Border crossings

Looking back many agree that Biden/Harris loss was caused by the immigration policy. During Obama’s two terms the migrant population grew by 1.7 million and in Trump’s first term the population declined by 1.5 million. Under Biden there was a net increase of 8.5 million migrants not counting got a ways and including 425,000 with criminal convictions and 222,000 with pending criminal charges. During Biden’s first year, Fox News had a reporter on the southern border using a drone to film large caravans of migrants crossing into the country but the rest of the news media ignored the problem. Then in the spring of 2022 the governor of Texas began to send migrants to cities in the north and the press then started covering the border. At first the northern cities welcomed these migrants but in time they changed their view. As the migrants caused a shortage in apartments, overloading schools and medical facilities the locals started to question the sanctuary city policy. New York City had a change of heart. Mayor Eric Adams' stance evolved significantly from initially welcoming asylum-seekers to taking a much stricter approach, particularly focusing on deporting migrants accused of crimes and working with the federal government.

Walmart

When citizens cry out that the rich should pay more taxes that is countered with the fact that the top one percent of wage earners pay 40% of all income tax but this is misleading. The rich do pay a disproportionate amount of income tax but many rich have very little taxable income. This is because most of their income comes not from wages but from assets. The children of Sam Walton do not earn wages and thus do not pay income tax. They live off of dividends from their Walmart stock where they pay capital gains tax and pass on their assets tax free to their heirs when they die. The four children of Sam Walton own 4 billion shares of Walmart stock valued at $250 billion. The Walmart dividend is 75 cents per share or $3 billion per year to the four children. They never touch the principal and it passes tax free to their children when the die. An investor who bought Walmart stock in 1972 for $1,000 would have $11.3 million today and if they died this would pass tax free to their heirs. This is because capital gains tax only come into play when the asset is sold. At death it has a stepped-up basis and escapes income tax. They skirt the estate tax by transferring ownership to trusts. The top one percent owns $55 trillion in assets and the government collected only $32 billion in estate tax last year.

Stepped up basis

The major financial result of 50 years of globalization was the movement of wealth up the food chain. The statistics showing the inequities in wealth and income distribution overwhelmingly confirm that there is a serious problem. It is now to the point where young people are beginning to see socialism as a way to redistribute wealth. While the progressive income tax system tries to equalize things by taxing income, this will not work because the super-rich derive their income not from wages but from assets. There are a number of ways to get at wealth created by assets. One is to tax unrealized capital gains. When an asset increases in value there is no tax until it is sold. So, a rich person just holds on to the asset until they die at which time it gets a stepped-up value at the time of death. Uncle Harry bought 100,000 shares of Amazon stock in 2000 at $6 per share and he died last week with his stock worth $65 million. That stock now passes to his heirs with zero income tax and zero estate tax. It the law required that people sell appreciated stock at the end of each year, this loophole would not exist and Harry’s heirs would not be able to start the whole process over again, to pass on to their heirs.

Executions

Many people in the US oppose the death penalty and often times do so with public protest. In 2025, 47 people were executed up from 25 in 2024. Mostly going unnoticed were the 2707 executed in other countries around the world including 2,159 in Iran. This included deaths from drug offenses and acts of political dissidence. Iran not only treats women as second-class citizens but executes those men or women who disagree with government policy.

2028

Looking ahead to the 2028 presidential election several things are clear. The democrats will be unable to drag themselves to the center since all of the party’s energy is to the left. Will they be unable to disconnect from the cultural items like men in women’s sports, gender surgery on minors, gay issues, identity politics and badmouthing republicans long enough to discuss policies. They will discuss the economy but their solutions to problems will be all about taxing the rich and expanding government benefit programs. The republicans will bring up law and order, deportations, fair trade, lower taxes, secure border and energy independence. They will concentrate on creating new industries through free market innovation (AI) and thus new high paying jobs. This means increased productivity which leads to low inflation and could be well underway by election time.

The future

“It’s not your father Oldsmobile”, was a slogan used back in the 80’s to illustrate the new engineering in the auto industry. This is an apt saying for what is happening to manufacturing, as the US goes into the era of reindustrialization, as globalization comes to an end. In the past workers in manufacturing plants were assigned repetitive task as they stood on assembly lines and it was called a factory job. In the new plants robots will do these jobs and the employees will shift from manual assembly to managing advanced technology. Workers will operate, program, and maintain robotics and AI systems, analyze real-time data dashboards, oversee quality control, and solve complex, high-value technical problems. These jobs will be shared by technicians and engineers. The techies will be high school grads who will learn on the job. It will be an apprenticeship program much like unions have. More training leads to higher skills which leads to higher productivity which leads to higher wages. The US plans to double its industrial base over the next ten years and it will be a wild ride so get ready, the world is changing.

Working class

The end of WW 2 saw the beginnings of globalization. For forty years between 1955 and 1995 the democrats controlled the congress and then the republicans took over for the next 12 years until 2007 and that was the end of globalization. During those years both parties, but mostly democrats, claimed to be the party of the working man. It was during those years that the foundation of the working man crumbled as manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas. Added to that was the structural disadvantage with tariffs. The US followed in the believe that free trade was best for all and that is the case but while the trade was free it was not fair. The US had tariffs of 2 to 4% while the rest of the world taxed US imports at 5 to15%. Many of the US trading partners used child labor, had few environmental laws and used mostly coal power. On top of that the US paid more than its fair share for NATO, the UN and all of its affiliates and used its military power to protect all allies. This system expanded the income and wealth gap and those in control want things to remain the same but all that is changing. The new way will be free and fair trade, countries paying for their defense and manufacturing jobs coming back home. This will promote the working class with good jobs.