VALUE: After Hours (S07 E19): Rudy Havenstein – Corruption, Insider Deals, and the Revolving Door

During their recent episode, Taylor, Carlisle, and Rudy Havenstein discussed Corruption, Insider Deals, and the Revolving Door. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

Rudy: I was just reposting an old thing about the guy that was running the treasury program to buy corporate bonds back then had a vested interest in his own dad’s company that owned a ton of high yield bonds. And so, basically, he’s trading his book from the US Treasury. And that’s a constant theme with me, is this insider trading. We see it now. Trump’s going to announce some crypto thing. I just saw a headline today to buy his meme coins. But it’s constant.

With Stan Fischer’s death the other day, there was a chart that I think Olivier Blanchard or whatever put out. And in the center of the chart is Fischer, and then all the economists he’s connected to, okay, over the years. Many of them people don’t know, but a lot of them are household names. Yellen, Bernanke, Draghi, Summers, Krugman. The point I made is it’s amazing how these same people who provided– And Fischer too. He’s made a ton of money. The same people that provided intellectual cover for policies that led to massive spike in wealth inequality also gained generational wealth from the same people.

Fischer was hired by BlackRock. Bernanke’s at Citadel and Pimco. Yellen just went to Pimco. Kashkari was at Pimco. Dick Fisher went to Barclays. Dudley is basically a Goldman Sachs mole, his entire life. [Jake laughs] So, in my mind, it’s absolute– They are not working for the American people. The Fed is not. They’re unaccountable and they’re never held to account and they’re never fired or anything. They just go back to their reward.

Before she was Treasury Secretary, she was making $300,000 of speech talking to the same banks that a year before she was the head regulator of. What’s up with that? And of course, nobody in Congress– We don’t have any sheriffs, because Congress doing the same thing. To me, it’s blatant corruption. If you’re on the House Financial Services Committee regulating Citigroup and then you go work and get a big payday at Citigroup.

It’s just like one of the New York prosecutors that was working to prosecute Bill Black for some allegations, he ends up going to a boutique law firm that defends Bill Black. So, these deals are made. If you got enough money, there’s no– Ever since Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling– Ken didn’t even go to jail. He passed away before he did. When is any white-collar criminal ever gone to jail in the United States? People see that and they think like, “Well, heck, if I steal $5–” Well, in California, you got to steal a $1,000.

Jake: [laughs]

Rudy: But if I steal $1,000 from a store, I’m going to do a couple years maybe or something. But you can still steal billions and– Look at a bank like JPM, that not only had dealt with Epstein for 15 years and violated a number of reporting requirements, but they’ve been convicted of five criminal felony charges at least while Jamie Dimon has been CEO and no executive apparently for these criminal actions. This happens at every big bank. It’s the brick and mortar and the shareholders that pay the fine.

That should outrage the shareholders, but everybody loves Jamie Dimon, who’s– As Ben Hunt says, “Generationally rich for being a manager of a bank that the government won’t allow to fail.” It’s a scam. Scams everywhere now. Grifting everywhere, bugs me.

Jake: Yeah.

Tobias: Is the solution, bitcoin?

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