Source: The Daily Economy
by Caleb S Fuller & Scott Burns
“Trump’s ‘Economic D-Day’ against Iran bears an uncanny resemblance to his ‘Liberation Day’ strategy for America. Both rely on the same basic mechanism: restricting trade. Yet Trump assures us they will produce opposite results. For Americans, trade restrictions will bring economic revival; for Iran, they will bring economic ruin. You don’t need a PhD in economics — or any degree at all — to spot the contradiction. The renowned American economist Henry George — a middle school dropout who taught himself economics — exposed the paradox of protectionism in 1886: ‘What protection teaches us is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.'” (10/08/26)
“No doubt, the military must be vigilant in protecting personnel and equipment from threats, especially those assessed as significant and imminent. Yet who imagined that the Pentagon would believe itself unable to protect aircraft based in the UK from Iran? What if America was battling Russia—would the administration also withdraw its bombers from the UK? Withdraw all planes from all Europe? Empty its bases in Asia and the Middle East as well? … The president, as well as other leading policymakers in Washington, should treat the threat to America’s overextended military as an opportunity. Time is long past for retrenchment, winding down a global presence that no longer serves serious, let alone vital, American interests.” (10/08/26)
“With great fanfare, President Donald Trump announced last week that ‘the largest steel plant ever built in the United States’ would be coming to Lee County, Iowa, adding that Mesabi Metallics’[s] $15 billion investment in a pivotal midterm swing state proved his ‘powerful 50% tariffs’ were working. He’s right: The announcement is a tangible result of American steel policy — but, contrary to what the president said, that’s not a good thing. Start with the project’s real price tag. Thanks to tariffs and other trade restrictions, US steel prices are among the highest in the world …. Because steel-consuming industries greatly outnumber steelmakers in the US, studies have repeatedly shown that steel tariffs, whether imposed by Trump in 2018 or George W. Bush in 2002, caused a net reduction in US manufacturing output and employment — effects that, in the latter case, persisted for years after the levies were lifted.” (10/08/26)
“In one of his latest examples of executive overreach, President Trump cancelled $810 million in congressionally authorized spending, yet again undermining Congress’s power of the purse. From funding freezes to illegal wars, Trump has repeatedly tried to seize Congress’s constitutional powers throughout this term. The Government Accountability Office pushed back on the recent cancellation. And there are finally signs that Congress is starting to get fed up. Lawmakers from both parties are reportedly discussing how to adjust future spending bills to make sure this doesn’t happen again. But Congress must go much further in clawing its power back. Lawmakers must learn from congressional history and reassert their authority to check executive abuse, particularly on the power of the purse and war-making.” (10/08/26)
“Since March, Israeli attacks in Lebanon have displaced more than a million civilians and killed or wounded more than 17,000 people. Al Jazeera reported last month that ‘Israeli artillery shelling is still causing uncontrollable fires. Lebanese civil defense and firefighters are not being allowed by the Israelis to reach these areas and put out the flames. More than 60 towns in southern Lebanon are still occupied by the Israeli army, where the Israelis are carrying out a systematic campaign of demolitions.’ The war in Iran and the continued carnage in Gaza have squeezed out American media coverage of Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon and Beirut. But Israel is repeating the same strategy and the storyline that it has used to justify attacking Lebanon since the dawn of the Reagan era.” (10/08/26)
“An alleged gang rape at Cornell University has set the internet ablaze with debate. But whenever anyone asks what the victim did to find themselves in that situation, they’re chastised. Yet these are exactly the kinds of conversations we need to be having to protect other women from similar fates. Pointing out a woman’s missteps does not mean one believes she deserves what happened to her. It helps stop the same thing from happening again.” (10/08/26)
“Prices are the manifestations of countless decisions by buyers and sellers, each acting on individual knowledge no one else has. No buyer’s budget and needs, and no seller’s costs and offerings, are identical. Only a free market can account for this and decide whether a price sticks. Creating laws to cap prices doesn’t make scarcity go away. It just shows up as empty shelves instead of a market-determined price.” (10/08/26)
“Going to the federal government to convince the federal government to limit its own power? That’s not just bad strategy and a lost cause. It’s dangerous to the Constitution and liberty. James Madison gave us the answer – a blueprint for beating the feds without relying on the feds to magically do what they never do – limit their own power. All backed up by the ultimate safeguard for freedom: a highly armed and highly trained general population ready to protect their own constitution and their own liberty against all enemies, foreign or domestic.” (10/08/26)
“On October 1, the Libertarian National Committee filed a 25 page lawsuit against its former Chair Angela McArdle and her domestic partner, Austin Padgett, seeking monetary relief between $250,000 and $1,000,000. … A legal petition is of course allegations and not a not a conviction or a legal finding. McArdle and Padgett haven’t answered yet. Watch for a motion to dismiss, then the process of discovery where the LNC likely attempts to get access to bank statements.” (10/08/26)
“If you pay attention to the MAGA New Right, you will notice a pattern whereby their premier thinkers often wax allegorical about the liberal order in terms that echo Plato’s image of the cave. The names they confer upon liberal democracy are varied and motley: We hear of the ‘administrative state’ and the ‘managerial elite,’ the Cathedral, Longhouse, Gynocracy, and Davoisie. Postliberals like Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule speak of ‘Liberalocracy’ and ‘Sacramental Liberalism’; others of the ‘Negative World’ or simply the ‘Regime.’ But from these various right-wing factions, you will hear a chorus of red-pilled agreement: The liberal-democratic way of life is emasculating and unholy, hypocritical, socially corrosive, and unstable. Perhaps above all else, it is dishonest: ‘They are lying hypocrites!’ the chorus exclaims. Into this counter-revolutionary fray waltzes the political theorist Alexandre Lefebvre, with his wonderfully unconventional book, Liberalism as a Way of Life.” (10/08/26)
