Henry Hazlitt on government spending

Everything we get, outside of the free gifts of nature, must in some way be paid for.  The world is full of so-called economists who in turn are full of schemes for getting something for nothing.  They tell us that the government can spend and spend without taxing at all; that it can continue to pile up debt without ever paying it off, because ‘we owe it to ourselves.’ 

~ Henry Hazlitt

George Gilder on Google, Facebook and the limits of their free model

Q: In your book Life After Google, you discuss some of the tech giants' flawed business models today may not allow them to survive.  Can you elaborate on that?

A: I think companies like Google and Facebook that collect almost all their revenues from advertising and don't have any real liabilities to their customers - no real responsibilities to their customers - they aggregate viewers and sell advertisements, ads that we all know are minuses; people don't want to see their ads, particularily on their smartphones where pop-up ads of various kinds comprise 36% of bandwidth costs for your smartphone and you only intentionally click on the ads 0.03% of the time.  It's a failing model and it's worth recognizing that all the Chinese companies that are really competing with our companies (with three times the population) get 10% or something of their revenues from advertising.  They really have figured out how to collect money from customers.  That's their advantage and we better be alert to this.

Q: It sounds like these companies are starting to become dated...

A: Their free model is debauching them.  Free is not capitalism.  They really don't know how to deal with customers and whenever they have to make a decision, they decide in the end, "ah, it's easier just to give it away for free and collect more data and sell it to advertisers."  This model is reaching the end of the line and we're moving into life after Google!

~ George Gilder, Stansberry Research interview, 5:20 mark, October 11, 2019

Neel Kashkari on why stimulus is needed to deal with the coronavirus

The best thing that has happened in this terrible crisis has been the way that both parties have come together in Congress to provide a lot of assistance to the American people who've been laid off and the businesses who've been directly effected, and they need continuing support until we get through this.  By the way, if we don't arrest the virus - and this is going to be burning for the next year or two - people are going to need support for the next year or two.  If we were to do an aggressive intervention now, the bridge that they would need would be much shorter and it would actually be more affordable than having to provide assistance for the next couple of years.  But it is very important that Congress continues to provide support, especially to those workers who continue to be unemployed.

~ Neel Kashkari, interview with Sara Eisen, CNBC, 2:45 mark, August 14, 2020