Respect should be irreverent when evaluating the intellectual worthiness or lack thereof of someone’s argument. But I find myself relinquishing what little I had for Nathan J. Robinson of Current Affairs, who published this howler We Don’t Know Our Potential, in response to Fredrik deBoer’s book, The Cult of Smart. His whole argument is effectively… Continue reading We Don’t Know Our Potential (Nathan J. Robinson essay)

In the comments, someone asked my opinion about real estate. As I have been predicting since I started the blog (for example, a post from 2015 in which I predicted Bay Area home prices would go higher, and gave a list of reasons, which they have, and that was even after they had surged in… Continue reading Real Estate Update: Still right after all these years

A couple weeks ago I said that stocks are better than crypto, showing how the large-cap tech portfolio (Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, PayPal, Google, etc.) has superior risk-adjusted returns compared to Bitcoin. Lo and behold , Bitcoin has fallen 25% since that post. Ethereum has fallen in half. Being a good investor is not about knowing… Continue reading Bitcoin is No Threat to the US Hegemony

Covid, the Capitol protests, and BLM/antifa defined 2020 and the first month of 2021. But things have slowed down over the past few months. Cities are no longer burning, with BLM back in hibernation. The world isn’t falling apart, as many predicted if Biden won. CPI being 4% is a long way from hyperinflation spite… Continue reading The Age of Kayfabe

Last week Elon Musk shook the world of crypto and investing by announcing that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin. In terms of coverage and newsworthiness, this matched even stories about Biden in significance. Consequently, Bitcoin and Tesla fell, and this prompted debate and talk about Elon Musk having too much influence, and how much… Continue reading Elon Musk and the Fall of Institutions

Over the past week there has been endless teeth-gnashing by the financial media and political hacks about ‘8 million unfilled jobs’ or ‘businesses being unable to fill jobs’, as if this is a crisis or abnormal. The common narrative is that stimulus spending or laziness is to blame for unfilled jobs, instead of another major… Continue reading The 8 million jobs openings, hype vs. reality

Microstrategy down 6% to $488, down $300 since I predicted that it could go bankrupt (or at least be forced to raise a ton of capital at very unfavorable rates) if bitcoin falls to $10k, destroying considerable shareholder equity. The cards are falling. Despite Bitcoin being down 28% from its highs, MSTR is down over… Continue reading Microstrategy’s Macro-Sized Losses

A few days ago Elon Musk changed his mind about Bitcoin, discontinuing it as a payment method for Tesla after suddenly becoming aware of the environmental impact of Bitcoin. Consequently, Bitcoin crashed on the news falling from $57k to $49k. That seems to be a recurring pattern for Bitcoin: big, frequent drops..it sure seems to… Continue reading Why Stocks Beat Crypto

Krugman Wonks Out: Return of the Monetary Cockroaches Krugman is both right and wrong. I agree 100% that there will be no hyperinflation. All this doom and gloom about inflation will keep being wrong. These alarmists like Peter Schiff and others have been wrong about everything for the past decade, so there is no reason… Continue reading Krugman right but for the wrong reason

Scott reminisces about the rise and fall of the online culture wars The whole process was a very clear example of a respectability cascade. There’s some position which is relatively commonly held, but considered beyond the pale for respectable people. In the beginning, the only people who will say it openly are extremely non-respectable people… Continue reading The Culture Wars Online, Revisited