Posts Tagged ‘Francis Thompson’

LinkSwarm for March 24, 2023

Friday, March 24th, 2023

More on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Syria gets spicy again, woke companies like Disney are having massive layoffs, and Sig Saur gets into the Killbot business. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Things that make you go Hmmmm:

    Courtesy of Bloomberg’s reporting, it appears that not only were insiders dumping their shares faster than syphilitic hooker, there were loading up on loans from the bank at a scale that makes a mockery of any regulatory oversight…

    Yes, that’s real.

    Loans to officers, directors and principal shareholders, and their related interests, more than tripled from the third quarter last year to $219 million in the final three months of 2022 – a record dollar amount of loans going back over 20 years.

    Many questions come to mind – what were the terms, who were the recipients, what was the collateral?

    But, sadly, we will likely never know.

    However, we do note that the banking execs may be facing a serious shortfall (like their bank): if the loans were collateralized by SVB shares for example, those shares are now worthless, leaving the loan-heavy C-suite left to come up with the cash to repay the loans (and no, these loans don’t disappear with the bank’s liquidation).

    Between that and the insider share dumping, people need to go to jail.

  • Speaking of insiders, let’s talk about FTX and Silicon Valley Bank’s ties to the World Economic Forum.

    After the implosion of the FTX crypto exchange run by Sam Bankman Fried, questions of due diligence and competency immediately arose, suggesting that perhaps the company mishandled assets “accidentally” and that Fried was naive and “in over his head.” Numerous central bank officials and globalist organizations jumped into the debate almost immediately, arguing that FTX was a perfect example of why centralized regulation of crypto and digital currencies was necessary. They claimed that without oversight by banking elites, disaster was inevitable.

    Of course, what they did not mention was that FTX and Sam Fried already had extensive connections with globalist groups including the World Economic Forum. In fact, the very basis of Fried’s business model was the WEF’s “Stakeholder Capitalism” theory, which he often referred to as “Effective Altruism.”

    Stakeholder Capitalism is essentially the opposite of free markets – It is a socialist/globalist framework which uses corporations as a kind of economic enforcement tool. Corporations are already highly socialistic in their operations, and their existence is completely dependent on their special relationship with government. Corporations are created through government charter, enjoy special protections under “corporate personhood” laws and avoid direct consequences for criminal activities through limited liability.

    Many corporations are not even allowed to fail because governments backstop their operations. That’s socialism, not free markets. However, “stakeholder capitalism” expands on this dynamic a hundred-fold.

    Where free markets assert that businesses must make profit their primary objective for the overall economy to function, the WEF asserts that companies including banking institutions have a social obligation that goes beyond making money. To the typical leftist this probably sounds like a Utopian vision filled with promise, but to anyone that actually understands economics it sounds like a recipe for the collapse of civilization.

    The WEF paints stakeholder capitalism an effort to reign in the power of the corporate system in favor of social causes. In reality, it’s a way to give corporations ultimate power over everything, including ultimate influence over public behavior.

    We have seen extensive evidence of this through widespread corporate ESG investment programs implemented in the past several years. It is no coincidence that the invasion of woke ideology into the mainstream happened at the exact same time that ESG-based lending accelerated.

    The institutions lending to various companies were able to set social rules for access to credit, and these rules required businesses to adopt far-left politics in their marketing and policies as a result. Stakeholder capitalism is about homogenizing all business into a single ideological entity – Instead of competing with each other for market share through innovation, companies have been abandoning merit based competition and are colluding to saturate the mainstream with social justice cultism, climate change propaganda and globalist rhetoric.

    By making corporate elites “responsible” for society, we give them the power to engineer society.

    However, the WEF’s model of false altruism is turning out to be a disaster for corporate survival. I have to wonder now if this was the intent all along – To create a kind of ESG fueled woke financial bubble that was always intended to come crashing down, leaving the western world in ruins.

    Snip.

    Looking into SVB’s operational history, the company was a woke nightmare.

    Take a gander at their 66 page ESG report compiled in 2021 to get a sense of how far to the extreme political left the bank was. SVB is the pinnacle example of why “Get Woke, Go Broke” is more than a mantra, it’s a rule.

    Digging even deeper we then find that SVB’s leadership was highly involved in the WEF and their Stakeholder Capitalism Metrics (SCM), along with corporate governance. SVB was not only implementing every single policy the WEF outlines in its agenda, they were reporting back to the WEF on their progress.

    SVB’s capital exposure was heavily tied up in securities, but also venture capital for woke tech startups, climate change related projects and leftist activist groups which qualified for ESG loans; everything from BLM to Buzzfeed. In other words, they were investing aggressively into money-pit projects that devoured cash and gave nothing back. The real question is, how many US banks are involved in ESG and WEF operations at the same level as SVB? Dozens? Hundreds?

  • “U.S. Carries Out Airstrikes in Syria after Iranian Drone Kills U.S. Contractor, Wounds Five Service Members.” As I’ve mentioned before the withdrawal of most U.S. troops from Iraq and Syria doesn’t mean all. And the same goes for Africa.
  • Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals blocks Biden’s Flu Manchu mandate.
  • After demanding that the police be defunded, San Francisco District Supervisor Hillary Ronen now demands more cops in her district.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • 56% of liberal white women age 18-29 have been diagnosed with a mental health condition.” Well, you already said “liberal”…
  • Louisiana state Rep. Francis Thompson switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party, given Republicans a super-majority in both houses and thus the ability to override any veto by Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards. ““The push the past several years by Democratic leadership on both the national and state level to support certain issues does not align with those values and principles that are a part of my Christian life,” said Thompson.
  • World Athletics, the governing body for international track and field competition, has banned men from international competition. “I’ll take ‘Headlines no one in the 20th century would understand’ for $600, Alex.”
  • “Dallas Bar Cancels All-ages Drag Event.” Funny how the threat of having your TABC license yanked concentrates the mind…
  • Get Woke, Go Broke Part 1: After a string of expensive bombs and streaming losses, Disney to lay off 7,000 employees.
  • Get Woke, Go Broke 1.5: “Woke Marvel Producer Victoria Alonso Gone From MCU.” She was one of the central figures pushing Disney to adopt a pro-groomer position in Florida. The ostensible reason for her firing was breach of contract for producing a non-Marvel movie, but a lot of industry insiders think her outspoken wokeness was a key reason for her getting the axe.
  • Get Woke, Go Broke Part 2: “Twitch Streaming Service To Sack 36% Of Employees.”
  • Another headline I didn’t expect: “SIG Sauer Acquires General Robotics.”

    SIG Sauer announced late last week it has acquired General Robotics, one of the world’s premier manufacturers of lightweight remote weapon stations and tactical robotics for manned and unmanned platforms as well as anti-drone applications. The companies have been working in concert for some time, a fact made obvious at January’s SHOT Show when they debuted a Polaris ATV equipped with a General Robotics PitBull remote weapons station that aimed and fired the vehicle-mounted SIG MG 338 belt-fed machine gun remotely.

    “This acquisition will greatly enhance SIG Sauer’s growing portfolio of advanced weapon systems,” said Ron Cohen, president and CEO of SIG Sauer. The team at General Robotics is leading the way in the development of intuitive, lightweight remote weapon stations with their battle-proven solution.”

  • Nobody should still be using cardboard sheathing on houses.
  • The Y-shaped Chicago building made more stable by adding a giant water tank at the top.
  • “Alex, I’ll take ‘The Rapist Zach‘ for $400.”
  • “It is a belief in the Cocaine Bear’s authority that allows it to officiate legally binding weddings in Kentucky.”
  • “Family Does Modified Version Of Dave Ramsey Plan Where They Just Never Budget And Spend Way Too Much Money.”
  • “Democrats Vow To Arrest As Many Political Opponents As It Takes To Defeat Fascism.”
  • “Trump To Be Indicted For Removing Mattress Tag In 1997.”
  • No one expects SwordDog!