Marko Papic is bullish on commodities and emerging markets

Commodity producers are cheap, their currencies are cheap, their balance of payments are in surplus...  Last year, do you know what they were doing?  They were jacking up rates!  (other than Turkey)  They were jacking up rates, doing exactly what we taught them to do through IMF and World Bank programs while America was basically printing like the most populist regimes in the world.  So emerging markets took the pain last year, they took the hit of tight monetary policy, they're cheap, their current accounts are in surplus and commodities have risen massively.  Karl Marx could rise from the grave and run Brazil and I'd still buy it!

~ Marko Papic, "Geopolitical Expert Marko Papic on Ukraine, Commodities, and Ignoring the Media Noise," Stansberry Investor Hour, 28:00 mark, January 27, 2022

Marko Papic on the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Let's just be aware that Russians have their propaganda, we have our own.  And I think that's very important because if you're an investor trying to make asset allocation decisions, just be sure you understand that our own media can often obfuscate issues or make them seem more alarmist.  And I think that's a little bit of what's going on with the Russia situation...  Keep in mind, Russia has its RT, we have our own media organizations as well.

~ Marko Papic, "Geopolitical Expert Marko Papic on Ukraine, Commodities, and Ignoring the Media Noise," Stansberry Investor Hour, 45:40 mark, January 27, 2022

Milton Friedman on government programs

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.

~ Milton Friedman

Marc Faber on the Reddit crowd

Concerning the Reddit crowd, which buys meme stocks, unicorns, all sorts of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, etc., I am reminded of the words of Seneca the Younger: “It is the proof of a bad cause when it is applauded by the mob.”

~ Marc Faber, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, January 1, 2022

President Biden has hot mic moment on inflation question

Peter Doocy: Do you think inflation is a political liability?

President Biden: It's a great asset.  More inflation.  What a stupid son of a bitch.

~ President Joe Biden, "Fox News' Peter Doocy says Biden 'cleared the air' with him following the 'SOB' insult," Fox News, January 24, 2022

Philip Grant on the 2021 IPO class

They sell, you buy.  In a typical initial public offering, management and large shareholders commit to stand pat on their holdings for 180 trading days.  But that informal industry norm has eroded significantly during the recent bull run.  A quarter of last year’s record haul of U.S. IPOs featured expedited lock-up periods, data from Renaissance Capital show.  That’s the highest on record since data collection began in 2011 and compares to just 9% for the 2020 IPO class. 

Shareholders attempting to vote their displeasure may find limited success, as 32% of last year’s IPO class debuted with a dual class share structure, University of Florida Professor Jay R. Ritter finds.  That’s both the highest gross tally and highest proportion of total IPOs since at least 1980.  For context, about 90% of existing public companies in the U.S. are organized under a one-share, one-vote system, according to the Council of Institutional Investors. 

The Renaissance IPO Index, comprised of the largest, most liquid new U.S. listings and rebalanced on a quarterly basis, has suffered a 41% drawdown over the past 11 months, retracing a substantial junk of its 255% jaunt from the March 2020 nadir.

~ Philip Grant, Almost Daily Grant's, January 24, 2022

Doug Casey on the political elites

The people who frequent forums, such as the WEF, see themselves as a special class―the elite.  They all know each other, go to the same schools, and socialize at the same clubs.  They have high incomes, a lot of power and influence, and groom their kids to join the party. 

They’ve jelled into an informal ruling class.  Even while they mouth hypocritical platitudes about democracy, diversity, equity, and other PC nonsense, they, in fact, despise the common man.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they would really like to see―as people such as Ted Turner and Bill Gates have intimated―80% of the world’s population to just disappear.  That way, when they visit places such as Machu Picchu, St. Mark’s Square in Venice, and other fashionable places, they won’t be annoyed by the hoi polloi wandering around as if they were equals.  Enough money and power can get the elite to start thinking that way.  Not to mention that these people are mostly sociopaths, with a heavy admixture of real psychos.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on Implications of the “Great Reset” Agenda and What it Means for You," Doug Casey's International Man, January 14, 2022

WSJ on the retail investor boom

After shying away from active investing for much of the past decade, millions of Americans, hunkered down at home because of Covid-19, became day traders in 2020...  It is estimated that more than 10 million individual investors opened new brokerage accounts in 2020, according to Devin Ryan, director of financial-technology research at JMP Securities.  Last year the trends from 2020 accelerated.  JMP Securities estimates that a further 15 million Americans signed up for brokerage accounts in 2021.

~ Caitlin McCabe, "Day Traders as ‘Dumb Money’? The Pros Are Now Paying Attention," The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2022

Egon von Greyerz on the dollar's declining value

The majority of Americans never traveled abroad; they don't have a passport either.  They don't see what's happened to their money.  They don't realize that the value of their money is plunging at such a rapid rate.

~ Egon von Greyerz, founder, Matterhorn Asset Management AG, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 27:00 mark, January 20, 2022

Egon von Greyerz: "preserving wealth by going into bonds is like committing suicide"

The conventional way of preserving wealth by going to bonds - I mean that's absolutely ludicrous.  People doing that is like committing suicide.

~ Egon von Greyerz, founder, Matterhorn Asset Management AG, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 16:00 mark, January 20, 2022

Kevin Duffy on the everything bubble

The everything bubble is all encompassing: financial, economic, monetary, fiscal, medical, military, academic, journalistic, political, ideological and cultural. 

Bubbles feed on simple narratives, false promises, true believers and new believers.  The crowd takes on a life of its own. Emboldened, they become utterly intolerant of dissent.  The conflicted mob buys every dip and chases every get-rich-quick scheme, all while deriding success, tipping over statues, signaling their virtue, rushing to judgment, and trying to silence anyone who gets in their way.

~ Kevin Duffy, The Coffee Can Portfolio, December 17, 2021

Murray Rothbard on the insidious tax of inflation

Direct, overt taxation raises hackles and can cause revolution; inflationary increases of the money supply can fool the public – its victims – for centuries.

~ Murray Rothbard, The Mystery of Banking

Rasmussen Reports on voter support for the war on the unvaccinated

How far are Democrats willing to go in punishing the unvaccinated?  Twenty-nine percent (29%) of Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-19 vaccine.  That’s much more than twice the level of support in the rest of the electorate – seven percent (7%) of Republicans and 11% of unaffiliated voters – for such a policy.

~  Rasmussen Reports, "COVID-19: Democratic Voters Support Harsh Measures Against Unvaccinated," January 13, 2022

Vasko Kohlmayer: "We have come to the end of the vaccine road as far as Covid-19 is concerned"

At this point we are out of vaccine options.  No vaccine that is currently at our disposal can protect people from contracting and transmitting Omicron infection or reduce the severity of its symptoms. 

We have seen that the opposite is actually the case: the vaccinated and the boostered are contracting omicron at higher rates than the unvaccinated. 

This means that there is nothing we can do by way of vaccinal intervention with the shots that are available to us at the moment. 

Here is the reality of our situation: We have come – at least for now – to the end of the vaccine road as far as Covid-19 is concerned.  At this time, we simply possess no effective vaccine with which to tackle this disease. 

This may change in the future, but for now this is the reality of our situation, and it is imperative that we clearly grasp and accept it so that we do not inflict any unnecessary injury or death. 

Since the vaccines are ineffective against the prevailing variant, all Covid injectioneering has to stop.  To give out any more shots of these vaccines – which we know do not work – is senseless and medically irresponsible. 

Continuing vaccination under current circumstances can bring no benefit and will only result in needless harm.  To pointlessly expose healthy people to potential injury would constitute medical malfeasance.

~ Vasko Kohlmayer, "Israel Confirms Vaccine Fail Against Omicron: All Vaccine Mandates Must End Now," LewRockwell.com, January 19, 2022

Larry Fink on stakeholder capitalism

Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics.  It is not a social or ideological agenda.  It is not ‘woke.’  It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers, and communities your company relies on to prosper.

~ Larry Fink, 2021 BlackRock shareholder letter, "No need to be ‘woke,’ but BlackRock’s Fink says CEOs need to address societal issues," MarketWatch.com, January 18, 2022

Sidney Poitier on childhood education

Child psychologists have demonstrated that our minds are actually constructed by these thousands of tiny interactions during the first few years of life.  We aren't just what we're taught.  It's what we experience during those early years - a smile here, a jarring sound there - that creates the pathways and connections of the brain.  We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?

~ Sidney Poitier

George Patton on war

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.

~ General George S. Patton

Ludwig von Mises on the importance of the entrepreneur

It is impossible to eliminate the entrepreneur from the picture of a market economy.  The various complementary factors of production cannot come together spontaneously.  They need to be combined by the purposive efforts of men aiming at certain ends and motivated by the urge to improve their state of satisfaction.  In eliminating the entrepreneur one eliminates the driving force of the whole market system.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pp. 248-249

Ludwig von Mises on the mixed economy

There is no mixture of the two systems possible or thinkable; there is no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would be in part capitalistic and in part socialist.  Production is directed by the market or by the decrees of a production tsar or a committee of production tsars.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 258

Lord Canning on statistics

I can prove anything with statistics but the truth. 

~ Lord Canning, Governor General of India, 1856-1862

Tony Blair: "If you're not vaccinated, you're an idiot"

We need to target the unvaccinated.  Frankly, if you're not vaccinated at the moment and you're eligible, and you've got no health reasons for not being vaccinated, you're not just irresponsible, you're an idiot.

~ Tony Blair, "Tony Blair: If you’re eligible and refuse the Covid vaccine, you’re an idiot," The Times, December 22, 2021

Bill Miller on fear and greed

One of the things that we know - it's been proven over and over again - is that the coefficient of loss-to-gain is 2-to-1.  So a dollar's worth of loss in the market is twice as painful as a dollar's worth of gain is pleasurable.  And, as Warren Buffett often says, "fear is contagious and spreads rapidly, and confidence only returns slowly, one person at a time."  But what that means is that when you have very dramatic events that people tend to overreact to them and that those are rare, but they're perfect buying opportunities.

~ Bill Miller, interview with Consuelo Mack, January 11, 2022

Philip Duffy on three rounds of economic stimulus: "for every $1 received by individuals, $8 went to special interests"

Stimulus came in three waves: 

1. Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, also known as the CARES Act, is a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the 116th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27, 2020. The spending includes $300 billion in one-time cash payments to individual people who submit a tax return in America (with most single adults receiving $1,200 and families with children receiving more. 
2. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 is a $2.3 trillion spending bill that combines $900 billion in stimulus relief for the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States with a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill for the 2021 federal fiscal year (combining 12 separate annual appropriations bills). The bill was passed by both houses of Congress on December 21, 2020, with large bipartisan majorities in support. The bill was the product of weeks of intense negotiations and compromise between Democrats and Republicans during the lame-duck session. After initially criticizing the bill, President Donald Trump signed it into law on December 27. Of the $900 billion in “stimulus rel;ief, the vast majority went to special interests while only $166 billion went for a $600 stimulus checks, for most Americans with an adjusted gross income lower than $75,000. 
3. American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Public Law No. 117-2 (March 11, 2021), was a $1.9 trillion bill passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021. $1,400 direct payments to individuals was a part of this legislation. Of the $1.9 trillion, “more than $242 billion” was allocated for individual payments. 

Critics of the above analysis are likely to claim that the Consolidated Appropriations Act allocated $900 billion to stimulus relief for individuals, but delving deeper into those numbers reveals that only $166 billion went into stimulus checks for individuals and the remainder was allocated to special interests. Thus by combining the figures from the three acts it is clear that only $708 billion of the $6.4 trillion funds allocated found its way into the pockets of individuals as opposed to $5.692 trillion into the pockets of special interests. Stated simply, for every dollar received by individuals, 8 dollars were expended for special interests.

~ Philip Duffy, January 9, 2022

President Trump signs CARES Act
March 27, 2020

P.J. O'Rourke on the two rules of a free society

There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business.  Keep your hands to yourself.

~ P.J. O'Rourke

Anonymous comment on mask wearing

Face diapers are about as effective as a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest.

~ Anonymous, comment to "Omicron vs. the Unvaccinated and the Vaccinated," Reason.com, January 6, 2022

Rand Paul on Big Tech censorship

When the CEO of Twitter said the First Amendment doesn’t apply to them, he’s right.  But that doesn’t make him a laudable person or someone I want to associate with.  These are people who are narrow-minded and not ‘liberal’ in any way.  The impulse to censor people’s speech is actually illiberal.

~ Senator Rand Paul, "Interview: Rand Paul Slams Big Tech’s Crackdown on COVID ‘Misinformation’—And Offers His Solution," FEE.org, January 5, 2022

John Mac Ghlionn on Anthony Fauci

It’s important to remember that Fauci is, first and foremost, a talking head for the U.S. government.  In reality, he’s a politician with a medical degree.

~ John Mac Ghlionn, "The Defenestration of Dr. Robert Malone," Brownstone Institute, January 6, 2022

Scott Morrison on why Novak Djokovic needs to be vaccinated to play in the Australian Open

If he is not vaccinated he must provide acceptable proof that he cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons.  If that evidence is insufficient, then he won’t be treated any different to anyone else and will be on the next plane home – there should be no special rules for Novak Djokovic.

~ Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, "Appalling message’: outrage over Novak Djokovic’s medical exemption to play Australian Open," The Guardian, January 5, 2022

President Macron declares war on the unvaccinated

I am not about pissing off the French people.  But as for the non-vaccinated, I really want to piss them off.  And we will continue to do this, to the end.  This is the strategy. 

In a democracy, the worst enemies are lies and stupidity.  We are putting pressure on the unvaccinated by limiting, as much as possible, their access to activities in social life.

It is only a very small minority who are resisting.  [France has vaccinated almost 90% of its population who are eligible.]  How do we reduce that minority?  We reduce it – sorry for the expression – by pissing them off even more.

We have to tell them: from 15 January, you will no longer be able to go to the restaurant.  You will no longer be able to go for a coffee, you will no longer be able to go to the theatre.  You will no longer be able to go to the cinema.

When my freedoms threaten those of others, I become someone irresponsible.  Someone irresponsible is not a citizen.

~ Emmanuel Macron, President of France, interview with Le Parisien, January 4, 2022

Aldous Huxley on ignoring reality

Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and the more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.

~ Aldous Huxley

Mahatma Gandhi on standing against the crowd

It's easy to stand with the crowd; it takes courage to stand alone.

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Kevin Duffy on two worldviews: order vs. chaos

How do you view the world, chaos or order?  The former sees confusion as the natural state.  Civilization comes from taming disorder from the top-down, i.e. central planning, providing the perfect rationalization for state intervention.  The latter worldview sees a natural order, recognizing complex adaptive systems, not least of which is the economy.  Decision making is bottom-up, i.e. individuals acting to remove discomfort.  Through the order lens, attempts to impose centralized decision-making lead to less than optimal outcomes at best and societal breakdown if the puppeteers really apply themselves. 

In a planned system, rewards accrue to an army of “experts,” as long as they conform to the chaos worldview and assure the state’s survival.  In a market system, rewards accrue to entrepreneurs, regardless of whether they understand the workings of the free market or their own critical role (not to mention the role of profit!). 

Most people hold both worldviews simultaneously (Orwell’s “doublethink”), though one typically crowds out the other.  The dominant ideology today is that the world is a chaotic place and authorities are required to protect us from the big bad wolf: viruses, recessions, stock market downturns, terrorists, foreign competitors, discrimination, and even ourselves.  As Tom Woods says, “The model of society that we learn in school is that somebody with a bullhorn has to be barking out orders and then everybody obeys.”  This explains why the central state holds a central role in society: culture over conspiracy.  The image of Dr. Evil scheming in his cave to run our lives is less plausible than 95% of the population thinking a certain way and agreeing at least in principle.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Covid-19 Vaccine Fraud," The Coffee Can Portfolio, December 17, 2021

Erich Fromm on the dangers facing mankind

The danger of the past was that man became slaves.  The danger of the future is that man may become robots.

~ Erich Fromm

Benjamin Franklin: "let every new year find you a better man"

Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man.

~ Benjamin Franklin