Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Athan Clark
“A worker earning $60,000 a year sends 12.4% of his wages to Social Security: $7,440 annually, every year of his working life. Half is deducted from his paycheck; the other half is paid by his employer, which economists broadly agree comes out of the worker’s wages anyway, though he never sees it. There is no deposit slip or account with his name on it, but this is money that would otherwise be his. That same $7,440 a year, invested for 40 years at an inflation-adjusted 7% — roughly the long-run historical performance of US equities — would accumulate to about $1.5 million. Social Security, by contrast, offers most younger workers an implicit inflation-adjusted return in the range of 1% to 2%, and lower still for higher earners.” (06/12/26)
“Iran and the United States have agreed to a memorandum of understanding to end more than 100 days of war, with Tehran saying the agreement includes Lebanon, which has been under intense Israeli attacks since March 2. Mediated by Pakistan and Qatar, the deal will be formally signed in the Swiss city of Geneva on Friday. … According to the Iranian news agency Mehr, the draft agreement contains 14 points. It includes: A permanent and immediate cessation of hostilities on all fronts, including Lebanon; the complete lifting of the naval blockade within 30 days; a US commitment to withdraw its forces from around Iran; and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The draft also mentions the suspension of sanctions on oil sales, reaching a final agreement on nuclear issues within 60 days of signing the deal, and the release of $24bn in frozen Iranian assets during the 60-day negotiation period.” (06/15/26)
“Twice a year, every year, for more than a century now, most Americans ‘spring forward’ or ‘fall back,’ pretending that an hour has been deleted from, or inserted into, our sleep schedules. Our bodies spend weeks adjusting to each ‘new normal,’ leading to, among other things, measurable increases in traffic fatalities. … US president Donald Trump wants the government to knock off its weird time-shifting magic routine. Some Trump-watchers even suggest that he cares enough to make it one of his ‘loyalty test’ issues, punishing politicians who don’t toe the line. Therefore, Congress will likely vote on something called the ‘Sunshine Protection Act’ later this summer. … Thank you, President Trump, for your attention to this matter!” (06/13/26)
“A first-of-its-kind law in New York could force 3D printers sold for homes and business to come equipped with technology blocking them from making guns. The new requirement, also under consideration in California, attempts to thwart the latest technique for producing untraceable ‘ghost guns’ that have turned up in crimes. … A New York law signed last month and a bill in the California Legislature both would direct panels of experts to come up with standards for firearm blueprint detection algorithms. The technology would analyze every design submitted for 3D printing, compare it to a digital library of firearm parts and reject those that are similar.” [editor’s note: If the idea wasn’t so irredeemably evil, it would be kind of funny to watch them fantasize about their ability to implement it – TLK] (06/14/26)
“In his State of the Union address earlier this year, President Trump boasted that ‘one of the primary reasons for our country’s stunning economic turnaround, the biggest in history, where the Dow Jones broke 50,000, four years ahead of schedule, and the S&P hit 7000 where it wasn’t supposed to do it for many years, were tariffs.’ The facts tell a different story. First, because there is no schedule for stock-market gains, it is meaningless to say that the Dow Jones or S&P 500 rose ‘ahead of schedule.’ The reality is that the US economy during the first year of President Trump’s second term simply did not perform a ‘turnaround,’ much less one that could be ranked as ‘the biggest in history.'” (06/12/25)
“Voters in Switzerland on Sunday cast ballots to decide the fate of a proposal to cap the Alpine nation’s population at 10 million by 2050. Preliminary projections by national broadcaster SRF have indicated that the proposal has been rejected by some 55% as against 45% in favor. Under Switzerland’s direct democracy system, referendums are mostly binding in their effect. The proposal has been put forward by the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which has the most seats in the Swiss parliament. Currently, Switzerland has a population of 9.1 million.” (06/14/26)
“It’s hard to denounce [Graham] Platner while supporting [Ken] Paxton (or Donald Trump), but that won’t stop many Republicans from trying. The reverse is also true. Many Democrats will assure themselves that this is entirely different, even though it’s much the same. It is a rejection of the idea that character matters in politics. Some readers may retort that it doesn’t matter, that people of bad character can still make fine public servants. Politicians needn’t be saints. But nor should Americans mindlessly vote for whoever represents their party without any care for character. Nominating those who are obviously unscrupulous and unstable is bad for the country — and, frequently, for America’s parties.” (06/14/26)
“Bitcoin climbed to its highest level in nearly two weeks after the US and Iran reached a deal to end hostilities and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, removing the energy-supply fear that had weighed on markets for months. The token traded around $65,844 on Monday, up 2.1% over 24 hours, after touching a low near $63,722 in the early hours of Asian trading before the deal news broke, per CoinDesk data. The move puts bitcoin about 9% above the sub-$60,000 low it hit last week, its weakest level since October 2024.” (06/15/26)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“Eugenics, broadly defined, is the use of selective breeding to improve the human race. Most people imagine it as government control of reproduction intended to improve the population’s genetics by encouraging reproduction by those with good genes, discouraging or banning reproduction by those with bad; what policies qualify depends on what you count as improvement. Getting parents more nearly the children they want is in my view a better definition of ‘improvement’ than giving them more nearly the children the government wants them to have. Getting parents the children they want, like getting other people what they want, is best done by leaving the choice up to them. If making it easier for parents to affect the genetics of their children seems to you an odd form of eugenics, consider the equivalent issue in economics.” (06/13/26)
