Day 802 Tuesday March 19, 2019
594 Days to the 2020 election and 672 Days to Inauguration Day
Before we get to it let me take you on a little investor intrigue. I got an email today entitled “$109 Trillion Dollar Opportunity.” I’ve learned (and this may surprise you) that such claims usually aren’t all they are cracked up to be. There’s a site called “stockgumshoe” that ferrets out such claims. Usually, the person making such a bold prediction wants you to buy their newsletter. Stock gumshoe tries to figure out, based on clues in their pitch, what the stock or idea they are pitching. They then go on to tell you when it was last pitched, and what they think of the idea. Being a paying member of stock gumshoe (I believe in supporting those who help me) I went there and looked up “$109 Trillion …” and didn’t get what I desired, I tried the guy’s name, “Tim Plaehn.” Oh Boy. A bunch of articles come up. Apparently old Tim runs a bunch of newsletters that tell you about stocks paying dividends. So I guess it you add up the value of all the companies or add up all their dividends they’ll be paying for the next century you can come up with $109 trillion. But what got me was the first comment by another subscriber, “Tim Plaehn is clueless when it comes to selecting dividend stocks! Stay away his picks are worthless….”
What else do you need to know?
It reminds me of my dad’s favorite one panel cartoon. Outside a movie theater is a sandwich board proclaiming the merits of the current movie. “Outstanding!” The Times. “One of the year’s best!” The Tribune. etc.
Scrawled in lipstick on the bottom of the board “It Stinks!” Tommy Smith.
And in the snow are the footprints leading to a young boy looking over his shoulder as he’s walking away.
Yup. Maybe, I’m being unfair to old Tim. Maybe, the comment was a plant by a competitor. Who knows? But it was enough to stop me, make me laugh, and think about that cartoon and my dad.
In the news is Deutsche Bank. I don’t know why this is news again, I guess it’s because they have someone who was on the inside who is going to talk to Congress. (I think it’s Congress. I forget.) DB has been involved in money laundering for Russian oligarchs, gotten caught and paid big fines. The news today is that DB lent money to Trump even when they knew he had lied about how much he was worth. Michael Cohen provided documents to Congress showing what Cohen claims were inflated values of Trump’s properties in order to convince DB to lend him money so he could buy The Buffalo Bills. He also did it on other deals. So what? Well, apparently lying to a bank is fraud. Who knew? It gets comical. Trump sued the bank for lending him money. Then turned around and asked another part of the bank for money and they gave it to him! The explanation floating around is the left hand didn’t know what the right was doing.
Either Deutsche Bank is inept, corrupt, or both. Corrupt in the sense that if they loaned money to Trump knowing he lied was it because it wasn’t really their money? Were they just acting as a conduit for Putin and the Russian oligarchs? Or were they blinded by Trump’s notoriety? That is even though he lied they figured the publicity was good for them? God knows.
Hopefully we will learn more in the coming weeks.
594 Days to the 2020 election and 672 Days to Inauguration Day
PS The kid stands alone. At Lamnai, Belize.
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