Now I Get It
As governments around the globe print money, push interest rates to (below) zero, and artificially prop up equity markets, faith that the state can protect citizens (and investors) is at an all-time low.
Capital Thinking • Issue #617 • View online
If you live in a city with no police force, and someone breaks into your home at 3am, there’s no nipping out to the shop to pick up a shotgun.
You’re either prepared for that situation… Or you’re not. That decision results in two very different outcomes.
The Golden Gun
Jamie Keech | Capitalist Exploits:
Going shooting wasn’t my idea. I’d been working around the clock closing a deal and it was a good excuse to get out of town for a couple of days.
A friend of mine, an executive at a billion-dollar gold company, invited me to a gun range near his log cabin in Whistler.
I’ve spent the last 14 years flying between mine sites and office towers. The last time I spent any serious time shooting was as a teenager on my grandfather’s farm.
The range operator, a 300-lb man with a handlebar mustache, camo-jacket, and Glock strapped to his leg gave us a 5-min intro… and pointed at a pile of handguns, rifles, and shotguns.
We spent the next 2 hours shredding paper targets in a gravel pit in the mountains.
Apparently, it’s a bit like riding a bike…
After dinner in a local pub, we spent the night drinking Makers Mark bourbon and talking M&A strategy.
It went late. I fell asleep on the couch.
A few weeks later coronavirus hit and the world changed.
After months of being told not to leave the house, George Floyd was brutally killed by a police officer and the world erupted in chaos.
Riots, looting, and burning buildings.
It started in Minneapolis, spread across America, and now Europe.
There have been calls across North America to de-fund the police, Minneapolis has begun the process, in Seattle protestors have declared an autonomous police free zone in the center of the city…
For the first time in my life I feel anxious I don’t own a gun.
I’ve worked and traveled in some of the most remote and dangerous corners of the globe. Mongolia, Sinaloa Mexico, and Northern Brazil. I’ve never felt the need to own a gun.
As a Canadian, I’ve always found the American gun culture perplexing, and sometimes comical…
Why would anyone need a gun? Why not just call the police?
Now I get it.
And I don’t find anything funny about the situation we’re in.
I’ve come to realize you never need to own a gun… Until you do. And if you didn’t plan ahead it’s too late.
People buy guns for extreme situations. Emergencies.
If you live in a city with no police force, and someone breaks into your home at 3am, there’s no nipping out to the shop to pick up a shotgun.
You’re either prepared for that situation… Or you’re not. That decision results in two very different outcomes.
Many of my colleagues, committed pacifists, are starting to consider buying guns. They’ve always had faith in government to protect them, not just their physical safety, but their wealth.
Their portfolio is made up of almost entirely government bonds, perhaps they bought a few stocks or an ETF, but their investment strategy has mostly involved aligning themselves with the might of the State.
However, they are starting to have second thoughts…
Jamie Keech
*Featured post photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash