Tiptoeing Towards Abundance?
Source: Law & Liberty
by Samuel Gregg
“Even when thriving markets are the goal, progressives have little interest in restraining the state.” (04/01/26)
Category: Opinion
EU and Canada lean into a new world role
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff
“At the start of this week, a four-day gathering of the World Trade Organization ended in deadlock over a disagreement between just two of its 166 member countries. The United States sought a 10-year extension to existing duty-free digital purchasing rules (for items such as software, music, and movies); Brazil would only agree to a two-year extension. Nevertheless, working on the sidelines, 66 other members – from Asia, Europe, and the Americas – forged their own agreement on the issue. The recent increase in such ‘minilateral’ solutions to global obstacles signifies more than mere impatience with time-consuming multilateral processes. Rather, it highlights the impetus and realization among the world’s middle powers about their changing role – and responsibility – in shaping a world order amid major geopolitical shifts.” (03/31/26)
The Iran war and the death of the global maritime commons
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Logan McMillen
“The rules-based international order, a system America largely built and championed after World War II, was predicated on the belief that global maritime and trade norms were foundational, applying equally to the weak and the strong. In the Middle East, memories of the Suez Crisis, combined with the threat of Soviet influence in the Persian Gulf, precipitated the creation of the Carter Doctrine to ensure this framework was upheld. The tanker wars of the 1980s challenged this doctrine, but the U.S. and Iraq emerged victorious, and, following a few years of international fighting, the United Nations’ ‘Law of the Sea’ was finally instituted in 1994. … Under Trump, however, status quo international agreements are being cast aside the moment they constrain his political impulses.” (04/01/26)
April Fools for America First? Higher Prices and New War
Source: The Daily Economy
by Stefan Bartl
“The President returned to office on promises to lower costs at home and restore our reputation abroad. Americans got the opposite.” (04/01/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/april-fools-for-america-first-higher-prices-and-new-war/
$4 Gasoline is Less Than Half the Story
Source: Paul Krugman
by Paul Krugman
“The biggest losers from the Iran War are buyers of diesel, jet fuel, chemicals and fertilizer.” (04/01/26)
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/4-gasoline-is-less-than-half-the
Yes, Iran Is Playing Chess – But Only After Rewriting the Rules of the Game
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ramzy Baroud
“The origins of chess are contested, but few dispute that while the game began in India, it was the Sassanian Persian Empire that refined it into a recognizable strategic system. It was Persia that codified its language, symbolism and intellectual framework: the shah (king), the rokh (rook), and shatranj, the modern chess game. This is not a trivial historical detail. It is, in many ways, a metaphor that has returned with force. Since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, 2026, political discourse – across Western, Israeli and alternative media – has repeatedly invoked the analogy of chess to describe Iran’s conduct. The comparison is seductive. But it is also incomplete.” (04/01/26)
A Treasury grant program reduced its processing times from 233 to 75 days. What went right?
Source: Niskanen Center
by Maureen Klovers
“In December 2020, I became the director of the U.S. Department of Treasury’s nearly $2 billion RESTORE Act1 programs to revitalize the economy and ecosystems of the U.S. Gulf Coast. It was a nonpolitical appointee position and a fascinating opportunity to oversee two grant programs to address the damage done by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Funded by civil and administrative penalties imposed because of the spill, our work spanned economic development and workforce development, infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, scientific research, and other activities in the 47 states and counties named in the statute as the most affected by the oil spill. The very first thing I did was ask our grantees for feedback on working with us — and I got an earful.” (03/31/26)
Artificial Intelligence Hammers in the Final Nail in Karl Marx’s Coffin
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Andy Fischer
“Karl Marx believed machines would eventually turn workers into something disposable. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that industrial labor had already reduced the worker to ‘a mere appendage of the machine.’ In Capital, Marx argued that machinery would create a permanent ‘industrial reserve army’ of unemployed workers. As automation increased, workers would lose bargaining power while capital consolidated control. The proletariat would become poorer and more desperate. From that condition, Marx believed revolution would follow. That prediction sits at the center of his entire framework. But history moved in the opposite direction.” (03/31/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/artificial-intelligence-hammers-final-nail-karl-marxs-coffin
Artemis II: America’s headed back to the moon, and beyond!
Source: New York Post
by staff
“America’s space program is once again pushing toward new frontiers: For the first time in more than 50 years, the nation will send humans back to the moon — and then to Mars and beyond. It starts with the liftoff of Artemis II, scheduled for Wednesday evening. Yes, this mission in many ways is an echo, even a repeat, of the Apollo lunar flights of the ’60s and ’70s. The trip will bring them the furthest from Earth any humans have ever been and return them at a record speed of 25,000 miles per hour, facing temperatures of 5,000 degrees. Yet the point this time isn’t simply another lunar landing: It’s to prepare for even greater goals — such as the eventual establishment of a human base, with a continuous human presence, on the lunar surface and in lunar orbit, with a mission to Mars to follow.” (04/01/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/04/01/opinion/artemis-ii-americas-headed-back-to-the-moon-and-then-beyond/
Why Do US Presidents Keep Risking Foreign Quagmires?
Source: Independent Institute
by Ivan Eland
:During the past three-quarters of a century, beginning in 1950 and continuing right through to the current war with Iran, U.S. presidents repeatedly have risked involvement in conflicts that resulted in military quagmires with disappointing endings. Why do presidents keep repeating the same mistakes in the name of ‘national security?'” (03/31/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/03/31/presidents-keep-risking-foreign-quagmires/