“The scientists get the patents,” US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick tells Axios.  “The universities get the patents. And the funder of $50 billion [in research leading to the patents], the US government, you know what we get? Zero. … The United States of America taxpayer should get half the benefit.”

Put that way, it doesn’t sound so wrong, does it? But in reality, it’s piling a third bad idea on top of two others.

Explaining why “intellectual property” in general and patents in particular — the bottom layer of the poisonous three-layer policy cake — are bad ideas is a book-length, not op-ed length, endeavor. Suffice it to say that “intellectual property” ISN’T property, but rather a pernicious system of government-granted monopolies on ideas. If you want to dig into that claim, I recommend N. Stephan Kinsella’s book Against Intellectual Property (available free online from though, oddly, copyrighted by, the Ludwig von Mises Institute).

The middle layer is using taxpayer money to fund university research, then allowing the researchers and universities to patent, and realize revenue from, the results of that research.

It’s here that Lutnick is absolutely correct: If the government funds research, the taxpayers who funded the research should be the beneficiaries. The proper way to accomplish that is to put all results of government-funded research in the public domain. Goods produced using the research would be price-competitive because no single manufacturer would enjoy a monopoly on their production.

Lutnick’s proposal for a new top layer is bad all around.

The choice for universities would be to spend less on innovative research (incentivizing innovation is the go-to excuse for defenders of patent), charge more for the licenses on their patents, or (most likely) some combination.

Taxpayers still wouldn’t enjoy any choice in the matter. The combination they’d get out of the deal would be fewer new, worthwhile products AND higher prices for those products.

As for the federal government, the revenues would likely be a wash at best.  University patent revenues come to low single-digit billions of dollars per year. 50% of that would come to a fraction of what the federal government spends per DAY … and would likely be more than offset by the economic disincentives to innovation and production.

If the feds won’t eliminate patents and government research funding, they should at least eliminate any and all combinations of the two, rather than demanding their own taste of the racket’s revenues.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

The Producers at the Muny in 2008. Photo by Meetmeatthemuny. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.

Here we go again. It’s time for another performance of American politicians’ favorite off-Broadway play, “Shutdown Panic.”

“Congress only has a few weeks to avoid a government shutdown,” Mitchell Hill reports at WTOP, “but leaders of both parties are still a long way from agreeing on a stopgap spending bill to keep federal workers on the job.”

The cast changes but slowly. The plot gets tweaked but little.

Act One: “There’s a government shutdown coming if we don’t pass a spending bill!”

Act Two: “Let’s fight about it!”

(The most common plot tweak comes in here with the occasional insertion of a short supposed “shutdown”)

Act Three: “SURPRISE! We made a deal!”

Act Three always closes with a set change: A road, and cast members kicking a can down it.

Curtain call — the cast takes its bows. They’ve once again saved the day by borrowing and spending more money than ever before. Please clap.

At this point, I pause to check two numbers. The “National Debt Clock” tells me that the play’s producers owe nearly $37.5 trillion to their backers and that 2025’s expenses stand at nearly $2 trillion more than box office receipts.

It’s Max Bialystock’s and Leo Bloom’s wildest dream: “Springtime for Hitler” isn’t just a money-making (for them, but nobody else) flop, it’s history’s longest-running such flop!

The last time US politicians actually (and very temporarily) paid off their ever-growing debt was 190 years ago in 1835. The last time they even managed to theoretically balance one year’s budget was 24 years ago in 2001.

And, let me emphasize: It’s THEIR debt, not YOUR debt.

The organization they run (“the US government”), not you, borrowed the money.

They love to talk about a “national” debt and shake their heads in amazement at how much each American “owes” (about $110,000), but your signature isn’t on any of those loan documents. In fact, if you hold the US government’s bonds, you’re actually among their unlucky creditors.

Let’s throw in two more numbers: 123.8% and 70.

The former is the ratio of the politicians’ debt to the country’s Gross Domestic Product; the latter is the IQ cut-off point separating those who believe the debt will ever be paid off from those who know it won’t.

In May, Moody’s lowered the US government’s “sovereign credit rating” from Aaa (“highest rating, representing minimum credit risk”) to Aa1 (“high-grade”).  In reality, that rating should be Ca (“highly speculative, or near default”) or C (“little prospect for recovery of principal or interest”).

At some point, the producers of a commercially unsuccessful play default and the play’s run comes to an end.

That’s going to happen with the US government. And the longer it takes to happen the uglier things will get.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On September 2, the US government claimed that military operators acting on its behalf murdered 11 foreign nationals aboard a boat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela.

I say “claimed” because Venezuelan communications minister Freddy Ñáñez suggests that a video of the murders released by the US government is an AI-generated “deepfake.” Regimes lie, and it’s not obvious which regime is lying in this particular instance.

But let’s assume that US regime officials, including US secretary of defense Pete Hegseth and US secretary of state Marco Rubio, were truthful in their claims.

If so, it’s reasonable to also assume they’re truthful when they claim that these 11 murders are just the start of a “campaign,” and that the US government intends to “blow up and get rid of” (per Rubio) even more victims.

When someone credibly confesses to murder, announces an intent to commit further murders, and clearly possesses the means to do so, it seems to me that whatever law applies should be brought to bear.

Under 18 U.S. Code § 1111, “Within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, Whoever is guilty of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life; Whoever is guilty of murder in the second degree, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life.”

Said jurisdiction is defined in 18 U.S. Code § 7. It includes any vessel or aircraft belonging in whole or in part to the United States, meaning that the military personnel involved in the murder mission are themselves criminals … IF the law is applied.

Similarly, the entire chain of command, all the way up to US president Donald Trump (who has publicly admitted to approving the crime) are clearly on the hook for “conspiracy to murder” under 18 U.S. Code § 1117 … IF the law is applied.

Unfortunately, the US Supreme Court ruled last year that presidents enjoy immunity for all “official acts,” even illegal ones like, say, ordering 11 murders. So Trump himself is as unlikely to be held accountable for this atrocity as for other crimes he’s ordered, such as the murder of eight-year-old American girl Nawar Anwar al-Awlaki in 2017.

But what about Hegseth, Rubio, and the various military officers who must have been involved in planning and directing the operation?

Holding them legally culpable may be as unlikely as bringing Trump himself to justice, but it’s theoretically possible. So far as I can tell there’s nothing to prevent a grand jury from indicting some or all of them.

The biggest hurdle to get over is that the US Department of Justice answers to Trump and likely won’t ASK a grand jury to do any such thing.

So, once again, the US government will get away with murdering anyone it announces is a “terrorist,” “drug smuggler,” etc., without having to prove the charges.

The only unique aspect of this particular mass murder is that its sole purpose seems to have been to distract us from the matter of Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

Did it work?

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY