Videos Of The Week
The Shit Hits The Fan In Iran, Elite Competition And A New Financial System & Toxic Sludge In Private Equity, Private Credit, And Life Insurance
I’m going to put the Iran commentary at the back end of today’s post, but I have two videos this week that are definitely worth a watch. The first video covers almost every topic under the sun as far as geopolitics, finance, and the cultural impacts of recent events. The second one is focused on the misbehavior of the private equity and private credit funds, and how life insurance has been getting involved in the sector. At the end I go into some of the recent events in Iran, and how it feeds into different supply chains, and why water is a major weakness for Israel and the other gulf states if Iran is backed into a corner.
RogueNews w/ Veles
I talked with Veles earlier this week, but his podcast from Friday is definitely worth a watch. He covered a ton of different topics, but the overarching theme is that we are seeing factions of the elite competing for power as the new financial and economic system is being built. There are several military conflicts (not just Iran), and he briefly talked about each one, from Ukraine to Pakistan/Afghanistan. You also see the Strait of Hormuz, and how the maritime insurance industry is going to be impacted. Veles also predicted that we could see a regime change in Cuba by the end of the year.
He also got into several aspects of the child trafficking issue, from the Franklin Scandal and the Finders, to Epstein and the medical research they were doing in Ukraine and the Zorro Ranch in New Mexico. On the financial side, he went into private equity and their ties to medical/hospice services, along with Blackrock and others acquiring utilities, like their recent deal for AES for more than $10B. One other topic to keep an eye on is stablecoins, blockchain, and the process of tying physical assets to crypto. On the topic of AI, he talked about how it will quickly become a commodity service, the societal and economic impact, and how we are currently seeing employment issues and a lack of entry level jobs. They covered a bunch of other topics as well, but if you want a video to cover topics that get memory holed, this is the one for you.
The Steve Eisman Show w/ Tom Gober
This one is a little more dry, but it’s a very interesting look at the connections between the private equity industry and the insurance industry. Many private equity companies have built captive insurance companies, and depending on the company practices, that can significantly increase leverage in the system. He gets into the asset-liability mismatch, and some of the illiquid investments on the asset side of the balance sheet. The scrutiny on the insurance industry has faded over the last two decades, and much of it has been offshored to Bermuda, Barbados, and the Cayman Islands. He also went into some of the smaller credit rating agencies, and some of the accounting practices that have been going on since private equity companies got involved. I still think private equity and private credit are asset classes to be avoided, and this video is a good look at a couple reasons why.
