Tag: economy

Power Without Principle: The Rise of the Bully Presidency

“When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”— Donald J. Trump on seizing women, Access Hollywood (2005)

“I think I can do anything I want with it. Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it.”—Donald Trump on seizing Cuba (2026)

It’s been 20 years since Donald Trump bragged that, as a star, he could do anything—even assault women—and get away with it.

Two decades later, what once sounded like crude bravado has become a governing philosophy: might makes right, power excuses everything, and accountability is for other people—not this president.

Despite the Access Hollywood recording—and everything it revealed about his character—Trump was elected to the White House twice. And ever since, he has governed exactly as he promised: as a man who believes he is unaccountable, entitled, and free to act without limits.

The same mindset that once bragged about being able to “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters” has now been scaled up and weaponized through the presidency.

With a core MAGA following that seems unwilling to hold him accountable for any wrongdoing, Trump has justifiably earned his nickname as “Teflon Don.”

He can be accused of sexually assaulting young girls, and he won’t lose any voters. He can, as commander-in-chief, sanction the bombing of a girls’ school in Iran—killing young girls, their mothers and teachers—and he won’t lose any voters. He can torpedo a thriving economy, sending inflation and gas prices soaring, and he won’t lose any voters. He can dismantle a government structure that has been in place for over 200 years, and he won’t lose any voters. He can be a walking—talking—living contradiction of everything Christians claim to stand for, and he won’t lose any voters. He can send Americans servicemen and women to die in wars that the U.S. had no business starting, and he won’t lose any voters.

This is the mindset now shaping American policy.

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The $3 Trillion Private Credit Crisis Nobody Is Talking About

Blackstone raided its own balance sheet to cover record $3.8B in redemptions. Blue Owl froze withdrawals. PE stocks down 25-61%. Steve Eisman and forensic accountant Tom Gober say the insurance industry is the missing piece of the next financial crisis.

Sup, freaks.

The private credit market is cracking in real time. Blackstone just had to raid its own balance sheet and its employees’ wallets to cover a record wave of redemptions from its flagship $82 billion credit fund. Blue Owl permanently froze redemptions on a retail fund two weeks ago. Private equity stocks are down 25% to 61% from their highs. And the man who called the 2008 crisis, Steve Eisman, just sat down with a forensic accountant who says the insurance industry is the missing piece of the puzzle. This is a story that should be front page news but isn’t. Today we dig in.

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How War in Iran Affects Grocery Prices for Everyday Americans

Walmart has essentially eradicated all of the mom & pop grocery stores where I live in western Kentucky. Which, for better or worse, forces virtually the entire city’s population to descend on the store for grocery shopping. As you walk into the store, you will inevitably be bombarded with messages from the intercom to get a flu shot or some other seasonal vaccine. This will be followed by a reminder that soda and potato chips are on sale.

Shopping in the local Walmart presents a fair picture of middle America. The county’s poverty rate is above 17%, homes are unaffordable, drug addiction is rampant, and wages remain stagnant. Among all of these issues, the rising cost of grocery prices make it challenging for many people in the community to afford real, whole foods. The unfortunate alternative is to purchase cheap junk food, go to a local food pantry, or simply go without. The simple reality is that many Americans can no longer keep up with rising costs in the grocery store.

But what does this have to do with war in Iran?

We often hear that Congress has passed a new defense budget, ever again surpassing its previous allocations. The most recent appropriations allocated $838 billion to military services in FY26 and now both President Trump and his domestic allies are calling for an increase to $1.5 trillion. For everyday Americans, that number is frankly unfathomable. But have you ever questioned, how does America pay for war?

Income tax has not always been permanent in America. But to give you the short version of the story, it was created to fund war and then later adopted as a permanent fixture. During times of war, Congress has periodically increased taxes to fund operations. However, politicians can only raise taxes so much before citizens begin caring about where their dollars are going. As a result, we no longer increase taxes for the sole purpose of funding wars.

Instead, we use debt. Because the public would be unwilling to fund wars through taxes, the American government defers to borrowing money. But where does that money come from? There is never enough capital in circulation to fulfill the American bloodlust, so it must be printed.

The American government’s incessant use of debt as a means to pay for wars of choice directly devalues the dollar’s purchasing power by forcing banks to digitally print money. Every dollar borrowed inflates our currency which, in turn, increases prices for everyday goods while working class compensation remains stagnant. It has held true for decades that wages do not and will not keep up with inflation.

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Report: NAFTA Cut Lifespans for American Factory Workers

The economic impact of the 1994 free trade deal with Mexico chopped a year off many Americans’ lives, according to a report in the New York Times.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) boosted Wall Street by sending millions of U.S. jobs to lower-wage workers in Mexico. The civic cost is described in a new study titled ‘Trading Goods for Lives: NAFTA’s Mortality Impacts and Implications.”

“In the first 15 years of NAFTA, about 3 percent of 45-year-old men lost a year of their remaining life expectancy as a result of the trade deal,” hte newspaper reported, adding:

The researchers saw increases in mortality across most major causes of death, including illness, drug overdoses and suicides. The overall trends particularly affected working-age men, and were more pronounced in the Southeast and parts of the Midwest, like Michigan.

Matthew Notowidigdo, one of the report’s authors, said in an interview that the work highlighted an “underappreciated cost of globalization.” In the cities and towns facing new competition from Mexican factories, “life expectancy falls, and it hits really hard on men,” he said.

“We’re talking about a lot of life years lost,” he added.

The study concluded:

In the 15 years post-NAFTA, an area with average NAFTA exposure experienced an increase in annual, age-adjusted mortality of 0.68 percent … an increase that more than erases prior estimates of the welfare gains from NAFTA’s nationwide economic benefits. Mortality increases appear across all broad age by sex groups, but are particularly pronounced among working-age men, a demographic that also experienced disproportionate NAFTA-induced declines in (primarily manufacturing) employment

President Donald Trump renegotiated the three-nation NAFTA deal in 2018 to help Americans. This year, he is expected to review the replacement treaty, dubbed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), with Mexico and Canada.

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As NYC Considers a $30 Minimum Wage, Business Owners Are Warning About the Consequences

New York City stands to make a decision about its minimum wage that can only hinder growth, create layoffs, and result in price hikes.

City Council recently introduced a bill to set the minimum wage at $30 per hour. Democratic City Councilwoman Sandy Nurse put the “$30 for Our City” legislation forward, WPIX reported on Tuesday.

The outlet laid out the wage hike scheme from the bill.

Businesses and franchises that employ more than 500 people must pay $20 an hour in 2027, $23 in 2028, $26 in 2029, and $30 by 2030.

Small employers have a different road map, with a $19 minimum in 2027, $21.50 in 2028, $24 in 2029, $27 in 2030, and $29 in 2031.

The increase would include a cost-of-living adjustment and yearly hikes that account for inflation.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association, anticipating one of the consequences of this potential change, said that “we feel like we’re at a tipping point with consumers” with respect to price increases that would offset higher wages.

“There’s only so much you can charge for a slice of pizza or a cheeseburger,” she added.

The Wall Street Journal also reported comments by Moe Chan, who has a coffee and tea company in Queens: “As much as I would like to pay $30, we don’t have money.”

According to the New York state government website, the minimum wage for the city is set at $17, seeing a $0.50 increase at the beginning of 2026.

Although The Wall Street Journal said food delivery drivers who make $21.44 under other regulations are not impacted, 1.68 million workers stand to see an increase. The outlet said Democratic Mayor Zohran Mamdani — unsurprisingly — supported the $30 wage during his campaign.

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AI Won’t Fix America’s Looming Debt Crisis

Last month, Congress sparred with the president over a partial budget, but with few real cuts, America’s slow march toward an epic debt crisis went on undeterred. With over $38 trillion in debt and interest payments exceeding defense or Medicare spending, one would expect lawmakers to confront reality and do the difficult work needed to restore fiscal sanity. But why would they? Cutting entitlements and increasing middle-class taxes rarely make for winning campaign slogans.

It’s no surprise, then, that some prefer to pin their hopes on AI as America’s fiscal savior. Vanguard’s chief economist Joe Davis argued there’s as high as a 50 percent chance AI will prevent a debt-driven economic malaise. Elon Musk voiced a similar conclusion late last year, claiming AI and robotics are “the only thing that’s going to solve the US debt crisis.”

The argument goes like this: an AI boom drives explosive economic growth and tax revenue, while, at the same time, productivity gains impressively offset any upward pressure on interest rates. The deficit becomes a surplus and the overall debt shrinks, possibly disappearing entirely.

If that sounds less like a policy plan and more like a retirement strategy built around winning the lottery, you’re not wrong. The entire scenario hinges on a massive if: that AI generates extraordinary revenue and does it quickly enough to outrun rising interest costs.

But even if the government hits the tax revenue jackpot before Congress drives us off a fiscal cliff, it would be naïve to assume lawmakers would pay down the debt. 

The More the Government Gets, the More the Government Spends

For the sake of argument, suppose the tech optimists are right, and the federal government enjoys a massive AI-driven revenue windfall. Understanding what happens next requires understanding the incentives of politicians and their voters.

This is where public choice shines. Rather than assuming politicians and voters act in everyone’s best interest, this branch of economics recognizes that people don’t become angels once they interface with the government. Incentives matter, especially for politicians.

Incentives are why we have a deficit in the first place. The public isn’t particularly interested in financial restraint because high spending and low taxes benefit them now, and the resulting debt is some future generation’s problem. Politicians surely see the crisis brewing, but solving it is a sure way to get voted out of office. And so the incentive is to run constant deficits and grow the debt year after year, decade after decade.

Without changing incentives, it will be hard to avoid spending new revenue. Ballooning coffers mean voters will demand that the government dole out more goodies (especially if AI displaces workers along the way). Washington already excels at entertaining expensive ideas: healthcare subsidies for well-off families, a universal basic income, generous tax cuts, a fifty-percent increase in military spending, all despite the pushback the current deficit’s able to muster. Imagine the wish list after it drops even a little.

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No, Governments Don’t Give Money Value

Your dollar bought less at the grocery store this year than last. The Federal Reserve added trillions to the money supply. These facts are connected, but understanding how requires grasping one of economics’ deepest puzzles: why does money have value at all when it cannot directly satisfy our needs?

You hand a bill to a merchant in exchange for bread. This simple act, repeated billions of times daily, reveals a profound mystery. The paper in your wallet feeds no one, yet everyone accepts it. Why?

For most of human history, money was a tangible commodity: precious metals, cattle, salt, shells—goods with inherent utility. Gold and silver served as money for millennia because people valued them as ornaments before anyone thought to use them in trade. Modern fiat currency—unbacked paper declared valuable by government decree—is a recent innovation spanning barely a century.

When the Federal Reserve chairman announces another round of monetary expansion, he acts on assumptions about money’s nature that would have seemed absurd to every generation before ours. Understanding what actually makes money valuable—and what happens when authorities manipulate it—reveals truths central to the current inflation debate.

Supply and Demand: The Foundation

Like any good, money’s value is determined by supply and demand. When the money supply increases while demand remains constant, each unit becomes less valuable—its purchasing power declines. This is not a complex theory, it is simple economics applied to money.

But what exactly is the “price” of money? It is purchasing power—the array of goods and services that money can buy. If a dollar purchases five pounds of rice or twenty minutes of labor, these exchange ratios constitute money’s price.

Yet money is no ordinary commodity. Unlike rice or labor, money’s utility lies solely in its exchange value. This creates consequences that central bankers consistently ignore.

The Special Nature of Money

Money differs fundamentally from other goods: it appears on one side of every transaction. This creates a counterintuitive effect that confounds monetary authorities. While more wheat feeds more people, more money merely dilutes the value of each unit. When the Fed doubles the money supply, prices increase unevenly. No new wealth is created.

Understanding this principle demolishes the notion that monetary expansion creates prosperity. The size of the money supply matters less than how the market adjusts to changes in its purchasing power. Yet policymakers act as if printing money were to generate real resources.

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BRICS “Unit” May Bring the World One Step Closer to Global Currency

The BRICS alliance, originally formed in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa added in 2010, has evolved into a significant geopolitical and economic bloc. In a major expansion in 2024, the group welcomed four new members: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Indonesia joined later, in 2025. This enlargement, referred to as BRICS+, now encompasses countries accounting for approximately 46 percent of the global population — more than 3.6 billion people — and about 35 percent of world GDP, surpassing the G7 in economic weight when adjusted for purchasing power parity. The expansion aims to amplify the group’s influence in global governance, challenge Western-dominated institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, and promote multipolarity in international affairs.

Reducing Reliance on the U.S. Dollar

The motivations behind this growth stem from shared frustrations with the U.S.-led financial system, including vulnerability to sanctions and dollar dominance in trade. New members bring diverse strengths: The UAE contributes oil wealth and a financial hub, Iran adds strategic depth in the Middle East, and Egypt, Ethiopia, and Indonesia represent resource-rich areas.

Amid this expansion, BRICS+ has pursued financial innovations to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar. A key development is the “Unit,” a prototype gold-backed digital settlement instrument unveiled in December 2025. Developed by the International Research Institute for Advanced Systems (IRIAS) in Russia, the Unit is not a full-fledged currency but a blockchain-based unit of account for cross-border trade and investments among BRICS+ nations. It is backed by a fixed reserve basket: 40 percent physical gold and 60 percent made of a weighted mix of BRICS currencies, including the Chinese yuan, Russian ruble, Indian rupee, Brazilian real, and South African rand. This structure echoes historical ideas such as John Maynard Keynes’ “bancor,” and may represent something even more consequential: a gradual shift away from a world in which a single national currency — the U.S. dollar — functions as the primary global reserve asset.

History of a Global Unit of Account

To understand the significance of this moment, it helps to look back to 1944 and the Bretton Woods conference. As economic journalist Ed Conway recounts in his book The Summit, British economist John Maynard Keynes proposed the creation of the aforementioned supranational currency called the “bancor.” Unlike the dollar-centered system that ultimately emerged, Keynes envisioned a global unit of account issued by an international clearing union. This bancor would not belong to any one country; it would be multinational, neutral, and designed to reduce global imbalances by discouraging both persistent deficits and persistent surpluses.

Keynes’ proposal was rejected. Instead, the postwar order placed the U.S. dollar at the center of the international monetary system — a national currency serving as a global reserve asset. Even after the collapse of the gold standard in 1971, the dollar retained its central role in trade settlement, commodity pricing, and sovereign reserves. For decades, that arrangement appeared stable. But the rise of China, the expansion of emerging markets, and the increasing use of financial sanctions have exposed structural tensions in a dollar-centric system. Countries subject to sanctions, or concerned about their vulnerability to dollar-clearing networks such as SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), have sought alternatives.

Recent BRICS discussions about cross-border payment systems, settlement in local currencies, and the creation of new financial instruments reflect a shared desire to reduce dependence on the dollar. Proposals for a digital, commodity-linked unit of account recall aspects of Keynes’ bancor: a reserve mechanism not tied exclusively to one sovereign state.

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Air Freight Rates To Spike As Iran War Escalates

The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on Saturday is already disrupting air cargo traffic in the Middle East, a key freight corridor between Asia and Europe where two of the world’s largest cargo airlines are based, and raising the potential for a rise in air freight rates. 

Airlines are suspending flights, rerouting traffic around the conflict zone and unable to use key transload hubs in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar because of retaliatory missile attacks by Iran. More scheduling changes are anticipated in the days ahead. 

Longer routes require more fuel, reducing the amount of cargo aircraft can carry so as not to exceed weight limits. Some airlines are expected to add refueling stops.

“We are expecting some potentially significant move in rates, especially Asia-Europe, if the situation continues with large-scale flight cancellations,” said Neil Wilson, editor of global price reporting agency TAC Index, said in an email exchange.

FedEx has suspended flights to and from Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

“The safety and well-being of our team members is our highest priority. As a result, pickup and delivery services in Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar and United Arab Emirates have been temporarily suspended until further notice. Shipments to and from other markets throughout the region may experience extended transit times,” the company said in a service alert. “We are closely monitoring the situation and will resume services as soon as it is safe to do so.”

UPS has not announced any operational changes, but said in a statement provided to FreightWaves, “We are closely monitoring this fluid situation and using established contingency plans to manage our operations safely and efficiently.”

Qatar Airways, which operates 29 Boeing 777 freighter aircraft and carries huge volumes of cargo on widebody passenger planes, has temporarily halted flights to, and from, Doha due to the closure of Qatar’s airspace. Qatar Airways Cargo offers shippers 13 tons of capacity per day.The airline warned customers to expect flight delays once the airspace re-opens and it resumes operations there. In the meantime, tendered cargo is being held at its hub and other stations around the world. 

Emirates Skycargo, the fourth-largest cargo airline by traffic, has similarly suspended flights through Dubai. It operates nearly a dozen Boeing 777 freighters and leases several crewed Boeing 747-400s from third-party carriers. The United Arab Emirates has closed its airspace and Dubai International Airport sustained minor damage to a passenger concourse from an Iranian attack, according to news accounts from the region.

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California’s green policies destroy blue-collar jobs

Gavin Newsom complains of “faux outrage” over his comments to a largely black audience in Atlanta about his SAT scores, in which he implied a shared lack of ability.

No state makes more of its “enlightened” stance on racial justice than California. But few states do worse.

Governor Newsom and his Sacramento claque have embraced reparations for the descendants of slaves. They are also working overtime to preserve affirmative action policies, despite the electorate’s widespread rejection.

But Newsom’s racial rhetoric is, as the leftist site Jacobin suggests, nothing more than “pure rhetorical posturing.”

For example, the reparations promise new free tuition and housing subsidies to anyone who can prove they are descendants of slaves — but there’s little to no money behind this feint.

California’s adoption of such “reparations,” recently also embraced in San Francisco, also seems a bit absurd, given that it was never a slave state.

California, like every state, is burdened by a racist past, but much of this was aimed at what were larger populations — first Native Americans, then old Californios (descendants of Mexican/Spanish settlers) and, most of all, Asians, who were banned from landownership and were subject to brutal pogroms, the worst occurring in Los Angeles.

But the greatest irony is that both Latinos and African Americans do worse in California than in  “unenlightened places”  like Texas and Florida.

The key difference in California has been the imposition of draconian environmental regulations, which have devastated industries like construction, manufacturing, and logistics. 

It’s what attorney Jennifer Hernandez calls “the green Jim Crow.”  

Latinos have been hardest hit because many are employed in the “carbon economy,” which relies on energy and has been decimated by regulatory pressures. 

For example, Latinos constitute well over 50% of all California construction workers and the majority working in logistics, according to the American Community Survey.  

But due to regulatory constraints, construction in California has been among the weakest in the nation, making it hard to build what the market wants — namely, affordable apartments and modestly-priced single family homes. 

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