Economic historian @independentinst. Opinions = my own. Slayer of Tariffs, and Chief Economist of the Chief Economists Association of America
Joined December 2012
- Tweets57.9K
- Following2.8K
- Followers54.4K
- Likes98.5K
Pinned Tweet
Update: I calculated Karl Marx's annual income based on his known jobs, inheritances, and recorded handouts that he received from friends like Engels.
A middle class income in Victorian England was about £200, which Marx met from the early 1850s onward.
I warned in May 2025 that tariffs were going to cost the GOP the midterms.
Tariffs are a recipe for electoral disaster. For the past 200 years, voters have consistently punished incumbents who raised tariff rates. 2026 will be no different if we continue on this course.
wsj.com/opinion/tariffs-mean…
They officially lost Mississippi.
The margin was under 5K votes, and voter anger over tariffs was the major issue in the state.
nbcnews.com/politics/rcna605…
Both the Marxist left and the NatCon right have a habit of conflating "externalities" with "stuff I don't like for ideological reasons."
Trump's meddling in primaries prob. cost him 2 senate seats: TX and SC
65% of voters disliked tariffs. They prob. tipped the outcomes in KS and IA plus likely close losses in MS and AK. They made Canada border states MI, ME, and OH unwinnable.
2 unforced errors cost the senate
You have no arms left, Oren.
My @nytimes essay today: "The Reaganites must also struggle with their own baggage, filled with the failures that led voters to abandon them for Mr. Trump in the first place. If Paul Ryan and Dick Cheney are your answers, what was the question?"
nytimes.com/2026/11/11/opini…
Things that strongly correlate in politics:
- Blathering constantly about the need for "virtue" and "statesmanship."
- Surrounding yourself with a coven of grifters, con artists, and bigots.
Recurring theme of the midterm post mortem:
It has brought all of the seedy grifters out of the woodwork and sent them scrambling to retain their influence and income streams in a diminishing landscape.
Postliberal Inc. went through an earlier version with Orban's loss in April
Important read.
Kevin Roberts and JD Vance want the GOP to "fuse" with Tucker's fan base. They want classical liberals to shut up and fall in line. washingtonexaminer.com/in_fo…
Since their founding in the late 2010s, New Right/NatCon/Postliberal blogs such as American Affairs, American Compass, and American Mind have published dozens of posts attacking free market conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians.
Almost all of these posts were unprovoked. Many openly call for us to be kicked out of the broader movement on the right to make way for tariffs, industrial policy, an expansive "pro family" welfare state, and heavy tones of racial and religious bigotry - all ideas that were supposed to make conservatism "popular" and "populist," but have since been thoroughly rejected by the voters.
These same entities now want us to listen to them as they disingenuously claim they will lead the rebuilding out of the wreckage they caused.
This is why economic conservatives, classical liberals, and libertarians want nothing to do with the New Right. And it's why we're laughing at their ridiculous post mortem efforts to reconstitute their failed movement around the same tired, unpopular, and statist ideas that led to their thrashing at the polls last week.
Coming soon: the most comprehensive tabulation of Karl Marx's personal financee ever assembled. Includes...
- His annual estimated income
- Percent that came from Engels
- Frequencies he asked others for money
- Percent that came from actual jobs (abt 12% over his lifetime)
Interesting findings:
1. From about 1851 onward Marx qualified for Victorian middle class
2. From the mid 1860s onward he made enough to qualify as upper middle class
3. He was terrible at managing his money and was often in poverty because he overspent
4. Marx's poorest years (ca. 1849-50) would not have been poor but for the fact that he squandered a very large inheritance from his father in 1848 on a printing press to do communist activisting.
5. Marx got other large inheritances from his mother, his wife's family, and his friend Wilhelm Wolfe, most of which were spent on communist activisting
6. Marx actually made enough from his NY Tribune job alone to have a lower middle class income, but he considered much of what he wrote to be menial and generally avoided jobs from there onward.
National Review is putting its full historical archive online for paid subscribers. I'm genuinely excited about this feature.
It's pretty clear from the bizarre statement below that Jon does not know what time it is. He also has no idea what is coming.
The reason the usual suspects are so mad about @AmAscent_ is because @RyanMNeuhaus is the president. They lied about him. They tried to cancel him. But he survived — and he’s here to stay.
Another brutal defeat for the losers in the venomous coalition.
Hispanic voters also hated tariffs - the word that everyone in NatCon world is now suddenly afraid to say for some reason.
