Jefferies is the worst bank on Wall Street. CEO Dick Handler pushes woke DEI/ESG nonsense while abusing junior employees with punishing work hours to the point where they get hospitalized or even die. They virtue signal about company culture, but commit fraud and hire Patrick Bateman bankers like sage kelly who sleeps with other men’s wives. Glad you are exposing their fraud. Too bad they won’t go to jail like most of the criminals who engineered the 2008 financial crisis and got bailed out.
Guess I am too old to understand how this could happen. The Wild World of Business has changed so much that I don’t recognize it. Back in the day we considered this voodoo economics. Bizzarro World.
It's a scam - a rather obvious one, in fact - but it's *at scale* and has "institutional" players," including the marks themselves, all participating in the fraud with the likely expectation that (just like last time) they'll be too big to fail. Cockroaches, indeed.
“I am of the opinion that a broker can be saved. Mind, I do not say that a broker will be saved, or even that is uncommon likely that such a thing will happen - I only say that Lazarus was raised from the dead, the five thousand were fed with twelve loaves of bread, the water was turned into wine, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea dry-shod, and a broker can be saved. True, the angel that accomplishes the task may require all eternity to rest himself in…“
"...the five thousand were fed with twelve loaves of bread" is the perfect encapsulation of the story. The whole thing is a "Six Flags Over Jesus" with the perfectly named "Dick Handler" as the Jimmy Swaggart character. Just swap out the "organized religion meets real estate" ecosystem in my metaphor for whatever the hell primordial business-ooze ecosystem these trilobites are swimming around in (Dimon included).
There is a book that just hit the market, concerning Prince Edward Island (PEI), a tiny province of the Canadian east coast Maritimes. Look it up on a map.....the Maritimes are just above and to the east of the American New England area, in the north Atlantic. PEI is perhaps best known as the red-soil island of a traditional Celtic community of potato growers, and the story of Anne of Green Gables.
See the newly published book by Garry Clement (a former RCMP Director):
"Canada Under Siege -- How PEI Became a Forward Operating Base for the Chinese Communist Party".
The Canadian Maritimes have had a troubling situation since the late 80s with Buddhist groups posing behind a religious cover, when a Buddhist cult left Colorado and settled in Nova Scotia. This pattern has since spread. And become worse.
Remember that Communism and cults are both versions of totalitarianism. Very easy to switch from one to the other. Or to find them in bed together.
I will remind readers here of the Jim Jones/Jonestown situation which ended in shocking tragedy in Guyana in 1978. The Jim Jones organization was a Communist group behind the cover of a religious group. By the time most followers realized this, it was too late. What I am saying is that Communism can be and often is disguised by a supposed religious motivation.
I suspect this is what is happening in the Canadian Maritime provinces. China is getting its hooks in through "Buddhism". Which may have been one reason they popularized Buddhism across North American culture first. Many details point to this, and several tell-all books have come from worried sources in Canada.
What do Americans think of having the Chinese state potentially amassing on their northern border? As it happens, the Maritimes are just above the east coast of the U.S. And who would guess that tiny innocent PEI could be a staging point for this? It provides good cover...no?
Oops! Yes, you're right. I was thinking of Jim Jones and Willy Brown at the same time. Will correct.
So...Sea Sentry.....are you going to be a nice fellow now? No more hits on me, in terms of what I post and the knowledge I am capable of? I almost blocked you that time, but then I thought I would give you another chance.
While this doesn't really apply to this article, it IS a salient point. My wife's been following this stuff (she's a Canada-stainian) and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
At this current moment, the PM of Canada-stan is having a sit-down w/ Xi; no lie. And China's fully on board w/ the animosity b/t Canada-stan and the USA.
I am Canadian too, Jim. One of the centrist Canadians with the original values. I have been following these patterns for years. It doesn't hurt that I know the principles of both Communism and cults very well. In fact, I am a dab hand at understanding totalitarianism.
I have smelled more than fish out of the Maritimes for a long while now. I knew even in my youth that when a culture fades and loses its dynamism, as was happening in places such as the Maritimes or Appalachia.....the vultures will eventually circle. Someone else will covet the land.
Not a coincidence, by my measure, that PM Pierre Troodo in the late 60s made a concerted effort to turn the Maritimes into a dependency region. So that they lost their cultural and personal agency.
If my hypothesis is correct, this was the beginning of the set-up for Communist China to swoop in under cover and use legal loopholes + corrupt politicians/businessmen, and supposed religious (Buddhist)) organizations, to take over the region.
That phony animosity between the two countries gets fabricated on a dime. Whenever there is a political need for it. Then it gets turned-off, in wait for the next political need.
P.S. The city of Halifax in Nova Scotia has one of the best ice-free deepwater ports in the world. I imagine it being eyed by covetous parties now.
Maybe it is just a coincidence, but Halifax was one of the first North American cities with a WEF Hub operating there. Halifax, the quiet small city on the north Atlantic that no one ever noticed. And they liked it that way.
A few years ago the Premier of that province made 8 roundtrips to China during his tenure....supposedly to talk about lobster exports. This, from a fellow whose only experience prior to political office was running a small appliance repair shop. The CCP Chinese manipulators must have had a field day with him!
Does anyone recall that during the COVID-mania era, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand wished to arrange a loan with CCP China, and use an excellent NZ port as collateral? Are you ahead of me here? Do you see what she had in mind down the road? Just default on that loan, and China gets to "legitimately" take the port.
She was out before it happened. But do you see how these tricks work?
China's Belt and Road initiative has indebted numerous third world countries and then taken control. It is an insidious, but effective plan of action. And we have let China fill that void.
Beware, oh ye American businessmen out there who may operate in China. The Chinese Communists are the best brainwashers in the world. They have it down to a fine art. You will never know what hit you.
I rather think they got Tim Walz. And former Canadian Governor General David Johnston, who was admittedly "in love" with China when he returned from spending a period there. A bit like the American POWs of the 1950s Korean War who surprisingly defected to China once they were released.
I would say it is. And I have known the Canadian Maritimes all my life. Besides which, I keep my nose to the ground. I can see patterns from near or far. And then I put my brain cells on high-alert to interpret those patterns.
Doesn't it make sense, if you are a predatory power, to want to use the best and most innocent/unsuspected cover possible? That would be PEI, the land of Anne of Green Gables (which now has an equivalent operation in Communist China called "Anne of China").
Wasn't really a "cleanup" rather a give-away to cronies:
"The Levy Economics Institute's study, "$29,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed's Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient," by James Felkerson, provides a comprehensive investigation into the Federal Reserve's response to the financial crisis. The study estimates the total bailout amount at $29 trillion, which includes direct lending, asset purchases, and other assistance. The research highlights the extensive use of taxpayer money to bail out foreign-based banks and the extent to which regulatory policy and the economy as a whole were manipulated to facilitate the bailout. The study's findings are part of a series of reports that aim to improve the governance of the government safety net in financial crises."
And yet the stock market is on a record frenzy. I feel like there are big cracks everywhere and then this la-la-land called the stock market that keeps raging up. Great for my retirement fund. What is going on?
I would suggest you cash out if you can. I liquidated 33%. Sure, no interest to speak of, but the downside's zero. (I have friends who LOST their pensions entirely in '08)
For your friends to lose everything they had to sell at the bottom. Most people don't have the temperament and knowledge to run their own money successfully.
No, their co went under. 30 years of pension contribs from the employer, as well as the interest evaporated. They got back their contribs, but that was all.
Ugh. That's terrible. I wonder how a bankruptcy court was able to attach appreciation from a pension plan. I didn't know that was possible - usually pensions are sheltered. I guess I could see a court garnishing employer contributions. That would be an interesting story in itself.
It was years ago, and I don't know any of the details other than what was told to me and what I posted. Since then, he's passed away, and the wife's moved away.
It's like that tale of the woman who put all her dough into Madoff that was written about in The Free Press.
It's bad enough when investors trust the wrong people, and a lot of people trusted Madoff and people like him. But you would think an employee's retirement assets would be immune from confiscation. Such plans are usually separate from and not considered part of a company's assets.
The market's about 22x forward earnings. Quite expensive but not quite in bubble territory. I think markets are counting on (1) the U.S. to continue to print money (which makes all assets more valuable), (2) the Fed lowering rates (which reduces the cost of risk-taking) and (3) Trump de-regulating the economy and settling his tariff policy, which could unleash above average GDP growth. All three are likely.
Quantitative Easing essentially created trillions of dollars in new money. This seems to have created a situation where too much money is chasing too little asset value. I don’t know if this is widespread enough to recreate 2008 conditions but I certainly hope many of these Wall Street Titans lose their shirts.
Exactly. Excess money creation inflates asset prices. We all think we're geniuses with the rise in our securities or real estate if we have them. It's strictly a reaction to the country's excess spending. Your grandchildren will clean up the mess, and they won't think kindly of what we left them.
I wish this nation could start from scratch on some issues, one of them being Big Finance. It has gotten so secretive, complicated, and murky that these private lending operations are going to take the real economy down with them--again.
I'd make all finance except direct loans and repayments between lender and borrower illegal. Or, if we have to suffer these maddening instruments for, reasons, mandate that all finance operators including private be subjected to the same rules that apply to deposit banking.
DOGE claims massive fraud and theft in public money? I think it's far worse in private money. If these outfits want to lend to each other and die from their own fraud, fine by me. But leave the real economy out of it.
The most maddening mistake Obama made in his eight years was letting the bank and bond rating house CEOs walk away from the economy-imploding collateralized mortgage scandal scot-free, on the grounds of "we look to the future, not the past." They should all have gotten ten years for their crimes.
Apollo seems to have figured out how to short First Brands after management blacklisted them from the Company. Credit default swaps purchased by Apollo may have been the "STP" that sped up the bankruptcy. Proof the markets work.
I was going to write about how Apollo is a major creditor of the First Brands accounting firm, BDO and perhaps that is how they became so confident to create a short position in the syndicated loan.... not easy to do...but as i was thinking about it, somebody else wrote about it and BDO's lawyers got in touch immediately. I figured Matt has enough stress in his life without me getting Racket sued!
Let all the "smart money" lose millions for not doing their homework on First Brands. That's how markets are supposed to work. If the government doesn't promote undue risk-taking and it resists the temptation to bail out investor greed, the markets will self-police. Don't count on a clean audit as your only source of due diligence, though.
Private banking is becoming so big - retirement funds get to be a part of it. Only problem - the oversight of “normal banking” doesn’t exist in the grey area of private credit. But bankers and fund managers lust for easy cash - erodes the safety of people’s investments… now PB is billions and not only million
Good point, TG. There's a lot of unregulated shenanigans out there. But all these smart people are taking a licking on their First Brands investments. I'm fine with that.
Jefferies is the worst bank on Wall Street. CEO Dick Handler pushes woke DEI/ESG nonsense while abusing junior employees with punishing work hours to the point where they get hospitalized or even die. They virtue signal about company culture, but commit fraud and hire Patrick Bateman bankers like sage kelly who sleeps with other men’s wives. Glad you are exposing their fraud. Too bad they won’t go to jail like most of the criminals who engineered the 2008 financial crisis and got bailed out.
Dick Handler. Can’t make that up.
seen him at Chagrin Falls too
Silicon Valley Bank was same -DEI + climate Jihadis. Green new startups (renaming a .50 cent fan a $100 air conditioner)
Too bad they won’t go to jail like most of the criminals who engineered the 2008 financial crisis and got bailed out....
IDK about that.
This ain't 2008, and I'm willing to bet that the Trump Admin would LOOOVE to hang some Wall Street scalps on the eaves of the new ballroom.
Why would you bet that? Seems like throwing good money after bad.
Seriously? “Dick Handler”?? 🤣
Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of people. Or should I say cockroaches?
The question is, can we keep DC from bailing them out?
Guess I am too old to understand how this could happen. The Wild World of Business has changed so much that I don’t recognize it. Back in the day we considered this voodoo economics. Bizzarro World.
It's a scam - a rather obvious one, in fact - but it's *at scale* and has "institutional" players," including the marks themselves, all participating in the fraud with the likely expectation that (just like last time) they'll be too big to fail. Cockroaches, indeed.
Mark Twain:
“I am of the opinion that a broker can be saved. Mind, I do not say that a broker will be saved, or even that is uncommon likely that such a thing will happen - I only say that Lazarus was raised from the dead, the five thousand were fed with twelve loaves of bread, the water was turned into wine, the Israelites crossed the Red Sea dry-shod, and a broker can be saved. True, the angel that accomplishes the task may require all eternity to rest himself in…“
"...the five thousand were fed with twelve loaves of bread" is the perfect encapsulation of the story. The whole thing is a "Six Flags Over Jesus" with the perfectly named "Dick Handler" as the Jimmy Swaggart character. Just swap out the "organized religion meets real estate" ecosystem in my metaphor for whatever the hell primordial business-ooze ecosystem these trilobites are swimming around in (Dimon included).
OFF-TOPIC (another bizarre scheme, though)
There is a book that just hit the market, concerning Prince Edward Island (PEI), a tiny province of the Canadian east coast Maritimes. Look it up on a map.....the Maritimes are just above and to the east of the American New England area, in the north Atlantic. PEI is perhaps best known as the red-soil island of a traditional Celtic community of potato growers, and the story of Anne of Green Gables.
See the newly published book by Garry Clement (a former RCMP Director):
"Canada Under Siege -- How PEI Became a Forward Operating Base for the Chinese Communist Party".
The Canadian Maritimes have had a troubling situation since the late 80s with Buddhist groups posing behind a religious cover, when a Buddhist cult left Colorado and settled in Nova Scotia. This pattern has since spread. And become worse.
Remember that Communism and cults are both versions of totalitarianism. Very easy to switch from one to the other. Or to find them in bed together.
I will remind readers here of the Jim Jones/Jonestown situation which ended in shocking tragedy in Guyana in 1978. The Jim Jones organization was a Communist group behind the cover of a religious group. By the time most followers realized this, it was too late. What I am saying is that Communism can be and often is disguised by a supposed religious motivation.
I suspect this is what is happening in the Canadian Maritime provinces. China is getting its hooks in through "Buddhism". Which may have been one reason they popularized Buddhism across North American culture first. Many details point to this, and several tell-all books have come from worried sources in Canada.
What do Americans think of having the Chinese state potentially amassing on their northern border? As it happens, the Maritimes are just above the east coast of the U.S. And who would guess that tiny innocent PEI could be a staging point for this? It provides good cover...no?
You might want to read the book.
Jim Jones was also tight with California Democrats.
Yes, he was. Willy Brown in particular. Former paramour of Kamala Harris.
Willy Brown.
Oops! Yes, you're right. I was thinking of Jim Jones and Willy Brown at the same time. Will correct.
So...Sea Sentry.....are you going to be a nice fellow now? No more hits on me, in terms of what I post and the knowledge I am capable of? I almost blocked you that time, but then I thought I would give you another chance.
While this doesn't really apply to this article, it IS a salient point. My wife's been following this stuff (she's a Canada-stainian) and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
At this current moment, the PM of Canada-stan is having a sit-down w/ Xi; no lie. And China's fully on board w/ the animosity b/t Canada-stan and the USA.
I am Canadian too, Jim. One of the centrist Canadians with the original values. I have been following these patterns for years. It doesn't hurt that I know the principles of both Communism and cults very well. In fact, I am a dab hand at understanding totalitarianism.
I have smelled more than fish out of the Maritimes for a long while now. I knew even in my youth that when a culture fades and loses its dynamism, as was happening in places such as the Maritimes or Appalachia.....the vultures will eventually circle. Someone else will covet the land.
Not a coincidence, by my measure, that PM Pierre Troodo in the late 60s made a concerted effort to turn the Maritimes into a dependency region. So that they lost their cultural and personal agency.
If my hypothesis is correct, this was the beginning of the set-up for Communist China to swoop in under cover and use legal loopholes + corrupt politicians/businessmen, and supposed religious (Buddhist)) organizations, to take over the region.
I was categorizing both themes under "bizarre corruption scams" . Although I will change it to "OFF-TOPIC" now.
Oooh. That was a class move, bud. Good on ya.
Thanks, Jim. I am a woman, btw. Not that I am into the foolish "misgendering" trend of supposed offence....but just to identify myself.
OK...
That was a class move, baby!
LOL
(I crack myself up)
Good on ya, too. That sounds like a Halifax pub saying 😁.
That phony animosity between the two countries gets fabricated on a dime. Whenever there is a political need for it. Then it gets turned-off, in wait for the next political need.
P.S. The city of Halifax in Nova Scotia has one of the best ice-free deepwater ports in the world. I imagine it being eyed by covetous parties now.
Maybe it is just a coincidence, but Halifax was one of the first North American cities with a WEF Hub operating there. Halifax, the quiet small city on the north Atlantic that no one ever noticed. And they liked it that way.
A few years ago the Premier of that province made 8 roundtrips to China during his tenure....supposedly to talk about lobster exports. This, from a fellow whose only experience prior to political office was running a small appliance repair shop. The CCP Chinese manipulators must have had a field day with him!
Does anyone recall that during the COVID-mania era, Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand wished to arrange a loan with CCP China, and use an excellent NZ port as collateral? Are you ahead of me here? Do you see what she had in mind down the road? Just default on that loan, and China gets to "legitimately" take the port.
She was out before it happened. But do you see how these tricks work?
China's Belt and Road initiative has indebted numerous third world countries and then taken control. It is an insidious, but effective plan of action. And we have let China fill that void.
Beware, oh ye American businessmen out there who may operate in China. The Chinese Communists are the best brainwashers in the world. They have it down to a fine art. You will never know what hit you.
I rather think they got Tim Walz. And former Canadian Governor General David Johnston, who was admittedly "in love" with China when he returned from spending a period there. A bit like the American POWs of the 1950s Korean War who surprisingly defected to China once they were released.
Is this really true? PEI is such a nice place.
I would say it is. And I have known the Canadian Maritimes all my life. Besides which, I keep my nose to the ground. I can see patterns from near or far. And then I put my brain cells on high-alert to interpret those patterns.
Doesn't it make sense, if you are a predatory power, to want to use the best and most innocent/unsuspected cover possible? That would be PEI, the land of Anne of Green Gables (which now has an equivalent operation in Communist China called "Anne of China").
Hope this isn't 2008 redux
If other companies are doing the same thing, I believe this smelly situation could cause a resurrection of 2008.
I really doubt they'd get away w/it this time. Trump is no mascot of Wall Street like Barry-O was and is.
2008 happened under Dubya
Barry0 was in charge of the cleanup. The meltdown happened in Oct.
Wasn't really a "cleanup" rather a give-away to cronies:
"The Levy Economics Institute's study, "$29,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed's Bailout by Funding Facility and Recipient," by James Felkerson, provides a comprehensive investigation into the Federal Reserve's response to the financial crisis. The study estimates the total bailout amount at $29 trillion, which includes direct lending, asset purchases, and other assistance. The research highlights the extensive use of taxpayer money to bail out foreign-based banks and the extent to which regulatory policy and the economy as a whole were manipulated to facilitate the bailout. The study's findings are part of a series of reports that aim to improve the governance of the government safety net in financial crises."
"His estate in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, includes five houses and two tennis courts."
.
seriously, Chagrin Falls . . .
With a character like Dick Handler and a place like Chagrin Falls....I feel like we've fallen into a pulp mystery novel.
Tomas, do you live there? I’m there an awful lot.
metaphorically speaking yes, there quite frequently . . . never irl though
And yet the stock market is on a record frenzy. I feel like there are big cracks everywhere and then this la-la-land called the stock market that keeps raging up. Great for my retirement fund. What is going on?
I would suggest you cash out if you can. I liquidated 33%. Sure, no interest to speak of, but the downside's zero. (I have friends who LOST their pensions entirely in '08)
For your friends to lose everything they had to sell at the bottom. Most people don't have the temperament and knowledge to run their own money successfully.
No, their co went under. 30 years of pension contribs from the employer, as well as the interest evaporated. They got back their contribs, but that was all.
Ugh. That's terrible. I wonder how a bankruptcy court was able to attach appreciation from a pension plan. I didn't know that was possible - usually pensions are sheltered. I guess I could see a court garnishing employer contributions. That would be an interesting story in itself.
It was years ago, and I don't know any of the details other than what was told to me and what I posted. Since then, he's passed away, and the wife's moved away.
It's like that tale of the woman who put all her dough into Madoff that was written about in The Free Press.
It's bad enough when investors trust the wrong people, and a lot of people trusted Madoff and people like him. But you would think an employee's retirement assets would be immune from confiscation. Such plans are usually separate from and not considered part of a company's assets.
The market's about 22x forward earnings. Quite expensive but not quite in bubble territory. I think markets are counting on (1) the U.S. to continue to print money (which makes all assets more valuable), (2) the Fed lowering rates (which reduces the cost of risk-taking) and (3) Trump de-regulating the economy and settling his tariff policy, which could unleash above average GDP growth. All three are likely.
This is how markets are supposed to work.
Bad investment gets punished
Losses are limited.
Investors will be a little smarter next time
Stossel in da House!!!
Quantitative Easing essentially created trillions of dollars in new money. This seems to have created a situation where too much money is chasing too little asset value. I don’t know if this is widespread enough to recreate 2008 conditions but I certainly hope many of these Wall Street Titans lose their shirts.
Exactly. Excess money creation inflates asset prices. We all think we're geniuses with the rise in our securities or real estate if we have them. It's strictly a reaction to the country's excess spending. Your grandchildren will clean up the mess, and they won't think kindly of what we left them.
letter to First Brands from Congress (five Representatives and two Senators):
September 4, 2024
Patrick James
Chief Executive Officer
First Brands Group
3255 W Hamlin Road
Rochester Hills, Michigan 48309
Dear Mr. James,
We write today regarding the potentially unlawful transshipment of goods by one of your
suppliers and your company’s due diligence practices for detecting and preventing tariff evasion
and forced labor throughout your procurement supply chain.
Ooooops
I wish this nation could start from scratch on some issues, one of them being Big Finance. It has gotten so secretive, complicated, and murky that these private lending operations are going to take the real economy down with them--again.
I'd make all finance except direct loans and repayments between lender and borrower illegal. Or, if we have to suffer these maddening instruments for, reasons, mandate that all finance operators including private be subjected to the same rules that apply to deposit banking.
DOGE claims massive fraud and theft in public money? I think it's far worse in private money. If these outfits want to lend to each other and die from their own fraud, fine by me. But leave the real economy out of it.
The most maddening mistake Obama made in his eight years was letting the bank and bond rating house CEOs walk away from the economy-imploding collateralized mortgage scandal scot-free, on the grounds of "we look to the future, not the past." They should all have gotten ten years for their crimes.
Apollo seems to have figured out how to short First Brands after management blacklisted them from the Company. Credit default swaps purchased by Apollo may have been the "STP" that sped up the bankruptcy. Proof the markets work.
I was going to write about how Apollo is a major creditor of the First Brands accounting firm, BDO and perhaps that is how they became so confident to create a short position in the syndicated loan.... not easy to do...but as i was thinking about it, somebody else wrote about it and BDO's lawyers got in touch immediately. I figured Matt has enough stress in his life without me getting Racket sued!
Let all the "smart money" lose millions for not doing their homework on First Brands. That's how markets are supposed to work. If the government doesn't promote undue risk-taking and it resists the temptation to bail out investor greed, the markets will self-police. Don't count on a clean audit as your only source of due diligence, though.
Private banking is becoming so big - retirement funds get to be a part of it. Only problem - the oversight of “normal banking” doesn’t exist in the grey area of private credit. But bankers and fund managers lust for easy cash - erodes the safety of people’s investments… now PB is billions and not only million
Good point, TG. There's a lot of unregulated shenanigans out there. But all these smart people are taking a licking on their First Brands investments. I'm fine with that.