#top 20 richest man in the world 2022

[ducklooney]

I posted 4,512 times in 2022

That's 447 more posts than 2021!

94 posts created (2%)

4,418 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@klavande

@frc-ambaradan

@ducktoonsfanart

@jenkyblep-sketch-hoard

@you-big-palooka

I tagged 4,460 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#disney duckverse - 3,590 posts

#disney ducks - 1,947 posts

#duckverse - 1,842 posts

#donald duck - 1,682 posts

#comics - 1,648 posts

#disney duck comics - 1,588 posts

#disney comics - 1,579 posts

#good artwork - 1,391 posts

#disney duck - 1,377 posts

#nice - 1,233 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i think daisy is ok like phantom wing in mickey’s mixed up adventures but why official disney denies the existence of super daisy in comics

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Happy women Day! But with classic Disney characters.

Although it may be too late, I wish everyone a happy Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8! 

Yes, this post will be aimed at all known and unknown female characters from the classic Disney universe (Mouseverse, Duckverse and Goofyverse) through various images (as I always post) through cartoons, movies, series, comics, various merchandise, video games and others things. It will be from famous and unknown characters and I apologize that this will be a longer post. Yes, there are no girls here, it is mostly intended for all female characters older than 18 years. I wish all women a happy Women's Day!

And you feel free, if you like some of those females, feel free to like and reblog this.

See the full post

118 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

#4

Happy 75th anniversary of Scrooge McDuck!

On November 14, 1947, a comic called Christmas on Bear Mountain was released and although it was a Christmas comic, Donald’s uncle named Scrooge McDuck will appear for the first time. At the beginning a big grumpy and bastard man, and at the end a happy man and an adventurer who only loves money. And yes, that comic was invented by Carl Barks, a genius comic artist and writer. Barks is also credited with creating the character Scrooge McDuck. So thanks Barks.

Scrooge was modeled on Ebenezer Scrooge in a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and was a real antagonist at first and cruel to his nephew Donald. However, he will later change and become a great legend not only for his great wealth, but also for his adventures, which he will later write about the making of the Indiana Jones movies. In addition, although he appeared as a forerunner in Donald’s classic propaganda short “The Spirit of ‘43” as Donald’s Good Spirit, he will have a real role in an educational classic short called “Scrooge McDuck and the Money” (1967), to become 20 years later the main character for the legendary Ducktales series (1987). 

Apart from Barks, there were other writers and artists who worked for Donald Duck comics. Especially Don Rosa, who wrote and drew, around his collector’s comic, related to Scrooge’s life “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”. Of course there are other authors who have worked a lot on Scrooge comics such as William Van Horn, Marco Rota, Romano Scarpa, Giovanni Carpi, Guido Martina, Giovanni Cavazano, Arild Mildthun, Kari Korhonen and others. 

Of course, Scrooge McDuck will also appear in other cartoons, comics, video games and other Disney franchises. He becomes the first richest duck in the world, having over a trillion dollars and becoming a hilarious legend and thus together with Donald and Daffy Duck, he becomes one of the most famous and best fictional duck characters ever. 

Now there are pictures of the richest duck in the world, together with his friends and enemies and his family from the beginning until today, in its various versions. And sorry that this is going to be a long post and that not everyone will be able to stop at this post.

Yes, much of it is copy-pasted from my Scrooge post from last year which you can see here: https://ducklooney.tumblr.com/post/671249232279355393/happy-late-birthday-scrooge-mcduck

If you like the richest character in the world, feel free to like and reblog this! Happy birthday to you, Scrooge McDuck! And sorry for the delay! And happy 75th anniversary of his appearance! Although Scrooge is over 100 years old.

See the full post

128 notes - Posted November 15, 2022

#3

See the full post

136 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

#2

Disney Afternoon characters on the poster as a video game commercial at the end of the movie Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers movie (cameo roles). Also at the end of the movie Darkwing Duck appeared to say that people want Darkwing and I agree with him. It's time for the Darkwing Duck reboot! Let's get dangerous!

291 notes - Posted May 23, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Although I know it's not something, but still to make a new meme, but this time united all around a common fandom and that Donald Duck fandom and Disney Duckverse in general. All Duckverse fans, regardless of video games, comics, cartoons and other things, regardless of the differences we don't like and quarrel with each other, let's unite around one, and that is that Donald Duck is the best character and that thanks to him we have Duckverse as a special separate universe in which we can enjoy various characters and various things. Of course, everyone has the right to their opinion.

All Donald and Duckverse fans, ASSEMBLE!

Source of this meme (Knights of the Round Table): https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/156913933/Swords-united

If you agree with this meme, feel free to like or reblog this!

518 notes - Posted March 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

Although the end of the year is approaching, here are the results of this year's review. Yes, I was absent in certain periods because of my problems and that there were problems, but all in all it was a good year. I hope that next year will be even better and yes, I will also start franchising as soon as I have more free time. But yes, I will open some new pages as well.

In any case, thank you all for following me and don't worry, there will be more surprises and bigger ones than this year. I'm hoping to get up to 15,000 posts this year and 20,000 posts next year and I'll be able to get 500 followers. Thanks everyone for following me and keep following my blog.Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and Happy Holidays!

[kspp]

Rich nations and poor governments

Waking up to a headline that read that India is currently one of the most unequal countries in the world, along with Russia and China, didn’t come as a shock. It has become a routine phenomenon to come across articles telling stories of mass poverty engulfing the country, especially post the COVID health emergency which significantly depleted household wealth and savings of people.

The ‘World Inequality Report 2022’ states that the top 1% in India own 33% of average household wealth; the top 10% own 65% and the bottom 50% own only 6% of the pie.

This is not the first of such headlines which indicate that the poor are becoming poorer. UNDP’s Multidimensional Poverty Index 2021, ranks India at 66 out of 109 nations, much lower than other middle-income nations like Brazil (33), South Africa (42), Mexico (43), and China (32). The report states that by using the conventional monetary poverty line of $1.90 per day, 22.5% of India’s population are poor and 19.3% of the population are close to the multidimensional poverty line, and so are very prone to any shocks.

Did this just make you think that India is now a poor country? The answer is no. Our private wealth has increased from 290% in 1980 to 560% in 2020.

The World Inequality Report states in this context, that while “Nations have become richer, Governments have become poorer.” The share of the public wealth, defined as the sum of all financial and non-financial assets, held by the government net of debt, has now dropped from above 50% in the 1970s to close to zero or is even negative for most rich countries.

In India, the government doesn’t seem to have money for paying ex-gratia to the families of COVID victims who were sole breadwinners for their families. The Center’s flagship rural employment guarantee program, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 (MGNREGA) was allocated 34% less funds for 2021-22. This is despite the pandemic propelling a mass reverse migration and massive unemployment in the countryside. All of the fiscal packages doled out during the pandemic were designed to give support to manufacturing and exports, the benefits of which were expected to slowly trickle down to the common man. No temporary monetary help was given to the unemployed or to the ones who had to return to their villages after having lost their jobs.

While most emerging economies have a government debt of around 40%-50% of their GDP, in India, government debt is almost 75% of the GDP. Elevated taxes on fuel prices pinching the pockets of people and reduced budgetary allocations to health and education have only helped in aggravating socio-economic differences, while our sovereign debt is skyrocketing.

Although the government is reeling under the burden of debt and plagued by a fiscal deficit, India still remains the 5th richest country in the world with a $2.27 trillion economy and with the world’s 3rd highest number of billionaires at 140. The private sector owns most of the wealth and capital in India. The liberalization and deregulation from 1991 which opened up the economy to LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization) freed the private sector and led to the creation of more private wealth. But now, we see trends of monopolization of wealth and capital which has been substantiated time and again by various reports.

The World Inequality Report states that in rich countries, public wealth typically amounted to 15-30% of total wealth in the early 1980s but these values have dropped to near 0% in most rich countries, and to around -10 to -20% in the US and the UK. Zero or negative public wealth values mean that private actors control the whole of the economy through their own assets. The higher the debt of the government the greater is the power of debtors over it. Needless to say that the public debt in India is 75% of the GDP.

In August, the government announced a scheme to monetize assets to realize 6 trillion INR by 2024-25 due to revenue shortfall. The sale of the debt-ridden Air India was one of the first assets to be monetized. The fact that it was sold for crumbs indicates how desperate the government was to sell it off. The National Monetisation Pipeline was started to support the National Infrastructure Pipeline, which means we now need to sell public assets to fund infrastructure projects in the country.

However, there is some confusion since the Finance Minister has announced that the assets would still be owned by the government and they have to be handed back after some time. Nobody knows how to practically operationalize something like this, and also who should bear the cost of depreciation of assets built with taxpayer money.

As India marches ahead to realize its dreams of becoming a $5 trillion economy by 2025, and realizing its ambitious climate goals announced at the COP26, our rich nation has to step up and support its poor government not just in building infrastructure but also in delivering social and economic justice to the poor. The middle class have always been the backbone of our economy; let us not follow the footsteps of the Central and Latin American Banana Republics or some of our South Asian neighbors where the co-existence of poverty and oligarchy lead to crimes, law & order problems, and social upheavals.

Reference links –

WORLD INEQUALITY REPORT 2022>

The 2021 Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)

Press Information Bureau

[omyindian]

Top 10 richest people in India

What do you think you would be doing if you became the richest person in India? A world tour maybe? Or buying the most expensive stuff for yourself? Well, all of us have our priorities and we would probably try to accomplish them first. But have you ever thought how difficult it is to become the richest person in India? Keeping the difficulty aside, do you know any other names except Ambani and Adani that are super rich? Well, in this blog, I’ve mentioned the top 10 richest people in India in 2022 and will take you through the quick introduction of their life. Gautam AdaniMukesh AmbaniRadhakrishnan DamaniCyrus PoonawallaShiv NadarDilip ShanghviKumar BirlaYou may find it fascinating, but it needs true hard work to get there. They all have worked hard for their dream, and most significantly, they have never thought to be so rich or to get their names mentioned on the list of billionaires of India, they just kept going, and today we call them by their work. 

Net Worth: $ 150 billion

Age: 60 Profession: Founder and Chairman of Adani groups Gautam Adani is in 1st position in the list of the richest persons in India in 2022. He is the chairman and founder of the Adani Groups and a philanthropist. In 1978, Gautam moved to Mumbai with only 100 rs and worked as a diamond sorter for the Mahendra brothers. Though his family owned a textile business, he was never interested in it. And within three years in Mumbai, he established his diamond brokerage firm and earned a million. He was a self-made millionaire at the age of 20 and Mumbai’s richest man.

Net Worth: $88 billion

Age: 65 Profession: Chairman and Managing Director of Reliance Who doesn’t know how rich Mr. Mukesh Ambani is? We all know he is the wealthiest person with the 2nd highest income in India. He is an Indian businessman, chairman, managing director, and largest shareholder of Reliance Industries. He started his career as a clerk at A. Besse and company in 1950. There, he learned business skills and trading techniques. In the late 1950s, Ambani began a business trading in spices and named it Reliance Commercial Corporation. From here, the expansion of his business took place, and at present, he is the richest man in India.

Net Worth: $ 27.6 billion

Age: 68 Profession: Founder of DMart and investor Radhakrishnan Damani is an investor and India’s richest person. He is the founder of DMart and manages his portfolio through his investment firm, Bright Star Investments Limited. He began his career in the ball-bearing trading business. After his father’s death, he left his business and entered the stock market world. There, he became a stock market broker and investor. Eventually, he quit the stock market in 2000 and entered the retail industry. He came up with his hypermarket Chain, DMart. 

Net Worth: $ 21.5 billion

Age: 81 years Profession: chairman and managing director of Cyrus Poonawalla Group Cyrus Poonawalla is an Indian businessman, chairman, and managing director of the Cyrus Poonawalla Group, including the Serum Institute of India, an Indian biotech company. Poonawalla was born in a family that had connections with the Indian racing circuit. At a very early age, he experimented with cars along with his friend. He initially built a $120 sports car, but he then dropped the idea of selling cars. He founded the Serum Institute of India in 1966. 

Net Worth: $ 21.4 billion

Age: 77 Profession: Founder and Chairman of HCL Technologies and Shiv Nadar Foundations Shiv Nadar is an Indian Industrialist, founder, and chairman Emeritus of HCL Technologies Limited and Shiv Nadar Foundation. He is one of the billionaires in India. He started his career in August 1976 and established the HCL company in a garage with the help of his friends. Earlier, HCL made only calculators and microprocessors. And in 1980, they started selling computers in Singapore, and they had an income of 10 lacks in the first year of their business.

Savitri Jindal & Family 

Net Worth: $ 16.4 billion

Age: 72 

Profession: Former Chairperson Emeritus of OP Jindal Group

Among the wealthiest people in India, Savitri Jindal and her family are ranked sixth. Power, cement, infrastructure, and steel are among the industries in which Jindal Group has interests. 

The Jindal Group was created by Om Prakash Jindal, whose widow Savitri Jindal currently serves as group chairman. The group's businesses were divided among Om Prakash Jindal's four sons after his death in a helicopter accident in 2005.

Net Worth: $ 15.5 billion

Age: 66 Profession: founder of Sun Pharmaceuticals Dilip Shanghvi is an Indian businessman and the richest man in India. He is the founder of Sun Pharmaceuticals and was awarded the civilian honor of the Padma Shri in 2016.

He began his career by helping his father in his wholesale generic drugs business in Kolkata. While working with his father, he developed the idea of manufacturing his drugs instead of selling others products. He started Sun Pharmaceuticals with the capital of INR 10,000 in 1982.

Hinduja Brother

Net Worth: $ 15.2 billion

Profession: Ashok Leyland and Hinduja Housing Finance

The Hinduja group was founded in 1914 by Parmanand Deepchand Hinduja. The worldwide conglomerate is currently under the supervision of the four siblings Srichand, Gopichand, Prakash, and Ashok. 

The brothers' combined wealth is currently at Rs 122,761.29 crore. The 108-year-old company is active in 11 industries, including real estate, banking and finance, healthcare, media, IT and ITeS, and automotive, oil, and specialty chemicals.

Net Worth:$ 15 Billion

Age: 55 Profession: chairperson of Aditya Birla Groups Kumar Mangalam Birla is an Indian Billionaire Industrialist, chairman of Aditya Birla Group. Also, he is the largest conglomerate in India. Seth Shiv Narayan Birla founded the company in the 19th century. Kumar took over as a chairman of the Aditya Birla Group in 1995, after the death of his father, Vikram Birla.

Bajaj Family

Net Worth: $ 14.6 billion

Profession: Bajaj Auto

40 businesses make up the Bajaj Group, which is owned by the Bajaj family. In Mumbai in 1926, Jamnalal Bajaj founded the 96-year-old, family-run company. 

The family's flagship business, Bajaj Auto, has a net worth of Rs 117,915.45 crore and is the fourth-largest two- and three-wheeler manufacturer in the world.

[pastthebutterflies]

I posted 436 times in 2022

23 posts created (5%)

413 posts reblogged (95%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@moringmark

@crystallizabethine

@is-this-where-the-line-starts

@is-nino-actually-luka

@proudofyoucomic

I tagged 411 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#the owl house - 136 posts

#the owl house spoilers - 87 posts

#miraculous ladybug - 51 posts

#ronan tag <3 - 39 posts

#lydspeaks - 28 posts

#rise of the tmnt - 24 posts

#bnha - 20 posts

#gravity falls - 20 posts

#amphibia - 19 posts

#tmnt - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 93 characters

#okay but consider: violet gets bit and is nowhere near as concerned abt this as she should be

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

If Belos recognized Luz, does that mean he knew Lilith too?

15 notes - Posted April 25, 2022

#4

Through the Vents to Grandmother’s House

Part one of a silly little au I’ve had in the back of my head for years now. Webby and the triplets have swapped places in a sense and yes, I would absolutely love to ramble about this au, thanks for asking!

Ao3

When Webby first arrives at McDuck manor, she can’t quite believe her eyes.

The main foyer alone is enough to make her jaw drop, never mind the rest of the house, including her bedroom.

When Granny went missing, Webby wasn’t sure what she had expected to happen. Most likely, she would have been shipped off to one of Granny’s former partners from her old business until she had been found and safely returned home. She could have stayed with Mr. Drake or maybe Doctor Hooter, from accounting.

However, what she hadn’t expected (not today, not yesterday. Not ever, if she was honest) was to be dropped at the doorstep of Scrooge McDuck, patriarch of the renowned adventuring family, the richest duck in the world, and, apparently, dear old friend to one Bentina Beakley.

She clutches her suitcase (the only thing she had been able to pack in time) a little tighter as she stares up at the driver who had picked her up- a talkative, red-haired man. Launchpad, apparently- and who Webby was pretty sure was the Della Duck staring down at her from the doorway.

“Hey, kiddo,” Della said, awkwardly waving at her like she wasn’t quite sure what else to do. And yeah, that was most definitely her, Webby had heard her voice enough times on Granny’s old radio, reliving adventures from her childhood, to know.

Now though, that same voice, usually so excited and lilting, is tinged with nerves Webby didn’t know she posessed. Della and Launchpad exchange a glance that Webby is pretty sure she isn’t supposed to catch, then look back to her. Launchpad clears his throat.

“So! If you’ll follow me, Mr. McD has a room set up for you until we find your grandm- ack!” Launchpad winces harshly as Della’s elbow meets his ribcage, sharp enough that Webby can practically hear the thud from where she stands.

“Let’s find that room, huh?”

They trail down the hall and up a flight of stairs, then circle through a maze of more hallways, all lined with lightly swinging doors, until they reach the only one still locked tight. Here, Launchpad slips off, leaving Della with a small, rounded key and a nod to Webby, his lumbering footsteps fading behind them.

“You can decorate however you want,” Della says as she turns the key in the lock. “I don’t know what you were able to bring, but we can pick up whatever you’re missing, or see if the boys have it, they won’t mind.”

“The boys?” She asks. Webby knew Della had sons, but after continuous threats from old enemies of Scrooge’s, they had largely been kept from the public eye. Rumor had it they sometimes popped up in town, but nothing substantial had ever come from it and, by now, no one knew them well enough to recognize the three if they did.

Della brightens. She lets the door swing open and together, they step inside.

“My sons,” she explains. “They should be in their rooms right now, finishing their lessons, but you’ll see them later. Dinner is in a few hours, take some time to settle in and explore if you want.”

It’s a bigger space than Webby is used to. At home, her room was at least half the size with her bed in one corner and a cluster of shelves stuffed with books and old notepads under the window. It was small, but it was hers and some nights, if she was quiet, she could hear Granny sparring down the hall.

Now though, the silence is deafening and she is reminded all over again how utterly alone she is here. Della and the others, as nice as they appear, weren’t her grandmother. Granny may have trusted Scrooge to look after Webby in her absence, but Scrooge has yet to show his face, much less help her or Granny get back where they belong.

“Hey,” Della says. She kneels and gently rests a hand on Webby’s shoulder. “Your grandma is a tough lady, we’re gonna bring her home.”

Della’s tone is sincere, polished off with a small smile, different from the ones she’s seen in photos over the years. More genuine, like it has been reserved just for her. Something about it tells Webby that she means it. Della, and the rest of the family, she hopes, are going to help her fix this. One way or another.

Webby just isn’t sure how long she’s willing to wait.

Della leaves Webby to her devices soon after.

Her bag is slumped next to the door. She hadn’t had time to pack much before Launchpad had arrived, so she mostly has clothes and a few odds and ends she remembered to take before she left.

She drags it across the carpet and to the dresser, laying out shirts and skirts and sweaters in neat rows like she would any other day. The room, even as she fills it with her presence, feels cavernous and overwhelming, like she could shout and hear the echo all through the night, a stark reminder that, no matter how nice it may be, this room, this house, isn’t where she belongs.

Tears well up in her eyes as the realization hits her. Webby slumps against the dresser, pulls her knees to her chest, and sighs. She keeps her eyes shut tight against the tips of her knees. Granny has never been the type to disappear, not without a good reason. She’s gone on long trips before, sure, mostly to help old friends out of a bind. But she always came back and never would have left without telling Webby. What happened today- it wasn’t like her. Granny had left the night before, she wasn’t supposed to be gone longer than a night.

But only Launchpad had been waiting when Webby had returned from school.

There was a mishap, he said. Granny was gone. No one knew where she went, much less where to find her. Granny was, for all intents and purposes, gone. Webby doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

Suddenly, before Webby can sink further into the hole she finds herself spiraling into, a creak echoes across the room. She freezes.

Granny raised her with a stark paranoia surrounding the rest of the world. Every bump in the night had been a risk if left unchecked and Webby had given endless lessons on self defense as a result. Blocks to kicks to flips, drilling her over and over again until Webby could fight a grown duck in her sleep.

See the full post

19 notes - Posted June 30, 2022

#3

The way Luz stuck the bandaid on I just- Them.

28 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#2

Shave it-

30 notes - Posted October 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

If Hunter doesn’t get a happy ending I Will start throwing rocks.

53 notes - Posted April 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[helpdude]

Musk lost the top spot in the list of billionaires for some time

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and Space-X and CEO of Twitter, lost his top spot on the list of billionaires for a while on Wednesday. He lost this position in terms of wealth in the Forbes Real Time Billionaires list. News from NDTV Shares of electric carmaker giant Tesla fell. In addition, Musk bought Twitter for 4 thousand 4 billion dollars with a lot of bets. After that his total wealth decreased a lot. As a result, he fell to the second position in the list of billionaires for some time. Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, the parent company of Paris-based luxury brand Louis Vuitton, has overtaken Musk as the top billionaire. At that time, his wealth amounted to 18 thousand 530 million dollars. However, Musk regained the top spot after a while. At that time, his personal wealth stood at 18 thousand 570 million dollars. Musk has held the position of the world's richest man since September 2021. He rose to the top, dethroning Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, the parent company of Paris-based luxury brand Louis Vuitton. Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH, the parent company of Paris-based luxury brand Louis Vuitton Picture: Reuters Tesla's share price has hit its lowest point in two years. In this, in 2022, the total wealth of Mask has already decreased by 20 thousand billion dollars. Most of Musk's wealth comes from electric car maker Tesla. The company's largest market outside the US is China. But the company is under pressure due to coronavirus-related restrictions in the country. 10 richest people of the decade Last month, Musk bought the popular social media platform Twitter for $4,400 million. He is giving more time to manage the company. Twitter has lost 60 percent of its workforce since Musk took over. Investors have raised the question whether this billionaire is lightening his position by being involved in such companies. In addition to Tesla, Twitter and rocket company Space-X, Musk is the head of Neuralink. Startup Neuralink is developing ultra-high-bandwidth brain-machine interfaces to connect the human brain to computers. Read the full article

[the9jafresh]

Top 10 Richest Men In The World and Their Net Worth (2022)

Top 10 Richest Men In The World and Their Net Worth (2022)

Top 10 Richest Men In The World and Their Net Worth (2022) Get the List of the World’s Richest People Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, is the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $239.3 billion as of 9 February 2022. And Adani is now the world’s third richest person. Continue reading to see the most recent Worlds Billionaires lists and Richest People in the World. List of the top ten…

[newsoholic24x7]

Top 10 Richest Men In The World In 2022

Top 10 Richest Men In The World In 2022

Top 10 richest men in the world in 2022 In 2022, the 10 wealthiest people in the world are all worth above $100 billion. So let’s see the top ten wealthiest individuals in the world. Elon Musk ($277 billion) The Co-founder of Tesla company, who changed his title from CEO to “Technoking of Tesla” regulatory filing, has taken a massive wealth increase thanks to the fast growth of his electric…

[swiftletinthecloud]

Recommended Shows & Dramas

I made this very curated short list for my coworkers so I figured I shared it here as well. 

Amazon

The Romance of Tiger and Rose (2020, romcom/period drama, Chinese drama, 24 episodes, completed) - Modern day screenwriter is transported into the world of her script as the 3rd princess of a matriarchal kingdom

FC Bayern - Behind the Legend (2021, sport documentary, 6 episodes, completed) - shameless documentary plug for the German soccer club I support. Recommended to watch with the original German audio & English UK subtitles over English US subtitles otherwise you'd miss this great quote, “Everyone here is already special, because we’ve all managed to assert ourselves in this rat race… To stay on top, you sometimes have to be unpleasant. That’s not what I strive for but… not dying in beauty is kind of my philosophy.  Not everyone appreciates that, but who likes people who always win? In all honesty?” — Thomas Müller | Episode 1

Alex Rider (2020, action/adventure/drama, British, 2 seasons, ongoing) -  "Alex Rider is an ordinary teenager enlisted to work on behalf of MI6, where he uses skills he didn't know he had to become an extraordinary spy."

Netflix

A Business Proposal (2022, romcom, Korean drama, 12 episodes, completed) - Office Romance, Fake Dating, Fake Identity - "In disguise as her friend, Ha-ri shows up to a blind date to scare him away. But plans go awry when he turns out to be her CEO — and makes a proposal."

Into the Badlands (2015, wuxia/action/drama, American, 32 episodes, completed) - "A mighty warrior and a young boy with supernatural powers search for enlightenment in a ruthless post-apocalyptic America as feudal barons battle for control of the Badlands"

Kingdom (2019, horror/thriller/period drama, Korean drama, 12 episodes + 1 special episode - Kingdom: Ashin of the North) - "While strange rumors about their ill king grip a kingdom, the crown prince becomes their only hope against a mysterious plague overtaking the land." (zombies)

Light the Night (2021, crime thriller/mystery, Taiwanese drama, 24 episodes, completed) - "In the red light district of 1980s Taipei, women at a popular Japanese night club navigate jealousy, heartbreak, friendship and love."

Rookie Historian: Goo Hae Ryu (2019, romance/period drama, Korean drama, 20 episodes completed) - "Free spirit Goo Hae-ryung embarks on a new life as a scholar in the Joseon royal court after hearing about a government post for women historians."

The Uncanny Counter (2020, fantasy/thriller, Korean drama, 16 episodes, completed)- "Noodle shop employees by day and demon hunters by night, the Counters use special abilities to chase down malevolent spirits that prey on humans."

The Crowned Clown (2019, political/period drama, Korean drama, 16 episodes, completed) - "Standing in for an unhinged Joseon king, a look-alike clown plays the part but increasingly becomes devoted to protecting the throne and the people."

Hulu

Timeless (2016, sci-fi/adventure, American, 2 seasons, completed) - "This high-octane drama follows an unlikely trio who travel through time to battle a master criminal intent on altering the fabric of human history with potentially catastrophic results"

Mr. Queen (2020, fantasy/romcom/period drama, Korean drama, 20 episodes, completed) - "A free-spirited modern day man wakes up one day as a queen of Joseon Dynasty."

Youtube

Reset (2022, sci-fi/mystery/thriller, Chinese drama, 15 episodes, completed) - Two bus passengers are trapped in a time loop only they are aware of, in which the bus they're on explodes, and they must work together to stop the inevitable.

Fall in Love (2021, political/romance, Chinese drama, 36 episodes, completed) - In the midst of a power struggle for Shanghai, love between a young marshal from humble beginnings and the daughter of the richest man in Shanghai blossoms as they work together to outwit their enemies.

[petnews2day]

Storm on Twitter as big bird Musk enters with a mask of free speech

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Storm on Twitter as big bird Musk enters with a mask of free speech

A sign is pictured outside the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, Monday, April 25, 2022. [AP Photo]

In football, when there is a prolonged quiet, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a timeless footballer who plies his trade in Italy for AC Milan, resurfaces with something to say.

Often controversial, his chest-thumping and ridiculous comments that target fellow players, belittling them while exalting himself, cause excitement and elicit debate.

On Twitter, this was what former US President Donald Trump was mainly known for. But after the January 6 insurrection where his supporters thronged, and threatened to tear down the US Capitol in Washington, DC, he was booted out of Twitter.

While his supporters cried foul over what they claimed was suppression of free speech, billionaire Elon Musk became even more vocal on Twitter’s capitulation, which included locking out Mr Trump.

Mr Musk, the entrepreneur known for founding SpaceX, Starlink, The Boring Company, and for being a long-time owner and head of Tesla, was faulted for influencing markets with his erratic tweets. And then one day, tired of censorship, he said he was buying Twitter.

In April, he bought a $2.9 billion (about Sh350 million) stake in Twitter, a 9.2 per cent ownership that made him the majority shareholder. Soon after, he agreed, with the board, that he was buying the social media platform for $44 billion (Sh5.4 trillion). 

After protracted court battles, Musk had threatened to pull out of the deal due to what he termed the social media company’s breach of multiple provisions of the merger agreement. He finally bought Twitter.

Immediately, many dynamics shifted. Top executives, including Twitter’s Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, and legal affairs and policy chief were fired. Mr Musk was in full control.

A debate on whether Mr Musk, who claims to be an advocate for free speech, would reinstate Mr Trump onto the platform abound. Mr Trump, not one to be pinned down, continued disseminating his agenda on his Truth platform even as multiple trials targeting him ran in the background, and his house was ransacked and himself subpoenaed. 

But after Mr Musk had “freed the bird”, his ascent to the hot seat saw the use of the N-word on the platform immediately shoot up by nearly 500 per cent. “An emboldened cast of anonymous trolls spewed racist slurs and Nazi memes onto Twitter in the hours after billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over the social network,” Washington Post wrote.

Almost immediately after, Mr Musk announced that he would be charging everyone who had the blue checkmark, famously known as the blue tick, $20 a month to keep it. There was uproar over this, the few who have the verification mark, and those who aimed at getting it, clearly unimpressed. He reacted to the furore by lowering the charge to $8 a month.

“Twitter’s current lords and peasants’ system for who has or doesn’t have a blue checkmark is bullshit. Power to the people! Blue for $8 a month,” tweeted the richest man in the world.

Reactions, including people willing to voluntarily cede ownership of the coveted badge, did not rattle him. “To all complainers, please continue complaining, but it will cost $8,” he wrote, a comment that attracted a million likes.

The techpreneur, who is followed by 113.9 million Twitter users, has seen his frantic moves affect the company’s fortunes, data show.

The MIT Technology Review reported that Bot Sentinel, a firm which tracks inauthentic behavior on Twitter by analyzing more than 3.1 million accounts and their activity daily, “believes that around 877,000 accounts were deactivated and a further 497,000 were suspended between October 27 and November 1”. Mr Musk closed the deal on October 27.

Further, said Bot Sentinel, 11,535 accounts they were monitoring had been deactivated, “meaning someone chose to close an account down”.

“A further 6,824 were suspended, which happens when Twitter proactively removes accounts for inactivity, inauthenticity, or violation of site rules. That’s approximately 0.59 per cent of the accounts Bot Sentinel monitors.  In the week before Musk bought Twitter, only 5,958 accounts were deactivated or suspended, suggesting a 208 per cent increase in account losses in the days after the purchase went through,” Bot Sentinel said.

A platform that has been fast rising, and on which Kenyans have formed a formidable battalion that stands like a social media army to safeguard local interests, could be in jeopardy, pessimists would say.

It is harder to get followers and reactions on Twitter than on other platforms, many would say. Yet Twitter brings diversity unlike any other platforms’ and, in one trusted arena, subjects can trade barbs with their leaders as much as they please.

Some 22.38 per cent of Kenyans were on the platform as of October 2022, according to data from Statcounter. Only Facebook had a higher membership – 53.68 per cent of Kenyans.

But unlike Facebook, Twitter has, in the past, been seen as a platform for the chosen few, the avenue where leaders can engage in debates with their subjects and where people of note can confidently post their sentiments and generate debate. Sometimes, those who bring small talk are unanimously referred back to other sites “where everyone is”.

On Twitter, organisations inform on what they plan to do, or are doing. Generally, there is more trust in content posted on Twitter than there is for equivalent information on other sites. Every self-respecting organisation, or person, fancies to be on Twitter, and to have a blue checkmark. As such, change of guard, and of policy, would certainly elicit mixed reactions.  

The blue tick is Twitter’s ultimate mark of quality. It makes one more trustworthy and more respectable. It increases interactions, as well. It also distinguishes real account owners from fraudsters.

Calls for freedom of speech have been widely questioned by minorities who often are the recipients of the callousness of the free-speaking keyboard warriors. At some point ahead of the United States’ 2020 election, and in the aftermath, Twitter flagged numerous misleading Tweets from Mr Trump, whose rowdy followers were hell-bent on preventing President Joe Biden’s ascension to the presidency.

Reuters wrote that Mr Musk “was deluged with pleas and demands from banned account holders and world leaders” immediately after the takeover.

Amidst all the pressure and the desire to stamp authority, the new boss has announced a new phase of firings, vowing to reduce the staff at Twitter as he solely makes the decisions.

It is believed he wants to cut about 3,700 jobs. The billionaire, who is said to have overpaid for Twitter by about $20 billion (Sh2.4 trilllion), is believed to want to slash the workforce by up to 50 per cent as he brings the company back to profitability.

Comedian and talk show host Trevor Noah recently said Mr Musk was hoping subscribers were going to make the same mistake he made and pay for the account verification, the blue checkmark so he would recoup his money.

On the upside, subscribers may now have to contend with fewer advertisements, with Musk favouring a subscription-based model over advertiser funding as he shakes off advertisers’ nagging. Also, tweets might get a bit longer and threads, thus, shorter.

But without a clear pathway into how he will beat vile racists while allowing free speech, the platform might become a conduit for hate speech and division, and a money-minting premise.

[countycurrent12]

Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth 2022: Is He Lost $29 Billion?

Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth 2022: Is He Lost $29 Billion?

Mark Zuckerberg’s net worth is predicted to be $70 billion as of November 2022. Not bad for a man his age, 36, do you think? Mark Zuckerberg is the creator and CEO of Facebook, the most popular social media site that has swept the globe. One of the wealthiest persons in the world, Zuckerberg is also the youngest person to be listed among the top 20 richest people. Mark Zuckerberg Net Worth As…

[tonkiwb]

Rap poducer gotti

#RAP PODUCER GOTTI MOVIE#

#RAP PODUCER GOTTI TV#

“I’m beating the same system now that’s fucking them every day.” For a while, at any rate. After working with the likes of Jay Z and Ashanti, Gotti has earned more than 20. Irv Gotti’s monthly income is over 250,000. He is one of the richest record producers and music video directors in the hip-hop world and also gathered a lot of fame throughout his career. “You know why the people in this city love me?” he asks. As of 2022, Irv Gotti Net Worth is estimated to be around 14 million. Gotti argues - not ineffectively - that his crimes pale beside those of Richard Nixon in the ’70s and arbitrageurs in the ’80s. And if nothing else, Shagan reveals an interesting take on his antihero’s sense of perspective.

#RAP PODUCER GOTTI MOVIE#

The movie has a few longueurs, but basically it’s smoothly paced by director Robert Harmon. There’s a far greater tie between man and mentor than man and wife, which is surely accurate but results in a certain redundancy, not to mention men kissing each other’s cheeks and foreheads a lot.Įffective in supporting performances are Vincent Pastore as Gotti’s screw-up friend Angelo Ruggiero, Frank Vincent as another captain, and Al Waxman as lawyer Bruce Cutler. The role of his wife, Vicky (Alberta Watson), is laughably, if inevitably, underwritten. Neither does it go beyond making the case that Gotti was a daring and ruthless aggressor, willing to break firmly held rules to get to the top. The film veers from any representation of what exactly it is that organized crime does. Though Assante, Quinn and Forsythe have an actor’s field day, “Gotti” neither glorifies nor vilifies its subject, which is a problem. It’s Sammy, of course, who will eventually prove Gotti’s undoing, singing for the feds in return for a few years in jail and a life in the witness protection program, despite having admitted to at least 19 brutal slayings. Gotti ascends to the top, and Salvatore Gravano (William Forsythe) - aka Sammy the Bull, another made-for-the-tabs monicker - rises with him as underboss. Eventually, Gotti has Castellano killed outside a midtown steak house, in one of the most sensational and brazen gangland murders since the heyday of Al Capone. His enmity with Castellano cemented, Gotti goes nuts when Gambino names Castellano, not Dellacroce, as his successor. “John, you cannot whack a man on somebody else’s crew,” Dellacroce tells Gotti. The coked-up assistant freaks during the hit Gotti has him killed - a violation of Mafia rules - and ends up spending three years in jail. When Gambino asks Gotti to murder someone as a personal favor, he’s also forced to bring on the job a lieutenant of Paul Castellano (Richard Sarafian, several steps up the food chain from the sleazebag he played last month in Showtime’s “Miami Hustle”).

#RAP PODUCER GOTTI TV#

Cross, first African-American full-time sports analyst on national TV Helped create the Silent Knight. His mentor, Neil Dellacroce (Anthony Quinn), is underboss to the fading Carlo Gambino (Marc Lawrence). Rap producer Gotti Puzzles Crossword Clue. “Gotti” opens with Armand Assante’s Don preparing to enter the maximum security prison in Illinois, and quickly flashes back to the early ’70s and his rise through the Gambino family from small change to capo. Valentine’s Day Massacre” this), two of them non-Mob-related. Result is a fairly standard-issue gangster flick with abundant use of the F-word and a moderate body count of 11 (no “St. But Steve Shagan’s screenplay is as tight-lipped about Gotti’s character as the man himself was, and the locations - it was shot mostly in Toronto - lack much in the way of Gotham flavor. This HBO film is a marvelously cast and technically efficient biopic. Executive producer, Gary Lucchesi producer, David Coatsworth director, Robert Harmon writer, Steve Shagan It’s too bad “Gotti” doesn’t delve more deeply into the relationship between the swaggering gangster and the city with which he shared such a weirdly cozy symbiosis.

Org.Filmed in Toronto and New York by HBO Pictures.

Computer custom-built for playing games in slang.

One of three things traditionally eaten to break a Ramadan fast.

Ironic-sounding plot device in Total Recall.

Iconic phrase in old Dick and Jane stories.

_ and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! (comedy sketch series).

Classic role for Nichelle Nichols and Zoë Saldana.

Hugely successful film … or an apt description of a 59-Down player?.

Trick of being suddenly nowhere to be found … or an apt description of victory for a 59-Down player?.

Bygone car named for its country of origin.

Dont be a stranger … or an apt request from a 59-Down player?.

TMZ caught up with the multi-hyphenate at LAX and asked him what they thought. co-founder and record producer Irv Gotti.

One of two 1978 Nobel Peace Prize winners Among those critical of the album and the future of hip hop is Murder Inc.

Best-selling video game celebrated in this grid.

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/02/20/jeff-passans-spring-training-preview-20-questions-as-countdown-to-opening-day-begins/

Jeff Passan's spring training preview: 20 questions as countdown to Opening Day begins

Feb 17, 2021

Jeff PassanESPN

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ESPN MLB insider Author of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports”

Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training for all 30 teams, and the countdown to Opening Day is on. Between now and April 1, the league and players will contort themselves to avoid the alternating speed bumps and potholes the coronavirus places on all paths forward. Forty-three days of spring training is all that stands between Major League Baseball and its regular season.

Just like it did last year during the regular season, just as other sports are doing right now, baseball will weather its share of COVID-19 diagnoses and move forward. If spring training games are lost, then they’re lost. If teams fall behind, that’s why there’s a six-week preseason. This is not to say baseball is right to do what it’s doing, and it’s not to say that it��s wrong. It’s sports’ Mandalorian existence: This is the way.

With the offseason officially over, and five days before the majority of teams’ first full-squad workouts, it’s the perfect time to answer 20 questions on the 3½ months that have elapsed since the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. If you happened to stop paying attention to baseball after October, this is the place for you. And if you kept up with all of the madness and want to better understand what it means and where the sport is going over the remainder of 2021, you’ve found the right spot, too.

So, what happened this winter?

Star shortstop Francisco Lindor was traded to the New York Mets, whose new owner is the richest man in baseball, fired his just-hired general manager and has compounded the Lindor acquisition with a handful of other moves but didn’t land any of the top four free agents despite showing various levels of interest.

The highest-paid free agent, center fielder George Springer, went to the Toronto Blue Jays for $150 million. No team in baseball guaranteed more to free agents than the $186.3 million spent by the Jays this winter. The next-highest-paid player was Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto, who, like DJ LeMahieu, Marcell Ozuna, Justin Turner, Michael Brantley, Didi Gregorius, Marcus Stroman and Kevin Gausman, returned to the team on which he played last year.

Right-hander Trevor Bauer certainly signed the most interesting deal of the winter: a three-year, $102 million contract with the Dodgers that pays him $40 million this year and $45 million in 2022, and includes opt-outs after both seasons. He eschewed the standard longer-term deal sought by high-end free agents to maximize his short-term earnings. More on that later.

2 Related

The market for Bauer, like that of many free agents, was limited. Spending, as Buster Olney wrote, is down by hundreds of millions compared to recent free-agent classes. Part of that is a weaker class. Part of it is pandemic-related losses. But when five teams (Blue Jays, Dodgers, Phillies, Yankees, Braves) account for more than half of spending, and the bottom teams have spent $2.5 million (Pirates) and $1.5 million (Orioles and Reds), well, that’s not a great sign of health. Oh, and that doesn’t include the Rockies, who haven’t guaranteed a single cent in free agency this winter.

Colorado did, however, trade its star third baseman, Nolan Arenado, to St. Louis for a pittance of a return — and sent $51 million to St. Louis to help cover his salary. The Padres, as they loaded up to challenge the Dodgers, made all the trades: for Blake Snell, then Yu Darvish, then Joe Musgrove. The White Sox hit the trade market early, too, grabbing Lance Lynn to fortify their rotation. Here’s how wild the trade season was: The Yankees and Red Sox actually made a deal with each other.

That’s all?

Well, between the Mets’ firing of Jared Porter and the Angels’ suspension of pitching coach Mickey Callaway, the mistreatment of women in baseball finally is getting just attention. The minor leagues were completely overhauled, with more than 40 affiliates either cut or moved into development leagues and each organization now having Triple-A, Double-A, high-A and low-A teams. The league said it’s trying to deaden the ball — and nobody can possibly predict the effect (or effectiveness) of that. And the cacophony of labor war drums continues to grow after the union rejected MLB’s proposal to move the season back a month. The league said it wanted to allow COVID-19 numbers to drop. The players worried it was a money grab. The league said it would pay full salaries for 162 games. The union said too late, too close to spring training, too bad. And the collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, a day that will cast a shadow over the sport until the ink dries on a new labor deal.

Will there be a designated hitter in the National League this year?

There’s a chance that something happens this spring, whether it’s a rash of pitcher injuries or something else, that prompts NL teams to push for a universal DH, which was used in the 60-game season last year and is expected to be codified in 2022. But because this is a 162-game season, the league does not intend to treat rules in the same willy-nilly, go-with-the-flow fashion this year as it did in 2020, when in the middle of the year it decided to implement seven-inning doubleheaders.

A rule change as fundamental as the DH, sources said, would need widespread support among NL clubs. The players, of course, would be all for it. In two drafts of the health and safety protocols, sources said, the union included the DH’s universal implementation, only for MLB to excise it. The DH remained on the cutting-room floor of the protocols’ final draft.

Here’s the truth, hard as it may be to swallow for purists: The universal DH was here in 2020, and the game didn’t break. It’s coming in 2022, and the game won’t break. If teams implemented it now, they would have enough time to maneuver their rosters accordingly.

Will that happen, though? The bet is no.

How about expanded playoffs?

At one point in discussions about delaying the season, expanded playoffs and universal DH seemed to be tied together, which was silly, because even in the best-case scenario, the DH was worth maybe an extra $20 million to players. Yes, the players could have negotiated their way to a playoff share that would benefit them, too, but the union never gave expanded playoffs much of a thought, even after MLB had negotiated a TV deal in hopes of their implementation in 2021.

So, is it possible? Sure. The players would consider it. But any deal would have to compel a group that said yes last year mainly because it was an extra chunk of money to help make up for lost salaries in-season. This year, the players are expected to get their full pay. And because of that, their gain with expanded playoffs is extremely unlikely to compel them to say yes.

Once again, the bet is no.

When will players be vaccinated?

In a phone call with general managers last week, commissioner Rob Manfred said vaccination of players and staff is on the agenda and something the league will do as soon as possible. Just how soon that is, sources said, depends on the country’s supply.

League sources, including front-office executives briefed on the matter, were hopeful that April could bring mass vaccination to baseball. On Tuesday, however, Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested the general public may not be able to be vaccinated until May or June. Whether baseball players or athletes could receive a special dispensation and receive the vaccine early to help in its promotion is unclear.

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The issue, of course, is the potentially significant portion of players in baseball who simply will refuse to be vaccinated. In recent months, ESPN asked players, agents and front-office officials what percentage of players they believed would be vaccinated. Most agreed that the number is around 75% — maybe a little less depending on how many previously COVID-positive players see a vaccine as unnecessary because of the virus antibodies already inside of them.

If that 75% number is exceeded, the league and union could potentially agree to reduce the restrictions laid out in the health and safety protocols. The more players get vaccinated, the lower the chance of an outbreak. The lower the chance of an outbreak, the more games get played. The more games get played, the likelier the season runs smoothly.

What’s incentivizing players to get vaccinated?

Aside from increasing amounts of evidence reinforcing its safety, there’s a much more practical element. While the rules at the stadium aren’t likely to change — masking, for example, will be a regular part of everyday life in baseball — what players are allowed to do away from it may depend on the number of people who get vaccinated. This ultimately could be where peer pressure pushes players above 75%.

Right now, when away from the field, players are not allowed to go to indoor restaurants, bars, clubs or any live entertainment venue. They can’t be at a gathering with 10 or more people. They can’t meet with anybody outside of the team while on the road. It’s an extraordinarily restrictive way to live, and if the vaccine is the way to erase it, even the skeptics may change their minds on it.

And until then?

Testing, testing and more testing! Pitchers, catchers and team personnel have spent the past few days quarantined after intake testing. They’ll take every-other-day saliva tests during spring training that are sent to MLB’s Utah lab. The league also has contracted BioReference Laboratories to use point-of-care machines that can deliver results in 15 minutes.

What does this all mean for fans?

All 30 teams will sell spring training tickets in Arizona and Florida, two of the more lax states.

Everything in the regular season depends on the teams’ local ordinances. The Marlins announced plans to allow around 9,300 fans per game — about 25% capacity of Marlins Park. The Rangers announced a 14,000- to 15,000-person crowd for a Big 12 vs. SEC tournament this weekend at Globe Life Field. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said stadiums can hold up to 10% capacity after the Buffalo Bills hosted 7,000 fans in playoff games.

Barring a change in their states’ protocols, baseball’s five California teams and two Illinois teams, on the other hand, are unlikely to see fans by Opening Day.

What about by October? Because clearly the World Series goes through California this year.

That’s a bit presumptuous — but not entirely far-fetched. The Dodgers are the best team in baseball. And the Padres are widely regarded as the second best.

If there is a great on-field storyline of the 2021 season, it’s Los Angeles vs. San Diego. The Padres loaded up their rotation via trades, signed versatile Korean infielder Ha-Seong Kim and return Fernando Tatis Jr. (with whom they’re talking a mega-extension), Manny Machado, Trent Grisham, Wil Myers, Jake Cronenworth, Austin Nola, Tommy Pham and Jurickson Profar, among others. The Dodgers bring back the entirety of their championship core — and added Bauer, the NL Cy Young winner, for good measure.

So if the NL pennant is Southern California’s to lose, what other teams are worth keeping an eye on?

Depends on whether you want to look at this objectively or subjectively.

Based on the win-total projections of Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA system, FanGraphs, the sabermetrician Clay Davenport and Wynn BET, there are clear tiers this season.

Tier 1: Dodgers, Padres, Yankees, Mets — The only teams projected to win 90-plus games by all four.

Tier 2: Braves, Twins, Astros — All average in the 88- to 89-win range.

Tier 3: White Sox, Blue Jays, Rays, Nationals, Brewers — Each is seen unanimously as an above-.500 team.

Tier 4: Angels, Red Sox, Phillies, Indians, A’s, Cardinals — Average win total is 81 to 82.

Here’s the subjective part: my tiers — with an additional one included.

Tier 1: Dodgers, Padres Tier 2: Braves, Yankees Tier 3: White Sox, Mets, Nationals, Blue Jays Tier 4: Astros, Twins, Rays, Cardinals Tier 5: A’s, Red Sox, Brewers

Where do Vegas and the projection systems disagree?

Great question, especially for those who might want to wager on over/unders. PECOTA, FanGraphs and Davenport all agree on seven potential bets:

Over on San Diego at 94.5 (average win total of the projections: 95.7)

Hard under on Chicago White Sox at 91.5 (86.5)

Under on Atlanta at 91 (88.1)

Hard under on St. Louis at 85 (81.1)

Under on Oakland at 84 (81.3)

Over on Miami at 67.5 (69.6)

Hard over on Texas at 66.5 (71.1 — skewed by Davenport’s 80-win projection for Texas)

All of these are subject to change when the rest of the free agents sign, right?

Of course. And there are some good ones left. Almost all the top free agents remaining are pitchers, led by starter Jake Odorizzi and reliever Trevor Rosenthal. The best position player: center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr.

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Odorizzi, 30, is bound to make a team look very smart. Before last season, when a line drive off the chest and blister issues truncated his campaign, he was a model of consistency, averaging 30 starts and 165 innings over a six-year period. More than anything, teams covet innings in 2021, fearful that pitchers coming off a shortened 2020 could be more susceptible to injuries with standard workloads. A free-agent period that has seen only two veteran free-agent pitchers sign multiyear deals — Bauer for three years and Mike Minor for two in Kansas City — is rough. One in which a pitcher of Odorizzi’s caliber remains unemployed when innings are at such a premium doesn’t make much sense.

Rosenthal is one of a large group of relievers still jobless. While Rosenthal will get a job and should find himself among the better-paid relievers this winter, others are fighting a hard-to-win battle against signing non-guaranteed contracts. Among those still available: Shane Greene, Tyler Clippard, Jose Alvarez, Oliver Perez, David Robertson, Chris Devenski, Brad Peacock, Ryan Tepera, Ian Kennedy, Jesse Chavez, Heath Hembree and Pedro Strop. Also: Roberto Osuna, whose long domestic violence suspension in 2018 and elbow issues have softened his market.

Bradley is coming off his best offensive season since 2016 and remains a well-above-average center fielder. While he has sought a long-term deal all winter, front-office officials have wondered in recent days whether the market could force him to settle for a one-year deal.

So, in the micro, even though some players did well, free agency wasn’t great. What about the macro?

Consider the Bauer contract. For years, teams have slowly chipped away at the length of contracts given out. The upshot has been obvious: The more one-year deals players sign, the more flooded the market is the next season. The greater the supply, the more wiggle room teams have to squeeze players.

The only players immune to this have been stars — players of Bauer’s ilk. And stars who enter free agency, especially ones like Bauer, who just turned 30, almost always get large, long-term contracts. Teams are willing to pay for the projected down years at the end so they can capture the surplus value at the beginning.

Bauer forwent the biggest overall-dollar package in favor of the biggest per-year contract. On one hand, Bauer is betting on himself, and it’s difficult to criticize anyone for that, so long as he understands the risks and consequences. On the other, the Dodgers jumped at the opportunity to sign Bauer because for marginally more per year than he could have received on a long-term deal, Los Angeles got all the upside of Bauer without having to weather the downside. A dream deal, all for the low, low price of $42.5 million a year.

With the hot stove still burning, Bradford Doolittle stacks up baseball’s starting lineups and pitching rotations as they stand today. Lineups

Rotations

The Bauer contract is material here because of what free agency’s evolution says about the game today — and about the labor environment in which it operates. In the past, a star player never would have taken a contract like Bauer’s. Maybe that’s because there never has been a star like Bauer. Or maybe because this was the logical conclusion to the league’s successful two-decade-long effort to chip away at free agency, little by little, and hope what works at the bottom eventually wriggles its way to the top.

Free agency always has been about choice, so for Bauer’s to proceed as it did is, to the union, the outcome that fundamentally matters. And the average-annual-value bump could have the opposite effect of the shorter term; it sets a new ceiling that other players can point to. Still, free agency — and specifically its degradation — is at the heart of the labor animus that exists between the league and the union.

And it is not an exaggeration, either, to call the status of baseball in 2022 tenuous. Yeah, yeah, let’s get through the 2021 season first, Chicken Little. I get it. But here is something you should get, too: Typically, labor negotiations in baseball start about a year before the CBA expires. Right now, it is 9½ months until the deadline, and the sides haven’t had a single bargaining session.

Which can be worked through. If there’s anything about this relationship that’s clear, it’s that deadlines tend to spur them into action. And as much as MLB leadership might not like the union’s and vice versa, their personal feelings about each other shouldn’t be the sort of thing that waylays something as important as these negotiations.

From the players’ side, it will be about free agency and teams’ anti-competitive tendencies and a potential redistribution of money to enrich younger players, seeing as teams are making it clear they’re loath to pay older ones. And for MLB, while the economics of the current deal have behooved them, and always will be front and center, the concerns about the game’s future are serious enough to enlist a group that will make the improvement of the on-field product a priority.

There are dozens of warning signs about why the MLBPA and MLB are on a labor collision course the game hasn’t seen in a quarter century. It’s not time to worry. Not yet. If talks don’t happen, if they do and are a mess, if they take too long with no substantive progress — yeah, then, by all means, worry away.

What’s that going to look like?

In the absence of an agreement before the World Series is over, here is one potential scenario — perhaps, sources said, the likeliest.

November: Free agency begins … and teams don’t sign anyone. Perhaps there is an odd deal here or there, but with no sense of whether there’s going to be an agreement, let alone a 2022 season, the market freezes.

Dec. 1, 2021: MLB teams lock out players. As much talk as there has been of a player strike, the timing of the collective bargaining agreement’s expiration signals a lockout is the likelier end result.

December, January and beyond: chaos.

Whether or not Tony La Russa can do the job at age 76 has nothing to do with what makes his hiring so troublesome. Jeff Passan »

Both sides recognize how bad a labor stoppage would be for the sport. The fan backlash, the instability, the potential loss of revenue, the long-term consequences of fighting, the potential loss of games. Regardless of what the players want to win back or how much MLB wants to tighten its power grip, baseball shutting down would be a disaster. Everyone knows it. By the end of the year, it will be clear whether these facts matter.

Can you please say something not depressing?

The weather is bound to get warmer.

OK, troll. Get back to baseball. Who are some breakout hitters?

Warning for this question and the next: These lists are subject to change between now and Opening Day. There will be significantly more data — especially on exit velocities and spin rates, which don’t necessarily have linear relationships with excellence but do often correlate with success — and thus more who make or don’t make the cut.

Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Angels: Even as he tries to return to the mound following Tommy John surgery, his bat is primed to take a leap forward.

Adalberto Mondesi, Kansas City: He was arguably the best player in baseball last September. And it wasn’t entirely fluky. Here’s the list of players with better exit velos than him that month: Tatis, Ronald Acuña Jr., Travis d’Arnaud, Miguel Cabrera, Mike Trout, Christian Yelich, Bryce Harper, Rafael Devers.

Juan Soto, Washington: Yes, he’s a superstar. This is the year he becomes a supernova.

Keston Hiura, Milwaukee: He’s too good of a hitter to have as bad of a year as he did in 2020. Same goes for Yelich.

Franmil Reyes, Cleveland: Want a nice little value play? Reyes to lead MLB in home runs at +3000.

Daulton Varsho, Arizona: A catcher/center fielder, he’s got unique versatility, and his bat is ready to take off.

How about breakout pitchers?

John Means, Baltimore: This is a bet on stuff (his fastball jumped 2 mph last year), handedness (he’s a lefty who sits mid-90s) and regression to the mean (nearly 22% of the fly balls he allowed last year went for home runs). Among all those things, his strikeouts and his lack of walks, Means, who will be 28 in April, has all the tools to be a late bloomer.

Luis Patiño, Tampa Bay: The biggest return in the Snell trade, Patiño will play the entire season at 21. He’ll do so under the watchful eye of Rays manager Kevin Cash and pitching coach Kyle Snyder, and in a staff that even by its standards will use pitchers differently than we’ve ever seen.

Tejay Antone, Cincinnati: A complete spin play. Antone’s fastball RPMs are in the 98th percentile and his curveball’s the 95th. The question isn’t about his stuff. It’s whether the Reds use him as a starter or reliever.

Alex Reyes, St. Louis: Once upon a time, he was a top-five prospect. If he can stay healthy, he will dominate regardless of his role. Such is the case when you’ve got a curveball with nearly 11 inches of vertical movement compared to average — a number second only to Bauer.

Brad Keller, Kansas City: For all the hype about Daniel Lynch and Asa Lacy, Keller is only 25 and has two of the filthiest pitches in baseball: a fastball with nine inches of horizontal movement and a soft-contact-inducing slider. He may not strike out many batters, but that’s because he doesn’t need to.

Who missed last season that we’ll see this year?

There are two sets of players here: those who opted out of the season, and those who missed it because of injuries.

The opt-out players expected to return include: Stroman, Dodgers starter David Price, Giants catcher Buster Posey, Brewers center fielder Lorenzo Cain, White Sox prospect Michael Kopech, Rockies outfielder Ian Desmond, Nationals starter Joe Ross and first baseman Ryan Zimmerman, and Felix Hernandez, who signed a minor league deal with Baltimore.

Those who didn’t play all year, or were limited to a few games, comprise a star-studded list.

Here’s how one offseason deal exposes so many of the issues MLB is facing right now. Jeff Passan (ESPN+) »

Red Sox ace Chris Sale and Mets flamethrower Noah Syndergaard are working back from Tommy John surgery, with Syndergaard ahead of Sale’s pace. Another standout pitcher, Atlanta’s Mike Soroka, is recovering from a torn Achilles and may not be back by Opening Day but will play a vital role in the Braves’ rotation.

The Yankees are hoping a pair of Tommy John returnees can bolster their rotation: Luis Severino and Jameson Taillon, the latter of whom they acquired in a trade with Pittsburgh. Another Yankees starter who barely pitched in 2020: Corey Kluber.

Fresh off signing a $245 million contract, Stephen Strasburg threw five innings for Washington before shutting down and needing surgery to repair a nerve issue in his wrist. Houston slugger Yordan Alvarez had a similar year: only nine plate appearances before a season-ending knee procedure.

Perhaps the most welcome return of all: Trey Mancini, the Orioles’ 28-year-old outfielder, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer and spent the season undergoing chemotherapy. He is now cancer-free and will join Baltimore for full-squad workouts.

Who’s going to win Rookie of the Year?

There are so many good choices — including four who actually received Rookie of the Year votes last year. Because of the shortened season, MLB adjusted eligibility rules, and Atlanta’s Ian Anderson, Miami’s Sixto Sanchez, Pittsburgh’s Ke’Bryan Hayes and Baltimore’s Ryan Mountcastle all are second-time-eligible — and not at all bad choices.

From Hall of Fame locks to rookies we can dream on, here’s which current stars could eventually make it to Cooperstown.

David Schoenfield »

Also eligible: Postseason hero and pop-song inspiration Randy Arozarena, whose 99 regular-season plate appearances leave him 31 short of exhausting his eligibility. He is the AL favorite, though if shortstop Wander Franco joins him with the Rays early in the season, he could stake his claim. Franco is Kiley McDaniel’s No. 1 prospect and the consensus best minor leaguer in baseball.

Others in the AL worth monitoring: Seattle’s Jarred Kelenic, though he’s likely to get service-timed; Chicago slugger Andrew Vaughn, same; Minnesota’s Alex Kirilloff, if he can get regular playing time; Detroit starters Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal; White Sox second baseman Nick Madrigal; Texas third baseman Josh Jung; Cleveland starter Triston McKenzie; and two Kansas City prospects who could reach the big leagues but also might be better bets for 2022: infielder Bobby Witt Jr. and left-hander Daniel Lynch.

Anderson, Sanchez and Hayes are all excellent choices in the NL, along with a pair of center fielders (Atlanta’s Cristian Pache and St. Louis’ Dylan Carlson), Cincinnati catcher Tyler Stephenson and, if the Padres’ coterie of pitchers gets waylaid by injuries, left-hander MacKenzie Gore, who might be the best pitching prospect in baseball.

What are you looking forward to with baseball’s return?

Well, how polite of you to ask. The first 10 things that popped into my head, in no particular order:

Michael Nelson Trout.

Regular-season games with fans in stands.

Nolan Arenado fielding a ball at third base and conjuring memories of Scott Rolen.

Hitters waving at Devin Williams’ changeup.

The Home Run Derby. I’m not even a big Home Run Derby guy, but if it’s being held, that means the season is going well.

David Fletcher memes.

Jacob deGrom throwing sliders that have a harder average velocity than half the starters in the big leagues’ fastballs.

Bat flips.

Fernando Tatis Jr. running. From first to third. From third to home. From shortstop to second base. Wherever. The hair and the speed are a dynamic duo.

Drew Robinson’s return.

Source

[the9jafresh]

Top 10 Richest Men in Africa and Their Net Worth 2022

Top 10 Richest Men in Africa and Their Net Worth 2022

Top 10 Richest Men in Africa and Their Net Worth 2022 Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, Africa’s wealthiest have become wealthier in the last eight years. The continent’s 18 billionaires are worth an estimated $84.9 billion, up 15% from a year ago and the highest total since 2014, when there were 28 African billionaires; the average net worth is higher this year due to the smaller number…

[titheguerrero]

Growing Health Care and Grand Governmental Corruption - But Still Anechoic After All These Years

Here we go again.  We have long been concerned about health care corruption as a major cause of health care dysfunction. Our last post on the topic was in January, 2018. Summary: the Corruption of Health Care Leadership as a Major Cause of Health Care Dysfunction As we wrote in August, 2017, Transparency International (TI) defines corruption as

Abuse of entrusted power for private gain

In 2006, TI published a report on health care corruption, which asserted that corruption is widespread throughout the world, serious, and causes severe harm to patients and society.

the scale of corruption is vast in both rich and poor countries.

Also,

Corruption might mean the difference between life and death for those in need of urgent care. It is invariably the poor in society who are affected most by corruption because they often cannot afford bribes or private health care. But corruption in the richest parts of the world also has its costs.

The report got little attention.  Health care corruption has been nearly a taboo topic in the US, anechoic, presumably because its discussion would offend the people it makes rich and powerful. As suggested by the recent Transparency International report on corruption in the pharmaceutical industry,

However, strong control over key processes combined with huge resources and big profits to be made make the pharmaceutical industry particularly vulnerable to corruption. Pharmaceutical companies have the opportunity to use their influence and resources to exploit weak governance structures and divert policy and institutions away from public health objectives and towards their own profit maximising interests.

Presumably the leaders of other kinds of corrupt organizations can do the same.  When health care corruption is discussed in English speaking developed countries, it is almost always in terms of a problem that affects somewhere else, mainly  presumably benighted less developed countries.  At best, the corruption in developed countries that gets discussed is at low levels.  In the US, frequent examples are the "pill mills"  and various cheating of government and private insurance programs by practitioners and patients.  Lately these have gotten even more attention as they are decried as a cause of the narcotics (opioids) crisis (e.g., look here).  In contrast, the US government has been less inclined to address the activities of the leaders of the pharmaceutical companies who have pushed legal narcotics (e.g., see this post).  However, Health Care Renewal has stressed "grand corruption," or the corruption of health care leaders.  We have noted the continuing impunity of top health care corporate managers.  Health care corporations have allegedly used kickbacks and fraud to enhance their revenue, but at best such corporations have been able to make legal settlements that result in fines that small relative to their  multi-billion revenues without admitting guilt.  Almost never are top corporate managers subject to any negative consequences. While we at Health Care Renewal have written about this for years, we saw little improvement.  However, in the past few years we began to feel a little more encouraged.  For example, we had long complained that US law enforcement had not been devoting enough effort going after the corruption of the leadership of large health care organizations, thus effectively allowing these leaders' impunity. However, the US Department of Justice during the Obama administration made some modest attempts to decrease such impunity.  One such measure was the formation of a Health Care Corporate Strike Force. As reported by Law.com,

the strike force was created in the fall of 2015, with five dedicated lawyers working on about a dozen of the most complex corporate fraud cases in the health care space. Andrew Weissmann, the then-chief of the DOJ’s fraud section, told a health care conference in April 2016 that the section was placing 'a heightened emphasis' on corporate health care fraud investigations. He pointed to the recently established Corporate Fraud Strike Force that he said would focus resources in investigation and prosecution of larger corporate health care law violations, as opposed to smaller groups or individuals.

Unfortunately, that strike force was downsized by the Trump administration as we noted in July, 2017.  Perhaps that could have been viewed as just a minor setback. However, we noted in May, 2018, that legal actions by the US government against apparently corrupt acts by large US health care organizations seemed to be falling off.  At that point, we found only one significant settlement made this year.  We also found a report by Bloomberg, with the headline, "White-Collar Prosecutions Fall to 20-Year Low Under Trump," on May 25, 2018.  Increasing Evidence of Corruption in the Trump Administration We had noted in January that corruption in the US was becoming even more systemic, and worse, it appeared that the administration itself was fundamentally corrupt. We noted sources that summarized Trump's personal, family, and the Trump administration's corruption, a website, entitled "Tracking Trump's Conflicts of Interest" published by the Sunlight Foundation, and two articles published in the Washington Monthly in January, 2018, "Commander-in-Thief," which categorized Mr Trump's conflicted and corrupt behavior.  The second, "A Year in Trump Corruption," was a catalog of the most salient cases in these categories in 2017. The evidence of corruption has only gotten more substantial since then. April, 2018: The New York Magazine Timeline In April, 2018, New York Magazine published "501 Days in Swampland," a time-line of  starting just after the 2016 presidential election.   Its introduction included,

The rewards of government would now be reaped by a single man — and the people would bear the cost. More than at any time in history, the president of the United States is actively using the power and prestige of his office to line his own pockets: landing loans for his businesses, steering wealthy buyers to his condos, securing cheap foreign labor for his resorts, preserving federal subsidies for his housing projects, easing regulations on his golf courses, licensing his name to overseas projects, even peddling coffee mugs and shot glasses bearing the presidential seal. For Trump, whose business revolves around the marketability of his name, there has proved to be no public policy too big, and no private opportunity too crass, to exploit for personal profit.

The timeline was  organized by mode of malfeasance.  Pages were devoted to how foreign governments and private entities curried favor with Trump by lavish spending at his hotels, golf clubs, and other properties.  More pages were devoted to dubious dealings by Trump's family and friends, and officials in his administration.  Yet more recounted relationships with lobbyists and "petty graft." Although it was not focused on health care corruption, some of the cases it listed involved health care and public health:

[Under Trump's Hotel in DC - 2017] 7/17 E-cigarette-makers hold their annual conference at the hotel. Ten days later, the FDA announces it will delay federal oversight of e-cigarettes until 2022.

Note that this suggests not just regulatory capture, but the possibility of a quid pro quo bribe.

[Under Officials & Their Pals - 2017] 1/24 During his confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price fails to disclose an insider deal he got on $520,000 in stock in a biotech company. As secretary, he will be in a position to approve a drug the company has developed. [2018] 1/31 CDC chief Brenda Fitzgerald is forced to resign over her purchase of stock in one of the world’s largest tobacco companies. She bought the shares a month after taking over the agency tasked with reducing tobacco use.

[Under Lobbyistss & Other Sleaze - 2018] 1/29 Alex Azar, a former lobbyist who worked his way up to the presidency of a drug company, is sworn in as secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar, whose company hiked the price of insulin and other drugs under his watch, is now in charge of making drugs more affordable.

[Under Petty Graft - 2017] 6/2 David Shulkin’s chief of staff falsifies an email to suggest that the VA secretary needed to travel to Europe to receive an award. Shulkin’s 11-day trip with his wife, most of which was devoted to sightseeing, cost taxpayers $122,344. 8/4 HHS Secretary Tom Price takes a private jet at taxpayer expense to St. Simons Island, an exclusive resort where he owns land. The trip, like many of the 26 flights Price took on corporate jets, could have been accomplished with a routine commercial flight. 9/29 HHS Secretary Price is forced to resign over the nearly $1 million in taxpayer money he spent taking military planes and private jets, often to visit family and friends.

This list also included several other examples, not directly health care or public health related, suggesting quid pro quo bribery.  For example, in 2017 at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC:

10/4 At its annual board meeting, the National Mining Association is addressed by three Cabinet members: Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry. 'Coal is fighting back,' Perry exults over breakfast with the country’s top mining executives. 'Clearly the president wants to revive, not revile, this vital resource.' Five days later, the Trump administration announces the repeal of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which would have encouraged states to replace coal with wind and solar energy. The plan would have cut climate-warming pollution from coal plants by a third and saved taxpayers and consumers as much as $93 billion a year. The venue for the mining board’s meeting: the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

So the evidence base of conflicts of interest and outright corruption is becoming more massive, includes cases relevant to health care and public health, and includes examples that seem like outright bribery. June, 2018: the ProPublica Database of Spending at Trump Properties In June, 2018, ProPublica reviewed questionable spending amounting to $16.1 million since the beginning of Trump's candidacy for president at Trump properties by the US government, and by Trump's campaign, and by state and local governments.  Its introduction included,

Since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president in late 2015, at least $16.1 million has poured into Trump Organization-managed and branded hotels, golf courses and restaurants from his campaign, Republican organizations, and government agencies. Because Trump’s business empire is overseen by a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, he profits from these hotel stays, banquet hall rentals and meals.

Note that

The use of taxpayer dollars at Trump hotels is under scrutiny in a closely watched lawsuit in Maryland federal court. The District of Columbia and the state of Maryland sued Trump, citing a venerable anti-corruption provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause. It prohibits any financial gift, or emolument, from benefiting a sitting public official, including the president.

June, 2018: Public Citizen's Corporate Presidency's Hotel Swamplandia Meanwhile, Public Citizen released a report on money spent at Trump's hospitality properties.   In its introduction

For those seeking to get on Trump’s good side, it certainly helps to fork over some cash at one of his properties. There simply is no other plausible explanation why so many companies, business groups and foreign governments are spending big money eating, drinking, socializing and sleeping at Trump’s properties around the country. And there’s always the chance that the president himself will show up, as he did in June....

Also,

Trump came to office with the most blatant corrupting conflicts of interest in the history of American politics, so what followed should not be a surprise. By spending money at his properties, corporations and foreign governments are being transparent about their desire to curry favor with the president and influence the Trump administration’s policies. Information on how much is being spent at Trump properties for political events is available, but remains unknown for the vast majority of spenders at Trump properties. An exception was the Saudi embassy, whose $270,000 in spending at the D.C. hotel was disclosed through a PR firm’s filing with the Justice Department. That said, we were able to document $1.75 million in spending, with more than half coming from the Republican Party.

Examples of spending by health care and public health related organizations included Allign Technology [medical device company] American Association of Orthodontists Curetivity Foundation [supports St Jude Hospital] National Drug & Alcohol Screening Association University of Wisconsin Vapor Technology Association [trade assocation for manufacturers of e-cigarettes] So it seems that various large health care and public health related organizations are happy to shovel money  into the Trump Organization, and hence into the pocket of the president himself, if doing so can advance their business agendas. Meanwhile Corruption, Even of a President, Remains a Virtually Taboo Topic And still, we don't talk about it.   As noted above, corruption in health care has always seemed a taboo topic.  In November, 2017, we noted that once again, a report by Transparency International that showed that in an international survey of corruption perceptions, substantial minorities of US respondents thought that US corruption was increasing, and was a particular affliction of the executive and legislative branches of the national government, other government officials, and top business executives.  There was virtually no coverage of these results in the US media, just as there was virtually no coverage of a 2013 survey that showed 43% of US respondents believed that US health care was corrupt. Similarly, the reports listed above have generated little discussion.  Despite the extensive and ever-increasing list of apparently corrupt acts by the Trump and cronies, grand corruption at the top of US government, with its potential to corrupt not just health care, but the entire country and society, still seems like a taboo topic.  The US news media continues to tip-toe around the topic of corruption, in health care, of top health care leaders, and in government, including the top of the US executive branch.  As long as such discussion seems taboo, how can we ever address, much less reduce the scourge of corruption?  The first step against health care corruption is to be able to say or write the words, health care corruption. But even if we can take that step, when the fish is rotting from the head, it makes little sense to try to clean up minor problems halfway towards the tail. Why would a corrupt regime led by a president who is actively benefiting from corruption act to reduce corruption? The only way we can now address health care corruption is to excise the corruption at the heart of our government. Article source:Health Care Renewal