“The law of diminishing marginal utility is one of the foundational principles of economics, but its significance extends far beyond the marketplace. The principle states that as a person acquires additional units of a good, the satisfaction gained from each successive unit tends to decline. The first glass of water relieves intense thirst, the second provides comfort, and the third offers only modest enjoyment. While economists developed this concept to explain value and choice, it also reveals a deeper truth about human existence.” (08/06/26)
“He was saving the bond market. Or laying the groundwork for a new currency system. Or rescuing a major bank from imminent collapse. The internet has plenty of wild theories about why Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent intervened in currency markets to prop up the value of the Japanese yen on Friday after it hit a 40-year low. Yet the real explanation is probably a lot simpler — and, unfortunately, a lot more worrying. … Bessent is a hedge fund guy. More specifically, he is a Soros Fund Management guy. He worked there through the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and the firm’s bet against the British pound earned $1 billion a few years earlier. Big currency bets are what he does best. In effect, he is playing the currency market because, well, that is what you do.” (08/06/26)
“As the war in Iran has reached its fifth month, progress fails to be made and opposition continues to mount. And while President Donald Trump certainly deserves his fair share of the blame, the playbook he’s using is in no way his own. Since the Cold War, the United States has become the preeminent world power, utilizing its heavily budgeted and expansive military to enforce its hegemony across the globe. During the later years of the 20th century especially, this has primarily taken the form of strategic bombing and overwhelming air power. … The Iran War not only illustrated the defense establishment’s affinity for aerial bombardment, but it also greatly exposed the problematic nature of this framework as official DoD strategy.” (08/06/26)
“Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s Senate Democratic primary Tuesday over Congresswoman Haley Stevens. El-Sayed had a 1% win in a race that featured a third candidate, Mallory McMorrow, who had dropped out but who nevertheless polled around 4% of the total vote. Mike Rogers is the GOP nominee in the fall against El-Sayed. In 2024, Rogers — a very respected, former seven-term Congressman from Michigan who served as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — tallied 2,693,680 votes, or 48.30% of the total electorate in the state in a Senate race he lost to Elissa Slotkin. Republicans need only turn out the same electorate as voted in 2024 and Rogers will win the 2026 race. That sort of turnout is usually, however, a big lift in a non-presidential year, because statewide elections are not as exciting to the average American as presidential contests.” (08/06/26)
“Remember that time a few years back when the government completely reshaped day-to-day life and restricted our basic rights to protect us from a disease that wasn’t that dangerous? Remember how our leaders forced us to comply with a suite of safety protocols that seemed mostly symbolic at best and a test of compliance at worst? Well, it’s happening again but not in the way you’d expect. No, this time the threat is not some plague of medieval proportions. It’s not a new strain of super-Covid. It’s not Ebola or Disease-X. It’s not monkeypox or hantavirus. It’s not even explosive diarrhea from dirty lettuce. No, this time the threat is social media and the open internet.” (08/06/26)
“A former high school baseball player, with a successful businessman as a father and, a promising young man with a ‘bright future’ ahead of him avoided prison for the rape, strangulation, and violent assault of two teenage girls. He was facing up to 78 years in prison, and was instead granted a youthful offender status. Where he must attend community service and counselling. Butler pleaded ‘no contest’ to the charges. And the district attorney claimed that Butler had suffered more than his victims by being subjected to the process of trial and harm to his credibility as a young man. … Butler’s case is not isolated. As many feminists and rights activists have continued to push to the fore front, young men from wealthy and connected families can get away with rape.” (08/06/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Rachel Chiu
“Hawaiian residents are challenging ancestry-based housing restrictions in federal court. A pair of lawsuits filed in June and July takes aim at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, a state agency that reserves long-term homestead leases to individuals who meet the state’s ‘blood quantum’ requirement. To be eligible for a homestead lease—long-term, affordable leases for residential, agricultural, and pastoral purposes—an applicant must prove that he or she has 50% Native Hawaiian ancestry. In any other context, this type of requirement would be instantly illegal. No ordinary government agency or housing authority can deny your application or evict you because of your ancestry. Yet, these controversial rules are very common for determining benefits for indigenous populations, and continue to give the state inordinate power to withhold opportunities and take property from citizens according to overtly discriminatory justifications.” (08/06/26)
“Apparently: ‘Palantir paid just £2m corporation tax in UK in 2024 despite lucrative public sector contracts.’ That someone tries to measure how useful the producer of something is by their tax payments – rather than the value of their output – is deeply weird in itself. … Palantir pays its staff well, partly in shares. That’s it, that’s the one weird trick. They pay the staff well. British political discourse is so perverted that this is seen as a problem.” (08/06/26)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Andrew M Leonard
“Those who have served have experienced first hand what it’s like to fight in conflicts without clearly defined political goals or adequate tools of statecraft.” (08/06/26)
