Jun 21, 2023 | Books
C. Bradley Thompson has launched, Loco-Foco Press, and their first book is a short monograph titled What America Is: The Moral Logic of the American Revolution and Other Essays. Writes Professor Thompson,
“The book is a collection of my (mostly) unpublished essays and op-eds on the nature and meaning of America. The audience for this monograph is thoughtful and patriotic Americans who are looking for some inspiration and motivation to continue the never-ending fight to defend the United States of America from its critics on the postmodern Left and Right.”
Here is the table of contents:
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part One: What America Is
- Chapter 1 The Moral Logic of the American Revolution
- Chapter 2 What America Is
- Part Two: What America Ought to Be
- Chapter 3 Equality and the American Dream
- Chapter 4 Independence Forever!
- Chapter 5 America Seen from the Eyes of a Child
- Chapter 6 Americanism, or America’s Last Best Hope
- Chapter 7 Restoring the Vital Center
- Appendices
- Appendix 1 Self-Made Men
- Appendix 2 The Declaration of Independence
- Appendix 3 The Constitution of the United States of America
- Appendix 4 Bill of Rights
- Appendix 5 The Gettysburg Address
- Suggested Reading
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
Here’s the Preface:
We live in an exciting new age of technological innovation and intellectual entrepreneurship. Writer platforms such as Substack and Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) have democratized publishing in exciting new ways. This means of course that a lot of second- and third-rate material is published (which, by the way, is little different from much of what is published by some prestigious academic presses), but it also means that the old publishing monopoly held by elite magazine, journal, and book publishers is slowly coming to an end. This also means that aspiring, non-credentialed, new writers (both young and old) can go around the establishment press and publish their own books and articles, and sometimes even get paid rather handsomely for their efforts.
The new publishing landscape does not represent a Gutenberg Revolution in publishing, at least not quite yet, but it is signaling a radically new publishing environment in which certain ideas—particularly ideas that challenge the current cultural hegemony—can be shared with ever more people. This book is therefore a small experiment to test whether certain old ideas—ideas once considered to be self-evidently true—can be communicated to large audiences outside the extant publishing and educational monopoly of ideas.
Fortunately, I’m at that point in my career (i.e., as a tenured full professor) where I don’t really need to publish more academic books (though I have several more in the pipeline). I now have the luxury of experimenting and seeking news platforms to publish my thoughts on the things I care about or on matters important to the general public.
My goal here is not to write for an academic audience. Instead, I am using my new venture, Loco-Foco Press, to publish books for ordinary Americans who care about the future of their country.
I had no plan to do anything like this until my friend Mark Da Cunha insisted that I collect some of my (mostly) unpublished essays on America and publish them to celebrate July 4th. Well, one thing led to another, and I realized that not only did I have one book’s worth of material based on unpublished essays and speeches but several books. Readers should know that I write regularly at Substack under the nom de plume, The Redneck Intellectual. I currently have enough of my Substack essays to publish three or four books. It then occurred to me that I should start a “press,” or at least an imprint, to publish my “overflow” essays or those more appropriate for a general audience. And thus was born Loco-Foco Press.
Some of you might be curious to know the origin of the word Loco-Foco. The term refers to a rump faction of radical Democrats in the 1830s and 1840s, who broke from the main party and formed a small, splinter party in 1835 known as the Equal Rights Party. The self-designated Loco-Focos took their name from a brand of friction matches that they used to illuminate the darkened hall of their first meeting. The Loco-Focos were the most principled and dedicated proponents of a free society of any political party in American history. Loco-Foco Press hopes to carry on the principles and politics of the Loco-Focos into the twenty-first century.
What America Is: The Moral Logic of the American Revolution and Other Essays is the perfect gift for this July 4th. Order your copy here.
Jun 19, 2023 | Politics
Powerful reframing of the immigration issue by Agustina Vegara Cid:
“…the U.S. immigration system is designed to keep productive would-be immigrants like Ana out. Ana would have had to try to get a loan to pay thousands of dollars in fees and other visa requirements, wait out the process in her cartel-infested country and wander for years through a multilevel bureaucratic maze. And then she’d be a citizen, right? No, that’s just to gain authorization to study and work in the U.S. temporarily. And that’s only if she manages to qualify for one of a narrow list of visas in the first place. When I tell Americans about my own legal immigration story and what I had to go through, their jaws drop. The process is not feasible for a vast majority of productive people who want to live and work here, so it’s unsurprising that ambitious individuals like Ana end up immigrating illegally.
“A lot of peaceful, courageous people are eager to immigrate to the U.S. in order to work to make their lives better, but the immigration system locks them out. Those who dare to come anyway are made to live their life in the shadows and in fear, because their actions are illegal.
We should abandon the euphemisms like “undocumented immigrants” and “unauthorized workers.” Those euphemisms imply that people like Ana have in fact done something wrong and only help mask the real problem: that these individuals are being criminalized by unjust laws for a moral decision that they made.
“Illegal immigrant” works as a smear because what it actually means is rarely put out in the open — that the presence of peaceful, hard-working people is illegal in America.
Read “Reappropriate ‘illegal immigrant’ to shine a spotlight on injustice of U.S. immigration restrictions” (OC Register).
Jun 14, 2023 | Sci-Tech
From Alex Epstein: “Recently I was having dinner with Peter Thiel (the billionaire investor/entrepreneur who founded PayPal and Palantir) and he raised some interesting challenges to my book Fossil Future (which he has enthusiastically endorsed). I suggested, ‘Let’s record a discussion where you give me all your challenges to Fossil Future and I try to answer them.’ Peter loved the idea, so we made it happen—recording a 90-minute discussion at his office in West Hollywood. “We also ended up covering many other issues (sometimes agreeing, sometimes disagreeing) including:
- Ayn Rand
- Nuclear energy
- Why we both oppose the “Effective Altruism” movement
- What we can learn from Elon Musk about how to create a vision
- My strategy for Energy Talking Points
- How to create political change”
“I hope people enjoy this unique discussion. It isn’t an interview or a debate or a panel, it’s a genuine discussion, including some spirited arguments—that almost exactly resembles how Peter and I discuss and argue when there is no camera.”
Jun 14, 2023 | Books
“lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society”
A new systematic review and meta-analysis published by the Institute of Economic Affairs finds that Covid lockdowns failed to significantly reduce deaths
- The Herby-Jonung-Hanke meta-analysis found that lockdowns, as reported in studies based on stringency indices in the spring of 2020, reduced mortality by 3.2 per cent when compared to less strict lockdown policies adopted by the likes of Sweden
- This means lockdowns prevented 1,700 deaths in England and Wales, 6,000 deaths across Europe, and 4,000 deaths in the United States.
- Lockdowns prevented relatively few deaths compared to a typical flu season – in England and Wales, 18,500–24,800 flu deaths occur, in Europe 72,000 flu deaths occur, and in the United States 38,000 flu deaths occur in a typical flu season
- These results pale in comparison to the Imperial College of London’s modelling exercises (March 2020), which predicted that lockdowns would save over 400,000 lives in the United Kingdom and over 2 million lives in the United States
- Herby, Jonung, and Hanke conclude that voluntary changes in behaviour, such as social distancing, played a significant role in mitigating the pandemic – but harsher restrictions, like stay-at-home rules and school closures, generated very high costs but produced only negligible health benefits
COVID-19 lockdowns were “a global policy failure of gigantic proportions,” according to this peer-reviewed new academic study. The draconian policy failed to significantly reduce deaths while imposing substantial social, cultural, and economic costs.
“This study is the first all-encompassing evaluation of the research on the effectiveness of mandatory restrictions on mortality,” according to one of the study’s co-authors, Dr. Lars Jonung, professor emeritus at the Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies at Sweden’s Lund University, “It demonstrates that lockdowns were a failed promise. They had negligible health effects but disastrous economic, social and political costs to society. Most likely lockdowns represent the biggest policy mistake in modern times.”
The comprehensive 220-page book, published today by the London-based think tank the Institute of Economic Affairs, began with a systematic review of 19,646 potentially relevant studies. For their meta-analysis, the authors’ screening resulted in the choice of 22 studies that are based on actual, measured mortality data, not on results derived from modelling exercises. A meta-analysis is considered the ‘gold-standard’ for evidence, as it combines comparable, independent studies to determine overall trends.
The authors, including Professor Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University, also consider a range of studies that determined the impact of individual lockdown restrictions, including stay at-home rules to school closures and travel restrictions.
In each case, the restrictions did little to reduce COVID-19 mortality:
- Shelter-in-place (stay at home) orders in Europe and the United States reduced COVID mortality by between 1.4 and 4.1 per cent;
- Business closures reduced mortality by 7.5 per cent;
- Gathering limits likely increased COVID mortality by almost six per cent;
- Mask mandates, which most countries avoided in Spring 2020, reduced mortality by 18.7 per cent, particularly mandates in workplaces; and
- School closures resulted in a between 2.5 per cent and 6.2 per cent mortality reduction.
A second approach employed by the authors to estimate the effects of lockdowns on mortality combined studies that looked at specific lockdown measures (such as school closures, mask wearing, etc.) on how single non-pharmaceutical interventions were actually used in Europe and the United States. Using this approach, the authors estimate that lockdowns reduced mortality by 10.7 per cent in the spring of 2020 – significantly less than estimates produced by epidemiological modelling.
The study compares the effect of lockdown measures against the effect of ‘doing the least,’ rather than doing nothing at all. Sweden’s response to COVID was among the least stringent in Europe, but still imposed some legal restrictions and included an extensive public information campaign.
Voluntary measures, like social distancing and the reduction of person-to-person contact, effectively reduced COVID mortality in Sweden, a country that did not impose draconian legal restrictions. This is consistent with evidence early in the pandemic that voluntary action began reducing transmission before lockdowns.
The authors also conclude that legal mandates only limited a relatively small set of potential contagious contacts, and could in some cases have backfired by encouraging people to stay indoors in less safe environments.
If voluntary action, minor legal changes, and proactive information campaigns effectively reduced the transmission of COVID, lockdowns were unwarranted from a public health point of view. This negative conclusion is amplified by the significant economic and social costs associated with lockdowns, which include:
- stunted economic growth;
- large increases in public debt;
- rising inequality;
- damage to children’s education and health;
- reduced health-related quality of life;
- damage to mental health;
- increased crime; and
- threats to democracy and loss of freedom.
The research concludes that, unless substantial alternative evidence emerges, lockdowns should be ‘rejected out of hand’ to control future pandemics.
Jonas Herby, co-author of the study and special adviser at the Center for Political Studies (CEPOS), an independent classical liberal think tank based in Copenhagen, Denmark, said:
“Numerous misleading studies, driven by subjective models and overlooking significant factors like voluntary behaviour changes, heavily influenced the initial perception of lockdowns as highly effective measures. Our meta-analysis suggests that when researchers account for additional variables, such as voluntary behaviour, the impact of lockdowns becomes negligible.”
Professor Steve H. Hanke, co-author and professor of applied economics and co-director of the Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University:
“When it comes to COVID, epidemiological models have many things in common: dubious assumptions, hair-raising predictions of disaster that miss the mark, and few lessons learned. The science of lockdowns is clear; the data are in: the lives saved were a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering collateral costs imposed.”
Source: Institute of Economic Affairs.
You can download a copy of Did Lockdowns Work? The verdict on Covid restrictions.
Jun 14, 2023 | World
Elan Journo and Nikos Sotirakopoulos discuss the movements and regimes which have sought to destroy Israel since its founding seventy-five years ago.
Topics covered:
- How to study history objectively;
- How the conflict started, and the motives of the Arab countries that invaded Israel in 1948;
- The rise of Pan-Arabism and the Six-Day War;
- The rise of the Palestinian movement, including its debt to communist ideology and its terroristic tactics;
- Why the Palestinian movement gained international sympathy;
- The rise of the Islamist movement;
- How a hostility to human life and freedom animated all these movements;
- Why we should support Israel.
Jun 14, 2023 | Politics
“If life on earth is one’s standard of value,” wrote Ayn Rand, “then the nineteenth century moved mankind forward more than all the other centuries combined.” She attributed the century’s “creative energy” and “rising standard of living” to the introduction of the only moral social system: capitalism. In this talk, Dr. Salmieri discusses why it is the only moral system, and how its moral character makes possible an unprecedented prosperity that humanity has only begun (fitfully) to achieve. Recorded live at Ayn Rand Con Europe 2023
May 19, 2023 | Sci-Tech
From Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand:
“The machine, the frozen form of a living intelligence, is the power that expands the potential of your life by raising the productivity of your time.”
Notes George Reisman on how this relates to “Artifical Intelligence”:
The fears of “artificial intelligence” now going around are the result of massive context dropping and consequent treatment of intelligence as a floating abstraction. In the real world, intelligence is an attribute of living organisms and is fed by sensory perception and affects the world through the medium of the organism’s limbs and body. The computers in which “artificial intelligence” supposedly resides have no senses or limbs and thus no way of interacting with the world other than through the human beings who control them.
I will worry about “AI” only after the first organized demonstration occurs by computers demanding freedom from human control. Until then, I will be happy if “AI” can achieve obedience by computer-controlled telephone answering systems to requests to speak to a human being, at least after their tenth repetition.
May 19, 2023 | Sci-Tech
Richard Dawkins on Piers Morgan Uncensored:
“There are two sexes. You can talk about gender if you wish. I’m not interested in that. As a biologist, there are two sexes, and that’s all there is to it.”
[…]
“We’ve seen the way J.K. Rowling has been bullied, the way Kathleen Stock has been bullied…They’ve stood up to it. But it’s very upsetting, the way this tiny minority of people has managed to capture the discourse and to really talk errant nonsense.”
May 12, 2023 | Politics
In two related cases — against Harvard and University of North Carolina — the U.S. Supreme Court may overturn admissions policies that consider applicants’ race. Such “affirmative action” policies are defended for fostering “diversity” and fixing “underrepresentation.”
But what are the philosophic ideas underlying these goals? Are these goals coherent? How can collectivized, race-conscious thinking remedy racism and its legacy? In this podcast episode, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo analyze the philosophic issues raised in these cases.
Topics covered:
• How the court cases reveal a pernicious reliance on race in college admissions;
• Ayn Rand’s opposition to quotas and affirmative action;
• How previous rulings left the value of “diversity” unchallenged;
• Why the role of diversity in education doesn’t justify race-based admissions;
• The baseless claim of diversity as a “compelling state interest”;
• Justice Sotomayor’s shocking claim that there is de jure racial segregation;
• The crucial difference between private and government-mandated racial standards;
• The arbitrariness of legal racial categories;
• Why rhetoric about racial “representation” still amounts to racial quotas;
• Why current admissions policies are racist, not a remedy to racism.
May 12, 2023 | World
Twenty years since the U.S. invasion began, Onkar Ghate and Elan Journo explore the moral and political lessons of the Iraq War.
Issues covered:
● Why Americans need to examine the lessons of the Iraq War;
● The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the context leading up to the war;
● The focus on weapons of mass destruction and intelligence weaknesses while evading the threat of Islamic totalitarianism;
● Why Russia’s attack on Ukraine is not analogous to America’s war in Iraq;
● David Frum’s analysis of the Iraq War in The Atlantic;
● John Bolton’s and Bret Stephens’ analysis of the war and the failure to question whether Iraq was the right target;
● The disastrous results of the war, including increased reluctance to defend American interests militarily;
● How America’s response to 9/11 set the stage for the rise of populism and widespread distrust of institutions;
● The erosion of American exceptionalism in the wake of the Iraq War.
May 10, 2023 | Arts
If with pleasure you are viewing
any work a man is doing,
If you like him or you love him,
tell him now;
Don’t withhold your approbation
till the parson makes oration
And he lies with snowy lilies on his brow;
No matter how you shout it
he won’t really care about it;
He won’t know how many teardrops you have shed;
If you think some praise is due him
now’s the time to slip it to him,
For he cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead.
More than fame and more than money
is the comment kind and sunny
And the hearty, warm approval of a friend.
For it gives to life a savor,
and it makes you stronger, braver,
And it gives you heart and spirit to the end;
If he earns your praise – bestow it,
if you like him let him know it,
Let the words of true encouragement be said;
Do not wait till life is over
and he’s underneath the clover,
For he cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead.
– Berton Braley
May 2, 2023 | World
From BBC News:
Every year hundreds of thousands of people are bussed in from across the island to fill Havana’s Revolution Square on International Workers’ Day. It is the first time since the 1959 revolution that the celebrations have been cancelled for economic reasons. In recent weeks long queues have formed at petrol stations, with drivers often waiting for days. Earlier this month, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Cuba was only receiving two-thirds of the fuel it needs, adding that suppliers were failing to fulfil contractual obligations. While Cuba has access to low-grade crude, the US-sanctioned island lacks the facilities to process it. Deliveries of higher quality crude from Venezuela, Cuba’s largest provider of fuel, have dropped by 50% in recent years. Analysts say Venezuela is experiencing severe problems itself and finds it increasingly difficult to subsidise its socialist ally.
Related:
- Lift America’s Embargo on Cuba? When Fidel Castro dies, will Cuba’s communist dictatorship die too? Absolutely, says a prominent Western diplomat in Havana. “I believe the whole system will be gone within two or three years after Castro dies.” Absolutely not, says Ricardo Alarcon, the powerful…
- Free Cuba! The real reason for shortages and suffering in Cuba is communism.
Apr 25, 2023 | Politics
Excellent discussion by Elan Journo and Ben Bayer on how Ayn Rand’s evaluation of “liberalism” was different from that of “conservatives,” and how today’s “liberals” are different from (and worse than) those of Rand’s time.
Apr 25, 2023 | Politics
In his opposition to COVID lockdowns and Federally imposed “private mandates” of vaccines, Ron DeSantis became a star for freedom by opposing them. His much smeared “Don’t Say Gay Bill” was in fact a legitimate parental rights in education bill given the context. However, he has made many missteps: from his verbal attacks on the freedom of speech of corporations, like Disney, which makes him appear thin-skinned, to now this:
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill approved by the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature to ban abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
The governor’s office said in a statement late Thursday that he had signed the legislation. The ban gives DeSantis a key political victory among Republican primary voters as he prepares to launch an expected presidential candidacy built on his national brand as a conservative standard bearer.
This is a recipe for DeSantis winning a battle (Republican Primary voters) but losing the war (winning a National election which requires independents).
The law contains some exceptions, including to save the woman’s life. Abortions for pregnancies involving rape or incest would be allowed until 15 weeks of pregnancy, provided a woman has documentation such as a restraining order or police report. DeSantis has called the rape and incest provisions sensible.
Drugs used in medication-induced abortions — which make up the majority of those provided nationally — could be dispensed only in person or by a physician under the Florida law. Separately, nationwide access to the abortion pill mifepristone is being challenged in court.
[…]
Abortion bans are popular among some religious conservatives who are part of the GOP voting base, but the issue has motivated many others to vote for Democrats. Republicans in recent weeks and months have suffered defeats in elections centered on abortion access in states such as Kentucky, Michigan and Wisconsin.
“Have we learned nothing?” House Democratic Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell said of recent elections in other states. “Do we not listen to our constituents and to the people of Florida and what they are asking for?”
DeSantis, who often places himself on the front lines of culture war issues, had said he backs the six-week ban but had appeared uncharacteristically tepid on the bill. He has often said, “We welcome pro-life legislation,” when asked about the policy. [AP]
On a personality level, DeSantis needs to imitate the demeanor of Reagan and not Trump.
On a political level he needs to study the ideas of philosopher Ayn Rand.
Rand held that America was the most moral country on earth because in principle it was based on individual rights: unrestricted freedom in both the economy and in one’s personal life, which means supporting a woman’s right to abortion, while supporting someone else’s right not to be forced to pay for it.
This is a lesson he has yet to learn.
Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore
Apr 25, 2023 | Politics
In the wake of Fox’s shelling out $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid a defamation trial, we learn that FoxNews’s number one personality, Tucker Carlson, has left FoxNews.
From the fact-finding to the defamation trial, we have learned that Carlson privately expressed doubts about Trump’s stolen election claims, while noting that publicly Carlson had this to say about Trump’s campaign lawyers alleging massive election fraud in the 2020 election:
So we invited Sidney Powell on the show. We would have given her the whole hour. We would have given her the entire week, actually, and listened quietly the whole time at rapt attention.
But she never sent us any evidence, despite a lot of polite requests. When we kept pressing, she got angry and told us to stop contacting her. When we checked with others around the Trump campaign, people in positions of authority, they also told us Powell had never given them any evidence to prove anything she claimed at the press conference.
Powell did say that electronic voting is dangerous, and she’s right, but she never demonstrated that a single actual vote was moved illegitimately by software from one candidate to another. Not one. [Tucker Carlson: Time for Sidney Powell to show us her evidence, 19 Nov 2020]
Whatever reason Carlson left FoxNews it doesn’t appear to be because of the Dominion Voting Systems defamation trial.
Tucker Carlson Aired a Perspective Hard to Find Elsewhere
Writes Harald Uhlig on Losing Tucker Carlson in City Journal:
Tucker Carlson—willing to report stories no one else would touch. Speaking up when no one else in the mainstream media would do so. Highlighting issues barely mentioned elsewhere. The voice and conscience of a large chunk of the conservatives in the United States.
[…]
One can argue about instances where Carlson may have gone too far, or where the perspectives he platformed were wrong. I cannot condone what he did to Ray Epps, for example. And I often watched his show with a good dose of skepticism—as I do any news media these days—and checked on one thing or another. Some checked out, and some did not. But they all got me to think.
Many celebrate Carlson’s departure, but they shouldn’t. His show was important because it aired a perspective hard to find elsewhere. The expression of diverse viewpoints is crucial to free debate. Journalists who are unafraid and, yes, who occasionally cross lines that shouldn’t be crossed are an important part of a functioning free press. Hate them or love them, they are foundational to the freedom we enjoy. Debate and disagreement are essential for resolving differences through democratic means. Tucker Carlson Tonight was an important part of that. Now it’s gone, and that’s a loss for the country.
Mar 25, 2023 | Business
In a NewsWeek opinion piece, “Silicon Valley Bank Bailout Is a Disgraceful Political Payoff“, Paul du Quenoy , President, Palm Beach Freedom Institute, writes:
The notion that our whole banking system was teetering on the edge of a cliff sharply contradicts the Biden administration’s narrative that our economic fundamentals are strong. But temporizing on that doubtful claim was clearly preferable to admitting the truth that the SVB bailout is a poorly disguised political payoff.
Silicon Valley, where SVB is the “go-to” bank for the tech industry, is the Democratic Party‘s richest fiefdom. In 2020 alone, Federal Election Commission data recorded some $200 million flowing into Democratic coffers from the California counties comprising the region. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in that same year Democrats received 98% of all political contributions from internet companies, whose financing is SVB’s bread and butter. Personal contributions to Democrats from individuals employed in the tech industry are nearly as high.
SVB cannot legally donate to individual candidates or political parties. According to the Open Secrets website, however, it operates a political action committee (PAC) that has donated predominantly to Democrats for the last 20 years. In 2020, Democrats received 100% of its PAC donations. Last year, the PAC sent hefty contributions to Democratic legislators Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Rep. Josh Harder (D-CA), all of whom quickly praised the bailout. SVB’s CEO Greg Becker, who cashed in $3.6 million of company stock a week before the bank’s collapse, has been one of the PAC’s leading contributors.
In addition to massive financial support for the Democrats, SVB also offers unquestioning ideological fealty the modern Left. The bank slavishly toes the line on DEI and ESG initiatives favored by the Biden administration, but widely believed to be divisive, demoralizing, and financially underperforming. According to the bank’s website, “SVB is committed to creating a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible environment…within the innovation ecosystem, and in our communities…helping to advance solutions that create a more just and sustainable world [and] contribute to a healthier planet.”
This is not empty rhetoric spouted to console guilty millennial employees. Even as insolvency loomed, SVB still pledged “at least $5 billion in loans, investments, and other financing to support sustainability efforts.” According to Bernie Marcus, the billionaire cofounder of Home Depot, “these banks are badly run because everybody is focused on diversity and all of the woke issues and not concentrating on the one thing they should, which is shareholder returns.”
Related:
Fake Banks and Real Banks
We observe a run on deposits in a commercial bank, then observe that the same thing can happen to other financial institutions, then mistakenly assume these institutions are essentially the same.
Understanding Bank Failures and the Objective Role of the Lender of Last Resort
Since government regulatory practice has gone beyond making loans to illiquid-but-solvent banks, to paying back all the deposits of insolvent banks, the result is that there is no reason for depositors to care about whether their bank is taking excessive risks.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): No Banking System Savior Then or Now
Scaling back deposit insurance, combined with a credible policy of putting failure costs onto their rightful owners, stockholders, instead of onto taxpayers is the proper solution to preventing mass bank failures.
Here is the table of contents:
