When the mob turns against the rich, some of the rich put on rags and join them. CNBC: The granddaughter of Roy Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Co. with brother Walt Disney, said [last] Thursday on CNBCâs âSquawk Box…
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GET FREE ACCESS NOW!When the mob turns against the rich, some of the rich put on rags and join them. CNBC: The granddaughter of Roy Disney, co-founder of The Walt Disney Co. with brother Walt Disney, said [last] Thursday on CNBCâs âSquawk Box…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â First, the jobs report on Friday showed a big collapse in hiring. The official numbers showed 20,000 new jobs added in February, a far cry from the 170,000 that were expected. Then, the Atlanta Fed said projected…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Stocks ended last week on a low note, after a jobs report showed the smallest gains since 2017. Larry Kudlow â the presidentâs director of the National Economic Council â was on TV almost immediately explaining how…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â A Washington Post headline caught our eye on the weekend: âTrump to slash spendingâ At last! Our eyes lit up. Our pulse raced. Finally, the Great Disruptor was disrupting something that really matters. Slash spending! Cut the budget! Fire…
LA PAMPA GRANDE, ARGENTINA â Comes word that the Democrats are up to more mischief. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) was expected to introduce a new tax bill earlier this week. The senator says his bill would tax the sale of…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â The news is full of absurdities, trivialities, and just plain dumb things. But some of them are revealing. But we interrupt our dot connecting with a brief travel update. Weâre visiting a neighboring farm (6 hoursâ drive…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âItâs amazing that any of us survived at all,â said Natalio, sitting in the back seat of our truck, holding on to the passenger grip above the seat to cushion the bumps and turns, as he recalled…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Mike Pence told the crowd at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) that âwe will never be a socialist country.â What was that? A prediction? Or just political BS? Already, Americaâs medical system â 17% of the economy…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â As the quality of government declines â from Jefferson and Adams⊠to Dubya and The Donald â the observer needs a broader sense of humor. Where he used to titter over a bon mot⊠or smile wryly…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â What a week! Cohen, Kim, Powell, Xi, Putin â We could barely keep up with the excitement. But, strangely, investors were blasé⊠It didnât matter to them that the presidentâs own lawyer accused him of impeachable offenses…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We made two bold predictions, about a year ago. Today, we make another one.
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âIs he okay?â âWe donât know yet.â âBut heâs at home?â âYes, the doctor said there was nothing they could do.â Ranching, especially out here, far from hospitals⊠doctors⊠or even roads⊠is a risky business. Yesterday,…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Politics â whether local or national â is always a con game. And the con generally increases with the scale. The bigger the âwe,â the bigger the swindle.
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â With the Dow once again over 26,000, we have to wonder⊠Are stocks really in a bear market? We thought we passed the peak in October. If so, we can look forward to a long bear market…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Warning: The following may not be suitable for todayâs namby-pamby, panty-waisted, gluten-fearing audiences. Cattle Drive Yesterday was the roundup. We set out on horseback early in the morning. But the gauchos were way ahead of us. We…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Letâs see, Dear Reader, what were we talking about? We are on a walkabout⊠looking at others in order to see ourselves. And, oh yes⊠the gist of the last few daysâ conversation was that you should…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We are a-wandering⊠searching high and low⊠looking for ourselves. Yes, that is what travel is all about: trying to find out who you are.
I love to go a-wandering along the mountain track. And as I go, I love to sing, my knapsack on my back. Val-deri, val-dera, val-deri, val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. â âThe Happy Wandererâ SALTA, ARGENTINA â Come with us, Dear Reader⊠We are…
Editorâs Note: Today, something a bit different for Diary readers. Recently, Bill attended an invitation-only meeting at our nationâs capital. Dan Denning, Billâs right-hand man on The Bill Bonner Letter, was also in attendance. The stated purpose: Discuss the coming financial crisis and how…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
PARIS â We begin with kvetches. Complaints. Grumbles. From dear readers⊠Anyone who opposes Trump is anti-American. â G.M. Listen, you are smart enough to know that if you keep banging the president, a lot of us are leaving. You…
PARIS â We live in an Era of Busted Dreams (EBD). Yesterday, we looked at one of them â the banged-up hope that Donald J. Trump might turn things around. It seems more and more unlikely. First, because he doesnât…
PARIS â This week, the threads come together⊠the lines converge⊠the dots connect⊠The State of the Union⊠The Republicans and Democrats⊠âUs vs. Themâ⊠Our own wobbly âusâ⊠âŠand the coming financial catastrophe.
A physician cannot heal the sick if he is ignorant of the causes of certain conditions of the body, nor can a statesman help his fellow citizens if he cannot follow how, why or by what process each event had…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â We warned readers. This week would require a little extra effort. We are challenging one of our most deeply held instincts â the drive to take sides. As expected, many readers sided against your editor yesterday. They were…
Itâs a wonder youâve managed to keep your business going with such a fervent Republican bias. Apparently, you donât want to have Democrats among your members. Iâve just started and already Iâm beginning to question why I bothered. I couldnât…
Well I hope that I donât fall in love with you âCause falling in love just makes me blue Well, the music plays and you display your heart for me to see I had a beer and now I hear…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â We left the warm and friendly west coast of Central America on Friday. Now, we are on the south coast of Ireland. Still friendly, but less warm. We are here to check on Home Sweet Home⊠our…
RANCHO SANTANA â Last week went by so fast! Stocks got a big boost on Wednesday, on news of an impending trade deal with China. Then too, Jerome Powell announced that if anything was going to ruin the party on…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â We cannot remember, understand, or keep track of complicated investment tactics. We have to keep it simple. In our Grand Strategic Plan, we buy stocks when they are cheap relative to gold; when they are not…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â We got here yesterday, after the usual travel indignities. What we like about Olâ Billy, our daughterâs blind dog, is the way he bears his afflictions with grace, which is the best any of us can…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â Stocks got off to a rough start on Monday. Heavy equipment maker Caterpillar reported punk numbers; investors took it as a sign that the world economy is slowing. Thatâs our guess too. Night Is Day After…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â Americans seem to be getting on board the âtax the richâ train faster than they can sell tickets for it. We thought it would take at least a couple of years⊠and a recession⊠to bring…
BALTIMORE â We are living in an Era of Busted Dreams. The Bolivarian Revolution is just one of them. When we left you last week, it looked like the government of Venezuela was in a fight for its life. The…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â âSoldiers revoltâŠâ âMillions on verge of starvationâŠâ âBiggest mass exodus in history of the AmericasâŠâ What a glorious show! Right before our eyes⊠a real-life, real-time experiment⊠âŠall the conceits⊠the pretensions⊠the balderdash⊠the claptrap⊠âŠall…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â It pays to be one of the elite. Not only do you ride in first class and live in a better zip code, you get richer, too. Bloomberg is on the story: David Rubenstein has doubled his…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â We spent the weekend as a seeing eye human. Our daughter asked us to dog-sit. What are parents for? And the dog in question, a golden retriever, had gone blind. Olâ Billy would take a little extra…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â The intellectuals are laying the groundwork. That is, theyâre digging the foundations for an extraordinary structure â a tower of debt higher than any ever seen in world history. The primary architect? Paul Krugman? Jerome Powell? Joseph…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â We are on our way to the future. Not that we know what will happen, but weâve been looking at the broad patterns of history. Most likely, they will repeat themselves⊠and surprise everyone. Over the last…
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. â H.L. Mencken BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â This week, the French are taking the democracy flimflam to new levels. Theyâre holding…
Credo quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd). â Tertullian You canât make this stuff up. â Unknown BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Stocks went nowhere on Monday. Congress and the White House didnât get anywhere, either, in their attempts to…
For those who live inside a myth, it seems a self-evident fact. â John Gray BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â We began the weekend in hushed anticipation of an approaching snowstorm. All week long, the weathermen had been warning us weâd get…
BALTIMORE â The Donald goes to âThe Wallâ and the debate goes on. POTUS visited Americaâs southern border towns, trying to drum up support for his long-promised border wall. Meanwhile, as we saw last week, so far, weâre losing ground…
BALTIMORE â In his talks with Democrat leaders on Wednesday, POTUS apparently lost his temper. He slammed his hand down on the table and walked out. The subject was money â $5.7 billion, to be precise â the money requested…
BALTIMORE â A big, new danger appeared in Congress this month: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the newest representative of New Yorkâs 14th district. At 29, she is the youngest woman ever elected to Congress; she will doubtless be there for decades to…
BALTIMORE â Stocks advanced a little on Monday. Investors were said to be hopeful about the upcoming trade talks with the Chinese. With a little luck, President Trump will talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the ongoing trade war….
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Wow⊠another big up day for the Dow on Friday. The index had climbed 747 points, or 3.3%, by the time the closing bell rang. Analysts credited a strong jobs market and a weak Fed. The Bureau…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â The stock market may have resumed its selloff sooner than we expected. The Dow fell 660 points on Thursday after Apple announced weak sales â mostly in China. Hereâs Bloomberg: The S&P 500 Index tumbled 2.5 percent…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â We looked back yesterday. Today, we will look ahead. As we will see, the past casts its shadow over the future. Bloomberg is on the case: Key Fed Yield Gauge Points to Rate Cuts for First Time…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â On Tuesday, we awoke to the sound of sirens. After a week at the family farm, we had come back to the city for New Yearâs Eve. But hardly had the new year begun when the echoes…
Editorâs Note: Happy New Year from Bill Bonner and the team at Bonner & Partners. A new year is here. We are happy to have you on board. Expect to continue to receive Billâs trademark wit and insights straight to…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Well, we were wrong. We figured the Fed would pause now. Instead, it went ahead with its rate hike and suggested it would pause in 2019. This was widely expected by the markets, if not by us….
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â The last leaves are falling from the trees. And the last days of December are counting down, like the quiet moments before an execution. Friday, the Dow fell nearly another 500 points. From Bloomberg: Investors rushed out…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â Weâre down in Florida to meet a new grandchild. Itâs a different world down here â different from Ireland, Maryland, France, Argentina⊠our usual haunts. Florida is flat. And barely above sea level. If the North…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â First, Bloomberg reports that: U.S. government debt is on track this year to rise at the fastest pace since 2012, as a stronger economy fails to keep pace with the wave of red ink thatâs rising…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â A fight with the Fed one week. A trade war with China the next. And now, itâs a war with the Democrats. Donald J. Trump knows how to keep the cameras rolling. From Bloomberg: President Donald Trump…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Mondayâs trading was inconclusive, like an argument between a husband and wife that has been going on for years. Sellers opened with an attack that sent the Dow down 500 points. Buyers defended themselves⊠forcing the Dow…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Whatever good was done by the Trump/Xi trade war truce in Buenos Aires was likely undone by what was done in Vancouver Airport earlier this month. Bogeyman Program The U.S. stock market warmed to the idea of…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Trading continued on Thursday⊠with stocks swinging lustily from tree to tree like drunken monkeys. When the closing bell finally sounded, the Dow was down just 79 points. The monkeys were greatly relieved. And on Friday, the…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
BALTIMORE â Well, it didnât take investors long⊠In less than 24 hours, they figured out that the trade war was fake and the âincredibleâ deal between President T. and the Chinese at the G20 summit was fake, too. JPMorgan…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â The historic powwow at the G20 in Buenos Aires last weekend could turn out to produce some positive results. At least the Chinese and the Americans are thrashing around. Maybe theyâll knock down a trade barrier or…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â The show went on! And, as we predicted, The Donald claimed victory⊠and stocks went up. When we left you previously, Mr. Trump was on Air Force One. He was on his way to the G20 in…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
BALTIMORE â Weâve made two bold predictions in these Diaries. First, that the Fed will never make good on its promise to ânormalizeâ interest rates. Second, that Donald J. Trump will not follow through on his threats of a trade…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â The stock market continued with a modest bounce on Tuesday⊠but Americaâs automotive giant, General Motors, sank into the mud. The proximate cause was a tweet by President T., who threatened to remove federal subsidies to GMâs…
BALTIMORE â The stock market got a healthy bounce on Monday. Where it goes from here is anyoneâs guess. But you donât have to guess. Because you donât make money in the stock market from short-term moves. Youâll guess wrong…
BALTIMORE â We spent a delightful, long Thanksgiving weekend in the country, entertaining children and grandchildren. Not once did we open our laptop computer or look at the headlines. But now, it is another workweek, and weâre back on the…
By Bill Bonner November 22, 2018 Editorâs Note: As Bill writes his daily articles from the US, this post has been published a day behind. For Thanksgiving, Bill shares some little-known details around the American holiday. Dour Puritans⊠Thanksgiving during the Civil War⊅
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Today will be an interesting day. After falling the last two days, stocks should bounce. And the futures market says they will. But now, we will see what the speculators are really thinking. Will they want to…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Mr. Market must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed on Monday. CNBC reports: The Dow fell 395 points to 25,017. The S&P 500 dropped 1.7 percent to 2,690 as the technology sector pulled…
Thy love afar is spite at home. â Ralph Waldo Emerson BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Another week. This one should be slow⊠with many people off for Thanksgiving. But you never know. The old-timers say the days before a holiday are…
DUBLIN â Weâre in Dublin⊠en route to the USA for the holidays. Dublin is a vibrant, lively city. Not especially elegant, unlike Paris⊠and not especially dynamic, unlike London⊠Nor is it especially huge and imposing, like New York…
What Iâve learned at the Federal Reserve is a new language which is called âFed speak.â You soon learn to mumble with great incoherence. â Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan DUBLIN â Alan Greenspan is alive and well. Aged…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â We spent the last two days working on our barn. The gable ends had fallen down â probably a half century ago, or more â and needed to be replaced. We were eager to get the job…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â âThe whole thing is a giant fraud,â was perhaps too much for an unprepared audience to take on. Your editor, in trying to explain why the U.S. money is âfake,â had perhaps bitten off more than he…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â The muffled bells began tolling at precisely 11 oâclock on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year. And then, the poppies began to fall. St. Caniceâs Cathedral in Kilkenny was marking the end of…
I used to try to get things done by saying âplease.â Now, I dynamite âem out of my path. Former senator from Louisiana, Huey Long YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Friday morning, an Associated Press headline caught our eye. âConservatives agitate for…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Wednesday was a big day for the U.S. stock market. October was forgiven. And forgotten. All is well, because the president and the new Democrat majority in the House are going to work together⊠âŠto rip off…
ARDMORE, IRELAND â On Tuesday, the voters spoke. The media â eager to attract eyeballs for their paid advertisers â spun the story as if it were the most important thing to happen since Adam ate the apple. But what…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
Fast Company reports: Internet freedom is in decline across much of the globe as various governments crack down on dissent and so-called fake news, according to an annual report from Freedom House, a nonprofit that receives much of its funding…
POITOU, FRANCE â What America most lacks is cynicism. People listen to a news conference without laughing. They read the headlines without even guffawing. They believe their âwarriorsâ are protecting them abroad. At home, they think their elected officials have…
November 1, 2018 I once was what you are, and what I am, you also will be. â Memento mori epitaph from The Holy Trinity, a fresco by Masaccio POITOU, FRANCE â We came back to France to celebrate the…
My object in living is to unite My avocation and my vocation As my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really…
October 30, 2018 YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Back in Ireland for a few days, we take up an agreeable routine. We read and write in the morning. In the afternoon, we lay stone, closing the open gable ends of our old…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â A wonderfully fraudulent confrontation is setting up⊠On one side is Donald J. Trump, pretending that he has âalready made America great againâ and blaming the Fed for ruining his beautiful work. He wants the Fed to…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â As expected, the Dow bounced back last Thursday. The index was up 400 points. But this morning opened with another downdraft. Maybe the bubble and the pin have found each other. Maybe they havenât. TBD⊠Fall Guy…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â The Dow fell another 600 points on Wednesday. Look for a rebound. But hereâs a helpful trading hint: Donât buy the dip. Bloomberg tells us why the pros are getting out: Stocks in the S&P 500 have…
DUBLIN â Trading on Wall Street began on Tuesday with a thud. Earnings were reported. And the Street was not happy. The Dow sold off by 500 points, recovering some of the loss during the course of the day. More…
WATERFORD, IRELAND â First, a news flash: Donald Trump is proposing another tax cut. âHuh?â wondered Washington and the media. âHow are we going to pay for government? The deficit is already out of control.â âThe Donald works in mysterious…
WATERFORD, IRELAND â Alleluia! We join with all Americans today in breathing a sigh of relief; justice is being done. The bad guys are being hunted down. Our pristine democracy â in its pure white, unblemished, unsullied, and unbelievable gown…
Editorâs Note: Bill is currently in Bermuda, speaking before readers attending the Legacy Investment Summit. In lieu of our usual article, below excerpt from his speech. In it, Bill reveals why, even in a world of seemingly infinite amounts of fake money…
HAMILTON, BERMUDA â Hmmm⊠The plot thickens. The Trump team came into office with what might have been a historic opportunity to drain the Swamp and take the feds down a peg. Mr. Trump even said he would eliminate the…
Time alone â oh, time will tell You think you are in heaven, but you living in hell â âTime Will Tell,â Bob Marley HAMILTON, BERMUDA â Where are we? Heaven or Hell? Bermuda feels like Heaven. The sea is…
HAMILTON, BERMUDA â Stocks rattled around on Monday; investors didnât know where they wanted to go⊠so they went mostly nowhere. We turn to the newspapers⊠Invitation to Claptrap Opening a newspaper is always an invitation to claptrap. The New…
Where the remote Bermudas ride In thâ oceanâs bosom unespyâd, From a small boat, that rowâd along, The listâning winds receivâd this song. What should we do but sing his praise That led us through the watâry maze Unto an…
BERLIN â Weâve looked at the past: $20 trillion added to the worldâs monetary base over the last 20 years⊠$250 trillion of debt worldwide⊠U.S. stocks pushed to record highs⊠Weâve looked at the present: sales, pre-tax earnings, and…
BERLIN â Yesterday, we saw the past, the present, and the future⊠all stumbling over one another. On the march were the mistakes of the past 20 years â funded by trillions in fake money flushed into the markets by…
Berlin is the testicle of the West. When I want the West to scream, I squeeze on Berlin. â Nikita Khrushchev BERLIN â âYouâd think they would have learned something. They lived with communism for 45 years. They should know…
BERLIN â Berlin is not a particularly attractive city â at least, not from our hotel room near the famous avenue, Unter den Linden. The buildings are all monumental, graceless, and blockish. For years, the city has attracted young people…
BERLIN â Almost everyone is disgusted by the manner in which now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed. But here at the Diary, we always look on the bright side, even when itâs pitch black. Disgrace and Revulsion The feelings of disgrace…
I was asked at last weekâs news conference whether these forecasts are too good to be true â a reasonable question. â Fed Chairman Jerome Powell BUENOS AIRES â Last Thursday, while we were out of touch⊠the markets grew…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We pick up where we left off yesterday. The big winner from the new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) deal, now called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), is the Swamp. Hereâs Jeffrey J. Schott of the Peterson…
You shouldnât pick up hitchhikers. I picked up one the other day, and he immediately said, âHow do you know Iâm not a serial killer?â I replied, âDo you know the odds of having two serial killers in the same…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Kavanaugh⊠Kavanaugh⊠Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh in the morning. Kavanaugh in the evening. Kavanaugh at supper time. Itâs Kavanaugh 24/7. And so the mud wrestling â wretched, tawdry, and disgraceful â continues. But today, we turn away⊠back to…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â What was wrong with the thousands of generations that came before us? All their antique courtship rituals⊠sitting on the front porch, chaperones, and pitching woo. They must have been really stupid! Because all it took was…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Thursday morning, the yard crew were putting up a stake on the Capitol lawn and laying around it a supply of tinder. It was to be a small fire⊠hot and slow. Brett Kavanaugh was duly tied…
MOLINOS, ARGENTINA â âNever interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake,â said Napoleon. In the 1970s, two of Americaâs biggest rivals were making big mistakes. Russia had been operating a centrally planned economy since the 1920s. China took…
BUENOS AIRES â Today, we woke up in Buenos Aires with a disagreeable headache⊠and a depressing hypothesis: First, it doesnât matter whether Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court or not; one more Deep State toad wonât make any…
FRANKFURT, GERMANY â Time is money. Money is time. Get over it. We lost a lot of time yesterday. We were meant to fly to Buenos Aires from Frankfurt. But things often go wrong⊠Our flight from Dublin was late,…
FRANKFURT, GERMANY â Itâs hard to know where to start. We connect the dots⊠but the dots just get wackier. The stock market â already outrageously overpriced â goes higher! The deficit â already way out of control â just…
And itâs time, time, time And itâs time, time, time That you love. And itâs time, time, time. â âTime,â Tom Waits YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Yes, itâs time that you always run out of. You wish youâd spent more time…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Here at the Diary, we try to connect the dots. Today, we connect some big ones⊠Fire and Brimstone The papers are full of fire and brimstone concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh⊠and what happened in…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Yesterday, we looked at what the U.S. republic has become: a vast swamp of idlers, chislers, cronies, and insiders⊠all angling for the meat in someone elseâs burger. Politicians and public servants no longer retire to their…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Today, we take a look at the Swamp. Slimy, slippery, slithery â the Swamp stretches out from the banks of the Potomac and beyond. It is home to the government, of course, but also to whole industries⊅
Dear shadows, now you know it all, All the folly of a fight With a common wrong or right. The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time; â âIn Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz,â William Butler…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;…
The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me Since…
DUBLIN â We turned on the news this morning⊠What we discovered was a very delighted young man, explaining why the economy is running red-hot. The number of new job offers, he said, is greater than the number of new…
CHERBOURG, FRANCE â Weâre on the ferry that will take us to Ireland. It is foggy outside. We can see nothing. This is just the beginning of a long trip that will take us to South America (where we get…
CHERBOURG, FRANCE â Yesterday, on our way to the Cherbourg ferry, we stopped in at a local farm fair in Normandy. On display were the best cows in the region, along with a demonstration of old farming equipment. A batteuse…
PARIS â Youâll recall that Fed policy always consists of the same three mistakes⊠1) Keeping interest rates too low for too long, resulting in too much debt; 2) Raising interest rates to try to gently deflate the debt bubble;…
See me, feel me Touch me, heal me â âSee Me, Feel Me,â The Who PARIS â Now, we come to the bang! But first, letâs check the headlines⊠Oh my⊠Thereâs somebody in the White House casting doubt on…
PARIS â Weâre having breakfast on the Ăle Saint-Louis in Paris⊠the first stop on a long trip. First, it will take us to Normandy, then via the ferry to Ireland⊠thence to Argentina, Germany, and Bermuda⊠before returning to…
POITOU, FRANCE â The last days of summer are dwindling down⊠to a precious few. It is the best time of year here in France. The sun has cooled. The days are shorter; the nights are still and clear. The…
POITOU, FRANCE â So passeth the last days of summer⊠The sun sinks lower every day. We put things away. We close the shutters. And the cool night drafts seep in through the cracks. Stones Whisper Yesterday, we went to…
POITOU, FRANCE â Yesterdayâs headline news, from Reuters: U.S. economic growth was a bit stronger than initially thought in the second quarter, notching its best performance in nearly four years, as businesses boosted spending on software and imports declined. Gross…
POITOU, FRANCE â The U.S. economy⊠all $20 trillion of it⊠explained in a single tweet (any similarity between this and one you might get from the president of the United States of America is pure coincidence): Just look at…
POITOU, FRANCE â On Monday, the Nasdaq set a new record. So did the S&P 500⊠From CNBC: Stocks ended sharply higher Monday as the United States and Mexico closed a new trade deal. Investors also assessed reassuring comments from…
Trouble ahead, Lady in red Take my advice youâd be better off dead Switchmanâs sleeping, train hundred and two is On the wrong track and headed for you â âCasey Jones,â Grateful Dead POITOU, FRANCE â And so⊠the trains…
POITOU, FRANCE â Coming up the tracks from Washington⊠and getting up steam after the news of the last couple of days⊠is the olâ Deep State Cannonball. Headed in the opposite direction is the most over-aged, overpriced, and overhyped…
POITOU, FRANCE â This just in⊠The man who made America great again in record time â only 18 months â with unemployment at half-century lows and stocks at all-time highs⊠now says he is ânot thrilledâ about the Fedâs…
PARIS â We came up to Paris to say goodbye to a daughter⊠who is headed back to the U.S. She chose La Closerie des Lilas for dinner, the restaurant made famous as a Hemingway hangout. And there, in front…
POITOU, FRANCE â Well that was easy! After less than two years in office, Trump says itâs âmission accomplished.â A presidential tweet: I have already MADE America Great Again, just look at the markets, jobs, military â setting records, and…
POITOU, FRANCE â Whoa! Whatâs this? The Dow popped up nearly 400 points last Thursday. On Friday just 4% off its all-time high of 26,616, reached on January 26 of this year. And you know what that means. Markets are…
POITOU, FRANCE â Coming into focus is a fuller picture of the worldwide financial crisis. This week, we began looking at Turkey, but only because Donald Trump sent an extraordinary tweet last Friday. In it, the president broke with tradition…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
POITOU, FRANCE â We led off yesterday with the Turkey story⊠âŠand Fridayâs tweet from Donald J. Trump: I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira,…
POITOU, FRANCE â âDo you follow what is going on in Turkey? That guy is a real moronâŠâ Thus began a conversation at a party we attended Sunday night. Reuters provided some background: The Turkish lira has long been falling…
POITOU, FRANCE â Here at the Diary, we walk on the sunny side of the street, even at night. So today, we look at the bright side of bad news.
POITOU, FRANCE â The delusional, rock âem-sock âem, baroque news just keeps coming. We laugh readily; but even we are having a hard time keeping up. American Grifters Forbes claims that our Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, may be âone…
POITOU, FRANCE â In a weekend tweet, the president of the United States of America made a stock market forecast. He said that prices will go up âdramaticallyâ as he brings his Art of the Deal methods to international trade…
Time will prove that the US eventually makes a fool of itself. â Peopleâs Daily, official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party POITOU, FRANCE â Weâve made two bold, perhaps reckless, predictions. As to one of them, weâre beginning to…
POITOU, FRANCE â We were taken aback on Friday by the ferocity of our dear readersâ comments. What were they so sore about? we wondered.
POITOU, FRANCE â Last week, we guessed that The Donald would back down on his threat to impose a 25% tariff on Chinese goods coming into the U.S. Not because it would be a $50 billion tax on his own…
NORMANDY, FRANCE â Oh boy⊠the plot thickens. The New York Times reports: President Trump escalated his trade war with China on Wednesday, ordering his administration to consider more than doubling proposed tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods…
ON THE HIGH SEAS â Yes, we are at sea⊠rounding England from Ireland, on our way to Cherbourg, France. Weâre doing far more back-and-forth traveling this year than we would like. With a little luck, though, weâll be able…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â As a republic matures, it slides down-market⊠The rails are silently greased by the cronies and grifters who control policy measures for their own benefit⊠while the rabble rallies to campaign slogans and admires TV idols. The…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â âThe real question is whether the new dictatorship is one of the right or the left. I think the left is the bigger danger.â A friend, who prefers to remain anonymous, had asked us to imagine what…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Last Thursday, as predicted by after-hours trading, Facebook lost $122 billion in market value, more than the GDP of 145 of the worldâs economies. The Zuck alone lost nearly as much as Icelandâs annual GDP. USA Today…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why….
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â What a spectacular summer! People may be frying eggs on the sidewalks of Algiers and fighting forest fires in Sweden, but here in Ireland, the heatwave is a delight. Farmers are grousing, of course, but we are…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â The markets seemed to hold their breath⊠still, like dead leaves before a hurricane. The Dow barely moved on Monday. Jim Cramer, of TVâs Mad Money, says weâre waiting to see if the EU âcavesâ in Donald…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Itâs official. The White House says its tax cut didnât pan out the way it expected. Instead of a projected deficit of $526 billion in 2019, the Office of Management and Budget now estimates Trumpâs proposed budget…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â The show is Donald Trump. And it plays to sold-out audiences, 24/7. Meanwhile, in the back of the crowd, the Deep State goes about its work â picking pockets. The political world thus unchanged⊠we move back…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â We spat on our hands and attacked a barn roof yesterday. The stone building has been abandoned for at least 100 years. Nobody locally can recall it ever being used. Many didnât even know it was there….
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â We left off yesterday with a provocative question: Has Trump really gone to war with the Deep State? Or was he just mouthing off in Helsinki⊠off message⊠and out of control? There are a couple more…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â On Monday, the worldâs press once again erupted in outrage. The hacks were upset⊠appalled⊠indignant. Of course, it was The Donald that set it off. But this time, they charged him not with being a boor…
LONDON â London is abuzz. Aflame. Doubled up in laughter. Shrieking in outrage. The U.S. president came. He saw. He went bonkers.
POITOU, FRANCE â Today, we will look at a handful of dots. Youâll have to connect them yourself.
POITOU, FRANCE â President Trump escalated the trade war on Wednesday, making a kamikaze attack on a vast armada of Chinese imports â $200 billion in total â headed for California. The Chinese say they will retaliate.
NORMANDY, FRANCE â Clowns to the left of us⊠jokers to the right â what a hoot it is to watch them jump and howl. Trade barriers⊠LGBT bathroom policies⊠the Dow⊠Elizabeth Warren⊠Rudolph Giuliani⊠unemployment⊠QT [quantitative tightening]⊅
POITOU, FRANCE â Investors chose to look at the half-full part of the glass on Monday. Our suggestion: They should look more closely.
NORMANDY, FRANCE â âIâd much rather do a funeral than a marriage,â says a brother-in-law, a Baptist minister. âIâve never seen a funeral fail.â
POITOU, FRANCE â Last week was a slow week, interrupted by the Fourth of July holiday. Stocks bounced around a bit, going nowhere special. Even the Trump Show had been relatively calm, with no new ratings boosts. Rumors of a…
POITOU, FRANCE â Arnold at West Point⊠Sherman at Atlanta⊠Powell at the UN⊠We Americans remembered our heroes on Wednesday. And here at the Diaryâs headquarters in rural France, we recalled one of the greatest of them allâŠ
The metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly is one of the most remarkable things in nature. The animal apparently digests itself, using enzymes triggered by hormones. Then, from the pupa, a whole new animal develops â one with wings….
PARIS â We spend a lot of time overseas â mostly in Europe and South America. This is both good and bad. On the good side, the distance helps give us more â or fresh â perspective. We see how…
PARIS â We came up to Paris on Sunday night for a meeting⊠and to celebrate a wedding anniversary. âDoesnât Paris make you feel young again?â asked the person with whom we were recalling 34 years of married life, much…
POITOU, FRANCE â No big movement in the stock market on Thursday. In politics, the Senate passed an $800 billion boondoggle for farmers. The feds promised to cover crop insurance costs and pay farmers if their harvests come in short….
POITOU, FRANCE â The corks popped Wednesday night all over the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Architects anticipated grander and gaudier new assignments. Lawyers eyed their new vacation homes on the Delaware coast. The movers and shakers celebrated another victory⊠âŠand…
Trade wars are good, and easy to win. â Donald J. Trump POITOU, FRANCE â âWar is the health of the [Deep] state,â said 19th century writer Randolph Bourne. Of course, war is also very costly and harmful to individuals….
POITOU, FRANCE â âTrade fears hit stocks,â began this morningâs typical Wall Street report. Yesterday, we promised not to mention trade again. But we had our fingers crossed! Besides, through no fault of our own, it popped back into the…
The rich manâs wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own conceit. â Proverbs 18:11 POITOU, FRANCE â We are following up on yesterdayâs discussion by connecting a few final dots. Then, we promise we…
The rich manâs wealth is his strong city, and as a high wall in his own conceit. â Proverbs 18:11 POITOU, FRANCE â âRender unto Caesarâ is how we began Fridayâs note. Today, we dig deeper to answer a Dear…
Thursday, June 21, 2018: The longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. POITOU, FRANCE â âRender unto Caesar that which is Caesarâsâ is a line from Jesus of Nazareth. Typically clever, and almost evasive, it left open the…
POITOU, FRANCE â On Tuesday, when the Chinese woke up and heard The Donald threatening to impose an import tax on Chinese-made goods, they practically fell out of bed. Thereâs a 10% daily circuit-breaker limit in the Chinese stock market….
Youâre a cowardly, leftist moron, to say the least. â Comment from a Dear Reader, received yesterday POITOU, FRANCE â Over the weekend, we drove down to the South of France for a birthday party. It was in the Tarn…
POITOU, FRANCE â We wait for the world to fall apart. The Dow is still more than 1,000 points below its high; so we presume the primary trend is down. Treasury yields â on the 10-year note â are near…
POITOU, FRANCE â On Thursday came word that the European Central Bank followed through, just like the Fed. After $2.7 trillion in âstimulus,â it has officially taken its foot off the pedal. No more bond purchases by the end of…
POITOU, FRANCE â Well, it looks like we were wrong about everything. Everything. The Fed. Donald J. Trump. The stock market. The economy. Even the weather. Yesterday, we looked at the sky and forecast rain. Instead, the sun came out….
POITOU, FRANCE â What a rollicking good time weâve had these past few days. The G7⊠the North Korean summit⊠Canadaâs âbackstabberâ chief⊠trade wars⊠U.S. midterm elections⊠Did any generation before us enjoy so much cheap entertainment? Place in…
POITOU, FRANCE â You can divide the worldâs people â all its bumblers, fumblers, fools, and saints â into two categories. There are the decent people who go about their business trying to improve their lives by honest toil, invention,…
PARIS â Last week, it was war with Europe. This week, itâs bombs over Toronto. Plans are being drawn up for two walls. One across the southern border to keep Mexicans out. And one across the 49th parallel to keep…
All earthly empires die. Is this the end? Only God knows. â St. Augustine, 413 AD POITOU, FRANCE â Last Thursday, in advance of the G7 pow-wow at the weekend, Donald Trump tweeted his position on trade: If we charge…
Vernacular:Â A vernacular, or vernacular language, is the language or variety of a language used in everyday life by the common people of a specific population. It is distinguished from a standard, national, or literary language or a lingua franca, used…
I think the greatest threat domestically to the country is this $21 trillion debt hanging over the cloud of America and future generations. â Outgoing Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz on CNBC POITOU, FRANCE â Uh oh. The âsocial welfareâ systems…
PARIS â Well, itâs all settled. This is the greatest economy that the world has ever seen. The president said so himself on Twitter over the weekend: Tax CUTS are working. America is WINNING BIG under President Trump! The Nasdaq hit a new record…
PARIS â âTrump declares war on Europe,â says yesterdayâs headline in Le Monde. We came over on the ferry from Southern Ireland. It takes longer than flying. But we have our car here, which makes it easier to get around â…
The show is Trump, and it is sold-out performances everywhere. â Donald J. Trump, Playboy magazine, 1990 YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Commentators and political analysts have consistently misread our president. They try to understand him using traditional political categories. Is he a conservative…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â When youâve got a chainsaw, you cut down a tree. And when youâve got control of monetary and fiscal policy⊠you go to work on an economy. In both cases, you leave them in pieces.
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â What a beautiful time⊠to be in Ireland! In the evening, the sun lingers in the sky, lighting up the millions of snowflake-like willow fluff. Like cattails, they waft around on the breeze, so light that they…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â You may be wondering what our discussion last week of âBad Guyâ Theory had to do with our beat⊠money. We wondered, too. We used the Memorial Day holiday to figure it out. So let us begin by peeking…
You already know about our ranch in Argentina. As we explained last year, it is not very productive or practical. It is too far, too high, and too dry. It is marginal in almost every way. The cows are too…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Nothing much to report from the markets⊠So we gird our loins, put on our armor, and go into battle. Weâre anticipating a fight.
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â The Dow turned down a bit on Tuesday. The 10-year Treasury yield held at 3.07%. As long as neither revisits its recent top and bottom, respectively, we presume the âprimary trendâ for both the bond market and…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â The Dow jumped over 25,000 on Monday. But unless (and until) it can beat the January top of 26,616, we will presume that the primary trend, which we detailed previously, is down. And since primary trends tend to…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â The press was abuzz last weekend with comments on the killings in Gaza. We do not normally take an interest in the affairs of the region. Itâs none of our business⊠thereâs nothing we can do anything…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Our screen last Friday was showing the 10-year U.S. Treasury Note with a yield of 3.11% â further evidence that the credit cycle has turned. Everything else is noise. Primary Trend We got the idea from the…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â It is a typical May day here in Ireland. The temperature is 48 degrees this morning. It is cloudy and gray. We are staying over here in Youghal⊠pronounced âyawlâ⊠so that we can keep up with…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â First, we note that the 10-year T-note yield is holding above 3%. It is on its way to 4%, we think, and will herald the final destruction of the great, fake boom of 2009â2018. Meanwhile⊠Death by…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â On Monday, a small landmark was passed. A tweet yesterday morning: For the first time since the financial crisis, the 3-month Treasury yield has surpassed the yield on the S&P 500. Small investors look for big, risky…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â Why was Donald Trump elected? What kind of accident was this? The liberal intelligentsia has been trying to come up with an answer â not just any answer, but one that accomplishes two very important purposes. It…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â Last week was a good week for stocks⊠and a good week for the Deep State. On Wall Street, it almost seemed like the good olâ days, as the Dow rose to a seven-week high and inflation…
It is more proper that law should govern than any one of the citizens. â Aristotle, Politics, Book III By Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners PORTLAW, IRELAND â Yesterday, we took a look at what was happening in Argentina. A shorthand…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â âNow thatâs a rate hike!â Our colleague James Wells sent a report from The New York Times. It told us that the central bank of Argentina wasnât fooling around. Instead of pussyfooting with 0.25% per quarter rate hikes…
DUBLIN â Myths, myths, myths⊠Bamboozles⊠claptrap⊠bummmph⊠clownish gods⊠jackass deities! We are surrounded⊠outnumbered⊠hopelessly outgunned. In short, the situation is excellent. We will attack! Hesitating⊠we glance around. Our beat here is money; we donât want to…
DUBLIN â Last week ended on a high note: âStocks rally after jobless rate sinks to 3.9%,â said a headline at Bloomberg on Friday. âJobless Rate at 17-Year Low,â added The Wall Street Journal front-page on Saturday. âSolid,â was how analysts described…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â Not much to report on from the financial world. Nothing much happening. But when the news restarts, we predict it will be bad. In the meantimeâŠ
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from hell⊠Blue skies from pain â Pink Floyd, âWish You Were Hereâ PORTLAW, IRELAND â We left off yesterday with the biggest question in philosophy hanging from our lips like a cold cigarette⊅
You must remember this. A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is still a sigh. The fundamental things apply As time goes by. â Dooley Wilson, âAs Time Goes Byâ PORTLAW, IRELAND â Poor Florence Newton. The young woman…
OVER A BAR, IN YOUGHAL, IRELAND â âHere in Ireland, it is bad luck to cut down a holly tree,â says our weekend helper, Ronan. âOh⊠and I donât think your wife would like to know about that one, either.â…
Δጎ ÏÎčÏ Îżáœ Îž ÎλΔÎč áŒÏγΏζΔÏΞαÎč ΌηΎáœČ áŒÏΞÎč ÎÏÏ eĂ tis ou thĂ©lei ergĂĄzesthai mÄdĂš esthiĂ©tĆ (He who does not work, neither shall he eat.) â Attributed to St. Paul BARCELONA â Errata: This will come as a shock to…
BARCELONA â We left off yesterday trying to connect the dots. Abandon traditional forms, rules, and customs, we noticed⊠and you are most likely on your way to disaster. Most âinnovativeâ architecture, for example, is usually ugly and often dysfunctional….
BARCELONA â The Dow stumbled on Tuesday, ending down some 425 points. Nothing serious. More importantly, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note has crept up towards 3% this week, briefly hitting the milestone on Tuesday. Our research department is…
BARCELONA â The streets were crowded on Monday night. On the main ramblas, so many people were strolling about that we could barely cross the intersection. Many of the women held a single red rose. It was the Day of Roses…
BARCELONA â This just in⊠from our man in Argentina⊠I stopped in Cafayate for lunch⊠In the square were some students from different schools celebrating âEl dĂa del aborigen Americanoâ [Day of the original American] as you can see…
ON THE CELTIC SEA â We drove up to Cherbourg yesterday, boarded a ferry, and are now cruising towards Ireland. The trip takes nearly an entire day, but the wifi works onboard⊠so we were able to stay in contact….
NORMANDY, FRANCE â Bitcoin is making itself useful. Bloomberg is on the case: âBolĂvar to Bitcoin Market Hits Record $1 Million Per Dayâ The Venezuelan bolĂvar to bitcoin market reached a record on Tuesday, as the dollar-starved nation increasingly seeks…
PARIS â âYour flight has been canceled.â Those were not the words we were hoping to hear when we got to Dulles International Airport last night. But Air France is on strike. So we quickly changed plans⊠and traveled to…
BALTIMORE â Last week, we attended a conference in Miami. Several crypto enthusiasts were there⊠including Teeka Tiwari and our own âin-houseâ expert, one of our sons. The price of bitcoin has fallen from a high of around $20,000 to…
A cigarette that bears a lipstickâs traces An airline ticket to romantic places â Billie Holiday, âThese Foolish Things (Remind Me of You)â BALTIMORE â South Beach⊠Last week, we were sitting in the hotel restaurant in Miami Beach having…
MIAMI â Whew! Hold onto your restaurant reservations⊠your bitcoin codes⊠and your medical records; you might be able to use them after all. The Dow rose 293 points last Thursday as âwar fearsâ declined. As you know, all of…
MIAMI â This week, weâve been exploring how mock battles can go wrong. In one corner, we have The American Dreamer: the Blond Bombshell himself, Donald J. Trump. In the other, there is Xi Jinping of the Great Red Hope,…
MIAMI â Guggenheim investment fundâs global chief investment officer Scott Minerd predicts a 40% decline for the Dow⊠mostly in 2019. He says the U.S. economy is on a âcollision course with disaster.â Heâs right â at least about the…
MIAMI â During the legendary 1998 wrestling match known as âHell in a Cell,â two professional wrestlers faced off: âThe Undertakerâ and Mick Foley, aka âMankind.â The idea was for the two to do their usual stunts â poking, whacking,…
Good God almighty! Good God almighty! That killed him! As God is my witness, he is broken in half! â Announcer Jim Ross, on the occasion of a WWE match in Pittsburghâs Civic Arena, June 28, 1998 SĂO PAULO, BRAZIL…
BUENOS AIRES â Our stay in Argentina was cut short. One of our two daughters had a baby. We hasten thither to see her, our fourth grandchild. In the meantime⊠Usual Errors What we were getting at last week was that there…
SALTA, ARGENTINA â Up. Down. Up. Down. We followed the action on Wall Street yesterday, wondering⊠where was it going? The headlines told us that investors were nervous about a trade war. Bloomberg was on the case early: Fears of…
SALTA, ARGENTINA â Up, down. Up, down. What to make of it? The stock market is in denial, struggling with the idea, not quite willing to give in⊠not quite willing to admit that the bull market of 2009â2018 is…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âUh oh⊠That poor girl has Down syndrome,â Elizabeth noticed. âHow do you know?â âYou can see it. It used to be called âmongoloidismâ because of the way it distorts the face.â Mountain Party We had been…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Two big surprises on Sunday, both concerning the White House. First, President Trump announced his long-awaited shake-up of his staff. In a 7 a.m. tweet, the president said: Time for Big staff changes. I need complete LOYALTY…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Big Tech led the way up. It will probably be in the lead on the way down, too. Bloomberg: The marketâs darlings just suffered the worst day in at least three years. The NYSE FANG+ index, tracking…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â All hail the techs! The stock market bounced back with a big gain on Monday. The buy-the-dippers gained a couple of points. The future can wait; the big crash is still ahead.
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Friday evening after the bell rang on the New York Stock Exchange, traders and analysts, sell side and buy side, 2018 quants and deep value dinosaurs, million-dollar-a-year partners as well as the order takers and clerks, all…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We got up before dawn this morning. Weâre taking a cluster of our grapes over to the neighboring ranch, Tacuil. There, Raul â the winemaker â will tell us if the sugar content is high enough to…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âTrump backs death penalty for drug dealers,â was a headline in yesterdayâs news. Liberals will howl and whine. But the death penalty may be underrated. It has been used against enemy soldiers, religious heretics, political opponents, bankers,…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Over the weekend, we went to visit our new property. The house, which we are renovating, is on the far side of the river. Weâre just realizing what a challenge that poses. In order to get over to…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â The Dow fluttered on Monday. The Nasdaq, too. Our guess is that the smart money is pulling out first. Paul Tudor Jones, Ray Dalio, Bill Gross â many Wall Street giants have already announced that they are…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Nothing much to report from Wall Street, Washington, or the ranch⊠So we continue our look back at what we have learned so far⊠Most of what we know, of course, is what everyone else knows, too:…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Weâre getting into an agreeable and relaxed routine here at the ranch. We go for a hike up the little hill behind the house in the morning. A trail zig-zags up, with the stations of the cross…
The ides of March are come. Ay, Caesar, but not gone. â Shakespeareâs The Tragedy of Julius Caesar GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Readers frequently accuse us of being idle wreckers, tearing down without building up, criticizing wantonly while offering no constructive advice….
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â TrimTabs, an investment research firm, reports that stock buybacks are running at twice the rate of this time last year. Corporation managements are taking their tax cut money and delivering it to shareholders⊠and to themselves. Skin…
And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Investors were cheered up last Friday by the jobs report, which showed that the number of new jobs is about equal to the high set back in 2006 â just before the last crisis. As near as…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We continue our exploration⊠âŠof why the stock market is a fraud⊠âŠwhy investorsâ savings are not really funding U.S. business⊠⊠why instead, they are aiding and abetting a multitrillion-dollar rip-off⊠âŠand how the ripper-offers are…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Stormy Daniels has gone public⊠No big deal. Gary Cohn has left the White House⊠No big deal. The big deal is that the Fed is raising interest rates.
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â President Trump says heâs sticking to his guns on trade tariffs. Weâre glad to see it. Weâre tired of whiny, snively politicians â on this hand⊠on that hand⊠equivocating⊠backtracking⊠double-talking. Itâs good to see a…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â The big news last week was Trumpâs hasty decision to impose tariffs on aluminum and steel. We were happy to see it. We were looking for an example â undeniable, indisputable, and in-your-face, jackass â to illustrate…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â This weekend, we drove down to the valley to check out the new farm. Itâs about 500 acres along the river, abandoned for 50 years, but can be irrigated and put back into service. And itâs a…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Another miracle! It rained. âWe got 200 millimeters (about 8 inches) this year,â reported the capataz, Gustavo. After two years of drought, finally, the fields, mountains, and pastures are green. And the river that separates the house…
SALTA, ARGENTINA â âStocks Slide After Powell Testimony,â reads a headline at Bloomberg. The Dow dropped 380 points on Wednesday, leaving February as the worst month in two years. What did the new Fed chief say? Only that he thought…
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA â We went to dinner last night at a little neighborhood restaurant in Palermo Soho. It was already crowded when we arrived after 9 p.m., with a warm buzz of conversation. But scarcely had we been there…
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA â Another good day for Wall Street on Monday. The Dow rose more than 300 points. And sources tell Bloomberg that the Fed is ready to accept higher levels of inflation â say, 2.5% â before it…
MIAMI â As expected, the stock market seems to be on the mend. After the scare of two weeks ago, prices are firming. And the Fed is giving the economy the all-clear. Bloomberg: âBeyond full employmentâ is a phrase that…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â From south of the border, we get a peek into the how to make a bad situation worse. âVenezuela Launches Its Own Cryptocurrency,â reports The Wall Street Journal. The cash-strapped nation â which is experiencing hyperinflation, an increasingly…
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â If mockery is an art, hereâs a fellow who calls out for the talents of a Leonardo: Mr. Robert Mueller. Clean as a whistle. Hard as steel. Incorruptible. Unstoppable. He just keeps going, hammering away⊠until he…
Apollo, Apollo! God of all ways, but only Deathâs to me, Once and again, O thou, Destroyer named, Thou hast destroyed me, thou, my love of old! â [In Aeschylusâ Agamemnon, Cassandra regrets ever having laid eyes on Apollo] PORTLAW, IRELAND…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â We spent the weekend exploring our new property, meeting neighbors, and getting to know the country. We had seen our new house. But not the land. So we put on a pair of âwelliesâ and went to…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â Vignettes from Ireland: ** We walked into the tourist office in Youghal (pronounced âYallâ) in County Cork. Two young men were there. Curly hair. Cute. Something odd about them. Too carefully groomed and well dressed for the…
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned;…
Iâve got so much honey You know the bees envy me Iâve got a sweeter song Oh, than the birds in the trees Oh and I know, I know, I know what youâre gonna say What, what could make me…
YOUGHAL, IRELAND â Ireland is a friendly place. People are relaxed and direct. They tell you things⊠even without you asking. For example, there seems to be a curse on the property next door. Broken Heart âOh, yesâŠâ the custodian…
BALLYNATRAY, IRELAND â We have bought a place nearby. But it will be months before it is habitable. In the meantime, we need a place to stay. So weâre renting a place on the estate next door. Itâs an apartment built over…
WATERFORD, IRELAND â Letâs begin by feasting, like a vulture (many thanks to the Dear Reader who suggested it in Fridayâs mailbag), on Fridayâs roadkill headlines: Bloomberg: âGovernment Shutdown Beginsâ CNBC: âDow Closes Down 1,030 Pointsâ The New York Times:…
PARIS â Yesterdayâs screens were full of green numbers (things going up). Investors may breathe a sigh of relief. âWhew! Glad thatâs overâŠâ they are likely to say. But itâs way too early to relax⊠and way too late to…
PARIS â It snowed all day yesterday. It is still snowing this morning. Paris is at its best in the snow. It is hushed and enchanting⊠like a beautiful woman who is about to tell a secret. 16 Million Dead…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
PARIS â âKeep your eye on Friday,â the old-timers used to say. When the pros are worried, they sell on Friday so they can spend the weekend without sweating. When they are confident, they buy on Friday so they donât…
CORK, IRELAND â âU.S. Stocks Drop as Treasury Sell-Off Gains Steam,â was headline news at Bloomberg last Thursday. Meanwhile, bitcoin tumbled toward $8,000, wiping about $100 billion off its market value in just 24 hours. And the price of the…
CORK, IRELAND â âIs the bull market in stocks finally over?â asks a Bloomberg headline. We donât know the answer. No one knows the future. Still, people buy umbrellas even when it isnât raining. If we were you⊠looking at…
CORK, IRELAND â The U.S. president gave his assessment of the situation on Tuesday night. No mention was made of the fact that the country is going broke⊠âŠor that rising interest rates threaten the fake-money system⊠âŠor that tax…
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why.]…
WATERFORD, IRELAND â We are making Ireland the hub of our global publishing business. So we need a place to live here. The last couple of days have been spent prospecting. âWe want something with character⊠a challenge⊠something we…
BALTIMORE â What is it about Davos? Great⊠powerful⊠smart people go there⊠âŠand turn into knuckleheads. We would be there, too. But yet again, the invitation committee seems to have lost our address. Instead, Donald J. Trump will have…
BALTIMORE â The Davos crowd was told that the world economy is minting one new billionaire every two days⊠Eighty-two percent of the worldâs wealth generated last year went to the âOne Percent.â That leaves 18% for the bottom 99%….
BALTIMORE â It is always brightest before they turn the lights out. You can quote us on that, Dear Reader. Just when you thought things couldnât get better⊠guess what? They donât. They go dark as a dungeon. Antidote to…
BALTIMORE â The titans of one era become the schmucks of the next. Marshal Michel Ney, one of Franceâs greatest soldiers, was executed by his own people⊠who later put up a statue of him in Paris. General Robert E….
BALTIMORE â Oh, Dear Reader, imagine our alarm! Feel our pain! We were like the boy who saw on the news that his school was on fire. When we left the office on Friday⊠the federal government was just hours…
BALTIMORE â Whatâs that in the distance? It looks like a cloud of dust barely visible on the horizon. Itâs the relief column, sent from Ft. Fed! Hooray! Confidence of the Damned And yes, it is still a long way…
BALTIMORE â When we left you yesterday, we were describing why the situation is getting dangerous for investors, and how the lessons learned over the last 30 years may backfire in the next crisis. âDow over 26,000⊠bitcoin under $10,000,â…
BALTIMORE â Like a âClosing Out Saleâ that never seems to end, people are beginning to think that this âStock Market Surgeâ may not be totally on the level. Unlike an honest bull market, it may never end⊠Classic Top?…
BALTIMORE â Our main man in Argentina, Pancho, came to Baltimore last week. Dapper and charming, Pancho has become more than just an administrator for the ranch. He has become a trusted advisor to the family. We began the conversation…
BALTIMORE â We recently had our DNA checked. Unsurprisingly, it showed that we are what we thought we were â Irish, English, and Scottish. But we are something more. In addition to the Irish riffraff, English aristocracy, and Scottish bagpipers…
BALTIMORE â âInvestors Prepare for Inflation,â warned the front page of The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday. âRising Treasury Yields Ripple Through Markets,â it added on Thursday. âU.S. Treasurys lead bonds sell-off,â the Financial Times piled on, âas investors fear…
BALTIMORE â âTax Lawâs Effect Fuels Farm Outcry,â read one Wall Street Journal headline on Wednesday. âA provision inserted into the tax code during Senate and House negotiations in DecemberâŠâ begins the descriptive paragraph. Who inserts a provision? A selfless citizen serving…
BALTIMORE â We now have a great treasure trove of historical research proving that⊠âŠyou canât drain the Swamp! Itâs almost impossible. The process is well documented. The rich get richer. And richer. And richer. The Swamp gets deeper. And…
BALTIMORE â Donald Trump has shown the way⊠Heâs revealed the White House as the No. 1 showbiz gig. Now, others want to get in on the act. Oprah for President! The latest reports tell us that Oprah might run…
The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars. â H.L. Mencken We were taken aback by some dear readersâ anger last week. Conservative⊠liberal⊠Republican⊠Democrat â readers were almost unanimous. They didnât appreciate the mocking…
BALTIMORE â The big news last Friday was that the Dow hit a new record of over 25,000. Weâll get to that in a minute⊠weâre still looking over our shoulders at last yearâs performance. Letâs see, the top-performing U.S….
BALTIMORE â We owe Donald Trump a hearty and sincere âthank you.â Not only did he save us a lot of money (see below)⊠but he also helped us better understand how government actually works. What âThe Donaldâ understood better…
Back in grade school, a teacher once told us that âanybody can grow up to be president.â In 2017, Donald Trump proved it. In high school, we learned that âanything can be used as money.â In 2017, bitcoin proved it….
BALTIMORE â Our work here at the Diary is to connect the dots. And we begin connecting the dots of 2018 by looking over our shoulder at the brightest dots we connected last year. Three remarkable things happened in 2017⊠One for…
Editorâs Note: Happy New Year from Bill and all of us here at Bonner & Partners. We look forward to another great year at Billâs Diary. Today, Bill kicks off 2018 with some timeless wisdom for securing long-term prosperity. Today, three basic…
Editorâs Note: The Bonner & Partners offices are closed for the holidays. Today, Bill examines what it means to live well, and why Americaâs boomers need perspective now more than ever. What should you do if you are running out…
It was 4 a.m. I had no doubt about that. The clock said as much. And who am I to argue with clocks? If ever we cannot trust them, the country is done for. But what were those voices? At…
BALTIMORE â âU.S. Lifespans Fall Again,â was the headline in The Wall Street Journal last week. The accompanying reportage tells us that the average American now lives a month or two less than he did in 2015. What to make…
BALTIMORE â In all the excitement surrounding the passing of the GOP tax bill, we almost missed it. But on Tuesday, as stocks rose to a record high in anticipation of a huge payoff to corporate America, bonds fell. The…
BALTIMORE â After a year of defeat and disorder, it finally looks like Republicans have managed a legislative victory. The stock market celebrated Monday with the Dow hitting a new record high. âBuy the rumor; sell the news.â Thatâs what…
BALTIMORE â We attended a family wedding in Nicaragua over the weekend. Asked to make a little speech, we opined on the differences between men and women, and the sacred role of marriage⊠the ultimate and most ancient win-win deal. As…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â What have we learned so far? Letâs spell it out as a series of axioms. Real money must be connected to the real economy of energy, time, and resources. Traditionally, gold makes the connection. (In the…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â âThis area is going to grow for a long time,â said a real estate agent yesterday. Weâve been looking at property for sale. We like it down here in Nicaragua. And we have a feeling the…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â As we outlined yesterday, Americans are richer than ever. U.S. household assets stand at $97 trillion. All over the world, âwealthâ is surging, too⊠with the value of global stocks near a record high of $100 trillion….
[Editorâs note: because Bill is usually writing from the US, we donât publish his copy until the day after heâs written it. So if youâre a bit confused as to why heâs predicting events that have already happened, thatâs why….
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Yesterday, we wrote about business as usual. Despite the sound and fury of the last 12 months, nothing much has changed. Headed for Bankruptcy The U.S. is a little further advanced toward the final stages of becoming…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â The mainstream press seems obsessed by the harm being done to Americans⊠by foreigners. Specifically, it is alleged that the Ruskies interfered and thus tainted the otherwise pristine U.S. presidential elections. Iran and North Korea may…
BALTIMORE â On Friday, bitcoin took a dive. From an all-time high of $17,899⊠it tumbled to $14,336 â a 20% fall. What a wild ride! Our theme from last week includes a warning⊠a not-so-subtle memento mori for the financial world:…
BALTIMORE â How âbout that bitcoin! It went up another $2,000 yesterday. Does it go down, too? We think we know the answer. But letâs look at more familiar ESPs. This week, weâve been focusing on Extremely Simple Patterns, or ESPs….
BALTIMORE â Bitcoin rose another $1,000 on Wednesday. Whoopee! And whoa⊠Whatâs going on? Yesterday, we described an Extremely Simple Pattern (ESP). You put âmoneyâ into an economy and prices float up. Take it away, and prices fall. Prices float on…
BALTIMORE â Are you rich yet? We hope so. Everybody else seems to be. The U.S. stock market is up more than 20% so far this year. Our country-specific stock portfolio is up about 30%. As we explained back in…
BALTIMORE â âDonât be absurdâŠâ The distaff part of the family has a contrary opinion. It concerns the drift of our Diary last week. In short, she thinks we are talking nonsense. New Aristocracy Long-term Diary sufferers know we often talk nonsense. Out motto…
BALTIMORE â Last Tuesday, we made $4,000 per hour when bitcoin rose. Then, on Wednesday, we lost $5,000 per hour when it fell. Whee! Look for an on-the-scene report from our in-house crypto expert below⊠In the meantime⊠Last-Ditch Effort…
BALTIMORE â Yesterday, we saw the soul of America. We drove by a house so imposing⊠so monstrously ugly⊠so laughably pretentious that we almost drove off the road staring at it. On a suburban lot, it was as though…
BALTIMORE â On the front page of both The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times yesterday: bitcoin. It was just the other week that we reported that bitcoin was about to hit the $8,000 mark. Now, it has passed $11,000⊠âThis is just…
BALTIMORE â Can you live well on Social Security alone? Yesterday, we told an old friend it was possible. But is it? It depends on what you mean by âliving well.â Rich and Poor Today, we lift anchor and unfurl…
BALTIMORE â Bitcoin blew by another milestone. Yesterday morning, the worldâs first cryptocurrency hit a new record of $9,680. It started off the year trading at just $997. âI canât believe what happened,â said a friend. âI bought $1,000 worth…
Editorâs Note: Today, we bring you one of Billâs greatest essays⊠a beginnerâs guide to understanding how the fake money system has left us all doomed. We are explaining our money system to our grandson, James, now 14 months old⊠His…
Editorâs Note: Bill Bonner if off for Thanksgiving holiday. Today, we invite you to enjoy this classic Diary essay Bill penned in 1999. I turned to my trusty assistant⊠Beirne White⊠this morning. âBeirne,â I said gravely, âtell me about Thanksgiving in Mississippi.â…
NEW YORK â âIâM WITH THE PERV,â screams yesterdayâs New York Post headline. The accompanying photos show Donald J. Trump and the accused child molester Roy Moore. There are those who despise the Alabama Senate candidate. And there are those who see…
NEW YORK â Salvator Mundi, said to be by Leonardo da Vinci, is the worldâs most expensive painting. Last Wednesday, at auction, each square inch was valued at nearly $1 million â including the bummed-up, restored, and damaged parts. The painting…
BALTIMORE â Have we been too cynical? Last Thursday, the House passed its big tax-cut bill. The Dow popped up 187 points on the news. A reporter asked us later: âWill the Dow go to 40,000?â Assuming a tax bill…
BALTIMORE â How about those techs! As Chris Lowe reported in Wednesdayâs Market Insight column, the eight most valuable tech companies in the world â Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google parent Alphabet, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent â have added $1.7 trillion…
BALTIMORE â We were disappointed to see the pedestal⊠naked⊠forlorn⊠its statue gone⊠its purpose defunct. For more than a century, the bronze statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney â gravely pondering the weighty issues of the…
BALTIMORE â On Monday, Caracas rolled out the red carpet â literally. In one of the funniest shows in modern capitalism, bondholders were invited to a special meeting in the Venezuelan capital. A few turned up. They wanted to know…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â âWhatâs wrong with them?â In front of us was a group of young women, tying their surfboards on top of their Jeep. At first glance, nothing at all. They had come from a nearby surf camp…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Last Thursday, Senate Republicans announced their proposed tax reform measures. Instead of eliminating the inheritance tax â like the House version does â the Senate proposal would increase the exemption by $5 million per person. And…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â âI wanted to build a little vacation cottage.â We were getting a tour of concrete and rebar. A colleague is building a house on the ocean. It seems to have gotten away from him. âWellâŠâ he…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Over the weekend, bitcoin rose to more than $7,500 â a 200% gain from when we bought in June. âIs that all?â replies a colleague. âI got into a bitcoin miner at 2 cents a share….
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â If you run over a pedestrian in Washington, D.C., it might be wise to keep going. Because the person under your bumper could be a swamp rat. In fact, it could be Jerome Powell, whom President…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Weâre down in Nicaragua giving a little speech to a group of financial analysts and publishers. Iâll be sharing the full contents of the speech with members of our Inner Circle advisory soon. A view of the coastline…
POITOU, FRANCE â âThe Age of Easy Money Is Nearly Over,â reads a headline at Bloomberg. Oh yeah? We suspect that it has hardly begun⊠stay tuned. Destroying Capital In the meantime, we are exploring the past to get hints…
POITOU, FRANCE â We have been in almost constant motion for the last 10 days or so. Itâs nice to be back at home⊠if only for a few days. One of the pretensions of modern design is that things…
POITOU, FRANCE â For nearly two decades, the worldâs central banks have labored hard, sweating to coax more digital money out of a stony and grudging economy. More than $20 trillion did they bring forth via QE (buying stocks and…
PARIS â âHas he gotten to the verb yet?â we asked Elizabeth. We were listening to a speech at a birthday party for an old friend. Alas, the speech was in German, a language we donât speak. Still, we laughed…
I found my thrill On Blueberry Hill On Blueberry Hill When I found you The moon stood still On Blueberry Hill And lingered until My dream came true â âBlueberry Hill,â Fats Domino PARIS â Fats Domino died last week….
PORTO, PORTUGAL â The more we see of Portugal, the better we like it. The people are friendly. The streets are clean and safe. The old buildings â in the Iberian baroque style â are beautiful. And the food is…
PORTO, PORTUGAL â âI wonder what the suicide rate is in this hotel?â We posed the question this morning, not expecting an answer. We had been wandering the dark, labyrinthine corridors in search of an elevator. It is a newish…
LISBON, PORTUGAL â In Japan, incumbent prime minister ShinzĆ Abe has won a new super majority in parliament. And you know what that means? More laughs. Dumbbell Policies Yes, the whole world is doubling down on dumbbell policies that donât…
LISBON, PORTUGAL â It is still warm here in Lisbon. Like summer. Weâre staying at a hotel on the Avenida da Liberdade, with large plane trees shading the wide sidewalks and grand old buildings lining the streets. Bill explores the…
LISBON, PORTUGAL â Lisbon is a beautiful city. It was so poor and so remote, it missed out on the modernization that ruined many other cities in Europe. Wisely neutral during World War I and World War II, it wasnât…
POITOU, FRANCE â Autumn has finally imposed itself. The yellow and gold leaves drift down⊠morning fog rises⊠and the remains of the day grow cold. We now have a fire in the fireplace all day long. A couple of…
POITOU, FRANCE â âTrump did thisâŠâ âTrump did thatâŠâ The news media can barely keep up with him. Sometimes, the calumnies against the president are idle gossip. Sometimes, they greatly understate the magnitude of the crime. He âdisrespectsâ a dead…
PARIS â Yesterday, we described what we believe is the true source of todayâs bubbly markets: fake money from the Deep Stateâs finance arm, central banks. Today, we connect more dots. Specifically, we explore why the stock market celebrated after…
PARIS â Whoa! Bitcoin is up $1,457 since the start of the month; at writing, one bitcoin sells for $5,670. Look at the Dow. It is on its way to 23,000. And donât even mention the tech darlings â Facebook,…
PARIS â âDonât worry. Weâre not hysterical like you North Americans.â We had arrived at the security gate at Salta Airport on our trip back from the ranch to Buenos Aires, with an onward ticket to Paris, France. In our…
SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA â We spent the night at a hotel in the nearby village of Molinos and then drove back to see the new farm. We hoped that our spirits might have revived after a good nightâs sleep⊠or maybe…
SAN MARTIN, ARGENTINA â âUh⊠was this a good idea?â Elizabeth was looking at what used to be the kitchen. If a real estate agent called it a âruin,â he could be accused of overselling it. It will take a…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â What a marvelous show! We donât know whatâs funnier: watching âThe Donaldâ⊠or watching the media try to make sense of him. On this occasion, the media is right. Challenging Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to an…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âDamn!â RamĂłn had been so absorbed in laying out his plans for our new farm that he forgot to put the truck into 4-wheel drive. When he finally realized he needed it, it was too late. The…
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA â First, a news update. The Washington Post: The Republican Party has largely abandoned its platform of fiscal restraint, pivoting sharply in a way that could add trillions of dollars in federal debt over the next decade….
LONDON â By the time you read this, weâll have given a speech to an investment group in London. Investors will want to know whatâs ahead. Will prices go up? Or down? âYes,â we will answer. At best, we will…
TEMPLECOMBE, ENGLAND Ââ We took the train from Paris to London⊠and then from London to the village of Templecombe in Somerset. We came to visit a friend. âThis was the home of Lord Uxbridge,â our host pointed to an…
POITOU, FRANCE â Youâve heard us say more than once: Weâve never met a tax cut we didnât like. But we never met a tax cut like the one Team Trump is now proposing⊠The idea of a tax cut…
POITOU, FRANCE â We pause. We take a deep breath. We cease our normal sarcasm and kvetching. Today, we give thanks to the global elite⊠the people to whom we owe so much. Historic High The thought came to us…
POITOU, FRANCE â As you plant⊠so shall you reap. Everything has its season. Stock markets. Empires. Tax cuts. Here in France it is mushroom season. This weekend, our friend François divulged his secrets. He offered to show us where…
POITOU, FRANCE â âDo you still have that physical bitcoin I gave you?â A couple of years ago, a friend gave us a physical bitcoin, suggesting we should take an interest in cryptocurrencies. âI hope you didnât lose it. That…
The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing. â Jean-Baptiste Colbert, French finance minister (1665-1683) POITOU, FRANCE â On Wednesday, another losing…
POITOU, FRANCE â âHow about your man, Trump?â was the conversation starter at last nightâs cocktail party. We heard a version of that question at practically every social event this summer here in France. It is an invitation to make…
POITOU, FRANCE â From comedy⊠to farce⊠to tragedy. We laugh. We guffaw. And then we wish we hadnât bought a house in inner-city Baltimore. Already, in Charm City, police helicopters peer into our windows⊠sirens wail at 3 a.m.⊅
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. â Genesis POITOU, FRANCE â Autumn has…
POITOU, FRANCE â Itâs autumn already. A heavy fog covers the farm this morning, the first this year. September can be beautiful here. Not yet cold. But no longer hot. The grass is green, and the sky is clear. Then,…
POITOU, FRANCE â We took the ferry back to the mainland after our stay on Ăle dâYeu with two kittens in our luggage. The kittens were scheduled for drowning if no homes could be found. Elizabeth volunteered to adopt them. One of…
ĂLE DâYEU, FRANCE â Today, we climb a hill and have a look around. Down below is a hidden cove on Ăle dâYeu: The hidden cove on the French island of Ăle dâYeu But letâs get seriousâŠ
ĂLE DâYEU, FRANCE â We are spending a couple of days with friends out on a tiny and charming island in the Atlantic, Ăle dâYeu. We took the ferry from the Fromentine harbor, near the city of Nantes, on Sunday….
ILE DâYEU, FRANCE â Last week, the plot did not so much thicken as congeal. Thereâs no changing it now â the cameras are rolling⊠the costumes are on⊠and everyone knows his lines. President Trump went further in becoming…
PARIS â First, the news. Cryptocurrencies took a beating after Jamie Dimon â the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, a bank that makes billions from todayâs fake-money system â called bitcoin a âfraud.â Bitcoin â the leading cryptocurrency by market value…
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. â Psalm 23:4 NORMANDY, FRANCE â Others are beginning to…
NORMANDY, FRANCE â And âThe Donaldâ said: âOpen the floodgates!â And the floodgates opened. Less than 48 hours after Congress approved his debt ceiling suspension, more than $300 billion had flooded in. That is the amount by which the U.S….
NORMANDY, FRANCE â Until last week, Republicans controlled the House⊠the Senate⊠and the White House. But who controlled Republicans? As it turned out, many â including the Republican-in-Chief â were out of control. Then came the explosion. Dazed and…
NORMANDY, FRANCE â We had gotten a bid of $4,000 to redo the old fireplace. The carved stones that held the wooden mantel beam had cracked and fallen down. Other stones along the side had broken off or worn down….
POITOU, FRANCE â Senator John McCain spoke for millions on Thursday. âIâm a pretty intelligent guy,â he said, speaking of President Trumpâs sudden lurch to the left side of the aisle, âbut I donât understand this.â On the surface, the…
BILL BONNER, CHAIRMAN, BONNER & PARTNERS POITOU, FRANCE â While Hurricane Irma whips up some of the strongest winds ever recorded, the fury of the storm breaking over Washington is intensifying, too. âFor Conservatives, Trumpâs Deal With Democrats Is Nightmare…
POITOU, FRANCE â On Tuesday, the Dow fell 234 points â or roughly 1%. No big deal. Commentators said investors were worried about disasters â both natural and man-made. Out at sea, another storm gathers force⊠threatening the sugar islands…
POITOU, FRANCE â It was a slow Labor Day weekend. We spent the time visiting with neighbors and tying up loose ends on our renovation projects. Then, yesterday, a daughter arrived from California. She brought bad tidings from the film…
POITOU, FRANCE â Yesterday was Labor Day. Most of the world pays homage to its sweating, busing, trucking classes, its poor huddled masses⊠yearning for a cushier seat and a better deal⊠on May 1. President Grover Cleveland chose the…
POITOU, FRANCE â The price of bitcoin has topped $4,800. What this means, we donât know. âItâs like the tulip mania⊠just a bubble,â said a friend last night. âWell⊠yes and no,â we cautioned against a rush to judgment….
POITOU, FRANCE â A new Diary dictum: A new administration can only do good by undoing the good things that previous administrations claimed to do. That is, it does not do good by adding programs of its own. It can only make…
 And the Lord said unto Noah, âCome thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. âOf every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and…
POITOU, FRANCE â âWe live in a slow-growth world,â summarized a canny friend, âbut with high-growth debt and high-growth asset prices.â Today, we turn to a report on Zero Hedge for further precision. But weâll get to that in a minute. First,…
POITOU, FRANCE â We spent the weekend in our favorite place: the workshop. In the foreground is an old altar; we are preparing it for our tiny chapel. Billâs workshop at his home in the French countryside The family chapel…
POITOU, FRANCE â ââThe Donaldâ has been White House-broken,â was what we were trying to say, translating the phrase into something that may make sense to a French listener. But it was too clever and complicated. âWell, letâs just say…
POITOU, FRANCE â Bannon is gone. And Priebus. And Spicer. And Scaramucci. And Donald J. Trump? Reckless, vain, juvenile, untutored, swinish â he was refreshingly blockheaded. And now, he may be gone, too⊠tamed by the âadults in the room.â…
POITOU, FRANCE â On Monday, Donald Trump, president of all the Americans, said his country would spend more blood and money trying to force the Afghans to do what it wants them to do, whatever that is. And so⊠a…
POITOU, FRANCE â George Washington: What an imbecile! He owned 317 slaves. Couldnât he see that slavery was bad? Jefferson, too. And Madison. And Monroe. Jackson. Van Buren. Tyler. Harrison. Polk. Taylor. Johnson. And Ulysses S. Grant. Didnât they smell…
POITOU, FRANCE â In professional wrestling, scriptwriters always include what they call a âHoly Sh*t!â moment. Thatâs when one of the stars takes a hit so brutal or so fantastic that the fans yell: âHoly sh*t!â Donald J. Trump, a…
POITOU, FRANCE â St. Augustine blamed the fall of Rome on the failure of its pagan gods. Historian Edward Gibbon took the opposite view: He thought the empire had been weakened by Augustineâs god. Here at the Diary, we take no…
POITOU, FRANCE â This week, we are talking about the perishable nature of gods. Yesterday, the city fathers of our hometown of Baltimore let it be known that it was time to toss out the old deities. Reports the Associated Press:…
POITOU, FRANCE â First, let us begin with an echo from last week⊠âHey, Dad, bitcoin went over $4,000 yesterday. An all-time high. I made another $20,000. Not bad.â Pride goeth before a fall, of course. Profits go before losses….
POITOU, FRANCE â Our in-house expert left us this morning; we have no update on his cryptocurrency speculations. He and his family boarded the 6:22 train to Paris, en route back to Florida. About a half hour after we had taken…
A cousin, visiting from Maryland, probably spoke for millions of people. The subject was bitcoin. And he was right. Itâs not ârealâ in a traditional sense. You canât touch it. You canât see it. You canât stack it up and…
And itâs time, time, time And itâs time, time, time Itâs time, time, time that you love And itâs time, time, time⊠â Tom Waits POITOU, FRANCE â âSo how much did you make last night?â âWe made about $15,000,â…
POITOU, FRANCE â âDad, last week I made another $20,000 off that NEO cryptocurrency I bought. âAnd last night, I made another $5,000 on my other cryptocurrency investments.â Our in-house crypto expert was either boasting or pulling our leg; we…
And itâs time, time, time And itâs time, time, time Itâs time, time, time that you love And itâs time, time, time⊠â Tom Waits POITOU, FRANCE â âYou cut that crooked.â âNo, I didnât. The wall is crooked.â âNo,…
POITOU, FRANCE Ââ Barely two weeks ago, 2,117 people took Chileâs medical licensing exam. What was noteworthy about this yearâs test was that more than one-third of the people taking it were not Chilean. Nearly 800 of them were Venezuelans….
POITOU, FRANCE â This is getting monotonous. Another day, another record high for the Dow⊠now above the 22,000-point mark for the first time in history. And based on the CAPE ratio â a valuation measure that compares stock prices…
They went up, of course. Just like they always do. Some people have expressed wonder⊠and doubt⊠that the equity value of Americaâs businesses can increase so much even while national leadership is in so much disarray. Republicans canât work…
[The] thing I have learned about these people in Washington is they have no money. So what happens when they have no f*****g money is they write about what seat they are in and what the title is. F*****g congressmen…
POITOU, FRANCE â This weekend, we celebrated the oldest win-win deal in human life: marriage. On Saturday afternoon, we drove 10 miles or so to Le Dorat. The medieval town sits on a hill in the green Limousin countryside, with…
POITOU, FRANCE The Senate failed again to pass even a âskinnyâ repeal of Obamacare (which left most of the program in place⊠and most people subject to its quack finance) after three senators defected. The new White House communications director,…
POITOU, FRANCE â This just in from the Bonner & Partners research department⊠A further update on the Doom Index: Building permits â a leading housing-market indicator â for the second quarter were down about 3%. That adds another Doom Point…
POITOU, FRANCE â The Dow rose another 100 points on Tuesday. Can anything stop this bull market? At least we know the answer to that question: Yes. When? Longtime Diary sufferers know better than to trust our market timing advice. So rather…
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND â One of the most remarkable conversations on finance weâve ever had happened here in Lausanne yesterday. âYou mean it costs as much to put money on deposit at a bank as it does to borrow it?â We…
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND â The Trump team welcomed its newest member over the weekend. Henceforth, communications will be controlled by Goldman Sachs alum Anthony Scaramucci, aka âThe Mooch.â This brings to five the number of Deep Staters from Goldman Sachs dominating…
POITOU, FRANCE â A young man drove up yesterday. Shaved head. Earring. Nice car. Sad look. âMonsieur Bonner?â After the introductions, he got down to business. âDamien [our gardener] told me you were looking for chickens. Iâve got about 10…
POITOU, FRANCE â âMy father told me to plant trees,â said a neighbor last night. âIt was right after I bought this place. Of course, I was young⊠I was busy⊠I didnât have time to plant trees. âNow, I…
POITOU, FRANCE â Sound the alarm. Take your money off the table. Pack your socks and your passport. Thereâs going to be trouble. The Washington Post reports: âSteven Mnuchin, Trumpâs treasury secretary, is hurtling toward his first fiasco.â Republicans have majorities in…
POITOU, FRANCE â âGOP reeling after healthcare collapse,â reads a headline on a political website. From The Hill: Republicans offered competing ideas for what to do next on healthcare Monday night, now that the current ObamaCare replacement effort has fallen apart….
POITOU, FRANCE â President Trump implies that America isnât so great anymore. He was in Paris last week and dined with French President Emmanuel Macron in the Eiffel Tower. Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase, is fresh from an overseas…
POITOU, FRANCE â Public figures and public events are almost always fraudulent in some way. Franceâs Bastille Day is no exception. It is hailed as a landmark of liberty. But the storming of the Bastille prison by revolutionaries, on this…
POITOU, FRANCE â âWhich is worse? America or France?â The question must be put in context. We were invited to dinner with local farmers last night. Jean-Yves and Arlette live in a modest house in the nearby town â an…
POITOU, FRANCE â Poor David Brooks⊠This morning, while waiting for one dose of claptrap, we were whacked by another. Fed chief Janet Yellen was scheduled to speak before the House Financial Services Committee on Capitol Hill at 10 a.m….
POITOU, FRANCE â This morning, we are wondering: How dumb is the Fed? The question was prompted by this comment by former Fed insider Chris Whalen at The Institutional Risk Analyst blog: [O]ur message to the folks in Jackson Hole this week…
POITOU, FRANCE â What does our Doom Index  tell us now? Hereâs a quick update from Joe Withrow in the Bonner & Partners research department: We are still waiting for second-quarter data to come in before we can update the index…
POITOU, FRANCE â âNothing really changes.â Sitting next to us at breakfast, a companion was reading an article written by the No. 2 man in France, Ădouard Philippe, in Le Monde. The headline promised to tell us how the country was…
POITOU, FRANCE â âYou canât take that car into Paris.â Our gardener is our source of local news and universal wisdom. âYou donât have a green sticker,â he explained. The French are always finding ways to make life expensive, difficult,…
Oliver Stone: Donald Trump won. This is your fourth president, am I right? Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush, Mr. Obama, and now your fourth one. Vladimir Putin: Yes, thatâs true. Stone: What changes? Putin: Well, almost nothing⊠everywhere, especially in the United States, the bureaucracy…
While we were in France last summer, a friend â Laurence Chatel de Brancion â gave us a copy of her new book, La Fayette: RĂȘver la gloire. Laurence is a historian who has been studying the life and times of…
Editorâs Note: Bill is off today for the Fourth of July holiday. So today, weâre sharing an essay from Bill that explores the founding principles of America and considers if Americans have lived up to those ideals. Recently, I saw this…
PARIS â Global warming has yet to get a firm grip on Europe. This week, the weather in Ireland turned in the direction you might expect. It is midsummer, but in Baltimore, it could pass for a bad day in…
âEven God Himself could not sink this ship.â â Titanic crewman⊠The ship sank four days later âIt is our will that this state shall endure for a thousand years.â â Adolf Hitler⊠10 years before the Reich was destroyed…
DUBLIN â Is Donald J. Trump a Neanderthal? Yes, of course. We all are. One of the most interesting stories weâre following is some 300,000 years old. It is the story of our species. What does this have to do…
DUBLIN â Gold dropped sharply on Monday. The yellow metal fell about 1% to as low as $1,236. A âfat fingerâ was blamed, meaning it was probably a mistake. According to reports, a single trader sold 1.85 million ounces of…
DUBLIN â Today, a simple proposal for making America great again⊠But first an update on our recent trip to Ireland. When we left you on Friday, we were visiting our headquarters in the town of Portlaw in County Waterford, Ireland,…
PORTLAW, IRELAND â Last night, we drove over to the harbor town of Dungarvan for dinner. The Irish countryside was idyllic â with rolling hills, forests, and hayfields. Then, arriving at Dungarvan, we saw the Atlantic shining in the distance….
And perhaps youâre alive And perhaps youâre dead Hoo ha ha Hoo ha ha HOO HOO HOO KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK â âFragment of an Agon,â T.S. Eliot PORTLAW, IRELAND â Weâve always wanted to quote…
DUBLIN â Oil fell below $43 on Tuesday. Brick-and-mortar retailers are being emptied. The auto industry â including $1.2 trillion in auto debt â is stalling. Meanwhile, restaurants are having trouble filling their tables. Consumers arenât buying, perhaps because their…
 Mayor: Drebin, I donât want any more trouble like you had last year on the South Side. Understand? Thatâs my policy. Drebin: Yes. Well, when I see five weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the…
DUBLIN â Poor David Bonderman. He said the wrong thing. He should be ashamed of himself. Weâll come back to him in a minute⊠Stroll Through the Park In the meantime, if you want to enjoy summertime as it should…
LONDON â âNothing but bad news in the paper,â a colleague saves us the trouble of reading it ourselves. âA building caught fire here in London. Dozens dead. A guy opened fire on Republicans at a baseball field. He shot…
LONDON â Illinois is in trouble. It has $14.6 billion in unpaid bills⊠not including a pension liability of $130 billion. The state is running a $6 billion deficit, and its government is dysfunctional, operating without a budget for two…
LONDON â It was warm and sunny when we landed in London yesterday. Britain sometimes gets only a few weeks of summer. People rush out into the streets to celebrate, knowing that the very same rose that blooms today may…
BALTIMORE â We live in an age of miracles. With some paradox and claptrap thrown in for good measure. Over the last four years, almost all the stock market gains in the U.S. came from just five technology stocks â…
BALTIMORE â Weâre trying to avoid distractions. What is really going on, we wonder? What is really important, we ask? Donald J. Trump came to Washington, D.C., promising to âdrain the swamp.â Instead, the swamp is draining him. The media…
BALTIMORE â The public spectacle in Washington took center stage on Thursday. It is a much-hyped battle between two mountebanks, each backed by armies of scoundrels and scammers. But it is best understood as a political version of professional wraslinâ….
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND â Yesterday, we connected a couple of dots⊠âThink tanksâ think about what theyâre paid to think about. Who pays them? The people who have the resources to bend public policies in their direction. Who are those people?…
WEST RIVER, MARYLAND â Weâre back at our post â watching⊠reading⊠trying to connect the dots. And we begin by asking: What do âthink tanksâ think about? The answer in a minute⊠âRussiagateâ First, there is a dustup in…
When I die, Hallelujah by and by, Iâll fly away. â Carl Sumpter WEST RIVER, MARYLAND â âHey, Dad, the parking lot is already filling up.â People started arriving an hour before the funeral. A gentle mist fell on the…
Editorâs Note: Bill is spending time with family today. We expect him back tomorrow. Below, we share an essay from Thanksgiving 2015 where Bill recounts a special conversation with his mother. BALTIMORE â Markets have been calm over the Thanksgiving…
Editorâs Note: Bill is away with family and unable to pen his daily Diary. Below, we share an essay originally published in August of last year. In the French countryside, Bill tells his then-14-month-old grandson a bedtime story. But the…
Editorâs Note: As Bill mentioned yesterday, he is currently with family and unable to pen his daily Diary. Today, we share a classic essay that explores a timeless subject: What makes America unique? Below, Bill shines a light on the idea of America…
A personal note. Many thanks to those who agreed to try our wine. We ran out quickly. Apologies to those who were unable to get any. Next year, we will have fewer bottles; a frost wiped out half our crop….
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Now comes a report from the Financial Times that tells us the nationâs No. 1 industry â homebuilding â has been backing up for a quarter of a century. According to the newspaper, U.S. homebuilders âstarted work on the…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â You already know about our ranch here in Argentina. No, it is not very productive or practical. It is too far, too high, and too dry. It is marginal in almost every way. The cows are too…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Weâre taking the doctorâs orders; 9,000 feet above sea level just doesnât seem to work for us. So we moved down to the tiny casita we built near the vineyard, 1,000 feet lower. We spend the night there and…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âWhat business school did you go to?â We were joking, of course. But the two young men needed an alternative point of view. In the course of getting their MBAs in Chicago, they had picked up some…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Have you ever wondered what you would do if you had a health emergency in a remote location? We never thought about it⊠until last week. Then we found out. Place at the End Up at the…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Today, we look at what is going on in Venezuela. For amusement as well as for instruction. As long-term Diary readers know, we are connoisseurs of financial disaster. In Venezuela in 2017, we think we see an especially good…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We rode out to one of the high valleys on Sunday. Leading the way were the ranch foreman, Gustavo, and his son, AgostĂn. AgostĂn is 10 years old. But he is already a gaucho â sure of…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â On Wednesday, stocks fell. And volatility shot up. Reports Bloomberg: The Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 370 points, Treasuries rallied the most since July and volatility spiked higher as the turmoil surrounding the Trump administration…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â The Dow was flat on Tuesday. Investors must have been distracted by the latest tempest in the Washington teapot. Did President Trump say something he shouldnât have? He told the Russians that terrorists were trying to make…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Two very different things happened over the weekend. They are connected in a telling way. First, hackers hit some 200,000 computers in 150 countries with âransomware.â Second, we received a summons to appear before a mandatory âmediationâ…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âThe U.S. Economy Is Back on Track,â read a Bloomberg headline over the weekend. Apparently, inflation and consumer spending picked up last month. We are so glad to hear it. And last week, New York Fed President…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Pssst⊠Dear reader⊠Want to make some big money, fast? Weâre not gamblers. Weâre not speculators. And weâre no good at predicting the future. But we see what looks like an RSP, a Really Simple Pattern, that…
SALTA, ARGENTINA â Public life is always a hoot⊠People of sound mind and reasonable judgment in their personal lives take on characters full of unwarranted confidence and intolerant insistence in public. The couple whose son has a âdrug problemâ…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â As longtime Diary sufferers know, we donât do real stock analysis. We just look for Really Simple Patterns (RSPs). The simplest weâve discovered so far: If a market is cheap now, it will probably be less cheap before you…
Unless youâre playing the game of âgreater foolâ â buying in the hope that someone out there is willing to pay a higher price â the only reason to buy a stock is for its earnings. As a shareholder, you…
SALTA, ARGENTINA â Yesterday, we visited the museum in the center of Salta. It is a museum of the history of the city and the province, set in the repurposed town hall in the main square. We had begun the…
CACHI, ARGENTINA â Here at the Diary we have fun ridiculing the pretensions, absurdities, and hypocrisies of the ruling classes. But there is a serious side to it, too. Mockery makes us laugh. And laughing helps us wiggle free from the kudzu…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Today, an update on our Doom Index⊠But first, a brief note on life at the ranch⊠Yesterday, we did our second cattle roundup; the government requires two vaccinations 21 days apart. So, the gauchos saddled up before dawn…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Poor DJT. It doesnât seem to matter what he says; the press is all over him. A presidential tweet: âOur country needs a good âshutdown.ââ The commentators couldnât believe it. It was âunthinkable,â they said, for a…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Today, we leave the world of overpriced stocks and claptrap politics behind. Instead, we will just tell you what happened over the weekend here at the ranch. Monday was May Day in Argentina, as it was in…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â This week, we got a visit from an Austrian man who recently retired and is spending five years traveling the world. He has a specially outfitted four-wheel-drive Toyota with such marvels as heated water for a shower,…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Team Trump came forward yesterday and laid what it claimed was the âbiggest tax cut in historyâ on the table. Before we go on, we should say âWe love this guy.â If youâve been reading the Diary for a…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âWatch out, Bill. The originarios almost killed someone up the valley,â our lawyer warned us. âHeâs still in a coma.â The latest news isnât very encouraging. The originario problem was supposed to have calmed down. Ranch Invasion Last year, they invaded…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Once again, the big man steps up to the plate. Once again, he points his bat at the far bleachers. This is going to be âbigger, I believe, than any tax cut in history.â And once again,…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Remember that property we bought in Virginia? The agent had asked that we send a down payment and promised to send wiring details. But when the details arrived, there was something fishy about them. âWhy would a real…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â The Dow rose 174 points on Thursday. And Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said weâd have a new tax system by the end of the year. Animal spirits were restless. But which animals? Dumb oxes? Or wily foxes?…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â The Dow was down 118 points yesterday. It should be down a lot more. Of course, markets know more than we do. And maybe this market knows something that makes sense of these high prices. What we…
CAFAYATE, ARGENTINA â The Dow fell about 100 points yesterday. Itâs not hard to see why⊠Factory output dropped the most since last August, led by declining auto sales. Meanwhile, housing starts are at a four-month low. Bank loans are…
CAFAYATE, ARGENTINA â We drove down from the ranch yesterday to the tourism and wine town of Cafayate. With our own 4Ă4 truck, we could have easily made it through the pass where we got stuck two weeks ago. But…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Last week, we rounded up the cattle. For a more literary account of the yerra, hereâs Elizabethâs recollection of it, as sent to the children. This week, we round up the grapes. Delicate Sensibilities The gauchos will get off their horses tomorrow…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Our annual roundup⊠or yerra⊠began yesterday. We go out on horseback early in the morning with our gauchos Gustavo, JosĂ©, Samuel, and Natalio. Pedro has a bad back and no longer rides. The technique is simple: It…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â By our calculation, it took just 76 days for President Trump to get on board with the Clinton-Bush-Obama agenda. Now there can be no doubt where heâs headed. Heâs gone Full Empire. Not that it was unexpected….
Day after day all the earth wearies, drooping unto death. â The Earthstepper GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âTwo of them called me Elizabeth,â said Elizabeth. She was referring to one of the cowboysâ wives and one of the local women. âAnd one…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â âBill, you are living in a dream world,â our local lawyer began (not using these exact words). âYou are a smart guy. But youâre not that smart. You bought a marginal ranch. Itâs getting more and more…
BILL BONNER GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â Our adventure in the desert was âreal news.â It happened. To us. Close in space and time, with little room for interpretation, it is about as close to the âtruthâ as we can get. What you see…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We have not had any word from our attorney in the city of Salta, but we assume the case was dropped. Grand theft auto was the charge (catch up in full here). But the alleged wrongdoer, your editor,…
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â It took us 24 hours to get here⊠âŠduring which time your editor drove 350 miles (mostly on dirt roads)⊠got stuck in the desert⊠took a long walk by starlight⊠and was wanted by the police⊅
GUALFIN, ARGENTINA â We arrived at the family ranch in northern Argentina last night⊠This morning, we rub the sleep from our eyes and look out the window. Whoa⊠itâs greener than we expected. We were in the second year…
You will get about 450,000 results. Do the same with Donald Trump, and the number is closer to 396 million. Thatâs 87,900% more references. The worldâs press is as fascinated by President Trump as it is indifferent to President Leuthard. What will…
 An object in motion tends to remain in motion⊠â Isaac Newton BUENOS AIRES â Day by day, the dots connect⊠the picture becomes clearer. And now we believe: The Fed will never voluntarily return to ânormalâ interest rates. Congress…
BUENOS AIRES â We got into Buenos Aires at about 10 p.m. We hadnât had dinner. So we walked out of the hotel hoping to find a restaurant that was still serving. It was quiet in the Palermo Soho neighborhood….
SĂO PAULO â We arrived on Sunday morning. SĂŁo Paulo can have terrible traffic. It is a sprawling place of 12 million people. But it was early when we pulled into town; the traffic moved swiftly. We decided to go…
Washington [is] a lot more broken than President Trump thought that it was. â White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney SĂO PAULO, BRAZIL â On Friday, the much-hyped Trump/GOP Obamacare reform sank into the swamp. If anything keeps us from…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â On Thursday, the House put off its vote on the Republicansâ medical care bill. Stocks barely moved. Used car prices dropped last month by the biggest amount since 2008. Homeownership hit a half-century low. Sears may…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Today could be a big day⊠The House is supposed to vote on the Republicansâ proposal to amend Obamacare. Most likely, it will fail. That will set back the entire Trump agenda. And it will make…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â The Dow fell 237 points on Tuesday, or about 1%. Are investors finally noticing? There will be no âshovel-readyâ infrastructure spending in 2017⊠and no quick tax fix for the economy. This means that the âreflation…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Yesterday, the Dow retreated slightly. But it is still near its all-time high of 21,000 points. And by many measures, U.S. stocks have never been more expensive. Meanwhile, bullish sentiment among investment advisers is at a…
Money makes the world go around It makes the world go âround. â âMoney,â Cabaret RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â We started out last week with the best of intentions. We were going to take a rest and spend time recalling what…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Yesterday, coming back from Granada with a driver, we learned a little about how the Nicaraguan economy works. We were passing shacks of all varieties and various levels of ingenuity. Some had bare concrete walls and…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â According to yesterdayâs mailbag feedback, your editor âcertainly is the MOST unpatriotic intelligent person in the country. A closet LEFTY⊠âIf [he] is SO smart and has all the answers, he should get off of his dead…
Caesar: The Ides of March are come. Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone. â Julius Caesar, Shakespeare GRANADA, NICARAGUA â Today, we stop the horses and circle the wagons. For 19 years, we have been rolling along⊠exploring⊠discovering⊠We began…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â So far, weâve been very happy with the Trump administration. It has been one laugh after another. We donât know what is more entertaining: the pathetic whining from the Left or the self-serving indignation from the…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â Here at the ranch, the days go by quickly. A walk on the beach. A long, slow afternoon⊠reading, writing⊠listening to the waves. Dinner under the stars. But back in the U.S.⊠more blow-ups⊠more…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â In the fifth century, Christian scholars counted 88 different heresies. Arianism. Eutychianism. Nestorianism. If there was a way to âoffendâ God, they had a name for it. One group of âhereticsâ argued that there was no…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â The markets are quiet. Stocks are still near record highs. Gold is nearing its 52-week low. âWhat do you think?â asked an interviewer who reached us by phone yesterday. âBank of America predicts a big bear…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â âDonât worry. The brush fires look worse than they are.â That was the word this morning when we asked about flame control. The hills to the east of us are still on fire. Last night, we…
When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear. â Thomas Sowell Across the valley, it looked at first like a morning mist rising…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â We spent the weekend walking on the beach⊠sitting on our terrace⊠and even playing some guitar⊠We also spent time reading Thomas Sowellâs latest book, Wealth, Poverty and Politics⊠âŠand generally wondering what the heck is…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â We have begun our long perambulation. First stop: Nicaragua. From here weâll go to SĂŁo Paulo, Buenos Aires, Salta, London, Ireland, France, Portugal, Italy, and Switzerland. The trip will take us most of the rest of…
RANCHO SANTANA, NICARAGUA â How do you like that? Another big boost for the stock market. It was all green yesterday; viewers found Mr. Trumpâs speech reassuring. The Dow rose 303 points. Many will see that as confirmation of their…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â Yesterday was âRare Disease Day.â No kidding. Thatâs what President Trump said last night in his big speech to Congress. It was an extraordinary show. Nation of Miracles âOur children will grow up in a nation…
DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA â This is Crash Awareness Week at the Diary. If Team Trump stumbles, investors will be disappointed. Gradually⊠then all of a sudden⊠they will realize that the premise behind this rally was false. Already, weâre seeing signs of troubleâŠ
BALTIMORE â Hereâs an opportunity for you, dear reader⊠A Los Angeles spec house is on the market. It has seven bedrooms and 20,000 square feet of living space. It comes with a gold Lamborghini Aventador and a gold Rolls-Royce…
BALTIMORE â What an awful century! Worst weâve ever seen. Household incomes are down. Employment is down, with 7 million people in the U.S. of working age without jobs. Productivity growth is down. GDP growth is down â to only…
BALTIMORE â The Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq remain near record highs⊠and are up about 10% since Election Day. Fed officials say they could raise interest rates âfairly soon.â Blah⊠blah⊠blah⊠Learning Machine Remember, the economy is…
I went down Virginia, seeking shelter from the storm. â Creedence Clearwater Revival BALTIMORE â We rushed down to Virginia last week with the sound of an angel band playing in the background. Mother was on her last breath⊠ready…
LOVINGSTON, VIRGINIA â The public spectacle continues⊠There are so many ways to look at it, we scarcely know whether to laugh or gasp. On Friday, President Trump took the sound and fury up a notch by way of his…
Editorâs Note:Â Yesterday was Presidentsâ Day here in the U.S. So, with an eye to the vicious world of American power, we bring you Billâs chilling personal account of one of the highest-profile Deep State assassinations in U.S history. BALTIMORE â…
LOVINGSTON, VIRGINIA â On Wednesday, the Dow, the S&P 500, and the Nasdaq closed at record highs for the fifth straight day. The last time this happened was in 1992. Meanwhile, President Trump held his first presidential press conference. It…
LOVINGSTON, VIRGINIA â Amid all the sound and fury of the Trump news cycle, hardly anyone noticed. There is a specter haunting this economy. It is the specter of inflation⊠Exterminating Angel Bloomberg has the report:
LOVINGSTON, VIRGINIA â Stocks show little movement. Investors are waiting for something to happen. And wondering⊠Corporate earnings have been going down for nearly three years. They are now about 10% below the level set in the late summer of…
Today, we pay homage to love. As mysterious as central banking. As sublime and incomprehensible as negative interest rates. As baffling as Trumpâs budget plans. At first glance, love seems well away from our normal beat here at the Diary. But…
BILL BONNER, CHAIRMAN, BONNER & PARTNERS BALTIMORE â Victoribus spolia⊠So far, the most satisfying thing about the Trump win has been the howls and whines coming from the establishment. Each appointment â some good, some bad from our perspective â…
Editorâs Note:Â Bill wrote the following essay in the middle of last year. But given our new presidentâs spending plans, it is perhaps even more timely now. GUALFIN, Argentina â If the recession doesnât appear this year, it wonât be the…
MIAMI â âThe CQ certainly went down when you came into the hotel,â said one of our two sons here with us. âWhatâs the CQ?â âThe cool quotient.â The Edition hotel in Miamiâs South Beach has so much cool, your…
MIAMI â In our recent meeting in Baltimore with former Fed chief Alan Greenspan, the wily old fox tossed a grenade. The discussion had arrived at the biggest topic in finance: WWDD? What would Donald do? Then the bomb exploded:…
To loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke. â Isaiah 58:1-12 BALTIMORE â The swamp is where the injustice arises. Itâs where the win-lose…
BALTIMORE â The Dow popped back up over 20,000 on Friday. Federal debt approaches $20 trillion. And Donald Trump claimed to have saved $600 million on Lockheed Martinâs F-35 fighter jet program. (Did he take out the seat warmers or…
BALTIMORE â Investors seem to be holding their breath, like a man hiding a cigarette from his wife. Itâs just a feeling⊠and itâs not the first time weâve had it⊠but it feels as though it wouldnât take much…
BALTIMORE â The Fed did nothing yesterday. The stock market didnât do anything, either. Even Donald J. Trump was remarkably quiet. He was distracted from his usual whirl by a visit to honor the body of a Navy SEAL, Chief…
BILL BONNER, CHAIRMAN, BONNER & PARTNERS BALTIMORE â The Dow is back below the 20,000-point mark. Federal debt, as officially tallied, is up to nearly $20 trillion. The two go together, egging each other on. The Dow is up 20…
BALTIMORE â Thank God for the travel ban! Since the 1950s, roughly 1,000,000 people have been murdered in the U.S., including 2,996 killed on 9/11 by terrorists. We donât need any more killers in the U.S.; weâve got plenty already….
And I canât help but blaminâ your going On the coming, the coming of the roads. â Peter, Paul and Mary BALTIMORE â âBill, you just donât understand how we feel. This whole country was going down the drain. Now…
MIAMI â How do we know if new programs will make the economy better⊠or worse? Hereâs a simple formula: W = rv (w-w â w-l) That is, wealth is equal to the real value of win-win exchanges minus the…
MIAMI â How about that? The Dow punched through the 20,000 mark Wednesday. It could go much higher. Or lower. Weâre not sure which â maybe both. But our guess is that it wonât stay where it is for long….
BALTIMORE â It has gotten worse⊠Now, reader feedback in the Diary Mailbag (see below) is running 3-to-1 against us. Which is puzzling. Weâre not really against Mr. Trump. We donât dislike him (weâve never met). We wish him well. We have…
BALTIMORE â Yesterday, Treasury prices rose and yields had their biggest one-day fall in over two weeks. Investors are turning their backs on risky stocks, in other words, in favor of traditionally âsafe-havenâ bonds. The Trump boomlet seems to be…
BALTIMORE â The inauguration on Friday proceeded with all the pomp and ceremony of a coronation, a university commencement, or a mafia funeral. No American who cares deeply about the future of his country could have watched it without laughing….
BALTIMORE â The Financial Times is wrong about most everything. The Davos consensus, too, errs regularly. So does former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers. And when former Democratic senator William Proxmire revealed Alan Greenspanâs economic forecasting record in the latterâs confirmation hearings,…
BALTIMORE â This week, Team Trump made its triumphant march into Washington. Yesterday, the president-elect paid his respects at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, admired his new hotel in Washington, and quipped that his cabinet had the highest IQs…
BALTIMORE â The tweet was never sent and never received⊠âLying Otto von Bismarck set us up for bankruptcy! What was he thinking? Sad!!â Instead, Mr. Trump said last weekend that, far from trying to curb the promises and cut…
Build the Fatherland. Kill a student. â Pro-PerĂłn graffiti on buildings in Buenos Aires, circa 1952 BALTIMORE â âIâm not superstitious.â The answer showed such charming insouciance and in-your-face bravado that it might have come from the mouth of Americaâs…
BALTIMORE â âTrumpismo,â we said to a colleague on Friday. âThatâs all you have to know.â We are looking forward to the next four years with a mixture of curiosity, dread, and rank voyeurism. Not that we know WHAT will…
BALTIMORE â Two things. One we understand. The other we donât. First, you gotta hand it to Wall Street. The financial elite were 1,000% behind Hillary. Then, when Donald Trump won the White House, within minutes, they were in his…
BALTIMORE â âThe Donaldâ â still in Manhattan, and still largely ignorant of the nasty critters and perverse ecosystem on the banks of the Potomac â is catching whiffs of swamp gas. Talking to the New York Post, the president-elect said…
BALTIMORE â Bloomberg reports that a panel of Nobel Prize-winning economists has given Donald Trumpâs economic policies the thumbs down. Professor and former World Bank chief economist Joseph Stiglitz summed up the views of the panel, which âincluded his fellow…
BALTIMORE â Again, the Dow was scheduled to go over the psychologically important 20,000-point mark yesterday. And again, it backed off. We are studying the life and times of former Fed chief Alan Greenspan. Not that we expect to discover…
BALTIMORE â So far, so good. 2017 is shaping up nicely⊠at least from the point of view of an amused cynic. Rarely have so many people believed so much that isnât true. Dangerous Delusions Telling companies where to put…
â210 people were shot in America on the first day of 2017,â reads a headline on news website Vox. Baltimore did its part⊠Shortly after midnight in Ellicott City [a Baltimore suburb], Maryland, a 15-year-old boy broke into the house…
It is worse than âvoodoo economics,â says former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers. It is the âeconomic equivalent of creationism.â Wait a minute⊠Larry Summers is wrong about almost everything. Could he be right about this? âTrade Cheatersâ Summers is referring…
BALTIMORE â People can believe whatever they want. But sooner or later, real life intervenes. We just like to see the looks on their faces when it does. By that measure, 2017 may be our best year ever. Rarely have…
BALTIMORE â In southern Italy, on New Yearâs Eve, people used to throw things they no longer needed out of the window. This allowed them to start afresh, without the impedimenti of the past getting in the way. In Germany and Austria,…
Editorâs Note: To kick off the New Year, we want to finish up our holiday wealth-building series from Bill. BALTIMORE â Large groups of people do extraordinarily pig-headed things from time to time. Republicans can drive a car more or…
Editorâs Note: In todayâs Diary, Bill continues to share his enduring advice on how you can live simply and build long-term wealth. If you missed yesterdayâs âHow to Live on $500 a Month,â you can read it here. ON THE…
Editorâs Note: Today, we continue our Christmas trilogy in the Diary. If you missed Part 1 â âThe Ghost of Christmas Pastâ â you can catch up here. âFezziwig, not Scrooge.â This was my motherâs advice when I began my…
BALTIMORE â We hit only one of our two big milestones yesterday. The winter solstice passed, as expected. For the next six months, the days will get longer, not shorter. The stock market, though, did not hit the Dow 20,000…
 Dies Natalis Solis Invicti â Birthday of the Unconquered Sun BALTIMORE â Today, we celebrate two important events. First, and without a doubt, we will raise a glass to the victorious sun. Second, the Dow rose within 25 points of…
Life is one long struggle in the dark. â Lucretius BALTIMORE â In January of this year, the Empire Herald reported that a âmeth-addled coupleâ had eaten a homeless man in New York Cityâs Central Park. Later, Now8News reported that a can of cookie…
BALTIMORE â âYouâre entitled to your own opinions,â quipped American politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan sometime in the last century, âbut not your own facts.â But come the 21st century, and everyone has whatever facts he wants. Fake facts. Altered facts….
BALTIMORE â Stocks hesitated on Wednesday after the Fed announced its puny rate increase. Then, yesterday, they continued their march to glory, coming to rest just 150 points shy of the Dowâs 20,000 mark. And the dollar hit a 14-year…
BALTIMORE â The funny money gets funnier in the U.S., too⊠Yesterday, as expected, the Fed raised its key short-term lending rate by 25 basis points to 0.75%. Stocks fell. Bloomberg Markets: Federal Reserve officials raised interest rates for the first…
BALTIMORE â Funny money is getting funnier and funnier. Our challenge is to figure out whoâs the butt of the joke. We have a brother who is a realtor in Virginia. This past weekend, he was busy entertaining a group…
BALTIMORE â Whoâs the biggest winner so far? âGovernment Sachs!â Fortune magazine reports that the winningest person since Trumpâs election is Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. Goldmanâs stock price is back to where it was just before the last crash in…
BILL BONNER, CHAIRMAN, BONNER & PARTNERS BALTIMORE â When we left you Friday, we were in the middle of describing the crooked hind leg of crony capitalism. We used billionaire businessman Wilbur Ross â Donald Trumpâs pick for the Department of…
BALTIMORE â âBehind every great fortune is a crime,â said French novelist HonorĂ© de Balzac. Even our modest little pile owes much to a crime, though not our own. But what is behind Wilbur Rossâ billion-dollar fortune? In this series,…
BALTIMORE â We are looking ahead. And coming together is not only a clearer picture of how Trumpâs reflation might turn out⊠but also a better understanding of what has gone wrong with the whole economy. Over the next three…
BALTIMORE â Pearl Harbor Day. The strain of trying to figure out what Donald J. Trump will mean to the U.S. economy and its markets has worn us out. So today, we have some bits and pieces⊠Itâs too bad…
BALTIMORE â We continue our humble look at things very old and very new, annoying many dear readers. Many seem to think that âThe Donaldâ really is the savior theyâve been waiting for. So we listened intently last Sunday hoping…
BILL BONNER, CHAIRMAN, BONNER & PARTNERS BALTIMORE â âWorst bond rout since 1990,â said a headline in The Irish Times last week. And there it was, in plain view. The beginning of the end. Now we know how it will turn out….
BALTIMORE â People never intend to bring disasters upon themselves. But they sometimes put themselves in situations in which disaster is the only way out. The War Between the States was supposed to be quick and decisive. The glorious histories…
BALTIMORE â Fidel Castro was regarded as a revolutionary and a âchange agent.â But he is better understood as a throwback, more of a counter-revolutionary than a real revolutionary. The real revolution in human affairs happened long before he was…
BALTIMORE â Judging by the Diary Mailbag (see below), dear readers would like to see a more positive attitude towards the president-elect. We would like to take a more positive approach; we like wishful thinking as much as anyone. In particular, weâd…
BILL BONNER, CHAIRMAN, BONNER & PARTNERS [T]here never was a time when, in my opinion, some way could not be found to prevent the drawing of the sword. â Ulysses S. Grant BALTIMORE â Mr. Trump is still assembling his…
BALTIMORE â Poor Donald⊠He could be flirting with Miss America contestants and enjoying the pulchritude of beauty queens. Instead, he is stuck with the turpitude of the ruling classes. One job candidate after another. David Petraeus. Rudy Giuliani. Newt…
Editorâs Note: Our offices were closed for Thanksgiving Day. Please enjoy this classic essay from 1999. PARIS â I turned to my trusty assistant⊠Beirne White⊠this morning. âBeirne,â I said gravely, âtell me about Thanksgiving in Mississippi.â Beirne proceeded to…
BALTIMORE â Yesterday, the Dow punched up above 19,000 â a new all-time record. And on Monday, the Dow, the S&P 500, the Nasdaq, and the small-cap Russell 2000 each hit new all-time highs. The last time that happened was…
BALTIMORE â The mainstream press is focused on Donald Trumpâs selections of his key staff. So far, our name hasnât come up. These choices â of his captains and majors â are thought to be especially important. Because Trump has…
BALTIMORE â Today, we look at the biggest threat to Mr. Trumpâs presidency. So far, we have been delighted with the election of Mr. Trump. Not because we have any confidence in, or affection for, the man. But he claims…
TRUMP HOTEL, New York City Ââ Yesterday, where we left offâŠÂ Mr. Trumpâs triumphant, ragtag army was marching on Washington. After his victory over the forces of Hillary Clinton and the Establishment⊠he has turned his face towards the nationâs capital….
TRUMP HOTEL, New York â Trumpâs rambling army â professionals, amateurs, camp followers, and profiteers â is marching south, down the I-95 corridor. There, on the banks of the Potomac, it will fight its next big battle. But hold on…
After 35 years of waiting⊠so many false signals⊠so often deceived⊠so often disappointed⊠bond bears gathered on rooftops as though awaiting the Second Coming. Many times, investors have said to themselves, âThis is it! This is the end…
BALTIMORE â What we can expect from the Trump administration is coming into clearer focus. Mr. Trump may be impetuous and unpredictable. But the economic policies of his administration are not. In fact, he has little choice⊠The system depends…
BALTIMORE â âI couldnât believe it,â said a friend with grandchildren in a private school in the Washington area. âTheir school provided grief counseling!â âGrief counseling?â âYes. Apparently, students were so upset by Donald Trumpâs victory that the school thought…
BALTIMORE â Walking home last night, we got caught in a mob (as you can see in this video). âNot my president,â said the signs, along with more lurid and confrontational messages. There were thousands of demonstrators marching from Pennsylvania station…
BALTIMORE â âFight Trump! Fight Trump! Fight Trump!â There must be rejoicing in âflyover countryâ where âThe Donaldâ is regarded as an American hero. But long faces dominate on the two coasts, where he is considered a sort of biblical…
BALTIMORE â Finally, itâs over. We checked the news this morning. We were both delighted and appalled. A smile spread over our face⊠and our steps lightened⊠as we looked ahead to four years without Hillary Clintonâs know-it-all mug in…
BALTIMORE â âHey, it says here it is a federal crime to accept a gift in exchange for your vote.â Elizabeth was examining her absentee ballot as we drove down I-95. âI thought half the population got some form of…
BALTIMORE â âNobody knows anything,â they say in Hollywood. They gather together millions of dollars⊠top celebrity actors⊠a director who has just won an Oscar⊠add a script with plenty of sex and violence⊠and look forward to a…
RHINEBECK, New York â Hereâs the latest from the Fed. It just completed a two-day policy meeting and wrote in a press release: The Committee judges that the case for an increase in the federal funds rate has continued to…
RHINEBECK, New York â It is a beautiful autumnal day here in upstate New York. The trees are red, brown, and yellow. Squirrels hop across the lawn, collecting their nuts. Unseasonably warm the last few days, rain showers are moving…
RHINEBECK, New York â Poor Mr. Obama. In an apologia in The Economist, the president reveals that he has learned nothing during his time in the White House. More importantly, he has forgotten nothing⊠Making Flimflam Float Almost anyone who went…
RHINEBECK, New York â Is the stock market dead? Nothing is happening there. It is the first of November. The countdown to the elections has begun; the nation seems to hold its breath. Driving up to New York state yesterday,…
BALTIMORE â Itâs another slow news day for the stock market⊠At least at 7 a.m. here on the East Coast it is. But bonds are starting to show signs of topping out. Calm Before the Storm Meanwhile, weâre days…
BALTIMORE â What is going on in the markets? Well⊠nothing much. The U.S. stock and bond markets have been as dull as a teetotalerâs funeral. No dancing. But no teary breakdowns, either. Investors seem to be awaiting the results…
BATLIMORE â âHold your nose and vote.â Thatâs the advice weâve been getting lately. Even our minister, on Sunday, encouraged his flock to vote. âFor whom?â we wanted to ask. âWWJD?â Caligula or Nero? We closed our eyes. We tried…
BALTIMORE â Weâre still reeling from yesterdayâs discovery â that the economy has actually been backtracking since 1989. How do we know? We just took the Fedâs GDP growth numbers and adjusted them for inflation, as the Bureau of Labor…
So you think you can tell Heaven from Hell Blue skies from pain â âWish You Were Here,â Pink Floyd BALTIMORE â Todayâs economy no longer seems to work for the average American. His earnings go down. His debt goes up….
Only where love and need are one, And the work is play for mortal stakes, Is the deed ever really done For Heaven and the futureâs sakes. â âTwo Tramps in Mud Time,â Robert Frost BALTIMORE â âWhat are you doing?…
BALTIMORE â We checked. We checked again. Nothing. Despite our recent open letter to him, the person not sending us an email was Donald J. Trump. But letâs check with the markets before we return to politics⊠Too Late for Trump? While…
BALTIMORE â Like a house on fire, the election continues to draw a crowd of gawkers. We joined them last night, warming our hands and hoping to see the whole damned place burn down. Last nightâs debate brought a shift…
BALTIMORE â âItâs over!â RaĂșl Ilargi Meijer, a regular contributor to David Stockmanâs Contra Corner newsletter, explains that the âentire model our societies have been based on for at least as long as we ourselves have lived is over!â Meijer again: Thatâs why…
BALTIMORE â Here at the Diary, we always take the side of the underdog, the diehard, and the lost cause. Itâs beginning to look like Donald Trump may be all three. So today we extend a helping hand with an open…
BALTIMORE â For weeks, the top news headlines have been about politics. And politics has been all about the Republican Party candidate for president of the United States, Donald Trump. The Establishment, the media, and most right-thinking people look around…
American voters think they have a choice, says Bill Bonner. They don’t.
The lesser of two evils? I choose not to vote for evil at all, says Bill Bonner.
Unless youâre talking cash or gold in the hand, youâd better think again, says Bill Bonner.
Forget free trade and freedom of travel: build a wall and bring on the strong leader, says Bill Bonner.
The markets are eerily quiet. With so many trends and facts to titillate us all, youâd expect a little more excitement, says Bill Bonner.
The Ides of March have come.    â Julius Caesar Yes, Caesar⊠but not gone.    â A seer BALTIMORE â The Dow was up a piddly 15 points yesterday. But nobody was watching. All eyes were on the U.S….
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