Saturday, March 11, 2023
Gingrich's Children
Whenever anything bad happened, Newt Gingrich would jump up in front of the cameras and say this was liberals, liberalism, moral decline due to liberals, etc. So, yah, sure, feminism and the wokes took down SVB.
But They're All Important
So few accounts.
Payroll not going out can pierce the corporate veil, meaning Directors are on the hook. That's what they're going to be screaming about
The problem at Silicon Valley Bank is compounded by its relatively concentrated customer base. In its niche, its customers all know each other. And Silicon Valley Bank doesn’t have that many of them. As at the end of 2022, it had 37,466 deposit customers, each holding in excess of $250,000 per account. Great for referrals when business is booming, such concentration can magnify a feedback loop when conditions reverse.We're going to hear about workers not getting paid (bad!) they're going to bail out some rich assholes on this excuse. This isn't many people, and I bet it's a lot of rich guys' recreation money accounts.
Payroll not going out can pierce the corporate veil, meaning Directors are on the hook. That's what they're going to be screaming about
Mission Accomplished
If Jerome Powell's policies lead to a bunch of firms going bankrupt and workers losing their jobs, isn't that just proof the policies are working?
Or was it not supposed to be those firms and those workers.
Or was it not supposed to be those firms and those workers.
Broad Social Insurance
FDIC insurance isn't free. It's a charge levied on banks based on various things (a bit above my pay grade), but designed to cover what it's supposed to cover - deposits up to $250,000.
Bailing out depositers in full might even be the right thing to do, in the same way that broader social insurance generally is the right thing to do, but rich assholes should stop fighting to the death to combat anything that doesn't help rich assholes.
Things will likely be surprisingly normal Monday. A lot of this is a bunch of supergeniuses not having any idea what the FDIC does or how good it is at its job. But they know that, no matter what, THEY NEED ALL THEIR MONEY!!!!
Bailing out depositers in full might even be the right thing to do, in the same way that broader social insurance generally is the right thing to do, but rich assholes should stop fighting to the death to combat anything that doesn't help rich assholes.
Oh no mah innovation!!!Garry Tan has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to defeat socialist and progressive policies in San Francisco and now he’s begging for socialism for himself and his friends https://t.co/JqkJMvQ0tD pic.twitter.com/RjWbhzNITQ
— Kate Willett (@katewillett) March 11, 2023
Friday, March 10, 2023
Ah, Well, Nevertheless
Bail him out and try again.
Some banking experts on Friday pointed out that a bank as large as Silicon Valley Bank might have managed its interest rate risks better had parts of the Dodd-Frank financial-regulatory package, put in place after the 2008 crisis, not been rolled back under President Trump.
In 2018, Mr. Trump signed a bill that lessened regulatory scrutiny for many regional banks. Silicon Valley Bank’s chief executive, Greg Becker, was a strong supporter of the change, which removed the requirement that banks with assets under $250 billion submit to stress testing by the Fed, and changed requirements for the amount of cash they had to keep on their balance sheets to protect against shocks.
Every Cult Ever
Long behind-the-paywall (I think) piece about Effective Altruism, but really it's just a cult! The seduction of "we know things other people don't, and are better than normal people" plus "money" plus "coercive sex." It's just a cult! Rich nerds who think they're geniuses and want to have orgies!
Lock Him Up!
Or whatever.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday ordered former Donald Trump aide Peter Navarro to hand the National Archives 200 to 250 emails that he sent during his time in the Trump administration using a private email account instead of his White House email.Always chuckle that Navarro was once sort of my colleague.
In August 2022, the Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit against Navarro to compel him to hand over the emails after he refused to do so without first being granted immunity. Lawyers for Navarro alleged the Justice Department was using the Presidential Records Act, which requires that official White House records be preserved, as a way to gather evidence against him in his ongoing criminal contempt of Congress case. They argued that forcing Navarro to produce the emails could violate his 5th amendment right against self-incrimination.
EATED
Just like old times.
...Larry said EVERYBODY NEEDS TO GET ALL THEIR MONEY BACK. I wonder where the other $150 billion bucks is supposed to come from (presumably some is available, but...).BREAKING: SVB has just become the first FDIC-insured institution to fail this year.
— Kailey Leinz (@kaileyleinz) March 10, 2023
*FDIC: SVB BANK CLOSED BY CALIFORNIA REGULATOR
*FDIC: NAMED FEDERAL DEPOSIT INSURANCE FDIC AS RECEIVER
*FDIC: MOVE TO PROTECT INSURED DEPOSITORS OF SILICON VALLEY BANK
At Silicon Valley Bank, north of 93% of the bank's $161 billion in deposits are uninsured per a recent regulatory filing, @MaxJReyes writes.
— Bloomberg (@business) March 10, 2023
Follow our live blog for the latest developments on SVB https://t.co/rXLJQRLgMC pic.twitter.com/7T3r0YqoYt
FILL THE ACCOUNT BACK UP
The failure of @SVB_Financial could destroy an important long-term driver of the economy as VC-backed companies rely on SVB for loans and holding their operating cash. If private capital can’t provide a solution, a highly dilutive gov’t preferred bailout should be considered.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) March 10, 2023
Surely there's a caveat here, right. Haha no:Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said SVB meltdown shouldn’t pose a risk to the financial system as long as depositors get their money back https://t.co/AurubtHHNQ
— Bloomberg (@business) March 10, 2023
“What is absolutely imperative is that, however this gets resolved, depositors be paid back, and paid back in full,” Summers said on Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin.We do have a sytem of deposit insurance, but it isn't unlimited, and if Larry thought it should be unlimited he should have said so and set up the system accordingly.
...adding, the point is that this is a bank where important connected people have their money. If this was some local bank in Ohio serving "regular" businesses, Larry wouldn't be on the teevee demanding they get all their money back.
Oh No My Apes
Haven't been following this but I guess every rich asshole/company in Palo Alto has all their money that isn't in ape pictures and magic coins there.
March 9 (Reuters) - SVB Financial Group (SIVB.O) scrambled on Thursday to reassure its venture capital clients their money was safe after a capital raise led to its stock collapsing 60% and contributed to wiping out over $80 billion in value from bank shares.Bank run is happening. Exciting!
Don't See How Donnie Two Scoops Wriggles Out Of This One
We'll see!
Prosecutors Signal Criminal Charges for Trump Are Likely
The former president was told that he could appear before a Manhattan grand jury next week if he wishes to testify, a strong indication that an indictment could soon follow.
Thursday, March 09, 2023
Everybody Loves Governor Ron
Wow what if some of this stuff negatively impacts people? Weird!
...
One afternoon a few weeks ago, Alicea Hotchkiss’s 14-year-old son, Eli, came home from his high school in Tampa with a question about something a classmate had said to him. He’d heard the student use the word “gay” as an insult, so Eli responded the way he always does when this happens. “Hey,” Eli said, “my dad’s gay.” But this time, Eli told his mom, the other kid offered a startling rebuke: You’re not allowed to say that at school.
...
When Eli wanted to know why his classmate said he couldn’t talk about his father at school, Hotchkiss, a mom of three boys who shares custody of the older two with her ex-husband, sat her son down and reiterated that there is nothing wrong with saying “gay.” But, she told him, a new law in their state means that if teachers talk about sexual orientation in certain ways, they can get in trouble. She had discussed this with her sons before, she says, but now Eli was experiencing the reverberations of the law for himself, and he stared at her, confounded. “But why?” he kept asking.Good for the Wapo for acknowledging there are real people here and this isn't just some asbtract debate about WOKENESS.
Genius Stuff
Only get to go to this well once or twice.
No one knows who’s next for the chop. Managers were recently told to provide a list of people who ought to be promoted, says one former staff member still in touch with some who remain working. Little did they realise they were signing their own death warrant: many of those managers were subsequently fired and replaced by those they’d recommended, as part of a cost-cutting drive.(twitter, of course)
Live And Let Live
I always come back to the Schiavo issue because back then I had *some* backchannels to influential DC people and I was just begging them to understand that there was a big difference between "Michael Schiavo should not pull the plug" and "Tom DeLay should be in charge of these decisions. It shouldn't be too hard to get that people were capable of having both opinions.
A big problem with our glorious pundit class is they are disproportionately made up of people who don't think anything affects them, and they are mostly right. Another big problem is they assume the great masses of unwashed losers who went to, at best, state universities, are just intellectual and moral cretins. However bigoted and racist these pundits are, personally, they believe, very deeply, that they are the smartest and most tolerant people. Nobody who went to Yale could be bad, and nobody who went to Ohio State could be any better.
Sure a lot of people are assholes, but a lot of people aren't, and even more people are able to understand that "this could be me and my kid."
A big problem with our glorious pundit class is they are disproportionately made up of people who don't think anything affects them, and they are mostly right. Another big problem is they assume the great masses of unwashed losers who went to, at best, state universities, are just intellectual and moral cretins. However bigoted and racist these pundits are, personally, they believe, very deeply, that they are the smartest and most tolerant people. Nobody who went to Yale could be bad, and nobody who went to Ohio State could be any better.
Sure a lot of people are assholes, but a lot of people aren't, and even more people are able to understand that "this could be me and my kid."
Data Guy All Vibes Now
Nate's nonspecific, but we know what he means (specificaly he means people supportive of trans rights, but it's all part of the WOKE blender).
At least the Abolish Ice guy went quiet. "Stop tweeting" was probably the first bit of advice from his attorney.
Republican presidential hopefuls are vowing to wage a war on "woke," but a new USA TODAY/Ipsos Poll finds a majority of Americans are inclined to see the word as a positive attribute, not a negative one.The supposed poll guys just gave up on polls when they stopped supporting their own positions on things, now they just act as Bubba whisperers. Issue polling is always a very limited way to approach politics, but at least it's an ethos, man. Now they just make things up entirely.
Fifty-six percent of those surveyed say the term means "to be informed, educated on, and aware of social injustices." That includes not only three-fourths of Democrats but also more than a third of Republicans.
At least the Abolish Ice guy went quiet. "Stop tweeting" was probably the first bit of advice from his attorney.
Wednesday, March 08, 2023
Run, Doug, Run
Doug Mastriano (just lost PA gov. race) is threatening to run for Senate against Casey and, well, if your name is Casey you win elections in Pennsylvania no matter what, but that will make it a bit easier!
What Choice Do They Have
I wouldn't practice medicine of any kind in a state with punitive abortion laws, if I could choose otherwise.
This crisis in care caused by abortion bans is only going to get worse. Dr. John Werdel, an OBGYN and medical director for women’s services at Saint Luke's Health System, points out in the Idaho Capital Sun today that a recent survey shows that more than 45% of OBGYNs are considering or actively working on leaving the state. And in just the last six months, he writes, three out of just six maternal fetal medicine doctors in the state have decided to leave. And it doesn’t stop here:I don't event think people have opportunities to be heroes here. They're risking felony charges every time they do the basics of their jobs.
The "Imagine If" Game
There is actually no conceivable mirror version, but one can imagine the reaction if a bunch of messages from Chris Hayes were released showing he was full of shit on air all of the time, or showing coordination with political actors.
That's even without getting to the (imaginary) head of MSNBC handing off Trump ads to the Biden campaign before they were broadcast.
I don't mean the reaction from conservative media, I mean the reaction from the more respectable mainstream outlets. The New York Times Defense Force would lose their shit over it, too. And I don't mean lose their shit over Hayes, specifically, but it would call into question ALL OF MSNBC.
That Republicans would boycott MSNBC (and NBC) would not be controversial at all.
Here’s Murdoch’s email to Kushner telling him that Biden has a good ad scheduled for an upcoming Fox broadcast (“1.0 pm this Sunday” suggests it’s an NFL game) and saying he will provide it. pic.twitter.com/hANf7YmPKr
— Matthew Gertz (@MattGertz) March 8, 2023
I don't mean the reaction from conservative media, I mean the reaction from the more respectable mainstream outlets. The New York Times Defense Force would lose their shit over it, too. And I don't mean lose their shit over Hayes, specifically, but it would call into question ALL OF MSNBC.
That Republicans would boycott MSNBC (and NBC) would not be controversial at all.
The Hardest Day Of Elon's Life
Imagine the poor attorney who had to inform him that, yes, he had to do this.
Elon asked him what actual work he did, the guy responded, Elon mocked him with increasing intensity and the guy was informed he that he was, in fact, fired.
It seems like a story of any other mistreated-by-Elon twitter employee, then the real story starts to come out.
Amazing stuff.
Guys like Elon don't apologize. I assume whichever HR person didn't stop him from this is no longer on the job.
Yesterday a guy (Halli) posted a long thread saying he had been locked out of his work email at Twitter but had been unable to get a response from HR regarding whether or not he had a job or not.
Elon asked him what actual work he did, the guy responded, Elon mocked him with increasing intensity and the guy was informed he that he was, in fact, fired.
It seems like a story of any other mistreated-by-Elon twitter employee, then the real story starts to come out.
OK, maybe severance, right? Haha, no, Halli was no normal employee. He actually sold his company to twitter and took the sale price in employment and salary, presumably with a "if you fire me you have to pay up" clause. Also he's disabled, which Elon used to mock the idea that he could do any work, justify his firing, and then sent his insane fanboys to attack the guy.Now the next question is if you will make sure I get paid what I'm owed per my contract?!
— Halli (@iamharaldur) March 7, 2023
But that wasn’t enough for Musk, who seemed to think it was all one big joke he could dismiss with a flurry of tweets.According to Halli he can type for about an hour or so without it being too burdensome, and can one finger his phone (tweet) with no issues.
“The reason he confronted me in public was to get a big payout. From what I’ve been told, he’s done almost no work for the past four months, middle-management or otherwise,” Musk tweeted without providing any evidence.
“Despite his claims on Twitter that he did work, it turns out he told HR that he couldn’t work because he couldn’t type, but was, over the same period, typing up a storm on Twitter,” Musk continued, suggesting his disability wasn’t real.
"Independently wealthy" is the guy built a successful company and sold to twitter.
Christ what an asshole.
Guys like Elon don't apologize. I assume whichever HR person didn't stop him from this is no longer on the job.
Tuesday, March 07, 2023
If You Really Like It You Can Have The Rights
The general tolerance of "ghostwriting" is one of those things that has no justifications, given attitudes about "plagiarism" generally.
Sure there's some range between "wrote it all on my own" and "paid somebody to do it and haven't even read it myself, yet." No books are really in the first category. They're products with many people involved. But it seems like quite a few are solidly in the second.
Sure there's some range between "wrote it all on my own" and "paid somebody to do it and haven't even read it myself, yet." No books are really in the first category. They're products with many people involved. But it seems like quite a few are solidly in the second.
At Least Stick Up For Yourselves
I don't expect Senator Warner or anybody else to prioritize the things I do, or have the good sense to take a broader view of these things, but after a couple of decades of this shit, one would expect Professional Democrats to relish an opportunuity to kick some dirt over Fox's grave instead of attempting to resurrect them. Seems like very narrow self-interest would be enough!
What A Country
Innovations in medical care provision.
If I trip and fall on your sidewalk, I might sue you. But it doesn't require me doing it, my insurance company might sue you (and your insurance company) etc. etc. Just an example.
The teenage son of a friend broke his arm in a playground fall. Their insurance company, Health New England, paid the hospital bill.Tangential to this story, but one thing everybody "knows" about the US is that we are so litigious, just suing each other about everything all the time. Can't organize an event without taking out an insurance policy. It isn't our legal system, or a culture of litigiousness. It is, like almost everything else, the medical costs.
Then they received a letter from something called EXL advising that the injury “may have been caused by an act or omission of another person or entity.” In which case EXL would go after said entity to pay some or all of the medical bill, thus saving Health New England some money. EXL demanded that my friend fill out an extensive form about the circumstances of the accident.
If I trip and fall on your sidewalk, I might sue you. But it doesn't require me doing it, my insurance company might sue you (and your insurance company) etc. etc. Just an example.
Just A Debate Club Trick
I learned this one back when I first entered The Discourse. Every Iraq war cheerleader would pepper their pieces with things like, "No serious person believes...". Establish yourself as the honest (or moral or intellectual) authority, put everyone else on defense right away.
“No honest person” is a particularly funny phrase https://t.co/nJmQRn7Qbw
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) March 7, 2023
Monday, March 06, 2023
Related
When I wrote this post, I hadn't actually seen this yet, but, you know, just go piss off to Italy or whatever rather than spend your life fearing that twitter nerds are going to poison your Red Bull.
Billionaire Elon Musk is routinely followed around Twitter headquarters by two “bulky” bodyguards—even when he goes to the restroom, according to a Twitter engineer. The two bearded guards went viral back in January after they accompanied Musk at a securities fraud trial, and appear to have accompanied him to Twitter after his $44 billion purchase of the social media site. A Twitter engineer identified only as Sam told BBC News: “Wherever he goes in the office, there are at least two bodyguards—very bulky, tall, Hollywood movie bodyguards. Even when [he goes] to the restroom.” He said the constant use of bodyguards suggested that Musk, who has sacked a huge number of Twitter staff including coders, does not trust his remaining staff at Twitter HQ in San Francisco.Musk is a weirdo who can't comprehend that a level of affection less than adulation doesn't necessarily mean they're coming for him, but all the more reason to go chill somewhere.
It's your back that you been stabbin'
The extreme version of my basic confusion over the behavior of certain rich people is, basically, why doesn't Vladimir Putin want to live like Keanu Reeves? Keanu is rich and and famous, seems to have a nice life, isn't widely hated, and most importantly, doesn't have to worry about which person in his entourage is about to stab or poison him.
The prize of becoming the mafia boss seems to be spending the rest of your life worrying about who is going to take a hit out on you. That kind of thing.
Like there was a moment when old Vlad could've just took off with some portion of the giant wad of money he's looted over the year and just gone and lived the good life, not worrying about whether he would wake up the next morning. Not more than the rest of us anyway.
The prize of becoming the mafia boss seems to be spending the rest of your life worrying about who is going to take a hit out on you. That kind of thing.
Like there was a moment when old Vlad could've just took off with some portion of the giant wad of money he's looted over the year and just gone and lived the good life, not worrying about whether he would wake up the next morning. Not more than the rest of us anyway.
Are You Guys Having Fun
One frustrating thing about fighting various media battles over the years is that the people you are, to some degree, fighting for, don't see the point of it at all.
Not all media battles are simply about having Democrats be treated better, of course, but we've had some revelations about Fox lately which should discourage Senator Warner from granting them legitimacy and there he is.Two days after the Democratic Senate Majority Leader wrote a letter about Fox News’ role in aiding and abetting an attack on the Capitol of the United States, here’s where a member of his caucus was. 🤷🏽♂️ pic.twitter.com/1sId9OqHhk
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) March 6, 2023
Flipped
He was given incredibly lenient pre-trial conditions and he fucked it, as The Real Thing tends to do.
FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried may be stuck using a dumb phone for the foreseeable future. In a letter seen by Bloomberg, prosecutors involved in his criminal case said Friday that Bankman-Fried’s lawyers had agreed to modify the terms of his bail agreement. Provided the judge overseeing the case agrees to the changes, SBF will be restricted to using a “non-smartphone” without internet connectivity. Unless a lawyer is present, he will also be forbidden from contacting current or former FTX and Alameda Research employees. Additionally, SBF won’t be able to use encrypted messaging apps, including Signal.
The proposed restrictions come after Bankman-Fried allegedly attempted to contact the general counsel of FTX’s US subsidiary over Signal at the start of the year. “I would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other,” he said in one message, according to the Justice Department.
Salute
Thinking about the Iraq era, it's quite amazing the degree to which our glorious media outlets were aligned in catapulting the propaganda in various ways. I don't just mean the sales pitch on the Iraq war itself, I mean the whole post-9/11 rally-around-your-flag-and-president stuff.
Hard to remember now, but pre-9/11 they were all settling on the narrative of, basically, George Bush is a big dunce and if anything bad happens we're pretty fucked, and then something really bad did happen and suddenly he was the glorious leader we all needed.
Lots of ways "news" is corrupted by propaganda, constantly, but normally it isn't completely encompassing like it was then.
Hard to remember now, but pre-9/11 they were all settling on the narrative of, basically, George Bush is a big dunce and if anything bad happens we're pretty fucked, and then something really bad did happen and suddenly he was the glorious leader we all needed.
Lots of ways "news" is corrupted by propaganda, constantly, but normally it isn't completely encompassing like it was then.
Journalists Against Style Guides
George Packer is enraged that the Sierra Club has an in house style guide that he doesn't like, and this is worthy of an Atlantic piece about how mad George Packer is that the wokes are ruining language, or whatever. Same article they publish every month.
Reminded me of this assault on both language and reason.
Packer also spent years trying to force me to put two dots over random vowels.
Finally, a boomer complaining about changing language norms https://t.co/mxz1a05n1E
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) March 6, 2023
Reminded me of this assault on both language and reason.
President Bush has put the idea of spreading democracy around the world at the rhetorical heart of American foreign policy. No one should doubt that he and his surviving senior advisers believe in what they call the “forward strategy of freedom,” even if they’ve had to talk themselves into it. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush himself are latecomers to the idea; in earlier incarnations, they sounded a lot more like Henry Kissinger than like Woodrow Wilson. By now, though, it’s clear that, however clumsy and selective the execution, Bush wants democratization to be his legacy. So when his critics, here and abroad, claim that his rhetoric merely provides cynical cover for an American power grab, they misjudge his sincerity and tend to sound like defenders of the status quo. And when the Administration tries to wring every last sweet drop of partisan gain from its foreign policy (sincerity is not the same thing as honesty), critics are driven to conclude that “democracy” is just another word for “neoconservatism.”Just years and years of that shit. The aughts were not fun, but at least we had this very fine blog.
This is not a good position for the opposition to be in, either morally or politically. The best role for critics in the President’s second term will be not to scoff at the idea of spreading freedom but to take it seriously—to hold him to his own talk. The hard question isn’t whether America should try to enlarge the democratic order but how. It’s a question that the Administration seems to have thought about very little, yet it makes a big difference. Look at the two examples from the week’s front pages: where the approach has been subtle and collective, the outcome seems hopeful; where it has been noisy and unilateralist, it does not.
Packer also spent years trying to force me to put two dots over random vowels.
Sunday, March 05, 2023
They Can't Quit Him
Just a quick drive by post, but yesterday the whole gang was back together on twitter. "The whole gang" being the set of political reporters who love nothing more than to jam on the tweet button every time Donald says anything.
What's It All About Then
Have to be a dipshit centrist to pretend not to understand.
Michael Knowles works for Ben Shapiro, who is, according to the NY Times, "the cool kid's philosopher" https://t.co/DkoS2OsiHK
— 🦀 Jon Schwarz 🦀 (@schwarz) March 4, 2023
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