Joe, with degrees in engineering and economics, raced motorcycles, founded 3 software companies, and launched one of the first computer store chains. Now he writes novels and Ghost essays while traveling with his wife, Lanying, and their cat, Cat.
A note from Joe: You spoke. I listened. Shocking, I know. The poll results are in, and you've sentenced me to Tuesdays and Fridays. Maybe Sundays if the mood strikes or the world does something particularly stupid. Which, let's face it, happens most Sundays. A few
The Regressive Lie Summary: The United States tax system is a con dressed up as progressivism. On paper, brackets climb to 37 percent. In practice, billionaires pay less than nurses. They don’t take wages, they borrow against assets, live tax-free, and pass fortunes untouched through the step-up basis. Payroll
Summary: Socrates distrusted writing because it froze ideas, allowing people to look wise without doing the work of thought. He believed truth came only through dialogue—messy, difficult, communal. Today, we live in the echo of his warning. Our dialectic is flattened into hashtags, clips, and algorithms that reward noise
Blind Ambition Elon Musk thinks he can teach a machine to see. Not just see—understand. Judge. Navigate. React. All using nothing but cameras. No lidar. No radar. Just a nervous system of cheap lenses and machine learning stitched together to form a pair of eyes smarter than yours. That&
Norms aren't laws. Laws aren't locks. Fear is the new currency. Summary: Trump didn't bend government—he broke it over his knee and rebuilt it as a weapon. Schedule F gutted civil service. Federal troops patrol American streets. Courts terrorized into compliance. Media outlets
Summary Trump’s tell isn’t subtle—it’s a foghorn. Whatever he accuses others of, he’s already done himself. Election fraud? He’s on the phone begging Georgia to “find” votes. Nepotism? He turned the White House into a family timeshare. Leakers? He’s calling reporters as his
Summary: Trickle-down economics was always a lie. The 1950s boom Republicans worship was built on a 91% top tax rate, strong unions, and public investment—policies they now sneer at as socialism. High taxes forced the rich to reinvest in planes built, factories expanded, workers paid. Reagan flipped it, slashing
His United States Summary: Trump's authoritarian strategy was straightforward: manufacture crime emergencies in Democratic cities, deploy federal forces as "rescue operations," then assert that local governance is conditional on his approval. Despite crime data showing D.C. at 30-year lows and the most dangerous cities located
Summary for time constricted readers: In America, the flag is less a symbol of unity than a tool of spectacle and profit. From car dealerships to political rallies, its image is used to sell everything from trucks to ideologies—often in direct violation of the very Flag Code meant to
Summary (for the time constrained): Each crisis that threatened to expose him was smothered under a new outrage, a new headline, a new chant. When Epstein’s papers confirmed his name, the strategy went into overdrive. A parade of phony scandals: Hunter’s laptop resurrection, border hysteria with recycled footage,
Summary: Modern authoritarian takeovers don't need tanks—they need personnel departments. While everyone watches for obvious fascism, the real coup happens through systematic replacement of competent officials with unqualified loyalists who owe everything to their benefactor. Trump fired inspectors general investigating his administration, sold ambassadorships for donations, and
This is dedicated to my friend James, whose substack I recommend. He introduced me to Polybius, and I thought I was educated. Summary: Polybius mapped the rot of governments—monarchy to tyranny, aristocracy to oligarchy, democracy to mob rule, back again. The Founders tried to break the cycle with a