Jim Grant on how history doesn't repeat literally

Now nothing says that today is going to repeat the experience of yesteryear.  In fact, rather the odds are against that just simply because history is never so helpful as to repeat itself literally; otherwise imagine how rich the historians would be.

They say, and what they say it true, that one's first experience in markets and with money is deeply formative, imprints itself on you.  And the best investors, the nimblest and most successful, are the ones who can put that formative experience aside, or at least put it into perspective and not imagine that they must repeat the experiences of their youth in their middle years.

~ Jim Grant, interview with William Green, 19:00 mark, August 20, 2022

George Koo on economic ties between the U.S. and China

Including and working with China is potentially an all-around win-win situation.  Everybody benefits because the economies are so integrated, the skills and strengths are complementary.  But to turn it into a decoupled situation is a lose-lose situation.  I don't think China will benefit from a decoupled situation, but I can certainly say that the U.S. is also going to lose on a decoupled situation.

~ George Koo, "'Containing China' is Making America Weaker," 26:50 mark, August 27, 2022

Tom Woods on Theodore Roosevelt

Philosophically [Theodore Roosevelt] was the consummate Progressive, determined to bring efficiency and coordinated intelligence to bear against the trusts, against despoilers of the natural environment, and against international disorder.  He was, as one historian put it, "the first great president-reformer of the modern industrial era."  He therefore had little patience with federalism and indeed with most of the constitutional impediments that stood between him and the construction of a new American state.  Politically he was a committed nationalist.  He thus could barely bring himself to speak of Thomas Jefferson, whom he loathed; and as late as the 1880s he was still condemning Jefferson Davis as a traitor.  The Confederate cause, since it denied that a large consolidated nation was its own justification, enraged him.

~ Thomas Woods, "Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Presidency," Mises.org, June 2, 2010

Doug Casey: "U.S. founders modeled the country on Rome"

U.S. founders modeled the country on Rome, all the way down to the architecture of government buildings, the use of the eagle as the national bird, the use of Latin mottos, and the unfortunate use of the fasces—the axe surrounded by rods—as a symbol of state power.  Publius, the pseudonymous author of The Federalist Papers, took his name from one of Rome’s first consuls.  As it was in Rome, military prowess is at the center of the national identity of the U.S.  When you adopt a model in earnest, you grow to resemble it.

~ Doug Casey, "The Decline and Fall of the American Empire," International Man, August 31, 2022

John Fenn on why the Chinese have Americans flummoxed

Q: What has China done to the USA for the USA to be tough with it? 

A: The Chinese have done a number of things wrong.  This has really gotten the Americans totally flummoxed. 

1. They have been wildly successful in bringing EVERYBODY out of poverty.
2. They care about EVERYBODY. All of them.
3. The will no longer kowtow to the US, nor anybody else.
4. They have developed non dollar trading mediums.
5. They have circumvented US hegemony.
6. They have developed their own allies.
7. They have pursued win win economic policy with their neighbours.
8. They have signed up half the world into the Belt and Road trading group.
9. They have stayed in their borders.
10. They are too big to attack.
11. They provide the chain of supply for the US government and military

And thanks to Felix Su :- Last but not least. They’re doing Capitalism better than the US.  That isn’t allowed.  How dare those Chinese go from Communism to Capitalism and beat the US in 50 years! 

I could go on but ALL of these things are anathema to the Ferengi.  The US hate success in others, especially when they cannot get a piece of the action.  The US prefers a zero sum game.  I win, You Lose. 

The United States regards business as WAR, to be won at all costs.  Much of this they will claim they got from a book called “The Art of War” by a Chinese scholar named Sun Tzu.  Because of the belief the Ferenghi really cannot tell the difference between a competitor and an enemy.

~ John Fenn, Quora answer, September 15, 2021

Dan Ferris on meme stock traders "sticking it to the man"

Sticking it to the man feels good, I think, but sometimes it doesn't go the way you think it'll go.  What I'm talking about are all these people who are still buying and holding and promoting meme stocks...  They act like they are some part of a social movement.  These stocks became meme stocks because they were heavily shorted, they're terrible businesses.  They're going out of business: AMC, GameStop, Bed Bath & Beyond.  They're going out of business, so they're heavily shorted...  They were heavily shorted and they were squeezed by all these retail traders at home.

So they think they're going to keep doing this.  They think they've learned how to create short squeezes... but they're really just looking in the rearview mirror.  They're not going to do it anymore.  Or if they do, it'll have a short life, the way the Bed Bath & Beyond squeeze went recently: up 500% and then, boom, back down almost to where it was before they started.

The reason why I'm just really skeptical of all of this, they think they're sticking it to the man and the man was a hedge fund called Melvin Capital, which is out of business.  They were shorting... one or two of the big meme stocks and they lost a whole ton of money and they wound up going out of business.  And Citadel, this big hedge fund firm, is also a market maker.  They have this company called Citadel Securities and they make markets in stocks.  In fact, they handle more retail order flow than any other market making firm.  So sure, maybe the Citadel hedge fund lost a little bit of money shorting these meme stocks, but Citadel Securities loves this because they're handling all the order flow.  There's a big billionaire, Ken Griffin, behind all this.  I think he's worth $20 or $25 billion... and he's loving this!  So if you think you're sticking it to the man by being long AMC or GameStop, you're not!  Ken Griffin is saying, "Man, I love being the man.  I love having it stuck to me to the tune of billions of dollars."  And of course, last year Citadel Securities did record revenue, more than $7 billion.

~ Dan Ferris, "Navigating Today's Economic Battlefield," Stansberry Investor Hour, 0:40 mark, August 29, 2022

Kevin Duffy on the flawed ideology of the millennial trader

There are few certainties in life, among them death, taxes and the reluctance of young adults to accept advice from their parent’s generation (“OK, boomer”).  If severe losses of the past 12 months haven’t broken the resolve of the retail speculator, what will?  Why such conviction?  In a word: ideology.

Millennial traders have hardly been “milked” by Wall Street.  No one forced them to the craps table.  Instead, they were victims of an ideology that sees capitalism as exploitative, a view no doubt shared by most financial journalists...  Through their win-lose worldview, HODLers saw a chance to turn the tables on the wealthy fat cats; for a time it even worked.  Eventually the odds caught up with them and the dice came up snake eyes.  Yet when ideology was confronted by reality, many responded by going into denial.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The Hangover," The Coffee Can Portfolio, March 1, 2022