The Hoover Boom

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.

H.L. Mencken

A week has passed since Donald J. Trump was re-elected president. The stock market has celebrated with the most impressive run-up since Herbert Hoover was elected. Hoover was a take-charge kind of guy too. “For six years, that man has been giving me unsolicited advice,” remarked out-going president Calvin Coolidge, “all of it bad.”

But Hoover was elected in 1928. Thereafter, stocks rose a spectacular 40%, before crashing in 1929.

Since the election results were announced last week, one third of the country has been overjoyed, whooping and hollering, sure that happy days are here again. Another third acts as if it were looking at the Reichstag Fire. And the final third gets out the hotdogs and marshmallows.

The poor Democrats have gnashed so many teeth, it is amazing they have any left. This time, they lost by such a big margin the familiar excuses — Russian interference, misinformation, bad luck — just don’t seem to be enough. This time, the Trump victory tells us “who we really are,” says a recent New York Times headline.

Yes, we are a nation of dumbbells and dreamers… neither always good, nor always bad… but always subject to influence. And when ‘the plain folks’ speak, they don’t necessarily say what the elites want to hear.

But here at BPR, we emphasize the positive. It is a shame Americans elected Donald Trump. But it’s a good thing they didn’t elect Kamala Harris. And some other good things have come out of the experience.

For one, the benevolent expertise of the elites as channeled by their propaganda media has been thoroughly discredited. The Wall Street Journal:

Trump’s Win Cemented It: New Media Is Leaving the Old Guard Behind

The old media — TV, newspapers, magazines — were overwhelmingly behind Ms. Harris. She had the support of the whole Elite Establishment — the press, the universities, Hollywood and the DC establishment. One study showed that 80% of the news coverage on Trump was negative. And yet, the public seemed to pay no attention.

The legacy media also clung to themes that favored Harris over Trump. One was the idea that ‘our democracy is in danger.’ Donald Trump was supposed to be a ‘fascist’ and should he win, or so went the line of argument, it might be the last election in America.

They held steadfast to the idea of the January 6th ‘insurrection,’ too, when any fool could see that the middle-aged dopes milling around the Capitol building were no threat to the police power of the empire.

They insisted that the Covid was an ‘existential threat,’ and not just another flu. Again, the evidence told a different story.

And they even wanted to change the English language to accommodate their woke-ish fads; the ‘him’ or the ‘her’ was replaced by the fake gender-neutral plural, ‘them.’

And while they were adamant about not offending someone’s tender sensibilities by using the wrong pronoun, they were nevertheless eager to send US-made bombs overseas… so the killing of the hes, shes, and thems could continue apace.

These absurdities attached themselves to Ms. Harris like ticks to a dog. She represented the Powers-That-Be….the ‘system’ that had saddled the nation with $36 trillion in debt, and made America’s rich richer than ever…but not given the working class a real raise in half a century. It was this ‘system’ that ‘the plain folks’ despised. And what could Ms. Harris say, but ‘vote for me; I’ll give you more of it.’

So, it turned out that the real threat to democracy was not the MAGA crowd. It was democracy itself. The ancient Greeks warned us about it. Allowing the masses to choose a leader is always a threat to the health of the nation. And in the election of 2024, it gave us the choice between cholera and the plague, Trump or Harris.

Voters washed their hands and tried their best to avoid getting sick. But most felt a patriotic duty to run a fever… for one or the other. And since they couldn’t stomach any more-of-the-same from Kamala, they crossed themselves and pulled the lever for Trump.

As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron.

H.L. Mencken

But Hoover was elected in 1928. Thereafter, stocks rose a spectacular 40%, before crashing in 1929.

For one, the benevolent expertise of the elites as channeled by their propaganda media has been thoroughly discredited. The Wall Street Journal:

Trump’s Win Cemented It: New Media Is Leaving the Old Guard Behind

They insisted that the Covid was an ‘existential threat,’ and not just another flu. Again, the evidence told a different story.

And they even wanted to change the English language to accommodate their woke-ish fads; the ‘him’ or the ‘her’ was replaced by the fake gender-neutral plural, ‘them.’

Relative to GDP, the net international investment claim on the U.S. economy was 20% in 2003. It had swollen to 65% by 2023. Practically every type of American company, bond, or real estate asset now has some degree of foreign ownership.

But it’s even worse than that. As the federal deficit has pumped up the GDP figures, and made a larger share of the economy dependent on government spending, the quality and sustainability of GDP have deteriorated. So, foreigners, to the extent they are paying attention, are accumulating claims on an economy that has been eroded by inefficient, government-directed spending and “investments.” Why should foreign creditors maintain confidence in the integrity of these paper claims? Only to the extent that their economies are even worse off. And in the case of China, that’s probably true.

As global government interest expense climbed, gold quietly followed it higher. The IIF estimates that interest costs on government debt now run at nearly $4.9 trillion annually. Over the same span, gold prices have tracked that burden almost one-for-one.

Silver has recently gone along for the ride, with even more enthusiasm.

Since early 2023, Japan’s 10-year government bond yield has risen roughly 150 basis points, touching levels not seen since the 1990s.

Over that same period, gold prices have surged about 135%, while silver is up roughly 175%. Zoom out two years, and the divergence becomes starker still: gold up 114%, silver up 178%, while the S&P 500 gained 44%.

According to the American Association of Individual Investors, the average retail investor has about a 70% allocation to stocks. That’s well over the traditional 60/40 split between stocks and bonds. Even a 60/40 allocation ignores real estate, gold, collectibles, and private assets.

A pullback in the 10% range – which is likely in any given year – will prompt investors to scream as if it’s the end of the world.

Our “panic now, avoid the rush” strategy is simple.

Take tech profits off the table, raise some cash, and focus on industry-leading companies that pay dividends. Roll those dividends up and use compounding to your overall portfolio’s advantage.

In a healthy economy, production and consumption communicate constantly. If a company builds something useful, customers respond by buying it. If they overbuild, inventories pile up and prices fall, sending a signal to slow down.

AI infrastructure, by contrast, is being built largely on faith. Companies are scaling up compute power without clear signs of sustainable demand. Unlike oil and gas, where prices adjust second-by-second, AI companies operate in a fog. They release tools, collect usage stats, and hope that paid conversions will follow.