A Father’s Personal Struggle with the Vaccine Debate

Screen Shot 2015-02-11 at 2.35.02 PMAcross these United States, a fierce vaccination debate has started to flare up, and straw-man arguments are being paraded around as the truth. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey said he’s for a balanced approach, in which parents have some measure of choice. Unfortunately, that’s not how things are actually done in New Jersey.

The reality is that New Jersey parents have no real choice. You have to get your child vaccinated unless you can provide a certified letter from your doctor saying that a vaccine will make the child sick, or if you can prove that it is against your religion.

Governor Christie’s comment about a “measure of choice” reveals the self-importance these politicians give to themselves. Parents living in the Christie regime don’t get full choice, but he is willing to grant them some measure of choice. Perhaps the citizenry’s ability to voice its perspective would suffice for the Governor, as long as they understand that he and his bureaucrat comrades have the final say.

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Teachers’ Retirement Funds are Piling into Manhattan Real Estate at Record High Prices

Screen Shot 2015-01-28 at 11.55.34 AMRather than buying equity interests in buildings, TIAA-CREF and KTCU are seeking to invest in mortgages backed by office towers, retail properties, warehouses and apartments in major U.S. cities. The venture between the two companies, which manage teachers’ savings in their respective countries, is 51 percent owned by TIAA-CREF and 49 percent held by Seoul-based KTCU.

“You invest in a huge office tower in New York because you want a safe place to put your money and a decent return,” over the long-term, he said. “This is more a capital preservation play than it is a capital appreciation play.”

– From the Bloomberg article: Manhattan Towers Lure Koreans in $1 Billion Joint Venture

As soon as I woke up this morning, I saw an email from a very smart friend of mine in the finance industry. He forwarded me an article from the New York Post, about how TIAA-CREF had paid $3,158 per square foot for a building in the Meatpacking area of Manhattan (a record for the area), which isn’t far from where I lived for several years in the mid-2000s.

For those of you who aren’t aware, TIAA-CREF stands for Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association – College Retirement Equities Fund. According to the company’s own website, it:

We specialize in the distinctive needs of those who work in the academic, research, medical and cultural fields. We’re here to listen to you, to advise you, and to help you feel confident about making financial decisions.

So it essentially manages the investments of people who know the least about investing, i.e., muppets. As such, it came as no surprise that TIAA-CREF might serve as an important bag-holding vehicle for bubble assets just before a fall, tempted by juicy 4% yields. As my friend noted: “In other words, teachers and nurses are shattering property records to fund their retirement.”

Here are some excerpts from the article:

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Quote of the Day from K.K.R. – Wall Street Officially Becomes a Parody of Itself

Screen Shot 2014-10-20 at 2.18.48 PMLongtime readers of Liberty Blitzkrieg will know that I think the greatest parody of Wall Street ever created is courtesy of SNL about a made-up firm called Global Century Investments. Before I provide a link to the video, I want to highlight a stunning quote from Gretchen Morgenson’s excellent New York Times article detailing the extraordinarily shady relationships between private equity firms and public pension funds. The quote comes in at the end of the article:

Kristi Huller, a spokeswoman for K.K.R., initially denied that it could reduce or eliminate its fiduciary duties. But after being presented with an excerpt from the agreement, she acknowledged that its language allowed “a modification of our fiduciary duties.”

What K.R.R. spokeswoman Kristi Huller does is straight up lie about the firm’s fiduciary duties, only to backtrack once she realizes she has been caught.

That is exactly what happens at the end of the SNL spoof. Yes it’s official, Wall Street has become a literal parody of itself.

Watch the video here and compare it to the quote above. Remarkable.

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Consultant the San Francisco Pension Fund Asked Whether it Should invest in Hedge Funds, Runs a Hedge Fund

Screen Shot 2014-10-09 at 11.40.21 AMMost Liberty Blitzkrieg readers will be familiar with the common fee structure for hedge funds known as “2 and 20.” What this simply refers to is the fact that a manager will take as a fee 2% of the assets under management, as well as 20% of the profits (above a high-water mark). While many people would balk at giving up such a high percent of profits, when the industry first got going several decades ago the managers were so few and the returns so huge, that high net worth individuals were happy to pay up for alpha.

Fast forward several decades, and the hedge fund industry is extremely crowded and competitive. What’s worse, in such a central bank manipulated market, it has become extraordinarily difficult for hedge funds to outperform and generate the desired “alpha.” Nevertheless, people that go into this business generally go into it for one reason. To make a shit-ton of cash.

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Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Calls Colorado a “Rural and Roadless” Backwater for Challenging his Gun Control Agenda

Screen Shot 2014-07-10 at 3.16.13 PMI’ve noticed a bizarre trend this year. Northeast establishment politicians attacking the state of Colorado for its own internal decisions. In many ways this makes sense. Having lived in New York City most of my life, I know full well it is not the liberal haven it claims to be. Rather, over the past decade or so it has become a statist, oligarch-coddling, bankster hideout. My adopted state of Colorado is a libertarian paradise by comparison.

There may be a bit of envy or fear at play here, considering that a so-called “flyover” state has led the nation in the civil rights issue of marijuana legalization. While the coasts love to think of themselves as superior, they continue to foolishly imprison people for puffing on a benign plant. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie  characterized this backwards, ignorant attitude earlier this year perfectly when he foolishly criticized Colorado’s “quality of life,” which is without question amongst the best in the nation. I tore him apart in my piece: How Marijuana Legalization in America is Destroying Mexican Drug Cartel Business.

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How Marijuana Legalization in America is Destroying Mexican Drug Cartel Business

Nothing is more amusing (and sad) than when I see some ignorant out of stater commenting about how nightmarish the legalization of marijuana has been for Colorado. The most high-profile and hilarious example of this came from disgraced New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who I have criticized sharply on several occasions, here, here and here.He foolishly spouted some hysterical nonsense last month when he said:

“See if you want to live in a major city in Colorado, where there’s head shops popping up on every corner and people flying into your airport just to come and get high. To me, it’s just not the quality of life we want to have here in the state of New Jersey and there’s no tax revenue that’s worth that.”

Honestly, what planet does this clown live on? As someone who actually lives in Colorado, I can tell you that the only thing that has changed since legalization is that there is a greater sense of freedom and people are no longer getting arrested in droves for non-violent drug possession charges. Let’s not forget that the police arrest someone every two seconds in America, many of which are for mere drug possession charges. Apparently, Christie thinks this is a good thing and ultimately results in this mythical wonderful “quality of life” that apparently exists in some corner of New Jersey where rainbow farting unicorns roam the countryside.

Screen Shot 2014-05-14 at 11.51.11 AM

As someone who spent nearly three decades in the New York metro area, and who has lived in Colorado now for over three years, I can tell you there’s no comparison. I’ve met many, many people who have intentionally left New Jersey for Colorado, yet I’ve never met a single person who has intentionally left Colorado for New Jersey. Perhaps that person exists and is currently flying back east on his unicorn and is therefore unavailable for comment.

Anyway, while we are on the topic, the Huffington Post posted a great article comparing the two states. They note:

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Neo-Con Republicans Make Pilgrimage to Vegas to Kiss the Ring of Oligarch Sheldon Adelson

Oligarchs are ruining America. They are ruining the economy through their rampant theft and corporate welfare handouts. They are ruining our social structure with their billions used to buy and sell politicians as well as entire Presidential elections. They represent an existential threat to the Republic and the cancer needs to be addressed at once.

Oligarchs now control both phony political parties. On the Democratic side, we have Warren “tax loophole” Buffett and George Soros. On the Republican side, we must become increasingly aware of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who boasts an estimated net worth of around $37 billion.

For those still daydreaming that the GOP may nominate a more libertarian-leaning candidate in 2016, rather than the typical big government, warmongering neo-con, the biggest obstacle in your way is Sheldon Adelson and his billions. This threat was on clear display this past weekend in Vegas when Chris Christie, Paul Walker and Jeb Bush all made the pilgrimage to “kiss his ring.”

The serious threat to our political system posed by Adelson was covered by both “left-leaning” and “right-leaning” commentators (although I hate those terms). First, Juan Cole writes at Bill Moyers that:

A series of pro-corporation Supreme Court decisions and the latter’s disingenuous equation of money with speech, including Citizens United, have turned the United States from a democracy to a plutocracy. It is not even a transparent plutocracy, since black money (of unknown provenance) has been allowed by SCOTUS to flood into elections. These developments are not only deadly to democracy, they threaten our security. It is increasingly difficult to exclude foreign money from US political donations. We not only come to be ruled by the billionaires, but even by foreign billionaires with foreign rather than American interests at heart.

The perniciousness of this growing plutocracy was on full display on Saturday, as GOP governors Scott Walker, Chris Christie and John Kasich trekked off to Las Vegas in an attempt to attract hundreds of millions in campaign donations from sleazy casino lord Sheldon Adelson. Since Adelson is allegedly worth $37 billion, he could fund the Republican side of a presidential election (which costs $1 billion) all by himself. In the last presidential election he is said to have donated $100 million.

One important thing he thing he failed to mention was that Jeb Bush was also there, featuring prominently at a private dinner with Adelson and others.

The case of Adelson exhibits all these issues of corruption and eccentricity. Much of his current fortune is recent and derives from the Macao casino, and Adelson has admitted to “likely” breaking Federal rules against using bribes to do business in other countries. (A reference to allegations that his company was involved in rewarding legislators of the Chinese Communist Party for supporting his Macao project.) There was a time when this admission alone would put the donor off limits for mainstream politicians.

 Adelson has a right to vote and advocate for his candidates. But the idea that he and his like should choose the next president is too awful to contemplate. One person, one vote isn’t one person, $100 million worth of votes. That isn’t democracy…

CBS has also chimed in with some interesting commentary:

Both Christie and Bush are cut from the same mainstream Republican cloth: well liked by the donor class and viewed suspiciously by conservative activists. If they both compete in 2016 — and to be clear, neither has decided on a bid — they’ll be fighting for the roughly same slice of the Republican pie, and perhaps more importantly, many of the same donors.

But as Christie stumbled, Bush soared. The former governor was feted at a private dinner on Thursday to kick off the weekend. The dinner was held at Adelson’s private airplane hangar.

Bush delivered brief remarks at the dinner, and after one attendee urged him to run for president, the crowd of donors burst into applause, according to a report in the Washington Post.

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