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And Voters are the Affordability Problem
Everyone has every kind of reason why the Republicans lost in a midterm in the second term of a president: Iran, MAGA, affordability.
I wrote yesterday that “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” And later that day I got an email from Ted Cruz listing what was on voters’ mind, in order.
[C]ost of living, energy, and groceries… 30.6 percent of voters.
Corruption. Number two, 18.5%.
The cost of the Iran war, 10.1%.
The candidates are terrible, 7.9%.
Etc.
Oh dear. So why is cost of living — as in “affordability” — such a problem?
The proximate cause, of course, is COVID, during which the Federal Reserve increased the M2 money supply by 40% in two years.
Then there is government spending, at 40.25 percent of GDP for 2025. That is money out of the pocket of every worker and citizen and billionaire. Here are the main culprits:
1840s: Horace Mann pushes government schools for children.
1935: Social Security introduced to tax workers to pay for oldsters’ retirement. FDR was reelected in 1936.
1938: Federal National Mortgage Association founded. This subsidy for home mortgages makes housing prices higher, and caused major credit crisis in 2008.
1965: Medicare / Medicaid. Government healthcare for the old and the poor. Having government run healthcare. Science says it does not work.
Regulation of housing construction, especially after the rise of the environmental movement in the 1970s. Makes housing more expensive.
Regulation of automobiles, especially after the rise of the environmental movement. Makes cars more expensive.
Regulation of energy production, especially with the war on nuclear and the promotion of intermittent wind and solar, dur to environmental and climate movements. Makes energy less reliable and more expensive.
Here is a chart from USGovernmentSpending.com that shows the major categories of overall government spending in the last 25 years.
Currently, in 2025, the chart shows:
Gov. Health Care (incl. Medicaid): 8.25% of GDP.
Gov. Pensions: 6.81% of GDP.
Gov. Defense: 4.65% of GDP.
Gov. Education: 5.33% of GDP.
Gov. Welfare: 2.38% of GDP.
All other spending: 8.25% of GDP.
Total Government Spending: 40.25% of GDP.
Can you spell affordability?
You want a life that’s affordable? Then dump the government pension and save your own money. Dump the government healthcare that’s choked up with rules and regulation. Dump the education system that never had a clue.
This is not that hard. There’s science about this.
1920: Socialism can’t work because it can’t compute prices.
1944: Administrative government can’t run the economy because it can’t know enough to make sensible decisions.
1971: Economic regulation cannot work because of “regulatory capture” of the regulators by the regulated.
All this can’t be that hard.
Let’s take an example. Artificial Intelligence.
If the Democrats decide to nationalize SpaceX, that would violate Rule 1 and Rule 2. If the Democrats decide to regulate AI that would violate Rule 3.
And then there’s the electricity needed to power the AI data centers, when climate changers are making it impossible to build base-load electric generation.
See, this is not that hard.
Mind you, AI is going to rock the economy like you’ve never seen it.
| Thu, 05 Nov 2026 22:11:06 GMT |
It’s the Economy, Stupid
It’s funny isn’t it. All the talk of “affordability” and inflation.
And it’s Trump’s fault. Because it’s on his watch.
Why do we have an affordability problem? Because the administrative state, Dr. Fauci, General Director, decided to shut down the economy in February 2020 and then Jerome Powell, Assistant Director, increased the M2 money supply by 40 percent between March 2020 and March 2022 to send checks to everyone while the economy was shut down.
But it is Trump’s fault.
Of course, Trump could have sent Dr. Fauci to Outer Slobbovia for his ridiculous World War, which was really a coverup of his Gain-of-function Industrial Complex. But the fact is that governments love a war, whether World War Kaiser, World War Nazi, World War Commie, World War Race, World War Gender, World War Climate, or World War COVID, and Trump is nothing if not a Man in the Arena. You know all my maxims on the subject of politics and war:
There is no politics without an enemy.
War is the mere continuation of politics by other means.
We have always been at war with East Asia.
Let’s say that World Wars Kaiser, Nazi, Commie were all a Good Thing. But in my view the last four World Wars, ending in COVID, were a proof of Eric Hoffer’s dictum, that every mass movement ends up as a racket. If you don’t believe that WW Race, Gender, Climate, COVID were rackets, I gotta bridge…
But the real question is: How do we get out of here? How do we dial down the politics so that it doesn’t even occur to the average politician to ask, like the Irish of old: “would yer be lookin’ for a foight, then?”
Here is my dream.
“I have a dream that one day this nation” will be the first people in world history to turn politics into sport.
Because? Because:
Humans no longer live by defending their food growing territory from invasion.
Humans are social animals that look after each other and fix things and make things and build cities and see the USA in a Chevrolet and help the poor and the helpless without government force.
Humans invented the market economy and it works.
Humans have tried socialism and it doesn’t work.
Humans invented shame to keep most bad actors in check.
Humans invented law to help negotiate differences short of violence.
Humans invented police to put the vigilantes out of business.
But the fact is that, like the Jets and the Sharks, young men like a bit of a rumble, and God invented sport to help them cool their jets.
I say that the man who invents the game of Politics as Sport deserves to be remembered as the GOAT of the World, celebrated from pole to pole and shore to shore. Maybe all we need to do is sit teenage boys down to Minecraft for 10 hours a day until they get war out of their system.
And as for the fools and knaves that don’t get with the new program, the Mikado suggests something with boiling oil in it.
| Wed, 04 Nov 2026 22:43:15 GMT |
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Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
Hayek's "Knowledge Problem": Hayek argues that efficient economic planning is impossible for a central authority because necessary information -- dispersed, subjective, and local knowledge -- cannot be concentrated in one mind.
Every social movement will continue until it reaches absurdity — Ward Clark
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: Communism: An Analysis
