“Much of Book 3 is dedicated to a historical account of how and why the feudal order that prevailed throughout Europe for many centuries eventually gave way to a liberal, commercial order—that is, how a world dominated by hierarchy, dependence, and intrastate conflict was superseded by one in which the rule of law reigned and people enjoyed comparative freedom and safety. Smith’s account of how the feudal lords squandered their immense power for the sake of frivolous luxuries has become a famous one.” 903/25/26)
“Two years after the European Union (EU)’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) took effect, the results have been mixed to negative. Promises about certainty, lower enforcement costs, and a more innovative and competitive digital ecosystem haven’t materialized. Rather than learn from Europe’s mistakes, Californian policymakers and federal proponents of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN)’s American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) would import similar ideas to ostensibly help small businesses and hold tech giants accountable. The EU’s experience shows that DMA-style proposals aren’t just unlikely to achieve these goals. They’re also likely to harm consumers, competition, and innovation.” (03/25/26)
“This is a story of the unintended consequences of a Pyrrhic victory celebrated 35 years ago as a history-making triumph. As the U.S. fights its latest war in the Persian Gulf — this time against Iran, the country that benefited most from Saddam Hussein’s demise — it’s a good moment to reflect on Operation Desert Storm. That intervention now appears to have been an avoidable war that set the United States on a disastrous course from which it has failed to extricate itself. What seemed like a clean victory in 1991 has turned into a strategic quagmire.” (03/25/26)
Source: Grist
by Jake Bittle & Rebecca Egan McCarthy
“The government is paying TotalEnergies to halt a wind farm it isn’t building, in exchange for fossil fuel investments it’s already making.” (03/25/26)
“The Trump administration has been obsessed with maximizing the president’s war powers to justify his agenda on such things as industrial policy, immigration, domestic deployment of the National Guard, and, most glaringly, trade. But now, when we’re actually at war, officials are reversing their economic philosophy in service to Trump’s seat-of-the-pants decision-making. Trump’s trade policies are exactly what the great 19th-century economist Henry George had in mind when he warned, ‘What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.’ What’s so strange is that Trump is turning George on his head by easing economic pressure on our wartime enemy. But he’s also reversing his own biases by liberating our domestic economy.” (03/25/26)
“The very quiet shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security got louder in the past week as lines outside TSA airport security checkpoints grew to tremendous lengths. … Congress seemed to get really interested once Delta suspended its special service that allowed members of the House and Senate to skip security lines. Funny how that works. The framework of the emerging deal was on the table before the shutdown even began. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) introduced a bill in February to fund other parts of DHS, but not ICE or Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while negotiations continued. What’s being discussed in the Senate would go further: Every agency in DHS, including CBP, would get funding except for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), the entity that finds and detains people. Republicans would then seek to fund ERO as part of a broader budget reconciliation bill on a party-line vote.” (03/25/26)
“Most people have little understanding of what is big or small in the federal budget, in large part because the media have made a conscious decision to not inform people. Rather than taking ten seconds to indicate what share of the budget a particular item is, they just write huge numbers in the millions or billions, knowing they are completely meaningless to almost everyone who sees them. With this in mind, I thought it would be useful to write a piece pointing out that the $200 billion (2.9% of the budget) Trump plans to ask to cover the cost of his war in Iran is, in fact, a big deal. While this is still less than what we spend on huge social programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, it is far larger than most of the items that are subject of major political debates.” (03/25/26)
“The TSA has a long history of failing to such a degree that it could never survive had it not been run by and within the government. Costing taxpayers and travelers $10 billion annually, not counting the inconvenience and time lost, the agency fails even on its own terms. The failure rate in 2015 was over 90 percent. The same in 2017. If these data seem dated, it is because they are. Instead of fixing the problems, the results of the agency’s internal testing were classified. In the absence of data, the only reasonable interpretation is that the agency remains a catastrophic failure to this day. The recent airport chaos stresses how the security theater has become an unbearable bottleneck. It also stresses how dysfunctional government services become problematic beyond the waste of resources and the inconveniences they cause.” (03/25/26)
