Fauci Ouchie-Time to Go

6-6-21

• Opening Comments

• Restaurant Review-Geno’s Steak-Philly

• Fauci Ouchie-Time to Go

• Quick Bites

  • Stocks, Labor Market, Bike Costs, Teenage Workers,

  • Rent, G-7 Tax, Most Expensive Gas, Millennials vs Baby Boomers

  • Trump Banned, Racist Ivy League Shrink, Veteran Mic Cut

  • Ashville Police Dept, Indian Wedding Disaster

  • Gator Bait, UFOs, John Rahm/Golf

• Virus/Vaccine

  • Continued Data Improvement, but vaccine roll-out slowing

• Real Estate

  • Cost of Building a Home Skyrockets-Great charts in article

  • Miami Insanity

  • Plaza Condo

Opening Comments

Getting old continues to plague me. I tweaked my calf running for a drop shot last Friday while playing tennis and thought I was healed. WRONG answer. I took a lesson on Wednesday night and in the first 3 minutes, clearly did additional damage. I am hobbling around like an old man. The injury list is legendary at this point, not something I am proud of, quite frankly. I instituted a picture of video of the day, but I will toggle between that and a restaurant review going forward depending on if I try a new place worth mentioning.

Today’s note is a bit longer despite me cutting some of the Quick Bites section. Lots going on out there, but some similar themes around inflation. Hope something in the note resonates.

Geno’s Steak-A Philly Tradition

Jack and I needed to go to Philly to pick up a friend at the airport and the flight was delayed two hours due to bad weather. I called two friends from Philly and asked which cheese steak place we should try. Both screamed, “GENO’s Steaks”, so off we went. For full disclosure, I try to eat healthier and would not normally go after such food, but we were in Philly and felt a moral obligation to give it a go. When in Rome so to speak.

Life is about expectations management. If your wife drags you to a movie and you had no interest but acquiesce, your exceptions are low and 7 times out of 10, you are pleasantly surprised. I am not convinced it was because the movie was so amazing, but more because your expectations were lowered, it would be hard to disappoint. When some tells you about the greatness of a restaurant, it elevates your expectations to unreasonable levels. That was the case for me at Geno’s. I had heard for ages about how special a genuine Philly cheese steak sandy was from countless people. My expectations were too high for what we experienced.

It started with the area which is a bit seedy. Then we could not find parking or a garage and finally stumbled upon an opening in the pouring rain. We went to Geno’s across the street from Pat’s (other famous place) and ordered our food. Cheese steak WITH (means add onions). We also split an order of french fries (no cheese wiz) and had two waters. The total was $33.

I spoke with a local contractor in line and asked about the Geno’s vs Pat’s and he looked at me like I was crazy. He said, “You are one or the other and can’t be both.” This LA times article discusses the Geno’s vs Pat’s rivalry.

We ate outside under a covered patio (only option). I will suggest that Philly’s health problems likely start with Geno’s and Pat’s. Any obesity or cholesterol issues begin with a Philly cheese steak. The sandwich is greasy. I looked up the calorie count and it appears it is 1,220 with 57g of fat.

Jack and I were starving and devoured the food. I felt it was solid, but given the hype, it did not live up to my expectations. Since I do not often partake in such unhealthy endeavors, I immediately regretted the Geno’s decision. I felt ill and could sense my cholesterol climbing. I could not go to sleep as my body was rejecting what I asked it to digest.

If you are going to Philly, give Geno’s or Pat’s a try, but bring your Lipator and Prilosec, as I am not convinced you are going to be feeling like a million bucks when you are done. Also, extra napkins and “Wet Ones.” These bad boys are messy.

Fauci Ouchie

Many folks have been calling the vaccination a, “Fauci Ouchie,” but I felt Fauchi has created some problems of his own. I want to start with the fact that Fauci has served under six Presidents starting with Regan and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2008. He has worked as an infectious disease specialist on AIDS, Ebola, Zika, Anthrax and COVID-19. He has clearly dedicated his life to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and has made a substantial impact as a result of his 50 years of service. I also believe working for President Trump was not a fun experience for many, especially Fauci given conflicting views and fears of retribution from the president. Some of the things which came out of Trump’s mouth during this time were insane, including the time he suggested top health officials study the injection of bleach into the human body as a means of fighting COVID-19.

I liked Fauci and felt he was a calm in the storm at some points in 2020. However, despite all his efforts and hard work, I feel he has stumbled too many times in the past 18 months and it is time for him to move on. Fauci was supposed to be a scientist, and he has behaved anything but. His inconsistencies have had a direct impact on our lives and freedoms. I have taken excerpts from a half dozen articles below.

Let’s begin with Fauci’s serenity back on January 21 last year, when he assured us that the virus convulsing China at the time “is not a major threat for the people of the United States and this is not something the citizens of the United States right now should be worried about.”

The following week, he was vehemently opposing President Donald Trump’s proposed flight ban from China, which Biden at the time decried as “xenophobia.” 

It was Jan. 28, and Trump had asked his trade adviser, Peter Navarro, into the Situation Room to convince Fauci and other officials that the China travel ban would save lives. 

“The guy I fought the most that day was Fauci,” Navarro told me Sunday. “He was adamantly opposed to the travel ban. All he kept saying was travel restrictions don’t work.” 

Then there was Fauci’s advice on masks. Back in March, when the coronavirus was decimating New York, he told us masks were useless. “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks,” he told “60 Minutes.” Three months later, he did a backflip: “Masks work . . . to prevent you from infecting someone else . . . but also, it can protect you to a certain degree.” 

Now that Fauci’s emails have been discovered, of particular interest: From 2014-19, the National Institutes of Health sent $3.4 million to the WIV (Wuhan Institute of Virology) through the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance. “I just wanted to say a personal thank you on behalf of our staff and collaborators, for publicly standing up and stating that the scientific evidence supports a natural origin,” EcoHealth Alliance chief Peter Daszak gushed to Dr. Fauci in a partly redacted April 2020 email. “Your comments are brave, and coming from your trusted voice, will help dispel the myths being spun around the virus’ origins.”

In a newly resurfaced paper from 2012, Dr. Anthony Fauci argued that the benefits of gain-of-function research are worth the increased risk of a potential pandemic-causing lab accident.  The Weekend Australian unearthed a paper Fauci wrote for the American Society for Microbiology in October 2012 in which he argued in support of gain-of-function research. Such research involves making viruses more infectious and/or deadly. 

Dr. Fauci has since said his outfit didn’t fund gain-of-function research; the EcoHealth Alliance funding was meant to go to collecting samples. But “I can’t guarantee everything that’s going on in the Wuhan lab, we can’t do that,” Dr. Fauci said Wednesday in an interview with NewsNation Now. Dr. Fauci has stated he believes the emails have been “taken out of context.”

State Department leaders were warned not to pursue an investigation into the origins of COVID-19, former department officials confirmed to Fox News on Thursday, amid fears that it would bring attention to U.S. funding of research at the Wuhan Institute where the virus may have escaped. Vanity Fair reported that officials calling for transparency from the Chinese government were told not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s "gain of function" research, because it would bring what the outlet described as "unwelcome" attention of U.S. government funding into that research.

Kristen Anderson runs a viral genomics lab at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif questioned the genome sequence and suggested it may be “engineered.” Andersen also noted that he and others “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory” but added that “there are still further analyses to be done, so those opinions could still change.” My point was early on noted researchers were questioning the “Wet Market Theory,” and Fauci was dismissing it despite questions arising early in the pandemic (Feb 2020-Anderson’s email).

Another email questioning the Wet Market Theory was sent in April. The emails show Fauci received a flurry of correspondence about the theory that coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan. One such email sent to Fauci on April 16, 2020 by Francis Collins, the director of the National Institute of Health, under the subject line "conspiracy gains momentum" contained a link to a news story highlighting a Fox News report that said the allegation had merit. Fauci's response to Collins is entirely blacked out.

The “lab leak” theory gained traction last month after the Wall Street Journal reported that three researchers at the lab became so ill in November 2019 that they sought hospital treatment.

Now Fauci is open to the potential of a lab leak despite aggressively denying the possibility early on in the process. Dr. Anthony Fauci is admitting that the coronavirus could have come from a “lab leak” — as emails released through the FOIA show he was told of “unusual features of the virus” at the beginning of the pandemic — but is blaming criticism of his shifting positions on “people out there” who “resent” him.

In the end, do I believe Fauci is an evil man? No, I am not there at this point. I believe he has been wrong so many times, that to me, he now lacks credibility and needs to move on knowing he had a long career dedicated to serving the country. I no longer trust anything that comes out of his mouth on the subject of COVID-19 or China and will no longer listen to anything he has to say on the topic. There are many conflicts of interest and the media is absolutely not doing its job to uncover the potential issues here. I believe NIH funding went to the WIV through the EcoHealth Alliance and my personal belief is the WIV was the cause of the pandemic. What did Dr. Fauci know and when with respect to gain of function research, the probable leak, effectiveness of masks… Some emails make me question Fauci’s authenticity when speaking under oath.

A Stanford epidemiologist said Dr. Anthony Fauci’s “credibility is entirely shot” after his conflicting advice on face masks throughout the pandemic — which the scientist criticized as “all over the place.”

I want to see a full investigation into the Wuhan Lab as well as emails from relevant parties as to when they received information of a leak vs the wet market theory and all other related matters. Too many crushed any White House suggestions of a leak. I also feel Fauci has become bit of a publicity hound. Book writing, countless interviews, 60 minutes. I am not sure if he is a politician or a scientist. From my perspective, it is time to go Dr. Fauci, but I thank you for your 50 years tireless service. I have no interest in your views any longer.

Quick Bites

• U.S. stocks climbed on Friday as the key May jobs report showed solid gains, boosting confidence in the economic comeback. The S&P 500 rose about 0.9% to 4,229 sitting less than 0.2% from its all-time high reached last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 179 points to 34,756. The Nasdaq Composite outperformed with a nearly 1.5% rally to 13,814. The major averages all registered modest gains for the week. The blue-chip Dow and the S&P 500 advanced about 0.7% and 0.6%, respectively, on the week for their second straight positive week. The tech-heavy Nasdaq gained just shy of 0.5% this week for its third winning week in a row. The U.S. economy added 559,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said on Friday. The number came in slightly lower than an estimate of 671,000 from economists surveyed by Dow Jones, but still showed a healthy rebound in the labor market. It’s an improvement from the upwardly revised 278,000 payrolls added in April. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% from 6.1%, which was better than the estimate of 5.9%. Many believe the jobs report, while solid, is not strong enough to trigger the Federal Reserve to dial back its bond buying program.

• The tight labor market is hampering new restaurant and supermarket openings, putting a potential check on growth in a food industry that is being reshaped by the pandemic. Many food sellers are adding stores to capitalize on high consumer spending as Americans emerge from a year spent largely at home. But grocers and restaurants say they are struggling to hire all the workers they want for these stores. They are adding perks and bonuses to entice job seekers and in some cases delaying openings. Almost half of restaurants are operating with 20% less staff than usual, according to the National Restaurant Association. As restaurants struggle to find workers, some managers use on-demand hiring apps to cover short-term staffing needs.  The trend of on-demand hiring apps will continue, hospitality experts say. Pay people to stay home and they don’t want to work. I have dozens of examples of businesses which cannot find employees for factories, service businesses, country clubs, Uber drivers, truck drivers and the list goes on.

  

• Customers crowding into U.S. bike shops are often walking out empty-handed — or if they're lucky, with a bike whose price has repeatedly gone up since last year.   Looking for a Santa Cruz Hightower C R, a full-suspension carbon mountain bike? It’ll cost $4,749, up 10% from earlier this year. But with stocks depleted, buyers probably will be told to wait for the next model, due out this summer, at a higher price.

• Businesses are counting on teenage workers to staff restaurants, golf clubs, resorts and other hot-weather entertainment spots emerging from pandemic lockdowns. Many employers are struggling to find enough adult workers, and so to fill the gap, they are leaning on teens like never before and heavily courting them to keep businesses running in a busy summer. For many young adults now flooding into the hot summer labor market, conditions are creating a job bonanza, complete with more accommodating bosses, greater schedule flexibility and even higher pay than in summers past.

• More than 10 million Americans, or 14% of U.S. renters, say they aren’t caught up with their housing payments, meaning many could be at risk when the national moratorium on evictions expires in under a month. That finding comes from data collected by the Census Bureau between May 12 and 24 and analyzed by The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The CBPP also found that more than 26% of Americans continue to have trouble meeting their usual expenses, and around 9% couldn’t afford enough food.

• The Group of Seven rich nations secured a landmark deal that could help countries collect more taxes from big companies and enable governments to impose levies on U.S. tech giants such as Amazon Inc. and Facebook Inc. The agreement by the G-7 finance ministers in London satisfies a U.S. demand for a minimum corporate tax rate of “at least 15%” on foreign earnings and paves the way for levies on multinationals in countries where they make money, instead of just where they are headquartered.

• Private wealth clients, hedge fund managers and cryptocurrency traders fleeing to Puerto Rico for its huge tax breaks—and to escape President Joe Biden’s proposed capital gains tax increases—are now the focus of a sweeping Internal Revenue Service review. The country’s tax collector quietly launched a coordinated campaign in late January to examine individuals who took advantage, starting in 2012, of tax incentives designed to lure high net-worth individuals and corporations to Puerto Rico. More than 4,000 mainland U.S. residents and firms have moved to the territory between 2012 and 2019, revealing potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in lost tax revenue to the U.S. government, according to an IRS report delivered to Congress. I have been to PR over 20 times. I have surfed and fished there and taken my family for vacation. If you made me stay in PR for more than four nights in a row, I would struggle. Living there full time would be impossible for me. Despite my love for low/zero tax rates, it is not enough to get me to move to PR. For those considering it, good luck and let me know how it goes. The shock of going from NYC to South Florida was big enough. Going from NYC to PR would be crazy. I have only met one person who has gone and was able to stay for years. He was a former GS partner. Everyone else I know who tried the experiment came back to the states.

• Mendocino is known for its Victorian architecture and striking setting on the bluffs of the Pacific Ocean in rural Northern California, 155 miles and three and a half hours north of San Francisco. But its beauty is not the only thing that has put Mendocino in the national spotlight in recent months. Now the small coastal town of about 1,000 people has another distinction: the most expensive gas in the entire United States.  The sole service station in the tiny pastel-hued village, Schlafer’s Auto Body & Repair, is currently charging $6.73 per gallon of regular unleaded gasoline. I have driven 1200 miles in 10 days and have filled up the car 5x. I have paid as much as $4/gallon in NY for gas, but am regularly paying closer to $3.25. At the lows, I paid under $1.5 in Florida last year. Given it is peak driving season, gas prices will be costly to consumers.

• In almost every way measurable, millennials in the U.S. at 40 are doing worse financially than the generations that came before them. Fewer millennials own homes than their parents did at their age. They have more debt — especially student debt. They simply aren’t as wealthy. Now, if predictions of a long, post-Covid economic boom are to be believed, this may be the last opportunity an entire generation has to build wealth before heading off into retirement.

• Facebook on Friday announced that it may allow former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts to be reinstated in January 2023. At that time, the social media company will reevaluate whether the risk to public safety of allowing Trump back onto its services has receded. This two-year suspension will prevent Trump from using Facebook or Instagram to broadcast to his followers until after the 2022 U.S. midterm elections. I wont spend a great deal of time on this subject other than the fact that I would like to know who else has been banned for two years and for what? Is this a fair ban? Louis Farrakhan? Iranian Leaders? Anti-Semitic commentary? I am just asking for consistent treatment.

• A New York City-based psychiatrist told an audience at the Yale School of Medicine in April that she had fantasies of “unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way.” Dr. Aruna Khilanani spewed the race-hating virtual remarks — in which she also said she’d walk away from the shooting “with a bounce in my step” and that white people “make my blood boil” and “are out of their minds and have been for a long time” — at the Ivy League institution’s Child Study Center on April 6. Why is it that these fancy private schools allow hate filled speeches. The title “Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind” did not set off alarm bells? Khilanani’s comments throughout the speech are quite concerning. Do her white patients know she hates them and has fantasies of killing them? Maybe she needs a shrink of her own. Yale costs $81,575 according to the website. So you want parents to spend effectively approximately $325,000 on an education and while there, the kids are being taught to hate White people? Please tell me I am not the only one with a problem here. She has also taught at Cornell, Columbia and NYU and a check of her social media suggests she really dislikes White people. What would have happened if a White professor made this speech about other minorities? Note to self, if I need a shrink, I will stay away from doctors who want to shoot me in the head.

• A 77 year old Veteran was speaking about Memorial Day and the role freed Black slaves played in celebrating the holiday post the Civil War when the microphone was intentionally cut. The organizers said it was cut because that section of the speech was not relevant to our program for the day. The racial divide in the US is incredibly concerning to me on both sides.

• North Carolina’s Asheville Police Department (APD) has ordered its officers not to respond to certain types of crimes so that the agency can adequately answer more serious calls for help amid a "staffing crisis." APD will no longer respond in-person to 911 calls involving certain incidents where suspect information is not available; harassing phone calls that don’t include threats to life, unless they are related to stalking or domestic violence; identity theft and other scams, and trespassing reports that don’t involve pressing charges, among other incidents, the department said in a Wednesday announcement. According to the article, 84 police officers are gone since 2020 and there were 238 sworn officers in 2019. So 35% of the force is no longer working at the APD. Again, law abiding citizens who pay taxes which pay for the police are now in a worse position. Everyone love this idea? You may call the Police and they do not have the resources to help you? Is this really the right outcome?

• Wait, What? A bride collapsed and died at the beginning of her wedding in India — so the groom married her younger sister instead after the body was moved to another room, according to reports. The bride — only identified as Surbhi — collapsed of a heart attack while exchanging traditional garlands with husband-to-be Mangesh Kumar at the start of their ceremony Thursday, according to News18, citing the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS). I understand different cultures come with different traditions. Could you imagine this happening in the USA?

• I have often written about crazy stories out of Florida and they continue to happen at a rapid rate. A Florida man diving for shark teeth was bitten in the head by an alligator — and survived. Jeffrey Heim, 25, was attacked in the Myakka River on Sunday afternoon, according to local reports. “I thought I got hit by a propeller, it hit me so fast,” Heim told WFTS. Dressed in a wetsuit, Heim had plunged into the river to look for megalodon fossils, something he does often. The Tampa resident had just come up for air when he found himself between the jaws of a gator.

  U.S. Finds No Evidence of Alien Technology in Flying Objects, but Can’t Rule It Out, Either. A new report concedes that much about the observed phenomena remains difficult to explain, including their acceleration, as well as ability to change direction and submerge. The report determines that a vast majority of more than 120 incidents over the past two decades did not originate from any American military or other advanced U.S. government technology, the officials said. That determination would appear to eliminate the possibility that Navy pilots who reported seeing unexplained aircraft might have encountered programs the government meant to keep secret. Someone is lying. They know more than they are telling us. I continue to make myself available to be abducted by friendly aliens and I will report back my findings.

• John Rahm was forced to withdraw from the Memorial Golf Tournament despite being in the lead by 6 shots given he tested positive for COVID-19. No details were given. Was it was a PCR test and a Ct of 40? I would like to know. Golf is a sport to easily social distance. He was in the lead and could have teed off last ALONE. They are outside. He clearly would have won the tournament and with it, FedEx points and incentives from his contracts. This could literally have cost Rahm over $10mm. I am not a big fan of John Rahm, but feel he should have had the ability to play his final round given the circumstances unless the Ct was below 32. For perspective, a test that registers a positive result after 12 rounds of amplification for a Ct value of 12 starts out with 10 million times as much viral genetic material as a sample with a Ct value of 35. Clearly, if Rahm were tested and received a positive at a Ct value of 12, withdrawal was the right answer. I just wish they would give more information.

Virus/Vaccine

Positive trends continue in data, but the vaccine rollout is going the wrong way. The 7 day average for cases is down to 14k relative to peak of 260k in Jan 2021. Cases have been falling steadily since mid-April, when they averaged 71k/day. Hospitalizations are down to 24k from a peak of 132k. Death are down to 414 for the 7 day average after peaking at 3.3k in late Jan.

More than 2.06 billion doses have been administered across 176 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 37 million doses a day. In the U.S., 299 million doses have been given so far. In the last week, an average of 1 million doses per day were administered. Remember, the peak doses were 3.4mm/day in mid-April and we are now down to 1mm.

Real Estate

• From lumber to paint to concrete, the cost of almost every single item that goes into building a house in the U.S. is soaring. In some cases, the price increases have topped 100% since the pandemic began. There are any number of factors at play—from rock-bottom mortgage rates to city dwellers’ rush to the suburbs to shortages of materials—but the simplest explanation is that there is just too much demand for builders and their suppliers to handle. All of this makes housing an extreme manifestation of the inflationary pressures percolating through the booming U.S. economy. Great interactive link here from Bloomberg breaking down the costs of a house. Click the link above and it shows some solid data in it for those interested in home price costs.

  

• I spoke with Devin Kay, a top Miami Broker. Some crazy stories. A family bought a lot on North Bay Road for $18.5mm 5 months ago. Devin asked if it would be for sale and they said, “We turned down $31mm this week.” Another guy bought a lot 4 months ago for $16 and turned down $26mm. North Bay Road is a sought after location on the water. Devin has been calling homeowners and they are telling him they have seen offers of $40-50mm and are not selling. These properties were $13-20mm pre-pandemic.

• On Indian Creek in Miami, there are currently 4 homes for sale (off market). The cheapest is $75mm. Julio Iglesias has two lots (2 acres each) that he is selling together and asking $100mm. A developer offered $85mm and he turned it down. Julio sold two lots recently each for the low 30s. When I moved to Florida, there was one house in Indian Creek for sale for $20mm which sold for less. It was out of my range, but wow, that would have been an insane investment.

• A billionaire fashion mogul is finally in contract to sell his ginormous-sized suite at the Plaza Hotel — at an even bigger loss. Jürgen Friedrich, founder of Esprit, and his wife Anke Beck-Friedrich, bought the residence, known as the Astor Suite, for $25.49 million in 2007. A year later, the couple tried to flip the unit for $55 million.  But the stately residence — which has hosted President John F. Kennedy and the Nazi-loving Duke of Windsor, Edward VIII — was last asking $19.95 million. The buyer is a New York-based finance family, who is paying close to ask, sources said.