Although he isn’t running for office, President Trump is running taxpayer-paid ads praising himself and warning of a “final battle.”

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and famed investor Stanley Druckenmiller worked for George Soros during his famous coup of the UK pound crisis back in 1992. Druckenmiller has since gone on to be an independent hedge fund manager with one of the best records on Wall Street spanning several decades. Scott Bessent’s independent hedge fund closed because of poor performance during a period of record growth in the stock market and his second attempt did not fare much better.

At his Jackson Hole speech, on August 28, 2026, the Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh recommitted the Federal Reserve to maintaining its 2 percent inflation target, calling it a “firm, fixed target.” At present, however, price inflation, as measured by the yearly growth rate of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), stood at 3.4 percent in July, down only slightly from 3.5 percent in June.

California has a strange relationship with business. Its lawmakers seem determined to make doing business more expensive, yet companies continue to operate there. Taxes rise, regulations accumulate, and new compliance requirements are added, but California remains home to some of the most successful companies in the world. That raises a question more interesting than whether California is “business friendly.” Why do businesses continue to stay—and how far can the state push them before they finally decide the benefits of California are no longer worth the cost?

It is sometimes helpful to preface an essay with a strong quote or two to give the reader direction in what follows. In this case, I found many quotes worthy of that task, so I cite the following and ask the reader’s forbearance: