Alfidi Capital Gives Thanks On Thanksgiving Day 2011

Publicly giving thanks on Thanksgiving Day is a tradition in the United States.  Many Americans give thanks to their parents, a supreme being, their alma mater, and whatever other forces and entities they feel have helped them become prosperous and happy.  I see no reason not to join in the holiday fun here at Alfidi Capital.

I am thankful to live in a country governed by the rule of law and not a monarch's whim or a mob's passion.  The rule of law is sometimes called into question when crony capitalists play questionable games with their clients' money, but I still believe justice prevails in even the most privileged cases.  America is still a country that convicts billionaires for insider trading.  No one is above the law.  The wheels of justice may turn slowly sometimes but they turn nonetheless.

I am thankful to live in a country that allows me to start and run my very own business without having to pay a bribe to a corrupt government official.  I pay my taxes on whatever revenue I earn without fear that some bureaucrat will surprise me with hidden fees out of spite.  This would be impossible in a socialist or Communist country where there is no such thing as private property. 

I am thankful for intelligent, thoughtful followers on the web who link to my site, read my blog, and follow my social media feeds.  Many people want financial analysis that is honest, independent, transparent, and entertaining.  My website management tools and traffic counters tell me that people from all around the world can't get enough of what they find here. 

I am thankful to be financially independent.  I have enough money to pay my expenses and live in comfort without fear of bankruptcy or a decline in my standard of living.  Being frugal and debt-free helps, but I could not have achieved this status without years of living well below my means. 

I am thankful to live in San Francisco, California, the greatest city in human history.  I have lived in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and the South and Midwest of the United States.  Nothing compares to The City's quality of life.  The physical beauty, economic prosperity, and cultural treats here are unmatched.  There's no place like home. 

I am even thankful for the existence of stupid people who don't like me personally.  They're not intelligent enough to understand anything I have to say.  They make me look good by comparison.  I enjoy their hatred and relish every chance I have to defeat them. 

Finally, I am thankful to be extraordinarily handsome, supremely intelligent, and undeniably witty.  Those qualities set me apart from the stupid people referenced above.  I'd rather live this way than be sentenced to a miserable life of ignorance. 

Thanksgiving is a pretty cool holiday.  It's the perfect excuse to overindulge an appetite for the agricultural abundance of America, the most productive economy in history.  I enjoyed a buffet meal at The Cliff House, one of The City's oldest and best restaurants.  It was a great time to sample plenty of dishes and watch the world's commerce sail through the Golden Gate.  America is awesome. 

Voices and Deaf Ears, Part 2 on Our Road to Serfdom

A few days ago I mused that i-bankers and others at the top of our society aren't really being forced to change their rapacious ways. Today's selections offer us insights on why this is so.

The Atlantic, one of the oldest Anglo-American journals of record, serves up an indictment of America's descent into Third World status:

In its depth and suddenness, the U.S. economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets (and only in emerging markets): South Korea (1997), Malaysia (1998), Russia and Argentina (time and again). In each of those cases, global investors, afraid that the country or its financial sector wouldn’t be able to pay off mountainous debt, suddenly stopped lending.
(snip)

But there’s a deeper and more disturbing similarity: elite business interests — financiers, in the case of the U.S.—played a central role in creating the crisis, making ever-larger gambles, with the implicit backing of the government, until the inevitable collapse. More alarming, they are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed, and fast, to pull the economy out of its nosedive. The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them.

The Atlantic's only real rival for the title of most intellectual publication in America is Harper's (and it's just as old!), whose editor emeritus Lewis Lapham has always held a rather jaundiced view of his peers in the ruling elite. His florid prose is always a joy to read (excerpted from Money and Class in America, 1988):

By abdicating their authority and responsibility, the sovereign people also relinquish their courage. Like rich old women in Palm Beach or a committee of dithering lawyers, the American electorate listens to the wisdom of its public servants as if to voices of minor oracles. Politicians and Cabinet ministers appear in the role of of the omniscient butler who finds phrases of art with which to conceal the embarrassments of the young master’s profligacy and reduced circumstances.

Finally, Rolling Stone offers us this colorful portrait of our dire straits as a result of the above:

People are pissed off about this financial crisis, and about this bailout, but they're not pissed off enough. The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d'état. They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.

The authors all recognize that neofeudalism is here. I've seen it coming too, probably since my days at Notre Dame when I first encountered the children of one wing (the hard-right, hypermoralistic, hypocritical Catholic wing) of our ruling class. I have spent my adult life aspiring to join the ranks of America's patricians only to find that, in the main, they won't have me among them. No matter. The turmoil now brewing will allow me and others like me to simply displace them with new wealth, like the Darwinian process that allows mutated species to survive ecological catastrophes.

There were numerous warning signs on our national road to economic annihilation. Many of my fellow Americans seem to have mistaken them for billboard advertisements. I read every sign up close, took notes, and marked their locations. I will wait patiently for the day when I will sign the deed on a San Francisco mansion. Quite a few will be vacated by people who couldn't be bothered to pay attention.

Welcome, neofeudalism. Let the jousting matches for fiefdoms begin.

The Haiku of Finance for 08/25/08

In Bonanzastan
Where Homo investus lives
Real money is made