The Wednesday Letter #229 - 7/17/2024

THIS WEEK: Political Assassinations; 'What if' History; Interest Rates, Gold, Gold Miners; China Pulls the Plug on Luxury; Marcus Aurelius to the Candidates.

POLITICAL ASSASSINATIONS

After the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe in July 2022, we had written in TWL #124 about a possible rise in political assassinations:

The 2020s are looking increasingly like the 1970s: inflation, soaring energy prices, a new Cold War, coups d’état, a Democratic President with low ratings etc. With the shocking killing of former Japan prime minister Shinzo Abe, we can now add political assassinations to the grim list of similarities. Although Americans remember the 1960s as the decade of assassinations (John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy), the biggest global tally of top political executive – the king, president or prime minister – assassinations was in the 1970s [chart], a period of decolonization and of high Cold War tensions... Unfortunately, it is probable that we will see other assassination attempts this year, here or overseas… It is clear that public figures of all types need more security in these tense times.

In a…