Thanks for writing up so thoughtful and timely a note. Edward Luce's piece in the FT several days ago also deserves sharing as it brings up Trump's announcement that Treasury will no longer enforce the beneficiary ownership reporting regulation, the principal anti-money laundering regulation.
This is exceptionally well-written, Rory, and I truly appreciate your effort. In my home country of Argentina, corruption has been the primary driver of economic decline. Political favoritism and heavy-handed government intervention have created an unstable economic environment where regulatory uncertainty and arbitrary enforcement deter investment and stifle growth.
Hopefully, Libertarians will soon recognize that the long-term institutional damage caused by Trump will likely outweigh any short-term policy wins they believe they are achieving. Protectionism, executive overreach, and regulatory unpredictability weaken economic freedom and erode the principles they claim to defend—just as Argentina’s decline demonstrates.
Thank you for sharing this Mariano! One of the joys of this Substack has been to reconnect with old friends. There is a lot of empirical evidence that corruption is bad for growth in the long run, in addition to eroding public confidence in government.
Thanks for writing up so thoughtful and timely a note. Edward Luce's piece in the FT several days ago also deserves sharing as it brings up Trump's announcement that Treasury will no longer enforce the beneficiary ownership reporting regulation, the principal anti-money laundering regulation.
https://www.ft.com/content/afe77c07-3f71-4b96-8c46-9cb4dc0b3fad
More on money laundering here: https://newrepublic.com/post/192244/trump-celebrates-destroy-anti-money-laundering-law
Thank you Bill for sharing this. Yeah it's almost hard to keep track of all the graft. He's also charging $5M for tickets to dinner with him, which in other parts of the world, we'd call it a bribe. https://www.wired.com/story/people-paying-millions-donald-trump-mar-a-lago/
This is exceptionally well-written, Rory, and I truly appreciate your effort. In my home country of Argentina, corruption has been the primary driver of economic decline. Political favoritism and heavy-handed government intervention have created an unstable economic environment where regulatory uncertainty and arbitrary enforcement deter investment and stifle growth.
Hopefully, Libertarians will soon recognize that the long-term institutional damage caused by Trump will likely outweigh any short-term policy wins they believe they are achieving. Protectionism, executive overreach, and regulatory unpredictability weaken economic freedom and erode the principles they claim to defend—just as Argentina’s decline demonstrates.
Thank you for sharing this Mariano! One of the joys of this Substack has been to reconnect with old friends. There is a lot of empirical evidence that corruption is bad for growth in the long run, in addition to eroding public confidence in government.