Let’s say you paid top dollar to go to a fancy, five-star restaurant, and the waiter served you warmed-over McDonald’s. Would you ever go back?

Maybe, if you didn’t know any better.

I started thinking about that after I recently changed my residency from Virginia to California (for reasons I won’t go into) and noticed that my state income taxes had gone up by more than 33%.

Over the course of the year, I will pay California $2,115 more than I’d been paying in Virginia, which is hardly a low-tax state (Virginia has the 14th highest income tax burden in the country). Not only are income taxes higher, California’s sales tax is 66% higher, and the gasoline tax is almost double Virginia’s. Those are just the ones I know about.

So, I decided to look into what exactly I’m getting for the five-star cost of California’s government for basic services governments are expected to provide.

It’s infuriating. California is ripping off its taxpayers big time. Consider:

Crime: Despite having roughly the same number of police officers per capita, California has a “crime index” that is 47% higher than Virginia’s, and California has the sixth-highest rate of violent crime of all 50 states. Virginia has the 14th lowest.

Education: If you’re a teacher, California is a great place to live. They are the highest paid in the nation and have the fourth-lowest student-to-teacher ratio. But if you’re a parent? Your children are getting screwed. Eighth-grade reading, math, science, and writing scores are significantly below the national average, while Virginia’s are significantly higher. Virginia ranks 7 in average SAT scores, and California comes in 23rd.

Infrastructure: Despite having the nation’s highest gasoline taxes, California ranks in the bottom three when it comes to road conditions, with more than 25% of its roads in serious need of repair. In Virginia, just 9% of its roads are in poor shape.

Opportunity: How much economic opportunity are California’s sky-high taxes buying? None. The state ranks dead last in U.S. News and World Report’s “opportunity” ranking. And it ranks 47th in the Rich States, Poor States ranking of economic outlook.

It has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 5.5%, the most people on welfare, and the most homeless people.

It has the most progressive income tax yet is the fifth-worst state when it comes to income inequality. (Virginia comes in 29th on tax progressivity and 22nd on income inequality.)

It is the least affordable state for housing. Virginia is 35th.

Fiscal responsibility. Incredibly, despite the fact that California is one of the highest-tax states in the nation, it ranks No. 42 in U.S. News and World Report’s ranking for fiscal stability.

And it’s getting worse as out-of-control costs and the flight of hundreds of thousands out of the state have left yawning budget gaps. A new Reason Foundation study finds that California is almost half a trillion dollars in debt, which is more than twice New York’s. (Virginia is $35 billion in debt.)

And then there is the criminal amount of waste and fraud.

Gov. Gavin Newsom spent $37 billion to fight homelessness only to see the number of homeless climb from 151,000 in 2019 to about 187,000 today—prompting a federal criminal investigation.

The state’s Medicaid spending nearly doubled in six years, and almost one-half of that was due to free health care given to illegal immigrants.

The state lost $20 billion in COVID-19-related federal unemployment money—the most of any state.

In 2014, California voters overwhelmingly approved a $7.5 billion water bond proposal, nearly $3 billion of which was set aside to build new reservoirs. More than a decade later, not a single new reservoir has been built.

In 2018, former Gov. Jerry Brown signed a $1 billion bill that was supposed to improve land management to “prevent catastrophic wildfires and protect Californians.” In 2019, Newsom’s wildfire “strike force” said, “Over the next five years, the state will commit over $1 billion for critical fuel-reduction projects to support prescribed fire crews, forest thinning, and other forest health projects.”

Apparently, that money was completely wasted, as anyone looking at the burned-out Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods can attest.

And just this year, the state decided to dump $282 million it doesn’t have for a special election to gerrymander its congressional districts—a completely pointless exercise that will disenfranchise California voters and have no impact on the control of Congress. And then it spent another $2 million to correct a typo in its original voter guide.

So, the question I have for every Californian is: “What is wrong with you? Why do you put up with this? Why are you content to let California be a one-party state?”

Most of your leaders should be in jail, not winning reelection.

It’s true that over the past four years, more than a million more people moved out of the state than moved in. But what about those who can’t or don’t want to leave?

Why do you keep electing the same class of criminals to steal your money?

I think part of the problem is that Californians don’t know how badly they’re getting screwed, because, while everyone knows which restaurants are worth the price, it’s not easy for average citizens to make direct comparisons between life in one state and another.

I can leave the state just as easily as I came. But most can’t pick up and move. Nor should they have to. California is a beautiful state with enormous potential. Its citizens just need to refuse to pay Wolfgang Puck prices for Hamburglar-quality service.

John Merline, Issues and Insights

When Democrats today say they want to “save democracy,” conservatives often counter that the United States is not a democracy but a republic. Both sides are right in their own way—but they’re talking about two very different visions of government.

When Democrats use the phrase “save democracy,” they mean it quite literally: rule by the majority. In that system, whoever gets the most votes wins, and the will of the majority is considered the highest form of legitimacy. This especially applies to the presidency, where Democrats argue that whoever wins the most votes nationwide should occupy the Oval Office. To them, anything else—like the Electoral College—is unfair, outdated, or anti-democratic.

But the Founding Fathers rejected that very idea. They had seen what pure democracy produced in other nations, including in England’s parliamentary system, where a temporary majority could seize control and rule without restraint. They saw that the passions of the moment could sweep away the rights of the few, and that policy would swing wildly with every shift in public mood.

The Founders admired some parts of the British system—its respect for law, its experience with limited monarchy—but they also saw its instability. In Parliament, the majority is the government, and once it has power, there are few checks to stop it. The rights of citizens exist only as long as the majority allows them. To the Founders, that was too fragile a foundation for liberty.

They built something different: a republic. A system where the people still govern, but through layers of representation, separation of powers, and constitutional limits. It was designed to slow things down, to force deliberation, and to prevent fleeting majorities from remaking the nation in a moment of passion.

The Electoral College, the Senate, and the division of powers between states and the federal government all serve this purpose. They make sure that every region and every class of citizens has a voice, not just the biggest population centers. Without those safeguards, states like California and New York would decide every election, and the smaller states might as well not exist.

So when Democrats say they want to save “democracy,” they mean majority rule. When conservatives insist on preserving the “republic,” they mean constitutional balance—the system that protects everyone, not just the loudest or largest group at any given time.

The Founders didn’t reject democracy because they disliked freedom. They rejected it because they understood human nature: that passion and power need restraint, and that liberty endures only when even the minority has rights that the majority cannot touch.

CIB-173RDABN

The political earthquake in Europe just went nuclear. Geert Wilders, the firebrand Dutch nationalist, has shattered the illusion of EU unity, turning the Netherlands into the latest flashpoint of revolt against Brussels. His rise isn’t just a national upset — it’s a full-blown rebellion against the bureaucrats who dictate everything from migration to green mandates.

For Brussels, this is the nightmare scenario: a domino moment that could spread across Europe. From Paris to Warsaw, populist leaders are watching Wilders’ surge as a signal that citizens are done being ruled by faceless Eurocrats. The Dutch revolt may just mark the beginning of Europe’s next political revolution.

The pattern is clear. Wherever citizens feel ignored by elites, nationalism rises. Italy, France, Hungary, and Poland have all seen populist movements gain traction by opposing Brussels-mandated policies. These are not ideological shifts alone — they are reactive. Citizens want policies that reflect national priorities, not one-size-fits-all mandates imposed from afar.

The United Kingdom adds another dimension. Reports of illegal migrants entering the country and later committing violent acts (some verified, some unconfirmed) have fueled public frustration. The government’s perceived response — attempting to silence discussion rather than address the problem — has amplified anger. Citizens feel unprotected, and when people feel threatened and ignored, nationalist leaders gain credibility as defenders of local communities. Brexit was the first major example of this reaction in action.

Across Europe, the domino effect is clear: policy disconnect, economic or security pressures, elite defensiveness, and political reaction. The more governments dismiss citizen concerns or insist on central control, the faster nationalist backlash spreads.

Observation: Nationalism is not just ideology; it is a response to being ignored. Citizens want local priorities respected, borders secure, and a government that listens. If Brussels and national governments fail to heed this, the next wave of political upheaval in Europe may be closer than anyone expects.

Anonymous

What is the source of the wealth of a nation? That’s actually the question addressed by Adam Smith in “The Wealth of Nations.” Smith doesn’t put it in these exact terms, but his answer lies in some combination of hard work of the people plus figuring out how to work more efficiently through specialization and exchange.

And then there’s the other theory that the wealth just appears somehow, by luck or magic (or maybe by oppression of marginalized peoples). Which theory you buy into has everything to do with what you might think are appropriate public policies.

At Hot Air on October 16, David Strom embeds a clip of Bernie Sanders and AOC appearing together the previous day on CNN with host Kaitlin Collins. In the clip, Sanders launches into a rant, where he starts by declaring that in the U.S. we have a “housing crisis” and a “healthcare crisis” and an “education crisis.” And then he gets to this key quote:

We’re living in the richest country in the history of the world. Right. Alright, you tell me why we’re the only nation not to guarantee healthcare to all people. The only nation, not to guarantee paid family and medical leave. Why We have a $7 25 cents an hour minimum wage.

Bernie clearly thinks this is shameful. That conclusion follows from a worldview where the country’s wealth came not from hard work and specialization and exchange, but rather from luck or magic or something like that. Apparently, Bernie has never stopped to consider that maybe we are the richest country in the world precisely because we don’t have the government dragging down the productive economy by raising taxes to provide, as an example, free healthcare to “all people,” which is a term that includes not just the poor but also the well off and the productive and even the rich. Instead, we provide the free healthcare only to the poor (with a very broad definition of that), and expect the majority of the citizens who are capable of doing it to provide for themselves. That’s how we free up resources to enable the people to apply them to productive uses and make the country wealthier.

If you look around, you can find endless examples of politicians — mostly of the Democratic persuasion — proceeding on the same assumption that wealth has come from luck or magic and now the only thing left to do is to issue government orders to achieve fairness and justice. For a second example today, I’ll take New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mikie Sherrill and her views on electricity generation.

Here’s some background on the Sherrill situation. Back in June the electric utilities in New Jersey increased rates by what they say is an “average” of 17-20%. Here is a piece from the Regional Plan Association reporting on that event. An average of 17-20% is high to begin with, but many New Jersey residents have reported that their own increases range up to a doubling of rates, or close to it. Unsurprisingly, many are upset. Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli has been making some headway blaming the increase on the current Democratic Governor, Phil Murphy.

And in fact Ciattarelli is completely right. Murphy has gone all in on the intermittent renewable energy fantasy, apparently never bothering to read the 50 or more posts at this website explaining in excruciating detail why increasing intermittent wind and solar generation would inevitably multiply the cost of electricity to consumers. Here is a piece from Philly Voice on October 19 explaining the basics of the Murphy energy and electricity policy as his term winds down. Excerpt:

Murphy’s energy goals were always ambitious. In successive pronouncements, the governor called for New Jersey to draw 100% of its energy from clean sources, first by 2050 and then by 2035.

So New Jersey built lots of solar farms, and shuttered plants that used fossil fuels. Meanwhile, ambitious plans for offshore wind did not materialize (they would only have made things worse):

Murphy presided over a broad expansion of solar power in New Jersey, his greater plans to produce thousands of megawatts in offshore wind generation ultimately failed to create any new power, even as some existing power plants were shuttered, reducing the electricity New Jersey sends to its multi-state grid. . . .

Not mentioned in the Philly Voice piece, but covered in the RPA write-up, is that as it closed power plants New Jersey has had to buy more power in auctions from its regional grid, PJM. Of course, it now needs power when the intermittents aren’t working, which means it must buy just when everyone else wants to buy, and thus pay premium prices at the auctions.

So what is Sherrill’s answer? Declare a “State of Emergency” and order a freeze of utility rates! Here is Sherrill’s webpage laying out her “plan,” if you want to call it that. Some key quotes:

Utility costs are out of control in New Jersey. Families are spending almost their entire budget just to pay the electric bill this summer. It’s time for action, because people just can’t wait any longer. So on Day One as New Jersey’s next governor, I’m going to declare a State of Emergency on Utility Costs and freeze your utility rates. . . .

Then there’s chasing down the hoarders and wreckers or other hobgoblins who are making the electricity expensive:

I’ll immediately open up [the utilities’] books to see where rising costs to families are going, . . . I will instruct my Attorney General to take Trump and New Jersey’s grid operator, PJM, to court — in coordination with governors in our region — to force them to end their mismanagement. . . .

And don’t forget building more of those fantasy solar panels and battery farms that, after all, provide the “cheapest” electricity:

This means immediately breaking ground on new solar and battery storage projects. . . .

To her partial credit, Sherrill does concede a need to keep some natural gas and nuclear in the mix, at least for now. But the overall thrust of her approach is that producing electricity is an easy job to be done by the little people. If rates are going up it can’t because of counterproductive government policy, and therefore it must be because bad people are ripping the consumers off behind their backs.

Good luck to New Jerseyans if you elect this half-wit. If you do, you will be in for a fate not so different from that of New York, or Germany.

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

Pop psychology (mostly in the vast wasteland of daytime TV) loves to tout psychotherapy as “dealing with the past.” At least part of that comes from the feel-good prattle that pervades shows like Oprah and the like. But when the TV’s off and the chips are down (in a therapist’s office, for example), what does “dealing with the past” actually mean? If it just means talking about the past, then, yes, I sometimes do that with my clients. They tell me about their parents, their siblings, and how things were for them while growing up. We talk about the impact this had on them, up through and including the present. In solution-focused or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, this takes a session or two at most.

Those who feel that “working through the past” is important usually assume that years and years of this is necessary – complete with the stereotypically bearded Freudian, dozing in an overstuffed chair while cradling his empty notepad. But if somebody asks why and how this is the case, no answer is given. It just … is. And the cartoon psychoanalyst continues to doze. There are tens of thousands of books and interviews premised on the opinion of “experts” peddling countless years of therapy spent analyzing the past – but nobody has ever explained why.

I don’t approach mental health advice – or life – that way, and my clients appreciate it. From time to time I’ll see a client whose spouse feels he or she should be “working through the past.” When they bring it up, I say, “OK, let’s talk about your past.” We do so, and it’s usually quite productive — for about 20 minutes. And then, wouldn’t you know it, we’re back to the issue of right now and what brought them to see me in the first place.

It isn’t the past alone that shapes us. It’s our ideas and attitudes that shape us. Two people could have the same childhood, and come out of that childhood with different ideas. Johnny could grow up with dysfunctional parents and siblings. Yet Johnny grows up thinking, “My family members were strange. I don’t like the way they were. Not everyone is like them. I don’t have to be like them.” Suzie could have grown up in the same family, but might develop the attitude, “People are not to be trusted. People are weird. I guess I am too. I’ll never really be close to anyone.” Of course, there are always variables, but the most important one is attitude. That’s the difference between Johnny and Suzie.

In the above example, Suzie needs therapy more than Johnny. She needs to look at how she allowed her childhood to shape an attitude that is now causing problems for her as an adult. It doesn’t matter if her feelings are an accurate reflection of how her family was. If she looks at the issue objectively, isn’t it possible for her to expect different behavior from herself and others? Can’t she discriminate among those with whom she chooses to associate? Suzie’s therapy should focus on these questions in the here-and-now, and not so much on her past. The past is done. It’s over. Talk about it all you want; it’s not going to change. It’s time to get on with life and be happy as an adult.

The past does not determine our present. The past shapes our attitudes and beliefs, but as thinking human beings we have the power to change faulty attitudes and beliefs. If you deal with the past at all, you learn to let it go and to move on.

Michael J. Hurd

This isn’t something you hear often, but Andrew Cuomo is right. Yesterday, Townhall reported that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are using the Democratic Party to infiltrate American elections and usher in the socialist takeover of the United States.

Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, is the trial balloon.

Radical Leftists have also been taking over the Democratic Party for years; they’re likely the reason the Democrats haven’t voted to reopen the government. As Scott Jennings noted, the Democratic leadership is afraid of this increasingly violent, radical base.

“The truth is, there’s a quiet civil war going on in the Democratic Party right now,” Cuomo said. “You have an extreme Left, radical Left. Bernie Sanders, AOC. Mamdani is just the banner carrier for that movement. Versus the mainstream moderate Democrats.”

Cuomo continued, “They now call me moderate. They used to call me liberal. Now I’m a moderate because the whole party shifted. And that’s what this election is all about. It is that civil war. I believe that far Left will destroy the Democratic Party. I believe it will destroy the Democratic Party nationwide if that far Left becomes dominant.”

On the Straight Shooter podcast, Cuomo reiterated that Mamdani would be the death of the Democratic Party.

“It would be the death. It would be the death of the Democratic Party. The Republicans are licking their lips, hoping this kid Mamdani, wins, because they can pick him up and carry him around the country and say, ‘Here’s the Democratic Party! 34-year-old, never had a job. Wants to decriminalize prostitution. Doesn’t like the police. Defund the police, abolish jails. Literally a socialist! Anti-business, anti-corporate, government should control the means of production.’

“That’s Marxism,” Cuomo added. “So, this socialist wing wins? The Democratic Party dies, in my opinion.

Amy Curtis, Townhall

As the clock ticks down the last days before the 2025 elections, we’re hearing more calls for the GOP and conservatives in general to intervene in the NYC election to prevent Zohran Mamdani from being elected mayor.

What we don’t hear is an answer to the question of why? Why, exactly, should the GOP and the MAGA movement waste time, effort, and political capital to prevent the Democrats from throwing themselves off the cliff? Why write another chapter in the never-ending saga of Republicans pulling Dem chestnuts out of the fire and the getting kicked in the face immediately afterward?

The plan here, evidently, is to switch GOP support to Andrew Cuomo (at least they’ve abandoned publicity hog and media hustler Curtis Sliwa) in order to save the city from the evil sheik Mamdani. Think about that: Andrew Cuomo, brother of Fredo, who spent his three terms as governor plumbing new depths of incompetence. Who never let an opportunity to slander the GOP slide. Who during COVID pioneered the practice, then taken up by governors across the northeast, of dumping COVID sufferers in old folk’s homes, resulting hundreds if not thousands of deaths.

The Dems, so we’re told, having come to their senses, will realize what the Republicans have spared them from and will be grateful. New York voters, with their customary insight and depth of perception, will reward the GOP with showers of votes. In other words, we’ll witness something that has never happened and never will.

What will happen instead is this: voters will see the GOP tossing away the principles and practices of MAGA just as they were beginning to bear fruit. They will see conservatives supporting one virulent social democrat over another for no rational reason. They will see the Uniparty in action. And they will respond as they always have: by walking away.

These fans of Andy the Granny-killer are missing the big picture. The Democrats are up against it. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands are abandoning blue cities and states for redder pastures. Throw in various state GOPs’ adaption of aggressive redistricting tactics utilized by the Dems for generations, which will strip them of their last districts in red states. Add the upcoming Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which promises to end the Voting Rights Act provision that rewards the Dems with unearned racially-defined districts, and the 2030 census that will further decimate Democrat representation, and it’s clear that the Dems are on their way down the chute.

But we’re supposed to reach out and rescue them. 

All this is in large part due to the loons that the Dems have been putting into office in recent years. The Squad, Bernie, Fauxahontas, Jasmine Crockett — they may play well in their own blue-saturated localities, but they simply boggle the minds of voters in the rest of the country.  In this election they’re running a man who actually wore the tattoo of the Totenkopf SS, one of the vilest organizations in human history. They’ve got him, and they’ve got Mamdani.

The fear seems to be that Mamdani will suddenly transform into a New Obama, will shoot up the political ladder, enter the Oval Office, and further implement the destruction of the country. Well, he can’t. Unlike Obama, he actually was born overseas, so he doesn’t qualify. We can leave that out of our calculations.

The impulse to save New York City doesn’t play, either. New York City doesn’t want to be saved. This is the city that elected Bill DeBlasio to two terms – in landslides, to boot. That sent Sandy O to Congress. That has reelected Chuck Schumer repeatedly. This is the city that had not one good word to say for Rudy Giuliani, the man who effectively destroyed the Mafia’s control of key city industries and who bought NYC an extra twenty years of life as mayor, when he was targeted by the Left. They’ve made their bed, and I wish them the joy of it.

We all know the old adage, commonly attributed to Napoleon, to “never interrupt when your enemy is in the process of destroying himself.” The Democrat party is perched atop a kitchen chair, noose around its neck, capering and gibbering as the chair teeters. Let it be.

J. R. Dunn, American Thinker

As all good true believers know, the only reason that Socialism has thus far always failed in practice is that real Socialism has never yet been implemented. And thus we have my home town of New York, until now the world capital of capitalism, about to put into office a self-proclaimed Socialist, or maybe Communist, to give Socialism just one more shot.

How could large numbers of seemingly intelligent people believe that this could work? One reason is a remarkable lack of news coverage of the economic status and trajectory of the places that avowedly practice Socialism. My mission here at Manhattan Contrarian is to fix that.

Consider Bolivia. Have you read anything about it lately? They had a presidential election last week, which merited some small interior articles in newspapers I read. The articles I saw before starting to research the topic barely mentioned the current economic situation, and did not mention at all the economic trajectory since the Socialists took power back in 2006.

In the election, which was held on October 20, the nearly 20 year Socialist government has just been voted out by a huge electoral majority. The back story is that the effort to implement Socialism had failed disastrously, as it always does. But just as important is the trajectory followed by the economy under Socialist rule. Here’s the summary: first, an early period of euphoria, where Socialist prescriptions like nationalizations of large businesses (in Bolivia, particularly natural gas sector) funded extensive handouts to government supporters; then a period where the nationalized industries gradually declined until they could not support the handouts any longer; and finally the inevitable economic crisis and collapse.

Way back in June 2015 I had a post titled “On Socialist Death Spirals.” Here is the pithy quote:

[W]hen you look at statistics coming out of fully or largely socialized economies, . . . what you find is that the official statistics for years and decades show growth comparable to, and sometimes faster than, that in capitalist economies; and then one day, it all falls apart.

Here was my analysis of how this works:

Of course the numbers had been fictitious all along. There really was a gradual decline going on, but the numbers didn’t show it. And, without knowing all the tricks [used to cook the books in Socialist countries], the main one is obvious, namely counting all or most government spending as a full addition to GDP. Where government owns the main businesses and controls most of the distribution of resources, not to mention prices, the measure of GDP becomes more and more arbitrary.

Now to the case of Bolivia. I had a series of posts about Bolivia in October and November 2019, here, here and here. The occasion was a previous presidential election held on October 20 of that year. Socialist President Evo Morales was finishing his third term and running for a fourth. Unfortunately the Bolivian Constitution limited him to three terms; but as the saying goes about Socialists, “you can vote them in, but you have to shoot them out.” In September 2019, Morales had just gotten his subservient Supreme Court to invalidate the constitutional term limit as contrary to his “human rights.”

In the run-up to that election, on October 1, 2020, The Nation ran the expected big piece touting the spectacular success of the Socialist government, 13 years into its rule. The headline was, “Bolivia’s Remarkable Socialist Success Story.” In my October 3, 2019 post I had some long quotes from that piece, which I will repeat here:

Since taking office in 2006, [President Evo] Morales, a former coca grower and labor activist, has nationalized key industries and used aggressive social spending to reduce extreme poverty by more than half, build a nation with modern infrastructure, and lower Bolivia’s Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, by a stunning 19 percent. For much of Bolivia’s majority-indigenous population in particular, his tenure marks the first time that they’ve lived above poverty and benefited from their country’s tremendous natural resources.

It’s now clear that a redistributionist agenda has not been ruinous to Bolivia’s economy. Far from it: During the Morales era, the economy has grown at twice the rate of the Latin American average, inflation has been stable, the government has amassed substantial savings, and an enterprising and optimistic indigenous middle class has emerged. . . .

Morales also dramatically increased social spending. He poured money into building roads, schools, and hospitals, an expansion of infrastructure that was particularly transformative in the countryside. And he established modest but deeply popular cash transfer programs. . . .

But my post then asked if, even if official government statistics seemed to be showing success, there might be another perspective on what was going on. I found a piece at Bloomberg from February 2019, headline “So Much Gas, So Few Allies Spells Trouble in Populist Nation.” The gist was that Bolivia had long been the only big natural gas producer in its region, which had enabled it to charge premium prices to places like Brazil and Argentina. But those countries were gradually figuring out ways to access cheaper supplies. Oh, and Bolivia’s gas production was also sharply dropping due to lack of investment under the socialist government:

“Basically, there’s a new game in town that has broken the Bolivian monopoly on natural gas in South America,” said Fernando Valle, an oil and gas analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “When you have super high margins somewhere, someone is eventually going to find a way to go into that market and undercut you. That’s what’s happening to the Bolivians now.” . . . In 2018, Bolivia’s gas exports fell by about 30 percent, drastically impacting the government’s revenue and the entrance of foreign currency . . . .

The cracks had already begun to appear, even if the cheerleaders at the Nation didn’t choose to see them.

In the October 20, 2019 election, returns on election night appeared to show Morales going down to defeat. But then the vote count was stopped, with no reason given. The next morning, Morales’ people announced that in the final tally their man had won just enough votes to be re-elected without a run-off.

There was an immediate explosion of protests over the election result. Morales called in the OAS to perform a review, and they issued a Report in November. My November 11, 2019 post captured the flavor:

[T]he [OAS] Report makes clear that the efforts of Morales and his people to rig the election were remarkably obvious, crude and amateurish. . . . Really, Evo, you should have been flunked out of Evil Dictator School for having learned so little about how to properly rig an election.

Within weeks, Morales had resigned. Bolivia went through a year of turmoil, leading up to a re-run of the election in October 2020. The victor was Morales’ Socialist side-kick Luis Arce, who has held the presidency since then.

So the Socialists have had another five years to fix the problems and get their program to work. How has that gone? The key industry in Bolivia for funding the Socialist dream has been natural gas production. OilPrice.com had an article on August 28, with data sourced to Rystad Energy. The chart includes data from 2014 to 2025, and projections to 2033:

Production has fallen by nearly half since 2014, with declines accelerating in the past few years. I guess that every dollar you reinvest in producing gas is one dollar less that’s available to buy votes.

A more comprehensive picture of the Bolivian economy can be found in an article at the Foundation for Economic Education from August 14. The headline is “Crisis in Bolivia?” Excerpt:

Bolivia’s economy is on the brink of collapse. . . . Facing reelection, [President] Arce refused to cut public spending, reduce subsidies, or liberalize the economy. Instead, the government imposed price controls, stricter currency regulations, and restrictions on importers’ access to dollars. This led to severe shortages of fertilizers, medicines, fuel, cleaning supplies, and food. Prices skyrocketed, and distrust in the boliviano grew. People rushed to exchange bolivianos for US dollars, which were scarce. The central bank imposed further restrictions, pushing demand to the informal market—common in countries like Venezuela or Argentina. Two exchange rates emerged. . . . Given the current trajectory, Bolivia could be headed for a crisis similar to Argentina’s in 2001 or even Venezuela’s. . . .

In short, it’s the same old story. According to the latest data from the IMF, Bolivia’s per capital GDP in 2025 is $4,585. By contrast, the U.S. per capita GDP is given as $89,599.

In the first round of the recent presidential election, held back in August, the MAS party of Morales and Arce got just 3.2% of the vote. That’s what they call “beyond the margin of fraud,” and it looks like they completely gave up on rigging the election. The run-off, held October 20, was between candidates described by NPR here as a “centrist” and a “conservative.” The “centrist,” Rodrigo Paz, won.

NPR says that voters were “outraged by the country’s economic crisis and frustrated after 20 years of rule by the Movement Toward Socialism party.” NPR also notes that Paz had “gained traction among working-class and rural voters disillusioned with the unbridled spending” of the Morales/Arce/MAS regime.

Paz takes over in a very difficult situation handed to him by his Socialist predecessors. In the first instance he will have to withdraw the pervasive handouts that the Socialists have put in place. That is not going to be popular. At least Bolivia didn’t have to shoot the Socialists out of office. But they have a very deep hole to dig out of.

Francis Menton, Manhattan Contrarian

On October 18, Democrats and other leftist groups held hundreds of “We hate Trump; we hate his supporters” protests that they called the “No Kings” march. The largest demographic group of protesters was older, antagonized white women accompanied by their reluctant, “do-I-have-to-participate” husbands (the second largest group). In contrast to the Democrats’ younger protesters, these elderly (70s and 80s) men and women were civil and even displayed patriotism by waving (not burning) U.S. flags. Surprisingly, they didn’t carry many Palestinian or Mexican flags  often seen when Dems protest. Obviously, they received the memo to tone down their hatred of America.

The protesters claimed to be against “kings and monarchs.” That’s not true. Dems and their protesters love authoritarian regimes. They embrace communism, socialism, dictators, kings, and oppressive regimes provided the authoritarian is one of their own. How else does one explain their support of Islam (a completely repressive ideology) over Christianity and their overwhelming support for the soon-to-be-elected communist mayor of NYC? Trump is the exact opposite of a dictator or king, which is why Dems protest so vigorously against him. They’re against Trump because he’s open and honest, and those who support authoritarians hate transparency and honesty. 

The demographics of the protests got me to wondering, why do so many 3Ws (Wealthy White Women) participate in all these “hate Trump” protests and rallies? It makes no sense. Trump has negotiated numerous peace treaties around the globe, completely closed the border to illegals, is making us all safer by deporting illegals, has reduced crime in cities controlled by Dems, greatly reduced Biden’s inflation, is eliminating drug cartels by blowing up their boats, is ending race-based discrimination (He’s getting rid of DEI.), eliminating boys playing girls’ sports, negotiating new trade deals that will bring tens of thousands of jobs to the USA, and these “educated” elites are against it all. Why? 

A psychotherapist named Jonathan Alpert has a possible answer — these educated women are suffering mental health issues. According to Alpert, liberal women “consume more mental health services” than any other demographic group. He thinks these protests are a form of “group therapy” where all these aggrieved women commiserate and throw tantrums with other like-minded aggrieved, angry women. Similar to AA meetings where alcoholics support and encourage one another, these irate women engage in public, group “venting sessions.” Alpert said, “people get stuff off their chest and feel better in the moment but it doesn’t bring any sort of positive change.”

Numerous nonpartisan studies show that liberal women are: “less happy, more depressed, and diagnosed more often with mental illness.” According to “The Despair of Young Liberal Women,” liberals “consistently report lower levels of personal satisfaction than conservatives.” In their survey, only 32% of young liberal women felt satisfied with American society while 70% of young conservative women reported being satisfied. The article continued, “Compared to conservatives, liberals are less inclined to prioritize activities that are associated with personal fulfillment. Liberals have become less closely connected to religious organizations and churches. Marriage rates among liberals have also declined precipitously. Only 37% of liberals are currently married, compared to 56% of conservatives.” Also, the General Social Survey (GSS) is one of the longest “snapshots” of American attitudes that tracks happiness. Since the 1970s, the GSS consistently finds conservatives happier than liberals, regardless of gender. 

The 2024 American Family Survey shows conservative women rate themselves twice as happy as liberals. In “Why are Liberal Women so Unhappy?,” Lucian G. Conway found similar results, that conservative women are happier than liberal women largely because of marriage and church attendance. The article asks if it’s time to embrace “conservative approaches to well-being.” Columbia Magazine’s “Why Depression Rates are Higher Among Liberals” and the 2024 study from the Institute for Family Studies titled “Liberal Women are Less Happy, More Lonely. But Why?” reinforce this greater happiness of conservative women versus unhappy liberal women. 

These studies don’t surprise me at all. Given that most of these studies are conducted by uber-liberal psychology wonks, I suspect the actual happiness differences are even greater than what is reported. Every day, Democrat women wake up and watch “The View,” CNN, and MSNBC that are filled with nasty, loathsome female commentators; telling these liberal women they’re victims and are oppressed by white, male conservatives. Also, they’re told that America is a cesspool of racial injustice, that climate change will soon destroy the planet, that Donald Trump and ICE are jailing and deporting innocent “Maryland fathers,” etc. Conservatives, on the other hand, wake up and thank the good Lord for blessing them with another day of living in the greatest country God ever 

Think about those two completely opposite mindsets and Alpert’s explanation makes more sense than all others. It proves what Michael Savage has said for years, “Liberalism is a mental disorder.” Liberal women, who all vote Democrat, living in cities like Atlanta, Boston, NYC, Austin, Seattle, etc., love talking about “seeing their therapist.” It gives them credibility and bragging rights at cocktail parties and black-tie fundraisers, in the same way that aborting a baby does. Alone, they tell their problems to their psychiatrist. Gathered as a group at a protest, they scream their hatred of Trump and of conservatives. Bless their troubled hearts. 

Sloan Oliver, American Thinker

The Evil of Aimlessness

I once worked in communities supported mainly through a form of Universal Basic Income (UBI). Most money was received from the government for no (or token) work, or from mining royalties, where others worked digging on the communities’ lands. There were walls black and heaving with cockroaches while children slept with dogs on stained mattresses below, and babies covered head to toe in pustular scabies while the mother complained about a sore back. This was not universal, but not uncommon. Other communities that stood out as strong and healthy had people working hard for a living – particularly in roles that reflected their culture – a very different economy.

Men who once worked hard to support families lose the reason to do so when it makes no real difference; when the basics of life and leisure are equally available to those who work for them, and those who do nothing. It is not a political issue, just a human behavioral and psychological one. Removing the need to work and the dignity that striving and succeeding bring, especially before one’s family, leads to inaction, loss of interest in the world, a loss of role (i.e., a loss of dignity), and depression. This is dampened by alcohol or drugs. Wives and children suffer by being beaten up by drunk, frustrated, and drugged men. Having two frequently drunk parents ensures children are malnourished and aimless.

This is not theoretical – it is seen all over the world where people of one culture are overrun by those of another, and confined to subservience, economic and societal irrelevance, and handouts. Some people and communities break out of it, usually by finding ways to grow their local economy and achieve some form of self-governance and self-reliance. Breaking out is not common and requires an opportunity, the possibility, to do so.

Our Brave New Technocratic World

The road much of the ‘developed’ world is currently on is towards UBI, but without that potential for escape. We use this term ‘developed’ in a technological sense – not a human sense – as it denotes technology rather than awareness. UBI will be introduced as a panacea, as artificial intelligence (AI) will replace a lot of jobs. The use of AI is increasing because it can accumulate wealth more reliably than employees. Amazon’s plans to replace humans with robots will not only mean a few hundred thousand human jobs gone at Amazon, but lots more high-street shops boarded up and their employees and owners gone. This is why Amazon is moving to AI and robotics – to increase profit for the few percent who are its beneficiaries by putting competitors out of business. AI may be overplayed or not, but what Amazon is doing will be widely repeated.

The people out of work, by and large, will be city and town dwellers who must obtain their food from shops (or Amazon). They will need to be given money or food vouchers to do this. Governments will provide these because they cannot afford responsibility for abject poverty on a mass scale, and many in government also mean well. People will increasingly rent their housing from Blackstone or a similar corporate entity rather than own it, further increasing their dependence. For a while, some people will play online games or draw pictures and grow token lettuces on their balconies, but knowing this is just window dressing on life. Then they will go the way of the communities in the first paragraph, taking families and communities with them.

Government UBI will happen – it already does to some extent, but the future will see it on a far, far larger scale. It will not be cash handouts but digital currency. This will be a tightly controlled version, as in a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), because the government will claim responsibility for controlling the money it dispenses. CBDC is essentially food vouchers, and intended to be. Your UBI will be yours as long as you use it for what the government allows, within the time they allow.

Well-meaning people are already building the social acceptability for this. Those suggesting now that a virtuous society should prevent food vouchers or unemployment benefits from being used for sugar-based drinks or tobacco believe already that dependent people have lost their right to autonomy. Again, this is not at all theoretical. It is exactly what this form of money is intended for. Most people in society will see its introduction as a good thing, as they are fine with limiting the freedom of others if told that it serves a greater good.

Living as Safe as Slaves

In countries like Canada, if you protest against the government, you can already lose your right to buy or sell. If you need permission to obtain the basics of life and cannot make your own choices on the pursuit of happiness, and you are punished for questioning those who restrict you, then you are in a master-slave relationship. In time, most people will become, essentially, a slave of the UBI provider, the government. This is the design behind UBI and CBDCs. It is why very rich people, the people who own the AI and robotics that are going to make so much human labor superfluous, see this as an excellent path.

All the above will not seem at all dystopian. Governments will control their populations as part of saving the world (saving the world is important) and will readily convince a majority of the population that being saved is a good idea. We need governments to save us from climate catastrophe by stopping us from travelling, as our children are already told. We need large corporations to save us from pandemics, including those that the same corporations’ laboratories may develop. We need ever more expensive pharmaceuticals injected into us to save us from the scourge of obesity – to save us from our own inability to control our eating. We will certainly need saving from mass unemployment and the inability of a large part of the population to earn their own keep.

Saving people is, after all, the government’s job. As the last few years have shown, convincing populations to indulge in self-harm on the pretext of being saved is much easier than we thought. We will slip back into slavery, into a feudal system, because most people will choose it.

A Conversation We Are Unlikely to Have

So, we need to talk about UBI because a lot of people think it is a harbinger of a great future, but it is something else. They think people will somehow flourish when they have nothing much useful to do, when they get money for being obsequious, and there is no compelling incentive to get out of bed in the morning. A temporary social welfare net is what society should do to protect its members and act with decency. UBI – permanent free money for the majority – is something else entirely. It will ensure that the vast majority can never break out of their lot and recover any semblance of the real economic autonomy necessary for societal flourishing. 

The UBI future is simply a return to the default of human societies through the ages – feudalism – but without even the relative purpose found in walking behind a plough. Human nature leads us to want to stay on top if we are already there, or wallow in depression if there is no potential for improvement. Depression, drugs, violence, neglect, and repeat – the UBI – CBDC future. This is the orthodox understanding from a public health viewpoint. Social capital is a basic determinant of health and well-being. None of this is controversial; it can just be awkward politically.

Over the past few hundred years, many societies broke free of feudalism. This freedom has been a brief time in the sun. Accepting or rejecting Universal Basic Income as a basis for fixing the rapidly approaching decimation of useful employment will determine whether the sun keeps shining or we return to the oppressive societal default. Slavery, for many, will seem easier than struggling, and far safer. Once dependent, the luxury of struggling may be gone. We need a real conversation before we turn irretrievably down that road. For most, that will probably not happen.

David Bell, Brownstone Institute