“Past recessions have been the result of policy errors or disasters. The most typical policy error is when the Federal Reserve Board raises interest rates too much to counter inflation. That was clearly the story in the 1974-75 recession, as well as the 1980-82 double-dip recession. Then we have recessions caused by collapsing financial bubbles, the 2001 recession following the collapse of the stock bubble, and the 2008-09 recession following the collapse of the housing bubble. And of course, we had the 2020 recession because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But now Donald Trump is threatening us with a recession — not because of something that is any way unavoidable, but rather because as president he has the power to bring on a recession.” (03/13/25)
“Last month, I put out a request for experts to help me understand the details of OpenAI’s forprofit buyout. The following comes from someone who has looked into the situation in depth but is not an insider. Mistakes are mine alone.” (03/13/25)
“President Trump declared in his March 4 congressional address that he will seek ‘a state-of-the-art golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland’ from all kinds of attacks. He also said he’s bolstering U.S. Navy shipbuilding through a newly created ‘office of shipbuilding in the White House.’ There’s both bad and good news here. The first goal is physically, and fiscally, impossible. The second is a worthy investment. Here’s hoping that those now force-feeding the Pentagon can tell the difference.” (03/13/25)
“‘By law, we have one job,’ Rep. Tim Burchett (R‑Tenn.) asserted the last time he opposed the ‘continuing resolution’ (CR) on the federal budget. What is that ‘one job?’ It is ‘to pass twelve appropriations bills and a budget. We aren’t doing that, which is why we are $33 trillion in debt.’ You noticed the typo. But it wasn’t. Sure, $33 trillion isn’t right. Yesterday, the official public debt of the federal government was $36.6 trillion, with just a smidge of rounding up. Those first two paragraphs are from 2023; one can almost cut and paste old copy about Washington’s CR fiascos and place them in new pieces and get away with it, clean. On Tuesday, the House passed a continuing resolution to keep the federal government chugging along, with its usual substitute authorization for spending rather than a real budget.” (03/13/25)
“Washington, DC, is riddled with parasites sucking the life out of our nation. Time for a thorough deworming. Jonathan Rauch, in a book by the same name, called it ‘demosclerosis.’ Mancur Olson, in his classic ‘The Rise and Decline of Nations,’ called it a ‘web of special interests.’ I call it ‘the parasite class.’ All refer to a collection of bureaucrats, lobbyists, contractors, nonprofits, non-governmental organizations and connected unions and corporations that have increasingly run our federal government for their own benefit, fattening themselves with the help of diverted taxpayer dollars. I confess that until recently, I assumed nothing could be done about these problems until an unmistakable financial collapse took place …. That has all changed now.” [editor’s note: Sad to see that Reynolds has descended into Trump Derangement Syndrome, positive variant – TLK] (03/12/25)
“Most of the studies and planning among public health researchers and officials in the decades before 2020 came to the conclusion that public masking and lockdowns were both ineffective and largely counter-productive (the 6-foot social distancing rule was so weak it had not even really been studied — it was a totally made up thing). The CDC’s own website had (still has) an infographic that the general run of masks were ineffective and stopping disease inhalation. Meta studies generally concluded lockdowns were counterproductive. But within weeks of the start of the pandemic in 2020, government agencies like the CDC threw out all this history and all their prior plans and decided to mandate masks and lockdowns. … why?” (03/13/25)
“President Donald Trump confronts the failing policy of his predecessor in Ukraine. Eight years ago he did the same in Afghanistan. There the United States was entangled in a shooting war, which made it difficult to leave without an agreement with the Taliban. In Ukraine Washington is waging a proxy war, ultimately more dangerous, given Russia’s involvement, but much easier to leave. Instead, the administration is attempting to impose its preferred solution on both Kiev and Moscow. So far, the path has proved anything but smooth.” (03/13/25)
“I held out some small hope that while it was depressing to consider that Trump was likely to further trash the notion of free trade (and he has certainly delivered on this bad promise), Republicans — after years in the wilderness rightly complaining about government censorship and growing opposition on the Left to free speech — might, just might, do something to make things a bit better. I thought JD Vance calling out Europe on its deteriorating free speech environment in his Munich speech was great. But its easy to call out other countries on this topic, much harder to remain disciplined in one’s own country. It takes a lot of backbone to respect speech from people you really dislike and disagree with. And apparently this administration lacks such a backbone …” (03/12/25)
