Source: Independent Institute
by Edward J López & Jon Murphy
“A country’s overall BOP must sum to zero. That is by accounting definition. When domestic buyers send money out to bring imports in (the current account), foreign exporters return money domestically as investment (the capital & financial account). The BOP is a form of double-entry bookkeeping applied to international trade. But it also means that the current account—composed mostly of trade in goods and services—can be in deficit, while the capital & financial account is in surplus.” (09/23/26)
“Politicians, government officials, and foreign policy analysts (especially of the ‘realist’ sort) regularly speak of the ‘national interest.’ The meaning of this expression may seem obvious: It is the public interest when the public considered is composed of the individuals within a ‘nation’ (as opposed to the ‘global public interest’ or a ‘sub-national public interest’). I take ‘nation’ to mean a society of individuals, not simply their state. But in reality, just as with the ‘public interest’ in general, the ‘national interest’ has little scientific or rationally ascertainable meaning.” (Fall 2026)
“A federal judge ordered US President Donald Trump on Thursday to restore White House access for journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico, saying his ban on the three media outlets was likely unconstitutional. In a major setback for Trump in one of his biggest battles with the media, US District Judge Tim Kelly issued his order in a lawsuit that the news organizations filed contesting the ban that the Republican president announced on September 18. Kelly ordered the Trump administration to immediately return the outlets’ press passes and blocked officials from enforcing the ban for 14 days. The judge rejected the government’s assertion that the ban was motivated by national security concerns.” (09/24/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Connor O’Keeffe
“As a politician, Donald Trump has always been almost unmatched in his ability to direct and steer the media in ways that benefit him. Throughout his first term, Trump was excellent at making sudden policy reversals and grand, out-of-the-blue announcements that would leave the legacy media scrambling to keep up and therefore keep news consumers from looking too closely at his actual actions for too long. He would completely make up accomplishments and great political victories and operate as if they were real. … That approach of essentially creating and stoking delusions of success in the minds of voters is not actually a bad strategy for a politician. … But the fact remains that Trump has done very little to improve the material well-being of the American people and quite a lot to worsen it.” (09/23/26)
“At least seven people were killed in a Russian strike on a farm in Kharkiv region, with a further 12 people injured. Two more people were killed in Kyiv, including one in the parking lot of a maternity hospital that was damaged. Eight people were injured. The attack came just hours after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged international leaders to keep choking Russia’s revenues and impede its war efforts, telling the UN general assembly that ‘Russia’s revenues must remain a target.'” (09/24/26)
“President Donald Trump signaled that he is entitled to raze the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts if he is not permitted to add his name to the building’s front wall. … The Trump administration’s contortions on this issue almost make Trump’s ravings on the Reflecting Pool seem sane. The Kennedy Center was doing fine financially until Trump took it over at the start of his second term. His behavior is Exhibit A on why culture should be separated from the State. Ironically, aside from his childlike obsession with renaming the Kennedy Center after himself, Trump has made some excellent proposals on federal cultural subsidies.” (09/23/26)
“Bitcoin slipped on Wednesday, as sentiment for risky assets took a hit from soaring U.S. Treasury yields, a boost to Federal Reserve rate hike expectations, and a rise in oil prices as hopes for diplomatic progress between Washington and Tehran took a hit. After rallying nearly 7% on Monday and peaking above $87.3k to touch its highest level since the end of January, Bitcoin has given back some gains. Still, investors remain upbeat about regulatory proceedings around crypto despite the recent failure of the Clarity Act in clearing Congress. … U.S. Treasury yields surged on Wednesday amid a rise in odds of the Fed delivering a rate hike in October. The moves were driven by hot U.S. economic data.” (09/23/26)
“How does anything get built? What are the political precursors to development? Michael Munger has an interesting, and at times persuasive, argument that self-interest combines with particular institutional designs, such as public hearings, to create a prisoner’s dilemma where everyone knows that development is in aggregate desirable but wants that development to be in the next town over. This is, in many ways, the conventional story of NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) politics. That story isn’t wrong per se, but it’s missing a critical component: culture. … I argue that three cultural practices (growth orientation, property rights norms, and positive-sum attitudes) act essentially as gates. If a place fails on any one of them, it is very likely to underbuild. Development will thus, over time, gravitate toward places that can pass all three of these cultural tests.” (09/23/26)
“The Central Elections Committee voted Wednesday in favor of petitions to disqualify the Joint List slate — made up of Balad, Hadash, and Ta’al — altogether as well as Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am party from running in the October 27 election, effectively barring all majority Arab parties from running in the election. The rulings by the panel, made up almost entirely of politicians representing Knesset factions, must be approved by the Supreme Court of Justice, which is expected to strike down the bans, due to the high legal threshold for preventing a political party from running.” (09/23/26)
