For the first time since 2006, Google’s (Alphabet) cash-pile is larger than Apple’s as the former hits a record high and the latter is blowing cash like a drunken sailor.
As The FT reports, the switch in leadership follows a concerted effort by the iPhone maker to reduce its liquid reserves, six years after it first came under pressure from activist investor Carl Icahn to pay out more of its cash hoard. Apple’s holdings of cash and marketable securities, net of debt, has fallen to $102bn (the lowest since 2011), down from a peak of $163bn at the end of 2017.
Apple is not alone in its share repurchase panic, but even the heightened rate of buybacks may not cap the growth in Alphabet’s cash mountain. Its free cash flow this year was forecast to top $30bn, rising to almost $40bn next year, said George Salmon, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
The new buyback intentions “don’t represent a step change” big enough to actually reduce the company’s total reserves, he said.
The company’s preference for hoarding its money and spending it on trying to break into new markets, rather than using it to reward shareholders with buybacks or dividends, as Apple has done, also antagonises some investors.
“In general, their attempts to reinvent themselves with their new initiatives aren’t working out,” said Walter Price, a portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors.
“I wish they’d return more cash to shareholders and waste less.”
Finally, we note that the rise of Google’s parent to the top of the corporate liquidity rankings puts its corporate wealth and power on conspicuous display at a politically sensitive moment. After being hit with €8.2bn in antitrust fines to the EU in the past two years, it now faces intense scrutiny in Washington… and after last night’s debate, we suspect these tech cash-piles will quickly get ‘taxed’ away under a Democrat.
via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2LSxdhc Tyler Durden
President Trump has been labeled a racist for using the word “infested” to describe Baltimore’s rat problem, but Elijah Cummings used the exact same word to describe the city back in 1999.
As the video below highlights, CNN slammed Trump for using the word “infested” to describe Baltimore, suggesting that the president was dehumanizing black people.
However, during 1999 testimony, Elijah Cummings referred to his own district as a “drug infested area.”
I guess Elijah Cummings is racist too.
As we previously highlighted, Bernie Sanders also claimed Trump was “attacking” an American city by calling Baltimore rat infested yet Sanders himself repeatedly said the place resembled a “third world country” back in 2015.
Meanwhile, Benny Johnson visited residents in Rep. Cummings district to find out what life is really like there.
Common themes; Rats, trash, crime, corrupt politicians.
Are they all racist too?
We are in a political firestorm over the condition of Baltimore.
So what is life really like there?
I spoke with residents in Rep. Cummings district.
Here’s what they had to say: Rats. Trash. Crime. Abandoned by politicians. Begging for change.
Want the truth?
Please WATCH @TPUSApic.twitter.com/rkHwwHc1kf
LPs pulled money from hedge funds at an alarming rate last year after a stretch of abysmal returns. Yet, apparently, the highest-performing funds have no reason to be worried. With the Fed about to phase in QE4, investors are scrambling for allocations at the best-performing funds, and Elemental Capital, a macro fund that has averaged annual returns north of 20% since 2005, has decided it’s going to buck the trend of falling fees and hike them, instead.
According to the FT, the fund’s motive isn’t pure greed: It also wants to shake out some investors and reduce its AUM, allowing it to shift its investing strategy to focus on smaller, less liquid markets. The Va.-based fund, which boasts a stunning $18 billion AUM, was founded by Jeffrey Talpins, a former bond trader at Goldman and Citi who had emerged as an industry star. He was already charging a 2.5% annual fee and a 25% performance fee. That’s far higher than the industry average, which has sunk below the traditional ‘2-and-20’ threshold (charging 2% management fee along with a 20% management fee).
The fund is planning to hike its performance fee to 40%, and lower its management fee to 2%.
The $18 billion hedge fund founded by Jeffrey Talpins, a former bond trader at Goldman Sachs and Citi who has emerged as one of the industry’s brightest stars, already charges a 2.5%annual management fee and 25% of gains, far higher than the industry average.
“While a seemingly bleak snapshot, a small cohort of funds are prospering,” said Mark Connors, global head of risk advisory on Credit Suisse’s hedge fund servicing team. “Some have even been able to maintain pricing power, distancing themselves even further from the average manager.”
Over the summer, Elemental made some changes at the portfolio-management level, shuttering its portfolio management program of quasi-independent trading centers. But the fund is up 6% on the year through June.
“I have never in my life seen an economy like this. This is even better than the ’60s. It is phenomenal. And I think [it’s] primarily because of deregulation, not tax reform. My companies in California, in Texas, in Florida, in Illinois…have been set free.”—Kevin O’Leary
For the past 10 years, the reality TV show Shark Tank has entertained and edified millions of viewers by dramatizing how entrepreneurs pitch venture capitalists. And none of the “sharks”—the investors who compete with each other to fund businesses they think will be successful—is more entertaining or edifying than Kevin O’Leary, whose signature insult to unsuccessful contestants—”You’re Dead To Me”—has become a pop culture catchphrase.
But O’Leary isn’t just a small-screen blowhard. Born and raised in Canada, the 65-year-old investor got rich by developing educational and family-oriented computer software in the 1980s and ’90s and holding firm to a gospel of thrift, savings, and reinvestment that he’s outlined in best-selling books such as Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women, and Money. Over the years, he’s diversified his investments into vineyards, storage facilities, and more, and he’s dabbled in politics, too, briefly considering a run in 2017 to head the Conservative Party in Canada. His brash nature earned him easy comparisons to Donald Trump but O’Leary, who lives in Boston, is openly free trade and pro-immigration. He’s long been in favor of marijuana legalization and gay rights and opposed to military interventionism.
Nick Gillespie sat down with O’Leary at FreedomFest, the annual gathering of libertarians in Las Vegas. They talked about why Shark Tank is so popular, why Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is so bad, and whether “democratic socialism” is really a threat to the free market capitalism that O’Leary says makes us richer and happier. They also discussed why O’Leary thinks Donald Trump has been great for the economy despite a personal style so many, including O’Leary himself, find unappealing.
Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Ian Keyser. Intro by Mark McDaniel. Cameras by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg.
Some highlights from the conversation (edited for clarity):
Trump “is a great entertainer.”
“Great politicians, great leaders, great CEOs are phenomenal entertainers. Going back to the days of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Bismarck, they used to hold council at night, have big dinner parties or sit around the fire with their men and tell stories. They would tell stories of great defeats, great battles, great loves, and that would spread through the troops…and it would capture the hearts and minds of the people. Donald Trump is exactly that. He is a great entertainer.”
The chance Donald Trump “doesn’t get a second term…is zero.”
“The chance [Trump] doesn’t get a second term in my view is zero. And I’ll tell you why. I don’t recall in modern times when going into a second term at full employment, the incumbent of any party has ever lost their mandate ever.”
“Saving baby whales is not what businesses do.”
“I believe that…the DNA of a business is to provide to its constituents. Clearly, customers come number one, number two, employees, somewhere in there are the shareholders…. You who started it, you’re the last. When you try and shift business’s true purpose and say that it’s going to save society, you will fail. Not some of the time, but 100 percent of the time. Saving baby whales is not what businesses do.”
“The role of government is to provide basic services.”
“I think it’s the role of government to provide basic services…. I’m particularly fond of what they do in Switzerland, where they basically have multiple tiers of things like health care and support for those that are poor. What they do is they’ll say, OK, if you’re a wealthy Swiss citizen in Geneva and you want to get an MRI because you want one tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock, you’re going to pay for it. They’re going to take the proceeds of that and they’re going to redeploy it into purchasing more MRI machines so those that aren’t as fortunate can get free MRIs.”
“Everybody’s a socialist when they’re young.”
“I was a socialist when I was 18 years old too. I was left wing. I got my first paycheck and I saw something called tax on it. Everybody’s a socialist when they’re young, until they start working and they start realizing how tough it is out there and they start realizing how much money government wastes when they take half their income and taxes. And that’s when you become a conservative. The older you get, the more realistic you become. And a majority of those people make the transition in their mid-twenties. That’s what happens. I never worry about it.”
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Over 900 children were separated from their parents between June 28, 2018 and June 29, 2019, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration.
According to the group, families are still being separated at the border, even after the same court issued an injunction against the practice in June of last year. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of San Diego on Tuesday, says the federal government has been taking children away from their parents “based on minor criminal history, highly dubious allegations of unfitness, and errors in identifying bona fide parent-child relationships.”
Attorneys for the ACLU argue that the Trump administration has quietly weaponized exceptions for parental criminal records made under the injunction in order to systematically continue family separations. The nonprofit is subsequently requesting that a federal judge issue more concrete guidance on the conditions under which removing a child from his or her parents is permissible.
“It is shocking that the Trump administration continues to take babies from their parents,” Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney on the lawsuit, said in a statement Tuesday. “Over 900 more families join the thousands of others previously torn apart by this cruel and illegal policy. The administration must not be allowed to circumvent the court order over infractions like minor traffic violations.”
The federal government is now circumventing “traditional due process and child custody standards,” the suit says, in order to maintain President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy meant to dissuade migrants from crossing the border.
The lawsuit comes amid an onslaught of immigration headaches for the Trump administration. Most recently, media reports widely criticized conditions at border detention facilities, where detainees, including children, are crammed into crowded cages and denied showers and hygiene products. Trump has also implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for their immigration court date. The labor union for federal asylum officers said that, under the directive, migrants now “face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.”
The latter measure is closely related to Trump’s zero-tolerance approach. His administration has argued that the practice was required by the 1997 Flores agreement. The terms of that court settlement, they said, mandates a 100 percent prosecution rate for all illegal border crossers. That mandate, in turn, means children are not permitted to stay with their parents in detention centers while their parents await trial.
But as Ilya Somin points out at Reason, “federal officials inevitably have vast discretion in determining which offenses to pursue and to what degree.” Illegal entry is a misdemeanor carrying a sentence less than that of marijuana possession. Even former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who argued for the 100 percent prosecution rate, would find it infeasible and wasteful to prosecute every singleperson ever found with marijuana.
Ironically, the Flores agreement also dictates that the government “place each detained minor in the least restrictive setting appropriate” and that they be placed with a family member or guardian “without unnecessary delay.” It further says that the government will “treat all minors in its custody with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors.” But as Somin says, being separated from your parents—over something as minuscule as a traffic infraction—is hardly a display of dignity.
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via IFTTT
“I have never in my life seen an economy like this. This is even better than the ’60s. It is phenomenal. And I think [it’s] primarily because of deregulation, not tax reform. My companies in California, in Texas, in Florida, in Illinois…have been set free.”—Kevin O’Leary
For the past 10 years, the reality TV show Shark Tank has entertained and edified millions of viewers by dramatizing how entrepreneurs pitch venture capitalists. And none of the “sharks”—the investors who compete with each other to fund businesses they think will be successful—is more entertaining or edifying than Kevin O’Leary, whose signature insult to unsuccessful contestants—”You’re Dead To Me”—has become a pop culture catchphrase.
But O’Leary isn’t just a small-screen blowhard. Born and raised in Canada, the 65-year-old investor got rich by developing educational and family-oriented computer software in the 1980s and ’90s and holding firm to a gospel of thrift, savings, and reinvestment that he’s outlined in best-selling books such as Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women, and Money. Over the years, he’s diversified his investments into vineyards, storage facilities, and more, and he’s dabbled in politics, too, briefly considering a run in 2017 to head the Conservative Party in Canada. His brash nature earned him easy comparisons to Donald Trump but O’Leary, who lives in Boston, is openly free trade and pro-immigration. He’s long been in favor of marijuana legalization and gay rights and opposed to military interventionism.
Nick Gillespie sat down with O’Leary at FreedomFest, the annual gathering of libertarians in Las Vegas. They talked about why Shark Tank is so popular, why Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is so bad, and whether “democratic socialism” is really a threat to the free market capitalism that O’Leary says makes us richer and happier. They also discussed why O’Leary thinks Donald Trump has been great for the economy despite a personal style so many, including O’Leary himself, find unappealing.
Interview by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Ian Keyser. Intro by Mark McDaniel. Cameras by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg.
Some highlights from the conversation (edited for clarity):
Trump “is a great entertainer.”
“Great politicians, great leaders, great CEOs are phenomenal entertainers. Going back to the days of Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and Bismarck, they used to hold council at night, have big dinner parties or sit around the fire with their men and tell stories. They would tell stories of great defeats, great battles, great loves, and that would spread through the troops…and it would capture the hearts and minds of the people. Donald Trump is exactly that. He is a great entertainer.”
The chance Donald Trump “doesn’t get a second term…is zero.”
“The chance [Trump] doesn’t get a second term in my view is zero. And I’ll tell you why. I don’t recall in modern times when going into a second term at full employment, the incumbent of any party has ever lost their mandate ever.”
“Saving baby whales is not what businesses do.”
“I believe that…the DNA of a business is to provide to its constituents. Clearly, customers come number one, number two, employees, somewhere in there are the shareholders…. You who started it, you’re the last. When you try and shift business’s true purpose and say that it’s going to save society, you will fail. Not some of the time, but 100 percent of the time. Saving baby whales is not what businesses do.”
“The role of government is to provide basic services.”
“I think it’s the role of government to provide basic services…. I’m particularly fond of what they do in Switzerland, where they basically have multiple tiers of things like health care and support for those that are poor. What they do is they’ll say, OK, if you’re a wealthy Swiss citizen in Geneva and you want to get an MRI because you want one tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock, you’re going to pay for it. They’re going to take the proceeds of that and they’re going to redeploy it into purchasing more MRI machines so those that aren’t as fortunate can get free MRIs.”
“Everybody’s a socialist when they’re young.”
“I was a socialist when I was 18 years old too. I was left wing. I got my first paycheck and I saw something called tax on it. Everybody’s a socialist when they’re young, until they start working and they start realizing how tough it is out there and they start realizing how much money government wastes when they take half their income and taxes. And that’s when you become a conservative. The older you get, the more realistic you become. And a majority of those people make the transition in their mid-twenties. That’s what happens. I never worry about it.”
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via IFTTT
Over 900 children were separated from their parents between June 28, 2018 and June 29, 2019, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration.
According to the group, families are still being separated at the border, even after the same court issued an injunction against the practice in June of last year. The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court of San Diego on Tuesday, says the federal government has been taking children away from their parents “based on minor criminal history, highly dubious allegations of unfitness, and errors in identifying bona fide parent-child relationships.”
Attorneys for the ACLU argue that the Trump administration has quietly weaponized exceptions for parental criminal records made under the injunction in order to systematically continue family separations. The nonprofit is subsequently requesting that a federal judge issue more concrete guidance on the conditions under which removing a child from his or her parents is permissible.
“It is shocking that the Trump administration continues to take babies from their parents,” Lee Gelernt, the lead attorney on the lawsuit, said in a statement Tuesday. “Over 900 more families join the thousands of others previously torn apart by this cruel and illegal policy. The administration must not be allowed to circumvent the court order over infractions like minor traffic violations.”
The federal government is now circumventing “traditional due process and child custody standards,” the suit says, in order to maintain President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy meant to dissuade migrants from crossing the border.
The lawsuit comes amid an onslaught of immigration headaches for the Trump administration. Most recently, media reports widely criticized conditions at border detention facilities, where detainees, including children, are crammed into crowded cages and denied showers and hygiene products. Trump has also implemented the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, which requires asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while waiting for their immigration court date. The labor union for federal asylum officers said that, under the directive, migrants now “face persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.”
The latter measure is closely related to Trump’s zero-tolerance approach. His administration has argued that the practice was required by the 1997 Flores agreement. The terms of that court settlement, they said, mandates a 100 percent prosecution rate for all illegal border crossers. That mandate, in turn, means children are not permitted to stay with their parents in detention centers while their parents await trial.
But as Ilya Somin points out at Reason, “federal officials inevitably have vast discretion in determining which offenses to pursue and to what degree.” Illegal entry is a misdemeanor carrying a sentence less than that of marijuana possession. Even former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who argued for the 100 percent prosecution rate, would find it infeasible and wasteful to prosecute every singleperson ever found with marijuana.
Ironically, the Flores agreement also dictates that the government “place each detained minor in the least restrictive setting appropriate” and that they be placed with a family member or guardian “without unnecessary delay.” It further says that the government will “treat all minors in its custody with dignity, respect and special concern for their particular vulnerability as minors.” But as Somin says, being separated from your parents—over something as minuscule as a traffic infraction—is hardly a display of dignity.
from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2SVYQ9P
via IFTTT
In order for any society to function smoothly, the vast majority of the people need to behave at least somewhat rationally. Of course there are always going to be exceptions, and we understand that, but most of us operate under the assumption that most of the people that we are going to encounter in our daily lives are not going to act like nutjobs. Unfortunately, that may not be a safe assumption any longer. As our society literally degenerates right in front of our eyes, it seems like someone has opened up the barn doors and let out all the crazies.
And the truth is that “our leaders” are some of the best examples of this phenomenon. Just look at some of the winners that we have running for president. Quite a few of them are far more qualified for the insane asylum than they are for the highest office in the land. Of course it doesn’t end with our politicians. All across this country, it seems like people in positions of power can’t think straight any longer.
If you doubt this, just consider what just happened to a 79-year-old woman in Ohio named Nancy Segula. When her neighbor moved away, he left a couple cats behind, and they became very hungry. So Segula would feed them and care for them, because she didn’t want them to suffer. Well, eventually one of her neighbors found out about this, and the animal warden was called…
“It began in 2017 with me feeding stray kitties. I used to have a neighbor that had a couple cats and he moved away so he left them,” Segula said. “I would always feed them and care for them because I was worried about them and I’m a cat lover. Once my neighbors got upset about it, they called the animal warden.”
She got her first citation in 2017.
Segula wasn’t about to abandon the suffering cats, and so she just kept on feeding them, and the neighbors kept calling the animal warden.
Over time, she received a total of four citations.
Unfortunately, the most recent citation required her to appear in court, and when she did a judge sentenced her to 10 days in jail…
Her latest citation required her to appear before Magistrate Jeffrey Short last week. He sentenced her to 10 days in the Cuyahoga County Jail.
“I couldn’t believe what my mother was telling me. She gets 10 days in the county jail, I couldn’t believe it,” said Dave Pawlowski, her son son. “I’m sure people hear about the things that happen downtown in that jail. And they are going to let my 79-year-old mother go there?”
Seriously?
Is this what our society has become?
Putting a 79-year-old woman in prison for feeding stray cats is stone cold crazy, but this judge in Ohio is actually doing it.
Are we going to start putting all senior citizens that feed cats in prison? If so, then my parents are in all sorts of trouble, because they have been feeding stray cats for many, many years.
Having compassion for those in need should never be against the law. In previous articles, I have written about how many major cities in America are now passing laws against feeding the homeless.
Well I am sorry – if I see someone in need and I want to give that person some food, no law is going to stop me from doing so.
Let me switch gears for a moment and share another example of the craziness that is sweeping across America.
Within the last few days, police in Pennsylvania arrested a woman that was caught urinating on the potatoes in her local Wal-Mart. The following comes directly from the West Mifflin Borough Police Department…
On July 25, 2019 at 08:41 hours a West Mifflin Police Officer responded to Walmart in West Mifflin for a criminal mischief report. The Officer was met by a Walmart Loss Prevention officer who reported the following incident.
The LPO was informed by an employee that on the day before he noticed urine on the floor near the potatoes in the produce area. The LPO then pulled video that depicted a female at approximately 22:10 hours on July 24, 2019 urinating in the potato bins. The LPO then reported the incident to the West Mifflin Police.
The Detectives of the West Mifflin Police Department investigated the incident and were able to identify the actor as Grace Brown and made contact with her. Ms. Brown along with her attorney came to the station where she identified herself as the person urinating on the potatoes.
Who in the world would do such a thing?
Perhaps she really had to go, and perhaps she didn’t realize that Wal-Mart has restrooms.
But it is probably much more likely that this woman was following an extremely disturbing new trend that has emerged on social media. According to CNN, it originally started with ice cream…
It’s just flat-out gross.
People go into grocery stores, open a container of ice cream at random, lick the top, put it back in the freezer and then just walk away. Oh, and then they put a video of the entire grotesque display on social media for all to see.
The #IceCreamChallenge, as it’s now called, is just one of many social media trends over the past couple of years that has had people (mostly young people) doing questionable things and documenting them online.
But since that time this “challenge” has spread to all sorts of other consumer food products. The more disgusting someone can be as they defile food, the more views and likes they will get on their social media profiles, and that is apparently the goal.
Of course this is yet another sign that America is degenerating into an “idiocracy”, because you would have to be an idiot to think that defiling food in a grocery store is a good idea, and you would have to be an idiot to be entertained by watching someone else do so.
Jailed pedophile Jeffrey Epstein wanted to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating scores of women at his giant ranch in New Mexico, according to the New York Times. He also wanted his penis and head cryogenically frozen.
Epstein shared his scheme with scientists and other confidants over the years, according to four people who were in on the plan – which “reflected his longstanding fascination with what has become known as transhumanism: the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence,” according to the report.
“On multiple occasions starting in the early 2000s, Mr. Epstein told scientists and businessmen about his ambitions to use his New Mexico ranch as a base where women would be inseminated with his sperm and would give birth to his babies, according to two award-winning scientists and an adviser to large companies and wealthy individuals, all of whom Mr. Epstein told about it,” according to the report.
Once, at a dinner at Mr. Epstein’s mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Mr. Lanier said he talked to a scientist who told him that Mr. Epstein’s goal was to have 20 women at a time impregnated at his 33,000-square-foot Zorro Ranch in a tiny town outside Santa Fe. Mr. Lanier said the scientist identified herself as working at NASA, but he did not remember her name.
According to Mr. Lanier, the NASA scientist said Mr. Epstein had based his idea for a baby ranch on accounts of the Repository for Germinal Choice, which was to be stocked with the sperm of Nobel laureates who wanted to strengthen the human gene pool. (Only one Nobel Prize winner has acknowledged contributing sperm to it. The repository discontinued operations in 1999.)
Mr. Lanier, the virtual-reality creator and author, said he had the impression that Mr. Epstein was using the dinner parties — where some guests were attractive women with impressive academic credentials — to screen candidates to bear Mr. Epstein’s children. –New York Times
Epstein, charged in July with sexual trafficking of girls as young as 14, was a prolific liar and manipulator according to the Times, which notes that the ‘serial illusionist’ lied about his clients’ identities, his net worth, his financial prowess, and other personal achievements – all in an effort to worm his way into the upper echelons of society.
As the Times goes on to note, even after his 2008 conviction on charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor, Epstein was able to ingratiate himself with the scientific community, attracting a “glittering array of prominent scientists.”
They included the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Murray Gell-Mann, who discovered the quark; the theoretical physicist and best-selling author Stephen Hawking; the paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen J. Gould; Oliver Sacks, the neurologist and best-selling author; George M. Church, a molecular engineer who has worked to identify genes that could be altered to create superior humans; and the M.I.T. theoretical physicist Frank Wilczek, a Nobel laureate. –New York Times
Scientists had regular parties at Epstein’s Manhattan mansion, drinking Dom Pérignon and other expensive libations. The wealthy financier also hosted buffet lunchest at Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics – to which he contributed $6.5 million in order to get it off the ground.
Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker says he was invited to “salons and coffee klatsches” at which Epstein would ‘hold court.’
While some of Mr. Pinker’s peers hailed Mr. Epstein as brilliant, Mr. Pinker described him as an “intellectual impostor.”
“He would abruptly change the subject, A.D.D.-style, dismiss an observation with an adolescent wisecrack,” Mr. Pinker said.
Another scientist cultivated by Mr. Epstein, Jaron Lanier, a prolific author who is a founding father of virtual reality, said that Mr. Epstein’s ideas did not amount to science, in that they did not lend themselves to rigorous proof. Mr. Lanier said Mr. Epstein had once hypothesized that atoms behaved like investors in a marketplace.
Mr. Lanier said he had declined any funding from Mr. Epstein and that he had met with him only once after Mr. Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea. –New York Times
One scientist who was aware of Epstein’s eugenics plan said he was told about it at a 2001 dinner at Epstein’s townhouse, while another scientist recalls hearing about it at a 2006 conference hosted by Epstein in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands – just a short distance from his infamous ‘pedo island.’
Cryogenics
One transhumanist interviewed by the Times notes that Epstein had discussed his interest in cryogenics – the preservation of human bodies via freezing in order to be revived in the future. Epstein said he wanted his head and penis to be frozen.
Southern Trust Company, Mr. Epstein’s Virgin Island-incorporated business, disclosed in a local filing that it was engaged in DNA analysis. Calls to Southern Trust, which sponsored a science and math fair for school children in the Virgin Islands in 2014, were not returned.
In 2011, a charity established by Mr. Epstein gave $20,000 to the Worldwide Transhumanist Association, which now operates under the name Humanity Plus. The group’s website says that its goal is “to deeply influence a new generation of thinkers who dare to envision humanity’s next steps.” –New York Times
Powell over-promised and under-delivered to a market that will “take a mile when given an inch”…
“His comment about an ‘adjustment’ probably means that those looking for an aggressive easing cycle over the next six to nine months are not going to see it. What it means is that there was a divergence between what investors were saying and what they were pricing in.
Investors wanted Powell to say that he’s cutting, but they really wanted to see the Fed embarking on a rate-cutting cycle. The consensus belief on what the Fed would do was correct. It’s just that the markets pricing in an aggressive cycle of rate cuts were way off.” – Matt Maley, equity strategist at Miller Tabak + Co.
“The catalyst for sell-on-the-news was that phrase. He made it explicit — basically, that’s what that phrase means. An insurance cut implied ‘Hey, it’s just an insurance policy. It’s a one-time premium and we’re done.’ And then he made it explicit with that sentence and the market figured it out.” – Charlie Smith, founding partner and chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.
And the result… (Is Powell the lady on the rope or Stallone trying to save us all?)
This should help..
China ends the month mixed with tech-heavy ChiNext performing well but the broader Shanghai Comp in the red…
European stocks were also mixed with UK’s FTSE best (as the pound collapsed) and Spain and Germany weakest…
US stocks were all positive on the month with Small Caps worst and Nasdaq best (even with today’s ugliness)…
Bonds and the dollar held gains as stocks and gold sank post-Powell…
This is the 10th time out of 12 press conferences that Powell has done that stocks have tanked – not great!!
VIX spiked up to 16.5 intraday, dipped and then pushed back above 15 into the close…
Thanks to today’s turmoil in the bond market, 30Y Yields ended the month lower and the short-end higher in yields…
The yield curve (3m10Y) very briefly un-inverted but tumbled on the day – staying back inverted…
And the 2s30s curve crashed most since Brexit (June 2016)…
The dollar surged 2.5% in July – its biggest monthly gain since Nov 2016 (Trump election)
Cable crashed over 4% in July – its worst month since Oct 2016 – with the lowest monthly close since 1985
Bitcoin bounced back above $10,000…
But cryptos have been ugly on the month…
Commodities were broadly lower today as the dollar spiked but Silver massively outperformed for the month…
Silver surged back above $16 intra-month – its best month since Dec 2018…
And this was silver’s best month relative to gold since Brexit (June 2016)
Finally… Trump demanded a rate-cut – gets one but the dollar soars and stocks tank – who will be blamed for that?
