Friday November 18, 2022

// November 18th, 2022 // Comments Off on Friday November 18, 2022 // Daily News

Another day with the ILLEGITIMATE PRETENDIDENT in office

ENERGY

Trump’s former Treasury secretary calls G-7 Russian oil price cap ‘the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard’

Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin described the G-7′s plan for a price cap on Russian oil as “ridiculous.”

Speaking to CNBC’s Hadley Gamble during a panel at the Milken Institute’s Middle East and Africa Summit, Mnuchin said the idea was “not only not feasible, I think it’s the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard.”

He added that while there were no certainties, sanctions on Russia and Russian officials — which the U.S. and other nations have continued to roll out since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine — could have had an impact before the war started rather than after.

“Sanctions would have had a big impact back then. I think the problem now is that there’s limited options … there’s parts of the world that are now buying Russian oil outside of U.S. sanctions,” he said.

“But look, a price cap, the market is going to set the price. So if you put sanctions on at higher prices, in a way you’re just making the situation worse, in my opinion.”

The Group of Seven nations — the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.K. — along with Australia, have reportedly agreed to set a fixed price cap on Russian oil from Dec. 5, but the level has not been announced.

The plan, which has been under discussion for several months, involves a ban on the provision of certain services, such as maritime routes, insurance and financing, to buyers of Russian oil unless it is sold at or below the cap.

It is intended to limit the Kremlin’s ability to fund the war in Ukraine while also protecting consumers and households from sky-high energy prices. New sanctions are also due in early December that will end all Russian crude oil deliveries to the EU by sea, ahead of a ban on all Russian refined products in 2023.

As Europe seeks to wean itself off Russian oil and gas, Moscow has ramped up its sale of oil to countries including China and India. Energy analysts say it will be vital to get those countries’ cooperation for any price cap to be effective, but it remains unclear how they will react to any final announcement.

Current U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week India would still be able to buy oil from Russia at any price so long as it avoided the Western sanctions, and that this scenario would still dampen global oil prices and curb Russian oil revenues.

Mnuchin served for the full term of President Donald Trump and now works in private equity investing.

At the Milken Institute panel, he said getting Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the negotiating table was “long overdue” and that a best-case scenario in the near term may be a pause in fighting.

Ukraine has previously said it will only enter talks following the “restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.”

A Kremlin spokesperson on Thursday told reporters it was “difficult to imagine public negotiations … One thing is for sure: the Ukrainians do not want any negotiations.”

Thursday November 17, 2022

// November 17th, 2022 // Comments Off on Thursday November 17, 2022 // Daily News

AND FTX donated to the Democrat’s campaigns in the rigged midterms

Never seen ‘such a complete failure’ of corporate controls, says new FTX CEO who also oversaw Enron bankruptcy

KEY POINTS

• Newly appointed FTX CEO John Ray III scorched Sam Bankman-Fried for a total absence of trustworthy data and lack of financial safeguards.
• Ray, who led the restructuring of Enron, said that FTX lacked adequate human resources, cybersecurity, accounting and auditing teams.
• Ray disclosed that he had no confidence in the balance sheet statements of Alameda, FTX, or their subsidiaries.

Newly appointed FTX CEO John Ray III minced no words in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, declaring that “in his 40 years of legal and restructuring experience,” he had never seen “such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

Ray formerly served as CEO of Enron after the implosion of the energy titan. He promised to work with regulators to investigate FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.

In the filing, Ray disclosed that he did “not have confidence” in the accuracy of the balance sheets for FTX and its sister company Alameda Research, writing that they were “unaudited and produced while the Debtors [FTX] were controlled by Mr. Bankman-Fried.”

The document is a declaration from Ray in his new role as CEO of FTX and associated entities, which filed for bankruptcy last week in an implosion that left the crypto world reeling and investors shaken.

Ray excoriated Bankman-Fried and his management team for what were described as lackadaisical controls on systems and regulatory compliance.

“The concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals” was unprecedented, the former Enron recovery boss said.

Ray said a “substantial portion” of assets held with FTX may be “missing or stolen,” following widespread reports on social media of the theft of hundreds of millions in cryptocurrencies.

Coordinating with regulators, Ray wrote, the Chapter 11 bankruptcy process would examine the actions of Bankman-Fried in connection with FTX’s collapse.

Alarmingly, Ray wrote that part of his remit would be to implement controls and basic corporate standards such as “accounting, audit, cash management, cybersecurity, human resources, risk management, data protection and other systems that did not exist, or did not exist to an appropriate degree, prior to my appointment.”

Bankman-Fried and FTX “management practices included the use of an unsecured group email account as the root user to access confidential private keys and critically sensitive data for the FTX Group companies around the world, the absence of daily reconciliation of positions on the blockchain, the use of software to conceal the misuse of customer funds.”

Bankman-Fried wasn’t immediately available for comment.

Sophisticated software was similarly used to conceal mismarked and fraudulent customer positions in the 2008 collapse of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

FTX is presently working to account for an accurate statement of cash and crypto assets. Ray said it would not be “appropriate for stakeholders or the Court to rely on the audited financial statements as a reliable indication of the financial circumstances” of FTX.