We’re still in the dog days of summer, a slack period for opinion pieces, so I’ll use the opportunity to take stock of what I see as the four big stories whose significance extends well beyond local concerns. As I see it they are:

• The war with Iran
• The Russo-Ukrainian War
• “Trade war” with Canada
• Data centers

The war with Iran

I articulated my opposition to the war with Iran on the first day of the war, largely on just war grounds. That hasn’t changed. I think it is incumbent on President Trump to explain how we will achieve victory in this war. Not what his objectives are—how we will achieve victory. At this point that seems to be some combination of economic pressure and military force. Why will this be successful now when it has not in the past?

The Russo-Ukrainian War

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected the notion of a wartime election, despite calls for it from his opposition. NBC News reports:

Echoing his ?previous comments on ?the matter, Zelenskiy said a wartime election might be possible if Kyiv’s partners could guarantee security, but that no one ?has proposed such a plan.

“Elections right now are a ?tsunami for ?the state, which will split Ukraine,” he said.

“That’s why my strategy is to steer the country toward an ending of the war and to preserve an ?independent ?and sovereign state.”

Fedorov, a longtime Zelenskyy ally who ?has been seen as a top political challenger, did not explicitly say whether he would stand ?in any future election.

Since the outset of hostilities I have argued that we should provide military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. That, however, should not be construed as unqualified support for the Ukrainian government and everything it does. Russia was wrong in attacking Ukraine. We should continue to support Ukraine. We should use whatever leverage our support provides to nudge Ukraine in the direction of being more democratic, more liberal, less corrupt, and less ethno-nationalist.

“Trade war” with Canada

Cristina Roca reports at the Wall Street Journal:

After weeks of marathon talks between U.S. and Canadian trade officials, an agreement was almost in sight. Then, late on Friday, the talks collapsed at the 11th hour. Tariffs of 50% on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods went into effect, and Ottawa said it will respond with dollar-for-dollar levies on Sept. 8.

My general view is that we should engage in trade reciprocity with other countries. In the past I have been critical of the U. S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) on the grounds that it wasn’t strictly reciprocal and that Canada and Mexico were each exploiting different aspects of the agreement to their own advantage and our disadvantage. That remains my view.

In the particular cases of Mexico and Canada I believe the long-term ideal objective is moving in the direction of a single, trans-continental economy. These aggressive moves and Canada’s reaction are not steps in the right direction.

Data centers

In general my view is that Congress has largely ceded what is inherently a national policy problem to the executive branch, states, local zoning authorities, utilities, and individual companies. The construction of data centers presents a classic collective-action problem. And historically that’s exactly the sort of problem for which Congress exists. Individual communities have every reason to consider the local costs of data centers but little reason to consider the national costs of not building them.

Unfortunately, Republicans have largely outsourced national data-center policy to President Trump while Democrats haven’t decided what national data-center policy should be. There’s something between “build anything anywhere” and “stop building data centers” that is the better policy strategy and Congress should establish a national framework for what that is.

I’ve been mulling over the interaction among commercial users of the Internet, social media, AI, data centers, and end users for some time now.

The graphic above summarizes those thoughts. Comments appreciated.

What struck me about Thomas Beck’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, complaining about “Medicare for All”, was how much he relies on the notion of “true prices”. Here’s his opening:

The notion of a “Medicare for All” system is enjoying a revival. Democratic primary victories by candidates who champion single-payer healthcare, most notably U.S. Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, have pushed the proposal back into the healthcare debate.

What these candidates fail to understand—or refuse to acknowledge—is that applying Medicare payment rates to all services provided to all patients would destroy the American healthcare system.

and this is a passage that illustrates my point:

Congress’s Medicare Payment Advisory Commission estimates that hospitals lost about 12 cents on every Medicare dollar they received in 2024 and projects Medicare margins will remain roughly 10% below the break-even point in 2026. Those losses are sustainable only because Medicare is one part of a mixed-payer system.

The other main part is commercial insurance. A 2024 Rand study found that private insurers paid hospitals, on average, more than 2.5 times Medicare rates. Those much higher payments help support emergency departments, trauma centers, neonatal intensive-care units, behavioral-health programs, teaching hospitals and rural facilities, as well as investment in technology, cybersecurity and emergency preparedness.

In effect, America’s hospitals are financed by a combination of public underpayment and private overpayment. The arrangement may not be elegant or even rational, but it keeps hospitals operating. Medicare for All would destroy that balance.

In short his thesis is that private insurance pays the true price of healthcare and subsidizes Medicare.

But that’s not how hospital pricing actually works. Commercial rates aren’t derived from underlying costs at all they’re the output of market power and negotiating leverage between hospitals and insurers. A hospital with few competitors nearby can charge substantially more than a hospital lacking comparable market power; a hospital in a competitive market can’t, regardless of what Medicare pays it.

It’s true that revenue from profitable service lines and well-paying commercial patients funds unprofitable-but-necessary services like trauma centers, NICUs, and behavioral health. That’s a real financial structure. But it’s a static accounting fact about how a given system currently allocates money not a causal claim that Medicare’s low rates force private rates up. Under a single-payer system, that internal cross-subsidy would have to be rebuilt through the payment schedule itself, e.g. higher rates for money-losing service lines, which is a real policy design problem not proof the system is mathematically impossible.

But he’s right that “Medicare for All” has a math problem—it’s just not the math he’s pointing to. An explanation that hews more closely to the facts is that Medicare functions as a reference price and that our prices for healthcare are higher than those of other developed countries because all of the factors, e.g. care providers and insurance companies, lack incentives that would reduce prices and Congress has refused to control the price of healthcare. No foreseeable reform even one that completely eliminates private insurance is likely to bring U.S. healthcare spending anywhere near that of other developed countries without directly constraining the prices paid for healthcare.

I wish I knew what Nate Silver’s opinion on Patrick Ruffini’s recent findings on opinion polls was. The short version is that opinion polls overestimated Democratic electoral performance: over the last four cycles, he says 73% of the polls he examined overstated the Democrat, with the effect particularly pronounced in summer polling. Nate has apparently expressed an opinion but, unfortunately, it’s hidden behind a paywall.

Based on my admittedly anecdotal experience canvassing Chicago wards, I think there’s a relatively benign possible explanation at least compared with some of the explanations being offered. I’ve gone door to door in multiple Chicago precincts accompanied by the Republican ward committeeman and my experience has been that Republican households are less likely than Democratic households to answer the door and engage with a canvasser. If a similar difference exists in willingness to respond to pollsters, that alone would introduce a partisan response bias.

The recent Median Strategies debacle raises a related but rather different question: are polls as reliable as they used to be? If you’re not familiar with Median Strategies the organization admittedly published false opinion polls as a “social experiment”. How one might distinguish between a social experiment and political shenanigans is unclear to me. I only pay attention to polls from a small number of outlets: my old client NORC, Gallup, Pew Research, a few others. There’s an enormous amount of disinformation these days.

Be very careful out there.

Recently, there has been a spate of problems involving aircraft tires, particularly at Chicago O’Hare. Stephanie Wade reports at ABC 7 Chicago:

CHICAGO (WLS) — O’Hare is grabbing national headlines after two airplanes blew their tires Monday.

Both the American and United planes had passengers on board. This has now happened four times in Chicago this month.

The Chicago Department of Aviation commissioner said they are investigating what the cause could be.

Two incidents happened just hours apart Monday.

An American Airlines flight coming from LaGuardia blew two tires while landing at O’Hare.

The plane landed safely and passengers were able to get off using the stairs.

Hours later, a United plane – from Omaha, Nebraska – also suffered tire damage when it arrived at O’Hare.

I would have suspected problems with American Airlines if it had been only American having the problems. But since it’s both AA and UA having problems it makes me wonder if it’s the runway surface or even some common problem in the tires themselves that’s causing the problems.

I’ll be interested to see what the Department of Aviation comes up with.

Standards of dress have changed enormously over the last 50 years. As an example, many years ago, when I was in my twenties I took a date (possibly my now wife) to what was then the best French restaurant in Chicago. At the time for such a formal setting customarily men wore suits and women wore dresses. Typically cocktail length but also full formals. While we were waiting to be seated, we saw (and heard) the maître d scolding one of the guests, a young woman, possible 20. She was slim and attractive and wearing a leotard without stockings or tights with a scarf twisted around her hips as an improptu skirt and the poor maître d thought she was not dressed properly. Ultimately, he let her in but I turned and whispered to my date “If she had been five years older or five pounds heavier he would have turned her away”.

Nowadays not only wouldn’t he have batted an eye but if had made bold to comment on her outfit she would be outraged.

In the Wall Street Journal Allie Jones asks a horrifying question: “Can Taylor Swift Turn the Samoyed Into the Next Frenchie?”

When Travis Kelce stepped off his new wife’s private jet last month in Palm Beach, Fla., his travel companion caught people’s attention.

Paparazzi snapped photos as a fluffy white Samoyed puppy trotted down the airstair, appearing at home in its new billionaire lifestyle. When the canine made its tabloid debut on TMZ the next day, Swifties were agog: “Cat lady” Taylor Swift, it seemed, had become a dog mom.

Swift’s influence on consumer behavior is undeniable. She can sell out stadium tours, inspire fans to buy branded merchandise and replicate her outfits, and even boost entire economies. Could she and Kelce make Samoyeds the next French bulldogs?

The article goes on with a series of quotes from various Samoyed breeders, most of whom are acquaintances of ours. For example:

Should Swift’s dog inspire a true rush on Samoyed puppies, the breed would not be the first to gain popularity thanks to its celebrity associations.

“We’ve seen it in Dalmatians when ‘101 Dalmatians’ came out, or retrievers when ‘Marley & Me’ came out, or French bulldogs when Lady Gaga got her French bulldog” in 2014, said Munden.

There’s an error in the article:

Samoyeds, which originated in Siberia as reindeer-herding dogs for the Samoyedic people, have a unique “double coat” that requires professional grooming every six to eight weeks.

Sams do have double coats, i.e. a short, soft, dense inner coat and a longer harsher outer coat. It is thought that the inner coat keeps the dog warm while the outer coat protects the dog from the elements. But Sams are not unique in having double coats. Malemutes, Siberian Huskies, Great Pyrenees, German Shepherds, and others do, too.

My wife and I have had Samoyeds together for almost 30 years. My wife’s family had Samoyeds since before she was born. In preemptive answer to the question always asked: yes, they shed. A lot. In our house dog hair is considered a condiment, frequently found in food. We’ve also had Australian Shepherds for 20 years.

There is much to recommend Samoyeds: they’re smart and energetic. They are beautiful. If you’re looking for attention and walking with a Samoyed, you will get it (our Australian Shepherds are beautiful, too, and always receive a lot of attention). Samoyeds also have downsides: they’re smart, energetic, and want you to be energetic with them, particularly out-of-doors and particularly in the winter. They shed profusely, particularly twice a year.

If you are bound and determined to have a Samoyed, I have one bit of advice: obtain your Samoyed from a reputable breeder. Like many purebred dogs, Samoyeds may have a few hereditary health problems and they tend to run in families. A reputable breeder will make sure your Samoyed is free from these issues.

The editors of the Washington Post continue to ride the hobby that I referred to earlier. This time it’s in the form of a large animated graphic illustrating the increases in revenue and expenditures since 1962.

It’s interesting but it omits several important things. The first is that it neglects the revenue side of the equation almost completely. It shows the revenue but there is little commentary (or animation) associated with it.

The second is that from 1962 to date the federal budget has run at a surplus in a relative handful of years and all but one of those times (2000) the Social Security trust fund surplus accounted for most of that surplus.

The third is that interest paid on the debt for 2026 is roughly the same size as for Medicare.

Without those trust fund surpluses either taxes would have needed to have been higher or the federal debt would be higher and interest on the debt would be higher.

It is tempting to look at the growth of Social Security and Medicare and conclude that without them we wouldn’t have a debt problem. That doesn’t follow. For decades Social Security ran surpluses that financed other federal spending. Without those surpluses, taxes would have had to be higher, other spending lower, or borrowing from the public greater. And eliminating Medicare would not have eliminated the cost of providing medical care to the elderly; it would merely have shifted that cost elsewhere.

We do have a problem, but it’s not simply that we created Social Security and Medicare. It’s that for generations we have been unwilling to pay, currently, for the government we have chosen to have. We’ve been living on the cuff for almost all of the last century, and it’s a very bad habit.

The editors acknowledge that governments are supposed to offset deficits in bad times with surpluses in good times. That’s precisely what we haven’t done. We have run deficits during recessions, wars, and emergencies as a good Keynesian would expect but we’ve also routinely run them during expansions and peacetime.

Donica Phifer and Avery Lotz report at Axios that Luigi Mangione has pled guilty:

Luigi Mangione pleaded guilty Friday in federal court to stalking charges tied to the 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, per multiple reports.

Why it matters: Mangione was facing a potential life sentence if convicted in a federal trial, and the guilty plea could mean his lawyers ask to dismiss separate state charges, including second-degree murder.

• Mangione’s legal team has argued that charging him in both federal and state courts constituted double jeopardy, a legal protection that prevents a person from being charged twice for the same offense.

Frankly, that puzzles me or at least Axios’s description of the argument does. The federal constitutional issue was settled more than a century ago in United States v. Lanza and most recently reaffirmed in Gamble v. United States (2019): the Double Jeopardy Clause does not prohibit successive state and federal prosecutions because they are separate sovereigns.

The actual issue appears to be different. New York’s Criminal Procedure Law §40.20 provides broader protection than the federal Constitution and generally prohibits successive prosecutions arising from the same criminal transaction, subject to several exceptions. Indeed, the judge in Mangione’s state case has already rejected his federal constitutional argument while noting that his New York statutory argument could become ripe after a federal guilty plea.

So the interesting question isn’t whether Mangione’s lawyers intend to relitigate Lanza. It’s whether his federal guilty plea now bars the New York murder prosecution under New York law.