Which countries are the central nodes of the global trade network? While China is currently the world’s largest trading partner, this hasn’t always been the case.

This series of graphics by Anders Sundell outlines the history of the world’s biggest trade hubs, showing how the landscape has evolved since 1960. Using netgraphs, each visual connects countries to their primary trading partner, using data that includes both imports and exports.

When interest rates are kept extremely low, people can afford to take on more debt, because the monthly payments cost less. As a result, sellers increase their prices.

This is one of the reasons the real estate market crashed so hard in 2008. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Fed kept interest rates low, encouraging people to take on higher-than-usual levels of debt, especially in the real estate market. //

Rather than learn its lesson from the 2008 crash, the Fed doubled down on this failed strategy, and then tripled down during the Covid-19 response. Congress and the White House were all too willing to cheer the Fed on, since lower interest rates have helped them expand government programs without begging foreign governments to finance U.S. debt.

As a result of these policies, a shockingly large price bubble appears to have formed in the real estate market. The average sales price of a home in the fourth quarter of 2021 was $477,900, compared to $403,900 in the fourth quarter of 2020 and $384,600 in the fourth quarter of 2019. That’s a $93,300 increase in just two years, by far the biggest increase ever recorded in just 24 months. //

However, there is a chance that housing prices will not drop, or only drop minimally. If the Fed decides to continue to keep interest rates low, despite the ongoing inflation crisis, it might prevent a real estate crash the size and scale of the one discussed above. It will come at a cost, though — more inflation, even bigger market distortions, and perhaps the collapse of the dollar.

Regardless of what the Fed does in the short term, it’s clear that America’s disastrous monetary-policy chickens are coming home to roost. Prepare accordingly.

At the time most of the French gold was in Paris, in the largest safe in the world, “La Souterraine” (The Underground). A room 30m (100 ft) underground, an area of 11 000 m² (118,403.01 ft²), supported by 658 pillars, closed by a turret of steel and concret weighing 130 t.

The rest was scattered through the 200 branches of the Banque de France.

In 1932, while most of Europe watched with worry the situation unfold in Germany, France decided to move the gold far from its eastern and southern borders. In the first months of the year, 148 branches of the BdF are emptied and 275 t of gold were moved. //

After the Anglo-French troops got pushed back from Dakar by Vichy’s troops, it was decided to send the 1100 t of gold 900 km inside the continent in Kayes. Because they wanted more than just the ship.

After that, it stayed roughly the same, they had to sacrifice the Belgian gold to satisfy the invader, who promptly smelted it and sent it to Switzerland to pay for its weapons, and also to keep it clean, if you see what I mean. But they had to wait for 2 years before getting all of it, the Banque de France didn’t want to do it, but was forced to act so they took the slowest route possible.

After the War, France used its own reserve to replace the Belgian gold.

And in all that movement, do you know how much gold was lost?

395 kg. Yep that’s kilograms.

Only 0,016% of the 2500 t of gold went missing.

And all that gold helped the reconstruction, in the two years before the Marshall Plan went in action.

On February 1, the Associated Press (AP) published a widely disseminated article claiming that minority women “bear the brunt” of pro-life laws restricting abortion. Here’s a fact-check of this article’s many false and misleading claims.

https://www.chron.com/news/article/Minority-women-most-affected-if-abortion-is-16821676.php //

Minority women ask for support, and abortion peddlers — bolstered by their mainstream media allies — respond, No, you need abortion. One is hard-pressed to find a better example of modern racism than that. The “soft bigotry of low expectations” doesn’t feel very soft to the black child as he’s violently evacuated from his impoverished mother’s womb.

The oldest pub in England, which may be as much as 1,229 years old, has been forced to close down due to COVID-19 hardships.

According to The Washington Post, “the pandemic and the government’s public health restrictions squeezed [Christo Tofalli’s] business until he couldn’t meet its financial obligations.”

Tofalli took over the lease of the pub in 2012. //

The first brick of the pub was laid as early as 793 A.D. in St. Albans, England, “near the ruins of an ancient Roman city well before the United Kingdom was formed.”

Closure due to COVID-19 hardships will be made more painful when we consider the other natural disasters the pub has lived through, including famines (1235, 1315-1317, 1623-1624, 1740-1741, 1816, 1845-1849), bubonic plague (1347-1350, 1563, 1592-93, 1603, 1625, 1665-1666), influenza pandemics and epidemics (1557, 1729, 1775-1776, 1836-1837, 1847-1848, 1889-1890, 1918, 1957-1958, 1968-1970, 2009-2010), cholera (1831-1833, 1848-1854, 1865-1873), smallpox (1837-1840, 1870-1875), HIV/AIDS (1979-present), as well as countless winter storms and heat waves.

Not only that, the pub also saw over 1,000 years of conflict, including the Civil War, two World Wars, and the American Revolutionary War.

The pub has also survived multiple economic recessions and depressions, including the Great Slump of 1430-1490, the Long Depression of 1873-1896, the Great Depression of 1930-1931, and the Great Recession of 2008-2009.

And after over a millennia in business, it was COVID-19 which brought the pub to its knees.

Biden claims his spending bills will “reduce inflation.”

“Biden’s wrong,” Henderson responds. “There’s no economic theory that says when the government spends a huge amount more money, prices fall.”

Some people want government to stop inflation by imposing price controls.

That would be “horrible,” says Henderson.

Price controls were tried before. In 1971, President Richard Nixon ordered a freeze on all prices.

It sounded reasonable. Too much inflation? Our intuition tells us that government can fix that with a price freeze. But “that’s where people’s intuition goes wrong,” says Henderson.

Wrong because prices are not just money; they are also information.

“Prices are signals … that guide people,” explains Henderson. “Mess that up, you’ve really messed up the economy.”

Price changes tell buyers what to avoid and sellers what to produce. When COVID-19 hit, the price of face masks rose sharply. Immediately, producers made more. New Balance switched from making footwear to making masks.

Flexible pricing gets suppliers to produce what people really need. //

“Price controls are like saying it’s really cold and I’m going to solve that by breaking the thermometer,” says Henderson. “It’s actually worse than that because breaking the thermometer doesn’t reduce the temperature, whereas price controls cause actual shortages!”

Shortages typically lead to higher prices, and this is exactly what happened here as well. As a result, the cost of solar panels, wind turbines, and EV batteries started climbing—a development that virtually no renewable energy forecaster had anticipated.

Bloomberg reported this month that solar panel prices had surged by more than 50 percent in the past 12 months alone. The price of wind turbines is up 13 percent and battery prices are rising for the first time ever, the report noted. //

That lending problem for the mining industry as well as oversupply in some segments of the metals market led to lower investments in new mines in recent years. That added to an already existing problem of falling ore grades: now, a miner needs to dig out a lot more ore to find the same amount of copper, for instance, than they had to 20 years ago.

This means that the extraction of a ton of copper has become costlier even without the rising demand. With the rising demand projections, the outlook for copper and other critical metals is definitely bullish. But a bullish outlook for copper means higher prices for windmills and solar farms, and for EVs as well.

Jacki Kotkiewicz
@jackikotkiewicz
This is the HIGHEST inflation we've seen in OVER 39 YEARS #Bidenflation

Gas: +49.6% since last year
Bacon: +18.6%
Eggs: +11.1%
Chicken: +10.4%
Fresh Fish: +10.2%
Shoes: +6%
Dresses: +8%
Cigarettes: +9.6%
Furniture: +13.8%
Used Cars & Trucks: +37.3%
Car & Truck Rentals: +36%
8:47 AM · Jan 12, 2022

Lastly, it should be mentioned that the Biden administration actually changed the calculation for inflation. In other words, it’s likely that 7 percent number is watered down, making the comparison to 1982 apples to oranges. That’s how bad things are.

The CBO released another estimate that showed the true cost of the BBB bill after all the “temporary” programs in it are extended. That’s been the Democrat game. Just like with Obamacare, the Democrats wanted the BBB bill to be scored with more years of funding than programs. But that’s not how things work in the real world. So what’s the real number? You may want to grab a towel because it’s going to make your eyes water

Ryan Struyk
@ryanstruyk
·
Dec 10, 2021
CBO finds that, if the child tax credit, child care provisions, SALT deduction, health insurance subsidies and more in Build Back Better were made permanent instead of for limited timeline, the bill would add $3.0 trillion to the debt over next decade, instead of $0.2 trillion.
U.S. CBO
@USCBO
CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation project the budgetary effects, including the effects on interest costs, of a modified version of H.R. 5376, the Build Back Better Act, that would make various policies permanent rather than temporary. https://cbo.gov/publication/57673
Ryan Struyk
@ryanstruyk
President Biden two weeks ago on possible BBB extensions: "Here is what those critics are not telling you. They’re not telling you that I’ve committed to paying for every single program that extended, if any are, in future legislation, whether that’s for a day or a decade."
11:18 AM · Dec 10, 2021

The Proof Is in the Pudding: IRS Data Show Trump’s Tax Cuts Benefited Middle- and Lower-Income Earners More Than the Wealthy

Four years after President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) into law, IRS data prove the historic legislation benefited those in the working- and middle-classes more than the wealthy.

Of course, this fact belies the left’s relentless lies about TCJA being a massive tax cut for the ultra-wealthy while ripping off hard-working Americans. //

“IRS data further show that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act appeared to have a strong upward effect on economic mobility. The number of filers with an adjusted gross income of $1 to $25,000 decreased by more than 2 million in just one year, while the number of households reporting incomes higher than $25,000 increased in every income bracket.” //

“The IRS data also revealed that higher-income earners paid an even larger share of the total tax burden in 2018 than they did in 2017, indicating that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act may have made the tax code slightly more progressive,” Haskins writes.

The proof is in the proverbial pudding: “In 2017, filers earning $500,000 or more paid 38.9 percent of all personal income tax revenues. In 2018, the same income bracket paid 41.5 percent of total income tax revenues.”

Musk went on to say that the government should act as a referee and not a player on the field, adding that government should just get out of the way and not impede progress. Moreover, the rules and regulations they impart don’t just go away, making it harder for nations to advance.

Many of these rules stagnate as the situations around their creation change, making getting rid of them important according to Musk.

“Rules and regulations are immortal,” he said. “They don’t die. The vast majority of rules and regulations live forever… there’s not really an effective garbage collection system for removing rules and regulations, so this hardens the arteries of civilization where you are able to do less and less over time.” //

Musk was asked about whether or not he supports the subsidies being thrown toward electric vehicles.

“We don’t. So there’s no need for supporting a charging network. I would delete it. Delete. I’m literally saying get rid of all subsidies. I’m literally saying get rid of all subsidies,” he said.

It is a rare instance when I almost entirely agree with anything in the Big Culture-Big Media outlet The Atlantic. But recently they published this….

America’s Gambling Addiction Is Metastasizing:

“When life feels this precarious, it’s only natural to roll the dice on just about everything.” //

“The chief benefit is that there’s a lot of money to be made, for governments and businesses both. The primary cost is that many unlucky and vulnerable people are destroyed.

“American society has (now) accepted that trade-off—big money now for social crisis later—on any number of fronts: in its banking sector, in its housing markets, in its health-care industry. The rise of gambling is simply one example of our boundless desire for risk.” //

So why not gamble your money? It appears to be the only way you can actually accrue wealth. In a country whose institutions are actively destroying your money — and corruptly working with others to steal it.

The only flaw in the article? Its apparent attack on short-term bank loans to poor people.

Marche doesn’t specifically mention the utter corruption of the 2008 housing crisis, but it fits right in with the theme he’s developed.

That crisis was caused by Big Government and Big Banks colluding to steal money out of the home mortgage market by throwing trillions of dollars at poor people everyone knew couldn’t pay it back. //

Ninja loans are another name for NINA which stands for no income, no assets….”

This was Big Banks gambling trillions of dollars — of our money — on nigh guaranteed losers, with Big Government rigging the system — so the Big Banks’ wins were guaranteed, and its losses outsourced to US.

Big Banks paid themselves obscene fees on each awful loan they made. Until it destroyed the home mortgage market — and with it the global economy.

At which point Big Government left US to die — and gave the Big Banks trillions of our dollars. Which the Big Banks immediately used to give themselves huge bonuses as reward for royally screwing US.

The lesson that should have been gleaned from this mess is: If poor people with bad credit want to borrow money, the loan terms should reflect the risk posed.

Which this article bizarrely criticizes:

“…(C)redit lines with 23 percent APR….”

These are actually short-term loan rates. If you’re poor and out of money on Tuesday — they’ll loan you money until payday Friday.

It’s a credit line for poor people. Unlike the idiotic housing crisis loans – these have an interest rate that accurately reflects the risk of lending to poor people. It’s the marketplace — accurately reflecting the marketplace.

These loans — and the people who take them — have NOTHING AT ALL to do with our society’s descent into a gambling ethos culture.

These people aren’t borrowing this money to bet the ponies. They are borrowing it to fix their car so they can keep getting to work.

These loans are lifelines for the people who take them. And they are often the only lifelines they are offered. //

jeffs
an hour ago
Americans’ greater acceptance of — and penchant for
Fill in the blank with any moral degradation from divorce to abortion to shacking up to slothfulness to the alphabet soup agenda, et. al.

Breitbart was correct but forgot culture is downstream of faith and religion; the Christian faith. Churches, pastors, denominations are ultimately to blame for our current judgment. God has handed us over to our vices which will consume us.

This is why there is no political answer to the problems plaguing our Nation.

Here’s an exceedingly stupid take on Communist China using subsidies to eviscerate the US economy.

China’s Export Subsidies Are a Gift:

“(We should be) making a beeline to the nearest Hallmark store to buy thank you cards to send to the Chinese government for the subsidies it provides to Chinese exporters….”

This was published just this past September. After almost two years of the global lockdown and more than six months of the all-encompassing US supply chain shortage caused by just one China (and US)-subsidized Chinese export — the Coronavirus. //

And the companies China didn’t suck out of America? They’re buying them right here in the US. Without any opposition from the officials we elect — but they own.

Why Are We Letting China Buy American Companies?

The Biggest American Companies Now Owned by the Chinese

Ten Iconic American Companies Owned by Chinese Investors

China Is Buying Up American Farms

How China Acquires ‘The Crown Jewels’ of U.S. Technology

Ah yes: The ever-increasingly dominant Digital Economy.

As we’ve seen, US Big Tech companies refuse to work with our government but are more than happy to work with China’s Communist government. But it goes way beyond just these “edge” sell-outs.

The core businesses that make the Digital Economy possible? Are one way or another almost entirely dominated by China.

Rare Earth Metals Are Critical to Tech Sector and China Dominates Market

China Dominates Global Coal Production

How China Is Dominating Artificial Intelligence

Three Reasons Why China Is the Global Drones Leader

But even before China can dominate all of these portions of the Digital Economy? They must dominate semiconductor production. Semiconductor “chips” are the digital brains behind everything technological. So of course China dominates chip production too.

China Semiconductor Imports Surge to All-Time High Amid Global Chip Shortage

Modern Infrastructure Problem: A Lack of Domestic Semiconductor Production

Why Fewer Chips Say ‘Made in the U.S.A.’:

“In 1990, the U.S. and Europe produced more than three-quarters of the world’s semiconductors. Now, they produce less than a quarter. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China have risen to squeeze out the U.S. and Europe. And China is on pace to become the world’s largest chip producer by 2030.” //

Beating Dead Horses: Forget ‘Build Back Better’ and Get Bipartisan Already

Congress has wasted many months myopically fixated on this monstrosity. Which has now created a year-end legislative log jam. Which has led to this….

Congress’ Chip-Funding Pause Raises Alarms:

“Despite bipartisan support in the Senate, a plea by the Commerce Secretary and growing desperation from industry officials, Congress still can’t get a key bill that funds the U.S. chip business over the finish line.”

The CHIPS bill should be treated as “must-pass” legislation.

Because it is must-pass legislation.

If not for international tennis stars and the World Tennis Association’s courage, we probably would never see Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai again. //

The [World Tennis Association's] CEO and stars have taught us several valuable lessons. First, China doesn’t have all the leverage, as some think. Too often, businesses, organizations, and well-known individuals in the west are unwilling to stand up to China because they believe nothing will happen because China has all the leverage. But the west has many things that China wants: western markets, financial systems, natural resources, and technology.

Like all dictatorial regimes, the CCP wants to be both “loved” and “feared.” It has invested millions of dollars in shaping global public opinion to “tell China’s story right” from the regime’s point of view, albeit unsuccessfully. It desperately needs foreign organizations’ participation in events hosted by Beijing to legitimize the regime and raise the party’s international profile in front of an increasingly sophisticated domestic audience. It will be a massive embarrassment for the CCP if a well-known organization such as the WTA pulls out of China right before the nation is ready to show off its power and prestige at the Olympics.

International businesses and organizations should recognize both the leverage they possess and the CCP’s limits. Suppose more organizations and corporations stand up to the CCP? Although the CCP would not give up oppressing the Chinese people altogether, it may not go as far as it wants.

One of the CCP’s most potent weapons is economic coercion. The party often uses market access to China to pressure international businesses and organizations to silence their criticisms and do whatever China demands. The WTA has shown that when an organization is ready and willing to bear the cost of standing up to the CCP, such an organization frees itself from the CCP’s coercion and puts itself in a powerful position. More often than not, the CCP will be more willing to compromise.

Last but not least, it’s time to realize that every interaction with China, be it a sporting event, a commercial transaction, or a cultural exchange, can quickly become a test of an organization’s morality. The CCP has taken on a “whole of society” approach and compelled all of society to follow the party’s orders. Sooner or later, all involved must choose whether to side with human rights and human dignity or an oppressive authoritarian regime.

Enes Kanter Freedom, center for the Boston Celtics and an outspoken human rights activist, wrote that freedom “must be defended at all costs.” We must “wake up and speak up. Change is coming, and no one can stop it. They can’t silence us all.” The WTA and its star athletes have shown us the way.

According to Musk, Tesla’s decision in Germany was partly due to lessons that the company learned in the United States. The CEO noted that the loan’s onerous terms ultimately ended up exceeding the value of the money that Tesla received. Thus, the company decided to pay its $465 million loan early, even if it had to pay an “early repayment penalty.”

This was quite a surprise for many, as Tesla ended up being negatively incentivized not because it didn’t pay off its loan; but because it paid off its loan early. In comparison, the United States government ended up losing $11.2 billion in its bailout of General Motors, a company that, at least according to US President Joe Biden, is leading the electric vehicle revolution.

To see how burgeoning lumber prices are impacting the U.S. housing market, we’ve calculated the number of single family homes that could be built with $50,000 worth of lumber. First, we established the following parameters:

• Lumber requirements: 6.3 board feet (bd ft) per square foot (sq ft)
• Median single family house size: 2,301 sq ft
• Total lumber required per single family house: 14,496 bd ft

Based on these parameters, here’s how many single family homes can be built with $50,000 worth of lumber:

Date* Lumber Price Total Lumber Purchased Total Homes Built
2021-05-05 $1,635 per 1,000 bd ft 30,581 bd ft 2.11
2020-05-04 $343 per 1,000 bd ft 145,773 bd ft 10.05
2015-05-01 $234 per 1,000 bd ft 213,675 bd ft 14.74
2010-05-01 $270 per 1,000 bd ft 185,185 bd ft 12.77

By practically any measure, the world today is more peaceful and less war-torn on a global scale, relative to the past.

For instance, declarations of war between nations and soldier casualties have both dropped drastically since the 20th century. Yet, military spending has not followed this trend.
The Top 10 Military Spenders

According to SIPRI, global military spend reached almost $2 trillion in 2020. The top 10 countries represent roughly 75% of this figure, and have increased their spending by $51 billion since the year prior. //

The U.S. isn’t labeled as a global superpower for nothing. The country is by far the largest military spender, and its $778 billion budget trumps the remainder of the list’s collective $703.6 billion. On its own, the U.S. represents just under 40% of global military spending. //

Military expenditures as a percentage of GDP can be used to compare military spending relative to the size of a country’s economy.

When looking at things this way, many of the top spenders above do not appear. This may be an indication of their economic prowess or a demonstration that the money might be used for other vital areas such as education, healthcare, or infrastructure.

#1 🇴🇲 Oman Middle East 11.0%
#2 🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia Middle East 8.4%
#3 🇩🇿 Algeria North Africa 6.7%
#4 🇰🇼 Kuwait Middle East 6.5%
#5 🇮🇱 Israel Middle East 5.6%
#6 🇷🇺 Russia Europe/Asia 4.3%
#7 🇲🇦 Morocco North Africa 4.3%
#8 🇮🇶 Iraq Middle East 4.1%
#9 🇺🇦 Ukraine Europe 4.1%
#10 🇵🇰 Pakistan South Asia 4.0%

Dr. Eli David
@DrEliDavid
Fact check:

🔹 2% of @elonmusk's wealth is $6B
🔹 In 2020 the UN World Food Program (WFP) raised $8.4B. How come it didn't "solve world hunger"?

_
11:50 AM · Oct 30, 2021

Elon Musk
@elonmusk
·
Oct 31, 2021
Replying to @DrEliDavid
If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it.
Elon Musk
@elonmusk
But it must be open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent.
9:55 AM · Oct 31, 2021 //

Beasley would later respond with his own tweet.

“With your help we can bring hope, build stability and change the future. Let’s talk: It isn’t as complicated as Falcon Heavy, but too much at stake to not at least have a conversation. I can be on the next flight to you. Throw me out if you don’t like what you hear!” said Beasley.

Firstly, it’s interesting that Musk specifically asked Beasley to provide him the plan in an open Twitter thread and he refused to, wanting to meet privately instead. Secondly, it’s highly unlikely that Beasley could actually come up with a plan that utilizes Musk’s money in such a way that wouldn’t look bad to the general public. //

Handing someone a meal and medicine is great, but once they eat that meal they’ll soon need another.

Infrastructure changes, national politics, and the environment all play a role in the solving of world hunger, and it’s highly unlikely that six billion dollars are going to solve it. It’s even more unlikely that the United Nations is going to solve this problem, especially given their bloat. //

2buildit2
an hour ago
As usual, the UN doofus has it backwards, now if the UN gave Elon Musk the 6 billion and the command and control of the feed the hungry aid structure, things would improve for everyone but the bureaucracy.

It’s great that so many have copies of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, but very unfortunate that so few have read it. The alleged “supply chain” problems we’re enduring right now were explained by Smith in the book’s opening pages.

Smith wrote about a pin factory, and the then remarkable truth that one man in the factory working alone could maybe – maybe – produce one pin each day. But several men working together could produce tens of thousands.

Work divided is what enables the very work specialization that drives enormous productivity. If this was true in an 18th century pin factory, imagine how vivid the truth is today. Figure that something as basic as the creation of a pencil is the consequence of global cooperation, so what kind of remarkable global symmetry leads to the creation of an airplane, car, or computer? The kind that can’t be planned is the short answer, but more realistically the only answer. //

Really, who was talking about supply-chain shortages or the impossibility that is demand-driven inflation in early 2020? Very few were, and that’s because the U.S. economy was largely free then. At which point politicians panicked. And in panicking, they imposed a rather draconian form of command-and-control on the U.S. economy. //

Some were free to work, some weren’t, and more still were free to work and operate their businesses within strict political limits. From freedom to central planning in a very small amount of time. At which point it’s worth considering once again the simple pin factory that Smith witnessed in the 18th century versus the global cooperation that was the norm 19 months ago. //

The supply lines of February 2020 were impossibly complicated structures that no politician could ever hope to design. Think billions of individuals around the world pursuing their narrow work specialization on the way to enormous global plenty. Put another way, the shelves in economically free countries were heaving with all manner of products based on economic cooperation that was staggering in scope. Brilliant as some experts claim to be, and brilliant as some politicians think they are as they look in the mirror, they could never construct the web of trillions of economic relationships that prevailed before the lockdowns. But they could destroy the web. And they did; that, or they severely impaired it. //

We know from the 20th century that when politicians, authoritarians or both substitute their intensely narrow knowledge for that of the marketplace that immense want for very little (and lousy) supply is the logical result. Yes it is. When we’re not economically free, bare shelves are the inevitable result.

Conversely, product and service abundance is a certain consequence yet again of the infinite actions and trillions of economic relationships entered into by billions of people. These commercial tie-ups were constructed by consenting individuals over many years and many decades only for them to be wrecked by a political class arrogantly seeking to protect us from ourselves. That’s what happens when command-and-control replaces voluntary order. The remunerative ties that bind us fray, or vanish altogether. Consenting, profitable economic activity was suddenly illegal. Yet politicians and other experts are only now wringing their hands about a lack of supply?

Really, what did they think was going to happen? While politicians couldn’t ever create or legislate billions working together around the world, they could and can surely break voluntary economic arrangements.

Truckers in Southern California are struggling to move containers from port terminals and rail yards because of a shortage of the chassis that carry the boxes