The Wealth Of Nations (1776)

1. “Division of Labor”
Yeah, Adam Smith says dividing labor increases productivity. Which explains why I’m broke—my labor’s been divided so many times there’s nothing left but me handing out resumes and emotional damage.

2. “Invisible Hand”
Adam Smith’s invisible hand is real. It reached into my pocket, took my dignity, and left me with a Subway punch card and a dream.

3. “Self-Interest”
Smith says self-interest drives the market. My self-interest once drove me to date an heiress for three weeks of NYC deli food. It also drove me straight into a therapist’s notes under “emotional parasite.”

4. “Capital Accumulation”
Capital accumulation? Buddy, I’ve been accumulating bounced checks and unopened credit card offers. I’m a wealth magnet—just for debt collectors.

5. “Merchants and Manufacturers”
Smith warned us about merchants colluding to keep prices high. Meanwhile I’m colluding with DoorDash drivers to sneak me expired sushi for half off.

6. “Moral Sentiments Crossover”
Smith also wrote about sympathy and morality. That’s nice. I sympathize with my landlord every month when I explain why Western Civilization needs me more than he needs a rent check.

7. “National Wealth”
Smith wanted to grow national wealth. I can’t even grow my crypto portfolio. I’m still holding the Dogecoin I bought at the top like it’s a patriotic duty.

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Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries

I love this new book.

1. “Industrial Policy” is my new pickup line.
I go to synagogue and tell the ladies: “I believe in protecting American industry. Want to vertically integrate over kugel?” It’s not working yet, but I think my policy just needs more tariffs.

2. America outsourced its manufacturing… like I outsourced my dignity.
In the ’80s we lost steel jobs to Japan. In the ’90s we lost microchips to Taiwan. In the 2000s, I lost my girlfriend to a guy with a working HVAC. It’s all part of the same decline!

3. I believe in economic nationalism—because nobody’s gonna offshore me.
Except emotionally. Every girl I’ve dated has emotionally offshored me to some finance bro in Tel Aviv or a Burning Man DJ in Silver Lake.

4. Marc Fasteau says we need to pick winning industries. I say: pick me, dammit!
I’m high value. I’m a legacy industry. I’ve been operating at a loss since 1997, but that’s just because I’m undercapitalized!

5. America doesn’t have an industrial policy. You know what I have instead? Vibes.
My vibe is: “emotionally unavailable but economically protectionist.” I’m trying to protect domestic production of serotonin. It’s not going well.

6. They talk about a national industrial strategy. I can’t even get a personal strategy.
Their goal is full employment. My goal is any employment. I once put down “thought leader” on a job application and they replied, “That’s cute.”

7. Industrial decline is real. I’ve lived it.
Once I had a big vision, a great haircut, and a 2004 Volvo with 160k miles. Now I’ve got back pain and a blog no one reads. My last job was being ghosted by girls who quote Walter Russell Mead.

8. Economic security is sexy.
You want to get girls back into traditional values? Give ’em a guy with a defined-benefit pension and a mortgage he didn’t inherit from his bubbe. That’s the real hero’s journey.

9. I told my rabbi I’m committed to reindustrializing America. He said, “Can you start by reindustrializing your life?”
Apparently wearing the same pants three days in a row isn’t a form of economic protest. Who knew?

10. These guys want “high-value industries.” Bro, I want to be a high-value industry.
I’ve got comparative advantage in Talmudic guilt, anti-woke rants, and making women uncomfortable by quoting Carl Schmitt on first dates. Why won’t Helen Andrews profile me?

11. They talk about “reshoring jobs.” I’m trying to reshore dignity.
I used to think I was just down on my luck. Now I realize I’m an abandoned textile mill in the Rust Belt—gutted, haunted, and full of pigeons.

12. The book says we need to invest in public goods. I am a public good!
I’m the kind of guy who’ll watch your kids, quote Tocqueville, and defend Western Civilization before breakfast. But can I get a date? No. All the girls want crypto bros or trauma doulas.

13. America’s got brain drain. I’ve got soul drain.
All my friends went to work in AI or defense contracting. I went into reading Leo Strauss in parking lots and asking if it’s too late for a heroic aristocracy.

14. “We need industrial champions,” says the book. I yell, “I volunteer as tribute!”
I’ll be the national champion for celibate traditionalism, moral panic, and economic revanchism. I just need a woman to overlook my vibes and my Google history.

15. The authors call for a new economic order. I’ve been ordering the same economy special for 20 years: Sad Boy with Side of Righteous Fury.
Nobody wants it. Not even Uber Eats. I tried rebranding as a “sovereigntist,” but Bumble said I looked too angry in my profile pic.

16. America has no strategy, no vision, no will to win. Just like me at speed dating.
Some guy with an Etsy brand of “artisanal solvents” is getting action while I’m ranting about the Chicago School and currency manipulation. No justice.

17. We’ve got too many MBA consultants and not enough machinists.
Same in dating: too many “polyamorous UX researchers” and not enough women who get turned on by trade policy and moral clarity. I want a partner in industrial nationalism, not another yoga witch who ghosted me after reading Righteous Victims.

18. America has abandoned the working class. So have most of my exes.
I’m the guy they date before they get serious about buying property. One called me a “life detour.” I said, “No, I’m a Jeffersonian interlude!”

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My Night Shift Is Unionized and They Hate My Day Shift

You ever feel like your brain’s a 24-hour Waffle House where the night shift’s just flinging hashbrowns at your dreams?

Heidi Priebe says there’s no such thing as self-sabotage. That’s comforting. Apparently, it’s just my shadow self trying to love me. Well then my shadow self is a sadistic ex-girlfriend with boundary issues. She “loves” me by making me late to shul, ghost job interviews, and binge kettle chips during fasts.

My day shift is like, “Let’s build a brand, rise in status, win back those girls who said ‘you’re not emotionally available enough for a second date.’”

But then the night shift rolls in, clocking in with a six-pack of abandonment trauma and says, “Let’s tank this stream, alienate your one viewer, and start a new podcast nobody asked for.”

It’s not sabotage—it’s just a lack of coordination. That’s what Heidi says. I say it’s the psychological equivalent of handing a raccoon a revolver and hoping for synergy.

She talks about the day shift being your conscious goals, and the night shift being your shadowy unconscious fears. In my case, the day shift is running a livestream about Jewish ethics, and the night shift is busy DM’ing girls “Hey, are you Shomer Negiah? Me neither.”

I realized my inner child doesn’t want success. My inner child wants an ice cream, a hug, and to hide under a weighted blanket while someone else files taxes. Meanwhile, my inner parent is like a cross between Jordan Peterson and a disappointed shul president—“Clean your room, fix your neuroses, and stop sexting emotionally unavailable women in different time zones.”

Every time I start rising in status, my shadow pipes up like, “Excuse me, do you have a permit for that healthy relationship?” Next thing you know, I’m dating someone because they remind me of my ex AND my therapist. Two-for-one trauma bonding.

And when I try to change, my system throws a tantrum. Like, “Whoa, you want to be loved AND stable? We weren’t consulted. The night shift needs to fill out a grievance form.”

Apparently, I don’t self-sabotage—I negotiate. I’m negotiating with parts of me that still think 2007 Luke was a role model. He had hair, hope, and three active restraining orders. But he also had… momentum.

So I’m learning to slow down. Integrate the voices. Let the night shift talk. But with limits. I let them decorate the break room. I don’t let them run HR.

Because at the end of the day—or night—I don’t want to fire my shadow. I want to unionize the whole mind. Make it work. Make peace between the livestreamer, the ex-blogger, the Torah student, and the emotionally hungry seven-year-old who just wants to be seen.

Also… I might need a nap.

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I Wanted To Be the Hero of the Bonnie Tyler Song—But All I Got Was This Lousy Livestream

I want to be the hero Bonnie Tyler sings about. You know, “I need a hero! I’m holding out for a hero till the morning light!” That’s me! Or… that’s who I want to be. What I am is a 59-year-old Jewish convert livestreaming about grooming gangs and Dennis Prager from a garage in a zip code that doesn’t even have an eruv.

I want to stop traffickers, groomers, satanic pedos, and anyone who tells me I’m “not emotionally safe to date.”

But I’m not built like that. I don’t have the jawline for vigilante work. I have the jawline for quoting Ernest Becker and crying to Air Supply. That’s why I loved that Helen Andrews piece. That’s the kind of story I want told about me someday:

“Luke Ford once lived in a car in Beverly Hills. Today, he’s a national hero. He stopped a grooming gang and got three Shabbos invites in one weekend.”

Australia handled business. They saw a wave of gang rapes and said, “We’re not Britain. We’ll actually do something.” The cops formed a strike force. Politicians named names. Judges dropped double-digit sentences.

Meanwhile in America, we’re like, “Let’s have a public listening session with stakeholders from all communities before we address this problematic… series of diverse outcomes.”

Australia stopped the grooming gangs with territory, with prosecutions, and—let’s be honest—with testosterone. At Cronulla, a bunch of drunk bogans waving Aussie flags said, “This beach is ours.” Not ideal, not polite, but you know what? It worked. No more rape wave. You can say that’s racist. I say it’s effective zoning.

I want to be like that. But instead of taking territory, I’m asking women if I can eat their leftovers and livestream from their porch. My idea of dominance is sneaking my Village Voice singles ad past my girlfriend’s therapist.

You know what sucks about being me? I know the truth about power. I’ve read Stephen Turner. I know we live in Democracy 3.0, where elites use “expertise” to shut the rest of us up. And guess what? I’m not an expert. I don’t have a PhD, I’ve got a GED in feeling things deeply.

But I still want status. I want women chasing me like I’m the last piece of gluten-free kugel at an LA Shabbos dinner. I want to walk into a Chabad and have someone beg me to bench Gomel because I just returned from war.

Instead I get ghosted by baalot teshuva with good boundaries and podcasts.

I’m tired of being God’s suffering servant from Isaiah. I want to be David with a webcam. A man after God’s own algorithm. I want to walk through Crown Heights and have a lady whisper, “He’s emotionally regulated… and he’s read Becker.”

I’m not holding out for a hero. I’m auditioning to be one. And I’ll prove it—just as soon as I figure out how to fix the mic delay on my livestream.

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Liberal Democracy 3.0: My Society in an Age of Experts

1. Stephen Turner says we’ve shifted from democracy to expertocracy. I’m like—great! I’m perfectly unqualified. I can’t even program my remote. But I’ve got feelings, damn it. And some of them are almost rational.

2. We live in a system where only “experts” get heard. Meanwhile, I’m livestreaming to 37 people from a garage in Pico-Robertson, begging for a Shabbos invite like it’s a green card.

3. Turner says civil society is dying and being replaced by “commissions.” I say, replace me with a commission. At least a commission can afford valet parking at Young Israel.

4. I want to be part of the elite too—but I didn’t go to Harvard, I don’t have a trust fund, and my most valuable credential is a restraining order from a Modern Orthodox heiress who thought my Kierkegaard jokes were “destabilizing.”

5. I don’t have credentials. I have vibes. And in the age of Democracy 3.0, vibes don’t count unless you’re a tenured epidemiologist with a podcast and a Substack.

6. Stephen Turner says politics is no longer about justice or values—it’s about who controls the spreadsheets. I failed Algebra II. I’m not built for this system. I need a regime where charisma and a working knowledge of Isaiah get you laid.

7. Experts have monopolized legitimacy. Meanwhile, I’m just trying to borrow legitimacy from people who once met Dennis Prager. It’s not going well.

8. In Turner’s world, expert knowledge replaces discussion. So where does that leave me? I can’t get girls, money, or a kugel invite—but I can give you a detailed analysis of how cultural capital flows through second-tier shuls.

9. You know you’re not in the elite when you read Liberal Democracy 3.0 and realize—you’re not even Democracy 2.1 beta. You’re running on Windows Me, spiritually speaking.

10. I tried to build my own hero system, like Becker says. I called it Lukeism: a lonely man’s search for kavod through livestreaming, Torah quotes, and accidental celibacy. Didn’t catch on.

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