Friday, September 22, 2023, Delray Beach, Florida


Notes From My Journal

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Good Deal or Dangerous Political Gambit? 

The US and Iran executed a deal on Monday – the return of five incarcerated Americans in return for the release of five Iranians.

That sounds fair.

But the Biden administration threw in some glicken by unfreezing nearly $6 billion in Iranian assets held in South Korea. The Iranians have agreed to spend the $6 billion for “humanitarian” purposes. And Qatar’s central bank will oversee the regulation of the unfrozen funds.

I judge that arrangement to be pure poppycock, a mutual PR stunt to subdue the obvious criticism that was likely to follow.

The US has long followed a policy of not paying for hostages. And from what I can tell, it has worked well. But now, in reversing this policy, opponents say that the US is sending a strong message to all the other anti-US terrorist countries: Just kidnap a handful of American citizens residing in or passing through your country. We can make a deal.

So why would the Biden administration make such a foolhardy deal, knowing that for the five coming home, 50 or 500 will likely be incarcerated in enemy prisons in the near future?

I can think of only one answer. Some smooth-talking foreign policy wonk convinced Biden and his backers that it would look good on the list of the president’s accomplishments in office. And it could work – at least with naïve voters – so long as there isn’t an eruption of kidnappings in the next 13 months. (Maybe that was assured with a handshake?)

For a mostly positive review of the deal, click here.

For a somewhat critical perspective, click here.

For an article on Iran’s frozen assets, click here.

And click here for a brief explanation of how the US came to its hostage policy.

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The Economy & Investing

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Is Florida Real Estate – Any Real Estate – a Buy?

Real estate has always been my favorite investment category. That’s primarily because the long-term trend has always been up. But it’s also because, at base, real estate is not complicated. And if you do the kind of real estate investing I do (rental properties), it is reasonably easy to avoid stupid mistakes.

Recently, there has been a surge in property values across America, and especially in states like Florida and Texas. In fact, from the first quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2023, the appreciation rate in Florida stood at an impressive 44.36%. This growth far exceeded the national average (by 20.15%).

But unlike a steady two-year climb in other assets, this two-year-plus rise in real estate values doesn’t tempt me to buy more. That’s primarily because, unlike stocks and bonds and many other asset classes, real estate investing – the way I do it – is relatively straightforward. You don’t need to understand 100-line-item balance sheets or 40-page P&Ls to understand what a particular piece of property is worth. Nor what sort of income you can expect from it. That information, which is super-important, can be easily researched by looking at public records or speaking to local brokers. As for the value trends and price fluctuations, if you put your money in rentals, and follow a few very simple rules, you don’t have to worry about being caught with a highly overvalued piece of property. The ROI questions you will have will not be if and when profits will go up but simply by how much.

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News & Views

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$267 Million vs. $31 Million? Will Newsom’s Crime Reduction Plan Work?

Governor Newsom is allocating $267 million to a new grant program he’s touting to combat the pandemic of department store thefts in the state’s larger cities.

“Enough with these brazen smash-and-grabs,” Newsom said last week in a statement about the grants. “We are ensuring law enforcement agencies have the resources they need to take down these criminals.”

Since 2019, law enforcement officers in California have arrested more than 1,250 people and recovered $30.7 million in stolen merchandise. The grants, to be distributed over the next three years, will help local agencies create investigative units, increase foot patrols, purchase advanced surveillance technology and equipment, and crack down on vehicle and catalytic converter theft (an issue that has become rampant in the Bay Area).

The money would also help fund units dedicated to prosecuting these crimes, the governor’s office said. But unless Newsom cracks down on California DAs that refuse to prosecute robbers and thieves if the take is less than a thousand dollars, spending $267 million to fight a $30 million problem seems like a game trick.

Click here.

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Worth Considering

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The COVID Response: What We Got Wrong

The Government Censored Them and They Fought Back

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya 

The Biden administration (along with the Justice Department, the FDA, and the FBI) has waged an all-out war against anyone – especially doctors and medical researchers – that questioned the CDC’s original claims about COVID and the measures taken to protect Americans against it.

Everyone that has not been living under a mountain of NYT and Washington Post newspapers is now aware that most of what the Biden administration and the CDC said about the danger of the virus and the effectiveness of the lockdowns and masking and vaccines was largely false. But that didn’t stop the Justice Department, the FDA, and the FBI from going after the early skeptics with every tactic they could muster.

Here’s an account (sent to me by LC) of what happened to Dr. Jay Bhattacharya (Stanford School of Medicine), one of the plaintiffs in a case presented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance against the Biden administration.

“I have been a professor researching health policy and infectious disease epidemiology at a world-class university for decades,” writes Bhattacharya. “I am not a political person; I am not registered with either party. In part that is because I want to preserve my total independence as a scientist. I have always viewed my job as telling people honestly about the data issues, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans like the message. Yet at the height of the pandemic, I found myself smeared for my supposed political views, and my views about COVID policy and epidemiology were removed from the public square on all manner of social networks.”

The aim of the lawsuit (Missouri v. Biden) was to end the government’s role in the censorship of scientific findings. And last week, they finally won a small victory in federal appeals court.

“The decision provides some solace for scientists who had deep reservations about lockdowns but censored themselves for fear of the reputational damage that came with being falsely labeled misinformers,” says Bhattacharya. “They were not wrong in thinking science wasn’t working right; science cannot function without free speech.”

Click here to read more.

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Worth Reading

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No, Freddie. This Is One Problem We Don’t Need to Worry About. 

In this piece, Freddie deBoer joins a conversation about whether America’s elite college students may be hurting themselves by being too competitive.

So… this is a problem? Something that needs to be fixed?

No!

The labor issue Freddie and others should be worried about is not that a small slice at the top is working so very hard, but that a very large slice of the working population in the middle is not working harder. For various reasons (including technology), per capita productivity in the US is going down. That will eventually result in a lower GDP and a lower per capita income.

This is another example of how so many perfectly smart and educated people acquire beliefs about the economy that they wouldn’t consider applying to themselves or their children. Don’t have enough money to pay for that fancy new pair of sneakers? Work more hours or get a better-paying job!

Click here.

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Worth Listening

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Matt Gaetz Grills Air Force Superintendent Over Gender Diversity Scholarship

This has all the markings of Russian anti-US propaganda. But it turns out to be true. Do you think the Russian military – or the North Korean military, for that matter – have programs like this?

Click here.

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Worth Watching

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Another Parent Thrown Out of a School Board Meeting in Florida

You may have seen something like this before. It’s happening in primary schools across the country. A parent comes to the podium at a PTA meeting and proceeds to read from a book that has been ordered for the school library. “I just want to read what is in this book,” they say. And then…

Click here.

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Fun and/or Interesting

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Quick Bites: Teeth!, Spanked by a Drag Queen, Retirement on the Cheap, Going Full Woke, Poor Joe
  1. “Look at them freakin’ teeth!” Pensacola beachgoers rescue a shark that washed ashore. Click here.
  2. Okay, you are a fun guy. And inclusive. But… you are also a grown-up. Is getting spanked by a drag queen at a campaign event really such a good idea? Click here.
  3. 10 Mexican Cities you can comfortably retire to on $2,500 a month. I’m not familiar with these cities, so I’m not recommending them. But if you are the sort that favors charm over comfort, and you speak Spanish or are willing to learn, they might be worth a look. Click here.
  4. Middle school teacher goes full woke. Click here.
  5. Joe? He’s just fine, folks. Click here.
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