2.9.26 Sovereign immunity and corporate state agencies, the Dow hits a milestone, and the example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Summary

Podcast Summary: The World and Everything In It – "Sovereign Immunity and Corporate State Agencies, the Dow Hits a Milestone, and the Example of Dietrich Bonhoeffer"

Episode Date: February 9, 2026
Hosts: Nick Eicher, Mary Reichert
Segments: Legal Docket | Monday Money Beat | World History Book

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Episode Overview

This episode explores three primary themes: the Supreme Court grappling with the boundaries of state sovereign immunity and public corporations; a milestone moment for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, with insight into broader economic trends; and the lived legacy of theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose witness shapes Christian community today. Through headlines, analysis, and in-depth interviews, the hosts seek to offer biblically informed perspective on legal, economic, and cultural developments.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. Legal Docket: Sovereign Immunity and State Corporations

([05:08]–[13:46])

Main Issue:

• The Supreme Court hears consolidated cases testing if a state-created public corporation (New Jersey Transit) enjoys the same sovereign immunity as the parent state when sued in another state’s courts.

Case Facts:

• Two plaintiffs, injured in separate incidents involving New Jersey Transit buses outside New Jersey, seek to sue in the respective states (New York and Pennsylvania).
• New Jersey Transit claims it cannot be sued outside New Jersey due to "interstate sovereign immunity."
• At stake: Whether states can structure entities to shelter from out-of-state lawsuits, avoiding fiscal responsibility.

Arguments and Court Dialogue:

• New Jersey’s Position (Solicitor General Michael Zuckerman):

  • Asserts NJ Transit functions as a state agency, with power and purpose akin to departments of state government.
  • Argues plaintiffs should sue only where New Jersey consents, i.e., in New Jersey.
  • “It looks a lot like a New Jersey state agency. That means plaintiffs must sue it where the state has consented. In New Jersey.” ([08:00])

• Plaintiffs’ Counterargument (Lawyer Michael Kimberly):

  • Emphasizes the distinction: New Jersey Transit, as a public corporation, has its own legal identity, assets, and liabilities.
  • States cannot have the benefits of corporate form (e.g., easier debt financing, risk separation) without also accepting limits (including not sharing state sovereign immunity).
  • “By creating a separate legal entity in this way and achieving these benefits, the state accepts a cost, and that’s that it does not share in the state’s sovereign immunity. That has been the consistent holding of this court for the last 200 years.” ([09:32])

• Notable Supreme Court Exchanges:

  • Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: Emphasizes that corporate structure should not be reduced to a label, but must have meaning and legal effect. “The idea of the corporate form has to be given some meaning, and… it is actually instilling a corporate shield between itself and the corporation’s actions and liabilities.” ([10:43])
  • Justice Clarence Thomas: Presses for current, relevant precedent: “Do you have anything that’s recent to which that applies?” ([11:22])
  • Chief Justice John Roberts: Highlights inconsistency—states disclaim responsibility for the corporation’s debts, yet want full immunity. “It’s kind of hard to say it’s part of the state if you’re not going to cover it when they get into trouble.” ([11:58])

Core Insight:

• The Court seems skeptical of attempts to have it both ways: reaping corporate benefits yet calling for sovereign immunity.
• If New Jersey wins, injured parties across the US could be denied access to local courts, with far-reaching implications for all state-chartered corporations.

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2. Monday Money Beat: The Dow Hits 50,000 and Economic Analysis

([14:34]–[27:35])

Milestone:

• The Dow Jones closed above 50,000 for the first time—a major psychological and market milestone.

David Bonson’s Economic Analysis:

• On Market Growth:

  • "I don't think that the market is there to talk about economic growth per se. I think that economic growth is ultimately what has to drive things that happen in markets. But markets are measuring a more limited aspect, but a very vital one over time. It's profit growth." ([15:23])
  • The Dow’s rise is due to resilience, innovation, and margin expansion by American companies, not just optimism or sentiment.
  • Growth in the market may stall or dip; movement is normal and reflects both performance and investor emotion.

• On AI 'Froth':

  • Current “froth” is tied in part to high spending on artificial intelligence by tech giants, but investors are beginning to question massive outlays with unclear returns.
  • “It’s the first time that you’re seeing companies punished… [when] companies announce larger than expected spending plans on AI and their stock prices went down, not up. Because… now you’re talking about spending all of your company's profits for a whole year on investment in AI. And I think investors right now are just trying to figure out… what's going to be the return on all that money.” ([19:08])

• On Government's Role and Risk:

  • Treasury Secretary Scott Besant's Capitol Hill testimony reflects a new posture: less hand-wringing over climate risk, more on growth.
  • Bonson lauds Bessant’s honesty ("Fed models are outdated and inaccurate...") but criticizes weak defenses of tariffs ([21:18]).
  • On financial "risk elimination," Bonson warns, “You get countries and geographic regions that don't feel any pain because they just don't have any life, they don't have any vibrancy. And risk taking is a very important element… when a central bank or a political body… decides to focus entirely on how you mitigate loss, they inevitably will suffocate the upside of growth.” ([22:56])
  • He likens overregulation and zero-risk engineering to “the stability of the graveyard,” echoing Bessant’s phrase ([22:22]).

• On Government Spending:

  • Discussion of Russ Vogt's efforts at the Office of Management and Budget: regulatory streamlining has lasting impact, but claims of “bending the spending curve” are hyperbolic given federal budget scale.
  • “What Russ deserves a lot of credit for though... is on the deregulatory aspects… Like his taking a machete to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau… That has a chance of sticking even when he's gone and new administration's there.” ([25:28])

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3. World History Book: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Living Legacy

([28:16]–[34:41])

Setting:

• Visit to the Bonhoeffer House in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, a student residence dedicated to “whole person formation in community and centered around worship” ([29:30]).

Bonhoeffer’s Example:

• Remembered as a theologian-martyr and model of integrity during the Nazi regime.
• His work Life Together shapes modern pursuit of authentic, worship-centered Christian community.

Notable Moments:

• Bonhoeffer’s 1933 radio broadcast critiquing Hitler, cut mid-sentence:
  • “He’s being critical of the rise of Hitler... and the transmission is cut off.” ([30:14])
• Imprisonment, prolific prison writings, and martyrdom in 1945.

Continuing Influence:

• Professor David Louie (North American Lutheran Seminary):

  • "We thought it would be appropriate to name it [the student house] after him because in some ways he articulated the vision that we're trying to instantiate and to live into here." ([29:12])
  • On Bonhoeffer's cultural warning: “In his essay on stupidity, Bonhoeffer warned against getting sucked into social and cultural movements that will render us, in the technical sense of the term, stupid.” ([31:30])
  • The remedy: intentional, worshipful Christian community and critical self-examination to resist manipulation by secular fervor.

• Memorable Quote:

  • “Everybody reads Bonhoeffer these days and sees… a kind of representation of something they value and aspire to be. Everyone reads Bonhoeffer and kind of goes, yeah, there's something there that, like, resonates. Bonhoeffer holds together things that in our modern world very often tend to be torn apart.” ([34:15])

• Eulogy Excerpt (Bishop George Bell):

  • “He made the sacrifice of human prospects, of home, friends and career because he believed in God’s vocation for his country and refused to follow those false leaders who were the servants of the devil… The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” ([33:24])

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On corporate sovereign immunity:

  • "It’s kind of hard to say it’s part of the state if you’re not going to cover it when they get into trouble." — Chief Justice John Roberts ([11:58])
  • "When a state chooses to set it up as a corporation, it is actually instilling a corporate shield between itself and the corporation's actions and liabilities." — Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson ([10:43])

• On market growth:

  • "Profit growth only comes from companies innovating and companies producing goods and services that meet the needs of humanity." — David Bonson ([15:23])

• On eliminating risk:

  • "A country that tries to eliminate all financial risk, may have stability, but it's the stability of the graveyard." — Paraphrasing Scott Besant and David Bonson ([22:22])

• On Christian community and cultural resistance:

  • "Bonhoeffer holds together things that in our modern world very often tend to be torn apart." — David Louie ([34:15])

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Important Timestamps

• [05:08] Legal Docket: Supreme Court on sovereign immunity (main case discussion)
• [10:43] Justice Jackson on corporate form and liability
• [11:58] Chief Justice Roberts’ probing question
• [14:34] Monday Money Beat intro
• [15:23] Bonson’s analysis of how the stock market measures profit growth
• [19:08] AI speculation and market reactions
• [22:22] “Stability of the graveyard” risk analogy
• [25:28] Discussion on federal spending and deregulation
• [28:16] World History Book: Bonhoeffer’s legacy
• [31:30] Bonhoeffer’s essay on stupidity and warnings about social movements
• [34:15] The ongoing resonance of Bonhoeffer’s example

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Tone and Language

• The episode maintains WORLD’s balanced, biblically-informed tone, focusing on careful, accessible explanation, expert testimony, and historical grounding.
• Direct quotations and debates between hosts and experts maintain the conversational, analytical style characteristic of the program.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode provides a thoughtful examination of legal questions with wide societal impact (who can be sued where, and how states structure responsibility), celebrates the dynamism and challenges of the American economy as marked by the Dow’s climb to 50,000, and encourages listeners to reflect on the enduring witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer—whose life and theology model courage, integrity, and community against the tides of the age.

Transcript

[Mary Reichert]

Good morning. Today on legal docket, the Supreme Court questions whether a state can enjoy the power of sovereign immunity without the responsibility that comes with it.

[Michael Kimberly]

It's kind of hard to say it's part of the state if you're not going to cover it when they get into trouble.

[Nick Eicher]

Also today, the Monday money beat the Dow Jones hits 50,000. Economist David Bonson standing by. Later, the world history book, how Dietrich Bonhoeffer became a theologian.

[Emma Eicher]

Everyone wants to Bonhoeffer these days and sees a representation of something they value and aspire to be.

[Mary Reichert]

It's Monday, February 9th. This is the world and everything in it from listeners supported World radio. I'm Mary Reinkert.

[Nick Eicher]

And I'm Nick Eicher. Good morning.

[Mary Reichert]

NOW News. Here's Kent Covington.

[Kent Covington]

The United States and Iran have restarted indirect talks in Oman focused on Iran's nuclear program. Both sides described the first round as a good start and agreed to keep talking. But deep disagreements remain, especially over Iranian uranium enrichment and missile limits. Leaders in Tehran say they will not give up their nuclear rights. Last year, the US Carried out a surgical military strike against nuclear targets in Iran. And U.S. ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says if they didn't learn it the.

[Nick Eichert]

First time, they probably aren't going to.

[David Bonson]

Learn it the second time. If they stand behind that mule once again, there's going to be a resounding.

[Kent Covington]

Kick and they need to be serious.

[David Bonson]

About negotiations and not to use it as just a stall tactic.

[Kent Covington]

US Envoy Steve Witkoff and unofficial envoy Jared Kushner also visited the flight deck of an aircraft carrier parked in the Arabian Sea to observe flight operations. Some saw that as another veiled threat to Iran, that the US May act to dismantle the country's nuclear program by force if necessary. Negotiations are expected to resume soon in the wake of a weaker than expected jobs report. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant is defending the president's economic policies, saying that other data paint a more positive picture, including recent inflation numbers.

[David Bonson]

Inflation is in fact coming down for the past three months. Inflation is 2.1%, close to the Federal Reserve's target. And a measure called truflation, which is is daily observations now, is below 1%.

[Kent Covington]

He also said economic growth is strong and pointed to recent record highs on Wall Street. Democrats, though, insist the president's tariffs and other policies are dragging down the economy and hurting working class Americans. A new FDA rule gives food producers more flexibility to claim their products contain no artificial colors. The new approved natural dyes include beetroot red. And manufacturers are also permitted to use spirulina extract as A natural col FDA commissioner Dr. Marty Makari.

[David Bonson]

We also are approving more natural dyes from natural ingredients so that there's alternatives to the traditional nine petroleum based food dyes that parents don't want. And the food industry has been very cooperative.

[Kent Covington]

The FDA says in a statement that the colors were requested by petition. The food industry has until next year to comply. Venezuela's government has reportedly freed a number of opposition figures who were jailed on politically linked charges. And the human rights group Foro Pinel confirmed at least 18 political prisoners were freed and some reports state it was more than 30. The move comes as Venezuela's national assembly has advanced an amnesty bill that could free hundreds more people imprisoned for political activity. This comes amid heavy pressure from the United States to institute reforms. The Seattle Seahawks are champions once again, defeating the New England Patriots last night in Super Bowl 60.

[Nick Eichert]

And that will do it. Seattle ring above them all in the NFL, the Seahawks super bowl champions for the second time.

[Kent Covington]

That courtesy of NBC Sports. The final score was 2913 from Levi's Stadium in the San Francisco Bay area. Seattle place kicker Jason Myers set a Super bowl record with five field goals. But Kenneth Walker III was named Super Bowl MVP after running for 135 yards and adding two catches for 26 yards. That makes him the first running back to win that award in nearly three decades. The Seahawks last won the Super bowl in 2014. I'm Ken Covington. And still ahead, the Supreme Court tackles a question about sovereign immunity for states on legal docket. Plus, the Monday Money beat with David Vonson. This is the world and everything in it.

[Nick Eicher]

It's the world and everything in it for this 9th day of February 2026. We're so glad you've joined us. Good morning.

[Nick Eichert]

I'm Nick Eichert.

[Mary Reichert]

And I'm Mary Reichert. Time now for legal docket. Before we get to today's oral argument before the U.S. supreme Court, I want to flag a few major cases coming later this term, cases touching some of the most contentious questions in American public life. First, Trump v. Barbara, scheduled for argument in early April, this case asks whether President Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment. That amendment grants citizenship to those born in the US and subject to the United States jurisdiction thereof. The administration argues that clause was meant to guarantee citizenship to newly freed slaves, not to children of tourists or people in the country illegally.

[Nick Eicher]

One point the administration is expected to press is the growing number of U S Born children who have spent their entire lives under China's government and then become eligible U.S. voters at age 18. Another case involving migration is Nome v. Alotrillotto. In this one, the court will decide whether an asylum seeker must physically enter the US in order to apply for asylum under federal law. And one final case to highlight, Watson v. Republican National Committee. That case asks whether federal law requires ballots to be received by election Day to be counted, a question that matters a great deal because roughly 30 states currently allow ballots to arrive later.

[Mary Reichert]

All right, now onto our sole U.S. supreme Court argument for today. It's actually two cases consolidated into one because they present the same legal question and very similar facts. In 2017, lawyer Jeffrey Colt was walking in midtown Manhattan to meet clients at a homeless shelter. As he crossed the street, a New Jersey Transit bus struck and seriously injured him. A year later in Philadelphia, Cedric Gallett was sitting in a stopped vehicle when a New Jersey Transit bus hit him, too, leaving him seriously injured.

[Nick Eicher]

So, two accidents in two different states, but just a single defendant, New Jersey Transit. Both men want to sue in the states where they got hurt, New York and Pennsylvania. But New Jersey Transit says no, they cannot do that. The agency says it is protected by interstate sovereign immunity because it's an arm of the state of New Jersey. In other words, it claims it cannot be sued in another state's courts, even for injuries its buses allegedly caused outside New Jersey. New Jersey Trans runs a network of train, bus, and light rail services across the state and into New York and Pennsylvania.

[Mary Reichert]

The transit's lawyer is New Jersey Solicitor General Michael Zuckerman. He wants the suit dismissed on immunity grounds.

[Michael Kimberly]

Decades ago, New Jersey exercised its autonomy to provide what it saw as an essential public good, statewide public transportation system. This case asks whether that system is most like a private business locality or state agency. In short, NJ Transit looks nothing like a city or town and little like a private company. It looks a lot like a New Jersey state agency. That means plaintiffs must sue it where the state has consented. In New Jersey.

[Mary Reichert]

But representing the injured men, lawyer Michael Kimberly argued that New Jersey Transit does not share the state's sovereign immunity because New Jersey chose to set the transit up as a corporation.

[Michael Zuckerman]

When a state establishes a new public entity, it has a choice. First, it can establish a traditional department, agency, commission, bureau that is an entity of the government itself, that uses state employees and state property to perform its functions and relies on the public fisc for its finances. Alternatively, it can establish a public corporation. A public corporation is a state of created entity that bears two key features. First, it has a separate legal identity, and it's thus capable of suing and being sued in court in its own name, in its own discretion. Second, it holds its own assets and liabilities, meaning that it's responsible for paying debts, including adverse judgments from its own resources.

[Mary Reichert]

That separation, he argued, is the entire point of making a corporation.

[Michael Zuckerman]

It makes debt financing substantially easier because. Because separate legal entities are not bound by the constitutional limitations on public debt. That's so under New Jersey's debt limitation clause. But by creating a separate legal entity in this way and achieving these benefits, the state accepts a cost, and that's that it does not share in the state's sovereign immunity. That has been the consistent holding of this court for the last 200 years.

[Nick Eicher]

Zuckerman, for New Jersey, countered that a label like corporation does not override the reality of how tightly the transit is bound up with the state.

[Michael Kimberly]

Point is that when you look at NJ Transit, how closely tied it is to New Jersey, and you and you analyze its features, the words corporation didn't couldn't have meant that kind of separation because we're giving it rulemaking power. We're having it sued in our appellate division, the same way you sue every other agency that engages in rulemaking. We have a statewide police department. All of these hallmarks of sovereignty. We have the governor able to veto every single thing it wants to do.

[Nick Eicher]

But several justices were not convinced. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, your argument sounds.

[Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson]

Like you're saying, don't worry about the fact that the state has chosen the corporate form for this entity. Just look at what it does. And I guess it seemed to me, at least from what I've read and looked at, that the idea of the corporate form has to be given some meaning, and that traditionally the idea was that when a state chooses to set it up as a corporation, it is actually instilling a corporate shield between itself and the corporation's actions and liabilities.

[Nick Eicher]

Zuckerman, for the transit, pointed to a high court decision from nearly 100 years ago that prompted this response from Justice Clarence Thomas.

[David Bonson]

The state creates a corporation, and historically they've created corporations in order to do things that the states either can't do or, or won't do. To borrow money to run banks, to run businesses, et cetera. So do you have anything that's recent to which that applies?

[Nick Eicher]

Historically, corporations allowed states to take on operational risks without putting the state itself on the hook. But the high Court agreed to hear the case because of a split among lower courts. And that inconsistency is exactly what Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to.

[Michael Kimberly]

But you disclaim liability for the debts and other exposure of the transit authority. Right. So if it's part, it's kind of hard to say it's part of the state if you're not going to cover it when they get into trouble.

[Mary Reichert]

He hit on a vital point that the doctrine of sovereign immunity turns in large part on whether a judgment would get paid out of the state treasury. New Jersey conceded its own statutes explicitly say its treasury is not liable for the transit's debts or judgments. New Jersey wants the advantage of sovereignty without the responsibility that comes with it, particularly responsibility for paying judgments.

[Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson]

New Jersey could have set this up as an agency and perhaps would have preserved the kind of arguments you're talking about. But instead it chose corporation.

[Mary Reichert]

In essence, the state's choice has consequences. Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out another problem with New Jersey's theory.

[Nick Eicher]

The 11th Amendment, of course, prohibits an individual from suing another state. You didn't make the 11th Amendment argument that it deprives federal courts of jurisdiction over this case. Instead, you asserted sovereign immunity, assuming jurisdiction existed. I'm just curious why.

[Michael Kimberly]

Your Honor, I think, let me take that in a few parts, but I think basically to get to the nub of it. Yeah, I'll try to do one part then.

[Mary Reichert]

That exchange revealed how the court frowns on shifting legal theories such as what New Jersey is doing here. Still, I have no prediction how this one will go. But if New Jersey wins, then the transit cannot be sued in neighboring states and that will force injured people to sue only in New Jersey courts and set the same precedent nationwide. And that's this week's legal docket.

[Kent Covington]

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[Mary Reichert]

Coming up next on THE world and everything in it. The Monday Money beat.

[Nick Eichert]

Time now to talk business, markets and the economy with financial analyst and advisor David Bonson. David heads up the wealth management firm the Bonson Group and he is here now. Good morning, David.

[David Bonson]

Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you.

[Nick Eichert]

Well, David, big milestone for the markets at the Friday close. The Dow Jones Industrial average topping the 50,000 mark for the first time ever. And I do think it's worth noting how Quickly, it got there, up about 12% year over year, and moving from 40,000 to 50,000 a lot for faster than it did the previous 10,000 points. So when you see a milestone like this, David, Dow 50,000, what do you think the market is telling us about the economy?

[David Bonson]

Well, I don't think that the market is there to talk about economic growth per se. I think that economic growth is ultimately what has to drive things that happen in markets. But markets are measuring a more limited aspect, but a very vital one over time. It's profit growth. And of course, market prices along the way are a combination of the weighing of profit growth with sentiment. And so sometimes sentiment can get too frothy, and sometimes sentiment can be way too pessimistic. But at any given time, markets and the real economy can be disconnected. And that's not a criticism, it's a point some make that I never think should be discounted. And yet over time, that Delta contracts quite a bit. The reason that the dow was at 10,000 in the late 1990s, and I remember very well, much earlier in my adult life, people celebrating this milestone round number of 10,000, you recall, it was, you know, in the 1 and 2000 range back in the 80s, and when Black Monday happened in 1987, 10,000 was a big number. And then what's interesting is 10 years later, it was at 6,500 at the bottom of the financial crisis when we were at the March of 2009. And so by that point, I had been professionally managing money for 10 years. And to say that in this timespan, we've gone from 6,500 post crisis to now, having closed over the weekend, above 50,000. It is a tremendous celebration of recovery, of economic resilience, but really specifically of the profit growth that that represents. And profit growth only comes from companies innovating and companies producing goods and services that meet the needs of humanity. And that's happened with tremendous revenue growth, tremendous hiring, tremendous wage growth, but also higher margins. They've been able to cut cost along the way and do things more profitably. So it's been good for investors, it's been good for workers. And as a pro markets guy, I want people to understand the mechanics of how this works and why it's a wonderful story. Now, 50,000 could end up proving, just like the 10,000 in 1998 proved to be a number that stalls, and it drops from that number for a while because that investor sentiment number, you know, comes in as well. You have periods, Nick, where profits keep growing, but sentiment goes the other way. And stock prices can come lower, too. So a lot of investors are probably too used to markets only going one way. They do go both ways at given times. But certainly the testimony of the last 25 plus years, and of course, 100 years before that, is that the profit motive works, that a country that celebrates rule of law and free exchange is a more prosperous country. And the US Markets, I think, are a blessing to our economic story.

[Nick Eichert]

Well, David, you used the term froth in the market a couple of minutes ago, and I wonder how much of that is tied to AI and the amount of money companies are pouring into AI. Do you think that the froth is really about artificial intelligence itself, or might it be more about how much investors are assuming that it's going to deliver somewhere down the road?

[David Bonson]

Well, I think that the AI story has certain stocks, both private companies and then public, that have very frothy valuations. And a lot of those got hit pretty hard over the last few months. And we'll see where some of this stuff plays out. It isn't just AI, though. I mean, the whole large cap growth, which is very correlated with tech, has had elevated valuations for a while. And I think that the assumptions of spending. You know, it's interesting the last couple weeks, we're in earnings season right now, and it's the first time that you're seeing companies punished. This happened with both Microsoft and Amazon and Google announce larger than expected spending plans on AI and their stock prices went down, not up. Because when you're talking about 80, 100, $130 billion of spending in a year, now you're talking about spending all of your company's profits for a whole year on investment in AI. And I think investors right now are just trying to figure out what is all this money going towards and what's going to be the return on all that money. And nobody's getting very clear answers.

[Nick Eichert]

Hey, David, I'd like to switch gears here a little bit. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant was up on Capitol Hill last week. He was giving testimony before the Financial Services Committees in both the House and the Senate, speaking on financial stability and systemic risk, basically how the government is thinking about threats to the financial system. And what stood out to me was a pretty clear shift in emphasis, administration over administration, less focus on things like climate risk and more emphasis on growth and capital formation. But let's set aside the moments of political theater that always happens whenever there's testimony given before a Senate or House committee. But when you listen to Secretary Besant's, testimony, what struck you as genuinely important, for better or for worse, about how the administration is thinking about markets right now?

[David Bonson]

I think that as been the case with Secretary Bessant lately, it was mixed with certain things I really love hearing him say and then other things that I really wish he wouldn't say. I understand politically that he feels a need sometimes to go make defenses of the president's tariff policy that I don't think any serious economic mind could possibly believe, but then at the same time making the point that Fed models are outdated and inaccurate in the way they assume growth to be inflationary. That was to me the highlight of some of what I heard from him in this recent testimony. So, you know, he can be a mixed bag for me. I've known him for a while and I'm glad he's been there as far as the whole Cabinet goes. You know, I have my own rankings of Cabinet and he's one of the higher ranking ones relatively speaking. But he does understand how markets work. And I thought he defended the things that ought to be defended well in his testimony to both Senate and House in recent times.

[Nick Eichert]

Well, David, one of the moments I thought that really cut through the technical language was when Secretary Besant warned against trying to engineer a zero risk financial system. He said that the result could be stability, but what he called the stability of the graveyard. So pretty dramatic phrase there. But I think he's getting at something important, that is the economic danger in trying to eliminate risk altogether. But can you explain why that can leave an economy weaker rather than safer?

[David Bonson]

Well, and I wrote a dividend cafe I think maybe six months ago now where I made the analogy to Europe, that where a geographic region decides to focus on eliminating risk, they essentially do. I didn't use the graveyard analogy, but it's the exact same concept. You know, it's very hard for a dead person to feel pain. And unfortunately the crassness of the analogy sort of works economically that you get countries and geographic regions that don't feel any pain because they just don't have any life, they don't have any vibrancy. And risk taking is a very important element. And Besson does understand this and I want all world listeners to understand it because the parable of the talents in the New Testament is really speaking to this economic gain comes from taking on the risk of economic loss. And when a central bank or a political body, central planners, someone decides to focus entirely on how you mitigate loss, they inevitably will suffocate the upside of growth and finding A prudent balance for risk mitigation with growth and upside and investment and risk is the need of the hour. But a lot of places have so intervened to mitigate risk that they have basically created an economic graveyard. And most of Western Europe has been living in that for over 30 years where it just sort of skirts by. There's no vibrancy. There's no new exciting companies or technologies. And I think we ought to be very concerned about that ever happening here in the United States. It hasn't, but there's plenty of people who would like it to.

[Nick Eichert]

Well, David, I'd like to end today by pointing to a column in the Wall Street Journal by Kim Strossel. It's about our friend and former world opinions writer Russ Vogt. He is now the director of the Office of Management and Budget. And Kim Strossel gave Russ vote a pretty generous attaboy and argued he may be doing something Republicans rare managed to pull off actually bending the spending curve. But when you look at the scale of federal spending and what the OMB can realistically do, where do you think vote is really having the most meaningful impact right now?

[David Bonson]

Well, I don't agree with the term bending the spending curve. And she in her article gives you the numbers as to why the language is pretty hyperbolic. It's very difficult when you talk about a $5 billion pocket rescission, which I'm very glad they did. But in a $7 trillion budget to talk about 5 billion is bending the spending curve. There's a few other things here and there that they did on a regulatory basis. And I always said Congress can come in and redirect money elsewhere. And Strassel points out that they didn't do that. And so net net you got five here and nine there and that's money saved. And I don't want to to limit or belittle the idea of 10 to 18 billion dollars. It's just in a level of mandatory spending increases we have and a total budget of 7 trillion. You know, we're talking about a family that is spending a few hundred thousand dollars a year. They don't make cutting their popcorn butter budget. But either way it's better than not doing it. What Russ deserves a lot of credit for though, and Ms. Strassel alludes to it in her article. But I would like to pile on some credit is on the deregulatory aspects when he can prove that certain government agencies are not needed or can function just fine without a lot of the froth, to use that term again, that has a chance of sticking even when he's gone and new administration's there. And like his taking a machete to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, nobody feels that they are less safe right now in the financial system since we got rid of just a ton of bureaucrats and a ton of spending and a ton of wasted resources. So this deregulatory messaging I think has a little bit more staying power. And yet. Yeah. To say bending the spending curve, that can't happen from anyone like a Russ vote. It's going to take Congress to be serious and we're just nowhere near there. Yeah.

[Nick Eicher]

All right.

[Nick Eichert]

Well, David Bonson is founder, managing partner and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group. He writes [e-mail] and at World Opinions. David, I hope you have a great week. We'll talk to you next time.

[David Bonson]

Thanks so much, Nick. Good to be with you.

[Nick Eicher]

Good morning. This is the WORLD and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Nick Eicher.

[Mary Reichert]

And I'm Mary Reichard. Up next, the theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer meant to be lived, not just studied. Seminary students are learning his ideas through shared life, disciplined worship and practical formation. Here's World's Emma Eicher with the world history book.

[Emma Eicher]

All right, so we'll head upstairs and you'll notice like these are a lot of this lumber is original to 1827 in Western Pennsylvania.

[David Louie]

A centuries old house dedicated to Christian living sits next to the Ohio River.

[Emma Eicher]

It's a historic house here in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1827.

[David Louie]

David Louie is a theology professor at North American Lutheran Seminary. The seminary recently purchased the home and set aside three bedrooms for students. It's called the Bonhoeffer House.

[Emma Eicher]

We thought it would be appropriate to name it after him because in some ways he articulated the vision that we're trying to instantiate and to live into here.

[David Louie]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer outlined part of that vision in his theological work Life Together, advocating for authentic Christian community.

[Emma Eicher]

We're trying to do life together seminary formation for our students, not just as sort of learning information or, you know, learning to pass the theology test, but really like whole person formation in community and centered around worship.

[David Louie]

Bonhoeffer is one of the most well known martyrs of Christendom. As an active dissident during Germany's Nazi.

[Emma Eicher]

Regime, he's kind of one of a few who at a very dark like one of the darkest moments of modern European history, shines brightly as a man of integrity.

[David Louie]

In February of 1933, Bonhoeffer put his life on the line when he broadcast a radio message to the public, and.

[Emma Eicher]

He'S being critical of the rise of Hitler and kind of what this political movement represents, and the transmission is cut off.

[David Louie]

It's unclear whether the transmission was stopped on purpose. Still, right after the broadcast, Gestapo agents started spying on Bonhoeffer. But he knew the cost of resistance. Everything Bonhoeffer wrote and believed about God and the Bible, he lived out.

[Emma Eicher]

And he's ultimately arrested in 1943, and he's initially put in prison. From prison, he's actively writing letters, writing hymns, writing poems, writing meditations.

[David Louie]

In 1945, Bonhoeffer was executed, but his theology continues to teach generations of students.

[Emma Eicher]

Really, the central space in the Bonhoeffer house is the Chapel of the Incarnation, as it's called.

[David Louie]

Louis leads me on a tour through the worship room, where seminary students gather for daily services. In the second floor dining room, a bust of Bonhoeffer peers down at us through small round glasses.

[Emma Eicher]

We always joke with the students. Is he looking down approvingly or is he, you know, sort of scowling up there from on top of the bookshelf?

[David Louie]

Though his works are almost 100 years old, the text remains relevant. In his essay on stupidity, Bonhoeffer warned against getting sucked into social and cultural movements that will render us, in the technical sense of the term, stupid. Louis says that insight has a place in our culture today at a certain.

[Emma Eicher]

Point, and our ability to think and feel sort of becomes dormant and is sort of operated upon by the intentionally stoked fervors of one movement or another.

[David Louie]

Bonhoeffer dealt with such a movement during World War II. Germans were swept along by the intensity of the Nazi regime and evil followed.

[Emma Eicher]

We kind of look at our neighbor and it's easy to see, like, oh, you know, he or she's just been co opted by this thing. We're really good at diagnosing that phenomenon in other people. I think we underestimate how much work it is, how much intentionality is required to inoculate ourselves against those same tendencies and temptations.

[David Louie]

In the book Life Together, Bonhoeffer suggests part of the solution to these secular movements is Christian community with a gospel focus. Coupled with that is commitment to discipleship. The Bonhoeffer house wrestles with what that looks like in real time.

[Emma Eicher]

The heart of the Bonhoeffer house is sort of, yeah, the central place of our community is a place of worship where God is given space to meet us and that from that flows a life of discipleship, of repentance, of faith in the Gospel.

[David Louie]

Bonhoeffer was friends with a wide array of ecumenical partners. One of his closest friends was George Bell, an Anglican bishop. Bell conducted the memorial service after Bonhoeffer's execution. This is part of the eulogy.

[Emma Eicher]

And now Dietrich is gone. He made the sacrifice of human prospects, of home, friends and career because he believed in God's vocation for his country and refused to follow those false leaders who were the servants of the devil. He was inspired by his faith in the living God and by his devotion to truth and honor. To our earthly view, Dietrich is dead. Deep and unfathomable as our sorrow seems. Let us comfort one another with these words, for the church, not only in that Germany which he loved, the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the church.

[David Louie]

And that seed Bonhoeffer planted is still alive and well. The growth might be found in books, sermons, lectures, or a historic house.

[Emma Eicher]

Everybody reads Bonhoeffer these days and sees. Sees a kind of representation of something they value and aspire to be. Everyone reads Bonhoeffer and kind of goes, yeah, there's something there that, like, resonates. Bonhoeffer holds together things that in our modern world very often tend to be torn apart.

[David Louie]

That's this week's World History Book. I'm Emma Eicher in Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

[Nick Eichert]

Tomorrow, a closer look at claims that pregnant women are being denied medical care and what the evidence actually shows and how ordinary human connections can interrupt violent plans before they unfold. That and more tomorrow. I'm Nick Eichert.

[Mary Reichert]

And I'm Mary Reichardt. The world and everything in it comes to you from World Radio. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. The psalmist writes, trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm, chapter 37, verses 3 and 4. Go now in grace and. And peace.