Kevin Duffy on Trump's ambitions to annex Greenland

Here's a novel idea: stop making enemies. Stop expanding NATO on Russia's doorstep. Stop vilifying China for being economically successful. Stop bullying everyone with tariffs. Stop economic sanctions and embargoes on countries you don't like, e.g. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela. Stop aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza.  

Why not try this approach? I guarantee, the world would be a more prosperous, peaceful place. The big loser in such a world, of course, would be the military industrial complex, whose budget would be easily cut to under $500B (which is precisely why they are fighting so desperately to prevent such a cataclysm).

No, instead we're going to double down on our current path. These people are now pining for a $1.5T annual military budget!! Meanwhile, total debt clocks in at $39T and counting, our growing list of enemies is selling US treasuries, and the dollar is imploding vs. gold (having lost 75% of its value since Trump first stepped into office in January, 2017).

As WWI critic Randolph Bourne famously said, "War is the health of the state." But ultimately, the war machine brings about a destruction of the currency and bankruptcy of the state. We are now accelerating towards that day.

~ Kevin Duffy, Twitter/X post, January 21, 2026

 

Evan Lorenz pans Oracle

Oracle is a leveraged, one-way bet on OpenAI, a high-cost, money-losing producer of a lagging artificial-intelligence model.  If [Sam] Altman’s company is unable to recapture the top billing in AI or raise the billions in cash it needs this year to keep the lights on, Oracle will be stuck with empty data centers and $248 billion in lease obligations.  

It might just prove the ultimate bagholder in the coming AI bust.

~ Evan Lorenz, "Not so oracular," Grant's Interest Rate Observer, January 14, 2026

 

Pieter Slegers: "Everything in life compounds"

Everything in life compounds.  It's not just your wealth or your stocks.  It's also for your knowledge.  And the more you know, the more you will be able to connect certain dots or see certain things.  And I think that's the beautiful thing about investing, because it never stops.  There is no single day that looks the same as the previous one.

~ Pieter Slegers, interview with Dan Ferris and Corey McLaughlin, Stansberry Investor Hour, 36:05 mark, January 5, 2026

 

Barron's on Facebook: "Stay away from the stock"

Even with the sharp drop in its share price, Facebook remains a richly valued bet on the company's ability to wring a lot of revenue from a huge and potentially fickle user base.  Facebook's mobile woes aren't likely to go away.  Stay away from the stock.  It could be heading to the mid-teens.

~ Andrew Bary, "Still Too Pricey," Barron's, September 24, 2012

 

Barron's is skeptical about Facebook's ability to monetize 900+ million users (2012)

Barron's has been skeptical about Facebook (see Feature, "Mad About Facebook!," May 12) because of the company's high absolute valuation, relative to earnings and revenues, and challenges to its evolving business model from the greater use of mobile devices by Facebook users.  Facebook hasn't found a way to generate meaningful ad revenue from mobile users. 

The problem for Facebook is that it amounted to a giant concept stock with a $100-billion-plus valuation.  Bulls said CEO Mark Zuckerberg was a genius and would find ways to monetize Facebook users.

However, without valuation support from ample earnings, it's tough to say where Facebook will settle.

~ Andrew Bary, "Facebook Loses Face - And How," Barron's, May 21, 2012

Sheldon Richman on the Donroe Doctrine, Monroe Doctrine and gunboat diplomacy

It's hard not to notice the throwback to earlier American imperialist presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, a favorite of neoconservatives.  Notice that Trump said, "We have tremendous energy in that country."  We.  And: "We need that for ourselves."  Ourselves.  He's embracing what someone has dubbed the "Donroe Doctrine," but he seems ignorant of James Monroe's original speech of 1823, which stated that the United States would not meddle in Europe (as Trump is doing) and expected the European powers to no longer colonize or otherwise meddle in the Western Hemisphere.  Existing European colonies would be left alone, Monroe said.  This was when Latin American countries were gaining independence from Spain and recognition from America.  Trump seems unaware that the doctrine, written by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (who said that America "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy"), did not reserve to the U.S. government the right to interfere in Latin America.  (Obviously, the doctrine has been routinely violated.  Trump is hardly an innovator.)

[...]

[Trump] said at his new conference, "The American armada remains poised in position, and the United States retains all military options until United States demands have been fully met and fully satisfied."  He later said that the U.S. government would run Venezuela for more than a year.  VP Vance posted that sales of Venezuelan oil must serve U.S. interests, as defined by the Don, of course.  That's good old American Gunboat Diplomacy.  Trump's threats against Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Denmark over Greenland demonstrate his complete embrace of this dark side of American history.

~ Sheldon Richman, "TGIF: 'We're' All Neocons Now," Free Association, January 9, 2026

 

H.L. Mencken on demagogues

The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots…  His public life is an endless series of evasions and false pretences.  He is willing to embrace any issue, however idiotic, that will get him votes, and he is willing to sacrifice any principle, however sound, that will lose them for him…  He may be, on the one hand, a cross-roads idler striving to get into the State Legislature… or he may be, on the other, the President of the United States. 

~ H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)