HOPE GOLD PRKR ANIX CHEESE

HOPE

It’s not at all clear we can — Putin has been winning for a long time now — and the author doesn’t provide a specific road map.

But we’ve been here before, a century ago.

At the outset of the 1920s, a wave of attempted assassinations and political violence crested alongside new barriers to immigration, a campaign of deportations and a government crackdown on dissenting speech. America was fresh off a pandemic in which divisive public health measures yielded widespread anger and distrust. Staggering levels of economic inequality underlaid a fast-changing industrial landscape and rapidly evolving racial demographics. Influential voices in the press warned that a crisis of misinformation in the media had wrecked the most basic democratic processes.

Even presidential elections eerily converge. In 1920, national frustration over an infirm and aging president helped sweep the Democratic Party out of the White House in favor of a Republican candidate offering the nostalgic promise of returning America to greatness, or at least to normalcy. A faltering President Woodrow Wilson gave way to Warren Harding and one-party control over all three branches of the federal government.

Yet what is striking about the 1920s is that, unlike the German interwar crisis, America’s dangerous decade led not to fascism and the end of democracy but to the New Deal and the civil rights era. Across the sequence of emergencies that followed — the Great Depression and eventually World War II — the United States ushered in an era of working-class political empowerment and prosperity. The nation ended Jim Crow in the South and established free speech with court-backed protections for the first time in its history.

It is an interesting read by the author of The Radical Fund: How a Band of Visionaries and a Million Dollars Upended America.

GOLD

With the metal topping $4,000 an ounce, our HYMC has more than doubled since discussed here in June. I still think it could be a gold mine. See also (though only vaguely related to our stock’s prospects) Paul Krugman yesterday: Ingots We Trust.

PRKR

It has jumped as well, presumably on this recent news: ParkerVision Granted Rule 54(b) Motion in Qualcomm Patent Case, Paving the Way for Immediate Federal Circuit Appeal. One of its directors reportedly exercised options to purchase 800,000 more shares.

Endless waiting can often lead . . . nowhere. And with so many shares now outstanding, the once dreamt of $10+ per share now seems fanciful. But 5X or 10X from today’s 38 cents does not strike me as impossible, so I’m dreaming about that instead; albeit only with money I can truly afford to lose.

ANIX

This one is also showing signs of life: Anixa Biosciences Announces Completion of Final Patient Visit in Breast Cancer Vaccine Clinical Trial. It will be interesting to see what sort of results they report December 11. Not to mention last month’s headline: Anixa Biosciences and Moffitt Cancer Center Complete Dosing of Fourth Cohort in Ovarian Cancer CAR-T Clinical Trial; Multiple Patients Surpassing Median Expected Survival. With a market cap under $200 million, the upside — for those with gambling money they can truly afford to lose — would seem to be a little bit enormous.

CHEESE

As promised . . .

When in Parma, see how it’s made.

We learned that each cow produces something on the order of 30 liters of milk a day. Could that be true? It must be exhausting!

The family cheese makers we visited contract with seven farms for the 9,000 gallons (liters? I should have taken notes) they receive each day (week?) in order to produce 18 wheels of cheese a day. (Of that, I’m quite sure.) Each weighs about 60kg at first, but as the saltwater they’ve soaked in dries, they get lighter — about 40 kg after a year (88 pounds), and even a little less if you buy a two- or three-year aged wheel.

THE MILK GETS PUMPED INTO VATS EARLY IN THE MORNING

BY THE TIME I’M AWAKE, THE CHEESMAKER HAS GONE HOME AND THE VATS ARE SPOTLESS

THE WHEELS FLOAT IN BRINE FOR A FEW DAYS (WEEKS?). SOMEBODY TURNS THEM EVERY SO OFTEN SO THEY GET SOAKED ALL OVER:

THEN EACH GETS TIGHTLY WRAPPED WITH A SORT OF BRAILLE SLEEVE . . .

. . . TO IMPRINT THE DATE AND PLACE ON THE RIND:

AN INSPECTOR COMES EVERY THREE MONTHS TO TAP EACH WHEEL WITH A MALLET, LIKE YOUR DOCTOR TAPPING YOUR CHEST, AND GRADES EACH ONE AS #1 (GOOD) #2 (GOOD ENOUGH) OR #3 (SELL IT FOR PIZZA OR SOMETHING) THOUGH ONLY ABOUT 10% OF THE WHEELS ARE DEEMED INSUFFICIENTLY DENSE TO EARN THEIR LABEL

(SEE THE LITTLE MALLET? SHE’S NOT THE INSPECTOR, SHE’S THE GRAND-DAUGHTER OF THE ORIGINAL CHEESEMAKER GIVING THE TOUR)

THEN THE WHEELS GO INTO THE GIANT ADJACENT WAREHOUSE TO JOIN 10,000 OTHERS TO SIT IN 80% HUMIDITY AND JUST THE RIGHT TEMPERATURE FOR ONE OR TWO OR THREE OR EVEN MORE YEARS:

AND THEN WE EAT

I forgot to take a picture of that.