Shaun Rein on how the U.S. has been a magnet for talent

One of the great things about America is that we have been a place that the top talent in the world, from China, from the Soviet Union, from Vietnam, they all want to come to our country.  Because America is a great country.  It's an exceptional country.  And so we should be making it easier for top talent, people who bring money, bring in intellectual knowledge into the United States.  That's what makes America great and that's what we should be encouraging.

 ~ Shaun Rein, Twitter/X post, November 12, 2025

 

Charles Hugh Smith on the AI race, innovation and open societies

Charles Hugh Smith: A lot of people are saying, "Wait a minute, does this mean China has got the lead in AI?"  I don't think it's a state or governments-run option here to say, "We're going to control the world's AI."  I think the dominance here is which economy is more open, more transparent, more open to sharing information and is going to allow the greatest number of people to start innovating with these new tools.  And so that's really what it boils down to.

Adam Taggart: How weird would it be if that country were China.  It's just not historically, culturally, those are not adjectives that are used around China.

Smith: What's interesting is the whole world has an equal opportunity here.  There's systemic issues here.  It's not just the software or the hardware.  It's which economy, as a system, is more open, more transparent, more adaptable, more flexible and is going to give rewards to somebody in their garage famously that comes up with a product that people love.

~ Charles Hugh Smith, "Did China's DeepSeek Just Pop the AI Stock Bubble?," Thoughtful Money, January 27, 2025

Per Bylund on the ability of open vs. control societies to handle crises

There are some very disturbing calls for quick-fix "solutions" following the reporting of how countries have and have not handled COVID19. It is not about how contagious or dangerous the virus actually is, which is not my expertise, but the typical and dangerous misunderstanding of the supposed efficiency of hierarchy and, therefore, the effectiveness of control societies, authoritarian rule, and dictatorial regimes.

To put it simply, the claim is that China "handled it right," was able to do something by acting fast and forcefully, and, by implication, that open societies are impotent to threats and fundamentally fragile. But this is exactly wrong. This misconception arises out of a common but fundamental misunderstanding of social organizing (such as society, markets, etc). And, interestingly, it is put forth by people who should definitely know better, including influential investors and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.

~ Per Bylund, "No, Authoritarian Governments Do Not Outperform 'Open Societies' in a Crisis," Mises.org, March 13, 2020