Yesterday, all the media hoopla over Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement to “give away” 99% of his Facebook shares to philanthropic causes, came and went in the expected torrent of internet commentary. However, what you might have missed are the specifics around how he decided to safeguard those shares, and how unusual the for-profit LLC structure is for a charity. Bloomberg … Read more
A man in debt is so far a slave. – Ralph Waldo Emerson The one silver lining to emerge from Yanis Varoufakis’ resignation as Finance Minister of Greece, is his ability and willingness to come out and bluntly tell everybody the truth about what happened behind closed doors as Greece was put into conservatorship. I highlighted … Read more
While several exceptionally wealthy and successful people have admirably come out and spoken passionately of the broken nature of financial markets and the political system, as well as the threat this poses to society in general (think Paul Tudor Jones and Nick Hanauer), there have been several examples of oligarchs coming out and conversely demonstrating their complete … Read more
Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to make it clear that the definition of oligarch, a term I use a lot, does not center solely around money. Late last year, in the post Inside the Mind of an Oligarch – Sheldon Adelson Proclaims “I Don’t Like Journalism,” I attempted to frame the word … Read more
David Sirota must be commended for his incredible work this year exposing the insidious relationship between public pension funds and “alternative asset managers,” namely private equity firms and hedge funds. It is the private equity component that has captured my attention the most due to the industry’s notoriously opaque and seemingly illegal fees. One example … Read more
Before you watch the video, I want to highlight an excellent article published this morning by Yves Smith over at Naked Capitalism titled, Yellen Tells Whoppers to the New Yorker. The title doesn’t do justice to the powerful and scathing critique of the fraud that is the current Federal Reserve Chairwoman. In a nutshell, the article exposes … Read more
Two very interesting Bitcoin related articles have emerged over the past week and demonstrate the total irrationality that surrounds the status quo’s understanding of this revolutionary and liberating technology. Let’s start with the Department of Defense story, the headlines of which most of you have probably seen by now. A division of the U.S. military … Read more
In the midst of the financial crisis, our “leaders” had a choice. They could’ve done what most Americans wanted, which was allow failing firms to fail and permit the chips to fall where they may. In contrast, our “leaders” settled on trillion dollar bailouts with zero strings attached for the criminals who destroyed the nation’s … Read more
I can’t say this is surprising. After all, with average peasants, I mean citizens, now priced out of the domestic housing market (Zillow recently showed 1 in 3 homes are unaffordable) due to billionaire financiers and foreign oligarchs buying up all real estate in cash purchases, American serfs now will find out where the “elites” … Read more
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. … Read more