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The Great Financial Bubble Of Every Bubble Being Pricked By The General Move To Somewhat Greater Degrees Of Financial Sanity

A holiday topic starting with NPR. “Seattle Times business reporter Paul Roberts spoke to KUOW’s Angela King: I’ve talked with a number of workers from India and from China who are really not sure what to do. Some have been here for years. They’ve got families. They’ve purchased houses. Now, they’re faced with scrambling to find a new employer that will sponsor them through the immigration process. One of the big factors behind the cooling housing market is that you now have a lot of tech workers who either are getting laid off or are just kind of concerned about maybe getting laid off. Those are the men and women whose high incomes allowed them to not worry about affordability, so they could continue to buy houses and to rent expensive apartments. That helped prop up the Seattle-area housing market.”

From Bloomberg. “After years of exuberant growth and hiring, layoffs have burst the bubble of Silicon Valley inviolability. A worker at Amazon recently lost their job because the team they worked for was eliminated. ‘LinkedIn is a pit of despair right now,’ the person said.”

From Fortune. “Employees at Google are bracing for ramped up work anxiety as the Silicon Valley giant intensifies its performance review process for the end of the year. Those inside and outside the Mountain View headquarters are looking to see if the tech giant will be next to put employees on the chopping block. ‘Google execs will want to cut people,’ a former executive at the company told Insider. ‘Just to clean up the culture by making people a little more scared.'”

From Rest of World. “Citra had only joined GoTo Group, the massive Indonesian ride-hailing and e-commerce decacorn, in early October 2022. So it was a shock when, a month and a half later, she discovered she’d been fired as part of mass layoffs. On November 18, the Alibaba and SoftBank-backed company, valued at some $15 billion, announced it was laying off 12% of its roughly 10,500-person permanent workforce. ‘[At the] end of the day the company [is] only about saving their asses … losing competition with [Grab] and demand from downturn is very apparent,’ one impacted worker commented in a GoTo thread on Ecommurz.”

“‘Most of the startups that are doing mass layoffs now were ‘pandemic darlings,’ Bhima Yudhistira Adhinegara, a director of the Center of Economic and Law Studies (Celios), wrote in a memo. Their over-optimism for future growth led to overstaffing, he wrote. Business leaders dismissed the possibility of people going back to offline stores once Covid-19 restrictions eased, which was exactly what happened.”

From ABC Business. “Author and former financier Satyajit Das said the cryptocurrency market had been propped up by rampant liquidity and cheap cash pumped into the financial system by central banks. ‘I can understand why people went into crypto. It was populist anger,’ Mr Das said. ‘There is a whole bunch of people who are very skilled in terms of exploiting investors’ desire for rapid riches.’ Mr Das’s comments come as the fallout continues from the spectacular collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX.”

“Overall, the market capitalisation of the crypto market has dived from roughly $US3 trillion this time last year to about $US800 billion. ‘That’s a loss of over 70 per cent,’ Mr Das told The Business. ‘One way to think about the cryptocurrency problems at the moment is it’s part of, essentially, the great financial bubble of every bubble being pricked,’ he said. ‘And that’s being pricked by higher interest rates, and the general move to somewhat greater degrees of financial sanity.'”

“This is where Mr Das pointed to the financial sector issue that ‘nobody is really taking much notice’ about. Broadly, traditional financial markets have also been selling-off all year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq on Wall Street is down 30 per cent in a year. The broader S&P 500 is off around 18 per cent. ‘The losses in cryptocurrencies pale into insignificance when you compare them to the $30 trillion worth of write downs in assets,’ Mr Das said. ‘Which are going on in equities, they’re going on in bonds, they’re going in private market assets in housing. So it’s part of an overall adjustment in valuation.'”

“‘People are now basically having a cold shower,’ Mr Das said. ‘This has been coming for four or five years. It’s not a surprise to anybody who’s been actually looking at it carefully.’ ‘I think there’s two runaway trains, which have been running away for a while,’ he said. ‘One is geopolitics. And the other one is de-globalisation, particularly in the form of sanctions and trade restrictions, which are accelerating around the world. And that has a tendency historically to de-stabilise growth and economic prosperity fairly radically.'”

The Los Angeles Times. “The most uplifting aspect of the Sam Bankman-Fried story was always that he guided his way to a putative cryptocurrency fortune of more than $16 billion by following a philosophy of charitable giving known as ‘effective altruism.’ Adam Fisher, the author of a credulous profile of Bankman-Fried published in September by the venture firm Sequoia Capital, which invested in FTX,asked his subject how much money would be too much: ‘So, is five trillion all you could ever use to help the world?'”

“The denouement of this story is now well-known. Bankman-Fried’s crypto company has collapsed in a whirlwind, amid indications that it may have defrauded customers who deposited their funds with FTX to buy cryptocurrencies. Billions of dollars are missing. FTX and effective altruism existed in a sort of symbiotic relationship. Bankman-Fried posed as a world-beating philanthropist. During an appearance in May before a House committee, he boasted about personally committing to ‘donating 99% of his wealth.'”

“Yet the siren call of Bankman-Fried’s wealth blinded MacAskill and his colleagues to the void at the center of the cryptocurrency concept itself: It’s a field rife with fraud and chicanery and lacking any cogent case for its usefulness. That Bankman-Fried would exploit his image as a philanthropist to obscure the flaws in his enterprise seems almost predetermined.”

“Interviewed via text messages by Kelsey Piper of Vox.com, Bankman-Fried seemed to acknowledge, as Piper put it, that ‘the ethics stuff’ was ‘mostly a front.’ ‘Yeah,’ he replied. “I mean that’s not all of it but it’s a lot. … It’s what reputations are made of, to some extent.'”

The Tribune News Service. “We have now witnessed the collapse of the largest (so far) 21st-century ‘tulip bubble’ as the FTX Crypto Exchange collapsed — taking down the value of the best-known cryptocurrencies, along with the equity of some very sophisticated players and the wealth dreams of small-time investors. When it was revealed that the FTX ‘exchange’ was backed by capital denominated in crypto tokens created by its founder Sam Bankman-Fried with no intrinsic value, the ‘Ponzi scheme’ collapsed into a $32 billion loss of value in one day.”

“Accounts are frozen. It is likely that those who held their cryptocurrencies at FTX will lose most of their value. And the major financial players who invested in FTX — including some big Wall Street venture firms — have lost billions. It’s a scenario reminiscent of Enron: balance-sheet shenanigans, no-value assets, interlocking companies — and no transparency. Yes, laws were changed after Enron — but FTX operated in an unregulated global marketplace, headquartered in the Bahamas. As in Enron, money has simply disappeared.”

“But a generation of young investors who thought they had discovered a new way to instant wealth is going to get burned. Not only did they lose out on ‘meme’ stocks like Robinhood, and now crypto prices, but their other tech heroes are proving vulnerable, too. And Meta Platforms’ stock (the former Facebook) had a similar dizzying plunge from a high around $350 to just over $100, as founder Mark Zuckerberg announced the need to lay off 13% of his workforce as he overindulged his passion for the ‘metaverse’ and spent way too much corporate cash to make his dream come true. Now, it has turned into a nightmare for more than 11,000 employees — as well as shareholders.”

“Do you see what they all have in common? They all had plenty of cash while the game lasted. But now that the Fed is raising rates (the cost of capital) and sucking excess liquidity out of the market by selling its portfolio of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, cash has become more valuable, and scrutiny of corporate value has become more intense. There is no free lunch. Another generation is learning that lesson.”

From Mises.org. “The so-called expansionary policies have not been an instrument for reducing debt, but rather for increasing it. In the second quarter of 2022, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the global debt-to-GDP ratio will approach 350 percent of GDP. IIF anticipates that the global debt-to-GDP ratio will reach 352 percent by the end of 2022.”

“Global issuances of high-yield debt have slowed but remain elevated. According to the IMF, the total issuance of European and American high-yield bonds reached a record high of $1,6 trillion in 2021, as businesses and investors capitalized on still low interest rates and high liquidity. According to the IMF, high-yield bond issuances in the United States and Europe will reach $700 billion in 2022, similar to 2008 levels. All of the risky debt accumulated over the past few years will need to be refinanced between 2023 and 2025, requiring the refinancing of over $10 trillion of the riskiest debt at much higher interest rates and with less liquidity.”

“The United States has $31 trillion in outstanding debt with a five-year average maturity, resulting in $5 trillion in refinancing needs during fiscal 2023 and a $2 trillion budget deficit. The situation in the eurozone is even worse. Governments in the euro area are accustomed to negative nominal and real interest rates. The majority of the major European economies have issued negative-yielding debt over the past three years and must now refinance at significantly higher rates. France and Italy have longer average debt maturities than the United States, but their debt and growing structural deficits are also greater. Morgan Stanley estimates that, over the next two years, the major economies of the eurozone will require a total of $3 trillion in refinancing.”

“Although at higher rates, governments will refinance their debt. What will become of businesses and families? If quantitative tightening is added to the liquidity gap, a credit crunch is likely to ensue. However, the issue is not rate hikes but excessive debt accumulation complacency.”

“Explaining to citizens that negative real interest rates are an anomaly that should never have been implemented is challenging. Families may be concerned about the possibility of a higher mortgage payment, but they are oblivious to the fact that house prices have skyrocketed due to risk accumulation caused by excessively low interest rates.”

“The magnitude of the monetary insanity since 2008 is enormous, but the glut of 2020 was unprecedented. Between 2009 and 2018, we were repeatedly informed that there was no inflation, despite the massive asset inflation and the unjustified rise in financial sector valuations. This is inflation, massive inflation. It was not only an overvaluation of financial assets, but also a price increase for irreplaceable goods and services. The FAO food index reached record highs in 2018, as did the housing, health, education, and insurance indices. Those who argued that printing money without control did not cause inflation, however, continued to believe that nothing was wrong until 2020, when they broke every rule.”

“In 2020–21, the annual increase in the US money supply (M2) was 27 percent, more than 2.5 times higher than the quantitative easing peak of 2009 and the highest level since 1960. Negative yielding bonds, an economic anomaly that should have set off alarm bells as an example of a bubble worse than the ‘subprime’ bubble, amounted to over $12 trillion. But statism was pleased because government bonds experienced a bubble. Statism always warns of bubbles in everything except that which causes the government’s size to expand.”

“In the eurozone, the increase in the money supply was the greatest in its history, nearly three times the Draghi-era peak. Today, the annualized rate is greater than 6 percent, remaining above Draghi’s ‘bazooka.’ All of this unprecedented monetary excess during an economic shutdown was used to stimulate public spending, which continued after the economy reopened … And inflation skyrocketed. However, according to Lagarde, inflation appeared ‘out of nowhere.'”

“All of the excess of unproductive debt issued during a period of complacency will exacerbate the problem in 2023 and 2024. Even if refinancing occurs smoothly but at higher costs, the impact on new credit and innovation will be enormous, and the crowding out effect of government debt absorbing the majority of liquidity and the zombification of the already indebted will result in weaker growth and decreased productivity in the future.”

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This Post Has 138 Comments

  1. Be thankful today that the war in Ukraine is ending soon.

    Peace negotiations are under way, and the terms will include the surrender of territory that rightfully belongs to Russia.

    The war is over.

      1. Putin’s vaunted and feared airborne battalions are being shredded by the 100s, daily, using the particularly lethal M30A1 rockets that are packing 182,000 pieces of tungsten shrapnel capable of killing soldiers in bunkers and trenches down to depths of 3-meters, and destroying trucks within an effective radius of 65-meters. Precision targeting coordinates from surveillance satellites are automatically fed to the HIMARS computer targeting systems from the other side of the planet. The Ukrainians are simply trained to drive these vehicles, reload the munitions, reboot the computers, etc.

          1. The Russians are now buying cheap drones and artillery rounds from Iran, so they’re getting desperate. No way they can wage WW3 given their present logistics. I don’t have to mention their young men cohort, right? 🙂

        2. rockets that are packing 182,000 pieces of tungsten shrapnel capable of killing soldiers in bunkers and trenches down to depths of 3-meters

          Unlikely.

          2. I’m pretty sure we don’t use pure tungsten metal for grenade missile stuff. The military is pretty sure too.

  2. ‘All of the excess of unproductive debt issued during a period of complacency will exacerbate the problem in 2023 and 2024’

    This is the root of globalist scum ‘management’ of the economy. Sure we can send our jobs to communist China, but we’ll have never ending shack price growth and you can refi and go to Hawaii!

    You take a $25,000 shack in Palo Alto (1970’s) and turn it into a couple million$. It’s the same shack but now you have to pay interest on that every year. That is unproductive debt. It does nothing of value for the participants or the economy.

    So we end up with ‘tech’ companies borrowing huge sums to run taxis or bed and breakfast party shacks next door or deliver food or rent fecking desks! It’s all unproductive.

      2. The newest headsets have multiple positioning cameras on them to record every inch of your surroundings for the NSA. We know the phones are recording everything, why wouldn’t the headsets?

    2. Meanwhile, Twitter is still operational. It’s got some issues, but considering that they just got a new boss and jettisoned 5000+ (give or take) useless ballast, they’re doing pretty well.

    3. All of the usual suspects made a killing. These globalists aren’t stupid, they’re looting the world’s various treasuries while saddling the plebs with the debt.

  3. Oh bullsh!t

    It was a get rich casino.

    No one “invested” out of anger.

    ‘I can understand why people went into crypto. It was populist anger,’

    1. I think I know what he was getting at. It was discussed a lot after President Trump won. As often happens the globalist scum do a bit of soul searching when they get their a$$ kicked. Some said people were pissed at how the housng bubble played out. Bankers didn’t go to jail, were rewarded even. The central bank got more power. No one in DC was punished.

      Bill Clinton talked about how ‘Americans haven’t had a raise in 30 years.’ We all know that. Moms have to work instead of taking care of their children. There is no job security when a 2 or 3% increase in interest rates clobbers the global economy. And great! we now have food inflation that is running well over 20%.

  4. Which is another way of saying bribes to democrat marxists for more far left woked laws and regulations.

    “‘effective altruism.”

    1. Something tells me that “effective altruism” and “modern monetary theory” are Democratic Party memes which are destined for burial in the aftermath of the Everything Bubble.

  5. Wall Street Journal — How Crypto’s Collapse May Have Done the Economy a Favor (11/23/2022):

    “While bankruptcy filings aren’t entirely clear, they describe many of the largest creditors as customers or other crypto-related companies. Crypto companies, in other words, operate in a closed loop, deeply interconnected within that loop but with few apparent connections of significance to traditional finance. This explains how an asset class once worth roughly $3 trillion could lose 72% of its value, and prominent intermediaries could go bust, with no discernible spillovers to the financial system.

    “Crypto space…is largely circular,” Yale University economist Gary Gorton and University of Michigan law professor Jeffery Zhang write in a forthcoming paper. “Once crypto banks obtain deposits from investors, these firms borrow, lend, and trade with themselves. They do not interact with firms connected to the real economy.”

    https://archive.ph/pRBYX

    I just watched the film The Big Short for the first time last night.

    “Subprime is contained”

    1. Wall Street Journal — FTX Says Substantial Amount of Crypto Assets Stolen or Missing (11/23/2022):

      “A substantial amount of FTX’s assets are either missing or stolen, a lawyer for the failed crypto exchange said in court, vowing to cast a wide net to secure potentially billions of dollars in funds that passed through the firm he called the “personal fiefdom” of co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

      Tuesday’s hearing marked an inflection point for FTX’s bankruptcy case as its new leaders begin chasing down what assets they can salvage and trying to determine who might be responsible for the loss of customers’ money.

      “FTX was in the control of inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals, and some or all of them were compromised individuals,” said James Bromley, counsel to FTX’s new management, at its first appearance in Delaware bankruptcy court after filing the largest-ever crypto chapter 11 case earlier this month.

      The new management is only beginning to take stock of how much FTX lost under Mr. Bankman-Fried on risky trading bets, and it has assembled a team of investigators to lead a global hunt for money that left FTX before it failed.

      Prosecutors in New York and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are examining the firm’s collapse, which unleashed a new wave of financial stress in the cryptocurrency industry.

      Customers’ funds on the exchange are frozen, and they are losing hope they will ever get much back. The size of the gap between FTX’s obligations to its customers and available assets it could use to help pay them still isn’t known, though Mr. Bromley said its individual and institutional customers number in the millions. The 50 largest creditors alone are owed more than $3 billion, court papers show.

      https://archive.ph/ezUPP

      1. https://www.pymnts.com/cryptocurrency/2022/ftx-ties-to-farmington-state-bank-in-us-are-probed/

        “The fact that an offshore hedge fund that was basically a crypto firm was buying a stake in a tiny bank for multiples of its stated book value should have raised massive red flags for the FDIC [Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation], state regulators and the Federal Reserve,” Calvert Advisors President and CEO Camden Fine, a bank industry consultant, said in the report. “It’s just astonishing that all of this got approved.”

        Federal regulators would have needed to approve FTX buying a stake in a U.S.-licensed bank, and experts said it’s unlikely that they would have knowingly done so, according to the report.

      2. Digital Coin Group is a crypto enterprise on approximately the same scale as FTX. Here are some of my favorite “investments” in their “portfolio” from their webpage. The “portfolio” consists of about 100 companies whose mission statements are word salads of techno mambo jumbo. The only thing I can find out about this company is that it was founded by Barry Silbert. I don’t see any information on the webpage about a board of directors, CFO, CTO, legal team, accounting, advisors, etc. Something seems just a little bit fishy about this operation aside from that fact their bitcoin investment arm is refusing audits claiming “security concerns”.

        WENEW immortalizes cultures’ most iconic moments on the blockchain. It unites trailblazers of human achievement with collectors of culture and legacy, creating a revolutionary link between patrons and celebrated icons.

        Immersive 5D Metaverse built on Ethereum, Unreal Engine 5 and ZERO. Wilder World is powered by the WILD token which is used on the Wilder World Metaverse Market to buy and trade NFTs with in-world utility.

        Posabit payment solution for cannabis industry
        The premier digital currency payment solution, bringing greater transparency, traceability, and safety to recreational MJ retail stores.

        Artie
        A machine learning-powered platform allows businesses, brands, and media companies to deploy world-aware, always-on, Interactive Avatars.

        Big time

        A videogame tech company building infrastructure to introduce NFTs into player-owned economies and set new standards in gaming.

        Decentraland is a decentralized virtual world that allows anyone to create, experience, and monetize 3D content.

        Figure is a financial technology company leveraging blockchain, AI, and analytics to deliver innovative home equity release solutions and other products that help improve the financial lives of our customers.

      3. Crypto has provided a means for the usual scammers in the financial industry to rehypothecate something doesn’t even exist in physical reality. At least, in the financial scams of yesteryear there was a phantom physical asset somewhere that gave a vague improbable semblance of legitimacy, even it was the London Bridge or Eiffel Tower.

        1. “Crypto has provided a means for the usual scammers in the financial industry to rehypothecate something doesn’t even exist in physical reality.”

          Dollars having been converted into nonexistent digital assets could make it very challenging to recover the missing billions of dollars in the FTX implosion aftermath.

    2. “Once crypto banks obtain deposits from investors, these firms borrow, lend, and trade with themselves. They do not interact with firms connected to the real economy.”

      This is an ideal situation from a regulatory standpoint. Crypto investors don’t like regulatory oversight, and none is needed. Powell bux go to crypto banks to die, and since these black hole banks are decooupled from the real economy, there is no systemic risk and hence no need for costly and unwelcome regulatory intervention.

    1. Happy Thanksgiving, you filthy animals! Hope everyone is doing well”

      🙂

      You should write for Hallmark.

      1. I could use a side hustle…

        it was either “filthy animals” or “basket of deplorables”…I stand by my choice 🙂

    1. “Sam Bankman-Fried to appear at New York Times conference despite FTX bankruptcy”

      https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/11/why-hasnt-crypto-scammer-and-dem-donor-sam-bankman-fried-been-arrested/
      Why Hasn’t Crypto-Scammer and Dem Donor Sam Bankman-Fried Been Arrested?

      “Bankman-Fried – the second biggest donor to Democrats behind George Soros – has all but admitted that he squandered billions of dollars of other people’s money carelessly”
      Posted by Mike LaChance Wednesday, November 23, 2022 at 04:00pm

      “Bankman-Fried – the second biggest donor to Democrats behind George Soros – has all but admitted that he squandered billions of dollars of other people’s money carelessly, writing “I f*cked up” on Twitter in a mea culpa about two weeks ago, days after a run on his exchange exposed it to be a shell of what many perceived it to be.”

      “It’s who you know: The intricate web linking FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, Dems and DC establishment”

      Maxine Waters posed for pictures with this guy.

      Maxine Waters is chairing the investigation into FTX.
      SBF was 2nd largest donor to Democrats behind George Soros. pic.twitter.com/vq5W32KBaB

      — Truth We The People ™ (@TruthWeThePeop1) November 18, 2022

      ———–

      – “Rules for thee, but not for me.”
      – The system is completely corrupt.
      – Bankman-Fried = Bernie Madoff on steriods.
      – Don’t worry though, ’cause Senator Running Deer and the SEC have your back. Oh, wait… 🙂

    2. ‘Why aren’t you in jail already?’ Internet erupts after Sam Bankman-Fried confirms participating in New York Times’ DealBook

      They don’t even try to hide the corruption anymore. It’s as “in your face” as can be.

  8. Remember when we used to lock up financial criminals instead of exalting them? Neither do I.

    Sam Bankman-Fried to appear at New York Times conference despite FTX bankruptcy

    https://www.news.com.au/finance/money/investing/sam-bankmanfried-to-appear-at-new-york-times-conference-despite-ftx-bankruptcy/news-story/2e02d2fd6e584cc5b3148d0f6ba14a2f

    Disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has sparked outrage and disbelief after revealing an upcoming appearance.

      1. Former Chief Accounting Officer for Beazer Homes USA, Inc. Convicted of Corporate Accounting Fraud
        U.S. Attorney’s Office October 28, 2011

        CHARLOTTE, NC—Michael T. Rand, 48, of Alpharetta, Georgia, and former chief accounting officer for Beazer Homes USA, Inc. (“Beazer”), has been convicted by a federal jury of seven crimes relating to a seven-year accounting fraud conspiracy at Beazer, as well as document destruction and obstruction of justice. The charges arise from an ongoing government investigation involving Beazer and its employees that began in March 2007. In July 2009, a federal bill of information was filed in U.S. District Court charging Beazer with, among other things, participation in the conspiracy and securities fraud with Rand. Beazer accepted responsibility for those charges and, in a deferred prosecution agreement, agreed to pay restitution of $50 million. Rand was indicted in August 2010.

        Today’s verdict is announced by Attorney for the United States David A. Brown of the Western District of North Carolina, and Chris Briese, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division. Rand’s jury trial commenced in federal court in Charlotte before Chief U.S. District Judge Robert J. Conrad, Jr., on October 11, 2011. “This was an important case. Our free markets are dependent on the honesty and integrity of the people who manage our publicly traded corporations. When senior executives like Rand put personal gain ahead of their responsibility to investors, they jeopardize the very foundations of our economy. Our Office is proud to be a part of the effort to root out corporate corruption,” Brown stated. “Michael Rand selfishly profited while so many others were suffering in the struggling housing industry. Today’s verdict is a stark reminder that the FBI partners with many law enforcement agencies to expose these type of criminal schemes and bring those offenders to justice,” said Special Agent in Charge Briese.

        Rand was convicted of directing an accounting fraud conspiracy to falsify reported profits at Beazer by lying to Beazer’s auditors, fraudulently achieving earnings targets, falsifying Beazer’s books and records, and deceiving the public by boosting and lowering earnings at Beazer. According to the evidence at trial, Rand executed the conspiracy in two main ways: Between 2005 and 2006, Rand entered into a hidden oral side agreement with another company through one of its employees, which was designed to allow Beazer to obtain cash and to improperly report revenue from purported “sales” of model homes. This activity was in direct contravention of the accounting rules and hidden from Beazer’s auditors. Between 2000 and 2007, Rand directed a scheme to commit securities fraud and create false books and records at Beazer by practicing “cookie jar accounting,” which allowed Rand and others to falsely report profits in Beazer’s publicly reported financial statements.

        Rand was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, to make false and misleading statements to auditors and accountants, to circumvent Beazer’s internal accounting controls, and to falsify the books, records, and accounts of Beazer. Rand was also convicted of engaging in a wire fraud conspiracy, and securities fraud upon Beazer investors and others in connection with the sale of Beazer’s common stock.

        The jury also convicted Rand of two charges of obstruction of a Federal Grand Jury investigation and a charge of destroying documents in violation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (also known as the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act) . The evidence at trial showed that after being notified of the Federal Grand Jury’s investigation of Beazer in March 2007, Rand deleted nearly 10,000 e-mails, including emails containing evidence of his accounting fraud as well as the mortgage fraud occurring at Beazer Mortgage Corporation, an entity shut down by Beazer as a result of this investigation. Finally, the jury convicted Rand of lying to hinder an investigation by the FBI Office in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of North Carolina, by making numerous false statements to investigators on behalf of the Audit Committee of Beazer’s Board of Directors, after learning that such false statements would be reported to the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s Office.

        A sentencing date for Rand, who is released on bond, has not been set yet. Rand faces maximum statutory penalties totaling 125 years in prison based on the charges of conviction. However, the sentence will be determined by the District Court, and will be influenced by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which the Court consults in order to determine a defendant’s actual sentence.

        https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/charlotte/press-releases/2011/former-chief-accounting-officer-for-beazer-homes-usa-inc.-convicted-of-corporate-accounting-fraud

  9. Actually, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature.

    “to the void at the center of the cryptocurrency concept itself: It’s a field rife with fraud and chicanery and lacking any cogent case for its usefulness.”

  11. Celebrity touts & shills who led crypto baggies down the primrose path might be bogged down in litigation for years to come. Never mind that anyone who lets celebrity endorsements influence their investment decisions is a prime candidate for court-ordered sterilization.

    From Tom Brady to Shaq, FTX’s Celebrity Promoters May Be On the Hook for Damages

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/from-tom-brady-to-shaq-ftxs-celebrity-promoters-may-be-on-the-hook-for-damages/ar-AA14sMzh

    (Bloomberg) — FTX’s viral Super Bowl ad featured multiple versions of a deeply skeptical Larry David. In light of the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse, his fellow celebrities might have done well to heed his advice.

    The creator of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm is among the slew of stars being sued for promoting FTX’s services and products. The lawsuits allege they lured unsophisticated investors into the debacle.

    Legal experts say the celebrities’ prominence and wealth make them a juicy target for investors looking to recover some of their losses, with the company and co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried essentially broke. FTX put itself and more than 100 affiliates into bankruptcy proceedings this month, shielding them from suits. The promoters, who aren’t in bankruptcy court, have no such protection.

    1. I was listening to a podcast about crime in California, and some thug life Rapper who was robbed of his bling by two pistol toting vibrants was complaining about the lack of police initiative.

  14. LMAO at the 30,000 Aussie FTX bagholders who can color their money gone. Anyone who would “invest” with a Democrat-Bolshevik mega-donor is devoid of any semblance of morality and on the same ideological page, which makes their rip-off all the more satisfying.

    Australian FTX customers beg for money back from collapsed crypto exchange

    https://www.reddit.com/r/Wallstreetsilver/comments/z39zpp/australian_ftx_customers_beg_for_money_back_from/

    Desperate customers could have lost anywhere between $60,000 and $1.5 million in the recent FTX collapse, with complaints of being “financially crippled”.

  16. You have to be a special kind of stupid to let Enron-style energy pirates install a “smart meter” to control your home thermostat. Wait until the Fed gets its CBDCs and linked social credit monitoring system in place. The Comrades of Proven Worth (D) didn’t appreciate your last social media post? No heat for you!

    Lorry driver moves out of freezing flat to live in his van after being left in cold by Ovo Energy over smart meter payments

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11465091/Lorry-driver-moves-freezing-flat-live-van-left-cold-Ovo-Energy.html

  17. Epoch Times — Cardiologists Come to the Same Conclusion Regarding COVID Jab Side Effects (11/20/2022):

    “Until the British cardiologist, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, expressed grave concern about the safety of Covid mRNA vaccines, he was one of the most celebrated doctors in Britain.

    In the early days of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout in Britain, he advocated the injections for the general public. However, in July of 2021, he experienced a terrible personal loss that caused him to reevaluate the shots—namely, the sudden and unexpected death of his 73-year-old father. His father’s death made no sense to him because he knew from his own examination that his father’s general and cardiac health were excellent. As he put it in a recent interview:

    His postmortem findings really shocked me. There were two severe blockages in his coronary arteries, which didn’t really make any sense with everything I know, both as a cardiologist—someone who has expertise in this particular area—but also intimately knowing my dad’s lifestyle and his health. Not long after that, data started to emerge that suggested a possible link between the mRNA vaccine and increased risk of heart attacks from a mechanism of increasing inflammation around the coronary arteries. But on top of that, I was contacted by a whistleblower at a very prestigious university in the UK, a cardiologist himself, who explained to me that there was a similar research finding in his department, and that those researchers had decided to essentially cover that up because they were worried about losing funding from the pharmaceutical industry. But it doesn’t stop there. I then started looking at data in the UK to see if there had been any increase in cardiac arrest. My dad suffered a cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac death at home. Had there been any change in the UK since the vaccine rollout? And again those findings were very clear. There’s been an extra 14,000 out of hospital cardiac arrests in 2021 vs 2020.

    The more Dr. Malhotra looked into it, the more he felt the same concern about the safety of the mRNA vaccines that Dr. Peter McCullough had felt since the spring of 2021. The alarming incidence of sudden, unexpected deaths during the latter half of 2021 and the first eight months of 2022—especially among the young and fit—strengthened his grave concern and suspicion.

    In September of 2022,—after a thorough investigation of the growing volume of data—he came to his conclusion:

    The Covid mRNA vaccine has likely played a significant role or been a primary cause of unexpected cardiac arrests, heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, and heart failure since 2021 until proven otherwise.

    https://archive.ph/5k3ps

    “100% safe and effective”

  18. “Now, they’re faced with scrambling to find a new employer that will sponsor them through the immigration process.”

    Biden to extend visa status until they find a new job. He will do it.

  19. Yellen the Felon will tout this as evidence of a “strong consumer,” instead of recognizing that tapped-out debt donkeys are maxing out their credit cards as they fail to make ends meet in our oligarch-looted, Brandon regime-mismanaged economy.

    Credit-card balances experienced the biggest annual jump in more than 20 years, Fed says

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/credit-card-balances-just-experienced-the-biggest-annual-jump-in-more-than-20-years-fed-says-11668536535?mod=mw_latestnews

    1. “Credit-card balances experienced the biggest annual jump in more than 20 years, Fed says”

      https://themostimportantnews.com/archives/u-s-consumers-are-doing-exactly-what-they-did-just-prior-to-the-crash-of-2008

      U.S. Consumers Are Doing EXACTLY What They Did Just Prior To The Crash Of 2008
      November 15, 2022

      “Most of the latest increase came in mortgage debt, by far the biggest liability on household balance sheets. It rose by $282 billion in the third quarter, and by $1 trillion from a year earlier, to $11.7 trillion. Mortgage and home-equity debt combined are up by $2 trillion since the pandemic began.”

      “Credit-card debt also increased by the most in 20 years, with balances rising by 15% from a year earlier. The surge comes as the average interest-rates on card borrowing has climbed above 19%, the highest in data going back to the mid-1980s, according to Bankrate.”

      ——–

      – Everything is awesome!
      – Pandemic stimmy payments, rent and mortgage moratoria, etc. are waning or already gone.
      – Real (inflation-adjusted) wages are negative, and have been for years, but esp. since the recent bout of high inflation, the highest in 40 years. Example: 3% nominal pay raise – 8% inflation = -5% real wage growth.
      – Many in U.S. were already living paycheck-to-paycheck, with little to no rainy day savings.
      – It’s almost as if by some nefarious plan as enabled by the Fed to financially subjugate what’s left of the middle class and the poors.

  20. Not gonna lie: I take great pleasure in seeing self-hating, treasonous white males who still cling to their Democrat-Bolshevik party affiliation getting purged by their commie “comrades” as the globalist-directed disenfranchisement of white males continues apace.

    Woke San Francisco Election Board Fires 20-Veteran Elections Chief Over Color

    https://www.tampafp.com/woke-san-francisco-election-board-fires-20-veteran-elections-chief-over-color/

    Liberals still want to pretend, or pretend to pretend, that the “Great Replacement Theory” isn’t real or happening, even when it plays out right in front of them.

    That includes the Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate arguing that America needs open borders and amnesty for illegal immigrants because Americans aren’t “reproducing” enough, as well as the dismissal of the top election official in left-wing San Francisco getting booted to advance “racial equity.”

  21. Under Marxism, children are property of the state.

    Salon — “OK groomer” back on Twitter (11/23/2022):

    “Barely 24 hours after a gunman killed five people and injured 19 others at a gay bar in Colorado Springs, Elon Musk’s new Twitter responded to the massacre by reinstating the account of James Lindsay, the right-wing activist responsible for popularizing the anti-LGBTQ slur “OK groomer,” which over the last 10 months has been used to imply that demands for LGBTQ rights or representation are tantamount to child molestation.”

    That is a lie. And the quotes published in the article clarify and confirm the lie.

    “Since last spring, the prominent right-wing Twitter account Libs of TikTok has been a major player in driving anti-LGBTQ animosity, with an ongoing series of posts highlighting LGBTQ events around the country, often including dates, locations and names and pictures of people involved.”

    If you are grooming children, what do you have to hide, globalists?

    “Last Sunday morning, as news of the Club Q shooting spread, Libs of TikTok published another such notice, alerting its 1.5 million followers to a drag performance happening elsewhere in Colorado.”

    What are you hiding?

    “Charlie Kirk, founder of the right-wing group Turning Point USA tweeted, “There is no such thing as ‘family friendly’ drag queen shows.” Seth Dillon, CEO of the right-wing website Babylon Bee (also recently reinstated by Musk), tweeted, “Incitement: the act of speaking while being disliked by Democrats.”

    Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter reassured his nearly half-a-million followers, “I don’t think we have to tolerate pedophiles because some @sshole shot up a gay bar. Frankly, a lot of people trying to convince us we need to tolerate pedophiles seem to be happy to use any excuse to silence our opposition.”

    Kurt Schlichter is correct.

    “Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, who has spent months leading attacks on doctors and hospitals that offer gender-affirming medical care to trans youth, posted a video calling anyone who connects the dots between the past year’s anti-LGBTQ campaigns and the massacre “scumbags” and “demons.”

    “They want the kids at the drag shows, they want them in the sex-change clinics,” said Walsh. “But they dare not defend either stance out loud. So instead, they must resort to the worst kind of emotional manipulation… in this case gleefully exploiting the deaths of the very people they pretend to care about.”

    On Twitter, Walsh wrote, “Leftists are using a mass shooting to try and blackmail us into accepting the castration and sexualization of children. These people are just beyond evil. I have never felt more motivated to oppose everything they stand for, with every fiber of my being.”

    Matt Walsh is correct.

    “Walsh’s Daily Wire colleague, Candace Owens, likewise responded, “I just want to make sure I’m correct in understanding that the Left is using the tragedy in Colorado to make the argument that unless conservatives get on board with experimenting on children’s genitals with puberty blockers, then nightclub shootings will continue to happen.”

    Candace Owens is correct.

    “In his opening monologue on Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson offered a perfunctory condemnation of violence before pivoting first to an attack on hospitals that provide care for trans youth and then to a new narrative that arose Monday on right-wing Twitter: that high-end fashion label Balenciaga is promoting child pornography.

    “Here is a high-end retailer promoting kiddie porn in an ad on Instagram and nobody notices!” Carlson said, going on to charge that the mainstream media was refusing to report on this outrage for sinister reasons: “They’re reserving all their energy to attack you for noticing! You’re a stochastic terrorist if you point it out!”

    Tying the segment back to the massacre in Colorado, Carlson went on to claim, “This has nothing to do with gay people! This is an attack on the sexual fixation on and mutilation of the genitals of children, of kiddie porn. It has nothing to do with gay people!”

    Carlson continued, “You’re not allowed to notice it, or else you’re ‘committing violence’! You’re ‘complicit in mass murder’!”

    https://archive.ph/ATGeB

    You’re not allowed to notice.

    Housing? Why yes, because when you buy a house your property taxes are paying to promote this in the public schools, and if you object, you will get tossed in the January 6th gulag.

    You’re not allowed to notice.

  22. Be thankful that $17 roll of aluminum foil you bought to cover the leftovers on that overpriced Butterball is only “transitory” as you write the check for your heating oil that has skyrocketed over the past few months.

  23. SBF and his cohorts can expect a sham “investigation” by our corrupt DoJ and FBI, followed by bland “mistakes were made” statements, insincere mea culpas all around, and slap-on-the-wrist penalties. Far more consequential: millions of previously oblivious sheeple will have a road-to-Damascus awakening as to the degree of institutional corruption in the banana republic known as #BidensAmerica.

    https://twitter.com/RudyHavenstein/status/1595688169621852161

  24. A reader sent these in:

    Of course it is all about the dodge and that’s why I can’t get over the fact that Joseph Bankman literally wrote the books on tax shelters and tax evasion.

    https://twitter.com/DByers21/status/1595262790503104513

    FED’s officials just watch the bond market. Long end of the curve has taken a break so also their view. Yields will start to increase again next month. Energy crisis worsens.

    https://twitter.com/AlessioUrban/status/1595499729445609472

    Credit Suisse experiences historic outflows in fourth quarter 2022 -$88B
    investors run away

    https://twitter.com/AlessioUrban/status/1595439511676375040

    Lance Lambert

    There’s still a big pipeline of unsold “spec” homes. via @Ivy_Zelman

    https://twitter.com/NewsLambert/status/1595500585557626881

    QE colossal mistake

    https://twitter.com/BubblePrickr/status/1595436414476460032

    Can someone explain to me, how the f*ck is Assange’s life totally destroyed for over 10 years now and SBF is still wearing his oversized shorts running around free in the Bahamas?

    https://twitter.com/INArteCarloDoss/status/1595182020711387136

    Ali Wolf

    Our data accounts for cancellations. We capture new home sales down 34.1% compared to last year, with total sales back to pre-2016 levels

    https://twitter.com/AliWolfEcon/status/1595486608903372801

    Rick Palacios Jr.

    #Boise home builder comment from our November mid-month survey illustrates head fake caused by reported gross new home sales figures when cancellations are high. “We’re experiencing a 55% cancellation rate so far in November. So, it’s taking 2 [gross] sales to get 1 net sale.”

    https://twitter.com/RickPalaciosJr/status/1595483516136919041

    And as @dietz_econ points out: “NAHB surveys indicate that a quarter of builders are now cutting prices, thus recent months’ price data reflects a composition change, with sales lost at the low end of the market pushing the median price higher.”

    https://twitter.com/odetakushi/status/1595436440938287105

    CarDealershipGuy

    We have some customers who make $500k/yr and have 550 credit scores. You’d never be able to tell.

    https://twitter.com/GuyDealership/status/1595460586434863107

    Aaron Layman

    LOL! The Census Bureau expects you to believe that new home sales rose in October, along with record high median prices and mortgage rates hitting 7 percent. Pure comedy 😂

    https://twitter.com/dfwaaronlayman/status/1595447555525169153

    The 10y treasury yield is now lower than the overnight rate (SOFR). Last time this happened the whole world went to sh*t a few weeks later. 🔥🔥🔥

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1595530369436114961

    Even Bloomberg, who together with CNBC cheered for this pump and dump scheme, are now saying it out loud…QE was a policy error …

    https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1595424975292452867

    There are zero ships in que off the coast of Southern California. There were 109 ships in que in early January.

    https://twitter.com/FreightAlley/status/1595241375381032960

    Layoffs announced in the last week:
    Amazon: 10,000 (3% of workforce)
    HP: 4,000 to 6,000 (~10%)
    Cisco: 4,100 (5%)
    Carvana: 1,500 (8%)
    Roku: 200 (7%)
    17,598 tech workers have been laid off in the last 7 days.

    https://twitter.com/GRDecter/status/1595431201212403719

    Ron Butler
    @ronmortgageguy
    The Government is STARTING To Worry About Canadians Paying Their Mortgages
    The Deputy Bank Governor is now talking about it
    Is it just me or is anybody else constantly amazed that Government and Regulators are always months or years behind what we seeing and talking about?

    https://twitter.com/ronmortgageguy/status/1595467713975324672

    Steve Saretsky

    Bank of Canada says about 50% of all variable-rate mortgages with fixed payments have already reached their trigger rate. This represents about 13% of all mortgages outstanding.

    https://twitter.com/SteveSaretsky/status/1595273950405484544

    1. “QE was a policy error …”

      It was a Pandora’s box… very easy to open, but nearly impossible to shut.

      1. very easy to open, but nearly impossible to shut.
        True. I read someplace recently that 63% of Americans wanted the govt. to send out more money. WTF. Not sure of the accuracy of the poll but there is an truth to this we are screwed.
        And just the idea of states, including CA, sending “free” money out to assist with inflation is pure insanity.

        1. “And just the idea of states, including CA, sending “free” money out to assist with inflation is pure insanity.”

          Anything for a vote.

    2. Can someone explain to me, how the f*ck is Assange’s life totally destroyed for over 10 years now and SBF is still wearing his oversized shorts running around free in the Bahamas?

      That’s easy – it’s who you know. SBF is a made man. Assange ain’t.

    3. “Can someone explain to me, how the f*ck is Assange’s life totally destroyed for over 10 years now and SBF is still wearing his oversized shorts running around free in the Bahamas?”

      @BrooksPhilly said, “Because Assange challenged the powers that be. SBF enriched them.”

    4. i mentioned this a couple of days ago – i still dont understand what was wrong. Unlike NAR – i dont believe that they can flat out manipulate the numbers. So was it a broken methodology, bad input data … or some thing else.

      LOL! The Census Bureau expects you to believe that new home sales rose in October, along with record high median prices and mortgage rates hitting 7 percent. Pure comedy 😂

      https://twitter.com/dfwaaronlayman/status/1595447555525169153

    5. Can someone explain to me, how the f*ck is Assange’s life totally destroyed for over 10 years now and SBF is still wearing his oversized shorts running around free in the Bahamas?

      The replies are great.

  25. “Business leaders dismissed the possibility of people going back to offline stores once Covid-19 restrictions eased, which was exactly what happened.”

    Who’d’ve thunk that shoppers would revert to traditional hands-on shopping experiences at bricks-and-mortor stores once pandemic restrictions were eased?

    My family enjoyed a little slice of this action at Target yesterday. Can’t say the store was anywhere near crowded. And the in-house Starbux was devoid of customers…not sure whether because we are in Utah, or due to objections against paying $5 for a slice of pumpkin bread…hard to say whether high prices, crippling debt loads, or a distaste for coffee explained the dearth of customers.

    2. Who’d’ve thunk that shoppers would revert to traditional hands-on shopping experiences at bricks-and-mortor stores once pandemic restrictions were eased?

      Trying on a clothing item to determine it’s an extremely poor fit and putting it right back onto the rack takes less than a minute in person. Online, it turns into a grueling weeks long transaction. And that’s just for a single item.

      1. Reality Check: Online, these weekend ho(s) wear it Friday and Saturday night, and if there are no gangsta spunk stains they return it Monday with the enclosed UPS label for a full refund.

  27. “The United States has $31 trillion in outstanding debt with a five-year average maturity, resulting in $5 trillion in refinancing needs during fiscal 2023 and a $2 trillion budget deficit. The situation in the eurozone is even worse.”

    It’s going to take a lot more inflation to bring the situation under control.

    2. It’s going to take a lot more inflation to bring the situation under control.

      These fiscal madmen will continue spending.

  29. ‘Google execs will want to cut people,’ a former executive at the company told Insider. ‘Just to clean up the culture by making people a little more scared.’”

    If there’s a downside to seeing “woke” special snowflakes at creepy Orwellian tech companies get cast into the outer darkness of our oligarch-looted, Brandon-mismanaged economy, I’m not seeing it.

    1. ‘Just to clean up the culture by making people a little more scared.’”
      Having seen large layoffs happen several times, I can say from experience it does tend to sharpen ones focus. (and may also lead to looking for a new job.)

  30. ‘I can understand why people went into crypto. It was populist anger,’ Mr Das said. ‘There is a whole bunch of people who are very skilled in terms of exploiting investors’ desire for rapid riches.’

    I see what you did there, Mr. Das. Nice try. Lemming-like greed and gullibility drove the crypto mania, not “populist anger.” The angry populists are stacking precious metals and stockpiling ammo & preps for when the Fed’s house of cards comes crashing down, not “investing” in scam digital gambling tokens.

  31. “…the ‘Ponzi scheme’ collapsed into a $32 billion loss of value in one day.”

    That must be some kind of a record in the annals of bubble collapse.

    1. Wait until the implosion of the Fed’s Everything Bubble plays out. Especially as Housing Bubble 2.0 pops.

    2. In my experience most charities are frauds. Whenever anyone tells me it is for charity I can’t help but wonder where the money really goes. Am I just cynical? I understand FTX wasn’t specifically a charity but the whole effective altruism thing was a big red flag. He didn’t even buy the naming rights to a hospital like others of his ilk. Sad!

      That said, regardless of the fact that Hurricane Ian has shown that mansions on a sandbar in hurricane prone areas are a poor long term investment, how much do you reckon those retards overpaid for all of their real estate? It stands to reason that they wildly overpaid for everything except perhaps their investment in Maxine Waters. (That one was priceless.) I’m guessing the 40 million dollar mansion is going to require a significant reduction to liquidate. Place your bets! Without looking, I say minimum 50%.

  32. “Overall, the market capitalisation of the crypto market has dived from roughly $US3 trillion this time last year to about $US800 billion. ‘That’s a loss of over 70 per cent,’ Mr Das told The Business.

    “You don’t understand crypto, bro.” Heard that a time or two from Moonie-like crypto cultists, along with “Have fun staying poor!” Pride goes before destruction; a haughty spirit goes before a fall.”

    1. “crypto cultists”

      The smugness. Always the smugness of these Kool-Aid drinkers. No different from Bernie Madoff “investors” reveling in the exclusivity of being allowed to “invest” with that con artist.

      All crypto is soon reverting to its intrinsic value, which is ZERO.

  33. ‘The losses in cryptocurrencies pale into insignificance when you compare them to the $30 trillion worth of write downs in assets,’ Mr Das said. ‘

    Fake wealth created by fake money. The Yellen Bux “wealth” destruction we’ve seen to date pales in comparison to what we’ll see after the Fed’s Everything Bubble implodes under the weight of its own debt, fraud, and mark-to-fantasy accounting.

  35. “‘People are now basically having a cold shower,’ Mr Das said.

    My water heater went out last February, so I ended up involuntarily taking cold showers for almost a week. Felt so invigorated I did it for the entire month (cheating here & there). Very good for your immune system, especially in winter. Of course the wife & kids were not impressed with the health benefits of icy cold showers.

    1. Very good for your immune system, especially in winter

      Perhaps sarcasm, but on the chance it isn’t, can you elaborate?

  36. – What he said.

    From ABC Business. “Author and former financier Satyajit Das said the cryptocurrency market had been propped up by rampant liquidity and cheap cash pumped into the financial system by central banks. ‘I can understand why people went into crypto. It was populist anger,’ Mr Das said.”

    ‘One way to think about the cryptocurrency problems at the moment is it’s part of, essentially, the great financial bubble of every bubble being pricked,’ he said. ‘And that’s being pricked by higher interest rates, and the general move to somewhat greater degrees of financial sanity.’”

    “This is where Mr Das pointed to the financial sector issue that ‘nobody is really taking much notice’ about. Broadly, traditional financial markets have also been selling-off all year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq on Wall Street is down 30 per cent in a year. The broader S&P 500 is off around 18 per cent. ‘The losses in cryptocurrencies pale into insignificance when you compare them to the $30 trillion worth of write downs in assets,’ Mr Das said. ‘Which are going on in equities, they’re going on in bonds, they’re going in private market assets in housing. So it’s part of an overall adjustment in valuation.’”

    ——–

    – The Everything Bubble is bursting, as asset bubbles always do, only this one is the all time largest ever! I’m sure it’s fine! 🙂
    – Free $ has consequences.
    – Centrally-planned, command-and-control economics has consequences. Think former USSR, or any other socialist sh*thole.
    – Highly indebted economies have consequences. Low interest rates and continuous liquidity injections are necessary to keep the game going. Think heroin addict. Withdrawl symptoms dead-ahead.
    – QE was an unconventional, experimental monetary policy implemented at the zero bound, because rates couldn’t go any lower. It’s just another euphemism for money printing. It’s BS economics, just like FTX. It was a ponzi; a scheme, doomed to fail.
    – The only way this isn’t debt monetization is if the Fed’s balance sheet goes to zero. With a peak of ~$9T of assets, there’s no way they can go back. I’m pretty sure something will blow up before they reduce it by even ~$1T or less. I think that’s already happening now…

    – The tide is going out…

    “You never know who’s swimming naked until the tide goes out.” – Warren Buffett

  37. The Los Angeles Times. “The most uplifting aspect of the Sam Bankman-Fried story was always that he guided his way to a putative cryptocurrency fortune of more than $16 billion by following a philosophy of charitable giving known as ‘effective altruism.’

    Wrong, lying scum Real Journalists. SBF funneled millions to the termites in the foundation, i.e. the criminal enterprise masquerading as a political party known as the Democrat-Bolsheviks. There is nothing “uplifting” about a sleazy globalist fraudster bankrolling America’s destruction from within using stolen customer money, except that FTX customers were as devoid of anything resembling morality as Sam himself, so watching them get ripped off was indeed “uplifting.”

  38. Globalist scum media.

    New York Times — A Lasting Legacy of Covid: Far-Right Platforms Spreading Health Myths (11/22/2022):

    “The Biden administration has pushed social media giants like Facebook to curb Covid misinformation. But it is thriving on fringe platforms like Gab, a hub for extremist content.”

    SHUT. IT. DOWN.

    “Around the country, countless Americans are suffering a very particular type of Covid grief — a mixture of anger, sorrow and shame that comes with losing a loved one who has consumed social media falsehoods. On Tuesday, in what was likely his last appearance in the White House briefing room before he retires from government service at the end of the year, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, pleaded with Americans to speak out against scientific misinformation.

    “The people who have correct information, who take science seriously, who don’t have strange, way-out theories about things but who base what they say on evidence and data, need to speak up more,” Dr. Fauci said, “because the other side that just keeps putting out misinformation and disinformation seems to be tireless in that effort.”

    Tireless in that effort? That would be me you’re talking about, you genocidal elf.

    “Experts say the spread of health misinformation — particularly on fringe social media platforms like Gab — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the coronavirus pandemic. And there are no easy solutions.”

    SHUT. IT. DOWN.

    “In preparation for future pandemics, the White House recently released a new national biodefense strategy that calls for the government to “enhance messaging partnerships” before another biological threat emerges. The goal, said Dr. Raj Panjabi, Mr. Biden’s top adviser on global health security, is to work with “reputable companies who care about getting the message right.”

    In an email to The New York Times, Mr. Torba said Gab was “not in a position, as a neutral platform provider, to ‘fact-check’ our users or assess the truth or falsity of any information posted to the site.” He also criticized The Times and ended his message with an instruction: “Please repent and accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior.”

    Repent, New York Times.

    “It is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify the precise toll that Covid misinformation has taken on American society, but scholars are trying. In a report published last year, Dr. Sell and her colleagues estimated that 5 to 30 percent of unvaccinated Americans were influenced by Covid falsehoods.

    In a country that values freedom of speech, tamping down falsehoods on social media is tricky business for policymakers and health officials in Washington. Mr. Torba has positioned Gab as a “First Amendment company,” as he put it, “which means we tolerate ‘offensive’ but legal speech.”

    Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert in public health law, said the administration would be on “weak legal footing if it tries to regulate these companies.” Misinformation and disinformation, he said, amount to “probably the central problem for public health and safety in America, and yet no one knows what to do about it.”

    SHUT. IT. DOWN.

    “Mr. Biden has tried using his bully pulpit. Last year, after the surgeon general declared misinformation “an urgent threat to public health,” the president publicly accused platforms like Facebook of “killing people.” Administration officials also met and communicated with officials from social media companies to coordinate and promote accurate messages about Covid-19.

    Gab, founded in 2016, was not a “huge anti-vaccine gathering point” early in the pandemic, said David Thiel, a data and technology expert at Stanford University who published an analysis of Gab in June. But that changed, he said, after vaccines arrived and the major social media platforms began cracking down on Covid falsehoods. The flood of new users to Gab after the Jan. 6 attack amplified its anti-vaccine content, he said.

    In his email to The Times, Mr. Torba acknowledged that Gab users had been able to make statements that would not have been permitted on Facebook and Twitter, and he suggested that The Times and other mainstream news outlets had “parroted” the government’s statements about Covid-19.

    “These false assertions,” he wrote, “were questioned by Gab users who were free to speak about these topics on our platform in ways they would not have been able to on Twitter and Facebook.”

    https://archive.ph/RgnKu

    Look, New York Times, it’s a link to Gab:

    https://gab.com/

    Want more, New York Times?

    https://www.bitchute.com/
    https://rumble.com/
    https://odysee.com/
    https://communities.win/

  39. It’s a scenario reminiscent of Enron: balance-sheet shenanigans, no-value assets, interlocking companies — and no transparency.

    In the banana republic that is #BidensAmerica, we’ll see sham investigations, followed by bland “mistakes were made” statements, insincere mea culpas, then slap-on-the-wrist fines, if that. Fraud is a feature, not a bug, of our corrupt crony-capitalist system.

  40. “But a generation of young investors who thought they had discovered a new way to instant wealth is going to get burned. Not only did they lose out on ‘meme’ stocks like Robinhood, and now crypto prices, but their other tech heroes are proving vulnerable, too.

    In forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets, any contrarian suggestion that these lemmings were being led down the primrose path resulted in instant banishment from the sub, as well as rat-pack ad hominem attacks. These “young investors” were predictable amoral products of our NEA indoctrination mills, driven solely by greed and hubris, with zero capacity for critical thinking and zero tolerance of opposing points of view. Support for Biden naturally permeated these groups. Watching them get financially destroyed is heartwarming.

  41. Mass Formation Psychosis.

    The Atlantic — What Does It Mean to Care About COVID Anymore? (11/21/2022):

    “After nearly three years of constantly thinking about COVID, it’s alarming how easily I can stop. The truth is, as a healthy, vaxxed-to-the-brim young person who has already had COVID, the pandemic now often feels more like an abstraction than a crisis.”

    The cancer has started eating your body, Yasmin Tayag.

    “Heading into the third pandemic winter, things have changed. Most Americans seem to have tuned out COVID. Precautions have virtually disappeared; except for in the deepest-blue cities, wearing a mask is, well, weird.”

    Mass Formation Psychosis is one hell of a drug.

    “Continuing to care about COVID while also loosening up behaviors is an uncomfortable position to be in. Most of the time, I just try to ignore the guilt gnawing at my brain.”

    Nice word choice there, Yasmin Tayag. The vaccine is eating at your brain, your liver, your heart and your circulatory system. You are in the early stages of developing A.I.D.S.

    “In an ideal epidemiological scenario, everyone would willingly deploy the full arsenal of COVID precautions, such as masking and forgoing crowded indoor activities, especially during waves.”

    How does NO sound? No, and GFY.

    “It’s probably not realistic to expect people to take precautions every time, perpetually, or even every winter or fall, unless there is a particularly concerning reason to do that,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at Brown University, told me.

    Spontaneous interactions with vulnerable people are trickier to plan for, but they follow the same principle. On a crowded bus, for example, “there’s no question that if you’re close enough to someone who could be hurt by getting COVID and you could have it, then, yeah, a mask is the way to go,” Lee said. Of course, it isn’t always possible to know when someone is high-risk; young people, too, can be medically vulnerable. There’s no clear guidance for those situations, but remaining cautious doesn’t require much effort. “Carry a mask with you,” Lee said. “It’s not a big lift.”

    Citizens don’t wear masks. Slaves wear masks.

    “Get boosted—if not for yourself, then for them. Just 11.3 percent of eligible Americans have gotten the latest, bivalent shot, which potentially reduces your chances of getting COVID and passing it along.”

    That is a LIE.

    https://archive.ph/qP3DJ

    This same publication had a recent article calling for an “amnesty” for COVID tyranny.

    There will be no amnesty.

    There will be no forgiveness.

    Only nooses…

    2. Precautions have virtually disappeared; except for in the deepest-blue cities, wearing a mask is, well, weird

      Ss it should be

        1. Just stopped at Safeway to buy a floral arrangement for today’s dinner hostess and there was no shortage of mask freaks walking around in there.

          Mass Formation Psychosis.

    3. COVID was essentially a bad cold with a penchant for killing olds and the already sick. Almost nobody younger without comorbidities was at risk of death. But the overreaction is the result of a bunch of old billionaires and super millionaires who recoiled in terror at the mere thought of having to leave this mortal coil and their precious money. They control everything, and this was entirely their reaction to the sniffles.

      1. I meant to add that if this were a disease of the young which was killing children, teens and twenty year olds, you would have seen NONE of these “protections” in place.

      2. old billionaires and super millionaires who recoiled in terror at the mere thought of having to leave this mortal coil and their precious money

        As we all know, it is inevitable.

  42. Be thankful today you are a United States citizen.

    Ottawa Citizen Editorial Board — Don’t debate face masks. Just wear them (11/19/2022):

    “On Tuesday, Ottawa’s biggest school board will debate a motion to reinstate mandatory masking for students and staff. Many OCDSB trustees feel that, as children’s hospitals in Ontario struggle under a deluge of serious respiratory cases, it’s the right thing to do.

    But folks, really – why should it come to this? Why should we have to debate having rules to make us mask? If you have kids, you know very serious respiratory illnesses are scything through classrooms. Public indifference to this is baffling.

    Our collective stupidity is all the more puzzling because most people aren’t against mask mandates. A Nanos poll reported by CTV this week found that about 70 per cent of those surveyed “supported” or “somewhat supported” mandatory masking if needed.

    So here’s a suggestion: Make the argument about mandatory masking irrelevant, by just wearing your face covering.

    Do we really — still — need to be told?

    https://archive.ph/vrBqr

    Canada, unlike the United States, is not a free nation. They have pictures of the British monarchy on their currency. Their leader is the bastard son of Fidel Castro.

    Free people do not wear masks.

    Cucks wear masks.

    Canada is a cuck country.

    2. Ottawa Citizen Editorial Board — Don’t debate face masks. Just wear them (11/19/2022)

      I’d like to urinate in their masks then make them wear them all day.

    3. You can’t equate RSV to COVID. COVID doesn’t send kids to the hospital, but RSV does. Temporary masking doesn’t seem all that unreasonable to me.

      1. Temporary masking

        That’s not what they want. Recall the polls in the UK where a majority indicated they would support PERMANENT mask mandates.

        1. I have friends with COVID this Thanksgiving. Their son, boosted last week with the Omicron variant, is negative thus far.

          1. Several work colleagues notified me they tested positive for Covid recently. None of them apparently had life threatening symptoms.

          2. “I have friends with COVID this Thanksgiving.”

            My sister in California has it, again, but the symptoms are fewer this time. However, she is also boosted due to employer mandate.

          3. My sister in California has it, again

            So, even though she is jabbed and boosted, she’s had it more than once. Something tells me that the jabbed will be getting it repeatedly, while those with natural immunity will only get it once.

          4. My 70yr old parents had to stay in CA on bird day because their 4-jabbed bodies got infected. They apparently lived thru it as they’re still answering the phone and texts. They were complete shut-ins for most of the last 2 years afraid they’d die, even after I had it 3 times and lived thru it none the worse for wear.

  43. As one financial analyst explained, “The poorest demographic in the US is in fact homeowners. If you want to be remain poor your entire life, just sign up for a 15 or 30 year mortgage.”

    Wheat Ridge, CO Housing Prices Crater 38% YOY As Brokers Across The Denver Area Brokers Declare “There Is No Bottom In Sight”

    https://www.movoto.com/wheat-ridge-co/market-trends/

    1. Zelensky and his globalist cabal aren’t enduring any hardship. He’s got 24/7 electricity, unlimited hot water and heat, and a pile of cocaine that would make Scarface jealous to dip his greasy beak into.

      Russia is winning.

    1. Yahoo
      Fortune
      Top economist Mohamed El-Erian says we’re not just headed for another recession, but a ‘profound economic and financial shift’
      Alena Botros
      Wed, November 23, 2022 at 12:32 PM·5 min read

      Investors and economists have been sounding the recession alarm. But one major economist who has seen warning signs mounting for many months says this potential recession is unlike what we’re used to.

      That economist is Mohamed El-Erian, previously the chief executive officer of the massively influential bond-market player PIMCO. He also chaired former President Barack Obama’s Global Development Council and has written several economic best-sellers. Simply put, he’s one of the best Fed and markets watchers alive, and he hasn’t liked what he’s seen for some time now.

      There’s a tendency to see economic challenges as “temporary and quickly reversible,” El-Erian wrote in a commentary for Foreign Affairs, citing the Federal Reserve’s initial thought that high inflation would be transitory or the consensus that a recession could be short.

      “The world isn’t just teetering on the brink of another recession,” he continued. “It is in the midst of a profound economic and financial shift.”

      He referenced economic theory that a recession occurs when a business cycle reaches its natural endpoint and before the next cycle really takes flight, but he said this time won’t be one more turn of the “economic wheel,” as he sees the world experiencing major changes that “will outlast the current business cycle.” He highlighted three trends that suggest a transformation in the global economy is under way.
      …
      https://www.yahoo.com/video/top-economist-mohamed-el-erian-193236736.html

  47. Had a lively Thanksgiving dinner chat with an extended family member who invests in real estate and cryptocurrency. He was a good sport when I gave him my pessimistic view of the nearterm real estate outlook.

    He explained his “one percent rule” for figuring out what places to buy as rental investment properties: Only buy if a place will rent for at least 1% of the purchase price.

    I pulled up the Zestimate for a California investment property. I showed him how the Rent Zestimate is only 0.38% of the Zestimate of market value. But then I explained that the rent we actually pay on the place is only 0.21% of the Zestimate.

    He said he would never buy investment rental property in California, not only because it doesn’t pencil out by his 1% rule, but also because of excessively tenant-friendly laws which don’t protect landlords against rental income loss.

    He also opined that crypto was going through one of its occasional slumps and would soon recover. 🤷

    1. “Had a lively Thanksgiving dinner chat…”

      I had one of those back in 2006 in California, and we were never invited again. I’m pretty sure I rattled a few souls to their core.

  48. “But now that the Fed is raising rates (the cost of capital) and sucking excess liquidity out of the market by selling its portfolio of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities, cash has become more valuable, and scrutiny of corporate value has become more intense.”

    The dollar is king. In the coming years, those with dollars and dollar cash flow will rule while risk asset HODLers and debt donkeys drool.

    1. “Kiyosaki has long been a fan of gold — he first purchased the yellow metal in 1972.”

      Yeah, I saw a friend make good on that play.

    1. Yahoo
      Reuters
      GLOBAL MARKETS-U.S. yields sink with dollar on dovish Fed bets; HK shares dip
      Kevin Buckland
      Thu, November 24, 2022 at 10:46 PM·3 min read
      By Kevin Buckland
      …
      China on Friday reported another record-high of daily COVID infections, with cities nationwide imposing localised lockdowns, mass testing and other curbs, snuffing out recent hopes that the world’s second-largest economy would move from strict zero-COVID policies to living with the disease.

      “Investors are right to be worried,” said ING economist Rob Carnell. “China doesn’t have the adequate health network that they would be able to deal with a full-on outbreak with lots of people getting sick.”
      …
      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/global-markets-u-yields-sink-054609924.html

    1. The Financial Times
      FTX Trading Ltd
      Bahamas reels from FTX collapse: ‘Crypto was going to be our way out’
      Country’s credibility has been shattered as a jurisdiction that properly monitors digital asset businesses
      Scott Chipolina in Nassau 2 hours ago

      Sam Bankman-Fried chose a slice of prime Bahamas real estate to build the new headquarters of his fast-growing cryptocurrency exchange FTX, posing with a shovel alongside the Caribbean country’s prime minister in a shared embrace of the huge potential for digital assets.

      Just seven months later, FTX’s spectacular collapse has sent shockwaves through an industry that promised to revolutionise finance, and shattered the credibility of the Bahamas — which put the crypto boom at the heart of its economic strategy — as a jurisdiction that properly monitors digital asset businesses.

      “Crypto was going to be our way out. We could interact with the global economy in a way we couldn’t before,” said Stefen Deleveaux, of the Caribbean Blockchain Alliance, from a seafront restaurant on the island group’s north coast.

      “A huge part of my work has been destroyed — and that’s because of Sam Bankman-Fried.”

      The collapse of FTX, once valued at $32bn, has left venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital nursing big losses, along with potentially more than 1mn creditors. Many are ordinary investors, lured in by the opportunity to make a quick profit. The coastal site that was to be FTX’s HQ now lies abandoned, strewn with rubble and overgrown hedges.

      FTX was a recent arrival to the Bahamas, setting up there just over a year ago after moving from Hong Kong. This switch was central to the Bahamas’ crypto bet as it sought to diversify away from offshore banking, which in large part has uprooted to rival jurisdictions such as the Cayman Islands.

      The Bahamas “was looking for other options, and here came crypto”, said Jack Blum, a defence attorney who serves as a senior adviser to the Tax Justice Network, an advocacy group.

      It proved successful, helping spearhead the island nation’s push for broader digital asset investment. Just days before FTX collapsed, rival exchange OKX announced that the Bahamas would be its new regional hub after securing registration from its regulators.

      In the same month that FTX’s founder was breaking ground with prime minister Philip Davis, the company hosted a lavish crypto gathering at the country’s Baha Mar resort. The guest list was a “who’s who” list of names who helped propel Bankman-Fried to his status as crypto’s flag bearer, including Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, as well as pop star Katy Perry and NFL legend Tom Brady.
      …

    2. Tax Haven Cayman Island, Asian Crypto ‘Hater’ China Among Countries With Highest FTX Users

      According to documents submitted to court, FTX appears to have a significant level of global dominance as it had customers in at least 27 different countries.

      Among these nations, Cayman Island topped the list, accounting for 22% of the total customer count of the exchange platform. Virgin Islands came in second with its 11% share. Notably, these two territories are known to be tax havens.

      In a surprising twist, despite its restriction on crypto assets, China managed to snag the third place as it was home to 8% of known FTX customers. The Asian giant actually tied with Great Britain which posted the same percentage of clients.

      Singapore and United Arab Emirates rounded up the top of the list with 6% and 4%, while the United States is serving as home for 2% of the crypto exchange’s user base.
      …
      https://bitcoinist.com/china-one-of-the-biggest-clients-of-ftx/

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