Tom Thinks Trump Has Done A Remarkable Job Managing The Emergency March 17, 2020March 17, 2020 No, really! But first . . . from my esteemed pal Bryan Norcross: How the coronavirus pandemic is similar to a hurricane emergency, and the lessons we can apply. And second . . . a compelling case that we should all be erring — dramatically — on the side of caution. Simple math* and deeply sobering . . . if you were not already sobered enough. Tom may not already be sobered enough. He writes: Tom M.: “Be honest with your readers. Please offer this clip so they can see Dr. Fauci explain in detail exactly what Testing & Surveillance needs. If you don’t give your readers a chance to see this, then I will assume you have ALSO become a partisan hack, cherry-picking information that is marginal at best in your favor. It has taken Trump and his CoronaVirus Task Force less than 2 weeks to develop, deploy, and implement a working system of Testing & Surveillance Nationwide. I would call that remarkable. Be bipartisan and give your readers the truth. I’ve also sent to my blog readers.” → Trump’s done a remarkable job, for sure. He had the foresight – the courage, really — to shut down the Medical and Biodefense Preparedness office nearly two years in advance of the crisis. Who needs deep state stuff like the Medical and Biodefense Preparedness office of the National Security Council? Drain the swamp! With further regard to national security, was it not genius to tap Michael Flynn to be the nation’s National Security Adviser? And then to replace him with Keith Kellogg? And then to replace Kellogg with H.R. McMaster? Whom he replaced with John Bolton. Whom he replaced with Charles Kupperman. Whom he’s replaced with Robert O’Brien. Seventh time’s a charm! As regards homeland security, how can one not admire Trump for selecting General John Kelly to be his first Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing him with Elaine Duke, replacing her with Kirstjen Nielsen, replacing her with Kevin McAleenan, replacing him with Chad Wolf? Trump offers a wise and steady hand. The kind of visionary, team-building leadership ANY Fortune 500 company would kill to have at its helm. The self-styled King of Bankruptcy! Could his administration have been expected to heed the warning of the Director of National Intelligence? DNI Warned a Year Ago That U.S. Was Vulnerable to Pandemic, ‘Large-Scale Outbreak.’ It is to scoff! That’s deep state stuff. A hoax, just like the Russia hoax that MSNBC got all 17 intelligence agencies to swallow, but that Trump knew to be fake. (Because why would Putin lie?) While all the so-called “scientists” and elitist “epidemiologists” were warning of much worse — the same deep-state way they try to scare us about climate change or the dangers of smoking – the Trump, taking a break from golf, told us there were 15 cases of COVAD-19 that would all be gone soon, likening it to the common cold . . . advocating for a payroll tax cut to meet the needs of the hour. Rush Limbaugh, not a medical doctor but recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, concurred. So yes, Tom M.: only a partisan hack would fail to see that Trump’s handling of this crisis has been remarkable. Leaders around the world should learn from his example. *In checking to see if it could possibly be true that Germany and Japan have so many more hospital beds per capita than we do, I came upon this list. It may not be entirely apples to apples, but really? Wow.
Funny Money March 15, 2020March 16, 2020 I’ll get to the funny and the money, but first . . . Dennis M.: “Just spotted this in the Times comment section. If true, it needs to be played repeatedly in commercials prior to the election: Dr. Luciana Borio, May 7, 2018 (White House director for Medical and Biodefense Preparedness): “The threat of pandemic flu is our number one health security concern. We know that it cannot be stopped at the border.” May 8, 2018: Trump fired Dr. Luciana Borio, by closing her White House unit “Medical and Biodefense Preparedness,” which is part of the national Security Council. In checking to see whether it was true (essentially: yes), I read the transcript of last Wednesday’s The Daily — Why the U.S. Wasn’t Ready for the Coronavirus. (And no, it wasn’t Obama’s fault.) Nor is it just pandemics we’re unprepared for. I keep plugging Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk because it shows how much damage had been done to “the deep state” (which is to say government departments and agencies staffed by competent, dedicated, patriotic professionals) within months of the last election. Mother Jones offers this history of how the Federal Government — and, I would add, our national infrastructure — fell into long-term decay. Even the Supreme Court deserves less respect than it once did. Have you seen this letter of resignation from the Supreme Court bar? And now . . . FUNNY! If laughter is the best medicine, take a minute to watch this. Cheers! MONEY! I know, I know, but: On BOREF, I offer my fellow long-suffering shareholders two things: First, this 9-minute Captain Joe video on “Powerback.” My hope is that WheelTug will one day solve this problem. Second, this list of 156 patents that could help protect WheelTug’s competitive position if it all works out. And on ParkerVision, a fellow PRKR speculator writes: “VirnetX was just paid $455 million by Apple. Very similar to Parker. Suit filed in 2010. Just like Parker. Big difference: Parker’s damages are much larger. Clearly the pendulum is swinging our way.” → Or not. Who knows? But it’s a reminder that patience sometimes pays off. Remember: only with money you can truly afford to lose! Stay safe.
The King’s Speech March 13, 2020 But first, Susan Collins. I don’t care who replaces her, I just want her OUT. If that’s all you care about too, click here to give to the anybody but Collins fund. Now deeply in Trump’s pocket and seeking her fifth term — having initially pledged not to serve more than two — she’s become a tremendous disappointment. (See also: “Susan Collins Takes Hours to Decide on Lunch Before Ordering Exactly What Mitch McConnell Is Having,” by Andy Borowitz.) Do you have two minutes for this video? Not with a view toward your contributing — I’m not taking sides in Maine’s June 9 primary — but with a view toward your being encouraged by the depth of talent and decency of the young people stepping up to stanch our downward spiral. Sara Gideon, Maine’s House Speaker, is the DSCC-endorsed candidate; and Ross LaJeunesse, who headed Google’s International Relations before quitting to call them out, has a great story, too. (And shifting gears back to Alaska, I can’t resist re-posting Al Gross’s one-minute video.) And now, the speech. As if the market’s 9.5% decline hours later were not commentary enough, herewith commentary from Commentary: “The Speech Was a Disaster.” And these six minutes from PBS: “U.S. federal response to coronavirus a ‘fiasco,’ says global health expert.” The number of infected Americans doubles every six days, he estimates, so the time we’ve lost — even if you calculate it at just a month — is five doublings. Make your own hand-sanitizer . . . two minute video. Joe Rogan interviews infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm. The long part in the middle about not eating deer may not interest city dwellers; but the rest, if you’re not one of the 6.3 million (up from 4.5 million yesterday) who’ve already seen it, you may find instructive. Have a great weekend. We’ll get through this.
How To Give Effective Feedback; And Welcome To The Bear Market March 12, 2020March 11, 2020 Feedback often doesn’t connect. Here, in four minutes, a simple 4-step formula to address that. (I’m not saying you give ineffective feedback . . . but if I were saying that, these four steps might enable me to say it to you better.) And here’s a little feedback for the Supreme Court, which will be deciding whether Trump is truly above the law. The feedback comes from George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum writing in The Atlantic. Will the Kavanaugh / Gorsuch court join the Attorney General in being loyal personal lawyers for the man who appointed them, rather than for the taxpayers of the United States? Read Frum’s argument and see what you think of the case. . . . By all rights, these cases should end in the kind of defeat for Trump nicely described by a favorite joke of Chief Justice John Roberts. When asked how a certain case could have been decided against a petitioner 9–0, Roberts is said to have replied: “You must remember, there are only nine justices on the Supreme Court.” But this is the Trump era. The courts are partisan and getting more so. Although Trump lost every previous round of this litigation, one appellate judge did agree with him on the merits: his own appointee to the D.C. Circuit . . . Welcome to the bear market. The world moves faster and faster, but it’s instructive that the Dow first topped 1,000 in 1966 yet 16 years later, in 1982, clocked out at 777. One big drag on stocks in those years was the upward trend of interest rates . . . just as a great tailwind for stocks in the decades since has been interest rates’ downward trend. With rates now close to zero, one has to think that tailwind — whatever others may come along (like a massive long-term investment in revitalized infrastructure) — is no longer at our backs. Could it be 16 years before we see the Dow back at 29,551, the all-time high hit just a month ago?
Five Stocks March 11, 2020March 11, 2020 But first, the virus: From the New York Times: can you boost your immune system? Here’s a real-time world map of Covid-19 cases, deaths, and recoveries. Vast numbers of cases have surely never been reported, so the number of recoveries must also be much higher; but this is the data currently available. And here’s something a friend told me: viruses hate sunlight and heat. So if you live in a warm climate, avoid confined air-conditioned places — grab a table outside. And get your exercise out in the sun, not on the condo treadmill. One of you sent me this, which I have not independently verified, but which I’m happy to pass on until we get more definitive information: 1. If you have a runny nose and sputum, you have a common cold 2. Coronavirus pneumonia is a dry cough with no runny nose. 3. This new virus is not heat-resistant and will be killed by a temperature of just 26/27 degrees Celsius. It hates the Sun. 4. If someone sneezes with it, it takes about 10 feet before it drops to the ground and is no longer airborne. 5. If it drops on a metal surface it will live for at least 12 hours – so if you come into contact with any metal surface – wash your hands as soon as you can. 6. On fabric it can survive for 6-12 hours. normal laundry detergent will kill it. 7. Drinking warm water is effective for all viruses. Try not to drink liquids with ice. 8. Wash your hands frequently as the virus can only live on your hands for 5-10 minutes, but – a lot can happen during that time – you can rub your eyes, pick your nose unwittingly and so on. 9. You should also gargle as a prevention. A simple solution of salt in warm water will suffice. 10. Can’t emphasize enough – drink plenty of water! THE SYMPTOMS 1. It will first infect the throat, so you’ll have a sore throat lasting 3/4 days 2. The virus then blends into a nasal fluid that enters the trachea and then the lungs, causing pneumonia. This takes about 5/6 days further. 3. With the pneumonia comes high fever and difficulty in breathing. 4. The nasal congestion is not like the normal kind. You feel like you’re drowning. It’s imperative you then seek immediate attention. And now: Stocks can seem cheap when they’ve dropped precipitously. I doubt we’ve seen the bottom, but I’ve been wrong so many times before (as Isaac Hayes sings in the classic 19-minute By The Time I get To Phoenix, though he was singing about the power of love, not the Dow). Here are a few of “our” stocks and why I haven’t sold a single share, even though they could drop further: BOREF. Chances are, people will one day be flying again. Airlines may go bankrupt in the meantime, but that just means the current bondholders will become the new owners — the planes won’t disappear. So if and when WheelTug gets the FAA approval it’s been working toward, BOREF should do well. Don’t worry about their revenues taking a hit in a recession. They have no revenues. CNF. This is the Chinese company that’s been growing at 20% a year making short-term home mortgages at no more than 50% loan-to-value, selling at 3X earnings. Suggested by the same savvy investor who suggested FANH at $5 before it peaked at $36 a few years later. Who knows whether China has really gotten the virus under control, or how far Chinese home values might fall in bad economic times — or any other risks one can imagine, which is why we only buy stocks with money we can truly afford to lose. But if this one falls further, I may even buy more. (Whence the rueful Wall Street expression, “catch a falling knife.”) PRKR. The outcome of its patent infringement lawsuits against Qualcomm is uncorrelated to the stock market or the pandemic. If PRKR wins, the stock should go way up. If they don’t, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and some other high-powered attorneys who are arguing on PRKR’s behalf will be almost as disappointed as you and I. BKUTK. As oft-explained, it sells at a discount of more than 20% to the voting shares of the bank (BKUT), yet otherwise provides exactly the same share of ownership and exactly the same $15 dividend — which at yesterday’s price was 3.6%. The world’s sleepiest stock, and — like the others on the list — thinly traded. It offers zero chance of a speculative home run and there are likely better bargains out there with money you can truly afford to lose — and those bargains may get better still. But I hope to keep collecting my dividend and, one day, perhaps, seeing the stock change hands 50% higher than it is here.. CTHR. Will fewer people marry in a recession? Maybe. But might the recession end? And might those who do marry be more open to buying a diamond-like ring at a fraction of the cost? I bought more at 77 cents yesterday.
Competence. Decency. Your Money. March 10, 2020March 10, 2020 Let’s allow ourselves just a short paragraph of spilt milk, then on to your money. SPILT MILK: If Nader had endorsed Gore or the Florida votes had been counted fairly, there would have been no war in Iraq, no right-wing Supreme Court, no Citizens United, no Trump; we’d have made far more progress on climate change and invested trillions to revitalize our crumbling infrastructure, creating millions of good new jobs along the way. (Gore did get more votes than Bush, after all. And Bush did ignore “a tremendous” “immediate” threat he had nine months to avert.) Likewise, Hillary. I know many Republicans can’t stand her (e.g., my Harvard classmate who believes she diverted $2 million from Haiti relief to pay for Chelsea’s wedding) and many Democrats can’t stand her either for getting more votes than Bernie or else for not getting enough more votes than Trump . . . Putin has done a masterful job of getting us to hate each other . . . but I dare you to watch Hulu’s new documentary and fail to conclude that the Clintons — though imperfect, like any humans — are not fundamentally brilliant, wonderful people who have dedicated their lives to making a better world. If only we had leadership like that now. Instead, we have leadership described in Michael Lewis’s The Fifth Risk. OK. Enough of that. Your money. We will get through this. > Covid-19 will pass just as the Spanish flu did, only with far less deadly consequences. > Oil prices will rebound, as oil prices always have. At these collapsed prices, exploration and drilling (hence, supply) will be cut; Russia and Saudi Arabia may someday restore OPEC’s pricing clout; global demand may recover or grow . . . though I hope not for use as fuel. (As the Shah of Iran said more than 40 years ago, oil is much too precious to be burned. More to the point: we urgently need to confront climate change.) In the wake of the market meltdown, my friend the estimable Less Antman (who offers 10 reasons NOT to retain his services) wrote his clients: While my colleagues in this industry are dealing with panicky calls from clients, I continue to revel in a practice of people who either totally ignore short-term market fluctuations or who respond to panic with wonder as to whether they should put their remaining idle cash to work! Outside of a couple of people just asking if there is a special response needed to yet another flu/virus panic (SARS, bird flu, swine flu, Ebola, Zika in the 21st century alone), nobody has forgotten that we are long-term investors. For the record, I don’t recommend either fear OR greed at this time. Relax & remind yourself why you chose to work with me. We are the owners of a globally & industry diversified portfolio of businesses providing useful goods and services & we expect to receive the normal rewards that come from being such owners. We accept the uncertainties of market fluctuations but know there is no safe haven if the world is coming to an end so we might as well assume that it will not end. Save. Invest. Diversify. Wait. I named the firm SimplyRich because the fundamentals of successful investing ARE simple. I didn’t call it EasyRich because it requires a patience most people are unwilling to show when it matters. We do. So enjoy the spectacle or ignore it as you choose. Don’t waste time figuring out if you should invest spare cash. Let everyone else be consumed by fear and greed and remember we are the patient & stable people that businesses depend on for capital in order for capitalism to function. We’ve been rewarded handsomely & have no reason not to expect that to continue. You already know we aren’t going to get out of the market. But we also aren’t going to try to outsmart other people and call a market bottom. We are investors, not traders or speculators. Fun fact: Today is the 11th anniversary of the bottom in the 2007-2009 bear market and is officially National Panic Day. Really. Really? Others say yesterday was National Get Over It Day. International Panic Day is celebrated June 18 each year. I can absolutely see scenarios in which the market falls a lot further before eventually returning to its recent highs; but Less makes a lot of sense — especially after factoring in the capital gains taxes selling might trigger. It might have been smart to sell a month ago. (And is still smart to sell now if you made the mistake of investing money in stocks you might actually need in the next few years — that money should not be exposed to risk.) Otherwise, I wouldn’t rush to sell here, least of all “our” quirky little stocks. Several of which I plan to discuss tomorrow.
Time Zones And Education March 6, 2020March 4, 2020 Don’t forget that your digital devices will automatically jump forward from 2AM to 3AM Sunday morning. Nearly half the country lives in the Eastern time zone according to this map (47.6%) . . . with 29.1% on Central Time, 16.6% Pacific Time, 6.7% Mountain time. I just thought that was interesting. Here — on a totally different topic — David Brooks on education. It turns out, the Scandinavian success may not rest on the generosity of their welfare states or the homogeneity of their people, but on a word for which there’s no easy English translation . . . but that describes an educational system designed to instill a sense of mutual responsibility. I thought that was interesting, too — if a little hard to explain, let alone effectuate. But this idea takes just nine words to explain and would be easy to effectuate: All medical school tuition should henceforth be 100% free. Not just at NYU — everywhere. With roughly vaguely 60,000 students at roughly vaguely $60,000 a year each, that works out to $3.6 billion a year. Add in nurses and round it up to $5 billion a year. At which point we could more realistically expect docs to work for “normal” upper-middle-class incomes, as they do in, say, France and the rest of the developed world — well compensated, well respected, and doing something deeply satisfying, as they fulfill a great need. This being America, there’d still be room for entrepreneurial doc in it for the money. But gradually the emphasis would shift . . . from the McCallen, Texas, model toward that of El Paso — two similar cities whose highly dissimilar medical costs were explained in Atul Gawande’s famous New Yorker article some years ago. How to pay for it? Easy! Just double law school tuition! (Okay, I kid. But with twice as many law students as med students, do we really have our priorities and incentives right?) Have a great weekend.
Investment Strategy March 5, 2020March 5, 2020 Do you think your fellow reader Richard Factor had a cold? Or Covid-19? My guess: the former. His guess: the latter (and he’s the one who had it, after all). Interesting story. You know who has what must be one of the hardest jobs in the world? The chair of the Democratic National Committee. Fifty state party chairs have his cell phone, as do two dozen presidential candidates and their campaign managers, every Democratic congressperson and senator and governor and mayor . . . a whole lot of donors . . . the Party officers . . . his key staffers . . . the leaders of all the allied blue-leaning organizations . . . the press. And everybody thinks they could be doing his job better than he is. Or it must seem that way. That was true of every chair I’ve known since 1998. But do you know what? The first three years of Tom Perez’s chairmanship have gone rather well! And, not to jinx it, this fourth year is beginning to look hopeful , too. > I’m loving the gracious, constructive way Pete, Amy, Beto, and Mike, among others, have endorsed Joe Biden. > And we might finally wrest the gavel from McConnell at the same time. Wouldn’t that be something. In addition to the likely wins, we could pick up the Montana seat if, as seems increasingly likely, governor Steve Bullock decides to run. M.J. Hegar just might unseat John Cornyn in Texas — she has an amazing story. And wouldn’t it be caviar and vodka if Amy McGrath unseated Moscow Mitch himself? And here’s a sleeper: my new friend Al Gross, to pick up a seat in Alaska. Watch his one-minute video, then read the bio directly below that clip — and tell me how any Alaskan could not vote for this guy. I couldn’t help myself: I ponied up. What to do, meanwhile, with money you don’t want to give the DNC or to Al Gross? That calls for a longer post — I’m working on it — but for now let me offer just two gems. One real, one fake. > The real gem is Warren Buffett’s latest annual report. His reports were legend four decades ago, when I was assigned to “review” them for Fortune magazine. (At the time, Berkshire sold for $300 a share. Yesterday, $326,000.) > The fake gem may prove to be real, too — or at least semi-precious. It’s the stock of Charles & Colvard, a company that makes an alternative to diamonds. Even more brilliant and harder than rubies, they sell for a fraction of the price. (So even if you don’t buy CTHR, buy your beloved the ring and use the savings to fund a Roth IRA. Forty years from now, people will still think it’s a diamond — and marvel at the comfort of your retirement.) A very smart friend who knows the company well finds its shares irresistible down here around 83 cents. With money I can truly afford to lose, I bought a bunch. John Seiffer: “Thanks for the CNXM tip. But as I read it I couldn’t help but wonder what you do with the money you CAN’T truly afford to lose?” → Great question. I have it on my to-do list. Gregg R.: “Really? CNXM? Anything for a buck?” → I think buying their stock does no harm; but that using that buck to support worthy causes does some good. What am I missing? David Morrison: “I spotted the following in CNXM’s Annual Report: ‘Virtually all income [we distribute] to organizations exempt from federal income tax, including IRAs and other retirement plans, will be unrelated business taxable income and will be taxable to them.’ Does this mean if CNXM’s stock is held in an IRA, the dividends would be subject to double-taxation: First, when distributed by the company, and second, when withdrawn from the IRA?” → No. Here’s Fidelity’s explanation. If you have UBTI income above $1,000, they file an IRS form for you and remit 15% of it to the IRS (up to the first $2,500, a higher percentage going all the way to 40%, as the amount grows*). But having taken that cash out of your IRA, it won’t ever get distributed to you, so won’t ever be taxed on it again. In the case of CNXM, if this does work out as hoped — with money you can truly afford to lose — we’ll still come out fine even after paying that tax. *Page 20 of the IRS UBTI instructions lists the tax rate as 10%, not 15%, on the first $2,600, not $2,500, going up to 37%, not 40%. The tax code is ridiculous. Just let your brokerage firm worry about it fr you and do whatever it does.
Joe! Joe! March 4, 2020March 3, 2020 Joe Biden is as decent a man as you’ll find anywhere. Or, as one formerly-rational Republican senator put it: “as good a man as God ever created.” Have you ever listened to his 2009 farewell speech? It’s not short — he was saying good-bye after 36 years to assume the Vice Presidency! — but it’s just beautiful, and what politics should be. Joe Walsh is a less decorous former conservative Republican Illinois congressman . . . author of F*ck Silence: Calling Trump Out for the Cultish, Moronic, Authoritarian Con Man He Is. “Challenging Trump for the GOP nomination taught me my party is a cult,” he wrote last month. “Real conservatives think for themselves. Trump Republicans have been brainwashed.” (Carl? Tom? Peter? Give it a read.) Finally, if you’re looking for a non-biased source of news, my friend Nathan (who helped found it) reports that “News and News just received kudos from MBFC, an independent media watchdog. With more than 2,900 news sources in its database, MBFC rates outlets based on bias in wording and headlines, story choice, the extent to which reporting is factual, and evident political leanings. Universities and libraries rely on MBFC to vet news sources for recommendation. Please help get the word out.”
Lots To Click While We Await Tonight’s Returns March 3, 2020March 2, 2020 Conservative columnist Max boot: This is how democracy dies — in full view of a public that doesn’t care. He’s talking to you, Carl and Peter and Tom . . . and so many other good people. I think you do care; you’ve just become so invested in your team’s view — the view that (to quote the President of the United States) his critics are corrupt, lying “human scum” — you don’t allow yourselves to see what’s happening. Lincoln talked about “with malice toward none,” Reagan talked about “a shining city on a hill,” Kennedy talked about “ask not” and Trump talks about human scum and “bullshit.” He is a mobbed up sociopath who ended the American Century and is destroying our government and democratic norms . . . but, like the honeybadger, his followers don’t care. This is how democracy should look — Pete Buttigieg, suspending his campaign. Decent, honest, thoughtful, empathetic, uplifting. This is how it looks under Trump — A Trump Insider Embeds Climate Denial in Scientific Research. And now, as promised yesterday, Westphalia. As usual, I learn more from you than you do from me: Mike Martin: “Your combining coffeehouses and Bloomberg Friday was particularly relevant. Coffeehouses in England began around 1651. Two other events were occurring at the same time: the 1653 establishment in England of Cromwell’s constitutional monarchy with two houses of parliament, and the establishment of European territorial sovereignty by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. “What I see often unrecognized in American politics today is the implicit issue of Westphalian Sovereignty, something that Bloomberg appears oblivious to. The internet today serves as the modern coffeehouse. Chrystia Freeland, wrote in The Atlantic (‘The Rise of the New Global Elite’) in 2011: ‘What is more relevant to our times, though, is that the rich of today are also different from the rich of yesterday. Our light-speed, globally connected economy has led to the rise of a new super-elite that consists, to a notable degree, of … a transglobal community of peers who have more in common with one another than with their countrymen back home. Whether they maintain primary residences in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, today’s super-rich are increasingly a nation unto themselves. “This ‘new super-elite’ is comprised of the ‘billionaires’ addressed by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren who see Bloomberg and his ilk as an existential threat not just to American democracy but to the entire Westphalian concept of individual nations. Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone in 2012, described Republican challenger Mitt Romney as ‘a perfect representative’ of the new threat to civilization ‘not just here in America but all over the world.’ To wit: ‘The next conflict defining us all . . . will be between people who live somewhere, and people who live nowhere . . . between people who consider themselves citizens of actual countries, to which they have patriotic allegiance, and people to whom nations are meaningless, who live in a stateless global archipelago of privilege – a collection of private schools, tax havens and gated residential communities with little or no connection to the outside world.’ “The Republican Party today, and particularly President Trump, act out of the philosophy of an irresponsible global elite long espoused by Leo Strauss, an American conservative philosopher who argued that ‘Noble Lies’ were necessary for an elite to govern. Self-styled Straussian Irving Kristol, described by Reason as the ‘godfather of neoconservatism,’ made it very clear: ‘There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.’ “Stephen Holmes in The Anatomy of Antiliberalism (1993), explained how this New Global Elite see law, nations, and truth as mere obstacles erected by the common people to be manipulated and overcome: ‘Strauss applies this criticism to law; law spells weakness; law is a trick of the weak to tie down the strong. Hence, Strauss applauds the decisive leader who acts outside of the law to achieve his goals.’ “This is precisely what Trump supporters argued during his impeachment trial: Trump acted outside the law but it was to achieve his goal of remaining in power. Trump’s ideas reflect those of the new global elite (i.e. billionaires) who define their self-aggrandizing ‘truths’ as superior to those of the common people. “When Bernie Sanders espouses the concept of ‘democratic socialism,’ he is channeling Teddy Roosevelt in his 1908 State of the Union: ‘To permit every lawless capitalist, every law-defying corporation, to take any action, no matter how iniquitous, in the effort to secure an improper profit and to build up privilege, would be ruinous to the Republic and would mark the abandonment of the effort to secure in the industrial world the spirit of democratic fair dealing.’ “Thus the 2020 Presidential election invokes the historical challenge of democracy against unregulated capitalism that allows a global elite of ‘billionaires’ to revoke the concept of Westphalian territorial sovereignty and invoke ‘a transglobal community of today’s super-rich (who) are increasingly a nation unto themselves.’ There is, thus, a natural reluctance among the Democrats to put the process of defending Westphalian Sovereignty into the hands of a member of the billionaires, as the Republicans have done.” → True. Even so, I wouldn’t hold Bloomberg’s (or Steyer’s) wealth against them, any more than I would have wanted to disqualify Teddy Roosevelt or his distant cousin Franklin from the presidency. Though wealthy, they clearly had “the working man’s” interests at heart. (This list of president’s ranked by net worth is misleading, because it should have estimated their net worth upon assuming the presidency — Clinton and Obama were not rich when elected — but interesting, because look at Washington and Jefferson! Two enormously rich men, for their time, yet very much not monarchical . . . the former, setting the example of leaving after two terms (brilliantly remarked upon here); the latter, writing that “all men are created equal,” a radical ideal at the time.)