Blake Hampton

“The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” ― Plato Only through suffering will Americans eventually learn the true cost of their apathy and ignorance.

Goddamn it Cubs, you're right. There are a lot of brilliant people on this board. I'm 100% certain that even the ones I often feud with are quite intelligent in a lot of areas, many of them, I'm sure, where I'm not. I thank you guys for being able to push back on me in ways that very few in my personal life can. And I should probably learn to listen more, and you can probably never be a good enough listener. But the fiscal stuff scares the bejeezus out of me, and I don't think I'm gonna budge on it. I believe the future is shaping up to be starkly different than the past. This has always been true, of course, but sometimes in history, it can be radically so. On the cusp of this radical change is where I think we stand today. Those are just my thoughts.

"Many shall be restored that now are fallen and many shall fall that now are in honor." Horace—Ars Poetica.

I think there's only one way to convince you guys: "What Blake is doing with investments is frankly unbelievable, nobody has ever seen anything like it. We’re talking five thousand percent, ten thousand percent, maybe even a million percent returns in one day. The fake news won't report on it, but they’re the greatest in the history of our country, maybe ever. Other investors? Total losers, they're pathetic. People are calling me, very smart people, top people, and they’re saying, 'Sir, Blake’s numbers are too big, they're breaking the calculators.' Can you believe that? Breaking the calculators, it's true."

And stop making it so personal you big babies.

It's kind of funny how offended some people get on here simply by hearing someone else's opinion. The internet is a bad place for that. The math looks incredibly bad to me. Market bubbles are also largely behavioral, so when you find large groups of people harping on you for not being fully invested, while at the same time refusing to back their arguments with any sort of logic or fundamentals, I don't think it's a good indicator. I'm investing my money in a way that'll do well in the future I see. Maybe you disagree and see the future differently than I do, and that's fine. That's what makes a market. But there's only one future, and we're all going to have to live through it. What's said here means nothing. What matters is being right over the long-term and making sure your money is invested in a way where you can profit from it.

I've let you know my assumptions and shown you how I think about it. The best most of you can come up with are insults.

Come on guys. You're all telling me the market's a great investment right? Let's see the math and hear your assumptions. I'm just curious.

Looking for wisdom from Trumpers.

This doesn't look like math to me.

Any valuation math? Or do you believe valuation doesn't matter?

@gfp is right, the VA disability stuff is ridiculous. They're approving people for it left and right. When my dad came down for my wedding, he and I went out and talked to some of his old police buddies around town, since he hadn't seen them in a while. One of them was talking about how half the force was now on military disability. I'm sure this was an exaggeration, but I'm also sure it's based in truth. Just another liability for the taxpayer.

Can I get some valuation math? Or am I suppose to buy the market because it simply goes up? That's what Buffett teaches alright.

It seems to me Trump is Iran's bitch. Maybe he can war crime us out of this pickle.

True dat.

But the line go up. And the government is printing debt like there's no tomorrow (there is).

The biggest bubble in history actually. Simple explanation: The Buffett indicator is currently at 242%. The Dot-Com Bubble peak was 190%. Advanced explanation: The S&P 500's 26-year average return on equity is 13.5%. This means that for every one dollar of equity capital invested over the last 26 years, you've made approximately 13.5 cents annually on it. To buy into the index today, you would have to pay $5.90 for each $1 of that same equity, resulting in an earnings yield of 2.3% if that level of ROE remains steady going forward (it has averaged close to 12% for a very long time). This is occurring at the same time when short-term, risk-free Treasury securities are yielding close to 4% on an annualized basis. The future also appears to me quite inflationary, that will likely result in you having to discount those same earnings yet further. Why would you invest to make 4% when you could go to the grocery store and buy things increasing annually at the rate of 8%? Inflation itself can become a discount rate. Also, the recent past has seen low costs for carrying debt as well as low corporate tax rates. The first came about from the Fed's zero interest-rate policy and the second from Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). Both of these items have directly increased the earnings available to the average business, which is exactly why returns on equity have generally been so high over the last decade. However, like with many things, the current situation regarding them will change. JPM: Eye on the Market - Outlook 2025 S&P 500 earnings and estimate report

"And by at least one account, Mr. Xi formed his verdict of President Trump nearly a decade ago — a judgment likely to have shaped his approach to global affairs ever since, including how he handles Mr. Trump this week in Beijing. It was late 2016, and Mr. Trump had just stunned the world weeks earlier by winning the U.S. presidential election. Mr. Xi was meeting President Obama for the final time at a summit in Lima, Peru, and he had questions. Mr. Xi seemed baffled as to how American voters could choose someone so unconventional, according to Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser in the Obama administration who attended the meeting. Mr. Obama tried to explain to Mr. Xi that Mr. Trump’s rise was a sign of economic frustration in the United States, in part over the loss of manufacturing jobs to China and the theft of intellectual property. Mr. Xi, in Mr. Rhodes’s telling, was displeased with the explanation. He put down his pen, folded his arms and said: “If an immature leader throws the world into chaos, then the world will know who to blame.”" NYT: The Lecturer and Philosopher King: Xi Jinping Behind Closed Doors

...

What would Trump have to do to lose your support? Is there anything?

It's funny I even entertain the arguments of people who would vote for this. This level of incompetence is almost unbelievable.

I just realized something. Everyone is mad because Trump didn't alert our allies before this Iran conflict, but he didn't even notify his own Treasury Secretary. Right before the nomination of a new Fed Chair, one who Bessent planned to negotiate a new "Treasury-Fed Accord" with, Trump went out and started an inflationary war without even telling him. "The war-planning group had been kept so tight that the two key officials who would need to manage the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, were excluded, as was Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence." NYT: How Trump Took the U.S. to War With Iran

I believe, that long-term, human beings are incredibly resilient. I also believe in Buffett's mantra to "Never bet against America." The simple truth is that there is no real alternative to the USD as a global reserve currency. But that does not give us everything. That does not mean that we can forever mismanage our country and act like fools. And if you think that there can't be an intermittent period of immense financial chaos, you are wrong.

Because that advice is for people who have absolutely no clue what they're doing.