A Thin Line Between Love and Hate

It’s February 14th, and that means it’s Valentine’s Day, a day dedicated to celebrating love. And so, on this occasion, I have decided to explore the thin line between love and hate in a couple of areas that I consider to be very important in all our lives.

Now, what do I mean here by “a thin line?” Well, I mean that as with so many things, you can love certain aspects or elements of that thing, person, concept, etc., and you can hate many aspects of that thing, person or concept. Often, it’s the flipside of a given coin that you hate, and as it is with every coin, there’s always a flipside.

So, what are some of my “thin line” pet peeves on issues, people and concepts? Let’s take a look at two of these, as I hope they serve as a launching point for a conversation we can have on what you consider to be your important thin lines between love and hate.

Thin Line One: Conversation. When it comes to determining what one should do, or what a society should do, or how groups should resolve conflict or how to come to decisions about what is right and wrong, the only rational tool we have is conversation.

I love productive, rational conversation where the parties come together in good faith to air out ideas and to consider different viewpoints and debate those views, identify those differences and come to points of agreement. This kind of productive discussion can take place in the boardroom, in politics, in the ivory tower and in personal relationships. And when you think about it, conversation is really the only tool we have to make things better. The alternative to this kind of conversation is violence, and that is something that, while sometimes required of us, is also something to hate.

I hate non-productive, irrational conversation of the sort I see going on in the political arena these days. I have to admit that while I was once very interested in the machinations of politics and battles that took place in Washington, these days my distaste for these subjects has become caustically unpalatable. Today, I have grown to hate the tribalistic, petty, nationalistic, non-intellectual, non-serious, race-driven, grievance-driven and fact-discarding nature of the conversation I see out there. It’s like there are two realities operating in distinctly different universes.

There’s the Fox News universe, where all things “liberal” and “leftist” (siloing terms I also hate) are the main destructive causes of all the evil in the world and must be destroyed. Then, there is the MSNBC universe, where all things “MAGA” and “Trumpism” are the existential threat to democracy and to the survival of the nation as we know it.

Now, both of these sides of the coin have valid points, and both also have some extreme flaws. But is it any wonder why half of the country sees the other half as out to destroy the nation? I mean, the conversation always seems to descend to the tribalism of “us versus them,” and that is what I hate the most.

Thin Line Two: Merchants of Doom and Gloom. In the financial advice business, there is no shortage of those willing to sell you a scenario where your money is about to evaporate into the ether. Whether it be via government fiat, or war, or destruction of the world’s reserve currency, these merchants tell us that we must act now to protect ourselves from these threats.

I love the idea of taking action to protect our money by being aware and prepared for the biggest threats to our freedom and to our personal financial wellbeing from the many legitimate destructive forces that exist. I mean, my Successful Investing advisory service is based on having a plan in place that protects your money during bear markets and grows your money during bull markets. So, I understand this need quite well.

I hate the ideas promulgated by some in the industry designed to scare us into taking action from threats that are just cooked up in a marketing lab to feed on our fear of loss. Feeding on the fear of loss is not a rational way to persuade someone to do what is in their best interest. And while being aware of threats and being prepared for those threats is something I love, what I really hate is the idea of living in a state of fear about these things. One can be rational without succumbing to living in a state of fright.

Ok, now it’s your turn. What are your, “Thin line between love and hate” subjects? Why do you love them, and why do you hate them?

I need to know. So, put on your thinking cap and send me your ideas.

ETF Talk: Separating Real Gold from Fool’s Gold with a Quality ETF

Today is Valentine’s Day. And just like many of us are seeking gifts of only the highest quality to give to that special someone to show how important he or she is in our lives, traders are doing the same with regard to stocks.

The bad news is that, just like in the wider world where, for example, iron pyrite masquerades as fool’s gold, and bad influences hide among the good, it is not always easy to winnow out the wheat of good, durable and reliable stocks from the chaff of unreliable and poor-quality stocks. The good news is that, as you know from reading my weekly columns, we can use the innate talent of human reason that dwells within each of us to carry out this formidable task.

One of the exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that aims to conduct this quest for us is the JPMorgan US Quality Factor ETF (NYSEARCA: JQUA).

Starting from a list of the 1,000 largest publicly-traded American companies, JQUA’s managers use a trifecta of categories — profitability, quality of earnings and solvency — to generate what they call a quality factor. It is this proprietary quality factor that is used to determine the stocks, real estate investment trusts (REITs) and preferred shares in the portfolio, as well as their respective weights.

While the fund’s managers aim to have their holdings reflect the same sector weights as the Russell 1000 Index, JQUA is not focused on either a specific industry or sector. So, investors who are seeking broad-cap exposure to the market can find a kindred spirit in JQUA.

Some of the stocks currently in the portfolio include NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA), Meta Platforms Inc. Class A (NASDAQ: META), Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ: AVGO), Eli Lilly and Company (NYSE: LLY), Alphabet Class A (NASDAQ: GOOG), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Class B (NYSE: BRK.B) and Visa Inc. Class A (NYSE: V).

As of Feb. 13, JQUA has been up 3.89% over the past month and 13.73% for the past three months. It is currently up 4.83% year to date.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

The fund has an annual expense ratio of 0.12%.

In short, while JQUA does provide an investor with a way to be more selective in terms of the quality of stocks in one’s portfolio, this kind of ETF may not be appropriate for all portfolios. Thus, interested investors should always conduct their due diligence and decide whether the fund is suitable for their investing goals.

As always, I am happy to answer any of your questions about ETFs, so do not hesitate to email me. You may see your question answered in a future ETF Talk.

In case you missed it…

A Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Breakdown   

I said, breakdowns come and breakdowns go
So what are you going to do about it
That’s what I’d like to know…

— Paul Simon, “Gumboots”

“Jim, can you breakdown something for me?”

That’s how a good friend of mine often initiates conversations, and I like it when he does, because I know I’m in for a thoughtful, rational, stimulating and philosophic discussion that’s often accompanied by a great soundtrack and even greater wine. Hey, if you have a friend like this, consider yourself extremely fortunate.

The first “breakdown” my friend asked me to deliver was, not surprisingly as he is a Kansas City Chiefs fan, my take on the whole Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce “thing” and all of the attention it’s capturing by the media.

My first thought was that it is no surprise whatsoever that the media loves human interest stories, and especially stories that involve celebrity romances. I mean, entertainment journalism is one of the most popular subspecialties of that industry, as people love reading about the lives of rich, beautiful and famous people. We always have, and we always will. So, is it really that much of a surprise that the biggest pop star in the world is getting outsized media attention when she attends her superstar athlete boyfriend’s games?

The real head-scratcher would be if Taylor Swift didn’t get outsized media attention, and the media (both sports media, entertainment media and mainstream media) willfully ignored her high-profile romance with Travis Kelce.

Then, there’s what I call the “cray-cray” element at work here.

For those who aren’t up on the latest youth lingo, “cray cray” is another way of saying “crazy,” and here, the real cray cray is what some conspiracy theorists are saying about Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, President Biden and the Super Bowl.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s been multiple media commentators out there saying that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are a “psyop” designed to re-elect Joe Biden.

A “psyop” is intelligence community lingo for a “psychological operation,” one that’s designed to persuade a populace of a specific set of ideas. Here’s the essence of the Kelce-Swift psyop thesis according to the cray cray:

The Super Bowl will be “rigged” so that the Kansas City Chiefs will win. Travis Kelce will bring Taylor Swift onto the field, drop to one knee, and propose. Their engagement will then somehow make the pop superstar, already one of the most famous and influential people on the planet, even more popular and more influential. So much so that when she endorses President Biden, that will be what gets him re-elected.

Oh, and this psyop also is one designed by a Trump-hating cabal of Pentagon elites who will do anything to prevent the former president from once again occupying the White House.

Now, I could just stop here, as rational readers will no doubt sense the ludicrous nature of this psyop thesis, as it is one that really needs no further elucidation.

However, this is The Deep Woods, and it is my job here to further expound on good ideas, bad ideas and even cray-cray ideas, so let’s do that now.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

First, let’s give the Devil his due here and acknowledge up front that the idea that the intelligence community can, and has, used psyops before cannot be denied. In fact, the idea of a psyop goes all the way back to the greatest military strategist of all time, Sun Tzu, in his seminal, “The Art of War.” A psyop can be very effective in winning “hearts and minds,” which is where every victory ultimately should be won if you want that victory to last.

Indeed, there is ample history of the U.S. government enlisting popular actors, musicians, journalists, etc., to help promote our interests. It happened during World War II, the Vietnam War, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and, particularly, in the Cold War fight against communism. The United States had its psyop warriors, and the Soviet Union and communism had its psyops soldiers.

Yet, in the case of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, here one has to apply the principle known as “Occam’s razor,” to the psyop “thesis” (I use the term thesis loosely). I mean, what is more likely, that the Pentagon is going to engineer the outcome of a football game to help thwart a Trump victory, or that a liberal-minded musician with an established penchant for voter activism might be inclined to endorse the current Democratic president for re-election?

If I were a political activist and I was seeking endorsement for my cause from one of the most popular and influential cultural icons in the world, I would just go to her and ask her for the endorsement. I wouldn’t need a team of clandestine psyop warriors to help engineer my cause.

Now, aside from the psyop cray cray, another, and in my view more pernicious, strain of thought out there when people think about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift is one that I call, “hatred of the good for being the good.”

This isn’t my original concept, although I would love to claim credit for it. This is a concept I first read about from novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand.

In an essay titled, “The Age of Envy,” Rand explains that “Envy is regarded by most people as a petty, superficial emotion and, therefore, it serves as a semi-human cover for so inhuman an emotion that those who feel it seldom dare admit it even to themselves… That emotion is: hatred of the good for being the good.”

Rand continues, “This hatred is not resentment against some prescribed view of the good with which one does not agree… Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by one’s own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable.”

A more popular “meme” version of this idea can be expressed as: “Haters gonna hate.” Ironically, the lyric “haters gonna hate” can be found in the Taylor Swift mega-hit, “Shake It Off.”

There’s a much abused and I think misplaced cliché designed to denigrate educators that goes: “Those who can’t do, teach.”

Well, in the case of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift, I think this adage can be modified to: “Those who can’t do, hate.”

You see, Kelce and Swift are arguably the two best humans at their respective chosen professions. And while fans of NFL teams other than the Chiefs aren’t rooting for Travis Kelce to keep catching touchdowns, there is no denying his greatness.

As for Taylor Swift, you don’t have to like her music (I am not really a fan, although as someone who has written many songs and performed live many times, I have no problem acknowledging her genius as a songwriter and as a performer). Of course, there also is no denying her brilliant commercial success, as that success is one of the greatest achievements in entertainment history.

Herein lies the real ugliness present when it comes to Kelce and Swift. People are simply jealous of their respective greatness, although people wish they were as great as these two. And to put another layer on it, people also appear to be jealous of two beautiful people publicly displaying their love and affection for one another. I think everyone wants this kind of exciting romance, but sadly, few fail to achieve it.

So, to put a final bow on this Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift breakdown, I think people need to A) Not be surprised or bemoan the fact that these outlier achievers are getting so much attention, B) Reject the silly, cray-cray conspiratorial notion that this whole things is a psyop and C) Not fall in line with the haters who feel compelled to hate these two people because of their virtues, their remarkable achievements in life and the way they choose to celebrate their lives together.

Life is short, and the world is full of wonder. Concentrate more on achieving your own happiness and maximizing your own well-being, and reject harboring the hatred of the good for being the good. Much more happiness, beauty and truth will come to you that way.

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Favorite Love Quote

“Love in its essence is spiritual fire.”

— Seneca

In order to prevail in a difficult world, we need spiritual fuel. And one of the best sources of that fuel is what love gives us. The reason why is because love in its proper form is the ultimate reward for the achievement of our values. It’s the prize for what and who we are. So, if we are fortunate enough to be loved and to give love, that is the reward that can make our spirits catch fire.

Wisdom about money, investing and life can be found anywhere. If you have a good quote that you’d like me to share with your fellow readers, send it to me, along with any comments, questions and suggestions you have about my newsletters, seminars or anything else. Click here to ask Jim.

P.S. We are excited to invite you to a free, live webinar with George Gilder tomorrow, Feb. 15 at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. In this Startup Investing Masterclass, George is teaming up with Jon Medved, the founder of OurCrowd, to discuss investing in private placements. George and John Schroeter from Gilder’s Private Reserve will be interviewing the CEO of George’s latest AI startup pick… so you’ll be receiving a great startup pick just by attending! Click here now to attend this amazing event. 

In the name of the best within us,

Jim Woods