Who Is Going To Win The Midterms?

As the calendar turns towards September I am getting a lot of questions about what to expect in the midterm elections in November.

Midterm elections are traditionally challenging for the incumbent President's party.

It is often a referendum on the man in The White House.

Donald Trump's current approval ratings suggest that the Republicans face an uphill battle retaining slim majorities in the House and Senate.

Trump's average approval rating at RealClearPolitics.com currently stands at just 40%.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
as of 8/30/26

This is not helpful to Republicans seeking office right now

In the last 22 midterm elections (dating back to 1938) there have only been two times that the incumbent party gained House seats (1998 and 2002). The average loss of House seats in a midterm election is 26 since World War II.

Both times the President's party gained seats in the House were when the President (Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush in 2002) had approval ratings of over 60%.

Things do not look good right now for Republican prospects in the midterms but we are still two months away from election day.

What are some of the factors that might come into play?

It is important to remember that for almost the entirety of Trump's time in politics his approval rating has hovered between 40%-45%. Despite this he won two Presidential elections.

Source: https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating

There are a lot of people who may not approve of Trump personally, or his methods, but vote for him anyway because they believe he is right on the issues.

Trump's approval recently has suffered principally due to the lingering Iran war and high gas prices.

These issues have hurt Trump particularly with Independent and swing voters.

However, a settlement of the Iran conflict favorable to the United States or an outright collapse of the Iranian regime leading into November could  provide a tremendous boost in momentum and enthusiasm for Trump and Republican candidates.

I wrote a blog post in January that the leaders of the Iranian regime were "Dead Men Walking".

I didn't know at that time how literally true that would turn out to be with the Israeli and American strikes on Iran.

However, my point at the time was that it seemed inevitable that Iran's regime would ultimately collapse due to economic problems and their inability to take care of their people.

This is what I wrote last January before the Iran war began in February.

The mullahs and Iran's regime leaders are dead men walking almost any way you look at it right now.

Exhibit One is the complete collapse of its currency.

Iran's rial is now essentially worthless vs. the Euro.

It is worth nothing vs. the U.S. dollar.

The Mullahs may hang on for another day, week, month or year.

However, they are dead men walking

The only question now is whether they collapse from within or from the weight of all of this?

It is even truer today as Iran's military power has been degraded and its economy is being strangled by the naval blockade and even stronger economic sanctions on the regime,

The Iranian rial has lost another 40% of its value against the dollar since the beginning of the year.

Timing is everything in politics. 

If the Iran problem is resolved between now and November it could be a boost for Trump and the Republicans. 

It is also hard to ignore the sizeable gap in campaign money between the Republican and Democrat national committees right now.

Trump's political action committee, MAGA, Inc. was also sitting on over $400 million in cash at the end of July,

The largest Democrat aligned PAC had less than one-third of that total.

Money talks in politics and it might make a difference in the last two months.

Finally, you have the sharp left turn the Democrat party has made to Socialist candidates.

It may play in New York City or Vermont but will it play in Peoria, Illinois, Piqua, Ohio, Paw Paw, Michigan, Prosper, Texas and Portland, Maine?

Democrat candidates are going to be constantly asked about their acceptance of Democrat Socialists and their platform that wants open borders, free rent, food and everything else plus abolition of the Senate and the electoral college.

How will that play out across America?

People may not approve of Trump or Republicans right now but there may be more voters who fear the Democrat Socialists than dislike Trump.

It is worth considering one other point in all of this.

The Iranian regime clearly calculated that negative media coverage of the Iran War and the upcoming midterm elections would pressure Trump into backing off and agreeing to a deal that would benefit Iran.

Every day we get closer to the midterms proves that assumption wrong.

In fact, right now it is the Iranians who want to go back to the terms of the earlier Memorandum of Understanding that resulted in the initial ceasefire.

Trump has moved beyond the MOU as the midterms loom. He has not backed off and increased the economic pressure on the Iranian regime.

This reinforces a point I have made about Trump in the past and I think is a reason that he survives politically despite approval ratings that would sink others.

Trump is not afraid to be great.

I wrote this at the outset of the Iran War in early March.

Great Presidents usually come about by facing great challenges. In many respects, the times make the man. It was certainly true with Washington, Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Greatness does not follow when taking the easy road. It only graces those who are not afraid of the challenge on the hard road.

Success is never assured. Trump may fail bigly. However, he is not afraid to be great.

That in itself is a rare commodity.

When push comes to shove many voters understand this and would rather have Trump working on their behalf when all things are considered.

However, Trump is not on the ballot this time.

Despite this, if Democrats gain majorities in the House and Senate they will do everything in their power to see that Trump is under constant attack and will likely attempt to impeach him again.

If people think chaos reigns today, consider what things will be like the next two years in that scenario.

Nothing will get done.

This may be the best argument to vote Republican for someone who is on the fence and fed up with politics.

Betting against Trump has proven to be a losing bet over the years.

Despite this, history and data suggest to me that I would not willing to bet my house on the Republicans maintaining its Congressional majorities as things stand right now two months out from election day.

Does Trump have an ace up his sleeve?

He and the Republican need it looking at the midterms.

What Happened To Responsibility?

It seems that one of the defining characteristics of this era is the utter lack of anyone willing to take responsibility for anything.

There also seems to be a cadre of people who want to excuse the behavior of the bad actors.

50 years ago if a child acted up in school parents often meted out more discipline for the bad behavior than what the child faced at school.

Today a parent is more likely to blame the teacher or the school rather than their child.

Think back to all the violence and turmoil in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020.

Floyd's death was a true tragedy. It should not have happened.

However, it also would not have happened if Floyd had not been passing counterfeit money, acting erratically and being high on drugs before the police were called.

Floyd was made out to be a saint but he had previously been convicted of eight crimes.

Few would admit that he might also have borne some responsibility in all that transpired.

Of course, the violence and looting that occurred in the aftermath of the Floyd death was also often explained away.

It was justified as targeting oppression, a reasonable reaction to racial injustice or just poor people getting the necessities they need to live.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that the crime surge in the aftermath of the Floyd death was mostly parents shoplifting bread for their hungry families.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/aoc-blames-nyc-crime-spike-

Just this month a Socialist New York state assemblywoman argued that shoplifting for biological needs is okay.

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/08/15/us-news/socialist-ny-lawmaker-emily-gallagher-says-shoplifters-have-a-biological-need-to-steal/

She believes that shoplifting should be legalized in New York.

State Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher strongly suggested shoplifting should be legalized while joined at a news conference outside Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday by other lefty pols and criminal justice advocates with Court Watch NYC. The group claimed it monitored 360 arraignments over four days and found more than half were for misdemeanor offenses.

“Most of what we saw were crimes of poverty-people who are stealing things like toothpaste, people who were stealing things like, you know, soap. And that means if you’re stealing those things, you need them,” said Gallagher, who reps Greenpoint and other sections of woke northern Brooklyn.

We also have people in New York City that are upset that Luigi Mangione, who killed United Healthcare executive Brian Thompson in cold blood on a Manhattan sidewalk in December, 2024, should not have pled guilty last week to federal charges in the murder.

They think that larger "crimes" in the healthcare industry justified the murder.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/13/politics/video/luigi-mangione-fans-ahead-of-potential-plea-dont-give-up-lcl

Illegal immigration into the United States is excused and explained by poverty, climate change or anything but the truth---crossing the United States border secretly or without inspection is a federal crime and has been since 1929.

I understand that some people do not agree with an unauthorized border crossing being a criminal offense but the fact us that it is the law of the land.

We have had almost 100 years where that has been the case but there has not been one situation in that time that anyone has been able gain the necessary Congressional support to alter the law.

When people do not want to assign responsibility for the most obvious crimes, we are in a very bad place as a society.

All of this is also reinforced in what we have witnessed in the aftermath of Covid.

It is clear to most objective observers that much of what we were told was not correct.

It is now generally accepted as highly unlikely that Covid had natural origins.

It almost certainly was caused by a leak at the Wuhan lab that was being funded by Fauci and others to conduct gain of function experiments that had been outlawed in the United States.

The lockdowns and school closures were in direct contravention of established pandemic response standards. I wrote a blog post in April, 2021 that detailed how the CDC and Fauci were ignoring long established pandemic response protocols titled Panic, Politics or Power.

There was no science behind the effectiveness of cloth masks and the six feet rule. 

The vaccines clearly did not prevent infection or transmission of the virus.

The claim that natural immunity would not provide any protection was simply false.

Their was an organized and concerted effort by the federal government to censor and cancel the free speech of those who offered information that contradicted the approved narrative.

How many in authority have claimed responsibility for the misinformation and misdeeds?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, when given the opportunity to take some measure of responsibility and apologize for his actions in all of this with a Presidential pardon in hand before a Senate committee, proceeded to take the Fifth Amendment over 100 times.

Despite all that we now know, we still have scores of people who excuse and deny that Fauci and others bear any responsibility for what was done.

This includes millions of people (Democrats more than Republicans) who wanted to implement the most authoritarian responses possible to those who were not willing to adhere to the "party line"on the Covid vaccines.

Never mind that each of these proposed compliance measures were in contravention of some of our most basic constitutional principles.

A majority of Democrats and 20% of Republicans were in favor or locking the unvaccinated at home?

Half of Democrats wanted to fine and imprison critics of the vaccine?

A third wanted to take children away from unvaccinated parents?

Support for Various Covid Vaccine Compliance Measures
January, 2022 Rasmussen Poll

How many of these people have been willing to apologize to their friends and neighbors that they might have been wrong about Covid and taken some responsibility for thinking this way?

Our society is in trouble when the most obvious crimes and misdeeds are ignored, justified, excused or rationalized. 

What happened to responsibility?

Population Bombing

For a long time there have been those who believed that the biggest threat to mankind was overpopulation.

The argument was that global population growth would outstrip global food and natural resources supplies and lead to starvation and ecological collapse.

The leading proponent of this thesis was Paul Ehrlich who was a Stanford professor who wrote a book in 1968 warning of upcoming catastrophe and calamity.

Ehrlich passed away earlier this year at the age of 93.

He was wrong about everything as this article by Jonah Goldberg of the American Enterprise Institute explains.

Source: https://www.aei.org/commentary/paul-ehrlich-was-wrong-about-everything/

“The Population Bomb” opens with a bold prediction, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

“If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000,” Ehrlich prophesized during a speech in 1971. He also said that the U.S. would be rationing water by 1974, and food by 1980. That smog in L.A. and New York would cause some 200,000 deaths per year. That Americans born after World War II wouldn’t live past 50.

The only thing Ehrlich predicted that came true was the world did grow in population. 

It was 3.6 billion at the time Ehrlich wrote his book. It is 8.3 billion today.

I wrote a blog post in 2019 explaining why Ehrlich's predictions failed to materialize titled "The Ultimate Resource".

Why was Ehrlich so wrong?

He vastly underestimated the most important resource in the world---human ingenuity and innovation.

That is the ultimate resource on the planet.

A prime example is the increase in food production over the years. 

It has outstripped population growth on every continent due to human innovation and productivity.

What is now interesting is that the foundational fact underlying Ehrlich's entire thesis---that global population would continue to expand---is even under threat.

We are at a point where large portions of the planet have birth rates below the replacement level.

Several countries are already beyond peak population.

This has never happened before---not during wars, not during pandemics.

We are not producing children at a level necessary to replace ourselves.

These are countries where population appears to have peaked and is headed lower due to low birth rates.

These trends will accelerate as more of the Baby Boom generation passes away in coming years.

The total fertility (TFR) rate for the entire world is now estimated to be 2.2 sitting just slightly above the general population replacement level of 2.1.

Consider the fertility rates in some Asian countries.

Or these rates in Western societies.

All but Israel are below the replacement rate.

Israel is only able to have the TFR it does due to the Orthodox Jewish population in the country.

The most alarming fact in looking at the data is that births are the lowest in the countries that have been most responsible in providing the human ingenuity and innovation that propelled global advancement over the last several hundred years.

Consider the current distribution of the world's births. 

Credit: https://x.com/dr_duchesne/status/2091538445713690697

India, by itself, has TWICE AS MANY births as the United States, Europe, Russia, Canada and Australia COMBINED. This is despite the fact that India's birth rate is below replacement at 1.9.

Almost one out of every five births in the world last year were in India.

To put this in better overall context, there are more children in India below the age of 18 (420 million) than the entire population of the United States. (343 million).

Pakistan has more births than Europe and Russia COMBINED.

Nigeria has more than TWICE AS MANY births as the United States despite having a total population that is only 2/3 the size of the U.S.

The ultimate irony in all of this is that those like Ehrlich, who predicted doom and gloom due to growing population, may discover the real existential crisis to humanity is not having enough of the ultimate resource that provided the ingenuity and innovation that helped the world advance.

The real problem is not a Population Bomb.

It is the Population Bombing like it is right now.

Mamdani, Grocery Stores and Soviet History

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has decided the best way to provide affordable and accessible groceries to people in the city is by establishing city-owned grocery stores.

Source: https://apnews.com/article/mamdani-nyc-grocery-stores-prices-bronx-4634d4030209fea663e68f5d6d09a325

Mamdani campaigned on the proposal as a plank in a wider affordability platform centered on shifting the power of government toward policies to help the city’s struggling working class. At one point last year, he framed the idea as a modest experiment and said if it doesn’t work, “C’est la vie, then the idea was wrong.”

He is proceeding with plans to open five city-owned stores (one in each borough) that will offer a 30% discount on a core basket of essentials (fresh produce, meat, seafood and dairy). The stores are targeted to open between late 2027 and 2029.

The initial cost is at least $70 million to acquire the real estate and build out the stores.

The grocery store plans have already created problems. Mamdani has already had to admit a New York City ID will be required to shop at the stores so that non residents don't take advantage of the benefits. 

This means that you will need an ID to shop at a grocery store but don't need an ID  to vote in New York City!

In that grocery stores operate at very thin margins of 1%-4%, in order to provide grocery prices 30% below market, large ongoing subsidies will be necessary beyond the fact that the stores will pay no rent and pay no property taxes.

The plan may work to lower grocery prices in the short term but at the expense of disguised costs in higher taxes for New Yorkers.

Not only will large taxpayer subsidies be required to operate the grocery stores, Mamdani will likely need to eventually offer subsidies to private sector grocers who have to compete with the government stores due to the price distortion caused.

Link: https://x.com/danrivoli/status/2090217154213785647

Mamdani might be wise to consider a little history that takes us back to the fall of the Soviet Union nearly 40 years ago.

Many point to the fact that the Soviet Union collapse occurred as the Soviets were baited into trying to compete with the U.S. defense build-up instituted by Ronald Reagan.

The Soviets just did not have the financial resources to match the United States in defense spending while also tending to the needs of its citizenry. 

The Soviets spent money on guns rather than butter. Something had to give and the Soviet people were the ones that suffered.

However, a little known visit to a suburban Houston supermarket in 1989 by Boris Yeltsin appears to have been the real catalyst that ended up bringing down the Soviet Union.

Yeltsin visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston in September, 1989 to tour NASA's Mission Control and to view a model of the planned International Space Station.

After visiting the Space Center, Yeltsin made an impromptu request for his entourage to stop at a local Randall's grocery store so that he could get a glimpse of what everyday life was for Americans as he was  heading to the airport.

That visit changed the course of history.

At the time, Yeltsin was a newly elected member of the Soviet Parliament and the Supreme Soviet and had been a key ally of the General Secretary of the Communist Party Mikhail Gorbachev, who was initiating reforms but the pace of which was too slow for Yeltsin.

Houston Chronicle reporter Stephanie Asin was with Yeltsin on the visit to the grocery store that day.

Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.”

“Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.

The fact that stores like these were on nearly every street corner in America amazed him. They even offered free cheese samples. According to Asin, Yeltsin didn’t leave empty-handed, as he was given a small bag of goodies to enjoy on his trip.

This is a picture of Yeltsin touring the grocery store.

Credit: Houston Chronicle

This Houston Chronicle story from 2014 fills in the rest of the story.

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia.

In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. 

“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

To give you some perspective on what was available in the Soviet Union at that time, here is a picture of a Russian store from that era.

Credit: Gennady Galperin/Reuters

An aide to Yeltsin later reported that in that visit to the grocery store in Houston “the last vestige of Bolshevism collapsed” inside his boss.

Two years later Yeltsin was elected to the newly created office of President of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the Soviet Union with Gorbachev.

Yeltsin immediately began dismantling the socialist economic system and introducing capitalism to the Russians. In the process, he attempted to convert the world's largest command economy into a free-market one.

The results of that transition were rocky in large part to cronyism in the break-up of many of the large state-owned businesses. Many Russian oligarchs were created and Yeltsin eventually resigned his office in 1999 haunted by charges of corruption and incompetence.

His successor?

Vladimir Putin.

Putin has been popular with the Russian people based on his macho style and nationalistic bombast. However, potential trouble lurks for Putin because of the Ukraine war and an economy that is still a shadow of the United States and its European neighbors.

Even Poland, which for years had to suffer under the boot of Soviet communism, now has almost 75% higher GDP per capita than Russia.

The Russian consumer spends about 40% of their income on food which is the highest it has been in 16 years.

In the United States it is about 10% of the average family budget.

On top of all of this, Russians are currently dealing with inflation of 6% per year and a central bank interest rate of 14%.

Mandami stated that if his "experiment" doesn't work he will just say c'est la vie.

Credit: Google AI

Failure in this case will not be due to bad luck or a small failure.

Is Mamdani not aware that the "experiment" has already been done?

How can Mamdani or anyone else look at this data and history and believe that the people of New York City are going to be better off at the end of this Soviet style "experiment"?

A couple hundred million dollars or more and it does not work out?

It is easy to say c'est la vie when you never have to spend your own money.

$40 Trillion and Counting

The outstanding debt of the United States surpassed $40 trillion this week. 

As of August 19, 2026
Source: https://www.us-debt-clock.com/

 Interest on servicing that debt is now $1.4 trillion per year.

A couple charts that show the increase in interest expense.

That is an increase of almost $$900 billion per year over just the last five years.

How did that happen?

Debt outstanding almost doubled in the last five years.

There was $23 trillion of debt in March, 2021 right before the Covid shutdowns. 

Debt has increased $17 trillion in 5-1/2 years.

To make matters worse, the average interest rate on U.S, debt went from 1.6% in 2021 to close to 3.5% today.

Source: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/average-interest-rates-treasury-securities/average-interest-rates-on-u-s-treasury-securities

It becomes simple math.

Additional interest on $17 trillion in new debt and a higher average interest on $40 trillion of total debt.

That is how you can quickly add almost $1 trillion in annual interest costs to the federal budget.

To understand how big $1.4 trillion in annual interest costs is let's put that in context.

That is equal to half of the total annual amount of individual income tax receipts of $2.7 trillion.

It is over one-quarter of total federal government revenues.

Interest on the federal debt is now greater than all other spending categories except Medicare and Social Security,

ANNUAL INTEREST on the federal debt in 2026 exceeds the TOTAL DEBT that the United States was carrying during the Reagan Administration in 1982.

It will certainly get worse.

The federal government is now consistently spending $2 trillion more each year than it takes in.

The mountain of debt will grow.

So will the interest on the federal debt.

The interest costs will grow even higher if interest rates increase.

If interest on the federal debt is taking this big a bite of the budget with average rates at 3.5%, imagine what the numbers would look like with an average rate of 6.5% on the debt like the U.S. had in 2001.

Credit: https://wolfstreet.com/2025/05/29/us-government-interest-payments-to-tax-receipts-average-interest-rate-on-the-debt-and-debt-to-gdp-ratio-in-q1-2025/

When you consider that average interest rates on the federal debt were higher than they are right now for almost the entirety of the 2000-2010 period it is not far-fetched that things can get worse.

For example, the 30-year bond rate just hit 5.27%. 

That is the highest it has been since 2007.

If the average interest rate on federal debt stays where it is right now it will require another $300 billion in annual interest payments in 2008.

In order to just keep annual interest costs where they are right now, the average interest rate has to decline to 3.25% or below.

There are a lot of people who would like to see lower interest rates.

However, the U.S. government needs lower interest rates more than anyone.

There are $40 trillion reasons (and counting) why that is.

Reality vs. Ideology

 This is an interesting graphic showing how the world has changed economically over the last 30 years.

Credit: https://x.com/gummibear737/status/2088723403452645458

Two big takeaways stand out at the top of the graphic.

Despite many who want to diminish the United States, the resilience of its economy is unmatched.

The United States actually is responsible for a larger share of global GDP today than 30 years ago.

The other big takeaway is the rise of China over this period.

China has grown from 2.4% of global GDP to 16.5%.

It is also interesting to note that the growth of global GDP to China has not been taken at the expense of the United States.

Japan and Europe have paid that price.

Japan's share of global GDP dropped from 17.7% to 3.5%.

The share of global GDP of Germany, France, UK and Italy went from 21.5% to 13.1%.

Some like to point to China's increased wealth and argue that it proves that socialism/communism can work to benefit society.

However, all of China's economic growth has been achieved after it embraced capitalist economic reforms.

The Chinese Communists were forced to put their ideology aside and accept reality.

For those who are confused about the definition of socialism.

Source: Google AI

Beginning in the 1970's China got rid of the collectivist farms in favor of each farming family getting its own plot of land.

In 1978 it was illegal to have a private business in China.

Private ownership was permitted beginning in 1979.

There are now over 50 million private businesses in China.

The country was opened to foreign investment as part of the reforms and big international companies started moving in.

Special economic zones were established where market rules applied.

One zone was opened in Shenzhen in 1980 when it was small fishing village just north of Hong Kong.

It now has over 13 million inhabitants and is a technology and logistics hub for China.

 

China was living under a socialist/communist government model from 1949 without any real improvement to its society. 

In 1980, 97% of the Chinese population still lived in extreme poverty 30 years after the communists took over.

All it took to improve life for the Chinese people was to accept reality and embrace capitalism beginning in the late 1970's

Yes. some in China got rich but the entire society was lifted up in the process beyond anything that socialism could provide.

How is it then that there are those who do not know history and somehow believe that the people of the United States would be better off with a socialist system?

Source: https://nypost.com/2026/08/16/us-news/dems-now-favor-socialism-over-capitalism-by-this-overwhelming-amount-new-poll/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=nypost&utm_source=twitter

Consider this recent poll by CBS News/YouGov.

Democrats favor Socialism over Capitalism by 58%-32%.

Only 18% of Democrats have a negative view of Socialism but 50% have an negative view of Capitalism.

Source:  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrats-socialism-economy-political-parties-opinion-poll/

Compare those numbers to those of Republican voters.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrats-socialism-economy-political-parties-opinion-poll/

You have to wonder whether those who have an idealized view of Socialism compared to Capitalism have any understanding of history, how incentives drive human behavior, or the reality of what Socialism/Communism did to countries such as China, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela?

Compare Taiwan to China.

Compare South Korea to North Korea,

Compare Venezuela before Chavez and Maduro took over and what happened after.

Of course, most already know about Cuba before and after Fidel Castro took over.

The Cuban people who migrated to the United States have prospered while those who had to live under the socialist system had to survive in an impoverished nation.

We could also go back and compare the divergent paths of West Germany and East Germany after World War II.

The West and East both had GDP per capita numbers that were nearly identical in 1949. By 1990 (at the time of reunification), the capitalist West had GDP per capita that was almost double that of the East.

The history and the reality of socialist systems have proven time and time again that they are inferior in improving society wherever you look.

Despite this, there are still millions who don't seem to be able to see it and embrace ideology over reality.

However, in the end, reality always trumps ideology.

This and That----August 17, 2026 Edition

A few random observations, charts and factoids to provide some context on what is going on in the world.

Who Would Have Thought?

Interesting data on straight vs. gay  for college students by major.

I would have thought Finance (95%) and Fine Arts (27%) would both have had more heterosexuals. 

Fashion at 71% straight must be skewed by many straight females offset by a number of gay males.

Nursing and Pre-Med overwhelmingly straight.

Most surprising number to me in this data is that only 42% of African or African American Studies majors are straight. Is this major dominated by Black women's basketball players?

However, this data overall would indicate that up to a third of all college students today are something other than straight.

This is the world we live in.

Who would have thought?

Go South Young Man (or Woman)!

Speaking of colleges, consider the change in the number of entering freshman at southern schools coming from outside the South between 2004 and 2024.

The numbers will undoubtedly be higher this Fall.

This is one of the reasons I previously predicted that more and more colleges and universities in the Northeast and Midwest would face enrollment pressures over the next decade due to declining demographics, high costs and more students from these areas heading south.

Buyer and Sellers

There are 51% more sellers looking to sell their house than buyers looking to buy right now.

Compare that to four years ago when buyers outnumbered sellers by over 30%.

Here are the raw numbers according to RedFin.

1.46 million sellers have their homes on the market.

Only 947,000 active buyers.

All real estate markets are local but this is an indication that the market that was frozen due to high prices and higher interest rates is starting to crack.

The frozen market that masked the affordability issue due to low inventories is destabilizing.

The rapid appreciation in house prices the last few years and the increase in interest rates has driven more and more potential home buyers out of the market.

At the same time, more and more sellers are deciding that they have no choice but to sell due to age, relocations, job loss, divorce, retirement etc. 

This is resulting in more sellers and less buyers in the housing market.

Expect home prices to decline in more and more markets as the forces of supply and demand drive price adjustments unless we see lower mortgage rates in the near future.

Chick-fil-A Looks Like It Would Win The Electoral College Vote

Those that know me know that I love Chick-fil-A.

I had my first experience with Chick-fil-A in 1972 at the 6th unit it had opened.

Chick-fil-A now covers the country and is far and away the top-rated fast food chain in the United States.

CFA has over 3,300 locations in 48 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.

Alaska and Vermont are the only two states in which CFA does not have a location.

CFA is the top-rated fast food choice in 34 different states according to this recent consumer survey.

Credit: https://x.com/BrilliantMaps/status/2088695001626608097/photo/1

The only surprise to me is how Daylight Donuts could be considered the top-rated fast food chain in Georgia where Chick-fil-A was founded.

CFA has 276 units in Georgia---the most it has in any one state.

I have never heard of Daylight Donut even though it has a location within 5 miles of my house.

Daylight Donuts has over 400 locations principally centered around its original location in and around Tulsa, Oklahoma,

Source: https://brilliantmaps.com/us-locations/daylight-donuts-locations-us/

Am I missing something with Daylight Donuts?

Food Stamps Are Snapping Down

When the Big Beautiful Bill passed last year and reinstated some work requirements in order to claim SNAP benefits we were told that this would lead to starving families and children.

The new requirements have been in effect for almost a year and it has definitely resulted in fewer people claiming food stamps.

This chart shows the effects by state.

Is it a coincidence that the largest percentage decrease is in Arizona with over a 50% drop in those claiming benefits?

Nationally, the number receiving SNAP benefits has declined 12.6%---from 42.2 million to 37.0 million.

Despite this, we are still running a $2 trillion deficit.

I still have yet to hear of masses of starving families or children.

The most obvious effect I have seen is that snack food and soda sales are down.

I have not seen any reports on donut sales.

Who Will Bailout Chicago?

New York City and Los Angeles seem to get an outsized amount of attention when it comes to their fiscal challenges.

New York City is in the news right now as Mayor Mamdani implements a new "pied-a-terre" tax on expensive homes, condos and co-ops used as second homes in the city.

Source: https://abc7ny.com/post/nyc-property-owners-express-anger-confusion-rollout-mamdanis-pied-terre-tax/19603490/

In June, Los Angeles County voters approved a tax increase effective October 1 that will raise the local sales tax to 10.25%. 

Source: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/la-county-measure-er-pass-sales-tax/3902591/

No matter how much tax revenue these cities take in it is never enough.

Chicago seems to dominate the headlines more with its crime statistics but the Windy City is undoubtedly in far worse financial shape than New York City or Los Angeles.

It is difficult for me to see how Chicago will not have to file for bankruptcy in the next few years.

Someone is going to need to bail the city out of its fiscal mess.

The City of Chicago just finished the first half of the year with a $130 million shortfall after several revenue plans failed to produce the projected money for the city.

Source: https://news.wttw.com/2026/07/07/chicago-130m-short-after-revenue-backed-city-council-fails-materialize-johnson-says

The city's most recent budget forecast for 2027 projects a likely deficit of $1.16 billion!

Underlying Chicago's fiscal problems are massive underfunded pension plans for city employees.

The combined funding ratio for the pension plans for city employees is 28.1%.

By comparison, the national average for large city pension plans is a funded ratio is 82.5%.

Chicago only has $14 billion in pension assets compared to $51 billion in liabilities.

For context, when Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013 its various city pension funds were 60% to 80% funded.

This graphic illustrates just how bad Chicago's fiscal situation is with the level of pension liability underfunding it has compared to the city's total operating budget.

Credit: https://x.com/StuLoren/status/2080492418579718589

Chicago has been kicking the can down the road for so many years that they have almost destroyed the can in the process.

To make matters worse, the property tax base in the city appears to be disintegrating.

Take a look at the recent sales of commercial sales in Chicago compared to their previous sales price.

Many sale prices are down 60%, 70%, 80% or even 90% from where they were before.

Lower real estate prices mean lower real estate tax valuations which will ultimately lead to reduced property tax collections.

This will mean less revenue for city operations as well as less money for the Chicago Public Schools (CPS).

The CPS has their own fiscal problems.

In a split vote, CPS school board recently approved a $10 billion budget for the 2026/27 school year that includes $150 million of state funding that has not been approved.

By including the phantom revenue the school board averted the necessity of laying off 760 teachers, 800 or so support staff and 41 assistant principals.

All of the elected school board members voted against the budget because it included the phantom state money and avoided the difficult issue of staff layoffs.

However, those school board members appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson (the former President of the teacher's union) all voted in favor of the budget.

You have to ask whether the CPS school board is there to just represent the teachers and staff rather than the taxpayers and students?

Since 2019, while student enrollment has decreased by 12.5%, school staff has increased by 26.4% and spending in the budget is up 71.4%.

There are dozens of school buildings in Chicago that are underutilized and overstaffed.

For example, Douglass High School has 28 students, 27 staff positions and 97% of the school facility is unutilized.

In addition, 0% of the students were proficient in reading in 2024 despite the 1:1 ratio of students to staff.

Credit: https://x.com/DeAngelisCorey/status/2028272384470392978

The 2026/27 CPS budget works out to over $32,000 in spending per student.

To put that in context, an in-state liberal arts undergraduate student at the University of Illinois-Chicago entering this Fall will pay less than half of that cost in tuition and fees for the academic year.

Tuition per semester is $5,826 x 2= 11,652 

Fees of about $2,000 per semester would increase the total cost to $15,652 for the year---less than half of what CPS is spending to educate students in Chicago's government schools.

Source: https://uofi.app.box.com/s/3ub3lw8qeda73k7u9bl2927o66vhyvzq

Everybody complains about the high cost of college today.

However, who is pointing out that in Chicago and elsewhere there are public school systems with higher costs than public universities in the same area?

Some say that Mayor Johnson in Chicago and the CPS school board are purposely making the fiscal problems worse to hopefully facilitate a bailout from the state or the federal government at some point.

They are not interested in making the tough decisions today that are necessary to fix the fiscal problems.

Considering the increases in political spending by the Chicago Teachers Union it is not hard to believe that.

When it comes to fiscal issues as I have outlined above, you can run but you cannot hide.

Math alway wins.

A day of reckoning awaits the city of Chicago and its public school system.

They have both spent and made pension promises well beyond their abilities to pay.

The only question is who is going to end up paying the bill in the end?

Chicago taxpayers?

The sales tax in Chicago is already 10.25%.

Property taxes on residential property as a % of value are higher than in New York City, LA and Philadelphia.  The tax on commercial property is one of the highest rates in the country.

State law prohibits the adoption of a city income tax but that could be in Chicago's future if the Illinois state legislature passed a law to allow it.

If Chicago taxpayers don't pay their own bills, who will?

Illinois taxpayers?

Bond holders?

United States taxpayers?

Pensioners?

Someone always pays and somehow it is never the politicians who created the mess.