Response Boosting Tip for Digital Marketers 

Here’s a potentially powerful way to boost eyeballs and click-throughs on your internet advertising.

Create a teaser that capitalizes on a popular current news or social interests story. It must be something you can connect to your product or service. But there are many more such opportunities than you may think.

Here’s an example: An estate planning attorney that put out a video connected to the hugely popular Netflix series “Tiger King.”

I like the idea of producing a “Famous Estates” series. And although it was clear to me that the video would link me to a pitch, I couldn’t resist clicking on it to see how the transition was managed.To do this properly, the transition must be smooth on both an emotional and intellectual level. You can’t allow the viewer to feel like he’s been suckered into a bait and switch.

In this case, the gimmick is unlikely to result in sales because the video itself is as bad as it could possibly be.

The connection with “Tiger King” and titling the video as part of a Famous Estates series evokes the expectation of tabloid-like sensationalism with the appropriate visual effects. Instead, you have this static presentation of an attorney reading obviously and poorly from a very amateurish script.

Had it been done properly, the viewer would have been entertained – both in his emotional satisfaction of the drama and the urgency of the claims about the danger of bad estate planning – and a confirming click-through to a landing page would have been almost impossible to resist.

Nevertheless, the core idea is very good. I’ve suggested this approach many times to marketers that I consult with. More often than not, they don’t understand how important it is to make an emotionally and intellectually consistent transition. But those that have done it right have gotten tremendous results.

Give it a try, and let me know if it works.

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What I’m Doing With My Money 

On July 24, I said I was putting a good amount of my stock into cash until I have an idea of what the election will bring us. On November 4, I made some predictions about what will happen regardless of who wins.

Now, with Biden 99% secured as president and the Senate and Supreme Court in relatively conservative hands, I don’t see any major regulations or tax hikes on the near horizon. But I do see (as I said) continued trillions of fake dollars issuing from Washington at rates much like we’ve been seeing.

That means more money into the stock market and the resultant upward pressure.

The stock market is already responding to that and to some other good news regarding the economy. As my colleague Alex Green reported last Friday:

* The US economy grew at a galloping 33.1% rate in the third quarter.

* An accompanying report revealed that new jobless claims declined by 40,000 in one week, to the lowest level since March 14, when the economic lockdown was about to begin.

* The economy has already recovered about half of the 22 million jobs lost in March and April.

* Consumer spending – 70% of all economic activity – rose an astonishing 40.7% in the third quarter.

* Much of this consumption was on big-ticket items like new homes, furniture, cars, home exercise equipment, and other durable goods. (Consumers don’t make major purchases unless they feel optimistic about their income and job security.)

* The personal savings rate was a healthy 15.8%, indicating that there’s still plenty of consumer spending capacity.

* And all of this happened without another federal stimulus package.

So I’m putting back half of the money I pulled out of the market immediately, and then gradually putting the rest back over the next several months – just to be safe.

Why Americans Must Fight Antisemitism 

Earlier this month, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told CNN that COVID-19 spike clusters were “predominantly ultra-Orthodox.” This was in response to protests by the Orthodox Jewish community against social gathering restrictions they viewed as violations of their religious freedom. “They have never complied with the rules,” Cuomo said in a conference call. He went on to say “Maybe money works,” when discussing withholding funds from non-compliant Orthodox communities.

Antisemitism represents a threat not just to Jews, but to all minorities, and to American civilization itself, says Dennis Prager, the founder of Prager University, a conservative advocacy group.

“The moment civilization begins to disintegrate,” he says, “the Jews are the first victims – never the only, but always the first.

“Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. But tens of millions of non-Jews were also killed. Many of these people believed, incorrectly, that Hitler had a Jewish problem. But that was not the end of it.

“It is often asked how the most culturally advanced country in Europe… the country that gave us Bach, Beethoven, Heine, and Schiller, [could] give us Auschwitz.

“One answer is that advanced culture and advanced morality are not the same. The Nazis loved classical music.

“The other, more important answer is that civilization is fragile.”

Civilization is fragile, Prager says, because it is composed of humans, and human nature is profoundly flawed. “It takes a great deal of effort and a great deal of time to make a decent society. But it takes little effort and little time to destroy a society.”

What is going on in America, he says, is the willful destruction of our culture. It’s being done in the name of social justice, but the goal is political. And politics is never about justice. It is about power.

History tells us that there is a recognizable progression to cultural revolution. It begins with an attack on traditional ideas in universities. This builds until those traditional ideas are accepted as not just wrong but evil. This then morphs quickly into an attack on free speech. You have a choice: Embrace the new ideology and become part of the virtuous avant-garde. Or reject it and announce yourself as the enemy.

Once free speech is gone, the culture, which has been holding the society together, disintegrates, along with the diversity of thought and cultural expression that created it.

“Why, then,” Prager asks, “does this [current radical left-wing effort to destroy our culture] not frighten America’s Jews? Do they not know how much Black Lives Matter, Antifa, and the rest of the left loathe Israel? Or do they not care?”

“Any fool can make a rule. And any fool will mind it.” – Henry David Thoreau

California’s Happy Holiday Agenda

Hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 in California are at their lowest levels in six months. That’s good news for residents of our most populous state. And at a good time – weeks before the holiday season begins.

Perhaps encouraged by this, Governor Gavin Newsom recently issued a revised set of rules to let Californians know how to enjoy their Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities. The rules are so bizarre, I wondered if Newsom was joking.

I asked Amaru to check it out. He did and confirmed. Here are the new rules…

1. Don’t Light That Fireplace

No more Thanksgiving and Christmas gathering around the hearth. This year, California families will be outside in their backyards, front yards, or driveways. And if a party-goer needs to take a leak, no problem. California’s Dept. of Health has that covered: Holiday party-goers can go inside to use the bathroom when they need to – so long as those bathrooms are “frequently sanitized.”

Need protection from the rain or smog or cold? No problem! Governor Newsom and his team have opened their hearts and written in a provision that lets families take shelter under canopies, awnings, and other shade structures – so long as “at least three sides of the space (or 75%) are open to the outdoors.”

2. More Than Three’s a [Prohibited] Crowd

Forget Aunt Suzie and your nogoodnik brother and his family. Thanks to Governor Newsom, this year’s holiday parties are going to be VIP family members only. Gatherings are restricted to “no more than three households.”

And if the party happens to be in a public park, don’t even think about trying to book two groups of three next to one another. As the Dept. of Health put it: “Multiple gatherings of three households cannot be jointly organized or coordinated to occur in the same public park or other outdoor space at the same time – this would constitute a gathering exceeding the permitted size.”

3. Take Names, Kick Asses

Hosts are required to “gather the names and contact information for all attendees” for the totally noble and sensible purpose of gathering contact information. This is actually a great idea because it’s so easy to forget the names and addresses of your family members.

4. Plenty of Elbow Room at the Table

How large is your dining room table?

The California health patrol reminds celebrants to set the table to allow for six feet of distancing “in all directions front-to-back and side-to-side between different households.” Sharing is forbidden. And leave those holiday plates in the cupboard. “All food and beverage items are to be in single-serve, disposable containers.”

5. Forget the Ugly Christmas Sweater, Bring Your Ugly Christmas Mask

All party attendees are reminded to wear face masks “in compliance with the California Dept. of Health’s face covering guidelines” at all times, except when drinking or chewing or swallowing meds or using inhalers.

6. Make It a Short – and Silent – Night

Good news for those that are always angling for excuses to leave the party early. The new guidelines limit gatherings to two hours or less.

As for singing: In order to “reduce respiratory droplets and fine aerosols into the air,” party-goers are advised to keep the volume to a minimum – preferably “at or below the volume of a normal speaking voice.” And if you want to play an instrument, it better not have a spit valve. Playing wind instruments is “strongly discouraged.”

P.S. Apropos of the above, I just got the following from my old friend JM:

Friends – I have been told that only 6 are allowed for Thanksgiving but 30 are allowed for a funeral. I will be holding a funeral for our pet turkey who will pass away on November 26th.

Refreshments provided.

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Big News About COVID-19 Testing That You Probably Don’t Know 

According to the October 16 edition of The Washington Post, new coronavirus cases are spiking in the United States and Europe, with 13 states reporting record-setting numbers of infections over the past week. That sounds scary. But, of course, what they didn’t report is the data on the fact that matters: deaths.

And the fact is that deaths from the virus have NOT increased since the beginning of September – either worldwide or in the US.

Here’s something else they should be reporting on…

The conventional wisdom regarding testing is that if you get a positive result, you have the virus, you are contagious, and you should self-quarantine until you are tested again to determine that the infection is gone.

But according to a study reported on in the NYT (of all places) on August 29, and then reported again by OANN, that may not be true.

In fact, it’s possible that 85% to 90% of the tests done this year in the US were faulty.

The problem was with the PCR test – the one we are all familiar with. The swab up the nose. If you’ve ever had this test, you know that the result comes back as positive or negative. Simple and clear.

But it’s not simple. Or clear.

Here’s why: Virologists have always known that the danger of both getting sick from a virus and also spreading it to others depends not on if you have the virus in you, but on how much of it you have.

I’ve suggested this in several past issues of the blog. (Check them out HERE, HERE, and HERE.) But since no one else was talking about it, I figured it was unimportant or I was wrong.

But it looks like I was right. And it is important.

It means that the protocol of quarantining everyone that tested positive was wrong. We should have quarantined only those whose level was above a certain threshold. We didn’t because we were operating on the assumption that any amount of coronavirus in a person was life-threatening. We weren’t measuring levels of the virus. It was a yes-no test, with a mistake built into it.

The mistake was this. Labs typically amplify the samples they get in order to reach a level where they can be detected. Standard practice is 30 amplifications. But in 85% to 90% of the PCR tests done this year, the amplifications were at 40, not 30. Which means it’s possible that 85% to 90% of people that tested positive were neither contagious nor at risk of getting severely sick and dying.

Here’s a link to the NYT article.

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Greed Is Bad; Gold Is Good 

David Forest, editor of “The Strategic Investor,” believes we are in the early stages of a “historic gold bull market.”

Main Reason: Fed Money Printing – “Since the market crash in March, the Federal Reserve has pumped out $3 trillion in new money supply. And there’s more coming.”

Eventually, there will be a crash, Forest says. And when that happens, people typically move to gold. But, he says, don’t expect gold to shoot up immediately.

“During [financial] crises, people sell everything. That includes physical gold. We saw that back in March, when the gold price dropped 12% in nine days – even as the gold supply dropped as mines halted production due to the coronavirus restrictions….

“In 2008, the Dow lost 53%. Gold bullion dropped from $1000 per ounce to $700.

But although it took the Dow four years to recoup its losses, gold quickly rebounded. By September 2009, it was back to $1000. It then soared to a record $1927.70 in 2011….

“Many people don’t realize, but the troubled 1930s were the same. Gold mining was one of the few industries that prospered.”

So Forest recommends stocking up on physical gold and, if you like to speculate, taking a position in a gold mining stock, since gold mining stocks often accelerate exponentially when gold prices rise.

But whatever you do, don’t panic if in the initial few days or weeks of the crash, gold prices drop. If history repeats, they’ll come back again and stronger.

“We have decided we will not renew our lease when in January,” the email said. “Our employees have told us they like working at home and, as you’ve noticed from the monthly reports, the business hasn’t suffered in terms of revenues or profits. This will save us more than $100,000 next year.”

That came from the head honchos of one of the businesses I have an interest in. They currently occupy a 4000-square-foot building.

Then this morning, inside a local bank with which I do business, K and I noticed that there were only three employees in the offices instead of the usual 15 or 20. “So will everyone be coming back now that our governor has given the go-ahead?” K asked the banker we were working with. “Not likely,” he said. “We’ve been doing fine with most people working from home. There are even some advantages.”

So I’m thinking that my speculation on June 29 that the commercial real estate market is in danger is feeling like the right call. I predicted office usage might drop 25% to 50%. Who knows? That may turn out to be an understatement!

The Washington Post recently reported that Israel, Spain, and France crushed COVID-19 but now have higher infection rates than the US. (Read the article here.)

But the conclusion drawn from these facts is wrong. What you don’t want to do is a broad lockdown. You want to aggressively quarantine the vulnerable and allow the virus to spread as quickly as possible among those that have little to no chance of dying from it… basically, anyone under 45 that has no co-morbidities.

The reason this more-sensible and less-stringent policy wasn’t the one we followed – except in a few countries like Sweden – is because the WHO, the CDC, and the political leaders believed it wouldn’t work. The population couldn’t be trusted to follow guidelines. It was preferable to scare the hell out of everyone and then use that fear to shut down the country.

We know now that we can’t defeat the virus by shelter-in-place mandates. Putting people indoors only makes things worse. We also know, as I pointed out in March, that we can’t defeat the virus by social distancing and wearing masks. Those measures are designed to slow the speed at which the virus spreads. I predicted that the infection would continue to “return” until we had achieved herd immunity – either from a vaccine or naturally or both.

And that’s what’s happening now. Cities and countries that “escaped” the spike in March and April began experiencing high rates of infection in the summer, and we’re having a third wave now.

My bet is that the death rate will end up being about the same everywhere, regardless of lockdown measures. And that might be about 70 deaths per 100,000 – or 0.0007%.

Following up on my recent blog about how the lockdown will change our economy, I saw this from investment analyst Whitney Tilson…

“The Spring lockdown…  and a proliferation of affordable prepared food options have accelerated the long-term trend toward less daily cooking.

“The Shelby Report, a supermarket industry news site, recently noted in June the grocery industry saw what would have normally been eight years of growth compressed into one month.

“Kroger (KR) – the largest grocery chain in the US – reported… that sales were up 15%, compared to growth rates of minus zero to 2.5% in the past 4 years. Sales from Albertsons (ACI) were up even more, 26.5% during the same 16 weeks.

“Comparing Albertsons’ ID sales from spring and early summer to those at Kroger from late spring through the summer tells us that things slowed down at the supermarket when people started leaving home more, but that sales are still growing at an elevated pace versus before the pandemic struck.”

If you think now is a good time to buy steel stocks… 

Two studies from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the overall economic impact of Trump’s 2018 tariffs was a net negative for American consumers – both companies and individuals.

One example: the tariff protection enacted by Trump’s “pro-steel” policymakers. It has made it easier for US steel companies to compete against foreign steel companies, and has thus “saved”’ thousands of jobs for US steel company employees. As a result, however, the overall cost of steel-related products has increased sharply. Since steel‐​consuming individuals are a far larger share of the US economy and workforce than is the steel industry, the net effect on the vast majority of US citizens and the US GDP has been decisively negative.

Smart investors understand this. They understand that American steel consumers are paying much higher prices than their global competitors, and that, ultimately, it will end badly. That is why US steel‐​industry stocks are lagging far behind the S&P 500 and will continue to do so until the trade war ends.