Elena Mayers Taylor on how Olympic athletes rely on corporate sponsorships

My husband and I and hundreds of others wear "Team USA" uniforms, so people assume that the U.S. government funds us.  Not so.  Most American Olympians work full time or part time in addition to their Olympic training.  And we all depend on companies to pay for training, equipment and competition fees.  

For my family and many others, sponsor support isn't a bonus or nice-to-have - it's a need-to-have.  One example: In 2020, sponsor support enabled me to take time to have a child.  If you're a competitive athlete, not competing means not earning prize money - there's no "paid parental leave" on the bobsled circuit.  Because we saved some of our sponsor funds from the last Olympics, I was able to give birth to my son and take time to recover.

~ Elena Mayers Taylor, American bobsledder and winner of two Olympic medals in Beijing, "Is Eileen Gu a Traitor to America? | American Expat Shares the Truth," Cyrus Janssen video, 2:30 mark, February 10, 2022

John Stossel on the win-win nature of voluntary exchange

We see this every time we buy something.  The seller's there for his own self-interest and so am I.  So why do we both say, "thank you."  Because he wanted the dollar more than he wanted the pretzel.  I wanted the pretzel more than the dollar.  The transaction doesn't happen unless both of us think we win.  And that way, voluntary transactions create wealth.

~ John Stossel, "In Defense of Capitalism," Stossel TV, 4:00 mark, June 18, 2019

YouTube comment on China's history of trade and foreign invasion

I’m from Malaysia.  China has traded with Malaysia for 2000 years. In those years, they had been the world’s biggest powers many times. Never once they sent troops to take our land.  Admiral Zhenghe came to Malacca five times, in gigantic fleets, and a flagship eight times the size of Christopher Columbus’ flagship, Santa Maria.  He could have seized Malacca easily, but he did not.  In 1511, the Portuguese came.  In 1642, the Dutch came.  In the 18th century the British came.  We were colonised by each, one after another. 

When China wanted spices from India, they traded with the Indians.  When they wanted gems, they traded with the Persian.  They didn’t take lands.  The only time China expanded beyond their current borders was in Yuan Dynasty, when Genghis and his descendants Ogedei Khan, Guyuk Khan & Kublai Khan concurred China, Mid Asia and Eastern Europe.  But Yuan Dynasty, although being based in China, was a part of the Mongolian Empire. 

Then came the Century of Humiliation.  Britain smuggled opium into China to dope the population, a strategy to turn the trade deficit around, after the British could not find enough silver to pay the Qing Dynasty in their tea and porcelain trades.  After the opium warehouses were burned down and ports were closed by the Chinese in ordered to curb opium, the British started the Opium War I, which China lost.  Hong Kong was forced to be surrendered to the British in a peace talk (Nanjing Treaty).  The British owned 90% of the opium market in China, during that time, Queen Victoria was the world’s biggest drug baron.  The remaining 10% was owned by American merchants from Boston.  Many of Boston’s institutions were built with profit from opium.

~ YouTube comment, alias "C L," "The Truth About Michael Pompeo and China," Cyrus Janssen, August 8, 2020

Cyrus Janssen how the U.S. benefits from trade with China

It is true, when Richard Nixon went to China almost 50 years ago and began this relationship between the United States and China, and the 1980s, when China started to embrace these capitalistic measures, there certainly was some elements from Western culture that helped revitalized the Chinese economy.  However, I would actually say it's America that is really biting the hand that has really helped it.  You see, America has benefitted tremendously and we can't pretent that only China has gotten rich.  America has gotten tremendously rich from their relationship with China as well.  It's a two-way street.  And America benefitted in two ways: The first way is they were able to manufacture their goods for a fraction of the price because of the cheap labor in China.  In addition to that, as the Chinese economy grew, American companies then were able to take their products and send them back into China and then also have a very viable market.  And that is why some of these major companies, like a Disney, like Starbucks, like Apple, like Tesla, why they've really been able to grow phenomenally over the last 10 years specifically and that is directly because of the Chinese consumers.  So with that being said, who's biting who's hand now?

~ Cyrus Janssen, "The Truth About Michael Pompeo and China," YouTube, 9:00 mark, August 8, 2020

Peter Boockvar on gold vs. Bitcoin

Ferris: The narrative right now is that Bitcoin replaces gold. That's why gold has basically sucked wind for most of the last year here.  What do you think of that idea?

Boockvar: I've been hearing obviously the same thing for a while and I think it's complete nonsense that something that's been around for 13 years is going to replace something that's been around for 5,000 years.  When you've been around for 5,000 years, you've been through a lot.  You've been through depressions and droughts and hyperinflation and deflation and world wars and so on and so on.  When you've been around for 13 years, particularly the last 13 years, all you really know is zero rates, negative rates and QE [quantitative easing].  That's pretty much all you know.  Now I do think that there's potentially going to be a place for crypto and that it can complement gold and silver in one's portfolio, but it has to prove itself.  It has to prove itself in an era of inflation that we are currently in.  It has to prove itself when there is global synchronized monetary tightening that is now in place.  It has to prove itself.  And like I said, 5,000 years of existence, you've sort of proved yourself in many different ways.

~ Peter Boockvar, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 40:45 mark, February 21, 2022

Peter Boockvar on humility and investing

We can't know it all.  Humility, at least in the investing world, should be a key characteristic because any time you get overconfident about any one thing, the market has a way of coming around and slapping you in the face.

~ Peter Boockvar, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 49:00 mark, February 21, 2022

YouTube comment on how Bruce Lee paved the way for Eileen Gu

This feels like a Bruce Lee breakout moment, where he was once asked in an interview in 1971, are you going to stay in Hong Kong or go to the US to be famous, he replies “I am going to do both because you see I’ve already made up my mind that in the United States I think something about the oriental – I mean the true oriental – should be shown… It is a false choice to be forced to choose between cultures or heritages if by birth or immigration status, you can be of both worlds and embrace both and identity as both and create something entirely new from this dual/multi-heritage interaction, Bruce Lee already showed the way, we just need to soak up his wisdom and follow.

~ YouTube comment, alias "Norrin Jonzz," "Is Eileen Gu a Traitor to America? | American Expat Shares the Truth," Cyrus Janssen YouTube video, February 10, 2022

Rachel Bachman on the Eileen Gu global consumer brand

She's quite possibly the biggest thing in sports, the biggest thing in the two biggest economies in the world.  There's no one else like her who's as dominant in her sport, who's truly multinational and has one foot squarely in two countries in the middle of the biggest event in China's recent sports history.  She is really strenuously apolitical.  There is nothing controversial about her brand.  When she's asked questions about controversial or sensitive issues she really doesn't answer them.  She responds that she wants to unify.  She seems very aware that there's a risk to criticizing or being perceived as criticizing the Chinese government or its policies.

~ Rachel Bachman, senior sports reporter, The Wall Street Journal, "Olympian Eileen Gu’s Marketing Power: The Risks and Rewards for Brands," February 16, 2022

Peter Boockvar on monetary stimulus

Bernanke, it's coming from someone who put the house on fire and then ran to the fire station and jumped into a truck then put the fire out and then wrote a book saying "I'm a hero."  So it's dangerous that we've been led by people like him down this very dark alley proving that they have no real understanding of capitalism and the regenerative power of economic growth.  And the constant need to put us on opioids to recover has been a tragic mistake.

~ Peter Boockvar, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 29:00 mark, February 21, 2022

Charlie Munger on the rise of Hitler

What brought in Hitler was the combination of the Weimar inflation where they utterly destroyed the savings of the middle class in Germany followed by the Great Depression.  It was a one-two punch.  And Hitler came in - crazy demagogue - with 40% of the votes and pretty soon we had a dictator hell-bent for world war.  So the history [of inflation] is not pleasant.  And Germany was a very advanced and civilized nation, the Germany that Hitler took over.  Now I always say that the interesting thing about that was little Albert Einstein, a little Jewish boy, got his entire primary education with the insistence of the Catholic Church in Germany.  Now that is a very civilized nation.  So if you let your nation deteriorate too much, what you get is a Hitler.

~ Charlie Munger, Yahoo Finance interview with Andy Serwer, 5:00 mark, February 16, 2022

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on private property

Because the concept of property, for instance, is so basic that everyone seems to have some immediate understanding of it, most people never think about it carefully and can, as a consequence, produce at best a very vague definition.  But starting from imprecisely stated or assumed definitions and building a complex network of thought upon them can lead only to intellectual disaster.  For the original imprecisions and loopholes will then pervade and distort everything derived from them.  To avoid this, the concept of property must first be clarified. 

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism (1989)

George Orwell on "films, football, beer and gambling"

So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance.  Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...  Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds.  To keep them in control was not difficult...  All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations.  And when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontentment led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.

~ George Orwell, 1984

Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show
February 13, 2022

Jen Psaki on imposing trade sanctions against Xinjiang, China

We believe the private sector and the international community should oppose PR- — the PRC’s weaponizing of its markets to stifle support for human rights. 

We also think that American companies should never feel the need to apologize for standing up for fundamental human rights or opposing repression. 

As we’ve said before, we call on all industries to ensure that they are not sourcing products that involve forced labor, invol- — including forced labor from Xinjiang.

~ Jen Psaki, Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki, December 23, 2021

(President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act earlier that day.)

The Christophers: "Winning isn't everything

Winning isn't Everything

Few people knew more about winning than the late Chuck Noll, coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1969 to 1991.  The team won four Super Bowls under his leadership.  But people tend to forget that in each of his first three years, Noll lost more games than he won.  In fact, one year, he lost 13 of 14 games.

Before the 1979 Super Bowl, Noll observed, "If you structure your life on winning every time, then you are in for a lot of frustration."

Yet, isn't it true that many of us structure our lives on winning - winning the race, winning the girl or guy, winning the contract?  And when we don't win, we are left with the hollow feeling of those who have set impossible goals.

Yes, there is more to life than winning.  What we are called to do is "run with perseverance the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).  In that, everyone can be a winner, regardless of the order of the finish.

~ The Christophers, Three Minutes a Day, Volume 56 (2021)

Doug Casey on why governments need external enemies

Over thousands of years of history, governments have always threatened each other with war.  It’s a good part of what they do to justify their existence, and it’s been said, correctly, that war is the health of the state.  Nothing has changed in that regard. 

The main reason that the US government is beating the war drums is that war [Russia-Ukraine] has always been a distraction from domestic problems.  Create a foreign enemy on whom to blame domestic problems, and it will reliably divert the news cycle from things you don’t want the hoi polloi to hear or talk about.  A real or fabricated foreign enemy unites the public.  The further the economy and the society deteriorate, the more war-mongering we’ll hear from Washington.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Likelihood of a Military Conflict Over Ukraine…," International Man, February 4, 2022

Doug Casey on the Russia threat

Russia itself isn’t a threat to anybody.  It’s really nothing but a gas station with an attached gun store in the middle of a wheat field. 

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Likelihood of a Military Conflict Over Ukraine…," International Man, February 4, 2022

Doug Casey on the 12 principles that created Western civilization

I think there are at least 12 characteristics that are underpinned the West.  They are free thought, free speech, free markets, property rights, limited government, individualism, rationality, personal liberty, the concept of progress, privacy, the rule of law, and entrepreneurialism. 

Humans everywhere understand their value and adhere to them sporadically, of course; without them civilization is impossible.  But only the West made them integral to itself, as principles.  They’re what made us unique.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on the Rise of China… And What it Means for the World," International Man, January 21, 2022

Kevin Duffy on the difference between the Left and Right

The right wants to return to a romantic past; the left wants to leap into a utopian future.  Neither is possible. 

The right sees trade with foreigners as exploitation; the left sees trade between employers and employees as exploitation.  Neither is correct.  All trade is win-win.

The left explicitly favors the state; the right implicitly favors the state.  Both lose sight of actual exploitation: that of the state towards its citizens.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, February 15, 2022

James Ring Adams on amateurism and exclusion at the Olympics

[The stripping of Jim Thorpe's two gold medals at the 1912 Summer Olympics] also set a precedent for an extreme interpretation of amateurism, which was not at all settled at the time and which now has been completely abandoned.  This version held that an Olympic competitor should not have received any compensation at any time for any sport, even one unrelated to his event, or for a line of work related to sports.  The great Native Hawaiian swimmer and surfer George Freeth, mentor of Duke Kahanamoku, was excluded from the 1912 Olympics because he worked as a lifeguard.  This principle would seem quaint now, if it were not so vicious. 

This version of amateurism was said to be modeled on English upper-class sportsmanship, and that is the tip-off.  The English rules were overtly designed to keep lower and middle classes from competing with the aristocracy.  The Henley Royal Regatta explicitly excluded anyone who “is or has been by trade or employment for wages a mechanic, artisan or labourer”; it barred entry, for instance, to the American Olympic champion sculler John B. Kelly, Sr. father of the actress Grace Kelly, future Princess of Monaco.  (Kelly went on to win three gold medals, in the 1920 and 1924 Olympics, even though he had previously played professional football.)  Historians would say that this doctrine of amateurism was a case of status anxiety, a means of protecting privilege against a rising class challenge.  It’s significant that the one group of professionals that were allowed to compete in their Olympic sport were fencing masters, because they were by definition “gentlemen.” 

When the newspaper scandal broke around Thorpe, the unwashed masses remained strongly on his side.  Many editorials defended him and ridiculed the AAU.  “All aspiring athletes will do well to ponder this action of the American Athletic Union,” wrote the Philadelphia Times sarcastically, “and not play croquet, ping-pong, tiddly winks, or button-button-who’s-got-the-button for compensation.”  Thorpe left Carlisle and turned pro athlete with a vengeance.  As a major box office draw, he helped put professional football on its feet.  He served as first president of the forerunner of the National Football League.  Thorpe was a main reason pro sports are now so deeply a part of American life.

~ James Ring Adams, "The Jim Thorpe Backlash: The Olympic Medals Debacle and the Demise of Carlisle," American Indian, Summer 2012

George Freeth

James Ring Adams on how Avery Brundage blocked the reinstatement of Jim Thorpe's gold medals while IOC president

Thorpe’s family and friends kept petitioning the IOC to restore his rightful honors.  The campaign only intensified after Thorpe’s death in 1953.  It encountered stubborn resistance, however, from a person with a vested interest in making Thorpe an unperson.  From 1952 to 1972, the president of the IOC was the American Avery Brundage.  By strange coincidence, Brundage was not only Thorpe’s teammate in the 1912 Olympics, he competed against Thorpe in the pentathlon and decathlon, finishing sixth in the pentathlon.  With Thorpe removed from the amateur ranks, Brundage became national all-around champion, a standing that he later admitted helped open doors to his construction business. 

A self-righteous, vindictive sort, Brundage was typecast for the role of villain in the Thorpe affair.  He has been blamed, more or less implausibly, for everything from ratting out Thorpe to the IOC to stealing his track shoes at Stockholm.  One of Thorpe’s leading biographers, Robert Wheeler, doubts that Brundage was involved in the original disqualification, but Brundage more than made up for it in later life by his curt dismissal of petitions for Thorpe’s reinstatement, some of them organized by Thorpe’s daughter, Grace, and by Wheeler himself.

~ James Ring Adams, "The Jim Thorpe Backlash: The Olympic Medals Debacle and the Demise of Carlisle," American Indian, Summer 2012

Bill Maher on the divisiveness between the Left and Right in the U.S.

We never do anything.  Half the country's having a woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they're eating babies.  We are a silly people.

~ Bill Maher, "New Rule: Losing to China," Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO), 2:40 mark, March 12, 2021

Cathaleen Chen on national identity and the false dichotomy of the U.S. or China

Identity isn’t a matter of foreign policy.  It’s a matter of the heart.  For immigrants like me and first-generation Americans like [Eileen] Gu, the “China or America?” ultimatum poses a false dichotomy.  This reaffirms the notion that expressing love for one’s Chinese culture is akin to signing a blood oath to the CCP, a logical fallacy perpetuated by mainstream media that stokes a vicious cycle of anti-Asian bias and racism, however inadvertent.  Gu is not a pawn in some grand geopolitical strife.  She’s a young woman who grew up straddling two worlds, a feat that I’ll bet is even more complicated than the gravity-defying flips she’ll be performing this week.

~ Cathaleen Chen, "I Used to Feel Guilty Rooting for China. Eileen Gu Vindicated Me.," Cosmopolitan, February 7, 2022

Tom Woods on Covid restrictions in New Mexico and Iowa

The great Ian Miller has another devastating chart.  We were told that New Mexico was doing so well because it had "listened to the science."  Then when Iowa lifted its restrictions, we were told it would be a disaster area.  Well, here's what the death numbers look like for the two places: 

I wonder if the media will follow up on this story!

So much of the narrative is falling, and yet the suppression of dissident voices -- voices that have been right! -- persists unabated.

~ Tom Woods, February 8, 2022

Kevin Duffy on prediction

The future is probabilistic, not certain.  The past is certain, but must be viewed probabilistically to have any predictive value.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, February 8, 2022

Eileen Gu on inspiring young people

The opportunity to help inspire millions of young people where my mom was born, during the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Winter Games is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help promote the sport I love.  Through skiing, I hope to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations.  If I can help to inspire one young girl to break a boundary, my wishes will have come true.

~ Eileen Feng Gu, women's freestyle skiing big air gold medalist, Beijing Winter Olympics, February 7, 2022 (quote from June 6, 2019 Instagram post)

Peter Lynch on technical analysis

Charts are great for predicting the past. 

~ Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch on skin in the game

When management owns stock, then rewarding the shareholders becomes a first priority, whereas when management simply collects a paycheck, then increasing salaries becomes a first priority. 

~ Peter Lynch, One Up on Wall Street, p. 143

Peter Lynch on forming an investment thesis

If you're prepared to invest in a company, then you ought to be able to explain why in simple language that a fifth grader could understand, and quickly enough so the fifth grader won't get bored. 

~ Peter Lynch, Beating the Street, p. 105

Peter Lynch on investing being a numbers game

The person that turns over the most rocks wins the game.  And that's always been my philosophy. 

~ Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch on investing and simplicity

Never invest in any idea you can't illustrate with a crayon.

~ Peter Lynch

Peter Lynch on the qualities of a good investor

The list of qualities (an investor should have) include patience, self-reliance, common sense, a tolerance for pain, open-mindedness, detachment, persistence, humility, flexibility, a willingness to do independent research, an equal willingness to admit mistakes, and the ability to ignore general panic. 

~ Peter Lynch

Carla Harris on venture capital funds going to women and minorities

There was about $3.8 billion that were allocated to black and hispanic founders last year [2020].  That number was $11 billion this year [2021].  Now the amount of VC dollars distributed also skyrocketed, and with respect to women, while the percentage was down, the absolute amount went up.  It was $3.8 billion and change that was allocated to female founders last year [2020].  That number was over $6 billion this year [2021]: only 2%, but the absolute dollars is something we need to pay attention to.  Slowly but surely, it's starting to penetrate.

~ Carla Harris, Morgan Stanley senior client advisor, Bloomberg TV interview, February 1, 2022

David Henderson on price controls

Price controls are like saying it's really cold and I'm going to solve that by breaking the thermometer.

~ David Henderson, "Bad Government Brings Bad Inflation," Stossel TV, 4:00 mark, February 1, 2022

Governor Gavin Newsom on California's train theft crisis

The images looked like a Third World country.  What you saw here in the last week is just not acceptable.  So, I took off the suit and tie and said I'm coming because I couldn't take it.  I can't turn on the news anymore.  What the hell is going on?

~ Governor Gavin Newsom, "LA councilman blasts train theft 'chaos,' calls them 'a threat to our economy'," Yahoo!Finance, February 1, 2022