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This skateboarding economist suggests we need more skateparks and less capitalism
A young skateboarder riding in front of the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero in San Francisco California.
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Adam Hester/Getty Images
“The Skateboarding Ethic and the Spirit of Anti-Capitalism.” That was the title of an unusual paper presented at the annual meeting of American economists this year. The title was clearly a reference to a famous 1905 book by German sociologist and economist Max Weber, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. And I really wanted to know what this economist was going to argue, and, even more, who he was.
This year’s economics conference was spread out across hotels around San Francisco’s Union Square. On the first day of the conference, it was raining hard, and I ran from my hotel to another one down the street to see this paper be presented.
Sopping wet, I entered a small, basement conference room before the presentations began. “Is this where the skateboarding paper is being presented?” I asked the room.
Sure enough, a Gen Xer with baggy blue jeans, Vans skate shoes, and a tweed blazer with elbow pads — the only fashion item that screamed “I’m an academic” — stood up and turned around. “Yes, I’m presenting the skateboarding paper here,” he said.
This tweed-jacketed, Vans-wearing man was Thomas Kemp. He’s an economist at The University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. Kemp says he’s been skateboarding for 40 years, and he continues to skate every day he can (it gets harder to skate during Wisconsin’s winters, so Kemp says he snow skates as well).
For a long time, Kemp published pretty standard economic papers. Papers with titles like, “The Impact of Water Clarity on Home Prices in Northwestern Wisconsin” and “Estimation of product price elasticity of demand.”
“When I was a graduate student, I was actually going to write about skateboarding, but I was told ‘that’s not a good idea,’” Kemp says. But Kemp is more established now. In fact, he’s the chair of his economics department, so he’s more willing to ollie onto the topics he’s the most passionate about.
Kemp’s transformation began a few years back, when he discovered the burgeoning academic literature on skateboarding. “I was just blown away, like, ‘Wow, people are doing academic work on skateboarding,’” Kemp says. And that’s when he did his 180 kickflip.
“ I literally dropped everything else I was working on and started writing papers on skateboarding,” Kemp says.
The Value of Skateparks
Kemp has now published a series of economic papers about skateboarding. One paper, recently published in The Journal of Economic Analysis, is titled “Shred Central: Estimating the user benefits associated with large public skateparks.” Kemp estimated the consumer benefits of the Lauridsen Skatepark in Des Moines, Iowa. At 88,000 square feet, it’s the largest skatepark in the United States.
One of the issues with the economics of skateparks is they’re generally free to use, which makes it difficult to figure out how much they’re actually worth. This is a common problem for public goods, like parks, beaches, rec centers, and so on. Determining the value of a skatepark is important to figure out whether, for example, communities should build more skateparks, and how big and tricked-out those skateparks should be. Despite the popularity of the sport — estimates suggest there may be as many as 9 million skateboarders in the US — “public resources devoted to skateboarding lag far beyond other leisure activities such as softball, tennis, or soccer,” Kemp writes.
Kemp argues that the distance skaters (and BMXers, roller bladers, and other recreationists) are willing to travel to go to the skatepark provides a good way to estimate the value of it. Traveling requires time and money, so the distance users are willing to travel provides an indication of how much they think a skatepark is worth.
In “Shred Central,” Kemp surveyed skateboarders at Lauridsen Skatepark, and found they “will travel great distances at significant cost to ride a park of high perceived quality.” Crunching numbers on use of the park and travel distance, Kemp estimates that the user benefits of this skatepark are “$61 per user per day and roughly $488,000 annually.” This high estimate for the value of the skatepark suggests that there’s a shortage of high-quality skateparks around the country and that community leaders should build more of them. Rad!
“The Skateboarding Ethic and the Spirit of Anti-Capitalism”
In his 1905 book, The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber argued that Protestant Christianity, especially Calvinism, promoted ethics, like thrift and hard work, that helped nurture the birth of capitalism and rapid economic growth in Northern Europe.
Like Protestants, skateboarders, Kemp argues, have their own set of ethics that can affect their economic lives. And, in Kemp’s view, these ethics can come into conflict with capitalism. For example, skateboarders are known to skate on private property and in front of businesses in search of cool, skateable features. It’s one reason why community leaders have been building skateparks: to encourage skaters to skate in sanctioned areas that are less disruptive to business.
Kemp sees a similar process in history with stickball and baseball. During his presentation, Kemp showed a picture of baseball legend Willie Mays playing stickball in the street when he was young. Like with skateboarding, Kemp says, many leaders saw stickball as a nuisance that disrupted commerce. Kids would shut down streets and disrupt traffic to play the game. They would hit balls and dent cars and break windows. This “irritation to commerce,” Kemp suggests, inspired communities to start building baseball diamonds in community parks and institutionalize the game into more organized and less disruptive baseball leagues.
Willie Mays playing stick ball with Harlem kids.
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Bettmann/Getty Images
“The drive towards creating skateparks appears to me to be on a similar trajectory to what we saw with stickball into baseball,” he says. “That said, we’re now 50-plus years into skateboarding history, and so far, skateboarding seems to be relatively immune from that institutionalization. It’s just as common to see kids skateboarding out in the streets as it is in a skatepark, perhaps even more so.”
Kemp was the last person to present a paper during this particular conference session. The paper presented before him was much less fun, highlighting physical and mental health problems plaguing our society, including the rise of depression, anxiety, and deaths of despair. The author blamed our economic and health systems, which “prioritizes profits over people’s health,” for making these problems worse.
In important ways, skateboarding is a product of capitalism. For decades, for-profit companies have developed and manufactured better skate decks, trucks, and wheels. They’ve marketed the sport. They’ve popularized it. They’ve made it more accessible. Kemp acknowledges that. But he also sees ethics within the culture of skateboarding that can help people overcome the challenges they may face in our capitalist society.
The skateboarding ethic, Kemp says, is “an ethic of resiliency. I fall, I get up, I do it again.” It’s an ethic of “self-betterment. The skateboarder is always trying to do another trick. They’re trying to do the trick better with more style. They’re trying to do it in different places. They’re comparing themselves to their past selves and not necessarily other skateboarders.” And it’s an ethic that isn’t really concerned with competition with others. Skateboarding, he says, is a non-zero sum game. “In other words, if I do the trick, it doesn’t matter that the other skateboarder didn’t do the trick. I’m not in competition with them. I don’t win, they lose, or I lose, they win. No, we’re all winning — hopefully — compared to our previous selves.”
Skateboarding, Kemp suggests, can help us become more resilient. It can help us build more pride in ourselves. It can help us fight isolation and build community. And it can help us exercise, alleviate stress, find joy, and escape the 9-5 grind.
“Skateboarding has something to show us about living life in these challenging times that we find ourselves in,” Kemp says.
Kemp’s presentation, appropriately, took place in San Francisco, which is widely recognized as one of the best and most hardcore skateboarding cities in the world. Skaters here are known to “bomb” hills like daredevils, reaching high speeds and doing incredible tricks. And the city has really come to embrace skateboarding. For example, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art currently has a skateboarding exhibit called “Unity Through Skateboarding” (which, apparently, my son and wife really enjoyed while I was attending this conference).
“San Francisco is legendary,” Kemp said. “Of course, this is a work trip. But, hopefully, I’ll get some skating in while I’m here.”
President Trump announced a three-week extension of a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon that had been set to expire in a few days, after hosting a meeting between Israeli and Lebanese diplomats at the White House on Thursday.
Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militant group that has been attacking Israel from southern Lebanon, did not have representatives at the meeting and did not immediately comment on the announcement. The prime minister of Israel and the president of Lebanon also did not comment.
A successful peace agreement would hinge upon Hezbollah halting attacks, which Lebanon’s government has little power to enforce because it does not control the militia. Lebanon’s military has mostly stayed out of the fighting and is not at war with Israel.
The cease-fire, which was scheduled to end on April 26, would last until May 17 if it takes effect as Mr. Trump described it. Before the cease-fire was brokered last week, nearly 2,300 people were killed in Lebanon and 13 in Israel. Since then, the number of Israeli airstrikes and Hezbollah attacks have been dramatically reduced, though the two sides have continued exchanging fire.
The Lebanese Ambassador to the United States, Nada Hamadeh, credited Mr. Trump for extending the cease-fire, saying that “with your help and support, we can make Lebanon great again.” Mr. Trump replied, “I like that phrase, it’s a good phrase.”
Asked about the potential of a lasting peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, Mr. Trump said that “I think there’s a great chance. They are friends about the same things and they are enemies on the same things.”
But Lebanon and Israel have periodically been at war since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israel has invaded Lebanon for the fifth time since 1978, incursions that have destabilized the country and the delicate balance of power between Muslim, Christian and Druze communities.
In the hours before the president’s announcement on social media, Israel and Hezbollah were trading attacks in southern Lebanon, testing the existing cease-fire.
Mr. Trump said the meeting at the White House had been attended by high-ranking U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the U.S. ambassadors to Israel and Lebanon.
Earlier on Thursday, an Israeli strike near the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh killed three people, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Hezbollah claimed three separate attacks on Israeli troops who are occupying southern Lebanon, though none were wounded or killed.
Hezbollah set off the latest round of fighting last month by attacking Israel soon after the start of the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign in Iran. Israel responded to Hezbollah’s attacks by launching airstrikes across Lebanon and widening a ground invasion of the country’s south.
Smoke rises from Port of La Guaira in Venezuela on Jan. 3, 2026 after U.S. forces seized the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro and his wife.
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Federal prosecutors on Thursday unsealed an indictment against a U.S. Army soldier, accusing him of using his insider knowledge of the clandestine military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January to reap more than $400,000 in profits on the popular prediction market site Polymarket.
The Justice Department says Gannon Ken Van Dyke, 38, who was stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, was part of the team that planned and carried out the predawn raid in Caracas earlier this year that resulted in the apprehension of Maduro.
The Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed the actions against Van Dyke, the first time U.S. officials have leveled criminal charges against someone over prediction market wagers.
According to the indictment, Van Dyke now faces counts of wire fraud, commodities fraud, misusing non-public government information and other charges.
Trading under numerous usernames including “Burdensome-Mix,” Van Dyke allegedly traded about $32,000 on the arrest of Maduro, resulting in profits exceeding $400,000.
“Prediction markets are not a haven for using misappropriated confidential or classified information for personal gain,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton for the Southern District of New York. “Those entrusted to safeguard our nation’s secrets have a duty to protect them and our armed service members, and not to use that information for personal financial gain.”
Van Dyke’s defense lawyer is not yet publicly known. Polymarket did not return a request for comment.
The charges against Van Dyke come at a sensitive time for the prediction market industry, which has been growing exponentially, despite calls in Washington and among state leaders for the sites to be reined in.
Van Dyke is the first to be charged in the U.S. for suspected Polymarket insider trading, but Israeli authorities in February arrested several people and charged two on suspicion of using classified information to place bets about military operations in Iran on Polymarket.
The Senate early Thursday morning adopted a Republican budget blueprint that would pave the way for a $70 billion increase for immigration enforcement and the eventual reopening of the Department of Homeland Security.
Republicans pushed through the plan on a nearly party-line vote of 50 to 48. It came after an overnight marathon of rapid-fire votes, known as a vote-a-rama, in which the G.O.P. beat back a series of Democratic proposals aimed at addressing the high cost of health care, housing, food and energy. The debate put the two parties’ dueling messages on vivid display six months before the midterm elections.
Republicans, who are using the budget plan to lay the groundwork to eventually push through a filibuster-proof bill providing a multiyear funding stream for President Trump’s immigration crackdown, used the all-night session to highlight their hard-line stance on border security, seeking to portray Democrats as unwilling to safeguard the country.
Democrats tried and failed to add a series of changes aimed at addressing cost-of-living issues, seizing the opportunity to hammer Republicans as out of touch with and unwilling to act on the concerns of everyday Americans.
Here’s what to know about the budget plan and the nocturnal ritual senators engaged in before adopting it.
Republicans are seeking a way around a filibuster on D.H.S. funding.
The budget blueprint is a crucial piece of Republicans’ plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security and end a shutdown that has lasted for more than two months. After Democrats refused to fund immigration enforcement without new restrictions on agents’ tactics and conduct, the G.O.P. struck a deal with them to pass a spending bill that would fund everything but ICE and the Border Patrol. Republicans said they would fund those agencies through a special budget bill that Democrats could not block.
“We can fix this with Republican votes, and we will,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the Budget Committee chairman. “Every Democrat has opposed money for the Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great peril.”
In resorting to a new budget blueprint, Republicans laid the groundwork to deny Democrats a chance to stop the immigration enforcement funding. But they also submitted themselves to a vote-a-rama, in which any senator can propose unlimited changes to such a measure before it is adopted.
The budget measure now goes to the House, which must adopt it before lawmakers in both chambers can draft the legislation funding immigration enforcement. That bill will provide yet another opportunity for a vote-a-rama even closer to the November election.
Democrats used the moment to hammer Republicans on affordability.
Democrats took to the floor to criticize Republicans for supercharging funding for federal immigration enforcement rather than moving legislation that would address Americans’ concerns over affordability.
“This is what Republicans are fighting for,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the Democratic leader. “To maintain two unchecked rogue agencies that are dreaded in all corners of this country instead of reducing your health care costs, your housing costs, your grocery costs, your gas costs.”
Democrats offered a host of amendments along those lines, all of which were defeated by Republicans — and that was the point. The proposals were meant to put the G.O.P. in a tough political spot, showcasing their opposition to helping Americans afford high living costs. Fewer than a handful of G.O.P. senators crossed party lines to support them.
Republicans blocked Democrats’ proposals to address high living costs.
The G.O.P. thwarted an effort by Mr. Schumer to require that the budget measure lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Americans. Two Republicans who are up for re-election this year, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, voted with Democrats, but the proposal was still defeated.
Republicans also squelched a move by Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat of New Mexico, to create a fund that would lower grocery costs and reverse cuts to food aid programs that Republicans enacted last year. Ms. Collins and Mr. Sullivan again joined Democrats.
Also defeated by the G.O.P.: a proposal by Senator John Hickenlooper, Democrat of Colorado, to address rising consumer prices brought on by Mr. Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran; one by Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, to require the budget measure to address rising electricity prices, and another by Mr. Markey to create a fund to bring down housing costs.
Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat who is up for re-election in Georgia, also sought to add language requiring the budget plan to address health insurance companies denying or delaying access to care, but that, too was blocked by Republicans.
Republicans sought to amplify their hard-line messages on immigration, voter I.D. and transgender care.
While Republicans had fewer proposals for changes to their own budget plan, they also sought to offer measures that would underscore their aggressive stance on immigration enforcement and dare Democrats to vote against them.
Mr. Graham offered an amendment to allocate funds toward a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to the apprehension and deportation of adult immigrants convicted of rape, murder, or sexual abuse of a minor after illegally entering the United States. It passed unanimously.
Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, sought to bar Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and other services, and criticized the organization for providing transgender care to minors. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, also attempted to tack on the G.O.P. voter identification bill, known as the SAVE America Act. Both proposals were blocked when Democrats, joined by a few Republicans, voted to strike them as unrelated to the budget plan.
The Republicans who crossed party lines to oppose their own party’s proposals for new voting requirements were Ms. Collins along with Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski also opposed the effort to block payments to Planned Parenthood.
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