"What Would RFK Jr. Think of His Late Friend, Eric Breindel, Who Moved Rightward Toward Glory?" is the headline over my latest piece for the New York Sun. It reports on the friendship between Eric Breindel, who was the editor of the New York Post's editorial page, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is now running for president. Please check out the piece in full over at the New York Sun if you are interested in this sort of thing.

Israel's former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, says capitalism may be part of the solution to Israel's internal strife. In a talk on Martha's Vineyard, he proposed changing the law exempting yeshiva students from military service so that the students are no longer required to remain in religious seminaries until they are 26. "I bet you 85 percent of them will leave," Bennett predicted, painting a picture of charedim "becoming capitalist, enjoying life." Then, "they're going to start asking, why can't our kids go in the army?" I have a full report on this event over at the Algemeiner.

Anyone doubting that free markets have enemies on the right as well as on the left might check out the essay by Oren Cass in the Financial Times. Cass, a former Romney presidential campaign aide who has a group, American Compass, working on reinventing conservative economic policy, writes: "Unnecessary tax cuts fuelled deficits rather than growth. Lax regulation invited a global financial crisis that led to a great recession."

He says, "Market fundamentalism has little to say about the economic challenges of the 21st century...the old right's market-based dogmas bear a substantial portion of the blame for the destabilisation."

A constellation of conservative policy intellectuals have unveiled a statement of principles outlining what they call "Freedom Conservatism."

Much of it seems fairly unobjectionable verging on platitudinous. I have a few quibbles. The reference to "the distinctive creed that made America great: that individual liberty is essential to the moral and physical strength of the nation" is wrong on two counts, at least. That isn't the distinctive creed that made America great, and putting it that way instrumentalizes liberty (as a means to the goal of national strength) when in fact the better way to look at it is that a strong nation is one that advances the inherently worthwhile goal of preserving God-given liberties, or natural rights. In fact, God, religion, and the creator referred to in the Declaration of Independence are all absent from "Freedom Conservatism."

The Athletic has an interview with Boston Celtics forward Grant Williams about his decision to move to the Dallas Mavericks: "In Boston, it's really like $48 million with the millionaire's tax, so $54 million in Dallas is really like $58 million in Boston and $63 million in L.A."

The Boston Herald noticed this and headlined it "Millionaire's Tax helped push Celtic forward to Dallas Mavericks."

The White House transcripts of two Biden speeches yesterday indicate that the president is a little confused.

From the big "Bidenomics" speech: "the shame [sic] of working-age Americans in the workforce — the share of them — the share of them is the highest it's been in 20 years." And "today, with the help from the Inflection [sic] Reduction Act — Inflation Reduction Act."

From a talk at a Chicago fundraiser: "We stripped the dignity and pride and hope of one community after another all across America, particularly from Western Pennsylvania and going through the Middle East — I mean, through the middle of the country and down south." ...

More from the big Bidenomics speech, with the strikethroughs and brackets from the White House:

From President Biden's remarks at a campaign reception yesterday afternoon in Chicago: "I'm a capitalist. If you can go out and make a million or a billion dollars, it's good by me, as long as you just pay your fair share in taxes — not exorbitant, not like the old days, but the top tax rate in the 30 percent range."

He made a similar comment later in the speech: "I'm a capitalist. You can go out and make millions and billions of dollars. Have at it. It helps. But guess what? You got to pay a little bit."

It's nice to see Biden publicly embracing capitalism. It's a contrast with the Bernie Sanders "every billionaire is a policy failure" message that has gained some traction among the Democrats.

An editorial fellow at the New York Times opinion section, Romaissaa Benzizoune, writes:

In a world where only the privileged have the freedom to organize their time, the celebration of a floating holiday becomes a mini-rebellion.

Religion means many different things to many different people, but for me, that view resonates with some bigger subversive — if not straight-up anticapitalist — ideas in Islam as a whole. Take the mandate to pay a percentage of your earnings every year to those in need. It's a great reminder that whoever dies with the most toys does not, in fact, win. Also, many Muslims believe that charging or receiving interest is haram, or forbidden.

McKinsey, which has been the subject of an ongoing series of New York Times investigative pieces and a critical book by Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe about the consulting firm's work for opioid manufacturers, polluters, "Big Tobacco," and South Africa, is advertising a job posting for "ethics specialist, allegations management."

Qualifications include "Exhibit highest levels of discretion and judgment in safeguarding confidential materials" and "agile and comfortable dealing with ambiguity."

Here at FutureOfCapitalism the ethics are handled by the editor himself without any specialists.

Back on June 7, when Sequoia Capital announced that it was splitting off its China business, I wrote, "This is an intriguing approach that could set a pattern for other companies. Imagine if Apple, or Tesla, or General Motors, or JPMorgan Chase, split their China businesses off separately, allowing people who want to invest in China to do that, and allowing people who don't want to invest in China a chance to sell, or pass. Let the market put a price on the risk of operating in a Communist Party-run place without strong property rights or rule of law."

With voters and the Fed worried about inflation, it's worth understanding what it actually is, and how the government measures it. The flaws and limitations of the commonly used measures are the topic of my column this week. Please check out the full column at Newsmax ("Who is Hermann Paasche? Why Some Don't Want You To Know") and at the New York Sun ("Why Jerome Powell and the Public-Employee Unions Would Rather You Not Know About This Economist.")

Via the Substack-based site Public, an article by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag reports:

Sources within the US government say that three of the earliest people to become infected with SARS-CoV-2 were Ben Hu, Yu Ping, and Yan Zhu. All were members of the Wuhan lab suspected to have leaked the pandemic virus.

As such, not only do we know there were WIV scientists who had developed COVID-19-like illnesses in November 2019, but also that they were working with the closest relatives of SARS-CoV-2, and inserting gain-of-function features unique to it.

Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi, most recently of Paris and Barcelona, is going to play for a team in Miami, Florida. It's possible he might have made and kept more money by playing in Saudi Arabia, but after taking family and personal considerations into account, it looks like Miami won out, perhaps in part because of similar considerations (including zero state income tax) that have helped to attract Billy Joel, Tom Brady, Carl Icahn, Leon Cooperman, Paul Tudor Jones, and Ken Griffin, among other star talents. It is a pattern!

Sequoia Capital announced that it is splitting in three: "We will move to completely independent partnerships and become distinct firms with separate brands no later than March 31, 2024." The Sequoia China business will "adopt the name HongShan in English." The US/Europe venture capital business will continue to be known as Sequoia Capital. And the India/Southeast Asia business will become Peak XV Partners.

This is an intriguing approach that could set a pattern for other companies. Imagine if Apple, or Tesla, or General Motors, or JPMorgan Chase, split their China businesses off separately, allowing people who want to invest in China to do that, and allowing people who don't want to invest in China a chance to sell, or pass. Let the market put a price on the risk of operating in a Communist Party-run place without strong property rights or rule of law.

Donald Trump has issued a new video suggesting, without evidence, that "Big Pharma" may be responsible for "an unexplained and alarming growth in the prevalence of chronic illnesses and health problems, especially in children."

"We've seen a stunning rise in autism, auto-immune disorders, obesity, infertility, serious allergies, and respiratory challenges," Trump says in the video. "Is it the food that they eat? The environment that we live in? The over-prescription of certain medications? Is it the toxins and chemicals that are present in our homes?"

"Every year, we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to treat these chronic problems rather than looking at what is causing them in the first place," Trump says in the video. "Too often, our public health establishment is too close to Big Pharma—they make a lot of money, Big Pharma—big corporations, and other special interests, and does not want to ask the tough questions about what is happening to our children's health. If Big Pharma defrauds American patients and taxpayers or puts profits above people, they must be investigated and held accountable."