A reader says I have changed. He misses the “old Mish” and says Trump is under attack. 
Old vs New Mish Scorecard
- Anti-war then, anti-war now
- Small government then, small government now
- Fiscal conservative then, fiscal conservative now
- MYOB on social matters then, MYOB on social matters now
- Free trade then, free trade now except in matters of genuine national security
- Men should not play women’s sports then, men should not play women’s sports now
- End the Fed then, end the Fed now
- Abortion OK in first trimester then, abortion OK in first trimester now
- Supported Roe v Wade then, now I think the Supreme Court made the correct ruling
- Favor sensible immigration policy, not totally open borders then, Favor sensible immigration policy, not totally open borders now
- Deport them all was economic lunacy then, Deport them all is economic lunacy now
- Railed against Democrat’s free money handout ideas then, railed against Trump’s free money handouts now
- Flat tax then, that tax now combined with a national VAT except on food and medicine
- Staunch Libertarian then, staunch Libertarian now.
Mish Changes
The only changes in my positions are in points 5, 9, and 13. Those changes are mostly small except 9 where I shifted to a much more conservative position.
But 9 is a Constitutional state’s rights position as opposed to a fundamental abortion shift as noted by point 8.
My Reply
Trump is under attack because he is a a pedophile-protecting rapist and an economically-illiterate war-mongering liar who ran on a pledge of no wars, then started one he does not know how to win.
It is not me who changed, but you. I remain the same Libertarian I always was. In general, I don’t like any politicians. I remain one of the few equal party bashers.
Look at the graft, pardons for money, self-glorification efforts, and unconstitutional acts that not even his own Supreme Court appointees can tolerate.
Good Lord, you have become a part of the cult and cannot even see it.
Questions of the Day
- Am I supposed to ignore Trump’s self-serving graft?
- I didn’t support student loan cancellations. Am I supposed to support Trump’s $5,000 paychecks to all adult citizens?
- Am I supposed to support idiotic wars?
- Am I supposed to support idiotic and unpopular tariffs?
- Am I supposed to support pardons for drug lords who make million dollar payments to Republican campaigns?
- Am I supposed to cheer Trump’s threats to take Greenland, a NATO country by force?
- Am I supposed to support many executive orders so ridiculous that the conservative Supreme Court struck down?
- Am I supposed to support Trump’s protection of pedophiles?
The list is endless actually, those are just some of the questions people should be asking.
What Has Changed?
Trump is a warmongering RINO cult leader who hijacked the Republican party.
He is a genuine threat to US rule of law. Even a very conservative Supreme Court cannot stand much of his nonsense.
That’s what’s changed.
Addendum Bonus Question
Is there any reason anyone should support someone as corrupt as Ken Paxton?
Paxton was impeached, protected a pedophile friend, and would support anything Trump wanted, no matter how outrageous.
My answer is no. I want to see everyone who 100% agrees with Trump flushed down the toilet.
We are seeing some very serious economic shifts right about now. Mr. Shedlock does a fine job of keeping accurate info available. Trump was spouting nonsense on his social-media thing that he has been responsible for $20 *trillion* in new investments from foreign sources. The UBS analysts have just written a report, which uses the US BEA numbers to show in 2025, FDI (foreign direct investment) in USA was $232 billion, and that number is below the 10 year average FDI.
Donald Trump is a lying sack of crap.
This is a damned serious problem. When the leader of a major Western-power is a pathalogical liar, and regularly makes up fraudulent lies and actively misleads the citizens of his own nation, then we ALL have a big problem. Trump is absolutely not a conservative. He is a demagogue – a political scammer, and the big fraud he is running is going to harm the USA in big way, at some point. And it is possible that the time for this is getting close.
Lying and cheating and using illegal lethal violence is bad politics, and even worse economics.
Mr. Shedlock does a good job providing the analysis he does. I don’t think he’s changed. A good analyst deals in truth and accuracy. Trump provides exactly the opposite – lies and misdirection.
This is something that real American conservatives are going to have to fix. Thanx, Mish, for trying to keep folks informed about the economics – especially as it is now about to get very spicy.
A greater problem than Trump is that 30% of the population who worship him regardless of the lies and corruption. And they make up a majority of the conservative party, so conservatives can do nothing.
The weird thing to me is how easily MAGA flips sides. First its’s “Epstein coverup by Biden”.
Trump says, “Epstein was a hoax designed by Democrats.”
Suddenly MAGA flips and believes him.
Those oafs don’t choose to think for their selves
Tribal thinking does that to humans (Cats are famously difficult to herd!).
The problem is not limited to MAGA.
The world around us changed. The GOP became hysterical at the site of several trans athletes, people choosing which bathroom to use, and purple hair. They went all in on the culture wars, and their FAFO moment was eventually you attack nearly everyone and have few allies left.
“This is something that real American conservatives are going to have to fix.”
While Trump is certainly a problem, ideology of whatever stripe only shirt-circuits critical thinking. Lots of conservatives made excuses for Trump because My Tribe. Liberals and conservatives spent years chasing wackadoodle conspiracy theories because Them Tribe.
been following your blog for 2 decades. you have been consistently a smart libertarian who calls out bullshit. and explains very complicated things and you have smart commenters. i’m sure you have thousands that never comment. but NO you have not changed. please don’t.
I would say the change occurred after losing your wife and your perspective became noticeably more negative. It’s understandable. I don’t recall so many personal remarks about any previous president but now you unload on Trump every chance you get. For example, Trump is not a pedophile and saying it over and over again doesn’t make it true. To any observer, your hatred for Trump is palpable and it detracts from the quality of your writing.
Mike, I used to read you back before and during the housing bubble and eventually moved on. I used to think you were too hard on trump but I now realize you were right all along. Keep it up
It’s a mishmash.
Johnny Lydon aka Johnny Rotten from the Old Punk Band The Sex Pistols.
Out and out more left than a socialist.
He voted for Trump. Why? He didn’t like the way the Biden/Harris Admin was going.
Trump is a polarizing figure so gets the apathetic voters out of bed and to the polling Booth.
Glad you cleared that up.
When the stock market only goes up, of what use is economic analysis? SPY & chill. Some day, even checking accounts will be invested in SPY.
Got to disagree with you on the war. Iran has been a threat to the nation and the world for nearly 50 years and its about time someone had the testicles to stand up to them. If only someone had stopped Germany earlier.
I dont second guess the commander on chief on military actions. I dont have the access to info he does and dont pretend to. I do know that Iran is a danger to the world and I give POTUS a ton of credit for making a difficult decision.
Totally agree on the nonsense populist stuff its as dumb as the proposals the communists in the other party propose. We are economically toast no matter what the midterms.
But when it comes to iran im with potus 100 put.
And yes I am a veteran.
1. Iran has been a threat to no one until the US started meddling
1. They have every right to hate us
3. Trump stupidly broke a treaty that his own Sec of defense and top general both testified under oath in Congress that Iran was honoring
So you are stupidly with a stupid warmonger. Look up point 3 if you don’t believe me.
The tone of Mish’s articles changed after his medical event. His astute analysis of the economy is the same. But, his review of politics lacks equivalent judicious evaluation. Mish quotes polymarkets and facebook prattle to support an agenda. Instead of financial aspects, which he does best. Only a few local journalists investigate the hundreds of millions in tax dollars, funneled through nonprofit organizations, that fund leftist causes, like illegal migrant defense and welfare programs. Following the money is infinitely more interesting than joining the herd of twitter nonsense. The same applies to the shenanigans that Trump espouses.
My two cents: it seems like you go after whoever is in office. Point out and beat the hell out of all the flaws you see.
Also: called a recession every year since 2005. Consistent.
I bet you picked up some Republican fans when you were criticizing a Democrat president, but when it’s their guy being criticized, they think you’ve changed. Trump has been awful.
Do you think one day they will see the world differently, or just dig their heels in?
When cultists are confronted with incontrovertible proof that the cult leaders are charlatans or worse, rather than change beliefs, change cult leaders or even change cults, too often, cultists just double down.
The process is called “cognitive dissonance” and it is abundantly documented.
You see it in Ponzi scheme victims who keep defending the scammer, even after it is long obvious that they were scammed. Hell, there’s still a few NESARA diehards out there.
Agree with writer. The problem is all you talk about is politics and trump now. Trump sucks but I can hear about that anywhere. You use to focus on economics. You are just another talking head now.
I found out about you, Mish, as I recall it, because some of your articles on statistics were published on Zerohedge, and I was impressed by them. I find statistics confusing and boring, and I respect anyone who is smarter than me in being able to make sense of them.
On politics, I think you need a different mindset if you are going to exercise good judgement about it. I think you at least need to read people like Machiavelli. Politics is not a game for nice people, and anybody who thinks he can be effective in politics without being ruthless is fooling himself. There are some seemingly nice people in politics, but I think they are usually tools for someone else behind the scenes.
I found out about libertarianism back in the 1970s, thanks largely to Ayn Rand. Since then, I have found that there are remarkably wide variances of opinion among people who call themselves libertarians. Some are well read, and some are not.
I don’t think you should condemn Trump without digesting history and knowing about Machiavelli and, say, the horrors of the French Revolution and the Red Revolution in Russia. Politics isn’t about fun. A lot of it is about bloodshed and starvation. Having competent men like Trump in charge may save you from that. Holding up your hands in horror over his peccadillos may very well deliver you into the hands of a Robespierre or a Hitler, AFTER you have starved to the point where you will accept any way out.
Spouting this crap means your credibility is now non existent- ‘competent men like trump’- really??? Where in Gods name have you been!!
If you think a man who can DEVELOP REAL ESTATE, dealing with local officials who as a rule are not only corrupt but stupid, and do it without going to jail himself, isn’t competent, you don’t know anything about the real world.
TIL Arthur thinks Mish does not digest history. That’s quite laughable, those are his exact words.
Mish himself admitted, in reply to a much earlier post of mine, that he hadn’t read Machiavelli or others of a list of writers I mentioned. I understand that if you take the time to learn statistics properly (I haven’t), you may not have the time to read that stuff, but it is still a gap in your knowledge if you want to write about politics and morality.
Hello Mish,
i read you since i think 2006. I remember the good old days when you had your M prime measure of the money supply etc.
Lot have changed since than.
I must admit that you have become a bit boring regarding Trump. You might not like his style that is okay. I like his style.
You are free trade 100 pct i am also free trade but not bet shit crazy free trade.
I am pro tariffs. I think that especially the USA needs to keep not only an computer services economy but also a manufacturing basis. Cars, ships, trucks, airplanes, steel, oil, aluminum and many more. The ccp and the clerics in Theran are not a friends of those self proclaimed Staunch Libertarians 🙂
Free trade is perfectly valid if you stick to reasoning about economics. It’s not so good when you take military strength into consideration.
If you expect to win wars, you need to have the better supply chain for military supplies. If you can keep your soldiers armed and fed longer than the enemy, unless you have really terrible military leadership, you will win.
I’ve read this site for a while. My memory is likely failing, but I feel there were less purely political articles 15 years ago. I seem to remember a very clear economic emphasis in the majority of articles 15 years ago, whereas the emphasis on the political, by word count per article, seems to have ticked up. Again, my memory is not perfect here, so I could be hallucinating.
The world was less partisan and overtly political 15 years ago.
The only real change I’ve seen is the analysis of inflation.
It used to be explained here all about the monetary phenomenon (was there anything else?)
Now Mish talks more about tariffs and diesel prices which do raise inflation, but have nothing to do with money supplies. And I think this change or ‘correction’ was the correct one to make. Inflation can come from multiple sources.
Yes there is more content about the stupidity of government but then there is a lot more stupidity of government.
I imagine if Biden had run and got in, that Mish would have been equally as tough on him.
People who complain about Trump posts are totally missing the total break from the norms that this pedo, corrupt, loon is bringing to the world. It is not just US, he is screwing up everybody.
“I imagine if Biden had run and got in, that Mish would have been equally as tough on him.”
100% correct
I am hardest on the party in power
For possible comparison: I’ve been a Business Law prof for several decades. I adapt. Obviously there is the core topic, which adjusts over time. The surrounding operating and legal environment are factors. Audience engagement and feedback are factors. It was pretty easy to maintain a through line with underlying foci and principles under the various presidents, and other law sources, until Trump showed up. His arrival has been a huge elbowing factor across all kinds of boundaries, that cannot be ignored. It scrambles the through line in many directions, with him as the common factor. I don’t spend all day discussing him, obviously. It might be in some extremely loose way comparable to when FDR showed up, I don’t know, though they are universes apart. Trump’s personalized opportunism and incoherence cannot imaginably have the same long term historical coherence.
I would add that I suppress my own personal and philosophical vehemence toward him in my work, because that is uncalled for in that specific context. I think that would generate too much unneeded distraction, light and heat. I know how uncomfortable it is to be a captive audience in an educational setting being too hard nudged by the personal angles from some talking head. Instead I talk about underlying debates and principles, paths ahead, that sort of thing. But this setting is different.
For you down-votes: this is a US president who has pardoned and also advocated legally facilitating the businesses of people who 1) facilitated international money laundering by our proclaimed adversaries, keeping them going down to this day, and 2) got funneled money on the side by those people. Biden unforgivably pardoning his crackhead sleazeball son doesn’t even faintly compare, nor does anything n history.
Yes Mish changed. The site has gone from primarily economics to primarily ranting about Trump. I assume the latter gets more clicks.
I still check it once a day for actual economics, but any heading with the name Trump gets ignored.
Somehow I doubt you were complaining when mish was opining about Hilary Clinton having a degenerative brain disease (spoiler: it was, just like she said, pneumonia.)
“I assume the latter gets more clicks.”
and more comments like the one you just posted. So you gave Mish clicks and comments, double bonus. I’m sure Mish appreciates your patronage. Keep coming back for more like the rest of us!
Actually, my readership is way down.
Some of us, not many, have enough moral values to not care.
I think AI has more to do with readership than your views. It may be worth it to look into how much of your data/info is being scrapped by AI bots then aggregated, packaged and used/sold for other purposes.
I know a few bloggers who also have readership down and its because AI bots just scrape the data. I am guilty of using AI bots to scrape your data as well Mish although I come to post comments and read articles out of a 20 year habit.
I have bots scrapping every major news source, Reddit, and other things I won’t list to give people ideas, for my investment portfolio. It’s the way to go, as AI can then summarize the major themes people are talking about across the web including stocks, bonds, commodities, metals, energy, foreign currencies, etc.
Reddit just announced a whole new level of anti-bot scrapping but I doubt it stops it, only slowing down 24×7 bots that can create/invent/download tools to scrape data when needed.
Having moral values is fine, and obviously our judiciary don’t have any, or they couldn’t be judiciary in a corrupt society, but you still have to have the relevant knowledge. If you are going to write about political morality, you need to know about political morality. Otherwise you will lose smart readers as well as stupid ones.
Sillyconguy,
Do the Trump rants hurt your feelings? Maybe you need to be flush with the rest of the MAGA clowns…🤣
Anti-abortion stance runs contrary to the top libertarian ideal–you own your own body. The Court may have been right on the law but dead wrong on the principle.
The Court was correct because Abortion is not a constitutional right. It is up to the states. I disagree with red state positions, but the ruling is the correct one.
You don’t own your body. This is not anchored in law.
You have certain rights (which have been imputed to apply to incorporated persons, that is, legal entities that we pretend have a body, except when it comes to accountability) owing to being a natural person with a body, but nowhere is ownership of a body part of the law. Such alleged ownership cannot be transferred nor bought or sold, so it is the wrong conceptual domain.
Like territorial integrity, which is a nonsensical term … pieces of land are not indivisible integers, they can easily be split into lots, and change from one jurisdiction over to another.
What about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”? Doesn’t that imply self-ownership?
Roe vs Wade was a travesty. The constitution does not mention abortion nor anything that implies anything about abortion.
To change the rules around abortions, you need to adopt/amend legislation.
It is an imposition when courts or the executives decide matters that are the province of laws and legislation.
A devastating critique of our mutual friend Trump. Wish seems to like him as much as I do.
Mish’s readers from across the pond feel the change. The “Old Mish” was more about GLOBAL developments and now it’s more “national” (US-centric).
Perhaps, but what is happening in the US today is unprecedented in our lifetimes. Once Trump is gone, I’m confident Mish won’t feel the responsibility to report on the endess corruption and ignorance that has overtaken the country.
The corruption and ignorance won’t end with Trump.
When the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.
Some American snaps his fingers and european knees resolutely hit the floor with a thud.
As an actual long term mish reader, I’m aware he’s covered politics closely since at least the 2000’s.
Well old Mish didn’t receive Mishelin star awards and new Mish earns them all the time so there has been some change.
Here’s a 3-star Mishelin award for keeping the ship steady, the sails full and the barnacles (cult loonies) off the ship!
Mosh if you don’t want an abortion, don’t get one. Letting women die because of an English legal treatise from 1644 is just insane.
How about if you don’t want an abortion keep your knees together? Over 95% of abortions are not due to gross foetal abnormalities, medical complications or actual rapes. Inconvenience to the woman isn’t grounds for killing the baby and less than 1% of unwanted pregnancies lead to the mothers death compared to 100% of abortions lead to the babies death.
Babies are born people, not in utero.
And if the baby is viable ex-utero?
Women give birth prematurely all the time. What of it?
100% of abortions are due in part to the behavior of the person between the knees.
I had to read that a couple times, lol.
When a man is stronger than a woman, he can just force those legs open. Don’t you dump that all on the woman.
Being male libertarian overrides recognizing women’s agency. Being childless libertarian frees you from long term ecological planning. These are both examples of how libertarianism is an incomplete philosophy.
Mish is about the most non partisan caller out of BS you’ll find online. Trump has betrayed everyone that supported him but some billionaires and folks who payed him off
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.”
Been reading Mish since the late 1990s. He hasnt changed a bit.
1990s?? And here I thought I was “early” reading him during the 2000s in Ritholtz’s The Big Picture.
Since 2004 or so here, from dailypaul to this blog.
My feeling is that Mish is paying more attention to Israel’s actions these days.
This reeks of recession now.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-ohio-midterms-factory-workers-7c8dc7901de15a22a909bcd9c8b78a3e
Been reading your posts since before 2013. You have NOT changed at all IMHO. I really admire your work Mish. You present us with the facts, followed at times with your opinions (which I also value). I view you as a straight shooter, no BS ! Tough to find that today anywhere. That is why I continue to read your work. So yes, the Trump Worshipers will have a hard time with you, just as they do with the truth and reality!
Getting rid of the central bank would mean the next time Finance destabilizes the economy…not even Finance would get bailed out. What we need is a FED that is mandated to break up the monopoly paradigm Finance wields which is that all new money must be ONLY DEBT. Do that by amending the FED’s charter so as to have them fund and distribute debt free money in the rebate aspect of a 50% Discount/Rebate at the various points of retail sale in the economic process. Thus it would become The General Reserve and break up private finance’s monopoly paradigm of Debt Only. Its the wet dream of libertarians Mish, namely deflation…but without all of the pain for everyone except the banks.
What I miss? The olden’ days of the Chicago Resource Expos, ran by Eric(?) & his dad, where, at the end of the day there was a panel of experts discussing current “metals” events. After a 2nd beer, you displayed a “no holds barred” candor. Yea, Mish, those were the “good ol’ days.” Cheers.
I miss the old Mish, and Trump is under attack. May God bless and promote and protect Trump
He has dementia and he’s broken the most important campaign promises he ever made. Fuck Trump. And fuck Vance for going along with it.
Silent sarc tag? Well played!
There used to be a commenter around here who would post the most wide-eyed credulous nonsense like, “Hillary will be the best president ever, I especially appreciate her and her husband’s complete integrity!”
It was obvious trolling.
The reactions were hilarious and many were duped into unhinged screeds, much to presumed delight of the troll.
God has turned his back on Trump for breaking all of the 10 commandments. And he is turning his back on all of those who stand by him while he does it. Trump is Satan.
Wow, you must be a bot or should be flush with the rest of the MAGA Clowns 🤣
Mish for President! The UniParty rules America and 30% of each “side” are so lost in their partisan echo chambers that they can’t see their own hipocrisy staring them in the face. Besides the US is very much NOT a demcracy, nor a “democratic republic”; it is a plutocracy. In that world, any sane and honest person would be equally critical of both “sides”. Well said, Mish.
Biggest change I’ve seen is since Mish moved from Illinois we get far fewer blog posts about how messed up that state is due to Unions and corruption.
We don’t get much about Utah so presumably things are mostly fine there state government wise.
cwbchicago(dot)com
Yes I even did several posts on “escaping Illinois”
We have become a nation of cowards letting a deranged reality tv dufus become a dictator, raping and pillaging wherever he sees fit.
‘Heres to the new boss-same as the old boss”
Won’t get fooled again
of course we won’t. the people love the uniparty. both evil. the amerikan public are warmongering nihilist imperialist twats. 95% of amerikans. democracy works. always has. always will.
It’s been drivel for years.
Yet here you are, reading and commenting. Must have a huge thirst for drivel if you are defending Trump.
Keep insulting your own intelligence by exposing yourself to “Drivel” – what a toad
I also wish the Libertarians stood for NO VAT’s.
Why: Because they will institute a 26% TAX ON EVERYTHING and they will INCREASE INCOME TAXES ON EVERYONE and how is THAT a libertarian stance?
Turn over most of the federal government’s current responsibilities to the states, including the military, let’s go back to state militias. Let the federal government be responsible for interstate and international trade and regulations only. Require a balanced budget. Make all taxes be a corporate revenue tax. Corporations are government creations.
1. TL;DR Waaa, Mish is picking on poor widdle trumpy wumpy!
2. I don’t agree with everything Mish says. So what? I don’t agree with anyone, all of the time. I don’t always even agree with myself, all of the time.
Yes, I recently chewed myself out for not remembering why I chewed myself out a week ago and a week ago I forgot how to self-flagellate. LOST SOUL, methinks. Methinks that the word METHINKS is pretentious. DONE.
Dost thou?
Exactly. Don’t believe everything you think.
I understand your positions except protecting pedofiles. What are you referring to specifically, epstein files? Neither party has provided all files and just because you had dealings with epstein when alive that doesn’t make you a pedophile or protecting a pedofile
Insane hill to die on friendo.
Trump ran on releasing all of the Epstein files.
I like to think that Trump has been let into the real secrets since he became President for the second time. He and his staff may have agreed that some of that stuff can never be allowed to come out. If what I have read over the years is more or less true, secret police have never been squeamish about the most horrific treatment of anybody. Hiring hookers who may have been underage is mild compared to a lot of the things they do. That said, I have read several times that Trump threw Jeffrey Epstein out of his resort when Epstein tried to pick up one of Trump’s young staff-members for his brothel.
Trump’s own AG summoned the press to her office, waved a binder around, and promised to release everything.
She was fired shortly after.
Wow Sam is really chewing hard on that red pill this morning
I have been reading Mish for I think about 8 years. I don’t sense that his positions have changed much over that time span (I agree with many but not all of them). I do think the overall tone of the blog has changed though, becoming what I would call more “strident”.
Here is the thing though. I have been following only a very few high quality bloggers over this time period (you can count them on one hand), of various economic philosophies, and they ALL have become more strident in the last couple of years. A couple have recently outright called for the removal of Trump from office immediately. Among people I respect, there is now indeed an awareness that “Trump is a warmongering RINO cult leader who hijacked the Republican party. He is a genuine threat to US rule of law.” I would complain about Biden’s bad policies, but I never thought Biden posed an existential threat to the US as I know it. But Trump does. So I hope Mish keeps it up, we survive Trump, and things get better once Trump is gone.
Biden posed an existential threat due to his incapacitated state.
Trump’s threat is due to his active malignancy, which is equally bad, possibly worse.
Not true. Mish was stridently against Hilary Clinton in a way that was less fair than he has been about trump. And I didn’t vote for her either, but I didn’t pretend she had brain disease, etc. She was for that fiasco in Iraq and that was disqualifying.
I align with most of what you said.
I don’t see how you reconcile point 4 with point 9 (and perhaps 8). I’m no fan of abortion otoh I would never want my daughters to be forced to carry a fetus to term. Unfortunately, that topic is dominated by both extremes, so we end up in a country where you can get on demand abortions in most blue states and almost impossible abortion access in many red states. I don’t favor either solution but extremism rules here and common sense Libertarian laws are not in play bc extremism.
I also am skeptical of a flat tax.
Outside of that, your views are reasonable and sensical.
Unfortunately, the same extremism means that many people on this blog defend their cult leader regardless of how indefensible his behavior is, or alternately reflexively attack Trump in the few cases he behaves sensically (such as actually controlling the border). Too many people live in the binary world where you either believe Dems bad-Trump/MAGA good or Trump/MAGA bad-Dems good.
I like libertarianism but I realize that it may be impractical and fated to ruin. Example: women have much more freedom but we are headed into extinction because birth rates have collapsed. Also, China – almost the opposite of libertarianism – may emerge dominant as a sort of “Star Trek” economy.
8 billion human primates are far from extinct. what bullshit.
Birth rates are hardly collapsing in the Third World.
That’s your bright side?
I really want to move to that “Star Trek” economy so I can take out a mortgage on an unfinished unlivable shell of an apartment built by a defunct builder like Evergrande and continue making payments on it because China doesn’t have individual bankruptcy protections. I’m so glad my payments will keep me off of the ‘blacklist’ so I won’t be barred from buying high-speed train tickets, flying, booking hotels, buying insurance, or enrolling my children in private schools.
They brought the most people out of poverty in history and their people are generally supportive of their government.
Good to know they are supportive of their authoritarian government and we don’t have to concern ourselves with the “fear factor” or government censorship.
“China doesn’t have individual bankruptcy protections”
I can see why they didn’t think they needed it until now. Low tuition and healthcare costs. An economy growing for decades despite cover pages of western rags and thumbnails by “independent” bloggers algorithmically upranked on govtube platforms.
But they legislated some pilots recently. Possibly because the multi decade property boom is finally abating there too.
Meanwhile, in 2005, D’s and R’s undid bankruptcy protection for young people, while continuing to push them to take on loans to pay for tuition — tuition that increases with the availability of those same loans and with the reduction of subsidies once paid by higher taxes on oligarch income.
One nation is at least heading to Star Trek while the other nation is heading back to Dickens.
Almost no country does. It is unique to the USA, even though it was weakened during the Bush regime.
? Evidence
https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/chinas-property-slump-can-curb-growth-years-even-without-banking-crisis
https://www.uschina.org/articles/understanding-chinas-housing-downturn-and-the-path-ahead/
No. I mean for your allegations about China’s “blacklist” system.
It doesn’t seem to be located anywhere, has no name or officers, and most alleged incidents are the equivalent of getting a ticket or other sanction in other societies.
So giving women freedom means we are “fated to ruin”?
The only part of the world that is shrinking is the highly educated monied class. We are being flooded by those of lesser means, on a global scale.
I abandoned Libertarianism because unfettered capitalism leads to concentration of wealth and impractical solutions for clear market failures (e.g. let insurer’s and liability protections handle it!).
Market failures include inadequate safety nets for the poor, poor universal quality education, pollution and climate change. Many Libertarians don’t even acknowledge market failures at all. Libertarians tend to ignore systems paradoxes like failures of composition, prisoner’s dilemma, poor market pricing of tail risks, etc.. Libertarians love F.A. Hayek but hate Keynes, Polanyi and even Adam Smith (if they read him carefully).
A flat tax exacerbates wealth inequality and is regressive. Income taxes need to be much more progressive if you are a fiscal conservative (as you say you are). The economy did quite well when top bracket tax rates were well over 50% (sometimes 90+%) during the 1950’s, and deficits were much lower.
I do agree with you on Trump, wasteful war spending, MYOB, and much besides.
I am curious, Mish: What is your thinking on climate change? On more cuts of taxes at the high bracket, to make the income tax more “flat”?
“I abandoned Libertarianism because cunfettered capitalism leads to 1) concentration of wealth and impractical solutions for clear market failures…”
Same reason I abandoned it. It’s a philosophy just as unworkable as communism. Extremes in either direction simply don’t work.
The vast majority of ‘market failures’ are not the market, but government intervention. We’ve never tried unfettered Capitalism. We had periods of less government and freer markets and they did not produce the mass multitude of multi-millionaires and billionaires. Long ago wealthy people produced products. In the last few decades the sharpies skim the first dollars off the Federal Reserve and Treasury (Cantillon Effect) and do Hedge Funds and Private Equity Looting.
>>The vast majority of ‘market failures’ are not
>> the market, but government intervention.
Paid for by oligarchs who make a market in government control, outbidding each other for concentrated benefit to their camp.
>> We’ve never tried unfettered Capitalism
We’re doing it now. Oligarchs compete for gov control. You want to “fetter” them? If so, how?
If you want to somehow magically prevent concentrated wealth from controlling gov, how would you get there from here? Confiscate all the wealth, redistribute it, and then stop getting in people’s way?
You’ll end up where we are now. It might take decades to reassert itself. Or it might take less than 5 years, like it did in Russia after USSR dissolved and basically did the experiment.
Wealth is power and power corrupts. Until we start taxing away wealth more than some multiple of average income, we’ll always end up with a small club of people controlling the government and using it to protect and increase their wealth instead of serving the serfs.
Progressive taxation will protect those who have already converted their wealth to power at the expense of those now facing a steeper slope to climb.
As for Russia, it never had the “free-market experiment” (and I believe no one had). Freedoms are not for experimentation.
I said tax wealth.
We should disincentivize people trying to build dynasties. That’s royalty by another name.
Russia turned into as much a free market you’re ever going to see. And then it was over quickly.
Exactly, we started with a largely makert based system (Capitalism) and what we have now is the result.
>> We had periods of less government and freer markets.
Like when? Like when the gov actually passed and enforced the Sherman Antitrust Act? Like when Glass-Steagal was passed and remained in force?
Do you prefer “freer markets” like when Greenspan, Summers, and Rubin blocked Brooksley Born’s push to regulate over-the-counter derivatives (including interest rate swaps)?
Or maybe you prefer transparent competitive markets. I wouldn’t call those “free”. But they benefit most participants more uniformly.
This argument is the equivalent of “communision failed in the Soviet Union because that wasn’t real Communism”.
These types of arguments are fallacious and are wrought with confirmation bias.
What they all fail to take into account is the human variable. Both assume humans operate in this nice neat construct. This is disproven by simply observing reality. Communism and Markert Based Libertarianism (e.g. anarcho-capitalism) are abstract theories that sound great on paper….that’s it.
There have always been similar arguments about Catholicism and Protestantism. Protestants (‘you are not saved by your deeds’) were always accused of encouraging license, whereas Catholics emphasized the importance of good works to be saved.
In practice, however, Catholics took many “thou shalt nots” a little lighter than the super conscientious Puritans. The actual results of a policy or system often reveal a good deal more than do the alleged “ideals” or intentions which people fail to put into practice [!]
Yeah I’ve heard this same argument “we’ve never really tried it” made about communism too. Maybe that’s because all political philosophies are unworkable in pure forms. That means the best philosophies will be workable and flexible, not absolutes.
The economy did well in the 50s DESPITE high taxes. Mostly because America (and Canada) were the only countries left standing after WWII. The prosperity of that time had nothing to do with tax rates.
The problem on income taxes is they are easily avoided by anyone with actual wealth. You can set the top rate at 90% and Buffet will still pay less than his Secretary because his wealth isn’t come from salary (which is all income tax really hits). The people with the money get it from investments and businesses etc, not from salaries.
The advantage of the flat tax is that it forces the poor to have skin in the game. Right now anyone making less than X (and I don’t know what that number is in 2026, something like 20k?) doesn’t care because they don’t pay. So they have no incentive to vote for things that would reduce taxes (and wastage of tax money) and have every inventive to vote for things that increase taxes on someone else.
The same people who want to cut a few billion here and there on social spending want a fifty percent increase in defense spending. Fuck that and fuck them. Ex republican.
Amen!
Libertarianism does not acknowledge even the theoretical possibility of exploitation, even though exploitation is ubiquitous throughout human history, perhaps with the exception of bands of nomads.
The factors of production include resources, labor, and capital. Public goods, like irrigation canals, or dykes, roadways, trains, education, communication, pipelines (in short, social and physical infrastructure), are not properly private goods because they are not marketable commodities or services, and are innately monopolies. They do not figure in libertarian thought, which one might well characterize as legitimation of the ownership class. In Madagascar they have low taxes, low government regulation, but it is hard to get anything off the ground because there are no public goods.
I would hesitate to speak of market failures or taxes on anything other than transactions (which one is free to engage in or avoid). But Capitalism is a term coined by Marx and is descriptive of how things worked in 1850 — where the ownership class had government on its side and workers had no influence or even representation. The term is in no way equivalent to “free markets,” which they had in ancient Babylon and Egypt nor does it contain a prescription for structuring political economic relationships.
The simplistic and unempirical nature of a lot of thinking on this subject attests to its fundamentally ideological nature — to justify, not to understand. Historically, “property” is a fraught and complex concept: everybody understands that there is difference between your underwear/toothbrush, something you yourself have made, intellectual property, or land, air and rivers — such categories cannot simply be subsumed under the same concept.
Mish…change?
Been reading your blog since 2008 or 2009. (I remember posts tearing into W Bush…and Obama….and Trump 1….and Biden)
I come here for the great insight, well thought out perspective and ultimately your wisdom….had you changed I would stop reading.
Some people need to move economics up a few notches in priority (at least above partisan politics), but that requires that they would have to put things in perspective versus cheering/booing for their favorite talking head of the moment.
People are elected and eventually leave, economics lasts forever.
VAT taxes have been shown to have a greater impact on lower incomes. I am surprised you favor them. Combined with a flat tax and the impact is disproportionate.
As for abortion, whatever happened to MYOB?. It has been clearly demonstrated that a child who is born to an 18 year old in high school has a significantly lower socioeconomic status in their lives, forever. You encourage destitution.
I thought you had more interest in not sticking it to the little guy.
My VAT excludes food, medicine, clothes below a certain price point etc. It is easily tailored to be non-regressive, yet fair.
Regressive taxes are a chimera. There is never a tax where the lower income people pay more in absolute terms than the higher earners. Just like a sales tax, everyone pays it and pays the same, nothing regressive, just fair.
“There is never a tax where the lower income people pay more in absolute terms than the higher earners.” Well dah! An “absolute” term by definiton wipes out the differences in income – which is what pays the bills.
Tell you what, go ad a $5/gallon gas tax and see who shows up at work. The wealthy, the walkers and commuters. The working poor would be instant toast. They have no buffer. You can talk tax and not look at relative situations. I suppose you can; it’s just naive.
Frankly was glad Mish had thought ahead about affordability and inelastic household needs.
Is the price of gasoline based on your income? Why should taxes be at graduated rates based on income?
Yes and who decides what is ‘fair’ for exclusion is always a bit tricky.