Gerald Ford: I am longer him in death than in life
by Johnny DebacleThe market says that a position in Gerald Ford is crazy.
It says, “Gerald Ford is just a filler president with no historical appreciation upside. His most memorable acts are pardoning Richard Nixon and being mocked as an incompetent klutz on Saturday Night Live by Chevy Chase.”
I say to the market, “Market, you are crazy. Any man who can get me a bonus vacation day is someone I want to be long. Washington, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Christopher Columbus, the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the Pilgrims, Valentine, Jesus, laborers and all our soldiers, I am long you all. And I am long Gerald Ford too. And I think he deserves some credit for Presidential seppuku in pardoning Nixon, not to preserve his own honor and not to preserve Nixon’s, but to preserve and protect the institution of the Presidency itself. He took one for us all. Gerald Ford, I am long you.”
Recommendation: Get prepared to be long Jimmy Carter soon.
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Our actuarial analysis expects one dead president every six years.
Reagan in June 2004, Ford December 2006, we may have an overheated presidential death market. In any event I’ve got a sick calendar spread of Carter options all the way out to 2018 (makes him 93).
I’m short Gerald Ford, but still long Regan in death. Though Gerald Ford equity closed the stock markets, and Ford paper closed the bond markets early, he has not generated a floating holiday. I admit I made the wrong call, I was short Regan, even in 2004, but then I got to pick my own long weekend.
I’m definitely long Carter, especially with all the heavy lifting he did for Habitat for Humanity.
Jimmy Carter walked into a nuclear meltdown. Any man who does that is ok in my book.
There could be an arb opportunity in this market. All participants seem to want to be long Carter, and thus driving up his value. George HW Bush is actually slightly older, and so should trade at a premium to Carter. I would prefer to be vacation-day-neutral and pocket the spread between a short Carter and long Bush position.
Your “bonus vacation day” investment criterion suggests you are long the 9/11 attackers. Is that true? Or just an unfortunate anomaly in an otherwise flawless systematic investing framework?
It’s only vacation if you’re having fun. By that criteria, 9/11 doesn’t qualify by a long-shot. However, the NYC blackout did. So I guess we’re still short terrorists but we’re long aging power infrastructures and rolling brownouts.
Was anybody else long the Dec ’05 transit strike free-day? I “worked from home” on day 1 of it. Nice.