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Once upon a time Americans could reliably count on reporters to follow the money to stay up on what the world’s powerful players were up to. If you’ve ever despaired that those days are gone forever, we want to provide a bit of hope by introducing Seamus Bruner. We cover his new book Controligarchs. To be sure, the story is quite disconcerting, but the young Mr. Bruner is optimistic that we can win the fight against our age’s “altruistic” masters of the universe. His thoroughly researched, readable deep dive into our 30 mega-meddler billionaires is his latest effort to wake Americans up to the onslaught on our way of life.
Ricochet’s resident scholar Steve Hayward is in for James this week. He, Peter and Rob discuss this week’s pitiful showing from the presidents of our elite colleges in front of Congress; and they chat on David Weiss’ revised indictment of Hunter Biden.
- Sound clip from the open: Harvard President Claudine Gay and Rep. Elise Stefanik at the House Committee on Education and Labor hearing.
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I guess this is progress, Peter is no longer “shocked” by things, just “staggered.”
The reason you need a UBI is because the economy is deflationary, and the geniuses that control everything think the Federal Reserve has to create inflation all of the time. We should have quit doing this the second the Soviet Union fell.
60% of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. Name one important thing that isn’t expensive. Then they whine about people not creating enough W-2 slaves.
@peterrobinson
You need to get a guy from the Ludwig von Mises Institute on Uncommon Knowledge to explain why deflation isn’t a big deal and how they are making the side effects from artificial intelligence much worse with inflation and everything else.
Really good show, today. Everybody should feature the part about campus anti-Semitism on social media.
I bought and downloaded the book. Looking forward to reading it.
There needs to be a new word for that. It’s not possible to download a book.
The FBI, DOJ and Treasury knew that Hunter was a crook in 2019 and covered it up for 3 years. The DOJ attempted to hide it all in a sweetheart plea deal about an unrelated gun form charge, but a whistleblower tanked that. We have to expect another deal, when it is politically convenient for the Dems.
And if any of the charges are California state charges, FJB couldn’t pardon that. It would give Newsom some interesting leverage on FJB.
Interesting thought. I think most states defer to IRS/Fed prosecution of tax evasion, and piggy back on Fed action. (In other words, if someone is convicted on federal charges, the state tax authorities just send a letter asking for back taxes imputed from the Fed case and don’t bring their own independent prosecution—not worth it in most instances.) Be interesting to see if the CA attorney general, or a local county DA, opens an investigation. Fun times!
As a German speaker, I wish to thank Rob Long for perhaps unwittingly inspiring my now favorite translation into English of Schadenfreude: “a big, gooey plum pudding”…(I hope that I have the phrase more or less right…I went back to listen…)
As a retired academic, I am not surprised at the fecklessness of the Ivy League presidents, disheartening as it is nonetheless. That, alas, is how the system operates–and not just in the United States.
They need to wipe out the accreditation system for the lower 50% of the colleges. When I went to college a million years ago, I was absolutely blown away by all of the smart people; people that went on to do big things, that thought liberal arts was absolutely worthless. Take whatever you want à la cart. I mean who cares?
Maybe the Flat Tax guys can gain some traction by relabeling the prebate check they say will be needed to offset taxes on basic necessities as UBI.
I don’t understand what “wiping out the accreditation system for the lower 50% of colleges” means…I also don’t understand the comment about “liberal arts.” There was a time when there was a general idea of what it meant to be an “educated person”–and of how one went about becoming such. It was to some extent flexible. In my day, many decades ago, it was thought that one really should know, at least vaguely, what the Han Dynasty was and not just when and why the Thirty Years War took place…But that was a long time ago. Nowadays, it’s permissible to think that Yasser Arafat was Israel’s first prime minister and that “from the river to the sea” means “from the Suez Canal to San Francisco.” Never mind reality: It’s the woke thought that counts…
In Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, we have the narrator bemoaning “the age of Hooper.” Well now, behold the age of Claudine Gay…
Does anyone (besides myself) understand that reference?
People want to make good money, and that is the end of it. The birth rate is dropping, and people hate colleges then and now for various reasons.
I knew a guy that graduated undergrad in three years after transferring–without going to summer school. Then he went to law school and passed the CPA during his second year of law school. Top 15 law school.He hated the liberal arts, and he thought you were stupid if you thought otherwise. I met others just like that. College is overpriced, at best, and it goes downhill from there.
They want a trade school, in other words.
Decades ago a tiny fraction of the population went to college at all.