T. J. Stiles

Is America turning into a monarchy?

No, no, no.

You see, in a monarchy the king can’t unilaterally declare things to be crimes and determine the punishments. He needs parliament to do that.

Less than nine months into Trump’s second term, and we’re well past the worst predictions made in the campaign. This is pure dictatorshit.

Three in four aren’t paying attention.

In this podcast, I give my best answers to some big questions:

Is Trump returning us to the Gilded Age?
(No, it’s worse than that.)

Do we face a civil war?

What will we have to do to rebuild when he’s gone?

Is this the worst time in our history?

if Kash can go back years and fire people for kneeling or displaying a pride flag the absolute least the next Dem admin can do is fire every one of these assholes who are assaulting people on camera

(and then prosecute them)

Stephen Miller is the answer to the question, Can you totally look like someone who is afraid of spiders and also be a serious danger to freedom and democracy?

(The answer is yes.)

Now up: My interview with Democrats Abroad, the party organization of U.S. citizens living in other countries. The official title of the episode is, "What American History Can Tell Us about Today." It could have been titled, "When we say Trump is unprecedented, what do we mean?"
tinyurl.com/3tyk6bja

Biden directed spending to red states to include them in his vision for a cleaner, stronger America.

Trump cuts spending in blue states to punish their residents for their speech.

The former may have been naive, but it was hopeful.

The latter is vindictive, punitive, and unconstitutional.

Republicans can’t govern.

The numbers say H-1Bs raise wages, boost patents, and drive productivity.

The story is that H-1Bs aren’t just “workers”—they’re engines of innovation. They're the strivers who crossed the ocean, and brought their fresh new ideas with them.

This section of the Times story about the plan to put King Donald the 0th on a coin. Man.

this is wild: while Stephen Miller's guy was in Minnesota for his uncle's funeral, somebody was able to see his entire phone and take pictures of his Signal group chats talking about military deployments to Portland, and brought them to the Strib (gift link: www.startribune.com/trump-offici...)

Thank you!

This is a thread I should have run past @rrjohnr.bsky.social first. If he says any of it is wrong, listen to him.

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt|Paperback NATIONAL BESTSELLERWINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDIn this groundbreaking biography, T.J. Stiles tells the dramatic story of Cornelius “Commodore” Vanderbilt, the combative man and A...

Some of this thread is based on my ongoing work on a biography of Theodore Roosevelt. But it largely springs from my research for my biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt, which delves deeply into the nature of the corporation as it arose and became gigantic.
www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-first-...

Today Trump calls back to the Gilded Age to justify his economic policies. But they are without context. They don't even serve constituencies, as tariffs did then; manufacturing is contracting. There's no mental construct now that makes sense of them. One man jams his madness through. Insane.
12/12

Today the idea of basing share price purely on physical assets seems nuts. It would be crazy to base the value of, say, a digital-services corporation on its servers and office furniture. That's why it's important to work to understand historical policies in their context, a lost mindset.
11/12

In 1888–89, New Jersey allowed corporations to more easily merge & own each other's stock, legalizing holding corporations. It precipitated a decline in this insistence on basing the abstract corporation on the tangible world. On July 31, 1901, the New York Times defended "overcapitalization."
10/12

Theodore Roosevelt became famous for going after trusts (the common term for industrial monopolies). But he was very agitated about "overcapitalization," as were such corporation-friendly publications as the Wall Street Journal.

Today, monopoly is a concept we get. But not "stock watering."
9/12

So if a corporation issued stock beyond what it actually bought & built, it was simply dishonest! It not only ripped off customers in order to pay dividends on the "watered stock,"* but it was a lie!

* Term from livestock trade. Dealers induced cattle to drink heavily before market weighing.
8/12

This insistence on tangible assets behind financial values reflected antebellum paper money. A bank issued notes on the promise to pay the face value in gold coin. The notes' values fluctuated based on how likely you were to get the metal. Stock prices fluctuated, but around the par value.
7/12

Throughout the 19th century, economic thinkers & investors emphasized "par value," usually $100 per share. This was supposed to represent money expended on real capital: real estate, physical plant, equipment, rolling stock, etc. The dividend was a payment on that investment—say, 6% annually.
6/12

The overcharging question was especially sensitive for companies that enjoyed monopolies, like railroads had over local traffic or giant industrial mergers had under the McKinley high-tariff system.

To an extent, that's an argument about monopolies. But the nature of stock itself was in play.
5/12

Dividends—called "interest on capital"—were considered the correct way to pay back investment in a corporation. If a company suspended dividends, its share price took a savage beating. But if a corporation paid dividends on *too much* stock, it was thought, it must be overcharging customers.
4/12

The answers go back to the origin of the corporation in America. Let's start at the most practical, referred to in the Wall Street Journal article: U.S. Steel would have to pay "dividends on watered stock." At the time, dividends were not optional. They were the return investors looked for.
3/12

The answer is something you've probably never heard of, but it used to obsess financial journalists and politicians:

Stock watering. Also called "overcapitalization."

If a company issued too much stock, it was considered harmful, dishonest, and dangerous. Why? That's the interesting part.
2/12

I want to take a look at the mind-boggling stupidity of Trump's tariff regime by doing a wonky dive into the history of economics—or, at least, popular economic thinking.

Let's start by asking, Why was the Wall Street Journal so upset at the organization of U.S. Steel?
🧵: 1/12

"Only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on United States currency and securities." 31 USC 5114(b)

“No, we’re cutting spending based on racism, not Project 2025!”

It looks like it was designed by a nine-year-old boy with no friends.