The Social World

Category: Business

  • Nationalizing America will cost us dearly

    Nationalizing America will cost us dearly

    “I have the right to do anything I want to do,” Donald Trump told reporters in the White House cabinet room last month. “I’m the President of the United States.”

    Other branches of the federal government might disagree, but their representatives are strangely mute. “What Trump wants, Trump gets” is the motto that has defined the first eight months of the President’s second term. The overhaul of global trade? Sorted with an executive order and a pen. Poor job numbers? Fire the messenger, hire your own. Feeling the acute absence of a ballroom? Take “a little walk” on top of your White House, look out at your vast kingdom, and decide where the marble floor and golden beams will go.

    But domination of the federal government is simply not enough. This President has now set his sights on America’s real power engine: the private sector. And he doesn’t just want business to bend to his will. He wants a stake.

    This President has now set his sights on America’s real power engine: the private sector

    His first dabblings in acquired ownership have been met with very little resistance. “Intel is excited to welcome the United States of America as a shareholder,” the company said in its buoyant press release, after agreeing to hand over 10 percent of the company to the government in exchange for $8.9 billion in grants. The California-based manufacturer has gratefully received its 30 pieces of silver to solve several problems: not just the company’s financial issues, but an increasingly damaged public image, driven by Trump’s repeated criticisms of its chief executive Lip-Bu Tan and his “highly conflicted” connections to Chinese companies.

    This Judas-style betrayal of business norms has made investors nervous about what comes next, and not just for the chip manufacturing company. The watering down of shareholder rights to get this deal over the line is worrisome enough, but the quick and casual manner in which the US government took its stake in Intel is what’s really garnered attention. “That was easy,” jests one Wall Street long-timer. Now everyone wants to know: who’s next?

    Howard Lutnick has some ideas. Speaking last month on CNBC, the Commerce Secretary argued that defense companies such as Lockheed Martin are an “arm of the US government” – and ideal candidates for the government’s new equity search. The idea is picking up some sympathetic support, not least because some of these companies are almost completely funded by the US government already.

    As is so often the case with Trump and his policies, there is a good point to be teased out around the drama and upheaval of norms. While some cry “dictatorship,” Intel seems rather enthusiastic about this new joint venture with the Swamp. It is a rare moment of transparency, one that gives Americans a glimpse into just how entwined the state and big business are: the former frequently propping up the latter, protecting major corporations from facing the consequences of failure in a market economy.

    Indeed, the links between government money and big American corporations are inextricable. What is often described as a free market or a distinct separation of the state from the private sector is, in reality, crony capitalism on blatant display: billions of dollars transfer every year from the taxpayer to the country’s biggest healthcare provider, UnitedHealthcare, to cover both Medicare and Medicaid. Exxon Mobil benefits from receiving billions of its own, in the form of federal subsidies and loans.

    Yet the extreme makeover of the Republican party – especially on business policy – means that rather than taking on cronyism and putting an end to taxpayer funds picking winners and losers, the second Trump administration is far more interested in how it can skim off the success and the profits of America’s biggest players, in how it can make government look like a “winner.”

    Dreams of seizing the means of production are usually confined to one end of the political spectrum – the same end that likes to slip in talk of “manifestos” and workers of the world uniting. Not even New York’s Zohran Mamdani – the loud and proud socialist who won the Democratic nomination in the city’s mayoral race this summer – has yet felt so emboldened as to call for these kinds of business interventions. He’ll find it much easier to do so if Trump leads the way. It’s an uncomfortable overlap that neither the President nor the soon-to-be Mayor want to admit, but their shared love for economic populism explains why both men were able to move the numbers in their favor across the five boroughs in their most recent respective elections.

    But is America ready for some real nationalization? Markets are still jittery, as they navigate the strong dose of protectionism Trump administered when he announced a 10 percent universal tariff on goods coming into the US. While the federal government does have a record of acquiring businesses, the Intel deal looks a lot more like the arrangements made in far more interventionist and often stagnant economies. The exception might be China, where the Chinese Communist party has at least some stake in the majority of large companies in the country. Is this really the model Trump wants to emulate?

    Regardless, his plans may have to wait, as some parts of the government are not ready to settle for Trump’s takeover of the public sector just yet. The legality of Trump’s tariffs is now likely to be determined by the Supreme Court, while Democrats gear up for another spending battle on Capitol Hill.

    It seems Trump will have enough to keep him busy within government before he seriously considers expanding his reach into the private sector.

    This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 15, 2025 World edition.

  • Will Trump’s stake sink Intel?

    Will Trump’s stake sink Intel?

    In a move supported by Vermont’s socialist champion, Senator Bernie Sanders, President Donald Trump has arranged for the federal government to become the single largest shareholder of Intel Corporation. All for national interest, according to the White House.

    Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick announced that the deal gives the government “a piece of the action.” Is it in fact a piece of the action, or a disaster to come for the American business community?

    Created in 1968, Intel is an American multinational technology company that designs, manufactures and sells semiconductor chips and related products. Following its early successes, it has been in decline as a result of bad management decisions for the last 20 years or so.

    The full terms of the deal include the federal government taking a 9.9 percent stake in Intel, utilizing $5.7 billion from the Chips Act, a $3.2 billion grant from a national security program, and $2.2 billion by retroactively treating CHIPS Act grants as an equity investment. The federal government purchased 433.3 million shares of the corporation at $20.47 per share, a substantial 20 percent discount from the shareholder price.

    In early August, following up on Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan’s Senate testimony before Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, President Donald Trump became publicly vocal in criticizing Tan, accusing him of being “highly conflicted” in view of his investments in hundreds of Chinese tech firms – at least eight of which have ties to the Chinese military – asking him to resign immediately as Intel’s CEO.

    Tan then met with Trump, and, as Trump described it, the CEO “walked in wanting to keep his job, and… ended up giving us $10 billion for the United States.” During this voluntary conversation between Trump and Tan, the federal government became the single largest shareholder of Intel Corporation.

    According to the deal, the feds are a passive investor with no time limitations on their holdings. The agreement does not give Intel the option of repurchasing the shares on a future event or date. While the government has no board or governance rights and will vote as directed by the board of directors, with limited exceptions, the exceptions are worth noting here.

    What would limit the federal government from voting however it wants to? It’s common sense to realize that any displeasure the government may have with Intel’s business will be easily communicated to the C-suite before a shareholder vote is held.

    The answer is in the terms of the deal which provides the government with the option to purchase an additional five percent of Intel, with a five-year warrant at $20 per share, if the company ceases to own at least 51 percent of its current foundry business segment. That means Intel is highly incentivized to stay in the semiconductor manufacturing business, even if it’s not the most business-optimal decision. Therein lies the rub in a transaction where the government takes a massive ownership position in a corporation for an ostensibly public rationale of national security. With this deal in place, how will Intel balance its obligations to its shareholders, employees, and customers in future business operations?

    Everything Intel does will now be subject to the need to please its largest shareholder, the US government, and its multitude of interests that will likely lead the company to make political, rather than business, decisions. Yet Intel’s legal duty is to secure the largest possible profit for all its shareholders. It’s as if stakeholder capitalism – where companies consider the interests of all stakeholders rather than focus solely on shareholder profits – has now entered the economy through a Republican president’s machinations. Interestingly, the outspoken conservative foes of ESG investing – an investment strategy based on a company’s environmental, social, and governance performance, which also leads companies away from serving their shareholders – have had relatively little to say about this transaction.

    How then does Intel reconcile these things? An early indication may be seen in the company’s recent SEC filing, where it disclosed that the deal dilutes shareholders’ stock, voting and other governance rights due to the issuance of discounted shares to the government. No shareholder approval was sought for this transaction to occur. Notably, Intel also disclosed that this deal may limit future transactions that could be beneficial to shareholders. Bingo.

    Another problem Intel faces is how foreign governments will treat the company. Will Intel be viewed as an extension of the American government and its interests, resulting in additional scrutiny, regulation, fees or being blocked outright from doing business in certain countries? Roughly 76 percent of Intel’s revenues in 2024 were from international business. Intel disclosed these risks in the same SEC filing, given the clear risk factor here. These problems are merely the tip of a massive iceberg, one that could reshape not only Intel or the semiconductor industry but also other sectors of the economy.

    President Trump said the deal would only be opposed by “stupid” people and that he wants to see many such deals made for the country’s benefit. Secretary Lutnick added that we need an American champion in the semiconductor manufacturing industry, given the apparent threat from China to invade Taiwan, a country which produces most of the world’s semiconductors, including the most advanced forms of chip manufacturing. Although compared to Taiwan, Intel is a weakling in the semiconductor industry, not a champion. And Intel’s stock price appears to be negatively correlated with the recent announcement of the government’s involvement in the company.

    When the CHIPS Act legislation was first announced in 2021, it promised Intel potentially billions in subsidies to build semiconductor foundries in the United States. Intel’s stock was valued at $50 per share at that time. In August 2022, when the CHIPS Act was introduced into law, Intel’s share price had dropped to $35; recently, it has been trading under $20 per share before increasing to around $24 per share.

    Before the government’s intervention, Intel had fallen behind in AI technology, missed the mobile computing revolution, and had gradually but steadily lost ground to semiconductor competitors over the last decade. Yet, a company that wasn’t meeting market needs, and seemed headed for a serious business reorganization to survive has now locked itself into chip manufacturing to please the government and secure a much-needed financial lifeline.

    American taxpayers need to understand that Intel is now too big to fail. For it to succeed, it needs to secure customers who have previously not been forthcoming for its chip manufacturing business, among other business lines.

    Will other likely companies for these customer relationships now receive pressure from the Trump administration to sign long-term contracts with Intel, America’s new champion company? Is President Trump’s other corporate deal with Nvidia, allowing the company to resume its exports of banned AEI chips to China in exchange for a cut of its sales, a harbinger of future things to come? Most importantly, will foreign companies avoid doing such business in America in the first place to escape any coercion?

    To save Intel, a Republican president has turned an American Fortune 500 company into a public utility. Surely there are better ways of serving national security than by taking equity positions?

    What’s next? Which other companies will now want to become American champions?

  • Trump brothers go mining

    Trump brothers go mining

    After a day where the very alive President Trump bombed a Venezuelan drugs boat, moved Space Force headquarters out of Colorado because that state has mail-in voting, declared he was sending federal troops into Chicago and claimed that AI generated a video of someone throwing a plastic bag of construction debris out of the window of the White House, it became clear that the real action was going on outside the White House walls, with Trump’s very rich sons.

    As Cockburn reported yesterday in The Spectator, the Trump Brothers, Don Jr, Eric, and the true genius behind the operations, Barron, had somehow amassed $5 billion in paper wealth thanks to savvy investments, based in no way on shady insider information, in WLFI, the family’s nascent cryptocurrency venture. But not content with breaking the crypto bank, the Trump Brothers are set to become the bank itself. On Wednesday, American Bitcoin, a Trump-run mining and accumulation business, listed on the NASDAQ. Eric and Don. Jr., along with shareholders, own 98 percent of American bitcoin, which has amassed nearly 2500 of the coins. That’s upwards of $250 million in value right there.

    “We’ve become the obvious name in crypto,” Eric Trump told The Wall Street Journal. “American Bitcoin is going to be the greatest treasury company ever built.”

    The Trump Family is cornering the Bitcoin market. They insist this is in no way a conflict of interest even though Donald Trump is the most powerful man in the world. It’s causing the heads of middle-class “ethics watchdogs” to explode, even as the Trump Brothers splash around in a vault of virtual money like a couple of slick-haired, bearded Scrooge McDucks.
    The investing and memecoining is one thing, but this American Bitcoin play brings the flex to a whole new level. More than 90 percent of the possibly available Bitcoins already exist. That means that miners are looking to algorithmically strike it rich in an increasingly narrow lode. After prospectors have been grinding it of their knapsacks for decades, in come these archetypal city slickers with their deep pockets, determined to blow up entire mountains.

    Cockburn doesn’t think Bitcoin was ever cool, exactly, but it represented an alternative to a sclerotic, elitist financial system to which government stopgaps and deeply-entrenched interest barred entry. It harnessed technology to create new wealth, and a new generation of barons (not Barrons), the biggest revolution in global finance since the Spindletop oil gusher burst out of the ground in Beaumont, Texas in 1901.

    Now here come the Trumps, flush with Winklevii money, toting their rifles, fur coats draped across their shoulders, bursting into the Bitcoin saloon and demanding the finest whiskey. It’s brazen, it’s annoying and it’s doomed to succeed. They’re like the Roy brothers from Succession, only not tragic. The Trump boys will be sitting on their piles of digital cash, trying to figure out which one daddy loves best, while the rest of us are down here balancing our checkbooks, trying to figure out how to prevent AI from taking our jobs. Happy listing day to them.

  • Has college football sold its soul?

    Has college football sold its soul?

    While you are typing away and grinding at your 9-5, a 23-year-old college athlete you may have never heard of has pocketed multiple seven figures to play a sport he loves. Oh, and this is just the salary, it doesn’t take into account the outside endorsements that these supposedly amateur athletes of various sports and both genders lock down.

    Quarterback Carson Beck, 23, for example, is thought to have snagged a cool $3-4 million to move from Georgia to the University of Miami – snubbing the NFL in the process.

    While Duke’s quarterback Darian Mensah, who is just 20-years-old, reportedly makes $4 million.

    Don’t even ask what Arch Manning, 21, Texas starting quarterback and nephew to Super Bowl winning brothers, Peyton and Eli Manning makes. Hint: It’s much higher and starts with a six.

    But is college football technically an amateur sport in America anymore? Hardly. With stadiums like The University of Tennessee’s Leyland Stadium holding up to 101,915 fans, the turnout and die-hard dedication eclipses the fan bases of several small market NFL teams. This new wild West of monetary landscapes is a far cry from what it used to be.

    So, how did we get here? The Intercollegiate Athletic Association was founded on March 31, 1906. Four years later, the name officially changed into what we know it as today: the National Collegiate Athletic Association. For well over a century, this governing body acted like an overbearing overlord. They made one thing clear: We, the colleges, and television entities make the money; not the students.

    In fact, the punishment for violating “impermissible benefits,” like Reggie Bush did at USC for accepting a car and money from donors, was instant removal of his Heisman Trophy in 2005. The NCAA has since reinstated it.

    The punishment and inequity to student athletes was frequently unfair and severe. It was always suspected players received under the table money to pick revered colleges in their sport over others. However, the tables didn’t turn until 2021 when NIL, or name, image and likeness allowed players to finally cash in on themselves. Which, by all accounts, every individual should be able to do.

    As a respected sports television host and podcaster told me, “the NCAA knew this was coming, they just delayed it as long as they could. This problem is the result.”

    Problems, did in fact, quickly arise. First, theoretically amateur levels should not eclipse professional leagues. The controversial Browns fifth round pick Shadeur Sanders was actually counseled by some to skip the NFL draft so he could make more NIL money by sticking it out another year at Colorado. Seriously. That is how rich these 18-22 year olds are becoming.

    The NIL is also quickly demolishing March Madness. The men’s beloved basketball tournament now hardly sees a bracket-busting school like George Mason or VCU make it to the Sweet 16 or Final Four. When money is spent to transfer heavyweight players in, rosters that spent four years playing together and building camaraderie fall by the wayside.

    And, with such an unfettered landscape of pay to play, it is hard to believe schools without excessive donor funding get a fair shot in competition.

    Sure, these student athletes are technically adults, but they are promised NIL deals from universities as minors. When you’re buying designer items and wedding rings and costly goods with a college salary, do you love the game or do you merely love what the game buys you? Should former Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel not see a dime from Texas A&M selling out 2,500 replicas of his former jersey in his accolade year? No. But look where all the flashy dollar signs and publicity inevitably put his career. It ended before it ever really began in the pros. That is not a path worth repeating for other aspiring star student athletes.

    Beyond that, these deals also create an uneven distribution of wealth to more commonly watched sports which threatens women’s programs. If 80 percent of the money, for instance, is going to men’s football and basketball, what happens to a school’s volleyball, golf, or tennis programs in the long run?

    In response, President Trump recently signed an executive order called, Saving College Sports. It mandates athletic departments which brought in more than $125 million during the last academic year increase the number of scholarships given to athletes in non-revenue sports. Whereas, athletic departments in the less lucrative numbers of at least $50 million keep the number of scholarships offered in those sports.

    “The future of college sports is under unprecedented threat,” the order says. “A national solution is urgently needed to prevent this situation from deteriorating beyond repair and to protect non-revenue sports, including many women’s sports, that comprise the backbone of intercollegiate athletics, drive American superiority at the Olympics and other international competitions, and catalyze hundreds of thousands of student-athletes to fuel American success in myriad ways.”

    Jerry Maguire himself might as well yell like he did in the movie, “show me the money.” Because, gone are the days of kids just being happy to collect a division 1 scholarship. Now, collegiate athletes primarily want enough money to set them up for life. But we have to devise better rules and regulations. Otherwise greed overtakes the purpose of balancing school and sport.

    President Trump took a step in the right direction to even the playing field, no pun intended. Now universities, brands and donors across America are on the clock.

  • Trump should buy Hooters

    Trump should buy Hooters

    In the wake of the US government taking on a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is floating the idea of the government investing in defense companies like McDonnell Douglas. “If we are adding fundamental value to your business, I think it’s fair for Donald Trump to think about the American people,” he said.

    When this news broke last week, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the last true living conservative, told Politico, “If conservatives endorse this now, they hand Democrats a blueprint to expand government ownership over the private sector later. Socialism is literally government control of the means of production.” Sure Rand. While that idea might fly in your senior-year political science independent study seminar, this is Donald Trump’s America we’re talking about here. He is running the “HOTTEST” economy the world has ever seen. America has the best companies, but no one runs companies quite like Donald Trump. Here are some other companies where a US investment would be not only valuable, but vital.

    Disney

    Even Snoop Dogg is balking at Disney products these days, saying he’s “scared” to go to the movies with his grandchildren because there was a same-sex couple in Lightyear. Snoop’s right, that movie was terrible, and the lesbians worthless pandering. This isn’t America’s Disney that we grew up watching. We’ve had enough weird CGI dwarves and princesses of power. A US equity investment would ensure a return to Disney’s optimistic world of tomorrow and would also restore the original Disney from the adult-baby wokeism that has taken over the franchise. The Country Bears will sing the Song of the South once more, as the Trump administration awakens Disney with true love’s kiss.

    Cracker Barrel

    I think we can all agree by now that the Cracker Barrel revamp is a national embarrassment, turning a beloved roadside institution into something bland and generic. A Trump Administration equity stake is just what the restaurant chain needs. Let’s restore the rocking chairs on the porch, the buckets of stale candy and the shelves of wind-up raccoon toys. And let’s beef up the menu with literal extra beef, plus some Trump-branded items. Chicken and Trumplings, anyone?

    Meta

    Aren’t you tired of an unaccountable mega-corporation operating in secret, gathering intelligence on you even while you sleep, never having your best interests at heart while trying to rot your brain with propaganda slop? That’s the government’s job! The feds should take 10 percent of Meta so it can replace our tax revenue with slow-burn ad dollars from comedy videos about Gen X getting older and the difference between dating in the US and France. Welcome to the AI-narrated “A Day In The Life Of A Jack Russell Terrier” video economy.

    Tesla

    We know President Trump and Elon Musk have had their difficulties. No one’s missing the DoGE era. Well, we are, because it was fun to write about, but the country isn’t worse off without Elon grinding his chainsaw on stage every five minutes. But now that Musk is out of the national spotlight and back to running his 19 companies, his companies actually have value again. It’s definitely in the national interest for the government to control the transportation industry, the media, space travel, and Las Vegas underground train systems. Let’s just make sure Elon signs an NDA this time.

    Gold’s Gym

    Fitness is back. US schoolkids have to run a mile again, RFK Jr. is doing pull-ups in jeans, the Kennedy Center is honoring Sylvester Stallone and the UFC is going to stage a battle royale on the grounds of the White House. But if the Trump administration wants Americans to bulk up, it’s going to have to provide subsidized gym memberships. Exercise equipment for 400 million couch blobs is expensive. A 10 percent equity stake in any one of our fine national fitness chains would do the trick. And the TVs would no longer be tuned to the Fake News Media.

    Hooters

    Word broke this week that Neil Keifer, the man who’s trying to take over America’s run-down “breastaurant” chain in bankruptcy court, will revitalize the brand by bringing back hot pants and making it “delightfully tacky.” The Golden Age of Hooters is long behind us, but we also thought the Golden Age of America was behind us. So why not Hooters? It’s already bankrupt. A national investment would be inexpensive, with an easy return. President Trump could oversee the redesign himself. He knows a thing or two about Hooters. We want more sauce, shorter pants, and the most beautiful waitresses in the world. Hooters is for sale, America. Let’s grab it by proverbial.

  • Vegas’s seedy soul will save Sin City

    Vegas’s seedy soul will save Sin City

    I vividly remember the first time I saw Las Vegas. It was decades ago, and a friend and I did the classic LA-Vegas mini-road-trip, across the burning desert, arriving in Nevada around dusk. As we crested the final sandy hill, I saw this thing. This glittering neon jewel-box of a city, glowing in the twilight. I fell in love at once, a love that was only confirmed when we actually entered Vegas, and I realized I was motoring down Hugh Hefner Way.

    That love didn’t quite last, however. Not long ago I returned, and something felt very different. Sadder, somehow. Yes, I was shown a Damien Hirst-designed bedroom with a fridge full of diamonds, but I also saw too much druggy homelessness, and too many stickers that gave me a shock.

    I filed away my negative experience as just a one-off – maybe I wasn’t in the Vegas mood – but recent reports suggest I witnessed something real. Las Vegas is in trouble. And the numbers (you always need the numbers in Vegas) prove it.

    In June 2025, roughly 400,000 fewer tourists shuffled through the casinos, year on year. Footfall on the Strip has plunged 11 percent, hotel occupancy is down around 8 percent, international guests are off by 13 percent, and convention attendance is down 10 percent. These are significant falls, especially when they are so sudden.

    And the slump isn’t just in bodies – it’s in wallets and purses going unopened. Gross gaming revenue on the Strip – the actual gambling income – has begun to wobble (money dragged from casino tables is down 8 percent). The lifeblood of Vegas is no longer flowing so green. The air smells less of late-night mezcal and more of day-long anxiety.

    Why? Part of the problem is that sticker shock I experienced on my last jaunt. Las Vegas got greedy. Walk through the lobbies of the mega-resorts and you’ll see, as I did, furious guests totting up their receipts like recently bankrupted oil barons. A coffee and bagel costs $33 at one Strip hotel. If you want to park your car (of course you want to park your car) you pay a “resort fee” of $60. Want a towel by the pool? That’ll be extra. Sometimes it feels like they want to charge you for air. Maybe five bucks a lungful.

    All that said, I wonder if something else is going on, something deeper, beyond jacked up bills and unhelpful politics. Somewhere between 2000 and now, Las Vegas forgot what it was for. It was never about being “really expensive” and it was certainly never about being “exclusively glamorous”.

    Vegas was meant to be a demotic Babylon. It was about plebeian excess, proletarian pleasures, and the ridiculously over-heaped buffet breakfasts that cost $11.95. It was the glorious idea that anyone – from a roofer in Milwaukee to a divorcée from Boise – could throw on the glad rags, sip a free gin martini, and win $700 on a slot machine named Cleopatra’s Delight.

    The evidence that this is the problem can, paradoxically, be found in Vegas. But not on the Strip. The new, successful Vegas that answers the questions can be found in old Vegas.

    Tucked away in Fremont Street, places like Circa, Four Queens and the El Cortez are somehow thriving. Downtown Las Vegas, long considered the Strip’s seedy uncle, is enjoying a renaissance. While Caesars and MGM sweat over the spreadsheets, gaming revenue in grotty old downtown is actually up: by 6 percent.

    Why? Because these places still know how to dole out carefree fun. Minimum bets are lower. Drinks are cheaper. Shows are weirder, certainly less scripted. You might see a local blues band instead of Cirque du Soleil’s 37th identical aquatic orgy. More to the point, these casinos apparently like their customers. They still offer comps, they don’t try to skin you for checking in early. That’s why local casinos – the Stations, the Gold Coasts, even the smoky joints near Henderson and North Vegas – are doing just fine.

    Their secret is simple: they never tried to become Monaco with extra blackjack. They stayed intimate, rough-edged, relaxed. They remembered Martin Amis’s brilliant one-word description of Las Vegas: “unIslamic.” Vegas should be a place where you can chill, have sex, get drunk and not worry too much about anything, including rules, as well as hotel bills.

    And maybe there is a bigger story, too. Maybe this is a story about the death of scale. The post-pandemic world has grown weary of size. Giant corporations are symbols of arrogance, mega-malls feel dead-eyed and chilly – or they are entirely shuttered. Instead, we seem to want real butchers, cozy bookshops, restaurants with handwritten menus – not $300 wagyu burgers that taste like bad pâté. We want anything artisanal, unprocessed, human and we want a real warm hello. And that, of course, can be done, if Vegas so decides.

    Put it another way. Las Vegas may be in trouble, but as anyone who has ever loved Vegas knows well, you are only one big win from turning it around. Right now the major casinos may be fearfully scaling back. But the soul of Vegas – cheap, sinful, American – is still there, humming under the surface: a Motown B-side on a jukebox in a weird drag bar at 3 a.m. after too much tequila with everyone dancing half-naked (don’t ask: long story).

    And if Las Vegas rediscovers itself, it will surely rise again. A new generation of kids will crest a dusty hill, in a sultry twilight in the desert wastes of southern Nevada, and they will stare in amazement at a distant city that looks like a Czarina’s jewel box, glittering in the starlit dark, and they will think, Oh yes, this is my place.

  • Young people should drink more, no great story starts with salad

    Young people should drink more, no great story starts with salad

    According to a recent Gallup poll, young Americans are drinking less than ever before. Two-thirds of adults aged 18 to 34 now believe even moderate drinking harms their health, up from 30 percent in 2001. Only half say they drink at all, down from 59 percent in 2023, the lowest figure since Gallup began tracking alcohol consumption in 1939. What is happening to young people in America?

    Possible explanations pile up: a new obsession with health, better information about alcohol’s effects, swapping gin and tonics for weed or vaping, the cruel economics of $18 cocktails, or the quiet lure of staying home, where TikTok and Netflix bring the world to your couch instead of you having to find it in a crowded bar. The truth is probably some mix of these, but the real driver may be less about health than about a trend, or a fashion statement.

    Today’s youth track their sleep, steps and serotonin levels. They meditate, hydrate and post about it. They refuse alcohol because it is unhealthy for their body, treat therapy as maintenance rather than crisis management and avoid what they call “bad vibes”. Whether this makes them healthier, or just better at looking healthy, is another question.

    Online trends now tell young people how to live: work out every day, regulate your emotions, stay conscious of your privileges and avoid drinking. It’s more exhausting than a hangover if you ask me. In other words, strip away the very imperfections that make us human: the rage, the shame, the reckless nights and the regrets.

    In Washington, D.C., I asked some Gen Zers why they don’t drink. “Drinking cocktails is getting really expensive at $18/drink. Plus, the terrible hangovers where my brain can’t function the next day make it hard to work or study, which affects my future income”, one said. Another called it also too expensive, a slippery slope she’d seen ruin livelihoods, adding she’s always working.

    This is a generation born in comfort. Their parents listened to them. Their spaces are safe, they avoid conflict, having grown up without much of it, and in the absence of larger struggles, they turn self-improvement into a Napoleonic campaign.

    As George Orwell wrote in 1946, sometimes “an occasional good time is worth the damage it inflicts on one’s liver.” Health isn’t the only virtue, he said. “Friendship, hospitality, and the heightened spirits and change of outlook that one gets by eating and drinking in good company are also valuable”. Even outright drunkenness, if rare, may do less harm and “makes a sort of break in one’s mental routine, comparable to a week-end in a foreign country”, he added. He couldn’t recall “a single poem in praise of water.” Neither can I.

    After all, there are few things in life as good as a good Barolo bottle. People drink for a reason, or rather lots of reasons, and in contrast with vaping, above all for a social one. Alcohol loosens them up, brings the curtains down. Sometimes that means you finally say what you’ve been holding back. Sometimes it means you end up knocking on your ex’s door like an idiot. It can make you cry, often over things that don’t deserve it, and it can make you laugh at things that probably shouldn’t be funny. In some cultures, it’s also a tradition. But above all, it gets people talking to each other, which is more than you can say for kale smoothie.

    In recent years, as I’ve passed thirty, friends of my age joined Gen Z and gave up drinking, going out less and even started experimenting with quitting coffee. When I asked one why she stopped drinking, she told me: “Drinking ages you”. Well so does life. It struck me that many are chasing structure and personal victories in the absence of any larger struggle. This new wave of self-denial feels like modern Spartanism without the war. I come back to Orwell: “if you refrain from drinking alcohol, or eating meat, or whatever it is, you may expect to live an extra five years”, but those years will be empty of laughter, good memories and stories worth telling.

    In 19th-century Russia, speaking French was a sign of status. The obsession with healthiness that is dominating our screens, is the same in our time. It’s a way to differentiate yourself from those uneducated and low-class who waste away their bodies and youth to alcohol. This sort of social Balkanization manifests itself not only culturally and socially but also in American politics. It is expressed in sugar-free diets, alcohol free drinks and social justice activism.

    Young Ukrainians on the frontlines don’t have time to count their steps. Neither did the Kurt Vonnegut generation, sent off to fight in the Second World War. Maybe that exact lack of larger struggle and mission, growing in relative well-being, is what leads young people in America to focus on their health.

    For American youth, it turns out it’s easier to micromanage your sleep or your diet than to confront the harder problems: isolation, the absence of community, the quiet boredom that creeps in. Young people are not just drinking less, they are seeing each other less. The CDC says 43 percent of adults aged 18-34 report feeling lonely. A workplace survey found 79 percent of Gen Z and 71 percent of Millennials describe themselves as lonesome. Dining alone is up 53 percent since 2003.

    But is loneliness always a negative thing or part of the human condition? Even if you find that the root cause, say it’s the lack of faith or decline of traditional family, what then? There’s no ready solution.

    The 1960s generation rebelled, only to settle back into familiar pattern, and the same may be true for Gen Z. Health as a trend, like all trends, will pass. Human nature will still want connection, risk and the occasional night of bad decisions

  • Trump’s command economy

    Trump’s command economy

    Donald Trump never made a secret of the fact that he wanted to be a commanding president but it wasn’t clear that it included a command economy. In the past few months, though, Trump has been steadily meddling with it, ranging from his insistence on a 15 percent cut of the profits from his threats against computer chip manufacturers Nvidia and AMD to his threats against the independence of the Federal Reserve – including his peremptory demand that Fed Governor Lisa Cook resign, which she has vowed to resist. Others are not as resistant. It appears that Trump has successfully extorted a cool $10 billion from Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan whom he has previously derided as in cahoots with China.

    Trump is depicting his move as a grand bargain that will benefit both sides. Intel buys itself not into his good graces, but also derives the benefit of Trump’s unique financial acumen. “I said,” Trump said, “I think it would be good having the United States as your partner.”

    Actually, it wouldn’t. Trump seems to think of the American economy in terms of a buddy movie in which he partners up with bigtime corporate CEOs. But the more Trump distorts the free market economy, the greater the risk that he will capsize it. The American economy has flourished because it has promoted entrepreneurialism backed by the rule of law. How can Trump credibly attack New York’s socialist candidate for mayor, Zohran Mamdani, at a moment when he himself is instituting, as far as possible, much more radical changes to steer the economy?

    In jettisoning conservative precepts about the economy – free trade bad, tariffs good and so on – he seems to want to emulate strongmen abroad, including China’s Xi-Jin Ping. He is intruding into corporate boardroom and acting as though he possessed a patent on economic wisdom. History says otherwise. In the past century various communist regimes imploded under the weight of dysfunctional command economies. With its hybrid capitalist system, China has avoided that fate. But it is by no means clear that Beijing offers a superior model to western capitalism. Quite the contrary. It suffers from a bloated real estate market, an aging population and willful economic decisions imposed by the communist party. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Desmond Lachman suggests that the Chinese economic miracle has reached its terminus, in part because of its oppressive crackdown on the tech sector. Like Japan, Lachman believes that China may be about to experience “a lost decade of painfully slow economic growth.” Hmm. Is that really the path that America wants to follow?

    Trump should think again. He has become intoxicated by his own rhetoric, issuing ukases on everything from greening Washington, DC with new sprinkler systems to intervening in the nation’s economy.

    As Trump ponders further excellent adventures in tampering with the free market, he would do well to remember that the Hippocratic Oath also applies to the economy – first do no harm.

  • Will one rotten rebrand spoil Cracker Barrel?

    Will one rotten rebrand spoil Cracker Barrel?

    No one thinks the Cracker Barrel rebrand is a particularly good idea. The entire charm of Cracker Barrel lay in the farmhouse attic vibe, the nana’s candy dish assortment in the gift shop and the menu, which served up the best chicken and dumplings or biscuits and gravy and sweet tea possible from a fast-casual chain with horrible wooden chairs. Still, the melodrama surrounding this story, the rising and falling stock prices, the online mocking and gloating, seems a little overblown. Not everything has to be political. Cracker Barrel certainly doesn’t.

    For those of you who’ve been wandering around the fields with a bucket on your head this week, Cracker Barrel has streamlined. They’ve decided to remove Old Man Joe or whatever his name is from the logo, though keeping the same basic font for the color scheme, and have retooled some store interiors, making it look less like a surreal Indiana BnB nightmare and more like something Chip and Joanna Gaines might have shiplapped together.

    The new Cracker Barrel vibe met with equal condemnation from online Red and Blue America. The Steak and Shake chain, which made news earlier this year for its brave MAHA decision to fry potatoes in beef tallow, tweeted out the old Cracker Barrel logo with a surprisingly long manifesto:

    “Sometimes, people want to change things just to put their own personality on things. At CB, their goal is to just delete the personality altogether. Hence, the elimination of the “old-timer” from the signage. Heritage is what got Cracker Barrel this far, and now the CEO wants to just scrape it all away… At Steak n Shake, we take pride in our history, our families, and American values. All are welcome. We will never market ourselves away from our past in a cheap effort to gain the approval of trend seekers.”

    Pretty catty, Steak and Shake, but maybe a little overboard. Cracker Barrel may be MAGA-coded, but Democrats enjoy a nice corporate meat-and-three sometimes, too, just like Trump supporters will sometimes go for an iced caramel macchiato at the heavily Dem-coded Starbucks. The last time I checked, collard greens in pot likker belonged to everyone.
    Unfortunately, the most godawful annoying people on the Democrat side of the ledger appear to agree with me. The horrifying new Trump-parodying social-media presence from California governor Gavin Newsom, which is like a monkey’s paw curse on the extremely online, tweeted out: “WHAT IS WRONG WITH CRACKER BARREL?? KEEP YOUR BEAUTIFUL LOGO!!! THE NEW ONE LOOKS LIKE CHEAP VELVEETA ‘CHEESE’ FROM WALMART, THE PLACE FOR ‘GROCERIES’ (AN OLD FASHIONED TERM)!!! ‘FIX IT’ ASAP! WOKE IS DEAD!! THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER.”

    Then, to make matters worse, David Hogg came out of the Hogg Pen to say, about the Cracker Barrel rebrand, “Let’s bring the country together and all agree this is bad and needs to be reversed immediately. Not for the left or the right but for America.” And Hogg’s political opposite, Rep. Byron Donalds from Florida, tweeted out, “In college, I worked at @CrackerBarrel in Tallahassee. I even gave my life to Christ in their parking lot,” which led Hogg to retweet someone who said “I gave my life to christ in a cracker barrel parking lot in Tallahassee” is a lana del rey lyric.”

    OK, have all the sincere people and ironic X hipsters had their say now? Are we done with Cracker Barrel jokes yet? Or are we going to have to endure weeks of memes like the ones I just saw with the old Cracker Barrel logo with the words “Release The Files” in the place of the company name?

    I don’t think the Cracker Barrel rebrand is a particularly good idea, but then again, maybe America has moved on from its self-conception as a continental extension of the Country Bear Jamboree. Middle America doesn’t look like the set of Hee Haw anymore. Not all change is good, but private equity doesn’t always get it wrong, either.

    Once again, Dems are misreading the cultural tea leaves and trying to appeal to a regular-guy demographic that no longer particularly exists. We live in Magnolia nation now; put that in your repurposed corncob pipe and smoke it. Anyone who doesn’t realize that is, in the words of the iconic Cracker Barrel peg game, just an “EG NOR A MOOSE.”

  • The US Open OnlyFans star

    The US Open OnlyFans star

    Sachia Vickery, a 559th-ranked player, lost her qualifying match yesterday, but likely gained new followers from her activity off the court: OnlyFans. That’s right, Vickery charges $12.99 a month for any fan or sexually-charged viewer to subscribe to exclusive content. During an Instagram Q&A this week, she said, “I’m very open-minded and I don’t care what people think of me. It’s also the easiest money I’ve ever made and enjoy doing it.”

    Clutch your pearls and breathe. Your first thought might be: Does she need money? Why else would an athlete of her stature resort to OnlyFans.

    Vickery is hardly broke. She made a reported $2 million in 14 years of professional tennis and even cracked the top 100 in 2018. The former 73rd ranked ATP player, however, possibly saw the biggest surge in earnings when she launched her OnlyFans account in January. When you fall out of the top 100 in professional tennis, the challenger circuit proves rigorous and low-earning (that’s putting it mildly).

    “I will never talk shit about girls on OnlyFans ever again for the rest of my life,” the American elaborated in her Instagram Q&A. “Because the amount I made on there in my first two days, I am overwhelmed. I am just shook really.”

    No doubt others are doing the smack talking for her. Not for what she is doing but how she’s doing it. It is wildly controversial to tout another stream of business during one of the major grand slams – given it is one with such a negative connotations.

    The US Open is considered a pinnacle gemstone of the sport. Sure, you might play mere blocks away from grimy subway stops and run-down bodegas in Queens, New York, but on Arthur Ashe grounds there is an expected decorum. You should not simultaneously shill a website for adult-content when legions of little girls and boys are watching you play on the highest stage.

    The US Open comes after Wimbledon – by far the most polished of grand slams – in the sporting calendar. The decorous All England Club orders players to uniformly wear all-white attire with small allowances for dark undershorts for female players. Always one to clash with the rules, Nick Kyrgios defied this policy in 2022 when he wore red Nike Air Jordan 1 shoes and a red hat in his fourth round match. While he was forced to change into all-white shoes for the match, he slipped those same blazing red sneakers back on in his post-match press conference.

    Kyrgios was reportedly fined $16,000 for his ensemble choice. US Open officials or her coach should have taken notes from Wimbledon and intervened with Vickery as well.

    Ironically, like Vickery, the brash Australian player and occasional television presenter (who is exceptional on broadcasts) also partnered with OnlyFans in 2023. Kyrgios does not share any explicit content, just days-in-the-life and behind the scene tennis looks and conversations. Thus, Vickery is not alone in her outside-of-the-box endeavor.

    If Kyrgios, once the 16th best tennis player in the world, can launch a platform for business outside of the traditional athlete endorsement model, a woman can too. Both have every right to monetize parts of their life and celebrity within reason. As long as there is no nudity or sexual activity, personally, the OnlyFans model does not upset this writer. In fact, as a capitalist, anyone should make a buck off their likeness and image rather than magazines using and manipulating it for their gain because OnlyFans is lucrative. It can be an easy Wolf of Wall Street like cash flow there, especially for women.

    But OnlyFans is intrinsically tied to a stereotype of sex work – because, yes, there is an abundance of it on the platform. Vickery is someone who could otherwise leave tennis and join the professional workforce in various lucrative roles with her 40,000 Instagram followers and athletic accomplishments. Instead, she used the most eye-catching time of the sport to distract from her career and snag more OnlyFans subscribers. Should she be banned? No. Is she unprofessional? Yes.

    Vickery may read this article in a mansion paid for by OnlyFans. That’s her right and prerogative. But proceed with caution. Those dollars you side-hustle for may also wrack up a different kind of debt. One that’s harder to pay off because of the incalculable cost to your integrity.