keyser soze Profile picture
better than it ever was
eDo Profile picture Adam Smithee Profile picture 2 subscribed
Mar 25 4 tweets 1 min read
Just a guess, but $175mm in liquidity above the $90+mm he posted for the Carroll bond is still a lot.

But $175mm well in range where a corrupt bargain can be had.

Not sure if Jeff Yass would pay $175mm for joint custody of Donny’s balls…but it’s 100% certain someone will. Another factor is the appellate court won’t even hear this until Fall 2024, seems reasonable it stretches into 2025.

And how, exactly, would NY AG seize the assets of a POTUS if Armageddon happens & this asshole is elected? He’d use armed Secret Service to guard the fortresses.
Mar 23 5 tweets 2 min read
Middle of a detailed 🧵

In essence Trump’s position is subject to a 6 month lockup provision.

But not all provisions are the same; some allow hedging or immunizing risk via options or OTC swaps. This one leaves no daylight. Trump is boxed.

As @WendySiegelman has noted, there could be exotic approaches to “shorting against the box” such as a stealth PIPE issuance of DJT stock next week (as @quantian1 suggests as well)

Here’s the problem: the stock has very little institutional ownership in the float & the borrow to short shares is scarce & expensive.
Feb 29 4 tweets 1 min read
Another reminder you’re not voting for one old guy vs. other old guy. Forget ageism for this reason:

Presidents appoint or staff the ~4,500 highest positions in the federal government. A high functioning team is critical.

Today I ring a SCOTUS ⏰ bell. Consider next vacancies… Inauguration Day, Jan 20, 2025 Clarence Thomas will be 76, Samuel Alito will be 74.

Biden wins, 100% they stay put. Trump wins? Better than fair odds they both retire to ensure an enduring SCOTUS conservative supermajority.

THAT’D MEAN A CAREER CRIMINAL WOULD APPOINT 2 MORE.
Aug 26, 2023 14 tweets 3 min read
So I looked this up b/c I’m a glutton for all things offshore dodgy…sometimes I can learn something from it. Not this time.

This ⬇️ is technically incorrect. VR used a shell corp structure popularized in the early 1990s by the first Reg D investors in Ireland via offshore HFs. VR wasn’t an entrepreneur, he’s not a founder of a single entity outside of the shell corp.

He *rolled down* distressed companies into the shell corp via reverse merger structures, then funded same via preferred equity or convertible bond private placements under Regulation D.
Nov 6, 2022 9 tweets 8 min read
Yes, @DrOz is a doctor. The street term for the likes of him is *candyman*

Need a hit? @DrOz has your digital *defund the police* meth hit.

@DrOz isn’t just a garden variety bullshit machine politician. He’s a drug dealer. He deals digital opiates. And this is just precious. This is the digital meth public health crisis exemplar of our times.

@TuckerCarlson works for the Murdoch cartel. @FoxNews is the vessel. Tucker is a supplier, a pusher. His show is a digital meth 💉 house.

@AdamLaxalt is a digital meth street dealer.
Nov 5, 2022 6 tweets 5 min read
Please take the time to read this (very long) gift article.

And don’t be confused about the subject matter:

Murdoch is a drug lord
@FoxNews the enterprise is a supplier
@FoxNews pundits, radio talk show hosts & some Congress electeds are dealers.

The drugs are digital opiates. These mugs are drug dealers.

Some such as @TuckerCarlson control digital meth houses (their 📺 & talk radio audiences are hermetically sealed bubbles).

Some, including members of Congress including @RepMTG & @tedcruz are penny bag 💉 street dealers.

They deal digital opiates.
Nov 5, 2022 9 tweets 5 min read
Final Georgia EV update:

Exclamation point on Friday: +244K
EV total = nominally over 2.5mm

Context: Warnock campaign aspired to a 2.1mm EV cycle target. Anything >2.3mm = terrific, anything >2.4mm = almost unthinkable.

And then 2.5mm happened.

Gender spread? Women +10 !!!! Context most favorable to Walker: Old Dixiecrats (white men & women >50yrs) showed up huge. Older white voters, both wealthy suburban & rural, are the largest % participation rate strata by a large measure.

Walker campaign did everything it needed to do to feed the MAGA beast…
Sep 17, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
My Washington Post subscription allows me to share access to great journalism. Check out this gift article, at no cost to you.

Read here: wapo.st/3UfXvtL FL exercised savvy tactics. They’re technically not spending federal $. What happened is DeSantis stonewalled disbursements of COVID relief federal $ Congress appropriated & FL received. Then FL put those $ in the state’s general fund, now DeSantis is spending earned interest.
Jul 12, 2022 12 tweets 3 min read
Toxic truth:

Madoff was not a pure Ponzi scheme. It was a 15 year ledger of imaginary trades resulting in nominal principal side losses. >80% of LP $ recovered.

3AC is a pure Ponzi scheme. All of the equity capital is gone by way of principal losses. 0% will be recovered.

/1
Why/how were most of Madoff investors’ losses recovered?

1. Madoff didn’t do real trades & lose.
2. Remuneration Madoff took were commissions on imaginary trades. No mgmt fee, no 20% carry. So on total capital, his rake was modest as a % of capital (albiet still 10s of millions)
Feb 24, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
US can’t unilaterally take Russia off the SWIFT system. Sadly, not all EUR allies on board yet. SWIFT is for non $US transactions which, if into $US, involve US banks as *correspondent banks*

That last part is gone & (at least) $2tn in assets are frozen now. That’s huge. Its correct behind dispute that what Biden did just now goes well beyond SWIFT. Basically no $US balances or assets can move now. That is an umbrella over all oligarchs’ balances, mortgages/commercial loans & securities & other securitized holdings.

Russia, Inc. is now insolvent
Dec 26, 2021 18 tweets 4 min read
Last of the Wall St bonus clearing this week or next depending on your tax choices. Thinking about starting your own fund?

Some unsolicited free advice worth a, well, hopefully of some well meaning help.

Some basic rules: 1. On your desk float what you are considering to your boss(es). Successful people in this biz know that talented people want to seek their own shot & respect that. If you find your bosses don’t respond well, you’re in a bad place anyways & that’s worth knowing.
Jun 11, 2021 5 tweets 1 min read
Political scores settling & self ambitions of DoJ individuals began decades ago.

“Sounds like your bunny has a good nose” Robert Freeman said on a recorded line jokingly to a Boesky friend. Rudy had him frog walked across the Goldman Sachs trading floor. Freeman went to prison. Freeman’s incidents were daily bread for Rudy’s shameless self promotion era as SDNY head.

After that Rudy became Mayor of NYC & at one point was the led the GOP primaries to become the nominee for President.

That was small ball compared to what Jeff Sessions & Bill Barr did.
Jun 6, 2021 11 tweets 3 min read
There’s a simple way to protect voting rights: @SocialSecurity can issue voter picture ID cards for every American at age 18, each can administer a burden to go to a US Post office for picture taken at no cost. Biden admin can reprogram some unspent COVID bill $ for it. Done. End the GOP fever dream over stiffing poor people w/out drivers’ licenses.

When you’re born you get a SS number & card. That’s your US taxpayer franchise card for life. That includes the accruals you have to pay for Medicare, UIB & SS bens from W-2 earnings for life.
Jan 30, 2021 8 tweets 3 min read
Finally! Someone not named @SamAntar noticed.

From 1990-2010, know what SEC did?

Lose. They bungled around & lost. That peaked with the botched Quattrone case. Oh, & Madoff wasn’t caught; he confessed after making fools of them for 25yrs.

After that their playbook changed. /1 The SEC doesn’t pick fights they can lose.

It the accused is deep pocketed, well lawyered they don’t fight. They posture, they bullshit & then they settle. Settlements include no admissions of guilt, but do yield civil monetary penalties for the @USTreasury. That’s their *win*.
Jan 29, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
Time for clarity: the Fed did not bail out LTCM in 1998. The Fed brokered a consortium of the largest Wall St clearing brokers (the so called Magnificent Seven) to purchase LTCM’s positions outright.

Technically it was a bailout of Bear Stearns, LTCM’s primary clearing broker. Clearing brokers are exposed to position losses when clients *go debit*, i.e. lose > than the equity in their account. It’s illegal to cross contaminate other customer $ to cover those losses (shout out to Jon Corzine & MF Global!), so it’s a scary problem for clearing firms.
Jan 28, 2021 7 tweets 2 min read
For once I’m going to say something nice about Jay *I got you without admissions or denials* Clayton - here, in one sentence, he makes a cogent & brilliant argument to shutter SEC/FINRA as structured. Check the text of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the Securities Act of 1933, the Dodd Frank mandate language for the SEC as an admin agency & the formation mandate for FINRA as an SRO for the part that speculation = bad/unlawful or speculators are bad actors.

It ain’t there.
Nov 25, 2020 20 tweets 4 min read
Are at least 3 GOP Senators guilty of conspiracy to commit stock fraud (the real term for insider trading)?

Yes.

Will any be charged?

Not a chance. Mad? Good. Get it right.

There are 2 very important reasons for this.

1. SROs,
2. Administrative federal agency regulators. Suppose you know of an insider trading scheme & would like to make a referral. The advice you’d get it report that to the SEC. The SEC would then refer you to FINRA. What’s that? FINRA is a self regulatory organization (a.k.a. SRO). FINRA isn’t a gov’t agency, it’s a private org.
Sep 23, 2020 20 tweets 5 min read
[thread] Court packing may be the best thing for the judicial branch but would be an abject social disaster in 2021.

There’s another way. Think like a trader: assume it goes FUBAR & manage the 3 most toxic risks:
1. Duration risk
2. Vega
2. Kurtosis

This translates to politics. The judicial branch has gone FUBAR. Federal judges are being appointed younger, they’re on average older & sticking around longer. That locks in generational dogma & political toxicity when *the trend isn’t your friend* via partisan war games.

fjc.gov/history/exhibi…
Sep 21, 2020 4 tweets 1 min read
For those among us who don’t believe in coincidences:

Cy Vance’s reply brief in the 2nd Circuit Trump vs. Vance tax records case is due today. The hearing is Friday. The decision (100% likely adverse to Trump) likely to be a few days after that.

Hello October surprise. “But it could be months before they can review all of the tens of thousands of pages of records & then present to a grand jury”

Not when you already have the loaned records know exactly what you’re looking for inside those tax returns. Vance already has the Deutsche records.
Sep 4, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read
In plain English, this is why the reported unemployment rate is dropping & why it is wrong.

There’s >5mm Americans who have been unemployed since March, but haven’t been counted as such. They fall in 2 categories according to @BLS_gov.

These are: 1. they don’t/shouldn’t count as unemployed b/c PPP created a temporary stay on their status. Well, that has closed out now,
2. version 2.0 of this bullshit is @BLS_gov now states it’s unfair to count them in the workforce b/c they are discouraged to seek jobs during a pandemic.
Sep 3, 2020 24 tweets 6 min read
Bill Barr set the table for 2+ decades worth of fraudulent scholarship in just 2 minutes.

How did he do it? I call this the Allen Stanford Paradox.

Fraud & fraudsters ALWAYS have these essential ingredients:

/1 1. Their carriers are credible people with high status, social prestige.
2. Their message, their edge, is always very simple, understandable, easily digested & repeatable.
3. They are well educated, decorated in high degrees & other formal credentials to hold over their audience.