Gerben Zonderland

Another HORRIFIC night in the West Bank. Dozens of Israeli settlers set a Palestinian home on fire in the village of Beit Imrin, surrounding the house to prevent the family from escaping, then hurling rocks as it burned. 8 people were injured, including a one-year-old baby.

@BikerRecumbent @andreastirez hoeveel CO2-uitstoot weet jij dat er komen kijken bij de productie van windmolens? Hoeveel olie bij het opgraven en purificeren en vervoeren van de elektrische metalen die in de magneet en de benodigde batterijen zitten? Waar denk je dat die uitstoot naartoe gaat?

@andreastirez Het grote verschil: met windenergie creëer je geen probleem waar men zich binnen 100.000 jaar nog zorgen moet over maken.

Wat overheid voor offshore wind doet - subsidies (per jaar 600 Meuro voor 7 TWh, of 85€/MWh) - vergunningen - backup capaciteit voor als er geen wind is Maar voor nucleair zou de industrie het moeten doen? Tja...

@remcodb @EPEXSPOT_SE (Met natuurlijk ook een veel significanter buurland aan Spanje dan Zweden en Noorwegen industrieel economisch en qua stroomgeneratie zijn.)

@remcodb @EPEXSPOT_SE Terwijl dat voor Frankrijk met haar enorme kernreactorvloot (en nauwelijks zonnepanelen, om samenhangende redenen) compleet anders ligt. (Dit even los van het wanbeleid dat binnen edf decennialang werd gevoerd, zoals besproken op decouple.)

Voorafgaand aan een podcast-opname voor Studio Energie lunch in een typisch Franse brasserie in Parijs, ik zou daaraan kunnen wennen! 😇

@remcodb @EPEXSPOT_SE (Want waarom zou Frankrijk willen dat Spaanse aanbieders hun overproductie kunnen dumpen op de Franse markt, terwijl Frankrijk dan de connectie met de rest van Europa mag optuigen om het probleem dat dit voor edf zou creëren weer op te lossen? Ze zijn gek als ze het doen.)

@remcodb @EPEXSPOT_SE Denk wel dat het interview scherper was geweest als het ook een beetje meer over de cijfers was gegaan die gepaard gaan met de interconnecties. Die handel in elektriciteit is leuk maar de overhead kosten vallen elders neer. Spanje krijgt geen interconnectie vanwege kostenplaatje.

@DropSiteNews Nuremberg was a joke.

@Kevdrian_ @GalDavidijoy @hermit_hwarang you're ranting at a bot account run by someone paid to rile you up, why bother?

@GalDavidijoy @hermit_hwarang I already did. Its not like theres telegram channes of you sick fucks finding joy in gore. Fuck you and ur whore 👃 mom too. Jesus is king bitch

The President of South Korea said a video of the IOF tossing a Palestinian child off of a roof reminded him of Japanese crimes against Koreans during colonialism and the Holocaust israel says this “trivializes” the Holocaust. As if Koreans and Palestinians are inherently cheaper

@RosIshtar @GalDavidijoy @hermit_hwarang it works for them to justify their behavior at the moment, they'll pretend to be sorry later while they are on the shrink's couch because of their "ptsd". That aside, impossible to know if these accounts are actual people or just bots run by their state propaganda outlets.

@GalDavidijoy @hermit_hwarang Calling every person you kill a person "who tried to kill you" also doesn't work. This kind of propaganda didn't work for the americans drone strikes all around the middle east, why in the hell would you think that it would work for the israelis ?

@micheleggermont want dan betaal je niet meer over ongerealiseerde winst maar alleen wanneer je je aandelen verkoopt.

@micheleggermont tja, het is een wet die zoals altijd vooral werkenden met wat vermogen treft. Zodra je >200k vermogen ofzo hebt doe je er veel beter aan om een BV te starten en daar je vermogen in te plempen omdat je dan veel minder kwijt bent aan overhead voor de BV dan aan de belastingen.

Goed

@remcodb heb je ooit eens een aflevering gedaan over fressoz zijn boek meer en meer en meer?

I keep running into interviews with Michael Hudson and his friends. They keep repeating some things other and other again, yet these simple ideas still don’t reach most people. How can we make them clearer? Giving an award to Bernanke is reflects the junk-economics assumption that inflation is caused by wage-earners making too much money. There is no acknowledgment of monopoly rent or other forms of economic rent as “unearned income,” that is, price without inherent cost-value. Bernanke’s principle is that of central banks that are controlled by the commercial banking center: The solution to every problem is to lower labor’s wages and living standards. There is no concept of a correlation between rising wages and rising labor productivity. This is not scientific economics. It is political class war. I keep running into interviews with Michael Hudson and others, yet these simple ideas still don’t reach most people. How can we make them clearer?

@TheRealVarnVlog Sociology was imposed as a discipline by Weber cs as separated from economics to undermine and outcompete historical materialism. Tbh I'm impressed it took this long before they felt they were losing control.

not = now

The bourgeoisie once needed truth, not truth is what it cannot handle, even by its own goals and standards (which are multifarious), at a certian level, they know it is not sustainable without more sacrifices of themselves.

@nikadubrovsky Yeah it's sad, especially dubious when coupled with anger at the Zionists using this to further their own ends, as though that's exceptional.

What pisses me off most is this story progressive journalists keep spreading: Poor fool Trump got played by vampire Bibi into a war with Iran that America never wanted. Now regular Americans are getting screwed at the gas pump while Israeli bigwigs rub their hands counting future profits. Guess what: US plans to take down Iran have been around for decades, perfectly documented — because nobody ever bothered to hide them. Trump, Israel, and the End of the Global Economy youtu.be/dvM6ps9m5tM?si… via @YouTube

@PeterBoonssen @Stefvoordestad Dat snapt hij prima maar die mensen vermoorden en eten christelijke baby's op enzo dus die verdienen het niet om te bestaan. of ging dat over een andere groep?

@Stefvoordestad Stef, snap jij dat de regering in Israel in het kwadraat doet met Palestijnen wat jij hieronder beschrijft ? En is dat niet waar het probleem begint ? ...Die synagogen in brand steekt, scholen probeert op te blazen en Joden wil wegjagen uit hun eeuwenoude thuis....

Vorige week zat ik nog in een zaal vol Joodse Amsterdammers bij een emotioneel debat van Joods Nederland. Mensen die tranen in hun ogen hadden terwijl ze vertelden dat ze zich niet meer veilig voelen in hun eigen stad. Niet in de metro, niet op straat, niet eens in hun synagoge of bij hun kinderen op school. Ze werden bijna gesmeekt om begrip: "Wanneer mogen wij weer gewoon Joods zijn in Amsterdam zonder angst?" En nu? Nu bewijst vannacht opnieuw hoe terecht hun angst was. Een explosief bij Cheider, de orthodox-Joodse school in Buitenveldert. Een school nota bene. Waar kinderen 's ochtends gewoon les zouden moeten krijgen, niet hoeven te vrezen dat hun gebouw wordt opgeblazen. Dit is al de zoveelste aanval deze week alleen al: Luik, Rotterdam, nu Amsterdam. Geclaimd door Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyyah - een islamistische terreurgroep die openlijk jacht maakt op Joodse plekken in Europa. We weten allemaal uit welke hoek dit komt. Een radicale religieuze ideologie die géén greintje respect heeft voor andermans geloof, leven of veiligheid. Die synagogen in brand steekt, scholen probeert op te blazen en Joden wil wegjagen uit hun eeuwenoude thuis. En toch? Toch blijft het waarschijnlijk weer bij woorden. "Laffe daad", "zeer serieus", "onacceptabel". Standaard persberichtje van Halsema. Woorden die niets kosten en niets veranderen. Het is klaar met dat laffe gedraai. De daders moeten worden gepakt, berecht en tot het uiterste worden gestraft. Maak een voorbeeld van ze, zodat de volgende twee keer nadenkt voor hij een brandbom of explosief neerlegt bij Joodse kinderen. Geen slappe straf, niks voorwaardelijk, geen taakstraf. Echt straffen. Maar vooral: geen woorden meer, maar daden. Versterk de beveiliging structureel, zet in op preventie, pak de haatzaaiers en ronselaars keihard aan, en zorg dat Joodse Amsterdammers zich weer veilig kunnen voelen in hun stad. Niet over een half jaar pas. NU. En als de burgemeester het niet voor elkaar krijgt? Organiseer dan inderdaad een referendum. Laat de Amsterdammers zélf stemmen: willen we een stad waar Joden veilig kunnen leven, of accepteren we dat ze langzaam maar zeker worden weggepest? Want dit gaat niet vanzelf stoppen. Dit escaleert zolang er geen grens wordt getrokken. Joden horen bij Amsterdam, Amsterdam is Joods. Al eeuwen. En wie dat niet accepteert, die hoort hier niet thuis.

I co-founded Apollo Global Management. I paid Jeffrey Epstein $158 million. For tax advice. He was not a licensed tax attorney. He was not a certified public accountant. He was a convicted sex offender who served 18 months for procuring a child for prostitution. I paid him $31 million a year for five years. The best estate planners in the country charge two, maybe three million. I paid ten times that. To a man with a criminal record and no professional license. For tax advice. Nobody asked what kind of tax advice costs $31 million a year from a man who is not qualified to give tax advice. Nobody asks that question at my level. At my level, the number is the answer. At Apollo Global Management. We manage $938 billion. That is not a typo. Nine hundred and thirty-eight billion dollars. That's a very big number. Seventy million of my payments to Epstein were made without a written services agreement. "On an ad hoc basis." Ad hoc means: I paid what I felt like paying, when I felt like paying it, for services that were never formally described. Seventy million dollars. No contract. No scope of work. No invoice with a line item. Just transfers. The Senate Finance Committee later noted that these payments were "inexplicably large; well in excess of what Black paid any other financial advisors and far higher than the median compensation of Fortune 500 CEOs at the time." The investigation I commissioned disagreed. Dechert LLP said Epstein's advice provided me with financial value of "$2 billion or more." One transaction alone saved me $600 million in gift and estate taxes. I paid Epstein $20 million for that transaction. That is a 30-to-1 return. At my level, that is not overpayment. That is a bargain. The transaction involved trusts I had funded with interests in Apollo Management III, IV, V, VI, Apollo Investment Management, Apollo Value Management, Apollo SVF Management, Apollo Asia Management, Apollo Europe Management, Apollo Alternative Assets, and Apollo Advisors VI. I am listing them because the number of entities is part of the story. Twelve vehicles in one structure. All designed to separate my name from my money. Epstein was good at that. Separating names from things. He was also good at other things. In 2013 and 2015, I made cash gifts totaling $1.7 million to an unnamed Eastern European woman. The IRS audited those gifts. Epstein helped thwart the audit. I do not know how. I did not ask how. At my level, you do not ask how. When my former mistress Guzel Ganieva demanded $100 million from me, Epstein arranged surveillance of the meeting. I do not know who conducted the surveillance. I did not need to know. The service was provided. The payment was ad hoc. Epstein was convicted in 2008. I started paying him in 2012. I continued paying him until 2017. Our social relationship began in the mid-1990s and continued ten years after his conviction — until one year before his 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges. When I say "with the benefit of hindsight, I deeply regretted having had any involvement with Epstein," I mean: I knew him for twenty-three years, paid him for five, and stopped only when a second arrest became likely. "The benefit of hindsight" is a useful phrase. It means: I knew at the time. But it sounds like I didn't. In 2021, the firm hired Dechert LLP to investigate. They reviewed 60,000 documents. They interviewed more than 20 people. They concluded that my prior claims about Epstein were "not false but could have been more precise." Not false. That is the phrase the investigation selected. Not true. Not accurate. Not honest. "Not false." It is the space between lying and not lying. A $158 million space. The Dechert report also concluded that no Apollo employee other than me had ever "seriously considered hiring Epstein, much less actually retained him." This was filed with the SEC. This was the answer. Then the files came out. Millions of documents, released by the Department of Justice. Hundreds of them reference Marc Rowan. Marc is my successor. He replaced me as CEO in March 2021. Marc was the clean break. The governance overhaul. The new chapter. In February 2016, Marc traded emails with Epstein about a potential corporate inversion — a tax maneuver designed to lower a company's tax rate by reincorporating in a lower-tax country. They discussed using Rothschild for the structure. Epstein wrote: "i can join the call if you think appropriate. using rothschild for the inversion allows interesting structures." Marc replied: "Agreed." One word. In March 2016, Marc shared internal Apollo email correspondence with Epstein about the valuation of a tax asset. Internal correspondence. Shared with a convicted sex offender. For his input. In September 2016, Brad Wechsler, an executive at an Apollo affiliate, emailed Apollo staff asking them to keep Epstein copied on certain tax matters. For his "substantive expertise." The expertise of a man whose substantive conviction was for procuring a child. The Dechert report reviewed 60,000 documents and concluded Marc did not consult Epstein on his personal matters. The emails say "Agreed." Both statements can be true. That is what "not false" means. Our president, James Zelter, wrote a letter to clients this week. It said: "From an Apollo perspective, there's nothing new in these documents." Nothing new. The emails are new. "Agreed" is new. Internal correspondence shared with a convicted sex offender for his substantive expertise is new. But from an Apollo perspective, nothing is new. An Apollo perspective is a useful thing to have. It turns new information into old information. It turns emails into context. It turns "Agreed" into "not a business or personal relationship." I stepped down as CEO in March 2021. I stayed as chairman. Then I left the board entirely. I still own 67.7 million shares. I am a 10-percent-plus owner of the firm. I stepped down from everything. I own everything. One is governance. The other is wealth. Governance changed. Wealth did not. In 2023, I settled with the U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General for $62.5 million. The settlement gave me criminal immunity from prosecution in the USVI. It also acknowledged — in its own text — that "Jeffrey Epstein used the money Black paid him to partially fund his operations in the Virgin Islands." My money. His operations. The operations for which he was convicted. The settlement acknowledged this. And then it gave me immunity. $62.5 million for immunity from the consequences of what my money funded. That is also a bargain. At my level. The American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors have $27.5 billion invested with us. Teachers' pension money. Managed by a firm whose co-founder paid $158 million to Jeffrey Epstein. Whose current CEO emailed "Agreed" to Jeffrey Epstein. Whose investigation concluded "not false." Whose settlement acknowledged funding Epstein's operations. The teachers wrote to the SEC. They used the phrase "apparent lack of candor." They said our investor communications give "an inaccurate and incomplete picture." We described their concerns as a "flurry of coverage and certain constituents pushing their own agendas." Constituents. Teachers managing their retirement money are "constituents pushing agendas." The agenda is: where is our $27.5 billion and who is managing it. Our stock has lost a fifth of its value this year. We dropped 1 percent on February 2nd, when the Financial Times reported that our executives consulted Epstein on tax affairs in the 2010s. We had previously said we "never did any business" with Epstein. 4.76 percent on February 3rd, when the scope became clear. Another 6 percent on February 20th, when the class action investigation was announced. Rosen Law Firm is now investigating whether our statements were "materially false or misleading." Not false. Materially false. There is a difference. "Not false" costs nothing. "Materially false" costs everything. The difference is one word and several billion dollars. The Epstein files also contain allegations against me. Claims from women who say Epstein introduced them to me at his Manhattan townhouse under the pretense of job opportunities. Federal prosecutors investigated in 2019. They brought no charges. My attorney says the claims are false. Not "not false." False. When it's my reputation, the distinction matters. When it's investor communications, we prefer "not false." Across town, the same week, Prince Andrew was arrested. February 19th. His sixty-sixth birthday. The same Epstein files. The most significant arrest of a senior British royal since 1642. The difference is that Andrew lost his title, his residences, his security detail. I lost my title. I kept my shares. 67.7 million of them. He was questioned for twelve hours about passing government documents to Epstein. I settled for $62.5 million and received immunity. There are levels to this. The hindsight cost $158 million. The immunity cost $62.5 million. The regret cost nothing. The shares cost neither. Zelter's letter said: "Transparency and accessibility are hallmarks of who we are." The same letter said: "There's nothing new." Transparency means telling you there's nothing to see. Accessibility means you can read the letter that says nothing happened. Those are hallmarks. Of who we are. The firm is hosting a private investor conference next quarter. The session I'm speaking at is called "Trust in Alternative Asset Management." The room will seat four hundred limited partners. Teachers' pension funds among them. I will not be taking questions about "Agreed." I will not be taking questions about the surveillance. I will not be taking questions about $158 million in tax advice from an unlicensed convicted sex offender whose operations my money partially funded. I will be taking new commitments. The commitments will be large. At my level, the number is the answer.

@nikadubrovsky This not to belittle this terrible development, but these remind me of 19th century west European legal changes. Eg the status of women and children in (napoleontic) France after the start of industrialization was diminished in similar ways in order to placate male workers.

There are 14 million women in Afghanistan. A new law has just been passed: Men are allowed to beat a woman, if they are not breaking bones. If a wife visiting with her parents without her husband’s permission, she and her relatives can be imprisoned. Before this, women were already banned from education and work. It is striking that this is not only about misogyny. A kind of feudal “class” system has also been introduced, in which women occupy the position of servants. And whenever there is segregation, someone must be placed at the very bottom. It is more convenient if that person is visibly different, for example by skin color or by sex. Taliban Says Beating Wives & Girls Okay If No Bones Are Broken | Vantag... youtu.be/Ka2xroo_Cqk?si… via @YouTube