Image by Jensen Art Co from Pixabay

Consider this a "special edition" of the newsletter I suspended months ago. It's still suspended, but I'm burning to get the word out there.

If You Have Been In Hiding Since November 6 . . .

(Though I wouldn't blame you if you have been.)

The Orange Traitor won the election.

I have a LOT to say about that, but it mostly wouldn't be relevant here, and would require entire books, but one of the MANY outrageous and despicable things he's done is turn the machinery of the federal government of the most powerful and greatest nation on Earth to Elon Musk.

Musk and his "DOGE" crew of kiss-ass elves are running rampant through government offices and computers.

They have access to your Social Security numbers, your earnings record, your income tax returns and all other information the federal government has on you.

Right now, the Drudge Report is reporting on his Wrecking Crew disrupting the Internal Revenue Service during the peak of tax season.

So much for the alleged Republican concern for "fiscal responsibility."

That's as much a lie as everything else Republicans claim, do and promise.

If you're still waiting for a tax refund, rots of ruck - they're driving regular IRS staffers - you know, the people who DO THE WORK - to tears.

As a 30 year employee of the Social Security Administration, I confidently say - this is HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY illegal.

They're violating the Privacy Act.

They have NO - ZERO! - legal right to access our personal information.

If I'd done 1% of what they are, I'd still be in jail.

And they're hacking into the Treasury Department computer systems.

And they ARE hackers. The kind of computer nerds who break software programs just so see what happens, or because it's cool - without caring about the consequences.

To add an insult to this: these little shits are being paid SIX FIGURES out of the government agencies they're tearing apart.

Oh, the United States Treasury handles "only" the strongest, most dominant currency on Earth.

That's why Musk wants to destroy all faith and trust in our government.

He wants to destroy the US dollar, along with other aspects of our government, including democracy, freedom, the Constitution as a whole and the Bill of Rights in particular.

Him and his goons belong in jail.

It Gets Still Worse

The Republican Party has only a one-vote majority in the House of Representatives, and there may be a few of them who are actually responsible enough to have reservations about this mess.

Some Republicans may actually be "old-school" enough to oppose some of Trump's more incredible policies, such as the tariffs or invading Canada.

Some of the remaining Republicans in Congress might even be old-fashioned enough to support our democratic ally, Ukraine, in its fight for survival against fascist Ruzzia.

After all, modern Republicans still want to claim Ronald Reagan as "their" president.

While I had - and still have - a lot of problems with Reagan, he WOULD support a democracy against a KGB agent's dictatorship.

Yet, it's clear Putin has Trump - and many of his supporters though not all - in his hip pocket.

Musk has threatened ALL Republican lawmakers who oppose Trump with being "primaried."

That is, if they don't back Trump 100% when he tries to take over Greenland, Musk will run his own "Republican" candidates against them in the November 2026 elections.

As the richest man alive, he can clearly afford to overwhelm everybody else with campaign spending.

This is a direct THREAT to our democracy.

To all democracies, because he's also spending to influence elections in Germany and other European countries.

A Modern Nazi

A short while ago, Musk gave a speech to a far-right political party in Germany.

During it, he gave them a Nazi salute. Yes, right out of World War II movies - only he was serious.

He was speaking to people who probably think of themselves as Nazis, except that word is forbidden by German law.

A few days ago, he tweeted that Hitler didn't kill a lot of people, making him a Holocaust denier - which is also a crime in Germany.

But, Isn't This is an "Investment" Newsletter?

Yes, but . . .

First, "business" and "investing" are NOT totally separate from politics.

That's because running a successful business to a large extent depends on a smoothly running society where people count on law and order.

This is even more true of investing in the stock market or bonds.

That requires companies that exist in an environment that allows them to grow large enough to need outside capital.

It requires a stock exchange.

It requires a country with trustworthy currency, so companies can send you dividend checks every quarter.

It requires a country with a trustworthy banking system.

It requires a legal system to enforce contract law.

It requires respect for the rule of law, including the principle nobody is above the law.

It requires a lot of things I - and all other Americans - have taken for granted since at least the end of World War II.

WE CAN NO LONGER TAKE THESE THINGS FOR GRANTED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Anarchy, violence and chaos are bad for business - and investing.

I remember when I was first researching the stock market and came across the argument that stocks in general - not individual companies, of course, but the market in its entirety - go up in the long run.

Because they're all based in the United States economy, and, despite down cycles, it keeps going up.

Look at the 20th century. The Dow Jones went up tremendously from 1901 to 2000 despite two world wars, the Great Depression in between, and the Cold War with the Soviet Union and China, Nixon taking us off the gold standard and lot of other scary things.

The left-unsaid implication of this argument was that if we could get through the world wars, the depression and everything else, we were going to survive.

So, invest for the long term.

Now, though, in 2025, we're learning we face another threat.

The enemy within.

Not poor Mexicans just trying to support their families back home, but MAGA, including Elon Musk.

Trump trying to destroy the world's economy with his ridiculous tariffs.

(Lest we forget, many economists blame the Great Depression on the tit-for-tat tariffs enacted by major countries, including the US with the Smoot Hawley Act.)

I believe Trump is deliberately driving Americans to violence. He's just waiting for a major protest, then he will call in the military, massacre hundreds of people, jail the rest and suspend the Constitution, making himself dictator for life.

With Elon "Heil Hitler" Musk pulling his strings.

Won't a Trump/Musk Dictatorship Be Good for Business and Investing?

Well, they say Hitler made the trains run on time.

But, in the long run, fascist governments are unstable.

To tell the truth, most Germans probably did experience a better economy from 1933-1938.

Not German Jews.

Not German gay men.

German workers had jobs in the rapidly expanding armament industry, but their wages actually went down after Hitler's government outlawed independent unions, installing a Nazi-run union that helped make industrialists rich as long as they followed orders and kicked back some of their profits.

(Yes, Hitler was corrupt as hell. It's never mentioned because it's one of his most minor sins.)

However, this economy was not sustainable, and Hitler knew it, so as some of us still remember, he invaded Poland, and the European Theater of World War II kicked off.

What did Germans get from the Nazis?

Death - tens of millions of soldiers and civilians.

Destruction - almost all housing and factories was destroyed.

The 45-year occupation of the eastern half of their country by the very communists Hitler promised Germans he would protect them from. (The former East Germany is still economically poorer than the former West Germany.)

We are Heading Into Unknown and EXTREMELY Frightening Territory

If you're not scared for the future of America, you're out of touch with reality.

If you think a Trump crackdown will solve the problems we face, you're really an Orange Kool-Aid drinker.

Don't You Have Hope?

If I didn't, I wouldn't writing this.

But I have ZERO belief we're going to get past this dark period without violence.

Maybe lots of violence.

For our own safety, as well as for freedom and democracy and leaving our children and grandchildren the same legacy we inherited from past generations, we need to resist the MAGA takeover of our country.

But What About Tesla as an Investment?

First of all, if you bought Tesla as an individual stock, you were NOT following my investing advice (as explained in my book INCOME INVESTING SECRETS).

I advocate buying ONLY stocks that pay dividends, NOT risky, highly speculative companies such as Tesla.

I also advocate reducing risk by buying ONLY indexes, especially through Exchange Traded Funds.

Therefore, yes - my advice is to sell your Tesla.

That's based solely on the type of investing I have always advocated, which was NEVER to gamble on one stock, especially such a risky one as Tesla has always been.

It's been overvalued according to fundamental analysis for many years.

But What About Tesla Itself?

Is it too risky?

In the long run, who knows?

But what we DO know, is this:

Many people AROUND THE WORLD now hate Musk.

And, I mean HATE.

Tesla sales are down dramatically - in many countries.

That decline began in 2024, and is accelerating. Tesla sales went down 70% in just the first two months of 2025.

Faced with such a disaster, most high-profile CEOs would be trying to repair the damage. They'd be trying to solve the problems and - certainly - doing full-time public relations to bring customers back.

Instead, Musk is camped out in OUR White House, generating even MORE hatred toward himself and Tesla - every day.

People are holding protests at Tesla dealerships - every Saturday in my area.

Last night, somebody damaged five Teslas with incendiary devices, so at least two burned.

In Boston, somebody destroyed Tesla charging stations.

Germany was Tesla's biggest European market, but 94% of Germans now say they will NEVER buy one.

According to filings with the SEC, Tesla executives and board members have sold $100 million of Tesla stock over the past few months.

When insiders begin selling their company stock, that's a VERY bad sign.

If you drive a Tesla, you are now a target. People will give you a Nazi salute to insult you. They may spray paint the vehicle.

In Berlin, somebody set four Teslas on fire. In France, they've been vandalized.

Some Tesla owners put on bumper stickers reading: "I bought this before Elon went crazy."

Just six months ago, you could tell people you bought a Tesla because you believe in saving the planet from fossil fuels.

Now, you're a Nazi-sympathizer.

I have contacts in the local DMV, where everybody who buys a car must go to get it titled and registered.

Starting roughly in mid-2024, the people who are buying Tesla stopped being mostly white liberals and became immigrants: Indians and others from the MidEast.

The problem is, these are the same people MAGA wants to deport!

By the millions.

Look, you don't need an MBA to realize that deporting your best customers is a lousy sales strategy!

Will This Hatred of Musk and Tesla Continue?

That's the $64,000 question.

If Musk were truly as smart as he clearly believes he is, he'd quit politics.

Get out of MAGA. Move out of the White House.

Just . . . LEAVE!

But, just as clearly, he enjoys being Trump's Rasputin.

I'm also sure he enjoys being hated by the same people he hates.

Allegedly, also, he's addicted to ketamine.

Ketamine is a related to the street drug PCP, once notorious as "angel dust."

Both PCP and ketamine are disassociative drugs. They make you feel disconnected from reality.

Look, as a hippie, I don't knock people for the recreational use of controlled substances, but the key word is "recreational." I enjoy watching movies while high on legal cannabis, but I do NOT let it negatively affect my personal or financial life.

I believe this is all a game to Musk. It enhances his incredibly large ego.

He's ultra-rich, and you're not - so fuck you.

Even if Musk moved out of the White House and went back to running Tesla while keeping his big fat mouth shut tomorrow, it's too late.

He's smeared feces all over his public image, and doesn't seem to even care.

Defund Musk Before He Defunds Your Social Security and Medicare

He can destroy the lives of 330 million Americans, but we can't hold him accountable.

The Tesla Trend is Down

Three months ago, one share sold for around $479.

Now it's down to about $225 - over HALF.

That's major drop for only three months.

Unless Musk turns himself around, the trend is going to continue.

Sales are dropping worldwide.

If you buy a Tesla now, you're not socially accepted.

You can be insulted in public with a Nazi salute.

You risk vandalism or - given just a little more time - total destruction.

As current Tesla owners come to regret owning one, many more used Teslas will come on the market, driving down their price. That will motivate people determined to buy a Tesla to look for bargains in the used car market instead of buying a new Tesla.

Before much longer, the insurance companies are going to raise rates on Teslas. Insurance rates on Teslas are already high for various reasons.

Unless Musk turns things around - the rates are going higher and higher.

Tesla dealerships have to be going crazy too. I don't know their profit margins, but they have to be dropping. How long can the dealerships survive the drop in sales, the protests against them, the vandalism and the notoriety when they probably thought selling EVs would make them environmental heroes?

How long can they survive hikes in their own insurance as angry Americans scared of losing their freedom destroy even more charging stations and dealerships

Reportedly, owners of large chunks of Tesla shares are becoming impatient with Musk.

They know everything in this article, and more.

How much longer will they hang on to their shares?

I don't know. But when Tesla whales start selling, that will drive the price down farther.

According to one online source, if it goes down to $114, Musk faces margin calls he won't be able to face.

Boo hoo hoo.

Defend Democracy

America, freedom and the Constitution are worth far more than anybody's portfolio.

If you own Tesla stock, you weren't listening to me anyway.

If you haven't sold already, sell now - before the price goes farther down.

Squeeze Musk - deport him back to South Africa.

Image by 12019 from Pixabay

There just isn’t enough time.

I am working on the novel I was born to write.

Something had to give.

Besides, it’s 2024, and I don’t want to write every week about Republicans, Donald J Fucking Trump and the other MAGA neo-Nazis.

Image by Tazz Anderson Photography from Pixabay

The battle's already underway.

Not Ukraine, although that's one of the battle's main fronts.

Not Gaza, although that too is one of the battle's main fronts.

I'm talking about the battle the Founders of the United States launched on July 4, 1776.

The battle between democracy and authoritarianism.

The battle between freedom and dictatorship.

The battle between self-determination and power over others.

The battle between the extremely unequal, stratified social system of a landed, hereditary aristocracy versus open-to-all economic and entrepreneurial opportunities for creating and spreading new wealth.

If you want to get religious: the battle between evil and good.

I've just finished reading the ONE book ALL Americans need to read and internalize before the 2024 national election.

If you're in another country, read this book to understand what's happening today in the US. You'll likely be indirectly affected by the outcome.

Besides, the battle is global. Depending on where you live, you may or may not feel threatened . . . but you're at risk too.

We are all.

The battle is simply bigger and more dramatic in the US because:

1. It began here, with us, in 1776. Before that, the entire world was authoritarian, and almost nobody thought that could change.

Our Founders proved the skeptics wrong. They bravely struck the biggest single blow for freedom in human history.

They rolled back the 10,000 year-old iron fist of a feudal, aristocratic king: "traditional" tyranny.

Sure, peasants had revolted before against cruel local lords.

But America's Founders not only kicked King George III's troops out of the Thirteen Colonies, they declared all - that's A*L*L - of us equal.

And endowed by our Creator with rights not even a king can take away.

They even had the cojones to declare these rights - which in practice were recognized nowhere else in the world - “self-evident.”

2. We are large and diverse. From the beginning, we have been a multi-cultural, multiracial, multi-ethnic country and society.

Thanks to immigration, we are growing ever-more diverse.

Unlike no other country on Earth, only a small minority of the population - First Nations/Native Americans - have a long history occupying this landscape.

The ancestors of African-Americans were brought here by force.

The rest of us are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants.

Because the United States is the most powerful country on Earth, takeover of it by a dictatorship would dangerously destabilize the rest of the world.

It would also encourage existing dictators, such as Putin, and lead other countries to vote for the neo-fascist politicians running in their elections.

This poison is spreading around the globe.

The Book Exposing the Neofascist Threat to American Democracy

Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson

To a large extent, it's similar to the book I wrote about before Christmas: Let Them Eat Tweets.

But Ms. Richardson writes as a historian, not a political scientist. She never mentions the Conservative Dilemma.

She has another take on what's happening in America today.

It's the latest attempt by the group she calls "enslavers" - because from 1776 to 1865 they literally did own slaves - to reverse the Declaration of Independence.

And "enslave" us all. Not quite like African-Americans in the antebellum South, of course, but to force us to live in a similar economy.

One where only white men born in the United States have rights.

But where only white people born to money have the right to lots of money. The enslavers of today are white supremacists and so-called Christian nationalists who want to keep all people of color, all LGBTQ people and all workers forced to work for the elite wealthy.

They want to deport millions of immigrants, including legal immigrants and their children who possess American citizenship, keeping them in camps - all except Trump's wives and children, that is.

If you think I'm exaggerating, you're not paying attention to the latest news of Donald Trump's speeches.

He sounds like Adolf Hitler.

Literally.

Except in English.

Immigrants from Africa and Asia are “vermin” who’re "poisoning" the blood of America.

We've Forgotten the Declaration Before

American slavery ended with the Civil War, but subsequent elites who believed in their own superiority - not the equal rights of the Declaration - include the Northern industrialists who accumulated huge amounts of wealth during the Gilded Age.

They've also gained a lot of power beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Richardson brings our history up to date, ending with Trump as the likely 2024 Republican Party nominee for President.

A man who's already guilty of attempting the violent overthrow of the United States government.

Yet only a few Republican office holders have the moral decency to oppose him.

Even though they can’t restrain themselves from expressing their self-righteous indignation against President Biden.

Recently, all House Republicans voted to make a prominent wannabe theocrat (he wants to turn the US into a white, so-called "Christian" dictatorship) Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.

Speaker Johnson has said he believes God should destroy America for recognizing the legal rights of the LGBTQ community.

Even though they are - simply - people.

If he believed in the Declaration of Independence, he'd know God gave all LGBTQ members the same inalienable rights he gave to the rest of us.

People with such unAmerican beliefs shouldn't even be in the House, in my opinion.

Yet all House Republicans voted for this rightwing extremist who hates the fundamental principle of our democracy.

They all also voted to force all American schoolgirls who wish to participate in sports to submit to genital exams.

(No, the law didn't pass, because the Senate is not controlled by hateful Republicans. But this shows you how extremist they are, to want to persecute America's schoolgirls.)

That's why I say: you can't trust Republicans - no matter how *nice* or *moderate* some of them may try to appear.

My Congressional rep, Ann Wagner, sends out a weekly email that totally avoids even mentioning Trump and the MAGA cultists. She keeps her cowardly head buried in the sand.

But she still voted for an advocate of a Christian-in-Name-Only dictatorship and to force the government to examine and monitor the genitalia of little girls.

Look at 1853

In the interviews Richardson gives to promote this book, she's always asked whether American democracy is going to survive Trump in 2024.

She always gives hope by comparing our current situation to 1853.

As I recall from my high school American History classes, America's political history for the first half of the 19th century was the fight between slavers and abolitionists.

According to Richardson, by 1853 it appeared the slavers would win.

They would control the entire government, giving themselves permission to spread slavery as Americans expanded West.

The literal enslavers were winning.

The Tide Turned

More Americans realized slavery was just plain wrong.

Ambitious Americans also realized they could get wealthy in an free, open West, but not in the South, which was economically strangled by its own self-appointed aristocracy.

That is: spoiled, rich entitled assholes who think being born wealthy meant they were superior to the rest of us.

Politicians opposed to slavery formed the Republican Party while the Democrats dominated the South.

Abraham Lincoln debated Stephen Douglas, including in my home town of Alton Illinois.

When Lincoln ran for President, troops of "wide-awakers" held rallies around the country to support him.

(So, now you know why Florida Governor DeSanctimonious hates "woke" so much. He wants to return us to the pre-Lincoln era of slavery.)

You know the rest.

Lincoln won the election of 1860. Traitorous Confederate soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, kicking off the Civil War.

A few years later, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and delivered the Gettysburg Address.

When I first read Lincoln's Speech as a kid, of course I recognized its references to the Declaration of Independence.

But Richardson places that speech into a historical context I'd never before known.

At Gettysburg, Lincoln was not just referencing the Declaration of Independence:

He was RESURRECTING it.

And its ideals.

The incredible concept that we ALL have rights - and the same rights.

And we all have the duty to make sure the men who died at Gettysburg did not die in vain.

That . . .

"this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

If that doesn't give you goosebumps, unsubscribe.

The Battle Continues Today

American history remains the story of the ongoing war between those who uphold the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and those who wish to impose their own dictatorship . . . so an authoritarian white "Christian" plutocracy can roll in wealth while ordinary people starve.

Will Americans elect the wannabe - and no longer trying to hide it! - dictator, Donald Trump?

As discussed before, Trump is just the most widely known example of how the enslavers or authoritarian elites want to grind their bootheels into our faces.

We really need that "new birth of freedom."

Richardson Concludes:

Democracy is a process.

Thanks to President Lincoln and the soldiers who defended America, our nation has endured until now.

How much longer?

We don't know.

Richardson doesn't pretend to know either.

She's doing her part by writing a daily Substack newsletter that comments on the events of the day in the light of American history:

Letters from an American - Heather Cox Richardson's Substack newsletter

We've faced these despicable, evil authoritarians before, and defeated them.

Will Trump lose this November? We'll see.

If he does, will enough of his supporters commit violence to overthrow the government?

We'll see. I don't believe they'll actually take over, but will manage to kill people. Maybe many people.

Will a government that's "of the people, by the people, for the people" perish from this earth?

We'll see.

It is for us, the living, to dedicate ourselves to defeating the wannabe dictators - Trump, Speaker Johnson and the entire MAGA cult - who believe God gave them the privilege to crush our freedom with the heels of their jackboots and deny us the inalienable rights endowed us by our Creator.

That's our job in 2024.

I'm about as scared as I was when I was nine years old, listening to President Kennedy's speech regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That's the closest the world came to World War 3.

Happy New Year.

May we still be free when January 1, 2025 dawns.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

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Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Have a great Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice or whatever winter holiday you celebrate.

Celebrate and enjoy time with your friends and families while I take my first week off in three years.

Masayang Pasko

Rick

Image by Rade Dr. from Pixabay

If you want to really understand the current miserable state of American politics - especially the continuing disgusting support for one Donald Piece-of-Shit Trump - we must take a close look at the Conservative Dilemma.

Especially the line going from Richard Nixon to Trump.

It's not what you may be thinking.

According to the following book, our current governmental problems are much broader than simply the malignant poison from the Orange Jesus. (The book doesn't use such language - that's mine.)

Let them Eat Tweets: How the Right Rules in an Age of Extreme Inequality by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson

(NOTE: This book is copyrighted 2020, so it was probably written around 2018-2019, certainly before the 2020 election, the pandemic and January 6.)

Although it's apparently well-known in political science circles, somehow the rest of us, including the media, have been ignorant of the Conservative Dilemma.

We need to know this stuff.

I'm honestly not sure if it's hopeful or not. The problem with modern America is deeper than Trump, but, if that's true, so must be the solution.

Much as I pray Trump loses the 2024 election and goes to jail for life, that won't solve the deeper issues. It might turn down the volume of hatred - at least, after the MAGA Kool-Aid drinkers have stopped rioting - but that's not a permanent solution.

Implementing a healing solution to the current crisis won't be easy, even (or, especially) after we understand the problem.

It may be impossible. In which case, American democracy is doomed.

Yes, Trump - by himself - is not the real problem, so getting rid of him won't solve it.

(He's made it dramatically worse, but generations of neofascists (Republicans, White Supremacists and power-hungry evangelicals) have made it worse.

Of all people, Richard Nixon is the epitome of the Conservative Dilemma.

The Big Historical Picture

In general, for the sake of this book and its arguments, what we mean by "conservative" revolves around “conserving” your own property, money, wealth and political power.

From our emergence from hunting and gathering to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, almost all of our wealth has come directly or indirectly from land.

We need land to raise food crops.

Land is the basis of almost all economic, political and military power.

Until relatively recently in history (1776), that power was 100% rigid and authoritarian.

80% of humanity consisted of peasants who answered to their local lord or noble.

Who answered to higher nobles, up to the king or emperor.

When Europeans began colonizing, they behind countries where wealth was highly unequal. The aristocracy of all European countries had spent over one thousand years consolidating their land and its resulting power.

European elites controlled just about everything. Peasants? Let them eat cake!

But in the Western Hemisphere, Australia and New Zealand where they settled, they started out more or less equal.

Eventually, of course, some settlers were more successful than others at acquiring land and wealth - and, of course, slaves were at the bottom.

By the 1800s, industrialization began pushing much of the New World and Europe to change.

For the first time in human history, factories became great creators of nonland-based wealth and social change.

During the 19th century, democracy spread from the US to many other countries, especially those industrializing - threatening the traditional, land-based wealth of the aristocracies.

That's the great challenge of this historical period (which we're still in.).

Expanding democracy directly conflicts with the entrenched interests of rich conservatives.

Conservatives:

* Currently hold economic and political power - and want to keep it despite changes in technology, society and politics

* Own lots of land and/or industrial capacity

* Own most of the money and control of society - and like it that way

* Want to own even more money

* Want NO restrictions on what they do to make money

They want to pay workers as little as possible for as much work as possible. So, they hate minimum wage laws and unions.

They don't want health and safety regulations.

They don't want ecological restrictions - for the safety of their workers or the general environment.

They don't want restrictions on the product prices they set or how they conduct business.

* They want to control the government as much as possible

That means they don't want the government to help ordinary people. Once upon a time, they at least supported the military and the Post Office. Now they hate the Post Office, and don't want to use the military to project American power outside the country.

* They want social stability because violence and crime are bad for business.

Democracy

In general, ordinary working and middle class people want - and vote for:

* Higher wages

* Lower taxes for ordinary people, higher taxes for the wealthy

* Social stability

* Letting more people vote

* More environmental restrictions to protect their air, food and water

* Unions and stronger labor laws

* Restrictions on monopolies and other uncompetitive commercial business practices

In short, there are many obvious conflicts of interest between the entrenched power of the plutocracy (conservatives) and ordinary people (who are at least 90% of the voters).

(One reason I love this book is that it's the first one I've read on this subject to freely use the word 'plutocracy.')

The Conflict is Not insurmountable

On the surface, we're fighting over the same pieces of pie.

This book points out, however, that historically the most prosperous, free and powerful countries got that way by achieving a healthy balance between the needs of the wealthy elites and ordinary people.

The authors give one great example, and one example of a country that got the Conservative Dilemma disastrously wrong.

Let's remember that, according to this book - and it makes great sense - it's conservative political parties that are hit by the Conservative Dilemma.

Because they represent the wealthy, powerful elites of a country, they tend to oppose anything from the government they believes reduces their money and power.

But in a democracy, they must contend for political office by winning elections.

Winning elections requires getting a majority of votes.

There’re a lot more ordinary people than rich.

More power and money for us - the super-rich . . . that's not such a popular platform to win votes from ordinary people.

By definition, the wealthiest 1% of citizens are also just 1% of the voters.

As the authors point out, the truly powerful are the 0.01% of superrich Americans.

They support "conservatism," but can't win elections by themselves.

To win elections, conservatives must convince some nonrich people to vote for their candidates. To do that, they must give up some control, and accept some degree of compromise.

They don't like it, but it's necessary.

Best Example

England.

The Tory Conservative Party is the Conservative Dilemma’s biggest success.

During the 19th century, they gradually let their Liberals - and then Labour - win some battles.

The result? The largest empire in history, victory in two world wars, recovering from World War II to become one of the world's wealthiest countries - after letting go of their colonies.

Biggest Failure of the Conservative Dilemma

Can't you figure it out?

Germany.

That country became a democracy only after losing World War I.

The Weimar Republic was a highly unstable democracy consisting of many conservative elements who hated it, wanting to return to the good old days of the monarchy - a Kaiser.

Germany is a great example of what can go wrong when conservatives refuse to co-exist with democracy.

People are going to vote anyway.

If conservatives refuse to give them a reason to vote for the conservative party, ordinary voters will vote for another party.

This created political space for Adolph Hitler and the Nazis.

They LOVED participation of the masses (except Jews, of course).

That's why the Nazis weren't really “conservative” in the traditional sense of the word.

Hitler used wealthy people, but he hated them. He didn't want to be just another politician sucking up to the rich while ignoring the ordinary people.

He enlisted the ordinary people to put him into power, to make Germany Great Again - then screwed over just about everybody.

The wealthy German industrialists and landed aristocracy of 1933 thought they could control the former corporal.

Obviously, they were wrong.

What's Richard Nixon Got to Do With All This?

It may seem strange now, but when I was growing up, the entire South of the United States was solidly - and I do mean SOLIDLY - Democratic.

Not 'liberal,' but certainly Democratic.

Democratic politicians - of all kinds - relied on Southern votes to win national elections. For about 40 years, Eisenhower was the only Republican candidate to win the presidency. And Democrats mostly controlled the House of Representatives and the Senate.

The states south of the Mason-Dixon Line held a grudge against Abraham Lincoln for around 100 years for not letting them secede and keep their slaves .

But in the 1960's, the Civil Rights movement influenced enough (Northern) Democrats to make Southern politicians reconsider their party allegiance.

They began looking at the calendar, realized both Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War were 100 years in the past, and the modern Republican Party was nothing like the Republican Party of 1861.

To win in 1972, President Nixon consciously pursued what’s known as the "Southern strategy."

Many Southern, Midwestern and other working class whites were attracted to voting for modern Republicans because they were racist, and (Northern) Democrats were supporting Civil Rights.

This strategy's been working ever since.

Democrat "Dixiecrats" switched parties, so Fox’s Sean (“Terrible American”) Hannity could claim the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed with Republican votes.

(True, but may of those Dixiecrat politicians who voted against the Civil Rights Act soon switched parties, finding the modern Republican Party much friendlier to racism than the Democratic Party.)

What's really interesting is, Nixon realized those same white racist voters still wanted ECONOMIC liberalism.

So, he extended the modern liberal federal government by taking the responsibility for old age, blind and disability welfare assistance from the states. He passed Title 16 of the Social Security Act, creating the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.

In response to growing national awareness of ecological problems, Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

He also did other things Republicans of 2024 would HATE - such as declaring the War on Cancer.

Nixon resolved the Conservative Dilemma by:

1. Getting votes by appealing to the racism of many whites.

2. Buying voters by giving them SOME economic power and freedom, but not as much as Democratic "liberals" would.

Win/Win, right?

The ultrarich got a somewhat limited liberal government.

White voters got to express their tribal hatreds.

It was also Lose/Lose, right?

The ultrarich didn't get the unlimited economic and political power they wanted.

Nixon still had the nerve to tax them - and send out SSI checks to desperately poor people.

Working and middle class white people got economically shafted by the ultrarich, but didn't - and still don't - realize how much the ultrarich are playing them the fools they are.

Meanwhile, far rightwing ideological "conservatives" were on the move.

These included my old neighbor, Phyllis Schlafly, who wrote and privately published her book A CHOICE NOT AN ECHO to support Senator Barry Goldwater's presidential run.

That didn't fare well. In 1964. President Lyndon Johnson beat Senator Goldwater by a landslide.

But that didn't stop young conservative baby boomers (the New Right instead of the New Left), libertarians and Ayn Randians from organizing.

The Trend Continues

President Reagan pursued his own Southern Strategy.

Plus, he went directly after unions in ways Nixon would not have.

I can personally attest that the Social Security Commissioner Reagan appointed, Dorcus Hardy, was the most HATED - not simply disliked, but HATED - by employees SSA Commissioner during my 30 years at the agency.

Reagan said it was okay not to pay income taxes.

He declared government the problem, not the solution.

(To what? It didn't matter. To Reagan and other "conservatives" who want to destroy the public's faith in our government, government was the problem because it defended the rights of people who aren't rich.)

When Congress limited aid to anti-Sandinista rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan used Colonel Oliver North to raise money for them in secret - in an unconstitutional abuse of power.

President George H. W. Bush raised some taxes on the superrich in 1990, and that's the last time a Republican president has dared to do so.

His tax raises were only for the ultrawealthy, but the news would have you believe he stole food from your children's mouths. So he went down to defeat in 1992.

Other Republican presidents learned the lesson, including his son George W.

Contract on America

When Newt Gingrich became Speaker of the House, he began practicing the politics of vengeance.

He never got along with President Clinton as President Reagan got along with Tip O'Neil. Every Democrat and every Republican who didn't toe the line - HIS line - got treated as an enemy.

Rightwing Media

In the late 80's, Rush Limbaugh started the conservative radio business. Later, Rupert Murdoch started Fox News.

This kicked off the conservative media environment. Millions of Americans now watch and listen to them every day.

It's not just how much they lie - it's how they encourage hatred against everybody they identify as a liberal or Democrat.

Or as a Republican-in-Name-Only.

These "commentators" attacked everybody who didn't toe the party line.

NOT the Republican Party line - the conservative media circus party line.

Trump and his MAGA goons did NOT start the practice of far rightwing neofascist Republicans stabbing halfway responsible Republicans in the back for any display of human decency or common sense or - especially - interest in the welfare of Americans as a whole.

That started with Rush and Fox.

In 2016, my favorite conservative radio host, Michael Medved, broke with the pack, refusing to support Trump for president.

As a result, he got the boot.

He’s now the only one I retain any respect for.

By the Time We Reach 2016

Republican voters have been primed by the extremist media they listen to and watch to hate everybody who's in favor of real democracy.

That is, the "traditional, county-club" Republicans who believed in fiscal responsibility, law and order and our current government under the Constitution.

Republican voters hate the "fake" mainstream media they've been brainwashed into believing is controlled by liberals.

They hate anyone who stands up for minority rights: African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, immigrants, LGBTQ and others.

So, it's "okay" with them for Florida Governor DeSanctimonious to replace serious textbooks on American history with ones that say slavery was beneficial to the slaves because some slaves learned blacksmithing.

We don't want "Critical Race Theory," now, do we? Heavens to Betsy, no, that's for them Democrat liberals.

(What is CRT? I haven't had time to learn. I just know that if Republicans hate it, I'm for it. Besides, I bet 98% of the anti-CRT crowd don’t know what it is either. They just know they’ve been told it’s liberal.)

Also, Republicans think DeSanctimonious is great for hating the LGBTQ community. He passed a law against saying "gay," and laws persecuting trans children for being who they are.

Trump voters have been convinced everything they hate about the economy is the fault of "liberals."

Ordinary People are Getting Royally Screwed Over - and Love It

The proportion of the nation's wealth held by the top 1% has RISEN from around 11% in 1980 to 20% in 2016.

The proportion of the nation's wealth held by the bottom 50% has FALLEN from around 21% in 1980 to 13% in 2016.

In America today, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest is extremely wide - looking more like Ruzzia than the world's greatest democracy should.

Yet, despite all this, his white racist base still wants Trump back in office.

When he announced recently he'd be a dictator "for a day," the audience cheered.

WTF?

If you want to live under a dictator, go to Ruzzia.

Trying to Sum Up

Just to be clear:

The "conservative" ultrarich want all the material and economic goodies for themselves.

NOT for you and I, ordinary people.

But ordinary people FAR outnumber the ultrarich. Therefore, we have many more votes.

Therefore, to get what they want in a democracy, they need to convince ordinary people to vote AGAINST their own economic self-interest.

In America, they have succeeded to an incredible extent.

Probably far more than they hoped back when advising President Nixon to pursue that Southern strategy.

They have demonized "government" so much that Republican protestors carry signs reading: "Keep the government's hands off Medicare."

They're so brainwashed they don't even realize Medicare comes from the government.

In fact, from those very liberals they've been trained to hate so much.

Just wait until their Republican political buddies start cutting Social Security and Medicare because the rich people whose asses they kiss hate it (and, yes, radical rightwingers DO want to get rid of both programs).

But they won't be able to do anything about it, because if the Republicans get their way, we'll no longer have meaningful elections.

Looking at 2024

Barring some major surprise, Donald Trump is once again going to be the Republican Party candidate for President.

His voters don't get that, if returned to power, Trump will screw them over massively.

They don't care.

Many Americans hate welfare benefits, associating them with poor black "freeloaders."

But they accept tax deductions for vacation homes for the rich, although most of us can't afford vacation homes.

According to polls, Southern voters are actually more economically liberal than Northern voters.

But, given a choice between racist poverty and nonracist prosperity, they choose the racism over their own bank accounts.

According to this book's authors, in the 2016 election Trump performed best in geographic areas with high unemployment, slow job growth, low incomes and poor overall health.

In fact, the greatest predictor of Trump's electoral success in any given county was its rate of premature death among middle-aged whites. This includes suicide plus alcoholism and substance abuse.

Many of Trump's diehard supporters are profoundly unhappy people searching for a champion to save them from the consequences of an economy with high and growing higher inequality.

Trump promised a lot to these people, but delivered very little in the way of material help, yet they still blame the libs, just as Fox News, Breitbart, OAN and other rightwing media tell them to.

These people are justified in feeling economically insecure, but the Republicans tell them to blame "liberals" and immigration, so they vote for Republicans.

Let the rich eat your breakfast, lunch and dinner - then blame the liberals because you’re hungry.

Limbaugh, Fox News and the rest of rightwing media have convinced them that when Trump takes over again, they'll once again be in charge - as they were in the 1950's, before liberals "imposed" the Civil Rights Act on the country.

As Single "Issues," Republican/Plutocrat Priorities are HIGHLY Unpopular With Ordinary People

Look at abortion. After the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade, large majorities of voters in such deep red states as Kansas have, when asked, voted FOR a woman's right to choose.

Other examples include overturning the Affordable Care Act (which would have been a disaster to impoverished whites in many red states and counties), raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting taxes on the rich, busting unions, de-regulating industries, allowing more pollution - all issues the plutocrats love and support, but ordinary Americans hate.

Yet, when faced with voting for a politician who advocates all of the above, they pull the trigger for that politician who loves what they hate.

The real danger of American government is that so many politicians represent the superwealthy donor class, not ordinary Americans - and ordinary Americans let them get away with it.

If January 6 Didn't Wake You Up, You Should Move to Ruzzia

So it doesn't even matter to them that Trump tried to overthrow our democratic government.

The polls say senior Americans are most "conservative."

I don't get that. I'm a baby boomer, and I was absolutely taught to believe in America, its ideals of freedom and equality, and to support the Constitution.

It's why our parents fought World War II.

If they'd wanted a racist dictatorship, they could have joined Nazi Germany.

The Big Fear of the 1950's and '60's was the communists using violence to take over the United States government.

I truly don't understand why or how anybody who considers themselves an American patriot can support the man who DID try to violently overthrow the government.

The attempted coup d'etat of January 6 convinced me Trump was a wannabe dictator, not anybody I could support for President.

And I haven't even mentioned Trump's many legal trials.

Yet his supporters - who claim to be patriots - ignore how he stole thousands of government documents, including some highly classified.

Oh, we're "patriotic," but it's okay for the Orange Neofascist to steal important, highly classified secrets.

That's "fake news."

That's how American plutocrats are looking to resolve the Conservative Dilemma - by destroying democracy.

Then they'll be able to do what they want - like Nazis during the Third Reich.

They don't even have to "win" the election.

They don't care about the votes of the rest of us - ordinary people who respect the government and value our freedom.

I have no doubt that if Trump loses - as I absolutely pray he does - there'll be violence.

His fanatical supporters are already preparing another, more wide-spread and organized January 6 insurrection to make Trump dictator for life.

I simply hope it'll be short-lived and contained, not too many people will die, and as a country we'll get through this.

The Republican Party's Response to the Conservative Dilemma is Simple

1. Convince white voters to hate people of color more than they want to not lose economic power.

2. Once the rich are completely in charge, screw over everybody else.

Voting will be one more right Americans now take for granted, but which Trump and his superrich allies will steal from us.

Republicans Kissing Wealthy Ass Didn't Start With Trump, and Won't Stop Even If He's Defeated

The takeaway:

Any and every vote for a Republican is a vote for bigotry, white supremacy and the wealthy who want to enslave the rest of America.

That's true no matter how "nice" or "moderate" you want to think they are.

Just today, they ALL voted to investigate a Biden impeachment even though they have ZERO evidence Biden committed any impeachable offense.

It's just a waste-of-time, Big Lie political stunt - and they know it.

Trump was impeached twice, and Republicans don't care about that, so their hypocrisy stinks.

Will Demographics Save Us?

In the book's conclusion, the authors discuss the history of Republicans in California.

It's hard to remember now, but, just as the South used to be entirely Democratic, California used to be a Republican stronghold. Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon both started there.

But its population is changing:

* More Hispanics and Asians

* More young people

* More college-educated people

* More people living in cities

* More LGBTQ people

* More anti-religious or belong to a NON-Evangelical Christian denomination

Most such people hate the Republican, Trumpist agenda.

The Republicans and Trump are relying on rural, older, white, straight-identified, evangelicals who didn't graduate from college and who don’t belong to a union.

Guess what? They're dying off. Usually, dead people don't vote. (Although in 2024 some probably will.)

Although California is ahead of the rest of the country, the same demographic trends are underway everywhere.

Sadly, the author say it won't be that simple - and analyze how the Constitution is now badly tilted to favor the party capturing the rural vote.

Their Proposed Solution

Defeat Trumpism electorally so badly that the wealthy elites are forced to recognize the legitimate needs of all Americans - and respond to them.

Of course, Trump lost in 2020, but what's going to happen in 2024?

Plus, I'd guess, they mean defeating Trumpism also means defeating his MAGA supporters such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan and the whole ugly, evil crew of crazies who love to lick Trump's dirty filthy asshole.

Then we need to enact needed political reforms to protect democracy.

And also address the economic inequality that is ripping America to shreds.

America or Trump

Here's a terrific short video from the Lincoln Project that sums up how I view next year's presidential election.

P.S - Before you accuse me of being a "liberal" or other inaccurate political label, I just say:

In 2020, I voted for all the R's on the ballot, including the Orange Neofascist.

It's the stupidest thing I've done in my life - and that's saying a lot.

I won't make the same mistake twice.

I'm on the side of America, equal rights for all and democracy.

Trump hates all three.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

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I'm not the only one checking out parallels between 1930's far rightwingers and today.

I just devoured a new book on homegrown American fascism in the 1930's.

Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism by Rachel Maddow

It's fascinating because it’s so scary.

I need a rest. Maybe next I'll read Stephen King's new novel.

Maddow covered many of the same groups as I've written about here, but in much more detail.

(I didn't discover the top German spy in the US once wrote a gay vampire novel.)

She covers the German American Bund, William Dudley Pelley and his Silver Shirts, Father Coughlin and America First.

She does NOT cover the alleged business fascist coup against Roosevelt.

She does write about Huey Long in a lot more detail - plus the Christian Front.

She mentions many other groups I'd never heard of. They were apparently much smaller than the big names, but widespread.

She makes it clear Huey Long was a much greater threat to American democracy than I'd realized.

Long ruled Louisiana - and I DO mean 'ruled,' NOT 'governed.'

Besides being incredibly corrupt and authoritarian, he advocated populist economic policies more leftwing than Roosevelt's New Deal.

If he'd run in 1936 as he apparently planned to, he may have thrown that election to the Republican candidate.

But, before the election, an assassin killed Long - doing us all a favor.

The Christian Front

Incredibly, I can't recall reading before about this group of so-called 'Christian' fascists.

In New York, they stockpiled rifles, ammunition and even two Browning light machine guns for the war they planned to set off between 'Christians' and Jews.

They also cooperated closely with Father Coughlin, the anti-Semitic radio priest. Coughlin even called for his supporters to carry out an armed revolt, with the paramilitary Christian Front in charge.

They obtained weapons and ammunition from cooperative soldiers.

That is - they stole it from the United States military.

They also had a lot of support from within not only the Army, but the National Guard and the New York City Police Department. (In 1940, over 400 NYPD officers admitted to membership in the Christian Front.)

They were busted, but the trial was a travesty. The prosecutors just weren't up to the job. Sadly.

Who Needs Stinking Postage Stamps?

During the 1930's, not anyone spreading Nazi propaganda in America.

They sent millions of pieces of propaganda to Americans - even to American service members.

If you're old enough to remember before the Internet, you know snail mail used to be an important means of communications. It's how ordinary people stayed in touch.

To help American lawmakers keep their constituents up to date, they're allowed to send mail at no charge.

In the 1930's, some Senators and Congressional Representatives abused their right to send out free - that is, subsidized by the American taxpayers - mail by using it to spread propaganda from a hostile foreign government: Germany.

It even went to service members, even after Pearl Harbor.

And I thought the current gang of MAGA lawmakers such as Matt Gaetz, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan and others were a pack of the most disgraceful politicians in American history.

No - in the 1930's, around two dozen lawmakers were traitors actively working with German agents to spread Nazi lies - even AFTER Pearl Harbor.

Widespread Racism and Anti-Semitism

That was America in the 1930's, along with cruel poverty and desperate economic conditions.

The widespread acceptance of segregation against African-Americans and prejudice against Jews apparently helped make it easier for many Americans to want to drive everybody of color out of the country, including Jews.

Calls for "white nationalism" or "white Christian nationalism" are appeals to bigotry and hatred, and were more common then than we today realize.

Too many people believed then - and still believe today - America is a "Christian" country, whatever that means.

They also believe it's a "white" country - whatever that means.

It’s impossible to know just how many Americans back then sympathized with racists and anti-Semites.

Or how many actually joined these kinds of groups. Many of them were connected, and memberships overlapped. The American fascist leaders all pretty much knew each other. They appealed to the same fear, hatred and ignorance in ordinary Americans.

I can understand many Americans back then didn't want young Americans to fight in Europe, after the waste that was World War I.

So I want us to learn the lesson isolationism doesn’t protect us. As a baby boomer taught by "Greatest Generation" Americans who fought World War II, I learned the danger of isolationism from grade school on up.

That's why it's so disheartening to see how many Republicans-in-name-only are on Putin's side in his war against Ukraine.

Many are just like their isolationist grandfathers, sucking up to foreign dictators while criticizing the President of the United States for defending freedom.

Patriots-in-name-only.

They love to kiss dictator ass, but hate democracy.

Today

In the 1940's, the Department of Justice tried several times to prosecute some of the American traitors.

Sadly, back then the DOJ and the entire legal system was not up to the task.

The Christian Front were not only not convicted, they got their guns back.

Later, the DOJ failed to prosecute other traitors. The trial was a circus. One pro-Nazi (not openly, of course) Senator even had the defendants filling envelopes with Nazi propaganda during the trial.

The judge didn't have much experience, and the traitor defendants and their lawyers ran the court room - so the stress gave the judge a fatal heart attack in the middle of the trial.

Thank goodness Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, Leticia James, Alvin Bragg and others are stronger and smarter.

So far, only Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon - in charge of the stolen government documents case against Trump - is displaying bias in favor of Trump.

Good Guys Too

Some Americans risked their lives to infiltrate these groups.

Maddow tells their stories too. They're heroes who've been forgotten as Pearl Harbor has buried our memory of the need for anti-fascists in the 1930's as well as the 1940's.

They're a reminder to us Americans today not to forget there've always been citizens who betray the principles of this country.

And there've always been Americans who fought for and to keep our freedoms.

We now have to hope today's heroes will prevail over today's traitors who place loyalty to the "Orange Jesus" over loyalty to the government of their own country.

Conclusion

Clearly, Maddow named this book "PREQUEL" because she wants readers to draw the parallels between the 1930's and 2024.

Millions of Americans are either uneducated about our democratic principles or just plain willing to throw democracy under the bus - because they value racism and so-called 'Christianity' more than the ideals of the United States.

Some of those people are willing to take up arms against the United States, as the January 6 traitors did when they attacked the Capital Building.

A significant minority of American federal lawmakers side with a dictator and hostile foreign government.

Open calls for eliminating all Jews and People of Color from the United States.

When Republicans attack Biden's border policy, what they really want is not only to keep Mexicans out, but to throw out all the Hispanics now living within the United States’ current borders.

The disgraceful trials of the traitors didn't work because the judges were weak, and lawmakers were allowed to unconstitutionally interfere with the process.

Obviously, current judges need to learn from these trials, so as not to repeat those mistakes.

Trump's lawyers are practicing the same kind of law - delay, delay and delay. Make silly motions and arguments. Do everything possible to destroy the public's faith in law enforcement and the court system.

The main difference is, of course, today we have to worry about an American would-be dictator. Not the foreigner Hitler, just Trump.

I have no doubt Ruzzia is working hard to interfere with the 2024 election, just as it did in 2016 and 2020.

In 1941, Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

Without that, when would we have finally joined the war against fascism?

Until Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt couldn't take large-scale action against Germany, Italy and Japan, let alone domestic fascist groups such as the Christian Front and the Silver Shirts.

The isolationist, pro-Fascist America First group was too politically powerful even though President Roosevelt was personally very popular.

This time, we're going to have to defeat the neo-fascists ourselves.

I pray to God we succeed.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

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Here're two more groups who want what I'm calling neo-fascism to overturn American democracy.

(The "original" fascism of Mussolini and Hitler is a totalitarian system forcing everybody in a nation to support the dictator - in a united, coordinated effort.

(In many ways, the modern American (and there are similar groups in Europe) versions are anti-fascist. They seek to destroy the legitimacy of our government. What's frightening is, many of them are still highly authoritarian. They intend to replace our current democracy with a dictatorship. And "authoritarian" is pretty much what we mean these days by "fascist.")

All fascists are dictators, but not all dictators are fascists.

3. Far-Right "Christian" Fanatics

(I put the word Christian in quotes because I don't believe the hatred and intolerance they claim is "Christian" fairly represents the actual teachings of Jesus. I don't want to turn this into a religious discussion. Just check out: Matthew Book 22, Verses 35 - 40. Jesus said love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus also said "all" the law and the prophets hang on those two commandments. NOT "some" of the law, but ALL of the law. And he said nothing about it’s okay to hate people for their race, their sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin or anything else today's religious neo-fascists don't like.)

When I read THE HANDMAID'S TALE by Margaret Atwood many years ago, I thought, there's no way the modern United States is going to become a fundamentalist religious dictatorship - a Christian theocracy.

Now, I'm not so sure.

I hope I'm wrong.

But this group has become quite powerful. Just last year, they got Roe vs Wade overturned, eliminating the right to abortion . . . despite the will of the majority of Americans.

They believe what they call "God's will" outvotes American citizens.

I must also point out that MOST Americans of faith support the Constitutional separation of church and state.

The so-called Christians I'm writing about here want to ELIMINATE that separation.

In short, they want to overturn the current government and replace it with a dictatorship by religion.

Like Iran.

What an inspiring role model, right?

What's interesting - their level of hypocrisy and lying is awesome.

They support Donald Trump, as they've been supporting Republicans since Ronald Reagan.

Never mind that he's an egotistical, power-hungry adulterer and rapist.

He doesn't even pretend to be religious.

Yet these power-mad self-righteous bigots don't care about their own principles.

They just want power.

And Trump sucks up to them.

Not because he gives a flying fish about "Christian" (or real Christian) values.

But because he plays up to anybody with votes, and these groups control a lot of votes.

For details, see:

Unholy: How White Christian Nationalists Powered the Trump Presidency, and the Devastating Legacy They Left Behind by Sarah Posner

These people may be total, absolute ruthless hypocrites, but they're frightening as hell.

If they get their way, kiss the Constitution - and its guaranteed rights - goodbye.

After all, these people believe God gave them the right to crush freedom and everybody who has different ideas.

You disagree with God?

Obviously, you're from the devil, and deserve all the punishment you get.

Look at Speaker of the House Mike Johnson

Even though Johnson is a rightwing religious fanatic, the Republicans in the House of Representatives of the United States of America voted him to be their speaker - just two heartbeats from the presidency.

I said before, a vote for a Republican Congressional Representative - no matter how "moderate" or "reasonable" - was a vote for Kevin McCarthy, who is to blame for Trump's current powerful role in the party.

Recently, however a revolt in the MAGA wing gave McCarthy the boot.

Then all those so-called "moderates" and "country club Republicans" teamed up with MAGA to elect a rightwing "Christian" fanatic.

On a "prayer" Zoom call with a rightwing "Christian" network, Johnson went on and on, whining about how sinful modern America is, and how it deserves God's judgment.

"The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable at this point."

He basically said, America and Americans are doomed to Hell unless God shows us mercy.

He said church attendance in modern America for the first time has dropped below 50%.

That may be true. But why? Maybe it's because the rightwing fanatics make their version of Christianity look ugly, because it's so bigoted and hateful - unlike the actual words of Jesus.

(See the earlier Biblical reference to document Jesus advocated love of both God and all people, NOT hatred.)

That's especially true for many young people. They hear bigoted, self-styled Christians-in-name-only tell them all LGBTQ people are damned, that people of color are inferior to white people (Were there even any white people in Israel 2,000 years ago?) and sex is wrong unless within male-female marriage and yada yada yada.

And they don't like it.

And they're right - they shouldn't.

Johnson also said one out of four American high schoolers don't identify as "straight."

I'm not sure where that number comes from. I don't believe there're that many gay guys, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender, nonbinary, intersex people or other-than-straight kids in high school.

But, whatever the actual numbers and percentages, I suspect it indicates a greater willingness on the part of young adults to not want to participate in the discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

Even though most of today's high school students are cisgender and sexually attracted to the other gender, maybe they don't "identify" as straight because they don't want to identify with intolerance.

So I say, good for them.

Yet, based on this dubious statistic, the Republican rightwing asshole who is Speaker of the House and second-in-line to be President, thinks God may destroy America.

Because, in his eyes, America should be destroyed.

Ronald Reagan deserves a lot of blame for the political power these disgusting people now control, but even Reagan saw America as a "shining city on a hill" - not as a modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.

Johnson is a MAGA fanatic. He may have been involved with planning the attempted insurrection on January 6. If so, he should be in jail as a traitor - and certainly not as a lawmaker for this still-great-and-never-stopped-being-great country.

Dean Obeidallah recently wrote about these “Christian” traitors to America. He interviewed a historian and expert on them, Kristin du Mez. She explained these fanatics believe the United States was founded as a Christian country. Therefore, constitutional rights should not go against their conception of “Christianity.” For instance, in that view, LGBTQ people don’t have constitutional rights.

So, to Hell with the Declaration of Independence’s: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

To Hell with what the Constitution ACTUALLY SAYS: The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of a state religion. The 14th Amendment gives all Americans equality under the law.

But, hey, when you’re God’s own tin-pot general, you don’t need to care about the truth.

He's too self-righteous to doubt he knows God's will better than you and I.

If he ever wields real power, everybody who doesn't conform to HIS will, will be made to suffer for their "sins."

If these 21st century Pharisee CHINOs get what they want, God help us all.

4. Assorted Libertarians, Anti-Tax Dodgers, Land Protestors, "Sovereign" Citizens and Other Legalistic Anti-Government Groups and Militias Who Aren't Strictly White Supremacists (Most are also White Supremacist too)

(I'm not addressing libertarians because libertarianism has a huge ideology behind it. Crackpot, but huge. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul's father Ron Paul made a lot of money marketing himself as a libertarian. In its pure form, libertarians are against ALL - and I do mean ALL - government. They don't want Social Security, police or the military. They'd open us up to military invasion by a foreign power and internal collapse into anarchy.

(For many practical reasons, libertarians will never get rid of government. The vast majority of Americans want Social Security, police and the military. The danger here in America today is libertarianism works to help de-legitimize our current government, which could lead to an authoritarian - possibly a theocratic - state. Which libertarians claim they don't want, but they're as hypocritical as everybody else.)

I use the word "legalistic" because if you get into what these groups call "ideology," it's boring.

Income taxes are illegal because <fill in the blank with assorted bullshit legal arguments long ago disproven in court>.

The federal government doing things on land it owns is illegal because <fill in the blank with assorted bullshit legal arguments long ago disproven in court>.

These people can cite the Constitution and court cases and I don't know what else, to justify:

1. Refusing to pay income taxes

2. Doing whatever they want on land

The best book on the land issue is:

Shadowlands: Fear and Freedom at the Oregon Standoff by Anthony McCann

It tells the story of a band of rightwing nut-jobs who seized and occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon in 2016.

According to Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, this illegal occupation was a "dress rehearsal for what we saw at the Capitol." (She spoke right after the January 6 attempted insurrection.)

The author got to know the occupiers well, and also others involved: local law enforcement, local regular people, local Native Americans (Northern Paiute), the FBI, workers at the Bureau of Land Management and others.

According to McCann, the leader of the occupation kept a copy of the Constitution, and had some bullshit legalese "argument" about how the Constitution gave them the right to take over the government's land.

Some of the occupiers were old hippies with knee-jerk anti-government attitudes who thought the local Paiute would support them.

McCann makes it clear the Native Americans saw the all-white occupiers as just more "pale faces" stealing their lands. (They've come to accept their traditional land being used as a bird sanctuary.)

Greed Greed Greed

Basically, at their heart, these people are just plain greedy.

They want to make money (authorized by the United States government and printed by the United States Treasury) without paying income taxes.

They want all the benefits of our current system, which includes law and order and a court system to enforce contracts, without paying their share.

They’re freeloaders.

They're assholes who take safe, paved highways for granted.

(Without the government, there'd be no interstate highways - and no police making sure gangs of thieves didn't rob and kill and rape travelers. You can drive or fly from New York City to Los Angeles today only because of the rule of law, enforced by the government. Throw that away, and you've got very dangerous anarchy.)

In the Western United States, they want to graze their cattle, mine and steal water with impunity.

That's why to the Northern Pauite they're just more cowboys out to exploit both the environment and Native Americans who have made that land their home for thousands of years.

McCann is also interesting in that he connects these people to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791.

In other words, the United States has always had a class of people who believe they have the intrinsic right to do whatever they want, no matter who they hurt.

And without paying taxes.

To me, the best way to explain how government helps is using an old cartoon you may have seen. Several fish are together in the ocean. One asks about the water. Another fish says, “What’s water?”

We live in a country that, for the most part, in most places, at most times, is law-abiding, peaceful and orderly. When businesses or customers have complaints, they don’t shoot it out as in the days of the wild west - they hire lawyers and go to court.

Our democracy and capitalist system depend on the courts allowing for the peaceful settlement of contract disputes.

Yet we take this general law and order as much for granted as fish do water.

These cowboy types even believe they would do a better job without the government.

When they're simply bootleggers as in 1791, that's one thing.

But Trump has focused their knee-jerk anti-government sentiments as nobody else.

That's the danger - that these folks fall for a neo-Fascist ideology that uses them as its shock troops, like Hitler's Brown Shirts and Mussolini's Black Shirts.

Of course, a truly authoritarian government would crack down on them too, but they're not seeing the potential threat.

They think they already live under "communism." Doesn't "communism" mean having to pay income taxes and accept the existence liberal media?'

They are mostly white and allied with White Supremacists and the so-called "Christian" rightwing.

Just wait until a theocratic government cracks down on THEIR personal lives.

But by then it'll be too late to save America as we know it.

To Be Continued

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

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Okay, by the time you read this, Thanksgiving will be over.

As I write, it's the day before Thanksgiving, and so I'm now feeling in the mood for gratitude.

Let's go deeper than the ordinary thank-you's.

In keeping with the subject of this newsletter - money - I'm sticking with economic-related subjects, although maybe some of these are a stretch, I’ll admit.

I'll spare you the specific things in my personal life I'm grateful for.

1. We’re living in an incredible universe that's hospitable to us.

Did you know? - the many formulas of the laws of physics and chemistry are extremely "fine-tuned" to support not only life, but the stars and planets.

In many of these laws and variables, just a tiny tweak on the far right side of a decimal point would result in a universe incapable of supporting galaxies, let alone life.

I don't remember the exact numbers, but if the force of gravity were just a teensy weensy little bit stronger, all the mass in the universe would by now be collapsed into a single black hole.

If the force of gravity were just a teensy weensy little bit weaker, all the mass in the universe would just be individual atoms separate from every other atom, so we'd just be this loose cosmic dust floating in outer space.

2. We’re alive.

Many people aren't.

Many more potential people have never even existed.

Just think: every healthy sperm cell and every healthy egg cell are capable of producing a human being.

Fertile-age women produce such an egg cell every month. Men send out thousands of sperm cells with every ejaculation.

The vast majority of sexual acts do not result in pregnancy.

The potential genetic combinations of human beings is extremely large.

The odds against our existence are tremendously large - yet, here we are, 8 billion of us.

3. We live in a rich, freedom-loving country.

We were the first to recognize intrinsic human rights.

We're far from perfect, but we're working on it.

We have widespread respect for the rule of law, which makes Trump's attacks on the system so horrifying.

Yes, our democracy is threatened as never before by the orange wannabe dictator. Yes, millions of Americans have deliberately blinded themselves to the reality of what a terrible person he is and what a terrible president he'd make if re-elected.

But we have American heroes, including:

Fanni Willis, District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia

Alvin Bragg, District Attorney of Manhattan

Letitia James, District Attorney of New York

Jack Smith, Special Prosecutor for the US Department of Justice

These folks are working overtime to hold Trump's feet to the fires of legal accountability.

If we're lucky, the trials they set in motion will help some Trump supporters puke up the Trump Kool-Aid they drank, so they don't vote for him next November.

4. Far greater wealth and abundance lie ahead.

Powerful, revolutionary technologies are advancing more quickly than most people realize.

For all the problems we face, scientists are moving forward.

AI, cryptos, the blockchain, space flight, gene editing . . . they're all laying the ground work for a better world.

5. Science knows so much more about health, fitness and the good practice of medicine.

When I began paying attention to nutrition and living a healthy lifestyle, Linus Pauling was still pushing the value of high dosage Vitamin C for curing almost everything, including cancer. (TLDR: It doesn't.)

Adele Davis's four books on nutrition were bestsellers. Back then, before the Internet, ordinary readers couldn’t look up her numerous citations to published research articles, so we didn’t know she often lied about what the articles found.

At one time, supplement sellers pushed the concept of antioxidant supplements as the Fountain of Youth. (They're not, and actually hurt when consumed as supplements and not within real food.)

Then came the craze for fish oil.

And, on and on, we're learning much more.

When you do need standard medical care, it's now far more advanced, and constantly improving, thanks to advances in technology.

6. The United States government.

It has its limits. It makes many mistakes. It could do more, but many governments do less.

It has grown in power, but does so in reaction to demonstrated inability of the private sector to support the population. It's no coincidence the modern era of "Big Government" began under President Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As others have noted, the power coalitions of that era are now breaking up. That's why our current politics are so unstable.

Despite all the activism of "conservatives" who bitch and moan about high taxes and overregulation of business, our government promotes and supports American business to an extraordinary degree..

If nothing else, having a government to provide physical, legal and social infrastructure makes it possible for businesses to operate.

Every business needs that infrastructure, even small ones.

The summer I was 15, I earned money by mowing lawns.

I was absolutely a small business, yet I still depended on the ability to walk my mower down to the nearby Shell Station and refill the tank with gas.

That gas may have come from Saudi Arabia or Mexico or the United States. But it didn't come out of my back yard. It had to be refined, so it may have gone through the Shell refinery at nearby Woodriver, where my father used to work.

But I didn't refine it.

It had to be transported by pipeline and truck from the ground to the refinery to the gas station.

Besides, my mother was able to buy the lawn mower only because there was a system connecting suppliers of steel and other raw materials with plants that manufactured the parts of the mower, including the internal combustion engine - and another plant assembled the mower.

Even if she could have made the mower, she couldn't have designed it. That took specialized engineers.

My mother paid for it in US dollars, not gold.

When I mowed the lawns, my customers paid me in US dollars, not gold.

I was able to buy record albums of Jefferson Airplane, The Beatles and others - using US dollars, not gold.

When libertarians say government isn't necessary because it's inefficient, so only the private sector can really meet our human needs . . .

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Are they insane?

Don't they realize how completely they depend on global communications, transportation and trade - all supervised by national governments and agencies?

Without government to keep order and enforce laws, human civilization would devolve back to hunting and gathering.

Agricultural societies require some overarching organization and stability.

Industrial societies require even more such infrastructure.

Sure, if we got rid of all government right now, some people would get by for a while on their guns and ammo.

But the manufacture of modern weapons requires organization, a large global network of supply chains, capital, large financial institutions and much more.

Halt that manufacturing, and the current owners of guns (especially those with a large stock of ammo) will do fine for a few months or years.

But what would happen after the ammo runs out?

You look around for bows and arrows?

As I see it, a well-run government, country and society needs a balance of government looking out for the benefit of all citizens on an equal basis AND a private sector of entrepreneurs looking to get rich by solving particular problems.

We need a Goldilocks balance.

Too much government, and you get the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Korea - dictatorship.

Too little government, and the only power comes from the local warlords - Sudan, Somalia and 1920's China.

To a large degree, the United States gets it right.

Healthcare is probably the most obvious POSSIBLE exception.

7. Stocks that pay dividends.

Okay, I had to go back to this one - the bedrock of my personal finance/investing advice.

Load up on stocks that pay dividends.

Reinvest the dividends by buying more stock.

Rinse and repeat until your portfolio supports you.

Conclusion

Remember to appreciate even benefits that seem so obvious we take them for granted - such as the very existence of the universe and your existence as a person.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

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They want to destroy America, and impose a dictatorship on us.

Will they succeed?

Not so long ago, I would have automatically said Hell, no, but now I'm not so sure.

I'm scared.

I'm sure 2024 + 2025 are going to be years of election-related violence like we've never seen in our history.

They may make the January 6 insurrection and the rioting at the 1968 Chicago Democratic convention look like playground arguments

What price is America going to have to pay to hold on to freedom in 2025 and moving forward?

How many people are going to die?

I was Horribly Wrong in 2020

I can hardly believe it myself now, but in 2020 I voted for the orange motherfucker and every other Republican on the ballot.

Before the election, when I heard news commentators speculate that if he lost, Trump would refuse to vacate the White House, I just thought, oh, those Trump-hating liberals. Of course he'll leave if he loses.

Obviously, January 6 proved me wrong.

Trump is a dangerous, putrid boil on the asshole of humanity.

He did finally leave, but absolutely without grace, without courtesy, without respect for the office of President of America, the Constitution or us voters.

Also without honor, without dignity or even simple human decency.

Trump cares nothing for human values - only himself and his money.

What will happen in January 2025?

I'm half-scared to death.

I plan to vote, but votes may not matter. Trump and his neo-Fascist buddies are planning to take over whether they win OR NOT.

First, the Good News

Trump is not Hitler.

Really, he's not even a true fascist.

True fascists want a country where the government controls EVERYTHING and everybody.

Unions.

Youth groups.

Colleges and universities.

Businesses.

Media.

Churches.

And, of course, it dictates everything people say and think.

Despite the common misperception, fascism is NOT big businesses controlling the government. In true fascism, the government controls big businesses.

If you happen to own a few big factories, a truly fascist government will let you get rich by making what the government wants made, not what you want to manufacture.

But Trump doesn't care about making America Great Again - he just wants to make himself all-powerful so he can take revenge on everybody he hates. Like his buddies, President Xi of China and Vlad Putin. He wants the same power to jail, torture and execute his enemies - at will.

He pisses on the rule of law.

So, it's not like I'm saying Trump is a nice guy. He's not. He's not evil in the same way as Hitler.

But he is evil.

He does say things similar to fascists, including Hitler.

As I write, he has just told everybody what he'll do if he wins re-election/seizes power:

* Evict millions of immigrants.

* Set up camps to house millions of people he calls "vermin." (This absolutely does echo Nazi language. They compared Jews to rats.)

* Tell the Justice Department to indict all his political opponents.

* Use the United States Army to break up civil demonstrations. (He whines and whines about his First Amendment right to insult justices and prosecutors and to threaten witnesses, but if he takes over he's going to destroy the First Amendment for the rest of us. He's utterly and ruthlessly hypocritical.)

These things absolutely sound much like the Third Reich.

It's no accident. His first wife Ivanka revealed Trump kept just two books: his own THE ART OF THE DEAL and a collection of speeches by Hitler.

Trump makes many of the same appeals as Hitler did to his followers:

* Politicians who believe in democracy and freedom are allowing communists to destroy the country.

* White people (Hitler said "Aryans") are being taken over by people of color, along with Jews and Muslims.

* America was great in the past, but not now, because of the liberals, African-Americans, LGBTQ people, Democrats, journalists and on and on. Hitler and the Nazis evoked past periods when Germany was a strong country.

Trump plays to his cultists' feelings of being betrayed by the loss of the American dream, their sense of entitlement and loss of white privilege, of hating "liberals" and hating everybody they believe has received power that rightfully belongs to white people.

They see America changing, and they don't like it.

Trump is Key to a 2025 Insurrection

As I write, Trump is by far the leading candidate to run as the Republican Party's nominee for President in 2024.

Barring a huge new development, he's going to be the candidate - even if he's in jail by then - which he might be.

He might win.

Even if he doesn't win in the Electoral College, he and his followers plan - I have absolutely no doubt - to launch another insurrection.

The January 2025 one may be much much bigger than the January 2021 attempted coup d'etat.

If you think Trump and the rest of the MAGA cultists care about your vote, you shouldn't have graduated from kindergarten.

They don't care whether you vote for him or against him, because they plan to take over the government.

No matter what.

If General Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan came back from the dead, MAGA would call them Republicans-in-Name-Only (Rhinos).

Dictators Need Help

Hitler didn't personally set the Reichstag fire, re-militarize Germany and murder six million Jews.

Trump can do the evil things he does because he finds people to obey him.

Remember, he was born rich rich rich. He's never had a real job. He's probably never even made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for himself. That's what servants are for. Without brown-nosers, he'd be totally useless.

Who wants to help this creepy asshole grind his bootheel into the face of America?

Unfortunately, lots of people - and they even have the gall to call themselves patriots.

1. Skinhead Thugs

These are young, white, (mostly) men alienated from society at large.

Best source of information:

The Hate Next Door: Undercover within the New Face of White Supremacy by Matson Browning

White Supremacy is their big thing. They absolutely idolize Adolph Hitler even though Hitler would have murdered all of the ones who aren't strictly Aryan.

(We in America tend to lump all white people together, but the racial theories Hitler believed in subdivided white Europeans. Yes, he believed Germans and other Aryans were the Master Race, but he planned to kill all Russians and other Slavs even though to us they're just as white - as well of course as Jews and people of color.)

They're dangerous, but only on street-level.

They love to fight, both with people of color and rival white supremacy gangs.

They love to post the most offensive comments they can to web sites such as 4chan.

When people call them on this shit, they whine about their First Amendment rights just like Trump - but just like Trump they want to take away everybody else's rights.

When they become totally unhinged, they post lengthy rambling manifestoes on 4chan, grab their guns and go kill African-Americans at Bible study, Mexicans at Walmart and LGBTQ folks at a nightclub.

By themselves, they're no threat to the United States government.

Unfortunately, they're not by themselves.

2. Organized Hate Groups Run by Adults

They don't describe themselves as "hate" groups, but make their hate clear.

They disguise themselves as respectable people who just happen to run "conservative" organizations.

They wear business suits, not wife-beater t-shirts. Leather Gucci shoes instead of Doc Martens.

They hide their "88" tattoos under their Armani suits.

("H" is the 8th letter of the alphabet, so to neo-Nazis "88" is short for "Heil Hitler.")

These people organize politically at a much more sophisticated level than the skins.

However, in the above book, Matson points out the skinhead groups all had older men who didn't participate in the violence, but who financed the skinheads’ activities. By themselves, skinheads are usually broke.

However, these groups remained outside the mainstream of American politics until Trump poisoned the Republican Party. Until Trump, no American president sucked up to White Supremacists.

Although we've ALWAYS been a multiracial, multi-ethnic and multicultural society, these assholes want to kill or deport everybody who's not white - plus Jews and Muslims.

By partnering with Trump, who increasingly seeks out their support (using the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers to try to take over the government), they hope to impose their warped vision of America on the rest of us.

They've been organizing for decades:

Think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation.

The Federalist Society.

The Moral Majority.

The Eagle Forum.

Many more, some of them tightly focused on one issue and some very broad.

All of them think they have the right to control this country instead of the voters and our government - and way too many elected lawmakers and court judges belong to these neo-Fascist groups who want to destroy the American way of life.

The most "respectable" ones call themselves merely "conservative," and have billionaires financing them. So they put a great deal of emphasis on allowing businesses to do whatever they wish, including NOT pay taxes.

Some are more blatantly neo-Fascist, and care more about White Supremacy than Big Business.

This book is about how the son of one prominent White Supremacist turned his life around. That's an interesting story, and so is his white supremacist father.

Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist by Eli Saslow

Many books cover how neo-Fascism - calling itself "conservatism" - has become so powerful in America since the 60’s.

To Be Continued

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

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Open season starts today - November 13.

Open season's over December 7, so you have less than four weeks. If you're happy with your current plan, fine.

If not, now's the time to check out your options.

What is Medigap Insurance?

Original Medicare doesn't cover all potential medical expenses.

For example, Part A covers just 80% of your approved hospital costs.

What about the other 20%? They're on you.

As expensive as hospital care is today, even 20% can break you.

So the government allows insurance companies to sell policies that cover expenses Original Medicare doesn't.

That way, you know you can afford any treatment generally approved by insurance companies.

Medigap Plans are Only for Original Medicare Beneficiaries

Another alternative is to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan, because MA plans replace Parts A, B, C & D of Original Medicare - and may provide some benefits Original Medicare doesn't.

However, some MA plans don't cover all out-of-pocket expenses, so you need to check those out carefully if you're in an MA plan or thinking about switching to one from Original Medicare.

Do You Have Other Health Insurance?

Maybe you don't need to enroll in a MA plan because you're covered in a group health plan at work, a prior employer's group plan or a spouse's group health plan.

For example, I'm covered by group health insurance for federal employees (retiree and active duty).

Therefore, I don't pay for either Medicare Part B or a Medigap plan. (I probably should enroll in Medicare Part B, and let them and my health insurance fight over who's going to pay my bills.)

There're 10 Types of Approved Medigap Plans

The government closely defines what's available.

At first, it's kind of confusing. The types of plans are just letters: A, B, C, D, F, G, K, L, M and N.

Each type of plan must provide the same basic benefits as the others of its type.

Some will be more useful to you than others, depending on your medical needs.

Some are very limited in certain types of coverage. For instance, plan A doesn't cover Medicare Part A's hospital deductible of $1,600 - at all. If you need to go into the hospital, that $1,600 is on you.

Plans M and K pay 50%. Plan L pays 75%.

Some of the plans are no longer available except to people enrolled in Medicare before 2020. Those are plans C, F and high-deductible F. If you're already in one of those, you can keep it.

The Same Type of Plan May Cost More or Less

Although the plans are standardized, they're issued by private insurance companies, NOT by Medicare.

Those companies set the premiums, so some plans available in your local area may cost more than others - for the same coverage.

Also, because each letter plan has different benefits and deductibles, there can be wide differences between options.

That's especially true of deductibles. As with all kinds of insurance, most people will save money by enrolling in a low-cost, high-deductible plan.

For example, in 2023 the high-deductible plans made beneficiaries pay $2,700 before they began kicking in.

For plan K, you could pay up to $6,940.

Therefore, check out all your options before making the Big Switch.

6 Months After You First Enroll in Medicare Part B, Medigap Plans Can Turn You Down

If you're still within the first six months of signing up for Part B, they must accept you.

They also have the right to charge you more if you have a pre-existing health condition.

In other words, if you're interested in signing up for Medigap, don't wait until you have a heart attack or you're diagnosed with cancer.

You need to sign up before your medical care is a emergency.

If it's already too late - you already have serious pre-existing conditions - shop around.

(Exceptions: In Connecticut and New York, Medigap insurers must accept you.)

What Coverage Do You Really Need?

How about the expenses of staying at a nursing home?

That's not included in plans A and B.

If you never need to stay in a nursing home, great.

But, what if you do?

What chronic conditions do you now have? What medicines do you take? Do you like your doctors?

The Best Health Insurance is a Healthy Lifestyle

1. Eat a whole food, plant based diet.

2. Get regular, moderate exercise.

3. Get 7-9 hours of sleep every night.

4. Don't smoke tobacco or cannabis (to avoid the harmful smoke, I eat it) or drink alcohol.

I strongly suggest going to the site of Dr. Michael Greger:

Nutrition Facts

And start watching the many health videos available there - or on Nutrition Facts' YouTube channel.

Also, read his three books:

How Not to Die

How Not to Diet

How Not to Age - coming in December 2023

But a Healthy Lifestyle Can't Do Everything

Despite following my own advice (above), I've broken my arm and an ankle, had Covid and a few other medical problems.

Also, I've received a lot of vaccinations over the past few years, and a healthy lifestyle doesn't replace them.

A healthy lifestyle reduces your odds of suffering from disease, but there's also some remaining risk.

I'm grateful to my health insurance for paying for almost all of that - not to mention most of my dental and eyecare needs.

Image by Daniel from Pixabay

I Hope You're Ready for the Government Shutdown

The current budget agreement expires November 16, just a few days after this newsletter goes out.

I've lost all hope the Republican Party will demonstrate any sense of good government, goodwill toward the American people or any decent respect for our nation, our allies or freedom and democracy.

They WANT to burn this country down!

About a month or so ago, the eight most fanatical MAGA cultists, led by Matt Gaetz, got rid of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House.

Congressional Republicans failed to elect two candidates, who are also MAGA cultists.

After lots of public criticism for allowing the House to go so long without a leader, House Republicans voted in Mike Johnson.

He's not well-known, but he's just as MAGA crazy as them all.

He's closely allied with the so-called "Christian" right that wants to overthrow the Constitution and make the United States "Christian."

He wants to ban gay sex, and in other ways turn the United States into a theocracy - ruled by their version of so-called "Christianity."

When a reporter asked him if he accepted the results of the 2020 election, he and a gaggle of MAGA supporters yelled at the reporter. They have no respect for the press or for the right of Americans to obtain factual information.

In fact, Mike Johnson played a part in the January 6 insurrection.

So, he's just as batshit unAmerican as the rest of MAGA.

As I write, he introduced a bill that would finance our military actions helping Israel - but ONLY by cutting money to the IRS, allowing his billionaire buddies to cheat on their taxes.

(Money to help Ukraine defeat the Ruzzian invasion isn't in the bill because modern Republicans LOVE dictators like Putin. If they were alive today, Eisenhower and Reagan would be smeared as "Republicans in Name Only.")

Johnson doesn't care about America or Americans.

Or freedom or democracy.

Burn, baby, burn.

Therefore, while I hope I'm proven wrong, I'm certain he will not make any last-minute agreements to avoid a shutdown.

He wants to close the US government - permanently.

And he doesn't give a damn whether you and I like it.

If we don't like it, we're sinners going to Hell.

Yet every Republican member of the House of Representatives voted for this wannabe "Christian" dictator - making them all responsible for the current unAmerican behavior of the modern GOP.

They should all be voted out of office.

In my opinion, the House Republicans who voted on January 6, 2021 to overturn the 2020 election should not even be allowed to be Congressional Representatives. They all betrayed their oath to the Constitution.

Those House Republicans who - like current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson - actively participated in planning the insurrection should be be prosecuted as the traitors they are.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

I haven't been deliberately ignoring Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

There just hasn't much progress to get excited and write about.

I still view them as assets that may - or may not - go up terrifically in price, hopefully before I die.

I still hold the Bitcoin and Ethereum I bought during the late 2017 crypto bull market. I did stake my Ethereum, and that earned me a little.

I am still buying it just by charging my living expenses to my Gemini credit card, and getting 1% back as Bitcoin (Many other coins are available, but I prefer to stick with the "blue chip" crypto - Bitcoin.)

When Coinbase introduces a new coin by giving away a few dollars of it if you pass a brief, informative quiz, I always do that, and I still have those coins.

I still have some coin in a defi project, but am guilty of ignoring that. One day I'll have to take time to look at that again.

I'm still looking forward to BTC reaching the $1 million mark many have predicted for it.

In the Meantime . . .

Today, Bitcoin hit $35,000, the highest its price has been for quite some time. (The peak is $68,789, reached November 10, 2021 - so the winter has lasted two years.)

In October, Bitcoin rose 28%. Just last week alone, it rose 14%, and other cryptos also went up.

In other signs that interest in crypto is on the way up:

* Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds are on close at hand

* Crypto investment funds are receiving more cash than since mid-2022

Through the BTC ETFs, Wall Street is getting into cryptocurrencies. That promises to bring billions of dollars into the field.

We're hoping the major institutions are going to save us all by making tokens safe again, and bring increased regulation from the government.

Wall Street wants sustainable products to sell to investors. Exchange Traded Funds are easier for ordinary investors to buy and sell than opening your own account at online exchanges such as Coinbase and Gemini. Plus, they'll enable large institutions, hedge funds, mutual funds, private offices and pension funds to invest in cryptos.

Forget about silly meme coins, overpriced NFTs (I hope you all bought some of the fantastic ones of Donald Trump.) and scandals.

Sam Bankman-Fried's fraud trial is winding down, and he'll probably spend many long decades in jail, as he deserves. (Guilty on all counts.)

So we're ready to put all that unpleasantness behind us, right?

Crypto's total market cap has risen to over $1.25 trillion. Plus, the volume of crypto trading is up 99%.

Other Factors Behind the Price Rise

* The stock market has had a terrible last three months

* Gold is higher, almost $2,000 per ounce

* Israel/Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, and the prospects for wider war

* Renewed inflation

All that seems to indicate BTC has become a "safe haven" for investors seeking a flight to quality.

The prospect of government regulation and Wall Street adoption of BTC and other cryptos must be making the inventor of BTC - if they're actually dead (nobody knows who it is) - spin in their graves.

Bitcoin was invented in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008 precisely because its early adopters HATED Wall Street.

And they wished to bypass governments altogether, not abide by regulations.

Also, Bitcoin was invented as a currency people would actually spend like cash, not as a new asset class where the IRS wants you to pay capital gains taxes if you do spend any.

But, even without the IRS, Bitcoin would be an inconvenient form of money simply because its price is so volatile.

Also, inflation - at least in the United States - is coming down. The 2024 Social Security cost of living increase is far lower than the 2023 COLA.

This does tie BTC in with gold, in that many people see Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation.

I for one don't hold with this assessment, at least in the long run.

In the long run, gold is NOT a good hedge against inflation.

The gold bugs don't tell the whole story.

In 1975 when Americans were allowed to own gold again, the price was around $150 per ounce.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was then around 1,000 or so, maybe lower.

After a terrible three months, the DJIA currently stands at 33,000 - 33 times higher.

At $2,000 per ounce, gold is only 13X higher than it was in 1975.

The reasons why are fairly obvious.

Gold is driven mainly by demand, although it does have practical uses for dentistry and jewelry.

Bitcoin is purely driven by demand. The underlying blockchain technology holds the potential to cut massive amounts of record-keeping and fraud, but BTC itself is of no use if nobody wants to spend or accept it.

I, like other early enthusiasts, believe BTC will eventually reach $1 million and beyond. If Wall Street ETFs push BTC to $1 million or even anything close, bring it on!

But I am not relying on BTC to become my own lotto jackpot.

The stock market is comprised of companies selling goods and services. They are in the best position to defend their economic interests during inflationary times.

Conclusion

I maintain the most efficient way to financial freedom is to buy stocks that pay dividends, and reinvest the dividends until you can live on them. Then keep reinvesting at least a sizable percentage of dividends so you stay ahead of inflation.

Bitcoin, like gold, does not pay dividends, so it's speculative at best.

Speculate if you wish with a small fraction of your cash, but don't neglect investing in stocks that pay dividends.

Trump Trial Clarification

This is not worth a full article, but I can’t let it just go.

As I write, the New York civil fraud trial against Donnie Boy, Don Jr and Eric Trump is ongoing.

I just heard Eric lie his fucking ass off to reporters, and can’t let it go without comment.

He is claiming he left determination of building fair market values up to his “accountants.”

Either he’s too stupid to be managing a business, or he believes Daddy’s followers are too stupid to understand how stupid that is.

It’s NOT up to “accountants” to come up with fair market values.

“Fair market value” means exactly what it sounds like - the price a building would sell for if put on the market TODAY.

Any business that would give that job to accountants deserves to go out of business.

It’s the job of accountants to track money, other assets and debts - NOT to estimate the fair market value of any given building.

If you buy a building for $20 million, it’s the accountant’s job to put it on the books. Over time, accountants have to apply depreciation and so on. That is all based on the $20 million you bought the building for. It’s in the past, NOT today.

The balance sheet will then show the building’s “book value.”

Book value is an accounting term. It has NOTHING to do with current market value. It’s based on what a business paid for a building, which could be last year or 50 years ago.

Current market value is based on TODAY’S market. (Funny how that works, huh?) Usually, in good times, current fair market value will be higher than book value, but there’s no rule that makes that always true. In bad times, book value could be higher than current market value.

Also, it’s important to remember this trial is about commercial real estate, not residential. The value of your house is based on recent comparable home sales. Commercial buildings are like businesses. It doesn’t matter how big and beautiful they are - their value is based on their net profits.

Accountants DO calculate net profits, but NOT how much that translates into market value. Businesses are “worth” their annual net profit X a certain number of years. That’s more in good years, not so many in bad years.

For Eric to say he relies on accountants to determine current market value of Trump Org’s buildings is like admitting he’s too ignorant of business to run anything larger than a hotdog stand.

And he wouldn’t, except he picked a rich though corrupt daddy.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

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Mustafa Suleyman doesn't know the future.

But he well knows which two forces are going to overwhelmingly shape our future.

We can't stop these two forces.

Suleyman hopes we'll learn to control them enough to survive and, better, bring on utopia for humanity.

But they could just as easily - almost inevitably will - cause huge catastrophes that could wipe us out.

Suleyman's rosy outlook is exhilarating.

We're headed for longer healthier lives, cheaper energy and solutions to the environmental challenges we face.

His bleak outlook is like a roadmap to Hell.

Totalitarian governments using AI to make the world of George Orwell's 1984 look like Jeffersonian democracy.

Wars with few soldiers, but civilian casualties in the millions.

Worldwide disasters.

Which fork will humanity choose?

Quite likely - some of both.

And Suleyman wrote this book to help tilt the balance of future events toward the positive outcome.

But nothing's guaranteed, except these two forces will continue to grow and impact our daily lives (as they do already).

Here's the most important book on technology and humanity since 1970's FUTURE SHOCK by Alvin Toffler:

The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman

My biggest objection is the dull, unimaginative title.

"Coming Wave" sound more like a volume on surfing than the most important book for a general audience on both the promise and peril of two inevitable technologies.

The subtitle's a little better, but we're facing something much more dramatic than a mere "dilemma," even the century's "greatest."

The stakes for humanity couldn't be higher.

What's pushing humanity to a future either fantastically wonderful or catastrophic:

1. Artificial Intelligence (AI)

2. Biotechnology, the harnessing of DNA

As the founder of two major AI startups (DeepMind and Inflection AI), Suleyman is uniquely qualified to write about both the promises and dangers posed by AI.

I especially like his recognition of both the value and limitations of the modern liberal democratic nation-state.

He's well aware that in the high tech industry, many are libertarians actively cheering on the collapse of said nation-state and governments.

(He specifically mentions Peter Thiel.)

Suleyman grew up in England, but his family's from Syria, which has seen a near-collapse of its government. Because he’s seen how disastrous and violent anarchy really is, he recognizes the value of a stable, functioning society.

However, that doesn't mean he wants governments to use AI to control their own citizens, as we're seeing now, most notably in China.

Early chapters cover the history of technology, making the point that from fire to the Internet, useful technologies inevitably spread - even when governments actively try to restrict, control or suppress them.

He goes into great depth on the present state of AI and biotechnology - and how they will help humanity or return us to the Stone Age.

Thanks to the introduction of ChatGPT a year ago, you probably think you've already heard all the hype surrounding AI.

You're wrong.

I subscribe to both ChatGPT and MidJourney, yet I've been underestimating the eventual power of AI.

According to Suleyman, there's no limit to AI because you can always increase computational power by linking more computers.

Our ability to process information from DNA is already beginning to reshape the practice of medicine.

Wait until any high school kid can buy a DNA synthesizer and create brand new creatures - yes, novel species.

This could include brand new micro-organisms that cause diseases our immune systems don't know how to cure.

All of us will be able to create AI virtual agents to accomplish a variety of tasks online.

If everything goes well, we'll all live lives of leisure and abundance, doing only what interests us, playing games.

We'll live in luxury, with unimaginable physical, material comforts.

Intellectual or creative work will be carried out by AI.

Robots will perform all physical work.

Unless, that is, we're all killed by an incurable virus or AI-directed drones hunt us all down like a scene out of THE TERMINATOR.

Can AI Replicate My Creativity?

As a writer, I want to believe AI cannot duplicate what I write.

That's why I deliberately include content AI can't know. That includes my opinions, stories from my life and experiences and connections I've made other people haven't.

So you know *I* wrote this - a fallible human being, but a human being.

But AI can't be ignored, and reading this book reminded me I need to use ChatGPT more.

I once asked it to write an article on the health benefits of eating walnuts.

The article ChatGPT wrote was not at all in my style. I sure couldn't use it. My client wouldn't have accepted it.

But it did give me a few useful and fun facts on walnuts and turns of phrase I did incorporate into the final article.

I wrote a children's picture book, and was having trouble thinking up a good title.

ChatGPT came up with a great, appropriate title. I had to tweak it a bit, but it solved my problem.

I still would not trust ChatGPT or any AI to write an entire book from scratch.

I'm now working on a novel, a unique political thriller, and I'm certain AI couldn't have come up with the idea, let alone the terrific plot and characters.

But other "writers" are using AI to write books as a money-making scheme.

These novels may lack heart and depth of soul, but there's a huge number of people who'll read any book in the genres they enjoy.

Quality and originality of ideas not required.

What Can We Do?

In later chapters, Suleyman analyzes various potential ways to contain AI and biotechnologies.

He concludes this will be extremely difficult - maybe impossible - but we've got to try.

'We,' in this case meaning all of us - because all of humanity's survival is at stake.

This Book Won't Make You Rich, Though

Or maybe it will.

But that’s not the point.

My other criticism is that Suleyman gives no advice to us as individuals and families on how to survive and thrive using AI and biotechnology.

In a way, maybe that's partly his point.

If the government adopts AI surveillance technologies or a brand new plague spreads around the globe . . . there's not much we as individuals can do to stop it.

Yes, of course you could buy up the stock of a lot of AI companies.

The AI industry is absolutely set to grow enormously in the next five, ten and more years.

But nobody can tell you now which of those companies will become the Microsoft of AI and which the Lotus.

Yet owning a fortune in AI stock won't protect you if that AI decides to wipe out humanity.

The same with biotechnology.

So I'll leave you to make your own choices.

To do that, however, you must remain aware of all possibilities - for both good and evil - in the fields of AI and biotechnology.

No connection to money at all, but I recently created a new design for Amazon's Merch program.

(Started out as t-shirts, but now you can get the design on all kinds of different products.)

The design is the words "Treasure Trans Kids" in the transgender flag colors of light blue, light pink and white.

Treasure Trans Kids on Amazon

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

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Over the last few years, American demand for second passports has skyrocketed.

That's celebrities, tech entrepreneurs, billionaires and just plain millionaires paying to receive passports from another country - in addition to their US passport.

One company that services such Americans - Latitude - says their business surged 300% from 2019 to 2021.

The three most popular reasons given are:

* The Covid pandemic

At one point, those on just an American passport could not enter Europe.

* Climate catastrophe

Check local altitudes, especially if you're tempted to buy beach property. If ocean waters really do start rising, today's beach will be tomorrow's ocean bottom.

* Cryptocurrencies

I believe they're saying Americans with lots of crypto can afford to live outside the US.

I would add certain caveats.

1.

Not all countries welcome crypto transactions. Even if they do, you’ll need physical cash to pay cab drivers and noodle peddlers on the street. US dollars are also welcome, and easier to turn into physical cash.

2.

Not all countries have much of a financial or electronic infrastructure. You may not even have access to your bank account via a local AMT.

3.

Physical wallets can be stolen. So can phones and laptops - so if you're depending on crypto, you better be highly conscious of your security.

You Don't Have to Be Rich, but It Helps

According to another firm that helps Americans obtain second passports, most of their clients are worth between $50 million and $20 billion.

"Portugal is the Next California"

One of the most in-demand second passports for Americans is Portugal's "golden passport."

It's actually more like a golden visa. It's a five-year residency permit.

You must invest a little over $200,000 and spend 7 days a year in Portugal. Then you can apply for a full-time visa, though that takes another three years.

But the visa allows you to enter the 26 countries of the European Union.

Many of the firms performing this service for Americans say the ultra-rich want to have a legal foot in Europe for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

If you prefer, you can obtain a golden passport from Malta for $1.1 million. One from Austria costs $9.5 million.

Every country has its own requirements, but obviously the passport-seeker investing a large amount of money into the country's economy is most important.

They may also require you to stay in the country a certain length of time.

However, many Americans with second passports rarely visit their second "homes." They simply want the option to use the passport.

Demographic trends in other developed countries all point to a dramatic decline, and that includes Europe.

Countries with rising populations tend to be less developed. They have more people, more crime and less infrastructure.

If you're looking for a safe refugee from American uncertainty in the years ahead, India, The Philippines and Vietnam are better bets than Austria.

More Points to Research

4. Does your country have a reliable power grid?

Most of the developed world does, but you never know for sure until a powerful storm hits.

5. Are the police and politicians corrupt?

If you have plenty of cash, you may like that. You can afford to pay for protection from both criminals and local laws you might want to break.

But if you get into a dispute with a local, they will likely have the law - or, at least, the police - on their side. Local lawyers probably won’t do more than help you go through the motions. Or, you may need one as a bagman to bribe a judge with.

If you have enemies who can pay the police and judges more than you, you could really be in trouble.

6. Much of the content I've seen around getting second passports or moving to another country assumes the expat will start a business in the new country.

This is fine, but expect unexpected problems.

You can find groups who rate the United States as more difficult to do business in than some other countries.

But don't think your host country is going to be easy to do business in, just because it’s higher on those lists than the Untied States. Many countries around the world, even developing ones, have more paperwork and bureaucracy than the United States - especially for foreigners.

Some have less, it's true. But you may still run into problems. You may need special licenses or permits that amount to little more than bribes to local cops and politicians.

Your competition may not appreciate having a foreigner in their space. Some of your competitors may be quite nasty.

As a foreigner, are you even allowed to own property in that country? You may have to marry a local.

Besides, I can tell you, many immigrants to the United States are starting businesses. They're becoming building repair contractors, truck drivers and lawn care specialists.

If the US is so bad for business, why do foreigners come here to start businesses?

Besides, I for one believe luck plays a bigger role in business success than successful businesspeople wish to acknowledge.

Just because in the 1990’s you started a successful pizza restaurant on downtown Main Street here in America doesn't mean you can duplicate that in the Czech Republic or Indonesia.

If your wealth consists of accumulated stocks and bonds, and you just live on the interest and dividends, then you're in more favorable circumstances.

You can spend all day on the beach, in almost any country in the world.

But you don't need a second passport just to go on vacation.

Carry Out Your Due Diligence

Decide what you want.

Are you seeking a second home? Or even a first post-retirement home? Many Americans now live full-time in countries such as Mexico and the Philippines. The US dollar goes a lot farther there than it does in the US itself.

You can live on the beach or have your own pool. You can enjoy palm trees, year-round warm weather and friendly local people.

Or maybe you just want to have a passport that will get you into Europe in the unlikely event of another pandemic.

Maybe you just want to brag about how you'll leave the country next year if Trump/Biden wins the presidential election.

I don't believe we're going to suffer a second "civil war." But I too am apprehensive about where this country heading, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot more violence between now and when next year's election is actually over.

More Factors to Consider

This is based on the six years I spent living in The Philippines.

How reliable is the electricity where you want to go?

What is the medical care like? Can you get emergency heart surgery if you need it? Does the local pharmacy sell your medications?

What do local doctors and hospitals take as payment, and when?

Outside the US, nobody cares about your Medicare or health insurance. In many countries, they want cash or credit card.

Right now - before you receive services. Or before they'll discharge you from the hospital. They won't send you a bill to pay later. They'll hand it to you while you're lying in the bed, and expect you to pay right away.

Will you have someone you trust to run to the nearest ATM for you? Is there a nearby ATM? Will you have someone you trust to stand in line for you at the hospital cashier?

Where're You Going to Run?

1. Another pandemic of infectious disease?

If you had plenty of money and mobility, in 2020 you could have just gone to a small rural town in America. That to me would have been safer and smarter than boarding an airplane bound for Europe or some country that doesn't want you.

Europe is fairly densely populated. If you just want to get away from people, the US has a lot more open territory.

If you have plenty of money, the United States has the world's best medical system. Why run to some country that might want you to wait for care behind their own citizens?

In short, if there's another pandemic, I want to be right here in the United States.

2. Widespread violence

That could certainly happen in America: this year, next year and beyond.

I'm afraid of it, and Europe would probably be a good place to run to - until it suffers its own riots. There're neo-fascists all over Europe.

We still have a long tradition of peacefully transferring power. Trump is disrupting that, but he won't permanently change American democracy unless he gets back into the White House.

And then I may join you in another, better, country, such as Sudan or Haiti.

3. War and Rumors of War

The United States is positioned as the safest country in the world, from hostile military action.

Mexico couldn't invade us even if it wanted to - and it doesn't.

Canada is not going to attack us either.

Everybody else would have to land on the East or West Coasts. Won't happen.

We could be struck by a missile or bombed, but so could anyplace in the world.

If a nuke is set off somewhere, radiation will go wherever the wind takes it, and no passport will protect you.

In the near future, if the US abandons its post-WW2 role as world peacekeeper, expect more regional conflicts such as Ruzzia invading Ukraine and Hamas attacking Israel.

4. Food and Energy

The United States has plenty of rich farmland and energy sources, from uranium to oil to shale to natural gas.

No other country in the world is as insulated from potential supply chain disruptions such as wars, pandemics and other problems.

Many American companies are reshoring jobs back to the United States.

5. Medical care

Our system has a lot of problems. If you're an ordinary person with ordinary medical problems, a single payer government system is probably best for you.

But US medical researchers are carrying out a lot of studies and developing technologies to help us live longer.

If you have Big Bucks, this country has the best medical care.

Others know it too. I know a wealthy Filipino man who flew to the Mayo Clinic to treat his prostate cancer. I bet they have a lot of wealthy patients from other countries.

6. Climate Change

If you're afraid of the oceans rising, move to Colorado or other states near the Rocky Mountains.

High altitudes in the US are just as high as high altitudes in other countries.

If You Really Love Another Country . . .

Fine, go there. I feel that way about the Philippines.

And, as noted, many of the American clients of these second passport firms never actually use them.

They just want the option.

Renouncing American Citizenship?

That isn't anything to do lightly.

And the government doesn't make it easy. Even if you renounce it this year, the government says you must be doing it to escape paying income taxes, and therefore you still must pay for ten more years.

If you do wish to avoid American income taxes, see a professional.

You Have to Pay Your Money and Take Your Chances

An American passport is not technically the most powerful, but it's powerful enough for almost all of us.

If you're ever captured by leftwing or Muslim terrorists, showing them a Malta passport instead of an American one may save your life.

Maybe.

On the other hand, they're not stupid.

If you look like an American, act like an American and speak like an American, they're going to know you're an American even if you hand them an Austrian passport.

Sprechen zie Deutsch?

In emergencies, showing an American passport to the American military or at an American embassy may get you placed on the next helicopter flying to safety.

With Hamas holding some Americans hostage along with Israelis, the United States government is going to take action to save them - but not for Maltans, Portuguese or Austrians.

Conclusion

Second passports for Americans are highly overrated. How many of us really need one?

Very few, I believe.

If you do move to another country you love, and you qualify for their passport through marriage or money, take it, but without giving up your American passport.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

Image by Jori Samonen from Pixabay

For fear of my life, I continue to research fascism - especially fascism or the prospect of it - in America.

Starting with the 1930's, of course, and on to today.

What first frightened me was the news of far-right groups fighting "Antifa." (I use quote marks because I don't believe they're really 'against" fascism. Not when their tactics consist of violent street actions typical of Hitler's Brown Shirts. I'm now virulently anti-Trump and anti-MAGA, but I don't support Antifa assholes either.)

I'd had it in my mind Germany's 1920's Weimar Republic saw a lot of street fighting between communists and the Nazi Brown Shirts - and that was true, though not the whole story.

Fortunately, Bradley W. Hart has carried out extensive research into how various Americans supported Germany and the Nazis - in one way or another - leading up to Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor was a watershed moment in American and world history, of course - so we tend to forget that by the time Japanese planes bombed our battleships, World War II was over two years old.

Germany had already invaded France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and others I've forgotten.

Japan had already invaded China, Vietnam, Laos, The Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Burma and others I've forgotten.

In a sense, the Pacific Theater of World War II began in 1890 when Imperial Japan took over Formosa (the island we now call Taiwan). Or in 1910 when they took over Korea. Or 1932 when they took over Manchuria. We had plenty of warnings about Japanese aggression, which we ignored.)

Millions of people were already dead, tortured and wounded.

We got into the war late, and we've tried to forget why.

Here's the Book:

Hitler's American Friends: The Third Reich's Supporters in the United States by Bradley W. Hart

In my first article, I covered the Silver Shirts, the German-American Bund and America First - the three most disturbing pro-fascist groups.

Hart goes into a lot more depth, telling these stories that are now more important than ever for us to remember.

What's most disturbing is how many Americans of that period were involved - and how modern MAGA cultists would fit right in and join them.

As the book's title suggests, Hart covers more than American fascism, he looks at everyone in the USA who was somehow Hitler's friend.

This included people I'm now ignoring, including American businesses (Ford, General Motors and Coca-Cola all had business interests in Germany, and their auto plants were used to manufacture military equipment for the German Army.) and spies.

Start With the Bund

This group is probably the most well-known and remembered because the photographs of their rally in Madison Square Garden are so striking.

The American flag and pictures of George Washington stood side by side with Swastika flags and Adolph Hitler.

According to Hart, however, the Bund was the least effective and least dangerous of all Hitler's American "friends."

It was open only to German-Americans. Many members were recent immigrants who'd come to America from Germany, including World War I veterans.

German-Americans who'd been in this country longer tended not to support the Bund - I'm happy to report. (I'm German-American on my mother's side, and while my great-grandparents may have been born in Germany, they were in America by at least 1892, when my grandfather was born.)

To be fair, some Bund members may simply not have wanted a war between their native Germany and their new country America. Others may not have been Nazis, but still supported Germany's new strong leader, Hitler.

Anyway, the Bund and its leaders actually embarrassed the German government. The rally in Madison Square Garden generated a lot of resistance, so they felt the outraged publicity was bad. They just wanted to keep America out of the war. Inflaming American public opinion against Germany, as the Bund did, went against that goal.

Raw American Fascism

That was the Silver Legion, calling themselves Silver Shirts. (After Nazi Brown Shirts and Mussolini's Black Shirts.)

A Hollywood scriptwriter turned freelance occult mystic and spiritualist named William Dudley Pelley started the Silver Legion.

This group was open to all Americans over the age of eighteen except - of course - blacks and Jews.

Pelley's goal was to overthrow the current American government and replace it with a Christian Commonwealth. Its economy would be based on a system of "Christian economics" revealed by God only to Pelley.

The Silver Legion were forthrightly anti-Semitic. Pelley believed the main obstacle to establishing his Christian Commonwealth in America was the vast international Jewish conspiracy responsible for everything bad in world history.

He also hated communists, and claimed the vast majority of communist plots were concealed - a broad invitation to make up conspiracy theories. Anyway, he didn't hate communism because he cared about capitalism and freedom, but because, he claimed, it was how Jews were taking over the world.

Nazis read Pelley's writings, and used them in their own anti-American propaganda. They called Pelley "one of the first native Fascists" in the United States.

In early 1940, the Dies Congressional Committee called the Silver Legion "probably the largest, best financed and best publicized" Nazi wannabes in this country.

The Silver Shirts had a paramilitary branch organized into groups of one hundred each, called the Silver Rangers. These Rangers were all armed with scourge whips.

Pelley soon ran into legal problems, especially related to his previous "mystical" activities. In 1940, a government agent posing as a potential wealthy donor met with Pelley.

She later testified to Congress he bragged he would be dictator of the United States and would implement Hitler' program here.

He also faced prison time for parole violations, so he shut down the Silver Legion.

After Pearl Harbor, he wrote articles accusing Roosevelt of having arranged for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor. I first heard that conspiracy theory years ago from libertarians, but didn't know it went so far back, and was started by a wannabe American Hitler.

Pelley ultimately failed, but, Hart speculates, could have been a powerful, dangerous force if he'd had more personal discipline.

Does that remind us of any modern person, such as a man with the initials "Donald John Trump?"

After the war and getting out of jail, Pelley spent the rest of his life hoodwinking people with his fake mysticism, but stayed away from politics.

Lucky Lindy, American Traitor

The most potentially damaging "friend of Adolph," however, was America First.

Its stated goal was simply isolationism, keeping America out of the war, not a fascist victory.

But keeping America out of the war in Europe would pretty much have guaranteed a fascist victory - and only idiots didn't realize that.

Its more innocent members probably just didn't want Americans to die in another European bloodbath, as during World War I.

Sadly, for most America First members in the 1930's - as for the modern version - that assumption of goodwill is far too nice.

Although nobody in the late 1930's knew about the Holocaust, the whole world knew the Nazis were persecuting Jews.

The whole world also knew Hitler was a dictator who hated democracy. (And America was and is a democracy, let us not forget.)

After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the whole world knew Hitler was a savage warmonger.

The best known spokesperson for America First was none other than America's most beloved hero, Charles Lindbergh.

Americans still revered him for his nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

Plus, Americans still shared his grief for the kidnapping and murder of his baby son.

Lindbergh was undoubtedly second only to President Roosevelt in the affections of Americans.

Therefore, Hart speculates, if Lindbergh and America First had gotten their stuff together in time, he may have become the Republican Party presidential candidate in the 1940 election - and may have beaten Roosevelt.

Replacing Roosevelt with a President opposed to American participation in the war, would have been a disaster for the entire world.

Officially, America First was about America not entering World War II - for "peace."

But Lindbergh's actual positions were much darker.

On September 11, 1941, Lindbergh gave a speech Hart calls the most "infamous" speech by an isolationist.

On that night, Lindbergh took the mask of "political correctness" off - telling everybody how he REALLY felt. He blamed the Roosevelt administration, the British and Jews for the political push to join the Allied cause.

He also threatened Jews, promising that if America entered the war, they would be the first to "feel the consequences."

That sparked a furious backlash. According to polls, Americans disapproved of Hitler's treatment of Jews (And that's not including the Holocaust, which was unknown until the war's end). Public opinion was swinging away from isolationism and toward supporting freedom and democracy.)

So, America First was already slipping downhill in public opinion when the Japanese carried out their sneak attack on Pearl Harbor less than three months later, and isolationism instantly became a distant memory nobody dared to support openly.

Lessons for Today

Although they must have known the pro-fascist history of the 1930's-era America First group, that hasn't stopped Trump and his MAGA goons from using the phrase now.

They're good and fine with being pro-fascist. If they weren't, they wouldn't continue to support a wannabe dictator.

They don't want the United States to support democracy in Ukraine, just as the 1930's-era America First didn't want America to support democracy in all the countries occupied or threatened by Hitler.

Putin is clearly channeling his inner Hitler, and the MAGA Kool-Aid drinkers love him for it.

The ghost of Hitler approves.

The 1930's friends of Hitler expressed numerous themes that remind us of the 2023 friends of Trump.

1. Anti-Semitism

Why would any American have supported the Nazis if they weren't anti-Semitic?

Anti-Semitism were prevalent in America then, and is making a dangerous comeback today.

Of course, it never totally went away, but before the political rise of Donald Trump, its expression remained confined to far-rightwing fringe groups of neo-Nazis who believe Washington DC is really run by ZOG - the Zionist Occupation Government.

Mainstream politicians, including Republicans, ignored the far-right fringe.

Yet, last Thanksgiving, Trump served turkey to rapper Ye and his white supremacist buddy Nick Fuentes - Holocaust deniers.

If they took over, they'd throw Trump's own grandchildren (by Ivanka and the Jewish Jared Kushner) into the ovens.

Trump doesn't care.

2. Nativism

This is the concept the only "real" Americans are those born in the United States, and excludes the children of immigrants born here.

Denying automatic citizenship to children born within the US would be a radical departure from citizenship laws observed by the rest of the world.

Citizenship by birth is recognized in all other countries.

Yet, this form of racism (nobody would advocate it if the only immigrants to America were white) is spreading.

During the second Republican debate, candidate Vivek Ramaswamy expressed support for denying citizenship to children of undocumented immigrants - making a direct appeal for the votes of white supremacists.

3. Advocacy of White Supremacy

They're all whites who barely try to hide they believe African-Americans and other people of color should go back to staying in their place.

To white nationalists, equal rights are only for white people.

4. Far-Right "Christianity" (In Name Only)

I had to add the "in name only" because I for one believe Jesus clearly advocated love, not hate, and - therefore - organized religious groups that express hatred are not truly "Christian" - even though they call themselves that.

(I realize that's just my personal religious opinion, and there are many many churches, preachers and their followers who claim using the name of Jesus to justify their own personal bigotry is "Christian.")

Anyway, CHINO groups had a strong influence on many of the American friends of Hitler and, today, on the American friends of Trump.

5. Unorthodox Religious Groups

By that, I mean groups that aren't Christian - or certainly not Christian in any orthodox way - but more "mystical" or occult.

This was most obvious with Pelley and the Silver Legion.

In Germany, the Nazis mixed their racism with ancient pagan themes of blood and land - and the SS may have gone much further. (There's a lot of interesting speculation on just how "pagan" or anti-Christian or downright occult the Nazis really were.)

In the past few years, many people acting as mystical or occult or wellness or spiritual or personal development guides have shifted from purely metaphysical realms to rightwing politics - and the results haven't been pretty.

Advocates of natural healing became anti-vaxxers.

Gurus have become more controlling and authoritarian.

Many people actually believe in the QAnon conspiracy.

(I'm in the middle of watching HBO's documentary on QAnon - "Q Into the Storm" on Max.)

6. Isolationism

Faced in February 2022 with the criminal invasion of a democratic country by a ruthless dictatorship and now by the widespread Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, President Biden has proven to be the most effective American president since the first Gulf War.

He's rallied America's allies and most of the world to support Ukraine, and now is doing the same for Israel.

When Ruzzia first invaded Ukraine, Trump called it a "savvy move."

He doesn’t care about democracy, peace or the victims of Ruzzia’s war crimes.

His MAGA supporters in Congress whine we can't afford to support Ukraine. They'd have us retreat from the world.

America's military fought and many Americans died to make the United States the strongest country in the world - and the patriotic-in-name-only MAGA idiots want to retreat, hiding in our bedroom like sulking teenagers.

When asked about whether he supports Ruzzia or Ukraine, Trump evades the question, just claiming he has a secret plan to end the Ruzzia-Ukraine war in one day, but won't tell anybody what it is - shades of Richard Nixon during the 1968 election.

Now Trump is talking about how smart Hezbollah is, and whining how Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to congratulate President Biden on winning the 2020 election.

Cue the crocodile tears.

Even Mike Pence and Ron DeSantis are openly saying this is not appropriate. Israel now needs our support, not bitching like a jilted lover.

Trump Didn't Poison America

The same dangerous xenophobic racism and anti-Semitism . . . the same inability to think critically . . . the same yearning to abdicate personal responsibility by handing your fate over to an all-powerful dictator . . .

Those qualities were present in Americans from the beginning, because we're human and because we don't hide bad news - we love to criticize ourselves.

After World War II, these negative qualities went underground, becoming unacceptable in most areas of society.

In short, America's racism and latent fascism went into remission during the 70 years following the end of World War II.

That was America's most glorious moment as a free country - rescuing the world from fascist dictatorships, especially the Nazis, who tried to wipe out an entire race of people.

But our historical memories of that are fading.

Trump, in his own boorish, pig-in-a-gift-shop way, for his own selfish (because he never does anything for unselfish reasons) reasons, jacked up the far rightwing.

His appeals to neo-fascist voters put these fringe movements on steroids.

To learn more about that:

They Want to Kill Americans: The Militias, Terrorists, and Deranged Ideology of the Trump Insurgency by Malcolm Nance

It's terrifying - and a call to action to resist the plans of the far-right MAGA cultists to take over the government, overthrow democracy and the Constitution and make Trump lifelong dictator.

Not to mention massacring and locking up all their enemies,.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I can't believe I never saw this book before:

FINANCIAL SHENANIGANS: How to Detect Accounting Gimmicks and Fraud in Financial Reports by Howard M. Schilit

Last week, I wrote about this civil case New York State has filed against Trump Org & others (including Donald).

Trump Org is a private company, so the "investors" are the members of the Trump family who own shares plus any employees or otthers they've given shares to.

So it's not of immediate concern to us as investors.

But being publicly owned doesn't make a corporation honest.

Howard Schilit is a long-term forensic accountant. He has decades of experience looking for problems company managements have tried to cover up.

He knows how to look at a balance sheet and income statement and peel back the curtains to see if the numbers are accurate, and a fair representation of the financial state of the company.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need forensic accountants such as he.

In a perfect world, management at every company would maintain good accounting processes and controls.

At the very least, they'd be complete, fair, accurate and compliant with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

If they do make a mistake, it would be pointed out by the honest, disinterested accounting firm that audits the company.

The Enron scandal showed the world we can no longer depend on the Big Accounting firms to protect us - despite their legal obligation to do so.

This book explains many of the most common accounting "shenanigans" companies use to hide their actual financial practices.

Each error is explained, and illustrated with a real life example.

Frankly, I'd Prefer You Never Need This Book

You're a lot safer just buying ETF shares, so you're diversified through the index the ETF is replicating.

Besides, avoiding companies that are pulling financial shenanigans is just half the problem.

Just because a company is honest doesn't mean it's a good investment.

So, start with companies that look great, then apply the filters in this book. That will help you screen out the companies using accounting smoke and mirrors.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Diversification is really the best way to reduce investment risk.

In This Book, You Learn:

* 7 ways companies manipulate their earnings

* 3 ways companies manipulate their cash flow

* 2 ways companies manipulate key metrics

* 3 ways companies manipulate the financial effects of aquiring other companies

The Forensics Mindset

Schilit says this is the secret to finding the shenanigans in financial statements when others could not.

According to him, the forensics mindset includes skepticism, curiosity and humility - mixed with an understanding of human behavior.

The first one:

Skepticism is a Competitive Advantage

To a large degree, that sums the situation up.

On Wall Street, everyone wants to win. Everyone wants stocks to go up. Everybody wants good news and a bull market.

Short sellers are no-goodniks.

In general, as human beings we're remarkably gullible. We want to believe someone is telling the truth. That's one reason frauds still flourish. There're always new suckers.

We want to believe people in our daily lives, and what companies tell us.

We love hearing great stories.

That's why the sales letters for financial newsletters are so often about a company with a great story - the next Apple, at least.

The vast majority of those companies don't succeed, no matter how good their stories.

Other Principles Include:

* Look past "accounting problems" to see if business problems are being covered up.

* Pay close attention to changes - always ask "why" and "why now?"

* Never blindly adopt a company's profitability framework.

A Little Background

To really understand most of the shenanigans described in this book, it will help to have some background in accounting.

You don't have to know a lot of arcane rules, but if you don't understand the basic frameworks of income statements and balance sheets, you won't understand some of the tricks companies pull.

It's also worth repeating: Even if you're a forensic accountant yourself, you may have trouble analyzing public company financials.

Schilit describes great way to detect problems, but they won't work if the company is really trying to hide things.

That requires auditors determined to do comprehensive checks on key data such as sales figures and inventories. Without access to internal records, you really cannot validate accuracy.

However, the techniques in this book are a great guide to detecting when things are out of whack.

Remember: Enron was caught when a journalist - not a professional investor or fund manager or official at the SEC - became suspicious at the company growing its revenues so much so fast.

Wall Street loved it, little suspecting fraud.

(We now know, of course, Enron's auditor deliberately covered up the company's fraud.)

The Income Statement

This is probably the most important, because if it's in the negative, the company's in real danger.

It's basically a calculation of net income:

Gross Income - Expenses = Net Income

Of course, real-life ones are much more complicated, and have many subcategories.

If "net income" is a negative figure because Expenses are higher than Gross Income, that indicates a problem.

The Balance Statement

The left column lists all of a company's assets: cash, buildings, equipment, accounts receivable (money owed to it), and so on.

The right column lists:

1. All of a company's debts: short-term bonds, long-term bonds, accounts payable (money it owes, including paychecks to employees) and so on.

2. All of a company's equity - that is, stock.

Both sides of the balance sheet must balance (yes, that's why it's called a balance sheet.)

Therefore:

A company's net worth is:

Assets = Debts + Equity

Therefore:

Assets - Debts = Equity

So, the more assets, the better.

The fewer debts, the better.

Every Industry has Its Own Standards

You can't compare the balances sheets of AmerenUE, my local electricity provider, with Microsoft.

Utility companies have a lot of physical equipment: coal plants, Callaway One nuclear power plant, copper wire, trucks and so on.

Microsoft has almost no large assets except offices and servers. Most of its assets consist of intangible intellectual property (trademarks, patents and copyrights), so the accounting is different.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

Image by Greg Reese from Pixabay

Trump Org is history.

I began writing this article last Tuesday because I knew the civil trial against Trump Org was set to begin October 2 - the day this newsletter goes out.

I got a good start, then heard the unexpected - but highly welcome - news.

The case's judge, Arthur Engoron, decided the evidence overwhelmingly proves Donald Trump, his two sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, former CFO Allen Weisselberg, several other employees and Trump Org the business are liable for fraud from 2011 to 2021.

According to Engoron, the evidence supporting the allegations is so overwhelming, no trial was needed to find the parties liable for fraud.

Procedurally, that's legally correct. Don Jr is whining about how he's never heard of such a thing. To me, that just means no other New York state real estate companies have carried out such massive fraud for so many years. Besides, I'm sure he's learned how to lie from Daddy, so I don't trust a word out of his mouth.

Justice Engoron issued a summary bench judgement ordering the dissolution of all Trump Org's business licenses in the state of New York. All Trump Org's limited liability companies (LLCs) are going into receivership.

He determined Trump Org overstated the value of its assets by as much as $2.2 billion in one year.

By $3.6 billion in those ten years.

One well-known example is Trump's own apartment. It's 10,000 square feet, but Trump claimed it was nearly 30,000.

A misrepresentation of 19,000 square feet.

According to Trump’s “defense,” that’s just a tiny boo-boo. Besides, Trump actually says, he can say whatever he wants because nobody believes him anyway.

Judge Engoron cited that specific example. He said that for a real estate developer to make such an egregious error concerning the place where he lived for years had to mean deliberate fraud on Trump's part.

The trial is still scheduled to begin the day this newsletter goes out, October 2. This next phase will have a jury, and is to determine the damages.

Leticia James, Attorney General of New York, is asking for AT LEAST $250 million.

Worse Than Trump's Criminal Cases?

This is a civil - not criminal - case. Jail is not an issue.

Compared to Donald Trump's four criminal indictments - 91 counts - on extremely serious felony charges, lying and inflating asset values don't seem like such terrible crimes.

Unlike on January 6, nobody died.

According to some people who know Trump, he'd rather go to jail than lose his business empire.

He might suffer both.

This Decision is Probably 30 to 40 Years Late

The only real question is why New York didn't hold Trump Org legally accountable for its fraudulent activities decades ago.

Trump seems to believe that because he's gotten away with fraud for so long, it's now "unfair" to charge him.

Boo hoo hoo.

His sense of entitlement is as large as his ego.

For lots more detail on Trump's scammy pre-2016 business practices, see:

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America by Sarah Kendzior

How Trump Org cheated the Free Market, Banks and Insurance Companies

As everybody knows, Trump Org is in the real estate business.

Its main assets are the buildings and related businesses it owns and operates.

It's standard for such businesses to raise cash by borrowing money from banks and other lenders by putting buildings up as collateral.

Lenders will fork over a percentage of the building's fair market value, but only a percentage.

The lender's first goal is to make money by receiving interest on the money they lend out.

They don't want to sell the building, so they don't want to own the building, so they don't want to foreclose on the building.

They want the loan paid back in full and on time.

Therefore, lenders must manage the risk the borrower will fail to make their payments.

If the borrower does fail, the lender can foreclose, but they don't really want to own the building. They're banks, not real estate companies.

The process of foreclosing and then re-selling the building on the open market is time-consuming and expensive.

Large luxury buildings in prime real estate markets - such as Manhattan and Palm Beach - take longer to sell than most buildings. Therefore, that ties up the lender's capital.

During such a time period, the real estate market could go higher, but it could also go lower.

Therefore, precise calculations of risk are important to lenders.

To properly determine a loan's risk, the bank needs facts about the collateral property and the borrower.

The lender wants to know everything possible about the property, especially its current market value.

They want to know that, if the borrower fails to repay as agreed, they can foreclose on the building and sell it for enough money to still make a profit.

That's why lenders need a reasonably accurate, truthful estimate of a building's fair market value.

It tells them how much they can lend out, based on the law and their policies.

If a borrower inflates the market value of a building, the lender could wind up lending too much.

If the borrower deceived the bank so the bank loaned too much, that's fraud EVEN IF THE BORROWER PAYS THE LOAN BACK.

Why Lie to Inflate Property Estimated Values

Banks and other lenders will be more likely to lend you money on a $40 million building than on a $10 million one.

And they'll lend you more money.

If your building's worth $10 million, you might get $9 million at most.

But tell the lender it's worth $40 million, and you might get $35 million or so.

Don't Try This at Home

Let's say your house has 2,480 square feet. That's the average home size in America as of 2021.

Go to your local bank branch and apply for a home loan.

Tell them your house has 7,440 square feet (three times its actual size).

See what happens. (Don't blame me.)

Hire a good attorney.

Defrauding Banks Doesn't Depend on Not Paying Them Back

Anytime lenders take on more risk than they know about, they've lost.

To say they didn't lose because the borrower repaid the loan is like saying it's okay to play craps with crooked dice because they occasionally allow your opponent to win. They’re still crooked.

Taking on too much risk is still stupid.

Banks don’t want to make stupid loans.

Banks and other lenders want - and deserve to be - financially rewarded for taking on risk.

If a specific loan is in reality riskier than the lender believes because the borrower deliberately inflated the building's value, that does hurt banks financially.

Creditworthiness Affects the Interest Rate Charged

The time value of money is popularly known as interest.

Once a bank determines it's safe to loan a real estate business some cash, the next question is: what interest rate should they charge?

Creditworthiness of a company is an essential factor banks use to determine this.

For us as individual people, the tool banks and lenders use to evaluate our creditworthiness is your credit score.

If your credit score is high enough, you can borrow a lot more money, and at a lower interest rate, than someone with a low credit score.

People with high credit scores can obtain larger loans and larger lines of credit on their cards or whatever.

People with high credit scores also pay less interest because they're less risky.

When we're dealing with large-scale transactions between banks and companies, determining credit risk isn't so easy. These contracts are generally kept private, so nobody knows what a company's past repayment record is unless a public record was created in court. (Which would mean bad news.)

According to the judge’s summary decision, Trump Org obtained lower-than-deserved interest rates on money they borrowed - and they did so through deliberate deceit.

That's fraud EVEN IF THEY PAID BACK THE LOAN.

Example: You and Joe each borrow $1,000 from a bank.

Your credit score is 805 (super).

Joe's credit score is 256 (terrible).

The bank will charge you a lower interest rate than it will Joe.

This is correct risk management EVEN IF JOE PAYS THE MONEY BACK.

If Joe has a credit score of 256, but somehow deliberately makes the bank think it's 805, that's fraud EVEN IF JOE PAYS THE MONEY BACK.

Perceived creditworthiness also may affect other terms of the loan. Lenders may also give a creditworthy company better terms such as the length of the loan.

The Fraud Lies in the Deceit

If Joe's bank had known his actual credit score was just 256, they might have denied his loan application. At the least, they would have charged him a much higher interest rate.

The bank loses because they charged a rate of interest that's too low for the amount of actual risk involved.

The problem is, banks are MUCH stricter with us than with businesses.

Is It the Lender's Fault If They Don't Check Out Our Lies

That's another Trump Org “defense:” blaming the victims of their fraud.

True: the lenders SHOULD have been more diligent. They should NOT have trusted Trump Org as much as they did.

Hey, Trump had a famous reality show. Would a guy on TV lie?

Yes, and all lenders should have known it.

Still, that doesn't excuse Trump Org's deceit.

Lying is lying, even when a bank's laziness lets you get away with it.

Trump's “Defenses”

1. Nobody got physically hurt.

True, and this case doesn't even begin to compare with stealing classified documents and attempting to violently overthrow the United States government.

But . . . say a burglar breaks into your house while you're on vacation. They steal your TV and jewelry, then get caught.

What would you say if the judge dismissed the case because "nobody got hurt?"

You're be pissed as hell, and rightly so.

So far as we know (honestly, I wouldn't put anything past this sicko crime family), Trump Org didn't physically hurt anyone.

But banks and other lenders have investors. When Trump Org misrepresented its business numbers to the banks, they hurt the investors.

Trump Org also hurt our entire system of capitalism. When a company gets by with this level of fraud, it undermines our faith in the court system.

That damages our willingness to enter into contracts.

To some extent, we've all been hurt by Trump Org.

2. The banks and insurance companies Trump Org defrauded deserved to be stolen from because they didn't double check the facts.

Trump Org actually did put disclaimers on its financial statements that they might be inaccurate.

The lenders absolutely should have performed better due diligence.

But that's doesn't excuse Trump Org. Lying is still fraud.

Besides, over 100 years ago the state of New York passed a law called the Martin Act. That law makes lying in such cases a fraud even if the lender doesn't believe you.

3. Trump Org paid back its debts.

Any reasonable lender would have charged them a higher rate of interest if they'd known how much Trump Org was misrepresenting the value of its properties.

Therefore, Trump Org paid a lower interest rate than the lenders should have charged - and would have charged had they known the truth.

4. Asset valuations are subjective.

Oh, I just love this one.

Let's say the house across the street from yours just sold for $400,000.

And it’s similar to yours.

And now you want to sell your house. You tell a real estate agent you will accept nothing less than $5 million because the house means so much to you.

That agent will hang up on your ass, because you're too much of an idiot to deal with.

You can put a subjective value on your house, but you don't expect that to mean anything to prospective buyers.

You might believe you can get $410,000 or $420,000 because your roof is new or the market is hot. Things like that are reasonable.

But to say your house is worth far far far more than the market says just because you claim the market is "subjective" defies common sense.

It’s obvious bullshit.

Besides that, Trump said that if he wanted to sell a building, he could go to Saudi Arabia and find a buyer who'll pay whatever he asks.

But buyers in Saudi Arabia are no more fools and suckers than anybody else.

If he could find such a buyer, the excess amount over fair market value would amount to a bribe, and Saudi Arabia would want something from Trump in return.

It's disgusting for an ex-president of the United States to accept bribes from foreign countries.

There's a limit. Even Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund is not going to pay $100 trillion for Mar-a-Lago.

No matter how much Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud wants to keep Trump in his pocket, so if Trump wins the next election MBS can get away with murder again.

They’re paying $25 million a year to Jared Kushner (yes, Trump’s son-in-law) to “manage” $2 billion, and that’s clearly a bribe for something, and his ass and this obvious pay-off (for what?) should be investigated by the Department of Justice.

Trump Org Properties are Businesses Too

That has a strong bearing on how much they’re worth.

That’s a point I see being too often ignored both in the media and by Trump himself.

On this issue, you can’t really compare houses and commercial buildings.

When you look for a house to live in, you look at a collection of bricks and boards and amenities and location strictly in terms of how well it suits the needs of you and your family.

Commercial properties involve businesses. The relevant factors then become things like monthly cash flow and expenses. Number of rooms and location and square footage and such matter, but only to the extent they affect the bottom line.

Trump Tower and Mar-a-Lago are not “worth” the sum of their bricks and steel, but the amount of net profit they bring in.

Net profit is not a “subjective” criteria whatsoever. Trump Org’s accountants should be calculating it.

Trump Tower has a net profit of $X.

What percentage of Trump Tower’s value is $X? How does that compare to similar buildings in Manhattan?

If Trump Tower nets $2 million per year, it’s worth a certain multiple of that figure. These multiples are commonly used by business brokers and anyone buying or selling a business. There’s no set rule. Industries are different. Also, the economic climate affects the multiple. In good times, buyers will pay more. In bad times, less.

If a comparable building nets $4 million per year, it’s obviously worth more than Trump Tower. If a comparable building nets $1 million per year, it’s obviously worth less.

There is room for reasonable disagreement. Maybe a prospective buyer sees ways to improve the net income. Maybe they’d raise the rents or cut services or something.

I will agree that coming up with a fair market value for any piece of real estate should not include the tax assessed value.

When You're the Buyer, Do You Want to Pay the Seller's "Subjective" Dream Price?

When Trump Org wants to buy a building, do you think they accept any old number the seller wants?

Of course not, or they'd already be out of business.

If Trump Org is at all professional, when they set out to buy a property, they run the numbers - the real, OBJECTIVE numbers.

They want to know comparable building sales, the ACCURATE square footage, the ACCURATE cash flows and income projections.

They would never pay $1.5 billion for a property worth $150 million.

Fair market values are not fixed down to the penny the way a can of beans in the supermarket is.

There's wiggle room for reasonable issues and differences, and those are negotiable.

But Trump Org just pulls numbers out of Donald's big diapered behind to make him feel like he's really the brilliant successful businessman he claims he is.

It's all self-promotion, not legitimate real estate business practices.

The one thing Trump is great at, is promoting himself.

What About Ivanka?

Daddy's favorite little girl was originally charged, but was smart enough to get herself removed on the basis she hadn't worked in the business for years.

An Appeals Court found her activities within the business were outside the statute of limitations. Unlike her two brothers, she got out of Trump Org before the sheet hit the fan.

Besides, she presumably will share in the $25 million per year fees her husband Jared Kushner is raking in by “managing” $2 billion from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

But that's separate from this lawsuit.

Trump Org Refuses to Pay Independent Contractors

They have a long history of this.

Real estate companies need a lot of work done: painting, electricity, plumbing and so on.

A lot of this is farmed out to contractors.

Trump Org has a long history of telling those contractors, once their job is finished, to "sue us" if you want your money.

Some of them do so. I've seen the figure of over 1,000 lawsuits filed in New York City courts against Trump Org seeking repayment.

But these independents usually don't have deep pockets, and Trump Org just stalls and stalls and stalls until the contractor can no longer afford to continue fighting.

As a presidential candidate, Trump has claimed he's for the working people, but Trump Org screws workers over every chance they get.

Trump has done the same thing to his lawyers. They carry out legal duties, then get stiffed. Trump tells them the same thing: so sue me.

Being lawyers, of course they do so.

So Trump hires more lawyers to defend himself - and won't pay them.

One famous example is the formerly celebrated but now widely despised Rudy Guiliani.

He helped Trump file court cases claiming Trump won the election, and lied his ass off about the election and the companies that made voting machines.

Plus, he's indicted in the Georgia case. He (allegedly) broke the law to interfere with Georgia's 2020 election results, and Trump still won't pay him.

Now Rudy's being hit with countless legal bills he reportedly can't pay.

So Trump is having a hard time finding great lawyers to defend him in all these court cases.

Karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?

Every lawyer in America knows Trump will stiff them.

Why work for a reputed billionaire for free?

In the current case, Judge Engoron fined five of Team Trump's lawyers $7,500 each for making downright stupid legal arguments - and claiming the law says things it actually doesn't.

Would you want such stupid, lying lawyers to defend you against a $250 million lawsuit? But Trump can't find better ones, because he's the worst legal client in the world.

Good lawyers would tell Trump to keep his mouth shut, and to let his lawyer make the arguments.

But Trump won't accept that.

Why should he? He’s so smart, you know. He’s not in trouble because he did anything wrong. It’s all a political persecution.

Months ago, he paid a highly respected lawyer $3 million upfront (this lawyer is no fool) to work on the classified documents case.

After the check cleared the bank, the lawyer told Trump to cooperate with the Department of Justice.

So Trump fired him.

Other Trump Frauds: Teaching the Art of the Steal

Trump began Trump University in 2005 allegedly to "altruistically" teach people how to invest in real estate.

Instead, the program worked overtime to convince students to pay for yet more classes and seminars, with no results except they went deeper into debt.

Three lawsuits later, courts found Trump U guilty of deceptive practices, and Trump agreed to pay $25 million to students he screwed over.

To be fair, in this he was not being original.

Many real estate gurus have screwed students over like this since at least the 1980's when cable TV began carrying countless infomercials hawking how to make money in real estate courses.

Some were operated as dishonestly as Trump U.

But those gurus did actually make money from real estate.

But Trump didn't learn how to start with nothing. Daddy Fred Trump did that, and Trump just inherited the empire Fred built - and now he's lost it, so he can't leave it to his children.

Small wonder Don Jr and Eric are going apeshit on social media right now - but they're apparently just as guilty as their Daddy.

Other Trump Frauds: Stealing from Children

The Trump Foundation claimed it raised money for charities.

In 2019, a court found Donald illegally misused $2 million of the Foundation's money.

He had to pay eight charities $250,000 each.

They are:

* Army Emergency Relief

* Children’s Aid Society

* Citymeals-on-Wheels

* Give an Hour

* Martha’s Table

* United Negro College Fund

* United Way of National Capital Area

* U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Is that disgusting or what? Trump in effect stole money from those charities while trying to reap the public relations benefit of appearing to help them.

Remember that the next time you write a check to a charity (or donate online).

Donald Trump can't even do that without stealing it - then lying about it.

With all his money, he cares NOTHING about people who're suffering.

The foundation is closed down.

What Next

The trial is estimated to last three months. It will have a jury.

It will decide how much the liable parties must pay.

New York State Attorney General Leticia James is asking for at least $250 million.

Trump Org will probably have to sell properties to raise the cash.

Then it will owe capital gains taxes on the difference between the buildings' basis (book value) and the money received.

According to Michael Cohen, Trump's former attorney, the basis for these buildings is quite low.

Under the Martin Act, the liable parties are subject to "disgorgement."

This means they must not only repay money they stole, but the profits they made on that money.

One legal analyst explains it this way: Your workplace has a coffee fund. One day, you steal $100 from your coworkers out of the fund, go to the track and win $1,000. You not only owe the original $100 - under the Martin Act you owe the $900 profit you made by stealing that $100.

That's disgorgement.

Plus, New York will want interest on this money, and penalties.

Of course, Trump Org and everyone will appeal, so there's no telling how long this will go on.

Still, if Trump's lawyers can't do any better than argue that the fair market values of luxury commercial real estate properties in the country's largest markets are so "subjective" they can be worth anything Trump Org wants to claim, they don't stand much chance of winning.

And, of course, let's not forget that Trump owes a lot more money for losing other cases.

Plus, there are other pending cases. I'm sure I've heard that families of the Capital police killed and injured during the January 6 insurrection he attempted have a lawsuit pending against him.

Plus - and I’m shocked there’s no news about this - the Internal Revenue Service SHOULD be investigating Trump and Trump Org’s federal taxes. I’m afraid to make up a false deduction for $20. Trump Org believes all the numbers are subjective, yet only the state of New York is seeking accountability.

In a few years, Trump's only income could be his $500,000 per year presidential pension and whatever he gets from reruns of The Apprentice.

That's a lot of money to most of us, but we're stupid fools.

And the TV residuals could well be attached, at least in part, to pay for the many judgments against him. (I'm not sure if a presidential pension can be attached. No other ex-president has needed that.)

He may have Truth Social, except many believe that company isn't making money. Who's on it except Trump and MAGA Kool-Aid drinkers?

Okay - journalists and prosecutors, that's who.

Does Pleading the 5th Amendment Mean You're Guilty or Persecuted?

Over the years, Donald Trump has repeatedly said that only guilty people plead the 5th Amendment (which means they refuse to answer questions on the grounds the truth would incriminate them.)

During this investigation, Trump gave a seven-hour long deposition. That's when he was asked a lot of questions about all the facts involved.

Just remember: Trump could have avoided ALL these problems simply by running his business in an honest way - and by not committing these numerous felonies.

He could have simply acknowledged he lost the 2020 election and gone back to being a real estate tycoon - without stealing classified documents.

But Trump believes acting in a law-abiding, honest manner is only for fools and losers, and he's not either one.

During that deposition, he plead the 5th over 400 times!

By his own words, that means he's guilty over 400 times.

You've probably heard that pleading the 5th cannot be used against you in a court of law.

That's true, but only for CRIMINAL cases. Trump has no shortage of those, but this case is civil.

In civil cases such as this one, pleading the 5th CAN be used against you.

It's possible that's one factor that convinced Justice Engoron to find Trump liable.

When given the chance to explain, he plead the 5th.

That is, he in effect admitted his guilt.

If he had REAL arguments to defend Trump Org's business practices, the deposition was his chance to make them.

Instead, he said the truth would incriminate him.

During the trial, he can be called to testify. I wonder how many times he’ll plead the 5th while on the witness stand?

What a Brat

According to Donald Trump, he's the most persecuted man in the entire history of America.

He’s the biggest elderly spoiled baby in the history of America.

He was born into wealth.

He's never had to work what you and I would call a shit job.

He's never even had to apply for a job. He didn't earn his position at Trump Org. He inherited it.

He's never had to worry about where his next meal was coming from.

He's never had to cut grass, clip coupons or - I bet - make a sandwich for himself.

That's for servants.

He despises ordinary people - especially the MAGA base drinking his Kool-Aid.

He sends them fundraising emails every day. Sadly, many of them sacrifice their own financial wellbeing for him.

If you're not a billionaire worth more money than him, he thinks you're a loser.

We're schmucks.

That's especially true if you pay your bills, and on time.

If you pay your taxes, you're stupid.

He's said he doesn't pay taxes because he's smart.

We're stupid.

We're paying the bills to maintain a government he tried to overthrow.

That's especially galling because all Trump did was be born to a wealthy real estate investor.

I have no use for Fred Trump - he was once arrested at a KKK parade so he was apparently a racist bastard - but at least he built his wealth from scratch.

I don't like Elon Musk either, but I'll give him that much credit.

Donald just got himself born to wealth.

And thinks we're losers and idiots because we don't share his good fortune.

If you don't live in luxury - not "mere" upper class affluence, but LUXURY - you're dog poop on his shoe.

He never ever ever ever accepts blame or responsibility for anything he's said or done. Everything that happens to him is somebody else's fault.

He's lived the lifestyle of the rich and famous for 76 years, but refuses to acknowledge his debts to the government that supports society, to the military veterans who fought for his freedom and to countless contractors stiffed by Trump Org despite the work they carried out for the business.

Right after 9/11, Trump bragged how he now had the tallest building in Manhattan. The World Trade Center was brought down by airplanes and over 3,000 Americans died, and Trump cared only about how tall his fucking building is.

He has the means to use his inherited wealth to help humanity, but he gives no sign of ever feeling compassion, empathy or any genuine bond to other people - even his own family.

He has no heart and no soul.

Donald Trump cares about nobody in this world except Donald John Trump. He cares about nothing except his money.

Last Thanksgiving, he shared his turkey with two prominent anti-Semites, Ye and Nick Fuentes. If they had their way, they'd reopen the ovens of Auschwitz. That would include gassing Trump's daughter (Jewish by conversion), son-in-law Jared Kushner and their three children.

What kind of monster hosts dinner for people who want to kill his own grandchildren?

Donald J Trump.

I'd call him an infected boil of putrid pus on humanity's ass, but I'd be insulting infected boils of putrid pus.

The best I can say on his behalf is that *so far* he hasn't been a murderous dictator killing millions such as Adolph Hitler, Chairman Mao and Joseph Stalin.

But if he actually wins the 2024 election, God help us all.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

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Just because your home is your fortress and physical refuge from the hostile world and costs you many tens of thousands of dollars doesn't mean it's invulnerable.

This year alone has seen an amazing number of natural catastrophes which could destroy everything you've got: forest fires, floods, storms, hurricanes and earthquakes.

And you don't have to make any headlines. Every day, people's houses are destroyed or damaged by hail, water, wind and fire.

Thieves break in and steal your valuable possessions.

You need the financial protection of your house being covered by homeowner's insurance.

But, it gets technical and complicated. You want all the coverage you need - without paying too much.

According to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the average annual cost of homeowner's insurance around three years ago was $1,192. Now it's $1,820.

Because that's just an average, maybe you pay more or less.

What you SHOULD pay, may be less - or more.

Stop Ignoring This Expense

Insurance companies and policies can vary tremendously. Yet, according to consulting firm Deloitte, nearly 30% of American home owners have NEVER switched insurance.

That means, in effect, those 30% believe they picked the right home insurance company when they first bought the house, and they still believe it's best.

Unless you're still in kindergarten, you realize those 30% simply are too lazy to go over their policy every few years, and decide whether it's still most effective for their needs and least expensive.

Companies change, and so do industries. We as consumers can't afford to remain complacent for long, not with the potential disasters we're all threatened with.

Yet two out of three homeowners have no idea what their policy actually covers.

According to an industry survey, 45% had a claim denied because their policy didn't cover what they believed it would.

If you haven't checked things out recently, do so this weekend.

Tips to Get the Most Financial Protection With Your Homeowner's Insurance

1. Increase deductible.

$1,000 is common.

So try going up to $2,500 or even $5,000.

This will also prevent you from filing claims for small amounts of money, which could signal the insurance company to hike your rates because you're so risky.

Filing claims for small amounts could make you lose a claims-free discount, if you have one.

By having a high deductible, you save money as you go by paying lower premiums - until and unless you have a major disaster.

2. Don't cover things you don't have.

Many policies cover things such as collectibles and jewelry.

But what if you don't own any collectibles or jewelry? Why pay for such coverage?

Don't just accept the standard, one-size fits all, cookie-cutter policies an agent will want to sell you without taking the extra effort to tailor it to your specific needs.

Talk to your agent about all the policy details.

3. Don't over-insure your belongings.

Some policies insure personal belongings on the assumption their value is a percentage of your home's market value.

Again, this is standardizing - for the agent's convenience, not yours.

Some people own a lot more belongings, some a lot less.

If you have jewelry, collectibles or other valuable items, make sure you keep a receipt - and take a picture of everything.

If your policy covers personal belongings at "replacement cost value," you'll get more than if they use "actual cash value."

Used clothes have almost no resale value, but you have to wear something - and buying replacement clothes will force you to pay the current retail price.

On the other hand, many people store old clothes they'll never wear again, so there's no point in insuring those because you would not replace them.

Most policies use replacement cash value for your belongings.

That may or may not be wise, depending on your belongings and how much they cost - and what it would take to replace them.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) offers a free home inventory app.

Valuable collector items, jewelry and art will probably require special coverage.

4. Don't overinsure - or underinsure - your home.

The most useful metric is how much it would cost you to rebuild.

NOT what you paid for the house, and not its appraised value.

Full replacement value.

An industry trade group, the Insurance Information Institute, suggests finding out your area's per-square-foot building cost.

Ask a local contractor, real estate agent, insurance agent or builders association representative.

Multiply the cost per square foot times your house's square footage.

That's the amount of money you'll need to rebuild your house after a major disaster.

Emily Rogan is senior program officer with United Policyholders, a consumer advocacy group for the insurance agent.

According to Ms. Rogan, "We find that after a disaster, two-thirds of people are underinsured by up to six figures."

Ouch and double-ouch.

5. Maintain your house in good repair.

This reduces the risk someone will ever be injured while on your property, lowering your risk of getting sued.

This includes major items such as replacing the roof, furnace and hot water heaters when they get old.

Do check your policy to see if you get anything for such major repairs.

Some insurance companies will give you a discount for replacing the roof or installing a new security system. Anything that makes your house safer or more resistant to damage might qualify.

Check with your agent to see what's available.

6. Get billed more efficiently.

Some home insurance providers charge for monthly billing. You may get a discount for setting up automatic billing or electronic billing.

Consider using the same insurance company for both your home and cars.

According to Quadrant Information Services, using the same company for both saved people an average of 15%.

7. Improve your credit score

In most states, insurance companies are allowed to factor your credit score into calculating the risk to your house, so . . . a higher credit score may earn you a lower premium.

I don't obsess about credit scores because I want all my readers to pay off all their debts, but, realistically, most people still pay too much in interest.

Start systematically paying off your debts, and your credit score will go up.

8. Check out an "all-risk" or "open perils" policy

These cover any kind of damage except those specifically excluded in your contract.

These policies are more expensive than a "named perils" policy, which covers only what's specifically listed.

Me, I'm highly aware we're all in danger from threats we don't consider or discount until it's too late.

I know the chances a meteor will land on your house or a terrorist will blow it up are slim, but I'd rather pay a few extra bucks for protection against the unforeseen and unique than believe I know everything.

I don't.

And neither do you.

9. You may need a separate policy for flooding and earthquakes

You say you don't need flood coverage because you live in the desert?

I wonder how many businesses along the Las Vegas Strip had flood coverage. I don't know, but just a few weeks ago, the Strip was flooded.

Remember: one out of four insurance claims for flood damage come from houses in areas rated as at low to moderate risk of flooding.

Earthquakes? Check out your risk of earthquake at the US Geological Service's hazard map on their website.

Earthquake hazards by state

Bear in mind: the New Madrid fault is still down there. Although it hasn't made the Mississippi River flow backward for over 200 years, if it ever goes wild again, it'll cause damage throughout the Midwest, centered on New Madrid, Missouri.

10. Add "building code upgrade" coverage

It's also known as ordinance or law coverage.

As your home ages, building codes get stricter. At some point you may need to upgrade your house so it conforms with tighter code standards.

Standard policies don't help you pay for repairing or reconstructing a house so it meets stricter code standards.

According to United Policyholders, this may cost you around 10% more for your dwelling coverage or a flat amount.

11. Compare prices

According to Deloitte, 70% of homeowners had not changed insurance companies in the past three years.

Again, it's asking a lot for any company to remain the best option for you - forever.

Every two years, get quotes from at least three separate companies. Use their websites or an independent insurance broker.

12. Ask about other discounts

Some insurance companies give discounts for belonging to certain credit unions or professional organizations.

Take advantage of any discounts you qualify for.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

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As of July 2023, Mexico achieved an unexpected milestone - which may (or may not) represent a major shift in American trade.

Mexico surpassed China as the United States' leading trade partner.

Mexico provided 15.4% of America's international trade.

China fell to the #2 position, at 15.2%.

(Providing 12% of American trade, Canada is #3.)

Many signs indicate this is not just a temporary blip, but the result of a long-term trend that's going to keep American trade trending toward Mexico instead of China.

Although this should be good for Mexico, they're not taking full advantage of it. And there are still high obstacles.

Should China be worried about Mexico taking away its manufacturing customers?

Would that hurt the United States?

(After all, Ron DeSanctimonious has already begun threatening to deploy Special Forces units and fire missiles into Mexico. It's his "Good Neighbor" policy.)

Even Good Neighbors Can Disagree

Politically, relations between the United States and Mexico haven't always been the most harmonious. After all, the current Southwest United States used to be known as Northern Mexico.

However, both countries have enjoyed close trade and economic relations. They'd be crazy not to, given we share a long border.

True, many Americans are hostile toward Mexico because aliens cross the border.

Some are legal.

Some are illegal, which upsets many Americans, for both rational and irrational reasons.

Plus, Mexico does a terrible crime problem, especially thanks to the drug cartels.

But why are Mexican drug cartels so much richer and more powerful than other drug cartels? (The world contains many drug gangs.)

Because they're so close to the largest market in the world for illegal drugs - the United States.

Let me make that clear: Mexican drug gangs are so well-armed and competitively violent because so many Americans are buying guns for them - through buying their drugs.

If you don't like the cartels - who does? - blame American consumers of illegal drugs. And thank the ongoing legalization of my favorite - cannabis - for providing an alternative.

Cheap Labor Next Door, Not Across the Pacific Ocean

Mexicans have traditionally served as a pool of cheap labor for American companies, from the building of the railroads to picking the agricultural produce of California and much more.

After the temporary worker program ended in 1965, resulting in hundreds of thousands of migrants returning to Mexico, the Mexican government began a program to encourage American companies to set up manufacturing facilities in Northern Mexico, close to the border.

These are Maquiladores (assembly plants). They take advantage of the ease with which goods and component parts cross the border.

Large numbers of laborers from Southern Mexico moved to the north. By 1992, these plants employed around 500,000 people.

They produce $19 billion in products, around 40% of Mexico's total exports.

For around three decades, this program helped Mexico's economy grow an impressive 3-4% per year, so it was called the Mexican Miracle.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect as of 1994. This gradually eliminated tariffs between Mexico, the United States and Canada.

According to economists, NAFTA tripled trade in North America. In 2020, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaced it.

All This Time, Though, the Chinese Miracle Played Out

After the death of Mao Zedong and the Fall of the Gang of Four, the Chinese Communist Party decided to develop China into a world economic power - shades of capitalism - while retaining their dictatorial hold on the Chinese people.

And, economically, it's worked out incredibly well for them.

Despite setbacks since 2018, China is still the manufacturing powerhouse of the world. 30% of the world's products are manufactured there.

Points to Remember

When China decided to develop as a capitalist in fact (if not name) economy, it was a country full of ragged peasants organized mainly into rural communes. For the 10 years of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, school children spent more time confronting and torturing teachers than learning how to read anything except Mao's Little Red Book. Anybody with a real education had either been killed or sent to the countryside to learn from the peasants.

After Deng Xiaoping took over, those peasants gladly jumped at the chance to earn a few pennies by working twelve hours a day in what we'd called dangerous sweatshops.

Also, thanks to the large-scale peace imposed on the world by the US Navy, it became inexpensive to ship manufactured goods from Chinese ports to the United States with gigantic cargo ships.

This enabled international corporations to set up what's known as "Just in Time" inventory systems - which the Japanese, especially Toyota, pioneered. By keeping storage costs to a minimum, JIT helps keep prices lower than they would be if companies followed the old school practice of keeping spare parts and raw materials on hand just in case of delays.

JIT is one of the management practices American companies learned from Japan, and implemented in the 1980's after Japan began out-competing them.

Therefore, setting up manufacturing plants in China was a no-brainer for many American companies.

US-China Trade War

This started under President Trump in 2018, with the imposition of important tariffs. To a large degree, it's continued under President Biden. He also imposed a ban on giving the Chinese certain technologies.

The Chinese have responded with heavy tariffs of their own.

As a result, Chinese to US trade has dropped 8.5%.

US to Chinese trade has dropped 26.3%.

But the biggest blow to US-China trade emerged from within China itself:

Wuhan.

Covid Challenged Supply Lines

By now, you know the story.

Covid closed manufacturing plants in China and many other places where American companies were offshoring the assembly of their products. It also delayed shipments of raw materials. It backed up cargo ships on both sides of the Pacific.

This resulted in delays and shortages American companies - and consumers - had not experienced in decades.

Just when it looked like we were catching up with Covid-related logistics problems, Ruzzia invaded Ukraine. This too disrupted worldwide shipping, trade and commerce.

As a result, American companies began re-thinking their supply chains. Suddenly, the Pacific Ocean looked a lot wider than it had in 2019.

But they didn't want to abandon JIT practices. Storing raw materials, components and finished products requires warehouses and additional staff. It also ties up capital.

These costs add to the price of products, and Americans were already complaining about inflation.

Other Disadvantages of Trade With China

As their economy grew, workers gradually earned more money. These days, Chinese workers are quite far from "low cost" labor.

In fact, they’re more expensive than American workers. They don't earn as much, but in terms of their productivity, they earn more than Americans.

President Xi's close ties with Ruzzia's Dictator Putin raise disturbing questions about China's reliability. Multinational corporations don't want to be associated in the minds of consumers with Putin's vicious invasion of a democratic country.

Those of us with long memories know China broke its contract with the first McDonald's in the country. No foreign company with any sense believes they can achieve justice is a Chinese court if the government is against them.

Also, China's constant threats against Taiwan mean foreign companies must deal with the fear that any capital invested in China may one day be blown up by a Taiwanese missile as they defend themselves from an invasion.

A China-Taiwan shooting war would disrupt world trade logistic chains far more than Covid.

The Near-Shoring Solution

How avoid the uncertainties of having manufacturing plants in Asia?

Obviously, put them in North America. But labor in the United States is expensive, and companies are trying to avoid paying that.

We have two neighbors. But our northern neighbor, Canada, also has high labor costs - not to mention even longer winters with more cold and snow than Minnesota.

Clearly, that leaves Mexico.

Small wonder a lot of automobile, aerospace and electronics manufacturing is already taking place there.

$1.5 billion in products cross the US-Mexican border every day.

Advantages of Mexico

* Close geographic proximity to the United States, with a large, already-high traffic border. Shipping from Mexico to New York takes only five days. Shipping from Hong Kong or Shanghai to New York takes up to 40 days.

* Stronger intellectual property and patent protections than China

* A large pool of workers who are now much less expensive than Chinese labor

* Many of those workers are more skilled than you might think. Mexico ranks 8th in the world for numbers of graduating engineers.

* Our long shared history and cross-border family, historical and cultural ties make communications easier

* Political stability

* Mexico's international ties. It has free trade agreements with 50 other countries. Compare that to the United States, which has them with only 20 other countries. This also means Mexico is attracting new factories not only from American companies, but from others - who might want to do business with Americans via the "back door" of Mexico.

* Greater productivity and prosperity south of the Rio Grande would help reduce both crime and the incentive for Mexicans to immigrate to the United States looking for unskilled jobs.

* When Mexicans have more money to spend, they'll be a larger market for American products. Trade between our two countries will grow, helping us all.

Even Chinese and Other Asian Companies are Moving to Mexico

These include the computer maker, Lenovo.

They pay Mexican workers less than they pay Chinese workers.

Plus, by going there, they are circumventing the tariffs the United States is imposing on Chinese-made goods. This is called rebadging.

$10 Billion Giga Mexico Open by 2026

That's Tesla's big plan to make its next model - which will be autonomous - in Mexico.

They've purchased a huge plot of land. It will not only manufacture finished Teslas, but many component parts.

That's the ideal of JIT - not shipping parts across an extremely wide ocean, but from a factory literally next door. Localized supply chains are the cheapest.

Mexico Does Have Faults, Of Course

* High amounts of crime - 8th highest homicide rate in the world

* Closely related, of course, are the drug cartels armed by piles of money from American drug buyers

* Right now, a fairly anti-business federal government. Most of the economic progress Mexico has made has come from the efforts of state governments to attract jobs. The current president ("AMLO") is hostile to foreign multinationals and direct foreign investment. He has even nationalized some industries. He's a more dangerous obstacle to Mexican prosperity than the drug cartels.

* Inherent geographic obstacles: desert in the north, mountains in the center and jungles in the south

* Relatively poor infrastructure. China is far superior in this regard.

* Mexico is underbanked. That is, it lacks a strong financial infrastructure serving both ordinary people and businesses.

* Mexico suffers from brain drain. Thirteen million of its intelligent and educated people have moved out. Though, if they had more new factories to operate, maybe a lot more would stick around.

* High amounts of corruption

* It's rated as a country relatively difficult to do business in. However, that may apply just to Mexico as a whole, thanks to the business-unfriendly attitude of the federal government. State governments may be more cooperative.

Despite these, Mexico's automotive industry (two million jobs) already generates more money than its oil, tourism and remittances from Mexicans in other countries.

Conclusion

Is Mexico going to become the "next China?"

Not to the entire world. It doesn't have the infrastructure or political will to replace the 30% of the globe's manufacturing now based in China.

It also doesn't have enough people - only around 130 million.

To Chinese statisticians tracking their population, 130 million is a rounding error.

However, Mexico is well-placed to provide low-cost manufacturing to the United States and Canada, which is no small thing.

"Made in Mexico" probably won't replace "Made in China" in Europe or Australia, but it certainly could in a lot of American big box stores.

Unless AMLO nationalizes more factories.

Or President Ron DeSanctimonious launches a missile strike.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now

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The partisan political fighting about the government's budget is to me a recurring nightmare.

When I first began working for Social Security in October 1978, my class teachers complained how their paychecks contained only the money owed them through September 30.

The government's fiscal year begins on October 1.

When Congress authorizes the expenditure of government money, that's done for a specific fiscal year, which ends on September 30.

Every year, they have to pass bills to authorize spending money for the next fiscal year.

If the bills aren't passed before October 1, technically the government is broke as of that date - out of funds.

Congressional political arguments about what should get money and what not - and how much - are common. So are delays.

In 1978, Congress was late passing the budget authorization bill, which is why my teachers had to wait to get paid for their post-September 30 work.

Late September and early October became kind of lazy times for me, because we'd run out of overtime money, forcing us to stop working extra hours. (I always worked as much OT as possible, but around this time of year, it wasn't available.)

Government employees became used to the annual budget battles disrupting our work and our personal finances.

I think it was in 1995 when Congress under Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich played a stupid game of chicken with President Clinton.

When Congress refused to pass Clinton's budget, the government actually did shut down.

All "nonessential" personnel - including us Social Security Administration employees - stayed home.

One day we demonstrated in front of Representative Richard Gephardt's office.

Another day, I went to a place where I never expected to go - to file for unemployment. I didn't get it because there's a waiting week, and we weren't off a full week.

But while laid off, I didn't know how long it'd take to reach a budget agreement.

Then it turned out Social Security had to pay us for the days we were off because we hadn't been given the required 30 days of notice before SSA cut our pay.

In the future, when it appeared likely the government would shut down again, SSA made sure to give us that 30-day notice.

I was never kept at home again. But every year around this time, Congress and the President would fight again.

Now in 2023, my paycheck isn't at risk, but my pension and Social Security checks are.

So are yours.

The House Republican MAGA Goon Squad Doesn't Care About the Country

Like Nero, they want to watch Rome burning while they fiddle around. (Literally, if the rumors Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is having an affair with Marjorie Taylor Greene are true.)

In the Senate, both parties want to fund the government's spending so they can get on with running for re-election.

It's the House Republicans creating the problem. They want to cut a lot of things the government spends money on. This includes climate change and diversity initiatives.

They also want to limit money spent to help Ukraine because it's so obviously a terrible country run by neo-Nazis. Of course, we should help Putin take it over - for its own good. According to Putin, it's not a "real" country anyway. The Ukrainian people really want to kiss an ex-KGB agent's ass instead of retaining their independence and democracy.

Helping dictators take over democracies is what America is all about, according to the MAGA playbook. It stands for Make America Great Again so Putin can anoint Trump as one of his pet megabillionaire lapdogs.

They also want to appropriate more money for things they like, such as the border wall.

As I've noticed before, Republicans claim they're for "small government," but really just don't want to spend money to help people.

Spending money to hurt people, that's great. A government that oppresses the people, that government can spend as much as it wants.

You may or may not believe the government is borrowing too much money to fund the budget, but, in my opinion, what House Republicans are doing is a form of terrorism.

Cut the budget, or we'll shut down everything.

That's their platform.

If we can't win the ball game, we'll burn down the stadium.

It's sort of like a man whose kids went to live with his ex-wife after a custody battle - so he kidnaps them and holds them hostage to demand custody.

When you watch that on the news or in a movie, you just know it's not going to end well. The only question is, will any of the innocent kids get hurt?

Experienced Republicans realize a government shutdown would hurt them in next year's elections. Politicians can't control who the public blames for the shutdown.

That's why both Senate leaders - Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer - stand together against a shutdown, and have the support of their respective Senators behind them.

But the MAGA schmucks don't care. They can count on Fox and the other kiss-ass "right wing" media outlets to blame President Biden instead of them, making them look like heroes to all the Kool-Aid drinkers.

Many voters are tired of these games, but will blame both sides.

Many moderates and independents will blame the MAGA reps, but they apparently don't care. All of them except Lauren Boebert seem to have secure seats. (Do they put something in the drinking water?)

They claim to love ex-President Trump, but they rely on his base to vote for him no matter how much they hurt people.

Yes, This is Similar to the Debt Ceiling Drama Earlier This Year

And, yes, it's likely that somewhere close to midnight on September 30, the House, Senate and President will manage to reach a compromise, keeping the government open.

Hopefully.

But there's no guarantee.

The government did shut down in 2011 and 2018, and that made regulatory agencies drop the rating of US Treasury bonds from a perfect AAA down to AA.

Fitch marked us down again this year, because of the debt ceiling crisis.

House MAGA Republicans claim they want to reduce government spending, but we're already paying higher interest on Treasury bonds because of the shit Republicans have pulled in the past.

They keep doubling down on a tactic that doesn't work.

They keep claiming they want to reduce government spending on things that help people, while ignoring how much their hostage-taking tactics have already cost American taxpayers.

Also at risk is FEMA emergency aid to victims in Hawaii and in Florida.

House Republicans also want to fund an inquiry to impeach President Biden to get revenge on Trump having been twice impeached and because prosecutors want to hold him accountable for his crimes. How dare they!

Don't they know "law and order" is only for putting black Americans in jail?

Not rich, powerful white men born with a whole set of silver spoons in their mouths - especially Trump.

According to one news analyst, MAGA reps are spoiling for a fight.

The losers will be our country and its people.

Continuing Resolutions are Likely - Maybe

A continuing resolution is a bill that must be passed by Congress, the Senate and the President funding the government for a limited time.

For example: it's September 30, and government negotiators realize they're not going to finish next year’s budget bills by midnight.

But they do agree they don't want a shutdown. Therefore, they pass a continuing resolution funding the government for a few more weeks into October.

That would give them more time to work out an agreement to cover through September 30 next year.

Most Americans don’t pay attention to process until they go to visit national parks and monuments and find them closed. (During shutdowns, the local St. Louis news media likes to show pictures of Closed signs on the Gateway Arch.)

But it’s also possible the same MAGA brownshirts will object to any proposed continuing resolutions, because they want to see the country burn.

They want to inflict a lot more pain than just closing the Arch.

House Speaker McCarthy's Dilemma

Not all House Republicans are space cadets like Marjorie Taylor Greene. Some are even in touch with reality.

Unfortunately, House Republican "moderates" (that is, not as crazy as the MAGA caucus) are not making any noise of their own. If they really valued the country over partisan politics, they'd call on their "leader" McCarthy to reach a reasonable agreement. But they're afraid of bucking the MAGAs and afraid of voting with Democrats.

In other words, they're gutless wimps and pathetic do-nothings.

On paper, they out-number Democrats. But the Senate is controlled (barely) by Democrats.

Therefore, getting the Democratic Senate and the Democratic President to agree to the extreme cuts the House Republicans are demanding is just plain not happening.

McCarthy could reach a compromise that could pass the House with the votes of Democrats and the few required House Republicans.

But then the angry MAGA club would vote him out of his position as Speaker of the House.

Though who the Republicans would then select is anybody's guess.

With any luck, a government shutdown won't trigger a recession - but nobody knows for sure.

Especially if it goes on for a week or longer.

Meanwhile . . .

Have extra cash on hand in your checking account.

Have your bills paid up.

Stock up on food and other staples.

Don't plan any trips to the Arch or other national monuments or parks.

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

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Image by angiechaoticcrooks0 from Pixabay

Want to donate to charities?

Instead of just mailing a check or donating online, you may prefer the convenience of a donor-advised fund (DAF).

Or, maybe not.

Do you really want to help people - or just fake it for the tax deduction?

While you really enable Wall Street types to get wealthier?

What are Donor Advised Funds?

Technically, they're IRS code 501(c)(3) organizations.

They're essentially investment funds where you can't withdraw the money you send them, allowing them to do what they wish with your cash.

They're run by the likes of Fidelity and Charles Schwab - not names usually associated with generosity.

Oh, they say they'll try to donate your money to the charities you want to get it, but the fine print gives them total control.

The DAF sponsor can legally do what they want with it, including overpaying their employees, hosting a golf tournament and paying their own legal fees. (All legitimate, according to a court decision.)

And they're not legally required to pay out money at all. That is, they'd probably stop except then charitable givers would stop sending them more money.

However, just like all investment funds, they find ways to siphon away your money that you don't know about or understand.

They may be "nonprofit" organizations, but that doesn't they mean their managers and employees are on food stamps.

They do have one major advantage over making a simple donation.

They're growing in popularity. In 2020, donations to DAFs increased by 27% over 2019 - a total of $34.67 billion.

DAFs are a Hybrid of Public and Private Charities

Public charities are your standard charity. A local food bank, the American Cancer Society and so on.

They provide services to help people.

Private charities are the foundations created by wealthy people: the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

They must be transparent and obey the law, but they're required to spend only 5% of their assets per year on actually using the money.

They can sit on the remainder, making them investment funds as well. If you work for a private foundation, are you going to disburse all the money to hungry people just because those people are dying of starvation? Of course not, you want to keep your job. They’ll be more hungry people next year. So, private foundations are self-perpetuating.

(That's significant, because this tendency of organizations created for a specific purpose to never totally solve the problem is a criticism rightwingers use to attack government agencies. But they don't use the same standard to attack their own private foundations.)

Private foundations do provide tax benefits to the families who set them up, of course.

The Argument Against Private Foundations

They essentially allow the very wealthy to prevent their money from going to the government to spend on such silly nonsense as tanks for the Army, public health protections by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Social Security checks to enable seniors too lazy to get rich during their prime years to loaf through their old ages too.

Foundations don't just feed the hungry. In fact, relatively little of their money goes to help poor people.

They fund rightwing political causes and art museums.

Only around 20% of private foundation money goes to help impoverished recipients. The remainder goes to elite people and institutions.

In general, private foundations allow wealthy people to reduce their tax bills while also enabling them to influence politics, the law and culture in ways they favor.

They fund libertarian think tanks and the Federalist Society, which is reshaping the federal judiciary - (and not in ways beneficial to America, in my opinion).

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent a lot of money to fight various diseases, but there are caveats. When Covid-19 vaccines were developed, many poor countries were desperate to inject them into their own citizens to prevent unnecessary Covid deaths. But the vaccines were too expensive.

Therefore, some wanted to manufacture the vaccines much more cheaply than they could be bought from the pharma companies that owned the rights to them. So the World Health Organization debated letting vaccines be manufactured without paying the pharma companies. Gates argued against it to preserve the intellectual property rights of the vaccine companies. Because he spends so much money on the World Health Organization, he won the debate.

As a result, with Covid now a worldwide chronic disease, billions of people remain unvaccinated not by choice (as is the case with many ignorant and arrogant Americans), but by poverty.

This increases the risk we all face. That's because Covid is a rapidly mutating virus. The more people who get Covid, the more likely we'll someday face a version current vaccinations can't protect us against.

Thanks to Bill Gates.

In short, the money of the wealthy goes to supporting the cause of keeping the elites wealthy and working people poor and dependent on their bosses.

The people who benefit from the extreme inequality of modern society are allowed to use their funds to perpetuate that inequality.

Therefore, some people say: Abolish private foundations and make the rich pay that money in the form of income taxes.

That would reduce the government's budget deficit.

But, of course, according to these people, taxes are "evil."

Yet, they also don’t like budget deficits.

So they want the poor and middle class to pay for everything the government does.

Not them - poor babies. They cry if they pay any taxes at all.

Unlike us hardworking ordinary people, the billionaires "earned" every dollar they own, even if they inherited it.

Where Do DAFs Come In?

They're basically a hybrid of the private foundation and simple check mailing.

You send them some money.

You get an immediate tax deduction from making a taxable donation to the DAF.

You can tell them what charity or charities you wish to donate to.

They promise to try, but, as mentioned above, you've given up control.

The contributions you make are permanent. You never get the money back.

You can also tell them to send money out on a regular basis.

You can also contribute to them on an ongoing basis.

Also, you can tell them to just hold on to the money rather than send it all out right away.

Which is fine with them, because they charge management fees for holding on to it.

They don't care how much the intended recipients of your cash need the help RIGHT NOW instead of in the future.

These are investment/mutual funds that aren't expected to turn a profit or grow.

One Major Advantage to DAFs

You can donate assets instead of cash.

That is, you can donate stock and real estate - even portions of buildings.

They know how to convert these into cash to distribute.

The great part - if you've owned the asset for more than a year and its fair market value has grown, you get a tax deduction for the full market value - without paying capital gains taxes.

Example: Ordinary charitable giving

You own 100 shares of stock you bought years ago for $500.

Today, they're worth $10,000 - a capital gain of $9,500.

You want to contribute those shares of stock to a charity.

You must sell the shares. You collect the cash, then mail a check to the charity.

You do receive tax deduction for the $10,000, but you must also pay capital gains on the $9,500.

Example: DAF

Same situation.

But, instead of selling the shares and collecting cash, you donate the shares themselves to a DAF.

You get a tax deduction for the $10,000 fair market value of the stock shares.

You pay NO capital gains.

My Conclusion

Who really wants to donate large assets to charity?

Not many people.

And who wants to give up control?

If you really care, don't you want to make sure your money goes to help the causes you support? You want to see tangible results.

Who wants to allow a DAF to bleed off management and other hidden fees? That's taking your hard-earned money and giving it to investment pros, NOT the people or causes who need it?

If you own shares of stock that pay dividends, hold on to them forever. Don't sell, and then you won't incur capital gains taxes.

Reinvest the dividends, so your dividend income keeps growing.

If you reach the point where your income is so large you just plain don't need the money now and won't in the future - congratulations!

Send the excess dividend cash to your favorite charity, and take the tax deduction.

If you're selling a major business, you'll probably need to convert the profits into income-generating assets. You'll absolutely need professional advice for that situation.

But, for those of you who have houses or other real estate you just plain don't need and wish to donate, go ahead.

Donating to a DAF will give you a higher tax deduction.

Plus, the charities get the larger amounts, less whatever fees the DAF grabs.

If you're an ordinary person, give what you can, to the people and causes you want most to help.

According to one expert on nonprofit organizations interviewed by FORBES, charities are becoming increasingly concerned about how DAFs are sucking up the cash while they can't afford to provide necessary basic services - but they're reluctant to speak out, for fear of discouraging givers from donating more money money.

Screw the high-finance types.

They say they invest your money so it grows, but will it really? They can no more guarantee future asset growth than hedge funds or mutual funds can.

Sometimes the market goes up, sometimes it goes down.

Same with individual stocks.

DAF managers aren't hedge fund or mutual fund managers who work hard looking for growth opportunities, yet still can't beat the market long term. Why should they sweat it? They're not held accountable for investment performance. Once you've contributed, you can't legally withdraw the cash. They make money just by raking in the fees.

As always, just my opinion.

Elon Musk Uses DAFs

I began writing this article with the idea of going after Elon Musk, which I haven't done for a few weeks.

Musk did donate $5.74 billion of Tesla stock in 2021.

He donated $1.95 billion in 2022.

That's according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the past, Musk has given around 20% of his donations to a DAF. One article says it's Fidelity's Charitable Giving.

The Giving Pledge

Many billionaires have pledged to give away nearly all of their wealth to worthwhile charitable causes.

It was started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Elon Musk signed on to this pledge in 2012.

He also set up his own foundation in 2001. One of the causes it promotes is the creation of safe Artificial Intelligence to benefit humanity.

According to an article in FORBES, the Musk Foundation had around $941 million. Out of that, it has donated $24 million. It’s allowed to hang on to the remainder.

$20 billion of that $24 million went to a DAF.

Of the other $4 million, $1 million went to the libertarian think tank The Mercatus Center.

Located at George Mason University, this think tank is a prime example of what I wrote about above - the wealthy use foundations to promote their own views. The Musk Foundation says that donation was for "Covid-19 scientific research."

What the hell does a libertarian think tank know about the science of Covid-19?

Nothing, so this is total hypocritical bullshit.

The next time humanity experiences a deadly pandemic of infectious disease, they'll be telling us to just go to work without even wearing a mask.

Libertarians want no government interference with the economy, no matter what.

Business as usual, until you die.

Did any Republicans/libertarians besides Chris Christie learn anything from the pandemic? Many rightwing radio hosts died from Covid-19, but the ones who didn't die, kept up their lies.

To be fair, Musk has donated millions of dollars to schools and nonprofits in the Rio Grande Valley where SpaceX builds its rockets. Plus $55 million to St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.

He's also donated to some exclusive private schools in various places.

So, screw the public schools and their students, who aren't good enough to receive help from Musk. Let's help students who're already rich.

$1 million went to support Wikipedia - which I have mixed feelings about. Like most of us, I do use the site for research, but only for basic, objective facts. I don't rely on it. Its opinions are often biased.

At this point, we don't know where that $5.6 billion went to.

My guess is, it's still sitting in the coffers of Fidelity, generating fees for that company and its fund managers.

But I think I prefer that to the money going to think tanks that don't want governments trying to save lives during a pandemic.

Because I Can't Resist a Good Laugh Even Though It's Irrelevant

Musk recently spoke to people at a gamer convention.

Apparently, both he and the organizers thought he'd be warmly welcomed.

Instead, the gamers booed him, shouting, "Bring back Twitter! Bring back Twitter!"

My widowed mother's investments enabled her to live a comfortable lifestyle for over 50 years, beating the pants off the Wall Street gurus even though she couldn't have read a balance sheet to save her life.

Find out how.

Check out my Income Investing Secrets book right now

Email marketer & copywriter now available to help great businesses grow 2X or more - despite the coming deluge of AI-generated crud - by treating prospects and customers as real people

Check me out by clicking here now