Paul Craig Roberts on Democrats, law and order, and National Public Radio

The reason Democrats don’t enforce law and order is that law and order are protections for white people. Anything that protects white people is bad, because it lets white people continue their oppression of black people. This is the level of intelligence at NPR, a font of anti-white ideology.

~ Paul Craig Roberts, "'In Defense of Looting'," LewRockwell.com, August 31, 2020

Ben Levisohn on the tech bull market (2020)

So can anything stop the runaway train that is the tech sector?  Probably not.

~ Ben Levisohn, "The Stock Market Is a Runaway Train Nothing Can Stop," Barron's, August 29, 2020

Curtis Sliwa on the exodus from New York City

The mass evacuation of Upper West Siders from NYC is in full effect...  They told me, "Curtis, first the pandemic hit us and now the quality of life is so bad."  The woman was almost crying. They said they survived the ’70s [as a young couple in the then-high crime neighborhood].  But then in a month, in July, the neighborhood was destroyed...

They said in the last month, there have been so many disturbed people in the streets, aggressively panhandling, defecating, urinating — [homeless people] leave the hotels and have no bathrooms to use.

These are the people who elected de Blasio, who live here.  It’s a progressive, liberal neighborhood. And now there’s a visceral hate here for him — the feeling that he has virtually singlehandedly destroyed this city.

~ Curtis Sliwa, Guardian Angels founder, "Fleet of moving trucks mark exodus from Manhattan’s troubled Upper West Side," New York Post, August 30, 2020

Will and Ariel Durant on the French Revolution "eating its children"

The slate seemed clear; all groups that had challenged the Committee of Public Safety had been eliminated or suppressed.  The Girondins were dead or dispersed; the sansculottes had been divided and silenced; the clubs - excepting the Jacobin - had been closed; the press and the theater were under strict censorship; the Convention, cowed, left all major decisions to the committee.  Under their tutelage, and instructed by its other committees, the Convention passed laws against hoarders and speculators, proclaimed free, universal education, abolished slavery in the French colonies, and established a welfare state with social security, unemployment benefits, medical aid for the poor, and relief for the old.  These measures were in large part frustrated by war and chaos, but they remained as ideas to inspire succeeding generations.

~ Will and Ariel Durant, The Age of Napoleon, "The Revolution Eats Its Children," pp. 78-79



Interpretation by Phil Duffy:

In the first four chapters of The Age of Napoleon, the Durants describe the multi-stage French Revolution.  The first stage deposed the king and the Catholic Church in favor of rule by the Girondins, the political group representing the rising commercial class (the bourgeoisie).  Then the Revolution became radicalized with the street mob of Paris (the sansculottes) gaining control.  They were represented in the legislative body (the Convention) by members of the Jacobin club, including the infamous Maximilien Robespierre of A Tale of Two Cities fame.  By eliminating his enemies with the guillotine, Robespierre, heading the powerful Committee of Public Safety, had emerged as the dictator of France.  But emerging victorious in a revolution only forces the winner to govern effectively.  Like most politicians, Robespierre was long on promises and short on delivery.  His fellow revolutionaries realized that Robespierre was in a position to eliminate all of them, so they sent him to the guillotine in a preemptive strike designed to protect their lives, concluding the radical stage of the French Revolution.

Wars and the chaos of revolution crippled the French economy during this period.  It destroyed the wealth that would have been necessary to pursue the utopian socialist dream first expressed in the French Revolution.  But the French Revolution impressed Karl Marx a half century later as he wrote The Manifesto of the Communist Party

Harold Cameron on the killing of two protestors in Kenosha, Wisconsin in self defense

He may not have known it, but Kyle Rittenhouse didn’t simply take on a few violent criminals with a cheap, ubiquitous rifle. He took on the entire system that enabled them. And — at least for one brief and inexplicable moment — he won. Rittenhouse may not a role model, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an American hero.

~ Harold Cameron, "Kyle Rittenhouse May Not Be a Role Model, But Is He Still an American Hero?," Revolver News, August 28, 2020

Bob Moriarty on Covid death statistics

Everything you’re being told about COVID... is a lie, okay?  Mathematically it would be impossible for the United States to have 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s cases.  If you test positive for COVID, and you go to the hospital for any reason, the government picks up the tab.  So literally everybody that goes to a hospital that doesn’t have insurance, the government’s picking up the tab.  Now the government knows the hospital’s lying, the hospital knows they’re lying, but they’re taking 22-week preemies and saying they’re dying of COVID.  They can’t die of COVID, they’re going to die anyway.  They’re taking people who were shot and saying they’re dying of COVID. They didn’t die of COVID, they were shot.  There were people that were in car accidents, and people who were in motorcycle accidents, people who had heart attacks, people who had strokes. And everybody who dies who doesn’t have insurance all of the sudden has gotten a stamp on their left hand saying COVID.  Well it’s bullshit.  It’s not true.

~ Bob Moriarty, "Bob Moriarty: You Don't Have to Make Every Bet," Energy and Gold Ltd., August 10, 2020

Phil Duffy on the importance of learning macroeconomics

[T]he chickens will come home to roost during [Trump's] second administration if he's elected.  There's no question about that in my mind.  And that's why I think there has to be a fundamental change in thinking amongst the non-progressives, if you will, in the citizenry.  They have to understand macroeconomics and they're going to have to learn macroeconomics in a hurry or we are headed for real disaster.

~ Philip Duffy, The Law Matters interview, 24:20 mark, August 28, 2020

Kevin Duffy on hyperinflation, gold, stocks and optionality

Gold has option value or “optionality.”  It has extreme value under the rare sample path. It just so happens that this path could devastate our savings which are irreplaceable.

The same option value math applies to shares of businesses that will survive a hyperinflation. The challenge is that many won’t. There is the rub.

Robust businesses deserve an inflation premium, whereas there is little value in “short duration assets” unable to withstand a severe economic shock.

~ Kevin Duffy, The Coffee Can Portfolio, August 11, 2020

Kevin Duffy on the millennial bubble

Perhaps it is a rite of passage that every generation must take part in some sort of speculative madness.  Today’s millennials seem ideologically wired to believe in the upward slope of technological progress, conflate virtue signaling with investing, underestimate the economic damage from trillions of dollars of stimulus, and place their unswerving faith in the Fed.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Robinhood Rally," LewRockwell.com, August 22, 2020

Jeff Harris on scientific consensus

Maybe you’ve heard of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian obstetrician with a prickly personality. If not, you will quickly recognize his contribution to the medical profession with the three words he made famous:

“Wash your hands.”

This was way back in 1847.

Dr. Semmelweis provided hard data clearly demonstrating that once he and his staff began washing their hands and disinfecting equipment between patients the number of infections and deaths dropped dramatically. Unfortunately, the scientific “consensus” at the time held that there was no benefit to these measures and his advice was almost completely ignored by the learned medical community. In fact, many of his medical peers were incensed with his suggestion that they could be responsible for transmitting illness and disease!

At the time doctors took pride in their soiled gowns as a mark of their industrious work! It was commonplace for doctors who had just completed an autopsy to go to the maternity ward and deliver babies without ever washing up! After all it was the “consensus” and with so many doctors in agreement how could they be wrong?

Dr. Semmelweis died in an insane asylum in 1865 knowing that untold numbers of patients had needlessly suffered and died because the medical community refused to accept his findings and instead chose to follow the "consensus."

~ Jeff Harris, The Ron Paul Institute for Peace &scie Prosperity, "Science Is Not About Consensus," ZeroHedge.com, August 27, 2020

Thomas Luongo on the culture war

This is a war between radicalized lunatics bathed in unquenchable envy and self-pity and those who refuse to act like victims.

But they are victims.

All of us are. On both sides of the divide.

We are victims of a vicious program to divide and conquer the U.S. through a culture war designed to dehumanize each other. We fight among ourselves over scraps while the people who manipulated events to this point walk away laughing at the destruction.

They want the violence. They love it. They relish it. It brings them power and prestige.

~ Thomas Luongo, "After Kenosha - Divided We Stand," LewRockwell.com, August 28, 2020

Friedrich Hayek on the role of the economist: "gardener, not craftsman"

If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in [economics], as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible.  He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants.

There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, “dizzy with success," to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will. The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men’s fatal striving to control society – a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

~ Friedrich Hayek, Nobel Prize speech, December 11, 1974

Kevin Duffy on the politicization of the NBA: "We're living in the Matrix"

The NBA has done irreparable damage to their brand.  Credibility takes a long time to build, but can be lost overnight.  What David Stern created, Adam Silver destroyed by toeing the official line.

The politicization of the NBA was predictable because the franchise enjoys a symbiotic relationship with government, including subsidies for lavish sports arenas.  These subsidies (payed by the taxpayer) go into the pockets of billionaire owners and millionaire players.  Welfare for the rich.

Instead of being grateful, they insult the very people who support them.  Worse, they insult our intelligence promoting a bogus cause.  (If anyone who worked for the NBA, TNT or ESPN condemned black communities for disproportionately high levels of fatherless families and violent crime, they'd be fired in a heartbeat.  "Action" always means extracting more money from the hapless taxpayer and never taking responsibility.)

The official narratives don't just stop at BLM.  If you're in a bubble, and everyone is testing negative for Covid and young and healthy, why the incessant mask-wearing?  Why is a young, attractive female reporter wearing a mask when she's practically the only person in the gym?  This is nothing more than cramming more of the official propaganda down our throats. It's not even subtle.

We're living in the Matrix.

~ Kevin Duffy, August 27, 2020

Ludwig von Mises on the meaning of inflation

To avoid being blamed for the nefarious consequences of inflation, the government and its henchmen resort to a semantic trick. They try to change the meaning of the terms. They call “inflation” the inevitable consequence of inflation, namely, the rise in prices. They are anxious to relegate into oblivion the fact that this rise is produced by an increase in the amount of money and money substitutes. They never mention this increase. They put the responsibility for the rising cost of living on business. This is a classical case of the thief crying “catch the thief.” The government, which produced the inflation by multiplying the supply of money, incriminates the manufacturers and merchants and glories in the role of being a champion of low prices.

~ Ludwig von Mises

(Quote was referenced by Frank Shostak's December 6, 2016 article "Inflation is Not About Price Increases" and Kevin Duffy's March 4, 2006 article "Is the Inflation Camp on the Bubble?".)

Vasko Kohlmayer on the BLM attacks on Christian symbols

The protestors themselves make their intentions clear as they barely attempt to hide their true motives. In many cases they do not bother to make even tenuous links between their faux cause of “anti-racism” and their attacks on Christianity. In fact, they are surprisingly brazen about their goals. By inscribing slogans such as “God is dead,” and “There is no God” and by drawing anarchist and pagan graffiti on the walls of Christian edifices, these “anti-racism” protesters could not be more clear about what they really want.

Just think about it: What do pagan symbols have to do with the struggle for “racial justice?” Have pagan cultures ever been known for their racial tolerance and equality? Have they ever been known to treat minorities with compassion and understanding? Anyone who knows anything about history knows that there has been little social justice in pagan cultures. As a rule, the way pagan societies treat their minorities is appalling. To express this truth in modern idiom, pagan cultures almost invariably discriminate – often brutally – on the basis of race, gender, national original, disability, sexual orientation and on the basis of whatever else that can make one different from the ruling elite in charge. The only societies that have treated minorities with understanding and compassion have been those arising from the Western civilizational stream. Western societies are the only ones in history in which minorities are given the full measure of human respect and equal rights. As far as we know, there have been no significant social justice movement in pagan societies. This should not surprise, since any would-be activists against oppression in non-Christian cultures usually come to a quick end.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "Loathing of the West: The Real Reason 'Anti-Racism' Protestors Desecrate Christian Churches," LewRockwell.com, August 25, 2020

Arson incident in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood

Kevin Duffy ranks Tesla's $413 billion valuation

At the high this morning, Tesla reached a market cap of $440 billion. Despite a pullback, it still ranks #8 for U.S. stocks:

#7 - Visa = $448 bil
#8 - Tesla = $413 bil
#9 - J&J = $399 bil
#10 - P&G = $340 bil
#11 - NVIDIA = $300 bil

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, August 24, 2020

Whitney George on survival

To win the race you've got to finish.

~ Whitney George

Chris Pavese on the Dunning-Kruger effect (circle of competence)

The more we learn, the more questions we have. But the reverse is also true. The fewer questions we ask, the less we know. This is why poor students often feel more successful than the brightest in the bunch. They lack insight into their own limitations. In other words, without an appreciation for the vast body of knowledge out there, it’s impossible to know how little they know. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool.

In the field of psychology, this cognitive bias is known as The Dunning–Kruger Effect. It comes from the inability of people to recognize their lack of ability. Without self-awareness, it can be challenging to evaluate competence or the lack thereof. Said differently, the more incompetent you are, the less you’re aware of your own incompetence.

~ Christopher Pavese, CIO of Broyhill Asset Management, The Broyhill Letter, August 2020

Bernard Baruch on investor folly

The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.

~ Bernard Baruch

Chris Pavese on the disconnect between stock prices and economic fundamentals

While the many oddities within the market are puzzling enough, the most striking aberration is the gap between asset prices and economic fundamentals. To paraphrase Jeremy Grantham, today’s market is valued at levels only seen maybe 10% of the time, while the economy is bouncing around at recessionary levels only seen maybe 10% of the time.

~ Christopher Pavese, CIO of Broyhill Asset Management, The Broyhill Letter, August 2020

Michael Bloomberg endorses the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential ticket

The country needs stable, mature, responsible leadership to pull us out of this ongoing disaster - and Senator Harris will help Joe Biden deliver it...  Joe's decades in the Senate proved to be a major asset for President Obama, especially his successful work with legislators to pass the Affordable Care Act... 

Biden's selection bodes well for the kind of president he would be: someone who prioritizes competence, listens to and respects different viewpoints, embraces diversity, and builds teams with strong leaders.  We need those values back in the White House more urgently than ever.

~ Michael Bloomberg, "Biden's Smart VP Pick Tells Us a Lot," Bloomberg Businesweek, August 17, 2020

Vasko Kohlmayer on reverse discrimination in America

Here is the crux of the matter: Racism activists claim that America is a racist society that systemically discriminates against black people, but they fail to submit any genuine evidence in support their claims. In the absence of such evidence, it has to be concluded that their allegations are untrue. On the other hand, it is quite obvious that there exists reverse discrimination all throughout our society that favors black Americans. This observation can be easily backed up with hundreds of genuine real-life, documentable examples of social and institutional practice.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "The Myth of Systemic Racism: In America, Reverse Discrimination is the Norm," LewRockwell.com, August 21, 2020

Whitney George on the culture at Royce & Associates in the late 1990s

In the late '90s, when everybody was firing their value managers - because then making 10 or 20% per year was like losing money, relative to being in the dot-com boom - we hired a lot of very good people, and have found that the best time to get talented good people is when nobody else wants them.  Because when things are going well, why would anybody change jobs?

~ Whitney George, interview with Rick Rule, 15:00 mark, YouTube, April 26, 2017

Whitney George on investing in resource stocks

It became fairly clear to me [in the late 1990s], as a history major having seen these periods before, if the money to buy things became infinite, maybe you wanted to own those things that were finite in their quantities.

~ Whitney George, interview with Rick Rule, 11:30 mark, YouTube, April 26, 2017

Whitney George on the omnichannel model

There are some good retailers who have done the combination correctly.  People don't believe it.  There's still a huge catalog business out there.  Online has really cannibalized the catalog business more than it has the in-store business.  At the end of the day, if somebody's online, they have to have a delivery system for you to get the merchandise.  And so setting up warehouses all over the country is one way to do it, but using your stores more proactively as distribution centers for online sales and bringing people into the stores can work very nicely.  I think there's a good combination out there of doing two or all three of those kinds of merchandising under one roof.

~ Whitney George, interview with Albert Lu, YouTube, 35:00 mark, April 5, 2017

Kevin Duffy on Tesla's $400 billion valuation

Tesla has become the poster child of the millennial bubble, p.c. bubble, EV bubble and VC bubble.  Its stock commands a market value of $412 billion, more than BMW, Daimler, Volkswagen, Toyota and General Motors combined.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Robinhood Rally," LewRockwell.com, August 22, 2020

Vasko Kohlmayer on racially motivated police brutality

Notice this: Fewer blacks die in the hands of police than would be expected given the crime ratios. Even though more than half of violent criminals are black, they constitute about one quarter of suspects shot by law enforcement. In other words, black criminals are disproportionally less likely to be killed than white criminals.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "The Myth of Systemic Racism: In America, Reverse Discrimination is the Norm," LewRockwell.com, August 21, 2020

Paul Craig Roberts on "white privilege"

The vicious propaganda in the United States against white people is as bad if not worse than the Nazi propaganda against Jews, and it will have the same result. Indeed, it already has. What is the difference between krystallnacht and the looting and burning of white businesses?

~ Paul Craig Roberts, "White Privilege?," LewRockwell.com, August 21, 2020

Doug Casey on monetary inflation and the business cycle

If the central bank deposited $10,000 in everyone’s bank account next Monday, everyone would think they were wealthier and start consuming more. This would start a business cycle. The business cycle is always the result of currency inflation, no matter how subtle or mild. And it always results in a depression. The longer an inflation goes on, the more ingrained the distortions and misallocations of capital become, and the worse the resulting depression.

~ Doug Casey, "How Fascism Comes to America," LewRockwell.com, August 20, 2020

Doug Casey on two reasons for optimism

There are reasons for optimism, of course, and at least two of them make sense.

The first is that every individual wants to improve his economic status. Many (but by no means all) of them will intuit that the surest way to do so is to produce more than they consume and save the difference. That creates capital, which can be invested in or loaned to productive enterprises. But what if outside forces make that impossible, or at least much harder than it should be?

The second reason for optimism is the development of technology – which is the ability to manipulate the material world to suit our desires. Scientists and engineers develop technology, and that also adds to the supply of capital. The more complex technology becomes, the more outside capital is required. But what if sufficient capital isn’t generated by individuals and businesses to fund further technological advances?

~ Doug Casey, "How Fascism Comes to America," LewRockwell.com, August 20, 2020

Gary Barnett on Covid totalitarianism around the world

Look at the steps being taken around the world, and understand that all the tyranny and oppression seen in individual countries will soon consume all countries. Every measure taken in China, in Europe, in Australia, in Asia, and elsewhere, including the United States, will not long be isolated to one country or another, but will be the norm everywhere. This is the plan, and it is not accidental, as many of the totalitarian measures being forced on the people around the world are tests to judge compliance, and if successfully implemented in one country, will be transferred to all in time...

The Prime Minister of Australia yesterday, Scott Morrison, stated that  

“Australia should make any coronavirus vaccine compulsory for its 25 million citizens bar medical exemptions.” This comes with the knowledge that the overstated total deaths in Australia have reached only 400 out of 25 million citizens. That is a death rate of .000016%. Does anyone not see the unbelievable and ludicrous nature of such a nonsensical statement? It was obviously a tactic meant to instill great fear in the minds of the people so that total control can be achieved. This was a political mandate that could test the waters of dissent, and once that dissent is squelched, the mandate could become effective. Any vaccine at this stage would be untested and very dangerous, and in addition, would infect an entire population based on nothing other than gaining control over a nation. As I mentioned above, if it happens in Australia, it will be attempted here as well.

~ Gary Barnett, "Virus Insanity: The Obvious Absurdity of it All," LewRockwell.com, August 20, 2020

(According to the Johns Hopkins database, there have been 463 official Covid deaths in Australia so far.)

Georges Jacques Danton on revolutions

In revolutions, authority remains with the greatest scoundrels.

~ Georges Jacques Danton, intellectual leader of the French Revolution

Jared Walczak on California's proposed wealth tax

It is far easier to call for a state-level wealth tax than it is to actually design an enforceable one...  Any tax that is actually effective at taxing wealth... would be equally effective at driving wealth out of state.

~ Jared Walczak, vice president with the Tax Foundation, "California Set To Pass The Nation's First Wealth Tax Targeting The Ultra Rich," ZeroHedge, August 17, 2020

Kevin Duffy on government "experts"

Imagine an expert who advocates a laissez faire approach to any problem.  He or she wouldn’t advance very far in “the expert model.”  For example, Alan Greenspan, a social climber above all, realized this at an early age and changed his worldview (which originally favored a gold standard).  Others, like Henry Kissinger, are plucked out of obscurity and promoted because their views are in perfect alignment with those of the political establishment.  Milton Friedman was a clever, but unusual choice for respectability.  Known for his free market views, Friedman was a monetarist who argued for greater intervention by the Federal Reserve in the 1930s to prevent the Great Depression.  He would later influence a man named Ben Bernanke, champion of “helicopter money.”

In order to rise through the ranks, economists, geopolitical consultants, regulators, and health experts must conform to the interventionist script.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Expert Model," LewRockwell.com, May 27, 2020