1) Sheer Madness

Our new study on America's dependency on China for critical minerals is gaining a lot of attention in the White House, Congress, and the media.

What is maddening is that we now have 15 critical minerals that are 100% imported and another 10 where we are 80% dependent. This includes 95% dependence on imports of vital "rare earths."

As the chart below shows, many of these minerals are 100% imported from China with Russia the second major source:

Several readers corrected us on yesterday's HOTLINE when we said rare earth minerals are imperative for our high tech and manufacturing industries. We left out that these minerals are increasingly critical for our military and modern weapon systems.

Someone has to explain why it makes more sense to get rare earth minerals from communist China, rather than Montana and Colorado. This is what in sports is called "an unforced error."  

2) A Nobel Prize for Joseph Schumpeter

Actually, three other economists - Joel Mokyr of Northwestern, Philippe Aghion from the Collège de France and the London School of Economics, and Peter Howitt from Brown - won the Nobel in economics.

But each for expanding on the 100-year old ideas of one of our favorite economists, Austrian Joseph Schumpeter, who preached the wealth-enhancing forces of "creative destruction." By this, Schumpeter meant that innovation creates a virtuous cycle of market disruption and creation - leaving everyone better off.

This chart shows how the innovation nations - the UK at the start of the Industrial Revolution and then the U.S. in the 20th century - outgrew the nations that empower interest groups that use political power to thwart change:

This is a seminal message now as we move rapidly into the area of robotics and AI - with millions of jobs replaced by super-advanced automation. Some are fearful.  But this productivity burst should be met with hope and joy as living standards soar for even the poorest people on the planet.

3) Evidence That Capping Student Loans Lowers Tuition

We've often said that the student loan program is like a dog chasing its tail, because the more financial aid amounts are raised, the more schools hike their tuition.

Now, we have concrete evidence.

Before the Big Beautiful Bill, there was no cap on federal graduate school loans. In recent years, there has been a wide variety of ways to convert these loans into grants, dumping the full cost on taxpayers. So colleges continuously raised tuition treating it like free money. Well, not anymore.

Santa Clara just slashed their tuition by 20% to $50,000, to match the student loan cap.

The PLEDGE Scholarship will be awarded as a renewable, guaranteed $16,000 tuition scholarship to every full-time student in next year's incoming class, and $12,500 to those in the school's Flex J.D. program. The PLEDGE Scholarship was designed to ensure that next year's incoming class has access to the funds they need to cover the cost of tuition for Santa Clara Law despite new federal loan limits.

4) Hospitals Are Ripping off Patients and Taxpayers.

The health insurance companies aren't the only part of the health care colossus that is fleecing America.

Federal policies have rewarded massive consolidation of hospital systems. Their bureaucracies now rival the government itself in complexity and waste. Since 2010, their administrative costs have nearly doubled.

If Congress does nothing else in its next health care bill, the absurd practice of Medicare paying more for the same doctor's visit if the practice is owned by a hospital system has to end.

5) Stop the $100 Billion Net Zero Maritime Tax

Later this week, the United Nations will hold a vote on a climate-change tax imposed on America's maritime industry - including cargo and cruise ships. Without quick and decisive action by the White House, this UN tax on fossil fuels will become international law.

This International Maritime Organization resolution is intended to advance the very "net zero" carbon emissions standard that has knee-capped the European economies for years and that American voters have soundly rejected.

We have here a dangerous precedent-setting assault on U.S. sovereignty. Since when are American businesses subject to international taxes imposed by the United Nations?

The U.S maritime industry believes the global tax would cost American shippers more than $100 billion over the next seven years, if enacted.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy have jointly warned that America "will not accept any international environmental agreement that unduly or unfairly burdens the United States or our businesses."  

President Trump should immediately announce that there will be severe repercussions for nations that vote for it. Every dollar confiscated from this tax should be offset by an equal $1 reduction in U.S. contributions to the UN, the IMF, World Bank, NATO, and foreign aid programs.

6) Obama Did It!

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