Demolition derby

[Bill Bonner’s Diary]( Demolition Derby By Bill Bonner Wednesday, November 17, 2021 [Bill Bonner] BALTIMORE, MARYLAND – MoviePass was in the news this week because it was bought out of bankruptcy. The idea behind the company was remarkably stupid. It was a subscription service, founded in 2011. You signed up… paid $10 a month… and you got tickets to as many movies as you wanted – in theaters. Long before COVID-19 hit, this proved to be the wrong idea at the wrong time. The company had no deal with the theaters. It just bought the tickets retail… losing money each time a customer wanted one. This led to a drastic loss-reduction strategy: The company disabled its website so customers couldn’t order any more movies! How do you like that? You have a great idea for a wealth-destroying business. Then, when it is so successful you can’t keep up with the losses, you simply stiff the customers. Well, that technique got the company into bankruptcy court, whence it has just emerged under the direction of one of the people who created it in the first place, Stacy Spikes. He says he has a new idea. But the old idea at least was in tune with market realities. That is, it was absurd. Recommended Link [The Truth Behind the Global Chip Shortage]( [image]( Source: Doug Mills/Pool via Getty Images GM and Toyota factories are shutting down... Mass shortages of electronics... Medical device production nearly halted... You may know a global computer chip shortage is happening. You may know something seems to be very wrong... But what you probably don't yet realize--what few so far have figured out... Is what's really causing it. And what happens next for investors. Now a former computer chip executive with over 20 years of experience is stepping forward to tell all... [Click Here to See His Urgent Warning]( -- Join the Fun When the money goes, everything goes with it. And first to go is the brain. The Federal Reserve has held its key lending rate below the rate of inflation for almost all of the last 11 years. So, borrowers could get money, effectively, for nothing. That was bound to soften up their frontal lobes. [Featured: Introducing: The 3-Stock Retirement Blueprint]( In a normal world, you invest in businesses that produce goods and services – at a profit. The profit represents the extra wealth that the businesses create… and share with their owners, who use it to pay off the debt. That is how society prospers and progresses. But in a fake-money world, why bother? It’s easier just to borrow… and join the fun. Buy back your own stock to increase your share price. Or buy your own products to increase your profits. Or buy [Shiba Inu]( or an [NFT](. You might not make any real profits. But who cares? This is the Capital Demolition Derby. Wreck your jalopy? No worries. At negative rates, you can just buy a new one. And don’t worry about interest rates going up. Here’s CNBC to reassure us: Interest rates could remain at their record lows “forever,” according to one asset manager, despite a recent rush to normalize policy by many of the world’s central banks. GAM Investments’ Julian Howard told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” last week that he believed it was “entirely consistent historically to talk about low rates forever.” Recommended Link [45 Days Until Bitcoin Crashes To $25,000?]( [image]( This may ruffle your feathers… But please pay very close attention… Because while everyone obsesses over the latest price of Bitcoin… A new threat has emerged under the surface of the world’s top crypto. It has nothing to do with Bitcoin’s environmental impact or its volatility. And 1 out of 10 Americans don’t even know this threat exists. There’s a good chance it could send Bitcoin crashing to $25,000 in the next 45 days. What is this threat? And what can you do to prepare? [Click here to find out.]( -- Squandered Capital What great fun – the dents… the smashes… the close calls and narrow escapes… the trick trucks and clown drivers… …grotesquely low interest rates, grotesquely high stock prices, MEW (mortgage equity withdrawal), NFTs, [Rivian]( the [Elon Effect]( the dog coins, and all the rest! Too bad it makes us poorer. It’s not because of its great weather that Switzerland is richer than Haiti. It’s because its people have accumulated capital over generations – savings, skills, infrastructure, factories, machines… and crucially, habits. [Featured: A message from Jeff Brown on the hottest investment in 2021]( The U.S., too, boomed under a regime of honest money and limited government. But many years of fake money, fake interest rates, and empire building have taken their toll. The American mind is mush. Manufacturing industries have left; now, it’s Asians and Mexicans who learn the critical skills. The habit of saving money, too, has been exterminated by more than a decade of artificially low interest rates (the Federal Reserve’s key rate has been below zero almost all the time since 2009). And now, the U.S. squanders its precious capital on government boondoggles, [zombie companies]( [gag art]( [joke “money,”]( and dumb ideas. Recommended Link [BUY Crypto Before December 1st]( [image]( Write this date down: December 1st, 2021. According to Teeka Tiwari, voted the world’s #1 Most Trusted Crypto Expert by 130,000 analysts… This could be your LAST CHANCE to capture the biggest potential crypto profits. Teeka has a history of making winning predictions… But this could be his most important prediction yet. [Click Here to Watch Now (#1 Crypto to Own Today Named Inside).]( -- Leading the Way Probably the leader in the Capital Demolition Derby is Amazon (AMZN)… our old “[river of no returns]( stock. The brightest sun in history shone on Amazon these past 18 months. The company sells stuff via the internet… and delivers it to your door (sometimes, by drone… what fun!). What more could it hope for than a global pandemic that kept everyone at home, with government checks to spend! And sure enough, sales soared. But what’s this? Sales more than tripled over the last five years. And Amazon, with plenty of capital on hand, spent nearly $57 billion on new investments over the last 12 months. But its operating cash flow toted to only $54.7 billion. And thus did Amazon show us how it works: Raise money. Spend it. Lose it. And your stock goes up. AMZN rose from $1,900 per share at the beginning of the pandemic… to $3,540 now. And the derby goes on. Bam! Crash! [Ka-boom!]( Regards, [signature] Bill --------------------------------------------------------------- Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Demolition derby). --------------------------------------------------------------- FEATURED READS [This State Has the Highest Gas Prices in America]( most populous state leads the nation with the highest gas prices, hitting $4.6 per gallon on Monday. Supply issues are to blame for these prices, which ring in around $1.50 more than this time last year… [Crypto’s $3 Trillion Market Cap Is Just the Beginning]( and his Rogue Economics colleagues aren’t into investing in cryptocurrencies, but some of their dear readers are. If that’s you, crypto expert Teeka Tiwari explains why the rally has only just begun… MAILBAG Another reader comments on [Elon Musk’s recent decision to turn to Twitter to make a big financial decision]( and how a retired individual would do differently… Maybe Elon cares more about what social media thinks of him than what his bottom line is. Think for retired individuals like myself, hopefully we have buried our retirement savings, and have stocked up on food and water. And yes, fake money and inflation are eating our lunch. – Richard S. And more opinions come in for [Bill’s essay regarding man’s role in the climate change debate]( Of course climate change is real, but there is zero proof that man is primarily responsible. The issue, as with most, has to do with one's worldview. If you ascribe to secular humanism, then you are gravely concerned and feel there is a clear and present danger. Man is your god and so man is both the cause and solution to the “problem.” If, on the other hand, you ascribe to the JudeoChristian take on things, as I do, then you already know man is an utter screwup and we do ourselves too much credit to believe we affect the weather. God charged us to be fruitful and multiply, thus population growth is not a problem. God is the one in control, not us. – Michael L. A few years ago, I read that increased solar radiation may be the cause of Earth’s modest rise in temperature. The article noted that temperatures on both Earth and Mars rose in sync with the sun’s increased radiation output. This would mean the sun is responsible for at least some of Earth’s heat gain, and no environmental legislation will change that. I got booted from my beloved nieces’ Facebook for just mentioning that as a possible alternative explanation. If the state of nature is a regression to the mean temperature, then we’re seeing nothing but an extremely thin slice of time and not a trend worthy of destroying our quality of life. – Bill W. I just love the facts like you do… even if others just label it as being "negative." In love of truth and honesty, even when it sledge-hammers the side of your head. – Thomas W. What happens with your family and friends when you have a political disagreement? Do you get banned from your family’s social media, as Bill W. experienced? Write us at [feedback@rogueeconomics.com](mailto:feedback@rogueeconomics.com?subject=Demolition derby). IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… [Welcome to an empire of debt]( Our credit system is currently sitting at $68 trillion. It’s the largest debt ceiling in the history of the world – in fact, it’s more than twice the value of every single home in America put together. It’s the most crucial part of our economy. And despite stagnant wages and rising costs, America still appears to be getting richer and richer (at least on paper). And there’s the problem… This massive credit system is about to collapse. But this system has a dark secret about where they’re going to get money to pay off this massive debt. This will affect EVERY American citizen! [Click here before it’s too late.]( [image]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Get Instant Access Click to read these free reports and automatically sign up for daily research. 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