~ Rahim Taghnizadegan, Ronald Stöferle, Mark Valek and Heinz Blasnik, Austrian School for Investors (2015), p. 62
Oct 31, 2020
Ronald Stöferle et al. on Austrian School adherents who predicated the collapse of the 1920s boom
The Great Depression was predicted by several economists of the Austrian School: in Austria, Ludwig von Mises recognized the problem when it was still in an early stage of its development, and told his colleagues in 1924 that the then largest Austrian bank, Creditanstalt, would ultimately become insolvent. Friedrich August von Hayek published several articles in early 1929, in which he predicted the collapse of the US economic expansion. Felix Somary uttered numerous warnings in the late 1920s. In the US, the economists Benjamin Anderson and E.C. Harwood warned that the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve would lead to a crisis. However, as was Somary, they were widely ignored.
Barron's on Jerome Powell, the Great Stabilizer
[T]he Washington leader... has done more than any other to stabilize the U.S. economy...
Faced with a pandemic that has forced Americans to stay in their homes and shut down their businesses, the Fed, under Powell’s leadership, acted swiftly to prevent a major financial catastrophe from unfolding. The central bank cut interest rates to near zero, unleashed enormous bond-buying programs, deployed new lending facilities, and went far beyond what any Fed had done in the past...
[M]onetary policy is set to remain a steadfast support for the U.S. economy, and a backstop that takes the worst-case financial-market outcomes off the table. At the center of that will be Powell, whose term runs until February 2022.
~ Barron's, "Fed Chief Steers a Steady Course in a Turbulent Time," by Nicholas Jasinski, October 31, 2020
 |
| "No matter what happens on Election Day, count on Fed Chariman Jerome Powell as the stabilizing force for the economy and the markets." |
Sean Connery on the freedom of youth
But when I was young, we didn't know we lacked anything, we had nothing to compare it to. And there's a freedom in that.
~ Sir Sean Connery, speech for American Film
Life Achievement Award, 2016
 |
| Sean Connery 1930 - 2020 |
Kevin Duffy exposes the quasi-statist Liberty Series of 1954-1968
I was just going through my old stamp collection and stumbled on the “Liberty Series” of 1954-1959. Denominations went from ½ cent to $5.00. You’ll never guess who was on the $5.00 stamp - Alexander Hamilton. In fact, John Marshall was on the 40 cent stamp as well. Other noteworthies in the series: Lincoln (4 cent, standard postage at the time), Teddy Roosevelt (6 cent), and Wilson (7 cent).
Of course, mixed in were many who belonged, probably to give the series some legitimacy: Franklin (½ cent), Washington (1 cent), Jefferson (2 cent), Revere (25 cent), Robert E. Lee (30 cent) and Patrick Henry ($1.00).
~ Kevin Duffy, email to Tom DiLorenzo, January 31, 2009
(DiLorenzo responded, "How politically incorrect to put Robert E. Lee on a
stamp! It would never happen today.")
Ben Franklin on poverty
I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
~ Ben Franklin
 |
| Benjamin Franklin 1912-1914 |
Brad Polumbo on generous unemployment benefits to counter Covid lockdowns
Trapping more people in a state of government dependency isn’t generous—and it isn’t sustainable. It’s cruel.
~ Brad Polumbo, "Why Responding to the COVID Poverty Spike With More Welfare is Cruel, Not Generous," FEE.org, October 27, 2020
Oct 30, 2020
Tom Clancy on government efficiency
What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.
~ Tom Clancy
Stanley Druckenmiller on debt and future stock returns
We have borrowed so much that I’m skeptical that three to five years out that equities will give us any kind of return.
~ Stanley Druckenmiller, Robin Hood Investors Conference, October 27, 2020
(quoted in "This billionaire protégé of George Soros has returned 30% a year for decades — here’s his gloomy take on what’s next in the stock market," by Shawn Langlois, MarketWatch.com, October 28, 2020
Bill De Blasio on income inequality and the "socialistic impulse" in NYC
Q: In 2013, you ran on reducing income inequality. Where has it been hardest to make progress? Wages, housing, schools?
De Blasio: What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be. I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development.
~ Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City, "In Conversation: Bill de Blasio," New York magazine, September 4, 2017
Oct 29, 2020
David Gordon on elitism in America
Elite policy is at its worst in California, now under the near-total domination of the left wing of the Democratic Party...
Who are the ordinary Americans the elite disdains, and who are the elite? The ordinary Americans are those whom Hillary Clinton called "deplorables," i.e., white males who value their family, their religion, and their property, including their guns...
The elite consists at its core of wealthy financiers and business interests allied with government. It is buttressed by professionals who have attended top universities, especially those of the Ivy League.
~ David Gordon, "America at the Point of No Return," The Austrian, September-October 2020
Thomas Sowell on how the left treats the black community
When the political left wants to help the black community, they usually want to help the worst elements in that community—thugs they portray as martyrs, for example—without the slightest regard for negative effects this can have on the lives of the majority of decent black people.
~ Thomas Sowell, tweet, October 29, 2020
Ray Dalio on the 2020 election
If I was to take both parties we’ll have large deficits and monetization. Both parties will have an aggressive China policy, I think. But one party will be more capitalist and let’s say favor asset holders. One will be more left and favor redistribution.
[Capitalists] understand productivity and so on, but they don’t know how to divide the pie that well. And socialists or those that are more of the left have a problem producing as much the increase in productivity.
~ Ray Dalio, "Why billionaire investor Ray Dalio hates cash and bonds, and says the election won’t change his view on the economy," MarketWatch.com, by Steve Goldstein, October 28, 2020
Oct 28, 2020
Paul Craig Roberts on the 2020 presidential election
The November presidential election is not about a choice between a Republican and a Democrat, Trump or Biden/Kamala. It is about a choice between Trump and the Establishment.
[...]
Approximately half of the American population are too indoctrinated and brainwashed to understand what is at stake. These Americans see a vote against Trump as a vote against racism, misogyny, Covid, wealth, and orange hair. The mindlessness of these Americans, should their votes prevail, would complete the transformation of American democracy into rule by unaccountable elites.
~ Paul Craig Roberts, "November's Choice: Trump or the Establishment," LewRockwell.com, October 28, 2020
Walter Williams on the root of today's political divisiveness
Perhaps the most tragic aspect of today’s division is that much of it is a byproduct of our education system where young people are taught to hate our nation’s founders and founding principles. However, it is these principles, though practiced imperfectly, that have created the freest and richest nation in mankind’s history. The question is if our nation can survive the widespread anti-Trump hate.
~ Walter Williams, "Is Getting Trump Worth It?," LewRockwell.com, October 28, 2020
Walter Williams on West Virginia statehood
So, far as dividing up states, Article IV of our Constitution, in part, says, “but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
By the way, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, who claimed that he was fighting against secession, violated the U.S. Constitution when he proclaimed the admission of West Virginia into the Union. The Virginia state legislature did not vote to support West Virginia’s secession from Virginia.
~ Walter Williams, "Is Getting Trump Worth It?," LewRockwell.com, October 28, 2020
Oct 27, 2020
Schopenhauer on history
Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.
~ Arthur Schopenhauer
Inigo Fraser-Jenkins on how Amazon is destroying retail moats
If Amazon is going to continue to destroy other parts of the retail sector, say, then why should we expect mean-reversion to still hold? We agree that this dynamic is likely behind part of the underperformance of value. Technology has disrupted industries in a way that may permanently destroy ‘moats’ that used to exist around certain industries.
~ Inigo Fraser-Jenkins, Sanford C. Bernstein’s head of European quantitative strategy, "Is value investing dead? It might be and here’s what killed it," CNBC.com, June 23, 2019
Paul Gottried on the use of riots for political gain
Riots by what Tucker Carlson aptly characterized as the “Biden voters” did not happen by chance. The Democratic Party and the overwhelmingly Democratic media condoned and even incited these “peaceful protests,” and former Vice President Biden’s staff labored mightily to bail out apprehended perpetrators of violence in order to put them back onto the streets. This is standard operating procedure for political movements trying to seize power. After World War II, the Soviets arranged for mob violence in Hungary, Poland, and other countries they occupied as preparation for the imposition of a Communist dictatorship. This violence, authorities claimed, proved the need for a new order.
~ Paul Gottried, "What an American One-Party System Would Really Look Like," American Greatness, October 25, 2020
The Nazi Brown Shirts wrought havoc in Weimar Germany that Hitler then insisted only his rule would end. While Brown Shirts battled with real Communists on the streets of German cities, our media have less credible street enemies. The best they can come up with is the mostly powerless, racially integrated Proud Boys, policemen who killed or wounded several black men with long criminal records, and President Trump’s indelicate phraseology. Apparently, these troublemakers, not the Democratic-friendly BLM and Antifa, were behind the mayhem and looting during the “Summer of Violence.”
Murray Rothbard on protectionism
In the host of special interests using the political process to repress and loot the rest of us, the protectionists are among the most venerable. It is high time that we get them, once and for all, off our backs, and treat them with the righteous indignation they so richly deserve.
~ Murray Rothbard, Making Economic Sense (1995), "Smashing Economic 'Theory' (Again)"
Oct 26, 2020
Bloomberg Businessweek on Robinhood and investing
Robinhood embraces the idea that investing should be accessible and, yes, thrilling. Its executives often deploy the Silicon Valley-ism that using their product should be "delightful," a word not normally associated with securities investing.
~ Bloomberg Businessweek, "Eat. Sleep. Robinhood. Repeat.," October 26, 2020
Karen DeCoster Campbell on media fearmongering over Coronavirus cases and the social media mob
Observation: So many imbeciles out there who think that every "case" counted (tested positive for *any* coronavirus via an inadequate PCR test) is the equivalent of a very sick person with severe symptoms who needs to be hospitalized in critical condition, thereby "overrunning the hospitals." The threat of "overrunning the hospitals" is the favored media tactic for instilling fear and demanding immediate obedience...
These imbeciles won't ever question the fact that these cases are not, by definition, "sick people." Conversely, anyone who does ask that question ("But are they sick?") and ponders why the media stops at reporting "cases" is immediately swarmed under by an assemblage of low-IQ knuckleheads. I see people who are peacefully and thoughtfully challenging these appalling, dumbed-down media stories with intelligible statements and questions, yet they are immediately stomped on by gaggles of intolerant, hate-ridden, nasty, Left-wing barbarians who, apparently, think they are virtue-signaling their way to heaven.
~ Karen DeCoster Campbell, Facebook post, October 26, 2020
Gregg Henrequies on cultural bubbles
Whereas it is usually pretty easy to see outside your cultural bubble at the micro and intermediate levels, to step outside your cultural bubble at the macro level you need to make deliberate efforts.
One of the best and most reliable ways to get perspective on your cultural bubble is to interact with people who live in very different bubbles. For example, a couple of years ago, I traveled to Costa Rica for a couple of weeks. In the context of a conversation with a Costa Rican, I identified as being an American. The response I received was, “In the Western Hemisphere, we are all from America. You are from the United States.” In my bubble, America and the United States are essentially synonymous. From the vantage point of someone in Costa Rica, that is reflective of an insensitive nationalistic bias that is perceived by many to be prominent feature of folks from the United States.
~ Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., "Cultural Bubbles in the Era of Globalization," Psychology Today, June 6, 2014
Kevin Duffy compares laissez faire to social democracy
Quora question: Why does free market economy win against centrally planned & controlled economy?
Pascal Morimacil: The laissez-faire ideology is to let the totalitarian power structures created by private owners have full reign over the planet without having any democracy hinder them.
Kevin Duffy: This is Orwellian: freedom = control.
There is a critical difference between Jeff Bezos and modern day social democracies. Bezos can’t force anyone to do anything. He can persuade investors to invest in his money-losing scheme in the late 1990s, with the promise that they’ll someday be rewarded. He can hire people to work for him, often enticing them with stock options which would be worthless if the company failed. He can persuade customers to buy his company’s products. Of course the only way he’ll succeed is to give them better value, either with service, quality or lower price. He also has to make his suppliers happy.
All of these transactions are uncoerced and, as a result, mutually beneficial. They also involve a certain amount of risk from both parties, but if they’re not satisfied (or if a better deal comes along), they can leave. E.g., a customer can return an order or employee can quit and go work for a competitor. And, yes, it also means Bezos can, and does, fire employees. I’m sure he’s also terminated suppliers as well, and replaced them with others.
How do social democracies pass the coercion test? Not well. Everything the government does involves force. K-12 public schooling is a good example. The entire system is based on compulsory funding, curriculum and attendance. If, as a parent, you object to what the school teaches (which is increasingly pro-government propaganda, especially regarding history), you can’t get a tax refund and decide how your child spends his formative years. The closest you can come is homeschooling, but you are still under the thumb of the state.
But what about “democracy?” Doesn’t this give people choice? It gives a majority the ability to choose between two candidates who may or may not represent their views. In fact, it’s statistically impossible for ANY candidate to represent one’s views and choices fully.
The Founders were fearful of democracy and tried (unsuccessfully) to limit its abuses. Madison warned, “Democracy was the right of the people to choose their own tyrants.” Jefferson was just as harsh: “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
The evidence that government-run schools are a danger is that these lessons have been lost.
~ Kevin Duffy, Quora answer, October 26, 2020
Oct 25, 2020
Gad Saad on higher education and feelings
When you attend a university, it is not for the coddling of your feelings. It's for the growth of your intellectual landscape. And so once you pit these two systems against one another, only bad things can come of it.
~ Dr. Gad Saad, "How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense," 19:28 mark, Stansberry Investor Hour, October 8, 2020
David Wallack on why he avoids companies that were leveraged buyouts
By the time private-equity firms are through with them, they've milked as much profitability as they can, and often you have a smoldering husk that remains prettied up for the IPO.
~ David Wallack, portfolio manager, T. Rowe Price Mid-Cap Value Fund, "A Value Fund Reopens," Barron's, October 24, 2020
House Beautiful: "Is the term 'master bedroom' politically incorrect?"
"Master bedroom" is a problematic term for its ties to slavery, implying a concept of dominance and ownership with which a modern-day room need not be imbued.
~ House Beautiful, "Is the Term “Master Bedroom” Politically Incorrect?," July 28, 2020
Bloomberg on the popularity of ESG funds in 2020
Issuers have realized the benefits of ESG branding. At least eight funds have relaunched this year to switch to the strategy, versus a maximum of two in previous years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.
There have been 17 ESG ETFs launched so far in 2020, compared with 10 in all of 2019. And the inflows keep coming. ESG funds have already taken in almost $4.1 billion in October, on track for their best month since at least 2013.
~ Bloomberg, "Record Flows Pour Into ESG Funds as Their ‘Wokeness’ Is Debated," by Casey Wagner and Claire Ballentine, October 25, 2020
Bloomberg: SEC considering rules for funds to label themselves "ESG"
Complicating socially conscious investing is the fact the Securities and Exchange Commission doesn’t regulate how the ESG label is applied, though it’s considering adding rules for funds that call themselves ESG or sustainable.
~ Bloomberg, "Record Flows Pour Into ESG Funds as Their ‘Wokeness’ Is Debated," by Casey Wagner and Claire Ballentine, October 25, 2020
Oct 24, 2020
David Kelly on the death of budget deficit hawks
The species has died. The 2017 Tax Act proved that you couldn't call the Republicans exactly deficit hawks. And I certainly don't think you could characterize [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi as a deficit hawk.
~ David Kelly, chief global strategist, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, October 23, 2020
(As quoted in Streetwise section of Barron's on October 24, 2020)
Emma Elliott Freire on the impact of the Covid rules on children
Articles about the impact of the pandemic on children tend to focus on the education they have lost due to school closures. But it is also worth noting that children are witnessing repeated violations of their innate sense of fairness. This may well leave them with a sense of mistrust towards institutions and authorities. Is COVID-19 going to raise up a generation of libertarians?
~ Emma Elliott Freire, "Why COVID Kids May Grow Up To Be Libertarians," FEE.org, October 13, 2020
Oct 23, 2020
Kevin Duffy on the political correctness bubble
Organizations like Twitter, the NBA, Nike, major universities, etc. are destroying themselves with wokeness. We should celebrate that. As the big trees fall, the forest will rejuvenate. Alternative voices like ours are the green shoots in the forest.
~ Kevin Duffy, LinkedIn comment to Jesse Columbo, October 23, 2020
P.J. O'Rourke on why a Biden presidency would be bad, but a Trump second term would be even worse
Biden's campaign platform is 564 pages long. It promises everything to everybody. It's full of unicorns and flying ponies and candy-flavored rainbows and pixie dust. And when those flying ponies glide with the marzipan rainbows and pixie dust starts to gum up the works of society … we're going to be in for a mess … But on the other hand, I think we're done with this experiment of having the inmates run the asylum.
There's wrong and there's damn wrong.
~ P.J. O'Rourke, A Cry From the Far Middle: Dispatches From a Divided Land
(Book passage was quoted by Reason.com in "P.J. O'Rourke: 'This Is the End of the World for Classical Liberalism'," October 22, 2020
Scott Minerd predicts negative yields for U.S. Treasury bonds (2020)
We could ultimately see a ‘yield’ of negative 50 basis points on the 10-year note, and corporate yields in the neighborhood of 1 percent for investment grade corporate debt.
~ Scott Minerd, Guggenheim Partners, "Markets are in ‘eye of the storm’ and mounting turmoil will drive stocks lower and 10-year bonds to negative 0.50%," MarketWatch.com, October 22, 2020
Frederick Douglass on critical thinking and slavery
To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one.
~ Frederick Douglass
Oct 22, 2020
Symphony violinist describes post-Covid concert dystopia
A symphony orchestra in the Midwest who shall remain unnamed recently rolled out their virus protocol for rehearsals and performances. A serology test upon arrival into town. Chairs separated by 6 ft, and the eradication of stand partners (any musician can tell you of the difficulty this deviation-from-the-norm causes). Absolutely no shifting around of any equipment or it must be re-measured and readjusted by the stage manager. And -- of course -- our issued N95 masks. Wind players are allowed to remove the mask when the instrument actually touches their lips...how benevolent.
The kicker: The concert was performed outdoors in a baseball stadium to avoid all the dangers of the concert hall. Due to 20mph winds and rain, we performed only a Mozart overture before being sent home.
It was a rough weekend for an outspoken libertarian. Incensed, I returned to my hotel room after the first rehearsal and composed a 1000-word op-ed to the New York Times and a few other publications closer to my hometown of Kansas City. The self-explanatory title: "No, It's Not 'Better Than Not Playing.'"
No one accepted my writing. Why would they? It doesn't suit the arts-world narrative of "mask up, stay safe, protect your fellow musicians."
I am in incredible disbelief that virtually no one else in my industry is willing to speak out against this madness. It is crippling our livelihoods, and they ignore the root of the problem.
Following this gig debacle, I have made the sad decision not to take another restricted playing opportunity until the hysteria has died down. Enough is enough. We're not making music anymore, we're following draconian orders -- usually mandated by some higher-up authority who clearly has no concept of how musical ensembles operate.
I digress. Thank you for being an arts supporter. Thank you for speaking reason and balance and sanity into the void -- even if it doesn't reach as far as my statist compatriots in the orchestra field.
Musically yours,
A disgruntled symphony violinist
~ Email to Tom Woods, October 22, 2020
Karen DeCoster Campbell: "Remove your damn masks"
Remove your damn masks. All you are doing is reinforcing the power of the politicians who are turning you into puppets. The mask enforcement racket is near-dead. Nearly everyone is tired of the whole scam: the constant assault of harrowing media headlines, the Covid numbers game ("cases and infections"), authoritarian politicians, and the ongoing mask bullshit almost eight months later.
~ Karen DeCoster Campbell, Facebook post, October 22, 2020
Tim Quinson on the global popularity of ESG
Investors have been increasing their bets on ESG, in part because they want to avoid polluters like Big Oil. About $20 billion flowed into ESG- and values-focused exchange-traded funds this year (as of Sept. 30), exceeding the calendar-year record of $9.2 billion set in 2019, data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence show.
Climate change ranks right behind corruption among the biggest ESG-related concerns for investors, according to a survey of about 800 fund industry officials and consultants by RBC Global Asset Management.
But America lags behind the rest of the world when it comes to putting ESG to work financially. While 94% of respondents in Europe, 89% in Canada and 72% in Asia said they have incorporated ESG into their investment approach, only 65% of U.S. investors have done so.
~ Tim Quinson, "Trump Administration Moves at ‘Warp Speed’ to Scrap ESG Rule," WealthManagement.com, October 21, 2020
Oct 21, 2020
The CDC on excess deaths in 2020 for ages 25-44
The largest percentage increase in excess deaths from all causes was among adults aged 25–44 years at 26.5%.
~ Center for Disease Control and Prevention, "U.S. reports about 300,000 more deaths during pandemic than in typical year," Reuters, October 20, 2020
(Original CDC source)
Louisville Metro Police sergeant on the killing of Breonna Taylor and the mayor's unwillingness to release information that would have exonerated the police officers
This had nothing to do with race. Nothing at all.
A lot of (the) flames that have come up, a lot of this stuff could have been diverted. Now, would people still have a problem with it? Yes. But I think with the truth coming out, then you wouldn’t have as much distrust.
[...]
[He pointed specifically to claims that Taylor was asleep, that officers were at the wrong home or that Taylor didn’t know Jamarcus Glover, Taylor's ex-boyfriend who was a main target in the narcotics investigation the led to the attempted search of Taylor's home, which he said would have been possible to clarify without harming the case.]
It fell on deaf ears, and politics, in my opinion, played a big part of it. There’s a reason that the fire wasn’t put out early, that he (Mayor Fischer) let it simmer until it got to where it was at, and then it got out of control, and I don’t think he knew how to reel it back in.
~ Jonathan Mattingly, Louisville Metro Police sergeant, "'She didn't deserve to die': Louisville officer involved in Breonna Taylor case speaks out," USA Today by way of Louisville Courier Journal, October 21, 2020
Oct 20, 2020
Jim Grant on the empirical case for a lassiez faire response to recessions
The case for better, more robust expansions (followed, of necessity, by lustier, more dynamic contractions) is based on the conviction that failure is an integral part of the capitalist cycle. The argument is advanced in this chapter without the aid of an econometric model. Instead, the principal exhibits are historical: America and Japan in both the early 1920s and the early 1990s. In each era, inflation of one kind or another demanded a public-policy response. The most successful policy was that of the United States in the early 1920s: a short, sharp depression. The least successful policy was that of Japan in the early and mid-1990s: a chronic, lingering recession.
~ Jim Grant, The Trouble With Prosperity, p. 117
Jim Grant: inflation is "kryptonite" to the 39-year bond bull market
Every asset class has its kryptonite. For gold, it's real interest rates. For bonds, it's inflation. In their latest quarterly bulletin, America's most successful and steadfast bond bulls, Van Hoisington and Lacy Hunt, identify this newfangled QE as a mortal risk to the fixed-income bull market that just marked its 39th anniversary.
~ Jim Grant, Grant's Interest Rate Observer, October 16, 2020, p. 9
USA Today endorses Joe Biden, its first-ever presidential endorsement
This is not something we do lightly or do eagerly.
~ Bill Sternberg, head of USA Today’s editorial board, October 20, 2020
Edward Gibbon on the delusion of a benign dictatorship
[The Romans] must often have recollected the instability of a happiness which depended on the character of a single man. The fatal moment was perhaps approaching, when some licentious youth, or some jealous tyrant would abuse, to the destruction of that absolute power, which they had exerted for the benefit of their people. The ideal restraints of the senate and the laws might serve to display the virtues, but could never correct the vices of the emperor.
~ Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Volume I, Chapter III, Part II)
Oct 19, 2020
Peggy Noonan on the Civil War
The civil war was, in short, a great moral struggle in which a nation went to war with itself to answer, for us, forever, a question: Does one human being have the right to own another? The answer, got after four years of carnage and grief, was: no. Another epochal moment in human history. And if we handn't remained one strong and unified nation, the triumphs that followed would not have been possible.
~ Peggy Noonan, "What Americans Need to Know," The Wall Street Journal, November 21, 1990
Oct 18, 2020
Dr. Scott Atlas calls lockdown "a luxury of the rich"
This lockdown is what I would call a luxury of the rich. This is really a class problem here where the affluent elites don't understand what the president understands, which is people need to work, the working class needs their jobs, children need to go to school, and it's very harmful to do otherwise.
~ Dr. Scott Atlas, interview with Laura Ingraham, Fox News, October 7, 2020
Joel Kotkin on the exodus from California
When I talk to my class, 36 kids, and I ask them, "How many of you are going to stay in California?" Four. That never would've happened twenty years ago. Why would anyone want to leave California? With great weather, beautiful topography, all sorts of culture, great food, all the stuff that is really unique to California. It takes policy genius of some diabolical sort to push people out of California.
~ Joel Kotkin, "The Reasons Why So Many People Are Leaving California," 25:15 mark, The Epoch Times, February 19, 2020
Michael Tomasky on why mask mandates are compatible with freedom
Freedom emphatically does not include the freedom to get someone else sick. It does not include the freedom to refuse to wear a mask in the grocery store, sneeze on someone in the produce section and give him the virus. That’s not freedom for the person who is sneezed upon. For that person, the first person’s “freedom” means chains — potential illness and even perhaps a death sentence. No society can function on that definition of freedom.
~ Michael Tomasky, "There's a Word For Why We Wear Masks, and Liberals Should Say It," The New York Times, October 17, 2020
Kevin Duffy tweet: This is a property rights issue. Grocery stores, restaurants, your neighbors, grandma... they all make the rules once you step on their property. If they require masks, abide by the rules or leave.
But this also applies to businesses and customers who agree not to mask.
Government lockdowns violate the rights of the latter group and destroy freedom of association in the process. They are tyranny plain and simple, and incompatible with freedom.
Michael Tomasky tweet: You are silly. And muted.
World Health Organization on asymptomatic and child-adult transmission of Covid-19
How are COVID-19 and influenza viruses different?
[T]ransmission in the first 3-5 days of illness, or potentially pre-symptomatic transmission –transmission of the virus before the appearance of symptoms – is a major driver of transmission for influenza. In contrast, while we are learning that there are people who can shed COVID-19 virus 24-48 hours prior to symptom onset, at present, this does not appear to be a major driver of transmission.
[...]
Children are important drivers of influenza virus transmission in the community. For COVID-19 virus, initial data indicates that children are less affected than adults and that clinical attack rates in the 0-19 age group are low. Further preliminary data from household transmission studies in China suggest that children are infected from adults, rather than vice versa.
~ World Health Organization, WHO website, October 18, 2020
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