Kevin Duffy on CNBC and Jim Grant

All Fed critics have been excommunicated from CNBC with the notable exception of Jim Grant. His survival is a neon sign of robustness, wisdom and, yes, courage.

~ Kevin Duffy, The Coffee Can Portfolio, November 2, 2020, p. 5

Kevin Duffy on the Ron Paul revolution, 2020 election and political realignment

The Dems have always believed in big government.  They’ve never tried to pretend otherwise.  There isn’t a problem in the world that can’t be solved by mobilizing government and taxing the rich.  They believe that in their bones.  The only question was whether there was anyone to stop them. The Republicans put up very little resistance.  Worse, they made no principled resistance.  That’s a recipe for disaster. 

What makes Trump different is not that he has some clear vision or that he can articulate a principled defense of individual rights. What makes him different is that he’s not a typical country club Republican.  In fact, Trump didn’t start this revolution.  It was started by Ron Paul (who actually did fight with principles).   Against all odds, Trump upset the apple cart and threw the Republican bums out of the club.  He also managed to halt the rise of Hillary.  

Political coalitions are splitting apart and realigning.  The Dems are the party of big money.  They raise twice as much campaign money as the Republicans and the 2020 election was likely even more lopsided (I believe Biden raised over $1 billion, a record).  Wall Street loves the Dems and was salivating over a blue wave (running up green stocks, for example).  Big Tech also loves the Dems (30 years ago they were largely libertarian and apolitical).  Talk about deep pockets. 

With their lockdowns, the Dems screwed lower income people and small business owners. Those wounds won’t heal anytime soon, if ever.   I see a separation and realignment towards those who live off of big government (the parasitic class) vs. those who just want to be left alone (the productive class). We’re still early in this shift, regardless of who wins the election.

~ Kevin Duffy, email to a friend, November 4, 2020

Walter Williams on black problems and white guilt

One important step is for black Americans to stop being “useful tools” for the leftist, hate-America agenda. Many black problems are exacerbated by guilt-ridden white people. Often, they accept behavior and standards from black people that they would not begin to accept from white people. In that sense, white liberal guilt is a form of disrespect in their relationships with black Americans. By the same token, black people should stop exploiting the guilt of whites. Let us all keep in mind that history is one of those immutable facts of life.

~ Walter Williams, "Blacks of Yesteryear and Today," LewRockwell.com, November 4, 2020

Kevin Duffy on the perversion of success

The federal government’s tentacles are everywhere: in education, science, journalism, economics, finance, business, sports, even religion. One of the more pernicious effects is that success has been turned on its head. Cream doesn’t always rise; sometimes the worst get on top.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Trouble with Conformity," p. 3, The Coffee Can Portfolio, November 2, 2020

Barron's: Moody's expects higher economic growth under Biden than Trump

An analysis by Moody’s Analytics finds that if Biden wins and Democrats win a majority in both the Senate and the House and enact his plans, average annual economic growth would be 2.9% and average annual wage growth would be 0.9% through 2030. 

[...]

In contrast, if President Donald Trump wins the election and Republicans win the majority in both houses of Congress, the economic picture dims: 10-year economic growth would average 2.4%, wages would grow by 0.7% over a decade, 11.2 million jobs would be created over four years, and full employment would be reached in 2024.

~ Barron's, "Which Party Would Be Better for the Economy? Here’s How Biden and Trump’s Plans Stack Up.," by Karen Hube, October 24, 2020

World Bank: Covid pandemic expected to push 100 million people into extreme poverty

The COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to push an additional 88 million to 115 million people into extreme poverty this year, with the total rising to as many as 150 million by 2021, depending on the severity of the economic contraction.

~ World Bank, "COVID-19 to Add as Many as 150 Million Extreme Poor by 2021," October 7, 2020

The pandemic and global recession may cause over 1.4% of the world’s population to fall into extreme poverty.

~ David Malpass, World Bank Group President

Ronald Stöferle et al. on Nassim Taleb and why economists are prone to making poor forecasts

In [Nassim] Taleb's opinion, economists are susceptible to erroneous assessments, as soon as they ascribe excessive precision to statistical methods.  He provides inter alia two major reasons for this.  First of all, they often fall prey to the fallacious assumption that extensive amounts of historical observations permit conclusions about the future, and secondly, that future events are subject to a bell-shaped probability distribution.  In other words: they do not assume that past correlations may be subject to randomness as well.

~ Rahim Taghnizadegan, Ronald Stöferle, Mark Valek and Heinz Blasnik, Austrian School for Investors (2015), p. 74