Let's count the reasons this is dumb: 1. You couldn't legally invest in gold in 1971 2. You can live in a house, but not in a gold vault 3. $25K invested in the S&P 500 in 1971 would be worth $8.5 million today

"lower standard deviation" Tell me you don't understand mark-to-market without telling me you don't understand mark-to-market. @CliffordAsness calls this volatility laundering. I made an effort to explain this in the post below. Also, I'm pretty sure the exam doesn't herald privates as some sort of magic investment.

Economic liberalism is not in vogue, to put it mildly. In the US, the energy in the Democratic Party lies with self-described democratic socialists who are critical of free markets. On the right, vice-president JD Vance argues that economic growth is overrated, economic science might be “fake,” and the bipartisan liberal consensus on economic policy has “failed” for the last four decades. Critics argue that liberalism has not delivered broad-based prosperity — an attack that can be convincingly defended against with statistics and quantitative analysis. But their critique goes further, asserting that liberalism is morally corrosive. This, too, is off base. For one, the free enterprise system pushes against the problematic tendency in American life to see people less as individuals and more as members of a group. The system is premised on the idea that society should accept the preferences, knowledge and decisions of individuals and families. This system argues that the welfare of society should be measured not by hazy perceptions of national greatness or by progress towards objectives set by elites, but instead by how well off individuals and families are — in their capacity as individuals and families. See my @FT column, below, for my full argument — including where I think anti-liberals are superficially right but deeply wrong.

Did you not even bother reading the thread? It says that, in addition to incurring direct incidence from tariffs, low-income households in particular changed their spending habits to cheaper goods because they lack the slack to absorb tariffs.

"Famine in Gaza" defenders like @JeremyKonyndyk keep ignoring the statistic that matters most: actual malnutrition-related deaths. According to Hamas, not Israel, there were 461. A genuine famine would have necessarily meant tens of thousands.

Amazing how far the pendulum has swung from ca. 2015 when many thought economic growth might have been a 200 year blip that was coming to an end. (Summers writing about secular stagnation, Robert Gordon's book about the rise and fall of American growth, etc.)