Adversity Blues

<p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> “That idea of hardships being good for character and of talent always being able to break through is an old fallacy. Talent alone is helpless today. Any success requires both talent and luck. And the “luck” has to be helped along and provided by someone. … Talent does not survive all obstacles. In fact, in the face of hardships, talent is the first one to perish; the rarest plants are usually the most fragile… Are talented people born with tough skins?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> Hardly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> In fact, the ore talent one possesses the more sensitive one is, as a rule.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> -Ayn Rand, 1936</p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">  </p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">We like to tell stories of how adversity makes us better.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> "That which does not kill me..."</p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">  </p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> But adversity makes us weaker.</p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">  </p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> America was less free after WW1 (Permanent income tax).<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> America was less free after WW2 (Taxation went from approx 5% of GDP before WW2 and approx 20% after.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> It's practically never been below 15% since.<span style= "mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span> JFK's assassination all but doomed us financially (LBJ, Dems unequivocally big govt).</p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">  </p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> Bad things proceed from bad things, good from good.</p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">  </p> <p style="margin: 0in; font-