Economics - Compelled to Move Forward

June 2, 2026June 2, 2026

ARE TODAYS REPUBLICAN LEADERS REALLY CONSERVATIVES?

Given the rapidly accelerating evolution of the republican agenda over the last 25 years, one has to wonder if today’s republican leaders are really conservatives at all. As a conservative for nearly 50 years, all evidence indicates that today’s republicans have abandoned all conservative principles and driven headlong into focusing on protecting the wealthy and holding onto office by whatever means necessary.

April 2, 2026April 5, 2026

THE DISMANTLING OF AMERICAN LEADERSHIP

As a conservative and a student of foreign policy for nearly 50 years, it grieves me, as it should all, to witness the Trump Administration rapidly dismantling America’s leadership role in the world. For over 80 years, generations of Americans poured their lives into building an American led global order, which we and allied democracies have been the beneficiaries of. Tragically, President Trump has abandoned that world order in an effort to dominate every relationship and win short-term transactional gains and power. Never before in the history of the world has a global power voluntarily chosen to walk away from its moral, joint security, economic and diplomatic power.

January 16, 2026January 18, 2026

MAGNANIMOUS OR MACHIAVELLIAN?

Perhaps some of the most important choices we make in life are who we chose to lead us. Whether it be a supervisor we agree to work for, or a Mayor, or a President, it’s essential that we secure a well-founded sense of their character and motives. Those are hard things to judge, but they portend conduct that may meaningfully impact our future. Sadly for America, the character and motives of our current President have been more polarizing than perhaps anyone in recent history.

October 31, 2025October 31, 2025

A CONSERVATIVE’S CALL TO QUELL THE VITRIOL AND VIOLENCE

As a conservative for over 40 years, I’m compelled to call out fellow conservatives for driving divisions among us and stoking violence. When tragedy strikes, like a shooting or assassination, all should know to restrain impulses to disparage the deceased and refrain from a rush to judgement. Tragically, our nation’s leaders, President Trump and VP Vance chose to quickly and very publicly blame “the radical left” and “left-wing radicals who gunned down Charlie Kirk”.

August 31, 2025September 3, 2025

TURNING TOWARDS THE GREATER GOOD

As a lifelong conservative, it grieves me to witness how the vast majority of political “leaders” have abandoned the values that once defined them, chosen to play to a base they’ve radicalized for their own purposes, and failed to articulate, let alone champion, policies that would serve the greater good. While “Republican” leaders seem to have won the day in taking from the poor and giving to the rich, and Democratic leaders press into righteous indignation against Republicans, I submit that we need to step back, at least a little, from what we’re against and step into what we’re for. That’s a hard thing to do when President Trump has marshalled the whole of government to forcefully advance an agenda thoroughly antithetical to our core values. However, for the sake of both our mental health and our civic effectiveness, we need to turn, at least partially, away from all the zero-sum negotiations and law suits being battled out, and focus on win-win, non-zero-sum opportunities to improve the lives of people and our country.

June 21, 2025June 21, 2025

ECONOMIC MALFEASANCE

As a conservative and a student of economics for over 40 years, it’s been downright painful to witness the economic malfeasance of the Trump Administration. Were it not happening in real time, it would be hard to believe any President would intentionally initiate trade wars with our allies, reduce the pool of labor needed to sustain growth, dismantle teams of experts working on our most pressing problems, reduce funding for public and higher education that underpin future economic prosperity, cut the overseers of our fiscal integrity, and damage the confidence our economy is built on. Tragically, it’s inevitable that these actions will create more uncertainty, stoke inflation and push us into a recession.

May 8, 2025May 8, 2025

THE AUDACITY OF EVIL

While former President Obama lifted us with “The Audacity of Hope”, tragically today, we are witnessing daily the audacity of evil. While none should find it difficult to recognize the conduct of my fellow Republicans in Congress as self-preserving cowardice, and the conduct of wealthy MAGA supporters as greedy, the conduct of President Trump seems to be in an altogether different class.

March 7, 2025March 10, 2025

“WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE”

With the holidays and songs of “peace on earth” having wafted well behind us, and years of political turmoil before us, perhaps it would be worthwhile to inquire, how can we find peace when lies, greed, and gross injustice, run rampant right under our noses?

October 30, 2024December 10, 2024

DECEPTION

Deception. It’s been a plague on humanity since Eve was beguiled to take a bite from the apple. Whether self-induced, or seeded and cultivated by those determined to profit from it, deception has driven many wars and resulted in incalculable destruction, heartache and loss of human potential. Hitler lured Germans into believing Jews were to blame for their economic problems, President Johnson told the American people not to “worry about Vietnam” and sent tens of thousands of young men into a war he knew we wouldn’t win, and George W Bush pressured us into believing Iraq had WMDs while the CIA warned him they didn’t. These are just a few examples of “leaders”, bent on their own self-serving agendas, bent on gaining and holding onto power, choosing to lure people into believing falsehoods, with disastrous consequences.

April 22, 2024May 11, 2024

A TRAGIC SYMBOSIS

Most of us learned in public school how a symbiosis is a “close biological relationship between different species”. Most of the time these relationships are co-dependences that benefit both species. Sometimes they’re fatal. Tragically, as a growing number of Christians have tried to assert their influence in political arenas, the accelerating ties between those who call themselves Christians and most Republican “leaders” dependent on their votes, has devolved to the detriment and mutation of both.