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The latest – and perhaps last – Fed rate cut

As the market anticipated, the Fed’s Open Market Committee voted to lower the Fed funds rate by another 25 basis points. The market yawned. The Dow rose 1.05%, ‌the S&P 500 rose 0.67% and the ⁠Nasdaq Composite rose 0.33%. However, the dollar fell in world markets. Lower interest rates reduce the dollar’s yield advantage in world markets. Global investors then move rotate out of dollars and into higher-yielding currencies. 

The vote on the committee had three dissents. Two members voted for no change. Trump’s man on the board, Miran voted for his usual 50 basis point cut. Miran knows that if he doesn’t do Trump’s bidding that he won’t get his job back at the Council of Economic Advisors when his Fed term ends in January. The two votes to hold were both reserve bank presidents, Schmid of Kansas City (third dissent in a row) and surprisingly Goolsbee of Chicago. I thought Boston president Susan Collins – who has the best resume on the Committee – might vote to hold but she did not.

As usual, the president voiced his displeasure saying that the number was too small and he wanted one twice as large (see Miran). He said “We have to get a mindset that when the country is doing well, you don’t want to kill the growth. That’s what they’re doing. They kill the growth because they’re so afraid of inflation. But you can have tremendous growth without inflation. Everything goes up with the growth. But that’s not inflation.” Well at least this time he did not insist that the rate be lowered to 1%. He then called Chairman Powell a “stiff.” BTW do you really want Trump to dictate monetary policy?

What is interesting is that Treasury Secretary Bessent noted that Powell only has one vote on the committee, so a change in the chair does not guarantee the entire committee voting in a way desired by the president. Four other members of the committee who voted to lower the rate indicated initially that they did not favor a cut but apparently were persuaded by Powell to go along with the 25 basis point cut. Powell indicated that more cuts may not be forthcoming in 2026 as did seven members of the committee. Recall that the committee consists of the seven governors, the president of the New York Fed and four of the 11 other reserve bank presidents. This is a warning shot across the bow of the president indicating that regardless of who he picks in January and who he then picks to replace Powell, that rate cuts are not likely forthcoming in the new year. Prepare for more insults hurled at the committee members and stepped up efforts to fire them.

Trump is already looking to see if the governors nominated by Biden were authorized by use of the autopen, indicating that they are not legitimate. The Supreme Court has yet to opine on the president’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook. Bessent is questioning the appointment of several reserve bank presidents who did not reside in the district that they preside over prior to their nominations by their reserve bank boards of directors. He wants there to be a three year residency requirement for any president. Atlanta Fed president Bostic is an example. He was on the faculty of the University of Southern California prior to being named Atlanta Fed president. Boston president Susan Collins was provost at the University of Michigan although she did get her PhD from MIT. Yet the notion of the nominee residing in the area is not new. When I was in Washington in the 1970s, a Texas congressman proposed it but it never became law. Personally, I don’t see the logic in it for the reserve bank presidents. There is a de facto rule however that a person nominated to the Board of Governors itself is supposed to represent a particular Federal Reserve district and traditionally that person is a resident of that region.

You’re fired – I think

The Supreme Court is deciding whether the president can fire members of independent federal agencies appointed by a president and confirmed by the Senate to fixed terms. Heretofore, such a person could only be terminated for cause and/or impeached by the Senate. I believe in their deliberations the justices are conflating two very distinct issues. First, there are 50 independent federal agencies that essentially constitute a fourth branch of government. Since we only have three branches, judiciary, legislative and executive these agencies are technically under the executive branch. Yet the president has virtually no say over their actions. However, Article II of the Constitution says, “the executive power shall be vested in a President” and that he alone “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

President Trump wants to be able to fire any of these previously appointed officials. Second, when these agencies write regulations are they performing a legislative function? Technically their actions are supposed to be in accordance to some enabling legislation yet their actions often go well beyond the intent of the congress.

Here is what I think. Many of these agencies have boards that are bipartisan with the party in power having the majority of the seats. Thus if the president had requested the resignation of the democrat members to appoint republicans to restore the balance in a change of administrations, I think he would be on solid grounds. Consider at NCUA – where I was appointed by President Carter to serve on its very first board – there were two democrats (one appointed by Trump in his first term the other by Biden) and one republican (also appointed by Trump). When Trump was elected, the democrat chairman (who had been appointed by Trump) resigned as chairman so that the republican member could now be chairman. But the democrat stayed on the board since his term as a board member had not expired. Trump then fired the former chairman and the other democrat and was promptly sued. However, suppose he had requested the resignation of only one of the democrats and announced the appointment of a single republican, I think he would be on legal grounds to do so. Also, consider this: Trump is assuming that the democrats on these boards will not follow his policy prescriptions. Yet he has not tested that assumption. Let us suppose that he kept the boards intact and requested that some board take a certain action. If they refused, it again seems that he would have grounds to fire them. In the case of NCUA the republican member was obviously not happy with the decisions made by the two democrats and likely played a role in having both of them fired.

The other issue that I think is separate from the firing is the writing of regulations that go beyond the intent of the congress. Here I think it is the congress’ duty – not the president’s – to rein in the agency. I consider this a different issue from the firing one. Yet in the arguments the court is mixing the two together. Justice Sotomayor is clearly confused when she states that Trump will have absolute power if the justices allow him to fire the officials. No he won’t. The power to legislate would still rest with the congress. The question is whether they would want to exercise their authority. She said “You’re asking us to destroy the structure of government, and to take away from Congress

its ability to protect its idea that the government is better structured with some agencies that are independent.” Again she is mistaken. The ability to fire an official is very different from giving the president absolute power to then write legislation that would usurp the power of the congress. Also she should substitute “any president” for Trump. This is why the democrats should hope for a ruling in Trump’s favor for it would expand the power of the next democrat who is president.

Justice Jackson obviously taking a shot at Commerce Secretary Lutnick and Robert Kennedy said “Congress is saying that expertise matters with respect to aspects of the economy and transportation, and the various independent agencies that we have. So, having a president come in and fire all the scientists, and the doctors, and the economists, and the PhDs, and replacing them with loyalists, and people who don’t know anything, is actually not in the best interest of the citizens of the United States.” Certainly that may be the case but why is she assuming that the people that are fired are a priori experts rather than hacks in the first place?

Regardless, I am sympathetic to the president on being able to fire an appointee that does not share the president’s priorities. However, keep in mind that the Supreme Court has culled out the Fed as an exception due to its role in conducting monetary policy. On this I agree. But if we do not have a fourth branch of government and if the independent agencies are under the executive, then the executive should not be powerless with regard to the actions of those agencies. Moreover, the president should have some assurance that the officials in those agencies are not acting against the president’s best interests. Consider Lina Khan the FTC chair or Rohit Copra at the CFPB both appointed by Biden. They were conducting policies approved by Biden but opposed by Trump. Supposed either were still in place with unexpired terms when Trump was elected. Do you favor Trump being stuck with them and have no control over their actions? I think this is the reason why in this instance, the Court will rule in the president’s favor.

Bill Gates: climate denier?

Are we beginning to see the end of climate hysteria? Back in its heyday when all around us were predicting doom and gloom about the climate as an “existential threat” I was reminded of those of us who as children went through drills at school in case there was a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Do you remember having to crawl under your desk? How silly was that? Well about as silly as AOC, that great environmental scientist saying back in 2019 that man-made climate change will “destroy the planet” in 12 years if humans do not address the issue, no matter the cost. Oops. 

She was not by herself. As evidence showed otherwise we went from the coming ice age to global warming to climate change to climate crisis to climate emergency and to whatever it is now. But to quote a great philosopher “The times they are a-changing”. Even the most uninformed among us no longer think that the sky is falling, the seas will rise 20 feet (Al Gore) and a carbon dioxide cloud will cover the earth. Even Bill Gates has become a climate skeptic. Gates, perhaps the richest proponent of reducing carbon emissions now says the focus should shift to preventing disease and hunger. He says that climate change is not going to wipe out humanity and that past investments fighting climate change have been misplaced. Glory be! Even that great doomsday prognosticator Greta Thunberg has shifted from the environment to protesting Gaza. Remember when she said “A top climate scientist is warning that climate change will wipe out humanity unless we stop using fossil fuels over the next five years”? Oops.

The president has called the Green New Deal the ‘Green New Scam.” And he may be right. For all the trillions of dollars spent worldwide there has be only a negligible return and it is certainly not cost effective. Trump’s 2026 budget ends all the funding for the green boondoggles that have made Al Gore and his friends rich at our expense. Europe is the poster child for this folly. Germany in particular has the highest energy costs in the west and the slowest growth. How its people stand for this is the question. And I thought the Germans were smart. They still embrace the Paris Accord and make the appropriate clucking noises at the UN’s annual climate conferences where this year they bulldozed down trees in the Amazon to put in a highway.

Look at all the scare narratives that have proven false. When I was writing for the local daily in Knoxville, no columns elicited more hate mail than my articles on global warming. The paper even devoted an entire page of letters to the editor attacking me for being a climate denier. I was not a denier but a climate change skeptic. I questioned the legitimacy of the climate models with all of their complexity that could not predict next month’s weather much less next century’s. The paper was cheered for firing me for questioning the local health department’s Covid mandates. Apparently as was the case with the climate I was spreading misinformation.

Climate change was the villain for all ills. Hurricanes, wildfires, earthquakes, floods, immigration, a plague of locusts maybe even love bugs were more intense because of climate change.  Scientific data that proved otherwise was refused publication. The climate scientists and businesses kept beating that drum so long as the money kept flowing. The politicians especially loved climate change because it expanded their power and manipulation of the masses. The left loved it because they could put the blame for climate change on capitalism. And even the capitalists loved it because of the trillion dollar honey pot.

I wrote once that I was proud of my carbon footprint. I owned a F-250 diesel, pulled a 41 foot toy hauler, had an SUV and four motorcycles and an ATV. From the howls of the critics, you would have thought that I was the environmental equivalent of Jack the Ripper. I said I thought land could be put to a more productive use than all of those solar panels with their environmental consequences. I hated windmills with their environmental impacts. I said isn’t it strange that the same crowd that embraced solar and wind ignored their negative environmental effects. The left just lashed out at me even more. But yet solar and wind are unreliable and expensive sources of energy. For all the trillions spent they still only account for less than six percent of the world’s energy. Isn’t it time to throw in the towel and admit that cheap energy is what lifts people out of poverty? There may be a place for wind and solar. Maybe in a desert somewhere. But in a time where AI demands more and more energy, solar and wind are woefully inadequate.

But just to set the record straight, I actually do believe in climate change: spring, summer, fall and winter.

A generation of dunces

I was teaching a class in Financial Markets at UT last year and gave a problem where the answer depended on being able to tell me what was 5 percent of 10,000. Only a handful of a class of 53 knew the answer. Many actually said that it was unfair to give them a problem and not allow them to use the calculator app on their phones. But it is not just UT. Harvard has instituted a class to teach remedial math to their incoming freshmen. The University of California at San Diego, one of that state’s top universities has a freshman class in which one in eight has math skills below high school level and one in 12 can’t do middle school math. The average grade in their high school math courses was an A-. What does that say about California “education”? These students were admitted to the university in part because California eliminated the SAT some years back in the name of “equity.” Applicants can no longer be screened through testing thus eroding admission standards. And what do you expect when California dropped algebra as a requirement for eight graders? Education through stupidity is just not confined to California, it is a nationwide epidemic in our public schools. Only schools that maintain some semblance of standards such as private schools and charter schools keep us from being a complete nation of illiterates.

It is somewhat ironic that the elimination of test scores was intended to make the student body more diverse but the result was to produce a generation of dunces. White kids can’t do math either. In my class, there was only one black student and she got the problem right (and made an A in the course). The bigotry of lower expectations for minority students has led to the lowering of standards for all students. I took Latin in my segregated all-black high school in Atlanta. How many schools require Latin today?

This is not an issue of race. It is a condemnation of our “education” system that fails to teach everyone – not just minority kids. We have transitioned from “no child left behind” to “all children left behind.” When I went to Georgia, I had to take calculus my freshman year. I had made A’s in high school math and did well on the SAT. Yet college level math was different from that in high school. I struggled and could not solve trigonometric identities until my brother (the math genius at Purdue) tutored me. I made a B that first quarter but A’s the next two.

What we need to do is to throw out today’s high school curriculum. We need to reinstitute the basics and teach our kids how to read, write (none of them know cursive) and do arithmetic. Today’s students can’t do any of this. I recall one of my students complaining having to memorize concepts and formulae in my class and said “why do we have to know anything? We have Google (and now AI).” I told him that without knowledge he would not even know what questions to ask. We are seeing the product of our pitiful “education” system. Employers are having to train new hires in basic skills. No wonder hiring is down – and it is not just AI. Is it any wonder that a college degree is becoming so devalued.

We are a quasi-capitalist country. Yet we throw our children into the arms of government schools. Instead of rewarding excellence we get the mind numbing sameness of socialism. It is a shame we will not force the free market onto our education system. If it were a business it would have filed for bankruptcy years ago. I have tutored reading in an inner city school. My so-called  “hard to learn” second grade pupil was bright and intelligent. By the end of the school year she could read anything you put in front of her. Maybe it was the individual attention. Maybe it was the different learning method (we used Funnix). But whatever the answer, she demonstrated that her evaluations were all wrong. We were so successful that we were not asked back. I remember when the head of the teachers’ union in Chicago said that the teachers could not be graded on the performance of their students because the students were dumb (she didn’t actually say “dumb”) as evidenced by precious few Chicago third graders being able to do math and read at grade level. Pardon me but the kids aren’t the ones that are dumb.

Trump: Affordability America is just a figment of your imagination

The president has made a fundamental error. He has called affordability “a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing.” He said that affordability was a con job and said “Look, affordability’s a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing. And they didn’t end it when, look, they lost it in a landslide.” The public disagrees and a politician should never tell the people that they are imagining things that aren’t there because even if it isn’t there it is in the minds of the public. Yes it is true that the inflation was 8 percent under Biden and about 3 percent now. But voters in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City and Georgia said that affordability was not a hoax and was real.

The president asserts that its all Biden’s fault. He gave us the high inflation and now the president is busy bringing it down. So as the cartoon says “Everything is fine. You just need to look in the right place.”

Affordability is real and not a hoax. Eighty percent of people polled say health care affordability is a very important issue. One third of voters say housing affordability is a top three concern. Gen Z says it is their biggest concern. Even at 3 percent affordability and inflation is the top concern of Americans. So the president erred in telling people that they were delusional if they think affordability is a hoax.

Even the republicans in the House disagree with the president on this issue. The republican national committee just met and its chair, Lisa McClain (R-MI) said “House Republicans are acting on our affordability agenda. Will move forward with the Dump Red Tape Act and the Small Business Regulatory Reduction Act. These are real reforms to roll back Washington’s overreach and put power back where it belongs. The power needs to be with the workers, with the families and with the job creators, not with the government.” My goodness a republican who sounds like a republican. Will wonders never cease. So is the president going to accuse the House republicans of falling for the democrat hoax. BTW, if affordability is a hoax, then why has the president been threatening Big Pharma and now the food industry to bring down their prices? Huh?

Instead of Trump saying that affordability is a hoax he should be embracing the fight to eliminate it. It is a wonder that he and other republicans don’t point out that the democrats ran on affordability in New York and New Jersey and they were the ones who made things unaffordable in the first place. Also if healthcare is the main concern of Americans don’t you think Obamacare might be a wee bit responsible? Aren’t democrat states like California and New York the poster children for lack of affordability. There is actually a study done at Cal Berkeley – of all places – that shows that states run by democrats are 13 percent more expensive than states run by republicans, Texas, Florida, Tennessee anyone? Yes healthcare and housing are the main concerns. But energy prices should rank up there as well. Don’t you think that Biden’s embrace of the Green New Deal might have been a factor in the increase in the price of energy?

There is a reason why democrat run states are losing population while republican run states are gaining population. Don’t you think that affordability might just play a part? So that the democrats are running on fixing the problems that they created and the republicans are too dumb to exploit this fact just shows that the republicans are essentially brain dead. And the president with his see no affordability, hear no affordability and speak no affordability while insisting that the American public is delusional certainly does not help.

New car prices and ousting Maduro

New car prices – Ouch!

Word is that car buyers are finally suffering sticker shock and new car sales are falling. I remember when I had a Saab 900 convertible and the local Saab dealer said that he was doomed because the new models were all priced over $20,000. Now the average new car price is over $50,000. I presume that people are buying more used cars – but that will drive their prices up too. They are also probably looking to finance longer – but that will lead to higher defaults when the value of the car falls below the remaining payments. To really date me, my first new car was a 1968 Toyota Corolla that I bought new for $1,650. That is not a misprint. The same year I bought a 13” Sony Trinitron color TV for $350. Now a Toyota Corolla costs over $30,000 and for $350 you can get a 65” 4k smart TV. So the question is why did cars get so expensive while its components like electronics and computers got so cheap? 

One thing that I don’t quite understand is what happened to the lower priced cars. In 2019 there were 72 models priced under $30,000. In 2024 there were only 22. Was this because production costs have risen so that the lower priced cars are money losers? Was the only reason the lower priced cars were there in the first place was because of the fleet milage requirements? I also guess that the labor costs are a major factor. Another factor would have to be all the government mandated safety equipment. I once read that GM was a pension fund that made autos on the side. The bottom line is whether the automobile companies can profitably make cars under $30,000 and if the public would buy them. Yugo anyone?

Regardless, I have no plans to ever buy another car, new or used. I plan to drive the wheels off of mine. Only if a vehicle is totaled will I then buy another and it will be used. 

BTW, one cost factor that I have not seen talked about is the property tax some states charge on cars. Our neighbors to the north in Virginia pay a yearly tax of between $4.15 and $5.33 per $100 assessed value of a car. That’s an additional cost of ownership. So a $100,000 car would be assessed an additional $4,150 – $5,330 per year. Empirically I would bet that states with higher car property taxes would have relatively more used car sales than states without automobile property taxes.

We are not really going to war with Venezuela, are we?

Apparently Trump has issued an ultimatum to Maduro (my favorite type of cigar) to get out of the country or we will shut down their air space. I believe that doing so would universally be considered an act of war. There is a reason that Trump has deployed 10,000-15,000 troops, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier task group, the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, several destroyers and one attack submarine. Is that reason an actual attack on Venezuela? It is apparent that Trump is trying to force Maduro out. Now whether he will go is another question. But somehow I don’t think that the American public will support an invasion of Venezuela that imperils American troops. But if we shut down their airspace, their forces attempting to counter us might lead to a loss of American lives. Although it is highly unlikely, I hope the president goes to the congress to ask for authorization to use military force. All this reminds me of George H. W. Bush’s invasion of Panama to depose its de facto leader, Manual Noriega also accused of drug racketeering. 

Maduro is illegitimate. He has lost two elections but has refused to vacate his office. He has plundered the country, impoverished it and has driven 8 million Venezuelans into exile. Most have gone to Columbia and Peru. About 900,000 have come to the United States with 600,000 holding Temporary Protected Status. Homeland Security’s Kristi (Border Barbie) Noem of the false eyelashes and hair extensions has announced that the Venezuelans no longer meet the conditions for TPS and it is terminated as of November 7, 2025. However, the courts have extended that to October 2, 2026. The question is where will they go?

Trump initially said that the purpose of all of the forces in the eastern Caribbean was to interdict drug trafficking to the US leading to the destruction of a bunch of boats and killing 83 and counting. But actually more drugs are going from Venezuela to Europe than to the US. The drugs go to West African jihadists and then to Europe. The cocaine is produced in Columbia but shipped out of Venezuela financing criminal gangs, jihadists and al-Queda affiliated groups. One expert said all this is fueled by growing demand for drugs in Europe and “The quantities have gone up so much, the problem that traffickers have now is moving them.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Venezuela’s role as a drugs transit hub is a justification for the U.S.’s strikes on alleged drug boats. He said that instead of Europeans criticizing the U.S. action, “maybe they should be thanking us.”

If Maduro goes then so do the ease of drugs flowing from Columbia through Venezuela to feed US and European demand. The core the problem is the demand for drugs. Without the demand there would be little supply and little need for interdiction. 

Lastly, isn’t Trump’s pardon of Former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández a bit contradictory? He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for receiving millions of dollars for protecting drug smugglers. Hernández was accused of being at the center of “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R., La.) said “Why would we pardon this guy and then go after Maduro for running drugs into the United States, Lock up every drug runner! I don’t understand why he is being pardoned.” Well neither does anyone else. Presidential apologist White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said without elaborating that Hernández had been falsely prosecuted by the Biden administration. Trump said that “Many people that I greatly respect” had told him Hernández had been “treated very harshly and unfairly.” I thought Trump wanted drug lords to be “treated very harshly and unfairly”? If this had happened during the Biden administration the republicans would be calling for an investigation, asking if Hunter were somehow involved and if there were a kick back. The right wing press would be howling. But its Trump and there is silence. 

This stinks.

Trump pardons, Putin’s rope-a-dope and Hassett to the Fed?

Cuellar gets a pardon

Trump is sure in a pardoning mood. He just pardoned former Texas democrat congressman Henry Cuellar and his wife who were indicted on bribery charges. Trump said that the Biden “Justice” Department had targeted Cuellar for supporting Trump’s border policies saying “Sleepy Joe went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH.” Although Trump didn’t mention it, Cuellar narrowly won reelection despite being targeted by the democrats for being the only openly pro-life democrat in the congress. Cuellar was primaried because of his views and barely beat a progressive activist by only one point. He was opposed to the party’s support of federal protections for abortion saying it should be up to the states. Cuellar easily won in the general election that saw two other incumbent prolife democrats lose in their races: Dan Lipinski of Illinois and Collin Peterson of Minnesota.

Ukraine peace talks, Fool me once

Putin continues to rope-a-dope Trump and his people. He is still bellicose and rejecting changes to his Ukrainian “peace” proposal that he wrote for Trump. Seriously, a Trump official admitted that he had consulted with a Russian representative in the drafting of the plan. Putin is now rattling his sword at Europe saying that if attacked Russia is ready to fight a war. Big whoop. Does anyone take this clown seriously? He cannot subdue Ukraine after four years of trench warfare and now he can take on all of Europe? What is this guy smoking? Russia is a poor third world country that can only be a bully because it has nukes. Well NATO has nukes too.

What is disturbing in the Ukraineless negotiations between Trump’s people and the Russians is the bribe given by the Russians of an economic alliance with the United States. I had mentioned earlier on why was Russia the only country on the planet not hit with Trump’s tariffs. DDE said I was stupid because I should know that Russia did not produce anything of value. Well tell that to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Putin’s man at the table Kirill Dmitriev gave the Americans a list of commercial opportunities that would come to America if and only if Washington would abandon Ukraine. The offer includes rare-earth mining, energy projects for U.S. investors in Russia’s Arctic and joint missions to Mars between Elon Musk’s SpaceX and the Russian space industry. I, DDE and others have noted that the inclusion of the Chinese in the World Trade Organization did not make them less belligerent and less aggressive simply because they became trading partners. The Russians have played the Americans for fools since the end of the Cold War and are doing it again. Does anyone think – other than Witkoff – that a trade deal with Russia will stop their aggressive behavior and stop them from threatening and attacking their neighbors? At the core, it is unseemly to actually help the Russians make money that they will use to continue to undermine our interests. BTW, I feel the same about the Chinese.

Hassett to the Fed?

I have previously said that I thought the president would pick Kevin Hassett, his national economics advisor, to be nominated to the Fed in January and then maybe nominated to replace Jerome Powell as chairman. Maybe because if Powell resigns as governor Trump will have another Fed seat to fill and could nominate that person as chairman. I said that including current board members Waller and Bowman in the interviews was for show – just to get them to vote for lowering the Fed funds rate. He also included former governor Keven Warsh who the press seemed to like but I warned that he was too independent to satisfy Trump. But Hassett is the type of person that the president would put in place. He is loyal, currently in the Trump White House and is a capable Trump translator. However, unlike Trump appointee Miran, Hassett will resign from his current position and once confirmed by the Senate may exert some independence from the president. Recall that Trump was the one who nominated Powell and praised him during his first term only to turn on him later. What would be interesting is if Hassett starts to go against Trump’s wishes will the president lash out at Treasury secretary Bessent who has been conducting the interviews much like he turned on Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin who recommended Powell.

Bye bye Afghans, hello Ole Miss and goodbye Ole Miss?

Bye Bye Afghans

The Pakistanis have taken a page from the Trump playbook and have expelled over one million of the three million Afghans who live there with the intention of expelling all of them. The Pakistanis have had it with the Taliban who they contend are fomenting armed conflict on their shared border. The Taliban are accused of militarily supporting the Pakistani Taliban who are responsible for attacks within Pakistan on security forces and responsible for a recent suicide bombing.  Pakistan has launched air strikes on border areas. The Pakistani government has labeled all Afghans as a threat to national security and says that they are “criminals,” “drug peddlers,” and “terrorists.” Sound familiar? Would you believe that Iran has also expelled 1.5 million Afghans? Also in Pakistan 1.4 million Afghans holding Proof of Registration cards, whose legal status expired at the end of June are also being expelled. That sounds like the Pakistani equivalent of Temporary Protected Status doesn’t it? 

Go Rebels?

I just read an article saying that northern students are forsaking their universities and are coming south to universities like Ole Miss, Tennessee, Georgia and colleges like Mercer and Elon. At Tennessee, there are many northerners especially in the Haslam College of Business. I had four students from Illinois in my financial markets class. Although all expressed no desire to live in the south, when I asked them why Tennessee, one responded that when she looked at northern schools she saw encampments and protests on the conflict in Gaza. When she looked at southern schools, she saw kids having fun at football games (Go Vols!). So fun, football, tailgating, parties, warm weather and a good education proved attractive. Also there are supposed to be “dazzling TikTok videos” influencing northerners to come south. All in all, applications from northern students to southern universities have increased by over 60 percent over the past decade. One sure sign of changing attitudes and changing times is that many of these northern students are black. I am just guessing but southern football programs are recruiting northern black athletes (Ole Miss’ quarterback is from Michigan) and perhaps their acceptance has encouraged black nonathletes to also go south. One of the best students in my class was a black woman from Illinois – and she was not an athlete either. I wonder what the effect of all the antisemitism on northern campuses on Jewish enrollment will be and will there be an increase in northern Jews coming south for their education as well. Isn’t it somewhat ironic that the supposedly intolerant, racist, sexist, xenophobic south is more welcoming than the enlightened north? 

Many years ago one of my coauthors was on the Ole Miss faculty and urged me to interview for the deanship of the business school. I declined. Ole Miss was embroiled in controversy surrounding all the confederate baggage, the rebel flag, Colonel Reb and all the rest. Having had to deal with that almost daily during my four years at Georgia, I declined choosing not to dredge up past unpleasantries. Several years later all that rebel stuff was gone – except for the name – and I was pleased that one of my doctoral students became their dean.

Go Rebels, Part 2

Speaking of Ole Miss, its coach Lane Kiffin is abandoning his team and leaving for LSU despite Ole Miss saying that they would match any monetary offer. BTW, his contract is $12 million for seven years which is still less than what Kirby Smart makes at Georgia (Go Dawgs!). Mind you, Ole Miss is likely to get a spot in the college playoffs and yet Kiffin will not be coaching them. In the NFL a team is not allowed to talk to a coach about a vacancy while that coach’s team is still playing. Obviously this is not the case in college where LSU was courting Kiffin during the season. 

Personally, Kiffin’s brief tenure at Tennessee poisoned my view of him. While at UT he constantly demeaned other programs in the conference and their coaches and got Tennessee slapped by the conference with a mild rebuke. I was glad when he jumped ship to Southern Cal which in turn fired him after a brief tenure. Yes he has been successful at Ole Miss which was so bad off that it would put up with his prickly attitude so long as he won. The same will be true with LSU which could care less for his obnoxiousness – provided he wins. Kiffin will coach Ole Miss no further. He even issued an ultimatum to those coaches he wanted to come with him to LSU that if they didn’t come with him right now, that they could not join him at LSU. Talk about throwing Ole Miss under the bus. Such scorched earth behavior should serve as a warning to LSU. Kiffin has obviously thrown the finger at Ole Miss even though they have put up with his peevish behavior and rehabilitated his reputation. If Kiffin wants to win a national championship, he is rejecting his Ole Miss program with its 11-1 record (they lost to my Dawgs) that has a chance this year to win it all. I guess he figured that if LSU could win national championships with Les Miles and Ed Orgeron, then he could win one there too. But bailing out on Ole Miss at this crucial time, threatening his assistant coaches if they don’t come with him and abandoning his players just simply stinks. But that is a familiar smell around Lane Kiffin. 

A friend sent me an ode to Kiffin on YouTube that somehow I cannot post. It is called “Can’t turn a hoe into a housewife.” I urge you to see it. It is well done and hilarious.

Does MAGA have legs?

Will MAGA survive the departure of Donald Trump as president? Will Trump become the voice of the republican party when he is no longer president? Will his protegees continue his policies and be elected president? All good questions. Right now it looks like the Trump support is fraying around the edges. First there was the fallout with Elon Musk. Then Marjorie Taylor Greene fell into disfavor. Another MAGA in congress, Colorado’s Lauren Boebert who also supported release of the Epstein files and was summoned to the White House and told to end her support for the release. She refused but was not humiliated like MTG. With the House republicans wanting to release the files, the president relented. Many republicans have criticized his pardon of former Honduran president Hernandez who was a convicted drug lord. Some say that this means that the president is losing his grip on the congressional republicans. Maybe and maybe not. But at least on these issues, he apparently has.

Over on the Senate side, the president constantly badgered majority leader John Thune to eliminate the filibuster. Thune refused. Even one of Trump’s most vigorous supporters Lindsey (Bomb them All) Graham resisted. There are openly anti-MAGA republicans in the senate, Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Lisa Murkowsky of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, possibly Iowa’s Chuck Grassley and Utah’s John Curtis of Utah. The question is are there more but are simply quiet because they fear the wrath of Trump? Yet, the total lack of dignity and coarseness of this president must be embarrassing to even MAGA republicans in Congress.

The president successfully pushed the Texas legislature to gerrymander their congressional seats to include more republicans and to push out two of his fiercest opponents, Al (Full of Fire) Green and Jasmine Crockett. Yet the same effort in Indiana failed. As a result, the president has of course threatened to primary all the republicans who refused to go along with his wishes. Trump trumpeted “I will be strongly endorsing against any State Senator or House member from the Great State of Indiana that votes against the Republican Party, and our Nation, by not allowing for Redistricting for Congressional seats in the United States House of Representatives as every other State in our Nation is doing, Republican or Democrat.” Recall that the threat of a Trump supported primary opponent was the reason that MTG decided to resign from the congress. But the Indiana republicans have held firm even in the face of such threats. I wonder if they would have done differently a year ago?

I haven’t heard much support from either the House or the Senate republicans over Trump’s suggestion of a $2,000 tariff rebate to offset the coming end to the ACA subsidies. But I also have heard little criticism of Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and those on the fringe of the MAGA movement who embrace the ugliness of the political discourse. The president actually defended Carlson and his sympathetic interview with Fuentes, an avowed antisemitic racist. However, the vice president is on record for attacking Fuentes who questioned his bona fides for having an Indian wife. Fuentes said if “we really expect that [Vance] who has an Indian wife and named their kid Vivek is going to support white identity”. Vance then called Fuentes a total loser. However Vance did say that he hopes his wife, who is Hindu, will convert to Christianity. “But if she doesn’t, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn’t cause a problem for me.” 

The president calls his opponents names that once were banned from the public eye. He even posted an AI-generated video of a fighter jet dumping feces on Americans who oppose him.  When Trump leaves, if his vice president is nominated to replace him, the coarseness is bound to continue. Vance has been an attack dog and has been every bit as uncouth as the president. While the president remarks about “firing the chairman of the Federal Reserve’s ass” the vice president called a critic a “dipshit.” (Sorry for the language). This president and his vice president demonstrate that decorum and dignity do not matter. Or do they?

When the six congressional democrats called for members of the military to disobey illegal orders the president went ballistic. He said that the democrats were engaged in “seditious behavior, punishable by death.” Although I think the message was stupid and the democrats especially Mark Kelly should know better, the president’s response was a bit over the top.

Then there is the report that Pete Hegseth allegedly ordered the murder of two survivors of one of the attacks on alleged drug boats off Venezuela. Could he really be that stupid? Both the House and the Senate’s Armed Services Committees have announced investigations. Since the killing might constitute murder, I wonder if this is what the democrats were referring to as to disobey “illegal” orders. There has been no declaration of war so I guess that this would not have the Navy prosecuted as a war crime. But the mere fact that both committees are chaired by republicans and referred to Hegseth as Secretary of Defense rather than of War and their promise to conduct a vigorous investigation is said by some to be in defiance of the president. But would the president actually defend Hegseth if the allegation were true? Nonetheless, observers said that the republicans are now challenging the president because they think that he is weak. So now, if found to be true, will Hegseth voluntarily resign and go back co-hosting a show on Fox or will he be impeached? Surely the president would not allow him to continue. Would he?

I don’t think that Vance will be elected president. I think that the only way he succeeds Trump is in the case of the president’s death. Then I don’t think that Vance has the wherewithal to hold onto power. First, the congressional republicans do not fear Vance and will not bend to his will and threats. Second, Trump’s cabinet won’t be Vance translators like they are for Trump defending the indefensible. Treasury secretary Bessent who is full of himself would likely steer a more independent path rather than cater to Vance’s wishes. Do you think that Vance would command the same loyalty from Pam (Blondie) Bondi? I bet that he would have to replace Trump’s chief public defender, Karoline Leavitt as soon as possible. Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists like Stephen Miller, Stephen Miran, Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, Bill Pulte and IRS commissioner Frank Bisignano. Do you think that any of them would swear fealty to Vance? It pains me to say this about a fellow Ohio State Buckeye but at the core, Vance is simply unlikeable.

Does Trump threaten free speech?

I had an hours long conversation with one of my oldest and dearest friends – a woman who I consider my big sister. She is strong, brave and resilient. She was a major source of strength and inspiration to me as a young 17 year old freshman at the University of Georgia. From the very beginnings we sometimes joked on how differently we viewed the world and how differently we interpreted events. She marveled at my laissez faire market approach, while her’s involved government intervention – federal not state. I admitted that the federal government played a necessary role in forcing the confederate south to integrate but I never believed that many of the other positions taken by the government were of value and that they were likely harmful. This was not an original thought. It was one voiced often by my parents who thought that government subsidies provided disincentives that hindered development. My finding economics at Georgia only gave me the foundation that I needed to add substance to my parents’ belief.

In our conversation, my friend said that she had participated in her local “No Kings” rally. It was her first organized protest. She said that because of her age she borrowed a wheelchair in order to fully participate. She prefaced her remarks by saying that she knew that I probably disagreed with her – because we always disagree on such matters – but she went because for the first time in her life she felt that her freedom of speech was being threatened by this administration. 

She mentioned Trump’s attempts at mandating that universities hiring practices and curricula be changed to meet his demands. She noted Trump’s penchant for attacking and belittling reporters that he disagrees with. She pointed to the president threatening to revoke ABC’s license when a reporter asked him about the Epstein files. He told the reporter “It’s not the question I mind, it’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask. … You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter.” “The license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and so wrong.” And we have a great [Federal Communications Commission] chairman who should look at that. Because when you come in and you’re 97 percent negative to Trump and Trump wins the election by a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible. And you’re not credible as a reporter.” 

Isn’t this threating free speech, my friend asked? My friend was somewhat taken aback when I agreed with her. I asked her did she feel that way during the Biden years and she said “of course not.” Well, I said, those on the right felt like you feel when Biden was in office. Biden’s “Justice” Department targeting of Trump’s allies, their raiding the homes and arresting of people who simply were praying in front of abortion clinics and the effort to collude with big tech social media platforms to censor free speech during the pandemic were only a few examples.

After Biden’s speech blasting Trump and his supporters as “an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our country” a poll found that 62% felt that Biden, himself, was dividing the country and endangering free speech. But of course 73% of the democrats polled agreed with Biden. Tulsi Gabbard posted “Our president should be uniting our country. Instead, Biden is dividing us by demonizing tens of millions of Americans who voted against him or oppose his policies, and working with Big Tech and weaponizing our DOJ/security apparatus to undermine our freedoms.” I had pointed out that in the speech Biden had guards in the background and an ominous setting that was disconcerting. I said that it was the most disturbing speech I had ever heard from a president. Didn’t Biden once say “It’s time to put Trump in a bull’s-eye”?

Interesting, my dear friend had not felt threatened or intimidated in the least by Biden’s actions. I said it was all in the eye of the beholder. Even more interesting was that when I was in DC over Thanksgiving, I was having a similar conversation with a Yellow Dog Democrat who claimed he was unaware of Biden’s war on the freedom of speech of Trump and his supporters. Apparently he saw such actions as justifiable. While those on the right felt their freedoms were impinged upon during the reign of Joe Biden, the liberals feel the same during Trump’s. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) finds that 74% of Americans in their October poll responded that things are headed in the wrong direction for free speech. Only 26% who believe things are headed in the right direction. “From July of this year, Democrats who think things are heading in the right direction fell from 17% to 11%, Independents fell from 31% to 19%, and Republicans fell from 69% to 55%.”

Just like my friend’s opinions were the product of her partisan feelings the Democrats and Republicans swap roles as optimists and pessimists depending on who is in office. I told her not to worry. Yes Trump is conducting a payback campaign against those who prosecuted (persecuted?) him and his followers. But other presidents from Nixon to Obama had also conducted operations that could be viewed as attacks on free speech. There legions of folk out there publicly opposing everything that this president is doing. Has their freedom to speech been impaired?

The important thing to remember is that through it all, the courts still are upholding the First Amendment. Only when that ceases will free speech be truly threatened.