A Throne with No Game

As a power user of information, I have a highly developed sense of “NewsQ” (i.e., what news is relevant, and what isn’t, when it comes to moving markets). In fact, the term “NewsQ” is one that I invented to describe this skill. And as a power user of information, unfortunately, I cannot escape gossip. That’s especially true of the gossip from across the pond regarding the British royal family.

As valiantly as I try, I have failed to evade the latest barrage of news about Princess Kate and her “troubled marriage” with Prince William, her recent health issues, the breach of her medical records and the latest gossip dustup, the digital alteration and enhancement of royal family photographs. Then, of course, there’s the health of King Charles III, who has been diagnosed with an undisclosed form of cancer, and that’s about all that’s been released regarding his condition.

One of the publications I read regularly for international NewsQ is The Guardian. A recent piece by the excellent columnist Zoe Williams titled, “The one thing we’ve learned from the Kate photo scandal? There’s no such thing as a fairytale life,” gives us the following insight on this issue of the royals and their current place in the collective psyche:

“A small but growing number of us wish they would simply desist, become normal, stop costing so much. A sizeable middle doesn’t care one way or the other, and those who do watch these lives with fascinated admiration need them to be perfect. We can talk loftily about William and Kate’s missteps — how could they have been so stupid as to Photoshop an image, and so amateurishly? Don’t they know the first rule of lying, in public life, which is: stop doing it and tell the truth? But they haven’t been stupid at all, they’ve behaved exactly as humans do, trapped in a deal they can’t uphold. They cannot lead the perfect, trouble-free lives that they have to lead in order to make sense.”

Williams points out here the folly of trying to lead “perfect, trouble-free lives,” as there’s no such thing, and no one can hold up that end of a deal — or that ideal.

Source: Shutterstock

Now, after reading the Williams piece, I was reminded of the wider issue of the royals and what the concept itself actually represents. And far from being an ideal, it’s actually extremely caustic and destructive.

In September 2022, I addressed this subject in detail in my article, “Reject This Game of Thrones.” Today, I want you to read that piece again, and do so in light of the latest royal gossip. It will give you a deeper sense of the real issues at hand here, and why they matter to the world.

As you’ll learn, it’s still time to reject this game of thrones, and the latest disfunction just shows how this throne has no game.

Reject This Game of Thrones

If you’ve tuned in to TV news anytime over the past six days, you’ve been inundated with coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II. Indeed, the mostly fawning treatment of the Queen’s passing, her role in history, her record long reign, her succession, the celebrity and death of her firstborn son’s former wife, her other son’s sexual scandals, her grandsons and their personal drama and the sycophantic weeping of her “subjects” in the media has been something of a personal irritant to me.

Yes, I certainly understand the media’s desire to cover every moment of this situation. After all, the media is all about ratings, because ratings equal revenue, and news is a business, and the royals make for big ratings. And as a radical for capitalism, I endorse that.

However, as a man who abhors the notion of monarchy and its roots in such despicable ideas as the “divine right of kings,” I find the pageantry rather loathsome. In fact, I am someone who has a visceral sense of nuisance whenever I see a picture of the royals, and the reason why is because I’m opposed to concepts such as one human having political province over others simply by accident of birth.

Now, I know I am viewing this issue through a decidedly American lens, but I was taught from my earliest reading of government that “all men are created equal.” Yet in monarchies of any kind, even the timid version such as that of Britain, the sovereigns are thought to be created better than their subjects, and therefore they have the right to tell other humans what to do, how to live and who to serve.

Stated in starker terms, in most historical “absolute” monarchies, subjects don’t own their lives, the king or queen does — and that makes people slaves of the state.

Of course, Britain is not an absolute monarchy any longer. The country has long been a “constitutional monarchy,” which is a system of government in which a monarch shares power with a constitutionally organized government — and this is indeed progress.

Yet in the case of Britain, King Charles III now is not only the titular and ceremonial head of state, but he’s also head of the Church of England and the head of the armed forces. Talk about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth.

Now, some writers/intellectuals that I admire, in particular Andrew Sullivan, have written eloquently about Queen Elizabeth II and the virtues she embodied. Here he writes, “With her death, it’s hard not to fear that so much she exemplified — restraint, duty, grace, reticence, persistence — are disappearing from the world.” Fair enough, as I am all for virtues such as grace, reticence and persistence.

But then a few paragraphs later, Sullivan goes on to defend the Crown by enlisting the help of writer C.S. Lewis, who once said: “Where men are forbidden to honor a king, they honor millionaires, athletes or film stars instead; even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

Think about this for a moment. In Lewis’s view, we should honor a king, who ascended to his lot simply by virtue of birth, but we shouldn’t honor millionaires, athletes or film stars — people who have actually put the hard work into it and have done what is required to achieve their status in life?

This is my biggest issue with the notions of royalty of any sort. To be honored and endowed with position, privilege, wealth, admiration, power and respect by accident of your birth, and not because of the hard work it took you to become a millionaire or a standout athlete or a film star, is a perversion of reality that needs to be called out now — especially while the world is mired in an orgy of royal worship.

Yes, as Lewis says, spiritual nature, like bodily nature, needs to be served. But I say that bestowing virtues on a person because of their birth, and not because of their actions, is gobbling up the worst kind of servile poison — poison that inevitably leads to subjugation of the ugliest sort. And if you don’t believe me, read up on the violent atrocities of empires throughout history.

At the root, you’ll find the structural servility of men under the authority of monarchs — and to toward that poison, I say reject this game of thrones.

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ETF Talk: A ‘Wise’ Investment in Cryptocurrency

Nothing seems to have divided the investment community more than Bitcoin.

It really is, to use the title of the Charles Dickens’s novel, “A Tale of Two Cities.” Some individuals, like myself, view Bitcoin (and cryptocurrencies more generally) as a tool that can help break the destructive monopoly that central banks have over each nation’s currency and place that power back in the hands of individuals.

Others, including prominent investor Warren Buffett, who recently stated that he “wouldn’t pay $25 for all the Bitcoin in the world,” and financial guru Dave Ramsey, are much less sanguine. They have even predicted that the Bitcoin bubble will soon burst in a dramatic and destructive way.

While a debate at this year’s FreedomFest (and if you haven’t signed up at www.freedomfest.com yet, why haven’t you?) will attempt to answer the question of if Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies more generally, are a “wise” investment, there is a new exchange-traded fund devoted to Bitcoin that has “wise” in its name that I would like to discuss: Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (BATS: FBTC).

First of all, it is important to note that FBTC is devoted to tracking the daily spot price of Bitcoin in dollars. It does not invest directly in Bitcoin (or in any other cryptocurrency, for that matter). So, investors who are interested in cryptocurrencies but who have been scared away by the demands of acquiring, holding and trading them might have their interest piqued by FBTC.

The fund’s managers have set up FBTC to track the price of Bitcoin and value its holdings each day based on the Fidelity Bitcoin Reference Rate. To acquire this data, the fund’s managers draw on data from eligible Bitcoin spot markets and a volume-weighted median price methodology that merges the trade flow of several Bitcoin platforms during a specific period of time.

As of March 19, FBTC has been up 45.18% over the past month.

Chart courtesy of www.stockcharts.com

In short, while FBTC does provide an investor with a way to partake in the Bitcoin craze, this kind of ETF may not be appropriate for all portfolios. Thus, interested investors always should 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.

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In case you missed it…

Sleep Is a Virtue

Let’s face it, I don’t have very much in common with President Biden.

He’s a career politician, a Democrat and someone who holds many political and philosophic ideas that I stridently disagree with. He’s also a man who has many, shall we say, “backward” ideas on how to live.

Perhaps the best example of these ideas was illustrated way back in 2008, in an article I wrote about my five-hour plane ride with then Senator Biden, “We All Scream for Ice Cream: A Joe Biden Tale.” If you haven’t yet read this article, let me give you the Cliff Notes version: He ate his meal in reverse order.

This behavior revealed what I concluded to be a type of reverse-thinking pathology of the sort that leads to bizarre and backward ideas, the latest of which being the proposals found in so-called “Bidenomics.” This is the economic playbook that consists of bigger and bigger government subsidies and spending, and more rules and regulations as a panacea for growing the economy from “the middle out and the bottom up — not the top down.”

Now, as a free-market advocate and a radical for laissez-faire capitalism, you likely know what I think about these ideas. So, the president and I certainly don’t share this key philosophic view.

However, I do share one important thing with Joe Biden that I want to tell everyone about, right now, as it just might save your life (and I mean that with no sense of hyperbole).

Last summer, the White House confirmed that President Biden had recently begun using a CPAP machine to treat sleep apnea. The admission came largely in response to the visible indentations caused by the CPAP straps that were seen on both sides of the president’s face after he began using the device.

Now, if you don’t know, a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine is a device that uses mild air pressure to keep breathing airways open while you sleep. It is the primary treatment option for sleep apnea, a sleep disorder in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts, forcing a person to essentially wake up constantly during the night, therefore depriving him/her of entering the various necessary sleep stages. It’s also a condition that an estimated 30 million people in the United States have, a number that I suspect is way too low.

I say that, because last year, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, a condition I suspect I had been suffering from for many years without even beware aware of it. And here, you see, is something I have in common with Joe Biden — we both have sleep apnea, and we both use a CPAP to help us deal with this subversive health condition.

Your editor wearing his “nasal pillow” CPAP machine.

Like the president, I experienced some facial indentations when I first began using my full-face CPAP. However, when I switched to what is called a “nasal pillow” device, the facial indentations disappeared.

Now, the reason I am writing about this medical condition I share with President Biden is because sleep apnea is a very serious problem that, left untreated, can result in a host of serious health complications. For example, multiple studies have shown an association between sleep apnea and problems such as type 2 diabetes, strokes, heart attacks and even a shortened lifespan.

I don’t know about you, but I love my life, and I want it to continue for many years to come. I also want that life to be as free of disease as possible, and as healthy as possible. And considering that more and more research has revealed that quality sleep is a critical component of optimal health, a kind of health superpower, if you will, it only makes sense to get the best quality sleep you can.

Finally, I want you to seriously consider this vital health issue, because you may suffer from sleep apnea and not even realize it. If you, or most likely your partner, notice that you snore heavily, or if you feel sluggish in the morning, have unexplained fatigue and mood swings or if you have dry mouth and/or headaches when you awaken, you may have sleep apnea.

To begin the process of treating this condition, I recommend seeing your doctor and having them refer you to a sleep specialist for an overnight sleep study. This is when you go to a sleep facility, where they place sensors on your head and body that monitor your sleep and calculate your “apnea events” during the night.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), sleep apnea and the number of apnea events are categorized into mild (five-15 events/hour), moderate (15-30 events/hour), and severe (>30 events/hour). When I did my sleep study, I was off the charts at 66 events per hour. That means more than once per minute I was waking up and gasping for breath!

Thankfully, this situation is now under control. In fact, my CPAP monitor actually tells me how many apnea events I experience per hour. Last night, it was 0.0 events. So, from 66 events to zero — that is what you call deep sleep progress.

So, if you have any suspicion at all that you may be suffering from sleep apnea, I strongly urge you to find out if you share what the president and I share — a condition you should by no means feel embarrassed by, one that can be treated by medical technology and one that can help you live a healthier life.

Ok, now call your doctor.

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Pinch Me

On an evening such as this
It’s hard to tell if I exist
If I pack the car and leave this town
Who’ll notice that I’m not around?

–Barenaked Ladies, “Pinch Me”

A sense of existential dread is always lurking in the back of our minds. And no matter how certain you might be with regard to your place in the universe, none of us really knows what it all means or what, if any, “purpose” there may be to it all. Because of this, it’s incumbent upon us to make our own meaning, and to do whatever we can to imbue our lives with purpose, right here, right now. So, pinch me, and make sure I’m still asleep, because I have meaning in this world to create — and so do you.

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.

In the name of the best within us,

Jim Woods