1) The Sweet Smell of Success: We Killed the $150 Billion UN Carbon Tax

Excuse us while we take a bow!

Less than two weeks ago we sounded the alarm on one of the most sinister tax increases we'd ever heard of. No one was paying attention to the UN’s stealth international climate change tax on America's shipping industry - and our $3.2 trillion of exports.

America was scheduled to pay up to $150 billion in this discriminatory tax over the next decade.  Worse yet, we would have had NO control over where the money got spent!

Europe and China launched a major lobbying campaign for this tax, which was to be administered by a UN agency called the International Maritime Organization.

Regular readers will recall we launched a frantic last-minute campaign to stop the tax, and that started with a “wake-up America” item in the HOTLINE early last week. That warning signal was picked up by the Washington Examiner, and then we provided a briefing to our friends at the Wall Street Journal, who then wrote a scathing editorial on the UN tax.

The day before the vote, we urgently pleaded with our sources at the White House to get Trump to alert the world of America's strong objections to the tax - and even a threat of retribution against nations if they voted for the tax. Thankfully, that’s exactly what Trump did, and his Truth Social post on Thursday came out just in time.

And poof! A diabolical "net zero" tax that was going to sail through the UN a week ago, shaft the U.S., and enrich China was scuttled on Friday. What a victory against UN tyranny, for free trade and lower taxes.

2) Gee, We Wonder Why Coffee Prices Have Shot Up

Hmmm.

Could it be... tariffs?

We now impose tariffs on coffee from Brazil at 50% and Columbia at 10% - the nations famous for their rich and aromatic coffee beans. Switzerland, which has a huge coffee processing industry, is our number three source and is being tariffed at 39%.

The WSJ notes that coffee prices are up - drum roll please: 22%.

3) Stocks Versus Gold, Part Two

We got plenty of pushback from readers (especially the gold bugs) on our item last week, noting that returns on stocks had done multiple times better than returns on gold since 1980.

Several astute readers noted that our starting point of 1980 was timed exactly when gold had peaked after the disastrous monetary and fiscal policies of the 1970s. Fair point.

Other readers pointed out that so far in the 21st century, gold has outperformed stocks.

Let us put a fine point on the argument that we were TRYING to make. It’s a very simple one.

Bars of gold have little intrinsic value in this day and age. Gold is simply a store of value, which is what money ($$$) is supposed to be. When economic policies run amok and central bankers allow inflation to rear its ugly head, investors run for the exits and buy gold as a security blanket. When economic policies are pro-growth and the dollar is strong and stable, gold is redundant. Gold prices only rise when there is economic turmoil and inflation.

The reason we picked 1980 as our starting point is that Reagan’s policies were a pro-growth/strong dollar economic inflection point.  Lower tax rates, deregulation, peace through strength, and a Fed chief in Paul Volcker who was an inflation hawk par excellence caused gold to tank.

It is true that since 2000, gold has outperformed stocks, but much of that rise was due to the runaway spending policies under Obama and Biden. Gold prices have also risen under Trump 2.0 especially when the tariffs were announced. If you believe, as we do, that on balance Trump’s pro-business economic orientation will create another investment boom in the U.S., then gold prices are likely to stabilize and perhaps even fall.

4) Is David Brooks Reading the HOTLINE?

We recently ran this chart, showing the Southern states dominating the much more profligate blue states in teaching poor and black kids to read:

Last week, a commentary on our chart appeared in The New York Times of all places.

David Brooks wrote:

We've now had 12 years of terrible education statistics. You would have thought this would spark a flurry of reform activity. And it has, but in only one type of people: Republicans. When it comes to education policy, Republicans are now kicking Democrats in the butt...

Where the hell are the Democrats? One gets the impression that many of them have spent the last decade deciding that social justice ideology is more important than reducing inequality...

We can't live in a country in which the party that dominates the rural areas has a proven educational agenda while the party that dominates the urban areas doesn't. The Democrats lost part of their soul when they lost touch with the working class; they'll lose whatever is left of it if they can't be a party that champions equal opportunity.

5) Hooray! Courts Strike Down Maryland's Gag Rule on Online Advertising Tax

Congratulations to our friends at NetChoice for their significant victory in court last week, which blocked a provision of Maryland's online advertising law that prohibited companies from disclosing the tax at the point of sale.

Maryland's law imposes a European-style gross receipts tax of up to 10% on digital ad sales by large technology companies.

The law also unconstitutionally attempted to silence companies, by banning them from informing businesses purchasing ads that they were paying the tax. That part was struck down.

What a welcome victory for free speech.

6) This Should Only Take a Minute

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