“Prior to 9-11 the US fought proxy wars and launched coups throughout Latin America, supporting autocratic regimes. In Indonesia it helped kill about a million leftists. During the Vietnam War, it killed several million. Since just 9-11 the US invaded or bombed Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Yemen, Iran, Somalia, and Niger. According to Brown University’s Costs of War project, US wars since 9-11 killed 4.5 million people and cost over $8 trillion. The US aided war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank. The US has occupied one-third of Syria, the parts with oil, since about 2015, with help from a proxy army, the SDF. The US allied with al-Qaeda-linked extremist groups in Syria, as reported here, here, and here. It killed hundreds of thousands of Syrians through brutal sanctions. The Trump administration is now bombing Venezuelan boats and is preparing for a land invasion.” (10/28/25)
“‘It’s a landslide victory compared to expectations,’ Lizzy Burden announced for Bloomberg Television, going on to report that U.S. President Donald Trump has taken some of the credit for the successes, Sunday, of President Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances). On Truth Social, Trump wrote ‘BIG WIN in Argentina for Javier Milei … He’s making us all look good.’ But how does this redound to Trump’s, er, biglyness? Well, Trump provided a bailout.” (10/28/25)
“According to several recent news reports, the two major Trump foreign policy shifts last week are the handiwork of Marco Rubio, the President’s Secretary of State and (acting) National Security Advisor. As with all neocon plans, they will be big on promises and small on delivery. First up, according to Bloomberg it was Rubio who finally convinced President Trump to take ‘ownership’ of the US proxy war on Russia, and for the first time place sanctions on Russia. Up to this point President Trump chose to portray himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. But with this move against Russia’s oil sector he can no longer credibly claim that this is ‘Joe Biden’s war.'” (10/28/25)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“How can decentralized coordination incorporate firms as well as individuals and still take account of costs and benefits to everyone? For the firm as well as for the individual the price it must pay for inputs, including labor, transfers to it the cost to others of it using them. For the firm as for the individual, the price it is paid for its outputs transfers to it the benefits to others of what it produces. But the decision makers, the executives and board of directors, are not, like the individual producer, collecting the difference between revenue and cost. What should they be maximizing in order for decentralized coordination to take into account the effect on everyone affected of decisions they make? How can we make it in their interest to do so?” (10/27/25)
“As the government shutdown enters its fifth week, we wonder when Democrats in Congress will regain touch with reality, or if that’s even a thing for most of them anymore. LAX shut down for hours last weekend thanks to an air-traffic-controller shortage; flight delays and cancellations will only get worse nationwide the longer this goes on. And the pain is starting to hit what used to be core Democratic values: Food stamps (SNAP) won’t be funded after this week, nor Head Start.” [editor’s note: The Republicans control the White House and both houses of Congress. They can end the shutdown any time they want it ended. Right now, they don’t want it ended – TLK] (10/27/25)
Source: The Peaceful Revolutionist
by David S D’Amato
“We have discussed the state-capital system’s sleight of hand, through which the technical or formal separation between the dominating group and the exploiting group obscures the character of the system. But the twenty-first century increasingly seems to be an age when this kind of obscurantism is no longer either operable or necessary, where the state can reveal itself and its true character, openly tipping the balance in economic affairs. American leaders have begun to see our traditional form of capitalism (perhaps ‘liberal’ capitalism) – already shot through with state intervention and special privilege, but hiding it in the so-called private sector – as outmoded, as holding the country back in a contest with, for example, China’s ruling Communist Party.” (10/27/25)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Paul Schwennesen
“Some ninety years ago, Rose Wilder Lane penned ‘Give Me Liberty,’ extolling the remarkable freedoms Americans had, especially in contrast to their European counterparts. Written in the 1930s, Lane’s piece is both a stirring defense of American freedoms and a damning portrait of European societies still writhing under the weight of bureaucratic statism. Written just as the state interventions of Roosevelt’s New Deal began to bite, her notes stand as a useful portal into a different era — challenging and checking our current assumptions about the trajectory of transatlantic liberty. In a nutshell, Europe has leapt forward since Lane’s day, while America has wallowed, indeed probably regressed, on the frontiers of individual liberty. Revisited today, Lane’s observations prompt an uncomfortable question: what if the roles have reversed?” (10/27/25)
“A walk through a dozen convenience stores in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, says a lot about how US nicotine policy actually works. Only about one in eight nicotine-pouch products for sale is legal. The rest are unauthorized — but they’re not all the same. Some are brightly branded, with uncertain ingredients, not approved by any Western regulator, and clearly aimed at impulse buyers. Others — like Sweden’s NOAT — are the opposite: muted, well-made, adult-oriented, and already approved for sale in Europe. Yet in the United States, NOAT has been told to stop selling. In September 2025, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued the company a warning letter for offering nicotine pouches without marketing authorization.” (10/27/25)
“The cost of Donald Trump’s garish ballroom that’s replacing the East Wing of the White House keeps increasing, from $200 million to $300 million and now $350 million in a matter of days. That’s because the cost of construction isn’t nearly as important as having an inventory of donations available for corporate America to pony up. These contributions (or if you prefer, bribes) work in two directions: One, they represent cash that companies can give to secure favors from the government. Two, they serve as a disciplining function from Trump: People giving to his ballroom can’t easily speak out against his abuses of power. It’s no real surprise that the formal editorial page of The Washington Post offered a limp defense of the ballroom, when the company founded by the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, is one of the donors.” (10/28/25)
“… government agencies to do things like this. Nor is it madness or just Wokeness or Progressivism or Conservativism. It is human government!” (10/27/25)
