Can we all take a moment to acknowledge how great this guy is? He’s been doing his thing so long (and so well) I think we sometimes take him for granted. His NY Post article this week is so damn good.
Now if we can all just summon some faith that facts, reason and logic still matter in this world, maybe we can enjoy our Easter weekend a little more.
From Reynolds’ article, the final line, which he said his editor liked: “If democracy dies in darkness, it won’t be an accident. It will be murder.”
To those celebrating, a Happy Passover, and a blessed Holy Week and Easter.
My variation on Reynolds’ final line:
Democracy dies in darkness. And Bezos and the Washington Post are here to kill it.
I’ll conjecture that Elon Musk doesn’t have a prayer of pulling off the Twitter takeover, though I’m dying to see what his plan-B is. There are rumors that the SEC is scouring Musk’s past actions with Tesla looking for transgressions. “Show me the man, and they’ll find the crime.”
The latest news is that the Vanguard group now owns a little more Twitter than Musk does. It is their funds, i.e. investors that own it, not the firm’s money. Can an investment firm play politics with investor’s money? I’m not sure, maybe if they are a little sneaky about it. The timing is such that it is possible that the Vanguard thing is more of a coincidence than a political play.
Thanks Kate, and the same to you! And to all who are celebrating….
Today being Good Friday, a review of Psalm 22 might be enlightening.
@TommyJay:The latest news is that the Vanguard group now owns a little more Twitter than Musk does.
Vanguard handles a good chunk of Americans’ 401Ks… not excited to see any of our retirement in Twitter stock…
Vanguard…most of its funds are index funds, so that their positions in various companies will automatically increase or decrease based on market capitalization or other quantitative metric. And funds do generally vote their shares; VG, I understand, generally votes with management.
Marc Andreessen tweeted:
“The phenomenon of index funds, managing other people’s money, who say they lack the competence to pick stocks but possess the competence to redesign society, is under-studied.”
Also from Marc:
“The quality of an idea can be accurately evaluated by the degree of lunacy of its critics.”
God bless Jordan Peterson.
Just about the only professor today keeping standards up in the academic-social justice complex. Most of the rest are “Good Germans.” [spits]
We’ve slipped a long ways from Socrates, Galileo or even Richard Feynman. Which reminds me of a quote I thought to add to my comment on Carl Sagan:
___________________________
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
–Richard Feynman
And funds do generally vote their shares; VG, I understand, generally votes with management.
Great point. They don’t have to talk about motives, just do the status quo, and it helps management.
“Can an investment firm play politics with investor’s money?”
When I invested in stocks I would get a ballot from the company and I voted for Board members, etc
Now that I have funds and ETFs, who votes my shares?
Is it the fund management?
Is this why companies are into ESG instead of … profits, products, hiring the best employees and other things that are top of mind to the investors? What is the definition of fiduciary these days …
There are actually ESG consulting firms, who advise fund managers as to who & what is virtuous and who is not.
re ESG, a lot of ESG activists are opposed to investing in weapons manufacturers…and without such manufacturers, we wouldn’t have had any Javelin antitank missiles to send to Ukraine. ESG activists are also generally opposed to fossil fuels…and without the anti-fossil-fuel policies of Biden and Merkel, I doubt that the Russian invasion would have happened in the first place.
Yet most of the ESG people, I feel sure, consider themselves to be strong supporters of Ukraine.
In the USA, one of the Biggest questions is the racial question of: “Why aren’t Blacks equal in results?” The White guilt / white man’s burden folk think it’s white based systemic racism.
But to many others, it looks like two main bad Black behaviors:
1) having babies outside of marriage (and lots of sex), and
2) committing too many crimes.
Jordan Peterson, a treasure indeed … “I like the Ramones”.
Me too!
There was an early year of soft-slam dancing around 1980 where people could dance and bounce into each other, and off of each other. Including women. It was fun. Then the slamming got too competitive, and it got more aggressive. I still liked their small venue concerts tho. They played thousands of dates.
They’re considered now more power pop than punk.
They’re also all dead, not waiting 4 billion years for the sun to swallow the Earth.
Jordan Peterson is the only person that I consider to be Thomas Sowell’s equal.
huxley,
“We’ve slipped a long ways from Socrates, Galileo or even Richard Feynman.”
Socrates was forced to drink hemlock. Galileo forced to publicly recant his observations. Feynman hadn’t nearly the recognition among the public of even b-list actors.
I think that culturally and in the aggregate, rather than having slipped, it’s more a case of having given up aspiring to something greater. For all its pretensions, the left has no ideals to which it aspires. “Equity, inclusion and diversity” at base, rest upon a rejection of reality.
@david foster said: ” And funds do generally vote their shares; VG (Vanguard), I understand, generally votes with management.”
And they generally vote along fairly disciplined ‘woke’ lines as well, certainly on ESG issues. This should be the subject of shareholder activism; Vanguard Fund Managers are leveraging an enormous amount of influence essentially free of charge, because they have arrogated the voices of the proxy shareholders. If the SEC were to take an interest, this would become an interesting transformational change I think. And I do think they should become involved and force these fund managers to honor shareholder wishes, rather than this freelancing that is presently going on. Maybe it will take a shareholder revolt to bring things to a head.
Coincidence. I just read “Ten Global Trends Every Smart person Should Know.” One of the authors is Marian Tupy. About a year ago, Jordan Peterson talked to him, and their conversation was posted to YouTube. Highly recommended.
Glenn Reynolds appreciation post.
Can we all take a moment to acknowledge how great this guy is? He’s been doing his thing so long (and so well) I think we sometimes take him for granted. His NY Post article this week is so damn good.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/14/the-establishments-orwellian-line-on-elon-musks-twitter-crusade/
Now if we can all just summon some faith that facts, reason and logic still matter in this world, maybe we can enjoy our Easter weekend a little more.
From Reynolds’ article, the final line, which he said his editor liked: “If democracy dies in darkness, it won’t be an accident. It will be murder.”
To those celebrating, a Happy Passover, and a blessed Holy Week and Easter.
My variation on Reynolds’ final line:
Democracy dies in darkness. And Bezos and the Washington Post are here to kill it.
I’ll conjecture that Elon Musk doesn’t have a prayer of pulling off the Twitter takeover, though I’m dying to see what his plan-B is. There are rumors that the SEC is scouring Musk’s past actions with Tesla looking for transgressions. “Show me the man, and they’ll find the crime.”
The latest news is that the Vanguard group now owns a little more Twitter than Musk does. It is their funds, i.e. investors that own it, not the firm’s money. Can an investment firm play politics with investor’s money? I’m not sure, maybe if they are a little sneaky about it. The timing is such that it is possible that the Vanguard thing is more of a coincidence than a political play.
Thanks Kate, and the same to you! And to all who are celebrating….
Today being Good Friday, a review of Psalm 22 might be enlightening.
@TommyJay:The latest news is that the Vanguard group now owns a little more Twitter than Musk does.
Vanguard handles a good chunk of Americans’ 401Ks… not excited to see any of our retirement in Twitter stock…
Vanguard…most of its funds are index funds, so that their positions in various companies will automatically increase or decrease based on market capitalization or other quantitative metric. And funds do generally vote their shares; VG, I understand, generally votes with management.
Marc Andreessen tweeted:
“The phenomenon of index funds, managing other people’s money, who say they lack the competence to pick stocks but possess the competence to redesign society, is under-studied.”
Also from Marc:
“The quality of an idea can be accurately evaluated by the degree of lunacy of its critics.”
God bless Jordan Peterson.
Just about the only professor today keeping standards up in the academic-social justice complex. Most of the rest are “Good Germans.” [spits]
We’ve slipped a long ways from Socrates, Galileo or even Richard Feynman. Which reminds me of a quote I thought to add to my comment on Carl Sagan:
___________________________
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
–Richard Feynman
And funds do generally vote their shares; VG, I understand, generally votes with management.
Great point. They don’t have to talk about motives, just do the status quo, and it helps management.
“Can an investment firm play politics with investor’s money?”
When I invested in stocks I would get a ballot from the company and I voted for Board members, etc
Now that I have funds and ETFs, who votes my shares?
Is it the fund management?
Is this why companies are into ESG instead of … profits, products, hiring the best employees and other things that are top of mind to the investors? What is the definition of fiduciary these days …
There are actually ESG consulting firms, who advise fund managers as to who & what is virtuous and who is not.
re ESG, a lot of ESG activists are opposed to investing in weapons manufacturers…and without such manufacturers, we wouldn’t have had any Javelin antitank missiles to send to Ukraine. ESG activists are also generally opposed to fossil fuels…and without the anti-fossil-fuel policies of Biden and Merkel, I doubt that the Russian invasion would have happened in the first place.
Yet most of the ESG people, I feel sure, consider themselves to be strong supporters of Ukraine.
There is an article at CBS about Russian TikToker @ironcurtainlyf – She is more outspoken than @natashasrussia. Her pinned TikToks are very funny.
Here’s the link to the article: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/tiktok-old-phone-enables-social-media-updates-from-behind-russias-iron-curtain/#app
Is Joe Biden in charge?
https://www.defenseone.com/policy/2022/04/biden-rejects-unanimous-nsc-more-often-you-might-think/365666/
What, a dementia patient who is perversely resistant? Who’d a thunk it?
Steve Sailor, more toxic over race than Charles Murray, also noted a couple days ago the Subway killer.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/subway-shooter-coverage-in-ny-times-vs-ny-post/
But I put it here because of a follow on study about how newspapers report the race of killers. Differently. Blacks at the back, whites up front.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/yes-newspapers-bury-the-race-of-black-murderers-toward-the-end-of-the-story/
In the USA, one of the Biggest questions is the racial question of: “Why aren’t Blacks equal in results?” The White guilt / white man’s burden folk think it’s white based systemic racism.
But to many others, it looks like two main bad Black behaviors:
1) having babies outside of marriage (and lots of sex), and
2) committing too many crimes.
Jordan Peterson, a treasure indeed … “I like the Ramones”.
Me too!
There was an early year of soft-slam dancing around 1980 where people could dance and bounce into each other, and off of each other. Including women. It was fun. Then the slamming got too competitive, and it got more aggressive. I still liked their small venue concerts tho. They played thousands of dates.
They’re considered now more power pop than punk.
They’re also all dead, not waiting 4 billion years for the sun to swallow the Earth.
Jordan Peterson is the only person that I consider to be Thomas Sowell’s equal.
huxley,
“We’ve slipped a long ways from Socrates, Galileo or even Richard Feynman.”
Socrates was forced to drink hemlock. Galileo forced to publicly recant his observations. Feynman hadn’t nearly the recognition among the public of even b-list actors.
I think that culturally and in the aggregate, rather than having slipped, it’s more a case of having given up aspiring to something greater. For all its pretensions, the left has no ideals to which it aspires. “Equity, inclusion and diversity” at base, rest upon a rejection of reality.
@david foster said: ” And funds do generally vote their shares; VG (Vanguard), I understand, generally votes with management.”
And they generally vote along fairly disciplined ‘woke’ lines as well, certainly on ESG issues. This should be the subject of shareholder activism; Vanguard Fund Managers are leveraging an enormous amount of influence essentially free of charge, because they have arrogated the voices of the proxy shareholders. If the SEC were to take an interest, this would become an interesting transformational change I think. And I do think they should become involved and force these fund managers to honor shareholder wishes, rather than this freelancing that is presently going on. Maybe it will take a shareholder revolt to bring things to a head.
Coincidence. I just read “Ten Global Trends Every Smart person Should Know.” One of the authors is Marian Tupy. About a year ago, Jordan Peterson talked to him, and their conversation was posted to YouTube. Highly recommended.
Things are better. Here’s the data.
And here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIANLddo-ec