Various assumptions employed by mainstream economists are detached from reality. For instance, in order to explain the economic crisis in Japan in the 1990s, Nobel laureate in economics Paul Krugman employed a model that assumes that people are identical and live forever and that output is given. While admitting that these assumptions are not realistic, Krugman nonetheless argued that somehow his model could be useful in offering solutions to Japan’s economic crisis.

By the middle of 2022, it was already become apparent that the US military was having problems meeting recruitment goals. In August last year, The AP reported that the Army would have to cut force size, and an army spokesman admitted the Army was facing “’unprecedented challenges’ in bringing in recruits.” This came even with new larger enlistment bonuses. The problem, however, wasn’t as acute for the Air Force, Navy, or Marine Corps. 

Few historical figures are as infamous and controversial as Niccolò Machiavelli. Often reviled for his prescriptions of cruelty as a means of maintaining political power, Machiavelli gave us perhaps the first treatise on practical political theory. Indeed, it is the purely pragmatic rather than idealistic nature of his work that has earned Machiavelli such prestige and credibility in the realms of political theory and philosophy. Machiavelli was not a utopian. He saw the world as it was, not as he wished it to be.

The French economist, statesman, and author Frédéric Bastiat wrote in 1850 that “there is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”

In Argentina, the libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei made headlines when he came in first in the primary on August 13. His economic program calls for a strong reduction in government spending and the role of government in general and would, if implemented, greatly improve the conditions of economic life in Argentina.

Exports of raw cotton from the United States make up over one-third of the global market. After China, the world’s largest importer of cotton, entered the World Trade Organization in 2001, their share of global textile exports went from 15.3 percent to 32.4 percent in 2021. The US–China cotton trade should be flourishing and mutually beneficial, but two successive US administrations have enacted tariffs and sanctions.

If you’ve been interacting with run-of-the-mill right-wing voters, you won’t be hard-pressed to find the phrase, “the Democrats are the evil party, and the Republicans are stupid.” It shouldn’t be a surprise given what has happened during the years of the Trump administration and now with the Biden administration. Everything is against the aspirations of these right-wing voters, from Big Tech censorship to an endless horde of career politicians and bureaucrats constraining their attempts to vent their anger and message their dissatisfaction.