In This Game of Monopoly, We All Lose

By Trish Regan

On the eve of a potential government shutdown, lawmakers seem to think this is all one big game of Monopoly...

We know the Democrat in charge of the United States Budget Committee Representative, John Yarmuth, does. He told an audience of local business owners this summer...

We are not like a business. We don't have to balance our checkbooks. We are like the banker in Monopoly, we create the money and everyone else plays the game with it.

Well, if that's not an argument for looming inflation, I'm not quite sure what is...

This is how surreal the world has become – and how entitled our politicians believe they are. They're the bankers in a giant game of monopoly... We're just the renting serfs trying to hopscotch around the board in the hopes of not getting hit with a "Chance" card's giant tax bill.

Rep. Yarmouth continued his speech, suggesting that the U.S. government could give every family $200,000 to put a deposit down on a house. Of course, that might be too much, and he stopped himself. It might cause housing inflation, he speculated out loud...

You think?

We Need a Grown-Up in the Room Who Can Do Math

Now, we've all heard the jokes about liberals not being great at math... you know, that liberals are just a bunch of English and Philosophy majors with no real-world experience.

Well, perhaps the latest and greatest math joke is now on us. Because they're in charge and they're literally reinventing the rules in real time – including the mechanics of mathematics – in ways that will cost Americans our economic future.

Take, for example, the $3.5 trillion stimulus Build Back Better package that President Biden has proposed. The White House tell us that this proposal will cost "zero dollars."

No, I'm not making this up...

Perhaps they think Americans are quite stupid... Clearly, they must. How else could Biden look at us all with a straight face saying, "Hey man, don't you know 2 plus 2 equals 0?"

Here's the exact tweet from the president this past weekend:

My Build Back Better Agenda costs zero dollars. Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes, and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a generation investment in working America. And it adds zero dollars to the national debt.

So, I hate to burst his bubble, but technically it adds up to $3.5 trillion, plus interest... But hey, who's counting? No one in the Democrat party, it appears.

So here we are today, on the eve of yet another government shutdown, and we're governed by a team of people who can't seem to add nor subtract... and actually want you to believe that the government can keep printing money.

These politicians fail to consider the inflationary effect that would have and how it would eat into the savings and wages of everyday Americans. They're too focused on the present – and not enough on the future.

Up, Up, and Away

In the mid-1960s, we effectively abandoned our gold standard that had been in place since the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. Amid President Johnson's push for a "Great Society," the then-head of the Federal Reserve William Martin – who, in fairness, had previously done an excellent job guarding against inflation – abandoned his discipline and began printing more dollars in an effort to improve the employment numbers.

In fact, it seems Martin and Johnson were early adapters of this Monopoly-style charade. By 1971, the balance sheet of the U.S. was a real mess, and everyone was trying to cash in their dollars for gold. This is what led Nixon to abandon the gold standard.

An era of inflation set it... And it hasn't stopped. A U.S. dollar today is worth just 15% of what it was in 1972.

The pace of inflation grows worse by the day. Last week, the Federal Reserve raised its inflation forecasts for the next few years. And if some lawmakers get their way, it will become entirely unmanageable.

Already, we're seeing interest rates on U.S. treasuries creep higher... not high enough yet to encourage a mass rotation out of equities, but enough to suggest that people may soon be looking for other places to put their capital.

Tuesday's sell-off in tech stocks was indicative of such a move. The biggest U.S. companies logged major losses... Apple (AAPL) was down 2.4%, while Microsoft (MSFT) fell 3.6%, Amazon (AMZN) lost 2.6%, and Facebook (FB) dipped 3.7%. Chipmaker giants Intel (INTC) and Nvidia (NVDA) also took a dive.

As I've been saying for months now, if Biden is successful in printing another $3.5 trillion, he will add significantly to an already massive debt.

That will in turn increase inflation since it depresses the value of the dollar, and everything will go up even further in price.

And unfortunately, this will penalize the poorest and middle-class Americans the most... The wealthy can manage it – they're likely diversified in commodities and real estate, which tend to appreciate in times of inflation. But a big uptick in gas prices, food prices, and rent will be devastating to the middle class and the folks on the bottom.

A Default Is Unthinkable

So no, Yarmuth... You can't just print money as though you're the monopoly banker.

And no President Biden, your $3.5 trillion stimulus doesn't cost zero dollars.

It's utterly shameful that we have people in such powerful positions suggesting these wild and irresponsible theories.

And it's pure irony that these politicians pretend they care about the poor and the middle class, when in actuality, all of their policies are a direct hit to these exact folks...

We'll see if we make it through the weekend without the government shutting down. (Although, I don't have much faith.)

And I hope if a shutdown does happen, they take the time to work out a deal to prevent a potential default on U.S. debt.

That's where we, as Americans, need to draw the line... We have never defaulted on our debt since the day we became a nation – and we certainly can't risk that now. The economic consequences would be severe.

So, why aren't those in charge trying to do more to bridge the gap between the Left and the Right? Frankly, a default would be unthinkable.

Yet, here's the issue... Nine months ago, as Biden was coming into office, I would have told you that such a messy exit out of Afghanistan would have been unthinkable. I would have told you that the border challenges we are currently witnessing would have been unthinkable.

Tragically, at this point, nothing is off the table... Nothing is unthinkable – not even a default.

It's time for our lawmakers to quit playing games and go back to math class.

Investors have no brains...

What a great missive!😜

Our World, and Welcome to It!

by Doug Kass

Uber (UBER) and Lyft (LYFT) have no cars.
General Motors (GM) has no chips.
Airbnb (ABNB) has no real estate.
Evergrande has no money.
Robinhood (HOOD) has no shareholder equity.
Bitcoin has no intrinsic value.
Tesla (TSLA) has no auto-based profits.
Zoom (ZM) and Peloton (PTON) have no physical plant.
Precious metals have no friends.
ARK Invest (ARKK) may soon have less liquidity.
Congress and the Fed have no discipline.
"Talking heads" have no humility.
The Emperor has no clothes.
This is the new economy.
This is the new stock market.
Oh, and... investors have no brains.

 

Mom's indicator is flashing

We saw another panicky selloff today and I got a very clear contrarian indicator telling me it is a great time to do some bottom fishing.

I used to follow a great veteran master trader, who told us from time to time when his very reliable Mom's indicator was flashing. Here is how it works. His Mom generally does not talk with him about stocks. But from time to time, he will receive his Mom's call, asking him if it is the time to buy or sell stocks. He said it usually meant the extreme moment for the market and he could reliably either short the market if his Mom wanted to buy or buy stocks if his Mom wanted to sell. Hence called his Mom's indicator.

And today I got a similar indicator flashing: my wife's friend called her, nervously asking her to ask me whether the market would continue to fall and it was the time to sell. I immediately knew it was the time to pull the trigger. Here is what I shared with my Family, in which I was buying long term puts for VXX.

During the market turmoil like today with a good dose of panic, the best thing to do is to bet volatility will calm down quickly. Even better, VXX is a wasting asset, meaning its value is always trending down over the long term. So it is quite a safe bet to its downside as long as giving it sufficient time. 

We can then turn this into a short term income trade by selling puts against this long put when VIX is low. For now, just open this long put position. 

It also prompted me to send a note to my chat group: If you have nerves, it is the time to buy when there is plenty of blood on the Street!

Of course it is by no means I know the exact lowest point for stocks and they cannot go further down. But I'm pretty confident to say that we are at the bottom area and the downside risk should be much limited at least for the short term, even if the exact bottom has not been reached. So I'm aggressively buying today for the upside. And one low risk strategy in this very panicky situation is to sell naked puts. It will almost always be profitable as long as you give it sufficient time for the good stock that you want to own anyway at a cheaper price.  

The biggest Ponzi scheme that will become a lot more worse....

This is one of the best writing about what is really the nature of Social Security, which will be doomed to become a lot worse under the LEFT government. While the fake president has for sure stolen a lot of your ballots, I know there are certainly many who have also voted for him. I assume they are still happy and enjoy their trust in him after hearing more about the nasty tax increases that are coming. For those with a normal brain function, I assume they won't be happy to see more stealing of their hard earned money that will definitely be wasted for wealth redistribution.  Keep the Change and Leave Us Be

By Jeff Clark Stand back, Charles Ponzi and Bernie Madoff. Your crimes were atrocious. But they're microscopic planktons in the ocean of fraud being perpetrated by the U.S. government. Imagine this… You've stuck to a savings plan your entire working life. Each month, you automatically tuck away $744 – whether you can afford to or not. It comes out of your paycheck, right off the top, and goes into what is presented to you as the world's safest bank account. Sometimes it's hard to do. You pass up taking your spouse out to dinner or taking the family to Disneyland for a three-day vacation. Saving the money is more important. It's your future, after all. Your retirement. So you stick to it – month after month, year after year. Imagine doing this for 46 years. That's 552 deposits of $744 each… for a grand total of $410,688. That's quite a nest egg. But over that time, the U.S. dollar has fallen in value, and inflation pressures have eaten away at the purchasing power of your savings… Nonetheless, you're confident the interest earned on your 46 years' worth of deposits is enough to make up for most of the loss in purchasing power. After all, in a truly free market environment, interest rates rise as inflationary pressures persist. Now, imagine it's time to start taking your money out and living off your savings. You've labored and saved for 46 years. You've sacrificed some of the finer things in life in order to save 12% of your monthly income for retirement. "Congratulations," says the trustee of your funds. "You've saved enough to receive $1,400 per month for the rest of your life." Congratulations? Really?! If you haven't already guessed by now, I'm writing about the Social Security system. And I'm furious. You see, I just received a statement of my future benefits, and the math doesn't make sense. The actuarial tables say I'm likely to live until 84 years old. So if I pay into the system until I'm 62, and then start taking Social Security, I'll have 22 years of payments at $1,400 per month. That's a total of 264 payments – a total payout of $369,600. That's more than $41,000 less than what I would have paid into the system. No interest. No capital gains. Never mind inflation and the drop in the value of the dollar – the Social Security Administration is stealing $41,000 from me. And they're stealing it from you, too. Of course, we all know the system is bankrupt. We all know the promises made can't be kept. And we all know the statement I just received most likely overstates my future benefits. So, my $41,000 loss is actually going to be much worse. And still, our FICA deposits are automatically deducted from our paychecks, and our employers automatically match the contributions. Why do we let this happen? If someone held us at gunpoint and demanded we give them 12% of our paychecks every week in exchange for a future benefit we knew was a total lie, we'd fight back. Don't steal my money. Don't lie to me. And don't try to pass it off as something charitable for the "greater good." Let me keep my money. Let me invest it myself. And let me enjoy the benefits or suffer the consequences of my own decisions. If I do well, I can live like a king and the $1,400-per-month paycheck from Social Security won't have any added benefit. If I don't do well and I blow my entire retirement savings on poor stock investments or on swampland in Kansas, I'll live by my decisions. That's the thinking that prompted me a few years ago to write a letter to the Social Security Administration… You can keep everything I've paid into the system thus far (just over $240,000). In exchange, don't take any more of my money. I'll never make a claim. My descendants will never make a claim. I'll raise my kids so that they'd rather deliver pizzas or work at McDonald's when they're 60 years old before cashing a check from the government. That's a $240,000 windfall gain for you, and I don't even get a tax deduction for it. What do you say? There was no response. Yet they keep taking my money and sending me statements that are filled with empty promises of substandard performance. I have no doubt I can achieve a better return on my money than the government can. And I trust my own abilities to take care of my family when times are tough. So, what do we do? Frankly, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to tell you how to fight the government and to avoid confiscation of your rightly earned property. I am smart enough, however, to know when I'm being played as the "mark" in a con game. Bernie Madoff ended up behind bars when the regulators finally figured out he was making up numbers and stealing money from his investors. It appears the government was simply getting rid of the competition.

TNT on nitroglycerin....

What will happen if you put a barrel of TNT on top of a crate of nitroglycerin? An explosion with a strength multiplied several times, right?

You don't need to test this in real life but just look at some great growth stocks to get the sense. 

First let's see how Amazon has been undergoing explosive growth in the past 10 years or so.  

What is its TNT? Its Prime membership, a network effect that has triggered enormous growth for the e-commerce giant. A 10 times jump as a result for its share price in just a few years. 

A similar story for Google.

Its online search explosion in the past decades is its TNT that has catapulted it with a 21 times moonshot for the stock.  

Any enlightenment? Yes, if we can find TNT for something emerging, we may ride the train for explosive growth. I think we are just witnessing such an explosion in front of our eyes!  

The Adoption Boom in a brand new technology: crypto.

You see, right now, it is estimated that less than 5% of people have really own any crypto, but this is changing quickly and fast as the number of major U.S. financial firms offering crypto services to their clients is increasing daily. Here are just just a few examples of those banks with the potential crypto exposure in the coming years:

• Wells Fargo: 70 million

• Bank of America: 66 million

• JPMorgan Chase: 55 million

• BNP Paribas: 33 million

• Deutsche Bank: 24 million

• Morgan Stanley: 8.2 million

In total, banks with a combined 300 million checking accounts are coming on board. And this is just in the US. Worldwide, we are talking about more than 5 billion potential new users about to come into bitcoin.

That a tsunami scale of explosion of new users coming into crypto in the years ahead. Talking about the TNT on nitroglycerin!!

If you are still wondering about the authenticity and legitimacy of crypto, you are just throwing away another baby Amazon or Google.

In the past few years, I have convinced a few friends to buy Bitcoin or Ether. Some got them and have held them tightly till now. They are the happy ones of course. But some others sold them for some quick gain due to worrying about the volatility. They are the ones feeling sorry now about their shortsightedness.  I hope you have the vision to be able to HODL Bitcoin or other valuable cryptos for years, not just weeks or months regardless how volatile it may be. That's the sure way to make you rich, potentially very rich down the road💪🤗 

Amazon: Mission accomplished!

Amazingly, just within days Amazon has accomplished its mission as I have predicted. Here is what I said last week: 

If you ask me, I think AMZN is heading down again with the first target towards 3400ish and if not held, will be back to 3300ish again in the next few weeks. 

Apparently I was too conservative to think it would take a few weeks for Amazon to go down towards the 3300 target. In reality, it took just a few days with a free fall  all the way down to as low as 3303 before bouncing back again (blue circle).

With this mission accomplished, Amazon is stuck in a wide trading range between the two trending lines. I think it will just fluctuate in the lines for a while to accumulate sufficient energy to break up or down, depending on the sentiment then. Let's see how it goes. 😄 

Selling in Hong Kong Nears Panic Proportions

Below is the note I got from SentimenTrader. For anyone who has any Chinese stocks, the past few weeks have been quite miserable for sure. I'm one of those, although my position is quite small, just to test the water a few weeks ago. As a contrarian, I'd think now maybe a good time again to test another water to bet for a quick rebound for Chinese stocks? Not meant for any long term investment but just for short term trading purposes. That's what I'm thinking right now. 😎

*******************************************************************

Fear that debt troubles with China's Evergrande would spread globally was the most common excuse for Monday's slide. Using it as a reason for drops in the U.S. is questionable, but the closer you get geographically, the more sense it makes.

Stocks in Hong Kong certainly have been feeling that pressure, thanks in part to a plunge in property developers and related companies.

According to Bloomberg calculations, the five stocks with the most significant losses accounted for 600 of the Hang Seng's 628-point loss over the past month.

Over 5 days into Monday, an average of more than 34 stocks in the index declined versus advanced, one of the most extreme readings in nearly 20 years. The Backtest Engine shows mostly positive returns after the others. The index continued to slide for a couple more months in August 2011, then reversed those losses in the months ahead.

In prior years, we've looked at a breadth composite when a particular market looks like it's suffering panic-level selling pressure (like Mexico and South Korea in 2019). This composite includes breadth metrics that have a good record at highlighting overwhelming internal selling pressure.

When we look at that composite for the Hang Seng, we can see that it is nearing panic-level conditions that have indicated washout selling pressure over the past 20 years.

An immediate buy signal?

We saw some panic this week and the VIX spiked sharply higher on Monday, jumping 40% or so. It popped above its upper Bollinger Bands (BB). And, it closed at its highest level since May. As shown below, from time to time, VIX will do so and this is the 7th time for this year actually. If you know how to analyze the VIX trend, actually this is one of those reliable signals regarding buying opportunity.  

 

You see,  whenever the VIX closes above its upper BB, it indicates an extremely volatile condition or a panicky situation and we usually see   a steep decline in the stock market. This may be more easily understood by looking at how S&P performed each time when VIX shot up above its BB.

So how does this signal play out? Well, it usually happens when the VIX closes back inside its BB, which often signals a buying opportunity, big or small. See the past 6 times this year that each such a signal was followed by a rebound of the market.  

Now the big question is whether we will see a similar pattern materialized this time? No guarantee of course but I bet so. I think the market is turning more bullish than bearish now at least for the very near term. The million dollar question is whether or not S&P will challenge and make new highs immediately during this rebound or another dead cat bounce to retest its recent lows? I bet for the latter but this is another concern we need to worry about when we come to that point in a few days or a week or so. For now, I'm betting for a decent rebound.  🤗

Zuckerberg, a "sociopath"

Forwarded:

Further demonstrating why NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway has called Facebook's founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, a "sociopath" and "the most dangerous person in the world," Zuckerberg approved a tone-deaf, brain-dead plan to put lipstick on this pig, as this New York Times article documents: No More Apologies: Inside Facebook's Push to Defend Its Image. Excerpt:

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify.

The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook's News Feed, the site's most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network.

The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items – some of them written by the company – would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said.

Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders' access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand.

What a total disgrace. Our elected leaders and regulators need to rein in this rogue company – fast!

Bullish signal for the year end?

I have been talking risks in general for a couple of months since the summer. Honestly I have expected to see a 10% correction or more by now. But S&P 500 is up 17.7% for the year and Nasdaq is up 15.8% by now. Any corrections yet? Ya, this week may be considered one with a 5% dip at its worst, but only on the intraday basis. If on a closing basis, we are only talking about a 3% dip from its recent peak.  

So the market should be pretty happy, right? Well, just the opposite! The most recent weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) showed that bullish sentiment sank 16.4 points to 22.4%, one of the fastest drops in history. Bullish sentiment hasn't been this low since July 29, 2020 - the period following the coronavirus crash. Meanwhile, bearish sentiment rose 12.1 points to 39.3%. That marks the seventh week of the last nine that pessimism has exceeded the historical average of 30.5%.

The here is the Fear & Greed Index

While we haven't seen a real substantial market correction or crash yet, investors sentiment has dipped to the extreme bearish grade for a mere 3.9% pullback in the S&P 500 from its recent highs. Gosh! 

As a contrarian investor, I have to view the market sentiment inversely. It seems to me somewhat a bullish signal that we may have seen the worst, or close to the worst for this year's correction by now. After all, we have been mostly through the worst month of a year and we are going into the more bullish season very soon. With the extreme bearish sentiment seen right now, accompanied by the more positive seasonality, I must say we probably should start to look for more upside than downside soon. I don't mean we cannot see another mini crash in the very near term but I think the market is setting up for a bullish year end as a whole. 

A quick final note: tomorrow is a wildcard day as the Fed meeting announcement will be made at 2 pm, followed by Powell's news conference. How the market will react is anyone's guess. Given the already very bearish mood seen in the market, I guess Powell may try to talk up to calm down the jittery market. 

How to spiral down....fast!

History can teach us a lot. What we are seeing now in the US is exactly what has happened in the past in many once enormously rich countries, which were miserably destroyed by the disgusting socialism politicians in the name of equality and common wealth. Sounds familiar? Yes, indeed, the US is spiraling down towards the abysmal bottom...fast!

一场民粹毁掉了100多年前人们向往的移民大国

对今天的世界来说，若有人想要移民，首选一定是美加澳欧。

一百年前，若有人想移民，会想到谁呢？除美国外，不是加拿大，不是澳大利亚，而是当时令全世界神往的另一个大国---阿根廷。

与今天的默默无闻相比，那时的阿根廷风光得一塌糊涂。

在南美，阿根廷国土面积仅次于巴西，幅员辽阔，土地富饶，蕴藏着丰富的矿产资源，农业和畜牧业发达，被称为"世界的粮仓和肉库"。 在自然条件上，阿根廷得天独厚。

从16世纪起，西班牙殖民者发现了阿根廷，开始长期殖民，并带来了当时西欧的先进文明。

17世纪阿根廷摆脱西班牙的统治，获得了独立，并与当时如日中天的大英帝国建立了紧密的贸易关系。资源丰富的阿根廷向英国大量出口矿产和农产品，获得了可观的财富，国民生活过得非常滋润。

与此同时阿根廷受益于大航海时代的全球贸易，靠着与智利共同控制的麦哲伦海峡，对美欧贸易往来的船只收取不菲的通行费，获得了极大的经济收益。

资源丰富、经济繁荣，阿根廷的日子过得相当舒适，吊打当时一众欧洲强国，国民收入超过老牌资本主义强国法国，经济实力全球排行第八。

上天给了阿根廷无限垂青，然而美中不足的是，带领阿根廷步入西化的殖民者是西班牙。不同于大英帝国的经验主义，西班牙文化传统中混合着拉丁的理性主义和英雄主义的激情色彩，追求财富的实用短视远大于文明的复制培育。

资源丰富、 农业发达的阿根 廷，没有来得及建立完善的工业体系，就患上了典型的拉美综合征。

20世纪上半叶，阿根廷国内军事政变频发，不同的军事势力争权夺利。

1946年，阿根廷迎来了自此改变国运的人物。

这一年，职业军人贝隆将军当选阿根廷总统。出生于农民家庭的贝隆对社会底层人民怀有天然的深厚感情，一直希望建立一个更加平等公平的社会。当机会来临时，贝隆开始对阿根廷进行大刀阔斧的改革。

和所有同一类型的政治人物一样，贝隆大力推行平均主义。

没收英美两国在阿根廷的大部分资产，将其收归国有；拒绝偿还阿根廷欠下的外债，进行赖账；对国内的资本家驱赶或征收重税，用来给工人发放高福利；采取闭关锁国的做法，制造贸易壁垒，征收高额关税。

布宜诺斯艾利斯：二战后，这个阿根廷首都曾被视为欧洲移民的大门

贝隆推行的政策受到社会底层人员的欢迎，为他赢得了更多的支持。然而，它的政策与市场经济要求背道而驰，严重打击了国内资本和出口贸易。

非常依赖国际贸易的阿根廷很快尝到了苦果，经济恶化，国民收入下降，社会福利难以为继。此时贝隆没有反思原因，却顺手用起了其他国家惯用的手法---开动印钞机，滥印钞票。结果自然迎来了严重的通货膨胀，阿根廷经济急剧下滑。

毫无章法的贝隆，在后来的军事政变中被迫下台。贝隆示好社会底层的政策开了一个坏头，后来的正府为了讨好选民，被迫让先前很多违反经济规律的政策延续。阿根廷就这样在窠臼中不得脱身，经济再也没有回归史上的那份荣耀。

总结世界发展经验可以看到，一个富裕的国家走向衰败，多半都是自己胡乱折腾造成的后果。这类教训举不胜举，南非、委内瑞拉、津巴布韦、伊琅、古吧、土耳其，还有好多其它国家正在排队的路上。

贝隆的行为，在世界很多其它国家都能发现同样的影子，这些曾经富裕的国家的大好前途，都在那些无知无畏或者自信满满以为自己无所不能的领导人手中无一例外地被断送，国运被彻底改变。

20世纪的阿根廷，百年之中有近七十年都处在军人政府的把持之下，在历史的循环中浑浑噩噩，再也没能够走出来。

本来可能就这么平平淡淡，直到上世纪八十年代，有位奇葩总统在世界上掀起了不小的水花。

与好心办坏事的贝隆不同，这位阿根廷总统却是为了自己的权位玩弄权术铤而走险。

1981年，阿根廷通货膨胀率高达600%以上，经济非常不好，国内掀起了长期大罢工，阿根廷军政府毫无作为，受到人民的唾弃与憎恶。工程兵司令出身的总统加尔铁里面对严重的国内经济问题束手无策，而且其本人也是践踏人泉与贪腐的人物之一。

为了能继续坐稳自己的位子，加尔铁里想到可以发动一场信心十足的马岛战役，借收复国土之名，以胜利来转移公众的焦点，缓解国内危机，将民愤化为民粹，保住自己的大位。

面对阿根廷国内火烧眉毛的经济危机，总统加尔铁里需要人民忘记国家背负的巨额国债、忘记高通货膨胀率，需要祸水外引通过对外战争转移国内矛盾。

1982年4月2日，加尔铁里正府在两天内组织起一支规模庞大的特混舰队，悍然发动了著名的马岛战争。

加尔铁里认为阿根廷拥有南美洲规模最大的海军，马岛距离英国本土太远，二战后大英帝国实力日益不济，而且3年前刚上台的撒切尔夫人正被一系列国内外难题搞得焦头烂额，无暇分身，也没有胆量做出军事回击。

此外，加尔铁里觉得此时的阿根廷跟美国、法国正处于"蜜月期"，就算是英国敢于开战，两国也不会出手相助，阿根廷基本胜券在握。

果然，英国在马岛的防守力量薄弱，阿根廷军队仅遭遇轻微抵抗，便占领马岛全境。一时阿根廷国内民族热情高涨，加尔铁里成为了民族英雄，军政府成功获得了民众的拥护。   

然而，加尔铁里低估了铁娘子撒切尔夫人维护主权的意志，也高估了自己在美法两国总统眼中的重要性。就在阿根廷人沉浸在胜利的喜悦中时，撒切尔夫人迅速获得议会的授权，并抽调海军总兵力的2/3组成了远征军，万里行军攻击阿根廷、收复马岛。

在议会演讲时，撒切尔夫人慷慨陈词，声称"福克兰群岛已成为我的生命、我的血液"，发誓不收回马岛绝不罢手。

二战后英国早已失去世界霸主的地位，曾经天下无敌的皇家海军由于国力削弱，实力一落千丈。但这个成熟的民族迅速从昔日日不落的梦境中走出来，走上了紧跟美国的务实外交之路。

经过激烈和艰苦的争夺战后，长途奔波的英军夺回了马岛的控制权。最终长达74天的马岛战争付出死亡人数：阿军649人、英军255人、福克兰居民3人。

马岛战争对双方的政治影响是巨大的。

马岛之战的胜利，强烈的爱国主义情绪横扫英国，以首相撒切尔夫人为首的政府权威得到了空前加强，并帮助英国保守党赢得了1983年的谱选。

阿根廷的战败导致了更大规模的反政府运动，最后军正府倒台。加尔铁里操弄民粹和打鸡血做赌注，最终失算，次年被逮捕并交由军事法庭审判。

加尔铁里军正府挑动战争转移焦点的行为，在其他某些国家比比皆是：委内瑞拉仇美、伊琅反美、南非排白，等等，如出一辙，异曲同工，结果都无一例外，于事无补，反而弄巧成拙，自取其辱。

虽然阿根廷仍未放弃对马岛的主权要求，但自此后再也不敢打马岛的主意了。

马岛之战的失利，让阿根廷民众的屈辱和怒火积压心中。四年后的墨西哥世界杯上，阿根廷人的这股情绪再次宣泄。1/4决赛中英格兰与阿根廷狭路相逢，最终凭借马拉多纳的"上帝之手"将阿根廷送入了半决赛，并最终夺得冠军。

虽然阿根廷赢得不够光彩，但情绪上脑的阿根廷人毫不在乎，只要赢了就行。这和四年前加尔铁里转移国内矛盾的套路似乎别无二致。

今天人们谈到阿根廷，会想到足球和探戈，已与富裕发达无关。

阿根廷倒退回发展中国家后，再也没有跨过中等国家收入陷阱。阿根廷走过的路，也是世界上其他某些富裕国家由盛及衰同样的路，背后的原因基本类似。

违反经济发展规律，胡乱作为，把一手好牌打的稀巴烂，在拉美综合征的怪圈里始终走不出来。每逢世界经济低迷，阿根廷的经济便会出现更严重的症状。

无论是加尔铁里的旁门左道，还是马拉多纳的上帝之手，始终未能从根本上救治这个民族。而这就是典型的"民粹主义"。

正如《什么是民粹主义？》一书中说到：他们强硬而富有煽动力，鼓吹极端的理念和政策，宣称代表底层民众，诉诸民众被漠视的利益和压抑的愤怒····却常常将国家带入深渊。

然而，回溯过去，"民粹主义"所引发的矛盾已不只是口头的争锋，甚至点燃了行动的火苗。发生在国内外的无数起事件，再次说明，它的能量超乎想象。 但，它经常被滥用，很多人更常常分不清究竟什么是民粹主义。以至于无法形成系统的认知。

A Plan Doomed to Fail

Skyrocketing Inflation and 'Tax the Rich' Is a Plan Doomed to Fail
By Trish Regan

If it seems like your money doesn't go as far as it used to, you're not imagining things... It doesn't.

We all feel it each week in our grocery bills and at the gas pumps... and this year's back-to-school shopping trips seemed to make a bigger dent in our budgets than usual.

I hate to say I told you so, but when I warned of continuing inflation, I wasn't kidding...

This week's inflation numbers were once again alarming. And believe me, we still haven't seen the worst of it.

On Tuesday, the Labor Department reported a 5.3% increase in the prices that consumers pay for goods and services.

The mainstream media of course put its spin on the news, advancing the Biden administration's and the Fed's thesis that inflation "isn't really a problem."

Inflation Data Less Than Forecasted, wrote Bloomberg.
CPI Inflation Comes in Soft in August, said Investor's Business Daily.
Consumer prices post smaller-than-expected increase in August, screamed CNBC.

I'm calling B.S... Should we really be rejoicing because economists expected 5.4% and instead got 5.3%?

It's still a significant inflation percentage and the reality is prices for everyday Americans are up 5.3% from this time last year! And they've been up 5% or more since May.

This is an inflation problem. And it hurts the very people our lawmakers are purporting to help the most.

Inflation acts like a tax – especially in light of the fact that wages aren't going up and the dollar is continually under pressure.

Keep in mind, it will soon grow worse.

You see, the consumer price index data comes on the heels of a massive increase in wholesale prices. The prices that producers pay for goods and services spiked a record 8.3%, up from July's 7.8% increase.

Everything is going up. And in this scenario, one of two things will happen... Either producers pass on their higher costs to consumers, creating more inflation... or profits suffer, creating a problem for stock market valuations.

Both of these outcomes will have direct, negative consequences on your wallet and livelihood.

And watch out, here comes that media and White House spin again... They're dismissing these concerns because "wages are growing."

But they're not. What these crackerjack reporters and Biden officials fail to tell you is that REAL wages – adjusted for inflation – are 1.2% lower on the year.

Inflation is eating into everyday Americans' spending power and shows no signs of stopping.

As I've explained before, the Federal Reserve is less interested in inflation data because "it's transitory," or so it believes. The Fed assures us that once all the supply-chain issues are resolved, then inflation should be no more.

Except it's not just the supply-chain problem... It's also a money-printing problem.

All in, we've printed upward of $6 trillion dollars thus far, and our leaders are looking for an additional $3.5 trillion – a preposterous amount of money.

Senator Joe Manchin gets it... The West Virginia senator – seemingly the only adult in the room these days – is in staunch opposition to the Democrat's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package.

Manchin was forced into a bit of a mudslinging contest this week when he had to defend himself against Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's accusations that he was working with ExxonMobil and that's why he's against the infrastructure bill.

After referring to her as a "young lady" while responding to her criticism, AOC took the opportunity this week to accuse him of patronizing her for the reference. (You knew that was coming...)

But Manchin understands that you cannot indefinitely print money without suffering serious consequences...

On Monday, Democrats on Capitol Hill revealed a plan that would most definitely mean higher taxes for everyone.

The plan hikes the top statutory income tax rates to 39.6%, while adding a new 3% surtax, and explains that the Obamacare 3.8% tax will cover most income. This combines to equal a 46.4% top federal income tax rate. Top earners in New York City, for example, could face a combined city, state, and federal income tax rate of 61.2%.

And business owners? Good luck... The corporate rate jumps from 21% to 26.5%, with the capital gains rate increasing to 28.8%. The marginal small business tax rate would jump to more than 40%.

Oh and we can't forget, there's also a $600 billion carbon tax, which would basically hurt anyone who has a car, home, or a business.

Somehow, these tax increases are supposed to bring in the big bucks. Well, that and Biden's extra $80 billion in IRS agents who are going to squeeze the money out of everyone.

In other news this week, AOC's wardrobe was certainly in lockstep with her Democratic party's philosophy, as she attended a $30,000-a-plate Met Gala dinner donning a white evening gown with "Tax the Rich" written on the back in bold, red letters.

The Dem liberals may make "stick it to the rich" sound like a good plan...

But ultimately, massive spending and taxing don't work. We are left with the reality of ever-increasing prices, ever-increasing inflation, ever-increasing bills... and no money to pay for any of it.

SpaceX bright future

 I have a great interest to read about Elon Musk's another incredible achievement by his private rocket company: Elon Musk's SpaceX Launches First All-Civilian Flight to Orbit. Excerpt:

Elon Musk's SpaceX on Wednesday evening launched four civilians toward the deepest orbit Americans have traveled to in more than a decade in another milestone flight for private space travel.

A Falcon 9 rocket with a Crew Dragon space capsule on top lifted off with a fiery plume from a pad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, according to a live stream of the takeoff...

The space flight Wednesday marks new terrain for a commercial space industry that has attracted entrepreneurs and investors who are betting on an expanding set of business opportunities beyond Earth.

For the first time, an all-civilian crew is traveling to orbit on a mission arranged entirely by private parties. Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments-processing company Shift4 Payments Inc., purchased the trip for an undisclosed sum from SpaceX and is commanding the mission. Previous travelers to orbit had to secure seats on Russian government-controlled rockets to venture that deep into space.

Three people joined Mr. Isaacman on the flight, which has a charitable component. They are Dr. Sian Proctor, a geoscientist and science communicator; Hayley Arceneaux, a cancer survivor who now works as a physician assistant; and Chris Sembroski, an Air Force veteran and aerospace industry employee.

Here is a snapshot of the Falcon 9 on its way to orbit. And it's pretty remarkable that it was taken from an iPhone:

......."Over the last few months, it was certainly fun to watch Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos compete for the spotlight in their race to be "first" with commercial space tourism. Branson's Virgin Galactic flights take about an hour and allow participants to experience zero gravity, but they never get above the Kármán line – the altitude recognized as being the delineation between Earth's atmosphere and space.

Bezos' Blue Origin flight does make it above the Kármán line, but it's a much shorter flight. After all, unlike Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin launches on a rocket. It basically goes straight up and straight down… no dilly-dallying around. The trip to space takes about 11 minutes.

But this SpaceX flight is in a different league entirely. It makes the efforts of Bezos and Branson look like child's play. 

In yet another flawless SpaceX mission, Elon Musk and his team sent four civilians not only into space, but into orbit at an altitude higher than the International Space Station. In fact, the crew is now in orbit at an altitude higher than any human-piloted spaceflight mission to Earth's orbit except for the Gemini 10 and 11 missions back in 1966.

If that isn't enough, SpaceX returned the Falcon 9 booster to Earth so that it can be reused again.

And what may come as a surprise to many is that the entire flight, orbit, and return to Earth is fully autonomous. That's right – the crew doesn't have to do a thing. They just monitor the screens in the Crew Dragon capsule and enjoy the view for a few days."  by Jeff Brown

You may want to also watch the Netflix (NFLX) documentary about this, Countdown: Inspiration4 Mission To Space. You can watch the trailer for it here.

As an investor for SpaceX, I cannot be more proud of being part of this venture. Along with it, my investment capital has already been more than double after several rounds of financing.  These days, it is very difficult to get shares of SpaceX, which are often a lot more expensive than what is priced, even if you are lucky to be able to get it via secondary offering.  That's how much demanded right now, a red hot pre-IPO stock everyone is willing to chase. 😏💪

Be bullish now?

After being persistently bullish for weeks without a slight correction, suddenly the market has become quite bearish in the past week with 6 straight down days. And the S&P bullishness index has plunged to the lowest point for the year. As a contrary indicator, this is actually a bullish sign. With the market sitting right at the lower band of the long term uptrend with extreme bearish sentiment, it seems to me that a rip-your-face-off rally moment is imminent at least for the near term.   

Could it come tomorrow? We will see!

The Probability of a New Bear Market is Rising

by SentimenTrader

Even as the major equity indexes vacillate near record highs, macro conditions are deteriorating and the probability of trouble is rising.

Economic reports have been coming in below economists' expectations, both domestically and globally. As another reflection of those weak reports, our Macro Index Model has been deteriorating.

The U.S. stock market and U.S. economy move in the same direction in the long term. Macro deteriorates from time to time, which is normal during the ebb and flow of an economic expansion. To differentiate temporary slowdowns from real problems, we look for significant macro deterioration. The Macro Index Model combines 11 diverse indicators to determine the state of the U.S. economy.

Once the final reports were in for August, the model plunged below 46%, the 2nd-lowest reading of the past decade.

At the same time, the Bear Market Probability Model has jumped again. This is a model outlined by Goldman Sachs using five fundamental inputs. Each month's reading is ranked versus all other historical readings and assigned a score. The higher the score, the higher the probability of a bear market in the months ahead.

Last May, the model was in the bottom 10% of all months since 1950. This month, it jumped into the top 10% of all months.

There is some overlap between the two models, with a correlation of +0.25 (out of a scale from -1.0 to +1.0) since 1968. However, it's still rare to see both of them at such extremes at the same time.

When we combined the two models, the current conditions are the most extreme since 2007. Going back more than 50 years, forward stock returns under similar conditions were horrid.

There is no good way to square this kind of outlook against some of the positives that have been triggered lately, most notably the breadth thrusts. The biggest risk for those counting on the thrusts is that when they occur when the indexes are trading at new highs instead of after a protracted decline, they have sometimes highlighted blow-off peaks.

Bearish for Amazon again!

Another bullish trade I'm still holding is for AMZN. You know I was bearish about AMZN for a few weeks till recently when it crashed down towards its 200 DMA. I think there is a good chance that AMZN will bounce back strongly in the next few weeks. The easiest option trade is to sell its naked puts but you need a lot of money to do so, since one contract means over $300K worth of the stock value for 100 shares. Even with a margin, it easily means $50K to $100K cash required depending on the broker's margin requirement. I have a much better way to play with it as I have shared with my Family (for each contract):

It means we can potentially make a profit of about 70% in the next few weeks as long as AMZN is not trading below 3280ish by its expiry (AMZN is trading around $3350ish).  I think the odds are quite good in our favor, given how oversold AMZN is right now!

This was what I posted early Aug when AMZN tanked quite a bit to $3350ish. Since then, AMZN has indeed mounted a powerful rebound for about 200 points. It feels like a very strong rebound, isn't it? But looking at its chart as below, I'm not sure anyone who can read it will really feel bullish for it! Just to share a few points of my takeaways:

• AMZN has completed a gap filling and has hit its overhead downtrend line (the red dot line)
• AMZN has bounced towards its low band of the previous uptrend, which is another obvious resistance for it (the lower green line)
• Its momentum indicators are not bullish at all with low volume in this rebound. 

If you ask me, I think AMZN is heading down again with the first target towards 3400ish and if not held, will be back to 3300ish again in the next few weeks. 

As such, I'm shorting AMZN again!

The Hope of Future

from:  https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/sV6dHzcBAeoxJS7kJDUxAg

北卡罗莱纳州立大学在比赛开始前排出"AMERICA"队形，

奏响"奇异恩典"，

拉出巨幅美国国旗，

纪念13位在阿富汗阵亡的美军战士。

整个周末多段视频被发布到推特上，

显示全国各地的大学足球场都在高呼"F**k Joe Biden"。 

竟然成为了一种潮流。 

下面是一段网友收集合成的来自不同高校的现场视频。

其中包括德克萨斯州的农工大学，

阿拉巴马州的奥本大学，

弗吉尼亚理工大学

和南卡罗来纳州的海岸卡罗来纳大学。

虽然我也知道，喊一万遍"F**K JOE BIDEN"

也不能让死去的13位年轻的美国大兵起死回生， 

也不能逆转美国的边境危机，

也不能遏制日益飙升的通货膨胀，

更不能赶走那些作恶多端的民主党人，

但是， 解气！

 

还有更重要的是，

这些大学生们都是17-22岁的年轻人，

他们满了18岁的都可以投票！！！ 

民主党的末日就会在"F**K JOE BIDEN"的呼声中到来。 

了解美国历史的人都知道，

美国人民不是一代比一代更激进，

而是有回归的年代。

这个周末（虽然我从来不看橄榄球比赛）

让我看到了美国的希望。

A gigantic step of mankind!

What is the magic of Bitcoin? Here is the best one I have seen:  

The magic of Bitcoin is not digital currency. The magic of Bitcoin is not the blockchain. The magic of Bitcoin is decentralization. Removing power from the center and spreading it as far as possible. It's the same magic that makes the Internet what it is today. That gives it power and makes it uncensorable and impossible to shut down. The same thing that means you cannot unpublish something on the Internet, means that you cannot stop something that's on Bitcoin.

Now the Magic Bitcoin has made a gigantic step: it has been officially recognized and promoted as the fiat currency in a sovereign country: 

While many people are still worried about its fate and legality here in the US, Bitcoin has also been quietly included in the FDIC-insured checking account business. 

It's not getting much press, but the folks behind family-owned Vast Bank just did something big. They unveiled a program that allows customers to purchase crypto directly in their FDIC-insured checking accounts. It means the market is opening to an entirely new crowd... the huge crowd of folks who are interested in crypto but aren't so sure about the technological hoops.

Straight from the CEO of Vast Bank, Brad Scrivner...

There's lots of different customers out there that may want to control everything and have their own wallet, their own passcodes, and then there are those who are crypto curious and may prefer to work with a bank or an intermediary, just because they don't quite understand.

You may have noticed a flash crash of Bitcoin and all the altercoins in the past few days, which brought down 20-30% down of their values within hours. It may feel scary but I'm happy to see it as a great buying opportunity for adding more of what I'd like to own. Only when you truly understand what Bitcoin really is, then you won't worry much about its day to day volatility. If anything, it offers more opportunities to buy them cheaply!😜🤗 

What is Bitcoin worth?

My friend forwarded me another great piece about the value of Bitcoin, a very intelligent explanation why Bitcoin is worth a lot from an unique perspective that I haven't seen anyone else has talked about!!

Hope you also find it very informative🤗 

The Billionaire Who Wants the World's Money
By Eric Wade

When a smart person – a person with whom you often agree – says something patently, absurdly, provably wrong... that's your big red blinking light of opportunity. Especially when that smart person is ridiculously wealthy.

But you have to figure out what the opportunity is, and you need to do it fast and with enough conviction that you'll actually act on it.

Because smart billionaires don't often give us obvious flashing red lights like we're getting right now.

Let me explain...

John Paulson is an American hedge fund billionaire. During the 2007 to 2008 U.S. housing bubble and subprime-mortgage collapse, Paulson used the very complicated credit default swaps ("CDS") to make an absolute killing. (A CDS is a contract that acts like insurance for bonds. If a company can't pay its debts, a CDS ensures that the owner of the debt gets paid.)

In other words, Paulson leveraged the possibility of risk of default away from his own portfolio and onto other parties just as the entire world's economy was going into a period of unprecedented defaults.

It was a brilliant move that made Paulson an estimated $4 billion personally.

But there's something else you should know about Paulson. In 2008, he wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the U.S. Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP") would be better served by buying troubled financial institutions' preferred stock rather than following the Treasury Secretary's plan of buying those same institutions' worst, most toxic assets.

Washington, D.C., as you can expect, rejected the great advice and instead "bailed out" failed institutions with buckets of cash going to failing banks.

Smart and Rich and Wrong

I say all of this to introduce Paulson as someone who clearly has turned his smarts into billions of dollars... so he's worth paying attention to when he talks about investments.

But what happens when he says something that's dead wrong?

First, you make sure it's not you who's wrong. Then you figure out why he said it and what it means.

Recently, Paulson told Bloomberg Wealth that he doesn't believe cryptocurrencies have any value. His exact words were, "Cryptocurrencies, regardless of where they're trading today, will eventually prove to be worthless."

That's a bold statement, considering the global value of cryptocurrencies right now is more than $2.2 trillion.

And it's easy to prove that he's wrong. There are thousands of cryptocurrencies that provide a broad spectrum of services and utility as well as speculative value... But we need look no further than the most basic, simplest cryptocurrency for our proof.

Let's look at whether bitcoin (BTC) has any value. Bitcoin, you may or may not know, is a computer program written and released in response to the 2007 to 2008 meltdown that virtually anyone can run. I've run it on a standard Windows 10 home computer, an old laptop, and a $100 Raspberry Pi minicomputer.

What the bitcoin program does is simply keep track of where the bitcoin "coins" are, and when a coinholder wants to move coins, the program makes sure the coins being moved really belong to the coinholder who is moving them.

That's it. Bitcoin keeps track of bitcoin.

To make sure the bitcoin program isn't hacked, the program pays out rewards to anyone – anywhere – who voluntarily uses their computer to secure the network and process those "moving coins" transactions. Those rewards are paid out in more bitcoin to whoever is lucky enough to solve a puzzle that locks down all the data every 10 minutes.

It works so well that anyone, anywhere in the world, at literally any time of day, can track how many coins there are and where they moved to and from... down to the value of $0.0005. (If you're curious, there are exactly 18,803,690 bitcoin in existence as I write this.)

It's a simple, elegant program that has been running on thousands of computers virtually uninterrupted since its invention in 2009.

A 900-Year Head Start Should Count for Something

Compare that to tracking equities, which have been trading since the 12th century according to WorldAtlas.com and – get this – nobody really knows how many shares of stocks there are.

I'm not kidding. We've had centuries to perfect stock trading, and yes, high-frequency traders can execute a trade in milliseconds... but nobody can count how many shares there really are.

I know most of you reading this may be stock investors, so I fully expect I'll have to prove this and you probably want to hear more than just "unscrupulous brokers loaned out 140% of GameStop shares because of funny accounting tricks."

Yes, that's a problem. But it's even bigger than that and a much, much older problem than the recent meme stocks trading on Robinhood. In fact, in the aftermath of the 2007 to 2008 global economic collapse, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") adopted Rule 613 (Consolidated Asset Trail) to try to get a handle on – literally – who held what assets.

At the time, the SEC said Rule 613 would "create a comprehensive consolidated audit trail that would allow regulators to efficiently and accurately track all activity throughout the U.S. markets in National Market System securities."

Now, when it was written a mere decade ago, there wasn't a way to accurately track all of the securities in the United States. Rule 613 goes on to require market participants to submit a plan for how they would create and maintain a consolidated audit trail ("CAT").

In plain English, Rule 613 was the very beginning of attempting to audit who owns what of publicly traded securities.

Sadly, but perhaps not unexpectedly, in 2017 the SEC announced that the phase of actually using the CAT was being delayed by at least a year. It probably surprises no one that in April of 2020, the SEC again agreed to more delays due to COVID-19.

Knowing this, it's easy to see why brokers fearlessly lend out 140% of a company's stock right under the nose of the SEC. Until CAT is a reality, I guess you could say "the mice will play."

This isn't meant to scare equities investors... Rather, I'm attempting to highlight the difference between bitcoin – the simple, volunteer-run computer program that can track literally every single coin ever issued down to the value of five ten-thousandths of a penny – juxtaposed against Rule-613-spawned "Consolidated Asset Trail" vaporware.

Bitcoin, then, just one of thousands of cryptocurrencies, has solved the "who owns what" problem that has eluded the SEC and its nearly $2 billion annual budget and its 4,658 full-time employees for a decade... after having a 900-year head start dealing with equities.

Paulson Wants Something for Nothing

Therefore, Paulson's statement is provably wrong: Bitcoin (the program) is clearly worth something, not nothing. Adding to that, bitcoin can be used as a currency or medium of exchange by anyone around the world. You can transfer bitcoin without a bank 24/7, and on average pay a fee of only $2.72... in bitcoin, of course. Plus, you can deposit bitcoin and borrow against it almost instantly with no questions asked.

Moreover, every year another wave of investors turned off by the traditional finance world sees the value in the bitcoin program that – when you own some of its self-issued coins – allows you to be 100% sure of what you own.

That may not appeal to Paulson. Maybe he's perfectly fine investing his $4 billion estimated net worth in questionable securities sloppily tracked by bureaucrats who can't even build a database in a decade with a $2 billion annual budget.

But I don't believe that. And I also don't believe Paulson just doesn't understand cryptocurrencies or doesn't see the value.

I believe, instead, that Paulson says cryptocurrencies are worthless because he wants to buy them... cheap.

Just like in 2007 to 2008 when Paulson convinced the smartest traders in the world to take the other side of his massive, complicated credit-default-swap trade (which has been called The Greatest Trade Ever by the Wall Street Journal's Gregory Zuckerman)... Do you think he told the counterparties what he was doing?

No, Paulson's smart enough to know you don't telegraph your moves.

What does it all mean? Paulson is smart. He'll buy, use, or perhaps create and sell cryptocurrencies eventually. If he's simply looking to buy at lower prices... you should, too.

My advice: Don't sell him yours, no matter what the price is.