No individual or nation need ever worry about the supply of oil or Artificial Intelligence (AI). The latter holds true whether both are sourced across the street or on the other side of the world. The only barrier to oil or AI accession is a lack of production. Put another way, wherever there’s production […]
The Brilliant Existence of Oil and AI Is All That Matters Read More »
I’m very grateful to Dave Hebert that he’s never gone wobbly on the genius of free trade. He’s right that we agree. Why my response to his? It’s an attempt to convince him not about free trade, but about currency, IP, and so-called “trade deficits.” Will I succeed? It recalls the line from the
A Free Trader Responds to a Free Trader About Free Trade Read More »
West Virginia’s relative poverty isn’t an effect of California’s enormous wealth. The better way to look at it is to consider how much poorer the Mountain State would be minus all the advances hatched in California, and for that matter around the world. What matters is that people are producing, not where they’re producing.
Wealth Creation Is Not An Act of War, Opposite What You’re Told Read More »
“This saga was never about TikTok’s utility or popularity but its Chinese ownership and apparent links to the Chinese Communist Party.” That’s from a recent editorial in the Washington Post, and it’s an unwitting reminder that attacks on TikTok were never about fears of China or the CCP, but were instead about protectionism for sore-loser American companies
The TikTok “Saga” Is About American Envy, Not National Security Read More »
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can’t realistically spend all the wealth they’ve created. That’s why both epitomize progress. It’s not just that they’ve transformed how we live, it’s that their inability to spend the abundant fruits of their commercial genius means that what they don’t spend will be continuously directed to entrepreneurs and businesses
Falling Prices Enable the Savings That Drive Progress Read More »
There are already flying taxis in China. There’s drone delivery of meals too. About the leaps taking place in China, some will say we need to catch up. Others will say that in addition to catching up, we need to keep advances hatched in China out of the U.S. They would be incorrect, twice.
If We Don’t Want the Chinese To ‘Lap’ Us, Let Them Sell To Us Read More »
“We thought Grease was going to be a disaster.” That’s how Barry Diller bluntly puts it in his memoirs (Who Knew) about one of the many blockbuster films that Paramount Pictures released during his tenure as CEO. When it comes to audience tastes, it’s frequently true that no one knows. All of this is worth remembering
If Xi Jinping Is All-Powerful, Then Why Do We Fear China? Read More »
The problem with economics is the economists. They arguably understand what powers economic growth the least. Consider “World Pays a Price for China’s Growth,” the latest piece by Wall Street Journal columnist Greg Ip. In it, the non-economist (that’s not a knock on him) in Ip wrote that “Even as the U.S. rolls out tariffs, its imports are
If the Chinese Are Producing, the World Is Growing Read More »
In his recently released memoir, Born To Be Wired, John Malone writes of attending the 1979 Western Show out in Anaheim, CA. What the TCI CEO witnessed fascinated him, but also terrified him. It was a proliferation of television stations sprouting up to meet the needs of a still small, but growing cable TV subscriber
Amid Ongoing Attacks from Antitrust Ankle Biters, Business Evolves Read More »
The U.S. could be 100% bereft of “rare earths” while at war with and embargoed by rare earth rich China, but we’d still have all the rare earths we want stateside, and as though they were all sourced here. It’s simple because economics is simple. To see why all the rare earth hysteria is
Short of Hoarding, China Can’t Keep ‘Rare Earths’ Out of the U.S. Read More »
