Thursday Night Links

• Rather than compelling Canadians to seek annexation, the tariff stirred “love for Queen, flag, and country,” according to George T. Denison, president of the British Empire League in Canada. The majority of Canadians saw the McKinley tariff as part of “a conspiracy” to “betray this country into annexation.” They were having none of it. Their cultural and political ties with the British Empire, as well as their anger over the attempted coercion, proved stronger. Canada’s Conservative Prime Minister John Macdonald wanted to react forcefully to send a message to the U.S. He proposed retaliating with high tariffs on American goods, as well as increased trade with Britain. He also recognized a political weapon when he was handed one. He adroitly turned the 1891 Canadian elections into a broader referendum concerning Canadian-American relations. He portrayed the Liberal opposition as being in bed with the Republican annexationists. According to him, they were involved in “a deliberate conspiracy, by force, by fraud, or by both, to force Canada into the American union.” [Time]
  
• In 2019, two experts at Carnegie Mellon, Paul Fischbeck and David Rode, analyzed 1,600 rate cases over 40 years, and noted the “balance between utility companies and their customers has been shifting over time, in favor of the utilities.” What investors were being paid to take risk in putting money into a utility in 1980 was about 3%, today it is nearly 7%. Interest rates have gone up a bit since these scholars made the calculation, but it hasn’t changed the dynamic. [BIG by Matt Stoller]
• One afternoon I found him in our hotel lobby holding his iPad close to his face, asking Chatgpt, “Where would Tyler Cowen recommend getting dinner near me?” A series of fried-chicken restaurants on the other side of the island appeared. He shrugged and made a disappointed noise; it hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know. [The Economist]
• As I read ''The Education of a Speculator'' I often found myself asking, how can a man so self-deluded survive, much less prosper, in the market? Is it possible that traits disadvantageous to an autobiographer -- shallow self-assurance, unreflectiveness, bullheadedness -- offer an edge to the speculator? Four hundred forty-four pages later I still don't know. But I can guess. My guess is that they don't, and that the story the author tells of his life in the market is very different from his actual behavior in the market. For whatever reason he does not want to explain the reasons for his rise in the world. He doesn't really want us to know them, or wants us to believe that they are something different and more complicated than they are. [Michael Lewis]
• Metallurgical and thermal coal prices remained weak throughout 2024, primarily due to muted steel demand impacting metallurgical coal and mild weather, high inventory levels, and low natural gas prices impacting thermal coal. While NRP does not expect significant changes in these factors or to pricing in 2025, metallurgical and thermal coal pricing is still higher compared to long-term historical norms. It appears a new price floor has resulted from input cost inflation as well as ongoing labor shortages and operators' limited access to capital. [Natural Resource Partners L.P.] 
• “Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars?” Justice Alito writes. “The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.” [WSJ]