Source: EconLog
by Scott Sumner
“Even very smart pundits (and myself) are occasionally fooled by coincidences. One of the worst recent examples involves the debate over the origin of Covid. Throughout history, pandemics often begin in major cities in southern China, where large populations live in close proximity to wild animal markets. This is how the first SARS epidemic began in November 2002. The Covid pandemic (SARS-2) seems to have begun in an almost identical fashion, in a wild animal market in one of southern China’s largest cities. Despite that fact, many pundits have embraced the completely unsubstantiated theory that Covid came from a lab leak, because among the half dozen largest metro areas in southern China, it first popped up in one that has an important virus research institute. That’s one of the weakest coincidences I’ve ever seen, and yet many people seem to view it as providing strong support for the lab leak theory.” (07/09/25)
https://www.econlib.org/just-a-coincidence
Source: Reason
“The Surprising Origins of Modern Freedom.” (07/09/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/07/09/the-surprising-origins-of-modern-freedom/
Source: NBC News
“Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Wednesday that his country will respond with reciprocity to U.S. President Donald Trump’s newly announced 50% tariff rate on [American buyers of] his country’s exports, citing a recently adopted Brazilian law that authorizes the government to take proportional countermeasures. Trump said Wednesday the U.S. will impose the tariff on [American buyers of] imports from Brazil starting Aug. 1, partly in retaliation for the ongoing prosecution of the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro. Trump said in a letter that the new tariff — a massive jump from the 10% rate the U.S. imposed on imports from Brazil in early April — is also a response to the ‘very unfair trade relationship’ between the two countries.” (07/10/25)
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/09/trump-brazil-tariffs-bolsonaro.html
Source: Eastern New Mexico News
by Kent McManigal
“Supposedly, government ended slavery. Government also legalized and enforced slavery for thousands of years. Now, because of rules that replaced the old rules, individual humans can no longer pretend to own other individual humans, but we are all required to act as though we are owned, collectively, with government as our master. Our money isn’t ours until government scoops its percentages out of the middle. Then it skims off more of our money every time we make a trade — and sometimes, like with property taxes, into perpetuity because someone bought property in the past. Laying claim to the fruits of another’s labor is a defining feature of slavery. Your body isn’t your own, and the value its work creates is claimed by someone else. In this case, the ‘someone’ isn’t an individual who can be defended against, but a spectral collective which is nowhere, yet everywhere at once.” (07/09/25)
https://www.easternnewmexiconews.com/story/2025/07/09/voices/opinion-we-need-to-outlaw-government-slavery/231218.html
Source: SFGate
“A South Korean court early Thursday approved the new arrest of former President Yoon Suk Yeol on charges related to his brief imposition of martial law in December, accepting a special prosecutor’s claim that he poses a risk of destroying evidence. The arrest warrant issued by the Seoul Central District Court sent Yoon back to a detention center near the capital, four months after his release in March, when the same court overturned his January arrest and allowed him to stand trial for rebellion without being held in custody. His criminal case is being handled by a team of investigators under special prosecutor Cho Eun-suk who are pursuing additional charges over Yoon’s authoritarian push, including obstructing official duties, abuse of power and falsifying official documents. Cho’s team questioned him twice before submitting a request for his arrest warrant to the court on Sunday.” (07/09/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/ex-south-korean-leader-yoon-appears-in-seoul-20762258.php
Source: Washington Post
by Lael Brainard
“President Donald Trump has said the quiet part out loud. His threats to terminate Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell if Powell doesn’t cut interest rates are motivated by one simple desire: to make it cheaper for the administration to add about $4 trillion to the federal debt. … In a public event promoting the $4 trillion Republican budget bill, he spelled out his wishes even more clearly: ‘We have to work hard with cuts on that. And this guy could do it so easily. … But every point is … $300 billion. So if we got it down to 1 percent we’re talking about almost a trillion dollars in saving just with a stroke of a pen.’ … There you have it: The Fed should just cut rates to 1 percent (a cut of more than 3 percentage points) to reduce the debt-service costs on the trillions added to the national debt by the GOP mega-law.” (07/09/25)
https://archive.is/5VE0H
Source: Politico
“Kevin O’Connor, who served as Joe Biden’s physician while the former president was in office, refused to testify in a closed-door interview as part of the House GOP probe into Biden’s mental acuity and whether his inner circle sought to conceal his limitations from the public. O’Connor Wednesday morning asserted doctor-patient privilege and his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to a statement from his attorneys. He had repeatedly argued his duties as a doctor complicated his ability to testify under oath about his patient, preventing him from sharing some sensitive information.” (07/09/25)
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/07/09/congress/biden-doctor-refuses-to-testify-00443736
Source: The Daily Economy
by Michael Munger
“The Fed could buy back 114 billion pennies already floating around in drawers and couch cushions across America — and for a fraction of the cost of making new ones.” (07/09/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-penny-problem-has-a-third-answer-buy-them-back/
Source: New York Times
“Israel’s military launched its first ground incursions in months into parts of southern Lebanon, saying on Wednesday that they were ‘targeted operations’ to dismantle military infrastructure belonging to the militant group Hezbollah. … Under the terms of the truce, Israel was expected to withdraw from southern Lebanon, which it had invaded during the war. But it has held onto five positions along the border, accusing Hezbollah of violating the agreement by maintaining an armed presence in the area.
Israel has also conducted near-daily strikes against what it says are Hezbollah targets, intensifying those attacks in recent weeks. … The Israeli military statement on Wednesday said it had located and destroyed weapons depots and firing positions, releasing footage showing soldiers conducting nighttime operations inside Lebanese territory.” (07/09/25)
https://archive.is/fl79o
Source: Mindset Shifts
by Barry Brownstein
“Born in Vienna, [Peter Drucker] was a young lecturer at Frankfurt University early in Hitler’s regime. … Drucker recounts the initial Nazi-controlled faculty meeting at Frankfurt University, which occurred shortly after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. … The Nazi commissar wasted no time taking charge of the meeting. Drucker remembers the commissar telling the faculty, ‘Jews would be forbidden to enter university premises and would be dismissed without salary on March 15.’ … [A prominent] liberal rose and said, ‘Very interesting, Mr Commissar, and in some respects very illuminating: but one point I didn’t get too clearly. Will there be more money for research in physiology?’ The faculty were easily bought with ‘the commissar assuring the scholars that indeed there would be plenty of money for ‘racially pure science.’’ The faculty did not push back. (Anyone who’s spent time in academia shouldn’t be surprised.)” (07/09/25)
https://mindsetshifts.substack.com/p/liberty-is-the-best-defense-against
