The E.U. Stance on Tariffs: Pressure from the States

After the U.S. took the decision to impose reciprocal and car tariffs on the E.U., it did not take long for several of the E.U. states to pressure the federal executive branch, the European Commission, to punch holes in the E.U.’s counter-tariffs so favored industries in the E.U. would not face higher prices on supplies from the United States. As in U.S. states, E.U. states have their own dominant industries, whose financial interests it is only natural for government to protect, as jobs translate into votes. But pressuring the E.U.’s federal government to carve out exceptions for imports desired by favored industries at the state level, such as automobiles in the E.U. state of Germany, would deny the E.U. the full benefit of a united front that federalism can provide against other countries. For maximum leverage in trade negotiations, unilaterally removing counter-tariffs is not wise; it is like a person intentionally tripping over himself while trying to get to the grocery store. Given the regional pressures, trade is rightfully one of the enumerated powers, or exclusive competencies, of the E.U. rather than a shared competency or a power retained by the states.

The full essay is at The E.U. Stance. "

The Summer Solstice: Astronomy Is Not Meteorology

It boggles the mind that the same meteorologists who know that June, July, and August days are counted when calculations are made on the average temperature for summer nonetheless broadcast the summer solstice that falls three weeks into June as the first day of summer. To do so in the context of weather forecasts is nothing short of intellectually dishonest. To an unfortunate extent, those meteorologists may simply be following the herd of tradition at the expense of thinking for oneself. The human brain is suited for much more than a herd-animal mentality.

The full essay is at "The Summer Solstice."

The E.U. on Anti-Trust Enforcement: The Case of Google

On June 19, 2025, when the European Court of Justice, the E.U.’s supreme court, received a nonbinding opinion from the advocate general, Juliane Kokott, recommending that Google’s appeal against an anti-trust fine of €4 billion be dismissed by the court. The E.U.’s executive branch, the Commission, had found in 2018 that the company had “used the dominance of its mobile Android operating system to throttle competition and reduce consumer choice.”[1] I contend that the company’s written statement in response can be characterized as “stone-deaf” or oblivious to the issue at hand. Such is not an effective way of managing threats in the environment of business. Moreover, the response itself illustrates why governmental action on anti-trust on behalf of market competition is valid and necessary. I contend that the invisible-hand mechanism of a restored competitive market is more reliable than depending on managerial intentions even if they are to be based on motivation that is social-engineered from fines.

The full essay is at "The E.U. on Anti-Trust Enforcement."

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1. “Google Hits Setback in Bid to Overturn Multibillion EU Antitrust Fine in Android Case,” APnews.com, June 19, 2025.

American Federalism and Equal Protection: Transsexual Children in Tennessee

On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Tennessee law blocking transsexual children from being able to undergo puberty-blockers and gender-changing surgeries does not violate the Equal Protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. The court’s 6-3 opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti was reported at the time to fall “largely along conservative-liberal lines.”[1] By this is mean ideological lines, both moral and political in nature. Such is grist for the mill for the broad judgment of an electorate, in what is otherwise known as popular sovereignty, which is superior to governmental sovereignty in a republic. Add in the fact that Tennessee is a member-state in a federal system in which the U.S. Supreme Court is on the federal level, and the broad judgment of the electorate takes on more significance to the extent that a federal system of an empire-scale union is in part supposed to take into account and protect interstate ideological differences that defy one-size-fits-all union-level policies. In other words, as cultural heterogeneity can be expected in going from state to state in an empire-scale union-of-states, efforts “from the top” to impose a single policy on every state do not allow the federation to breath. Political pressure could be expected to build over time if such a suffocating tendency eventuates, with the risk of dissolution increasing over time as if depreciation.

The full essay is at "American Federalism and Equal Protection."

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1. Josh Gerstein, “Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee’s Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors,” Politico.com, June 18, 2025.

On the Role of Federalism in Foreign Policy on Israel and Iran

As U.S. President Trump was drawing a line in the proverbial sand by stating repeatedly that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons, E.U. foreign commissioner (i.e., minister) Kallas warned the world that military involvement by the U.S. in the military spat going on between Israel and Iran would “definitely drag” the entire Middle East into the conflict.[1] Accordingly, she “made clear the European Union would not back America’s armed intervention.”[2] By the way she came to that public statement, the U.S. could take a lesson in how to optimally utilize federalism such that all of its parts shine, rather than just those at the federal level.

The full essay is at "On the Role of Federalism in Foreign Policy on Israel and Iran."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “US Action Against Iran Would Fuel ‘Broader Conflict” in the Middle East, Kallas Warns,” Euronews.com, June 17, 2025.
2. Ibid.

The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage: A Self-Inflicted Wound

Why has the E.U. been sidelined amid the military tensions in the Middle East? The answer lies with the E.U.’s federal system, rather than the size of its economy or of its population. The E.U. certainly could have more geopolitical sway abroad were it not for a vulnerability being exploited within its own federal system. The vulnerability stems from a refusal by some state officials to recognize and respect the qualitative and quantitative differences between the federal and the state levels of the E.U. Specifically, when the governor (i.e., chief executive and/or head of state) of a state operates as if a federal-level official, especially that of a federal president, the authority of the actual federal president is undercut, hence weakening that person’s ability to convince the heads of foreign governments to include the E.U. president or foreign minister in multilateral negotiations centered on the Middle East, for example. Even unconsciously, foreign leaders may say to themselves, why should we respect the president of the E.U. if she is so easily upstaged by the leader of an E.U. state who is acting as if he were president of the European Commission?  To speak with one voice, and to be able to speak for the E.U. rather than just one state thereof, an E.U. official must be the speaker. Macron of the E.U. state of France cannot speak for the E.U., but Von der Leyen could, provided her space is respected by the governors of the states. This is not to say that this is the only reason why the E.U. has been sidelined from negotiations on Middle East warfare; rather, my contention is that this reason is typically overlooked due to the Euroskeptic ideological delusion that the E.U. does not have a federal system of government even though since 1993, governmental sovereignty has indeed been split between the states and the Union. Perhaps the underlying question here is whether continuing to clutch at the anti-federalist ideology is worth the E.U. continuing to be weakened unnecessarily from within, and thus sidelined from international negotiations that do not center on Europe. Making such blind-spots transparent is indeed a valuable occupation, even if it can be infuriating to people whose interests and ideology are served best if societies look the other way.

The full essay is at "The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage." 

Is Healthcare a Human Right?

Humanity still has not come to a consensus on what are entailed specifically within the rubric of human rights. Even in terms of those specifics that have come to be generally held to be human rights, such as in designated war crimes and crimes against humanity by international agreement, the lack of de jure and de facto enforcement render such agreement nugatory in practice. As a result, calls for human rights are in effect calls for warring to stop. The enforcement that goes along with laws legislated by governments render any consensus on what constitutes human rights more substantive in practice. This is undercut, however, in empire-scale polities of polities, such as the E.U. and U.S., to the extent that human rights are carved out at the federal level to applied across differing cultures. Such ideological diversity between the American member-states has triggered drastically-different notions of just what are included as human rights to be played out in Congress. The debate over the government-financed health-insurance program for the poor in 2025 illustrates such a lack of consensus, which in turn suggests that the member-states should play more of a role in how or even whether to provide free insurance to the poor. Sometimes, one size doesn’t fit all. In short, the matter of federalism is very relevant up front, before matters of the proper role of government itself and of human rights are decided. In other words, the qualitative and quantitative differences between a union of states and a state are very relevant up front, lest states eventually peel off in utter frustration with a one-size-fits-all approach to policy-making to fit an empire composed of member-states.

The full essay is at "Is Healthcare a Human Right?"

A U.S. Senator Thrown to the Ground: Security on Steroids

A U.S. Senator being thrown to the ground and handcuffed rather than escorted out of the building because he asked a difficult question for the speaker holding a news conference illustrates not only the bias towards using excessive force that having police power lavishes on human nature, but also a proclivity toward excessiveness without any internal mental check that is entwined in virtually any human brain. That the primary arresting FBI employee was the only person in the room wearing a bulletproof vest inside the federal (government) building may also reveal his penchant for exaggeration—or, going too far without realizing it. The prescription in terms of public policy is a strengthening of checks on law-enforcement employees even, if possible, by embedding other municipal (or federal) employees whose sole function it is to evaluate police conduct either by listening in or observing even in real time. A U.S. senator being thrown to the ground and handcuffed in a federal building in California rather than escorted out of the building evinces a power-trip more base, violent, and primitive than the typical power-trips that occur on the “floor” of the U.S. Senate. It must have been a shock to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla on June 12, 2025 to be physically shoved to the ground, especially if the rationale for his removal from the press conference was itself an exaggeration.

The full essay is at "A U.S. Senator Thrown to the Ground." 

On Kindness to Detractors: Compassion Beyond Universal Benevolence

In late April, 2025, Richard Slavin, whose Hindu name and title are Radhanath Swami, spoke on the essence of bhukti at the conclusion of the Bhukti Yoga Conference at Harvard University. Ultimately, the concept bhukti, which translates as devotionalism directed to a deity, such as Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, refers to the nature of the human soul. The immediate context is selfless love, which is directed to a deity, and this context immediately involves extending universal benevolence to other people (and other species), and even to nature (i.e., the environment). After Radhanath’s talk, he walked directly to me. I thanked him for his talk and went on to suggest refinement to compassion being extended universally, as in universal benevolence even to other species. To my great surprise, he touched my head with his, which I learned afterward was his way of blessing people, while he whispered, “I think I want to follow you” or “You make me want to follow you.” A Hindu from Bangladesh later translated the swami’s statement for me. “He was telling you that he considers you to be his equal,” the taxi driver said. I replied that being regarded as that swami’s equal felt a lot better than had he regarded me as his superior, for in my view, we are all spiritually-compromised finite, time-limited beings learning from each other.

The full essay is at "On Kindness to Detractors."

Israel Kidnapping at Sea: On Absolutist National Sovereignty

In the dark of night on June 9, 2025, Israeli military forces intercepted The Madleen, a yacht operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), a political-activist group oriented to getting food and medicine to the residents of Gaza in Israel. Activists from the E.U., Brazil, and Turkey were on the boat until they were forced onto an Israeli boat and taken to Tel Aviv’s airport, where they were pressured to sign a document that they had entered Israel illegally and agreed to be deported. Once back in the E.U., its activist Greta Thunberg told reporters that Israel had committed “an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will, bringing us to Israel, keeping us in the bottom of the boat, not letting us getting out and so on.”[1] She had agreed to give her written consent to be deported (even if that meant being permanently banned from Israel, she likely would have welcomed the stipulation), but she refused to admit that she had entered Israel illegally. She had, after all, been kidnapped in international waters. Being forced to enter a country by its government, whose officials reason nonetheless that the entrance is illegal, merits the spotlight on enquiry, as this actual mindset can be said to be pathological in nature. I submit that pathology with governmental sovereignty is never a good mix.

The full essay is at "Israel Kidnapping at Sea."

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1. Jaroslav Lukiv and David Gritten, “Greta Thunberg Deported, Israel Says, after Gaza Aid Boat Intercepted,” BBC.com, June 10, 2025.

RBI Overheating India’s Economy: On Materialist Greed Fueling Ceaseless Consumerism

A phenomenon as massive as the global coronavirus pandemic, which ran from 2020 to 2022, is bound to have major economic ripple, or wave, effects in its wake. India’s record high 9.2% growth of GNP in the 2023-2024 fiscal year illustrates the robust thrust of pent-up demand met with increased supply. To the extent that consumption over savings is the norm in any economy, a couple years off can subtly recalibrate economic mentalities to a more prudent economic mindset wherein saving money is not so dwarfed by spending it. Moreover, putting the brakes on a consumerist routine and societal norm can theoretically lead to putting the underlying materialism in a relative rather than an absolute position and thus in perspective. Yet such a “resetting” must overcome the knee-jerk instinct of any habit to restart as if there had been no change. Coming back to college, for example, after a summer away, students tend to pick up their respective routines right away as if the recent summer were a distant memory. India’s astonishing rate of economic growth just after the pandemic demonstrates that the penchant for consumerism and economic growth as a maximizing rather than satisficing variable returned as if the steeds in Socrates’ Symposium—only those horses represent garden-variety eros sublimated to love of eternal moral verities, to which Augustine substituted “God.”

The full essay is at "RBI Overheating India's Economy."

Musk vs. Trump: American Business and Government at Loggerheads?

When the wealthiest person in the world and the President of the United States cross swords, people are bound to notice. Such a very public clash between billionaires, one of whom is the most politically powerful person in the U.S., should not lead the rest of us to infer that the interests of large corporations and the U.S. Government, including the respective executives and elected representatives, typically conflict. Corporate and individual mega-donations to political campaigns, the proverbial “revolving door” between working in government and at a corporation, the reliance of regulatory agencies on information from the regulated companies invite the exploit of conflicts of interest such that legislation and regulations are even written by corporate lawyers for their respective companies’ financial interest. Furthermore, that many very large American-based corporations have interlocking boards of directors gives corporate America considerable unified force in seeing to it that Congress and the federal president remain friendly to business interests. That both benefit from the status quo and have de jure or de facto vetoes of reform proposals reinforces the staying power of the club. Even as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders enjoyed considerable media attention and crowds in his speaking tour against oligopoly (i.e., consolidation within an industry such that companies can set prices at will and can thus extract extra profit beyond that which would accrue in a competitive market), it would be wildly optimistic to hope for an onslaught of anti-trust enforcement from a Republican or Democratic administration.

The complete essay is at "Musk vs. Trump."

Worse than Hell on Earth: Gaza

Each of us is so close to human nature that our perception of it may be blurry or partial. One of Freud’s contributions is the insight that we don’t even know ourselves completely, given the existence of the subconscious. This is also true of trying to comprehend human nature at a distance, as whether humanity is or is not by nature compassionate to people who are suffering greatly at a distance. The sheer duration of the extreme suffering of civilians in Ukraine and Gaza in the midst of ongoing military attacks by Russia and Israel, respectively, beginning in the early 2020s, and the sheer impunity absent any interventionist coalitions of countries from around the world combine to give a negative verdict on human nature concerning compassion from a distance. It can even be said that the ongoing passive complicity around the world impugns not only us, but human nature itself. While less explicit than in furnishing weapons to Russia or Israel, the complicity of human nature is more serious, for even as geopolitics change, human nature is static, at least in a non-evolutionary timespan. Given the extreme suffering in Gaza in particular, the lack of political will around the world to step in militarily and assume control of Gaza may mean that human nature itself is worse than hell on earth.

The full essay is at "Worse than Hell on Earth."

The U.S. Government’s Debt: Federalism Unbalanced

On May 5, 2025, the debt of the U.S. Government stood at $36.21 trillion, $28.9 trillion being held by the public and $7.31 trillion being intragovernmental. That total is $1.66 trillion more than the total federal public debt on May 5, 2024. Projected interest payments of $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 would be 8 percent higher than the interest payments made in 2024. By comparison, the U.S. budget for national defense in fiscal year 2025 totaled $892.6 billion. Whether going to investors of treasury bonds or defense contractors and other corporations, the combined $1.85 trillion for fiscal 2025 represents a transfer payment to the wealthy from American taxpayers rich, middle-class, and poor. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May, 2025 that would subject Medicaid and food assistance to significantly less money and subject the States with having to spend more on the administration of those programs. Principles of political ideology reside just below the surface. My task here is to flush them out and relate them to each other, rather than to impose my own ideology.

The full essay is at "The U.S. Government's Debt."

MIT: A University or a Government?

On the very same day in which Harvard’s president received a standing ovation during the university’s graduation ceremony in Harvard Yard and emphasized verbally that students from all around the world come to Harvard to study—U.S. President Trump having recently ordered Harvard’s international students either to transfer from Harvard or be sent home—MIT’s president barred the 2025 class president from attending her graduation ceremony on the next day because of her speech denouncing Israel’s decimation of Gaza in violation of international human-rights law. Whether extermination or genocide, that the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued arrest warrants for Israel’s sitting prime minister and a former defense minister should be enough for MIT’s senior officials to recognize that speaking on behalf of human rights and against mass carnage and intentional starvation is laudatory rather than horrendous. Even with the political pressure that must have been coming the federal president, it was possible to resist such pressure, which is why Harvard’s graduates gave the president of Harvard a standing ovation of support. Sometimes international affairs really are simple. Opposing Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza is not only morally good; doing so is a duty. After all (but sadly not after all), Israel’s military actions over 1.5 years had already resulted in whole cities being leveled and 1.2 million residents facing starvation. The policy of U.S. Government and the money of the American military-industrial companies, both of which were still aiding Israel’s military, was also ripe for moral criticism. In effect, MIT’s “academic” officials felt justified in taking the draconian step of barring the graduating-class student-president from the campus on the day of graduation because she had spoken out for human rights. There surely are tough decisions in life given how subjective and even multivariate human judgment is, but condemning and even bypassing MIT in the wake of that institution’s highest officials barring the student from even receiving her diploma in the graduation ceremony even though her family had come to see it is not a difficult decision to reach. While dwarfed by the coldness of Israeli soldiers in Gaza, “heartless” is not an adjective that a university’s top officials want applied to them or a university itself, especially in regard to students on the cusp of being alumni with great earning, and thus donating, potential.

The full essay is at "MIT: A University or a Government?"