Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Matthew Williams
“The pricing of prescription drugs is often the subject of debate. Many forget that pharmaceuticals and drug development form a market like any other, but circumstances and the human condition make it admittedly more complicated. Medicine is unique in that it grapples with human life amid unavoidable scarcity. Scarcity forces tough trade-offs and costs, and when lives of our loved ones hang in the balance, emotions can overwhelm rational judgment. Politicians eagerly exploit these situations.” (02/09/26)
“Uganda’s Information Minister Chris Baryomunsi condemned a military raid on opposition leader Bobi Wine’s home last month, telling Reuters that the popstar-turned-politician had not committed any crime and was free to return there. Wine has been in hiding for weeks after fleeing his home in the capital, Kampala, hours before he was announced the runner-up to President Yoweri Museveni in the January 15 presidential election. On January 24, Wine said his wife had been taken to hospital after soldiers invaded their residence, alleging that they partially undressed and choked her. Uganda’s military chief, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, who is also Museveni’s son, denied soldiers assaulted Wine’s wife, but later said on X that they had ‘captured and then released’ her. Baryomunsi, who is also a spokesperson for the government, said the authorities would investigate the incident.” (02/09/26)
“In officialdom, it is rare to find someone without at least a suspicion of corruption; the real question is whether the leadership chooses to act. Xi’s predecessors did not refrain from anti-corruption because they lacked the will. The decisive difference was the power structure. Xi has built a system of personal authority second only to Mao Zedong — how he built it is not the subject here. His opponents like to describe his rule as totalitarian. As an expression of moral outrage, that’s fine, but in stricter analytical terms, Xi’s system has not become the kind of totalitarianism associated with Mao or Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. This is not merely a difference in degree but a partial difference in kind. … it is an intensified autocracy: a technological and organizational reinforcement of traditional authoritarian rule in the digital age.” (02/09/26)
“The more forceful, invasive, violent, and dangerous the deed performed upon the body, the more powerful the assault upon the sovereignty of the individual person. Corporal punishment of any kind violates the inherent dignity of human beings. Torture aims to break the human spirit by abusing the human body, crippling its form and impairing its function so it no longer so readily stands, upright, as vessel of immortal spirit. By contrast, forced injection entails — no blows landed upon the surface of the body — but penetration of the physical interior of the person. Coerced vaccination forces entry into the figurative as well as literal bloodstream of the unwilling subject.” (02/09/26)
“The Republican Party’s turn against liberal internationalism is not a passing Trump aberration but a reversion to long-standing illiberalism on the American right.” (02/09/26)
“Treasuries extended losses after Chinese regulators reportedly asked the nation’s financial institutions to rein in their holdings of US bonds. Yields on 10-year Treasuries rose as much as four basis points on the day to 4.25% after trading around 4.22% earlier. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped 0.1%. Chinese officials had urged banks to limit purchases of US government bonds, and instructed those with high exposure to pare their positions, according to people familiar with the matter. The move was framed around diversifying risk rather than anything to do with geopolitical maneuvering or a fundamental loss of confidence in US creditworthiness. The directive doesn’t apply to China’s state holdings of US Treasuries.” (02/09/26)
“There are downsides to insulting and threatening friends and acting like a Mafia don slapping around his goons. You risk turning them against you, for one thing. But if those friends have been freeloading off you for years, well, there are some upsides, too. We’re seeing that as President Donald Trump’s rough treatment of our European allies has driven them to huffily make steps to actually defend themselves rather than continue to rely on the American defense umbrella.” (02/09/26)
