Where are all the sad faces?

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( Where Are All the Sad Faces? By Bill Bonner Friday, October 8, 2021 [Bill Bonner] BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – We end the week as we began it… with our gast flabbered by the news. The week was dominated by the debt ceiling hoax… in which one party earnestly tried to save the nation… while the other was determined to send it into a dark spiral of default and catastrophe. At least, that’s the way the elite press described it. Actually, there was never any danger of default. The feds get plenty of money from taxes to cover debt payments. And there was never any real danger that they would fail to raise the debt ceiling. After all, debt – selling U.S. bonds to the Federal Reserve (aka “printing money”) – is mother’s milk to both Republicans and Democrats… and the whole ruling elite. None of them want to be weaned. And this week, we looked more closely at how this affects its big beneficiary – Wall Street. As intended, low interest rates forced investors to take their money out of real investments and move them to [options]( [tech fantasies]( [memes]( and [razzmatazz speculation](. Last year, for the first time ever, option trading exceeded stock transactions. Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS) has doubled over the last 12 months. Tesla (TSLA) has almost completed the double, too. Of course, Elon Musk, of Tesla fame, has famously disrupted everything. We’re not sure what Dick has disrupted… but we’re sure he’s got a good racket going, too. Recommended Link [Stop Reading. Write This Down.]( [image]( Teeka Tiwari picked Bitcoin at $428 before it became the first trillion-dollar coin by market value. Now he’s giving away the name of his next top pick for FREE! A coin he believes could follow in Bitcoin’s footsteps to become Crypto’s Next-Trillion Dollar Coin. [Click here and write its name down.]( -- No Sad Faces In [yesterday’s report]( we looked at how profitable investing in the stock market has been – with the S&P 500 up nearly 30% over the last 12 months… and some university endowments up over 50%. But since the economy is growing at… maybe… 5% – using our estimate of GDP growth as the measuring stick – these gains cannot possibly be coming from real increases in profits or win-win wealth. Instead, they must be casino-style winnings… from a win-lose, [zero-sum]( game… where one player wins and the other goes home with a sad face and an empty pocket. It caused us to wonder. With so many happy faces in view… where are all the sad ones? Oh, Dear Reader, you know… don’t you? They’re in tomorrow’s news, aren’t they? When stocks crash… and consumer prices soar. The Fed added about $4 trillion to its balance sheet (new money!) since March 2020. Someone will have to pay for it. [chart] [Featured: Are you ready for Congress’ “Wealth Transfer Act”?]( Pied Piper of Tesla Returning to Elon… Of course, he is a great showman… and has become a kind of pied piper for the frenzied players. When he puts the pipe to his lips… the casino goes quiet… And then, all dance to his tune. All he’d have to do would be to mention that he likes tacos… and there’d be a run on salsa verde. Think we’re joking? Here’s Joanna Ossinger at Bloomberg: The Shiba Inu cryptocurrency is now the world’s 20th-biggest by market value and has more than tripled in the past week, partly fueled by Elon Musk’s latest tweet about his own puppy. The SHIB token, centered around a breed of Japanese hunting dogs, is up another 69% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko pricing, putting its market value above $10 billion. […] A tweet by Tesla Inc.’s boss late Sunday night U.S. time with a picture of a dog and the comment, “Floki Frunkpuppy”, may have also contributed to the frenzy. That followed a tweet in June that said, “My Shiba Inu will be named Floki” and one last month that read “Floki has arrived.” Recommended Link [What is Trump planning??]( [image]( In case you haven’t seen [this disturbing story]( Trump now owns a barricaded compound just off the U.S. coastline. It’s critical you hear this breaking report now – before it’s too late. [Click here to find out more]( -- Artful Dodger Meanwhile over in the art market… something amazing happened. Logical… almost inevitable… but still insane. CNN reports: A museum lent an artist $84K – so he kept the money and called it “art” When an exhibition about the future of labor opened at a Danish art museum on Friday, visitors should have seen two large picture frames filled with banknotes worth a combined $84,000. The pieces were meant to be reproductions of two works by artist Jens Haaning, who previously used framed cash to represent the average annual salaries of an Austrian and a Dane – in euros and Danish krone respectively. But when the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg took delivery of the recreated artworks ahead of the show, gallery staff made a surprising discovery: the frames were empty. Rather than being the handiwork of thieves, the loaned cash was missing thanks to Haaning himself, who says he is keeping the money – in the name of art. He’s got a point. Art is whatever they say it is. If you will pay thousands of dollars for a blank canvas… why not pay as much for no canvas at all? Recommended Link [The 3-Stock Retirement Blueprint]( [image]( When most folks think about making money through the markets, they think “buy and hold.” They think “diversification.” And they think about investing in things like index funds. But one man has a different approach… It’s called the “3-Stock Retirement Blueprint.” It’s a way to play 3 stocks — yes, just 3 — and potentially make more money than you would by trading all the rest of them… Or by using an old-fashioned approach. Sound impossible? [Get all the details here]( — including the names and tickers of the three stocks. [Click here now.]( -- Fantasy Investing Meanwhile, the non-fungible token ([NFT]( market imitates neither art nor life. Neither fish nor fowl. Neither animal, mineral, nor vegetable. Neither stock, nor bond. When you buy an NFT, you get nothing other than the record, entombed somewhere on the blockchain, confirming that you were the dope who bought it. And thanks to a new NFT platform called Visionrare, you can pretend to invest in start-up stocks… but as a pure game. [Featured: The End of the NASDAQ…]( You do not actually own the stocks. You just bet on whether they will go up or down in a complicated, fantasy league kind of approach. TechCrunch’s Lucas Matney explains that the idea is to... …take the gamification of investing to its furthest end, mimicking the appeal of fantasy sports leagues and giving users a way to compete with friends by betting on startups they think will be successful. Users can bid on NFT shares of hundreds of different startups at auction and compete to build the best performing fake portfolio. Does that sound like fun? No, not to us anyway. The gamblers didn’t seem to like it either. The concept – fantasy football meets start-up investing – looked like a loser from the get-go. And for its sponsors, tomorrow came quickly… Less than 24 hours after it began, Visionrare was pronounced dead. Today, the long faces are expected to gather at the grave. Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Where are all the sad faces?). --------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED READS [Senate Democrats Passed the $480 Billion Increase by a Simple Majority]( Senate Democrats passed the $480 billion increase by a simple majority vote of 50-48. The bill will now proceed to the House, where lawmakers could consider it by as early as next week. Republicans made multiple attempts to block raising the debt ceiling in recent days… [America's CEOs Are Losing Confidence in the Economy]( Conference Board, a leading business research think tank, reported Thursday a steep slide in its CEO confidence index for the third quarter. COVID-19 worries remain top of mind for America's executives. Job market conditions are another issue, with open job positions increasingly difficult to fill... MAILBAG Dear readers appreciate Bill sharing the details of [his daughter, Maria’s, wedding](... Don’t know about anyone else but I liked it, thought you did a great job. My oldest daughter was married in a large Lutheran church, (sorry about Martin), with a tremendous old organ. When the wedding march started, with gusto, I whispered in her ear, “In a galaxy far far away...” she started to giggle, and all was right with the world. – Jim C. Your wedding toast was the best – and most uproarious – I have ever heard. Thank you for sharing it with us. And thank Elizabeth for letting you share it with us. I hope I get to watch Maria’s turn at the mic. – David R. I don’t know about Nietzsche or God but after seeing your wedding pictures I do believe in miracles, because it’s a clear miracle that anyone as homely looking as you could have a daughter as beautiful as Maria. – Andy V. Congratulations on the marriage of your daughter. She, of course, is very beautiful and actually has a good voice. Adrian is, indeed, a lucky man. I hope they have many years of happiness, joy, love, and luck. They’re going to need a lot of the latter… – Alex E. Just finished reading Bill’s outrageously funny speech at his daughter’s wedding (and watching the video)! Such a delight and such a privilege to read that, Bill. Thank you for everything you do and all that you stand for. I’ve been reading your insightful missives for some time and they just don’t seem to get old – even if you and I obviously do! – Piers H. Alex E. says that the happy couple (Bill’s daughter and her husband) is going to need “joy, love, and luck”… What else do marriages need to survive? What do you most enjoy about Bill’s “missives” over the years? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Where are all the sad faces?). IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [(Bizarro World) Facebook set to launch new cryptocurrency?]( But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This firm’s research shows there’s a bigger story coming… And they say it could forever change the way you save, spend, invest, and retire. Consider yourself warned. This story is unfolding quickly… And once it hits the mainstream, it’s going to be too late… You can get all the details you need to prepare for this massive change – as well as profit from it – by clicking the button below. [Learn the full details here.]( [image]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. 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