Should have invested every nickel I have in FAANG — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google.
And a little also in NVDA, TTD, GNRC, NET, TWLO, SHOP, ZS, ZM and TSM. (The full portfolio is on the right column on the web site.)
This is bleeding obvious. I’ve been writing about it for months.
This is the era of Amazon shopping, cloud services for at-home employees and services that make life at home easier — Zoom, DocuSign, TelaDoc, Adobe, and Netflix, etc.
Hold these companies. Don’t watch the tape. Go play tennis.
Use Wilson tennis balls. They’re the best. Wilson, by the way, is owned by Amer Sports, which is a private company somewhere in Finland, of all places.
This is NOT the perfect investment
In fact, it sucks. It’s from the Ally Bank web site.
Apple is up 7% today. Amazon is up 4% today. Facebook is up 7%. Who needs Ally? You and I don’t.
No CDs. No savings accounts. No bonds. Just enough cash on hand to take care of living expenses for the next 12 months.
Stop trying to be super-smart. That’s me lecturing me, if case you haven’t figured that out.
Everyone is fleeing the city
Everyone is looking for bargains in city apartments. Some are available. Not many.
Will cities come back in two to three years when this covid thing is over?
That’s the 64-dollar question. No one has an answer.
Our NYC apartment is now worth less than we paid for it 15 years ago.
But our country house could be closer to what we have in it. Closer. Inching closer. Never build. Cheaper to buy. There are some beautiful places for sale up here in Columbia County — for the price of small, cramped, noisy, dirty apartment in New York City.
City office buildings are a whole other story. Employees have fled them. They’re working on Zoom and high-speed Internet. My country Internet is one gig. Used to be 7 megs. That means it’s now 142 times faster than a year ago. And that’s in a rural community.
Most of my friends say they’re “productive” at home. But customer “service” has gone down the toilet. I don’t know whether companies like Verizon know about their lousy service or even care.
Good health
+ Water makes a huge difference. Drink lots and lots of it. Especially when it’s hot and humid. Stay away from sugar drinks.
+ Listen to a fast-moving story on a long drive. I listen to Clive Cussler CDs. It’s toal junk. But there’s a crisis every 15 seconds — enough to keep me from sleeping and driving off a bridge.
+ Stress will aggravate every condition you have. Sell your disasters. Pay the money. Stop agonizing over them. Losing money is hard on the psyche. Lost money is much easier. You forget it and move on.
+ Everything works if you reboot it. Wait at least a minute. Do not call Tech Support. They’re clueless. YouTube is much better. Less stress.
+ This stuff really works.
Buy it here on Amazon (where else?). Click here.
Your central AC needs constant attention
+ Mice love our outside condensers. We cleared them out three weeks ago. Now they’re back. They love eating our AC’s wires. We’re sealing all the holes with copper mesh and surrounding all the condensers with traps. It’s a losing battle.
+ Outside condensers need cleaning. Inside air handlers need new filters. We changed our New York City filters yesterday. They were filthy and clogged.
+ We also replaced this busted capacitor in one of the inside air handlers.
Pointless cruelty is the best description of Mitch McConnell
He wants to cut the $600 down to $200. He thinks the $600 stops people looking for a job.
In case he hasn’t noticed, there’s a shortage of jobs. A big shortage.
Almost 40 million people do not expect to be able to make their next rent or mortgage payment. Almost 30 million Americans said they did not have enough to eat during the week ending July 21. Last week, for the 19th straight week, more than a million people filed fresh claims for unemployment benefits. At least 20 million people are technically unemployed. The numbers are estimates.
Australia also has the pandemic. But they’re much better managing it. With a population 25 million, they’ve had 16,905 cases and only 197 dead. When you arrive in Australia from overseas, they take you from the airport to a hotel where you’re quarantined four 14 days. If you escape, they send the police after you and put you back. They’re strict about enforcing lockdowns and rules and regulations. They close roads. They have checkpoints. They don’t have stupid ideas about masks. They wear them.
For employers, they have an eligibility test. If your revenues are down by 30% or more, they pay you the employer $AUS750 a week per employee to keep you employing your employees. You can use your employees to make capital improvements. And many employers are. Those $AUS750 a week payments have now been extended until the end of March next year. In US dollars, that’s $525.
America’s $600 benefit (which are paid to the employee, not the employer, as in Australia) will expire today.
Thank you Mitch McConnell.
Google says Mitch McConnell is worth $22.5 million.
Watch this with your kids this weekend.
Please watch it. It’s inspiring.
Play tennis
I’m staggered at how much easier it is to play tennis in the county. And how much cheaper living up here is — 127 miles north of New York City.
Please watch Obama. It’s a beautiful eulogy. A wonderful vision for our country.
See you Monday. — Harry Newton
Inspiring? Obama is the most divisive, anti-American president of my lifetime. Do away with the filibuster? So much for limiting the powers of government and forcing consensus legislation by representatives of all the people. He’s said in the past how he wants to “fundamentally transform America”. Eliminating the filibuster starts the Democrats on a path to do just that should they win it all in November.
I want some of whatever drug the squirrel is taking