Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
High tech chips and lenses need super pure quartz, and the purest quartz in the world is found in the US. To turn it into usable silicon requires a smelting process that only a few masters know how to pull off.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9V4jNTLGus
Congress should codify Trump’s trade agreements so Trump can’t keep going back on them and creating more uncertainty in the economy.
Trump still has a variety of tariff powers, but they are more limited and require more hoops to jump through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krb6SQKRdeg
So what is a balance of payments deficit, anyway?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY6dZSseUY0
Due to Trump administration actions, people are hating Americans, and it is more difficult to have professional relationships due to this.
Having dollar dominance globally lowers US interest rates because other countries borrow in dollars.
The global power of the US military allows the US to control all sorts of negotiations that on the surface have nothing to do with military force.
The US university system is one of its secret sauces to its success and power, and Trump’s attack on it is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Carelessly deregulating will boost the economy in the short run, but in the long run will be bad for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yyJiXL-Fwg
“Most studies define the middle class relative to the national median, which makes the dividing line between haves and have-nots rise automatically as the country gets richer. Rose and Winship instead use a benchmark of fixed purchasing power, so that if real incomes (those adjusted for inflation) rise, more people are shown moving into—or beyond—the middle class in a meaningful sense.
Under this approach, the “core” of the middle class does indeed shrink modestly. But crucially, the middle class shrinks because people are moving up the income ladder, not because they’re falling down. Since 1979, the share of Americans in the upper-middle class has roughly tripled—from about 10 percent to 31 percent—while shares of those considered lower middle class or poor fell substantially.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/15/yes-the-middle-class-is-shrinking-because-its-moving-up/
Taiwan has a higher GDP per capita than South Korea and Japan. Taiwan’s median wealth per adult is about the same as the US. The US has higher average wealth because of a handful of super rich people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4QfrJvqYzI
“The Dollar Might Be Replaced by Nothing” | Paul Krugman on De-Dollarization, China, A.I., & More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvEymKUcM_Q
Why U.S. Stocks *Aren’t* In A Bubble (Yet)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE-hqrDRyzg
It’s not clear how many layoffs are caused by AI. Companies may want to have layoffs or not hire for business reasons, and just blame it on AI so they don’t look bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KChsk1JMuKA
“The federal government’s data do not show this “burst” in construction jobs. In fact, quite the opposite: Construction jobs declined by 11,000 in December, the most recent month for which Bureau of Labor Statistics data are available, and grew by just 0.2 percent during 2025 as a whole. Like most other blue-collar professions, jobs in the construction industry have been underwater since last April.
The president’s tariffs aren’t the only factor shaping that job market, but they surely aren’t helping. The Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) reports that overall construction input prices climbed 3.4 percent during 2025.
“Many tariff-affected materials, like derivative metal products and switchgear equipment, have experienced considerable price escalation in 2025,” Anirban Basu, chief economist for the ABC, said in a statement earlier this month. He pointed out that the price of aluminum, which is subject to huge new tariffs imposed by Trump in early 2025, climbed by more than 25 percent last year.
…
Why are gas prices falling when other products are getting more expensive?
For one, we are enjoying a period of low oil prices globally. That’s a good thing, though it is also largely beyond the president’s control.
It also seems important to note that gasoline and other oil products are exempt from the Trump administration’s tariffs.
In other words, when a barrel of crude oil crosses the border from Canada, it doesn’t suddenly have an extra 25 percent tax tacked onto it. But when a roll of aluminum or a pallet of lumber crosses the same border, it suddenly becomes significantly more expensive for Americans to buy. As a result, it has become more expensive to build things but gasoline has remained more affordable.”
https://reason.com/2026/01/29/scott-bessent-says-construction-jobs-are-booming-under-trumps-tariffs-government-data-show-the-opposite/