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… is from page 344 of Edward Younkins’s 2008 book, Champions of a Free Society: Ideas of Capitalism’s Philosophers and Economists:

There is a critical distinction between the legitimacy of a right and the morality of exercising that right. The government should only be concerned with questions such as the domain of rights, the proper role of violence, and the definitions of aggression and criminality. The government should not be concerned with all personal moral principles. There is a huge difference between establishing the permissibility of an action and the goodness or morality of it. The state should be concerned with the rights of men and not with the oughts of men.

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Wall Street Journal columnist Matthew Hennessey is a good man analyzing the results of the 2026 U.S. midterm elections. A slice:

After taking a coast-to-coast pulping like the Republican Party took last night, any team led by a competent coaching staff would take stock. Losing is a learning opportunity. Getting publicly and completely rebuked by the American people in hundreds of small elections is the Harvard Ph.D. of losing.

The GOP should get a mirror, hold it up and say: “Look at you now. You got whipped. And by a bunch of nerds.” That is unlikely to happen, which is a testament to how deformed the institution has become under the totalizing leadership of President Trump—although “leadership” surely isn’t the right word for what he’s done.

Leadership implies thoughtfulness, strategic vision, stewardship and paternal care. Mr. Trump possesses none of those qualities in any measure. He has never demonstrated any interest in advancing or preserving the Republican Party’s traditional commitments to free markets, free trade, individual responsibility, fiscal thrift or the sanctity of life. He is sometimes OK on national security. Give him that.

Across his decade as the nominal leader of the GOP, Mr. Trump has often been as hostile to its members and representatives as he has been to the members and representatives of the other party. Now, at long last, the reckoning. Live by the ego maniac, die by the ego maniac.

With no real leader, no real change is possible. When the GOP looks in the mirror it should see a starving, malnourished loser with two black eyes and a bandage around its head. If it does a slow turn it should see a sign that says, “Kick me.” Looking lower it should see another sign that says, “Go ahead and kick me again. Nobody’s going to stop you, because nobody cares. I deserve this.”

The only course of treatment is the application of time, in the fullness of which the American people will grow tired of the arrogance and incompetence of the Democratic Party. It, too, will get a pulping one day, and the Republicans will get another turn behind the wheel. We can only hope it has learned a thing or two by then.

Also insightfully reflecting on the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections is Yuval Levin. A slice:

But these have been overwhelmed by the broader tenor of this administration, which has utterly lacked any public-spirited vision or direction and has allowed itself to be defined by Trump’s own vapid impulsivity and thuggish narcissism, and to descend into shameless personal corruption. The president’s uses of power have tended to involve starting risky and complicated ventures that he has had neither the patience nor the strategy to finish and then moving on from them, as if it hardly matters how they might end up, and any bad news that results can just be overwhelmed by the next big thing. This has often been his path through life, of course, but the stakes of failure are awfully high when what’s at issue is a war or trade policy rather than an ill-conceived casino project. And at this point, the president just seems to have grown tired of his job, seeking escape from its burdens in ridiculous vanity projects while real problems (often of his own creation) fester.

In fact, sheer exhaustion now defines the public’s responses to Trump, too. Many Americans who had a lot of tolerance for him and once found his antics entertaining are tired of it all. His silly nicknames and his petty whining haven’t gotten any dumber — they were always this dumb. But many people who thought they were funny have grown sick of them, and Trump’s sheer unseriousness now strikes some of his former supporters as inadequate to the office and the moment.

If American voters handed a mandate to Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections, George Will says it’s this: “Stop the rampant egotism, corruption, recklessness and incompetence.” Three slices:

How much did the masked marauders of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contribute to making one of Trump’s two most salient issues in 2024, immigration, into a negative for him? How much did his tariffs nullify another winning issue of 2024, inflation?

The importance of money in politics is more asserted and deplored than measured. In Texas, Elon Musk, the most overrated dabbler in U.S. politics, perhaps did something useful with his estimated $224 million money geyser for Republicans. He unintentionally demonstrated that there is a point at which the utility of political dollars not only declines steeply, but actually becomes negative. Senator-elect James Talarico prospered politically while saying, “Texas is not for sale.”

…..

Our parties are primordial. So, the Republicans’ recovery is as predictable as what will cause it — excesses by Democrats. They will misread the largely negative nature of the voters’ mandate to them, which is: Stop the national embarrassments, the rampant egotism, corruption, recklessness and incompetence.

Congressional Democrats will rightly try to investigate, publicize and discourage all of this. Trump might inadvertently give Congress a spine transplant by spurning its subpoenas. By a political version of Newton’s third law of motion (for every force or action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction), his obduracy might prompt, on Capitol Hill and in the public, an overdue reaction against presidentialism — the overbearing primacy of the chief executive — that has poisoned politics for decades.

…..

Euphoria about the smashing to smithereens of his degraded party — a necessary act of civic hygiene — should be tempered by some facts: The president has learned how much latitude a president has if he acts fast and breaks things because he has no constitutional conscience — no allegiance to the spirit of the document. He has learned this from executive branch enablers masquerading as conservatives.

And the most important fact we have learned this autumn is never mind his ballroom and his gigantic arch-cum-sniper’s-nest. The president’s rhetorical streams of semiconsciousness have made something patent: He is not well. There might be dark, dangerous days ahead.

About the results of the 2026 midterms, Nick Gillespie sensibly remarks that “there’s no reason to think the state will shrink, which is really bad news.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s Editorial Board rejects – quite correctly – J.D. Vance’s self-serving yet absurd assertion that the only reason the GOP got clobbered in the 2026 midterm elections is the war in Iran. Two slices:

“The real reason we lost is obvious,” Mr. Vance wrote. “The reason we lost is the war.” Corruption? He didn’t mention it, though 90% in the national exit poll rated it of crucial or major importance to their vote.

He also had nothing to say about tariffs, even as cost of living placed second at 89%. On immigration, which scored even with the Iran war (73% vs. 74%), and which the Trump team managed to turn into a political weakness with its harsh enforcement, Mr. Vance set up a straw man by warning against “establishment” calls for “amnesty” that no Republican is calling for.

The selective blame is no accident. While the Vice President has become a true believer on tariffs and hard-line immigration restriction, unidentified leakers to the press throughout the Iran war have suggested he opposed it. When Mr. Vance now writes, “To the people who are pissed off and want to say, ‘I told you so’: you’re right, you did tell us so,” he’s thinking of himself.

Citing unlisted data from an unnamed friend, Mr. Vance wrote that the Republican voters who strayed claim they could be won back if the GOP would “1) End the war.” He also praised the “political advice” that counseled a “diplomatic resolution to the conflict”—his own position, which dragged out the war after its initial six weeks with a worthless April cease-fire and June deal that Iran immediately violated.

It could be honorable to speak up internally about the need to end a war. But to post it on social media is to tell the Iranians they now have the upper hand in nuclear and Strait of Hormuz negotiations.

…..

The war is unpopular: 63% in the exit poll say attacking was the wrong decision and 37% the right decision. But that’s better than tariffs, which 66% say hurt the economy and only 21% say helped. Fifty-eight percent also say Trump immigration enforcement went too far.

Nothing on Mr. Vance’s list of ways to win back Trump 2024 voters gives evidence of any self-reflection, least of all “4) Change our relationship to Israel.” That’s the message of the Jews-on-the-mind podcast ecosystem promoted by Mr. Vance and led by his friend and ally Tucker Carlson. The exit poll shows only 4% of voters rank foreign-policy issues first.

“How Did Republicans Lose This Badly? Voters Turned Against Trump’s Tariffs” – so reads the headline of a new report by Eric Boehm.

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post puts the matter this way: “Trump taxed imports. Voters sent Republicans the bill.” A slice:

The Iran war certainly contributed to Republicans’ defeat. The conflict has driven up energy prices, and more than one-third of voters in the Post-sponsored NORC survey listed the war as one of the country’s three biggest issues. More than 6 in 10 of them voted Democratic.

But the economy ranked as a substantially larger worry. According to a separate Fox News Voter Poll, which had a sample of about 80,000 people, 66 percent of midterm voters said Trump’s tariffs have hurt the national economy and 64 percent said tariffs have hurt the economy in their area. Eighty-nine percent said the cost of living was a crucial or major factor in their congressional vote, and 63 percent blamed unusually high prices more on Trump’s policies than on factors outside his control.

Republican candidates saw the danger coming. Five battleground Senate nominees avoided mentioning tariffs at the party’s September convention in Dallas. So did Vance. Trump, on the other hand, boasted that tariffs were “making us much richer than we ever thought.”

As Election Day approached, the administration’s own actions suggested otherwise. Trump suspended tariffs on certain ground beef imports to lower grocery prices. After Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) appealed to administration officials, the White House exempted nine categories of Canadian products important to agriculture in her state. Collins lost anyway.

As red states in the Midwest such as Kansas and Iowa turned into competitive battlegrounds, farmers received some protection from protectionism. Tariffs raised equipment costs while trade wars reduced foreign markets for American crops. Instead of removing those costly distortions, the administration compensated farmers. A promised $8 billion bailout shortly before the election brought projected direct federal payments to farmers this fiscal year to about $55 billion.

GMU Econ alum Paul Mueller ponders, with public-choice analysis, the midterm results.

Kevin Madden tweets: (HT Scott Lincicome)

“This election was a lesson in political gravity. When voters’ top concerns are inflation and affordability, and you answer those concerns with tariffs, a trade war, and a war with Iran that exacerbates those worries, you lose elections.”

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… is from page 74 of Stephanie Slade’s superb new (2026) book, Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right [original emphasis]:

[Frank] Meyer’s position was not, of course, that individuals do not need help pursuing moral excellence. But he was convinced that attempts to use state force to make people virtuous were likely, in reality, to achieve the opposite, all while inviting tyranny by concentrating too much power in a single institution.

DBx: Frank Meyer (1909-1972) was, and remains, correct. He is pictured here.

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I’m happy that American voters yesterday expressed, in such a fulsome way, their disapproval of the circus act that is the Trump GOP. But I am not happy that the circus act that is today’s Democratic party has won. Just as Trump mistakenly interpreted Americans’ votes against Kamala Harris as votes for him and his economic-nationalist (and otherwise unprincipled) ‘agenda,’ the Democrats will interpret Americans’ votes against Trump and his lackeys as votes for their economically illiterate ideas and policies.

The GOP must be purged of the MAGA curse. Hopefully, the 2026 midterm slaughter of that party will prove to be the bitter medicine that achieves this exorcism. But no friend of liberty – no economically literate person – no one who understands and is committed to the liberal tradition that gave birth to the American nation – is pleased that the crop of illiberal (and indeed, in some cases openly anti-semitic) economic imbeciles who yesterday were voted into office will soon exercise power.

Disgust with Trump is understandable; I share it. But this disgust does not preclude disgust for what the Democrats will soon try to inflict upon us.

Here’s what I just wrote at my Facebook page:

Far from saving Americans from socialism and the whackadoodle, economically illiterate left, Trump has fueled their ascent to power – an ascent so quick and full that it was unimaginable just two years ago. Trump achieved this remarkable, horrible outcome not by doggedly promoting free markets and constitutionally limited government but, instead, in part by revealing repeatedly to the American people that he has no use for such principles – or, indeed, for any principles at all.

The other part of Trump’s contribution to America’s jolt toward collectivists-in-power is his obvious immaturity. No ordinary American would welcome such a clown as a neighbor. Every ordinary American cursed to have such an infantile bully for a neighbor would treat that neighbor as a curse, someone to avoid and to hope will soon move to another town – hopefully one far away.

So, yes, in 2024 Trump ‘had the libs.’ But he, in his juvenile brain, didn’t ‘have the libs’ in order to return America to a principled policy of limited government and free markets. He ‘had the libs’ as a sort of reality-show host selfishly interested only in getting a rise out of people with his ridiculous antics and schoolyard ‘humor.’

If America fifty years from now is as economically moribund as is today’s Europe – not an unthinkable prospect – with property rights held in contempt and bureaucrats intruding into every aspect of Americans’ lives and the Constitution a dead letter, a chief spark for this terrible fate will have been Trump. Fortunately for me, I’ll not be around to witness this calamity.

But, hey, despite the collectivism enabled by Trump – and in no small part practiced by him – Americans in 2076 will have a gargantuan arch at which to gaze. So there’s that.

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… is from page 137 of Steven Landsburg’s 2007 book, More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics [original emphasis]:

When [gasoline] prices spike sharply upward, economic illiterates everywhere are quick to see evidence of collusion or monopoly power among oil companies. In fact, big price spikes are evidence of exactly the opposite. Colluders and monopolists don’t have to wait for changes in supply and demand to hike their prices; they squeeze us to the limit all year round. Sure, changes in demand and supply give them a little more leeway, so prices still fluctuate – but only a relatively small amount.

A monopolist always has price-sensitive customers – because if they’re not price-sensitive, he’ll keep raising his prices until they are. Therefore, even when market conditions change, a monopolist can rarely afford to raise prices very much. Big price fluctuations are evidence of competition.

DBx: Yes. And of course, the same economic reality holds for the prices of other goods and services, including those that spike in the aftermath of natural disasters and wars.

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Mr. McKinney’s hostility to trade is as deep as is that of his hero, Trump.

Mr. McKinney:

Your latest email is prompted by my linking at Café Hayek to Russ Roberts’s recent EconTalk episode on the China Shock.

You assert that Russ, his guest Joseph Francis, I, and other “globalists” strain to hide the truth that the US economy was ravaged by the onslaught of cheap Chinese goods.”

Oh my. I could note that even the China Shock authors make no such claim about the U.S. economy being “ravaged.” I could repeat that even the highest estimate of the number of jobs lost to increased trade with China – 2.4 million over the span of 13 years – is a mere one percent of the total number of jobs ‘destroyed’ over that span in the U.S. with its enormously dynamic, churning labor market. Or I could remind you that research that challenges empirical findings is perfectly legitimate and part of the scientific process.

But instead I’ll ask you some questions: Are you “ravaged” when the prices of things that you buy fall? Is your family devastated when clothing, furniture, appliances, and medicines become more abundant and affordable? Do you cheer when you encounter greater difficulty in finding attractively priced, desirable goods and services to purchase? And do you jeer when you hear that new deposits of petroleum, iron ore, rare earths, and other resources are discovered in the U.S.?

I’m sure that your answer to each of these questions is ‘no.’ An economy, and the people in it, are enriched, not “ravaged,” when those people gain greater and less-costly access to goods and services.

It’s astonishing that so many people who discuss the China Shock focus so intently on the costs of the economic adjustments it required – adjustments identical in kind to those required to every other source of economic change – while giving short shrift to the enormous benefits Americans enjoy from the resulting greater abundance of goods. By this logic, we Americans would have benefited had the Chinese, rather than ‘shock’ us with a greater abundance of goods, instead shocked us by stealing or destroying some of our household possessions, along with inventories at Walmart and other retailers and supplies used by American producers. Think of all the American jobs that would have been created by such a destructive shock! Even better, ponder the research opportunities that would have been presented to econometricians to measure, document, and debate the precise size of this windfall!

I confess to being dismayed that oceans of ink and gazillions of pixels are consumed debating whether or not our increased trade with the Chinese people, and the greater abundance of goods this trade makes available to us, helps or hurts us. How can it not help us?

Unless and until you walk into a supermarket or visit Amazon and can honestly report that you’re unhappy to find prices lower than you expected and the selection greater than you anticipated, please stop complaining about the imaginary harm done to Americans by our having greater access to imports.

Sincerely,
Don

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Charles Lane describes Trump’s self-destructive politics. A slice:

Putting more upward pressure on costs, Trump intensified an impulsive trade war, including import surcharges of up to 12.5 percent on dozens of countries. He targeted Canada with verbal abuse and a 50 percent levy on $20 billion worth of imports — which Canada matched (minus the verbal abuse). Maine and Michigan, both pivotal to control of the Senate, got hurt. Trump walked back some tariffs to help Collins, but it might have been too little, too late.

So much for ending “Bidenflation.” Then there was Trump’s ego-driven meddling in GOP candidate selection. Not since Caligula tried to make his horse a consul has a leader chosen so unwisely. Incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina could have won reelection. But the president threatened to punish his occasional deviations from the Trump line by backing a primary challenger, and Tillis opted not to run. Now, Democrat Roy Cooper is well ahead of the nonentity Trump supported, Michael Whatley.

In Texas, Sen. John Cornyn could have coasted to a fifth term; Trump backed the scandal-plagued but “loyal” Ken Paxton, who won the GOP primary. Paxton is struggling, predictably, against Democrat James Talarico.

Dan Hannan warns of Trump’s fiscal incontinence. A slice:

Mitt Romney memorably pointed out that Obama had borrowed more than all his White House predecessors put together. Donald Trump was emphatic about Obama’s record. “Barack Obama has doubled our national debt. Doubled it.”

That was in 2016. Where are we 10 years on? Well, it turns out that Trump has now borrowed more than all his White House predecessors put together, including Obama. Trump, one might say, has doubled the national debt. Doubled it.

Both presidents might plead mitigating circumstances. Obama could point to the banking crisis, Trump to the pandemic. But neither man was ultimately prepared to make the unpopular decisions, including on Medicare and Social Security, that would allow the federal government to live within its means again.

Russ Roberts talks with Joseph Francis about the alleged “China Shock.”

Ilya Somin, a colleague over in GMU Scalia School of Law, explains that “Trump is using a trade law relic to illegally punish Canada.” A slice:

They are illegal for multiple reasons, part of an ongoing effort by this administration to usurp Congress’ constitutional authority over tariffs. In addition, they harm the U.S. economy and poison relations with a key ally. Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act has never been used by a president to enact tariffs before; Philip Zelikow, a conservative trade policy expert and former Bush administration official, has shown that Section 338 was superseded by legislation enacted in 1962 and 1974.

Even if Section 338 is still operative, Trump’s tariffs on Canadian goods violate its requirements. As the complaint explains, the Canadian trade measures cited by Trump as justification for the new tariffs do not discriminate against U.S. goods; Section 338 can only be used against discriminatory policies. Some retaliate against previous tariffs imposed by Trump. Most do not actually treat U.S. goods less favorably than imports from many other countries. In addition, the Section 338 tariffs go well beyond “offsetting” Canadian measures, violating another requirement of the law. They impose the maximum 50 percent rate on all covered goods, even though the Canadian tariffs in question are lower and do not cover as wide a range of products. Some of the Canadian measures are not even import restrictions at all, but merely decisions by Canadian provincial governments to stop purchasing U.S. alcoholic beverages for their government-owned liquor stores. Consumer decisions to stop purchasing a given product are not discriminatory restrictions on trade. Otherwise, such “discrimination” would occur anytime a foreign government chooses to buy anything from a non-American producer when there are U.S. producers that sell similar products.

Here’s the abstract of a new paper by Richard Baldwin:

This paper argues that globalisation’s frontier has shifted from manufacturing GVCs to services GVCs: from the Global Factory to the Global Office. While the Factory remains larger in gross trade, the Office is growing much faster. A heatmap of trade in intermediates shows that the Factory is bloc-shaped and dominated by China, whereas the Office is star-shaped and dominated by America. Gravity estimates show that distance matters less for Office exports, but time zones matter more: each hour of time-zone separation reduces Office exports by roughly 4%, while having no effect on Factory exports. Importantly, all of the world’s export-linked net job creation between 2008 and 2022 occurred in digitally delivered services rather than manufacturing, and trade-linked service jobs command higher average pay globally. The Factory-to-Office shift is also reshaping development. Most emerging economies have seen export-led growth tilt towards services, but their service exports are not yet large enough to drive overall GDP growth the way manufacturing did historically. The big picture is that globalisation’s second unbundling is running out of steam even as its third unbundling is powering ahead. The paper, which raises more questions than it answers, closes with the conjecture that the future of trade is services.

The Washington Post‘s Dominic Pino – a GMU Econ alum – peels back the layers on an effort to repeal the Onion Futures Act. A slice:

Americans can trade futures contracts for any agricultural product — except onions. Onion futures have been forbidden since 1958. Buy and sell class IV milk or 90 percent lean beef trim futures to your heart’s content, but dare to trade in expected onions and you can be fined up to $5,000.

In 1955-56, a pair of commodities traders named Vincent Kosuga and Sam Siegel worked to corner the market on onions. They bought massive quantities of the bulbs, raising the price. Then, they bet in the futures market that onion prices would fall — which they knew would happen because they sold off all their onions at once.

In 1955-56, a pair of commodities traders named Vincent Kosuga and Sam Siegel worked to corner the market on onions. They bought massive quantities of the bulbs, raising the price. Then, they bet in the futures market that onion prices would fall — which they knew would happen because they sold off all their onions at once.

Rep. Robert Griffin (R-Michigan) stressed the onion industry’s support for banning onion futures. “The onion growers have never had a Government subsidy or price support and they are not asking for one,” Griffin said. “In light of the millions of dollars we appropriate annually to support the price of other commodities, surely this one request on the part of the onion farmer is entitled to the sympathetic ear of Congress.”

It was an impressive political accomplishment. Restricting futures trading had been fertile ground for legislation, with around 200 bills introduced between the 1880s and the beginning of federal regulation in 1922. But the ban on onion futures was the first to become law.

Proponents understood the value of futures markets in general. They help stabilize markets and enable price discovery. But they argued that onions were different. “Futures trading in onions, because of the small volume and perishable nature of the crop is not an economic tool, but a gambling device for professional speculators,” said Rep. Gracie Pfost (D-Idaho). The Agriculture Department told Congress that only 5 percent of the volume of onion futures trading involved hedging by onion growers.

But Kosuga was an onion grower, and Siegel was a produce wholesaler. And the Commodity Exchange Authority, the Agriculture Department agency that regulated futures trading at the time, punished them. In an administrative proceeding, they were found to have engaged in market manipulation and were suspended from participating in contract markets.

Congress, however, had settled on a simple story: honest farmers versus reckless speculators. Once that was established, onion futures were cooked.

Agustina Vergara Cid rightly criticizes the collectivism espoused by the illiberal and economically illiterate J.D. Vance. Here’s her conclusion:

If Vance identified the essence of socialism, he would have to condemn both his own policies and the worldview that subjugates individuals to his nationalist agenda.

You can’t defeat socialism with an alternative form of collectivism, only with its opposite: the principle that the individual is not a means to any group’s end. That means protecting each person’s right to trade, hire, and associate with whomever they choose, and to live by their own judgment so long as they respect others’ rights. This is America’s founding premise, and we should embrace it instead of Vance’s or anyone else’s rehashed versions of the very premise it stands against.

After 18 years at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Kristian Niemiętz is moving on. Here’s a slice from his retrospective:

Individually, most of our opponents make little difference, because they promote ideas which are already fashionable, and which would be there with or without them. The marginal benefit of one more socialist, one more Greta Thunberg fan or one more person defending the NHS is close to zero. Classical liberalism and free-market economics, on the other hand, are so unfashionable and so counterintuitive that every supporter counts. These causes could very easily drop out of the national conversation altogether, and had there been no IEA over the past 18 years, they might very well have.

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… is from page 272 of Samuel Gregg’s superb new book, The Civilization of Commerce; this quotation follows Gregg’s mention of Hayek’s observation that “We owe our freedom to restraints on freedom”:

As such, commercial society demands much of us: to decline to enslave ourselves to immediate desires, short-term considerations, and the lies of relativism; to embrace the virtues of prudence, magnanimity, and benevolence, especially when it seems expedient to set such habits aside; and to be wise and virtuous people, however exalted or humble our place in society might be.

DBx: Yes.

For an extended investigation into the bourgeois virtues which are foundational to a peaceful and prosperous market-based society, see Deirdre McCloskey’s 2006 book, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce.

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Tyler Cowen appropriately singles out, for praise, Phil Magness for being among the first to flag the increasingly obvious tendentiousness (to put it politely) of the “research” produced by the likes of Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman.

The Editorial Board of the Washington Post explains what shouldn’t – but, alas, what nevertheless does – need explaining: “A government can tax wealth. It can’t make wealth stay.” Two slices:

The Bay State offers a warning about treating wealthy residents as an inexhaustible source of revenue. Massachusetts voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2022 imposing an additional 4 percent tax on annual income above $1 million. The tax has raised billions for education and transportation. The costs took longer to appear.

Internal Revenue Service data show that Massachusetts had almost 94,000 tax returns reporting at least $1 million of income in 2021. By 2023, that population had fallen by roughly 12,700, or 13.5 percent. During 2023, the first year of the surtax, Massachusetts lost a net $4.2 billion in adjusted gross income to interstate migration. High earners accounted for a disproportionate share of the lost income.

…..

The Golden State is unusually dependent on a small population of affluent taxpayers and volatile capital-gains income. The richest 1 percent provide roughly 40 percent of California’s personal income-tax revenue. Losing even a handful can punch an enormous hole in future collections.

Their departure also takes more than individual income-tax payments. Entrepreneurs create companies. Investors finance start-ups. Wealthy residents employ people, purchase services and make charitable contributions.

Nor should Californians assume “one time” means the political appetite for wealth taxes disappears. Phineas Baxandall of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a prominent supporter of Massachusetts’s millionaire surtax, was recently asked about bringing a California-style wealth tax to Massachusetts. “There’s nothing magical about the number 1 billion,” he told the Boston Globe. “Maybe the cutoff is 100 million.”

That’s how the dynamic works: Establish the machinery and political precedent for confiscating wealth, and today’s extraordinary levy on billionaires can become tomorrow’s argument about whether $100 million, or even $1 million, is a more appropriate cutoff.

C. Jarrett Dieterle reports on yet another example of how labor unions hurt many of the workers that these unions claim to help.

Wall Street Journal columnist Allysia Finley warns the GOP that its current strategy of obsessing over MAHA and other “polarizing furies” is a political loser. A slice:

To understand how mistaken this is, look no further than Texas GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton. The Texas attorney general has tried to massage issues near and dear to the MAHA movement by targeting makers of toothpaste (for fluoride), cereal (food dyes) and clothing (chemicals), among other businesses.

“Too many corners have been cut by corporations in this country, and I will continue to hold them accountable,” Mr. Paxton said in a press release last month announcing an investigation into Hanes and Fruit of the Loom over—wait for it—potential “toxic chemicals” in children’s underwear.

Maybe Mr. Paxton thinks targeting business will distract voters from his personal baggage, including impeachment on corruption allegations by the GOP-led Texas House. (The Senate acquitted him.) As he has amped up his antibusiness campaign, his polling numbers have slid.

Then there’s Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall, who has sought to tap into anger at Wall Street by assailing big banks and credit card companies as “loan sharks.” He has backed a 10% cap on credit-card interest rates and sponsored a bill with Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin to regulate credit-card payment networks.

Recent polls show the incumbent trailing Democrat Adam Hamilton in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932 and that Mr. Trump won by 16 points in 2024. One reason is reports that while practicing medicine, Mr. Marshall sued patients over unpaid bills and charged them annual interest up to 18%. Who’s the loan shark?

Like other Republicans in the heartland, Mr. Marshall has been hurt by the Trump tariffs and immigration raids. Taxing imports is unpopular beyond a thin slice of Republican voters. So is demonizing and deporting foreign workers who haven’t committed a crime.

Vice President JD Vance last month announced a suite of actions that make it harder for skilled immigrants to work legally in the U.S. He derided these immigrants as “indentured servants.” What happened to Mr. Trump’s pledge to build a wall with a “big beautiful door”? The door that his team is building goes only one way—out.

Richard Fulmer’s random thoughts are excellent. A slice:

– In a free market economy, voluntary exchanges don’t take place unless each party to a transaction believes that it will benefit them. No violence is involved. By contrast, violence is implicit in a system that forbids such exchanges.

– Auckland’s housing prices were among the highest in the world. Then the city eased its housing regulations. What followed was a building boom and more affordable housing. It turns out that if you make homebuilding legal, people build homes. Who knew?

– A lot of political unrest comes from people with worthless college degrees who have no skills that anyone is willing to pay for.

– Adam Smith warned that businessmen seldom meet without conspiring against the public good. But he went on to say that the government shouldn’t help them do so. Many of the government’s regulations do just that by restricting competition and innovation to protect incumbent firms.

– Progressives see millionaires and billionaires as a policy failure – one they plan to correct. Yet, they propose to pay for their programs by taxing the same people they want to eliminate. Perhaps they’re not as concerned about sustainability as they claim.

For the file labeled ‘Reality isn’t optional, but government pretends otherwise’: “Panic and Anger Spread as Europe’s Great Pension Covenant Unravels.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes of the hope that Maria Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela brings to the people of that country. A slice:

María Corina Machado finally made it back to Venezuela after 10 months in exile. After an arduous four-day journey from Panama City, on Oct. 25 the opposition leader walked into the Sanctuary of the Divine Shepherdess in the city of Barquisimeto. It was her eighth return attempt since August. To succeed, she had to overcome threats from the dictatorship in Caracas and U.S. attempts to thwart her homecoming.

After President Trump used the U.S. military to remove dictator Nicolás Maduro from power in January, Venezuelans expected Washington to set up new elections. But the Trump administration has been dragging its feet. Ms. Machado’s sudden and dramatic appearance on a Sunday at one of the most important Catholic shrines in the country could change that. It’s the most hopeful the nation has felt since Mr. Maduro was carried away by the Americans to stand trial for drug trafficking in New York.

Enthusiasm among Venezuelans for Mr. Trump waned this year after he made deputy dictator Delcy Rodríguez the interim president and began cutting sweetheart oil deals with her. He calls her “terrific,” and the U.S. says she’s doing what it asks. But the repression continues and the regime still holds 322 political prisoners according to the nongovernmental organization Foro Penal. In January Mr. Trump said Ms. Machado doesn’t have the “respect” necessary to lead the nation. Events of the last week prove him wrong.

Ms. Machado gets high marks for her determination. Her journey home took her through Colombia and across the Venezuelan border into the state of Táchira. Planners understood that maximum secrecy was crucial. A source confirmed to me that no planes were used on the trip despite press reports to the contrary. In the final phase, the elite international team that escorted her had to dodge Venezuelan security forces and duck police inspections at checkpoints as it smuggled her north.