What Is Going On At The Manhattan Institute?

Fellows And Gals At The Manhattan Institute

The Manhattan Institute has been influential in shaping policies during Republican administrations, particularly in urban policy, criminal justice, and economic deregulation. Some figures associated with the Manhattan Institute include:

• Rudolph Giuliani (adopted its crime policies as NYC mayor)
• Thomas Sowell (economist and former fellow)
• Heather Mac Donald (author of The War on Cops, focuses on crime & policing)
• Christopher Rufo (arguably the most effective activist on the right in recent years)

Nevertheless, the Institute raised some eyebrows on the right last fall when it hired a woman who apparently had been both a liberal and a porn actress. 

The Institute raised eyebrows again this week, when one of its senior fellows, Brian Riedl, announced that he was now Jessica Riedl. 

Riedl wrote a blog post explaining his name change ("Yes, My Name has Changed...but my focus on center-right economic policy will continue"):

Hi everyone, well, this is awkward. I have always been comfortable presenting my economic research in meetings, speeches, national TV interviews, and Congressional testimony. Yet whenever the attention shifts from my research to me personally (even for praise), my social anxiety leaves me self-conscious, nervous, tongue-tied, and wanting to hide.

Unfortunately, this is one of those moments when I must briefly turn the attention to myself—if only to quickly (and just once) address the inevitable deluge of questions about my name changing from Brian Riedl to Jessica Riedl.

I’ve unmistakably known I was transgender since the age of 4. Medical scans and examinations have since confirmed my predominantly female brain biology, along with other biological characteristics that have countered my outwardly male appearance.

If you click on the hyperlink in "confirmed" above, it takes you to this video of Natalie Merchant's 1995 single "Wonder". 

Does It Matter If Your Fellow Thinks He's A Gal? 

Kamala Harris supporter Armand Domalewski argued it shouldn't...

But epistemology suggests otherwise. 

What would the great 17th Century Rationalist philosopher and mathematician, René Descartes, think about an institution that employed a man who said he was a woman? To avoid tripping any of ChatGPT4o's woke guardrails, we changed "woman" to "dog" in our question below: 

Descartes required an ontological guarantor to know he wasn’t being deceived. Let’s say a man at a think tank holds a clearly wrong belief—he thinks he’s a dog, for example—would it be fair to say that he performs the opposite function of a Cartesian ontological guarantor? What would you call that?

ChatGPT4o argued that employing such a man would effectively subvert the mission of the think tank: if the Institute can be honest about what he is, how would you know if they are being honest about anything else?: 

That’s an interesting inversion of Descartes' ontological guarantor. Descartes needed a perfectly benevolent and non-deceptive God to ensure that his clear and distinct perceptions were trustworthy. In contrast, a man at a think tank who holds an obviously false belief—such as thinking he is a dog—would be the opposite: instead of guaranteeing truth, he would serve as a guarantor of epistemic unreliability or radical misperception.

You might call this figure an "ontological subverter" or an "epistemic corrupter"—someone who actively undermines the foundation of reliable knowledge rather than securing it. Alternatively, borrowing from Descartes’ own terminology, he could be a "subjective deceiver"—not an external force like the Evil Demon but a self-imposed epistemic failure.

If we take this further, he might represent an "anti-guarantor" of knowledge, someone whose very presence or beliefs function as a counterexample to the possibility of certainty. Instead of ensuring truth, he guarantees error, making him almost a metaphysical absurdity in a Cartesian framework.

This Was Rejected At The Ballot Box

This week, President Trump signed an executive order effectively rejecting the transsexual ideology by banning men and boys from competing in women's and girls' sports. 

It's nice that the Manhattan Institute is standing by their man, but if they want to be believed on everything else they say, they should admit that he is still a man. 

Honesty Is The Way To Build Trust

Ultimately, transsexualism is a form of dishonesty, pretending to be something you are not. There are parallels to this in markets: traders and investors who refuse to admit when they get something wrong. We believe full disclosure of every trade outcome--good or bad--is a better approach. With that in mind, here are our trade exits for this week so far: 

Options

1. Call on Zscaler (ZS 0.00%↑). Bought for $1 on 1/29/2025; sold for $0.07 on 2/6/2025. Loss: 93%.

2. Call spread on Fox Corp Class A (FOXA 0.00%↑). Entered at a net debit of $0.30 on 1/24/2025; exited at a net credit of $0.94 on 2/4/2025. Profit: 213%.

3. Calls on Peloton Interactive ( PTON 18.81%↑). Bought for $1 on 9/17/2024; sold for $3.35 on 2/6/2025. Profit: 335%.

You can click on the dates for explanations of why we entered those trades. In our Exits post later today, we'll add some commentary about where we went wrong on that first trade, and where we went right on the other two. 

If you'd like a heads up when we place our next trade, feel free to subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email list below. 

And if you would like to add some downside protection, you can download the Portfolio Armor optimal hedging app by aiming your iPhone camera at the QR code below (or by tapping here, if you're reading this on your phone).

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