Carl Sagan on the dumbing down of America

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media... lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstitution, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.

~ Carl Sagan, 1995

Carl Sagan on science and skepticism

Science is more than a body of knowledge.  It's a way of thinking, a way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility.  If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan - political or religious - who comes ambling along.

It's a thing that Jefferson lay great stress on.  It wasn't enough, he said, to enshrine some rights in a Constitution or Bill of Rights.  The people had to be educated and they had to practice their skepticism and their education, otherwise we don't run the government; the government runs us.

~ Carl Sagan, interview with Charlie Rose, 3:00 mark, May 27, 1996

Michael Pettis on Evergrande and "too big to fail" in China

Borrowing for large Chinese companies like Evergrande has never been a problem in the past.  It was widely believed that they would ultimately always honor their obligations.  It was expected that local governments and regulators would always intervene at the last minute to restructure liabilities and, if necessary, recapitalize the borrower. 

As a result, there was very little differentiation in lending in the credit markets.  Banks, insurance groups and fund companies fought over issuing loans to large, systemically important borrowers. 

Nobody worried about possible losses.  In other words, the entire credit market was marked by moral hazard. 

~ Michael Pettis, "The significance of the Evergrande crisis for China," The Market/NZZ, September 21, 2021

Mark Zandi and Bernard Yaros on failure to raise the debt ceiling

Shutting the government down would not be an immediate hit to the economy, but a default would be a catastrophic blow to the nascent economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Global financial markets and the economy would be upended, and even if resolved quickly, Americans would pay for this default for generations, as global investors would rightly believe that the federal government’s finances have been politicized and that a time may come when they would not be paid what they are owed when owed it.  To compensate for this risk, they will demand higher interest rates on the Treasury bonds they purchase.  That will exacerbate our daunting long-term fiscal challenges and be a lasting corrosive on the economy, significantly diminishing it.

~ Mark Zandi and Bernard Yaros, "Playing a Dangerous Game With the Debt Limit," Moody Analytics, September 21, 2021

Tom Bernhardt on uncertainty and success

People naturally hate uncertainty, but the ability to deal with it is critical to success.  And it’s not just about business; it’s a pervasive attitude and discipline. 

The ability to say “I don’t know” or “it’s probably this, but might be that” is a vital component of critical thinking.  It’s also a prerequisite to having a constructive discussion with others, especially those having a different view. 

When people fall into a cognitive gravity well of certain belief, the intractability makes them unable to listen and evaluate contrary information and perspectives.  They become less than useless.  Unfortunately that’s where most people increasingly are these days.

~ Tom Bernhardt, September 29, 2021

Jordan Schachtel on the lassez faire approach to the coronavirus

There’s something about human nature that causes people in power to want to “do something” when faced with an unknown problem.  Yet sometimes, doing nothing is better than “doing something.”  When it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more evidence is emerging that the laissez-faire approach to the issue — at least on a governmental/”public health” level — was the solution all along.  The path chosen by Sweden, Belarus and a select few nations — which put the power in the hands of individuals to make their own health choices, instead of imposing draconian government edicts — appears to have won the day.  With almost two years of data now in our hands, it sure seems that the ruling class has a lot to answer for.

~ Jordan Schachtel, "Freedom Won the Lockdown Battle," Brownstone Institute, September 28, 2021

Doug Casey on how to protect against government overreach

Q: Almost every government and country in the world is going in the wrong direction from a personal freedom standpoint. 

And if the last two years have been an indication, the situation could get much worse before it gets better. 

How can individuals limit the impact of government overreach in their day-to-day lives? 

A: The first thing is to become self-employed. You don’t want a job where you’re dependent on somebody else—or worse, some organization. The bigger the organization, the less relative importance you have, and the more danger you’re in. 

Assess your resources and abilities and try to become an entrepreneur. The world has an unlimited desire for goods and services; an entrepreneur figures out how to satisfy them. It takes thought, knowledge, and hard work—but there’s unlimited upside. An employee, by contrast, just does what he’s told for a wage. Most are easily replaceable cubicle dwellers these days. Being an employee is both high risk and low reward.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey's Top 3 Actionable Tips on How You Can Get Out of Dodge," International Man, September 20, 2021

Charlie Munger on investing and avoiding mistakes

It is remarkable how much long term advantage people like us have gotten trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.

~ Charlie Munger

Henry Hazlitt on how Austrian economics differs from orthodox economics

Perhaps something should be said about the chief differences today between Austrian economics and what we may call "orthodox" or "mainstream" economics.  The difficulty here is that "mainstream" economics itself would be hard to define.  Economists are still divided into a number of recognizable "schools": neoclassicists, Keynesians, the Chicago School, the Lausanne School, and so on.  The limits of space forbid me to go into the distinguishing doctrines of each of these schools.  But one outstanding difference of the Austrians from all of these lies in their method of reasoning.  The Austrians emphasize methodological individualism.  That is, they not only begin by emphasizing human actions, preferences, and decisions, but individual actions, preferences, and initiatives.  Mainstream economists are concerned with "macroeconomics," with averages and aggregates; and those of the Lausanne School, trying to reduce economics to an "exact" science, and therefore seeking to quantify everything, are obsessed with complicated mathematical equations that try to stipulate the conditions of "general equilibrium."

~ Henry Hazlitt, "Understanding 'Austrian' Economics," The Freeman, February 1981

Kevin Duffy on binary thinking

Male vs. female, white vs. "people of color," rich vs. poor, us vs. them, planet earth vs. man - these are all gross oversimplifications in a complex world.  It's important to recognize when you're being sucked into this. Remember George W. Bush saying, "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists?"  Dangerous!  When this happens, it pays to look for similarities whether others see differences.  Stick to principles.  Think out of the box and look for answers and solutions contrary to BOTH sides.  If left unchecked, binary thinking usually resolves itself on the battlefield.

~ Kevin Duffy

Lyndon B. Johnson submitting the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 to Congress

Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty, I submit, for the consideration of the Congress and the country, the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964.  The Act does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done.  It charts a new course.  It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.  It can be a milestone in our one-hundred eighty year search for a better life for our people. 

~ President Lyndon B. Johnson, "Special Message to Congress Proposing a Nationwide War on the Sources of Poverty," March 16, 1964

Curt Howland on the basic principles of Austrian economics

What is the best way to disprove the Austrian School (Mises, Hayek, Friedman)? “What is the best way to disprove the Austrian School?” 

To disprove the Austrian method of economic analysis, first you would have to disprove the axioms upon which that analysis is based. 

Humans act. So, prove humans don’t act. 

People use scarce resources to achieve desired ends. Again, prove people don’t. 

Each additional unit of a homogeneous good will be used to satisfy the most urgent remaining use, and that use sets the price of all units of the homogeneous good. Surely the principle of “marginal utility” would be easy to disprove, I mean it was formulated in 1872 and signaled the foundation of the Austrian School itself: 

Principles of Economics | Carl Menger Easy to read, and free. Give it a try. 

People prefer the same good now compared to the same good some time in the future. Of course, if you can disprove this, then you disprove the existence of interest rates. 

Individual preferences are ordinal, not cardinal, and interpersonal comparisons don’t work. Can you prove you like chocolate 2 times as much as I do, but not 4 times as much? 

There are more such axioms, but all stem from the fundamental principle that people act, people choose. They are not merely atoms all responding the same way. 

So disprove that, and you’re set for the rest. 

You can start here: "Understanding 'Austrian' Economics," by Henry Hazlitt.

~ Curt Howland, Quora, September 16, 2021

Keith Lerner: "the economy is on solid footing and that equities look attractive"

The short-term noise we’re dealing with does not change the fact that we think the economy is on solid footing and that equities still look attractive relative to other assets.  We still think the primary market trend over the next 12 months is higher.

~ Keith Lerner, co-chief investment officer at Truist Advisory Services, "U.S. Stock-Market Tumble Hasn’t Quelled Optimism," The Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2021

WSJ: airline subsidies in the $900 billion Covid-19 relief bill

Tens of thousands of airline employees would get their jobs back, at least for a few months, under the new bill, which includes $15 billion to cover airline salaries and benefits through the end of March. The bill also includes $1 billion for airline contractor payrolls. 

Airlines received $25 billion under the Cares Act in the spring to cover workers’ pay and benefits, and in exchange agreed not to lay off or furlough employees until Oct. 1. As that date neared without much improvement in their outlook, carriers and labor unions warned that job cuts would be coming and pleaded for another round of aid. When it didn’t arrive in time, they furloughed tens of thousands of workers, including 19,000 at American Airlines Group Inc. and over 13,000 at United Airlines Holdings Inc. The bill also includes $2 billion for airports and airport-based businesses.

~ The Wall Street Journal, "What’s in the $900 Billion Covid-19 Relief Bill," December 27, 2020

Doutzen Kroes on vaccine mandates

The past few months have been very peaceful without social media.  A part of me wanted to escape into my family bubble and leave everything up to faith.  That part of me believes in the power of consciousness, that whatever you give energy to will grow.  So I tried to ignore the negative and focus on the positive.  But at this point I can no longer turn a blind eye to the injustice that is happening right in front of us. 

Other people have given me hope and strength with their courage to stand up for our rights.  They touched my heart and inspired me to do the same.  So although my hands are shaking while writing this, I feel it is time to choose courage over comfort and speak my truth: I will not be forced to take the shot. I will not be forced to prove my health to participate in society.  I will not accept exclusion of people based on their medical status.

~ Doutzen Kroes, "Supermodel Doutzen Kroes Says She Won't Be Forced To Get The Vaccine To Participate In Society," Evie, September 17, 2021

Kevin Duffy on capitalism, socialism and morality

With capitalism, morality is imperative.  With socialism, morality is an impediment.

~ Kevin Duffy

Chip Kusmaul on idealism and tyranny

Q: What are three appropriate ways to make your society an ideal one? 

A: Well, there’s a conundrum.  A society can’t be ideal, unless everyone thinks it’s ideal.  So, what if other people want something different than you?  Do you force them to comply with your ideal?  Do you consent to their ideal?  Neither one works for me.  The closest to an ideal society that we can hope to get, is one where everyone is free to pursue their own ideals. 

Remember that Hitler had ideals for society.  So did Stalin and Mao.  And they expected everyone to conform to their ideals.  In other words, they were tyrants.

~ Chip Kusmaul, MEd from Xavier University (1973), Quora, September 19, 2021

Philip Palumbo and Doug Augenthaler on NFT excess

There are many signs of market excess, and this is one of them. A collection of 101 Bored Ape Yacht Club nonfungible tokens sold for over $24 million this week. 

Unbelievable! Maybe we are just too old to appreciate the value of NFT’s, but we also recall “scarce” $5 beanie babies reselling for thousands of dollars in the late 1990s. Needless to say, they no longer sell at such premiums. The similarity is that the late 1990s was also one of market excess, so excuse us if we are skeptical about the value of the apes. That’s right. $24 million for 101 digital pics of apes. If you’re confused, welcome to the club. 

~ Philip G. Palumbo, Doug Augenthaler, Palumbo Wealth Management, PWM Weekly Observations, September 11, 2021

(As reported in Barron's Market View.)

Simon Hallett on wealth creation today vs. the past

Modern capitalism differs from wealth creation in the old days.  In the olden days, if you wanted to get rich you had to knock somebody on the head and steal their stuff.  Today if you want to get rich you have to provide goods and services at prices that people want to pay.

~ Simon Hallett, interview, 19:40 mark, Stansberry Investor Hour, September 16, 2021

Dan Ferris on long-term investing

I think people can manage their own money.  However, they should recognize that it is a highly competitive playing field and you do need an edge.  And the lowest hanging fruit - I've said this many, many, many times - the easiest edge to get is simply to be patient and have a long-term horizon because... almost nobody does!

~ Dan Ferris, introduction to Simon Hallett interview, 10:45 mark, Stansberry Investor Hour, September 16, 2021

Perry L. Glanzer on the gender identity movement

Although we have discarded the old gendered moral tradition associated with gentlemen and ladies, and even Microsoft Word suggests that one stop using those terms, the identity wars look to continue even more with a coming clash of older feminism and the new gender fluid movement.  More likely, as has happened with LGBTQ+, certain moral tribes will spring up around each of the different identity groups. 

What is different about these movements, however, is that they do not involve discussions about what it means to be a good “fill in the blank with the sexual identity of choice.”  The new gender identity movements focus on obtaining power, respect, and rights, rather than achieving a particular moral ideal of identity excellence.  Every gender and sexual identity now simply fights for an equitable distribution of power and privilege.  Other virtues beyond social justice are dropped by the wayside.  In this respect, perhaps one could argue that these new movements have largely taken the old fallen approach to moral gender identity development that focuses on obtaining power and status.  Calling men to be gentlemen at least called them to bear one Christian virtue (gentleness) and often others as well (e.g., self-control). 

~ Perry L. Glanzer, "Why Men Are Giving Up on College: The Death of Gentlemen," Christian Scholar's Review, September 14, 2021

Nancy Pelosi on raising the debt ceiling

We Democrats supported lifting the debt ceiling [during the] Trump administration because it was the responsible thing to do.  I would hope that the Republicans would act in a similarly responsible way.

~ Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, "Lawmakers Must Act on Debt Limit Or Risk October Default, Yellen Says," The New York Times, September 9, 2021

Jeffrey Tucker on global Covid travel restrictions

The emergence of global travel in the 20th century – its universal availability and practice – was one of the great triumphs of liberalism and modernity. 

We rejected the isolation, parochialism, and local stagnation of the past and sought out knowledge and adventures all over the globe.  We encountered new people, new places, new experiences.  The world became open to all, thanks to commercialized flight.  This also generated an incredible positive externality for public health.  More exposure to the world improved immune systems for individuals the world over – a point first made to me by Professor [Sunetra] Gupta. 

Then in an instant it was closed.  International tourist arrivals are down by 85% from 2019.  A third of the world’s borders are shut.  There seems to be no movement in the direction of reversing this disaster and reinstituting the wonderful world of 2019. In fact, there seems to be very little awareness that this has happened to us much less of the terrible consequences.

~ Jeffrey Tucker, "These Travel Restrictions Must End," Brownstone Institute," September 15, 2021

Nick Saban on setting high standards

Q: Why are you so tough on people?

A: Well, I don't know if that's fair that I'm really "tough" on people.  We create a standard for how we want to do things.  And everybody has got to buy into that standard or you really can't have any team chemistry.  You know, mediocre people don't like high achievers and high achievers don't like mediocre people.

~ Nick Saban, 60 Minutes interview, "The Perfectionist," 2:00 mark, November 1, 2013

Leana Wen on vaccine mandates

I think we need to make it clear that there are privileges associated with being an American.  That if you wish to have these privileges, you need to get vaccinated.  Travel and having the right to travel interstate, it's not a constitutional right, as far as I know, to board a plane.  If you want to stay unvaccinated, that's your choice, but if you want to travel, you better go get that vaccine.

~ Dr. Leana Wen, CNN interview, September 10, 2021

Jeff Bezos on regret

I always ask myself: when I’m 80 years old will I regret not doing that?  I knew for certain that by 80, I would regret not leaving my job and opening an online book store, even if I failed, so I did it.

~ Jeff Bezos

Murray Rothbard on propaganda

The State relies on control of the levers of propaganda to persuade its subjects to obey or even exalt their rulers.

~ Murray N. Rothbard

Thomas Sowell on skin in the game

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

~ Thomas Sowell

Fred Reed on the U.S. cold war with China

In pondering Washington’s new toy, a cold war against China, one sees a pattern.  China’s approach to influence and prosperity is commercial and longsighted.  This does not mean that the Chinese are warm and fuzzy, only intelligent.  They advance their interests while turning a profit, which wars don’t.  China invests heavily in the infrastructure, both physical and educational, that makes for current and future competitiveness.  They are fast, agile, innovative, and imperfectly scrupulous...  Washington’s approach is military, coercive, shortsighted, and commercially dimwitted.

[...]

China’s major capital expenditures, as gleaned as best I can from pubs covering these: highways, dams, bridges, very-high-voltage power lines, airports, rail, new high-tech 360 mph rail, five-g implementation, reactors, and semiconductor catchup.  America’s major capital expenditures: the B-21, F-35, Virginia-class subs, Ford-class aircraft carriers, SSN (x) attack submarine.

[...]

What is a Ford-class carrier good for?  The Fords are versatile ships, having a three-fold purpose: Funneling lots of money into military industry, killing defenseless peasants, and sticking the Pentagon’s tongue out at China. Killing peasants and soldiers in third-rate armies of bedraggled third-world countries is what the American military does.  Think Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Somalia. Getting into big wars with real countries is no longer practical despite the opportunities for profits because big countries depend on each other too much commercially.  Even killing peasants begins to lose cache, as witness the comic opera defeat in Afghanistan..

~ Fred Reed, "A Military Solution to a Commercial Problem: It Probably Ain't Gonna Work Much Longer," The Unz Review, September 13, 2021

The Economist on China's tech giants and the government crackdown

Of all china’s achievements in the past two decades, one of the most impressive is the rise of its technology industry.  Alibaba hosts twice as much e-commerce activity as Amazon does.  Tencent runs the world’s most popular super-app, with 1.2bn users.  China’s tech revolution has also helped transform its long-run economic prospects at home, by allowing it to leap beyond manufacturing into new fields such as digital health care and artificial intelligence (ai).  As well as propelling China’s prosperity, a dazzling tech industry could also be the foundation for a challenge to American supremacy. 

That is why President Xi Jinping’s assault on his country’s $4trn tech industry is so startling.  There have been over 50 regulatory actions against scores of firms for a dizzying array of alleged offences, from antitrust abuses to data violations.  The threat of government bans and fines has weighed on share prices, costing investors around $1trn.

~ The Economist, "Xi Jinping’s assault on tech will change China’s trajectory," August 14, 2021

Joe Murphy on twin threats to freedom: 9/11 and Covid

9/11 did not wake up Americans to the danger they faced in a corrupt and despotic government that could create money out of thin air, fund whatever wars they wanted, perpetrate heinous crimes in full view, and brainwash millions to believe that it is all for their good when in fact all of those things are threats and detrimental to freedom and peace. It didn’t wake Americans up. It did the opposite. People embraced the national governments call to action to punish those they blamed, to wage war on Iraq and Afghanistan based on completely false claims, to wage an endless “Global War on Terror” to allow government more power in the National ID act, the Homeland Security Act, the Military Commission Act, and so on. Americans didn’t wake up, they cheered on the despots, dutifully complied to more restraints on their freedom. Americans yawned and went back to work. 

Twenty years later, 2021. The despots are marching to a pre-planned and choreographed script. It is in full view and the propaganda machine is well oiled and more insidious and powerful than it ever was in 2001. Those that study history and the lessons of history can see the step by step march that bring us to the tyranny that we are experiencing in the name of Covid19 not only since 9/11 but since the ratification of the Constitution of these united States of America. At this juncture we are not just facing some more tyrannical government agencies, a few more losses of freedom, and a call for more foreign wars. We are facing the loss of all of our freedoms: The right to control your own body, the right to private property, the right to travel, the right to converse freely, the right to buy and sell, and even the right to make a living.

~ Joe Murphy, "What Was 9/11 Then and What Is It Today?," LewRockwell.com, September 13, 2021

Osama bin Laden on the 9/11 attacks

I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons…  I have been living in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders’ rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations.

I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States.  As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie.  Neither I had any knowledge of these attacks nor I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.  Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. 

I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.  The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system, but are dissenting against it. 

Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country or ideology could survive.  Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from the Congress and the government every year…  They need an enemy.

~ Osama bin Laden, interviewed by the Urdu newspaper Karachi Ummat, September 28, 2001

(As quoted by Pepe Escobar, "9/9 and 9/11, 20 Years Later," LewRockwell.com, September 11, 2021.)

John Templeton on market timing

I never ask if the market is going to go up or down because I don't know, and besides it doesn't matter.  I search nation after nation for stocks, asking: 'Where is the one that is lowest-priced in relation to what I believe it's worth?'  Forty years of experience have taught me you can make money without ever knowing which way the market is going.

~ John Templeton

John Templeton on excuses

The person who really wants to do something finds a way; the other finds an excuse.

~ John Templeton

John Templeton on success

Success is a process of continually seeking answers to new questions.

~ John Templeton

Tom DiLorenzo on precedents set by the Civil War

Americans are still fascinated by the war because many of us recognize it as the defining event in American history.  Lincoln’s war established myriad precedents that have shaped the course of American government and society ever since: the centralization of governmental power, central banking, income taxation, protectionism, military conscription, the suspension of constitutional liberties, the "rewriting" of the Constitution by federal judges, "total war," the quest for a worldwide empire, and the notion that government is one big "problem solver."

Perhaps the most hideous precedent established by Lincoln’s war, however, was the intentional targeting of defenseless civilians.  Human beings did not always engage in such barbaric acts as we have all watched in horror in recent days [9/11].  Targeting civilians has been a common practice ever since World War II, but its roots lie in Lincoln’s war.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Targeting Civilians," LewRockwell.com, September 17, 2001

John Templeton on business ethics

If a business is not ethical, it will fail, perhaps not right away but eventually.

~ John Templeton

Eric Snowden on his post-9/11 reaction

September 12 was the first day of a new era, which America faced with a unified resolve, strengthened by a revived sense of patriotism and the goodwill and sympathy of the world.  In retrospect, my country could have done so much with this opportunity.  It could have treated terror not as the theological phenomenon it purported to be, but as the crime it was.  It could have used this rare moment of solidarity to reinforce democratic values and cultivate resilience in the now-connected global public. 

Instead, it went to war. 

The greatest regret of my life is my reflexive, unquestioning support for that decision.  I was outraged, yes, but that was only the beginning of a process in which my heart completely defeated my rational judgment.  I accepted all the claims retailed by the media as facts, and I repeated them as if I were being paid for it.  I wanted to be a liberator.  I wanted to free the oppressed.  I embraced the truth constructed for the good of the state, which in my passion I confused with the good of the country.  It was as if whatever individual politics I’d developed had crashed—the anti-institutional hacker ethos instilled in me online, and the apolitical patriotism I’d inherited from my parents, both wiped from my system—and I’d been rebooted as a willing vehicle of vengeance.  The sharpest part of the humiliation comes from acknowledging how easy this transformation was, and how readily I welcomed it. 

I wanted, I think, to be part of something.  Prior to 9/11, I’d been ambivalent about serving because it had seemed pointless, or just boring.  Everyone I knew who’d served had done so in the post–Cold War world order, between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the attacks of 2001.  In that span, which coincided with my youth, America lacked for enemies.  The country I grew up in was the sole global superpower, and everything seemed—at least to me, or to people like me—prosperous and settled.  There were no new frontiers to conquer or great civic problems to solve, except online.  The attacks of 9/11 changed all that. Now, finally, there was a fight.

~ Eric Snowden, "9/12: The Greatest Regret of My Life," September 11, 2021

George Orwell on war propaganda

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting

~ George Orwell

George Gilder on the role of the entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is the creative force in economics.  The entrepreneur is the person who comes and looks at a desert or a jungle or a wilderness and sees a garden, sees an opportunity to create new value.  Without the entrepreneur, economies are barren, they're dead.

~ George Gilder, The Call of the Entrepreneur (2007)

Thomas Sowell on good intentions

Nothing is easier than to have good intentions but, without an understanding of how an economy works, good intentions can lead to disastrous consequences for a whole nation.

~ Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

David Bergland on the reification fallacy

"Reification" is a fancy word for treating a concept or a label as something that actually exists.  The fallacy is in forgetting that the concept or label doesn't really exist, only people do.  "Government," for instance, does not exist as a thing separate from the people who make it up.  Certainly it is necessary to have a term like "government," just as we have terms like church, school, army, union, corporation, family and so on.  But, none of these labels (groups) has an existence apart from and greater than the individuals in it.

Whenever you hear someone discussing what the government, or the bureaucrats, or the big corporations, or the unions did, always ask, "Which individuals did what things?"  Only individuals can act and they should, of course, be responsible for their actions.

One purpose for engaging in this fallacy is to depersonalize people you want to mistreat.  It is much easier to call for heavy taxation of "the big corporations" than to call for reducing the dividends of the pensioners, widows, and orphans who depend on pension funds which own shares in many big corporations.  Another purpose is to argue that you, an individual, are less important than labels such as "society," so you should sacrifice your interests.

~ David Bergland, Libertarianism in One Lesson, pp. 9-10

CatoTheYounger on politics and psychopaths

If your political economic system depends on virtuous leaders, you are doomed.  The absolute worst psychopaths are attracted to Politics/Gov, as a medium to practice and refine their skills.  A Psychopaths' skill set allows them to excel in politics.

~ CatoTheYounger @catoletters, tweet, September 9, 2021

Valerie Rhea on the minimum wage

Q: How do you feel when million dollar companies say raising the U.S minimum wage is bad for business and would result in higher prices of goods for the consumer? 

A: Most of the other responses to this question correctly point out that prices climb when businesses pay more for “raw materials”. Since labor is no different than any other raw material, this would tend to be true for minimum wage hikes. It’s economics 101 and supply and demand. 

Still, this isn’t the entire story. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that there are in fact a few other outcomes we don’t often talk about. When labor gets more expensive, businesses can typically do three things: 

• Raise prices, as has been suggested. 
• Use less labor. 
• Fold. 

The problem with raising prices is that doing so presumes the market is able to absorb a price increase - and quite often, that’s not true. In any market, there’s an optimum price point that yields maximum revenue…raise prices above this level, and you actually take in less revenue because consumers resist paying and seek other alternatives. 

Thus, the first challenge is that raising prices suggests there’s “room” in the market for higher prices, and that raising prices will actually result in higher revenues for the business. The limits of this “price elasticity” depend on many factors: nature of your product, competition, availability of alternatives, etc. But as a general rule, all businesses seek the optimum price for their products, and a spike in the minimum wage doesn’t necessarily change the optimum price point businesses can charge. 

Now, stop and think about that for a moment… 

If consumers would willingly pay higher prices, then what we’re suggesting is that the business owner is an idiot. If market permission exists, then he could charge those higher prices today and improve the profitability of his current business. In other words, if we’re to believe a business owner could simply raise prices to cover the increased cost of labor, we have to conclude that the business owner currently prices his products below their optimum value. Clearly, that would be a pretty stupid business owner. 

Thus, quite often we see businesses react to a spike in labor expense by raising prices, and the result is that they sell fewer products at the higher price. Overall revenues very likely won’t grow to the extent that the business owner expects, and very often, this becomes a race to the bottom: raise prices, revenues doesn’t keep up, so prices are raised again. This is a death spiral for many businesses. 

Moving on, option #2 from my list above is actually where many businesses end up. 

If you’re maybe a fast-food franchise and labor costs suddenly spike, the most obvious thing you can do is to use less labor. That might mean restructuring jobs, hiring fewer but more qualified workers, cutting back on operating hours - and the big one, turning to automation. These are attempts to raise worker productivity so that you need less labor overall. If you can replace half your staff with computerized kiosks and a mobile app, then the spike in labor cost doesn’t hurt your business nearly as much. 

In other industries, instead of automation, you might move jobs offshore, or consolidate with your competitors into one larger entity instead of lots of small ones. All of these strategies reduce the need for labor - and none of them involve price increases to consumers. In fact, replacing an American worker costing $30–40/hour (that’s wages, benefits, taxes, etc) with an offshore worker costing $15/hour might actually result in price reductions for the consumer, not increases. 

Finally, there’s option #3 - the business dies. Many labor-intensive businesses that are viable when labor costs $8/hour simply aren’t viable when labor costs $15/hour. These will be businesses where there aren’t offshoring or automation options, and where perhaps 60–80% of revenues represent a labor expense. The simple truth is that these firms will very likely fail in response to a labor price increase. 

The punchline is that business figures all this stuff out. 

Depending on the nature of the business, you’ll very likely see one (or combinations) of the scenarios I describe above, so it’s not a foregone conclusion that minimum wage hikes are always bad for the consumer. In fact, by incenting businesses to seek out more productive approaches, businesses actually can be more efficient over time - consumers and investors win this way. That is, so long as the business survives… 

In fact, the ones that are almost always guaranteed to be hurt by minimum wage increases are the low-skilled workers we claim to want to help. Yes, a small number of them may see wage increases - but there are plenty that will find themselves unemployed…this is one of the key reasons for the change we’ve seen over the past few decades: in 1970, almost 15% of all hourly-paid workers were paid at the minimum wage…today, it’s about 2%. 

Government plays to largely economically illiterate voters, businesses figure out other alternatives, and the low-skilled we’re allegedly trying to “help” get crushed. If we think a minimum wage hike is going to improve, say, unemployment among younger Americans or in the inner city, we’ll be forced to learn these lessons all over again.

~ Valerie Rhea, Quora, August 7, 2021

Doug Casey on Big Tech

Frankly, these Big Tech companies have had their day in the sun.  They’re too big to be managed efficiently.  They’re arrogant and corrupt.  And, I suspect that even though everyone uses them, most people no longer like or trust them. 

There will be either a change in technology or a change in the public mood that will turn them into dinosaurs. I’m not interested in owning their ultra-expensive stock, and not just because I despise them and their editorial takes; they’re stooges for the State. 

The fact is the government still can’t directly censor things. It’s too hard because the First Amendment, at least in name, still exists. But as I said earlier, these media companies work hand in glove with the State. Big Government prefers to work with Big Tech companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and the rest. There’s no law against Big Tech censoring somebody—nor should there be—because they’re a private business. You certainly don’t want to give the government even more power. 

This type of “private” censorship is a clever way to get around the Constitution. The fact is that these companies have become unofficial arms of the government—that’s part of what the “Deep State” is all about. The good news is that this will eventually cause them to cut their own throats. They’ll be superseded by changes in technology and the public mood. Many people—including myself—already deny them support in any way possible.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Real Reason Why the Mainstream Media is Dialing Up the Fear," Doug Casey's International Man, September 8, 2021

Doug Casey on how government uses fear

Fear is one of the most powerful and primal emotions, and government has always used fear to unite the people behind it.  Government—which produces nothing—only exists because of fear.  Fear of foreigners is allayed by its army.  Fear of domestic chaos is allayed by its police.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Real Reason Why the Mainstream Media is Dialing Up the Fear," Doug Casey's International Man, September 8, 2021

John Chirico on the growth of stakeholder capitalism

Thirty years ago, the goal of a company was to serve shareholders.  That’s evolved.

Everyone is trying to be mission-driven these days.  Some companies are founded on that mission.  Others have come around to it, and others are not as authentic.

~ John Chirico, co-head of North American banking, capital markets and advisory at Citigroup Inc. "For Chobani, Allbirds, Other Coming IPOs, Greed Is Out. Do-Gooding Is In.," The Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2021

Corrie Driebusch on the IPO boom

Traditional IPOs alone have raised a whopping $105 billion through Monday, just shy of record full-year totals set during the tech boom...  Overall IPO performance remains robust.  On average, traditional IPOs jumped more than 37% in their first day of trading, the biggest one-day pop for IPOs since 2000, Dealogic data show.

~ Corrie Driebusch, "For Chobani, Allbirds, Other Coming IPOs, Greed Is Out. Do-Gooding Is In.," The Wall Street Journal, September 8, 2021

Cathie Wood: Are we in a bubble?

So many people ask me, "Are we in a bubble?"  We couldn't be further from it.  I do not believe that the average investor understands how productive these next five to 15 years are going to be [for stocks] as these S-curves feed one another and enter exponential growth trajectories that we have never seen before.

~ Cathie Wood, "Millennials will power a bull market in stocks for decades: Ark Invest's Cathie Wood," Yahoo Finance, September 7, 2021

Walter Block on the occupation in Afghanistan

Then there is the debacle of Afghanistan.  The U.S. poured billions in treasure, and thousands of precious lives, into an attempt to turn that country into an Asian version of New Hampshire.  They learned nothing from the failure of the French, and then our American forebears, to accomplish something similar in Vietnam, nor from the Russian decades-long failure in Afghanistan to impose institutions that are foreign to the Afghans.  The U.S. military, instead of focusing on preparedness, turned its attention on a whole host of mission-irrelevant politically correct social justice concerns.  Perhaps that is all to the good if it lessens U.S. adventurism abroad.  Unfortunately, this is not bloody likely.  This institution is like a small weak boy who is mouthy and derisive: not a good combination.

~ Walter Block, "It is all the wokesters' and government's fault," American Thinker, September 1, 2021