Degen Mitch

@scottmelker From a purely biological perspective, technically every cell in your body is replaced after 7 years. In the most literal sense possible, nobody is the same person they were 7 years ago.

Strong opinions loosely held. People often bring up old tweets of mine to show my hypocrisy or that I am lying. Hate to break this to you, but I’m an entirely different person than I was a decade ago. Or 17 years ago when I first started tweeting. And I’ve shared my views in real time. I have evolved. Changed. That’s part of life.

House Speaker Johnson argues that $200K isn’t enough for members of Congress to support their families, so they should either get a raise or be allowed to trade individual stocks. Otherwise, he says, America won’t attract qualified people to serve. Whether Republican or Democrat, I think we can agree they’re in office to SERVE, it is called being a public SERVANT, and we don’t need them doing it for decades. One or two terms, max. After that, they get so captured by special interests they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in office. No thanks. As for stock trading, the evidence is overwhelming that people picking individual stocks underperform the market. The only way a member of Congress beats it is with inside information, which both parties have shown, repeatedly, they’re willing to use and make unearned, unethical profits on the backs of the American taxpayer. There should be no raises and no stock trading allowed for anyone in Congress.

@AGRobBonta If cannabis were legalized just like alcohol, there would be no need for underground operations. People ate going to get it wither way just like with alcohol during prohibition which only empowers criminals.

When someone intentionally cheats the system and refuses to pay what they legally owe, the consequences are felt by all of us. Whether it’s tax fraud, money laundering, labor exploitation, or underground cannabis operations, we’ll continue to pursue those who try to profit by breaking the law.

The cost of having children is worth the presence of children. Full stop. I am dumbstruck at how our society thinks of children as a costly, time-consuming drag. What an impoverished way to think. No vacation will hold your hand in the hospital. No amount of mimosas at brunch can walk with you through grief. Double incomes cannot replace empty seats around the dinner table.

@JDVance Please actually put the fraudsters in prison. Until that happens they'll keep coming up with new scams.

Under President Trump, we are unleashing the most aggressive federal anti-fraud efforts in American history. We won't rest until we root out every bit of fraud infecting our government and screwing over taxpayers. More coming tomorrow. Stay tuned.

@realDailyWire He's so funny without even trying to be

Trump says the White House was a "sh*t house" before he moved in: "I was told by my wife: you have to act presidential so don't use foul language. I won't...Normally, I would've said it was a sh*t house, but I don't want to say that."

Key to winning: Choose to be positive and grateful. Then, just keep at it. Time is the great compounder and will do the rest. So many people just don’t have the discipline to stay positive and grateful. Then time compounds the bitterness instead.

Major life hack: Don't complain, ever. Nobody likes a complainer. They drain the energy of everyone around them. It's exhausting spending time around someone who constantly complains about things outside their control. If it’s within your control, go do something about it. If it’s not, you’re just wasting energy thinking about it. Complaining gives too much power to the thing. Take back that power.

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital. Cette phrase change tout. L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ? Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible. Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur. Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé. Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire. L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants. Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution. Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain. Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée. Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien. La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose. Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins. Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires. La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

Joe Rogan with @RZA discussing how cannabis should be legalized: “ I wish [cannabis] was legal. It’s not federally legal. It's just got changed to schedule 3. Think about how many people die from obesity every year. Should we make cake and ring dings and ho ho’s illegal? No. You have to have some personal responsibility and some self control and an understanding of what the ramifications are. That's the same with cannabis. It's the same with alcohol. If you think that alcohol should be illegal, well people are gonna drink it, and then you're just gonna empower organized crime like they did during the prohibition.“ @joeroganhq @joerogan

A reminder that you can control your energy…

@APompliano @financedystop And uaffordability (the root cause of the decline in homeownership) is a direct result of the Biden administration printing trillions of dollars out of thin air as an overreaction to COVID.

The rise of socialism in America is a direct result of this chart.

@MarioNawfal Women are going to have to start being nice to men again

It's happening, folks. That dystopian Netflix drama about AI girlfriends is only months away from becoming a reality. If you have to get one, make sure yours is powered by Grok.

A young man sees someone drive by in a Ferrari with a blonde. He thinks: that guy has everything. Jordan Peterson says look closer. "The woman in the car is a prostitute with a cocaine addiction. Her life is one catastrophe after another." "He's had to lie and cheat his way into this position. He's afraid everything's going to come crashing down on him." "And that's what you're jealous of." He spent 15 minutes explaining what we're actually built for: "We view ourselves as built for pleasure. For consumption. For safety. For egotistical self-aggrandizement and fame." "What are we actually built for? Maximal challenge." "We're built to walk uphill. When you reach the pinnacle, you want to stop and appreciate the vision. But the next thing you want is a higher hill in the distance." "It's from the uphill climb that we derive our value." This is why young men disappear into video games. "That's all acted out in the video game. The active warrior moving uphill with sword in hand. That's dynamic. That's exciting." "They have to act that out in their own life. Video games are not a substitute for life." Start where you are. Even if it's embarrassing. "Humility is starting where you are. If your life is a mess, you have to see that you're the person in that mess." "Your first attempt to fix it might not be something you're particularly proud of." "I saw this in my clinical practice. The first steps people had to take were pretty embarrassing. They'd think: really? That's all I can do?" "Hey, man. Uphill is better than downhill." Here's what most people don't understand about momentum: "You accrue success exponentially. You accrue defeat exponentially too." "Start going downhill, you go downhill faster and faster. Start going uphill, you go uphill faster and faster." "Even if you have to start painfully small, it doesn't matter." Everyone wants confidence. But self-esteem is a lie. "Self-esteem doesn't even exist. It's a pathological concept altogether." "You want confidence that's based in competence. Otherwise it's narcissistic." "How do you develop that? You watch yourself exceed your limits." "And then you think: there's something in me that can exceed my limits. That's your true self." You want a goal you can never fully attain. "Almost all the positive emotion we feel, especially the emotion that fills us with enthusiasm, is experienced in relationship to a goal." "You want a horizon of ever-expanding possibility." "People stake their soul on attaining an instrumental goal. Then they get there and think: now what?" "The answer can't be: I'm going to live in the lap of luxury and never have to do anything." "What do you want to be? A giant infant with a gold bottle? You never have to do anything but lay on your back and suck." "No. You want to be an active warrior moving uphill with your sword in hand." Now here's the dark part: "You need to contemplate your own malevolence. Because you're not only who you are. You're who you could be. For better or worse." "I think it's easier to understand who you could be if you were better once you deeply understand who you could be if you were worse." "You think: I'm way deeper on the negative end than I thought. Much more closely aligned with the forces of hell than I presumed." "That's easy to swallow factually. Not so easy to swallow emotionally. It's a bitter pill." "I don't think you can contemplate the good without contemplating the evil first. It doesn't have the depth." "Fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." Many of his clients are too agreeable. They let everyone else win. "They're resentful and don't know how to stand up for themselves. They're very compassionate by nature. If you're negotiating with them, they'll let you win." "That's not good. You need to win too." "You cannot negotiate unless you can say no. And it causes conflict to say no." The solution sounds counterintuitive. "You have to develop your inner monster a little bit. And that makes you a better person, not a worse person." "It's weird. But that's just how it is." On privilege and how to pay for it: "Some cards are privilege. Maybe you're born intelligent. Symmetrical. Healthy. Into a culture where it's easier not to be deprived. Maybe your parents are rich." "All of that is unearned." "The way you pay for your privilege is with your virtue." "You expiate and atone by doing your best to live the best possible life you can manage. To speak the truth. To treat people with respect. To put your house in order." On envy: "Don't be so sure your position in your room is so damn trivial. It might be your attitude towards it that's trivial." "If you're in dire circumstances, look at how much opportunity you have to make things better." "You don't even want it to be easy."

@PeterMallouk Most of us weren't alive 50 years ago

If you invested $10,000 in the U.S. stock market 10 years ago you would have $37,595 today. The same investment made 50 years ago would be worth over $3.3 million. The magic of compounding, in one chart…

@Jason It's also less dangerous than alcohol which literally kills people every day, has no medical use case at all, and can be purchased legally by anyone over the age of 21.

Reclassification is critical so that we can have a no-tolerance rule for fentanyl and meth, which are deadly, and a reasonable policy on plant medicine and cannabis — which experts believe are far less harmful (and in therapeutic or hospice settings, might even be helpful) Give @POTUS a lot of credit for taking on this simple but controversial task

It has been much better to own stocks than real estate over the last 50 years. (h/t @Barchart)

The year is 1950. Your doctor lights a cigarette and tells you smoking is fine. He read it in a study. He is telling the truth about having read it. He does not know, or is not saying, that the study was funded by the tobacco industry. The year is 1958. Your doctor tells you to eat less fat. The evidence is contested. The contestation is not in the public messaging. The food industry has been helpful in clarifying which findings deserve attention. Some researchers who published contradictory data have been quietly defunded. Ancel Keys is on the cover of Time magazine. The year is 1962. Your doctor prescribes thalidomide to your pregnant wife for morning sickness. It has been approved. The FDA gave it the green light in Europe. Twelve thousand children will be born with severe limb malformations before anyone in an official capacity acknowledges the problem. The families are told the drug was safe. The drug was approved. Both of these things remain true. The year is 1972. Your doctor prescribes Valium. Britain is in the grip of a benzodiazepine wave that will last two decades. The dependency risk is known internally. It is not shared. Your doctor is not lying to you. He was not told either. The year is 1999. Your doctor prescribes Vioxx for your arthritis. It is newer than ibuprofen, well-tolerated, and Merck has a study showing it works. Merck also has internal data suggesting it roughly doubles the risk of heart attack. This data will not reach your doctor for four more years. Fifty thousand people are estimated to have died in the interim. Merck eventually settles for 4.85 billion dollars. No criminal charges are brought. The year is 2002. Your doctor prescribes OxyContin. Purdue Pharma trained its sales representatives to tell doctors the addiction risk was less than one percent. That figure came from a letter, not a study. The letter was about patients with terminal cancer on short-term doses in hospital settings. Your doctor is a GP with a patient who has a bad back. Nobody draws a distinction. Nobody is required to. The year is 2008. Your doctor checks your cholesterol. Your LDL is elevated. You are prescribed a statin. Nobody mentions that the number needed to treat for primary prevention is approximately 250. Nobody mentions that the muscle deterioration you'll notice over the next two years is listed as a rare side effect rather than a documented pattern affecting a meaningful percentage of patients. The trial that informed the prescription was funded by the manufacturer. Now it is today. Your doctor has new guidelines. New studies. New consensus. He is confident. He has always been confident. The confidence has never been the problem. The confidence is, in fact, precisely the problem.

Stanford paid 35,000 people to quit Facebook and Instagram for 6 weeks Depression dropped. Anxiety dropped. Happiness went up. Women under 25 on Instagram saw the biggest gains That was 6 weeks. I'm going a full year.