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.
Other notable events of 1965
•Penzias & Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background, confirming the Big Bang and providing me with a lifetime sinecure.
•Roger Penrose proved gravitational singularities in general relativity.
•Feynman, Schwinger & Tomonaga won the Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum electrodynamics (QED).
•Cooley & Tukey introduced the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), transforming computational mathematics.
•Kenneth Iverson published A Programming Language (APL), pioneering array-based computation.
•Robert Woodward received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for complex organic synthesis.
•Jacob, Monod & Lwoff earned the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discoveries on genetic regulation.
•Gordon Moore formulated Moore’s Law, predicting exponential transistor scaling.
•Donald Davies & Paul Baran developed packet switching, foundational for the Internet.
•Intelsat I (Early Bird) became the first commercial communications satellite.
•Solow, Leontief, Nash, Harsanyi & Selten advanced quantitative economics and equilibrium theory.
•Wilson & Vine-Matthews confirmed plate tectonics via seafloor magnetic patterns.
Here is @DrShannaSwan one of the worlds leading researchers on endocrine disruptors, explaining why you don’t want to heat up food or drink in plastic, includes microwaving but also bottled water just left in a car. Keep in mind this is based on her federally funded research.
With people across virtually the entire ideological spectrum being offended by inequalities and their consequences, why do these inequalities persist? Why are we not all united in determination to put an end to them?
Perhaps the most cogent explanation was that offered by Milton Friedman:
A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.
Super Sky Point to James Earl Jones, whose baritone of gravitas elevated every film he was in. He’ll be remembered most widely for giving voice to Darth Vader but, for me, he’ll eternally be telling a troubled Iowa farmer why the people will come. #RIP
Heartache to hear of the passing of Chuck Lynn. A huge supporter of Franklin Central HS, he was best known as a newspaper guy at @IMS. He never let physical limitation damper his spirit & drive.
Chuck defined what makes the Speedway what it is. He was part of its fabric
Ann Landers easily explains the differences between socialism, Communism and Capitalism in a very simple form, using 2 cows 🐄 as an example!
Worth the read below! 👇 🤣
I'm 38.
When I was young I worshipped politics, went woke (broke) & believed in the myth of equality.
Then I discovered Thomas Sowell, and he changed my life forever.
12 lessons from America's most controversial & unknown philosopher:
One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. Do we need to keep repeating the same mistakes forever?
A “GET A ROOM” theory of political Schelling point polarization.
What I think I learned from this poll:
A) The pure Pro-Life and Pro-Choice positions (I.e. “Life begins at conception” vs “my body, my choice”) with their perfect clarity, were only held by 1/3 of respondents when lumped together.
B) The 2/3 of respondents whose position on abortion changes as the fertilized egg develops into a baby are mostly cowed into silence in the comments by the perfect clarity held by the minority.
C) Those respondents who believed that a fertilized egg and a baby about to be born have equal rights, discourage and inhibit (both intentionally and passively) the pure abortion rights and the “things change over pregnancy” respondents from joining the conversation.
D) This mirrors my experience. I am in the 2/3 group and am forced to caucus with the “My body, my choice. Full stop” crowd who do not represent my position in the slightest.
E) This feels almost EXACTLY the same as every other polarizing issue:
Immigration
Firearms
Ukraine
Gaza
Gender
J6
Religious terror
Democracy
Free markets
Taxation
Crypto
Vaccination
Free speech
Redistribution
Science, TheScience, Pseudo-Science
Etc
In all of these there are clear positions that likely do not attract the majority, but where the majority is forced to caucus with the clear position that at least vaguely more resembles their own.
This reinterprets Yeats:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Here it is the clear and not the worst that are full of passionate intensity, because they have a “Schelling Point”
Those of us with inferior Schelling points can admit that openly. My position on abortion for example depends on embryology and situational context. That is not as good of a Schelling point as conception or birth. I admit that.
But the quality of my Schelling point is not the quality of my position. I think I have a superior position at my inferior Schelling point than either pro-life or pro-choice.
My dream is that those with perfect Schelling points should have one conversation and the rest of us should have another. Otherwise we never get to the debates that would depolarize us.
So just as I say to the “Open Borders” vs “Closed Borders” people or the “Ban all guns” vs “Personal Nukes at Walmart”: get a room kids.
We need to split these conversations apart. I don’t want to caucus and discuss with pure pro-choice, open borders, and All weapons in private hands groups anymore. I want to cede the clarity arguments. “Your Schelling point wins…congratulations. It is better than mine.”
So that is it. I think I’ve had it with clarity.
MORAL: those with the clearest Schelling points need to get a room and have one debate, so that the rest of us with less clarity can book a stadium and have a second discussion. But we need to stop mixing up the two explorations.
This wasn’t about abortion after all. It was about political clarity: its benefits, its dangers and its inability to represent the majority of us who lack it.
Thanks for your time. As always. 🙏
Have you ever heard of Project Mockingbird? @BretWeinstein explains how the deep state used Mainstream Media to control and propagandize the population.
They never counted on @joerogan@scrowder@megynkelly@dbongino etc., breaking the narrative using alternative media.
This video is a vaccine. It works against a dangerous mind-virus that was secretly produced in the course of psychological weapons research. This vaccine has not been tested against a placebo, but it contains no metals, and does not circulate in the blood. The immunity it induces is broadly applicable and in most people will last through numerous election cycles--without the need for boosters. You should watch it no matter who you plan to vote for.