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Pod Save America - Episode 78 (Bonus Pod)

9.12.2017 “Hillary Clinton”

“What Happened.”

[MUSIC]

Jon Favreau: Pod Save America is brought to you by Stamps.

Jon Lovett: Dot com.

JF: Just says Stamps here. These days you can get practically everything on demand, like our podcast.

Tommy Vietor: True.

JF: Listen, whatever you want, whenever it's convenient for you. Why are you still going to the post office and dealing with their limited hours, when you can get postage on demand with stamps.com? Anything you can do at the post office you can now do right from your desk or from your home in Chappaqua with stamps.com.

JL: You can't- you can't people watch-

TV: [Laughs]

JL: Which is something that you can do in line at the post office. You can't do that at home that's true. But it's, you know.

JF: Okay, well that's- we'll put that in the con column.

TV: Yeah.

[Laughter]

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TV: Stamps.com makes you more polite, you know. Often you're like, I should write a thank you note to this person, but I don't have a stamp so I’m just not gonna.

JL: Yeah, that's true.

JF: My writing is bad, so I don't do it.

TV: This eliminates that friction.

JF: Bad penmanship.

JL: I’m trying to be better. Ever since I’ve stopped being a writer I am more responsive, but I have some mistakes I need to make up for in time. Like some wedding gifts I should send via stamps.com to people that have, like 3 kids now.

[Laughter]

TV: I’m with you there.

JL: Congrats on your wedding and 3 kids. We were- guys, we were-

TV: That wedding in '07 was great.

JF: We haven't started out thank you notes yet and just- it's coming everyone.

JL: [scandalized] You haven't done your thank you notes yet?

JF: No, we haven't. It takes a couple months.

JL: You know what, that makes me feel better. That makes me feel better.

JF: Emily’s job.

TV: [drawn out] Whoaaaaaa

JL: [drawn out] Whoooooaaaa

JF: Just kidding!

JL: [drawn out] Whoa

JF: Just kidding!

JL: Leave that in!

[laughter]

JF: I have been informed that I am writing all of the ones to my side. Right now, use our code crooked for the special offer - a 4 week trial which includes postage and a digital scale. Don't wait. A digital scale?

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0:01:52

[MUSIC]

0:01:59

JF: We are here with Secretary Hillary Clinton at her home in Chappaqua, to talk about her book, “What Happened.” Thank you so much for being on Pod Save America.

HC: I am thrilled to here on Pod Save America.

[Laughter]

HC: And really happy that you all are here today.

JF: Lovett has been asking for this for so long.

JL: I mean I was not like begging [JF: laughs] I’m just glad it worked out.

HC: But I am so delighted that you're still asking.

[Laughter]

HC: And now, I don’t know what we'll do after we actually complete this podcast. We may have to think of something.

JL: We have other shows. We have live events.

HC: Yeah, we may have to think of something else.

JL: We have a lot coming down the pipe.

HC: Do you really?

JL: Yes.

HC: Yes, okay. I need to hear all about that, Jon.

JL: I do wanna let our podcast know that her guard is down.

[Laughter]

JL: Hillary Clinton’s guard is down.

HC: And I’m holding the Rottweiler with both hands.

[Laughter]

JF: Perfect. So, you write in the book about the challenges you faced running as a woman. One silver lining of 2016 is that a record number of women have now decided to run for office. What advice would you give them about how to grapple with the kind of sexism that you grappled with during the campaign?

HC: I’m so glad you started with that, Jon because you know, I wrote this book to explain what I think happened but also to raise issues that I think we have to deal with so that they won't have the same impact on the next election and the one after that. And I write a whole chapter called “On being a woman in politics” because I was really quite taken aback at the attitude and the behavior of my general election opponent.

JF: Yes.

HC: Because he made no bones about it, literally. He was so sexist and not just about me, but about you know, his Republican woman opponent, the women and reporters on TV and elsewhere. So it was really a part of the atmosphere and I want, not just women but men as well, to know this is endemic. Sexism and misogyny are still endemic. We've made progress but we can't allow ourselves to go backward. And as I point out in the book, it never was just about me. I happened to have the big bullseye on my head, but it was about women and in the months since, we've seen reports out of Silicon Valley and other businesses as well as politics, where distinguished women like Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris or Kirsten Gillibrand or, you know others in the media are being treated to a level of overt sexism that I thought we had at least diminished and maybe put a lid on. But it seems to have popped back up. So I’m hoping that everybody will read in my book, that chapter because I want everyone to think about it and be serious about it. And then I think we have to stand up and speak out, and men and women alike. So when Kamala Harris is basically told to stop talking or Elizabeth Warren is told to stand down, we need to say, “Hey, wait a minute, you know that is overtly sexist and we're not gonna put up with it.” And her colleagues and everyone else should say the same thing.

JF: So, the excerpts of the book that have leaked out so far have set off another round of Bernie versus Hillary recriminations. Everyone's favorite pastime. Now I know that elsewhere in the book you give Bernie a lot of credit. You say that the debate is overblown, that you actually agree on most issues. But it seems like there's still an important debate about what comes next for the party that we should talk about. So, from the spring, Washington Post poll found that 67% of voters think that Democrats are out of touch with the concerns of the average person, that includes 44% of Democrats. To turn this around, do you think the Democratic party needs to fundamentally change as an institution, with regards to policy or do you think it's about sharpening our message better technology in the party, and stuff like that?

HC: I’ve given this a lot of thought, as you might guess, because it is deeply distressing to me that we are painted like that. And I can only speak again from my own experience, which I try to relate in the book. I had such a different experience in ‘08, you know, as you all know because you were part of the Obama campaign. Once it was over, it was over. And I quickly endorsed President Obama. I worked really hard to get him elected. I was still arguing with my supporters at the Denver convention, telling people, “Don’t be ridiculous. You've gotta vote for Senator Obama, at the time.” And I was thrilled when he got elected. I didn't get anything like that respect from Sanders and his supporters. And it hurt, you know, to have basically captured the nomination ending up with more than 4 million votes than he had. But he dragged it out and he was so reluctant. But why would we be surprised, he's not a Democrat. And that's not a slam on him, that is just a repetition of what he says about himself. So what I’m focused on are people who are proud to be Democrats, people who wanna defend the legacy of Democrats, of our last president and presidents before, who have done so much to help so many Americans economically, in terms of civil rights, human rights. And I think we are facing a couple of very difficult obstacles. First, the other side has dedicated propaganda channels, that's what I call Fox News.

JF: Right.

HC: It has outlets like Breitbart and you know, crazy Info Wars and things like that. In this particular election, it was aided and abetted by the Russians and the role that Facebook and other platforms provide. We are late to that. You know, we did not understand how a reality TV campaign would so dominate the media environment. And I confess you know, I was trying to do everything I could to build on the success of president Obama’s campaign. I had a lot of people you guys know involved in the campaign. We were really proud of it. But boy it was tough to break through. So I think the Democrats can do a lot, but they are still going to face a very difficult media environment. And we've gotta figure out how we're gonna break through. I mean obviously more podcasts, more other ways of communicating so voices can be heard and real positions can be understood, is part of it. But we're still at a disadvantage.

JF: Well, so, what do you think of, recently Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren have signed onto Bernie’s single payer health care plan. Do you think that's a good idea? Do you think we need some of these bolder policies?

HC: Well, look, I’ve been for universal health care for many decades and there's a difference between single payer and universal health care. Under President Obama we got the Affordable Care Act, so we got to 90% coverage and one of the differences we had in the primary campaign was my very strong defense of the ACA and my strong defense of what President Obama had achieved and my recognition that we had come so far, that I was certainly not going to support ripping it up and trying to start all over again. But in terms of a political statement, to say we've gotta get to universal health care and maybe we should consider, you know some kind of single payer besides Medicare -- which is single payer -- and Medicaid -- which is largely single payer. We need to be looking hard at this. But I think that the more likely outcome, after we try to raise the attention of the electorate on what we could achieve, is the continuing struggle to expand health care, I said we need a public option. I was very clear about that. So I don't have any criticism whatsoever in staking a big claim on where we need to end up. But I also say look let's be realistic about how we're gonna get to where we need to be.

JF: So there was an internal debate within your campaign towards the end about whether to attack trump as divisive and offensive, or whether to emphasize your economic message, or to win back some of these working class voters. And your husband reportedly advocated for that. It seems like democrats are going to face this issue again and again. And we're gonna face it with trump, we're gonna face it with others. What should they do? Obviously you have to do both, but a campaign’s about choosing resources, ads, messages. How do you face that?

HC: Well we were trying to do both. We never stopped on the economic agenda and there's been lots of analysis since the election. I talked more about jobs than anybody else. We put forth a really detailed set of ideas about what would work. We did not get the kind of coverage that we needed. You know, I went back and looked. I say this in the book. You know, in the 2008 general election campaign, there were 200 minutes devoted to policy. By 2012, it was down to about 114 minutes. By 2016 it was 32 minutes. And so all of the work and effort that I did in this campaign and that I saw others do -- because when you run for president you should tell people what you're gonna do., at seems like a pretty straightforward idea -- were just not competitive with the reality TV show going on the other side. And we tried so many different ways to break through that and we did, of course, advertise what we saw as the threats that trump posed to the country. Because, frankly, we thought and I still believe, he's a clear and present danger to America. And I would've been less than responsible if I didn't talk about that. But we tried to do both. We tried to make the case for both. And I’d be the first to tell you, it was difficult to break through.

JL: I wanna turn to like realism, which is something you talked about now, you talked about in the book. I feel like the book is sort of a nuanced look at how these issues okay out and basically what caused this loss as well as the realization that you should not be in the same with James Comey any time soon.

[Laughter]

JL: Just for his sake, mostly.

HC: He's pretty tall, though.

JL: I think you'd take him. honestly, I think you have the passion.

[Laughter]

JL: But, so, I wanted to talk about realism cause, you know Jon brought up single payer. You said this, you said in the book Bernie in the race meant you had less space and credibility to run a feisty progressive campaign that won in 2008 in Pennsylvania a and Ohio. And I didn't fully understand that cause I didn't understand why Bernie’s presence prevents you from running that kind of campaign.

HC: Well, what I mean by that is -- cause we certainly were trying to run that kind of a campaign --is that his claims -- which he could not defend, really not even explain when pressed -- filled up a lot of space. You know when I was running against president Obama in 2008, we had differences, but they were -- this is my bias -- they were honest differences that we presented and we defended and you know, whether it was an individual mandate or not in healthcare, each of us was ready to say here's why or here's why not. That was not possible in this primary campaign. And you know, I point out that every time we made a claim on what we were gonna do, he would just say, “Okay, I’m gonna do more of it.” And so the argument was never adequately joined. And I spent a lot of time, you know basically defending President Obama in a Democratic primary.

JL: Right.

HC: I couldn't believe it. Every speech started with, “I don't think President Obama gets the credit he deserves for saving the economy, saving the auto industry, getting us on the road to universal healthcare.” And you know this is- I was running against somebody who publically advocated President Obama being primaried, right? So, it was difficult to have what I consider to be a fair-minded debate about, okay we have had a successful two term president, where do we go from here, with somebody who wasn't a democrat. Who criticized both President Obama and me. And it was much more challenging to have a kinda straightforward argument about, okay health care, what are we gonna do about healthcare? Cause he would say, “Oh, we're gonna do single payer.” And I’d say, “Well how are you gonna do it?” And then he wouldn't know. But the claim and the, you know laying down of the gauntlet of that made it harder.

JL: But one of the points you make it the sort of lessons from all of this, is that he has a point about the importance of universal programs, that arguing for a big universal college or health care or what have you, makes a lot of sense to people. First of all, it's clear and easy for people to understand. And also, it avoids the kind of stigma, that you have on things that are more directed, right. The problem that happened with the expansion of Medicaid, for example, under ObamaCare. So, it seems like, in a lot of ways - yes, in a moment in a campaign some of these big promises are more about vision. But in practice, you do see the merits of having done that, right. Because it seems like that's one of your recommendations for the party moving forward

HC: Well it's what I do recommend that we try to figure out, but if you're gonna do it you gotta be able to answer all the questions that are gonna be raised. And what was odd to me about this election, many things were odd about it, but one of the things that was odd about it is, we came forward with very specific proposals about moving toward universality, right. And I believe that to this day about how we can get from where we are. But I always believed, it turned out wrongly Jon, that there would be a moment of reckoning, cause I’d always seen it in a general election. I always saw that at some point, whether it was in a tough interview or in a debate, somebody would say, “Okay you've advocated for this. How are you gonna pay for it? How are you actually going to structure it?” That's what I was waiting for. It never came this time. It never came. So, yes, maybe I was a little more inclined in the primary since I won by 4 million votes to say, “Okay, look we're going to get there but we're gonna do it in a very, you know, careful thoughtful way.” Cause I really believed a lot of the Trump rhetoric was going to be, you know, finally punctured. And that I would be on a debate stage and somebody would say, you know, “You talk about this wall. What are you talking about? Where is the money gonna come from?” It never happened. He was never held accountable, so a lot of my preparation for those moments, cause I did think that in many ways the election would come down to the debates. They often do. It didn't happen.

JL: So, one of the other arguments you make for this kind of policy shop -- and I know these policy people, I worked with them. Jake Sullivan is one of the smartest human beings you can meet in your life. You talk about how these things had foot notes and they were sort of ready to hit the ground running. And you said one of the problems is, it wasn't about just the merits of these policies, but it was about the optics of it.

HC: Right.

JL: But at the same time, you recognized the need for a more expansive vision for democrats. I mean one arguments against this on the merits is - in a campaign you set a big goal, it may be unachievable, but you compromise when you're governing. I mean you make the comparison, say to welfare in the 90s and how President Clinton in the 90s held off on signing on several versions of the bill until he felt as if it reached enough compromise. And that's a pragmatism of governing. But isn't there a distinction between the pragmatism of governing and the vision and sort of overton window you open during the campaign.

HC: I think that's a very fair assessment. But remember, I was following a 2 term Democratic president. And I was really aware of how important it was to embrace that legacy and defend it. Because on the merits I thought it was really important. And I believed that if I had said, “Okay we're gonna have universal healthcare, single payer.” First question would've been, well why didn't President Obama do that? Well, because it was really hard and what he got down was amazing, you know.

JL: Yeah.

HC: See that's tough. Whereas Sanders -- who's not even a Democrat, who criticized the President all the time -- he could say whatever he wanted to say. I was not only running on my own, I was running to build on the progress of the prior 8 years. I was unapologetic about that. But I also knew the headwinds against somebody trying to run to succeed a 2-term president of their own party were pretty intense. I mean Americans get bored, they get tired, they want a change, they think somebody else can do something better even though they liked Bill Clinton and they liked Barack Obama, but they wanted a change. So, I was trying to be as honest as I could about, yes, we're gonna build on the ACA. We're gonna finish the last 10% of people who are not insured. We're gonna be able to do it because here are the fixes that will make it work. And yeah it put me in a bit of a strait jacket, but it was what I thought was called for, given the fact that, you know I wasn't going to be spouting stuff that then would be immediately contradicted, because why wasn't it done before? Immigration's another example, right. I mean DACA was a great accomplish. I’m for immigration reform. Sanders voted against it in 2007. And so I’m trying to say, we're gonna protect what we have but we're gonna try to go further. Now that is not as exciting as saying, you know throw them all out or whatever the alternative is. It was constant calibration and you know it was a tough line to walk.

JL: So one of the other debates- one of the other arguments you had during the campaign was over money in politics. And it's one of the things that Bernie levels against the Democratic party writ large. And I think it's important for moving forward, you know you say correctly, Bernie couldn’t in the debate point to a single instance in which you changed your mind because of donations. But you also said that you wanted to end the stranglehold that the wealthy have on our government and in your book, you talk about the danger of courting donors. Where is that danger? I mean you don't have to change your mind for this money to have some kind of influence. I mean, what do you think the danger of courting donors is?

HC: Well I’m for public financing. And I’ve put forth a very comprehensive set of changes. I voted for you know, McCain-Feingold. I mean I think the Supreme Court has so perverted out electoral system. And Citizens United is a gateway to corruption. And I think we've seen that over and over again. So, I don't have any problem with people donating to your campaign and neither does Bernie Sanders, by the way, because you know he takes money from people as well. What I wanted to do was say, look we need a whole different system, and so I said I was going for a constitutional amendment from day 1 on Citizens United. Cause there's no way to get to where I think we have to be unless we change the Constitution.

JL: But until then, we live with the system.

HC: Yes, we do.

JL: And one of the consequences of the system is raising huge sums of money and going amongst the financial industry and other industries and raising money, going to the Hamptons and raising money. And for people who aren't proud to be Democrats, who maybe could be Democrats, it looks terrible. And what they see is access and influence. And it's hard to argue that they're wrong. I mean, isn't there a price we pay for a system in which Democrats who are supposed to advocate for working people, spend a great deal of their time with rich people who have a fundamentally vested interest in the status quo.

HC: You know what's so interesting, I don't see it that way. I understand the argument, but anybody who donates to a Democratic candidate, who is on the record as I have been for decades, about what I wanted to do no everything from raising taxes on them to closing loopholes and speaking out when I was a Senator from New York. they in effect are putting aside their own financial interests to a certain extent, because they are donating to somebody, whether it was me or president Obama, who in ‘08 got more money from Wall Street than any Democrat had ever gotten, and yet imposed the toughest regulations that had been imposed since the Great Depression. We're not going in on bait and switch. I mean, I say to donors the same way I say on a public stage, we need to tax the wealthy and here's what I will do. I’ve been saying we need to close the carried interest loophole and here's what I intend to do. So if they're still going to give me money, they must have some other concerns about, maybe the future of our country and our position in the world. So I think it's an argument which superficially sounds like, oh yeah, okay. But on further examination I don’t think really holds up. We could solve all this if we get to public financing. And that's what I am still in favor of.

JL: So first of all, don't we pay too high a price for the optics of that? And then also, isn't there some effect on the access? That this group of people has a larger access to Democratic politicians.

HC: I can only talk for myself. I mean you know you were in my senate office. We saw every kind of person under the sun and we saw them on a regular basis -- filling up the day with people who wanted to see me on everything and, you know the vast majority of them had never given money to politics. Certainly not in any large amount. So optics is a problem. I’m the first to admit that, because I had some optics problems, which I admit in this book. But here's what we're up against -- and it's a devil's dilemma -- we're up against a very strong Republican party with allies who are taking advantage of every open door the Supreme Court has given them. When you have people like the Koch brothers, now on record saying they're gonna spend 400 million dollars in 2018, the Mercers, they are funding media, they are funding super PACs. And they are doing stuff that we have no idea, because there's no disclosure on what they do. So I’m in the camp which says, be transparent. Here's where I stand. Here's what I will do. If you guys, you know still wanna give me money when I say I’m gonna go after that loophole. Just know I’m going after that loophole. Because otherwise the money advantage is so demonstrably on the other side. And aided by the media advantage. I mean the new threat that's coming from Sinclair broadcasting -- 72%+ of the homes in America being given a steady diet of right-wing Republican politics. Fox doesn't even pretend anymore. They don't even cover stuff that is not going to promote the Trump agenda. So, you've got billions and billions of dollars coming at you from the other direction. And literally you're trying to keep your head above water and it's not easy. And we raised a lot of money, most of it from people giving me less than a hundred dollars, but did I go to fundraisers? Yes, I did. And did I say the same thing as I always say? Yes, I did. And would I -- if I had been you know, able to, you know withstand the perfect storm that hit me at the end -- be in office trying to do that, fighting the Republicans every single day and trying to reign in the disproportionate influence they have because of Citizens United, because of media monopolization. I really would be taking all of that on and I fear it's only gonna get worse. And the money that is gonna be coming from the right and the money we know that the Russians put in, which I think is just the very tip of that huge Russian ice berg, we are really at a disadvantage. So, optics, maybe. Reality, something entirely different as I analyze it.

JL: Inside the Russian iceberg are smaller Russian icebergs.

[Laughter]

HC: Yes.

JL: And an even smaller one. I’m done now.

[Laughter]

0:25:18

[MUSIC]

0:25:22

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JL: Like what underwear we wear when we go to the woods to talk to Hillary Clinton.

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TV: Hm. It's been a while.

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JF: Lovett is annoying.

TV: [Giggles]

0:26:41

JF: Pod Save America is brought to by the Cash app.

JL: + TV: The Cash app.

JL: I don't even know how to convince you people.

[Laughter]

JL: I mean if you haven't gotten it by now like listen, you have your phone in your hand-

JF: You guys didn't hear it, but we just convince Hillary Clinton for like 15 minutes to download the Cash app.

TV: Yeah, that was half the interview.

JL: Yeah, that was most of the conversation.

[Laughter]

JF: That's- that was left on the cutting room floor.

JL: That was a little bit of showing your-

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TV: Hm.

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JL: You can make it your own and use all the money you've got on the Cash app from all the people paying you back cause you're such a good person. [TV: Laughs] cause you're always the one, you know, “I’ll take it. You pay me back. Or I’ll pay you back.” You're very responsible but also maybe a bit miserly cause you're keeping track of all this stuff, you know?

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0:27:43

[MUSIC]

0:27:47

TV: You mentioned this huge structural advantage of the right-wing press.

HC: Right.

TV: There were also challenges in the mainstream media. Donald Trump's podium, empty podium, received coverage. Policy wasn't covered. But it's not the first election where stupid things became the focus, right? We had Obama’s flag pin, we had his birth certificate, for example. How do we adapt? What should candidates do with this onslaught of right-wing news outlets, but also this sort of inexorable path towards frivolity in the coverage of our politics and covering like a game?

HC: Tommy, thanks for asking that, because I’ll tell you I worry about this all the time and I’m hardly the person to ask. You guys are much more probably adept at understanding what we need to do. What we're doing right now is at least one way. We've got other outlets, we’ve got other ways of communicating with people. We have to make sure that the playing field is level. I mean what we're finding out about Facebook, the largest, you know site for news in the world, means we gotta figure out how that won't work to our disadvantage. I think- look, in this election there's always ups and downs, I mean I know that very well. But this was kind of unique because it was- I was running what I hope to be an effective presidential campaign based on all the lessons that you know, we learned from President Obama, both in ‘08 and 2012. We knew there were head winds, I mean, you know in October of 2012, President Obama was in political trouble, right.

JF: Right.

HC: Because of everything that was going on, which wasn't fair. It wasn't, you know, reflective of him as our President. So these are going to be close because of the hyper partisan tip that we've got in the country right now. You know at the end of the day I think Comey cost me the election, but I think also people with an ‘R’ by their name said, okay I want my tax cut, I want my Supreme Court justice, you know. So there was a calculation as well as an emotional reaction. So, what are we gonna do about it? Well I don’t understand why people who share our views aren't more willing to invest in media that can be competitive. Because what you've got is a right-wing advocacy, propaganda. And you've got a, kind of mainstream media that engages in false equivalency. And it's tough if you are a Democrat trying to navigate through that to get the coverage that is, you know, really going to reflect the reality that you're facing out there on the campaign. And anything we can do to point that out- and I have sympathy for the press. In this you know in this past election, you know you're right. I mean how many hours of empty podiums are you going to be looking at? Or for the first time a presidential candidate calling in and being put on the air. I mean, things that had never happened before.

TV: It is an absurd advantage to do that.

HC: It's an absurd advantage and I do think- look, I think that part of what was going on is the entertainment value. And I really, you know, I’ve tried to have some, you know, conversations about this with some people in the media. I think they're doing some soul searching now, but at the time they all thought I was going to win. They thought it was a free shot. They thought that you know, just covering his latest outrage, you know was good for ratings. You know people were tuning in. My gosh, what's he gonna do next? So they've got to understand, they carry this really solemn responsibility and we'll do our best and we need to do better to deal with message and everything else. But if you can't break through or if the show on the other side is so razzle dazzle, you know, say anything, do anything and, you know. Somebody is trying to be responsible, you know on our side, that is a tough, tough campaign.

TV: Right. Another complicating factor, to say the least, was Russian interference. You write about Putin’s grudge against you and the fact that he blamed you for protests in Russia back in 2011. How much of the interference do you think was motivated by personal grudge against you, or is this the new playbook for Russia when it comes to cyber-attacks in our elections and we need to get ready?

HC: It is much more the new playbook. But I think part of the motivation for Putin was I was the candidate. You know I was representing the United States. I mean I wasn't standing up in Lithuania saying, [deep, fake voice to pretend to be Hillary Clinton] Oh I, Hillary Clinton, think that, you know what's going on in the parliamentary elections in Russia is really troubling." I was saying-

JL: You sound just like her.

[Laughter]

HC: Yeah! Don't you think?

[Laughter]

HC: So I was saying the United States thinks it's really troubling. That was our policy. And I was a very avid proponent of that policy. But this is much more about the playbook he has adopted now. To destabilize western democracies. To disrupt the Atlantic alliance. And he has been using what are called in the trade craft, active measures, for years to destabilize, undermine, disgrace political leaders in countries that particularly in Europe or on his border or a little further beyond. So this is what he thinks and you know, there's a very telling piece that I reference in the book by a Russian general saying, look we used to have conventional weapons and nuclear weapons, but now we're going to have the world's best cyber weapons. And just recently, you know, Putin told a group of Russian school students, the future will belong to those who master artificial intelligence. So you know, look in the 19th century and before, we fought wars on you know, land and sea. Then in the 20th we added air. And now I have no doubt that the principle zone of conflict is cyber- between large developed countries like you know, the United States, Russia, and others. What I want people to recognize is, he got away with it this time because it was hard to imagine. You know, when we knew that he- that Russians had hacked into the DNC and then through their cutout to WikiLeaks was, you know, dumping this stuff. We tried to tell people and they were like, oh yeah, maybe, what difference does it make? And they didn't really understand either the criminal or political significance. You fast forward and you've got in August of 2016 -- early August, late July -- you've got Trump saying, oh go hack her emails. Which is an amazing thing for somebody running to be President of the United States to say. And then you've got Roger Stone saying, oh it's gonna be time for Podesta, you know, next. We knew there was stuff going on, but even we didn't understand the extent of it. And we saw it in real time. One of the kind of surprises to me in the analysis we went through after the election, was how effective the Russians, through WikiLeaks, were in weaponizing information against me and how they were getting really good political advice about placement, both geographic and platform, from somebody. And we'll leave it at that. But we didn't really see that. That was not clear to us, at the time in the campaign. And in retrospect, you know we saw how, if you analyzed Google searches, they were spiking in places that had been sort of swing, had ended up for President Obama, but were, you know, subject to being persuaded by the other side. WikiLeaks searches were off the charts. People were trying to understand and they were trying to make sense of some of the stuff they were hearing on their Facebook, you know, feeds or a friend telling them, which happened all the time. And you know I was talking to Susan Page, the, you know the reporter from USA Today and she said she'd go to these Trump rallies and people would say the most amazing things to her and she'd say, “Where did you hear that?” “Oh, I saw that on Facebook.” That's where people got their news and the Russians aided and abetted in some ways by people in the Trump campaign or associated with them, were very adept at targeting.

TV: Right. So Putin has been accused of killing journalists, imprisoning his opponents, killing his opponents. In the book, you say “Trump doesn't just like Putin, he seems to want to be like Putin. Put down dissenters, oppress minorities. He dreams of Moscow on the Potomac.” Should we take that literally? I mean, do we think that he is really someone who might crack down on free speech the way Putin has, or take further draconian steps?

HC: Yes. And I’m really happy to say that to the three of you, because you have influence and you have reach. Look I wrote this book to try to come to grips with what happened, but also to sound the alarm about what I think could still and may well happen. I think Trump left to his own devices, unchecked, would become even more authoritarian than he has tried to be. Also remember, the right wing aided and funded by Mercers, Koch brothers, et cetera, is very serious about calling a Constitutional convention. They need 34 states. Last I checked they were like at 28, 29. Part of their gerrymandering is to control state legislatures, elect Republican governors and to call a Constitutional convention. And if you really get deep into what they're advocating -- limits on the first amendment, no limits on the second amendment, limits on criminal justice. I mean, there is a very insidious right-wing agenda. So when I say that he doesn't just like Putin, he wants to be like Putin, I’m not saying he's gonna start killing journalists. But I am saying that he likes the idea of unaccountable, unchecked power. And we've never had to face that in a serious way, in our country. I mean, we've elected people we could agree or disagree with, but even in the pit of the Great Depression when Roosevelt went too far in packing the court, you know his hands were slapped, he was pulled back. But, what you see Trump doing is appointing nominating people for the court who are totally in sync with this right-wing agenda. U.S. Attorneys absolutely ready to carry out his bidding. It's a very clear agenda that is hard for Americans to really, kind of, wrap our heads around because we've never had to deal with anything like this before. But I am trying to, in this book and in interviews like this, to say, “Hey guys, this is serious stuff. We gotta pay attention to it because the one thing we can do to rein it in besides fulminating online or, you know, speaking or writing books. is to do everything possible to take back the House in 2018 and hold the line in the Senate.” There is no more important mission. And we are terrible at turning out in midterm elections. I mean, I saw it when Bill was President. I saw it when Barack was President. I mean, you get these young, dynamic Democrats. They do all this stuff and they get hammered the next time because our people go, “Oh, thank you very much!” And don't show up again. So in 2018 if we don't show up, and I won 24 congressional districts with a Republican Congress member. So we can start from there and we can try to figure out, let's field the best candidates. That's why I’ve got this new group called Onward Together, because I wanna support these grassroots groups, I wanna fund candidates. I’m gonna do everything I can with the most intense focus on 2018 that I possibly can bring to bear.

JL: So, wrapping up, but you know, this is a striking book and you make an argument. You really sort of try to understand as best you can what happened. And you discover a lot of complex causes, places where you take responsibility also places where, not to make excuses, but you look for the causes outside of yourself, and fair enough. A portal opens, it's right before your announcement speech, you have a minute with Hillary to tell her something. What do you got?

[Laughter]

HC: Great question, Jon! I would say “Okay. You're running a traditional but really well constructed presidential campaign. You've got great people working for you. But you're walking in to an unknown situation and you need to get a broader 360 degree understanding of what this campaign is going to look like. Because we've got to be ready for whatever they throw at us and what they're gonna throw is not what anybody else has ever had to confront. And I don't think you or campaign have really given that much thought. Because, why should you? It's never happened before. So, I’m telling you Hillary-“

[Laughter]

HC: “You better, you better get around a table and you know, blue sky this and brainstorm this and red team this. And who knows.” I was just reminded- I was reminded by somebody just today that I was doing an NPR interview about my last book, “Hard Choices,” and I was in the NPR studio here in New York -- this was back in 2014 I think -- and all the electricity went down for, you know a period of time. Unbelievably, in a radio studio. And so I- the engineer who was there running it, he said, “My gosh, what is that? The Republicans?” I said “Well, it could be the Russians.” That was 3 plus years ago and I always believed the Russians were more of a threat under Putin. But I never imagined that they would be so brazen as to interfere in our election. And I should have just made a long list, gotten smart people, called you guys and said, “Okay. Give me the weirdest things you think could happen [Boys laugh] and let's be prepared for it.”

JF: But was it-would you- would it be, “Go figure out some different policies? Go figure out some different messages?” Where would you-

HC: No. I think it would be, go figure out how you're going to be able to run a campaign in an environment where-

JF: Propaganda...

HC: You got propaganda, and you've got the media as confused as you are. And they're giving huge amounts of time to a guy who is...really antithetical to everything I think is right about American politics. I mean, look, if I’d lost to a Republican - a normal Republican - of course I’d be disappointed, and I’d be really upset with myself. But this is beyond anything I had imagined. And so it- I think, Jon, in a way it was a lack of imagination about what could happen. And once we saw it was happening- I mean, I saw the faces of the 16 Republicans he, you know, beat -- they were as confused as I was.

[Boys snicker]

HC: Because you know, some of them were supported by the Mercers and the Koch brothers and they had their own network. And all of a sudden-

JL: Well, Ben Carson didn't know he was running for President.

[Laughter]

HC: He didn't- well, that- he's a special candidate.

JL: So that was- he was just like, “What am I- what is this convention?”

HC: “What is happening? What is this convention?”

TV: Stumbling off stage.

HC: “And what is HUD?”

[Laughter]

HC: But it was, it- watching that, I think we should have understood that the media loved it, you know. Because it was a- you know it was like, his Apprentice show or some other reality TV shows. The more outrageous you are, the better the ratings are. And we did not compete at all in that arena. So, you know, I should have thrown some more insults or, you know, advocated some more crazy stuff. [Laughs]

JF: Secretary Clinton, thank you so much for sitting down with us.

HC: Aww…

JL: Thank you!

TV: We really appreciate it.

JF: For taking the time.

HC: I love seeing you all, and I’m so proud of everything I hear about how well you're doing. It's really exciting!

JL: It's great.

JF: Trying our best.

JL: We gotta get you to a live show, we're going work on that next.

[Laughter]

HC: Oh! Okay!

JF: [Laughing] He just keeps asking.

TV: Always be pitching, yeah.

[CROSS TALK]

JL: Why not?

JF: Oh my god.

HC: Oh, yeah.

JF: Sat down for an interview with us…

JL: I know, but I’ve been a journalist for about 6 months and it's very easy and this is what you do.

[Laughter]

HC: Well, I’m glad to hear that, Jon. I wanna know all the inside stories.

[Laughter]

JF: Thank you so much.

HC: Thank you! Thanks, guys.

JL: Thank you.

0:43:32

[MUSIC]

43:38

TV: So we are still squatting in Secretary Clinton’s basement.

JF: Yeah.

JL: We are still-

JF: We’re here.

JL: Her guard is still down, but it's elsewhere.

[Laughter]

JF: She's gone. We're looking for a route out to the woods.

JL: We have, again, our GORP.

JF: What?

JL: We have our trail mix.

JF: [Laughs]

TV: Our tear away pants.

JF: What'd we think, guys?

TV: I think that she was very honest about the parts of that election that still frustrate her. The thing that most surprised me in the interview was her response to my question of her description of Trump being like Putin. Because I thought-

JF: She was dead serious.

TV: She might- she might say, you know “Don't take that too literally.” But she is-

JL: Or she might have said it was a concern, but she just said yes.

TV: Yeah, I mean she means it when she says he is a clear and present danger to our country. And that is a pretty strong call to arms to winning back the House.

JF: It was interesting. I kept trying to get to- right, there's all these outside challenges that she faced -- sexism, Russia, propaganda, she talked a lot about-- it's like, we have to solve all of these in the long term. In the short term, we have an election in 2018. Those things aren't gonna be solved. What do Democrats do differently to get through those things? And I think she honestly- she doesn't know.

JL: I think she's- look we've been talking about this.

TV: It is unknowable.

JF: It's a- it is unknowable.

JL: We are all posing these questions to ourselves, over and over again, and she doesn't have special access to the answers. She has special access to what it was like to go through this thing. And I think the book is worth reading for that alone, even though it's much more raw and open than it had any business being. But, we're all trying to figure that out.

JF: Yeah. And she- she clearly does not believe it was a policy-

JL: No.

JF: It was a policy issue.

TV: Well, and- and I think, policy was a focus in the primary. Policy was absent from the general election.

JF: That is central.

JL: That was interesting.

JF: 100% true

JL: That was interesting that she, sort of, whatever- the responsibility gene on policy making during the primary, built on the assumption that she'd be called to account in the general and the fact that it never happened was interesting.

JF: Yeah.

TV: Just another subtle way that the rules were completely rewritten in this election. Everyone usually tacks back to the middle and Donald Trump tacked as far right as he possibly could get.

JF: Right, we have talked about this on this podcast many times before, but all of us -- Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, the 3 of us, many of our friends -- we probably underestimated the level of anger in this country about people who didn't think that the economy was working for them and didn't think Washington was working for them. And they were really pissed-

JL: And I think- and this sort of cultural reaction-

JF: We all did that.

JL: The cultural reaction to an Obama presidency and the role that that played, and the anger and vitriol connected to race as well. I mean, we've all talked about it a million times but I think, you know, it was interesting that- I think she's struggling to understand what she'd do differently too.

JF: Yeah, that’s right.

TV: That was a very interesting interview.

JF: It was, and I’m glad she sat down with us.

JL: It was great, and I can only assume the ratings have been through the roof.

[Laughter]

JL: And that's also great.

JF: Okay, well we are going to stay in this- in this basement in Chappaqua=

JL: Until we're kicked out.

JF: Until someone- til we're forcibly removed.

TV: I’ve got my wheelie bag, so-

JL: It's nice down here.

JF: It is

JL: I could make this work. This is good.

46:36

[OUTRO MUSIC BEGINS]

JL: It's nicer than my house.

TV: Very sporty in this room…golf teams...

JF: Nice books on the shelves...

TV: See Seabiscuit over there…

JF: Bill Simmons basketball book is here…

JL: A lot of a- there's a lot of baseballs and boxing gloves.

JF: Excellent.

JL: Some golf memorabilia.

JF: We are now going to describe the basement for the next 10 to 20 minutes.

JL: There's a photo of Secretariat, the music is going, we are in outro.

JF: We're in the outro.

JL: The outro. Hey, all the reporters listening to this who are gonna tell us we didn't do a great job-

[Laughter]

JL: Did you make it this far?

[Laughter]

JL: I don't care.

[Laughter]

JF: Alright-

JL: That was a great conversation.

JF: We'll see you guys again.

TV: Bye.

JL: Bye.

47:17

#podsa #September 2017 #bonus pod #podsa transcripts

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brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

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Coronavirus reopening: small stores struggle with the process

For small-business owners, the steps toward opening their doors again after coronavirus lockdowns are welcome — but far from easy.

Two small Los Angeles merchants who could rattle off the names of celebrity clients from the days before COVID-19 are finding that walk-in shoppers have mostly become walk-by shoppers. Although some areas of the state are loosening coronavirus restrictions, Los Angeles County’s in-store shopping is still largely limited to food and other essential businesses.

Kitson on Robertson Boulevard was the quirky clothing and gift seller that wouldn’t die. Little Trendz sold its hip children’s clothing in competition with mega-chains that had lobbies bigger than the retailer’s single Sherman Oaks store.

Now, tourism dollars are gone. Online traffic isn’t strong enough to make up for the loss of in-store sales. Some employees are afraid to return to work.

All of it leaves Kitson with, at best, 15% of its former revenue stream. Little Trendz has had only a handful of customers in the last week.

“It’s like trying to start a business from scratch, when you don’t know what you’re going to sell, or to who,” said Fraser Ross, owner of Kitson, who reopened his store to curbside service on May 8.

Little Trendz owner Sara Petikyan, left, and store manager Arpine, her sister, are masked and gloved in their Sherman Oaks store. They want to demonstrate to passersby that they are taking every precaution.

(Ronald D. White / Los Angeles Times)

Sara Petikyan, owner of Little Trendz, is happy to be back in her store again but knows that the road ahead will be difficult.

“Nobody’s interested in buying a T-shirt for their kids when they’re worried about feeding their family or finding a job,” she said. “So I understand why we have very little income. This is a struggle.”

Lars Perner, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at USC Marshall School of Business, said businesses have never faced such a mixture of negative and contradictory forces.

“It’s a very different situation businesses are facing, very surreal,” said Perner, whose specialties include consumer behavior and how shoppers react to price changes.

“The people who still have jobs have sometimes taken pay cuts or are very worried about how much longer they will have them. And there is still so much fear around the virus that there can be a kind of social disapproval of the risk of going out to shop somewhere for things you really don’t need,” he said.

Kitson opened on designer-studded Robertson Boulevard in 2000, becoming a go-to spot for paparazzi to grab shots of young celebrities. The brand survived two recessions and an expansion — some said overexpansion — to 17 locations. In late 2015, new management began liquidating Kitson’s brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce operation.

Ross had left Kitson before the unexpected closure, which brought a flurry of lawsuits by all parties. In 2016, Ross launched a comeback, opening another pop-culture-flavored store, which he dubbed Kitross, at the original Robertson location. Eventually, the operation became Kitson again.

Kitson’s business model capitalizes on the impulse buy, with an eclectic array of items ranging from original artwork that can sell for a few thousand dollars and cashmere sweaters for $600 to greeting cards that sell for $5.95.

The pandemic has been a blow, Ross said, combining the dangers of the virus with the stay-at-home shutdown that closed his physical stores as nonessential businesses, even as big chains such as Target and Walmart were able to continue selling gifts and other items along with the necessities consumers couldn’t do without.

“They shouldn’t have been allowed to do that when we couldn’t,” Ross said. “We can practice social distancing in retail as well as anyone else.”

On a recent weekday, Kitson and the nearby Kitson Kids store were the only establishments on the block open for curbside business, leaving Robertson Boulevard looking mostly deserted, except for some light vehicular traffic that would have been inconceivably sparse before the virus. Kitson’s outlet store and a Beverly Hills pop-up store haven’t reopened.

“It’s not great, but every little bit helps in sales, from curbside to internet,” said Ross, who added that he was averaging nearly 30 curbside customers a day. “But I don’t know what the outcome will be at the end of this. It’s just like, it’s a new world, and we’re just adapting as we … go along, and with what we’re allowed to do and what we’re not allowed to do.”

Unsold inventory has been an additional problem, Ross said.

“We would normally sell out of Mother’s Day cards every year, and I just packed up 500 of them. Easter? I packed those things up,” Ross said, now wondering whether he will have to do the same next month for Father’s Day.

“Pool floats, actually, I’ve been doing well with those, because people are stuck in their homes, and so we’re going to have some hot hit items. But other than that, I don’t know what will sell and what won’t,” Ross said. Puzzles for adults and items to keep youngsters occupied have also been popular.

Some Kitson workers are thrilled to be back. One was salesman Tom Ernst, who walked back and forth in front of the store, properly masked, making sure the merchandise set outside to attract customers was set just so. It didn’t seem to matter that business was extremely slow.

“It’s been so great to be back to work,” Ernst said. “To be able to have a place to go, where you feel like someone needs you.”

Ross said some employees are leery about face-to-face work with customers. He said he has seven employees back at work, and three more will return June 1, now that Kitson has received federally sponsored Paycheck Protection Program funding.

“We have 23 employees between our four stores, with stock people, managers,” Ross said. “So, we’ve got two working on internet, one person working outside for customers, one stock person and then tomorrow we’ll bring back the Instagram people and more web people.”

Some families are unwilling to see loved ones return to retail jobs so soon, as is the case for 17-year-old Julie Kartashyan, who would normally be working at the Little Trendz children’s boutique.

“My mom doesn’t want me to go back to work just yet,” Kartashyan said. “That’s because she’s read articles or heard news about how the virus might still be around in August.”

As April rolled into May, Kartashyan’s mother said she might consider letting her return around May 15, but that date has come and gone without approval.

“And that’s even though she knows my store is small and kept very clean,” Kartashyan said. “My mom is not as worried as she would be if I was going back to work at a big store; she definitely would not even consider it then.”

Bosses find themselves in a delicate position as well. Petikyan, the 33-year-old owner of Little Trendz, said she would hold Kartashyan’s job for her for as long as it takes to get her back.

“That’s all we can do for now, which is to make sure she knows she still has a job,” said Petikyan, who normally employs five workers. She applied for government-backed emergency PPP funding but said she never heard back from the lender.

“One thing I want to make sure of is that my employees feel comfortable prior to returning,” Petikyan said. “I want them wanting to go back to work. We want our employees and our customers to feel safe. We provide masks and gloves. We provide sanitizers, and no one is allowed to enter the store without a mask.”

Petikyan opened Little Trendz in late 2016 in a 750-square-foot space on Ventura Boulevard. The store did well from the start, she said, as the only retail establishment within several blocks that focused on trendy, European and street-style clothing for young children.

“We had the older-age women that came in looking for things for their grandchildren. A lot of people came in just because the window attracted them. We were just something different,” Petikyan said. “We had moms with strollers walking by. They saw the store, came in, referred their friends. So it did pretty well.”

Petikyan brought her sister Arpine, who is 34, into the business to provide some expertise she gained in retail management positions over several years, including at Michael Kors.

“It was something, a dream of both of ours that came together,” Arpine Petikyan said.

Little Trendz stocks jackets that sell for about $100 and T-shirts with cheeky sayings such as “I’m so Prada” and “#swag” that cost $24.99 to $32.99. There’s a new line of COVID clothing, including a shirt proclaiming: “Please stay 6 feet away.”

By 2019, larger chains had picked up on the popularity of urban street wear for children and, in some cases, even offered the same brands at competitive prices, the sisters said. But that was nothing compared to being told in March that Little Trendz could sell only online — a disaster for a store that had relied on foot traffic for 80% of its business.

“In this neighborhood, having a lot of people buying things for Passover and Easter makes March our second-biggest month for sales, behind December,” Sara Petikyan said. “So we were suddenly looking at big numbers, big sales losses.”

E-commerce has kept the store going, and the sisters believe that if they can get just two walk-up customers a day to add to their online sales, they will be able to ride out the virus’ effects on business. The store has a sign encouraging shoppers to call or text if they see merchandise that interests them through the shop’s large picture windows or on its social media accounts.

“Foot traffic outside has begun to pick up,” but no one has approached them to make a purchase, she said. “It’s very tough.”

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legit-scam-review · 6 years ago

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Ethereum’s Next Upgrade Could Be the $29 Billion Blockchain’s Biggest Test Yet

Hard forks are never easy.

By definition, such system-wide upgrades require every software user to upgrade to new rules near-simultaneously, meaning there’s coordination difficulties that need to be overcome to ensure the code continues to operate as designed. Still, in a upcoming October upgrade named Constantinople, ethereum is faced with a unique challenge — how to find a balance between a web of diverse stakeholders, each battling for different outcomes.

Making matters more complex, there’s a hard deadline for the upgrade, currently set for October. Predicted sometime in early 2019, a piece of code known as the difficulty bomb is scheduled enact, thereby making ethereum’s blocks steadily less time efficient to mine.

If no action is taken, the difficulty bomb will push ethereum into what is known as the “ice age,” a period wherein the difficulty is so high that transactions can no longer be processed, making the blockchain unusable.

Because delaying the difficulty bomb also impacts ether inflation (the time it takes to mine blocks is directly correlated to the quantity of ether distributed on the platform), ethereum is under pressure to upgrade its code before the bomb hits.

But, at present, a path forward remains unclear.

With a total of four ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) currently under discussion, many are arguing that in delaying the difficulty bomb, Constantinope should also reduce the amount of ether that is currently paid out to miners, the entities that run specialty computing hardware to secure transactions.

However, miners are warning that too great a decrease in profits will reduce the security of the network, effectively forcing miners to secure other cryptocurrencies. (Concerns are especially great for GPU miners, which are now currently competing with ASICs, machines specialized for cryptocurrency mining and little else).

While an exact timeline for Constantinople has yet to be finalized, developers are pointing to late October or November as the likely timeline for the upgrade (any later could risk intersecting with the difficulty bomb). As such, in an upcoming meeting on Friday, developers are likely to finalize the EIPs to be included in the upcoming hard fork.

Communications officer for Parity Technologies, Afri Schoedon, told CoinDesk:

“We are moving toward a decision with fast steps now.”

Balancing act

At the time of writing, there are three EIPs to be included in the upcoming hard fork that aren’t controversial at all, and have already been implemented in code and are currently undergoing testing.

These include EIP 145, EIP 1014, and EIP 1052, which respectively, seek to add new flexibility to ethereum’s operations, facilitating scaling measures such as state channels and increasing the speed at which contracts can be verified.

Aside from these however, other proposals require careful coordination.

As reported by CoinDesk, much of the current division was aired last Friday, when developers initiated a public discussion with several representatives of the platform’s key stakeholders.

While no consensus was reached, several stakeholders have since taken to social media to layout their concerns.

In a blog post published Monday, CTO of a mining startup named Atlantic Crypto, Brian Venturo, warned that “the security of the ethereum network is NOT something to compromise over.” He championed EIP 1295 as the only proposal that doesn’t potentially lower security.

EIP 1295 does not reduce issuance, but rather reduces the amount of ether that is rewarded to uncles, a kind of block that speeds transactions but isn’t included in the blockchain itself.

“If you reduce the block reward you’re going to price out a large proportion of hardware,” Venturo told CoinDesk, stating that such hardware might instead become available for attacks if the reward for malicious services is higher.

While miners are pushing back against the issuance reduction, at the same time, ETH traders are pointing to the dropping market valuation of ether, stating that steps must be taken to preserve the value of the currency by limiting issuance.

In a Twitter thread that compared current bitcoin’s current issuance rate to ethereum, a trader named Eric Conner remarked that if the reduction is pushed down to 2 ETH, it doesn’t slip lower than bitcoin’s current rate.

According to Conner, such a reduction is necessary to preserve the value of the network.

“Fun fact! In the past 365 days, the ethereum network has paid $6.6 [billion] to miners,” Conner tweeted.

The compromise

Adding to the criticism is that founder of ethereum Vitalik Buterin has pushed back against EIP 1295, writing on Github that it could result in the further centralization of mining pools.

“I’m scared of this,” Buterin wrote.

An investor and fund manager named Spencer Noon also pushed back against the proposal.

“I’m completely unsupportive of EIP 1295 and I question the motive of its author (Atlantic Crypto Corp),” Noon tweeted, “ACC is a mining company run by former hedge funders. This has nothing to do with ‘network security’ — a block reward reduction would hurt their bottom line.”

Several Reddit posts have followed a similar tone, and in response, the mining company has retracted its current proposal in favor of arguing that the issuance reduction should remain at 3 ETH.

“We agree that the ETH denominated issuance may be too high, but we also believe that adjusting it under the current market conditions will put undue risk on the security scale of the network,” Venturo wrote on Github.

Speaking in a developer meeting Friday, Casper developer Danny Ryan said that a reduction to 2 ETH seems like a “reasonable compromise” that could balance the interests of both traders and miners. Similarly, because GPU miners are struggling to compete with ASICs, a removal of the hardware from the platform through a proof-of-work change would be another “reasonable compromise.”

Toward this, a GPU miner and enthusiast named Kristy-Leigh Minehan is championing an code fix to be implemented in Constantinople.

Still, some feel it’s unlikely it will make the cut.

“This would be a lot more work to implement than the other EIPs,” Michael Hahn, of ethereum wallet MyCrypto, told CoinDesk.

High stakes

All this means, there could be difficulty ahead of October. If a certain proportion of ethereum nodes chose to run different software, it could lead to a split in the network (not unlike what occurred when ethereum classic emerged following a disagreement on technical direction in 2016).

Still, there’s way in which existing ethereum code could actually help protect the network when it comes to splits.

For example, due to the presence of the difficulty bomb, an ethereum researcher named Andrew Bradley said opportunistic fork attempts without developer support are unlikely to win out.

“It reduces the likelihood of stale chains being picked up with little effort and sustained by exchanges or precarious parties without real development support,” Bradley told CoinDesk.

Still, the complexity Constantinope has unearthed between competing miner and trader interest have sparked a wave of community engagement in the discussion.

“We’ve had a lot of community enthusiasm for the forks,” Hudson Jameson, a communications officer for the Ethereum Foundation, told CoinDesk, “It’s weird hearing about people watching and participating in discussion around the bi-weekly core developer calls.”

Speaking to CoinDesk, Schoedon from Parity echoed this point, stating that Constantinope is unique in that it has widened the doors of involvement when it comes to tough decisions.

“In the past, contentious proposals were either accepted straight away or stalled forever,” Schoedon said.

However, in this case, decisions had a wider set of stakeholder engagement, which while makes it makes the coordination process more complicated, it takes the pressure away from the core developer team.

“Off-chain governance is difficult, and that’s probably a good thing,” Schoedon added.

And while the developers still have the last call – expected to be finalized on Friday – many stakeholders expect them to uphold the technical stability of the network above all else.

Brian Venturo told CoinDesk:

“They understand this stuff better than everyone else and I think they’re going to make the right decisions.”

Science experiment via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

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365footballorg-blog · 7 years ago

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Tenorio: Inside the dramatic, historic deal that brought Barco to Atlanta

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May 8, 20181:58PM EDT

MARIETTA, Ga. – Atlanta United technical director Carlos Bocanegra knew what the phone calls meant before he picked them up.

In a months-long negotiation that necessitated multiple trips to Argentina, more than a few stop-and-go discussions and plenty of near-misses, a call from Atlanta’s vice president of soccer operations Paul McDonough or another figure in the negotiations around prized target Ezequiel Barco usually meant something had gone wrong.

“There were a lot of those,” Bocanegra told MLSsoccer.com. “There was some, ‘Alright, we’re making progress … oh man, it’s never going to happen’ [moments].”

Atlanta president Darren Eales classified the transfer as the most difficult deal of his career, but one he said was worth it because of what it could mean on multiple levels – to the club, to Major League Soccer and to the player.

The implications for Barco are only beginning to reveal themselves. The teenage star’s MLS career is only now truly ramping up – he scored his first MLS goal on Saturday in a 2-1 win over the Chicago Fire – and the value of the richest transfer in league history is starting to be measured on the field.

How Barco got to MLS, however, and what it signals about the league’s growth is a chapter already written, and it’s one that will mean as much to the 19-year-old Argentinian’s legacy as anything he accomplishes with the ball at his feet.

It was groundbreaking not just in its financial cost, but also in the stature of prospect heading to a still-growing league.

“Perhaps five years ago,” Eales said, “the deal doesn’t happen.”

Unwavering in the face of pressure

Barco with Independiente

What is pressure if it’s not stepping up to take a Cup-deciding penalty kick in front of 62,567 people in the storied Maracanã, the hopes of an entire club on your teenage shoulders?

Is it throngs of media outlets writing that you’re too good for a move to MLS? Or influence exerted from every and any angle – on you, on your family, on your agent – to scrap a deal that was already agreed in order to facilitate a higher-profile transfer?

The attributes that make an 18-year-old kid special – $ 15 million special – go beyond on-field skill and goal-scoring ability. Atlanta United is confident Barco has that something else. It is a quality that’s not easy to put a finger on, but it screams “exceptional.”

It was that exact makeup that both confirmed to Atlanta that Barco was worth every penny asked – and also nearly tanked the deal that brought him to MLS. It was on display when Barco stepped up to the penalty spot in the second leg of the Copa Sudamericana final and buried the kick to lead his club to the title. It was also there when Barco held his ground against what can only be delicately described as less-than-ideal levels of pressure exerted on him during the transfer process.

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It is there even now, when the quiet teenager is asked about his ability to ignore all of those ugly outside forces in order stick with his word and go to Atlanta.

“I distracted myself so I wouldn’t be involved in the deal,” Barco told MLSsoccer.com in his native Spanish, barely a shrug to acknowledge a trying few months. “I went on vacation for a few days with my girlfriend and was distracted, I didn’t use my phone, and that’s why, luckily, in one day it all got done.”

It was hardly a one-day deal.

It began months earlier, during MLS All-Star Week, when Atlanta’s top decision0makers flew down to see Barco play and then meet him after the game in an Argentinian steakhouse in the late-night hours. It continued through months of negotiations, with McDonough making several trips down to Argentina to negotiate the price tag.

By the time Barco took that penalty, it only confirmed to Atlanta’s decision-makers that the midfielder had “it.” That career-defining moment also made them worry they had lost him. Eales said he tried to explain to Atlanta United owner Arthur Blank that their target had played so well in the tournament he might have played his way out of the deal to come to MLS.

Team officials joked the price “certainly didn’t go down” after Independiente’s Copa Sudamericana run. They wouldn’t confirm just how far it went up.

The price wasn’t the only thing that increased. Speculation around the deal blared loudly, as did the voices and influencers who wanted to see the star head to Europe, not to MLS. This was a player good enough for an early call-up to train with Argentina’s senior national team. Good enough to lead Independiente to a title. How could MLS be the right destination?

Carlos Bocanegra with Tata Martino | Atlanta United

But as newspapers dispatched stories about why Barco was a better fit for Europe, and as other voices tried to turn Barco’s eyes away from North America, the midfielder did not waver in the word he had given Atlanta. Not even when top European teams like Atletico Madrid and Borussia Dortmund were reported to have entered the picture.

He was so committed to honoring the deal, he gave a significant amount of money – reports pegged it at around $ 1 million – to build fields for Independiente in order to seal the transfer.

“I was fair to Atlanta,” Barco said. “And I said I wanted to come here.”

Barco’s unshakable vision of coming to, and succeeding at, ATLUTD, made the club feel confident that there would be nothing MLS could offer that would shake him. Not even being tagged with the label of “biggest transfer in league history.” Barco’s resolve only doubled down Atlanta’s determination to seal the move.

“The fact that he had the [guts] to take that penalty in the final, whilst it prolonged the deal, it further emphasized his mental toughness,” Eales said. “That has shown both in the way he handled himself in the transfer and what he’s done on the pitch.”

When the official transfer finally came through as team officials sat at the team’s table at the MLS SuperDraft in Philadelphia, officials joked Eales got a tear in his eye.

It was a sense of relief more than a celebration – and the hardest part may be yet to come.

A new tier of prospect

Barco (L) with Miguel Almiron and Josef Martinez | Atlanta United

Atlanta United’s three top front-office officials sat in a box in Argentina watching Barco play last fall. Over their shoulders a TV in the suite was showing the Five Stripes’ game against the Philadelphia Union.

The moment perfectly encapsulated the growth of MLS over the last few years. The access to the league has changed around the world, escalating along with the level of play on the field. The success of Atlanta, and players like Miguel Almiron and Leandro Gonzalez Pirez, has raised awareness of the league in South America.

It’s a reason why the Five Stripes could insert themselves into the discussions around one of the country’s most prized prospects.

“This league has grown to a level where you can have that conversation and not get laughed out the door,” Eales said. “There is a sense of going from strength to strength. The TV presence it has, there is a real sense this is a league where you can develop. … This isn’t the cul-de-sac of a career, this is a league you can come to and get better.”

An injury just before the season allowed Barco to quietly slide into Atlanta’s lineup without much fanfare last month. It was hardly a grand welcome for a player who might be the most prized prospect ever to play in MLS.

Barco is already on Argentina’s senior national team radar, having traveled with the team last year to integrate within the group. His career trajectory could explode sooner than later, especially if he features for Argentina’s squad at next year’s U-20 World Cup in Poland. While his teammate Almiron may be the first to head to the big stage in Europe, Barco may not be far behind.

“Hopefully he goes down [to Argentina] and is a big part of the Under-20 squad and there is hype around him and he becomes a young player within the full team of Argentina,” Bocanegra said. “The possibilities are endless.

“That’s the hope and goal, but we’re not going to put pressure on him that he needs to be the Golden Boot winner at the U-20 World Cup and be called into the Argentina selection directly after that. It might go a little different way, but we know the quality he has, he’s shown it in glimpses here, what he can do on the field, and with the amount of interest and the type of clubs interested in him before coming here, we’re proud to have landed him. Hopefully we can continue to push him and be a part of that development process while he’s here with us.”

If MLS can act as a springboard for a prospect like Barco, it could change the league’s place in the global soccer market. The capacity to purchase a top prospect is one thing. The ability to further develop and sell that player on is another.

“Once you’ve demonstrated you can do it, all you’re doing is opening the door to other possibilities,” Eales said.

Barco’s record transfer was only the first step. What happens over the next few years will be as important. The pressure is not only on Barco to live up to the hype, but on Atlanta and the league to nurture it.

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Tenorio: Inside the dramatic, historic deal that brought Barco to Atlanta was originally published on 365 Football

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brajeshupadhyay · 5 years ago

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For small-business owners, the steps toward opening their doors again after coronavirus lockdowns are welcome — but far from easy. Two small Los Angeles merchants who could rattle off the names of celebrity clients from the days before COVID-19 are finding that walk-in shoppers have mostly become walk-by shoppers. Although some areas of the state are loosening coronavirus restrictions, Los Angeles County’s in-store shopping is still largely limited to food and other essential businesses. Kitson on Robertson Boulevard was the quirky clothing and gift seller that wouldn’t die. Little Trendz sold its hip children’s clothing in competition with mega-chains that had lobbies bigger than the retailer’s single Sherman Oaks store. Now, tourism dollars are gone. Online traffic isn’t strong enough to make up for the loss of in-store sales. Some employees are afraid to return to work. All of it leaves Kitson with, at best, 15% of its former revenue stream. Little Trendz has had only a handful of customers in the last week. “It’s like trying to start a business from scratch, when you don’t know what you’re going to sell, or to who,” said Fraser Ross, owner of Kitson, who reopened his store to curbside service on May 8. Little Trendz owner Sara Petikyan, left, and store manager Arpine, her sister, are masked and gloved in their Sherman Oaks store. They want to demonstrate to passersby that they are taking every precaution. (Ronald D. White / Los Angeles Times) Sara Petikyan, owner of Little Trendz, is happy to be back in her store again but knows that the road ahead will be difficult. “Nobody’s interested in buying a T-shirt for their kids when they’re worried about feeding their family or finding a job,” she said. “So I understand why we have very little income. This is a struggle.” Lars Perner, an assistant professor of clinical marketing at USC Marshall School of Business, said businesses have never faced such a mixture of negative and contradictory forces. “It’s a very different situation businesses are facing, very surreal,” said Perner, whose specialties include consumer behavior and how shoppers react to price changes. “The people who still have jobs have sometimes taken pay cuts or are very worried about how much longer they will have them. And there is still so much fear around the virus that there can be a kind of social disapproval of the risk of going out to shop somewhere for things you really don’t need,” he said. Kitson opened on designer-studded Robertson Boulevard in 2000, becoming a go-to spot for paparazzi to grab shots of young celebrities. The brand survived two recessions and an expansion — some said overexpansion — to 17 locations. In late 2015, new management began liquidating Kitson’s brick-and-mortar stores and e-commerce operation. Ross had left Kitson before the unexpected closure, which brought a flurry of lawsuits by all parties. In 2016, Ross launched a comeback, opening another pop-culture-flavored store, which he dubbed Kitross, at the original Robertson location. Eventually, the operation became Kitson again. Kitson’s business model capitalizes on the impulse buy, with an eclectic array of items ranging from original artwork that can sell for a few thousand dollars and cashmere sweaters for $600 to greeting cards that sell for $5.95. The pandemic has been a blow, Ross said, combining the dangers of the virus with the stay-at-home shutdown that closed his physical stores as nonessential businesses, even as big chains such as Target and Walmart were able to continue selling gifts and other items along with the necessities consumers couldn’t do without. “They shouldn’t have been allowed to do that when we couldn’t,” Ross said. “We can practice social distancing in retail as well as anyone else.” On a recent weekday, Kitson and the nearby Kitson Kids store were the only establishments on the block open for curbside business, leaving Robertson Boulevard looking mostly deserted, except for some light vehicular traffic that would have been inconceivably sparse before the virus. Kitson’s outlet store and a Beverly Hills pop-up store haven’t reopened. “It’s not great, but every little bit helps in sales, from curbside to internet,” said Ross, who added that he was averaging nearly 30 curbside customers a day. “But I don’t know what the outcome will be at the end of this. It’s just like, it’s a new world, and we’re just adapting as we … go along, and with what we’re allowed to do and what we’re not allowed to do.” Unsold inventory has been an additional problem, Ross said. “We would normally sell out of Mother’s Day cards every year, and I just packed up 500 of them. Easter? I packed those things up,” Ross said, now wondering whether he will have to do the same next month for Father’s Day. “Pool floats, actually, I’ve been doing well with those, because people are stuck in their homes, and so we’re going to have some hot hit items. But other than that, I don’t know what will sell and what won’t,” Ross said. Puzzles for adults and items to keep youngsters occupied have also been popular. Some Kitson workers are thrilled to be back. One was salesman Tom Ernst, who walked back and forth in front of the store, properly masked, making sure the merchandise set outside to attract customers was set just so. It didn’t seem to matter that business was extremely slow. “It’s been so great to be back to work,” Ernst said. “To be able to have a place to go, where you feel like someone needs you.” Ross said some employees are leery about face-to-face work with customers. He said he has seven employees back at work, and three more will return June 1, now that Kitson has received federally sponsored Paycheck Protection Program funding. “We have 23 employees between our four stores, with stock people, managers,” Ross said. “So, we’ve got two working on internet, one person working outside for customers, one stock person and then tomorrow we’ll bring back the Instagram people and more web people.” Some families are unwilling to see loved ones return to retail jobs so soon, as is the case for 17-year-old Julie Kartashyan, who would normally be working at the Little Trendz children’s boutique. “My mom doesn’t want me to go back to work just yet,” Kartashyan said. “That’s because she’s read articles or heard news about how the virus might still be around in August.” As April rolled into May, Kartashyan’s mother said she might consider letting her return around May 15, but that date has come and gone without approval. “And that’s even though she knows my store is small and kept very clean,” Kartashyan said. “My mom is not as worried as she would be if I was going back to work at a big store; she definitely would not even consider it then.” Bosses find themselves in a delicate position as well. Petikyan, the 33-year-old owner of Little Trendz, said she would hold Kartashyan’s job for her for as long as it takes to get her back. “That’s all we can do for now, which is to make sure she knows she still has a job,” said Petikyan, who normally employs five workers. She applied for government-backed emergency PPP funding but said she never heard back from the lender. “One thing I want to make sure of is that my employees feel comfortable prior to returning,” Petikyan said. “I want them wanting to go back to work. We want our employees and our customers to feel safe. We provide masks and gloves. We provide sanitizers, and no one is allowed to enter the store without a mask.” Petikyan opened Little Trendz in late 2016 in a 750-square-foot space on Ventura Boulevard. The store did well from the start, she said, as the only retail establishment within several blocks that focused on trendy, European and street-style clothing for young children. “We had the older-age women that came in looking for things for their grandchildren. A lot of people came in just because the window attracted them. We were just something different,” Petikyan said. “We had moms with strollers walking by. They saw the store, came in, referred their friends. So it did pretty well.” Petikyan brought her sister Arpine, who is 34, into the business to provide some expertise she gained in retail management positions over several years, including at Michael Kors. “It was something, a dream of both of ours that came together,” Arpine Petikyan said. Little Trendz stocks jackets that sell for about $100 and T-shirts with cheeky sayings such as “I’m so Prada” and “#swag” that cost $24.99 to $32.99. There’s a new line of COVID clothing, including a shirt proclaiming: “Please stay 6 feet away.” By 2019, larger chains had picked up on the popularity of urban street wear for children and, in some cases, even offered the same brands at competitive prices, the sisters said. But that was nothing compared to being told in March that Little Trendz could sell only online — a disaster for a store that had relied on foot traffic for 80% of its business. “In this neighborhood, having a lot of people buying things for Passover and Easter makes March our second-biggest month for sales, behind December,” Sara Petikyan said. “So we were suddenly looking at big numbers, big sales losses.” E-commerce has kept the store going, and the sisters believe that if they can get just two walk-up customers a day to add to their online sales, they will be able to ride out the virus’ effects on business. The store has a sign encouraging shoppers to call or text if they see merchandise that interests them through the shop’s large picture windows or on its social media accounts. “Foot traffic outside has begun to pick up,” but no one has approached them to make a purchase, she said. “It’s very tough.” window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({ appId : '119932621434123', xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' }); }; (function(d, s, id){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "https://ift.tt/1sGOfhN"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); The post Coronavirus reopening: small stores struggle with the process appeared first on Sansaar Times.

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