Kevin Duffy on hatred

There seems to be a lot of hatred directed at people who don't hate ostensibly to end hate.

~ Kevin Duffy

P.J. O'Rourke on Democrats vs. Republicans

The Democrats are the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller, and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then get elected and prove it.

~ P.J. O'Rourke

Doug Casey on Donald Trump's chances in the 2020 election

But on the bright side, he’s a cultural conservative. And that’s why people support him. He wants to see the US return to the golden days of yesteryear, the world of Leave it to Beaver, Ozzie and Harriet, and Father Knows Best. We’d all like to see domestic tranquility and rising prosperity. But that’s not the world we’re going to be living in, not just for 2020, but the whole decade.

Given a choice between Trump and the Democrats, if you like what’s left of the US, you have to be a Trump supporter. But since we’ll be in the midst of a gigantic political, economic, and social crisis in November, people will want a radical change. That’s what the Democrats are promising, so they’re likely to win. But there are other factors.

The last election was close enough, but now, four years later, there are four more cohorts of kids that have gone through high school and college and been indoctrinated by their uniformly left-wing teachers. They’re going to vote Democrat overwhelmingly.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Cultural Revolution in the US and What It Means For the Election," International Man, July 30, 2020

Joseph Goebbels: "Churchill can't hold on" (1940)

Well, this week will bring the great swing in Britain. Churchill, of course, can’t hold on. A compromise government will be formed. We are very close to the end of the war.

~ Joseph Goebbels, June 22, 1940

Denver Nuggets basketball player: "I think the coronavirus is being used obviously for a bigger agenda"

Personally, I think the coronavirus is being used obviously for a bigger agenda.  It's being used for population control in just terms of being able to control the masses of people.  I mean, because of the virus the whole world is being controlled.  You're required to wear masks.  And who knows what will happen when this vaccine comes out?  You might have to have the vaccine in order to travel.  Like, that would be crazy.

~ Michael Porter, Jr., 22 year old forward on the Denver Nuggets, July 29, 2020

Lew Rockwell on the division of labor

A libertarian is perfectly at peace with the universal phenomenon of human difference. He does not wish it away, he does not shake his fist at it, he does not pretend not to notice it. It affords him another opportunity to marvel at a miracle of the market: its ability to incorporate just about anyone into the division of labor.

Indeed the division of labor is based on human difference. Each of us finds that niche that suits our natural talents best, and by specializing in that particular thing we can most effectively serve our fellow man. Our fellow man, likewise, specializes in what he is best suited for, and we in turn benefit from the fruits of his specialized knowledge and skill.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The Menace of Egalitarianism," speech given to Fort Worth Mises Circle, October 3, 2015

Kevin Duffy on investing

Investing: Fish where the fish are and the fishermen aren't.

~ Kevin Duffy

Wildlife Conservation
1956

Friedrich Hayek on how historians are overly impressed with powerful states

Nothing is more misleading... than the conventional formulae of historians who represent the achievement of a powerful state as the culmination of cultural evolution: it often marked its end.

~ Friedrich Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Rodney Stark on Christianity and freedom

Christian theology provided the intellectual basis for experiments with political freedom.

~ Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to freedom, capitalism and Western success, p. 75

Rodney Stark on the fall of the Roman empire and Western Civilization

[T]he fall of Rome was not a tragic setback; had the empire prevailed, there would be nothing to call Western Civilization.  If Rome still ruled, Europe would be mired in a brutal command economy, there would've been very little innovation of any kind, and the rest of the world probably would be much as Europeans found it in the 15th and 16th centuries.  Empires are the enemies of progress!

~ Rodney Stark, The Victory of Reason: How Christianity led to freedom, capitalism and Western success, p. 75

Randall Forsyth on speculation in shares of black-owned companies

While Corporate America is taking steps in reaction to the recent protests, including cosmetic ones—like removing Aunt Jemima pancake mix or Uncle Ben’s rice from supermarket shelves—shares of some black-owned companies are being frantically bid up.

Once again, it appears the action is being driven by day traders, many new to the stock market, on platforms such as Robinhood, as I reported here nearly a month ago.

For instance, the class A shares of Urban One (ticker: UONE), a multimedia company that operates radio broadcasters targeting primarily African-American listeners, increased nearly 20-fold in the past week, to $36.30. Trading volume surged as high as 57 million shares Thursday; a month ago, fewer than 10,000 shares changed hands on an average day. The D shares (UONEK) saw an even bigger jump in volume, as they hit $4.15 Friday from 88 cents a week earlier.

Both series of shares have been at the top of the popularity list on Robintrack.net, a website that tracks the trading on Robinhood.

~ Randall W. Forsyth, "Unlikely Stocks Soar As Societal Issues, Speculation Collide," Barron's, June 20, 2020

Bradley Thomas on the Marxist goals of BLM

BLM is no different from other Marxist groups. The organization’s goals extend far beyond police abuse and police brutality. The ultimate goal is the abolition of a society based upon private property in the means of production.

~ Bradley Thomas, "Why Marxists Organizations Like BLM Seek to Dismantle the 'Western Nuclear Family'," Mises.org, July 27, 2020

Murray Rothbard on group egalitarianism

In this regime of group egalitarianism, it becomes particularly important to take one's place in the ranks of the Oppressed rather than the Oppressors.  Who, then, are the Oppressed?  It is difficult to determine, since new groups of oppressed are being discovered all the time.  One almost longs for the good old days of classic Marxism, where there was only one oppressed class, the proletariat, and one or at most a very few classes of oppressors: the capitalists or bourgeois, plus sometimes the feudal landlords or perhaps the petit bourgeoisie.  But now, as the ranks of the oppressed and therefore the groups specially privileged by society and the State keep multiplying, and the ranks of the oppressors keep dwindling, the problem of income and wealth egalitarianism reappears and is redoubled.  For more and greater varieties of groups are continually being added to the parasitic burden weighing upon an ever-dwindling supply of oppressors.  And since it is obviously worth everyone's while to leave the ranks of the oppressors and move over to the oppressed, pressure groups will increasingly succeed in doing so, so long as this dysfunctional ideology continues to flourish.

Specifically, achieving the label of Officially Oppressed entitles one to share in an endless flow of benefits in money, status, and prestige from the hapless Oppressors, who are made to feel guilty forevermore, even as they are forced to sustain and expand the endless flow.  It is not surprising that attaining oppressed status takes a great deal of pressure and organization.  As Joseph Sobran wittily puts it: it takes a lot of clout to be a victim.  Eventually, if trends continue, the result must be the twin death of parasite and host alike, and an end to any flourishing economy or civilization.

~ Murray Rothbard, "The Menace of Egalitarianism," Rothbard-Rockwell Report, April 1991

Tim Welsh on booming demand from retail investors

There’s nothing like momentum begetting momentum. The aspect of just access is really driving a lot of this and the whole upward tick in the markets, again, just fuels demand...  The stock market is so much more democratized.  Everyone sort of has access to it now and it’s free.  I still think that’s the main driver here is that trading is free, fractional shares are here and just the enthusiasm for seeing something that, you may or may not have that much experience with, seems to go up at a very steady pace of the last couple months.

~ Tim Welsh, founder and CEO of wealth management consulting firm Nexus Strategy, "Robinhood traders cash in on the market comeback that billionaire investors missed," CNBC.com, June 9, 2020

Sir John Denham on wealth and envy

Wealth is crime enough to him that's poor.

~ Sir John Denham, Cooper's Hill

Lauren C. Templeton on investing and humility

An investor who has all the answers doesn’t even understand all the questions.  I am always suspicious of investors who offer certainty to every single investment question, as I feel it harms their credibility.  In my experience, seasoned and successful investors are intellectually humble and have no problem admitting that some answers cannot be known.

~ Lauren C. Templeton, "Opinion: What would Sir John do? How to use Templeton’s 16 rules for investment success in today’s stock market," MarketWatch.com, July 27, 2020

(Legendary investor John Templeton was Lauren Templeton's great uncle.)

Barbara Tuchman on the Cold War

In the late 20th century it begins to appear as if mankind may be approaching a similar stage of suicidal folly.  Cases come so thick and fast that one can select only the overriding one: why do the superpowers not begin mutual divestment of the means of human suicide?  Why do we invest all our skills and resources in a contest for armed superiority which can never be attained for long enough to make it worth having, rather than in an effort to find a modus vivendi with our antagonist - that is to say, a way of living, not dying?

~ Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly (1984), p. 8

Egon von Greyerz on the global debt bubble

As I have stated many times, it is absolutely guaranteed that the global sand castle resting on worthless debt will crumble. Timing is always tricky and central banks have performed the most outstanding act of wizardry since 2006.

By increasing global debt from $125t in 2006 to $270t today, they have drowned the world in so much worthless money that virtually nobody has understood that it is all fake money and fake wealth that has been created.

~ Egon von Greyerz, "Financial System - A Hubristic Swindle," Gold Switzerland, July 24, 2020

Albert Jay Nock on the masses and the Remnant

What do we mean by the masses, and what by the Remnant?

As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, laboring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either.

~ Albert Jay Nock, "Isaiah's Job," The Atlantic Monthly," 1936

Anthony Fauci on the coronavirus vaccine

The timetable you suggested of getting into 2021, well into the year, then I can think with a successful vaccine -- if we could vaccinate the overwhelming majority of the population -- we could start talking about real normality again.  But it is going to be a gradual process.

~ Anthony Fauci, interview with David Axelrod, host of The Axe Files podcast, July 24, 2020

Summit Roy: "Investors have been piling into gold in 2020"

Investors have been piling into gold in 2020 to hedge against financial market and economic concerns. Some investors worry that the coronavirus could lead to a protracted period of economic weakness. Others worry that all the stimulus unleashed by global central banks could spur rapid inflation.

Gold is seen as a hedge against those possibilities—and others.

In the first six months of the year, investors around the world pushed $39.5 billion into gold ETFs, according to the World Gold Council—the largest amount deposited in the funds in any year. Those inflows are continuing in July; $4.2 billion has flowed into GLD and IAU since the start of the month, pushing the two funds’ combined year-to-date inflows up to $24.8 billion.

~ Summit Roy, "Gold Sets New Record High Price," ETF.com, July 24, 2020

Jack Hough on the popularity of ESG funds

According to Morningstar, ESG funds last year took in net cash of more than $20 billion, four times the figure the year before.  More than 500 funds added ESG language to their prospectuses.

~ Jack Hough, "Tobacco and ESG? One Cigarette Seller Sees a Perfect Match," Barron's, July 25, 2020

Jack Hough on Philip Morris International embracing ESG

At the end of last month, [Philip Morris International] published Integrated Report 2019, its first comprehensive update on ESG issues...  It spans 192 pages.  That's 54 more than the company's annual report to shareholders.

~ Jack Hough, "Tobacco and ESG? One Cigarette Seller Sees a Perfect Match," Barron's, July 25, 2020

Tom DiLorenzo on Princeton's racism problem

Princeton does indeed have a racism problem. The problem is with the racist “faculty of color” and their supporters who espouse the notion of “systemic racism” which condemns white people solely on the basis of skin color, the exact definition of racism. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself would not be welcomed at Princeton today by these letter writers with his old-fashioned notion that people should be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Such language would be investigated by that new Stasi-like “investigative committee” and denounced as the words of an “Uncle Tom” and a race traitor.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Princeton's Racism Problem," LewRockwell.com, July 24, 2020

Lew Rockwell on the GI Bill and its corrosive effects on higher education

The GI Bill, adopted after World War II, played a big role in lowering standards. As Tom DiLorenzo has pointed out, “The damage caused by the program was much more than fiscal. It made the centralization of education possible for the first time in American history. That in turn opened the door to the ruinous politicization of higher education that has marked the past half century.

The tool used by government was the college accrediting agency. A network of them was originally established in the late 19th century to work as private buffers between academia and government. Their purpose was to insure high standards, and prevent government subsidies from leading to government control.

After the second world war, the federal government used various college accrediting agencies to ostensibly guarantee a quality education for veterans. Only accredited schools could receive G.I. Bill funds, so the accrediting agencies quickly transformed themselves. They became the gatekeepers of the tax money and virtual adjuncts of federal power. This gatekeeper role expanded as federal funding of higher education escalated.

~ Lew Rockwell, "Are Universities Finished?," LewRockwell.com, July 23, 2020

President Roosevelt signs G.I. Bill into law on June 22, 1944

AOC on continuing the shutdowns to prevent Trump from being re-elected

It's vital that Governors maintain restrictions on businesses until after the November Elections because economic recovery will help Trump be re-elected.  A few business closures or job losses is a small price to pay to be free from his presidency.  #KeepUsClosed

~ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweet, May 20, 2020

(Apparently, this tweet was up briefly before AOC's handlers told her to take it down.)

Doug Casey on millennials, demographics and the death of the Republican Party

A majority of millennials are in favor of socialism. By 2050, whites will be a minority in the US. A straw in the wind is that a large majority of the people who commit suicide each year are middle-class white males—essentially, Trump supporters. The demographic handwriting is on the wall. Trump’s election in 2016 was an anomaly. A Last Hurrah.

There’s no political salvation coming from the Republican party. Like Trump himself, it doesn’t have any core principles. It just reacts to the Dems and proposes less radical alternatives to their ideas. It doesn’t stand for anything. It’s only capable of putting forward empty suits, pure establishment figures like Bob Dole, Mitt Romney, or a Bush. Or a non-entity like Pence. That’s a formula for disaster in today’s demographic and cultural environment.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on Why This Election Could Be the Most Important Since the U.S. Civil War," LewRockwell.com, July 23, 2020

Doug Casey on the appeal of AOC

[G]etting back to millennials, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), and people like her, are both the current reality and the future of the Democratic Party — and of the US itself.

Why? It’s irrational to make a 30-year-old barmaid into an icon. But she’s cute, vivacious, outspoken, and has a plan to remake the country. And she’s shrewd. She knows how to capitalize on envy and resentment. She realized she could win by ringing doorbells in her district, where voter turnout was very low, and about 70% are non-white. There was zero motivation for residents to turn out for the tired, corrupt, old hack of a white man she ran against.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on Why This Election Could Be the Most Important Since the U.S. Civil War," LewRockwell.com, July 23, 2020

Cicero on history

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.

~ Cicero

Henry Hazlitt on Marxism

The whole gospel of Karl Marx can be summed up in a single sentence: Hate the man who is better off than you are.  Never under any circumstances admit that his success may be due to his own efforts, to the productive contribution he has made to the whole community.  Always attribute his success to the exploitation, the cheating, the more or less open robbery of others...  This basic hatred is the heart of Marxism.

~ Henry Hazlitt

George H.W. Bush on political correctness

The notion of political correctness has ignited controversy across the land. And although the movement arises from the laudable desire to sweep away the debris of racism and sexism and hatred, it replaces old prejudice with new ones. It declares certain topics off-limits, certain expression off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits.

~ President George H.W. Bush, commencement speech at University of Michigan, May 4, 1991

Barbara Tuchman on how negative events are exaggerated

The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to tenfold.

~ Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror (1978)

Anonymous YouTube comment on the influence of Antonia Gramsci in Brazil

I know Gramsci's work very well. I'm from Brazil, and here the education system was entirely dominated by the Gramscists. The process of cultural subversion started in the middle of 60's, after the Military Dictatorship took power. Frustrated for not being their proletarian dictatorship, they saw no other alternative than change their focus to the culture. Decades later, the people educated by this system would self-perpetuate the socialist ideas, because the students of that time would become the professors, journalists, lawyers, judges, and artists of the future ahead. Of course, they did not anticipate that there would be a strong reaction, and the internet helped a lot with that. In Mises words: "Ideas and only Ideas can light the darkness."

~ Anonymous YouTube comment, July 20, 2020

Daniel Ajamian on the recent events and the cultural Marxism strategy

What I hear of college, and it also is true in business and government, are stories of various cultural indoctrinations – made ever-more intense given the pretext for these recent riots. Politically correct speech to include even compelled speech, cancel culture, self-flagellation, a fight for the gold medal in the oppression olympics. If you disagree with any of this, you are a fascist. To further cement this indoctrination, a requirement to take classes that tear down Western Civilization – even saying those two words in anything other than a scornful tone could be costly.

There is a purpose behind this, a strategy. Events that we have been living through recently are not spontaneous or random. This is not accidental. These events are the result of a political strategy designed to strip us of our liberty. It is an insidious strategy. It is also very effective.

~ Daniel Ajamian, "The Greatest Political Strategist in History," talk delivered at 2020 Mises University, July 18, 2020

Daniel Ajamian on Antonio Gramsci and cultural Marxism

Gramsci is, perhaps, the foundational theorist for what we now call Cultural Marxism.

~ Daniel Ajamian, "The Greatest Political Strategist in History," talk delivered at the 2020 Mises University

Guido Hülsmann on family and the welfare state

The welfare state has also had a lasting impact on the relationship between the costs and benefits of family life. It, too, has weakened the community of solidarity between the spouses—and between parents and children—if not quite as quickly, brutally, and cynically as the more recent feminist politics. It didn’t slaughter the family, but it slowly decomposed them. This tendency is particularly evident in the relationship between the generations. The state pension system turns this relationship upside down in economic terms. Families must continue to bear the costs of bringing up children but must share their children’s future tax payments with all other citizens, including the childless. The benefits of children are socialized, while the cost of raising children remains private. If you wanted to reduce families, you couldn’t think of anything better.

~ Jörg Guido Hülsmann, "How the State Destroys Families," LewRockwell.com, July 21, 2020

Guido Hülsmann on the economic efficiency of the family

From a purely economic perspective, families are probably the most efficient form of human organization. Unfortunately, this is hardly ever properly appreciated, not even by the economists. This is probably due to the fact that the family’s many dimensions, most of which are difficult or impossible to measure, in distinct contrast to the performance of a company or of a sports club.

~ Jörg Guido Hülsmann, "How the State Destroys Families," LewRockwell.com, July 21, 2020

Tom DiLorenzo on turning Major League Baseball into "left-wing propaganda spectacles"

In addition to keeping fans away, turning games into left-wing propaganda spectacles, officially endorsing the radical communist “We’re Trained Marxists” Only Black Lives Matter, allowing players to kneel to protest the existence of “racist America” at the beginning of each game, and imposing hundreds of asinine CDC rules on the game itself, Fuhrer Fauci will throw out the first ball at the Washington Nationals game on Thursday.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Another Reason to Just Forget About Major League Baseball for Good," LRC Blog, July 21, 2020