Whitney George on the impotence of the Fed's inflation-fighting tools

Today, the Fed is attempting to fight structural inflation over which it has no control.  It did not cause the reversal of China from a deflationary force to an inflationary contributor.  The Fed did not cause the political forces behind deglobalization.  And the Fed had nothing to do with decarbonization goals that have resulted in bad energy policies.  The recent historic 75 basis points rate hike and the next hikes that are expected is akin to administering electroshock therapy to a flu patient.

~ Whitney George, Sprott Focus Trust 2022 Semi-Annual Report, July 20, 2022

Whitney George on survival

To win the race you've got to finish.

~ Whitney George

Whitney George on the culture at Royce & Associates in the late 1990s

In the late '90s, when everybody was firing their value managers - because then making 10 or 20% per year was like losing money, relative to being in the dot-com boom - we hired a lot of very good people, and have found that the best time to get talented good people is when nobody else wants them.  Because when things are going well, why would anybody change jobs?

~ Whitney George, interview with Rick Rule, 15:00 mark, YouTube, April 26, 2017

Whitney George on investing in resource stocks

It became fairly clear to me [in the late 1990s], as a history major having seen these periods before, if the money to buy things became infinite, maybe you wanted to own those things that were finite in their quantities.

~ Whitney George, interview with Rick Rule, 11:30 mark, YouTube, April 26, 2017

Whitney George on the omnichannel model

There are some good retailers who have done the combination correctly.  People don't believe it.  There's still a huge catalog business out there.  Online has really cannibalized the catalog business more than it has the in-store business.  At the end of the day, if somebody's online, they have to have a delivery system for you to get the merchandise.  And so setting up warehouses all over the country is one way to do it, but using your stores more proactively as distribution centers for online sales and bringing people into the stores can work very nicely.  I think there's a good combination out there of doing two or all three of those kinds of merchandising under one roof.

~ Whitney George, interview with Albert Lu, YouTube, 35:00 mark, April 5, 2017

Whitney George on the transition to green energy

Low-cost natural gas development is likely the best pathway to transitioning to the green energy sources of the future. It is not likely that any other industry is investing in green energy faster than the major oil companies. And finally, most are unaware of how environmentally impactful the current favored clean technologies are. Mining for lithium and cobalt for making electric vehicle batteries is not clean by anyone’s standards, even at today’s modest production rates. Solar panels need silver. In short, beneath the populist dreams there are many practical constraints that most will find surprising.

~ Whitney George, Sprott Focus Trust 2019 Annual Review and Report to Stockholders, February 15, 2020