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Another video for this Sunday morning, based on the very popular New Year’s How To Win piece. I hope you draw some inspiration from it. (I meant to put it out in Jan, but didn’t).Please like, watch, share and all those other things.All the bestDominicPS Could I draw your attention to a couple of things…Lifetime Membership Many people do not know about this, so, for one week only, I am running promotion. For a one-off payment of just £450/$570 you will get full access to the Flying Frisby for life. Click the button below and you will see the option - I stress this is a one-off paymentPlease consider upgrading your subscription - and if one of last year’s flyers - Lightbridge, Novavax or Microstrategy worked for you, then consider this a way of saying thank you!PPS As always, if buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company with whom I have an affiliation deal. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.PPPS This week’s commentary about my recent experiences in the US and, in particular, Tesla, went down a storm. ICYMI here it is: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

If you missed last week’s special report, I urge you to take a look. Some of these are already starting to move, and fast .And so to today’s piece. Tesla .I am just back from a two-week trip to the States, and what a time I had.I felt so privileged to be there at what feels like the dawn of a new golden age for this most amazing of countries.The first week I spent in Palm Springs, California, visiting my mum, and the second in Naples, Florida. Quite the contrast. One was Meltdown Central, the other was in a state of jubilation. Everyone everywhere was talking about the USAID revelations.I did not know Naples. What a stunning place. Hot, sunny, green, humid, beautiful (the architecture is lovely, even the newbuilds—that’s traditional measures for you), polite, safe, cultured, healthy, delicious food. Life seems to slow down as soon you arrive. What’s happening elsewhere no longer seems to matter. Were I to go there and settle, I think I would lose all ambition.The problem with settling there, though, is price. It has the most expensive real estate in the US. One house was for sale for $295 million. Even Satoshi Nakamoto would wince at paying that.“I told my kids, when they were growing up,” said Mike, who I was having dinner with, “this is not the real world. Naples is not reality. It’s something else. They needed to know that.”I turned to his son—Matty Ice—the man who had brought me to Naples to talk tax, bitcoin, and other such things on the Runway Pod, an entrepreneur and family man in his early 30s. “Well, I’m not leaving. Why would I?”It turns out lots of people come to Naples on a temporary basis, then decide to stay.It’s not just Naples real estate that is expensive, by the way. The whole of the US has got super dear. I paid $18 for a pint of beer in Miami airport. I had dinner at a friend’s—he paid $60 for three steaks for the barbeque. I thought steak was cheap in the US. In a Palm Springs supermarket, I paid $4.99 for three organic onions. They saw me coming.In general, I would say food is twice the price it is here in the UK. And that’s with a strong dollar. The country has got very expensive. Inflation is a big, big issue.My eldest son works in recruitment—in the chemicals industry—and most of the time he is recruiting in the US. He says US workers get paid three times the money for doing the same job as a UK worker - in that industry at least,But, whether it’s Naples, neighbouring Fort Myers, or Miami, Florida; or Los Angeles or Palm Springs, California, there is also a lot of money in America. You can see it everywhere. It is several standard deviations of wealth up from the UK. The wealth is visible in the houses—even the middle-class houses—in the cars, in the clothes, in the prices. We in the UK have been left behind. It was not always like this.That wealth gap is only going to get bigger, as the UK continues to pursue high taxes, big regulation, mass migration, and zero growth, while the US goes in the other direction. The place is full of opportunity.Go to the US. Move there if you can, especially if you are young. The US was already something special, but something really special is happening there: the Washington purges are cleaning the place up. You’ve read the news, you’ve been on X, you’ve seen what’s going on. You really don’t need me to tell you.But watch what you eat. I put on 5 pounds (2 kilos) in just two weeks. Mind you, I couldn’t stop eating. The food is yum. (People in the gym kept asking me how I got to be so lean - “by not living in America, and not eating American food” I explained).I don’t believe this level of political reform would have happened to anything like the same extent without the involvement of Elon Musk. He really is doing God’s work rooting out all that corruption. What emerges will be so much cleaner, more efficient, more honest, and more united.But of all the things I actually witnessed in person, do you know what most blew my mind?I did not expect this.It wasn’t $295 million dollar houses. It wasn’t all the private aircraft in Naples airport next to where we were recording.It was driving in a Tesla on autopilot. I’d never done it before. I know I am late to this, but OMG.Matty typed our destination into his computer, put the car into self-driving mode. Off it went.The Tesla was a noticeably better driver than I am. It positioned itself on the road well, staying in the middle of the lane at all times. It cornered beautifully. It maintained the exact right distance to the car ahead. It knew the speed limits of all the roads we drove on. It knew when the lights were changing and set off straight away. It has a 360-degree awareness—a human can only look in one direction—and knew exactly what other cars nearby were doing. It didn’t get impatient and start doing silly things like jumping lights.With machine learning, each Tesla is feeding info back to HQ, so that every car is learning from the others’ experiences. Teslas know the roads - every inch of them - better than you, even the local roads. They are learning how to deal with every conceivable traffic incident. This data-driven driving constantly updates.I am a backseat driver. I often push my foot down on the imaginary brake. As I was getting over my control issues, I did this at a red light in the distance. Turns out it was miles away. The Tesla braked at exactly the right time.It got us to our destination and then reversed and parked with precision into a tight spot. I’m a good parker. The Tesla was better. Of course it was. It has 360-degree vision, and my neck is getting stiff.The driving conditions were good. But how much better would it be in rain, fog or ice, I wondered.Tesla, Matty pointed out, is as much a software company—a platform like Airbnb, Facebook or TripAdvisor—as it is a car company.The next day, I had an Uber drive me from Naples to Miami airport.The Uber driver was good, but sometimes he was doing things on his phone—changing the podcast he was listening to, updating the map. “Look at the road,” I found myself thinking. Sometimes overt the 2-hour journey he strayed from the centre of the lane. One time he braked sharply. No such imperfection in the Tesla.Transport as we know it is about to changeThe main barriers to Tesla’s self-driving progress are regulatory, but a certain Elon Musk is now in a position of influence. One of the reasons he is doing what he is doing is to clear out the regulators and bureaucrats who were so biased against him and blocked his progress—whom he came to despise.I think the regulatory barriers to self-driving vehicles start to come down quickly. Self-driving vehicles will soon be a feature on US roads. Then what happens?“I will have my car drop me at the office,” said Matty, “instruct it to pick me up at five, and then in the meantime I’ll put it to work”. In other words, his car will not be idly parked all day. It will spend the day ferrying other people about. It will earn him money.Other Tesla owners will do the same. Suddenly owning a Tesla will become potentially profitable. A car will not be quite such a depreciating asset. No doubt some will buy fleets of them. Like any platform, Tesla itself is going to take a cut of the profit.Just to get the self-driving capability added to the software of the vehicle, you must pay another ten grand. Then comes the rent.Leaving your car parked 95% of the time, as most of us do—my car in London can stay parked for weeks at a time—is so inefficient. Not for much longer. At least, in the US. It’ll be years before we allow it here in the UK or Europe. Of course, it will.What happens to American roads in the meantime? Fewer people are going to own cars, especially in cities. They won’t need to. They can just call a Tesla. What happens to the rest of the auto industry? Fewer car sales. The cost of taxis though comes down. Drivers lose their jobs to robots. I guess something similar happens to the trucking industry too.The roads themselves are used more efficiently, as robots drive demonstrably better, leading to better traffic flow and less congestion.Public transport will see fewer users. Why use such a smelly system when you can travel privately in a Tesla? Self-driving cars were a pipe dream. That is about to change. American roads are about to change.There are other self-driving operators - Waymo, Cruise, or Mobileye - which are already fully operational in limited areas (ie driverless). They have partnered with the likes of Jaguar, Mercedes, Volvo and Hyundai, but they do not have Tesla’s end-to-end autonomy. Nor do they have Tesla’s immense network effect.The network effect is an incredibly powerful force in the evolution of a business. It’s often more important that the tech itself (why, for example, VHS beat Betamax or CDs obliterated minidisk). It’s why I advocate bitcoin ahead of other sh*tcoins. Tesla’s dominance of roads could be on a par with Apple’s dominance of the smartphone market. It is ahead of the pack.So should we all be buying stock in Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)?Let’s take a financial overview.Phew! It’s an expensive company. A lot of what I’ve already described must already be priced in.With a market cap now over $1 trillion, it is among the world's most valuable companies.Annual revenue in 2024 was $98 billion, with minimal growth on the previous year. The pro-electric narrative of a few years ago has dissipated over the last couple of years.EBITDA for the twelve months ending in December 2024 was $15 billion. The EV-to-EBITDA, which compares the company's enterprise value to its EBITDA, stands at around 72, indicating a “premium valuation” relative to its operational earnings.Its trailing P/E ratio is high, high, high at 177, as is its forward P/E of 124. A lot of earnings growth is expected. This could reflect anticipation of Tesla’s expansion into new markets, battery technology, and/or the self-driving revolution I have described, but it also points to a richly priced stock, for which investors are paying a substantial premium. The Price/Earnings to Growth (PEG) ratio, at 8.5, also implies Tesla is overvalued.Any setback—some kind of bad accident, a large insurance claim, a rival technology becoming suddenly competitive—and this stock can take a big hit.Turning to the company’s financial health and profitability, Tesla's Return on Equity (ROE) is 10.4%—I’ve seen worse—and its Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) is 6%, which denotes an efficient use of capital, something Musk is known for.Tesla maintains a relatively low Debt/Equity ratio of 0.18, suggesting a conservative approach to leverage, which should reduce volatility. The current ratio of 2.02 indicates good short-term liquidity, allowing Tesla to meet its short-term liabilities comfortably.But it is a volatile stock—so perhaps one to buy on weakness. The 52-week high is $488, the low $139. You can more than double your money if you buy this well. Currently at $350 we are in the middle of the range—well up from the lows, but also well off the highs—and in a downtrend.Analysts, meanwhile, are divided. Predictions range from $115.00 to $550.00. reflecting a wide range of expectations.Tesla is unique. It has the potential to transform transport as we currently know it. It could have enormous first-mover advantage and a near monopoly on roads, as more and more people “put their car to work,” and what is currently an expense becomes a secondary source of income. It is the market leader, it is the technological leader, it could enjoy something of a monopoly on roads as it drives ahead of its competitors.To maintain and grow this valuation, it needs to stay ahead of rivals, it needs to overcome the regulatory barriers it faces, and it needs to manage the many inherent risks of the automotive and tech industries.But one thing Elon Musk has is vision. He will have seen all of this and be working towards it.I can quite easily envisage a scenario where Tesla’s dominance of roads is near monopolistic—like Apple’s dominance of phones or something.In such a scenario, its valuation will be a lot higher.It’ll make money on the car, on the software, then on the rental.It will also be the most common car on the roads. Transport is about to change.Disclaimer:I am not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) or any other regulatory body as a financial advisor. Therefore, any information provided in this newsletter does not constitute regulated financial advice. It is solely an expression of opinion. Stocks are inherently risky. Please conduct your own due diligence and consult with a financial advisor if you have any doubts. Remember, markets can both rise and fall. I am not aware of your individual financial circumstances, so only invest money that you can afford to lose. This is a public episode. 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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comHundreds of tonnes of gold - so much so that there is now something of a shortage in London - have made their way across the Atlantic to the US to get ahead of Trump tariffs. Something like 400 tonnes have gone to the Comex alone, never mind what's gone to the private vaults of HSBC, JP Morgan et al.With a shortage of physical gold for delivery in London, waiting times now as long as eight weeks, and the Bank of England refusing to comment, there are all sorts of rumours flying about. It's not a great situation for London, which is normally the epicentre of the physical gold markets.I don't think we're going to get a proper run on gold, but it's possible nonetheless, and if we do, talk about unintended consequences...A bit of zip in the normally quite sleepy physical markets.Today, however, I wanted to give my outlook on gold for 2025. Before I do this, I have two things to plug:One is my mate Charlie Morris' newsletter, Atlas Pulse. This monthly gold report is, in my view, the best out there bar none, and it's free. More here.And, two, if you are thinking of buying gold - and I think everyone should own some - my preferred bullion dealer is the Pure Gold Company. You should get your gold or silver from them.Gold’s Silent SurgeThe gold price has been rising relentlessly since November 2022.Here we are in early 2025, within a few dollars of all-time highs at $2,800.Gold is at or close to all-time highs against the Japanese yen, the euro, the Swiss franc, the Great British peso, the Aussie and Canadian dollars, and pretty much any other fiat currency you care to mention.And yet I don't recall seeing much mention of this anywhere. This is very much a stealth bull market, the best kind of bull market. It means there is plenty more hype left in the can.Private investors are almost completely ignoring gold. In Germany, normally one of the biggest buyers of physical, I gather we are seeing net selling in the retail markets. One reason is there's profit to be had, especially for those who bought during Covid - of which there are many . Two, because the economy is in the toilet and people need the money. Higher rates in recent years have dampened both investment and speculative demand for gold.A lot of the money that fuels the junior end of the mining markets also comes from retail buying, and if they're not buying bullion, they are certainly not buying miners: hence the atrophy there.So who is buying then, if the price keeps on going up? The answer, as regular readers of the Flying Frisby will be able to tell you straight away, is central banks, especially in Asia. This trend accelerating after the US began freezing Russian assets following its invasion of Ukraine.China imported 124 tonnes just in November, writes Jan Nieuwenhuijs of the Gold Observer. It has bought 1,050 tonnes since the Russian Freeze, and it is buying 400 oz bars from London, which are almost certainly making their way to the People's Bank of China - 400 oz bars do not trade on the Shanghai Gold Exchange. It is also buying roughly three times as much as it declares.The explanation is obvious. Central banks need reserve assets which other governments can't freeze, so-called bearer assets. Gold, which is value in and of itself, is the answer. There is no equal.Here we see gold as a percentage of central bank reserves is now at 20%.I doubt we go back to the heady pre-WWII days when gold made up 80-90% of reserves - money was not fiat then - but you can see the trend is very much up. It has been for 10 years now. The percentage has doubled in that time. I see no reason why it can't double again in the next ten years. 40 % of reserves held in gold seems like a reasonable number, a conservative number.Nations are, says Nieuwenhuijs, "obviously preparing for a multipolar world in which the dollar's role as a reserve asset will be gently reduced."You can look at all this and describe the process as natural and sensible asset allocation: diversification away from other government currencies, especially the US dollar. Or you can proclaim that other nations are preparing to abandon the dollar and for a new gold standard. It's probably about 80% former and 20% latter. That may well change - but we are not there yet.While nations might not be so much abandoning the dollar as they are simply increasing their gold holdings, they, are, however, reducing their holdings of US Treasuries. De-dollarisation and diversification.At the moment, the whole process is covert and benign, but it may become a lot more significant a few years from now.I urge you too to be diversified and own plenty of gold. It may well be that you are going to need it, and you're better off booking your seat on the lifeboat now while they are still available. This is especially the case if you are in the UK: there has never been a Labour government that didn't devalue, and this particular lot are flip-flopping and clueless. My guide to buying gold is here, in case of use:I don't see any reason for this central bank buying to abate, by the way. My prognosis is that it continues.What about the new President?I want to, briefly, consider gold and President Donald Trump.Here is what gold did last time he was in power.

Here’s one for you.Thousands of years ago aliens landed on earth. They came in great space ships, which the ancients took to be chariots of the gods, and they came for gold. They were the Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru, according to ancient astronaut theory, which derives from author Zecharia Sitchin's interpretations of Sumerian texts. Tall and imposing, with features both human and otherworldly, they were seen as deities. They needed gold dust to suspend in their planet’s atmosphere to protect it from the solar radiation that was slowly destroying it.But the primitive hominids they found here, such as homo erectus, were useless, so they combined their alien DNA with them to create a worker race capable of mining the gold they had come for: Homo sapiens. They established mining colonies in Africa and in the Fertile Crescent, which became the cradle of civilisation. The Anunnaki taught humans many things – agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, writing and record keeping - to ensure their mining operations ran smoothly. Eventually, they departed, taking vast quantities of gold with them, but they left behind some of what they had created. Evidence of their existence can be found in myths, ancient mines, ancient texts and, of course, in the Megalithic structures they created such as the Pyramids and Stonehenge.There is actually some evidence that the capstones on top of the pyramids – the pyramidia – were gilded with a layer of gold or electrum (gold-silver alloy), which, of course, would add to the many celestial and religious connotations of these structures. It’s also thought we could not build them today.This is one of the reasons we associate gold with the gods.That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.Tell your friends about this ancient alien race.If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here.And, of course, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, as always I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.You really should subscribe.I mucked up the title of my mid-week piece, so in case you missed it here it is: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

I regard the crimes committed by the Pakistani Rape Gangs as some of the most barbaric, if not the most barbaric, given the scale of them, ever to have been perpetrated on British soil.Yet, while I knew they were bad, I don’t think I realized quite how bad they are.I’ve just finished playing a judge - Judge Peter Rook - in a new "verbatim film," which recreates the sentencing word for word of one of the most notorious grooming cases in Oxford. What went on is horrifying.It’s called "The Grooming Gangs Cover-Up." It is produced by Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, founders of the Unreported Story Society, which specializes in verbatim dramas, plays, and podcasts, and it comes out this Tuesday, January 21. Here’s the trailer:At times, I could not believe the words that were coming out of my mouth.I remember telling my elder son and daughter about these rape gangs back in the mid-2010s. Neither believed such a thing was possible. My son started googling. Even on the internet, there was little evidence of what was going on. Rapists are predominantly white, he concluded, and that was that in their minds.The internet had smothered the story.In 2020, when everybody was squabbling over Brexit, there was this campaign to get the Remainer anthem - Beethoven’s "Ode To Joy" conducted by André Rieu - to the top of the charts in time for the day we left. Fighting a rearguard action, Leavers then tried to get my song about Brexit, "17 Million F*ck Offs," to Number One. The result is that quite a few singles got sold. The media loved the story, and it was all over the papers. But there is one thing they left out: that I donated the proceeds to the Maggie Oliver Foundation, a charity set up to help the victims of rape gangs. Even that got covered up. (I don’t know what Rieu did with his royalties).Midjourney, an AI art app which I use to illustrate these articles, refuses to design me a picture to illustrate the title of today’s piece. Cover up, like the crimes themselves, is still happening.A couple of years ago, my daughter-in-law was drugged by a Pakistani Bolt driver who had offered her a drink of water. This was in London - not Rotherham or Telford. Fortunately, the drug only kicked in after she had arrived at her destination and her friends looked after her. But what would have happened if that man had "helped out" by offering to take her home? How many other young girls have not been so lucky?I put a picture of the guy online along with a warning. There were a lot of comments underneath. Many of them were deemed racist. Such is the extent of the brainwashing in the name of multiculturalism, a comment is now deemed of greater concern than actual deeds. What is racism, anyway?I define it as the wilful persecution of someone on the grounds of their race. These white girls were the victims of racism. And sexism. And paedophilia. And rape. And GBH. And, in some cases, murder.They were targeted because of their race. They were called "white w****s," "white c*nts," and "white slags," and no amount of contempt was enough for them. Yet, of course, they were white, and apparently, whites cannot be the victims of racism. Whites are privileged, you know that.When is this two-tiered insanity going to stop? Is it not clear how much damage these false, progressive narratives, which we have let thrive, are doing?We need a clear discussion followed by a definition - not the definition of a race grifter - of what racism is. And the rules need to be the same for everyone. No more multi-tiered nonsense.These were racist crimes. And they went on for so long because those who should have put a stop to them were scared of being labelled racist. Rather than risk that slur, they threw children under the bus. Woke is, truly, cancerous. If you live in a remote rural village, and somebody of unusual appearance comes along, and you stare at them, that does not make you racist. Staring at what is unusual to you is normal. If you use a word that is now considered out-of-date, perhaps as a result of not mixing in sophisticated urban circles, with zero harmful intent that does not make you racist. However, if you target a little girl because she is white, then groom her, inject her with drugs, rape her, and then sell her body to people you know so they can rape her - well, that is racist. And a whole lot more besides.Let the truth be toldAt lunch the other day, I started to read out to my family some of the judge’s sentencing remarks, which detail what happened. We got about two sentences in before it all got to be too much, and they didn’t want to hear it. No surprise. What happened is beyond awful.Read the below if you can stomach it.How can one human being do something like this to another?The beauty of these verbatim dramas is that the creators cannot be accused of sensationalism or exaggeration. It is the truth. That is what needs to come out. We have to learn about what has happened if only to motivate ourselves and our leaders into doing something about this.It has been going on since the 1990s. It is still going on today. No more brushing it under the carpet in the name of multi-culturalism.The Jay Report claims that 1,400 children (that’s just the under-age ones) were sexually exploited in Rotherham over 16 years. If you extrapolate that number over 50 other towns and cities, you arrive at roughly 70,000 victims. That is a conservative estimate. You can do similar extrapolations and come to a figure of a million. The likelihood is 250,000-500,000, given that we are talking about a period longer than 16 years and it has been happening in more than 50 locations. Kids!For sure, the cover-ups - the unwillingness to police, prosecute, publicize, or punish - meant the rape gangs went much further than they otherwise would. They thought they could get away with it.We need truth, even if it is unpalatable, if we are to stop things like this ever happening again.Most of these girls have never had anything like justice. How is a few years in prison anything like justice anyway?If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here. The system does not work - smash itPrison is no longer sufficient punishment. It does not work as a deterrent. With almost 20% of inmates now Muslim and, according to a solicitor friend, with prisons now largely controlled on the inside by Muslim gangs, prison has become a place of indoctrination, radicalization, and Islamism. Thus, not only does imprisonment not work, it is actually counter-productive: it is creating offenders. Who’d’ve thought something run by government doesn’t work as intended? Then prisoners get let out too early, especially to make room for people uttering wrong think on social media.Prison is also expensive - annual imprisonment now costs more than £50,000-100,000 per year per inmate, plus the costs of processing it all (police, courts, legal aid, etc) also amount to more than £50,000. As if what the rapist has done is not already bad enough, now we have to pay for him too. The courts are overwhelmed. The justice system is exploited. We need something different and better. It’s long overdue. Horror stories like this one can at least motivate the required reform.There are other factors motivating the cover-up in my view. Policing your own community, where everybody knows who's who, everybody speaks the same language, and comes from the same culture is one thing. But policing another culture, where the language is different, the values are different - even the names are difficult - is much harder.It gets even harder when the majority of that culture feel a greater loyalty to their own people and culture than they do to what is right in the eyes of the host culture, or indeed the people of the host culture. If the alien culture does not integrate, it gets even harder. It was probably easier for the police to let stuff go, and focus on other things.Put your email in the box below and get my free guide to investing in gold.Here’s a thoughtIn the largely secular UK, where the state now takes on responsibilities which were once borne by the church - education, care and so on - the state has also replaced religion. From Nigel Lawson to Polly Toynbee, it is now recognized that the NHS has become a religion.But the Pakistani communities that have taken over so many towns in the north and elsewhere do not feel the same sense of loyalty, protection, or worship to Britain’s welfare state. It is something to take from rather than contribute to. They worship the Prophet Mohammed, not the NHS. I will wager a large bet that - especially in these communities where cash plays such a big role - they are paying much lower levels of tax than their earnings dictate. They will pay their Zakat long before they pay their VAT, Income or other taxes. Is HMRC policing these economies to the same extent? You know it isn’t.Will a thorough investigation be commissioned? Of course it won’t. That would be racist.More tiers, more iniquity, more injustice.But that’s is another story, and it’ll be years before that one comes out. Please tell your friends about this article.Follow the release of the film here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.theflyingfrisby.comHeads up: there is now a video version of last week’s predictions piece, if you fancy:Onwards …I am bullish on America.For all its failings, I think it’s still, as comedian Lewis Schaffer is forever telling me, “the greatest country in the world.”The new administration has huge hurdles ahead of it - not least sorting out the excess spending on its military-industrial complex and atrocious healthcare system, though perhaps "system" is not the word I should be using. The administration also faces considerable resistance from its ideological opponents who prevail in the deep state.But if Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, RFK, et al. get just a third of the stuff they have planned over the line, then the economy is going to boom like hell. There is a lot of money in that country, a lot of entrepreneurial spirit, and a lot of opportunity. Just the size of the US alone means it is, in itself, an enormous market.However, while the economy and the stock market are bedfellows, they do not always march forward hand in hand. How often this century have we seen stock markets boom while life for the ordinary working person becomes ever harder? Inflation, for example, eats away at his effective earnings, and he struggles to keep up, while the same inflationary dynamic actually pushes up stock markets.The reverse can also apply. There might be an economic boom "on the street," but stock markets, on the other hand, might be flat. Perhaps they already advanced a year ahead of the boom in anticipation. Perhaps life made better for the American worker by, say, tariffs does not suit global companies like Apple, and so stock prices retreat.So, while I am bullish on America, am I bullish on US stocks?I must confess to being rather more ambivalent, as there are a number of headwinds and warning signs.Let’s look at some of them.First, there is the small (by that I mean large) matter of the US dollar.

Enjoy!Why not subscribe to this fantastic substack?Here’s the original article if you prefer to read or listen” If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.And If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

ICYMI (there were problems with the site mid-week), check out my forecasts for 2025, always one of my more popular pieces of the year.He has invented an entirely new digital system of money with the potential to change the world as we know it. He has watched it grow to a market cap of over two trillion dollars, with as many as 100 million users worldwide, including actual nations, and the US President promising a strategic bitcoin reserve in his 2024 election campaign. He has half the internet nosing about and trying to figure out who he is. His own coins are worth about $100 billion, making him one of the richest people on earth.Yet he has managed to stay completely unknown and anonymous. It is almost unbelievable.Never mind Big Foot, the Mary Rose or the Loch Ness Monster, the mystery of ‘Who is Satoshi Nakamoto?’ is perhaps the greatest mystery the world has ever known - or not known.There have been thousands of investigative attempts, articles, blog posts and discussion groups involving probably millions of man hours dedicated to pinning down this man, with names bandied about from Elon Musk to little known computer scientists. They have all failed. Satoshi’s identity is as bulletproof as his code.For my 2014 book, Bitcoin: the Future of Money?, from which today’s piece is taken, I ventured on the same doomed journey. I spent many months poring over the 80,000 words Satoshi wrote in the three years he was active online, looking for clues. What unusual words did he use? Does he make any spelling mistakes? Does he have any quirky grammatical habits? I analysed it in such detail I can tell you where he places brackets, how he uses hyphens, even how many spaces he uses after a full stop and how that changed – all in the hope of finding idiosyncrasies that appear in the writing of other Cypherpunks - clues which might lead me to him.Profiling a genius – some broad brushstrokes‘I’ve had the good fortune to know many brilliant people over the course of my life, so I recognize the signs.’ Hal FinneySatoshi reached such high levels of expertise in so many different fields that many believe he can’t possibly be one person. He is a polymath. It is not just the breadth and depth of his knowledge, but, more importantly, its specificity that makes him unique.In order to first conceive a new system of electronic cash, one would have to have thought extensively about the nature of money and its history. Money is a subject that has found more interest in the last few years with the emergence of bitcoin, the 2000s bull market in gold, the financial crisis and the growth of libertarianism, but, in 2007–8, when bitcoin was conceived and first introduced, books and academic papers on the subject were few and far between. The subject did not have broad appeal.How many of those who cared actually had the ability to design a system like this? It is one thing declaring what needs to be done; it is another putting it into practice.Satoshi must have had expertise in computer coding, mathematics, databases, accounting, peer-to-peer systems, digital ownership, law, smart contracts, cryptography and monetary history.He had to have had experience in academia. The act of submitting a white paper, its presentation, the impeccable referencing – it all denotes academia, even government.It’s also easy to infer from the way bitcoin was launched that Satoshi had experience in open-source tech start-ups.The resilience of the code suggests he had computer hacking experience. Moreover, his ability to keep his identity hidden, despite the fact that half the internet is trying to figure out who he is, suggests significant practical experience in staying anonymous. It also means he has the trust of those who know him, if anyone did, to keep his secret.Then there’s the matter of his prose. It is consistent and of such a high standard it seems he must have had experience as a writer – perhaps he was a blogger, an academic or an author. He was also quite humble and dismissive of his ability in this regard. ‘I’m better with code than with words’, he said.It’s clear from his posts that he had the awareness to see shortcomings in his system, and the patience not to try to do too much too quickly. He had the foresight to perceive problems before they arose and the meticulousness to prepare for them. He appears to have remained calm and measured in the face of difficulty, but also of his own success. He treated those two imposters just the same. Signs of arrogance are hard to find.Then there’s the way that bitcoin was introduced to the world. PR, like economics, is not an exact science. Sometimes something gains traction, sometimes it doesn’t – and there’s no explaining why. Bitcoin has been a PR masterstroke. The coverage it has received has been enormous. It gets more publicity than gold, which is the oldest form of money there is. Satoshi cannot take all of the credit for this, but he has to take some of it. He understood when to make his ideas known, at what point to release his creation into the open-source world and he had the self-efacement to let go of it for others to develop. He promoted his idea with huge under-statement – but the scheduled creation of bitcoins meant there would be no shortage of bitcoin-holders to do the promoting for him.So we can add an understanding of both PR and psychology to his list of qualities. His knowledge of how people on the internet, in the open source world and in large institutions work, allowed him to progress his creation.Finally, he has a certain honesty. Despite Bitcoin’s similarities to a pyramid or Ponzi scheme, he never pumped-and- dumped his creation. Tempting though it must have been, he never sold the bitcoins he mined. That also suggests he already had money.There are not many people like this.From mathematics to computer programming to economics and monetary history to politics to PR and psychology to cryptography to business acumen and vision to plain old written English – in all of these fields he excelled. To cap it all, he’s probably good-looking too.It’s early in history to be drawing this sort of comparison, I know, but there are many parallels between Satoshi and Isaac Newton. Newton was a brilliant scientist and mathematician, of course, and an alchemist. But he was also Master of the Royal Mint. He redesigned England’s monetary system, putting us onto the gold standard on which Britain’s colossal progress during the next 200 years was built.If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here.First instinctMany believe that Satoshi was Hal Finney, the veteran programmer, who invented reusable proof of works, one of the models on which bitcoin was based. This was my first instinct. Often such “first instincts”, for reasons I cannot begin to explain, prove correct. When Satoshi first announced bitcoin on the cryptography mailing list, nobody replied. The message was ignored for two days. In the short-attention-span land of the web, two days is a long time to wait for some feedback on something you’ve spent 18 months working on. Two days is a long time to wait when you might have nailed something Cypherpunks had been dreaming about for 20 years.The first reply came from Finney. Was he replying to himself in order to generate some interest and discussion – to bump his thread? Replying to your own posts, known as ‘sock-puppeting’, is not uncommon. Let us pursue this line of thinking a little further.Finney was born in 1956 – in that same two-year golden window as so many computer-scientist geniuses that would change the world (from Bill Gates to Tim Berners-Lee to Steve Jobs) were born – and spent his life working on cryptographic systems. He was number two to Phil Zimmerman, the pioneer in the field, for many years at the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) Corporation, where they developed the most widely used email encryption software in the world.Such were his beliefs in privacy, freedom, and Cypherpunk, Finney was known to spend many nights writing and developing code for free, just because he believed in the work.In 1993, he published the paper, ‘Detecting Double-Spending’. Solving the double-spending problem (ensuring the same money cannot be used twice) was, of course, the key problem with digital cash. It was what Satoshi was so excited about when he proposed Bitcoin. In 2004, Finney developed the ‘reusable proof-of-work’ (RPOW) system, which coders regarded as a brilliant step forward – but his system never saw any economic use until b itcoin.Finney is one of the few people to have the background and expertise to have developed bitcoin – but he is also an obvious person to take an immediate interest.In his very first reply to Satoshi’s announcement, he wrote:“As an amusing thought experiment, imagine that Bitcoin is successful and becomes the dominant payment system in use throughout the world. Then the total value of the currency should be equal to the total value of all the wealth in the world. Current estimates of total worldwide household wealth that I have found range from $100 trillion to $300 trillion. With 20 million coins, that gives each coin a value of about $10 million.”The comment shows extraordinary insight. Many now see this “amusing thought experiment” as inevitable. But could it also be somebody trying to get others excited? Very possibly.(By the way, ‘thought experiment’ is an expression Satoshi himself uses – though it is not uncommon in coding circles).Of the many names touted as Satoshi, Finney’s writing style is one of the few that match. The major difference is Satoshi used British spelling and Finney does not. There is a similar calm, understated tone, similar use of language, similar punctuation habits: two spaces after a full stop. In stylometrics tests carried out by John Noecker Jr., chief scientific officer at text analysis experts Juola & Associates, Finney consistently scored high. (However, veteran cypherpunk blogger, Nick Szabo, scored higher). Then I noticed both Finney and Satoshi had ‘@gmx.com’ email addresses. (GMX is a free email provider based in Germany. Many Germans use GMX, while Americans and British tend to gravitate towards Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo. Today they would probably gravitate towards P rotonmail). Was this just coincidence – or was it a clue?Why did Satoshi disappear?In December 2010, Satoshi made his final post and then disappeared from the internet.Why?Perhaps to protect his anonymity in the face of rising interest from the media and, more significantly, the authorities: to protect his own safety as the WikiLeaks panic began to erupt. (After Wikileaks was shut out of the financial system, many began sending it bitcoin. The effect, ironically, was thus to make it an extraordinarily wealthy organisation).But there is also the possibility that he disappeared because he was ill.In 2009, Finney was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease – amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – the same disease from which Stephen Hawking suffered. It is, for the most part, fatal and claims its victims within two to five years. ‘My symptoms were mild at first,’ he says, ‘and I continued to work, but fatigue and voice problems forced me to retire in early 2011. Since then the disease has continued its inexorable progression.’ Finney, eventually died in August 2014.In March 2013 he said, ‘Today, I am essentially paralyzed. I am fed through a tube, and my breathing is assisted through another tube. I operate the computer using a commercial eye-tracker system. It also has a speech synthesizer, so this is my voice now. I spend all day in my power wheelchair. I worked up an interface using an Arduino so that I can adjust my wheelchair’s position using my eyes. It has been an adjustment, but my life is not too bad. I can still read, listen to music, and watch TV and movies. I recently discovered that I can even write code. It’s very slow, probably 50 times slower than I was before. But I still love programming and it gives me goals.’Could a terrible illness be the reason Satoshi withdrew?Finney was one of the first to mine bitcoins. What did he do with them?I mined several blocks over the next days. But I turned it off because it made my computer run hot, and the fan noise bothered me. In retrospect, I wish I had kept it up longer, but on the other hand, I was extraordinarily lucky to be there at the beginning. It’s one of those glass half full, half empty things.The next I heard of Bitcoin was late 2010, when I was surprised to find that it was not only still going, bitcoins actually had monetary value. I dusted off my old wallet, and was relieved to discover that my bitcoins were still there. As the price climbed up to real money, I transferred the coins into an offline wallet, where hopefully they’ll be worth something to my heirs. Those discussions about inheriting your bitcoins are of more than academic interest. My bitcoins are stored in our safe deposit box, and my son and daughter are tech-savvy. I think they’re safe enough. I’m comfortable with my legacy.Finney sold many of his bitcoins in order to pay for medical care, many at around $100. Satoshi never moved his.If you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.We are all SatoshiFinney was a key player in the development of Bitcoin, no doubt. He was one of the first to ask real questions. He managed to understand from the start the inner workings of the Bitcoin protocol and its potential. He explored the weaknesses in the Bitcoin code – one of them is even named 'the Finney Attack'. He had many exchanges with Satoshi on the Bitcoin forums as they progressed the code and developed new versions. He asked question after question. But these very exchanges show there were two people talking. On January 10th, 2009, for example, Finney publicly complained to Satoshi that Bitcoin had crashed when he tried to receive a transaction. If it was his own code, and he was transacting with himself, he would surely have quietly fixed it himself.Moreover, coders all agree that Finney's coding style – and the style of the comments written in the code – is different from Satoshi’s. Also, Finney preferred to code in the language C, whereas Bitcoin is coded in C++. This is something Finney himself confirms: 'I’ve done some changes to the Bitcoin code, and my style is completely different from Satoshi’s. I program in C, which is compatible with C++, but I don’t understand the tricks that Satoshi used.'Shortly before the publication of this book, the Forbes journalist Andy Greenberg published an interview with Hal Finney. Finney was now too ill to even speak – he could only raise his eyebrows to say yes. His son showed Greenberg fifteen email exchanges between Satoshi and Finney from January 2009. They mainly focused on bugs Finney had found in the code, to which Satoshi replied with fixes - and notes of thanks. Greenberg was also shown Finney's bitcoin wallet – with the transfers between Satoshi and Finney made back in 2009. As Greenberg notes, the wallet evidence and the Gmail timestamps in the emails would have been hard to forge. To cap it all, there is the fact that in 2009, at precisely the same moment Satoshi sent time-stamped e-mails, Finney, a keen runner, was photographed in the middle of a ten-mile race. Nobody, not even Satoshi Nakamoto, can be in two places at once.Bitcoin could not have happened without the work of Finney.If Satoshi Nakamoto was several people, Finney might have been one of them. But if Satoshi is an individual, Hal Finney was not him. This is an extract from my 2014 book, Bitcoin: the Future of Money? If you missed them (there were problems with the site midweek), check out my forecasts for 2025. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

Bitcoin to $200,000k anyone? Sterling to crash? The US dollar to 20 year highs? As for silver …OK, folks. It’s predictions time.As ever, the eternal conflict applies: the more outlandish the prediction, the more entertaining it is to read about - but the less likely it is to actually happen.On these pages, we attempt to strike a balance.Here are 15 things to look out for in 2025.Here is a video version of this article, if you prefer: 1. The long overdue correction in the UK housing market finally begins.“Record Boxing Day bounce,” says Rightmove. Read beyond the headline and you get this: “Our data shows a 26% increase in the number of new properties listed for sale compared to Boxing Day 2023, which previously held the record.” They’re trying to spin more sellers.More sellers means more supply.Meanwhile… houses are overpriced. The economy is not booming, so people have less money. Labour’s higher taxes also mean buyers have less capital to spend. Higher mortgage rates mean there is less money to borrow, and, thus, less newly created money to come into the market and prop up prices. The rich are not coming to Britain - they are leaving, if they haven’t already left.More supply of houses, but less money to buy them with.Meanwhile, stamp duty is a massive deterrent to buyers. Never mind people choosing not to move because of it, anyone buying a second or third home - they’re as good as gone: who is going to pay 5% stamp duty for a second or third home? Not many people, I wouldn’t have thought. More supply, less money, fewer buyers.Then there is the general perception of the economy. Psychologically, people are not feeling rich, nor are they bullish about the economy, meaning fewer people will take the plunge.What about investment from overseas?See my earlier comment about stamp duty. The cost of buying drives away investment.Moreover, the UK is not currently well looked upon. Rich Americans, for example (normally a good source of buyers), are not going to pile in given, one, the costs of buying and, two, how the UK is currently perceived over there.Then Labour are going to loosen planning laws and build a whole load more houses - well, they say they are - meaning even more supply.As if that wasn’t enough, 2026 is the year the 18-year-cycle in property turns down. If houses don’t turn down this year, I’ll declare this market permanently immune.2. Keir Starmer survivesHis premiership is already looking dicey. It’s one crisis after another, and it’s difficult to see how he survives, especially with all the rape gang stuff.However, I think short-term PMs became a bit normalised in the Cameron-May-Johnson-Truss-Sunak era. Cameron went because of Brexit. May went for the same reason. Johnson got his landslide, handed to him by Farage, but then Covid came along, and Johnson, under a lot of pressure from the Left, got the shove from Tory MPs with whom he was never particularly popular anyway, worried about their seats. Not having been elected, Truss and Sunak were toast before they even started.None of that applies to Starmer. I admit he is looking shaky, particularly under this extraordinary pressure from Elon Musk. But I still think it’s too early for Labour MPs, worrying about their seats, to give him the shove, and it’s normal for a PM to last the full term - what happened under the Idiots Tories was not normal - so somehow Starmer survives the year.3. Gold hits $3,000.I’m not wildly bullish about gold at the moment, at least in US dollar terms, though I still think it is absolutely essential you own some. One, because at some point the China gold story is going to hit the mainstream, and suddenly there will be a scramble for gold. It probably won’t be this year, but you never know, and gold is one particular lifeboat you want to have ready in advance. Second, if you are in the UK, I think sterling has problems - more on this in a moment - and your wealth is much better stored in shiny yellow metal than it is in British government digital stuff. (You would normally say British government paper, but it isn’t paper anymore).On which note, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.And If you haven’t already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris’s monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it’s free. Sign up here.$3,000 - landmark number though it is - is only 12.5% higher than where we are. We could easily see that by June.4. Microstrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) becomes a top 100 company by market cap. Currently, Deutsche Telecom (market cap US$145 bn) is 100th. Microstrategy is $85 billion at time of writing. It joins the elite. What a pick this has been for readers.5. Bitcoin … I was in Miami on New Year’s Eve at Michael Saylor’s - strictly on reconnaissance, of course - and one thing I learned there was that roughly half of corporate donations during the 2024 Presidential Election - $245m according to the Federal Election Commission - came from the crypto industry. Coinbase alone contributed $75 million. I’m a beneficiary, so I’m not complaining, but, really, you have to say, buying such favour is more than a little dodgy, even if that is how the world works and has almost always worked.But it means the likelihood of the Republicans delivering on their pledge for a strategic bitcoin reserve is likely. The US isn’t going to buy a million coins straight away, but it may well buy 3-400,000 in year one. That sends bitcoin a lot higher.The prediction? It goes to $200,000 then crashes.But then it crashes. Cos that’s always what happens. 6. Sterling has big problems.We spend too much. We make too little. We have an incompetent Chancellor, who is something of a stranger to the truth. We have too much unpayable debt. We are on the wrong side of the Atlantic.My eight-year cycle has turned down. This is the year it hits the skids.A sterling crisis will hurt house prices too.7. X thrives, Blue Sky dies, Blogging Blue SkiesBlue Sky is just a left-wing tantrum, same as Parler and Gettr, a few years back, were right-wing tantrums. It won’t last. People gravitate to where speech is freest - with a little bit of large network thrown in. I am a huge, huge Elon Musk fan. I think he is a force for immense good (finally, the rape gang story is getting the attention it deserves), though perhaps the algorithms have made Twitter/X a little too much the Elon show. Nevertheless, Twitter/X is highly addictive, it is where the narrative is set, and those who have stomped off will mostly return.Elsewhere, people don’t watch films like they used to - I went to the cinema the other day and it was pants. They don’t read books like they used to - they tend to pick their phone up first. But when they grab their phones, in amongst the doom scrolling, they do read articles and essays. So blogging - and platforms like Substack, where speech is also free - thrive too.8. The S&P500 Rises 10%Year one of the electoral cycle is traditionally the weakest (year 3 is best), but the S&P has a decent year nonetheless.9. Oil ranges.Oil does not crater, as many predict, with the Trump-inspired increased US production. But nor does it moonshot. A $60 to $90 range - something like that.10. Small Caps ThriveSmall is beautiful and small caps make a welcome return. I know I’m a broken record on this one, but one day it will happen. Probably when my back is turned.11. The US Dollar Index breaks out to 20-year highs.Somewhere near 117-8 is the high.12. The BRICS don’t come out with a proper US dollar alternative … yet13. Silver disappoints … as always$33 is the high, $22 the low.14. Despite all the crap, the world becomes a better place to live. We live longer, we eat better, tech keeps improving things. We advance. AI makes us more productive and betters living standards.15. Your Bruce-y bonus sports prediction.Liverpool win the league and the three promoted teams Ipswich, Southampton, and Leicester all go back down. I’ve stopped following football, but that’s what my son told me would happen.Happy New Year everyone. I hope the Universe grants you everything you are hoping for and more.I’ll come back and mark these at the end of the year. 2 points for a hit, 1 point for an ok, 0 for a miss, and -1 for an epic fail.Until next time,Dominic This is a public episode. 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