The Nevada Option: Election 2024
Election Day: “Nobody Tells the Truth”
How did I not know this was once “a thing” until a few months ago?
As Wikipedia tells it, “Wavy Gravy, master of ceremonies for the Woodstock Festival and official clown of the Grateful Dead, is believed to have nominated Nobody at the Yippie national convention outside the Republican National Convention in Kansas City in 1976….
“The organizers of the campaign staged a ticker-tape parade down a boulevard in Berkeley, California, with motorcycle police flanking a convertible limousine occupied by nobody.”
The campaign’s slogans were airtight, beyond dispute, incontrovertible…
- “Nobody keeps election promises”
- “Nobody will listen to your concerns”
- “Nobody tells the truth.”
The campaign was repeated for the next three election cycles.
Wavy Gravy is still kicking at age 88. On a tribute website for the Nobody campaign, his friend Curtis Spangler says there was a serious point to the whole thing: “‘None of the Above’ should be a valid choice on voter ballots.”
Which, in one state, it is. It happens to be one of the seven “swing states” this year — Nevada.
It will be fascinating to see how much support is garnered by “None of These Candidates” in the Silver State.
Even if “None of These Candidates” is not on the ballot elsewhere… that Nevada option might prove decisive.
In recent days, independent reporter Michael Tracey has spoken with many undecided voters in Pennsylvania — the state that our own Jim Rickards, among others, says is the linchpin to the whole contest.
“Their profile is substantially different than often assumed,” Tracey writes: “by and large these voters are not ‘undecided’ between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but undecided whether to vote at all, because they are (rationally) disengaged from the election process and fed up with the constant onslaught of billionaire-funded partisan propaganda.”
Said an Amazon warehouse worker in Bethlehem: “Does it make a difference? ‘Cause they gonna do what they want to do no matter what.”
“My tentative theory,” Tracey concludes, “is that these voters tend to lean Trump, when pressed, and could possibly be ‘turned out’ by a competent Republican vote-mobilizing operation, which it’s very unclear exists, despite the enormous amounts of money poured into the Trump/GOP apparatus.”
In the meantime, 10 states have activated the Army National Guard for “support operations” today and beyond.
In alphabetical order they are Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Illinois, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Wisconsin, and Washington.
In addition… Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia have put Guard units on standby. They will likely be activated later this week. Good times.
Bitcoin on a Knife-Edge
Bitcoin sits a hair below $70,000 on this Election Day — and on a knife-edge, says Paradigm crypto authority James Altucher.
What happens in the days ahead “could determine whether Bitcoin heads to $100,000 or tumbles back to $50,000,” he tells his Altucher Investment Network subscribers.
Bitcoin’s rise to near-record levels coincides with a rise in Donald Trump’s poll numbers: “The former president has emerged as crypto's unlikely champion,” says James — “promising to make America ‘the crypto capital of the planet’ while vowing to fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler on day one.”
That said, “Vice President Harris might not be the crypto-skeptic many assume,” says James. “The Harris campaign is now accepting Bitcoin donations, and crypto groups are spending big on Democratic Senate races.”
Looking ahead, “a Trump victory would likely catapult prices through $75,000 — the recent high on Micro BTC futures,” says James. “With no technical resistance above the current all-time high, we'd be in uncharted territory — quite literally.
“If that happens, buckle up. The pattern is measuring up to $95,000, but markets have a funny way of gravitating toward round numbers. In this case, that's $100,000.”
On the other hand, “a Harris win might trigger initial selling pressure, with $70,000 and $65,000 as critical support levels. A break below could send prices back to test the $50,000–55,000 range.”
But if you’re of a “hodler” mindset, James says it doesn’t matter.
“Regardless of who wins, crypto's newfound political influence means more favorable regulation is likely coming. The only real question is speed.
“Think of it like a cross-country road trip. With Trump, we're taking the interstate at 80 mph. With Harris, we're on the scenic route — but we're still heading to the same destination.”
Make of it what you will, but Wall Street is staging a solid Election Day rally.
The Dow is up three-quarters of a percent; the Nasdaq is up 1.25%. The S&P 500 is splitting the difference, up 1% at 5,768 — about 1.6% below the record close of Oct. 18.
Mr. Market seems underwhelmed by the conclusion of the Boeing machinists strike; BA shares are down 0.8%.
Bonds are selling off — pushing yields higher. At last check the yield on a 10-year Treasury note was over 4.36%, another four-month high.
Precious metals are quiet, gold at $2,738 and silver at $32.62. Crude is adding to yesterday’s gains, up another buck to $72.52 — right around the midpoint of its trading range the last month.
AI and Nukes: Feds Say “Not So Fast”
The federal government just threw an enormous roadblock across the highway leading to nuclear-powered data centers.
“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Friday rejected a request to increase the amount of power the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania can dispatch to an Amazon data center campus,” says CNBC.
Announced last March, Amazon’s 10-year deal with Talen Energy was the first of its kind — a data center getting exclusive access to the power generated by a nuclear reactor. Microsoft then signed a similar deal with Constellation Energy to reopen the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, which closed in 2019.
Big Tech needs reliable 24/7 electricity to support the prodigious demands that AI will place on the power grid. These companies would prefer that power be “green” — but solar and wind won’t be remotely adequate. So… nuclear it is.
Or was?
The FERC’s vote to nix the Amazon-Talen deal was a strange one — scrambling the partisan boundaries you might expect.
The vote was 2-1, with two of the five commissioners sitting out the vote.
Biden appointee Lindsay See voted against the agreement… and so did Trump appointee Mark Christie.
For both of them, it appears the devil was in the details: Two power companies in the region — American Electric Power and Exelon — said the deal was arranged in such a way that their residential and corporate ratepayers would be subsidizing Amazon to the tune of $140 million.
FERC chair Willie Phillips, a Biden appointee, was in the minority. He said — more or less — that the urgency of supplying power for a fast-growing industry overrode questions of who’s footing how much of the bill.
“Maintaining our nation’s leadership in this ‘era defining’ technology will require a massive and unprecedented investment in the data centers necessary to develop and operate those AI models,” he said. “I am deeply concerned that in failing to demonstrate regulatory leadership and flexibility we are putting at risk our country’s pole position on this critically important issue.”
The decision whacked the share price of Talen (TLN). Other names in the space like Vistra Corp. (VST) and Constellation Energy (CEG) fell in sympathy.
Talen issued this protest: “FERC’s decision will have a chilling effect on economic development in states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey… The data center economy will require an all-of-the-above approach to satisfy the increased demand, including co-location such as Talen’s arrangement with AWS, hybrids that co-locate primary power behind the meter while using grid power for back-up and front-of-the-meter connections to utility transmission.”
All of which is probably true. But as we chronicled last month, this is not the first time that everyday homeowners are being asked to subsidize Big Tech’s growing electric costs. Sooner or later, something’s gotta give.
To be continued…
Post-Election “Societal Mobilization”
After yesterday’s exploration of how anti-Trump forces might resort to “societal mobilization” in the event of a Trump victory this week… we heard from readers who it’s fair to say represent opposite sides of the divide.
“The real scenario they need to consider is this: Harris/Walz wins but it's close, so of course as they've been screaming all along, the Trump campaign contests all of the battleground state results because of ‘cheating.’
“Trump knows that he stands a great chance of having the decision pushed over to the House of Reps or Supreme Court if there's any morsel of doubt.
“That would be a slam-dunk election theft if this happens as I just outlined. The Republicans hold a 220-212 edge in seats. They've proven they will choose party over country already.
“And as for the Supreme Court, McConnell, Trump, etc. did a great job of stacking the court between 2015 and 2020, so they would obviously pick Trump.
“Either of these outcomes would be the biggest election scandal of our lives, and this is his end goal. I truly hope I am wrong.
“And in all honesty, the mob rule scenario is a pipe dream. It won't happen. Democrats are scared for sure, but I can't see them mobilizing en masse as described.
“I suppose we shall see. Personally, I hope that whatever the outcome is, the good parts of our system survive the next presidency. There are real reasons to doubt that will happen.
“Thanks for hearing me out. Cheers.”
Counterpoint: “I hear what you and John Robb are saying, but I think that if a swarm of pro-Harris forces start seriously getting in our $hit then it won't take very long for the pro-Trump crowd to develop ‘a unifying pejorative or threat narrative strong enough to serve as the basis for a counter-swarm.’
“Think urban beta males and alpha females against heavily armed Scots-Irish Appalachian hillbillies, military veterans and other generally pi$$ed-off middle and working classes in an existential slugfest. So hold my beer and bring it on, bro!”
Dave responds: I’m going to throw out another possibility here — one I first contemplated on Election Day 2020.
That is, the actual catalyst for “civil war” or some other kind of “social upheaval” will not be the election at all. It will be something else. It might be red states resisting a Harris mandate, or blue states resisting a Trump mandate.
From the vantage point of today, it’s impossible to say…
The Endless Vote Count
“Vote counting takes so long, and is mistrusted because we are still doing it in an archaic manner,” a reader replies to Friday’s edition.
“When I look at my Social Security statement or IRS records I have to use an identity verification called ID.ME, which I had to set up with my ID and a facial recognition app. I can transfer some assets instantly with a digital token. All of my crypto transactions are stored on the blockchain, where their records are identifiable.
“This entire Stone Age voting system could be quickly and easily replaced using these technologies. Voting results would be known instantly and there would be no question about their integrity. I would have loved to see a candidate campaigning on this simple fix but actually solving problems is clearly not a priority for either candidate.”
Dave: On the surface, that sounds like a privacy nightmare.
In a way, the current “archaic” methods of voting are an improvement on how it was even a decade ago.
After the "hanging chad" debacle of 2000, the feds blew $3 billion on electronic voting machines... then left it to the states to maintain and replace them. Whoops, many states didn’t have the money for that.
Just as well: Touch screens were a fiasco from the get-go. In our voluminous archives, we see that during the 2014 midterms, votes for Democrats in Texas flipped to Republican, while votes for Republicans in Illinois flipped to Democrat.
According to the MIT Election Data Science Lab, 93% of votes cast in 2020 had a paper record — either filled out by hand or printed by a machine for the voter to review.
I dunno, seems like progress?
