The Post-Partisan Emporium

some things i learned a gato reflects upon the nature of government and governors el gato malo “have no fear, clown world is here!” politicians are terrible at science, economics, and finance. most of them are terrible at most things apart from getting elected. having spoken to, advised, and interacted with dozens upon dozens of them across covid (having really been blessedly free from exposure to this ecosystem previously) i have just been astonished at how much they presume to dictate about given how little they understand. it’s children juggling nitroglycerine because they assume no one would have handed it to them if it were dangerous and that “someone must know what’s going on.” but no one does. certainly the “experts” don’t. they are making stuff up, getting it wrong, and flogging long dead hobbyhorses as they drag us ever deeper into ditches. and this becomes a severe problem when the technocratic tail starts wagging the governmental dog. and make no mistake: they do. what do yo...

Doug Casey on the Struggle Between the Powerful Forces of Centralization and Decentralization by  Doug Casey  Subscribe to  International Man International Man : We’re seeing several disturbing trends converge: currency debasement, increased surveillance, and more travel restrictions. It seems governments everywhere—and the WEF elite behind them—are waging an all-out war on ordinary people worldwide. What do you make of this trend, and where is it headed? Doug Casey : Well,  as I said earlier , the World Economic Forum is actually an informal United Nations, which is bad enough. It’s populated by people who like the idea of powerful government in general, and a powerful world government in particular. When you look at history, you find that there are people who arise from seemingly nowhere and are able to put themselves in positions of huge influence and power. In today’s world, that usually happens through elections. But Bismarck, Napoleon, Mao, Kissinger,...

In a mighty blow to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing,  Vanguard, the world's second-largest asset manager, announced it's withdrawing from a major financial alliance against climate change:  the  Net Zero Asset Managers  (NZAM) initiative. NZAM, which Vanguard joined in 2021, bills itself as  "an international group of asset managers committed to supporting the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050  or sooner, in line with global efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius; and to supporting investing aligned with net zero emissions by 2050 or sooner." Last month,  Consumers' Research  joined 13 state attorneys general in filing a  complaint  against Vanguard with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission  ( FERC ), charging that the firm was violating its agreement to control utility company shares passively.   "Committing to net zero isn’t an abstract goal," wrote Will Hild, executive d...

As the Pentagon Fails Another Audit, Congress Wants to Spend Even More on "Defense" Ryan McMaken In November, the Pentagon announced it had failed yet another audit. In spite of the fact that the Department of Defense has had years to get its act together, the Pentagon still doesn’t know how it spends or maintains its trillions of dollars’ worth of taxpayer-funded assets and income. As  Breaking Defense   noted last month : The Pentagon has failed its  annual audit  for the fifth year in a row, an expected result that nonetheless represents something of a disappointment for an effort that officials hoped would continue steady, if incremental, year over year progress. . . . The Pentagon has failed every audit since 2018, the first audit of the department ever performed in its history. Accounting like this, of course, would land most private-sector C-suite executives in prison for various financial crimes. Moreover, this is the same government that insis...