Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

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Your Survival Guy’s Christmas at Fort Wilderness

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When I was a kid, we traveled across the country in a 21-foot Winnebago Brave (yes, we were). When I think about how we celebrated Christmas early to spend Christmas day at Fort Wilderness in Walt Disney World, it brings a smile to my face. Writing to you from New England, where snow has been slow to catch on, it’s nice thinking about those more tropical memories. Which brings me to investing. Memories don’t always happen without a plan. You invest in your family, and you believe that it will pay off down the road. That’s certainly been the case for my parents, who put my sister and me … [Read more...]

Mike Rowe Alarmed at American Men Leaving the Workforce

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You know that Your Survival Guy is a fan of Dirty Jobs host, Mike Rowe. Rowe is a proponent of the kind of hard work that made America the world's greatest economy. Rowe has recently raised the alarm over news that 7 million American men are no longer looking for work and have left the labor pool. Rowe recently discussed the problem with Brian Kilmeade. Watch the interview below: You can see on my chart below the long-term decline in male labor force participation in America, which has dropped from a peak of 87.4% in 1949 down to 68% today. During the same period of time, female … [Read more...]

SPAC-TACULAR COLLAPSE: Billions in SPAC Deals Disappear

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You've read that Your Survival Guy doesn't invest in SPACs. The problem is that you invest, and they win. You take on risk, and the founders reap the rewards. Now investors in some well-known SPACs are suffering the consequences. Bailey Lipschultz reports on the recent SPAC failures, writing for Bloomberg: One of the SPAC industry’s most well-known sponsors and a would-be serial backer have seen deals worth $10.6 billion go up in smoke in less than an hour. Alec Gores, one of the most well-respected sponsors, said Monday that Gores Holdings VIII Inc. would not be merging with materials … [Read more...]

ESG, Richard Young, Jack Bogle, and You

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Vanguard, one of America's largest mutual fund companies, is, according to Will Hild in The Wall Street Journal, violating an agreement with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) by meddling in the affairs of regulated utilities with its ESG policies. Hild writes: Americans are paying sky-high electricity rates and companies like Vanguard are making the problem worse. This week my organization, Consumers’ Research, joined 13 state attorneys general in a complaint against Vanguard at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. With more than $7 trillion in assets under management, … [Read more...]

Florida Dumps BlackRock in Fight Against ESG

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You have watched state after state push back on ESG investing as money managers use their power over the funds to pursue increasingly political ends. Florida has now joined others in pulling money out of funds at BlackRock, the money manager best known for doggedly pursuing its green agenda using ESG fund power. Angel Au-Yeung reports for The Wall Street Journal: The backlash continues for BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager. Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis announced Thursday that the state’s treasury would begin pulling out $2 billion of assets that are currently … [Read more...]

The Weaponization of Your Banking Information Against You

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Anyone who has seen the Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise film Minority Report has a decent idea of what "predictive policing" is. In the real world, cops use data analysis rather than psychic "Precogs" to predict crimes. This technology is in its infancy, but banks are now ramping up their surveillance of your actions in what they say is an attempt to predict the actions of "mass shooters." Jenny Surane reports for Law.com: Banks are developing technology to identify potential mass shooters, according to a CEO backing the push to get credit-card companies to more closely track gun … [Read more...]

Crypto Owners Dumping Luxury Cars as Industry Suffers

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The barrage of mishaps and catastrophes in the cryptocurrency market just keeps on going. Following the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX, other crypto-related companies have seen their fortunes falter. BlockFi, a crypto lender, has filed for bankruptcy, Bitfront, another crypto exchange, is shutting down, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, has been shoring up its "Secure Asset Fund," and in the last couple weeks, at least three big crypto players have died in mysterious circumstances. It's been a rough month for the industry. Now, crypto owners who spent big … [Read more...]

ELON MUSK: “ESG Is the Devil”

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You have been reading a lot in the news about Elon Musk lately. His leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter make him perhaps the most famous billionaire on earth. You would think that Musk's most famous company, Tesla, which builds electric cars, would be a darling of environmentally focused investors, especially those pushing the "environmental, social, governance" (ESG) indices. Instead, Tesla has found itself being tossed from ESG funds, coincidentally as Musk has become more vocal in his criticisms of the left wing of American politics. Over the weekend, Musk responded to a tweet … [Read more...]

Money 101: There’s a Reason Family Always Comes 1st

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Originally posted on February 3, 2021. Are you aligned with a money gathering business, or are you aligned with a money manager? The money-gathering business is all about bigness. They tell you all about how big they are when all you care about is, “how are you going to help me?” Welcome to the world where being big—whether it’s big tech or big money—makes you just a cog in the wheel. Where, for example, you sign up for Facebook or use Google for “free” and come to realize, “anything that’s free means I’m the product.” They’re selling you out. It’s no different from when money guys look to … [Read more...]