“At a recent Senate hearing on the fiscal outlook, legislators and budget experts said the quiet part out loud: the United States is running historically large deficits in non-crisis times, and we need to stop pretending that we can grow our way out of it. Washington’s problem isn’t ignorance. It’s that the only politically safe position is to acknowledge the debt crisis — and then do nothing to fix it.” (03/19/26)
“A pro-Kremlin figure who unexpectedly denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine in a social media post this week that went viral has been placed in a psychiatric facility, Russian media reported on Thursday. Ilya Remeslo made a career denouncing Putin’s critics until he became one himself, posting a manifesto late on Tuesday to his 90,000 followers on Telegram entitled: ‘Five reasons why I stopped supporting Vladimir Putin.’ He said Putin had prosecuted a ‘failing war’ in Ukraine that had killed millions and torpedoed Russia’s economy to the detriment of its citizens’ well-being. ‘Vladimir Putin is not a legitimate president. Vladimir Putin must resign and be brought to trial as a war criminal and a thief,’ Remeslo wrote in his post. … On Thursday, St Petersburg’s Fontanka newspaper reported Remeslo had been hospitalised in the city’s Psychiatric Hospital No 3.” (03/19/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“In the last month, the small nation of Malaysia has risen in the views of global investors. Drawn by the country’s political stability and economic growth, investors increasingly consider Malaysia a safe method for diversification in the Pacific region amid a softening US dollar and a tumultuous global economy. In 2025 alone, investors poured over $5 billion into local currency debt—the highest in the region — leading to the Malaysian currency, the Ringgit, reaching its highest point since 2018. … This resurgence from the 1MDB scandal of 2020, that saw billions of government money disappear, should not be read as accidental or a mere coincidence of location, though that’s part of it: Malaysia sits in a ‘sweet spot between low-yielders, such as Singapore, Thailand, and South Korea, and high-yielders such as Indonesia and India, which come with their own set of risks,’ according to portfolio manager at Eastspring Investments, Rong Ren Goh.” (03/19/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by William L Anderson
“More than 30 years ago, I was listening to an NPR interview with Paul Ehrlich, the late Stanford University biologist who became the nation’s top environmental guru. His comments were opposite of the truth but well-received by his interviewer. Despite the fact that he often made unwise and outrageous claims that governing elites turned into brutal, coercive policies that made life worse for some of the poorest people on the globe, elites treated Ehrlich as a hero. Knowledgeable people knew better.” (03/17/26)
“Lawyers for the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess called on Thursday for his acquittal on charges of rape, as six weeks of high-profile court proceedings that have cast a shadow over the royal family drew to a close. Prosecutors this week sought a prison sentence of seven years and seven months for Marius Borg Høiby, who denies the rape allegations. A verdict is expected at a later date. … He is charged with 40 offenses in total, including four counts of rape between 2018 and 2024 involving women who prosecutors say were unable to give consent because they were asleep or otherwise incapacitated. Defense lawyers for Høiby, who has no royal titles or official duties, said that there was no evidence of rape in any of the cases.” (03/19/26)
