Madeleine Albright Unhinged Nutcase? By Walrus.

Madeleine Albright is alleged to have said on Friday on CNN of Hilary Clintons alleged use of an unsecured private server for her official email that:

"She has said she made a mistake, and nobody is going to die as a result of anything that happened on emails."

I personally find this to be the most breathtaking stupidity and I would hope it is the result of old age or dementia rather than the considered opinion of a former Secretary Of State. Mrs. Albright is in no position to know if "nobody is going to die" from accidental disclosure of confidential information and it remains a very real possibility that sources have been compromised with potentially fatal results. What sources we do have in foreign governments must be terrified that an inadvertent slip by Hilary in a published email will reveal them.

You can bet that every intelligence service in the world, including friends and allies of the United States, are analysing every Clinton official email they can get their hands on, looking for a potential leak in their own security…..and they will be looking backwards a very long time. I do not think I even need to provide examples, but Venona, Krivitsky, Petrov and God knows who else set trains of investigation in motion over decades.

 http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/madeleine-albright-clinton-email-223861

As for Albrights comments on "Russian aggression" my response is unprintable. Perhaps the most likeable comment I have seen is "How dare Russia move her country so close to our NATO bases!".

Comments

[Jack]

Rob

The issue that needs to be looked at is the tax treatment for carried interest. Currently, its considered as capital gains by the IRS. So, the general partner's income is essentially treated as capital gains and not income. Hence, a lower rate.

Now, in all fairness in most funds before the 20% sharing of net gains generated by the fund by the general partner there is a hurdle rate. That means the fund must first generate a certain return and only the returns over that hurdle rate are eligible for the 20% incentive. I think that is a very useful incentive plan from the perspective of the limited partners that invest their capital.

You are right that the 2% management fee drives the incentive to increase the size of AUM (assets under management).

IMO, there's nothing wrong with the 2&20 compensation structure since investors are free to not invest. They can always invest in an index fund or even a mutual fund.

[mistah charley, ph.d.]

"She has said she made a mistake, and nobody is going to die as a result of anything that happened on emails."

I personally find this to be the most breathtaking stupidity and I would hope it is the result of old age or dementia rather than the considered opinion of a former Secretary Of State.

In general, I do not regard any assertion by a public figure whom I distrust as a statement of what they actually think. I regard it as an attempt to influence the listener. Madame Albright knows that Hillary made a very big mistake - she just hopes to convince others that it was a very small mistake.

Peripherally relevant: There is old Russian joke, from pre-USSR Russia. Two business competitors meet at the train station in Moscow. One asks, “Where are you going?” “To Minsk.” “Ah, you say you are going to Minsk because you want me to think you are going to Pinsk. But I happen to know already you ARE going to Minsk — you liar!”

[Procopius]

"... what is to be gained by Hillary and other politicians who insist on calling Putin, Hitler, a thug, a gangster, a murderer, bully, ... ?" I don't know, but maybe Robert Kagan does. Victoria Nuland could not have had her neonazi insurrection in Ukraine without the knowledge and approval of her superiors. Who promoted Victoria Nuland?

[Procopius]

I'm writing this before reading the link, so maybe they explain the connection there, but it isn't obvious how "When the special operations command became tired of botched missions, it stopped giving advance warning to the State Department officials in Manila. Once they did that, they finally had missions start to go to plan." connects to Clinton's phone calls. To my unsophisticated eyes it looks more like they had a mole in the embassy in Manila.

[Procopius]

Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism has been running a series of blog posts on CALPERS, the huge California pension fund, and their seemingly irrational love of hedge funds and private equity deals (which use the same management fee structure). As she points out there are lots of other fees which the senior partners impose on the deals that basically come out of the limited partners' (the investors) share of the profits before the 20% is calculated. There is clearly a lot of skimming and squeezing by the senior partners, who are the ones who keep the books and decide what the profit is.

[Procopius]

Oh, look over there. Look who's going in the bathroom!

[Jack]

CALPERS is chosing to be screwed. They're not an innocent party. They have the choice to not invest in hedge funds or PE funds. And if they do invest know the terms of the deal before they invest. They could also of course negotiate those terms before investing if its not to their liking. This is a giant pension fund with huge staff including legal. The real question that should be asked is what is CALPERS management doing as they have a fiduciary responsibility? But like many government entities the trustees are political appointees. Typically union representatives and they have no real skin in the game as it's OPM (other people's money). There have been numerous scandals of conflict of interest in the various government run pension funds across many states. The biggest issue at pension funds is the rate of return assumptions that lead to chronic under-funding. Government workers are being promised golden pensions that have only got sweeter. But they're only promises. If the financial markets have a prolonged period of subpar performance then the chickens will come home to roost. Then, they'll need MRW as finance chief to conjure up the payment stream with no loss of purchasing power.

[Thomas]

"Who promoted Victoria Nuland?"

Richard Bruce Cheney.