January 17, 2021
Colleague company, Alluriam, will offer mobile COVID vaccine next Friday, Jan. 22, in Sandy Springs. 65 and older first, and then shots for all with what is left over. RSVP Andrea
Hang 10¹ with this—Between CNN and Fox News gloom-and-doom reports, Goldman Sachs dropped insiders a honey-dripping forecast: stock market will go up 14% in 2021 and double down on big tech. Underlying, undisclosed mathematical facts that drove their decision-making:
1. More cash floating around—monetary base has expanded $1.6 trillion since February.
2. M2 measure of money² has grown 25% in 10 months.
3. Both Trump and Biden embrace Modern Monetary Theory, which says Fed can print money to finance debt with no consequence. (Delusional.)
4. This past year net interest on the US federal deficit was 1.6% of GDP versus 1.7% in 2019 and about 3% in 1980s. You got it.
Goldman’s insider story is party while you can. Math will win in the end—2022/2023. Goldman insiders are generally not the 31.1% of Americans who raided their IRAs in 2020 to stay afloat. Next field trip to Capitol.
By the way, last month, Vegas took in $560M in bets and made $56M right off top, plus fees and other charges. Best bet but not best teams for Super Bowl: Cleveland Browns vs. Green Bay Packers.
Biggest business mistakes in first month of 2021: (1) Taco Bell partnering with Beyond Meat to add plant-based protein to its menu; (2) Ferrari's full-throttle marketing to sell SUV; (3) Ford's foray back to cars with a Mustang E-Mach SUV that resembles 1972 Chevrolet Vega that had an MSRP sticker $2,091. It’s Taco Bell. Try to first get traction with bean burrito as vegan. Launch new products first with no changes on shop floor.
Only three good things have come out of “The Hotspot of the South” Columbia, SC: hot weather, Holly Hill has Sweatman’s BBQ, and Hootie & the Blowfish, who could do a 45-minute private show, or four songs, for 75 grand plus expenses.
Fast facts: Let Her Cry counts as two. Columbia is 120 miles from Atlantic or 150 from Appalachian Mtn range. Sweatman’s is mustard-based BBQ—early German settlers influence.
Things to come. Several silk-stocking law firms announced at beginning of year they will no longer be prorating—everything is rounded up to next hour. One hour + one minute = 2 hours. I don’t know, but don’t even hookers prorate?
Here is something you can do tomorrow. HBO Max was getting left behind in social media compared to rivals like Netflix. They had hired a fancy PR “to handle their social media” and it was boring predictable with no personality. They fired the firm and gave total responsibility to four interns already working there and told them to break something on social. 50x improvement at 5% of cost.
Ray Schoenbaum hired me as his business advisor—Gary N., I know you are saying it’s about time, since I sucked up to him for five years. Not true. It’s only been three. But I don’t know who is advising whom. All my bright ideas Ray has already tried at Shoney’s or Wendy’s, except for my two-ounce immunity booster added to beverages. Got legs.
If you haven't read Jack Dorsey's long-winded threads of tweets this week about his decision to ban Trump, you should. The most interesting part is his bankrolling an “open standard” for social media, one that could not be controlled by a single company like Bitcoin and a direct competitor to Twitter.
More Fla. fake IDs since Spring Break was in Daytona. Hottest ticket in town. For sale: First-class flight to Ft. Lauderdale, front of line for vaccine, five nights in Fontainebleau. No thank you.
Shots in Arm—The vaccine numbers are dismal and distribution discombobulated for the same reason we can screw up rollouts: Manage the exception and in vaccine plan that was worth more about a rich jerk breaking in line than how many shots in the arm. Better to do the honor system with a stiff penalty if you get caught rather than send vaccines to counties—send the shot to the medical delivery sources and track and encourage “shots in the arm.”
1 Surfers hang all 10 toes over the board on a two-minute ride.
2 The money supply: cash, checking deposits, and easily convertible near money. Watched closely as an indicator of money supply, future inflation, and central bank monetary policy.