Tag: finance

Although DASH didn’t quite make it to $200/share, its shares surged during its Wednesday debut, briefly sparking a rotation from the other momo heavyweights into $DASH, yet another ‘sharing economy’ startup with lots of cash and hype, but no clear path to profitability.

Airbnb’s debut was marked by similarly frenzied trading: Although shares priced at $68 on Wednesday (equivalent to a $90BN market cap), they surged to $146/share, a more than 115% jump, pushing the company’s valuation to more than $100BN.

The company is going public at a time when the sector has been hammered by the pandemic, though Airbnb has made itself available to customers looking for convenient “stay-cation” homes, where they can get away from the din of city life for a bit.

The company’s revenue shrank nearly 19% last quarter to $1.34 billion compared with the same period a year prior. But it still managed to turn a profit of $219 million and has had other intermittent quarters of profitability.

Today in “news that’s going to give conspiracy theorists a full-on stroke”…

It was announced this week that a “historic new partnership” between the Vatican and “some of the world’s largest investment and business leaders” called the “Council for Inclusive Capitalism” has officially launched. Oh, and did we mention it is being helped along by a member of the Rothschild family, Lynn Forester de Rothschild?

The “council” says its formation “signifies the urgency of joining moral and market imperatives to reform capitalism into a powerful force for the good of humanity”, according to a release published Tuesday.

“Under the moral guidance” of the Pope, it says it “invites companies of all sizes to harness the potential of the private sector to build a fairer, more inclusive, and sustainable economic foundation for the world.”

And get this – the council is led by a “core group of global leaders” called the Guardians for Inclusive Capitalism. We swear we didn’t steal this narrative from a Marvel movie. 

This group, who you have likely never heard of until today, apparently “meet annually with Pope Francis and Cardinal Turkson” and represents “more than $10.5 trillion in assets under management, companies with over $2.1 trillion of market capitalization, and 200 million workers in over 163 countries.”

Pope Francis said in the council’s press release: “An economic system that is fair, trustworthy, and capable of addressing the most profound challenges facing humanity and our planet is urgently needed. You have taken up the challenge by seeking ways to make capitalism become a more inclusive instrument for integral human wellbeing.”

And by linking what appears to be the most powerful people on Earth – overseeing an ungodly amount of money – to the Vatican. Can we get an Amen?

Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Founder of the Council and Managing Partner of Inclusive Capital Partners, commented: “Capitalism has created enormous global prosperity, but it has also left too many people behind, led to degradation of our planet, and is not widely trusted in society. This Council will follow the warning from Pope Francis to listen to ‘the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor’ and answer society’s demands for a more equitable and sustainable model of growth.”

Among the list of “Guardians” are:

• Ajay Banga, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mastercard

• Oliver Bäte, Chairman of the Board of Management, Allianz SE

• Marc Benioff, Chair, Chief Executive Officer, and Founder, Salesforce

• Edward Breen, Executive Chairman, Dupont

• Sharan Burrow, General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation

• Mark Carney, COP26 Financial Advisor to the Prime Minister, and United Nations Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance

• Carmine Di Sibio, Global Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, EY

• Brunello Cucinelli, Executive Chairman and Creative Director, Brunello Cucinelli S.p.A.

• Roger Ferguson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TIAA

• Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, Founder and Managing Partner, Inclusive Capital Partners

• Kenneth Frazier, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Merck & Co., Inc.

• Fabrizio Freda, President and Chief Executive Officer, The Estée Lauder Companies

• Marcie Frost, Chief Executive Officer, CalPERS

• Alex Gorsky, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Johnson & Johnson

• Angel Gurria, Secretary General, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

• Alfred Kelly, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Visa Inc.

• William Lauder, Executive Chairman, The Estée Lauder Companies

• Bernard Looney, Chief Executive Officer, BP

• Fiona Ma, Treasurer, State of California

• Hiro Mizuno, Member of the Board, Principles for Responsible Investment

• Brian Moynihan, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Bank of America

• Deanna Mulligan, President and Chief Executive Officer, Guardian Life Insurance Company of America

• Ronald P. O’Hanley, President and Chief Executive Officer, State Street Corporation

• Rajiv Shah, President, The Rockefeller Foundation

• Tidjane Thiam, Board Member, Kering Group

• Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation

• Mark Weinberger, Former Chair and CEO of EY, and Board member of J&J, MetLife and Saudi Aramco

Additionally, names like Mohamed El-Erian and Larry Fink can be found on the group’s Board of Directors. You can watch the council discuss its “mission” here:

 

It had been a while since the US had a blockbuster auction, especially after two mediocre treasury sales earlier this year. Today’s 30Y was just the stellar auction the bond market needed.

With $24BN in 30Y paper for sale, down from last month’s record $27BN, demand was blistering perhaps in light of the shaky equity market, and the high yield of 1.665% stopped through the 1.684% When Issued by 1.9bps, the biggest stop through since July ‘s 2.7bps.

The bid to cover of 2.481 was not only well above the 2.292 from November, but the highest since July.

The internals were also stellar, with Indirects jumping to 65.9% from 61.9% last month and the highest since July. And with Directs taking down 16.8% or the most since February, Dealers were left holding just 17.4% of the auction, the second lowest on record and only the 15.5% last December was a lower Dealer takedown.

Overall, a stellar auction after a series of average bond sales, and one which indicates that despite the surge in notional amount for sale, sold demand still remains even for the longest dated US debt. Not surprisingly, news of the stellar auction saw the yield curve quickly slide near session lows.

The Fed’s latest Flow of Funds report released at noon today showed the latest snapshot of the US “household” sector as of Sept 30 2020. What it showed is that one quarter after the biggest surge in household net worth on record when US household net worth jumped by $7.6 trillion to $119.0 trillion (which followed the record drop in net worth in Q1 when $8 trillion was wiped out), in the 3rd quarter of 2020, the net worth of US households rose another $3.82 trillion to a record $123.5 trillion.

As a percentage of Disposable Personal Income, total assets rose back to a near all-time high of 791% of DPI, while net worth was 696% of disposable income, also just shy of all time high.

As usual, the biggest swing factor was in the value of market-linked securities: in Q3, the value of directly and indirectly held corporate equities increased by $2.76 trillion due to the continued surge in stock prices (after the record $6.19 trillion increase in Q2), while the value of real estate held by households by a far more modest $430 billion. The high rate of personal saving also contributed to the increase in net worth, while the value of real estate held by households increased modestly. Homeowners’ real estate holdings minus the change in mortgage debt rose $288.3 billion (a positive value indicates that the value of real estate is growing at a faster pace than household mortgage debt).

On the liabilities side, total credit rose 3.8% with household debt surging 5.6% to $16.4 trillion, driven by the biggest quarterly increase in mortgage debt since 2007.

At the same time, Q3 business debt decreased by more than $38 billion from the prior quarter, or at an 0.9% annualized rate, in the July-September period to a total outstanding $17.5 trillion. It marked the first decline since the end of 2010. Federal debt outstanding rose about $511 billion, or an annualized 9.1%, to almost $23 trillion. Finally, foreign credit rose 3.2% to $4.593 trillion.

Finally, consumer credit not including mortgage debt rose by almost $20 billion in the third quarter after declining in the previous three-month period for the first time since 2015.

The bottom line is that (especially if one ignores the debt – which clearly will be monetized or hyperinflated by the Fed before it all comes crashing down) the US economy has never been stronger. And while it would be great news if wealth across all of America had indeed risen as much as the Fed claims, the reality is that there is a big catch: as shown previously, virtually all of the net worth, and associated increase thereof, has only benefited a handful of the wealthiest Americans.

According to a record Census Bureau report, over the past decade, during an economic expansion that benefited most Americans, the richest made out the best. In fact, the CB found that the top 5% of households – those making $451,122 on average last year – have seen their inflation-adjusted incomes jump 28% since 2009.

The gain – which helped push inequality to the widest in decades – compares with a mere 11% rise for the bottom 20%, whose income rose to about $15,290 from roughly $13,800 a decade ago. Those in the middle groups – who made between $40,600 and $111,100 last year – saw their incomes rise between 16% to 18%, the data show.

A separate breakdown of the change in net worth, as also discussed previously, one which looks at median net worth by age of head (of household) shows that the oldest Americans – those 65 and older – have seen gains in their net worth by over 60%, while everyone else is either flat or down!

This underscores just how endemic poverty is in America, even in times of economic expansion. While incomes have increased, so has the cost of living, with consumer prices rising 20% since 2009. Meanwhile, while financial assets – those which have grown the most in the past decade – soaring thanks to the Fed’s generous monetary policy and benefiting those who own financial assets, this turns out to be a tiny sliver of the population. In the CBO’s latest, if somewhat dated, Trends in Family Wealth analysis published in 2016, the budget office showed a breakdown of the net worth chart by wealth group, which sadly shows how the “average” American wealth is anything but, and in reality most of that $100 trillion belongs to just 10% of the US population. The distribution has only gotten worse since then.

Here is how the CBO recently explained the wealth is distributed:

• In 2013, families in the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution held 76 percent of all family wealth, families in the 51st to the 90th percentiles held 23 percent, and those in the bottom half of the distribution held 1 percent.
• Average wealth was about $4 million for families in the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution, $316,000 for families in the 51st to 90th percentiles, and $36,000 for families in the 26th to 50th percentiles. On average, families at or below the 25th percentile were $13,000 in debt.

In other words, roughly 75% of the $7.6 trillion increase in assets went to benefit just 10% of the population, who also account for roughly 76% of America’s financial net worth. It also means that just 10% of the US population is worth roughly $90 trillion, while half of the US population was virtually no wealth, and if anything it is deeply in debt.

Even worse, when looking at how wealth distribution changed since the 1980s, an even more dire picture emerges: family wealth grew at significantly different rates for different segments of the U.S. population. In 2013, for example:The wealth of families at the 90th percentile of the distribution was 54% greater than the wealth at the 90th percentile in 1989, after adjusting for changes in prices.

• The wealth of those at the median was 4 percent greater than the wealth of their counterparts in 1989.
• The wealth of families at the 25th percentile was 6 percent less than that of their counterparts in 1989.
• As the chart below shows, nobody has experienced the same cumulative growth in after-tax income as the “Top 1%”

The above is particularly topical at a time when both parties is trying to take credit for any fledgling US recovery. Here, while previously Democrats, and now Republicans tout the US “income recovery” they may have forgotten about half of America, but one entity remembers well: loan collectors. As the chart below shows, America’s poor families have never been more in debt.

The share of families in debt (those whose total debt exceeded their total assets) remained almost unchanged between 1989 and 2007 and then increased by 50 percent between 2007 and 2013. In 2013, those families were more in debt than their counterparts had been either in 1989 or in 2007. For instance, 8 percent of families were in debt in 2007 and, on average, their debt exceeded their assets by $20,000. By 2013, in the aftermath of the recession of 2007 to 2009, 12 percent of families were in debt and, on average, their debt exceeded their assets by $32,000.

The increase in average indebtedness between 2007 and 2013 for families in debt was mainly the result of falling home equity and rising student loan balances. In 2007, 3 percent of families in debt had negative home equity: They owed, on average, $16,000 more than their homes were worth. In 2013, that share was 19 percent of families in debt, and they owed, on average, $45,000 more than their homes were worth. The share of families in debt that had outstanding student debt rose from 56 percent in 2007 to 64 percent in 2013, and the average amount of their loan balances increased from $29,000 to $41,000.

And there – as we say quarter after quarter- is your “recovery”: the wealthy have never been wealthier, while half of America, some 50% of households, own just 1% of the country’s wealth, down from 3% in 1989. And finally, America’s poor have never been more in debt.

Today in “financial world hypocrisy” news…

Investor Jeremy Grantham has made about $200 million from a personal investment in a battery maker called QuantumScape after it merged with a blank check company and went public via SPAC – a financial instrument that Grantham has referred to as “reprehensible” and “very very speculative” while speaking to the Financial Times. 

Seven years ago, his firm invested $12.5 million in the green technology company, which started as a Stanford University spinoff. While saying he was a big believer in the company, he was also apparently surprised to learn about the gains he has made on his investment after the company merged with a SPAC set up by Canadian firm Kensington Capital Partners. 

He told FT: “This is unlike anything else in my career. This was by accident the single biggest investment I have ever made. It gets around the idea of listing requirements, so it is net a useful tool for a lot of successful companies. But I think it is a reprehensible instrument, and very very speculative by definition.”

The “speculative” and “reprehensible” investment is on track to be one of the most lucrative investments of his career.

The SPAC valued QuantumScape at $3.3 billion but the newly listed entity’s stock price nearly rose 4x after it started trading. The company now has a market value of about $16 billion, despite the fact that commercial production of its batteries is “years away”. 

The company has also been backed by Bill Gates, Volkswagen, and Silicon Valley venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures. 

This comes amid a larger SPAC boom that has seen more than 200 blank check companies listing so far this year, raising over $66 billion, according to FT. SPAC sponsors usually take about 20% of the equity in the vehicle and future investors face a far worse threat of dilution from warrants that are issued than with normal going public transactions. 

Michael Klausner, a professor at Stanford Law School said: “They are enormously expensive. Someone is getting . . . 20 per cent of the company for free. The structure has an enormous amount of dilution built in that someone will pay for and so far it has been the Spac shareholders who seem to be haplessly paying for it.”

Grantham has said that SPACs are indicative of “historic stock market euphoria” that can be compared to the “Roaring Twenties” or the dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.

Far be it for us to point this out, but what he doesn’t seem to realize is that the Fed wasn’t doing in the 1920s or 1990s what it is doing now. This means that unfortunately, what Grantham sees as “historic euphoria” could just simply be the norm going forward, as sick and twisted as that is. 

Regardless, if Grantham is that sick to his stomach over the idea of SPACs, we wonder if he’d considering donating all of his proceeds from the investment toward an investor advocacy or education fund? We won’t hold our breath. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

We often discuss media coverage and accuracy on developing legal and political controversies.  Much of this discussion recently has focused on the bias shown by the media in the last four years. I have worked for the media as a legal analyst and columnist for years, but I have never before seen this raw and open bias in major media. At the same time, academics are rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open advocacy.

This morning, Fox News called out all of the networks for zero coverage of the bombshell story from Axios that Rep. Eric Swalwell may have had a close relationship with a suspected Chinese spy who fled to China a few years ago.  Many of us were struck by the lack of coverage, particularly given the position of Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee and his former bid for the presidency. It was particularly striking when the media is now reluctantly covering the Hunter Biden story after a long blackout before the election. Yet, the most stark comparison is with the exhaustive coverage given the highly analogous story involving an alleged spy, Maria Butina, who had an affair with a high-ranking figure in the National Rifle Association.

Swalwell is alleged to have had a close relationship with Chinese national, Fang Fang or Christine Fang, who not only raised money for him but placed at least one intern in Swalwell’s congressional office, according to Axios. Bizarrely, Swalwell has refused to confirm or deny that he had an intimate relationship with his office claiming that such an answer could compromise classified information. Even that ridiculous comment did not prompt ABC, NBC, or CBS to cover the story. Obviously, Fang and the Chinese already know if she had a sexual relationship with Swalwell. The only people in the dark are the voters.

Swalwell himself explained why this is news.

The congressman was one of the most vocal voices calling out a June 2016 meeting that President Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was accused of being an asset for the Russian government.

“Stated plainly, the President’s son met with a Russian spy.” On @DeadlineWH about #NataliaVeselnitskaya pic.twitter.com/WKqrKJ5UNe

— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) January 9, 2019

Swalwell declared on MSNBC in January 2019:

“Stated plainly, the President’s son met with a Russian spy. We now have the best evidence of that in our minority report the Democrats put out that Ms. Veselnitskaya was going all over the world and bumping into Dana Rohrabacher, which is a sign of a spy, someone who tries to create a coincidence encounter, and now we know that she was working at the behest of the Russian government.”

Not even the utter hypocrisy of Swalwell’s position or the lunacy of his classification claim was enough to generate minimal coverage.  There is also no interest in Swalwell remaining on the intelligence committee given his ill-considered relationship.

Swalwell says that he cooperated with the FBI and cut off ties with Fang, who fled to China years ago. There is no indication that he compromised classified information, but such assets are used to often influence powerful leaders or acquire useful background information on other leaders.

MSNBC and other news outlets could not get enough of that story about Trump Jr. but has an effective blackout on the same allegation of Swalwell not just “bumping” into a spy but carrying on a long relationship and even allowing her to raise money for him and help put an intern in his congressional office.

Yet, the greatest contrast is with the NRA story which was endlessly covered. Even when NRA moved to address the relationship between Butina and 57-year-old Republican activist named Paul Erickson.  Hundreds of stories ran on every deal and media explored whether a Russian activist influenced powerful figures or shared information.

The FBI Director just gave a public speech on the extensive and growing espionage efforts of China. Yet, the success of planting an agent with Swalwell and a couple of other politicians has been given virtual Hunter Biden treatment. Where a host of legal expert called for charges for treason and other crimes against Trump Jr., there is nothing but crickets when a liberal Democrats members is accused of far more extensive contacts with a Chinese spy.  Why?

One day after it was revealed that Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was being probed for tax fraud and Chinese influence peddling – something we first reported at the end of October in “Blockbuster Report Reveals How Biden Family Was Compromised By China“, the Biden team – desperate to bury the fact that his family is beholden to Chinese dictator for life Xi Jinping – announced Katherine Tai,  a trade lawyer with a history of taking on China, would replace Lighthizer as US Trade Representative; Tai is on record as saying China needs to be confronted strongly and strategically.

Born in Connecticut to Taiwanese parents, Tai speaks Mandarin fluently and is a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Law School. She taught English for two years at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, southern China, from 1996 to 1998 as a Yale-China Fellow. She gained fame as the Democrats’ leading trade counsel in negotiating stronger labor provisions with the Republicans’ Lighthizer-led team in the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement.

If confirmed by the Senate, Tai would inherit a critical position of continuing the US trade war with China, and would be tasked with enforcing America’s import rules and brokering trading terms with China and other nations.

In choosing Tai, the senior trade lawyer on the House Ways and Means Committee, the Biden team likely signals an intent to return to a more multilateral trade approach to advance US trade interests and confront growing economic competition from China, according to CNBC. Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris emphasized Tai’s experience in a press release Thursday.

“Her deep experience will allow the Biden-Harris administration to hit the ground running on trade, and harness the power of our trading relationships to help the U.S. dig out of the COVID-induced economic crisis and pursue the President-elect’s vision of a pro-American worker trade strategy,” the Biden transition team wrote.

Tai would succeed current trade czar Robert Lighthizer, whose achievements during the Trump administration include a more-forceful tact in negotiations with Beijing and the imposition of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tariffs on goods imported from China.

Though Tai may favor multilateral enforcement mechanisms more than Lighthizer, her leadership as USTR wouldn’t necessarily signal a change to the tougher stance toward China. She has said that China should be addressed forcefully and strategically.

“They both also have a long history of dealing with China’s unfair practices, the most pressing trade issue of our time,” according to former top White House trade negotiator Clete Willems. “Where Katherine’s approach is most likely to differ is on how she uses the WTO system and alliances to pressure China to change behavior.”

From 2007 to 2014, Tai successfully litigated Washington’s disputes against Beijing at the WTO, the global trade organization based in Geneva, Switzerland. Lighthizer and his team, frustrated with what they viewed as slow-moving bureaucracy and China’s influence at the WTO and World Bank, often opted to work around the WTO and take a more direct approach through tariffs. The U.S. still has import duties on $370 billion of Chinese imports.

In August, Tai called for a different approach to China from the years-long tariff war waged by Lighthizer and said the use of import taxes are actually a defensive maneuver. Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said in a press release Wednesday evening that Tai would be a smart choice for USTR based on their time working together on the Ways and Means Committee.

“She is smart, deeply knowledgeable, and committed to getting trade policy right for our workers, businesses, and the environment,” Beyer said.

“Katherine is widely respected and well-liked, but will also be a tough and principled negotiator,” he added. “She is exactly the right kind of cooperative leader to help return rationality to our trade policy and restore the respect of our allies around the world.”

That’s likely to appeal to Biden, who has suggested he would favor a return to a more multilateral, ally-based approach and a move away from President Donald Trump’s “America First” approach.

Commenting on Tai’s appointment, the HK based SCMP quoted Wu Xinbo, director of Fudan University’s American studies centre, said Tai’s previous experience in setting US strategy in trade disputes with China at the WTO meant she was skilled in applying pressure to China on a multilateral platform.

“In contrast to Trump’s and Lighthizer’s approach, which favours bilateral trade war, Biden doesn’t see tariffs as the way to go,” Wu said. “Under Biden, Tai could be instrumental in implementing the strategy of recruiting allies and ganging up on China at the WTO.”

Meanwhile, Shi Yinhong, a professor on international relations at Renmin University in Beijing and a government adviser, said Tai’s nomination might be another “negative signal” for China-US relations and might continue Washington’s tough stance on China, given Tai’s experience in handling trade issues with China.

“This might not be good news for China, given that she handled the trade disputes with China,” Shi said. “It is not an issue of her Chinese-language skills or ethnicity. We also need to observe whether she has real political influence on Biden.” Shi said China might “not be very excited at all” about the choices of Tai as the US trade representative and Pete Buttigieg as US envoy to Beijing, both of whom China knows little about.

Biden has said previously that he will not immediately roll back tariffs imposed on Chinese products without a full review of the interim trade deal signed with China in January, and consultation with US allies.

Wang Yong, director of Peking University’s international political economy centre, said Tai’s selection was a positive move for future trade negotiations between China and the US.

“Tai is an American-born Chinese who speaks fluent [Mandarin],” he said. “She probably has a better understanding of Chinese culture and negotiating style. This is her advantage and her background and qualities will be conducive to advancing dialogue and exchanges between the two countries.

“The Biden team has already expressed that they think it is unrealistic for China and the US to decouple. So I believe the Biden administration will eventually remove all the tariffs put in place by the Trump administration, because American businesses and consumers have suffered from that. “The US’ negotiating tactics will also need to change.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that China would fulfil its commitments under the interim deal while also calling for  a resumption of dialogue on economic policy coordination and a bilateral investment treaty.

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

For the past 20 years we have been assaulted by the Marxist left in the U.S. about how terrible the electoral college is. In their quest for a purely egalitarian society – you know one without enforceable rules, culture, sexes and differences of any kind – the electoral college represents the ultimate thwarting of their intentions to rule through mobocracy.

It’s been a long and winding road through the institutions for these Marxists, undermining our educational system, media, government bureaucracies and buying off/’electing’ government officials to stepwise push the U.S. to the brink of takeover.

That’s where we are today and the only thing that stands between a fraudulent popular vote and a Biden-as-proxy-for-Davos presidency is the electoral college.

This is the essence of Trump’s legal challenges to the vote in the states where the rules were gamed to ensure a victory regardless of who actually showed up to the polls on November 3rd.

That much is clear even to the most compromised of judges and election officials who have thrown out cases with obvious merit on the flimsiest of legal grounds, c.f. the ruling in Michigan against Sidney Powell where the judge all but admitted the fraud but struck down the case with prejudice because of ‘timing’ and ‘disenfranchisement.’

But the last I checked our legal system is predicated on a bad law or rule causing material harm before the suit can be brought forth. Our system doesn’t allow for potential harm, only challenging the law after it has actually harmed someone.

Only once the ‘ballots were cast, the vote counted’ and ‘the election certified,’ in the words of U.S. District Judge Linda V. Parker, could there be a legal basis for voters being harmed by the way the election was conducted. Only then could a suit be brought forth.

Bring the suit too early and there’s no basis for ‘material harm.” Bring the suit after the vote and the judge rules it’s ‘disenfranchisement.’ You gotta love the rhetorical backflips people do to justify their confirmation bias.

I do agree with Judge Parker however that Powell may have brought forth a case she expected to lose with the intention of undermining the validity of our electoral process. Because, in fact, the electoral process is subject to massive fraud with incentives to rig and/or game the outcome for political benefit.

Make no mistake, Republicans and Democrats both use this compromised system to their benefit when it suits them. This, of course, begs the question, “Who do they actually work for? Us or someone else?”

And it is important with the stakes this high that as many people as possible understand what has happened in past elections, what happened last month and what will happen in the future elections, if they are ever allowed to occur.

Maybe that was Powell’s intention in going to Federal Court rather than State court where she would have had more chance of success, per arguments from Robert Barnes.

Which brings me back to why the electoral college is so very important. Because, in theory, absent a corruptible system on a mass scale, the electoral college is an unnecessary procedural step towards declaring the winner of a presidential election.

But what happens when that system is obviously tainted, the people administering it motivated by the darkest impulses and the disenfranchisement of millions of voters takes place because of the cheating?

Then there has to be a check on that power. And the electoral college is that check.

There has to be a way for those that uncover fraud but are stonewalled by people with the power to define fraud, in this case a corrupt and byzantine judiciary, to bring that evidence forth and have The People, through the electors and their State Legislatures, retain the power to decide what the real outcome of the election should be.

It’s not perfect. No system is.

It’s like 2-factor authentication for elections.

To turn the argument of the Marxist left about guns on its head, no peaceful society needs private ownership of guns. And a truly peaceful, perfect society doesn’t. Guns become a hobby for hunters, shooters and the collectors.

But we don’t live in a perfect society and until we do our guns remain the check on government overreach in the same way the electoral college performs that check, pro-forma as it may in fact be, on election fraud and the tyranny of low-information voters.

Back to the lawsuits. Anyone crowing about Powell’s suit being thrown out needs to take a second to ponder what was said in the dismissal. Because ‘making fraud legal’ doesn’t make it right nor inspire confidence. The courts are supposed to enforce the law not interpret it.

Judge Parker refused to accept the disenfranchisement of ‘5.5 million’ people in Michigan but ignored the disenfranchisement of the marginal few hundred thousand that tipped the election’s result and the selection of electors without even considering a review.

That should stun you in its implication. Tyranny of the majority trumps investigation into material evidence of malfeasance.

It is precisely because the courts have been so nakedly partisan (or just plain spineless) in their rulings that Texas made the most consequential move in the entire post-election wrangling.

It filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin on specific constitutional grounds for violating “the Electors Clause of the Constitution because they did not go through the legislatures…” when changing their standards for mail-in ballot acceptance.

What I said in this month’s Gold Goats n’ Guns Newsletter was:

States like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have, for all intents and purposes, forfeited their right to be represented at the Electoral College. They have overseen sham elections not worthy of electing a high school class president no less the ‘leader of the free world.’

And that should have people in places like Florida and Texas incensed. They counted more votes in a matter of hours and certified the results. How far has Florida come in twenty years since Bush v. Gore? Now even corrupt counties like Broward count their ballots in a timely manner and that’s that.

If it is perceived by them that a few dozen corrupt party hacks rigged their elections why should Floridians or Texans consent to be governed by their representatives in Washington? Why should they listen to anything any of them say for any reason?

Why should they accept President Harris and the crazy court of jackals she’ll appoint to her cabinet? Millions of Americans will be wondering why should America exist in practice if it doesn’t exist in principle?

That is the legacy of this election.

And this is exactly the response to the mountain of evidence about this election I was hoping to see from states like Texas — refusal to be governed by a bunch of corrupt party apparatchiks who believe in power for power’s sake and rule by theft.

Frankly, I want Florida and other states who got their vote counts right to join with Texas here. Many have virtue signaled support for Texas but none have signed on as plaintiffs. And I do believe the more political pressure placed on the SCOTUS is what is needed to get a fair hearing of this case on the merits of the law. c.f. that whole fallen society thing above.

This is the essence of what I mean by people becoming ungovernable.

And in a period of history where the thin veneer of civility on which our entire political edifice rests is being willingly ripped away to reveal naked power grabs it is even more important everyone on all sides of the political divide understand the stakes here.

This isn’t about Trump or Biden winning the election. Fraud of this magnitude is unacceptable. Cheating of this size and scope cannot be countenanced nor can it be excused away as de rigeur and de facto evidence of our inevitable decline as a society.

That’s, frankly, loserthink, in Scott Adams’ parlance, and a guarantee that all the terrible things people have done to each other in the past will occur again as checks against power ruthlessly applied wither to bullying.

Again, no system like this is without its flaws. At its heart voting is a violent act to determine which tyrant rules not only you but everyone else. It should be used sparingly and with extreme caution.

The idea that it should be frictionless is itself an open admission of a tyrannical impulse rather than a paean to egalitarian principles. Only people motivated to vote should vote. If that means a reasonable opportunity cost to execute that privilege then so be it.

Moreover, with a second authentication process like the electoral college in place it retards the impulse to cheat to win.

And this is why I want to see more electoral college checks on voter fraud rather than fewer. I want the electoral college used for my Governor, my State Rep., my county commissioners and my sheriff elections.

I want my counties here in Florida to have the power to check the fraud and, if necessary, disenfranchise the people of another county that refuses to conduct themselves as upstanding members of the community.

This would have stopped Broward county’s legendary fraud machine dead in its tracks and there would have been no need for Bush v. Gore in 2000.

Cheaters don’t get cookies.

Because if we don’t acknowledge our baser angels then we are doomed to a cycle of violence which will make “The Recent Unpleasantness of 1861 to 1865” look like a convocation of Amish dairy farmers.

What scares me most is I believe that is the intent of the people who perpetrated this fraud in the first place.

This is what Texas is signaling with its suit and it calls directly into question the validity and applicability of the Constitution in 2020 and beyond. If the SCOTUS fails to live up to its role as guarantor of its move basic function — arbiter between the several States — then what was settled law (ironically through naked use of force) when Lee surrendered at Appomattox will be reconsidered.

If we’re going to have this consensual hallucination called government then we should admit it flaws and ours in the open and build systems to determine who runs it which are less susceptible to gamesmanship.

Otherwise, what’s the point of holding elections. They just become the ultimate opiate of the masses.

I’d go on about blockchain-based voting as a potential cure for what ails us here but that’s a different subject for a different day. Today is about specifying what’s wrong with our system not offering implementations other than to argue the merits of what protections the electoral college grant us against forces of naked aggression.

The arguments against the electoral college are simply veiled arguments against Federalism. And while I’m happy to entertain arguments against any coercive form of government, in the case of the U.S. our Federal system is a flawed but robust system which has given ground slowly to these political terrorists over the past couple hundred years.

It is in a terminal state of collapse today and the odds are long that it will survive these challenges in any practical sense. Good on Texas for reminding us where the limits to power are and bringing up real questions about where we are headed.

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With Politico reporting on Wednesday that Hunter Biden’s criminal investigation covers potential money laundering, and CNN‘s Simon Prokupecz reporting that the feds are looking into a 2017 gift to Hunter from CEFC China Energy Co. founder Ye Jianming – a 2.8-carat diamond, let’s revisit a prime example of what one Chinese professor described as ‘friends in high places‘ within the Democratic party.

In November, 2017, Joe Biden’s brother James received a surprise call on his cellphone from Patrick Ho, Ye Jianming’s lieutenant who was arrested by the FBI (and is now serving a 36-month sentence for bribery and money laundering), according to a December, 2018 report by the New York Times. According to James, the call was meant for Hunter.

James Biden, a financier and brother of the former vice president, was in a hotel lobby in November 2017 when he got a surprise call on his cellphone. The call was from Patrick Ho, Mr. Ye’s lieutenant. Mr. Ho, 69, was in trouble.

Federal agents who had monitored CEFC’s rise since at least the summer of 2016 had sprung into action, arresting Mr. Ho in New York on allegations that he had bribed African officials in Chad and Uganda. Days later, federal agents showed up at Mr. Ye’s luxury apartment building across from Central Park with a subpoena to interview Mr. Ye, said people familiar with the matter.

…

In a brief interview, James Biden said he had been surprised by Mr. Ho’s call. He said he believed it had been meant for Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son. James Biden said he had passed on his nephew’s contact information. -NYT

Emails obtained from Hunter’s laptop, reported in October by the New York Post and called Russian disinformation by the MSM after they could no longer ignore the bombshell, suggested that the Bidens were involved in a joint venture with CEFC to create a new corporation which would be headed up by former Biden business partner, Tony Bobulinski – who has corroborated the emails after turning whistleblower just before the 2020 election. According to evidence found on Hunter’s laptop, Joe Biden may have been assigned a 10% ownership stake, which Bobulinski said was concealed through brother’s James’ interest.

In July of 2019, Hunter confessed to the New Yorker that he had accepted the 2.8 carat diamond worth at least ten thousand dollars, which he insisted wasn’t a bribe – before admitting that he and his father Joe had in fact discussed his business dealings.

Hunter offered to use his contacts to help identify investment opportunities for Ye’s company, CEFC China Energy, in liquefied-natural-gas projects in the United States. After the dinner, Ye sent a 2.8-carat diamond to Hunter’s hotel room with a card thanking him for their meeting. “I was, like, Oh, my God,” Hunter said. (In Kathleen’s court motion, the diamond is estimated to be worth eighty thousand dollars. Hunter said he believes the value is closer to ten thousand.) When I asked him if he thought the diamond was intended as a bribe, he said no: “What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office.”  –New Yorker

Indeed – why then would Patrick Ho be trying to reach Hunter in 2017 when his dad wasn’t in office? Perhaps the Bidens’ Chinese associates knew all about Joe’s plan to run in 2020 and thought the former Vice President’s family might still have some pull within the DOJ?

Whatever the case, it didn’t work – as Ho is currently sitting in a prison cell and Hunter is under criminal investigation for money laundering and tax evasion.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) stated that his legal challenge to the Supreme Court isn’t over despite being denied an emergency order earlier this week.

“All that happened is we were not granted temporary injunctive relief,” Kelly told Newsmax on Wednesday.

“The case is still alive and well.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied Kelly’s request—which was also joined by congressional candidate Sean Parnell and other Republicans—after he sought to prevent Pennsylvania state officials from taking further action to certify the state’s election results.

“And we are looking, how do we get the court to take on the case for its merits of being constitutional or unconstitutional. That’s all we’re looking at,” Kelly said.

“That’s a huge ask by the way. But we are in the midst of a constitutional crisis right now in our country, and we have to get answers, and we have to get it from the highest court in the land.”

Kelly’s case argued that Pennsylvania’s Legislature acted in an unconstitutional manner by passing a law—known as Act 77—last year to expand the usage of mail-in ballots. His lawyers said Pennsylvania lawmakers violated the state Constitution.

But the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the request for relief.

“The application for injunctive relief presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is denied,” said the court’s single-sentence order. It did not offer a dissenting opinion.

Following the Supreme Court’s denial, Kelly stated what they “can do now is we petition the court to hear (our) case. It’s called cert.”

“That’s what we’re asking the court to do. Hear the lawsuit based on its merits. That’s all we’re asking: constitutional, unconstitutional. Then make a decision afterwards of what are those findings and what are the remedies,” Kelly said. “Play up to the whistle. Play up to the echo of the whistle.”

Lawyers representing Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration called on the Supreme Court to reject his lawsuit.

“No court has ever issued an order nullifying the governor’s certification of presidential election results,” the lawyers said, arguing that it could set a precedent for the “judicial invalidation” of an election.

Kelly’s lawyer, Greg Teufel, told The Epoch Times that Kelly and the other plaintiffs will file a separate petition for a writ of certiorari with a request to expedite the case in due course.

In the meantime, another case sent to the Supreme Court from Texas has sought to prevent Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan from participating in the Electoral College due to a number of irregularities and last-minute voter law changes. At least 17 other states have joined Texas’ lawsuit.