From The Fields

Fifteen years and being in the Oval Office rather than on the outside looking in can lead to a populist politician making a 180 degree pivot. In 2011 Donald Trump said on Twitter, "In order to get elected, @BarackObama will start a war with Iran." In the 2016 presidential campaign Trump positioned himself as the "peace candidate" and said "regime change is a proven, absolute failure." Some libertarians including, shamefully, the then Chair of the Libertarian National Committee, bought into his campaign promises. Another campaign promise made to the Libertarian National Convention was to appoint a libertarian to his cabinet. And no, RFK Jr. is not a libertarian. So we're still waiting.

On Saturday, February 28, Trump, in conjunction with Israel, launched massive air attacks against Iran and succeeded in killing Ayatollah Ali Khemenei along with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, the Defense Minister, the Commander if the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, the Foreign Minister, the Head of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research and his predecessor, the Head of Intelligence for Iran's emergency command and the Military office head for Khemenei.

After the initial air strikes Trump said at various times, "When we are finished. take over your government. It will be yours to take.", "The hour of your freedom is at hand.", This will probably be your only chance for generations." and "Now is the time to seize control of your destiny. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass."

Sounds like a regime change war to me.

Very few libertarians will lament the death of Khomenei and his top command. Just like few libertarians lamented the capture of Venezuelan President Maduro. But all limited government libertarians should disapprove of the means to those ends. Twice, in the last few weeks, Trump has ostentatiously flouted the U.S. Constitution. The power to declare war rests with Congress. Congress has not done so. Turns out it was not symbolic when Trump changed the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Unchecked waging of war has become the hallmark policy of our "Peace" president. We have absolutely no need to defend ourselves against Iran. Iran's "navy" consists mostly of speedboats which can disrupt oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. A blockage of the Strait could affect oil prices for a while but is no military threat to the U.S. itself. The rest of its Navy has about 90 boats. We have 5 times as many. We have aircraft carriers. They don't. Its air force has planes with a maximum range of 3,000 miles, less than half of the 7,000 miles they'd need to fly to strike the U.S. Its $23 billion military budget is about what the Pentagon spends in 2 weeks or 25% of the annual budget of New York City. Their missiles have a range of only one fifth of the distance needed to reach our country. In short, Iran presents no danger whatsoever to the U.S. whether they have nuclear capabilities or not.

Of course, Iran does present a clear and present danger to Israel. But is it our obligation to fight Israel's wars for it? Or, for that matter, any other country. Libertarians would argue that is not. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Charges include giving regulatory benefits worth $500 million in exchange for favorable news coverage from the news source benefitting from those regulatory actions. We all know of the myriad of legal problems facing Donald Trump. Some are probably Democratic "lawfare". But where there's smoke there is fire. Can you say Jeffrey Epstein? That's a name that has been conveniently spiked in news coverage for the last few days.

The cynic in me says this is more than a regime change war. It looks like a wag the dog war for both Trump and Netanyahu. The tragedy is that just like in Venezuela, this war will only result in suffering. Venezuelans are still being ruled by a communist quasi-dictator. Iranians will probably continue to be ruled by yet another Ayatollah. The people of Venezuela and Iran will continue to suffer. Trump has already promised weeks of continued American bombardment. We'll be lucky if it doesn't turn into years or decades of American involvement before we beat the same kind of retreat we did in Vietnam and Afghanistan. That's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

There are lies, damned lies and government statistics. The latter two, damned lies and government statistics appear to be twins. Take the Bureau of Labor Statistics headline for job growth in January, 130,000 new jobs with the unemployment rate dropping from 4.4% to 4.3%. That's the headline. The stock market rallied on the news. But the footnote was the BLS annual revision to last year's data. The initially reported job growth for 2025 was 584,000 new jobs. The footnote said the actual job number increase was 181,000. They were off by only 70%. For the entire year. Their bad.Those of you with good memories of unpleasant news may recall that BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer was fired by Trump when the BLS announced a job increase that he thought was too low. Turns out it was probably too high.

Keep in mind that the unemployment rate is material to the price to borrow money that the magicians at the Fed divine to be correct. Under their dual mandate of 2% inflation and full employment higher unemployment calls for lower interest rates to stimulate the economy. They almost always get it wrong. They either keep interest rates high for too long and cause a recession or they keep interest rates low for too long and create inflation.

What's more is that the Fed's 2% inflation target is tragically detrimental to savers and the capital formation that savings make possible. It means that the dollar you put into your 401k in your 20s is reduced to less than 50 cents by the time you retire and need to spend it. Not to mention the fact that the Fed usually misses its 2% target by a lot. Almost always on the high side. 3% inflation means that the dollar you saved in your 20s is worth a quarter when you retire.

And speaking of government statistics, it's not just the job growth numbers that Washington bureaucrats fiddle with and consistently get wrong. It's the reported inflation numbers. As real inflation has increased, the Washington number fiddlers have used so-called hedonics, or perceived product improvements to manipulate the inflation rate downwards. For example the Iphone, a super-computer you can hold in your hand is deemed better than the Blackberry you used in the 90s. Other adjustments to inflation used by the number manipulators include the substitution effect which assumes that when the price of beef becomes too high you switch from steak to hamburger. Economist John Williams of Shadowstats asserts that using CPI models used in the 1980s, before the adjustments, would result in inflation in the 8% to 12% range. The actual real rate of inflation is not that hard to figure out. It's the increase in the amount of money in the economy created by the Fed through quantitative easing and lower than market price interest rate price fixing. Assuming that money stock goes up 5% you'll have 5% inflation in either/or consumer prices or asset values. That ratio can vary depending on the velocity of money or how quickly money is spent after it's received. Typically velocity goes up with higher inflation. People want to spend their money before the price of what they're buying goes up.

The reason the Fed has been able to get by with its inflationary games is that a large part of the inflation it has caused has been in asset prices; stocks, bonds and real estate. Nominal increases in the value of one's retirement account and house are perceived to be a good thing and mask the pain of the perpetual increase in the price of gas. That's what's been happening for the last 50 years. That game can only go on for so long. Eventually housing becomes unaffordable for young families. Stock prices become priced far beyond the future cash flows and dividends they can produce. Increases in stock and bond prices and home values only benefit those who have them. That leads to an increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. When the middle class dwindles, the difference in wealth between the top 10% and the rest of us becomes impossible to explain away. We're there now.

That's why socialism is becoming more popular among younger people in spite of its unblemished record of failure wherever it's been tried. People observe the unfair class divide. They want it remedied. There are only two ways for that remedy to occur. One is to remove the cause of the problem, Fed-caused inflation. The other is for the poor to steal money from the rich, either through taxation or through riots in the streets. One method leads to the preservation of civilization. The other leads to a war of all against all. The turning point is here. What method would you choose? That's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

Hi this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields. I've spent a lot of time in these Reports bemoaning the godawful actions of Donald Trump. His immigration policy is the opposite of what we need and is enforced by brutal ICE tactics. His international economic policy is illiterate as evidenced by his sales tax on imports otherwise known as tariffs. His domestic economic policy is even worse. Spendthrift federal spending financed by quantitative easing or in simple terms the Fed creating brand new money out of thin air to finance our ballooning deficits and forcing interest rates below what the market for money would call for. His interventionist foreign policy in Venezuela will probably be a repeat of our failures in nation building from Korea to Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan and many more. Then there's his in your face corruption clearly exemplified by his issuing pump and dump meme cryptocurrencies like the Melania coin.

But I have to give him credit for his instinct for deregulation. His motive is still probably corrupt self interest but I'll let that go. A good example is appointing Lee Zeldin as head of the EPA and the EPA's recission of the 2009 Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding. This is huge. Mostly government funded climate alarmists have been crying doom over global warming for decades. That is since the mid 1970s when Newsweek published "The Cooling World" and Time ran "Another Ice Age?". In 2006 Al Gore predicted a point of no return in 10 years due to global warming. Well it's been 20 years and we still seem to have avoided climate apocalypse. The climate doomsters have been crying wolf for decades and none of their predictions have materialized. What has happened is that the cost of government regulations aimed at preventing global warming has increased consumer prices for transportation and electrical power dramatically nationwide.

It's even worse in California where near universal acceptance of the climate warming dogma has been accepted and augmented by Democratic Party dominance of state politics for over a quarter of a century. California has piled on by adding more greenhouse gas regulations to the already heavy federal regulatory load. Two oil refineries have closed just this year, the latest in Benicia. As a result we have to import nearly 80% of our gasoline from other states and countries. Likewise oil exploration and production has been regulatorily stymied by the California government. As recently as the 1980s California actually was a net exporter of oil. As a result the average price of gas in California is $4.59 per gallon, more than 50% higher than the average in the other 49 states and double the price in Oklahoma.

None of this is to claim that the climate doesn't change. The farm where I grew up in Minnesota was once buried under a massive glacier. The Permian Basin was once the Permian Sea which is the origin of the oil deposits producing oil today. Climate is always changing. Very gradually. It always will. Sunspot activity, volcanos and phenomena we don't yet understand all cause climate change. And more atmospheric carbon dioxide will cause more plant growth which may also cause climate change. We need to be a lot more modest about the human ability to affect climate change for the better or the worse. The best approach is adaptation to gradually changing climate, not futile attempts to control it. That's one reason free migration is so important. To ensure their prosperity and even survival, people need to be free to move from where the climate is getting worse to where it is getting better without politicians getting in the way of that elemental freedom.

So let's celebrate small improvements. Reining in the power of the EPA to futilely try to control the global climate is one area. Another is narrowing the definition of Waters of the United States which will benefit owners of property adjacent to small streams. Rescinding Biden-era expansions of conservation on public land which has taken thousands of acres of land out of potential beneficial use, particularly in western states. Directing Federal agencies to narrow and expedite environmental reviews allowing property owners to fully exploit to use their land without NIMBY objections disguised as environmental protection. Restricting taxpayer money from being spent on "gender affirming" care for minors. An end to affirmative action, better described as reverse discrimination. Rescission of the $15 per hour minimum wage for Federal contractors allowing lower skilled workers to scale the first rung on the ladder to economic betterment. Actions to bring digital currencies like Bitcoin easier to own and trade. And, of course, there is Executive Order 14192 which mandates the elimination of 10 old regulatory rules for the introduction of one new one.

Libertarians believe in criticism of bad policy but also recognizing good policy. That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.

After bellyaching for over a year that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is too slow to lower interest rates, President Trump has announced that Powell's replacement when his term ends in May will be Kevin Warsh. To say the least, that choice is a bit counter-intuitive. Trump is a self-proclaimed "low interest guy". Warsh in his previous role as a Federal Reserve member tended to lean in a more hawkish direction. Specifically he argued against fiscal dominance. That's the idea that the Fed should step in with lower interest rates and quantitative easing to fund federal deficits. In ordinary language, creating brand new money to effectively fund federal budget deficits ad finitum. He's argued for a rules based regimen for Fed policy instead of the current policy of making it up as you go along. He's pro-crypto, calling Bitcoin digital gold. He believes that the Fed should be paying attention to the price of precious metals since rising prices are a signal of inflation coming. But he's against returning to a gold standard. He's against the Fed instituting a digital currency. Good news for anyone who values their privacy. Also contra-Trump he is not a supporter of tariffs, advocating free markets instead.

He certainly has the elite credentials to be a central banker; undergraduate degree from Stanford in economics and political science, J.D cum laude at Harvard Law, seven years at Morgan Stanley specializing in mergers and acquisitions, National Economic Council staff member during the George W. Bush administration, married to Jane Walsh nee Lauder, daughter of Ronald Lauder of Estee Lauder and a multi-billionaire in her own right, Federal Reserve Board member appointed by W for five years where he leaned to the hawkish side of monetary policy (higher interest rates and less quantitative easing). But he still faces a confirmation problem. GOP Senator Thom Tillis says he won't vote for Warsh until the criminal probe of current Fed Chairman Powell is resolved. Assuming united Democratic opposition on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs committee the lack of Tillis' vote will cause a stalemate in moving the nomination out of committee. Tillis, who is retiring, is immune to threats from Trump.

Warsh is certainly better than the other candidates Trump was considering for the job who both were shameless in toadying to Trump's low interest agenda. The markets seem to be giving their seal of approval to the Warsh nomination. Precious metals are down indicating a lessening fear of inflation. But the larger question is whether the Fed does more harm than good. Milton Friedman was a proponent of rules based Fed interest rate policy. He called for a fixed percentage increase in the money supply, roughly similar to economic growth. That could theoretically work. But the problem is, rules are easy to change with a change in Fed leadership. That usually happens when a President of a different party takes control. Or whenever a President wants to goose the economy prior to an election. That's precisely what's happening now. That still presumes that a small group of Fed voting members have the skill to set interest rates correctly. They don't. Interest rates are simply the price of borrowing money. Price controls always result in market distortions leading to recessions, depressions or worse. Ron Paul is absolutely correct in his call to end the Fed. Let the market determine the best way to set prices by mutual agreement between buyers and sellers. That usually results in a gold, silver or bimetal standard or something similar. It's also what was called for in the U.S. Constitution.

There's also the very good chance that Warsh will prove himself to be just as much of a Trump toadie as the other candidates for the job, just not as publicly shameless. We'll see. That's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement now has two pretty obvious unjustified killings in Minneapolis to answer for. If you or I did what we saw in video clips that ICE did, we'd be facing at the very least manslaughter charges. The ICE shooters got...administrative leave. And Gregory Bovino, commander of the Minneapolis roundup operation was relieved of his duties in Minneapolis and sent to patrolling the Mexican border at El Centro, CA.

Yes, I know that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were probably part of an organized group attempting to interfere with ICE operations. That's not a crime punishable by death. What ICE is doing is analogous to what the Gestapo did in Nazi Germany. "Preventive Arrest" with no judicial appeal is a tactic of a totalitarian dictatorship, not a democratic republic like the United States. Most Germans did little to resist. The result was the holocaust and WWII.To their credit, Minneapolis citizens are resisting. Videotaping police, or masked ICE agents in military uniforms and flak helmets is not a crime. Nor is warning people of the presence of ICE in the neighborhood. Trying to help a woman who had been shoved to the ground by those agents could be construed with interfering with a police enforcement action. But not a capital crime.

And contrary to campaign promises, ICE under Trump is not going after criminals who happen to be immigrants. It is going after anyone who is not white and demanding "Your papers, Please". Criminals generally aren't hanging around Home Depot looking for day labor jobs. Deporting immigrants to countries they've never been to is cruel and unusual. I think there's something in the Constitution prohibiting that. ICE is just one agency in the Department of Homeland Security. Where have we heard talk about a homeland before? For those of you who did not do well in history class or have short memories, the answer is NAZI Germany. With the help of facial recognition technology, the Feds are creating a database of not only immigrants, but of anyone who opposes the mass deportations. On January 10 an ICE agent confronted the driver of a car that was following him driven by Nicole Cleland of Richfield, Minnesota, where she lives. He walked up to her care window and addressed her as Nicole. He told her he knew who she was using facial recognition and that his body camera was on. She was one of at least seven people identified by ICE using facial recognition by using faces pulled from social media or in the Federal government's data bases. Maybe you think facial recognition at the airport is a convenience. Maybe you should think again.,

The larger issue remains the presumption that immigration is a problem. It isn't. It's a solution. The current fertility rate in the U.S. is 1.626 per mother. That's well below the 2.1 birth rate needed to keep our population from declining. Without working age people to fund the Social Security and Medicare pyramid schemes, those programs are toast in their current form. Most immigrants come to America to work. I would be the first to agree that immigrants who come to America to partake of our welfare programs should be immediately deported. Not hard to do. Any immigrant that signs up for welfare gets a free 1-way flight to wherever they came from. Senator Rand Paul has a bill that would address that. Not surprisingly, it's going nowhere. Republicans would rather posture about sending the "invaders" back home than actually solve both our demographic problems and a part of our welfare problem by welcoming any immigrant from anywhere who comes here to work.