MAGA Gold July 26, 2023July 25, 2023 It’s dumb to buy gold — and a whole lot dumber to buy it this way, as so many MAGA Republicans have and do. Like Ed DeSanto, “a semiretired Florida medical coder and an avid right-wing radio fan.” . . . DeSanto’s $100,000 investment netted him just $53,000 worth of gold and silver . . . meaning the coins had been marked up 92 percent over the value of the metal. . . . The only surprise here is that Trump himself is not somehow in on the scam. But Giuliani and Ted Cruz are. So many fundamentally nice people have fallen so deeply into the right-wing’s alternative reality. One of them — a faithful reader — took the time to respond to yesterday‘s comment on APE and AMC. You may recall that it concluded: At what price the combined stock will trade after the two merge — and in the years to come — I have no idea. But I’d rather own nine-tenths of a share for $1.80 than a full share for $5.85. To which he responded . . . Or would you rather own nine-tenths of a Hunter artwork? . . . offering this clip from The Yeshiva World: ENDLESS SCANDALS: Joe Biden Appointed Buyer of Hunter’s Paintings to Prominent Position As President Joe Biden campaigned for the presidency, he promised to maintain an “absolute wall” between his official duties and his family’s private business interests. This pledge came into focus when Hunter Biden’s artwork debut in a New York art gallery in 2021 garnered attention with prices soaring up to $500,000. You can read the whole article, but the (unpaid) “prominent position” the buyer was appointed to was not ambassador to France, as you might expect, or Deputy Secretary of the Treasury. It was not head of the Federal Trade Commission, Chief of Protocol, or even Poet Laurate. No, it was a seat — one of 19 — on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad. It’s hard to get more prominent than that! What’s more, this “SCANDAL” was brought to light by “an explosive expose.” Or at least that’s how it seemed to my correspondent. He wasn’t interested in the weird mispricing of APE and AMC. He had no comment on the situation in Israel or the struggle to preserve our democracy we face here. And he certainly had nothing to say about this. What occupied his attention and he successfully brought to mine was the “explosive” revelation that a long-time Democratic mega-donor, who had overpaid for one of Hunter’s paintings, landed an unpaid seat on a commission that neither he nor you nor I nor almost anyone else had ever heard of. Welcome to the cult. BONUS Why All the stimulus was a good idea and not the cause of inflation.