Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign welcome to the John Lothian News Daily Update podcast for December 30, 2024. I am your host, John Lothian. In today's John Lothian Newsletter update, we'll share the story of the passing of former US President Jimmy Carter, story about how DOGE should merge the SEC and cftc, and more. Don't forget to subscribe to the John Lothian Newsletter and Follow us on johnlothiannews.com marketswiki.com, linkedIn, Facebook, Instagram X and threads. Let's dive in. Here are the hits and takes cabins from today's JLN Jimmy Carter, the longest living ex president in United States history, died Sunday afternoon in his hometown of Plain Plains, Georgia. James Earl Carter II, who simply went as Jimmy, lived 100 years not having running water in his home until he was nine years old or electricity until President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Administration brought it to farms in Georgia.
[00:01:21] President Joseph Biden has designated Jan. 9 as a national day of mourning, but no other details about the funeral of Carter are available, though we have learned since then that the stock markets will be closed on January 9th.
[00:01:44] The NYSE honored the former president this morning with a moment of silence on the trading floor, and as did the cboe, the Wall Street Journal has a piece today by Lee Reiners, a lecturing fellow at the Duke Financial Economics center who advocates merging the SEC and cftc. In an opinion piece titled Two Agencies that Should Become One, with the sub headline Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy should encourage Congress to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the securities and Exchange Commission. Reiners argues that the Department of Government Efficiency, or doge, led by President Elect Trump's appointees Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, has an opportunity to fix a longstanding inefficiency in US Financial regulation merging the SEC and cftc. Created in different eras, these agencies oversee securities and commodity markets. Yet their jurisdictions increasingly overlap, leading to interagency friction, duplicative oversight and wasted taxpayer money.
[00:03:10] Despite bipartisan support for a merger advocated by likes of Barney Frank, Paul Volcker and Paul Atkins, political roadblocks driven by committee politics and campaign contributions have kept the agencies separate, with doge's mission to cut inefficiencies and eliminate redundancies, merging these two regulators represents low hanging fruit. Such a move would streamline oversight and save resources and better address emerging challenges like cryptocurrency regulation before tackling broader reforms such as regulating crypto. Under the contentious Fit21 proposal, Doge can make a lasting impact by consolidating the SEC and CFTC into a single unified markets regulator, delivering on its promise to modernize government operations.
[00:04:18] The Kalshi event contracts linked to the murder of the United Healthcare CEO were listed as postponed as of Sunday night this morning and now have disappeared from Kalshi's website. Search Kalshi's website is kalshee.com K-A L S H I.com the very retired and entirely enjoying himself Gary De waal bestowed on JLN's GoFundMe campaign before Christmas while I was en route back home after my visit to New York and the NYSE and I missed it. Our total for the campaign is now up to $79,127 raised for our goal of $300,000.
[00:05:15] Thank you Gary.
[00:05:17] In case you didn't know it, there are different types of glasses for different wines. The Wall Street Journal is here to help you with this subject with a story titled the 13 Best Wine Glasses for Every Type of Wine with the sub headline Raise one of these glasses for any bottle and every occasion. By the way, there are different glasses for different beers too, which is the subject for another day. Here are more stories from the First Read section of today's gln.
[00:05:51] Here's a story that I did with a video interview AFX CEO John Shea advocates for data driven alternatives to SOFR in financial markets. John Che, CEO of American Financial Exchange, emphasizes the importance of data driven insights in the financial markets. During a recent interview with John Lothian News, Hsieh highlighted the value of AFX's approach, stating, the real value of this idea is that data, because of the data, can sit alongside SOFR's secured overnight financing rate rather than taking what Soffer has said is the arbitrary credit spend for one, three, six or nine months. He explained that AFX's data empirically demonstrates actual credit spreads, providing a more accurate reflection of market conditions. You can watch this video on johnlothiannews.com Here's a story from the Financial Times Jimmy Carter, US President and Human Rights Champion, 1924-2024 After a single term in the White House, the Georgia native became an influential moral voice. Jimmy Carter, who has died at the age of 100, can lay fair claim to have been the best ex president the US Ever had. His domestic good works, his mediation in trouble spots around the world and the general sagacity of his advice were all exemplary. As an independent minded moral voice, he had few peers. Yet his one term presidency from 1977-81, is still widely dismissed as a disappointment, a good man who lived by his principles and shared his faith with his teaching, preaching, writing and hammering.
[00:07:57] Here's another story, this one from the Washington Post Legalizing sports gambling Was a terrible Bet with societal ills and sports scandals on the rise, Congress should reign in the betting industry.
[00:08:12] In 1992, President George Herbert Walker Bush signed the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection act, known as the Bradley act, after its principal author, Senator Bill Bradley, Democrat from New Jersey, a Basketball hall of Famer deeply concerned about the integrity of competitive sports. The bill forbade states to sponsor, operate, advertise, promote, license or authorize bylaw betting, gambling or wagering on sports competitions. There were exceptions for Nevada and three states with sports lotteries. In 2018, however, the Supreme Court overturned the Bradley act in the name of states rights.
[00:09:03] Congress can regulate sports gambling directly, justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Wrote for the majority.
[00:09:12] But if it elects not to do so, each state is free to act on its own.
[00:09:18] Critics warned of an avalanche of ill effects. A dissenting Justice, Stephen G. Breyer, cited Congress fear that legalized betting would threaten to change the nature of sporting events from wholesome entertainment for all ages to devices for gambling.
[00:09:41] Boy, he wasn't wrong.
[00:09:45] Here's my real crypto.com a week ago announced you can bet on the big game, AKA the Super bowl with event contracts on a new sports trading version of its app. This is taking events trading too far. I have a commentary I will publish on this later, which I already did. You can see it on johnlothiannews.com Here's a story from Bloomberg Chicago loses another financial firm as Peak6 moves headquarters to Austin Peak6's largest office was already in Texas Capital. The investment firm will maintain a location in Chicago. Peak six Investments will transfer its global headquarters to Austin from Chicago, making it the latest finance firm to dial back its operations in the Midwestern city. The company, with a portfolio that has ranged from early stage businesses to professional sports teams, said the move will put its executive team closer to the bulk of its workers, a majority of whom are already in Texas. The firm will maintain a Chicago office even after the change.
[00:11:02] Texas has been a cornerstone of peak success 6 growth for over a decade, co Chief Executive Officer Matt Holziser said in a statement.
[00:11:15] Peak Six has offices in the CBOT building in the 1929 trading room that looks down LaSalle Street. It was one of the coolest offices around when the financial district was still dynamic and full of people. It will still be a very cool space should peak 6 vacated if they have it. Here's another story. This is from the Financial Times from Jemima Let us abandon our fat, relentless egos in 2025. If we focus more on what's going on around us, we may end up feeling better about things in the Moral Life, the late Anglo Irish novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch wrote, the enemy is the fat, relentless ego.
[00:12:10] One could take out the words the moral there, and the sentence from Murdoch's philosophical word the sovereignty of good from 1970 would work just as well. It is not only in our inner moral lives that the ego can be so destructive, but in civic and political life too. And when an ego is bruised, it can be particularly dangerous. I have thought about this a lot ever since hearing a segment of an excellent interview with the late foreign correspondent Dame Ann Leslie on the BBC's Hard Talk program. She was speaking about what it is that talks turns powerful people bad. The whole episode, originally recorded in 2008 and released again upon Leslie's death in 2023, is very much worth the 23 minutes of your time.
[00:13:10] I recommend the book the Noble Renaissance by Cary Lloyd. Here's the top three stories from Friday's jln. Our most read story last Friday was Bets tied to CEO Murderke's Test Limit on Event contracts from Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance. Second most read was Singapore's stock exchange hits 20 year low in listed companies from the Financial Times. Third was Singapore pulls Ahead of Hong Kong in Race to beat Crypto Hub from Bloomberg. Here are the top three stories from the lead section of the Financial Times. The lead story is actually the story from the Financial Times that we read earlier.
[00:14:00] Here's a story from the Wall Street Journal. The headline the Elusive crime boss linked to Billion Dollar Pig Butchering Scams Chinese Mobster known as Broken Tooth is sanctioned by US but remains free San selling Swag and cutting ribbons earlier this year, a video surfaced online showing a man identified as the Chinese businessman and reputed Mafia boss Wan Kwak Kuo giving a thumbs up and smiling while flying a paraglider over limestone crags in central Laos. Law enforcement officials around the world say Juan, better known by the nickname Broken Tooth, which he received after a motorcycle crash as a teenager in Macau, has played a central role in the emergence of a virulent new form of cyber fraud known as pig butchering.
[00:15:03] Here's another story, this one from the Financial Times.
[00:15:07] The systemic financial risk at the heart of Trump Market 2 incoming president is picking nominees with vested interests to be in charge of key regulatory areas. The key nominations to Donald Trump's top team are in some ways like those of many presidents before him, overwhelmingly male, overwhelmingly rich and significantly drawn from the financial services industry. And yet Trump's nominees differ in one important respect they are not mainstream. In particular, the list contains no prominent bankers, breaking the tradition even upheld by Trump Mark one that financier appointments would normally be drawn from the likes of Goldman Sachs. This is true across the board, from vice president elect J.D. vance, a venture capitalist and Treasury Secretary nominee Scott Besant, a hedge fund manager, to incoming UK Ambassador Warren Stevens, a self made investment banker and Turkish Ambassador Tom Barrick of Private Equity and Property Investor.
[00:16:30] This podcast is brought to you by John Lothian News, the home of Markets Wiki and Markets Wiki Education. Thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on your preferred listing platform.
[00:16:44] Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated with respect, equality and justice. This has been John Lothian Goodbye. This podcast has been produced by John.
