The sampler. This week’s edition of the Evergreen Virtual Advisor is a trilogy of recent short articles by three of my favorite thinkers at our partner firm Gavekal. The first is a timely essay by Tan Kai Xian (fortunately he is kind enough to let us refer to him as KX!). As you will soon read, he reflects on last week’s embarrassing flame-out of Obamacare reform and discusses the potential implications for tax reform.

Strange bedfellows: angry voters and market highs. It might seem odd, in the midst of the rampant bullishness engulfing markets since the election—and further stoked by Pres. Trump’s enthusiastically received congressional speech this week—to bring up the topic of social malaise. However, since Evergreen investment team members are congenital contrarians, we will do exactly that in this issue of the Gavekal EVA.

Upsetting the dollar cart? The year 1971 has been on my mind a lot this week. On a personal note, my wife and I have been staying at one of Arizona’s oldest and most charming resorts, the Wigwam, right outside Phoenix. It was established in 1927 by the Goodyear (as in tires) family on a “mere” 17,000 acres. Upon arrival in those days, guests were given a key—and a horse! Even on horseback, it must have taken weeks to see the entire spread.

Bye-bye buy-backs? First of all, Happy 2017 to all our EVA readers! Hopefully, the coming year will provide an opportunity for those few remaining contrarians out there—amongst a swelling throng of passive investors—to generate respectable profits and nail down some attractive yields. It’s also my hope that what I’m going to convey next won’t severely undercut the happy New Year sentiments I’ve just expressed.