Articles
The SEC Settlement With Musk: Crime Pays Once Again
“…when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors–when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice–you may know that your society is doomed.” – Francisco D’Anconia’s Money Speech, “Atlas Shrugged”
The SEC ended up settling with Elon Musk for violating securities laws with his “funding secured” tweet. Musk and Tesla will each pay $20 million in fines and Musk will be barred from acting as Chairman of Tesla but will remain CEO. I doubt the SEC will investigate to what extent, if any, Musk and his family and friends took advantage by accumulating stock and call options ahead of Musk’s tweet, which triggered an $87 move higher in the stock price. Certainly we know Musk and his family controls an offshore stock account in the Cayman Islands.
Thirty years ago, Musk would have been forced to serve jail time for securities law violations. Ask Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky about that. The last time a corporate CEO was incarcerated for securities laws violations was Qwest’s Joe Nacchio in April 2007.
Notwithstanding the fact that Musk remains CEO of Tesla, the Company is on a path toward insolvency within 12-18 months. Just like Enron’s auditors before it, I’m sure Price Waterhouse will have no problem cooking up financial statements for Q3 which show a GAAP-manipulated profit of some sort. But make no mistake, rigged GAAP accounting can not change the fact Tesla continues burning billions in cash – nearly $2 billion in the first six months of 2018 between operating activities and investing activity.
I’m hopeful the Justice Department investigation of Musk and Tesla will produce results that are more reflective of Rule of Law than the SEC delivered. Clearly the SEC has once again sent the message to the world that crime pays in the United States if you have a bank account large enough to cover the tab. But, at the end of the day, the fate of Tesla is subject to the Laws of Economics. That is a battle Musk and Tesla have no hope of winning.
What a fucking comical charade. They take a slam dunk case and settle??? At least now we know how serious they are about prosecuting securities fraud among the privileged few. And people wonder how Madoff could get away with such a gigantic heist for so long??? Seems pretty clear the rules are set up to protect the elite crooks in our financial system. – Short Seller’s Journal subscriber
Wrong Way Dennis Gartman: Moron Status Secured
The Fed: Lies, Propaganda And Motive
The agenda of the Fed is to hold up the system for as long as possible. The biggest stock bubble in U.S. history has been fueled by 10 years of negative real interest rates. The only way to justify that policy is to create phony inflation statistics. Based on historical interest rates and based on the alleged unemployment rate, a “normalized” Fed funds rate should be set at 9%, which reflects a more accurate inflation rate plus a 3% premium. The last time the unemployment rate was measured at 3.7% was October 1969. Guess what? The Fed funds rate was 9%. I guess if you live an a cave and only buy TV’s and laptops, then the inflation rate is probably 2%…
Silver Doctor’s Elijah Johnson invited me to discuss the FOMC policy decision released on Wednesday afternoon:
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If you are interested in ideas for taking advantage of the inevitable systemic reset that will hit the U.S. financial and economic system, check out either of these newsletters: Short Seller’s Journal information and more about the Mining Stock Journal here: Mining Stock Journal information.
Tilray: Little More Than A Stock Bubble Scam
Tilray could well become the poster-child stock of the biggest stock bubble in U.S. History.
This past summer Tilray (TLRY) went public (July) at $17 per share. TLRY is a Canada-based medical marijuana company. While its operations are targeting the international medical marijuana market, the Company generated just $9.7 million in revenues in its Q2 2018. It produced a net loss of $12.8 million. The stock had run from $30 on August 20th to a close of $120 on September 17th. The stock jumped again the next day to $154 on newsthat the DEA granted the approval for Tilray to provide THC capsules to UC San Diego for a clinical trial on the medicinal use of THC/CBD. THC and CBD are quickly becoming popular as an alternative form of medicine among a growing population, with many looking for the best cbd capsules and products to help with their ailments.
At the close of trading last Tuesday, TLRY’s market cap reached $14.1 billion, despite the fact the the UC San Diego deal would provide little in the way of revenues. Wednesday the stock soared to as high as $300 – a $27.6 billion market cap. TLRY did $17 million in revenues for the first-half of 2018. Let’s double that for the next 6 months and give them credit for a forward 12-month revenue stream of $68 million, which is more than generous. That means at Wednesday’s peak, TRLY was trading at 405x forward revenues. But from Q2 2017 to Q2 2018, its operating loss nearly quintupled, from $2.3 million to $11 million. We don’t know to what extent, if ever, this business model will be profitable.
Tilray closed just below $100 on Monday. On Tuesday the stock jumped $17, adding $1.5 billion to its market cap on the “news” that the Company “successfully” delivered CBD capsules to 29 “critically ill children” at a hospital in Victoria, Australia. There was no mention of revenue or profit impact of this “event,” which means this “feat” will be an expense item. Funny thing about CBD products, they are legally available in high concentration capsules and tinctures to anyone. See Ambary Gardens, for instance. CBD products are, in fact, rather easy to get your hands on, and you can find Cannabis Oil on this website if that’s what you’re looking for. There are various items available and this can make it a difficult task when choosing which CBD product is the most suited to your needs and condition. Fortunately, there are companies that can help with the decision making process. For example, you can have a look at this online cbd review site to find out more information.
Marijuana was approved for medical use in Colorado in 2008. It was approved for recreational use in 2012. From 2008 to present, the retail price for “top shelf” weed has gone from $350 per ounce to as low as $150 per ounce. Once marijuana is legalized in a jurisdiction, the barrier to entry for producers and distributors is low. This means that, over time, the selling price of marijuana will begin to approach the cost of production plus the cost of distribution plus a small profit incentive for growers and distributors, especially with the growing demand for things like dispensary supplies. I have to believe the big tobacco companies are waiting impatiently for the Federal Government to legalize marijuana out of desperation to generate tax revenues. Then it’s game-over for existing growers.
TLRY’s operating loss including non-cash stock compensation was $14.7 million in the first half of 2018. Net of the huge jump in accounts payable, TLRY’s operations burned $11 million in cash in the first 6 months of 2018. TLRY insiders are sitting on 83 million of the 92 million shares outstanding. I’ll be curious to see how quickly insiders begin to register their shares and unload them. It’s only a matter of time before ground-floor investors try to quietly unload shares. They are idiots if they don’t.
The point here is that, while the run-up in stocks like Tesla and Netflix has been absurd, the trading action is Tilray has been absolutely insane. As it turns out, with only 17.8 million shares in the public float, TLRY has been engulfed by a vicious short-squeeze made even worse by momentum-chasing hedge fund algos and day-traders. Buyers blindly chasing the price higher, driven by fearless greed and the expectation that they will be able to unload their stock purchase on the next buyer willing to pay even more for the stock in complete disregard to valuation considerations.
This is very similar to the early 2000 dot.com/tech stock bubble. Tilray’s price rise to $300 is similar to rise in Commerce One. I was short CMRC at $200/share, which at the time was a completely irrational valuation. CMRC then ran quickly up to $600. But $600 was the top and it fell off a cliff from there.
Paul Craig Roberts: Without Truth, Government Becomes Totalitarian
“THE conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” – Edward Bernays, the Godfather of Propaganda
It’s stunning to me the number of highly educated people I know who are blinded by the Orwellian fog that now engulfs the United States. Even if the Russian election meddling accusations were true, and there’s not been one shred of court-admissible evidence produced yet, so what? The U.S. interferes in elections and governments all over the world, including Russia. Thus is the power of propaganda. It’s difficult to know what’s real and what’s fiction because the accepted purveyors of “truth” and “news” have been captured by the political and corporate elitists, who use the traditional media outlets to advance their political and economic objectives.
“Today in America no member of the print and TV media or NPR dares to get within a hundred miles of the truth. It would be a career-ending event. Without a media dedicated to truth, there can be no control over government.” – Paul Craig Roberts. The following essay is a must-read from Paul Craig Roberts
On September 17, I posted my column, “Evidence is no longer a Western value.” I used as an example the blame that has been put on Russia for the shot down Malaysian airliner. No evidence whatsoever exists for the accusation, and massive evidence has been presented that the airliner was shot down by the neonazis that seized power as a result of the Washington-organized coup in Ukraine.
Blame was fixed on Russia not by any evidence but by continuous evidence-free accusations that began the moment the airliner was shot down. Anyone who asked for evidence was treated as a “Putin apologist.” This took evidence out of the picture.
Wherever we look in these times, we see evidence-free accusations established as absolute facts: Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” “Iranian nukes,” “Russian invasion of Ukraine,” the Trump/Putin conspiracy that stole the 2016 US presidential election, Syrian use of poison gas. Not a scrap of evidence exists for any of these accusations, but the truth of the accusations is established in many minds worldwide.
Science gave the world the principle of evidence-based fact, which did away with the burning of witches and political decisions based in superstitution. Truth became a force.
But truth can get in the way of agendas, and as elites recovered their power from the social, political, and economic reforms of a previous era, truth was divided into categories and cut so fine that it disappeared. For the elite truth became identical to their economic interests, and Identity Politics stripped truth of its universal meaning and reduced truth to self-pleading race and gender truth.
The result is that today truth is established not by evidence but by repetition of accusations and falsehoods.
This made it easy to destroy people and countries by lies alone. Who remembers Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund and at the time the likely future president of France? Strauss-Kahn was out of step with Washington which wanted its puppet Sarkozy reelected. Strauss-Kahn came to New York and was accused by a hotel maid of sexual assault. He was arrested and jailed. The New York district attorney and media whores pronounced him guillty. Simultaneously, on cue, a French woman made the same claim. Case closed. No evidence. Just claims. Then it emerged that the hotel maid had just had very large sums of money far above her income level deposited to her bank account. Even more damning, it was revealed that Sarkozy knew of Strauss-Kahn’s arrest before the police announced it. The case fell apart, and the New York district attorney publicly apologized. But Strauss-Kahn had been forced to resign as Director of the IMF and was out of the French presidential election. So Washington won.
Today it is a common, routine tactic for both US political parties to produce a woman to bring accusations of sexual harassment, abuse, or assault against any heterosexual male appointee or nominee that either party regards to be out of step with its agenda. It happens so regularly that no sentinent person can possibly believe the woman. Sexual assault has been reduced to one of the dirty tricks of politics.
As hard as false accusations can be on individuals, they destroy entire countries. Just consider the destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, currently Yemen, and Washington has not given up on the same fate for Syria and Iran. Based on nothing but Washington’s endlessly repeated false accusations, millions of peoples have been murdered, maimed, orphened, widowed, displaced, and sent as refugees overrunning Europe.
There is not a scrap of evidence anywhere that justifies Washington’s enormous crimes against humanity. Yet, these crimes that in a truth-conscious world would have resulted in several entire governments of the United States standing accused in the International Criminal Court, or the War Crimes Court, or whichever court, and perhaps in all of them, are ignored, because accusation alone against the destroyed countries and peoples sufficed to justify Washington’s war crimes against humanity.
What I have described is a truth-free world. There is no place for truth in the world that the West has created. The Western hostility to truth is overwhelming. As I write truth-tellers are being banned from Facebook, Twitter, and PayPal. Google makes their sites almost impossible to find. Throughout the Western World truth has been redefined as “Conspiracy Theory.”
Elites such as George Soros and innumerable tax-financed government agencies, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, spend taxpayers’ money discrediting those who tell the truth. Many in governments want truth-tellers locked up as enemies of the state, by which they mean “enemies of the self-interests of the ruling elites.”
You don’t need to believe me. Here are four books written by honorable persons, meticulously documented, full of evidence that make it clear that American elites have no respect whatsoever for truth. Truth is something that is in their way.
One of the books is Charlie Savage’s Takeover. Savage shows how Dick Cheney used the George W. Bush regime and 9/11 to destroy the separation of powers and the civil liberties in the US Constitution. When you read Savage’s book you will discover that the America that you think is here is not here. In its place is a dictatorship available to any president clever enough to use it. Savage’s book is one of the best pieces of investigative reporting that I have read.
The Roman system of government never recovered from Caesar crossing the Rubicon. I doubt that the US Constitution will ever recover from Dick Cheney.
Two of the books are by David Ray Griffin, one of the last and most determined of American protagonists for truth. In his book, Bush and Cheney: How They Ruined America and the World, Griffin makes, a decade after Savage, the same case against Dick Cheney. When two independently minded researchers reach the same conclusion, you can bet it is on the money. If the world survives Washington’s orchestrated conflict with Russia, Cheney will go down in history as the person who destroyed American constitutional government.
In this same book, Griffin also examines the official 9/11 story and exposes it as a total fabrication with no connection to any truth whatsoever. He takes up this case in his current, just released book with Elizabeth Woodworth, 9/11 Unmasked: An International Review Panel Investigation.
Anyone who is still brainwashed by the official 9/11 story can immediately free themselves from their deception by reading this book. There is no longer any doubt that 9/11 was an inside orchestrated event for the purpose of unleashing two decades, with more to come, of American aggression in the Middle East.
Griffin does not leave a single official statement about 9/11 standing as not a single official claim is based on any factual evidence whatsoever.
For seventeen years the world has been fed a pack of total lies based on nothing but accusations and in the face of massive evidence produced not by some collection of political hacks sitting as a 9/11 Commission, but by thousands of experts. Yet for seventeen years false accusations prevailed over heavily documented facts presented by disinterested experts called “conspiracy theorists” by those intent on covering up their crimes.
The fourth book is Mary Mapes’ Truth and Duty. Mary Mapes is the CBS producer whose team carefully prepared for Dan Rather the 60 Minutes report on George W. Bush’s failure to perform his Texas Air National Guard duty. Her story was absolutely correct, but she and Rather were destroyed by accusation alone. The Republicans set in attack mode the right-wing bloggers, and soon the official media joined in for the purpose of elevating their ratings at CBS’s expense.
CBS was vulnerable, because it was no longer independent but a part of Viacom’s empire. Mapes was already in trouble, because she had broken the Abu Ghraib torture story just at the moment that Bush and Cheney declared: “America doesn’t torture.” As the Cheney/Bush regime put pressure on Viacom, a corporate executive told Mapes: “You don’t have any idea how many millions of dollars Viacom is spending on lobbying in Wasington, and nothing you’ve done in the past year has helped.”
There you have it. The Viacom executives had no interest whatsoever in the truth, only in what advanced their lobbying interests in Washington. Mapes, a truth-teller had to go, and she did. And so did Dan Rather.
Ask yourselves where you can read articles like this. If you do not support the remaining portals of truth, you will find yourselves bound, like the Elven-kings, Dwarf-lords and Mortal Men in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, “in the darkness” by the elites ability to control the explanations that comprise your reality.
Here’s Why Vista Gold Is Extraordinarily Undervalued
VIsta Gold (VGZ) is advancing Australia’s largest undeveloped gold project. The current resource stands at 7.8 million ounces, of which 5.8 million proven/probable reserves. Vista is implementing a high-tech grinding and sorting process that will improve gold recovery and production.
Vista released an updated Preliminary Feasibility Study which shows an after-tax NPV of $679 million, assuming an initial capital cost of $839 million and $1300 gold. Vista’s current market cap is $49 million.
Vista Gold is one of the most undervalued junior mining stocks given the degree to which the project has been de-risked. At this point, the biggest hurdle to eventual production is raising the money to fund mine construction. As recently as February Vista was trading at 85 cents vs its current price of 49 cents. In my opinion, Vista’s stock is an easy double from here when gold embarks on its next big move higher.
The Mining Stock Daily’s Trevor Hall interviewed Vista’s CEO, Fred Earnest, and Sr Vice President, John Rozelle, at the Beaver Creek Precious Metals Conference this week (click on the image to listen):
Fundamentals Supporting Stock Market Further Deteriorate
The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates and publishes an earnings metric known as the National Income and Products Accounts which presents the value and composition of national output and the types of incomes generated in its production. One of the NIPA accounts is “corporate profits.” From the NIPA handbook: “Corporate profits represents the portion of the total income earned from current production that is accounted for by U.S. corporations.”
The BEA’s measurement of corporate profits is somewhat similar to using operating income from GAAP financial statements rather than net income. The BEA is attempting to isolate “profits from current production” from non-production noised introduced by GAAP accounting standards. “Profits from current production provide a comprehensive and consistent economic measure of the net income earned by all U.S. corporations. As such, it is unaffected by the changes in tax laws, and it is adjusted for non-reported and misreported income” (emphasis is mine).
Why do I bring this up – what is the punch line? Because the NIPA measurement of corporate profits is currently showing no growth. Contrast this with the net income “growth” that is generate from share buybacks, GAAP tax rate reductions and other non-cash GAAP gimmicks used to generate GAAP net income on financial statements. This does not surprise me because I use operating income when judging whether or not companies that are reported as “beating” estimates are “beating” with accounting gimmicks or actual products derived from the underlying business.
It’s quite easy for companies to manufacture net income “beats.” But it’s more difficult – though possible – to manipulate operating income. The deferment of expenses via capitalizing them (taking a current cost incurred and sticking it on the balance sheet where the cost is amortized as an expense over time) is one trick to manage operating income because expense capitalization reduces the quarterly GAAP expense that is connected to that particular expenditure (capex, interest, etc).
The point here is that corporate operating profits – or “profits from production” per the BEA – are not growing despite the propaganda from Wall Street and the President that the economy is “booming.” Furthermore, if we were to adjust the BEA numbers by a true inflation number, the resulting calculation would show that “real” (net of price inflation) corporate profits have been declining. Using this measure of corporate profitability as one of the measures of economic health, the economy is not doing well.
August Auto Sales – August auto sales reported the first week of September showed, on a SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate basis), a slight decline from the July SAAR. The positive spin on the numbers was that the SAAR was 0.4% percent above August 2017. However, recall that all economic activity was negatively affected by the two huge hurricanes that hit south Texas and Florida. The SAAR for this August was reported at 16.5 million. This is 11.2% below the record SAAR of 18.6 million in October 2017. It was noted by LMC Automotive, an auto industry consulting firm, that “retail demand is deteriorating” (“retail” is differentiated from “fleet” sales). Sedan sales continue to plummet, offset partially by a continued demand for pick-up trucks and SUVs.
Casting aside the statistically manipulated SAAR, the industry itself per Automotive News reported 1.481 million vehicles sold in August, a number which is 0.2% below August 2017. In other words, despite the hurricane-depressed sales in August 2017, automobile manufacturers are reporting a year over year decline in sales for August. This was lead by a stunning 12.7% drop in sales at GM. I’ll note that GM no longer reports monthly sales (only quarterly). But apparently an insider at GM fed that number to Bloomberg News. Automotive News asterisks the number as “an estimate.” Apparently GM pulled back on incentives. On a separate note, I’m wondering what will happen to consumer discretionary spending if the price of gasoline continues to move higher. It now costs me about 35% more a year ago to fill the tank in my car.
The commentary above is an excerpt from the latest Short Seller’s Journal. I recommended shorting GM at $42 in an early November 2017 issue of the Short Seller’s Journal. It hit $34 earlier this past week. That’s a 19% ROR over the time period. In the last issue of the Short Short Seller’s Journal, I recommended shorting Wayfair (W) at $149.92, last Friday’s close. W is down $3.50 – or 2.3% – despite the rising stock market. My recommendation include put option ideas You can learn more about this newsletter here: Short Seller’s Journal Information
Silver, Trump’s Trade War, Mining Stocks And The Fed’s Gold
If you have gold, you have money – If you don’t have gold, you have a problem – Alisdair Macleod
With the massive net short position in both gold and silver Comex paper precious metals, offset by the historic net long position of the “commercials” (banks, mining companies, users, hedgers), numerous rumors are swirling around the precious metals market. For certain, the availability of physical gold bars in London that can be delivered to the large eastern hemisphere buyers who demand delivery is growing tight. Apparently the retail silver coin/bar market is starting to feel supply strains.
Miles Franklin’s Chris Marcus invited me onto this podcast to discuss the precious metals markets, mining stocks, Trump’s Trade War and the status of the gold held in custody by the Fed on behalf of the American public:
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If you are interested in ideas for taking advantage of the inevitable systemic reset that will hit the U.S. financial and economic system, check out either of these newsletters: Short Seller’s Journal information and more about the Mining Stock Journal here: Mining Stock Journal information.
Reasons To Optimistic About The Precious Metals Sector
The September 7th COT report is probably the most bullish I’ve seen since the beginning of my involvement in the precious metals sector in 2001. As most of you probably know by now, the “commercial” trader category is now net long both gold and silver for the first time going back to at least 1994. The banks (“swap dealers”) net long position in both paper metals increased. Conversely the hedge fund net short increased in both.
It may take a few weeks for gold to push through $1215-1220, as the hedge fund algos will be looking to attack the price until they have covered their enormous net short position. That said, it will take only one particularly surprisingly bad economic report or unexpected geopolitical event (Syria, trade war, domestic political surprise, reckless Trump tweet, etc) to trigger a spike-up in the price of gold. Once this occurs, the hedge fund computers will race to cover their shorts, which will drive the price higher very quickly.
Trevor Hall and I co-produce the Mining Stock Daily, a brief, daily overview of news and events connected to the precious metals and mining stock market. We focus on junior mining stocks. We are looking to exploit audio information distribution on 10 different digital platforms including Anchor, Alexa, Apple Podcasts, etc. Trevor and I discussed why there is cause for optimism in the precious metals sector for MSD’s Friday feature interview segment (click on graphic to listen):
Precious Metals, Mining Stocks, Housing Market – What’s Next?
“The housing market is 100% a function of the Fed’s money printing. Half the money the Fed printed, $2.2 trillion, went directly into the housing market.”
Analysts and financial media meatheads look at the $4.5 trillion created by the Fed and truly believe that it wasn’t money printing because it’s “backed” by Treasury bonds and mortgages. But this is pure ignorance. Not taken into consideration is the amount of credit and debt issuance enabled by using the $4.5 trillion as the “reserve capital.” It’s fractional banking on steroids.
As the U.S. financial system reaches its limit on the amount of debt that can be serviced from the current level of wealth output, what happens next? We’re already seeing what happens in the housing market per the fact that the homebuilder stocks are in an “official” bear market, with some of them down over 30% since late January.
Then what? The Fed will have to print multiples of the original amount it printed or face systemic collapse. At that point the precious metals sector will soar beyond anyone’s imagination at this point in time.
Phil Kennedy (Kennedy Financial) invited me to discuss these issues on his podcast. Phil’s podcasts blend truthseeking, facts, humor, humility and sarcasm. It’s well-worth the time spent to listen:
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If you are interested in ideas for taking advantage of the inevitable systemic reset that will hit the U.S. financial and economic system, check out either of these newsletters: Short Seller’s Journal information and more about the Mining Stock Journal here: Mining Stock Journal information.






