Miles Kington on the difference between knowledge and wisdom

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in fruit salad.

~ Miles Kington, British journalist, musician and broadcaster

Jonathan Haidt on cancel culture

I'm a big fan of the philosopher John Stuart Mill who said, "He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that."  That is, in order to really understand anything we have to look at multiple perspectives, we have to have different viewpoints pushing against each other.  That's what we do in universities.  And that's what we've always done in my career as a professor, until around 2014-2015.  All of a sudden, it became much more hazardous to question.

If you questioned, if you even tweeted about a study that challenged the received wisdom on race, gender, transgender - there are a couple of sacred issues - if you even suggested there was another side, huge social sanctions would rain down on you on Twitter and other platforms.  And here's the key thing: When people feel even a little bit of intimidation, when they think, "if I speak up, terrible things are going to happen to me of unknown size" (it could be nothing, it could be a thousand tweets).  It's that little bit of intimidation - that's what makes people go silent.  And when critics go silent, the group gets stupid.

~ Jonathan Haidt, social psychiatrist, NYU Stern School of Business, "'Uniquely Stupid:' Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life," Amanpour and Company, 4:40 mark, April 18, 2022

Bill Fleckenstein on how the Fed has lost control

By pursuing the policies that we did - I'm speaking mainly from the monetary standpoint - there was a massive amount of behavior modification, in corporate American, ... government.  No government worries about budget deficits or solving problems.  They just kick the can because, why not?  Well now were going to come to the moment in time where... the interest expense of the U.S. government is going to be up a bunch... I don't think people have really gotten their heads around the fact that the Fed is not in control.

~ Bill Fleckenstein, Wealthion interview, 42:25 mark, April 28, 2022

Chris Wright on ESG-driven underinvestment in energy

I hope we've hit peak fantasy land.  I suspect the energy dialogue starts to get more sober going forward in this country.

~ Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty Oilfield Services (as quoted in "Drill, Baby, Drill Is Not an Option," Barron's, March 12, 2022)

Kevin Duffy: "Is the inflationary side of the boat getting too crowded?"

Is the inflationary side of the boat getting too crowded?  To quote Wall Street legend Bob Farrell, “When all the experts and forecasts agree, something else is going to happen.”  Some of these fears are justified, but many are overblown, at least for the foreseeable future.  Many factors driving up prices are in fact transitory, while others – namely high energy costs – may take years to fix.  Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve belatedly began addressing the problem by shrinking its balance sheet on June 1. 

Grab your popcorn, the next act in this play is likely to be deflationary.

~ Kevin Duffy, "Breaking Point: The interventionists lose control," The Coffee Can Portfolio, June 15, 2022

Kevin Duffy on the role of deflation

Deflation is the market’s instinctive response to a particularly insidious strain of monetary inflation: one that leads to asset bubbles.  The artificial boom is seductive, pulling in the retail investor at the end.  As the bust does its all-important work of rediscovering prices, redirecting scarce capital to its best uses, and restoring economic health, hopefully some lessons will be learned.  Chief among them: the great stimulus experiments of 2008 and 2020 caused this train wreck.  The interventionists have done enough damage.  It is high-time they are swept into the dustbin of history.  Vive le laissez-faire!

~ Kevin Duffy, "Breaking Point: The interventionists lose control," The Coffee Can Portfolio, p. 9, June 15, 2022

Stanley Druckenmiller on deflations following asset bubbles

Every deflation has followed an asset bubble.  And since the Fed has created the biggest asset bubble... in history and the broadest, even though a lot of air's been let out of the balloon, it's so big, I just have to be open-minded to the consequences.  So we've had two really bad ones in the last 100 years: the U.S. in the '20s and Japan in '89.  They're still suffering.  So it could be just no growth and sideways for 15 or 20 years, like '66 to '82 in terms of the markets, or it could be something more pernicious like we had in Japan.  Frankly, I don't know.  I'm just trying to be open-minded.

~ Stanley Druckenmiller, interview with John Collison, 2022 Sohn Investment Conference, 1:02:55 mark, June 10, 2022