Economy

Positive Labor Day Numbers

Labor Day, and the Slope Changed The official story finally faces the same direction as the policy. Labor Day is the weekend America sets aside to praise work and then talk about anything else. This year the holiday has a plot. The government spent Friday morning describing a country that no longer looks like the one it described from 2021 to 2024. The border is not a monthly spectacle. The foreign-born population is not still climbing like a flood gauge. The job market did not fall through the floor when the inflow stopped. That is not atmosphere. That is the official…

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Compute and Creaturehood

Data Centers Have Neighbors Compute will find a home. The only live civic question is whether the neighbors are treated as creatures or as throughput. I have never believed a tool decides a people. I said that when the argument went to orbit. I will say it again with the argument on the ground. The demand for compute is not a zoning category. It is load. It will clear. It will clear on a brownfield with its own generation, on a river that still has surplus power, behind a posted payment in lieu of taxes, in the next county that wants…

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The Art of the Hemisphere, Part VI

The Orinoco Settlement N.B. Read Parts I, II, III, IV, and V of this series. January 3 was the writ. August 28 was the recording. This series has treated the Western Hemisphere as an operating theater, not a neighborhood watch. Part II called the Orinoco the biggest real-estate deal since Manhattan. Part IV flew Maduro and Cilia Flores to New York. Part V carried the same logic north to Greenland. Friday closed the southern flank. President Trump and Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, put a number on the prize named before the raid. Seventeen fields. Sixty-five billion barrels. A private company…

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The Art of the Hammer

Kharg as Catalyst, MOU as Pause, and the Path to Enforceable Peace Well, here we are. Just days after President Donald J. Trump’s pointed Truth Social signaling on Kharg Island: the credible threat to seize Iran’s primary oil export terminal and redirect those flows under American leverage, Iran moved. High-level approvals followed. The naval blockade held until the “transaction” advanced. Now we have the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed, with a 60-day window for verification and deeper negotiations. The Strait of Hormuz prospects have brightened. Oil and gas prices have eased. Texas pump prices in competitive spots already sit in…

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The Art of Hormuz

Kharg Threat Forces Iran Back to the Table Well, here we are: once again witnessing realpolitik deliver where prolonged diplomacy alone had stalled. Just hours after President Trump’s Truth Social declaration that the United States would hit Iran very hard and move toward seizing Kharg Island and controlling their oil and gas markets, he called off the immediate strikes. High-level Iranian leadership approved key points for a framework agreement. Documents are in “pretty final shape,” with a potential signing as soon as this weekend in Europe, with Vice President JD Vance expected to attend. The naval blockade remains firmly in place…

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Trump’s Hammer on Kharg

Half-Measures No More: Kharg Island Falls, The Spice Flows, and America Secures the Future Well, here we are at last. President Donald J. Trump laid it out plainly on Truth Social today: The United States is hitting Iran very hard tonight. Their Navy, Air Force, radar, anti-aircraft systems, and much of their offensive capability: gone. And in the not-too-distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island and other critical oil infrastructure points, assuming total control of their oil and gas markets. Just as we have done with Venezuela, where the model is working out brilliantly for both nations and the broader…

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American Families Gain Ground

How Trump’s H-1B Crackdown Is Delivering Discounts for American Families and Breathing Room in the Job Market From the parks and school drop-off lines in east Plano to the new-build subdivisions stretching through Frisco, Prosper, and Celina, the rhythm of daily life in Collin County has shifted noticeably in recent months. For Sale signs linger longer. Conversations at neighborhood gatherings carry a different tone. The rapid cultural and linguistic changes that defined the post-pandemic boom years have slowed, replaced by something more measured: a suburban rebalancing long overdue. The New York Post and Bloomberg captured it sharply in early June 2026:…

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The Withdrawal Phase Has Begun

Time to Change the Incentives The 30-year Treasury yield just punched above 5.1 percent: levels we haven’t seen since the desperate days right before the 2008 financial crisis. The 10-year is ripping higher in real time. Mortgage rates are barreling toward 7 percent again. And the bond vigilantes aren’t whispering anymore; they’re shouting. This isn’t random market noise. It’s the market reasserting reality after years of Washington treating tomorrow’s income like an unlimited credit card. As Governor Ron DeSantis pointed out in a recent post, we’ve only gotten away with these massive deficits so far because the U.S. dollar remains the…

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The Spirit Airlines Collapse

Democrats Destroy Competition and Call It Progress Spirit Airlines didn’t just fail. It was strangled by the Biden Regency’s regulatory death squad: Lina Khan, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg—with a cheering section of media hacks who sold the kill shot as a “victory for consumers.” Today, the ultra-low-cost carrier that kept Big Four fares honest for working families grounded its yellow planes for good after 34 years. Seventeen thousand jobs gone. Passengers stranded nationwide. Fares on former Spirit routes spiking 14 to 66 percent. This isn’t market failure. This is Democrat policy in the skies: big-government ideologues promising to protect you…

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Transformed, Not Wiped Out

The Real Story of AI and Entry-Level Work Yesterday we talked about AI as a tool, no better or worse than the character and ingenuity of those who wield it. Guns don't kill people, axes don't chop wood by themselves, and AI won't magically "wipe out" half the entry-level jobs in tech, law, consulting, and finance. Yet here we are again, watching the same dramatic warning from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei make the rounds on X: 50% of those roles "completely wiped out" in 1–5 years. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei: “50% of all tech jobs, entry-level lawyers, consultants, and finance professionals…

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