Turns out the “or else” involves getting shit on, every time! As Capitalism and its markets take no prisoners. I ran across this statue of a famous Scotsman on my recent trip into the city of Edinburgh. Such a fun city to visit, tons of historical things to explore and fun people. As I rolled into town I noticed the poor guy was about to get his head covered in bird doo, and that’s never a good thing. I thought I might snap this photo as living proof that one must keep moving forward [in life]. Here is proof that standing still every hour of every minute for decades does a body no good. The bottom line is you and I are living a life in which not much is guaranteed. What can be guaranteed is that by keeping a steady pace forward will make it less likely that you and I fall victim to doo-doo being dropped onto our heads?… or some similar fate.

[Please never immortalize me with a statue, instead leave all the immortalization to me, okay? I know I’m great and all but no – Just No! LMAO!]

All this before I even knew who this statue’s likeness belonged to, one Adam Smith who passed away in 1790. [Maybe if the sculptor had thought about having Adam holding an umbrella over his head, maybe then things would be different?] Enough of that, let’s discuss the achievements of Adam Smith. He was a scholar, the pioneer and founder of the field of Economics as a scholastic discipline. He published two important works, the second one “The Wealth of Nations”, is a book in which former Federal Reserve Governor, Alan Greenspan, referred to as “one of the greatest achievements in human intellectual history”. In this book Adam Smith first describes the concept of capital market influences without the need to coin the term “laissez faire” but implying it with his [very controversial at the time] view that government intervention in ‘for profit” pursuits should be minimized in order to achieve true demand and supply equilibrium.

We’re talking about the guy that quantified “Capitalism” as key to pursuing a profit way before it had ever been thought of. And what happened next? He was chastised and considered an extremist for his views. It would be a century or more later before his ideas were given credence. Free-markets capitalism built the United States economy from the ground up, all modeled after this Scotsman’s notions. Smith’s model of Capitalism was the precursor to the spread of free and open market economies around the world. As you will see though, a new world order has these free market practices all in shrink mode today.

I would like to re-visit a theme I discovered here and from this timely photo. Knowing all along that Socialism is Enemy No. 1 of Capitalism – Socialism destroys Capitalism in every sense and in every case. With this in mind, have you noticed what has been going on for the past 5 to 10 years inside Western Europe as well as these United States? You guessed it, a major push toward Socialism. One can point to a laundry list of these governments over-spending, over-taxing, and over-regulating individuals and business enterprises; all moves which are “Socialism” at its finest. I feel as if Adam Smith was sending me a personal message that day, the very moment I arrived into his beautiful city of Edinburgh. Me, a guy that had studied Economics and Capital Markets at the graduate level and built a career from it had to watch as one of its most famous citizens, we’re talking about the man who defined the virtues of Capitalism operating inside free and open markets, was about to get shit on. Indeed he was and still is. Mr. Smith your message to me has come over loud and clear! I’ll do all I can to help us return to the virtues of Capitalism but as you know we are greatly outnumbered these days, and around the world. 🙁