Reddit user on the rise of retail investors (2021)

This is a big moment.  A tug-of-war between tradition and the future.  Hedge fund managers live in the past, and continue to look down upon the retail investors.  They truly believe that we, the average retail investors, don't know anything about finances or the market (which may be true), and we're just gambling our money away.  This is the world they want to live in.  This was the past.

~ Reddit user benaffleks, week ended January 29, 2021

(As cited by Barron's, "The GameStop Revolut Has Just Begun. Get Ready." January 30, 2021)

Kevin Duffy on the GameStop frenzy

There is a cyclical aspect of the the GameStop frenzy few are talking about.  Bob Murphy made an interesting point that this is flipping "The Big Short," which was written by Michael Lewis right after the GFC in early 2010, close to the stock market bottom.  Short sellers were held out as heroes.  A decade later, after stocks have quadrupled and short sellers practically wiped out, they're the bad guys.  And the greedy and reckless speculators dancing on their graves are the heroes! 

We've come full circle, i.e. we're probably at peak euphoria for the so-called "everything bubble." 

As for Robinhood temporarily closing the casino doors for a day, this likley had more to do with existing regulations and capital requirements which go up with increased volatility.  Robinhood apparently had to raise another $1 billion so they could fully open the casino for business on Friday (helping push GME stock up 68%). 

Btw, AOC, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, Jr. all attacked Robinhood for the same reason.  If they're all on the same side of an issue, laissez faire types have to be suspicious.  This will end in tears for the Reddit crowd who, as Bob said, refuse to take their chips and leave the poker table because they're "mad." 

This is amateur hour at the casino, and some angry, young, ideologically-charged traders are about to learn a very expensive lesson.  Who will AOC & Co. then blame?  Will they bail these people out?  The plot sickens...

~ Kevin Duffy, comment about "Ep. 1825: The Reddit/GameStop Phenomenon," The Tom Woods Show, January 30, 2021

Vlad Tenev on the temporary suspension of trading in GameStop

Our decision to temporarily restrict customers from buying certain securities had nothing to do with a market maker or a market participant or anyone like that putting pressure on us or asking us to do that. It was entirely about market dynamics and clearinghouse deposit requirements, as per regulation.

~ Vlad Tenev, co-founder of Robinhood, Yahoo!Finance interview, January 30, 2021

George Carlin on the common good

People are wonderful. I love individuals. I hate groups of people. I hate a group of people with a 'common purpose'. 'Cause pretty soon they have little hats. And armbands. And fight songs. And a list of people they're going to visit at 3am. So, I dislike and despise groups of people but I love individuals. Every person you look at; you can see the universe in their eyes, if you're really looking.

~ George Carlin

George Carlin on crowd behavior

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

~ George Carlin

Glenn Greenwald on Reddit traders vowing to drive GameStop stock up to $1,000

It has also enriched a lot of people who bought at $20 or even $30 or $40 or $100, and the stock is now at $350 with no sign of it going down because they're vowing to hold onto the stock and even drive it up to $1,000 a share.  That's the vow on Reddit.  We'll see if that happens or not. 

~ Glenn Greenwald, "The Reddit Revolution, GameStop and Melvin Capital," 15:40 mark, January 28, 2021

Glenn Greenwald on the GameStop wealth transfer: "it's like a very effective populist uprising"

Clearly there are a lot of rich investors, a lot of probably big Wall Street people, even institutional investors, who profited along the way and what the ratio is between small Redditers and these bigger actors is unclear, but nonetheless, there is no question that it germinated in Reddit in the subthread, that at least some of these people have become wealthy whereas two weeks ago they were probably struggling or poor. And it really is, if you think about it in those terms, a massive transfer of wealth from hedge fund managers - just billions of dollars - transferred to Reddit users, and that's why it has caused so much fascination because it's like a very effective populist uprising against these hedge funds. And it's also causing an extreme amount of concern and worry for the same reason on the part of Wall Street, their media allies - people saying "this needs to stopped right away, we can't have this." Essentially, as several leftist commentators and right wing commentators have said, the reaction seems to be, "oh, wait, the wrong people are manipulating Wall Street for their own interests."

~ Glenn Greenwald, " 14:00 mark

Glenn Greenwald on GameStop and market manipulation

They knew that by playing the game that these hedge fund managers typically play, which is manipulating the market for their own benefit, they could also enrich themselves. Now, if manipulating the market to the enrichment of the people doing it is what Wall Street does every day - it's what hedge funds do all the time - the only thing that is different in this case is that instead of hedge fund billionaires making billions of dollars and getting rich off market manipulation, its a bunch of anonymous Reddit trolls who have bounded together to do it. 

~ Glenn Greenwald, "The Reddit Rebellion: Gameplay and Melvin Capital," 11:20 mark, January 28, 2021

Stephanie Ruhle on the GameStop short squeeze and the "democraticization of Wall Street"

Let's talk about the positive here because there is something beautiful about the democraticization of Wall Street and finance... The fact that people can use the RobinHood app... The big guy gets bailed out before the little guy does. Stephanie Ruhle, "MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin Sound Dire Warning on GameStop Surge: ‘The Big Guy Gets Bailed out Before the Little Guy Does’," MSNBC, January 28, 2021

Kevin Duffy calls out CNBC hypocrits over GameStop madness

I'm tired of the crybabies on CNBC who pimped for massive stimulus in 2020 and have the audacity in 2021 to complain about GME going 17-bagger in 10 days.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, January 28, 2021

Kevin Duffy on GameStop madness

While I'm not shedding any tears for the big hedge funds getting crushed by swarms of Robinhood day traders, this is a warning - exactly the kind of insane behavior you would see at a generational top. I follow the stocks of retailers pretty closely.  On a good day, GameStop (GME) might be worth $2 billion.  It hit a market cap of $30 billion yesterday and is set to open up 70% (after getting being down 44% yesterday). 

We've lost sight of the fact that the financial markets exist to efficiently allocate capital.  Mock and destroy that function and you've done the same to a functioning economy.

As Charles Mackay warned in Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841): 

Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of the multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, January 29, 2021

Andrew Ross Sorkin on GameStop madness

What I'm concerned about is this is a pump-and-dump scheme that effecitly is being cloaked as Mother Theresa has arrived on the scene. I think there are real underlying issues with the system that need to be resolved. I do not want to protect the system. I love watching the little guy beat the big guy as much as anybody, but what I wonder is whether these folks who are "sticking it to the man" are sticking it to themselves in truth because... the fundamentals are so far out of whack, a lot of people are going to lose a lot of money who can't afford to lose the money.

~ Andrew Ross Sorkin, interview with Stephanie Ruhle, MSNBC, January 28, 2021

Jeremy Grantham on the everything bubble and "burst of euphoria"

It's the burst of euphoria that typically brings these things end and we are seeing it all around us today.

[...]

When you have reached this level of obvious super enthusiasm, the bubble has always, without exception, broken in the next few months, not a few years.  It's always.  You can't maintain this level of near ecstasy.  It can't be done because you've put in your last dollar.  You are all in.  What are you supposed to do at that point?  You can't borrow any more money.  You can't take any more risk.

~ Jeremy Grantham, "Why Grantham Says the Next Crash Will Rival 1929, 2000," Bloomberg interview, January 22, 2021, 8:00 and 10:00 mark

Jeffrey Tucker on the Trump legacy

Counterfactuals are impossible but nonetheless tempting.  What if the Trump administration had not alienated virtually the whole of the business community with its attempt to reverse 70 years of progress in global trade?  What if it had pursued the path of sincere diplomacy rather than coercive belligerence with China?  What if it had pushed legal reforms in immigration rather than executive edicts? And what if in January the White House had consulted traditional public health experts rather than allowing career bureaucrats to talk the president into locking down? 

We can never know the answers to these questions.  But it is likely the case that the country and world would be a very different place than it is today, perhaps even a greater place.  The economic policies of the Trump administration constitute one of the greatest lost opportunities of the postwar period.  We’ll be paying the price for decades.

~ Jeffrey Tucker, "The Economic Policy Failures of the Trump Administration," AIER, January 17, 2021

Benjamin Graham on market timing

Yet we can not avoid the conclusion that the most generally accepted principle of timing is that purchases should be made only after an upswing has announced itself, is basically opposed to the essential nature of investment.  Traditionally the investor has been the man with patience and the courage of his convictions who would buy when the harried or disheartened speculator was selling.  If the investor is now to hold back until the market itself encourages him, how will he distinguish himself from the speculator and wherein will he deserve any better than the ordinary speculator's fate?

~ Benjamin Graham, Security Analysis, p. 15

(As cited by Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 11:30 mark, January 21, 2021.)

Kevin Duffy compares today's everything bubble to the late '90s/2000 tech and dot-com bubble

I was short some of the dot-coms, big tech stocks during that time.  Brutal.  IPOs were insane, big 1st-day pops.  Priced on eyeballs, not profits.  Seemed to go on forever.  New Economy bubble next to Old Economy anti-bubble (the latter bottomed in Mar-00 right at the Nasdaq peak). 

Today is far worse: 

1) IPOs in 2020 topped previous record set in 2000 

2) Valuations higher, dollar amounts much higher 

3) SPACs... nothing like it  

4) Enthusiasm of young speculators is similar - online trading was new in 2000 

5) Greenspan and Powell both walked on water 

6) Wall Street strategists like Abby Cohen at GS were bullish in 2000; Wall St. was taken down a notch by GFC, but uniformly bullish 

7) CNBC pundits bullish in 2000, but some bears allowed on; today they've been nearly all excommunicated. 

8) There were more places to hide in 2000 

9) Bonds were out-of-favor in 2000, today they're the epicenter of the bubble 

10) Economy was on much sounder footing in 2000; debt levels are far higher today 

11) New passive bubble today; no ETFs then 

12) Cancel culture hadn't broken a sweat in 2000, now in full gallop 

13) Currency was on sounder footing in 2000, gold was near multi-decade lows; today gold is 6x higher 

14) Fed's balance sheet was a bit over $500B in 2000, now over $7T

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, January 26, 2021

September 27, 1999

Marc Faber on governments finding scapegoats for its failures

Every failed state has always accused somebody else for its own shortcomings.  The Bolsheviks blamed foreign interference and foreign spies; Stalin blamed Hitler; Hitler blamed the Communists and Jews; Trump blamed the Chinese; and the Democrats blamed Trump for everything that went wrong, etc.

~ Marc Faber, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, February 1, 2021

Kevin Duffy's advice to investors

My advice to investors is straightforward: Inflation-proof and index-proof your portfolios.  Avoid bonds, own gold, and look for value across the index divide.  View the economic world through an Austrian (or non-interventionist) lens.  If your investment advisor is a Keynesian, I’m not suggesting you necessarily fire him, but it’s time to ask some tough questions.

~ Kevin Duffy, The Coffee Can Portfolio, January 24, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the Biden economic agenda and T-bonds

The U.S. is clearly in the next Great Leap Forward phase of government growth. Over the next two years at least, the excuses to tax, spend, borrow, regulate, confiscate and print will be head-spinning: Covid, recession, unemployment, student loan debt, college for all, climate change, green energy, systemic racism, wealth inequality, universal health care, universal basic income, not enough inflation, too much inflation, old wars, new wars, domestic terrorism, etc. The price tag for this statist fantasy won’t come cheap and those in charge will act as if the credit card has no limit. 

Who in their right mind would loan money to such a profligate entity at any rate, much less 1.84% fixed for 30 years? U.S. Treasury bonds have one of the worst risk/reward characteristics of any investment I’ve seen in my 35-year career.

~ Kevin Duffy, The Coffee Can Portfolio, January 24, 2021

Rob Arnott on the Biden proposed $1.9 billion stimulus package

Words matter.  Applying the word stimulus to spending large quantities of money on a fiscal basis that we don't already have, creating new money from the central bank, it all feels good.  Stimulus, think of it as a little bit like heroin.  I've heard that heroin feels good.  But it doesn't do you a lot of good long-term.

~ Rob Arnott, Yahoo Finance interview, 0:45 mark, January 25, 2021

Rolf Dobelli on neomania

Fifty years into the future will look a lot like today. Of course, you will witness the birth of many flashy gadgets and magic contraptions. But most will be short-lived… In the past, I sympathized with early adopters, the breed of people who cannot survive without the latest iPhone. I thought they were ahead of their time. Now I regard them as irrational and suffering from a kind of sickness: neomania. To them, it is of minor importance if an invention provides tangible benefits; novelty matters more.

~ Rolf Dobelli, The Art of Thinking Clearly, p. 207

Ludwig von Mises on private vs. public sector service

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy

Sir Francis Bacon on innovation

He that will not apply new remedies, must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

~ Sir Francis Bacon

John Burroughs on words and deeds

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

~ John Burroughs, American naturalist

Markose Chenthitta on Big Tech censorship

As difficult as it is a pill to swallow, I find comfort in the actions of the censors because, let's face it, they must be afraid of the truth. In other words, we're winning. Censorship is a losing game. We know that from history. So it is just a matter of time before this all explodes in Facebook, Google, Apple's and Twitter's faces.

~ Markose Chenthitta, Facebook post, January 14, 2021

Larry Summers on the prospect of the U.S. Treasury issuing 50-year bonds

Doing that would be a major gift to all the fixed income trading desks at all the hedge funds, at the expense of taxpayers.  Given the way it's likely to be priced, it would turn out to be a major setup for arbitrage opportunity, so it won't happen anytime soon.

~ Larry Summers, interview on Bloomberg Wall Street Week, January 22, 2021

David Stockman on the Trump legacy

The everlasting irony of Donald J. Trump’s presidency is this: He had all the right enemies, but virtually without exception made all the wrong decisions during his hapless four-year sojourn in the Oval Office. 

The list of his enemies is enough to make any right-thinking supporter of peace, prosperity and liberty proud.  That starts with the TV networks and print organs of the mainstream stenographers club, who peddle the state’s propaganda and call it news.  This most especially includes the masters of mendacity at CNN, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. 

It also includes the bipartisan national security mafia, the climate change howlers, the race card hondlers, the Russophobes, the Neocon War Brigades, the NATO/IMF/UN acolytes, the Washington nomenclatura, the careerist racketeers of Capitol Hill, the beltway shills of the Lincoln Project, the Silicon Valley thought police and the celebrity scolds of entertainment and media, among others. 

With so many worthy enemies it is amazing that he managed to do so little good and so very much wrong.

~ David Stockman, "Orange Man Gone," LewRockwell.com, January 23, 2021

Rick Newman on Biden unifying the country

Biden has the temperament to be a unifying force in Washington, with many deep friendships in both parties and an affable personality resistant to grudges. He won’t be attacking everybody who disagrees with him or criticizes him, as Trump did.  And it’s important to start his term with a civil tone that might calm frayed nerves in many corners of the country. 

But come on.  The United States is deeply divided for reasons that go far beyond Trump, and much of it involves willful self-deception by Americans clinging to illusions they prefer over reality.  Biden can’t change that and it would be a waste of effort to try.

~ Rick Newman, "Biden should forget about unifying the country," Yahoo Finance, January 20, 2021

Bill Ackman on the Covid crisis and resiliency of publicly-traded companies

If you own super-resilient businesses, they’re going to do better than they would have had there been no crisis.  The stock market represents the strength of the best and most dominant, best-capitalized companies, and the stock market that doesn’t exist is a market of private, family-owned mom-and-pop stores, and that’s the decimated part of America right now.

~ Bill Ackman, "Inside the Greatest Trade of All Time—and What Bill Ackman Is Investing in Now," Barron's, September 21, 2020

Hank Aaron on his home run record

I don't want people to forget Babe Ruth.  I just want them to remember Henry Aaron. 

~ Hank Aaron

I'm hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself.  Whoever it is, I'd be pulling for him.

~ Hank Aaron

Henry Louis Aaron
1934-2021

Henry Aaron on getting the Moderna vaccine

I don’t have any qualms about it at all, you know.  I feel quite proud of myself for doing something like this...  It’s just a small thing that can help zillions of people in this country.

 
~ Henry Aaron, "Home Run King Hank Aaron Dies of ‘Undisclosed Cause’ 18 Days After Receiving Moderna Vaccine," The Defender, January 22, 2021

Henry Louis Aaron
1934-2021

Tom Woods on the changing Covid narrative

Maybe you've noticed the same phenomenon I have.  There's a sudden and distinct ratcheting down of the COVID hysteria in some quarters.  My old friend Steve Deace, the radio host, even compiled a bunch of them. 

For example: 

NPR headline the day before the inauguration: 

"As Death Rate Accelerates, U.S. Records 400,000 Lives Lost to the Coronavirus" 

NPR headline the day after the inauguration: 

"Current, Deadly U.S. Coronavirus Surge Has Peaked, Experts Say" 

Then, too: 

The governor of Kansas lowered the PCR testing threshold (it's still too high, but that's a step in the right direction). 

Washington, D.C., is reopening bars and restaurants, and Massachusetts is easing restrictions. 

In Chicago, the mayor is calling for bars and restaurants to reopen as soon as possible, and unionized teachers are being punished for not returning to in-person instruction. 

The so-called Republican governor of Maryland is suddenly demanding the return of in-person schooling, arguing that there is absolutely no scientific justification for any further delay. 

I've already written to you about the governor of New York urging that the state must reopen or "nothing left to open." 

And then the World Health Organization issued a document, one hour after Biden was sworn in, explaining that PCR cycle thresholds were too high, and our obsession with asymptomatics too great. 

Now look: this could all just be an amazing coincidence.  I do not rule that out.  I am saying only that it's interesting.  Because it is, isn't it?

~ Tom Woods, January 22, 2021

Kevin Duffy on the battle of ideas and path to liberty

This country has serious problems.  Both parties are at fault.  In fact, it's the whole rotten system. 

The overwhelming majority of us want what's best for this country.  I believe the best path forward is to return to our nation's roots of liberty.  That would actually give me a warm and fuzzy, even patriotic, feeling. 

What's happening now with the divisiveness, censorship and vindictiveness is the exact opposite of freedom.  This is where the obsession with political power inevitably leads. 

Let's face it, politicians lie.  That's what they do.  They whisper sweet nothings into our ears.  They tell us we can have the world... and somebody else will pay for it (those greedy rich people). 

Life is about trade-offs.  We can be free or we can have government masters.  We can not have both. 

More government can only lead to less freedom... and eventually destroy this great country. I have cousins from Venezuela who went down that path and watched it destroy their country.  They now live in the U.S. and are terrified.  Think it can't happen here?  It's been happening a long time, except the trend is now accelerating. 

There are no easy solutions.  Nobody is going to ride in on a white horse and save us.  Every decent person must take on their share of the burden of responsibility! 

How can we each make a difference?  The problem is the system itself.  I learned that 30 years ago. Writing letters to the president is a complete waste of time.  (He's part of the problem!)  Change can only come about if people change their thinking.  This happens (hopefully) with politely engaging others... one-on-one, one person at a time.  If I can influence someone in a positive way, they might influence others.  If it all goes viral, we can end this nonsense by next Tuesday. 

For starters, we need to question the legitimacy of our rulers.  Then we have to envision a world without rulers ordering us around.  Would chaos ensue or something very different, harmony and prosperity?  That requires imagination.  It requires education.  It requires motivation.

~ Kevin Duffy, January 22, 2021

Jon Rappoport on who benefits from the Capitol breach

Obviously, if the assault on the Capitol building was a false flag, all the blame cascading down on Trumpers paves the way for Biden and his handlers to carry out even more draconian measures on the American people, under the rubric of National Security—piled on top of the COVID lockdowns. 

The short attention span of television viewers shifts further away from the violent Antifa riots in US cities over the past six months. 

And whereas media portrayed Antifa riots as “largely peaceful disturbances,” we can look forward to months of pompous posturing about Wednesday’s events in DC. 

Biden will be “the sane president” who restored peace and order. 

Trump resisters who refuse to acknowledge Biden’s election will be characterized, over and over, as dangerous lunatics. 

For the next 20 years, media will play up Wednesday, January 6, 2021, as the dark day America almost broke apart. You can bet a few dozen production companies are already editing footage for “stunning, award-winning” documentaries. 

Democrats are feeling a burst of confidence that Trump’s career as a politician is over—since he will forever be linked to “The Insurrection of January 6.” 

In their eyes, this is far better than a physical assassination.

~ Jon Rappoport, "Was the assault on the Capitol building a false flag?," Jon Rappoport's Blog, January 6, 2021

Kevin Duffy's predictions for the next 4 years under a Biden administration

1) National debt will go from $27T to over $40T (that's probably conservative). 

2) For all the talk of unity, the Dems will amp up a domestic war on terror to muzzle dissenting views (not just conservatives; this will be expanded to include libertarians). 

3) The stock market bubble will burst and the Fed's balance sheet will triple (going from $7T to over $20T) in response. 

4) Inflation will become a problem and interest rates will rise. The 30-year bond yield, currently 1.84%, will be over 5%. 

5) Some form of universal basic income will be implemented.

Let's circle back in 4 years, assuming I haven't been kicked off Facebook or thrown in jail for being an insurrectionist and traitor.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook post, January 20, 2021

Donald Trump on his foreign policy record in the Middle East

As a result of our bold diplomacy and principled realism, we achieved a series of historic peace deals in the Middle East.  Nobody believed it could happen.  The Abraham Accords opened the doors to a future of peace and harmony, not violence and bloodshed.   It is the dawn of a new Middle East, and we are bringing our soldiers home.  I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars.

 

~ President Donald Trump, farewell address, 11:40 mark, January 19, 2021

President Joe Biden's inaugural speech: "It's time for boldness"

It’s time for boldness, for there is so much to do.

~ President Joe Biden, inaugural address, January 20, 2021

Janet Yellen: "The smartest thing we can do is act big"

Right now, with interest rates at historic lows, the smartest thing we can do is act big. I believe the benefits will far outweigh the costs, especially if we care about helping people who have been struggling for a very long time. 

~ Janet Yellen, incoming Treasury Secretary, confirmation hearing, January 18, 2021

James Anderson sees a "low-level civil war in America in the next five years"

I am deeply pessimistic - I think it is a race in America between all the technological changes that have taken place and, to be blunt, societal collapse. A low-level civil war in America in the next five years is the most likely answer.

~ James Anderson, partner and head of Global Equities, Baillie Gifford, " 2021 Barron's Roundtable, January 11, 2021

George Orwell on denial of truth

However much you deny the truth, the truth goes on existing.

~ George Orwell

George Orwell on progressivism

So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot.

~ George Orwell

Eric Schmidt on Big Tech and privacy

We know where you are.  We know where you've been.  We can more or less know what you're thinking about.

~ Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, 2001-2011

Michael Rectenwald on the Trump adminstration and the Left

Most importantly, however, Trump has represented a thin line of defense, however tenuous, of American liberties that stand in the way of global and governmental and extra-governmental order that thrives on lockdowns, masking, muzzling, banning, blacklisting, down-ranking, memory-holing, gaslighting, deleting, canceling, censoring, pre-censoring and obliterating dissent and dissenters. 

~ Michael Rectenwald, "The Google Election," Ludwig von Mises Institute's "Symposium with Ron Paul," 22:20 mark, November 7, 2021

John Doerr on the difference between the old and new economy

The old economy was about people acquiring a single skill for life; the new economy is about life-long learning.

~ John Doerr

The Economist on Big Tech censorship

The first reaction of many people was one of relief.  On January 6th, with 14 days remaining of his term, the social-media president was suspended from Twitter after years of pumping abuse, lies and nonsense into the public sphere.  Soon after, many of his cronies and supporters were shut down online by Silicon Valley, too.  The end of their cacophony was blissful.  But the peace belies a limiting of free speech that is chilling for America—and all democracies.

~ The Economist, "Big tech and censorship," The Economist, January 16, 2021

Dwight D. Murphey on progressivism and the civil rights movement from the early 1900s to 1930s

[Modern] liberals in the United States did not provide conspicuous leadership to a movement for racial and ethnic equality until the issue came to life during and after World War II.  Most Americans will be amazed to hear that it was the Progressives who were most instrumental in establishing the Jim Crow system in the South; they did so after the Populist movement created a fear of the potentially corrupting effects of a movement that would combine blacks and poor whites.  Theodore Roosevelt is reputed to have made an embarrassingly bigoted comment about Negroes at the time of the Brownsville Affair.  Woodrow Wilson originally wanted to include blacks in his administration, but backed off when this led to criticism from his Southern supporters.  Franklin Roosevelt did not make civil rights legislation for blacks a significant part of the New Deal. 

During all those years the many liberals connected with the liberal journals as editors and writers, while favorable to Negroes and horrified by lynchings, made no move to make "civil rights" a priority issue.  As we look back from the ethos of the 1980s and '90s, we tend to think, racial, ethnic and sexual equality have held a place in the pantheon of liberal philosophy from the beginning.  But that is just not so.

~ Dwight D. Murphey, Liberalism in Contemporary America, p. 19

George Orwell on falsifying history

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered.  And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute.  History has stopped.  Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

~ George Orwell, 1984

Jim Grant on free speech being under threat in America

[T]here’s a cyclicality, there’s an episodic quality to our politics.  I don’t think these are end times politically.  I think it’s worrying, for example, that freedom of speech seems to be back on its heels as much as it has ever been.   I think freedom of speech, in America, was not quite so endangered even in the ’30s as it is now.  That is genuinely frightening.  I’m frightened by it.

~ Jim Grant, "Living Economic History: Q&A with Jim Grant," The Coffee Can Portfolio, December 10, 2020

Tom Woods on the beauty of economics

[Economics] really is something beautiful.  It reveals to you an order that can be hidden or obscured by your own eyes.  I think Mises or Rothbard put it this way in theory and history...  If you were just to look at Grand Central Terminal in New York and not think it through, all you would see is just a bunch of people running hither and yon, and that would be the end of it.  But when you think through what's actually going on, you realize that each one of those people has a goal and is pursuing that goal, and that that's not chaos, but it's actually order that you're observing.  Well likewise for the entire economy, to a Marxist it looks like "There's duplication of production," "It's not the way I would run it if I had a bullhorn."  But the more you understand it, the more you perceive the hidden order beneath it all.  And once you perceive that, you do want other people to understand it.  In my case not just because they'll derive intellectual pleasure from understanding it, but because they'll stop wrecking it 24 hours a day!

~ Tom Woods, "Ep. 1806 From Left to Libertarian: How He Did It," The Tom Woods Show, January 5, 2021

George Orwell anticipates the political Left circa 2021

Now I will tell you the answer to my question.  It is this.  The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake.  We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power.  What pure power means you will understand presently.  We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.  All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites.  The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives.  They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal.  We are not like that.  We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.  Power is not a means; it is an end.  One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.  The object of persecution is persecution.  The object of torture is torture.  The object of power is power.  Now you begin to understand me.

~ George Orwell, 1984

Murray Rothbard on the alliance between the State and intellectuals

[T]he majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives.  Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the "intellectuals."  For the masses of men do not create their own ideas, or indeed think through these ideas independently; they follow passively the ideas adopted and disseminated by the body of intellectuals.  The intellectuals are, therefore, the "opinion-molders" in society.  And since it is precisely a molding of opinion that the State most desperately needs, the basis for age-old alliance between the State and the intellectuals becomes clear. 

It is evident that the State needs the intellectuals; it is not so evident why intellectuals need the State.  Put simply, we may state that the intellectual's livelihood in the free market is never too secure; for the intellectual must depend on the values and choices of the masses of his fellow men, and it is precisely characteristic of the masses that they are generally uninterested in intellectual matters.  The State, on the other hand, is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige.  For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part.

~ Murray Rothbard, Anatomy of the State

Jeff Deist on the future of free, decentralized communications

The underlying ideology, the impulse towards freedom which includes free communications and speech, is not so easily quashed.  And for that reason, I'm actually quite optimistic about a highly decentralized future where we don't have these huge gatekeepers like Google search, or Amazon Web Services, or Facebook and Twitter and Instagram as the only big 800 lb. gorillas in social media.  So I'm actually quite optimistic.

~ Jeff Deist, "Dealing With Big Tech Censorship - With Jeff Deist," 22:30 mark, Ron Paul Liberty Report, January 14, 2021