From The Fields

The New York Times obituary for Paul Ehrlich, co-author with his wife Anne, of "The Population Bomb" leads with: "His best-selling 1968 book, which forecast global famines, made him a leader of the environmental movement. But he faced criticism when his predictions proved premature." Once again the newspaper of record is wrong. Ehrlich was not premature. He was wrong on an epic scale. What Ehrlich said was really just a restatement of what Thomas Malthus argued way back in the 18th century, that while human population grows exponentially, the food supply grows arithmetically ultimately leading to an increase in disease, misery and famine unless population growth is limited. Since Malthus published "An Essay on the Principle of Population", world population has increased eight fold and the average lifespan has doubled.

Likewise Ehrlich predicted in "The Population Bomb" that there would be widespread famines in the next twenty years. The facts: famines have decreased by a factor of 5 to 10 since the 1960s depending on the timeline you choose. And most famines in the modern era have been caused by political misrule and war rather that the inability to grow food. See Maoist China's Great Leap Forward, forced communal farming in the USSR, communist rule in North Korea and war in Bangladesh, Biafra, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Mozambique, Sudan Somalia and elsewhere. In 1980 economist Julian Simon made a bet with Ehrlich that the inflation adjusted price of commodities in the next ten years would fall. Simon won. Ehrlich's wife wrote the check settling the bet.

Ehrlich should be an object of ridicule, not seen as premature. He just follows the tradition of doom mongering exemplified by Malthus over 200 years ago. The tragedy is that fear sells more readily than optimism. Ehrlich paved the way for charlatans like Al Gore, Greta Thunberg and many others in the environmental movement to amplify fears and ignore reality. Julian Simon went on to write The Ultimate Resource and The Ultimate Resource 2, in which he explains that human ingenuity overcomes material scarcity.

Ehrlich founded Zero Population Growth. Ehrlich called for the movement to be voluntary. Other countries have made in mandatory. China's one child policy is the most draconian example. Now China has a demographic problem, an aging population boom and a dearth of people of working age people to support them. Didn't work out so well.

The lesson for libertarians is that people, left free to choose ways to produce goods and services that others want to have, will always find ways to not only feed themselves but to prosper and have increasingly good lives. It's fear mongering politicians who seize upon crackpot theories like Ehrlich's who prevent that prosperity. I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

President Trump fired Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. I guess even Trump is subject to embarrassment or at least bad publicity. Noem unapologetically wrote about shooting her dog because he was untrainable. She wore a $60,000 Rolex while visiting the notorious Terrorist Confinement Center in El Salvador. She labeled the ICE protesters in Minneapolis who were killed by ICE agents as domestic terrorists despite video evidence to the contrary. And finally she refused to deny having an affair with Corey Lewandowski in testimony in a House Judiciary Committee hearing. So Trump fired her.

Hi, this is Richard Fields with this week's Report From the Fields. President Trump fired Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security. I guess even Trump is subject to embarrassment or at least bad publicity. Noem unapologetically wrote about shooting her dog because he was untrainable. She wore a $60,000 Rolex while visiting the notorious Terrorist Confinement Center in El Salvador. She labeled the ICE protesters in Minneapolis who were killed by ICE agents as domestic terrorists despite video evidence to the contrary. And finally she refused to deny having an affair with Corey Lewandowski in testimony in a House Judiciary Committee hearing. So Trump fired her.

Totally oblivious to the irony, Trump appointed Markwayne Mullins, a Native American, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation, as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, the agency in charge of deporting "illegal Immigrants". Maybe he can start with deporting European Americans. After all, from a Native American standpoint, the Europeans invaded and stole their land. Perhaps he can start at the top by deporting the President. His grandfather, Friedrich Trump was an immigrant from Germany. He made a considerable fortune running restaurants, saloons and hotels during the Gold Rush era. Some reports indicate his hotel rooms were even used for prostitution. He took his money and invested in real estate in New York. But, you say, Donald Trump was born in America. Well, it's Trump who wants to do away with birthright citizenship. And if I remember right a couple of Trump's wives were immigrants. And, oh yes, for years Trump claimed his ethnicity was Swedish to ostensibly to avoid friction with his Jewish friends and business clients.

All of this is to illustrate the hypocrisy of our immigration laws. A Cato Institute study indicates that only around 1% of would be immigrants to America have the ability to do so legally. That means that 99% of those who want to come to America have to do so illegally. Until the 1880s immigration laws did not exist. At that time Californians decided they wanted to get rid of the Chinese laborers who had done the grunt work in mining and railroad building. The first anti-immigration laws were passed. In the 1920s nativist sentiment expanded. Northern Europeans decided they wanted to keep out Southern Europeans and the Irish. From there the immigration procedure has become a Kafkaesque bad dream. Legal immigration is for all practical purposes impossible.

Let's review demographic facts. The birthrate in America is below the replacement rate. Without immigration our population is declining. We need immigrants in the labor force. Let's review the argument that immigrants come here not to work but to get various welfare benefits. The fact is that people born in America use Federal, state and local public assistance of all kinds at a greater rate than immigrants. Let's review the argument that immigrants are mostly criminals. Again the fact is that people born here commit crimes at all levels of government at a greater rate than immigrants.

But let's make sure we understand the libertarian reason for welcoming immigrants. It's an issue of freedom. Anybody should be free to live anywhere they want as long as they pay their own way. That can easily be accomplished by abolishing the entire body of immigration law and replacing it with one simple, easily understood law. Any immigrant who comes to America and commits a felony or thereafter applies for any form of government welfare must be deported immediately. And here's a couple more benefits of doing away with the Department of Homeland Security. First it would reduce Federal spending by 1.3% based on 2024 figures. The percentage is probably higher under Trump. Not a mind bending amount but every dollar saved is good when we have a $39 trillion deficit. Second, it would most likely dramatically shorten security screening at the airport. Screening would no longer be a political football during budget negotiations. Third, it would be more thorough. After all airlines and airports have skin in the game. Government workers not so much. If they mess up it's just another excuse to up the budget for the following year. We know it can be done. San Francisco International and other airports are already doing it.

And a footnote: During his confirmation hearing, Mullins was queried by libertarian leaning Senator Rand Paul about remarks that he "completely understood" why Paul's neighbor assaulted him from behind without provocation breaking six ribs and damaging his lung. Mullins refused to apologize. This is the guy Trump wants supervising ICE agents who are known to manhandle and even kill people suspected of being illegal immigrants...or even bystanders who happen to be protesting against ICE? I'm Richard Fields and that's this week's Report From the Fields. See you again next week.

Gallup polling from last year indicates that 27% of Americans identify as Democrats. The same percentage applies to Republicans. Meanwhile 45% identify as Independents. When Gallup party identification polling began in 1988, the shares were approximately 1/3 for each affiliation with Democrats having a slight edge. This is a massive change. What explains it? I can think of a couple things. The increasing tribalization of politics plays a part. Both Democrats and Republicans increasingly use negative campaigning to position to win as the lesser of two evils. This approach may work in solidifying the base in each party. Left wing socialists and greens on the Democratic side. And nativists and now anti-free trade elements in the Republican party. But it leaves that hefty 45% plurality offended by both sides. Most of them do settle for voting for the lesser of two evils. The approximately 1/3 each for Republicans, Democrats and Independents held pretty steady through the early 2000s. Then the housing bust happened. The Obama administration furthered the trend toward socialism with ObamaCare. Then came the first Trump administration. Trump presided over the origination of the COVID lockdowns and the reckless government overspending financed by the Fed to hide the terrible economic effects of essentially shutting down small businesses in America. Biden continued those bad policies and added backroom censorship of media and social media sites regarding the alleged dangers of COVID and to cover up Biden's probable corruption. Remember the Hunter Biden laptop? Trump II is delivering more corruption. Except that his corruption is shamelessly in our faces.

Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson started the 2012 election with double digit polling only to be taken down by his confused answer to the "What about Aleppo" question. The established media used that as their excuse to essentially ignore his campaign and push it into irrelevancy. Never mind Obama's claim that he had campaigned in all 57 states which was essentially ignored by said media. I don't know what percentage of the 45% of Independents are libertarian leaning but I'd be willing to bet it's over half.

So let's talk about 2028. By that time the MAGA movement will have likely disintegrated into irrelevance due to Netanyahu talking Trump into helping with Israel's existential war with Iran. Trump is likely being engulfed by the military/industrialist and deep state swamp he promised to eliminate. The no new wars portion of the Trump coalition has largely departed. The protectionists have been demoralized by the Supreme Court rulings against tariff authority. All that remains are the know-nothing nativists. Enter Thomas Massey, Republican Congressman from Kentucky. He's one of only four Republicans calling for full release of the Epstein files and prosecution of the rich rapists linked to them. And he led the effort. He along with Senator Rand Paul and Representative House member Warren Davidson are the only Republicans calling for a war powers resolution to end the war in Iran. Meanwhile the Quinnipiac poll indicates 53% opposition to the war with 89% of Democrats and 60% of Independents opposed. Only Republicans at 85% support the war. And this poll was taken before significant American casualties, before the full increase in gas prices that will result from the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and before any possible boots hit the ground in the 17th largest nation in the world. And which, like Afghanistan, has lots of mountains for would be martyrs to hide out in.

The Republican front runner by far is J.D. Vance. Vance is a political chameleon who will have a hard time shaking off his opposition to Trump only to make a 180 degree turn to support him...and get the VP slot. On the Democratic side the front runner is Kamala Harris who has already demonstrated her capacity to lose. She is followed by Gavin Newsom who will have a hard time explaining why Californians have been fleeing the state under his governorship. Massey is getting traction on X as a potential Presidential candidate. But MAGA opposition will probably prevent that from happening on a Republican ticket. But as a Libertarian with established ballot access in pretty much every state? With good communication skills? With demonstrated ability to work with Democrats like Progressive Ro Khanna with whom he has been working on Epstein transparency? I'm guessing that with over half of the Independent vote, some non-progressive moderates in the Democratic Party and anti-Trump Republicans, he could pull it off. Hey, Javier Milei in Argentina did it with no major party backing. And he did it running as an anarcho-capitalist who communed with his dead dogs. One can only hope. That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.

For the first time ever, a U.S. based company has been named a "supply chain risk" by the Trump administration. That's what happened to Anthropic when the company declined to change its terms of contract with the Pentagon. What Anthropic refused to do was allow Claude, its AI tool, to be used for surveillance of American citizens or for lethal warmaking activities unmonitored by actual humans. The Pentagon wanted to change the terms to all "lawful use" applications. We already know how meaningful lawful use is to Trump and his yes men. They've unilaterally gone to war in both Venezuela and Iran. That's not just unlawful. It's unconstitutional. Only Congress has the authority to declare war. At least the two Bush administrations had the courtesy to ask Congress for an authorization of military force before starting their disastrous Middle East wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

More telling is the alacrity with which Sam Altman of Chatgtb stepped forward to replace Anthropic. Clearly, if enough money is involved, a financially shaky AI company will take government contracts no matter how bad the terms are regarding surveillance of Americans and lethal robotic warpower. Anthropic Co-founder and CEO, Dario Amodei even offered to help facilitate a smooth transition to Anthropic's successor. That wasn't enough for Trump who called the company a "RADICAL LEFT, WOKE COMPANY". He said it was full of "Leftwing nutjobs" and ordered that "EVERY Federal Agency in the United States Government to IMMEDIATELY CEASE all use of Anthropics technology."

Anthropic sued claiming its free speech rights are being violated by the Trump administration's overreaction. Libertarians can disagree on whether any free speech issue is involved when the government shuts out a private contractor and maligns the company. But we can all agree that Anthropic did the right thing in standing by its redline that Claude should not be used to spy on Americans or be used to automate lethal force with no humans at the controls. Likewise we can condemn Chatgbt for presumably more fully submitting to Pentagon demands.

The Soviet Union's Vladimir Lenin probably did not say "The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." But the sentiment stands. Chatgbt and Palantir before it are perfectly willing to sell the government the technology to roboticize warfare and erect a domestic panopticon. The idea of the panopticon was proposed in 18th century England. The idea was that a prison be built in a circle with one guard behind blinds being able to observe every prisoner. But prisoners would never know when the guard's attention was directed at them. The theory being that prisoners would always be on their best behavior lest the guard be looking in their direction. Mass surveillance of Americans utilizes the same principle. All citizens would be motivated to be on good behavior lest being observed behaving in a way disapproved of by the government. The problem is that whoever controls the government gets to arbitrarily set the standard of behavior. A Trumpian would-be Napoleon gets to censor anyone who disagrees with his military adventurism. A progressive/green administration could go after anyone who insists on cooking with a gas stove. Do gooders and control freak bureaucrats can come up with innumerable behaviors they want to surveil out of existence. We're already seeing it in Britain which is prosecuting people for their free speech in denouncing rapists who have emigrated from another country. The ultimate victim is libertry for all. Not a direction I want to see. That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.

Learning Resources Inc. v Trump and Trump v V.O.S. Selections was the consolidated case in which the United States Supreme Court ruled Trump's tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act or IEEPA unconstitutional last month. In his concurring opinion, Justice Gorsuch hit the nail on the head when he wrote, "In a very real sense, then, when it comes to legislative power, Congress is the principle and executive officials are the agents." In plain English the constitution gives Congress and only Congress the power to enact taxes and tariffs are a tax, specifically a sales tax on imported goods. The nondelegation doctrine says that Congress cannot delegate its Constitutional authority to the Executive Branch or the President. Gorsuch also chastised both the conservatives who lost in the 6-3 decision and the liberals who concurred only part by writing, "If history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today's result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is."

Of course, Trump is not going to be stopped in implementing his idea that tariffs are the hammer to hit all nails by silly things like the Constitution or the Supreme Court. Within hours of the Court's ruling Trump decided to enact an across the board 10% tariff which he quickly raised to 15% under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 which allows the President to enact tariffs of up to 15% for up to 150 days to "deal with large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits". The problem there is that we haven't had a balance-of-payment deficit since we switched to floating exchange rates for currencies. Put simply, if we import more than we export or run a trade deficit, we export cash to make up the difference. Balance-of-payments deficits are definitially impossible. International econ 101. But it took nine months of litigation before tariffs under the IEEPA were ruled unconstitutional. It'll probably take another nine months of court battles before the Supreme Court rules that Trump's latest import scam is also unconstitutional.

Meanwhile the tariff taxes keep coming into the U.S. treasury. More litigation will be needed to determine whether tariffs collected unconstitutionally will need to be returned to those who paid them. Obviously it was importers who wrote the check to the U.S. treasury. But did they really pay the tax? Of course not. They mostly just marked up their retail prices to cover the cost of doing business. The real payers of the import taxes were consumers. You and me. Importers may eventually get reimbursed for the tariff taxes they paid. But do you think there is any chance at all of those importers passing on their refunds to their retail customers. I didn't think so. The only winners when tariffs or any other kind of taxes go up is the government, its bureaucrats, and perhaps a protected industry. Only people pay taxes and that's us. That's this week's Report From the Fields. I'm Richard Fields. See you again next week.