The Senate’s vote to acquit Donald Trump on both articles of impeachment this month brought a much-needed end to the tiring impeachment saga America has been subject to in the last few months.

Every time there is a budget debate, politicians from both parties will discuss the deficit and spending as if the first one did not matter and the latter could only increase. However, the main problem of the US budget in the past four decades is that total outlays rise significantly faster than receipts no matter what the economic growth or revenue stream does. For example, in fiscal years 2018 and 2019, total outlays rose mostly due to mandatory expenses in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. No tax revenue measure would have covered that amount.

In 2010, Chicago police commander Jon Burge was convicted on counts of perjury and obstruction of justice and sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Although he was convicted of lying under oath, his real crime was what he was lying about. Over the course of his career, he participated in or oversaw the torture of hundreds of suspects to coerce confessions for violent crime. The stories of Burge’s tortures—involving electroshock and suffocation, among other things—showed enough similarities between otherwise unconnected inmates that he went to trial in 1989.

In December 2019, the US trade account balance stood at a deficit of $48.9 billion, against a deficit of $43.7 billion in November and $60.8 billion in December 2018.

Most commentators consider the trade account balance the single most important piece of information about the health of the economy. According to the widely accepted view, a surplus on the trade account is considered a positive development while a deficit is perceived negatively. What is the reason for this?

In his salient book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Joseph A. Schumpeter explained that introducing new methods of production and new commodities to the market is inconceivable under perfect competition. But the reality of real-world competition is that some individuals capture opportunity and others miss it. Some entrepreneurs have more knowledge about market conditions, and others have less knowledge. Some react and move quickly, and others react slowly.

In his State of the Union Address—February 4, 2020—President Trump outlined his reasons for punishing nations that manipulate their economies in order to achieve some internal policy goal, such as China. The president claimed that such manipulation was unfair and harmful to its trading partners. His main concern is that by manipulating its economy China “steals” jobs. It does this in several ways:

In response to the economic paralysis brought about by the coronavirus, the Chinese central bank has pumped $243 billion into financial markets. On Monday, February 3, 2020, China’s equity market shed $393 billion of its value.

Most experts are of the view that in order to counter the damage that the coronavirus has inflicted, loose monetary policy is of utmost importance to stabilize the economy. It is believed that the massive monetary pumping will lift overall demand in the economy and in turn will likely move the economy out of the stagnation hole.

The Edge of Democracy, a documentary by Petra Costa produced by Netflix and nominated for an Oscar, has been released to hundreds of millions of unsuspecting viewers who know nothing of recent Brazilian history and have little to no access to the real facts. So, as a Brazilian, I had to say something.

A documentary can look at facts and try to extract an interpretation or view from it. We might agree or disagree. The problem starts when a movie attempts to be a documentary and yet fails to get even basic facts or statistics right.

In the free-for-all that has been the 2020 presidential campaign so far, there has been a notable absence of serious concern for liberty. The idea that gave birth to our country has been largely crowded out by spirited efforts to outdo rivals in what H.L. Mencken called an “advance auction of stolen goods.”