Political economy beneath the news.

Trump’s attack on Cuba is therefore an argument about American capacity before it is an argument about Cuban democracy. He wants to prove that the United States can still force movement in its near abroad; that enemies can be broken by pressure on fuel and finance; that allies, firms, and neighbours can be disciplined; that his administration can do what Obama’s opening refused and what the old embargo failed to finish.

Culturalism isn't just wrong; it's functional. It deflects attention from structural violence and turns political economy into a question of identity. The mechanism works across contexts.

SpaceX’s possible IPO is not just a valuation story. It is a test of how much faith investors will place in Elon Musk, AI, Mars, and the promise of a privately built future.

The Democratic Party is not dying. That would be too simple. It is splitting. One part still walks through the old doors. It knows the donors. It knows the consultants. It knows the language of restraint, order, NATO, markets, growth, moderation, and responsible government.

Most of us are taught to speak about the economy as if it were a machine. It grows. It slows. It overheats. It cools. It corrects itself. We speak as if it sits above the country and moves by its own laws and answers to no one. But the economy is not the weather. It does not happen to us. People make it.

John Steinbeck wrote in East of Eden, ‘I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.’