Crypto Bros Savaged By Bear Market - The Tuesday AM Quickie 6/14/22

By Jack Crosbie — Jun 14, 2022

Hi all, sorry about the flub in the headline yesterday – I drafted the newsletter from Poland and then got on my flight, but fortunately Bradley was there to correct my little brain fart. Should have known that there was no way the Senate would actually pass something that fast. As a penance, I will force myself to write about the economy today. Wait. Where are you going! No! Come back! I said I was sorry! It's just the economy!! - Jack

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THE BIG NEWS

Bear Market Wreaks Havoc On Fake Money Like Crypto and Stocks

We can't stop here, this is bear market country! Sorry. Look. It's been a long day. I flew back from Poland and the jet lag is setting in. Anyway, the economy is in the absolute dumpster!

The S&P 500 fell more than 20% from its last high in January, plunging us into what economics-knowers refer to as a bear market. And it doesn't seem like we're particularly close to the end of this one either. The Fed, for instance, is expected to announce an interest rate hike of half a percent at some point this week, in order to get rapid inflation under control. They could do that again in mid-July as well. Those moves don't typically help the stock market – the Fed making lending easier and flooding the economy with money are often what pulls it out of a pit – so it seems like the bear is here to stay for a while.

The question on everyone's mind is whether or not this bear will turn into a full-blown recession. Most of the wise moneyheads say no, not yet, but we're headed for one in 2023, so, uh, buckle up I guess.

For the crypto bros, however, the words "crater," "fall," "recede" or just "plummet" certainly come to mind. Amid the traditional fake-money capitalist system's woes comes the new-wave fake-money capitalist system's woes. Crypto is suffering. Bitcoin, for instance, dropped 15 percent in the last day to its lowest price since 2020. Ether is down 16 percent, and some crypto banks have frozen withdrawals to slow the massive rush on digital assets.

Is this the beginning of the Big Crash that crypto-haters have been predicting for so long? Again, I don't know. But right now, things certainly look pretty bad for all of the annoying dudes with cartoon monkey profile pictures.

MORE STORIES TO WATCH

The Treason Show, Episode 02 Recap

Another day of hearings! Hear... we go! Monday's morning hearing session saw testimony from Bill Barr, Trump campaign chairman Bill Stepien and Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman, as well as others. The defining theme of the hearings was that many, many members of Trump's inner circle tried to tell him that he had no legal or rational case to declare that the election was stolen or that he had won, and yet, he did it anyway. Stepien's testimony referred to the two camps advising Trump on that night as "Team Normal," and "Rudy's Team," which, to understand the difference, read this and try not to burst out laughing:

On election night, rather than heed Mr. Stepien’s caution, Mr. Trump chose to listen to the advice of an “apparently inebriated Rudy Giuliani” and declare victory, said Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman of the committee.

This entire crisis of democracy was essentially started because Rudy Giuliani got hammered on election night. What a great political system we have!

The Far Right is Starting to Test its Limits Again – And They're Targeting the LGBTQ Community First

This is sort of a compilation story of a few things I've noticed over the past days: the right wing is getting weirder and more violent. Over the weekend, for instance, police arrested en mass members of a militia called Patriot Front for protesting a pride event in Idaho; the cops who arrested them are now getting death threats. Elsewhere, the Proud Boys disrupted a drag queen reading event at a California library. All of this stuff is being urged on by posters – like the recently unmasked LibsofTiktok – intent on focusing the right wing culture war onto the LGBTQ community, which it sees as both a soft target and a good catalyst for larger fascist goals like the breakup of public schools. But on the street level, its clear that some of the most violent groups are starting to find a new outlet for specific and targeted action – and that means nothing good.

Quickest Quickies

Covid Is Messing With Other Viruses The pandemic disease's interactions with other common maladies are producing some bizarre and frightening results. via WaPo.
Ousted Dem Turns On Own Party Talk about a sore loser: after getting smacked by a progressive in his primary, centrist Dem Kurt Schrader voted down gun legislation and publicly mused about ways to sabotage his party by voting for an independent. via HuffPo.
Nerd Machine About to Turn Back On Ok sorry for the glib headline, this one rules: CERN's Large Hadron Collider is about to turn back on after 3 years of down-time for repairs. The physics community is stoked! via NYT.
Supreme Court Nixes Bond Hearings for Immigrants This could be the start of a very rough week of decisions. via Mother Jones.

SOME NUMBER

$7.4 trillion

The rough market value of everything that the S&P 500 has lost since January, per the NYT. The tech sector is 40 percent of that damage, which, again, is in stocks, a form of money that isn't real for many people in this country but is still hugely influential in our weird and broken system.

ON THE SHOW TODAY

6/14: Sam and Emma host Mark Joseph Stern, staff writer at Slate, to preview the incoming SCOTUS opinions of the week.

Don't Miss MR Clips

Can Democrats Avoid Getting Crushed in the Midterms? Inquiring minds want to know – it doesn't look good.

Prager Wants To Bully Victims Of Mass Shootings In Person: 'I'll Tell Them They’re Wrong' Dennis Prager says he wants to talk to parents of victims of the Texas and Florida mass shootings to tell them “the issue of America is values and not guns”.

PARTING WORDS

“There was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were."

– Former Attorney General William Barr, on Donald Trump.

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