mark rigdon retweeted
For my British and European friends who are "shocked" and "surprised", here are 10 reasons you didn't see this coming.
Read this short post and then read the replies from our American friends who will confirm what I'm saying.
1. Americans love their country and want it to be the best in the world. America is a nation of people who conquered a continent. They love strength. They love winning. Any leader who appeals to that has an automatic advantage.
2. Unlike Europeans, Americans have not accepted managed decline. They don't have Net Zero here, they believe in producing their own energy and making it as cheap as possible because they know that their prosperity depends on it.
3. Prices for most basic goods in the US have increased rapidly and are sky high. What the official statistics say about inflation and the reality of people's lives are not the same.
4. Unlike you, Americans do not believe in socialism. They believe in meritocracy. They don't care about the super rich being super rich because they know that they live in a country where being super rich is available to anyone with the talent and drive to make it. They don't resent success, they celebrate it.
5. Americans are the most pro-immigration people in the world. Read that again. Seriously, read it again. Americans love an immigrant success story. They want more talented immigrants to come to America. But they refuse to accept people coming illegally. They believe in having a border.
6. Americans are sensitive about racial issues and their country's imperfect history. They believe that those who are disadvantaged by the circumstances of their birth should be given the opportunity to succeed. What they reject, however, is the idea that in order to address the errors of the past new errors must be made. DEI is racist. They know it and they reject it precisely because they are not racist.
7. Americans are the most philosemitic nation on earth. October 7 and the pro-Hamas left's reaction shocked them to their very core because, among other things, they remember what 9/11 was like and they know jihad when they see it.
8. Americans are extremely practical people. They care about what works, not what sounds good. In Europe, we produce great writers and intellectuals. In America they produce (and attract) great engineers, businessmen and investors. Because of this, they care less about Trump's rhetoric than you do and more about his policies than you do.
9. Americans are deeply optimistic people. They hate negativity. The woke view of American history as a series of evils for which they must eternally apologise is utterly abhorrent to them. They believe in moving forward together, not endlessly obsessing about the past.
10. America is a country whose founding story is one of resistance to government overreach. They loathe unnecessary restrictions, regulations and control. They understand that freedom comes with the price of self-reliance and they pay it gladly.
mark rigdon retweeted
🚨🇺🇸 PEANUT THE SQUIRREL DEAD AFTER NY DEC SEIZURE
Mark Longo revealed that the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) euthanized his pet squirrel, Peanut, within 48 hours of seizing it from his home without a warrant.
Mark had raised Peanut from infancy after rescuing it when its mother died.
The squirrel, a viral sensation, helped raise funds for animal sanctuaries.
Longo criticizes the DEC’s actions, calling the abrupt loss of his beloved pet unjust and heartless.
Source: @ianmiles
🇺🇸 PEANUT THE SQUIRREL ARRESTED IN NYC!?
New York wildlife officers raided Mark Longo's home, seizing his rescue squirrel Peanut after complaints about "unsafe squirrel housing" and "wildlife gone wild" hit the department.
Peanut is an internet sensation known for donning cowboy hats and sharing waffles with cats.
The raid, which Longo describes as "overkill," also led to the confiscation of Fred the raccoon.
With nearly 20,000 supporters rallying to "Free Peanut," Longo, who's legally certifying Peanut as an educational icon, fears he may already be gone.
Poor little guy…
Source: The Guardian
mark rigdon retweeted
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mark rigdon retweeted
Imagine the following:
You're a man who serves as Chairman of the Board of a large University who led the search for the recently hired president.
Your wife runs a non-profit in the DEI space. She is the only full-time employee of the organization, serving as Founder, CEO, and CFO. You serve as Treasurer.
The non-profit ostensibly sells two principal products in the DEI space:
1. "Evidence-based 'how-to-guides' and
2. "The most comprehensive intersectional analytics platform of its kind..."
but the non-profit has no revenues.
It relies entirely on contributions to fund its operations, which principally consist of your wife's salary and some other ancillary overhead.
There have been only two contributors to the non-profit, the University whose board you chair, which has contributed:
2018 $100,000
2019 $300,000
2020 $150,000
2021 $600,000
2022 $789,000
and a donor advised fund (DAF) affiliated with you which has contributed:
2018 $0
2019 $0
2020 $0
2021 $10,000
2022 $20,000
Doesn't this seem very strange?
What if the University was @MIT?
What if the Chairman was Mark Gorenberg?
What if the non-profit is parity.org?
Why are there so many conflicts/scandals concerning DEI organizations?
All of the above can be found in MIT's and Parity.Org's IRS Form 990s which are available and summarized here:
instrumentl.com/990-report/p…
mark rigdon retweeted
BREAKING: Ross Stevens, CEO of Stone Ridge Asset Management, sent a letter to @Penn telling them that he is withdrawing a $100M donation over President Liz Magill's anti-semitism comments before Congress.
via @axios
axios.com/2023/12/07/upenn-a…
mark rigdon retweeted
When leadership in America is weak, terrorists & bullies exploit others.
1. We showed weakness in the way we left Afghanistan. By doing so, we strengthened the enemy by leaving billions of dollars of equipment behind.
2. Putin sees opportunity to invade Ukraine. Tax payers end up giving Ukraine nearly a $100b. A total of 120k people died.
3. Hamas with the help of Iran decides to have a surprise attack on Israel Saturday. Consequences:
709 dead (4 Americans)
100’s killed at music festival
100+ civilians & soldiers being held hostage.
Hamas claimed 5,000 rockets fired at Israel
What’s next?
NATO keeps playing Russian roulette with Putin.
When you keep going “All in” on someone in Poker thinking they won’t call, eventually you force them to call your bluff.
What happens if Putin calls?
Then what?
Maybe it’s what the military industrial complex wants.
Maybe not.
Either way, how’s America doing?
Interest rates at 8%
Cost of living destroying middle America
Unions causing the biggest number of strikes ever in America. More division.
A ton of investigations and indictments to eliminate opponents.
This causes me to ask a few questions:
1. What’s next?
WWIII?
Assassination attempt?
Civil war?
División at the highest level?
2. Why don’t enemies fear and respect our administration?
3. Why keep making decisions that infuriate the enemy instead of having meeting to defuse tension?
4. Are we comfortable knowing we’re encouraging our main enemies to unify even more?
Russia + China + Iran + North Korea + ?
I can list 10 other questions.
Look, the more videos I watch of what Hamas is doing to innocent civilians in Israel, the more aggregated I get.
This could’ve been prevented.
They don’t fear or respect America, TODAY!
I remember as a kid from 6 to 10 years old watching Iraq attack Iran on a daily basis.
Bombs everywhere.
The sound of missiles everywhere.
The buildings getting destroyed
The bridges that were blown up
The 90 days I didnt go to school due to war
I can only imagine what many of these innocent kids are going through.
War sucks!
People dying sucks!
But are we the cause behind this war?
Republicans for the longest time were known as a party of war. Has it flipped?
Recent Gallup poll showed Americans trust republicans with both the economy and the military. For over 30 years the poll supported democrats.
Even a Reuters poll showed Support for sending arms to Ukraine has declined across political parties:
Democratic support dropped from 81% to 52%,
Republican support dropped from 56% to 35%
independent support dropped from 57% to 44% over the same period.
People are sick of it!
Again, many questions.
But, what it all comes down to is leadership.
And the White House is showing ZERO signs of it today.
ZERO!
It’s time for us to lead from the front again! – at Fort Lauderdale, FL
mark rigdon retweeted
Stablecoin legislation has been drafted in Congress
I read the bill.
TL;DR decentralized stables become illegal in the US (DAI, LUSD, RAI, etc. become illegal🚨) while centralized stables, defi, Ethereum, and ETH win big.
High-level summary⬇️
- decentralized stables become illegal in the US. DAI, LUSD, RAI etc.
- foreign stables become illegal in the US. National boundaries for stables
- imo ETH sees significant uptake as a payment method that's both legal and decentralized
- licensed stables, eg. USDC, become huge winners and permitted to access Fed accounts directly
Full summary⬇️
1. The Act makes it illegal to offer unlicensed stablecoins in the US, with a maximum fine of $1M and of 5 years in prison. The Act is specific that this applies globally. Their definition of "stablecoin" is very broad and includes DAI, LUSD, floating stables like RAI, and even includes exotic quasi-stables as long as they are designed to be redeemable for a relatively fixed amount of "monetary value", including all fiat currencies.
For example, this act makes it illegal to build DAI in America, illegal to send DAI to an American business or person living in the US, and illegal for foreign-licensed or unlicensed stablecoins to be offered to Americans in any way.
Essentially, this bill draws national borders around stables by making decentralized stables and foreign-licensed stables illegal in America.
imo the illegalization of unlicensed and foreign stables seems likely to greatly benefit the uptake of non-stable payment tokens, especially ETH.
2. The Act makes the stablecoin licensing process structured but ultimately discretionary. They decide who gets to issue licensed stables.
3. Allows stables to be collateralized by insured deposits in some cases. Could perhaps cause deposit tokens to fall under this regulation as "stablecoins backed by bank deposits".
4. Gives stable operators direct access to the Federal Reserve. Eg. Circle could have accounts at the Fed.
5. Launches an official study on a CBDC. Includes a surprisingly thoughtful list of criteria to study, including the potential impact of a CBDC on the competitive landscape of stablecoins.
6. The Act defines "payment system" broadly in a way that, imo, would include many wallets, bridges, defi, and crypto payment apps. But, the Act does not regulate these payment systems. They aren't banning or licensing defi in this Act.
I'm not a lawyer, and this was my best-effort interpretation of the Act.
Full Act:
docs.house.gov/meetings/BA/B…
mark rigdon retweeted
Credit Suisse, $CS, Fines by Year:
- 2022: $700 million
- 2021: $280 million
- 2018: $90 million
- 2017: $5.4 billion
- 2016: $240 million
- 2014: $3.7 billion
- 2012: $120 million
- 2009: $536 million
- 2008: $15 million
- 2003: $275 million
- 2002: $350 million
Credit Suisse has been fined over 50 times for a total of $11.4 billion since 2000, an average of $570 million/year.
That's almost four times the $3.25 billion that UBS just paid to acquire them.
They dug their own grave.
mark rigdon retweeted
This whole article is just nuts. From apparently not having anyone in interest risk management, to the insane “secret” recap plan, who is really running this thing and why didn’t they go to bank school?
reuters.com/markets/us/silic…
mark rigdon retweeted
My question for anyone at these failing banks with “risk management” in their job title
mark rigdon retweeted
This is the BIG issue... there is zero marginal cost to move to JPM. Might take a couple of weeks for it to show up. If the Fed don't solve THIS issue (not just SIVB), its going to be a much bigger deal than people realise. It's not about SIVB.
mark rigdon retweeted
Remember how we said it takes about 1 year to fully feel the effects of the rate hikes?
It has now been approximately one year since the first rate hike of 25 bps.
mark rigdon retweeted
Why is this different than 2008?
In 2008, banks were undercapitalized. Balance sheets were clogged with toxic assets. The remedy was bank recapitalization and a suspension of mark-to-market accounting.
This time the remedy is an easy fix. It costs no money.
The FDIC can declare ‘we will insure all deposits’ (for two years).
No more bank runs. The banks hold the bonds to maturity.
The magic show goes on.
mark rigdon retweeted
#BREAKING: According to sources, the FDIC is looking to chop up Silicon Valley Bank and find buyers for it's various businesses, rather than a quick sale of the bank.
This is bad for startups as risk assets are left behind. A full bailout is desperately needed ASAP!
mark rigdon retweeted
For those who are unaware: the FDIC is brutally efficient, vastly more than almost any other government agency I can name. On Monday morning, the former Silicon Valley Bank branches will re-open under the name of another bank.
