Like a child with his new favorite toy at Christmas, President Trump is using tariff taxes not only to attempt to centrally plan the pricing of thousands of goods and services in the economy, but also to engage in election interference in other countries. The latter statement refers to how he recently put the government of Brazil on notice that 50 percent tariff taxes would be imposed on Brazilian imports to the U.S.

Rice prices in Japan are a big deal. “One of the main sources of anger has been the surging cost of the food staple, which has rocketed for months...”

The yield on the securities rose three basis points to 3.25%, adding to a surge in the past month. A move above 3.263% would take the rate to the highest since 2011.

Some prominent people are distressed by Zohran Mamdani’s victory over Cuomo. There are real concerns regarding Mamdani. Mamdani is a self-described socialist, and socialism has failed disastrously everywhere it’s been tried.

Last week the Department of Justice announced that Jeffrey Epstein did not maintain a “client list” of prominent individuals who may have broken the law at Epstein’s private island. These individuals could be blackmailed by Epstein and whatever intelligence agencies were working with him.

In February, in response to a question about when Epstein’s client list would be made public, Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had it on her desk and would soon release it. She now says she meant she had a file related to Epstein, not the Epstein client list.

“Those bastards didn’t send back my article! Now I have to re-type the whole piece before I can submit it somewhere else!” I growled standing by the apartment cluster mailbox on a sultry afternoon of July 3, 1979. “Did they just throw away or steal the stamps from the self-addressed stamped envelope I sent along with my piece?!”

Price inflation is moving up again, in spite of President Trump’s repeated (and false) claims that prices are falling. The media isn’t right either, though, since much of the media consensus about June’s stubbornly high price inflation trend is that it was caused by tariffs. Tariffs however, are not inflationary. The price inflation we now see is the continued legacy of the monetary inflation of Trump-Biden efforts to embrace huge deficits and pressure the Federal Reserve to push interest rates downward with easy-money policies. 

Early in the morning of July 13, 2025, the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyon’s North Rim consumed the historic 1930s Grand Canyon Lodge, the visitors’ center, and dozens of other structures in the national park. Ignited by lightning on July 4, the Park Service had initially chosen to manage the fire as an opportunity to burn through a buildup of fuel sources on the forest floor, but it escaped control when wind picked up a few days later. No one was hurt, but many are asking how this could happen.