“The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.” – Lee Iacocca

So… You’re Thinking About a Family Reunion? 

Pre-COVID – for more than 30 years, every other year – K and I have sponsored a family gathering of about 40 people. There have always been three generations present. (We might have four next time we do it, if K’s mom comes!)

We call it a “Cousin Camp,” because the original idea was to help all our nieces and nephews get to know one another. (I have about a dozen cousins and never knew any of them.)

I’m happy to say that goal was accomplished. And at the same time, we’ve kept our own generation in better touch. Plus, we’ve had lots of great adventures.

What We Learned 

Let me just tell you some of what we’ve done and what I thought were the pluses and minuses.

What we did: Our first Cousin Camp was in a seaside resort in New England. We rented two houses, next to each other, across from the beach and a quarter mile from town. The good thing about staying in one place for a week is that it’s generally less expensive than being on the move. But there was a bit of an issue about who’s making the mess and who’s cleaning it up, if you know what I mean. Takeaway: Don’t leave the quotidian work to chance. Plan to have it fairly distributed.

What we did: We did a Cousin Camp at an island resort run by one of those tour companies that offered a plethora of outdoor activities. Every day was something else. The younger people had a blast. Some of the older people faded as time passed. A winter Cousin Camp we had in a Colorado ski resort was enjoyed by all, at least in part because there were lots of activities for people of every age and energy capacity. Takeaway: Consider total daily energy requirements when planning the itinerary.

What we did: We did a cruise to Alaska that had the same benefit. (Cruise ships tend to have far more activities than you can possibly do.) But an even bigger plus: The parents never had to worry about where their children were because they had supervised activities practically 24/7. Takeaway: Toddlers require constant attention. Give their parents a break if you want them to feel like they are on vacation.

What we did: The past several Cousin Camps have been mobile, featuring hiking, biking, and rafting in US national parks and in Canada. The downside of trips like this was that we had to pack up and move on every day or two. The upside was that everyone got to experience a wonderful part of America they might not have otherwise. Takeaway:Consider novel locations.

What We Learned (in Short) 

* You need activities. You can’t just hang out together all the time. Planned activities are better. Having guides that plan and direct the activities is better still. But get involved in the planning, so you can make sure that they include everyone.

* The activities should be varied. They should include physical activities like mountain climbing or biking or skiing, but they should also include learning activities like bird spotting or farm tours or cooking classes. Also important: activities for those that can’t or don’t want to participate in the group activities.

* Anything you can do to encourage people to try things they’ve never done before is generally a good idea – so long as you provide equally interesting secondary options to kick back and do nothing.

* Getting everyone together at least once a day is important. The idea, after all, is that you are a family. So find at least one activity that everyone does together. For us, it’s always been dinner. During the day, our family of 40 might break up into 3 or 4 smaller groups, but everyone comes together at dinner.

* Don’t be embarrassed to try silly family activities like karaoke or talent shows. I am not a fan of these sorts of things, but I (and others like me) discovered we enjoyed them.

* If you can afford to hire professionals to help you plan the itinerary and guide you, do it.

I can’t think of anything I’ve ever invested in that has given my family a greater return than our Cousin Camps. If you like the idea of creating deeper connections among your extended family, I’m 90% sure you will have the same experience. And considering all the travel deals out there these days, this is a good time to at least start exploring the possibilities.

Old Men Having Fun

I’ve mentioned my Myrtle Beach Golf Club before. Once a small group of friends, mostly high school buddies, we spend a fun week every year in Myrtle Beach golfing. And our connection continues all year long via group email.

The conversations are good natured and redundant. They center on what my kids (and, I’m sure, their kids) call “Old Man Humor.” The routine is as follows: One of us (usually JM) posts a joke or cartoon that is some combination of corny, crude, and/or nostalgic. This is immediately followed by a rush of what, in our era, we called ball busting: i.e., ad hominem reactions.

Recently, a new topic was introduced: our increasingly rapid physical and intellectual senescence.

I’m not sure why I’m sharing this with you. It is disgusting. But also – if you are a coeval of ours – informative.

First, from JM, there was news about the Toto Wellness Toilet – the “best in health” winner at the CES 2021 consumer tech showcase in Las Vegas – which uses “multiple cutting-edge sensing technologies” to scan your body and your “key outputs” each time you sit on the toilet. It then analyzes your waste and suggests dietary changes through a mobile app.

And then, from KK, there was this:

“Speaking of shit, I just read some good news about FIT, which stands for fecal immunochemical test. You are sent a small cardboard mailer containing equipment and instructions for taking a stool sample and returning the test to a lab…. A week or so later, the results show up on an online patient portal….

“No starving and shitting your brains out, no need to skip work or find someone to drive you home after anesthesia, no colonoscopy!”

I will spare you the comments from the group that have followed.

Ridiculous as these particular examples sound, new product ideas are essential to the success of a growing company. The trick, of course, is to come up with products that have a good chance of making it in the marketplace.

And that brings me to today’s essay – an excerpt from the upcoming new and revised edition of Ready, Fire, Aim.

My longtime friend and colleague Bob Bly wrote a note about the use of listicles (numbered lists) in marketing copy and editorial content.

He points out that they can work quite well, for 3 reasons: They are easy to read, easy to write, and the number in the headline arouses the reader’s curiosity. However, he says, since the rise of the internet, their use has exploded. And as a result, they don’t pack the punch they did decades ago, when they stood out from most of the copy being written back then.

His advice? Use them… but infrequently.

“Use numbered lists in your copy where they fit best,” Bob says, “for example, presenting a group of disparate product advantages. But in other promotions, there are many headline formats that can be more powerful and attention-getting…. Click here to sample a few dozen alternatives.” ​

As always, Bob is right.

I have an additional thought: Listicles are good if you are looking for clicks, but single-topic essays are right when you want to convert someone to a follower.

Some surprising people have come to Trump’s support after he was banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, and Instagram.

* German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Twitter’s ban on Trump “problematic,” and said that freedom of opinion is an essential right of “elementary significance.”

* Clement Beaune, the junior minister for European Union affairs, said he was “shocked” that a private company made this kind of decision. “This should be decided by citizens, not by a CEO,” he told Bloomberg TV on Monday.

* French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire condemned the move and said that tech giants were part of a digital oligarchy that was a threat to democracy.

* Manfred Weber, the leader of the center-right European People’s Party, called for a stricter regulatory approach. “We cannot leave it to American Big Tech to decide how we can or cannot discuss online.”

* Norway’s left-wing Labor Party leader Jonas Gahr Støre said that Big Tech censorship threatens political freedom around the world.

* Australia’s acting Prime Minister, Michael McCormack, said, “There’s been a lot of people who have said and done a lot of things on Twitter previously that haven’t received that sort of condemnation or indeed censorship. I’m not one who believes in that sort of censorship.”

* Mexican President Manuel López Obrador echoed his global counterparts, calling this kind of censorship by private companies “like an inquisition to manage public opinion.”

Learning from a barefoot movement…

You think you’ve got it all figured out, then you happen upon someone else, halfway across the world, that is one step ahead of you.

After watching this TED Talk, I set up a meeting with Bismarck and Michael to talk about how we can emulate some of these ideas for FunLimon…

“Laughter is the closest distance between two people.” – Victor Borge

Have You Noticed?

Politically Correct Is Not Funny! 

I’ve been bemoaning the fact that sometime since I stopped subscribing to The New Yorker about 10 years ago, their once great cartoons are no longer funny.

Here’s an example:

“See? She’s bound for the Oval Office. Or at least the Senate.”

Now… here is a sampling of what their old cartoons were like – i.e., actually funny!

Crazy!

I thought it might be a joke when I first read about it this weekend. We fact-checked it yesterday. It’s not.

Happy Tuesday!

Today, I wanted to share some very good thoughts on smart investing with you. But before we do that, I wanted to make sure you’ve heard about this crazy bill that’s just been proposed in New York.

Assembly Bill A416 – currently in committee in the New York State Senate – “relates to the removal of cases, contacts, and carriers of communicable diseases who are potentially dangerous to the public health.”

It gives Governor Cuomo the right to send anyone who he feels might be endangering public health in any way – either by having an illness, being in proximity with others, or for virtually any other reason – to a detention center for up to 60 days without due process.

Moreover, the bill would allow Cuomo and his deputies to impose medical procedures on such detainees without their consent.

Some key provisions of the bill:

* If a person or group is determined “by clear and convincing evidence” to be a danger to others as a case, contact, carrier or “suspected case” [of an illness] by the governor and commissioner, “the governor or his or her delegee… may order the removal and/or detention of such a person or of a group of such persons by issuing a single order.”

* Those being detained are to be held in a medical facility or “other appropriate facility or premises designated by the governor or his or her delegee.”

* Anyone who is detained “shall not conduct himself or herself in a disorderly manner, and shall not leave or attempt to leave” until they are given permission.

* Anyone “who may have been exposed to or infected by a contagious disease” can be forced to complete an appropriate, prescribed course of treatment, preventive medication or vaccination.”

The bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Nick Perry, wrote in a tweet, “There is no intent, no plan, or provisions on my bill to take away or violate any rights, or liberties that all Americans are entitled to under our constitution, either state or federal.”

Really?

You can read the full text of the bill here.

I don’t know Andrey Dashkov, but I know the man he works for: Doug Casey. And when it comes to the larger view, I trust Doug. He’s not just a serious student of investing, he’s a brilliant thinker with a sound, philosophical approach to life.

Andrey, like me, has no idea about what 2021 will turn out to be in terms of the stock market. But he’s playing it on the conservative side. He cites three reasons:

* He begins by stating his concern over impending lockdowns, citing the three that have already taken place in the UK since the start of the year. He explains that the virus and lockdowns’ effects were made clear last year with a 31% blow to the S&P in March, and warns that the new, more contagious strain recently found in the US may force even more lockdowns around the world.

* His next concern is that of “higher inflation expectations.” He explains that on January 4, “the breakeven rate – an inflation gauge based on interest rates – climbed above 2% for the first time since 2018.” He adds that while moderate inflation is to be expected after an economic crisis (i.e., a global pandemic), it also “erodes purchasing power” and warns that “If inflation runs high in 2021, a lot of what you buy day-to-day will get more expensive.”

* Dashkov then points to the S&P’s volatility index (which he refers to as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”) on January 4, pointing out that “it was up 19% from where it was at the end of 2020.” Due to this volatility, he would “urge you to err on the safe side… before rushing into bargains or panic selling.” He also suggests adding some gold to your portfolio to have “a safe haven against volatile market moves, as well as government spending and future inflation.”

Remembering KH

Tough day yesterday. I want to the funeral of a friend, a young man with a wife and four children.

I met him 20 years ago on the mats. We were doing light contact fighting. He landed a light jab squarely on my forehead. I went right to the floor. I was fine, but he was worried. “I’m fine,” I told him. “What the hell did you hit me with? It felt like a sledge hammer.”

KH was in his early 20s at the time. He was a big, barrel-chested kid, with traps that stood like mountains on his back and arms as thick as timber. He was also an excellent grappler. I remember thinking about how helpless I would be in a real fight with him.

KH was one of several members of my jiu jitsu team that I recruited into my business. During the first year of their apprenticeship, I would meet them during lunch hour in an attempt to educate them on certain things that were lacking in their education. We would play educational games – using flash cards I made about American presidents, modern artists, and philosophers. But our favorite game was a store-bought one called Le Nez du Vin – a box of 40 little bottles that contained different aromas inherent in wine tasting. I smile when I think of it. Imagine four 200+ pound men sniffing little bottles and saying such things as, “It’s definitely a floral… not lavender… maybe hibiscus or acacia?”

KH had perhaps the best nose of the group. And so he was seldom the recipient of the hazing that went on afterwards. (To keep the game athletic, the rule was that the loser each day had to lean over the pool table outside my office and receive a kick in the ass from the other players.

KH married a beautiful woman that worked for that very business, had four children with her, and enjoyed a very successful career. Earlier this year, he visited me and told me he was in the market for a new job. I was happy to recommend him to a half-dozen colleagues, all of whom were eager to employ him. He was going to start with one of them next week.

This weekend, I sent him an email, asking when exactly he was going to start his new job and how he felt about it. I didn’t get a reply, which was odd. The next day, BW (another member of that original group) texted to tell me that KH was dead.

KH had many qualities besides a strong intelligence and a good nose for wine. He was thoughtful, reliable, extremely loyal, and he was funny. His humor ran towards pranking sometimes, which I didn’t appreciate when I was the victim. As I knelt beside his coffin and looked at him, I half expected him to spring to life. (“Ha! Mark! I got you!”)

I felt awkward at the wake – and until I started writing this, I wasn’t sure why. I think it was because I could see so much of the 40-year-old me in him. He had so much more to do in his life. And here was I, at 70, at his funeral.

What can be said about a death so young? It’s not fair. Life isn’t fair. Carpe diem.

Oh, boy. The Democrats have done it!

They’ve gained control of the executive office and both houses of Congress. This should be an interesting ride.

Will they re-regulate the economy, end fracking, and criminalize gender-specific pronouns? Will they pack the Supreme Court, end the filibuster, and mandate voting rights for criminals and illegal aliens?

Will they get us back into proxy wars?

Will the economy lift or falter or founder? Will unemployment rise? Will the stock market fall?

The only thing I can say with confidence is that our new president, his appointees, and our elected officials (from both sides of the aisle) are going to continue to spend money they don’t have and can’t possibly collect, even if they tax every working American 50% to 80% of their incomes, as some are hoping to do.

The national debt is about to soar. Commercial and consumer debt will follow. And not by billions, but by trillions.

When I look into my crystal ball I see lots of extremely expensive and astonishingly stupid experiments ahead of us – almost every one of which will fail.

But for those that have already planned for the worst, the next four years should be a high-speed cartoon movie of bureaucratic boondoggles, mad-cap appropriations, quixotic spending programs, and mind-boggling political and social initiatives that will keep us endlessly entertained.

Out with the old. In with the new!