Speaker 1: Do you remember this famous video Steve Kroft asking Nancy
Pelosi about this weird IPO with this little company called Visa.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you why you and your husband
back in March of two thousand and eight accepted and
participated in a very large IPO deal from Visa at
a time there was major legislation effecting their credit card
companies making its way through the through the House. And
did you consider that to be a conflict of interest?
Speaker 3: I don't know what your point is of your question.
Speaker 1: Is there some point that you want to make that Well, I.
Speaker 2: Guess what I'm asking is, do you think it's all
right for a speaker to accept a very preferential, favorable
stock deal. Did you participated in the IPO and at
the time you were Speaker of the House, you don't
think it was a conflict of interest?
Speaker 3: Or have the appearance?
Speaker 2: Has appearance if you decide that you're going to have
elaborate on a false.
Speaker 1: Premise, does it create a bad premise for the Speaker
of the House to get to participate in visus IPO
while you are running the legislation? Is there some point
to what you're saying, Yeah, there's a point. You're a
liar and a thief. We'll talk about this and much more.
Was Zach Abraham, chief investment officer Bulwer Capital Management do
this with the help of God Almighty.
Speaker 4: The Todd Herman Show is one hundred percent disapproved by
big pharma, technocurrats and tyrants everywhere. Now from the high
mountains of Free America, here's the Emerald City exile Cod Herman.
Speaker 1: Today is a day the Lord has made, and these
are the times in which God has decided we shall
live in Fresh Off is very very good free Live
webinar yesterday and Thursday. Zach Abraham joins this here Friday. Zach,
Welcome back to the Todd Herman S. Good times at
Nancy Pelosi. I don't get your points. Is there some
point you're making, Steve Kroft, isn't that one of the
best of all time?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean I yeah, yeah, I I there's nothing
to there's there's no comment ad right, like if you
if you don't, if you don't see what's happening to you,
I don't know what to tell you, right, I mean,
it's just right there in the open, right. If I
did that, I'd go to jail, right, Karens.
Speaker 1: Well, if you, for instance, said that the like if
you said, I think you should invest in the visa
I p O you might make a return of one
hundred percent, you might go to jail.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I could have chilled for a lot of
a lot of things that would pale in comparison to
what you just heard on that video. It's just amazing
to me.
Speaker 1: I was at Avent and with Microsoft when I was
doing a lot of public speaking around the video platform
and the growth of video, and I was on this plan.
I don't know how it happened that there was a Oh.
I remember it was IP Ventures because I've been working
with them. They're a group at Microsoft that that rolls
technologies out of Microsoft and the startups. And it was
an IP ventures event and I'm up there with an
IP Ventures lawyer and we were talking about video platform
stuff and some things that we were rolling into the marketplace.
And one of the guys stood up asking my question,
because you had taught a question for you. You know,
with the video platforms investment you're making, what do you
think this is going to do to Microsoft stock? And
I feel his hand on my wrist. I oh, I
think as a lawyer sitting next to me, anything I
would say would be speculative. I couldn't make any guarantees
and informs of performance. This would be completely my opinion,
and he just pulls my home nets. We're not going
to answer. Yeah, well right, I'll leave that to you
and Steve. What are he's saying this. I'm watching Nancy
Pelosi's face and what I'm seeing heresay is you know
exactly what's going on. You get the game. You're gonna
do this to yourself?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I doing what I do for a living
and dealing with regulators and knowing what hoops we have
to jump through with existing clients, so I'm not even
talking about getting new ones. When you see things like this,
it's very hard for me not to get bitter and angry.
And when I say angry, I mean like flip the
table upside down angry. Yeah, because they'll turn my whole
life upside down over something that worst case scenario is
one percent of that And oh, by the way, we
didn't actually do that thing they think we may, right,
So like meaning something much smaller and I'm not addressing
anything specific, just try to put it into into things that.
Speaker 1: It's all hypothetical.
Speaker 3: I get it. Yeah, yeah, So something much smaller that
they think we may have done, they'll flip my entire
life upside down, costs me tens of thousands of dollars, right,
and then to look at me and go, Okay, well
you didn't do that, so go on your way. And
then to sit there and look at that just get ignored.
And it's we're a place in this country, man, where
And I know I'm not telling you anything you don't know,
but if if you're voting for these people and you
expect anything less than just total larceny and thievery, you're
an idiot. And you're not paying attention like they are
raiding the coffers right in front of you, and they're
not even apologetic about it.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason to bring this up because I
think a lot of people could be going, wait a minute,
why are you reaching way back into history on this thing.
There's a reason I'll explain this. I got to get
Zach and we got to discuss something that came out
of the DOJ. Because anytime the DJ does something that
might make sense, you have to look at this and go,
wait a minute. Why did they start doing things that
make sense? And we'll talk about this with Zach in
a second. Let me ask you this sense right now
in your life as you're heading into oh well, Thanksgiving
and Halloween. But let me just ask you this thing.
You tonight or tomorrow are going to take a shower
or wash your hands unless you intend to be a
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on how long you can last in society with bo
so you're going to do this. You're going to use
a soap from a big company that doesn't care about you,
or you can use Alan soaps. Okay, here's the difference.
Alan soaps made in America, big company made wherever, maybe
by slave labor. Alan soaps one hundred percent natural, big
company stuff. What does natural mean? I mean what you
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Soaps exist to employ people like Alan, who's thirteen, he's
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works there. Now it is Ian's blend. That's the liquid soap.
Great for your business, Like people not gonna use bar
soap there, but use liquid soap. And then lastly, is
this all this stuff is made in America? Okay, by
a family with three generations of soap making expertise. So
we now employ three people at Allen's no longer one,
the same sort of people that the party would have
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Alensaps dot com slash todd, so Zach, I bring this
up because the Justice Department has decided to as accusing
vs and their debit network of a monopoly that affects
the prices of nearly everything. The story here is CENBC
US Just Department on Tuesdays sued Visa, the world's biggest
payments network, saying it propped up and illegal monopoly over
debit payments by imposing exclusionary agreements on partners and smothering
upstart firms. Visas moves over the years have resulted in
American consumers and merchants paying billions of dollars in additional fees.
According to the DOJ, which filed the civil antitrust suits
in New York for monopolization and other unlawful content. We
allege that Visas unlawfully amassed the power to extract fees
at farx seed what it could charge in a competitive market.
So called Attorney General Merrick Garland said, Visa and its
small arrival master Card have surged over the past two
decades Richard can combined market cap of roughly one trillion dollars,
and since consumers tapped credit and debit cards or store
purchases in e commerce instead of paper money, they're essentially
toll collectors shuffling payments between banks operating for the merchants
and cardholders. Visa called the djsuit meritless. So let's start
with this. Your thoughts about the suit, Visa, the network,
its effect on American finance. Then I want to get
in this speculation why this lawsuit now? And I think
there's a simple reason for now. Then I think there's
a long game. So what do you think about the
whole Visa network and the charge of monopolies and them
being just this money shuffling thing, you know.
Speaker 3: Truthfully, to give a really comprehensive thing, I'd have to
dig deeper into because on the face of it, I mean, look,
you've looked at Visa and MasterCard and the way, and
I don't know those businesses inside now, But I think
alleging that their monopolies is I think it's totally within
the scope of reason. I think that it's sort of
like saying that you know the sky is blue, right,
meaning like you know, and not even alleging that they
did anything intentionally. But when you look at the wh
look at the when you look at the percentage, this
goes into you. I think you and I've had this
conversation before where I think one of the biggest things
that we need to do is we need to revamp
and modernize our anti trust laws because we have monopolies,
and we have monopolies creating pernicious feedback loops in society,
much like we had at the turn of the last
century with the robber barons. It's just done in a
very different way. Right, So people like we don't have monopolies.
Now there's anti trust law, and like, no, no, the monopolies
aren't stupid, and they've structured themselves as a way to
sort of dance around the anti trust laws. But if
I look at one or two corporations that have very
similar business structures and control ninety to ninety six percent
of an entire industry, I don't care how they got there.
That is by definition of a monopoly, right. It's like,
you know, Google, it's a stock that we own. But
you know, I think one of the biggest problems Google
is going to have is that they control ninety five
to ninety six percent of search searches right on the
internet eating. Does that inevitable? Does that make them an
illegal monopoly?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: But when you look at what a you know, avenue
of commerce the Internet has become, and if one corporation
controls ninety five to ninety six percent of those searches,
it becomes a very it becomes a very hard argument
to make that they don't control too much. And we
have to go back to kind of what the purpose
of an anti trust legislation was. It's not about punishing
successful businesses. It's about ensuring that there's competition, right, And
that's the part of free markets that people forget. And
that's unfortunately for a lot of people that are hardcore
free market capitalists. Right, It's what I think that they miss,
which is regulation should be primarily reserved to ensure competition.
That should be the first aim of regulation, right, because
where there is core competition, there will be price discovery,
there will be increased efficiencies, and those benefits will pass
down to consumers, and capitalism works. Capitalism without competition, though,
just turns into aristocracy, right. Effectively, a corporate aristocracy that
is outlives outside the rules for a lot of reasons
that you and I discussed. So generally speaking, I'm in
favor of the lawsuit, even if the lawsuit doesn't come
to fruition or even if it doesn't incriminate them, because
these questions need to be need to start, they need
to be asked. And you don't even really need to
go that far. You can just go look at different
individual sectors in business or in the economy writ large,
where the sector you know, for the last hundred years
had anywhere from eleven to fifteen players in it now
as two right.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And this is what got my attention is. Okay,
there's the election your thing. Because one of the big
pitches for the figurehead was as concert prices are too high.
Speaker 5: People paying a surch charge to go see the Beatles.
You know my son bows and the Beatles, and he
hates that, you know, ticket chargers. And Jimmy Hendrix was
here at the White House last week.
Speaker 1: They were making this big, big bitch, right and and
they were this. Merrik Carland in his statement goes on
to say things like concert tickets and groceries. So this
is one part's campaigning. Oh they're gonna do away with
the convenience fees and they're gonna make it cheaper to
go see Dave Dave Matthews on tour whatever.
Speaker 3: Fantastic, that's belief.
Speaker 1: That's that's not a top ten percenter thing to go
to the concerts at five hunred bucks a hit. But
there's something else. If you're gonna shoot at the King,
don't miss. And Visa has a lot of power, right,
So this got my attention, and I want to present
this thing to you here in a second. I was
just chatting when I was down in Temecula at the
Sealfit event. Afterwards, I had the most incredible time because
there was this shift in tone. Obviously I were out
of concern for Rapdough. I mean I vectively pulled myself.
I mean Curtis said, hey, it's up to you, but
you might end up on kidney dialysis. So I made
the decision to pull medically. And men a former teammate,
were sitting there, standing there, and we were never supposed
to approach the Navy seal area where they had their
their trailers set up that side of the street, and
one of our brothers got yelled at for standing on
their dirt. But now that you know we're not in
the event anymore, they were so polite, Hey, please come
and have food with us. Please come and have a
meal with us. That felt really cool to talk with
them personally. To hear from one of the coaches, Hey,
none of the yelling at you was personal. I'm like, no,
I get it. I'm so thankful. But I got to
talk to guy, and I'm regretful I didn't get his name,
but he's sixty years old and he still beats up
the young guys in swimming. He's a swim instructor at
BUDS and have been a seal and professional LUH long
distance athlete. We talked about surgeries, and then I talked
about shoulder surgeries, and then we started to talk about
renew Healthcare in Mexico and the guy stops me. He goes, yeah,
well they do stem cells here. I go, yeah, not really,
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Because they actually culture these stem cells that can put
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e nue dot healthcare and elevate your quality of life
by elevating your healthcare. Renew dot healthcare. So, Zach, you're
gonna shoot at the king, don't miss. I'll explain that
the second. But let me give you this follow up
on the Pelosi family.
Speaker 3: This is from the Pelosi crime syndication.
Speaker 1: Right, yes, we get this. Nancy Pelosi's husband sold more
than five hundred thousand dollars in Visa stock just months
before the DOJ announced the anti trust lawsuit into the
payment merchant. Paul Pelosi sold two thousand serars a visa
worth between five hundred thousand and one million within the
last three months. On Tuesday, the DOJ announced the anti
dress lawsuit against Visa. So they got into the IPO
and they got out ahead of the loss.
Speaker 4: Suits.
Speaker 1: Certainly happens, stanchial, don't you think.
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally happens. And I'm sure she didn't get a
tip off from the DJ or anybody else.
Speaker 1: That'd be violation of bounce of power.
Speaker 3: All all of all above board. Here's here's the one
thing that I do think that we need to go
back and revisit though, is that the most perverse part
of this whole thing is what they're doing is an
illegal Yeah. Right, that's the most perverse part of the
whole thing. And what it does, though, is it it
It makes you look at them and go there is
no intellectually honest person they could possibly cast a vote
for her oralk because you like, you know, you try
to push back against you know, the the the deep
state and all this other kind of stuff, and politicians
only in it for money. Look how long she's been around.
Look at their net worth. If they really cared at
all about equality of outcome, all the stuff she talks about,
why in the world would she not be on the
floor of the Congress trying to repeal the very same
laws that have enriched turn her husband. They know what
they're doing, Steve Kroft knows what they're doing. The media
knows what they're doing, and they don't care. And the
reason they don't care is because they're all eaten from
the same croft. Right at the end of the day,
it's scratched my back all scratch yours, and it's just
the whole thing is just disgusting. It's just disgusting.
Speaker 1: Right, And this guy gets money in, he gets money outs,
he moves that around early. And you're right, it's not illegal.
They made it illegal. They made it against congressional rules
for a while and then no longer. So here's my question,
why are they shooting at the king now because they
could just have done this rhetorically. They could rhetorically attack
Visa and they could get with a Visa executs say hey, look,
this is a tough election cycle. We're going to say
some things about you. You know, we're going to criticize you.
We're going to kind of go hard in public on this.
But understand it. It's just us winning election. This will
calm down afterwards. Nothing but they filed suit. Merck Carther
doesn't care about America, right, Merrick Carlither doesn't care about
the costs to Americans of goods, or he wouldn't be driving,
he wouldn't be destroying the labor market with the mass
illegal immigration. He doesn't care about that. Yeah, they don't
care about Americans and their financial health, or they wouldn't
be rating the coffers, So why because I think it
is a set put for something very big.
Speaker 3: I think it certainly could be that. You know. The
other thing too, is I think we all need to
wake up to the reality of what it is that
we're dealing with. Right, And just may not directly answer
your question, but there's there's two comments that have set
out to me that I've heard some comments on recently.
Alexandria Ocasio Cortes has a famous line that she likes
to use, which is, We're gonna win the world. Okay,
It's an odd statement. What is that? Where does that
come from? She says it repeatedly. It's like one of
her like a closing tagline. Well, interestingly enough, that phrase
is pulled directly from the pages of the Communist Manifesto okay,
And it's one of those phrases where you're like, Okay,
you can call me conspiratorial, but what an odd piece
of phrasing. And then to find it directly from the
right out of the pages of marx Right Communist Manifesto,
You're like, okay. Kamala Harris has another saying that she
says something like we we we have to unburden the
past with the what is that phrase that she used?
Speaker 1: That turn a phrase we have to be unburdened by
the things of the past, and you know, going to
the future unburdened by the things of the past.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Once again, another quote that loosely translated is pulled directly
from the pages of marx Okay, I don't know that
I would call these people full tilt communists, but they
are unquestionably.
Speaker 1: Marxists, right right, They're right about all that.
Speaker 3: And and I think that this does a couple of things.
First of all, so it is for the election right
to sit there and say we're cracking down on these
different things. Look, we're a party for the fighting for
the common. But I also think it shoots across, It
shoots a it shoots a shell across the bow of
capitalism in general. Okay, right now, the funny things about
them is that these are all these are all targets
of opportunity for them, right, Meaning, if at any point
VISA could feather their nest or could help their campaign,
you'd watch the animus or the attacks just come right
out of this, you know what I mean, They they
turn coat and they'd run the other direction. So so,
but I think that what you're looking at is, and
this is sort of my fear of this entire election,
is that you know, at some point along the path
and look, I hope this isn't the case, but it
but it may be at some point along the path,
the path forward quits mattering so much, and what begins
to matter more is you know what what's been laid
in play, like what's already been set up, the trajectory
we're already on. Right, We're just sitting there going, hey,
we got to win this election or this will happen.
And you're and you're sitting there going that may have
already happened, right, And and I think that's where we're at.
And I'm not saying that this this election doesn't matter
by any stretch of the imagination. What what I'm saying
is is that if these people's lips are moving their line,
and what the greater part of it may be, I
don't know. I would love to hear your story because
my theory, Yeah, I would love to hear your theory
on it, because I think it can mean any number
of things. But I think that it does. It's not
going to fall too far outside of Marxist ideology and
Marxist doctrine.
Speaker 1: I don't think it does. I think that's that's it's
part and parcel of this. But something something occurred to me.
You remember Karl Marx hated God. He actually said, I mean,
he was a Satanist. He hated God. He wrote poetry
about hating God, about how he would rise above God.
And hey, we're going to win the world Mark Chapter eight,
verses thirty six through thirty eight. What good is it
for someone to gain the world yet forfeit their soul?
Or what can anyone exchange? Give an exchange for their soul?
Speaker 3: Then see they in congress, they refer to that as
their optimal retirement. Got hold on, hold on, hold on?
How how much will you pay me for it?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: That's the question. What's the offer?
Speaker 4: Right? Right? Right?
Speaker 1: I mean, but then you think of again, of satan
tempt the Lord Jesus on the look, I'll give this
all to you. Hey, you know Jesus knew, well it's
actually mine, so you can't give it to me. But
be you're a liar. So we're going to win the world.
But then this occurred to me as well, God's laughing
at these people. He's laughing at the schemers. He laughs
at the wicked, and they think they're laughing at him.
I'll tell you my theory here to second Zach, because
I want to get into that. I want to get
into FTX and the lady connected to that, Carolyn Ellison.
She's getting a huge prison sentence of two years two years.
I need to talk about that. Then I need you
to explain to me front running the FED and what
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So Zach, here's my theory is Visa set up a monopoly.
All right, fair enough, it's a fair charge. Well, what
replaces a monopoly better than another monopoly? See, because here's
the play. Visa had this terrible monopoly. They're taking advantage
of the American people. All there are is a past serenity.
That's all they do. They just shuffle money. You're paying
eight percent to have them shuffle money so that you
can send your grandma. Your grandma needs five hundred bucks
to buy dog food or groceries. You want to go
to a concert with your friends. You need to pay
the rent, You need to have Amazon delivered at your house.
You need a ride to work with an uber. We
can't have this. So here's what we're gonna do. We're
gonna create an alternative to Visa, and they're gonna help
us fund it in this settlement than this lawsuit. And
it's called central Bank digital currency. So we the government
will step in. We're not gonna have any predatory fees
because we are the government, right, we are the people.
We are the people, we are the central Bank. That's
the long term play. Does that sound reasonable to you
that this is a setup for we got to not
let the monopolis have this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would be, but remember I like, and that
would not surprise me at all. I like, I wouldn't
expend any energy arguing that against you. Okay, good, because
that wouldn't surprise me at all. At the same time, also,
remember these are people that have the ability to create
money out of fin air, so I don't think that
they are what it tells me. I would be more.
I would be more swayed by an argument that said
somebody at Disa or MasterCard stepped out of line. It
wasn't wasn't wasn't following the right thing, because there's so
many of these companies right now. I mean, look, I
truly believe that we are living in the new age
of the robber barons, and I think there are so
many companies that you could throw monopolistic charges at right
and left right, So I almost feel like this whole
monopoly threat and you've got to have an example, right,
you got to have a whipping boy, you got to
have somebody to show. So I almost feel like this
selective or or I wouldn't say it's there yet, but
I'm saying that I would not at all be surprised
that this was selective prosecution based on the companies that
weren't playing ball the right way, or that just weren't
needed right like that, that weren't funding, weren't wen't putting
enough into election campaigns, weren't coming along and doing their
fair share, right, Because I think this would be if
you are looking, if you if you are opining after
and aiming at authoritarian control, which which I think it's
really hard to make an argument that that's not what's happening. Yep,
you need to have you need to have a sort
of damicles hanging over the head of every free market
institution to get them to come along, to shut up
and come right, to shut up and come along, or
you're gonna let the sword drop right and antitrust legislation,
especially in this environment that we're currently living in, it
seems to be the perfect cudgel, right to get them
to do you know, this carrot in the stick, right,
it seems like it's the perfect stick to keep them
in line and keep them playing, you know, keep them
pairting the party line, you know, keep them contributing to
places you want them to contribute to. So I would
look at this as sort of them sharpening their swords
to use as a threat to coerce these corporations and
doing what they want to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, so it might be as easy is the DOJ going,
So wait, are you sure you're going to continue to
process payments to gun manufacturers?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: So you're sure, right, because we just want to check,
But maybe you want to rethink that. And this could
be then them coming behind closed doors and going, okay, look,
we're not going to process this, We're gonna put because
they've been labeling these charges, they've been labeling them as
dangerous as suspect. So it could be them saying, hey,
we're going to need you to move a little bit
more quickly on helping us stop people being able to
buy guns. Okay, that makes sense. And I would stand
by my statement that I think that they're going to
begin to vilify entities like this because it looks like
Obamacare to me, because Obama came out in the White
House and said, you know, doctors are taking out people's kid.
Speaker 4: For money.
Speaker 1: Now, learning what I have about the American medical system,
maybe maybe right, but I don't think. But yeah, doesn't
just those just that silver and shinnaw, we're not so
concerned yourself about that?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: That's a great point of view. I want to talk
about Carolyn Ellison and then got to help me understand
front running to Fred Fed. There's a lot of people
who watch us and listen to us on Friday because
they're looking for an investment advice for you. Maybe you
can teach them how to front run the FED, since
this is apparently what is driving the American economy. We
do that with Zach Abraham reminders, Zach is a fan
of this too, Bone Frog Coffee. Tim has been with
us for well since the show began. Really and I'd
never met him. Did you know that that prior to
the show, I'd never met Tim. In fact, they didn't
meet him personally for the first year. Spoke to him
on the phone A bunch and the way this hap
from a sobazar. This is a god thing. My friend
Cyrus was in a coffee store in Redmond, Washington, signing
his book and Tim came in and he read the book,
or didn't read the book, but he bought it up,
said oh, you wrote this. And then they realized they
knew each other through some separate contacts, and Cyrus said,
you got to meet my friend Todd and and Kruk
Shank says Todd Herman, because everybody tells me that, why
do I need to meet Todd? So we had the meeting,
and I loved Tim from the moment I talked to him.
He's a new retired Navy seals, so of course I
love that he did three deployments, so of course I'm
thankful for that. He was a BUDS instructor, so obviously
great respect. The beg say God country team. And when
the coffee came, I was praying to the Lord that
it didn't suck. He didn't want to call the guy
and go, hey, I love the branding, but the coffee sucks.
And that's what a lot of these private label companies do.
They sell garbage coffee. It doesn't because Tim doesn't cut corners.
He hooked up with Dave Stewart, who's a coffee legend.
He started Seattle's Best Coffee. That coffee company was so
good that when Howard Schultz took Starbucks private, he was
pretty much forced to buy it. So he's behind so
many of the coffees and mentors Tim and the team.
And Tim hires veterans whenever he can, works with veteran
owned companies it's sample pack time. We got a bunch
of new viewers and listeners who've never tried bone frogs.
Or try this sample pack. Go to bone Frogcoffee dot
com slash todd. It's six or eight six out samples
a bone Frog or a six eight sample I can't remember,
but try the sample pack. If you've already been buying
bone Frog all this time, what has stopped you from
saving fifteen percent? Why do you want to pay more
for your bone Frog? You get fifteen percent off subscription
coffee at Bonefrog Coffee dot com slash todd. FTX. This
was the lady Carolyn Ellison who apparently liked to take
the illegal psychotropics apparently and apparently have sex parties with
Sam Bankman. Freed, She's been sentenced to two years in
ordered to forfeit eleven billion dollars. She ran the Alimeter
Research hedge fund associated with FTX and agreed to this
plea deal. Judge Lewis Kaplan that name sounds familiar, and
it should said, a literal get out of jail free
card I can't agree to, as he sentenced to Ellison
while praising her extensive cop Operation eleven billion dollars she
has to forfeit Zach, she's been able to hold onto
this eleven billion, does she have to forfeit the float?
Speaker 4: I mean, did that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's I saw that headline. I don't believe that
there is still anywhere close to that amount of money.
I think that's one of those legal things where that's
like they're charging that. Basically, my suspicion is is that
they're saying that that's the amount of funds that they
want to recover as opposed to what she has, because
my understanding is a lot of that just evaporated, right,
So I'm not really sure. The one thing I will
say though, reading that report is I just I'm I'm hoping,
against all Hope Todd that there is no photograph or
video evidence of those orgy.
Speaker 1: That's that's my biggest right, But that's you concern for
the people, right.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. There's things you can unsee, and that
would be I would put that immediately in that category.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's a fair assessment. I'll take care a fair assessment.
Speaker 3: But as far as far as the h the crackdown
on them, this is a this is this is a weird,
complicated case, but it's complicated in the fact that it
was allowed to be perpetrated in the first place, meaning
the amount of people that were duped into it. I
can't express, like people have asked you before, if you
guys got caught up any of that. No. And the
reason meaning to get caught up in any of it
is because it had fraud written all over it. Meaning
it reminded me so much of the go go days
of the Vancouver Stock Exchange and the penny stock natural
resource companies. That there were some legitimate, big companies that
came out of that, but the vast majority of it
was just nonsense, right, It was straight up odds right.
Speaker 1: I seem to remember that FTX had this thing where
they'd set up some weird corporate structure, part not for
profit or nonprofit part profits. And then they had the
Alameda thing, which was investing money that they weren't supposed
to invest because it was client money where they were
buying their digital coins, and they had this massive market cap.
But then they did some very interesting loyally thing around
their corporate structure where they didn't have to show their
financial results.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, part of it was just the fact that
they were Behaman based. I mean they they didn't have
date here to so you know, that's the first thing
you sit there and go, why would you allow a
financial institution to work or advertise inside the United States
that isn't based in the United States. It's the subject
to the United States financial rules?
Speaker 1: Oh huh.
Speaker 3: Well, the reason they did is because they had a
lot of DC insiders in on the take in on
the deal, right, it was the celebrities to who it was,
you know, everybody, you know, all the right people were
at that party. And so the reason she got let
or the reason she got the big piece of that
taken off, is she wasn't the brainchild behind it. She
certainly helped perpetrate it. I don't think it's again due
to the age of these people and where they came from,
it's really hard to know what the motivation was. I
think it's mixed. I think that there is a there's
part of them that didn't realize what they were doing,
that there was reckless kids, and then there's another part
of it that I do think was purposeful, that they
did have an understanding of what they were doing. But
what what my first takeaway was actually a bit of surprise.
If she's getting ten years, SBF is gonna get hit
a lot harder.
Speaker 1: Right, right, because she was turning on someone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well she was turning on him. I mean she's
saying like a canary h right, So you know I
I And that's not totally uncommon in a lot of
these these financial deals, right, if you'll turn coat and
be a part of state evidence, they'll cut you down
a lot. The the the a lot of the a
lot of the folks involved, including the people that advise
on the on the prosecutorial prosecutorial side, we're advocating for
to have two years of uh uh probation, not even
in yeah, no jail time. So I actually, from the
looks of it, it looks like the judge kind of
hit her harder than anybody was expecting based on her
level of participation in this. But I mean, you know,
this was one of those that was I it was
really weird to watch that whole thing to develop, because
it if you got caught with and a lot of
people did, and it's amazing how they've already whitewashed off
that that evidence off their social media pages, all that
kind of stuff, because if you bought into that fraud.
I you know, I think you should automatically be xed
out as a financial professional because the smell around it
was so bad. You know, we were sitting there in
real time telling our clients, no, do not touch this stuff.
Their behavian based for a reason, they're operating outside the
finance No, just don't it reeks. And I can't tell
you which ones are frauds or which ones are legit.
What I will tell you is the vast majority of
these frauds, Yeah right, it just I mean, if it
looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like
a duck, it's not a zebra.
Speaker 1: So this is zero Hedge, my favorite site. You know
they're always right because Tyler Jurden ersk there. This is
offered by Charles Hugh Smith via of Two Minds blog.
So the entire economy depends on the stock market going
up as punters front run the Fed. And this is
not only fine, it's optimal, the best arrangement the world
has ever seen on which ethereal plane is this considered
sane much less optimal the real world economy and neo
feudal confection featuring a parasitic predatory nobility vacuum virtually all
of the gains of the everything bubble, while the bottom
eighty percent, some long in debt. Serfdom resigned to serving
the top ten percent, who own ninety percent of the
assets bubbling higher. Is cheetering on the precipice. Clinging to
the wealth effect of soaring assets courtesy they Fed a
reserve for its lifeline is well insane. Speaking of gas lighting,
how many people do you know who call this arrangement
by its real name, neo feudalism? No one? How many
people are trendling with excitement because every time the FED
cuts rates at or near the all time highs in
the stock market, stocks were higher the next year twenty
times out of twenty hundreds thousands, A great multitude, to
be sure. So we'll explain this front running the fred's strategy,
and why don't we just all give into this and
just as this is our plan, we do the one
pony game. I know it's risk management, we can't do that.
But what is front running the FED?
Speaker 3: Well, from running the FED is something we do here
and you have to which is and this is something
that I've been trying to tell people lately. And look, guys,
this does not mean to go out and take a
bunch of risk, because we all know the underpinnings of
this are extraordinarily fragile. We know that this country is
not in a good place. We know that we're not
doing good things.
Speaker 1: Kemil Harris is a plan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, Mamala is all right. It's like a
new age twist on deer leader, right, like, it's just
it's it's pretty sure. It's going to be illegal within
two years to not have a picture of her hanging
in your house. Right, so they get patrons, saint if
you will, look it out the folks. But the.
Speaker 1: So the front running the FED is something you guys do,
it's not, but don't go take a bunch of risks.
But here's what it is.
Speaker 3: The underlying fundamentals of this economy don't look good, okay,
but that's not what's driving it and hasn't been for
some time. Okay, Right now, you have something going on
that is historic, all right. That is we've got a
US stock market at record his We've got US housing
prices a record highs. You have record household wealth. Okay,
Now we all know about the debt and deficits and
all that kind of stuff. But never in the history
of this country have you seen governments. Only one other
time in history have we seen governments run deficits. By
the way, the deficits cranked up again, you're back up
to seven percent of GDP. You're not running at six
and a half like we were, So now you're back
up to seven percent. Only other time that happened in
World War Two, and it's not even comparable because we
had a fraction of the debt we have now. We
were on the gold standard. So don't take any solace
in the fact that we've been here before, because this
backdrop is completely different, much more dangerous. But you've got
all of those factors, not just the market at a
record highs, but on ninety five you're looking at a
market that the valuation is in the ninety fifth ninety
six percentile. So you know, on a lot of records,
we've never been more overvalued than we are now. On
virtually every other record we're like top two or three. Right, So,
I mean, you can make a very very logical argument,
and it's very easy to do. I could do it
in about ninety seconds. This is the most expensive stock
market of all time. Okay, so in that environment, running
seven percent deficits, now you're starting a rate cutting cycle. Okay.
What we call front running the fat, or what he's
referring to, is that we're buying up assets basically due
to government and monetary policy as opposed to the efficacy
or the or the bona fides, if you will, of
the underlying investment is self. And the reason we're doing
that is because it makes sense. And the reason it
makes sense is we literally have to start thinking as
deficits and the Federal Reserve pouring money into the system
is the active degradation of the US dollar, meaning that
any prices denominated in US dollars will go up by default. Right,
And so this is what we've been telling people. Now
again I'm talking about all the other dangerous things underlying
the economy. The problem is that they're playing a shell game.
And the problem with shell games is they always end,
and they always end the same way. Right, So it's
it's sort of like a shell game meets musical chairs,
meaning right, I love that you have to run the
FED to keep up with the rate of inflation to
a certain degree because they're going to push up asset prices.
But you also have to and I'm not saying this
talking my book, but it's just a way that we've
internalized it. You also have to have a constant risk
management strategy because you know that what you're doing is
you're playing a game that isn't based on reality, right,
which means that at any moment, for reasons that we
may not even be able to you know, foresee, at
this point, the bottom can fall out, right because the
underpinnings of it are not legitimate, right, They're not they're
not they're not fundamentally based, and so you know that
reality can evaporate in an extraordinarily short period of time.
But one of the reasons that we've been very aggressive
and are enjoying some really good runs on performance recently
is from front running the FED, meaning you're looking at
deficit spending and and and look, there is no guarantee
in this game. But I will tell you this right now.
If the stock market is not substantially higher at some
point over the next twelve months, I will be shocked.
And the reason I will be shocked is not because
the health of the economy, not because of new thing,
but just seven percent deficits in a rate cutting cycle. Man,
I mean that flow of money is just so, and
it's the equivalent. And I've tried to use this analogy. Right, Yes,
you've got holes in a bathtub, but they just keep
installing a bigger flow fawcet on there, right, And as
long as the fawcet is flowing harder than the money's
leaking out the holes, the level of that bathtub is
going to continue to rise.
Speaker 1: And this is what so many people at high incomes
are betting their financial not futures, but good portion to
the portfolio because you have to because when government's the
big player, you got to run in the wake. And
I would look at it this way. When you race
stock cars, and when I started to race actual, real
race cars, and someone explained to me why you draft.
You do that because if you don't get outside the draft,
this actually happens to you if you're racing at two
to miles an hour. I wasn't, but I was racing
that you know, one hundred and forty miles an hour,
depending upon the shape of the car. If you pull
outside that draft, you'll drop from two hut miles an
hour to one hundred and ninety immediately because the lead
cars are cutting the wind in front of you. They
are just moving the wind out of the way. That
lead car is the one that is spending the most energy.
And then you get back third or fourth car in
a tight draft. Right, you aren't expending a lot of
energy because the wind resistance is above you and around you,
and you have this pocket.
Speaker 3: It actually sucks you. It pulls you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is pulling you along except for the lead car.
Lead cars making the bet that they can stay there
and not run out of fuel. Everyone else is making
a different bet. Then you can actually slingshot. You pull
out of the draft a little bit and get a
sling shot as you pass, and it can actually help
propel you past the car to make a draft pass.
But if you fall outside the draft, say you get
a love you know, a love tap, and someone look
taps you enough and you pull outside the draft, you
don't lose one position. You're lucky to not lose five
or six. Right, And if you ever doubt this, try
getting behind the semi. I mean, be safe about this.
But if you're ever in a windy thing and the
winds coming at you, get behind the semi and find
out how much easier it is to steer. So you
have to do that when you're racing. I mean, apparently
we have to do this with our economy because the
FED is the major market maker, right otherwise you drop
backslides and let's talk more about this theory of what
the things we have to do. I thought it'd be
a really interesting conversation for us next time things we
have to do given what the government's done to the
economy that we may not like, but we have to do.
So we'll make the conversation less time. Always good that
wise counsel. Zach Abraham miliarisgrader dot com. This is the
Todd urmanshell. Please go, be well, be strong, be kind,
Please make every effort to walk from the lave of Christ.