Last week former President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were in The Bahamas discussing world events with crypto's FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
California Davos, aka the Milken Global Conference, promoted connections with its theme "Celebrating the Power of Connections." A promotional video for the event had a segment of Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein with Mr. Blair.
...as more and more money pours into crypto and blockchain technology, the conference has perhaps its most sizable digital asset contingent yet. There will be several crypto-related panels, including two on the metaverse and one on digital nationalism.
Rubenstein recently said the crypto "genie was out of the bottle." The Berkshire Hathaway boys feel differently about crypto than Blair, Clinton and Rubenstein. Charlie Munger called crypto "stupid and evil." Warren Buffett said he wouldn't pay $25 for all the bitcoin in the world.
Clinton has been a regular at Milken.
President Clinton paved the way for Carlyle to profit more than once from USIS, once a federal security background check department until Clinton privatized it.
It's good to know Clinton and Blair haven't lost their nose for money. How did they take their speaking fees? Was it in dollars, the British pound, cryptocurrency or FTX stock? There are so many ways for insiders to be paid nowadays.
Update 5-2-22: Jesse's Cafe Americain noted the Nordic Flash Crash and commented:
Seriously, how can one expect a multi-billion dollar trading platform for a global financial institution to bother with any safeguards against potentially systemic critical 'typos.' LOL
The financial fourth estate was too busy swooning over the international cast attending the Michael Milken conference at the Beverly Hilton to be concerned about any of these market-busting, existential questions.
Update 5-11-22: Fortune reported:
In the event the crypto exchange goes bankrupt, Coinbase says, its users might lose all the cryptocurrency stored in their accounts too.Update 5-18-22: The cryptocurrency unwind came quickly after financial whores Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were in the Bahamas pushing crypto.
If you don’t see that the crypto “industry” has become just as blindingly corrupt, just as oozingly fatuous, just as profoundly captured by the Nudging Oligarchy as the traditional financial services industry it was supposed to replace … well, you’re just not paying attention.
Update 5-25-22: Tony Blair received emergency payments from J.P. Morgan according to a whistleblower. Sam Bankman-Fried enjoyed his time with Clinton and Blair so much he will contribute as much as $1 billion toward future political campaigns. Sounds like Sam has been promoted to policy making billionaire.
Update 6-20-22: Clinton and Blair's crypto buddy gave $16 million to U.S. Super PACs in April.
Update 6-21-22: “Sam Bankman-Fried is the new John Pierpont Morgan -- he is bailing out cryptocurrency markets the way the original J.P. Morgan did after the crisis of 1907,” Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, said in an interview, referring to that year’s banking panic, which led to the creation of the Federal Reserve System.
Update 7-11-22: Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital founders are AWOL. Creditors asked a court to "subpoena the founders and have them provide a list of company assets including wallets it controls, bank accounts, digital assets in its possessions, derivatives contracts, securities, accounts receivables, and all company records."
Update 8-2-22: A number of FDIC insured banks ran with the crypto devils and may go under as a result. How this is remotely OK is a question one should ask David Rubenstein and his former employee Jerome Powell.
Update 8-4-22: JP Morgan's payments to Tony Blair went an unusual route inside the company, raising ethics and compliance concerns. Those payments may come to light in an upcoming trial for wrongful discharge of a JP Morgan compliance official.
Update 11-10-22: Bloomberg reported FTX with an $8 billion hole is careening toward bankruptcy.
Update 11-11-22: Marc Cohodes saw through SBF in this video from September. The media finally found SBF's operation was headed by college friends. This would have been more important information than SBF running with Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
Update 2-15-23: Famed investor Charlie Munger said of cryptocurrencies:
"It isn't even slightly stupid, it's massively stupid, and of course it's very dangerous, and of course the governments were totally wrong to permit it."
Update 10-15-23: SBF's fraud trial revealed his "trademark disheveled appearance — including his unkempt hair and wardrobe of cargo shorts and T-shirts — as a calculated PR move to portray himself as an eccentric entrepreneur."