Doug Casey on meme stock madness and Weimar hyperinflation

Q: Many meme stock gamblers are younger people who are heavily in debt and have poor job prospects.  They feel that getting lucky in the stock market casino is the only way to get ahead. 

What’s your take? 

Doug Casey: Perhaps we’re approaching the stage of what happened in Germany in the early ’20s when the average German couldn’t get ahead by working.  Since the currency was losing value so rapidly, it made no sense to save.  It barely made sense to work.  To stay ahead of the collapse of the currency, everyone tried to get lucky with scams and schemes they didn’t really understand.  This led to instability in society and the degeneration of norms and morals.  Many looked for radical political solutions, with the Communists or the National Socialists.

That seems similar to what’s happening today in the US. Its financial aspect is facilitated by the fact that anyone can open an account with Robinhood, and everybody has an iPhone.  Therefore, everybody can buy and sell stocks and options.  But only a tiny, tiny portion of these people have any real understanding of the stock market, securities analysis, money, or economics.

I’d say it’s an indication that the economy and the markets are on the edge of a precipice when the modern-day equivalent of shoeshine boys think that they actually know what they’re doing.

~ Doug Casey, "Meme Stock Mania and Impending Financial Disaster," LewRockwell.com, May 30, 2024

Doug Casey on the cryptocurrency bubble

Q: Some people made fortunes with Dogecoin, a dog-themed cryptocurrency. 

Dogecoin was created as a joke, with no practical use case. Still, its market cap peaked at over $88 billion, which is roughly the recent market cap of multinational computer maker Dell Technologies. 

What is really going on here? 

Doug Casey: I understand that there are about 40,000 cryptocurrencies out there. The crypto market has turned into a mania spawned by the success of Bitcoin, which has a very real use. 

But as Nick Giambruno has pointed out, most of these things serve absolutely no useful purpose. People think they’re investing in them. They’re not even speculating in them. They’re gambling with them but don’t know it. Most cryptos have less value than Chuck E. Cheese tokens or airline frequent flyer miles. They have absolutely no value or use. To reference the old joke, they’re “trading sardines,” not “eating sardines.” They amount to play money, like that in a game of Monopoly. 

But because Dogecoin (I like to call it “doggy coin”) was mentioned and mildly promoted by a couple of celebrities, it somehow captured the imagination of gamblers and wannabe masters of the universe and got traction. People started buying and selling it for no reason other than the fact everyone else was doing it. Dogecoin became a financial meme.

Let me make a prediction. I don’t know if it’s going to be a week from now or a year from now, but the $88 billion in Dogecoin will disappear. It’s going to zero because that’s what it’s worth. The same will happen to 99.9% of other cryptos. Let me hasten to add that Bitcoin has real value as a money, however.

Stories will be told about Dogecoin, much like those about the tulip mania of the 1630s in Holland. 

~ Doug Casey, "Meme Stock Mania and Impending Financial Disaster," International Man, May 30, 2024

John Denson: "The twentieth century was the bloodiest in all history"

The twentieth century was the bloodiest in all history.  More than 170 million people were killed by government with 10 million having been killed in World War I and 50 million killed in World War II.  Of the 50 million killed in World War II, nearly 70 percent were innocent civilians.

~ John V. Denson

2017

Lindsey Graham justifies Israel's bombing of Gaza and U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII

Q: Why does Israel need the most massive bombs that can potentially level an entire block in order to wage this war?  Why can't it be more precise?

Lindsey Graham: Listen, here's what I would say about fighting an enemy who wants to kill you and your family.  Why did we drop two bombs, two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  To end a war that we couldn't afford to lose.  You don't understand, apparently, what Israel is facing.  They're facing three groups: Iran, who has received 80 billion dollars in aid.  When Trump left office they were exporting 300 [thousand] barrels of oil a day.  Now they're at 1.3 million a day.  They've been enriched by Biden.  They're taking that money to kill all the Jews.

So when we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbor, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons.  That was the right decision.  Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can't afford to lose and work with them to minimize casualties.

[...]

My problem is not with the weapons Israel is using.  My problem is with the tactics Hamas is using.  And the idea that America is not sending a nickel of aid, echoed by United States senator, when all the Jews are trying to be killed by radical Islamic groups, tells us where we are at as a nation.  The Republican Party is with Israel without apology.

~ Senator Lindsey Graham, "Sen. Lindsey Graham says Israel should do 'whatever' it has to while comparing the war in Gaza to Hiroshima and Nagasaki," NBC's Meet the Press, May 12, 2024

Bill Walton on happiness

Never forget - happiness ends when selfishness begins.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on the good things in life

Never rank, rate, or compare coaches, children, concerts, or championships or congratulations.  Just enjoy them all.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on music

Music is critical in our lives and culture.  It's the inspiration that drives us.  It's also the window to our souls.  It's a reflection as to who we are, what we stand for and where we're going.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on the role of luck in success

There are no guarantees in life.  The simple twists of fate and the breaks of the game are the two maxims that define so much of the success and failure in life.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on the Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead, they're my best friends.  Their message of hope, peace, love, teamwork, creativity, imagination, celebration, the dance, the vision, the purpose, the passion - all of the things I believe in - makes me the luckiest Deadhead in the world.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on the conditioning of NBA players

Mick Jagger is in better shape than far too many NBA players.  It's up in the air whether the same can be said of Keith Richards.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on conformity

When everybody thinks alike, nobody thinks. 

~ Bill Walton, Nothing But Net: Just Give Me the Ball and Get Out of the Way

1995

Bill Walton on love and power

Love is the single most powerful and important word and notion in culture and language.  Until the power of love supersedes the love of power we have no chance of ever being successful.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on happiness

There are four pillars to happiness, which is the ultimate goal in life-to be happy.  Health is first, family is second, home is third.  That safe place where you can go to and regroup, be in a safe place by yourself to start over.  Those three things lead to the fourth pillar which is the hope and dream that tomorrow is going to be better.  Without that you have not much at all.

~ Bill Walton, Hall of Fame basketball player and commentator, R.I.P. (1953-2024)

Gad Saad on empathy vs. survival

A society dies when it cares more about exhibiting infinite tolerance and empathy than invoking its survival instinct.

~ Gad Saad

Norman Finklestein on Benjamin Netanyahu: "He's an obnoxious, narcissistic, Jewish supremacist"

If you read the liberal commentators or commentators of the West, every few months they're predicting the end of Netanyahu's rule.  It doesn't happen because Netanyahu, he is a reflection and a representation of Israeli society.  He's an obnoxious, narcissistic, Jewish supremacist who thinks that only Jews [howth, inaudible] in God's grand design.  Everybody else - the Goyim, as they're called - they have no place in God's grand design except where Israel decides to situate or place them.

So the first fact is we have to bear in mind he remains, even now, very popular in Israel.  The claim is his standing up to Iran has increased his popularity, but as a general rule.

Number two: Israel is a democracy.  Were it true that his policies were unpopular, another candidate would emerge.  That's the nature of a democracy.  Have you heard of another candidate who has emerged by dissociating himself with or denouncing Netanyahu's policies.  The answer is "no."

Number three: It's not just the Israeli state.  If you look at the Israeli society - I'm not talking about the people at the helm of the state - the Israeli society overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly supports the genocidal war in Gaza.  It's about 95% of the Jewish Israelis...  I have the statistics right here...  "About 60% of Israeli Jews oppose any humanitarian aid to Gaza..."  In polls on the issue of the war, only 1.8% (that was in October), 7% (that was in December) and 3.2% (that's January) of Jewish Israelis believe the IDF was using too much firepower in Gaza.

~ Norman Finklestein, "Norman Finklestein: All you know about Israel is wrong," PoliticsJOE, 0:15 mark, May 2, 2024

Thomas Sowell on war on the productive

No society ever thrived because it had a large and growing class of parasites living off those who produce.

~ Thomas Sowell

Jeremy Hammond on protesters using "from the river to the sea" as a slogan

This reminds me of the whole "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" slogan that they've been chanting and the media keep hammering on how the U.S. Congress and House keep passing resolutions defining that as antisemitic.  Well, that's just so utterly stupid.  Not to say that there aren't people who chant that who [are] antisemitic, but most of these kids on college campuses who are chanting the slogan "from the river to the sea," they're not advocating the slaughter of Jews in Israel.  They're advocating a single-state solution in which all people have equal rights.  They're opposing the apartheid regime.  And that's what they mean when they say "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."  

The other thing that renders that accusation that that's "antisemitic" so stupid is that if you look at the charter of Likud, the party of current Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, they use essentially the same slogan saying "from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, there will be only Israeli sovereignty."  Evidently Hamas plagiarized from Likud.

~ Jeremy Hammond, "Scott Horton and I Explain How Israel Supported Hamas," Jeremy R. Hammond Blog, 8:40 mark, May 17, 2024

Murray Rothbard on determining the aggressor in war

Just because all sides share in the ultimate State-guilt, does not mean that all sides are equally guilty. On the contrary, in virtually every war, one side is far more guilty than the other, and on one side must be pinned the basic responsibility for aggression, for a drive for conquest, etc. But in order to find out which side to any war is the more guilty, we have to inform ourselves in depth about the history of that conflict, and that takes time and thought--and it also takes the ultimate willingness to become relevant by taking sides through pinning a greater degree of guilt on one side or the other. 

~ Murray Rothbard, "War Guilt in the Middle East," 1967

Ilan Pappé on Zionism and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians

The Nakba is a bit of a misleading term because it means in Arabic "a catastrophe."  It really, what the Palestinians suffered, was not a natural catastrophe, rather ethnic cleansing, which is a clear policy motivated by clear ideology.  And that policy was part - and a total part - of the Zionist program for Palestine from the very inception of the movement in the late 19th century.

Of course very early on they didn't have the capacity to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their homeland.  But already in the mid 1920s, when the Zionist community in Palestine was still very small, it was able, through purchase of land on which there were many Palestinian villages, to convince the British Mandatory power to evict thirteen Palestinian villages, and that was between 1925 and 1926.  And then slowly this process of buying land and evicting the people who lived on this for hundreds of years brought the Zionist movement where it purchased at least 6% of the land of Palestine, which was of course not enough.  

And then they went to the big ethnic cleansing of 1948.  But as we know, it didn't stop in 1948.  Israel continued to expel Palestinian villages between '48 and '67 [which formed to move] the Palestinian minority in Israel which were allegedly citizens of Israel.  Israel expelled 300,000 Palestinians during the Six-Days War in June 1967.  And since June 1967 until today about 600,000 Palestinians, in one way or another, were dislocated and uprooted by Israel.  

And of course now we have a case of ethnic cleansing that even overtakes the magnitude of the ethnic cleansing during 1948.  So there is not one moment in the history of the Palestinians in Palestine since the arrival of Zionism in Palestine in which Palestinians are [not] potentially under danger of losing their home, their fields, their businesses and their homeland.

~ Ilan Pappé, "Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé on Interrogation at U.S. Airport and 'Collapse of the Zionist Project'," Democracy Now!, 6:25 mark, May 22, 2024

Jeremy Hammond: "Zionism itself is a racist ideology"

Zionism itself is a racist ideology, the whole concept being, going back to the Mandate era again, and looking at what they wanted and what the movement was and what the Zionist project was, [it] was a settler colonial project aimed at displacing the Arab population and subjecting the Arabs to Jewish domination.  And Israel exists today in accordance with the original Zionist movement and its original aims.  It exists today as an unashamedly as a Jewish supremacist state.  

And we need look no further to establish that, uncontroversially, we need look no further than the Jewish Nation State Law passed in 2018, which is part of its Basic Law, which is Israel doesn't have a constitution, but they have what's called a Basic Law, which is - you can think of it as their constitutional law - it's basically their supreme law of the land, which literally defines self-determination in the territory under Israel's control as a right exclusive to Jews.  So it's a Jewish supremacist state, openly.

~ Jeremy R. Hammond, video clip on Twitter/X, May 23, 2024

Jeff Bezos on stress

Stress primarily comes from not taking action over something that you can have some control over.

So, if I find that some particular thing is causing me to have stress, that's a warning flag for me.

What it means is there's something that I haven't completely identified perhaps in my conscious mind that is bothering me, and I haven't yet taken any action on it.

I find as soon as I identify it, and make the first phone call, or send off the first e-mail message, or whatever it is that we're going to do to start to address that situation -- even if it's not solved -- the mere fact that we're addressing it dramatically reduces any stress that might come from it.

So, stress comes from ignoring things that you shouldn't be ignoring, I think, in large part. So, stress doesn't come -- people get stress wrong all the time in my opinion.

Stress doesn't come from hard work, for example. You know, you can be working incredibly hard and loving it, and, likewise, you can be out of work and incredibly stressed over that.

And, likewise, if you use that as an analogy for what I was just talking about, if you're out of work but you're going through a disciplined approach, a series of job interviews and so on, and working to remedy that situation, you are going to be a lot less stressed than if you're just worrying about it and doing nothing.

~ Jeff Bezos

Jeremy Hammond on Israel's war on terror

That the real threat to Israel has been that of peace achieved through implementation of the two-state solution is well evidenced by its policies and their predictable consequences.  This is oftentimes the only rational explanation for Israel’s actions.  Its continued occupation, oppression, and violence toward the Palestinians have served to escalate the threat of terrorism against Israeli civilians, but this is a price Israeli leaders are willing to pay.  Indeed, the threat of terrorism has often served as a necessary pretext to further goals that would not be politically feasible absent such a threat.

This was recognized within the Israeli government itself.  In October 2003, for example, Moshe Ya’alon, the Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), criticized the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon because they served to increase hatred of Israel and strengthen terrorist organizations.

~ Jeremy R. Hammond, Obstacle to Peace: The US Role in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

2016

David Bergland on free trade and peace

Free trade is a powerful inducement to international peace.  Any time a trade barrier is removed, increased trade follows and the people who engage in it are more prosperous.  When people in different countries are able to trade freely with each other, they do not want their beneficial trade relationships interrupted by war.

It is an interesting historical fact that the U.S. government has never gone to war with another government while free trade relationships existed between them.  History also shows us that governments tend to follow the lead of other governments where trade barriers are concerned...  Removing trade restrictions would be the single most efficient way to improve the prosperity of Americans and others, and to improve the relationships between Americans and people of different countries.

~ David Bergland, Libertarianism in One Lesson, pp. 33-34

Lew Rockwell on Hitler's modest plans before 1939

The neocon efforts to demonize the enemy are nothing new, and in what follows, I’m going to discuss a number of examples to show how pervasive this pattern has been in involving America in unnecessary, destructive, and costly wars. 

Let’s begin with the most salient case of all.  For the neocons, it’s always Hitler.  The Munich Conference of 1938 shows what happens when we fail to stand up against evil.  The facts don’t bear out what they say.  Hitler was indeed an evil dictator, but America had no valid reason to go to war against him.  Hitler did not aim to attack the United States, and fighting against him helped Stalin, who killed more people than Hitler did, in taking control of Eastern Europe. 

Furthermore, Hitler’s policies during the 1930s aimed at the peaceful revision of the punitive and unjust Treaty of Versailles.  A European War resulted only after the unwise and unenforceable British and French guarantee of the Western boundary of Poland.  The eastern boundary against Russia was not guaranteed, and Poland lost territory to Russia after the Russians invaded Poland on September 17, 1939. 

The great Murray Rothbard notes that Hitler’s policy before 1939 was improvised, responding to particular circumstances.  He did not have a plan for “world conquest” as the neocons continue to allege today.  “Hitler was not bent on world conquest, for which he had armed Germany to the teeth and constructed a ‘timetable.’  Hitler, in brief, (in foreign affairs) was not a uniquely evil monster or daimon, who would continue to gobble up countries diabolically until stopped by superior force.  Hitler was a rational German statesman, pursuing — with considerable intuitive insight — a traditional, post-Versailles German policy (to which we might add intimations of desires to expand eastward in an attack on Bolshevism).  But basically, Hitler has no ‘master plan’; he was a German intent, like all Germans, on revising the intolerable and stupid Versailles-diktat, and on doing so by peaceful means, and in collaboration with the British and French.  One thing is sure: Hitler had no designs, no plans, not even vague intimations, to expand westward against Britain and France (let alone the United States).”

~ Lew Rockwell, "Good vs. Bad Nations," LewRockwell.com, May 22, 2024

Kevin Duffy on the nature of government, democracy and lying politicians

• Government is a heavily armed gang that terrorizes the people.
• Democracy is a scam to convince people otherwise.
• Politicians don't lie. Voters lie to themselves & politicians tell them what they want to hear.
• Voting shows tacit approval of the gang.

~ Kevin Duffy, tweet, May 21, 2024

Scott Horton on calling leftist antiwar protesters antisemitic

There's this more important narrative that they [the mainstream media] needs to hammer home, which is that the only ones who oppose Israel oppose them for no good reason, only because of antisemitism... which is a ridiculous hoax.  Just on the face of it, you don't have to give leftist protesters that much credit.  I'm sure they're bad on a lot of things, but nobody thinks that they're racists, right?  That's the crisis of our age, it's that they're so anti-racist that they won't leave anyone alone just for going about their day, right?  But now, all of a sudden, they're the Nazis.  They're supposed to be to the right of the right wing in America now.  Who could buy that?  It just sounds so stupid.

~ Scott Horton, "Scott Horton and I Explain How Israel Supported Hamas," Jeremy R. Hammond Blog, 7:50 mark, May 17, 2024

Benjamin Netanyahu: "America is a thing you can move very easily"

The United States and Israel have made a huge effort this month to patch up the sometimes difficult relationship between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.  But a newly released video of Netanyahu, speaking in an unvarnished manner in 2001 about relations with the United States and the peace process, may cause some heartburn at the White House. 

"I know what America is," Netanyahu told a group of terror victims, apparently not knowing his words were being recorded.  "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction.  They won't get in their way."

Netanyahu also bragged how he undercut the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton administration.  "They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords]," he said.  "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders.  How did we do it?  Nobody said what defined military zones were.  Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue."

~ Benjamin Netanyahu, as quoted by The Washington Post, July 16, 2010

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: "The IDF has protected civilians better than any army in history"

People die in war.  In every war that's going on today, there are civilians dying and the average death rate - civilian-combatant death rate according to the United Nations and the Institute for the Study of Urban Warfare - is about 9-to-1, but in Gaza is about 1-to-1...  The IDF has protected civilians better than any army in history.

~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., video clip on Twitter/X, May 15, 2024

New York Times: anti-globalism = antisemitism

Debate rages over the extent to which the protests on the political left constitute coded or even direct attacks on Jews.  But far less attention has been paid to a trend on the right: For all of their rhetoric of the moment, increasingly through the Trump era many Republicans have helped inject into the mainstream thinly veiled anti-Jewish messages with deep historical roots. 

The conspiracy theory taking on fresh currency is one that dates back hundreds of years and has perennially bubbled into view: that a shady cabal of wealthy Jews secretly controls events and institutions contrary to the national interest of whatever country it is operating in. 

The current formulation of the trope taps into the populist loathing of an elite “ruling class.”  “Globalists” or “globalist elites” are blamed for everything from Black Lives Matter to the influx of migrants across the southern border, often described as a plot to replace native-born Americans with foreigners who will vote for Democrats.  The favored personification of the globalist enemy is George Soros, the 93-year-old Hungarian American Jewish financier and Holocaust survivor who has spent billions in support of liberal causes and democratic institutions. 

This language is hardly new — Mr. Soros became a boogeyman of the American far right long before the ascendancy of Mr. Trump.  And the elected officials now invoking him or the globalists rarely, if ever, directly mention Jews or blame them outright.  Some of them may not immediately understand the antisemitic resonance of the meme, and in some cases its use may simply be reflexive political rhetoric.  But its rising ubiquity reflects the breaking down of old guardrails on all types of degrading speech, and the cross-pollination with the raw, sometimes hate-filled speech of the extreme right, in a party under the sway of the norm-defying former, and perhaps future, president. 

In a July 2023 email to supporters, the Trump campaign employed an image that bears striking resemblance to a Nazi-era cartoon of a hook-nosed puppet master manipulating world figures: Mr. Soros as puppet master, pulling the strings controlling President Biden. 

~ Karen Yourish, Danielle Ivory, Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Alex Lemonides, "How Republicans Echo Antisemitic Tropes Despite Declaring Support for Israel," The New York Times, May 9, 2024

Lew Rockwell on how the good vs. evil paradigm has been applied to the Civil War

After the end of World War II, the good versus evil nations paradigm was applied to the War Between the States as well.  Before 1939, the dominant interpretation of the war stressed national reconciliation.  Historians such as Avery Craven saw the war as an unnecessary conflict brought about by errors and intransigence on both sides.  The foremost American historian of the time, Charles A, Beard, saw the war primarily in economic terms, as a conflict between the industrialized North and the agricultural South.  In the new view, by contrast. as expressed in a pioneering article, “The Causes of the Civil War” by the ardent New Dealer Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. in Partisan Review (1949), the war was seen as a Manichean struggle in which the heroic Abraham Lincoln battled the evil slave power. 

The neocons have continued the demonization of the South today, e.g., by campaigning to destroy all Confederate monuments and by rooting out any sympathy for the Confederate cause in history textbooks.  General Robert E. Lee, once a national icon, is now reviled, and Abraham Lincoln, who bears primary responsibility for a horrendous war and for the growth of the Leviathan state, is treated as a virtual demigod. 

As the great Tom DiLorenzo, the president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute has pointed out, Lincoln’s motive for war on the South was not the eradication of slavery—he urged the adoption of the Corwin Amendment, which would have guaranteed non-interference with slavery in place where it then existed—but the continued collection of tariffs, the principal source of the federal government’s tax revenues, Secession, he thought, must be forcibly suppressed to secure this vital source of revenue.  As DiLorenzo says, “Lincoln then threw down the gauntlet in his first inaugural: ‘The power confided in me,’ he said, ‘will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion–no using force against, or among the people anywhere.’ 

‘We are going to make tax slaves out of you,’ Lincoln was effectively saying, ‘and if you resist, there will be an invasion.’  That was on March 4.  Five weeks later, on April 12, Fort Sumter, a tariff collection point in Charleston Harbor, was bombarded by the Confederates.  No one was hurt or killed, and Lincoln later revealed that he manipulated the Confederates into firing the first shot, which helped generate war fever in the North.”  See this. 

Mark Thornton and Robert B. Ekelund, Jr., in their excellent book Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation have also made a strong case that tariffs were the primary cause of the war.

~ Lew Rockwell, "The Myth of Good and Bad Nations," LewRockwell.com, May 20, 2024

Walter Block: "I would say that 75% of libertarians favor Israel" regarding the Gaza invasion

I regard the Mises Institute as the preeminent Austro-libertarian group.  However, that's only the Mises Institute.  There's the Cato Institute which is much more pro-Israel, Reason Foundation is much more pro-Israel...  I would say that 75% of libertarians favor Israel and 25% don't, which is roughly my assessment of the overall population of the U.S.

~ Walter Block, "Is Zionism a Libertarian Movement?," Gilad Alper, 1:01:00 mark, May 18, 2024

Alan Futerman on anti-Zionism and antisemitism

You could say that anti-Zionism is different from anti-Semitism, but now, after the state of Israel exists and you have one-third of the Jewish people living in Israel - more even - and it's the Jewish state and you read the Jewish books and the Jewish calendar is followed and the Jewish language is spoken and every Jew is related in one way or another with the state of Israel, etc., you cannot be against the only Jewish state in the world and not be antisemitic.  So I think the distinction has to be made between those things: to say, "ok, theoretically you could be anti-Zionist without being antisemitic," but today the practical consequences of making the state of Israel to disappear would be the mass murder of an important part of the Jewish people.

~ Alan Futerman, "Is Zionism a Libertarian Movement?," (interview with Gilad Alper), 1:16:00 mark, May 18, 2024

Walter Block on the difference between how Hamas and Israel treat civilians in the conflict

Yes, Israel made mistakes here, there and everywhere.  They're imperfect people, sue 'em.  But who's worse?  It's like a drop in the bucket compared to the whole bucket.  Yes, Israel made a mistake here and there, but the Arabs, they purposely target civilians!  On October 7th they were aiming at civilians, Israel never aimed at civilians.  Yes, there was collateral damage and it was regretted.  And it was due to the fact that they imbed themselves and use them as shields.  So [there is a] gigantic, humongous difference between Israel and its enemies and Israel is very much on the good side.

~ Walter Block, "Block, Futerman on Hoppe, Israel and Hamas," Individualist Origins, 1:06:25 mark, May 15, 2024

Alan Futerman on those who justify the means of Hamas

Danny Woods: Attacking people just because you think you own their land or they might've taken it, bombing them, killing them, taking their children, killing the elderly, kidnapping babies, this is not in any way a legal representation that would be considered valid.  It cannot be.  And then to defend that system and say, "oh, you see the other person who's wrong because of this thing he did a long time ago," it's so utterly lopsided.  The argument is so wrong...  It's completely wrong and someone who justifies that, it's crazy, justifying the most deepest wrongs and evils man can commit...

Alan Futerman: The point I mentioned about Jew hatred explains so because if you're fighting absolute evil, if you're fighting a cosmic battle and you are fighting evil, everything's permitted.  The ends justify the means.  You can do whatever you want.  And even if you do something that is horrendous, "well, it had to be done"...  So this is not just something you see among Jew haters only.  In this context, you can take anyone on the intersectionality camp and they use exactly the same argument.  They say, "well, if you fight colonizers, if you fight settler colonialists, if you fight oppressors, if you fight etc., all bets are off and you can do whatever you want."  This is the type of totalitarian mentality that allows people to think they can do whatever they want.

~ Alan Futerman, "Block, Futerman on Hoppe, Israel and Hamas," Individualist Origins, 43:45 mark, May 15, 2024

Tom DiLorenzo on the Seven Deadly Sins of politics

All politicians everywhere, including Israel, are showcases of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Self-pride trumps humility for starters.  What member of Congress is not an egomaniac?  Envy poisons the heart of every proponent of “income redistribution” schemes, the cornerstone of welfarism everywhere. 

Wrath is what one experiences whenever one opposes the state.  Ask all the doctors who had their medical licenses cancelled after questioning the covid “vaccines.”  Even Tucker Carlson was smeared as a “Russian asset” for opposing the American financing of Ukraine in its war with Russia. 

Sloth has always been associated with government bureaucracy.  No one likes being called a “bureaucrat.”  Then of course there is greed.  Greed for power and money animates national and state capitals everywhere.  No institutions anywhere are more greedy for money than public employee unions, for example or the thousands of other “special-interest groups” that scheme endlessly to rob the treasury.

Gluttony is on display everywhere as well with the ostentatious lifestyles and conspicuous wealth of ruling classes.  Nor are politicians unfamiliar with the sin of lust, especially the lust for power over others, dubbed by Judge Andrew Napolitano as “libido dominande” or “lust to dominate.”

~ Tom DiLorenzo, "Christian Worship of the False Gold of Politics," LewRockwell.com, May 16, 2024

Retired General Mark Milley on the killing of civilians in war

Before we all get self-righteous about what Israel is doing - and I feel horrible about the innocent people in Gaza who are dying - but we shouldn't forget they we, in the United States, killed a lot of innocent people in Mosul and Raqqa [Iraq].  That we, in the United States, killed 12,000 innocent French civilians and here we are on the 80th anniversary of Normandy, on the prep fires for Normandy.  We destroyed 69 Japanese cities, not including Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  We slaughtered people in massive numbers, innocent people who had nothing to do with their government: men, women and children.  War is a terrible thing, but if it's going to have meaning, if it's going to have any sense of morality, it's got to have a political purpose and it must be achieved rapidly, with the least cost and that you do by speed.

~ Ret. Gen. Mark Milley, conference appearance posted on Twitter/X, May 8, 2024

Major Harrison Mann on resigning from the U.S. Army over the invasion of Gaza

My work here — however administrative or marginal it appeared — has unquestionably contributed to that support.  The past months have presented us with the most horrific and heartbreaking images imaginable… and I have been unable to ignore the connection between those images and my duties here.  This caused me incredible shame and guilt...  This unconditional support also encourages reckless escalation that risks wider war...  It is clear that this week, some of you will still be asked to provide support — directly or indirectly — to the Israeli military as it conducts operations into Rafah and elsewhere in Gaza...   At some point — whatever the justification — you’re either advancing a policy that enables the mass starvation of children, or you’re not.  And I want to clarify that as the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing. 

~ Maj. Harrison Mann, "Army officer resigns in protest of U.S. support of Israel in Gaza," The Washington Post, May 14, 2024

(Mann was a U.S. Army officer working at the Defense Intelligence Agency who resigned, citing his objection to Israel’s war in Gaza, according to an open letter he published online Monday saying he is distressed that his work has contributed to the deaths of Palestinian civilians.)

Grant Williams on UK stocks and the return of active investing

There are some phenomenal companies in the UK, no doubt about it.  And as you said, it's an equity market that's been there forever.  So given the fact that it's fallen so far behind, there is definitely opportunity in the UK.  But I think the important thing to understand here is - this comes back to another trend that I've been looking at - the idea of having to do less to be more successful, i.e. we talked about the bitcoin ETF.  It would be easy from this part of our conversation to say that "oh, the UK's cheap, I'm going to buy the UK."  And that is kind of where we've come to.  We buy these abstract ideas.  We buy countries.  

We used to buy companies.  We used to buy a share in a business.  And now we buy stocks.  And the difference in mindset for that is extraordinary because if you're buying a stock, you just own a number and you're buying it because it's going to go up.  You haven't done the work to understand the business, you haven't gone into it feeling like an owner of a series of cash flows, which is what this used to be all about.  And it changes your mindset.  You're not a long-term holder; we've seen that the average holding time data and how that's cratered in the last 20 years.  

Again, I believe this is a change in mindset that I suspect is going to start to come back the other way, i.e. if you do want to make money in UK stocks, you will be able to make some terrific money in UK stocks, but the tradeoff is you're going to have to go back to work again.  You're going to have to sit there and start to find individual companies instead of buying the UK ETF if you want to outperform.  And I think that's a great thing, to be honest with you.  It will bring back the talents of these extraordinary managers who've been marginalized by ETFs and the Vanguards and BlackRocks of the world.  And the idea that you make money by working hard, I mean what a great idea that is.  What a great idea.  And to Peter [Atwater's] point about luxury, it's the antithesis of that.  It's not "we deserve to make money in the stock market," it's "we're going to have to work to earn money in the stock market."  And that to me is where this will always come back to over time when the froth of the entitlement dissipates.

~ Grant Williams, interview with Meb Faber, The Meb Faber Show, 28:10 mark, March 15, 2024

Catherine LeGraw on the recent gold breakout

Gold I would be a definite "no" on at all-time highs.  That stock price looks like it's gone parabolic so far this year.  So as a valuation-based investor you're more inclined to be short than long.

~ Catherine LeGraw, interview with Meb Faber, The Meb Faber Show, 31:20 mark, April 26, 2024

Kevin Duffy on how baby boomers oppose the pro-Palestinian student protests

To have zero empathy for 2 million people in Gaza, two-thirds women and children, having their lives utterly destroyed over the past 6 months is appalling.  At least 1 in 70 Palestinians have died so far.  Let that sink in. 

I am ashamed of my generation.  This is the same generation that grew up with the Vietnam War and the heroic student protests, the same generation that saw the national guard sent in to Kent State where they killed four protesters (Neil Young's "Four Dead in Ohio"). I was 9 years old when that happened. 

Our generation witnessed the government and the establishment for what it was: a criminal organization wrecking lives halfway around the world as well as at home. Now we have BECOME the establishment. "Throw the protesters in jail! Turn on the water cannons!" All you Republicans out there, can't you see the Biden administration is SENDING MORE WEAPONS AND AID TO ISRAEL? This isn't about left vs. right, it's about us vs. the state.

~ Kevin Duffy, Facebook comment, May 9, 2024

Kent State - May 4, 1970

Cactus Schroeder on the failure of oil companies who shifted to green energy

Cactus Schroeder: There was so much money thrown at green energy - and it's all flopping - so these people are not going to continue putting money into things that aren't making money.  BlackRock was such a big deal with their [ESG].  And they're having to take a step back and say, "we're not making money" and, because they put all those regulations and they're on so many boards, the state of Texas has said, "bye, we're not doing business with you anymore."  They sold all their BlackRock stock and I think Louisiana's getting ready to do that as well or may have already.  And so some of those companies, they're going to have to change what they're doing or suffer the consequences.

Dan Ferris: Yeah, it's just another version of go woke, go broke.  Anheuser Busch, Disney, now Porter [Stansberry] argues that Starbucks is because they started letting homeless people come in and use the bathroom and he said that it turned it from a business into a charity.  And now their results are sucking wind.  They're doing terribly.  At some point reality does kick in.  Reality kicks in and we all want our standard of living so we all know it's based on oil and gas and it's not based on a whole lot else.

~ Cactus Schroeder, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 32:30 mark, May 6, 2024

Rabbi Barclay on the killing of Palestinian children

Candace Owens: Do you think it is sad when an innocent Palestinian child dies?

A: Candace, I cry every day.  And it's not just for Israel.  And this is one of the things you clearly do not understand!  The same when most don't who are antisemitic don't get it.  I cry for what's going on in Israel.  I cry just as much for what we are forced to do.  Golda Meir had a great quote.  She said that "One day we may be able to forgive them for killing Israeli children.  We will never be able to forgive them for making us kill their children."

~ Rabbi Barclay, interview with Candace Owens, Candace Owens Podcast, 30:20 mark, March 18, 2024

Kevin Duffy on American foreign policy

Perhaps the greatest delusion the American people suffer from is our government's foreign policy.  The good news is that all bubbles eventually burst. After 9/11, 80% of Americans wanted revenge and went along with invading Iraq and Afghanistan. I guarantee you many of those people today will admit it was a costly mistake, even though they won't admit going along with it.  Today, there is little popular support of the war in Ukraine on the right, while there is little support for the war in Gaza on the left. China baffles me because there seems to be bipartisan support for at least an economic war (which hurts us economically).  I think a shooting war would be a different matter.  Young people here have no interest in dying in foreign wars. 

Economically, our government is broke.  They're spending money they don't have mainly because that's all they know how to do.  Higher interest rates guarantee that spending cuts are coming or inflation's coming or both.  With the baby boomers retiring in droves, we as a country will have to choose between military spending or social security checks.  I suspect the latter will ultimately win out. 

I look forward to the day the U.S. government dismantles its empire and we can all get along.  That day is coming.  I just don't know the exact date.

~ Kevin Duffy, note to a friend, May 7, 2024

Fred Hickey on the factors driving the gold bull market

There are several factors driving today's gold bull market including: a loss of faith in central bankers worldwide following their coordinated money printing (currency debasement) programs in recent years to fund massive government deficit spending; U.S. actions to "weaponize" the dollar (the global reserve currency) against their enemies; the collapse of investing alternatives (real estate, stocks) in China and the revival of inflation.

~ Fred Hickey, The High-Tech Strategist, May 4, 2024

Connor O'Keeffe on pro-Palestinian student protests and cultural Marxism

The strategic ineptitude of these students can seem almost astounding until you remember what they are being taught at these schools.  Universities like Columbia have gone all in on identity politics and social justice.  A more accurate name would be trait-based collectivized justice.  The dominant historical narrative that permeates almost every department and class curriculum considers the world to mostly have been in balance until white, western Europeans decided to get rich by stealing and expropriating resources from the rest of the world.  Putting aside how economically and historically delusional that is, by framing history as a series of injustices committed by an entire identity group on other identity groups in their entirety, adherents conclude that justice can only be attained on a collective, group level. 

And so, when students see the horrific images and videos coming out of Gaza of mostly brown, mostly Muslim people being blown up, crushed, and starved by white-looking descendants of European immigrants, it seems to fit neatly into their learned worldview.  So even though, in this case, it leads most of them to the correct general conclusion, it shouldn’t be a surprise that an imprecise, historically flawed narrative leads to imprecise, strategically flawed activism.

~ Connor O'Keeffe, "What Campus Protesters and Their Critics Get Right and Wrong," Mises Wire, May 1, 2024