Tag: finance

As President-Elect Biden continues naming people to his administration, it’s looking increasingly like BlackRock could be replacing Goldman Sachs as the financial company with the largest presence inside the White House.

There are rumors circulating that Biden is going to name two executives from BlackRock, which has more than $7 trillion under management, to positions on his economic team, according to the NY Post. 

Brian Deese, a current BlackRock executive and former adviser to President Barack Obama, has reportedly been picked to head up the National Economic Council, while “Wally” Adeyemo, a former chief of staff to Larry Fink, could be set to become deputy Treasury Secretary.

Deese is not an economist, the piece notes, but worked on initiatives like the auto bailout and the Paris Climate Accord during the Obama administration. 39 year old Adeyemo, a Kenyan lawyer, worked in the Treasury Department during the Obama administration. He then went on to work as a deputy director for the NEC in 2017. 

“Larry is the new Goldman Sachs. Deese is not necessarily a ‘BlackRock guy,’ but he works for Larry and now he advises the president,” one investment banker told The Post. 

Executives from Goldman Sachs, who generally are known to have a presence inside the White House, have been “conspicuously absent from Biden’s lists,” the Post reported, citing insiders.

“Goldman and other banks have sent their people into government, whereas Larry took these guys from the White House, worked with them, backed Biden, and now he’s putting them back into the White House,” one fund manager said. BlackRock’s Larry Fink has backed numerous liberal causes despite drawing the ire of the left for his investments in private prisons and weapons manufacturers.

Fink also publicly supported Biden during the election, drumming up rumors that he was interested in the Treasury Secretary or NEC role himself. 

Another unnamed hedge fund manager said: “Hedge fund and private equity guys were always going to be part of future White Houses. To be honest, I’m glad it’s BlackRock and not people who have no idea what they’re doing.”

Submitted by Market Crumbs,

With investors from most asset classes being rewarded for taking on risk over the last decade, it’s not surprising to see money pour into other, less traditional assets.

We wrote in October about the strength in the sports card market, where data from PWCC—which manages the largest trading card auction venue in the world, shows the index of the top-performing 500 cards had a return on investment of 216% since 2008 compared to 135% for the S&P 500.

Then last week we wrote about the market for rare video games after a sealed copy of 1990’s Super Mario Bros. 3 fetched $156,000 in an auction, breaking the previous record—which was just set in July, for the most expensive video game ever sold.

The latest example of collectibles with a cult following potentially bringing top dollar comes from auction house Christie’s, which is holding its first dedicated auction to the streetwear brand Supreme, which agreed to be acquired by VF Corporation last month. Bidding for “Behind The Box: 1994-2020” began on December 1 and runs through December 15.

The auction, which was curated by Supreme historian Ross Wilson, features some of the most iconic Supreme items and contains rare products, non-released samples and comprehensive full sets from the label’s entire 26-year history.

Alongside “Behind The Box: 1994-2020,” Christie’s is selling the only known complete set of Supreme Box Logo T-shirts ever curated, known as The Box Logo Collection. The collection of 253 different Box Logo T-shirts is expected to go for around $2 million, making it the most valuable collection of Supreme items to ever be offered in a single sale.

The collection was curated by 21-year-old James Bogart who began collecting the T-shirts when he was just 14 years old. Bogart, who admits the $2 million figure is “ridiculous,” made it his goal to curate the first “complete archive” after buying his first T-shirt.

Bogart didn’t say how much he spent to assemble the collection of Box Logo T-shirts, but a response to a question on his site’s FAQ details how much time it took to find them all.

“It’s been a non-stop 5-year hunt to accumulate this collection,” Bogart said. “A lot of people don’t think about the non-stop weeks, months, and even years of research and work that it can take to find just one tee.”

Bogart, who is now studying business and fashion in Italy, will be both sad to see the collection go but clearly happy to cash in.

“I think it’ll be a little bit bittersweet,” Bogart said about selling the collection. “For me, it was always about the hunt. And the fact that so many people deem to this collection impossible to be completed. So once it was completed, there was a sense of great relief and great pride, but I really did want to put it on a stage where it could be appreciated and do the collection justice.”

If the collection sells, Bogart wants the buyer to do “whatever makes them happy,” but would prefer they don’t wear the T-shirts.

“I hope that they don’t wear them,” Bogart said. “I’ve spent so long trying to get these shirts in their best possible condition. I think it would be a little bit painful to watch.”

As money floods into more unusual assets such as sports cards, video games and Supreme items, it’s a great time to be the owner of rare collectibles that have developed a cult following.

As LA Mayor Eric Garcetti kicks off the most restrictive lockdown in the country in the City of Angels, it appears even walking and exercise are now banned as California takes a page out of Australia’s COVID-19 playbook.

During comments earlier this week, the LA Mayor warned “it’s time to cancel everything”, including “unnecessary travel on foot” – also known as ‘walking’.

JUST IN: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti: “It’s time to cancel everything.” pic.twitter.com/oMiwjSTFWg

— The Hill (@thehill) December 3, 2020

As we reported earlier this week, the order prohibits “all travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit,” with limited exceptions.

“All travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit is prohibited, subject to the exceptions in Paragraph V.”

Of course, there are a few exceptions: people who work in the health-care industry and news industry are allowed to travel, along with individuals going to grocery stores, gas stations and other locations deemed essential.

Garcetti also ordered all residents living in the city “to remain in their homes,” while barring all inter-household gatherings and requiring all non-essential businesses to either close, or have all their employees return to working from home.

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

A COVID vaccine is not even available yet, but the mainstream media is already full of stories about whether or not it is legal for employers to fire employees that refuse to take it.  To me, this is not even a debate that we should be having.  It would be fundamentally anti-American and morally reprehensible for any employer to fire someone for choosing not to get vaccinated.  Unfortunately, the mainstream media does not see things that way, and they are interviewing lots of legal experts that are assuring employers that it is perfectly legal to fire people that don’t want to get vaccinated. 

For example, the following comes from a CNBC article…

“In general, yes, employers are able to mandate the vaccine when it becomes available with, of course, a bunch of caveats,” says employment lawyer Lindsay Ryan, listing possible exemptions for those with specific medical conditions and those with sincerely held religious convictions.

If religious convictions really did protect employees, that would be great.

From my perspective, any employee that refuses to get vaccinated based on a sincerely held religious conviction should definitely be shielded from being fired under federal law.

Unfortunately, the CNBC article goes on to explain why federal law is probably not going to protect any person of faith from mandatory vaccination requirements…

Ryan emphasizes that state laws regulating what constitutes reasonable accommodations for religious groups vary significantly, but that “under federal law, employers don’t have to grant a religious accommodation if doing so would result in more than a de minimis cost to the operation of the business.”

“De minimis” is Latin for “of minimum importance” and is used in law to refer to a total so small that it is not even recognized. Given how significantly the pandemic has impacted businesses, Ryan says “this is a pretty low standard.” Meaning, many employers will likely have legal ground to require vaccination.

In other words, under federal law there is hardly any protection at all for workers that wish to refuse the COVID vaccine.

Other major news outlets have been publishing similar stories.  This excerpt comes from a piece that was published by Reuters…

Gostin and five other health law experts said private companies in the United States have broad liberties to set health and safety standards, which would allow them to mandate vaccinations as a condition of employment with some exceptions.

It is almost as if there is a coordinated effort to make employers across the country aware that they can issue such mandates.

A little over a decade ago, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration ruled that employers could make vaccines mandatory during the swing flu pandemic, but of course that crisis faded rather rapidly and so very few employers actually went in that direction.

But now it appears that COVID-19 is going to be with us for quite a while, and some employers have already decided that they are going to make vaccination mandatory for all employees…

Just a few months into the coronavirus pandemic, Holly Smith had already made up her mind. She was not going to reopen her restaurant to diners until there was a vaccine. She just didn’t think it was safe. When she shared the decision with her staff, they asked: Would the vaccine be mandatory?

Yes, she said. It would be.

“I’m not going to open until I can indeed be sure that everyone on my staff is vaccinated,” says Smith, chef and owner of Cafe Juanita in Kirkland, Wash. “The immediate people on the team — you’ve got to take care of them. If you don’t take care of them, they cannot help you take care of business.”

If some of her employees do not want to take the vaccine, they will be hitting the bricks.

And as I have detailed repeatedly in recent weeks, it is not easy to find another job in this economy.

The good news is that most employers will likely be hesitant to mandate vaccines because of the potential of pushback from their employees.  According to a recent Gallup survey, 42 percent of all Americans do not plan to get a COVID-19 vaccine…

Americans’ willingness to be vaccinated against COVID-19 rebounded a bit in October, as seen in Gallup polling conducted before Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna made promising announcements about the likely effectiveness of their coronavirus vaccines. Fifty-eight percent of Americans in the latest poll say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine, up from a low of 50% in September.

It is estimated that there are 328 million people living in the United States right now, and 42 percent of 328 million is 137 million.

If those 137 million people stand up for their God-given rights, we almost certainly will not see widespread vaccine mandates.

But will they?

We shall see.

In the months ahead, there is going to be so much public pressure to get vaccinated, and the CDC plans to aggressively promote their vaccination campaign.

They even plan to distribute “buttons or stickers” so that people that have been injected can advertise that fact to others…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning to offer health care providers a template they can use to print buttons or stickers that would advertise a person’s vaccination status. The idea is that the button would be handed out to patients after they receive their vaccination shots.

The effort is part of a “toolkit” that the CDC plans to provide healthcare systems to “educate and promote vaccination,” a CDC spokesperson told ABC News.

In addition, within the past few days Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Joe Biden have all committed to being vaccinated publicly…

President-elect Joe Biden said he would publicly take a vaccine when it’s available to encourage the public to get vaccinated, joining three former presidents who recently pledged to do the same.

Biden said he’d “be happy” to join former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton in getting the vaccine in public to prove it is safe.

That would seem to be quite a public relations coup for the pharmaceutical companies, but if any of them has any sort of an adverse reaction to the vaccine it will rapidly transform into a public relations nightmare.

Of course the truth is that nobody really knows what the long-term side effects of taking COVID vaccines will be for the population as a whole.

As I have discussed previously, this entirely new class of mRNA vaccines has never been tried before, and those that line up first to get a COVID vaccine will be the guinea pigs.

*  *  *

Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

Politico reports on Friday what appears to be the Trump admin’s final house cleaning of Pentagon top civilian ranks. 

Multiple members of the Defense Business Board, the members of which are appointed annually by the Secretary of Defense to help streamline interaction with the defense private sector, were notified by White House email that they have been unexpectedly terminated.

Two former board members described it as Trump’s final “clean out” of Pentagon leadership during the remaining few weeks of his term.

Reports Politico:

Members of the board received a brief email from Joshua Whitehouse, the White House liaison to the Department of Defense, that simply said, “if you are receiving this e-mail, your membership on the Defense Business Board has expired or is coming to an end.”

“This e-mail serves as notice that we will be nominating new board members,” the notice continued. “We appreciate your service to the Department and your country.”

The now fired board members said they had no heads-up or warning whatsoever of the impending action. The email notification came seemingly out of nowhere.

“A number of board members have been terminated with a form letter. In my experience, I was very surprised that the White House would, at the eleventh hour, adjust an advisory board that for 19 years has had a record of nonpartisan support with the department,” the until today board chairman Michael Bayer, described to Politico.

“This kind of a move really will weigh heavily on people on the future and their willingness to serve on these outside advisory boards if they’re going to be subjected to political loyalty test. It’s unprecedented. I’m just saddened,” Bayer added.

One well-known retired Admiral blasted Trump’s move as an “over-the-shoulder shot while exiting the door”…

A wise person would not do this over-the-shoulder shot while exiting the door. Shows smallness.
Pentagon fires business advisory board members in latest purge https://t.co/zVhzjbT0q0 via @politico

— Admiral Mike Franken (@FrankenforIowa) December 4, 2020

It comes after a spate of top resignations and firings which began during election week, even as votes were being tallied, and led to the biggest but not unexpected sacking of prior Defense Secretary Mark Esper. Last week nearly a dozen big names including former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor were pushed out of a similar civilian leadership council called the Defense Policy Board.

The dramatic sudden removals also come as the White House ramps up pressure on both China and Iran down to the very last weeks and days ahead of Biden’s inauguration on January 20.

Despite the unprecedented polarization in Congress, fiscal stimulus is slowly progressing with Politico reporting this morning that it is quite likely that a Covid relief bill will come together. “It will be small and targeted, including PPP, unemployment, restaurant assistance (deductions) and a bit more.”

Latest headlines confirmed as much, when Nancy Pelosi said she and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell hope to combine a coronavirus relief measure with an omnibus spending package. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said he plans to talk to McConnell today about a relief package, adding that “If $908 billion over four months is what we agree on then we ought to pass it.”

While more information on the fiscal stimulus is expected to emerge heading into this weekend, where policymakers on both sides will hold stimulus discussions, it is now almost certain that a hypothetical package will be tagged alongside the omnibus spending bill that will set to be voted on December 11.

Incidentally, the base case of several banks is for a roughly $1 trillion fiscal package, which would be the last major tranche of COVID-related fiscal stimulus, while consultancy ACG Analytics believes the final deal will be somewhere in the middle of the bid/ask, or around $750, and that could be it until 2022, as per Larry McDonald’s Bear Traps Report:

Senate Majority leader (Mitch) is at 600bln and Romney (GOP Centrist leader) is 908bln.  750bln might get done and that might be all the fiscal for Biden unless GA turns or 2022 brings a dem majority. The risk is if it’s too big now we might get nothing in Q1 in terms of a larger package. We think the GOP works with Biden until the 2022 midterms, after that the austerity camp takes over into the 2024 election, we defer to ACG in Washington on all Things Fiscal.

And speaking of the latest Bear Traps report, below we republish an interesting take from a “large hedge fund CIO” client of Larry McDonald’s:

“After talking to all the consultants in Washington, here’s my take.

The big political surprise coming is Biden works with the political center to achieve substantial centrist legislation in a variety of ways — to the frustration of the far left.

There will be no Green new deal, confiscatory tax law changes, defunded police, mass forgiveness of student loans or single payor health.  There will NOT be 2 new states, Supreme Court-packing, etc even if the senate goes 50-50.

There will be an infrastructure bill (with Green energy emphasized), changes to taxes on foreign corporate earnings, police reform and other attempts to reduce institutional racism, forbearance on hardship student debt, fixes to Obamacare. Etc.

People who think McConnell can bring the Senate to a halt and reject every proposal are nuts.  If he (McConnell) does that 2022 will be a bloodbath for Republicans (Senate 51-49 now, + the GOP is less than 7 seats away from taking the House, they will NOT risk this momentum).

There are several Republicans like Romney, Murkowski, Collins, Ernst, Purdue, and Tillis that can realize they have a ton of power to support a centrist agenda.”

Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

A new study shows that American media outlets have been far more negative in their coverage of the coronavirus than the media in other nations.

Not surprisingly, negative stories of Donald Trump and the pandemic were more likely to be published than positive stories about what was happening with the coronavirus. Indeed, since most of the media was obsessed with Trump, the good news about vaccines or treatments was often buried or unwritten.

Washington Examiner:

“Ninety one percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty four percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty five percent for scientific journals,” reads the working paper’s abstract.

“The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive scientific developments including school re-openings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience.”

The paper was written by researchers at Dartmouth College and Brown University. They examined over 20,000 news reports from the 15 top U.S. media outlets and 39 international sources.

They concluded that “U.S. major media outlets are much more negative” when publishing similar stories to “non-U.S. sources.”

Also, it appears the teacher’s unions did their job well.

“There is a similar disconnect between U.S. major media reporting on school reopenings and scientific findings on the same topic; the reporting is overwhelmingly negative, while the scientific literature tells a more optimistic story,” the researchers wrote.

The paper cites a study on school reopenings and COVID-19 infections that found “infection rates among students remain low” and that “schools have not become the super-spreaders many feared.” The researchers note that an analysis of the available evidence painted a similar story, yet 90% of “school reopening articles from U.S. mainstream media are negative versus only 56 percent” of foreign media coverage.

The aforementioned coverage of Donald Trump was a large reason for the negative stories. In fact, the statistics are eye-popping.

“U.S. major media stories that discuss the benefits of social distancing or alternatively the benefits of mask wearing are less numbers than stories about President Trump not wearing a mask,” the researchers wrote.

“Similarly, the terms ‘Trump and hydroxychloroquine’ receive more media coverage than do all stories about companies and researchers developing vaccines.”

The paper found that “mentions of COVID-19 vaccines” or “any names of the top ten institutions or companies working on” a vaccine were mentioned in 1,371 stories. But during the same time period, the researchers found “8,756 stories involving Trump and mask wearing and 1,636 stories about Trump and hydroxychloroquine.

The lecturing, hectoring media that went on and on about Trump’s mask-wearing was appalling when you consider that other stories of far more importance were given short shrift.

Part of the reason for the avalanche of negative stories was no doubt an effort to “sex up” the coverage in order to scare people. If there is one overriding, titanic failure of the American media in its coverage of the coronavirus it was its deliberate and calculated effort to create an atmosphere of hysteria about the coronavirus.

There was political calculation in this approach, knowing that scaring people about the virus would drive opposition to Trump.

A criminal defense attorney for 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse has stepped back from the case after prosecutors raised questions over his links to an “unregulated slush fund” for the teen, according to the Chicago Tribune.

On Thursday, hours after prosecutors sought to block Los Angeles civil lawyer John M. Pierce from representing Rittenhouse against a murder charge and other counts stemming from an August 25 shooting incident in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Racine lawyer Mark Richards told the Tribune in an email that “I will be counsel for Kyle in the criminal matters,” while Pierce (and his colleague, Andrew Calderon) “won’t be.“

Pierce, who prosecutors say had no income last year, monthly expenses of $49,581, and debt of $1.2 million, was sued in July over allegations that he failed to pay rent on a $1.3 million home in Ventura County, California.

“This creates a potential conflict of interest for attorney Pierce,” states the motion. “Given his own substantial personal debts, his involvement with an unregulated and opaque ‘slush fund’ provides ample opportunity for self-dealing and fraud. The more that the Foundation raises in donations, the more he may personally benefit. Money that should be held in trust for the defendant may instead be used to repay attorney Pierce’s numerous creditors.”

In Setpember, Pierce claimed he was going to step away from the #FightBack Foundation to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest.

FYI, just stepped off official #FightBack Foundation board to 100% focus on freeing Kyle and avoid any appearance of $$ conflict. All good. #FightBack #FreeKyleRittennhouse #fakenews #USA https://t.co/Nuhkhqyf7D

— John Pierce (@CaliKidJMP) September 5, 2020

Hours after the prosecution filed its motion, however, Pierce tweeted “Effective immediately I am taking over all civil matters for Kyle including his future defamation claims. I will also be orchestrating all fundraising for defense costs. The terrific Mark Richards will proceed in Wisconsin.”

So that it does not take Kyle’s supporters by surprise, effective immediately I am taking over all civil matters for Kyle including his future defamation claims. I will also be orchestrating all fundraising for defense costs. The terrific Mark Richards will proceed in Wisconsin.

— John Pierce (@CaliKidJMP) December 3, 2020

Pierce’s partner in the #FightBack foundation is Rittenhouse attorney Lin Wood of Georgia – who tweeted last week that the foundation had “successfully raised $2M cash bail for Kyle Rittenhouse & funded over $300K for his attorney’s fees & expenses. The foundation used approx. $400K of its general funds for Kyle.”

2. #FightBack also donated $100K to #WalkAway & $20K to @carterwpage.

I donate my time pro bono & take no compensation for my efforts on behalf of #FightBack.

The foundation is dedicated to helping preserve, protect & defend our Constitutional rights.

— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) November 29, 2020

Read the rest of the report here.

By Joseph Jankowski of PlanetFreeWill,

Just one day after the United Kingdom became the first western nation to approve the inoculation, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla says that he is “not certain” that the company’s vaccine will prevent people from carrying and spreading the virus to others.

In a Thursday night interview with NBC, the CEO expressed confidence in the ability “to send vaccines within 24 hours basically [anywhere] in the U.S.” after receiving emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration, but he remains unconfident in the vaccine’s ability to be a silver bullet against people carrying and transmitting COVID-19.

“Even though I’ve had the protection, am I still able to transmit it to other people?” NBC’s Lester Holt asked, to which Bourla responded: “I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now.”

On whether someone can still transmit the virus after vaccination, Pfizer Chairman & CEO Dr. Albert Bourla tells @LesterHoltNBC: “I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now with what we know.” #Dateline

— NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) December 4, 2020

Last month, Pfizer announced that its vaccine – developed along side BioNTech – proved over 90% effective in giving immunity. Although this statistic on its face sounds remarkable, researchers have warned that the clinical trials did not assess whether the vaccine can prevent the virus from spreading.

“We have no knowledge about whether it prevents you from actually acquiring the infection at all,” Dr. Larry Corey, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told Business Insider.

The FDA is expected to make a decision on emergency use authorization as soon as December 10.

Moncef Slaoui, the top adviser on the US government’s Operation Warp Speed, predicted on Wednesday that more than 100 million Americans would be vaccinated against COVID-19 within the next 100 days.

Considering the lack of confidence from not only the Pfizer CEO, but also researchers in the field, about the potential inability of the vaccine to prevent infections and the spread of the virus, it will remain to be seen how many people actually take the jab.

A poll from STAT and The Harris Poll showed in November that 6 in 10 Americans said they are somewhat or very likely to get a Covid-19 vaccine if doing so would lower the risk of becoming infected by about half.

Polls out of the UK show that some 67% of people say they are “likely” or “very likely” to receive the vaccine if it were voluntary, however, if the shot was to be made compulsory, this figure fell to 65%.

The UK is expected to begin giving Pfizer’s shots to a portion of the population next week.

CNN anchor and the network’s chief national security corresponding issued a surprising and alarming statement on Thursday. Jim Sciutto wrote on Twitter:

As Chinese military activity around Taiwan continues to ramp up, a senior administration official tells me, “We are watching very closely and would be ready for anything including a grave miscalculation by the PRC. We’re definitely watching them.”

He added at a moment Trump continues to chip away at Beijing through a series of unprecedented ‘blacklisting’ measures, as well as new visa restrictions against Communist Party members and their families (which includes tens of millions of Chinese citizens total) that American defense officials think geopolitical flashpoints involving Chinese ‘aggression’ are about to boil over.

“Sooner or later they’re willing to push things to a boiling point over Taiwan as they did in Hong Kong and on border with India,” the official is cited further as saying to CNN’s Sciutto. “It’s coming.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon is reportedly proceeding with plans to establish (or in a sense resurrect) a new 1st Fleet for the US Navy to better monitor the expansive Indian Ocean region and ultimately deter China.

Watch this space:

As Chinese military activity around Taiwan continues to ramp up, a senior administration official tells me, “We are watching very closely and would be ready for anything including a grave miscalculation by the PRC. We’re definitely watching them.” 1/

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) December 3, 2020

Currently the Navy’s 7th Fleet is responsible for covering a massive stretch of ocean from where it is based in Yokosuka, Japan. This includes the maritime expanse from waters corresponding to where the India-Pakistan border is, all the way to Hawaii.

Last month the Secretary of the Navy Kenneth Braithwaite said the DoD is working on it under his direction.

“We can’t just rely on the 7th Fleet in Japan,” Braithwaite said at the time, and crucially added, “We have to look to our other allies and partners like Singapore, like India, and actually put a numbered fleet where it would be extremely relevant if, God forbid, we were to ever to get in any kind of a dust-up.”