The Strait That Sets the Price of Everything

A handful of narrow passages carry most of the world's traded goods. The politics of those passages is now the politics of everyone's grocery bill.

The argument is described as a fight about migration. It is really a fight about which level of government gets to decide.

The systems have been bought and the deployments made. The theory explaining what they are supposed to prevent has not been written down.

Advisory firms sit between governments and the transactions that shape them. Their interests are not identical to anyone's national interest.

Primaries were built to find candidates with broad support inside a party. They now reward a much narrower kind of appeal.

The Ballot Measure Has Become the Legislature

When lawmakers refuse to act, organizers go around them. The result is policy written by whoever can afford signature gatherers.

Nearly all intercontinental data moves through undersea cables. The number of ships capable of repairing them is startlingly small.

Every major economy is now paying to attract the same handful of industries. The bidding does not stop when a plant is built.

Several internationally recognized frontiers are not administered by the governments that claim them. Everyone involved prefers the ambiguity.

Employers in high demand regions cannot fill roles at wages the local housing market makes viable. That is a construction problem wearing a labor costume.

Nationwide Injunctions and the Single District Judge

One trial court can halt a federal policy everywhere. Both parties have called that intolerable, in alternating years.

Deliberation is treated as an obstacle to be routed around. Most of what it produces cannot be produced any other way.

Confirmation fights concentrate on a handful of visible posts. The seats that decide the most tend to be filled without a hearing.

Institutions have larger communications staffs than the newsrooms covering them. The output ratio shows up in what gets published.