1) Could Trump Engineer a Takeover of the Fed?

It's no secret that Trump wants to bring a quick end to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's Reign of Error. Powell gave us the highest inflation at 9.1% since the late 1970s. He was WAY behind the curve in trying to smother the crippling inflation of 2021 and 2022. He has also been the most political Fed chair perhaps ever, with his pronouncements gratuitously attacking Trump policies.

Powell's term is officially up in May 2026 , but Trump may not wait that long to evict him from office or make him irrelevant. Trump wants much lower interest rates (which makes us nervous) and "Too Late Powell," as Trump calls him, won't deliver.

Our preferred option is for Trump to wait out Powell, and replace him next year with a pro-growth chairman (Laffer, Forbes, Warsh, Hassett, Shelton) who will pursue price stability, economic growth, and a strong dollar.

The media and other Liberals are hyperventilating that Trump is making a play to take over voting control in the months to come and that Fed independence is in jeopardy.

The chart below shows the current composition of the Fed Board of Governors.

With the coming addition of Stephen Miran, that gives Trump three votes.  If the allegations of Lisa Cook's mortgage fraud are true, she must be replaced as soon as possible, which would make four.  Liberals will only have themselves to blame for giving Trump an additional selection to the board, by appointing a woman who may be deemed unfit for office.

This would give Trump a 4-3 anti-Powell coalition on the Fed board - potentially enough votes to overrule Powell on monetary policy. The rules are complicated because the Fed also has 12 regional bank presidents who rotate in voting on interest rate policy.

We believe in Fed independence AND accountability. There is no accountability now.

Postscript: To our knowledge, the only time the Fed board has overruled a chairman was in 1986 when the Fed Board voted for a discount rate cut against Paul Volcker’s wishes.

2) Conservatives Are Having Babies; Progressives Aren't

Regular HOTLINE readers know we are obsessed with the dangers of falling birth rates in the U.S. and almost all developed countries.

But an analysis by the statisticians at the Financial Times have discovered that birth rates are above replacement level fertility for those who self-identify as "conservative" and way below replacement levels for those who identify as "progressive."

We’ve warned that humans may be going extinct, but maybe it’s only progressives that may become an endangered species.

3) Trump Ends Collective Bargaining For Most Federal Workers

You may have missed it last week, but President Trump issued a pre-Labor Day order ending collective bargaining with several federal unions that work on national security issues.

This is a big step in the right direction. As we’ve said many times, when politicians negotiate with unions, taxpayers always lose. The liberal Center for American Progress estimates that over 80% of civilian federal workers are no longer covered by collective bargaining agreements. That represents one out of 15 workers covered by a union contract.

The biggest remaining area of public sector unionization is among state and local workers.  While only one in three government workers in the U.S. belongs to a union, about 85% of state and local government employees are in unions.

To accelerate the flourishing worker freedom movement across the country, the states need to follow President Trump's lead - along with states like Wisconsin - and end collective bargaining for their public employees.

4) The Lawyer Party

Here's a shocking fact from Bruce Mehlman's substack: Every Democrat nominated for President or Vice President for the past 40 years was a lawyer, until Tim Walz.  Which means now we finally have something nice to say about Tim Walz!

5) Is the Stock Market Overheated?

The Wall Street Journal published a lead story over the weekend with this scary headline:

The story reports: “The S&P 500 currently trades at 22.5 times its projected earnings over the next 12 months, compared with the average of 16.8 times since 2000" - right before the housing crash.

Then why are investors scooping up stocks at these prices? Irrational exuberance?  Sure. Maybe.

We aren’t stock analysts - far from it - but if you look at the chart, you can see that stocks had a mini crash in April right after the Trump “Liberation Day” universal tariffs were announced.  

The PE ratios reported by WSJ are PRE-tax. But the One Big Beautiful Bill cuts business taxes and allows immediate expensing. Supply side tax cuts RAISE PE ratios.  

6) It Must Be Football Season Again

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