#whatever corporate entity you work for has bought it from you

[bluecoolr-main]

What I learned from being an adult is that your time is not yours. Whatever joy you wish to have, you must steal.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 05 (second part)

(Masterpost) (Continued from Episode 05 first part, over here)

Breaking News: Zewu-Jun Continues to be Handsome

Just. Look at that man. 

Water Ghost Field Trip

Lans Xichen and Wangji are going ghost hunting and the Yunmeng boys want in. For a simple "can we come?" conversation, a whole lot happens here. Lan Wangji uses his mouth to say he definitely does not want these boys to come while using the rest of his face to secretly beg his brother to invite them.

Corporate recruiter Wei Wuxian advocates for Wen Qing, talking up her skills, and then does the same for Wen Ning.  He pays careful attention to what everyone is good at, and advocates specifically based on their abilities. While Wen Ning makes heart eyes at him.  

That’s my future dark master

Wei Wuxian also promises to protect Wen Ning, which he ultimately does for the rest of his first life. Wen Qing gives both Jiang boys a genuine sweet smile, and dismantles another anti-WWX ward or two, while still being very protective of her brother's secret.

Lan Xichen says yes to everybody. Lan Xichen is that indulgent elder sibling who's just a bit too old to play with you after school, but will take you to the park when he isn't too busy with varsity and debate club. [OP mentally hugs her third older brother]

Back at the Inn

Fastidious local boy dislikes dust; plans to build house on corpse pile

They get to town and Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian check into a room together. LAN XICHEN WHAT ARE YOU DOING? Each of these boys came to this town with his own brother, but they are rooming together, how did this even happen?

(more after the cut)

Does this mean Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng are rooming together? and if so are they going to have a hot but ultimately meaningless one-night stand while each pines for the person they truly desire? 

Wen Qing is rooming with her own brother, and the other hot girl cultivators stayed back in Gusu. Wen Qing never catches a break.

The innkeeper tells the Hardy Boys cultivators that there’s a shark ghosts in the lake and they’re going to have to close the beaches in the middle of July, oh dear. 

Lan Wangji takes a lingering look at one of the beds and then goes to sit at the desk. Wei Wuxian tries to chat with him, fails, and goes and lies down on the bed.  They’re not quite getting along yet but they’re moving in that direction, like when you bring a shelter cat home and introduce it to your established cat. Wei Wuxian is obviously the stray tabby in this metaphor, while Lan Wangji is one of those stuck-up Blue Russians. 

Physically they are setting the template for many of their future domestic interactions, in which in which Lan Wangji meditates or plays guqin at his desk while Wei Wuxian lays in bed recovering from his latest physical or spiritual injury. 

Walk from Dock to Dock

Instead of taking a boat from the dock directly outside the inn, the cultivators walk through a bunch of random countryside.  How does anyone around here sell their fish, if the lake isn’t next to the town?

Wei Wuxian chats with Lan Xichen, laying out his case for why all the recent weirdness is connected. Lan Wangji, who has been shut out of his brother’s thinking on all of this, listens super carefully. Lan Xichen straight up lies and says “nuh-uh” and then walks faster to get away, so Wei Wuxian tries grilling Lan Wangji instead.

At this point WWX reveals that he, terrifyingly, shares Lan Xichen’s ability to tell what Lan Wangji is thinking by looking at his face.

Lan Wangji distracts him by pouring out his wine. This isn't LWJ being puritanical; he's escaping from the conversation by using the power of pettiness.

This works perfectly, getting Wei Wuxian to completely drop the subject and allowing Lan Wangji to make a run for it.

Note: Lan Wangji may have just now made up the “No Liquor on Night Hunts” rule, because Wei Wuxian asks him “why don’t I know that?” and if anyone knows Lan Clan rules at this point, it’s Wei Wuxian. 

R-A-G-G M-O-P-P Rag Mop

They take a bunch of boats and all stand in the middles of the boats while they use magic, presumably, to move the boats and also to keep from falling the fuck over because you're not supposed to stand up in a boat, assholes.

Cue JAWS music.

Wei Wuxian cleverly spots a rag mop on Lan Wangji’s boat. I would like to know where the Department of Dubious Effects sources their goddamn nerve, because we are in Classic Doctor Who territory with these mop monsters.

Wei Wuxian is out here being impressive, and Lan Wangji is doing his good goddamnest to not be impressed, and to be a sulky bitch while he's at it. He rejects Wei Wuxian’s explanation for why he splashed water on his boat, and rejects this friendly shoulder bump, telling Wei Wuxian to stay away from him.

Look at how Wei Wuxian reacts to that. He is dangerously close to being done with Lan Wangji’s bullshit.

He is opening the fight playbook here. He takes a big ol’ step over the boundary that Lan Wangji just set, which means the first phase has begun.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the not-at-all suggestive framing and prop placement in that shot.

Lan Xichen is amused at these two extremely deadly extremely horny youngsters getting ready to kill and/or make out with each other.

Suibian

Before this can turn into a fight, the water mops start attacking and Wei Wuxian gets to show off his sword skills. 

Wei Wuxian’s crazy high level of cultivation always makes Lan Wangji weak in the knees, which is part of why it’s so distressing for LWJ when WWX gives up the sword during the Sunshot campaign.  Cultivation is the heart of their romance, and while Dark Wei Ying is also a high-level cultivator, Lan Wangji isn’t ready to share his narrow path until much later. 

Lan Wangji is impressed enough to ask Wei Wuxian about his sword, and is rewarded with the most Wei Wuxian answer ever, as he explains why he named his sword “Whatever.” 

The important relationship being shown in this moment is not Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, but Wei Wuxian and Suibian. You can see how he loves it and it's like he's talking about his pet. 

And it loves him back, as we later learn. This comfortable symbiosis is part of what he gives up when he sacrifices his core.

Jiang Cheng gets injured by a seaweed mop and Dr. Wen hops over to help him and look at his leg, leaving Wen Ning alone in his boat. This doesn't actually cause a problem for Wen Ning because he's a very strong cultivator. 

Later, as the Ghost General, he's more formidable than any other fierce corpse out there, and he is harder for Xue Yang to control than Song Lan is. Which means he’s right now he’s probably one of the more powerful cultivators of his generation in spite of his youth and his wandering-soul problem. 

Dance of the Water Ghosts

Now things start to get dicey. Wen Ning notices the color of the water is wrong and Lan Wangji correctly deduces what the water ghosts are doing. Then Wei Wuxian correctly identifies the water demon. As a corporate teambuilding exercise this is going very well, but as a night hunt it is maybe a little more dangerous than expected. 

Lan Wangji says everyone needs to ride their swords and all of the actors fling their arms out in a T and pretend they’re not just standing there in front of the camera. It’s so fucking ridiculous I can’t even.

However, it’s even worse when they show them standing on the swords. It’s SO MUCH WORSE when they show them standing on the swords.

Back to Corporate Strengths Finder 2.0: Su She has no strengths, just weaknesses. Instead of riding his sword he wants to take one last swipe at a rag mop. He sends his sword into the water and it loses its bluetooth connection and he can't get it to come back out.

The entire group of Lan clan disciples hop up into the air on their swords and not one of them tries to help Su She, which is hilarious.  

Sweet baby Wen Ning, however, being a good lad, does go help him, and gets possessed, oops. 

Wei Wuxian grabs Wen Ning and flinches when he sees his white eyes, but hangs on to him. 

When Lan Wangji sees that Wei Wuxian is in danger he makes this face and goes and grabs him and Su She.

A hilarious midair conversation ensues, along with some relationship negotiation. Wangji is touch starved and aims to keep it that way. At least in public.

Lan Xichen fires up the battle flute and seals the water demon and oh my god how is he so elegant and beautiful?

What’s Wrong With The Baby

Wei Wuxian back at the Inn is checking on Wen Ning in a genuinely concerned way, having basically signed on as a co-elder sibling at this point, sensing that Wen Ning is broken. Wei Wuxian is friendly with everybody but he's particularly protective of anyone who's hurt.

Wen Qing shows up and tells him quite directly to get the fuck out, but he surprises her by understanding what's up with Wen Ning and making it clear that he's on her side as far as care for Wen Ning goes, while he still knows that she's up to something.

Giving Gifts to Girls, Yunmeng Brothers Style

Wei Wuxian: I deduced that your beloved brother has no personal firewall and can be possessed easily in spite of his high cultivation level, so I used my expertise to make a special talisman that can protect him from invasion by hostile entities. Here, even if you and I are sorta enemies I want him to have this. Also I’m going to throw in a casual acknowledgement of your professional expertise.

Jiang Cheng: I bought you a comb

Squeeze This

Wei Wuxian tosses an approximately testicle-sized loquat fruit to Lan Wangji and Lan Wangji catches it without looking, and an ENORMOUS romantic music cue swells up. 

Then he rejects it and throws it back. He doesn't, of course, just avoid catching it in the first place because that wouldn’t be elegant and pointed enough. In a later episode, when they begin travelling together, Wei Wuxian will announce his presence in this same way, throwing a loquat fruit at to Lan Wangji, who will catch it and keep it.

Wei Wuxian tosses the rejected loquat over to Jiang Cheng, who catches it, not realizing he is going to be Wei Wuxian’s second choice man in every instance from this point onward. 

Outtro

Soundtrack

Jaws music obvs

WuJi aka Wanxian which is playing constantly when they are in the library, presumably this is the sound in LWJ’s head

Lookin’ Out My Back Door by CCR

Nothing, from A Chorus Line

Rag Mop by the Ames Brothers (warning before you google it: this will give you a permanent earworm)

Writing prompt: Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng explore Gusu while WWX is stuck in the library  

Restless Rewatch Episode 06 is here!

[noassallclass]

So my roommate spent all of today writing up a report for Critical Role as a company and I really don't know much about business stuff but I think it is fascinating. Read to the end for a wild ride.

"Okay here is my idea of how Critical Role is actually structured based on what public information exists:

At Geek and Sundry, “Critical Role” as an entity was essentially a partnership between all cast members. The only asset this partnership had was the intellectual property of CR and the only Revenue it took in was licensing that IP to Geek and Sundry. This is because Critical Role Partnership was adamant about maintaining ownership of the IP. This license then pays out between the partners. Percentage

ownership of Critical Role Partnership is divided based on money put in, and previous work done. I would be very surprised if Mercer did not own at least 25% but probably not more than 50%, and the others are probably more or less even. At this point, the cast members both draw a salary from geek and sundry as employees (or contractors), and collect drawings from the licensing of the IP and also royalties as actors. When Orion leaves, the others almost certainly force him to sell out his ownership portion and he probably gets royalties from Geek and Sundry (and later CRPLLC). At this point, this licensing agreement is the only transaction that the entity “Critical Role” actually conducts.

Geek and Sundry pays to produce, distribute, and market the show, and takes all profit. It also takes some aspects of creative control, but probably not that much, though this is listed as the reason to leave Geek and Sundry. At this point, Critical Role continues to license with Geek and Sundry’s parent company Legendary Digital Networks and incorporates their partnership into a Limited Liability Corporation “Critical Role Productions”.

The ownership split is probably kept mostly the same, unless someone decides to sell portions of their shares, but I don’t see why they would. The shareholders (or owners) at this point hire a bunch of employees. Some roles they hire themselves, like Willingham as CEO and Mercer as CCO, and some they hire outsiders like COO Ed Lopez, SVP of Marketing Rachel Romero, and VP of Business Development Ben Van Der Fluit. Those who take additional roles will take salaries for those roles, as well as a salary for acting and writing, and dividends from profits. It is likely that Lopez got a certain amount of shares because C-Suite Executives often do as bonuses because it’s non-taxed income until he sells it and it incentivizes maximizing profits because that would increase his dividends. The other employees probably did not receive shares, so as not to dilute the percentage ownership further.

Critical Role seemingly has no board of directors (it’s possible they have one which is not public), which only happens when there are so few shareholders that they can all convene and take votes (Usually less than 20 owners), implying they don’t use investors to raise cash, which is consistent with a desire to retain creative control. This also means that it is up to all of the shareholders to vote on decisions about the managers of the company instead of a board. That means the only way they could fire Willingham as Chief Executive Officer is if all of the shareholders convene and vote for his firing. Without a board of directors, which often has independent outsiders, this is typically seen as bad for the company’s interests, but is legal in this case because it’s a limited liability corporation and they do not trade on an exchange .

Over the next year or so, CRPLLC makes a new studio and Geek and Sundry gradually relinquishes the distribution rights to older episodes. At this point everyone who works towards the function of the production and distribution of shows is an employee of CRPLLC and not Legendary or Geek and Sundry. For the past couple of years, Critical Role has licensed various brand crossover products like Funko Pops and The Darkhorse Comics. Funko Pop pays CRPLLC for the character likenesses and keeps all profits. CRPLLC also produces its own merchandise like t shirts and that sexy calendar that they pay manufacturers to produce and CRPLLC makes the profit in that scenario. They also have advertising revenue, which is a straightforward revenue stream.

Throwing back to two paragraphs ago, if they don’t use investors to raise cash, how can they afford to embark on a new expensive project that wouldn’t pay out until the future? Well, they could take out a loan (ew interest), save more money in retained earnings forgoing development in other areas (what do you mean we can’t afford to redo our website?) OR

They could do an 11 million dollar kickstarter! This would allow them to retain ownership of both the company and the product, because kickstarter is essentially just buying really expensive merchandise! People will buy a 30 dollar mug if it also comes with the promise that if enough people do it, they’ll make a tv show. Kickstarter money is revenue, not financing and it’s actually against kickstarter’s rules to promise equity for backers. Instead, kickstarter backers assume the risk that investors take (albeit on a smaller individual scale) with none of the benefit besides knowing that they helped make something exist. Compare this to if I, Callie invested $11 million into CRPLLC.

If the Legend of Vox Machina completely bombs and bankrupts CRPLLC which was kickstarted: CRPLLC would have to sell off all of its assets, resolve its liabilities (pay people for work done before laying them off, pay off bank loans) and whatever is left over would be split between the owners. Do they owe you, the kickstarter backer, for not making the show? Legally no. You chose to give us that money and had to trust we would spend the money well to make a good show and we spent all our money making sure our tree leaf animation looked good and could only afford to make 2 episodes.

If the Legend of Vox Machina completely bombs and bankrupts CRPLLC and it was Calliestarted: It would still be the same, except now Callie, the person who put in a lot of money for this show, is also an owner, and at least gets a slice of that money after the debts are paid off.

If the Legend of Vox Machina is really successful and it’s kickstarted: Good job, you did it! You got a fun tv show and like a t shirt! Fun!

If the Legend of Vox Machina is really successful and it’s Calliestarted: Not only do I get my fun tv show and probably also every piece of merch that exists, I got mad paid as an owner, not just from the show itself, but as we sell more and more merchandise because I’m a part owner of the company. I then continue to make money from literally everything else the company does until I decide to sell my shares or the company goes bankrupt.

And even better news! Amazon Prime bought the streaming rights for two seasons, so now I, Callie, have even more money from that sweet sweet licensing money.

Speaking of which, it is likely that the Amazon Deal is structured as follows: Amazon pays CRPLLC to license LoVM, with the stipulation that kickstarter backers can access the first 10 episodes legally. CRPLLC pays, with Kickstarter and Amazon money, Titmouse Inc. to produce LoVM. CRPLLC makes the difference between what they paid Titmouse (variable cost, depending on ultimate cost of animating) and what Amazon paid them. Amazon makes the difference of what they paid CRPLLC and what they make at market with LoVM. Amazon is the only company that stands to profit directly from the actual product of LoVM doing well. If it does poorly, there’s the possibility it gets cancelled, meaning that CRPLLC (and maybe Titmouse if CRPLLC already commissioned the work from them) will still get paid by Amazon, but never released. It’s possible that other companies could buy the license from Amazon in this scenario. This is the risk of selling your show to another company.

CRPLLC also has one subsidiary and one associated foundation: Darrington Press LLC and The Critical Role Foundation

Darrington Press LLC is an imprint of CRPLLC created to design and produce card and board games with the Critical Role IP. DP has 3 listed employees, Ivan Van Norman as Head of Darrington Press, Darcy L. Ross as Marketing Manager, and Mercer as Creative Advisor. As a subsidiary, it is wholly owned by CRPLLC. DP pays manufacturers and contractors to design and manufacturers games and pays for its own advertising, as a separate entity from CRPLLC. DP will likely sell its products to games distributers and the Critical Role Store. If the Critical Role Store sells DP games it’s because CRPLLC bought them from DP. The relationship between DP and CPRLLC is that when DP makes a profit and pays dividends, the recipient is CPRLLC. If DP goes bankrupt and cannot pay its debts, CPRLLC is not required to pay them. CPRLLC also chooses DP’s Board of Directors, which is probably just the owners of CPRLLC. This is all very ordinary. DP has four announced games set to release in 2021, but as of yet has not released any products or made any revenue.

The Critical Role Foundation is a registered non-profit and legally distinct from CRPLLC with seemingly no employees, with Johnson as President, and 4 other Board Members: Mercer, Lopez, Romero and another person named Mark Koro, who is a figure very closely tied to critical role I will outline later. Lopez and Romero are also in a long-term relationship or perhaps marriage. It is usually considered a bad idea to have two partners on a board of directors, as a conflict of interest can arise easily. As a registered non-profit CRF’s projected breakdown of donations is 85% grants to other non-profits, 10% emergency fund allocation, and 5% admin costs (this would be where possible future employees’ salaries would come from). Board Members on non-profits traditionally don’t take salaries, but can use their role as a board member to calculate donated time as a charitable donation for tax purposes. This all seems pretty normal. It’s not stated if or how much CRPLLC itself donates to CRF, including its initial endowment, besides the donation of free advertising, as no donation matching or any other programs seem to be advertised. In terms of an initial endowment, it seems that the only money put in was immediately spent on filing fees and legal fees, meaning the initial endowment was less than $5000. As a result, CRF operates from donors and possibly is not funded at all by CRPLLC. Any money that is donated from CRPLLC’s profits to CRF would be a charitable donation and lower CRPLLC’s taxable income amount. CRF began collecting non-taxable donations in May 2019, and as of December 8, 2020 CRF has yet to publish their 2019 financial statements, so not much is publicly known of how much money is raised by CRF and if they achieved their desired breakdown.

Now to talk about Mark Koro. Koro is an executive of Governmental Affairs (some places list director and others list VP) at Qualcomm, a telecommunications technology company with an annual profit of $7.67 Billion, and is estimated to make $20 per smartphone sold. Every smartphone. Qualcomm has been sued by China, South Korea, Taiwan, the EU, and the USA for anti-competitive behaviour. Koro’s department of Governmental affairs is responsible for negotiating and bidding with governments for contracts and rights to airwave frequencies, and also lobby and develop proposals for telecommunications legislation and policy. Before this, Koro worked at the National Security Agency in their corporate relations department liaising with defence and intelligence contractors. Before this, he worked in the George H.W. Bush administration as The National Security Advance Representative. This entails preparing logistics and security for Presidential events and dispatching Secret Service Agents to respond to Presidential Threats and continued in this capacity under following administrations until 2008. Koro was also an advisor to The Deputy Director of the NSA (the second highest position in the Intelligence Agency), and was a consultant to The Lawrence Livermore National Library, which is

“self-described as a ‘premier research and development institution for science and technology applied to national security.’ Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering, and technology.”

These positions are all listed on Koro’s biography on the The United Nations website for the International Telecommunications Union Radiocommunication Sector (accessed Dec. 8, 2020). Mark Koro has no public associations with Charitable Work.

There is little online about Koro’s association with Critical Role, besides an article stating that Koro, as a fan of the show, in 2016 matched $50,000 worth of donations to 826LA. Koro’s associations with a monopolistic technology company, the NSA, Nuclear Weaponry, and multiple presidential administrations would be cause for alarm for many of CR’s fans, but if it were a purely professional relationship, it could be excused as including him for his business accumen, but Mark Koro is mutuals on twitter with all of the cast members and Brian W Foster, Britney Walloch-Key. This might seem like normal professional courtesy, but there is a lot of interaction between Koro’s account and Critical Role Employees’ personal accounts that reflect at least a close personal relationship between people that he would not interact with regularly just as a board member of a legally distinct organization."

P.S. 100% of Critical Role's Chief Officers are men in relationships with female subordinates.

[myrastuff]

Some more Science Supervillain doodles, and some of the character/backstory I’ve figured out:

- Was a talented, if somewhat distractible and nervous, biorobotics researcher for a large pharmaceuticals company. Often frustrated by how profits got in the way of progress. Frequently tempted to skim money for her own research, but didn’t want to risk it. 

- The company was bought up by a corporate raider group intent on churning it for profit. Funding from her main project was abruptly cut, and she resigned in frustration, keeping her files and deleting the company’s copies.

- Stewed privately for a few months, working for herself on a shoestring budget from her savings. Meanwhile the corporate raiders gutted her company, declared bankruptcy, and got away with billions in profits despite unprovable, illegal shenanigans. 

- Had a breakdown/breakthrough moment in front of her computer. “They got away with crimes. Why can’t I get away with crimes? Wait, why can’t I get away with crimes? What are the specific obstacles, and how can I overcome them?”

- Proceeds to overcome those obstacles. Kills the leader of the corporate raiders, robs some banks, launders some money, and sets up her own science lab company. 

- Personal business plan: any line of research can be “profitable” if you also use it to steal lots of money.

- Spends much of her time working happily on whatever biorobotics project catches her fancy and funding other scientists to do the same, with no investors or marketing teams to get in the way and sketchy lab safety requirements.

- The company does have a small, highly talented team of accountants who make sure her paperwork and taxes are always flawless. The lead accountant also handles money laundering and is thoroughly criminal, but very good at his job. 

- Her crimes generally target big banks, investment firms, and other financial entities she views as putting money over progress (they also tend to put money over people, but she’s more upset by how they stifle innovation and good science). She tries not to hurt anyone she doesn’t see as guilty, but has a sadistic streak when it comes to executives and often hurts them more than necessary. 

- Robs the rich to give to herself, mostly. Lives very comfortably, with a nice penthouse apartment and vacation homes and flashy cars. 

- Since she doesn’t need to make money the traditional way, she and her company are well-liked by the public for their reasonable prices, generosity with shared research, and charitable contributions, mostly in the field of medicine. She’s frequently applauded for building custom prosthetics for sick children, upgrading hospital equipment for free, etc. Superheroes, who know her secret villain identity but can’t prove it, hate her so, so much. Their frustration amuses her, and she loves dropping references to her criminal identity into her wardrobe and public speeches. 

- General personality: confident, happy science gremlin who’s having a great time. Loves being a melodramatic villain, can be a bit of a showboat and definitely designs her evil tech to look as cool as possible. Still a bit distractible and scatterbrained, can and has changed plans mid-crime because something science-y looks neat.

- Definitely has a cool supervillain transformation sequence: her suit and equipment is made up of small, semi-modular robotic parts, which can be stored in a briefcase and summoned to her at will via an implanted neural interface. Getting out of costume is harder: she has to find where she left her normal clothes and glasses, and wash out the temporary spray hair dye. 

- Major character influences: Entrapta (She-Ra), Dr. Olivia Octavius (Spiderverse), Moira O’Deorain (Overwatch). Notes also taken from Lex Luthor, Harley Quinn, and Tony Stark.

[deniscollins]

‘Scared to Death’ by Arbitration: Companies Drowning in Their Own System

DoorDash requires all employees to sign an arbitration clause that bars them from joining together to mount class-action lawsuits, making it more difficult for employees to sue due to individual costs. What would you do if an entrepreneurial lawyer figured out how to efficiently have 6,000 employees individually file claims to the arbitration company and you received a $9 million bill, which a federal judge ruled that the company must pay: (1) continue having new employees sign arbitration clauses, (2) no longer require it, or (3) something else, if so, what? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Teel Lidow couldn’t quite believe the numbers. Over the past few years, the nation’s largest telecom companies, like Comcast and AT&T, have had a combined 330 million customers. Yet annually an average of just 30 people took the companies to arbitration, the forum where millions of Americans are forced to hash out legal disputes with corporations.

Mr. Lidow, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur with a law degree, figured there had to be more people upset with their cable companies. He was right. Within a few months, Mr. Lidow found more than 1,000 people interested in filing arbitration claims against the industry.

About the same time last year, Travis Lenkner, a lawyer in Chicago, had a similar realization. Arbitration clauses bar employees at many companies from joining together to mount class-action lawsuits. But what would happen, Mr. Lenkner wondered, if those workers started filing tens of thousands of arbitration claims all at once? Many companies, it turns out, can’t handle the caseload.

Hit with about 2,250 claims in one day last summer, for example, the delivery company DoorDash was “scared to death” by the onslaught, according to internal documents unsealed in February in federal court in California.

Driven partly by a legal reformist spirit and entrepreneurial zeal, Mr. Lidow and Mr. Lenker are leaders in testing a new weapon in arbitration: sheer volume. And as companies face a flood of claims, they are employing new strategies to thwart the very process that they have upheld as the optimal way to resolve disputes. Companies, in a few instances, have refused to the pay fees required to start the arbitration process, hoping that would short-circuit the cases.

“There is no way that the system can handle mass arbitrations,” said Cliff Palefsky, a San Francisco employment lawyer who has worked to develop fairness standards for arbitration. “The companies are trying to weasel their way out of the system that they created.”

Even as Supreme Court rulings over the last two decades have enshrined arbitration as the primary way that companies can hash out disputes, giving them enormous sway, consumer advocates and labor rights groups have criticized its inequities.

One of the biggest obstacles for consumers and workers is that payouts on individual arbitration judgments don’t justify the costs of mounting a complex case against a big company.

Some of the mass arbitration strategies may be changing that calculus.

Mr. Lidow runs FairShake, a start-up that uses an automated system to get the arbitration process started. If the claim results in a payout, the start-up takes a cut.

Mr. Lidow got interested in arbitration after the e-commerce company he founded to sell ethically sourced clothing shut down. A former mergers and acquisitions lawyer, he wanted to use some of his digital know-how to disrupt the cumbersome, clubby legal system that nearly every American must agree to use instead of going to court against their employer, rental car provider or cable company.

In the spring of 2018, FairShake bought targeted Google ads that invited anyone with gripes against a cable and internet company to start the arbitration process through its website. Over two months, FairShake notified companies like AT&T and Comcast that it was filing 1,000 arbitration claims.

The companies were caught off guard. It took six months for many of the claims to move through arbitration. And some were still making their way through the system two years later. To Mr. Lidow, that seemed like a long time for two of the nation’s largest companies, with ample legal resources, that have vouched publicly for the efficiencies of arbitration over court.

It was particularly notable because AT&T was at the center of a landmark 2011 Supreme Court ruling that anointed arbitration as a fair forum for legal disputes.

“From our perspective, the companies weren’t prepared to administratively handle that volume,” Mr. Lidow said. “The whole system wasn’t prepared.”

An AT&T spokesman said FairShake’s “system is unnecessary because our process is so easy to follow and efficient for consumers.”

FairShake is expanding its focus to other industries, like consumer finance and home security. For the arbitration claims that FairShake has settled, consumers have gotten an average payout of $700.

Mr. Lenkner also sees a potentially viable legal niche in mass arbitration.

A former lawyer at Boeing who clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the Supreme Court, Mr. Lenkner said most companies never expected that people would actually use arbitration.

“The conventional wisdom might say that arbitration is a bad development for plaintiffs and an automatic win for the companies,” he said. “We don’t see it that way.”

His firm’s first wave of cases have focused on workers in the gig economy. Many of these workers, particularly at food delivery companies, have been thrust onto the front line of the coronavirus crisis by ferrying food and supplies to housebound consumers, while risking getting sick. A large number of their employers require these workers to sign arbitration clauses.

Mr. Lenkner said he believed that his firm could economically mount arbitration claims, one by one, because the gig workers had similar allegations against companies like Uber and Postmates — namely that they have been misclassified as independent contractors.

One of the firm’s latest showdowns is with DoorDash, a leading food delivery app in the United States. It shows the traction that mass arbitration is gaining with judges and the lengths that companies will go trying to stop it.

It began last summer when Mr. Lenkner’s firms filed more than 6,000 arbitration claims on behalf of couriers for DoorDash, known as “dashers.”

Among them was Victoria Diltz, a single mother in the Bay Area who works at a fast-food restaurant and as a housekeeper, and relies on making deliveries for DoorDash to generate extra cash for a tank of gas, groceries or car payments.

She said the company’s formula for paying workers was inconsistent, but as an independent contractor she had no way to challenge that.

“They know we are desperate for the cash, so we will do whatever,” said Ms. Diltz, 46, who lived out of her car for a period while working for DoorDash.

The cases were taken to the American Arbitration Association, an entity that provides the judges and sets up the hearings for such disputes.

DoorDash specified in its contracts with its roughly 700,000 dashers that they had to use the association when filing an arbitration claim. The company also told the dashers that it would pay any fees that the association required to start the legal process.

Then DoorDash got the bill for the 6,000 claims — more than $9 million.

DoorDash balked, arguing in court that it couldn’t be sure that all of the claimants were legitimate dashers. The American Arbitration Association said the company had to pay anyway. It refused, and the claims were essentially dead.

The company made other moves seeking to limit the damage from mass arbitration.

DoorDash’s lawyers at the Gibson Dunn firm reached out to another arbitration provider, which turned out to be more accommodating on some issues important to the company.

The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution, or C.P.R., was willing to allow DoorDash to arbitrate “test cases” and avoid having to pay the fees all at once. C.P.R. also took feedback from Gibson Dunn on the proposed new rules, though it did not consult with the dashers’ lawyers.

In a statement, C.P.R. said the new rules for mass arbitration were broad based and not specific to the DoorDash case. It also said the new rules had provisions that were generally favorable to plaintiffs.

If they wanted to keep “dashing” for DoorDash, workers had to sign a new contract designating C.P.R. as the new arbitrator.

But a federal judge in San Francisco wasn’t willing to go along with it. The judge, William Alsup, ordered DoorDash in February to proceed with the American Arbitration Association cases and pay the fees.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for DoorDash said the company “believes that arbitration is an efficient and fair way to resolve disputes.”

But in a hearing, Judge Alsup questioned whether the company and its lawyers really believed that.

“Your law firm and all the defense law firms have tried for 30 years to keep plaintiffs out of court,” the judge told lawyers for Gibson Dunn late last year. “And so finally someone says, ‘OK, we’ll take you to arbitration,’ and suddenly it’s not in your interest anymore. Now you’re wiggling around, trying to find some way to squirm out of your agreement.”

“There is a lot of poetic justice here,” the judge added.

[rosiemotene]

My three passions in life are Women, Africa, and the arts.

My activism career started over 15 years ago when I did my training through POWA, http://www.powa.co.za. I have used my personal​ brand to create awareness on abuse and issues pertaining to women. I not only share my knowledge that I learned through the training but I share my personal experiences on how the abuse affected me. My aim has and always will be to create awareness, let others know that they are not alone and that the abuse is not their fault, all of this connected to the fact that it has been patriarchal ideologies that have supported and protected perpetrators. We have to redefine our rights and enforce gender equality.

Building​ my personal​ brand. When I started my career we do not have direct access to PR gurus or marketing specialists who could guide us and those that did, paid top dollar for their services. I built my brand on knowing and understanding my craft, faith, discipline, dedication and passion. I made a tremendous amount of mistakes, partnered with wrong people, diluted my brand as I did not value myself enough and often second guessed my personal​ talent and ability. I value and treasure all those lessons. I have learned that building a brand and becoming an entrepreneur comes with a lot of challenges and frustrations but​ there are also many rewards. It has taught me to push through those boundaries, even when met with resistance. I remember when I was still acting on the soapie, Generations, I wanted to seek a car sponsorship and I naively approached BMW South Africa. My application was denied immediately and I was told that they do not sponsor non-sports people. So I then decided to visit a BMW car dealership in Bryanston, with my then partner. He suggested​ that I just buy one and forget about the sponsorship. I partly took his advice. As I entered the dealership I noticed that there were very few Black people walking in and out as buyers, I engaged with my friends who lived in that area and who drove BMW’s​ and asked where they had purchased their vehicles. Almost all of them directed me to the Black owned dealership downtown. As much as I wanted to support that dealership, I also wanted to prove a point. So I boldly revisited the​ dealership in Bryanston, sought out my vehicle and applied for finance and bought a vehicle off the showroom​ floor. I felt I needed to prove that as a young black woman, I had the ability and power to purchase the vehicle and perhaps the dealership needed to relook their strategy. A year later I formed a partnership with a woman​ who could assist​ with a concrete​​ proposal and we approached the dealership that I bought my car from and we proposed a sponsorship deal, based on my facts and experience. This was in 2004 and we originally proposed the deal for six months, my contract was continuously extended till 2007. Every six months I upgraded my car to the new 3- series and had the opportunity of test-driving all the new series when they were launched.

The WAKA flame: My love for the continent began when I started exploring Africa as a TV presenter and producer. I founded my Pan African talent agency, WAKA TALENT AGENCY in 2011. WAKA means to ​shine in Ki-Swahili​. I discovered that there was a gap for representation across the continent, I also saw it as an opportunity to create projects and synergies with other media practitioners in South Africa and globally. At present Waka Talent agency have a footprint​ in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, Botswana, DRC, Uganda. Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia, ​and Nigeria. We represent TV and radio personalities, speakers, emcees, ​and brand ambassador and influencers. A few of my clients are musicians and models in their own right but we do not handle those contracts nor do we search for that type of work. I often asked if that will be my next move and my answer is no. No, I do not wish to tackle that side of the industry as firstly, I respect that craft and with that aspect comes my second reason, I have no first-hand​ knowledge of it. As a manager,​ I,​ need to understand and know the craft, discipline​, ​ and experience that comes with it.

Kojo Baffoe: Ghanaian living in SA

Simba Mudereri from Zimbabwe, based between Harare, Gaborone, JHB and

Flavia Tumusimme based in Kampala

Weza Solange, Angolan living in SA

Lydia Forson. Ghanaian living in Accra

Chishala Chitoshi jnr living in Kitwe, Zambia

Meg Ottawa. Nigerian living in Lagos

These are a few of our Pan-African clients

Nurturing the talent Being an award-winning​​g actress, TV and radio personality award winning film producer, ​and a revered TV producer, I have the ability to provide concrete advice and knowledge in that sector of the industry. As much as I respect the model and music industry, I have never worked down the ramp (professionally) nor have I recorded a song. So why would I have the authority of managing that career? The moral of this story is that you need to know your brand, work and be passionate about it. When creating collaborations​, always look at what value the two parties​​s bring to the table. There always needs to be a value added beefits to all parties involved.

Time to PASTE. As we are still focusing on TV and radio personalities and building brands and connecting them with global brands, we also plan to work with other entrepreneurs and artisans who have the Pan African vision and believe in the artistic spirit. Brand value is not just about designing a logo, it is about a philosophy and a vision. I see the two concepts as one. As my vision and passion is led and dominated by my Pan African dream, I have looked to work with entrepreneurs who seek and live by that. Moving forward, we will be working closely with Paste Studios.

Paste Studios is a Creative Agency: Specialising in Design, branding and Brand Identity. I do understand that there are many agencies who specialise in these concepts but very few are innovative and keen to understand the Pan African market. I met the CEO and founder of PASTE STUDIOS Manqoba Nhlapo, at a regular entrepreneurial spot in Johannesburg. We first engaged in conversation last year but as I strongly believe in Gods timing, we only engaged in business discussions this year. His entrepreneurial vision is raw and real. Many people have this romantic idea that entrepreneurial lifestyle is sexy and cool, with your Mac laptop, you sit at a coffee shop and the work rolls in. Yes,​ you need the laptop as that is our life, we often sit at coffee shops as we need the free wifi. Let us be honest data in SA is ridiculously expensive. We may seem content and cute with our cafe​​e lattes or Americano’s or whatever it is that we are drinking, but often we are sitting with that one cup the whole day long. So whilst randomly entering our regular space, Manqoba and I started chatting about these exact entrepreneurial challenges. We spoke about how we would see the same faces in the​ public​ workplace but we do to know what we all do. The conversation led to the fact the biggest challenges that small companies and agencies have is that they lack the finance and therefore the resources. We agreed that small entities need assistance from big corporates but we should also look at our smaller entrepreneurial partners for synergies and assistance. We began to understand what our respective agencies do and what our visions are and saw the scope for partnership.

WAKA TALENT will work in conjunction wit PASTE STUDIO on creating platforms and projects that can project to our Pan African audience and climate. They have the design, brand value and knowledge, we have the talent, expertise, ​and clientele, we both are passionate about the PAN-AFRICAN​N dream.

Manqoba’s passion to to create and design as well as connecting people from our continent. His vision is for PASTE to become the frontier of innovative​ design in Africa. Collaborating with the best designers and talent​ too​ bring South African products to a world class standard. Their leading factor is that they have the ability to create and design spaces that will to enrich people and optimise human interactivity.

Our first collaboration will ve revealed soon but should you require any additional information on with agthe ​ency, feel free to contact us:

WAKA Talent agency: http://www.wakaagency.biz rosie@wakaagency.biz +27 0102861935

PASTE studios: manqoba@pastestudios.co.za ​

-End

WAKA + PASTE My three passions in life are Women, Africa, and the arts. My activism career started over 15 years ago when I did my training through POWA, www.powa.co.za.

[sunshineweb]

Beware the IP-Ohs

People indulging in the stock market are often people with a lot of emotions. They get excited by something new, especially if it holds the promise of making them a whole lot richer and provides bragging rights at their next social gathering.

Maybe that’s why amateur and professionals alike tend to lose their minds in bull markets, particularly when a hot initial public offering, or IPO, is offered to them by their broker.

On one hand, had you bought into the IPOs of Infosys (yes, remember?), HDFC Bank, Sun Pharma, or TCS, you would have had some volatile price fluctuations along the way, but there is no question that you have made enough money to substantially change the quality of your life. Clearly, a well chosen IPO can be a life changing experience if you simply make the right choice and stick with the stock for years.

On the other hand, there is a large majority of IPOs such as those of Reliance Power, Suzlon and DLF, which have destroyed investors’ capital. With such businesses, even the “long-term” cannot save you from permanent capital destruction.

The Truth about IPOs Benjamin Graham wrote in The Intelligent Investor…

In every case, investors have burned themselves on IPOs, have stayed away for at least two years, but have always returned for another scalding. For as long as stock markets have existed, investors have gone through this manic-depressive cycle.

In America’s first great IPO boom back in 1825, a man was said to have been squeezed to death in the stampede of speculators trying to buy shares in the new Bank of Southwark. The wealthiest buyers hired thugs to punch their way to the front of the line. Sure enough, by 1829, stocks had lost roughly 25% of their value.

Over my 19+ years of experience in the stock markets, I have rarely come across any IPO that has been launched keeping in mind the interest of investors.

A majority of them have been launched in the form of ‘legalized looting’ by company promoters and their investment bankers.

I have come to believe how Graham defined IPOs in The Intelligent Investor. He said that intelligent investors should conclude that IPO does not stand only for ‘initial public offering’. More accurately, it is a shorthand for…

It’s Probably Overpriced, or

Imaginary Profits Only, or even

Insiders’ Private Opportunity

Why Avoid IPOs? There is an old saying in corporate circles. One should raise money when it is available rather than when it is needed. This is the reason most companies come out with their IPOs during rising or bull markets when money is aplenty.

Unfortunately, most investors in these IPOs come out on the losing end of the equation.

Granted, some IPO deals are good for retail investors, but I’d argue the odds of that happening are stacked against you.

The stock market regulator SEBI’s rules that are designed to protect Indian IPO investors, generate reams of disclosures about the company and the offering process but unfortunately, many investors neither read nor understand these.

After all, how many people have the time or inclination to read 400-500 pages of IPO offer documents? And then they say – “Please read the offer document carefully before investing.”

IPOs are not level playing fields, I believe. This game is stacked heavily against the small investor who is lured into the hype and then often loses a large part of his savings betting on listing gains.

Here are a couple of reasons I believe you must avoid IPOs and rather search for great businesses among those already listed.

One, IPOs are expensive. People assume an IPO is an opportunity to “get in at lower prices”. In reality, by the time you buy shares of a company in its IPO, other parties have almost always invested earlier at lower prices – often, much lower prices.

Before you even knew about the company, there probably were three or four rounds of private investment, and the per-share price of ownership usually goes up with each round.

In fact, one of the big incentives for an IPO is so that previous investors – founders, venture capital firms, large individual investors – can “cash out” at least a portion of what they’ve invested.

That is why most IPOs are often expensively priced. They are not priced to offer you a piece of the business at cheap or reasonable prices, but to find “bigger fools” who can get in when the “privileged few” are getting out.

Don’t believe the investment bankers when they say that IPOs are “cheap and attractive”. Their incentive lies in first fixing the IPO price (whatever the promoter wants) and then working backward to justify the same.

Two, IPOs create vividness bias.

It’s important to understand that the investment bankers and underwriters of IPO are simply salesmen.

The whole IPO process is intentionally hyped up to get as much attention as possible. Since IPOs only happen once for each company, they are often presented as “once in a lifetime” opportunities for the promoters and other large shareholders to cash out.

Promoters and investment bankers thus create stories that are “vivid” – by using terms like “listing gains”, “bright future”, “long-term story” – and entice you to believe them as soon as you hear them.

You must avoid getting charmed by that vividness.

Try to go behind the beauty of that vividness, and scrutinize the IPO to see if it is really so bright and beautiful.

In other words, you need to get past the “bright and shiny” stuff that surrounds IPOs because it’s easy to fall into the trap given that so many others around you are falling for the same.

Don’t buy a stock only because it’s an IPO – do it because it’s a good ‘investment.’

Warren Buffett wrote in his 1993 letter –

[An] intelligent investor in common stocks will do better in the secondary market than he will do buying new issues…[IPO] market is ruled by controlling stockholders and corporations, who can usually select the timing of offerings or, if the market looks unfavourable, can avoid an offering altogether. Understandably, these sellers are not going to offer any bargains, either by way of public offering or in a negotiated transaction.

When Buffett issued Class-B shares of Berkshire, he made sure that it wasn’t a typical IPO. He wrote in his 1997 letter –

Our issuance of the B shares not only arrested the sale of the trusts, but provided a low-cost way for people to invest in Berkshire if they still wished to after hearing the warnings we issued. To blunt the enthusiasm that brokers normally have for pushing new issues—because that’s where the money is—we arranged for our offering to carry a commission of only 1½%, the lowest payoff that we have ever seen in common stock underwriting. Additionally, we made the amount of the offering open-ended, thereby repelling the typical IPO buyer who looks for a short-term price spurt arising from a combination of hype and scarcity.

The dot com crash of 2000 was preceded by hundreds of IPOs where the underlying business was literally nonexistent. In his 2001 letter, Buffett wrote –

The fact is that a bubble market has allowed the creation of bubble companies, entities designed more with an eye to making money off investors rather than for them. Too often, an IPO, not profits, was the primary goal of a company’s promoters. At bottom, the “business model” for these companies has been the old-fashioned chain letter, for which many fee-hungry investment bankers acted as eager postmen.

Benjamin Graham wrote in Chapter 6 of The Intelligent Investor –

Our one recommendation is that all investors should be wary of new issues—which means, simply, that these should be subjected to careful examination and unusually severe tests before they are purchased. There are two reasons for this double caveat. The first is that new issues[IPO] have special salesmanship behind them, which calls therefore for a special degree of sales resistance. The second is that most new issues are sold under “favorable market conditions”—which means favorable for the seller and consequently less favorable for the buyer.

Charlie Munger said this in Berkshire’s 2004 meeting –

It is entirely possible that you could use our mental models to find good IPOs to buy. There are countless IPOs every year, and I’m sure that there are a few cinches that you could jump on. But the average person is going to get creamed. So if you’re talented, good luck.

To which Buffett added –

An IPO is like a negotiated transaction – the seller chooses when to come public – and it’s unlikely to be a time that’s favorable to you. So, by scanning 100 IPOs, you’re way less likely to find anything interesting than scanning an average group of 100 stocks.

Buffett also said –

It’s almost a mathematical impossibility to imagine that, out of the thousands of things for sale on a given day, the most attractively priced is the one being sold by a knowledgeable seller (company insiders) to a less-knowledgeable buyer (investors).

The late Mr. Parag Parikh wrote in his book, Value Investing and Behaviour Finance –

It’s safe to conclude that IPOs, which seem like a good investment vehicle are, in reality, not so. In fact, an IPO is a product which is against investor interest, as it is mostly offered to investors when they are willing to pay a higher and outrageous valuation in boom times.

Prof. Sanjay Bakshi wrote this in a 2000 article –

Any kind of rational comparison of long-term returns in the IPO market and the secondary market would show that investors do far better in the latter than in the former…IPOs are one of the surest ways of losing money in the long run.

Four characteristics of the IPO market makes it a market where it is far more profitable to be a seller than to be a buyer. First, in the IPO market, there are many buyers and only a handful of sellers. Second, the sellers, being insiders, always know more about the company whose shares are to be sold, than the buyers. Third, the sellers hold an extremely valuable option of deciding the timing of the sale. Naturally, they would choose to sell only when they get high prices for the shares. Finally, the quantity of shares being offered is flexible and can be “managed” by the merchant bankers to attain the optimum price from the sellers’ viewpoint.

But, what is “optimum” from the sellers’ viewpoint is not the “optimum” from the buyers’ viewpoint. This is an important point to note: Companies want to raise capital at the lowest possible cost, which from their viewpoint means issuance of shares at high prices. That is why bull markets are always accompanied by a surge in the issuance of shares.

You get the message, right?

It’s important to remember that, while most are, not every IPO is bad. It’s just that the base rate of investing in an IPO is not in your favour, and thus you must assess every investment opportunity on its own merit.

Hype and excitement don’t necessarily equate to a good investment opportunity. If stocks continue to climb like they have over the past few months, and the IPO line lengthens, I’m afraid you’ll have plenty of opportunities to see that I’m right.

The post Beware the IP-Ohs appeared first on Safal Niveshak.

Beware the IP-Ohs published first on https://mbploans.tumblr.com/

[mitchrusso1-blog]

The Leadership Mindset: Take Accountability And Be Profitable with Thor Conklin | Podcast

Track, measure and adjust. These three words when put into action can solve the lack of sales and problems most companies suffer from. This leadership mindset was developed by business expert Thor Conklin who started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 18 by selling life insurance door to door. Because of this, Thor has always been going the extra mile to make things work.

But more important than looking ahead is committing to micro-commitments that will hold you accountable to the decisions that you make and actions that you take. Learn more of how business leaders can focus on the problem and not the symptom of lacking profit.

Podcast on The Leadership Mindset: Take Accountability And Be Profitable with Thor Conklin

My next guest says, “The only reason businesses fail is due to a lack of profits. Even worse, only 4% of those in business for ten years or more only produce enough money to break even, pay the owner a modest salary and disappoint shareholders.” He’s an expert at identifying the exact reason why a business can’t make money and guides his clients to a profitable solution either directly or through his amazing podcast called Peak Performers. Thor Conklin, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me on.

When we first started talking and you told me your story, I absolutely was captivated because you take the same journey as so many of us who have struggled to build a successful company and figured it all out. I want you to share, Thor, the wisdom that you’ve acquired having gone through what you did. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me the story about how you even became a business person.

I hope I’ve figured it all out, but I think time is going to tell me that I probably haven’t figured it all out. I figured out a bunch and I’ve learned from my mistakes. A smart man learns from his mistakes. I started my entrepreneurial journey at eighteen years old. I decided it would be a great idea to sell life insurance door-to-door. That did not end well. I’ve got a lot of experience from that but not a lot of sales.

Then I found myself working in Corporate America working in Wall Street, helping private equity firms buy companies and we were doing the advisory services for them. I said, “There’s got to be a better way.” I was going to take another job within the industry, then one of the private equity firms that I worked with called me up and said, “Before you take that other job, would you come in and talk to us? We’d like to work with you.” This is a top five private equity firm out of New York. I said, “This phone call doesn’t come every day.” I was actually out in Colorado skiing, I said, “I’ll fly in and see it.” I met with the CEO of the organization and they said, “One of our advisors, they’ve retired at 40. They have made enough money. We need somebody to take over all our portfolio companies worldwide. Would you consider doing that?” That’s an interesting offer.

How old were you at the time?

This is eighteen years ago, so 36.

Did they know of you from your work?

I had been working with them for a number of years, so I was a known entity. What’s interesting is they said, “You can do one or two things. You can either set up your own company or you can actually come and work with us. Be one of our employees.” I had known from one of the founders of the company that their 401(k) program used to have vested interest in the deals that they did. They had secretaries retiring after ten years with $20 million in their 401(k)s and retirement plans. I’m like, “Are you still offering the vested interest?” They looked at me and they said, “No. We don’t do that anymore for everybody.” I said, “I’ll set up my own company.” They’re like, “That’s great. Go into the conference room. You’ve got fifteen minutes. I want you to figure out the business strategy and come back and present it.” I said, “I’ve got fifteen minutes to create my first company?” The last company, my life insurance venture did not go so well, so I said, “I’ve got to do better this time.” I did. I started my first company and they bought basically 90% of my time and created my first company.

You were in a position to have been noticed in your industry. You had impressed even the people outside your company to have seen who you are and what you can do. What would you talk about if you were giving somebody a tip as to how to do that?

No matter what you’re doing, make sure you show up your best. I was a middle-level employee within an organization but I stood out because I was always going that extra mile. Whatever it took whether you’re working for yourself or working for someone else, make sure whatever you do, show up and do it great.

I almost think to some degree that if you don’t do that, there’s just no point in trying. If you can’t do your best at the job that you’re being paid for, then how can you …

Read the full podcast here : Leadership | Accountability | Entreprenuer

For more episodes, please go to iTunes and subscribe, rate and review

[johnmauldin]

5 Charts That Show We Are on the Brink of an Unthinkable Crisis

Bonfires are fun to watch, but they eventually burn out.

Human folly apparently doesn’t, so we just keep adding to the absurdities. The volume of daily economic lunacy that lights up my various devices is truly stunning, and it seems to be increasing (you can find a previous series of charts in my free newsletter Thoughts from the Frontline, which you can subscribe to here).

Let’s take a look at a series of charts I received from my “kitchen cabinet” of friends.

The Economy Is More Deleveraged Than Ever

First up is Grant Williams who sent me a monumental slide deck.  Here is just one example of craziness.

Source: Grant Williams

This chart is straightforward: It’s outstanding credit as a percentage of GDP. Broadly speaking, this is a measure of how leveraged the US economy is.

It was in a sedate 130%–170% range as the economy industrialized in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It popped higher in the 1920s and 1930s before settling down again. Then came the 1980s. Credit jumped above 200% of GDP and has never looked back.

It climbed steadily until 2009 and now hovers over 350%.

Absurd doesn’t do this situation justice. We are mind-bogglingly leveraged. And consider what the chart doesn’t show. Many individuals and businesses carry no debt at all, or certainly less than 350% leverage. That means many others must be leveraged far higher.

While lending has been a very lucrative business in recent decades, it’s hard to believe it can last. At some point we must experience a great deleveraging. When that happens, it won’t be fun.

Cash Allocation Is Lowest Since 2007

“Contrarian” investors believe success lies in going against the crowd, because the crowd is usually wrong. My own experience suggests one small adjustment: Pay attention not to what the crowd says but to what it does. Words are cheap.

This next chart is a prime example.

We see here the amount of cash held by Merrill Lynch clients from 2005 to the present, as a percentage of their assets. The average is about 13%.

Source: Fasanara Capital

The pattern is uncanny. In 2007, as stock indexes reached their peak, cash holdings were well below average. They rose quickly as the crisis unfolded, peaking almost exactly with the market low in early 2009.

In other words, at the very time when it would have been best to reduce cash and buy equities, Merrill Lynch clients did the opposite. And when they should have been raising cash, they kept their holdings low. I don’t think this pattern is unique to Merrill Lynch’s clients; Market timing is hard for everyone.

The disturbing part is where the chart ends. Merrill Lynch client cash allocations are now even lower than they were at that 2007 trough. Interest rates are much lower, too, so maybe that’s not surprising.

Central banks spent the last decade all but forcing investors to buy risk assets and shun cash. This data suggests it worked. But whatever the reason, investor cash levels suggest that caution is quite unpopular right now.

So if you consider yourself a contrarian, maybe it’s time to raise some cash.

Michael Lewitt’s Reality Check

Michael Lewitt’s latest letter came in this morning. He began with the marvelous Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that I used at the beginning of this letter, and then he helpfully contributed this list of absurdities:

Anyone questioning whether financial markets are in a bubble should consider what we witnessed in 2017:

• A painting (which may be fake) sold for $450 million. • Bitcoin (which may be worthless) soared nearly 700% from $952 to ~$8000. • The Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank bought $2 trillion of assets. • Global debt rose above $225 trillion to more than 324% of global GDP. • US corporations sold a record $1.75 trillion in bonds. • European high-yield bonds traded at a yield under 2%. • Argentina, a serial defaulter, sold 100-year bonds in an oversubscribed offer. • Illinois, hopelessly insolvent, sold 3.75% bonds to bondholders fighting for allocations. • Global stock market capitalization skyrocketed by $15 trillion to over $85 trillion and a record 113% of global GDP. • The market cap of the FANGs increased by more than $1 trillion. • S&P 500 volatility dropped to 50-year lows and Treasury volatility to 30-year lows. • Money-losing Tesla Inc. sold 5% bonds with no covenants as it burned $4+ billion in cash and produced very few cars.

This is a joyless bubble, however. It is accompanied by political divisiveness and social turmoil as the mainstream media hectors the populace with fake news. Immoral behavior that was tolerated for years is finally called to account while a few brave journalists fight against establishment forces to reveal deep corruption at the core of our government (yes, I am speaking of Uranium One and the Obama Justice Department). In 2018, a lot of chickens are going to come home to roost in Washington, D.C., on Wall Street, and in the media centers of New York City and Los Angeles. Icons will be blasted into dust as the tides of cheap money, cronyism, complicity, and stupidity recede. Beware entities with too much debt, too much secrecy, too much hype. Beware false idols. Every bubble destroys its idols, and so shall this one.

The Fed’s Balance-Sheet Unwind Spells Trouble

The next absurdity is absurd because it is so obvious, yet many don’t want to see it. Too bad, because I’m going to make you look.

This comes from Michael Lebowitz of 720 Global. It’s the S&P 500 Index overlaid with the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet and the forecast of where the Federal Reserve intends to take its balance sheet.

Source: 720 Global

The Fed and other central banks have practically forced investors into risk assets since 2008. You can see the relationship very clearly in this chart. The green segments of the S&P 500’s rise occurred during quantitative easing programs.

Correlation isn’t causation, but I think we can safely draw some connections here.

Ample low-cost liquidity drives asset prices higher. That’s not controversial. It makes perfect sense that the withdrawal of ample low-cost liquidity would also impact asset prices in the opposite direction.

The Fed has even given us a schedule by which it will unwind its balance sheet. Michael’s chart gives us a sense of how far the S&P 500 could drop if the Fed unwinds as planned and if the relationship between liquidity and stock prices persists. Either or both of those could change; but if they don't, the S&P 500 could fall 50% in the next few years.

Volatility-Linked Hedges Won’t Deliver in a Flash Crash

Many investors see all these warning signs but think they can keep riding the market higher and hedge against losses at the same time. It doesn’t really work that way.

Wall Street firms have rolled out all kinds of volatility-linked products that purport to protect you from sudden downside events. Most of these products are linked to the Volatility Index, or VIX.

Volatility has been persistently low as the market has risen in recent years. That has made it cheap to buy protection against a volatility spike. However, it’s not clear if the sellers of this protection will be able to deliver as promised.

My friend Doug Kass has been concerned about this for some time. He believes the risks of a “flash crash” are rising, and those who think they are hedged may learn that they are not.

He shared this Morgan Stanley graphic of how many VIX futures contracts would have to be bought to cover a one-day market drop.

Between hedgers, dealers, and ETP sponsors, a one-day 5% downward spike in the S&P 500 would force the purchase of over 400,000 VIX futures contracts. This was in October, and the figure has probably risen more since then. Doug isn’t sure a market under that kind of stress can deliver that much liquidity.

I suspect the various VIX-linked products will disappoint buyers when the unwind occurs.

High-Yield Debt Might Be a Trigger for the Next Crisis

Doug also shared what will be the final graph for this week and observed, “This is the dreaded alligator formation, and the jaws always close.”

It’s just a matter of time. It could take another year and get even sillier, but when that gator snaps its jaws shut, a lot of people will get bitten.

I personally think the bubble in high-yield debt, accompanied by so much convenant-lite offerings, will be the source of the next true liquidity crisis.

Source: ZeroHedge

The amount of money available to market makers to use to maintain some type of order in a falling high-yield market is absurdly low. Investors in high-yield mutual funds and ETFs think they have liquidity, but the managers of those funds will be forced to sell into a market where there is no price and there are no bids.

Oh, the bids will show up at 50% discounts. Distressed-debt funds and vulture capital will see opportunities, and they will be there. Talk about blood in the streets.

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[samleheny]

“What’s Happened to Bungie?”

There’s a lot of hubbub about Destiny, and its developer Bungie lately. I’m not interested in cataloging their various deceptions and plain old dick moves since the launch of the original Destiny, that’s been covered EXTENSIVELY already. But the accompanying questions: “Are Bungie in trouble?” ,“Is Bungie going to be bought out by Activision?”, “Has Bungie lost its mojo?”, and just generally “My god people, what’s happened to Bungie?”

I believe can answer this. But it will require some... philosophy.

Specifically Theseus’ Ship. A very old, still very relevant philosophical thought experiment. You’re probably familiar, and there are multiple retellings varying in unimportant details that don’t change the question posed by the story. This is the most succinct version: A ship leaves from a port in the town of Theseus. Its voyage will be long, spanning many years. As it sails, some of the ship’s components wear or get damaged and need to be replaced, be it a torn sail, a broken mast, or a rotted plank. As the ship visits various ports and islands, some of its crew decide to stay behind, and are replaced with new members. By the time the ship finishes its voyage and returns to Theseus, not a single component of its original structure nor a single member of its original crew remain. The entire ship has gradually been replaced, piece by piece.

The question posed by the story is this: Is the ship that returned to port the same ship as the one which left all those years ago?

There’s no definitive, correct answer. Maybe you feel like the ship should be considered technically a different vessel as soon as one of its pieces is swapped out, or maybe you think it retains its original identity so long at least one piece remains unchanged. Or maybe you feel like it’s a question of degrees, and that identities can be altered, stretched some way before being considered a properly disparate entity. Or maybe you feel like the ship’s identity should be considered changed when the amount of it composed of new pieces exceeds half.

The point is to make you consider what it is we mean when we speak of identity. When we say something is one thing and not another. It’s the same existential quandary we engage with when we talk about ourselves being different people than we were some years ago because so many of the cells composing our bodies have died and been replaced with newer ones.

It could be that you believe the ship is still the same ship that left Theseus as long as the pieces, new or old, are assembled in the same way. A question of how much of identity is a matter of that which can be physically measured and how much of it is perhaps historical, or even imaginary.

So what the hell is going on over at Bungie?

Bungie are one of the best and most storied game developers around. They achieved fame and glory with the Halo franchise, one of the most beloved and influential videogame series of our time. During Halo’s development back in the year 2000, Bungie was purchased by Microsoft, and in 2001 the first Halo game became a sensation that almost single-handedly put Microsoft’s new videogame console the Xbox on the map.

10 years and 5 highly successful Halo games later, the people working at Bungie, yearning for creative freedom, had secured their company’s independence in exchange for leaving the sole rights to the Halo IP with Microsoft.

The world was once again Bungie’s oyster, and after wandering around exploring different ideas for their big new IP, they began work in 2010 on what would eventually be Destiny... and the source of a whole lot of headache for Bungie.

Bungie had entered into a 10 year development contract with publisher Activision, and some of the bigger names to leave or be forced out felt that this relationship was becoming poisonous to the company spirit that had served Bungie so well. This deal was for a whopping $500 million, the largest development contract in videogame history, so valuable did it seem to secure Bungie’s next big series. Pete Parsons, Bungie’s COO told press they expected people would “...put the Destiny universe on the same shelf they put Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or Star Wars,” And this game which had started out with the intention on the part of some of Bungie’s heaviest hitters of getting as far away from Halo as possible in search of a fresh new experience, ended up being, by their own admission, a lot closer to Halo in genre and design then they had wanted.

When it launched in 2014 Destiny was rife with problems, some slight, some pretty glaring and certainly surprising of a game with Destiny’s pedigree. And while through iteration and expansion Bungie eventually managed to steer Destiny in a direction at least decent, and while Destiny 2 released this year and was far better received (at first...), It’s pretty clear that those dreams of creating a cultural touchstone to stand with the likes of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings, or even Bungie’s own Halo remain pretty illusive.

I’m still somewhat fascinated by the way the fans Destiny 2 earned for the franchise all now seem to be turning on the game and reporting that once you reach the end game content, Destiny 2 turns disappointingly back into Destiny 1, ie. a little bit shit.

And this is all to say nothing of the way Destiny (perhaps at the behest of Activision, we can’t be sure) has been treating its players with cloak & dagger design choices secretly aiming to sabotage any attempt of progressing through the game without turning to its in-game storefront and spending real world dollars. And whatever amendments they’ve attempted to make as they hop from one scandal to the next amounts to a cynically charged Peter Molyneux-esk cycle of 1) Enact predatory design decision/business practice. 2) If caught, apologise, fix problem(optional), vow to do better in future. 3) Repeat step 1. Immediately.

And news that Bungie is committed to making sure Destiny’s design going forward will revolve heavily around the Eververse (the in game storefront and source of greedy post-sale monetisation many are so upset about) comes out right as an organised online campaign, #RemoveEververse is firing up.

Destiny is nobody’s favourite franchise right now (which is a shame, because it was for a brief, glorious moment) and Bungie, of all developers, are nobody’s favourite people.

So what gives?

The details of what made Destiny’s four year development so turbulent have been covered pretty extensively by journalists, including an entire chapter in Jason Schreier’s excellent book Blood, Sweat, and Pixels. Suffice it to say that the Bungie that came out of Destiny’s development in 2014 looked a hell of a lot different than the Bungie that went in in 2010.

Jaime Griesemer - a major designer at Bungie for 13 years, Marcus Lehto - with Bungie also for 13 years and the creative director of Bungie’s last Halo game, Marcus Lehto - A lead designer at Bungie for 10 years, Adrian Perez - a programmer at Bungie for 9 years, Vic Deleon - a senior environment artist, Marty O’Donnell - composer and sound director at Bungie for 12 years, Harold Ryan - the motherfucking president of the company,

Over the course of development, all of these noteworthy figures at Bungie would either quit or be pushed out due to frustrations in Destiny’s development, not always on very good terms from the sound of it.

I’ll be frank but, I feel, realistic, in saying that while a studio’s artistic identity is a conglomerate of all of what each and every member brings to the table, some members’ input counts for a larger chunk of that identity than others. Some are more replaceable than others in terms of how much sway they have over the creative vision that the company will all work to bring to its audience, and what’s worrying was not that so many people left Bungie during Destiny’s development - people leave and join studios all the time - it’s that so many veterans, the kind of people who make up the majority of their studio’s identity left in such a compressed period.

Whether this is a sign that the project was mismanaged (it was), and that those who left should have something to feel betrayed over, or just a natural part of Bungie’s transition from one major chapter in its life as a Microsoft subsidiary to the next chapter as a free bird with new responsibilities and a new direction to chart, the point made by Theseus’ Ship is very relevant here. How much of the unique creative energy we know as “Bungie”, remains?

People have been calling the last couple of years “The Downfall of Bungie” or claiming that Destiny is the game that destroyed Bungie. Are they that wrong when considering that changing to a new identity does technically involve the destruction of the previous?

How many members, and which members of a group must leave and be replaced before that group can no longer be said to still be, even if the corporate entity known as “Bungie” is still well and truly operational?

“What’s happened to Bungie?”

Simple. It’s died. And was replaced by a new Bungie. It happens all the time (though usually more gradually). Change is inevitable. To try and resist this constant shifting of identities is foolish. After all, Bungie changed a lot to become a Halo factory we all loved for 10 years. The important question is what has Bungie changed into? We’re looking at a new Bungie. But is it a change for the worse? If 2017 is anything to judge by, I fear it very much is.

While the story of Destiny 1′s development from its initial release through to the Taken King expansion can be read as a developer releasing a... ‘not great’ game and working to make it better, Destiny 2′s post launch development so far is the story of a developer releasing a much better game and then doing everything they can to poison people’s experience with it.

I don’t know the size of the boot Activision has over your throat right now, Bungie, but do you want this new chapter of your life having left your overlords at Microsoft to be defined by an even more cynical and corporate Bungie?

[joshuajacksonlyblog]

When Fed is Out of its Mind, Bitcoin is the Answer

It took the sudden emergence of a pandemic to demonstrate how pathetic the global financial system really is. The US Federal Reserve (Fed) is now doing a live demo on how to print money out of thin air and buy government and corporate securities with it. It seems that Plan B’s model will work indeed. US Central Bank Pumps $1 Million Per Second The US financial system showed the first signs of a crack well before the COVID-19 was even a thing. In September last year, the Fed started to pump money to control the overnight general collateral repo rate, which surged over 1% at the time. The central bank said it was only a temporary measure to bring the repo rate closer to its low interest rate, but it has continued those operations to this day. Moreover, the major crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak has forced the US government and the Fed to take unprecedented measures to save the economy. What is happening right now will be in history books. The Fed has implemented the following measures to inject money into the economy: It has cut the interest to zero, though the same tactic was used after the financial crisis in 2008. It has bought unlimited amounts of government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. This is the first time in history that the Fed has pledged unlimited stimulus. The Fed announced it would start buying municipal bonds. For the first time ever, the Fed said it would purchase corporate bonds. Bazooka is not even a term to describe the massive pile of money the Fed is creating right now to buy everything. It seems that the central bank has the capability to move on to purchase company stocks and even make direct transfers to individuals. The Fed’s balance sheet is now at a record $5.3 trillion. One million dollars every second. That's how much the Federal Reserve is printing. It's balance sheet increased by $586.1 billion last week to a record total of $5.24 trillion. Which is $84 billion a day and $60 million printed per minute. — Vis (@Vis_in_numeris) March 27, 2020 To clarify, what the Fed is doing right now is issuing cash out of thin air and buying government and corporate IOUs. Fed Moves On to Buys Bonds from Abroad, May Buy Stocks As Well Another day, another “emergency lending program” is created by the Fed. Now the private entity wants to pump money on a global scale. A few hours ago, the US central bank said that it launched a “temporary repurchase agreement facility aimed at international monetary authorities (FIMA Repo Facility).” In other words, the Fed will create money to buy US Treasury securities from central banks and other monetary authorities, which can use the US dollars in their jurisdictions. At home, economists argue that the Fed might intervene in the stock market for the first time. However, the central bank would need permission from the US Congress. Quincy Krosby, chief market strategist at Prudential Financial, commented: If there were any major dislocations, it is clear that they will go into whatever nook and cranny in the market that starts to choke. We know that when you have choking in one part of the market, you have choking in another part of the market that leads to dislocation. As soon as you cross that line, you are now facing something else that you could conceivably buy. It’s funny how JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said three years ago that: You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think the people buying it are really smart. It’s worse than tulip bulbs, OK?…It’ll eventually blow up. It’s a fraud, OK? He was speaking about Bitcoin, but why wouldn’t he apply this to the US dollar? The latter is becoming a major bubble right now. While the Fed’s emergency measures might reduce short-term damage, it only fuels the America’s long-term problems. It’s Not Only About Fed, US Government Is Involved As Well If you think the US government will handle the bubble, you are wrong. The Fed has been regarded as a private entity that has not been ruled by any government entity. However, judging by the credit and funding facilities it just launched, it means that it collaborates with the US Treasury simply because the Fed doesn’t have permission to buy corporate bonds, stocks, and municipality bonds. Does it mean that it is taking over the US government or vice versa? In an old interview, former Fed chief Alan Greenspan said: First of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means basically that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. Despite everything, the Fed is now working in tandem with the US government. Specifically, the central bank will finance a so-called special purpose vehicle (SPV) for each of its credit operations (of buying government bonds, corporate bonds, commercial paper, etc.). The US Treasury will make an equity investment in each SPV through the Exchange Stabilization Fund, effectively buying all these securities. The Fed is only acting as banker, offering financing. It recently hired BlackRock to buy all securities and manage the SPVs on behalf of the Treasury. It means that the US government is nationalizing the financial markets. This scheme merges the Fed and Treasury into one organization, at least for now. Thus, the printing press is in the hands of US President Donald Trump, and who can guarantee that he doesn’t use it after the pandemic is gone? The crypto market will boom in the coming years because the Fed is pumping unlimited cash right now. Do you think the injection of liquidity will boost Bitcoin? Share your thoughts in the comments section! Images via Shutterstock, Twitter: @Vis_in_numeris, digitalik.net from Cryptocracken Tumblr https://ift.tt/3atnHtA via IFTTT

[fieldnotesconfidential]

Track, Log. Track, Log. Track, Log.

*from the other room* Okay Agent, you have all the data compiled and the report submitted showing how the influence was used to transfer funds with prepaid cards, the network or fake social media accounts, who has control of what, all of the different ways in which the main militant sect has infiltrated most government and private corporate entities, the main person behind all of it and how they were able to gain the buy-in. Also the murder plot(s) and the different sources of financing?

Correct.

🐲You’ve detailed each of the murder attempts, as well as the people behind cohercing and banking on th...🐲

Correct.

⚡️What a wild ride, huh? While also being thrown in as an essential wrecking crew into those other major issues?⚡️

Uh, yeah. Look all I have to do is facilitate a few introductions in order to link people so I can safely exit the situation. I’ll do that as efficiently as possible and bail from the social aspect so I can FINALLY focus on my career.

👹You get no payout from any of this either? Just basic survival. You just get to live. Because all of it is so unbelievable that one per...👹

Correct.

*from the other room* Whatever. Just remember the next phase and that this is a repeated threat. You speak it’s language, you grew up surrounded by this nonsense, and you’ve effectively taught it not to f*ck with you. It definitely will again however you are aware of how to deflect and redirect it away from you so you should be okay. Your prediction skills are truly coming along. All of it is fairly obvious but your assumed cluelessness is priceless. Just do not get trapped. Deflect. Professionalism. That’s it.

There’s a little more to it than that but thank you.

🐲Are you going to do a weird trick or something? What about all the exorcism stuff?🐲

If someone’s truly bought into that I’ll do one just to appease. It’s a parlor trick at this point.

👹Do NOT let the Vatican hear that.👹

Honestly, what will probably happen is that there is already obvious influence and involvement infiltrated into my next mission in an attempt to somehow catch me off guard but I am already aware of it and can predic... nevermind.

⚡️Classic behavior predictions. Behavioral economics. Complexity science. Network patterns and historical interaction. Now you’re speaking my language! And this time you won’t be absolutely drugged out of your ever-loving mind. This should be good.⚡️

Uh, yeah.

👽Hahahahah remember how already you’ve been “spooked” about the bridge? Don’t jump! Dear God, don’t juuuuuuuuuump! Hahahahaha!👽

👹That’s not, like, that funny.👹

It’s only funny because I have all of these planned events forecasted out so far ahead the attempts are starting to be my idea at this point. When you can predict and see the patterns it’s almost a let down at the stupidity o...

⚡️LOL⚡️

*from the other room* All you need to do is remember your patience and your skillset. There is also probably a tertiary hit out on you from several sources that I am sure you already anticipate.

Correct.

🗿IS THIS THE THING WITH THE GUY PRETENDING TO BE THE DEVIL BEING FINANCED BY THAT ONE PERSON WHO WE ARE TRACKING AND THE MANIFESTATION OF BUY-IN AND MANIPULATION BEING USED WHEN PUSHING SOMEONE INTO A DIR...🗿

⚡️That is the first coherent thing I have heard from you. Nice work!⚡️

🗿THANK YOU🗿

Everything is chill. I know who to connect to who, I have my eye on the issues, I just simply need to navigate through and out the other end.

🐲You guys open to a bet? How quickly Agent can process through this to the next?🐲

Well, the bridge thing is forecasted for February or March. We have to wait till then. When that plan doesn’t work they’ll construct the next thing. I’ll give you guys an update on that forecast model then you guys can place bets. I get a cut of the pool this time you as*holes!

👹Oh! You already know there will be some in-house tech stuff. Are you already aware of how to explain all of that to yourself while it’s happening and to others afterward?👹

Like the college bullsh*t? Ridiculous. I don’t see why it always has to be my problem that people are so far beh...

*from the other room* They aren’t behind, you are just ahead of the plans that you keep forecasting accurately. The influence and network is so large and complex tha...

It’s not that complex.

⚡️Hahahaha! Awesome!⚡️

Look I gotta go do self-care or whatever so I am in the right state of mind for this next bullsh*t.

🐲Don’t be mean.🐲

⚡️Be a little mean!⚡️

👹Be professionally curt.👹

*from the other room* Goddammit. You’re to be all smiles and professionally clueless! Get it together!

I got it! Quit messing me up! Jeez!

*from the other room* You know what else?

🐲What?🐲

⚡️Spill it.⚡️

👹Go fo...👹

*from the other room* GET OUT OF MY OFFICE!

[sparkermiller]

Our Constitution          I refer you to The Constitution of the United States of America, the basic law of our land upon which all of our laws are based. Our renowned forefathers, as bright, intelligent, and farseeing as they were, could not, in their wildest imaginations, have foreseen the world in which we presently live, a world of travel into space, computers, the internet, advances in medicine, and on and on. When you read our Constitution, you read only what it says. What it means is another matter. Its meaning must be interpreted in terms of “today”. Our forefathers knew that. That’s why they provided us with a Supreme Court to interpret its many applications.          There are those who will argue that our Constitution is inflexible. Others will argue the opposite, that it is flexible, with changes in customs, the times, etc.—an argument still unresolved; but, it seems to me—I believe—certain provisions of our Constitution are unquestionable, our illustrious and infallible Supreme Court notwithstanding. I read that ours is a government of the people. We are a Democracy, a Democratic Republic, with a representative government to represent we the people—All The People, All 100% of us. Do I hear any arguments to that? I read about equality—we are all equal under the law, we all have equal opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Do you think?          Am I just whistling in the wind? Do you believe in the same Constitution in which I believe? Now we all know that, in the beginning, the blacks were left out of the picture—after all, they were slaves, and everybody knows slaves weren’t people. Slaves, then, were, sadly, property to be bought, sold, raped, pillaged, whatever. Even our Civil War with the loss of over half a million lives didn’t solve the problem. Even President Lincoln’s executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t really complete the job. It wasn’t until the Great Society of President Johnson and his Civil Rights Act that any real semblance of equality for the blacks occurred. Even then, have we really received them as equal? Under our law they are. Do we really have equality in voting? Think about such things as gerrymandering, voting restrictions, voter ID, job discrimination, inequality in education, etc. It took over one hundred years to fix the black problem; but, is it really fixed? I don’t think so. Just look around. It’s not fixed and that has to change.          Let us look at inequality of opportunity from another aspect. You graduated from community college (because of costs, a rapidly growing trend today). John Doe graduated from a prominent Ivy League school. Who is more apt to be appointed to a high office in government; or, if you are a child of a commoner, how apt are you to be accepted into a prestigious school in competition with the child of a prominent leader even if you have the qualifications and the money. Where is the equality of opportunity there? We don’t have equal opportunity in America, and it becomes more fleeting every day with the rapidly increasing gap in income and wealth between the haves and have nots. What happens to the guy who worked his way up the ladder only to be shoved aside by another who begun in the middle or, worse yet, at the top.          Speaking of the immense increase in inequality of income and wealth between the haves and the have nots, God created this earth for all of us—not just the 10% or 0.1% (If you don’t believe in God, have your way; the Corporatocracy and Power Elite, our Shadow Government, seemingly don’t either). So why should some earn hundreds percent more income than those below them who work just as hard, if not more so? They are more talented, you might say. Talent is a gift of God. It’s a blessing. Talent isn’t earned. I do believe one more talented should earn more. In some instances, maybe much more, but should they be paid hundreds of percent more as so many of our CEO’s are today? Also, should they pay far less taxes than we do, as they now do? Should they not pay according to their ability to pay (Fairness demands that comparisons be made in terms of percentages of income)? Some, including many corporations, pay no taxes.          Let us come back to the subject of voting. I see absolutely nothing in our Constitution about Corporations. Nowhere do I see any mention of Corporations as people. For many years, Corporations have been deemed as legal entities for the purposes of determination of liabilities, taxation, ownership issues, etc. I believe that to be in the interests of the people. That’s acceptable. I read the mention of God and man in our Constitution, but nothing about Corporations. When our Supreme Court, in effect, declared a Corporation’s money as equivalent to free speech in direct competition for the votes of the American people, they were wrong. At this point, I’m not sure they weren’t corrupt. Our Congress has sold out. That’s a matter of record, i.e. campaign contributions, lobbyists, so what’s next? I don’t know, but I do know that Corporations should not be allowed to vote. They are not people. People were created by God. Corporations were created by man to serve—not to rule. Our present condition  must and has to change.          To understand, all you have to do is look at the overall (the big) picture. These people are already in control. Contrary to our Constitution, they are running our government today. We didn’t vote for them. We the voters, in our lack of due diligence, have let it happen. We must now take it back. We still have the power of the vote. If we didn’t, they wouldn’t spend so much money each and every election to win. Vote only for those candidates who represent the direct interests of the people. Vote issues rather than party. Vote for a Constitutional Amendment to get money completely out of politics (If you leave even a little bit in, they will find a way to cheat). Vote for a Constitutional Amendment for voting reform—the right to vote for all citizens. Vote for Constitutional Amendments for universal access to single payer national healthcare, and Social Security. Vote for comprehensive tax reform—a progressive tax system for all based upon one’s ability to pay, including Corporations and control over Corporate Inversion (Tax avoidance by moving abroad). Vote for those who promote Fair and open trade—no more secrecy. Vote for those who advocate mandatory government sponsored education, pre K through college or trade school (Everybody has a trade, a job, i.e. is able to support themselves). Our nation needs a free and educated people—leaders. We don’t need a people encumbered with hardship, poverty, and student debt. The very survival of our great nation depends upon our taking back our country from government by the Corporations and Power Elite less we become their slaves—the route in which, I believe, we are now going. Our government is us. The character of our government, any government, is a direct reflection of the character of our people. It’s past time for them to do the will of the people rather than the will of the Corporatocracy and Power Elite who have no sense of caring about anything except the price of their stock—quality product and efficient service to customers, loyalty to employees, dedication to their country notwithstanding.

[larrykrakow]

The Propaganda Model Weaponized On YOU

New Post has been published on https://theprogressivemind.org/the-propaganda-model-weaponized-on-you/

The Propaganda Model Weaponized On YOU

Noam Chomsky, in a book wrote about the propaganda model that main stream media uses on YOU. He lets you know how mainstream media is not giving you the whole truth. In some cases, they are blatantly lying to you. Sadly, they have shirked their responsibility to report the truth. Their model as Chomsky puts it is called Manufacturing Consent.

There are three basics of the way modern media works.

The ruling elite determine what is in the news.

The advertisers who buy air time have control over network content.

There owner class hires experts to go on air and tell YOU what to think.

Amazingly, this is a fairly simple model, but they have so many arms to reach the masses. Sadly, nearly a whole generation of baby boomers have bought into cable news propaganda. This has paralyzed our democracy and allowed the elites to control the narrative. Whatever we read or see on television is a form of control. Media entities control large asset portfolios. Advertisers buy airtime. The on air expert contributors are paid by the network to push a narrative.

Here are some basic examples that describe how this works.

Bernie Sanders has pushed for Medicare For All. It polls at around 70% in favor. Even the establishment Democrats don’t see this. Drug makers and health insurers fund political campaigns. The networks sell airtime to these companies and as we have seen, Democratic candidates demonize a completely popular proposal.

The Republican Party has been trotting out Art Laffer on FOX News, who pushes a narrative that tax cuts pay for themselves.

Iraq was pushed by the major news outlets, maybe because they were duped. It is more likely that the military industrial complex wanted a war, so the media pushed it for them.

Mainstream media told us that the banks needed a bailout or we would have a depression.

Corporate America ALWAYS has an agenda. They depend on you believing their narrative.

YOU should have control over the narrative that you believe, not some jackass in a suit. Cutting the chord is an idea. I find that hard, because I love basketball, but the major networks don’t go on my TV. There is plenty of entertainment on YouTube. In fact, you can see whatever you want. Every subject known to humans is on YouTube. Your mind needs a break from the rot that tells you what to believe and how to think.

The propaganda model of the mainstream media is harmful to a society.

Propaganda is very destructive, especially when it comes from the very people that are supposed to report news.

We have millions of people without healthcare. There are people marching in the streets and the people in power seem to be in love with the notion of going to war with Iran and Venezuela. Incomes are stagnant, the climate is a mess and we have a pandemic on our hands that could have been handled much better. Instead, we are given the sensational moment like a horrendous statement by Donald Trump.

The media will trot out the most sensational story with the motivation to keep you distracted.

While they talk about Trump’s mean tweets, there are millions of people that lost their healthcare as they got laid off DURING A PANDEMIC. Amazingly, very few people are mad at this. Sure, we have people protesting police brutality, but who is protesting the fact that 68,000 people die every year due to the lack of healthcare? That number is going to rise, but the media will NOT cover it.

Why?

The health insurers don’t want the narrative to shift against the for profit healthcare system. This alone is outrageous. There are also many companies that make stuff both for the department of defense and for consumers. Do you think people might think twice before buying something from a company that also makes weapons that are used on innocent civilians abroad?

The media is made up of overpaid hosts and contributors, basically all part of the top 1%. They are comfortable in their nice homes and their cushy jobs, so they do what is best for their careers. They push a narrative onto you, because it pays extremely well.

The media is trying to herd us like sheep into separate camps so that we fight against each other. This is sheer manipulation. Both sides of the political aisle are guilty of weaponizing propaganda through the media. They use the cable news arm that supports each party and divide us along lines of race, religion, age, gender and more. They discredit each other based on ideology, but we have one thing to ask.

Who benefits from pushing the narrative?

The answer always is the owner class, the advertisers and the on air experts that come on shows to let people know how they feel. It is a cynical ploy and YOU should not buy it. Turn off the TV and go out for a walk. Breathe the fresh air. Read a book or whatever else you want. Just turn off these rotten dirty lowdown liars that could care less about you.

[cynthiatherrera]

The physics of economic and financial distress

Over the last several years, we have continuously referenced the incredible influence that technology and demographics are having on economies and markets. On one side, technological innovation is rapidly changing corporate investment and business models, while also delivering persistent consumer-friendly disinflation. On the other, aging and slower-growing populations in the developed world equate to more subdued growth profiles with significant shifts in consumption patterns, and to a tremendous demand for financial market income. Between these two forces, the result has been historic stability, with economic volatility at, or near, all-time lows. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted that relative economic peace in a generational manner, as we described in our May 7 call with clients, and summarize here.

For every action, an equal and opposite reaction…

The economic steadiness of the last few years reminds us of Newton’s cradle, a device named after 17th-century English scientist Sir Isaac Newton, which demonstrates remarkable stability at its center, absorbing energy from forces that strike on the exterior. Using this analogy, under normal circumstances this feedback loop is fairly gentle and predictable; as policy, the financial markets and the real economy send benign reverberations through the economic system, ultimately maintaining an equilibrium. The COVID pandemic, however, hit the economic cradle so severely that it threatened to topple that entire framework.

Indeed, the COVID pandemic encircling the globe felt like an unstoppable force, throwing all the balls of the cradle into disarray, crushing the real economy and destroying wealth up and down the capital stack. Fortunately, Sir Isaac also taught us that every action has an equally powerful, and opposing, reaction. Over the last five weeks, financial markets strongly suggest that the unstoppable force met an immovable object in the form of an historic “whatever it takes” fiscal and monetary policy response.

In the U.S., which has nearly a third of the world’s documented COVID cases, bipartisan fiscal initiatives have been delivered to provide immediate relief to households, businesses and local governments. Importantly, bold and truly historic monetary policy has been set to dovetail with these Federal programs. To be sure, real-economy demand will need to be rebooted in an organic way to get output fully restored; and while we believe this will absolutely happen eventually, the timing is nearly impossible to know with any kind of precision. In the meantime, however, this epic global policy response coordinating monetary and fiscal initiatives is providing a credible bridge over the real economy gap created by the shock resulting from the virus spread and subsequent economic lockdowns.

Main street-targeted fiscal outlays will provide support that is equivalent to roughly five times the organic growth of a normally functioning economy through the third quarter of 2020 (see graph). And the Fed will likely absorb nearly all of the additional Treasury borrowing, of roughly $2.5 trillion, over the remainder of the year. Despite record issuance, the true amount of U.S. Treasury debt held by the public will remain fairly stable. In absorbing that supply, not only does the Fed help to keep a cap on borrowing costs for everything from municipal bonds to business loans, but it also keeps private sector capital freed up to seek out greater returns in risk assets, which has provided stability to financial markets over the last several weeks.

Prior secular trends accelerate, and are key to investing

Importantly, not only has this collision of COVID and resulting policy response acted as a massive, but temporary, external “macro force” on the economic system, the disruption has also accelerated the two most important structural dynamics we follow today: the tech-driven redistribution of corporate cash flows and the demographic-led demand-for-yield. In this work-from-home world, the nascent shifts to online shopping, online food delivery, at-home exercise, etc. are being pushed into overdrive. And while the monetary policy response provides a near-term safety net for markets, it further exacerbates the supply/demand imbalance for high-quality yielding assets, as newly printed dollars soak up Treasury and corporate bond issuance.

The hastening of these two long-term trends has played a nearly unbelievable role in the remarkable recovery in financial asset prices from late March to today. As we write, the NASDAQ now has positive performance year-to-date, with contributions from each of the five largest companies. By contrast, the banking, industrial, and small-cap equity sectors are down between -20% and -40%, and near all-time record lows on a ratio to the broader indices. In fixed income, the current yield on the Bloomberg Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index sat at record lows coming into May. By year-end, the Fed’s purchases of financial assets will equate to nearly 45% of the size of the entire U.S. Agg. The investable cash flows in the world are seemingly either being bought by the Fed or are being concentrated in the hands of a few incredibly innovative technology companies.

This dispersion of cash flows is perhaps the most important investment conclusion today as we look to build portfolios for the remainder of 2020 and beyond. But how do you allocate assets when the top five U.S. equities comprise 20% of the S&P 500 Index market capitalization? The tech-heavy NASDAQ is nearly eight times the size of the Russell 2000, and amazingly, the combined market cap of MSFT, AAPL, and AMZN is now roughly the size of the entire U.S. high yield bond market! This concentration and dispersion are made even more extreme when you consider that the post-COVID economic path is almost unanalyzable with many sectors facing existential threats. Security selection is more difficult than ever; but that also makes it more valuable than ever.

So, how does one build an optimal portfolio that provides attractive yield, avoids credit left-tail risk, and achieves portfolio balance at a time when single companies are virtually the size of an entire asset class? From the bottom up, we are seeking out the companies that are most sustainably investing in innovative capital expenditure and research and development. Specifically, we’re looking to invest in firms that defend against, or takes advantage of, the disinflationary demographic trends we describe. Or, in companies that have developed business models placing them on the right side of technological disruption, and that makes their cash flows durably in both a COVID and post-COVID world. Through this lens, we can try to identify which entities are able to generate attractive returns on invested capital at reasonable costs, which provides a great foundation for consistently outperforming the broader market today.

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Portfolio allocation considerations

From a top-down perspective, there is not enough return potential in the highest-rated parts of fixed income, like U.S. Treasuries, mortgages and municipals to warrant a meaningful allocation. Except for the very back-end of the Treasury curve, Fed buying and the reach for quality have depressed these yields already. Long-end Treasuries should continue to provide a hedge, or balance, to an investment portfolio, but also could experience bouts of supply-driven weakness due to funding requirements for these extremely large fiscal initiatives being implemented. We also do like owning some Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), for which our colleagues make a very persuasive case. While we maintain our long-held view that inflation will be very well contained, current market pricing offers too great of a discount to ignore.

As we will discuss further in a forthcoming Blog Post, we expect a diverse mix of “middle-quality” fixed income assets, with yields in the mid-single digits, to likely perform well in the year ahead, particularly if paired with adept security selection that accounts for the secular trends we have discussed. We see such opportunities in the U.S. investment-grade new issue market, as well as in parts of the high yield bond market. As noted earlier, the high yield market may not be large enough for building durable portfolios at scale, but the fundamental dispersion of its constituents presents a great opportunity to parse through and strategically accumulate the best placed assets. In fact, we think credit rating may not matter as much today as sector exposure, or asset collateral, and deal structuring will play a huge role in determining outcomes going forward.

This same thematic dispersion is true across the disparate pools of collateral that back securitized assets, as well as the varied fundamental fortunes within the emerging markets world, as those nations battle the ongoing pandemic. We are comfortable taking positions in these asset classes today, but again, through a filter of intense security selection, and generally at the higher quality ends of the spectrum.

As for equities, while the ferocious April rally leaves major U.S. indices a bit stretched, tactically, we strongly believe that equities should be valued for the long-lived streams of cash flows they represent. With some conservative assumptions, the current valuations of U.S. equites, viewed through a longer-term lens, are fair at worst, and arguably appear quite attractive, and worth owning in a well-balanced portfolio. For the time being, though, we would keep those holdings at mid-level exposures to provide room to expand allocations in the event of potential market consolidation in the week and months ahead.

Finally, between elevated implied volatility in risk assets and record-low Treasury yields, hedges are quite difficult today. In fact, we like selling volatility as a source of income again. With rates market volatility having dropped precipitously, it stands to reason that the rest of the asset stack can in time follow suit, with ubiquitous monetary policy support in the background. Beyond that owning a bit of gold as a hedge, and keeping some extra cash on hand, also both make sense.

In conclusion, asset prices in 2020 have seen a Newton’s cradle dynamic in hyper-speed with extreme momentum to the downside being quickly offset by overt support from policy makers, leaving us now somewhere in the middle. While we see an eventual policy-led path back toward a fundamental equilibrium for our economic Newton’s cradle, we are not quite there yet. Along the way, identifying and positioning around the underlying dispersions we discuss will be the single most important factor in generating additional return as 2020 unfolds.

Rick Rieder, Managing Director, is BlackRock’s Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income and is Head of the Global Allocation Investment Team. Russell Brownback, Managing Director, is Head of Global Macro positioning for Fixed Income, and both are regular contributors to The Blog. Trevor Slaven, Director, is a portfolio manager on BlackRock’s Global Fixed Income team and is also the Head of Macro Research for Fundamental Fixed Income, and he co-authored this post.

Investing involves risks, including possible loss of principal. Fixed income risks include interest-rate and credit risk. Typically, when interest rates rise, there is a corresponding decline in bond values. Credit risk refers to the possibility that the bond issuer will not be able to make principal and interest payments.  International investing involves risks, including risks related to foreign currency, limited liquidity, less government regulation and the possibility of substantial volatility due to adverse political, economic or other developments. These risks may be heightened for investments in emerging markets. This material is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast, research or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt any investment strategy. The opinions expressed are as of May 7, 2020 and may change as subsequent conditions vary. The information and opinions contained in this post are derived from proprietary and non-proprietary sources deemed by BlackRock to be reliable, are not necessarily all-inclusive and are not guaranteed as to accuracy. As such, no warranty of accuracy or reliability is given and no responsibility arising in any other way for errors and omissions (including responsibility to any person by reason of negligence) is accepted by BlackRock, its officers, employees or agents. This post may contain “forward-looking” information that is not purely historical in nature. Such information may include, among other things, projections and forecasts. There is no guarantee that any forecasts made will come to pass. Reliance upon information in this post is at the sole discretion of the reader. Prepared by BlackRock Investments, LLC, member Finra ©2020 BlackRock, Inc. All rights reserved. BLACKROCK is a registered trademark of BlackRock, Inc., or its subsidiaries in the United States or elsewhere. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. USRMH0520U-1188495-1/4 from BlackRock Blog https://www.blackrockblog.com/2020/05/19/physics-of-economic-and-financial-distress/

[scottmapess]

WHY I DECIDED TO SELL ALL OF MY BITCOIN! DON’T WORRY!!! CHEAP BITCOIN AHEAD!

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT

No, this is not clickbait. I did sell all my bitcoin. Why? Because I firmly believe that to buy bitcoin cheaper. Why? Because a half thing is coming up. Institutions who have bought LTC Bitcoin in twenty eighteen forced cheapest three thousand dollars are looking for guaranteed. That’s right. Now guaranteed places, not speculation to where they can put their funds and make money. The stock market doesn’t offer that. Commodities don’t offer that right now. Hell, oil is even off of that right now. But PPE, personal protective equipment, things like medical mask, body bags and ventilators offers that opportunity. So they’re jumping all over that. The Bitcoin has also offered that opportunity. It gives them the opportunity to go in there and trade against the hype. That’s exactly what’s going to happen because they have bitcoin as cheap as three thousand dollars from 2018 is T-C market. They can wreak havoc on the retailers and also the miners who need the price of bitcoin to go up. So what’s gonna happen? You’re gonna see a sell the news kind of event happen in my period and in my opinion, and then that period of time is gonna be an eye-opener. And the reason for my tweets yesterday, if my fans who watch is there such huge false narrative sold about bitcoin being the perfect money for the world. It’s not so perfect money for you and me because we own it. It’s for us. It’s not for businesses like big corporations. It’s not for your central banks. It is not for your government. These entities need a debt-driven system in order to function. That little cell phone that we all carry with us needs a debt-driven system in order to be produced and sold. The microphone I’m using, same thing, the camera you guys are watching me through right now. Debt driven systems, the computer I’m on right now. Debt driven systems allow for the manufacturer and seller of these items without debt-driven systems. You can’t have the world we have today in order for bitcoin to be that kind of money that so many people on Twitter are shilling it to you. Well, you better sacrifice the luxuries. We’ve got to change our way of life. And then bitcoin can be that perfect money. Majority of the narratives you were sold on as far as bitcoin and people encourage you to go out there and buy bitcoin right now or long or short it. Okay. Are those who follow up with a referral link with Vibert or beatniks or Femm X? Okay, now is not the time to go and leverage trade. Now is not the time to worry about buying bitcoin. Right now is the time for you to go and worry about yourself, your family, your loved ones, your friends taking care of the people that matter to you most. Making sure you have access to all the necessities necessary to get through the craziness of this virus, which is moving through like a slow hurricane. So if you’re wondering why I was tweeting, the way tweeted yesterday is because the narratives that people are getting sold are being sold to you by people who are prospering from you going in there and buying and leverage trading and try to live that lifestyle. What most of you do not know is when you see people doing that, the money they have earned from their trades. Most of our very unsuccessful, terrible traders, the money they make from you, the affiliate links that they feel like commissions. Okay. The narratives you’re being sold on are very false. It’s a build-up your hope. You don’t do that. There are more important things to worry about. And I’m telling you, this is trickling down in ways that people have even thought manufacturers markdown down bitcoin miners as price drops right now. Actually, I can buy bitcoin miners top the line miner for 20 percent cheaper. Buy guarantee this at the rate that things are going down. I’m going to be able to buy my miners a guy. Again, this is warming cash. I’m in cash. So I have liquidity. I have the ability to go and buy stocks. American Airlines United go out by buying Disney, go buy Tesla. I want to I have the liquidity to go out there and buy even minors, whatever. The time is perfect and even buy more bitcoin. So right now I’m staying in cash on liquid. Okay. So these bitcoin miners, I guarantee you next month are going to get cheaper, which really frustrating those. Yes, the s 19 is out, but only for China. So freaking frustrating. But they use minor side right now. Use miners are freaking. You can buy that right now. Bittman’s advertising. Yes, 17 plus for fifteen hundred. You can buy a used one for less than $1000 right now. I guarantee you next month you might even buy it for about six or seven hundred dollars it just yet I guarantee you. Watch when the halfling happens and the price of bitcoin doesn’t move and a block away get cut in half and it’s in the price movement of people trying to push it up, gets traded against these miners, will get cheap. And then and there will be a point where bitcoin has to breakout is going to break out at some point. But right now in this, economic uncertainty is the perfect place to go and trade against to make sure if you’re a fund, hedge fund or institution that you’re still profitable. And I’m not the only one that has these theories. I know this makes you make me very unpopular, but I told. You guys, before the virus really got serious, I said the price this is going to impact Bitcoin. This is going to bring the price of Bitcoin down, especially as infrastructure gets shut down. If infrastructure starts getting shutting down and people start not going to work, the price of bitcoins will go down. Everyone’s said all know Krystof you’re wrong, you’re negative. It’s FUD. Guess what happened? The price of bitcoin went down. And I’m trying to tell you again, the spot where people are going to trade against and try to profit. Is this happening now? I’m not the only one again that feels this in this oracle. What to expect when you’re expecting the bitcoin block. Having everything I’ve been saying for months about. We have elements now that never existed before. The institutional elements, the regulatory elements, the the the banking elements. And this just it goes on and on. Right. All the institutional futures that exist. All these elements exist today that never existed. Previous hafnium. And now you start to see people paying attention to that, especially now the price of bitcoin is going down. You realize you’re not bulletproof. They’re talking about all this now like, hey, this hacking event is going to be completely different than before. Imagine if you were an institution and you imagine managing a billion dollars, get your billion dollars and you’re managing these funds and you’re trying to make sure your clients make the most money, but you’re always looking for the guaranteed thing. What is that one thing that’s gonna go up in price that maybe we can leverage against and maximize profits? And he hears about this thing called Bitcoin is having. Tell me you wouldn’t go there and hedge against it. Hedge against it. Make sure you bet against it. Bring the price down at that point that you feel like he’s exhausted by that bottom because you will know where that bottom is going to be of that freaking that that that onslaught right. By that bottom from that point and let it ride itself back up. You just doubled your profits. And that’s exactly what’s going to happen. And this is things that people are talking about right now. I like how he says is when all of these factors are considered. He says it right here. I believe the halving will be more along the lines of selling the news event or possibly even followed by muted prices. And things are so bad right now in the crypto space, everyone thinks it’s the crypto space. Did it get impact? The Bitcoin dot.com, far as 50 percent of its staff as bitcoin cash having approaches is fear factor set in. Here is the thing about bitcoin. Dot.com is held by Roger Ver. No one likes him. I don’t like him because of what he’s done for bitcoin. But you can not take away the fact that he has been an excellent business person. He has done a fantastic job of growing that company. He has done a fantastic job of managing his people to see an entity like that. Go ahead and get rid of 50 percent of their staff tells me that he also is anticipating the same kind of thing to happen to his entity. It’s real. You’re seeing blockchain companies fire people at an unprecedented rate right now. And you have to remember, as far as firing goes, the whole world is experiencing this unemployment rate prior on 13 percent here in the United States alone. Just in the United States, that’s 10 million people unemployed and rising and rising. Disney just announced, for instance, is laying off, furloughing sorry, several thousands of people. They didn’t give an exact number. We have retail companies shutting down, like completely shutting down. They can’t pay their bills. They are already struggling because of online sales. People are getting fired. People are getting fired is not just the United States. It’s also people like China. China’s unemployment crisis. But nobody knows the true number of jobless. They estimate about $205 million, Chinese worker. Right. Workers can’t find jobs right now or are unable to return to previous jobs. Two hundred five million of them. That’s just an estimate. A low ball estimate based off of the available data that people can find right now. There’s not enough retail money to support these things. You see, retail money is one of the biggest supporters, the price of Bitcoin. Many people to understand how the world leveraged trading has actually impacted the price of bitcoin. It’s a revolving door. They need all these new retail money to come in and lose, get liquidated to pump the institutional money and also to control the price of bitcoin. I mean, it’s it’s a vicious, vicious cycle. It is. It’s a dirty, dirty cycle. I’m telling you what, I am staying out of bitcoin for right now. For right now, I firmly feel that we’re going to see it get traded again. I know there was talk about the triangle format. Right. We’re in right now. The centre triangle. I don’t care. We break out of it. I don’t care. We hit eight thousand dollars in the next week. It could happen. I know that is going to be traded against because it’s something that mainstream has known about knows about now. We’ve asked for institutions to come in our space and play in thinking that was going to pump the price of bitcoin. But in fact, all the models are designed to bet against the price of bitcoin, not bitcoin. Self-right, not to help Bitcoin itself, I firmly feel that I will be able to buy back into my Bitcoin. So maybe, maybe less than $2000. Even if it’s just a flash crash, even a crash crash came and speak straight. I feel I’ll have that opportunity. I do. That doesn’t. That’s just my thoughts, my thought, my opinion. I shared these with you guys before it. I’ve been blasted before, but I haven’t been that wrong, have I? Listen, guys, that’s all I got for today. I know that no one likes to hear this kind of stuff, but I haven’t been wrong. I haven’t been wrong about how this was going to react with a virus. I haven’t been wrong as far as well as far as where the price of bitcoin is going to go for this year. OK. I haven’t either. It’s not that I don’t believe in it. We just have too many powers in place. Hurting the price of bitcoin. All right, guys. So listen, stay safe. Stay indoors. Don’t go anywhere, necessarily. See it. See you guys next time. Game it speaks for. And then a video log. Die vs L.

source https://www.cryptosharks.net/why-i-decided-to-sell-all-of-my-bitcoin/ source https://cryptosharks1.blogspot.com/2020/04/why-i-decided-to-sell-all-of-my-bitcoin.html