THE DOCTRINE OF THE N.A.F.T.A. GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS IS TO SERVE THE BILLIONAIRE CLASS WITH ENDLESS WAVES OF INVADING 'CHEAP' LABOR SUBSIDIZED WITH WELFARE FUNDED BY TAXES ON MIDDLE AMERICA.
In many speeches, Mayorkas says he is building a mass migration system to deliver workers to wealthy employers and investors and “equity” to poor foreigners. The nation’s border laws are subordinate to elites’ opinion about “the values of our country,” Mayorkas claims.
Sunday, December 25, 2022
YOUTUBE DOC ON WHAT THE DEMOCRAT PARTY'S OPEN BORDERS FOR CHEAP LABOR HAS DONE TO CALIFORNIA - NOW A COLONY OF MEXICO AND THE WORLD'S LARGEST MEXICAN WELFARE STATE
Why Most Californians Aren't Happy with the State | Victor Davis Hanson
Migrant enclaves already are at the top of the U.S. lists for bad places to - 10 of the 50 worst places in America to live according to this list are in California, and all of them are famous for their illegal populations. MONICA SHOWALTER
THERE'S A REASON WHY THE NAFTA GLOBALIST DEMOCRATS FOUND AND WENT TO BED WITH HIGH TECH BILLIONAIRES!
Why Big-Tech is Anti-Democracy | Victor Davis Hanson
The home of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, once a beacon of opportunity and prosperity, is today a sinking ship. Immigration policy is a significant factor in that decline.
Sanctuary California should be a cautionary tale, not a goal
From the moment Joe Biden assumed the presidency, immigration has been at the top of his agenda. One of his first acts was to sign a series of executive orders that reversed the Trump administration's policies on things like border wall funding, travel bans, and sanctuary laws.
While Trump's goal for immigration policy was clearly articulated in his "Make America Great Again" concept, we have heard little on where Biden intends to take us with his immigration plank. Judging from his actions so far, though, the destination is clear. He wants to make America into California, and that should deeply concern every U.S. citizen.
What anti-borders politicians have done to California over the last 30 years is a disgrace. The home of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, once a beacon of opportunity and prosperity, is today a sinking ship. Immigration policy is a significant factor in that decline.
Taking on a massive population of illegal aliens has come at a colossal cost to Californians, in terms of finances, safety, and job opportunities, to name a few. State residents foot the bill for more than $23 billion that is directly attributable to illegal immigration and its effects. That breaks down to almost $2,000 for every legally present household each year. This from a state that is already carrying more than $1.3 trillion in total state, county, and municipal debt. Who wouldn't want to pay a hefty tax each year to encourage more illegal aliens to move to your community?
The chief catalyst for California's illegal alien crisis has been its embrace of sanctuary laws. By preventing local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities in the deportation of criminal aliens, there are virtually no consequences for violating our nation's immigration laws inside the state of California.
While the Orwellian-named California Values Act (S.B. 54) made sanctuary policy state law, it seems downright moderate compared to what some cities and counties have done. S.B. 54 at least allows cooperation with ICE in only the most extreme of circumstances.
The sanctuary law in Santa Clara, the largest county in northern California, takes an even more radical position, stating that the county "does not, under any circumstances, honor civil detainer requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by holding inmates on ICE's behalf for additional time after they would otherwise be released from County custody."
Before sanctuary laws, it had long been a practice of local law enforcement to cooperate with detainer requests as a way to expedite criminal aliens toward deportation.
The results of this policy have been about as bad as you might expect. In Santa Clara County last November, police arrested Fernando De Jesus Lopez-Garcia after he allegedly stabbed five people inside the Grace Baptist Church, killing two and leaving three others seriously injured.
One witness called 911 to say a "man was going crazy, stabbing people and there was blood everywhere." He was arrested on two counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, battery on a spouse, and violation of a protective order.
Lopez-Garcia is an illegal alien with an extensive criminal record who had successfully avoided ICE apprehension after each arrest because of local and state sanctuary laws barring cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
In 2019, police arrested Carlos Eduardo Arevalo Carranza, an illegal alien from El Salvador, for allegedly beating and stabbing Bambi Larson to death in her San Jose home. Reports later disclosed that police had previously arrested Carranza ten times for drugs, kidnapping, battery against a police officer, and burglary. ICE had requested an immigration hold on Carranza seven times, but the Santa Clara Sheriff's Office (SCSO) refused every request. Facing criticism for the sanctuary policy, the county supervisors met and inexplicably voted 5-0 to double down on the policy.
My organization, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), recently concluded an investigation into these practices in Santa Clara and found some disturbing results.
We submitted a records request with the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office to discover just how many ICE detainers it has received in recent time and how many of them applied to aliens with serious criminal backgrounds. That request revealed that ICE lodged a total of 1,757 detainers in just two years — 909 requests in 2019 and 848 in 2020. The law enforcement records technician with the sheriff's office confirmed with IRLI that every single one of these requests was ignored.
The Sheriff's Office refused to disclose to IRLI how many of the detainer requests applied to aliens who were convicted or charged with serious or violent felony offenses. When IRLI asked about the last year an ICE detainer request was honored by the county, a records technician there replied that he could not find records that showed the last time a detainer request was honored.
The results of these laws are clear. The county has become a haven for illegal aliens, particularly those with criminal records. The communities are demonstrably less safe, and the influx of new arrivals creates a heavy financial burden on legal state residents. Is it any wonder that taxpayers are fleeing the state in droves?
As the Biden administration goes full speed with its anti-borders agenda, however, there will be no place for concerned Americans to flee. California-style laws will soon become federal laws. We're about to conduct a national experiment in anti-borders cause and effect. Buckle up.
Dale L. Wilcox is executive director and general counsel at theImmigration Reform Law Institute, a public interest law firm working to defend the rights and interests of the American people from the negative effects of mass migration.
FTX execs hid $8 billion in liabilities in a customer account that Bankman-Fried referred to as 'our Korean friend's account,' CFTC prosecutors allege (MORE BELOW)
"Along with Obama, Pelosi and Schumer are responsible for incalculable damage done to this country over the eight years of that administration." PATRICIA McCARTHY
YOU CAN'T SEPARATE THE DEM POLS
FROM THEIR BRIBES SUCKING!
Kilmeade: How could Sam Bankman-Fried sleep at night?
Thomas Lifson and other observers have noticed the strange kid-glove treatment that accused crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried has been getting since his arrest in the Bahamas after reportedly misappropriating and losing billions in customer funds.
It was natural to note the huge campaign funding Bankman-Fried delivered, particularly to Democrats, at least $40 million, making him their second-largest donor.
But now another shoe seems to be dropping, based on this report from Bonchie at Red State here:
Sam Bankman-Fried, the man at the center of the FTX scandal, is back on US soil after having been extradited from the Bahamas to face federal charges. Naturally, because our justice system is about as coherent as a two-year-old quoting Shakespeare, the notorious fraudster was immediately granted bail and is now spending the holidays with his family. The American oligarchy is alive and well.
But I digress, there’s a lot more to the FTX scandal than just Bankman-Fried’s fate, and one of the more interesting aspects of the entire ordeal is just how close many Democrats were to him. In fact, according to Politico, a Democrat operative and close advisor to Bankman-Fried named Sean McElwee had a direct backchannel setup with the White House.
That slack channel, which reportedly contained ongoing conversations between McElwee and administration officials (as well as “well-known reporters”) was promptly shut down when Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO. Moreover, McElwee is also a co-founder of Data for Progress and only began negotiating his exit from the organization after FTX collapsed in on itself. If everything was above board, then why would Data for Progress feel the need to cut ties so quickly?
To say there are a lot of red flags with this situation is to understate things dramatically, and the questions surrounding the administration’s involvement become obvious with this news.
It certainly does have a bad smell to it, given the Biden family's propensity toward involvement in multiple get-rich-quick schemes with Ukrainian oligarchs, red Chinese tycoons, and other skeevy big-dollar operations.
If Biden or his surrogates were talking to this guy, then it merits a congressional investigation as soon as the House changes hands. The public has a right to know why this enterprise was shielded from regulation, saw its founder given the kid-glove treatment upon his arrest, and somehow managed to rip off billions undetected, with the only thing he needed to do was throw money at Democrats. Note that most Democrats have yet to return their funds from his bad operation, and arguably won elections based on the stolen cash.
If all of the details lead where they seem to be leading, there's one heck of a new scandal emerging on the Biden front, one that would surely rival if not top the Hunter Biden fiasco.
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his cofounders donated over $300,000 to nine lawmakers who are now investigating the company for wrongdoing.
Bankman-Fried and his cofounders donated $300,351 to nine members of the House Financial Services Committee; the largest donations were to members of the Digital Assets Working Group, which is working on cryptocurrency regulation.
The House Financial Services Committee announced earlier this week that the committee would investigate any wrongdoing by Bankman-Fried and FTX.
Only Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) said he would return a $2,900 donation from Bankman-Fried.
Although Bankman-Fried has donated to Republicans, 95 percent of the donations went to Democrats and Democrat campaign committees.
Bankman-Fried’s PAC, Protect Our Future PAC, spent $199,851 backing Garcia. The disgraced CEO and his brother, Gabriel, gave $40,300 to Rep. Ritchie Torres’s (D-NY) campaign and two of his political committees, the Torres Victory Fund and La Bamba PAC. Bankman-Fried and his head of the regulatory division gave $16,600 to Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). Other Bankman-Fried employees gave $500 to Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), and $9,100 to Rep. Sean Caster (D-IL).
Torres, Gottheimer, Himes, and Casten were all members of the Digital Assets Working Group.
Bankman-Fried also gave $11,600 to Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and $5,000 to the super PAC for Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA).
Bankman-Fried also generously donated to Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Boozman (R-AR), who have pushed a cryptocurrency regulation bill, the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act, a bill that Bankman-Fried backs.
His intensive lobbying campaign appeared to pay off before his company’s demise. He supported legislation proposed by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) and Sen. John Boozman (R., Ark.) that would have subjected the crypto industry to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not the larger and aggressive Securities and Exchange Commission.
Bankman-Fried donated $5,800 to Stabenow’s campaign in February and $20,800 to her joint fundraising committee in January. Bankman-Fried gave $5,800 to Boozman in January and $5,800 to committee member Sen. John Hoeven (R., N.D.) in June. He gave a combined $31,000 to campaigns and joint fundraising committees tied to Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Tina Smith (D., Minn.), Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), who serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The 30-year-old entrepreneur donated $5 million to a super PAC that supported President Joe Biden in 2020 and $40 million this cycle, largely to Democrats. He contributed $6 million to the House Majority PAC, $1 million to the Senate Majority PAC, and nearly $900,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, cryptocurrency, and the financial crisis
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed crypto currency exchange FTX , appeared in a Manhattan court yesterday after voluntary extradition from the Bahamas. He has been indicted on a range of criminal charges arising from the implosion of his $32 billion operation.
Federal prosecutor Nicolas Roos told the court that Bankman-Fried had “perpetrated a fraud of epic proportions” and that the government had dozens of witnesses, encrypted text messages and “tens of thousands” of documents to enter as evidence.
The charges arise from the use of funds provided by FTX investors, large and small, to Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm Alameda Research, which he founded in 2017.
The very name of the firm provided an indication of what was to follow. In a 2021 interview, Bankman-Fried explained that “Research” was added because if you described the company as “We do cryptocurrency bitcoin arbitrage multinational stuff,” no one would give you a bank account but “everyone wants a Research Institute.”
According to a November article in the Wall Street Journal, more than half of the money provided to FTX was lent to Alameda.
But one of the central purposes of prosecutor’s display will be to obscure what is a central issue: How was Bankman-Fried’s operation able to be carried out in plain sight?
It is not that he sought to hide what he was doing. Last April, in an interview with Bloomberg, after Bankman-Fried laid out his modus operandi, the interviewer responded by saying that what he had described was essentially a Ponzi scheme, a system in which money is made so long as new money keeps flowing in.
Bankman-Fried replied that this was a “pretty reasonable response” with a “depressing amount of validity.” But despite these admissions, he continued to be promoted by the highest levels of the financial, media and political establishment as he funnelled money into both the Republican and Democratic parties.
At no time did his operations raise the slightest concern in the supposed watchdogs of the financial system such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In an article published in the Financial Times last week, Hyun Song Shin, an economic adviser and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), laid out the essential mechanisms of the crypto market, based on research the BIS had conducted.
Shin noted that intermediaries such as FTX “play a pivotal role as the gateway into the crypto world from the conventional financial system.” He continued: “They channel the flow of new investors, which is the oxygen that keeps these speculative dynamics alive.” Recruiting new investors was “key to the survival of crypto,” and centralised intermediaries “are crucial to propping up the edifice.”
The author did not refer to it, but the hype surrounding crypto and Bankman-Fried emanating from the “top” levels of society was likewise crucial.
Shin’s description of crypto’s operations apply more broadly to the financial system as it has operated over the past 14 years since the eruption of the 2008 crisis.
Just as crypto has depended on the inflow of new money, the entire international financial system has become dependent on the flow of money provided by the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks.
This was the essence of the program of “quantitative easing”—the Fed’s purchase of government bonds and other financial assets that kept interest rates at historic lows, providing essentially free money to the financial oligarchy with which to finance its speculation.
Shin noted that crypto was largely “self-referential,” that is, its activities involved “trading in other types of crypto” with “little reference to tangible economic activity.” He tried to draw a distinction between this and the “normal” operations of the financial system.
But the distinction is a false one because much of the trading in the broader financial system is also self-referential, involving deals between banks, hedge funds and other financial entities, from which large profits and fat fees are collected.
When a takeover or leveraged buyout is financed, or a share buyback is organised using money borrowed from the banks—Apple is a leading exponent of such operations—not an atom of real value has been created, but vast profits are made.
Summing up the crypto crisis, Shin concluded that “we are now seeing what happens when an industry rests simply on an article of faith.” But this description goes far beyond crypto.
The global financial system rests upon the US dollar and the “article of faith” that it represents a store of value. But this faith is self-referential. The dollar is regarded as a store of value because it is sought after in trade and financial deals, and it occupies this position because it is considered to be a store of value.
And when that faith is shaken, as it was in the crisis of March 2020 when the $24 trillion US Treasury market froze, the stability of the entire global financial system is called into question.
A collapse was only prevented by the decision of the Fed and other central banks to pump additional trillions of dollars into the financial system. But none of the underlying problems that led to the crisis has been resolved.
Now a new crisis is in the making because of the drive by the Fed and other central banks to tighten monetary policy by lifting interest rates. The crypto collapse and the UK pension fund crisis of September-October are the initial expressions of this.
The shift by central banks is being conducted in the name of “fighting inflation.” But it has nothing to do with bringing down prices.
Rather, it is a response to the greatest threat to predatory finance capital: the working class.
It is aimed at creating recessionary conditions to suppress the global upsurge in support of wage demands to meet the highest inflation in four decades—a product of ultra-easy monetary policies, the refusal of governments to deal with COVID, the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and the profit-gouging and speculation by major energy and food corporations.
Writing in the Financial Times this week, long-time financial columnist John Plender observed that the turn by central banks from their previous ultra-loose policy is “imposing a severe test on the global financial system,” and the UK pension crisis “provided an early warning of what the future might hold as a result of radical changes in the structure of the financial system since the crisis of 2007-09.”
There is much hand-wringing over the crypto collapse. Another FT columnist Jemima Kelly wrote this week that the crypto “ecosystem was propped up by a lot more leverage [debt] than anyone had realised.” That characterisation applies to the entire financial system, not just crypto.
The collapse of “so many crypto exchanges and platforms has allowed us to see close up for the first time the utter lawlessness that fuels crypto,” she wrote.
But not just crypto. Ms. Kelly may have somehow forgotten, but the 2011 US Senate report on the 2008 crisis revealed that the US financial system was a “snake pit” of conflict of interest and outright criminality. Notwithstanding the limited regulations since then, nothing fundamental has changed.
As new financial storms gather—of which the crypto collapse is the warning sign—it is vital to grasp one of the basic laws of politics: that in every crisis, the major classes, the working class and the bourgeoisie, align themselves in accordance with their fundamental interests.
The program of the ruling financial oligarchy is clear. Its vast holdings of financial assets do not in and of themselves embody real value. They are claims on the real wealth which is extracted from the exploitation of the labour power of the working class, which must be intensified to put value into the mountain of fictitious capital.
If this cannot be achieved through the capitalists’ policemen, the trade union apparatuses, then it must be accomplished by the mailed fist of the capitalist state—already seen in the decision of the US Congress banning strike action by rail workers and the use of troops in the British health workers’ strikes.
The working class is being driven into struggle in defence of its most basic interests.
But it can successfully carry this out only to the extent that it is conscious of what is at stake and that its task is nothing less than the ending of the capitalist profit system, of which the financial oligarchy is the driving force, through the fight for a socialist program and the construction of the revolutionary party necessary to lead the struggle.
The program of the ruling financial oligarchy is
clear. Its vast holdings of financial assets do not in
and of themselves embody real value. They are
claims on the real wealth which is extracted from the
exploitation of the labour power of the working class
which must be intensified to put value into the
mountain of fictitious capital.
The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried, cryptocurrency, and the financial crisis
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the collapsed crypto currency exchange FTX , appeared in a Manhattan court yesterday after voluntary extradition from the Bahamas. He has been indicted on a range of criminal charges arising from the implosion of his $32 billion operation.
Federal prosecutor Nicolas Roos told the court that Bankman-Fried had “perpetrated a fraud of epic proportions” and that the government had dozens of witnesses, encrypted text messages and “tens of thousands” of documents to enter as evidence.
The charges arise from the use of funds provided by FTX investors, large and small, to Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading firm Alameda Research, which he founded in 2017.
The very name of the firm provided an indication of what was to follow. In a 2021 interview, Bankman-Fried explained “Research” was added because if you described the company as “We do cryptocurrency bitcoin arbitrage multinational stuff” no one would give you a bank account but “everyone wants a Research Institute.”
According to a November article in the Wall Street Journal, more than half of the money provided to FTX was lent to Alameda.
But one of the central purposes of this display will be to obscure what is a central issue: How was Bankman-Fried’s operation able to be carried out in plain sight?
It is not that he sought to hide what he was doing. Last April, in an interview with Bloomberg, after he laid out his modus operandi, the interviewer responded by saying that what he had described was essentially a Ponzi scheme, a system in which money is made so long as new money keeps flowing in.
Bankman-Fried replied that this was a “pretty reasonable response” with a “depressing amount of validity.” But despite these admissions, he continued to be promoted by the highest levels of the financial, media and political establishment as he funnelled money into both the Republican and Democratic parties.
At no time did his operations raise the slightest concern in the supposed watchdogs of the financial system such as the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In an article published in the Financial Times last week, Hyun Song Shin, an economic adviser and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements, laid out the essential mechanisms of the crypto market, based on research it had conducted.
Shin noted that intermediaries such as FTX “play a pivotal role as the gateway into the crypto world from the conventional financial system. They channel the flow of new investors, which is the oxygen that keeps these speculative dynamics alive.” Recruiting new investors was “key to the survival of crypto,” and centralised intermediaries “are crucial to propping up the edifice.”
The author did not refer to it, but the hype surrounding crypto and Bankman-Fried emanating from the “top” levels of society was likewise crucial.
Shin’s description of crypto’s operations apply more broadly to the financial system as it has operated over the past 14 years since the eruption of the 2008 crisis.
Just as crypto has depended on the inflow of new money, the entire international financial system became dependent on the flow of money provided by the US Federal Reserve and other major central banks.
This was the essence of the program of “quantitative easing”—the purchasing of government bonds and other financial assets which kept interest rates at historic lows, providing essentially free money to the financial oligarchy with which to finance its speculation.
Shin noted that crypto was largely “self-referential,” that is, its activities involved “trading in other types of crypto” with “little reference to tangible economic activity.” He tried to draw a distinction between this and the “normal” operations of the financial system.
But the distinction is a false one because much of the trading in the broader financial system is also self-referential, involving deals between banks, hedge funds and other financial entities, from which large profits and fat fees are collected.
When a takeover or leveraged buyout is financed, or a share buyback is organised using money borrowed from the banks—Apple is a leading exponent of such operations—not an atom of real value had been created but vast profits are made.
Summing up the crypto crisis, Shin concluded that “we are now seeing what happens when an industry rests simply on an article of faith.” But this description goes far beyond crypto.
The global financial system rests upon the US dollar and the “article of faith” that it represents a store of value. But this faith is self-referential. The dollar is regarded as a store of value because it is sought after in trade and financial deals, and it occupies this position because it is considered to be a store of value.
And when that faith is shaken, as it was in the crisis of March 2020 when the $24 trillion US Treasury market froze, the stability of the entire global financial system is called into question.
A collapse was only prevented by the decision of the Fed and other central banks to pump additional trillions of dollars into the financial system. But none of the underlying problems that led to the crisis has been resolved.
Now a new crisis is in the making, because of the drive by the Fed and other central banks to tighten monetary policy by lifting interest rates. The crypto collapse and the UK pension fund crisis of September-October are the initial expressions of this.
The shift by central banks is being conducted in the name of “fighting inflation”. But it has nothing to do with bringing down prices.
Rather, it is a response to the greatest threat to predatory finance capital, the working class.
It is aimed at creating recessionary conditions to suppress the global upsurge in support of wage demands to meet the highest inflation in four decades—a product of ultra-easy monetary policies, the refusal of governments to deal with COVID, the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine and the profit gouging and speculation by major energy and food corporations.
Writing in the FT this week, long-time financial columnist John Plender observed that the turn by central banks from their previous ultra-loose policy is “imposing a severe test on the global financial system” and the UK pension crisis “provided an early warning of what the future might hold as a result of radical changes in the structure of the financial system since the crisis of 2007-09.”
There is much hand wringing over the crypto collapse. Another FT columnist Jemima Kelly wrote this week that the crypto “ecosystem was propped up by a lot more leverage [debt] than anyone had realised.” That characterisation applies to the entire financial system, not just crypto.
The collapse of “so many crypto exchanges and platforms has allowed us to see close up for the first time the utter lawlessness that fuels crypto,” she wrote.
But not just crypto. Ms. Kelly may have somehow forgotten it, but the 2011 US Senate report into the 2008 crisis revealed that the US financial system was a “snake pit” of conflict of interest and outright criminality. Notwithstanding the limited regulations since then, nothing fundamental has changed.
As new financial storms gather—of which the crypto collapse is the warning sign—it is vital to grasp one of the basic laws of politics: that in every crisis, the major classes, the working class and the bourgeoisie, align themselves in accordance with their fundamental interests.
The program of the ruling financial oligarchy is clear. Its vast holdings of financial assets do not in and of themselves embody real value. They are claims on the real wealth which is extracted from the exploitation of the labour power of the working class which must be intensified to put value into the mountain of fictitious capital.
If this cannot be achieved through its policemen, the trade union apparatuses, then it must be accomplished by the mailed fist of the capitalist state—already seen in the decision of the US Congress banning strike action by rail workers and the use of troops in the British health workers’ strikes.
The working class is being driven into struggle in defence of its most basic interests.
But it can only successfully carry this out to the extent that it is conscious of what is at stake and that its task is nothing less than the ending of the capitalist profit system, of which the financial oligarchy is the driving force, through the fight for a socialist program and the construction of the revolutionary party necessary to lead it.
HOW DID NANCY PELOSI GET SO FILTHY RICH OFF ELECTED OFFICE?
Sam Bankman-Fried was shuffled off to his new digs in the Bahamas, where it seems likely that he will be spending a great deal of time. That his “mortal coil” might be shuffled off as well is an open question in the era of Jeffrey Epstein.
Who are the bigger fraudsters, though? A spoiled kid who bilked his investors for billions or a bureaucracy that prints and spends public money with reckless abandon?
It would take an eternity for SBF to graduate to the level of these government and quasi-government scammers. At the time of his bankruptcy filing, FTX’s liabilities were in the neighborhood of ten to fifty billion dollars. Compare that to the greater than $31 trillion in debt the U.S. government has rung up. That’s a big number. Though the current administration is not solely responsible for the dismal debt situation in which we now find ourselves, it has significantly accelerated the death spiral.
Imagine how footloose and fancy-free Sam would have been if he could have employed the same debt deferment plan as the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve. Printing money is a great way to bolster your financial situation. We could all be quite wealthy if that method of alleviating debt were widely available.
Unfortunately for us, only the feds can utilize the benefits of the printing press. If anyone else wants to try that route, they would quickly find themselves in the cell next to SBF because, of course, if everyone suddenly became wealthy, the economy would crash overnight. So instead, we get to witness a slow-motion crash born out of government irresponsibility and desperation. There are ways out of this mess, but there is no political will to employ them.
So how is it that the Feds get to print as much money as they want? The short answer is that paper money is no longer tied to any “real” assets. It is only backed by the “full faith and credit of the United States government.” For those who no longer have faith in the credit of the United States, psychologically, your money is already at risk, and you’re probably looking for some alternatives to the dollar. The rest of us adopt a fragile and precarious wait-and-see attitude.
Those with political power can and do use the money supply to advance whatever goals they’re trying to achieve, whether they be economic or political. To achieve their goals, they have the government spend money it doesn’t have, and then they run the printing press to make up at least some of the difference.
The problem for the average citizen is that the more dollars put into circulation, the less each one is worth. Americans are making as much as they were before, but they now have less buying power. It’s a great political grift, at least for as long as it lasts.
As for that lesser grifter, Sam Bankman-Fried, when it comes to the details behind his money games, the reality is that he won’t be appearing before Congress anytime soon. With his testimony scheduled for the following day, government goon squads promptly sequestered him indefinitely.
Still, that SBF would be talkative while appearing before Congress seems unlikely. It would probably be a Fifth Amendment palooza. There would be nothing to gain by talking and almost certainly a great deal to lose. It might be wise for SBF to copy Elon Musk and announce publicly that he is not depressed and has no desire to harm himself.
If SBF ever does testify before Congress, it would be interesting to see just how deep this new rabbit hole goes. He was, after all, the second largest donor to the Democrat party in the just-completed election cycle, and all the money he distributed belonged to other people. Will the Democrats be returning the $40 million he donated in 2022? Don’t hold your breath.
SBF and other private market fraudsters must be a tad envious of the government’s money-printing operation. Perhaps that’s the reason they donate to Democrats. They all want to ride on the public money gravy train or, at least, they’re trying to get on board.
Frank Liberato is a pseudonym.
Handcuffed SBF Does a Final Favor for Democratic Allies
What a happy coincidence for Democrats that, hours before the alleged crypto criminal Sam Bankman-Fried was due to testify before the House Financial Services Committee, he was arrested in the Bahamas. That meant that SBF, the second-biggest Democratic donor of the 2022 cycle—behind 92-year-old George Soros—was able to evade questioning from Republican House members.
Bankman-Fried helped to bankroll President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and threw nearly $40 million behind Democratic candidates this year, and we have a feeling that questioning from Republican lawmakers would’ve been embarrassing for the Democratic Party. His testimony under oath would also have, presumably, been a boon for prosecutors who decided to arrest him on Monday instead. The timing is puzzling.
SBF was indicted by the Southern District of New York, which in the past few decades has served as the training ground for prominent political activists, including James Comey and Preet Bharara, and which is notorious for maintaining close ties to Washington. It is not hard to imagine that some behind-the-scenes negotiating saved SBF, and the Democrats, from an embarrassing and potentially self-incriminating performance. SBF hasn’t shut his mouth since his company, FTX, went belly up, and putting him behind bars may have been the party’s only hope.
Whatever the case, the FTX scandal, which the SDNY described on Tuesday as "one of the biggest financial frauds ever," should invite a much broader investigation. In a country with federal rules about what constitutes an onion ring, where have financial regulators been as more and more Americans were encouraged by a credulous press and their allies in the Democratic, tech, and Hollywood elite to put their savings into risky cryptocurrencies? We don’t recall warnings from federal officials, former prosecutors, or investment professionals indicating that crypto businesses—indeed, the entire industry itself—might be fraudulent.
Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Gary Gensler was busy rubbing elbows with SBF and negotiating a regulatory scheme whose blueprint originated at FTX headquarters, while most of the country’s major law firms, investing services, media companies, and politicians were on the crypto payroll.
For the unsuspecting Americans sold the pile of fairy dust known as cryptocurrency—or SRM, or FTT, or LOL—the machinations that allow Bankman-Fried's political allies to evade accountability are a final insult.
YOU CAN'T SEPARATE THE DEM POLS FROM THEIR BRIBES SUCKING!
Kilmeade: How could Sam Bankman-Fried sleep at night?
Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and obtained documents from the U.S. Treasury related to the controversial bailout. The famously remiss House Ethics Committee, which is charged with investigating and punishing corrupt lawmakers like Waters, found that she committed no wrongdoing. The panel bought Waters’ absurd story that she allocated the money as part of her longtime work to promote opportunity for minority-owned businesses and lending in underserved communities even though her husband’s bank was located thousands of miles away from the south Los Angeles neighborhoods she represents in Congress.
Have I Mentioned Lately Just How Corrupt Maxine Waters Is?
What Waters and her friends have been up to while “doing the people’s business.”
There’s a great line in the hilarious movie “History of the World: Part 1” by Mel Brooks, when he, as King Louie XVI of France, would do something that would get a normal person in trouble then turn to the camera and say, “It’s good to be the king.” In that movie, as with being that monarch in France at that time, it was only “good to be the king” for a while, then it was exceedingly not good to be the king, as Louis ended up losing his head. In modern times, it’s good to be the king again…as long as you’re the right kind of king who curried favor with the correct politicians – namely Democrats.
I’m speaking, of course, about Sam Bankman-Fried, for former CEO of crypto currency company FTX and either one of the largest rip-off artists in history or biggest morons who managed to swindle, one way or another, billions of dollars from a lot investors. The extent of his corruption and/or incompetence is not yet known, which is why there are hearings on Capitol Hill being put together right now. Most investigations will take place next year because, in part, the House of Representatives isn’t really interested in finding out what happened.
Why? Because it appears to have favored Democrats. Remember that “normal person” I was talking about? Bankman-Fried isn’t that person, he’s the one with the friends in high places who gets protected – the guy who calls in the chits he spent tens of millions of dollars spreading around.
The recipient of a big pile of those chits, and buckets of cash from Bankman-Fried is California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters. She’s Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, exactly the committee that should be all over this FTX scandal. But Waters is an old hand at the DC game, and she knows the money Bankman-Fried and his cronies tossed around landed all over her fellow Democrats, including more than $300,000 of it on members of her committee. Waters is nothing if not a partisan hack; anything that makes Democrats look bad is bad for business. So it wasn’t really a shock this week when, after announcing her committee would hold a hearing on the collapse of FTX in the lame-duck session, it came out that she has no plans to subpoena Sammy. Honestly, if Congress doesn’t try to hold this guy accountable to some degree, what’s to stop others from being reckless themselves? Bankman-Fried may be an outlier but without accountability the entire market could lose the trust of the public and collapse, costing more people even more money. Don’t you think Congress would have a desire to at least try to prevent that from happening?
What’s the point of talking about someone when you can compel that person to talk, or at least take the 5th? Why talk to the mailroom guy when the CEO is available? The horse’s ass doesn’t care to hear straight from the horse’s mouth, apparently.
It’s probably because she doesn’t want to know what the CEO has to say when directly questioned by Republicans. More to the point, she doesn’t want the public to know what he has to say in response to direct questions from Republicans because it will be nothing good for Democrats.
If the hearing can be held without Bankman-Fried, when Republicans take over next Congress and hold hearings on the subject, as they will, with Bankman-Friend compelled to participate, which they will do, Democrats can dismiss it as “old news.” It’s right out of the Clinton playbook – delay as long as possible, then when finally forced to comply by a court order (or in this case a Congressional subpoena) dismiss everything as having already been covered, especially when it hasn’t been.
This ain’t “Auntie Maxine’s” first rodeo, she’s been corrupt for, well, ever. I’ve written about her grift before – representing a district she doesn’t live in (she’s far too rich to live in a district represented by her), she squeaks by with almost 80 percent of the vote. That means she has no need to campaign in any meaningful way, but still raises a ton of lobbyist money (especially from the banking industry she oversees) and uses that money to hire family members to “work” for the campaign she doesn’t need to run. And wouldn’t you know it, she pays really well…especially to her own daughter (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars). “Perfectly legal corruption,” as a named it back in 2018.
You can see why Waters might not want the world to know what she and her friends have been up to while “doing the people’s business.”
Maybe she’ll wise up and bow to the pressure from the people Bankman-Fried ripped off to put him under oath (he’s been talkative up to this point, but only with media types where there is no risk of perjury and the ability to later say he was lying when he implicated himself in criminal activities). It’s unclear if that kind of pressure can even be exerted over someone who has zero reason to give a damn, has no risk of being held accountable by their constituents, and has never been afraid to spit in the face of what’s right. You don’t amass a net worth reported to be $10 million on a salary of $185,000 by playing it on the straight and narrow. Maybe the Financial Services Committee should forget Sam Bankman-Fried and subpoena her!
That won’t happen, next year or ever, because it’s not only good to be the king, it not too shabby to be the queen either.
WATCH: DOJ Calls Crypto Crook SBF’s Scheme One of ‘Biggest Financial Frauds in American History’
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams on Tuesday unveiled eight indictments against Democratic megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried, accusing the former CEO of crypto exchange FTX of running "one of the biggest financial frauds in American history."
"By anyone's lights, this is one of the biggest financial frauds in American history," Williams said after detailing how Bankman-Fried allegedly stole customers' money, committed fraud against investors and lenders, and violated campaign finance laws.
Williams hinted that more charges might come for Bankman-Fried, who was the Democratic Party's second-biggest donor in the 2022 midterm elections.
The prosecutor who on Tuesday announced the indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried for "interrelated fraud schemes" hinted that he could press even more charges against the Democratic megadonor.
While the press conference announcing eight counts against Bankman-Fried is prosecutors' "first public announcement," U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, "it will not be our last."
Bankman-Fried, who pledged $1 billion to Democratic candidates in this year's midterms, founded the cryptocurrency firm FTX, which went bankrupt last month. Prosecutors now charge Bankman-Fried with defrauding customers of FTX, investors in FTX, and lenders to his hedge fund, as well as violating campaign finance laws.
Police in the Bahamas arrested Bankman-Fried on Monday. The country plans to extradite the erstwhile billionaire, whose net worth is now nothing, back to the United States.
Williams said that Bankman-Fried used "stolen customer money" to "buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington." As the Washington Free Beaconreported, Bankman-Fried and his FTX cronies gave $300,000 to members of the House committee that is also investigating him. More than 95 percent of his contributions went to Democrats and Democratic committees.
The federal prosecutor asked that "any person, entity, or political campaign that has received stolen customer money … work with us to return that money to the innocent victims."
And he had a warning for "anyone who participated in wrongdoing at FTX" and who hasn't come forward: "Come see us before we come see you."
House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters reportedly informed a private group of Democrats that she does not plan to subpoena Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of FTX, after the company’s collapse.
CNBC reported that Waters, who currently chairs the committee until January, when she will have to give the power over to the Republicans in control, said to a Democrat in a private Tuesday meeting on Capitol Hill that she does not plan tp subpoena the disgraced former CEO.
Walters not wanting to subpoena Bankman-Fried comes less than a week before the committee has a hearing. Those present at the meeting told CNBC that the Democrat chair wants the committee staff to convince Bankman-Fried to testify voluntarily, although he has yet to do so.
As Breitbart New’s Sean Moran wrote on Sunday, Bankman-Fried dodged Waters’ call to testify voluntarily via Twitter. After Waters said on Twitter, “…we would welcome your participation in our hearing on the 13th,” Bankman-Fried responded two days later, claiming he is still “learning and reviewing” what led to the company’s collapse and cannot testify before the committee.
The disgraced former CEO wrote, “Rep. Waters, and the House Committee on Financial Services: Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain. I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify.”
Bankman-Fried — who has donated, along with his cofounder, over $300,000 to nine lawmakers who are now investigating the company for wrongdoing — has come under scrutiny by federal investigators and lawmakers on Capitol Hill since the collapse of digital currency exchange FTX, as well as its sister organization, hedge fund Alameda Research. CNBC noted, “company’s crash arrived after FTX reportedly transferred billions of dollars in client funds to Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research.”
he Department of Justice (DOJ) has also requested there be an independent inquiry into FTX regarding fraud allegations after the collapse.
DOJ Trustee Andrew R. Vara said in the agency’s filing: “An examiner could – and should – investigate the substantial and serious allegations of fraud, dishonesty, incompetence, misconduct and mismanagement by the Debtors.”
Breitbart News technology reporter Lucas Nolan explained:
The filing described the collapse of FTX as the “fastest big corporate failure in American history.” According to Vara, there is a strong reason to believe that Bankman-Fried, the former CEO, and other managers, “mismanaged” the company “or engaged in fraudulent conduct.” Bankman-Fried has been replaced as CEO by John Jay Ray III who famously oversaw the bankruptcy of Enron. Vara added that the court should approve the appointment of an independent examiner to investigate the matter further.
After FTX quickly collapsed, lawyers started to wonder if the exchange had engaged in fraudulent activity by misusing customer funds. In court filings, new FTX CEO John Jay Ray III stated that the company had hidden the misappropriation of corporate funds, including the purchase of a property in the Bahamas for employees.
“Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,” Ray said in the filing.
Breitbart also noted that the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in addition to the attorneys for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), sent requests for information to cryptocurrency investors and trading firms that have worked with FTX.
