Murray Sabrin in the Naples Daily News:

The proposal by senators to “fix” Social Security (August 3 article) ignores the program’s fundamental flaw: its financial structure depends on an intergenerational transfer of wealth rather than genuine savings and investment. Today’s workers finance today’s retirees, with the expectation that future workers will do the same. If an investment firm promoted such a scheme, it would likely face charges of operating an illegal pyramid or chain-letter arrangement. 

From even the earliest days of written commentary on the French Revolution, it has been common for pundits and social critics and commentators to compare the American Revolution with the French Revolution. The reasons given for the difference vary significantly. Among conservatives—those who follow the Burkean line on the French Revolution—place most of the blame on ideological and religious difference between Americans the French. Other take a more comprehensive view, looking to the roles of feudalism, class conflict, and the nature of the French state. 

Humans seem to love predictability. As a result we seem to choose the comfort of predictable outcomes rather than face the uncertainty of reality. We too often show this in the support we give to false economic prophets who espouse populist industrial policy, socialist central control, or perfection through technology. We could really use someone like the late Austrian School economist Ludwig Lachmann to remind us of the unpredictability of reality.

The majority of our elected officials who spend our tax dollars are debt addicts. Their reckless policies, if continued, will destroy the nation. Very few of our pols will tell you this, although many of them neither seem to care about it nor understand it. Can you recall any of them calling a press conference to announce overspending must end for the good of the country or it will be enslaved by overspending?

Recently, Donald Trump’s approval rating has fallen to just 33 percent, the lowest of his presidency. Last week, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll exposed one reason for this drop: most Americans believe that Trump is inappropriately profiting from his role as president in his second term.