What to do now?

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( What to Do Now? By Bill Bonner Thursday, November 12, 2020 – Week 35 of the Quarantine [Bill Bonner] SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA – Earlier this week, news of the relief column – an almost miraculous vaccine from Pfizer – prompted a $1.5 trillion celebration on Wall Street. So excited and positive was Pfizer’s CEO, Albert Bourla, that he sold many of his own shares! So today, the fellow is $5.6 million richer. Hotels, restaurants, travel companies – all are anticipating a return to “normal.” And we can all enjoy a future free from the worry about that dastardly virus. Shot in the Arm But wait… We look out over the ramparts of our COVID redoubt, where we have been besieged for the last nine months. Where is the relief column? That cloud of dust on the horizon – is it really the deus ex shot-in-the-arm we’ve been waiting for? Or is it just a mirage? The testing technique is simple. Just give a lot of people the drug. And give an equal number a placebo. Then wait to see who gets sick. So far, out of more than 43,000 in the test groups – spread around the world – only 94 have gotten sick during the three-month test. And, at least how we read it, no more than eight of them were taking the drug (the others were in the placebo group). Hmmm… Eight people. Did we read that right? Is that enough to justify a trillion-dollar Wall Street rally? Is it statistically valid? Is humanity really saved? And if so few people are getting sick anyway, is it worth taking the vaccine at all? So far, the side effects of the vaccine have been moderate… But who knows what the long-term damage might be? In any case, the elixir must be kept cold – at more than 100 degrees below zero. According to one report, there’s only one company in the world that can keep things that cold and distribute them widely – a Chinese company… naturally. Recommended Link [MAJOR Big Bank “theft” – is your bank on the list?]( [ad_img]( This is outrageous! On page 37 of one of President Trump’s recent financial disclosures… there it was… A stunning line that proved what some consider a “theft” of as much as $4.3 million by one of America’s largest banks. Now, you may not have billions to your name. But here’s what matters… Almost ALL Americans are falling victim to this same “robbery.” In fact if you have $10,000 in a big bank… Bank of America… Wells Fargo… Chase… Capital One… or others. You’re likely being “taken for a ride” to the tune of almost $1,000 a year… Find out all the details about what’s going on in this video. [Just click here to access it now]( Problem Solved But there’s no need to worry about a vaccine. Team Biden has its own panacea – house arrest and fake money. Here’s CNBC: Biden COVID advisor says U.S. lockdown of 4 to 6 weeks could control pandemic and revive economy Dr. Michael Osterholm, a coronavirus advisor to President-elect Joe Biden, said a nationwide lockdown would help bring the virus under control in the U.S. He said the government could borrow enough money to pay for a package that would cover lost income for individuals and governments during a shutdown.” “We could really watch ourselves cruising into the vaccine availability in the first and second quarter of next year while bringing back the economy long before that,” he said. So, there you have it. Problem solved! Blissful Ignorance Our advice is to take precautions… just in case. Last week, we started to tell you about our “[Trade of the Decade]( It is not an “investment.” It is a gamble… a speculation… a bet on long-term trends. And it depends on two of the most reliable phenomena in the world of money – ignorance and oscillation. As for ignorance, it hardly needs an introduction. We live with it. It is universal. It is ubiquitous and permanent, everywhere and always. The biggest mistake an investor can make is to think he knows what’s coming down the pike. Then, he makes an “investment” based on an illusion, knowledge that doesn’t exist. This causes him to buy things that are overpriced (he knows they are going up) and to stick with his positions long after he should have unloaded them (well… they ought to go up!). The feds spend millions of dollars employing thousands of Ph.D. economists, statisticians, mathematicians, and analysts. Yet, not a single one of them can tell you what the price of oil will be tomorrow. The future is a closed book. We are ignorant of it… and can only discover it one page at a time. The shrewd investor admits that he doesn’t know what lies ahead… and rests his money decisions on the hard, unyielding rock of ignorance. [Don’t Be Left Empty Handed — Why Banks Bought 1,300 Tons of Gold.]( Sure Thing With this in mind, locking your money into a 10-year trade would appear to be spectacularly unwise. And maybe it is. A 10-year time horizon compounds the negative consequences of being wrong over an entire decade. On the other hand, it is designed to capture big moves, not small ones. And big moves, like grape vines, take time to mature. Looking at an economy close up – like glancing at a plant – you can’t tell what is going on. It takes a full season to express itself; but then, plain as day, there is the fruit. Betting on inflation (after the new, fake dollar was introduced in 1971) was a cinch. Betting against inflation (after Paul Volcker stopped it in its tracks in 1980) was another sure winner. In the 1990s, the stock market soared. And who couldn’t see that coming? As early as 1987, then-Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan made it clear that the Fed was backstopping the stock market. The economy was booming. And the miracle drug of the time, the internet, promised a whole new era of growth and prosperity. Out of Whack And now, we come to the 21st century. In 1999, to the great annoyance of many of our dear readers, we warned that the dot-com bubble was going to pop. Then, in early 2000, we issued our Trade of the Decade – Dump stocks, buy gold. The trade was based on an ignorance of the future… but a knowledge of the past. Over time, markets oscillate from high to low, from blind optimism to stone-faced, wide-eyed gloom and doom. In the entire history of the Dow, not once had stocks been so expensive, in terms of gold. Usually, it took about 10 ounces of gold to buy the 30 leading industrial Dow stocks. But by 1999, it had risen to over 40. And while stocks were now trading at 11 times more than they did in 1980, gold was trading at almost three times less (the price had fallen from close to $700 to only $250). Things were clearly out of whack. Neither gold nor the stock market were going away. And while the two had drifted farther and farther apart over the previous years, that they might come back into whack (oscillation) over the next 10 years was a bet too good to pass up. It turned out to be about the best bet you could have made. Stocks went into an almost immediate decline in 2000. Gold headed up. By the end of the 10-year period, gold was the number one performer. The gold side of the “trade” alone approximately quadrupled our money, while the stock side was almost exactly where it was 10 years before. Recommended Link [Until Tomorrow, November 13th, at Midnight: Get a Free Year of Teeka Tiwari’s Palm Beach Confidential]( [image]( Can you even fathom making a rare 68,141% gain??? Does it sound completely impossible? I ask because crypto expert Teeka Tiwari’s identified a small group of cryptos with a “countdown clock” embedded in their code… counting down the time until they’re set to launch. When they launched in the past, they went up as much as an extraordinary 68,141%... or MORE. Obviously, nothing is guaranteed. But as Teeka explains, [this is your chance to catch up](. It could finally be YOUR turn – if you take advantage of his special deal. [Claim Teeka’s special offer before it’s gone]( -- Next Step But then, the decade was over. We had to do something else. But what? The pendulum had swung. By this time, gold appeared to be fully priced. At the time, there was no reason to think it would register another spectacular move to the upside. (As it turned out, it continued rising for another couple of years.) And stocks? This was just the beginning of the Fed’s big bailout for Wall Street. It was not the time to short the stock market. We looked around. What had been going down for so long that it almost had to go up? And if it went up, what was on the other side of the see-saw? What would go down? Japanese Bet We had been following Japan for many years. Back in the late 1980s, we had predicted that the Japanese miracle economy would fail. We were right. The bubble burst in 1989. Then, the Japanese stock market fell down… and didn’t get back up. But after 20 years, we figured it was time for a revival. Japanese companies were still going strong; it was a reasonable bet that their prices would move up sometime over the following 10 years. On the other side of this trade, the obvious choice was Japanese bonds. The country had an exploding national debt… an aging population… and anticipated health and pension liabilities that would frighten an actuary. Still, Japan’s bonds remained remarkably expensive, with the lowest yields in the world. That, too, we figured, was likely to change. What happened? Well, not much. Japanese stocks rallied over 150% from 2010 until the end of last year. Japanese bonds, the other side of the trade, actually rose 34%… So we were right to be long Japanese stocks. But we missed the mark betting against Japanese bonds. But we should mention one thing… Japanese bonds would have fallen if the Bank of Japan hadn’t taken on phony money policies… They printed about $4 trillion from 2010 to 2019. “Don’t fight the Fed,” say the old-timers. We battled the Japanese Fed for 10 years… and it won! [Strange Holdings In Buffett’s Portfolio…]( No Sweat Returns But if you had begun the 21st century with $100,000… and done nothing but make the two trades we recommended… you would now have $612,786… We are perfectly happy with that return, by the way. It was achieved with very low risk and almost no sweat. And it beats the returns on the Dow and the S&P 500, hands down… From 2000 to 2019, $100,000 invested in the Dow would have turned into $251,000 (including dividends). And the same amount in the S&P 500 would have turned into $222,000. Recommended Link [[URGENT] Watch this ASAP]( [image]( This is urgent. China’s communist government is now targeting Americans directly. What they plan to do next should have everyone worried… Coronavirus deaths will pale in comparison to the results of this sinister act. Every American needs to watch [this urgent briefing]( to learn more about this shocking situation… and find out how to prepare. [Click here before it’s too late!]( -- New Decade But now, we are arriving at another decade. We have a new president… a COVID-plagued economy… a $27 trillion government debt… and another $54 trillion in business and household debt. What’s out of whack now? What’s the miracle that will fail? More tomorrow… Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=What to Do Now?). --------------------------------------------------------------- MAILBAG Today, one dear reader thinks Donald Trump will win a second term in the White House… while another believes he is the worst president in U.S. history… Donald Trump definitely won the election by a huge margin. The Democrats in the five battleground states simply stole the election through massive fraud. Trump is going to prove it to the American people in the next few weeks and he will continue on into a second term. I’m sure you’ll believe that I’m a rabid Republican who is simply incapable of accepting the reality of a Biden presidency. But I assure you, the reality is that a lot of governors, attorneys general, mayors, election officials, and even election workers in these states are all going to prison. There was an incredibly audacious plan by a 1,000 or so people to invalidate the mandate of the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump. Unfortunately for them, they got caught. – David G. Trump is (and will be) the WORST president ever. How can I count the many ways? He is a pathological liar, just makes up whatever he wants to say to make himself look good (and others look bad), is racist, sexist, xenophobic, he has no empathy or compassion at all, is a bully, appoints his donors (who have no idea what they are doing) to important positions, only did things to enrich himself, did not do anything to help ordinary Americans or the whole country, punishes anyone who disagrees with him, acts like an emperor, and is a sociopath. He has also committed crimes and will – in all likelihood – go to prison. I’m sure I have forgotten some things, but you get the idea. – Bob L. Meanwhile, another reader says Donald Trump exposed Washington D.C.’s corruption… I grew up near St. Louis and have lived outside New Orleans for 35 years. In both places, if you were to bring an obnoxious, bragging New Yorker into the room, most people would’ve headed for the exit. Add an outrageous orange hairdo, and who would imagine these people would elect him president? But when he spoke, they all understood is that he’s against the ruling elite, which has been screwing the country for as long as everyone can remember. If nothing else, he has clearly defined the corrupt coalition of government bureaucrats, scammers, bankers, politicians, and so-called journalists who will continue to screw us all. – Don S. What is your take on the outcome of the U.S. presidential election? Is D.C. corruption the real issue, as Don believes? Write us at feedback@rogueeconomics.com. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [Did Political Elites Just Hijack Your Retirement?]( The coronavirus panic is truly unprecedented – no one could have seen it coming... right? Well… It turns out that [the government’s reaction to the Coronavirus Crash of 2020… was actually 87 years in the making](. Politicians are turning to a plan from the 1930s in the hopes of avoiding a new Great Depression. If they enact it… The retirement savings of millions of Americans will be destroyed. Coronavirus may be a serious health disaster… but it’s quickly becoming a financial disaster as well. There’s already $2.2 trillion in “stimulus.” And trillions more are on the way. But make no mistake… all that “free” money is going to be a disaster for any regular American with retirement savings. Which means the “cure” could now be worse than the illness. Former congressional insider Dan Denning predicted this move by our government to “nationalize” the currency – over three years ago. Most people just laughed… But Dan’s prediction is now coming true with shocking speed. Dan’s chilling conclusion: This could be the end of financial freedom in America. “If you are an investor… own life insurance or annuities… or have substantial savings in an FDIC-insured bank account… [then you need to be aware of serious risks.]( [Click here to see what you should do.]( [image]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. [image]( [The Trader’s Guide to Technical Analysis]( [image]( [How to Make A Fortune From Legal Cannabis]( [image]( [The Ultimate Guide to Taking Back Your Privacy]( [Rogue Economincs]( Rogue Economics 55 NE 5th Avenue, Delray Beach, FL 33483 [www.rogueeconomics.com]( [Share]( [FACEBOOK]( [Tweet]( [TWITTER]( To ensure our emails continue reaching your inbox, please [add our email address]( to your address book. 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