Hot(ish) Takes, Cool Heads - December 3, 2025
Hot(ish) Takes, Cool Heads is a weekly set of short, sourced opinions—sharp but civil—on family, economics, politics & faith, masculinity, and the modern attention diet. One clear claim per take, built for dialogue rather than dunking.
1. Capitalism should serve customers, not just capital
Take: True capitalism maximizes consumer surplus through competition and innovation. Our current version too often maximizes shareholder returns through concentration, financial engineering, and switching costs.
Why:
Market power > market pressure: Many sectors have few dominant players, so prices, junk fees, and contract traps rise faster than quality.
Shareholder primacy → short-termism: Exec comp tied to quarterly EPS favors buybacks and price hikes over product, wages, and service.
Financialization over creation: More profit comes from fees, spreads, and terms—not from building better goods.
Friction by design: Dark patterns, lock-ins, and incompatible ecosystems shrink real consumer choice even when options look abundant.
Underpowered referees: Decades of light-touch antitrust normalized “bigness,” letting markups and margins outrun customer value.
Question: Which levers would best re-align profits with consumer surplus—interoperability/data portability, tougher antitrust on roll-ups, banning junk fees, profit-sharing, longer vesting for exec comp, or consumer co-ops in key markets?
If I’m wrong: Show me broad, recent evidence that markups are falling, churn/switching is easy and rising, buybacks trail long-term capex, and customer satisfaction is climbing across concentrated industries.
2. Christian nationalism isn’t discipleship—it’s factionalism dressed in scripture
Take: The church’s job is to form people in the way of Jesus, not fuse the cross to a party platform. When faith is conscripted into faction, the gospel gets smaller and neighbors become targets, not image-bearers.
Why: Discipleship aims at repentance, holiness, and service; factional politics aims at winning and wielding power. Mixing the two narrows the mission to defending “our side,” rewards outrage over witness, and tempts leaders to bless whatever advances the coalition—even when it contradicts the Sermon on the Mount. Historically, church-state fusion breeds coercion, not conversion, and shrinks credibility with those outside the tribe.
Question: What public goods—care for the poor, prison re-entry, foster care, peacemaking—would show the beauty of the gospel more clearly than any campaign rally?
If I’m wrong: Show evidence that overt partisan alignment has broadened the church’s credibility beyond its base and produced measurably better disciples (humble, truthful, sacrificial) than nonaligned, service-first churches.
3. Healthcare “choice” without price transparency isn’t choice; it’s a scavenger hunt
Take: Choice only serves patients when they can see prices and quality before they decide. Hidden rates, surprise bills, and prior-auth mazes turn “choice” into guesswork.
Why: Most patients can’t learn the real, all-in price until after care. Networks change midyear, deductibles push costs onto families, and formularies/prior auth rules make even approved care unpredictable. Prices for the same service can vary wildly within a few miles, and quality signals are buried in jargon. That’s not a market; that’s a maze.
Question: If you could see three things up front for every non-emergency service—cash price, your plan’s negotiated price, and a simple quality rating—how would it change where you go?
If I’m wrong: Point to systems where opaque prices and complex utilization rules deliver lower out-of-pocket costs, fewer denials, and higher patient satisfaction than transparent, standardized alternatives.
Rational takes!