0xfbifemboy does a thorough job of explaining “how Sam Bankman-Fried, Sam Trabucco, and Caroline Ellison incinerated over $20 billion dollars of fund profits and FTX user deposits.”

[W]e still don’t have a perfect understanding of what exactly happened at Alameda Research and FTX. However, at this point, I feel that we have enough information to get a grasp on the broad strokes. Through a combination of Twitter users’ investigations, forum anecdotes, and official news releases, the history of these two intertwined companies becomes progressively less hazy, slowly coalescing into something resembling a consistent narrative.

Of course, without witness testimonies and a full financial investigation, our claims only remain tentative at best. Any given piece of information may be flawed or even fabricated. However, if they are assembled together and put in context, they together lend credence to the following timeline:

SBF, Trabucco, and Caroline were (probably) initially well-intentioned but not especially competent at running a trading firm

Alameda Research made large amounts of book profits via leveraged longs and illiquid equity deals in the 2020-2021 bull market

Although Alameda was likely initially profitable as a market maker, their edge eventually degraded and their systems became unprofitable

Despite success with some discretionary positions, on net, Alameda & FTX jointly continued to lose large amounts of money and liquid cash throughout 2021-2022 as a result of excessive discretionary spending, illiquid venture investments, uncompetitive market-making strategies, risky lending practices, lackluster internal accounting, and general deficiencies in overall organizational ability
When loans were recalled in early 2022, an emergency decision was made to use FTX users’ deposits to repay creditors

This repayment spurred on increasingly erratic behavior and unprofitable gambling, eventually resulting in total insolvency.

RTWT

In retrospect, perhaps $20 billion would've been better invested in lottery tickets than magic beans from two autistic band nerds pic.twitter.com/Mzh8pmEWWv

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) November 14, 2022

\

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The NY Post profiles the FTX founder/genius.

Biden’s second-biggest donor, cryptocurrency billionaire wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried, a k a SBF, saw his business file for bankruptcy days after the election, but not before pumping $40 million into the Democratic Party to spend on “get-out-the-vote” and other shadowy ballot-harvesting mechanics for the midterms.

The shambolic 30-year-old whiz kid, once said to have been worth $16 billion, had spent $10 million helping get Biden elected in 2020.

SBF’s mother, Stanford law professor Barbara Fried, also is co-founder of left-wing political action committee Mind The Gap, which has raised a reported $140 million to help Democrats win elections through the same “get-out-the-vote” grift.

A more unlikely billionaire you could not find — and of course his money was built on thin air. A math genius with poor social skills, SBF reportedly lived in a “polycule” — a polyamorous relationship with multiple people — in a luxury penthouse with about 10 co-workers in the tax haven of the Bahamas, where his collapsed crypto exchange FTX was headquartered.

Otherwise, he was sleeping on beanbags in his office, eating vegan fries and, according to his own Twitter feed, popping amphetamines and sleeping pills to regulate his chaotic sleeping habits.

Now Reuters is reporting that between $1 billion and $2 billion of customer funds have vanished from FTX, conveniently after the Democrats safely spent his money.

At last report, SBF and his mysterious co-founder, Gary Wang, were being held “under supervision” by Bahamian authorities after reportedly planning to flee to Dubai, according to fintech publication Cointelegraph.

It is a stunning fall to earth. The financial media and big investors have feted the young billionaire as a saint who shunned earthly pleasures like Lamborghinis and Rolexes, but lived only to give away all his money and make the world a better place.

He was the most famous millennial adherent of a cult known as “Effective Altruism,” which originated at Oxford University, found fertile ground in Silicon Valley — and now has gone down in flames along with him.

EA is a disguised form of socialism, because all the “good” that is done just happens to match up perfectly with the left’s obsessions, whether climate change, social justice, equity, banning meat or his favorite, “pandemic preparedness.”

In a Nas Daily online video, an awkward Bankman-Fried was featured this year as a role model of altruism for young people: “Sam is not a traditional billionaire because he believes in the concept of ‘earn to give’ … Next decade he will probably give away more than $10 million … He wants to get rich in order to impact the world and change it.”

RTWT

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Caroline Ellison, Ellison, the close business associate and confirmed ex-girlfriend of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, tweeted last year:

nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is

— Caroline (@carolinecapital) April 5, 2021

Stephen Helgeson shares my total astonishment that even the idiots in the major cities would vote to place in the United States Senate a candidate so grotesque and manifestly unqualified for the office of local dogcatcher as John Ftterman.

Pennsylvania is a very diverse place, and it is a state with a bifurcated political landscape. Most of rural PA is conservative, but hardcore liberals populate its cities. The state is an energy state with abundant resources, and it is home to a prestigious private ivy league research university, the University of Pennsylvania (located in Philadelphia) along with Carnegie Mellon, Swarthmore, and Villanova. It’s proud of its working class and its historical intellectual prowess, but the recent mid-term victory of a bumbling, oafish hipster politician John Fetterman, over a medical doctor of national repute is puzzling and reflects the rampant spread of stupid.

This week, the citizens of Pennsylvania stole the loving cup of stupid from the citizens of another politically calcified state, New Mexico — one that has consistently voted for Democrats in over nine decades of its political life. The distinction and trophy for ‘Capital of Stupid’ now rests with the citizens of William Penn’s home with the election of Democrat John Fetterman to the U.S. Senate. Why stupid you say? What is wrong with John Fetterman? It’s simple. Fetterman has never held a real private sector job in his life (he is currently lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania). He has enjoyed financial support from his parents most of his adult life. He prefers hooded sweatshirts and arm tattoos to conventional business suits and claims to be for ‘the little guy.’ Prior to becoming the lieutenant governor, his only other job was Mayor of Braddock, PA where he did nothing to improve the town’s condition. (It is thought that the town actually improved after he left office.)

Fetterman suffered a stroke in May of 2022 which left him with an auditory processing disorder which affected how he handled information and how he spoke. His opponent, a well-known television personality and respected medical doctor, Republican Mehmet Oz, was at a distinct disadvantage. He couldn’t point out the obvious about Fetterman’s inability to understand and speak (and how that would disqualify him from being a senator), but had to tread carefully lest he stimulate a ‘sympathy vote’ for the man. To compound Oz’s problems, Fetterman refused to debate the doctor until the eleventh hour on October 25th, only two weeks before the election after thousands of mail-in ballots had already been cast. Had many of those early voters seen the debate they would have viewed a severely, physically-compromised man struggle to string together a coherent sentence and stay on message.

Does that make Pennsylvania voters stupid? In a word, yes. Stupid because they chose political ideology and a deeply flawed candidate over a good one. They chose to perpetuate a status quo that will cost their state hundreds of thousands of jobs, do nothing to stop the millions that are crashing our southern border, ignore the mounting crime rates in Pennsylvania, not to mention the entire country, and insure that America becomes dependent on foreign oil producers.

RTWT

David Spicer, MIT Undergraduate Association President.

The Babbling Beaver (MIT’s conservative satire site) published a real news item, linking a student paper editorial vociferously denouncing a recent Administration report supporting Free Expression.

Its author, the current president of the MIT undergraduate student body is a spectacular specimen of avidly ambitious, power-seeking leftism, like a baby rattlesnake, already fully-equipped with potentially lethal levels of poisonous ressentiment.

This kid, unfortunately, will be heard from in larger contexts in years to come.

[T]he Freedom of Expression report fails to properly consider, let alone assign weight to, the many places speech can occur. Should speech look different in an academic versus residential setting, considering the primary purposes of such places differ? Residential settings serve as students’ ultimate retreat. Unlike speech in the classroom or on the campus grounds where students can stay or exit as they see fit, speech in residential settings inherently has a captive audience. I would not expect it to be acceptable to barge into President Reif’s Gray House anytime I wish to voice my speech, nor should students be expected to have their homes violated in the same manner. More work and discussion is imperative to understand the implications of free speech in different scenarios, taking into account the time, place, and manner of the speech.

Second, the Freedom of Expression report fails to safeguard students against the harms of power differentials. The report believes “empowering our students to be confident advocates who refuse to be silenced” is the appropriate response to speech that chills or silences the voices of marginalized minority groups. I will offer one personal example to illustrate my argument. In spring 2022, I took a required Course 17 class where my teaching assistant said hurtful things to my classmates and me. For example, when I spoke about my queer identity, said TA berated me, asking,“What makes you a minority?” Never in my Latinx, immigrant, genderqueer, gay, disabled, low-income life would I imagine having to defend myself against such an invalidating question. I did not feel comfortable with the remarks of this TA, so I reported the behavior to my professor and department chair and filed a report through the Institute Discrimination and Harassment Response Office (IDHR). The result? My department chair never followed up on the matter. My professor leaked the contents of my email to the TA without my consent. IDHR told me they could not take action on the case. As a student, I could not continue with the class. What protections would I, as a student, have in a scenario like this? Is this the new hallmark of a MIT education?

Real or not, I had a sincerely held perception that I was not and could not be treated fairly in this class. I use this example to show that this Freedom of Expression report would allow my TA to say such harmful comments and to create a hostile academic environment and fails to protect a student like me from the harms of power differentials. While I would like to consider myself an okay exemplar of a “confident advocate,” I did not achieve an acceptable outcome to my situation. I can only imagine how students without my level of comfort in advocating for myself would fare in such a situation. A belief that students should simply advocate in the face of such situations negligently fails to wrestle with the unsettling realities behind power differentials. Such a belief fails students.

“You broke my heart, David French!”

Jeff Goldstein contemplates the aftermath of the election debacle by channeling The Godfather.

Just read it.

–An annual post–

WWI came to an end by an armistice arranged to occur at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. The date and time, selected at a point in history when mens’ memories ran much longer, represented a compliment to St. Martin, patron saint of soldiers, and thus a tribute to the fighting men of both sides. The feast day of St. Martin, the Martinmas, had been for centuries a major landmark in the European calendar, a date on which leases expired, rents came due; and represented, in Northern Europe, a seasonal turning point after which cold weather and snow might be normally expected.

It fell about the Martinmas-time, when the snow lay on the borders…
—Old Song.

From Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1869:

St. Martin, the son of a Roman military tribune, was born at Sabaria, in Hungary, about 316. From his earliest infancy, he was remarkable for mildness of disposition; yet he was obliged to become a soldier, a profession most uncongenial to his natural character. After several years’ service, he retired into solitude, from whence he was withdrawn, by being elected bishop of Tours, in the year 374.

The zeal and piety he displayed in this office were most exemplary. He converted the whole of his diocese to Christianity, overthrowing the ancient pagan temples, and erecting churches in their stead. From the great success of his pious endeavours, Martin has been styled the Apostle of the Gauls; and, being the first confessor to whom the Latin Church offered public prayers, he is distinguished as the father of that church. In remembrance of his original profession, he is also frequently denominated the Soldier Saint.

The principal legend, connected with St. Martin, forms the subject of our illustration, which represents the saint, when a soldier, dividing his cloak with a poor naked beggar, whom he found perishing with cold at the gate of Amiens. This cloak, being most miraculously preserved, long formed one of the holiest and most valued relics of France; when war was declared, it was carried before the French monarchs, as a sacred banner, and never failed to assure a certain victory. The oratory in which this cloak or cape—in French, chape—was preserved, acquired, in consequence, the name of chapelle, the person intrusted with its care being termed chapelain: and thus, according to Collin de Plancy, our English words chapel and chaplain are derived. The canons of St. Martin of Tours and St. Gratian had a lawsuit, for sixty years, about a sleeve of this cloak, each claiming it as their property. The Count Larochefoucalt, at last, put an end to the proceedings, by sacrilegiously committing the contested relic to the flames.

Another legend of St. Martin is connected with one of those literary curiosities termed a palindrome. Martin, having occasion to visit Rome, set out to perform the journey thither on foot. Satan, meeting him on the way, taunted the holy man for not using a conveyance more suitable to a bishop. In an instant the saint changed the Old Serpent into a mule, and jumping on its back, trotted comfortably along. Whenever the transformed demon slackened pace, Martin, by making the sign of the cross, urged it to full speed. At last, Satan utterly defeated, exclaimed:

Signa, te Signa: temere me tangis et angis:
Roma tibi subito motibus ibit amor.’

In English—

‘Cross, cross thyself: thou plaguest and vexest me without necessity;
for, owing to my exertions, thou wilt soon reach Rome, the object of thy wishes.’

The singularity of this distich, consists in its being palindromical—that is, the same, whether read backwards or forwards. Angis, the last word of the first line, when read backwards, forming signet, and the other words admitting of being reversed, in a similar manner.

The festival of St. Martin, happening at that season when the new wines of the year are drawn from the lees and tasted, when cattle are killed for winter food, and fat geese are in their prime, is held as a feast-day over most parts of Christendom. On the ancient clog almanacs, the day is marked by the figure of a goose; our bird of Michaelmas being, on the continent, sacrificed at Martinmas. In Scotland and the north of England, a fat ox is called a mart, clearly from Martinmas, the usual time when beeves are killed for winter use. In ‘Tusser’s Husbandry, we read:

When Easter comes, who knows not then,
That veal and bacon is the man?
And Martilmass beef doth bear good tack,
When country folic do dainties lack.’

Barnaby Googe’s translation of Neogeorgus, shews us how Martinmas was kept in Germany, towards the latter part of the fifteenth century

‘To belly chear, yet once again,
Doth Martin more incline,
Whom all the people worshippeth
With roasted geese and wine.
Both all the day long, and the night,
Now each man open makes
His vessels all, and of the must,
Oft times, the last he takes,
Which holy Martin afterwards
Alloweth to be wine,
Therefore they him, unto the skies,
Extol with praise divine.’

A genial saint, like Martin, might naturally be expected to become popular in England; and there are no less than seven churches in London and Westminster, alone, dedicated to him. There is certainly more than a resemblance between the Vinalia of the Romans, and the Martinalia of the medieval period. Indeed, an old ecclesiastical calendar, quoted by Brand, expressly states under 11th November: ‘The Vinalia, a feast of the ancients, removed to this day. Bacchus in the figure of Martin.’ And thus, probably, it happened, that the beggars were taken from St. Martin, and placed under the protection of St. Giles; while the former became the patron saint of publicans, tavern-keepers, and other ‘dispensers of good eating and drinking. In the hall of the Vintners’ Company of London, paintings and statues of St. Martin and Bacchus reign amicably together side by side.

On the inauguration, as lord mayor, of Sir Samuel Dashwood, an honoured vintner, in 1702, the company had a grand processional pageant, the most conspicuous figure in which was their patron saint, Martin, arrayed, cap-à-pie, in a magnificent suit of polished armour; wearing a costly scarlet cloak, and mounted on a richly plumed and caparisoned white charger: two esquires, in rich liveries, walking at each side. Twenty satyrs danced before him, beating tambours, and preceded by ten halberdiers, with rural music. Ten Roman lictors, wearing silver helmets, and carrying axes and fasces, gave an air of classical dignity to the procession, and, with the satyrs, sustained the bacchanalian idea of the affair.

A multitude of beggars, ‘howling most lamentably,’ followed the warlike saint, till the procession stopped in St. Paul’s Churchyard. Then Martin, or his representative at least, drawing his sword, cut his rich scarlet cloak in many pieces, which he distributed among the beggars. This ceremony being duly and gravely performed, the lamentable howlings ceased, and the procession resumed its course to Guildhall, where Queen Anne graciously condescended to dine with the new lord mayor.

“The strangest election I’ve even seen.”

Reacting on the Fox News Channel to the GOP’s underperformance in the 2022 midterms on Tuesday, economist Stephen Moore described what happened as perhaps the strangest election he’s ever seen in his long career.

Trace Gallagher introduced the segment by pointing out that polling suggested that the Democrats would be on the receiving end of a red-wave rout over the cost-of-living crisis.

“What’s your assessment?” he asked Moore, the FreedomWorks financial expert and former Trump advisor.

“I very seldom admit that I was wrong, but I was in that camp. I thought the Democrats would take a shellacking for what they’ve done to our country, with the four trillion dollars increase in government spending, and the runaway debt, and the runaway inflation,” Moore admitted. …

“But I’ve been in this game a long time, 35 years or so. This may be the strangest election I’ve ever seen, in this sense: We know the people are angry. They’re angry about inflation. They’re angry about the out-of-control border. They’re angry about crime and other issues. And yet, I don’t think they’re was a single incumbent in either party — I may be wrong about this, there may be one or two exceptions — not one incumbent governor or senator lost, which means the voters said, ‘whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.’”

RTWT

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Jim Hoft was disgusted:

In a normal time, in a normal country, voters would reject record gas prices, record inflation, record crime rates, war and corruption.

But not today.

Once again, Democrats proved they can survive anything as long as they have their fraud.

Americans reject every single dish the Democrats served. Yet, Democrats shocked Americans on Tuesday to win the US Senate, steal battleground states, and possibly keep the US Congress in Nancy Pelosi’s control, one of the most corrupt and dishonest politicians in US history.

Republicans dominated in states like Florida and Ohio, states Democrats have not yet stolen with their mail-in ballots, bloated voter rolls, ballot trafficking and manufacturing operations.

But Democrat John Fetterman, who never held a job and cannot form sentences, won in Pennsylvania. Colorado stole popular conservative Lauren Boebert’s seat with their mail-in voting. Georgia elected a Trump-hating governor but Marxist radical Raphael Warnock who likes to scream about whitey at his church won the first round of the Senate race. …

RTWT

HT: Vanderleun.

Founded November 10, 1775.

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Maj. Gen. John A. Lejeune’s Birthday Message

RPS ORDERS
No. 47 (Series 1921)
HEADQUARTERS U.S. MARINE CORPS
Washington, November 1, 1921

759. The following will be read to the command on the 10th of November, 1921, and hereafter on the 10th of November of every year. Should the order not be received by the 10th of November, 1921, it will be read upon receipt.

(1) On November 10, 1775, a Corps of Marines was created by a resolution of Continental Congress. Since that date many thousand men have borne the name “Marine”. In memory of them it is fitting that we who are Marines should commemorate the birthday of our corps by calling to mind the glories of its long and illustrious history.

(2) The record of our corps is one which will bear comparison with that of the most famous military organizations in the world’s history. During 90 of the 146 years of its existence the Marine Corps has been in action against the Nation’s foes. From the Battle of Trenton to the Argonne, Marines have won foremost honors in war, and is the long eras of tranquility at home, generation after generation of Marines have grown gray in war in both hemispheres and in every corner of the seven seas, that our country and its citizens might enjoy peace and security.

(3) In every battle and skirmish since the birth of our corps, Marines have acquitted themselves with the greatest distinction, winning new honors on each occasion until the term “Marine” has come to signify all that is highest in military efficiency and soldierly virtue.

(4) This high name of distinction and soldierly repute we who are Marines today have received from those who preceded us in the corps. With it we have also received from them the eternal spirit which has animated our corps from generation to generation and has been the distinguishing mark of the Marines in every age. So long as that spirit continues to flourish Marines will be found equal to every emergency in the future as they have been in the past, and the men of our Nation will regard us as worthy successors to the long line of illustrious men who have served as “Soldiers of the Sea” since the founding of the Corps.

JOHN A. LEJEUNE,
Major General Commandant

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The Magic of “a Few Good Men”

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The Old Corps

The first Marine took a long hard look at the second Marine and said, ” It wasn’t like that in the old Corps.”

An annual post.

Matt Yglesias gloats.

This was a bit of a monkey’s paw campaign for those of us who two years ago said Joe Biden could have a surprisingly successful presidency by boring the country to death, lowering the temperature on the culture war, and returning focus to brass tacks economic issues. Biden was pretty successful at delivering on that agenda, except the economic basics seemed to turn against him with inflation soaring and the national mood souring. Rather than the kitchen table, Democrats’ best issue was clearly abortion when the Supreme Court hung an albatross around Republicans’ necks.

Democrats ran lots of ads about abortion. Lots and lots and lots of ads.

To the point where a lot of people on both sides thought they were really fucking up by not doing more to be visibly addressing the crime and inflation issues that voters said was more important. I always thought the abortion-centric ad strategy was the right choice among the choices available, but I still didn’t really think it would work.

Yet looking around, I think you have to conclude that it did.

Democrats did better than I thought they would. They didn’t wildly outperform the polls or anything. But they did outperform the vibes. They outperformed the history of in-party midterm performances. They outperformed skepticism that surveyors know how to reach the public. And in several states where it counted, they outperformed Joe Biden.

RTWT

Andrew Bloody Sullivan actually came out for Republicans this time. And did it help?

Ha! The democrats nominated a drooling tattooed skinhead with a billy goat beard who campaigned in a hoodie for the Senate in my home state, and he won. I feel like Job.

Jim Geraghty sums up the debacle pretty well.

Well, that was awful. The much-touted red wave felt more like a red splash in a kiddie pool.

Don’t Let Anyone Tell You It Was an Okay Night for Republicans

No excuses, Republicans. Everyone thought you had just about the ideal issue environment for a midterm election, and the exit polls verified it. Seven in ten voters said they were “dissatisfied” or “angry” with the state of the country. Around three-quarters of voters nationally characterized the state of the economy as “poor” or “not good,” and the same amount said that inflation has caused them severe or moderate hardship. About two-thirds said that gas prices have been causing them hardship. You had parents livid about the learning loss in schools because of the long closures for Covid-19 and inappropriate materials in the curriculum. You had an unpopular president, who was such a liability that Democrats couldn’t let him go anywhere near a swing state.

And the nation, deeply dissatisfied with the way the Democrats were running things, looked at what the GOP offered as the alternative and concluded, “Nope, I’ll stick with what the Democrats are giving me” in a lot of key places.

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