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Strategies & Market Trends : The Financial Collapse of 2001 Unwinding -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (9577)	10/14/2022 2:15:00 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 13876

We're there in many places a simple building permit for ANYTHING takes a year + here in Hawaii. All Hail the great State of Hawaii

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (9577)	10/14/2022 3:28:01 PM
From: Broken_Clock	1 Recommendation Recommended By elmatador Respond to of 13876

Imagine you live in a 3rd world country trying to pass itself off as the "City on a hill" Atlanta Fed President Reveals Five Years Of Trading Violations; Claims He "Didn't Understand" Disclosure Obligations by Tyler Durden Friday, Oct 14, 2022 - 09:23 AM One year after the Fed was rocked by a trading scandal which cost the jobs of three Fed henchmen, including Dallas and Boston Fed presidents, Kaplan and Rosengren, and Fed vice-chair Richard Clarida (who couldn't wait to leave his job so he can go back to Pimco) after financial disclosures showed they had been trading extensively in individual stocks in 2020 during a period in which the Fed engaged in extraordinary market interventions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, moments ago Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic joined the club of inglorious Fed traders when he revealed he had improperly disclosed financial transactions for the past five years because he incorrectly interpreted policies governing personal investments. As the WSJ reports, according to amended disclosures filed Friday, dozens of sales or purchases of mutual funds and other investment vehicles by Bostic hadn’t previously been disclosed. Adding insult to injury, more than 150 of those transactions had settled on dates when they weren’t allowed because they were during blackout periods before and after Fed policy meetings. And the cherry on top: last year Bostic also held more than $50,000 in Treasury securities, exceeding the then-permitted limit on such holdings for Fed officials. In other words, the first black and openly gay president of the Atlanta Fed was flaunting and violating pretty much every rule imaginable. His excuse? It was "inadvertent." Said otherwise, he is sorry he got caught. Bostic said the lapses were due to his flawed interpretation of central bank policies. He said he had sought to correct his filings and overhaul how he manages his personal accounts “as soon as I became aware that my financial reporting did not meet the expressed or implicit expectations necessary to maintain the public’s trust.” He added, “At no time did I knowingly authorize or complete a financial transaction based on nonpublic information or with any intent to conceal or sidestep my obligations of transparent and accountable reporting.” In a statement Friday, Bostic said that he was not aware of the specific trades or timing of the transactions, which were made by a third party manager in accounts where he did not have ability to direct trades. He detailed the transactions in corrected disclosure forms posted to the Atlanta Fed’s website. “I take very seriously my responsibility to be transparent about my financial transactions and to avoid any actual or perceived conflicts of interest,” Bostic said in the statement adding that he "sincerely regrets" if his actions raise questions (they do). So "seriously" that it took Bostic one year after the Fed's trading scandal to go over his own disclosures and find that pretty much nothing had been disclosed in them. The chairwoman of the Atlanta Fed’s board, Elizabeth Smith, said the board had accepted Bostic’s explanation and that the directors were confident Mr. Bostic hadn’t sought to profit from any private policy-setting deliberations. “We are satisfied with his revised financial disclosures and the changes he has made in managing his investments,” Smith said in a statement released Friday. “The board is also satisfied that President Bostic has established procedures to ensure that future violations do not occur.” Statement from Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Board Chair Elizabeth A. Smith For immediate release: October 14, 2022 The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's board of directors has been made aware of inaccuracies in President Raphael Bostic's forms that disclose his personal financial assets and transactions. Furthermore, we learned of transactions that took place during blackout periods and of holdings that violated guidelines set out by the Federal Open Market Committee, or FOMC. After reviewing the documents and discussing these issues with President Bostic and the Atlanta Fed's chief ethics officer, the board acknowledges the violations and accepts President Bostic's explanation. My board colleagues and I have confidence in President Bostic's explanation that he did not seek to profit from any FOMC-related knowledge. The directors appreciate that President Bostic has thoroughly corrected his financial forms, going back to when he first joined the Atlanta Fed. We are satisfied with his revised financial disclosures and the changes he has made in managing his investments. The board is also satisfied that President Bostic has established procedures to ensure that future violations do not occur. We are also aware that the Office of Inspector General for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System will review this matter. We welcome this review and will cooperate fully to ensure this matter is effectively resolved. In response to the Fed's latest trading scandal, Jerome Powell had asked its inspector general to conduct an independent review. “We look forward to the results of their work and will accept and take appropriate actions based on their findings,” said a Fed spokesperson. Powell unveiled sweeping personal-investing restrictions on senior officials a year ago to address the stock-trading controversy. Those restrictions took effect earlier this year, and Bostic’s violations were uncovered by Fed ethics officials in Washington as part of a review of officials’ disclosures this year. In other words, contrary to his excuse, it wasn't a voluntary disclosure but instead Bostic merely got caught. As the WSJ reports, since becoming the bank’s president in 2017, Bostic placed his financial holdings into accounts managed by a third party that neither he nor his personal investment adviser had the ability to direct. Bostic said he had taken these steps in an effort to avoid conflicts of interest. But in a seven-page letter disclosing the violations, Bostic said he had recently learned that while he didn’t have the ability to direct individual trades, those trades should have been listed on his disclosures. Moreover, Bostic said the third-party manager had conducted transactions during restricted periods even though such transactions were approved outside of those so-called blackout periods. Bostic’s disclosures also showed dozens of transactions—none of them in individual stocks—during the most turbulent periods in March and April 2020.

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (9577)	10/14/2022 5:25:19 PM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Respond to of 13876

Actually HD is a wonderful place to work... Nothing like the Victorian ideal you post... You really are so DEAD WRONG on this one... like sooooo dead wrong

To: Elroy Jetson who wrote (9577)	10/14/2022 7:07:13 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 13876

Europe Begs Africa for Natural Gas by Porter and Company Friday, Oct 14, 2022 - 10:23 Things are getting desperate in Europe…the continent’s energy crisis is so dire that Poland and Germany are now circling a liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off the coast of Senegal – one that’s months away from even producing anything. The African field, which is projected to contain about 15 trillion cubic feet of gas (that’s close to half the total volume of LNG the U.S. used in 2021 alone), is only 80% complete and won’t be ready to produce until the end of next year. But now that Russia has halted natural gas exports to Europe, the EU is thirsty. The Kremlin announced that it would keep the gas taps shut off until the collective "West" lifted sanctions against the country. That means 40% of EU natural gas supply is now offline indefinitely.? There's just one problem: Replacing 40% of Europe's natural gas supply won't happen overnight. The European Commission estimates a total cost of €210 billion into infrastructure supporting new gas supplies, including new LNG import terminals, to eliminate the continent's energy dependence on Russia. But even these aggressive investments won't allow Europe to fully replace Russian energy supplies until 2027. And that leaves the door wide open for Uncle Sam… Over the past 10 years, U.S. natural gas production has risen over 50%. Today, America makes more natural gas than any other country. And as the U.S. exports more LNG, U.S. domestic gas markets are going to be increasingly linked to international prices. That's why U.S. natural gas now trades at the highest levels since 2008, at over $12 per thousand cubic feet (mcf). And what’s about to happen with U.S. natural gas is far bigger than any of these things... American natural gas is emerging, right now, as the world’s next dominant energy source. The U.S. began exporting significant natural gas quantities in the early 2000s via pipelines to Canada and Mexico. As U.S. production grew thanks to shale gas development (the U.S. became the world’s largest natural gas producer in 2009), exports increased rapidly. Exports grew from less than half a billion cubic feet daily in the early 2000s to over two billion cubic feet daily in 2015. Since 2015, export growth has been parabolic -- tripling from two billion cubic feet daily to over six billion cubic feet daily. It’s difficult to find pure play natural gas stocks, but a number of large companies have sizeable exposure, like Total Energies (NYSE:TOT), Golar LNG Limited (NASDAQ: GLNG), and Shell (NYSE:RDS:A) (NYSE:RDS:B). One pure play worth looking at is Cheniere Energy (NYSE:LNG). But it hasn’t always been… in fact, it was on our list of shorts years ago – until it got on the right side of history. Back in 2006, Cheniere had the ill-advised business idea to import LNG to America – despite the fact that the U.S. was experiencing a glut of natural gas, not a shortage. LNG shares were trading around $40 per share in 2006. By 2008, it had fallen to about $2.00—a complete collapse. But a funny thing happened on Cheniere’s route to bankruptcy… In a case of real life being stranger than fiction, in 2009 the company completely reversed course in mid-construction and, rather than building LNG import facilities, reverse engineered and rebuilt their facilities to become LNG export facilities. Ever since Cheniere got on the right side of the most important energy trade in the world – the inevitable global domination of U.S. natural gas – the stock has basically moved in a straight line from $2.00 to $178, to reach a market cap today of $44 billion. Cheniere is the largest LNG exporter from America, filling a crucial bottleneck in global energy markets. With revenues of $25 billion annually, the company is projected to earn about $11 per share this year. But Cheniere isn’t going to dominate the global markets. It doesn’t own any natural gas resources – it only owns the terminals.