It Won’t Be Trump (But It Might Be UPIP)

I suggested Unwired Planet (UPIP) at 77 cents and then again at $1.  It then reverse split 1 for 12.

Aristides’ Chris Brown still likes it.

It’s recently won another of its five patent trials in the United Kingdom.  That’s two out of three trials so far, with two more to go, in a jurisdiction where typically the plaintiff wins only 20% of the time.

The stock is down year-to-date, which Chris thinks offers a great opportunity to those of us with money we can truly afford to lose. He expects large damage awards in both UK and German courts in late 2016; and corporate expenses to plummet in 2017.  The shares, he thinks, are “ridiculously undervalued, with an enterprise value of only $57 million, a great CEO and board of directors, and a net operating loss carryforward of $1.69 billion” that alone could be worth a lot more than $57 million when it is eventually monetized.

So Trump “predicts a ‘massive recession’ but intends to eliminate the national debt in eight years” . . .

. . . which is a really smart thing to say if you’re trying to get people to think things are horrible (with gas at two bucks, 72 consecutive months of private-sector job growth, and the debt now again shrinking relative to the economy as a whole).  He says the real unemployment rate is 16% or 21% and may actually be as high as 32% or even — he’s heard — as high as 42% — and that we have stupid, stupid leaders making terrible deals that have us whimpering under the heels of our economic overlords, Mexico and China.

. . . and a really smart thing to say if you’re trying to scare the pants off them — because when people are scared, they turn to a strong man.

So a massive recession is headed our way, but he would avert it for us even as he paid off our $19 trillion national debt by the time he left office.

Of course, to any thoughtful person, the idea of paying off the National Debt in eight years — or ever — is preposterous. There’s nothing wrong with a healthy, moral family — or business or country — carrying debt.  To own a home (called a mortgage) or to finance a factory (called a bond) or to build infrastructure that, properly maintained, will last a century or more.  Sure, you don’t want that to get out of hand — our National Debt was 30% of GDP when it was handed to Reagan/Bush, who exploded it, only to have Bill Clinton bring its growth back under control; 100% of GDP after Bush 41 exploded it and handed Obama a $1.5 trillion deficit (which Obama has now cut by more than two-thirds).

A human does want to be debt-free before retiring — long before, if possible — but businesses and countries don’t retire.  Procter & Gamble has been around for longer than any human has been alive, yet carries $30 billion in debt.  Does Trump think P&G should pay off all its debt, too?  Does he not use debt to finance his own undertakings?  Why would a future-facing country like ours (if we do want to be future-facing) have as a goal paying of all our debt?

To be sure, we need the Debt to grow more slowly, in most years, than the economy as a whole, as it is now again doing.  This is how it shrank in the 35 years after World War II from 122% of GDP down to the 30% we handed Reagan/Bush.

But what serious economist or world leader thinks we need to pay it off?  Let alone in just eight years?  Or thinks we can do it by negotiating better deals with Mexico and China?  Wouldn’t sucking trillions out of the economies of our trading partners not throw them — and the rest of the world — into all out Depression?  which worsens deficits?

It’s all just SO stupid . . . we’ll just win, win, win, because I have a very good brain and big hands and belittle anyone who gets in my way and you’re a very good-looking group of readers, by the way, can we just quickly go around the room so I know who you are? . . . that you almost think he can’t be serious about wanting to be President.

And that’s exactly what Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio said on MSNBC Sunday morning: he thinks Trump would be scared to death actually to have this job.  He’s loving the game — it’s like Survivor! — and the fight and the attention and applause — he’s a performer — and will love having the nomination “stolen” from him so for the rest of his life he’ll be able to say he tried to save the country, and he could have — God knows he did his bit (or should I say: his shtick).

Humanity in these next few decades is either hurtling toward unprecedented global health and prosperity — we now have the technology to achieve that — or hurtling off the rails.  We have the technology to achieve that, too.  Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, though they delight Joe the Plumber, are not where humanity should turn for the necessary leadership to give us the best odds of a good outcome.