A commenter pointed to a 15-minute YouTube by Nick Weaver on the topic of crypto. Recommended. He makes me look like a crypto booster by comparison. My favorite line comes around minute 10.

Almost every cryptocurrency exchange is full of frauds banned in the 1930s.

James Dorn writes,

it is important to remember that persistent inflation depends primarily on a continuing excess supply of money, the likely cause of which is fiscal profligacy—and, in the case of the current inflation, large cash transfers directly to individuals and businesses from the U.S.

Dorn sticks to a mostly-monetarist view, with a focus on Milton Friedman’s favorite measure of the money supply, M2. As you know, I approach macro differently.

Leor Sapir writes,

Instructed to view their humanity through the distortive lens of “white supremacy,” California’s teen girls are seeking refuge in puberty blockers, testosterone injections, and double mastectomies, while their parents are almost powerless to stop them.

I don’t think we know why there is an increase in “transitioning.” Maybe instruction in critical race theory plays a role, but to me that seems like a stretch. I don’t think we should claim to understand the phenomenon.

I have a view of transitioning that I will admit is unlikely to be shared. My interpretation is based primarily on having met one trans individual at a social gathering and subsequently reading his/her autobiography. My view is certainly not his/hers. I will not tell you who it is, other than to say that it is not Deirdre McCloskey.

I think of transitioning as akin to committing suicide. Both transitioning and suicide tend to cause deep pain in those around you. You are at the point where you don’t mind inflicting that pain, and maybe deep down you want them to feel pain.

I can imagine people objecting to this analogy between transitioning and suicide. But that is where I come down.

When we encounter people in extreme emotional distress, we should try to be sympathetic and helpful. That includes people who are in distress over gender issues. But as for trying to drum up support for transitioning, count me out. I would no sooner support someone’s wish to transition that I would support someone’s wish to commit suicide.

Concerning the abortion issue, J.D. Tucille writes,

As with all attempts at restrictions and prohibitions, enforcement requires an ever-more-intrusive regime of surveillance and second-guessing. Some lawbreakers will be caught, and others will be abused by authorities seeking scofflaws in family tragedies. That's inevitable when you try to restrict choices for a resistant part of your population, as should be obvious to anybody familiar with the brutal and bizarre history of enforcement efforts for gun controls, bans on same-sex relations, the war on drugs, and Prohibition. Really, laws work only for defining penalties for engaging in acts that virtually everybody agrees are wrong.

Freddie deBoer writes,

Sometimes, I think there will be clandestine abortions performed in states where both mothers and providers risk arrest. (The fact that they are clandestine will hopefully limit bad publicity, although this country is rife with pro-choice sentiment anyway.) Either way, helping women terminate unwanted pregnancies that the state would compel them to bring to term represents real, effective direct action. It will be an Underground Railroad for abortion.

Unless almost everyone is willing to insist that from the moment of conception abortion is murder, a total ban on abortions is unenforceable. And if we cannot agree that all abortions should be banned unconditionally, the question becomes who gets to decide. I believe that the only viable approach is the libertarian one: the state should stay out of it. Preach against abortion all you want, but in the end leave the decision to the woman.

Taking the decision out of the hands of courts and putting it in the hands of state legislatures is not the big improvement that the WSJ editorial board and others claim it is. We don’t need to know what a court thinks. We don’t need to know what a legislative majority thinks. We just need to know what the woman thinks.

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In My Tribe

Keeping up with the FITs and comments, 7/1