In the movie There’s Something about Mary, Ted (Ben Stiller) picks up a crazy hitchhiker (Harland Williams) who explains his brilliant get-rich-quick scheme: seven-minute abs.    

“Think about it,” the hitchhiker says. “You walk into a video store, you see Eight-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s Seven-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?”

Many of us grew up watching marketing campaigns much like the seven-minute ab idea. Get rich by watching this 45-minute video that teaches you how to invest. Get fit while eating whatever you want. Learn a new language in three weeks by mastering this one trick.

Earlier this month, CrossFit, a California-based company that operates thousands of independently owned affiliate gyms across the world, unveiled a different approach.

“Society wants you to believe there’s a quick fix. But real health is yours for the taking,” the company posted on X. “There is no cheat code. Real change takes work. Grit. Discipline.”

CrossFit’s message is starkly different from marketing campaigns in recent years. While companies like Nike continue to employ brand messaging that says “You Can’t Win” (because of oppression and expectations), CrossFit is saying you have the power to shape who you become.

“Every choice you make today shapes your tomorrow,” the narrator says.

F*ck The Quick Fix. CrossFit Is The Cure.

Society wants you to believe there’s a quick fix. But real health is yours for the taking. There is no cheat code. Real change takes work. Grit. Discipline. Every choice you make today shapes your tomorrow.

Are you ready to fight for… pic.twitter.com/4TrzxYFXv0

— CrossFit (@CrossFit) August 11, 2025

The CrossFit commercial presents a message our culture has been sorely missing: individual empowerment. It’s the simple idea that we have agency and choice, and the choices we make today will determine the person we become. 

It’s a message that would have made Aristotle proud. The philosopher had the radical idea that our habits define who we become, an idea considered quaint today but one that was once embedded in the American ethos.

Unlike Nike’s ad, there’s no oppressor in the CrossFit commercial. It’s about overcoming your self. Instead of seeing yourself as a victim of some external injustice, you can be the author of your own narrative. 

Some trends in our culture, born of a medley of bad postmodern philosophies, seem to be nakedly hostile to the idea of self-improvement.     

Consider that not long ago we were told that exercise was rooted in white supremacy, and working out was “far right.” We heard about a “wellness-to-fascism pipeline.” Parents were cautioned that reading to their children put other kids at a disadvantage, that attempts to improve were sexist, classist, racist. The idea of self-reliance and self-help is considered political, because improving oneself is a distraction from the “structural improvement” of society.

The average person might struggle to imagine how anyone could be opposed to people improving themselves. But to people marinating in collectivism, self-improvement is a threat — because it shifts agency and power from the group to the individual.

But looking after oneself isn’t selfish; it’s common sense. We can only help others if we’re capable of first helping ourselves. Economics teaches us this. 

“All rational action is in the first place individual action,” Ludwig von Mises famously observed. “Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”

If individuals are incapable of thinking for themselves, reasoning clearly, and acting decisively, then nothing meaningful can be built. This is why improving ourselves is so important, even if it begins with simply making one’s bed in the morning, as Jordan Peterson advises. Every work of art began as an individual action. Every invention sprang from an individual mind. Every movement that changed the world started with one person taking initiative. 

CrossFit is offering a simple message: real change begins with you. This message, which was once embedded in American pop music, is far more empowering than the belief that we’re merely victims of external forces — and it has the added virtue of being brutally honest. 
Real progress isn’t easy. Humans may crave shortcuts, but there are no free lunches, no magic formulas. Stop waiting for someone to save you — and start doing the work yourself.

After the dismal July jobs report, President Trump has doubled down on his efforts to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower its target overnight interest rate (FFR).

Two of his proxies on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), Chris Waller and Michelle Bowman, dissented from the FOMC’s decision to leave the Fed’s target FFR unchanged. And his recent appointment of Stephen Miron to replace Adriana Kugler move the Fed more in President Trump’s direction. But even if Trump gets the interest rate target cuts he has been lobbying for, it likely won’t satisfy him.

That’s because he, and many others, are actually concerned about interest rates other than the one that the Federal Reserve sets. Mortgage rates and corporate borrowing rates are tied to the 10-year Treasury bond rate – which also happens to be an important interest rate for the cost of federal government borrowing. While lowering the short-term rate seems like it would put downward pressure on the 10-year rate, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, the FFR is 1 percent lower than a year ago, while the 10-year is .2 percent higher than a year ago.

The 10-year interest rate has not declined because the large increase in government bond supply—driven by high Congressional spending—pushes rates upward. The supply must decrease or the demand must increase for 10-year bonds before the 10-year interest rate will fall. If Congress were to slash the budget deficit, the 10-year rate would fall on the expectation that the future supply of 10-year Treasury bonds will diminish. 

Or if stablecoin adoption continues to grow, fueling greater demand for government debt, the 10-year rate could fall. But lowering the FFR by itself won’t lower the 10-year. In fact, it could push it higher if investors fear that the Fed has caved to political pressure and will generate higher inflation in the future.

But there is another avenue to artificially lower the 10-year rate that Trump has not pushed yet. That avenue entails the Federal Reserve buying longer-term US debt. This has been done before by the Fed under Chairman Bernanke’s Quantitative Easing (QE) programs. It was called Operation Twist. In 2011, the Federal Reserve sold about $400 billion of short-term government debt and replaced it with long-term government debt in order to drive down long-term interest rates.

While this program successfully repressed longer-term interest rates, one can question the merits of such a policy. After all, lowering the cost of federal borrowing made it easier for Congress to run up the debt. With average interest rates on the national debt ranging from about 1.8 percent in 2016 to 2.5 percent in 2019, and then from 1.5 percent in 2020 to 1.6 percent in 2021, the interest cost of debt was small, and the federal government rapidly ran up its tab. 

That changed abruptly when the Fed raised short-term rates to combat inflation. The market also raised longer-term interest rates in response to higher inflation. And so the U. S. debt service rose from $16 billion in interest per trillion of national debt in 2021 to $33 billion in interest per trillion of national debt in 2024. 

And with growing debt principal ($28.4 trillion on Sep. 30, 2021 vs. $35.5 trillion on Sep. 30, 2024), interest payments on the debt rose from approximately $454.4 billion at the end of fiscal year 2021 to $1,171.5 billion in fiscal year 2024; a debt servicing burden roughly two and a half times greater than three years earlier and more than any other line item except Social Security in the federal budget.

Obviously, President Trump and everyone else in Washington would love to see debt service costs return to $16 billion per trillion in debt – creating a “savings” of over $600 billion a year. But would they cut other government spending and the federal deficit should such interest “savings” materialize? Not likely! In fact, they would almost certainly use it as an excuse to increase spending for other programs.

One of the dangers of the FOMC caving to Trump’s pressure to lower the FFR is that he will almost certainly push them to engage in an Operation Twist-style bond-buying program if the 10-year rate fails to fall; and it likely won’t, given that we have trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see.

Were President Trump to really gain control of Fed policy, we would see monetary policy shift to accommodate the short-term desires and interests of politicians, not the well-being of citizens under a relatively stable monetary regime.

Trump and his allies claim that lowering interest rates will help them reduce the deficit. While that is true all else equal, the claim would be far more compelling if Congress and the White House had chosen to reduce non-interest outlays substantially with the Big, Beautiful Bill. Instead, they hardly cut overall spending at all. Yet cutting government spending on programs and departments would reduce the deficit and reduce the interest cost of federal borrowing, too.

That’s a far better strategy for restoring fiscal sanity than jaw-boning the Federal Reserve. Playing games with the central bank and creating new currency to finance irresponsible deficit spending is the practice of struggling third-world countries. As the wealthiest nation in the world, we should ask more of our leaders and of our central bank officials.

The Trump administration is reportedly negotiating to turn Intel’s $10.9 billion CHIPS Act subsidies into a 10 percent equity stake in the company. If finalized, Washington would be among Intel’s largest shareholders. 

That should set off alarm bells for anyone who still believes in free markets. A conservative administration that came to power promising deregulation and opportunity is now taking steps that blur the line between capitalism and state management of industry.

This move is part of a larger pattern. 

Earlier this year, the Pentagon took a preferred equity position in MP Materials, the country’s largest rare-earth mining firm, effectively giving the government direct financial leverage over a critical supply chain. After Nippon Steel’s bid for U.S. Steel, the administration negotiated a “golden share” in the company, giving Washington veto power over decisions ranging from executive pay to plant closures. 

Abroad, Trump officials have reportedly floated proposals that would grant the US government direct payments from foreign resource revenues in exchange for trade or security guarantees.

Some conservatives defend these arrangements as “strategic.” They argue that America cannot afford to rely on foreign suppliers for semiconductors, rare earths, or steel. National security, they insist, justifies extraordinary measures. 

But once government crosses the line into equity ownership, the game changes. It’s no longer about setting fair rules of the road—it’s about Washington joining the race as a participant. That undermines competition, politicizes corporate decisions, and exposes taxpayers to risks they never agreed to take.

Economics 101: What’s Wrong With Equity Stakes

The first lesson comes from opportunity cost. Every dollar the government spends buying shares is a dollar it cannot use to reduce taxes, retire debt, or provide genuinely public goods. 

The resources are scarce, and putting them into Intel stock means less available for other, possibly more valuable, uses. Economists from Adam Smith to Milton Friedman have warned that when governments redirect capital for political reasons, the result is misallocation.

The second lesson is about incentives. Private investors demand efficiency because their money is on the line. Government officials, by contrast, make decisions based on politics. If Intel falters, will Washington push for restructuring and accountability—or will politicians double down to save face? History suggests the latter. 

From Amtrak to Solyndra, government ownership often locks in inefficiency rather than driving improvement.

The third lesson concerns public choice economics. Once government owns part of a firm, special interests swarm. Lobbyists push for favorable regulation, subsidies, and procurement contracts that tilt the playing field. This breeds cronyism—where success depends on political access instead of innovation. 

Thomas Sowell put it plainly: “The first lesson of economics is scarcity. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” 

Government-as-investor is the embodiment of that tension.

Lessons From History

This kind of industrial policy is not new. Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) famously tried to steer the country’s industries in the 1980s, funneling state resources to “strategic sectors.” Yet the results were mixed at best. Japanese chipmakers, once dominant, fell behind precisely because competition gave way to cozy relationships with bureaucrats.

Closer to home, the federal government nationalized passenger rail with Amtrak in 1971, promising efficiency and profitability. Fifty years later, Amtrak still relies on billions in subsidies and remains unable to compete with private alternatives where they exist. 

Similarly, the 2009 federal bailout of GM and Chrysler made taxpayers temporary shareholders. The firms survived, but at the cost of distorting the bankruptcy process and politicizing capital allocation. 

These examples show that once government enters the boardroom, it rarely leaves.

Why Conservatives Should Worry

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the Intel stake is not economic but political. Conservatives long criticized Democrats for pursuing industrial policy through the CHIPS and Science Act. Yet now, under Republican leadership, we see the same tactics—only bigger. 

If the right normalizes government equity stakes in the name of security, they will have no credibility left to oppose similar measures when the left expands them to other industries.

This is a bait-and-switch for the conservative movement. Tax cuts and deregulation were supposed to unleash private enterprise. Instead, Washington is embracing what can only be called corporate socialism—profits privatized, losses socialized, and taxpayers held hostage to the fortunes of politically connected firms.

A Better Path Forward

National security threats can happen, but equity ownership is the wrong response. Instead, policymakers should focus on conditions that encourage all firms to invest and innovate in the United States:

• Broad-based tax reform that lowers rates and removes carveouts.
  
• Regulatory streamlining that shortens permitting timelines and reduces red tape for manufacturing and energy projects.
  
• Sound money that preserves purchasing power and reduces uncertainty for investors.
  
• Rule of law and strong property rights, ensuring businesses know their assets won’t be subject to political manipulation.
  
• Spending restraint that limits government growth to the pace of population plus inflation, freeing up resources for the private sector. Cutting spending is not just fiscally responsible; it’s the only way to ensure the government cannot continue to expand its role as the investor of last resort.

If Intel or any other company cannot survive without a government equity injection, then it may not deserve to survive. That is how markets work: failure clears the way for success. Shielding firms from discipline delays the very innovation policymakers claim to seek.

Conclusion

The Trump administration’s Intel play is more than a one-off—it’s a signal of a broader shift. By taking equity stakes in private firms, the government ceases to be a referee and becomes a competitor. That distorts markets, undermines incentives, and saddles taxpayers with risks.

The lesson from Economics 101 is timeless: scarce resources must be allocated by markets, not ministries. The role of government is to set clear, neutral rules—not to hold stock certificates. If conservatives abandon that principle, they hand their opponents the blueprint for permanent industrial policy.

America doesn’t need Washington in the boardroom. It needs Washington to cut spending, balance the books, and let markets do what they do best: allocate capital, reward innovation, and drive prosperity. 

Intel’s future should be decided in the marketplace—not in the halls of the Treasury.