In a recent interview with The Economist, Elon Musk boldly contended that “money won’t matter in 2036.” He went on to argue that humans want money for goods and services. He then said, “Well, if that [goods/services are]. . .so abundant that. . .the robots and AI are providing more goods and services than any human could possibly consume, what do you need money for in that case?”

Around two and a half years ago, as the Biden administration was entering what we now know was its final year, the then-president’s re-election campaign was growing frustrated.

According to nearly all the big economic indicators and aggregates, the economy was doing quite well, especially considering the historic shutdown governments had forced on the global economy a few years before.

This month marks 55 years since President Richard Nixon closed the “gold window,” severing the last link between the US dollar and gold. Under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, foreign countries pegged their currencies to the US dollar, which was then pegged to a fixed value of gold. Foreign countries could exchange their dollars for gold at a rate of 35 dollars per ounce.

Trump wants a huge 50% increase to the war budget for his endless wars in Ukraine and Iran. 

For decades, Western democracies operated under a comfortable consensus: censorship was a blunt instrument reserved for authoritarian regimes, while the “free world” relied on open debate, robust dissent, and constitutional safeguards. This sentiment allowed Western leaders to feel superior over the rest of the world, to lecture other countries on democratic principles and, in some cases, to invade and bomb them too, to spread these ideas by force. In recent years, however, that narrative has collapsed under the weight of its own hypocrisy.

In a recent controversy over ideological indoctrination at the Smithsonian museum, one member of staff mockingly said, “I didn’t realize all my colleagues were Marxists.” The implication is that their critics are using the label “Marxist” to denote any historical interpretations with which they disagree. The museum’s staff insist that their only goal is to offer an “inclusive” portrayal of history.

“Transmutation” is the process of changing one substance, element, or form into another. We owe this word to the ancient pursuit of alchemy, which sought to accomplish the artificial production of gold from base metals. While it is now considered a pseudo-science, in our rational age, its aspirations survive in currently popular proposals for taxing billionaires.