Source: Independent Institute
by Daniel Sánchez-Piñol

“Every catastrophic wildfire cocktail requires the same dangerous mix: an ignition source, abundant fuel, and people or property in harm’s way. California has long had the perfect blend of these ingredients. Since the devastating Los Angeles wildfires of 2025, the state has taken steps to dilute this dangerous mix, but it remains far too potent. To understand why, consider the 2025 Eaton Fire, the second most destructive wildfire in California history.” (07/22/26)

https://www.independent.org/article/2026/07/21/california-wildfire-dangerous-mix/

Source: The American Conservative
by Charles Benoit

“Earlier this month, Bloomberg published a brutal autopsy of industrial policy gone wrong. The article documented how, beginning in 2020, the U.S. government provided $850 million to six American companies to bolster domestic manufacturing of nitrile gloves, a critical component of the medical supply chain. Six years later, not one of those companies is making gloves. … The company that received the most funding, Blue Star NBR out of Wytheville, Virginia, was supposed to use that money to build the first American plant in a generation capable of making nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR)—the raw material every nitrile glove is made of. It never produced a single batch. Its CEO said he is a month from selling the plant for parts, most of which will go to manufacturers based in China. To put it bluntly: American taxpayers built a synthetic rubber plant, and China may now cart it off in crates.” (07/21/26)

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-not-to-do-industrial-policy/

Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp

“Tariff supporters try to sell their desired tax increases on American consumers as ‘retaliation’ against other regimes for ‘unfair’ treatment of goods made by American workers and exported by American companies. Odd form of retaliation, that — ‘you’re hurting YOUR people … fine, we’ll hurt OUR people — that’ll show YOU!’ And for for the most part, those other regimes aren’t the manufacturers of or buyers of those exports/imports, any more than the US regime is the manufacturer or buyer of whatever the company you work for happens to export or the imported goods you choose to buy. So no, tariffs aren’t ‘retaliation’ for ‘unfairness.’ What are they, then? They’re a way of protecting politicians’ domestic business cronies from competition, at the expense of domestic consumers.” (07/21/26)

https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20768

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“Materially, Americans are far better off than they were during the Cold War. But even thinkers who acknowledge this truism often fondly reminisce about the long-lost Golden Age of American optimism that supposedly spanned the second half of the 20th century. This reminiscing always puzzles me, because I vividly remember the second half of the second half of the 20th century. Except for a brief window of roughly 1988-1991, my first-hand experience is that America’s national mood has been relentlessly bad. While I’ve known plenty of American optimists, and count myself among them, ‘American optimism’ is a will-o’-the-wisp. It appears so fleetingly that you have to wonder if it was ever there at all.” (07/21/26)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/americas-national-mood-was-ok-in

Source: The Daily Economy
by Attila Rebak

“If prices carry such reliable knowledge, why do governments override them so routinely — and why does it so often take a catastrophe to stop them? The answer is the least romantic and most dependable part of political economy. A market transmits a price almost instantly. Politics transmits it slowly and through heavy distortion. Mancur Olson explained its core: the beneficiaries of an intervention are usually concentrated, organized, and loud, while those who pay for it are dispersed, unorganized, and often not yet harmed.” (07/21/26)

https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/reality-sends-the-bill-how-ignoring-price-signals-ends-in-disaster/