Source: Underthrow
by Max Borders
“The mission of every soldier, indeed every American of sound mind, ought to be to realize the consent of the governed. Ex military personnel can lead us in this common purpose.” (01/07/25)
Source: Inequality.org
by Sam Pizzigati
“The new year has begun with old news: The world is continuing to become colossally more unequal — with the United States leading the way. In 2024, wealth trackers at Bloomberg have just reported in a year-end review, ‘the world’s 500 richest people got vastly richer.’ Of the world’s 15 richest individuals, the Bloomberg data show, 14 call the United States home. The richest of these rich: Elon Musk. He started 2024 with a personal fortune worth a mere $229 billion. He ended it with a net worth of $442 billion, the largest personal fortune the world has ever seen. Overall, the world’s 500 richest ended 2024 worth a combined $9.8 trillion. Some 34 percent of the $1.5 trillion they gained over the course of the year came in the five weeks after Donald Trump’s election.” (01/07/25)
https://inequality.org/article/what-would-surprise-americas-rich-in-2025-not-getting-richer/
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Daniel R DePetris
“To say that President-elect Donald Trump has a lot of plans for his second term would be a gross understatement. He has vowed to implement the largest deportation operation in American history, secure the U.S.-Mexico border and negotiate a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia. Yet for Trump, all of these items may be minor when compared to one other issue: resolving the North Korea nuclear conundrum. Taking Pyongyang’s nuclear program off the board is Trump’s proverbial white whale, a feat that none of his predecessors managed to accomplish. … If Trump enters office thinking he can easily resurrect his relationship with Kim, then he’s going to set himself up for disappointment. Resolving the North Korean nuclear issue was hard five years ago, but it will be even harder today.” (01/07/25)
Source: The Daily Economy
by Iain Murray
“With President Trump’s return to office after the Biden interregnum, we can be sure of one thing: tariffs are going to be a major part of his policy. He has touted tariffs as revenue generators, as ways to bring back manufacturing, and as negotiating tactics. The trouble is that all of these are in tension with each other, and none are particularly effective at what they purport to do. Indeed, their likely failure will result in harm to the people Trump claims to care for the most — working-class families.” (01/07/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/debunking-the-three-best-arguments-for-tariffs/
Source: The Crucial Years
by Bill Mckibben
“As Jimmy Carter is laid to rest this week, I think it’s worth paying attention to just exactly how out front he was on solar energy. Driven by both the upheaval of the OPEC embargoes and the lingering echoes of Earth Day at the start of the 1970s, and with ‘Limits to Growth’ and ‘Small is Beautiful’ as two of the decade’s big bestsellers (Carter had a reception for E.F. Schumacher at the White House!), the administration decided that solar was the way out. … Everyone knows about the solar panels on the White House roof, but that was the least of it. Jimmy Carter, in his 1980 budget, pledged truly serious cash for solar research, and for building out panels on roofs across America.” (01/07/25)
https://billmckibben.substack.com/p/the-carterreagan-moment-and-the-bidentrump
Source: Persuasion
by Quico Toro
“Another Covid-era leader bites the dust. It’s been a long time coming.” (01/07/25)
Source: EconLog
by Janet Bufton
“In Part 1, I wrote about Don Lavoie’s argument that robust liberalism requires open (democratic) politics that can make useful the tacit, dispersed knowledge of voters’ ‘interests, concerns, and demands to provide governance structures that people will use to resolve political disagreements peacefully.’ Liberalism requires open democracy just as it requires open markets, for many of the same reasons.” (01/07/25)
https://www.econlib.org/democracy-for-liberal-people-part-2/
Source: Show-Me Institute
by David Stokes
“A recent op-ed in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch called for substantially increasing the power of urban planners in St. Louis and other Missouri cities. Considering the state of government in the City of St. Louis right now, I did a double take to see if it was a joke. It wasn’t. Somebody is actually calling for increasing the role of local government in managing every aspect of our lives. I think that is terrifying, and I am not exaggerating when I say ‘every aspect.'” (01/07/25)
Source: New York Post
by Martin Gurri
“January 20 will see the conclusion of the most extraordinary episode in the history of the American presidency. For the last four years, the supposed president, Joe Biden, has been the man who wasn’t there. Millions of non-Americans of every description, including terrorists, criminals, and members of the Cuban Communist Party, have swarmed over the Mexican border and flooded into our urban centers, costing billions of taxpayer dollars to support — and still Biden wasn’t there. And speaking of money: Trillions were spent by a ramshackle administration that built nothing and achieved nothing, but did manage to trigger an inflationary spike, making food, cars and housing less affordable to ordinary Americans — though Biden wasn’t there for this, either.” (01/06/25)
Source: The Bulwark
by Brent Orrell
“As holiday treats give way to New Year’s resolutions, the names of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy will be on millions of lips this January — in addition to any leftover fruitcake, eggnog, cookies, and latkes. But the benefits of these drugs aren’t limited to what they can do for an individual’s health. Recent analysis of GLP-1 weight-loss therapies by Citi and Goldman Sachs uncovered an interesting and underdiscussed benefit: increased worker productivity. Widely deployed, these drugs could raise labor productivity by up to 0.5 percent. That number may not sound like much, but such an acceleration would be a dramatic boost to the economy of the United States and the health of its citizens.” (01/07/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/ozempic-community-glp-1-wegovy-weight-loss-obesity-workforce