PROGRESSIVE CLIFF NOTES

Cliff Asness, head of the quant hedge fund AQR, has been known to be a vocal opponent of various failed governmental policies in the past few years. Today, he has shared his “dictionary” (of “humorous” persuasion as he himself notes, with definitions “written sarcastically as a faux left-winger, some just conservative/libertarian interpretations of what the left really means.”) of the key terms dominant in Progressive America right now. In a world in which other people’s money has pretty much run out, and ahead of a rather historic Supreme Court ruling tomorrow, we believe some of these are quite relevant.

Some Useful Definitions to Understand Our Modern Progressive World

Failed Policies of the Past

Definition: Limited government, free markets, personal responsibility, liberty.

We Are All In This Together

Definition: For the love of God who do we tax back to the stone-age to get out of this!?

Social Darwinism

Definition: Essentially a darling concept of the progressive left of the first half of the 20th century (along with eugenics its even more vile cousin). It now is defined as “any attempt by conservatives and libertarians to rein in the unsustainable spending of out of control government.”

Fairness

Definition: A word used to motivate making sure outcomes do not match abilities or effort. Note, pre-1970 it meant roughly the opposite.

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