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Odds and Ends — 22 April 2025

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Published: 22 Apr 2025 › Updated: 22 Apr 2025Odds and Ends — 22 April 2025

Odds and Ends — 22 April 2025

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“So many books, so little time.” — Frank Zappa

Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, AI, and Debt:

Coinbase considering applying for US banking license

Markets Are Discovering the Real Trump Trade Is ‘Sell America’

Two months into Donald Trump’s second term, the pillars of American financial hegemony — erected over the best part of a century — have rarely looked shakier.
Trump’s renewed tirades against the Federal Reserve, including the most explicit threats yet to fire Chair Jerome Powell, only amplified the shockwaves from his declaration of trade war on pretty much everyone. It’s forcing a reappraisal of the assets fundamental to US economic dominance. The dollar and Treasury bonds, traditional havens at times of stress, suddenly look much less appealing. It’s not long since investors were anticipating a so-called Trump trade, essentially turbocharging US exceptionalism, but now it looks more like a sell-America trade.

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

Unvaccinated kids face up to 20 times higher risk of long COVID, analysis finds

Politics:

Harvard Is Suing the Trump Administration

Harvard University said it has filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, arguing it has violated the university’s constitutional rights by freezing billions of dollars in federal funding, illegally imperiling its academic independence.
The lawsuit sets up a legal showdown between America’s most prominent university and the president of the United States, who has been on an escalating campaign to reorder elite higher education.

———— Autocracy R Us ————

Due process is such an inconvenience: Trump blasts Supreme Court while arguing trials for migrants ‘not possible’

Alito’s Emergency Deportation Dissent Misrepresents the Most Crucial Fact in the Case

———— Francis and Vance ————

———— Kristi Noem ————

———— Smoot-Hawley 2.0 ————

The Legal Case Against Trump’s Tariffs

The Trump administration’s trade war has prompted chaos and countermeasures across the globe, but a potent counterattack has emerged in the courts in recent weeks — and in the long run, it could fatally undermine President Donald Trump’s unprecedented global tariff regime.

A Sudden-Stop Crisis Comes to America

What we’re seeing now is something familiar to those of us who have studied economic crises in other countries, usually but not always emerging markets. For this is looking more and more like a “sudden stop.” That’s what happens when a country that has relied on large inflows of foreign capital loses the confidence of international investors. The inflow of money dries up — and the economic consequences are usually ugly.
Trump inherited an economy in remarkably good shape. We’d had ‘immaculate disinflation’: The inflation spike of 2021-22, largely caused by Covid-related supply chain disruptions, had faded away without a large rise in unemployment.
But Trump wasted no time in squandering the hand he’d been given. It’s not just the destructive tariffs. It’s also the chaos, as policy zigzags wildly, and the craziness. If you were a foreign investor, would you want to bet on America right now? Would you even want to visit to look at investment prospects, given the risk that you might be imprisoned by ICE because you once sent a text critical of Trump?

———— Signalgate ————

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———— DOGE ————

Federal Workers Ignore Elon Musk’s ‘5 Things’ Emails

Can Rural Health Care Survive DOGE?

The scramble to save a federal grant program that puts doctors in poor towns.

DOGE Gets Access to Sensitive Immigration Data

———— Mors Imperii ————

White House Embraces Pro-Natalist Agenda

The White House has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values.

Inside the White House Plan to Make America Make Babies Again

The Supreme Court Looks Poised to Give Religious Parents a Veto Over All Public Education

Serendipity:

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“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” – Plutarch

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