Edward Lotterman

Ancient Greek sages argued that, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad!”

The disclosure last week that the Trump administration’s Justice Department is initiating a criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell bears out the wisdom of that ancient adage.

When this action was initiated, and exactly by whom, is not clear. Powell disclosed it with a stinging online rebuke last Sunday. When queried, Trump responded with a jaw-dropping, “I don’t know anything about it.”

So we’re expected to believe that a U.S. presidential administration would initiate a history-making action, counter to the advice of virtually all economists, and one very capable of touching off a worldwide financial market crisis, without the boss even knowing about it? What about, “the buck stops here”?

Simply put, Trump is lying. Because if he’s not, and he really doesn’t know anything about it, it reveals a level of disorganization and dysfunction within the administration that dwarfs anything Powell might be investigated for — which seems related to his testimony to Congress about the costs of renovations to the Fed headquarters.

But everyone knows, even if they don’t admit it, that it’s really about control. It’s not even really about interest rates, which Trump says he wants lowered. It’s about the fact that the president wants to control the Fed, and Powell is standing in the way. Oh, and the law is too, by the way, but when has that bothered Trump?

What is clear is that while the Greek thinkers were right, the wise preacher in the Old Testament who said, “There is nothing new under the sun,” is flat wrong. For a century, scholars have followed a useful distinction made by Chicago economist Frank Knight, who said that when there is a future situation in which we do not know what will happen, it will involve either risk or uncertainty.

“Risk” is a situation in which we don’t know what will happen, but there is actuarial or statistical information that gives us a basis for estimating the probability of different outcomes. No one knows if or when a tornado will splinter our condo or if someone will come across the centerline and smash into our SUV. But we do know that the probability of a tornado is greater in Minnesota than in California, and that the probability of a car crash depends to some extent on how often and where we drive. Nearly anyone can buy insurance against these outcomes.

Financially, farmers and financiers can buy derivative contracts like futures or credit default swaps that insure against the risk of commodity price fluctuations or loans defaulting. So modern economies have many tools to manage risk.

“Uncertainty” comes when we do not know the future and there is no data on which to estimate probabilities of good or bad events happening. We could not predict the assassination of an archduke and his wife touching off a world war. Or that operator miscalculations in handling a poorly designed nuclear reactor would expose tens of thousands of people to radiation. Will an asteroid land in the Bermuda Triangle or the one formed by London, Paris and Berlin? Will a virus like Ebola or Marburg jump to humans and spread out exponentially?

One cannot insure against such uncertainty. However, within resources available, countries can build disaster and health response capabilities to mitigate physical and biological catastrophes.

Trump has pioneered something new under the sun, a national government composed of minions that seems hell-bent on creating chaos.

Within one weekend our president announced that he, personally, will run Venezuela, a country twice the land area of Ukraine and nearly the same population. He truculently reiterated that we will forcibly take Greenland from one of our closest allies, possibly ending NATO. He threatened military action against Iran and a blockade of any petroleum sales to Cuba. In his spare time, his administration hinted at changes to voting procedures for the 2026 election to be held this fall.

And then, somewhere along the line, someone in Trump’s orbit decided to possibly upend a monetary policy system that, on balance, has greatly benefited our nation since 1935 — ostensibly without even telling him (?). What the hell?

Common sense should have told everyone from Trump on down to his attorney general to Bill Pulte, the third-tier head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (who may have been the instigator) to just wait it out. Powell’s term as chair expires on May 23, when Powell, like all but one of his predecessors, might have just resigned from the board altogether. But Powell’s term as governor runs until Jan. 31, 2028. Don’t be surprised if he now flips Trump the bird by staying on the board, as a matter of principle, denying the president an open slot to increase his flunky minority.

How does this all really play out? Well, if Powell indeed is indicted, convicted, or otherwise removed for any malfeasance the inquiry may find, many pundits this week have waved the bloody shirt of hyperinflation — that a Trump-appointed chair would immediately lower interest rates, opening the monetary sluice gates releasing a torrent of new dollars. That is not likely and reflects fundamental misunderstandings of how the Fed works. A Fed chair has much less power than even many well-informed people realize. They are more than just the first among equals, but they are not dictators. When it comes time for a Federal Open-Market Committee vote on monetary policy, there are 11 other votes. The five district bank presidents are entirely outside of government and safe from any political threats.

But the larger, longer-term and probably irreversible danger would be an erosion of the United States as the financial center of the world, and the role of the U.S. dollar as the world’s undisputed reserve currency. In this regard, Trump and his minions seem oblivious to the havoc they could create. Either that, or these are the intended outcomes, which is more cynical and more malevolent than I even give these people credit for.

Writing in the 1920s, a decade of despair, frustration and loss of faith in institutions even worse than our current malaise, poet T.S. Eliot wrote: “This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper,” fittingly from a poem titled, “The Hollow Men.”

Trump’s actions today, and the actions of others leading up to today, are how U.S. financial and economic dominance in world affairs will end. It won’t be from sudden hyperinflation or an apocalyptic crash. Rather it will be from 50 years of slow complacency over rising federal deficits, failure to prudently regulate financial markets, and now an administration seeming bent on destroying global trust, not only in our markets and our dollar, but in our willingness to work cooperatively with other nations to achieve and maintain political and economic stability. Political courage is needed, especially from the cowardly, groveling Congress.

Hollow men indeed.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

Since this past September, Saturn’s been the best planet to enjoy through even a small telescope, even though its ring system still appears nearly on edge from our vantage on Earth currently. There’s a new sheriff in the night sky though, Saturn’s big brother Jupiter, the king of the planets, on the rise in the eastern heavens along with Orion and the rest of the great winter constellations. Jupiter is by far the largest planet in our solar system, 88,000 miles in diameter. Jupiter’s so enormous that if it were hollow about 1,000 Earths would fit inside it.

Without a doubt, Jupiter’s the brightest “star” in the night sky right now. Jupiter’s especially bright now because Earth and Jupiter are the closest they’ll get to each other this year, about 395 million miles. That’s because Earth and Jupiter are in an alignment astronomers call opposition. Earth is nearly in a direct line between the sun and Jupiter. something astronomers call opposition. This is a great time for Jupiter gazing, not only because the great planet is close to us but also because it’s available all night long. Just like a full moon, Jupiter rises at sunset and sets at sunrise. And there’s more great news! Jupiter will dominate the night sky well into this coming spring.

Jupiter, like Saturn, is a wonderful telescope target, even if you have a small scope. It’s basically a tremendously large ball of mostly hydrogen and helium gas, over 300 times more massive than Earth. In fact, Jupiter is twice as massive as all of the other planets combined. Like the rest of the gas giants in the outer solar system, it doesn’t have a solid surface but is thought to have a rocky core about 10 to 15 times the mass of the Earth. Because of its colossal mass, Jupiter has a very strong gravitational field, so strong that even if the planet had a surface to stand on, you wouldn’t be standing there long. The gravity of Jupiter would break you down to a pile of flesh and broken bones very quickly.

Jupiter’s gravity also causes the giant planet to produce energy. Jupiter’s interior gases are constantly being gravitationally compressed, which produces heat that oozes out of the planet. In fact, Jupiter produces over one and a half times the energy that it receives from the sun, mostly as infrared radiation. That heat drives the atmospheric winds hundreds of miles an hour.

Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up of complex bands of wind-driven clouds mainly made up of methane, ammonia, and other gases. The different colors are the result of gases being at different temperatures and densities, as well as ultraviolet radiation from the sun. There are also several storms on Jupiter like the “Great Red Spot”, a storm that’s been raging for over 300 years! It’s been shrinking very gradually over the years but is still larger than the diameter of our Earth.

Through even a small telescope, you can see at least some of these cloud bands, especially two darker ones on either side of Jupiter’s equator. If your scope is larger, you might even see the famous Red Spot but we only see it about half the time since Jupiter rotates on its axis just like the Earth but much faster, taking only just under ten hours to make one rotation. So, about every five hours, the Great Red Spot is facing our way. The absolute best time to spot it though is when it’s on the meridian, near the middle of Jupiter’s giant disk. Even then, it can be really tricky because, honestly, it’s not all that red. Most of the time it’s somewhere between light pink and salmon colored.  Apps like Sky Guide can help you keep up with the Red Spot’s position and when it’s due to be on the meridian.

Jupiter also has dozens and dozens of orbiting moons, four of which can easily be seen using just about any telescope or even a cheap pair of binoculars. There are four larger moons, called the “Galilean” moons, in honor of their discoverer way back in the early 1600s. These look like little “stars” that circle the planet in periods of two to seventeen days. These moons are another story all by themselves, and I’ll have that next week in Skywatch.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

Mike Lynch astronomy-stargazing programs

Friday, Jan. 23, 6:30-8 p.m., Lake Elmo Park Reserve, Lake Elmo. For information and reservations, call 651-430-8370 or visit www.co.washington.mn.us/index.aspx?NID=532

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Vong Bidania’s earliest childhood memory, faded now like an old color photo, is of an orange bus pulling out of a refugee camp in Thailand.

“I was so young, I’m not sure if this is real or something I made up in my head. But I knew it was sad, everybody crying, holding their hands out the bus windows. It’s daytime in my memory, but I know we left at night,” Bidania said in a conversation from her home in a Twin Cities suburb.

(Courtesy of the author)

That bus and those goodbyes are in Bidania’s new book “A Year Without Home” (Nancy Paulsen Books, $18.99), her first middle-grade novel and her first in verse. It has already earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist and School Library Journal for beautiful prose and a gripping story.

The narrator is 11-year-old Gao Sheng, the author’s older sister, and Bidania uses the real names of her other siblings in the book: brother Yia and sisters May la, Good Xai and Round Moon (the baby who is Bidania). They all grew up in St. Paul.

We meet the Thao kids first in the Hmong village of Pa Kao in the highlands of Laos, where they live in a big, multi-generational house. They and their cousins roll down their hill for fun, eat fruit from the peach trees and play with Ao Ka, their precious dog. It’s a happy life, even though they sometimes have to flee into the jungle to be safe from bombing during the Vietnam war.

Gao Sheng is sometimes annoyed because as the oldest daughter she is responsible for cutting vegetables, looking after her siblings and young cousins and always acting like a proper Hmong girl — quiet and obedient and never asking questions she longs to ask.

“My name, Gao Sheng,/is a classic name,/a name meant for girls/who are elegant, graceful, charming-/all embarrassing things I am not!”

Gao Sheng loves her brother, but she also resents the freedom he has as the only son who will someday be head of the family. Later in the story, in a heartbreaking scene, she realizes how much her little brother means to her.

As the novel begins in May, 1975, everyone in the the village knows the Communists are coming and they will hunt down men like the Thao children’s father, who was a captain in the Noble Lao Army. They leave in a hurry, missing the plane that was evacuating those who helped the American military. Gao Sheng’s dad and his brothers travel through the jungle, while her mother, aunts and 11 children head for the river in taxis. Reunited with the men, the family crosses the Mekong in canoes to refugee camps in Thailand on a dark and rainy night.

“The canoe wobbles/shakes from side to side./I grab my seat/to keep steady,/try to listen for my relatives/boarding the other canoes/around us,/but all I hear/is the sound/of/my own/frightened breath.”

At the two camps where they live for months, the family sometimes sleeps on hard tabletops because there aren’t enough beds for the ever-growing refugee population. They live with strangers, whole families crowded into small rooms as they wait for permission to immigrate to other countries. In one camp Gao Sheng breaks a cultural norm by helping her father and uncles with a big project, amazing her relatives with her physical and mental strength.

When the family finally gets permission to leave, their first home in the U.S. is the town of Sparta, Wis., where they are sponsored by a church.

Hmong refugees began to arrive in Minnesota 51 years ago, so there are a growing number of books about their experiences. Some authors don’t spend much time discussing life in the camps and that’s what is unusual about Bidania’s novel; it’s all about the family’s life before their escape and their time in the hot, dusty camps where the refugees made their lives as normal as possible while living in a facility with guards. The men play soccer and women and girls shop at an open air market outside the gates on Sunday mornings before the guards arrive. Gao Sheng enjoys going to school. After residents are given food allotments, the Thao family is able to eat their mom’s good cooking instead of the thin soup served in the cafeteria.

“I hope young readers will see history with a more fully dimensional picture, learning what it’s like to be ripped away from everything you’ve known,” Bidania says of her book, in which Gao Sheng can take only a packet of peach tree seeds when her family flees, hoping to grow her favorite fruit in a new home she knows nothing about.

Minnesotan V.T. Bidania launches her first middle-school novel, “A Year Without Home,” Jan 24, 2026 at Red Balloon Bookshop in St. Paul. (Courtesy of the author)

Bidania has been a writer since she was 5 and wrote a story about a frog, with crayon illustrations. She loved books so much she spent most of her free time reading at the family’s home on Holly Avenue. After earning a journalism degree from St. Catherine University and an MFA in creative writing from the New School in New York, Bidania worked in children’s publishing until she and her husband, Win, moved back to Minnesota to be closer to family. They have two sons in college.

If Bidania’s name sounds familiar to readers of children’s lit, it’s because she is the author of the Astrid and Apollo books featuring twins who live in St. Paul, the first children’s books series with Hmong-American characters.

Bidania was drawn to middle-grade books because she finds the writing “gorgeous,” and although she has no formal poetry training the format intrigued her.

“I wanted to write a book that packed as much punch as the ones I read like ‘Unsettled’ (by poet Reem Faruqi), with lots of white space,” she says.

In “A Year Without Home” the dancing type takes its cue from the mood of the poem it illustrates. Sometimes it’s one word going straight down or slanting sentences forming a paragraph. There might be only a few lines on a page. In our visual world this is a fun way to keep readers 10 and older interested.

An undated black and white courtesy photo of the Thao siblings in Sparta, Wis., their first home in America. Back row, from left: May la, Yia, Gao Sheng. Front from left: Round Moon and Good Xai. (Courtesy of the Thao Family)

Bidania spent a lot of time researching her book, which takes place in the confusing and frightening time between the end of the Vietnam War and the beginning of Communist takeover. To be historically accurate, she interviewed relatives and others who lived through it and read whatever government documents she could find about a war that was conducted so much in secret. She also traveled to Laos in 2024 to look for the house on the hill depicted in the book, but she didn’t find it. It was the rainy season, roads were impassable, and anyway the house had been swallowed by jungle.

Although the book doesn’t name the Thao siblings’ parents, they are real-life heroes. Their late father, Nao Vu Thao, always kept his family safe during their journey to America. Working with Catholic Charities, he helped hundreds of immigrants from many countries resettle in Minnesota and was widely respected in the Hmong community and in St. Paul. HIs wife, Sia Thao, organized the family’s escape from their village, keeping her sisters-in-law and the children together and courageously handling being questioned by police who were looking for her husband.

“A Year Without Home” ends in May 1976, with the family living in Sparta, Wis., where they were sponsored by a church. Bidania deliberately concluded the story there, without taking her characters to St. Paul where they eventually settled.

“We faced racism on a regular basis in St. Paul but I didn’t want to write trauma porn, rehashing that in the book,” she explains. “People like to hear about our suffering. It’s like ‘Oh, you poor people.’ Hmong people did face many challenges during and after the war but I wanted to write about a side of us some people don’t know — our homes, families, communities — a human story. I wanted to educate young readers about the history of the Hmong that is not taught in schools. I want them to know that their peers are experiencing wars right now all over the world. They should be aware of this and have some empathy for what today’s refugees are going through.”

Bidania will launch her book at 4 p.m. Saturday at Red Balloon Bookshop, 891 Grand Ave., St. Paul, in conversation with Payal Doshi, author of the middle-grade fantasy “Rea and the Blood of the Nectar,” and a four-book series of chapter books, “Magic Gems,” coming out later this year. Free, but reservations are encouraged. For more information, visit redballoonbookshop.com.

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LORETTA ELLSWORTH: Minnesota author discusses her novel “The Jilted Countess.” 6 p.m. Thursday, Barnes & Noble, 3230 Galleria, Edina.

JACK EL-HAI: Minnesotan discusses his book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,” basis for the film “Nuremberg,” starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek. 2 p.m. Jan. 25, University of St. Thomas, O’Shaughnessy Education Center, 2115 Summit Ave., St. Paul. Presented by Jewish Community Relations Council, Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest, University of St. Thomas and Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies. Free, registration required. Go to Jewish Community Relations Council Minnesota & Dakotas.

DAVID HAKENSEN: Introduces “Her Place in the Woods: The Life of Helen Hoover.” 5 p.m. Wednesday, Lowell Inn, Stillwater, presented by Valley Bookseller.

HOLBROOK/LITTLE: Carolyn Holbrook, teacher, author and founder of More Than a Single Story, and Arletta Little, executive and artistic director at the Loft Literary Center, talk about their their lives and careers and the paths that got them where they are now, part of Holbrook’s Embracing Our Roots program that puts Black artists with next-generation arts leaders. Free.1 p.m. Saturday, University of Minnesota Elmer L. Andersen Library, 222 21st Ave., Mpls.

MINNESOTA MYSTERY NIGHT: Monthly series begins its new season with guest reader and Edgar award-winner David Housewright in conversation with movie producer and director Patrick Coyle. Both men live in St. Paul. Housewright has written 31 novels, most in either the Holland Taylor or Rushmore McKenzie series with the next one, “Fear the Reaper,” to be published in June. He is winner of three Minnesota Book Awards and past president of the Private Eye Writers of America. Coyle has written and directed four nationally released feature films. His newest play, “Big Blue River,” premiered in 2023 at North Garden Theatre in St. Paul and ran for six sold-out weeks. He is an adjunct professor of film at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and lead singer of the band One Hit Wonders. 7 p.m. Monday, Lucky’s 13 Pub, 1352 Sibley Memorial Hwy., Mendota. Free. Registration required at mnmysterynight.com. $13 reservation charge.

READINGS BY WRITERS: Tim Nolan hosts poets Jane Dickerson, Douglas Padilla, Pete Heiden and William Reichard. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, University Club, 420 Summit Ave., St. Paul.

DEBRA J. STONE: Discusses “The House on Rondo” in Friends of the St. Paul Public Library’s Fireside Readings series. 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Rondo Community Library at Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, 270 N. Kent St., St. Paul.

What else is going on

Thomas Maltman (Courtesy of the author)

Thomas Maltman, award-winning Minnesota mystery writer whose books include “Ashes to Ashes” and “Little Wolves,” will open the spring Club Book series March 18 at Wescott Library in Eagan followed by Lee Hawkins on March 28, Nathan Harris on April 1, Carley Fortune pn April 9, Tessa Bailey on April 14, Sara Hashem on April 16, Cleyvis Natera on April 28 and Daniel H. Wilson on May 4. The free series, which brings important authors to metro-area libraries, is presented by Metropolitan Library Service Agency (MELSA). Venues will be announced closer to the authors’ reading dates.

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