Old School Tony Deden

“Never think you are wealthy because the price of your house has gone up.”

"If private equity had to pay top dollar for their capital, they couldn't afford to destroy companies for a living. This would not be a profitable business.”

Dave Collum

Here's the latest PPI Index, and my proprietary U.S. Dollar Index:

I messed this us a bit but was too lazy to fix it.

"Assuming that these figures the government is using are not correct, then we're not talking about economic growth, but actually a contraction in real terms, inflation adjusted."

Marc Faber

“The citizens of California have never been safer from wildfire risk”

- Patti Poppe, PG&E CEO, 2024

“Warren Buffett’s warning that wildfires have turned utilities across the western US into risky investments is mistaken — at least in California, according to the head of the state’s largest electricity provider.

“Frankly, I think Buffett got it wrong in California,” said Patti Poppe, chief executive officer of PG&E Corp., during the company’s investor call Thursday. “California has done the hard work to mitigate both physical and financial risk.”

…“The citizens of California have never been safer from wildfire risk, and I think investors will soon come to believe that,” Poppe said.”

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June 2024 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury report on rebuilding after the 2020 fire:

“Out of approximately 700 homes destroyed in the 2020 Santa Cruz Mountains Lightning Complex Fire, only 95 have been rebuilt and occupied 4 years later, with only 158 more in construction. Nearly two-thirds are not being rebuilt.”

“Western business people love the suspension of civil rights because they believe it will never negatively affect them personally.”

Tony Nash

I have to put this out today, even though CPI is tomorrow (and will be over the Fed’s made-up “2%-target” for the 44th straight month,) because I still have a lot of things to go through, and this post is getting fat (and happy).

I’m also dealing with major elderly issues (not me!) and that is challenging, but also young’un issues (which is much more fun).

Lots of good stuff below (I’m biased.) Look at this like a magazine, not a tweet.

More on the Southern California fires, market valuations, private equity, real estate delinquencies, homelessness, value investing(!), guns etc., plus the main course, an annotated Tony Deden (Chairman of Edelweiss Holdings) interview with friend of the show Tim Price and Paul Rodriguez.

Tony is so old school that if he ever went on CNBC he’d probably completely dumbfound the Fast Money panel, and make Scott Wapner cry (these are good things.)

Big fan of Mr. Deden. Enjoy.