This graphic, via Visual Capitalist, shows the average number of years that a skilled worker must work in order to afford a 650 square foot condo near the city center across select markets, based on data from the UBS Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2024.

In Hong Kong, the most unaffordable city worldwide for 14 consecutive years, it takes more than two decades for an average skilled worker to buy a condo.

Paris stands as the most unaffordable city in Europe, despite real home prices falling more than 20% from post-pandemic highs.

The median sale price of a condo or co-op in Manhattan stood at nearly $1.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, with prices per square foot up 44% in a decade.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Listening to an interview with journalist Megyn Kelly, I was startled to learn that her private media company beats the mainstream legacy networks in traffic and influence. She has six employees. When she was fired by NBC in 2018, she believed it was the end of her career. She went to dark places in her mind. But she bounced back with her own broadcasting company and has never been happier or more influential.

The same story has been told by Tucker Carlson, whose network is gigantic and whose influence is far beyond even the heights he obtained at Fox in the old days. I have no direct knowledge of how many people work for his personal channel but it is a reasonable guess that it is no more than a dozen.

Everyone knows about the success and reach of Joe Rogan’s show. Apart from that, there are many thousands more with influence in their own sectors of reach. The share of influence dominated by legacy seems to be falling dramatically. You can detect their influence in this election season in which candidates are working the podcast circuit.

You might chalk this up to technology: everyone has the capacity now to make content and distribute it. Therefore, of course, people do it.

The real story, however, is more complicated.

A new poll from Gallup offers an intriguing look.

The latest polls show trust in major media is at an all-time low. It’s fallen from a post-Watergate high in 1976 of 72 percent to 31 percent today. That is an enormous slide, impossible to dismiss as mere technological change. Along with that, the poll documents dramatic losses of trust in government and essentially all official institutions.

The loss of trust has hit all age groups but more profoundly affects people under 40 years of age. These are folks who have grown up with alternatives and developed a sophisticated understanding of information flows and are deeply suspicious of any institution that seeks control over public culture.

Comments Gallup: “The news media is the least trusted group among 10 U.S. civic and political institutions involved in the democratic process. The legislative branch of the federal government, consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, is rated about as poorly as the media, with 34 percent trusting it.”

In contrast, “majorities of U.S. adults express at least a fair amount of trust in their local government to handle local problems (67 percent), their state government to address state problems (55 percent), and the American people as a whole when it comes to making judgments under our democratic system about the issues facing the country (54 percent).”

It seems based on this poll that, in people’s hearts and minds, we are defaulting back to the America of Alexis de Tocqueville, a network of self-governing communities of friends and neighbors rather than a centrally managed and controlled monolith. The farther the institutions get from people’s direct experiences, the less they are trusted. That is how it should be, even aside from other considerations.

In this case, the causal factors are not only the distance and not only the technology that allows for alternatives. Legacy media has been so aggressively partisan for at least nine years that it has alienated vast swaths of the viewing audience. Top executives have known about this problem for a very long time and worked to fix it but they face tremendous pressure from within, from reporters and technicians with Ivy educations and a dedication to woke ideology.

The New York Times (NYT) after 2016 attempted to repair the damage from having so completely mishandled and miscalled the election. They hired new editors and writers but it was only a matter of time before they were driven out in a reminder to the top brass that there was a cultural revolution afoot, and that the personal is the political and visa-versa.

The NYT defaulted back to extreme partisanship, leaving owners and managers to figure out other paths to sustaining profitability.

As a result, it appears that an entire industry is in the process of a long meltdown with no available fixes. Huge audiences have turned away from them toward alternatives that are not necessarily partisan on the other side but simply display a dedication to telling facts and truths about which actual readers care.

A question has long mystified me: Is this loss of trust entirely due to a change in media bias or is it that new technological options have fully revealed what might always have been there but was not widely known? I don’t have the answer to that but it is worth some reflection.

When I was a kid, there were exactly three channels on television and one local newspaper. There was never a chance to see the New York Times except perhaps at the public library. The nightly news came on at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. It lasted 30 minutes. It opened with international news, moved to national news, turned to sports, and then the local affiliate took over with local news and weather.

There was perhaps 10 minutes per day of national news on three separate channels, each reporting more-or-less the same thing. That was it. People in those days chose their station based on whether they liked the voice and personality of the broadcaster. News media was highly trusted. But was that trust based on reliable and excellent reporting or simply a reflection of all that people did not know?

In those days, my own father was deeply distrustful of what he saw on television. Somehow he intuited that Richard Nixon was being railroaded by the Watergate scandal. He theorized that someone was out to get him not for bad things he had done, but for the good he had done and had planned to do. He preached this opinion constantly and it set him apart from all conventional wisdom. Indeed, as a young man I knew for sure that my father was the outlier: none of my friend’s parents agreed and none of my teachers did either.

Since then, much has come out that seems to reinforce my father’s views.

If Watergate happened in today’s world, there would be a huge explosion of opinions in all directions, with motives of all actors pushed out on every channel and there would be widespread competition to find the real story. We certainly would not be relying on two relatively inexperienced reporters at the Washington Post.

I happen to believe that this is a good thing, even though it has come with a loss of trust. Maybe the old trust was not nearly as merited as people thought, simply because there were so few options. As the years went on, there were even more sources, starting with PBS but moving to CNN and C-SPAN. After the web came online and social media took off, that’s when the veil was really pulled back and media wholly transformed.

People on all sides of the political spectrum today express profound regret for this change. Former presidential candidate John Kerry has said that today’s media environment makes governing impossible, and Hillary Clinton has floated the idea of criminal penalties for misinformation, a word tossed around so frequently these days but rarely defined as anything other than speech that some people do not like.

All told, the rise of alternative media has surely contributed to the decline in public trust in the mainstream media. This might not reflect a fundamental change in the bias of media sources but simply the reality that we are only now fully aware of what has always been true. In that case, we are better off seeing these trends as good news all around, provided we have an attachment to seeing reality as it is. In any case, we all should.

Returning to the Kelly/Carlson business model: they are doing far more with fewer staff people than was ever thought possible. It’s a solid prediction that many legacy media companies will be downsizing in terms of personnel in the future. They can do more with less.

And they can do it with more fairness and less bias. Economic realities will likely make it so.

The entire landscape of information and media economies is dramatically shifting. That is precisely why we are hearing ever more calls for censorship. Many elites long for the old days of canned and constructed narratives with no other options. But the well-documented loss of trust makes that little more than a pipe dream. It cannot and will not happen.

The only viable path to earning audience loyalty in our times is to write and speak with fact-based integrity. Trust has to be earned.

On Wednesday afternoon, cameras caught President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama having a ‘vigorous’ discussion while attending Ethel Kennedy’s funeral. Kennedy died last Thursday at the age of 96 after having a stroke the previous week.

Because their voices weren’t picked up by the camera, the internet got creative and made a few suggestions:

Here it is. pic.twitter.com/Gkh1aUHHP6

— 1MANTHRILLRIDE 🇺🇸 (@1MANTHRILLRIDE_) October 16, 2024

On Thursday, the NY Post reported that they hired a professional lip reader to decipher what was said. Hilariously, the parodies weren’t too far off!

President Biden griped to former President Barack Obama that “she” is “not as strong as me” — with Obama agreeing “that’s true” — in a stunning off-mic conversation deciphered for The Post by a professional lip reader.

The apparent candid assessment of Vice President Kamala Harris’ standing going into the Nov. 5 election occurred Wednesday afternoon as America’s two most recent Democratic presidents conversed at Ethel Kennedy’s memorial service in Washington.

“She’s not as strong as me,” said Biden, 81, according to the translation, which was produced by analyzing the on-video lip movements during the discussion.

“I know … that’s true,” the popular former president agreed, adding, “We have time.”

“Yeah, we’ll get it in time,” said Biden, who was forced by fellow Democrats to relinquish the party’s nomination in favor of Harris on July 21 in a mutiny that Obama was believed to support.

The Post hired London-based forensic lip reader Jeremy Freeman, who was born deaf and has served as a University College London-certified expert witness for litigants, police, and journalists for 16 years, according to the report.

That said, Freema also says he detected “no tension” between Obama and Biden.

Biden spokesman Andrew Bates laughed in the Post‘s face, saying “A ‘lip reading expert’? Did your usual right-wing soothsayer have their out-of-office up? Only President Biden and President Obama know what they discussed, but this certainly wasn’t it.”

An Obama source told the outlet: “Only President Obama and President Biden know what they discussed yesterday. Any assertion otherwise is ridiculous.”

Authored by Stephen Katte via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The chair of the Moore County Democratic Party in North Carolina has resigned after being arrested for removing 2024 campaign signs supporting Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump.

In an Oct. 11 statement, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said that a deputy working in the West End area observed Lowell Evan Simon removing campaign signs from the roadside along Seven Lakes Drive in the West End area.

“The deputy, who was responding to an unrelated call at the time, later followed up at Simon’s residence, where the signs were found in his vehicle,” the sheriff’s office said. “Simon admitted to removing the signs, which were then recovered and returned to their original owner.”

A warrant for Simon’s arrest was issued for two counts of misdemeanor larceny of political signs. He was later released under a written promise to appear in Moore County District Court on Oct. 30.

Removal or theft of campaign signs violates North Carolina law protecting the lawful placement of political signs during an election cycle. Violating this law is a Class 3 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 30 days in jail, $500 in fines, and up to a year of probation.

In an Oct. 15 statement, the Moore County Democratic Party said Simon, 68, “offered an apology for his actions, as well as his resignation,” both of which were accepted.

“While we appreciate the hard work and dedication he has shown to the Democratic Party and the community, the Moore County Democratic Party cannot and will not condone the tampering of political signs or any other illegal activity,” the party said in a statement. “We believe in the importance of freedom of expression and speech, and hope that local law enforcement will continue to enforce such laws that protect those freedoms fairly and without bias across party lines.”

Simon, also a candidate for the state House of Representatives, told local radio station WRL that he removed the signs because they were placed in front of his own, obscuring them to passersby. He said the ongoing issue caused him to act out in a moment of weakness.

“My worse angels got the better of me and I removed the signs,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that. I didn’t do it in the stealth of night or anything. I did it when it was 5 o’clock in the afternoon.”

Chinese drone manufacturer SZ DJI TECHNOLOGY CO LTD., commonly known by many pilots as “DJI,” is the world’s largest drone maker. It produces billions of dollars worth of drones each year, which end up in the hands of US consumers, government agencies, and/or on the modern battlefield in Eastern Europe. 

DJI is a privately held company. It has received funding from state-owned enterprises in China and is classified as a “Chinese military company” by the US Department of Defense, according to the think tank Uyghur Human Rights Project, adding it supplies more than half of all drones in the US and is the most recognizable drone brand among consumers. 

However, a new report from Reuters says the popular drone brand has faced difficulties importing various drone models into the US after the US Customs and Border Protection used the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). 

DJI notified US importers via a letter that the CBP stopped some drone imports from entering the US because CBP agents were verifying documentation that the drones were in good standing with UFLPA. In other words, border agents were making sure the drones were not produced by forced labor in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. 

The letter told importers that the action appeared to be “part of a broader initiative by the Department of Homeland Security to scrutinize the origins of products, particularly in the case of Chinese-made drones,” adding that the US government’s claims are “unsubstantiated and categorically false, but the law gives them the authority to withhold goods without any tangible evidence.”

Data from Sayari, a top counterparty and supply chain risk intelligence provider, shows DJI has seven major risk factors. It has exposure to a Xinjiang-based entity with forced labor concerns. 

“The entity possibly owns (minority, majority, or wholly) a Xinjiang-based entity up to 3 hops away via direct shareholding relationships with 10% or more controlling interest, including beneficial owner, owner, shareholder, partner, subsidiary, or branch. Applicable to entities globally,” Sayari noted in the DJI profile. 

DJI products are also widely used by US government agencies. US lawmakers have sounded the alarm (read: Senators Introduce Bill To Blacklist Chinese Drones In The US) on the widespread use of these drones by consumers and government agencies, warning these unmanned systems are national security threats.  

Meanwhile, state-run Chinese media outlet Global Times spoke with Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, about the incident first reported by Reuters, criticizing Washington for “adopting the ridiculous and discriminatory UFLPA to crack down on the drone maker.” 

Xiang told GT, “By doing so, the Biden government may aim to protect the US dronemaking industry. However, the unreasonable move by the US could spark further concerns worldwide over future China-US relations.” 

What drone industry is the Biden admin protecting for consumers? We can’t name one affordable US-based drone company that is as good or exceeds DJI in performance. 

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via American Greatness,

The election is finally shaping up to be not only liberal Democrat Harris versus conservative Republican Trump.

Instead, it has become a larger contest between those who talk down to their fellow Americans and those who are increasingly sick and tired of being lectured.

How smart is it, for example, for Harris supporters to claim nonstop that ex-president Trump is a fascist dictator—and thus, by extension, those also who vote for him?

Women voters poll about 53-5 percent for Kamala Harris. Trump enjoys a similar, although likely somewhat smaller, majority margin of male voters.

Yet Harris – along with campaign surrogates Barack Obama and Bill Clinton – has been lecturing both black and white male voters nonstop that they are misled.

Or they supposedly suffer from false consciousness – as if they have no clue that Harris and her progressive agenda are really in their own self-interest.

Such haughtiness reached a zenith when Harris ran ads of actors costumed as supposedly working-class men. They voiced scripted talking points to prove that “real” men are progressive Harris supporters.

But the actors were so patently ridiculous, their canned lines so unreal, that most viewers likely thought the ads were run by Trump himself—to show how arrogant, out-of-touch elites must imagine how the so-called “clingers” and “deplorables” think and talk.

The Trump campaign also tries all sorts of strategies to win over women voters, from promising to rectify the Biden-Harris hyperinflation to reducing spiraling crime in towns and cities.

But one method they avoid is claiming women are ignorant of their real self-interest and deluded by Harris—accurately assuming that a candidate does not win voters by belittling their intelligence.

Harris and Obama both dressed down black men, claiming they are especially culpable for not voting en masse for Harris—even though a far higher percentage of black males will vote for Harris than for Trump.

This hectoring the electorate on its supposed ignorance or moral shortcomings has become a Harris campaign trademark.

To Harris, objecting to 10-12 million foreign nationals entering the company illegally without background checks during the Biden-Harris administration is supposedly a sign of a lack of compassion.

And claiming that a current declining rate of illegal immigration should allay voters’ supposed paranoias utterly ignores the millions of illegal aliens who were all but welcomed in by Biden-Harris before the 2024 election cycle.

Voters are also talked down to ad nauseam that they do not appreciate the Biden-Harris economy given the rate of inflation is falling.

True. But most voters go shopping in a manner politicians do not.

So, they resent such top-down sermons. They know best that prices for staple foods, fuel, insurance, and housing have spiked by some 20-30 percent since 2021—and stayed astronomically high.

Currently, the auto industry is in crisis. Its huge inventory of electric voters sits unwanted and unsold. Harris and the left, remember, mandated all sorts of EV standards in their war against the internal combustion engine.

Then the proverbial people revolted against the comparatively limited range of EVs and the difficulty in finding accessible and quick-charging stations.

So, the free market and consumer demand ignored the increasingly strident lectures.

Likewise, Harris pontificated that crime that had spiked in 2021-2023 is now not all that bad.

But voters know all too well that their major cities are now unsafe. They sense one reason this year that crime is not soaring as it was two years ago is because it had gotten so bad that any further commensurate increases would have made life utterly unlivable.

The Harris campaign was further hurt by past videos that keep popping up of Harris lecturing voters about how they either must think correctly or remain cluelessly selfish or ignorant.

So, a recent clip surfaced on Columbus Day 2021 of a Vice President Harris lecturing America about Western civilization’s “shameful” sins in discovering the new world.

Another video reveals Harris warning the country in 2020 on national television that the massive post-George Floyd demonstrations—that had turned violent and deadly—were not and should not stop, as if the country had to pay collective penance for its sins.

This 2024 race may be becoming analogous to an October 1980 teachable moment.

Then a preachy and sanctimonious incumbent Jimmy Carter—ahead in the final October polls over challenger Ronald Reagan—finally turned off voters for good.

The previous underdog Reagan won in a landslide for a variety of reasons. But certainly, one explanation was that the electorate had finally collectively shrugged their weariness. They were sick and tired of Carter’s downer lectures about how they were wrong and culpable.

Reagan, however, reminded voters that America was better than all the alternatives, needed not be perfect to be good, and had nothing to apologize for.

The same contrast will likely determine the election of 2024.

Authored by Kgatlhiso Darius Leshaba via The Mises Institute,

In the year 1949, the first issue of the socialist publication Monthly Review was released. Within the collection of essays, one stood out in particular. Notably, its author was none other than Albert Einstein. Somewhat misleadingly titled “Why Socialism?” the essay reads more like a critique of capitalism than a justification of socialism. In it, the brilliant physicist lays out his reasons for rejecting private property and briefly sketches out his vision for a moral and just society.

Now, 75 years after the first appearance of the essay, I believe a critical analysis is in order.

Einstein begins his essay by justifying his (and other non-economists) right to chime in on the debate about socialism. While I agree with the broad sentiment, the specific points strike me as worryingly naive. The first is that, due to the fact that since the history of most states is one of violence and coercion, conventional economic theory, as a product of the past “predatory phase” of human development, is ill-equipped to “throw…light on the socialist society of the future.”

This seems to imply that not only should non-economists’ opinions be considered just as valid as professional economists, but that the opinions of economists are tainted by the context of their formation, and thus not adequate to comment on the nature of the future socialist paradise. At some point or another, socialists must come to realize that the nature of their envisioned society must be investigated if they are going to avoid repeating the catastrophes of the 20th-century experiments. An analysis of the incentives of such a system is crucial for evaluating if such a system would indeed serve as an improvement to the current state of affairs. The only field of study with the tools for this is economics, in all its depth and breadth.

The second point made is one I wholly agree with, that economics as a science cannot choose ends, but can only inform the means for the attainment of desired ends. Thus, the question of what ends should be chosen lies outside the field of economic analysis, but the analysis of the means chosen for the attainment of desired ends is fair game.

Einstein then goes on to lay out a brief theory of the relationship between the individual and her society. The main point in what he terms the “crisis of our time” is that the willful dissociation of individuals from their group identities leads to a nihilistic isolation for which capitalist societies are to be blamed. Einstein seems to fail in recognizing society as an abstract concept representing numerous individuals and their various interactions, direct and indirect, across time.

Einstein then goes on to state that the modern individual depends wholly on “society,” however, this isn’t the entire picture. Since society is an abstract sum of individuals, it’s better to (at least partially) disaggregate the concept of society and understand that an individual’s interaction with society is ultimately just an interaction between individuals. One is not in a parasitic relationship with the society they belong to, the relationship is mutualistic. Man does not simply receive “food, clothing, a home, the tools of work, language,” man must also provide something of value to society. It may, therefore, be true that the dependence of the individual on other people’s efforts is a fact of nature, but the opposite—that the relative success of other people’s efforts relies on the efforts of the individual—is true as well.

Einstein fails to realize that the pushback against the desires of the group often arises from coercive attempts to enforce those desires, rather than from a rejection of interdependence altogether. Einstein even makes the claim that the way people find meaning is by serving the desires of the group. There is an important qualification that is missing here—that if they do decide to serve the desires of the group, it must be voluntary and not coerced.

Here is where we begin to run into Einstein’s “Marxist” critiques of capitalism.

We start off with the Marxist exploitation theory, built on the back of the labor theory of value. Einstein says, “…what the worker receives is determined not by the real value of the goods he produces…”

The first problem we run into is the concept of value. It has been firmly established that economic value isn’t intrinsic, that, “The measure of value is entirely subjective in nature.” Value is not transferred somehow from labor to product. In fact, the direction of the imputation of value is exactly the other way around. The economic value of labor is determined by the value of the final product it aids in producing. Therefore, I agree with Einstein, worker pay isn’t determined by the “real value” of what they produce but only because it cannot be determined by something that doesn’t exist. Einstein also seems to believe in the outdated subsistence theory of wages which had long since been disproven by the time Einstein’s essay was published. 

Einstein then goes on to cite wealth inequality and the resulting distortion of the political landscape by private special interests. He is correct in that the market economy does not make people equal as there is no reason to expect it to do so. People are different, masters of different skills and trades (trades that are valued differently by consumers), leaving little reason to expect remuneration for their various services to be remotely equal. Rent-seeking doesn’t stop, however, just because resources are centrally controlled. Inequality isn’t unique to capitalism.

Einstein voices displeasure with the fact that most sources of information (media, education, etc.) are privately owned and sees this a limiting factor in individuals’ ability to make objective decisions and their ability to make effective use of their political rights. One would think that, having had to flee from a state which had taken total control of the media, Einstein would know that the criticisms he levies against private ownership of media and education are more effective against these institutions being centrally controlled. Absent a monopoly, private ownership of the media and schools allows for a pluralistic society, where people are more likely to encounter competing viewpoints, and thus does better in the quest for mitigating misinformation. This makes coming to objective conclusions more likely than if there was a single, centrally-owned and -controlled source of information.

Einstein then goes on to criticize the profit motive. “Production is carried on for profit, not for use” he says, not understanding the emptiness of his statement. Entrepreneurs produce goods that they believe consumers will find useful in satisfying their desires. If consumers judge the goods produced as useful, they patronize the business and the entrepreneur enjoys a profit. Thus, profit represents the entrepreneur’s success in providing goods and services that consumers find useful and valuable. Saying “production is carried on for profit” is just another way of saying production is carried on for the use of the consumers. I prefer not to comment on the faults of the Marxist theory of business cycles and simply let the record of history prove that there isn’t much of a relationship between the passage of time and the severity of depressions.

Einstein ends by saying that the only way he sees for eliminating these “evils” is through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an education system that is oriented towards “social goals.” With little discussion of the mechanisms of such a system, one gets the idea that Einstein hasn’t thought this matter through much. The ownership of the factors of production by “society” and their utilization in a “planned fashion” isn’t even demonstrated to be plausible. We are to take him by his word that such a system would improve our standard of living without any critical analysis. Einstein relegates the possibility of repression at the hands of the state to the final few sentences of his essay, ending with sentiments which echo the claim that state ownership of the means of production is not “real socialism.” Although he raises some pertinent questions, he provides no answers.

It is telling that many of these same arguments raised by Einstein are raised by disgruntled Zoomers with socialist sympathies.

It would almost seem as though, as brilliant a thinker as Albert Einstein was, he was unfamiliar with economic theory and evidence that ran counter to the Marxist narrative, much like modern-day naive college socialists. Even where we agree, such as the hand inequality plays in distorting politics, he fails to show that it’s uniquely under capitalism that power dynamics can be skewed.

This is because none of the criticisms levied can be laid down at the feet of capitalism, merely removing the market economy will not solve the great “evils” but only change the way these evils manifest themselves in society.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We need a new definition of Progress, and a reset of the mythology guiding our descent into “Anti-Progress”.

There’s a curious disconnect between our glorification of Technological Progress and our real-world experience. If we step outside the tent of relentless propaganda touting science-fiction fantasies come to life–permanent bases on the Moon, limitless energy from fusion, etc.–we find that rather than everyday life getting better–the core meaning of Progress–we find that everyday life is getting harder. I call this Anti-Progress–the opposite of Progress.

Buried beneath the thrills of science-fiction fantasies come to life, real life is characterized by the accelerating descent into Anti-Progress.

Consider a raw carrot. In the current system of Progress, the most important feature of a raw carrot is its low profitability. There is little that promotion, branding or “innovation” can do to persuade consumers to pay more for a raw carrot.

The most important feature of a raw carrot to the human body is that it is a natural food packed with nutrients and fiber. It is easy to store and transport and can be eaten raw or cooked. It can be eaten alone or mixed into stews, soups, salads and casseroles. A raw carrot is a healthy snack.

None of this overcomes its terrible, unfixable flaw: it doesn’t lend itself to Progress, i.e. boosting profits. The Progress solution to this inherent flaw is to process the carrot into a product that can be marketed as an advance (i.e. Progress) in convenience, novelty, status and engagement (i.e. dopamine rush / addiction), attributes the consumer will pay more for.

A few shreds of the carrot are cooked into mush and added to a concoction of potato starch, sugar and low-quality fat that is dyed with artificial colors to match a carrot’s color and marketed as a “veggie snack” (“contains real carrots!”).

The nutritional value of the product is nil and the health consequences of consuming what is basically a greasy sugary confection are negative. The list of chronic diseases incurred by a diet of such highly processed food is long.

This engineered snack, deceptively marketed as “veggie” to deceive parents into assuming it is a “healthy snack,” is immensely profitable, and so the system cheers the soaring sales and profits.

The engagement/addiction aspect of this product is especially pernicious, as it is specifically designed to hijack the human brain’s reward centers much like a powerful drug. Its mouthfeel and heavy doses of sugar, salt and fat activate our hard-wired predilection for what is scarce in the hunter-gatherer diet: salt, fats and sweets. Eating this snack generates an immediate reward: a pleasurable dopamine rush. Bet you can’t just have one.

Not only is this confection devoid of nutrition, it’s designed to be addictive. As every drug dealer knows, there’s nothing more profitable than an addiction that generates reliable demand.

This describes not just addictive drugs and processed foods; it describes the whole of consumerism, which carefully cultivates addiction as the defining dynamic not just of Progress but of every-day life.

Should any consumers lodge a complaint about the deceptively advertised “veggie snack” with the agencies tasked with protecting public health, they will find the corporate lobbyists have neutered public influence by spending whatever sums of money are needed to buy the compliance of regulators, what’s known as regulatory capture.

The product is declared safe and anyone complaining about the deceptive packaging is told that it’s up to consumers to choose what to buy or not buy: caveat emptor, buyer beware.

This process of boosting profits by masking the negative consequences is not just rational in the system of Progress, it’s the only path: any CEO who chooses not to maximize profits and buy political influence is fired for incompetence.

This reveals the pathological nature of organizing an economy and society around promoting a mythology that equates expanding consumption with Progress.

Anyone who describes the system as it truly is must be marginalized with an accusation of violating the American taboo against negativity. Not finding a silver lining is an unforgiveable sin: just as you must cheer technological Progress, you must be relentlessly positive. An entire library of cheery slogans is at the ready to ensure the proper dose of positive spirit has been administered, no matter how insincerely. If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

So when we move to the response to the diseases generated by a diet of addictive processed foods–the immensely profitable market for pharmaceuticals that alleviate the symptoms of the diseases caused by consuming processed foods–we find a happy marriage of profits reaped by generating lifestyle diseases and an equally profitable alleviation of symptoms.

There are numerous subsidiary winners in this Anti-Progress profit bonanza: university research funded by corporate interests, lobbying firms handsomely paid to dig regulatory moats, politicians harvesting campaign contributions, think-tanks paid to distribute the apologists’ favorite cover-story, “the free market,” speculators scheming to cash in on a heavily hyped initial public offering (IPO), and so on.

Once we tune in to the siren songs of Progress, we hear them everywhere. The smart phone is a wonder, for what could be better than having shopping, hyper-addictive games and social media at our fingertips, an addictive device that enables access to a wealth of other addictions?

Just as the consequences of consuming the “veggie snack” are hidden, so are the consequences of glorifying addictive technologies as Progress.

Healthy human life is constructed of relationships between individuals, families, communities, the natural world and the moral universe.

Our economic system of Progress severs all these links as impediments to expanding consumption and profits via addiction, obsolescence, insecurity and narcissism. From the perspective of a healthy human life, these are the perfection of Anti-Progress.

How can soaring rates of diabetes and prediabetes be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

How can soaring rates of disability be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

How can soaring rates of metabolic disorders be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

How can soaring costs of basic healthcare insurance be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

How can soaring rates of teen depression be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

How can increasing loneliness be Progress? Clearly, this is Anti-Progress.

While returning to the Moon and AI apps are touted as “proof” of Progress, real-world life is most accurately described as snowballing Anti-Progress. We need a new definition of Progress, and a reset of the mythology guiding our descent into Anti-Progress. That’s the topic of my new book, The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century.

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Earlier this week journalist Chris Rufo revealed that Kamala Harris plagiarized giant sections of her book on crime, after famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Dr. Stefan Weber found that “Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book.”

In response, the New York Times bent over backwards (and forwards) to downplay their preferred candidate’s cut-n-pastery – first casting it as ‘conservative activist seizes on passages‘ from Harris’ book, then totally lying about Rufo’s reporting – which Rufo quickly debunked.

As part of their propaganda, the Times wheeled out plagiarism expert Jonathan Bailey, who said “his initial reaction to Mr. Rufo’s claims was that the errors were not serious, given the size of the document.“

Except, the Times concealed the extent of the claims from Bailey – who writes in his Plagiarism Today blog: “At the time, I was unaware of a full dossier with additional allegations, which led some to accuse the New York Times of withholding that information from me. However, the article clearly stated that it was my “initial reaction” to those allegations, not a complete analysis.

ABC does fake fact-checks to help Kamala. CBS stealth-edits an interview to help Kamala. New York Times withholds evidence to help Kamala. This is endemic—and only visible now because we have X.

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 17, 2024

From Bailey’s blog:

Today, I reviewed the complete dossier prepared by Dr. Stefan Weber, whom I have covered before. I also performed a peer review of one of his papers in 2018.

With this new information, while I believe the case is more serious than I commented to the New York Times, the overarching points remain. While there are problems with this work, the pattern points to sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud.

Bailey still refers to the plagiarism as nothing more than “sloppy writing habits, not a malicious intent to defraud.”

Much like it’s not “malicious intent to defraud” when a college student copies Wikipedia word-for-word, then gets expelled?

What’s more, Rufo implored the Times to look at the entire claim – which they refused to do.

When the Times published its piece, I called the reporter and the editor to protest that they withheld evidence from their supposed “expert.” The editor, Mary Suh, gave me the excuse that it wasn’t their job to review the whole report. I hung up on her. pic.twitter.com/D7sQDpJS6P

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 17, 2024

Here is the full 47-page dossier, prepared by famed Austrian “plagiarism hunter” Stefan Weber. Anyone can read it and come to the conclusion that Kamala Harris plagiarized her book, Smart on Crime. https://t.co/7KvwbzqTOS

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024

Meanwhile, the plagiarism is even worse than reported!

SHE KEEPS GOING: This is a ninth instance of significant plagiarism by Kamala Harris. Although she cited the source, she copied long passages of language verbatim, without paraphrasing or putting it in quotations. It’s textbook “verbatim plagiarism”—and not an isolated incident. pic.twitter.com/5uwWwRDxkt

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) October 15, 2024

Lots of eyes into NFLX earnings tonight, not only because it is the first “tech” company reporting, but because its stock has underperformed as of late post a big run YTD.

According to Goldman, investors are looking for ~6mn subs in quarter, upside to FY FCF guide of ~6bn and then a revenue guide for 4Q that is inline-ish with the street (as a reminder, they don’t guide subs anymore). Goldman has NFLX at 8.5 on 1-10 positioning scale, which needless to say is quite long and the risk of disappointment is substantial. Overall, expectations are for a solid beat in quarter…

… And that’s precisely what Netflix delivered: here is what the company reported moments ago.

• Revenue $9.82 billion, up 15% y/y, and beating estimates of $9.78 billion
• EPS $5.40 vs. $3.73 y/y, beating estimates of $5.12, and included a $91M loss from F/X , related to the company’s Euro denominated debt remeasurement.
• Operating margin 29.6% vs. 22.4% y/y, beating estimates of 27.8%; the operating margin of 30% improved seven percentage points vs. the year ago quarter. This was above the previous guidance forecast “due to slightly higher revenue and the timing of spending.”
• Operating income $2.91 billion, +52% y/y, beating estimates $2.72 billion
• Free cash flow $2.19 billion, +16% y/y, beating estimates $1.73 billion

In short, Netflix eclipsed Wall Street’s expectations on every major financial metric despite a new programming slate constrained by last year’s strikes in Hollywood.

While the company clearly outperformed at the top and bottom line, there were some glitches at the subscriber level. Yes, NFLX added a greater than expected 5.07 million subs, and above the 4.5 million estimate, but this was thanks to EMEA and Asia-Pac; subs in US/Canada missed modestly while Latam subs actually declined, against expectations of a nearly 1 million increase.

• Streaming paid net change +5.07 million, down 42% y/y, but beating estimates of +4.52 million
  • UCAN streaming paid net change +690,000, -61% y/y, missing estimates +696,658
  • EMEA streaming paid net change +2.17 million, -45% y/y, beating estimates +1.44 million
  • LATAM streaming paid net change -70,000 vs. +1.18 million y/y, missing estimate +975,270
  • APAC streaming paid net change +2.28 million, +21% y/y, beating estimate +1.56 million
  • Streaming paid memberships 282.72 million, +14% y/y, beating estimate 281.92 million

Here are some more details:

• UCAN, where subscriber growth missed, saw a 16% year over year increase in revenue, driven by 10% and 5% growth in average paid memberships and ARM, respectively.
• Revenue in EMEA grew 16% year over year, consistent with the increase in average paid memberships.
• Looking at APAX, Netflix said that it had a strong local content slate in Japan, Korea, Thailand and India in Q3. As a result, revenue growth rate in APAC (+19% year over year) led all regions.
• LATAM revenue rose 9% year over year, with a surprise decline of 0.1M in net subscribers which was due to recent price changes and a softer content slate. However, the company noted that “membership growth has rebounded nicely early in Q4’24.”

Q3’24 operating income increased 52% year over year to $2.9B, while operating margin of 30% improved seven percentage points vs. the year ago quarter. This was above our guidance forecast due to slightly higher revenue and the timing of spending.

Looking ahead to Q4, the company expects to generate $10.13 billion in revenue (above the median consensus of $10.05 billion), which would translate into $2.190 billion operating income, or a 21.6% profit margin, vs the 21.2% expected, and expects $4.23 in EPS, which is also above the 3.90 exp. While NFLX no longer provides subscriber guidance, it sees 4Q paid net additions higher than 3Q due to normal seasonality and a strong content slate. It notes that 2024 programming has been “patchier than normal due to last year’s strikes.”

The Company’s Q4 guidance implies that revenue will grow 15% year over year for the full year 2024, at the high end of the prior 14%-15% revenue growth expectation. Given the slightly higher revenue forecast, NFLX is now forecasting 2024 operating margin of 27% based on F/X rates as of 1/1/24 and on a reported basis, up from 26% previously. This would represent a six percentage point increase compared with the full year 2023.

Looking even further out, for 2025, NFLX forecasts revenue of $43B-$44B, which would represent growth of 11%-13% off of the company’s 2024 revenue guidance of $38.9B, and is in line with consensus estimates of $43.4 billion: NFLX expects “revenue growth to be driven by a healthy increase in paid memberships and ARM. We’re targeting a 2025 operating margin of 28% (also based on F/X rates as of 9/30) vs. our forecast for 27% in 2024; after delivering outsized margin improvement in 2024, we want to balance near term margin growth with investing appropriately in our business. We still see plenty of room to increase our margins over the long term.” Consensus saw a 27.9% operating margin.

While it is no longer a closely watched metric, NFLX net cash generated by operating activities in Q3 was $2.3B vs. $2.0B in the prior year period. Free cash flow (FCF) totaled $2.2B compared with $1.9B in last year’s Q3. For the full year, NFLX expects FCF of $6.0B-$6.5B, up from approximately $6B due to the higher operating income forecast.

Finally, during Q3, NFLX repurchased 2.6M shares for $1.7B, and has $3.1B remaining under its existing authorization. The company also raised $1.8B in its first investment grade bond deal during Q3. As a result, total debt increased to $16B from $14B in Q2, but net debt decreased from $7.4B in Q2 to $6.8B at the end of Q3. Proceeds from the bond offering will be used to pay down $1.8B in bonds that mature over the next 12 months.

While Netflix acknowledges its recently launched advertising business is progressing slowly, management said in the letter to shareholders that it has grand ambitions for the next couple of years. The company is building its own advertising technology and has struck several deals to sell its advertising-supported service alongside other streaming services.

“We have much more work to do improving our offering for advertisers, which will be a priority over the next few years,” the company wrote.

Netflix has also started to invested in live programming as one way to increase the amount of inventory it has to sell advertisers. As Bloomberg notes, it will offer a live boxing match next month, followed by two National Football League games on Christmas Day. Starting next year, Netflix will offer customers three hours of live wrestling every week.

Though two Hollywood labor stoppages last year delayed Netflix’s slate of programming for much of this year, the company still scored big hits with The Perfect Couple, a new season of Emily in Paris and a series on the infamous murderers, the Menendez brothers, from producer Ryan Murphy, as well as the movies Rebel Ridge and The Union. The company said it has a particularly strong slate in the fourth quarter, including the return of Squid Game, its most-watched series ever.

Shares of Netflix have more than quadrupled since May 2022, when a slowdown in the company’s growth led to a major sell-off and spooked investors about the entertainment business. Since then, the company has added more than 60 million customers thanks to a crackdown on password sharing and the introduction of a lower-priced subscription with advertising.

That said, most analysts believe the boost from the password crackdown is temporary, and that Netflix will soon need to find another way to grow. The company has yet to see material financial returns from its investment in advertising or video games, and some on Wall Street now worry the stock is overvalued.

The market reaction was initially disappointed pushing the stock briefly lower, before eventually rebounding strongly and rising as much as 4% after hours, not too far from its all time high hit one week ago at $736.