Why everyone is wrong about the economy | Jason Furman | The Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie

Biden ran as a relative moderate, but governed more to the left, creating inefficient policy and contributing to inflation.

Large and growing government debt reduces economic growth because that means the government is borrowing more money, which drives up interest rates, which drives down business investments and homebuilding. When borrowing from foreigners, you have to give some of your economic growth to them to repay them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KogDw5ZRcl0

Sam Harris on the Joe Rogan vs. Douglas Murray Debate, Religion, Deportations, & Bill Maher

Big podcasters like Joe Rogan have people who spread false and misleading information on their podcasts and don’t properly pushback.

These podcasters provide an illusion of longform journalism without the principles of journalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26IvvpwTMZE

Elon Musk’s WEIRD Impregnation Fetish Exposed

Is Elon Musk a narcissist obsessed with impregnating many women with his seed and creating offspring who he sees as his superior legion of humans? Elon doesn’t seem to help take care of the children he is producing.

The demographic crisis is real, and Americans do need to have more children, but that doesn’t mean Elon isn’t a big-headed narcissist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7bzw8_MJpA

JD Sparks Twitter Debate—INSTANTLY DESTROYS Himself

JD Vance takes to Twitter to make false claims while advocating for taking away immigrants’ due process rights.

The right to due process is for all people on American soil. It doesn’t mean people suspected of being illegal immigrants get a full jury trial, but there is some appropriate process to decrease the possibility of penalizing, deporting, or sending them to a dictator who may kill them for opposing the authoritarian regime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2ERNHiToU0

Trump Is Wrong. Cheap Goods Are Awesome.

“Donald Trump doesn’t think Americans deserve stuff. The right number of pencils for a family? Five. The right number of dolls for a little girl? Two, maybe three. His comments in recent interviews bear a striking similarity to those of left-wing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), who in 2015 famously bemoaned that consumers have too many deodorant options.

How did Trump—who campaigned on a promise of reducing inflation—become so eager to have Americans pay more for everyday commodities? While Trump may have made overtures to reducing prices, he’s long supported the kinds of economic interventions most likely to lead to inflation. And if you believe that protectionism is the path to prosperity for everyday Americans, your definition of prosperity starts to change pretty quickly.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/09/trump-is-wrong-cheap-goods-are-awesome/

The U.K. Trade Deal Screws American Consumers

“In 2023, the most recent year for which full data are available, the average U.S. tariff on British goods was 3.3 percent.

That means this “deal” charges American consumers a 10 percent baseline tax on goods that were previously taxed at 3.3 percent. That’s not a win for free trade or lower prices.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/09/the-u-k-trade-deal-screws-american-consumers/

Trump’s Tariffs and Immigration Policies Destroy Thousands of Acres of Tomato Crops in Florida

“Thousands of unharvested tomatoes are being plowed over in South Florida in a sign of what is to come under President Donald Trump’s tariffs—or tariff threats—and immigration policies. Reporting by Miami’s local Fox affiliate, WVSN, revealed that farmers are cutting their losses and letting crops go to waste due to increased picking and packing costs.

“You can’t even afford to pick them right now,” Heather Moehling, president of Miami-Dade County Farm Bureau, told WVSN. “Between the cost of labor and the inputs that goes in, it’s more cost-effective for farmers to just plow them right now.””

“Even though the tariffs on Mexican imports never took effect for goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, including U.S. tomatoes, the threat of tariffs alone was enough to disrupt the U.S. market, DiMare told WVSN.”

“While Trump is touting his recent deals with the United Kingdom and China as examples of how his trade policies are working, the Florida tomato industry serves as a real-world reminder that unpredictable policies can have far-reaching and unintended consequences on Americans’ livelihoods. On some level, Trump knows this and has admitted that Americans will have to make do with less, despite being voted in to bring down the cost of living. The president’s attempts at centralized planning will continue to drive prices up, and Americans will be the ones paying the price.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/12/trumps-tariffs-and-immigration-policies-destroy-thousands-of-acres-of-tomato-crops-in-florida/

No Divorce From China

“Some people, including a former Trump administration official speaking to Politico, speculate that China’s threatened rare earth cut-off was more damaging to automakers and the defense industry than anyone’s letting on, and that China actually can log this one as a W; “China’s export restrictions to the United States worked. It created enough pain to compel the U.S. government to plead with the Chinese government to reverse course,” the official told Politico.”

https://reason.com/2025/05/13/no-divorce-from-china/

Trump Called Price Controls ‘Communist.’ Now He’s Ordering Them for Prescription Drugs.

“If enacted across the board, Trump’s order would mean pharmaceutical companies must sell drugs to Americans at the lowest prices they were offering anybody else in the world.”

“Americans do pay significantly more for prescription drugs than people in other developed nations, but the reasons for that are more complicated than Trump suggests.

“There are many good reasons why we should pay more for earlier access to new medications than our trading partners,” wrote Darius Lakdawalla and Dana Goldman of the University of Southern California’s Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service. “As the world’s largest market for pharmaceuticals, America finds itself in the unique position of accruing the lion’s share of the benefits from new medicines. We often recoup these additional costs in the form of longer and healthier lives.””

“”facing a choice between deep cuts in their U.S. pricing or the loss of weakly profitable overseas markets,” the companies may simply exit foreign markets altogether, “leaving U.S. consumers with the same prices, pharmaceutical manufacturers with lower profits, and future generations with less innovation.””

https://reason.com/2025/05/13/trump-called-price-controls-communist-now-hes-ordering-them-for-prescription-drugs/