| By Bill Bonner Thursday, April 30, 2020 – Week 7 of the Quarantine CALCHAQUI VALLEY, ARGENTINA – “A [mountain] lion was wandering around your house last night,” said Inez. Inez is a charming and attractive woman of about 50 – and a grandmother – who comes over from the village. “How do you know?” “I saw the tracks.” “But you don’t have to worry about them,” Inez continued. “Lions are cowards. They don’t attack humans.” “Well, that’s good to know,” said Elizabeth. Slings and Arrows Meanwhile, today, we’re going to do something different, something almost earnest. We’ve watched the way colleague Tom Dyson takes the time to reply to reader mail in his Postcards From the Fringe e-letter, calmly answering objections… helpfully providing more details, as requested. Readers seem to appreciate it. Indeed, they prefer it to our unrelenting sarcasm and mockery. So, we’re going to do the same. That is, we’re going to take the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism… and respond forthrightly and constructively. And today, we begin with the most recent kvetch. When it comes to the C-virus, many readers don’t think we know what we’re talking about. And of course, they’re right. All we know is what we read in the papers. Some readers think we should defer to the expertise of Doctors Fauci and Birx; with their years of training, surely they are better judges of how to deal with a virus! Other readers think we should defer to the “stable genius” in the White House. After all, he’s the peoples’ choice; vox populi, vox Dei! | Recommended Link | | Urgent Message From America's Most Formidable Investor (Ignore at Your Own Peril) The Japanese police consider Jeff Brown a deadly weapon – thanks to his black belt in an ancient form of karate. Even in the investing arena… Having Jeff in your corner can be dangerously lucrative. He called the top stock on the S&P 500 three out of the last four years. And some of his recent biotech plays turned out to be big winners – with gains like 432%, 332%, and 1,620% to date. But right now, Jeff is tracking another urgent situation bigger than any of these. It has all the ingredients to be bigger than anything else in his successful three-decade career. More importantly, it's set to play out in just a few weeks – as soon as July 1st. If you miss it, don't say you haven't been warned. | | | -- | Sophisticated Claptrap When it comes to the man in the White House, one of the most frequent complaints from Dear Readers is that we don’t show him the proper respect. Or even that we “hate” him. But that is a subject that deserves its own response, to which we will return another day. As for the experts, we learned long ago that they have their bugaboos, prejudices, and axes to grind, just like everyone else. And sometimes, their expertise is simply false. Or even negative. In economics, for example, the more expert you become, the more you are willing to believe things that couldn’t possibly be true… such as that a small group of technocrats in the Federal Reserve headquarters can do a better job of setting interest rates than millions of borrowers and lenders in the free market… …or that you can “replace” real wealth with fake money… or that Donald Trump knows when the price of oil is too high… or too low… …and that the wise men and women of the Federal Open Market Committee know when prices are rising too fast or too slow, or when the economy ought to be growing or contracting (never!)… Paul Krugman, with his “noble” prize, is about as expert as you can get. But his views are nothing more than sophisticated claptrap. Stunning Fact About the Top 2 Stocks During COVID-19 Crisis… Ultimately, that leaves us no choice. We have to try to connect the dots ourselves… and make sense of the news as best we can. But let’s look at the criticisms of our COVID-19 views. Here’s one Gary M., who thinks we should defer to the authorities: I am pretty disappointed in [Bonner’s] response to the way the Trump administration has handled the covid -19 problem. I think they have done a great job … Thank God Bill wasn’t in charge !! Reader Vicki L. elaborated yesterday on why the lockdown is necessary: In case you haven't read, many people are dying and there are mass graves. The hospitals are overwhelmed. Human lives are important. Old, fat, and sick people matter. In fact, many people who die are young and healthy, it is not just those who are old, fat, or sick. The lives of front-line workers matter. They are put at risk when so many people come into the hospital sick. Having covid patients in the hospital takes away from others who need hospital care or procedures for other reasons. We do not need to selfishly put anyone at higher risk--including old, fat, sick people, young, healthy people, existing patients, and healthcare workers.
Stop the disinformation. Put people before profits. Well, we have some questions for Vicki. Almost all traffic deaths involve speeds over 31 mph. We could save 37,000 lives a year by reducing the speed limit to 30. And as many as 60,000 people die each year from seasonal flu. Presumably, those lives could be saved by locking down the country every year… 12 months of the year. Why don’t we make the lockdown national… and permanent… and reduce the speed limit to 30 mph? | Recommended Link | | New Smartphone Video Going Viral You have got to see this video that’s going viral… One of the world’s top angel investors unveils a brand-new 5G device… This video is the first time it’s been shared with the public. The value of this device could soar to $5.7 billion – this year. And one company that makes it could be the No. 1 tech stock of 2020. | | | -- | What Next? All lives matter… but we drive 70mph. We eat things that may have peanuts in them. We drink. We quarrel. We make love. We go to war. We weigh the risks and take our chances. The shame of the lockdown policy is that it imposes the costs of trying to save every last old, fat, diabetic codger on everybody, including lean, young college students. People who have contagious diseases are often quarantined to protect the rest of us. But lockdown policies quarantine healthy people, those who should be free to live their lives as they see fit. It is a little like putting women in jail to protect them from rapists. Justice matters too. And freedom. And many other things we can’t begin to put a price tag on. Yesterday came news that Donald Trump has ordered Tyson Foods to keep working. Spare ribs are hardly essential for the defense of the nation. A Sneak Peek Inside Apple's 5G iPhone? So, if the feds can use an infectious disease to force some people to work… and confine others to their homes… what can’t they do? Can they take our money away to protect us from inflation? Can they terminate elections to protect us from civil unrest? What next? Also came news yesterday that Mayor De Blasio of New York threatened to lock up mourners at a funeral: My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups. This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period. But keeping people from attending funerals doesn’t necessarily save lives. Many epidemiologists believe it makes no difference at all. The disease moves fast. Lockdowns are too slow and too imperfect to have any effect. Just look at the difference in the results… California and Massachusetts both have similarly strict lockdown orders in place. But Massachusetts has 10 times as many fatalities. And it’s not just about saving lives. We’re all going to die. It’s how we get there that matters. It’s one thing to live well… with courage, dignity, common sense… and honor. It’s another to cower in our lonely homes, terrified of a bug… forgo the common pleasures of life… and then have the mud thrown down on our faces without a mourner in sight. | Recommended Link | 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.” | | | - | Terrible Blunder In early March, “flattening the curve” seemed like a good idea. Faced with the sober scientists on one side… and the howling media on the other, we might have been tempted to lock down the nation, too. We’re not really criticizing. As far as we can tell, the policy of the federal government was an honest mistake; we don’t know that we would have done any better. But based on what we know now, it appears that our first impressions were wrong, and that the Trump Team, as well as most state governors, were bamboozled by the “experts” into making a terrible blunder. The virus helpfully targets a very narrow segment of the population – the old, the fat, the diabetic, and those with heart/lung conditions. Your editor fits part of that description, so we’re happy to be socially distancing ourselves. But that’s no reason to shut down everybody else. But wait. If we allow young people to go to work… and kids to go to school… when they come to visit us, we’ll die, right? Well, just yesterday, yet another report undermined the case for a universal lockdown. Bloomberg: Children contract the coronavirus less often and with less severity than the general population, and there doesn’t appear to be cases of a child passing Covid-19 to an adult, according to a new report. Besides the financial losses (estimated in the trillions worldwide), God knows what personal suffering a lockdown causes – bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness, loneliness, wife beating, depression, suicide, etc… But those of us most at risk number only about one out of 20. So, rather than shut down the entire economy, a better course of action would have been just to shut down us! Focus on the most vulnerable people… especially in nursing homes… making sure they are properly isolated and protected while the rest of the population goes about its business and acquires its “herd immunity.” Subsequent revelations and analysis may prove this wrong, too, but that’s the way it looks now. We’ll return tomorrow with more reader complaints… Is it traitorous to live overseas?… Do we “hate” The Donald?… Are we a liberal or a conservative? Stay tuned. Regards, Bill Like what you’re reading? Send your thoughts to feedback@rogueeconomics.com. MAILBAG Dear Readers come to Bill’s defense after another called him a narcissist Wednesday… Gosh, and people say President Trump is a narcissist. I am surprised that Mr. Bonner has not been made supreme leader of the earth since he seems to have all the answers to everything, regardless of what it may be. I’m just curious, has Mr. Bonner shared the depth of his wisdom with the leadership in Argentina? I am sure they would be happy to hear that closing the borders and enforcing stay-at-home orders is sheer stupidity. The easiest job in the world is to second-guess others without ever being responsible for making hard choices. – Thomas S. You asked whether Bill Bonner is a narcissist. Seriously? More like the polar opposite. For five days every week – and probably more – these free-to-read Bill Bonner newsletters have been sent out to people who ask for them. His sharp wit analyzes a confusing, swirling, quagmire of information, news, trends, media, and hogwash. Through all of this, he cuts through to find the nuggets of truth and relevance. To help join the dots that previously weren’t so clear. The end result is usually a highly polished, entertaining, and often shocking exposition. There’s a lot of truth that is, quite frankly, distasteful. However, I would rather be challenged to think and reconsider, compared to living in delusion. He doesn’t need to write these free newsletters. He could have retired years ago. The background research and fact-checking work needed must be substantial. So why does he do it? Easily, he could off-load the writing to other capable colleagues. The main motivation I can think of is that he simply cares – about telling what he learns, in the same way that an artist or a sculptor goes to great lengths to create something amazing. And Bill Bonner seems to do this daily. I have no idea how. But I, and probably millions of others, are grateful and appreciative, even though the findings are often not good news. A little bit of preparation or advanced knowledge can help people make different choices. So no, definitely not a narcissist. Thankfully, to-date, he has had the good sense to never go into politics: that might be one swamp too many. Best left for those less capable. – Brian A. I think Bill is brilliant, hardworking, tremendously insightful, and yet somewhat humble and, at times, self-effacing. I’m thrilled to read him daily and have for years. I hope that he continues for many more. – Chris L. Are politics best left to those less capable, like Brian believes? Write us at feedback@rogueeconomics.com. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT… “The Wall Street Legend” Who Picked Apple in 2003–and Bitcoin in 2016–Shares #1 Pick for the 2020s… Picking the right “investment of the decade” can transform your life… Microsoft in the ‘80s… Amazon in the ‘90s… Apple in the 2000s… Bitcoin in 2016... Any one of these could have made you a millionaire many times over. Starting with very little. Today, the Wall Street legend who picked the last two “investments of the decade”… months (even years) before his peers… will finally reveal his new #1 pick for the 2020s. It’s not 5G, artificial intelligence, or the internet of things. The answer will surprise you. And, for those who take early action, it could lead to an eventual $1.6 million payout. See #1 Pick 
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