I draw much joy in observing your growth over the years and I take great satisfaction that I discovered you early on and knew you had a voice that needed to be heard. Your next leg up, another doubling of your traffic, will begin to occur in 2021. When the Fed-managed economy runs aground and a host of conflicts break out, the demand for insight will grow again.

After disagreeing on a couple of points in this article (civilly, of course) on social media and having a conversation with one of Philip’s connections, who was in the process of providing some data to change my mind, Philip sadly decided to block me. I like a lot of what Philip writes, and it is indeed unfortunate that we can’t even have a civil debate without a couple of people jumping in with foolish personal attacks and then Philip, who is most times a reasonable man, deciding to block a longtime connection over a political disagreement, especially when that person was in the process of asking questions and receiving answers. A sad sign of our times.

A radio host who shall remain nameless was kind enough to make the following prediction for 2021 after reading the 2019 traffic report:While it would certainly be impressive to hit five million monthly pageviews, I'm perfectly content with where we are now. Regardless, I am very appreciative of those few in the media who have taken the trouble and the risk to support and encourage me over the last 20 years. While it is known that I do not forget those who have attacked me and mine, it is equally true that I do not forget those who have assisted me.Always respect your predecessors. Theirs are the shoulders on which you stand.On a tangential note, some readers have lamented the way in which I am increasingly disinclined to reveal my thoughts, ideas, and inspirations on this blog or in public discussions. This comment at the Unz Review underlines why I no longer talk to either the media or the new media, and why I ignore the vast majority of questions directed at me:But when did Philip ever declare that he was seeking a civil debate, let alone one with the commenter? At some point in recent years, people began to mistake accessibility for accountability, and assume that because a writer permitted comments on his work, he was seeking constructive criticism of it. Rest assured, this is almost never true. As a general rule, one very good way to ensure that your email address joins the spam file is to respond to any answer you receive with an immediate follow-up question.I now attempt to avoid stating anything in public that I do not feel able to prove to the satisfaction of a dubious neutral. Because everything that I say and write is subject to relentless examination and highly-critical analysis, I try to avoid expressing an opinion on anything I cannot conclusively substantiate. The problem is not so much with the analyses themselves, but the way that, no matter how flawed they may be, they are inevitably used as the bases for attempted deplatformings, discreditings, disqualifyings, and even disemployment on the part of anklebiters on the Right and ideological enemies on the Left.So, with a very small number of exceptions that mostly involve Castalia House authors and Unauthorized creators, I no longer talk to the media or the new media, I no longer talk publicly about our intentions, and I no longer tell anyone what is happening on the legal front until it becomes part of the public record. I previously tried to distinguish between a) talking about myself and b) talking about some organization or project with which I am involved, but in addition to leading to ridiculous accusations of inconsistency, I saw people trying to use (b) as a substitute for (a).So, don't bother asking if I will talk to X or get Y on Unauthorized or publish Z with Castalia. The answer is always and inevitably NO. It's mildly amusing to see how stroppy some journalists and YouTubers now get when I tell them no, I will not talk to them about anything, now or in the future. That's the advantage of building our own platforms. We simply don't need anyone else's anymore.