Here It Comes: The Election Grey Swan and Your Money

Odds of a contested election rise to one in three NOVEMBER 05, 2024 UPDATE A GREY SWAN PUBLICATION Here It Comes: The Election Grey Swan And Your Money "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” — P.J. O’Rourke --------------------------------------------------------------- [Turn Your Images On] The earliest election results from Dixville Knox, NH, suggest our Grey Swan forecast of a contested election has been accurate [Turn Your Images On] Addison Wiggin, Grey Swan Reader, November 5, 2024— Our forecast for a delayed result and therefore contested election has risen on betting sites to 1 in 3. As far as Grey Swan events… those are stellar odds. In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, not far from our family farm, the distinction of voting at midnight on Election Day makes the tiny hamlet by far the earliest to report. In 2020, the five voters there voted for Joe Biden. In the wee hours this morning the now six voters tied, three to three. Polymarket, the betting site we’ve been following here in the daily missive, has the electoral college going to Trump and the popular vote going to Harris. [Turn Your Images On] It’s still early in voting, as we write but early indications favor our unpopular forecast of a slow painful decision. Forecasting that it’s going to be slog is easily the most annoying forecast we could have made, given the response of anyone who we’ve bothered to discuss the election.” And lots of anxiety. It’s not anxiety, we share, mind you. We’re just looking at the way things have been shaping out over this last decade of intense and rising populist rhetoric from bost national parties. Too many lies to count, especially today on election day. Nobody really seems to care except if their candidate beats the snot out of the other guy. Down ballot, there is still a neck and neck race here in Maryland for a Senate seat being vacated by the longstanding Democrat Ben Cardin. If you listen to any of the rhetoric coming from the campaign for Angela Alsobrooks – whom Biden, Harris and Obama have all come out to personally endorse – the future of humanity rests on Alsobrook’s ability to help the Democrats retain control of the U.S. Senate. We were entertained early this morning by this summary of money spent on the 2024 election provided by the Morning Brew: A projected $15.9 billion has been dumped into the presidential and congressional campaigns on the ballot today, according to the nonpartisan nonprofit OpenSecrets. - By comparison, the 2020 campaigns raised $15.1 billion, and the 2016 ones $6.5 billion (not inflation-adjusted). - More than 11,000 PACs and other political groups helped fund this election’s record spend. Nearly two-thirds of the donations came from just 100 groups that got boatloads of money from billionaires. - Over 400 Americans donated at least $1 million, up from 23 people for the 2004 election. This year, high-earners [swayed both ways]( but more veered left: Forbes counted 83 billionaires backing Vice President Kamala Harris and 52 in former President Donald Trump’s corner. Between their campaign committees and the PACs that supported their election efforts: - Harris raised $1.6 billion with help from deep-pocketed [donors]( like Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates, Laurene Powell Jobs, Reed Hastings, and Dustin Moskovitz (a Facebook co-founder). - Trump raised $1.1 billion, with one-fifth of the pile coming from Elon Musk and Timothy Mellon—a banking heir who was this election’s largest individual donor. The former president also got $100+ million from Miriam Adelson, the majority owner of Las Vegas Sands Corp. For perspective, campaigns for Canada’s last federal election in 2021 [cost]( just $69 million (inflation-adjusted). Similarly, elections in the UK and Germany are 1/40th the price of US races per person, according to the Wall Street Journal. Eight in 10 Americans think money has too much [influence]( on US elections, per Pew Research. The two parties have all but treated the actual issues we’re inclined to get excited about: chronic deficits, rising national debt and a dollar crisis brought on by geopolitical events. Both Gold and Bitcoin began to rally in early trading in New York. One Grey Swan event we’re not anticipating is for one or other of the losing sides to do so with grace and civility. For a nostalgic look at a time in our history when there existed a veneer of civility, we present historian Douglas Murray from his review of Richard Nixon’s losing speech in 1960, published by The Free Press. Nixon usually plays a chief villain in the Grey Swan narrative, having committed the economic crime of the century on Augusyt 15, 1971. Today, we get a slightly more look at the man’s characters. Enjoy. –Addison CONTINUED BELOW... --------------------------------------------------------------- [21 Word Passage in Bible Reveals Truth About U.S. Economy]( [Turn On Your Images.]( A hidden passage, just 21 words long, [could hold the key to America’s economic fate]( Buried deep within the Bible, this passage has predicted the destruction of financial empires before — and now, it points to the U.S. economy. You need to know what this means for your money, your savings, and your future. [Click here to unlock the prophecy and prepare for what’s coming.]( --------------------------------------------------------------- CONTINUED... Whoever Loses, They Should Lose Like Nixon Douglas Murray, [The Free Press]( Perhaps every election feels like it is the most febrile. But this one really does. There is the name-calling, of course, and the outrageous claims made by both sides. Yet one of the more concerning features of this race is the suspicion—indeed, the certainty—that the other side intends to cheat, or not accept the result. It is a terrible thing for a democracy that trust in the system should reach such a low. As I have said often in the last four years, democracy depends on election results being clear and agreed upon, and for that to happen requires two things. Not only that one side wins, and knows it has won, but also that another side loses, and knows it has lost. That is the only way for a losing—as well as a winning—side to move on and adapt to the realities that have produced the result. Which brings me to Richard Nixon. Nixon is not often cited these days as an example of best practice. But in the case of the concession speech he made the night of the 1960 presidential election, it would be fair to do so. The race that year was exceptionally close. Although in the electoral college Nixon’s Democrat rival John F. Kennedy ended up winning 303 votes to Nixon’s 219, the popular vote was virtually tied between the two candidates. Kennedy was less than half a percentage point ahead. It had been a hard-fought campaign. In certain respects, the two candidates were similar. They were only four years apart in age. Both had served in the Navy in the Pacific during World War II. Both had served in the House and Senate. But on a deeper level, the two men were very different. The Republican candidate was someone who had pulled himself up from a humble farming background, and had fought for everything he got. The Democrat candidate, by contrast, was an American blue blood. Then, as now, a blunder when addressing a minority could cost a man an election. Although Nixon had a strong record on civil rights, in October 1960, he refused to express support for Martin Luther King Jr., who had been arrested during a sit-in in Atlanta and sentenced to four months of hard labor. Asked about this, the Nixon campaign said: “No comment.” It wasn’t hard for the Democrats to seize that advantage. They swiftly distributed campaign materials saying: “No comment Nixon versus a candidate with a heart, Senator Kennedy.” The black votes that Nixon lost may well have been the ones that cost him the election. Something else that makes the 1960 election seem strangely modern was that there was serious controversy over voter fraud. Nixon lost Illinois and Texas—which together represented 51 electoral college votes—by the slimmest of margins. In the former, Kennedy won by a mere 9,000 votes amid allegations that Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had used the city’s Democrat machine to manipulate vote totals in Kennedy’s favor. In Texas, the margin was almost as small, and the accusations of fraud almost as credible. If Nixon had won Illinois and Texas, he would have won the nation. Just before midnight on Tuesday, November 8, on the East Coast, The New York Times went to press with a front page announcing a Kennedy victory. But, at the time, the result was still too close to call. Illinois hadn’t yet been announced, and the Times managing editor later confessed that he found himself fearing the headline would be proved wrong—and hoping that “a certain Midwestern mayor would steal enough votes to pull Kennedy through.” Meanwhile, as Nixon wrote in his memoirs: “There was tremendous pressure from reporters and commentators for me to concede.” After midnight, he decided to speak to the cameras at the now-demolished Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Not only to the cameras, but also the crowd of adoring supporters—people who really did not want Nixon to accept the facts that were already clear. As he stepped up to the podium, with his wife Pat, the crowd shouted: “We want Nixon. Now!” He started by thanking these supporters, and joking: “I thought that we had the last rally of the campaign, but here we go again.” But he didn’t sugarcoat what he had come to say, which was the thing the crowd did not want to hear. “One of the great features of America is that we have political contests. That they are very hard fought, as this one was hard fought, and once the decision is made, we unite behind the man who is elected,” began Nixon. “I want Senator Kennedy to know, and I want all of you to know, that certainly if this trend does continue and he does become our next president, he will have my wholehearted support and yours as well.” At this, the audience shouted: “No.” But Nixon reminded his supporters that just because they were passionate, it did not mean they had won. “I am sure his supporters are just as enthusiastic as you are for me,” he said, “and I thank you for that.” Stopping just short of a concession, Nixon then turned his attention away from his political opponents, and towards the United States, and what it represents. “Having been to all of the 50 states of this nation since the nominating convention in Chicago, having seen the American people, seen them by the hundreds of thousands and perhaps the millions, in the towns and cities of America, I have great faith about the future of this country. I have great faith that our people, Republicans, Democrats alike, will unite behind our next president in seeing that America does meet the challenge which destiny has placed upon us. And that challenge is to give the leadership to the whole world which will produce a world in which all men can have what we have in the United States: freedom, independence, the right to live in peace with our neighbors. “And so, with that, let me say again my thanks to you. Having had only two hours sleep last night, and two hours sleep the night before—I’m now going to bed, and I hope you do, too!” Nixon formally conceded the next morning, at 9:47 a.m. in Los Angeles, in a telegram to Kennedy that read: “I want to repeat through this wire congratulations and best wishes I extended to you on television Tuesday night. I know you will have the united support of all Americans as you lead the nation in the cause of peace and freedom in the next four years.” Perhaps Nixon’s gracefulness in defeat came in part from his determination that he would stand to fight another day, and win. What he chose to do with his time in office once he got there is, of course, another story. But as the United States prepares to elect its next president, this speech is a perfect reminder that unity will always be more important than victory. ~~ Douglas Murray, [The Free Press]( So it goes, Addison Wiggin, Grey Swan P.S. “Rank. Revolting. It is as if a raccoon had gotten trapped somewhere under the floorboards and died. You can’t get rid of it... not without tearing the house apart.” That’s how our buddy Bill Bonner begins his review of election, with typical declaratory aplomb.  “It’s the decay of the American ‘system’ — its economy and its society, fastened to the dying animal of politics.   “In a few hours, the voters will deliver their verdict. A third of the public will shout for joy. Another third will say the election was stolen. And the other third, the best of the lot, will shrug. “Whatever the verdict, the punishment will be the same: the public will be hanged.” We posted the rest of the [Day of Reckoning on the site here](. How did we get here? Find out in these riveting reads: [Demise of the Dollar]( [Financial Reckoning Day]( and [Empire of Debt]( — all three books are now available in their third post-pandemic editions. You might enjoy one or all three. [Turn Your Images On]( (Or… simply pre-order [Empire of Debt: We Came, We Saw, We Borrowed]( now available at [Amazon]( and [Barnes & Noble]( or if you prefer one of these sites: [Bookshop.org]( [Books-A-Million]( or [Target]( Please send your comments, reactions, opprobrium, vitriol and praise to: addison@greyswanfraternity.com [Turn Your Images On] (c) 2024 The Wiggin Sessions @ Grey Swan, 1001 Cathedral Street, Baltimore MD 21201. Dedicated to examining “highly improbable, but imminent events” likely to change history, economics, politics and finance. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws. They cannot address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed personalized financial advice. [Privacy Statement.]( That said, your feedback is very important. 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