the piece.

To answer a question, Texas is about possibility and it's about supply.

That was really the piece, the point that I made in the piece. You know, as I talked about the mayoral candidate in Newark City, you know, I pointed out that there's been a lot of commentators who say, oh, Mom Don, he doesn't understand supply and demand.

And as I point out in the piece, he understands demand.

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