[Background: I have a pittance in a prediction market as a stand against insanity. This is an analysis I wrote this about a month ago. If it seems dated because we’ve since contacted intelligent interstellar life and/or impeached Trump for the crime of being insufficiently woke, that’s why it’s dated. I’m betting nothing has changed to the fundamentals. Was I right?]
I bet against Trump on the economy. I blew it and am losing:
I bet YES on “recession in Trump’s First Term“. It’s important to note that recession means “two consecutive quarters with a negative annual growth rate in real gross domestic product”. It doesn’t mean “Orange Man bad”, “the press is shrieking like a little bitch”, or “Paul Krugman feels sad”.
Regardless, I didn’t think anyone (including Trump and/or Magic Elves) could keep our red hot economy cranking 16 quarters. I’m not the only one:
“He just says, ‘Well, I’m going to negotiate a better deal.’ Well, what, how exactly are you going to negotiate that? What magic wand do you have?”
Barack Obama, June 1, 2016
Barack and I both agreed on the limitations of undoing Barack’s mess. We were both wrong. I expected Trump’s fiscal policies would slowly improve the nation’s situation with fits and starts. Instead free enterprise did its thing and the economy launched like a rocket. In this matter I’m happy to be wrong. It’s good to live in a rich society! Trump didn’t have a magic wand, he had a magic sledge hammer!
I figured a black swan event would wreck the party but time is short and it’s looking like I bet wrong. Trump may soon do what I thought was mathematically impossible.
I have one last hope. The opposition party always bitches about the misery of living under the current regime regardless of which party is in power. The opposition (D) will be doing all they can to crater the economy or any news of it. They’ve pretty much given up on all rationality or comity so they might succeed.
It’s like your crazy uncle who smashes your car to prove that cars can be smashed and thus you should let him borrow your car. It makes no sense but you still have to deal with the dented fender. The D party may, in desperation, create a self-fulfilling prophesy… and that’s why I’m not bailing out and locking in my losses. Yet.
Bet Against Biden? I did and don’t regret it. It’s a small loss so far.
For “2020 Democratic presidential nomination” I bet NO on Joe Biden. This has nothing to do with Biden’s himself and everything to do with the current era’s madness.
Biden sucks but that’s nothing new. The real story is that the party of D has done nothing but piss and moan about “intersectionality” for decades. The only thing they care about is how black your gay vagina happens to be. The only thing that could beat Hillary’s vagina in 2008 was Obama’s blackness. The only thing that could beat Hillary’s vagina in 2016 was Hillary herself. (Trump’s main electable skill in 2016 was to not be Hillary Clinton, which he’s done very well.)
With 2020 on the horizon, the opposition races to pick the weirdest weirdo that weirds the weirdness. Biden’s a creepy old geezer but, unless he’s got a sex dungeon we don’t know about, he’s still a generic white male. The dems could have a candidate with the mind of Albert Einstein, the body of Fabio Lanzoni, and the soul of Mother Theresa but they’d kick this awesome option to the curb if it was a straight white male. They’ll crawl through glass in a long circuitous route around Biden or anyone white and male to elect a black female gay oppressed affirmative action sociology experiment.
This goes a long way toward explaining Pete Buttigieg. He’s a white, male, Christian, Navy Reservist. Such a man would be tarred and feathered by the Kool aid drinkers under normal circumstances. However, he likes to stick his dick in all the right places. That’s why they cut him slack. Biden is doomed. Unless he comes out gay or converts to Islam while becoming a vegan yoga master he won’t make it. That’s how weird the world is right now.
I bought Biden NO at $0.79 and today it’s $0.78. I’m not nervous.
Biden’s “I’m just an average Joe” shtick will fail miserably; which I’ll enjoy. (Note: did you know Biden was first elected at age 29? Who elects a 29 year old for anything? Here’s another fun game, Biden was a Senator for 36 consecutive years, name his state. I bet ya’ can’t.)
Speaking of intersectionality: My female SCOTUS a bet is tanking:
In a sane world, when you need a new judge it’d be a 45% chance the candidate has a vagina, a 45% chance it has a dick, and a 10% chance it claims to be Lrrr of the planet Omicron Persei 8. In a sane world nobody cares about the judiciary’s genitalia. That world is long gone.
I bet at $0.52 for “the next individual nominated by President Trump to the United States Supreme Court before he leaves office shall be a woman”. I based this on the inexplicable modern madness where we try to replace a woman with a woman on the supreme court because that’s somehow not sexist. Also there was my misunderstanding that Ginsberg was mortal. The first is stupid and the second is unclear.
It’s dropped to $0.35 which means I’m blowing it. Ginsberg has already cheated death long enough for her possible demise to get wrapped up in the 2020 election and I hate being in this market.
Incidentally, I don’t like how Ginsberg’s judicial activism is a powder keg. In a well managed Republic, the highest judiciary would be musty losers that read books in isolation. Our SCOTUS has been misused as “the way to get things you can’t legislate into law”. This means every time we have to replace a judge the populace goes apeshit. From Bork becoming a verb to going through Kavanaugh’s high school year book, SCOTUS confirmations are distorted by a vacant congress dumping work on the shoulders of nine people. If Ginsberg croaks between now and January 19, 2021 everyone is going to lose their goddamn minds. I wish she’d never created the mess that surrounds her… but then again I hope to someday retire and go fishing. I didn’t make the mess or chain myself to it. When she dies the world will turn red for a month or so. I suggest building a bunker and sitting in it with a good book.
There you have it. Some wins, some losses. The press has gone apeshit all summer but my bets are all riding the slow tide of rationality. As always, don’t take financial advice from bloggers… but you already knew that.
A.C.