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The Revolt of the Masses
by Jim Rickards, DailyReckoning:
It’s a French phrase meaning “How does that work?”
Well, it doesn’t really. Especially when we’re talking about politics or economics. The whole world is a mess… and you know it.
Today, we’re going to give you a special trade. It’s special for a couple of reasons.
One, it’s free.
It’s free because no one wants to “own” it. Even if it pays off 10-to-1. Jim Rickards won’t take it. Simone Wapler of our Paris office won’t take it.
Those are two of the smartest people I know on the planet who are looking at this trade like it’s dirt.
But let’s think a bit. What do we do around here?
We take chances. We look at things a bit differently than the brain-dead we find on TV. We figure you do too.
And hence, we thought you might want to take a shot on our free trade offer.
It might be a long shot. No. It is a long shot.
But if you’re an adrenaline junkie and willing to go against the grain, you might just like this one.
To set it up, we remind you that both Jim Rickards and Simone Wapler called Brexit… they both called the Trump win… and now this odd epoch of political discord we’re living through.
And their readers profited from their predictions.
Today’s trade is, functionally, what Jim calls an “asymmetric trade.” That means all the bets are on one side of the trade. The other side is cheap — really cheap — because no one wants to stick their neck out and put their money there.
Right now in France, everyone thinks the “independent centrist” (and former banker) Emmanuel Macron is going to win the election on Sunday.
Everyone. Including Jim and Simone.
So what does that do to this trade? It puts you way out of the money. If you bet on a Marine Le Pen win and she actually wins, you win big.
How big? You could be looking at a 900% gain.
And it’s virtually free to try!
Before I get to the trade, and to put the current political mood in perspective, I’m going to get a bit philosophical on your [expletive deleted]…
In 1929, a gentleman of Spanish origin foresaw the rise of fascism and nationalism. Which dictated the structure of lives for men, women and children all over the world for most of the 20th century.
Big ideas, bad results.
José Ortega y Gasset was from the old school in Europe. Think white suits and fedora hats. Maybe a glass of wine and some fine conversation among the ruins.
In his 1929 work The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega “traces the genesis of the ‘mass-man’ and analyzes his constitution en route to describing the rise to power and action of the masses in society” [from Wikipedia… I’m cheating a little here, but it’s still good information for you].
Again from Wiki: “Ortega is throughout quite critical of both the masses and the mass-men of which they are made up, contrasting ‘noble life and common life’ and excoriating the barbarism and primitivism he sees in the mass-man.”
“The Fascist and Syndicalist species,” wrote Ortega, “were characterized by the first appearance of a type of man who ‘did not care to give reasons or even to be right, but who was simply resolved to impose his opinions. That was the novelty: the right not to be right, not to be reasonable: ‘the reason of unreason.’”
