The Normalization of Theft Is Crushing Investors

My friend Connie is a nurse.

She lives in Texas and works with cancer patients, most of whom are veterans.

It’s a tough job, both physically and emotionally.

She told me few of her patients ever leave the hospital alive. It’s sad, but as she says, “It’s just the reality of the job.”

I can’t imagine having a job like that. I don’t think I have the emotional strength to deal with all that sadness. I think you just have to be a special kind of person to do that job. And certainly, such a job does pay well. It has to, as there aren’t many folks who can do it. 

While Connie’s job isn’t easy, she earns over $160,000 a year. And just to make sure she doesn’t leave, she was given a $15,000 bonus last year — completely out of the blue.

So many nurses are getting burned out and leaving the profession entirely that hospitals are bending over backward to ensure more don’t quit. 

Of course, for those nurses who haven’t quit and have no intention of quitting, they’re doing really, really well financially. 

Connie, a single mom, owns her own home debt-free. She has more than $1 million put away for her retirement and has about $100,000 in a trading account that she uses to play the stock market. She also took delivery of a Tesla Model S last year, which she paid for in cash.

Don’t get me wrong — Connie works hard and puts in a lot of hours. She’s actually been doing weekend shifts for more than a year now to help with COVID testing and vaccinations on top of her regular weekly hours. 

She told me that she always wanted to be a nurse. Since she was in elementary school, she knew nursing would be her chosen career. But she never expected that such a job (along with some very smart investments) would lead her to financial independence. 

But it did, and now her daughter will be going to college next year and plans to become a nurse too.

A smart move, as the supply/demand scenario for nurses will always be in her favor. 

Unfortunately, there are a lot of other folks going to college who will graduate with no tangible skills to land them a decent job with decent pay. And I suspect those kids will take out huge loans, be unable to pay them back, and then request that the government “forgive” those loans, which is really just a fancy way of saying you don’t want to pay back your debt.

This is becoming a real problem in this country — the idea that if you borrow money but find it hard to pay back, you can just walk away from your debt obligations.

They call it debt forgiveness. I call it theft. 

Of course, theft is almost becoming “acceptable” these days.

The Normalization of Theft

I was listening to the Michael Rapaport podcast the other day when the outspoken actor and comedian talked about how he went to his local Rite Aid to pick up some medicine and watched a man fill up a bag with a bunch of random items from the store and then simply walk right out.

He walked right by the security guard, who did nothing, because apparently they’re not allowed to stop these folks.

Rapaport talked to the pharmacist about what he saw, and she said it happens every single day. It’s so bad that they’re actually shutting down that location, and she doesn’t know if she’ll have a job after that. 

What kind of world do we live in where we give thieves more rights than hardworking folks who are just trying to make a living? 

There’s even a website that details how to be an effective shoplifter, offering “rules to follow,” such as:

1. Avoid video surveillance.
2. Don’t shoplift in the shop where you buy bread every day.
3. Choose different stores.
4. Use shoplifting clothes and accessories.
5. Keep your cool.
6. Place the stuff back if you are not certain.
7. Know your rights. 
8. Be a good runner!

Know your rights?

Imagine being a security guard, catching someone stealing clothes, and then the shoplifter says, “I know my rights.”

And “be a good runner?”

This isn’t a joke.

It’s not funny.

People are losing their jobs.

Communities are losing stores that help bolster property values.

From student debt cancellation to illegal music and movie downloads to consequence-free shoplifting, we’ve literally normalized theft.

And while I may not know how to fix this problem, I do know that you now have to consider how the normalization of theft affects your investment decisions.

In other words, what kinds of companies can you invest in where the normalization of theft will not have an impact on performance?

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Royalty payments on million-dollar energy assets that deliver monthly double-digit gains.
• New biotech revolutions, like this one that Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel have already invested in — to the tune of $186 million. 
• An under-the-radar company that may have found a cure to age-related diseases, such as heart disease, stroke, and chronic pain. 

These are all companies that will never have to worry about brazen shoplifters or folks looking for debt “forgiveness.”

And these are all companies that could make you a lot of money this year.

Invest accordingly.

To a new way of life and a new generation of wealth…

Jeff Siegel

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Jeff is the founder and managing editor of Green Chip Stocks. For more on Jeff, go to his editor’s page.

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