According to the Treasury Department’s monthly report for September, the budget deficit turned positive last month, with tax receipts coming in at $197 billion above federal outlays. This sizable one-month surplus was due to a large month-to-month drop in federal spending for the month. Contrary to what some protectionists and Trump advocates have claimed, however, the surplus was not significantly driven by tariff revenues.
Markets price in a near 97% probability of a 25-bp rate cut in Oct and a 94% probability of another 25-basis-point rate cut in Dec.
Trump’s rule-by-decree protectionism continues as he insists Americans must pay more taxes to get Canadian goods and raw materials.
The Social Security cost-of-living adjustment will be 2.8% in 2026, the Social Security Administration said.
Napolitano: “The Trump administration has claimed that it can kill whomever it designates as an unlawful enemy combatant. The evidence is this: “trust me, bro.”
One area would be controlled by Hamas and the other controlled by the Israeli military.
Ever since I was young, I have enjoyed reading science fiction. Some of its attraction is the escapism it offers, but also the artistry of those who can envision a world where some things are very different but which seem to make enough internal sense to suspend disbelief and care about the characters. It also sometimes connects to or echoes recent “real world” circumstances (see my “The Road Back from Interstellar Serfdom,” for example).
[Defending Dixie: Essays in Southern History and Culture by Clyde N. Wilson (Shotwell Publishing, 2025[2006]; 474pp.)]
AI doomerism and neo-Luddite sentiments have become increasingly prevalent in recent discourse. Given the remarkable things that technological progress has made possible for us, one would think that the Luddite fallacy would have died by now. Nonetheless, it is alive and well.
Reactionary theocrat and commentator Matt Walsh has been no exception to this trend. In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Walsh wrote:
