Category: zerohedge

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

Virginia Senator Louise Lucas told Portsmouth City police officers to stand down and urged Black Lives Matter protesters to “wreck” a statue that was later toppled and struck a man in the head, leaving him in a coma.

Shocking video footage of the incident shows one of the four bronze soldiers on the Confederate monument being torn down by an angry mob, only to immediately strike a man in the head, leaving his skull split open.

The victim was later named as BLM protester Chris Greene, who remains critically ill in a coma.

HD video of the whole incident. pic.twitter.com/OmJYFcjJBP

— Kneepitwyatt (@animegirlpits) June 11, 2020

It has now emerged that Senator Louise Lucas was responsible for inciting the mob to target the statue.

A video clip shows Senator Lucas wearing a full face covering as she tells the crowd that the police cannot intervene because the monument is on city property.

“This is city property! I’m Louise Lucas! They cannot arrest them because the city owns this property, they been paying for that!” she says.

“Come July 1 they can take it down anyway. These police officers cannot arrest them for standing on city property, so I’m gonna stand right here and see what’s gonna happen.”

Lucas then reveals her face to police before continuing.

Democrat Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas orders Portsmouth City police officers to stand down as Black Lives Matter demonstrators attempt to destroy a Confederate monument standing in the city. Video courtesy of Black Lives Matter 757 Facebook page. pic.twitter.com/LIrbxHGiUp

— Frankie👌🏻Stockes (@stockes76) June 11, 2020

“This is city property and [Mayor] John Rowe knows it, [City Manager] Dr. Patton knows it. And if they’d have listened to the Vice Mayor and Shannon Glover when they introduced [removing] this [statue] thing to the City Council in the first place they could’ve put a tarp over this thing and all of this would’ve been resolved it wouldn’t even have been necessary. So if the city had done what they were supposed to do these citizens wouldn’t have to do it. So there you go!”

She then openly incites the mob to take down the statue, telling them, “Go ahead wreck it!”

Despite Portsmouth Vice Mayor Lisa Lucas-Burke telling the mob that the city council would be meeting to determine the statue’s fate, almost certainly resulting in its removal, Lucas escalated the situation, asserting, “But this is city property and anybody who pays taxes in this city got a right to be on their property. To hell with city council!”

“That’s alright, the city has had 3 years to cover it, y’all cover it!” she added.

The crowd then shouted “you heard her!” before the statue was targeted later that evening and Greene was left fighting for his life.

The council would have almost certainly decided to remove the statue anyway, but because the mob couldn’t wait a few weeks and wanted to carry out their ritualistic destruction of America’s heritage, a man is now on the verge of death.

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Real Vision CEO Raoul Pal and Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison discuss today’s undulating recovery as global equities tried to regain ground lost in yesterday’s market rout. Raoul and Ed explore why today’s snapback wasn’t as strong as expected and Raoul places this discussion within the context of his “unfolding” thesis. In the intro Jack Farley discusses the VIX and a daring attempt by Hertz bondholders to take advantage of the moment.

Widespread lockdowns across the country shuttered many small businesses for months. Stores, factories, and many other companies closed due to government-enforced public health orders or because of a rapid shift in demand. A new report from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides the first analysis of lockdown impacts on small businesses, makes a shocking discovery that African-American owned businesses plunged by 41%. 

NBER commissioned the new report titled “The Impact of Covid-19 on Small Business Owners: Evidence of Early-Stage Losses from the April 2020 Current Population Survey” — shows active business owners in the US declined by 3.3 million or 22% from February to April because of “unprecedented” economic impacts of lockdowns. The decline in small business owners was the “largest on record,” and losses felt across all industries. 

The report said African-American businesses were hit the hardest, recorded a 41% decline of black owners from February to April. Next were Latino owners, fell 32%, and Asian business owners dropped by 26%. 

Immigrant business owners plummeted 36%, and female-owned businesses fell by 25%. These findings of early-stage losses to small businesses, so far, outlines how minority businesses were crushed during the lockdowns. 

“The negative early-stage impacts on minority- and immigrant-owned businesses, if prolonged, may be problematic for broader racial inequality because of the importance of minority businesses for local job creation,” said the report’s author, Robert Fairlie of the University of California at Santa Cruz Department of Economics.

In a separate report, we noted how the virus-induced economic downturn could result in at least 52% of small businesses closing up shop in the next six months. 

For readers, it’s essential to understand that nearly half of all US jobs originate from small businesses. This all suggests the quick economic recovery narrative pitched by the Trump administration and Wall Street is bullshit. ​​​​​​

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

A former advisor to Steve Jobs warns that Facebook is “destroying the very fabric of human relationships” by making its users become addicted to anger.

During a question and answer session at the 2020 CogX conference, Joanna Hoffman was asked about the cult of leadership within Silicon Valley.

“As I look at Facebook, for example, I keep thinking are they really that ignorant or is this motivated by something … darker than what appears?” she said.

Hoffman went on to accuse Facebook of “destroying the very fabric of democracy, destroying the very fabric of human relationships and peddling in an addictive drug called anger.”

“You know it’s just like tobacco, it’s no different than the opioids,” she added.

“We know anger is addictive, we know we can attract people to our platform and get engagement if we get them pissed off enough. So therefore what, we should capitalize on that each and every time?”

While Hoffman was talking about Facebook, much of the same charges could be made against Twitter.

Twitter has become a monstrous echo chamber of hysterical nonsense controlled by outrage mobs who abuse the platform to threaten criminal acts as well as intimidating, doxxing and attempting to ruin people’s lives for the sin of holding an alternate opinion.

Much criticism of social media is framed in the context of its “threat to democracy,” despite the fact that both Twitter and Facebook are more censorious than ever, with the overwhelming target being conservatives and anyone who offends woke jihadists.

In reality, the real damage being done by these platforms is to people’s mental health, to the cohesion of a functioning society, and to the concept of free speech itself.

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As we have previously noted, a bearish trade emerged on Wall Street several years ago and received the moniker “The Next Big Short.” The trade was simple: short shopping malls by going long default risk via CMBX 6 (BBB- or BB) or otherwise shorting the CMBS complex. As we describe below, the first major US shopping mall operator could be on the brink of bankruptcy as it would suggest the commercial real estate bust is underway. 

Mall operator CBL & Associates fired a warning shot on June 5 that said tenants across 108 of its properties paid just 27% of April’s rent. Many retailers skipped out on rent payments during the COVID-19 lockdowns, forcing CBL to default on a secured credit line, significantly raising bankruptcy risk. 

The Chattanooga, Tennessee-based commercial real estate company, owns 108 properties in the Northeast, Southeast, and Rust Belt, breached a covenant on its $1.185 billion credit facility after recently over-drawing on the credit line, which is backed by 17 malls and three other commercial properties.

CBL properties 

Administrators at the credit facility notified CBL about default but have yet to expedite maturity on the debt. CBL has said that it is seeking a waiver. 

The mall operator also skipped an $11.8 million interest payment due on its 2023 unsecured bonds on June 1, though it has chosen to use the one month grace period. 

If CBL files for bankruptcy, it could unnerve commercial real estate investors by suggesting a bankruptcy wave of mall operators has begun. 

According to the International Financing Review (IFR), CBL mall properties have been chopped up and packaged into CMBSs. At least $1.7 billion in CMBS exposure across 24 loans of the mall operator, with $937 million of these loans with special servicers and two loans in foreclosure.

About half of CBL’s CMBS loans are tracked via CMBX indexes, with the series 6 having the most significant exposure at $447 million. 

“Given the severity of the COVID downturn, coupled with its high levels of indebtedness, CBL may face difficulty in meeting its debt obligations,” a Wells Fargo report said this week. 

If CBL were to file for bankruptcy, it would be the first mall operator during the pandemic. Coresight Research warned that 25,000 retail stores could close in 2020, something that would undoubtedly lead to other mall operators coming under severe financial distress. 

With CBL on the brink of bankruptcy, Robinhood traders have been piling into the stock since March. Accounts holding CBL stock nearly doubled in the last three months, from 8,100 holders (mid-March) to 15,300 (June 12). 

CBL should take note of what’s happening with the Hertz bankruptcy, issue a bunch of stock and drain the equity, along with all the Robinhood daytraders in it.

Authored by Raul Ilargi Meijer via The Automatic Earth blog,

Virtue signaling in the US of A has already reached new heights, and there’s little reason to believe it won’t reach even much higher as we happily signal along. In the process, we will find that applying logic to the undertaking will take us to unanticipated, and highly undesirable (for most protesters), places. But by then a lot of damage, whether we think that’s a good thing or not, will have been done.

HBO opened a Pandora’s Box all of its own when it pulled Gone With the Wind, despite that fact that Hattie McDaniel was the first black American Oscar nominee AND winner. Let’s erase that too. Along with ALL other films that depict slavery in the “wrong” light, or, better yet, that depict slavery at all.

Let’s ban all links to slavery, let’s pretend it never existed, because if we don’t we will find it’s impossible to decide between what we do and do not want to last. Not all people have the same preferences or opinions, and neither do all black people.

And while we’re talking movies, and Columbus statues are toppled across the nation because Christopher (before there were any “Americans”) treated indigenous Americans poorly, do let’s ban all Hollywood westerns in which “Indians” are depicted as cannon fodder. No more John Wayne for you. Gone even the few non-westerns Wayne appeared in, because his name and face are forever linked to killing “Indians”. No more Duke.

And why stop there? Just to name an example, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, arguably a great book and a good movie, depicts a white man “being compassionate” to a black man oppressed by other white men. Can’t have that, the oppression is obviously racist and so is the good(!) white(!) man who’s the protagonist of the story, written by a white woman(!).

Let’s leaf through all American and other world literature of the past half millennium that describes slavery, including that which talks about “good white” men. There are no good white men!

Anything to do with native Americans must go. Because they were badly treated throughout the 500 years of history they share with white people (Europeans). They still are, just like African Americans. Same difference. Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison? Don’t think so. They were all talking about slavery. And we’re toppling statues in order to stop that talk.

Frederick Douglass? You got to be kidding. His autobiography is called “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave“. Isn’t that enough to topple him? James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, they all remind us of a period we don’t want to be reminded of anymore. It’s enough! No more slavery!

Martin Luther King? Get serious, he talks about nothing but oppression. He even claims black people in his lifetime were still slaves. Muhammad Ali is obviously not welcome anymore, he spoke just about exclusively from the viewpoint of an oppressed man.

Washington, D.C. is the capital of the United States of America. George Washington was a slaveholder, he’s obviously out. D.C. stands for District of Columbia, named after Columbus, so that needs a new name. The country gets its name from a Columbus contemporary and fellow explorer who was a slave holder and treated indigenous populations of the countries he “visited” no better than Columbus did. Wikipedia:

Amerigo Vespucci wrote his will in April 1511. He left most of his modest estate, including five household slaves, to his wife.

[..] After Hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the Bahamas, capturing 232 natives and then returned to Spain.

There once was a time when Washington, D.C. was the capital of the United States of America. But those days must soon be gone. How can you hold on to a name for your capital city that belongs to a man who was a brazen slave holder? Or the district the capital is in? And how can you breathe in a country named after a despicable Italian slaveholder and slave trader?

The US constitution was largely written by slave holders. We’re going to need a new one.

There are 1747 “symbols of the Confederacy” in the US. I’m guessing Pelosi, once those 11 statues at the Capitol have been toppled, will start work on getting rid of the other 1736 too. And mind you, this doesn’t yet include Columbus, Vespucci, or anyone else who’s “mistreated”, enslaved, murdered, native Americans. We will easily have twice the 1747 number once we include those.

For that matter, if you’re Nancy Pelosi, how and why do you dress up in the “kente cloth” fabrics that originate with the Asanthi people that ruled in present-day Ghana from mid-1600s to mid-1900s, and were themselves … slaveholders and slave traders? Who sold god knows how many African slaves to European slave traders? How can you dress up in the garb of slave traders to protest the mistreatment of the grandchildren of slaves? Short circuit? Temporary?

For all the protesters other than Pelosi, who herself obviously joined in only for political reasons, here’s a question: Do you oppose slavery, or only slavery on US soil? Because, you know, the Romans had slaves, many African tribes had slaves, present day Chinese people did. Australia? Slave country if I ever saw one. The deeper you dig into history, the more you will find. I don’t want to bore you with an extensive list, because it would be too extensive.

“There was no slavery in Australia.” Scott Morrison, 11.06.2020.

What would you call this, then ? pic.twitter.com/gUfFnQbskj

— Mike Carlton (@MikeCarlton01) June 11, 2020

Or maybe a second question, though it has mostly already been answered: Is this protest only about slavery, or about the oppression of people(s) in general? It’s already been answered in toppling the Columbus statues, since Christopher was not a slavetrader as far as we know, so, see above, we’re talking about both “indians” and “negroes”.

I use both derogatory terms on purpose, precisely because they paint the picture of what things used to be like. That they are no longer tolerated tells a story all by itself. And yes, much more is needed, but can that be achieved by toppling statues and banning books and movies? Is that how those two terms were banned?

We cannot escape our past and probably that’s the reason we shouldn’t try. What we need to do, what our role in the story is, is to not follow in the “footsteps of wrong”, and to do better. Do we have a better chance at doing better and escaping “wrong” if and when we ban all symbols of it, so we can no longer see it?

Or is our best chance to let all these things last so we can point at them to say: that is wrong!? If all the statues and books and movies are gone, how will our children know?

And I haven’t even mentioned the music yet, the unique melting pot of European melodies and African beats that gave the world blues and jazz and rock, all born from the plantation life that so many stories depict, and the music itself, growing under the statuesque eyes of the likes of Jefferson Davis or George Washington.

Maybe if you like your blues and jazz and rock and rap, you should call for the statues and books to remain standing, because without the narratives they bear witness to, there would be no blues, or anything that came after. Maybe you should celebrate your ancestors’ genius that gave America (or whatever you wind up calling it soon) its music, which, accidentally, has conquered all the countries of all the slavetraders of the past.

Maybe the music, the books, represent your ancestors’ victory over their oppressors, and maybe you risk tainting that hard-fought victory by trying to erase the memories of those they fought against to attain it.

And no, you can’t just pick the books and statues and music you would like and dump everything else. It doesn’t work that way. Your neighbor might have slightly different criteria and pick other favorites, and so on.

You can’t say we’ll hold on to Toni Morrison and throw out Harper Lee, you can’t dump Gone With the Wind but keep Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, because each of these are part of the exact same story.

It’s a package deal, called history. And you’re not going to get the best end of that deal by pretending history doesn’t exist.

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A new report reveals the severity of COVID-19 spreading beyond meatpacking plants to food processing facilities across the US. 

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) outlines this new reality of how the fast-spreading virus has infected 1,200 food processing workers at 60 plants from mid-March to early June. 

To compile these statics, EWG reviewed news articles of outbreaks and noticed many of the infections were seen at Kraft Heinz, Birds Eye, Conagra, and the Campbell Soup Company’s Pepperidge Farm, as well as those of smaller plants, like Fairmont Foods and Ruiz Foods.

Food Processing Plants With the Most Reported COVID-19 Cases

Bloomberg elaborated on EWG’s findings and said: “These are the first national numbers of their kind. The advocacy group compiled its figures using local media reports because there are no federal agencies reporting the data. The true total is almost certainly higher.” 

Bakers, dairy workers, fruit and vegetable packers, many of whom are deemed “essential” have worked through the pandemic, sometimes laboring in tight quarters. 

“At our workplace, we were not ready for this virus. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t know about it,” Paula Zambrano,61, who packs fruit at Borton & Sons in Yakima, Washington. She was so concerned back in April of an outbreak at her plant that she stayed home for three weeks. Low on money, she returned to work to support her family. 

“People are infected, and they come to work. They keep quiet about it,” Zambrano said. “We live from our work. We are surviving from our wages. If we have children, how will we feed them?”

In a piece titled “”Cold, Damp & Crowded” – How America’s Meat Plants Are Breeding Grounds For Covid” — we described how meat processing plants had become a breeding ground for the virus — and with EWG’s report this week, similar conditions have been seen across many other types of food processing plants. 

EWG estimates at least 1.8 million Americans work in food processing plants. Many of the workers are low-income and minority, their labor in tight workspaces make them susceptible to infection.

America’s food suppliers have seen some of the worst outbreaks of the virus. Dozens of folks at meatpacking plants across the country have died with thousands infected. The ongoing human tragedy at meat and food processing plants expose the vulnerability of the food supply chain. 

To solve this issue, we noted how meat processing plants should “unleash a new wave of automation across plants to ease labor and health woes.” 

With a health crisis still not abating at many plants — another problem has developed, that is, food shortages and skyrocketing food inflation. 

The latest food at home index increased 4.8% over the last 12 months, with all six major grocery store food group indexes rising over that span.

The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs rose 10% over the last year, its most significant 12-month increase since the period ending May 2004.

A second coronavirus wave could spell disaster for America’s food supply chain. At the moment, the stock market is selling off, with investors nervous that a reemergence of the virus is ahead. 

 

Authored by Paul Rosenberg via Free-Man’s Perspective blog,

I thought 2019 was about as low as the culture of the West could go. Between drag queens in kindergartens, an angry autistic girl hailed as a saint and screaming at the UN, and semi-sane Wokesters openly promoting racial hatred (this time against whites), I figured there wasn’t much lower to go.

But there was, of course; there’s always violence at the end of the line. It took three months of universal house arrest, tens of millions unemployed, a semi-scary virus and a vicious murder to do it, but we finally reached that depth.

Now our cities burn while TV cameras focus on vapid, narcissistic and sociopathic talking heads. There are no adults on the stage.

But, there are good things coming out of this.

#1: The Parent & Child Reunion

Since roughly 1900, the children of the West have been forcibly separated from their parents: physically, intellectually and even emotionally. This was done, as we all know, in the name of education (a fine goal by itself), but it quickly overpowered family life altogether.

Consider, please, that the center of family life, around which all activities are organized, has been the school. No other organizational format was even considered by most people.

And then, in an instant, it was gone. A century’s worth of inertia simply evaporated. This left parents to re-organize in a hurry, but several lessons (with the usual exceptions) are already coming out of it:

1. Parents are learning that they like being a bigger part of their children’s lives.

2. Parents are discovering that the kids learn more at home and are happier doing it.

3. Children have become part of the world again, rather then being foreign creatures who had to be sequestered.

These are healthy things. On top of that, children who are taught as home (or via any form of tutoring) are better critical thinkers than kids locked into government schools. That’s going to have big effects over time… and positive ones. (There’s a reason Ivory Tower sycophants are freaking out over this.)

#2: Faith In Public Institutions Has Broken

Yes, this is a good thing. We’ve been, to paraphrase The Declaration of Independence, suffering a long chain of abuses, because humans are more disposed to suffer than to change.

Just about everyone complains about politicians, just about all of the time. But we’ve preferred to complain and the reds or the blues, rather than face the scarier fact that the system itself was broken. Now it can barely be avoided.

The cops have disgraced themselves by killing a black man, by nearly killing a white grandpa, by arresting people for going to church, and so on. “Fellow-officers” showed themselves to be complicit with the “bad eggs,” police unions have proven to be utterly contemptuous, and both state and local prosecutors have joined them.

Politicians of every flavor have shown themselves to be feckless, stupid, false, angry, brutal and power-mad. And crazily narcissistic, of course.

The arrogant new tech giants displayed their willingness… nay, their eagerness to censor… seeing all who fail to worship their narrow and brittle philosophy as ignorant, dangerous buffoons.

I could go on (you undoubtedly have your own favorites), but I’ll move along. Suffice it to say that the only public institution that hasn’t overtly disgraced itself is the military, but this isn’t over yet and their status is already past its expiration date.

#3: “The Markets” Have Been Unmasked As Rigged

The middle class, lower middle class and the poor all know that the Treasury (and central banks world-wide) have saved their friends (banks, corps and “the rich”) while tossing them crumbs and expecting them to be thankful.

The interest rates on credit cards, at the same time (and at some point it really does pass into usury) keep rising. Tens of millions of jobs have been lost, but real estate taxes remain and rise, as do other taxes.

On the other hand, the upper middle class – the 401(k) class – has been wildly protected, in the form of a stock market that has levitated in spite of world-wide disaster. (This is not to demonize the upper middle class; most of them are decent people who are stuck in this crazy situation the same as everyone else.)

At this point everyone knows that it’s all a big charade: that “fundamentals,” “market forces,” and so on are meaningless: What the Treasury buys, goes up.

God help us.

#4: Mindless Consumerism Has, Perhaps, Broken

Americans, and Westerners in general, have been addicted to status symbols all through my lifetime. When I was a boy people joked about “keeping up with the Joneses,” but it was only funny because it was true.

Bear in mind that this was a cultured addiction. Empowered by a perfect storm of big business intent, mass media and the “science” of propaganda, it worked insanely well, to the point where most people bought carts full of stuff, not because it made their lives better, but because they were induced to buy it by publicity campaigns.

To put it succinctly, America, since about 1920, shifted from a needs culture to a wants culture. And, since the US was the world’s primary generator of images, the rest of the world tended to follow.

Now, with need returning, that particular flavor of crazy may end. This is still uncertain, mind you, but the longer the pain continues, the more likely it becomes.

So…

So, there really are good things in the midst of this insanity. Please do whatever you can to move them along.

As hundreds of thousands of Americans take to the streets in protest at systemic racism, capitalism, rich people, Trump supporters, white people, straight people, and civilized people (we are sure we are missing some instigators of violence here), politicians, leaders, and the liberal intelligentsia went out of their way to explain how COVID-19 had become a ‘woke’ virus of sorts.

On June 4, more than 1,200 public-health experts signed a letter saying the protests were “vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of black people in the United States…

“…as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission. We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.

… This should not be confused with a permissive stance on all gatherings, particularly protests against stay-home orders. ”

One protester in Minneapolis even claimed,

“Yes, corona is happening. It’s real, it’s deadly. But racism kills way more lives.”

We’d like to see the ‘math’ on that one.

This hypocritical malarkey was already exposed when considering the rabid reaction to “peaceful protesters” who urged their local officials nationwide to ease the lockdown and let them be free once again.

However, Democratic Party hypocrisy just went to ’11’ after President trump announced plans to restart his infamously well-attended rallies.

U.S. Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., said in a tweet this week…

The president’s plan to hold mass rallies in Florida and elsewhere as we experience a resurgence in COVID cases is irresponsible and selfish. https://t.co/G6tdqua70c

— Rep. Val Demings (@RepValDemings) June 11, 2020

And, as SaraACarter.com notes, Demings was not the only democrat to call out Trump rallies, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also tweeted:

“Trump wants 15,000 delegates cheering him at his GOP convention in Florida. No social distancing. His rejection of medical advice endangers not only those there but those they come in contact with. Trump’s a threat to the health and well-being of the country. He must be defeated.”

Trump wants 15,000 delegates cheering him at his GOP convention in Florida. No social distancing. His rejection of medical advice endangers not only those there but those they come in contact with. Trump’s a threat to the health and well-being of the country. He must be defeated.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) June 11, 2020

And just in case you were unsure if Dr. Fauci was ‘political’, he has suddenly become very worried about American attending rallies… (oddly quiet duringt the protestations of the last few weeks…

Fauci warns about the risks of mass gatherings — like protests, or Trump rallies, via @jonkarl:https://t.co/fiApqxfXJn

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) June 12, 2020

And of course, no one has the least bit of shame in proclaiming this total and utter hypocrisy!

This is how fucked up our financial reality is: on Monday, when the market hit its absolute blow off top phase and Robinhooders sent the stock of bankrupt Hertz as high as $6.25, resulting in a market cap of just under $900 million, we joked that “we hope the company sells a few hundred million worth of stock – after all there is apparently endless demand for its shares – just so we can test the so-called “price discovery” of Powell’s latest and greatest FOMO bubble.”

Just five days later this absurdity is now fact.

Bringing us one stop closer to what we called “The Most Absurd Moment In The History Of Capital Markets“, Hertz just won bankruptcy court approval to sell (or at least try) up to $1 billion in worthless stock to maniac daytraders.

As Bloomberg reports, Judge Mary Walrath ruled that Hertz can go ahead with the offering, which we reported last night, could take in as much as $1 billion according to underwriter Jefferies.

There is still some chance that the SEC will stop this travesty, especially after the company told the court it would warn buyers that “the common stock could ultimately be worthless”, although we wouldn’t hold our breath.

The decision came just days after the The New York Stock Exchange starting proceedings to delist bankrupt Hertz’s stock.

So the next time someone asks where in the cycle we are, tell them a company is about to do something that has never been tried before: an Initial Bankruptcy Offering, where the proceeds from 10-year-old investors will go to making creditors that much closer to whole.

In short: we have officially entered the “absolute idiocy” phase thanks to Fed chair Jay Powell, who now owns this epic mess.

Hertz stock dropped as much as 8% on the news that the company will be selling worthless stock to teenagers, although since nothing matters in this giant game of hot potato, at this point the stock may go far, far higher as creditors seek to manipulate their recovery via the upcoming equity offering and ignite another massive round of upward momentum.