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"More Probable Than Not"

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Ben Hunt via Salient Partners' Epsilon Theory blog,


The only thing that I ask from this group today and the American people is to judge me from this day forward. That’s all I can ask for.
Alex Rodriguez press conference, February 17, 2009, regarding his steroid use from 2001 – 2003.

I’m ready to put this chapter behind me and play some ball.
– Alex Rodriguez “apology” letter, February 17, 2015, regarding his steroid use from 2010 – 2012.

Brady:

I would never do something that was outside of the rules of play.  I would never have someone do something that I thought was outside of the rules.

Reporter:

So you never knowingly played with a football that was under 12.5 pounds?

Brady:

No.

Tom Brady press conference, January 22, 2015

Now, we all know that air pressure is a function of the atmospheric conditions. If there is activity in the ball relative to the rubbing process I think that explains why when we gave them to the official and the officials put them at let’s say 12.5 … once the ball reached its equilibrium state it’s probably closer to 11.5.
– noted physicist and football coach Bill Belichick, January 24, 2015.

That is an allegation [FOMC quashing their own General Counsel’s investigation of leaks] that I don’t believe has any basis in fact. I’m not going to go into any detail but I don’t know where that piece of information could possibly have come from.
– Janet Yellen press conference, March 18, 2015.

The Board’s Inspector General and the Department of Justice are in the midst of an investigation into this matter [FOMC leaks to journalists and market consultants]. We are cooperating fully with them and look forward to the results of their investigation. … I had one meeting with Ms. Regina Schleiger of Medley Global Advisors during the period covered by the staff review. As Vice Chair of the Board, I met with Ms. Schleiger on June 11, 2012, to hear her perspectives on international developments.
– Janet Yellen letter to Rep. Jeb Hensarling, May 4, 2015.

Mr. Bernanke said that he was sensitive to the public’s anxieties about the “revolving door” between Wall Street and Washington and chose to go to Citadel, in part, because “it is not regulated by the Federal Reserve and I won’t be doing any lobbying of any sort.” He added that he had been recruited by banks but declined their offers. “I wanted to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest,” he said. “I ruled out any firm that was regulated by the Federal Reserve.”
– New York Times, April 16, 2015.

Senator:

Fletcher, there's an old saying to the victors belong the spoils.

Fletcher:

There's another old saying, Senator.  Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

"The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976)

My father was a doctor who spent his entire career in a small hospital built by the Tennessee Coal and Iron company in Fairfield, Alabama. He was an ER doc way before emergency medicine was its own thing, which meant that he saw a wide gamut of cases, from knife fights to car wrecks to heart attacks. But it also meant that he saw a lot of ordinary colds and various infectious diseases, as the emergency clinic then – as now – was the only on-demand medical facility available for people who couldn’t afford or didn’t have access to private physician practices. Now one of my father’s great joys in life was watching sports on our grainy black and white TV, miraculously upgraded to a grainy color TV when I was 12. I’m sure he spent hundreds, if not thousands, of happy hours watching sports. Unless, of course, the hapless TV commentator made the mistake of excusing the absence of, say, Larry Bird from a Celtics game by saying that Bird “had a touch of the flu” and so was too sick to play, which was guaranteed to send my father into a 10-minute tirade.
 
“A touch of the flu? A touch of the flu? You mean he has contracted the influenza virus? Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what it means to have the flu? Do you have any idea how sick you are if you have the flu? People DIE from the flu, you moron! What does that even mean … a touch of the flu? Is Larry Bird in the hospital? Because if he has influenza, you sure better get him to the hospital! I hope you’ve got a saline IV hooked up to Larry Bird’s arm right now! No, he’s not in the hospital. Do you know why? Because he has a COLD. That’s right, you idiot, he has a COLD! Not the flu!”
 
Honest to god, this would go on for quite a while. Somehow it never got old to my father to rail at what he perceived as the mendacity – to use a good Tennessee Williams word – of a TV commentator elevating Larry Bird’s status from an ordinary human wrestling with a common cold to a heroic struggle with influenza. Even today, 30 years later, I can’t help but laugh at these memories of my father whenever I read or hear about a player out for the game because of “flu-like symptoms.”
 
I’ve inherited a lot of my father’s traits, and one of them is his intolerance for this mendacity of language, this intentional failure to call things by their proper names, this linguistic exercise in self-puffery and cover-up. Unfortunately for me and anyone else who shares this peculiar sensitivity, mendacity of language has never been more rampant in all of our social worlds, from sports to politics to markets. 
 
With the advent of always-on mass media that projects the illusion of a one-to-one personal connection with cartoons like “Tom Brady” and “Jim Cramer” – corporate entities that are connected with but distinct from human beings like Tom Brady and Jim Cramer – language intentionally designed to influence rather than inform is now ubiquitous in the business of sports and politics and markets Why? Because it works. It delays sanctions until after you play in the Super Bowl, until after you sign a quarter of a billion dollar contract. It deflects attention until after your term in office is over, until after you cash in with a book deal and hedge fund consultancy.
 
To use the ponderous, legally parsed language of the NFL’s Wells Report on “deflate-gate”, language which I think wonderfully encapsulates the pinched spirit of our age, here are four things that I believe are “more probable than not”:
1) Alex Rodriguez has routinely used steroids and PED’s of various stripes since he was a sophomore in high school.
 
2) Tom Brady has routinely bribed equipment managers with autographed jerseys and new shoes in order to receive footballs deflated well below what he knew was the legal limit.
 
3) Janet Yellen has routinely leaked market-moving information to favored private sector conduits, and has also sought to quash internal investigations of same.
 
4) Ben Bernanke is for sale to the highest bidder.
But here’s the thing. I’m not that worked up about ANY of these issues. Yes, A-Rod has been juicing for 25 years, and Tom Terrific breaks the rules he thinks he can get away with breaking. Okay. Them and about 5,000 other professional athletes. Janet Yellen, the prime author of Fed “communication policy” (the intentional use of words to influence market expectations), leaks her viewpoint as part of that communication policy and then tries to kill an internal investigation. Okay. Her and every other senior politician and bureaucrat in the history of human civilization. As for Bernanke … a former President of the United States and the leading candidate to be the next President of the United States have personally received more than $100 million in “donations” from mega-corporations and foreign governments, and I’m supposed to be outraged about Ben Bernanke cashing a big check from Ken Griffin?
 
What I AM worked up about, though, is the mendacity … the utter lack of character and authenticity … on full display in ALL of these cases. All of these cases and so many, many more. 
 
You want to go work for Citadel? Fine, go work for Citadel. But OWN IT. Don’t insult my … I’m not even going to say intelligence, because it’s not an assault on intelligence we’re talking about here … don’t insult my 50 years of life as a reasonably self-aware human being by claiming that you’re taking the high road here by working for Citadel instead of, say, JP Morgan. I mean, the notion that access to the Fed’s regulatory authority over big banks is somehow the defining characteristic of why Ben Bernanke is a sought-after commodity, or that any public outrage here is clearly misplaced because, after all, he won’t be a – gasp! – bank lobbyist, per se … it’s all just horrifically insulting to anyone with the common sense to know that the sky is blue, that 2 + 2 = 4, and that you don’t meaningfully change the air pressure in footballs by rubbing them vigorously. It’s mendacity and inauthenticity in the first degree.
 
You want to embark on a conscious policy of manipulating market expectations (yes, manipulating is a strong word, but it’s exactly accurate) by planting a carefully constructed Narrative with journalists like Jon Hilsenrath at the Wall Street Journal and consultants like Regina Schleiger at Medley, journalists and consultants who you know will be influential precisely because they are trumpeting their exclusive access to you? Fine. I totally get it. Once you’ve hit zero on short rates and pushed your balance sheet up over $4 trillion in LSAP’s, jawboning is the only bullet you’ve got left in the gun. But OWN IT. Don’t tell me that you’re meeting with Regina Schleiger at Medley because you want to hear HER perspectives on monetary policy! I’m sure that Ms. Schleiger is a very smart person. I’m sure that she is an insightful observer of the international economic scene. But – and I’m trying to say this in the kindest possible way – there’s not 1 in 100,000 investors who even knows who Ms. Schleiger is, and fewer still who would be willing to pay money or time to hear her personal opinion about the proper course of monetary policy. The exception, we are told, is the Chair of the Federal Reserve, in many respects the most powerful person on the planet … she, of course, is terribly keen to hear Ms. Schleiger’s views on international economics. 
 
And yes, I know that Fed governors have these consultant meetings all the time. I know that their guests do most of the talking. But I also know, because I’ve done it, that professional investors and allocators are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to consultants like Medley, solely to glean a scrap of insight as to what the Fed is thinking, solely to be a willing host of the Narrative virus that the Fed is trying to spread. More to the point, Janet Yellen knows it, too, which is why she has these meetings. The act itself is not a horrible thing ... not for A-Rod, not for Brady, not for Yellen, and not for Bernanke. It’s not a crime, or at least not a crime that will shame your children or your fan base. Certainly it’s a difficult and unpleasant thing when you’re revealed, because now you’ve got to deal with the Roger Goodell’s and the Bud Selig’s and the Jeb Hensarling’s and the Elizabeth Warren’s of the world – petty tyrants, all – but you knew there was this chance when you made the decision to break the rules, (or the “rules” in Bernanke’s and 2009 A-Rod’s case). But don’t turn a difficult situation into a personal capitulation to mendacity. Far better to own it.  
 
Believe it or not, I’m not just venting my spleen at the outrageous displays of mendacity that assault us at every turn. I think that there’s an enormous political opportunity today (and I mean political in the broadest sense of the word, a sense that clearly includes the Fed, and arguably includes the NFL and MLB) to embrace authenticity, even if you are authentically an unlikable or – to use the insult du jour – a “polarizing” person. Not only am I convinced that we are each more likely to be successful in our chosen field when acting authentically (don’t you think that if Tiger Woods had embraced his authentically heel-ish nature in 2009, grown a goatee and moved to a casino suite in Vegas, that he’d still be winning majors today?), but also specifically within the chosen field of politics I think there is such a hunger for authenticity that ANY display of honest conviction when confronted with adversity, even if the adversity is well-deserved for breaking a rule, quickly becomes an enormous asset. Maybe this will turn out to be a more interesting election in 2016 than we think. Then again, with the vast campaign coffers already accumulated by Clinton™ and Bush™, two profoundly inauthentic corporate entities, maybe not.   
 
Sigh. I know I’m not going to change anything by writing about this stuff, any more than my father was going to change a sports commentator’s patter by yelling at the TV. Like my father, though, I just can’t help myself. It’s never easy to be authentic. It’s never easy to call things by their proper names. It’s never easy to own it. But here in the Golden Age of the Central Banker, it’s never been more important. Or more politically savvy.

 

 

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Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:10 | 6087592 junction
junction's picture

Brady is getting off easy.

Reuters: "North Korea's Defence Minister Hyon Yong-chol has been executed, South Korea's spy agency has told parliament, according to media reports.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported that MPs were told Mr Hyon had been killed on 30 April by anti-aircraft fire.

He is believed to have been accused of showing disloyalty to North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un."

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 07:25 | 6088721 detached.amusement
detached.amusement's picture

well, anti aircraft fire aint a guillotine, but it'll do

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 08:14 | 6088813 I_Am_
I_Am_'s picture

Anti aircraft -

Ack, ack, ack, Ack, ack, ack, OR only ack!!!!

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 14:36 | 6090104 VangelV
VangelV's picture

Brady is getting off easy.

 

I disagree.  First of all, the investiagion would have gone nowhere had it been done honestly and is as much of an indictment of the NFL's incompetence than of Brady.  The revelations that got to me was the fact that the NFL referees had overinflated game balls to well above the upper limit in one game, which shows that the limits are for reference purposes only, not essential.  Just as bad was the revelation that the gauges used are not calibrated or consistent.  Even worse was the fact that the NFL could not tell anyone what the original pressures were for both teams and the fact that the referees had not checked all of the balls for both teams at the same time.  Add it up and you have a system that has no controls and seems not to matter to the NFL.  

 

What is worse is the fact that the team was attacked even after the report cleared the ownership and coaches from any wrongdoing.  The draft choices were taken away not because of what the team did wrong but because it would not fold and attack its own quarterback and employees.  

 

This is an indictment of the fact that in the United States principles and justice no longer matter.  In the Ray Rice case the public cheered as the NFL harmed the victim as it denied her husband the opportunity to earn a living as his career was coming to an end.  In the Saints case the commisioner went after a coach that he did not like and suspended players wrongly.  In the end a judge and a truly independent arbitrator rolled back the punishment.  

 

That said, Kraft is being paid back because he did not have the stones to speak out about the arbitrary nature of the NFL punishment scheme.  Hopefully he has learned and will make sure that the courts impose a system of justice.  I suggest that the NFL needs to appoint a thoughtful person for the job of commissioner.  My vote would be for Judge Andrew Napolitano.  

Thu, 05/14/2015 - 14:03 | 6093841 Serfs Up
Serfs Up's picture

I, for one, completely couldn't give less of a fuck about partially deflated footballs.

What I do give a fuck about is that in regards to the deflate-gate investigation we have this bit of information:

After three and a half months of an investigation and millions of dollars spent and dozens upon dozens of people interviewed … the investigators still concluded in their report that it was just more probable than not,” Yee told Patrick.

The effing 9/11 investigation was only $15 million...let that soak in for a minute...and people actually care more about deflate gate.  Well fuck everybody who does.   Seriously.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:15 | 6087606 NoDebt
NoDebt's picture

Yeah, true, but remember, when it gets serious, you have to lie.  Not "it's OK to lie", not "lying is acceptable", not "lying is the most expedient way to handle it", not "lying is recommended".

You MUST lie.  It's a moral imperative.  Once you've thrown out rule of law, the Consitution, and replaced it with nothing but rule by the powerful (as we have done in the US), the ends ALWAYS justify the means.

Do you think Obama feels that lying to the American public about the Bin Laden raid bothers him?  Not in the least.  It bothers him a little that he is now getting caught in that lie, but if you were to ask him if he wished he handled the situation differently his answer would be "No, I HAD TO lie.  Circumstances demanded it."  You could take that same justification and apply it to Benghazi, the IRS scandal, the AP phone tapping scandal, etc.  It would fit ALL of them.  Hell, even Brady might try it over "deflate gate".  Everyone else was doing it, so I HAD TO DO IT to stay competitive...

See where I'm going with this?

 

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 22:44 | 6087898 A Nanny Moose
A Nanny Moose's picture

Like a certain cyclist, it will be cheaper for Brady to go on Oprah and admit his "sins" than to keep dodging the long arm of the law (or bureaucratic sanctioning body.)

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:16 | 6087612 SloMoe
SloMoe's picture

"Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal"

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:19 | 6087625 Oldwood
Oldwood's picture

The audacity of the lies is symptomatic to the degree of corruption that we live under. When they no longer feel the need to conceal but rather a need to illustrate their arrogance, their sense of unaccountability, insulation from any consequence of matter, we know we are in dire shape.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:20 | 6087627 blindman
blindman's picture

sad day, happy tune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkyX824YWGI
.
before long, we are all just dead. one
and all. so, add that to the mix.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:26 | 6087667 Grouchy Marx
Grouchy Marx's picture

Good post. I sympathize.

Authenticity is a beautiful thing, but only appreciated by the authentic. 

Carry on. I yell at my computer and TV screens also when I encounter mendacity. 

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 23:34 | 6088042 Lordflin
Lordflin's picture

You must do a considerable amount of yelling.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:26 | 6087671 Totentänzerlied
Totentänzerlied's picture

If you're capable of being surprised by a single sentence of this post, you're probably autistic or just really really really really REALLY REALLY really fucking naive. If you're still in grade school it's okay, otherwise, it's time to admit you were seriously deceived about how the world works and has always worked in all times and at all places. For fuck's sake, one of the main forces driving the explosive growth of early human intelligence was THE NEED TO LIE AND TO DETECT LIES AND IDENTIFY LIARS.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:30 | 6087676 williambanzai7
williambanzai7's picture

Why use the word mendacity instead of lying?

Here's why…

 

 

.   

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:27 | 6087679 Usurious
Usurious's picture

the biggest LIES are told by the biggest empires........

''Many tens of thousands were detained and tortured in the camps. I won't spare you the details: we have been sparing ourselves the details for far too long. Large numbers of men were castrated with pliers. Others were raped, sometimes with the use of knives, broken bottles, rifle barrels and scorpions. Women had similar instruments forced into their vaginas. The guards and officials sliced off ears and fingers, gouged out eyes, mutilated women's breasts with pliers, poured paraffin over people and set them alight. Untold thousands died.

The government's secret archive, revealed this April, shows that the attorney general, the colonial governor and the colonial secretary knew what was happening. The governor ensured that the perpetrators had legal immunity: including the British officers reported to him for roasting prisoners to death. In public the colonial secretary lied and kept lying.

Little distinguishes the British imperial project from any other. In all cases the purpose of empire was loot, land and labour. When people resisted (as some of the Kikuyu did during the Mau Mau rebellion), the response everywhere was the same: extreme and indiscriminate brutality, hidden from public view by distance and official lies.''

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/08/empire-torture-keny...

whats in your empire?

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:28 | 6087681 BoPeople
BoPeople's picture

Yeah ... Satan ... corruption.

He and his minions have been very successful. Does he reward those who he corrupts? Yeah probably. It is how he captures souls.

Yes, I am serious.

Fortunately the vast majority of us will not sell our soul to Satan for fame, fortune or power. We are not jealous. We are saddened by the weakness and fear of those who want to be our leaders.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:41 | 6087695 Troy Ounce
Troy Ounce's picture

"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" - Neil Armstrong, from the movie studios of Hollywood (July 20th 1969).

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 21:37 | 6087706 stant
stant's picture

Herman Goreing. " if we had not had the Jews we would have had to invent them" hope you got the context

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 22:21 | 6087820 WTFUD
WTFUD's picture

Am absolutely shocked. How am i going to explain to my kids that the Gatekeepers are murderously corrupt and their sporting idols cheat?

Here's me playing everything by their rule book and not a pot to piss in, nada to show for 15 years of labour and sweat.

I know why don't i get a loan on the never never and keep them in the manner they're accustomed to.

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 01:09 | 6088277 bunnyswanson
bunnyswanson's picture

Explain to the kids it is a "trickle down" theory.  Or, corruption at the top is a green light to corruption.

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 01:25 | 6088313 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

This one is harder, false advertising is rampant. Remember the Taco Bell Claim, 100% Beef, Grade A Beef.

-

Fast food hamburgers: what are we really eating?
Prayson B1, McMahon JT, Prayson RA.
Author information
Abstract

Americans consume about 5 billion hamburgers a year. It is presumed that most hamburgers are composed primarily of meat. The purpose of this study is to assess the content of 8 fast food hamburger brands using histologic methods. Eight different brands of hamburgers were evaluated

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18995204

Meat content in the hamburgers ranged from 2.1% to 14.8% (median, 12.1%).

Unexpected tissue types found in some hamburgers included bone, cartilage, and plant material; no brain tissue was present. Sarcocystis parasites were discovered in 2 hamburgers.

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 22:55 | 6087925 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

And Hillary 'probably' did....

Tue, 05/12/2015 - 22:59 | 6087937 Pancho de Villa
Pancho de Villa's picture

The Rats Thrive when there is a Culture of Corruption.

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 03:10 | 6088484 GardenWeasel
GardenWeasel's picture

You are fucking kidding me.  You are comparing the sins of the gubment and central bank with "deflate-gate".  Oh, fucking give me a break.  You have proof, of course.  yeah, I thought so. suck shit, asshole. 

Wed, 05/13/2015 - 07:11 | 6088704 Bopper09
Bopper09's picture

Cartman says it like it is

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnqQhUdXgvI

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