The Channukah story: https://nypost.com/2020/12/09/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cannot wait for this man to become my Senator: How 'bout you?
And:
This from a dear friend and fellow memo reader:
I watched much of the GA House hearings today on my computer. Absolutely jaw-dropping. Too much to go into.
You have to go on line to Right Side Broadcasting. It's over now, of course, and YouTube is threatening to take them down.
It was stunning today. What a shame most Georgians and other Americans won't see it.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Recent Rant
Now that SCOTUS has ruled on PA, it seemed the election is over, but now we have the TX case. I doubt they will rule for a reversal of the states TX is suing about, but there is a constitutional issue. It seemed clear from the speed at which they ruled on PA, that the court decided it did not want to get involved in overturning the election. Now they may decide the same. Barr did the same. If you read his statement carefully, what he said was, there were instances of fraud and irregularities, but not to a degree that in total it would overturn the election. It is clear the Dems pulled off what they sought, mail-in ballots where they could play games in various Dem controlled places just enough. Whether it was to a degree that it changed the outcome, nobody will ever really know. In GA the Republicans need to put all sorts of controls in place now to be certain Stacy Abrams cannot get away with any cheating. Signature verification done right seems to be the key to this, and making sure one person one vote. Trump was crucified in the press for not committing to concede, but Stacy Abrams never has conceded, and she is a hero of the press, and Hilary told Joe to never concede, and that was OK for the media. Trump will depart peacefully on Jan 20, but he will go out in some sort of flourish. I doubt he will really run in 24. The party will want to move on to Haley to run against Harris. January 5 is everything. It would seem that Perdue will win having come so close, and Loeffler is likely given she will have the Collins voters and Warnock is a real radical not in tune with most voters in GA. However, this is 2020, and there seems no way to predict much of anything.Congress is again revealing how terrible it is. We can ask, how can they be against liability protection for restaurants and small business unless there is real negligence. Because the plaintiff lawyers give the Dems huge contributions-payoffs. How can Pelosi and Schumer continue to play politics with people’s lives. While Congress fiddles, the small business community dies. This is the price we are paying for Pelosi being speaker.The IPO market has lost its mind. Door Dash went off at a $38 billion fully diluted value, and shot to $59 billion day one. They lose money. They just have an app to order food. There is no unique selling proposition. There is no value add product or service. There is lots of similar competition. Once the vaccine is widely administered, people will go back to eating out and their business will shrink materially. Given how stressed restaurants are, it is unlikely they will pay Door Dash high commissions ongoing. The valuation is insane. Should be a great short. The Tesla valuation also seems out of line by a lot. They sell relatively a tiny number of cars. They make money partially on selling carbon credits. Massive competition is coming from all over the planet by brands. They may have the best battery tech, but that will not hold forever. There is too much research money going into batteries by lots of others. I have been totally wrong about Tesla, but I still think the valuation makes no sense. Now it is a momentum play. Until it is not. For those old enough to recall 1987, and the dotcom era, here we go again. The only difference is the major companies are now huge and flush with cash, but these startups are just like the Dotcom startups. Door Dash, Web MD -not much difference in my mind. Add on the legal attack on Facebook, and there are new risks to a portion of the tech sector.Hedge funds once again proved they fall well behind in returns and the get wealthy collecting fees, not through performance. As an investor you are missing nothing by not being invested in hedge funds. The ten largest have a return of 1.185% through October. Those with more than $2 billion assets returned negative 2%. S&P was up 2.77%. Small focused funs of $500 million and less had a better performance, but they are generally very narrowly focused so more risky. The big funds mainly are happy to just collect fees and not work as hard to make returns. 2/3 of the $3.3 Trillion invested in hedge funds is a relatively small number of funds with over $5 billion assets. That is a lot of fee income on that much money. When you are trying to invest that much money you become the market to some degree, so it is nearly impossible to beat the market without taking outsized risk, which they don’t do because if they lose then they lose that fee stream by withdrawals. I contend you are still much better to invest whatever funds you have in solid, well managed and strong brand US corporations and be a long term investor, not a trader. That has been my strategy for the past 12 years and it has worked out extremely well for me with very little trading. In fact, when I look back at a few of the stocks I sold out of because they seemed to be going nowhere, I find, in several cases I would have done better to hold and not sell, and my reasons for buying in the first place were correct. I just got impatient. This strategy of being relatively passive has yielded returns in 2019 of 34% and in 2020 of 29% across my total holdings. I invest through Schwab and pay no fees to anyone. Which just proves it just takes patience, and not smarts, to make a lot of money. Anyone can do what I have done.As any of you who have been subscribers for a while know, I have not believed in investing in bonds, and I totally reject the old 60-40 “balanced portfolio” concept as deeply flawed. Now Jamie Dimon has publicly stated that buying Treasuries was a bad investment that “he would not touch with a ten foot pole.” He is clear that there is real risk now in owning bonds with yields so low. Equities over time have outperformed bonds most of the time on a long term basis, and now many yield more than bonds. Given the amount of free cash on so many corporate balance sheets, dividends are safe for a long time and likely will rise as the economy continues to strengthen. Treasuries and high grade corporates now yield less than the annual forecast inflation rate of 1.89%. Corporates yield only 1.85%. So the real return on high rated corporates is negative. You lose money owning them and you lose more when rates rise next year. This reverse yield has never happened since such records began in 2003. So next time someone says buy a bond ladder, or 40%, or any material portion of your portfolio needs to be in bonds, walk away from that person.One of the risks to the economy in terms of lending is the probable imposition of requirements that lenders favor minorities and women borrowers and increased pressure not to lend to oil companies, or others the administration deems offensive. There is very likely to be new bad programs regarding housing lending and forcing of making mortgages that will be subprime revisited. They never learn. Expect banks to have quotas of how many loans went to minorities, climate change concepts, and other social priorities, as opposed to sound lending practices that we have seen these past few years. Yellen is clearly accomplished, but her social agenda is close to that of Biden. Whenever government starts to interfere with underwriting biases in favor of things that are not meeting the good underwriting, we get bad outcomes over time. Subprime being the major example, when redlining was outlawed and banks were told to make mortgages they knew were bad.Available jobs are now 6.65 million vs unemployed of about 10 million. That is about 66%. During the Obama Biden recovery available jobs were just 28% of the unemployed, and yet Biden and the press are peddling how the economy is so bad now, and in crisis. The unemployment rate now is no worse than most of the Obama Biden administration, but you would never know that from the media. In fact the economy continues to improve despite the virus and lockdowns. Tuesday was the stark contrast of reality vs politics. Trump held a very upbeat conference and speech lauding everyone who had a hand in warp speed success and how the end is in sight now. Biden at the same moment was on air talking about the “dark winter” and the bad economy. He is setting up the press to proclaim in March what a magnificent job Biden is doing, and now the vaccine is widely distributed thanks to him, the light is shining, and the economy improving rapidly. None of which will in fact be due to Biden. Reality, as one reader pointed out, is that 30 million, or more, already had the virus and so are likely immune now, kids are not likely to get sick even if they get it, so by late March many of the rest of us will have been vaccinated, or soon will be, to the point that there may be herd immunity, and life can begin to normalize. The problem is the stupid counter productive lockdowns in CA, NY MI and some other places is killing small shops and businesses already and so by March many may be gone needlessly due to Congress and idiot governors and mayors who go to the French Laundry of resorts in Mexico while telling us we need to stay home. And they wonder why there is no respect for politicians anymore.Mortgages were up 22% last month, but rising home prices are holding that down from even better numbers. One anecdote from here in FL, the young dental hygienist I spoke to the other day told me she is trying to buy a house, but she keeps getting outbid by people who sold a home up north, and come here with all cash ready to pay up. That is a common problem here, and I assume elsewhere that people are fleeing to like TX.Kerry in 2017, and subsequent, has said there can be no Mideast peace deals until the Palestinian issues were resolved. Well, we see that was a false statement, yet Kerry will be deeply involved in setting foreign policy for the Mideast and dealing with Iran. So under Biden you can have policy all wrong but then be his point man on Iran. That is why I am so concerned we will go back to the appeasement policy of Obama Boden as to Iran and the Mideast will be very dangerous again. We hope he does not ruin what Trump has accomplished and take the world back to Iran having the ability to spreads terror. If they go back into the nuke deal, it will be a disaster for the world just as the Mideast has come together against Iran, and the Iranian economy is in collapse.For weeks I have speculated that Hunter was taking massive bribes, and involved in money laundering and other corruption. The press kept insisting that Hunter had been investigated thoroughly, and there were no illegal acts, and that Trump was falsely accusing Hunter. Remember Twitter refused to allow the NY Post to have its Twitter account be active during the election to further cover up the story. The press claimed Trump had no basis to ask Ukraine to investigate Hunter who they claimed was innocent, and so the impeachment went ahead. When the investigation should have been of the Biden family. Remember Tony Bobalinsky. He gave the investigators the keys, but the press ignored him. He had the evidence and first-hand knowledge. Well now we know Hunter probably is likely guilty of several major crimes including corruption, money laundering, and tax fraud. They only appoint a grand jury when they have a real case, and are ready to indict, especially with someone in the family of the future president. The press and others said there was a question of the veracity of the laptop. Now we know, the laptop really did belong to Hunter, and is likely revealing a lot of illegal activity. Follow the money. Perhaps they will find if the claims of child abuse and porn are also true. Hunter said he relied on his tax advisors, so he has admitted there was significant cash flowing in or he would not need tax advisors. Now the mainstream media and Twitter and Facebook need to be asked to answer why they hid this story before the election. Only Fox and the NY Post carried the story, but the rest of the press attacked the Post as publishing a false story. Now what will they say. This proves how disgraceful and biased the press and Silicon Valley really are. The real issue now is how involved was Joe. Did Hunter and Jimmy Biden shuffle funds to Joe. Where did the cash go. How did Joe afford all those luxury homes on his salary. Just wait. This is just getting started. The main countries who paid Hunter were Ukraine and China with others paying as well. China possibly owns Joe. So we will see if the press covers this. And we are yet to hear from Durham. You think DC is corrupt- my assumption is we don’t know the half of it. I still believe Durham is going to blow the lid off DC with the worst political scandal in US history. It is dragging out because there has been much more uncovered than when it began. We may be in for a massive constitutional crisis when all these things are fully revealed, and Joe is at the middle of it all. Harris could become president and Pelosi then becomes VP-heaven help us. It is now a possibility. Nancy did not push on the 25th amendment about Trump- it was about Biden. This is not so far fetched as it might seem if you think it through. At the end of the day, Nunes is going to say-I tried to tell you, but the press and Schiff hid it. Nunes is the one who began to peel the onion, but they failed to shut him down. Jan 5 is now even more critical.On that same line, why hasn’t the Swalwell China spy story come out before. Nancy knew all about it years ago, but then put him on the intelligence committee. He should have been removed from Congress. Swalwell was almost as bad as Schiff with the lies about Trump Russia, and all along he was guilty of sleeping with a Chinese spy. And now in a fit of ultimate hypocrisy, he is screaming that it was all Trump revealing the story for whatever purpose when it was actually Axios. We will see what Nancy does now that it is all public. Likely nothing. We will see how the media covers up both these stories.If you thought left wing campus ideology was confined to campus, we now have the Nasdaq racial diversity quotas, new diversity quotas all over corporate hiring, and coming soon, racial and gender quotas in federal contracts or federal programs. As a counter point, voters in CA voted no in a big majority on the attempt at reinstating racial quotas in universities. There is a major disconnect between corporations and politicians, and the voters. If you are a young heterosexual white male, you are now in the, it is OK to discriminate against you class. You can be certain Biden will immediately reinstate required classes at federal institutions, of required classes where you are told you are a racist and must repent. University ideology is now going mainstream. This is the new America where you are not welcome. I predict a major backlash in the 22 election, especially now that Nancy admitted she did not make a deal with Mnuchin at $1.8 trillion because it might have helped Trump and Republicans. Between her and the teachers unions, the country suffered greatly for disgraceful politics.Just to show how the left never learns anything, the new district attorney of LA said he will not ask for any bail, and will not even charge anyone for resisting arrest, among numerous other crimes. LA will soon become NYC with crime spiraling out of control. In every major city run by Dems, the shootings are headed for record levels, and getting worse. Their answer- defund the police. Sometimes I think I fell down the rabbit hole with Alice. They live in an alternate universe. I have no idea what they think when the crime stats skyrocket, other than to blame Trump and Republicans for not giving more funding to wasteful entitlement programs, and teacher pensions, and blaming all of us white taxpayers as being racist. It is like the lockdowns in these same cities. The research is very clear, lockdowns do more harm than good. Closed schools do massive harm. But they increase lockdowns and close schools. And now the kids in college are taught it is all the cops and Trump, and white oppression who are creating these problems, and they believe this crap. There are times I want to stand on a roof and scream: How can you all be that stupid. Do you have any sense of reality. The next year is going to be a repeat of 2020 as the Biden family scandal and Durham unfold. Just when you thought it could not get worse, it is about to.If the press and Silicon Valley had not buried the Hunter story and if the Swalwell story had come out, Trump would have won and there would be no Jan 5 runoff.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sidney Powell her evidence of why four Venezuelans were engaged in corrupting our 2020 election with money provided from China and George Soros. I watched this on Dec. 10, when Lou Dobbs interviewed her on Fox Business. The FBI and The DOJ have chosen to sit on their hands but the evidence she displayed appears to be incontrovertible because it included actual e mails, phone calls and other evidence. Why are these agencies acting as if they are, deaf, dumb and blind?
Obviously, if Powell's evidence is authentic, there is no question China elected Biden who actually should serve as president of China's Communist Party. Then he could really launder money directly and not use his brother Jim.
When sedition is soooo overwhelming /believe it allows everyone to say it cannot possibly be true.
Chinese Money Launderer Called James Biden After FBI Arrest, Was Trying To Reach Hunter
+++
I am not opposed to anyone serving as a director of a company who brings talent and wise, honest governance.
However, mandatory polarization and poltization of boards is simply another step toward the destruction of capitalism and profitable companies.
It begins by professing the goal is beneficent and then it matastisizes into something pernicious and destructive.
Nasdaq and ‘Groupthink’
The stock exchange now wants to be your diversity consultant.
TheEditorial Board
There’s a new Nasdaq high-growth industry: diversity consulting. On Wednesday the stock exchange rolled out a service that conveniently complements its new race and gender mandates. Nasdaq is now offering “Limited time, complimentary access” to “The Equilar Diversity Network.”
No one objects to board diversity, but Nasdaq wants to force Americans to pay for its political signaling. The exchange said last week in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it wants companies to have at least two “Diverse” directors. That’s defined as “one director who self-identifies as female,” and “one who self-identifies as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, Native American or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, two or more races or ethnicities, or as LGBTQ+.”
Oh, and if a director is gay—or has one parent who is Vietnamese—but is not interested in announcing his sexual orientation or ethnicity in public documents for enforcers at the Nasdaq to review, it doesn’t count. The directors must “self-identify” in a Nasdaq preferred category.
Nasdaq claims, including in a letter to these pages Wednesday, that it is only aiming for “transparency.” But the names of board members already must be disclosed. Nasdaq wants companies to list how many board members fit in each category. If companies don’t meet Nasdaq’s quota, then they must “explain why they do not” in filings or on their website—or face delisting. That’s intended as a public-relations sanction even if Nasdaq pretends it isn’t
Nasdaq doesn’t have authority to order companies to comply with any political fashion, so it claims in its SEC filing that these new mandates are designed to promote “a free and open market.” This market will apparently benefit Nasdaq’s new diversity enterprise with Equilar.
One business justification, Nasdaq tells the SEC, is that the exchange “is concerned that boards lacking diversity can inadvertently suffer from ‘groupthink,’ which is ‘a dysfunctional mode of group decision making characterized by a reduction in independent critical thinking.’” See? Nothing to do with politics; this is about preventing bad business decisions.
Everyone else should be more worried about “groupthink” in Nasdaq management than at companies that hire board members based on talent, experience and business judgment. This decision is a manifestation of the ideology sweeping through elite America that holds that most of what you need to know about a person you can tell by their skin color or sex.
In an Axios interview, Nasdaq Vice President Jeff Thomas explained that the company didn’t include diversity markers like veteran or disability status because “the more inclusive you try to make your diversity policies, then frankly, sometimes they don’t have the same impact.” Under identity politics, diversity of certain immutable characteristics matters more than diversity of viewpoint or experience.
Nasdaq’s decision, if upheld at the SEC, could pave the way for even more intrusive hiring quotas. Big business is increasingly teaming up with big government to profit at the expense of everyone else. The cultural and economic incentives are so convenient for Nasdaq that it can’t see it is enforcing groupthink in the name of puncturing it. And unlike woke politicians, it doesn’t face voters who can hold it accountable.
No comments:
Post a Comment