Some Links
So why do Communist regimes turn out to be so evil? My hypothesis is that the Manichean nature of the ideology selects for leaders who are psychopaths and for followers who are willing to rationalize the cruelty of the leaders.
Because you are fighting for utopia against enemies who are trying to maintain the illegitimate status quo, the ends justify violent, repressive means. But I speculate that it is the violent means that appeal to the men who rise to the top of the Communist pyramid. The psychopaths who attain leadership positions claim to be aiming for the ends, but in fact what appeals to them is the moral license to engage in cruelty. What their followers think of as temporary and unfortunate is what the leaders find intoxicating.
Critics of portable benefits argue that workers would be better off in traditional employment arrangements. However, according to a 2023 Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, the vast majority of independent workers don’t want to be W-2 employees. That’s partly because independent work offers a type of autonomy that most can’t get in a traditional 9-to-5 job.
One of the weaknesses of President Trump’s first term was his preference for bullying over persuasion. He denounces dissenters in social-media posts rather than trying to bring them on board with arguments or an appeal to their political self-interest.
Another weakness is that the President-elect governs by impulse, and often by whoever talked to him last. Someone told him he should demand that Congress include a debt-limit increase this year, which isn’t a bad idea. But apparently no one noticed that Democrats still control the Senate and the White House. Democrats aren’t likely to raise the debt limit to make life easier for Mr. Trump, and if they do, they will want something for it. The increase was dropped from Mr. Johnson’s latest bill.
This is how Congress works, and for all Mr. Musk’s brilliance, he hasn’t figured that out. He’s also supposed to be a math whiz, so he can probably count to 218, the votes needed for a House majority when everyone is present. Memorize it.
Tad DeHaven wants more foreign investment and fewer tariffs and subsidies. A slice:
Greenfield investment occurs when a foreign company establishes (or expands) a business in the US. Most foreign direct investment (FDI) in the US are acquisitions. However, the “US affiliates of foreign multinationals spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year in the United States on research and development and capital expenditures, with the biggest shares going to manufacturing.” In short, we should welcome it.
According to a new report from Global Trade Alert, however, neither the Trump tariff-driven approach to attracting greenfield investment to the US nor the subsidy-driven approach preferred by the Biden administration bore results beyond an initial “sugar high.”
Joel Zinberg and Liam Sigaud argue that “Trump should let the costly Obamacare subsidies expire.”
Judge Glock offers thoughts on “why the working class rejected Bidenomics.” A slice:
The so-called Inflation Reduction Act was another bid to appeal to the well-educated. The law devoted hundreds of billions of dollars to support these voters’ climate obsessions and spending habits—for instance, by subsidizing electric vehicles. Far from being a populist giveaway, more than half the act’s estimated costs came from tax incentives to green corporations. This spending undermined workers in traditional hard-hat industries, such as automotives and fossil fuels.
Biden’s policies benefited industries with workers more likely to hold college degrees. The CHIPS and Science Act, for example, directed tens of billions of dollars in grants and subsidies to the semiconductor industry. With 25 percent of its members holding graduate degrees, the semiconductor workforce is much better educated than the general population. The industry estimated that the act will create jobs for tens of thousands of Ph.D., master’s, and bachelor’s degree holders.
Ryan Yonk explains that fossil fuels are here to stay for quite a while.
Dan McLaughlin remembers the late Rickey Henderson, “Man of Steal.”
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