The Carrousel – Autumn Morning, Camille Pissarro, 1899
Sleep it is.
Open Thread – Weekend 11 March 2023
- Open Thread – Weekend 4 May 2024
- Bumtree #5
- The beach which banned vanilla ice cream
- Bumtree #4
- Open Thread – Thurs 2 May 2024
Strength….
No point getting charged over this piece if shi*t. My immediate thought was to grab him via the pony tail…
My pleasure. I’ve read all the Wimsey novels, but hadn’t come across the short stories. I’m reading them one at…
Bit late on the scene. Been watching the replay of Collingwood bashing caaarrton, Will watch again in the morning after…
Come on down, John Henry Newman!
Just as with lockdown, governments have used behavioural psychology to instil fear and isolation to mass large groups of people into herds, where toxic sneering at any contrariness cold-shoulders all critical thinking or analysis. It is more comfortable being inside the herd, than out.
The dominant characteristic here is remaining loyal to the group – even when the policy is working badly and its consequences disturb the conscience of members. Loyalty to the group becomes the highest form of morality. That loyalty requires each member to avoid raising controversial issues, questioning weak arguments, or calling a halt to wishful thinking.
And this approach is ideally suited to leftards of all ilks, socialists, communists, fascists, Nazis. Loyalty to the current “groupthink” is a key part of their personal identity. Just look at some of the prominent trolls here and at CL’s blog.
And good morning m0nty=fa.
C.L….apparently Rita was there yesterday although I didn’t see her.
Rogersays:
March 12, 2023 at 9:58 am
First Modi gets Albanese to partner with him at what was ostensibly a BJP rally, now he’s getting him to toe the line on Hindu nationalism in Australia.
He’s playing Elbow like a violin.
Stradivarius (h/t Richard Cranium)?
Wonder how the trannies will shove their way into International Whores Day June 2?
Top comment under the tweet;
“Lyzard King
@thelyzardking
·
9 Mar
Replying to
@ConceptualJames
That’s not very nice to rename
@KamalaHarris
birthday“
Morning, Cletus.
About that GroupThink that Leftists are known for-
You’re still on board with the Official Line on …
I take it?
Good boy, Cletus.
The Exposé relying on someone called Douglas Brodie, who was relying on another champion, David Tait, who FOI’ed National Records of Scotland and received the answer:
The reason there were no deaths registered by NRS by occupational categories?
Hmmm?
The Exposé: spreading misinformation since 2021.
Buy ‘em a coffee.
Even more impressive to me, more so than the Hume Highway, the train line connecting Albion Park to Sydney. Thinking it goes further south than Albion Park but the construction of it, through sharp hills, on hills close to the coast, between hills, it’s magnificent.
One would assume that it would be impossible to build a fast rail connection between Brisbane and Sydney unless using existing infrastructure just because of the terrain.
Even so, the track winds. Australia have a hard enough time filling potholes than to build something of such enormity.
Don’t know much about army stuff, so this may not be as stupid as it looks.
With the latest revelations about the Nordstream bombing, the Biden disaster of an administration keeps on pissing all over its allies.
Surely this lurching from one crisis to another must have some repercussions within it?
Ed Casesays:
March 12, 2023 at 10:27 am
Morning, Cletus.
About that GroupThink that Leftists are known for-
You’re still on board with the Official Line on …
9/11
Vaccines
ChemTrails
China did Covid/19
I take it?
Good boy, Cletus.
Don’t know. Perhaps as our resident Spook, you can lay out the current “Official Line” on each of those subjects. Then I can decide.
PS, I only assume that you are addressing me because the Greek origin meaning of Cletus is “glory”, and thus matches me precisely.
Old Ozzie:
The very same thing was noted of the Soviet Union in the 70’s. It didn’t help much outside these sectors.
The economy was still run by pygmy bureaucrats wrestling with a giant but moribund market.
Where you on the train BB? Haven’t done that ride since the 90s- magnificent is the word. Climb up from the Illawarra coal measures at Coalcliff to the Hawkesbury sandstone at Waterfall. That was all built with the muscles of man and beast.
Probably a bit of dynamite too.
Sacrificing a Nordic Doom Goblin or two should fix it.
Not far from Sydney Central miltonf. Yes that’s the places we went through as you spoke of.
As you say, the work out in to it must have been intense. I imagine in some men, even lethal
Bottom feeding on tech startups that are going to be foreclosed as a result of the SVB collapse may prove profitable. Many will have worthwhile business plans, but the liquidators won’t be patient.
In Good for the Gander news:
Queensland windfarm backed by Apple and Andrew Forrest sparks warning over impact on threatened species
In one sense I’m loving the renewables grifters being caught up in Green lawfare. The bastards are planning to bugger up a large chunk of the environment – and expected to get away unscathed because renewable and in line with the Palacechook Re-election Strategy.
This is arguably the dawn of realisation that the necessary scale of low energy density renewables is going to fark over the environment at an alarming rate.
At some point, possibly soonish, the pain may encourage some Labor government*, somewhere, to point to a possible SMR solution.
* It is very unlikely to ever be a Coalition government – because zero policy integrity and loose electoral bowels.
There’s only one realistic answer.
Robbo’s Chemtrail Emporium.
No refunds.
Some people say that the coastline around Coalcliff-Stanwell Park is what inspired Captain Cook to call it New South Wales.
Simplicius The Thinker
Saturday Reader’s Mailbag Extravaganza – (3/11/23) – Answers
Paid subscribers’ questions are answered in long form.
12 Questions asked and well answered – as always a good read
My money would be on South Australia.
I have successfully kept ULP for 2 years with a stabiliser added, and it ran fine back in a modern ICE.
Have not tried longer.
Probably analogous to the HS2 line the Brits are building – it goes through a fair bit of crunchy terrain. Already vastly over budget and being cut back in scope:
HS2: All the delays and U-turns on £100bn rail project since it started (10 Mar)
London-Manchester is about 270 km. Sydney-Brisbane is 930 km or so, so you’re probably looking at not much change from one trillion dollars.
If iSource News wasn’t a joke site.
Now it gets you labelled ‘curious’ in court – a stinging rebuke I’m sure!
PS… my AFP arresting officer was a detective.
flyingduksays:
March 12, 2023 at 11:07 am
One issue with ULP is that it does not do long-term storage very well and, over time, degrades to the glorified Kerosene that it really is.
I have successfully kept ULP for 2 years with a stabiliser added, and it ran fine back in a modern ICE.
Have not tried longer.
flyingduk,
was that – https://fueldoctors.com.au/store-locator-2/ – have added it to my Series 80 4.5l EFI Fuel Tank as doing low Kms – aim to do SYD- MEL drive soon to renew fuel
Amusing thing about the US officials/ NYT claim is the ambiguity. They claim its possibly a pro-Ukrainian grouping but one without any links to the Ukrainian government. They “believed the saboteurs were ‘most likely’ Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two”; but they were certain “no American or British nationals were involved”. How
There is also an element of farce as well. They speculate that the half a tonne of explosives in total used were planted in four different locations of the pipeline by experienced divers using this yacht in mid-summer on a busy sea lane, over one of the more controversial pieces of infrastructure, during a war in which one of the owners is a belligerent, and this went unnoticed by authorities at the time.
There is also another element which stretches the imagination. From a Der Spiegel report, this ‘private grouping’ without any connection to US/ UKR/ UK or any other Western intelligence, crossed the Polish border with a half tonne of explosives into Germany in order to hire and launch the operation from the German coast. Why didn’t they just hire a yacht on the Polish coast and avoid transiting the border? Also, how does a ‘private grouping’ of Ukrainian and Russian nationals obtain half a tonne of explosives in Poland without generating suspicion?
Anti-investment advice.
A solid gold rant about SVB.
https://twitter.com/Stephen_Geiger/status/1634269911378739201
“Take off the lululemon pants and start acting like the capitalist you are supposed to be.”
Head for the hills. Don’t look back, just keep running.
If Monty says it’s a smart play, it’s the opposite.
The nation’s capital is in safe hands.
mUnty giving financial advice??? Custard is right – this place is off the pace.
When it comes to nation-building infrastructure, $trillion is the new $billion.
Unless things have changed since I left, nobody wants to see bankers in Lycra. Especially now the 18yo (or younger) ledger girls have disappeared (another rich source of largely unreliable anecdotes).
Another reason that it was a fit-up. In the ordinary course of events, there’s no way a detective would be given that pissweak job.
Evidently one was allocated to it to ‘ensure it went the way we want’. However, and also apparently because AFP ‘detectives’ are chosen for their fashion sense and choice of coffee rather than actual investigative ability, it turned to shit. For the AFP.
BB the train line goes all the way to Nowra with passengers having to change at Geroa or the next station. Read an account of the building of it years ago with the workers holding the chisel would put a finger on top and his mate would smash it with the hammer. This resulted in a payment of 1 or 2 pounds. The paymaster would say congratulations on getting married in the weekend. A common occurrence apparently. No doubt happened elsewhere as well.
*untellable anecdotes
Dot – The head of risk management is called Jay Ersapah. She(?) says on the company about page that she’s “a queer person of color and a first generation immigrant from a working class background.”
The whole thing reminds me a lot of FTX and its collapse. Seems like it is being sent to the forgettory, probably because of the donations to Democrats. Interesting if there’s similar payments from SVB.
Certainly won’t be Queensland.
Jets flew past.
Clouds formed.
Obvious causal link.
From Daily Mail US.
Yet another example of Go Woke Go Broke. Photo shows she looks fairly young to be head of Risk Management. Wonder if her CV had other more important boxes to tick.
“Jay Ersapah – who describes herself as a ‘queer person of color from a working-class background’ – organized a host of LGBTQ initiatives including a month-long Pride campaign, promoted Lesbian Visibility Day and Trans Awareness week and implemented ‘safe space’ catch-ups for staff at Silicon Valley Bank before its collapse. The Head of Financial Risk Management and Model Risk has now been accused of prioritizing pro-diversity initiatives over her actual role. In a corporate video published just nine months ago, she said she ‘could not be prouder’ to work for SVB serving ‘underrepresented entrepreneurs.’ The firm became the largest bank to collapse since the 2008 financial crisis – disclosing a $1.8
Imagining Bill Ackman saying: You have stolen my hopes and my dreams! How dare you!
Rainbow ties and soy chai lattes and you will be head of Detectives in no time.
“AFP ‘detectives’ are chosen for their fashion sense and choice of coffee”
duncanm says:
March 12, 2023 at 8:43 am
Ed Casesays:
March 11, 2023 at 8:48 pm
What does Labor see as the endpoint for the Voice.
The Voice itself won’t differ from any other Labor Front Group, except in one respect:
Executive Government won’t be able to ignore it’s requests.
for once – spacial Ed is correct.
The voice is a permanently installed Labor front, regardless of which party is in power.
SVB explained.
Includes the Jim Cramer kiss of death.
Who won’t be getting paid next week.
Nice work.
If your a Taleb fan and VAR skeptic that isn’t as bad as it looks. Unless she was using VAR models, which is probable.
“This video clip shows that Moderna never even had a sample of the virus to make a vaccine. It was all just theoretical computer science.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/vaccine/moderna-never-had-a-sample-of-the-virus/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Not with all that Brisbane Olympics spending to be done.
There is no substitute for hard work.
– Thomas A. Edison
The recent offers of farmland for sale have met with limited interest, reduced prices and higher pass ins
Not in our” neck of the woods.” Both commercial farmland & lifestyle properties in demand.
She’s just scrapped plans for an independent body to oversee the infrastructure spend.
The blow outs are already anticipated.
Should be easy to to prove one way or another with satellite imagery.
A husband had just finished reading a new book entitled, ‘You Can Be The Man of Your House.’
He stormed into his wife in the kitchen and announced “From now on, you need to know that I am the man of this house and my word is Law. You will prepare me a gourmet meal tonight, and when I’m finished eating my meal, you will serve me a sumptuous dessert. After dinner, you are going to go upstairs with me and we will have the kind of sex that I want. Afterwards, you are going to draw me a bath so I can relax. You will wash my back and towel me dry and bring me my robe. Then, you will massage my feet and hands. Then tomorrow, guess who’s going to dress me and comb my hair?”
His wife paused for a moment before replying “Probably the farking funeral director would be my guess”.
That was a thing in the UK coal mining industry in the early 1970’s.
There was a detailed statutory compensation schedule for injuries, including loss of eyes, limbs, fingers, and so on. Sometimes a desperado would take advantage for a £100 finger, or worse.
Should be easy to to prove one way or another with satellite imagery.
Just would show the yacht was there at the time if the pix haven’t been altered. As I said just plausible enough to muddy the waters. The yacht’s presence doesn’t mean the attack was staged from it.
Except maybe stealing patents.
https://twitter.com/wallstreetpro/status/1634492391754280960/photo/1
Slowly but shirley, the truth will out!
“the higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19.”
A study from the Cleveland Clinic released on MedRxiv on February 23, 2023,7 found, in fact, that COVID-19 vaccines were ineffective in preventing infection since the Omicron lineages of December 2022 and later became dominant. The study, which tracked 51,000 subjects, found: “The higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19,” as graphed in the study’s Figure 2 (below). That figure shows that for every number of vaccine doses—none, one, two, three, and greater than three, the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 was greater with more vaccine doses at every day throughout the study’s 98 days of follow-up. The bivalent booster, however, offered an insignificant 4% reduction in incidence of COVID-19 infection for the Omicron strain that became dominant in 2023.
The US public has overwhelmingly rejected the COVID-19 bivalent boosters based not just on these scientific findings and expert guidance but also on the manifest reality of COVID vaccinated family and friends contracting Omicron infections. Recall that COVID-19 vaccines were initially promoted as being at least 90% effective in preventing infection and transmission.8 The rationale for COVID vaccine mandates was that if some 70% of the US public were vaccinated, the “R0” would drop below 1 and “herd immunity” would be achieved.8,9 But as new variants emerged, the vaccines no longer effectively prevented disease transmission,10-12 and the talking point for vaccinations then abruptly shifted to limiting severity of infection. Yet disease severity is a matter of personal health; the justification for vaccine mandates rested on preventing community spread of infection. Shockingly, however, a public relations firm that the CDC engaged to promote COVID-19 vaccinations turned out to be the same one as used by Pfizer and Moderna.13-15 As the original justification for vaccine mandates, limiting disease transmission, fell apart, the lines between protecting public health and marketing the vaccines became very much blurred.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/a-successful-letter-for-exemption-from-a-covid-19-vaccine-mandate-and-this-bombshell-study-more-vaccinations-yielded-a-higher-incidence-of-covid-bb2d7e8f
The line goes to Bomaderry. There was no money for a bridge to take it all the way into Nowra.
It has been diverted a few times because of grades including the infamous Helensburgh Tunnel. Iirc Stanwell Park station slipped into the sea at some point. I can’t remember the exact detail but I remember DH Lawrence wrote an evocative piece in his novel Kangaroo about a massive landslip during a storm. That could have been the same incident
Nobody likes working with people looking over your shoulder.
Bernie Ecclestone on losing his job, politics and fatherhood at 89
The ex-Formula One boss pulls no punches on virtue-signalling sports personalities, dictatorship and the world’s most expensive school.
Gstaad is the lair of the billionaire, an Alpine nirvana so saturated with wealth that even the prices for fondue are faintly heartbreaking.
The ornate wooden chalets lining the central promenade bear the insignia of global haute couture: Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Prada, Chopard. Only one, Hotel Olden, still seems authentically Swiss, with its hand-painted facade, vibrant window boxes and history of resident yodellers.
It is here that Bernie Ecclestone suggests meeting at 11.30am. The choice is less sentimental than practical. After all, he owns the place.
The management move to high alert at the news “Mr E” is en route. Furnishings are inspected, places laid, potential backdrops for the photoshoot mapped out. Half an hour early, an unmistakable, snowy-haired figure materialises at the door.
“Just got to see someone first,” he tells me, with a roguish grin. Ecclestone, the consummate dealmaker, is always seeing someone. “He never, ever stops,” says Jovan, his travelling household manager. Quite the tribute, all told, for a 92-year-old.
We take our seats, eventually, in the conservatory. Every few minutes, in a kitschy touch to seduce the jet set, a horse-drawn sleigh rolls past. “All part of the act,” Ecclestone says.
And he should know, after half a lifetime spent transforming Formula One into the ultimate expression of money-no-object decadence. When the circus rumbled into life once more, in Bahrain last weekend, where the F1 season opened, Ecclestone was there; he might not be the ringmaster any longer, but he is a close friend of the kingdom’s ruling family, the Al-Khalifa.
Sport will never see another like him, and he knows it. “It’s like Frank Sinatra singing. You’re not going to find another Sinatra. You see the guy who used to run football?”
Who, Sepp Blatter?
“Mm. He was a bit special, with the way he ran things.”
But people did accuse him of being dictatorial, I point out. The same charge has been levelled at Ecclestone, whose compound at races would sometimes be described as “the Kremlin”.
“You see, I’m not somebody who’s super-enthusiastic about democracy. By definition, it can’t work. Look at England, the politics is 50-50, so which one is right? We’ve got to follow this or follow that. That’s what democracy is.
“It’s the wrong word, ‘dictator’. You need to have a boss. I always say, when I’m doing business with people, I want to deal with the people who can turn the lights on and off.”
Ecclestone, in tinted glasses and a beige fleece jacket over a white shirt, looks remarkably fit for a man in his tenth decade. And there is no doubt that he conveys, even at 1.6 metres tall, with a net worth estimated at £2.5 billion ($4.5 billion), a strikingly godfather-like authority. Especially when his phone rings with Ennio Morricone’s theme music for The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.
Since he was dethroned as F1’s chief executive in 2017, after 39 years at the top, the sport’s obsession with exclusivity has softened. During his era, it was only Hollywood A-listers or European royalty who would be granted access to the starting grid, where they could mingle with drivers just before a race.
Today, it is such a cavalcade of rappers, Instagram influencers and assorted hangers-on that at one recent grand prix in Texas, Martin Brundle found himself barged aside by the rapper Megan Thee Stallion’s bodyguard. “Let’s put it this way,” he says. “If I were still there, I wouldn’t be doing a lot of the things that they’ve done.”
One habit which he would crack down on is the new-found fondness among drivers for making political statements.
Barely a race goes by without somebody accentuating a grievance or a cause: it could be Lewis Hamilton wearing a rainbow helmet in Qatar to promote LGBT rights, an “Arrest the Cops” T-shirt at Mugello to highlight the case of Breonna Taylor, the Kentucky medical worker shot dead by police in March 2020. Or Sebastian Vettel peeling off his overalls to reveal a “Same Love” message, criticising prime minister Viktor Orban’s restrictions on the teaching of homosexuality in Hungarian schools.
“People don’t go to a Formula One race to have a lecture,” Ecclestone says. “Definitely drivers should have free speech, but it’s a case of when and how they use it.” With the outbreak of T-shirt activism, he feels that a line has been crossed. “It’s all completely wrong. I’m 100 per cent against it.”
Formula One’s world governing body, the FIA, is with him, urging drivers to go easy on the political tub-thumping this year. Except Hamilton, in particular, appears in no mood to listen, least of all to Ecclestone.
Last summer, Ecclestone suggested that he should “brush aside” a racial slur about him by former world champion Nelson Piquet, prompting this withering rebuke: “I don’t know why we are continuing to give these older voices a platform.”
Ecclestone bristles at Hamilton’s scorn of him as an “older voice”. “Maybe the older generation are not interested in listening to what he has to say. In general, the older generation have seen a lot more, done a lot more.”
He even suggests that Hamilton was just sore at losing publicity. “Maybe, when the older generation are making statements, and some people think they’re correct, he doesn’t like it because it’s taking up the space that he would normally have.”
You can understand his soreness. Contrary to popular perception, F1’s ascent to the realm of Netflix soap opera did not start with Hamilton. It began with a London second-hand car dealer called Bernard Charles Ecclestone, who engineered the astonishing coup to exploit F1’s commercial rights for 100 years and set about turning it into an impossibly ritzy, multi-billion-pound industry.
Would Hamilton have so many accoutrements – the Colorado mansion, the supercars, the Tommy Hilfiger fashion line – without him?
Prosperity and fame
Ecclestone’s career constitutes one of the great sporting tapestries. Having left school at the age of 16, he supplemented his income by selling spare motorcycle parts. His talents as a wheeler-dealer were such that the supplier business he built, Compton & Ecclestone, became the largest in Britain. He would replicate this alchemist’s touch in F1, buying the Brabham team for £100,000 in 1972 and selling it for 40 times that amount 15 years later. The formula for prosperity and fame was gloriously simple. But in 2023, he admits to being bewildered by the world he inhabits.
“So many things in the world have changed,” Ecclestone says. ” For the younger generation, it’s not the things from the past that they want to remember. People now have much more freedom to be heard. It’s all this telephone business. You or I could put something on the phone now and it would be seen worldwide.”
And is that dangerous?
“Most people can’t make up their minds about anything. The danger is that they read something that somebody’s written, and they hang on to it. These people are called politicians. I wonder, with all politicians, whether they are genuinely sincere in what they’re saying. Ask them whether, before they got into positions of power, their views were the same. People are influenced an awful lot by others. They think, ‘If I say that, it’ll upset somebody.’”
This is hardly a thought that has ever detained Ecclestone unduly. Last July, he infamously declared that he would “take a bullet” for Vladimir Putin. The context was his personal relationship with the Russian president, whom he would be seen embracing each year at the Russian Grand Prix in Sochi.
But the timing was so spectacularly bad, five months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that he was forced to issue the rarest of apologies. He has not conducted another interview since, until now. It helps explain why, when I inquire if there are any politicians he admires, he takes his time.
“Sorry for the delay in replying,” he says. “Well, I was a big supporter of Mrs Thatcher. I thought she got on with things in the right way. Proper person. In fact, I spoke to her one day and told her that Max Mosley would be a good prime minister. And he would have been. Max would have said what he thought, without worrying about upsetting people. But he was always concerned that, because of his dad, he would have never got the support.”
It was indeed difficult to envisage Mosley, as the son of Sir Oswald, Britain’s most notorious fascist, rising to the highest office in the land. And yet as FIA president, he forged a memorable dynamic with Ecclestone, offsetting his opposite number’s icy image with a smooth, patrician charm. Ecclestone was distraught at Mosley’s death in 2021, likening it to “losing a brother”. Theirs, in his view, was a double act impossible to follow.
“When I was in the chair, we just never seemed to get into silly arguments about things.
We sorted them out like you and I would. ‘What do you think of this idea?’ Max would say to me. And I might respond that it didn’t sound that good. But it never got into the press. We weren’t discussing anything in front of an audience.”
Ecclestone is neither the nostalgic nor the reflective type. He has made countless daft remarks, once leaving human rights campaigners aghast by claiming that he would look into holding races in Syria or North Korea, but he leaves all the hue and cry behind instantly.
“I worry about tomorrow,” he says. “There’s no point in trying to go over anything that happened yesterday. It’s finished.”
One episode that tested this resilience was the brutal suddenness of his Formula One ousting. He had imagined, even after the sport’s £3.8 billion takeover six years ago by US media conglomerate Liberty Media, that he could carry on as the chief. Except Chase Carey, Liberty’s front man and once a key confidant to Rupert Murdoch, had other ideas.
“I appeared in my office at 10am and was presented with this document,” he recalls. “Chase said, ‘We’ve bought the company. And I want your job.’ I said, ‘Well, you’ve bought the car. You might as well drive it.’ They had already prepared a resignation letter for me, although I had a contract with myself, which had another three years to run. I said, ‘Give me the pen’ and I signed it. I didn’t read it. That was it.”
So far, so sanguine. But Ecclestone acknowledges for the first time that he felt disrespected by the exchange. “I like things to be done fairly. What was wrong was the way it was presented. It would have been nice for him to have sat down and said, ‘Bernie, are you happy continuing, because this is the sort of thing I’d like to do.’
These guys wanted me to leave. They thought, ‘We Americans, for sure we can do a better job than he has.’”
What about the bizarre “chairman emeritus” title that they briefly gave him as recompense? “Oh, they never spoke to me about anything. It was all about how they could justify getting me out.”
Fabiana Flosi, his wife, arrives at the hotel, resplendent in black fur coat and shades, with the couple’s two-year-old son Ace – short for Alexander Charles Ecclestone – in tow. They first met in 2009, when Fabiana, a Brazilian lawyer 46 years his junior, was working in Sao Paulo on the grand prix.
The story since, as befitting Ecclestone’s penchant for living close to the edge, has seldom been light on drama. In 2014, she formed part of his defence team at a bribery trial in Germany, after he was accused of paying a German banker £27 million to ensure that a company he favoured could buy a stake in F1. Ecclestone denied wrongdoing and paid the court £60 million for the case to be ended.
Two years later, Fabiana’s mother, Aparecida, was kidnapped in Brazil by an armed gang who, knowing her husband’s vast fortune, demanded a £28 million ransom. “My friends knew I wouldn’t pay a penny for a mother-in-law,” he later quipped, with his usual bone-dry wit. After nine days, Aparecida was discovered with her captors in a rundown flat, badly shaken but otherwise unharmed.
Life is calmer now, against this backdrop of sylvan Swiss hills and snow-capped peaks. But he concedes that fatherhood has, at his time of life, proved a significant change of gear.
He already has three daughters, the eldest of whom, Deborah, is 67. Where she maintains the lowest of profiles, Petra and Tamara, his two daughters with his second wife, Slavica, have found a niche as reality TV stars with a reputation for extravagance, which extends to regular stints in Gstaad.
“We moved out here, more or less, when COVID started,” he reflects. “I haven’t thought about going back to the UK. The problem is that with the little one’s age, we need to start thinking, ‘Where is he going to go to school?’ Therefore, we need to live wherever that is.”
They are not short of options: the couple own a sprawling coffee plantation in Brazil’s Amparo region, 140 kilometres outside Sao Paulo, as well as a seafront home in Ibiza. But Gstaad, as home to Institut Le Rosey – the most expensive school in the world, with its own 38-feet yacht – looks the logical choice. “It’s supposed to be good. Parents send their kids from all over the world here. Although that might just be to get rid of them.”
In an intriguing link back to Ecclestone’s previous life, Fabiana is now working for Formula One, as the FIA’s vice-president in charge of South America. Is he ever tempted to impart his knowledge to her? “I speak to the president, Mohammed [Ben Sulayem], but I don’t tell Fabiana what to do.”
He is not shy of an opinion, though, about Stefano Domenicali, his successor as F1’s figurehead. “Stefano has never been any closer to things beyond the fact that he once worked for Ferrari,” he scoffs. “Apart from that, he didn’t know what happened behind the scenes. I never had somebody beside me. I wasn’t a teacher. I didn’t ever intend to be.”
He believes the only legitimate contender to inherit his mantle is Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team principal, who has stayed over the winter as his guest at Hotel Olden. “If you had to pick anyone today, I’d say he would be as good as there is. He listens well. He sorts out what’s rubbish from what isn’t.”
It is time for lunch, at a venue that can only be reached by cable car. Club de Luge, a private club that he co-founded as a rival to Roger Moore’s favourite Eagle Restaurant atop the neighbouring mountain, is a giddyingly luxurious enclave, served by a dedicated gondola and where membership is by invitation only.
Ecclestone, the son of a Suffolk trawlerman, has inhabited the realm of kings and queens, moguls and magnates, for so long that he can seem all but imperishable. But in his 93rd year, he suggests that he is at last contemplating his own mortality.
He spent the pandemic working on an eight-part Discovery documentary about his life. On the surface, it comes across as a legacy piece for Ace’s benefit, although he denies this. “I don’t make plans. I just thought it would be something different.”
But he has turned his attention to his funeral, and he certainly has no appetite for any lachrymose tributes. “Pity they didn’t do those things when people were alive.
When I’m gone, I’m gone,” he reflects. “I told Fabiana a long time ago, ’When I disappear, get a nice cardboard box, put me in the box, and put me in the oven. But before you do it, write DHL on the box and get some advertising money. That’s the way to do it.”
The glint in the eye is back. Once the tycoon, always the tycoon. Truly, he is incorrigible.
Someone mentioned the Netflix doco on MH370.
Man, oh man!
The was an “aviation journalist” featured who appeared reasonably rational in episode 1, but by the end of episode 2 he had gone totally off reservation. Apparently Wussians got into the avionics bay and started altering the “Inmarsat data” to make it look like the plane was headed South, when it was headed North.
To Kazakhstan.
Then there was the Florida woman who examined satellite images and found wreckage in the South China Sea. Well, she found some white blotches which she overlayed a picture of a 777 and, with a bit of squinting … nup, still didn’t get it.
She was very much a “picture of Jesus on my toast” type.
You change at Kiama I understand. Electrification ends there.
Wodger:
No shit, Professor Gary.
What the Hell do they think we’ve been talking about for the last twenty years?
We are thinking about getting rid of the beach shack. Getting sick of driving up and down, putting up with people breaking stuff and the maintenance as it’s 1650 metres.
Have a good think about that, Grey Ranga. Having an alternative domicile in the coming years may be a lot more attractive than the current disadvantages. We have two “homes”(although a far greater time spent on the farm) and, yes, it is both tiring and dangerous (we travel on motorways) and expensive in fuel. But we have no intention of ever selling the country property.
In the plausible scenario of hostilities with China, we want to have an alternative source of sustenance and greater personal safety for our family. Even if this scenario does not eventuate, it is even more likely that a severe economic global reversal will make a rural holding desirable.
Many years ago we had a beach house on the NSW South Coast. This, too, would have been a useful retreat in the event of global disasters.
Xi Jinping Secures 3rd Term as Chinese Leader | China In Focus
Xi Jinping Secures Third Term as Chinese Leader
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NYPD Officer Threatens U.S. Resident on TikTok
DOD: Russia Supplying Chinese With Nuclear Weapons Fuel
Shedding Light on CCP Threats to the Homeland
U.S. Seeks No China ‘Decoupling’: Commerce Sec.
Dutch to Restrict Microchip Tech Exports to China
U.S., Thai Soldiers End Major Drill with Live Fire
China’s True COVID-19 Deaths Could Reach 36x Official Estimate: Calhoun
“the higher the number of vaccines previously received, the higher the risk of contracting COVID-19.”
No shit, I didn’t get it even when everyone else at home had it. I only got it after my second jab.
Every time I see clouds that look exactly like Brett Sutton, which is often, within 15 minutes there is an earth tremor.
Yes I am aware this is caused by chemtrails.
When you think you have seen everything, the internet says: “hold my beer”.
NSFW
These are not the risks you are looking for…
Peter Hitchins is actually talking about Gary Linker, but makes some useful points:
Although modern school history seems to cover nothing apart from the wives of Henry VIII and Hitler, nobody seems to know one crucial fact. The Nazis were very Left-wing.
They hated Christianity and deliberately set children against their parents. They imposed penal taxes on the middle class and attracted Communists to their ranks. They wrecked Germany’s schools, insisting (sound familiar?) that they taught mad dogmas instead of proper knowledge.
Like all bad Left-wing causes, they were very popular with students. If you take the forest path up from the pretty university town of Heidelberg, you will find, half lost among the trees, a large, disused Nazi amphitheatre where the students used to hold torchlight rallies and sing their hateful songs.
The Nazis even combined with the Communists to organise a joint tram strike in Berlin and they happily entered into an alliance with Stalin in 1939, holding a joint Nazi-Soviet victory parade in the conquered Polish city of Brest-Litovsk.
Daily Mail
Tucker pulled his punches
I watched what I thought was a serious journalist blow the first night of the supposed big J6 tape release. I couldn’t help noticing that he picked stuff we already knew — and he was weak.
Where was the video of fed provocateurs and violence coordinators?
Capitol Police flash-bang and rubber bullet/baton attacks on an unarmed citizen crowd?
The deceptions about the barricades?
The beatings of unarmed women and lots of unarmed men, and one, Roseann Boyland, who died?
What was so hard about demonstrating to the public that the J6 was a Reichstag Fire scam?
Sure, he said the J6 committee lied, but he pulled his punches even on the opening night, and from there, the week went downhill fast, and he purposely got weaker and weaker. Before the week was done, he opened his show about the International Women’s Day award? He didn’t care — he was just going through the motions.
Tucker is a well paid and talented person, but his affection for his job made him a yellow-bellied coward just like the FBI/DOJ/Deep State automatons who do what they are told.
Tucker has access to the Capitol Police brutality, the FBI and dog provocateurs, and he shows us the shaman again — and the week is empty of the important stuff that Jim Hoft discusses here. I would add that Hoft could modify his criticism to say that Tucker didn’t just screw up on Monday — he screwed up the rest of the week.
His performance was a disgrace. He had the most important journalistic job of his and our lifetimes, and he blew it.
He will continue to blow it, and McCarthy won’t release the videos to the general public. This will be a Deep State win.
The tragedy is the police state judicial gulag Stalinesque situation we now see solidifying, with a growing list of political prisoners convicted by a Kafkaesque judicial system supervised by evil hack judges.
Tucker has had four nights to put this stuff up, and he pussyfoots around the video trove as though he doesn’t want to offend the Democrats or the FBI/DOJ/Capitol Police by showing the Reichstag Fire scenario that was created. He is on a short Murdoch leash.
Now he has slow-walked this, and the people who watched and waited for him to do a good job can shake their heads.
Tucker and the Fox Network are afraid of the Deep State and the power of the socialist/Democrat oligarchy.
Lineker…
Just like Karine Jean-Pierre.
Great advertisements for appointing people according to how many boxes they tick rather than basic competence.
SVB presentation from last Tuesday wherein they were touting their “ample liquidity” and “strong capital ratios”.
45% of the board were women — almost parity.
Johanna:
…and it’s beautiful to watch in all its ugliness.
We had that in the back of our minds with our beach house on a large block, but basically thought we could probably sit it out on a large block in very quiet and neighbourly Vaucluse. If you’re in a populated area of any sort you’ll still get the bruisers cruising during a disaster, country or city. We cashed it in and had no more of the bother and worry of it, trying to get down there often enough to justify it. At least we’re near some of our kids now if anything happens to us or them.
It felt to us like the right time to cash in some assets and enjoy the rewards of them.
He’s seventy and I’m eighty. There comes a time. Hairy’s father and his new wife moved between properties in Spain and Britain and enjoyed that period of their lives, but the time came soon enough for them to sell up in Spain.
The Chief Risk Officer is Laura Izurieta (age 61). Her bio
Jim Cramer has another stock pick
Unless they are pushing a tea trolley I don’t want 61yo women (or men for that matter) on the executive floor of any bank where I have money kept.
While Silicon Valley Bank collapsed, top executive pushed ‘woke’ programs
By Katherine Donlevy
A head of risk management at Silicon Valley Bank spent considerable time spearheading multiple “woke” LGBTQ+ programs, including a “safe space” for coming out stories, as the firm catapulted toward collapse.
Jay Ersapah, the boss of Financial Risk Management at SVB’s UK branch, launched initiatives such as the company’s first month-long Pride campaign and a new blog emphasizing mental health awareness for LGBTQ+ youth.
“The phrase ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’ resonates with me,’” Ersapah was quoted as saying on the company website.
“As a queer person of color and a first-generation immigrant from a working-class background, there were not many role models for me to ‘see’ growing up.”
Her efforts as the company’s European LGBTQIA+ Employee Resource Group co-chair earned her a spot on SVB’s “outstanding LGBT+ Role Model Lists 2022,” a list shared in a company post just four months before the bank was shut down by federal authorities over liquidity fears.
In addition to instituting SVB’s first “safe space catch-up” — which encouraged employees to share their coming out stories — and serving on LGBTQ+ panels around the world, Ersapah also spent time over the last year serving as a director for Diversity Role Models and volunteering as a mentor for Migrant Leaders.
“I feel privileged to co-chair the LGBTQ+ ERG and help spread awareness of lived queer experiences, partner with charitable organizations, and above all, create a sense of community for our LGBTQ+ employees and allies.”
Ersapah couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
SVB was abruptly shut down Friday by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation shortly after it disclosed it had taken a $1.8 billion hit from a $21 billion fire sale of its bond holdings.
It faced a cash crunch due to surging interest rates, and a recent meltdown in the tech sector led many customers to pare their deposits.
On Saturday, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus insinuated that “woke” policies like the ones launched by Ersapah could have led to the SVB’s dramatic failure.
“I feel bad for all of these people that lost all their money in this woke bank. You know, it was more distressing to hear that the bank officials sold off their stock before this happened. It’s depressing to me,” he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.
“Who knows whether the Justice Department would go after them? They’re a woke company, so I guess not. And they’ll probably get away with it.”
The businessman blamed the Biden administration for pushing companies and banks to consider global warming over shareholder returns, resulting in catastrophic economic pitfalls.
“These banks are badly run because everybody is focused on diversity and all of the woke issues and not concentrating on the one thing they should, which is, shareholder returns,” Marcus said.
“Instead of protecting the shareholders and their employees, they are more concerned about the social policies. And I think it’s probably a badly run bank.
“They’ve been there for a lot of years. It’s pathetic that so many people lost money that won’t get it back.”
The impact of SVB’s collapse is not entirely clear, but experts theorize it could impact the future of regional and mid-sized banks across the county.
Then again, his socialist principles do not seem to extend as far as his personal money.
Bog standard socialism.
WSJ interview: Developing Awareness of Risks at SVB (2016)
Miltonfsays:
March 12, 2023 at 12:06 pm
You change at Kiama I understand. Electrification ends there.
Correct and it is then a diesel powered train all the way to Bomaderry. A nice scenic trip.
Cassie, where’s Point Piper in regards to the Opera House? Go and throw fecal matter at Turnbull
China becomes the broker while Joe Biden is still the joker
By Michael Goodwin
Friday’s biggest headline-grabbing news was the bust of Silicon Valley Bank following a run on its deposits.
The collapse was the second-largest bank failure in the nation’s history and fears of a domino effect rattled stock markets.
Seen from the long run, however, that was probably not the most important event of the day.
The honor goes to the announcement that Saudi Arabia and Iran restored diplomatic relations.
Given their long proxy war in Yemen and fierce sectarian hatred, the sudden agreement (right) was stunning.
Even more so because China brokered it.
As The Wall Street Journal said in a headline that captures the implications: “Accord marks diplomatic victory for Beijing in a region where US has long dominated geopolitics.”
Even The New York Times, usually a mouthpiece for the Biden administration, echoed the grim assessment, saying China’s role displayed President Xi Jinping’s “ambition of offering an alternative to a US-led world order.”
Let that sink in — a new world order, one where China is the leader.
And it’s happening before our eyes.
Even if this were an isolated incident, China’s ability to bring the warring parties together would show its growing influence.
But far from being unique, the power move marked another instance of China taking big steps toward its goal of world domination.
To cite a few examples, it is helping Russia in Ukraine, squelching freedom in Hong Kong, threatening an invasion of Taiwan and now outflanking the United States in the Mideast.
Its tentacles reach to Africa as well as Latin and South America.
The pattern underscores that the spy balloon China brazenly floated over America’s heartland was no accident, nor was it incidental.
It was a message.
Somebody ought to wake Joe Biden and tell him that, on his watch, our country is fast becoming the world’s No. 2 superpower.
Mark Dubowitz, head of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, sees the Iran-Saudi deal as a loss for America on three fronts.
He told the Journal: “It demonstrates that the Saudis don’t trust Washington to have their back, that Iran sees an opportunity to peel away American allies to end its international isolation and that China is becoming the major-domo of Middle Eastern power politics.”
In truth, most of the West has been caught off guard by the speed of China’s aggressive moves.
A 2019 assessment by the European Council on Foreign Relations stated with smug assurance that “China still has a limited appetite for challenging the US-led security architecture in the Middle East or playing a significant role in regional politics.”
Yet Europe’s lack of understanding underscores that American leadership is crucial, and that its absence can be disastrous.
For China, the Iran-Saudi deal reflects President Xi’s chess-like approach to the modern Great Game and cements sources of oil and gas for China, which already gets 40% of its oil from the Persian Gulf region.
When you factor in China’s enormous purchases of energy from Russia, the communist regime has now secured relations with three of the world’s largest producers of coal, oil and natural gas.
The deal also helps integrate Iran back into parts of the global trading system and further degrades the leaky economic sanctions imposed by the US and Europe.
As such, it will help save a regime rocked by domestic protests, largely over women’s rights, and boost its agenda in the region — all while expanding China’s roster of allies.
Meanwhile, in Israel, the deal threatens efforts to unite Gulf Arab nations against Iran, which remains committed to wiping the Jewish state off the map.
The pact immediately set off a blame game, with an unidentified member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government pointing at both the Biden White House and the previous Israeli government, according to The Times of Israel.
It quoted the source as saying “There was a feeling of American and Israeli weakness, so Saudi Arabia turned to other channels.”
Ignore the Silicon Valley Bank’s wokeness nonsense.
I find it concerning that the Fed performs (severe) stress testing every year.
How then did this bank pass through?
And will the punters pay attention to this?
Rogersays:
March 12, 2023 at 1:06 pm
The Chief Risk Officer is Laura Izurieta (age 61).
WSJ interview: Developing Awareness of Risks at SVB (2016)
The Bleeding Obvious for any Risk Manager in a US Bank was as soon as US Fed indicated Interest Rate Rises were coming and the 1st Rate rise implemented – sell their US Treasury Bonds as the company’s US Treasury holdings were bought at a time when interest rates were still relatively low. Bond prices fall as yields rise.
SVB plummets 60% after higher interest rates spark billions in losses on a $21 billion bond portfolio
Silicon Valley Bank-parent SVB Financial plunged 60% on Thursday after the company completed a $21 billion firesale of its bond portfolio, which led to a loss of $1.8 billion and spurred plans to raise more capital from investors.
The bank said it would raise $2.3 billion from investors by selling stock, essentially diluting shareholders to cover the losses related to the bond sale.
The big losses experienced by the bank are directly related to the surge in interest rates over the past year, as the company’s US Treasury holdings were bought at a time when interest rates were still relatively low. Bond prices fall as yields rise.
According to SVB Financial’s updated investor deck, the company’s $21 billion bond portfolio had a yield of 1.79% and a duration of 3.6 years. Today, the 3-Year US Treasury note yields 4.7%, a far-cry from the levels at which the bank bought the Treasury notes prior to 2022.
Also hurting SVB Financial is the fact that it mainly lends to venture capital and private tech companies that often rely on the IPO market to cash in their equity stakes and raise money that is often held at the bank, helping boost its deposits.
But with the IPO market essentially closed over the past year, SVB Financial has seen an ongoing decline in deposits.
“We are taking these actions because we expect continued higher interest rates, pressured public and private markets, and elevated cash burn levels from our clients as they invest in their businesses,” SVB Financial said.
The bank said it will use the proceeds of its bond portfolio sale to restructure its available-for-sale securities portfolio by investing in short-duration US Treasuries that offer much higher interest rates than its prior bond portfolio had. The bank also said it would hedge its portfolio with floating swaps.
Horror of horrors, we are thinking about buying an electric car.
This dumb country has closed its refineries (pretty much) and depends on importing fuel, via the South China Sea, to Oz. I understand we have no more than 2 months supply at any given time. The Landcruiser is a diesel guzzler, although the Toyota farm ute runs on both gas or petrol. So – giving serious thought to selling my city car & buying a small electric sedan for the long km we do between city and country.
At the same time we have made enquiries regarding disengaging our 10kw solar system at the farm from the grid. During any future power cuts, we will thereafter not be automatically cut off from our own power consumption. We had thought this was not possible to do with our set up, but an experienced solar operator says we can – & told us he is getting increasing number of enquiries like ours. Stuff the government.
BTW the young salesman at the local city car dealership had absolutely no idea what we were talking about when we said that furl supplies to the nation could be endangered within the next few years.
4 minute clip of Rita’s take of the trannies who protested like demented rats at Kellie Jay’s gathering:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LX-uM5MqA4
Horror of horrors, we are thinking about buying an electric car.
Nah, go full practical: get a horse and cart.
In truth, most of the West has been caught off guard by the speed of China’s aggressive moves.
A 2019 assessment by the European Council on Foreign Relations stated with smug assurance that “China still has a limited appetite for challenging the US-led security architecture in the Middle East or playing a significant role in regional politics.”
China’s brokerage of a new relationship between the Saudis & Iran is just another indication of the serious realignment that is taking place globally. Yet, the “good life” parties on in Australia’s capital cities.
“These banks are badly run because everybody is focused on diversity and all of the woke issues and not concentrating on the one thing they should, which is, shareholder returns,” Marcus said.
“Instead of protecting the shareholders and their employees, they are more concerned about the social policies. And I think it’s probably a badly run bank.
“They’ve been there for a lot of years. It’s pathetic that so many people lost money that won’t get it back.”
The impact of SVB’s collapse is not entirely clear, but experts theorize it could impact the future of regional and mid-sized banks across the county.
Yes and the Alphabet Soup rubbish doesn’t really help.
However, the problem here is that small Banks especially lack true expertise about the Markets and the Economy. The Silicon Valley Bank failure was likely due to a heavy Mortgage Book which was local. They probably assumed that the Tech Boom would last forever. The Tech layoffs have been serious and as a result they have likely suffered a lot of Mortgage failures.
Just wait for the Banking Regulator’s Report, if it ever gets published by the MSM.
BTW the young salesman at the local city car dealership had absolutely no idea what we were talking about when we said that furl supplies to the nation could be endangered within the next few years.
The sheeple have been asleep for a long time. I just hope when the lights go out they blame the right bastards.
Nah, go full practical: get a horse and cart.
Not allowed on the motorway.
Doc Faustus:
Are you sure? That section of pipe looks cut as if it had been done by det cord.
And talking about mining and exploding shit, here’s nearly 5 minute video of – mining and exploding shit.
It’s Trump’s fault, apparently.
I understand we have no more than 2 months supply at any given time.
It’s not months, it’s weeks.
Perhaps Sydney Uni park wasn’t the best place to hold the demmo. That’s if you wanted something peaceful and rational.
Perfect place if you wanted to highlight the opposition’s crackpottery and dangerousness.
Attended a community event yesterday which asked for a $2 donation to enter.
Sitting outside having a smoke, I saw a group of three twentysomethings rock up, and not one of them had any cash. The volunteer at the door explained (when they asked why they couldn’t just swipe their cards) that the setup and transaction fees for a one day event made it uneconomic.
Talking to her later, she told me that she had seen the same thing with a family group that turned up. Nobody had a cent of cash on them.
How trusting are these people? What are they going to do if their service has an outage (which happens quite frequently) or if some electronic robber cleans out their account?
I always carry cash, some in my purse and a larger stash in my handbag, plus an even bigger stash at home. It has been used more than once when the bank’s system crashed.
As with energy, it seems that a painful dose of reality will be required for some people to comprehend the world they are living in.
You know it makes sense.
Exemption on religious grounds.
wait – China has a base on Mars ?
Did Martin Armstrong predict the demise of Silicon Valley Bank?
Like you, joh, I always carry cash.
And a handy umbrella with a sharp ferrule*. A sword stick would be better but apparently they’re are illegal.
* subject to weather conditions
This dumb country has closed its refineries (pretty much) and depends on importing fuel, via the South China Sea, to Oz. I understand we have no more than 2 months supply at any given time.
It may well be 3 months, however, what a lot of people don’t know is that that ‘Strategic Reserve’ is kept in the USA and not here in Australia. How to get it here in time of War/Emergency?
That ‘Strategic Reserve’ should be at least 6 months and kept here in OZ.
We have all these expensive ‘White Hefalump’ Water Desalination Plants in ‘mothballs’ and no longer have any real Oil Refinery capacity. ??????
We are being led by Donkeys down, down and further downa Big Black Hole.
Farking ‘Pollies’ have NFI.
Try being in a rural supermarket, when the announcement is made. “Sorry EFTPOS system is down, cash only.”
Of course the cum and joke mines of Mars are just one of the likely end points of the sexes
The timeline usually goes…
Complain loudly
Loot
Riot
I spent the morning being dragged kicking and screaming to an historical and old technology event.
Where I discovered and was mesmerised by the stationary engine displays.
Wow. I was a farm boy and we had a few SE but nothing like this selection. I had to be dragged away.
Icing on the cake was donkey engines. Some the size of a shoe box connected to small domestic pumps.
I am going back next year.
Knuckle Dragger at 10:10 divulged:
Honourary-Constable Dragger, if I may nitpick a word choice for the purposes of clarity and not chastisement…
The important part here is not that he didn’t do anything wrong, because everybody has their own peculiar personal idea of what is wrong. Some people think putting pineapple on a pizza is “wrong”, as that’s the word they use. The important part here is that he did not do anything illegal.
Aiming higher than the bare legal minimum in life is probably recommended, but remains optional. There are perhaps degrees of grey area between concerned well-wishing acquaintances and roving fanatical vigilantes, but when it comes to the operation of government agencies and law enforcement in particular, the class of illegal actions should be precisely defined and should limit the efforts of the enforcers.
That there may be offenses so vaguely defined as to be subject to clandestine institutional whim is a sad indictment on our justice system and puts police in an awkward position practically and reputationally.
Power hammer of the week!
(Anyang have a pretty good reputation and they do have an Australian distributor who seems to have worked with them to help them not be shit!)
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/midvale/power-tools/blacksmith-anyang-power-hammer-c41-25/1309470141
“Perhaps Sydney Uni park wasn’t the best place to hold the demmo. That’s if you wanted something peaceful and rational.
Perfect place if you wanted to highlight the opposition’s crackpottery and dangerousness.”
Alas no, across the world, whenever women gather to speak about their concerns about trans activism, the perverts turn up to harass verbally and violently. The event “Let Women Speak” could have been held at Dover Height Park and the perverts would have turned up there. The NSW police actually did a good job yesterday. If the police had not been there, the men and women attending the event to hear Kellie Jay speak wouldn’t have just been on the receiving end of verbal insults, we would have been subjected to physical violence.
Sancho Panzersays:
March 12, 2023 at 1:37 pm
Did Martin Armstrong predict the demise of Silicon Valley Bank?
If you had been subscribed to the Socrates Private Blog, then you would have been made aware of where things are going. As it is, Mrs Stencho Pantyhose, you will never know. So, get back to your knitting. Winter is on its way.
Talking of the film “Zulu”, someone mentioned a new release digitally remastered.
Is that correct?
Last week I saw a vintage steam engine trundling down a suburban thoroughfare in Melbourne.
A cyclist approached and wobbled past on the left of the engine.
I held my breath.
Unfortunately, he made it past safely and there was no large expanse of flat lycra and crushed bicycle to report.
Answer the question.
Yes, remastered for the 50th anniversary back in 2014, Bob. I watched it online.
johanna says:
… I always carry cash, some in my purse and a larger stash in my handbag, plus an even bigger stash at home. It has been used more than once when the bank’s system crashed.
Advertising that fact isn’t a great idea, personal safety wise, even if you’re making it up.
I’ve never seen redder redcoats!
They really did a splendid job.
Here is a TWTR thread explaining the lack of hedging by SVB.
Two questions of Dom…
1. Is that a core or non-core promise?
2. What could his government do to lower the cost of housing without spending a cent?
And while we’re at it…
3. Why haven’t you abolished vaccine mandates for all NSW govt. employees?
Have only used Stabil for petrol, then stored in plastic or metal jerries in shed, where there was considerable thermal cycling from 0-40C
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/265297588379?chn=ps&_ul=AU&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&amdata=enc%3A1rhwoV6qOQXqDO2JpNFUarA32&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=705-139619-5960-0&mkcid=2&mkscid=101&itemid=265297588379&targetid=1740279244769&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9071462&poi=&campaignid=18277121424&mkgroupid=142426603833&rlsatarget=pla-1740279244769&abcId=9301724&merchantid=232385482
LOL
bons says:
March 12, 2023 at 1:43 pm
I spent the morning being dragged kicking and screaming to an historical and old technology event.
Where I discovered and was mesmerised by the stationary engine displays.
The Melbourne Steamfest? I was there yesterday. It was just wonderful. Some of those engine rhythms are positively hypnotic. Lots of coal, wood and oil doing their thing. And to think of all that horrible CO2 that was being belched into the atmosphere – it warms your heart just to think of it.
Lab leak information redacted
Dr. John Campbell
Re the attacks on the movie “Zulu” by the Woke gestapo:
Shows you what idiots they are & how they invariably know little about the subjects of their vitriol. After the incredible carnage and literal pileup of Zulu warrior bodies, Lieutenants Chard & Bromhead lament the hideous nature of the loss of life.
And, of course, the Woke social justice warriors completely miss the bravery of men facing almost certain death, the camaraderie of soldiers under attack, the hypocrisy and stupidity of the drunken pastor, and the amazing tribute of the Zulu chiefs to the bravery of their enemy.
This is a rare cinematic portrayal of the strengths and weaknesses of the human condition. It is also an interesting display of some basic facets of warfare, and tactics that have been used over the millennia. It is a monumental film, in my humble opinion, and I have viewed it many times over the years.
Trump watered down the regulations. Populism!
The answer is “no”.
Despite Martin Armstrong (convicted thief and fraudster) having access to every piece of financial information available from anywhere in the world and with the vastly superior analytical capabilities of his Big Website, he failed to pick it.
by the time they get it, $28k will be an old used car or barely a 1/10th the deposit for a house. maybe a short holiday overseas for two.
But wait there’s more: he was a detective then working on the “COVID Management Taskforce”, and just happened to be sitting at said intersection, watching and waiting for my crime in evolution, which he ‘saw’ perfectly, but his body cam saw differently… then the film got lost …
Coincidence piled upon coincidence, it was the Turducken of modern policing.
Can anyone link to the image of the memorial to the Zulu dead at Rourke’s Drift?
I have 4 horses (more accurately 3.5) and I can assure you its not ‘full practical’ >:)
I am sure.
The exposed metal has been torn, not cut. The second picture shows what the edge of pipe cut with a shaped charge typically looks like.
(Plus there’s reportedly metres of pipeline missing at the breaches.).
Shows you what idiots they are & how they invariably know little about the subjects of their vitriol. After the incredible carnage and literal pileup of Zulu warrior bodies, Lieutenants Chard & Bromhead lament the hideous nature of the loss of life.
Zulu wasn’t historically accurate, but you’ve missed the point.
Zulu depicts British people positively, that sort of portrayal is no longer acceptable tp the ruling elite. .
Trump watered down the regulations. Populism!
Liar. Dicklessism
Oh man, Peterson really stepped in it today. Just LOL.
I wonder what Socwates Pwivate Bwog would suggest I do with a “lazy $100k”?
Hmmm.
My mistake Diogenes. I’ll try not to do it again.
Trust the ABC to produce an uncritical puff piece on Queen Skank Patten of Yarragrad:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-12/reason-party-fiona-patten-life-as-a-former-politician/102074608
If you are Googlin’ it, I think it is Rorke’s Drift.
Oh, there may be a kernel of truth to that Roger. I can’t recall if it was Trump or it happened in some other way, but regional banks and (SVB is a regional) were treated with a softer touch as regards to stress testing. It’s the money centre banks that a put through the ringer and back. The money centres are fine except if we end up with some big European systemic default.
Credit Suisse and Deutschebank have wafer thin market caps which means the market is critical their asset side of the balance sheets.
Yes, that’s true, JC. But that hardly makes him responsible for SVB.
The buck stops with the board, some of whom appear to have sold their stocks days prior.
Parrothead’s latest thoughtbubble is insulting. Just as inflation is racing ahead, he offers something that might be worth something many years into the future.
Who thought that this was a great idea?
How about dealing with the here and how, Dom?
Sure Rog. He’s not responsible in the least. I vaguely recall there was a lot of bi-partisan congressional hissing that the stress testing for regionals was too harsh and the regulators eased up on them slightly.
Quite so. The collision of cultures and subcultures within the army. Courage and cowardice, foolhardiness and ingenuity. You see the way the British fought with precision and discipline, and that is matched by Cetshwayo’s warriors. The tactics are different but effective.
What struck me was the fearlessness of the shock troops, testing how many guns the defenders had at the cost of their own lives. There is nothing in the film that I can see that is racist in any way.
Unlike some of the woke critics, I have experienced the sounds and the trouble of tribal war, admittedly in a different setting. It is very difficult to remain calm when you hear a couple of hundred voices chanting and wailing and spear and arrows clashing on shields. It is primitive and unnerving. It’s meant to be.
Fortunately for me, they were fighting each other. 😀
Who cares? They pretended to be bankers, no more bail outs.
We all misremember stuff. I had forgotten the change at Kiama as last time I did the trip it was all diesel south of Wollongong, 48 class on the front and a rake of old “tourist” (Fr/Br) cars trailing along.
Dotsays:
March 12, 2023 at 1:53 pm
If you had been subscribed to the Socrates Private Blog, then you would have been made aware of where things are going.
Answer the question.
It is not possible unless you are a Subscriber. Proprietary rules and Paywalls and all that as I am sure that you would understand. Otherwise, you are a cheap skate after a free lunch .
I had to ask, prompted by a very funny, cynical individual.
Team is a stock symbol for Atlassian.
You can get down as far as Bomaderry by rail, but you have to change. My family was involved for years in lobbying the government to extend the rail down to Eden to access the Sydney market for dairy.
To no avail. Technology eventually caught up in the form of refrigerated tankers.
Irrespective of the ins and outs of SVB, how many banks could survive a run like the one they had? $43bn in a few days? By my calculation, that’s a bit less than a third of their asset base.
I don’t know anything about the ins and outs of this story, but something doesn’t smell right to me.
Of course he did, doofus. Martie predicted its demise in 1982 – around 40 years before the collapse.
Hillary – Climate Change Affects Women More – That’s Why She Lost in 2016 along with Comey & Putin
LOL. What a Political TART –
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/humor/hillary-climate-change-affect-women-more-thats-why-she-lost-in-2016-along-with-comey-putin/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Yes, the lighter regulatory touch for regional banks carries with it a board and management responsibility to refrain from negligent and reckless behaviour.
… Lieutenants Chard & Bromhead lament the hideous nature of the loss of life.
Unlikely to be true.
Hollywood was already pretty Woke in 1964.
And, of course, the Woke social justice warriors completely miss the bravery of men facing almost certain death, the camaraderie of soldiers under attack, the hypocrisy and stupidity of the drunken pastor,
Another Woke Trope, the hypocrisy and stupidity of Christians.
In reality, the Pastor left to join his family at their isolated farm, 30 k away.
Here’s Wikipedia:
Samuel Pitt, who served as a private in B Company during the battle, told The Western Mail in 1914 that the official enemy death toll was too low:
.
Lieutenant Horace Smith-Dorrien, a member of Chelmsford’s staff, wrote that the day after the battle an improvised gallows was used
Oh, dear.
It would be incredibly sad if The Byron Bay Jesus and his Trusty Sidekick dropped some of their hard-earned in SVB.
A very sad time.
A bunch of their disciples (who, incidentally were told in October they had forever jobs) will be hitting the streets with a pink slip just as a bunch of other techos are forced into layoffs.
His Messiah status is becoming a bit tarnished.
For Mrs Stench Pantyhose, Dotty Dot of Dottiness and J Erk Off Cretin –
The Debt Crisis – What Really Falls to Dust?
QUESTION: The sales pitch seems to be that there is this $2 quadrillion in global debt that overhangs everything. Paper assets, therefore, will all implode! They seem to be saying that everything has risen due to this debt bubble and it was all created with Zero interest rates. Now that they are going up, the debt bubble will burst and everything will decline. The story seems to be that this decades-long Boom Bust cycle was created over and over by the Federal Reserve.
This seems to be like you have said, they try to reduce everything to a single cause and effect.
What really happens?
PCJ
ANSWER: “These people seem to keep preaching the same story but have no historical understanding whatsoever of how the monetary system has ever worked. Their focus on the Federal Reserve shows that they are not looking at the world economy and they do not even comprehend how bad things really are outside the United States. They do not comprehend what is an interest rate. It is the compensation to a lender for his anticipation of inflation plus a profit. If I think the dollar will decline by 50%, why would I lend you dollars for a year if when you pay me back it buys half of what it did when I lent it to you?
The Bottom Line is very simple. There is just no such period as people describe where everything turns to dust and only gold survives. Even if that were true, they what good would the gold do if everything else is worth ZERO? Gold would have also ZERO value since nothing would have value.
The real issue is that as government defaults unfold, tangible assets will rise in value for the amount of money in debt always dwarfs that in even the stock market. We are in a Sovereign Debt Crisis and that is very different from a private debt crisis.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/sovereign-debt-crisis/the-debt-crisis-what-really-falls-to-dust/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Why just kids.
Why isn’t the CDC warning parents that masking their kids creates unacceptably high levels of CO2?
You’re the doofus here.
That was the Krakatoa prediction.
A desperate politician rumbling through the focus group reports for anything to latch on to?
FRANCE YELLOW VESTS WEEK 226: SENATE MOVES PENSION REFORM TOWARDS FINAL APPROVAL, ONE MILLION PLUS PROTEST TODAY, MORE STRIKES, PROTESTS AHEAD, GOV’T PUTS OUT SPIN TO DISCREDIT PROTESTS
It’s not just the $43 billion exit in a few days that caused the problem. It was the composition of these deposits. The bulk of the liabilities (deposits etc.) were deposits from the commercial entities which generally have accounts with a number of banks and can quickly move their deposits around in a flash. Their deposit base was very concentrated and their bond holdings were long dated, which fell in value as interest rates rose and bond prices fell big time.
These dickheads appeared to be more interested in woke crap than the health of the bank. I bet the wokeness sold very well in Silicon Valley and a bunch of these idiots got caught out.
Same thing, no?
Bruh
Armtstrong did not predict SVB collapsing, despite claiming to have ALL financial information in the world.
Nor did he understand the history of European coinage (the simple case of French gold coins), despite claiming an omnipotent knowledge of global monetary history.
He also claims his prediction software is sentient AI, despite enrolling and not completing an electronics course at a community college.
Bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh, bruh
A total bruh moment.
FTX. Sam Bankman-Fried and now SVB going down the tubes. More news that the Tech space is in big trouble and a decent number of startups won’t be able to make payroll next week.
Silicon Valley in big trouble.
God is indeed great.
It depends.
How many coffees can you buy (convicted scam artist, 11 years in the bin) Mr Armstrong for $100,000?
Surely his site would only have a couple of days left before it’s shut down by the Big Machine.
How SVB Was Doomed By a Bad Bet on Mortgage Securities and the Fed’s Rate Hikes
More news that the Tech space is in big trouble and a decent number of startups won’t be able to make payroll next week.
Start-ups come and go every week! .. the only difference this week is they’ve made the 3 day news cycle thanx to SVB ……
Sure, but a lot of them had their money with SVB. The burn rate will end next week as their cash is gone.
Oh, there may be a kernel of truth to that Roger. I can’t recall if it was Trump or it happened in some other way, but regional banks and (SVB is a regional) were treated with a softer touch as regards to stress testing.
That’s not right head prefect. SVB, at the biden admin’s urging, bought $20 billion worth of bonds at next to zero interest so when biden’s ratbag, commie policies caused inflation to soar they became essentially worthless. The SVB board were selling weeks before the final call ins exceeded their deposits. If there were any decent enforcement of laws in biden’s US they’d be up on charges. Rumour has it hazza and markles are some of the depositors. Could be the topic of hazza’s next whinge-fest book.
How many people decided to get the jab without asking the wankers in the nursing home to wheel their parents out on their beds and into the sunlight so there would be no need for the jab status?
Is it a prison?
I’m guessing, not many.
I understand we have no more than 2 months supply at any given time
If only. The official number is about 21 days but that includes tankers in transit so actual onshore is about 7 days.
how about you do what a real conservative government should – lower taxes, remove regulation, increase land releases.
.. but no, the thought process in this SFL government is ‘how do we socialise housing costs?’
FMD.
Okay, God is great. Did you read the the latest from Matt Taibbi on Twitter?
Get a load of who was asked to assist in determining what was disinformation.
Commissioner Harry Spare.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830050708721664
Really?
https://ibankcoin.com/flyblog/2023/03/11/bill-ackman-says-government-48-hours-bailout-svb-echoes-lehman-brothers-ring-loud/#sthash.bpbpkKlT.qGA1VOQG.dpbs
Mismatch.
That was the word which popped into my head when you mentioned cash on call plus long dated bonds on the other side of the ledger.
Long term assets and current liabilities.
A classic wedge in any business, but particularly a bank.
“Rumour has it hazza and markles are some of the depositors”
Oh the schadenfreude.
… asking the wankers in the nursing home to wheel their parents out on their beds and into the sunlight so there would be no need for the jab status?
Sounds great, except that Nursing Home patients are ATMs for Doctors.
And sunlight is contraindicated for many of those old person medications.
Err, wut?!?
They don’t have to “mark to market” each reporting date?
FMD!
Calli:
What?!
I’m not sure how we ended up here, but I don’t think you’ve read what I said very well.
bonds are negotiable marketable instruments – should be easy to liquidate on the secondary market.
no, it must be something more
Zelensky’s Corruption
“Zelensky’s victory in Ukraine will be looked upon as the Judas who sold his country for a handful of silver. The corruption in Zelensky’s government is by far the greatest perhaps in the world. He is leading men and women to slaughter while half the population has fled. There is no strategic benefit to the Ukrainian people and Zelensky’s promises of ending corruption and peace with Russia for which the people voted, have been ignored.
The Ukrainian people need to rise up and save their country from total annihilation. Ukraine remains the most corrupt government in the world and they are selling the Ukrainian people for personal wealth and greed with ZERO remorse for their nation or their people. Ukrainian politicians topped all other countries for corruption and even in the Pandora Papers, 38 Ukrainian politicians have to hide cash offshore – the largest number of corrupt politicians in any other country.
The NeoNazis want everyone to think Putin is evil when they are destroying their own country and are desperately trying to drag the entire world in to destroy all Russians – their ethnic cleansing job from World War II. What is not being reported by the Western press because of Zelensky’s propaganda campaign, is that over 2.8 million “Ukrainians” have fled to Russia from the Ukrainian NeoNazis. That began when the Ukrainians massacred Russian-speaking “Ukrainians” in Odessa and burned them alive. They were beating and killing any Russian-speaking people on the streets of Odesa in May 2014 which sparked the entire separatist movement of the Donbas. Those who ran into the building for safety were burned alive.
The Ukrainian people had better rise up and overthrow Zelensky or they will not have a country left when this is over.”
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/ukraine/zelenskys-corruption/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
They did. 21 billion dollars worth for a loss of some 1.8 billion. When they reported these numbers the shit hit the fan.
… how about you do what a real conservative government should – lower taxes, remove regulation, increase land releases.
2 Things:
#1. You’re confusing conservative with Liberal.
Yeah, there are conservatives in the NSW Liberal Party, and they’ve all been failures.
#2. The main burden of taxation is
[i] Income Tax
[ii] GST
[iii] Fuel taxes
These taxes are levied by the Federal Government, so Parrothead is powerless there.
He’s got 7 kids, though, how many has Minns got, and what’s his domestic situation?
I’ll bet the Media are stepping very carefully around that one?
Yeah, a black Policewoman kept hitting Roseanne Boyland on the head with her baton, until she was dead.
That’s Diversity for you.
Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
14. The Woodstock of the Censorship-Industrial Complex came when the Aspen Institute – which receives millions a year from both the State Department and USAID – held a star-studded confab in Aspen in August 2021 to release its final report on “Information Disorder.”
If this process had been directed at so-called “progressives”, the cries of outrage would have been heard beyond Alpha Centauri. Directed against non-“progressives” (including many leftists) and silence at best, active support far more likely.
Dr. Jordan B Peterson and Stephen J Shaw discuss the Birthgap, a term recently coined by Shaw– and the subject of his new documentary by the same name. In this interview, they examine the long building but invisible causes of what may be the most pressing issue facing the western world in the next few decades. Worst case scenario: total societal collapse due to a lack of new children being born, and a rise in senior citizens living longer.
Not if they’re all underwater and on the books at historical cost.
After October that 28k will pay for 1/2 the price increase on new builds caused the change in going from a minimum 6 to 7 star energy rating.
See above.
They were carrying the bonds at cost (say, $100/unit face value), against a market value of, say, $95/unit.
As soon as they had to hit the market to recoup funds to meet withdrawal demands, they had to recognise that loss of $5/unit on a shit-load of units.
Helloooo, insolvency.
Very interesting segment on Outsiders this morning with Rowan Dean pointing out that we already have an organization in place doing pretty much exactly what “the Voice” is supposed to be doing. It’s called the National Indigenous Australians Agency and has an operating budget of around $200 million per annum. If I heard right it also gets a further allocation of around $2bn to support worthy causes in the indigenous world. As part of its remit it is supposed to advise Parliament on things of interest to and concerning Aborigines.
Peter Dutton, where are you?
And Oprah is rumoured to have lost 590mill as well.
I read it extremely well, Winston.
You said the Lehrman’s life was not destroyed by the appalling injustice he was subjected to. He will have to go on to do something else and get on with it.
I made the same observation a couple of months ago in the context of numbskulls taking out vengeance for supposed “destruction” and was crash tackled for it.
The upshot of it all is, where there’s life there’s hope and on that we are definitely on the same page. Perhaps because at heart we are basically hopeful, resilient people.
Richard Cranium
#2. The main burden of taxation is
[i] Income Tax
[ii] GST
[iii] Fuel taxes
These taxes are levied by the Federal Government, so Parrothead is powerless there.
Tell us all the state and local (controlled by the state) taxes, levies and charges on the construction of homes (noting that Parrothead wants to set up a petty cash housing fund for every kid in NSW).
Russian General reveals PFIZER & Australian Doherty Institute Ukraine link!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJ8_cpw7U-E
Still amazing looking back. What a larp.
They are sooo getting bailed out before Monday.