Edifice of Trust
239 episodes - English - Latest episode: 7 days ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingThe Edifice of Trust is a podcast that provides discussion and analysis of today’s current events from the perspective of America’s Founding Principles. Based on Enlightenment philosophy as espoused by John Locke and economic freedom as described by Adam Smith, the host, Victor Bolles, provides listeners a path toward understanding current events from these timeless principles. Many Americans believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction, the podcast tries to point out a new course that everyone can support.
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Episodes
Non-Trivial Pursuits
January 24, 2023 14:05 - 12 minutes - 13.9 MBGotchas, paybacks and vendettas do not make for a legislative agenda. They may appeal to the Freedom Caucus, but most Americans want Congress to address the important issues that affect their lives. Not raising the debt ceiling is another act of political theater that will not solve our public debt problem but only compound it. Speaker McCarthy needs to develop a plan to address perpetual deficits and unsustainable levels of public debt. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Boll...
Urgent Priorities 2023
January 12, 2023 16:57 - 30 minutes - 32.7 MBLast year I published a podcast (Urgent Priorities, December 30, 2021) on the urgent priorities that America had to confront in the year 2022. Since many of those priorities were addressed very ineffectively or were not addressed at all, I was tempted to simply republish that commentary again this year. But the world is dynamic, and conditions change so I felt that America’s urgent priorities had to be updated to reflect those changes. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles...
Wakanda Dreamin'
December 27, 2022 14:00 - 11 minutes - 12.5 MBOn a recent podcast, professors Glenn Loury and John McWhorter were discussing how slaveowners had used techniques to break a slave’s bond to their past (their history, their language, their religion, their culture) to make them easier to control and dependent on the slaveowner - a process called natal alienation. But this process seems very similar to the role of the government in the modern welfare state, replacing familial and community bonds with the tendrils of state control. In this pod...
The Real Message of Welfare
December 07, 2022 17:27 - 11 minutes - 12.9 MBMany people may need public assistance from time to time but the structure of the American welfare state encourages behaviors that perpetuate impoverishment and increase the need for taxpayer paid welfare. The only beneficiaries of the US welfare state are the politicians, the welfare administrators and their union. The poor remain poor. In this podcast the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at the impact of the welfare state on poor people and how government programs make sure they ...
Conservatism is not Enough
December 01, 2022 14:00 - 12 minutes - 13.9 MBLabels can be confusing, especially when they keep changing. They are more like brand names than descriptors of political philosophy. When a candidate says “I am a strong conservative” or “I am very liberal” it is hard to tell what they really stand for. But they need to stand for something. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles investigates the differences between labels and principles.
Don't Twerk on My Parade
November 23, 2022 16:13 - 10 minutes - 10.9 MBCultural changes have come to Central Texas in the form of competing Christmas/Holiday parades in the rural town of Taylor. Change is inevitable but not all change is good. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at some ways that the people of Taylor can manage the impact of demographic, technological and cultural change.
Toxic Magic and the Red Ripple
November 11, 2022 18:07 - 8 minutes - 9.81 MBAn endorsement from former President Donald Trump was magic for his chosen candidates in the Republican primaries, but the results of the 2022 mid-term elections have shown that his endorsements are toxic in the general election. Mr. Trump plans to make a major announcement on November 15th that is widely expected to affirm his candidacy for president in 2024. He can probably win the nomination with the support of his base, but his run for a second term is doomed to fail and is likely to drag...
The War on Profit
November 07, 2022 14:00 - 11 minutes - 11.8 MBJoe Biden and the Democrats have a problem with profit. Not just the “outrageous” and excessive profits that the oil companies are reaping now. All profit. Because they think profit comes from exploitation. But profit is much more than that. Profit is a great motivator and change agent, and the Democrats fear the power of that motivation. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust Host, Victor Bolles, examines the power of profit and why governments seek to control it.
The Cult of Woke
October 31, 2022 13:00 - 11 minutes - 11.9 MBThe proponents of the Woke progressive-left agenda appear resistant to logical argument and react with outrage at any criticism of their movement. They reject analyses based on empirical evidence and doubt that the scientific method can discover objective truth. They react with fury at any criticism of their movement. This resistance perplexed me until I came to the realization that the Woke movement has more in common with a religion or cult than it does an ideology. In this podcast, I disc...
Wake Up! Dems
October 24, 2022 13:00 - 10 minutes - 11.7 MBNoble Prize winner Daniel Kahneman explained in his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, that the human brain can be viewed as being divided into two separate brains, the fast thinking instinctual brain that we inherited from our hominid ancestors and our slow thinking cerebral cortex that sets us apart from those ancestors and all other animals. Politicians on the left and right direct their campaign ads to the fast thinking side of our brains, but it is our slow thinking brains that are the solut...
Social Justrice is Incompatible with Democracy
October 18, 2022 18:06 - 14 minutes - 15.5 MBMany people think social justice is synonymous with democracy, that you can’t have true democracy without social justice. But they are wrong. The Soviet Union fought for social justice but there was no freedom or democracy in the USSR. And Mao fought for social justice but there was no democracy in Communist China. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, discusses how the fight for social justice is taking us down a dark and dangerous path.
The Pension Pit
October 06, 2022 13:00 - 12 minutes - 13.2 MBAs exploding pension costs cause state and local governments to cut back on services, citizens are fleeing rising crime, failing schools and increasing taxes leaving only the most vulnerable residents to shoulder the financial burden and their worsening predicament. These financial burdens have been created by public sector unions working in collusion with the politicians who gladly accept their political donations. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, examines this grow...
The Difference between Democracy and Liberty
September 30, 2022 15:40 - 11 minutes - 12.3 MBPollsters report that American citizens are very worried about the state of our democracy in the run-up to the 2022 mid-term elections. It is true that left-wing and right-wing extremists are trying to manipulate democracy to meet their own partisan ends, but part of the problem is that many people do not understand how democracy relates to our liberty or how the Founders tried to limit democracy and well as government. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at how t...
Reward Work Not Wealth
September 14, 2022 14:51 - 12 minutes - 13.6 MBThe White House recently released the Biden-Harris Economic Blueprint that lays out what the Biden administration wants to do and what it envisions for the American economy. The Blueprint is based on the premise of rewarding work and not wealth. But this is a false premise based on Marxist thinking. Work and wealth are not opposed but are complementary to each other. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, examines the proposed Blueprint and suggests some alternative soluti...
Semi-What?
September 08, 2022 13:00 - 11 minutes - 12.1 MBIn a recent speech, President Joe Biden accused ex-President Trump and his MAGA-Republican followers of following a semi-fascist philosophy that, “threatens the very foundations of our Republic.” But fascism has more in common with socialism than with the American founding principles. Fascists and socialists use the same tactics to control a country and its people. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust hist, Victor Bolles investigates how semi-fascists and semi-socialists do, indeed, threaten...
Energy Policy! What's That?
September 06, 2022 17:14 - 16 minutes - 17.2 MBThis podcast is an excerpt about energy policy from my 2015 book, Principled Policy. As Saudi Arabia announces a cut-back in production and Russia the shut-off of the Nord-Stream pipeline, some of the events described in my book may seem a bit dated but the underlying concept is still relevant today. Perhaps even more relevant as oil prices fluctuate and natural gas prices soar, portending a winter of super high prices and power outages here and in Europe.
Not a Band-Aid
August 30, 2022 14:06 - 10 minutes - 11.5 MBAlmost everyone agrees that President Biden’s plan to forgive billions and billions of dollars of student debt is a bad idea. But it not a bad idea just because it does more economic harm than good. Nor is it a bad idea because it ignores the causes of the student debt problem, does nothing to solve the problem and, therefore, virtually guarantees that the problem will continue and grow even worse, necessitating additional forgiveness in the future. It is wrong on moral and ethical grounds be...
The Duty of Citizens
August 22, 2022 13:00 - 13 minutes - 14.5 MBCitizens of the United States have many civil rights, but they also have duties and responsibilities. Duties and responsibilities beyond voting and paying taxes. Citizens must be productive members of society. Many of the benefits and entitlements provided to citizens by the government discourage citizens from being productive members of society. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, discusses the duty citizens owe to society.
How to Destroy the Republican Party
August 09, 2022 13:00 - 12 minutes - 13.5 MBFormer President Donald Trump is the dominant figure in the Republican Party and aspires to be its candidate for President in the 2024 elections. To implement his plans, he is attempting to remake the Republican Party by backing candidates that are loyal to him and his agenda and ousting traditional Republicans whose loyalties lie elsewhere. But his scheme might fail because the candidates he is backing are not faring well against their Democratic opponents in a year when Republicans were exp...
The Deficit Reduction Dance
August 03, 2022 15:09 - 15 minutes - 15.8 MBThe Inflation Reduction Act concocted by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic maverick Joe Manchin is being rushed through Congress in the hopes of a quick passage before people realize what is actually in the bill and what it means in terms of reducing inflation. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at the underlying causes of inflation and why the Inflation Reduction Act has little chance to actually reduce inflation.
Gasolina Barata
July 18, 2022 13:00 - 11 minutes - 12.5 MBFirst, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador snubbed President Biden’s invitation to the recent Summit of the Americas by refusing to attend unless the dictators from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were also invited. At a White House meeting the following week, he chided President Biden about US inflation saying that Americans were crossing the border to buy gasoline in Mexico. After these insults, President Biden journeyed to the Middle East to beg a potentate who previously had refus...
When Face Value is Two Faced
July 12, 2022 13:00 - 9 minutes - 9.94 MBInstitutions that are intended to foster professionalism and civic responsibility have been taken over in order to promote progressive ideology. Membership in institutions such as the American Bar Association has declined to only about 14% of practicing attorneys allowing a small minority to realign an esteemed 140 year old institution into a platform for progressivism. And the American Medical Association is using critical race theory to attack systemic racism in medicine. In this podcast, t...
Weasel Words
July 06, 2022 14:07 - 13 minutes - 14.4 MBThe left is always coming up with new words or redefining the meaning of old words to make their progressive ideas more palatable to the American public. Freidrich Hayek called them weasel words. Words designed to deceive, not inform. One example of weasel words that Professor Hayek highlighted in his book, The Fatal Conceit, are the words “social justice,” which are intended to sound morally superior to regular justice. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, investigates ...
Chaos in the Culture Wars
June 24, 2022 13:00 - 11 minutes - 12.5 MBExtremists on the left and right are fighting a culture war to transform America into something unrecognizable. And while they are fighting each other, they demand ideological purity or cult-like loyalty among their supporters, leaving regular Americans stranded and lost. We have seen this before, in the 1930s. And it did not turn our well. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, calls on regular Americans to reject these partisan attempts to hijack our country.
Capitulation (or not)
June 20, 2022 13:00 - 10 minutes - 11.5 MBFinancial markets are nearing capitulation, interest rates are rising, inflation is roaring, and recession is looming. The American people, along with investors, are hunkering down for a really rough patch. Everybody is adjusting their lives to cope with these new circumstances. Everybody, that is, but the Biden Administration. They insist that their progressive agenda would be on track except for Putin’s invasion, price gouging energy companies and intransigent Republicans. In this podcast, ...
The Pin Factory and Social Justice
June 10, 2022 15:23 - 13 minutes - 13.7 MBIn the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith used the example of a simple pin factory to explain the benefits of the division of labor. He went on to show how this division of labor created a supply chain of economic actors making decisions in their own self-interest that supply all the economic necessities of the country. In America, progressive leftists are pushing social justice goals on US companies that will disrupt this dynamic free market economic system. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust ...
Open Letter to Sen. John Cornyn
June 02, 2022 18:34 - 7 minutes - 8.5 MBAn open letter to Senator John Cornyn regarding his efforts to build a bi-partisan consensus on gun reform amid rising concern that current gun laws provide inadequate protection to the American people and their children.
Our Politicians Are Driving Us Crazy
May 25, 2022 18:34 - 11 minutes - 12.3 MBOur Politicians Are Driving Us Crazy. I do not mean this figuratively. I mean this literally. They are driving people crazy and making America a hellish place in which to live. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles looks at what politicians are doing that are literally making people go crazy.
More on the High Cost of Free Speech
May 20, 2022 15:43 - 8 minutes - 9.26 MBTragedy follows upon tragedy and the cause is linked to hate speech, disinformation or fake news. It is a natural instinct to want to suppress these sick ideas and hateful concepts. But these evils thrive in the darkness. Their weakness is exposure to light. Free speech carries a high price, but the lack of free speech has an unbearable cost. In this podcast, the Edifice of trust host, Victor Bolles, continues our investigation into the continual high cost of free speech.
The Continual High Cost of Free Speech
May 17, 2022 16:39 - 14 minutes - 14.7 MBI am quite certain that as we get closer to the November off-year elections abortion, inflation and the war in Europe will dominate the campaign rhetoric and the issue of freedom of speech will be pushed to the sidelines (again). But as Elon Musk recently tweeted, “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.” We are already being inundated with hackers, trolls, bots, foreign actors, fake news, conspiracy theories and all sorts of nonsense. And now the Biden Administration wants to cr...
Abortion - A 23rd Century Perspective
May 10, 2022 13:51 - 15 minutes - 16 MBA stolen draft Supreme court opinion that might overturn Roe v. Wade has set off a firestorm of tweets, op-eds and protests across the country. The Republicans and Democrats are facing off for a Battle of the Century. However, the American public has held a very durable consensus for many years that would allow abortion in the first trimester with increasing restrictions, thereafter. The political parties ignore this consensus that would be a viable basis for policy in favor of divisive polit...
Joe Biden Didn't Cause Our Inflation
April 25, 2022 15:34 - 13 minutes - 14.1 MBPresident Biden’s poll numbers are in the tank and a lot of people are blaming record high inflation for the poor numbers. But inflation pressures began building long before he became president, only awaiting a trigger to set them off. We got multiple triggers with the Covid pandemic, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and supply chain problems. But instead of changing course to address inflationary pressures, the Biden administration is doubling down on its imprudent progressive spending plans. In ...
Slanted Society
April 18, 2022 13:00 - 17 minutes - 18.6 MBWhat if the differences between central planning, social justice loving progressives and free market, liberty loving conservatives were not ideological but biological? There is mounting evidence that there may be such a link, which means that rational discussion has little chance of changing the minds of those in these two camps. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, investigates some of the evidence pointing in this direction and discusses some of the implications of thi...
What Happened to the Party of JFK?
April 05, 2022 13:00 - 13 minutes - 14.4 MBPresident Biden has just released his proposed budget for 2023, projecting trillion dollar deficits and mounting public debt far into the future. The rapidly expanding welfare schemes are a far cry from the sentiments President John F. Kennedy expressed in his inaugural address. And to pay for even more entitlements of dubious value, President Biden is proposing a wealth tax on greedy billionaires. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles looks at how far the progressive left...
The New Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
March 18, 2022 13:00 - 11 minutes - 12.5 MBEight days after Hitler’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, signed the infamous pact that bears his name along with his Soviet counterpart, Vyacheslav Molotov, Germany invaded Poland, starting World War Two. Twenty days after Russian President Vladimir Putin issued, along with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, a Joint Statement declaring a new era of international relations, he invaded Ukraine. The new era promised by Putin and Xi does not bode well for free people aroun...
Vertical War
March 15, 2022 13:00 - 12 minutes - 14 MBVladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine isn’t going as planned. The reason may lie in the fact the invasion was planned and implemented vertically, from the mind of a single person, Vladimir Putin. The defense of the nation, although inspired by the leadership of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is being fought by everyone from grandmothers giving sunflower seeds to Russian troops (so flowers will grow where their bodies are buried) to students and office workers heaving Molotov cocktail...
Putin Has Done Us a Favor
March 07, 2022 14:08 - 13 minutes - 14.1 MBJust as America was wallowing in woke divisiveness and populist conspiracies, and while the other countries of the West sank into self-indulgent complacency, Vladimir Putin has sent a wake-up call. Europe in their desire to save the planet, had put their future in the hands of Russia. Americans, focused on rancorous partisan politics hardly had the time to concentrate on anything outside its borders. Putin has changed all that. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles looks ...
Backfire
March 01, 2022 15:22 - 14 minutes - 15.5 MBI never thought Vladimir Putin would invade Ukraine. It didn’t make any sense. It was irrational. I was wrong – but right. He did invade. But I was right because he has not achieved any of his strategic goals and he (and Russia) are in a much worse situation than before the invasion. In this podcast, I analyze Putin’s disastrous military misadventure and look at its implications for the future.
My Primary Predicament
February 21, 2022 13:30 - 12 minutes - 11.5 MBPrimary elections were intended to improve democracy in America. So was the inclusion of administrative positions such as attorney general or railroad commissioner on the ballot. However, as it often is with good intentions, the unintended consequences are often worse than the problem and increasing democracy has resulted in increasing divisiveness. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust hoist, Victor Bolles examines some of the problems presented by upcoming primary elections and makes some r...
In Vlad's Shoes
February 14, 2022 18:56 - 13 minutes - 13.8 MBTo our Western eyes, the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin are not just dangerous, they are incomprehensible, which only makes them more dangerous. But he is not a madman. There are reasons behind his recent provocative actions. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles engages in some thought experiments to try and better understand Mr. Putin’s motives and use those insights to guide future measures to preserve our security.
The Algorithm of Decline
February 02, 2022 14:00 - 16 minutes - 16.9 MBRay Dalio, billionaire hedge fund manager and author, has written a new book describing his theory of why nations succeed and fail. He has used artificial intelligence and big data to identify the key determinants in the rise and fall of great powers and his theory reveals why the United States is a declining power and China is a rising one. But the real utility of his theory is as a roadmap of how America can avoid, or at least delay, such a fate. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, ...
The Real RINO
January 17, 2022 13:00 - 12 minutes - 15.2 MBIn a recent letter, former president Trump implies that Democrats are not real Americans and urges fellow patriots (his words) to elect Trump Republicans. Not Republicans but Trump Republicans whose loyalty is to Donald Trump and not the Republican Party. Not to be out done, President Biden accuses those opposed to his legislation of being on the side of rebels and slavers like Jefferson Davis. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, examines the reasons for this hyperboli...
Plessy v. Progressives
January 12, 2022 14:00 - 10 minutes - 12.4 MBOn January 5, 2022, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards pardoned Homer Plessy for committing the crime of riding in a whites-only railcar in 1892. The U.S. Supreme Court had rejected Plessy’s appeal of his conviction in the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision that set the stage for “separate but equal” treatment under Jim Crow laws. But that decision had placed public opinion over the intent of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The progressive left objects to an o...
Urgent Priorities
December 30, 2021 17:55 - 25 minutes - 29.7 MBIn the year 2022 the United States will be challenged to address urgent priorities of national importance, but our political leaders will be distracted by political priorities as we approach the upcoming off-year elections. As citizens, we need to make sure that our elected representative focus on issues of national importance and not on ideological agendas or the egos of political leaders. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, identifies some of these urgent national pr...
Thanks for Nothing, Joe
December 23, 2021 13:00 - 12 minutes - 14.5 MBJoe Manchin’s decision to vote no on President Biden’s Build Back Better plan has earned him the enmity of progressives across the country who are calling him every sort of vile and hateful name they can think of. They accuse him of endangering American democracy by his disloyalty to their progressive agenda. But in a democracy, unlike a totalitarian state, a person can vote their conscience and not be held in contempt. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at the ...
Ethical Gymnastics
December 13, 2021 13:00 - 13 minutes - 15.8 MBProponents and opponents of a Mississippi law banning abortion after fifteen weeks recently argued before the Supreme Court. Many fear, or alternatively hope, that the Court will overturn the infamous Roe v. Wade decision that has governed abortions since 1973. The court will not announce its decision until the middle of 2022. But whatever the Court decides will not end the controversy surrounding abortion. In this podcast, the Edifice of Trust host, Victor Bolles, looks at the ethical issue...
Political Petroleum Reserve
November 26, 2021 13:42 - 11 minutes - 13.4 MBBecause his pleas to OPEC to increase oil production fell on deaf ears, President Biden recently authorized the release of 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve with the hope of curbing the rising price of gasoline. But the purpose of the SPR is to give the United States strategic options in the face of foreign policy challenges around the globe, not to be used for political purposes so that the Biden Administration can be seen as doing something to fight rising infl...
The 0.1% Solution
November 17, 2021 16:20 - 15 minutes - 17.8 MBIbram X. Kendi asserts that all humans share 99.9% of their DNA and that, because we are so alike, racial disparities in social and economic outcomes would not exist except for racism. But the 0.1% that we do not have in common must then account for all the wide variations of the human species we see around the world. Charles Murray asserts that based on evidence from intelligence tests there is a cognitive gap between the races that explains much of the differences in social and economic ou...
The End of Wokeism
November 05, 2021 15:06 - 11 minutes - 14.2 MBDemocrats are still reeling from the disastrous election results from the 2021 off-year elections. They lost the governorship and the state house in blue Virginia. They almost lost the governorship in very blue New Jersey, however, a neophyte Republican with a shoe-string budget took down the second most powerful Democrat in the state. Progressive initiatives failed while conservatives were ousting progressives from school boards across the country. In response, Democrats seem intent to keep...
Corporate Taxes in the Real World
October 25, 2021 14:52 - 12 minutes - 13.3 MBProgressive Democrats and the Biden White House continue to work on hashing out the details of the American Families Plan along with increases in the tax rates for corporations and wealthy individuals to pay for it. But in the real world (compared to the ideal but unattainable world envisioned by progressives) most corporations pass on the increased costs of higher taxes to consumers and workers while corporations that cannot pass on such increased costs will suffer from reduced competitiven...