Further proof that he’s just another DC vermin - one of many. If that were unusual, it might be interesting.

 

It's all of them.

Including Trump.

If anyone doubts that last part, consider the fact that the US National Debt just crossed the $39 trillion mark.

DOGE, which was supposed to save us from government waste, was established over a year ago. And yet it took only the last five months for the most recent $1 trillion to be added to the debt.

That is the fastest increase in the national debt in US history, faster even than at any time during the COVID nonsense.

Where is all of the money going?

Hint: Learing centers in Minnesota, while bad, are not the root cause.

 

Chuck Norris has passed away.

That is all.

 

I feel sorry for the Grim Reaper.

 

Barksdale AFB in Louisiana has B-52 launches in support of Epic Fury blocked by swarms of drones unaffected by countermeasures:

https://open.substack.com/pub/weapon...-sophisticated

 

Why does the thought of a US AFB with no air defense sound so strange to me?

 

Same here. The article was very disturbing. Have you seen anything else on it?

 

Check the planning board meeting minutes. Their neighbor (China) pitched a fit when the base tried to get countermeasure approval.

 

Seriously?

 

News:

OnlyFans revealed this week that it's paid out $25 billion to creators since 2016

The company's 2024, by the numbers

o 377.5 million users
o 4.6 million creators
o ~$8 billion valuation
o $7.2 billion in user payments
o $37.6 million revenue/employee

 

 

 

Mamdani Builds $12 Billion 'Wealth Containment Wall' Around NYC to Stop Taxpayers From Leaving

https://genesiustimes.com/mamdani-bu...-from-leaving/

 

 

https://genesiustimes.com/mel-gibson...tory-migrants/

Mel Gibson starts filming Braveheart 2: the true story of 12-year-old girl fending off predatory migrants

 

How much did we lose to all of the frauds perpetrated by all of the illegals nationwide?

Less than $200 billion, last time I checked.

 

And we consume about 380 million gallons of gasoline a day, not counting diesel. At a dollar higher since when this started, it's costing us that much each day. It'll take a year and a half to get to 200 billion but by then this little spat will have cost trillions.

 

BREAKING: Trump bombs Iran so that he can get a Nobel Peace Prize like Obama

 

On Monday, Apollo Global Management, one of the largest alternative asset managers on earth, told investors in its $15 billion flagship private credit fund that they could not have their money back.

Not all of it. Investors requested withdrawals of 11.2% of the fund. Apollo capped redemptions at 5%. Each redeeming investor will receive 45 cents for every dollar they asked for. The rest stays in the fund. For your protection, of course. Everything that happens to your money against your will is always for your protection.

On Tuesday morning, Ares Management followed. The $22.7 billion Ares Strategic Income Fund received redemption requests of 11.6%. Capped at 5%. Roughly 20 cents on the dollar of what investors wanted.

Both stocks fell more than 4%. Every publicly traded alternative asset manager fell in sympathy. TPG. KKR. Blackstone. Blue Owl. The whole sector bleeding in unison like a choir that only knows one song.

September 2025: First Brands Group, an auto parts manufacturer that had conducted over 20 acquisitions using $5.4 billion in borrowed money, files Chapter 11. The FBI opens an investigation.

The alleged crime: fabricating financial statements and double-pledging assets across multiple lenders. The same month, Tricolor Auto Group, a Dallas-based subprime auto lender that allegedly duplicated vehicle identification numbers to generate multiple loans per vehicle, files Chapter 7 liquidation.

JPMorgan writes off $170 million. Jamie Dimon says the line that matters: "When you see one cockroach, there are probably more."

There are always more. The cockroach does not attend your investor conference. It does not appear in your quarterly letter. It lives in the wall. You only see it when you turn on the lights at 3 AM because you heard something that did not sound right.

The lights are on now. The kitchen is full.
Q4 2025: Redemption requests across the BDC industry surge to 4.5% of fund net asset value. Three times the prior quarter. Nobody runs a headline because 4.5% sounds manageable and the word "quarterly" makes everything sound like a routine dental appointment.

February 2026: Blue Owl Capital announces it will stop returning money from its OBDC II retail fund. Just stop. The stock craters. Contagion spreads. Apollo falls 5%. Blackstone and KKR drop 3-5%. Blue Owl is down 67% from its peak. Sixty-seven percent. That is not a drawdown. That is a company being repriced from "growing" to "surviving."

Early March: BlackRock gates its $26 billion HLEND fund. Investors wanted $1.2 billion. They got $620 million. Roughly half. BlackRock also writes a $25 million loan down to zero. A loan that was valued at full price three months earlier. Yesterday it was worth $25 million. Today it is worth the paper it was printed on, which in private credit is not paper at all but a PDF that nobody outside the fund has permission to read.

Morgan Stanley caps its $7.6 billion fund at 5% after investors request 11%. Cliffwater restricts its $33 billion fund. Blackstone faces $3.8 billion in redemption requests on its $82 billion BCRED, the largest absolute request in the history of the product category, and does something no fund has ever done: injects $400 million of its own money plus personal capital from senior executives to honor every request. When the house starts writing checks to keep the guests from leaving, the party is not going well.

PIMCO's Christian Stracke calls it "a crisis of bad underwriting" and says PIMCO will not touch the loans currently for sale because they are "pretty bad." He says PIMCO would need "high-teens" returns to be interested.

Let me translate. The smartest bond shop on earth is looking at assets that were sold to retail investors at 9-11% yields and saying they will not buy them unless the price implies a 16-18% return.

That is a 40-50% haircut from where these loans were marked six months ago. PIMCO is telling you the real price. The fund managers are still reporting the old price.

Monday, March 23: Apollo gates. 45 cents on the dollar.

Tuesday, March 24: Ares gates. 20 cents on the dollar.

In total, across all the major funds, more than $10 billion in redemption requests have been filed in Q1 2026. The funds have honored approximately 70% of the total demand.

Goldman Sachs analysts predict the retail private credit sector could shed $45 to $70 billion in assets over the next two years. $265 billion in market capitalization has been wiped from the stocks of the firms that manage these funds since September 2025.

The S&P BDC Index is trading at levels below its Covid lows. Below the level it reached when the world was locked inside watching a man in Oklahoma feed expired meat to tigers.

These companies are worth less today, with the economy open and people going to restaurants, than they were when the government was paying everyone to stay home and argue about sourdough.

Individual names like BlackRock TCP Capital and Carlyle Secured Lending have fallen to pandemic-era or record lows. Listed BDCs are trading at a 17% discount to NAV. Either the NAV is accurate and these are genuinely cheaper than they were during Covid, or the NAV is a fiction and the discount has barely begun.

I know which one PIMCO thinks it is. They told you when they said "high-teens."

If that does not bother you, you are not paying attention. If it does bother you and you own BDCs, it should bother you more.

The Number That Should Keep You Awake
The International Monetary Fund, which is not known for its sense of drama, reported in its 2025 Financial Stability Report that approximately 40% of private credit borrowers have negative free cash flow.

Forty percent.

Up from 25% in 2021.

Four out of every ten companies in a $1.8 trillion lending market are spending more cash than they generate. They are not growing into their debt. They are sinking under it. And they are doing this with interest rates above 4%, oil at $98, and an AI revolution eating the software sector that represents 29% of the collateral base.

Goldman Sachs says the macro risk from private credit stress is limited. They estimate a modest increase in default rates to 3-4% would result in a small drag on GDP of about 0.1%.

The default rate is already 5.8%. For smaller borrowers it is 9.4%. Goldman is modeling a hurricane that has already made landfall and telling you to bring a light jacket.

Morgan Stanley projects defaults could reach 8%. UBS has a tail-risk scenario at 14-15%. That is 2008 territory. The actual 2008.

Much more here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/charli...t-pauses-a-war

 

I'd love to be a fly on the wall for the initial investors pitch for OF.

"We want to take every midget and Tennessee 6 we can find, and show the world their buttholes."