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Hoover Daily Report | August 6, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

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  Welcome to the Hoover Daily Report. "Ideas Advancing
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  Freedom." It's Thursday, August 6th, twenty twenty six.
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  Today, Stephen Redding links the high and changing tariffs levied against US
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  trading partners to diminished US productivity and real income. Rose
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  Gottemoeller reflects on the legacy of US privateer John Manley. And Ross Levine
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  and Amit Seru point out that efforts to make mortgages more affordable have
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  actually made housing more expensive.
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  Paying the Price of an Uncertain Trade Environment.
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  Tariffs have driven up trade policy uncertainty to levels not seen in almost
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  a century, writes Stephen Redding in a new post for Freedom Frequency’s Commons
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  Dispatch. These high tariffs do more than interfere with mutually beneficial trade;
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  they also ripple through domestic markets by shifting resources from
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  export-oriented sectors and increasing supply costs for all. Disruption of
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  supply chains adds to the uncertainty, forcing business to add redundancy,
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  diversify suppliers, hoard supplies, build in spare capacity, or reshore parts
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  of the production cycle. In the long run, uncertainty forces firms to be wary of
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  incurring sunk costs for investments that would be costly to reverse—such as
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  building new plants—in an environment where tariffs could lurch from zero to 50
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  percent. Overall, reluctance to commit to these investments weakens the economy’s
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  productivity and real income.
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  The Privateer: Rose Gottemoeller on John Manley.
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  In the early years of the Revolution, the Americans had no navy. British ships
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  offered both military and economic targets, so a makeshift fleet of
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  privateers came forward to do battle. Rose Gottemoeller tells the story of one
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  such captain of the Patriots’ “mosquito navy,” the intrepid John Manley, whose
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  exploits not only cheered the rebels and their sympathizers but also helped fill
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  up General Washington’s arsenals. At the same time, Gottemoeller writes, sea
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  warriors like Manley did well by doing good, because they were able to claim
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  cash prizes for their conquests. Irregular warfare is not just a sea tale
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  from history, she says: Today, Ukraine is waging war much the way Manley and the
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  other Revolutionary privateers did. It remains to be seen whether Kiev, too, can
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  prevail in its struggle.
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  Cheaper Mortgages Won’t Solve the US Housing Crisis.
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  In Project Syndicate, Senior Fellows Ross Levine and Amit Seru argue that lower
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  interest rates do not make housing more affordable, and explore ongoing
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  legislative efforts to make housing easier (and faster) to build, such as the
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  21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, passed by Congress in July. The new law
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  streamlines permitting and zoning processes to get housing built faster.
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  Meanwhile, Seru and Levine point out new research they conducted showing that
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  “expanding mortgage credit increases borrowing and drives up house prices far
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  more than it boosts homeownership.” But there are still ongoing efforts to expand
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  the portfolios of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as new proposals to
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  privatize them. Levine and Seru say the focus should be on expanding the housing
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  supply.
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  The Deadly Focus on Wealth and Income Inequality.
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  David R. Henderson recalls how the political drumbeat over “economic
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  equality” arose as a potent campaign talking point when Bill Clinton was first
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  running for president. The notion of inequality, paired with an accusation
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  that the wealthy don’t deserve to be rich, has driven many myths that continue
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  to cloud public discussion of the economy, particularly of taxation,
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  Henderson writes. Entrepreneurs who become billionaires do earn their wealth,
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  he says, by earning it. Beyond that, he argues, people also fail to understand
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  that “as people’s real incomes rise, mortality falls.” In other words, rising
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  income and productivity are what allow a society to invest in its quality of life.
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  The Troika Shows How Cold War Geopolitics Challenged the Bonds of Lifelong Friends.
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  In this new book, edited by two Hoover fellows and made available in English for
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  the first time, Markus Wolf tells the story of how three expatriate Communist
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  families in Moscow find their bonds and beliefs tested as they are scattered by
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  World War II and confront the consequential ideologies of the 20th
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  century. This now-legendary memoir was written by a leader of East Germany’s
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  notorious Stasi secret police. Wolf, known in the West as “the man without a
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  face,” was a notorious shadow figure who had loomed large in the East German
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  intelligence service. The Troika was published in 1989, after his retirement.
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  And with East Germany on the verge of revolution and collapse, it became a
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  sensation with its critical reflections on the taboo subject of the Stalinist
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  purges of the 1930s.
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  Reflections: Yahn Karski.
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  On the latest episode of Reflections, Hoover Research Fellow Katharina Friedla
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  tells the story of Yahn Karski, the Polish diplomat who, in 1942, infiltrated
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  the Warsaw Ghetto, witnessed the unfolding Holocaust, and tried to warn
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  British and American officials, including President Franklin Roosevelt. Friedla
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  finds that Karski’s warnings were met with deep skepticism, as most of the
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  people he met with could not fathom the scope of the horror the Nazis were
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  perpetrating in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.
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  This Month in Hoover History.
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  Herbert Hoover Delivers Speech Accepting Republican Nomination.
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  Herbert Hoover accepted the Republican nomination for president in a speech
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  delivered at Stanford Stadium on August 11, 1928.
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  That’s your Hoover Daily Report for Thursday, August 6th, twenty twenty six.
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  Each weekday, we bring you research, analysis, and commentary focused on
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  public policy, national security, and the ideas shaping American society and
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  government.
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  The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is grounded in constitutional
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  principles with a commitment to sustaining the safeguards of the American
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  way of life.
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  Thank you for listening.
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  For links to all the articles and interviews mentioned today, visit
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  hoover.org slash, HDR.