Goodbye to Classical Liberalism… Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke People are always saying this… especially people my age. Marcus Tullius Cicero, born in 106 B.C. and therefore even older than I am, is famous for his...
P.J. writes: The real end of the world, Fake burgers, ‘Dead cat bounce’ ahead
Dear reader, We released our May American Consequences magazine over the weekend. I believe it’s one of our best yet. Because while everything seems rosy on both Wall Street and Main Street – at least if you only pay attention to the official...
Read Your ‘Up In Flames’ Issue Now
The markets keep bouncing back… unemployment is at record lows… but are things really as rosy as they seem? Fresh out of last month’s politics issue, we’re looking at what comes next for the economy, the presidency, personal...
What could go wrong?… Most hedge funds ever position for bear market… Are the PC police coming for John Wayne and James Bond?
Dear reader, As we’ve said many times in these pages, there is something wrong in America… It’s been a decade since the global financial crisis. And yet 40% of Americans – including middle-class families – still struggle to afford...
Cannabis? Can’tabis?
Why It’s So Hard to Relax About Pot By Tom Bodett While I could have, at one time, credibly written The Popular Pharmacology of America: 1970 – 1990, I have not indulged in any of it for going on 30 years. The only mood-altering substance I’ve...
Too High to Drive?
States Grapple With Setting Limits on Weed Use Behind the Wheel By Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News It used to be the stuff of stoner comedies and “Just Say No” campaigns. Today, marijuana is becoming mainstream as voters across the country...
Pennsylvania’s Medical Cannabis
And The Exclusive Industry That’s Supplying It By Alyse Horn Pyatt Laura Jean Kahl owns Rabbit Hollow Farm in Washington County, Pennsylvania. A fairly rural county of just over 200,000 people, it sits south of Pittsburgh bordering West...
The Budding Industry
Comments and Observations from the International Cannabis Business Conference San Francisco, February 7-8, 2019 Insight From Our Commodity Market Senior Executive California For many medical patients and “canna professionals,” California has led the...
Greener Grass?
Rethinking the Risk and Opportunity in Cannabis By Thomas Carroll It’s time to rethink everything you believe about cannabis. If you’ve been attentive at all to the news for the past few years, you have undoubtedly heard something about the biggest...
Rough Times Ahead
But Liberty Can Still Win By Dr. Ron Paul While Congress and the president fight over funding a border wall, they continue to ignore the coming economic tsunami caused by the approximately $22 trillion (and rapidly increasing) federal debt...
Why The Algos Need a Heart
What happens when you take humans completely out of the market? By C. Scott Garliss Anything a human can do, a machine can do better. Anything a human can screw up, a machine can screw up worse. If you’re using machines in the stock market, that...
Love, Lies, and Tea Leaves
Using common sense instead of looking for a sign on Wall Street might leave you with a fuller cup By Turney Duff The old adage on Wall Street is to not get too emotional… “Don’t get married to a stock,” is how it’s often said. I never had that...
Head In The Clouds
Or Feet on the Trading Room Floor? – Tales of Emotional Investments – Some people will lose everything before they accept a loss… Bill McGilton, Editor and Financial Analyst It was 2001, and I was a new attorney working on an...
Fear & Investing
How Fear Will Ruin Your Financial Future By Dr. David Eifrig Nearly half of all Americans are ruining their financial futures… A survey from online banking-news aggregator Bankrate found that 57% of Americans are not invested in the stock...
Trade Routes
By P.J. O’Rourke The definition of a free-market trade: Each party gives something he or she values less in return for something he or she values more, and both parties benefit. This issue of American Consequences is (mostly) about those benefits...
2019 Prep: Crypto Comeback?
2018’s “Crypto Winter” Will Soon Thaw, And Bitcoin Will Surge. Here’s Why… By Eric Wade Editor’s Note Eric Wade makes a detailed and carefully reasoned argument for a “crypto comeback.” Is Eric right, or is crypto dead...
Free Trade: A Basic Human Right
FREEDOM TO BUY AND SELL IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT, DAMN IT Trade Policy? Just leave me alone, Donald By Edward H. Crane If I were a (tenured) professor of political science, what would I do? Glad you asked. I would devote the entire semester to...
The Real Meaning of Trade
Letter from the Editor: Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke It’s “International Trade” that gets all the headlines. We think, in our imaginations, that we could do without it – drive Buicks, use old Motorola flip phones, and own one T-shirt made in...
Stop The Xsanity
Try Going Grinch This Xmas By Buck Sexton Stop giving gifts to your family members this holiday season. I know, it’s heresy to write this. Some of you may be wondering if I’ve turned into a Jehovah’s Witness or a Bernie Sanders supporter. But I’m...
Venezuela
One Place Santa Won’t Be Coming This Year During the Holiday Season Let Us Not Forget To Ask, “What Can We Do for Those Who Are Less Fortunate Than Ourselves?” By Ricardo Hausmann Wishing a problem away is seldom an effective...
Santa-Tation
Out Clutter! Out Jumble! Out Smelly Old Trunks! On Clean-Up! On Sweep-Out! Away With the Junk! What if Santa Came for Grown-Ups? By P.J. O’Rourke Well, for one thing, he wouldn’t land on the roof! Do you know what roofs cost? We had ours re-shingled...
Christmas: Looking In
How Dickens and pop culture gave us the Christmas we know today By John Podhoretz In his wonderful 2008 book The Man Who Invented Christmas, Les Standiford reveals how the triumphant success of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in 1843 placed...
Don’t Be the Dumb Money
Cash In On the Crash By Dr. Steve Sjuggerud How quickly individual investors forget that stocks go up and down. The famous Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index hit a new all-time high in early October. A week later, the Dow fell more than 800...
Fear & Greed
The Biggest Lesson of My Investment Career By Matt Weinschenk I was one of the first people to know that Lehman Brothers would go bust, but I didn’t figure it out for myself. I was just a 25-year-old kid sitting in the right place at the right time...
Larger Than Life and Twice as Ugly
America’s Love Affair With the Post-Apocalyptic Movie By John Podhoretz The greatest twist ending in Hollywood history came in 1968 when Charlton Heston rode shirtless on a horse down a beach, saw something horrid, and threw himself to the ground...
The Debt Bomb
HAVE WE ALREADY DROPPED IT? Insight from Our Chief Risk Officer X I have been asked to provide words of wisdom on the current state of debt and leverage in the world… It’s a difficult task, since the prevailing wisdom from the vast...
The Kavanaugh Election
Emotions are more important than evidence in 2018… By Buck Sexton Depending on your news source, the upcoming midterm election is either the quasi-socialist Sandernista Left against the pro-growth Constitutionalist GOP… or it’s the...
Midterm Madness
SUPER BOWL FOR SCALLYWAGS By Andrew Ferguson The Republican Party has been synonymous, at least notionally, with political and cultural conservatism for two generations. Now it is synonymous with President Donald Trump – not “Trumpism,” because...
America’s Most Expensive Problem
And you’ll be paying for it… By Bill McGilton and Porter Stansberry Aaron Woodrum knew he couldn’t afford a car… but he didn’t have a choice. He had finally landed a job… But living outside of sprawling Indianapolis, a car...
The U.S. Economy and the Midterm Elections
Michael J. Boskin The U.S. economy’s strength should boost Republicans’ prospects in congressional elections this November. But polls currently show that Democrats will retake one or both chambers of Congress, which means that even if...
Corporate America’s Health Care Gambit
With American health care costs ballooning, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase have pledged to build a company that will help their U.S. employees find care "at a reasonable cost." If their initiative succeeds, it could reshape health...
Our Bodies or Ourselves
Technological developments in recent years have highlighted not only the benefits of big data, but also the need to come to terms with the dangers it poses to our privacy, civil liberties, and human rights. Nowhere is this question more relevant...
The U.S. Health Care System
Almost no one can agree on anything in our fractured political landscape today. But just about everyone – policymakers, providers, patients, and third-party payers alike – realize that the American health care system is in crisis.
How Iran Could Hit Back at the World
Lost amidst the cacophony of the media’s pathological anti-Trumpism, Paul Manafort tax trial updates, and Stormy Daniels deep-dives, are the legitimately important things that are happening in the world. High on this list should be the current...
A Conversation With… Carter Page
American oil industry consultant and former foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump
Millionaires Will Be Minted By a New Energy Revolution
It was 1855, and Yale professor Benjamin Silliman was on the run. The report he had in his possession was worth trillions of dollars.
Solar Life
Leaving the Lights on in My Energy Efficient, Money Deficient, Very Much on-the-Grid House By Tom Bodett Let’s get this out of the way – Yes, I’m the guy you’ve heard saying “We’ll Leave the Light on for You” out of some radio every six seconds for...
Living in an Artificial World
To hell with nature. Living in an artificial world is the best thing ever. We need “unnatural,” artificial human interference with the environment.
Not So Great Expectations
By some reckonings, the two most successful movies ever made are 1915’s The Birth of a Nation, and Gone With the Wind from 1939. Birth was the movie that ensured the endurance of the medium and inaugurated the idea that its creative talent should be...
Carrots and Sticks in China Negotiations
The trade strategy with China is different than other nations By Buck Sexton President Donald Trump’s administration has been up front about its strategy on trade… Tariffs can be negative. They can cause problems between two different...
3 Books That Aren’t About Investing
Serious investors care about more than the markets. They care about the freedom that makes those markets work, and the wisdom behind that freedom. Serious investors also care about the things that threaten market freedom – such as foolish politics...
Summer Reading
It’s that time of year again when Wall Street’s finest like to grab a beach chair and a good book and hit the beaches. I checked in with more than 100 finance professionals – traders, bankers, analysts, and hedge funders to see what’s on their...
Resurgence of the American Heartland
In an abrupt reversal, rural communities are outpacing urban growth... A revival is building all along the “Hillbilly Highway.”
Letter From Toledo, Ohio
Will A Rust Belt City Shine Again? Word's out that the Heartland of America has gone missing. If you're looking for smokestacks to guide you on a flight from Los Angeles to New York, good luck. They've mostly been dumped into the Great Lakes.
Pigs Get Slaughtered
“It’s the fat pig that feels the butcher’s knife.”- Old Chinese saying
Puppies Are Cute
How Passing a Bill Might Leave a Wet Spot on the Carpet It doesn’t matter where they come from. Be they Coastal or Heartlander, once they arrive in Washington, D.C., and are sworn into Congress, they all convert (or revert) to large-scale Coastal...
A North Korean Opportunity for America and China
The foundational economic ties for the Sino-American relationship are now a source of friction...
Are You a “Coastal” or a “Heartlander”?
It’s not where you live. It’s how you live. Take our quiz to find out whether you’re an Organic All-Natural Unrefined Sea Salt person or whether you’re The Salt of the Earth. Tally whether you mostly chose the first or second option and see the...
The Smart Way to Save
Use This 1996 Law to Increase Both Your Wealth and the Smarts of Your Family
Saving Education
One of these years, maybe I’ll be able to begin this letter by reporting that it was a placid, relaxed year across the higher education landscape. Not yet.
The Unexpected Upside of a Religious Education
Looking back at a rich (and often richly absurd) alternative Christian universe...
Wall Street on the Big Screen
Finance is the great neglected subject of American art. Among the enduring American writers, only Theodore Dreiser took up the serious study of the “Lord of Finance” as a central figure in the national story. His extraordinary novels The Financier...
The Dark Side of Facebook’s Global Social Media Domination
It started with a bunch of college kids wanting to see photos of each other online back in 2004. Now, Facebook is among the most valuable companies in the world, with a market cap of around $450 billion. The social media behemoth boasts 2.2 billion...
Protect Your Portfolio While Taking Advantage of Rising Volatility
An interview with Matt Weinschenk, senior analyst, Retirement Trader By Matt Weinschenk Q: Stocks have marched higher for the past nine or so years. It has been a historic move, but folks on Wall Street have mixed opinions whether the bull market...
End of the Anti-Fear Trade
The day I warned about arrived on Monday, February 5. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) closed 115% higher than Friday’s close. And some investors lost everything... Before we get to the hairy details, I bet most investors who lost money trading VIX...
Safe in the Fishbowl
In the future, most people will live in a total surveillance state – and some of us might even like it.
The $200,000 Phone Call
To me the saddest part of living a security-and-surveillance life is that we’re never far, far away anymore. We’re always in view. We’re always connected. We’re never in an unknown place. There is no Middle-of-Nowhere left, no “it’s not the end of...
Who Got Paid in This Massive Russian Energy Deal?
What’s going on between Carter Page, broker fees, Rex Tillerson, government sanctions, and Russia’s Rosneft energy giant...
Some Thoughts on The History of Trade
We cannot consider Asia without considering trade. Our trade with China, for example. Some may view it with alarm...
One Kim to Rule Them All
Everything You Need To Know About The North Korean Threat Laugh if you want at the fat little men with bad haircuts who always seem to be in charge of the place, or the pants-wetting adulation at its immense choreographed rallies for those same...
Singapore’s Property Market Is Coming Back to Life
It’s one of the greatest transformations the world has ever seen... In 1965, the small island nation of Singapore was in bad shape. It had few natural resources, double-digit unemployment, and an uneducated population. At just 275 square miles (a...
In Asia on the Ground
When You Do Business In China Everything Gets Thrown At You – Including a Wrench When the talk turns to Asia, I (P.J.) turn to “Tom” and “Mai” in Hong Kong. We’ve been close friends for 30 years. I prize their view because they refuse to view Asia...
The Certain Loser in November’s Congressional Elections
He isn’t a candidate. He isn’t even alive.
But America is going to be a
lot worse off without him.
The Political System Couldn’t Get Any Worse
Those of us who get paid to commit acts of political journalism are fond of overstatement. The trade tends to attract excitable types, easily bored and always on the prowl for new stimuli. I’m not going to say that the Internet was invented for...
What Has the Digital Revolution Done to Print Media?
Great literature is gone. Good journalism has disappeared. Philosophy dove off the highboard of thought only to find the pool of thinking had been drained. Even comic books have been ruined.
One Rule You Must Follow in 2018
If you enact just one rule in your home in the New Year, let it be this: Put down your cellphone.
Men Without Work
Over the past two generations, America has suffered a quiet catastrophe. It is a catastrophe not seen in comparable affluent Western societies. The catastrophe is the collapse of work – for men. In the half century between 1965 and 2015, work rates...
Did You Make 20% or More From the ‘Death of Malls’?
The downtown department store was the retail king for about 60 years. The suburban malls that replaced it have enjoyed a reign nearly that long, and many are now long in the tooth.
Easy Come, Easy Go
I was making $24,000 a year in 1994 as a sales assistant at Morgan Stanley. I was also $10,000 in debt, courtesy of MasterCard and Visa’s generous credit lines. But I had hope because it was December... and that meant Bonus Season was upon us.
Monty Hall’s Lesson for the U.S. Treasury
I’d like to think that God greeted Monty Hall after his death in late September by asking whether he’d like to choose the gift behind Pearly Gate No. 1 or Pearly Gate No. 2...
Debt-Free?…
I woke up this morning and everything was free.
All goods and services... completely free. It had to be true because when the clock radio came on, even NPR was giving away tote bags without begging for donations.
The Kamala Contradiction
The late-August temperature hits 100 degrees in Oakland, California as U.S. Senator Kamala Devi Harris throws a town-hall meeting at Beebe Memorial Cathedral. The unair-conditioned church is sweltering, but hundreds of Kamala fans flow into pews...
Antifa: Sympathy For the Devil
Things today will end much as they did 50 years ago… when I stopped being a noisy young creep By P.J. O’Rourke I’d like to launch into a strong invective about the “antifa,” those noisy young creeps trampling on liberty, vandalizing...
This Month’s Two Worst Political Ideas Ever
“Ever,” of course, is a long time, which is why I’m sticking to this month. The two current worst political ideas cannot – mercifully – be compared to such ideas as communism, Nazism, or the 18th Amendment to the Constitution enforcing prohibition...
The Innovation That Will Drive the Next Oil Supercycle
Innovation: Oil Supercycle You’ve heard of “fracking”… the cutting-edge technology critical to exploiting the American energy renaissance. But you haven’t heard of the new tech that will drive the next commodity...
‘Unnovations’
When people say “innovation” – especially people in business and investment – they say it with a smile. They say it like they’d say “cold beer,” as if it were always a good idea.
How the ‘Real World’ Becomes the Web
The Final Word: By Buck Sexton Machines have been making our lives easier since Archimedes was messing around with pulleys and levers some 2,000 years ago. And with the advances of telephony, computers and the Internet, the explosive acceleration of...
How Robber Barons Became Robin Hoods
Why anti-business business writers give tech titans a free pass on ‘red in tooth and claw’ capitalism… By Andrew Ferguson Among the enduring questions of American journalism – What happened to Amelia Earhart? Who was that guy...
The New Mutant Capitalism
Thirty years ago, it was simple… Now, it’s as if somebody took corporations and exposed them to atomic bomb test radiation. Letter from the Editor: From Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke Something strange has happened to capitalism...
Bitcoin’s Price Explosion Is a Mania
We’ve seen this move in Bitcoin before… Get out while you can. By Raoul Pal Investors are watching in awe as bitcoin takes off exponentially yet again… I bought bitcoin at $200 a few years back. It is one of the best trades in the...
A Worldwide Cyber War You Can’t Ignore
Tomorrow’s battle lines are drawing much closer to home… The Final Word: By Buck Sexton If you’re not worried about imminent, catastrophic computer attacks on U.S. soil – like the recent hacker attempts to probe American nuclear...
The Bare Facts About Cryptocurrency in Las Vegas
Is ‘Bootycoin’ the next big thing on the Strip? Or a tease? By Todd Prince Las Vegas is making cryptocurrencies sexy. Keeping true to its motto, “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas,” the city will become home to the Legends Room, the nation’s...
Trump Must Beat the Siege
The Final Word: By Buck Sexton The White House is under a siege worthy of the Ottoman Turks in 1453. And like the destruction of Constantinople and the end of Byzantine Empire, President Trump’s whole regime will fall unless he manages to shore up...
