February 2024

Members of Congress use “insider knowledge” to trade and invest in the stock market. That is, they’re using information not accessible to the public to pad their bank accounts. And, not at all surprisingly, this fine group of men and women best known for lying, cheating, and stealing their way to power are quite good at trading on insider information. With the November presidential election approaching rapidly, political insiders are frantically buying particular stocks to set themselves up for massive profits once the results are announced. It’s time to follow suit.

I travel a LOT so I’ve accumulated a ton of air miles. Yet, for many years I haven’t received any updates to business class… until my most recent trip. Could this seemingly innocuous change warn of a bigger consumer shift?

Nvidia is all the rage in the investment world right now. But what’s driving the demand for its chips? And even as a leader of the chip market, there’s still room for other players like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta to get into the business of building chips. Here’s why it’s worth your while to follow their lead…

A look at how dangerously dependent young people are on the web these days… and how they so badly lack the very basic life skills to succeed and be productive members of society. Plus what President Joe Biden’s student loan forgiveness teaches the indebted. And other stories from the week.

Because we don’t know who will be in the White House come January 2025 – let alone which party will control Congress – we also can’t know what to expect from the tax code. Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are set to expire at the end of 2025.  What does this mean? It means that we might all be paying a lot more in taxes in another two years… and not just on our paychecks. The hikes would potentially affect investment income as well as inherited estates. Freeport Society friend Jared Dillian of The Daily Dirtnap has an interesting take on this.

In stark contrast to the official numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the experience on the ground is disheartening. Unsurprisingly, the gig economy is expanding three times faster than the U.S. workforce. California Governor, Gavin Newsom, is determined to throw a wrench into this development…

Apart from the usual palm greasing, backroom deal making, and pretending to genuinely care about the people, let’s consider why the modern president deserves a day of celebration…

From Presidents with evil, red, glowing eyes to Russia doing business with Iran and paying for it in gold… this is one roundup you don’t want to miss.

It’s come to light that Russia is buying military hardware from Iran… and paying for it in gold. Not all global transactions are made in dollars, of course, and never have been. But is this Russian-Iranian transaction just a novelty…or could this be the proverbial canary in the coalmine of more trouble ahead for the greenback?

Sam Altman’s dream to raise $7T to further the development of AI is an impossible one. Still, we’re rooting for him because this country is built from impossible dreams. Unfortunately, our politicians are more interested in behaving like moody teenagers. So what’s an investor to do?