Postcards: The "Problem" With America...

It's been sitting in front of me the whole time... and I don't have the time, resources, or influence to stop it. ͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­͏   ­ Forwarded this email? [Subscribe here]() for more You are a free subscriber to Postcards from the Florida Republic. To upgrade to paid and receive the daily Republic Risk Letter, [subscribe here](. --------------------------------------------------------------- [Postcards: The "Problem" With America...]( It's been sitting in front of me the whole time... and I don't have the time, resources, or influence to stop it. [Garrett {NAME}](floridarepublic) Jul 18 floridarepublic   [READ IN APP](   Dear Fellow Expat: When I was 24, my friends and I made business cards. They all featured something funny on them… odd job titles… or images that had little to do with us. My card was flat black with the face of an old butler on it. It said: “Garrett {NAME} - Problem Solver.” It turns out I didn’t solve any problems because I wrote my father’s cell phone number on it.  It must have been a Corona Light moment… So the few people with this card called my father… looking for me… I assume to solve problems… which he didn’t know about. For the longest time, one reason I lean toward a continually happy mood is that I identify with those two words. Problem solver… As long as I’ve been in school, consulting, or in relationships, I gravitate to problems - their sources, their solutions, the new ones they create, and their risk management. Just the way I’m wired.  And when I solve problems - even if I have new ones - there’s a sense of progress. But something interesting happened in the last 24 hours. A new set of problems… The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F—- I’m on a new diet and workout plan. Before I started this process, I knew that sticking to one diet for 75 days would stink. But I thought 10 minutes of reading a self-improvement book would be a complete waste of time. But I decided to pick up Mark Manson’s “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F—-” - which I highly recommend. Within the first 20 pages, he discusses that everyone has problems - and that the real joy in life… comes from solving them. Now, you can deduce this pretty quickly. I watch my daughter get frustrated with something and ask me to do it. When I tell her to figure it out, and she does, there is a massive joy in her face. Over the last weekend, I struggled with a new project that is a very high priority for my CEO. But somewhere over the weekend, I had a breakthrough in the project structure and the new content we wanted to create. That was a fulfilling moment… Of course… As Manson would suggest, it created a whole new set of problems (business problems or challenges) that will require solving. But that is a real sense of joy, and I took a profound moment to realize that problem-solving is a proper mindset for many things we address daily. What are we doing here? We’re solving a problem for readers who want to learn about the financial markets but don’t know where to start. However, there are other problems we must navigate: The market is largely influenced by faceless machines and shadow banking policies. Your 401k is primarily impacted by things well outside your control - essentially political or monetary. And once you educate yourself on markets, new problems emerge… you have to manage your risk. You have to fight your own psychology not to sell. You have to fight internal and external forces. Do you use options or not? What allocation model do you use? You likely have money problems. So does Warren Buffett… they’re just different kinds of problems, as Manson notes. The question is how we address the one right before us… and then move on to the next one. More important… we’re choosing our battles here in the Florida Republic. Fretting over everything isn’t going to help. We have a primary objective: Learn the market, beat the market, and enjoy our lives. Everything else can wait… But in the process of that discovery, I also figured out the problem with America. The Problem With America Yesterday, I noted that this White House has engaged in three rather insane proposals to address headline issues in America. The White House has forgiven student loan debt. It wants to forgive the medical debt. And it wants to cap rent increases at 5%. Those all seem like solutions to problems. But they aren’t the problems creating the crisis in student loan debt, medical debt, and housing. The underlying problems… are much harder. They are deeper. They require people who like to “solve” problems. They need to conduct a deep examination of the role of the Federal Reserve in [driving up “Real asset” prices since 1993]( with inflation targeting. They require investigating [how aggressive executive stock payment programs]( exacerbate economic inequality. Instead, you get [band-aid solutions to problems]( without understanding the real problems. Imagine you have a glass bottle with an expanding gas leaking into it from the bottom. The average politician would say, just put a lid on the bottle (a metaphor for the abovementioned issues). Well, you can cap the bottle, but the gas will continue to expand… and eventually, so much pressure will build up that the bottle will shatter. That’s the housing market. That’s medical debt. That’s student loan problems. It’s not solving the underlying issues… zoning and government lending, Obamacare and sector concentration, and demand explosion, respectively. What’s the point? The point is that the people we are sending to Washington… aren’t problem solvers. And that’s why they are constantly so joyless, why everything is an emergency while everyone lives in denial, and why they make so many people out to be victims. Some problems could be solved - very quickly - through the most basic levels of debate and examination - and yet NOTHING gets done at scale. They don’t see problems - but instead issues on which they can campaign. Anyone who says, “Re-elect me,” and I'll introduce bills to do XYZ… is a scam artist because they’re still active members of the government and can do so now. Anyone who says, “Give me two more years” to do something I said I’d do six years ago is not the type of person you’d want at your company, let alone your district. The reality is that it’s easier to constantly run on problems than solve them… Because once they solve them, new problems will emerge, and they’ll be held accountable for those. So, why bother? There’s a good life in not solving problems. One last thing, though - the thing that drives me insane… is when people who haven’t done anything take credit for solving problems. There are plenty of people like Al Gore - saying he helped start the internet (via funding) - when it was entrepreneurs who risked fortune to do so… or President Obama who takes credit for raising vehicle mileage standards, when it was really engineers forced via fiat to do so. America needs a structural analysis of our biggest problems… someone to tackle them. The solutions are the easy part - because we operate under Federalism, and states can act as the laboratories of what works and what doesn’t. Until we take up a problem-solving mindset, expect more of the same. Stay positive, Garrett {NAME}  Disclaimer Nothing in this email should be considered personalized financial advice. While we may answer your general customer questions, we are not licensed under securities laws to guide your investment situation. Do not consider any communication between you and Florida Republic employees as financial advice. Under company rules, editors and writers cannot recommend their positions. The communication in this letter is for information and educational purposes unless otherwise strictly worded as a recommendation. Model portfolios are tracked to showcase a variety of academic, fundamental, and technical tools, and insight is provided to help readers gain knowledge and experience. Readers should not trade if they cannot handle a loss and should not trade more than they can afford to lose. There are large amounts of risk in the equity markets. Consider consulting with a professional before making decisions with your money.   [Like]( [Comment]( [Restack](   © 2024 Garrett {NAME} 548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104 [Unsubscribe]() [Get the app]( writing]()