Suck-Up Sam
This Week In Blunders - March 2-8
“Knavery and flattery are blood relations.” - Abraham Lincoln
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, the most notorious criminal of the crypto age, gave an unauthorized jailhouse interview to Tucker Carlson on Thursday, stumping for a presidential pardon.
Never mind the millions Bankman-Fried lavished on Democrats.
Among President Donald Trump’s first acts was pardoning Ross Ulbricht who ran Silk Road. The website was once called “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet” – a place where you could buy anything from illicit drugs to murderers for hire. So what’s a few billion in misappropriated money by a furry-headed crypto klepto?
Bankman-Fried, 33, received a 25-year prison sentence and a court order to forfeit $11 billion last year following his 2023 conviction on seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
The convict spoke to Carlson from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he’s been hanging out with Sean “Diddy” Combs, who is awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges. (SBF describes Diddy as “kind.”)
The Federal Bureau of Prisons did not approve the interview and Bankman-Fried was thrown into solitary for a spell, according to The Wall Street Journal.
This was not Bankman-Fried’s first stop on his “now-I’m-a-Trump-Republican” tour. In February, he offered a phone interview to The New York Sun, praising the GOP.
Bankman-Fried holds a place in the Business Blunders Hall of Shame where we memorialize the most outlandish white-collar felons throughout the decades.
One thing Bankman-Fried has in his favor is that Trump despises the judge who presided over his trial.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan also oversaw the 2023 case brought by E. Jean Carroll – where Trump was ordered to pay $5 million in damages after being found liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.
“I know President Trump had a lot of frustrations with Judge Kaplan,” Bankman-Fried told the Sun. “I certainly did as well.”
Funny, though. Bankman-Fried’s name didn’t come up during the first-ever White House crypto summit that Trump called on Friday.
He wasn’t really running a complex crypto scam. He was simply stealing his customers’ money.
He also ripped off some of the nation’s most elite investors and he made absolute fools of celebrity endorsers as well as the Silicon Valley kingmakers who dubbed him a genius.
They’re not likely to cheer for his release, and Trump is busy with other things, if you haven’t noticed.
Maybe Bankman-Fried should have stuck with Joe Biden.
Up against the Walgreens
Walgreens was once worth $100 billion. On Wednesday, the struggling drug-store chain said it would go private in a $10 billion deal with private equity firm Sycamore Partners.
And that was 8% more than it was worth on the stock market when the deal was announced.
The Deerfield, Ill.-based company has been publicly traded since 1927. It should have taken the $70 billion buyout offer it received in 2019 from private equity firm KKR.
What happened?
Well, there’s nothing like piling up bricks and mortar while the world goes digital.
Walgreens had been on an expansion spree for years, even as Amazon started eating its lunch. But in October, the chain announced plans to close 1,200 stores by 2027. At the time, the company said about one quarter of its 8,700 U.S. stores were not profitable.
Meanwhile, Walgreens’ rivals (CVS and Express Scripts) merged with health insurers and gained an edge on medical-reimbursement rates that were killing pharmacies.
Once in Sycamore’s hands, it will probably be sold for parts and forgotten about as fast as Woolworth.
A strategic recession?
On again/off again tariffs. Mass firings of government workers. Widespread deportations. What the hell is President Donald Trump trying to do? Cause a recession?
Well yes, says Charlie McElligott, a highly regarded strategist at Nomura.
McElligott is telling clients that the White House plan may be to engineer a recession that will bring down inflation, cause the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, and weaken the dollar so that the world continues shopping in the good ol’ US of A.
Deregulation and tax cuts could then work their magic rebuilding the economy without an increase in government spending.
This might explain why tacking inflation doesn’t seem to be a priority for the Trump administration.
“Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American dream,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday.
It’s not? Because it sure was in November when voters kicked Biden to the curb.
If none of this makes sense to you, you’re probably not a Wall Street analyst or a White House economist. Just leave it to the experts.
Advertise or get X-ed?
Here’s a case that will go absolutely nowhere: In an exclusive story published Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reports that five Democrat U.S. senators want the Department of Justice to investigate Elon Musk for extortion.
They claim Musk might be bullying his advertisers who fled his social media platform, X. They think he might be making threats to advertise or face consequences – such as having their multibillion-dollar mergers X-ed.
“The request, from Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Adam Schiff and Chris Van Hollen, follows a Wall Street Journal report last month about the social-media platform’s pressuring Interpublic Group to spend more on X.”
Last year, Musk famously told advertisers to “go-fuck-themselves.” Then he sued them for actually fucking off. Now as Trump’s right-hand man, Musk is allegedly wielding the power of the White House?
Nice try, senators. As if our new U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi even wants to look at your letter.
Need quick cash? Start a fake law firm
Sean Mescall, 46, opened a law firm in New York’s financial district that was always changing its name. It went by “Prospection Legal,” “Prospection Legal Group” and “Legal Prospection” and other scrambled monikers.
He took on a class-action lawsuit, a discrimination case and a business dispute over a breach of contract. He accepted $200,000 from clients for his services.
The only problem was that he wasn’t a lawyer.
“Sean Mescall posed as a fake attorney to take advantage of clients who relied on him for what they thought was legitimate legal assistance,” said Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, announcing an indictment on Wednesday.
Oh yeah, Mr. Bragg? You think going to law school made you smart? You just watch how Counselor Mescall does when he represents himself. See you in court!
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Maybe Bankman-Fried and P. Diddy (Sean Combs) will strike a deal with Conselor Mescall???
Whenever I hear about one of these things, I always think of Frank Abagnale.
Maybe Mescall read his book or saw his movie.
And thought: hey, that works.
The other thing these stories always remind me of (about people faking/stealing/conning others) is 'Six Degrees of Separation' and Anna Sorokin - the woman able to convince wealthy hipsters she was one of them.
Apparently, SBF is onto something. The way to gain access to power is to flatter it.
I have been faking a law firm for 40 years. Not that hard.