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“Tariff policy beneficiaries are always visible, but its victims are mostly invisible. Politicians love this. The reason is simple: The beneficiaries know for whom to cast their ballots, and the victims don’t know whom to blame for their calamity.” Walter E. Williams

While I have in the past called Trump a narcissistic grifter, perhaps worse than calling him a king, which may be construed as a compliment of nobility, I can’t deny his successes such as the release of the hostages from Hamas, immigration, borders and taxes. However, I deplore his tariff tantrums that are nothing more than punitive taxes on Americans; they are also unconstitutional since only Congress can legislate a tax, a decision the Supreme Court should come to soon.

The Trump tariffs are not the first instance where a president has claimed emergency powers to do so; we have McKinley, known as the “Tariff King”, and Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Obama. Curiously, FDR lowered tariffs that he correctly thought made the Great Depression worse; unfortunately, he also continued policies and programs that prolonged what is still the worst economic depression in US history.

When we hear the Trump administration’s arguments against a likely Supreme Court decision against executive power imposing tariffs, we are told that the revenues from tariffs will have to be returned, depriving the American people of all that money. This is absurd as it was the American businesses and people who paid the tariffs that were “…depriving the American people of all that money.”

Then there’s the argument that there will be a return of production by American businesses and the relocation of production by foreign businesses to the US to avoid tariffs; that will happen provided the tariffs are big enough to offset the higher cost of labor and materials, plus the cost of building the infrastructure to accommodate domestic production. In the cases where that will happen, those goods will become more expensive, and in the cases where it doesn’t, Americans still pay higher prices because of the tariffs.

We also have the age old argument about creating more jobs in America, which could happen with that production that comes to the US, but that still means higher costs of the goods produced, which will affect all Americans, including those with the related jobs; when that happens, it will put upward pressure on all labor costs to offset the increase in prices. The jobs argument fails to address the consequences, a bad habit of most administrations.

What tariffs historically tend to do, immediately and eventually, is alienate the foreign countries who lose that production, including those we consider allies; some will immediately retaliate with tariffs on US goods, and some will eventually do that and legislate restrictive trade practices with the US. The increase in production from tariffs may have some immediate benefits, but as this works through the economy, it will decrease trade that will slow growth, eventually lowering employment.  

There are some good things in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that was passed regarding taxes and regulations that will contribute to growth, but it also creates a deficit, something that Republicans rightly criticized prior administrations for, and said they wouldn’t do. Starting a trade war which the administration claims will offset deficits is punishing people, both foreign and domestic, who had little to do with those deficits, other than being burdened with the debt it creates.

“The primary reason for a tariff is that it enables the exploitation of the domestic consumer by a process indistinguishable from sheer robbery.” Albert J. Nock

“The first step to knowledge is a confession of ignorance.” Ancient Chinese Proverb

Thanks to all those that read the prior post where across all four platforms where it was posted there were about seventy views, but not so many answers to the questions provided; I think it was perhaps a little presumptuous in asking too much of viewers’ time to do so. The intent was to illustrate what Thomas Sowell said about definitions of words, i.e., “While the fact that the word is undefined is an intellectual handicap, it is a huge political advantage.”

The ancient proverb above illustrates that giving the quiz right from the start of the course forced students to understand our degree of ignorance; the reaction was energizing and made the course that much more informative and enjoyable. Here are the “correct” answers per the professor together with his explanations, which were technical, not political, i.e., he was not advocating, merely providing definition; they are followed by my comments:

1. Is money an asset or a commodity?

Commodity – it is something of intrinsic value used to facilitate a trade for another commodity, commonly known as a medium of exchange.

Most students and viewers got this one right, but some said it was an asset; back then we were still on the gold standard, which doesn’t exist anymore as all money has become fiat currencies, so the context has changed. Today it’s no longer a commodity, but remains a medium of exchange, but only to the degree its source is trusted, i.e., good faith. On a moral and ethical level, good faith could be an asset, but not a commodity.

2. Is capital money or any asset?

Any asset – while money is an asset, capital is something with a broader economic utilization like land, natural resources, stocks, bonds, buildings, tools…anything of value to society at large.

Nearly all the students and viewers got this one wrong; understandable as in most financial news the word capital is used for funds required for the expansion and purchases of a business.

3. Is trade the essence of an economy?

Yes – as a society progresses it develops divisions of labor, essential for the level of production required to create trade, without which there is no economy.

Most students and viewers got this one right as you can’t have an economy unless there is the exchange of goods and services.

4. Is inflation monetary or fiscal, or both?

Monetary – the cause of inflation is an increase in the money supply, which affects its value, and depending on other factors, may affect prices.

Most students and viewers got this one wrong; again, the context was a prior time when money was a commodity and not fiat. The confusion arises given the manipulation of fiat money which now always affects prices.

5. Is capitalism a cause or an effect?

Effect – it was not invented but observed that the less a society is controlled, the greater the level of production which creates higher levels of capital, hence its name.

Most students and viewers got this one wrong, perhaps because the word evokes political emotions; again, this is a definition, not an advocacy.

6. Is deficit the same as debt, yes or no?

No – when consumption exceeds income it’s called a deficit; if a loan is taken as an alternative to cutting consumption it creates a debt.

Most students and viewers got this one wrong, likely because the media and politicians conflate the issue due to ignorance, which can be contagious.

7. Is the maximization of efficiency and the minimization of cost profit or production?

Production – providing goods and services by nature is a competition for the consumer; there’s no guarantee of profit.

Most students and viewers got this one wrong, again because the media and politicians conflate efficiency and cost as negatives inherent in a free market environment.

8. Is labor part of work or the same?

Part of work – in economics, work includes everything involved in production, including capital, labor, management, investment, resources, etc.

Most students and viewers got this one wrong, perhaps assuming that anything involved in production is “labor”, something physical, an assumption based on poorly defined terms.

9. Is interest the time preference of money, yes or no?

Yes – time is an asset with a variable shelf life, i.e., you either spend your money for immediate consumption, or defer it for future use as in savings and investment, in return for which you are compensated, which is interest.

Most students and viewers got this one right; we all have the choice of either spending or saving, and how we save varies, some in bonds, stocks, CDs, etc.

10. Is an asset’s price depressed by high interest rates, yes or no?

Yes – all asset prices are dependent on both current and future time preferences; the buy or sell price is subject to the cost (interest) of money at any one moment.

Most students and viewers got this one right; high interest rates reflect the high cost of buying any asset, increasing the preference to save rather than spend, consequently depressing demand.

In summary, only a third of students and now viewers got the “correct” answer according to my economics professor, whose explanations were technical, not political, although there was some change over time in context. As a subtext of sociology, economics is a science of observation of human actions. In all sciences it is necessary to establish clear definitions to avoid confusion when communicating ideas; this will lead to an understanding of what is fact and what is fiction, enabling knowledge and a way out of ignorance. In politics there is a tendency to avoid such clarity as definitions get in the way of narratives, an emotional substitute for knowledge, a deception enabled by ignorance.

“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.” Thomas Sowell

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” Milton Friedman

When I was in elementary school, which was a long time ago, we were taught “social studies”, a general topic which included basic history, economics, political science, and civics. It was factually based, without much discussion of theories and not all that much on current events in order to avoid conflicts with what parents thought. This was when schools were K-8 programs; then there was high school, and for those fortunate enough college, where these subjects were focused on separately.

My initial major was political science; it also required a curriculum in history, sociology, and economics. I remember that my economics professor on the very first day gave a quiz; it consisted of various questions that included either/or answers, some of which I still remember because myself and most of the class got so many wrong. The professor did not count this quiz in the grade aggregate, and explained that he was trying to make the point that most people have a very poor understanding of basic economics despite the fact that it is the essence of a society’s existence as in one way or another we are all a part of the economy in our daily lives. He was a good teacher who made this point very clear, much to our embarrassment.

This is even more disappointing today given what I have learned since, and because there seems to be even more economic ignorance than ever before; most high school graduates have never even had an economics class. While I eventually got an associate degree in political science, I later changed my major to engineering, but I have always kept my interests in these subjects and find that they are so interrelated as to be inseparable. I think that Friedman’s quote above makes the point about the inseparable nature of politics, sociology and economics very clear; it is not something that is understood in our society today, and that is the fault of our educational institutions, resulting in such ignorance, and providing an environment that makes deception that much easier.

The more I have come to realize how ignorance makes us more susceptible to deception, the more I think back on that economics professor’s quiz and thought it would be interesting to repeat some of those questions and ask readers to provide their answers; then in a follow-up post I will summarize the answers received. I will also provide the professor’s “correct answers” with his explanations, and my retrospective on them after all this time. I request that the answers be limited to those contained in the question without explanation as to why you chose them, which is how the quiz was given initially; there were more questions than these, but limiting them to ten provides an easy way statistically to summarize the answers:

1. Is money an asset or a commodity?
2. Is capital money or any asset?
3. Is trade the essence of an economy, yes or no?
4. Is inflation monetary, fiscal, or both?
5. Is capitalism a cause or an effect?
6. Is deficit the same as debt, yes or no?
7. Is the maximization of efficiency and the minimization of cost profit or production?
8. Is labor part of work or the same?
9. Is interest the time preference of money, yes or no?
10. Is an asset’s price depressed by high interest rates, yes or no?

Hopefully we can have some fun with this rather than the disappointment I had back when I got so many wrong. Please note that the word “ignorance” in the post is not meant to imply stupidity; ignorance simply means not knowing something whereas stupidity is an inability or unwillingness to learn.

“The first step to knowledge is a confession of ignorance.” Ancient Chinese proverb

“There are twenty-seven specific complaints against the British Crown set forth in the Declaration of Independence. To modern ears they still sound reasonable. They still sound reasonable, in large part, because so many of them can be leveled against the federal government of the United States.” P. J. O’Rourke

We recently witnessed the absurd event “No Kings Day”, a panorama of the ignorant who confuse themselves about how Trump became the 47^th president, and how Harris didn’t; it’s called an election, and Democrats are still trying to convince themselves that it didn’t happen as if it was instead a coronation, just like Harris’ nomination as the 2024 Democratic Presidential candidate. “No Kings Day” included multiple very well organized and orchestrated performative events with mass produced placards, chants, and marching routines, like a band at a college football game. What it didn’t have is anything that would inform us as to why we should consider Trump a king and not a president.

The opening quote from P. J. O’Rourke, while humorous, is factual; when it comes to our chief executive, “We the people…” have made the office of the president a monarchy. I doubt that the participants in the “No Kings Day” possess a shred of historical perspective; instead, they’re acting out a partisan narrative we have come to recognize as “Trump Derangement Syndrome”, more commonly and simply called TDS. Every time we hear from politicians and the media about some crisis, we should take a step back to learn and understand what that crisis is; then we need to determine if that crisis is real or imaginary. If we learn that it is imaginary, we should then understand what James Madison meant when he said, “Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.” If we learn that it is real, we should then understand what Obama’s Chief-of-Staff, Rahm Emmanuel, meant when he said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

This has happened with the Great Depression, the 9/11 attacks, the Financial Crisis of 2008, Covid, immigration, trade…there’s always something as if our existence is now just a series of crises that become opportunities for yet another power grab. This is not a new phenomenon however as in 1832 Andrew Jackson was so vilified for his tyrannical behavior that he was called “King Andrew”. It is said that nature always fills a void to reach a state of equilibrium; unfortunately, the same is not the case in politics that always fills a void with chaos. This has happened with both major political parties, but with two different outcomes.

The Democrat Party (I was recently advised that I have in the past erroneously used the name Democratic Party) has fractured into competing groups since Obama was elected; the media uses terms like the left, the far left, progressive, socialist, moderate, radical, centrist…sounds more like biological descriptions of the animal kingdom, which is how some of these groups behave. What binds all these factions together is not policies or ideas, but an ethos of hate, mostly directed at Trump, but also Republicans in general.

In the meantime, ever since George H. W. Bush became president, The Republican Party also similarly  fractured, although into fewer competing groups; some were already extant at the time, like the “Tea Party”, and conservative, and then we get neocons, Christian Right, moderate, Never Trump, Maga…sounds more like corporate entities, which is how some of these groups behave. What binds them all together is something that they do not have, and that is the Democrats’ support for a deplorable social ideology regarding immigration, sex, race and religion. For more details tune into mass media for a “Ground Hog Day” like repetition of events.

Both these two major political parties, through the fracturing that occurred created the void that became filled with chaos, like hyperinflation, disease, war, violent protests, broken borders, assassinations…they actually did start the fire! Historically, chaos leads to populism, a tipping point which can lead anywhere because it absorbs the energy of the chaos created to become the person seen as a path to “normal”; the electorate yearns for policies that will get them there and whoever convinces the people that they have them, becomes their leader.

The Democrat Party has become leaderless, with no tangible platform of coherent policies, relying instead on partisan narratives; the problem with narratives is that they lack the factual content common sense people can trust, causing the American People to be apathetic and/or ignorant. This creates even more chaos and as the old saying goes, “…we’ve seen this movie before…”, but with a difference, i.e., we don’t know how it will end because the chaos hasn’t.

As a society we are losing our cultural heritage as a constitutional republic, devolving into populism. In order to stop the chaos, we need to fill the void it comes from with the principles that created our republic, a shared sense of values from which civil discourse replaces partisan narratives; we should start with a more careful examination of who we choose as leaders.

“Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.” P. J. O’Rourke

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” Milton Friedman

When I was in grade school, which was a long time ago, we were taught “social studies”, a general topic which included basic history, economics, political science, and civics. It was factually based, without much discussion of theories and not all that much on current events. This was when schools were K-8 programs, then high school, and then for those fortunate enough college, where these subjects were more focused on separately.

In college things changed with the focus less on dates and names and more on theories.  My initial major was political science, which also required a curriculum in history, sociology, and economics. I remember that my economics professor, who on the very first day of his course gave a quiz; it consisted of various questions, which I still remember, mostly because I got so many wrong. Here are some of the questions I remember with my answers in italic, and the correct answers in bold:

1. Is money an asset or a commodity? Commodity. Commodity.
2. Is capital money or any asset? Money. Any asset.
3. Is trade the essence of an economy? Yes. Yes.
4. Is inflation monetary or fiscal, or both? Both. Monetary.
5. Is capitalism a cause or an effect? Effect. Effect
6. Who originally said “From each according to their ability to each according to their need.”? Karl Marx. Louis Blanc.
7. Is deficit the same as debt? No. No.
8. Was Adam Smith an economist? Yes. No.
9. Is the maximization of efficiency and the minimization of cost profit or production? Profit. Production.
10. Is labor part of work or the same? Same. Part of work.

We later learned that most of the class got half wrong, and no one got them all correct. The professor did not count this quiz in the grade aggregate, and explained that he was trying to make the point that most people have a very poor understanding of basic economics, despite the fact that it is the essence of a society’s existence, and something that in one way or another they are all a part of in their daily lives. He was a good teacher who made this point very clear, much to our embarrassment.

While I eventually got an associate degree in political science, I later changed my major to engineering. I always kept my interests in these subjects and find that they are so interrelated as to be inseparable. I later learned that Adam Smith was actually a philosopher of morals and ethics, and his “The Wealth of Nations” was a treatise in sociology; economics was not even a course of study at that time. I think that Friedman’s quote above makes the point about the inseparable nature of politics, sociology and economics very clear; it is not something that is understood in our society today, and that may be the cause of so much ignorance, stress and chaos that has developed over the last few decades.

You don’t have to be a scholar in any of these disciplines to understand on a common sense level that debt is not a good thing, that deficits are unsustainable, and that nothing is free as someone always pays; but here we are with so many politicians telling us the opposite of what common sense tells us is just not so. The legacy media reports about polls that show there are so many Americans who think that socialism is a good thing, while at the same time so many are concerned about saving democracy; is this a contradiction or an insight into the relationship between the two?

There are politicians who use language to disguise socialism’s inherent authoritarianism with labels like “Democratic Socialism”; this is just to create an illusion that somehow you can have freedom while you destroy it. According to Karl Marx, “Democracy is the road to socialism.”; maybe that’s less an illusion for socialism than a delusion about democracy. One of those questions that I got wrong above was about labor and work; we later learned that work is production, which combines labor, capital and material to make things for consumers, so when we hear that socialism is the control of the means of production, it means it’s about controlling you, those who work to produce things.

Historically, socialism has always failed because it is not about creating wealth but distributing it, lasting only as long as there are capitalists around to pay for it; in that sense, it is a parasitical system as described by Louis Blanc in the quote noted in my professor’s question. There is no virtue in any engineered economic system as they are all so contrary to the natural laws of humanism, so contrived as to rely on ignorance and envy that all it can do is create misery in the name of equality.

When we hear Mamdani, Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speak in support of socialism, they ignore the historical reality of the inevitable failure of such centrally planned economies like Justicialism, Partito Nazionale Fascista, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, Falange Española Tradicionalista, Partido Comunista de Cuba, Mao Tse-tung Ssu-hsiang, or Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela; these are the voices of ignorance using words cloaked in deceptive labels like “progressive” or “democratic” in order to make us think that somehow this time things will be different.

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston Churchill

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Those who have seen the 1995 movie “The Usual Suspects” may recall this quote, the origin of which, other than the film’s writers, scholars believe is the French author Charles Baudelaire; it aptly applies when we hear various politicians, pundits and TV personalities try to convince us that ANTIFA doesn’t exist, despite repeated violent incidents over the last couple of decades, more recently during the “Summer of Love” in 2020, and the 2025 attacks on ICE facilities, and on the journalists who covered those riots.

One of the most chilling incidents was in Portland with the ANTIFA attack on Katie Daviscourt, a reporter for the Post Millennial; immediately following her attack that left her face bruised and bloodied, she ran down, found and identified her assailants to the police, but inexplicably the cops refused to do anything. Her reports over the months of nightly violent protests, with attacks on ICE agents, reporters and even some residents, were being ignored by the Portland police; later it was found that this was under direction of city officials. It seems Portland is a sanctuary city for ANTIFA.

The same thing happened to Nick Sortor of the American Tribune; in a bizarre delusional twist, when he reported the attack, he was arrested and later accused of inciting the violence he was a victim of. What makes this even more egregious, they did not inform him why he was being arrested until they called in to get the reason from whomever came up with this really dumb idea; apparently whoever it was realized how really dumb this was, so charges were dropped, and he was released.  None of this is new to Andy Ngo, a journalist who in late May of 2019 was attacked by a local organization who called themselves the “Rose City ANTIFA,” which Ngo had gone to cover; he was beaten badly, hospitalized, and nearly died. After he recovered, he was back reporting on more ANTIFA violence in Portland in 2020, and again attacked, beaten and hospitalized.

Ngo sued that ANTIFA group, including their leaders who were named in the complaint; he recently won, and was awarded $300K in damages, which I doubt he will ever receive; bizarrely, no criminal charges were ever filed against his attackers. The fact that this happens repeatedly in various cities, with politicians, city officials and in some cases as in Portland, even the police, not only refusing to do anything about it, but denying it even happens, and even more oddly denying that ANTIFA even exists. Apparently, the devil loves Portland.

During the ANTIFA riots in Portland in 2020, New York Rep. Jerry Nadler was interviewed in Washington DC by Austen Fletcher, who was showing him actual videos taken of the violence there and asked for comment; Nadler’s response was that ANTIFA, and the violence displayed was all a myth as nothing was happening but peaceful protests. Nadler is not alone as currently there are other Democratic politicians in denial of this violent reality, as if appeasing ANTIFA. They should remember what Winston Churchill said about that: “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”

Most recently, the very author of the ANTIFA handbook, Mark Bray, a professor at Rutgers University, was called out for his support, teachings and promotion of ANTIFA; he said he received death threats and attempted to flee to Spain but claims he was somehow prevented by the government through United Airlines. We are likely to hear more on that story from many in the legacy media who mysteriously refuse to this day to recognize that ANTIFA actually exists, while at the same time blaming ANTIFA’s violence on ICE for inciting them to riot; the contradiction apparently is lost in translation due to failed journalism.

The problem with the Trump Administration declaring ANTIFA a terrorist group is that it should have happened years ago. What we really need to know is where is the money coming from that funds this horrible reality called ANTIFA, and what’s behind the denial of this reality. The anagram stands for being against fascism, while in fact this is the most obviously violent, well-funded and organized fascist group around; it’s time for Americans to recognize this and call-out those who support this terrorism, including the enablers in politics and media who lack the moral courage to see the reality that these devils exist, and before this delusion proves fatal.

“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” Ayn Rand

“How many are worried about a government shutdown? How many are more worried about it starting back up?” Jay Leno

Humor has a way of clarifying perspective and giving us another way to look at something that relieves the angst created by the media, in this case about yet another government shutdown. I don’t even think of this current shutdown as a problem, but more like an opportunity to see through the deceptions of all the partisan posturing. I wish I could remember the author of the COVID era joke about how “The government accidentally shuts itself down with the ban on non-essential businesses.” Perhaps as Leno says, we should be more worried about the government starting back up again.

In this latest edition of a shutdown, we are again treated to a “Continuing Resolution” (CR), a seemingly simple idea of allowing more time to reach a budget agreement by doing the same thing that’s been going on since the last administration. The catch here as Rand Paul points out is that it’s not what the current administration was elected to do; Trump et al promised that this time things would be different with no more kicking the can down the road, no more deficits with irresponsible spending adding to an already unsustainable debt.

Curiously, as politics again shows us the phenomenon of strange bedfellows, we have the aging perennial Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, and the voice in the wilderness libertarian, Rand Paul, voting against the CR, but for very different reasons; Schumer fears the mob backing AOC to take his seat, and Paul fears the inevitable, and perhaps this time the irreparable damage additional deficits will cause. Oddly enough, Schumer’s fears are the more likely outcome as the shutdown provides the Trump administration with the opportunity to shrink the Federal government, something Schumer is against, and Rand Paul would welcome.

The Democratics are using a parliamentary tactic known as a filibuster, which is basically talking to no end other than to prevent a vote, in this case on the CR. There are two main issues that the Democrats have in doing this; one is that it’s literally obstructionist, and two, they have voted for CRs thirteen times during the Biden Administration so not doing so here seems like just more TDS. The Democrats’ proposal to end the filibuster requires adding $1.5T to the CR, which is not only contrary to the very definition of a CR, but also fiscally suicidal as there are no funds to support that; to do so would require even more deficit spending which would increase an already unsustainable debt.

The Republicans are understandably concerned with the perception that the shutdown happened on their watch and have found themselves in a media battle focusing on the fallacies of the Democrats’ position that the Big Beautiful Bill is a threat to healthcare. Whether or not that happens would be addressed not in a CR, but the negotiations and reconciliations in the budget process that follows. The problem for the Republicans is that they don’t have support in the legacy media for anything, and the problem for the Democrats is their obstructionist tactics are obviously in the interest of self-preservation; Schumer and others represent the old guard Democratic Party at odds with the socialist movement represented by AOC, which they fear will alienate many Americans, particularly those who are independents. 

Translation of all of this is that it’s another power play, not just between the two main political parties, but also within them. The Republicans came to power over immigration and inflation; the latter is a result of years of irresponsible monetary and fiscal policies of all prior administrations, but most egregiously during the Biden administration; they can’t blink, or they will be seen as powerless to fulfill what they promised. The Democrats are in an existential crisis between the socialist movement within their party, and their traditional base.

What we have here is an old fashion game of chicken, contrary positions on a collision course; the trick in playing chicken is knowing when to blink. The problem with the CR stalemate is that neither party can afford to blink; maybe that’s a good thing as it strips away the veneer of what we’re told government should be compared to what common sense shows otherwise, and how little we get of either compared to the taxes we pay. For those who think that a compromise here would be a good thing, remember what Arthur Block, the author of “Murphy’s Law” said: 

“The compromise will always be more expensive than either of the suggestions it is compromising.”

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into a lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to differentiate between good and evil.” Hannah Arendt

The stated mission of the United Nations is to maintain international peace and security in order to develop friendly relations among states; it was to do so by promoting international cooperation by providing a forum in which nations could peacefully discuss, debate and resolve issues rather than resort to the barbarous historical means of the past with armed conflict. It was made apparent again yesterday by the shameful and cowardly exodus of most of the General Assembly of the UN in protest to the speech by the Prime Minister of Israel that it is incapable of fulfilling its mission.

The UN was never intended to be a police force, although at times it attempted to do so by posturing that such actions were in the cause of peace, which we were to believe made it the lesser evil, when in fact it perpetuated the very evil it was meant to avoid; in the cause of peace it failed miserably. Over the years, especially in more recent times, it has become something even worse as grotesquely illustrated by its support for the very evils that provide for conflict.

Since it was created to provide an alternative to war by providing a forum for communication, how can there be communication if the majority of its members refuse to listen to one of their own? One of the first actions of the UN at its inception was to recognize the State of Israel, yet now it wants to create a new state of Palestine whose declared mission is the annihilation of Isreal. It is apparent that the majority of the UN members, including many nations in the West, lack “…the capacity to differentiate between good and evil.”

It is time for the US to reconsider its membership in the UN given the simple fact that the organization is not only incapable of fulfilling its mission but supports the very toxic policies promoted by terrorist organizations, especially in regards to Israel, and American interests in general. Given the fact that the US pays approximately 23% of UN revenues, its departure would at least reduce the funds various UN agencies have been found to use in support of some terrorist organizations. Discussions in Congress to do so have been relatively muted since Ron Paul’s proposed bill, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which would withdraw the US from the treaty known as the UN Charter. If ever there was a case for the US to leave the United Nations, it is this latest episode of involving an action that rewards terrorism.

The very notion of a two state solution that the UN General Assembly has supported for awhile now is a failure to even see the reality that there are already actually two Palestinian States involved, one ruled by Hamas in Gaza, the other by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in the West Bank, and in between there’s Israel. If you are going to recognize a state, you should be able to identify what it is both geographically and politically; by that simple logic, you have to either deal in this case with both existing Palestinian states, or declare who exactly you are recognizing as the “legitimate” one. No matter what construct of “state” is proposed for Palestine, neither Hamas nor the PNA will agree, causing yet another conflict added to what is already a region in chaos.

The UN was an early consequence of the globalist ideology born of the post war period; it is an ideology that promotes separating political sovereignty from the people of its member nations, which for many of the evolving countries of that time allowed for tyranny by creating an overlord environment, with the UN as the new monarchy and member nations its vassals. If this sounds Medieval, it’s because it is, complete with the alliances, intrigues, violence and betrayals of such a system. As history has shown, including that of the UN, such systems are unsustainable as the result isn’t greater solidarity but polarization of competing factions, each with its own ethos. We have seen the chaos that such organizations eventually devolved, as with the League of Nations, which only exasperated the conditions that led to WWII.

There is an inherent moral hazard created by such treaties that created the League of Nations, and its successor the United Nations, which is present at any time, and that is that any party has the opportunity to gain from acting contrary to the principles of the agreement, especially if there are no consequences if it does so. This is where the UN is at, which should inform the US that it belongs to an organization that has become the antagonist to the very principles upon which it was created; while this may be an example of the “Law of Unintended Consequences”, it doesn’t mean that the US should continue to tolerate it, or it may find out too late why Washington and Jefferson argued for a careful foreign policy “…of friendly neutrality that would avoid creating implacable enemies or international friendships of dubious value, nor entangle the United States in foreign alliances.”

“Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.” Robert Louis Stevenson

“Beneath anger is always fear.” Anonymous

How do we not know the author of this quote, but know the quote? This happens often but is still kind of odd; I came across it in a TV interview with some retired US military officers who served in NATO operations over the last few decades and wrote it down as it struck me that this obvious correlation and often causation of aggression is overlooked. Much of the anger and hatred directed against Israel and the West comes not only from the Muslim world, but from within Western countries themselves; it’s simplistic to say this is just more antisemitism as that has always infected Western society since the Diaspora. There’s something more sinister about the current rise of antisemitism, something that also permeates the growing negative societal attitudes toward liberty in general.

It’s no coincidence that hatred, and the anger it spawns, is nurtured by fear itself; in this case the fear is that people may not agree with your point of view, and even further, that they are “allowed” to do so. Liberty is historically associated with Western society and its Age of Enlightenment with the focus on humanity’s basic rights in natural law. While Americans understand that slavery violates basic human rights, many do not seem to understand that the basis for a functioning socialism is a form of slavery; when Americans hear a politician promise free things if elected, what they don’t hear much is that there’s no such thing as free, unless of course you abuse someone’s liberty by taking what’s theirs.

This disconnect between the desire to have what’s not yours and the reality that “free” means someone else is at risk of enslavement to serve such desires constitutes a culture of death because you are denying the right to life, liberty and property; this applies to all human beings no matter what their economic status may be. Socialist societies are inherently parasitical based on the very premise of their existence regarding humanity, i.e., “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” The previous quote is erroneously attributed for Karl Marx, but correctly attributed to the 19C French socialist, Louis Blanc; just a note for those that keep score on who came up with such really horrible ideas. What Karl Marx did say was that “Democracy is the road to socialism.”; that previous quote is for those that don’t know the most important difference between a democracy and a republic.

What socialists fear most is that liberty means we are responsible for our life, and our production of services and goods that will sustain it; sounds like work and it takes a lot of that to survive, and a lot more to prosper. Since time is money, then those that would seek to live off your work are taking time from your life; that is a form of slavery no matter what the rhetoric used to disguise it. One of the curious current phenomena politically is the uproar about Zoran Mamdani likely being the next mayor of New York City; what’s curious is that, as was the case with Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party looks upon one of their own as radioactive. Remember Marx on democracy above which helps explain the alienation between Mamdani and many of the Democratic Party’s leaders is that he used the “S word”; what this alienation exposes is hypocrisy as Mamdani is exactly the product of what “liberal” and “progressive” Democrats have fostered since Woodrow Wilson (whose great accomplishments were income tax, central banking and world war), i.e., socialism.

With the case of all fears that foster hatred, which in turn fosters anger and often violence, it creates for everyone, especially the most vulnerable, a loss of safety and security. When I say everyone, consider yesterday’s tragic event of the assassination of Charlie Kirk; I was not much of a fan, but have heard him speak and debate. He was obviously devoted to civil discourse and open debate as that was his passion, and of course his livelihood; he was always direct, sincere and civil as a political advocate. What should horrify us, regardless of the assassin’s motives, is that anyone can be targeted for their beliefs if different from some deranged adversary; to say as some in mass media have said that the victim brought this on himself for expressing his ideas is an inherent trait of fascism, as is socialism. What Zoran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, and a growing host of parasitical politicians did to alienate the Democratic Party’s leadership is to call themselves what they are, i.e., socialists; they dropped the fig leaf of identity that uses “Progressive” or “Liberal” and simply admitted what those labels actually mean. For those in the Democratic Party like John Fetterman who correctly see this for what it is, calls out the moronic nature of it, risk much, perhaps as much as Charlie Kirk did.

Today we commemorate the tragic events of 911, in a country now where some politicians support the cause of terrorism, stating that the US brought that horror on itself, as if the victims are responsible but not the perpetrators; then you have some media morons like Matthew Dodd of MSNBC who blame Charlie Kirk for his own assassination, again making the victim responsible, but not the perpetrator. Isolated, such obscenities are a concern, but taken together we have a dangerous growing malignancy eating away at liberty as evidenced by the attacks on free speech and free markets. Those attacks usually include denouncing someone with name calling for having a position contrary to your own without addressing what is wrong with their position, an obvious indication of fear coupled with a lack of intelligence, as if anger is an argument.

“In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.”  Siddhartha Gautama

“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.” Thomas Paine

The Federal Reserve has been purchasing huge amounts of USTs over the last few years; this happens more often than we would think and has been a habit of the Fed since its inception. The Fed buys these bonds from major dealers in the financial markets that have trading relationships with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Fed’s regional district bank for such activities; it goes through this circuitous process since it is not allowed by law to buy directly from the US Treasury because that would be in violation of its independence from the Federal government. Really!?!? Follow the money.  

The Fed, on a Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) basis, is technically insolvent; while it is the entity that conducts stress tests on banks in the private sector to determine their financial health, it itself is bankrupt. So where then does it get the money to buy such huge quantities of USTs? The Fed directs the US Treasury regarding when and how much money the Bureau of Engraving and Printing (BEP) should print; the money gets delivered to the Fed who then distributes it to its regional offices for distribution to banks and credit unions, and of course funds its purchase of USTs. While the Fed is subject to audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), it is under law accountable to no one. As Thomas Paine so eloquently observed, it is in fact that body nobody ought to trust.

Prior to the FDR and Nixon administrations that effectively killed the US Dollar as commodity money, this was not so much a problem for foreigners, including sovereign governments, to buy our debt because it was by definition sound money. When it became just another fiat currency, things changed, and over time, not for the better. Eventually, as has been the historical problem with all fiat currencies, it will implode from the weight of its own debt. The problem for any new administration is that they inherit the sins of the prior administrations’ policies that added to the problem bringing the tipping point closer to the inevitable. Whomever that administration is currently, in this case Trump’s, will have to deal with this existential threat to our economy.

It would seem obvious to any administration that this is something they do not want to happen on their watch, and since its inception, the Fed has accommodated the preference for the kick the can down the road option, as has been the case over the last hundred years. The problem for Trump is that we’ve run out of road on his watch; this is not some obscure situation, although the legacy media has reported little about it. There are various elements as to the pending tipping point that are known and to some extent mentioned by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but little done to address it.

Ever since the end of WWII, USTs have been the go to safe haven for many of the foreign sovereign central banks in the world. The first major hit to this paradigm was Nixon ending the US gold standard; so bad was this hit that for the immediate future the US had to issue USTs denominated in Swiss Franks as the world correctly viewed Nixon’s move as a default on the dollar. The US went into a prolonged, deep and difficult recession; not since the Great Depression, and before that the 1837 Depression, had similar factors to today’s combined to trigger the tipping point.

What had renewed the purchasing of USTs since Nixon’s ignorant and unconstitutional end to the gold standard was Volker’s 1979 Fed policies that stabilized the dollar, but also resulted in a predictable recession with higher interest rates and monetary deflation. The subsequent Reagan and Clinton administrations’ policies, aided by a stable dollar, had solid periods of growth, lower deficits and even some surpluses. Since then it has been downhill triggering the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. Both the Bush and Obama administrations went back to the old play book option to kick the can down the road, and the Fed accommodated them; monetizing debt is a great deception and disservice to the American people.

How many times can you do the same thing over and over again and expect the same results? The answer is every time until you drive your currency off the cliff at the end of the road. The two biggest holders of USTs have been Japan and China. Japan’s purchasing has been steadily decreasing over the years but remains the largest holder, while China used to be an even larger holder; since 2018 when China held $1.3T, it has decreased its holdings to approximately $.75T today, a decrease of nearly 40%. At the same time China has become the world’s largest buyer of gold and silver. Similar situations have evolved in the EU and other countries. The yield on bonds is inverse to its price, so the higher the yield, the lower the price; 2 year UST bonds yield just under 4% and the 10 Year just over 4%, making these bonds relatively attractive, but what concerns prospective buyers is the underlying dollar risk.

In the age of fiat currencies, a country’s credit worthiness is based on belief, i.e., it’s a matter of trust in that country’s good faith efforts to maintain a stable currency. One of the metrics economists use to measure a county’s credit worthiness is the Debt-to-GDP ratio; when the debt exceeds its GDP, a country is deemed a credit risk because such economic instability inhibits growth, reducing revenues, which creats the need for further borrowing to meet a country’s financial obligations; this is where the US is at, and when a bond auction goes poorly, as it has been doing over the last few years, you see the Fed jump in, buy the disregarded USTs with yet more inflated dollars. It’s a viscous cycle as the US now has a debt service absorbing 23% of tax revenues.

Trump ran on many campaign promises, most of which he has kept, but the most critical one was to cut spending to decrease deficits and pay down debt; he has betrayed that promise with the so called “Big Beautiful Bill”, one beautiful on taxes, but big on spending with a potential add of $5T to the debt. Adding fuel to the fire are his trade policies; tariffs are not only taxes on your own country, but inevitably create trade barriers, especially with those considered allies, which in turn alienates them, providing no incentives to take risks, like buying sovereign bonds denominated in an ever inflating currency. It breaks the bonds of trust worse between friends than enemies.

Trump also promised the end to the “Forever Wars” that have plagued the US since the end of WWII; while he has been a force for peace in many recent conflicts, he recently committed the US to support the EU if it becomes involved directly in the Russo/Ukrainian War. His threat to Putin has been to get with the peace negotiations or find yourself hit with more crippling tariffs and sanctions; not only will such threats not work, but there is no need for this as the US has no obligations other than under NATO, and that doesn’t apply here.  This is a European issue and every time we get involved with their issues, Americans find themselves at war, the single biggest threat to a currency already on life support.

The trade wars of the late 19C and early 20C were the root causes of WWI; the assassination of some royalist head of state just the excuse. The same protectionists’ trade wars of the 1920-30s gave rise to the economic crises that created the authoritarian regimes in Japan, Spain, Italy and Germany, and even to some degree here in America; those trade wars evolved into another world war. With trade wars, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. The briefest and the best definition of economy ever is Mises’ “Human Action”; it relies on trust, so when you destroy the trust in money, you destroy the trust in trade, the human action we call the economy. Americans need to send a message to all politicians that the Fed and the national debt it has accommodated needs drastic reform and that this is the single most critical issue of our time…and time is running out.

“It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.” René Descartes