Mark Ford

Friday, November 1, 2024, Delray Beach, Florida

November 1, 2024 No Comments

Lots to share with you in this November issue, including a quiz to take before you vote, a brief history of how I became a conservative, highlights of my adventure in October, investment advice on gold, real estate, and the fine art market, four book reviews, three TV/movie reviews, and something I’m very excited about: a 30-minute video course I put together on the economic genius Milton Friedman.

Plus…

* David Stockman on why Trump and Harris will probably both sink the US economy in the next four years

* Niall Ferguson on Israel

* Millionaires that can’t afford to buy their dream homes

* Freddie DeBoer on why largesse doesn’t help those it pretends to

* The brutal history of tarring and feathering

* Why you were probably taught to read the wrong way

* Another chapter from my forthcoming book The Challenge of Charity

* A chapter on “Inertia” from The 7 Natural Laws of Wealth Acquisition

* A life lesson from Arnold Schwarzenegger

Notes From My Journal

November 1, 2024 No Comments

Catching Up: A Look Back at October

Several readers wrote to say that they aren’t thrilled about my changing this blog to once a month. They were accustomed to hearing from me at least once a week, and they wondered if something terrible might have happened to me during October.

Well, not much of consequence happened to me. I wasn’t ill. I won no awards. I did have some fun and some happy surprises, though. Below, a short summary of the highlights.

A Surprise Gift from Montgomery Botanical Gardens
And an Exciting Addition to Paradise Palms

I was invited for a private tour of Montgomery Gardens, the sister of Fairchild Gardens, one of the largest botanical gardens in the States, to see their shade houses and grow beds and compare notes about managing palm trees. The tour ended with a small collection of a species of palm tree that had been thought to be extinct. For a palm tree grower like me, this was exciting. To make things better, they donated one to Paradise Palms. Since we opened Paradise Palms, we’ve proudly explained to visitors that we have on display all 11 of the species of palms that are native to Florida. Now we have another one – and another story to tell!

We Might Have Continued This Argument Forever…
How K and I Stopped Arguing About Plastic Water Bottles.

When I drink water, I prefer to drink it from a plastic bottle, nicely chilled. So, that’s what I do. Whenever I want to drink water at home, I take one of the dozens of plastic bottles that K stores in our refrigerators.

But there’s a problem: K objects to it.

She says I’m wasting money. That I should drink tap water. I tell her I like my water cold. And besides, what are the chilled bottles of water in our refrigerators there for anyway?

She says they are there for our guests. And if I like my water cold, I should put some ice in my glass of tap water.

I tell her that I don’t like to drink water that way. That I don’t like the ice cubes clicking against my teeth.

She tells me I’m being ridiculous. I tell her I paid for the damn plastic water bottles. She shakes her head despairingly and goes about her business.

This has been going on for as long as I can remember. Probably since plastic water bottles were invented. We are both stubborn in the way only the Irish can be stubborn. She has never persuaded me of her opinion, nor have I persuaded her of mine.

Which is to say that this little disagreement probably would have continued until one of us kicked the bucket. But the other day, a light bulb illuminated just above my head.

I realized that I could have my cake and let K eat it simply by refilling the plastic bottle I had just finished drinking from with tap water. I put the top back on and put it back in the fridge. The next time I wanted a drink of water, I used that bottle. And that’s what I plan to do from now on.

Problem solved. And so simply, too.

So, now I’m wondering…

* Why did it take me so long to figure out this simple solution?

* How many such ongoing quotidian conflicts do I have that might be solved as easily?

The Fine Art Market Is Hot. Maybe Too Hot?

One of Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn” silkscreens sold at Christie’s for an astonishing $195 million.

This blows away all previous prices paid for a work by any American artist at auction. In fact, it was the most expensive work of art sold at auction in history. And the bidding was completed in less than four minutes!

It eclipsed the previous high price for a Basquiat skull painting at Sotheby’s in 2017, as well as Warhol’s auction high for a car-crash painting that sold for $105.4 million in 2013.

According to several experts, this could be the beginning of a spurt of super-sized sales for super-popular artists created by a huge pent-up demand by new buyers that were reluctant to enter the market during and for a year after the economic uncertainty of the COVID lockdown.

I wonder who these new buyers are. Are they the same nouveau riche Wall Street traders and brokers that have been buying up this genre of art? I doubt it. Most of those guys had net worths in the $100 million to $800 million range. But $170 million is even too rich for someone worth a billion. I’m guessing this was Arab money. Maybe we’ll see “Blue Marilyn” hanging in the Louvre’s adjunct museum in Abu Dhabi.

Your Devoted Guinea Pig Is Getting Smaller

I’ve said that I was contemplating taking a course of semaglutide, the wonder drug originally approved by the FDA in 2017 to combat type 2 diabetes (the kind you develop as an adult). It is fast becoming the weight-loss miracle the world has been clamoring for. Sales in the US are already $28 billion and growing.

The drug is manufactured and distributed under three labels: Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro. If you can get a doctor to diagnose you as “pre-diabetic,” your prescription will be (mostly) covered by your health insurance.

I’m taking Wegovy, which is prescribed for weight loss. Before deciding to take it, I did some research. It works in two ways: It sends a signal to your brain that you are “full” way before your brain would have figured it out itself, and it slows down your digestion so that you feel full for a large part of the day.

The efficacy, they say, is high. And that’s been my experience.

I am now in my seventh week of injecting semaglutide into my thigh and I’ve already lost 16 pounds. I weighed 224 when I began the program, and I woke up today weighing 208.

As for side effects, I’ve had none of the stomach or intestinal problems that some have taking this drug.

I am eating whatever I want, whenever I want, and as much as I want. The difference is that my appetite (for food – not so much for tequila!) has been greatly reduced. I used to consume about 2,000 calories a day (trying to watch my calorie intake). Now, I’m consuming about half that. Half is 30,000 fewer calories per month, which amounts to a loss of about 10 pounds, or 2.5 pounds per week. Based on the research I’ve done on dieting, that’s a healthy and sustainable rate of weight loss.

Meanwhile, I’m exercising diligently to reduce the percentage of muscle I’m losing. By next month, I should be down to my target weight (198) – and if you are lucky, I might include a photo in December’s issue of my 74-year-old body in a bathing suit!

Worth Considering

November 1, 2024 No Comments

Why I’ll (Probably) Vote Next Week
My 50-Year Transition Towards Conservatism

Brett, the young man who cuts my hair every three weeks, was an early voter this year. We talked about his choices – the votes he cast for the presidency, as well as those he cast for propositions on the Florida ballot.

I was surprised by how much study he told me he did before voting on the propositions, but he said that he felt that if he was going to vote, he should know what he was voting for or against. And I was more than a little humbled by our conversation.

I know Brett as a person with strong sentiments about most of the issues that divide American voters – freedom, equality, taxation, welfare, war, and more recently inflation, immigration, social justice, and abortion. So, I assumed he would cast his vote the way most Americans do: along party lines.

The fact that he had gone online and spent hours studying the pros and cons of all the propositions on the ballot reminded me of something I had gradually come to realize over the 54 years I’ve had the right to vote: I had little to no idea about who or what I was voting for.

During my 20s and 30s, I was a regular voter. I never spent any time studying the candidates or the issues I was voting for. I felt that I knew all I needed to know based on what I knew about the inclinations of my parents and favorite teachers – which were very much on the left.

I was, like so many young people today, a professed Communist and a card-carrying Conscientious Objector during my college years. I continued to protest the Vietnam War until it ended. And even then, as so many of my friends returned from their stints as soldiers and told me their stories, I developed an uncomfortable and disappointing distrust of my government and politics generally, not just the politicians that supported that war.

I declared myself an Independent. And I described my political views as many Independents do today: fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. That felt good. Even virtuous. But it was never helpful in making voting decisions because the Democrats at the time represented social liberalism while the Republicans were the party of fiscal restraint.

I tried to find a solution for this dilemma by, among other things, reading both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. But that only made things worse. Because I felt that the most important political issue was the question of war or peace, it became clear to me that President Eisenhower had been right when he warned Americans against the Military Industrial Complex, and I began to see both parties as pilgrims marching to the same Holy Site, just wearing differently colored clothes.

This led to several decades of mostly not voting. I could see clearly that both parties were aligned in supporting and extending the Cold War that had started soon after I was born, and that, for the most part, social welfare spending and taxes were going up regardless of which party was in office and/or dominant in the legislature.

When my youthful goal of becoming a writer morphed into becoming a publisher, I was forced to understand economics as it operates where the economy takes place – i.e., in business, rather than in government and non-profit institutions and academia.

And that changed my perspective a third time. I was still a fiscal conservative. And although I was still a strong believer in the sharing of wealth (all forms of wealth), I no longer believed that government could ever do a good job of that. On the contrary, my beliefs about the effective way to share wealth were almost entirely opposed to the philosophy that drives the social welfare programs of government and even most of the largest non-profit charities.

I am thinking seriously about voting this year, but although I feel like I know enough to make the right choice for the presidency, I haven’t done any work on Florida’s propositions – as Brett has – and I feel obliged to get that done before I make my final decision.

And this brings us to three of the things that I hope you’ll pay particular attention to in this issue, all of which might influence your decisions (present and future) as a voter: a quiz, a video lesson on basic economic theory, and a book review (one of the four book reviews in this issue) about the ideas of one of the world’s greatest economists.

Your Monthly Quiz

November 1, 2024 No Comments

Last-Minute Chance to Test Yourself: Are You Knowledgeable Enough to Be a Responsible Voter?

This month’s quiz touches on American political and presidential history, including a few questions whose answers may surprise you.

The Questions

1. There are only three requirements to be US President, according to Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the US Constitution. Which of the following are those three?

A: Must be a free man.
B: Must swear an oath of loyalty to the US.
C: Must be at least 35 years old.
D: Must have passed a literacy test.
E: Must have lived in the US for at least 14 years.
F: Must be a natural-born citizen.

2. When did Congress remove property ownership as a requirement to vote in elections?

A: 1812
B: 1856
C: 1884
D: 1914

3. Speaking in Pittsburg on Oct 10, Kamala Harris proclaimed she would engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called “bold, persistent experimentation” to stimulate the economy. How did Roosevelt’s “experimentation” work out?

A. It was a great success and rescued the country from the Great Depression.
B. It had no significant effect because Roosevelt never pursued it.
C. It was among the reasons that economic misery prevailed for so many years after his election to the presidency in 1932.

4. Who is the only US President to have served in both World Wars?

A: Herbert Hoover
B: Theodore Roosevelt
C: Dwight D. Eisenhower
D: Calvin Coolidge

5. Donald Trump was the first US President to run for election as a convicted criminal. True or False?

A: True
B: False

6. During the 1960 presidential campaign, Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard M. Nixon had four debates. According to polls conducted at the time, voters that heard the debates on the radio favored one candidate and voters that saw them on TV favored another. How did that break down?

A: Nixon was favored by television viewers and Kennedy was favored by radio listeners.
B: Kennedy was favored by television viewers and Nixon was favored by radio listeners.

7. Who was the first US President born in a hospital?

A: Herbert Hoover
B: Dwight D. Eisenhower
C: John F. Kennedy
D: Jimmy Carter

8. In his second run for the presidency, George Washington spent almost his entire campaign budget on what?

A: Newspaper ads
B: Campaign events in New York and Philadelphia
C: Building an addition to his personal residence
D: Liquor for potential voters

9. Most people believe that Abraham Lincoln was the tallest US President. How tall was he?

A: 5’ 10”
B: 6’ 1”
C: 6’ 4”
D: 6’ 7”

10. Trump never conceded the 2020 election to Biden. True or False?

A: True
B: False

The Answers

1. C, D, & E. Read this.

2. B: 1856. Read this.

3. C: Constant changing of the rules in Washington disrupted the ability of individuals to plan and make decisions. Read this.

4. C: Dwight D. Eisenhower was the only US President to serve in both WWI and WWII. Read this.

5. False: Eugene V. Debs, a five-time Socialist Party candidate for the presidency in the early 1900s, was jailed in 1918 for his continued agitation against the government. He made his fifth and final run from a federal prison. He lost, but still received more than 900,000 votes. Read this.

6. B: Kennedy was favored by television viewers and Nixon was favored by radio listeners. Read this.

7. D: Jimmy Carter. Read this.

8. D: Washington spent it on liquor for potential voters. Specifically: 28 gallons of rum, 50 gallons of rum punch, 34 gallons of wine, 46 gallons of beer, and two gallons of cider served to 391 voters – nearly half a gallon per voter. Read this.

9: C: Lincoln was 6’4”. Read this.

10: True and False. Click here and here and here.

Introducing...

November 1, 2024 No Comments

The Genius and Charisma of Milton Friedman
A Very Short Video Course That I Put Together

Economics is a subject that you should have at least a rudimentary understanding of if you want to speak intelligently about any political or social issues. If all the talk about the economy leading up to this year’s election has had your head spinning, the following video “mini-course” on Milton Friedman and his Nobel Prize-winning theory may be all you need.

1. Who was Milton Friedman?

Here’s a short cartoon from the Fraser Institute that provides a quick introduction to Friedman’s life and ideas.

2. An interview with Phil Donahue

Phil Donahue’s best quality as a talk show host was his earnest naïveté. He presented himself as a man that had a big heart but a modest brain. Here, he asks the questions any high school student might ask.

3. Who or what creates inflation?

In this short clip, Freidman refutes the most common misunderstandings about the origin of inflation. As he explains, it doesn’t come from greedy corporations or trade unions. They can’t create inflation because they can’t print dollars. Only the government, he says, can create inflation.

4. What about unemployment?

Friedman’s explanation of what creates unemployment and how, to some extent, it is inevitable, is a bit complex. You might want to listen to thisone twice.

5. Our “responsibility” to the poor

Freidman answers the difficult question of what responsibility the government has in eradicating poverty and helping the poor. His answer is not one that those in the poverty-solving business would like or agree with, but it is consistent with his larger economic theory. Click here.

6. What about welfare?

Along the same line as the previous clip, Friedman addresses another tough question. We all know that welfare tends to create dependency, but we surely cannot cut it off. So, what can we do? Click here.

7. Who serves the workers?

In this clip, we get into another sticky subject: the role of labor unions. Those that support the unions believe that without them businesses would take unfair advantage of their workers, especially minorities and poor people. Is that true?

8. Immigration: the pros and cons

A topic that is hot today. America prospered in its first several hundred years by having an open-border policy. Since 2020, the Biden administration has allowed at least 10 million foreigners to enter the US without vetting. As a free-market advocate, would Friedman think open borders make sense today? Click here and here.

9. The challenge with redistributing wealth

In this clip, Friedman argues that when governments take it upon themselves to redistribute wealth, the poor stay poor and everyone else gets poorer.

10. Free-Market Capitalism vs. Socialism

This clip rounds out your introduction to Milton Friedman’s economic theory with his rationale for why Socialism hasn’t worked and cannot work.

Beyond the Basics

If you’d like to learn more about Milton Friedman and free-market economics, here are some longer clips.

A Longish Conversation with Milton Friedman

This one is worth the time (a little more than an hour) it takes to watch it. For one thing, it shows Friedman’s humanity. It gives a sense of what it was for him and his fellow economists at the U of Chicago during his tenure as a teacher there, and how they fought to bring his economic theory to prominence.

In Depth with Milton Friedman

In this one (three hours long), Friedman talks about his life and work.

For even more, take a look at my review below of Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative by Jennifer Burns.

Books I'm Recommending

November 1, 2024 No Comments

Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative

By Jennifer Burns
592 pages
Published: Nov. 2023

I’ve just begun reading this book – another part of the Milton Friedman binge I’ve been on. So far, I’m very happy with it and would recommend it without hesitation to anyone who wants to understand how and why Friedman’s version of free-market capitalism has been so influential in the public conversation about government and economics that has been going on for more than 50 years.

Had I not already begun to study Friedman, I’m not sure if I would have been able to fully appreciate what a terrific job Jennifer Burns did with this biography. It’s not only comprehensive and detailed, it answers lots of questions I was asking myself as a late-in-life fan of this amazing man.

Critical Reception

An Economist Best Book of 2023… one of The New York Times’ 33 Nonfiction Books to Read This Fall… named a most anticipated fall book by the Chicago Tribune and Bloomberg… finalist for the 2024 Hayek Book Prize.

Click here to read an extensive review of the book by David. R. Henderson in the Summer 2024 Cato Institute newsletter.

Click here and here to watch two interesting discussions with Jennifer Burns about Friedman and her book.

How the Mind Works

By Steven Pinker
660 pages
Published: 1997

How the Mind Works by the Canadian/American cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker is one of those rare nonfiction books that I can’t get enough of.

Like Sapiens by Yuval Harari, it is an engaging and accessible investigation into everything one thinks about when thinking about the human mind: awareness, intelligence, emotion, vision, consciousness, and self-consciousness. Pinker presents a convincing theory about what the mind is, how it evolved, and how it allows us to see, think, feel, laugh, interact, enjoy the arts, and ponder the mysteries of life.

Pinker’s primary perspective is evolutionary biology, but his erudition is much broader than that, which provides the reader with many rich and interesting ways to understand how our brains work, including philosophical, economic, and social schools of thought. Thus, he gets into such subjects as feminism and “the meaning of life.”

His stance on evolution is nuanced. He explains the basics well and refutes the common misunderstandings. He rehabilitates some unfashionable ideas (e.g., that the mind works like a computer and that human nature was shaped by natural selection), and challenges fashionable ones (e.g., that passionate emotions are irrational, that parents socialize their children, and that nature is good and modern society corrupting).

Critical Reception

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize… a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1997… featured in Time magazine, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nature, Science, Lingua Franca, and Science Times… front-page reviews in The Washington Post, Book World, The Boston Globe, and the San Diego Union Book Review.

“This is the best book I’ve read all year!” – Michael Masterson

Einstein in Time and Space: A Life in 99 Particles

By Samual Graydon
368 pages
Published: Sept. 2023

This my third attempt to understand Einstein – his life and his work. I bought the book because I’d read that it wasn’t a terribly lengthy (as so many bios are) and that, because it was written as a series of vignettes, it is easy to consume. And Einstein in Time and Space did not disappoint.

We all know that Einstein was a genius, that he was eccentric, and that the only subject he managed to earn good grades in was mathematics. But until I began reading Einstein in Time and Space, I had little idea about how complex and interesting his life was.

He was, as one reviewer summarized, “the curious child, the rebellious student, the serial adulterer, the wily prankster, the loyal friend, the civil-rights defender, the intellect unsurpassed in his time….”

Italy in a Wineglass: The Taste of History

By Marc Millon
336 pages
Published: May 2024

I wanted to read Italy in a Wineglass because I am always eager to learn about wine and it was strongly recommended in a magazine I was perusing in my doctor’s waiting room.

I expected it to be relatively short, entertaining, and informative. It was… and much more. Far from simply the guide to Italian wine that I expected, it is also a travel memoir and deep dive into Italian history, starting with the Greeks, Etruscans, and Phoenicians, then moving through Roman antiquity, early Christianity, the fall of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages, the Florentine Renaissance, the promise of Italian unification, and the two World Wars, and continuing into the present day.

I’m only about a third of the way through. I’m treating it as a bathroom book, reading one chapter at a time – and so far, I’m liking it a lot.

You can listen to the audio version of Italy in a Wineglass, for free, here.

Articles and Essays I’m Recommending

November 1, 2024 No Comments

Garrett Baldwin on the Global Shift to Gold

As a consultant to Agora, the largest publisher of financial advice in the world, I read a lot of economic and investment commentary every month. Below, I’m reprinting a good part of an essay published in the 10/18 issue of Postcards from the Republic by one of Agora’s best writers.

Should You Be Buying Gold?

The world has changed how it handles money. Gold now stands at the center of the global system.

For decades, the US dollar has been king. Countries needed dollars to buy oil, making the dollar powerful due to the demand to fulfill transactions. This system was initially called the petrodollar. It was the backbone of America’s economic power from 1971 to the early 1990s.

Following the first Gulf War, the US government expanded its focus. The Treasury quickly got nations (that weren’t so involved in the global oil trade) hooked on US dollar-denominated debt. After roughly 30 more years of additional dollar domination, things are shifting abroad.

We can pinpoint the day that the world shifted under our feet. The West put sanctions on Russia in late February 2022. Western leaders thought they’d cripple Russia’s economy.
Instead, it backfired. Now, the world is engulfed not only in physical wars across the Middle East and in Ukraine but in a quiet economic war that threatens everything we own.

Following the 2022 sanctions and ensuing price caps on Russian oil prices, the West hoped Vladimir Putin’s nation would be unable to engage in global trade. Instead, Russia and China saw an opportunity. They started working together to bypass the dollar.

Here’s how:

1. China created the petro-yuan. It’s a way to buy oil with Chinese money backed by gold.

2. Russia began selling its oil and gas in currencies other than the dollar.

3. Both countries started buying massive amounts of gold. In 2023, central banks worldwide added over 1,000 tons of gold to their reserves. We witnessed the largest purchases of gold by central banks since Richard Nixon took the US off the gold standard.

Why are all these central banks buying gold? Because it’s trustworthy. Countries don’t fully trust China’s money yet. But they trust gold. So, China needed a lot of gold to back up its currency….

Plus, as more countries move away from the dollar, the US might struggle to pay its debts. This could change the value of everything – stocks, bonds, and savings. But gold? It’ll likely keep going up.

So, what should you do?

1. Consider buying gold. Not just coins or bars, but also take a look at gold mining stocks and royalty companies. We have long advocated for the Sprott Physical Gold Trust (PHYS) as a simple, more liquid way to increase gold exposure.

2. Keep an eye on what big banks and countries do with their money.

3. Pay attention to international trade deals, especially those involving China and oil-producing nations. This election could lead to two very different outcomes, but regardless of who wins, the long-term trend is de-dollarization.

This change won’t happen overnight. The US dollar will remain the primary instrument of trade over the next decade. But we see this process accelerating at the moment.

In a world where paper money is getting shakier, gold is becoming the real deal again.
It’s not just shiny metal – it’s a way to protect your wealth and purchasing power in uncertain times.

Stay positive,
Garrett Baldwin

Millionaires Who Can’t Afford to Buy Their Dream Homes
And Why They’re Renting Instead!

Before I took an interest in wealth and wealth building, I took for granted that it is always better to own a home rather than rent one. The logic seemed irrefutable: The dollars you spend on rent are gone forever. They are not “invested,” they are “spent.” But when you own a home, you own a piece of its price appreciation over the years. As the house becomes worth more, so do you.

I held on to this belief longer than I should have. But when I began investing in rental real estate, and had the opportunity to see how that industry works from the inside out, I soon realized that ownership only trumps renting in certain economic situations. And today, in many areas of the world and for many sorts of housing units, it is largely smarter to rent than to buy.

Here’s a piece from the WSJ on this point.

Has California Had Enough of George Soros’s DAs?

In 2014, California launched a grand experiment in progressive criminal justice, appointing George Soros-backed DAs that believed the way to reduce the disproportionate number of African Americans in California jails was to refrain from jailing them for a slew of crimes, including drug possession, resisting arrest, and theft of merchandise whose retail value was less than $1,000.

Advocates, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, said this would save money for taxpayers. What happened, however, was that the social costs have far exceeded any savings. And now California voters are rethinking that initiative.

Click here.

Niall Ferguson: My Journey from a Jerusalem of Ghosts to the Living Jerusalem

“To make proper sense of the bloody events of the past 12 months in the Middle East, I had to go to Vilnius,” writes Niall Ferguson in The Free Press.

“That may strike you as bizarre, as Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania and roughly 1,600 miles from Tel Aviv. But Vilnius was once ‘the Jerusalem of the North’ – that’s what Napoleon called it when he passed through in 1812.”

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