Money Is Not Wealth: Temporary - By A.R. Miller
MONEY IS NOT WEALTH
Temporary Bucket (file
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David French: Trump
Is No Longer the Most-Important American. (8-min.
podcast; New York Times, via Archive.Today;
May 11, 2025)
President Trump is no longer the most important American in the
world.
He is certainly the most powerful, at least for three more years,
but power is only one measure of importance. On
Thursday, a Chicago native and Villanova University graduate named Robert
Prevost supplanted Trump. He became the first American
pope, taking the name Leo XIV.
And it happened at exactly the right time.
David Nasaw: Elon
Musk Thought He Could Break History. Instead It Broke Him.
(6-min. podcast; New York Times, via Archive.Today;
May 11, 2025)
The partnership between the president and the richest man in the
world is coming to an end. There is one clear loser in the
breakup of this affair, and it is Elon Musk.
He fell from grace as effortlessly as he rose. Like a dime-store
Icarus, he took too many chances, never understood the risks and
flew too close to the sun. Wrapped in the halo of his social-media
super-stardom, he was blinded to the reality of his circumstances
until it was too late.
Mr. Musk has already inked several lucrative federal contracts and
could get far more, but he leaves Washington with his reputation as
a genius jack-of-all-trades - a reputation he relied on to boost his
company's stock prices and win investors for his ambitious
adventures - severely damaged. Once likened to the Marvel superhero
Tony Stark, he is becoming increasingly unpopular. Many formerly
proud owners of his Tesla electric cars are trading them in or
pasting apologies on their bumpers. Sales have plummeted.
Mr. Musk is hardly the first wealthy businessman to decamp to
Washington: The Gilded Age millionaires, top hats in hand,
focused on currying favor with the Senate, where laws
were made and tariffs determined. With the collapse of the economy,
the New Deal and the coming of a world war, the White House
began to play a significantly-larger role in directing the
economy, and the businessmen paid it more attention. Dozens of
them descended on the capital; others joined the cabinet. No
matter when or in what position they served, however, they
played by Washington's rules, taking on well-defined,
limited responsibilities and, for the most part, staying out of
public view.
Mr. Musk broke with that tradition. Nobody was going
to shut him up or rein him in. ... He and his Department of
Government Efficiency deputies spread chaos through Washington,
locking staff members out of computer systems, gaining access to
personal data on private citizens and identifying government
employees they deemed expendable.
At first, President Trump appeared to endorse every cost-cutting
move by his unorthodox adviser, declaring on social media that he
and his cabinet were "EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON". But Mr. Musk
then violated the cardinal rule of Trumpland by daring to
criticize the president's policies and appointees - not just
once or twice, but with remarkable consistency.
He jumped on his X platform to deride a White House
proclamation that Sam Altman, the top artificial intelligence
executive and his archrival, and others were going to invest
$100-Billion in data centers and in generating the electricity
required to power A.I. programs. Mr. Musk proclaimed in an interview
that Social Security was "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time",
ignoring the fact that the president had vowed not to cut such
spending. He even took issue with Mr. Trump's triumphant "Liberation
Day" announcement of sweeping new tariffs.
His bullying and lack of remorse as he slashed federal spending and
dismissed tens of thousands of government employees eroded his
popularity. He infuriated cabinet members by criticizing them in
public, trespassing on their authority and refusing to recognize the
White House chain of command.
Fittingly, his reign was effectively brought to an end on April
Fools' Day, when the $20-Million he donated to elect a Trump-backed
Republican to an open State Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin
backfired, propelling more Democrats than Republicans to the polls.
It was no longer possible to overlook the reality that the richest
man in the world had become a political liability. The day after the
Wisconsin debacle, Politico reported that the president had "told
his inner circle" that Mr. Musk would be "stepping back in the
coming weeks from his current role". In mid-April, Mr. Trump
signaled his dwindling regard for Mr. Musk, by replacing his choice
for I.R.S. acting commissioner with the candidate favored by
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
On April 22, Mr. Musk announced that he was cutting back on his
government work so he could spend more time at Tesla, which by then
was in so much trouble, reports emerged that the board was
considering replacing him as chief executive. (The company denied
the assertion.) The reality that hit Wisconsin's polls hit his car
company even harder: Sales dropped 20% in the first quarter of 2025
compared with the year before; profits dropped by 70%. The flashy,
impractical Cybertruck he had championed proved a flop. In the
meantime, Tesla is rapidly losing market share to the Chinese
automaker BYD and other established carmakers.
That's not to say Mr. Musk's other business interests - particularly
his rocket-launch company, SpaceX, and his satellite unit, Starlink
- are suffering. SpaceX is poised to gain billions of dollars from
government contracts. The Trump administration has already cleared
the way for Starlink to be eligible for the government’s $42-Billion
rural-broadband push and even encouraged other nations eager to
reduce U.S. tariffs to do business with Starlink. But such
promotions would most likely have been the case had Mr. Musk not
joined Mr. Trump's administration.
The lesson to be learned here is that there is no room in the
American system of government for an un-elected co-president.
While elections often yield results we do not expect or desire, we
have long proved to be better off with a government composed of
elected officials and senior appointments that have gone
through the constitutionally-mandated confirmation process.
Mr. Musk thought he could be an exception. And that was his
undoing.
Mira Rojanasakul: Across
America, Big Cities Are Sinking. Here's Why. (New
York Times, via Archive.Today; May 8, 2025)
A major reason is too much groundwater is being pumped out,
new research shows, threatening buildings and infrastructure
nationwide.
A new analysis of America's 28 largest population centers
found that all but three are sinking overall, and in many
cases significantly.
Several of the most affected areas are in Texas, particularly around
Fort Worth and Houston. But the problem is nationwide, affecting
cities as scattered as Seattle, Detroit and Charlotte, N.C.
The sinking of land, also called subsidence, can worsen the effects
of sea-level rise, intensify flooding and strain the very
foundations of urban infrastructure.
The new research, published in the scientific journal Nature Cities,
built on previous work using satellite measurements to paint a
detailed picture of rising and falling land. It also closely
examined the connection between changes in land elevation and
changes in groundwater, using data from individual monitoring wells.
Water pumped from wells isn’t something that people think about
often. “You just turn on your tap, do what you need to do, and you
go on your way,” said Leonard Ohenhen, a researcher at Columbia
University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and lead author of the
study.
But extracting more water than can be replenished “can have a direct
relationship with what happens on the surface,” he said. “You can
cause the ground to sink significantly."
A 2023 New York Times investigation found that unsustainable pumping
of water from underground aquifers can be a major cause of sinking
land.
Other factors also influence land elevation. For example, a vast
expanse of bedrock beneath parts of the country, pressed downward by
enormous glaciers during the last ice age, is slowly rebounding back
into place. But over time it creates a sort of see-saw effect that
today is adding 1 to 2 millimeters per year to subsidence rates in
much of the northern United States.
Texas draws immense amounts of groundwater for agriculture, industry
and the public water supply. The extraction of oil and gas,
including the growing use of “monster fracks,” can also cause the
land surface to slump.
Climate change can worsen the issue. Hotter temperatures and more
extreme droughts, particularly in the West, dry out soil, streams
and reservoirs, leading people to pump larger quantities of
freshwater from underground.
Americans have also been moving in droves to some of the hottest and
driest parts of the country. In the past few decades, metro areas in
Texas have ballooned in population and sprawl.
Groundwater depletion was the main cause of subsidence in Houston
between the 1950s and 70s, when nearly all water usage came from the
ground, said Bob Wang, a professor of geophysics at the University
of Houston. Cracked roads and buildings were a common sight.
Several subsidence-management districts were established in the area
to address the issue. Among other things, groundwater use was
reduced and instead more water was taken from surface-water sources
such as rivers. Subsidence has since slowed in the city center.
However, when new neighborhoods developed to support growing
populations, the most affordable source of water was often what
people could pump from below.
Julia Angwin: "This
Is What We Were Always Scared of": DOGE Is Building a
Surveillance State. (7-min.
podcast; New York Times, via Archive.Today; April 30, 2025)
Elon Musk may be stepping back from running the so-called
Department of Government Efficiency, but his legacy there is
already secured. DOGE is assembling a sprawling domestic
surveillance system for the Trump administration - the likes of
which we have never seen in the United States.
President Trump could soon have the tools to satisfy his many
grievances by swiftly locating compromising information about
his political opponents or anyone who simply annoys him.
The administration has already declared that it plans to comb
through tax records to find the addresses of immigrants it is
investigating - a plan so morally and legally challenged, it
prompted several top I.R.S. officials to quit in protest. Some
federal workers have been told that DOGE is using artificial
intelligence to sift through their communications to identify people
who harbor anti-Musk or -Trump sentiment (and presumably punish or
fire them).
What this amounts to is a stunningly fast reversal of our
long history of siloing government data to prevent its misuse.
In their first 100 days, Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump have knocked
down the barriers that were intended to prevent them from
creating dossiers on every U.S. resident. Now they seem to
be building a defining feature of many authoritarian regimes:
comprehensive files on everyone so they can punish those who
protest.
"This is what we were always scared of", said Kevin
Bankston, a longtime civil-liberties lawyer and a senior adviser
o n A.I. governance at the Center
for Democracy & Technology, a policy and civil-rights
organization. "The infrastructure for turnkey totalitarianism
is there, for an administration willing to break the law."
PoliticsJOE: Anne
Applebaum: Donald Trump Has Re-invented Reality.
(12-min. YouTube video; January 1, 2026)
This year we had Anne Applebaum in the studio to discuss the ideas
in her book "Autocracy Inc." During the conversation,
Anne went into great depth about the MAGA movement's
dismantling of democracy while in power, and how it has
moved to question the very basis of fact.
NEW: David Frum Show: Anne
Applebaum: The Most-Corrupt Presidency in American History
(from 10-min. to 54-min., in 62-min. video; The Atlantic;
May 7, 2025)
In this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic's David
Frum reflects on the 80th anniversary of the end of World
War II in Europe, examining how post-war
reconciliation - not battlefield triumph - became
America's true finest hour. He contrasts that legacy
with Donald Trump's recent bombastic Victory Day
statement, urging a re-dedication to the values that
built a more peaceful world.
David is then joined by The Atlantic's Anne
Applebaum (from 10-min. to 54-min. in the 62-min. video)
to discuss the astonishing and brazen corruption of the Trump
presidency, how authoritarian regimes seek to break institutions,
and the hardship of losing friendships to politics.
Finally, David answers listener questions on:
- fostering open-minded political dialogue among polarized
high-school students,
- why America hasn't developed a strong worker-based political
movement like its European counterparts,
- how to think about class in modern U.S. politics,
- the risk of data suppression under the Trump administration,
and
- reflects on whether his long-held conservative values still
belong to the political right.
NEW: Irineo Cabreros and Aatish Bhatia: Eight
Charts That Sum Up Trump's First 100 Days (data
and graphs; New York Times, via Archive.Today; April 29, 2025)
The first 100 days of Donald J. Trump's second
presidency have been a study of extremes,
especially when compared with the start of presidential terms over
the last century.
Compared with other modern presidents, he has:
- signed the most executive orders in this period,
- collected the most tariffs and
- had the most lawsuits filed against him.
- Markets have slumped,
- as have his approval ratings.
Below are eight ways Mr. Trump's first 100 days stand out:
1. He issued more executive orders than any modern
president.
2. … and was sued in federal court more, too.
3. Revenue from tariffs increased.
4. The dollar plunged.
5. Markets fell, too.
6. The State Department was quiet.
7. Federal funding for medical research slowed.
8. Trump went from being popular to unpopular.
Although Mr. Trump won the 2024 election only narrowly, he
entered office with important strengths and opportunities.
Voters said they trusted him to handle issues like the economy,
immigration and energy. On each of these issues, the new president
had a chance to find public backing for his conservative agenda.
One hundred days into his second term, Mr. Trump's approval
rating is underwater. Polls show that he has managed to
turn long-term strengths on the economy and immigration into
weaknesses.
[For more data and graphs, click above.]
NEW: Dominik Presl: Anne
Applebaum: Why Do MAGA Republicans Hate Europe So
Much? (10-min.
YouTube clip, or full video for patreons; Decoding
Geopolitics Podcast,
4 months ago
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26:46
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25:50
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NEW: Bob Rankin: Tech-Support
Rage: Is It Intentional?
(Ask Bob Rankin; August 15, 2022)
If you own any modern appliance or electronic gadget, you've
probably suffered the dreaded agony of calling for "Tech Support".
Even the most even-tempered human quickly experiences alarming
symptoms: sharply increased blood pressure, trembling fingers,
reddening face, rising voice, and colorful language. Is it
possible that tech-support services are in fact *designed*
to elicit such a response from you? Read on for the full
story...
NEW: The Top 20 - New Posts
In Ask Bob Rankin
- Bob Rankin, 2024
Global Weirding Is Here.
- Thomas L. Friedman (New York Times, February 17, 2010)
NEW: The Lake Book: A Handbook For
Lake Protection (4th Ed.; Maine Lakes,
2022)
[Excellent, and free to share. Would that I had this to share,
when I was the Executive Director of the Lake Cochituate Watershed Association (LCWA)!]
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