Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken
“The politics behind the new proposal are fairly straightforward. Trump will promote the 50-year mortgage as a more affordable alternative to the 30-year mortgage. This seems plausible at a superficial level. The idea here is that the cost of the home is stretched out over a longer period of time, and therefore the monthly payment will be lower than it would be for a 30-year mortgage. … Unfortunately, the President’s scheme is unlikely to make homeownership more secure or affordable for ordinary Americans. It will further financialize the economy, enable more fiat-money fueled debt, and likely require more monetary inflation and more corporate bailouts down the line. That is, a fifty-year mortgage will require even more government intervention to guarantee loans and to keep interest rates at a politically acceptable level.” (11/12/25)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/trumps-50-year-mortgage-will-bring-more-inflation-and-corporate-bailouts
Source: SFGate
“Back in 1793, a penny could get you a biscuit, a candle or a piece of candy. These days, many sit in drawers or glass jars and are basically cast aside or collected as lucky keepsakes. But their luck is about to run out. The U.S. Mint in Philadelphia is set to strike its last circulating penny on Wednesday as the president has canceled the 1-cent coin as the cost of making them became more than their value. President Donald Trump has ordered its demise as costs climb to nearly 4 cents per penny and the 1-cent valuation becomes somewhat obsolete. The U.S. Mint has been making pennies in Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace, since 1793, a year after Congress passed the Coinage Act. Today, there are billions of them in circulation, but they are rarely essential for financial transactions in the modern economy or the digital age.” (11/12/25)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/unlucky-penny-us-mint-in-philadelphia-to-press-21168390.php
Source: Semafor
by Liz Hoffman
“In the 1970s, if you wanted to understand a company’s worth, you could literally kick the tires. More than 80% of S&P 500 companies’ assets were, in accountant-speak, ‘tangible’ — buildings, inventory, land, and securities with measurable value. Today, it’s about 10%. The rest is a corporate ectoplasm of code, data, and brand power. Marriott is a hotel company that doesn’t own hotels. Delta Airlines’ credit card partnership is more profitable than its airplanes. This shift from hard assets to soft ones isn’t necessarily bad. It mirrors the broader pivot in the US economy from manufacturing to services, which are more profitable and less vulnerable to outsourcing. … But the wealth being created today is a haze of licensing agreements and magic beans.” (11/11/25)
https://www.semafor.com/article/11/11/2025/the-economy-is-running-on-magic-beans
Source: The American Prospect
by Kate Morrissey
“The Department of Homeland Security suddenly moved up the implementation of a rule change that gives the Federal Protective Service, the agency charged with protecting federal buildings, more power to charge people with crimes for a variety of activities on or near federal property. The regulation, which went into effect on Nov. 5, prohibits a wide range of activities, including creating a loud or unusual noise, distributing informational materials and flying drones. It makes it illegal for people to wear masks to conceal their identities if they break any federal or state law or local ordinance. It forbids obstructing access to federal property or impeding operations there and specifically calls out photography and videography. Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border Program, said he’s concerned that vague definitions in the regulations will give officers too much discretion.” (11/12/25)
https://prospect.org/2025/11/12/homeland-security-tightens-rule-on-anti-ice-activities/
Source: Politico
“The Trump administration has formally determined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s current funding mechanism is unlawful, a move that puts the agency on track to close in the coming months when its existing cash runs out. The decision, disclosed in a court filing late Monday, marks the administration’s most direct effort yet to dismantle the consumer watchdog …. A new opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, submitted in court, contends that the CFPB cannot draw money from the Federal Reserve currently because the agency is only entitled to the central bank’s surpluses and the Fed has operated at a loss since 2022. The Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, requires the Fed to transfer from the ‘combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System’ the amount that the CFPB director determines is necessary to operate the agency, with certain limits.” (11/11/25)
https://archive.is/w88WJ
Source: National Review
“Solving Housing Affordability by Making It Worse.” (11/11/25)
https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/solving-housing-affordability-by-making-it-worse/
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mani Basharzad
“As Peter Boettke argues, in a world where all means and ends are known, the only task left is an engineering one. That is, essentially, what students learn in Econ 101—a world of perfect knowledge, known preferences, known prices and calculable costs, where solving equations yields all the answers. But the real wisdom of economics lies in understanding deviations from this perfection.” (11/11/25)
https://fee.org/articles/adam-smith-vs-the-engineers-of-utopia/
Sourcee: Firstpost [India]
“Russia is ready to resume peace talks with Ukraine in Turkey, state-run TASS news agency has quoted a foreign ministry official as saying. ‘The Russian team is ready for this, the ball is in the Ukrainian court,’ TASS quoted Alexei Polishchuk as saying. Russia and Ukraine have had multiple rounds of talks in Istanbul, but those talks did not lead to any breakthrough. No meeting has been scheduled since the last meeting in July.” (11/12/25)
https://www.firstpost.com/world/russia-ready-to-resume-istanbul-peace-talks-with-ukraine-foreign-ministry-official-13950021.html
Source: Antiwar.com
by Ron Paul
“I recall when then-President Barack Obama was planning to send troops to enforce his ‘Assad must go’ policy in Syria, many Republican US Senators passionately argued that the US President must come to Congress for approval before sending US troops into combat overseas. At the time, they portrayed themselves as brave defenders of the US Constitution. Last week, when the Senate held a vote to remind President Trump that he is required to seek approval from the Legislative Branch before launching an attack on Venezuela, only two Republican Senators stood up to defend the Constitution. Why? Perhaps because a Republican President was now in office. … We fought a war against George III to negate the ability of a king to take the people to war on his whim. Now, Congress scrambles to abrogate that hard-fought achievement in the name of political expediency.” (11/11/25)
https://original.antiwar.com/paul/2025/11/10/congressional-republicans-must-stand-up-to-the-president-on-venezuela/
Source: Libertarian Institute
“Trump’s Foreign Policy Is An Anti-American Disaster.” (11/11/25)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/blog/the-kyle-anzalone-show-trumps-foreign-policy-is-an-anti-american-disaster
