Rogelio O Grados

Economista, Hooligan, ex UAM y ex Colmex, aficionado a la musica, el cine y la historia

[Everett Stern @EverettStern1]

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,

My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov.

The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison.

I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return.

I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something.

Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act.

Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged.

Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working.

A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats.

This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried.

There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go.

Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him.

I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them.

This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one.

Three things would change the math overnight.

Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined.

End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one.

And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them.

Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine.

I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it.

Respectfully,

Everett A. Stern
HSBC Whistleblower
Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

[Watch...... @amazed6789]

Rita Moreno performed “Fever” with Animal on The Muppet Show (1976) — a comedic performance that earned her an Emmy Award.

[Hux @huxlab]

Alexandr Wang 在谈到“如何拉开与 99% 人的差距”时，给出了极其朴素甚至残酷的答案：

顶层竞争根本不拼智商，拼的是极端执行力的非对称倾斜。

他的三条核心准则：

1. 绝对聚焦，压榨认知带宽： 绝大多数人的忙碌只是“低密度伪勤奋”。真正的专注是把全部精力砸在唯一的核心支点上，拒绝任何无关干扰。

2. 把“过度交付”做成护城河： 行业标准要求走 1 英里，你就走完 10 英里。当所有人都按合同完成 100% 时，常态化交付 200% 的人会直接卷走全部声誉与溢价。

3. 带靶向的超额输出，拒绝无目的内耗： 努力不是盲目自我感动，而是针对具体目标的持续过载测试。把每一次交付都当成生死决战来打。

商业世界最公平的一点在于：

聪明人到处都是，但能忍受极度枯燥并长期超额交付的人凤毛麟角。

执行力溢出，就是最暴力的护城河。

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Fun fact.

"Faded" by Norwegian DJ and producer Alan Walker, featured the uncredited vocals by Norwegian singer Iselin Solheim.

[convenhamos @vegetacil]

recentemente descobri um nicho da internet que me chamou a atenção, é o "buy-it-for-life"

os caras pesquisam marcas e produtos de qualidade e recomendam. Nem sempre são produtos caros, a única regra é que tem que durar "for life"

[Polymath Investor @polymathinvest1]

A short manual on how to systematically increase your exposure to opportunity.
(1/2)

[Ran Shimoni @ran_shimoni]

ויש גם גיבורים שלא הצילו אף אחד. אנשים שיצאו אל התופת, סיכנו את חייהם ולא הצליחו לעזור

במשך שעות יחיאל אזקיאל הסתובב באופקים וחיפש את מי להציל

כך עבר מרחוב לרחוב, תחת אש, וניסה לאתר דופק אצל כל פצוע. 13 אנשים עבר, ידיו מגואלות בדם, ואין כלום. כולם מתו

חודשיים אחרי הטבח, במלון בים המלח, ישבנו עם מפה והוא תיאר הכל. איך מצא זוג מבוגר מוטל בסמטה. על שני האחים מרחוב הגורן ששכבו מתים אחרי קרב. הוא סיפר הכל.

״אני חייב לספר על זה״, הוא הודה בעצמו, ״כי כשאני לא מדבר, אני חושב עליהם. אני רואה את כל האנשים שלא הצלחתי לעזור להם. בחייאת, זה גיבור?״

אנשים כמו יחיאל שייכים לשולי ההיסטוריה של שבעה באוקטובר. איש לא מכיר אותם, סיפורי הגבורה שלהם כמעט אף פעם לא נכתבים.

הכרתי חבר בכיתת כוננות שיצא אל התופת ולא הצליח לירות כדור אחד. אל מול גל המחבלים ששטף את הקיבוץ שלו, שכבש את הבית שלו, הדבר היחיד שהצליח לעשות הוא להסתתר.

פגשתי לוחם במילואים שהשאיר את המשפחה שלו במקלט ויצא לגנוב נשק מהטנדר של המחבלים. אבל הוא לא מצא שם נשק, והוא לא נלחם באף אחד, ובדרך הביתה הוא יצא מדעתו

ניטשה כתב ב״המדע העליז״: מה עושה אדם לגיבור? ״לעמוד בעת ובעונה אחת לקראת הסבל הגדול ביותר שלך והתקווה הגבוהה ביותר שלך״

אני חושב שאפשר לקצר את המשפט הזה:

מה עושה אדם לגיבור? לעמוד

שלוש שנים אחרי, אני רוצה לכתוב על האנשים שעמדו.

על מי שיצא לעזור, שלא הצליח, שמאז אוכל את עצמו שוב ושוב על מה שעשה ועל מה שלא.

אני רוצה לזכור אותו, את מי שחזר בידיים ריקות. עם פנים ריקות. את זה שלא נרדם בלילה, שלא מצליח להפסיק את המחשבות.

״זה גיבור?״, שאל אותי יחיאל

כן. גם זה גיבור

[Growing Up Retro @GrowingUpRetro]

Imagine being Sylvester Stallone’s brother and casually dropping one of the most underrated songs of the ’80s.

Who remembers this one?

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

On April 3, 1965, Ennio Morricone recorded this masterpiece in Rome.

Listen closely. This isn’t just a film score; it almost feels like the scene itself being told through music.

Starting with the haunting melody of the pocket watch, Morricone gradually adds guitar, strings, and layers of tension, turning the rhythm into a countdown and the melody into a warning.

By the time the orchestra comes in, the tension has reached its peak — almost as if the gunshot has already happened in your mind before it actually does.

For a Few Dollars More | Ennio Morricone | 1965.

[𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗹𝗼𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 @Old_But_Gold50s]

Argentine classical guitarist Cacho Tirao plays Henry Mancini’s “The Pink Panther” theme on acoustic guitar, in a swing feel.

[피타 @pistachio_hello]

후지산 대폭발

[JewniorProMax @JewniorProMax]

PRO TIP:
Next time you try to Highjack a plane, maybe try the easier level, like an Irish airplane that would love to get highjacked, and not a plane full of Israeli army veterans, with combat training, a short fuse and a burning hate for terrorists…you are not ready for that level

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

JUST IN: The Lone Lindsay Clancy Juror Michael Desronvil Just Broke His Silence Tonight in a Defiant Statement praising God and Defending the Children Murdered by Lindsay Clancy.

“I know the whole focus has been on me, but we want to reel everything back and put the focus on the three angels that's at hand. The ones that can't speak for themselves, the ones that can't defend themselves, and the one that can't fight the battles.”

“And those are Cora, Dawson, and Callan.”

“I want to thank God for my Catholic faith. I want to thank God for blessing me with the ability to love my daughter.”

“I would like to thank everyone, every individual that has supported me throughout this difficult situation. Your prayers, your emotional support, your psychological support is tremendous to my heart that I feel, that I sense, that I know. I do want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.”

Pray for Michael 🙏🏻

[Vini @vinii83]

GENER8ION & Yung Lean - Storm II #VMAs

[m a u r o @maurorizzi_mr]

Che spettacolo incredibile hanno creato a Milano, in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, quelli di Vogue per l’apertura della Fashion Week.

Un’interminabile sfilata di celebrità: Gigi Hadid, Jennifer Lopez, Alicia Keys, Dua Lipa, Roberto Bolle, Naomi Campbell, Monica Bellucci, Dakota Johnson, Ghali, Elodie, Levante, Marco Mengoni, Lorenzo Musetti, Aryna Sabalenka, Paola Egonu, Arianna Fontana, Vittoria Ceretti, Bianca Balti, Stefano Accorsi, Claudio Santamaria, Chiara Ferragni, Heidi Klum e tante altre star della moda, dello spettacolo e dello sport (c’erano anche calciatori di Inter e Milan).

Ma soprattutto c’era lei, la star su tutte: la Galleria dei milanesi.

#VogueWorld

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

This guy built a squirrel city with over 1,000 homes, complete with cameras to capture how they behave.

[Wildlife Uncensored @TheeDarkCircle]

Rare footage of Jaguarundi wild cat as they are very shy in nature 🐈‍⬛

[Eddie Booth. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Nationalist @Sir_EdwardBooth]

The peasants are about to revolt,
but then this banger hits 🥸😄

[Anne Sicard @AnneSicard1]

Hier soir, Jeanne d’Arc a fait son entrée au Stade de France ! 🇫🇷✨

À l’occasion de la visite du pape Léon XIV, elle était à l’honneur au cœur de la veillée des jeunes.

Quelle joie de voir cette grande figure de notre histoire célébrée devant un stade comble.

[Alexander Stahel 🌻 @BurggrabenH]

Peter Thiel makes a very important point in his latest interview: we moralise far too much. Think German Energiewende.

Thiel explains that moral judgement has increasingly replaced functional judgement. Instead of asking whether something actually works, we rush to classify it as morally good or evil.

The confusion starts with the word “good”, because it has two completely different opposites:
- The moral opposite of good is evil.
- The functional opposite of good is bad.

These are two entirely different axes. Yet public discourse increasingly folds them into one. Particularly the progressive left wants to occupy the moral high ground. So everyone virtue-signals — or pretends to, often without the slightest competence to judge the virtue in the first place.

Enter the climate crisis. Too much CO₂ is declared evil. Overnight, everybody knows we are in a climate emergency. Any doubt becomes morally suspect. After all, the IPCC consensus has declared it so. A Ferrari can now be declared morally “evil” because it burns too much fuel. Yet it remains an exceptionally good car.

And here lies the political trap: once something has been declared morally good, its advocates start treating that moral classification as evidence that it is also functionally good — that it actually works. And even if it works demonstrably worse, it doesn’t matter. It’s virtuous..!

But obviously the two may have absolutely nothing in common. A policy advertised as virtuous can be functionally terrible: incompetent, ruinously expensive or incapable of achieving its stated objective. Worse, once all its consequences are counted, it may turn out not to have been virtuous in the first place.

Germany’s Energiewende is the textbook example. Nuclear was morally branded “Hochrisikotechnologie” by @Die_Gruenen — high-risk technology — from the 1970s onwards. Dangerous. Irresponsible. Wind & solar became the virtuous alternative: “renewable”. And once that moral hierarchy was established, the engineering and economic questions became irrelevant: Does the resulting electricity system actually work better and cheaper?

Of course not. Nuclear power was one of the great scientific achievements of the 20th century: enormous quantities of cheap electricity from tiny quantities of energy-dense uranium, virtually no operational CO₂ emissions, little land use and dispatchable generation from massive rotating machines that also contribute to grid stability.

More importantly, it is also one of the safest forms of electricity generation mankind has ever developed. Yet German Greens spent decades morally slandering it. And Germany was hardly alone. Across much of the West, nuclear became something morally suspect rather than an extraordinary feat of engineering.

Doubt, rather than gratitude, accompanied nuclear. The doubt of the ignorant. Yet by some obscure moral code, ignorance itself suddenly earned a seat at the table. Expertise became optional; moral conviction became qualification. A child could command a global audience on questions of energy systems. How dare you?

Meanwhile, physics doesn’t care about false virtue signalling. A TWh of solar is not functionally identical to a TWh of nuclear — not at night, not in winter and not even at noon on a summer day if it is generated in the wrong place or exceeds consumption at that moment.

Why? Bc an electricity system has never been about producing enough TWh over a year. It has always been about timing and location too. Electricity must be produced at the precise time and location it is demanded, while generation and consumption must remain continuously balanced because the grid itself cannot store electricity.

That is Thiel’s message: The Energiewende — replacing nuclear with wind and solar — proved neither functionally competent nor virtuous. It was one gigantic $2 trillion amateur hour.