Victor C. Bolles
April 1, 2026
The No Kings protests were touted as a great success as millions turned out into the streets while the rest of us were inundated by widespread and generally favorable press coverage. But other than making them feel proud of themselves and superior to the MAGA deplorables what did they actually accomplish? The Democrats appear to be doubling down on the same policies that propelled Donald Trump back into the presidency. In this commentary we look at what they are saying and the policy implications of what they want to do.
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It is ironic that the same Supreme Court justices that so outraged the progressive left when they frustrated Joe Biden’s unconstitutional actions such as forgiving all those student loans, are the same justices that are blocking Trump’s tariffs and other plans that stretch the boundaries of the Constitution.
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What’s Worse than Billionaires?
Victor C. Bolles
March 27, 2026
Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani say that billionaires shouldn’t exist. But the truth of the matter is that our welfare system is dependent on those billionaires and other productive workers that produce much more than they consume. In this commentary we analyze the economic forces driving the American welfare state and show how that system is unsustainable.
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The wealthy can afford it. But the wealth available for redistribution is the result of the productive workers saving a portion of the surplus they created. It is true that the very wealthy spend insane amounts on luxury goods, fancy cars and huge mansions but most of their wealth goes to investments. And it is those investments that drive economic growth.
Victor C. Bolles
March 13, 2026
The Iranian regime and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps have suffered heavy damage in personnel and equipment from the joint American and Israeli airstrikes against their country. But they are counting on high gas prices and sagging poll numbers to sap the American will to continue this fight. But there are consequences to ending this war prematurely. In this commentary we look at why we need to finish this unpopular war.
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While Mr. Trump and most Americans consider the Islamist regime in Iran to be evil and dangerous, it is not an existential threat to us as long as it does not have nuclear weapons. But to Mr. Netanyahu and the Israelis that regime, even without nuclear weapons, is still an existential threat so he will not stop at anything short of regime change.
Victor C. Bolles
March 2, 2026
Will the killing of Ali Khamenei and many of his top Islamic supporters mimic the capture and arrest of Maduro in Venezuela? Maduro and his regime were more profit hungry drug dealers than true believers in socialism or communism. It remains to be seen if the Islamic regime in Iran was made up to true believers or money-hungry profiteers. In this commentary we will try to look beyond the current fighting to see what a likely outcome will be.
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So, although ordinary Iranians will be slaughtered in the streets of Tehran as they confront the well-armed IRGC in their attempt to rid themselves of the current regime, once the Islamic fanatics are replaced by crooks and swindlers there will be peace in the Middle East.
Victor C. Bolles
February 23, 2026
Last week’s Supreme court decision declaring President Trump’s tariff regime unconstitutional has thrown the US economy into turmoil and uncertainty. But before we get angry at the Court we must remember the real reason things are such a mess. In this commentary we highlight some previous commentaries that may provide insight into why the Court did what it did.
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The Important thing that we must keep in mind is that all the economic uncertainty and the potentially enormous cost of reparation of this mess are not due to the Supreme Court decision but were caused by the president acting without proper authority.
Victor C. Bolles
February 20, 2026
Time is running out for Donald Trump to establish his legacy. The legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte, for good or ill, has lasted over 200 years since his death. Will Mr. Trump’s legacy last centuries? And what will be his legacy? In this commentary we will investigate Mr. Trump’s efforts and try to answer those questions.
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Or would Mr. Trump’s legacy be more like that of his fellow populist Juan Peron who remade Argentina from one of the wealthiest countries in the world into a financial basket case? And, while he is focused on creating a lasting legacy, many of President Trump’s previous achievements are coming up crappers in the long run.
A Dirty Word
Victor C. Bolles
February 10, 2026
Senator Chuck Schumer has announced that the Democrats will shut down the government if their demands aren’t met. President Trump vilifies and tries to punish anyone who puts their conscience ahead of absolute loyalty to the MAGA agenda. The word compromise is alien to these two radical factions. But compromise is essential for a working democracy. In this commentary we investigate why compromise is so important.
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“And the radical right MAGA movement and the radical left progressive movement are unwilling to make any concessions on any of these issues. Not only do they believe that the other side is wrong, they believe that the people holding these opposing positions are either stupid or evil.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 30, 2026
Does the rising price of gold signal a looming financial crisis? The price of gold is just one of the forbidding economic signals we are confronting. In this commentary we look at a range of warnings and what we should do about them.
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Treasury bonds are getting riskier even as yields decline. Capricious and seemingly irrational policy decisions increase uncertainty. For many decades the United Sates was considered the one safe place in a very uncertain world. That is no longer the case.
Victor C. Bolles
January 26, 2026
CNBC’s Squawk Box crew will probably not have to make their annual pilgrimage to Davos next year. The American-led rules-based world order that the World Economic Forum had tried to reshape to match the good intentions of the global elite is dead. President Trump’s speech at Davos was its eulogy. In this commentary we will try to peer into what is coming next.
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All of these world leaders are trying to create a new world order from the ashes of the old rules-based order. Some are tepid imitations of the old order (Carney) or a reinvocation of the old order (Johnson) or a new Board of Peace-led order (Trump). Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping did not give speeches at Davos about creating a new world order, they are busy recreating a mercantilist world order by their actions – not speeches.
Unconstrained
Victor C. Bolles
January 20, 2026
President Trump’s actions at home and abroad appear to be unconstrained by custom, decency or any rule of law. Hoover Institute fellow Thomas Sowell pointed out in his book, A Conflict of Visions, how an unconstrained vision can ignore the trade-offs the real world imposes on human activities leading to sometimes disastrous unintended consequences. In this commentary we look at how President Trump has adopted a vision normally associated with leftist ideology.
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Donald Trump clearly believes in the unconstrained vision. He has a notion of what is best for America and he is unconstrained in using the power of government to achieve it. That’s why Leftist Senator Elizabeth Warren is in agreement with Trump’s plan to reduce credit card interest rates to 10%. Both Senator Warren and President Trump believe that credit card interest rates are too high. And their solution is the same. Use the power of government to order banks to lower their rates.
Donroe in Action
Victor C. Bolles
January 12, 2026
President Trump is wasting no time to put into action the principles expounded in the recently published National Security Strategy (NSS 2025). It is a strategy based on American power and American interests but not on American values. In this commentary we look at alternatives to a great power multipolar world but these alternatives must await the departure of Donald Trump.
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As Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said in a CNN interview, “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in a world, in the real world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
Adiós Maduro. ¿Bienvenidos a Quien?
Victor C. Bolles
January 5, 2026
Maduro is now gone but many of the factors that precipitated his capture and arrest are still in place. The socialist government is still in charge. The Venezuelan armed forces are more or less intact. Far left “colectivos” still control the streets of Caracas. Cartels and drug runners still have a lots of product for the American market. In this commentary we look at the current situation and discuss what to look for in the coming weeks and months.
Quote from the commentary:
“The aftermath of Mr. Maduro’s removal smells more like a business deal than liberation for the Venezuelan people. Many people (many of them close to Mr. Trump) are going to get very rich from the reconstruction of Venezuela just like in Ukraine and in Gaza.”
Victor C. Bolles
December 30, 2025
As we enter the year 2026, we must confront the reality that we are living in a new world order. The old American led rules-based world order that was able to avoid great power conflict and provide economic growth and improved living standards across the globe is gone. In this commentary we look at how this new world order changes America’s priorities.
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Many credit President Trump for single-handedly creating this MAGA world order. But on the other hand one could say that in reality President Trump has really only conceded to the world order created by China and Russia - that this new world order is the abdication of global leadership by the United States.
