RATLINKS: RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR
So long 2020. Hello 2021.
¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
Welcome to 2021 and happy new year to all who celebrate the Gregorian calendar.
Do you enjoy RatLinks? So would two of your friends!
Before we get ahead of ourselves. Time for a quick recap - remember 2020 and last months Ratlinks “Pardon Me”?
Since then, Donald Trump issued 23 pardons to individuals like:
Former campaign chair Paul Manafort
Real-life cartoon villain Roger Stone
Charles Kushner, Father to Trump’s son-in-law and first kid through marriage, Jared Kushner
Former California congressman Duncan D. Hunter, who spent hundreds of thousands in campaign dollars bankrolling a lavish lifestyle that included: a Lake Tahoe getaway with one of his mistresses, tuition for his children and plane rides for his pet rabbit.
Former New York congressman Chris Collins, who will have spent just a couple of months behind bars for conspiring to commit securities fraud, a crime relating to the sketchy relationship with a biotechnology company he nurtured while overseeing federal health-care policy.
Four Blackwater guards convicted of murder or manslaughter for an unprovoked 2007 massacre of 14 Iraqi civilians,
George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwaan received brief prison sentences for lying to investigators, in what the White House dismissed as “process-related crimes,” arguing that the pardons would help “correct the wrong” of the Russia probe.
The question remains who else will Trump pardon? Could Trump preemptively pardon himself or his family? Will Trump free the Tiger King Joe Exotic?
Other things happened this month:
The hacking collective Cozy Bear aka APT29 (Advanced-Persistent-Threat) led a highly-sophisticated, targeted attack that amounts to a multi-year espionage campaign backed by a nation-state suspected to be Russia.
The group hacked over 18,000 entities through a backdoor in IT service provider SolarWinds, Orion software. The hack is a big deal because its size and scope are unlike anything we have ever seen. The group not only accessed Microsoft source code but buried deep into IT infrastructure that will take months if not years to extract. The hack was extremely broad compromising more than 425 of the US Fortune 500, all ten of the top ten US telecommunications companies, all five branches of the US Military, the US Pentagon, State Department, NASA, NSA, Postal Service, NOAA, Department of Justice, and the Office of the President of the United States, all five of the top five US accounting firms and hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide.
Bram de Haas featured me on his Special Situation Cast. If you are interested in SPACs, investing or hearing me talk for an hour then give it a listen.
Enough about 2020. Onto the year ahead and everyone’s favorite!
THE OFFICIAL RATLINKS 2021 GUESSTIMATES!
Donald Trump refuses to officially concede the election, instead opting to fly to Mar-A-Lago during the inauguration where he announces his candidacy for the 2024 presidency.
As Trump leaves the White House for the “Winter White House” his neighbors will be welcoming the “former” president with the traditional Palm Beach greeting of “You can’t live here because you signed a document years ago that said so, don’t you remember Donald”
Trump lost his legal right to live at Mar-a-Lago because of an agreement he signed in the early 1990s when he converted the storied estate from his private residence to a private club.
Trump cut in 1993 when his finances were foundering and the cost of maintaining Mar-a-Lago was soaring into the multimillions each year. Under the agreement, club members are banned from spending more than 21 days a year in the club’s guest suites and cannot stay there for any longer than seven consecutive days. Before the arrangement was sealed, a Trump attorney assured the town council in a public meeting that his client would not live at Mar-a-Lago.
The legal battle may take years and by the time it is likely resolved, it may not matter. Trump may be in the process of moving back to Washington D.C. as the first president since Grover Cleveland to serve two non-consecutive terms.
You remember Grover Cleveland, the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, Free Silver , inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to business, farmers and veterans.
For reference, Grover Cleveland is not to be confused with Moses Cleveland, the guy that invented Cleveland, yeah.
COVID-19 will subside, but you should still wear a mask.
Step back and think about the gravity of COVID-19, at the height of the fall wave, the third or fourth wave. During that stretch of time, we lost on average 2,800 people per day. To put that in perspective, on September 11, 2011, 2,977 people died. 9/11 is likely a flashbulb memory for everyone alive at the time and COVID-19 will likely be the same for a new generation.
The good news is Science Will Win. You will get vaccinated in due course and we should have herd immunity by late summer 2021. Lockdowns and quarantine will fade into memory replaced by high savings rates and pent-up demand to do things. The big beneficiary will likely be the travel industry, think airlines, hotels, and cruises. People are likely to still avoid movie theaters while massive gatherings like Coachella could be slower to return until we reach herd immunity.
Even as more people return to offices, WFH remains viable.
Like it or not remote work is here to stay. COVID-19 pulled forward a multi-year transition process in a period of a few short months. Today even your grandmother is able to video chat like the best of them.
Going forward most companies will likely begin to adopt hybrid models that combine remote and in-office work. A few may even require employees to be in the office a set amount of days per month. With less full time workers returning, real estate in massive markets like SF and NYC could remain under pressure.
Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are getting back together
If not now, when? - Hillel
Stocks only go 🆙 ⬆️
It is possible that the federal reserve’s quantitative easing program creates a goldilocks scenario where inflation remains muted as we move towards full employment thus allowing asset prices to rise in an orderly fashion.
What usually happens is more like the below chart. We are likely somewhere between thrill, euphoria and anxiety.
TikTok parent company ByteDance realizing it can’t just profit by hypnotizing American teens, diversifies into the health industry
In 2021, TikTok proves that its advanced video algorithm works for a host of other industries besides teaching American teens to dance and begins work on drug discovery.
Could this lead to Facebook acquiring the Mayo Clinic?
Climate change tipping point is near and work must begin to reverse it.
Plastic has invaded everything and microplastics can be found not just in the oceans, the earth, and what we consume, but also inside all of us, even the unborn.
The planet is getting hotter and natural disasters are getting worse.
My new hometown of Miami will likely be underwater in 20 years. Luckily for the new Silicon Valley transplants, in 20 years SF might be livable again.
Deepfakes are ready for their close up
Deepfakes are synthetic media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else's likeness.
In an era where trust in journalism has fallen to historic lows, deepfakes have the potential to erode trust further. Deepfakes can have far-reaching risks if the public no longer believes the individual on-screen is real nor speaking the truth. Obviously, the Queen of England and the South Park guys are all in on deepfakes.
You will continue to waste too much time on social media
Instead of doomscrolling, resolve to better yourself. Read a book, learn a new language, take up a hobby, or just stare into the void.
Too boring? Here is a fun game to play.
Set a timer for 15 minutes on your phone and then set it out of reach. Now pretend you are extra on your favorite sitcom like Seinfeld, Friends, 2.5 Men. Imagine you are on camera, rather than look at your phone to escape, focus on your surroundings to the point that you are really engrossed. Then just listen, like really listen and react.
2021 will likely be weird, but hopefully less weird than 2020
