Author: smartistone

Taki Magazine publishes articles that it thinks its readers will enjoy- usually a mix of libertarian and conservative themes. Many readers identify as ideologically conservative regarding things like cultural traditions, religion, family, guns, and border control – but with the notable exception of capitalism – where some more often than not, are in agreement with… Continue reading Some Thoughts on Wealth Inequality and the Elite

Mortgage rates defy forecasts The world is awash with liquidity. We’ve been saying that since 2011.The smallest hiccup creates a huge flight to safety into safe havens like U.S. treasuries, even as stocks keep rising or the fed begins tapering. Ashok Rao writes Wealth Inequality: Signal or Noise? In the mean time, I would rather… Continue reading The Daily View: Interest Rates, Healthcare, and Sticky Wages

Our opinions or narratives are formed by an amalgamation of facts and personal biases. For the left, such a narrative is that the economy is weak due to record wealth inequality, the debt being too high, low labor force participation, or alleged fed tapering and therefore the stock market should be lower. To quote Shakespeare,… Continue reading Ignore the Doom and Gloom Narratives

Anyone notice weird action in the CBOE VX (volatility) contract? The DJIA was flat and the VX gave a reading of 14.40-14.45 …2 hours later the market is down 10 points and the VX is 14.25. Aren’t they supposed to be inversely correlated? The contract is mean reverting, so even if the baseline volatility is… Continue reading HFT Debate Ignores More Flagrant Manipulation

Gary Becker and the Economics Revolution That Wasn’t Economics didn’t fail, liberalism did. The ‘Keynesian resurgence’ failed, predictably so. The left’s solution always boils down to blaming rich people for everything, whether it’s wealth inequality, recession, poverty, low SAT scores, etc. The wealth spreading liberals are losing to the smarties as the Dow makes another… Continue reading Liberalism Failed, Not Economic Policy

To the disappointment of the left, the fiscal cliff turned out to be a speed bump, sequestration had no negative effect on the economy (also a correct prediction), and Facebook is now 50% higher than its IPO price. We were right about the payroll tax increase not hurting consumer spending and record high student loan… Continue reading America is Still #1

Why Asian Americans Excel at Academics In spite her books receiving praise from conservative news sources, authors like Amy Chua perpetuate the liberal nurture over nature view of human development, or malleability. While liberals and conservatives don’t agree much on politics, they take comfort in this view because it feels empowering to believe, like a… Continue reading Asian Academic Achievement: IQ or Parenting?

China To Have World’s Largest Economy This Year: World Bank Hasn’t the left been predicting China’s economic crisis since 2006? Nice to see the crisis ended before it had a chance to begin. I wonder what crisis the left will front-run next. They are so good at predicting stuff that doesn’t happen. lol Isn’t there… Continue reading The Daily View: There is NO Crisis, Donald Sterling, and Inflation

From Tech Crunch After Technology Destroys Capitalism Technology, labor, and capitalism are inseparable. In a perfectly competitive free market capitalist system, technology is the result or byproduct of firms competing with each other to gain an edge, but the consequence is employees lose their jobs as their skills become obsolete, so they will need to… Continue reading Can Technology Make Capitalism Obsolete?

According to the left, unless action is taken, our ‘democracy’ will be lost to the moneyed elites, or the ‘Oligarchy’. But is wealth inequality something to lose sleep over? Not for me, Silicon Valley, or Wall St. The left likes to believe, incorrectly, that America is a democracy, but it’s actually a constitutional republic founded… Continue reading America is Becoming an Oligarchy. So What?