Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 8. The imaginary lost world edition (and also something about the color of pots and kettles).

Popular traditionalist meme with some truth to it, but it requires more thought than this.  Also, this pertains more to the 50s and 60s, than it does to eras before

Nostalgia combines regularly with manifest respectability to give credence to old error as opposed to new truth. 

John Kenneth Galbraith.

June 17, 2025.

Headline in the Tribune:

Trump cancels $49M Wyoming coal carbon capture project

And:

New products take backseat amid Trump tariffs

And:

Companies work to overcome staff incivility

President Trump issued an executive order allowing Nippon Steel to purchase U.S. Steel, something that had been held up by President Biden.

Eh?  Isn't this the opposite of economic nationalism as espoused by the far right.

Yes, it is.

Part of the deal gives the U.S. a "Golden Share', which according to Trump funcationary Howard Lutnick, does the following:

This perpetual Golden Share prevents any of the following from occurring without the consent of the President of the United States or his designee:

• Relocate U.S. Steel’s headquarters from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

• Redomicile outside the United States

• Change the name of the company from U.S. Steel

• Reduce, waive, or delay the $14 billion of Near-Term investments into U.S. Steel

• Transfer production or jobs outside the United States

• Close or idle plants before certain timeframes other than normal course temporary idling for safety, upgrades, etc.

• Other protections regarding employee salaries, anti-dumping pricing, raw materials and sourcing outside the U.S., acquisitions, and more.

We'd first not that nothing is "perpetual".

Next, isn't this Socialism?

Sort of, yes.  It's also somewhat reminiscent of Theodore Roosevelt's idea, regarded as radical then and now, to give shares to US corporations that grew over a certain size, and regulate them as public utilities.

Any way its looked at, this is a radical position for the Republican Party and the US to take in general.  It's amazing that there hasn't been objections to it, let alone by the GOP which up until Trump didn't approve of economic protectionism or anything that could be suggested to be Socialist.

Indeed, even now, Trumpites like to accuse people of being Socialist.  

Hmmm. . . 

June 21, 2025

Man who says he can move TikTok to South Dakota is a bust in Wyoming politics: Reid Rasner lost by 43 points in a U.S. Senate race and has offered few details in support of his multibillion-dollar bid, but has won over the Rushmore State’s governor.

June 26, 2025

Wyoming oil positioned to weather Middle East conflict, analysts say: Nation's soaring oil and natural gas production may buffer energy prices if Israel-Iran conflict disrupts global supplies, some industry officials predict.

U.S. Ballistics plans on opening an artillery projectile plant in Cody. 

cont:

The Senate parliamentarian has advised that a Medicaid provider tax overhaul central to President Donald Trump’s tax cut and spending bill does not adhere to the chamber’s procedural rules.

June 28, 2025

The US broke off tariff negotiations with Canada, the US's largest trading partner.

Aluminium costs are pressing beverage manufacturers.

June 29, 2025

The Senate voted to take up The Big Ugly, which doesn't mean that it's passed.

For the sake of the country, it should not pass, but it likely will. 

Elon is taking note of the impact, which won't please his former ally.

June 30, 2025

CBO on The Big Ugly, as reported by the CST.

CBO PROJECTS TRUMP BILL WILL RACK UP DEBT

Where are those GOP fiscal conservatives?

And also:

Office estimates plan would add $3.3T over next decade

Well, given their ages, Donald Trump, Cynthia Lummis and John Barrasso will likely be pushing up daisies by that time.  So, if its good for the old Boomers, that's all that really matters, right?

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina came out in opposition of the Big Ugly.  He was immediately threatened with being "primaried" by the illegal occupant of the Oval Office, but then announced he won't be running anyway, which has the impact of positioning this office for a Democratic occupant.

Going into 26, the Republicans are in real trouble in the House, and they're starting to get into trouble in the Senate.

Canada eliminated its digital services tax.

cont:

Via Reddit, not sure of the source, posting so it can be see.

PTC is the renewable electricity production tax credit, a per kilowatt-hour (kWh) federal tax credit included in the U.S. tax code for electricity generated by qualified renewable energy resources. 

cont:

July 1, 2025

At this point, Dr. John lacks any credibility on pretty much anything, but here's his statement.

Sen. Barrasso, Also A Medical Doctor, Defends Medicaid Changes In Budget Bill

The article notes:

As a doctor in Wyoming for over 20 years, I’ve cared for Medicaid patients my entire career. I understand Medicaid’s importance for the people it is intended to serve. I have also seen its shortcomings.

Thanks to Wyoming being good stewards of taxpayer dollars, the Medicaid reforms included in the bill are unlikely to negatively impact our state. Wyoming’s policies are already aligned with a majority of the Medicaid provisions. This includes work requirements for all able-bodied adults enrolled in Medicaid.

Medicaid was established to help children, pregnant women, seniors and the disabled. We need to make sure that high-quality care is accessible and reliable to those who qualify for Medicaid. This bill does that.

Dr. John also supported Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for his current position even though he no doubt privately believes Kennedy is a quack.  And he hid under his desk for the most part during the recent public lands issue.  Reaction to this story brought out a lot of anger by people remembering that, as it should. 

Eight Republican Senators are currently holding out against The Big Ugly.

The GOP leadership has been struggling with getting the Big Ugly passed in general, and in meeting King Donald's arbitrary July 4 deadline.  Now the monarch has indicated he has sort of a "m'eh" view on the deadline and he doesn't want things cut too deeply, which must be causing Grover Norquist fits.

cont:

The Big Ugly passed the Senate with J.D. Vance casting the tie breaking vote.

Now its back to the House where the House Freedom Caucus has already criticized it due to its increasing the deficit.

The most amusing vote on the Senate side was Lisa Murkowski, who voted for it, but indicated she was agonized by the whole thing. That seems to be Murkowski's theme.  If the Senate proposed a vote to run over kittens, she'd vote for it, but note that the whole thing really bothered her.

Murkowski:

My hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we're not there yet.

Gutless. 

July 2, 2025

The US dollar suffered its worst first-half decline in more than 50 years due to tariff concerns.

Lisa Murkowski is taking a lot of flak for selling her vote for changes to the Big Ugly that benefitted certain constituents in Alaska, including whalers, while she acknowledges the Big Ugly is ugly.  She seems utterly surprised that she's now the subject of outright deserved contempt.

Murkowski was just playing politics the old fashioned way, trading her vote for something she thinks her constituents needed, while still not liking the bill.  It's the way things are done, in normal times, which these are not.

Murkowski is 68 years old, which I'll mention as the Big Hugly contains tax breaks for seniors.

Well of course it does.  

Old Boomers Never Die

They control away. . . *

Footnotes:

*From Old Soldiers Never Die.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 7 and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 91st Edition. Reality is hard.

Labels: Donald Trump, Economics, Immigration, law, Nostalgia, Populism, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration