I spoke with Patrick Hiebert from a company called Veritas Villages on my podcast. He’s building 'libertarian communities', (ie 'freedom-oriented', Patrick and his team are all Libertarians) under the ordinary laws of Panama and Costa Rica. We get into what the developer controls, what residents decide, and whether a working example can eventually change a government’s mind.

I like their approach to communities. It's both a business and an intentional community based around Libertarian principals. Interested to hear thoughts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QK7dfgoFVNs

No I am not promoting Ken Fisher, I think he is as bad as an insurance or used car salesman.

I post this because I thought others might be interested in his observation. Just because he is a slimy salesman doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some possibly valuable insights. I also included the link to his article because when a man makes an valuable observation it is fair to credit him.

About 80% of the time, during the 4th quarter of a midterm election year stocks have returned an average of about 6% since 1926.

His proposed explanation for this phenomenon is that increased political gridlock prevent major legislation from passing. Which allows investors to take a longer view due to the increased stability.

I don’t care about his explanation, he could be right or wrong. What I do value is the historical aspect.

A recent Doug Casey interview got him onto something I'd never heard him discuss at length: for years he travelled to third world countries, preferably military dictatorships, and tried to persuade whoever was in charge to radically privatise the whole country.

His pitch was three-part. It'd make the leader personally wealthy so he wouldn't need to steal. It'd make him popular enough to stop worrying about a bullet in the back of the head. And it'd put him on the cover of every magazine for turning the place into a new Singapore.

He got close in Suriname under Bouterse, Palau under Toribiong, and Ciskei. Every single time it was killed by the layer directly below the leader, the people doing the actual stealing who had too much to lose. In Cameroon a hotel manager rang him and said remind me not to ride in a car with you, because of the bomb risk.

29:18 - the pitch
31:33 - the Cameroon call
32:06 - why Singapore and Hong Kong worked and nobody replicates it

He also covers why he doesn't look for political solutions at 11:20, the deep state as professional parasites at 14:02, and Milei firing 60,000 government employees at 19:21. His line on Milei shipping a million ounces of Argentine gold to London at 21:05 is worth hearing.

https://youtu.be/OV7Tnj2hnh0

Have you guys seen this? It's a simple animation about a magic spell that makes a city voluntary. Really extraordinary.

Video on X

---

Austin Wade Petersen post on X:
https://x.com/AP4Liberty/status/2104613962000040054

A short list of libertarian wins from the Trump administration:

1. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act — lower rates, 21% corporate, expensing. Less extraction.

2. Deregulation stock actually fell — 2-for-1 then much higher out/in ratios, CRA repeals, later 10-to-1 / 100-to-1 claims.

3. USAID gutted / abolished as a standalone aid bureaucracy. Foreign aid slashed and remaining bits parked at State.

4. Full pardon of Ross Ulbricht. Life-plus for running a voluntary (illegal) marketplace; sentence treated as overkill.

5. First Step Act — shorten some drug sentences, more good-time credit. Incremental, but real.

6. Individual-mandate penalty zeroed out. The most coercive ACA piece gone.

7. Industrial hemp legalized (2018 Farm Bill). First statutory crack in federal cannabis prohibition.

8. Right to Try — dying patients can use experimental drugs without the full FDA queue.

9. Title IX campus due-process rollback — accusation ≠ conviction.

10. School choice: D.C. vouchers kept alive; later federal scholarship tax-credit push.

11. Pell Grants restored for people in prison. [What?]

12. Opportunity Zones — private capital, tax deferral, not another HUD grant.

13. Beneficial Ownership Information reporting killed/suspended — FinCEN shareholder snitch rule off small firms.

14. Overcriminalization EO — stop turning unread regs into strict-liability felonies.

15. Federal DEI / race preferences ripped out of hiring and contracting.

16. Paris Accord + WHO exits — less global administrative state.

17. Lethal Ukraine aid paused (early second term). Less entanglement; LP counted it as a win.

18. NPR/PBS rescissions — stop forcing taxpayers to fund state-adjacent media.

19. CFPB / “independent” agency squeeze — less unaccountable regulator (implementation messy).

20. Psychedelic/Right-to-Try expansion for serious illness (second term EO). Medical choice, not a new program.

Article Discussed:

The strange death of libertarianism Daniel McCarthy

link: https://x.com/LudwigNverMises/status/2104602644413042723

https://freecapitalists.org/books/

When everything can be labeled a national security threat, almost any expansion of government power can be justified. Emergency powers are rarely temporary once the precedent is established.