UC Berkeley Alumni, Dr. Michael Savage, Compares Berkeley Rioters to Communist Anarchists Pre-Nazi Germany

Having received his doctorate from UC Berkeley in 1978, Dr. Michael Savage offered a unique perspective today on the trajectory the famed college has taken over the subsequent decades since.

Wistfully, he compared the present day cadre of left wing anarchists, known to us as AntiFA, to communist anarchists in Germany, circa 1920s. The response to the agitators then paved the way for Hitler’s brown shirts. The rest, as you know, is history.

But, have we learned from history, posited an inquisitive Savage? For every action is a counter-reaction and so forth. Hence, law and order is the only tonic to quell the present day disorder, fomented and encouraged by democratic politicians, carefully cultivated and organized by left wing groups for the explicit purposes of strong arming those who do not fit into the zeitgeist of their political ideals.

“This was the start of the free speech movement back in the 1960s. Now we complete the arc, from free speech to dead speech.’

Dr. M. Savage, Feb. 2nd, 2017

‘Tis a slippery slope. Behold a momentous monolog by the good Dr.

Because they believe Trump to be the second or third coming of Hitler (if you recall, Bush was Hitler too), the folks over at Grab Your Wallet have pursued anyone who did business with the Trump family — as a form of political persecution to punish those even remotely affiliated with the Trump brand. Look, they even went through the trouble of slapping a rudimentary spreadsheet together, so that fellow minded snowflakes might protest with their, err, wallets.

To that end, it appears they’re activism worked. Nordstrom has announced they’re officially cutting ties with the Ivanka brand — citing poor sales as the reason for the ‘de-stocking.’

“Each year we cut about 10% [of brands carried] and refresh our assortment with about the same amount,” a Nordstrom spokesperson told Business Insider. “In this case, based on the brand’s performance we’ve decided not to buy it for this season.”

The founders of Grab Your Wallet, Shannon Coulter and Sue Atencio (they met on Twitter), are quite pleased with this news. Coulter said, “I am absolutely thrilled, and I know the vast majority of Grab Your Wallet participants will be as well.”

Indeed.

The cucked Coulter has bee meticulously tracking the availability of Ivanka’s brand, wherever it’s sold. The fashion website ‘Racked‘ chronicled Coulter’s journey in an article published this evening — to celebrate the apex of Coulter’s success — the rueful malevolence towards another human being for the sole purpose of making another person suffer.

This could very well be some lag time before its spring inventory. But Coulter has been keeping track of the number of Ivanka Trump items the 116-year-old Seattle-based retailer is selling on its site, and the merchandise has been on a decline: From December 2 to December 27th, the number dropped from 71 products to 48. As of January 11th, Nordstrom was selling 43 products, but by January 29th, it was down to 26, according to Coulter’s calculation. (The Macy’s site, on the other hand, has 90 items listed, all with deep discounts.)

As of today, February 2nd, Nordstrom is down to four items. On the Ivanka Trump website, the items from outfits posted four days ago that link out to Nordstrom are no longer available on the site.

That said, stores are still selling the label; a Racked editor who visited a Nordstrom location in White Plains, New York, last Sunday confirms there were plenty of Ivanka Trump shoes in store.

The #GrabYourWallet was started by Coulter and Sue Atencio, a woman she met on Twitter. The duo felt hesitant to shop at retailers that carried Trump family-related products, and when they spoke about it on Twitter, they were met with tons of similar feelings. They started a Google spreadsheet, and the list has since been moved to its own website, GrabYourWallet.org.

The boycott list now includes many major department stores, including Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, and Lord & Taylor, as well as HSN, Century 21, Overstock.com, and DSW. Each retailer is listed with an explanation as to why it’s being boycotted.

“What this boycott means to me is that companies that I love, like Nordstrom and Amazon, are making money from the Donald Trump campaign, which to me is synonymous with hate and divisiveness so I can’t, in good faith, shop there anymore,” Coulter told Racked back in November. “People aren’t boycotting them to punish them or ruin any businesses. They want to support these companies but can’t do so in good conscience.”

The Ivanka Trump line was included in the boycott, Coulter added, because “she made her father palatable to many young female voters, and her being on the campaign trail, and returning to campaign with him after the Trump tapes, has as much to do with her ambitions as it has to do with her father’s.” (Ivanka formally left her namesake label earlier last month, after her husband, Jared Kushner, took the position of senior White House adviser.)

If Nordstrom is, indeed, dropping the Ivanka Trump label, it won’t be the only retailer to heed to the boycott. In November, Shoes.com told Coulter via Twitter it was dropping the line. There will likely be backlash-to-the-backlash, as evident when L.L. Bean was boycotted by anti-Trump shoppers, then Trump encouraged his fans to buy L.L. Bean as a result.

But this would be a big win for #GrabYourWallet. Coulter says that on January 21st, participants voted that Nordstrom was the most boycott-able company on the list; based off a poll that had 249 participants, Nordstrom was ranked number one, Coulter says, because “that’s the store they’d most like to be able to shop again.”

The tolerant left.

All is not doom and gloom for Ivanka, however.  According to G3’s 2016 annual statement,  ticker $GIII,  the manufacturer and distributor of Ivanka’s clothing line, the brand is doing quite well — enjoying a $29.4m bump in sales to $100m.

“Initially, when her father started to run for President, I wondered if there’d be a negative or positive effect,” said Sammy Aaron, vice chairman of G-iii, who oversees the Ivanka Trump brand at the company as well as being CEO of its Calvin Klein division. “We’ve really seen very little effect.”

Source: Forbes
That it’s already seeing revenues of $100 million a year is impressive. “You have designers who do less than that,” Stone said. By way of comparison, sales of Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen’s high-end line The Row are reportedly closer to $50 million — itself a high estimate, per an insider. And while some celebrities have little involvement in their licensed brand beyond the approval process, Ivanka Trump is hands-on.

Ivanka is “very involved on a weekly basis” in all stages of the design process, said Aaron, who described her as “one of the most impressive young women” he’s ever met.

“She’s super sensitive to things with her name on it,” he said. “She’s not one of these names just looking for revenues. She’s an assertive person who has definitive taste and a definitive opinion.”

It sounds like Ivanka will survive the scourge of the Twitterati army of Grab Your Wallet miscreants.

The company will come public under the ticker SNAP. They’ll raise $3b, placing their valuation at around $25b. For the year, they’ll do ~$400 mill in revenues — booking losses of $514m. That was not a typo.

Source: CNBC

Net revenue: $404.48 million in 2016, up from $58.66 million in 2015
Net loss: $514.64 million in 2016, wider than $372.89 million in 2015
Loss from operations: $520.39 million in 2016, wider than $381.73 million in 2015
Usage: 161 million daily active users in the December quarter (60 million daily active users in the United States and Canada)
Average revenue per user: $1.05 in the December quarter ($2.15 in North America)
Time spent: 25 to 30 minutes a day
Head count: 1,859 employees
The company filed for a $3 billion IPO, though that is a placeholder amount and certain to change as the company sets a price on the deal.

The company claims to have 158m daily active users — up from 107m last year.

For 2017, they guided revenues up to $1b, placing their price to sales ratio at around 25x sales — putting them at the very pinnacle of overvalued social media stocks. Juxtaposing SNAP against Facebook’s 14x sales or BABA’s 14x sales makes me wonder what in the actual hell the VCs and investment banks think they’re doing? This is bound to woefully underperform, like all of the other shit IPOs that have been flung in our faces, like pieces of shit, the past 6 years.

The stock will begin trading in March, led by underwriters Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Credit Suisse, and Allen & Company.

Avoid.

After weeks of protest over the CEO of Uber’s decision to join President Trump’s advisory board, and after his own CTO’s flagrant missive against the President, Travis Kalanick informed the President that he was removing himself from the economic council.

“Earlier today I spoke briefly with the president about the immigration executive order and its issues for our community,” Kalanick wrote in an internal email obtained by the Times. “I also let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.”

Radical leftist groups have been protesting Uber on social media, under the hashtag DELTEUBER.

The creator of the hashtag, Dan O’Sullivan, was quoted saying “let this be a warning: if you are a corporation who thinks you will ride out Trump, and quietly make money at his side, you will be made to pay a price.”

When protesters took to JFK and the yellow cabbies ceased service, in solidarity with the protesters, Uber served the public. This caught the ire of said O’Sullivan, prompting a most acrimonious tweet.

congrats to @Uber_NYC on breaking a strike to profit off of refugees being consigned to Hell. eat shit and die https://t.co/19gbpIc9m9

— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) January 29, 2017

What else is this O’Sullivan up to, you ponder? Oh, I don’t know, how about DELETELYFT and DISNEY too?

Delete Disney? sure why not https://t.co/2FabBLSGW1

— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) February 2, 2017

Please don’t – they are a kinder, not gentler, @Uber. They continue to steal wages from their employees. #DeleteLyft https://t.co/lC5OQVvvIT

— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) February 2, 2017

In case you’re still pondering, all mighty O’Sullivan is leading the path towards protesting more than a 18 other companies in total.

1 down, 18 to go. Trump’s Strategic & Policy Forum is a not-so-subtle means of Big Business influence-peddling. #DeleteUber pic.twitter.com/ixZXo0GZWJ

— HUNTER S. FAILSON (@Bro_Pair) February 2, 2017

Here is the CEO of Uber’s internal memo to employees, explaining his actions.

Dear Team,

Earlier today I spoke briefly with the President about the immigration executive order and its issues for our community. I also let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this and mapping it to our values. There are a couple that are particularly relevant:

Inside Out – The implicit assumption that Uber (or I) was somehow endorsing the Administration’s agenda has created a perception-reality gap between who people think we are, and who we actually are.

Just Change – We must believe that the actions we take ultimately move the ball forward. There are many ways we will continue to advocate for just change on immigration but staying on the council was going to get in the way of that. The executive order is hurting many people in communities all across America. Families are being separated, people are stranded overseas and there’s a growing fear the U.S. is no longer a place that welcomes immigrants.

Immigration and openness to refugees is an important part of our country’s success and quite honestly to Uber’s. I am incredibly proud to work directly with people like Thuan and Emil, both of whom were refugees who came here to build a better life for themselves. I know it has been a tough week for many of you and your families, as well as many thousands of drivers whose stories are heartfelt and heart-wrenching.

Please know, your questions and stories on Tuesday, along with what I heard from drivers, have kept me resilient and reminded me of one of our most essential cultural values, Be Yourself. We will fight for the rights of immigrants in our communities so that each of us can be who we are with optimism and hope for the future.

The left is really pushing the envelope this time, aren’t they?

The details are somewhat unimportant at this stage in the narratives of $FEYE, $GPRO and $CMG. They’re consummate losers — broken and disheveled companies who have lost their way and have been relegated to the trash heap of Wall Street.

$AMZN and $DECK, however, have proven to be competent companies. As is the case of Amazon, it is a great company — the very best black hole ever created for the benefit of mankind. While it’s true, your local shopping mall will one day be used to house Amazon inventory, creating a sustainable wave of unemployed retail workers from nearly all walks of fashion, you might be better for it.

Certain stocks are getting a comeuppance in the after hours session, with notable losses in the aforementioned names.

Post-earnings losers: DECK -21.6%, FEYE -18.4%, GPRO -11.1%, HBI -9.7%, PACB -7.6%, ATHN -6.8%, AMZN -3.6%, CMG -2.8%, GIMO -2.8%

And here are some of the gainers.

Post-earnings gainers: PXLW +17.5%, DATA +12.8%, FTNT +8.1%, ESL +4.8%, PCTY +3.6%, AMGN +3.4%, CY +3.1%, CENT +2.7%, ELY +2.4%, V +2.1%, CSC +1.7%

Naturally, I’d be inclined to suggest any pullback in AMZN is a buying opportunity — based off recent history. I would not, however, suggest even thinking about buying dips in CMG, FEYE, DECK or GPRO. Their downturns seem more serious and it might be a few quarters before those stocks do anything worthwhile.

The last time the market was any good at all was in 2012-2014. Do you remember those days of elasticity and overzealous chicanery? It was the zenith of speculation — men running around halfway naked, fully invested, devoid of cowardice. The meat sector was on fire — thanks to ‘animal spirits’ and an appetite for rarely cooked protein. Men hit the gyms more often and bulked up on pan seared steaks and grilled chickens, whilst the ladies nibbled on nuggets and/or lamb chops.

Now that President Trump is in office, a man who loves steaks and allegedly stacks three on top of one another during supper, coupled with a tall glass of milk, those same animal spirits are back — the spirits that escaped the country the last 3 years, during the nadir of Obama’s second term, thanks to a boorish Federal government meddling in the affairs of industrious men.

According to the seasonality engine, powered by Exodus, now is the best time of year to own meat — ahead of the grilling season. Everyone is stocking up, if I might be so bold as to say so.

Some out there might, per chance, not believe in the power of meat and instead opt to live a holistic life of fuckery — resorting to flaccid bean patties and/or soy burger, a vegetarian and blasphemous existence. Those people are disgusting and have forgotten the evolutionary spirit that is the human experience. All true and good men eat cows. We eat them barely cooked and without side dishes.

The amount of protein garnered from said cow permits us to build muscles, which can later be used to sack cities and to kill weaker men from adjacent countries.

We’re living in an age of weaker men — wholly uninterested in wholesome things, such as raising a family and beating up neighbors. God willing, all of that is about to change now that a real man (extra Clubber Lang) is in the Oval Office — hanging up on cucks from lesser quality nations, threatening them with invasion should they not adhere to our wishes.

Take the steak.

There’s something about the term ‘animal spirits’ that’s very carnal to me. It implies fervor, a derivative of the most base human instinct, which is to conquer and plunder. I’ve read a few articles today referring to the market as imbuing animal spirits. I tend to agree.

While the uranium sector is taking a pause, the metals look good. I cannot stress to you enough how crazy that $X guidance was yesterday. The stock should double in 2017, taking with it the whole sector. I prefer $CLF because of the leverage and potential upside to $30 from current levels.

Once the market starts to talk fiscal stimulus, you’ll see the steel and zinc plays break the fuck out — snapping necks like it was Thanksgiving.

I don’t pretend to know all the answers, I actually know them.

While you ball jugglers attempt to figure out what’s going on, I’m in the zeitgeist seeing it all — omnipresent — aware of almost every facet of human existence and how it trickles up to markets.

It’s February now and the market hasn’t crashed onto the orange face of Donald Trump. Ergo, the rally is for real.

Don’t hesitate to step in.

Australia is a garbage country filled with inbred criminals. Aside from that, they struck a great deal with President Obama, sending us their shit refugees in exchange for some Western Hemisphere ones. The whole thing sounds absurd.

Why the fuck are we accepting refugees that Australia doesn’t want? Moreover, if it’s only 1,250 people, why can’t Australia just place them in one of their spider infested towns, on that God foresaken continent of theirs?

According to the AP report, Trump hung up on Turnbull after 25 minutes of yelling at one another.

Last night I was suspicious of the leaked phone calls being fake news. Now I think the Trump team deliberately leaked them due to the following tweet.

Do you believe it? The Obama Administration agreed to take thousands of illegal immigrants from Australia. Why? I will study this dumb deal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 2, 2017

If the leaked transcripts were false, Trump would’ve went nuclear on AP by now. Plus, whoever leaked made sure the sinners at CNN didn’t get the scoop. If there was an insider who wanted to hurt the Trump team, logic dictates they’d go to the news agency that hated Trump the most, right?

Lastly, during this morning’s prayer (who does that?), Trump alluded to ‘tough phone calls’, telling people not to worry about them. The world is in trouble and The Donald is just the person to fix it.

At #NationalPrayerBreakfast, Pres. Trump says "pray" for "Apprentice" host, defends "tough calls" with world leaders https://t.co/Jz4tPML4zK pic.twitter.com/2auwKA2kB2

— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 2, 2017

“The world is in trouble, but we’re going to straighten it out, OK? That’s what I do – I fix things,” Trump said after saying that freedom of religion was threatened.

“Believe me, when you hear about the tough phone calls I’m having – don’t worry about it. Just don’t worry about it,” he said.

“We’re taken advantage of by every nation in the world virtually. It’s not going to happen anymore,” he said.

Talk about carrying a burden.

I can’t recall reading a more bullish investor letter by the often glum Dan Loeb — who has played the deflationary trade for several years, moderating himself in conservative investments focused on free cash flow.

The Third Point founder, crusher of Bill Ackman, is very bullish on stocks due to Trump’s win — greatly upping his stakes in banks and other stocks that might benefit from reflation.

Moreover, he believes Trump marks the end of QE, ushering in a new era of fiscal stimulus that will awaken the animal spirits.

This is truly a profound 180 degree reversal for Loeb aka Mr. Pink esq from the goddamned Yahoo message boards.

Anyone else remember Mr. Pink from Yahoo? I used to converse with him on a few boards. He was a superb shit poster. That was Dan.

Source: CNBC

“The U.S. Presidential election was the most significant event of the year and the most important paradigm shift since the financial crisis,” Loeb wrote in the investor letter Wednesday. “Starting the morning after the election, we took immediate steps to reorganize the portfolio around investments that we believe will benefit from Trump’s stated policy objectives.”

Similar to billionaire investor Stan Druckenmiller, Loeb is optimistic on the U.S. economy under Trump.

“In the immediate term, we believe we will see an acceleration of economic growth at home. Electing a President who is seen as pro?business (ignoring his protectionist views on global trade) has awakened animal spirits,” he added.

To take advantage of Trump’s agenda, Loeb increased his fund’s financials exposure to 11.8 percent one month after the election, compared with its 4.4 percent exposure on Nov. 8.
“These [exposure] figures actually understate the magnitude of the shift, however, as we reallocated half our initial holdings from high multiple, FCF businesses in Payments, Ratings, and P&C (which traditionally outperform during periods of deflation), to more traditional reflationary exposures in Banks, Brokers, and, geographically, in Japan,” he wrote. “Our conviction has only increased since we first initiated these investments; we have added exposure to each of the names in 2017.”

Loeb cited positive tailwinds for bank equities such as rising interest rates, increased fixed income and currency trading revenue, and the “operating leverage” inherent in financial companies. He said his bank stocks are valued at less than 10 times earnings and will be able to grow earnings-per-share at a “high-teens” percent growth rate going forward.

The hedge fund manager also discussed his Trump economic agenda expectations:

“Trump’s election has accelerated the end of QE. The baton is now passing from the Fed to the Treasury, which will provide fiscal stimulus via comprehensive tax reform and infrastructure spending. We expect a significant reduction of corporate and individual taxes, the elimination of the interest rate deduction, and the removal of the deductibility of state and local income taxes from federal returns. To stimulate investment, we see an immediate deduction for capital spending and a dramatic pullback in government bureaucracy, red tape, and regulation.”

He was supposed to usher in a new era of frugality at Ralph Lauren, do away with the old man’s pet projects — but now he’s gone.

Ralph Lifshitz aka Ralph Lauren issued a statement this morning to inform people that his CEO, Stefan Larsson, was leaving the company — due to differences over the direction of the company. This is a highly unusual departure for a CEO — akin to being ousted.

Larsson had just implemented a new strategy to remove the Ralph Lauren brand from the discount racks, in an attempt to firm up margins and reinvigorate the brand. Obviously, Lifshitz did not agree.

“Stefan and I share a love and respect for the DNA of this great brand, and we both recognize the need to evolve,” Ralph Lauren, executive chairman and chief creative officer, said in a statement on Thursday.

“However, we have found that we have different views on how to evolve the creative and consumer-facing parts of the business. After many conversations with one another, and our Board of Directors, we have agreed to part ways. I am grateful for what Stefan has contributed during his time with us, setting us in the right direction with the Way Forward Plan,” he said.

Shares have been in a freefall for several years now, amidst tumultuous declines in earnings.

Shares are plunging by 10% on this news.