For President Donald Trump, it is about "Make America Great Again." French politician Marine Le-Pen believes that there is not a "Left or Right", but that the real fight is between "patriots and the globalists." For these nationalistic politicians, there is an intention to malign globalism by maligning the globalist elitists and making those who are opposed to them do not care about their nation's citizens. It is the "us versus them" and zero-sum mentalities that make up the mindset of the more nationalistic and protectionist elements in the Western world's politic.  This theme and realit ..read more

In December 2023, U.S. Steel Corporation (U.S. Steel) announced that Nippon Steel was going to acquire U.S. Steel. Nippon Steel (Nippon) is currently the fourth-largest steel producer worldwide and would become the third largest post-acquisition. What should be a simple business transaction in the private sector has been sucked into the politics of an election cycle.  In March, President Biden expressed his opposition to the acquisition by saying that U.S. Steel is to remain in the United States. A day later, Nippon Steel announced that there would be no plant closures or layoffs in the U ..read more

As part of my Passover preparation this year, I participated in a Passover-themed yoga session with a local synagogue. Part of the intentionality going into the session was about acknowledging the craziness in the world along with the reasons to celebrate. The rabbi first brought up Jewish weddings. Although it is one of the happiest celebrations in one's life, a Jewish wedding has a sad ritual at the beginning (the recitation of El Malei Rachamim) and ends with a brief, sad ritual: the breaking of the glass to mourn the loss of the Second Temple. Even on such a joyous occasion, there is space ..read more

"If you at first don't succeed, try, try again." That is the approach of President Biden and his attempts with student loan "relief." It does not matter that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his student loan forgiveness program last year in Biden v. Nebraska, which the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimated would cost $400 billion. That does not stop Biden from giving up on the idea. Last week, the White House announced a new plan to "provide relief to borrowers disproportionately burdened by student debt." This plan entails multiple provisions, including  ..read more

For my regular readers, it does not come as a surprise that I despise former President Trump's obsession with tariffs. This is not simply a matter of mainstream microeconomic theory. The negative impacts of tariffs were clear before Trump began his tariff tirade. Trump's tariffs during his first term lowered the GDP by 0.21 percent, lowered wages by 0.14 percent, and reduced employment by 166,000 full-time equivalent (FTE). Making the economy worse off with his tariffs was not enough for him. He would like to take tariffs to a new level.  In February, Trump proposed a 60 percent tari ..read more

In 2020, the state of Oregon passed Measure 110. The point of this Measure was to decriminalize all drugs. Instead of jail time, the punishment was a $100 fine or a completed health assessment by a qualified center. It took less than four years for this experiment to end. Late last month, Oregon re-criminalized low-level drug possession due to an increase in opioid deaths and nuisances related to public drug use. My reaction is similar to my reaction last week when Idaho got rid of its syringe services programs: re-criminalizing is not going to do any favors. Below are some preliminary finding ..read more

Last month, the White House released its annual Economic Report of the President. In the report, there was a chapter on International Trade (Ch. 5, p. 173). One of the interesting admissions in the report is how trade with China has improved the purchasing power, especially of lower-income Americans (p. 203). As a matter of fact, the report calculated that 68 percent of those benefits went to low-income Americans. This finding is echoed in a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis that was released just last week (Horwich, 2024). The author of the Minneapolis Fed report, Jeff Hor ..read more

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which is the gold standard of U.S. federal legislative analysis, released its Long-Term Budget Outlook. This outlook projects the nations' fiscal and economic outcome for the next three decades. What fun and joy does the CBO predict for the upcoming thirty years?  Debt will reach 166 percent of GDP in 2054. As the CBO's graph shows below (p. 10), this amount will be significantly higher than World War II. It will be in 2029 that debt will reach its highest levels and go up from there.  Entitlement spending is why expenditures contin ..read more

Much like with other developed countries, the United States is experiencing demographic challenges. Aside from an aging population, the United States has a lower fertility rate. This decline in fertility rate can be explained by a number of factors, including more education and career opportunities for women, greater access to contraceptives, less stigma surrounding living child-free, and increased costs of children or other macroeconomic forces. Declining fertility rates are contributing to economic and social pressures as a result of labor shortages.  Having more children seems lik ..read more

Gender-affirming care is deemed by proponents as a vital medical procedure for those seeking to deal with gender dysphoria, which is the mental distress of one's gender identity not matching with biological sex. Partaking in hormone replacement therapy, taking puberty blockers, or having gender-reassignment surgery to better align some of one's secondary sexual characteristics with their gender identity helps them deal with the anguish that comes with gender dysphoria. If you read from such sources as the Human Rights Campaign, ACLU, or American Medical Association, not allowing for ..read more