Today, the PPI Final Demand YoY index printed for October was it was still agonizingly high at 8% YoY (The Fed likes to see 2% for inflation).
True, PPI Final Demand YoY is down from its recent peak of 11.7% YoY in March. But notice that M2 Money YoY (liquidity) has collapsed following the Covid surge (green line).
Then I have this update on Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX and Alameda Research notoriety.
As Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire imploded last week, costing him effectively all of his $15.6 billion fortune, other digital-asset billionaires sought to make clear that their steep losses in 2022 wouldn’t be similarly fatal.
Cameron Winklevoss, 41, who along with his twin brother Tyler founded cryptocurrency exchange Gemini, posted an 11-part series of tweets emphasizing that Gemini “has no exposure to FTT tokens or Alameda and no material exposure to FTX,” referring to Bankman-Fried’s trading house and crypto exchange.
And despite Spam Bankman-Fried’s disaster for his investors like Tom Brady, Steph Curry and the Democrat party, the crytpo market has done some recovery with most cryptos this morning.
Major cryptocurrencies erased losses and turned higher after Binance Holdings Ltd.’s Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao said the world’s largest digital-asset exchange plans to set up an industry recovery fund.
Zhao said Monday the goal was to “reduce further cascading negative effects” of the bankruptcy of rival exchange FTX, adding the fund will assist otherwise strong projects that are facing a liquidity squeeze.
So, cryptos are up today with Cronos up 24% overnight. Of course, Cronos is trading near zero, so any upturns in price register as large turns.
But across the board, cryptos are up. Of course, if Zhao changes his mind, look out.
I am waiting for the list of pension funds that invested in Sam Bankman-Fried’s schemes.
Let’s see if Alameda Research’s CEO Caroline Ellison faces any wrath from the DOJ or SEC. I doubt it.
What do Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried have in common? Greedy investors who apparently didn’t bother to monitor what was going on.
Yes, had they monitored FTX, Bankman-Fried’s company, they would have noticed that FTX held less than $1bn in liquid assets against $9bn in liabilities.
Generally, with buyer beware, the onus falls on investors to monitor what is going on. But The Fed’s completely dropped the ball on Bernie Madoff where investors didn’t seem at all curious about earning supercharged returns. The same is the case for FTX.
FTX had partnered with Ukraine to process donations to their war efforts within days of Joe Biden pledging billions of American taxpayer dollars to the country. Ukraine invested into FTX as the Biden administration funneled funds to the invaded nation, and FTX then made massive donations to Democrats in the US.
The SEC’s Gary Gensler blew it again. After his agency failed to warn investors about Terra and Celsius—whose collapses this spring sparked a trillion-dollar investor wipeout—the Securities and Exchange Commission chair allowed an even bigger debacle to unfold right under his nose. I’m talking, of course, about the revelation this week that the $30 billion FTX empire was a house of cards and that its golden boy founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, is the crypto equivalent of Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes (Stanford University is where Holmes was an MBA student and Stanford Law School is where both SBF’s parents are professor).
To be fair, Gensler was not the only one suckered by SBF. Nearly everyone else fell for the narrative that SBF, with his cute afro and aw-shucks demeanor, was exactly the savior crypto needed to shake off its dodgy reputation and emerge as part of the mainstream financial system. The problem is that cop-on-the-beat Gensler not only failed to spot the crime—he appeared set to go along with a legislative strategy that would have given SBF a regulatory moat and made him king of the U.S. crypto market.
While it is easy to blame Gensler, the onus still falls on investors (and their managers) to MONITOR. Buyer beware.
What will happen to Sam? Likely nothing. He is a golden child of Democrats and was the second biggest donor to Biden and the Democrats after America-hating George Soros. Just like Biden’s son Hunter will never pay for his many inappropriate antics, I doubt that Merrick “Double Standard” Garland will do much to Sam.
Steph Curry, Shaq and Tom Brady should fire their investment advisors and possibly sue then for failure to monitor. No one noticed $1bn in assets against $9bn in liabilities??
Former Obama economist and Harvard University President Lawrence Summers says that the FTX meltdown whiffs on an Enron-like scandal.
“A lot of people have compared this to Lehman. I would compare it to Enron,” Summers told Bloomberg Television’s “Wall Street Week” with David Westin. “The smartest guys in the room. Not just financial error but — certainly from the reports — whiffs of fraud. Stadium namings very early in a company’s history. Vast explosion of wealth that nobody quite understands where it comes from.”
Lehman, Enron? How about Solyndra, one of the biggest political boondoggles in US history.
About two years after the Obama administration co-signed $535 million loans to Solyndra, the company filed for bankruptcy on September 1, 2011. A 2015 report from the Department of Energy found major flaws in Solyndra’s business practices and claimed the company made “inaccurate and misleading” statements to obtain the loan guarantees, and also found fault with Department of Energy oversight.
Which brings us to FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried (the son of Stanford law professor Barbara Fried and co-founder of the political fundraising organization Mind the Gap, which advocates for progressive political candidates and funds get-out-the-vote groups). Sam Bankman-Fried was a big Biden donor. What are the odds that The Federal government will impartially investigate SBF and the FTX fiasco? ZERO!
Why did FTX run into trouble?
FTX has a native cryptocurrency token called FTT, which traders use for operations like paying transaction fees. Last year, Mr. Zhao sold his stake in FTX back to Mr. Bankman-Fried, who paid for it partially with FTT tokens.
On Nov. 2, the crypto publication CoinDesk reported on a leaked document that appeared to show that Alameda Research, a hedge fund run by Mr. Bankman-Fried, held an unusually large amount of FTT tokens. FTX and Alameda are meant to be separate businesses, but the report claimed that they had close financial ties.
Binance announced on Nov. 6 that it would sell its FTT tokens “due to recent revelations.” In response, FTT’s price plummeted and traders rushed to pull out of FTX, fearful that it would be yet another fallen crypto company.
FTX scrambled to process requests for withdrawals, which amounted to an estimated $6 billion over three days. It seemed to enter a liquidity crunch, meaning it lacked the money to fulfill requests.
How did Binance intervene?
On Tuesday, Binance said it had reached an agreement to bail out FTX by buying the company. But, Mr. Zhao added in the announcement, “Binance has the discretion to pull out from the deal at any time.”
In a concurrent announcement, Mr. Bankman-Fried said the deal would protect customers and allow FTX to finish processing their withdrawals. He attempted to dispel rumors of conflict between FTX and Binance, adding, “we are in the best of hands.”
His last quote made me laugh.
Bitcoin plunged another -6% today as gold (gold line) and the S&P 500 (yellow line) rose. Moral to the story? Nothing has been the same since The Fed started tightening.
All cryptos are down today (except Litecoin). The three biggest, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance Coin are all down over 5%.
Why does Sam Bankman-Fried remind me of the late John Belushi?
The Net Percentage of Domestic Banks Reporting Stronger Demand for Mortgage Loans is sinking faster than Joe Biden’s oratory skills as The Fed tightens their monetary belts.
And today, the University of Michigan (BOOO!!) consumer survey for housing buying conditions fell to the lowest level in recorded history.
Given the latest inflation numbers (improving from disastrous, 8.2% YoY to really horrible, 7.70% YoY), and unemployment rate rising from 3.5% to 3.7%, we now see that Taylor Rule estimate for Fed Funds is now … 13.85%. The US is currently at 4.00%. THAT is a big gap!
Yes, The Fed will not be able to fill the gap between the Taylor Rule and the current Fed Funds Target Rate, without incredible damage being done.
Unfortunately, this is an ACTIVE FAILURE for The Fed which has left monetary stimulus too high for too long since late 2008.
On a personal note, I am glad the midterm elections are over. We saw John Fetterman arguing until he was blue in the face that he loved fracking and will continue to let Pennsylvania frack. Then PA governor-elect Josh Shapiro came out yesterday and said that PA will end all fracking. And we are to believe that Lt Gov Fetterman did not talk with PA Attorney General Shapiro about fracking? To quote Joe Biden, “C’mon man!”
The inflation numbers are out for October and they still stink (headline inflation still sizzling at 7.7% YoY).
But the number that really irks me is … REAL average hourly earnings growth is at a horrifying -2.8% YoY because of Biden’s terrible policies (aka, Bidenflation).
Real average hourly earnings growth YoY has been negative since March 2021. That is 19 straight months of negative earnings growth under Biden/Pelosi/Schumer’s reign of error.
Overall, airfares are leading followed by gasoline and household energy.
So, Pennsylvania elects this guy to perpetuate Biden/Pelosi/Schumer’s awful policies?
Ever since the financial crisis of 2008 and the election of President Obama and a Democrat Congressional sweep, the US has embraced Modern Monetary Theory (MMT or borrow, print and spend without consequence). And between the financial crisis and the Covid crisis of 2008, we have seen an increase in US public debt from $10.7 trillion in Q4 2008 to a staggering $30.6 trillion as of Q2 2022. That is a staggering increase of 186% in only 14 years.
How about US Money stock? M2 Money stock has grown by 162.5% since the beginning of 2009 and the “Blue Wave” of 2008. And nothing has been the same.
The Covid outbreak in early 2020, we saw Fed money printing that has never seen before … or since. But one thing is for sure, M2 Money Velocity (GDP/M2) is near all-time lows.
Then we have headline US inflation as a function of M2 Money growth YoY.
And it is the midterm election “silly season” where no politician will discuss the complete and utter mess they have made. According to US Debt Clock, US national debt is already up to $31.26 trillion (OMG!), but the REALLY scary number that not a single politician will address is UNFUNDED LIABILITIES OF $172.4 TRILLION.
Can we go back to the gold standard? Or silver standard? Or ANY standard for that matter??
Instead, we have porous borders and patently UNSOUND money, thanks to MMT.
Private payrolls added 233k jobs in October, which is a -27% decline from September’s revised private payroll figures.
The good news? Average hourly earnings growth is still positive, but fell to 3.7% YoY. But with inflation raging at 8.2% YoY, workers are getting clobbered by inflation.
Here is the rest of the story.
The Fed is now green-lighted to raise rates even higher.
Biden’s campaign promise was to unite rather than divide. But Biden has morphed into Gustaf Holst’s, Mars – Bringer of War! Both domestically and in the Ukraine.
It has been a wild and mostly negative ride under Biden’s Reign of Error. 40-year highs in inflation (caused by Biden’s fossil fuel mandates and Federal spending) have left the US mortgage market FINALLY seeing positive REAL mortgage rates (now 0.32%), even though the REAL 10yr Treasury yield is still negative (-2.50%).
US 30-year mortgage rates are above 7% as The Federal Reserve slowly withdraws its Covid-related monetary stimulus and attempt to combat near 40-year highs in inflation under Biden (aka, Bidenflation).
However, the US Treasury 10-year yield is down -12 basis points this morning.
And we have an important predictor of recession, the Treasury 10yr-3mo yield curve.
And if the Republicans win The House (and maybe the Senate) at the midterms, Biden can blame Republicans for the recession.
Confounded Interest - Anthony B. Sanders 
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