Gregmal

Yes it’s as old as time and bipartisan…when all else fails, pick a fight with (insert China, Russia, Middle East)….

Bottom line is you can’t have a realistic or rational conversation about China with 95% of the American or Canadian population.

Next thread, will the US meddle in Taiwan and provoke another war?

Yes the reason being that since then, the population of several groups of undesirables has exploded in NY. The largest group being government. Additionally, it’s now sport, to hoot and holler and protest about what other people are doing with their own private property.

Totally….we were excited hearing that Topgolf was looking to open near us in NJ a few years ago. In 2022 some stuff actually got approved at the local level in Parsippany. However after some updates it was stated that “there is no set opening date although they are hoping for 2026”….4-5 fuckin years lol. Then St Joe decided they want to do one and it gets approved in Dec 23 and will be open spring of 2025….some of these cities and regions are total jokes.

A lot of this is also skewed and fragmented regionally. Its a classic center of the world syndrome we see in places like NYC and LA...but productivity is plenty healthy in many places. I cant even name all the real world examples of this because there are so many, but it really is a regional thing. The reasons range from incentives, to work ethic, to legislative stuff...but its real. I saw guys putting up roofs and constructing a Walmart on Thanksgiving Day in FL...in NY you need to spend 3-5 years asking some scumbag politician permission and bribing union people just to get your building permit. I went to Short Hills the other week to get my wife a birthday gift at Cartier...something Ive done plenty times before...store was now closed and "appointment only" because animals in hoodies and goofy looking sneakers keep stealing with no repercussion. Ultimately jobs and productivity is a function of the business environment...and on top of it being very much a blue collar bull market for employment right now, its also area dependent. But too many people get sucked into the big city narrative stuff and thats gonna lead one astray.

The trade or momentum tailwind with these has always been the exciting part. Whether or not they become full blown gold or fiat or whatever...thats a long ways out and the most likely outcome is that its something in between but in between works because thats net adoption. But the opportunity to make money has always been huge, and its largely fueled by FOMO. Theres bubble characteristics, but we ve gotten these mini bubbles several times now even just in the last 5 years or so. Mini bubbles are also traditionally things that occur with early excitement about longer term, real advancements and life changing disruptor type shifts. Of course, the reason for the opportunity is purely because of lazy, arrogant, and bizarrely pompous financial people just immediately declaring this stuff to be worthless because THEY dont understand it. I mean when Munger, Buffett, and Dimon are full blown trashing stuff, its open season for all the self righteous, textbook value bros to start chirping and feeling good about making statements that really just brandish misplaced confidence and an information void. Ultimately, this is a recurring theme...people are lazy and just dont know how to value things unless there are easy shortcuts. The most classic of which is the simple, "whats the cashflow, now Ill decide a multiple, then we arrive at the valuation"...If this didnt exist Id have to have had to work so much harder to make a lot of my money...so Im thankful for its existence. But really...gold has no utility over bitcoin. Its got no utility over a tennis ball if the argument is just "make jewelry" cuz I can find tennis ball jewelry on Etsy or something too. What a silly argument. Two things matter, and its supply and demand. Inflation is a kicker. But ask people to try and estimate supply and demand and they get all mad and thinks its unfair they have to look forward and make predictions vs the simplicity and ease of looking backward at financial statements....errrr, yea where have we seen this before too? So I dont really own any of this stuff directly anymore; after the runup in 2021 I cleared it after a nice multi year multi bagger sprint, but do have a fairly reasonable private investment in Ripple and am fairly optimistic people willing to play ball in this space continue to make money. And thats the name of the game. Not "my cashflow analysis is better than yours"...

https://thecryptobasic.com/2024/01/11/ripple-ceo-confirms-no-ipo-soon-as-ripple-to-buy-back-285m-of-its-shares/ Whats funny is if one removed the name "Ripple", investors would be ejaculating all over the place at the chance to buy an early stage growth company at 50%+ discount to just its cash an equivalents, WHILE the company was buying back stock.

Nah I still have some but the other stuff just outgrew it.

MSG, JOE, Nintendo like 80% and then another 30% or so between FRP Holdings, Fairfax, and depending on the state of volatility, AIV.

Pretty much the same as I’ve been. Haven’t don’t much for awhile. eBay probably the only current candidate to become a new top 5.

All that becomes evident over time is that if folks wanna wage war, it should be against the real enemies of the people and that is journalists and high level academics. Its not school teachers or police officers, but these scumbags who hide behind meaningless but societally engrained auras of prestige. 95% of journalists nowadays promote partisan agendas and ideology rather than just finding the truth. These academics who make 6/7 figures teaching a few hours a week while preying on students and sitting on influential boards and societies; these are the ones creating toxic and poisonous substance that then permeates through America. They dictate what the kids get taught. Theyre the gatekeepers for what makes the news. They determine the narrative. Glad Ackman is exposing them as frauds, liars, and cheats. Same goes for Musk. And I dont care at all if some outlet or reporter can find a "gotcha" snippet that perhaps indicates either are hypocrites...

What’s amusing too is what these clown liberals are doing internally. Both Musk and Ackman were pretty prominent liberals not more than a decade ago.

Exactly. It’s hilarious and breathtakingly stupid. The same people pushing feminist independence and bs ideology now wanna “gotcha” Bill over something his second wife apparently did in her professional endeavors….I emphasize second wife because it’s not like it’s his high school sweetheart; they both got together after already being far down the career path. No rational person would decide this is a reasonable “gotcha”…fuck I met my wife early in college and couldn’t tell you a thing she did or wrote about, nor could I do so in regards to her career related work. Yet some elitist academic shitbag leaks to some low integrity journalist, and voila, now “they’ve really got him!”….nah, they’re about to get everything they deserve and more and it’s gonna be glorious. Literally one of the dumbest and most unnecessary “poke the bear” examples I’ve ever seen in my life.

Basically this. That and when you see guys with performance like this, you know their only real goal in the first place was to get lucky and do something crazy enough to get enough publicity to end up with eternal marketing material via Bloomberg and CNBC snippets. Which he definitely accomplished.

Yea one of these is not like the other. I also don’t know what it has to do with Bill Ackman. Or is he liable for everything this women has ever done in her life?

Has anyone checked in on this winner lately? https://www.wsj.com/articles/one-hedge-fund-is-up-223-this-year-thanks-to-a-big-bet-against-tech-stocks-11658223000

Bears have been lying and/or just blatantly misrepresenting/deliberately trying to be wrong about the “consumer being tapped out” now since Q2 2021. Wabuffo has done a good job mocking them the entire way through. Honestly I just don’t really waste much time fretting such things. If you can’t deal with a potential recession don’t play in the stock market. Or do and produce Chanos like returns. More moneys been lost preparing for recessions than anything else, nevertheless, just like the fools who play the lottery, they’re also free to keep trying to guess the next 10-20% pullback.

Oh boy! The hits keep coming. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/04/business/france-carrefour-pepsi-prices.html Reminds me of the good ole days when it seemed controversial to suggest these price hikes had very little to do with inflation.

Nice, so another macro asshole who didnt know when to stop gambling on Twitter conspiracies...

The whole services inflation argument is bullshit too and outside OER that’s the only other leg left on the fallen inflation stool. Lock people away and no duh they’re going to be willing to spend pretty much whatever, doing the things they already loved doing pre COVID…travel, entertainment and restaurant type stuff. On top of the fact the millennial demographic already declared this sorta stuff their passion pre COVID. It’s a secular trend. Has nothing to do with inflation. The wage price spiral theory itself spiraled itself from the textbook to the garbage can the last few years. So basically, there’s just nothing left to the rates/inflation thesis. Told people that fall of 22.

The same way inflation wasnt 9% in June 2022, because simply, the calculation showed that at some point between June 2021 and May 2022, the things THEY manufactured into some equation, arrived at that figure....inflation isnt 3% today either. Remove the fake OER its basically 0-1%. The only people who cant accept that are the ones who cant adapt and need to rely on being rigid, inflexible, and certain in their spreadsheet inputs. Real world don't work like that. Election year, and inflation beat, the Fed and Oval Office will likely wanna let you know they did their jobs this year. Thats a relevant input now.

Where recession?

Seems like a dumb thing to whine about, especially in light of the changing optics. It’s immaterial in terms of the overall earnings. It’s $15 outta $150 or whatever. Coulda probably gonna to $35 without even noticing the cash was missing. But more importantly, folks want a better market reception? Eh screening as something doing double digit dividend increases definitely helps with that. Maybe next year they go to $25. The year after $35. That’ll start getting some attention. Sometimes, you’d don’t need to always be a “this is 100% the correct textbook value investor guy way to do things” type. If they pay a few bucks extra in taxes but the stock gets a better multiple then what is the problem?

The folks draining the SPR last year and the OPEC folks more recently.