Month: March 2019

SEC Publishes Satirical Letter from “Melon Tusk” Trolling the Agency

On March 25, the SEC memorialized what will could become an iconic document in the ongoing legal saga whether Elon Musk should be held in contempt of court. The letter was discovered and posted on Twitter by Aaron Greenspan. It is addressed to “The SEC, Whom I Do Not Respect”.

The letter is satirically written by Elon Musk and signed with the name “Melon Tusk”, placing an “M” and a “T” in front of Elon Musk’s signature. It opens by ridiculing former SEC Chair Jay Clayton, stating:

“Jay is a being a good boy in cutting slack for highly important executives whose mission is to save the world and humanity.” 

The letter then thanks Hester Peirce for “her hard work towards dismantling the SEC”.

“Peirce is doing a splendid job of neutering @SEC_Enforcement as much as possible, and turning the SEC into the perfect tool for businesses to ‘hunt for profits’ in pretty much any way that they see fit – especially those selling dreams that will come true in 3  months maybe, 6 months definitely,” the letter reads, mocking public timelines once set by Elon Musk. 

The letter “praises” the SEC’s enforcement of its disclosure policies.

Now, let’s talk about disclosures. I say to hell with all that legalese, the 8K’s, 10K’s, 10Q’s, and TSLAQ’s. I say a well-crafted Tweet is worth a thousand words (and $20 Min fines was “Worth It” as well). The SEC should get with the times. The really loyal investors don’t care to watch paint dry in all those tables and disclosures, they are all perfectly happy with Twitter being the outlet for a company’s most important news. And who knows – or cares – about 10b-5 when a stock is trading at $300/share and soon rising to $420/share (until the SEC decided to enrich the short sellers)?

Finally the “Melon” compares Tesla to Enron, a comparison that may only be satirical for the time being:

Remember ENRON? When the SEC butted in, 19,000 employees lost their jobs, and billions in shares were wiped out. Do you dare let that happen again, SEC, to 40,000 (± 10,000 depending on the layoff, no 8K needed) employees?

“As long as shareholders are happy and a stock price is pumped, who cares?” the letter concludes summarizing the entire zeitgeist of the current generation of traders, where as long as stocks are going up – whether due to Fed intervention, buybacks or plain old manipulation – nobody cares.

The letter can be viewed on the SEC’s site here:

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MSNBC Editor ‘Bullies’ Journalist On Behalf Of DNC During ‘Highly Unethical’ Call

Left-leaning journalist Yashar Ali was pressured by MSNBC/NBC’s managing politics editor Dafna Linzer, “on behalf of the DNC,” to delay a scoop on dates for the 2020 Democratic primary debates so that they could scramble to notify state parties before the story hit, according to Ali. 

Dafna Linzer, Yashar Ali

Prior to contributing to the Huffington Post, Mother Jones and New York magazines, the Chicago-born journalist worked on Democrat Steve Westley’s California Gubernatorial campaign, and would later work for Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign. He also served as then-San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s deputy chief of staff. 

He’s also gotten some of the biggest scoops in political journalism, while growing his Twitter following from 6,600 in October 2016 to 366,000 today. 

Along with HuffPost’s editor-in-chief, Lydia Polgreen, he uncovered NBC News’ stringent opposition to Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein exposé, which ultimately ran in The New Yorker. He reported that former President George W. Bush said President Donald Trump’s inauguration was “some weird s—,” a description Hillary Clinton has taken on her book tour. –Business Insider

In a Friday twitter thread, Ali outlined this “highly inappropriate and unethical” call, which came after he told the DNC he would not delay the scoop. Two minutes later, MSNBC’s Linzer called Ali and pressured him on behalf of the DNC. 

As Ali notes, it wasn’t entirely unexpected for the DNC to have reached out to MSNBC since they were coordinating an announcement – “what was strange was that she was calling me and taking a menacing tone” so that the DNC could get their act together and make phone calls first.

We wonder how closely the MSM and DNC will be “coordinating” efforts going into 2020.  

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Stagnation, Recession Or Recovery? Here’s How To Determine What Happens In The Second Quarter

After a disastrous for capital markets fourth quarter, the Fed once again worked it’s Pavlovian magic, BofA’s Chief Investment Strategist Michael Hartnett writes, as an abrupt end to rate hikes & Quantitative Tightening “caused pessimistic investors to salivate at the prospect of more central bank liquidity.”

The result was a collapse in volatility and spreads (US IG BBB from 206bp to 161bp, in fact as Bloomberg writes “BBB Rated Corporate Bonds Off to Best Start to a Year Since 1995“), equity multiples re-rated sharply higher (MSCI ACWI from 12.7x to 14.9x), and the QT-driven appreciation in the US dollar was interrupted.

Yet in keeping with all such prior “aggressive easing” episodes which saw buying across all asset classes, “Pavlov’s Dog bit the Fed” as 10-year bond yields tumbled in March as bond market volatility exploded: Australia -47bp, US -37bp, UK -31bp, Germany -26bp, China -15bp, Japan -10bp, and the 3m10y US yield curve inverted for first time since July’07. And since the yield curve has been a strong predictor of recession (in 7 out of the last 7 occasions, although in the immediate post-war period, recessions were not preceded by inversion), markets ended Q1 fearing recession & policy impotence.

Meanwhile, investors have refused to buy – quite literally – the sharp rebound in the S&P, which is set for its best quarter since 2009, and sold stocks all the way with 13 consecutive weeks of equity fund outflows offsetting inflows into fixed income as the rush for yield overcame the desire for capital appreciation.

Last week was no different, as according to EPFR the rush out of stocks continued apace, with $12.5 billion pulled from equities ($7.7BN out of US stocks, $4.8BN out of EU, $2.0BN out of EM.) while a fresh $8.6 billion went into bonds ($5.2bn into IG, $2.2bn into EM debt, $0.9bn into HY).

Summarizing these trends, Hartnett writes that as we begin the second quarter, consensus starts Q2 long “secular stagnation” & “deflation” with $87bn of inflows into “deflation assets” YTD (e.g. corp & EM bonds & REITs), and $42bn redemptions from “inflation assets”.

Yet despite these clear “great unrotation” flows, the prevailing sense is one of confusion, as “investors are discounting neither recession (they love corporate bonds) not recovery (they don’t like cyclical equities).“

So in an attempt to provide some clarity to confused traders and frame the current prevailing market themes, Hartnett writes that whereas Positioning & Policy were positive catalysts in Q1, Profits will be the catalyst in Q2. Here Hartnett concedes that in his view, consensus global EPS numbers remain too high (BofAML Global EPS model forecasts -9% EPS growth in the next 12 months vs. analyst consensus 0%), suggesting that the next leg in the market is one of disappointment.

To make it even easier, Hartnett lays out its three core Q2 scenarios and predicts that the fate of the second quarter, whether Stagnation, Recession, or Recovery is the dominant Q2 outcome, will depend on the evolution of BofA’s global EPS model, as follows:

  • Stagnation: global EPS forecast stagnates @ -5-10% as US growth dips below 2%, global PMIs vacillate around 50, US rates fall toward anchored/negative Japanese & Eurozone rates, secular “Japanification” trade of past 10 years hardens; the big tell…credit bid, volatility offered; the big trades…long 30-year UST, biotech, short resources, volatility.
  • Recession: global EPS forecast drops to -15% as surge in US unemployment claims indicates US consumer joining manufacturing recession in China, Japan & Eurozone where PMIs drop to 45; the big tells…oil <$50/b, JNK <$33, INJCJC4 >300k; the big trades…short tech & corporate bonds, long T-bills, US dollar & VIX.
  • Recovery: global EPS forecast turns positive as “green shoots” in Asian exports (Chart 1) & Chinese growth blossom, while lower US rates boost US housing data; credit spreads prove once again they are better lead indicator for risk assets than government bond yields (Chart 6); the tells…SOX >1450, XHB >$42, KOSPI >2350, yield curve steepens; the trades…long global banks, short bunds & US dollar.

Ironically, despite warning above that BofA believes global EPS expectations are artificially high, “tactically” it is in the Q2 “Recovery” camp. But that doesn’t mean it’s bullish, because after a brief rebound in risk in the second quarter, in the second half “we expect big top in markets before debt deflation/policy impotence leads risk assets lower.“

Conveniently, we won’t have long to wait to get a sense of how Q2 plays out as there 5 big datapoints in the coming week that will set the course, and expectations, for the entire quarter.

* * *

Hartnett concludes with one troubling, for all those employed on Wall Street, observation: deflation is now dominant. Specifically, with over $12trillion in central bank easing and 713 interest cuts since GFC, the result has been the longest and one of strongest bull markets of all time in corporate bonds & equities; yet the reflation of Wall Street assets has been accompanied by deflation of Wall Street fees (note asset manager stocks prices at 25-year relative lows):

This means that structural deflation remains rife even in cyclical “booms”, and remains the best explanation why bond yields continue their secular journey toward zero, something Albert Edwards has been predicting ever since he coined the Ice Age concept back in 1996.

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Rand Paul Rages “Officials Must Be Asked Under Oath What Obama Knew, And When?”

Authored by Kane via CitizenFreePress.com,

Citing a ‘high-level source,’ Rand Paul says former CIA Director John Brennan grew frustrated that no one was giving credence to the Clinton-funded dossier, so he attached it to an intelligence report, ensuring that it would be seen by President Obama and President-elect Trump.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday that President Donald Trump told senators at the weekly GOP luncheon that he backs his call for an investigation into the origins of the Russia scandal “hoax” that Trump has now been cleared of by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

“The president was at lunch today and he voiced his support for investigating the people who concocted this hoax,” Paul told Breitbart News.

“He didn’t use the word hoax, those are my words, but I think we should get to the bottom of this and he believes we should get to the bottom of this because this should never happen to another president. He feels that it’s damaging to the country, damaging to the ability to lead the country, that we basically—somebody within the Obama administration, within the DOJ and the FBI, basically concocted an investigation, trumped it up to be something that it wasn’t and then we’ve gone through two years of the country being stalled because of this fake investigation.”

Rand exclaimed (at around 3: 02): “Officials must be asked under oath what Obama knew, and when…”

When asked specifically if former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan, and former National Security Adviser Susan Rice should be called to testify about their role in the matter – and be subpoenaed to force their testimony if they refuse to voluntarily comply.

Paul said:

“Absolutely. We have John Brennan, who lied to us, who spied on the Senate and tapped into Senate computers,” Paul said.

“We have James Clapper who came before the Intelligence Committee and said they weren’t collecting all of our phone data. So both Brennan and Clapper have been known to lie in official testimony. They should be brought forward and asked what was their part? What was their role in ginning up this dossier? Amazingly, most media outlets wouldn’t even print the dossier because they thought it was so unsubstantiated. And then all of a sudden, the FBI gives it credence. There’s one interesting story out today that says still no one would print it, so then Comey gives it to President Trump and that’s when it’s been leaked and then we have a news story saying that this dossier had been given to the president and that became the hook or the story.”

“I think it’s a terrible tragedy,” Paul said of the investigation. “It cost us $30 million, two years to go through all of this, the media has been so consumed by all of this that they have barely had time to report on any of the real news of the day. I think we shouldn’t allow this to happen again to a Republican or a Democrat.”

For now, the full Mueller report is not yet public—and Paul said he intends to object to its full release until such time as all the documents regarding the Obama administration’s abuse of power to start this “hoax” investigation are also released.

“My plan is to object to the release of the Mueller report and/or all of the Mueller information until they also release the complete information from the White House, DOJ, FBI, on why they chose to credit the dossier,” Paul said.

“What were the discussions? And who was it who was promoting that the dossier was real? How did it come about? How were all these judgments made? So, the other side wants to read a million pages of Mueller report. We’re going to want to read a million pages of how this whole Russian hoax got started.”

This is the first part of a lengthy interview with Sen. Paul on Spygate in the wake of the Mueller probe clearing President Trump on all matters. More is forthcoming soon…

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Kudlow Calls For “Immediate” 50bps Rate-Cut – Signals Imminent Recession

Just weeks ago, President Trump’s top economic advisor Larry Kudlow was bloviating about the strength and sustainability of the US economy as the cleanest dirty shirt in the world.

Something appears to have scared him as today, echoing Trump’s latest Fed pick Stephen Moore, Kudlow is calling for The Fed to “immediately” cut rates by 50bps.

Axios reports that Kudlow “would love to see” such a downward move, adding that the central bank shouldn’t have ever set overnight interest rates past 2%.

The market itself is pricing in almost 40bps of rate-cuts in 2019 while The Fed remains stuck at no rate-change in 2019.

The problem for Kudlow in calling for this immediate rate-cut is this – the last three recessions all saw a Fed rate-cut three months before they started.

However, it seems Kudlow has lost his mojo as the dollar is higher and stocks showed zero reaction to his comments

So what is Kudlow worried about? This?

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“Desperate” Illinois Ponders Taxing Internet Streaming Services And Hiking Gas Tax

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk,

Illinois seems desperate to drive away every able body citizen who can possibly leave.

Illinois is considering several bills that will without a doubt drive more businesses and individuals out of the state. One of them is likely illegal.

Gas Tax Hikes

Please consider Bill Seeks to Increase Illinois’ Gas Tax to Fund Road Repair.

Illinois lawmakers are considering raising the state’s gas tax by 19 cents a gallon and hiking vehicle fees to pay for transportation infrastructure repairs.

Legislation introduced last week proposes the state’s first gas tax increase since 1990 and could raise an additional $2 billion in revenue each year, the Chicago Tribune reported. But it also would hike the electric-vehicle fee from $17.50 to $148, and increase truck registration fees by $100.

The fees for driver’s licenses would double under the proposal, from $30 to $60, while passenger vehicle registration would increase from $98 to $148.

Where Would the Money Go (Part 1)

“Doubling the state gas tax would bring Illinois to the second-highest overall gas tax burden in the nation, notes the Illinois Policy Institute.

Supposedly these tax hikes would go for road repairs. Perhaps about 10% would. The rest would go to bail out bankrupt Illinois’ pension plans.

Netflix Tax

Next, please consider ILLINOIS BILL WOULD EXPAND CHICAGO’S ‘NETFLIX TAX’ STATEWIDE.

House Bill 3359 would create the “Video Service Tax Modernization Act” and “Entertainment Tax Fairness Act,” which would impose new taxes on satellite and video streaming service providers and subscribers. Users of those services would pay a 1 percent tax “for the privilege to witness, view, or otherwise enjoy the entertainment,” while companies would pay a 5 percent tax on their gross revenues.

Chicago currently stretches the definition of its 9 percent citywide “amusement tax” to include online streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify, as well as Playstation rentals.

The legality of Chicago’s “Netflix tax” is dubious. The Liberty Justice Center, the Illinois Policy Institute’s litigation partner, sued the city on behalf of streaming service customers in 2015, after the expansion of the tax to online services went into effect. The city tax was previously applied only to ticketed live entertainment performances and events.

The Center argued expanding the tax to online services violates the 1998 Internet Tax Freedom Act, a federal law. The Act prohibits taxes that discriminate against electronic commerce levied by any government body, including state governments, suggesting Illinois could expose itself to similar legal risks should HB 3359 become law.

Where Would the Money Go (Part 2)

This tax hike is even easier to state. No matter what anyone says, 100% of this money would be diverted to bail out bankrupt Illinois’ pension plans.

Constitutional Amendment

These hikes are on top of a major Constitutional Amendment change to make the Illinois state income tax “Progressive”. Rest assured it will dramatically increase taxes on the middle class no matter what these parasites say.

Get the Hell Out

I repeat my caution of last week: An Illinois’ Demographic Collapse Is on the Horizon.

Get Out As Soon As You Can!

Yes, we live in Illinois. I expect to be out of this hell hole within 18 months. Plans are underway.

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Former WWE Executive Linda McMahon To Resign From Trump Cabinet

After a quarter that has been notably light on turnover following a rash of resignations late last year, another member of the Trump cabinet is reportedly preparing to leave her post.

Linda McMahon, head of the Small Business Administration, is reportedly preparing to announce her resignation as soon as Friday, Politico reports. The former wrestling executive and wife of WWE founder Vince McMahon is reportedly leaving to “rejoin the private sector.”

Her departure comes as a surprise, mostly because McMahon was widely seen as a contender to eventually replace Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

President Trump established a friendly relationship with the McMahons after his now-infamous “hostile takeover” of the WWE during Wrestlemania 23, when he body slammed and viciously beat the wrestling executive before strapping him to chair and shaving his head, in what was widely interpreted as a gesture of dominance.

News of Linda McMahon’s departure from the administration comes a day after her husband cashed out $270 million of his shares in WWE to help fund his investment in the XFL, an alternative football league that is set to launch in February 2020. However, McMahon will remain in his role as chairman and CEO of the family-run business. So, perhaps McMahon – who mounted two unsuccessful senate bids before joining the administration – will be moving back to Connecticut to play a more active role in the league, per the New York Post.

Or maybe she just wants to spend more time on her yacht, “the Sexy Bitch.”

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UPS Begins First Commercial Drone Delivery Service In U.S.

United Parcel Service Inc. announced Tuesday that it had launched a new logistics service to transport medical samples via unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) through a new partnership with Matternet, a developer of autonomous drone technology, according to UPS Pressroom.

The UPS and Matternet program, which rolled out earlier this week, utilizes drones to transport medical samples and specimens across WakeMed Raleigh Campus and hospital in Raleigh, N.C., metropolitan area.

The program is a significant milestone for the aerospace industry because it is the first continuing commercial drone delivery service in the U.S.

 

Federal Aviation Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT) officials are currently overseeing the delivery service.

“NCDOT, which is working to leverage drones to expand healthcare access for the residents of North Carolina, supported Matternet in conducting first-round test flights using Matternet’s drone technology on WakeMed’s campus in August 2018 as part of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Pilot Program (IPP).

The three-year FAA program aims to test practical applications of drones by partnering local governments with private sector companies to learn more about how this emerging technology can be safely and usefully integrated into day-to-day activities. The five IPP partners involved are the FAA, NCDOT, UPS, Matternet, and WakeMed,” read the UPS press release.

UPS is using Matternet’s M2 quadcopter, which is designed to carry payloads up to 5 lbs. over a distance of approximately 12 to 13 miles (weather dependent).

The M2 is an alternative to UPS’ small urban vehicles that tend to experience high traffic volumes on busy city streets. By bypassing traditional car carriers, the drone “increase medical delivery efficiency, lower costs and improve the patient experience with potentially life-saving benefits,” said UPS.

The UPS Advanced Technology Group manages the program. Bala Ganesh, who leads the organization, said drones are an essential part of UPS’s transformation efforts in the modern economy.

“What you’re seeing is a transformation in action. It will play out over the next four or five years, but today is the first step in that journey,” Ganesh said.

As shown in the video below, medical professionals load the drone container with a medical sample or specimen, such as blood samples, at one of WakeMed’s facilities. The team who operates the drone will retrieve the box from within the hospital and transport it outside to the launch pad. Drone operators will then clip the container to the underbelly of the drone for transport. The drone will travel along a predetermined flight path, monitored by the trained Remote Pilot-in-Command (RPIC), to a landing pad at another facility on WakeMed’s campus.

The program is expected to continue for three years, and UPS and Matternet will use the flight data to improve the transport service for an eventual nationwide rollout.

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Open Door Policies Won’t Lead to Fascism: New at Reason

Border BarrierA country cannot control outsiders without also controlling insiders. So if there’s an immigration policy that’s more likely to lead to fascism, it is restrictionism, not allowing willing Americans to consort with willing foreigners. In Arizona, for example, restrictionism has imposed racial profiling, forced residents of border communities to go through interior checkpoints every time they leave town, raided employers suspected of hiring undocumented immigrants, prosecuted humanitarian workers helping migrants, and more.

But neoconservative-turned-#NeverTrumper David Frum is having none of it. In a recent cover story in the Atlantic, he tries to pull a logical and moral jujitsu, arguing that a failure to cut immigration would lead to fascism. “If liberals don’t enforce borders,” he says, “fascists will.”

Reason Foundation Senior Analyst Shikha Dalmia debunks Frum, pointing out that his case is based on stunningly questionable and politically simplistic premises.

View this article.

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Buchanan: Must The West Beg The World For Forgiveness?

Authored by Patrick Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

As the Democratic Party quarrels over reparations for slavery, a new and related issue has arisen, raised by the president of Mexico.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has written Pope Francis I and King Felipe VI to demand their apologies for the Spanish conquest of Mexico that began 500 years ago with the “invasion” of Hernando Cortez.

Arriving on the Gulf Coast in 1519, Cortes marched in two years to what is today’s Mexico City to impose Spanish rule, the Spanish language and culture, and the Catholic faith upon the indigenous peoples.

“One culture, one civilization was imposed upon another,” wrote President Lopez Obrador:

“There were massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and the cross. They built their churches on top of the temples.”

He demanded that the king and the pope ask for “forgiveness for the abuses inflicted on the indigenous peoples of Mexico.”

Now no one denies that great sins and crimes were committed in that conquest.

But are not the Mexican people, 130 million of them, far better off because the Spanish came and overthrew the Aztec Empire?

Did not 300 years of Spanish rule and replacement of Mexico’s pagan cults with the Catholic faith lead to enormous advances for its civilization and human rights?

Or is there never a justification for one nation to invade another, conquer its people, impose its rule, and uproot and replace its culture and civilization? Is “cultural genocide” always a crime against humanity, even if the uprooted culture countenanced human sacrifice?

Did the Aztecs have a right to be left alone by the European world?

If so, whence came that right?

Which leads to another question: Are all civilizations and cultures equal, or are some more equal than others? Are some superior?

Before recent decades, most Americans were taught to believe the West stood above all other civilizations, and America was its supreme manifestation. And much of the world seemed to agree.

As for the assertion that all civilizations and cultures are equal, that is an ideological statement. But where is the historic, scientific or empirical evidence to support that proposition? How many people really believe that?

Spain’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell said it was “weird to receive now this request for an apology for events that occurred 500 years ago.”

He wondered if Spain should seek an apology from France for the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula and crimes committed by the armies of Napoleon, or if France could demand an apology from Italy for the invasion of Gaul by Julius Caesar?

Unlikely to get an apology from the king, Lopez Obrador may do better with Pope Francis who is into begging for forgiveness for crimes committed in the Spanish-Portuguese conquest and rule of South America.

In Bolivia in 2015, the pope declared:

“I say this to you with regret. Many grave sins were committed against the native people of America in the name of God. … I humbly ask forgiveness, not only for the offense of the church herself, but also for crimes committed against the native people during the so-called conquest of America.”

As The New York Times related in its story on the “chilly response” in Madrid to Mexico’s demand, other Western leaders — not only Barack Obama — are very much into this apology fad.

Justin Trudeau has apologized for Canada’s mistreatment of its indigenous peoples. France’s Emmanuel Macron has apologized for the torture of rebels in Algeria’s war for independence.

The Spanish right, however, is not with the program.

Alberto Rivera, leader of the Ciudadanos, called Lopez Obrador’s demand “an intolerable offense to the Spanish people.”

Rafael Hernando of the Popular Party dismissed it with contempt:

“We Spaniards went there (to Mexico) and ended the power of tribes that assassinated their neighbors with cruelty and fury.”

Behind this demand for an apology from Spain and the Church is a view of history familiar to Americans, and rooted in clashing concepts about who we are, and were.

Have the Western peoples who conquered and changed much of the world been, on balance, a blessing to mankind or a curse? Is the history of the West, though replete with the failings of all civilizations, not unique in the greatness of what it produced?

Or are the West’s crimes of imperialism, colonialism, genocide, racism, slavery and maltreatment of minorities of color so sweeping, hateful and shameful they cancel out the good done?

Is the white race, as Susan Sontag wrote, “the cancer of human history”?

As we see the monuments and memorials to the great men of our past desecrated and dragged down, the verdict among a slice of our intellectual and cultural elites is already in. Thumbs down. They agree with the moral shakedown artist of Mexico City.

Query: Can peoples who are ashamed of their nation’s past do great things in its future? Or is a deep-seated national guilt, such as that which afflicts many Germans today, a permanent incapacitating feature of a nation’s existence?

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