Kanye West's Real Crime

Kanye West’s Hennessy-fueled meltdown at the MTV Music Awards has been roundly criticized; even the president was caught on tape calling the performer a “jackass.” It wasn’t Kanye’s incivility that bothered us, however. He’s had No. 1 records riddled with the “n" word, but the ease and nonchalance with which he completely violated Taylor Swift’s property rights. This wasn’t just a diss, but an outright theft. For those who haven’t seen, here’s the moment: 

Woven into the basic foundation of American ethos, private property is the basis of morality and individual rights. Unlike life under Russian czars or European kings, if you earn something in America, you have the moral right to keep and use it as you wish. Swift had earned the acceptance speech, it was hers, not a “public resource” to be appropriated by any drunk gasbag who wanted to be on stage. To have the opportunity stolen by West was akin to him breaking into her apartment and swiping her flat-screen television.

It’s a little hypocritical, however, that while we are so outraged when West filches Swift’s moment, we think very little about politicians imposing higher taxes on productive businesspeople, an equally brazen crime.

They too work hard to earn a value and have every right to keep it, even if they do so in energy, pharmaceuticals or finance. The president considers Kanye a jackass for stealing Swift’s property, but doesn’t hesitate to swipe the property of profit-seeking capitalists whose only crime is earning more than $250,000 a year.

Turns out that Exxon (XOM) is a slightly less sympathetic victim than a 19-year-old country singer. Too bad. They both have every right to keep the product of their labor.

Loss-laden photography concern Eastman Kodak (EK), once a member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, has been granted some breathing room by private-equity firm KKR, which will invest up to $400 million dollars in the company’s debt. Kodak, which traded as high as $80 a share in the late 1990s, scraped a multidecade low of $2 earlier this year. The deal could end with KKR owning as much as 20% of Kodak, largely diluting existing owners.

We instinctively love a comeback story. But more often than not, weak stocks stay weak, or at least weaker than comparatively stronger alternatives.

You tend not prosper betting on an old sick dog to stop limping and run again – even with KKR supplying the Milk-Bones.

For investors looking for consumer-related photography ideas, two much stronger alternatives in which my fund holds a position, include NYSE-listed Canon (CAJ) and FUJIFILM (FUJIY), traded over the counter, both coming up against multimonth highs and outperforming Kodak over the past year by a cool 60%.

Nice Bright Colors

Eastman Kodak (EK) vs. FUJIFILM (FUJIY) and Canon (CAJ) – 1 year
Source: BigCharts.com

Last spring we noted just how precious the precious metals actually are. All the platinum ever mined in history, for example, would fit in the average American living room. Prices have gained 40% year to date and can be easily traded via exchange-traded notes such as UBS E-TRACS UBS Long Platinum (PTM) or iPath Dow Jones AIG Platinum Total Return Sub Index (PGM).

Gold might seem ubiquitous, as found on the hands of millions of brides, but according to data from New York -based Ross Metals, approximately 161,000 tons of the yellow metal have been mined over the entire history of mankind. That’s barely enough to fit in two Olympic-sized swimming pools, a shockingly tiny amount when you consider the size of the earth and the billions of people who live and work on it.

As we suggested last week, it starts to make $1,000 an ounce seem cheap.

A Scarce Resource

All the gold mined in history would barely fit in two Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Photo: Collegeswimming.com