Monday, July 27, 2026
Friday, July 24, 2026
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 6. The screwworm edition.
Exports of petroleum products and capital goods jumped to record highs reducing the U.S. trade deficit.
The capital goods item is interesting and I haven't seen it explained. That is a positive trend, if sustainable. The oil exportation one is not as it depletes a diminishing resource at the expense of U.S. consumers. A lot of it seems to be related to AI exports, which isn't necessarily good, aircraft production, and war related purchases. If all that is correct, it won't be sustainable at the current levels, probably.
Screwworms have reappeared in Texas after a sixty year hiatus. The Trump administration is blaming the Biden Administration, as that's its default thing to do, but the Trumpistas lifted protections that were in place and allowed importation of Mexican cattle via ports in a probable attempt to lower beef prices. This is likely to have the opposite effect. It's a more likely cause, although there were concerns about animals moving across the border illegally during the Biden Administration.
Mexico itself was screwworm free as of 1991. Somehow that got reversed one way or another, and now the problem is back. Given that, it probably was coming back no matter what. It is a major crisis.
Nobody has cited the weather, but it is spread by a fly, and that may very well have resulted to the spread of the flies range.
Inflation is up to 4.2%.
cont:
Reporter: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?
Trump: No, I love it. I love the inflation.
Johnson is already saying that's not what he meant.
June 14, 2026
Indeed, this would be horrible news:
Wyoming Outfitters, Hunters Say Screwworm Would Be Wildlife Disaster If It Hits State
‘A global rupture’: Carney calls for Canada-EU unity before G7 summit
June 19, 2026
Those of us in the livestock industry should pray for rain. We also ought to realize that voting for climate change deniers like Harriet Hageman is basically putting a knife to the through our our children, and then cutting their arteries.
Wyoming Ranchers Pray For Rain As Drought, Demand Push Beef To Record High Prices
Drought? Get real. This isn't a normal drought.
June 22, 2026
Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill
A rare distributist bill. It bans private equity acquisition of homes.
It will be challenged
Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping bipartisan housing affordability bill
June 26, 2026
West Texas is at $69.53.
June 30, 2026
The 1.5-gigawatt Prometheus Hyperscale data center will now all be in Natrona County on the Falls Ranch property owned by Texas billionaire carpetbagger Russell Gordy.
Trump called the housing bill that passed both houses "a big yawn". He's holding it hostage in hopes it makes congress pass the antidemocratic SAVE Act.
July 1, 2026
ABC reports that President Trump has earned more than $1 billion from his cryptocurrency ventures while in office.
July 2, 2026
Grand Teton National Park employees unionize
July 9, 2026
Wyoming coal company wins federal money to extract critical minerals from Powder River Basin
July 14, 2026
Illegal tariffs being refunded pushed the June federal budget deficit up to $120 billion.
July 15, 2026
Headline in the CST:
Low US birth rate may create future housing glut
Also a headline in the CST:
Out of reach: Research: More young Americans can’t afford to buy a starter home
In truth, the two headlines actually aren't contradictory. An era of declining population will come, and that will cause a housing glut. And that's all a good thing.
July 20, 2026
The illegitimate demented fool occupying the White House as Congress is too cowardly to boot him out, is attempting to raise tariffs on Canada 50%.
Yet another dumb ass diversion
It'll fail in the courts.
July 22, 2026
Trump approved a 30 year deal with Saudi Arabia that will provide the it with a civilian nuclear program and potentially open the door to uranium enrichment in the kingdom.
The Saudi's likely want this as they know that oil is a finite resource, which we seemingly do not, and they know that global warming is not a fib, which the GOP does not.
What an irony, however. Nuclear deal with a theocratic Islamic state while we're at war with another nearby theocratic Islamic state for having a nuclear program.
And, an interesting examination of petroleum prices:
July 24, 2026
The Trump administration is imposing new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on 60 trading partners, including the European Union, on the pretext of lax enforcement of forced labor bans.
It comes right as the 10% tariffs expire and it'll be challenged in court, and fail.
It's really difficult to believe that an administration that won't release all the Epstein files, which involved a sort of child sexual labor, is concerned about forced labor. This is absurd but fits into the Navarro economic model Der Fibber has bought into.
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Tuesday, July 23, 1946. Last of the POWs sent home.
The United States released the last of 375,000 German POWs it had held in the United States, embarking 1,385 of them on the General Yates after transporting them from Camp Shanks, New York.
About ten POWs who had escaped during the war remained at large and were never accounted for.
The Zaibatsu, the Japanese corporations that had financed Japan's war effort, were abolished.
Many of them would be reconstituted starting in 1953, including Mitsubishi, Mitsui and Sumitomo.
Frances Ramsden and her standard poodles were on the cover of Look.
Ramsden was a model who had a very brief acting career, appearing in only three films. She later married Egyptian millionaire Adel Sabit, a cousin of King Farouk, but had to abandon Cairo due to that association. She divorced in 1975 and returned to California, where she spent the remainder of her life, passing away in 2000 at the age of 80.
The prior day's bombing of the King David Hotel made the front page of American newspapers.
Monday, July 22, 1946. The bombing of the King David Hotel.
Budgetary BS.
The House of Representatives passed its version of a massive the 2027 National Defense authorizing an $1.15 trillion in spending for the military 216 to 212.
Six deluded Democrats voted for it, seven Republicans voted against it.
The bill dumps a record amount of money into the military and:
- Substantially expands military technology cooperation between the United States and Israel, the latter of which has a leader who duped demented Donny Trump into the current ongoing unending war.
- Had the fascist SAVE Act tied to it in the hopes that the Senate won't vote no on a defense appropriations bill.
It now goes to the Senate where its chances are doubtful.
Nothing in this bill should pass.
All guns, no butter, and no votes.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Daylight Savings Time, Dangers, and Crabbiness.
This again:
In some ways I'm amazed that a body lead by a far right wing Evangelical zealot who formerly conceived of himself as a latter day Moses has time to do anything other than Trump's bidding.
But this yet again.
Harriet is apparently having none of it. She stated:
The Sunshine Protection Act robs Wyoming farmers and ranchers of precious sunlight and ensures the first hours of a student's day is in darkness, The government isn't funded, our elections aren't secure, and Wyoming's legacy industries need help.
I will not vote for a time-wasting bill that puts Wyoming in the dark.
That's the sort of nasty attitude that some Wyomingites have come to love about Harriet. Sure, she'll say bad things about their educational level, but she's mean.
Um, anyhow.
The line about our elections not being secure is 100% pure bullshit and Harriet knows that. She's willing to lie for Trump if it gets her votes. She never really said the 2020 election was stolen, as she couldn't bring herself to lie that big, but lying gets easier for people over time. Now she's willing to lie about election security. That's reason enough to retire her from politics right now.
If she's sent home (she won't return to Wyoming, I'd wager) she might want to familiarize herself with agriculture again. Hageman is from a ranch/farm, but her comment about robbing "Wyoming farmers and ranchers of precious sunlight" is flat out stupid. I've been around agriculture my entire life, and it's one of those occupations that doesn't pay any attention to the clock at all.
A lot of big agriculture activities start "when it gets light". Light comes, when it comes. It doesn't matter what the clock says.
For that matter, generally, what actually happens is people get where they need to be an hour to 30 minutes before the sun comes up and drink coffee until it comes up, then they start working. That isn't impacted by the official time schedule at all. Generally, if you are working cattle, you start when you are sure you can see them.
I've never ever heard a rancher or farmer say "oh gosh, look at the time".
The concern about school children, however, is more merited. The experiment with lengthened daylight savings time under 1974's Emergency Daylight Saving Time Energy Conservation Act, done to conserve energy, did prove to result in increased early morning deaths, including deaths and injuries to school children. When you start to get as far north as Wyoming you are starting to put kids out for school in the dark already.
Additionally, people flat out hated it.
I can remember the experiment from the 1970s, because I can recall walking to grade school in the dark. We walked, but I only had .2 of a mile to go and I didn't have to cross any dangerous streets. Still, I wonder if parents today would regard simply walking that distance too risky.
Not that it would matter today. At that time we went to the school within our boundary and if parents didn't like it, their option was to look for one of the very few religious schools there were, with St. Anthony's being the biggest one. Interestingly, while my extended family is a large Catholic family, none of us went there. I was told my parents had thought about enrolling me there, but there wasn't room at the time.
I frankly don't think going on year around Daylight Savings Time is a good idea. I'd like the natural time, year around, and I don't see a good reason not to return to it. Daylight Savings Time doesn't save any daylight, it just makes you start an hour earlier in the day than nature would provide.
Still, I can't help but find Hageman's Grand Master Crab Blaster response amusing. "We control Congress and cut taxes and now we're bankrupt and I have elections that I want to help steal. .
Things that would be best done in the dark.
Related threads:
Hey, wait a minute, didn't the Government make daylight savings time permanent?
Monday, July 15, 1946. Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation, loan to the UK, birth of Linda Ronstadt.
The 442nd Regimental Combat Team was conferred a Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation.
The Senate approved an emergency loan to the United Kingdom.
Musical great Linda Ronstadt was born in Tucson. Still living, but unable to sing due to Parkinson's, Ronstadt was a commanding singer of the 1970s and had a very long career thereafter, ranging from Country Rock, to pop, to Mexican Folk music. She's never married, but did raise two adopted children.
Last edition:
Monday, July 8, 1946. Germans ordered to go home.
Wednesday, July 1, 2026
Monday, July 1, 1946 Crossroads Able.
Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Sunday, June 30, 1946. Wartime powers expire.
The OPA's emergency wartime powers ended at midnight in spite of an effort by President Truman to extend them.
The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) authority also expired at midnight as did the authority of the War Relocation Authority.
Surplus military vehicles were being sold.
A sham election in Poland placed the country under the Communist Party and approved the post war borders with the USSR.
Saturday, June 29, 1946. Operation Agatha.
Thursday, June 25, 2026
Tuesday, June 25, 1946. The World Bank commences operations.
The World Bank commenced operations.
Nationalist Chinese troops killed ten demonstrating middle school students at Xuzhou when their commander, Feng Yu-xiang Fang Jingxing ordered them to be fired on by machine guns.
The US was struggling through a post war meat shortage. Denver newspapers were reporting that the Office of Price Administration was accordingly being kept in operation and that Denver butcher shops were nearly bare.
The YB-35 flew for the first time.
Saturday, June 22, 1946. History rhyming
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Saturday, June 13, 2026
Donald Trump: "I love the inflation". What if this isn't quite as crazy as it sounds (while still being really darned scary).
$100 when this bond was issued had the spending power of $1,892.16 today.
How did the U.S. pay off much of the debt from the Second World War and the Cold War?
It inflated the economy out of it.
Let me note something here right from the onset. I think Donald Trump is suffering from dementia in a major way and doesn't come up with plans for anything on his own, very often. Put another way, I think he's a puppet at this stage, pulled by National Conservative and Populist strings, the two not being the same.
Which brings me to this.
What if, behind the scenes, somebody on the NatCon end has come up with the plan to inflate the economy and steal as much of the petroleum oil belonging to Venezuela and Iran as possible.
It'd be way sinister, and evil, and destroy the lives and savings of many, but it might work.
But it'll be devastating to individuals.
Here's how it might works.
Raise tariffs to the point where domestic production actually is increased. That would make everything much more expensive, and hence inflation would result. Putting US oil increasingly on the global market would do the same, as that only happens when the price of oil is high. The value of the debt would decrease as the value of money would decrease.
Crazy?
Well, that's similar to what was done with the World War Two and Cold War debt.
The problem is, of course, that living in inflationary times is devastating to individuals, which is why it can't be, and never has been, done openly.
NatCons, however, may very well like this idea, if they can pull it off. At the end of it the thesis would be that government spending would be brought under control, the national debt greatly reduced, and domestic production realty increased. All of which would be for those who economically survived the ten to twenty year period it'd take to pull it off.
Which many would not.
And it might not work at all. Indeed, it would only work if it was accompanied by high employment, which often high inflation operates against. That's why the increased domestic production would be necessary.
NatCons are a really different group and they've operated in this administration very much in the shadows, which doesn't mean they aren't operating.
Friday, June 5, 2026
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.
May 1, 2026
Discount airline Spirit dissolves.
It was a victim of high aviation fuel, something brought about by Donald Trump's illegal attack on Iran.
Regarding petroleum, the U.S. is now exporting a record amount due to the war with Iran, which doesn't help U.S. citizens whatsoever, as it cause the price of the product to rise, and accelerates U.S. depletion of the resource. Export of it, save for conditions in which the petroleum cannot be refined here, should be banned.
For that matter, as a resource that nobody contributed to putting in the ground, some thought should be given to nationalizing the resource in some fashion.
Some members of Congress are threatening to ban the import of Chinese electric vehicles as the GOP searches for ways to make a bad situation worse.
May 7, 2026
Headline:
Trade Court Rules Trump’s 10% Global Tariff Is Illegal
A panel of federal judges found that President Trump could not legally impose the tariff on most imports.
No surprise whatsoever.
Anyhow, now this money will have to be refunded too. And Mad King Donny still hasn't refunded the money owed from the last such ruling.
May 13, 2026
Inflation rose to 3.8% last month with the fastest rise in prices in three years, caused by an illegal war with Iran which the demented Mad King Donny has no idea how to end.
Mad King Donny has gone to China. It'll be a disaster. The best possible result would be if he just gets lost over there, thinks the Chinese babes are cute, decides to marry one, and stays.
June 4, 2026
Casper's car radio store, Car Tunes, is closing after forty years.
And now this:
As an Agrarian, I really hate this.
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 3. The Wharton Way.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 138th Edition: Congress is having hearings on UFOs.
It's interesting that the overwhelming majority of the world's UFO siting's are from the US.
Same for cyptids.
It's almost like we; 1) got money, 2) got bored, 3) got stupid, and 4) elected Trump. He'll probably result in all of those things getting beat out of us.
Everyone has always wondered what would happen if a society got super flush. Well, apparently we entertain wacky conspiracy theories, become fascinated with our reproductive organs, and listen to batshit crazy hucksters.
Now we know.
Last edition: