by John Walters
PSG Has Already Won World Cup
France will meet Argentina in Sunday’s World Cup final, which means that Ligue 1 club Paris St. Germain has already won the title. How come? Because each squad’s premier player, respectively Kylian Mbappe and Lionel Messi, toil for PSG.
Only eight different countries have ever won the World Cup. Seven of them were in Qatar the past month (sorry, Italy). Two of them advanced to the semis, with Morocco and Croatia hoping to crack the code of eight. Instead, we have defending champion France and two-time (1978, 1986) champion Argentina, hoping to secure Messi’s place as, at-worst, the second-greatest player in history. In fact, it’s probably already secured.
The last five World Cups have been won by five different countries, which would extend to six should Argentina win Sunday. We believe Mbappe is the best player in the world right now, but Argentina seems to have the sense of urgency and history on their side.
Aspirational vs. Actual
It was a few years ago now; we were all committed to improving ourselves. Maybe we decided upon this after a Joaquin Phoenix awards show speech, or once we donned Covid masks. We were going to save the Earth, and ourselves.
And so a two to three years ago here were some stock prices of some aspirational companies: Beyond Meat (BYND) at $234, Peloton (PTON) at $171 and Tesla (TSLA) at $402. Meat-free burgers, home-spinning and electric vehicles. Today BYND opened at around $11 per share, as did PTON while Tesla is just above $150 (that last stock price has much more to do with its founder’s obsession with Twitter).
In the same time frame, shares of McDonald’s (MCD) have more than doubled, from $122 to $272. Human nature is a safe bet. Alas.
Heisman Sham
We’re in kind of a rush, so forgive us if we just copy and link our tweet-thread from earlier this morning…
Plenty of talk in the investment world about ESG stocks/funds . . . surely there’s a fund that invests in nothing but unhealthy/personally destructive behavior (tobacco, alcohol, soda, fast food, gambling, etc.). Seems absolutely recession-proof and bear-market-proof.