Let’s be clear, the “wagon” in the metaphor is your support and beliefs; the “horse” is a magnetic political personage, such as Donald Trump or Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Zohran Mamdani. Put the two factors together and you will experience “disappointment”.
One of the recent Trump dustups regards the August jobs report. The looming analysis on the state of employment at the time of the fuss was not likely to be encouraging, and wasn’t. So, President Trump dumped Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer. He nominated E.J. Antoni, a Heritage Foundation economist and fervent Trump supporter, to replace her. Based on his activity since January 6th, 2021, it would be fair to classify him as a Trump zealot, more like Sean Hannity than an economist. His since-deleted Twitter account was littered with inflammatory remarks about groups and Trump’s opponents. He was at the January 6th Capitol riot. In his role as Heritage economist, he was known to distort economic numbers to benefit Trump. His credibility as an honest broker was shattered long ago (see #1).
Quite understandably, Senators Collins (R, Maine) and Murkowski (R, Alaska) were taken aback and refused to fall in line behind Antoni. On Tuesday, President Trump pulled the nomination. Many Senators balked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics becoming The Bureau of MAGA Statistics (Dominic Pino’s phrase). The “Deep State” jargon can only take you so far in refashioning government agencies into mouthpieces of your personal agitprop.
And what about those employment numbers? They aren’t reassuring for the rest of us. Lets’ look under that rug. The August report was, to put it mildly, disappointing, like the May and June numbers (see #2). The economy added a disheartening 22,000 jobs, far below the forecasted 75,000. The unemployment rate rose to 4.3% and the number of unemployed persons increased to 7.4 million. It doesn’t stop there. Job openings decreased from the previous month and the long-term unemployed rose to 25.7%. Not good by any stretch of the imagination.
Maybe to a certain extent, Trump can’t believe it after all his “great trade deals” and his list of sporadic successes of individual plant openings, ribbon cuttings, and promises from various economic actors. Neither could FDR during the Great Depression, but a depression became a Great Depression under his watch. Both men suffered from a form of tunnel vision. FDR believed that feverish government activity would rescue us so couldn’t restrain himself. Ditto for Trump. His acumen in real estate was great for real estate, but not necessarily an advantage in understanding the whole economy. There remains much room in his head for economic illiteracy (Google “Thomas Sowell”).
The reaction can be attributed to bombastic personalities and their attraction to big, flashy events, like a moth to a flame; however, the mundane and fundamental basics of an economy get short shrift. Trump is completely unaware of the serious trade-offs that accrued from his tariff war on the world. He unwittingly recreated the conditions of the COVID shutdowns by disrupting supply chains in his April demand that the world bend a knee. Long-established business arrangements were ripped apart.
Trump now needs easy money to paper over his damage, leading to persistent attacks on Fed chair Powell and the rest of the Fed Board. Of course, easy money after assaults on the supply chain won’t end well, any more than it did after COVID and Biden’s $3.7 trillion infusion in 2021. Here we go again. This time it’s Fox News as cheer leader instead of CNN, MSNBC, and the networks with the pom poms. Hitching wagons can be dangerous if the “horse” is a spirited believer in things that aren’t true. Don’t expect the ride to be comfortable.
RogerG
Sources:
1. Three sources on the background of E.J. Antoni: (1) CNN at https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/30/politics/ej-antoni-nomination-withdrawn-bls; (2) New York Post at https://nypost.com/2025/10/01/us-news/white-house-yanks-controversial-nominee-ej-antoni-to-helm-bureau-of-labor-statistics/; and (3) National Review at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-obamacare-ratchet-effect/.
2. “Payrolls rose 22,000 in August, less than expected in further sign of hiring slowdown”, CNBC, 9/5/2025, at https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/05/jobs-report-august-2025.html?msockid=287a0b967a9564c61c991f537b2f65ee.
“MUST CUT INTEREST RATES, NOW, AND BIGGER THAN HE HAD IN MIND. HOUSING WILL SOAR!!!” — President Trump on Truth Social, 9/15/2025 (see #1)
What is the “this” in the title? It’s the president’s push to lower interest rates by as much as 2.5 points, maybe 3. That’s a lot in monetary and interest rate terms. The president finds the Fed’s recent quarter point drop “too little, too late”. He wants 10 times that. Is the Fed Board suffering from TDS? Hardly. There are sound reasons to be cautious about lowering interest rates. The president is playing with fire.
What is the “bane” of populism? Vox populi is NOT vox dei, or “the voice of the people is NOT the voice of God”, a necessary reformulation of an old Roman saying. Popular opinions are erratic, often reliant on deeply embedded falsehoods, incoherent, and a slave to the moment. And to be honest, some “elites”, as well as almost all populists, are soiling themselves almost daily. The populace at times may seem to be a better fount of wisdom, until they aren’t.
In an election greatly influenced by Biden’s high inflation, meaning too many dollars chasing too few goods and services, President Trump, the so-called populist, seems intent on reinflating the inflation balloon. The last few incidences of galloping inflation and economy-wide maladjustment – the 1970s, 2007-8, and 2022 – were not euphoric traipsings through the economic daisies.
In this respect, before I get started, we have to remind ourselves that Donald Trump is a real estate tycoon. Real estate magnates love low interest rates, and so does the Dow. They focus like a laser on goosing demand for real property and securities. Their portfolios soar in value when money is easy. It’s great for the holders of these things, bad for everyone else looking to buy. Low interest rates help disguise in cheap loans the artificial leap in prices, the inflation. People are invited to run up more debt.
Everyone wins, right? Hogwash. The government swamps the economy in easy money until personal finances go underwater. The bubble bursts, asset values plummet, and people suddenly realize that they owe more than the thing is worth. Hello, tulip bubble of 1637. Hello, the 2007-8 financial crisis, and anyone who bought a new car in 2023. The 2007-8 crisis helped elect Obama and a coming to power of a party ideologically hard-wired to goose demand in all ways possible and ignore the supply half to the equation.
In this respect, Trump wants to inject heroine into the economy like the Democrats. The Democrats wish to make addicts of us through fiscal policy, like the Schumer/Pelosi/Biden trillion-dollar bills to refashion the nation to fit their dreams – adding $3.7 trillion to our national debt from 2022 to 2024. Floods of dollars sloshed around on the heels of the Covid lockdowns. Supply was disrupted as demand was goosed. This didn’t end well. Inflation leapt to 9% in summer 2022.
Trump is eager to repeat the formula. He disrupted supply with his declaration of a trade war on the world. Supply chains became tenuous, like during the COVID lockdowns, as suppliers reeled from Trump’s jump in tariff rates of up to 25% (or more) against everyone and nearly everything. When suppliers and producers adapt to this new environment, it won’t redound to lower prices. Compound the problem by the president’s refusal to do, or propose, meaningful fiscal restraint. The elevated fiscal floor of Biden and the Democrats essentially remains intact, with or without a DOGE, as the big-dollar entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid) remain untouched on their path to insolvency.
The CBO in January expected the 2025 deficit (annual overspending) to hover around $2 trillion. The total federal debt (total accumulated tab) is pegged at $37.41 trillion as of this month (Sept.). Has overspending been cured by Trump, or DOGE? No. Add this fiscal heroine to the economy’s bloodstream. Mmmmm, rattled supply chains and a bloated money supply, have we seen this movie before?
The Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) won’t be of much help. Tax cuts are a great idea since they keep more money in the creative private sector. The tax cuts in the BBB were mostly, technically speaking, not a reduction in tax rates but a continuation of existing ones from 2017, with a few bribes for favored political constituencies in states like Nevada and organized labor in Michigan and Pennsylvania (the spiel of the tax-free tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits). One spur for growth – the lowering of the capital gains tax bite and generous depreciation allowances – won’t produce substantial economic benefits for a few years at a minimum. It took the money-supply belt tightening of Fed chair Paul Volcker and Reagan’s tax cuts a couple of years to create the climate for the Reagan boom.
Deregulation will have the same delayed effect. Now, to tide us over till the benefits of the business tax cuts and deregulation kick in, Trump wants easy money. So, any mid- and long-term economic advantages of the bill will be negated by worrisome inflation. Throw his tariffs into the mix and the benefits of the BBB and deregulation will not be felt till way over the horizon, if ever. Then, the whole enterprise will be short-circuited by a return to power of the neo-socialist Democratic Party riding a wave of popular displeasure over declining fortunes, the same circumstance that made Trump 45 into 47. With the Dems in power, any relief from the Leviathan will be thrown into reverse.
It’s the bane of populism. Populism can be reduced to “popular”, doing what is popular. And what is popular, once again, is fickle, contradictory, incoherent. It bounces around depending on the moment, group, circumstance, and frequently rides on a deep current of fables. “Elites” are held in disrepute after some disgraced themselves of late in their tenured positions and bureaucratic sinecures (Fauci, et al). For many among the populi, no one can be trusted except . . . Trump/MAGA. The bantering bilge flows with little check.
President Trump is the embodiment of populism. He pushes the BBB . . . and . . . his toxic tariffs. He excoriated Biden’s inflation as he repeats Biden’s mistake. Like he talks “peace through strength” while he shifts from hostility to nonchalance about the victim of the most flagrant act of aggression on the continent of Europe since Stalin incorporated all of Eastern Europe into personal satraps.
Like all populists, the dramatic gesture is preferred. Populist politicians are drama queens. A populist is a slave to headlines. Out comes the language and behavior of the drama queen, the belittling nicknames and quick strikes. The impulsiveness and insults fit into a medium – social media – which is not conducive to deep thought, to a populace growingly accustomed to thinking in social media’s rhetorical burps.
Sloganeering is the preferred mode of expression, if not thought. “No more forever wars” becomes code for an isolationism that cannot be said. Quick strikes – butcher-and-bolt – have a credible use in, let’s say, taking out Soleimani and Iran’s Fordow. But you have to possess more in the national security toolkit than a bunch of one-and-dones. Trump follows the headlines and loves to be in them, but don’t expect logical consistency or much of an eye for the long term. Trump is as flippant as fads, maybe more so. He has shown the capacity to embrace two things that undermine each other: condemn inflation while stoking it.
The last jobs report came out, it’s disturbing, so he fires Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer for delivering the bad news. For the populist leader, two beliefs came together in his mind: he’s convinced that a lurking deep state is at work, and he can never be wrong. He replaced her with a lackey, Heritage’s E.J. Antoni. Now, Trump has his Winston in Oceania’s Ministry of Truth. Life imitates Orwell’s art in “1984”.
E.J. Antoni with President Trump
President Trump wants easy money, the Federal Reserve Board seems reluctant, having been burned by lowering interest rates in summer 2022 which helped to ignite the 9% inflation. So, he replaced one retiring board member with his chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Stephen Miran. This guy had to square the circle of reducing inflation and inaugurating a trade war on the world. So much for credibility.
Stephen Miran
To make this move even more surprising, Miran didn’t resign from his position as Trump’s chief economic adviser. He took a “leave of absence” which expresses his desire to return to Trump’s inner sanctum and favor. If you believe that he’ll be an honest broker, stay away from the crazy uncle trying to convince you to invest in Mongolian tugrugs (currency).
Troubling signs are evident. The producer price index of services jumped 1.1% in one month, July (see #3). The last time it was that high for one month was the 1.3% in March 2022, the harbinger for Biden’s 9% inflation in the summer of 2022. Currently, inflation stays stubborn at around 3%, above the Fed’s target of 2% (see #2). The durable goods sector (autos, appliances, etc.) is in a tailspin. It’s what happens when you hammer supply chains with 25% tariffs. Trump absolutely needs easy money to cover the slide.
Add it all up and we have Trump’s mind: scatter-brained, fickle, and unintelligible. But what did you expect? He’s a populist. We’ll quickly learn that populists are no better than our disgraced elites. The populace doesn’t like inflation but like the things that bring it about. They love easy money and government bennies from all the spending. Trump is a leader, but a leader to where? This won’t end well.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Trump calls for ‘bigger’ interest rate cut ahead of Fed meeting”, Reuters, 9/15/2025, at https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-calls-bigger-interest-rate-cut-ahead-fed-meeting-2025-09-15/.
2. “Current U.S. Inflation Rate is 2.9%: Why It Matters”, Nerd Wallet, 9/11/2025, at https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/investing/inflation#:~:text=The%20current%20U.S.%20inflation%20rate%20is%202.9%25%20for,release%20from%20the%20Bureau%20of%20Labor%20Statistics%20%28BLS%29?msockid=287a0b967a9564c61c991f537b2f65ee.
3. “Beware the Return of Inflation”, The Editors, National Review, 8/15/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/08/beware-the-return-of-inflation/.
I personally identify with the characters in Bon Jovi’s ballad, “Livin’ on a Prayer”. My wife and I had to struggle to make our way in the world. Looking back, it was hard. Keeping food on the table for the kids and making rent was a grind. Working the temporary, part time, and occasional job while going to school stretched our endurance and patience. It’s the act of striving, though, that is necessary for building character. Without it, who knows, our human development would have been stunted.
I keep this in mind as politicos appeal to our vanity to get our votes. Their refrain is that it’s someone else’s fault, that somebody else is holding us down. We are victims of hazy, generalized “elites”, “globalists”, the “top 1%”, the patriarchy, “whiteness”, a nearly endless and fuzzy collection of others. “The deck is stacked”, we are reminded. We have no more agency than a six-year-old. They offer more government goodies to suspend us in greater dependency. Today, it’s true of the Right and Left.
Trump and MAGA offer an insulated and perpetual economic playpen under a plethora of subsidies (no tax on tips, Social Security, overtime, and crony capitalism) and protective tariffs. No need to worry about competition. Our bankrupting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are mostly held above reproach. We get to slide our way to insolvency while content in our firm belief in the unbelievable.
The Left, meaning the Democratic Party in toto, screech the loudest for debilitating dependency. Their response to creative destruction is for everybody to be a coder, and, of course, more government bennies. Biden declared war on coal and his retort to those with a big fat crosshair on their livelihoods was (see #1), “Anybody who can go down 300 to 3,000 feet in a mine, sure in hell can learn to program as well . . . .” There you have it. He’s going to kill your jobs and communities. As for you, just go pound sand . . . in college. Biden promised that the rest of us will pick up the tab.
If you’re 23 and still haven’t “found yourself”, Nancy Pelosi boasts that a young adult can cling to their parents’ healthcare policy till age 26. She gushed in 2009 during the Obamacare debate (see #2):
“Just think of the difference that this would make for young people. They’ll be able to do what they want to do without having to find a job that has healthcare benefits.”
There you have it; their answer to the discomforts of striving is to make somebody else pay for it. It is so outrageous if wasn’t so pitiful. Extend adolescence to your mid-twenties.
Juxtaposed is Bon Jovi’s reality of striving, the painful, sometimes slow, grasping for the next rung in upward mobility. It’s how life becomes a molder of men and women. The formula for entering the middle class hasn’t changed: get married, stay married, have kids, work hard, and never stop learning, in no particular order. At times, it’ll seem like you’re “livin’ on a prayer”. Good, prayer is a good thing.
Please listen to the lyrics of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer”. It could well be the anthem of our initiation into adulthood. In Latin, Carpe Diem.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Biden Suggests Coal Miners Learn to Code To Be Prepared for ‘Jobs of the Future’”, James Crowley, Newsweek, 12/31/2019, at https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-new-hampshire-campaign-code-1479913.
2. “Pelosi appeals to youth in health bill”, Mike Soraghan, The Hill, 10/14/2009, at https://thehill.com/homenews/house/52350-pelosi-appeals-to-youth-in-health-bill/.
Trump has signed an executive order for tariffs increase. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
Introduction: An era of freer trade made it possible for me to give new life to a dying refrigerator. Better for it to be of use in my garage than in a landfill. No freer trade, I junk the thing.
************
No news here. President Trump proclaimed that his tariffs brought into the treasury $150 billion so far, by the end of July. His Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, projects $300 billion by the end of the year (see #1). The use of tariffs as a revenue generator is now a familiar part of Trump’s spiel. We’ve always had tariffs for a variety of well-worn reasons, but for most of our country’s history, a history without an income tax, tariffs were the chief source of revenue for Uncle Sam for all that the feds did at the time. Now we have an invasive income tax AND a new and ubiquitous tariff regime with a 15% floor covering most that enters the country thanks to Trump. The key lesson is our federal government’s insatiable appetite for more money to cover its still-growing $37 trillion debt, which just piles onto the backs of the citizens both the income tax and Trump’s tariff protectionism and its accompanying higher prices.
But who really pays the tariffs? In a display of economic illiteracy, Trump really believes foreigners pay. Read this display of historical and economic incoherence:
“In 1913 for reasons unknown to mankind, they established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government.” (see #2)
Is Trump advocating the abolishment of the income tax to make room for his “most beautiful word in the English language”? No, an end to the income tax appears nowhere in sight. Astonishingly, he actually claimed that foreign countries paid for our federal government. In the same breath, he and his Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, contradict their logic by admitting price increases and fewer choices are the likely outcome.
Here’s Trump in an interview with Kristen Welker: “I don’t think that a beautiful baby girl needs – that’s 11 years old – needs to have 30 dolls.”
Here’s Lutnick in an interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan advocating the avoidance of the tariffs by buying American: “[people who manufacture here] don’t pay a tariff. They don’t pay a tariff at all. So, President Trump says it all the time, build in America, you don’t pay a tariff.” And assumably you don’t have to worry about any tariff-induced price increases, or so says Lutnick (see #3).
The statements are incomprehensible. Trump doesn’t care that a margin of the buying public will be priced out of the market, and Lutnick fails to understand that a tariff raising the price of imports will lead to jumps in domestics as well. The price of the imported Toyota increases by $1,500 which leaves room for Ford to raise theirs by $750. The price floor is raised for all products no matter their country of origin (see #4).
Artificially raising prices alters behavior of all who confront them. Like me. Recently, my house refrigerator/freezer went on the fritz. It wasn’t cooling. The condenser coil was frosting over blocking the flow of air from the fan. The compressor is fine, so why the frost blockage? The defroster function clearly wasn’t working. The two most accessible parts in the defrost chain are the thermostat and defrost timer. Now began an online search for parts.
The price of parts varied dramatically for OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer, possibly American) and the import (some from China). The price for the thermostat ranged from the OEM $60 to the import $8, and the defrost timer went from the OEM $120 to the import $22. Following the advice of the $3.37-billion in net worth Howard Lutnick or the $5-billion Donald Trump, versus the income of pensioners (my wife and I), they would have me pay the $180, which might not fix the thing. These guys could afford to junk the thing and shell out $1,500 for new, for two, maybe more. No big deal for them, one living in a $35 million Bridgehampton, NY, estate, and the other at Mar-a-Lago. For me, $30 makes the gamble worth it, which is what I did.
President Trump with Mar-a-Lago in the backgroundHoward Lutnick and his Bridgehampton, NY, mansion
It worked. “Buying American” would mean another appliance in the county landfill instead of one in my garage for ice cream and cold drinks.
That’s how economics works. Prices are signals to us and unleash incentives and disincentives for certain economic actions. Policies that artificially raise prices inordinately affect people at one end of the income margin while being meaningless to those at the other end. But those at the upper-income end seem to be making the policy.
Speaking of being out of touch. Trump portrays himself as the blue-collar messiah. No, he’s only a blessing to certain blue-collars – the ones with plenty of campaign cash and political pull – at the expense of other blue-collars. And for the rest of us, we must navigate a more difficult market. Unfree trade has its costs, big time.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “July tariff revenues break monthly record, with $150B collected so far in 2025”, Amanda Macias, Fox Business, 7/29/2025, at https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/july-tariff-revenues-break-monthly-record-150-billion-collected-so-far-2025.
2. “’A little tough love’: Top quotes from Trump tariff talk”, France 24, 3/4/2025, at https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250402-a-little-tough-love-top-quotes-from-trump-tariff-talk.
3. “Transcript: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” July 20, 2025”, CBS News: Face the Nation, 7/20/2025, at https://www.cbsnews.com/news/howard-lutnick-commerce-secretary-face-the-nation-transcript-07-20-2025/.
4. “Tariffs—Everything you need to know but were afraid to ask”, Adam S. Hersh and Josh Bivens, Economic Policy Institute, 2/10/2025, at https://www.epi.org/publication/tariffs-everything-you-need-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask/#:~:text=By%20raising%20the%20cost%20of%20foreign-produced%20goods%20or,goods%2C%20allowing%20domestic%20businesses%20to%20also%20raise%20prices.
Helicopter parenting seems to be a feature of some child raising today, may be an inbred reflex for older marrieds finally birthing one or two children. It comes with unforeseen costs which will be borne by the child later in life. The coddling cripples the youngster from developing the coping mechanisms and needed personality corrections when facing difficulties. Life disciplines if allowed to operate. The costs of leniency appear later when bail becomes necessary for storming federal courthouses, assaulting ICE agents, toppling statues and defacing cemeteries, and roaming around in mobs threatening free speech on campus. Mom and dad, get prepared for a hefty therapy bill as well. Coddled people are frequently nervous wrecks as adults.
The costs of coddling reach humungous levels when implemented on a national scale, such as showering subsidies, tax code benefits, and tariff protections on certain industries. Government becomes a helicopter parent, permissive and indulgent, enticing their dependents to continue in their morbid obesity and gross wastefulness. Who ultimately pays? Guess what . . . You!
Does any of this make any sense? “Yes” to the recipients, and “no” to everyone else. The more important question is, do our elected poohbahs wallow in this form of bad parenting on a national scale? Yes, because it pays. It buys the votes of people nostalgic for a world before the latest innovation. It goes something like this: my dad worked on Chevies, Fords, and Dodges, and that’s how God created the world. Who doesn’t want to freeze in amber the world of their formative years? Luddites of every generation will always be a potent political constituency.
The application of economic laws (supply, demand, price signals, incentives, etc.) to government was explored by economists Gordon Tullock and James Buchanan in something that they called Public Choice Theory. Surprise, they showed that politicians shop around for votes. They won the Nobel prize in economics for their groundbreaking work. Tullock took the analysis further by examining the immense hidden costs of tariffs; something Trump refuses to understand (see #1, #2).
Tariffs coddle the too-big-to-fail companies and their extortionate union parasites, both with their tentacles deep into the campaign war chests of the elected. Then, once in office, the bennies roll in, now especially under Trump. Trump’s most beautiful word in the English language, tariff, acts as an accelerant for a new growth industry, special consultancy services (tariff brokers and such) to help business navigate the new flood of paperwork and rules, and army of new government hires, regurgitated out of Leviathan. These services aren’t free, and add new costs to the bottom line and the public purse, all to be borne by you in fewer choices, higher prices, and higher taxes and/or public debt.
Think about it, think about a time before the income tax. Yes, there was a time when April 15 was just another spring day, and not the deadline to avoid fines and jail. It used to be the natural order of things, except for the brief period of the Civil War, until 1913 and Woodrow Wilson signed the implementing law after the 1909 approval of the 16th Amendment allowed the monstrosity. After it and other changes to the tax code, who doesn’t need a tax accountant to steer clear of the maw of the IRS? Many, many. The government’s insatiable appetite for more money added a new layer to the cost of living, the professional tax accountant and lawyer and software.
Trump is accomplishing the same feat with his “Liberation Day”. That and all the subsequent trade deals will end up spiking the average U.S. tariff from a low of 2.5% in 2024 to over 5% in 2025, and a general 15% on a huge portion of it (see #3). It’s a flat-out tax increase added to the bottom line, added to your cost of living and running a business. Trump boasts of billions pouring into the federal treasury as if it is coming out of the pockets of foreigners. He’s selling a falsehood. Much analysis has been devoted to who pays the tariffs (see #2). It shows the residents of the authoring country footing the bill. I don’t think Trump cares because tariffs are “beautiful” to him; they harken him back to a time 70 years ago, the world of his youth, and his obsession with recreating it.
The sheer absurdity of Trump’s tariff regime will be clear if we take a look at one industry, copper. You know, the hotly sought-after basic and essential stuff for the Dems’ greenie electrified utopia or Trump’s buy-only-America one. It’s a classic case of a blockheaded Trump obsession mucking up U.S. industries by pushing a solution in search of a problem.
Let’s start with a basic stat: 45% of U.S. copper consumption is imported (see #5). The remaining 55% is domestically produced. So, why the 50% tariff on imported copper? Intended or not, Trump is forcing domestic users of copper to pay more for it out of a constricted internal supply. Why constricted? Over decades, we willed it so. Try to open a new mine and avoid the stinging swarms of eco-zealots at all levels. Behind walling off the richer seams behind national monuments and lines of legal-eagle firing squads, the potentially condemned seek other venues of investment. 55% could be a lot more but isn’t because we’d rather pay to dig up the land under other people. Currently, the U.S. ranks seventh in proven reserves in the world, more than China, but won’t touch much of it (see #5).
And, anyway, it’s not such a bad idea to diversify sources for national security reasons. Domestic supplies can be disrupted by events such as strikes by Trump’s newfound allies in organized labor’s extortion racket. Natural disasters and mechanical breakdowns in the chain from mine to mill, as happens in oil refining, are inevitable. Is it such a horrible thought to be on good terms with countries like Chile, our largest foreign source? Though, If you see foreigners as enemies, like Trump, economic or otherwise, don’t be surprised that many of them end up providing new naval basing and investment opportunities for the CCP. Tariffing our hemisphere will require a much bigger navy to blockade South America.
The bottom line is that coddling domestic producers behind the padded walls of 50% tariffs makes them more willing to buy off the eco-gangsters and their featherbedding union masters, a win/win for producer and parasites alike. The only loser is the DIYer trying to wire his garage. Maybe now, his only option is shivering in winter.
Coddling “Made in America” by federal helicopter parents is a surefire way to screw up people. It isn’t good policy in raising children nor in the making of prosperity.
RogerG
Sources:
1. If you want to get into the weeds of Tullock’s insight, read “The Welfare Costs of Tariffs, monopolies, and Theft”, Gordon Tullock, Rice University, June 1967, at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1967.tb01923.x.
2. For a more concise depiction of Tullock’s thesis, go to “The Hidden Costs of Trump’s Tariffs”, Augustin Forzani, National Review, 7/31/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/07/the-hidden-costs-of-trumps-tariffs/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=right-rail&utm_content=capital-matters&utm_term=first.
3. “Trump Tariffs: Tracking the Economic Impact of the Trump Trade War”, Erica York and Alex Durante, Tax Foundation, 7/29/2025, at https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/trump-tariffs-trade-war/.
4. “Chart: The Average U.S. Tariff Rate (1890-2025)”, Dorothy Nuefeld, Visual Capitalist, 4/10/2025, at https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-average-u-s-tariff-rate-since-1890/.
5. “45%”, Dominic Pino, National Review Magazine, September 2025, p.11.
President Trump announcing his “Liberation Day” tariffs on April 2, 2025.
Javier Milei in a speech before the World Economic Forum in 2024: “If measures are adopted that hinder the free functioning of markets, competition, price systems, trade and ownership of private property, the only possible fate is poverty.” (see #1)
Donald Trump on his tariffs in April 2025: “You know, someone said, ‘Oh, the shelves, they’re going to be open.’ Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally. But we’re not talking about something that we have to go out of our way. They have ships that are loaded up with stuff, much of which — not all of it — but much of which we don’t need.” (see #2)
Is there a difference between Donald Trump and Javier Milei? Yes, an emphatic “yes”. Trump is a classic central planner with all the limitless self-regard that the position demands. Milei is reintroducing free markets to a country that has not had many for decades. With Trump, we get a person who asserts the power to determine how much we deserve and “need” and how much we should pay for it. Milei is dialing back Trump-style manipulations with impressive results. The other shoe has yet to drop in the U.S. on the fundamental disorder to supply chains from Trump’s economic illiteracy in his tariff campaign. Stay tuned, The Big Beautiful Bill or no, there are troubling signs in the consequential durable goods sector.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei attends the opening session of the legislative term at the National Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 1, 2025. (photo: Matias Baglietto/Reuters)
Let’s start with Milei’s Argentina, and add Poland’s rise to the mix. After decades of socialistic Peronism, Argentina under Milei is teaching a lesson to Donald Trump. Year-over-year, the nation’s economy has grown 7.7%. Poverty is beginning its downward slide. Milei has corseted government interference (for instance, ending rent control in Buenos Aires), cut spending, restrained the money supply, and eliminated many price controls. The result is an Argentinian renaissance.
Poland showed the way for Milei. In 1989, Leszek Balcerowicz, Poland’s Finance Minister after the shedding of communism, cut spending, balanced the budget, reigned in the money supply, ended many government spending programs, basically freed-up the economy, and Poland took off (see #3). It remained free of Brussels by not joining the euro. We would be happy with 3% growth in GDP. Poland is humming at 5%.
Where is Donald Trump leading the U.S.? In some ways, in the opposite direction. All governmental interventions are not equal in their effects. Some have greater impact than others. Supply chains are crucial. That which disrupts supply chains ripples down to layoffs, repos, and personal bankruptcies. After treating the U.K. like the CCP, one in which we amazingly had a trade surplus, Trump is targeting South Korea and Japan with 25% tariffs. It’s madness.
Expect showrooms and car lots to have fewer offerings in that industry of the most durable of all durable goods. No big deal for Trump, we only deserve two to choose from, right?
It’s all over the place, everywhere you look in automotive industry reports. Signs are abundant of a coming automotive industry recession. Quoting AutoForecast Solutions, industry insiders such as F & I and Showroom expects “light-vehicle sales will fall for the first time since 2022 due to uncertainty around the tariffs”. It’s a perfect storm of a Federal Reserve skittish about inflation and keeping interest at their current level, Moody’s downgrading of the U.S. credit rating, Conference Board Leading Economic Index’s fall of nearly 2% in March-April, rising loan defaults, etc. (see #4)
No wonder Trump is on a jihad against Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. Trump wants easy money to paper over the effects of his tariff war.
In putting makeup on the pig, President Trump and his spokespeople trot around citing normal manufacturing shifts (Mercedes, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Stellantis and Toyota) that were planned and announced before Trump announced his America-the-victim-of-the-world tariff war, as if the resulting chaos is a stroke of genius. Trump should take this comedy routine on the road.
Buyers aren’t stupid. If people see price increases on the horizon, they buy while the getting is still good. The numbers are the numbers. The June auto sales numbers fell by 2.6 million from April to June. March and April were great because tariff reality would soon set in. Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive Inc., put it bluntly: “The party is over.” This isn’t a mysterious happening according to Smoke: “It’s clearly slowing. It’s because of affordability getting worse and forcing what we think will be production declines to keep supply in balance.” (see #5) Translation: Think again about buying that new car.
The goal is reshoring. Laudable, but the method asinine. It jumps over the question of why they left. Is it merely the attractiveness of slave or peasant labor? Cheaper labor overseas has always existed and yet the country grew. What happened between then and now? We decided to muck up the works. By law and government interventions, we turned organized labor into an extortion racket. We taxed and regulated our way into near oblivion. We have greater difficulties in building anything. Try to build power plants, refineries, dams, mines, roads, power lines, even housing, in the good ‘ol USA. Home-grown NIMBYs and greenie revolutionaries have a greater influence on our economy than Malaysian peasants.
Conversely, we could tack in the opposite direction and make our country accommodating to industries. It’d be like the mysterious voice in Field of Dreams: “Build it (a free economy) and they will come.”
Instead, we have a president and his Republican Party fan club who’d rather throw up a wall, like a curtain, to hide the extortion racket and the government bludgeoning of economic activity, and then paste “Make America Great Again” over the mess. Jargon replaces accountability.
In that good ‘ol USA, central planners like Trump, not us, decided that we needed upscaled electric golf carts to replace our family sedan. Anything large powered by fossil fuels was to be pounded into dust by CAFE standards. The car industry played along because they’re essentially cowards. Hitching your industry cart to government and its activists, whether Friends of the Earth or MAGA tariff-enthusiasts, depending on who temporarily holds the reins of power, can be an economically unhealthy thing to do. Watch California become a Third World nation, er state.
And it shows in the crap foisted on us. It’s high-priced, underpowered, loaded down with gimmicks to mask their shortcomings (turbochargers); beset by stunts like cylinder deactivation, on/off engine disruptions during idling, the carbonization of direct fuel injection, the notorious 10-spead transmissions; and range anxiety coupled with spontaneous combustion of battery packs for those “virtuous” EVs.
At least The Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) corrected some of the folderol. The only problem is that we have a Donald Trump (DJT) intent on wreaking havoc on the guts of economic activity. What the BBB giveth, DJT taketh. Sounds like central planning.
RogerG
Sources:
1. Milei’s speech can be viewed in YouTube at https://youtu.be/4z44XP4u9Xs?si=OEB-mRfFMY2xts1U.
2. “Trump says children could have ‘2 dolls instead of 30’ with his tariff plan”, Alex Gangitano, The Hill, 4/30/2025, at https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5275798-trump-says-children-could-have-two-dolls-instead-of-30-with-his-tariff-plan/.
3. “Shock Therapy: What We Can Learn From Poland”, Taylor Marvin, Prospect Journal, at https://www.prospect-journal.org/articles/2010/11/11/shock-therapy-what-we-can-learn-from-poland.
4. “2025 Auto Sales Slump Forecast”, Hannah Mitchell, F & I and Showroom, 6/3/2025, at https://www.fi-magazine.com/376082/2025-auto-sales-slump-forecast.
5. “Car sales plummet following pre-tariffs panic buying: ‘The party is over’”, Ariel Zilber, The New York Post, 7/1/2025, at https://nypost.com/2025/07/01/business/car-sales-plummet-following-pre-tariffs-panic-buying-the-party-is-over/.
6. An excellent synopsis of Milei’s success can be read at “The Milei ‘Miracle’ Is a Vindication of Free Markets”, The Editors, National Review, 7/8/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/07/the-milei-miracle-is-a-vindication-of-free-markets/.
Yep, Californios, it is worsening. The troubling trends continue. Here’s the latest.
Tomorrow, July 1, the cost of getting from point A to point B in California will increase. The state’s gas tax rises from 59.6 cents per gallon to 61.2. More is in the offing each year for the foreseeable future. Also, the state’s latest tightening of its low-carbon fuel standard will be slamming drivers on the same day adding up to 15 cents to each gallon. Coupled with the garroting of California’s domestic oil production and the loss of oil refineries (Valero, Philips 66 in Benicia by next year), Californios could be looking at sticker shock at the pump – $8-per-gallon in 18 months is a real possibility.
Keep in mind that this is a popularly elected government in veto-proof numbers. Ruin is quite popular in the state.
Like Stalin’s prosecutor at the show trials, the state’s apparatchiks are impervious to the pain they are causing. They are zealots to the revolution. According to the San Joaquin Valley Sun, California Air Resources Board Chair Liane Randolph said in recent testimony before the Assembly Utilities and Energy Committee, “’We don’t analyze a retail cost …. [CARB’s analysis] does not identify specific costs to specific consumers ….’” (see #1)
Through what can only be described as Soviet-style central planning, the one-party state is constructing environmentalism’s utopia – like Lenin, or Mao, or Castro did Marx’s – no matter the impracticality or the economic bleeding of its people. Gas prices are just one canary in the mine. There’s a whole slew of other symptoms of the rotting corpse. Some are toxic policies and some are pure stats.
In US News and World Report’s state rankings, California is last in affordability, “47th in employment, 47th in energy infrastructure, 46th in air and water quality, 45th in growth, 42nd in public safety, 42nd in short-term fiscal stability, and 37th in K–12 education.” (see #2) The ruling party is running the state into the ground.
This is a high-tax state, dahhhh! The Tax Foundation places the state near the bottom (48th) in its State Tax Competitiveness Index (see #3). My gosh, how can anyone afford to live there?! This is a financially and personally deadly utopia.
If you’re looking for a place to retire, don’t make it California. According to BankRate’s annual analysis, only three other states are worse than the “golden state” (47th), while, adding insult to injury, you are still spry enough not to have your kids take away your car keys and occasionally have to roll up to a gas pump in the state.
Indeed, driving is increasingly a perilous adventure in the state. It is at the bottom in the quality of its roads, fifth-worst (see #4). While on those washboards, you will be facing collectively some of the worst drivers, the third-worst, and the second-worst accident and drunk driving rates in the country. No wonder its donkey-party insurance market is in tatters.
Putting up with all that will leave you and your kids exposed to some of the worst cultural influences on the planet. The ruling party’s theoreticians have embedded transgenderism and the mission statement of the LGBTQ+ Human Rights Campaign into elementary school instruction. Identity politics, rooted in neo-Marxist theory, was getting set to become a high school graduation requirement in a new “ethnic studies” course, till Donald Trump and AG Pam Bondi began to enforce recent Supreme Court decisions banning the noxious bunkum of “racism to fight racism”. With state encouragement, and the heightened potential of social contagion of too many kids on too many “smart” phones, you might find your kid transitioning without you even knowing about it, all under the protective wing of your kid’s guidance counselor.
For your daughters, highly sexualized boys could be sharing a bathroom, locker room, or competing with them. The whole scene is turning into a monstrous social sewer. No wonder the state’s only growth industry is the outward-bounded moving trade. So says U-Haul (see #6).
People aren’t stupid, except possibly for a critical mass of the state’s electorate, or so it seems. It can’t last. Even for the most die-hard California new age Democrat neo-socialist, civilizational decline can’t be a pleasant experience. Till that realization becomes a reality, you-the-sane have two options: get out like so many others or just continue to swim around in the septic tank. Simple.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “Bains calls for CARB chief to step down”, Daniel Gligich, San Joaquin Valley Sun, 5/30/2025, at https://sjvsun.com/news/politics/bains-calls-for-carb-chief-to-step-down/
2. Thanks to Jim Geraghty for the summary at “‘No One Is Incredibly Pumped’ About Kamala Harris Running for Governor”, National Review, 6/30/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/no-one-is-incredibly-pumped-about-kamala-harris-running-for-governor/. I pirated many of the stats from him. For the USNWR report, “California” at https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california.
3. “Taxes in California: California Tax Rates, Collections, and Burdens” at https://taxfoundation.org/location/california/
4. See “U.S. States With the Worst Roads”, Jonathan Jones, Construction Coverage, 4/30/2025, at https://constructioncoverage.com/research/states-with-the-worst-roads. Also “California has some of the worst roads in the nation, new study says. Where does it rank?”, Jaqueline Pinedo, Sacramento Bee, 4/10/2024, at https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/article287533375.html.
5. “The Numbers Don’t Lie: California Ranks Among the Worst Drivers in the U.S.”, Eugene Bruno, Eugene Bruno and Associates, 12/13/2024, at https://sdlawyers.com/the-numbers-dont-lie-california-ranks-among-the-worst-drivers-in-the-u-s/.
6. “California ranks last in growth for fifth consecutive year, U-Haul says”, 1/7/2025, at https://www.kdrv.com/news/regional/california-ranks-last-in-growth-for-fifth-consecutive-year-u-haul-says/article_31927000-6e72-5e25-b994-5951a1b1adf1.html.
After the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) decided that the president does not have unilateral power to declare a trade war on the world, Stephen Miller, President Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff, proclaimed (see #1), “The judicial coup is out of control.” What Millerite rubbish.
Miller’s feral reaction had resonance at a time when courts were inventing “rights” and making law out of whole judicial cloth. That was the time of the imperial judiciary, and rightly condemned. Not now, at a time of a 6-3 originalist, conservative majority.
Now, we’re in the era of new imperium, that of the imperial presidency. So, what do we call it when Trump with a stroke of his pen declares a trade “emergency” against the planet? The tariff power unquestionably resides with Congress in Art. I, Sec. 8. It’s nice to hear a court – The U.S. Court of International Trade – return to the literal, original, and simple meaning of the law and The Constitution. There is no place in our rule of law for Obama’s phone and pen, Biden’s edicts on rent moratoriums and student loans, and his wanton dereliction of duty to enforce immigration law, and now Trump’s decrees on tariffs on anyone, at any time, at any rate, for almost any reason – just declare an “emergency”.
But not so fast. The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a stay (a stop order) of the CIT decision in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump to give time for the Trump people and the plaintiffs to present their appellate briefs.
Well, let’s clear this up right now. Who are the plaintiffs, the people who brought suit? They aren’t your typical eco-lefties or your run-of-the-mill identity group hustlers angling for more privileges and taxpayer-funded bennies. They are folks who have a conception of government more in line with the Founders, people who seek to have The Constitution applied as written. Their creed stems from James Madison, not Karl Marx. They are free market, limited government people.
Spearheading this suit against His Majesty Donald Trump is the Liberty Justice Center (LJC), not the ACLU or the radically leftist Southern Poverty Law Center. The Liberty Justice Center’s mission is to “challenge the latest and greatest threats to liberty across the country” and strives to “revitalize constitutional restraints on government power and protections for individual rights” (see #2). The LJC stepped up to the plate to defend VOS Selections (importer of wines and spirits), FishUSA (fishing tackle producer), Genova Pipe (producer of irrigation and plumbing supplies), MicroKits (producer of electronics kits), and Terry Precision Cycling (producers of bicycles and cycling accessories) to stop Trump’s tariffs from driving them into bankruptcy.
LJC is doing for them what they did for Mark Janus before the U.S. Supreme Court in the famous Janus v. AFSCME decision of 2018 which reaffirmed the freedom of an individual public employee to not join a union. Today, it’s the freedom to stay in business without having to face the existential threat of arbitrary and capricious actions of a national executive straying far outside his constitutional lane.
Trump relies on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA), within the National Emergencies Act, in the same manner as the Democrats worship the Constitution’s commerce and necessary and proper clauses to bring down on our heads the bloated Leviathan, the same one that has jacked our economy, our lives, our national debt, our kids’ schools, our neighborhoods, our housing, our girls’ sports, etc. IEEPA grants to the president certain economic powers only during an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the nation. Thus, Trump is sharing the same ideological space with AOC, Bernie Sanders, The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Elizabeth Warren, The Squad, and Karl Marx . . . if he was still around to mingle in Democratic Party confabs.
So, what’s the “unusual and extraordinary threat” to justify the power grab, according to Trump? Think about it. The “emergency” lies in the commonplace business arrangements that have been around for the past 40+ years, if not longer. Now that’s odd: a 40-year-old “unusual and extraordinary threat”. At what point in a time span does “normal” suddenly become an “emergency”? If he wants to bring back those $17/hour factory jobs in droves, bring back his glorious 1950s, he ought to work with Congress to throw up the protectionist walls, shower taxpayer funds on a few favorites, and possibly muzzle the eco-predators that are actually busy making a hash of our economy. Policy is the proper response, not imperial ukases. But try to get that through a Congress of razor thin majorities. In other words, in our constitutional order, there is no mandate for Trump central planning.
Once we clear away the MAGA rubbish talk and get our bearings, governance by imperial whim is not becoming of Lincoln’s last best hope of earth. The sloganeering America First is verily America Ruined. The least that we can do to rescue our reputation as a free people of a free country is to retain some sense of the rule of law. Let’s hope that we have a Supreme Court who agrees.
RogerG
Sources:
1. “The Sudden End to Tariffs and the TACO Trade”, Jim Geraghty, National Review, 5/29/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-sudden-end-to-tariffs-and-the-taco-trade/
2. Liberty Justice Center, “What We Do”, on their official website at https://libertyjusticecenter.org/about/
* Please watch the interview with Jennifer Hernandez, environmental law and land use expert and former chair of Holland & Knight’s West Coast Land Use and Environmental Group, for insights into the California housing crisis. You’ll be captivated by what she has to say.
*************
I am a native Californian and was a resident until retirement (2015). Why did I leave? Yes, I did not like the now entrenched and hard-core collectivism of the state. The lurch to the left, and in many cases the far Left, and the one-party monopoly on power, were serious problems for me. But then it dawned on me that all of it was popularly chosen. I was actually fleeing the state’s electorate.
These electoral choices had real world, smack-you-in-the-face repercussions. On many subsequent trips to the coast in the course of my long life in the state (mostly raised in Santa Maria), I noticed something that is really evident to some extent across the country, but is hyper-visible in California. The $70,000 sports car, homes, and the trails on the bluffs above the crashing waves are occupied by the grey-haired. Far more recuperations from hip surgery are evident than the paddle of little feet and strollers. Much of the area is a retirement home writ large.
The ritzy enclaves have a few scattered elementary schools, but I don’t know why. Grey hairs have declining fertility. The young ones are a rarity. Then it dawned on me. The state has chosen, through long-established popular consent, feudalism and its manorialism. Governance is feudal with a ruling and privileged generational “nobility” in a one-party state, and socially and geographically it is markedly divided into exclusive zones protected by gates and walls in some cases and a bevy of law, red tape, regulations, and a labyrinth of agencies in most others – the manorialism. The upshot is a favoritism for those who already have theirs – the Ins – and a suppression of the dreams of the striving – the Outs. Age wise, on the ground, it shows as the grey-haired in their seaside villas and in the driver’s seat of the $70,000 Corvette, while crumbs are left for blue-collars and the young with families.
Frankly, I couldn’t stomach it any longer. It’s more than political. It’s immoral. Each election was an episode of bashing my head against the wall. Nothing changed, and only got worse. Self-harm is not part of my psyche; so, I fled the state’s electorate.
“Socialism is the feudalism of the 19th century”, a quote loosely attributed to thinkers far afield as Adam Smith and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (see #1). A modern reformulation of the quote would read, “Socialism is the feudalism of California of the 21st century.” A heavily socialized economy, and oriented political system, produce a few winners (Ins) who have constructed the means to protect what they have acquired and enjoy at the expense of the Outs, the young seeking upward mobility.
At the top of the list of causes is the infatuation with environmentalism, a freezing in amber of the natural setting, with its continual invention of new eco-crusades such as climate change. Agencies, regulations, laws and lawsuits are exploited to preserve their playground by targeting the biggest threat, new housing. It’s been happening for decades.
The Boomers went from the Summer of Love and Dead Heads to nest eggs, great hiking opportunities, and fireplaces beside bay windows overlooking the ocean. The fallout was a housing shortage for the most vulnerable, the young who need the economy to grow to make room for them. That’s not compatible with the vision of the good life as defined by the eco-fatuations of the one-party state’s political constituencies: white-collar public sector unions; the keyboard demography (in Hernandez’s words) of entertainment, the education establishment, financial services, administration of all kinds, and Silicon Valley; and the litany of government-loving and ever-evolving transgressive victims’ groups who are closely allied to the above. Mom and dad and kids, and people who make things in the trades, have no place in this world. They are an afterthought.
A civilizational legacy is similarly an afterthought. No realistic consideration is given to the needs of future generations. The kids are ignored. The way that life is constructed in the state resembles a looting expedition. Use it up; let it crumble; I won’t be around anyway. Sucking it up so the young have opportunity and the simple necessities like shelter is inconceivable for those who already have theirs.
It’s not that this generational California aristocracy doesn’t care; it’s that they don’t know how to care. Their beloved command society which created the mess, and is geared to preserving their assets, is now directed to solve the housing crisis by of course . . . command. They actually think that more commands, diktats, will grant to the serfs what they need and not threaten their loot and position. Stack the plebes in “five-over-ones” (five floors above the parking) in $1 million units at a cost of $8,500 in monthly rent, all made “affordable” by subsidies, in a few plots limited to “transit corridors”. Commanding “affordable housing” doesn’t mean that it happens. No one can afford it, not the taxpayers nor the beneficiaries. It’s a joke. Don’t think for a moment about pruning the eco-zealotry or the NIMBY access to the Leviathan and their supportive nest of eco-vipers.
The return of a housing free market would be a godsend. Standing athwart is the enemy of free markets, big government. In an all-expansive state government, such as in California, the rats scurry about exploiting cracks and openings in the mammoth governmental maze to halt development, forever on the lookout to quash their hated “sprawl”, or anything that can endanger their property values or vistas. This is popular sovereignty, of a sort, but one with an open hostility to property rights. Their notion of property rights is their property and their “right” to extend a sphere of control that encompasses miles beyond their deed.
They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, and it shows in ungodly housing prices, which is great for them but an impenetrable iron curtain for anyone stretching to reach for the next rungs to the good life, usually the young or anyone with insufficient funds to break into the exclusive club. Besides being a boon for U-Haul, this colossal regulatory contrivance is symptomatic of a solipsistic personality (very self-centered or selfish), a character flaw, written into the mode of governance. Imagine that, a character flaw as a governing principle.
The maiming of the housing supply is only one avenue for solipsism to sprout. It’s no secret that the huge majorities in the state are elated about not giving the young the slightest chance for a slice of the American dream by preventing them from exiting the womb in the first place. Abortion is wildly popular. But honestly, post Dobbs, the inner abortionist has been unleashed almost everywhere, even in red states (Montana, Ohio, etc.). However, a special ecstasy for it thrives in California. They’ve proudly legislated themselves as a “sanctuary” for ending unborn life.
Not only that, they are an official “sanctuary” for the young who managed to avoid the suction tube at the start of their life to mutilate themselves in “sex transition”. Those governing super majorities actually believe that they can outlaw chromosomes, or at least by law declare them subordinate to an adolescent’s erratic emotional state. It’s breathtaking, and shocking, shocking for parents made powerless in the face of government functionaries who are empowered to nurse and coddle the vulnerable and impressionable behind the backs of those who brought them into the world.
The whole state appears to be in an open state of war against the young, or anyone in those family-formation years clawing a path to the good life. The state is a bloody gauntlet for the young and blue collars, the Outs. And guess who is holding the clubs? Why, of course, it is the Ins. It’s more than a collectivistic state. It’s a solipsistic one. The two go hand in hand.
RGraf
Sources:
1. A general history of the statement is explored in Britannica at “Feudalism: Development in the 19th and 20th centuries” at https://www.britannica.com/topic/feudalism/Development-in-the-19th-and-20th-centuries
Who’s Leszek Balcerowicz? He was Poland’s Finance Minister in the country’s first non-communist government, then served twice as Deputy Prime Minister (1989–1991, 1997–2001) and as Chairman of the National Bank of Poland (2001–2007). He and his wife of 47 years, Ewa Balcerowicz, are economists. He oversaw Poland’s economic reforms from communist collectivism to free markets and democratic capitalism. By all accounts, it worked, while it failed in Russia, possibly owing to Russia’s penchant for sclerotic autocracy and state-empowered cronyism (let’s leave that for another time).
Why bring him up? He is the counterpoint to Trump and his bunch, the Fox News stable grafted onto the executive branch. I doubt seriously that Americans voted for isolationism and protectionism. Tariffs and withdrawal from the world didn’t show up in any polls of the public prior to November 4. Yet, those are what we are getting. Reluctance to defend the international order is evident in stories of Trump’s people pressuring Israel not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities and some voices in the administration expressing a willingness to cut Ukraine and NATO adrift. Protectionism is the sole remaining root for Trump’s tariff war on the world after every other explanation is reduced to incoherence. Balcerowicz’s story is a fresh breath of sanity in our domestic maelstrom of security and economic claptrap.
Balcerowicz faced a tall order in 1989 with the collapse of Poland’s communist regime. Collectivism, once begun, is like drug addiction. The recovery is hell, but eventually a healthier person is restored. Free market “shock therapy” was initiated, tough times ensued, Poland stuck with it, and today Poland is rivalling Japan in per capita income. It’s a lesson well worth remembering as we lurch toward Trump-inspired collectivist protectionism.
Heck, we can’t even reform our bankrupting entitlements (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) without a political bloodbath. Trump promises to do nothing about them, and is trying to centrally plan his autarkic economy through his “most beautiful word in the English language”, tariffs. Businesses are watching as their decades-long economic arrangements are hammered into rubble and markets tumble.
A marked contrast is Poland. Per capita (per person) GDP is a good measure of economic health. In 1990 it was Brazil-sized at $12,810, $4,000 behind Mexico’s. In 2023 it stands at $43,585, a mere $2,500 short of Japan’s (see #1). Japan, once the darling of industrial-policy Democrats with its state-management in The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), and an unacknowledged centerpiece of Trump’s economic outlook, has flatlined for three decades. Demographically, it is in the midst of social suicide with a 1.20 fertility rate, and now with an economy to match. Trump is eager to repeat the performance with his own MITI run out of the White House and his executive orders, something akin to imperial decrees.
Oh, 2026 is the year that Poland is projected to surpass Japan in per person wealth. Barring Trump dragging the world’s economy into the toilet, aka 1930, the future looks bright for a country near the front lines abutting Putin’s horde. Not so for us.
Poland shows the way forward, not Donald Trump. If only the Republicans had the guts to study the career of Leszek Balcerowicz. Instead, as they play footsie with Donald Trump, the tumbling securities markets forecast dark clouds. Sure, bear and bull markets do not always presage a nation’s future fortunes, but sometimes they do. All the elements of serious economic disruption are present: massive government meddling, Trump’s demand for irresponsible monetary policy to cover his tracks, shattered business relationships, mammoth uncertainty, and the beginning of the pullback of capital. If capital goes into hiding, we’re in serious trouble, Great Depression territory.
In the runup to our near future expect the demagoguery of all the Wall Street vs. Main Street blather to take center stage. The class warfare of J.D. Vance links rhetorical arms with AOC/Bernie Sanders. Is it all that inconceivable for our Vice-President to show up at AOC’s next “Fight Oligarchy” rally? One has to wonder. They might have to change the title to “Fight Wall Street”. Mmmmm, “Occupy Wall Street”? Are we there yet?
A simple economic lesson will be taught to our President and his palace coterie, while the rest of us live it. Wall Street and Main Street are as intertwined as Ford and its supply chain. They can’t occupy insular realms, bubbles, silos. A withholding of capital sets off dominoes that careen onto Main Street. Investors seek to avoid Trump-driven risks by not exposing their wealth (capital) to his whims. Following the inevitable chain of events, less capital means less maintenance and growth of enterprises which translates into less business for the diner and hardware store on Main Street.
It’s a lesson well understood by any economist worth their salt. Thank goodness Poland trusted theirs, led by Leszek Balcerowicz, and stayed the course. We, in America, would rather hitch our wagon to our erratic president, and his merry band of Fox News alumni, all adhering to his faulty presumptions. It’s great for Poland, bad for us.
RGraf
Sources:
1. Thanks to Dominic Pino of National Review for these insights in “The Stat: 2026” in National Review Magazine, May 2025, p.9.
