The latest CPI data was released for November 2025.  Investors celebrated and drove U.S. markets higher because price inflation was tamer than expected.

The year-over-year CPI now stands at 2.7%.  The expectation was 3.1%.  But the October data was never released because of the government shutdown.

I have a confession to make.  I thought that when the release came this month that it would include the full October data, since there was never a report issued in November.  But we don’t even get official CPI numbers for October.  I guess they couldn’t even retroactively track the data.

It is beyond ridiculous that this data wasn’t tracked in October when the government was “shut down”.  This was a time when the government went another $600 billion or so in debt.  The funding for foreign wars continued.  A lot of things continued.

Yet, somehow, they couldn’t spend the tiny little fraction of money that it would take to track inflation data that impacts how the Federal Reserve controls interest rates and the money supply.

Sure, I wish there was no central bank and we had a free market in money.  I wish there were no government statistics and that any tracking were left to the market.  But given our current system, it is a bit ridiculous that the government wouldn’t spend this miniscule amount of money (relatively speaking) to track inflation data. The Fed’s decision on whether to lower its target rate and whether to return to quantitative easing (which it did) is dependent on data to a certain degree.

What if the CPI numbers came out really high, right after the Fed just announced another rate cut and return to buying government debt?  These Fed decisions have such a big impact on the economy, yet the government couldn’t operate this one little thing (tracking statistics), while continuing to send money to Ukraine.

Is Price Inflation Normal Again?

My guess is that Trump saw the data that was going to be released.  I can’t imagine he delivered a speech the night before talking about how prices were coming down if he didn’t know the data.  It wouldn’t have been a good look if the CPI numbers had come in higher than expected.

Just as Biden lied about inflation, so is Trump.  Trump is repeating the same lie that prices are coming down.  This is perhaps true for a select number of products.  But prices are not coming down overall.  They are still increasing.  They are just increasing at a slower rate than before.

Even with these new numbers, we still aren’t at the Fed’s supposed target of 2%.  We haven’t been there in about 4 years.

As I have been asking, why is the Fed lowering rates and returning to QE (digital money printing) when the price inflation rate hasn’t even gotten back to 2% yet?

Of course, how can we even trust these numbers?  The numbers are very sketchy, especially given the limited data.  Plus, Trump will just fire someone if they report numbers that he isn’t happy with.  It throws into question all government statistics at this point (even more than before).

If it is true that the rate of price inflation is coming down, it still doesn’t mean we are in good shape economically.  This may just be a reflection of people spending less money because of the economic conditions.  When a recession is on the horizon, people tend to sense the trouble and spend less.  It could be because of job losses or the threats of job losses.  It could be because some people are in too much debt and have to cut back.

While disinflation (for lack of a better word) is not necessarily associated with a recession, it could be that in this case.  Given the previously inverted yield curve and the major asset bubble we have seen, the new inflation numbers may just be a sign of consumers running out of money to spend.

The risks for a recession are high.  With inflation data being tamer than expected, it might give the green light to the Fed to be even looser with its monetary policy.  On that, we’ll have to see.  But these cuts of 25 basis points to the Fed’s target rate isn’t going to stop a recession from happening.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) released its last monetary policy statement for 2025.  It wasn’t a certainty, but it was widely expected that the Fed would cut the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, and that’s exactly what it did.

There were three dissenting votes.  Two Fed members wanted to hold the target rate steady, while one member wanted a half-point (50 basis points) cut.

Opinions still vary on what the Fed will do in 2026.  Of course, this is based on the current data, which isn’t all that current with some government statistics being delayed.  And things can change very quickly.

But the small cut in the federal funds rate isn’t the big story.  The Fed announced that, beginning in two days, it will begin buying $40 billion in short-term bills.  They are calling this “maintenance”.  Maybe by maintenance they mean maintaining the illusion of our bubble economy.

Federal Funds Rate Problem?

One of the reasons for the buying of short-term Treasury bills is to keep the federal funds rate in the new range of 3.5 to 3.75 percent.

The actual FOMC statement is more subtle.  It states: “The Committee judges that reserve balances have declined to ample levels and will initiate purchases of shorter-term Treasury securities as needed to maintain an ample supply of reserves on an ongoing basis.”

Since the fall of 2008, the Fed has been able to manipulate the federal funds rate by paying banks interest on their reserves.  It’s been a good deal for the big banks, and it’s been a good deal for the Federal Reserve. That sounds about right.

But it seems that the rigged game has to be altered now.  It is possible that the Fed is having trouble maintaining the federal funds rate without actually creating new money out of thin air.  This is one of the reasons they will be buying new debt, which means that the money supply will once again increase.

The 12 Days of Stable Money

The Fed didn’t give us the 12 days of Christmas this December, but it did give us the 12 days of stable money. Or maybe it will just be 11 days.

From the late October meeting, the Fed announced it would be winding down its quantitative tightening.  Starting December 1, all Fed holdings would be rolled over as they matured.

With the latest Fed meeting, they will begin buying Treasury securities on December 12.  This is a return to quantitative easing (QE), also known as digital money printing.  They can call it reserve management purchases or whatever they want, but it appears to be more money printing.

So, we got a stable money policy of no monetary inflation or deflation from December 1 to December 12.  They couldn’t even wait a full 2 weeks from quantitative tightening to quantitative easing.

Problems?

Why is the Fed already returning to QE?  Is it just to maintain the federal funds rate?  If that’s the case, then it is a good indication they shouldn’t be lowering rates right now if they can only maintain it through more monetary inflation.

(While the market should determine interest rates and there should be no Federal Reserve, I am writing this from the basis that we currently do have a central bank.)

The Fed’s supposed price inflation target is 2%.  Even going by government statistics, we haven’t seen 2% in several years.

If the economy is relatively strong and consumer price inflation is still above 2%, why is the Fed cutting rates?  Why is the Fed returning to QE?

It just tells you that something is going on, and they know something is going on.  There are major underlying problems in the economy.  The yield curve was inverted for about 2 years.  With the latest cut in short-term rates, it is normalizing more.  We are facing a recession ahead.  We are in a major bubble, and I think some Fed members sense this.

I don’t think these decisions are purely political.  The dissenting vote who wanted to lower the target rate by 50 basis points was probably political.  Fed officials see trouble ahead, but they don’t want to announce it to everyone.  Then they will just get blamed for panicking the market.

It has not been uncommon for the Fed to cut rates before a recession becomes evident.  If history is any guide, we are on a path to recession right now.  Maybe we are already in it.  The Everything Bubble could implode.

They can fudge the statistics all they want, but there are some numbers and prices that can’t be hidden.  Some of the Fed members sense there is trouble ahead.  It would be wise to pay attention.  Why would they be cutting rates and returning to QE if there weren’t serious problems out there?

The situation in Venezuela is extremely bad, but it is also bringing up some important moral issues.  The Trump administration has been bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela.  The excuse is drugs.

It is hard to believe that these boats are traveling hundreds of miles or thousands of miles to deliver drugs.  But even if that is the case, it doesn’t give the right to the U.S. government to blow them up.

There is absolutely no proof that these boats are carrying drugs.  There is no trial for the people on board the boats.  Some of them are probably fishermen.  And even if they were carrying drugs, since when do we issue the death penalty for carrying drugs?  Plus, it makes it even worse that the U.S. government is doing this to a sovereign country.

Imagine if Russia or China started blowing up boats off the coast of Florida because they suspected they had drugs.  How would that go down?

The big controversy is that there was at least one boat that was bombed that had survivors.  There were orders to kill the remaining survivors.  The more controversial part should be blowing up the boats in the first place, but at least it is getting attention for something.

Pete Hegseth is evil and a bumbling fool.  He is mocking and making light of these murders.  He is completely complicit in these murders.  So is Trump.  This issue alone means they are unfit for office.  They are fit for jail for outright murdering people.

Just Following Orders

Six Democratic members of Congress stated that military members should not follow illegal orders.  The Trump administration is investigating these people.  Trump suggested that this is traitorous and even that these members of Congress are subject to the death penalty.

There is no need to defend these particular members of Congress.  They will support illegal and immoral wars when it fits their agenda.  But there is a need to defend what they said and their right to say it.

They were very careful in saying that people can refuse to obey illegal orders.  If the orders are illegal, why would you follow them?  Hey Trump, just don’t give illegal orders and then it won’t be a problem.

There is certainly subjectivity as to what is illegal.  But you don’t have to be a legal scholar to figure out that it is both illegal and immoral to murder people in boats.

Illegal vs. Immoral

Just because something is illegal, it doesn’t mean it is immoral.  And just because something is legal, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is moral.  This isn’t even a strictly libertarian principle that rests on the assumption that initiative government force is immoral.

If the government passes a law stating that it is ok for the government to murder people who haven’t harmed anyone, it doesn’t make it moral.

Trump, his lawyers, and his spokespeople can spout all they want about “narco-terrorists” or “democracy” or “fighting drugs”.  It doesn’t make bombing boaters legal.  And even if they amended the U.S. Constitution to allow for such a thing, it wouldn’t make it moral.

After World War 2, there were the Nuremberg trials.  German officials were convicted for war crimes and killing people even though some of them were just following orders.  Maybe the victors in the war were just trying further embarrass and degrade the Germans, but the principle is still correct.  Following orders is not an excuse when harming innocent people, regardless of the law and regardless of who is barking the orders.

Right now, Trump is saying that he is the dictator and the military has to follow his orders, no matter what they are.  If he believes they must murder boaters off the coast of Venezuela, then that pretty much means that anything goes.

What if Trump orders the murder of his political opponents?  Will he arrest the military members who refuse his orders?  What if he orders that all judges be given the death penalty if they rule against one of his edicts, such as his tariffs?  Should the military and police follow his orders because it is the president issuing the orders?

Maybe this sounds absurd, but that is only because Trump is being absurd.  It is the duty of people to not carry forward illegal and immoral orders.  This is not being a traitor.  It is not seditious, as the evil and foolish Hegseth said.  It is Trump and Hegseth who are being the traitors by issuing illegal and immoral orders.

There is no defense for ordering the intentional murder of innocent people.

The yield curve was mostly inverted during 2023 and most of 2024.  It has been slowly normalizing over 2025.  This means that short-term yields are lower than long-term yields once again, which is the “normal” state of nature.

An inverted yield curve doesn’t make much sense.  Why would someone lend money for 30 years with a lower interest rate than what they would get for lending it out for just 3 months?  Why lock up your money for 30 years when you can get a higher average annual return and get your money back after 3 months?  After all, you can reinvest the money after 3 months.

The only reason to do such a thing is on the belief that rates will be even lower in the future.  You might lock in a rate for 30 years if you thought rates were going lower in the future.

This is not normal.  In a world without fiat money and central banking, it is unlikely we would see this drastic inversion.

Yields in December 2025

As I write this, the yield on a 3-month treasury is lower than both the 10-year yield and 30-year yield.  It isn’t by a lot.  It is about a 34 basis point difference between the 3-month and 10-year yield.  It is about 100 basis points (1%) between the 3-month yield and 30-year yield.

If the Fed cuts its target rate by another 25 basis points in December, then the spread on the yields should widen.  The short-term yields should continue to fall.

This is significant, even though hardly anyone is talking about it.  The yield curve was inverted for about 2 years.  At times, it was quite heavily inverted.  It has been somewhat flat for the last year.  It is finally normalizing, especially with the Fed rate cuts.

The yield curve has historically been a good predictor of recessions.  But the recession doesn’t come when the yield curve is inverted.  It comes after the yield curve was inverted and then normalizes.

If history is any guide, we should be in for a hard recession any time now.

The Fed’s Actions

The big variable is the actions of the Federal Reserve.  There should have been a recession in 2020 with or without COVID lockdowns.  But the government lockdowns provided an excuse for Congress to spend trillions of dollars extra and for the Fed to more than double the money supply in 2 years.  Most of that doubling happened in March to May 2020.

When you inject such a ridiculous amount of money, both through government spending and monetary inflation, it is understandable how the recession barely happened at that time.

It’s always possible the same could happen again here.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a virus and lockdowns as the excuse.

Still, with consumer price inflation still above 2%, it is hard to imagine the Fed going crazy again with monetary inflation.  The Fed will likely return to monetary inflation when there is some kind of banking crisis, trouble in the bond market, or a massive stock market crash.  But at that point, the recession is already here.  Some of the damage will already have been done, and the Fed’s interventions will likely only make things worse in the long run.

I don’t think the Fed is going to go crazy like 2020 just because stocks take a dive or because Bitcoin is crashing.  If there is a banking crisis, then maybe we will see something like that.

The point is that you shouldn’t count on the Fed to bail out your portfolio.  Remember the tech crash of 2000 to 2002.  Remember the financial crisis of 2008.  There were dramatic drops in the market.  The Fed’s interventions took a while to save the day.

The Fed’s actions will, unfortunately, continue to play a big role in the economy.  This doesn’t mean that your investments are safe in the stock market or Bitcoin or anything else.  The Fed will do whatever it takes to save the big banks.  It won’t do whatever it takes to save your retirement portfolio.

There was recently a release of a 28-point peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.  It is still hard to say how serious this peace plan is and whether it was purposely leaked to the public.

The draft plan actually addresses some of Russia’s security concerns with the U.S. and NATO.  It would also recognize Crimea, Luhansk, and Donetsk as Russian territories.  Most people in these territories are ethnic Russians and would prefer it this way.

There are some major problems with this peace plan, but it isn’t so much as what is written it.  The main problem is that a lot of powerful interests don’t want the conflict to end, and certainly not in this way.

There will be opposition from Europe.  There will be opposition by Zelenksyy.  There will likely be opposition by the war establishment inside the United States, including in Trump’s own administration.

The Only Thing That Matters

This peace plan is basically meaningless for now.  Perhaps it shows that the Trump administration is beginning to acknowledge some of the reasons that Russia invaded Ukraine in the first place.  But this peace plan can only ultimately be enforced in one way.

Trump must be willing to cut off all funds to Ukraine.

That’s it.  That is the big thing.  If he is not willing to cut off all U.S. funds going to Ukraine, then it won’t work.  Maybe he can make this credible threat of stopping all funding behind closed doors, but it must be there.

It is like the ceasefire plan in Israel and Gaza.  It is mostly meaningless in the long run unless Trump is willing to withhold money and weapons to Israel.  So far, he has not been willing to do that, which is why the violence continues.

If Trump cuts off all funding to Ukraine, it would force an end to the conflict quickly.  Ukraine would run out of money, weapons, and probably soldiers.  It would force an end to the conflict, and it probably wouldn’t look all that different from the 28-point peace plan, minus some of the kickbacks to the U.S. government.

The U.S. taxpayer would save more money by stopping all funding to Ukraine rather than trying to get a piece of the “profit” from rebuilding Ukraine.

Just remember the key to ending this whole conflict is the funding.  If Trump is not willing to pull the plug on funding Ukraine, then a peace plan is not likely to work.

Marjorie Taylor Greene (MTG) has announced that we will be resigning her seat from Congress effective January 5, 2026.  This was following a week of being verbally attacked by Donald Trump.

MTG and Thomas Massie are the two most pro-liberty members of the House of Representatives.  The only senator that would come close to them is Rand Paul.

And who are the three people that Donald Trump has decided to proactively attack and even threaten to campaign against?  It is the three best members of Congress.

Thomas Massie is more libertarian than MTG.  MTG has identified as America First.  They are the two most honest members of Congress, although MTG had been very careful to not directly criticize Trump.  As of late, she had become more critical of some of Trump’s policies, which was enough for Trump to go on the attack against her.

Massie is accustomed to getting attacked by Trump.  It goes back to at least 2020 when Massie demanded a roll call vote on the trillions of dollars being spent in response to the Covid lockdowns (which incidentally played a big role in the spike in consumer price inflation a couple of years later).

Most recently Trump actually attacked Massie for getting married a little over a year after his wife of 30 years passed away.  This was rather rich coming from a guy who has been divorced twice and has a lot of accusations out there regarding infidelity.

Massie has been a defender of Trump at times.  Maybe it’s more accurate to say that he has been a defender of truth.  When there were accusations about Trump colluding with Russia to steal the 2016 election, Massie said that there was no such evidence.  On the topic of January 6, 2021, Massie continues to seek the truth and claims that there were federal government operatives in the crowd meant to stir up trouble and get people into the Capitol building.  Massie has been better on the issue of January 6^th than Trump himself ever was.

Yet, because he wasn’t an obedient little soldier agreeing with everything Trump says or does, he gets relentlessly and personally attacked by Trump.

MTG did not want to go down that road.

Stay and Fight, or Leave Quietly?

Massie and MTG are now taking two different paths.  Trump and his war hawk friends are spending tens of millions of dollars trying to defeat Massie in the next primary.  Massie is determined to stay and fight.  It is big money at play for one congressional race, especially a primary.  It would be a major black eye to Trump and his establishment “friends” if Massie is able to defeat them.

MTG is resigning from office.  She could have at least stayed in office until January 2027 and just not run for reelection in 2026.  But she didn’t even want to put up with that.

MTG was so careful in her wording not to personally attack Trump for anything up until this past week.  She would criticize policies.  She would say that we shouldn’t be sending billions of dollars overseas to fight wars while people at home are struggling to pay for health insurance and other basic needs.

Even after Trump attacked her, MTG was still careful in her response.  She didn’t get personal the way Elon Musk did when he had his falling out.  MTG did respond to Trump’s remark on her being a traitor, and she defended herself on that.  She could have been a lot more vicious in responding to Trump.

Whether her decision to leave Congress is the right or the wrong one is hard to say.  She is most likely done with political office, but you never know.  She is talented and is far more true to the America First vision than Trump ever was.  Maybe she will find other platforms from which to speak out.

She has fought Democrats and the establishment media (that’s somewhat repetitive) for many years.  They have attacked her and called her all of the typical names.  Her Wikipedia page states that she “has promoted Islamophobic, antisemitic, and white supremacist views”.  She was up for that fight.  She apparently was not up for a fight with the current president.

A Personal Choice

I respect that choice and don’t blame her.  It is a personal choice, and she doesn’t owe anything to the country.

Part of me wants a Democrat to win her seat, even though I detest the Democrats in Washington DC.  The Trump loyalists will blame her if that happens, even though she probably never would have resigned if Trump hadn’t attacked her personally.

Don’t blame MTG for any of this, and don’t think she owes anything more to her country than what she has already done.  This is Trump’s fault, along with all of his loyal followers who would walk off the end of a bridge if he told them to.

Trump has completely betrayed the people who supported him for something of an America First policy. Trump continues to fund Israel and Ukraine.  He has bombed Yemen, Iran, Somalia, and Venezuela in 2025.  He has lied continually about the Epstein files.  He has arrested legal immigrants for speech.  He has continued to increase government spending and is overseeing a national debt that is spiraling out of control.

The Trump loyalists who continue to support Trump are in the wrong here.  It certainly isn’t MTG.  It is Trump and his loyalists who are the problem

While there is still a good chunk of the population who will support Trump no matter what, he has lost support from younger people and more libertarian leaning people.  I personally know several people who voted for Trump in 2024 and now despise him.  I am also aware of many people in the alternative media who at least somewhat supported Trump in this last election and are disappointed to say the least.

Trump’s whole presidency should go down in flames.  It’s not to say that nothing good will come.  But Trump has, if anything, increased intervention in terms of foreign policy.  He is also going to oversee an economic meltdown, which will make him even more unpopular.

Trump made a choice to surround himself with all of the worst people.  He could have surrounded himself with Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Thomas Massie, and MTG.  Instead, he chose the path of surrounding himself with establishment war hawks who will stab him in the back when the time is right.

Hey Trump, when all of the war hawks put the proverbial knife in your back, MTG can sit back and laugh at you.  But she probably won’t because she has dignity and grace.  But you wouldn’t understand that.

There have been recent stories appearing, even in more establishment sources, talking about the AI (Artificial Intelligence) bubble.  Many of these companies that are benefitting from AI in the form of higher stock prices are simply doing business with each other.

Let’s say I own a business and you own a business.  We make a contract with each other where I sell services to you for $1 million.  You will also sell services to me for $1 million.  There is nothing illegitimate about these transactions if we are actually providing useful services that are demanded in the marketplace.

But let’s just use an absurd example here and say that I am offering to edit your website articles for $1 million.  You only have 50 articles on your website, and this work can be done over a long weekend.  Meanwhile, you are going to write 10 articles for me in exchange for $1 million.

Again, there shouldn’t be anything illegal about this contract, and these are legitimate services.  But most people realize that it is a bit absurd to charge $1 million for these services.  But when we report our revenue next month, it will show $1 million in revenue for each of our companies.  Forget the fact that we also had $1 million in expense.

The examples with tech companies investing in AI are not this absurd, but this illustration does show an element of truth in what is happening with AI investment and inflated stock prices.

By the way, even if there is a massive AI bubble and a lot of it is bookkeeping games, it doesn’t mean all AI is not legitimate.  It doesn’t mean that AI will be useless.  We can already see that it is useful to individuals in gaining information.

There were some crazy companies and valuations in the late 1990s during the tech bubble.  The tech bubble burst, and several companies went out of business.  But it wasn’t the end of the internet.  It was just getting started.  The tech bubble bursting wasn’t a lesson that technology companies are bad or worthless.  It was a lesson that just throwing money at something because they are supposedly involved in the latest hot thing is not a good long-term investment.

The Nasdaq and Bitcoin

This past week was a rough one for Nasdaq investors and Bitcoin.  The Nasdaq gained back a little on Friday, but it was overall a bad week.  Meanwhile, Bitcoin fell hard.  It is currently under $100,000.  It actually dipped below $95,000 on Friday.

The fact that the Nasdaq and Bitcoin are somewhat correlated should really concern Bitcoin investors (speculators).  If the Nasdaq falls by 50%, it will probably be a lot worse for Bitcoin.  At least Nasdaq companies, even those trading AI investment money, provide some kind of service to consumers.  Most of them make some kind of profit.

Bitcoin is still new on the scene.  We have seen some big declines in Bitcoin over the years, but we haven’t seen a total crash.  I’m not sure if Bitcoin speculators understand that it could easily go below $10,000 in a relatively short period of time.

Circular Investing

When I see these stories about circular investing in AI, it reminds me of Bitcoin.

It sometimes reminds me of the whole stock market when the market is in a bubble frenzy.  Are people really getting rich because a company is trading at 50 times earnings?  You can get rich if you sell at the top and don’t buy back in, but that means somebody else is losing.

This can even apply to real estate.  If I buy a house for $300,000 and then sell it to you for $800,000 a year later, was any value actually created?  It is just more money changing hands.

This circular investing is really what defines a bubble.  People put money in because they expect to make more money in the future.  They expect more people and more money to pile into whatever it is.

When the last sucker forks over a bunch of money for fear of missing out, watch out below.  The problem is that we don’t know when this will happen.  But if history is any guide, it will eventually happen.

Trump and his economic central planners have floated the idea of having a 50-year mortgage.  This is in the name of making housing more affordable.  You know, like how subsidizing student loans has made college more affordable.  Or how subsidizing medical care has made medical care more affordable.

(Those last two sentences were sarcasm for those with a weak meter on reading sarcasm.)

Every libertarian must ask, “Why is the government even talking about this.”  It probably wasn’t in the vision of the Founders that the government would be floating ideas on what type of loan people should get to buy a house.

In a true free market, there should be no objection to allowing a business or an individual to loan money to another individual for 50 years.  That is between consenting parties.  There should be no law prohibiting that.  Whether it is a good idea is a different question.

A Lot of Interest

There may be some interest in a 50-year mortgage from people who can’t easily afford to buy residential real estate.  Unfortunately, they aren’t interested in the interest.

That is the interest someone would pay on such a long loan.  The amount of interest paid on a 50-year loan would be astronomical compared to the amount of principal, assuming the borrower took all 50 years to pay back the loan.

If someone took out a loan of $400,000 for 30 years at 6% interest, it would mean a monthly payment of about $2,398 per month.  The total interest paid over 30 years would be $463,352.  That is a little bit more paid in total interest than the $400,000 that is ultimately paid towards the loan.

If someone took out a loan of $400,000 for 50 years at 6% interest, it would mean a monthly payment of about $2,105 per month.  The total interest paid over 50 years would be $863,371.

In other words, you would pay $400,000 more in interest over the course of the loan for a monthly payment that is less than a $300 difference.

And this is assuming the same interest rate.  If you get a 15-year mortgage vs. a 30-year mortgage, the rate is often slightly lower on a 15-year loan.

If the lender on a 50-year mortgage charged 7% instead of 6%, the monthly payment would actually exceed the 30-year mortgage with a 6% rate.

Make America Free Again

This example just shows how absurd this whole conversation is.  Turning to a 50-year mortgage just means kicking the can down the road a little bit longer.  It means more debt.  And if housing becomes slightly more affordable in the short run, the prices may just rise higher in response.

Housing affordability is a supply and demand issue, but with a lot of government interference.  There is an issue with local zoning laws.  There is an issue with building regulations.  If Congress regulates how much water we can have in our toilets, you can just imagine how expansive and expensive all of the regulations are with all different aspects of a house.

There is also an issue of tariffs.  Yes, tell that to the tariff man himself.  When you make materials like metal and lumber more expensive, it becomes more expensive to build a house.

And then there is the central bank.  When our default situation is more monetary inflation, asset prices tend to rise in response.  If the government would stop spending so much money, and the Federal Reserve would stop monetizing the debt, then maybe housing would be more affordable to the average American.

The answer isn’t more debt with a 50-year mortgage.  That is symbolic of the problem.

They used to be called food stamps.  Now it is referred to as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).  It is hard to call it supplemental nutrition when the money is often used to buy unhealthy food.

They are often referred to as SNAP benefits.  The term “benefits” may or may not be accurate.  It is not like getting company benefits for working somewhere.  These are benefits that other people are forced to pay for.

Programs like Medicare and Social Security are referred to as “entitlement” programs, as if every American is somehow entitled to them just for existing.

SNAP is government welfare.  There are an estimated 42 million Americans receiving SNAP benefits, which is about 1 in every 8 Americans.  This is an incredibly high percentage.

Some conservatives and libertarians like to go off on SNAP recipients for collecting government welfare.  Many of these same people never seem to go off on all of the people collecting government welfare in the form of free education (i.e., using the public school system).

For some reason, some forms of government welfare are more respectable than others.

Government Force

It is correct to be against SNAP in principle.  Like most government programs, it is just another form of theft.  The government forcibly takes money from some people and distributes it to others (typically with a bureaucratic instruction manual attached to it).

It is also true that food stamps/ SNAP is a light form of socialism that creates dependence.  That is often the unstated purpose of government programs.  It gets people dependent on the government for their very existence.  When more people get dependent, they have less of a tendency to oppose the system, even when the system as a whole is working against them.

SNAP, like other government programs, also disincentives people.  It can discourage people from working more or harder, and it isn’t just because they are lazy.  At some point, it makes financial sense to not earn a little more money because it would negate the “benefits”.

These are all valid points.  The issue is a topic of conversation because of the government shutdown.  Some recipients are getting smaller amounts, and some people are experiencing delays.

We are not on the verge of getting rid of the SNAP.  There isn’t even much talk about reducing the number of recipients or reducing the amounts.  At this point, it is just about delays from the so-called government shutdown.  Still, there is more debate about SNAP than most other things.

Last year, about $100 billion went towards SNAP spending by the federal government.  That is about 1.5% of total federal spending.

So, while we have an uproar over 1.5% of the total budget, what about the other 98.5%?

Priorities

The government isn’t really shut down.  The debt keeps climbing.  There are still military bases all over the planet.  The U.S. government is still funding Israel and Ukraine.  The government has plenty of money to bomb boats off the coast of Venezuela.

While libertarians should oppose the SNAP “benefits” in principle, there are many things that should be prioritized and brought up in discussion.  Instead of pulling money away for buying food, maybe it would be better to stop bombing and killing innocent people in foreign lands.

This is why I don’t take conservatives seriously for the most part.  They will fuss a little bit about food stamps, but they won’t question the obscene amounts of money spent making war all over the place.

In this sense, food stamps (or what is now called SNAP benefits) should be one of the last things on the chopping block.  Let’s stop all wars, all funding of foreign countries, and bring the troops home.  Let’s cut the Pentagon (Department of War) spending by $500 billion per year, at least.

Let’s actually get rid of the Department of Education.  Government schools are still primarily funded at the state and local level.

Let’s get rid of the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy.

The list can go on and on before we need to get to SNAP benefits.

Once we cut everything to the bone, then we can talk about SNAP benefits.  At that point, most people wouldn’t need them because the government won’t be sucking up our resources and misallocating them.  In addition, without all of these crazy departments and programs, we will be subject to far fewer regulations.  The economy would boom, and it would be an actual boom built on real prosperity that would benefit all Americans.

Venezuela is a poor country.  It is poor because of the somewhat socialist policies that have been enacted there.  It is also poor because of sanctions, courtesy of the U.S. government.

The “leadership” in Venezuela has not been obedient to the U.S. empire.  This was the case under Chavez, and it continues to be the case under Maduro.  The U.S. empire doesn’t like it when others aren’t obedient.  They really don’t like it when there is oil and also a lack of obedience.

Therefore, it has been the policy of the U.S. government to topple the government of Venezuela.  This is especially true of Trump, who tried to topple the Venezuelan government in his first term.

Less than a year into this term, Trump and his war hawk advisors are at it again.  They have blown up several boats in the water off of the Venezuelan coast.  Now they are threatening even more.

Drug Dealers?

Where is the proof that the people murdered in these boats were drug dealers?  Did they get charged with this offense?  Were they brought to trial?

Even if they were drug dealers, since when does that deserve the death penalty?  According to Trump, it deserves death, but this is meaningless.  Trump is funding a mass slaughter in Gaza.  Trump is funding a war in Ukraine.  Trump has no problem dropping bombs on Yemen or Iran or anywhere else that is convenient to his war making.

The fact that Trump is ordering these boats to be blown up off the coast of South America is even worse.  Not only is he murdering people, but he is doing it in a foreign country.  It is an act of war.

What would Americans say if Russia blew up a boat off the south shore of Long Island because they suspected the boat had drugs?  In fact, what would Trump say about that?  You can picture us going into a nuclear war over it.  But somehow, it is ok for the murderous Trump to kill people arbitrarily in Venezuela.

Peace Prize?

Trump is trying to make a case that he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.  This is the bizarro world we live in.  Trump doesn’t deserve any credit for stopping a war that he started or funded.  He doesn’t deserve credit for stopping conflicts that weren’t really wars or that he really had little to do with stopping.

Trump does deserve “credit” for starting wars in Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela.  He deserves credit for continuing to fund conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.  He deserves credit for continuing conflicts in Somalia and other countries in the world.

Trump will sometimes talk about peace.  But most of his time in office in 2025 has been about making war or threatening war.  Trump is solidifying his place in history as another war criminal president.

What Trump and his administration are doing in Venezuela is murder.  They can call people narco-terrorists or whatever they want.  They have no moral authority to do what they are doing.  It doesn’t matter that they are government officials.  It is still murder.