“This is the ordinary grammar of attribution in the sabotage era. A government states that its services and their partners have reached a judgement, allied governments affirm the judgement, the proof stays classified; and the citizen is invited to supply the trust that the missing evidence would otherwise earn. It may be that the classified material is overwhelming. It may be that it is thin. The structure is identical either way, which is precisely the problem. A public asked to accept an attribution on faith has no way to tell a strong case from a convenient one.” (09/15/26)
“In 1978-9, before the election of Margaret Thatcher, the top rate of UK income tax was 83%, and any income from investment was called ‘unearned income’ and had a 15% surcharge added, giving a top tax rate of 98%. At that time, the top 1% of taxpayers contributed 11% of income tax revenue, and the top 10% contributed 35%. Today the top rate of income tax is 45%. Now, using the most recently published data for the 2023-2024 tax year, the top 1% of taxpayers paid 28-29% of all income tax, and the top 10% of taxpayers paid 59-60% of all income tax. … When people talk of having rich pay their fair share, I imagine very few of them have any idea of what share ‘the rich’ are already paying. If the top 10% paying 60% of the total is not a fair share, perhaps we should ask them what figure they would consider fair?” (09/15/26)
“Across the country, a chilling shift is occurring. Political violence has become a twisted form of virtue signaling. Mahatma Gandhi is out and Luigi Mangione is in. For an increasing number of young people, nothing signals your values like a willingness to kill others for them. For decades, being nonviolent has been the touchstone for many on the left. Something is changing. On my campus and others around the country, students are rationalizing violence and even idolizing assassins. A recent Emerson College poll shows that 4 out of 10 voters between the ages of 18-29 (39%) view Mangione’s role in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson as ‘acceptable’ or ‘somewhat acceptable’. Other polls show a troubling number of liberal voters consider political violence justified, including polls showing 40% of young people embracing political violence in some circumstances.” (09/15/26)
“Ever notice how leftists routinely rally around people and things that the general public simply has no interest in, seemingly in the hope of forcing whatever that person or thing is to become popular? It might work for a short while (think Labubu, the ugly creatures that look like a cross between a monkey and bad dentistry that blew up for a minute last year) but reality has a funny way of insisting on itself and trends fade. The same thing happens in politics, as Hollywood leftists love elevating people who could easily sell out a Beverly Hills fundraiser for millions of dollars, but could easily walk unrecognized through a mall anywhere else in the world.” (09/15/26)
“What are the implications for economics of recognizing entrepreneurship? They are vast. Modern/mainstream economics is, to a great extent, the outcome of expunging the entrepreneur and forcing an entrepreneurless, mechanistic view onto the economy. This facilitates the use of mathematical analysis and quantitative predictions, but these will always be wrong to the extent that there is entrepreneurship. In a sense, mainstream economics is the science of a planned or plannable economy. And the basic models even assume that there is perfect information.” (09/15/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Macklemore has been removed from the duration of a tour with Ed Sheeran for saying ‘Free Palestine’ and criticizing Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza. In an eloquent statement posted on social media, Macklemore said he was told by Sheeran that New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft had barred him from the Gillette Stadium and coordinated with other stadium owners on Sheeran’s tour to follow suit. Robert Kraft has a net worth of some $15 billion. He was once publicly handed a trophy by Benjamin Netanyahu honoring his commitment to the Zionist project …. Macklemore said Sheeran defended his decision to comply with Kraft’s demand by telling him that ‘the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people.’ Which really says a lot about the detached celebrity cloud that Sheeran has been living on.” (09/15/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott
“On Monday, September 7, in Tokyo, an economist who has spent a year arguing that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) should wait to hike interest rates published a note saying it no longer can. Takuji Aida, who advises Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, sits on her flagship growth-strategy panel, and 10 months ago he warned that a December rate rise would be quite risky. He now expects a rate rise from 1% on September 18, followed by three more rate hikes after that. Aida’s forecast is, in itself, unremarkable: markets seem prepared for such a shift, having nearly fully priced a quarter-point move to 1.25%, the highest rate the BoJ has risen to since 1995. What is remarkable is the source of the rise.” (09/15/26)
“The problem with excessive borrowing is easy to see but difficult to solve, and not in one country alone. The former prime minister of Luxembourg, Jean-Claude Juncker, put it best when he said, ‘We all know what to do, but we don’t know how to get re-elected once we have done it.’ (Not that Luxembourg has the indebtedness problem, for tax havens will always attract money as jam attracts wasps). If one takes Juncker’s remark seriously, which I think that one should, it points to a problem with the current form of democracy itself, and perhaps even of human character. Bribery of the population has become a powerful political argument or tool.” (09/15/26)
“One common complaint about markets is that profit-maximization leads to low-quality products. The populist version is just, ‘They cut corners to save money.’ But the populist version doesn’t explain why firms don’t offer a full menu of price-quality combinations. Firms could just offer ‘copper,’ ‘silver,’ ‘gold,’ and ‘platinum’ quality levels, with suitable upcharges for each quality tier. Textbook asymmetric information models have a response. Namely: While sellers know what quality level they’re producing, customers can’t easily tell. So while they might be happy to pay $500 extra for a product that costs $400 extra to produce, unregulated businesses will try to take advantage of their cluelessness.” (09/15/26)
