The Tyranny of Good Intentions

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
– Economist John Kenneth Galbraith

FAVORITE READS OF THE WEEK

The New Romanticism Just Found a New Hero

The Good Life, According to Gen Z

FAVORITE WATCH OF THE WEEK

The American Dream has fallen apart

Big Think interviews Atlantic writer Derek Thompson.

THINKING OUT LOUD

The Tyranny of Good Intentions

A good friend from South Africa, who immigrated with his wife to Houston a number of years ago, has said this to me several times…

“Beware the tyranny of good intentions.”

Being from the African continent, my friend saw how foreign aid destroyed the ability for some countries and people to be productive. African entrepreneur, Magatte Wade, outlines this paradox in an interview. She believes Western foreign aid is the driving factor behind Africa’s inability to progress economically and socially.

The general conclusion is that African countries that receive aid have become addicted to free money, which is holding them back economically, politically and socially.

As I’ve said here before, the more free stuff you give out, the more freeloaders seem to show up.

And what do you want to bet that the more free stuff you give out, the more corruption shows up, too? Magatte Wade thinks that is a huge problem in Africa.

Is Africa suffering from the tyranny of good intentions? My friend certainly thinks so, as does Wade.

As we have all heard ad nauseam:

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I also like to suggest:

Necessity is also the mother of get up and get after it. 

If there is too much free stuff, then there is no necessity. If there’s no no necessity, then there is no invention, there’s no get up and get after it.

Where is the balance between entitlement (all the free stuff) and empowerment? What policies create the “right amount” of necessity? Certainly there is a productive balance, but what is it?We may never crack the formula, but certainly there are clues. Perhaps one is America’s obesity crisis. The poorest Americans experience the most obesity. Is this a clue entitlements have gone too far?

On the other side, could policies that seek to promote an environment of empowerment also go too far? In every society, there are people who are so genetically, cognitively, or physically challenged that they cannot survive without government support. At what point is aid reduced so much that such people can’t live reasonably?

What about the homeless rate? Given the massive media and government focus on the homeless, it would seem our homeless rate has skyrocketed in recent years. As it turns out, according to AI assistant Claude, homelessness has actually decreased from the late 1980s (roughly 0.2-0.25% of the population) to today (roughly 0.18-0.2% of the population). What does this tell us? Does it mean our more recent economic and/or labor policies have tilted toward empowering? Or does it mean our massive social safety net of free stuff has created more free loaders who can live much better than the homeless? Or does it mean we will always have a homelessness population in the 0.2% range?

Even if we were to identify the formula that unlocks the most productive balance between aid and empowerment, we may not agree philosophically on how little “good intentions”—how little compassion—is too little. After all, good intentions are bedrock to the Judeo-Christian values on which this country was founded. Good intentions, along with our bounty of natural resources, has been integral to our success.

Nonetheless, has this inherent American instinct to be compassionate gone too far? Have we handed out so many entitlements that we’ve reduced empowerment? And is removing people’s sense of empowerment actually compassionate?

Are we ourselves victims of the tyranny of good intentions?

THE RANDOMS

My 22 year old, who just graduated from college, suggests that AI is really not intelligence but rather a faster, broader and deeper search engine.

Why is President Trump working so hard to turn so many countries in the Middle East into American allies? Could it be because they are giant sources of cheap energy, which Trump believes to be necessary for economic revival? Could it be because they are enormously rich, maybe the richest geographic area on the planet, with ample money that can be invested in the US?

One of the interesting things about Trump’s negotiations with China, Russia and Iran and his bargaining with the Middle East is that these countries seem to embrace The Art of the Deal. They seem to like to negotiate. Perhaps it makes them feel productive. Or perhaps to negotiate with the United States makes them feel a legitimacy on the world stage they crave.

Does this essay, “The Good Life, According to Gen Z,” point to a rural America revival? If so, is the value of urban residential real estate at a peak?

Is Vladimir Putin over-playing his hand? His demands and constant aggression in Ukraine might seem like a good negotiating weapon. But if Putin goes too far or for too long, the US and Europe may just say, Sorry, Vladdie, we’re going to make your life even harder.

Noah Smith, a blogger and commentator of economics and current events, recently posted an essay suggesting that globalization did not hollow out America’s middle class. As I read through his essay, the arguments seemed compelling until I got to a chart of real median income growth since 1975. The chart from the St. Louis Fed suggested that real median income since 1975 had grown by 50%. “Nothing to sneeze about,” writes Smith.

I then decided to ask my AI assistant Claude what cumulative inflation had been since 1975. Claude’s answer: “The cumulative inflation in the US from 1975 to 2024 is approximately 461%.” 

Real median income increased 50% while the cost of living increased 461%. Well, that just killed the argument that globalization…or something…did not hollow out America’s middle class.

Will Pope Leo XIV save us from the new golden calf?

ECONOMIC NEWS

Economy

Walmart will lead new inflation trend
Are economic fears overblown?
Small businesses call time out
Retail sales have flattened out
Inflation is benign for now
US beef prices soar

Labor

The remote work paradox
Employers expanding mental health benefits
Robots may not replace factory workers
Digital creator jobs are exploding

BUSINESS

Finance

US to loosen bank regulation
Is private credit in a gold rush period?
Is private credit hiding cracks in portfolios?
We need a bond market blowup
Banks are sitting on $500B of unrealized losses
Institutions unload PE investments on the wealthy

Real Estate

Dallas leads the way in affordable housing
America needs more sprawl
More homes are being 3D-printed

Tech

Silicon Valley’s new hold on Washington
Social media is now a cesspool of scams and criminals
Trump prods Apple to make phones in the US
Mexico sues Google over Gulf name change
Google to pay $1.4B to settle two privacy lawsuits

AI

Big tech having AI midlife crisis
AI delusions are destroying human relationships
AI will be better than salespeople
But won’t replace radiologists

Energy Transition

South Korea is ready for a nuclear renaissance
Can China control some of our renewables?
Texas, ground zero for US battery boom

THE NATION

The Washing-Tone

House seeks $4T debt limit raise
Trump seeks dramatic step on illegal immigration
Illegal immigration tipsters can earn money
University endowment tax increase coming
Trump wants lower drug prices

Trump’s Middle East Trip

Trump coaxes big deals out of Saudi Arabia
And more out of Qatar
Big-time deals for US AI
Trump Mideast speech of carrot and sticks
Trump to lift sanctions on Syria
As he buddies up with new president

Tariffs

How to reindustrialize without tariffs
US and China agree to play nicer
Vietnam in the hot seat
China attacks US-UK trade deal

Social Trends

Chronic disease is ravaging the US
Illegal drug ODs are collapsing
CA can’t handle immigrant health care costs
Real milk got its mojo back
New pope wants less divisive media

GEOPOLITICS

Global

Space, the newest environmental problem
How India and Pakistan pulled back from the brink
Is Kashmir Islamism’s new rallying point?

Europe

Germany backs Trump’s NATO goal
UK seeks new migrant policies
UK may benefit well from US trade deal
Trump looks to be good for Europe

Ukraine

Peace talks—without leaders
Europe follows Trump’s lead
Putin promotes Russian war culture
Ukraine and allies demand 30-day truce

Middle East

Israel escalates Gaza attacks
Is Iran ready to sign Trump deal?
Trump abandons US “be like us” foreign policy
Kurds to end conflict with Turkey
Trump tries to rename Persian Gulf

China

Western auto makers headed for a wipeout
China building megaports in South America
Chinese cars, a national security risk
Taiwan tries to scare China
CCP spies have infiltrated Stanford University

War Creep

Time to reopen Alaska military base?
Germany developing underwater drones
US shares China’s intel with the UK
Trump to offer Saudi Arabia $100B in arms deals

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Mind
Get more quiet time.

Deepening our definition of happiness
It’s time to invest in your rest
The new science on narcissism

Body
Get more outside time.

The ultimate nature walk
Get you some Oahu time
How about those treadmill desks?

FUN STUFF

Let your hair down, baby! Even if you’re all alone.

The Extraordinary

An 80,000-year-old history of tomatoes
Has a new enlightenment started?
Parrots love to video call each other

Music That Found Us

Happy birthday, Stevie Wonder! “Isn’t She Lovely”
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young at Woodstock
John Hartford’s “Gentle on my Mind”
How about Glen Campbell’s version.
Lyrics can be poetry, you know.

Worth a Watch

Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning trailer.
Poker Face season 2 looks like fun.
Octopus!, too.

The Yum Yums

The best Italian-American red sauce
Blueberry crumb cake
Ginger garlic shrimp with coconut milk
Roasted golden beets

PARTING THOUGHTS

Got to get back to the land and set my soul free. We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon. And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

– Lyrics from “Woodstock” by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

We’re All Farmers Now
May 9, 2025

Fighting for Survival
May 2, 2025