Monday evening reading - June 30, 2025
More goodies from the stack of stuff I read on a daily basis here on Substack.
When I get to between six and eight posts (or so) I think are worth sharing, you’ll get Monday evening reading. It won’t be every week, but likely more often than not. There’s nothing wrong with link love! Once again, I culled this down from about 15-20 posts to the ones you see here, all from authors to whom I subscribe (and maybe you should too.)
Go ahead and read these pieces, then come back and see what I have to say.
The story on everyone’s minds this week seems to be the recent New York City mayoral primary, won by Zohran Mamdani. (While he only won the Democrat primary, odds are that’s enough to win the whole shooting match.)
, who’s more well known for his writing about monopolies and how government hasn’t been doing enough to address them, weighed in with his take on how it will affect Wall Street.
His is an interesting theory as Stoller believes Mamdani is the leftist populist answer to Donald Trump on the Right, although it seems to me Mamdani is just promising a lot of free stuff that someone has to pay for. Good luck with that - we already have a federal government which is failing at that approach.
On the other hand,
looks at the situation as being a cage match between the “old guard” Boomer Democrats and the new Millennial version that is more socialist and less pragmatic.
Should the cosmopolitan get their way and become a majority in government, America as a concept will not be allowed to exist. Remember, to them, America is a colonialist project built on genocide and thievery.
There will be no more United States of America. There will only be the Cosmopolitan Republic. A territory with no official borders, no law enforcement, a weakened military, where everyone is allowed to do whatever they want without consequence. A den of hedonism.
It would be a state of Anarcho-Tyranny, where criminals will be allowed free reign and normal people punished for trying to stop them. Supposed racism will be punished. A social justice score will be enacted.
Things will just stop working as the entire purpose of the government will be to do whatever they can to please any and every fringe group that sees themselves as marginalized and oppressed.
This also begs the question being asked by
:
His answer:
Sadly, 2025 Democrats find their identity only in power, position, and hatred. But as Christians, our identity is to be found in Christ.
A product of the world and its darkness, today’s Democrats seek to promote and defend all manner of evil choices as if anything people do should be tolerated, affirmed, and celebrated… except in the case of those who disagree with them.
Unfortunately, Democrats use examples like President Autopen’s Catholicism that embraces abortion or Barack Obama’s membership in the Trinity United church in Chicago with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of “It’s not God bless America, it’s God damn America” fame as their religion.
And as Judd Garrett points out, the Left doesn’t have a lot of “tolerance” when it comes to religion.
Have you ever heard of a Christian homicide bomber self-immolating in a mosque? Me either, perhaps because we’re a religion of life.
Now let’s look at something I discussed last week. I don’t know if
checked out my two-parter on housing before he wrote this, but he took that riff and sent it in a different direction.
Most of America cannot afford a three-bedroom home on the salary of one person, since the mean average salary is approximately $60k per year, an average three-bedroom runs about $350k and forty-seven percent of Americans make less than $100k per year. The economy is far from good for the average American, who is still struggling to place food on the table, pay utilities, put clothes on his children's backs and buy groceries, not to mention those twenty-five million households that are scraping by on less than $32k annually -- paying rents on average of two thousand dollars a month and forced to take in boarders. And yet, as the national debt surpasses $37 trillion dollars, President Trump is pressing the Republican majority senate to pass his Big, Beautiful Bill which adds trillions more debt, ensuring higher inflation in its wake should it pass as is.
I can’t say I disagree. Having OBBB as an omnibus means a lot of other stuff we didn’t necessarily want got crammed into it, too.
And when government gets too big and overwhelming, you get what they have in Oregon: businesses leaving, as
details.
This one, though, is more up my alley:
Southern Oregon is also losing its biggest employer. Door-maker Jeld-Wen, which founder Dick Wendt built into one of America’s largest privately held companies, is moving its corporate headquarters from Klamath Falls to North Carolina after a change in ownership. In May, Jeld-Wen announced it would dead-bolt its nearby Chiloquin factory, adding another 128 people to the ranks of Oregon’s unemployed.
We’ve specified their doors before, they’re a good product.
Someone who has to let go of his own good product is
, as he takes a departure from the political to talk about “Red Car.”
I had a Scion like that, except it was still in good operating condition when I sold it to some friends of ours. They got most of the money back when new lights were installed in our garage a month later, since he’s an electrician.
Last but not least: the
are often in MER because they’re factual and know what they’re talking about - in this case it’s about how utilities substitute energy efficiency for real improvements.
The problem? The utilities can’t admit just how much new expensive infrastructure will be needed in their IRPs, or they will not be able to pretend that they are the “least cost” way of meeting their future electricity demand. If the plan is not “least cost,” it runs the risk of being denied by state regulators, and the utility won’t be able to rake in that sweet, sweet rate of return on its rate base.
More proof that “green energy” is both a boondoggle and a swindle.
Well, despite the fact that I once again made this too long for e-mail, all that should keep a good reader going and thinking for awhile. It’s a good way to start the week, right?
In the meantime, though, you can Buy Me a Coffee, since I have a page there now.
nice selection! thanks!