Red Lion

I think capital gains or vat both make more sense than corporate taxes. Before 2017 the us had the highest corp income tax rate in the world, and large companies were routinely shuffling money around to show profits at overseas subsidiaries and couldn’t repatriate them.

It’s not like the country is going to great extremes to remove legal immigrants. Notwithstanding trumps rhetoric we are still deporting way less people than under Obama’s administration. We did just go through 4 years of above trend illegal immigration. I’m a huge proponent of more immigration. If I were president I wouldn’t be targeting people who had been here for 20 years for deportation. But they still entered or stayed illegally. It’s crazy to me to see so many people make these types of statements that just aren’t based in fact. They’re based on trump’s tweeting hyperbole.

Because they won’t do it otherwise. Not all that long ago when I was in school they used to teach us about John smith and the Jamestown colony. Some people didn’t want to work, the story goes, and he said “if you don’t work you don’t eat”. The original regressive economic policy in the Americas I guess.

How about we cut Medicaid and snap and then institute a federal VAT? How about a federal VAT on imported goods? On its face it seems like a solution to the issues raised by @Blake Hampton but somehow I feel like that’s not the spending he wants cut or the taxes he wants raised.

I think you raise great points. In fact I felt the same way 15 years ago. But these tax cuts you speak of, they're mostly on earned income which is certainly not the domain of the elderly. They're on the estate tax, which is helping young people (just not you or me), not the elderly. And they're on business investment for DOMESTIC growth Capex, which should arguably help the young. Capital gains taxes weren't lowered in 2017, and don't look like they're getting lowered in 2025. It preserved the Net Investment Income tax without deduction. The NIIT was imposed in 2013 along with an increase in the capital gains tax rate which had been in place since 2003. Capital gains rates haven't been higher since 1997. So even though I think you raise good points, I think pegging this generational wealth inequality on tax cuts is straight up wrong. I think better suspects might be the extended period of artificially low interest rates, and the massive overregulation on new construction starting in the 70s.

It is sad. I suspect most of the immigrants that took their jobs were also poor, and probably have improved their lots in life. Great point about Inflation, it always hurts the poor the most. And our monetary system produces inflation by design. It seems to me that you could try to resolve this issue by focusing on inflation/the underlying economy/balance of immigration, or you could try to address the poverty issue by "benefits". In my point of view "benefits" increase inflation, increase income inequality, and have created the moral hazard of creating reliance on the taxpayers' (often unwilling) largess rather than on improving their own financial situation. I still think we should provide them to people that are disabled, and children living in poverty, but all of these issues have two sides. And all too few people willing to even listen to both sides.

I was referring to immigration specifically. Look up the numbers on deportations under Obama and I think they speak for themselves. Regressive policy and income inequality are two other good issues to talk about too though. And I suspect there are arguments on both sides about the best way to address these issues or if they're even issues that need to be addressed.

I feel like this is the sort of rhetoric one could use to get elected (because let's be real, it definitely works), and then scale it back once in office. Trump's rhetoric on immigration is repugnant, while his actual performance is much less draconian than Obama's!

I agree with the current rhetoric being terrible, and I certainly hope that the justice department comes down hard on this case (and others like it) for domestic terrorism, and other federal charges. But Trump and his crony's rhetoric isn't the only game in town unfortunately. It wasn't even a year ago, and not even an inch the other direction, and Trump would have been assassinated himself. Everyone needs to scale it back a bunch of pegs, embrace our neighbors' opposing viewpoints while disagreeing with them like civilized adults, and take a sense of collective pride in the fact that we live in a society that stands for the rights of people to hold and express opposing viewpoints. I'm not predicting this outcome sadly, but I think people on both sides, and the people who can't decide which side is worse, need to come to peace with the fact that others have differing worldviews.

With the pager bombs, how could they not? I’d be bragging about that one too. But to answer the question, to instill fear in their opponents?

Hear hear

Seems like it could be really good for the Permian basin. Assuming whatever conflict that comes is long lived.

+1

I'm just an amateur, but have spent a lot of time (and made the majority of my investment returns) in this sector over the last 10 years. I got into it originally with BAM, and after spending at a lot of time looking at competitors, moved that money into others (mostly BX/APO/KKR/ARES). I haven't looked at PAX over the last couple years, I did look at it a few years back and thought it would probably do well, but I felt there were better opportunities focusing on the biggest players. A general observation is that typically the biggest and most efficient alt managers have managed to raise the majority of incremental AUM and have done the best job driving FRE margins, and as a result have outperformed the smaller outfits as the TAM has increased. I feel that this trend may very well continue, particularly with the next moves into wealth management, insurance solutions, and retail retirement products that can go inside 401ks. All of this to say, if the valuation is decent, I'd probably put most of my money in BX/APO/KKR. Around the last time I did a deeper dive into PAX, I was equal weighted on BX/APO/KKR and felt that they were a better risk:reward. I'll start doing some work on PAX again, and see what I think. I'm obviously open to holding smaller players (like OWL), but I think they need to prove their ability to grow AUM, keep the same LPs and add more, and improve margins towards a 60% FRE type margin over time.

To further that point, many of these same companies and employees are leaving the state, or at a bare minimum diversifying. Just look at Reno, Austin, etc. to see the tech flight to more favorable jurisdictions. Also, all the $300k tech bro jobs are gone, and that's been a serious hit to the economy in California particularly. The red tape for personal/business/real estate/investment in California is out of control, and hip high earners have plenty of other options today that didn't even exist 10 years ago.

Agreed 100% on this. And really, this is probably the best position to take as an investor. Falling into tribalism clouds one's vision, yet ignoring the complete train wreck of our government (soaring deficits and wild swings in policy and cracks in judicial precedent/rule of law) seems unduly complacent for investments. This core tenet is one of the reasons I've put a large percent of my net worth into privately held real estate that I control. There may be headwinds with recession/interest rates, etc., but if both sides continue accelerating down the deficit path it seems like a good long term inflation hedge to me. I think a protracted period of deflation is highly improbable since we could likely go back to easy money/inflation under either party. All bets are off if the USA utterly collapses, if I felt that was going to happen I guess I'd be heavy in gold and bitcoin. Tariffs and recessions all while having high interest rates seem like a poor setup for real estate, but also seem likely to be a short term phenomenon probably ultimately leading to lower rates to start shrinking the deficit if nothing else.

APO has been in my top 1 or 2 for the last several years now, I still trade around it (and between taxable and tax deferred accounts), but this is a long term hold. I'm comfortable at 26% right now, but would definitely lighten up to 15-20% if we get back to the $160s. I really love several of the alt managers, but I find APO's business model probably the most attractive. I think APO stands to benefit with the push into expanding private credit into 401ks (along with all the other growth drivers of the last several years). Apollo's origination engine is a real competitive advantage versus its competitors in my opinion. I also think the valuation is reasonable for what I consider to be a great company. OWL is really more speculative than APO for a few reasons, but I think there's still a high upside if they continue to execute on the business model. I have it position sized accordingly. I've actually traded this one a LOT, because it tends to have deep selloffs and fast recoveries. I'd probably sell back at the $24 range, definitely a buyer in the $16-$18 range. Birds Eye view, OWL is possibly a nascent ARES, but there are a lot of moving parts. They've been growing private credit funds, but focusing on riskier debt as is common for this business model (like ARES) as opposed to investment grade alternative like Apollo. They have an asset light model which is great when things are growing. Generous dividend policy which is great when things are going well. They have a really interesting business that invests in alt asset manager GPs. They've been doing quite a few acquisitions of smaller asset managers, I'm monitoring the situation to see how these are integrated. In a best case scenario this could be a lot like buying ARES several years ago. In a worst case scenario they can piss off their LPs, not be able to increase their AUM, and not achieve critical mass. OWL does have a FRE focused model, and they get quite good FRE margins for their scale.

I am not disagreeing with you and wasn’t trying to take a position one way or the other about whether I think trump should be able to deploy the national guard or marines. While he’s a hypocrite he’s actually the president of the United States so he still has executive authority and a penchant for novel interpretations of longstanding precedent. I was just responding to the post that says let the states do it their way. Which I agree with generally. But everything has its limits which you clearly pointed out.

I feel like you’re making my point. I said there’s clearly a point where the federal government can draw the line. I’d think rioters ransacking the US capital building is miles past that line. And you make a good, albeit non responsive point about January 6. Trump was impeached, acquitted by the senate, and got reelected. What’s the point? Should we completely abdicate federal sovereignty because trump’s an asshole?

I agree with this principle in general, but what about when federal buildings and personnel are being targeted while the local law enforcement look the other way? I'm not saying that's happening here, but there would definitely come a point at which the federal government needs to draw the line.

I've been trading a lot this year since most of this money is in tax deferred accounts. Trading around most of the same core positions. YTD I'm up 11.5%. For once my trading has actually improved my performance several percentage points. While I plan to hold most of these positions, I'll probably continue to trade around the edges. I've had some good in and out trades with Apollo, OWL, Fairfax, and GOOG over the last few years, but I plan to hold a significant amount in these names long term. Currently: Apollo - 26% Fairfax 17.5% JOE - 14.5% GOOG - 10% CP - 10% OWL - 8% AMZN - 6% RTO - 4% NVO - 4%

Skid row has been growing like a cancer all over the state.

It’s easy to stop concentrating, it’s just really hard to continue achieving outperformance. Want to stop concentrating? Maybe buy an index and then leave 15-20% to concentrate on your best ideas?

Oh I get it, in fact I pay a hell of a lot of taxes to the federal and state and local California governments myself. I feel like for me I’d still pay a bunch of taxes, but at least get health insurance and ready access to ketchup chips.

All along the strategy should have been to get Canada to take California as an 11th province.