Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 7. The jackass in a tin barn edition.

We weren't really ready to start a new one of these, but Chuck Gray has been in such rare form recently as it starts to look like he's going to lose in ten days and his dreams of a carpetbagging political career be crushed, that it mandates it.

Gray, as Secretary of State, sits on a variety of state boards and has been using that position to attempt to advance his campaign for higher office, any higher office, all along.  Generally in the global warming is a fib camp, he at one time was okay with development projects of all types but now is anti "woke wind".  Lots of people don't like the viewscape and land use aspect of wind and solar farms, and he's hoping to tap into that dislike, but he's such a disagreeable pissant he can't seem to say it that way.  Nor can he explain his prior positions.

The real gem in this is that he almost voted to preclude use of an access road to a power substation that provides power to farmers on the basis that it might receive electrical power from solar farms or wind farms or provide power to data centers.

When the State treasurer noted that this meant, he changed his vote, but had to blame the whole thing on somebody else.

Gordon: Gray Sounds Like 'Jackass In A Tin Barn' For Blaming Data Center Vote On Gov

Gray Changes Mind On Power Station Access After Spat With Curt Meier

Data centers are now big in the news around here, and for good reason.  Gray is opposing them as he figures it's good politics.  Put a gigantic strip mine in over the same area, and he'd be all for it.  It's difficult to tell from one moment to the next if Republican candidates this year are members of the Flat Earth Society or Greenpeace.

Gray is particularly disgusting.  He's consistently rude and nasty.  It's difficult to understand why anyone would vote for him, unless they're really duped.

I wonder how this news works for people like Gray:

Huge 500-MW Solar Project Wants To Build Natural Gas Power Plant Near Glenrock

Some other economic news:

Wyoming’s First Nickel Discovery Heads Into High-Tech, High-Stakes Drilling Phase

August 9, 2026.

Casper Couple Proves You Can Make Award-Winning Wine In Wyoming

August 14, 2026

Oil supply disruptions due to King Donny's war are predicated to last well into 2027 if not through it.

Diesel is up over $5.00/gallon here locally. There's no way on earth prices like that don't cause a rise in the price of everything else.

And, related to that:

Zoinks! Gas Is $6 A Gallon In Muddy Gap — That's 42% Higher Than Wyoming Average

And in another energy story:

Black Hills Energy wants to hike electric rates 32% in northeast Wyoming

August 20 2026

The US debt is now an unsustainable and unconscionable $40T.

cont:

An Open Letter to Scott Bessent: Why You're Wrong and I'm Right

But you're the one with power, so your error is dangerous

August 21, 2026

Why the US economy is ringing alarm bells

Bessent was sent out yesterday to try to calm fears, but ended up being ridiculed.  The US is buying back bonds which did help stabilize the bond market, at least for now.

People have been wondering about the appeal of Democratic Socialism all of a sudden.  I think this states it pretty well:

I'm not for all of those things.  I'm not for a universal basic income, or universal childcare.  But the point is very well made.

And this:

First of all, beef prices have nothing to do with Joe Biden.  Secondly, the "thank you for our attention" line is stupid.

The real stupidity here is that American agriculturalist support the GOP, which routinely hurts them.  Ranchers and Farmers are solidly members of the Leopards Won't Eat My Face Party.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 6. The screwworm edition.

Labels: Animals, Artificial Intelligence, Canada, Disease, Distributism, Donald Trump, Economics, G7, inflation, Petroleum, Screwworms (Cochliomyia hominivorax), Taxes, United States and Israel v. Iran, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

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

And Carney continues to press for the new reality of American unreliability.

‘A global rupture’: Carney calls for Canada-EU unity before G7 summit

Canada’s prime minister has warned that the ‘rules-based’ global order is ‘breaking down’ amid superpower dominance.

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

Lawmakers mull reviving state program to funnel money to towns, counties for basic needs

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.

July 30, 2026

Coal and the Wyoming Congressional Delegation. They always have your back:

Wyoming Congressional Delegation Silent On Peabody's Move To Cut Retirement Benefit

July 31, 2026

The Tepid Trump Economy

Growth fell in the second quarter, despite the AI business spending boom.

Cont:

The Trump administration announced it will end the Medicare Part D subsidy program in 2027.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.

Labels: Distributism, Donald Trump, Economics, Petroleum, Subsidiarity, Taxes, The Law of Unintended Consequences, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming, Wyoming's boom and bust economy, Yeoman's Fourth Law of History

Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei? Can anything good come out of Donald Trump's Dictatorship? More Labels.

On oil, China is smarter than we are | Froma Harrop Jun 18, 2026

 

On oil, China is smarter than we are | Froma Harrop

 

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.

May 1, 2026

We're constantly told that tariffs are good for everyone.  But then monarchs come and they're lifted.

He's lost his mind.

Cont:

cont:

Well, war not only changes everything, as we've noted in our laws of history, but the law of unintended consequences applies in spades:

World’s Top Producer of Condoms Raises Prices as Iran War Rattles Supply Chains

The Malaysian company Karex, which produces about five billion condoms a year, said it was raising prices by 30 percent because of higher raw material prices and global shipping disruptions.

May 3, 2026

Discount airline Spirit dissolves.

 It was a victim of high aviation fuel, something brought about by Donald Trump's illegal attack on Iran.

May 4, 2026

Trump gives go-ahead to major new oil pipeline into Wyoming

This has been in the news for awhile, but I haven't posted it yet.

Frankly, the impact of pipelines is mostly in their construction, to it's temporary.  At least for the state.  These pipelines tend to transport Canadian oil, so the impact is less than it might seem.

And the state has got to get over its addiction to petroleum.

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.

June 5, 2026

And another one I hate:

Trump Sending $700 Million To Coal Industry, Boosting Wyoming Coal Mines

If we're going to be Socialist in regard to coal, which we shouldn't be, why not just nationalize the industry?  I ask this seriously, as now we're spending public money on a dying industry.

And not one that's just dying, the rest of the world is racing beyond fossil fuels while the ancient leaders of the United States continue to believe its 1954.

With this pathetic news, we'll start a new edition of this thread.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 3. The Wharton Way.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, Benjamin Netanyahu, Chuck Gray, Economics, Iran, King Donald's War, Petroleum, Stupidity, The Ivy League, Trump War Inflation, United States and Israel v. Iran, Weird, Wyoming's boom and bust economy

King Donald's War, Part 5. Quagmire. The $25,000,000,000 and thirteen American lives later, "So we (but not Donald) were in Vietnam for 18 years. Iraq, many, many years....I've been doing this for...six weeks" Edition.

 

King Donny before he was a national embarrassment, and just working on being a family one.

April 30, 2026

Secretary of Defense Hegseth testified the war had cost the US $25B so far.

We clearly have absolutely no idea how to get out of it or win it.

May 1, 2026

Iran responded to King Donny's threats to ramp up the war on Iran, now in a ceasefire, with threats of their own.

They seemed rather unimpressed by Donny.

Donny's administration says it doesn't have to comply with the sixty day provision of the War Powers Act due to the ceasefire.

May 3, 2026

Iran sent the US a fourteen point peace plan.  

May 4, 2026

The U.S. rejected Iranian peace proposals and is now going to escort ships through the Straits of Hormoz.  Iran threatened to strike the ships and has already claimed to have hit a U.S. Navy craft with missiles, which the U.S. denies.

cont:

Iran attacked ships in the straits today with small surface vehicles and it resumed drone strikes on the UAE.

May 6, 2026

Yesterday was Taco Tuesday, and so we have this headline from the Tribune.

Well of course we do.  Trump's an ignorant man with extremely limited world experience with a cabinet of sycophants.  This was a war run by ignoramuses.

Trump paused his latest version of the illegal war with his escort program in the Straits of Hormuz.  We have no way out of the war that anyone in D.C. grasps.

The US has clearly and absolutely lost this war, not succeeding in a single one of its objectives.  At this point, absent ground operations, this is humiliating US defeat, worse than the loss in Vietnam.

May 7, 2026

Taco's flip on the most recent operation is because Saudi Arabia denied the US use of its airspace.

It seems to be the case that Taco didn't inform the kingdom of the operation before coming up with it.

cont:

So, now we're hitting targets in Iran again, the war we won several weeks ago, and which was definitely over before we started blockading Iran.

Compared to this, the Allied landings at Gallipoli in World War One were an absolutely stunning success.

May 10, 2026

Headline from the CST:

Let's be honest, the Administration is incompetent.  Governed by flaky theories, linked to a romantic image of the past in more ways than one, and headed by a person with dementia.  Of course it's no closer to an end.

The US sent a counter proposal to Iran. They haven't replied.

What is new is that the UK and France are deploying ships to the region in anticipation of using them to keep shipping lanes open.

We'll remind everyone once again that this war is completely illegal, and Trump should be impeached and removed from office for the illegality.

May 11, 2026

Iran's counter proposal was rejected by the US.

May 18, 2026

The UAE was hit by drones yesterday, and an attempt was made on Saudi Arabia.

Donald Trump warned Iran it was running out of time.

The New York Times informed readers that Israel had constructed a secret base over a period of a year in Iraq for the war.

May 19, 2026

Trump threatened Iran with massive devastation and then called it off claiming that regional states asked him to. 

Whatever.

The ignoramus has backed himself and the entire country into a corner and has no idea what to do.

May 20, 2026

Aided by a defecting Bill Cassidy and some other defecting Republicans who finally decided they weren't a complete pack of cowardly little sissies, Congress advanced a War Powers bill.

This isn't the same as voting on it, they're just advancing it so it can be voted on. Still, it's a blow to the Big Sissie.

May 24, 2026

Contrary to what reports are holding, no lasting solution to the conflict with Iran has been reached, particularly in regard to the nuclear material.

We appear to be on our way to something no better than what Trump ripped up in the form of what President Obama had negotiated.

And he didn't have to kill a bunch of Iranian school girls to get it.

May 26, 2026

Americans are waking up the news of more war in the war that Trump said he'd already won and a couple of days ago said a deal was close to ending.

These strikes were on missile locations and boat launching sites.

May 28, 2026

Iran retaliated with an attempted strike on a US base in Kuwait.

Trump threatened to "blow up" Oman, a US ally, if it didn't cooperate on the Strait of Hormuz.

Israel declared a swath of Lebanon a "combat zone".

And with the entry demonstrating Trump's insanity, we will close out this issue.

May 29, 2026

Iran and the US agreed to a ceasefire extension involving opening the Strait of Hormuz and starting nuclear weapons talks.

June 1, 2026

The U.S. and Iran exchanged strikes yesterday, and Iran's civil government announced it was completely yielding to the Revolutionary Guard.

Israel pushed deeper into Lebanon.

cont:

Iran is withdrawing from peace talks.  Donald Trump claims he doesn't care.

June 2, 2026

From this afternoon.

Seems like a good place to start a new entry on a war that was only going to last a few days and which Trump has repeatedly told us all is over.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 5. After 13/15 U.S. deaths, Hundreds of Iranian deaths, $50B spent fighting it, and a massive increase in the price of oil, King Donny surrenders to the Iranians. The "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied" edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, F. E. Warren AFB, Food, Hypocrisy, Iran, Israel, King Donald's War, Lebanon, Lies, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, Straits of Hormuz, Trump Derangement Syndrome, United States, United States and Israel v. Iran, War

Sunday, May 30, 1926. An oral arrangement.

In an oral arrangement, Turkey gave  up claims to Mosul in exchange for 10% of the regions oil production for a period of twenty five years.

Last edition:

Wednesday, May 26, 1926. Riffians surrender.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, France, French Empire, Morocco, Rif War, Second Rif War, Spain, Spanish Empire