Anonymous ID: 2f18b4 Jan. 26, 2019, 6:20 a.m. No.4915133   🗄️.is 🔗kun

Bailing Out Member States: The European (Dis)Union

 

Over the years, my good friends at Capitalist Exploits (I highly recommend subscribing) have put together a number of outstanding thought pieces on where they see things headed.

 

They recently came out with a great overview of where Europe is headed. The trends they highlight are both interesting and actionable for those willing to put the time into thinking through the consequences of the new “Strongmen of Europe.” The EU has now had a decade of economic crisis and is slowly moving from economic crisis towards a full-fledged political crisis which will be its ultimate undoing. There will naturally be many actionable trades along the way. Most important amongst these will be;

 

Increased inflation

 

Issues with energy security

 

Increased national sovereignty

 

Ultimate breakup of the EU

 

Having a roadmap, gives you the ability to stay a few steps ahead of events with your positioning. With that in mind, I suggest you read the roadmap from Capitalist Exploits. While I don’t agree with everything that they point out, it is those minor disagreements that make late night Skype calls so interesting…

What Lies In Store For 2019 - Specific Focus: The European (dis)Union

 

There is so much going on that it can be hard to know where to look without throwing your hands up in the air and saying, “oh fuck it, I give up”. The problem is ignoring problems doesn’t make them go away, and if we get it wrong, we could end up seriously regretting decisions made today.

 

I’ll be honest with you, we’ve spent time reviewing much of what is taking place in the world at the moment. Not here with you, but with my team and often inside my wee head, hunched over my keyboard at 1AM after tossing and turning annoying my gorgeous wife and getting out of bed to look into something that’s bugging me and keeping me from sleep.

 

Much of what passes across my desk never makes it to the pages of Capitalist Exploits.. Quantity is not quality, and our capacity to take in and make sense of too much information has a tendency to rapidly invoke overwhelm.

 

In this service I attempt to tread the fine line between bringing to you what we feel is important, without drowning you in too much information and overwhelming your ability to keep up.

 

Onward…

 

I’m not sure what the most important topic to focus on is… but I do believe there are some that are more important than others. In the “important” category we feel that the Eurozone stands out like a diamond in goat shit.

 

Many may disagree with this assessment, and, if we scan the headlines during the course of 2018, we could have spent a godawful amount of time trying to figure out how the Ruskies colluded to bring Trump to power, or if they did so at all. We could have further - even more importantly - spent time figuring out whether this would have any

 

impact on investment markets or not. We could have spent an even ungodlier amount of time focussed on little Kim and his stated ambitions to nuke the “Great Satan”.

 

Probably more important than the aforementioned “non events” but staying in Asia, the fact that China completely ignored international law and has now all but secured the South China Seas, building military installations including missile shelters and aircraft runways, surely deserves attention.

 

Who cares about some little uninhabited islands anyway?

 

It’s not so much the islands but the fact that military installations on them extend Beijing’s powers substantially, and most importantly Beijing has now de facto secured control over the goods traded through these waters. This has all happened while the world has been caught up worrying about how badly May will botch Brexit, Russian bots, and which of the 598 genders we’re now supposed to call someone who refuses to acknowledge their biology.

 

Astounding!

 

For example, over 30% of global oil moves through the South China seas. Why this isn’t on everyone’s radar is pretty astounding to us here at Capitalist Exploits HQ.

long read this only a third of it.

rest at

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-25/bailing-out-member-states-european-disunion

Anonymous ID: 2f18b4 Jan. 26, 2019, 6:34 a.m. No.4915230   🗄️.is 🔗kun

>>4915211

it doesn't work that way but understand the sentiment. have comped bakers quite often and they rarely allow anything related to finance, i.e. insider sales-even if they are nominated, to be made notable. Matters not to me as as long moar eyes see it.

Anonymous ID: 2f18b4 Jan. 26, 2019, 6:46 a.m. No.4915341   🗄️.is 🔗kun

CalPERS’ Story About Sudden “Resignation” of Star Hire Elisabeth Bourqui Falls Apart as Bourqui Comes to Board Meeting With Heavyweight Employment Lawyer

 

On Tuesday, we learned that CalPERS’ former Chief Operating Investment Officer, Elisabeth Bourqui, who resigned suddenly in early January, attended the CalPERS offsite in Rohnert Park, with heavyweight employment lawyer Elisa Stewart of Stewart & Musell at her side in the morning (Bourqui’s husband joined her in the afternoon). Bourqui declined to speak to the press and public but was giving her card to interested board members.

 

Recall that Bourqui’s sudden departure didn’t smell right. CalPERS made no announcement; members of the press found out via employees leaking the e-mail sent by the new Chief Investment Officer, Ben Meng. As we wrote then:

 

The fact that Bourqui left without any transition or advance warning means it is well nigh certain that she had a dispute with Marcie Frost. Recall that the departures of the head of private equity, Real Desrochers, the former Chief Operating Investment Officer Wylie Tollette, and Chief Investment Officer Ted Eloupoulos were all announced in advance.

 

Initial reports indicated that Bourqui was well liked and well respected by employees, so it seems inconceivable that her performance was sub-par. It seems pretty clear what the real issue was. As one said:

 

There is no way this is not about private equity.

 

By contrast, when Bourqui’s predecessor, Wylie Tollette, left, CalPERS issued the usual sort of press release, explaining why he was leaving, describing his accomplishments, including CEO Marcie Frost heaping a full paragraph of praise on him. Even in less friendly departures, the norm for an executive is a press release, with a terse explanation of the reason for leaving (“for personal reasons” or “to spend time with their family” is code for a defenestration). The lack of any official statement whatsoever suggests the circumstances of the exodus were so ugly that the employer wasn’t willing to spend the time to negotiate a minimal statement. 1

 

Even though the Ben Meng e-mail of January 7 started, “Elisabeth Bourqui has submitted her resignation as CalPERS Chief Operating Investment Officer (COIO) effective today,” tellingly, CEO Marcie Frost was using a different formulation to stakeholders on Tuesday: “I didn’t fire her.”

 

Bourqui’s remarkable public appearance sends a strong message that she didn’t regard her departure as voluntary and intends to Do Something about that. And Frost’s statement is awfully convenient. It leaves open the question as to whether someone else fired Bourqui, or whether she technically wasn’t fired, but was “rejected on probation,” which the term of art for how California civil service employees who have not finished the one-year probationary period are terminated.2

 

Bourqui had been at CalPERS for only eight months. Since she was on probation, her protection from dismissal is limited. If she were to appeal to the State Personnel Board, she would have the burden of proof. Normally the grounds for contesting a release from probation are discrimination, fraud….and retaliation. A source told us that Bouqui had raised serious issues about the private equity plan, and via a second channel, we understand that Bourqui objected to Frost and other senior staff members about how they were pushing the board to adopt the plan.

____

CALPERS is a ticking time bomb along with SRS in Illinois. They represent the top of the under-funded pension/retirement vehicles at the state level.

 

rest at

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/01/calpers-story-sudden-resignation-star-hire-elisabeth-bourqui-falls-apart-bourqui-comes-board-meeting-heavyweight-employment-lawyer.html