Sound Money Moicano
And UFC 300 Prelims
parabens (congratulations) and obrigado (thank you), Renato ‘Money’ Moicano. You have found a way to make your money more likely worth more in the here-and-now, and have begun taking serious steps toward a post-prizefighting career as an economics and political pundit.
Mans was on the Early Prelims of the now legendary UFC 300 event. There have now been 300 mixed-martial arts events in the premier league of prize-fighting since November 1993; when my then 12 years old Prof. Ryron Gracie mopped up the blood between fights. The audience at home was so-appalled by this that his father Prof. Rorion Gracie never let him do that again.
At the end of the Early Prelims, the lightweight Moicano made a heavyweight statement, “If you care about your country, read Ludwig Von Mises' 6 lessons of the Austrian Economics School, motherfuckers.” He was referencing, on-the-fly, and translating, the title of the Brazilian Portuguese version of economist Ludwig von Mises’ Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow; which has benefited from record downloads from the venerable Mises Institute. “These chapters were originally delivered as lectures in Argentina in 1959, at the University of Buenos Aires, and later written up in prose.” They cover: capitalism, socialism, interventionism, inflation, foreign investment, and politics and ideas.
This 15 mins of fame has led to another viral moment on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour, a FOX Business appearance, and a planned podcast episode with the omnipresent comedian and political pundit Dave Smith.
F.A. Hayek, the more palatable (I was taught him in my upper level Political Science courses during undergraduate studies) student of Mises, or Mises-lite, won the Nobel Prize in Economics the year after his master Mises died. This was a mistake, but not an accident. That’s fine. Posthumous vindication beats vindication in the flesh. It keeps us more down-to-earth, where we belong, as God-nostril-breathed dust of the ground. Levantine economist Saifedean Ammous pointed out the temporary job security fiat currency propagandists vie for versus the immortality of Mises; haunting us even now, from beyond the grave, fifty one years later.
In my most watched and downloaded episode of the Philosophy of Art and Science, POAAS 3 (June 2020), I mentioned that I was an Austrian economist but open to the J.R.R. Tolkien twosome of anarchy (not whiskered men with bombs) and 'unconstitutional' monarchy. This is because as Walter ‘The Moderate’ Block says, Austro-libertarianism, the fusion of Austrian Economics and libertarianism, highly correlates, but there is no causal link. Austrian Economics is descriptive. Libertarianism, of various shapes and stripes, is prescriptive.
I had a fascination then, as I do now, and have had since 2014, with the 100 million Zomians (i.e. Hmong, Dega/Montagnard) who intentionally rejected writing in order to reject the tax-gatherer, across several East Asian nation-states in the 20th Century. See James C. Scott’s oeuvre. And yet, the clear pills of my pusher Curtis Yarvin, the U.S. race riots of 2020, and civil unrest that led to civil war in Ethiopia, all made me go back to an argument I had heard Milton Friedman’s son David Friedman make many moons ago.
Nature abhors a vacuum. Big states eat smaller states when smaller states can no longer defend themselves. Or as BAP and the icecold lips of history would say, might makes right. The development of security which arises out of agriculture and writing that allow tax-gathering and building up of fortifications and research and development into military technology sets peoples apart. “If you’re not first, you’re last” (Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby). This is how I moved from left to right (as defined in the 18th Century French Assembly), without changing my views on economics.
You can be an Austrian and an anarcho-capitalist. You can be an Austrian and a monarchist. You can be an Austrian and a conservative. You can be an Austrian and a progressive (although, why?). Whatever Moicano’s prescriptive politics are, and with the glimpse we got it looks dispositionally good, I am glad that he spread his descriptive view of the world to millions of people in the spotlight of the UFC.
Again, Moicano fought on the Early Prelims. But let’s briefly discuss the Prelims themselves, enough of the chattering class have commented upon the Main Card already.
Diego Lopes had a quick and savage KO/TKO finish of Sodiq Yussuf. Aljamain Sterling had a tactical but boring grapple-heavy, without striving for a submission or a knockout, decision victory over the very dangerous striker Calvin Kattar. I give Aljo a pass on this one as he was coming up a weight class, but he still walks around at twenty pounds heavier, so I expected more will to kill. The more technical Aleksandar Rakić abandoned all technique to trade blow-for-blow with the ronin Jiří Procházka (no relation AFAIK to Roman Prochazka, writer of Abyssinia:The Powder Barrel and thus intellectual godfather of the TPLF and the Prosperity Gospel Party of Ethiopia).
But if you know me, you know I was most excited to tune in to 2x Olympic Gold medalist judoist and PFL champion Kayla Harrison’s first bout in the UFC. Like many of the matches, and though everyone trains everything, this match was fundamentally a grappler versus a striker. What made this special is that her opponent Holly Holm is the one who ended Kayla’s mentor and also Olympic Bronze medalist judoist Ronda Rousey’s fighting career with a devastating KO. What’s more, Kayla had been accustomed to fighting about twenty pounds heavier, so she had a mean weight cut down to 135 lbs.
Still she got it done. She showed that submission grappling beats striking 9 times out of 10. The one time striking wins is with a low-percentage critical-strike. She traded some punches early on with Holly, before setting up a high-kick that landed, and immediately going into a double-leg takedown (forbidden since 2010 in sports judo). Holly valiantly reversed Kayla on the ground once, and even forced an offensive clinch or two, but to no avail. This is Kayla’s bread-and-butter. From the clinch, after kuzushi (breaking-balance and collapsing composure), Kayla did a clean harai-goshi (hip-sweep), quickly mounted Holly, then finished her with the highest percentage submission in the UFC, hadaka-jime (the rear-naked strangle). Classic and classy.
Yes. Judo works for self-defense. In the streets, judo has an even greater advantage than in the octagon. Myriad rules artificially prop-up striking (as they have since UFC 6): rounds, gloves, and wraps. Rounds by interfering with the added time it takes to set up grappling submissions. Gloves and wraps by keeping hands from breaking quicker. And judo keeps you fit. And, on average, it is about $100 a month cheaper than it’s little bro Brazilian jujitsu.
But as Jeff said, train and read. And as Moicano said, let’s keep our money sound. Inflation is the enemy of the poor and the needy.