Even A Blind Squirrel

can stumble onto an acorn. So goes a famous saying.

A member of the US House of Representatives, someone whose policy preferences I loathe almost without exception and whom I have called by a less than flattering re-work of their actual name, has introduced a bill that would prohibit members of Congress from trading individual stocks. I could not agree more with the intent of such legislation.

Of course, the former Speaker of the House (among others), a member of the same party as this US Representative, has made a fortune in the stock market while in office. Astute analysis or inside information, I guess we’ll never know.

Rules against insider trading exist for a very good reason. Without faith that markets are at least somewhat fair, those markets will not work well.

I have worked at not one, but two jobs where I had to submit trades in individual stocks for approval. I didn’t like it, but I understood the rationale and followed the rules. Of course, in one of those jobs the company received copies of my monthly brokerage statements so disobeying the rules could have led to termination.

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US Senator Brian Schatz, in explaining a bi-partisan bill he co-sponsored that would make it illegal for those under 13 to have a social media account and that those ages 13 to 18 would need explicit parental approval for such an account, said in defense of the legislation, “The idea that an algorithm has some sort of First Amendment right to get into your kid’s brain is preposterous. And the idea that a 13-year-old has some First Amendment right to have an algorithm shove upsetting content down their throat is also preposterous.” Once again, I couldn’t agree more.

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This recent Hagerty article is titled, “5 collectible vehicles losing steam in 2023.” While I wouldn’t buy a Jeep CJ-5 or CJ-7 under any circumstances, the other four are all interesting to me. I have actually owned one of them. Here is a photo from the Hagerty piece.

Although this is a 1966 Pontiac GTO, the car(s) losing value are all of the first four model years, 1964 through 1967, inclusive. In the case of this car, the decline in value in 2023 (so far) comes not long after a rapid increase in value that occurred for part of 2022.

One of the other cars listed is still expensive, no doubt. It was also part of my Ultimate Garage 2.0. Again, from the Hagerty article.

OK, so this is a Facel Vega II from the early 1960s and not the original iteration I included. Here is the end of the entry about this car from Hagerty, “Nothing but the very best will do, and the rest must come at a price that makes sense. The Facel II’s trajectory appears to be yet another sign that reason has crept back into the market.”

With higher interest rates and the constant talk of recession, the collector car market HAS to be affected, even if not all buyers are. Almost no markets exist in a vacuum.

#EvenABlindSquirrel

#somanyCARSjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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