Tag: economy

If This Is Winning, America Can’t Afford Much More of It

“We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, ‘Please, please. It’s too much winning. We can’t take it anymore. Mr. President, it’s too much.’”—Donald Trump

Donald Trump promised Americans they would get tired of winning.

If this is what winning looks like, America can’t afford much more of it.

We are losing ground economically. We are losing credibility abroad. We are losing tourists, workers, stability, trust, constitutional guardrails, and whatever remained of the illusion that the government answers to “we the people.”

The tourism economy is taking a hit, with international visitors increasingly reluctant to come to the United States. Even migration—the lifeblood of America’s economic growth, innovation, labor force and national renewal—is now moving in the wrong direction. Fewer people are coming in, more Americans are leaving, and by some estimates the country has already crossed into negative net migration.

That is not the mark of a nation “winning.” It is the mark of a nation people are increasingly choosing to escape.

Even the looming World Cup—normally an economic windfall for tourism, travel and hospitality—is being shadowed by the administration’s immigration crackdown, detention protests and threats to disrupt international travel at key airports.

That is what happens when a nation treats visitors, immigrants and dissenters as threats first and human beings second: people stop coming, businesses suffer, and fear becomes official policy.

The economy, despite the administration’s relentless victory laps, is flashing warning signs: downgraded growth, strained consumers, rising costs, depleted savings, and policy chaos that leaves families, small businesses and entire industries guessing what fresh disruption tomorrow will bring.

We are being worn down by the losses.

Meanwhile, the man who promised to end wars has presided over their continuation and expansion. The man who promised to bring prices down has helped drive uncertainty up. The man who promised to drain the swamp has turned government into a spoils system for loyalists, cronies, contractors, oligarchs and power brokers. The man who promised law and order has treated the law as something to be weaponized against enemies and waived for friends.

This is not winning.

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The United States Of Austrian Economics

Earlier in the week, on Monday, Axios reported that “Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the US over Israel’s actions in Lebanon,” with inside sources suggesting that Trump called Netanyahu “crazy.” While Trump did not comment on the exact language, he did confirm the use of “expletives” in an interview with the New York Post on Wednesday that he and Netanyahu haven’t exactly been seeing eye-to-eye: “I was a little perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon. You know, at some point, I said, ‘Bibi, we gotta stop this. You gotta stop it.’” Since then, the US has announced a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, “contingent on a complete cessation of fire by Hezbollah and evacuation of operatives from Lebanese territory south of the Litani River.” However, if one looks at the state of the current ceasefire between the US and Iran, one may be tempted to manage their expectations with regards to how long the ceasefire will last, and if this will set a foundation for meaningful negotiations between Washington and Tehran. More importantly, Hezbollah, who operates independently from (and often against the interests of) the Lebanese Government, has not yet indicated that they agree to the terms of the ceasefire. After the announcement, brent crude oil 1-month futures dropped a little more than $1 to $96.7/bbl.

According to Bloomberg, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has published a “restricted” document which reveals that the nuclear risk posed by Iran is now higher today than it was before the war began. Specifically, prior to the war, the IAEA was allowed to inspect Iranian enriched uranium, but such inspections have since largely halted. However, it should be noted that the IAEA was always only inspected where the IRGC told them they were allowed to, and many suspected that nuclear proliferation was happening behind the scenes, in facilities that were not accessible to the IAEA.

Tariff headlines are once again entering the news circuit. Trump has lowered the benchmark of US-content necessary for a copper product to be considered “US-made” and therefore exempt from the 50% Section 232 tariffs. However, there was also bad news for some US trading partners, as the USTR has announced proposed tariffs of 10-12.5% under Section 301. There is also the proposal of 25% tariffs on Brazil, which President Lula responded to by saying “he could not accept the treatment” his country had received.

Kevin Warsh appointed Paul Winfree and Daniel Heil to support him as Fed Chair. Winfree was working at the Heritage Foundation when Project 2025 was published in 2022, and contributed the chapter dedicated to the Federal Reserve. While Warsh has criticized the Fed himself, citing an article he wrote, published in the Wall Street Journal in November of 2025 called “The Federal Reserve’s Broken Leadership,” Warsh’s criticism is aimed at the how the Fed was being run. Some of Winfree’s comments echo those of Warsh (or perhaps Warsh echoed Winfree, given the chronology), such as critiques of mission creep, like how “political pressure has led the Federal Reserve to use its power to regulate banks as a way to promote politically favorable initiatives including those aligned with ESG objectives.” However, the bulk of Winfree’s manifesto takes aim at the Fed as an institution, arguing that it “lacks both operational effectiveness and political independence.” Winfree offers several recommendations, including the following:

  • Eliminate the dual mandate: Winfree argues that expansive monetary policy (the labor mandate) may “inadvertently contribute to recessions” as it provides “easy money” which “causes the clustering of failures that can lead to a recession.” He advocates instead of a focus on dollar protection and managing low and stable inflation.
  • Eliminate the Federal Reserve’s lender-of-last-resort function: Winfree believes that the lender of last resort function acts as a conduit for moral hazard. This is an especially interesting point as it lies in partial opposition to a strategy laid out by Stephen Miran (and friends) in his article, “A User’s Guide to Reducing the Federal Reserve’s Balance Sheet.” While their respective arguments do not lie in total opposition, Miran’s argument is that there should be more communication to lessen the stigma often associated with using the Fed as a lender-of-last-resort, as it “makes banks reluctant to access the [discount] window even when genuinely needed, leading them to hold larger precautionary reserve buffers than rely on the discount window as intended” and “has played a meaningful role in driving up demand for reserves.” See more in Winfree, next recommendation below:
  • Wind down the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet: Winfree, Miran, and Kevin Warsh are aligned on the goal of shrinking the Fed’s balance sheet. However, the methods for doing so are clearly controversial (see above). Miran’s report highlights many (many) strategies for reducing the balance sheet, so further discussion on one component is likely not a dealbreaker.

However, the aforementioned recommendations are overshadowed by his “monetary rule reform options,” the first of which, is free banking. Straight out of the Austrian School, Winfree advocates for the functional abolition of the Federal Reserve altogether, claiming that “potential downsides of free banking stem from its greatest benefit: It has massive political hurdles to clear,” saying that “transitioning to free banking would require political authorities, including Congress and the President, to coordinate on multiple reforms simultaneously.” Recall that this was published in 2022—before the GOP got Trump in the White House, Bessent in the Treasury, and a majority in both Congressional Houses. Naming a self-proclaimed free banker, who supports the dissolution of the Fed, as an advisor to the Chair of the Fed sets the stage for a potential dramatic restructuring of how monetary policy is conducted in the US. Winfree also argues in favor of either restoring the gold standard, or enforcing Milton Friedman’s “K-percent rule,” where the Federal Reserve creates money at a fixed rate.

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Rampant Kleptocracy Feeds Wealth Inequality In A Crumbling American Empire

The state of the American economy is something that is increasingly on the minds of Americans these days. With life getting more expensive millions of Americans are feeling the squeeze getting tighter and tighter. And it seems with every passing day that the so called “leaders” of the American empire further demonstrate their disconnect from the fiscal reality of the average citizen.

The Grand-Canyon-sized wealth gap in this nation is staggering, with a classism characterized by despotic decadence on the one hand and dire desperation on the other, with most people falling into the latter category while the former flaunt their obscene opulence.

This of course isn’t just prevalent among the political predators, but throughout the entirety of the parasitic one percent, political and cultural elitists stretching from the halls of Congress to corporate power centers, to the Hollywood Hills.

A prime example of this being the annual Met Gala earlier this month. While politically unimportant, the cult of celebrity was on full display as these supercilious snobs laud over themselves for the world to see in grandiose fashion, grandstanding with multimillion dollar outfits and accessories. Meanwhile much of the population struggle to make ends meet. 

And let us be clear, this is not a condemnation of the rich for the sake of being rich. Rather, it is a condemnation of a society in which self proclaimed elitists enrich themselves through the institutionalized exploitation of the average person, profiting from systems deliberately designed to oppress the many for the benefit of the few.

This permeates throughout the entirety of America’s power structure, observable on federal, state, and even local levels, as demonstrated by The Free Thought Project’s recent reporting on the continued criminalization of homelessness.

Fiscal recklessness is running rampant through American legislature. As recently reported by The Daily Economy, the US debt has now crossed 100% of GDP for the first time since the end of World War II.

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Electric Vehicles Lead Major Car Maker to Report First Loss in Decades

Honda Motors reported its first annual loss in nearly 70 years, which came as a result of an emphasis on electric cars.

The Japan-based car company has been listed on the stock market since 1957, but the combination of electric vehicle bets and Trump trade policies led to its first-ever year in the red.

“EV demand has declined considerably, due to the rollback of environmental regulations in the U.S. and other factors,” Honda said in a statement, per a report from Fox Business.

The company faces $9 billion in restructuring costs because of the lackluster electric vehicle demand.

It suffered a $2.7 billion loss in the past fiscal year, according to a report from the Associated Press.

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The Market’s Biggest Buyer May Be Disappearing

Yesterday, as part of laying out the two paths I can see the economy taking, I wrote that beneath the surface, the American consumer is tapped out. The average consumer – AKA the “retail investor” – has been a key in driving the stock market higher the past half decade.

This morning, I noticed two reports that came out yesterday that add to the conclusion that this “retail investor” looks increasingly broke. 

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal highlighted how rising prices and the highest interest rates in decades have pushed even relatively high-income households into financial distress. One example was a hospital operations director earning nearly $200,000 annually who accumulated $15,000 in credit card debt at a 26% interest rate. Despite making the minimum payments, the balance barely moved.

And the broader data confirms this isn’t an isolated story.

As I’ve noted, the percentage of credit card balances that are 90+ days delinquent climbed to 13.1% in the first quarter, the highest level in 15 years and the worst reading since the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Total credit card balances reached a record $1.25 trillion for a first quarter, while average credit card interest rates have surged from 14.6% in early 2022 to roughly 21% today.

Delinquency rates have risen across low-, middle-, and high-income households alike. In other words, this is no longer just a lower-income problem. The financial strain is moving up the income ladder, which fits perfectly with what I’ve been writing about for months.

Student loan delinquencies have also exploded higher as repayment obligations returned. Credit card delinquencies have surged to post-financial-crisis highs.

Auto loan defaults, particularly among subprime borrowers, are sitting near multi-decade extremes. New data from Experian shows that nearly 19% of new vehicle loans now carry monthly payments of at least $1,000, up from 17.4% a year ago and more than triple the 5.4% level seen just five years ago.

Contrary to popular belief, these aren’t primarily luxury vehicles, either. Roughly three-quarters of the loans are tied to mainstream models, led by popular pickup trucks like the Ford F-150, Chevrolet Silverado, and Ram 1500.

The surge reflects years of rising vehicle prices and larger loan balances, with the average amount financed reaching a record $43,952 and the average monthly payment climbing to an all-time high of $770. While delinquency rates remain below 2018 levels overall, both 30- and 60-day late payments are increasing, with the most significant stress emerging among subprime borrowers, who face the highest risk of default as elevated rates and larger loan balances continue to strain household finances.

Meanwhile, as noted yesterday, the personal savings rate has collapsed back toward historic lows as households burn through what little financial cushion remains.

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EU Commissioner Blames Stagflation on War

Europe is now openly admitting it faces a stagflation shock, but this crisis did not suddenly appear because of the Iran war. The war merely accelerated a collapse that was already well underway due to years of catastrophic policy decisions. Valdis Dombrovskis, European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity, described the situation as a “stagflationary shock” as oil prices surged again on fears the conflict could drag on and destabilize energy markets further.

I have warned repeatedly that Europe was heading into a depression long before a single missile flew in the Middle East. Germany was already in industrial decline. Manufacturing across Europe was already contracting. Energy costs had already exploded after the sanctions war against Russia. The politicians destroyed their own energy security and then pretended green energy fantasies would somehow replace reality.

Now they act shocked that oil moving above $110 a barrel is feeding inflation again. Reuters reported that G7 borrowing costs have surged from roughly 3.2% to nearly 4% since the war began as markets fear inflation will remain entrenched. The International Energy Agency also warned global oil supply could fall short of demand by 1.78 million barrels per day this year because of the conflict.

This is precisely how stagflation unfolds. Economic growth stalls while the cost of living continues rising. The average person gets crushed from both directions simultaneously. Wages cannot keep pace with food, fuel, transportation, and housing costs. Washington Post noted US inflation has already climbed to 3.8%, the highest since 2023, largely driven by energy prices. Europe faces even worse structural problems because its economy is far more dependent on imported energy and heavily burdened by regulation and taxation.

The political class keeps pretending this is temporary. That is exactly what governments said during the 1970s oil crisis before stagflation spiraled into years of economic misery. The difference now is governments are entering this crisis carrying record sovereign debt levels. They cannot raise rates aggressively without detonating their own bond markets.

The stagflation wave was already in place before the first bombs fell because governments destroyed productive economies through sanctions, climate mandates, reckless spending, and endless monetary manipulation. The Iran conflict merely exposed how fragile the global economy had already become.

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AI isn’t paying off in the way companies think. Layoffs driven by automation are failing to generate returns, study finds

The ongoing dialogue regarding the ever-imminent displacement of white-collar workers by AI is predicated on the assumption that the technology will become as skilled as the very workers it threatens to displace, thereby cutting labor costs. But a new study found that’s not quite what’s playing out in many companies that have carried out AI-related layoffs.

A survey of 350 global business executives with an annual revenue of at least $1 billion by the research and advisory firm Gartner found that many have reduced their workforce irrespective of AI adoption. While 80% of those surveyed who have piloted an AI or autonomous technology have reported workforce reductions, the businesses cut jobs due to automation regardless of whether the technology was actually generating returns.

“Looking only at layoffs is shortsighted in terms of getting value from AI,” Helen Poitevin, VP analyst at Gartner and a key researcher of the study, told Fortune. “Chasing value only through headcount reduction is likely to lead most organizations down a path of limited returns.”

Similar data from a broader range of perspectives supports the conclusion that there;s a gap between AI adoption and successful implementation. Great Place to Work surveyed nearly 4,000 workers across 25 countries and found that while 82% of executives said that their company provides AI tools to help them do their job better, only 48% of frontline managers and just 38% of individual contributors said the same. At typical workplaces, only 15% of employees were change enthusiasts and 35% were open to change.

The looming threat of AI automation has many employees fearing for their jobs. But a growing number of business leaders and economists are skeptical that the technology will actually spur layoffs. Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok recently argued the Jevons paradox: a 19th century theory that explained why the demand for coal increased even as steam engines became more efficient and coal became cheaper. The paradox also applies to the AI age, Slok argued, and it predicts the technology will lead to more jobs, not less. 

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The Financial Decline Of Miami Beach: When Pride Becomes Debt

Every time Miami Beach wants residents to accept another tax increase, another utility hike, another bond, or another excuse for why basic infrastructure still has not been fixed, the same pattern begins. First comes the whisper campaign. Then comes the friendly media narrative. Then come the professional politicians telling you there is no other choice. They want you to believe that more borrowing on your back is the only responsible path forward and that if you question them, you are somehow against progress, resiliency, public safety, or the future.

That is dishonest.

Miami Beach is not broke because the people have failed to pay. Miami Beach is in trouble because the political establishment has failed to lead.

For years, residents have paid more in taxes, more in fees, more in utility bills, and more through debt. The city has approved luxury development, expanded its budget, increased administrative costs, hired more staff, funded consultants, celebrated ribbon cuttings, and marketed itself as a global success story. Yet now we are told the city faces more than one billion dollars in infrastructure needs.

How?

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The Big Apple’s Woes Are Not Just the Result of One Election

The destruction of New York is the logic of decades of history and long-forgotten pols addicted to outrageous spending and taxation.

Today’s successors of these big taxers are as myopic as the Bourbon kings who “learned nothing and forgot nothing.”

It didn’t start with the election of socialist/communist Mayor Zorain Mamdani, who followed in their footsteps and said the government should control “the means of production.”

Mamdani is the logical outcome of generations of New York City’s drift toward bigger and bigger government along with destroying the private sector. This leads the most productive citizens and businesses to head for the exits. It’s been going on for generations.

These problems happened as, little by little, the city’s Democrats trended radical left. Even some Republicans moved left. An example of the latter was liberal Republican mayor John Lindsay, elected in 1965 and the author of the city’s first income tax. He later turned Democrat. New York’s popular Republican governor, Nelson “Rocky” Rockefeller—elected four times from the late 1950s to the early 1970s—nearly spent the state into bankruptcy. It was all in the stars. Before winning the statehouse in 1958, a predecessor Republican governor, Thomas Dewey, told a young Rockefeller, “Nelson, I like you but I can’t afford you.” Dewey was prescient.

In some 15 years as governor, he quadrupled the state budget and quintupled the state debt, including substantial authority debt, practices continued by his successors, including governor Andrew Cuomo. “Rocky” raised taxes many times and initiated a state sales tax. These taxes accelerated the departure of industry, with New York state losing some 500,000 manufacturing jobs between 1969 and 1975.

In 1961, two-term New York City mayor Robert Wagner, who successfully sought a third term, faced the same overspending problems as today’s state and city leaders. Like today’s pols, he whined as the bills piled up. Wagner blamed the bankers selling city bonds.

Wagner—in a statement that could have been made by several succeeding mayors—said he was going ahead with this welfare program expansion: “I do not propose to permit our fiscal problem to set the limits of our commitments to meet the essential needs of the people of the city.” About a decade later, the spending bomb he lit blew up. Lindsay’s successor, Abe Beame, campaigned for mayor in 1973 as the man “who knew the buck.”

Yet a 1975 New York Magazine profile described his budgetary practices as “lies and a sham.” William Simon, US Treasury Secretary in his book, A Time for Truth, said New York governor Hugh Carey “ping ponged from position to position,” and demanded a federal bailout.

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Inflation Jumps to 3-Year High as Critics Say Trump Economic Promises Have Turned to Dust

A key federal inflation measure released Thursday shows that US prices jumped to a three-year high last month as President Donald Trump’s illegal Iran war and tariffs continued to push up consumer costs at gas pumps and grocery stores across the country.

The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, closely watched by the Federal Reserve, rose at an annualized clip of 3.8% in April, the fastest pace since May 2023. Even when food and energy prices were stripped out of the measurement, the index rose 3.3% last month compared to a year ago—the highest level since November 2023.

“Today’s numbers tell the story: Families are paying more for gas, food, and housing and utilities,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Donald Trump promised to lower costs ‘on day one,’ but instead inflation is running ahead of wages as his failed economic agenda hollows out Americans’ paychecks.”

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) also found that Americans’ personal savings rate fell to its lowest level since June 2022, plummeting to 2.6% as higher prices force households to spend more on basic necessities.

“This is stunning,” Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, wrote on social media, noting that the personal savings rate was 5.5% in April of last year. “That’s a sharp plunge. It underscores how squeezed Americans are right now with higher prices and incomes not keeping up.”

Consumer spending grew by $111.1 billion last month, according to BEA data, with “gasoline and other energy goods” making up the largest portion of the increase. Trump administration officials have attempted to spin rising consumer spending as evidence of broad optimism about the US economy, even with consumer sentiment at an all-time low.

“Prices remain stubbornly high because President Trump refuses to bring down the cost of living for working families,” said Breyon Williams, chief economist at the Groundwork Collaborative. “Trump is making Americans pay more, first via his tariffs and now because of his war in Iran, causing prices at the pump to skyrocket. At the same time, he remains fixated on his lavish billion-dollar ballroom that the taxpayers will fund and a $1.8 billion slush fund for his supporters.”

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