It turns out printing $6 trillion during the Covid Panic has some longer term effects. 

Switzerland’s population has grown far faster than that of surrounding EU states, rising by 23% since the free movement agreement came into effect in 2002.

The US-Israel plan to turn Iran into a failed state like Syria has failed. The US didn’t even get Iran’s enriched uranium. 

For some time now I have pondered why environmental activists seem to reject evidence that capitalism has been making the world a better place for all levels of society. The pampered aristocracy of just a few hundred years ago lived miserable lives compared to the least wealthy citizens of just about any capitalist country today. All segments of society today have access to state-of-the-art healthcare, sufficient and healthy food, warmth in the winter and cooling in the summer, ease and safety of travel, etc.

Civilization does not usually fail because every participant is stupid, vicious, or indifferent. It fails because people are placed inside systems where the locally-prudent action sustains a globally-absurd result. “Moloch” is Eliezer Yudkowsky’s name for these impersonal traps: arrangements in which nearly everyone would prefer a better world, but no individual can safely move there alone.

How to safeguard the human person in the time of artificial intelligence? It is hardly a surprise that Pope Leo XIV in answering that question in his first encyclical does not include money as part of the solution. More is the pity.

In recent months there has been renewed public interest in the truth about the global history of slavery. For example, the conservative commentator Matt Walsh produced a well-received series titled “Real History,” in which one episode covered “what schools don’t teach you about slavery.”