1) Mine, Baby, Mine

This morning Unleash Prosperity releases its landmark study by our former senior fellow Ned Mamula, now the newly confirmed head of the U.S. Geological Survey.

The study is both eye-opening and infuriating. Because of anti-mining restrictions that date back to the Clinton era, the U.S. is now needlessly reliant on a China monopoly of critical minerals. Now, China is exploiting that status to threaten the U.S. with an embargo of these metals needed for technology, manufacturing, microchips, etc. This is the source of the latest trade war between the U.S. and China that has sent the stock market into a downward spiral.

WE DID THIS TO OURSELVES!

The UP study confirms that no nation has more rare earth minerals than we do - mostly in the mountains out west.

The study shows that the value of these minerals is more than $12 trillion.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum is committed to a "mine baby mine" strategy. It's about time. If we don't, our economy will continue to be held hostage by the Chinese just as OPEC had a blade to our neck for thirty years.  

2) World Bank Doubles Down on Climate Craziness  

Why oh why does the Trump administration still hand over U.S. tax dollars to the buffoons at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund?

At the very moment when the U.S. is leading the charge against the greens' war on oil and gas, the countries that make up the World Bank have just approved a radical climate manifesto over our objections.

According to Reuters, the policy was enacted by "19 of the World Bank's 25 executive directors... affirming their support for the bank's continued work on climate change, defying the U.S., the bank's largest shareholder, and several other countries."

The directive calls for 45% of World Bank "development" money to be devoted to scam green energy programs.  In other words, half of the money will subsidize anti-development projects.

Leading the charge for this agenda to keep poor countries poor are the Europeans who have impoverished their own economies. So why not nail the developing world to the same green cross?

Hold on! It gets worse! The statement also calls for aligning the bank's work with the Paris climate accord, which Trump withdrew from back in January.

Is it too late to cancel our $3 billion World Bank/IMF checks?

3) AARP Got $9 Billion From UnitedHealth Last Year

It turns out that AARP is in on the swindle in Washington to expand health care subsidies that will enrich the health insurers - like UnitedHealth.

And they are getting paid handsomely for it. Buried in the notes to AARP's most recent financial statement was this revelation:

This massive sum was discovered by Chris Jacobs, who publishes an annual report on AARP finances for American Commitment.

This chart from the report should make it clear to every policymaker that when AARP speaks, it represents UnitedHealth, not seniors. It also explains why it has been so difficult to accomplish conservative health care reform objectives - AARP has the funds to outspend right-of-center advocacy groups by multiple orders of magnitude.

4) The Myth of China's Green Energy Transition

Over the past weekend, The New York Times recited an often-repeated fabrication that China is moving to green energy to power its industries and transportation sector.

First came an editorial which asserted that "Trump's energy policy weakens America's global standing by giving a competitive edge to China."

How so? Because: "China has meticulously grown its clean energy industry with government subsidies and other policies." And they "now produce 60 percent of the world's wind turbines and 80 percent of solar panels."

That last part is true. China has capitalized on the western nation's infatuation with expensive green energy.

Next came a ridiculous "news story" claiming that China's EVs and high-speed rail are powered by solar and wind power via massive ultra-high-voltage power lines.

It's all propaganda. Cato economist Jeremy Horpedahl points out, China isn't going green. They are all-in on coal power which supplies nearly 60 percent of their electric power!

5) How the Antitrust Laws Have Made Flying MORE Expensive

Airline tickets have been rising in cost and one reason why is antitrust enforcement that has outlawed airline mergers of smaller carriers.

Regular Hotline readers know that we railed against the Biden Administration's inexplicable veto of a merger between the faltering Spirit and JetBlue airlines. The new carrier would have had a market share of just 9%. Since then, Spirit has been thrown into bankruptcy and has given up half its fleet.

Now, former Delta and Northwest CEO Richard Anderson says Justice's denial of most airline mergers "backfired" and led to a market that has discouraged the entry into the market of low-cost carriers.

"It's ultimately antitrust that, while meant to protect low cost flying, wound up disadvantaging low cost flying," says travel analyst Gary Leff, who works for George Mason's Mercatus Center. The losers are the very passengers that the pointy-headed bureaucrats at Justice claim they are trying to protect.

6) So Much for "Dead End" Jobs

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