Tenfold From Here? Plus: China In 4 Minutes AND How To Save Democracy June 18, 2021June 18, 2021 RECAF: The geologist who told me about this one, and who has proven right so far, thinks that even at last night’s $9.70 close (a quadruple since suggested 90 days ago, and a market cap of $1.6 billion) the stock remains cheap. “If they prove 30 billion barrels of recoverable oil,” he writes, “which is within the estimates of Dan Jarvie, that’s $2 trillion worth (at $67/barrel). It certainly could be much less. There’s also the possibility it could be more.” There is SO much discounting one must do from guesstimates like this . . . but if a potential $2 trillion in oil were valued at $16 billion in terms of RECAF shares — less than 1% — the stock would be ten times its current price. At $48 billion . . . well, knowing me as some of you do, you can imagine how much fun I’m having doing the math. It may all amount to nothing! I trust you bought shares only with money you could truly afford to lose! And took much or all that money off the table, as suggested after it tripled, to be playing from now on with “house money.” But if lightning does strike, imagine the good we’ll be able to do with our share of the bonanza: whether to increase climate awareness, protect African wildlife, or promote any other progressive cause (or candidate) we care about. Choosing not to own these shares, as I’ve noted before, in no way helps advance those causes. China in four sobering minutes. I prefer democracy . . . but democracy that’s not paralyzed. If only Mitch McConnell would find another line of work. What I don’t write about every day, but think about every hour, is losing our democracy. We almost lost it in the Thirties (as Germany lost hers). Asked on a Zoom earlier this week why we didn’t, Jason Stanley (How Fascism Works) replied, simply: “The New Deal.” The New Deal addressed the anxieties, suffering, and righteous grievances 0f ordinary Americans, many of whom were ripe for the allures of communism or fascism — the extreme left or the extreme right — because we had to try something. That’s how people have been feeling for quite a while — globally, writes Thomas B. Edsall in an op-ed you should try to make time for. I first linked you to Nick Hanauer’s The Pitchforks Are Coming seven years ago . . . and that was by no means the start of the justifiable discontent. Once you do lose democracy, it’s exceptionally hard to restore. (It took the Romans two millennia.) You know the famous Ben Franklin quote, “a Republic — if you can keep it“? Well, the way we keep this one is by passing S1 (the For the People Act) and HR4 (The John Lewis Voting Rights Act) and Joe Biden’s two big infrastructure bills, The American Jobs Plan and The American Families Plan. Like the New Deal, these will leave the spectacularly rich spectacularly well off — never fear! — but give the other 99.5% a meaningful more fulfilling stake in the future. I have to think we’ll succeed. But, as I quoted President Obama yesterday, “This experiment in democracy is not self-executing. It doesn’t just happen automatically.” Want to help? Click here. Like Streisand, Chenoweth, Whoopi, Andy Cohen — Kamala — and others? Click here. Have a great weekend!