Predictions for 2020 January 5, 2020January 4, 2020 But first watch this two-minute message from all our candidates — the ones you like and the ones you don’t. If you buy their message and are in a position to help, click here. NOW is the time, while the organizing snowball has the most time to roll downhill, accumulating volunteers as it rolls. Can you imagine how much better off we’d be if we had not adopted an impulsive, go-it-alone, get-everyone-to-hate-us foreign “policy”? We had united much of the world in allowing for a diplomatic glide-path toward a nuclear-free, increasingly modernized — and friendly — Iran. Instead, by immediately reversing course, we’re at the beginning of something that could be truly awful. Just because he got “everybody great health care at a tiny fraction of the price” (oh wait — did he?) and North Korea to denuclearize (oh wait — did he?) . . . and contained China (by scuttling the painstakingly negotiated Transpacific Partnership) and solved the climate crisis (by denying it exists) and protected our democracy (by denying it is under ongoing Russian attack, focusing on instead on Hunter Biden) . . . just because he’s achieved all that doesn’t mean he’ll have equal success with Iran. But I inherited the happy gene. So . . . Asked to offer my “predictions for 2020” as part of a panel down in Charleston on the eve of this new year, I opined: “It’s impossible to know for sure,” I conceded, “but I predict that next July, in a brokered convention marked by unanimity over the inadequacy of good hotel rooms in Milwaukee, Mike Bloomberg will emerge as our nominee. He will ask Oprah Winfrey to be his running mate. She will reluctantly agree. They will narrowly win the Electoral College by 18 votes — and the popular vote by 18 million. So much so that cries of a ‘rigged election’ will largely fall on deaf ears. Nikki Haley will graciously concede. President Pence will step down promptly at noon, January 20, 2021. “I predict that with a Democratic Senate secured by M.J. Hager‘s win over John Cornyn in Texas, John Hickenlooper‘s win over Cory Gardner in Colorado, Steve Bullock’s win in Montana, Mark Kelly’s in Arizona, Amy McGrath’s earthshaking victory in Kentucky, the pickup of a senate seat in Georgia, Susan Collins’ defeat in Maine and Lindsey Graham’s loss to Jaime Harrison right here in South Carolina . . . the Bloomberg/Winfrey Administration will rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure, creating millions of solid middle class jobs and bringing high speed broadband to rural America . . . America will rejoin the community of democratic nations, restoring our moral leadership in the world, to the great dismay of Vladimir Putin and the other journalist-murdering dictators whom the 45th President so admired. “Sensible compromise will be found with Republicans of good will, OF WHOM THERE ARE MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS. “I predict, finally, this will all come about because farsighted patriots will fund the early organizing efforts of the Democratic National Committee. See me after class.” Even if I’m wrong about the nominee, we have to win. All our candidates are smart, conscientious, honest and empathetic. None of them is a sociopath, a pathological liar, or a serial con artist. Which brings me back to the two-minute must-watch video I started with, and the link I’m hoping you just might click.
Alternative Stocks, Alternative Facts January 3, 2020January 3, 2020 But first, money: Fred C: “A year ago I wrote and asked you to write more about finance and suggested once a week and you agreed to try. I haven’t kept track but I know you have failed miserably. I looked at the ten most recent posts and they have all been political rantings and not a single stock was mentioned. Do you not realize by now you are preaching to the choir? Those that disagreed with you but kept reading for the money and stock tips are long gone. PLEASE go back to an occasional stock tip, update, or even a way to go through your neighbor’s garbage to save money. I will continue reading because I generally agree with you but I am getting concerned that you will be writing your column from an institution if Trump is re-elected.” → Point taken, except for the neighbor’s garbage. I did once tell you how I rescued a perfectly good zucchini from my own garbage, but even I have my limits. So here are some updates: BOREF . . . I continue to counsel patience. I believe the company — valued at less than than $35 million today — is a far better lottery ticket than it was ten years ago, or even just last year, when it was similarly valued but so much less far along. For one thing: it had not secured the critical financing needed to (we hope) achieve FAA approval and begin actual operation. Now it has. CNF . . . I bought more for as little as $4.33 this week — someone snagged some at $3.93! I assume (but don’t know) someone else was looking to take a tax loss. Anything can happen — which is why we only buy these things with money we can afford to lose — but a very smart, successful friend knows the company intimately and believes it’s real, with enough margin of safety to weather a major correction in Chinese housing prices. So we’re getting a fast-growing company not for the 20X or 30X earnings one might normally expect to pay, but for more like 3X. I also like that this comes from the same investor who suggested FANH back around $5.50. We waited a few years and got to sell at $35. (I sold all of it in my tax-sheltered account; continue to hold some, currently around $25, in my taxable account.) There’s zero guarantee CNF will work out as well — or at all. But I like the odds. I’m also still holding my PRKR, as a true lottery ticket (bought more recently around a dime) . . . some of my INFU (something seems to be happening, because it’s now nearly triple what we paid ten years ago, and six time where I could have sworn I suggested you buy more, but can’t find that now so maybe I just dreamed that I did) . . . and my SPRT, now trading at $1.10, having disbursed $1 dividend last week. I believe it’s again selling for about the value of its cash, so you get the business for free. If the business, succeeds, we could make a nice profit from here. As for others (having inherited the happy gene, I tend to forget the big losers) — feel free to ask. But Fred is right: I’m even more obsessed these days with Putin’s ongoing — successful — attack on democracy than I am with stock picks. Speaking of which, consider the Assault on Truth. In both this long rant and as Chuck Todd laid it out so powerfully on last Sunday’s Meet The Press. Have a great weekend!