Mark Ford

Tuesday, December 13, 2022, Delray Beach, Florida

December 13, 2022 No Comments

What Was The New York Times Thinking?

Sam Bankman-Fried – who was arrested yesterday in the Bahamas after the US filed criminal charges against him – cheated more than one million investors out of billions of dollars. Most of it vanished into thin air.

You would think that he would have been pilloried by the mainstream press. You would think that financial celebrities like Janet Yellen and Mark Zuckerberg would have refused to be on the same program with him. You would think that The New York Times would have been investigating. Instead, they were treating him like a wunderkind that was a little too sloppy and a lot too zealous. And everyone seemed to be on board with it.

As my friend JS said, “Why are they trying to make him look sympathetic?”

Could it be that he comes from a respectable family that is very connected with the liberal establishment? Could it be that he used as much as a billion of his customers’ dollars to contribute to Democratic candidates last year?

This is an amazing story. It’s a huge and deliberate financial scandal. It may be the biggest theft from private investors in the history of the world. I mean, it is much, much bigger than Madoff. And it is in no way a story of naïveté or innocence or excessive ambition, as SBF’s publicists are trying to portray it. It was a purposeful and shameless swindle that he was getting away with because his businesses were registered offshore. If it had been done in the United States (or most of Europe), he would have been behind bars long before now, looking at spending the rest of his life there.

I’m writing about this today simply because I’m astonished by the fact that so many of my friends have a neutral to positive view of this crook. In future issues, when I’m done with the COVID series, I’ll lay out the details.

Stay tuned.

The Economy & Investing

December 13, 2022 No Comments

Energy Supply and Demand Likely to Be a Big Topic This Winter

That’s because of sanctions against Russia for the war on Ukraine, the unwillingness of OPEC to increase production, and the politically driven campaign to move too quickly away from fossil fuels towards green energy.

Some facts:

* NYC natural gas prices for January are 60% higher than they were last January.

* Consolidated Edison expects power bills to climb 22%.

* In France, the scarcity of oil and gas has spurred the government into reactivating nuclear power plants that had been scheduled to be retired – and even pressured them to increase production.

England faces an especially cold winter as the reduction of oil and gas from continental sources is compounded by an historic dip in wind activity. The reduction so far is equivalent to 16 gigawatts, or the amount of power that would be generated by 16 nuclear power plants.

Mark Rossano, an energy expert, made these points in a recent episode of “The Wiggin Sessions” podcast:

* Dispatchable power is dwindling, and it can drop off quickly due to the intermittent nature of renewables.

* The variability creates broad issues that only get amplified in the winter months as solar efficacy drops off considerably.

* Wind flows can adjust abruptly, and the remaining capacity (mainly fossil fuels) is stressed further.

* The harder you run these assets, the more wear and tear and maintenance that will be required to ensure their continuous use.

* The shift between baseload and peaking capacity is only getting worse as more coal is slated to come offline over the next six to 12 months.

Business & Marketing

December 13, 2022 No Comments

Overlooking the Obvious

Something is going wrong with your business. Usually, you know how to fix it. This time, you are flummoxed. You try everything that has worked before. No luck. What else can you do? You can hire a consultant!

You hire the consultant. They study the situation and recommend a solution. But the solution is a set of very basic ideas you already knew. The bill is expensive. You feel like you’ve wasted a lot of money. But because you’ve spent the money, you put the recommendations in place. Astonishingly, they work. The problem is resolved.

What the heck happened? This essay by Scott Young explains what’s going on.

Worth Watching

December 13, 2022 No Comments

The Wonder

Directed by Sebastián Lelio

Staring Florence Pugh, Kíla Lord Cassidy, and Niamh Algar

In theaters Nov. 2, 2022

Currently streaming on Netflix

The Wonder is grim, stark, and depressing (GSD, as my old friend KD used to say). But it is also a very satisfying period film that is, despite a touch of retrospective moralizing, moving and compelling.

The Plot

In 1862, an English nurse ((Florence Pugh) travels to the Irish Midlands to observe 11-year-old Anna O’Donnell (Kíla Lord Cassidy), a peasant girl who claims not to have eaten a bite for the past four months.

What I Liked …

The opening and closing gimmick: The Wonder opens and closes in a modern warehouse of film sets. A voice-over by Niamh Algar informs us that what we’re about to see is a story about the stories that people use to shape their world. This is a bit too “on the nose,” as they say. But it worked for me.

The music: Composed by Matthew Herbert, the score is unlike anything I’ve heard before. Like the above, it was gimmicky. But, again, it worked for me.

The acting: Especially Florence Pugh as the English nurse and Kíla Lord Cassidy as the fasting child. But really, everyone was very good.

The set design: Lush, eerie, dark, and moody – a principal character in itself.

Interesting

The story was inspired by the so-called “fasting girls” of the Victorian era who fascinated the public with what was described as “a miraculously inspired loss of appetite.”

Critical Reception

* “The blessing of The Wonder is how it acknowledges the things we most want to believe and still proposes, in the end, that human acts and faith in others can be the most miraculous things of all.” (Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic)

* “[A] perverse, provocative story about women, their appetites, and a world that barbarically tries to control them both.” (Manohla Dargis, New York Times)

* “Some [movies], such as this, provide a fresh reminder of the power of visual storytelling.” (John Anderson, Wall Street Journal)

You can watch the trailer here.

Worth Considering

December 13, 2022 No Comments

The COVID Response. What We Got Wrong.

Part V: The Treatments

Today, I’m going to take on yet another topic that was front page news for months… and then, simply disappeared.

Do you remember when, early in 2020, President Trump talked about certain medications that held out hope for treating COVID? Three of those he mentioned the most in tweets and White House briefings were ivermectin, remdesivir, and hydroxychloroquine.

The CDC and the mainstream press attacked him viscously for this. They accused him of witch-doctory. They said he was putting lives in danger by encouraging people to take them. Do you remember that?

There was a huge outcry, in particular, against hydroxychloroquine. That was the one that was going to kill people that took it. Do you remember? Well, Trump was merely reporting on early studies on these drugs. Since then, lots of new data has been collected. And though subsequent studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not useful in treating COVID, those early studies were showing positive results. Here’s one example from the NIH.

As for ivermectin and remdesivir – they are not miracle cures, but Trump never said they were. Recent findings are mixed, but some have shown them to be “somewhat” to “very” effective in mitigating the symptoms of COVID.

One major study, for example, found that a three-day course of remdesivir given to non-hospitalized patients who were at high risk for COVID-19 progression resulted in 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death than a placebo. And though the FDA keeps insisting that ivermectin doesn’t work against COVID, many of the studies they point to on their website show that it does. Click here.

We now know that none of these drugs are dangerous, if taken as prescribed. And some of them have become recommended treatments by respected medical establishments all over the world. So, where was the CDC and the mainstream media as these positive results started to come out?

When I continue with this series on fake COVID news, I’ll tell you why I think we were scared into an irrational and ultimately damaging response to the virus.

Fun and/or Interesting

December 13, 2022 No Comments

The “Magic 8 Ball” – the top-selling Christmas stocking stuffer in 1950, the year I was born…

The original Magic 8 Ball was created by Albert Carter, the son of a professional psychic. Along with his brother-in-law, Abe Bookman, Carter unsuccessfully marketed several incarnations of the “Syco-Seer” before passing away in 1948. Bookman then redesigned it to look like the one sold today.

To find out what the top-selling stocking stuffer was in your birth year, click here.

Readers Write

December 13, 2022 No Comments

“You have stated several times in the past year that you believe the US is in for a significant and sustained recession. You have also said that, in spite of your expectation of an extended bear market, you are keeping most of your stock portfolio intact – i.e., you are not selling. Why not? Are you suggesting that everyone hold?” – JP

My Response: I don’t tell people what to do with their investments because I don’t think of myself as an investment advisor. What I do is write about decisions I’ve made for myself. As I’ve explained many times, my portfolio is made up of what I call “Legacy” stocks – companies that have the size and strength to endure through recessions and even depressions. So, even though I think there’s a good chance that we’re in for an extended bear market, I’m not selling.

As I pointed out in the Sept. 27 issue, if I had another sort of stock portfolio – one that was heavy in speculative and/or growth stocks – I would make a change. Likewise, if I were making money trading stocks, I’d stop and wait till the smoke clears.

But that’s not the position I’m in. I can afford to wait a year or even five or 10 years for the market to recover… which it always has. As TS, reminded me recently:

“The S&P 500 has been down 20% or more over a six-month period eight times since World War II. The first six months of this year were the latest example. Every time this has happened in the past, the market was positive for the next six months with an average return of 21.5%.

“Furthermore, in all seven previous times, the market was positive for the following 12 months with an average return of 31.4%.”

Postscript

December 13, 2022 No Comments

I just found out that my book, Ready, Fire, Aim, was recommended by blogger Alex Hormozi as one of the “top 13 business books that every business owner should read.”

Thanks to TJ for sending in this video clip…

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