Smith and Wesson, Baby!
Even though, as I write, it’s down 6% on the day, Smith and Wesson stock is up around 70% from its closing low of $1.58 on October 28th.
Originally it was widely thought that the stock price was going up as folks ran out and stocked up on hand guns and ammo in anticipation of new gun control legislation driven by a Democratic D. C. There’s clearly some credence to that.
However, bigger picture, I think the rise in the stock price can be attributed to law enforcement buying higher margin rifles to deal with the coming lawlessness, bordering on anarchy. The contents of the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times are frightening, on a daily basis. Bankruptcies, both corporate and personal, abound. And then come the inevitable results: layoffs and more layoffs, especially in retail, which is where the unemployed normally go for a couple of months of part time wages during the holiday season.
People who are at the end of their ropes economically may cross a line they’d never have considered when they were employed homeowners. Illegal but employed aliens already don’t give much of a damn about our laws. Wait until they’re illegal, unemployed aliens.
All this, while Mad Vlad Putin is sounding over-the-top bellicose, and furious that the dropping price of oil is interfering with his plans for Russian re-armament. So the printing presses at Treasury have to keep pumping out Monopoly money to be used for both national defense and internal order.
I’m reading one of the best books ever written on the great depression, “The Forgotten Man”, by Amity Shlaes. Any tome recommended by both Arthur Levitt and George Will is probably onto something. The similarities between then and now are chilling. The book reinforces my admittedly dark outlook.
Chicken Little, or the Amazing Kreskin? You decide.
Let’s hope the former, while preparing for the latter.
2 Comments
Additional comments powered by BackType
The meek shall inherit the earth.
The first shall be the last, and the last the first.
Amity Shlaes is a lying hack conservative history revisionist.