Negotiator in Chief

Welcome to This Week’s Leyendecker View

There is only one success—to be able to spend your life in your own way.
– Christopher Morley

FAVORITE READS OF THE WEEK

Kiss Reality Goodbye
AI creations will be our new reality.

Without Books, We’re Barbarians
Reading feeds our humanity, tech eats it.

FAVORITE WATCH OF THE WEEK

Jamie Dimon’s Leadership Lessons
The JPM CEO knows his stuff.

THINKING OUT LOUD

Negotiator in Chief
Bureaucrats can’t do it

Only time will tell if President Trump’s Gaza peace plan works. Each step of the 20-point plan will face its own risks. It won’t be easy. But Trump’s deal is a first step, and maybe a significant one, at that—one that no president before Trump was able to achieve.

Why? Why was Trump able to accomplish something all his predecessors could not? Because he is not a politician. Because he is not a bureaucrat. Because he is a leader from the private sector, where the job is to think strategically, negotiate thoughtfully and close deals.

Career politicians and bureaucrats may appear to get things done, but mostly they kick the can down the road. Or worse, they create policy that unleashes all manner of negative unintended consequences. Why? Because bureaucrats’ motivation is to create more bureaucracy in order to create more work that justifies their existence. The proof is in the pudding: When have we seen any government agency close down because it achieved its mission?

Perhaps the better question is: Have any of our bureaucratic agencies solved the problems they were created to solve?

Our education system is a shambles, matriculating young adults who can barely read or write and with little to no understanding of the foundational values that created this country. Our healthcare system is unaffordable to the average American, and many have lost faith in our health institutions. Our last president exploited the immigration system in a cynical ploy to expand congressional seats and make it harder to break his party’s power. And big corporations seeking to protect themselves from competition and activists with anti-market economy agendas have captured our regulatory system.

And what are the results of all this growth of bureaucratic control over the private sector? A country whose GDP has barely ticked above 2.5% in 20 years.

So what have the bureaucrats done? Certainly not loosen the reins of government power over the private sector to catalyze greater economic growth, as common sense would suggest. Instead, they have done what only bureaucrats know to do—flood the zone with massive fiscal and monetary stimulus to, at the very best, prop up a sluggish economy. This not only distorts natural supply and demand but has also saddled us with crippling debt.

Ironically, the bureaucratic class believes they are wiser than the average citizen (remember those deplorables who cling to their religion and guns while bureaucratic policies tore their economies and communities apart?). Turns out, common sense is not the domain of the political elite. Enough voters could see and had it with a ruling class whose policies were failing on the home front and overseas. No surprise they seized the opportunity to elect someone whose career had been spent cutting thousands of deals to grow and sustain businesses and create wealth. No surprise they were drawn to someone determined to enlist people with similar private sector experience in his Cabinet and on his team.

Trump and his team bring a totally different mindset to their work. They have flipped the script on most every front. Instead of working to force the government’s values on people, both at home and abroad, Trump’s team looks for common sense policy and shared interests. Put another way, instead of thinking and acting like high-minded policy wonks, they think and act like businesspeople and negotiators.

While all recent presidents have tried to convince the Palestinians and Israelis to find common ground—an improbable task—Trump and team took a novel approach. They looked for shared economic interests with surrounding nations to bring them into the fold rather than forcing them on the sidelines of actions that impact them. In doing so, these nations felt respected and emboldened. Team Trump then earned the credibility to compel them—people of the region, with values and history far closer to the Palestinians than a Western nation nearly 7,000 miles away—to put pressure on Hamas.

Trump wields tariffs similarly. Tariffs force nations to the table to find common economic interests that can lead to more balanced trade policies. The goal is for these trade negotiations to produce a stronger and more vibrant US economy, with the beneficiaries being the broader American population, not just the embedded bureaucrat and financial investor classes. It is to put the “fair” back in fair trade.

As I’ve written here before, Trump’s private sector approach to the public sector poses an existential threat to bureaucrats and their supportive institutions, like the legacy media, who have papered over bureaucrats’ failures and propped up their incompetence for decades. As we’re already seeing, the bureaucrats and their proxies are not going down without a fight. Their thrashing and flailing to attract attention seems little different from a drowning man searching for someone to save him.

These elites continue to undermine Trump’s efforts at home in their desperate effort to return to their failing policies and power. As dangerous as that is, it is life and death if they undermine team Trump’s efforts to—finally, hopefully—stabilize the Middle East. Let’s hope the Gaza peace plan prevails. If so, then confidence and support may spread for Trump’s multiple efforts to fix the bureaucratic incompetence that’s put so much of our world in fragile condition.

THE RANDOMS

Here’s a nutty idea: How about we keep Washington closed until we learn which parts of government are so essential that we have to ask those workers to return. Wouldn’t this be a great way to surface sectors of government that actually do productive work?

Why has autocracy dominated civil society for most of human history? Is it because people are willing to trade order for uncertainty? Do most people find uncertainty so intolerable that they’d give up rights for a sense of order and predictability? Do most people find that ambiguity of freedom too much to bear?

It feels like it’s time for another big round of consolidation in the domestic oil and gas industry.

Did you know that workers in Washington DC have a higher median income than in all of the 50 states? How are we supposed to feel about that?

The fiscal year ending September 30, 2025 resulted in a $1.8 trillion deficit. Team Trump hasn’t yet changed our dependence on deficit spending and monetary stimulus to prop up the economy. We will need to wait 12 to 24 months to see the results of Trump’s new economic policies.

The effort to thwart Trump’s policy efforts at every turn has me wondering if we are set for a turnaround or a meltdown. 

ECONOMIC NEWS

Economy

JPM CEO backs “America First” with $10B
Grocery prices keep rising
Utilities eye $1.1T in new investment
Ford has to cut production

Labor

AI isn’t yet improving worker productivity
Are you a “glue” employee?
The traits of a great manager

Health Care

How about sound waves instead of chemo?
Needing workers, hospitals train teenagers

The Lone Star

Austin’s Uchi is going national
Jazz is also booming in Texas
$1B battery investment comes to Austin

BUSINESS

Finance

Private credit woes grow
Is a new banking crisis brewing?
Wall Street is printing big profits
Brookfield to acquire turnaround investor
US private equity and credit concerns IMF

Real Estate

Most affordable global cities
NYC office market comes roaring back
Landmark office buildings on life support

Tech

Meta changes its terrible Instagram strategy
Are we reaching peak satellites?
Google to build giant India data center

AI

OpenAI sees “erotica” as profitable
As subscription growth flatlines
Walmart teams up with ChatGPT
Goldman to replace staff with AI

Energy Transition

LNG boom not great for our electric bills
The whole world retreats from EVs
US Army to power bases with tiny nuclear reactors
EU drastically cuts ESG goals

THE NATION

The Washing-Tone

Trump gives Charlie Kirk Medal of Freedom
Military pay exempt from shutdown
Nobel Peace Prize winner praises Trump
Another Democrat backs Team Trump
Trump fires government workers

Trade

Tariffs kicking in for cabinets and furniture
Jeep maker plans $13B US investment
Qatar to build jet fighter in the US
China’s rare earth gambit will backfire

Social Trends

The wine trend is over
As is Las Vegas
Has social media peaked?

GEOPOLITICS

Global

World trade sees unexpected spike
IMF upgrades US but downgrades global growth
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un thinks he matters
South African cities are in a death spiral

Europe

How Europe crushes innovation
Europe fears far right, not Islamist terrorists
Europe needs more natural gas

Ukraine

Trump has a productive call with Putin
Is Russia using cluster bombs?
Did India agree to stop buying Russian oil?
Ukrainians meet top US weapons makers
Arab leaders snub Putin

Middle East

Israeli hostages freed
Gazans stream back home
But there are already problems with the ceasefire
Hamas isn’t giving up power easily
And they’re executing Gazans, especially critics

China

Is China outlawing Christianity?
The Dutch take control of Chinese company
China’s economy is fragile

War Creep

The US is behind in hypersonic missiles
Poland prepares for Russian war
Pentagon stockpiles critical minerals

MAKING A BETTER YOU

Mind
Get more quiet time.

Turn anxiety into motivation
Getting through these difficult times
Being on the same wavelength with people

Body
Get more outside time.

Quick back and neck mobility exercise
Expand out of your food comfort zone
Motivation is good, discipline is better

FUN STUFF

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

The Extraordinary

Voyager’s edge-of-the-universe find
Polar bears took over a research station
The extraordinary pre-Incan ceremonial shield

Music That Found Us

Zaho de Sagazan’s “La Symphonie des Éclairs”
Tom Waits’ “Tom Traubert’s Blues”
Teddy Swims’ “Lose Control”

Worth a Watch

Sandler & Clooney in Jay Kelly.
Colin Farrell in Ballad of a Small Player.
Good Fortune, Keanu Reeves does silly.
Julia Roberts is back in After the Hunt.

The Yum Yums

Who’s up for meatloaf?
Traditional meatloaf
BBQ bacon meatloaf
Cajun meatloaf
Italian meatball meatloaf
Turkey and quinoa meatloaf
Cheesy turkey meatloaf

PARTING THOUGHTS

And it’s gonna get easier and easier, and more and more convenient, and more and more pleasurable, to be alone with images on a screen, given to us by people who do not love us but want our money.
– Infinite Jest author David Foster Wallace from a 1996 interview

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

The Consequences of Policy
October 10, 2025

The Income and Wealth Gap
October 3, 2025

The Economic Fog
September 26, 2025