Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Opinion Today: How should we interpret the Trump indictment?

The charges have been revealed, but it will be months before we know how consequential they could be.
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By John Guida

Senior Staff Editor, Opinion

On Tuesday in New York, Donald Trump became the first former American president to be indicted. He was accused by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, of orchestrating a hush-money scheme to help him win the presidency and then covering it up once he was in the White House.

Trump pleaded not guilty in the case, which has kept opinion writers and editors on edge for weeks because it was cloaked in a compelling mystery: What is the charge, and how strong is it?

Reports held out the possibility that the case could present a novel or unusual legal theory.

But in a guest essay, Karen Friedman Agnifilo and Norman Eisen write that "there's nothing novel or weak about this case." In fact, they write, "The books and records counts laid out in the charging papers against Mr. Trump are the bread and butter of the D.A.'s office."

The creation of phony documentation to cover up campaign finance violations has been repeatedly prosecuted in New York — the type of case they see as having a strong potential for success.

David Firestone, a member of the Times editorial board, was also impressed. He writes that the charges "turned out to be more significant and more sweeping than previously suspected."

"It's still not a slam-dunk case," he admits. But the charges are "hardly novel ones" for the Manhattan district attorney's office, "which is used to prosecuting business record cases, and are far from the one-off political persecution that Republicans are claiming it to be."

But the Times columnist Michelle Goldberg had a different reaction.

"For all the hype going into Tuesday, the indictment feels anticlimactic," she writes. And Trump "may still wriggle out of this predicament."

The judge ruled that Trump will have to appear in person for a pretrial hearing in December. We have a long time to debate and explore the details to sort out if it is novel or commonplace, strong or piffling.

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The Embarrassing Thing We Did With Our Money

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Manward Financial Digest
 

The Embarrassing Thing We Did With Our Money

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Andy Snyder

Andy Snyder
Founder

We did something embarrassing recently. It involved our money... and it was something a fella like us shouldn't be doing.

But we're proud of it.

Given the circumstances, we'd do it again. You should do it too.

In fact... there's still time.

As all good stories do, ours starts with a confession.

[Sick of Paying Through the Nose for Energy? Fight Back by Profiting From the Insane Prices. Details Here.]

It was a hot room. The light was bright, and it was shining in our face. The interviewer asked a question that so many folks want to ask us.

"What are you doing with your own money right now?" she inquired.

The room fell silent.

We had been hauled onstage in front of hundreds of folks to join a panel of experts talking about ways to invest outside the stock market.

We thought about taking a left onto Easy Street. We could have talked about our biggest purchases in recent years... real estate. But we've talked about that subject enough. And besides, buying real estate is like choosing a spouse.

What works for us... probably won't work for you.

We wouldn't recommend anyone else marry Mrs. Manward, just as we wouldn't tell anybody else to buy the land we just bought.

But there is something that works for the masses. It's something we just put more money into than we ever have in the past.

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Imagine the humiliation.

Smashing a Tesla - while on Autopilot - into the back of a parked cop car.

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The automaker is now under investigation by the U.S. gov't for multiple crashes like this.

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Again, it's embarrassing... especially for a fella in our line of work.

But good advice is good advice. We shouldn't be sheepish. So we took a nervous breath, picked a person in the sprawling audience to focus on... and made our confession.

"I just bought a CD," we said.

Oof.

We ducked for cover, expecting tomatoes, shoes and maybe even a few sets of keys to be tossed our way.

But nothing came... just a light murmur and a lot of heads nodding in agreement. Even the fellow traders and investors on the stage nodded along.

"A guaranteed 5% investment right now," one chipped in, "is a no-brainer."

And that was coming from an analyst who makes his nut trading tiny tech stocks.

Look, we haven't seen interest rates like these in decades. With the Fed telling us to buckle up and fasten our seat trays in preparation for landing... we likely won't see them for much longer.

And once they're gone, we'll likely never see them again.

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If they do what I think they'll do... all hell could break loose.

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As we've said for so long now, the next leg downward is likely to take us to the lowest levels yet. And that, for the folks not doing the math, means negative rates are likely.

We didn't lock in a long-term rate. They're still lousy. Our CD is for just 18 months, but it guarantees we'll walk away with an extra $7,000 in our pocket late next year.

For decades, this sort of opportunity wasn't available. The chance to create a foundation of wealth that actually pays us to own it used to be the kind of stuff we could only read about in textbooks.

It shouldn't make up the bulk of our portfolio - 10% or less. There are plenty of other things to put our money into.

But our fellow panelist had it right.

It's a no-brainer.

That said... it's still embarrassing.

But that's never stopped us (or Mrs. Manward) before.

Be well,

Andy

P.S. If you're looking for more smart ways to earn income in this market, check out my good friend Marc Lichtenfeld's just-released book. It's an absolute must-read for anybody looking to get paid to invest. Get a copy here.

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Andy Snyder | Founder

Andy Snyder is the founder of Manward Press, the nation's premier source of unfiltered, unorthodox views on money and what it means for a free society. An American author, investor and serial entrepreneur, Andy cut his teeth at an esteemed financial firm with nearly $100 billion in assets under management. He's been a keynote speaker and panelist at events all over the world, from four-star ballrooms to Capitol hearing rooms.

 

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