Edifice of Trust Podcast
Victor C. Bolles
February 21, 2025
Today we are going to take a look at how economies function when domestic companies are protected by high tariffs and how this system called import substitution ripples through the lives of people on Main Street and well as Wall Street. When it comes to import substitution I speak from experience.
Quote from the commentary:
“So the only way to maximize profits in an import substitution economy is not to build the better mousetrap but to influence government. Tariffs to protect your products from competition. Carve-outs to protect your supply lines. Import substitution is rife with crony capitalism.”
Victor C. Bolles
February 14, 2025
President Trump is constantly threatening to impose tariffs on countries that export more goods and services to the United States than they buy from us creating a trade deficit. He believes that a trade deficit is losing big time. But Mr. Trump’s economic thinking is old fashioned and wrong-headed, like thinking that foreign countries pay for tariffs. In this podcast we look at why trade deficits are a good thing for the United States.
Quote from the commentary:
“The dollar is one of the greatest assets that the United States has as long as it is the world’s reserve currency. Almost all international transactions are paid for in dollars. When the US applies financial sanctions on adversaries it cripples their economies. Sanctions on Russia are crippling its war effort against Ukraine. Iran was near financial collapse due to US sanctions until the Biden administration lifted those sanctions.”
Victor C. Bolles
February 3, 2025
Following up on my previous commentary about how President Trump views fairness and how he thinks America has been treated unfairly, we investigate the implications of what he intends to do and include an update on his recent actions on tariffs.
Quote from the commentary:
Under mercantilism exports were encouraged and imports discouraged. Higher value exports from great powers to its colonies concentrated wealth in the mother countries and kept the colonies poor. Mercantilism assumes the economy is a zero sum game made up of winners and losers.
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Victor C. Bolles
January 30, 2025
President Trump complained at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the United States is treated very unfairly by the rest of the world. Everyone wants to be treated fairly but not everyone agrees as to what is fair. But the real problem of fairness is that while it does not make good government policy it makes great politics. In this podcast the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at ways to build an acceptable consensus on policies rather than supposedly fair policies.
Quote from the Commentary:
Fairness is not a good standard on which to base public policy. Any “fair” policy will make some people very happy and some other people very unhappy. That may not matter in a dictatorship or a monarchy where people just have to follow the rules whether they like them or not. But in a democracy that is a problem.
Victor C. Bolles
January 20, 2025
Referring to the infamous Nicaraguan dictator Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously said, "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." It appears that lame duck President Biden applies the same type of differentiation to oligarchs circling around the presidency. In this last podcast about the Biden Administration the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, shows how the dire warnings of his farewell address are refuted by his own actions.
Quote from the commentary:
“Of course, the oligarchs Mr. Biden is talking about are the billionaires trekking to Mar-a-Lago seeking an audience with President-elect Donald Trump as compared to the oligarch that was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by the lame-duck president a few weeks earlier. Mainstream media takes Mr. Biden’s warning seriously but fails to note the irony of the medal to the billionaire, George Soros.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 14, 2025
When one of our myriad electronic devices isn’t functioning the way we think it should, we often shut it down and then restart the device to reboot the system. More often than not that solves our problem. I think that the 62% of Americans that believe the US is on the wrong path (according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls) would agree that America needs a reboot. The incoming Trump administrations is planning to make some big changes in Washington. In this podcast the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, discusses whether Mr. Trump is planning a reboot or something more drastic.
Quote from the commentary:
“2025 will be very different from 2017. Back then Mr. Trump knew very little about how the levers of power worked in Washington. He intended to drain the swamp but what little drainage he eventually got was quickly refilled when his successor, Joe Biden, took office.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 2, 2025
Once again, I am publishing my list of the urgent priorities confronting our nation, most of which have been unmet and consistently ignored by both Democratic and Republican politicians. But in 2025 we will have a new Trump administration that is vowing to change how things are done in Washington. One can only hope.
Quote for the Commentary:
“Achieving these goals (or at least making a good start toward achieving these goals since it will be many years before we reap the ultimate benefits) will not erase the stain of January 6th from Donald Trump’s legacy, but it would bury that infamous deed under a mountain of worthy achievements.”
Victor C. Bolles
December 9, 2024
Government budgets are the inflection point between governance and politics. And bad budgeting is bad governance. In this commentary we will look at some of the consequences of bad budgeting and how that is going to impact American citizens.
Quote from the commentary:
“If you think that tax cuts will spur economic growth to reduce the deficit, you are delusional. If you think that you will not have to make a sacrifice to help balance the US budget, you are delusional. If you think that geniuses like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can save trillions of dollars by eliminating waste and fraud you are also delusional.”
Victor C. Bolles
November 29, 2024
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy intends to save taxpayers trillions of dollars by making the government more efficient. But efficient systems are not robust, they are fragile and can breakdown. In this podcast the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at how the Founders’ efforts to preserve our Republic made the government inherently inefficient.
Quote from the commentary:
Efficiency is fragile. We learned that during Covid. International corporations had developed a highly efficient system of production and distribution that provided a large quantity of goods at low prices that still delivered great profits to those corporations. That was until Covid hit. And then the world fell apart.
Victor C. Bolles
January 9, 2024
Once again, while our so-called political leaders are completely absorbed by their campaigns for reelection, they ignore the urgent national priorities that need to be addressed, or worse, use those issues as political levers to galvanize their base at the expense of the American people. In this podcast the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, revisits those priorities that have become even more urgent as we enter a tumultuous election year.
Quote for the Commentary:
“Critics on the left will moan that meritocracy would worsen inequality. But equality of outcomes in education would mean driving all children down to the lowest common denominator (which you would understand unless you had been taught the new “equitable” math). But meritocracy will provide equality of opportunity. In fact, you cannot have equality of opportunity without meritocracy.”
Victor C. Bolles
January 12, 2023
Last year I published a podcast (Urgent Priorities, December 30, 2021) on the urgent priorities that America had to confront in the year 2022. Since many of those priorities were addressed very ineffectively or were not addressed at all, I was tempted to simply republish that commentary again this year. But the world is dynamic, and conditions change so I felt that America’s urgent priorities had to be updated to reflect those changes. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles will discuss the unfinished business of 2022 and the priorities of 2023 and beyond.
Quote from the Commentary:
“There are priorities that affect all Americans, rich and poor, black and white, young and old, whatever. We live in a complex and dangerous world. While our country is rich and powerful, it is not invulnerable. We cannot ignore the events happening around us and we need to be able to influence those events or be prepared to suffer the consequences.”