Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition Issue #756
04/21/2023, 04/22/2023, 04/23/2023
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1) Another Lesson in Why You Should Never Give Money to Universities
Last week billionaire Ken Griffin, CEO of Citadel Capital, made a $300 million donation to Harvard - one of the largest gifts in the history of the school.
Ken Griffin speaking at Harvard
The editorial board of The Harvard Crimson attacked the gift warning it could, “produce undue influences,” and they worry that Harvard “condones his goals.” (Which goal? Making money?) The editorial complained that “naming a building after Griffin was a mistake.” (So you donate $300 million and all you’re allowed to get is a lousy tee shirt?)
Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth!
Even worse was this reaction from Theda R. Skocpol, a Harvard Sociology professor and former dean, who seethed:
“I am absolutely disgusted at the sale of the GSAS name to a multi billionaire who works in US politics today to undermine the foundations of liberal civil society, including free speech, and to eviscerate the essential trans partisan features of fully representative US democracy.”
Liberals are fuming that Griffin’s money is somehow tainted because the hedge fund giant is not doing enough to combat climate change, and, ye gads, he has even supported the left’s second least favorite Republican - Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
We are big fans of Ken Griffin and admire the business he has built. He has been a champion of free markets. But Griffin should have been smart enough to know that giving money to modern day universities (with a few exceptions) is about as productive as burning stacks of hundred dollar bills at a bonfire - and maybe less so. Harvard is sitting atop a $50 billion endowment, so donating to them is like giving a charitable donation to an Arab oil sheik.
Most colleges today are the incubators of dimwitted leftwing idea in America - from critical race theory to windmills. They are closing minds, not opening them.
So this is a plea to our readers. If you love our country: please don’t give a penny to colleges that are the enemy of freedom and free enterprise.
2) Another Reason People Are Leaving Blue Cities - They Are Unaffordable
A constant theme of the hotline is the mass rush for the exits out of blue cities from coast to coast - New York to Seattle. The big three factors are taxes, crime, and failing schools.
But now we can add a fourth: Cost of living. Take a look at this chart from the SmartAsset based on Labor Department and other sources. The ten HIGHEST cost of living cities are ALL run by Democrats and are ALL located in blue states. In some cases costs are twice as high as in cities in red states.
Taxes are a big factor but so are rent control and land use regulations (both of which reduce housing stock and drive up rents). At some point the cost of living will fall in places like San Francisco as more people move out and it starts to resemble Flint, Michigan and Bridgeport, Connecticut.
3) The NBA Star Who Heroically Refused to Go Woke
At The Heritage Foundation‘s 50 Year Anniversary celebration on Thursday, one surprise guest was human-rights hero Enes Kanter, who grew up in Turkey and became a star with the Boston Celtics.
Kanter ran afoul of the NBA’s “woke” culture in 2020 when he refused to embrace the league’s enthusiasm for the now-disgraced Black Lives Matter movement. He also began to speak out for human rights in Turkey, China, Hong Kong and other countries despite being warned not to do so by the NBA.
Before being dropped by the NBA, he even wore custom sneakers calling out the hypocrisy of Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, who while criticizing the U.S. record on race, cozied up to China to sell LeBron shirts and shoes. Kanter’s custom sneakers bore an illustration of LeBron bowing as Chinese leader Xi Jinping placed a crown on his head.
“I don’t think it should be a big deal to speak out against authoritarians in any country,” Kanter told the Heritage audience. “I feel liberated having done so, even though I paid a price for it.”
Now there is a superstar.
4) Hollywood Leftist Sean Penn Fights the Regulatory State
No one doubts actor Sean Penn’s leftist credentials. In 2013, he mourned the death of socialist dictator Hugo Chavez: “Poor people around the world lost a champion.” He added: “Venezuela and its revolution will endure under the proven leadership of vice president Nicolas Maduro (sic).”
Now Penn has confronting abusive government here in America and is singing a new song as the Biden administration’s National Labor Relations Board tries to shut down CARE, his charitable foundation.
In 2020, CARE turned Dodger Stadium in L.A. into a huge COVID testing site. After staffers complained about being overworked, Penn replied that he was trying to save lives and that those “predisposed to a culture of complaint, have a much simpler avenue than broad-based cyber whining. It’s called quitting.”
That prompted the NLRB into action because Penn was allegedly bullying his employees. Not so, ruled Lisa Ross, an Administrative Law Judge for the NLRB, who held that Penn’s letter shouldn’t be interpreted as a threat to the staff, but rather a “rallying cry for employees to focus on the larger mission of CORE, and if they cannot handle that, to voluntarily withdraw from Penn’s mission.”
But the latest chapter of this saga is that the NLRB’s general counsel is moving to appeal Ross’ ruling. Matthew Rosengart, Penn’s lawyer says the NLRB is showing “a clear abuse of prosecutorial discretion” and “abusive conduct.”
Welcome to the real world of regulatory overkill that strangles American small businesses ever day of the week and twice on Sunday. “Abusive conduct”
Is the regularly state’s normal course of action.
To his credit, Penn isn’t backing down and his lawyer says: “If that means taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, we would relish it.”
Who would have ever thought we’d be rooting for Sean Penn.
5) This Bud's for You!
CLARIFICATION: One of our readers points out that in our item on the Chicago mayoral election on Thursday, some parts of Lincoln Park did not go for Brandon Johnson, but for Paul Vallas.
