Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Alex Rosado
“The word Antarctica brings to mind images of desolation and glaciers, and may even give you goosebumps when thinking of its subzero temperatures. For one American company, the emptiness was an opportunity to bring banking and convenience to a continent once thought to be a buffer to the free market. In 1998, Wells Fargo installed two ATMs at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, an American-run base dedicated to land surveillance, climate research, and the natural sciences. The Station’s population fluctuates between 250 and 1,100 people, depending on the season. With no cities on the continent, the absence of permanent residents makes Antarctic economics a low-growth environment. At face level, having any economic service here sounds like a poor investment. However, the potential in the South Pole’s ATMs doesn’t lie in profit. It arises from observing how little is actually required to sustain a functioning community.” (05/11/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Matt Hisrich
“While reading The Wealth of Shadows — Graham Moore’s excellent historical novel about pre-World War II global finance — I couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of unease regarding the current state of international economics. Set just before the United States enters World War II, the book follows the adventures of a plucky group of Treasury Department employees unofficially working to undermine the German economy while officially maintaining the US position of neutrality. Two figures outside of the US loom large in the narrative — Hjalmar Schacht in Germany and John Maynard Keynes in England. … part of the mystery in Wealth of Shadows is how governments can circumvent the price inflation that comes from excess printing — to have their cake and eat it, too, so to speak.” (05/11/26)
Source: Common Dreams
by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies
“Empires rise and fall. They do not last forever. Imperial declines follow a gradual shifting of the economic tides, but are also punctuated and defined by critical tipping points. There are many differences between the Suez Crisis in 1956 and the US war on Iran today, but similarities in the larger context suggest that the United States is facing the same kind of ‘end of empire’ moment that the British Empire faced in that historic crisis. In 1956, the British Empire was still resisting independence movements in many of its colonies. The horrors of British Mau Mau concentration camps in Kenya and Britain’s brutal guerrilla war in Malaya continued throughout the 1950s, and, like the United States today, Britain still had military bases all over the world.” (05/11/26)
“It doesn’t appear as though the jump in energy prices has yet had much effect on the labor market, as the economy added 115,000 jobs in April. Year-over-year wage growth was 3.6 percent, which is likely to be roughly even with the inflation rate that will be reported next week. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.3 percent, with little change for most demographic groups.” (05/11/26)
“Do senior Democrats not understand how our government is designed? … when something violates the constitution it matters not at all whether it passed with 99.9 percent support or the slightest majority.” (05/11/26)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Marcos Giansante
“There is a recurring temptation in political economy to reduce social order to a problem of conflict. If human interests are not perfectly aligned, the argument goes, stability must rest on mechanisms that prevent clashes, enforce boundaries, and ensure compliance with rules, especially those governing property. This view — while internally consistent — overlooks a more fundamental insight: social coordination does not depend on the absence of conflict, but on individuals adjusting their plans within a framework of dispersed knowledge.” (05/11/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Peter Van Buren
“The Iran War may prove to be little more than a blip on the world’s radar. Or its real significance may lie less in who wins militarily than in whether it accelerates global recognition that the United States is no longer willing or able to enforce the international order it created after 1945. There is a strong argument that, even as the missiles continue to fly, the war is not that significant. It appears today the most likely outcome will be a return to something like the status quo in the Middle East. … The opposite argument requires focusing on a longer sweep of history, in which the Iran War may be a significant marker in the slow-motion end of the global system set in place by the United States after the Second World War.” (05/11/26)
“It takes a lawyer’s disciplined detachment, ability to focus on the most relevant facts of a case, commitment to law, and linguistic accuracy in order to produce a book as competent and useful as Israel on Trial: Examining the History, the Evidence, and the Law. But besides the ideal professional training, Yale-educated US district judge for the Southern District of Florida and former federal prosecutor Roy Altman has the equally essential capacity to appreciate the moral significance of his topic at this moment in history.” (05/11/26)
“The general consensus among both Dempublicans and Republicrats alike is that everybody needs to tone down the dialogue. That, and ‘such acts of political violence have no place in civil society!’ I might be tempted to agree with them if we lived in something resembling a civil society and I’m not talking about the rhetoric. As bombastic as these gasbags in the political class have become in a desperate attempt to improve ratings on that failed reality show they call a government, young folks aren’t popping off politicos because of what other politicos said. … The reality is that we live in a violent country and we always have. For the political class to expect to be immune from this harsh reality is absurd, especially when you consider how goddamn violent they are.” (05/10/26)
“A young liberal woman refused to cooperate with prosecutors after violent recidivist Rhamell Burke attacked her on the subway five weeks before he allegedly pushed a retired NYC teacher to his death on Thursday. Now the 23-year-old woman has regrets. ‘Maybe a part of me was just like, I don’t want to put another black man in jail,’ she told The Post. Maybe if she had indulged in less self-congratulatory empathy for the maniac who allegedly tried to kill her and felt more compassion for her fellow New Yorkers left to the mercy of an out-of-control predator roaming the streets, Ross Falzone would still be alive. But Falzone, 76, was unlucky enough to be entering the Chelsea subway station Thursday afternoon when Burke allegedly randomly shoved him down a flight of stairs, leaving the beloved ex-teacher to die hours later at Bellevue Hospital from a catastrophic brain injury.” (05/10/26)
