Pro Commerce

Tractate New Land

I seem to be chosen to write this tractate.  ‘Chosen’ in the meaning of Torah is not chosen for some benefit; it is chosen for a responsibility unique to the chosen.  

I have three insights, based on experience, that have led to my being chosen.  

• The first is my lifetime of connection to the new land of Israel and 
• Second, my experiences that have brought me to an understanding of the nature of modern commerce.
• The third is my discovery that primates, of which humans are a subset, are rarely able to learn new material after they reach adulthood.  This last relates to the reason Moses’s children had to wander in the desert for 40 years; they were the first generation and could not appreciate the new God. For the same reason, the current generation has already stopped learning -- there is plenty of time for this tractate to reach its younger audience.

There are now two major clusters of Jews: Israelis who generally understand at a gut level the message of this tractate, and the diaspora, mostly Americans, who are attached to an outdated and erroneous socialist worldview.  Both clusters have small components of the other.

There are three great prophets of the New Land. One and two are  the team of Milton and Rose Friedman. The other is Bibi Netanyahu.

Our nation (Jews) has a tradition for rebellion. military and intellectual, and we are also the first nation founded on the core belief in the individual. We celebrate the Maccabees and the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.  At the same time our Ten Commandments are commands to each individual. Our teaching tradition from Hillel and Shammai to this day is one of individual freedom of thought.

Our New Land grows out of our individual freedom.  All of history is filled with an hereditary upper class and a social structure that ignored and suppressed individual freedom. Without recognizing unique individuals there is no possibility of meritocracy.   The first great period of individual freedom and meritocracy came for the children of the hereditary class of England who escaped to live abroad in the Empire. It was in the early 1800s that technology and labor components came together with these free English individuals to create the beginnings of modern commerce.  It was later in the Great Western migration in America where individual freedom and meritocracy flourished that innovation in commerce erupted. Finally, the powerful forces of modern commerce were unleashed in post-WWII America where the hereditary elite fell apart. The same time that Milton and Rose Friedman published Capitalism and Freedom.

Modern commerce brought the end of hunger, the bounties of good health and truly unshackled individual genius.

The Israel I lived in in the late 1950s was a socialist utopia governed by labor unions and oppressive East European style government. Israel had no future. Bibi Netanyahu brought the values of modern commerce to our nation in the late 1990s.

Today we Americans and Israelis live in the most prosperous of times with the greatest levels of individual freedom. This is due to the miracle of modern commerce. Free markets, meritocracy, diverse societies without hereditary elites and widespread aversion to government controls.

That is the New Land for which our nation shall become the loyal champions and proponents in the future.

Kafka Trap

Calling a person a name such as ‘racist’, ‘homophobe’, ‘misogynist’, ‘xenophobe’ or anything in this domain is dishonest and vicious.  There is no defense against such name calling.

Which is why I call this category of name calling a Kafka Trap.  This terminology comes from my son; thanks Scott.  

The reference to Kafka comes from his books: The Metamorphosis and The Trial. 

Kafka is one of history’s most brilliant literary figures.  He was able to write novels in which the hero is tortured without knowing who his oppressor is nor why he is being tortured.  

That is a Kafka Trap.  The very same situation faced by anyone who is called one of the generic accusations.  There is no way to rebut such an accusation.

My son was in a unique position to think about this issue. His father, me, was called a ‘racist’ by an acquaintance of his. He found it impossible to rebut this charge despite the fact that I brought the first and most important and successful lawsuit in America to create managerial jobs for blacks, women and Hispanics. I did it with no benefit to myself and some serious occupational pain.

It is a great term for a despicable accusation. A Kafka Trap.

My two portfolios

The first is called global commerce.

The Internet is based on a few companies that are the fundamental operating Internet source of every major global corporation. When the world of commerce is thriving these companies are the primary beneficiaries, now and into the foreseeable future.

These are Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce and Adobe.  All listed on American stock exchanges.

The second is called anti-green.

The energy consumption of the world is growing at 3-4% a year.  Only a tiny percentage of this growth can be supported with wind and solar power. The rest of the growth will have to come from oil, gas. nuclear and coal.  

There are many major companies that are in the production and distribution of these resources.  I have picked three. Phillips 66 is my choice of a diversified oil and gas company. Hitachi adr which partners with General Electric to construct and operate nuclear power is one of the few major companies in this field. Coal comes from many companies and half of the world supply comes from China, but my choice for the largest stock company is BHP-Billiton, also an adr on the American exchange.

The companies in my portfolio can change over time.  If you copy these portfolios, keep close track because companies change and stock market performance is never stable.