In Search of the Perfect Investment

I recent days I’ve bought more Zoom, Square, Livongo, Chipotle, Apple, Qualcomm, Danaher, Generac and Roku.

I sold Gilead. I’m no good with covid gambles.

I’m still hanging onto Alteryx, which is climbing back, ever so slowly. I’ve listened to its conference call and studied the company. I believe it will climb back. Here’s year to date.

More ransomware

If you buy something, don’t let the vendor store your credit card.

News:

Carnival says ransomware hackers were able to access personal data of cruise ship guests and workers. The cruise operator said it had launched an investigation into a ransomware attack on one of its brand’s IT systems.

I wrote recently how to protect yourself from ransomware. Most importantly, don’t open attachments to email — even if they’re from your boss or your best friend. Call and check.

Rats Nest investing

You can now buy nursing homes cheap. I kid you not. They have “a little hair” on them. But nothing that a serious real estate investor couldn’t fix. I’m being inundated with investment opportunities in nursing and old age homes.

I think the best opportunity is a Ghost Buster service for nursing homes. You could charge by the ghost to be removed. Some homes could be an annuity.

One email this morning:

Compelling demographics, advanced care technology, and the moratorium on market-crowding construction offer sizable benefits to investors and owners.

The “big” investment pitch is we’re all getting older — whatever your political persuasion.

Steve Bannon is arrested. This is bizarre

As reported by The Week magazine:

Stephen Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, was arrested on Thursday on fraud charges after he allegedly put money from an online fundraiser to build a wall along the southern border to personal use. More details are starting to emerge about Bannon’s arrest, including the fact that, according to CBS News, he was “taken into custody by agents from the U.S. Postal Service.”

This bizarre development comes amid an ongoing battle over controversial changes to the Postal Service, and the United States Postal Inspection Service, the USPS’ law enforcement arm, assisted in the investigation that led to Bannon’s indictment, according to CNBC.

Making things even wilder, as CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reports, Bannon was arrested by these Postal Service agents “on a boat Thursday morning off the Eastern coast of Connecticut,” which he had been on “for the last several weeks” while telling people he was “at sea.” The Washington Post adds that it was “someone else’s 150-foot yacht” that Bannon was on when he was arrested.

But wait, there’s more: according to The New York Times’ Evan Hill, the indictment mentions that one of the defendants used allegedly defrauded money to buy a boat — apparently the same boat defendant Brian Kolfage used in a Fourth of July Trump boat parade.

If you’d like to read the indictment, click here: u.s._v._brian_kolfage_stephen_bannon_et_al._indictment_20-cr-412_0

Here’s a link to the impressive recent Trump Boat rally:

Rolling Stone ran an amazing photo of Steve:

And Rolling Stone wrote:

The Justice Department’s indictment – which lays out the allegations against Bannon and his three associates – says Bannon pocketed more than $1 million of We Build the Wall’s donations through a nonprofit group he controlled, and used that money to “secretly pay” Kolfage, the face of We Build the Wall, and to cover “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in personal expenses.

Kolfage, who started the crowdfunding campaign, repeatedly told supporters he would “not take a penny in salary or compensation.” Instead, the indictment alleges, Kolfage used the money raised to pay for home renovations, a boat, a luxury SUV, a golf cart, jewelry, plastic surgery, taxes, and credit card debt.

Bannon, who publicly described We Build the Wall as a “volunteer organization,” and the two other members of the alleged scheme used the money funneled from We Build the Wall to bankroll an array of unrelated personal expenses, including “travel, hotels, consumer goods, and personal credit card debts,” the indictment states.

Kolfage was open with his associates about concealing their self-enrichment scheme from the hundreds of thousands of people who donated to We Build the Wall. The indictment quotes a text message that Kolfage sent to Badolato: “as far as [the public] know[s] no one is getting paid” and “[s]alaries will never be disclosed.”

The indictment says Bannon, Kolfage, and the two others concealed their alleged scam by routing their payments through a nonprofit group and a “shell company.” The Justice Department also alleges that Bannon and his associates used “fake invoices and sham `vendor’ agreements” to make sure that the scheme to pay Kolfage, the head of We Build the Wall, remained “confidential” and on a “need to know” basis, according to a text message sent by Kolfage and cited in the indictment.

In October 2019, the indictment adds, Bannon, Kolfage, Badolato, and Shea allegedly learned from a “financial institution” that they might be under federal investigation. According to the indictment, they took “additional steps to conceal the fraudulent scheme” at that time. They began using encrypted messaging applications, and We Build the Wall’s website “was changed to remove any mention of the promise that Kolfage was not being compensated and to add a statement that he would be paid a salary starting in January 2020.”

The question on all our lips (mine too) is Why? Why do something as dumb as this?

Whatever happened to salesmanship?

I closed CDs with three banks — Ally, Capital One and Marcus (Goldman Sachs).

Not one of the banks called or emailed to ask “Why?” or to sell me something else.

All three did send me emails telling me that my account was now closed!

Weird.

Three ladders I now own

I have learned three things about ladder.

+ They come in different sizes. These are 5′, 6′ and 8′. The most useful are 6′ and 8′.

+ Don’t ever order them online. They’ll come destroyed.

+ Online is much more expensive than walking into a shop and buying one. Like half price. I kid you not.

A good ladder is a perfect investment. Susan likes it when I change the lights and get them all working. This is worth a 1.23% gain in a stock.

This is all the way from Western Australia.

It features the West Australian Symphony. You’ll love it. Play it for the kids. They’ll love the music. It’s Gilbert and Sullivan. They can sing-a-long.

This is also from Australia. The bird is an Australian magpie, known in Australia for being aggressively nasty. Not this one, however. This one is a joy.

We played our 159th consecutive game of tennis this morning. My shoulder hurts.

See you tomorrow, when we’ll play our 160th game and hear the latest Federal unemployment stats, which will be awful. — Harry Newton