The Three Best Stocks To Own After A Nuclear Attack

Guest Post from John Wilder

“It’s not the money, it’s just all the stuff.” – The Jerk

Biden wanted to emulate North Korea’s experience for COVID – Biden liked the way Kim implemented a lockdown.

I was on hold with Tech Support working on site issues (again) when I came up with the post name.  I couldn’t resist, because that’s exactly the sort of headline that I see when I flip through financial pages.  Oh, sure, I could have just as easily gone with “How A Zombie Holocaust Can Help Your Portfolio”, but the nuclear attack seems a wee bit more timely.

As I’ve written before, a big part of wealth isn’t just cash.  It isn’t money.  Queen Elizabeth II may have had a much fancier funeral than I will, but just like Generalissimo Francisco Franco, she’s still very dead even though there are rocks worth hundreds of millions of dollars on top of her coffin.  Money could buy her a lot of stuff and allow her to avoid Markle, but it couldn’t buy her one more minute on the planet than she had.

So, wealth means more than just money.  And as the world seems to be shifting ever so fast under our feet, what are the true components of wealth?

I did hear about one king that was exactly 12” tall.  He was a horrible king, but a good ruler.

First on my list would be having a horde of skilled fanatical barbarian soldiers that do my every bidding.  That’s pretty cool.  Sadly, I can’t find a wizard who’s willing to narrate things like the following every morning when I get out of bed and get ready to go to work:

“Between the time when the oceans drank Atlantis and the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of.  And unto this, Conan John Wilder, destined to wear the jeweled crown of Aquilonia Modern Mayberry upon a troubled brow.  It is I, his chronicler, who alone can tell thee of his saga.  Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!”

That would be nice.  I guess second on my list would be a wizard-bard to narrate my life, throwing in things like, “And despite having had one too many glasses of wine the night before, John Wilder bravely got up as his alarm went off, brushed his teeth, stared into his mirror, and began the noble process of finding socks to wear today.”

An illiterate wizard is useless.  He can’t spell.

What would be third on my list?  I mean, I’ve already got a fanatical army and a wizard-bard.  Some people work a whole lifetime and don’t get either of those.  At one point, I would have said “Immortal Life” but then I realized that if I lived too long, that would probably void the factory warranty.  So, that’s out, unless those random calls I get on my cell phone about getting an extended warranty aren’t a scam.

But I still need to have a number three on my list.  I’d say food for my fanatical barbarian army, but I think they’d be fine feeding themselves – that’s the advantage of having a barbarian horde – they make their own sauce.  I guess I’ll have to live with surgically altered doubles that look and sound exactly like me.  Why?  If I have a fanatical barbarian army, why wouldn’t they send James Bond® after me?

I always invite Bond over to my BBQ.  He’s got a license to grill.

For my fourth item, I suppose the boring thing would be to look for would be a lair hidden deep underneath a volcano suitable for launching my spaceships.  The big problem is demand.  First, I think Elon Musk has the market cornered.  Second, if James Bond© saw what Great Britain looked like in 2022, he’d probably join up with Blofeld™ because he and Blofeld© probably share more actual British values than Britain does.

I’ll be serious – I wouldn’t turn any of those things down except the doubles.  As irritating as I am, I can’t imagine what it would be like to live with multiple iterations of myself.  And I can’t even imagine the number of socks that would be in the living room.

But what is real wealth outside of money?

I’m going to start with family.  The Mrs., for whatever reason, is on board with my nonsense.  And, as I wrote recently, we are building the people that will take us into the future. They are our children. We build them for the future, so that they can build the future. Of wealth, there is absolutely none more precious.  Except the fanatical barbarian horde.

Yet, more battles are won by infantry than by adultery.

Second on the list is health.  I can only buy this a little.  The rest I either have due to genetics (on one side of my family, I have heard that the only thing that can kill us is gravity), or hard work.  I need to spend a bit more time on the hard work.  And that’s an easy way to invest in myself that has amazing dividends.

Third on the list is skills.  Skills are yet another way of investing in myself.  What kind of skills?  The basic ones are the best – and there is depth required in some of them.  If I garden, it’s not just planting a seed and then walking off to come back later and eat.  Nope.  There are millions of ways to kill a plant, and I know most of them.  Many skills come from simply knowing how to not screw it up.  So, picking the right ones is one way to get to the future.

I debated putting reputation up higher, bud decided that I’d leave it here.  In the world, leadership is a way to multiply yourself.  And that leadership is a function of reputation.  Known as a liar and a cheat?  No man will follow me or trust me.  Known to be a man of my word?  I can have influence far above my level of skills or health.  When General Patton took over the II Corps in North Africa, he had a few weeks to turn them into a fighting force.  That he was able to do so was built on skills, sure, but more than that on his reputation for having an amazing force of will.

The last thing on my list for today is a variation on the first real thing.  Just as my children take me into the future, the inheritance that I got from Pa and Ma Wilder allows me to know what to send into that future.  It is the inheritance of values that I speak of here.

I heard she never carried cash – who wants to carry around pictures of their ex-mother-in-law?

So, on this day, I’m certain of one thing:  I’m wealthier than Queen Elizabeth.  And in better shape, too.  I wouldn’t trade her family for mine.  I’m certain I could beat her at Uno®, so I have skills covered.  Reputation, though is difficult.  I mean she couldn’t hit 100 before she died, though I think she made sure Diana did.