JRM

This all is reasonable and makes sense. I think less sophisticated people see the debt and deficit spending and think something must be wrong. The idea of matching money supply with demand makes a lot of sense to me, and is the biggest detractor for having a fixed gold monetary system (could still create reserve system backed by gold though). What I don't understand is if this is the best monetary system, why is deflation treated like kryptonite? Deflation is a good thing for the individual consumer. Deflation is not good for the indebted nation. It seems like the fed mandate has changed from stable prices and low unemployment to propping up the stock market and triggering inflation.

How much is GDP influenced by debt and deficits? I can borrow a lot more money to spend at 0% than at 15%. Have 40 years of falling interest rates skewed the USD to GDP comparison? For a while I've given into the narrative that the boomers are robbing from the younger generations. Now I'm starting to think the retired boomers are the ones who will get screwed.

I think I'm going to start an ESG fund that only invest in miners of rare earth metals. The ESG score will be off the charts.

What age? The Little Book that Beats the Market by Joel Greenblatt is pretty good, and he wrote it for his 7 year old. With my 7 year old I just pulled together a bunch of logos from brands that he is familiar with that I don't think would be terrible companies to hold for the next 15+ years and let him pick 3 or 4.

That's all fine, but owning Bitcoin is not the same as owning Visa. I'm not anti Bitcoin, I just don't think that's a good analogy. The tokens that Paypal uses for payments\transfers are essentially free. Why aren't Paypal tokens worth 50k? I'll answer my own question; because they're not scarce. I think what sets Bitcoin apart is scarcity.

Why does a company whose only function in society is moving cash from point A to point B have an enterprise value > $450 billion? Yet we've all determined this is what Visa is "worth" and they're not the only payment processor. Back in 2018 when I first understood BTC's "purpose" in payments, all I did was sum the enterprise value of first 5 payment processors I could think of. Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, and Square and then divided by the maximum 21 million coins that will eventually be outstanding. The outcome of that rough calculation? 50k per coin. To me, that was the value American society had placed on "processing payments." It's a rough analysis - doesn't consider other payment processors in America (or globally), other use cases, lost coins, or the fact that 21 million won't be outstanding for awhile - all of which drive the terminal value above $50k per coin but it was a start and the start I needed to begin acquiring. Because they make money and pay dividends.

I believe there is a thread on DHX media, which is now Wild Brain. Not sure how up to date it is.

Gold is anonymous, whereas Bitcoin no longer is. When you transact in gold the transaction is over, with Bitcoin there must be a network maintained in order to maintain the function. Bitcoin is useful for very large transactions or transactions across borders. I see Bitcoin as an entirely separate asset class. It is not money, it is closer to art or collectibles than it is to gold.

Doomsday is not a good outcome for Bitcoin because who is going to run the power plants and the interwebs?

This is probably not right at all, but in my mind ever since the Greenspan days the inflation has been observed for things that wealthy people buy: health care, college tuition, and 401k assets. Now that helicopter money is available I think we're going to see inflation in things that everybody buys. If you give money to wealthy people they save it, if you give money to poor people they spend it. I'm also confused with how economists define inflation. A rare few say inflation is literally an expansion of the money supply; in which case M2 should be a leading indicator of inflation depending on velocity. Most people seem to conclude that inflation is an increase in prices as indicated by the CPI (makes sense also). I don't know which direction this goes or when, but the Fed is dead set on creating real inflation at the same time the market doesn't seem at all prepared for rising interest rates. Should be interesting either way.

Altus Midstream (ALTS). First ever dividend ex-date is Friday, $1.50 quarterly (>10% yield as a c-corp). Brand new pipeline assets in the Permian. May put together a write-up, but the thesis is pretty straightforward. Forgot to mention, most of the pipelines are part of JVs and partnership agreements, and Apache owns 79% of ALTM so I think there are possibilities for strategic transactions in the future. Either that or Apache dumps its stake and crushes the share price.

As a connoisseur of children's programming, I was shocked to learn how many brands and titles these guys own.

I think investing in the same sector where you work can be a trap for other reasons. You tend to become an expert in things that are irrelevant to the stock performance. I noticed I used to overweight my specific knowledge related to my company without a good view of the bigger picture. There are even company specific events occurring right now, and I'm watching the stock price shrug it off. I'm left scratching my head. Aside from that, I think its beneficial to be an expert at something if you're going to invest in individual companies or sectors.

Can you share any compelling writeups that you've come across? Michael Burry likes the stock.

I think some of the retail behavior is explained by lack of financial education, but I also think if we were in the financial position of most Americans this behavior would be viewed as more rational. For people living on $15,000 per year, making high risk but life changing bets may not be irrational behavior when they see no other opportunities to move up.

Least affordable? Surely you mean most profitable! Take my monies.

Now that it is 'mainstream' for a manufacturer to be holding &/or accepting payment in BTC, there will be a lot more of this, and by the bigger players. Simply because if your factory is operating behind a exchange control 'wall', this is one of the few things that you can do to keep your export sales going. Ability to pay foreign suppliers, and accept foreign revenue independent of the local authority is a valuable thing. It also reduces the need to smuggle. BTC at USD 43K this am. Have to think it will not be long before it crosses 50K ;) SD Let's see what Andy Fastow...I mean Zach Kirkhorn is able to do with this new tool!

That made me laugh. I guess I'm wondering why now when reddit subgroups have been gamma squeezing Tesla for the past 12+ months.

I guess sharing research and opinions about stocks in online message forums is market manipulation? What world are we living in?

There are far more silver futures traded than physical silver coming out of the ground. This setup is the opposite of oil last summer. Interestingly JP Morgan has closed out most or all of its silver short position in the last year.

To me the worst side effect of fracking for oil is the flaring of associated gas that cannot be sold profitably. This practice should definitely be restricted more. Most fracking is targeted at oil formations, and associated gas is a byproduct. Sometimes a gathering line is available, but most of the time it is flared off. Most of the natural gas supply is from traditional sources. I'll post something if I can find some more detailed information.

We'll see if industrial demand picks up with EVs, solar panels, etc. driving secular demand.

Back to silver, there does appear to be a shortage of physical at the moment. Reuters has reported that the US mint is behind on orders for silver and gold bullion coin. Spot checks at online coin dealers show backlogs and minimum order requirements. This article is making the rounds on reddit and elsewhere: https://renaissancemen.org/2021/02/02/why-the-silver-longs-and-eric-sprott-can-defeat-the-silver-shorts-an-education-in-4d-chess/ Very similar concept to the Andy Schectman interview I posted, but with more details.

Interview from last October with Andy Schectman. He lays out the bull case for silver. Some of this was regurgitated by the WSB Reddit board before those posts got deleted. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/quoth-the-raven-227-andy-schectman/id1348446973?i=1000496287278

I've been sort of following this. There is a ton of mis-information on the Reddit thread, and people think they are going to do damage to JP Morgan by buying silver. Whatever gets the job done.