Don’t believe that that today’s woke, ESG virtue signaling champions are simply hypocrites and shysters, well then, I give you Exhibit A, Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In a recent interview he revealed that the wokeness that he and his company projected, was in his words, a "dumb game." In the interview, Bankman-Fried confessed that the fake window dressing of altruism was mostly a front, and that the performance was done "so everyone likes us."
Not sure that I would classify the sentiment of the investors as “liking you” Sam, the Democrats on the other hand you donated to during the midterms, they love ya baby!

Now for those of you who’ve not been following our “wunderkid”, FTX CEO Bankman-Fried saw his company collapse on Election Day. The 30-year-old also saw his net worth of nearly $16 billion wiped out in days. A far cry from the previous week, when FTX, his brainchild, was the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange having been valued at $32 billion back in February. However, as the song goes, that was yesterday when Sam’s troubles seemed so far away, but and last Friday the digital coin exchange filed for bankruptcy after rival Binance abandoned their takeover bid of FTX.

Easy come, easy go!

Not so for investors though by the looks of it, as between $1 billion and $2 billion of their funds reportedly vanished like Monkeypox from the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

Investigations into FTX have been launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice. Correct me if I’m wrong but wasn’t’ it the same Securities and Exchange Commission that gave Sam I am, the original green light?

You would think that the SEC would have done tons of due diligence right, given Sam Bankman-Fried was a Democrat megadonor, right?

Just how “mega” was he, well SBF reportedly contributed more than $5 million to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential campaign, wonder if Joe remembers? He was the second-biggest individual donor to Democrats in the 2021-2022 election cycle – donating $37 million. In May, Bankman-Fried said he planned to donate "north of $100 million" to Democrats in the 2024 presidential election but pledged to have a "soft ceiling" of $1 billion in donations to Democrats if the other “MAGA” guy former President Donald Trump decided to run again.

SBF became the biggest donor to the Democratic Protect Our Future PAC (Political Action Committee) that only launched in May. Gabe Bankman-Fried, SBF's brother, who handles the billionaire's political operations, declared that the PAC was formed to "stop the next pandemic."
In February, the dynamic duo gave a $5 million grant to ProPublica to financially "support investigations into ongoing questions about the COVID-19 pandemic, biosecurity and public health preparedness."

ProPublica might want to add “crypto fraud” to this list

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep, well some of Sam’s were the World Economic Forum which up until this week was still promoting FTX on their website.

In May, SBF was one of the featured speakers at World Economic Forum 2022 in Davos, Switzerland, makes sense, given his commitment to tackling important things like sustainability, diversity, equity, inclusion, cryptocurrency.

Then in September, SBF was a featured speaker at the annual meeting for the Clinton Global Initiative, that’s Bill & Hilary in case you didn’t know it. The event covered subjects such as vaccine development, the implications of climate change, and transforming philanthropy for equity, justice, impact and personal enrichment, I kinda added the last one, given its Bill & Hilary!

Our ESG darling SBF is slated to be a featured speaker at a summit hosted by the New York Times on Nov. 30, along with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Tickets for the event cost $2,499. He’s in good company, fine bunch of narcissists the lot of them. Hopefully he collected his speaking fee in advance.

SBF claimed he was an 'effective altruist”, of course claiming and being aren’t the same but that didn’t stop corporate media from gushing his praises. In fact, they went out of their way to deify him, folks like Jim Cramer, CNBC investment personality lauded SBF as "the JP Morgan of his generation.
Confirming that Kevin O’Leary isn’t God even though he thinks he is, the "Shark Tank" celebrity investor previously said of FTX, "If there's ever a place I could be, that I'm not going to get in trouble, it's gonna be at FTX."
Not to be outdone, CNBC reporter Kate Rooney touted SBF as the "Michael Jordan of crypto." Oh, you mean he liked to gamble like Mike, except in his case with other people’s money?

If you follow Bloomberg, how could you not think that SBF should be knighted, especially after reading such gushing commentary about the FTX founder, "Sam Bankman-Fried drives a Corolla, sleeps on a beanbag, and has a Robin Hood-like philosophy."

However, looks like the “cats out the bag” and it was all a “sham” as SBF admitted masquerading as 'woke Westerner'

In a new interview, SBF confessed that the virtuous appearance was just that an appearance all designed to ultimately win the game.

Vox, with V, reporter Kelsey Piper – who interviewed SBF through direct messages on Twitter – said to the former FTX CEO, "You were really good at talking about ethics for someone who kind of saw it all as a game with winners and losers."

SBF responded, "Ya, hehe. I had to be, it's what reputations are made of, to some extent. I feel bad for those who get f***ed by it. By this dumb game we woke westerners play where we say all the right shibboleths [sic] so everyone likes us."

Not all of us play this game, SBF, to some of us virtue & integrity means something.

When asked if his "ethics stuff" was "mostly a front," SBF replied, "Yeah. I mean that's not all of it but it's a lot."
You mean like 99.99% front and .01% ethics stuff?

In the summer, SBF said that companies should not engage in unethical practices. However, when pressed by the Vox reporter, he admitted, "Man all the dumb s**t I said."
I’m sure his legal team is thinking, he did say companies shouldn’t engage in ethical practices, nothing about it’s owners, so no harm no foul, right?
Speaking about investors focusing on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), he declared, "ESG has been perverted beyond recognition."
Not sure about that SBF, given it’s purpose all along was to use institutions and corporations in implementing policies that government simply couldn’t impose due to their unpopularity.
SBF exclaimed, "F*** regulators. They make everything worse. They don't protect customers at all."

Well, he should know, given he had the blessing of the SEC and Democrat lawmakers such as Maxine Waters.

SBF said it was "never the intention" to squander away investors' money, but "sometimes life creeps up on you."
"I f**ed up big multiple times," he added.

SBF said his biggest regret was FTX filing for bankruptcy. He believes that "everything would be 70% fixed right now" if he hadn't declared bankruptcy. He calls the bankruptcy his "biggest single f***up."

I can see that, it’s only the filing that brought things to light, if he hadn’t done that the illusion charade would have continued, not forever but at least for the time being.
Bankman-Fried said if he could do it all over again, he would have "more careful accounting" and separated his hedge fund Alameda Research from FTX.

Well, there’s always next time Sam!

In order to clean up the spill on aisle 7, John Jay Ray III, a bankruptcy expert with more than 40 years of restructuring experience, and who liquidated Enron, was appointed the CEO of FTX.

In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Ray said, "Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here."
Well at least SBF killed it at something!

"In the Bahamas, I understand that corporate funds of the FTX group were used to purchase homes and other personal items for employees and advisors," Ray wrote in a 30-page document. "I understand that there does not appear to be documentation for certain of these transactions as loans, and that certain real estate was recorded in the personal name of these employees and advisors on the records of the Bahamas."

SBF is reportedly selling his Bahamian commune penthouse dubbed "the Orchid" in the exclusive private community of Albany, located in Nassau, for nearly $40 million.
Wonder if they’ll take crypto?

My own take on this story is that SBF was either an unwitting or witting useful idiot in a multi-pronged scheme, first when you look at the donations that he made politically they’re basically all Democrats. He was crystal clear in his distaste of Donald Trump and his commitment to spend other people’s money into oblivion to see he never assumed power again. Second given he was given the blessing of the SEC and Democrat lawmakers, they knew what he was up to, so my guess is it was no surprise to them when the fraud was exposed. In fact, it was exactly the pretext they needed to create a new agency to regulate digital currency through their affiliate the banking industry and push towards a digital dollar period. Remember folk’s digital dollars not only allow them to see what you spend your money on, but more importantly turn off the tap at a whim, think truckers convoy! Third there certainly seems to be links to Ukraine, which is shaping up to be a giant slush fund, accessible to left of center parties and politicians. In fact, our friend SBF like Zelensky was on the cover of every magazine as the “poster boy” for the “woke virtue less, virtue signalers!”

Of course, none of this would likely be coming to light and the corporate media would be doing their utmost to bury the story if it weren’t for the sea change in the U.S. congress along with somewhat more unbiased Twitter. With the Republicans at the helm of congress and being led by a larger “America first” contingent amongst the Republican lawmakers, light may finally be shed on this as well as other “political overreaches and conflicts of interest” during the tenure of the Biden administration.

Let the games begin!