Just wait’ll you see the flowcharts of USAID grants to charities of Members of Congress trickling down to paying the charities officer salaries whom just happen to be sitting Members of Congress. DAI is a great example.
The caterwauling and handwringing will soon lead to the required “rending of garments”, if I have my Shakespeare right.
This is a very, very old Play (Noh, anyone?). We’ve had our finale of Act I (Xiden). Act II is moving quickly, leave your seat and you’ll miss something just by standing up!
Oh, and if all of DJT’s actions of the last two weeks haven’t been the single greatest deflationary period of the U.S. since just following the Japanese surrender of WW2, I’m not sure what could be. Maybe the end of the Cold War, but as we now know, totally hijacked in Iraq, and Iraq2.0. And almost isolationist in its deflation, I might add.
Corn should be limit bid from all the popcorn demand.
I'm waiting for the flowchart showing money flowing into (or adjacent to) members of the federal judiciary. There's a reason the left went after Thomas and Scalia along those lines.
The Democrats have clearly stated in the past week their intentions with selecting poster child for the simp movement, David Hogg, as the Vice Chair for the DNC, and Hakeem Jeffries telling people to take the fight to the streets.
They have not learned anything from the election.
I just keep smiling and know that they are self-destructing and heading toward, if they keep this up, a veritable bloodbath in the 2026 midterms.
Also love The Godfather reference.
Transparency is a beautiful thing when you are doing the right thing and exposing the wrong one.
First of all, I love the quote about all family business being settled and the link to Michael Corleone telling that to Carlo. I have said for years that there are a lot of teachable moments in the movie The Godfather.
Secondly, and perhaps I missed it over the years, but why hasn't one damn Republican brought forward this multi billion dollar slush fund called USAID to the forefront? I'm not talking about RINOs and uniparty scum but not one has brought this forward.
FWIW, apparently Jodi Ernst had been hounding USAID for quite a while. They stonewalled her.
Bureaucrats find ways to avoid discovery. And Democrat/Leftists have developed a byzantine network of NGOs to hide the real destination of $$.
In my banking days I was always suspicious of complex corporate structures--always a way to obfuscate true understanding of the entities' financial condition.
All this spending has to stop. I'm glad that trump and his cronies are exposing all the waste that goes on in government. The waste has to stop. All these politicians on both sides have to reign in the spending. Enough with all the over spending on gay studies in some obscure county that hates us. And I would like to know how Chelsea Clinton made $84 million.
Bam! Home run. Our feckless 'principled republicans' will not cut anything as they are receiving kickbacks from the MIC and CoC that supported moving everything to China.
Bitch McConnell is married to The Foremost Group and his relatives run IDG Capital.
Vol works best as a measure when looking at the strike vs underlying. It’s better to think of it not as a measure of acceleration, 2nd “d”, but as the 3rd “d”, and each strike is its own curvilinear space, where vol slopes towards the asymptote that is the vol of the generic underlying. In other words, each strike has its own Gaussian distribution over the whole probabilistic curve that is the underlying security.
Or monkeys with darts.
Pricing options was a loooong time ago, for this ex-floor rat.
'People loved Obama. I was one of those who said he was diametrically opposed to American values and the ideas of free, transparent, and open government'
Have to disagree with you JC. Obama was (and is) a creature of the Chicago Democrat Party. He is a swindler through and through. Can't withstand the slightest scrutiny of anything he is doing. Had to have things 100% his way or nothing.
They would pull their hair out if anyone thought that Obama was the actual skunk he was.
I was involved with the Landmark Preservation Council when Obama ran for US Senate. They had problem with a building in Hyde Park where some nitwit developer wanted to build in a place that would mess up recreation and destroy some really good built history. They went at it pretty hard, then got a call from Obama.
I had lunch with the Preservation guy (good guy, pleasant as he could be) at the U Club, and he assured me, 'If Obama says it is ok, then we shouldn't push too hard on this building'
Leftists love to lie. They kind of get off on it. It’s even more satisfying and fulfilling to them if people believe it. Glad to see that David Hogg is a leader at the DNC. It’s gonna take the Democrat party a long time to recover from Trump. They have to start by purging the commies in their midst starting with Obama. They won’t go quietly.
Clintons got $17k from the government, not $84m. Lots of these #s being spread are completely wrong, like the Politico story. MSM has its issues, but Twitter is even worse in some ways. And most of the data was publicly available for many years.
Even Lil' Marco at one time understood that USAID should be reformed not ended. The real issues have long been known. There's value in being present in most of these countries. And some of the actions especially in Africa are just plain unnecessarily cruel. Speaking of Lil' Marco - he apparently has a "political officer" that follows him around. Look that one up if you don't know it.
The CIA is super important to the security of the USA. Isolationism is not an option. Russia is deeply involved in corrupting Western Europe. China is spreading its influence all over.
Washington is an influence peddling environment. The NGOs certainly are part of it. Private sector for-profits rip off taxpayers an order of magnitude more. And most of it is legal. It's great that Trump is stopping some of the stuff that he has the power to do.
Most importantly none of this matters if congress keeps on passing budgets that are wildly out of balance. Rs have the both chambers of congress. Can they do anything to materially bring the deficit down? Not a chance.
Those that defend USAID are doomed to be bitten by it. Why should the Clinton's get $17k? "Hey, here is a brownie. It's got some dog crap in it, but not that much." The Clinton's probably didn't actually get it in their bank accounts but they controlled, paid cronies with it etc.
In Chicago, I didn't have to take out business insurance with George Dunne, but it sure helped move things along. I didn't have to use Michael Madigan as my property tax atty. But, it sure helped.
USAID should be ended, NGOs / nonprofits / not-for-profit shenanigans all have to end. Kill the sector by any means necessary. I've been advocating for years to take away tax exemptions for NGOs, nonprofits, social enterprises, and yes religious institutions. No good comes of any of that shady government overlap and credentialing.
Not one concrete positive result can be attributed to USAID. Take the example of a very very very large "not for profit" USAID NGO during OIF, or similar in Afghanistan. Man, everyone was there, all the players, wearing body armor and trying not to die to fake how much America cared. A cast of characters you wouldn't put in charge of raking your yard. Drunks and fools cashing in and living large. Same at the Mission. It doesn't matter what the projects said they were, the one thing they were not was helpful to the so-called marginalized or disadvantaged.
But I digress. Here's how "not for profit" status works: As long as you *spend all of the money* within the year, you have not made a profit, so you get more of that sweet sweet gravy and stay on the train. You might spend it on bonuses for C-level execs already approaching seven figures. You might invest in corporate, er, not-for-profit infrastructure to professionalize proposals to win extensions and more, bigger awards (that's called capacity building). I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way to get credit for setting it on fire in the parking lot. That's a not for profit USAID implementing partner. Does that sound like something Joe the Plumber ought to pay two cents for, or care two-cents about? I didn't even want to pay for it, and they were paying me.
We haven't scratched the surface of revealing the scope of the damage done by US taxpayer dollars through USAID overseas. Stay tuned.
Pretty sure the aid being delivered to Africa is worthwhile. One of the large issues at USAID is that it subsidizes American for-profit businesses. Not just NGOs. Some of what they do should be local sourced.
There's lots that is not great about NGOs. But you're not going to get rid of them easily. Going to stop sending money to Catholic hospitals?
The aid doesn't get to the people. Yes, stop sending aid to everyone. We are far past the "surgical scalpel" stage. We are at the burn it all down stage. If it's worthy, it can get aid. If it is a honeypot (and Catholic hospitals might be) then kill it. I am with Dana Loesch. Why are we paying taxes?
It certainly does get to the people in Africa. You can argue there's too much overhead. The US government runs multi-trillion dollar deficits every year. These billions are a distraction. They're not even much of a good show. The dopey, whiny Republicans cannot actually figure out how to materially cut the deficit.
I don't know how much time you've spent in Africa, but I work every day with colleagues and partners, local folks, in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, LatAm & Caribbean. They're not the huge fans of American interference in their societies & political economies that the well-intentioned seem to imagine. Good intentions are irrelevant to actual impacts, which at best distort and quite often undermine healthier and more sustainable developmental patterns. Aid picks winners and losers, and the unaided agriculture or animal husbandry, small and medium enterprises, entrepreneurs, social and religious conservatives, and political factions, quite rightly resent handouts to rival groups, ideas, competitors.
Nuking USAID and mortally wounding its dependent parasites is a great start.
Pretty sure there's enormous waste and fraud in USAID dollars spent on projects in Africa, based on 30 years in the sector including years living in two African countries and shorter stints in 14 others, not counting 30+ other LMICs.
Cut off taxpayer dollars to NGOs and see how fast they shrivel up and blow away. Oh, yeah, that's what we're doing right now, and it's happening faster than you might imagine. I was in a network meeting today; one org (approx $1B annual revenue, roughly 85% USAID work) is laying off 40% of its staff tonight.
It's an empirical question & we'll see what happens next. I'm hoping they trash the tax-exempt status of these USG-dependent "non govt" orgs, definitely including religious institutions. TIthe or don't tithe, it's nothing to do with DC and certainly no justification to reach into MY pocket.
The brainiacs are cutting off the Bloomberg terminals! I wondered if they'd figure out the parallels to the Politico stuff. Good for them. I'm sure the DOGE "engineers" can build a replacement. They'll do it after they rebuild the ATC (that should be privatized). Quite the omelette they're making.
Just wait’ll you see the flowcharts of USAID grants to charities of Members of Congress trickling down to paying the charities officer salaries whom just happen to be sitting Members of Congress. DAI is a great example.
The caterwauling and handwringing will soon lead to the required “rending of garments”, if I have my Shakespeare right.
This is a very, very old Play (Noh, anyone?). We’ve had our finale of Act I (Xiden). Act II is moving quickly, leave your seat and you’ll miss something just by standing up!
Oh, and if all of DJT’s actions of the last two weeks haven’t been the single greatest deflationary period of the U.S. since just following the Japanese surrender of WW2, I’m not sure what could be. Maybe the end of the Cold War, but as we now know, totally hijacked in Iraq, and Iraq2.0. And almost isolationist in its deflation, I might add.
Corn should be limit bid from all the popcorn demand.
I need to check out Data Republican database for Madam Pelosi. Maybe someone else has?
I'm waiting for the flowchart showing money flowing into (or adjacent to) members of the federal judiciary. There's a reason the left went after Thomas and Scalia along those lines.
The Democrats have clearly stated in the past week their intentions with selecting poster child for the simp movement, David Hogg, as the Vice Chair for the DNC, and Hakeem Jeffries telling people to take the fight to the streets.
They have not learned anything from the election.
I just keep smiling and know that they are self-destructing and heading toward, if they keep this up, a veritable bloodbath in the 2026 midterms.
Also love The Godfather reference.
Transparency is a beautiful thing when you are doing the right thing and exposing the wrong one.
First of all, I love the quote about all family business being settled and the link to Michael Corleone telling that to Carlo. I have said for years that there are a lot of teachable moments in the movie The Godfather.
Secondly, and perhaps I missed it over the years, but why hasn't one damn Republican brought forward this multi billion dollar slush fund called USAID to the forefront? I'm not talking about RINOs and uniparty scum but not one has brought this forward.
FWIW, apparently Jodi Ernst had been hounding USAID for quite a while. They stonewalled her.
Bureaucrats find ways to avoid discovery. And Democrat/Leftists have developed a byzantine network of NGOs to hide the real destination of $$.
In my banking days I was always suspicious of complex corporate structures--always a way to obfuscate true understanding of the entities' financial condition.
Terry, agreed. Were they all looking for crumbs? In Illinois, the Republicans didn't do a lot because they all wanted crumbs
Chelsea reminds me of jelly belly Pritzker both born into the lucky sperm club.
His was luckier
True
All this spending has to stop. I'm glad that trump and his cronies are exposing all the waste that goes on in government. The waste has to stop. All these politicians on both sides have to reign in the spending. Enough with all the over spending on gay studies in some obscure county that hates us. And I would like to know how Chelsea Clinton made $84 million.
Bam! Home run. Our feckless 'principled republicans' will not cut anything as they are receiving kickbacks from the MIC and CoC that supported moving everything to China.
Bitch McConnell is married to The Foremost Group and his relatives run IDG Capital.
Jeff, a question...could we consider VIX and other volatility measures as the equivalent of the derivative of the curve-i.e., degree of change?
Sure the analogy doesn't fully work, but just a thought.
Expand that thought. What exactly are you meaning?
Wondering if your insights can be captured mathematically....for more forward observations.
Probably the quant funds already have?
Vol works best as a measure when looking at the strike vs underlying. It’s better to think of it not as a measure of acceleration, 2nd “d”, but as the 3rd “d”, and each strike is its own curvilinear space, where vol slopes towards the asymptote that is the vol of the generic underlying. In other words, each strike has its own Gaussian distribution over the whole probabilistic curve that is the underlying security.
Or monkeys with darts.
Pricing options was a loooong time ago, for this ex-floor rat.
'People loved Obama. I was one of those who said he was diametrically opposed to American values and the ideas of free, transparent, and open government'
Have to disagree with you JC. Obama was (and is) a creature of the Chicago Democrat Party. He is a swindler through and through. Can't withstand the slightest scrutiny of anything he is doing. Had to have things 100% his way or nothing.
So the values of a typical American politician.
Ha, try telling that to any moderate or liberal from Illinois, or the country for that matter. He was the Golden Boy. We knew differently.
They would pull their hair out if anyone thought that Obama was the actual skunk he was.
I was involved with the Landmark Preservation Council when Obama ran for US Senate. They had problem with a building in Hyde Park where some nitwit developer wanted to build in a place that would mess up recreation and destroy some really good built history. They went at it pretty hard, then got a call from Obama.
I had lunch with the Preservation guy (good guy, pleasant as he could be) at the U Club, and he assured me, 'If Obama says it is ok, then we shouldn't push too hard on this building'
Hopeless.
Leftists love to lie. They kind of get off on it. It’s even more satisfying and fulfilling to them if people believe it. Glad to see that David Hogg is a leader at the DNC. It’s gonna take the Democrat party a long time to recover from Trump. They have to start by purging the commies in their midst starting with Obama. They won’t go quietly.
"Will those on the left be convinced? Or will they dig their heels in?"
We know the answer. They will dig in.
I somehow missed the caption and thought they were pills. Perspective….
Great article, as always!
The truth will set you free.....And at the same time, it hurts.
Clintons got $17k from the government, not $84m. Lots of these #s being spread are completely wrong, like the Politico story. MSM has its issues, but Twitter is even worse in some ways. And most of the data was publicly available for many years.
Even Lil' Marco at one time understood that USAID should be reformed not ended. The real issues have long been known. There's value in being present in most of these countries. And some of the actions especially in Africa are just plain unnecessarily cruel. Speaking of Lil' Marco - he apparently has a "political officer" that follows him around. Look that one up if you don't know it.
The CIA is super important to the security of the USA. Isolationism is not an option. Russia is deeply involved in corrupting Western Europe. China is spreading its influence all over.
Washington is an influence peddling environment. The NGOs certainly are part of it. Private sector for-profits rip off taxpayers an order of magnitude more. And most of it is legal. It's great that Trump is stopping some of the stuff that he has the power to do.
Most importantly none of this matters if congress keeps on passing budgets that are wildly out of balance. Rs have the both chambers of congress. Can they do anything to materially bring the deficit down? Not a chance.
Those that defend USAID are doomed to be bitten by it. Why should the Clinton's get $17k? "Hey, here is a brownie. It's got some dog crap in it, but not that much." The Clinton's probably didn't actually get it in their bank accounts but they controlled, paid cronies with it etc.
In Chicago, I didn't have to take out business insurance with George Dunne, but it sure helped move things along. I didn't have to use Michael Madigan as my property tax atty. But, it sure helped.
USAID should be ended, NGOs / nonprofits / not-for-profit shenanigans all have to end. Kill the sector by any means necessary. I've been advocating for years to take away tax exemptions for NGOs, nonprofits, social enterprises, and yes religious institutions. No good comes of any of that shady government overlap and credentialing.
Not one concrete positive result can be attributed to USAID. Take the example of a very very very large "not for profit" USAID NGO during OIF, or similar in Afghanistan. Man, everyone was there, all the players, wearing body armor and trying not to die to fake how much America cared. A cast of characters you wouldn't put in charge of raking your yard. Drunks and fools cashing in and living large. Same at the Mission. It doesn't matter what the projects said they were, the one thing they were not was helpful to the so-called marginalized or disadvantaged.
But I digress. Here's how "not for profit" status works: As long as you *spend all of the money* within the year, you have not made a profit, so you get more of that sweet sweet gravy and stay on the train. You might spend it on bonuses for C-level execs already approaching seven figures. You might invest in corporate, er, not-for-profit infrastructure to professionalize proposals to win extensions and more, bigger awards (that's called capacity building). I wouldn't be surprised if there's a way to get credit for setting it on fire in the parking lot. That's a not for profit USAID implementing partner. Does that sound like something Joe the Plumber ought to pay two cents for, or care two-cents about? I didn't even want to pay for it, and they were paying me.
We haven't scratched the surface of revealing the scope of the damage done by US taxpayer dollars through USAID overseas. Stay tuned.
Pretty sure the aid being delivered to Africa is worthwhile. One of the large issues at USAID is that it subsidizes American for-profit businesses. Not just NGOs. Some of what they do should be local sourced.
There's lots that is not great about NGOs. But you're not going to get rid of them easily. Going to stop sending money to Catholic hospitals?
The aid doesn't get to the people. Yes, stop sending aid to everyone. We are far past the "surgical scalpel" stage. We are at the burn it all down stage. If it's worthy, it can get aid. If it is a honeypot (and Catholic hospitals might be) then kill it. I am with Dana Loesch. Why are we paying taxes?
It certainly does get to the people in Africa. You can argue there's too much overhead. The US government runs multi-trillion dollar deficits every year. These billions are a distraction. They're not even much of a good show. The dopey, whiny Republicans cannot actually figure out how to materially cut the deficit.
I don't know how much time you've spent in Africa, but I work every day with colleagues and partners, local folks, in Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, Pacific Islands, LatAm & Caribbean. They're not the huge fans of American interference in their societies & political economies that the well-intentioned seem to imagine. Good intentions are irrelevant to actual impacts, which at best distort and quite often undermine healthier and more sustainable developmental patterns. Aid picks winners and losers, and the unaided agriculture or animal husbandry, small and medium enterprises, entrepreneurs, social and religious conservatives, and political factions, quite rightly resent handouts to rival groups, ideas, competitors.
Nuking USAID and mortally wounding its dependent parasites is a great start.
Pretty sure there's enormous waste and fraud in USAID dollars spent on projects in Africa, based on 30 years in the sector including years living in two African countries and shorter stints in 14 others, not counting 30+ other LMICs.
Cut off taxpayer dollars to NGOs and see how fast they shrivel up and blow away. Oh, yeah, that's what we're doing right now, and it's happening faster than you might imagine. I was in a network meeting today; one org (approx $1B annual revenue, roughly 85% USAID work) is laying off 40% of its staff tonight.
It's an empirical question & we'll see what happens next. I'm hoping they trash the tax-exempt status of these USG-dependent "non govt" orgs, definitely including religious institutions. TIthe or don't tithe, it's nothing to do with DC and certainly no justification to reach into MY pocket.
The brainiacs are cutting off the Bloomberg terminals! I wondered if they'd figure out the parallels to the Politico stuff. Good for them. I'm sure the DOGE "engineers" can build a replacement. They'll do it after they rebuild the ATC (that should be privatized). Quite the omelette they're making.