Mark Ford

October 10, 2023 No Comments

“The US is courting trouble.”

“The federal government is 43% larger than it was four years ago, and its reach is expanding mightily. More than a third of the surge in investment spending [since then] can be traced to government subsidies, credits, and handouts. The chosen corporate recipients of the government’s largesse ostensibly benefit, but the rest of the private economy will be burdened by significantly higher rates and rising costs of doing business.” – Kevin Warsh, former member of the Federal Reserve Board, 10/6/23, WSJ

Fun and/or Interesting

October 10, 2023 No Comments

Quick Bites: News from the DC Swamp, Bill Bonner on the War in Ukraine, an FDA Loss in Appeals Court, Surprise House Guests, and a Movie Quiz

Rochelle Walensky

CDC Director Walensky’s husband received $16.9 million in Health and Human Services grants. This is yet another example of dozens of financial conflicts of interest between Big Pharma and Big Government today. Click here.

Bill Bonner on the War in Ukraine. Speaking of government-corporate conflicts, few writers today are brave enough to tell the obvious truths about the billions of dollars we are devoting to the war in Ukraine. Click here.

Federal appeals court revives lawsuit accusing the FDA of “overstepping” its authority on anti-ivermectin messaging. Click here.

How much do they really care? I’m not sure if this is staged or real, but it succinctly summarizes my suspicions about the commitment many have to their passionate political beliefs. Click here.

Film firsts. I scored a dismal 60% on this quiz. But some of the questions I had wrong had interesting answers. Click here.

Readers Write

October 10, 2023 No Comments

From AS re my essay “How to Be a Conservative, Part II” in the Oct. 3 issue:

“I laughed when I read the part about the military hierarchy. My second day of basic training, I saw this graffiti on the wall of the latrine: ‘The definition of the army is the uneducated telling the unwilling to do the unnecessary.’ In my experience, it proved to be mostly true.”

Postscript

October 10, 2023 No Comments

I look good, right?

I’m in Myrtle Beach this week for a sort of mini high school reunion.

It’s an annual event that has been going on for at least 30 years. And it’s always a good time. Gorgeous golf courses, delicious dinners, fine cigars, aged spirits, and great, nostalgic conversation in the evenings.

This tradition started at least a decade before I joined it. In the early days, I’ve been told, everyone could drink more, stay up later, and golf better. But the general drift since I became an honored member has been distinctly downward. With one exception: The post-prandial stories seem to be improving. I’d like to believe that’s because we have improved our narrative skills as we have aged, but it’s also possible that our standards in storytelling have diminished.

Each year, someone takes a group photo, which is always appreciated. The one above is not current. It may be six or seven years old. I selected it because… well, because it’s one of the few that flatter me. Don’t you think? (I’m third from the left, top row.)

Friday, October 6, 2023, Delray Beach, Florida

Notes From My Journal

October 6, 2023 No Comments

An Embarrassing Answer to a Simple Question

“I know this is a strange question,” JW wrote, “but how do you like to spend your weekends? I’m sure it has changed as you’ve gone through different seasons of life. But how did you handle weekends during your biggest wealth-building years? I feel good about my progress during a typical week, but weekends are my Achilles heel. Since my friends and family are off on weekends, I try to spend more time with them. While the time together is great, I also have a sense of guilt. I don’t get much productive work done. I don’t work out like I do during the week. My nutrition habits go out the window. It feels like I take five steps forward during the week and two steps back on the weekend. Do you have any advice for me?”

My weekends. I wish he hadn’t asked that. The answer is embarrassing.

My longtime partner BB worked non-stop during the week, but then devoted his weekends to building barns and reading scripture. His very unbusinesslike weekends seemed to give him the break he needed from writing and working out business problems and allowed him to exercise his body and different parts of his brain. Monday mornings, he always seemed reenergized.

I can’t say for certain that’s true. I never asked him. In any case, I’ve never had that problem.

I shouldn’t say never.

When I was in my twenties, when my family was young and we lived in DC, I adhered to the work-all-week/ have-fun-on-the-weekend idea. I jampacked our weekend calendar with things to do with the kids. That meant walks in the parks, visits to the zoo and the kids’ museums, going to kid-oriented movies, etc. I thought I was working hard and so I deserved to spend my weekends that way. That was then.

In my early thirties, we moved to South Florida and I began my career as a CEO and an entrepreneur. This made a big difference in my weekend schedule. I still loved “playing” on Saturdays and Sundays. But I realized I couldn’t possibly keep up with my work obligations if I didn’t squeeze in some work on the weekends.

In my early forties, I went harder at my work, and probably regularly worked at least six hours each weekend day. There were weekends I’d work straight through. I never saw NOT working as an option. People depended on me. I had things to do.

At 49, I decided I didn’t need to make any more money and made my second effort at retirement. I vowed that, as a first step, I would stop working on weekends. That lasted about a week. I worked harder in my fifties than I did in my forties.

When I turned 60, I tried to retire again and failed again. I continued to work weekends. Probably five or six hours a day.

Now that I’m in my 70s, I’ve really gotten control of myself. I still work on weekends, but I’ve cut the time dramatically so that I can devote as much time as possible to what matters. Which is never work.

I’m down to about four hours per weekend day. So… what do I do for the rest of the day?

Mostly, what I’m “advised” to do.

The Economy & Investing

October 6, 2023 No Comments

Office Buildings Are Still Half-Empty

More than three years after the COVID Lockdown began and employees began working from home, the sentiment among CEOs about remote working has become increasingly negative. Almost every CEO I know is nudging (if not demanding) employees to resume five-day-a-week office hours. But they are telling me that even their best employees are resisting.

When I wrote about this issue on August 12, I predicted that, except for some obvious jobs that require physical presence (the service industry, retail, and much of manufacturing), most workers would resist going back to the old routine. But employers have been increasing the pressure, offering rewards and penalties – in some cases, making full-time, in-office work mandatory. This last weekend, I had a conversation with one of my nieces and her husband, who work in NYC and are facing this pressure from their employers. They say they are willing to make concessions, but they won’t return to their pre-COVID office hours.

Despite the widespread resistance, the WSJ reports that in mid-September, return-to-office rates were at their highest level since the onset of the pandemic. And yet, office buildings in the city are still half-empty.

It’s too early to know for sure, but I’m still betting that the new get-tough measures will not get more than half of the office desks and cubicles occupied with flesh-and-blood people. Which is why I continue to have confidence in my decision to cancel my plans to build a large office building in my hometown of Delray Beach, Florida.

But there is some good news for office landlords. Click here.

News & Views

October 6, 2023 No Comments

The Mysterious Math of Illegal Immigration

An unmarked white bus pulled up to an empty park in New Jersey in the wee hours of the morning. Out came about 50 recently arrived migrants. They had no idea where they were and no place to sleep that night.

The bus wasn’t sent by the borderline governors. It was part of an ongoing operation by the federal government, which has been dropping off undocumented immigrants in towns and cities all across the United States for three years.

San Diego, a self-declared Sanctuary City, has about a thousand beds available to accommodate bused-in migrants for several days until they can find another place to live. But in the past two weeks, the city has received an estimated 7,800 immigrants. So, immigration agents are leaving people on the streets, at bus stops, and in train stations, angering local officials and worrying aid groups.

Fact: There are 65,000 undocumented immigrants in New York City. Mayor Adams is calling it a crisis. But that is only one-tenth of 1% of the 6.5 million undocumented immigrants that have come into the country since President Biden took office.

We hear about San Diego and New York. But the numbers they report are in the tens of thousands, not the millions. Which begs the question: Where are all the other people? Who’s taking care of them and what is it costing?

Click here.

The COVID Pandemic Was Bad? You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet!

Kate Bingham

Were you freaked out by the COVID-19 warnings and mandates? Did you trust Dr. Fauci? Were you angered by all the “fake news” suggesting that the “facts” issued from the WHO and the CDC were without merit? Did you feel virtuous in doing everything you possibly could to protect yourself, your family, and even the entire nation?

Was all that a great deal of fun for you?

If so, you are going to like what Kate Bingham, the former chair of the UK Vaccine Taskforce, is saying.

According to The Long Shot, a book she wrote about her experience fighting COVID 19, as well as interviews she’s given to promote the book, COVID-19 is small potatoes compared to the next pandemic that will soon be at your doorstep. I’m talking about “Disease X.” (I didn’t make that up.) It’s the name of a virus that she and others of her ilk (including Bill Gates) predict will break out in the near future. A virus 100 times worse than COVID-19.

“Imagine a virus as infectious as measles with the fatality rate of Ebola [67%],” she says. “Somewhere in the world, it’s replicating, and sooner or later, somebody will start feeling sick.”

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