Ben Graham managed to compound money at 20%/year for 20 years at his partnership following a value investing strategy

In 1948 he acquired 50% stake in GEICO. It had to be distributed to his investors

They almost didn't make the investment due to some accounting questions 1/

Ben Graham paid $712,500 for 50% of GEICO in 1948. He put 25% of his investment assets in GEICO.

This investment did so well that the price of its shares advanced to two hundred times or more than the price of the half-interest by 1971/1972 2/

Ironically, the aggregate of profits accruing from this single investment decision far exceeded the sum of all the others realized through 20 years of operations in the partners specialized fields, involving much investigation, endless pondering&countless individual decisions 3/

Are there morals to this story of value to the intelligent investor?

An obvious one is that there are several different ways to make and keep money on Wall Street 4/

Another, not so obvious, is that one lucky break, or one supremely shrewd decision may count for more than a lifetime of journeyman efforts.

But behind the luck, or the crucial decision, there must usually exist a background of preparation and disciplines capacity. 5/

I keep hearing people complain that the ‘mainstream media’ does not understand economics and that we’re talked down to as if everything must be explained as if the economy is a household. In this thread I explain all you (and they) need to know. Economics in one thread then....

Very few people seem to understand how money is created. Mainly that’s because when they’re told it seems so simple that they can’t believe something that’s so important that we’re willing to pay a lot to get it is created so easily. This thread explains how money is created.

What this thread also explains is that if we understand money we can completely reimagine how the economy really works, which is the pathway to rebuilding from the mess we are in. Which makes this a pretty big deal. I make no apology for its length as a result.

Let’s start at the very beginning. A person goes into a bank and asks for a £1,000 loan. The bank checks them out, and agrees. And that is all that it takes to create new money. Money is just a promise to pay. That simple exchange of promises is all it takes to create it.

Most people think there must be something that backs up the value of money. Gold, most likely. But there isn’t. Money is just a promise to pay, and has been for almost 50 years now. Mutual promises to pay creates all the money we have.

Thread – Why the Latest Pelosi-backed $2T Stimulus Bill Went Nowhere

1. The Dementiacrats have been holding more virus relief hostage in order to force Republicans to cave and vote for another $2T Dementiacrat porkulus bill instead.

2. Senate Dementiacrats have voted against the Republican’s $500B relief bill targeted at REAL PEOPLE (small business and the jobless) multiple times.

3. A $2T virus relief bill was ramrodded through by House Democrats in March through July when it was signed into law by the President. It contained junk that had nothing to do with virus relief but was the price that Republicans had to pay to get relief to suffering Americans.

4. Dementiacrat bill that San Fran Nan wants to push down our throats now contains $2T more of this crap, as well as relief directly targeted at Blue states to cover pension shortfalls and other past Dementiacrat mismanagement.

5. It’s no wonder why Republicans are telling her to “piss off” on the latest $2T porkulus bill.

Inflation Is Coming!

Some say: Inflation didn’t rise after 2008-2015 Fed QE, so it won’t rise this time. Here are the problems with that argument.

1) From 2008-2015 regulators hammered the banks, so while the Fed’s balance sheet expanded, M2 did not accelerate.

2) In 2020, we used the banks to push out money, the opposite of the first round of QE. PPP loans were financed through banks and unemployment checks were direct-deposited.
3) The M2 measure of money is up more than 25% in the past 12 months.

4) That alone, 25%+ M2 growth, is enough, but we are compounding the problems.
5) Regulating fossil fuel production drives energy prices up.
6) Ag, industrial & transportation are energy intensive, and many claim they are bad for the environment. Result: higher prices.

7) Federal government borrowing and deficit spending encourages more Fed money printing, and artificially lifts demand.
8) Higher tax rates, rising minimum wage, and big government crowd out the private sector; reducing supply.
9) Demand up; Supply down! Inflation is coming.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples in Australia, suffer grossly disproportionate rates of disadvantage against all measures of socio-economic status.
1-

State, territory & federal governments have introduced programs, & continue to seek to identify further methods, for redressing this disadvantage.
2-

A plethora of government programs have proven to be inadequate when considered against the requirement to raise Indigenous People to a position of equality in Australian society.
3-

The final report card for the 2008-2020 Closing-The-Gap-Program found the program only partially met 2 of the 7 outcome. 12 years on Aboriginal People still have a life expectancy a full decade less than white

Sadly there is little understanding within Australian society of the requirement to and legitimacy of adopting special measures.
5-

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon RELATIVE to real economic activity. This last part is key.

Also, measuring “the money supply” is a tricky thing, because it lives and breathes with the economy.

🚨🚨 THREAD TIME 🚨🚨

let's talk about the differences between income, wealth, and class

tl;dr: income is earned, wealth is bought, and class is inherited

also hi friends, while on the topic of income, this work is my only source of it! times are tough and folks are really struggling, but if you have a couple extra bucks please consider sending a tip my way

💰 venmo rachel-kahn-5
💵 cashapp

INCOME is the amount of money a person makes from labor and investments

so if you work for 2,000 hours and are paid $40,000 in a year, that's income

OR if you have a $1,000,000 stock portfolio with a 5% return rate and cash out $40,000 of it, that's income too (fucked, right?)

WEALTH is the amount of capital you own

that could be owning a house and land worth $150,000

or owning a small business with $150,000 in assets

or owning $150,000 worth of stocks

wealth is the investments that are themselves accruing value

CLASS is about what you stand to inherit

in the united states we use a lot of weird doublespeak to avoid talking about the proletariat, the petit bourgeoisie, and the bourgeoisie directly

proletariat ~ working class
petit bourgeoisie ~ middle class
bourgeoisie ~ upper class

A product which provides a fixed income which is better than FD & an upside like equity.

Should you invest in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)?
A Thread 🧵👇

1/ REITs are a vehicle to invest in income-producing real estate properties managed by professionals.

2/ In India, we have REITs primarily focused on commercial real estate properties having 7-9% rental yields.

In listed REITs, Most of the completed properties are pre-leased to big companies.

Why no residential? As yields of 1-3% make them unattractive to investors.

3/ How do you get the benefit of such yield?

REITs have to distribute at least 90% of their taxable income to their shareholders.

Both listed REITs trade at 6-7% dividend yield (which is also tax-free)

4/ Moreover, 80% of their total value must come from completed & income-generating properties + it must avoid speculative land acquisitions.

What about debt then? There's a restriction there too.
Not more than 49% of the total equity.

has anyone covering the Wall Street GME reaping and sowing gone into the fact that a lot of the GameStop and directly associated trades have been largely amplified by social listening powered mega firms doing machine learning automated trades because the “idea” of GME is popular?

like I thought this was a thing investor people & press just knew & instead it’s all just focused on the message of redditors clowning short sellers and not “the computers saw the infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters and decided That Would Be A Cool Thing To Emulate” for $$$

for those new: finance social listening is a marketing “science” that involves advanced web & social network data collectors scraping everything for nuance on companies, purchasing behavior & language, investor & finance sentiment, etc & using it to make billions of trades for $$

Musk & his core investor clique is notorious for doing this as are some other big hedge firms & finance firms - you take the raw off Bloomberg Terminal, Superdata, public social networks and headlines etc etc, machine learning the fuck out of it, collect money. A hype machine.

This has been going on for about 8 years but only got popular & competitive in the past 2, when firms realized the machines could do a better job with these data flows in setting up short term shorts & holds vs people - & they could also “game” media to effect other hype machines

1. Georgia : China
"China is a TOP source for imports and our 3rd largest exports market. We welcome thousands of Chinese visitors each year to the Peach State..."
- Governor Brian Kemp

THREAD on how economically Muslims maybe poorer (the state is overall also not as rich) in #Bengal but have relatively got socio-political empowerment (part of Threads I am writing for the understanding of Bengal politics in the context of upcoming assembly election):

1/20

The socio-economic status of Muslims in the state is far behind other communities as the Sachar Committee Report (2006) and Pratichi-SNAP’s “Living Reality of Muslims in West Bengal” (2016) attest.

2/20

But it has not witnessed the rule of the BJP yet although the founder of the predecessor of the saffron party, Bharatiya Jan-Sangh, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee was himself a Bengali.

3/20

During both the Congress and the Left Front rule earlier, and now under TMC Muslims did get some leverage although political marginalization even at block level had continued.

4/20

Across India, the last two general elections, and even the recent Bihar assembly elections, have resulted in the further marginalization of Muslims.

5/20

Time for a Scorecard📊and thesis📑updates for purchases done in Feb/Mar 2020. Last review done in late April. How far things have come since then.😯

Not taking any drastic actions, other than few sells in fully valued, slower growth Co.'s.

Events since then
✔️Co's reporting two Qtrly reports
✔️Accelerating growth for few sectors
✔️Understandable problems for few others
✔️Crazy run-ups & valuations in the last 9 mo's, supported by biz growth in some cases, but mostly due to Monetary factors & Investor enthusiasm...

I usually buy for two scenarios

1⃣Leading Co's within strong secular trends, that also have strong Management Teams and solid Financials (Rev growth, Profitability or improving Margins/FCF prospects, no balance sheet risk...).

These are bought with the intention of holding for the long-term as long as the thesis is intact or getting better. Strongly intend to add along the way. Ex : $ROKU $PINS $TWLO $DOCU $W $NOW $WDAY $NVCR $MTCH in the above table.

2⃣More mature and stable Co.'s but with some growth left (no Financial risk), mainly bought for their current under-valuation, with the intent to sell when the Market or those stocks recover. Ex : $BIP $BUD $VTR $BR $BA in above table.

Billionaires see fortunes rise by 27% during the pandemic.

Well would ya look at that.

While the world's been hiding, going broke, losing their homes and businesses, being corralled and penned like little sheep, the

1. Michigan : Product of China
Why did Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Former Gov. Rick Snyder (R) both endorse Joe Biden?
C H I N A !
special guest: Hunter Biden #9

A few thoughts on tax policy. Thread:

So you are worth >$100M or perhaps even a few billion. There are only two ways to become this rich.

1. You start a business that becomes very successful.
2. You inherit wealth from your family. 1/

Whether you created a great company or inherited a lot of wealth, you are now sitting on a capital asset. You don’t really have any ordinary income (not meaningful to be relevant) and you never will. To the extent you ever pay taxes, it will be capital gains. 2/

The highest tax rate that the super rich will ever pay on their income (or wealth) is 20% capital gains tax. So, the super rich pay the equivalent effective tax rate of any American earning $75K (when you include FICA taxes). Same as a teacher or a cop. 3/

The question following from this obvious injustice in the tax system is the appropriate policy for taxing capital income. Economic policy would suggest that the best tax rate on capital is 0%. Why? ...4/

...Because in a capitalist society you want capital flowing efficiently without friction to its most productive use. Benefits of that are obvious. 5/

My friend @itsafronomics wanted to know the breakdown of student debt by income, so I pulled data from the SCF.

Student debt is more concentrated amongst high earners, but disproportionately amongst Black borrowers. The plot below plots the average within Income Quartiles.
1/n

But those are the averages. What's the share that's above 10k? (This is the Biden current cutoff for debt forgiveness, so a useful benchmark).

For comparison, 20% of white Americans have student debt, and 31% of Black Americans.

Let's contrast that with say, above 20k. I was surprised at how high the share remains.

When we get to 50k of student debt, or more, we see it's only about 5% of the US, and around 8% of Black Americans. Strikingly, it's a huge share of high income Black Americans (this is a known fact in the education literature, I believe).

So what does this look like put together? Overall, we see a higher share of Americans with debt above 10k, and 20k. We would cover a decent amount with 10k, but miss Black Americans especially.

The economic impact of the Brexit deal: our

Key points to remember:

1. Leaving Single Market/Customs Union means major new trade barriers - customs and border checks, regulatory barriers, end of rules allowing services to be sold across borders.

2. A deal doesn't change that. It means no tariffs and quotas and *some* provisions that will stop trade breaking down. But the main impacts -on our and the government's own analysis, about two-thirds - happen either way

3. That also means that some disruption is inevitable. You can't introduce new systems/processes overnight. The delay in doing a deal plus covid means some things will go wrong

4. But short term disruption, even if it gets headlines, does *not* mean Brexit is a failure. And when that disruption is resolved and new systems are working, we should*not* conclude it's a success.