Making Mistakes

Making Mistakes

One of the most unheralded advantages of hiring a professional is that you are paying for mistakes they have ALREADY made, and more importantly, hopefully have learned from...which is kinda disconcerting when professions like medicine and law are termed "practices."

Obviously the financial world is also a practice, one in which when you hire a professional, whether you realize it or not, you are also paying for their past mistakes...mistakes that SHOULD be very lucrative for you to profit from in the future.

Much of the "hustle" of modern retail investing has been a colossal marketing effort, well int the billions, to convince the investing public that: 1) Anyone can invest on their own, and 2) As long as you Index with Low Cost you can "beat the market."

Just like "free" may be the most expensive word in the English language, "Low Cost" has its problems too. Big Problems. But the former point deserves just as much, if not more attention. The combination of "anyone" and "low cost" has created a windfall for behemoth financial institutions like BlackRock (iShares), Vanguard (S&P 500 Index), and Fidelity (Mutual Funds) 

The unkown unknowns. Those are what new investors should be concerned with, along with the known unknowns of course. But what "big money" does not provide for the average retail investor, and what a seasoned professional in finance DOES, are answers and strategies for both of those scenarios.

There is a reason why 100% of large-scale dynastic wealth is professionally managed, and not typically by the heirs themselves with "low cost" solutions. Although paying a higher fee may not garner a higher return, it should most assuredly include "lessons learned" from said advisor(s).

One of the most important questions an investor should ask a portfolio manager he is thinking of hiring is: "What mistakes have you made investing?" Pay attention to that answer, and especially how that PM has learned from those lessons in running the practice.

Execution

 Execution

Execution is everything. For the vast majority of us, even a very successful life and career will be largely lived in obscurity, invisible to the larger world. It will involve grinding out small wins, the proverbial base hits for decades. In time, home runs and even the grand slams will happen, but mastering the craft and even getting on the field, will be paramount for stepping up to those at-bats and swinging at the ball.

The search for excellence, whether in investing, a relationship, or a career also is closely tied to execution. Excellence is found in repeated successful execution of tasks, muscle movements, and ultimately choices. Excellence is a process, a repeatable system with frequent feedback. In the business world, much of that process can be bought via something called marketing.

Marketing helps companies, and increasingly individuals, build their products and brands in the public eye thus helping achieve brand awareness that in the past was accomplished by repeated successful execution and word-of-mouth. The marketing cycle has increasingly been compressed into seconds with short video reels on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or....Reels.

Andy Warhol once quipped that "...in the future, everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Not only was he 100% correct, but the time element of viral fame is now as compact as 15 seconds. This leads to the question of whether attention to detail and successful execution even matter in a low-attention society. The answer of course is yes, and the following is why.

One of the best quotes on the subject of execution is: "Watch your thoughts for they become your words, watch your words for they become your actions, watch your actions for they become your character, watch your character for it becomes your destiny." 

Billions of humans are thinking trillions of thoughts and speaking a corresponding number of words, taking a subsequent number of actions, and becoming certain types of people. Not all seek excellence, but as Adam Smith famously theorized, we are all motivated by our own self-interest. This is what drives economic activity and humanity itself.

As we kick off the New Year and resolutions abound, it is important to remind ourselves of the value of owning our actions, mastering our craft, and focusing on successful execution...whether those wins are on the athletic fields, board rooms, or in the living room execution is everything.

Material Gains

 Material Gains

The clanging and clunking heard on New Year's Eve might not be just the celebratory noise of welcoming in the New Year, but rather a gathering of silver flatware, old coins, and inherited jewelry not to one's taste. 2025 saw one of the largest material gains in Gold and Silver prices in a generation. And as usual, the best investment, outside perhaps of Founders' Shares in Private Equity, were owning Gold and Silver.

The proverbial "rip your face off rally" in precious metals hinged on a long-simmering desire by large swarths of the population to own physical currency rather than "rag money." Here at ILAF, we have long championed the value of gold as a store of value and hedge against the stupidity and malfeasance of government. In fact, for some time we have tried to garner support for "The Gold Money Act" but to no avail. It is obviously far more efficient to debase a currency made of paper than gold.

Investors should be thinking long and hard about squirreling away KILOS of gold and silver. Given the run-up in prices though, it becomes increasingly dear to purchase on the open market. Fortunately for American citizens, and those intending to become citizens, there is a wonderful piece of legislation passed over 150 years ago called "The Mining Act of 1872" which shockingly is still in existence.

This law allows for those citizens and individuals wishing to become citizens to "claim" the mineral rights on Federal Land (not the land itself, but rather the gold, silver, lithium, etc) on said land for themselves. You read that correctly. It is virtually unknown outside of California, Nevada, Arizona, and Alaska. But the Mining Act is active in all 50 States. No where else in the world does something like this exist: Individuals can prospect on public land and retain ownership of unlimited found minerals.

Why is this important? Well rather than paying the spot price for Gold, say $4500 USD per troy ounce, you can file a mining claim for a couple hundred dollars and then have the rights to prospect (and keep!) for unlimited minerals on that land. For those who want to work, the gold is there. All it takes is some time to learn how to prospect, some basic equipment, the willingness to work hard.

Trump Accounts

Trump Accounts

The newly formed Trump Accounts offer a generational path forward to ultimately replace Social Security with individual retirement accounts.

Under whatever guise they may be called, we at ILAF have long championed widespread implementation of personal retirement savings accounts that could someday fully replace Social Security in the United States.

The newly formed Trump Accounts offer a viable path forward for generations to come that can offer individuals the opportunity to compound their wealth over time without penalizing workers with the heavy burden of Social Security taxation and misappropriation of said funds by Congress.

Of the many assets in life, time is among and perhaps the most valuable asset of all. The Trump Accounts leverage time by seeding the accounts early in life, in fact before the child is even aware of the account. The first decade then becomes a growth engine.

Assuming the government, billionaires, parents, grandparents, and even friends contribute and gift each child's account over the first 18 years of life a child now has a sizable nest egg at 18 to pursue a variety of either educational goals, buying a business, real estate, etc. or some combination therein including continuing to save and invest.

The time value of money and the power of compounding under the Trump Accounts is truly revolutionary and has been in wide practice for centuries with the nobility and modern day aristocrats who have seeded generational wealth the moment their progeny are born.

The Trump Accounts offer every American child now the opportunity to advance in life with prudent saving and investing over time. The constant drip method of dollar cost averaging over decades is tough to beat.

Just like the GLPs will add millions of life-years to the human population, the Trump Accounts will collectively leapfrog a generation of Americans in better standards of living with better education opportunities and career choices.

Hopefully the newly formed Trump Accounts will be a wake-up call for hundreds of billionaires avoiding just taxation by moving their assets to foundations rather than funding Trump Accounts for millions of American children.

Imagine the impact Warren Buffett could have if he honored his giving pledge by providing $2,000 to each Trump Account rather than positioning $50B with each of HIS kid's "foundations." That would be true impact investing! And Buffett is by no means alone.

Dow 100,000

Dow 100,000

Here at ILAF we are an optimistic crew, and whether you are smarting from the 2025 stock market rally or simply riding a tsunami of schadenfreude, it is poignant to consider what the future may hold.

As described in the 2025 Stock Trader's Almanac: The fifth year of almost every decade is the best in terms of stock market performance, as is the 1st year of a new presidency. If Santa Claus comes to the rescue again this year, whatever results 2025 brings might be the best of the decade. But like an old curmudgeon, we at ILAF are not satisfied with simply average returns, or even the best, we dream of stellar, euphoria-inducing returns. Read on dear investor.

Assuming several economic events break our way and AI can deliver the productivity boost it is capable of doing, ILAF predicts...wait for it...Dow 100,000 in 5 years (say Christmas of 2030.)

Dow 100,000 in 5 years assumes a 15% return per year for the next five years. As we all know, linear returns are a fallacy. Developed by the big ETFs and fund companies to convince people the stock market can be tamed and silo'd into discrete linear patterns, linear returns are the original "fake news." Day-to-day, week-to-week, and month-to-month movements CANNOT somehow be converted from a Four-dimensional marketplace into a glossy Two-dimensional marketing brochure. It don't work that way.

How it does work is daily chaos derived from fear and greed trying to maximize return while taking as little risk (allegedly, see 2007-2009) as possible to do it. That 15% annual growth rate can be had, and double the Dow to 100,000 if we can significantly improve productivity, while somehow keeping unemployment under 5%, inflation tame around 3%, and real wage growth exceeding inflation. Big "ifs," but the likely scenario to reach Dow 100,000 may not be what investors suspect.

My theory is that "this time around" AI is going to replace entire job sectors, and as robots improve their dexterity almost every industry that has a "touch" component is vulnerable. California should lead America, if not the world, again...but for all the wrong reasons. California is a great example of where the fusion of AI and robots should have an increasing immediate impact (and a lasting one at that) because of the extreme difficulty in both having a business in the state and even more dangerous having employees.

Look to where there are poor incentives to do business, and there is where AI and robotics will flourish. Keep an eye on places with a heavy labor union presence. Onerous taxes. And lots of lawyers. AI and robot adoption will help transform heavily regulated industries with high plaintiff-cost to productivity darlings. Coastal America looks ripe for massive productivity surges, and given their existing high population densities the Al and robot utility spikes will translate directly to the bottom line of corporations, and possibly even local, state, and federal government.

In the next five years it will be more important than ever to be an OWNER of AI and robotic assets, which for many of us that means owning shares of companies immersed in the sectors. As an owner you should be able to ride the wave of increasing profits, increasing dividends, and sector share ownership. Woe to those who do not own a piece of the action...the downside of all this productivity increase almost assuredly will be job loss.

It is hard to believe AI and robots will INCREASE the numbers of jobs, or increase real wages. At some level (think control or ownership) they might, but for the vast population AI and robots will not be creating jobs, they will be eliminating jobs and lowering the collective standard of living...save for those who are owners of the tech.

Dow 100,000 has a good probability of happening within 5 years, but there is also a good possibility of significant societal changes to effect the stock market doubling. As usual, buy or create assets.

Taxmaster

Taxmaster

As Liberal-Progressive Warren Buffett is poised to retire at 95 as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, it is interesting to see his final tax avoidance move on the investing chess board. Considered by many to be the greatest investor of all time, Buffett's annual letters to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway could constitute an MBA in their own right. For over 60 years Buffett has been steadfast in his position on "tax fairness," ie that the extremely wealthy do not pay their fair share. 

Recently Buffett released a Thanksgiving missive, this letter is what he intends to produce yearly in lieu of his previous Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter.  Along with several nostalgic stories and anecdotes regarding growing up in Omaha, Nebraska along with several of Berkshire's most luminous figures, including his best friend Charlie Munger it details his future plans.

Via this letter, the reader learns of Buffet's intentions to dispose of his vast fortune...a fortune originating from old textiles mills in New England where oddly there is no bronze statue of Warren Buffett. Why is that? No "Warren Buffett Day" in Cumberland, RI? No "Buffett, Massachusetts?"

Sensitive readers cover your eyes. Berkshire's fortune primarily derived from cheap labor and monopolistic corporate moats, in many cases with unfathomably beneficial terms to Berkshire struck in moments of financial crisis. Many of these businesses had seen better days, indeed Buffett's investment thesis had been for decades "to get the last puff of a cigar for free."

Those old textile mills, namely Berkshire Fine Spinning and Hathaway Mills are now empty lots, industrial skeletons, and piles of red brick. The local economies never recovered from the decline of the textile mills in the 1950s. Yet, Berkshire Hathaway today is a $1.2 TRILLION dollar company, with Buffett owning approximately 15% or about $180,000,000,000 of that value.

Here at ILAF we begrudge no man his fortune. Yet, the concern arises when a fortune is created in the United States utilizing the benefits of our legal system, banking system, infrastructure, labor force, educational system, defense, etc. etc. and after 75+ years of compounding and accumulating vast wealth it strategically avoids the valid claims of taxation from society (taxation is what Oscar Wilde referred to as the "price of a civil society.")

Buffett is by no means alone in this legally-sanctioned, yet morally dubious subterfuge. Show me a billionaire and I will show you a private foundation. What is particularly vexing in the Buffett situation, however, are the literally decades of pontification about him not being taxed enough, about the struggle of the working person, of not passing down generational wealth, of luck, of fairness, of hard work and discipline. Yet the very first paragraph of Buffett's Thanksgiving letter clearly outlines his true intention: to pass on his vast fortune virtually tax-free to his children via foundation structures.

The "foundation loophole" needs to be closed, it is costing American citizens hundreds of billions, if not trillions, in benefits they (American citizens) helped create and on which they (American citizens) have a valid claim. A better legacy to leave the United States and the American people is being known as both the greatest investor of all time and the greatest philanthropist who eschewed foundation tax avoidance and paid the claim due to citizens. 

Barbell Society

Barbell Society

It is becoming increasingly obvious, just as AI imbedded in Google's Blogger helps predict my next words, that society has undergone some fundamental changes in just the past several years. Perhaps the biggest is the emergence of what I consider to be a "barbell society."

In the traditional sense, barbell economics means a concentration of wealth or economic activity at two ends of an economic spectrum; ie your working poor and your working rich. The Middle Class was the thick bar in the middle holding up both given its size, asset ownership, and political power. But with the rapid adoption of AI in the workforce, academia, logistics, fulfillment, food prep, etc., etc. combined with a monopolistic concentration of assets (read cash, gold, bitcoin, stocks, real estate, pensions, 401Ks, business ownership, IP assets, political power, etc.) in the hands of a single generation what has emerged is a barbell society.

This barbell society is new in the annuals of history; typically there was a pyramid type of structure where a few controlled or owned everything and the vast majority of people led lives of serfdom. This has drastically changed over the past two thousand years via successive revolutions. Up until recently in fact, almost every successive generation looked forward to a better standard of living than their parents. That is no longer the case, as "The American Dream" is poised to succumb to a barbell society.

The question that arises now with the arrival of AI in society is where on the barbell is AI? I propose that it is actually the left "BELL" increasingly responsible for more work utility (task importance times volume.) The left BELL is growing insanely fast, replacing mundane, dangerous, and increasingly knowledge-based tasks, jobs, and marketing/sales. The left BELL needs no sleep, no comp, no medical insurance, files no lawsuits, and works for the cost of its coding and electricity. The left Bell grows stronger by the second.

The BAR is what once was the working poor and middle class which have essentially are doing less task importance times volume work, but there are much more of them. Society today resembles more of hockey stick lying on the ice with five feet of it nearly flat and the last foot shooting up.

Mathematically the vast majority of Americans could not pay for health insurance without subsidies or employer contributions. Most Americans do not own their own homes. Most Americans could not round up $400 in an emergency. Simply put, most Americans are poor not middle class. 

In terms of asset concentration, the BAR represents the working poor and middle class with some tinge of upper middle class. Yes, all of these segments have varying degrees of ready cash, bitcoin, stocks, real estate, and perhaps political power but they are fragmented and hence the BAR appearance, flat and linear. The right BELL however is a completely different story.

The right BELL (and make no mistake, this does not imply a singular political party, both Democrats and Republicans transcend into the right Bell) not only controls vast swaths of assets, but also has managed to create wide moats to entry (think Prop 13 in California.) We are seeing the rise of socialism because of this very development. When the odds seemed stacked (and they are), younger generations embrace forceful redistribution of assets.

Consider: Baby Boomers own over 54% of stocks. Likewise with real estate. Small businesses. Obviously nearly 100% of Social Security cash flow. And political power? Well there has never been a Gen X or Millennial President. Average age of U.S. Senator? 65. That used to be the mandatory retirement age! As the poster child of his generation, Warren Buffett is finally retiring (sort of) at age 95 at the end of this year.

Modern medicine, healthy living habits, and unwillingness to "pass the torch" has led to some unusual societal developments...combine this with the rise of AI and what we see is a true barbell society. Think about this: Over 33% of someone's LIFETIME medical costs occur in the last 5 years of their lives. There are approximately 75 million Baby Boomers in the United States. The average Baby Boomer is 68 years old with a life expectancy increasing daily. With miracle drugs like GLPs many in this generation have a good chance of living into their 90s. "Centurion" is one of the fastest going demographics.

From a societal standpoint, it will become increasingly difficult to support the largest demographic. If both the left BELL does not significantly increase economic productivity and the BAR does see real wage growth healthcare costs will drive this country bankrupt. Let me say that again, AI (the left BELL) needs to drastically increase productivity while the working poor, middle class, and upper middle class (the BAR) needs to drastically increases their real wages. 

Longevity

 Longevity

There is an old saying that "youth is wasted on the young, and wealth on the old." That presents a true quandary, because for many of us wealth does not appear until there is gray in the hair and we are on the pickleball courts! So barring a tectonic shift in altruism, the only other option is for investors to internalize a truth: time is the most valuable commodity. It deserves to be considered its own asset class.

If time is truly the most valuable commodity, then investors need to embrace longevity as one of their key tenets in creating dynastic wealth. Along with creating value (the more the better) and buying assets (once again, the more the better), living long allows for many opportunities for both creating wealth and compounding it. The latter factor is vital. Compounding alters lives.

Even a grub stake over time can become princely wealth. A vital factor is correct asset selection which results in compounding. Much of the asset selection process can be learned, and it is often quipped "lessons are expensive and good ones dear." Continuous (yes "Dollar Cost Averaging") of proper asset selection (read that as "real growth," defined as growth in excessive of inflation) over time (and here we want AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE) can result in magnificent wealth. 

Of the three components of #CVBALL (Create Value, Buy Assets, Live Long), Live Long is the most important. You can have many, many failures in life, but generally the older you become you learn from mistakes and try not to repeat them. You may have new mistakes and never exhaust the total "pool" of mistakes possible, but generally you get better at the game as you age.

New Year, same plan! #CVBALL! Concentrating on the "LL," there have been many studies done on longevity. Increasingly it has moved from the fringe to mainstream, especially with widespread adoption of "miracle drugs" like Ozempic. These semaglutides decrease the urge to eat and help jumpstart a virtuous cycle that combined with exercise and a modified diet often results in significant weight loss, improved cardiovascular fitness, and better cognitive functionality. Bottom line, semaglutides along with changing behaviors will result in collectively MILLIONS of years in longer lifespans.

Longevity, whether obtained from pickleball, Ozempic, and/or a reboot of the traditional food pyramid will have massive effects on wealth. Adding just one (1) more doubling cycle to your wealth can drastically improve your quality of life and potentially that of your heirs. Adding two (or more!) doubling cycles is almost hard to fathom...an estate saved over a lifetime for someone in their early 60s worth say $3M potentially becomes close to $25M if they can live into their 90s. And that is becoming increasingly possible. The centurion is one of the fastest going age demographics.

So ILAF (Invest Like A Farmer) offers a solution to those who may feel they are priced out of the real estate market, or don't earn enough to compete, or who have perhaps just suffered a big financial or life loss...hang in there. Longevity offers a myriad of outcomes and forgives many mistakes. Create Value. Buy Assets. Live Long. (#CVBALL).