Donald Trump and Robert Kennedy Jr. both spoke at the Libertarian National Convention over the Memorial Day weekend.  Joe Biden was also invited by the Libertarian Party, but unsurprisingly did not accept.

I listened out of order.  I watched the Trump speech first.  I later listened to Kennedy’s speech.  It seemed like they didn’t take place at the same event in front of the same crowd.  To be fair, the crowd might have been a little different, as I’m sure some of those who attended Trump’s speech did not attend RFK’s speech.

With Trump’s speech, there is background noise during the entire thing.  Some of the videos were shaky, which is probably the fault of the people running the event, but the video of Kennedy seemed better, so it is not clear what happened there.

Trump’s Content and the Reactions

Trump’s speech was mostly filled with boos.  The crowd was hostile and rude to Trump.  There were certainly some Trump supporters there and others who had certain sympathies with him, but the loud boos and talking are going to prevail in this situation.

It is understandable that a Libertarian crowd will be somewhat hostile to Trump, but it would have been nice to show a little more respect and at least let him talk.  You can express your discontent for the really bad parts and then let him continue.

It was also a bit confusing for outsiders, which probably includes many Trump supporters.  Trump said something about staying out of foreign wars and the crowd booed.  I saw comments in one of the YouTube videos with several people wondering why libertarians were booing at that.

I understand the reason, but it is not so obvious to those outside our circles.  The reason people were booing is because Trump’s comments do not reflect what he actually did as president.  This is the man who surrounded himself with people like Nikki Haley, John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo.  Trump continued support for wars in Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  He bombed Syria.  He ordered the assassination of an Iranian official.

The sad thing is that Trump was probably the best president in terms of foreign policy in at least a generation.  He didn’t start any new major wars.  He may have entered office with the best of intentions.  I don’t know.  But he was still bad.  His comments were hypocritical.  That’s why the crowd expressed disapproval, but I think it would have been better optics to only boo the parts where Trump was saying things that were bad or incorrect.

Of course, there were probably many Libertarians there with Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).  They wouldn’t think through the optics and the message that the hostile attitude was sending to others watching.

The one high point of Trump’s speech was when he said he would commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht. You could also visibly see “Free Ross” signs in the crowd in many of the videos.  This was Trump’s safe play to the crowd, and it got a lot of positive cheers.

This was the safe play because Ross Ulbricht isn’t hated and feared by the state as much as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.  Ulbricht set up a website that was partially used for activity that the government deems illegal, particularly buying and selling drugs.  Snowden and Assange actually exposed corruption and criminality of the state.  So, it is much easier for Trump to pander to libertarians by saying he will commute (not pardon) Ross.

On this topic, it was a good play for the Libertarians in the crowd to emphasize their desire to free Ross.  That’s because it was something they could get out of Trump.  I don’t think signs saying “Free Assange” would have done any good, at least with changing Trump.

When I first wrote about Trump speaking at the LP convention, I said that maybe something good will come out of it like this.  If Trump does end up getting elected and taking office, there is a good chance that Ross will be freed from prison.  For this reason alone, it is good that Angela McCardle (Libertarian Party chair) was able to get Trump to attend.

Overall, the speech was a disaster for Trump.  He is not accustomed to this kind of environment.  He is usually speaking in front of big crowds that love the things he is saying.  If he had to do it over, I’m guessing Trump wouldn’t have gone.  He should have just sent Vivek as a representative, who spoke well in an informal debate at the convention.

It was hilarious when Trump had to take his shot at the Libertarian Party saying that they can just be happy with their 3% if they don’t want to vote for him.  Of course, that 3% is the reason that Trump and Kennedy were there.  They both need every little percent they can get.

The Biden handlers knew not to show up because almost all libertarians dislike Biden and his policies.  In addition, Biden is too mentally incapable of persuading anybody of anything.  His support relies solely on other people’s hatred for Trump.

The Libertarian Speech from Kennedy

The speech from Kennedy was completely different.  I almost have to wonder if he consulted with a hardcore libertarian to help write the speech that he gave.  There was just one time that I heard someone yell from the crowd.  Kennedy calmly said that he would be happy to talk to anyone afterwards.  Other than that, I heard nothing but applause.

Kennedy’s speech was written for libertarians.  He talked about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  He mentioned the 9^th and 10^th Amendments, which is music to most libertarian ears.  He said he would pardon Snowden and drop charges against Assange.  He spoke of rights and how the government is not authorized to take them away.

It was hardcore libertarian in almost every way.  There was one time when he mentioned reforming an agency (instead of eliminating it), so it wasn’t the perfect speech.  But I was extremely impressed by his knowledge and how deep he went.  Most conservatives wouldn’t have been able to articulate or even understand the things Kennedy said.  Even if he had someone help him with the speech, I am impressed that he was in tune enough to get that help and speak the words that he did.

At the end of the speech, he said that we (Kennedy and the Libertarians) don’t agree on everything, but we need to be united against those who don’t understand what America is supposed to look like.  Overall, it was an amazing speech.

Of course, Kennedy didn’t address the issue of Israel and its bombing campaign in Gaza.  He didn’t mention his support of U.S. funding for that particular conflict.

With the nomination of Chase Oliver at the convention (the really bad part of the convention weekend), I have nobody to vote for.  If Kennedy would just soften his position on Israel, I could probably overlook everything else in terms of flaws and vote for him.

If Kennedy were to govern half as good as his speech, I would vote for him.

The Libertarian National Convention of 2024 is one for the history books.  It featured two major presidential candidates – Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.  It also featured Vivek Ramaswamy, who did a short informal debate with Clint Russell, who was running for the vice-presidential nomination.

While Trump got most of the attention, the party was there to take care of business, including picking a nominee for president and vice president.

In a somewhat surprising turn, Chase Oliver got the nomination for president after 7 ballots.  You have to get 50% or higher of the delegate vote to get the nomination.  After each round of voting, candidates are eliminated.

When it got to the 6^th ballot, there were two candidates left – Chase Oliver and Michael Rectenwald.  Rectenwald was the candidate backed by the Mises Caucus, which essentially took over the party in 2022 and put in Angela McCardle as the chair of the party.

The nominating process basically saw the Mises Caucus versus the field.  As each presidential candidate was eliminated from each ballot, the supporting delegates generally went to someone other than Rectenwald.  The only exceptions may have been Joshua Smith and Jacob Hornberger, who already started out low.

When Mike ter Maat was eliminated after the 5^th ballot, most of his supporters went to Chase Oliver as opposed to Michael Rectenwald.  On the 6^th ballot, Oliver got 49.5% of the voting delegates, and Rectenwald got 44.7%.  There were a few delegates still writing in candidates, and “None of the Above” (NOTA) got 5.2%.  NOTA is an option when voting for candidates in the Libertarian Party.

Since Oliver still didn’t have a majority, it went to a 7^th ballot.  He had to compete against NOTA.  On this final ballot, Oliver received 60.6% of the vote, thus securing the nomination.  NOTA received 36.6%.

The unprecedented thing is that on the 1^st ballot, Chase Oliver got 19.7% of the voting delegates.  He was actually just below 20%.  For comparison, Rectenwald got 28.2% on the 1^st ballot.  When you get a bunch of libertarians in the room, especially members of the Libertarian Party, they agree on almost nothing.  I think almost everyone agrees that Ross Ulbricht should be freed from prison, and that’s about it.

This means that the candidates not named Rectenwald and a large chunk of the delegates, coalesced to defeat the Mises Caucus candidate.  This is certainly a setback for the Mises Caucus, which I consider to be the libertarian wing of the Libertarian Party.

On the vice-presidential nomination, the Mises Caucus again barely lost.  Clint Russell, a great spokesman for liberty, received 47.0% of the vote on the 2^nd ballot.  Mike ter Maat received 51.3%.  It is obvious that Mike ter Maat cut a deal with Chase Oliver to team up and get their supporters to support each other.

Work to Do

This showed that there is still a lot of work to do for the Mises Caucus.  Some longtime members of the party see the Mises Caucus as taking over and don’t like it.  Perhaps the words “take over” never should have been implemented by the Mises Caucus.  It should have been sold as just making the party better.  And to be sure, the party is far better with a large chunk of the Mises Caucus in there.

I don’t know much about Chase Oliver at this point.  I did attend a debate once that included him.  He is very good on foreign policy if he is telling the truth.  We’ll never find out because he won’t ever be president.  The only true test for any candidate is to actually win office and then see if they try to do what they said.  I can say for certain that Oliver is by far the best presidential candidate on foreign policy as compared to Trump, Kennedy, and Biden.

In fact, Oliver is better on most issues as compared to the others.  Even though Oliver is considered more of the left wing of the Libertarian Party, he is still really good on issues of war, the economy, the drug war, guns, and other big libertarian issues.  Again, that is if his rhetoric is truthful, but I have no reason to doubt that it is.

Oliver is for open borders, which is a term that perhaps shouldn’t be used by libertarians.  I have come to this conclusion recently, as it is a confusing term when libertarians support private property rights.  I think immigration is a tough issue for libertarians, especially when living in a statist world.  For me, it isn’t really a disqualifier in most cases.

So why wouldn’t I support Oliver, when I would have supported Rectenwald?  It is a bit hard to explain.  I looked at his positions on his website.  There is nothing that is really bad.  There are probably some areas that I would emphasize more.  There are some areas that I would address that he doesn’t, such as the so-called intelligence agencies and the Department of “Justice”.

I have an open mind about Chase Oliver, just as I had an open mind about Jo Jorgensen in 2020.  I would have preferred Rectenwald.  I really would have preferred Dave Smith, but he didn’t run for personal reasons.  I prefer Trump and Kennedy to Biden, but I disagree with both Trump and Kennedy on many major things.  No matter what, I will be voting the lesser of evils unless I decide to not vote for president or write someone in.  It’s just a matter of how much evil I am willing to accept.

If Oliver runs a solid campaign that emphasizes the major issues of foreign policy, the economy, and the national security state, then I may be able to vote for him.  I hope he doesn’t go off the tracks like Jorgensen did and start trying to please the so-called social justice warriors.  If I am going to give a protest vote to someone I know can’t win, then he or she better be very solid on the issues.  I have my strong doubts about Chase Oliver, but I am at least willing to listen to him going forward and give him a chance.

It would have been interesting if Dave Smith had run.  It would have been very close, I think.  Rectenwald, despite being a former Marxist, is very solid and well-versed on libertarian issues.  He does not have the personality of Dave Smith.  Almost nobody does.  If Dave Smith had run, there might have been more enthusiasm from his supporters to become delegates and attend the convention.  We won’t know for sure what would have happened.

Angela McCardle is still the chair of the party.  The Mises Caucus is just a few dozen people away from becoming a majority within the party in terms of those very actively involved.  If Dave runs in 2028, I think he has a good chance of becoming the nominee.  And without Trump in the running (most likely), he can have a great impact on the country just by helping to educate those who are willing to listen.  He has already been making major appearances on other shows, including Joe Rogan and Tucker Carlson.

I hope that the radical libertarians of the Mises Caucus don’t give up just because of the results of the 2024 convention.  They were very close.  The last time I voted for a Libertarian Party candidate for president was Michael Badnarik in 2004.  It has been a long time since we have had a Libertarian Party presidential candidate who is radically in favor of liberty.  2024 may not have broken this streak, but there is light ahead.  I think the principled libertarian wing of the Libertarian Party can get the party to send a strong message for liberty in the years ahead.

UPDATE: The more I read and learn about Chase Oliver, the worse it gets. It seems he was on the crazy side of COVID. He is also part of the “woke” culture where he has to virtue signal everything sacred to the left. It will be interesting to see what he emphasizes on the campaign trail, but it’s not looking good.

When it comes to investing, sometimes it is better to invest for your own emotional well-being than to be “optimal”.  When people talk about being optimal, it is usually based on math and statistics.

For example, you might have someone who has a large amount of cash that is sitting in the bank and they want to pay off their mortgage with a 4% interest rate.  The so-called “optimal” investor will say that you shouldn’t pay off your mortgage because you can invest the money and make a greater return.

Of course, there is no guarantee that you will make more money investing it.  Bonds and other financial instruments that give you a guaranteed return are the only guarantee.  Even these aren’t technically a guarantee because there is a chance for default, even if miniscule.  But the so-called optimal investor isn’t even talking about investing in bonds a lot of the time.  They want you to put it in stocks, mutual funds, ETFs, etc.

So, they are really saying that you should take on more risk for the chance to earn a greater return.  But the person with cash in the bank who wants to pay off the mortgage obviously isn’t looking for any significant risk.

The optimal investor also usually fails to mention taxes.  When you pay off the mortgage, that rate of 4% is the equivalent of a return on your money in comparison to not paying it off.  But you don’t have to pay any taxes on that 4% equivalent.  If you invest in stocks or bonds and earn a 5% return, then you will have to pay taxes on that money unless it is within some kind of tax shelter like a Roth IRA.

There is a good case to be made if you can get a guaranteed return significantly higher after taxes from the equivalent return of paying off the mortgage.  But again, this isn’t usually what the optimal investor is advocating.

You Aren’t the Casino House

Why are many casinos profitable?  It’s because they play the law of large numbers.  Aside from the money they make from food and lodging, they typically come out ahead with the gambling.  The odds are in their favor with most games.

There will always be winners and losers.  There will be some individuals who leave the casino at night with a lot of extra money in their pocket.  The bet is that there will be enough losers to more than offset the winners.  As long as people aren’t counting cards or rigging machines, then the house is going to win with enough activity.  The odds are in favor of the casino, even if they are slight with each individual game.

If you bet on a coin flip and the other side had a 51% chance of winning because of the weighting of the coin, it is close enough to 50/ 50 that it probably won’t make a difference on one flip.  Even flipping it ten times, there is a decent chance that the 49% side will win more often.  If you flip it thousands of times, then the 51% side has a very high chance of prevailing.

Now let’s bring this back to your personal situation.  Let’s say you are on a game show.  You have just won a million dollars on the game show.  The host tells you that for this final round, you have a choice to make.  You can risk it all.  There is a 90% chance you will win.  You will win $10 million if you win.  So, you have a 90% chance of going home with $10 million (before taxes).

If you risk it all though, there is a 10% chance you will go home with nothing.

For the optimal investor, it makes complete sense to take the risk for the $10 million.  The odds are heavily in your favor.  In fact, it would make sense even if it was to just double your money.

But then we find out that the person is barely scraping by in life.  He makes $50,000 per year and has two kids.  He can barely afford to pay his rent each month.  Does it really make sense to be an “optimal” investor and risk the million dollars for the high chance of $10 million?

I would argue that it doesn’t make sense.  I would argue that the optimal thing is to walk away with the one million dollars, thus guaranteeing a dramatically improved living standard, even if it is to just take the major financial stress out of life.

If you could bet $10,000 and have a 90% chance of walking away with $100,000, maybe it is a different scenario.  Winning $100,000 could really take the edge off of life for someone struggling.

If someone was already worth $10 million and had the opportunity to bet $1 million with a 90% chance to turn it into another $10 million, then perhaps it makes sense to take the bet.  If that person loses out on the million dollars, it won’t be as big of a deal because an extra million wouldn’t have been life changing.

With the original scenario, even someone who already has a net worth of $500,000 might not take the bet. They would rather have the guaranteed one million dollars instead of the good chance of having an extra 10 million dollars.  That guaranteed extra million would make a huge difference in finding financial independence.

Conclusion

You can think up these fun scenarios.  Have this discussion with your family or friends.  What if you could get a guaranteed $1 million or risk it all with a 99% chance that you could double it?  The $1 million might be life changing enough that the 1% chance isn’t worth it.

This is why talking about optimality or efficiency when it comes to investing rarely makes sense.  Maybe it is a variable to know in planning, but your investing has to reflect your own situation, your own personality, and your own goals.

I think people should be asking themselves these questions when it comes to investing heavily in any one thing.  For most people, that is usually stocks.

What if the market crashes and your index funds lose 60% of their value and don’t recover for 15 years?  Are you willing to pay that price (take that risk) for the possible reward of having above-average gains?

There is too much confidence in the U.S. economy and the strategy of buy-and-hold.  The above-average gains in U.S. stocks over the last decade and a half contribute to this overconfidence.  Just a return to the mean will mean losses going forward, at least for a while.

It is good to have a discussion about the scenarios above to determine your risk tolerance.  Your investments should reflect your personality and your goals.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 40,000 mark in intraday trading on Thursday, May 16, 2024. On Friday, the index closed above 40,000 for the first time ever.

There are a lot of assets and indexes that are hitting all-time highs in terms of dollars.  Perhaps the Dow breaking the 40,000 mark is representative of the major asset bubble of our time.

It is interesting to note that the Nikkei 225 index hit an all-time high earlier this year, also breaking the 40,000 mark briefly.  This was perhaps more notable because it surpassed its high that it hit back in 1989.  It put “buy and hold” at a whole new level.  Apparently, you just have to hold your stock index fund for 35 years and you will make some money.

The difference with the Dow is that it has never seen these levels before.  And going back in time, it was nowhere close.

In 1999, a book was published with the title Dow 36,000: The New Strategy for Profiting from the Coming Rise in the Stock Market”.  The problem for the book is that it came out just before the stock market crash that began in early 2000.  Even though it was worse for the tech bubble and the Nasdaq, it hit all major U.S. indexes.  The book was predicting this milestone in the next few years (from 1999).

Perhaps the problem with the book is predicting a specific number with a timeframe.  If the authors had made the Dow 36,000 prediction with a 30-year time horizon, they would have been correct.

The reason that stocks tend to always go up over time is because of inflation.  You can always depend on the central bank to create more new money out of thin air.  This is what ultimately drives the market.  There will always been winners and losers in terms of individual companies and their share prices.  But as a whole, the market going up in the long run is mostly a result of monetary inflation.

This is difficult for people to understand, although investors typically understand that a loose monetary policy tends to be good for stocks.  If we lived in a world with little or no monetary inflation, then stocks as a whole would generally not go up.  Some would go up, and others would go down.

People would still invest in stocks because they would pay dividends.  Also, in a world of little monetary inflation, consumer prices would tend to go down as productivity increases.  You could hold stocks, make money off dividends, plus see the purchasing power of your money increase.  Who cares about capital gains if you are getting wealthier in real terms?

Dow History

Let’s go back to the market lows in 2009 after the financial crisis had hit in 2008.  The Dow closed on March 9, 2009 at 6,547.

In other words, in the timespan of about 15 years, the Dow has gone up over six-fold what it was at its low.  How does an entire index go up over 6 times what it was in the matter of 15 years?

Are these companies really worth 6 times more than they were just a decade and a half ago?  Apparently, investors are saying that they are.  Are these companies so much more profitable than they were?

This massive rise is due primarily to monetary policy.  Perhaps the low in 2009 overshot what it should have.  Just as a bubble goes past what is seemingly rational, the same can happen with a bust.

Still, that is an incredible rise in such a short time.  You could point to the Fed’s balance sheet, as it shows that it has increased about 8-fold from where it was in early 2008 to where it is today.

While consumer prices have certainly gone up beyond the Fed’s 2% annual target, overall consumer prices have not risen 6-fold like the Dow.  They haven’t even close to doubled in that 15-year timespan according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This just shows that we have a major asset bubble.  The Dow at 40,000 is symbolic of this Everything Bubble.

It probably won’t get to 50,000 without a major correction first.  We have had an inverted yield curve for well over a year now.  The financial media barely talk about this now.  With price inflation still stubbornly above 2%, it makes it difficult for the Fed to aggressively loosen its monetary policy.

I don’t think we are going back to Dow 6,500.  If it got that bad, the Fed would probably go crazy again with its digital money printing.  I can’t discount a 50% or more crash.  Dow 20,000 seems crazy right now.  But Dow 40,000 seemed crazy when it was at 6,500 in 2009.

The latest consumer price index (CPI) numbers came in near or slightly below expectations.  The CPI rose 0.3% for April 2024.  The year-over-year CPI now stands at 3.4%.

The median CPI also rose 0.3% in April.  The year-over-year median CPI stands at 4.5%.

As this CNBC article indicates, “inflation eased slightly in April”.  Of course, it only eased in the sense that the rate was slightly lower than the month before.  But it’s not as if prices have come down.  They keep going up.  Prices are now 0.3% higher than they were from the significantly higher prices paid from the month before.

Even while some people celebrate price inflation coming down, it is still not close to the Fed’s 2% target.  And let’s not forget that the Fed said a few years ago that it would shoot for a 2% average over time.  If this were the case, we would need to see price inflation fall below the Fed’s 2% target, but we don’t hear about that average thing anymore.

The main sentiment coming out of the CPI report is that it has come down sufficiently that we can hope for a Fed rate cut in September.  The odds of a September rate cut went above 50% after the CPI report was released.

Markets React

In bubble world, all that matters is a prospect of looser monetary policy in the future.  Because inflation is seen as coming down, the market anticipates future rate cuts by the Fed.  It doesn’t matter to investors that the yield curve has been inverted for almost a year and a half.

On the news, just about everything soared.  US indexes, bonds, gold, silver, and even Bitcoin all went up significantly.

US indexes are at or near all-time highs.  The Dow Jones is very close to surpassing the 40,000 mark for the first time.

The irrational exuberance continues, and it is all built on the back of Fed policy and easy money.  Maybe this bubble will last long enough to get past the November elections.

It is still interesting that the Fed is even discussing a looser policy at this point when markets are roaring and the CPI numbers are still above 3% annually.  This means that Fed officials are not completely stupid.  They are aware of the risks here.  They know that a big crash of the Everything Bubble may be coming.  They know that some kind of a financial crisis in the somewhat near future is quite possible.

If they didn’t believe these things, then there would be no need to even talk about lowering rates.  They would be insistent that monetary policy would be tight until we see a return of 2% annual price inflation.

In 2024, interest rates are still on the low side, historically speaking.  For this generation, they are on the high side.  Interest rates stayed close to zero for quite a while, so they may seem high now.

With the yield curve still inverted, a one-month Treasury bill is paying a yield of about 5.5%.  A 10-year Treasury is yielding about 4.5%.  Mortgage rates are now generally above 7% for a 30-year fixed.

What if you have debt?  With interest rates higher as compared to a couple of years ago, does it make sense to pay off debt?  Does it make more sense to invest the money?

There is not a clear answer on this entire question, but it helps to consider some variables.  The most important thing is what type of debt it is and what the interest rate is on that debt.

If you have credit card debt at 10% or 20%, it would almost always make sense to pay it down or pay it off if you have the money to do so.  There are always exceptions where you might need the money in the near future.  In this scenario, we are assuming you have a generally steady income and there are no extraordinary expenses coming up that you know about or extraordinary opportunities.

It is always good to have some kind of emergency fund, so you almost never want to drain your bank balance down to nothing.  When it comes to credit card debt, it can even make sense to dig into your emergency fund to pay it off.  If you unexpectedly lose your job and need to buy food, you can always use the credit card and go back in debt.

Even with other debt that has a high interest rate (say, 8% or above), it will usually make sense to pay it down, especially as compared to investing.  You can’t get a solid 8% return anywhere in this market unless you have a reliable business.  You might be able to get 8% or more, but those types of investments usually carry the risk that you will lose money.

So, even for student loan debt or car debt, extra money should go towards these things if the interest rate is higher than the yield on the 1-month Treasury (about 5.5%).

A mortgage is a bit trickier, but even here it would make sense to pay down a high-interest mortgage.  But you don’t want to take anything from an emergency fund because you are tying up the money you use to pay down a mortgage, especially if you are not close to paying it off.

Where to Invest?

It is almost never a good idea to invest in stocks or something else that has a decent chance to go down in value when you are carrying significant debt.  If you truly have a near-zero interest rate on some kind of debt, then maybe it makes sense to not pay it early.  But this is not the case with most debt, especially now.

Let’s say you have a car loan with a 4% interest rate.  You can currently earn a yield of approximately 5.5% in a 1-month Treasury bill.  These are about the closest things to a safe investment that exists.  There is the inflation factor, but that doesn’t matter in this example because we are talking about paying a debt with a fixed interest rate versus investing in a Treasury bill.  Inflation will only matter in this example if it impacts the interest rate on the Treasury bills.

In this scenario, it makes sense financially to pay the minimum on the car loan and invest the extra money in 1-month Treasury bills while continuing to roll them over.  Don’t forget you have to pay taxes on the 5.5% “profit”.  So, your return might only be 4.5%, which isn’t much of a difference.  In this case, I would probably just pay off the car loan because that little extra isn’t worth the trouble.

If the yield goes down below 5%, and your after-tax return goes down to about 4%, then it is no longer worth it to invest.  It may not have been worth the hassle at a 4.5% after-tax return.

It is possible the yield could go higher.  Then you could keep rolling over your Treasury investments while paying the minimum payment on your car loan.

Notice I never mentioned investing in stocks or real estate or Bitcoin or gold.  The reason I’m focusing on Treasury bills is because it is a guaranteed return.  You could invest in any of those other things and lose money, let alone not make enough to cover the interest rate on your debt.

Conclusion

There are a lot of nuances in this discussion.  It depends on the debt and the interest rates.  It depends on whether the debt is at a fixed interest rate or is variable.  It depends on your own financial situation and what you see coming in the future.

In general, it still makes sense to pay off most non-mortgage debt as quickly as possible unless you can get a higher return with a U.S. government Treasury bill or some kind of safe investment like a cd with your bank.  Even here, sometimes it just isn’t worth the trouble to go through it, especially after factoring in taxes.

The term “right” is probably overused.  It is certainly overused and abused when talking about having the right to someone else’s labor or property.  You can only have the right to a job or the right to have healthcare by forcing someone else to provide it.

Even when talking about liberty, the term “right” is still not usually the best word to use.  Your rights are only as good as what other people recognize, even if others are wrong.  You can say you have the right to bear arms or the right to free speech, but it doesn’t do much good if others don’t recognize those rights.

Just imagine someone in North Korea or Afghanistan yelling out that they have a right to keep their own property no matter what any government may say.  Maybe they should have a right, but that doesn’t make it so.  If the government and the rest of society don’t recognize that right, then it doesn’t mean much.  It is declaring what should be and not what is.

With that said, it isn’t so much a question of “Do students have the right to protest?” as it is a question of “Should students have the right to protest?”

Private Property Rights

In a free society, property rights would be respected.  There is some semblance of property rights in every country.  Even in North Korea, I assume you can own a toothbrush and not have to share it.

Unfortunately, in every country on the planet, there are also violations of property rights.  This doesn’t just mean being able to own a house.  It also means being able to retain the earnings from your labor.

In the U.S., most colleges and universities are a combination of private and public.  Most of them accept government funding in some way.  The government is also involved in its massive subsidization of student loans.

This makes it easy for the government (federal and state) to have a say about the policies on college campuses.  After all, they are “helped” by the government.  For any libertarian who supports school vouchers, consider this scenario applied to K through 12.

There is actually no correct libertarian answer on whether students should have the right to protest on campus.  It should be up to the owners and administrators of the school to determine the policies and whether protests are allowed.  Unfortunately, that “ownership” goes out the window when the government is involved.

Imagine a privately owned business where a group of employees decide to protest something.  They set up tents on business property and are chanting slogans as other employees go to their job.  Does anyone really think this would be tolerated for long?  In most cases, the employees would probably be told to go back to work or else be fired.  Some of them might just be fired without any chance to go back to their job.

I will acknowledge that there are faults in this analogy.  A college or university isn’t really producing goods and services the way most other businesses do.  They are providing a service to the students in exchange for money.  The students may be hurting themselves by protesting, especially if they aren’t going to class.  As long as they are not disrupting others from going to class, perhaps there is little harm in it.

Hypocrisy

Given that we do live in a statist world where the government funds higher education, it is interesting to look at current protests and how they are being handled.

Most of the protests are against the Israeli state.  They are protesting generally what they see as a genocide in Gaza.  Many of the protests have specific demands for their school, such as not investing in certain weapons manufacturers.  Still, the general sentiment is that they are against the mass bombing, killing, and displacement of the people in Gaza.  And they recognize that the U.S. government is largely funding this.

Despite what the media portrays, most of these protests have been peaceful.  They are not destroying school property or prohibiting others from going to class.  They are generally not using violence.  Most of the violence that has occurred has been after the police get there to break up the protests.

And to be clear, these colleges probably wouldn’t have attempted to break up the protests if it hadn’t been for pressure from the government.

It is hard not to contrast these protests with previous protests.  Think about the BLM protests and riots of 2020.  Cities across America were burning.  There was widespread looting of private businesses.  There was a lot of violence.

Yet, politicians and their establishment media talked about the right to protest while downplaying the rioting and massive property destruction.  In many cases, the police were standing down either because they were scared or they were told to.  It is a lot easier for police to take on a bunch of hippie liberal college students who don’t have any weapons and aren’t really looking for a physical fight.

In other words, it is ok to protest and cause major chaos and destruction as long as it fits the narrative of the establishment.  If you question the sacred state of Israel in its mass killing of civilians, then you must be silenced.  Sure, they will say you have a right to peacefully protest, but the government purposely makes it non-peaceful by sending in the police to cause conflict.

Whenever you have a lot of people in a movement, there are always going to be a few bad apples.  I’m sure there have been a few people who have damaged property and maybe even used a little bit of physical violence or unnecessarily getting in people’s faces.  I’m just saying that most of the people protesting really are peacefully protesting if you think they should have a right to protest on a school campus.  Yet, they are being handled more as rioters.

In 2020, there were peaceful protesters, but rioters were almost everywhere that there were massive protests.  Yet, the rioters were handled more like peaceful protesters as property was destroyed.

Again, it is impossible to not think that this is just hypocrisy.  The situations were handled differently based on the narrative of the protest and what was being protested.

Conclusion

In a libertarian society, the government would have no involvement in higher education or any education.  The policies of the schools would determine whether students had a right to protest on campus.

Given our non-libertarian world, we can recognize that these are legitimate protests and mostly peaceful.  The powers-that-be seem to be handling these protests in a different way from some other protests in the past.

I have no doubt there are some major leftwing lunatics within these protests.  Some of them say stupid things such as demanding food and water for themselves.  It still doesn’t make their main message of stopping the slaughter in Gaza wrong.

Most of the protesters are not protesting Jews, despite what some say or portray.  They are protesting the Israeli state and the U.S. funding of the Israeli state.  This is a big distinction.

It is also curious why some more establishment sources are saying that some of these people are paid protesters from the outside.  It is interesting that they fail to point this out with so many other situations.

Even if George Soros is helping to fund some of these protests, it doesn’t automatically make the message wrong.  Soros has his own agenda of stirring up chaos, but it doesn’t mean that the main message of the protests is wrong.

Libertarians should always encourage a separation of school and state.  But the fact that government is involved in “education” doesn’t change the message of the protests.  Libertarians should support protesting the killing of innocent people as long as the protest is peaceful and doesn’t infringe on the rights of others.

It has been reported that Donald Trump has accepted an invitation to speak at the Libertarian Party’s national convention in Washington D.C.  Trump will speak on Saturday, May 25, 2024.

This has been met with some questioning inside the Libertarian Party and with some libertarians in general.  Some of it is not so much questioning the idea but downright hostility to the idea.

It is not surprising there is resistance.  There are many principled people inside the Libertarian Party.  Many of those principles vary, but some think you shouldn’t play ball with the establishment at all (even though the Libertarian Party is a political party).

Most libertarians will agree that Trump is quite non libertarian in many ways.  But then opinions widely differ on just how bad Trump is and how much he is part of the establishment.

It should be pointed out that supposedly an invitation was extended to Joe Biden to address the convention as well.  It isn’t clear if Robert Kennedy Jr. was extended the same invitation and if he has any plans on attending.  At one point, Kennedy seemed interested in seeking the Libertarian Party nomination – probably for ballot access – but his message hasn’t been all that libertarian since that time.

Of course, they knew that Biden wouldn’t accept.  This is exactly why some libertarians are at least sympathetic to Trump.  His views are all over the place, but at least they differ at times from the official establishment narrative.  What other major presidential candidate of the last 30 years would be willing to address the Libertarian Party in this way?

It is not clear how the format will work and if any questions will be involved.  However, party members will share a list of their top ten issues with Trump in advance.  It will make it interesting to see if Trump sings a different tune on some things.

What is the Goal of the LP?

It is important to ask what the primary goal of the Libertarian Party is, or what it should be?  Your view of inviting Trump may be different depending on this answer.

Some people say that the goal of the Libertarian Party (LP) should be to elect Libertarians into office.  This, by itself, seems like a silly goal because it doesn’t say anything about who is getting elected to office.  The LP could get someone campaigning in favor of Marxism in office, but what kind of victory would that be?

Even if you were electing Libertarians who generally advocate liberty into office, what good would that do if they were ineffective while in office?  And that’s not to say ineffective in passing legislation but just in gaining anything positive for liberty in the long run.

If you are electing Libertarians into office while we don’t gain liberty now or in the long run, then that is no good.  Maybe it’s because the Libertarians are terrible at selling their message outside of their districts.  Or maybe it is because they give up on their principles once in office.  No matter what, electing Libertarians to office only matters if it is a net benefit to liberty.

I believe the real goal of the Libertarian Party should be to advance liberty in our society.  One avenue to do this may be to elect more libertarians into office.  That could be with the Libertarian Party banner or under some other banner.

The more probable strategy for success is educating others on the morality and benefits of liberty and using public opinion to get politicians to do the right thing.

We all know that the eventual nominee for president for the LP is not going to win the general election in 2024.  So, what is the point of running a candidate?  The biggest point I see is that the presidential candidate gets attention and is able to bring awareness to the party and the ideas of liberty.

The biggest success of spreading libertarian ideas from a presidential candidate was from Ron Paul in 2007/ 2008 and again in 2011/ 2012.  This is when he ran as a Republican.  But there have been presidential candidates on the LP ticket who have influenced voters to look at libertarian ideas.

What’s the Harm in Trump Speaking?

I see little downside for Trump to speak at the convention.  There is always a potential downside.  Most gains are made with some risk.

It is certainly possible that Trump gets on the stage and starts saying things that the audience doesn’t like.  It is also likely that there will be some kind of crowd reaction such as booing or head shaking.

It isn’t impossible to imagine Trump saying, “You people are really hard to please.  What do you guys get each election, like 1% or something, if you’re lucky?  I’m sure the smart ones out there will figure out that we need to defeat Biden and follow me.  I don’t care about the rest of you losers.  In fact, I am going to not pardon Julian Assange, and I’m going to increase the power of the Fed as soon as I get back into office.  That’s what you get for booing me.”

Ok.  So that probably won’t happen.  But you could maybe see a lighter variation of something like this taking place.  Trump is going to do what Trump is going to do.  What does the LP have to lose?  We’ll get another welfare/ warfare statist in the White House who doesn’t listen to libertarians?

I don’t believe the party should do wild and crazy things just to get attention and become relevant.  But a former president and the current frontrunner in the coming election is willing to speak at the Libertarian National Convention and possibly listen to libertarian concerns.  Why would you not have him?

Possible Good

This isn’t just a question of giving the Libertarian Party some relevance.  This is an actual opportunity to move Trump in a slightly more libertarian direction, even if it is just being 1% better.

You have to believe that something will come up about pardoning people who have not committed any crimes with victims other than the state.  Trump should be challenged on Assange and Snowden.  He should be challenged on Ross Ulbricht.  He probably doesn’t even know who Ross Ulbricht is.

Trump should know that there is a constituency that doesn’t want a welfare state and also doesn’t want any war with other countries.  He should know that some people don’t believe the U.S. government should be funding Israel, Ukraine or anybody else at all.  Maybe he will learn that it is possible to actually defund or reduce the budgets of some of the agencies that have actively opposed him since 2015.

If the only thing that comes out of Trump’s attendance at the convention is that he pardons Ulbricht or Assange, then that is one major step that libertarian pressure achieved.  It’s always possible that this small constituency influences Trump enough to end the U.S. proxy war in Ukraine or prevent a future war.

I’m not saying that it will happen, but that the upside seems to be far greater than the downside.  When it comes to U.S. politics, things are terrible the way they stand now.

Maybe nothing much will come of Trump’s appearance.  But if libertarians get an opportunity to be heard from the leading presidential candidate, why not take the opportunity?

It isn’t selling out your principles by being heard.  Nobody is asking any Libertarians to support or vote for Trump.  They don’t have to attend his speech if they don’t want to.  It is just a chance to influence someone who is heard by tens of millions of people and may again be in a position of political power.

It would be really interesting if Trump told the audience that if you live in a swing state to consider voting for him to get Biden out.  Again, Libertarian Party members, along with libertarians in general, could choose whether or not to listen to Trump on this.

I’m not sure Trump is wise enough to employ this strategy.  He wants everybody to vote for him.  I hope he realizes that the LP will be nominating their own candidate on that very same weekend that he will be speaking there.

Anyway, it is just another interesting political story in 2024 in the buildup to November.  We are only in May, and it hasn’t been boring so far.

The FOMC released its latest statement on monetary policy.  As was widely expected, the Federal Reserve will maintain its current federal funds target rate between 5.25% and 5.50%.  The market is expecting two rate cuts later this year, but that can change easily depending on what happens with the economy.

Jerome Powell had a press conference afterwards.  It is mostly bureaucratic talk.  Powell generally plays it safe and parses his words.  During the small part of his press conference I heard, Powell was asked a question about how the upcoming election impacts the Fed’s decisions.

Powell assured us that the Fed doesn’t look at politics and only is concerned about the economy and how it impacts the American people.  He said you can look at the transcripts of past meetings, and it is clear that the Fed does not make decisions based on politics.  But why does this mean anything?  Of course they aren’t going to outwardly say anything in a recorded meeting about playing politics.  It doesn’t mean there aren’t conversations off the record, and it doesn’t mean that individuals aren’t factoring politics into their decisions inside their heads.

Powell is one who shows very little emotion.  Yet, when he was answering the question and assuring the reporter that the Fed doesn’t make decisions based on political elections, he seemed to have a smirk on his face.  This doesn’t automatically mean that he was lying, but it was interesting to note.

While the media tends to focus on the direction of interest rates, there was an interesting part of the policy statement where things changed.

Decelerating Monetary Deflation

Up until now, the Fed had been reducing its balance sheet by $95 billion per month, at least according to previous meeting notes.  That was $60 billion in Treasury securities and $35 billion in mortgage-backed securities (MBSs).  Despite what anyone was saying, the Fed was in a mode of monetary deflation going back to 2022 when price inflation became a major problem.

Maybe some of the words of Fed officials are dovish.  Maybe interest rates in a free market would be higher than what the Fed is currently allowing.  But in terms of the base money supply, the Fed has been engaging in deflation.

This isn’t stopping yet, but it is slowing.  It is kind of like price inflation.  Price inflation hasn’t stopped, despite what anyone says.  Prices in general are still going up.  They are just going up at a slower pace compared to before.

And so it is with the money supply.  Monetary deflation hasn’t stopped, but the Fed has slowed it down.

According to the Implementation Note with the FOMC statement, beginning on June 1, 2024, the Fed will roll over maturing Treasury securities that exceed $25 billion per month.  In other words, the Fed will allow a $25 billion per month reduction in Treasury securities instead of $60 billion.  The MBSs will continue to roll off at $35 billion per month.

To sum it up, that means the Fed will reduce the base money supply by up to $60 billion per month in total instead of $95 billion per month.  It could be less if there isn’t that much maturing debt in a given month.

To any individual, these are massive amounts of money.  They are relatively small compared to the Fed’s balance sheet that currently sits near $7.4 trillion.  It has come down from a peak just below $9 trillion.

It is doubtful that the Fed’s balance sheet will get much below $7 trillion at this point.  Even though markets have generally been booming (not counting recent weeks), a deliberate policy of monetary deflation eventually brings the party to an end.

I think the central planners know this.  It doesn’t matter what rosy things Powell has to say.  They know that there is a significant risk for a deep recession and some kind of financial crisis.

Why else would they begin to reduce the rate of monetary deflation?  They are admitting that price inflation is still stubbornly above their 2% target rate.  Wouldn’t they keep draining the balance sheet at the previous pace if inflation is still a problem?

The reason is because they are scared of a massive recession.  They are scared that the bubble will burst.  They don’t care if the stock market goes down 10%.  They do care if the stock market goes down by 70% accompanied by a major financial crisis.

Conclusion

The Fed is finally in a tough position.  They were able to get away with massive monetary inflation after the 2008 financial crisis.  Price inflation never got out of control until 2022.

Now the Fed has to play a balancing act of not allowing price inflation to spike back up while also not allowing a major financial crisis.  The only reason they are in this position is because of previous Fed policy.

Even though monetary deflation will be slowed down, it is still monetary deflation.  Mises taught that even a reduced rate of monetary inflation can bring on a bust.  In this case, we still have monetary deflation.  The Everything Bubble could go bust at any time.  And in spite of what Powell says, he would probably prefer that to happen after the election in November.