QUICK UPDATES!
This week we want to give you a few quick updates on important themes that are near and dear to the JAM VIEWS members.
1. Great news for our entrepreneurs! The Health and Human Services Department finalized a new rule that expands health-care choices for the little guy. Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) have been expanded for employers to give employees tax-exempt dollars to buy a health insurance plan in the individual market. This now levels the playing field for individuals, or we should say "rugged individualist capitalists."
2. Continuing with the little guy theme, did you notice that Murray state's Ja Morant was the No. 2 pick in the NBA draft, after being a zero-star recruit out of high school? And while the draft was in progress, the NBA finals were in full swing. The four guards for Golden state and Portland in the finals were drafted from Davidson (Curry), Washington state (Thompson), Weber State (Lillard), and Lehigh (McCollum); certainly not the Duke and North Carolina powerhouses of college basketball. In sports and business, the little guy wins out much more often than you would think. You don't need that big company security blanket. Checkout the backgrounds of all the players on the uber-successful New England Patriots, and ask yourself, "Why not me?"
3. Updating our exasperation with University campuses, retiring President of the University of Colorado at Boulder, Bruce Benson, recently encapsulated all that matters in his retirement-graduation speech. President Benson stated, "The school's mission is teaching students how to think, not what to think." It's as simple as that. JAM VIEWS members salute President Benson and his objectiveness, and congratulate him on his retirement. He had quite a career balancing act with those "Boulder Granolas," as we used to call them in Colorado 30 years ago. I wonder if the Pogo Bar is still there? Someone call our Buffalo alumni Dave!
4. Remembering his contrarian investment advice, would Bob Vukovich now be buying shares of German company Bayer who recently bought Monsanto? The wild jury verdicts have crushed the Bayer stock, yet they are a large company with huge cash reserves and terrible current press. Remember that if they do a large settlement, you and I will gasp at the number and think it's going out of business, but instead the stock will rise dramatically because "uncertainty has been removed." I bet Bob would do it, but you can never figure out why that guy does what he does! Bets are he's also picking up shares of Ford and GE, because only bad new abounds. I don't know if he's right, but I know he would want to urge us to be long-term investors, not gamblers with the crowd. As he says, our place is not among them.
5. Going far back to our discussions titled "The Government Has No Money," I wanted to remind everyone that when discussing student-debt forgiveness and Medicare for all, the Government does not have a bank account. As we discussed, if you want the Government to pay off the student loans you voluntarily signed up for, then go next door to Apt. C and ask Mrs. Jones, once she gets home from work at the bottling plant, if she would write you a check for your loans. If you don't have the testicular fortitude to ask Mrs. Jones yourself, why do you believe it is right for the Government to intervene and put a gun to her head and threaten her with prison for your bills? What am I missing? Student debt now totals $1.6 trillion, and most of us can't even imagine how many zeroes that is. Mrs. Jones didn't have the opportunity to go to college herself, so I'm not sure how well this conversation is going to go, but give it a shot!
6. Did you happen to see the open letter to all of the Presidential candidates penned by 19 members of the .0001% Club in which they urge the Government to impose a new wealth tax on the richest Americans? A wealth tax is an extra "because you have wealth" tax. As we have learned at JAM VIEWS, these socialist taxes only cause humans to employ behavioral economics and protect their own self-interests, which in turn always hurt the intended beneficiaries which the economically-uneducated claim to be helping. But as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, why don't these uber-wealthy elitists just write checks to their important causes? Why would they need to use a government intermediary to do their good deeds, an intermediary which has proven to be the least effective and most inefficient wealth transfer vehicle in the history of the world? Not surprising, many of these 19 elitists are the heirs to their massive fortunes, likely with inflated SAT scores and sporting Stanford Cardinal sweatshirts.
7. Two closing thoughts. First, we will soon provide a lesson to explain all of the anti-trust efforts ramping up from the Justice Department and Congress to oppose "Big Tech" and our new 5G providers. Always remember that pure capitalism is not about tearing down successful companies, but about creating a free and unrestricted environment for so many competitors to be successful also. Markets achieve homeostasis, while technocrats create artificial equations. Second, last month Warren Buffet announced that Berkshire Hathaway was taking a $377 million loss in the first quarter due to the bankruptcy of DC Solar, a solar company bad bet in which Warren had already posted a large benefit from 2015 to 2018. As the government has taught us all, Warren certainly must have known this solar company was going to run into trouble three years later, and $377 million - yikes! We are sure any day now he will be hitting the federal "rehabilitation system," but at least he should qualify for a bottom bunk pass.
Hope you have a safe and prosperous week! Happy Independence Day to everyone! Let us all be truly thankful for having the opportunity to live in the greatest country on Earth during the most prosperous period in history. This Capitalist Representative Republic is truly the most successful experiment ever by some amazingly smart people! Happy 4th!
"As far as playing, I didn't care who guarded me - red, yellow, black. I just didn't want a white guy guarding me, because its disrespect to my game." - Larry Bird
"The man who won't loan money isn't going to have many friends - or need them." - Wilt Chamberlain
** Thank you to the WSJ, Forbes and Fortune for the above quotations and statistics. Nothing above is investment, tax or legal advice.
** For more information on Jeff's Books, Blog, and Legal Challenge, please visit www.jeffmartinovich.com.
** To access JAM Views directly please visit jeffreyamartinovich.blogspot.com
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