Welcome to another edition of The Mueller Report!
Updates
I wrote most of this newsletter last week but didn’t quite get it out the door.
We had a beautiful week of weather here in the CO mountains; lots of sunshine and warmth but still a good base of snow for skiing. The kids continue to improve. Only the youngest still needs her hand held on the bunny hill. I don’t know if we’ll accomplish my goal of being able to take the whole family up the big lift to the top of the mountain by the end of the season – but it’s within the realm of possibility.
Business at The Abbey has begun picking up again, at least on the weekends. We have a festival here in Leadville called Ski Joring this weekend. Among the “only in a small mountain town” activities are skiers pulled by horses down the main street. I think there will also be “knockout” cross country ski races down the main street too (you get knocked out after you’ve lost two one-on-one races).
I’ve begun giving Teddy short books on economics, philosophy, law, and history to read. The deal is that after he has read one of the books and written down some observations about it, I’ll take him to lunch to discuss it. We started with Bastiat’s The Law. It’s short and it’s a classic. Bastiat demonstrates just how much of our government system basically legalizes “plunder.” If government promotes justice by defending our individual rights to life, liberty, and property, then it engages in plunder when it takes from our life, liberty, and property in ways that would be illegal if done by individual citizens.
Teddy and I had a chance to discuss this issue with respect to a new regulation passed by the Lake County Board of Commissioners (see my op-ed on it below). Legal plunder is so widespread, most people don’t even recognize it as such anymore.
News
If you haven’t been following financial markets, Nvidia is the big story of the week (Month? Year?). Its stock has soared recently – adding over $200 billion dollars of market cap in a single day this week after reporting huge earnings and strong future expectations. I’m not an expert on the company, but its rise to glory has been driven by the AI revolution. Nvidia provides the leading graphical processing computer “chips” (GPUs) used by the large language models of ChatGPT and its competitors. As of Friday, Nvidia had a greater market capitalization than Google, Amazon, and Meta. Only Apple and Microsoft have larger market capitalizations.
A more disturbing element of the news is Trump’s legal jeopardy. A New York judge recently imposed over a $300 million dollar fine on the Trump organization based on several allegations of fraud over the past couple decades. This is a layman’s view, rather than a legal expert, but my understanding is that 1) the prosecution (NY attorney general) was able to demonstrate that the Trump organization did, in fact, fraudulently inflate the value of various real estate assets when applying for loans from banks and other financial institutions but 2) no economic harm or damage was shown – meaning that none of the banks who made loans in these cases lost money.
Which brings us to the exorbitant fine – $355 million dollars! I understand that intentional and significant fraud should be punished, even if there was no “victim” or losses. Yet commentators have observed that this is the equivalent of a corporate “death sentence” for running a stop sign.
And it gets worse. This case will, of course, be repealed and I expect the penalty will be significantly diminished by judges/courts that are not so openly hostile to Trump himself. But there is a twist of law I wasn’t aware of that makes this case particularly egregious. To appeal, Trump will first have to post the entirety of his fine. That means he will have to transfer over $300 million to the court before he is allowed to appeal the case.
This requirement was created so that defendants couldn’t stall for time, either to raise money to pay the fine or, more often, to hide and dissipate assets. But with this large a sum of money, complying with the initial judgement is itself a punishment. Even if it was only earning 5%, we’re talking about $15 million dollars a year in lost opportunity cost of that $300+ million penalty.
I’m troubled by this, not so much for Trump personally, but for what this reveals about the powers wielded by judges in civil cases (you can see something similar happen with the massive judgments leveled at Trump and Giuliani – who incidentally declared bankruptcy recently – in civil cases). Appealing your case may not be possible if you don’t have the financial resources to meet the initial judgment in the first place.
That seems wrong.
Reflection
I’ve been thinking about how to build our men’s ministry at my church here in Leadville. I’m still working on ideas but here are some initial areas I am thinking about:
Prayer breakfast (or just fast) – this is a common church activity, though I might emphasize some different things. First, we will engage in times of prayer before we eat and have fellowship. And once in a while I think we won’t eat and will fast together instead. I’m thinking that we will have a time of group prayer with an individual leading a prayer for each element of ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication). Then we’ll break into smaller groups to share and pray for one another more specifically.
Outings/Activities – I’d like to have an activity every month or so for the men to do together. Perhaps something recreational like a hike or a ski day. Perhaps something more practical like a service day or project for someone in the church or the community. Food and fellowship will be part of this, but much of the activity will be about camaraderie and informal conversation.
“Taking Stock” series – one of the things I would like to do with the men first is spend some time doing a personal or spiritual inventory of sorts. The idea is to have a workshop or small group time going deep into questions like:
How often do you read the Bible? What do you read? Do you think you should read it more? Do you meditate on it?
What does your prayer life look like? What do you pray about? When do you pray? Why do you not pray more?
How are you loving and caring for you wife? What do you do together? What do you fight about? Where is the Lord in your relationship?
How are you raising your kids? When are you angry and impatient with them? What do you worry about for them? What family rhythms have you established?
What is your vocation? How do you think about your work? Do you have plans for the future, vocationally and/or financially? Are there areas you should try to grow?
Do you prize and pursue purity and integrity? What good habits do you have? What bad habits do you wrestle with? Do you have encouragement and accountability for resisting pornography and impure thoughts? Are the different elements of your life – family, work, worship, ministry, etc. offered to the Lord and integrated in a way that he calls you to live?
I am also thinking about how to develop some father-son activities and relationship-building. The name of the category is “Leadership and Character-Building” for the boys and young men in the church. Besides faith and a knowledge of Scripture, I especially want to help the young men to develop confidence, humility, wisdom, and initiative.
Lake County recently passed a new ordinance about commercial vehicles. Here is my op-ed criticizing the ordinance:
Dangerous Precedents Set by Lake County Ordinance 24-01
Freedom rarely disappears overnight. Instead, it dies by a thousand small cuts. So it is with the relatively arcane Ordinance 24-01 recently adopted by the Lake County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) establishing a Commercial Recreation Permit. The details of this ordinance reduce our freedom as residents of Lake County and create special privileges for existing commercial vehicle outfitters.
The Commissioners and the Director of Community Planning and Development (CPD) began at a reasonable starting point: unregulated use of 4-wheelers and ATVs created certain problems and complaints. Without arguing about whether the severity of those problems warranted regulation, I want to address some troubling elements of the final regulation adopted.
Requiring a license (or really a use fee) is not unreasonable – we require licensing for operating vehicles, heavy machinery, etc. We also require licenses to operate businesses. The problem is that licensing arrangements can quickly become unduly burdensome and restrictive. They can be used to protect the status quo incumbents against new competition.
Consider the problematic elements of Ordinance 24-01. First, this permitting process requires the applicant to prove the innocence of their operation – providing maps, planned trips, number of customers, that they won’t create congestion, and their impact on public services – to the Director of CPD who will determine whether to grant or renew the commercial license. The introduction of discretion in the process opens the door to abuse.
More troubling still is the requirement that “Applicants must also have operated in Lake County for the last 12 months preceding their application. This allows all four current operators to apply but does not allow for any new ones.” (BOCC Votes to pass OHV ordinance 2.22.2024).
Think about this for a minute.
The BOCC has just taken it upon themselves to determine who is allowed to run an ATV outfitting operation in Lake County and who isn’t. The current proprietors are allowed to operate, new entrants are not allowed to unless they can persuade an existing operator to transfer their license. Does the BOCC have the right to decide who can operate one business or another?
I don’t think so.
The regulation should have been left at stipulating basic rules and penalties for different kinds of ATV/OHV uses. Even a license could be justified if it only consisted of an annual fee. Instead, only some people are permitted to have licenses, and they must prove their innocence every year to a government official. This is a recipe for problems as inevitable human likes, dislikes, grudges, and politics eventually enter the picture.
This regulation may seem minor – after all, how many of us are planning on starting an ATV outfitter or will be seriously inconvenienced by paying higher prices to rent ATVs under this anti-competitive ordinance? But it’s a helpful case study for assessing other county and city ordinances that undermine freedom more seriously, such as with zoning regulations, housing permit approval processes, water usage rules, short-term rental licenses, and more.
We don’t want government officials arbitrarily deciding who gets to compete in the market and who doesn’t. Instead, we should encourage our elected officials to create clear rules that don’t unduly burden citizens and businesses. And we should make sure they are not picking winners and losers with their policies.
Writing
I’ve noticed that my weeks tend to rotate between emphasis on drafting, editing, pitching, and publishing. Two weeks ago was a heavy publishing week with two pieces in the Washington Examiner, a piece in the Daily Caller, and a piece on AIER’s Daily Economy:
Time to Exercise the “Nuclear Option” on ESG; Washington Examiner (2/12)
A Tale of Two Economies; AIER column (2/12)
Energy security requires government to get out of the way; Washington Examiner (2/14)
Climate Activists’ Stupidity and Narcissism Go Way Beyond Powdering the Constitution; Daily Caller (2/16)
Last week was a heavy drafting week – 6000+ words and counting. This week will likely be a heavy editing week with some pitching. The pieces I drafted last week include an academic paper on economic nationalism (a modern variant of mercantilism), an op-ed about the distortions of government industrial policy in electric vehicles, lithium, and fossil fuel markets, a book review, an op-ed about the local county ordinance, this newsletter of course, and a potential second paper on the incongruity between Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria.
Game Corner
Kathryn and I played a game called Seven Wonders with our three oldest kids last week. We’ve had this game a while, but it was fun to pull out again and have three of our kids be able to play at the same time. Each person chooses an ancient civilization board (Alexandria, Olympia, Gaza, etc.). The game is divided into three stages. In each stage, all players start with seven cards. They select one of the seven cards to play while passing the remaining six to an adjacent player. All cards are played simultaneously. Then players pick one of the six cards they received to play and pass on five. When the round only has two cards left, players pick one to play and one to discard. Then the round ends.
There are several ways to earn points. Blue monument cards worth 2-8 points can be built if you have the right resources. You can also build green science cards if you have the right resources. They are scored at the end of the game and build on themselves. There are three different kinds of science card. You get seven points for each set of three you have. Then, you get points based on how many of the same science cards you have. For example, if you have three science cards with a wheel symbol, you get nine points. If you have four, you get sixteen points.
There are red military cards that you can play as well. At the end of the first round, players with more military power get +1 victory point for each neighbor they have more military than. Players with less military receive -1 victory points. After round two, the victor receives +3 for each neighbor defeated. Those who lose still just receive -1 victory points. After round 3, the victor receives +5 for each neighbor defeated. So, one’s military points can range from -6 to +18.
There are also resource and commodity cards that you can play. You need resources and commodities to play the blue, red, and green cards. There are also yellow commerce cards that can get you money (which you can use to buy resources from your neighbor), make it less costly to trade, get you a wild commodity or resource card, etc.
The game is fun because there are different strategies for gaining points and you must consider variation in the abilities of your civilization’s board initially, what your neighbors do, and what cards are mixed in the same hands. The game plays up to seven, so eventually we’ll get all the Muellers in on the action at the same time!
Have a great week!
Thanks for the Report.
I enjoyed some of your thoughts on building men’s ministry. I would encourage you to include the men across all demographics and ages which would help leverage the experience and wisdom available in the congregation. You may want to try to get others to "sign up" to lead or sponsor activities and events if there is interest since spreading the wealth also generates greater buy-in.
You may want to avoid trying to do too much at once considering how busy people are. May be schedule activities and events across a annual calendar. For example, a monthly Men's breakfast every 2nd Monday morning 7:00-8:00am at a local diner, alternatively a monthly fast every 3rd Monday, a quarterly all ages "fun" event, a quarterly all ages "service" event, a coming of responsible age event or exercise for young men (e.g., bar mitzvah of sorts), an annual event to recognize significant spiritual or congregational accomplishments, etc.
And I concur with your Lake County Ordinance 24-01 comments.
Shalom -- Duane