Source: The Atlantic
by Thomas Chatterton Williams

“In the age of MAGA, ideological lines that once distinguished left from right have blurred. Republicans who said they were willing to die for the market now support a president who tells the government to buy up shares in the private sector. (Bernie Sanders approves.) The right has also embraced cancel culture, a progressive trend it recently despised. But conservatives aren’t the only ones emulating the other side. In perhaps the most striking reversal of this era, progressives are now the ones who tend to speak like moralists. … When people describe the world by appealing to black-and-white morality, they tend to reveal more about themselves than anything else. For many, such language suggests that they hold their own views to be unimpeachable and the other side’s to be irredeemable. But moral clarity, like beauty, is perishable and — at least in practice — subjective.” (11/13/25)

https://archive.is/xOlge

Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff

“In a Thanksgiving letter to shareholders this past Monday, Nov. 10, business titan and retiring Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett announced that he’s ‘going quiet.’ ‘Sort of,’ he added. In fact, this ‘quiet’ farewell from one of the world’s wealthiest individuals will likely echo through the halls of American business and philanthropy for some time. For investors, there is keen interest in how his handpicked successor will perform as chief executive of one of the United States’ 10 largest firms. But it is at the intersection of affluence and altruism, of gaining and giving, that Mr. Buffett’s words and actions carry outsize implications. He has donated $60 billion over the last 20 years, and this week gifted $1.3 billion from sales of stock to four family foundations. That still leaves $150 billion of his personal fortune to be given away.” (11/13/25)

https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2025/1113/The-Golden-Rule-and-a-life-of-meaning

Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Katrina Gulliver

“‘Imagine money falling from the sky. Would you slip a tenner into your pocket before you told anyone? Chances are, most of us would trouser a few notes rather than inform the authorities.’ This is the opening of economist and banker David McWilliams’s rollicking history of money, and his description of Operation Bernhard, the Nazi campaign to destabilize Britain by flooding the country with counterfeit cash. Lenin tried a similar ploy in Russia. Despite having different political beliefs, they ‘both understood the phenomenal power of money: undermine money and you undermine the fabric of society.’ That right there is McWilliams’s underlying theme: money is the fabric of society. He wants people to understand how cash shapes our world.” (11/13/25)

https://fee.org/articles/money-makes-the-world-go-round/

Source: The Bulwark
by Mark Hertling

“Venezuela is not small, not simple, and not susceptible to quick, low-cost military outcomes. In geographic and demographic terms alone, Venezuela is enormous. It covers roughly 882,000 square kilometers, making it substantially larger than Ukraine (579,000 sq km) or Texas (696,000 sq km). Its population — estimated to be above 31 million people — is roughly equivalent to current wartime Ukraine and modern Texas. It is a country of sprawling mountains, dense cities, jungles, and industrial corridors where military infrastructure sits interlaced with civilian life. … A few commentators on cable news shows — eager to portray potential U.S. military action as simple and manageable — have taken to comparing a possible operation in Venezuela to Operation Just Cause, the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama to seize Gen. Manuel Noriega. The analogy is dangerously misleading.” (11/13/25)

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/no-venezuela-is-not-a-small-latin-american-country