Month: July 2025

Historically, as a result of some highly publicized scandals, American sports organizations did their best to build a wall between their events and gambling. In the end, they failed and embraced gambling instead; the sums involved were just too great to ignore. Commercials for gaming companies are now ubiquitous, even on regular network TV.

In professional sports, the assumption presumably was that the players were so highly paid, they wouldn’t risk being banned by consorting with gamblers. As fans of one of my teams, the Guardians, can attest, that assumption was always questionable at best. But what about collegiate athletes? The vast majority of them have no future in professional sports. In addition, they increasingly have few sentimental ties to their schools and view themselves as employees. What is to prevent them from taking the risk in exchange for big money? Not much.

I predict there will be a major gambling scandal in college sports, probably in NCAA basketball, within the next few years. It’s going to happen; it’s just a question of when.

I happened to notice that the vehicles identified in a couple of national Toyota commercials were 2024 models. It’s the middle of 2025, and the 2026 model year should be with us soon. What does this mean?

It means Toyota is scraping the bottom of the barrel of its inventory–the cars they haven’t been able to sell for two years–because those cars weren’t subject to tariffs. At some point, the company will run out of that kind of lackluster inventory, and prices will have to go up.

In other words, if you were thinking that the concern about tariffs and stagflation was just so much hot air, think again.

Ron DeSantis desperately wants to be our next president, but he looks like a dead man walking; he’ll be out of a job with no obvious landing place after next year, and the base hasn’t forgiven him for his premature challenge to their hero. It was hard to see much of a future for him.

But Alligator Alcatraz might have changed all that. Cruelty to illegal immigrants is Trump’s calling card; who among the potential candidates in 2028 now has more credibility on that issue than DeSantis?

I still don’t like his chances. He has all of the personal shortcomings that helped derail his candidacy last time, and he is clearly not Trump’s anointed successor. In addition, his record in Florida will not be above scrutiny, particularly on issues relating to insurance and growth. But his case is not completely hopeless.

Emil Bove denies that he’s Trump’s “henchman,” but the record strongly suggests otherwise. The willingness of the GOP Senate to confirm him consequently proves that there will be no red lines in the judicial nomination process. Trump will get anyone he wants–period.

It is possible, of course, that Bove will turn into a 21st century version of Becket and show some independence in order to address the fears of his many critics. As the saying goes, however, hope is not a strategy. Flipping the Senate seat in North Carolina would be a good start in the process of keeping him off the Supreme Court.

Assume that Volkswagen helps implement the trade deal by investing billions of dollars in new plant and equipment in the US. That’s a big win for Trump, right?

Except that VW won’t have any interest in making huge investments to build a kind of car that has no future anywhere except in the US. The cars built in the new plants will be EVs–the car that Trump hates.

Per Politico, “EU admits it can’t guarantee $600 billion promise to Trump.” Who knew?

“Europe” can’t really make enforceable promises to buy “American” energy, either. Neither can “Japan.” China, on the other hand, is an economic entity with control over its companies that can credibly make such commitments.

Oh, and here’s another insight from Politico: Viktor Orban is complaining that Trump ate von der Leyen’s breakfast. More on the reactions from Trump-loving far right EU parties in a future post.

Life in the time of Trump.

The EU deal is done.

Defense contractors did quite well

But who else really won?

The China question still remains

And Trump’s not playing nice.

I don’t know how this story ends

But we will pay the price.

Unlike Descartes, I don’t doubt that I exist. Actually, I suspect Descartes didn’t, either; after all, who was there to doubt if he didn’t exist? Having disposed of that question, the next one logically revolves around the question of authority. What does one rely on to determine what is true and what is false?

For me, the answer is as follows, in order of certainty:

1. Propositions that are compelled by the use of logic. Most of these are mathematical in nature (i.e., a =a);
2. Theories that can be verified empirically through the use of the scientific method;
3. The consensus opinion of experts on the subject matter; and
4. Personal experience.

Three observations are pertinent here. First, you will have noticed that reliance on religious texts is absent from my list. Second, “personal experience” isn’t limited to information derived from the senses; it includes the use of the subconscious, as well. Finally, because personal experience plays a large role in the process, evangelism is ultimately useless; your experiences inevitably are different than mine.

I will be using these criteria in the following weeks to set out my views on the workings of the universe, starting with the nature of ultimate reality. If you don’t agree, that’s ok; as noted above, evangelism is not the point.

The deal is done–well, sort of. While the basics are reasonably clear, many questions, as with the Japanese deal, remain. Here are my questions and comments:

1. The Europeans are going to buy lots of American weapons. Since there are a limited number of American defense contractors, and the buyers are governments, the impacts of this part of the deal are relatively easy to understand and enforce.
2. “Europe” is going to buy $750 billion worth of “American energy.” Since neither “Europe” nor “America” is an economic entity, what does that mean? Who in Europe will be responsible for these purchases? What “American” companies are going to be the sellers? Are large multi-national energy companies really “American?” What happens if the European consumers don’t need the “American energy?”
3. I haven’t seen anything which suggests that the Europeans gave ground on the digital services tax or the VAT. On the other hand, the German car companies didn’t get a special break; it remains to be seen how the French agricultural products will be treated.
4. My questions about “Europe’s” new investments in “America” are the same as for the Japanese. Who in Europe will be required to make the investments? What practical limits are put on Trump’s discretion? What happens if the companies don’t make the investments? And so on.
5. On balance, I would say that American defense companies and energy producers are the big winners here, and American consumers and European producers are the losers. In addition, the 15 percent tariff won’t be enough to spark an industrial renaissance in this country, if such a thing were even possible. The ultimate outcome from our perspective is that the revenue from the tariffs will be derived mostly from American consumers in the form of higher prices and will be used to finance the tax cuts in the BBB.

We didn’t plan to evacuate from Hurricane Irma, but increasingly dire storm surge forecasts gave us little choice. We left more or less at the very last moment. We had only one hour to pack the car with our most precious worldly goods. The results of the frenzied packing showed us what really mattered to us.

The EU is in a similar position as it negotiates with Trump. The Germans want to protect their auto exports; the French are mostly concerned about their upscale agricultural products; the Italians are fighting for their luxury consumer goods; and the EU as a whole wants to keep its digital services tax and its VAT. As Trump ratchets up the pressure, who will win carve-outs, and who will be left in the cold?

We may find out as soon as this afternoon.

As I’ve noted many times, Trump is an economic reactionary at heart. He wants to revive industries that employ lots of burly men because he associates them with an American economy that dominated the Free World in the 1950s and 1960s. There are two notable exceptions to his backward-looking views, however: crypto, which provides opportunities for people like himself to make millions without actually doing any work or helping the public; and AI, which he wants to deregulate to the maximum extent possible. Why is AI different?

I think Trump views AI in the same way that Americans saw nuclear weapons during the Cold War; it is a new form of arms race with the Chinese that we can’t afford to lose. Promoting AI development, regardless of its ultimate implications for his voters, is a way of creating leverage against the Chinese. As a result, AI fits into two sweet spots for Trump: his desire to impose terms on other countries; and his affection for decades when America, in his view, was truly great.

The polls indicate that Trump is underwater on immigration, his signature issue. What should we conclude from that?

Part of it is the inevitable disillusionment of largely disengaged voters who thought they were choosing the economy of 2019 and got tariffs and chaos instead. But the bigger part, as I predicted during the campaign, is that Americans wanted an immigration system that was orderly and humane. Biden didn’t deliver order until the end of his term and was punished for it; Trump has given us Alligator Alcatraz, guys in masks pulling helpless people off the streets, and prison in El Salvador. That is neither orderly nor humane.

For the Democrats, the important lesson here is not to overreact to the oppression as they did in 2020 and to start advocating for open borders. Opposing an inhumane process is absolutely necessary; letting everyone in is a mistake.

Some details are still elusive on the Japan agreement, but here is what I know:

1. The Japanese have a quota on imported rice. The agreement increases the American share of the quota but does not expand the quota itself. As a result, it will provide American farmers with a slightly expanded market, but it is hardly a blow for free trade.
2. The identity of the parties who will ultimately bear the cost of the tariffs will not be known until they have been fully implemented and we have the relevant data. Over time, expect the share born by the American consumer to increase, as it will no longer be possible to rely on stockpiled goods.
3. It appears that the agreement contemplates that investments will be made by both the Japanese government (in the form of loan guarantees) and the private sector, although the specific nature of the private sector obligations and the method by which they are enforced will have to be identified and put into law by the Japanese themselves. I also understand that the objects of investment are set out in the agreement and are generally appropriate for an evolving American economy. The issues now revolve around interpretation, enforcement, and the use of discretion. What happens if the Japanese companies refuse to make the ordered investments? What if Trump decides to go outside the list in the agreement and order investments in, say, private prisons for immigrants and fossil fuels? What if he uses his discretion purely to help his friends and punish his enemies? Who can stop him from doing that, given that the agreement is not subject to ratification by Congress? TBD.

Today is the tenth anniversary of this blog. A few observations are pertinent:

1. For better or for worse–ok, just for worse–this era has been dominated by Donald Trump, a man whose greatest accomplishment has been to win over the reactionary base with harsh rhetoric and to leverage that relationship into control first of the rest of the GOP and then the entire country. As a result, liberal democracy in America is being both rotted out from the inside (i.e., by perfectly legal means) and burned down from the outside. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
2. The central thesis of the blog from its beginning has been the existence of four different threads of opinion–what I call the four factions–within the Republican Party. That thesis has aged extremely well and explains why the GOP has so much trouble doing anything positive when it is in power. There has been an evolution within the party, however; the CDs have mostly left, and the Reactionaries run the place, subject to a lingering affection for tax cuts for rich people. Ten years ago, the Reactionary-PBP compact was dominated by the PBPs; today, it is the opposite.
3. The evidence that Trump is following the Orban playbook of stifling dissent by bullying and buying out his critics is becoming more obvious every day. All I can say is that it won’t happen here. This blog isn’t written with financial gain in mind, and it never will be.

The GOP was all over Obama when the federal investment in Solyndra went awry. It was yet another unsuccessful attempt at socialism, they said. Government shouldn’t pick winners and losers, because it simply didn’t have the necessary expertise. Decisions about investment must be left to the titans of the free market.

Even assuming, for purposes of argument, that the mandated Japanese investments are selected by Trump in good faith, the new agreement still represents a complete change in position by the GOP. Will anyone in Congress balk? Will we hear screams of anger from the Freedom Caucus?

Don’t bet on it. They will say this is different, because Trump is a wildly successful businessman, and Obama was not. Since Trump’s record of picking winners at the Trump Organization is ample and clear, I will leave it to you to decide whether they are right.