Aug
14
2025

He Really Is Indispensible

Jim's link will take you to his examples of Another Dollop of Light Communism from the Trump Administration (NR gifted link).

And he doesn't even mention this recent example of that:

President Trump lashed out at Goldman Sachs and Chief Executive David Solomon, days after the bank said U.S. consumers are likely to bear the bulk of costs caused by tariffs.

The WSJ's Greg Ip also notes that The U.S. Marches Toward State Capitalism With American Characteristics. (WSJ gifted link)

A generation ago conventional wisdom held that as China liberalized, its economy would come to resemble America’s. Instead, capitalism in America is starting to look like China.

Recent examples include President Trump’s demand that Intel’s chief executive resign; the 15% of certain chip sales to China that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices will share with Washington; the “golden share” Washington will get in U.S. Steel as a condition of Nippon Steel’s takeover; and the $1.5 trillion of promised investment from trading partners Trump plans to personally direct.

This isn’t socialism, in which the state owns the means of production. It is more like state capitalism, a hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises.

China calls its hybrid “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” The U.S. hasn’t gone as far as China or even milder practitioners of state capitalism such as Russia, Brazil and, at times, France. So call this variant “state capitalism with American characteristics.” It is still a sea change from the free market ethos the U.S. once embodied.

As a free market fan myself, I'm dismayed. But then I check my investment portfolio, and I'm slightly mollified; the gurus at Fidelity seem to be adjusting it well to the new reality.

But, speaking of reality, Don Boudreaux notes that Even Trump Can't Escape Logic and Reality. Specifically, about him trying to push Goldman Sachs around:

Forget the childishness of Trump’s behavior. Overlook his cowardly refusal to take responsibility for whatever ill-consequences his policies inflict. Ignore the inconsistency of Trump’s actual actions with the boastful claims of his supporters that he tells it like it is. Disregard the unseemliness of the president of the United States behaving like a sixth-grade schoolyard bully.

Don notes there are only three groups that might be a source of all that tariff revenue:

  1. American consumers;
  2. American businesses;
  3. foreign producers.

Trump wants to deny the first two. Understandable that he wants to.

But (here's the logic and reality): if "foreign producers" are eating the tariff costs to keep the net cost of their products to Americans the same, that destroys Trump's argument that his tariffs will spur domestic production.

I recently read the late Martin Cruz Smith's last novel, in which his Russian detective hero, Arkady Renko, mused that the best book to read in order to understand Russia was Alice in Wonderland. I'm beginning to think it might be a gateway to understanding America under Trump.

Also of note:

  • Of course he does. Dominic Pino notes that Trump Wants a Bureau of MAGA Statistics. After the defenestration of Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer:

    What Trump would like is a BLS that is biased in his favor. The latest proof of that is his nominee to be the next commissioner, E. J. Antoni.

    Antoni is the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation. He has been a relentless booster of Trump’s policies on social media. And he has demonstrated time and again that he does not understand economic statistics.

    Dominic has examples of Antoni's past whoppers.

  • A nation turns its lonely eyes to … Zohran Mamdani? George Will looks for the pony in a room filled with you-know-what: Why Mamdani’s socialism-on-the-Hudson would be useful for America. (WaPo gifted link)

    Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani are similar symptoms, and similarly reasons for guarded optimism. The president and the self-described “democratic socialist” who is the Democratic nominee to be New York’s next mayor have risen on tides of resentments, and are inadvertent educators.

    Trump is teaching a daily seminar on the founders’ wisdom, especially the separation of powers, which Congress, by its self-marginalization, has weakened, thereby emancipating presidents from law and other restraints. Mamdani, if elected, will be similarly instructive regarding elementary economics and the limits of government’s competence.

    Here's hoping we can learn our lessons without much further damage.

  • One electron looks pretty much like another. But (unfortunately) it costs money to shove them into my house. At NH Journal, Kevin Avard explains Why Granite Staters Pay Too Much for Electricity—and How to Fix It.

    If you’ve opened your electric bill recently, you’ve probably felt the same thing I have—frustration. Granite Staters are paying some of the highest electricity rates in the country, and it’s getting worse. Eversource just announced a hike in its default supply rate, increasing it from 8.9 cents to 11.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. This rate covers the actual electricity we use. Other utilities and suppliers are seeing similar increases because these rates are tied to regional energy market costs.

    And to make matters worse, the fixed monthly customer charge is also rising by 43 percent, from about $13.81 to nearly $20 a month—before you even turn on the lights.

    Kevin's not wrong. This site reports how electricity cost varies state-to-state. New Hampshire's average (residential/commercial) rate is 20.50¢ per kWh. That's in comparison to the US average of 13.17¢ per kWh.

    Other New England states, though, show that it's a regional malady: MA: 24.67¢ per kWh; ME: 22.84¢ per kWh; VT 19.42¢ per kWh; CT: 26.16¢ per kWh; RI: 25.66¢ per kWh.

    Kevin is a state senator, and his ideas on "how to fix it" seem OK.

    I have to say that I think electricity is a huge bargain, even at 20.50¢ per kWh.

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