People Barely Care About Relative Income

Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan

“Do people want to be rich? Or just richer than their neighbors? Self-styled ‘realists’ have long defended the latter position: What human beings really savor is not material wealth, but feeling superior to others. … each of us possesses a nearly fool-proof short-cut to relative riches. Namely: Move to a poorer area. If you want to feel superior to your immediate neighbors, move to a poor neighborhood. If you want to feel superior to people in your state, move to a poor state. If you want to feel superior to people in your country, move to a poor country. When we look at human migration, all three of these choices are rare.” (03/05/25)

https://www.betonit.ai/p/be-relatively-rich-the-easy-way

Thomas L. Knapp

This is American greatness only if you have a MAGA-nifying glass

Source: Washington Post
by George F Will

“From the French word ‘petite,’ meaning ‘small,’ comes the English word ‘petty,’ which describes the Trump administration. This is greatness as restored by the midgets of MAGA …. In 1966, Alabama’s Democratic Gov. George Wallace said: ‘Hell, we got too much dignity in government now, what we need is some meanness.’ Problem solved.” (03/05/25)

https://archive.is/LmmGy

Thomas L. Knapp

This should be Congress’s No. 1 priority after Trump’s speech

Source: Fox News
Dr. Kevin Roberts & Ryan Walker

“On Tuesday night during his joint address to Congress, President Donald Trump reminded the American people that ‘the American Dream is unstoppable’ and that ‘our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never see again.’ Congress spent the evening celebrating President Trump’s wins, but the American people will only continue to enjoy them if Congress does its job and passes a clean continuing resolution by March 14. Doing so will keep the government open, allowing the Trump administration to continue its excellent work and ensuring that America’s comeback does not come to a screeching halt. The stakes couldn’t be higher.” [editor’s note: The stakes are extremely low — “continue to tax, borrow, and spend like crazy” vs. “that, but pretend to shut it down” – TLK] (03/05/25)

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/heres-what-congress-no-1-priority-should-after-trumps-speech

Steve Trinward

European Central Bank to make “last easy rate cut” as tariffs, higher fiscal spending loom

Source: CNBC

“The European Central Bank is expected to cut interest rates for the second time this year at its Thursday meeting, but disagreement among policymakers may be set to increase amid tariff uncertainty and a potential ramp-up in regional defense spending. Markets had on Wednesday fully priced in a quarter-point rate cut for the March meeting, taking the ECB’s key rate to 2.5% — down from its peak of 4% in the middle of last year. A further reduction to 2% by the end of the year was also priced in. … the central bank now appears within touching distance of the hotly-debated ‘neutral rate’ at which policy is neither stimulating nor restricting the economy, when rates would be expected to be kept on hold. Policymakers disagree on exactly where this level is, and whether rates might need to be brought even lower than that level in response to factors such as low growth.” (03/05/25)

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/05/european-central-bank-to-make-last-easy-rate-cut-amid-tariff-uncertainty.html

Thomas L. Knapp

Breaking the DEI Trance

Source: Law & Liberty
by Mike Gonzalez

“For many of us, it was a nightmare to watch a small minority of the population — which has been imperfectly but serviceably labeled ‘woke’ — bully, harass, torment, and cancel those who expressed any dissent, all in the pursuit of a barely hidden political project, and many Americans of goodwill supinely submit and enter into a hypnotic state. But the regime of these latter-day woke Jacobins may now be coming to a screeching halt. History has not been fully written yet, to be sure, but it looks like America is breaking out of the collective spell.” (03/05/25)

https://lawliberty.org/breaking-the-dei-trance/

Thomas L. Knapp

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie

“The first [Industrial Revolution] is reckoned to be the application of controlled power to production. The big leap came as water and then steam replaced men, horses and oxen as sources of energy. … The Second Industrial Revolution is reckoned to include the development of railroad and telegraph networks, allowing faster movement of people and the rapid spread of ideas, as well as electricity, which allowed factories to develop the modern production line. The Third one has been the recent shift to an economy centered on information technology …. Some claim that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is happening today. It combines Artificial Intelligence with a huge shift in the speed at which existing industries are impacted upon in a large number of sectors.” (03/05/25)

https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/50meisye3biu7jeqi8vhv6zpukmz77

Thomas L. Knapp

Ghosts of the Cold War

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“Some of my friends believe that there is some dark backstory to Donald Trump worthy of a 1970s political thriller: some kompromat, some financial leverage, something. That could be the case, but I would not be surprised that when the history of our time is written — if the history of our time is permitted to be written — what we will learn is that Trump did Moscow’s bidding because he prefers the politics of Putin to those of, say, Dwight Eisenhower, while sycophants such as J.D. Vance and Ted Cruz did Moscow’s bidding on behalf of Trump because they preferred being on the inside to being on the outside. … You don’t have to be an actual literal idiot to be a useful idiot in the Cold War sense, though it helps. You just have to choose to side with the Kremlin.” (03/05/25)

https://thedispatch.com/article/ukraine-war-putin-kgb-walesa-poland/

Thomas L. Knapp