Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as tariffs liberation day, a whole town goes crypto crazy, smallest islands in the world, a new 100k credit card offer is a no brainer, help for federal government employees, Robinhood wants to deliver bags of cash to its customers, Frank founder gets convicted for fraud, watch live TV from around the world, a cure for hiccups you will not believe, idiot returns to Andaman and comes out alive, updates on Thailand, the best photography links and of course always all of the most important developments in the crazy world of frequent flyer miles and points at the lower half of the post. Enjoy the weekend and file your tax returns asap.

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This blog started way back in 2012 focusing on my crazy hobby addiction of traveling with frequent flyer miles, hotel and bank points. It has since evolved to curated posts featuring the best web content along with my commentary.

This is a one man labor of love operation, enjoy it while it lasts.

 

BLOG HOUSEKEEPING

For the second time in many years, Mailchimp failed to email the post to subscribers last Friday due to a “technical glitch”. It was fixed on Tuesday, sorry about that. If this happens again with this post I think I may kill the Mailchimp service emailing subscribers every time there is a new post. You can always come here directly with your favorite browser you know.

Support what you value. Without such support it is not possible to continue to exist. And enshittification takes over, resist!

NEW:  Huge 100,000 point offer on the card all four of us in my household have and keep from my favorite bank – literally the offer of the year in my opinion, even better than the 75k Capital One Venture X!

 

 

LIBERATION DAY/TARIFFS

Well, I had most of this blog post ready before Liberation Day came. When all hell broke loose. So, I am adding this section because it is hugely important of course. And going to let my guard down and rant a little about politics. I know I am going to lose some readers and at this point I don’t care. So, here we go, will try to keep it short.

First, The Age of Tariffs. I.Can’t.Even…I mean, the sheer stupidity of it all smh.

It is true the United States runs trade deficits with most countries, but there is nothing wrong with that fact. Instead, it just means other countries are efficient at producing goods U.S. consumers want, so Americans buy more from them than the other way around. Yet Trump believes that any country that runs a bilateral trade surplus with the United States is, by definition, cheating, and that reciprocal tariffs are needed to even things out. To decide what tariffs to levy, Trump ostensibly calculated all the ways in which countries cheat—including through tariffs, nontariff barriers, and currency manipulation—to estimate the total “tariff” each country imposed on the United States. In practice, this meant dividing the U.S. trade deficit with a country by the amount of goods it exported to the United States. (These calculations conveniently exclude services trade—such as tourism, education, and business services—in which the United States runs a surplus with most of its trading partners). Trump then generously gave each country a discount of 50 percent, imposing reciprocal tariffs on goods imports equivalent to half that measure.

Wait, I have more. Elections have consequences so please tell me how you who voted for this are going to fare: The impact of tariffs is coming. Which households will Trump’s new plan cost most? I thought beating inflation was going to be solved on Day One. Now they are saying you gotta give it 2 years at least. I don’t know, maybe you were deceived? At this point I need to breathe to keep my blood pressure intact, serenity now.

Households with an average disposable income of roughly $43,000, among the lowest in the country, would see disposable income drop 2.3% from the tariffs announced Wednesday versus 0.9% for the highest-earning households with disposable incomes above $500,000. When accounting for all 2025 tariffs, disposable income is expected to drop 4% for the lower-earning households compared with 1.6% for the highest-earning.

So, how did these clowns come up with that ridiculous table listing all the countries with supposedly all the tariffs they charge us (false by the way) and how we are going to fight back with reciprocal tariffs on top of minimum 10% tariff across the board huh?

At that long list we saw “Heard Island and McDonald Islands” getting hit with 10% tariffs. Did your head do a double fake? Mine sure did. I mean, I had to consult Wikipedia about this “country”! I discovered that there are no people living in these two very remote islands, only penguins. Take that penguins, you can’t take advantage of us anymore. Can’t believe I am typing this right now smh to oblivion. And yes I confirmed that the population in this “country” is indeed 0 humans ok?

So, stocks have taken a huge hit. Short term anything is possible. I have been around several of these huge stock market downturns. And they have something in common as in all being different and very scary indeed. So, it is completely normal to be scared right now. The question is, what are you going to do about it?

These panicky volatile days with the media screaming non stop is indeed the price of admission to enjoy the superior returns of the stock markets. Timing these is impossible. So, you need to stick to your financial plan (assuming you have one, right?) and grind it out. Always good to have some cash for stretches like this. And just be certain that you will also never time the bottom ok? I tell myself and clients that I expect us to look foolish in the short term. Of course this is not easy, many are not cut out for it. In times like these you discover your own true risk tolerance. Everyone is different. Hopefully you have plenty of cash in an emergency fund as well to weather the storm for a while. And there will always be storms. It’s, you know, life.

When investing in stocks you always must think long term. And diversify. And keep the portfolio low cost. And, of course, rebalance at set intervals twice a year. Or, at the very minimum, once a year. And make smart tax moves along the way. Maybe this is a time to rebalance. Then again, with only a 10% hit so far in stocks, why does this feel even scarier? Because, you know, the tariff man has a long way to go before voters vote again. And maybe there is more liberation to come? Don’t get me started about all the talk for a third term please.

So, focus on what you can control. Stay the course and follow the plan. Have faith that the market will recover eventually and plan to be around for it. Focus on your health and your loved ones. And vote!

And stop checking your portfolio and listening/watching the experts. Remember when at the end of 2024 all of them were predicting recession? And then how when Trump came into the office they were all predicting wild go go days for all of 2025? IGNORE THEM! The media sadly will even court this clown again smh:

So, at the end of the day, the stock market does not do politics. It just rolls. If these tariffs were such a brilliant move it would reciprocate. It did not. So, fasten your seat belts…

Update: Text of email blast to clients today HERE.

 

PERSONAL FINANCE

Another announcement by Robinhood that will most likely never see the light of day: Robinhood is launching bank accounts that will deliver physical cash “to your doorstep”. Seriously? I can see bad guys milking this all the way to the bank (pun intended), come on!

As a Certified Financial Planner (since 1995) I was invited to attend this webinar titled: “Advising Federal Employees During These Uncertain Times“. It is directed towards us professionals but I think there are a lot of wisdom nuggets that possibly one of you or a loved one may be interested in? Because, you know, there are so many things going on in all of federal government these days. You can skip the long intro, the main speaker starts at around 8.40 mins.

Let’s talk about eggs. And look at the chart in this link, wow: How much eggs cost every year since 1980—in one chart.

Interesting chart found here:

 

SCAMS/CRYPTO/AI/TECH

This was a tough read. What are we doing to our children? In Crypto’s Darkest Corner, a Suicide Becomes Just Another Meme Coin. A 23-year-old man’s dark descent into crypto scams ended with shooting himself on a livestream. I read and kept shaking my head, wtf is going on with the youth wow!

Under his handle, MistaFuccYou, he posted extreme memes and racial slurs. He bragged about collecting guns, taking oxycodone, and being banned from a steakhouse for stiffing a waiter. He had become something of a meme himself after a video of him spinning around and vomiting got him labeled on social media as the “360 puke guy…In January, he said he had borrowed money to buy the coins launched by President Trump and first lady Melania Trump. “I promised my parents generational wealth for a hefty loan to buy $trump and now it’s down,” Haro posted on Jan. 19. “I just bought some melania too but knowing my luck it’s prob not going to go any where.” Both coins have lost most of their worth after a brief surge in popularity, with Trump’s token down 86% after reaching nearly $15 billion in market value. Haro also bought a Trump-token copycat that quickly became worthless. On Jan. 27, he messaged another crypto trader on X that he lost his last $500 on a coin that appeared to be associated with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West. [I could not believe what I was reading, so tragically sad. Can’t believe this coin shit has not been banned yet!]

The verdict arrived at the trial of the lady who faked an email list to JP Morgan Chase for $175 million: Startup founder convicted of defrauding JPMorgan Chase of $175M by faking firm’s success. It took four hours for the jury to convict. Of course she will appeal and still stay free until, who knows, I am sure a pardon could be in store for her too. Just like this guy who rolled a truck down hill to fool investors. And this guy who will not spend a single day in prison after being found guilty and sentenced to ten years for far out brazen fraud shit.

People are vulnerable and fall easier for scams if they are in need of money. Without many good options. So, here is what happened in a small town in Argentina, mass delusion oh dear Lord. The Town That Went Crazy for Crypto. Painful read. In San Pedro, Argentina, 16,000 people, a fifth of the population, signed up for a cryptocurrency exchange where everyone won. Until they didn’t.

Every weeknight at about 9 p.m., they said, La China turned up on the Telegram channel of a crypto currency exchange called RainbowEx. There, she texted instructions to buy some type of crypto — invariably an obscure and thinly traded one, known in the industry as a memecoin — at a particular price. The same message said to sell the coin when it reached a certain, higher price, which it always did soon after…Nobody knew who La China was, where she was or whether she even existed. She was just a photograph of a young Asian woman on RainbowEx’s Telegram channel… [Sounds totally legit smh]

 

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George