Summary: Peru, Israel, Walt Disney, Coca-Cola, all issue 100 year debt<br> Shorter Duration Debt is negative return - $17 trillion<br> Tactical Short Q4 Call - Register at mwealthm.com<br> <br> <br> The McAlvany Weekly Commentary<br> with David McAlvany and Kevin Orrick<br> Want Slightly Positive Interest Rates? Buy 100 Year Bonds!?<br> January 20, 2021<br> The McAlvany Weekly Commentary, covering monetary, economic, and geopolitical news events.<br> David McAlvany: If you’ve ever made a piñata, it’s the veneer of paper and glue you put on a balloon. I’m fascinated by how quickly we move past even recent history, and ignore the realities of the European Central Bank being in a desperate bind. The Fed acting as if all is well, while in fact, these are desperate measures in desperate times.<br> Now, here are Kevin Orrick and David McAlvany.<br> Kevin: Welcome to the McAlvany Weekly Commentary. I’m Kevin Orrick, along with David McAlvany.<br> I was watching TV the other night. Even though we had COVID, it’s nice that we had playoff games in football. Tampa Bay, Brady was playing Drew Brees with new Orleans, and they were playing at the Superdome, and it just brought back memories. You remember Katrina?<br> David: Oh yes.<br> Kevin: [laughs] That was rough, 2005, and in fact, it really was quite a disaster. I went to an article that was saying there are some myths about Katrina in 2005 in New Orleans. The first myth was that this was completely unpredictable. Of course, the weather was unpredictable to a degree. They do get hurricanes, but the brakes of the levies were not unpredictable. They said that this had been looked for for a long time.<br> There was another myth, and that was that all of New Orleans was built below sea level. [laughs] That myth was only half true. About half of New Orleans is below sea level.<br> The third myth, and this is the one that got me, is that everything is better now, that maybe it won’t happen again. They said, “No, no this will probably happen again.” It just reminded me. Watching a game in the Superdome, do you know how high or what the elevation is of the Superdome above sea level, there in New Orleans day?<br> David: I hope it’s at least a little bit above sea level.<br> Kevin: [laughs] It’s three feet. As we do this commentary, and as we look forward, one of the things that we want to try to do is learn from the past. Do we really learn from the past, Dave?<br> David: I think one of the issues from Katrina is that we still have the structural issue. It was a maintenance concern. That first myth of whether or not it was foreseeable, you’re right. There’s issues which are very foreseeable, although the extraneous external factors causing an immediate crisis, maybe you don’t see those, but you can stack up. You can assess and analyze where the weaknesses are if you’re looking at structural issues. Levees breaks, is that a repeating issue? Very well could be. You can’t time the storm, but you can certainly look at the consequential issues relating to structural concerns. Never really fully fixed.<br> Kevin: We have Doug Noland and Lila Murphy, and we’ve got a number of other sources to look forward and say, “What do we know about the past, and what can we do to keep certain disasters from the past from happening?” There’s probably no one better to talk about that than Doug Noland. We have that tactical short call coming up on Thursday, the 21st.<br> David: Yes, that’s right, 4:00 PM Eastern, 2:00 PM Mountain, Managing in a Mania, and the conversation will be a doozy. Register, send your questions in ahead of time. We have it: a mania. Here we are managing in that context. Don’t miss it. This will be an historic conversation.<br> Kevin: Last week we talked about the value of a human voice and how it’s terrible to try to shut it down with censorship, or try to control or mute that voice. You brought up Martin Luther King.
