Email: [email protected]
National Review Columnist
Joined January 2009
- Tweets32K
- Following361
- Followers18.4K
- Likes61
‘I’ve Gotten Too Old To Not Be Greedy’: Virginia Senate Dem Leader Louise Lucas Was Taped Explaining Her Alleged Role In Racketeering Scheme. dailycaller.com/2026/10/22/d… via @dailycaller
John Fund retweeted
John Cowperthwaite did more for human prosperity than any development economist drawing a government salary ever managed, and he did it by refusing to do almost anything at all.
As Hong Kong's Financial Secretary from 1961 to 1971, Cowperthwaite ran one of the most radically free economies the modern world has ever seen. He kept taxes flat and low (the top income tax rate sat at 15%), ran consistent budget surpluses, abolished import tariffs, and blocked nearly every subsidy request that crossed his desk. When British civil servants demanded economic statistics to justify intervention, he refused to collect them. Not out of laziness. He genuinely believed that giving planners numbers gave them excuses.
The results? In 1960, Hong Kong's per capita income stood at roughly 28% of Britain's. By 1997, Hong Kong had surpassed Britain. That trajectory happened without natural resources, without foreign aid, and without a single five-year plan drafted by well-intentioned economists from Oxford. Hong Kong had a harbor, people willing to work, and a bureaucrat with enough intellectual discipline to keep the state out of their way.
Capital flows toward secure property rights and reliable rules, and flees the moment politicians start allocating it. Every industry Beijing picked as a "priority sector" during those same decades burned through subsidies and produced junk. Hong Kong's industries emerged organically, serving real demand, building real wealth.
You benefit from this history whether you know it or not, because Hong Kong's success gave the world a controlled experiment that still embarrasses every advocate of managed development. The control group thrived. The planned economies didn't.
Cowperthwaite retired to St Andrews, received a knighthood, and gave almost no interviews. That restraint was entirely in character.
Scientists may have the key to treating arthritis: Regrowing the knee
"The experimental new knee still faces hurdles. But if everything goes well with the research and experiments, the high-tech new knee could be ready for preliminary testing in people with advanced knee arthritis in about 18 months. wapo.st/48cC4Sp
I realize that politicians pander to the audiences they speak in front of. But this embarrassing. Somalis who assimilate do succeed. But he must know how few are doing that in Minneapolis and are mired in clan culture.
John Fund retweeted
BREAKING NIUS: Für mich ist es einer der unglaublichste Auftritte von Bundeskanzler Friedrich Merz in dessen Amtszeit. Seit 17 Monaten erzählt Merz, er wolle Deutschland deregulieren, unnötige und schädliche Bürokratie beseitigen. Dann hat dieser Bundeskanzler die Möglichkeit, auf der Weltbühne, vor milliardenschweren Investoren dem Nvidia-Chef Jensen Huang eine Frage zu stellen. Und was fragt der Bundeskanzler? Er will wissen, wie man Künstliche Intelligenz am besten REGULIEREN kann. Als Huang antwortet, nunja, erstmal müsse die KI-Industrie in Deutschland aufblühen, bevor man sie regulieren könne, legt Merz nach. Er erklärt Huang, aus seiner Sicht sei entweder eine europäische oder gar eine globale Regulierung notwendig, um die "Schädlichkeit" von KI zu begrenzen.
John Fund retweeted
At the European Council summit in Brussels last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez clashed sharply over migration policy. Tusk pushed for a tougher EU approach and criticized Spain’s mass regularisation of roughly 500,000 undocumented migrants, arguing it creates “pull factors” for irregular migration and undermines shared EU efforts to reduce illegal arrivals. The exchange was particularly sharp, Sánchez dismissed critics’ statements as “blah, blah, blah” that did not match the data.
Let’s look at the data then, shall we?
Poland takes a strict immigration approach, it built a wall on the border with Belarus to prevent illegal immigration, does not allow migrants who crossed illegally to apply for asylum, and deports criminals. Poland does not offer lifelong welfare, it expects migrants to integrate, work and contribute to Polish society. The difference from Spain’s policies under the current socialist government could not be larger.
As a result, Spain has a robbery rate twelve times higher than Poland and a three times higher unemployment rate. While living standards in Spain have stagnated for years, in Poland they are improving fast.
The data could not be clearer. Whose side in the clash do you take? Tusk’s or Sánchez’s?
"Largely peaceful" narrative is back, remember the "mostly peaceful" coverage of COVID riots.
CCTV footage from Nice, France shows the moment a mob of looters broke into a phone case store over the weekend, destroying displays and stealing merchandise.
The incident comes after largely peaceful anti-government protests in many cities across France descended into riots, with damage to historic properties and thousands of arrests.
John Fund retweeted
Read the headline. Nod sagely.
Then look at the pic above it. Shake head vigorously.
Hilarious juxtaposition.
France to Impose Curfews After Nationwide Rioting nytimes.com/2026/10/19/world…
John Fund retweeted
德国 DW 电视台拍过一部关于巴黎郊区移民的纪录片。
镜头对准了生活在同一片区域的两个群体。
一边是大约七万人的法国华人。
在巴黎北郊的欧贝维利耶，他们建起了欧洲最大的服装批发中心。
这批人的生活方式很简单：
起早贪黑，开小作坊、看店、跑货运。
赚了钱继续投入生意，遇到难处自己想办法扛。
平时低调安静，很少向政府伸手要特殊补贴，也不上街制造混乱。
几十年下来，越来越多家庭买了房，把生意做了起来。
另一边，是同样生活在这片街区的北非移民群体。
从整体上看，他们在当地的经济融入相对滞后。
但纪录片捕捉到了一个细微却现实的心态变化：
一种把自食其力者视作威胁的情绪，正在悄悄蔓延。
按片子里的观察，
一些融入受挫的人，习惯以受害者自居，觉得社会欠自己太多。
可当他们转头看到身旁的华人时，心态变了。
他们不仅没有去学怎么做生意，反而把华人当成了竞争对手。
这种敌意到底从何而来？
最现实的冲突在于：华人的日子越过越好，受害者叙事就越难自圆其说。
大家同样是外来者，同样面对异国他乡的壁垒。
甚至华人刚来的时候连法语都不会讲，更谈不上本地人脉。
如果有人靠一天干十几个小时，能把日子一点点撑起来，
那句“我们过不好全怪外界不公”，就很难再理直气壮地说出口。
一个闷头自立的人，往往会让习惯归咎环境的人感到刺眼。
更深层的错位在于对财富的理解。
在很多索取者的认知里，财富是一块固定死的大饼。
他们看不到那些批发店是怎样一箱一箱货物搬出来的，
只觉得华人的店铺赚到了钱，就是占了自己的便宜。
再加上华人素来习惯忍让，遇到纠纷往往选择息事宁人，
这种心态上的失衡，很快就落成了现实中的治安麻烦。
抢劫、尾随、街头袭击，接二连三指向这群只想安分过日子的人。
靠双手养活自己、靠信誉积累财富，放在任何健全的社会都是最基本的尊严。
但如果一个地方习惯了把受害者身份当成通行的筹码，
那个默默把日子过好的人，
往往最先成为被针对的对象。
John Fund retweeted
Roger Scruton recalls the exact moment he became a conservative during the 1968 Paris riots:
“When I looked down the street and saw all these rowdy students throwing stones at policemen, I just said to myself, ‘Whatever they believe, I believe the opposite.’”
John Fund retweeted
Brutaler Leitartikel im konservativen Le Figaro. Eine Abrechnung mit Frankreichs politischem System und seiner Elite.
„Eine Justiz, die gegenüber Straftätern nachsichtig ist, gegenüber anständigen Bürgern aber unerbittlich. Das unbegreifliche Privileg dieser linksextremen Milizen, die ungestraft zerstören, Brände legen und töten. Eine unkontrollierte Einwanderung, bei der sich ein Teil der Einwanderer gegen das Land auflehnt, das sie aufgenommen hat. (…) Eine politische Klasse – die verschiedenen Spielarten des Sozialismus, die uns seit fünfzehn Jahren regieren –, die sich Leichtfertigkeit, Blindheit, wenn nicht sogar wohlwollende Duldung vorwerfen lassen muss.
Die Ermahnungen Emmanuel Macrons an eine Polizei, die seiner Ansicht nach nicht genügend „Empathie“ gegenüber jenen zeigt, die sie mit Schrauben, Pflastersteinen oder Feuerwerksmörsern angreifen, werden als unauslöschlicher Makel in Erinnerung bleiben. (…)
Wenn die extreme Linke, Straftäter und Plünderer Frankreich innerhalb weniger Stunden völlig auf den Kopf stellen können, dann liegt das vor allem daran, dass eine von sich selbst berauschte technokratische Monarchie systematisch sämtliche moralischen, sicherheitsbezogenen, kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Schutzmechanismen eingeebnet hat, die eine Gesellschaft zusammenhalten. Die nützlichen Idioten Jean-Luc Mélenchons tragen nicht nur die Kufiya, sondern auch die Krawatte.“
John Fund retweeted
“They had addresses of Jewish shop owners.”
Hmmm where have I heard that one before in Europe?
Worth revisiting this speech in light of the continuing riots in France.
"We have fallen into habits that are steadily deskilling the human body, eroding capacities honed by evolution to support our well-being. We have come to rely on our phones and AI, to rapidly do work that would once have required something more physical – like looking around, or asking someone, or going to find a book. In surrendering to a quick technological fix, we are doing less sensing, navigating, remembering, walking, choosing, and attending."
aeon.co/essays/the-more-we-r…
