Beating the Odds

Posted by Jeff Carter
on October 28th, 2012

University of Chicago. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you didn’t catch this weekend interview in the WSJ, I thought I might link to it here. It touches on various themes we have espoused on in this blog.

Rex Sinquefield is an index fund pioneer, a classical liberal, and thinks that our government is too big. After making money proving out Eugene Fama’s theories, he is turning his attention to other things. He is putting his money where his mouth is and donating to political candidates that can carry out the dismantling of government, and increase opportunities for entrepreneurs.

I agree with a lot of what he says in this interview. Republicans are more small government/free market than Democrats. The Democratic party as presently structured, are just big government union hacks.

“Mr. Sinquefield has backed at least a dozen other candidates in the 2012 campaign—mostly, but not exclusively, Republicans. Democrats can get a check if they’re tax cutters who favor education reform or free markets.”

He wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

“His father died when he was 5 years old, leaving the family destitute. He and his brother were reared in a local Catholic orphanage until they were teenagers, when they returned to live with their mother. Mr. Sinquefield went to St. Louis University and took some economics courses, but says “it was all a waste. Keynesian crap.”

Sinquefield believes there should be a free market in education.

Citing Milton Friedman, Mr. Sinquefield says: “In every business, in every industry, consumers have almost complete choice, except for the one that’s most important, which is education.”

It’s a great interview from a person that thinks a lot like myself. We both went to the University of Chicago for our MBA‘s and actually learned something. I find a lot of folks go to Chicago, trot out their “Chicago MBA” credentials to give the illusion that they have internalized the Chicago School of Economics into their DNA-but they don’t really believe it. Sinquefield put his money where his belief was back in 1973 and reaped rewards for it.

Metaphor for Big Government

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