Money Money and Hope Memo
To: President Donald Trump, Mr. Warren Buffet, Chairman Berkshire Hathaway Mr. Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO JP Morgan Chase,Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America, Former President George W. Bush, Mr. Duff Mc Donald, Author The Golden Passport and Last Man Standing, Mr. Pete Buttigieg, Former Mayor and Former Sec of Transportation, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Dr. John Noseworthy, United Health Care Director, Mr. Louis Freeh, Former FBI and Bristol Myers Squibb Director, Mr. Carl Icahn, Activist Investor, Mr. James Argetsi, Founder Just Facts
From: Susan Lein, Secretariat Civilitiville USA, Highly Trained and Published Statistician both branches, Member of MENSA, Serran
Date: March 3, 2025
RE: Money, Money, Money and The Prayers and Concerns of the American People and a Multitude of Hope
Cc: Mr. Elon Musk, Mr. Jeff Bezos, Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. William McNabb III, Mr. Bill Gates, Microsoft Founder and Shareholder, Ms. Mary Bara, CEO General Motors, Mr. William Clay Ford, Jr. Executive Chairman of Ford, Mr. Kazuhiro Takizawa, American Honda CEO and Director, Mr. Tetsuo Ogawa, CEO Toyota North America, Mr. Shawn Fain, UAW President, Mr. Ted Christie, CEO Spirit Airlines, Mr. Adrian Mitchell, Macy’s CFO, Speaker of the House Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Thune, HHS Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice Amy Cohen Barret, Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, Sec. of State Marco Rubio, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Japanese Ambassador Mr. Shigeo Yamada, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emanuel Macron, HRH King Charles III, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, UCCB President, Mr. Anderson Cooper, Journalist, Mr. Stephen Colbert, Host The Late Show, Mr. & Mrs. George Clooney, Founders Clooney Center for Justice, Mr. Bruce Springsteen, Band Leader, Singer and Songwriter,and great Ambassador of American Good Will, and countless other interested parties!
When you are writing world leaders and a good bit of the United States ‘money (on paper anyway), you better have something to say, and I do. All of those To’d were recipients of my 20for2020 Newsletter from 2018-2020 and should be familiar with my work. This memo should come as no surprise.
There is a saying in “tech”, “where there is mystery there is money”. The purpose of this memo is to bring clarity to the issues facing our nation and to demystify “tech” and the use of predictive modeling and to present a legislative and citizen centric path of reform.
The love of money and the spirit of competition can breed great selfishness and be very myopic and lead to myopic thinking. The Bible says “The love of money is the root of all evil”1 Timothy 6:10. When the love of money is accompanied by great power that is unchecked or self-absorbed, thoughts and behaviors can be very myopic, reckless, dangerous, harmful, evil and superficial and short sighted at best.
We are at a very bleak and dangerous point in our nation’s history. We are so polarized because personalities and programs dominate instead of people, principles and policies. Sadly, “opportunity”, especially money making opportunities in particular seem to be of top priority and chief value for our government leaders and many publically held corporation CEOs. These leaders allow money and “opportunity” to influence their offerings and decision making criteria to the point that serious problems and the true beauty of the country or company is overlooked. The greatness of America has always rested in her people, their spirit of brotherhood, and their spirit of ingenuity, a hardy working class where a family could live comfortably but not exorbitantly- led to greatness and even motivated our National Parks System. We are now a nation of have and have nots, with our young and our working middle class mired in debt with insufficient wages and little upside and our corporate leaders- especially of publicly held corporations remunerated annually with life changing wealth, perhaps 1000 times as much as their lowest paid full time worker and 300 to 400 times the rate of the median U.S. salary (of which they are a part) has led to an intrinsically unbalanced and unjust and unstable economy and leaders that are grossly out of touch with the people.
After World War II we became a leader in the free world and countries looked to us for good governance. This is no longer the case. They may look to us for money or aid, but not good governance. Our “exports” include a very warped view of capitalism featuring renegade social media companies and a stock market that defies reason that foreign companies can dual list on and generate a market cap greater than their nation’s GDP. Our leaders are incapable of understanding complex problems or dealing with out of control corporations and they don’t listen to ordinary citizens who are perhaps the best source of objective expertise for understanding such problems because they live with them. Our leaders impaired and limited thinking promotes and perpetuates the status quo- which has reached a breaking point.
In the United States, it is no secret that Washington DC is dripping in money. Money is allowed to buy access, money is allowed to influence thinking and decision making and money influences policies, legislation and laws. Money is allowed to rule. The thoughts and desires of those with the money dominate the landscape. This is true in political campaigns too. This is what has happened to our Federal Government- its politicians and their legislation, programs and policies and money even influences whose mail our leaders chose to read. Our leaders’ obsession with and lack of understanding of money is destroying us as a nation. We are beyond crypto!
A reading of the constitution and Bill of Rights coupled with a proper mindset shows Crypto Currencies clearly to be unconstitutional. Block Chain technology may have merit but inventing one’s own currency- there are no words! We now allow investments in such products to be traded and the Trump boys are actively pursuing it. Crypto currencies were invented by traders that knew the market was gamed and overvalued. Crypto is not just a mechanism for transfer, it is a currency based on solving math problems, in the case of Bit Coin. They are a way to make a quick illegitimate buck for the pioneers in this warped perspective of reality. Leaders like Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase Chairman and CEO, America’s largest bank, allowed Crypto securities-stocks are now traded on crypto currencies, “against his better judgment because it was what the market wanted”. Leaders are paid for their judgment.
While I and most of my fellow citizens can agree that the Federal Government is too large, inefficient and in many ways mal directed, simply having a one man firing squad is not likely to yield a fruitful long term outcome, nor a path towards restoration and it hurts many people and is very inhumane. In addition, it does little to shed light on our nation’s most pressing issues. It may also be a violation of contracts if not illegal and it is coming from the President of the United States of America.
Civilitiville USA sees:
- high industry concentration/monopolistic industry power,
- predictive modeling creating gross over-valuations for the stock market,
- the endless pot of money in healthcare,
- the merging of banking and securities and insurance and
- the allowance of intrinsically predatory personalized adverting practices and lack of respect for copyright and intellectual property by social media
As our country's five biggest challenges. Lack of Term limits and special interest/corporate lobbying are self-evident problematic core issues too.
Industry concentration is too high and of grave concern in most industries. We have lost the principal of subsidiarity. China in contrast has a manufacturing centric economy with 100s if not thousands of independent factories in a given industry. This presents greater stability and a greater opportunity for innovation. Communism hinders innovation but healthy competition in a monitored and regulated capital society yields wonders- just look at our economic past! The spirit of antitrust legislation has been grossly violated by many key industries and decision makers do not know how to assure that new technologies are vetted and then developed in the spirit of the common good. Most of social media should never have been allowed. The personalized advertising is a violation of the spirit of FCC laws and the violation of copyright laws is beyond measure. We are now at AI- which some, like Sec. of State and Marco Rubio and President Trump actually think AI creates intelligence! Nothing could be further from the truth.
The use of predictive modeling as a replacement for studying the fundamentals of an industry and company, coupled with institutional investors and index funds, yields a driven market where very few people know where their money is, let alone vote a proxy. With banks, securities and insurance all in one firm and with most retirement plans being a 401 K, the gamed and driven market has an endless supply of incoming money and little oversight, regulation or true investment. Trading has displaced investment and essentially forcing employees into Index funds with their 401Ks serves to benefit the investment firms, perhaps more so than the investor and I have a copy written letter from Vanguard basically stating that they invest in everybody no matter what, “Vanguard owns at least a small stake in nearly every publicly traded corporation in the United States.” Corporate performance is no longer scrutinized.
A random sample of NASDAQ companies showed gross over valuation of market cap in all cases, none of the companies were profitable and one had no revenue for five years.
Deterministic statistics was invented by NASA to solve for unknown variables and it is now used for software directed predictive modeling. Stock analysts now opening predict the range the share price will fall in for a given period- and this drives the market and is a form of price fixing. The market has put stops on downward falling markets. Deterministic statistics is explained on the Civilitiville.us website in the section A Few Words about Statistics.
Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and their companies Amazon and Tesla have been the biggest beneficiaries of predictive modeling coupled with machine trading. They are familiar with and have access to and use deterministic statistics in their private rocket companies that utilize NASA invented technology. Their stock gains are ill gotten and not reflective of the fundamentals of their industries and companies. Note that their share prices rose considerably while they were unprofitable. Predictive modeling can and does increase share price and market cap but it does not change the operating performance of a company and can and does overload the corporation with cash but makes providing a reasonable P/E ratio nearly impossible. A just stock price should reflect the net present value of the current and expected future earnings of the company, not the future stock price of the company. It is even questionable whether unprofitable companies should be able to go public.
Mr. Mercer of Renaissance Technologies, an investment firm, was a pioneer of predicative modeling in the stock market in the late 1980s/early 1990s and a late entrant into the Trump 2016 campaign and with his money came Kelly Ann Conway, an attorney and pollster and Steve Bannon, a fringe thinker. There is great reason to believe that predictive modeling played a role in the 2020 Trump campaign and as such is likely the main reason Trump believes with certainty he won the 2020 election. Trump campaign staffers could be heard talking to the media on Election Day with certainty that they knew what was going to happen and speaking of “their models”. This may have led to the thinking that the election was rigged and that voting machines were problematic, when in fact it was simply application of a scientific technique. This then led to an insurrection and an impeachment, ignorant of the motivating factor.
Voting is by definition unpredictable. Ask President Harry Truman! Voters are independent and although their demographics can be segmented and priorities can be segmented, their votes are independent and one time only. Predictive modeling does not cause people to vote in a certain way and for elections the models do not drive but for the stock market they drive because the variables are not independent and the process is repeated. NASA intended the science to be used to solve (estimate with certainty) variables that were only partially known or even completely unknown when going to the moon so they, for example could assure that they used the right gauge of steel for every part to meet the stresses they would likely face while simultaneously having to minimize weight so they would have enough fuel to get the rocket home. This is an interactive processes of maximizing and/or minimizing known variables in linear equations to “determine” what is appropriate while simultaneously taking all variables into consideration. It is a gross misuse the apply it to “predicting” a stock price and stock prices should never be predicted but rather traditional investing took into consideration the performance of the company, its growth and its profitability and its management, etc. over time as well as the industries size, growth, maturity , challenges and opportunities.
Tesla’s Board of Directors compensation has been called in to question and the Board recently settled and agreed to return nearly $1Billion (shares options cash) to the company. Musk’s compensation is incentive based largely on growth in market cap- for which he has been rewarded in the past. A part time CEO and Chairman is rare for a publicly held corporation and Musk’s remuneration is outside the norm too.
Here is an overview of Tesla 2024 Financials and other companies for comparison
A low but positive P/E value suggests the stock is overvalued. A high P/E value suggests the stock is overvalued.
Higher priced stocks in general benefit more from predictive modeling, index funds and machine trading.
Tesla can be compared to Auto Manufacturers Ford and GM, as well as Tech Company Apple and Uber Technologies which considers itself a tech company and is betting on self-driving vehicles. Note that Uber’s P/E ratio would be significantly higher were it not for the $6B tax release. Microsoft considers itself a software company. Amazon makes nearly all of its income from its cloud technology and its Prime membership fees. Its delivery service is highly disruptive and destructive to the economy and generates little income but enormous cash flow.
Amazon's (AMZN) highest price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 765.89 in the fourth quarter of 2022. Over the last ten years, the average PE ratio of Amazon Com has been 137.03. The current 37.87 price-to-earnings ratio is 72% less than the historical average. Analyzing the last ten years, AMZN's PE ratio reached its highest point in the Sep 2015 quarter at 639.6, with a price of $25.58 and an EPS of $0.04.
The S&P 500 PE Ratio for the time period 1928-1991 ranged between a low of 14.83 in 1928 to a high of 18.27 in 1961. It started at 7.33 in 1928 and ended at 8.49 in 1991. From 1992-present the range was between a low of 14.83 in 1994 and a high of 122 in 2009. It started at 25.49 in 1992 and ended at 28 in 2024. Investors in 1992-2024 are investing in stocks that yield less earning than those in1928-1991. This can probably best be explained by predictive modeling and machine trading which drive the share price to increase and by lower payable interest rates available as an alternative and by the use of institutional investors who put money in funds vs. buying individual stocks. A PE ration of 20 is 5%. A compounded interest rate of 5% doubles your money in 15 years and was historically considered a good normative wealth generating rate. A 15% compounded interest rate doubles your money in 5 years.
Tesla’s nesting of its “self-driving” with all of its vehicles to get scale is inappropriate and reckless. Mass self-driving vehicles is a delusionary and reckless concept and perhaps wouldn’t even be safe if it were mandated that all cars be self-driving and have no passengers- pedestrians and property could still be viable. A self-driving vehicle may only suitable for Mars. It is a pushed technology and not market driven. Were Tesla properly valued, Mr. Icahn could acquire it, shut down the self-driving and the world would be a better place.
With the exception of Macy’s all CEO compensation is excessive. The National average annual income is $66,000 and the median weekly income is $1109 or $57,600. The median is a more reflective measure, as CEO income is nested in the mean. $25,000,000 from a publicly held company is over 434 times the median U.S. and probably 500 times that of your lowest paid full time employee. The President of the United States is compensated at $400,000 and this should serve as a baseline. Corporate financial reporting should include this type of information and forcing people into the market when they don’t have the time or know how to invest is morally wrong. We need 5 percent compounded savings accounts at a minimum.
Rock Stars like Mr. Springsteen are not publicly held corporations and he indeed takes risks and should be rewarded. Executives at publicly held corporations do not take risks. They are compensated with a salary to assure the stability of the company. Companies used to compensate workers sufficiently so that they could support their families and save and were cared for long term with a pension. Now only upper management gets a pension. Musk maybe a rock star to some but a good CEO, even if he can sing and play the guitar must know how to think of others and lead people.
Musk grossly overpaid for Twitter at $42 billion and borrowed $9 billion to do so. A significant portion of Twitter’s revenue was international, suggesting that the domestic market might be mature.
Twitter has a valuation of $44 billion- what Mr. Musk has offered to pay and Spirit Airlines which is soon to be acquired by Frontier Airlines $2.5. Both are publicly held companies. Their financial statements are relatively similar and Spirit comes with 110 planes (assets).
Over the Past 5 Years: Twitter Spirit Airlines
(Range per year)
Total Revenue 3-5.2 Billion 1.8-3.8 Billion
Net Income Before Taxes 423 Million in 2018 519 Million in 2019
-411 Million in 2021* -431 Million in 2021
Total Assets 10-14 Billion** 4-10 Billion
Total Liabilities 2-5.5 Billion 6.4-6.7 Billion
*Twitters tax provisions have varied widely from tax payments of over $1 billion in 2020 and a tax credit/negative provision of over $1 Billion in 2019 and $700 million in 2018.
**9.5-11 Billion of Twitter Assets are Invested Capital: Invested capital is the total amount of money raised by a company by issuing securities to equity shareholders and debt to bondholders, where the total debt and capital lease obligations are added to the amount of equity issued to investors.
Musk’s gross overpayment manifests his lack of understanding of corporate financials and industry analysis and his skewed perception of the stock market. It doesn’t appear that President Trump has scrutinized Mr. Musk but rather given him carte blanche based on his “genius” and “being the wealthiest man in the world.
Space is per se National Security yet we have allowed it to be privatized by two men, Musk and Bezos who have gamed the stock market and shown great lack of restraint. They now have access to satellites and rockets and they have a vision of space as recreation travel for the wealthy. Musk has even sent a Tesla car into space. Why are they granted such immense privillage by our government is a very legitimate question. Musk and Bezos are allowed to play in the domain of National Security.
I used to joke that when the CEO gets fixated on a new logo or redecorating the lunchroom, it’s time to sell short.
Civilitiville USA is opposed to social media due to its intrinsically predatory advertising practices through the use of personalization and personal data mining, its concentration of power sustains it and its lack of respect for copy right and intellectual property is criminal and warrants clawbacks. Social media coupled with extremely poor legislation regarding communications has led to a breakdown of objective reliable news in the United States and this leads to an ignorant society.
Elon Musk drives Doge traffic to X and Trump drives his communications as President of the United States of America to his publicly held platform Truth Social. This is a per se monetization of their government roles. All the while banning the AP from the White House and courts upholding the ban all over a “national pride builder” motivated renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.
DOGE has no email and its website is pathetic it refers/links you to X. Forms are commonplace and referred to as emails but they are not emails. SEC Chair Gary Gensler was one of the few government officials that had an actual email available for the general public.
The only beacon of light in the new administration is the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as HHS Secretary.
Healthcare is sacred. People are sacred. The body and its care is sacred and Mr. Kennedy sees this. He is also not dissuaded by status quo thought from poorly constructed or gamed research promulgated through advertising and pay offs as definitive science when it is not. Mr. Kennedy has a healthy attitude and respect for money and a love of the poor.
The money in healthcare is exorbitant and non-ending and the $42 billion plus in annual Federal grant money for health research has become the backbone of selfish and poor research, most of which is unscientific and agenda seeking. Sen Amy Klobuchar can be seen in her ignorance objecting to cuts in NIH grant money- let me ask her, when was the last time she read a study? Or sampled 15 studies to see if they were insightful and contributed to building a body of knowledge. Our government leaders are largely ignorant yet they open their mouths and push agendas.
Innovation has been used by Big Pharma and Politicians to justify exorbitant drug prices and profit margins but the truth is innovation does not require money necessarily, it requires human ingenuity and a touch of the Divine. Do we really want to innovate the human body anyway?, but rather understand the body and help it. Discovery is what is really to be sought in healthcare, not innovation. Discovery takes study and an open mind and focuses on the body and how it works. Innovation pushes pills.
Civilitiville USA’s New Life Health Ventures presents our work in healthcare and science. Our summary report on the Discoveries of the Peptide Relaxin is perhaps our best and most important work and we are grateful to all the scientists whose work we read and cited to compile it. The Relaxin Summary report is found on the New Life Health Ventures Section of the Civilitiville.us site. Relaxin was thought to only come in play in helping spread the hips when women are pregnant but is now known to impact almost every part of the body and play a role in many complicated conditions like autism, lupus, metabolic syndrome and more. Relaxin plays a communicative role in the body and sadly can be damaged by many pharmaceuticals.
The Restore American Corps section of the Civilitiville.us website contains thought provoking and educational spreadsheets of Founding Acts and Events and 200 Acts and Events that got us to where we are today (one version is categorized by area and branch of government and Catholic Social Teachings). This work presents both an explanation of how we got to where we are today and how we as a nation can restore our nation and make our nation a more just and perfect union.
Finally, The Restore America Corps idea was widely circulated and well received and even received a very personal and frame ready response from then Vice President Kamala Harris. It is worth reading. It is worth pursuing. It presents a citizen centric approach to analyzing our issues and developing solutions. It too can be found on the website on the Restore America Corps page.
This memo and website links provide much food for thought. The 20for2020 Newsletters were extremely insightful too. I pray you take the time to read, study, talk to others, ask questions, contemplate and pray and think about what you can do to make America decent and allow her people to make her great again.
As Gen Charles deGaulle said, “America is good because America does good.” At present, much of what our European Allies see of America is recklessness, lawlessness and evil and they have been patient with us for over 20 years. Country’s come and go and no country is intrinsically good, not even the Vatican. Senator Harry Truman and his commission brought overt corruption successfully to light and the resolutions were passed unanimously and were effective. Our leaders today are so out of touch, their actions are not for the common good and in many cases like the recent UN vote, don’t even reflect reality. President Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.” The buck stops with you Mr. Trump, don’t spend it all in one place.