In a recent segment of the Dave Ramsey Show, there was a caller who had a net worth well over a million dollars and was working three jobs.  He is 40 years old and puts away $100,000 per year.  He said that he was terrified to live paycheck to paycheck.  This was not a joke, or at least I don’t think it was.

Before we get to Dave Ramsey’s comments, I just want to say that there is nothing wrong with living paycheck to paycheck if you have a massive net worth.  We typically hear criticism of living paycheck to paycheck because it is referring to people who have very little or nothing in savings.

If you have a million dollars or more in savings and investments, then living paycheck to paycheck is great.  It means you aren’t digging into your savings.  As long as there is some diversification, then the investments should grow, if anything.  By living paycheck to paycheck, you will be growing your net worth over time.

The caller said he was initially part of the FIRE movement.  That stands for “Financial Independence, Retire Early”.  It was interesting that Ramsey’s cohost didn’t know what FIRE stood for.

The caller admitted that he wasn’t spending much time with his family.  Yet, he continued to work three jobs while obsessively saving money.  You’d think he could at least get up the courage to quit one of his three jobs.

I think the advice from Dave Ramsey and his cohost was generally good.  They knew it was a mental problem.  They told him to quit two of his jobs and to spend time with his family.  They said he could always go back to those jobs a year from now.  They rightly pointed out that he really wouldn’t be living paycheck to paycheck, or at least not in the sense that was being portrayed.

The one interesting comment in the segment from Dave Ramsey that will get the most attention is when he said, “FIRE movement burned down.”  He said people were trying to do something that wasn’t sustainable.

(Watch at the 3:00 mark.)

Misrepresenting FIRE

This reminded me of when Suze Orman was on Paula Pant’s podcast several years ago.  When she was asked about the FIRE movement, Suze Orman said she hated it.  The problem is that Suze Orman was focusing on the “retire early” part of the equation.

This is why I prefer the term “FI”.  It shouldn’t be about retiring early.  It should be about getting to financial independence.  Maybe retiring early can be one option that comes with financial independence, but the focus should be on financial independence in order to have more options in life.

With this caller, he was misrepresenting the FIRE movement to a large degree.  It doesn’t have to be about being completely obsessive with saving money to the point of leading a miserable life and not spending time with your family.  What is the point of that anyway?  Why would you want to be completely miserable only for the possibility of finding happiness way down the road?

This guy had already achieved a good net worth at a relatively young age.  You could quibble whether he is already financially independent.  But he certainly has more choices than someone who has little in savings.  It is ridiculous for him to be working three jobs while not spending time with family.

If this man doesn’t change his outlook on life, he will never be happy.  He could get to ten million dollars (in today’s money) and he still won’t be happy.  He will find reasons to not spend quality time with his family.  He will find reasons to not be happy.

For many people in the FI movement, it isn’t about obsessively saving as much as possible.  It is about making intentional choices with money.  Sometimes it is just about not being stupid.

For some, it just means not being wasteful with money.  It doesn’t necessarily mean deprivation.  Instead of paying 3 dollars at the convenience store for a soda, maybe you could have bought a big bottle of soda for half the price and kept in the refrigerator at home.

It’s not even to say you shouldn’t pay more at times for convenience.  It’s just about being conscious about where your money goes and thinking about whether purchases are giving you value.

I think the stories about people obsessively saving and living a ridiculously frugal lifestyle are what get the headlines.  They make the amusing stories in documentaries.  You don’t hear about families who are living a fulfilling life while managing to put 20% of their income away and setting themselves up for financial success down the road.  These are the boring stories.  But these are real stories that do exist.  They may or may not call it working towards FI or FIRE, but that’s really what it is.

In conclusion, the advice given by Dave Ramsey and his cohost was good advice.  I think Dave Ramsey took an unnecessary cheap shot at FIRE because most people pursuing FIRE are not like the guy who called in.  There are people who are pursuing FIRE who are happy and spend time with their families.

I have been interested and paying attention to the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Jr. presidential run since it began last year.  Despite having a name like Kennedy and being the nephew of a former president, he is a bit of an outsider because he doesn’t always stay in line with the establishment narrative.

Unfortunately, one area where he has fallen in line with the establishment narrative is with funding Israel. Since the attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, Kennedy has been in favor of the U.S. government funding and supporting the Israeli state, which would include the mass bombing of Gaza and the killing of innocent people.

Of course, Kennedy won’t quite put it in those terms.  He will say that Israel is an ally and that it has a right to defend itself.  But killing tens of thousands of innocent people is not self-defense, and he should know that.  This mass killing of innocent people is being funded largely by U.S. taxpayers.

Kennedy says he has been against American involvement in every war since World War 2.  But he can’t say that anymore because he supports American involvement in this war (although it is hard to call it a war because it is so one-sided in the use of force).

Before October 2023, I generally liked the things Kennedy was saying and emphasizing.  I still do to a large degree.  I could overlook his flaws and his leftist political instincts.  He was so incredible on COVID and helping to expose Fauci and the rest of the medical establishment.  He has also been really good when it comes to Ukraine.  He understands the history and that the Russian invasion there was anything but unprovoked.  I could overlook his leftism on certain domestic issues when he is good on foreign policy, medical tyranny, and privacy concerns.

Kennedy has also said he would drop charges against Julian Assange, and he would free Ross Ulbricht.  In fact, Kennedy’s speech in front of the Libertarian Party national convention was phenomenal.  I don’t know if he was just being a great salesman to the crowd, but even to recognize his audience and to give a speech accordingly tells me he is at least in tune with libertarian positions.

Domestic Concerns

I have heard some libertarians and libertarian-leaning conservatives express concern over Kennedy on domestic issues.  That includes abortion and welfare spending.

While I understand that Kennedy is not libertarian on many domestic issues, these do not concern me all that much.  He would probably be better than Trump on these issues, especially on economic issues.

With regard to abortion, Kennedy has seemed to change his positions, especially on whether late-term abortion is acceptable.  But from my standpoint, Kennedy would likely have little impact on the issue.  The Supreme Court has already overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the issue back to the states.  I don’t think Kennedy opposes this.  Anyway, even if he did, he would have to get some leftist judge on the Supreme Court, and I think a Kennedy selection would be much better than anyone Joe Biden’s handlers would ever pick.

On this issue, perhaps Trump is slightly better, but Trump isn’t exactly Mr. Consistency.  We never know for sure what we will get, but I don’t think Roe v. Wade will be reinstated because of a Kennedy presidency.

On spending, it is true that Kennedy believes, at least to a certain degree, in the American welfare state.  But so does Trump.  And Kennedy tends to sound more reasonable when talking about domestic spending issues.  He at least seems to acknowledge that things have a cost, unlike most Democrats and often many Republicans.

The only way the federal budget will be reduced any time soon is by cutting “defense” spending, which really means spending on the military and overseas adventures.  I’m not saying Kennedy would be successful in reducing military spending, but I think he is the only major candidate with a chance to do so.

If he were to actually cut all funding to Ukraine while winding down U.S. involvement in conflicts everywhere, this could actually reduce federal spending by at least a few hundred billion dollars per year.  It wouldn’t necessarily balance the budget, but it’s a big start.  Aside from the difficultly in having to go against the military-industrial complex, that is the place to start.  Nobody is going to start by cutting Medicare and Social Security.  That’s just not going to happen, politically speaking.

So, the only chance of cutting spending is to start with the Pentagon and all of the areas that constitute “defense” spending.  If a president isn’t willing to cut there, then there won’t be any significant cuts anywhere.

A Return to Sanity

I still haven’t completely ruled out voting for Kennedy, in spite of his bad position on Israel.  The support for funding Israel is bothersome not just for that conflict alone; it makes me concerned that he might fold on other foreign policy issues.

Still, I recognize that a Kennedy presidency might be the only way to give us a small return to normalcy.  In terms of the deep state, I think the cat is out of the bag.  We can never fully return to 2019 (pre COVID hysteria) or 2015 (pre Trump) again, and I’m not saying that should be our goal.  But maybe we can get to a place again where things aren’t completely insane.

If Trump wins the presidency, we are going to just get more made-up things from the establishment and its media.  It will be more of the Russia hoax, but probably with some other issue.  It will be a distraction while Trump doesn’t actually do anything substantial to weaken the deep state.  The one thing Trump does well to weaken the deep state is by helping to expose it.  But it’s not as if Trump is defunding any of the many agencies who are out to get him.

If Biden or a Biden replacement wins, this will just give a green light to cause even more chaos than what we’ve been given for the last three and a half years.  Biden’s handlers, for whatever reason, are trying intentionally to destroy our way of life and our civilization.  They are pushing for deadly vaccines.  They are pushing for little boys and girls to have sex changes.  They have weaponized the “justice” system.  They are trying to shut down all dissent that goes against their narrative.  They are just an outright evil group.

If a Kennedy administration can give us a little bit of sanity, maybe it can buy us some time.  Maybe the libertarian movement can build up enough to overcome all of this with a little more time.  There are far fewer people who trust the state today than there have been in many generations.  This is generally a good thing, but the establishment knows it is vulnerable.  The wild animal that rules over us has been wounded, and it has become very dangerous.

I wish Kennedy would at least soften his position on Israel.  If he would, I think I could let go of my other areas of disagreement with Kennedy and vote for him.

Kennedy may be our hope to return a little sanity while getting someone with an ounce of integrity in the White House.  I could possibly vote for the lesser of evils if I knew it would give us a more civilized society for 4 years.

Kennedy needs to revise his position on Israel quickly.  He at least needs to say that the U.S. government shouldn’t be funding Israel as long as the Israeli state is recklessly bombing civilians.  Kennedy needs to give more speeches like the one he gave at the LP convention.  If he does this, he can be the protest vote against the system in 2024, and he might even have an outside chance to win.

It was a double dose of financial news on Wednesday June 12, 2024.  I can’t remember the last time this happened, but the CPI numbers and the FOMC statement were released on the same day.

The CPI for May came in flat, which was slightly better than expected.  The year-over-year CPI stands at 3.3%

The median CPI came in at 0.2%.  The annual change for the median CPI now stands at 4.3%.

You could look at this news in different ways.  As most of the headlines read, price inflation is coming down.  (Actually, they don’t usually use the word “price”, but I do for accuracy.)  It is clearer to say that the rate of price inflation is coming down, even as prices continue to rise.

On the other hand, even though the rate of price inflation is coming down and came in lower than expected, prices are still rising in excess of 2% per year.  I would contend that any inflation created by a central bank is not good, but I quote the 2% number because that is supposedly the Fed’s target.

If the price inflation rate has been well above 2% for a couple of years now and it still hasn’t fallen back to that level yet, why would the Fed even be discussing rate cuts?  Wouldn’t they want to get the rate of price inflation down below 2% before cutting rates?  And what ever happened to the Fed looking to average 2% over time?  If they were still following this policy, then they would want to see an extended period of inflation below 2%.

FOMC Statement

The market fully expected the Fed not to touch rates (i.e., the federal funds rate).  Therefore, the fact that the CPI numbers were released in the morning did not impact the Fed’s policy statement.  It would have been more interesting if it wasn’t at all clear what the Fed would be doing and then a surprise CPI number came out.

I assume that the FOMC statement is prepared more than a few hours before it is released.  So, it would have to be a pretty drastic and unexpected CPI number to change the statement.

In this FOMC statement, there wasn’t much new at all.  The federal funds rate stays the same for now.  There is now anticipation of only one Fed rate cut for the remainder of this year.

The Fed will continue to reduce its balance sheet holdings.  It will be at the reduced pace that was announced at the previous meeting.

The Fed continues to play Goldilocks – not too hot and not too cold.  The problem is that the price inflation rate remains above 2% while we have had an inverted yield curve for about a year and a half.

If the severity and length of the yield curve inversion is indicative of the severeness of the next recession, then we are in for a whopper.  This is why predictions of a 25 basis point cut in the federal funds rate is just about pointless.  It can all change so fast if we hit another financial crisis.

U.S. stock market indexes continue to roar to all-time or near all-time highs.  The higher they go, the harder they fall.  Maybe this isn’t quite as true as it once was with the people running the Federal Reserve now.  They would probably find it more than acceptable to start another round of quantitative easing (money creation) even if price inflation hadn’t officially fallen below 2% yet.

The Fed will return to QE to save the bond market or to save the financial/ banking system.  The Fed is not going to intervene because stocks fall 20 or 30 percent.  But stocks could ultimately rebound like they did in 2009 because the Fed is willing to supply easy money to a distressed financial system.

This time around, the Fed does not have as much control of the dollar as it did in 2008/ 2009.  Not only is price inflation higher, but the dollar is starting to be rejected more by foreign countries, particularly big players like Russia and China.

Either way, I expect stocks to fall hard in a recession.  The big question is just how much the Fed will intervene to bail out the big players, particularly the banks.  If and when that time comes, we can reassess to see if stocks are a good buy.

For all of the problems with Donald Trump, from a libertarian perspective he seems to have all of the right enemies.  The most powerful and influential people who hate Donald Trump tend to be the worst people.  The problem is that some of his enemies do not come right out and announce it.  This is where Trump has a major problem.

Trump has some very good instincts, especially when it comes to politics.  When he entered the presidential race in 2015, he ran a very unconventional campaign.  Any typical campaign advisor would have advised him against doing and saying many of the things he did.

There were many times in 2015 and 2016 when various media pundits declared that some misstep or truth that Trump told was the end of his campaign.  I think some of them sincerely meant it.

Trump told a crowd in South Carolina that Jeb Bush’s brother lied us into war in Iraq.  Trump, referring to John McCain in Vietnam, said that real heroes don’t get shot down.  Of course, there was the video tape of Trump talking like a college boy about women, and there were many times Trump insulted other people.  Yet, his supporters didn’t care.  In some cases, they actually liked it because they saw him as someone who wouldn’t back down and would go to bat for them.  They would rather have a fighter who was on their side.  In other words, they were tired of the same old Republicans.

So, there is no question Trump has some good political instincts.  The problem for him is that his instincts are not good when it comes to assessing other people and whether they are on his side.  It is easy when it comes to Nancy Pelosi or Rachel Maddow.  It gets hard for him when it comes to people who don’t identify as leftists.

Turning on His Advocates

I have seen many cases where Trump has turned on people who are essentially in his corner.  He turned on Steve Bannon at one point many years ago, even though Bannon has basically been an advocate for Trump the entire time.

When Candace Owens was talking about Trump’s support of vaccines, Trump turned on her, and she said he was quite rude to her the next time she saw him in person.  Owens was actually expressing why Trump believed in vaccines.  She said he came from an older school of thought where the older generation was led to believe that vaccines saved many lives and were almost always beneficial.

She was actually defending Trump when she said this because she was explaining why Trump differed on this issue from many people in his base.  But because there was a disagreement, Trump took it as criticism and turned on Owens.

Let’s also remember in 2020 when Congress was ramming through trillions of dollars in spending because of COVID and the lockdowns.  Thomas Massie questioned the whole thing and requested an actual vote in Congress. Trump went on the attack against Massie and suggested that he should be kicked out of office.

Massie was simply doing what no other member of Congress was doing.  He was showing concern for the reckless spending.  This is what contributed to the high price inflation that we see now.  Massie wanted to look at what was being done and slow the whole thing down.  And for this, Trump attacked him.  Yet, Massie has generally shied away from directly attacking Trump and even defending him at times against his deep state enemies.

Trump seems to not understand that the people who are advocating for the American people and greater liberty are more his friends than anybody else, even if they don’t agree with Trump on many things.

I don’t agree with Trump on many things, but I will at least defend him against the craziness of the establishment.  He did not tell his supporters to invade the Capitol on January 6^th.  He should not be prosecuted for the fake crimes they are making up against him now.  It is obviously a coordinated effort to keep him from the presidency.  There are many things that Trump has said and done that were taken out of context.

Maybe Trump should stop worrying every time someone has an honest disagreement with him or differs on a particular policy.  Unfortunately, his ego gets in the way.

Not Recognizing His Enemies

The even bigger problem for Trump is that he doesn’t recognize many of his enemies and he actually puts them in a position to undermine him.  We can look at all of the horrible choices for people he put in his administration.  Maybe Trump feels like he has to play ball with the Republican establishment, but it gets to a point where it is ridiculous to surround yourself with people who hate you.

You can go down the list of names: Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Gina Haspel, Christopher Wray, and Bill Barr.  The list goes on.

These are all evil people that he put in high positions of power.  They used this power to undermine Trump while smiling at him and pretending to be on his side.  Again, this is just bad instincts.

There are also other people like Lindsey Graham who sometimes pretend to be on Trump’s side while they oppose him in almost every way, particularly when it comes to foreign policy.

I don’t think Trump has learned anything from his first term in office.  He will likely continue to put his enemies in positions of power.  Instead of relying on people like Rand Paul and Vivek Ramaswamy, both of whom are not completely aligned with him, Trump will rely on his enemies just because they feed him the lines he wants to hear.

Trump is probably going to pick somebody bad as his running mate.  Instead of someone half decent like Vivek or Tulsi Gabbard, Trump will pick some war hawk like Marco Rubio or Tim Scott.  And then when that person backstabs him later on, he will act surprised.

Trump is so smart when it comes to some things, it almost seems impossible that he could be this dumb when it comes to knowing his friends from his enemies.  Sometimes your best friends are the ones who tell the truth and don’t always pretend like they agree with you.

Dave Smith – comedian, podcaster, and libertarian – debated Chris Cuomo on May 31, 2024.  The primary topic of debate was COVID and the information that was being put out by Cuomo during his time at CNN.  They also touched on other political topics.

The debate was held by Patrick Bet-David (PBD) on his show.  It aired live in front of an audience.  Given the feedback from the audience during the debate (laughing, clapping, and a few people shouting things out), you could tell the audience was filled with Dave Smith supporters or those who were more sympathetic to his views.

When Dave talked about the debate on his own show after it happened, he said that Cuomo appeared very uncomfortable going into it.  He said Cuomo showed up just before they were set to begin and that his demeanor was quite somber.

It was interesting how much research Cuomo did on Dave going into the debate.  He said so during the debate.  So, Cuomo knew what to expect, but it didn’t do him much good.

Patrick Bet David was more on Dave’s side, although he was respectful as a moderator and let Cuomo talk.  I supposed someone who might defend Cuomo would say it was unfair that the host of the show was more on Dave’s side.  But PBD and his crew were there to show clips in real time when something came up.  If Cuomo hadn’t lied so much during the debate, maybe that wouldn’t have hurt him so much.

One example is when they were talking about the drug Ivermectin.  Cuomo seemed to be denying that he had been making fun of people taking it because it is horse medicine.  During the debate, the PBD crew ran a clip of Cuomo and Don Lemon on CNN at the time laughing about taking horse medicine.  Cuomo then shifted his tactic and said that he was talking about using the animal version of it and not the human dose.

Cuomo just doubled down on his lying.  Dave pointed out that with Joe Rogan’s resources, that it was pretty obvious Joe Rogan was getting his Ivermectin in a human dose from a doctor and not a veterinarian.

It was one thing after another, and Chris Cuomo was taken to school for three hours.  I don’t know what he had to gain by doing it, especially since he didn’t flip sides.  Cuomo had previously admitted to PBD that he was taking Ivermectin for “long COVID” and he also warned of possible side effects from the vaccines.  This is what sparked the whole debate in the first place.

When Cuomo was asked during the debate if he would apologize for some of the bad information he put out during the hysteria of COVID, he refused.  He said he didn’t intentionally put out any bad information, and he didn’t have any intent to harm anyone.  He also, quite bizarrely, said that Trump never apologizes and that issuing an apology can only hurt you when it comes to politics.

Dave – The Best Person for the Job

Chris Cuomo is one of the main faces of shilling for the establishment during COVID.  He was on CNN giving frequent interviews to his brother who was the lockdown governor of New York at the time.  Andrew Cuomo was perhaps the worst and most tyrannical of all governors during COVID, and that is saying quite a bit.

This was such a great moment for Dave and really everybody who is still angry at the whole COVID regime for trying to wreck our lives.

I wouldn’t have picked anybody else to go head-to-head with Cuomo other than Dave.  He has the unique combination of knowing the issues well, being principled, and being able to deliver his message.  I think Dave’s time as a comedian makes him incredibly effective at delivering his message, even when it is a serious message.  And in this debate, although Dave had a few funny moments, he was quite serious.  He said on his show that he was angry at Cuomo for continuing to lie during the debate.

One Thing I Would Have Addressed and Stressed

With that said, there is one point I would have brought up and emphasized more.  Dave exposed Chris Cuomo as a liar, which was perhaps the most important thing.

But even if Cuomo had just gotten some things wrong during COVID and they were innocent mistakes, there is still a major problem.  Even if Cuomo had decided to apologize, it would have only been worthy in one instance.

It isn’t just the lying alone that is the problem.  It isn’t just getting some things wrong (Cuomo got almost everything wrong on COVID).  The problem is that he advocated the use of force to impose this bad information on the whole country.

The government uses force in many ways.  Just about everything the government does is backed up by the threat of force.  That is what makes it a government.  Aside from the taxes collected to fund the likes of Fauci and the three-letter agencies and possibly the gain-of-function that brought us COVID, the funding of the pharmaceutical companies, and the censorship put in place by the government, there were two primary acts of force in play during COVID.

One was the lockdowns, which were technically put in place mostly at the state level, although it was being encouraged at the federal level.  The other primary show of force came in 2021 when Biden imposed vaccine mandates on the majority of the working population in order to keep their job.

Cuomo and most of the rest of the establishment media went along with this stuff.  In fact, they were essentially advocating it and promoting those who were doing it, such as Chris Cuomo’s brother.

So even if you get something wrong, there is no excuse for ruining people’s lives by advocating government force.  If all of these measures had just been recommendations and not mandates, then I don’t think people would be so furious.

If it was just, “Well, COVID turned out to not be as serious as we originally thought and doesn’t impact children much, so I guess we shouldn’t have been so hysterical at the beginning.”, then that would have been fine if there had been no lockdowns and vaccine mandates.  If people had been free to get their own information and make their own decisions, then we wouldn’t be where we are today, with a lot of people still rightfully angry at what was done to them and their loved ones.

The advocation of government force is ultimately the main problem.  It’s not the only problem.  If the government and its media talk about how great the vaccine is and it turns out to not be safe and effective, then that can certainly do a lot of damage and hurt a lot of people.  But the mandates are what made it 10 times worse.  It is the coercion aspect that makes it so horrible.

So, Chris Cuomo can say that he just got a few things wrong and that the experts got a few things wrong, but this does nothing for me.  This just tells me that you have learned nothing and don’t intend to learn anything. Or perhaps it just tells me that Cuomo and the rest of the shills during COVID are immoral people.

The next thing that comes along (climate change, war, whatever), Cuomo won’t stop and say, “You know, I got some things wrong on COVID and advocated government lockdowns and mandates that didn’t turn out so well.  Now that we are in a climate crisis, I am going to learn from that and say that the government needs to stay out of it and let people be free.  Even if we do have a climate crisis, we shouldn’t take away people’s liberty.”

That’s the problem.  He would still advocate the same immoral policies as before.  He would just now want to do a better job of getting the “right” information before doing so.  But he thought (or pretended to think) that the vaccines were great at the time they were being pushed so hard.  If he was wrong then, what’s to prevent him from being wrong again.

Again, the biggest problem is helping the regime in using force against the citizenry.  Even if Cuomo does understand some of the mistakes and bad information that was put out during the height of COVID, it does nothing for me or the many millions of people whose lives were turned upside down or who have been vaccine injured.  He has not owned the fact that it was immoral to impose lockdowns and mandates on the population.

If Cuomo or anyone else wants to apologize for COVID and have it mean anything, it has to be an apology for advocating the use of force against people.  It can’t just be an apology for getting some things wrong.

Conclusion

Thank you, Dave, for being such a great advocate of liberty and taking down one of the bad guys who tried to ruin our lives.

Chris Cuomo looked quite uncomfortable in that chair trying to defend his previous positions.  He comes across as someone who wants to be liked by the general public.  That puts him in an awkward position now that he is in the world of podcasting and alternative media.  He isn’t in his CNN bubble any more.

Dave said on his podcast that Aaron Rodgers approached Dave at an event (I believe it was the next day) and complimented Dave on his performance at the debate.

This debate was as much of a therapy session for people as anything.  It also shows that this is still an important issue for people going into the 2024 election.  RFK Jr. would be wise to listen.

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.