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. 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. 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 everyone wants to claim. Everybody reads Bonhoeffer these days and sees a representation of something they value and aspire to be. It's Monday, February 9th. This is The World and Everything in It from Listener Supported World Radio. I'm Mary Reichert. And I'm Nick Einker. Good morning. Now news, here's 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 U.S. 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 first time, they probably aren't going to learn it the second time. If they stand behind that mule once again, there's going to be a resounding kick. And they need to be serious about negotiations and not to use it as just a stall tactic. U.S. Envoy Steve Whitcoff 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 U.S. 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. Inflation is in fact coming down. For the past three months, inflation is 2.1 percent, close to the Federal Reserve's target. And a measure called truflation, which is daily observations, now is below 1 percent. 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 color. FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makari. 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. 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. The human rights group Foro Pinal 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. And that will do it. Seattle reigns above them all in the NFL. The Seahawks, Super Bowl champions for the second time. That courtesy of NBC Sports. The final score was 29-13 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 Kent 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 Bonson. This is The World and Everything in It. It's the world and everything in it for this ninth day of February, 2026. We're so glad you've joined us. Good morning. I'm Nick Eichert. 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 U.S. and subject to the 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. 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 Noam v. Elotrolato. In this one, the court will decide whether an asylum seeker must physically enter the U.S. 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. All right, now on to 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 Gallet was sitting in a stopped vehicle when a New Jersey transit bus hit him too, leaving him seriously injured. 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 Transit runs a network of train, bus, and light rail services across the state and into New York and Pennsylvania. The Transit's lawyer is New Jersey Solicitor General Michael Zuckerman. He wants the suit dismissed on immunity grounds. 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. 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. 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 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. That separation, he argued, is the entire point of making a corporation. It makes debt financing substantially easier 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. 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. The point is that when you look at NJ Transit, how closely tied it is to New Jersey, and you analyze its features, the words corporation 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. But several justices were not convinced. Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson. Your argument sounds 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. Zuckerman for the Transit pointed to a high court decision from nearly 100 years ago that prompted this response from Justice Clarence Thomas. The state creates a corporation, and historically they've created corporations in order to do things that the states either can't do or won't do, to borrow money, to run banks, to run businesses, etc. So do you have anything that's recent to which that applies? 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. But you disclaim liability for the debts and other exposure of the transit authority, right? So 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. 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. 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. In essence, the state's choice has consequences. Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed out another problem with New Jersey's theory. 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. Your Honor, I think, let me take that in a few parts, but I think basically to get to the number of it. Yeah, I'll try to do one part then. 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. Additional support comes from the Masters University, equipping students for lives of faithfulness to the Master Jesus Christ. masters.edu From the Joshua Program at St. Dunstan's Academy in Virginia, a gap year shaping young men through trades, farming, prayer. stdunstansacademy.org And from Water's Edge, competitive rates and supporting churches. 4.5% APY on a 13-month term investment. Watersedge.com slash invest. Coming up next on The World and Everything in It, the Monday Money Beat. 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. Well, good morning, Nick. Good to be with you. 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 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? 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. And you recall it was in the 1,000 and 2,000 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 time span, 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 costs 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 a wonderful story Now 50 could end up proving just like the 10 in 1998 proved to be a number that stalls and it drops from that number for a while because that investor sentiment number 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 U.S. markets, I think, are a blessing to our economic story. 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? 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. But 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 of weeks, we're in earnings season right now, and it's the first time that you're seeing companies punished. This happened to 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. 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? I think that, as has been the case with Secretary Besant 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. 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, a 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? 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. Well, David, I'd like to end today by pointing to a column in the Wall Street Journal by Kim Strassel. 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 Strassel gave Russ Vogt a pretty generous attaboy and argued he may be doing something Republicans rarely manage 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? 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 limit or belittle the idea of $10 to $18 billion. 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 gone and new administration 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. All right. Well, David Bonson is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of the Bonson Group. He writes regularly at DividendCafe.com and at World Opinions. David, I hope you have a great week. We'll talk to you next time. Thanks so much, Nick. Good to be with you. Good morning. This is The World and Everything In It from listener-supported World Radio. I'm Nick Eicher. 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. All right, so we'll head upstairs, and you'll notice a lot of this lumber is original to 1827. In western Pennsylvania, a centuries-old house dedicated to Christian living sits next to the Ohio River. It's a historic house here in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. It was built in 1827. David Louis 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. 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. Dietrich Bonhoeffer outlined part of that vision in his theological work, Life Together, advocating for authentic Christian community. community. 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. Bonhoeffer is one of the most well-known martyrs of Christendom as an active dissident during Germany's Nazi 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. In February of 1933, Bonhoeffer put his life on the line when he broadcast a radio message to the public. And he's being critical of the rise of Hitler and kind of what this political movement represents. And the transmission is cut off. 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. And he's ultimately arrested in 1943, and he's initially put in prison. And from prison, he's actively writing letters, writing hymns, writing poems, writing meditations. In 1945, Bonhoeffer was executed. But his theology continues to teach generations of students. Really, the central space in the Bonhoeffer house is the Chapel of the Incarnation, as it's called. 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. 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? 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 point, 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. Bonhoeffer dealt with such a movement during World War II. Germans were swept along by the intensity of the Nazi regime, and evil followed. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 seed of the church. And that seed Bonhoeffer planted is still alive and well. The growth might be found in books, sermons, lectures, or a historic house. 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 resonates. Bonhoeffer holds together things that in our modern world very often tend to be torn apart. That's this week's World History Book. I'm Emma Eicher in Ambridge, Pennsylvania. 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 Eicher. And I'm Mary Reichard. 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 37, verses 3 and 4. Go now in grace and peace.
