Munger, Mass Psychosis & Breakthrough Infections
The lies and numbers keep getting bigger and bigger...
The level of deception around the entire pandemic has been eye opening, even for the most hardcore of ostriches and zombies.
The latest scheme is a reminder of the old adage popularized by that great American philosopher Mark Twain, "There's lies, damn lies, and statistics."
Just as the Fed and BLS has created a world where inflation doesn't exist on paper (as long as you don't go to a grocery store....or anywhere else), so have the powers that be now at CDC (or their authoritarian puppet masters) changed the way a positive Covid test is measured to throttle the number of 'breakthrough infections' - ie, positive cases from individuals POST-vaccination.
The CDC very quietly just changed the CT threshold for determining a post-vax “breakthrough“ infection should now be set at <28, which is a far less sensitive standard than they set the threshold for counting a case prior to vaccines in America which was at <36-40 (a ridiculously oversensitive and inaccurate standard which led to millions of false positives).
The resulting ‘data’ is being rigged in broad daylight to make the vaccine look better and the pre-vax pandemic look worse.
It’s an appalling bastardization of 'science' and a deliberate obfuscation thrown in the face of the public. If our sycophantic media had an ounce of integrity, there would be huge pushback against this very quiet and material adjustment.
It's the equivalent of saying you're obese if you’re 5 pounds overweight and then lamenting an epidemic of obese people in the land. Magically post vaccine, move the goal lines and now you're only technically obese if you’re 50 pounds overweight. Marvel as the number of obese people suddenly vanishes or shrinks.
It’s yet another painful example of the gross corruption and manipulation of data/truth to feed a narrative.
I’ll say it again, a genuinely deadly global pandemic doesn’t require 24/7 advertising to remind you it exists. Real pandemics don’t need marketing campaigns and endless propaganda, but psychological operations do.
VAERS, the optional database reporting of adverse vaccination events still hasn't been updated with some events from January. And based on the events they are updating (which are likely vastly undercounted due to the fact that they are voluntary and require multiple witnesses), I'm guessing even VAERS - a public database will no longer be public. Remember their mandate, anything that conflicts or contradicts the narrative must be destroyed (or censored).
That’s not science, it’s ideology.
Again, if truth isn't made paramount, if it is merely an inconvenience to be tabled and subjugated in order to 'promote the greater good', then you are dancing dangerously close to all of the past authoritarian regimes, both real (Soviet, Nazi) and imagined (Orwell, Huxley) over the last century.
Here’s a clip from Marty Bent this week that I found particularly worth reading:
It seems as though the world finds itself in the midst of a mass psychosis. If you turn on a boob tube everywhere you turn leads to some form of fear and uncertainty driven by a proverbial boogeyman that could snatch you away in the middle of the night. Whether it be COVID, the climate emergency, or the growing wealth gap; many are being forced into a chemically induced reactionary state that our brains have developed over thousands of years of learning how to adapt to our environments in ways that will ensure survival. Many in the political, media, and academic class are using the power of persuasion induced by fear and uncertainty to produce certain action from the masses. We've seen this class of people use similar tactics time and time and time and time again throughout history, yet humanity still finds ways to develop a collective amnesia and fall prey to these tactics again and again.
The video linked here does an incredible job of highlighting how these tactics end up infecting societies at large and leading them to a systemic psychotic event. I highly recommend you freaks peep the 12-minute video when you find some free time.
Many things going on today are founded in delusions. The push to force society to unreliable "green" energy sources that will cause electricity prices to skyrocket and harming the poor more than anyone. Forcing children to wear masks outside to "protect" them from a virus that has proven to spare them. Forcing young healthy individuals to get an experimental vaccine despite the fact that the chances of them surviving if they get the virus hover around 99.98%. Clamoring for higher taxes to "solve inequality" despite the fact that governments have proven time and time again to be the worst capital allocators on the planet. Repeating that we need inflation to achieve price stability. These are but a few examples your Uncle Marty can think of off the top of his head. Your Uncle Marty is probably going to get bombarded with hate for uttering these truths. The ensuing bombardment is proof that there is some form of mass psychosis permeating our society because there is truth riddled throughout each of them and many don't want to accept the truth, they want to believe they haven't been caught up in a manufactured reality.
What's driving this mass psychosis? How do we turn the tide?
Well, the three "pillars" of our society (political, media and academia) that I mentioned above, they are masters of leveraging fear and uncertainty to drive a mass of people to act in certain ways. They conjure illusions built on a manipulation of data to incite fear that leads to a psychotic break induced by anxiety. We have proof of this. Below is a piece of investigative journalism that caused a CNN producer to admit that the network was leveraging data to induce fear in the masses.
There are countless examples of people in power who have leveraged their platforms to manipulate and lie to the masses. To cover up missteps. All in the name of pushing forward their agenda, which wants to leverage fear to produce particular anti-human, anti-freedom outcomes. Here are a couple more examples of the media spewing untruths to push particular narratives.
It is time to walk away from this madness, from this induced mass psychosis before we lose the chance at having a civil society. Please, for the love of God, turn off your boob tube. Shun these bad actors. Don't fall prey to their manipulative tactics. It's leading us down a terrible terrible path. Seek the Truth. Think for yourself. Don't let their thoughts dictate your actions. You'll wake up one day to discover you've turned into a monster. -MB
Couldn’t agree more with you Marty.
Quasi-SOTU
President Biden addressed the nation in his first (and if I'm a betting man....last) pseudo-State of the Union this week. While there's zero chance I would waste one minute watching this Demented Puppet do anything, much less read a speech written by his handlers from a teleprompter, nevertheless it was somewhat surprising that the Biden address was the lowest watched address in history. Yes, that's right, the man who allegedly got the most votes in election history, had viewership 75% less than any of Trump's SOTU addresses.
At least he did better than the Academy Awards, which were off 58% from just last year to their lowest level ever as well. It’s almost like most of America doesn’t give a shit about woke hypocritical muppets whose “job” consists of pretending to being someone else lecturing us on things they don’t understand and certainly don’t do themselves. The private jets/private school/private security crowd can bang the drum all the want to go green, ban guns and stop school choice. The good news is nobody is listening anymore to these zero utility, woke hypocrites. I'm just amazed it took this long.
The one thing the Biden speech should have jarred awake in your amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain responsible for sensing danger and preservation is a topic we've discussed between these pages numerous times. Namely, it's time to take an accounting, both personally and financially to see where you stand and what serves you.
Like the AA creed says, be deliberate about the people, places and things that you allow in your life. Make sure they are adding value and raising you up to a higher level. Likewise, make sure you're contributing to them. If you want to ascend and operate on a higher level, make sure you're both receiving and providing value on a higher level.
From a financial perspective, we've spoken about being deliberate with your dollars and weaponizing your spending. If you believe CRT is a metastasizing cancer, then don't spend money on firms or products that promote that ideology.
From a household finance or portfolio macro perspective, it's important to get your house in order. As I've written about frequently, we are in unprecedented waters.
During his nationwide bedtime story hour, Biden unveiled his $1.8 Trillion "Families Act.” Add the $1.9T 'Covid Relief' Bill to the ledger (of which maybe $400B is actual Covid relief and the rest a progressive orgasm of spending) and not to be outdone the $2.3T infrastructure package and suddenly in the first 90 days of this Presidency, you're at $6T+ in spending without even counting the everyday boring $3T+ normal annual deficit we run. I understand that a few trillion between friends is no big deal, but we're now in the $10 Trillion per year category for two years running.
It's become clear that not only is there no way to pay back the massive debts we've accumulated and continue to accumulate, but that fantasy finance like MMT and printer go brrr is now the official policy of the land.
It's just one reason you see the crypto sector exploding, the stock market making all time highs, commodity prices blowing out and inflation soaring.
It's an unprecedented time in that the Fed is completely boxed in, and continues to make it up as they go along. Just like the rest of us, they’re living participants in this economic experiment. If they raise rates they destroy a heavily levered economy, and if they keep rates low and continue to print, inflation continues to ramp up. As anyone with open eyes can tell you, inflation is far from 'transitory' as Fed Head Jerome Powell calls it.
Take inventory of where you stand. Pay down debts and cut spending if you can. Build a rainy day fund of at least 6-12 month of expenses. Shorten your duration and risk if you’re playing in junkland. Hedge dollar debasement with bitcoin and real assets. Rebalance your portfolio if you have outsize gains in one sector or asset. There’s plenty of other steps you can take, but for now, those should get you started.
If you bought the dip in BTC last week as I suggested, you're up almost 25% on that purchase. Not that 25% up or 30% down weekly corrections matter. Change your time preference from high to low. I wasn't in this for the move from $4K to $40K. I'm in it because BTC is the apex asset when it comes to serving as a proper hedge against the wild and craven financial and political charlatans running the show now. Whether that means we go to $250K or higher, nobody knows. When my thesis changes and the facts on the ground change, I'll reevaluate. For now, every single time Biden or Powell open their mouths, the thesis gets stronger, not weaker.
Charlie Munger and Inversion
Charlie Munger, while having absolutely no clue about Bitcoin or technology (can't blame him, he's like 147 years old), always provides some solid investment advice and mental models.
Here's a brief excerpt I hope you find useful from the Mental Models subsection of my How to Think Module in my Alpha360 course.
Some of you are probably familiar with The Munger Two Step: A simple and easy approach to decision making that prevents us from being manipulated.
It requires two edicts:
1. Understand the forces at play.
2. Understand how your subconscious might be leading you astray.
While 'forces at play' means being aware of all the angles, the leverage of the parties, the financial incentives, etc., it is the second category of the subconscious 'leading astray' that really takes serious work. Our list of cognitive biases is long and distinguished, and we have to be wary of these mental foot faults as they color our thinking and analysis.
An Additional Hack from Charlie is known as Inversion
"It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent." - Munger
Inversion is a way of thinking about what you want to achieve in reverse.
In other words, instead of only thinking forward about what you need to do to get what you want, you’d flip it in reverse and think backwards about what you don’t want to happen.
Munger's inversion principle borrows heavily from German Mathematician Carl Jacobi.
It was Jacobi who said, "Invert, always invert."
He believed that hard problems could be solved easier and quicker by expressing them in the opposite way.
Or as Munger put it, "Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance."
The same goes for investing. Opportunities are made up easier than losses. Avoiding big drawdowns thru proper money and risk management will go a lot further than swinging for home runs over the long run.
While both thinking forward and thinking backward result in some action, you can think of them as additive vs. subtractive.
Despite our best intentions, thinking forward increases the odds that you’ll cause harm (iatrogenics). Thinking backward, call it subtractive avoidance or inversion, is less likely to cause harm.
Inverting the problem won’t always solve it, but it will help you avoid trouble. You can think of it as the avoiding stupidity filter. It’s not sexy but it’s a very easy way to improve.
So what does this mean in practice?
Spending time thinking about the opposite of what you want doesn’t come naturally to most people. And yet many of the smartest people in history, have done this naturally.
Inversion helps improve understanding of the problem. By forcing you to do the work necessary to have an opinion you’re forced to consider different perspectives.
If you’re to take anything away from inversion let it be this: Spend less time trying to be brilliant and more time trying to avoid obvious stupidity. The kicker? Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.
And yet another reason why I simply the adore and adhere to the KISS principle when at all possible....
Elon on SNL
Elon Musk for some reason agreed to go on SNL May 8th. SNL, which started out as a live comedy skit show and has veered into a bad takeoff of MSNBC in recent decades (minus the humor) is already aflutter about the snowflakes in their cast having to consort with someone of Elon's sort (only the most successful, productive man in America today).
If nothing else, the Dogefather's appearance will likely be the final nail in the coffin of Dogecoin, and the greater-fool speculators pinning their champagne dreams on the hopes of Doge making a new high. I hate to burst your bubble as I did two weeks ago in this letter when I said Short Doge/Buy BTC (or INX), a pair trade that is already solidly mid-double digit green, but Elon's appearance on SNL will likely see the price of Doge make a lower high in the days BEFORE he appears (yes, that's how it works - buy the rumor, sell the news). By the time he appears on SNL, Doge will be in a correction and will likely never see prior highs again. As I mentioned above, get your house in order. Cut the garbage out of your portfolio and stick with high quality names/assets.
And as much as a Doge-hater as I am, this was kinda hilarious (and a better commentary on US financial and monetary policy than anything put out by Goldman-Morgan-Merrill in the past year).
What I’m Reading…
**Will Goldman Penis Envy crash the economy again? Taibbi at his finest breaking down between the lines what actually is happening in our levered casino using the Bill Hwang story.
**Remember the hysterics when Trump proposed the travel ban to China? Do you think we'll see the same cries of racism and xenophobia here? And remember, India is (was) an ally, and could be incredibly helpful in our strategic containment of China. It's almost like we're trying to deliberately mess that up by denying them vaccines, supplies, assistance....
**Red States Are Fighting Back Against The Reset – What Does This Mean For The Future? Brandon Smith at Alt Markets takes a crack.
**Surprise surprise. Teacher’s Unions, the CDC and Biden Administration all colluded to slow school re-openings.
** WSJ profiles legend Jordan Peterson - The Man They Couldn’t Cancel.
**Remote work makes the dream of building aligned communities closer to reality. Heading to nice places (and abandoning the progressive cities that have been destroyed) is step one. Step two is creating towns with aligned brethren from scratch.
**The Hidden Costs of the PetroDollar courtesy of Bitcoin Magazine
**NFTheft campaign made to poke holes in NFT tech, finds sleepminting undermines the core value proposition of NFTs. Personne, a ‘white hat’ hacker has found an issue with NFTs that lets him bring ownership back to himself.
**China changes its tone on Bitcoin.
**Venmo adds crypto transactions.
**In one of the greatest management moves of all time, Basecamp's CEO persuaded all of his most annoying woke employees to resign at once.
**Color me shocked. Fact-Check funded by the vaccine lobby and the same people they’re supposed to monitor. The corruption and capture is endemic.
What I’m Listening to…
Jordan Harbinger interviews the multi-faceted Rob Dyrdek
The Physical Keys to Human Resilience.
What I’m Watching…
Jocko and Jordan, nuff said. The 1:50-3:20 opening is phenomenal.
Twitter Octagon
Parting Words
A good poem for those who have found themselves wanting for courage and grace, especially in light of the events of the past year. Thank you to my friend Jon Loew for showing it to me.
“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
~ Chief Tecumseh
That’s it for this week. Thanks for taking the time to read this, I appreciate the support. If you haven’t yet, hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss an issue.
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