Victor C. Bolles
April 7, 2025
Today we are going to continue to talk about the impact of Donald Trump’s new tariff regime on the US and world economy. Or in this case, the lack of impact. Because there is a reason that President Trump’s tariff policies will not recreate the blue-collar manufacturing paradise that existed in the 1950s. And included in this commentary is a chapter from my book, Edifice of Trust (published in 2016), that illustrates that the issues being raised right now are not new and will not be solved by magic bullets but will require a lot of hard work by all of us.
Unintended (but not Unexpected) Consequences
Victor C. Bolles
April 1, 2025
Commentators are pointing out all the obvious unintended consequences of President Trump’s tariff plan which he plans to announce on April 2nd, Liberation Day. But there may be other consequences in places you haven’t looked. In this commentary we look at the political consequences of a protectionist import substitution regime.
Quote from the commentary:
But there is one more major consequence of protectionist import substitution schemes such as President Trump is proposing – the political impact. Import substitution puts the control of the economy into the hands of government, just as much as socialist central planning.
The Presumptuousness of Academia
Victor C. Bolles
March 20, 2025
Academics in the ivory tower have an affinity for socialism because they presume, based on their academic qualifications, that they will be at the pinnacle of power in such a society. They are wrong! In this commentary we will look at where the real power lies.
Quote from the commentary:
“It is not the best and brightest that run socialist societies. It is not the most public spirited people that run socialist societies. It is the most power hungry that run socialist societies.”
Victor C. Bolles
March 14, 2025
Do punitive tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China have any chance of slowing the flow of fentanyl and other drugs into the US? Nothing else has worked. But President Trump’s plan ignores one major factor. The insatiable desire of Americans for drugs, even at the risk of their own lives. In this commentary we look at the likely outcomes of this strategy and take a peek at the underlying motivations for punitive tariffs.
Quote from the commentary:
“One must be abysmally stupid or horrifically oblivious to take an unknown drug that could kill you. The DEA reports that half of the pills it tested contained deadly amounts of fentanyl. Unfortunately, abysmally stupid and horrifically oblivious seems to describe a huge swath of our population especially the young.”
Victor C. Bolles
May 7, 2025
Antifragile is a concept created by Nassim Taleb, author of the Black Swan, to describe the ability to gain and prosper amid confusion and disorder. Certain people thrive in this environment and President Trump is a prime example of this ability. In this commentary we discuss how antifragility is this secret sauce that contributes to America’s greatness.
Quote from the commentary:
But month after month of chaotic activity creating ever greater uncertainty and fear will eventually become unbearable. President Trump may be as happy as Brer Rabbit in the Briar Patch amidst all this chaos and disruption but most everybody else hates it. The American people are more antifragile than any other people in the world, but they have their limits.
Victor C. Bolles
March 4, 2025
Why in the world would two world leaders invite reporters into a meeting to negotiate a vital agreement to end the war on Ukraine. President Zelensky was about as eager to sign that agreement as a tienda owner on the lower east side agreeing to pay some thug for protection against gangs (of which the thug was a member).In this commentary we look at the underlying causes why this meeting was such a disaster.
Quote from the commentary:
President Zelenskyy tried to convince President Trump that Putin could not be trusted. He explained how Putin had repeatedly broken agreements (25 times he said during the meeting). Trump clearly thought he could control Putin. “I don't worry about security,” he said. But Zelenskyy could not afford to be so nonchalant about security, his country and his people were at risk.
Victor C. Bolles
February 25, 2025
After Hoover Institute fellow Niall Ferguson criticized the Trump administration’s tactics in negotiating a peace agreement for the war in Ukraine, Vice President JD Vance called Ferguson’s critique moralistic garbage and accused Mr. Ferguson of being a globalist, apparently the lowest of the low in the MAGA world. In this commentary we try to understand the real reason for Mr. Vance’s heated response.
Quote form the Commentary:
Mr. Piatov wrote that Mr. Vance and Elon Musk (an AfD supporter) may not realize that AfD leader Alice Weidel “recently wrote an op-ed referring to Germans as “slaves” of the U.S., offering a glimpse into the party’s deeply anti-Western ideology.” But I disagree. I think Mr. Vance not only understands AfD’s anti-Western ideology but shares it.
Victor C. Bolles
February 21, 2025
Today we are going to take a look at how economies function when domestic companies are protected by high tariffs and how this system called import substitution ripples through the lives of people on Main Street and well as Wall Street. When it comes to import substitution I speak from experience.
Quote from the commentary:
“So the only way to maximize profits in an import substitution economy is not to build the better mousetrap but to influence government. Tariffs to protect your products from competition. Carve-outs to protect your supply lines. Import substitution is rife with crony capitalism.”
Victor C. Bolles
February 14, 2025
President Trump is constantly threatening to impose tariffs on countries that export more goods and services to the United States than they buy from us creating a trade deficit. He believes that a trade deficit is losing big time. But Mr. Trump’s economic thinking is old fashioned and wrong-headed, like thinking that foreign countries pay for tariffs. In this commentary we look at why trade deficits are a good thing for the United States.
Quote from the commentary:
“The dollar is one of the greatest assets that the United States has as long as it is the world’s reserve currency. Almost all international transactions are paid for in dollars. When the US applies financial sanctions on adversaries it cripples their economies. Sanctions on Russia are crippling its war effort against Ukraine. Iran was near financial collapse due to US sanctions until the Biden administration lifted those sanctions.”
Victor C. Bolles
February 3, 2025
Following up on my previous commentary about how President Trump views fairness and how he thinks America has been treated unfairly, we investigate the implications of what he intends to do and include an update on his recent actions on tariffs.
Quote from the commentary:
Under mercantilism exports were encouraged and imports discouraged. Higher value exports from great powers to its colonies concentrated wealth in the mother countries and kept the colonies poor. Mercantilism assumes the economy is a zero sum game made up of winners and losers.
Victor C. Bolles
January 30, 2025
President Trump complained at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the United States is treated very unfairly by the rest of the world. Everyone wants to be treated fairly but not everyone agrees as to what is fair. But the real problem of fairness is that while it does not make good government policy it makes great politics. In this commentary we look at ways to build an acceptable consensus on policies rather than supposedly fair policies.
Quote from the Commentary:
Fairness is not a good standard on which to base public policy. Any “fair” policy will make some people very happy and some other people very unhappy. That may not matter in a dictatorship or a monarchy where people just have to follow the rules whether they like them or not. But in a democracy that is a problem.
Victor C. Bolles
January 20, 2025
Referring to the infamous Nicaraguan dictator Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." It appears that lame duck President Biden applies the same type of differentiation to oligarchs circling around the presidency. In this last commentary about the Biden Administration we show how the dire warnings of his farewell address are refuted by his own actions.
Quote from the commentary:
“Of course, the oligarchs Mr. Biden is talking about are the billionaires trekking to Mar-a-Lago seeking an audience with President-elect Donald Trump as compared to the oligarch that was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the lame-duck president a few weeks earlier. Mainstream media takes Mr. Biden’s warning seriously but fails to note the irony of the medal to the billionaire, George Soros.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 14, 2025
When one of our myriad electronic devices isn’t functioning the way we think it should, we often shut it down and then restart the device to reboot the system. More often than not that solves our problem. I think that the 62% of Americans that believe the US is on the wrong path (according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls) would agree that America needs a reboot. The incoming Trump administrations is planning to make some big changes in Washington. In this commentary we discuss whether Mr. Trump is planning a reboot or something more drastic.
Quote from the commentary:
“2025 will be very different from 2017. Back then Mr. Trump knew very little about how the levers of power worked in Washington. He intended to drain the swamp but what little drainage he eventually got was quickly refilled when his successor, Joe Biden, took office.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 2, 2025
Once again, I am publishing my list of the urgent priorities confronting our nation, most of which have been unmet and consistently ignored by both Democratic and Republican politicians. But in 2025 we will have a new Trump administration that is vowing to change how things are done in Washington. One can only hope.
Quote for the Commentary:
“Achieving these goals (or at least making a good start toward achieving these goals since it will be many years before we reap the ultimate benefits) will not erase the stain of January 6th from Donald Trump’s legacy, but it would bury that infamous deed under a mountain of worthy achievements.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 9, 2024
Once again, while our so-called political leaders are completely absorbed by their campaigns for reelection, they ignore the urgent national priorities that need to be addressed, or worse, use those issues as political levers to galvanize their base at the expense of the American people. In this commentary we revisit those priorities that have become even more urgent as we enter a tumultuous election year.
Quote for the Commentary:
“Critics on the left will moan that meritocracy would worsen inequality. But equality of outcomes in education would mean driving all children down to the lowest common denominator (which you would understand unless you had been taught the new “equitable” math). But meritocracy will provide equality of opportunity. In fact, you cannot have equality of opportunity without meritocracy.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 12, 2023
Last year I published a commentary (Urgent Priorities, December 30, 2021) on the urgent priorities that America had to confront in the year 2022. Since many of those priorities were addressed very ineffectively or were not addressed at all, I was tempted to simply republish that commentary again this year. But the world is dynamic, and conditions change so I felt that America’s urgent priorities had to be updated to reflect those changes. In this commentary we will discuss the unfinished business of 2022 and the priorities of 2023 and beyond.
Quote from the Commentary:
“There are priorities that affect all Americans, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, whatever. We live in a complex and dangerous world. While our country is rich and powerful, it is not invulnerable. We cannot ignore the events happening around us and we need to be able to influence those events or be prepared to suffer the consequences.”
