American Monetary Association

Chris Versace is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Tematica Research and the editor of Tematica Investing, a subscription newsletter that utilizes a thematic approach to investing that that capitalizes on my near 20 years in the investment industry.

He is also the co-author of Cocktail Investing: Distilling Everyday Noise into Clear Investment Signals for Better Returns.

Key Takeaways:

[2:05] Whether recent elections are to be considered a mandate against Obama

[5:30] One of Chris' favorite investment themes today

[9:38] Where inflation is going to hit first

[12:26] How robotics is changing everything

[13:26] The stock sector Chris is really excited about

Websites Mentioned:

www.chrisversace.com

Direct download: AMA_149_Chris_Versace.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 8:00am EDT

Roger Stone is an alternative historian who was one the legendary American Republican political consultant who has played a key role in the election of Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan to George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. Stone also served as an assistant to Senator Bob Dole. Stone is the author of "The Man Who Killed Kennedy - the Case Against LBJ". Stone is also the author of Nixon's Secrets, a broader look at the rise and fall and rise and fall and final comeback of Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Key Takeaways:

[2:21] Comparing Richard Nixon with Barack Obama

[5:42] The importance of Nixon's China trip with the closing of the gold window

[8:12] Making the case that Lyndon Johnson was the linchpin of the JFK assassination

[11:44] LBJ and the Warren Commission

[12:13] Lee Harvey Oswald's role in the JFK assassination

[15:17] The possibility of Hillary's run for president in 2016

[18:01] The problem that continues to remain for America, the weakness of the dollar

[19:34] How the Republicans could use a weaker economy for a resurgence

Website Mentioned:

www.stonezone.com

Direct download: AMA_148_Roger_Stone.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 12:43am EDT

Avik Roy is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He is also the opinion editor at Forbes, and has advised Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on policy. In 2015, Roy was a senior advisor to former Texas governor Rick Perry; in 2012, he served as a health care policy advisor to Mitt Romney. He is the founder of Roy Healthcare Research, an investment research firm, and previously was an analyst and portfolio manager at Bain Capital and J.P. Morgan. Roy is the principal author of The Apothecary (the Forbes blog on health care policy and entitlement reform), as well as author of Transcending Obamacare: A Patient-Centered Plan for Near-Universal Coverage and Permanent Fiscal Solvency (2014) and How Medicaid Fails the Poor (2013). His research interests include the Affordable Care Act, universal coverage, entitlement reform, international health systems, veterans’ health care, and FDA policy.

Key Takeaways:

[1:34] Avik's "near universal" healthcare idea

[3:52] How the government could spend less money than we spend today, yet cover more people with better coverage

[6:47] How much of an impact breaking up regional medical clinic monopolies could have on healthcare costs

[8:56] Why it matters that we don't know how much our insurance is paying for medical care

[10:58] How Medicaid is failing

[13:26] Why we have to think of healthcare like any other market, and not some unique part of society

[15:14] The shocking revelation that for as much as the government spends on Medicaid, it might not actually be helping people

[17:28] The best way to understand Donald Trump

[20:20] How closing the border would lead to rising wages

Websites Mentioned:

www.twitter.com/avik
www.forbes.com/opinion
www.facebook.com/forbesaroy

Direct download: AMA_147_Avik_Roy.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:22pm EDT

Paul Vigna is a markets reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering equities and the economy. He writes for the MoneyBeat blog and hosts a daily news show of the same name.

Michael J. Casey writes for The Wall Street Journal, covering global finance in his “Horizons” column. He is a frequent contributor to the Journal’s MoneyBeat blog and co-authors the daily “BitBeat” with Paul Vigna. He is the host of the book-themed video series “WSJ Afterword” and a frequent guest on and host of “The News Hub” and “MoneyBeat.”

Paul and Michael are co-authors of the new book "The Age of Cryptocurrency".

Key Takeaways:

[1:12] How Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are challenging the world order

[3:14] How money not backed by a government is possible

[5:17] Anyone can make a cryptocurrency, including governments

[6:58] How you can set up your own cryptocurrency

[9:30] The issue of concentration of ownership in Bitcoin and how it can be made more democratic

[12:16] If governments will use regulation to end cryptocurrency but how it would be pretty hard to do

[15:52] Decentralized exchanges and the Block Chain can be used for things such as copyrights, and how the Block Chain makes your claim irrefutable, and how you can do it

[18:58] Don't think of this as a currency, but rather an exchange of information

[22:16] What, if anything, the average person should be doing with cryptocurrency right now

[22:58] Different potential ways to invest in cryptocurrencies

Websites Mentioned:

www.theageofcryptocurrency.com
www.wsj.com

Direct download: AMA_146_Vigna_Casey.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:57pm EDT

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