Author: Gary North

“When our friends get into power, they aren’t our friends any more.”– M. Stanton Evans This has become known as “Evans’ law of political perfidy.” My friend Stan Evans was a wise and eloquent man. He was an intellectual leader within the conservative political movement, beginning around 1960. He arrived at Yale in the year after William F. Buckley graduated. He replaced Buckley as a student leader. Had he replaced Buckley as the spokesman of American conservatism, the country would be a lot better off today. He was a far more reliable thinker than Buckley ever was. He served as … Continue reading →

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James Comey. Ring a bell? He is the head of the FBI. We read on the FBI’s site: On September 4, 2013, James B. Comey was sworn in as the seventh Director of the FBI.A Yonkers, New York native, James Comey graduated from the College of William & Mary and the University of Chicago Law School. Following law school, Comey served as an assistant United States attorney for both the Southern District of New York and the Eastern District of Virginia. Comey returned to New York to become the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. In 2003, … Continue reading →

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The Republican establishment is frantic over Trump. Trump has called the political establishment’s bluff. He has made an end run around their vetting process. This is a replay of Goldwater’s nomination in 1964. The Republican establishment took a dive in that election. It threw the election to Johnson. Now a major neoconservative theorist is recommending the same strategy. Robert Kagan is a Republican, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton, a “nonpartisan” Brookings Institution staff member, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of Yale’s secret society, Skull & Bones. He is probably the #1 neoconservative theorist … Continue reading →

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My friend and former business manager John Mauldin have become an economist. I hate to see this. He is a good analyst. He is a good commentator on business trends. His site is a veritable clearing house of insights of famous market analysts. But now he has wandered astray. He has become an economist. His most recent newsletter begins with these insights: In this business we spend a lot of time thinking about problems. What if we could wave a magic wand and make them all go away? Maybe we can.The wand isn’t made from wood. You don’t need Latin … Continue reading →

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This was posted on a forum on GaryNorth.com. As I approach retirement I am trying to explore new activities, and recently have registered as a Wikipedia editor. My idea is to start small and revise a few articles about things and people I know. I get the impression that the median type for an editor is “millenial techno-wonk”, conversely I am your classical liberal arts type. Anybody been through the ropes on this one? In particular, I have difficulty with basic things like uploading pictures. I don’t know how to do footnotes on Wikipedia. The only thing that I know … Continue reading →

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There are three phrases, each of which is three words long, that govern the thinking of economists. Supply and demand High bid wins At some price I will focus on the final three words: “At some price.” I want to raise its corollary: “At what price?” THE COST OF REVOKING OUR RIGHTS Everyone in this country says he has a right to this or that. Rarely is the word “right” rightly defined. The confusion has always been there. It is the difference between the right to something and the right to be immune from something. If I have a right … Continue reading →

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If Forrest Gump’s mother were around, she would remind us of this fundamental truth: “Socialism is as socialism does.” With all the hoopla surrounding Bernie Sanders’ campaign, let us apply this principle to his message. As far as I have read, he has not recommended that the federal government nationalize America’s industries. He has not called for government ownership of much of anything. If socialism does not mean state ownership of the means of production, then what does it mean? If the distinguishing feature of the socialist ideology is not government ownership, then how can we distinguish socialism from run-of-the-mill … Continue reading →

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Remnant Review Copyright law is in its terminal phase. I have known this for over 20 years. The Internet is killing it. I am going to discuss a remarkable example of a website that today has 48 million stolen scientific articles online. It is beyond the ability of anybody to control. It is outside of copyright protection, despite the fact that academic journals want to defend their turf. There is no legal way for them to do this. Before I explain what has happened, I want to take you back to 1994. THE GENIES ARE OUT OF THEIR BOTTLES John … Continue reading →

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We read on Wikipedia: The phrase “ash heap of history” (or “dustbin of history”) figuratively refers to the place to where persons, events, artifacts, ideologies, etc., are relegated upon losing currency and value as history. A notable usage was that of the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky referring to the Mensheviks: “You are pitiful, isolated individuals! You are bankrupts. Your role is played out. Go where you belong from now on — into the dustbin of history!” in response to the Menshevik faction walking out of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets (25 October 1917) in Petrograd, which allowed the Bolshevik faction … Continue reading →

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Remnant Review I am a conservative. I am a conservative by way of three phenomena that have linked together American conservatives since about 1920: (1) anti-Communism; (2) free market economics; (3) conservative social theory. I regard the most important world figure of the 20th century as Vladimir Lenin. Had it not been for the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, there would not have been World War I. Had there not been World War I, the German government would not have shipped Lenin by train back to Russia in 1917. Had Lenin not been successful in his revolution in … Continue reading →

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If I were to come to you and say “What this country needs is higher taxes in order to make us all rich,” you would correctly conclude that I had lost my mind or my principles. But if I were to come to you and say, “What this country needs is higher tariffs to make us all rich,” a considerable number of you would say, “You know, he’s absolutely right.” What you need to understand is that these two statements are the same, economically speaking: “What this country needs is higher taxes to make us rich” and “What this country … Continue reading →

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Most people believe that second rate performance is fine, and third-rate performance is acceptable. I do not, and I never have. The more important your cause is to you, the more important you think your cause should be to the world. If you represent your cause in a second rate way, you are doing your cause a disfavor. You are also identifying yourself as a second-rater. You are announcing this to the world: “Second rate is fine, especially when it comes to the thing I believe most dearly in. You should believe in it just as dearly as I do.” … Continue reading →

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George Orwell was correct in 1946 when he wrote the following: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” I would add this insight: “If you don’t know what you’re doing, ask for help.” The problem is: the vast majority of people don’t know that they don’t know what they’re doing. Let me give you a sadly typical example. I came across a video of an articulate woman who makes the case against federal regulation of land in the state of Oregon. She claims to be a lawyer. I have no reason to believe that … Continue reading →

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Every January, the richest people in the world get together to meet at Davos, Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. Also present are the best and the brightest in the Keynesian community, whose plane fares and hotel rooms are taken care of. These are the hired hands. Every year, everyone hopes he is going to hear some great speech that will transform his business or his career. Everybody thinks at the end of the sessions that he must have missed the big speech, once again, the same way he missed it last year. Austrian school economists are not invited to … Continue reading →

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As a matter of principle, I do not gamble. There is a theological reason for this. It is the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. Calvinists have opposed gambling for centuries. Gambling assumes that God is not sovereign; rather, either chance is sovereign or the law of large numbers is sovereign. Neither is sovereign. So, gambling is therefore a religious act of defiance: a public testimony against the sovereignty of God. I figured this by age 20, but a decade later, I found a 17th-century sermon on lotteries when I was working on my Ph.D. dissertation on the view property … Continue reading →

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