ESG Gets a Standing 8 Count
Plus TwitterFiles and the Notorious BG
It was good to be back last week after a year of self-imposed exile and the feedback I got from many of you made me smile. I greatly appreciate the support and good tidings. If you liked last week’s newsletter, please share it with a friend. Same goes for this week. There are battles ahead of us and the wider our network, the stronger the tribe. Happy Sovereign Sunday!
We’ve officially reached the The Fourth Turning, the Age of Crisis or whatever label you want to affix to the upcoming years of chaos and change. The time since World War II and especially since the Fall of the Soviet Union has been the greatest period of peace and productivity that the world has ever known. With the loss of confidence in institutions and the financial, social and geo-political fragmenting that is now ongoing, the next few years may feel akin to a wooden rollercoaster.
However, there is no need to despair. Sovereign men and women hope for the best but prepare for the worst. That’s our DNA. We never wish for violence or conflict, but abide by the warrior ethos below. 👇
So prepare for war and put on your spiritual armor, because this is a clash of not just arms, but of ideologies. It’s a spiritual war more than a kinetic one.
And there are reasons for modest optimism.
A key part of the Left’s capability to amplify their message and project power far in excess of their actual demographic numbers has been their near stranglehold over the media and Twitter. In a world where most people under the age of 50 get their news from the internet, and most legacy media get their stories and marching orders from the Networked Swarm on Twitter, Elon’s power play to overthrow their monopoly on news outlets and unlock Twitter’s alternative sources and opinions spells a major shift for us all.
Thanks to Elon, we now know for a fact that everything we speculated about regarding Twitter was true. It was run by millennial leftists and hard-core partisans who shadowbanned, de-amplified and permanently suspended only one side - those whose political or scientific opinions they didn’t agree with.
Twitter showed us the ugly side of censorship by manipulating our view on Covid, silencing experts and minority reports that didn't fit their narrative. With intolerance for dissenting opinions, they used the platform to fiercely enable lockdowns, masks and ‘vaccines’ in order to further political gain - most notably during this election cycle when conservative voices (including Trump) were silenced and Hunter Biden's laptop was blackholed right into oblivion.
The Twitter Files are this generations Pentagon Papers. Pay close attention, as the howls from the Left simultaneously screaming that the release of the Files are dangerous and also a giant NothingBurger indicates Elon is right over target.
The files are being released in staggered fashion. Release #1 was granted to Matt Taibbi on December 6th.
Release #2 was done by Bari Weiss on December 8th - the same day the NY Times employees went on strike and asked it's users not to use the platform or circulate news (chefs kiss on the timing). #3 and #4 were done this weekend. All are linked below under the ‘What I’m Reading’ section.
The TLDR summary is that leftist activists at the company arbitrarily banned conservatives and scientists including the sitting U.S. President to control the Narrative, spread disinformation and help Joe Biden get elected. They did all this in close coordination with government agencies like the FBI and DHS in blatant violation of the First Amendment.
If Elon can successfully repel the Machine’s attacks and manage to reboot Twitter successfully, that means there's a chance the truth wins out. Manufactured and gated institutional narratives deserve to be tested on the battlefield of ideas like everything else.
The two dominant zeitgeists of our time remain our response to Covid and Elon's Battle for Twitter.
If those who are responsible for Covid and our response are not held accountable, the future looks much more grim. The Powers That Be can simply run the play again and manufacture another crisis, be it a follow up pandemic (which may not need to be man made like CV19, as the experimental MRNA injections have left many individuals’ immune systems stressed) or another crisis such as an energy grid meltdown or cyberattack crippling the nation's infrastructure.
The coordination by government and Big Tech to suppress opposing viewpoints is the very definition of fascism. And it's allowed truth to become lies, and reality to become illusions as Orwell noted below. The mantra for our Age that the credentialed ‘experts’ want us to adopt seems to be, "Who are you going to believe? Me? Or your lying eyes?
Or as Bari Weiss put it:
As the gap between what we’re allowed to say in public and how we talk in private grows, so does our distrust—in power, in the press, and in one another.
Maybe your moment came while reading about school lockdowns. Or maybe it was the obvious political bias distorting even the most basic news stories. Maybe you’ve seen reporters being activists on social media, then feigning objectivity in their stories.
But at some point, you might have noticed that what you were reading didn’t reflect what you were seeing with your own eyes.
At some point, maybe you noticed that the people paid to tell you about the world as it is were instead telling you about the world as they wished it to be.
At some point, maybe you noticed that rather than conveying complexity—even if it was inconvenient or uncomfortable—the press was in the business of giving their readers, their viewers, and their listeners confirmation. Confirmation that they were right, confirmation that their political opponents were wrong.
We saw it happen from the inside.
We saw it in our newsrooms and in our pitch meetings. “All the news that’s fit to print” was becoming “all the news that fits the narrative.” Curiosity was becoming a liability—not a necessity.
So we left.
What we didn’t know was how many of us there were, or how much demand there would be for honest stories. We didn’t realize there are millions of people who want to discuss hard things out loud, who want to seek the truth rather than the comfort of a political team or tribe—people who want journalism they can trust, and who are eager for their own perspectives to be challenged.
I can’t stress enough the importance of Elon winning the Battle for Twitter and the Covid architects being held accountable. The former is the key to the latter, as those who caused and implemented our Covid responses like Fauci, Tedros, Gates and others depended on a Wall of silence and support from Twitter to push their lies and implement their madness.
Now that The Wall is breaking, truth is back on the menu boys.
Sane People
A reader forwarded this to me. I don’t know the author. It's titled, “A Note to Sane People.”
“I never dreamed that I would have to face the prospect of not living in the United States of America, at least not the one I have known all my life. I have never wished to live anywhere else. This is my home and I was privileged to be born here. But today I woke up and as I had my morning coffee, I realized that everything is changing for the worse. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, no matter how much I pray, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life--so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!
You can't justify this insanity:
• If a guy pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
• Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
• Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
• Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote.
• People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
• People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
• Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
• Irish doctors and German engineers who want to immigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang member or terrorist who jumps the southern fence is welcome.
• $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.
• If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.
• If you cheat in an election nothing happens to you, but if you point out the mathematical errors of that election you are a conspiracy theorist & disdained.
• People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.
• We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan for us.
• Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.
• Criminals are caught-and-released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it's a violation of their rights.
· Then there is the whole Afghanistan, vaccine, endless COVID variants, election cheating, deficient president, violence in the cities, defunding the police, confiscating my guns while arming terrorists, etc., etc.
· And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us "racists"?!
Nothing makes sense anymore - no values, no morals, and no civility. People are dying of a Chinese virus, but it's racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China. We are clearly living in an upside-down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong but killing unborn babies is okay!
Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, it's taking on water, and is sinking fast. We Americans are drowning. Speak up while you still have breath and a voice for soon you will have neither if you don't!”
Indeed it is time to start speaking up. -MK
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Standing 8 Count for ESG
Climate change hysteria has been a one way street for the last 30 years. Emboldened by the total control of Hollywood, media and academia, Climate Zealots have multiplied in power.
My unpopular opinion is that of all the issues mankind is facing, Global Cooling, Global Warming, Climate Change doesn't even make the Top 10. Yet it gathers the majority of Western attention and drives an inordinate amount of the global conversation.
Being suspicious about the Climate Gang’s guesstimates and intentions doesn’t mean you don’t care about the planet.
You can be a good steward for the Earth and still be appropriately skeptical when it comes to 'climate change'. After all, the playbook is being run by the same people and money that perpetrated the Covid Scamdemic, censored dissenting opinions and threatened us with loss of job, freedom and health coverage if we didn’t jab an experimental injection in our arms without informed consent.
Now that the Pfizer-Moderna Windfall Profits and Depopulation Program has stalled (only 15% of eligible adults in the US are fully vaxxed), the Machine has pulled out all the stops on the pivot to Climate Change as the next existential threat and global emergency.
When it comes to the threat matrix, part of the risk calculus is weighing the likelihood of something happening against the magnitude of the event.
And while I believe the likelihood of climate change being man made to be low, I also believe our ability to impact the outcome without causing immense pain and poverty is near zero.
When information is imperfect (as it almost always is), assessing risk can be difficult. In such cases, we should choose the option that preserves optionality (keeps the most future options available).1
That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to improve the quality of our air, water and increase renewables and battery storage power (again, ty Elon) to take the stress off the grid and energy production. But it also means being realistic about our ability to impact global warming and our chances of success.
Forget about the Net Zero by 2050 nonsense. Even an abrupt transition away from fossil fuels would be a low grade genocide by removing the most energy dense and powerful fossil fuels in favor of unreliable and expensive 'renewables' like wind and solar. Fossil and renewable fuel systems can run in parallel, but what the climate change hysterics miss is that fossil fuels power everything from transport to food production in the most economically efficient way, and it will be decades before that changes significantly.
It is now well understood by most adults that the wide adoption of primary fuels with high energy density enables a better standard of living. Transitioning to higher density fuels is something that usually occurs spontaneously in an economy unless war or politicians interfere. In other words, we progressed to wood over windmills, coal over wood, petroleum over coal, and then finally nuclear.
What we’ve seen over the last few decades is an ugly reversal of this progress. Nuclear has all but been eliminated, and more coal and wood will be burned this year than in prior years.
My premise is fairly simple. There’s plenty of valid scientific research that says climate change is not real or man made - it's just not funded by grants and researchers that buck the party line risk cancellation much like the doctors who bucked the Covid narrative risked losing their licenses and reputation despite being right.
Regrettably, even if there was bulletproof science that climate change is man made, the 'solutions' presented by the hysterics aren't feasible. If implemented, they would cost tens if not hundreds of millions of lives. And even if we wanted to try it, the biggest polluters like China, India and elsewhere aren't playing our manufactured game or by our rules so any reductions in Co2 are more than offset by the industrialization of developing nations.
I'm all for being a good and responsible steward of our planet and making sure we have clean water, air and other steps to improve and maintain the environment; however, I believe climate change, ESG and all of its ancillary tenets are mostly theoretical nonsense. They're used for control and profiteering rather than implementing real change. Wind and solar aren't anywhere close to replacing fossil fuels and even if they were, the cost is currently insurmountable. We've spent $10 Billion Trillion on 'green energy' over the past decade and the percentage of fossil fuels that makeup our energy needs has dropped from 82% to 81%.
So $10 Trillion bought us almost nothing. Most estimates are that we have to spend $3-$4 Trillion every year to reach the 2050 Net Zero goals. That's close to $120 Trillion altogether which is a laughable number on its face - especially in light of our current economic malaise.
If there was a real climate panic, we'd be building nuclear plants hand over fist as it's the only 'renewable' that can possibly help bridge the gap somewhat between fossil fuels and renewables.
The NY Times (some of the biggest climate change defenders out there) recently dedicated the front page of the Sunday Magazine to an article that says we will probably be closer to 2 degrees warmer by the end of the century and have dodged the worst estimates. I'm not sure who is right, but I don't want to make a $120 Trillion bet to save half a degree in 50 years...especially when they can't even predict the weather over the next 2 days (I know, weather is different than climate, but both are based on models by people who have rarely been right anywhere. Plus find me another system where it’s ‘easier’ to predict long term outcomes vs. short term outcomes - I won’t hold my breath).
On the financial front, the Climate Change lockstep-goose step has produced an equally maladjusted offspring in the financial sector - ESG investing. ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance, so it covers the full gamut of manipulated trends weakening our society from climate change hysteria to DEI 'social' concerns.
In just a few years, ESG assets have grown to be worth trillions of dollars. Bloomberg reports that they could hit a massive $53 trillion by 2025 and glowingly notes, “Green bonds, social bonds, sustainability-linked loans and related products provide excellent ways for companies to put their money where their mouth is, while accessing a more diverse investor base and even less expensive capital.”
A recent study from Stanford found that younger investors overwhelmingly describe themselves as very concerned about environmental issues. Each year these younger generations become a larger portion of the investor community.
From easily reproducible cartoon jpegs of animals to scammy ICOs, Millennials and GenZ’ers are no stranger to bad investment decisions. But when it comes to ESG ‘green’ investing, it's not entirely their fault. After all, they've been indoctrinated from Kindergarten that the Earth is in dire peril and that climate change is by far the most important issue. Nearly half of Gen Z ranks climate change as the most vital issue of our time.
ESG investing may be packed with good intentions, but the harsh reality is that it's often ineffective. Free markets depend on self-interest to optimize outcomes far better than top-down approaches employed by communist and socialist regimes can muster. The most effective way to alleviate environmental harm caused by companies might involve punishments for tragedy of the commons or targeted taxes; alternatively, market offsets like carbon credits could prove beneficial – although they are likely open for gaming as well.
Not only has ESG become a farce like most statist or Leftist efforts, but it gets sillier each day. Fossil fuel companies like Exxon have better ESG scores than Tesla, the electric vehicle titan (and NOT because EVs rely on materials sourced through environmentally-detrimental mining and can sometimes draw electricity from coal sources - proving there's more than meets eye often when it comes to supposedly 'green' energy sources).
ESG investing has been all the rage, but thankfully investors and states aren't blindly buying into it anymore. Despite big names like Blackrock throwing their weight behind it, 'normal market forces' have helped bring some rationality back to the field. The tide is turning as more investors wake up to the reality that politically correct investments can often lead to significant malinvestment of capital.
Florida and Louisiana are a few of the names that have divested billions of dollars from Blackrock and other ESG pimps.
80% of ESG fund flows currently come from Europe. No surprise there as the Germany Greens and other Western European simps have led the charge into green investing and de-fossilization of energy sources. Also no surprise that they're the ones who will be shivering this winter due to energy prices and blackouts as their dependence on Russia for energy and over reliance on renewables has put them in a precarious position. If nothing else, it's a good lesson to learn that perhaps putting a mentally disabled 16 year old in charge of your energy policies wasn’t the wisest decision.
The Notorious Britney Griner
The latest tug-of-war in the culture battle is the Britney Griner for Viktor Bout trade with Russia that brought her home this week. While some of the jokes have been solid (“It’s the first time a WNBA trade made the newspaper”), there are obviously big implications including:
Putin and Russia’s ability to use this as a big propaganda win (Bout and Russian newscasters immediately took to the airwaves to celebrate some version of, “America has become so weak and morally bankrupt that it would trade a black lesbian drug addict and forsake a war hero”;
Making Americans more susceptible to kidnapping overseas to trade for other prisoners; and
Biden energizing his base while causing disillusionment on the Right, amongst other things.
While the above are all important considerations, my initial take is probably a bit more nuanced than you'd expect.
Despite spending 4 years in captivity, Paul Whelan is a US Marine and I think if given the choice would refuse to leave a woman behind if it meant he was brought home safely.
I don’t know Whelan, but if he lives by the same code and honor that many of the marines and former armed forces that I do know, I imagine he would say take Britney if indeed the choice was either one or the other.
Current and former veterans shoulder a disproportionate burden and the risks that come with it, so that others may rest easy. They are some of the best our society has to offer, and we owe them a debt that we haven’t come close to repaying.
Ironically, both Biden and especially former DA Kamala both made careers out of putting people like Britney in jail and destroying their lives.
Over 8 million people have previously been arrested with approximately 40,000 currently serving prison time for the type of 'crime' Britney Griner was arrested for.
If Biden and others want to pay lip service to her unlawful detention and outrageous prosecution, maybe release and pardon the nonviolent offenders who have had their lives decimated by our insane drug laws. Maybe stop prosecuting non-violent offenders for possession and stop supporting communist DAs who are refusing to prosecute the violent criminals turning our cities into hellscapes.
And the least Biden can do is be honest about what happened. Saying he ‘had no choice’ or ‘Whelan wasn't offered’ is a coward's way out, especially when information to the contrary has now come out. Although Biden’s leftist lapdogs in the media will defend and coverup for his cowardice and incompetence, Biden owes it to Whelan, his family and the American people to be truthful. Especially when his actions will place more Americans in danger going forward.
Hopefully, Griner will take this unique moment and be a uniter and not a divider. It's the perfect opportunity to be larger than either side expects and to recant her past criticism of this country. It's also a wonderful opportunity to make sure we don’t forget about Paul Whelan. Perhaps adding Whelan's name to her and her teammates jerseys this season would be an honorable way to keep the man front and center so that he can also return home shortly to his country and loved ones.
Keep an Eye On…
The continuing low grade stochastic terrorism designed to undermine our safety and stability that appears to be increasing. Earlier this year we saw what might be labeled as Stage 1 in this Asymmetric War - the intentional (or mighty big coincidental) destruction of numerous food processing plants across the country.
Stage 2 seems to be kicking off with numerous attacks on power stations over the past few weeks.
It reminds me of the 2013 attack on a Metcalf power substation in Coyote, CA. John Wellinghoff, who chaired the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the time of the attack, described the incident as "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred."
That’s a pretty heavy statement for an attack that most people have never heard of.
Keep an eye out and make sure you have enough supplies to comfortably survive an extended power outage in your community.
The AI Alignment Problem
Last week I sounded the alarm about the exponential growth of AI and discussed some of the issues surrounding the open release of ChatGPT. This week I want to reiterate that this train is rapidly leaving the station and humanity's ability to control and modulate it. While the widespread disruption of employment is something to keep an eye on, the so called ‘Alignment Problem’ is the chief cause for worry. Primarily, we want to make sure AI systems align with our goals, intents, and values.
In his latest book, The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values, programmer and researcher Brian Christian discusses the challenges of making sure our AI models capture “our norms and values, understand what we mean or intend, and, above all, do what we want.”
As Christian puts it:
“As machine-learning systems grow not just increasingly pervasive but increasingly powerful, we will find ourselves more and more often in the position of the ‘sorcerer’s apprentice’: we conjure a force, autonomous but totally compliant, give it a set of instructions, then scramble like mad to stop it once we realize our instructions are imprecise or incomplete—lest we get, in some clever, horrible way, precisely what we asked for.”
The above is obviously easier said than done. It's time we convene stakeholders across the spectrum and start putting some real teeth back into the Precautionary Principle, or humanity risks leapfrogging directly to a 'Dying with Dignity' stance in the face of an exponentially accelerating super-intelligence threat.
Crypto to AI is This Year’s NY to Florida Trade
As the crypto sector continues to struggle and optimism about AI breaks into the mainstream, we will likely see a wave of builders and entrepreneurs migrate from Crypto over to the AI sector as they seek out sunnier skies and more upside. The fallout from the wave of bankruptcies and contagion including FTX, Voyager and BlockFi will lead many of these founders and investors to look for sunnier skies and greater upside just like everyone who left New York for Florida during the Covid Fiasco.
I’m not giving advice here one way or another, as I think both sectors will change the world, but be careful about the timing and leaving to chase shiny objects. In AI you’ll likely find a crowded field of smart people who have been building for years. To gain a foothold there won’t be an easy thing and it’s worth noting that bear markets are the perfect time to build or invest. Nearly every successful project in this last cycle was built during the great bear market of 2018-2019. Or as the great Wayne Gretzky said, “You need to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”
On that note, if you have a boomer or bitcoin novice in your family, it's a great time to get them this gift for the holidays. It’s bull markets where you make money, but it’s bear markets where you get rich. Charlie and I wrote this introductory book to bitcoin in easy to understand, plain English so anyone can grasp its key concepts regardless of technical knowledge. ‘Bitcoin for Boomers’…because how many ties does your Dad really need?? 🤔🎄
https://www.getbitcoinbasics.com
Public Square
Public Square is a public app that bills itself as, “America’s Marketplace: the largest community of freedom-loving, patriotic consumers and businesses the nation has ever seen. PublicSq. connects values-aligned members and businesses both locally and across the country.”
It’s sort of like an Angie's list for pro-US, pro-freedom companies.
As I’ve written about repeatedly, dollar weaponization and segregation is one of the most powerful strategies left to conservatives and libertarians.
‘Go woke go broke’ should be our battle cry, but most of us are incredibly weak on this front. Democrats and Leftists are much better at corralling their troops to punish transgressors than the right. Somewhere right now as you’re reading this, there’s a conservative wearing Nike shoes, drinking Black Rifle Coffee, having just shaved with a Gillette razor and paying for his Christmas gifts using Paypal while planning a trip to Disneyland.
If you stand for freedom and the Constitution, then you should make every effort possible to shop with firms that are pro-freedom and pro-Constitutional principles. Preference should always be given to firms that manufacture and produce domestically right here in the USA.
The world is becoming less globalized and more uncertain. Bad actors whether its Russia, China or others are making our former policy of outsourcing production and employment overseas too risky. During Covid, it became clear that outsourcing key PPE, medicines or other supplies to China was a strategic blunder and massive economic risk. I expect us over the next 5-7 years to meaningfully start onshoring much of the production that took place elsewhere over the past few decades. And while that will eventually be a net positive for the long term safety and stability of the U.S., let’s honor those companies who have chosen to produce goods here in the meantime.
__________________________________
Articles I'm Reading…
If You Really Want to Destroy the U.S. Then…. The latest from Victor Davis Hanson
Matt Taibbi - Twitter Files Part 1
Bari Weiss Twitter Files Part 2
Matt Taibbi Twitter Files Part 3
Mike Shellenberger Twitter Files Part 4
MK Note: While I greatly admire Elon Musk, Matt Taibbi, and Bari Weiss for picking up the sword to fight for truth and accountability, it’s worth mentioning that none of them were particularly courageous during the Pandemic or used their platform to push back against Covid tyranny. Let’s not forget who the real heroes are. People like Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, Jay Bhattacharya, MartinKulldorff and many others who did their best to save countless lives in the face of withering censorship and criticism, and at great personal risk.
What I'm Listening To…
Peter Thiel is one of the most important thinkers and problem solvers of our time. Here is a recent Stanford Address of his to the Academic Freedom Council.
Books I’m Reading…
I’m still reading the 2 books from last week but if you want to read ahead, my next 2 books are:
After Collapse: The End of America and Rebirth of Her Ideals by Max Borders.
The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization by Peter Zeihan
Twitter Octagon…
Memetic Warfare…
Also, please don’t be this kid.
Tip of the day: uses your significant other's laptop or phone to Google Christmas presents you want so that your other half gets targeted ads. Love in the digital age....💝
If you liked this newsletter, please share it with a friend! I don’t do any marketing or promos so it’s all word of mouth. Have a great Sunday Sovereigns!
Paraphrasing Sean King.