THE SPEECH

Here it is in under 2 minutes.  Mark Warner.

THE THREAT

Jamison Firestone’s Rule of Lies: My Wild Ride Through Chaos, Corruption, and Murder in Putin’s Russia is at once amazing, engaging, important, tragic, true — and highly relevant to our situation today.

It’s no coincidence Trump admires Putin, never says a bad word about him.

Russia’s path from democracy to kleptocracy — it briefly had one after Reagan got Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” — and from a free press and the rule of law (at least somewhat) to jailing dissidents and the rule of lies . . . to a president for life surrounded by loyalists living, like him, lives of luxury while the masses struggle to get by . . . has so many parallels to the direction Trump has been taking us that it’s frightening.

It shows us how a murderous thug leading his country to ruin could remain popular among millions of his countrymen . . . and what could eventually happen here.  Trump could eventually walk down Fifth Avenue shooting people and not lose support if we don’t succeed in restoring checks and balances.

I can’t recommend Rule of Lies highly enough.

It even has a (relatively) happy ending.  As will, I think, the drama we’re living through.

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CHRB

It appears we’re getting our choice: take the $25 per share August 31 that we were promised, on top of the $2.125/year we’ve been getting in dividends we’ve been getting all along (8.5% on $25, but since we paid more like $13.50, more like 16%) . . . or extend redemption for five years during which the promised annual pay-out will be 10% (or, if you want to think of it this way, more like 18.5% — though that’s not the right way to way to look at it in deciding what to do).

The advantage of holding, other than what would appear to be a pretty safe 10% annual return, is deferring tax on the capital gain.  In my IRA, where no tax would be due, I will likely cash in most or all my shares, in the hope — which may well be foolhardy — that I’ll be able to do even better than 10%.

In my taxable account, I may hold some defer the tax . . . though the 10% would really be more like 5% on the margin, after federal, state, and city tax.  (Though had I sold and been left with about $19 after tax, I’d be earning that 5% on the full $25, not the $21 or so I’d be left with after tax if I sold — so more like 6%.  Better, but I’ll likely take my chances on doing better still.