Many people (including White House officials) believe that President Trump can simply remake the economy however he wishes. This is incorrect. While a president wields significant power when it comes to some economic policies, he cannot magically make the economy flourish….
Two months into Donald Trump’s second term as President of the United States, sworn in on Jan. 20, 2025, the nation finds itself at a pivotal crossroads. Tariffs, once a lightning rod of his first administration, have roared back into…
You can be for or against the tariff war. I suppose every conflict has its good and bad sides. Each side usually has a solid reason. But in the past, we at least had the Geneva Convention. Responding to what…
The attacks on Elon Musk’s businesses — from X’s cyberattack to violence on Tesla vehicles — indicate a strange feeling that is only increasing. In this episode of The Spectacle Podcast, hosts Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay discuss a flurry…
In the grand theater of 2025, where America’s economic stage is lit by the flickering glow of a manufacturing revival, tariffs have emerged as the unsung hero — or the villain du jour, depending on who’s clutching the pearls. President…
The thing about tariffs is they’re just taxes by another name — and we know who ends up paying them. We do. President Trump’s imposition of new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China are in fact taxes imposed on manufacturing, small businesses…
President Trump announced that he would push for reciprocal tariffs in response to other countries raising tariffs on American goods. In this episode of The Spectacle Podcast, hosts Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay break down the usage and meaning of tariffs and…
If you put 50 randomly selected American academic economists in a room and ask them what they thought of raising tariffs as a way of increasing economic growth, I bet at least 48 of them would say that is a…
Someday an updated edition of The Art of the Deal may be placed on the bookshelf next to Halford Mackinder’s Democratic Ideals and Reality, Nicholas Spykman’s America’s Strategy in World Politics, and Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Problem of Asia given…
