ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – Well there goes the Quantitative Ease Double IPA! I told you you’d need to act fast yesterday – by the evening it was all sold out. To those who managed to snatch a few bottles, I hope you enjoy it – do let me know what you make of it (all feedback welcome) here : [email protected].
Considering its success so far, it would be nice to do more of these brews in the future. Our man over at Cheddar Ales suggested “Tiers of a Clown” as a future beer name; as Aberdeen enters Tier 3 lockdown (again), it does seem apt, if rather “on the nose”…
As the Christmas punchbowl is taken away before it even arrived, the most ambitious project in Southbank Investment Research history is becoming only more relevant. With extreme government intervention now the norm… now marks a good time to take back control of your wealth.
The biggest bubble of all
I’ve shared a few snippets from Charlie Morris over at The Fleet Street Letter Wealth Builder in this letter. While Charlie’s investment insights are always excellent (easily justifying the admittedly high cost of a subscription) I’ve found his thoughts on the WuFlu pandemic especially interesting. I shared some of his writing on the matter back in September, which you may remember (“Sweden was right?” – 29 September).
Yesterday, amid his great investment analysis, lay another interesting gem – and slightly more conspiratorial than usual.
From yesterday’s issue:
It is inescapable that for some reason, the “value of life” in 2020 has been the biggest bubble of all. B.C. (before Covid-19), no one seemed to care. Hospitals had waiting lists, bad food and complaints. Now they have an unlimited budget. The trouble with viruses is that the more you look for them, the more you will find. Have we gone mad or is this a one-off which will draw to a close?
Many people are supportive of the government’s actions because the virus has been deadly. Others say this is a bad flu season. [Taking a look at mortality data in England and Wales since 1993], I am sad to say that 2020 has broken another winter record on this basis, narrowly beating 1999 and 2000. Of course, no one recalls the causes of high winter deaths in those years. They were probably hushed up, because with interest rates closer to 6%, there was no way today’s policies could have been implemented.
Now before I go further, I should point out that amongst our editors here at Southbank Investment Research, Charlie is normally the one telling off other editors for wandering too far down Conspiracy Lane.
His approach is rigidly clean-cut: the truth will always be found in the data, and one’s imagination should only be used sparingly when providing an explanation.
But what happens to a data-driven approach when it meets government obfuscation..?
Charlie continues:
I say hushed, because this data series used to be easy to find on the Office for National Statistics website in the spring, but now it isn’t. The ONS used to publish the five-year data, but now just 2020. Apparently, it’s now in the national archives instead, but it only seems to show data up to 2015. When it is hard to find previously readily available data, it makes you wonder who is influencing the presentation of information.
When looking at data, it pays to be inquisitive… For whatever reasons, and presumably nothing to do with Covid-19, the longer-term trend rate of deaths has been rising since 2013. So much for longevity. The weekly trend death rate is 1,000 higher than in 2012. Why?
Charlie didn’t go further than that, and let the question stand. And I think I will too, and let you draw your own conclusions from this.
If you’ve been reading this letter for a while, you likely already know I distrust governments, a distrust that has blossomed with red petals on top this year. And I know I’m not the only one out there.
The mission of Southbank Investment Research is, and has always been, to empower the individual investor. In an environment like this, you don’t want to be someone else’s liability – be they the government or otherwise. And that’s why we’ve launched this new venture here. it’s already causing controversy, and may even lose us a few friends – but we think it’s worth it.
All the best,
Boaz Shoshan
Editor, Capital & Conflict
Category: Economics