Trump to win?

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

Sigh.

You do know Woody that there isn't a conspiracy behind EVERY tree don't you?

Maybe just every other?

"Oversaw the evolution of Google"

"Made possible because of this seed-funding and oversight from the three letter agencies"

Tangental, oblique, and several degrees of separation. At best.

In-Q-Tel has been in the Valley for nearly 2 decades. Openly. Same with Sofwerx in Florida near Macdill. Everyone wants the secret sauce to escape their suffocating bureaucratic inertia.

Stanford University has openly accepted funding(like many universities) from many different government sources(and been sued by government for spurious billing and excessively anal bean counters).

I networked with both fellow students who possess military backgrounds studying at other Stanford programs as well as had the opportunity to spend time with key staff at the Stanford Hacking 4 Defense program.

Was that a shadowy cabal intent on global control? Or was it far less exciting and focused on developing a persistent non kinetic problem solving framework to potentially save lives?

Are there questions around motives behind anti-trust lawsuits(and then the suits going away) against Microsoft in numerous jurisdictions that may relate to China's specific avoidance of Microsoft products?

Of course.

Just as there's questions related to Google's non market activity success(as well as the necessity/acceptability of political/governmental focused corporate strategy to achieve outcomes) navigating the failed earlier journey of Microsoft.

Everyone tries to connect with everyone in the Valley, or at least try.

The he old internet game of Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Separation seems a bit like NZ in a way, averaging only about 1.5-2.

I'm not as afraid as you.

Or I should say, not afraid of the same things.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_B7MzBmjaJ8

Maybe take heart in a group conversation I initiated with veterans from 5 organisations you would recognise as global thought/innovation/power leadership. I asked what the biggest catastrophic/funny failures were. After a few beers the stories came out.

Even the smartest person in the room sometimes walks right into a glass wall...literally.


As far as seed funding for Google you should contact Professor Ilya Strebulaev. He's got the world's biggest/best repository of Seed/Angel/VC investment data and is a heck of a nice/sharp guy.

Hey now, I made no claims of any woo woo stuff although woo woo there is. Just seconded your point with a bit more detail. You have more trust in the spooky folks than I, but the fact that these fellows burrow themselves into organizations of influence is hardly news. And everybody is afraid of something, no?

We're going to have to agree to disagree about this as a being tangential or oblique. Me, I think it's fundamental and is easily demonstrated. The Google of the 50s Hewlett-Packard started out in a similar fashion, with one really big client. Without their rich Uncle Sam, the valley would still be producing apples. And oranges too, as one would expect of the finest agricultural zones in California.

What sticks in my craw more is while Silicon Valley owes its very existence to the largess of government and as you say, is damn good at milking the cow, they carry on endlessly about their entrepreneurial excellence and similar prattle when really they're little different than those folks they revile as free riders.

Hope Window Walker turned out okay and I'm pleased to know your experience was as transformative as it seems. Keep sharing.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Trump to win?

Google has had excellent relations with the government even before it was Google. The Company and No Such Agency provided funding for Brin and Page in developing Google and senior US intelligence representatives oversaw the evolution of Google in their pre-launch phase, all the way until the company was ready to be founded. Google was made possible because of this seed-funding and oversight from the three letter agencies.

Sigh.

You do know Woody that there isn't a conspiracy behind EVERY tree don't you?

Maybe just every other?

"Oversaw the evolution of Google"

"Made possible because of this seed-funding and oversight from the three letter agencies"

Tangental, oblique, and several degrees of separation. At best.

In-Q-Tel has been in the Valley for nearly 2 decades. Openly. Same with Sofwerx in Florida near Macdill. Everyone wants the secret sauce to escape their suffocating bureaucratic inertia.

Stanford University has openly accepted funding(like many universities) from many different government sources(and been sued by government for spurious billing and excessively anal bean counters).

I networked with both fellow students who possess military backgrounds studying at other Stanford programs as well as had the opportunity to spend time with key staff at the Stanford Hacking 4 Defense program.

Was that a shadowy cabal intent on global control? Or was it far less exciting and focused on developing a persistent non kinetic problem solving framework to potentially save lives?

Are there questions around motives behind anti-trust lawsuits(and then the suits going away) against Microsoft in numerous jurisdictions that may relate to China's specific avoidance of Microsoft products?

Of course.

Just as there's questions related to Google's non market activity success(as well as the necessity/acceptability of political/governmental focused corporate strategy to achieve outcomes) navigating the failed earlier journey of Microsoft.

Everyone tries to connect with everyone in the Valley, or at least try.

The he old internet game of Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Separation seems a bit like NZ in a way, averaging only about 1.5-2.

I'm not as afraid as you.

Or I should say, not afraid of the same things.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_B7MzBmjaJ8

Maybe take heart in a group conversation I initiated with veterans from 5 organisations you would recognise as global thought/innovation/power leadership. I asked what the biggest catastrophic/funny failures were. After a few beers the stories came out.

Even the smartest person in the room sometimes walks right into a glass wall...literally.


As far as seed funding for Google you should contact Professor Ilya Strebulaev. He's got the world's biggest/best repository of Seed/Angel/VC investment data and is a heck of a nice/sharp guy.

[santafe2]

Re: Trump to win?

Everyone was so happy Monday that the Trumpster Fire could stay on message for an entire 24 hours. Well, no more waiting. We can relax now. Today he suggested that his gun totting followers could shoot her. Thankfully he later cleared this all up and said he was only joking.

“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish the Second Amendment,” Trump said to boos from the crowd.
“By the way, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do folks,” he then added.
“Though the Second Amendment folks, maybe there is, I don’t know.”

[Woodsman]

Re: Trump to win?

Talking to some relatively senior folks at Google recently, they explain it as lessons learned from Microsoft's poor relations with government in the 90's as an example of "what not to do" regarding non market activity.

The Google guys I was in class with stated that Google made non market activity(government relations, lobbying, regulatory activity) a core competency very early on.

I don't like it or agree with it, but it has worked very successfully so far.

Google has had excellent relations with the government even before it was Google. The Company and No Such Agency provided funding for Brin and Page in developing Google and senior US intelligence representatives oversaw the evolution of Google in their pre-launch phase, all the way until the company was ready to be founded. Google was made possible because of this seed-funding and oversight from the three letter agencies.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Trump to win?

Google Obama revolving door. Wonder what it will be if Hillary gets elected?

http://watchdog.org/265844/google-obama-revolving-door/

Talking to some relatively senior folks at Google recently, they explain it as lessons learned from Microsoft's poor relations with government in the 90's as an example of "what not to do" regarding non market activity.

The Google guys I was in class with stated that Google made non market activity(government relations, lobbying, regulatory activity) a core competency very early on.

I don't like it or agree with it, but it has worked very successfully so far.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Google Obama revolving door. Wonder what it will be if Hillary gets elected?

http://watchdog.org/265844/google-obama-revolving-door/

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

DNC body count up to three:

http://townhall.com/columnists/rache...y-die-n2203000

It's not for nothing that I call her Lady MacBeth.

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

DNC body count up to three:

http://townhall.com/columnists/rache...y-die-n2203000

[touchring]

Re: Trump to win?

Is Hillary Clinton Corrupt? An Archive of Financial Improprieties

(naaaah... nothing to see there.... move along...)


Sanders Supporters Stunned by Sudden Death of 38-Year Shawn Lucas Who Served the Lawsuit on the DNC and Wasserman Shultz

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 8, 2016

Corruption appears to be acceptable as long as Americans and American corporations are in control, but there are foreign forces that are willing to pay a much higher bribe than Soros, his friends and American NGOs.

How about a 1 billion dollar bribe in cash, gold or diamonds + a private island thrown in for free in return for a free trade agreement?

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

Is Hillary Clinton Corrupt? An Archive of Financial Improprieties

(naaaah... nothing to see there.... move along...)


Sanders Supporters Stunned by Sudden Death of 38-Year Shawn Lucas Who Served the Lawsuit on the DNC and Wasserman Shultz

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: August 8, 2016

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

"The Washington Post awarded Mrs. Clinton four Pinocchios for her falsehood in the Wallace interview. But the New York Times didn’t even cover the story until its public editor, Liz Spayd, wrote a blog post Tuesday titled “The Clinton Story You Didn’t Read Here.” Ms. Spayd observed: “If you’re getting all your political news from the New York Times, this may be the first time you’re hearing this."

On Friday Mrs. Clinton had a chance to revise her comments when a reporter asked her: “Are you mischaracterizing Director Comey’s testimony and is this not undercutting your efforts to rebuild trust with the American people?”

Her reply: “Director Comey had said that my answers in my FBI interview were truthful. That’s really the bottom line here and I have said during the interview and in many other occasions over the past few months, that what I told the FBI, which he said was truthful, is consistent with what I have said publicly. So I may have short-circuited and for that, I, you know, will try to clarify.”

A writer for the left-of-center website Slate called Mrs. Clinton’s comments a “master class in obfuscation” and “an awkward journey of dissembling and lawyerly quibbling.” A spokesman for Mr. Trump called it a “painful, pretzel-like response.”

Mrs. Clinton’s short-circuiting of the truth on Friday also included a repetition of her false claim that “I never sent or received anything that was marked classified.” Mr. Comey testified that she did, and added that in any case “participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.”

Clintonian obfuscation won’t hide the reason she set up her private email server in her basement. She publicly claimed it was for “convenience,” so that she could use a single device for her work and personal emails, but Mr. Comey confirmed she used multiple devices. Mrs. Clinton disclosed the real reason in a 2010 email that came to light later. “I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible,” she wrote her State Department advisers. She chose to evade the requirement that her work emails be on State’s servers because that would have made them accessible to the public under disclosure laws.

The result is that her emails are available—just not to Americans. Contrary to Mrs. Clinton’s claim that “there were no security breaches,” security experts agree China, Russia and unknown others hacked into all 63,000 emails on the home-brew server—including the 33,000 she failed to provide under court order.

The timeline suggests after Russia hacked Mrs. Clinton’s emails, its spies decided to complete their knowledge of Mrs. Clinton’s relationships by hacking the Clinton Foundation, State Department and Democratic National Committee. Unless a friendly spy agency that hacked Mrs. Clinton’s emails does Americans a favor by publishing them before the election, if she is elected Vladimir Putin will have the capacity to blackmail her at will."

L. Gordon Crovitz 8/7/2016

[vt]

Re: Trump to win?

Drug Testing Presidential Candidates

http://blog.dilbert.com/post/1485992...ial-candidates

And this:

http://theamericanmirror.com/shock-p...helped-stairs/

2012:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us...lood-clot.html

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

and i'll just leave this here....

MF Global 5 Years Later: PWC Set To Take The Fall As Corzine Still Untouched

Jon Corzine, former Governor of New Jersey and CEO of Goldman Sachs, took over the helm of MF Global in March 2010. When revenue at the bank failed to live up to expectations, Corzine developed a scheme to place a massive $6BN bet on the sovereign debt of the aptly named PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) through a financial structure known as a "Repo to Maturity". To summarize the strategy for all you aspiring CEO's, when you find it difficult to generate organic revenue growth sometimes the better option is to just bet your entire firm on a single, massively-levered trade on the sovereign debt of countries on the verge of insolvency.
Well, not so much. Deterioration of the Eurozone economies in mid-2011 resulted in massive margin calls on Corzine's trade and a liquidity crisis at MF Global. By the time the dust settled there was $1.6BN of cash "missing" from customer accounts which should have been segregated. And with that, less than 2 years after Mr. Corzine took the CEO seat, MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection on October 31, 2011 in the Southern District of New York.
We know what you're thinking...sounds reckless to risk an entire firm on the highly volatile sovereign debt of a group of countries labeled the "PIIGS", right? Well apparently it's not that big of a deal unless you're the scapegoat accountants.
Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Victor Marrero of New York denied PwC’s motion for dismissal of a $1 billion professional malpractice suit filed by MF Global against the accounting firm saying that the administrator had "presented sufficient evidence to create a material factual dispute" as to whether advice from PwC ultimately played a role in the bankruptcy filing. According to the WSJ:

MF Global sued PwC in March 2014 for at least $1 billion, alleging that the firm’s accounting advice helped cause MF Global’s 2011 collapse. Officials in charge of MF Global’s liquidation claimed PwC gave “flatly erroneous” advice on how to account for the European sovereign debt that tipped MF Global into bankruptcy.

MF Global’s lawsuit against PwC claims the accounting firm’s advice is what allowed Mr. Corzine to make such a big bet in the first place, a charge PwC has denied.

In a 69-page decision, the judge said the administrator “has presented sufficient evidence to create a material factual dispute” as to whether PwC’s accounting advice played a role in MF Global’s bankruptcy in the fall of 2011.

“This is a major victory for the MF Global estate,” said Nader Tavakoli, MF Global’s lead director. “It sends a strong message concerning the need for responsibility and accountability, and we hope to secure a substantial recovery for MF Global’s stakeholders.”

Daniel Fetterman, a lawyer from Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP who is representing MF Global, called the ruling a “significant victory” in the legal fight.

“We look forward to presenting at trial the evidence concerning PwC’s extraordinary and egregious malpractice alleged in the complaint and its role in causing MF Global’s demise,” he said.

For its part, PwC has maintained that reckless trading decisions and "adverse market conditions" were the real cause of the bankruptcy filing, not faulty accounting of the trades.

In response, James P. Cusick, PwC’s lawyer, said the accounting firm stands by its work for MF Global, and that the commodity broker correctly accounted for the so-called repo-to-maturity transactions at issue in the lawsuit.

“MF Global’s collapse was caused by its own business decisions and adverse market events, not any accounting determination” said Mr. Cusick, a litigator at King & Spalding.

Lesson learned. If you commit a murder it's the gun's fault, if you gain 20 lbs it's the fork's fault and if you place a massively levered trade that blows up your firm then it's the accountant's fault. After all, it's not the losses of a failed trade that caused the liquidity crisis at MF Global but rather the timing of the realization of those losses that are truly to blame.
As for Jon Corzine, last we heard he was trying to raise capital for a new hedge fund (one which may have trouble getting a primary dealer designation) and we are confident he will succeed for two reasons.
Reason #1:


And Reason #2:

* * *

For those interested, the full decision can be read here...

and here's a tasty little nugget:

If The Fact Neocons Are Now Supporting Hillary Clinton Confuses You, Read This

It kinda feels like reality has slipped off its axis and we’ve landed on a Bizarro World version of America. Democrats are acting like Republicans. Pat Buchanan is championing the GOP’s “Peace Candidate.” And the Neocons are fleeing from a party they’ve used like a geopolitical cudgel for the better part of three decades. Neo-confused? Don't be...In a word — it’s Russia.

uh huh... Riiiiight...

Trump Was Right? Obama Admits US Must Partner With Russia To Beat ISIS

Well this is a little awkward. Following John Kerry's "seeking cooperation" apology tour to Moscow, President Obama appears to be following the path that Donald Trump has suggested as Military.com reports, Obama said Thursday at the Pentagon that The United States must try to broker a deal with Russia to coordinate military operations in Syria and drive the Islamic State group out of that country. Perhaps he had not checked with Hillary on Putin's apparent level of 'Hitler-iness' or perhaps, just perhaps, Trump was right in suggesting diplomatic efforts before bombast, and warmongery?

• Aug 7, 2016 2:35 PM

but....

if ya really must know?

The Warren Buffett Economy: How Central-Bank-Enabled Financialization Divided America

Needless to say, the above outlandish graph does not capture capitalism at work. Nor did the speculators who surfed upon this $45 trillion bubble harvest their monumental windfalls owing to investment genius. Instead, it is the perverted fruit of Bubble Finance, and there is no better illustration of this bubble surfer syndrome than the sainted Warren Buffett.

Submitted by David Stockman via Contra Corner blog,

• Aug 7, 2016 3:00 PM

which is why ole uncle warren is just the latest to pile-on top of the donald...

since 'he's a loose cannon', ya know

[lektrode]

Re: Trump to win?

dup deleted...
(apparently the 'bugs' are back in the posting process...
which likely doesnt have anything to do with this....)

[shiny!]

Re: Trump to win?

even if a 3rd party got 40% of the vote i would be skeptical of its electoral college success. to win, a candidate must win STATES.

Agreed, but there's more to this election than the presidential race. There are senators and congressional representatives on the ballot, too. 3rd party wins in congress now can can be the camel's nose under the tent for 2020. It's still a longshot but it's better than doing nothing.