S15 EP161: Hour 3 - A Low Trust Society

Erick opens hour three with the Wall Street Journal story on why returning online orders got hard, Lane Bryant restocking fees, shortened Macy's and Home Depot return windows, McDonald's killing free refills, and argues none of it is corporate penny-pinching. It is what a low-trust society looks like when a post-Christian America abandons the ethics that made cheap trust possible. He then takes a caller on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and delivers his sharpest attack yet on the JD Vance welfare proposal, calling it a plan to turn stay-at-home moms into welfare queens, before objecting to the Attorney General speaking at the Republican convention in Dallas.

• The Wall Street Journal on return fees: Lane Bryant, Zara, H&M, Uniqlo, TJ Maxx, Macy's cut from a year to 30 days, Home Depot's seven-day window, and 68 percent of retailers now charging
• Why the low-trust society explains it all: shoplifting, locked-up razor blades at Target, dashcams, drivers in the left lane, Roman lawsuits as spectator sport, and Ross Douthat's post-Christian right
• Caller Kathleen in Jacksonville on the 9/11 25th anniversary, never forget, and Erick on his daughter's question about where remembering ends and idolatry begins
• JD Vance and the Trump administration draft rule extending child care welfare to married couples: the $9,000 per child benefit, the $75,000 benefit cliff, and why dad cannot take the promotion and mom cannot take the part-time job
• The Republican convention in Dallas: Erick's objection to the Attorney General and cabinet secretaries speaking at a partisan convention, plus LIV Golf filing Chapter 11