Seraphim Hanisch on how Big Tech's attack on conservatism opened the door to competition

[T]he strategy of Big Tech appears to be to disrupt and isolate conservative activity by making it impossible for people to gather together and organize. Knowing of one another’s existence is powerful, and the Ministers of Propaganda at Castle Zuckerberg knew precisely where to strike.  However, they did not count on their actions spurring the explosive growth of a new network – one they cannot touch.

~ Seraphim Hanisch, "Social media earthquake as Parler welcomes 1,000,000 new users," The Duran, June 30, 2020

Gary D. Barnett on the coronavirus hoax

All eyes are concentrated on a fraudulent virus pandemic, and that is exactly what the ruling elite that now control all thought and non-action of the herd desire. Tunnel vision and concentration on state-manufactured monsters does not allow for critical thought, nor does it allow for any sane decision-making by the general populace.

~ Gary D. Barnett, "The Long-Planned Second Wave of This Coronavirus is Now Going Into High Gear," LewRockwell.com, June 27, 2020

Tom DiLorenzo on the BLM riots

[W]hat started out as riots supposedly over police brutality against black people turning into “demands” for an exponentially bigger welfare state, abolition of police and prisons, the abolition of capitalism and in essence the adoption of socialism. Toppling statues of Christopher Columbus, Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionist Albert Pike, and even of Lincoln is not a protest against police brutality but part of an effort to destroy the institutions of Western civilization and replace them with communism at long last.  As one of the founders of Black Lives Matter proudly boasted, “We are trained Marxists. (“Trained” by Obama-style “community organizers,” no doubt).

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "A Disease in the Public Mind, Part II?," LewRockwell.com, June 29, 2020

Tom DiLorenzo on Leftists and their hatred for Trump

The Leftists who have displayed an uncontrollable, violent hatred of President Trump over the past three-and-a-half years have done so because their real hatred is of the people who voted for Trump and put him in office...

These are the people whose dreams of destroying capitalism and replacing it with their own version of Soviet central planning under the guise of a “Green New Deal” have been soundly rejected if not ignored by the deplorables, a key reason for their intense, and often violent hatred. They feel entitled to rule over the rest of America – if not the world – and many of them appear to be seething with a murderous hatred over not being granted such power. They have given up on debate and argumentation and are now resorting to pervasive censorship, riots, vandalism, arson, and assaults. Mass killing cannot be too far off if they are not stopped and soon.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "A Disease in the Public Mind, Part II?," LewRockwell.com, June 29, 2020

Kevin Duffy on why economists make poor investors

Managing money is an entirely different game from forecasting next year's GNP.  It requires a longer-term perspective and an ability to part ways with the crowd.  For an economist to become an unconventional thinker would require major reprogramming.  The more ingrained his academic thought process, the greater his obstacles.

Since economics is the allocation of scarce resources, managing money should be a great way for an economist to practice his trade firsthand.  Unfortunately, most Wall Street economists pass up the real world of investing for the more forgiving world of academia.  Some money managers would make good economists, but few economists are likely to become good money managers.  Those who can, do.  Those who cannot, forecast.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Economists Don't Play With Real Money," letter-to-the-editor, The Wall Street Journal, April 20, 1989

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how exclusion is required to achieve a free society

Libertarians, in their attempt to establish a free natural social order, must strive to regain from the state the right to exclusion inherent in private property.  Yet even before they accomplish this and in order to render such an achievement possible, libertarians cannot soon enough begin to reassert and exercise, to the extent that the situation still permits them to do so, their right to exclusion in everyday life.  Libertarians must distinguish themselves from others by practicing (as well as advocating) the most extreme form on intolerance and discrimination against egalitarians, democrats, socialists, communists, multiculturalists, environmentalists, ill manners, misconduct, incompetence, rudeness, vulgarity, and obscenity.  Like true conservatives,... true libertarians must visibly and ostentatiously dissociate themselves from the false multicultural and anti-authoritarian egalitarian left-libertarian impostors.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed, p. 219

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how egalitarianism and cultural relativism threaten the family and private property

[A] community always faces the double and related threat of egalitarianism and cultural relativism.  Egalitarianism, in every shape and form, is incompatible with the idea of private property.  Private property implies exclusivity, inequality, and difference.  And cultural relativism is incompatible with the fundamental - indeed foundational - fact of families and intergenerational kinship relations.  Families and kinship relations imply cultural absolutism.  As a matter of socio-phychological fact, both egalitarian and relativistic sentiments find steady support among newer generations of adolescents... Adolescence is marked by regular (and for this stage normal) outbreaks of rebellion by the young against the discipline imposed on them by family life and parental authority.  Cultural relativism and multiculturalism provide the ideological instrument of emancipating oneself from these constraints.  And egalitarianism - based on the infantile view that property is "given" (and thus distributed arbitrarily) rather than individually appropriated and produced (and hence, distributed justly, i.e., in accordance with personal productivity) - provides the intellectual means by which the rebellious youths can lay claim to the economic resources necessary for a life free of and outside the disciplinary framework of families.

[...]

[S]o long as the threat of moral relativism and egalitarianism is restricted to a small proportion of juveniles and young adults for only a brief period in life (until they settle back into family-constrained adulthood), it may well be sufficient to do nothing at all.  The proponents of cultural relativism and egalitarianism would represent little more than temporary embarassments or irritations...  A small dose of ridicule and contempt may be all that is needed to contain the... threat.  The situation is very different, however, and rather more drastic measures might be required, once the spirit of moral relativism and egalitarianism has taken hold among adult members of society: among mothers, fathers, and heads of households and firms.

As soon as mature members of society habitually express acceptance or even advocate egalitarian sentiments, whether in the form of democracy (majority rule) or of communism, it becomes essential that other members, and in particular the natural social elites, be prepared to act decisively and, in the case of nonconformity, exclude and ultimately expel these members from society.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy - The God That Failed, pp. 217-218

Jeff Deist on the catalyst and underlying cause of the 2020 Crash

The Great Crash of 2020 was not caused by a virus.  It was precipitated by the virus, and made worse by the crazed decisions of governments around the world to shut down business and travel.  But it was caused by economic fragility.  The supposed greatest economy in US history actually was a walking sick man, made comfortable with painkillers, and looking far better than he felt - yet ultimately fragile and infirm.  The coronavirus pandemic simply exposed the underlying sickness of the US economy.  If anything, the crash was overdue.

Too much debt, too much malinvestment, and too little honest pricing of assets and interest rates made America uniquely vulnerable to economic contagion.  Most of this vulnerability can be laid at the feet of central bankers at the Federal Reserve, and we will pay a terrible price for it in the coming years.  This is an uncomfortable truth, one that central bankers desperately hope to obscure while the media and public remain fixated on the virus.

~ Jeff Deist, "How to Think about the Fed Now," The Austrian, May-June 2020

Robert Higgs on the limits of government

The willingness of citizens to tolerate costs, which must be borne if the policies are to be carried out, declines as costs rise... Even the (initially) most popular war loses support as casualties mount, tax burdens rise, and military appetites consume more of the resources needed to produce civilian goods and services.  Government officials know that the citizens have limits.  Pushing them beyond the limits jeopardizes not only the success of the policies but the very survival of governments.

~ Robert Higgs, Crisis and Leviathan, pp. 64-65

Thomas Sowell on the difference between engineers and intellectuals

The engineer is judged by the end product which is not simply ideas.  If he builds a building that collapses, it doesn't matter how brilliant his idea was.  He's ruined.  Conversely, if an intellectual who's brilliant has an idea for rearranging society and that ends in disaster, he pays no price at all.

~ Thomas Sowell

Rupal Bhansali on risk management and investing

I think the key variable is thinking about risk management before you think about return management because losing money is the albatross of compounding money.

~ Rupal Bhansali, "Reduce Your Risk to Enhance Returns," Stansberry Investor Hour, 42:00 mark, June 25, 2020

WealthManagement.com: blacks make up 7% of employees at ESG firms

White people make up about 80% of employees in socially responsible investment firms, according to a January 2019 study published by industry consultants and financial advisers about racial disparities in the workforce. Black people account for just 7% of employees among the firms that were surveyed.

~ "ESG Investors Are Confronting a Race Problem of Their Own," WealthManagement.com, June 25, 2020

Jeff Deist on the allure of MMT

MMT is the perfect economic proposal for those who sincerely and deeply believe wealth simply exists in America, and will continue to exist, regardless of incentives. All we need to do is figure out how to more fairly divvy it up—and so why not through government spending?

The promise of something for nothing will never lose its luster. MMT should be viewed as a form of political propaganda rather than any kind of real economics or public policy. And like all propaganda, it must be fought with appeals to reality. MMT, where deficits don’t matter, is an unreal place.

~ Jeff Deist, "Not Modern, Not Monetary, Not a Theory," LewRockwell.com, June 26, 2020

Jeff Deist on MMT and government spending

It’s easy for those of a free market bent to dismiss MMT out of hand, but the impulse to create something from nothing resides deep in the human psyche, and politics is where this impulse finds expression. We should not underestimate the allure of MMT in the midst of our current upheavals, because it appears to make possible every left progressive program: unlimited public works and federal jobs, useless and uneconomic green energy schemes, reparations for black Americans, Medicare for All, free college, free housing, and a host of others.

~ Jeff Deist, "Not Modern, Not Monetary, Not a Theory," LewRockwell.com, June 26, 2020

Kevin Duffy on planning for freedom

Your first line of defense is critical thinking and your last line of defense is guns, gold and God.  At the end of the day, if nothing else works, pray.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Expert Model" interview with David Forsyth, 24:30 mark, Your Freedom Adventure, June 26, 2020