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This crap is beyond the pale ---- entire crypto BS all smoke and mirrors !
Over my paygrade...but, I do have a question....just WHERE (and how applied) does that $100M judgement go to???? NY state coffers?? For what / for whom ?? Same old same old.....follow the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ !
Coinbase Reaches $100 Million Settlement With New York Regulators
The U.S. crypto exchange will pay a $50 million fine for letting customers open accounts with few background checks and spend $50 million to improve compliance.
Matthew GoldsteinEmily Flitter
By Matthew Goldstein and Emily Flitter
Jan. 4, 2023
Updated 9:48 a.m. ET
Coinbase, a publicly traded cryptocurrency trading exchange based in the United States, agreed to pay a $50 million fine after financial regulators found that it let customers open accounts without conducting sufficient background checks, in violation of anti-money-laundering laws.
The settlement with the New York State Department of Financial Services, announced Wednesday, will also require Coinbase to invest $50 million to bolster its compliance program, which is supposed to prevent drug traffickers, sellers of child pornography and other potential lawbreakers from opening accounts with the exchange.
It’s the latest hit to the once-highflying global cryptocurrency trading business. Several cryptocurrency firms have filed for bankruptcy over the past year — most notably FTX, which was the world’s second-largest crypto exchange before it collapsed in November. Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder, and other top FTX executives now face federal criminal charges.
The compliance problems at Coinbase were first detected during a routine examination in 2020 after the exchange secured a license to operate in New York in 2017, regulators said. They found problems with the exchange’s anti-money-laundering controls going as far back as 2018.
Coinbase initially agreed to hire an independent consultant to help overhaul its day-to-day operations so that they met requirements set by anti-money-laundering laws to know the identities of customers and monitor their behavior for suspicious activity.
But that did not fix the company’s problems, and regulators opened a formal investigation in 2021. The exchange had fallen behind on two key operations: digging deeper into the backgrounds of customers whose identities seemed murky at first glance and following up on the suspicious-activity alerts that its internal monitoring system generated.
By late 2021, Coinbase had a backlog of more than 100,000 alerts about potential suspicious customer transactions that were not being properly examined, according to the Department of Financial Services. Regulators also found that Coinbase performed only the most rudimentary “know your customer” checks on people before letting them open accounts. The exchange treated customer background checks as a “simple check-the-box exercise,” they said.
.
In one instance, Coinbase unwittingly helped a digital thief steal $150 million from an unnamed company by claiming to be an employee of that company when opening a Coinbase account.
The company’s procedures in vetting the backgrounds of customers were so inadequate that early last year, regulators ordered Coinbase to hire an outside monitor — separate from the independent consultant the firm had previously agreed to hire — to oversee its compliance, even as the formal investigation was underway.
“We found failures that really warranted putting in place an independent monitor rather than wait for a settlement,” Adrienne A. Harris, New York State’s superintendent of financial services, said in an interview. “We have been very outspoken about illicit financing concerns in the space. It is why our framework holds crypto companies to the same standard as for banks.”
“Coinbase remains committed to being a leader and role model in the crypto space, and this means partnering with regulators when it comes to compliance and other areas,” the company’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, wrote in a blog post on its website on Wednesday.
The settlement, which says Coinbase is still moving too slowly in its efforts to review its older accounts for suspicious features, will require the exchange to work with the monitor for at least another year as it puts in place systems to improve its compliance operation. New York regulators did not identify the monitor.
Ms. Harris said Coinbase’s compliance department had failed to keep up with the exchange’s rapid growth. Founded in San Francisco in 2012, Coinbase has a market capitalization of more than $7.6 billion and is the largest crypto trading platform based in the United States, with 100 million users worldwide. Most of its peers are based in jurisdictions where regulations are typically lighter. FTX, for example, was based in the Bahamas.
But the U.S. authorities have long worried about the cryptocurrency industry’s potential to weaken global anti-money-laundering protections because, for years, industry leaders prided themselves on their efforts to evade regulation.
The industry itself sprang into existence without the oversight and scrutiny that are routine for banks, brokerages, insurance firms and investment firms. Over the past decade, state and federal authorities have taken whatever steps they could to bring exchanges like Coinbase and its overseas peers into line.
New York was one of the first states to require crypto firms to obtain licenses before seeking business from state customers, known as BitLicenses. To date, the state has issued roughly 30.
In August, the Department of Financial Services fined the crypto trading arm of the financial brokerage Robinhood $30 million for violating a host of financial regulations, including anti-money-laundering laws. In November, the Treasury Department announced a settlement with another U.S.-based exchange, Kraken, over trading services it provided to customers in Iran that violated U.S. sanctions.
According to the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, Kraken enabled around $1.7 million in transactions over four years. It agreed to pay over $360,000 to settle the matter.
Federal prosecutors have also been examining whether overseas firms are properly screening the backgrounds of customers. The authorities are investigating potential anti-money-laundering violations by Binance, the world’s largest crypto trading exchange, according to news reports and a person familiar with the matter.
Until the fall of 2021, Binance allowed customers making deposits under a certain amount to open accounts without being subjected to a rigorous identity-verification process. Binance’s erstwhile rival, FTX, was also being investigated for failing to follow anti-money-laundering rules.
Federal prosecutors in New York have charged Mr. Bankman-Fried with overseeing a scheme to misappropriate billions of dollars in customer deposits at FTX.
Coinbase recently sought to distinguish itself from FTX. In one television ad, the exchange said that customer deposits at its firm were safe and secure, and that crypto investors could take comfort in the fact that Coinbase was a U.S.-based, publicly traded company “with regular audits and transparent accounting.”
In a November regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Coinbase disclosed that it had been the subject of an investigation by New York financial regulators into its compliance with bank secrecy laws. The company said at the time that it was cooperating with the investigation.
In the same regulatory filing, Coinbase also said it had received “investigative subpoenas and requests” for documents from the S.E.C. about some of its customer programs and products.
“We have seen this argument that regulation and an innovation can’t live together,” Ms. Harris said. “But if you are a good, responsible actor, you should be able to still do business.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/04/business/coinbase-settlement-anti-money-laundering.html
Why Deere thinks satellites are the next big technology to invest in
PUBLISHED TUE, JAN 3 20236:54 PM ESTUPDATED TUE, JAN 3 20237:24 PM EST
KEY POINTS
John Deere’s Chief Technology Officer Jahmy Hindman told CNBC the world’s largest agriculture equipment player is in the process of finalizing a satellite partner.
The goal is essentially to create a geospatial map that farmers can use to better track productivity and the performance of crops.
Currently, farmers can use the data collected by its See & Spray device to understand what part of the farm still needs to be fertilized. It is one of the technologies that will be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Thursday.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/why-john-deere-is-looking-for-a-satellite-partner.html
Own it.
I thought about buying an EV but I still don't think the technology is all there.
You forget F also makes Lincolns and other cars.
Ford says F-Series pickup continued its decades-long dominance in 2022
PUBLISHED TUE, JAN 3 202311:03 AM EST
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Michael Wayland
@MIKEWAYLAND
DETROIT – The Ford F-Series continued its decades-long U.S. sales dominance in 2022, the company said Tuesday.
Ford Motor reported sales of its F-Series, which includes the F-150 pickup and its larger siblings, surpassed 640,000 trucks last year – making it America’s best-selling truck for 46 consecutive years and America’s best-selling vehicle for 41 years.
The 2022 sales make for an average of at least one F-Series Truck sold every 49 seconds last year.
Ford has attempted to prioritize production of the F-Series, including its new electric F-150 Lightning, throughout rolling shutdowns of plants due to the parts shortage in recent years. The company has even been partially building vehicles to complete them at a later date to keep production going.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/ford-f-series-2022-sales-show-pickup-continued-decades-long-dominance.html
Never invest money with someone or a firm under 50 years old.
How the hell does one manage an audit trail on all that money changing hands.
Gemini’s Winklevoss accuses crypto mogul Silbert of ‘bad faith stalling tactics’ over frozen funds
PUBLISHED TUE, JAN 3 20239:35 AM ESTUPDATED 52 MIN AGO
In an open letter, Gemini President Cameron Winklevoss accused Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert of engaging in “bad faith stalling tactics.”
Gemini is attempting to recoup $900 million of client funds which it lent to Digital Currency Group subsidiary Genesis to generate yields for its interest-bearing Gemini Earn accounts.
After FTX filed for bankruptcy, Gemini paused redemptions for Gemini Earn as Genesis Global Capital also suspended new loan originations and redemptions.
Cameron Winklevoss, president and co-founder of digital currency exchange Gemini, accused the head of crypto conglomerate Digital Currency Group of engaging in “bad faith” tactics but insists he wants to resolve a complex lending dispute with the company that emerged in the wake of FTX’s collapse.
The spat arises from a pact Gemini has with Genesis Global Capital, the lending arm of crypto investment firm Genesis Global Trading, a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group. Gemini offered users yields as high as 8% via its lending product Gemini Earn. To generate those returns, Gemini lent users’ funds to Genesis Global Capital, which in turn loaned them out to institutional borrowers.
A few days after FTX filed for bankruptcy, Gemini paused redemptions for its Gemini Earn service as Genesis Global Capital also suspended new loan originations and redemptions. Gemini has denied any exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire, but Genesis said in a Nov. 10 tweet that its derivatives business has roughly $175 million in funds locked on FTX.
Winklevoss on Monday penned an open letter to Digital Currency Group boss Barry Silbert, alleging Silbert refused to meet with the Gemini team on multiple occasions to find a resolution to the liquidity crisis facing clients of Gemini Earn.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/03/genesis-cameron-winklevoss-and-dcgs-barry-silbert-spar-over-frozen-funds.html
Genesis to Gemini, we'd gladly pay you back but sadly we put some of the money you lent us in FTX.
The boldest bitcoin calls for 2023 are out — and a 1,400% rally or a 70% plunge may be on the cards
PUBLISHED MON, JAN 2 20234:04 AM ESTUPDATED MON, JAN 2 20238:41 PM EST
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Ryan Browne
@RYAN_BROWNE_
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Arjun Kharpal
KEY POINTS
Bitcoin fell over 60% in 2022, driven lower by a series of high-profile company failures and a bleak macroeconomic climate.
Those who made predictions about bitcoin’s price last year really missed the mark.
Some market players have stuck their neck out with price calls for what could be another volatile year.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/the-boldest-bitcoin-price-predictions-for-2023.html
....Tim Draper: $250,000
Bitcoin bull Tim Draper had one of the most optimistic calls on bitcoin of 2022, predicting the token would be worth $250,000 by the end of the year.
In November, the billionaire venture capitalist said he’s extending the timeline for that prediction until mid-2023. Even after the collapse of FTX, he’s convinced the coin will hit the quarter-of-a-million milestone.
“My assumption is that since women control 80% of retail spending, and only 1 in 7 bitcoin wallets are currently held by women that the dam is about to break,” Draper told CNBC via email.
Bitcoin would need to rally 1,400% in order for it to trade at that level.
....Standard Chartered: $5,000
For some market participants, the worst is yet to come.
In a Dec. 5 research note, Standard Chartered said bitcoin may sink as low as $5,000. The prediction, one of the bank’s list of “surprises” that are being “under-priced” by markets, would represent a 70% plunge from current prices.
“Yields plunge along with technology shares” in Standard Chartered’s nightmare 2023 scenario, “and while the Bitcoin sell-off decelerates, the damage has been done,” said Eric Robertsen, the bank’s global head of research.
“More and more crypto firms and exchanges find themselves with insufficient liquidity, leading to further bankruptcies and a collapse in investor confidence in digital assets,” he added.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/the-boldest-bitcoin-price-predictions-for-2023.html
How a16z rose to fame
ByJasmine Teng
PublishedJanuary 20, 2022
Hi Quartz members,
It’s been a decade since Marc Andreessen’s “Software is eating the world” op-ed, which crystallized the thesis underlying Silicon Valley’s current boom. His venture fund, co-founded in 2009 with longtime business partner Ben Horowitz, has shattered venture capital norms with its lavish checks and speedy deals.
Twelve years in, Andreessen Horowitz (better known as a16z) has grown large enough to amass billion-dollar funds, hire a policy team that’s lobbying Washington for more favorable crypto regulation, jumpstart a separate media arm, and inspire numerous copycats across the industry.
Here’s how a16z got its start and how it transformed VC.
BY THE DIGITS
$19 billion: a16z’s assets under management
1,200+: Number of investments a16z has made, including follow-on rounds
295: Total exits of a16z’s portfolio companies
438: Number of a16z’s active portfolio companies
20: Number of venture capital funds a16z has run
$160 billion: How much venture capital was infused in startups in Q3 2021, a record
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME?
The a16z moniker came about when the founders realized the firm’s name would be difficult to spell: 16 is the number of characters between the first and last letters of “Andreessen Horowitz.”
Both of the firm’s eponymous founders made their names as entrepreneurs, a fact that became the cornerstone of the firm’s philosophy.
Marc Andreessen first rose to fame when he helped develop Mosaic, one of the first web browsers, in 1993. Mosaic evolved into Netscape, which was snapped up by AOL in 1999.
Ben Horowitz co-founded the infrastructure-as-a-service startup Opsware (then known as Loudcloud) with Andreessen in 1999. HP acquired Opsware in 2007. Before that, Horowitz served as vice president of AOL’s e-commerce division and helped run Netscape.
BREAKING FREE
A16z was established on a personal belief: That founders are the best leaders of their companies.
The duo behind a16z had seen traditional VC methods up close and weren’t always fans. In 1999, one of Horowitz’s investors asked him, then founding CEO of Loudcloud, when the company would get a “real CEO,” i.e., someone who had run large organizations in the past. Though Horowitz remained as CEO after that interaction, the question continued to “torture” him for months, he wrote in a blog post. This question spawned numerous conversations with his business partner, Andreessen, about the quality of founding vs. professional CEOs—which turned into motivation to start a16z.
In 2009, Andreessen told the Associated Press:
“We tend to be pro-megalomania. We are big fans of an inexperienced person who has great technology and wants to build a company while staying on as CEO.”
The fund began with $300 million to invest in tech startups. Three years in, a16z had raised $2.7 billion.
A16z did more than promise to keep founders in charge of their companies: they offered specialized services to help them succeed. The fund hired a slew of specialists to help with everything from recruiting to marketing to sales—functions that small startups often can’t afford.
The famed firm shook up the industry again in 2019 by shedding its venture capital status and becoming a registered investment advisor (RIA). Traditional VC funds are largely constrained to cutting checks in exchange for equity in private startups; just 20 percent of their capital can be allotted to liquid securities.
Amid a market flush with cash, transitioning to RIA status allowed a16z to invest in secondary offerings, public shares, other funds—and most importantly, to double down on crypto. In June, it announced a new $2.2 billion fund earmarked for crypto—a first among the largest VCs.
HOME RUNS
A16z vets thousands of startups each year in hopes of finding the rare unicorn (or, these days, decacorn). Here are some of its biggest payoffs so far, per Crunchbase.
THE PUSH FOR CRYPTO
Crypto is now a core part of a16z’s business. Though it’s been bullish on crypto since its 2013 bet on Coinbase, the firm has been pouring money into the sector by the bucket. Overall, it boasts a mammoth $3.1 billion under management across three crypto funds, which invest in both crypto startups and cryptocurrency itself. In the past few years, a16z has funded at least 55 crypto startups.
Image for article titled ? How a16z rose to fame
In October, a16z launched a major lobbying effort for more favorable crypto regulation in the US. It assembled a new team of experts—including a former Biden aide, an ex-Justice Department crypto prosecutor, and a recent Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) commissioner—to meet with regulators and economic aides, while publishing a letter for the Senate advocating for crypto tax policy in the infrastructure bill, a stablecoin policy framework, and four legislative proposals for the Senate Banking Committee. While a16z claims that its proposals help democratize the internet, outsiders have criticized the policies for being self-interested, leaving tax loopholes or evading regulation that protects consumers.
ONE ?? THING
In 2015, tech analyst Benedict Evans described a16z as a “media company that monetises through venture capital.” (He worked there at the time.) The firm has a burgeoning network of podcasts, newsletters, op-eds, and launched a publication called Future this year.
Andreessen is no stranger to the direct marketing approach—he’s long blogged about startups and venture capital at pmarca and is credited as the “father of the tweetstorm.” Horowitz has written two books about startups: The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are.
“[Twitter]’s like a tube and I have loudspeakers installed in every reporting cubicle around the world,” Andreessen told the New Yorker in 2015. But it hasn’t been the smoothest ride: he’s posted insensitive remarks he later apologized for, mass-blocked people, and quit the app.
https://qz.com/emails/quartz-company/2110245/%E2%9C%A6-how-a16z-rose-to-fame
SpaceX raising $750 million at a $137 billion valuation, investors include Andreessen-Horowitz
PUBLISHED MON, JAN 2 20239:00 PM ESTUPDATED MON, JAN 2 20239:40 PM EST
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Lora Kolodny
KEY POINTS
SpaceX is raising $750 million in a new round of funding that values the company at $137 billion, according to correspondence viewed by CNBC.
Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, is said to be a lead investor in the new funding round.
Early SpaceX investors included Founders Fund, Sequoia, Gigafund and others.
Elon Musk’s re-usable rocket maker and satellite internet company, SpaceX, is raising $750 million in a new round of funding that values the company at $137 billion, according to correspondence obtained by CNBC.
Last month, Bloomberg first reported that SpaceX was allowing insiders to sell at $77 per share, which would have put the company’s valuation near $140 billion. The company raised more than $2 billion in 2022, including a $250 million round in July, and was valued at $127 billion during an equity round in May, CNBC previously reported.
According to an e-mail sent to prospective SpaceX investors, Andreessen Horowitz (also known as a16z) will likely lead the new funding round. Early SpaceX investors included Founders Fund, Sequoia, Gigafund and many others.
A16z also participated in Elon Musk’s leveraged buyout of Twitter, a $44 billion deal that closed in late October 2022.
SpaceX and a16z did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year, SpaceX achieved several new milestones but faced delays to its Starship program, which is part of NASA’s effort to bring astronauts back to the moon.
On the upside, the company’s satellite internet service, Starlink, exceeded 1 million subscribers and provided a lifeline to users in Ukraine who suffered infrastructure disruptions after Russia’s invasion. SpaceX also managed to surpass 60 reusable rocket launches in a single year via its Falcon program.
The company is currently continuing development of its Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicles at the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It’s not clear when the company will move to the next step of the program, which entails an orbital launch test of these larger vehicles.
As Musk has repeatedly sounded off about geopolitical issues on Twitter, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson recently asked SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell whether his “distraction” as the new owner and CEO of Twitter might affect SpaceX’s work with the space agency, NBC News reported. Nelson said that Shotwell reassured him it would not.
NASA is now considering whether SpaceX can help rescue residents on the International Space Station, including an astronaut and two cosmonauts with Russia’s Roscomos, according to CNET. Russia’s Soyuz capsule sprung a coolant leak in December, and an investigation is underway to determine if the spacecraft can safely return the crew home or if emergency measures will need to be taken instead.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/02/spacex-raising-750-million-at-137-billion-valuation-a16z-investing.html
LOL ~~~ upside down weather world !
50* here today and tomorrow, near 60* next Tuesday!
Same to you and your family ~~~ be safe and enjoy!!
It was funny as hell. I'm glad 2022 is over and looking forward to the New Year. They literally tried to kill me while trying to save me and now all is getting back to normal.
Happy New Year to you and yours and thanks for being a friend.
BTW last week it was colder here then up north where my dad used to live.
Dave Barry’s 2022 Year in Review
By Dave Barry
December 25, 2022 at 12:01 a.m. EST
The best thing we can say about 2022 is: It could have been worse.
For example, we could have had nuclear Armageddon. This briefly appeared to be a possibility, at least according to the president, who broke the news in October at (Why not?) a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of a wealthy donor in New York City. That must have been an exciting event! One moment everybody’s standing around chewing hors d’oeuvres, and the next moment WHOA WHAT DID HE JUST SAY?
The next day, after the news media ran a bunch of scary headlines, the White House Office of Explaining What the President Actually Meant explained that the president wasn’t suggesting that we were facing Armageddon per se, but was merely, as is his wont, emitting words, one of which happened to be “Armageddon,” and everybody should just calm down.
So we dodged a bullet there.
And there were other positive developments in 2022:
— Millions of Americans on social media realized — it took them a while, but they finally got there — that nobody wants to know how they did on “Wordle.”
— For the 13th consecutive year, the New York Yankees failed to even get into the World Series.
— Best of all, the looming apocalyptic threat of catastrophic global climate change was finally eliminated thanks to the breakthrough discovery that the solution — it has been staring us in the face all this time — was to throw food at art.
So 2022 had some positives. Which is not to say that it was good. In fact it was the opposite of good, specifically, bad. The economy continued to stagger around like the last stoner out of Burning Man. We lost Angela Lansbury, Sidney Poitier, Loretta Lynn, Gilbert Gottfried, Christine McVie and Meat Loaf. Democracy died at least three times.
Maybe Armageddon wouldn’t have been so bad.
Anyway, it’s over. But before we move on to 2023, it’s time to don surgical gloves, reach deep down inside the big bag of stupid that was 2022, and see what we pull out, starting with ...
January
… which begins with the world entering the third or possibly eighth year — nobody remembers anymore — of the pandemic. The American public is seriously divided: Everybody who is wearing a mask hates everybody who is not wearing a mask, and vice versa. Both sides are 100 percent supported by The Science.
Vaccines also continue to be a subject of heated disagreement, to the point where — you may vaguely recall this — Neil Young demands that his music be removed from Spotify. This is a sentence we never envisioned writing in connection with vaccines, but here we are.
America faces three major crises: spiking covid-19 cases, soaring inflation and an alarming surge in the number of people who think it’s okay to hold loud FaceTime conversations in public. The national mood is gloomy, and it’s taking a heavy political toll on President Biden, as voters increasingly question whether he is up to the job of leading the nation, or for that matter finishing his sentences.
According to the polls, the two biggest concerns of the public, by far, are the pandemic and the economy. Consequently Congress is focused, laserlike, on: the Senate filibuster rule. This is a legislative tactic that is evil when the other side uses it but good when your side uses it. At the moment the Democrats want to change the rule, so of course the Republicans, led by Sen. Mitch “I am smiling, damn it” McConnell, are opposed to changing it, which means Washington is consumed by a bitter, vicious, nasty, name-calling battle pitting the Democrats against Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who are also Democrats.
In the end, as is so often the case with these burning issues that consume the nation’s capital, nothing happens, which is the whole point of the constitutional system of checks and balances put into place by the Founding Fathers, all of whom — and this is a testament to their wisdom and foresight — are dead.
Meanwhile the national debt, for the first time ever, creeps over $30 trillion, which is more than the entire U.S. economy is worth. Fortunately this is nothing to worry about. Forget we even brought it up.
In other financial news, more and more people are buying “cryptocurrencies,” which appeal to investors because the cryptocurrency market is not controlled by the government. Instead it is controlled by 13-year-old Justin Weeblemonger of Teaneck, N.J., who runs the whole shebang out of his PlayStation 5. (Justin also controls airline fares.)
In sports, Georgia defeats Alabama in the AT&T Ram Trucks Allstate Capital One Disney Bob’s Burgers Dr Pepper Gatorade Siri Taco Bell Bowl to become champions of professional college football.
Speaking of trucks, in …
February
… there is trouble in, of all places, Canada. The news up there is that the capital city, Ottawa (from the Algonquin word “adawe,” meaning “Washington”) is besieged by a massive protest convoy of trucks, clogging the streets, honking horns, blocking traffic and making it impossible for anybody to get anywhere. Granted, this is the situation pretty much every day in, for example, New York City, but apparently in Canada it is a big deal. As tensions mount, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in a controversial move, invokes emergency powers enabling the government to freeze the protesters’ access to beaver pelts.
Ha-ha! We are poking some good-natured fun at Canada, which is actually a modern nation and an important trading partner that we depend on to supply us with many vital things. Celine Dion is only one example. In all seriousness, the Canadian trucker strike is a significant event that raises some important issues, which everyone immediately stops caring about because of the situation in Ukraine.
Ukraine is a nation that, through poor planning, is located right next to Russia. This is unfortunate because Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man who relaxes by putting kittens into a food processor, has long wanted to establish closer ties with Ukraine, in the same sense that a grizzly bear wants to establish closer ties with a salmon.
On Feb. 24 the Russian army invades Ukraine. Everyone assumes the Russians will easily prevail, but the Ukrainians put up a surprisingly strong resistance (we are using the term “resistance” in the sense of “physically fighting back,” as opposed to “tweeting defiant hashtags”). Most of the world rallies around the underdog Ukrainians and their charismatic president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian and actor who is basically the opposite of Vladimir Putin. (Although to be fair, if Putin did comedy, he would kill.)
On the medical front, many states and municipalities drop their mask mandates as elected officials become aware of new scientific data showing that there is a strong statistical correlation between enforcing mask mandates and not getting reelected.
In sports, the Winter Olympics, held in the quaint and picturesque ski resort of Beijing, attract a U.S. viewing audience estimated to be Al Roker’s immediate family. In a massively huge pro football development, Tom Brady announces his retirement, which means we can finally move on after many decades of hearing about the historic greatness of Tom Brady.
Speaking of stars, in …
March
… Will Smith slaps Chris Rock during the Oscars and is arrested for assault.
No, that’s what would happen to a noncelebrity such as yourself. Will Smith, on the other hand, sits back down and shortly thereafter receives an Oscar and a standing ovation. This incident results in a massive outpouring of media think pieces from media thinkers pondering the significance of The Slap. This story dominates the news for days, receiving far more coverage than the war in Ukraine, which is still going on but which unfortunately, from a public relations standpoint, does not involve any American celebrities.
In economic news, inflation continues to worsen despite intensive efforts by the Biden administration to explain that it is caused by Vladimir Putin, corporate greed, covid, supply-chain issues, global climate change, the filibuster rule, the murder hornets and various other factors totally unrelated to any policies of the Biden administration. For its part, the Republican National Committee issues a formal statement declaring that “rampant inflation places a terrible financial burden on American working families, and we totally hope it stays bad until the midterm elections no wait we didn’t mean to say that last part out loud.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearings on President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown Jackson. She is clearly qualified, so this is an excellent opportunity for Republican senators — who believe the Democrats behaved like scum in hearings for equally qualified Republican nominees — to show that they have more decency and class. But of course this is impossible under our current political system, under which the primary function of government is to gain revenge. So the Republicans get even by behaving scummily toward Jackson, thus reinforcing the growing public perception that both sides are scum.
In other legislative action, the Senate passes a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent, meaning Americans would no longer have to adjust to a time change twice a year for no apparent reason. The bill is referred to the House Languishing Committee, thereby guarding against the danger that Congress might actually accomplish something useful.
In entertainment news, the venerable Rolling Stones announce that they will hit the road this summer for their Drool on the Microphone Tour. This will be the Stones’ seventh tour since 2003, when their physical bodies finally disintegrated into small piles of dust and they were replaced by holograms. The good news is, ticket prices for the new tour will start as low as $150. The bad news is the $150 seats are so far from the stage that the sound will not reach them until after the concert is over.
Speaking of aging superstars: Tom Brady, nearly six full weeks after stunning the sports world by announcing his historic retirement, once again stuns the sports world by announcing that he is coming out of retirement, thus triggering a long-overdue wave of stories about the historic greatness of Tom Brady.
In other sports news, the Major League Baseball lockout ends as owners and players approve a collective bargaining agreement, with some rule changes intended to make their product more attractive to modern fans, including starting games in the seventh inning, referring to runs as “touchdowns” and at some random point in every game releasing a large venomous snake in the infield. Also, noncompetitive franchises such as the Minnesota Twins will be permitted to end their seasons in mid-August because, in the words of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, “What’s the point?”
Speaking of fundamental American institutions in peril, in …
April
… Elon Musk says he wants to buy Twitter for $44 billion, which works out to one dollar for every apocalyptic tweet emitted about the sale by alarmed verified Twitter users who are deeply concerned about the precedent of allowing billionaires to buy major media platforms, which have traditionally been small mom-and-pop operations like The Washington Post and Facebook. Another verified concern is that Musk favors “free speech,” which we are putting in quotation marks because although it sounds good — Free speech! — if everyone is allowed to have it willy-nilly, the public could be exposed to misinformation that has not been verified by the verifiers, as opposed to the current situation, in which everything on Twitter is 100 percent accurate.
Meanwhile, for a few exciting hours, a trending topic on political Twitter, which we swear we are not making up, is “testicle tanning.” Don’t even ask.
In pandemic news, a federal judge rules that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cannot require people to wear masks on airplanes and other public transportation. This leads to a calm and rational debate on the benefits of masks, with both sides citing scientific data to support their positions, and nobody accusing anybody of having bad motives. Then Dorothy wakes up and she’s back in Kansas.
On the economic front, inflation continues to strain the economy despite intensified efforts by the Biden administration to have the president read teleprompter statements about it between trips to Delaware.
In other leadership news, Florida’s combative Gov. Ron DeSantis, always looking for new things to combat, takes on an insidious threat to the state’s families and the American way of life: Disney. The issue is that Walt Disney Co. expressed an opinion deemed unacceptable by the governor, leaving him with no choice but to sign a law that would:
1. Strip Disney of its special legal status (currently it is classified as a “Kingdom”).
2. Require Donald Duck to put on a pair of pants.
3. Require Disney to, quote, “undo whatever it did to the governor’s official vehicle” (currently it is a pumpkin).
Speaking of insidious threats, in …
May
… Americans learn that there is a new medical danger for them to be nervous about: “monkeypox.” The CDC, in an official statement, notes that there are “very few confirmed cases” and urges the public to “remain calm,” adding that “we all have to die sometime.”
Meanwhile parents scramble desperately to find baby formula amid a shortage that has left U.S. store shelves bare, although there are plentiful supplies abroad. In an emergency effort reminiscent of the legendary Berlin Airlift, the U.S. government provides temporary relief by using an Air Force transport plane to fly 35 tons of American babies to Germany. The operation is deemed a success, although, as an official noted, “afterward we had to burn the plane.”
The war in Ukraine continues but receives less and less coverage in the United States as Americans turn their attention to the historic Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial. At issue is Heard’s 2018 Washington Post op-ed alleging that Depp, once the embodiment of cool in the role of dashing pirate Captain Jack Sparrow, has developed a case of face bloat and currently looks, quote, “like the owner of a struggling water-bed store.”
The nation is shocked when an 18-year-old with a disturbing social media history uses a semiautomatic rifle he obtained legally to commit a horrific mass murder. Ten days later, the nation is again shocked when another 18-year-old with a disturbing social media history uses a semiautomatic rifle he obtained legally to commit a horrific mass murder. Clearly nothing could have been done to prevent these tragedies, so the nation has no choice but to wait until it is time to be shocked again.
On the inflation front, food and gasoline prices soar to record highs, but Americans are able to take comfort in the repeated reminders by President Biden that all of this is Vladimir Putin’s fault.
Speaking of fault, in …
June
… Johnny Depp wins his historic defamation lawsuit, with the jury ordering Amber Heard to repay the 783 billion person-hours the American public wasted watching the trial. The verdict unleashes a wave of thoughtful media think pieces the likes of which the nation has not seen since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock.
In economic news, Americans grow increasingly alarmed as the price of a gallon of gasoline and the value of the average 401(k) plan rapidly converge from opposite directions. For its part, the White House is growing increasingly irritated by the way people keep whining about soaring inflation and the collapsing stock market and the possibility of a recession while ignoring all the positive economic accomplishments that the Biden administration has achieved despite the efforts of Vladimir Putin, who — WHY DO PEOPLE KEEP FORGETTING THIS — is the cause of everything bad.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in what legal experts view as evidence of a shift to the right, rules that all previous court decisions were wrong.
The House Select Committee to Investigate the Living Hell Out of January 6th hears testimony, much of it from former members of the Trump administration, that leaves objective observers with only two possible interpretations of Donald Trump’s actions on that day:
One: Trump is a pathological narcissist who, in his delusional effort to cling to power, ignored the sane adults on his staff and listened instead to Rudy Giuliani — which is like getting legal counsel from a Magic 8 Ball — and in the end showed an utter disregard for the sanctity of his office, the rule of law, the welfare of the nation and the physical safety of thousands of people.
Two: There is no Two.
As the busy summer travel season gets underway, commercial aviation is severely disrupted across the nation because — this is a recurring problem — large numbers of people who have purchased tickets from the airlines are showing up at airports expecting the airlines to actually transport them to their intended destinations. “They keep giving us their money,” states a baffled airline-industry executive, “and we frankly have no idea why.”
Speaking of traveling, in …
July
… President Biden, on an official visit to the Middle East, is widely criticized for fist-bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, an alleged human-rights violator who is believed to have ordered the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Responding to the criticism, the White House press office explains that the president “thought it was a different Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.”
In other foreign news, Boris Johnson announces that he is resigning as prime minister of Britain so he can spend more time on his hair.
On July 4, America’s Independence Day celebration is marred by a horrendous mass killing allegedly committed by a young man who had an extremely disturbing social media history but was still able to legally obtain a semiautomatic rifle. As you can imagine, everyone is shocked.
In financial news, Elon Musk announces that he no longer wants to purchase Twitter and will instead use the $44 billion to buy two Springsteen tickets.
The House Jan. 6 committee, concluding Phase 1 of its investigation, votes unanimously to reinstall Donald Trump in the presidency so he can be impeached a third time. The committee also announces plans for “January 6: The Musical.”
The nation enjoys a welcome break from all the negative news when NASA releases images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful space telescope ever built — showing, in spectacular, never-before-seen detail, a dead squirrel on the roof of a Walmart in Plano, Tex. A NASA spokesperson promises that the images will be even more impressive “once we figure out how to point it toward space.”
In Moscow, a 7-year-old boy has his finger broken by a robot he is competing against in a chess tournament. We are not making this up. “The robot broke the child’s finger,” states Sergey Lazarev, president of the Moscow Chess Federation, adding, “This is, of course, bad.” The robot is immediately hired as director of customer relations by the U.S. airline industry.
As the month comes to a close, the economy dominates the news with the Commerce Department reporting that the U.S. gross domestic product shrank for the second consecutive quarter. Traditionally this has meant that we are in a recession, but President Biden reassures the nation that it actually is not a recession, for reasons clearly stated on the teleprompter. This triggers a heated debate in Washington between Democrats and Republicans about whether we are or are not in a recession. As always, the real winners are the American people.
Speaking of heated, in …
August
… a political firestorm is ignited when FBI agents search Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s personal residence and party rental venue, and seize classified documents as well as what a Justice Department source describes as “several thousand misappropriated packets of White House ketchup.” Trump declares that this is part of the Fake News Deep State Witch Hunt; his opponents declare that Trump is finally — This time IT’S REALLY HAPPENING, PEOPLE — going to be arrested for something. And thus the Donald Trump Show, now in its 373rd week, continues its seemingly interminable run on the center stage of American politics, like “The Phantom of the Opera,” except it never even gets to intermission.
In other political news, Congress passes the Inflation Reduction Act, which will reduce inflation because it says so right in the title. The act will also lower prescription-drug prices, fix climate change, reform the tax system and provide every qualified American with a puppy. This is viewed as a much-needed win for the Biden administration and a boost for the Democrats heading into the midterm elections, where they could also benefit from the fact that in a number of key races the Republicans have decided, for tactical reasons, to nominate lunatics.
President Biden also announces a massive program to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt. Also everybody who failed college chemistry will get bumped up to a B-plus. As is so often the case with massive government programs, this is popular with the people who will benefit from it and unpopular with the people who will pay for it.
In international news, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lands in Taiwan, strips off her pink pantsuit to reveal a camo pantsuit underneath, swims across the Taiwan Strait and single-handedly destroys a Chinese naval base. At least that’s you would think happened, based on the Chinese reaction to the Pelosi visit, which is to almost start World War III. God only knows what would have happened if we had sent, say, Cher.
A Texas jury awards nearly $50 million in damages to two Sandy Hook parents in their lawsuit against Alex Jones, who is usually described in the news media as “a conspiracy theorist” because it would be unprofessional to describe him as “a gigantic talking bowel movement.”
California environmental regulators, always in the forefront of efforts to save the planet, decree that by the year 2035 it will be illegal for any vehicle on the state’s highways to have wheels.
Speaking of states taking action, in …
September
… Ron DeSantis, who we remind you is governor of Florida, uses Florida state funds to charter two planes in Texas, which is not part of Florida, and has them transport a group of migrants from Venezuela, which is also not part of Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard, yet another place that is not part of Florida. This would be a hilarious gubernatorial prank if not for the fact that these are actual human beings, as opposed to Muppets to be deployed in a cynical game of Migrant Whack-a-Mole.
Martha’s Vineyard responds to DeSantis’s stunt by welcoming the migrants with open arms and offering them a permanent home for nearly two full days before having National Guard troops ship them off to the mainland. For its part, the White House blasts DeSantis for undermining the administration’s program for dealing with the humanitarian crisis at the border, which is to pretend that there is no humanitarian crisis at the border.
As Russian forces suffer mounting losses in Ukraine, an increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin, in what observers say is a clear violation of international law, annexes Connecticut.
In a legal development that causes widespread swooning on MSNBC, New York Attorney General Letitia James files a lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements and failure to pay $327 million worth of parking tickets. Just for fun, Trump declares that he’s guilty, while the Democrats call the lawsuit a politically motivated witch hunt. Everyone enjoys a hearty laugh before order is restored.
On a sadder note, the world mourns the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the beloved monarch who reigned over the United Kingdom during its transition from the center of a vast global empire to a popular tourist destination roughly the size of a pickleball court. She is succeeded by her 143-year-old son, King Charles the Uncomfortable, who will be officially crowned next year in a traditional British ceremony-gasm featuring numerous horses.
In response to yet another viral TikTok “challenge” video, the Food and Drug Administration issues an urgent bulletin stating that people who eat chicken that has been marinated in NyQuil “probably deserve to die.”
NASA, culminating a $300 million planetary defense project, successfully crashes a spacecraft into an asteroid 7 million miles away, only to discover that the impact has nudged the asteroid, which previously posed no threat, into a collision course with Earth. Red-faced NASA officials immediately make a “semi-urgent” request for another $300 million.
Speaking of money, in …
October
… the national debt creeps up by yet another trillion and now exceeds $31 trillion, but again this is nothing to worry about because it has absolutely no economic consequences. We don’t know why we even bother keeping track.
Speaking of money: Elon Musk announces that he has decided to buy Twitter after all, because the only Springsteen tickets he could get for $44 billion were “way the hell up in the balcony.”
But the big story in October is politics, as voters prepare to cast their ballots in what everybody on cable TV agrees will be the most historically historic midterm elections since the dawn of time. At issue is nothing less than the fate of the nation, with the voters choosing between two opposing philosophies of government, as clearly laid out to the American public in several billion dollars’ worth of informative TV commercials: On one side is the party of far-right, election-denying, coup-supporting, anti-democracy, environment-destroying, racist sexist homophobic transphobic gun-worshipping proslavery “Handmaid’s Tale” Ku Klux Klan fascists who are literal Nazis; on the other side is the party of extreme radical leftist, anti-family, anti-border, pro-rioter, criminal-coddling, tax-raising, economy-wrecking, godless un-American Communist baby-killing groomer pedophile sex perverts. The choice is yours, voters!
Meanwhile the House Jan. 6 committee subpoenas Donald Trump in a historic legal action that jubilant Democrats say will finally etc. while a defiant Trump says etc. The committee also votes to permanently designate Jan. 6 as a National Day of Thinking About January 6.
In sports, the World Series gets underway in a competition between — this bears repeating — two teams other than the New York Yankees.
Abroad, Liz Truss resigns as prime minister of the United Kingdom after a turbulent term lasting a little under 14 minutes. She is replaced by Rishi Sunak, whose name can be rearranged to spell “Is A Hunk, Sir.” In China, President Xi Jinping wins an unprecedented third term when delegates to the Communist Party congress unanimously elect, after careful consideration, not to die.
Speaking of matters of life-or-death importance, in …
November
...as the historic midterm elections approach, with the fate of democracy hanging in the balance, verified blue check mark media personalities on Twitter focus with a ferocious intensity on the single most critical issue facing the nation, if not the world: the status of verified blue check mark media personalities on Twitter.
The problem is that Elon Musk intends to charge people $8 a month for a blue check mark, which would mean any nonelite rando could get one, which would be a blatant violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Twitter Verification Clause. Some verified users go so far as to declare, on Twitter, that they are seriously considering leaving Twitter, although it is not immediately clear what they would do with the extra 14 hours per day.
The verified drama on Twitter is interrupted, briefly, by the midterm elections. For weeks the political experts, relying on Scientific Polling Data, have been predicting a Red Wave, with the Republicans taking control of the House and Senate as well as large swaths of Canada. The outlook is so dire that the New York Times tweets out a list of five “evidence-based strategies” for coping with election anxiety, including — we swear we are not making this up — “Plunge your face into a bowl with ice water for 15 to 30 seconds.”
But then the voters — who do not have access to Scientific Polling Data — go to the polls. It takes a while to get the final results, in part because Arizona has chosen to tabulate the vote on a malfunctioning Etch-a-Sketch. But in the end the Red Wave turns out to be more of a pinkish squirt, with most of the candidates belonging to the Republican Party’s Loon Wing losing.
It’s a good outcome for the Democrats, not counting the 14 New York Times readers who, tragically, drown in their ice-water bowls. It is an especially bad outcome for Donald Trump, who, after most of the candidates he backed lose to Democrats, lashes out at the obvious cause of the Republicans’ poor performance: Ron DeSantis. A few days later, Trump, having established what kind of a winner he is, announces that he is — Why not? — running for president again.
With the midterms out of the way, the focus of professional journalism returns to Twitter, and which professional journalists are leaving Twitter, and where they are going, and whether Twitter will survive. If you think we are exaggerating the amount of attention this topic receives from the journalism profession, then clearly you are not a professional journalist.
In finance, the big story is the catastrophic collapse of cryptocurrency giant FTX, which implodes as stunned investors discover that maybe it’s not such a great idea to trust your money to a company with a meaningless name and an incomprehensible business model headed by the fourth runner-up in a John Belushi look-alike contest.
Meanwhile the World Cup gets underway in Qatar, a small desert nation with no soccer tradition that was chosen to host the world’s biggest tournament by officials of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, as part of an effort to extend the reach of their sport into regions of the world capable of paying very large bribes.
Speaking of scandals: Entertainment-industry giant Ticketmaster comes under intense criticism when millions of disappointed Taylor Swift fans discover that all of the tickets to Swift's upcoming concert tour have been purchased by Bruce Springsteen.
As the month draws to a close and the nation prepares to celebrate Thanksgiving, President Biden, in a beloved lighthearted White House tradition, pardons lucky turkeys named “Chocolate,” “Chip” and — this was a surprise last-minute addition — “Hunter.”
Speaking of surprises, in...
December
...the World Cup, in a major upset, is won by the plucky underdog national team of Qatar, which did not, technically, win any games, but nevertheless is awarded the championship trophy thanks to what FIFA officials describe as “a huge amount of sportsmanship.”
In a historic milestone for the U.S. space program, the Artemis 1 spacecraft, after a 25½-day voyage that took it past the Moon to a point 260,000 miles out in space, returns to Earth to pick up the crew. “From now on,” states a red-faced NASA spokesperson, “we’re going to make sure they’re on board before we launch.”
On the political front, there’s a refreshing new “vibe” in Washington as the two major parties, finally past the toxic nastiness of the midterm elections, look forward to the new year — an opportunity to end the cynical partisan gamesmanship and instead seek common ground in a sincere effort to solve the problems that the American people actually care about, such as the epidemic of illegal drugs that we apparently ingested before writing this sentence.
Because in reality there is no new vibe in Washington. Washington is “Groundhog Day” with Congress as Bill Murray. The only change is that the Republicans have narrowly regained control of the House of Representatives, which means they can spend the next two years seeking revenge on the Democrats. For example, they could form a House Select Committee to investigate the House Select Committee that investigated January 6. Of course, the Democrats still control the Senate, which means they could retaliate by forming a Senate Select Committee to investigate the House Select Committee investigating the House Select Committee that investigated January 6. Thus the legislative branch of the federal government could spend the next two years probing itself, like some kind of deranged proctologist.
And if that isn’t enough political excitement, we can also look forward to two soul-sucking years of buildup to the 2024 presidential election, which could very well wind up being a contest between — speaking of “Groundhog Day” — Joe Biden and Donald Trump. That’s right: The voting public could face a choice between two men who are both, according to the polls, unpopular with more than half of the voting public, and who will both be older, in 2024, than the Adirondack mountains. But that’s the kind of quirky political scenario we sometimes wind up with in this country, thanks to the unique system of government created by our Founding Fathers, who are rotating in their graves like hot dogs on an airport food-vendor grill.
So at the moment the situation appears grim. And yet there are plenty of reasons to feel hopeful about the future. To name just a few: (NOTE TO EDITOR — Please insert some reasons to feel hopeful about the future, if you can think of any).
Thus it is with a feeling of guarded optimism that we, as a nation, reach the end of this disturbing year and, thankfully, enter the holiday season. The festivities are somewhat subdued this year, as inflation forces consumers to cut back; according to the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Conifer Statistics, the Median Household Christmas Tree Height (MHCTH), which last year was “LeBron James,” currently stands at “Danny DeVito.”
But it’s still the holidays, a time when we gather with loved ones from near and far, assuming the ones from far were able to sell enough blood plasma to afford the airfare. So let’s forget about the year we just went through. Let’s give our loved ones a big old holiday hug, and enjoy this moment.
And on New Year’s Eve, as we prepare, nervously, to face 2023, let’s be sure to have a big calming bowl of ice water handy when the clock reaches midnight, and we say:
Happy New (GLUB).
Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist and author.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2022/12/25/dave-barrys-2022-year-review/
AMC shares hit 52-week low as recent moves and gimmicks fail to win over investors
PUBLISHED WED, DEC 28 20223:44 PM ESTUPDATED WED, DEC 28 20227:27 PM EST
@SARAHWHIT10
KEY POINTS
Shares of AMC have fallen more than 85% so far this year, sinking below $4 as of Wednesday afternoon.
The stock’s high for 2022 was $21.09 in March.
The stock drop comes after CEO Adam Aron announced a pay freeze for himself and the company proposed a 10-1 stock split.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/28/amc-entertainment-stock-falls-hits-low.html
Did the Tesla Story Ever Make Sense?
Dec. 27, 2022
By Paul Krugman
If you’re one of those people who bought Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency near its peak last fall, you’ve lost a lot of money. Is it any consolation to know that you would have lost a similar amount if you had bought Tesla stock instead?
OK, probably not. Still, Tesla stock’s plunge is an opportunity to talk about what makes businesses successful in the information age. And in the end, Tesla and Bitcoin may have more in common than you think.
It’s natural to attribute Tesla’s recent decline — which is, to be sure, part of a general fall in tech stocks, but an exceptionally steep example — to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and the reputational self-immolation that followed. Indeed, given what we’ve seen of Musk’s behavior, I wouldn’t trust him to feed my cat, let alone run a major corporation. Furthermore, Tesla sales have surely depended at least in part on the perception that Musk himself is a cool guy. Who, aside from MAGA types who probably wouldn’t have bought Teslas anyway, sees him that way now?
On the other hand, as someone who has spent much of his professional life in academia, I’m familiar with the phenomenon of people who are genuinely brilliant in some areas but utter fools in other domains. For all I know, Musk is or was a highly effective leader at Tesla and SpaceX.
Even if that’s the case, though, it’s hard to explain the huge valuation the market put on Tesla before the drop, or even its current value. After all, to be that valuable, Tesla would have to generate huge profits not just for a few years but in a way that could be expected to continue for many years to come.
Now, some technology companies have indeed been long-term moneymaking machines. Apple and Microsoft still top the list of the most profitable U.S. corporations some four decades after the rise of personal computers.
But we more or less understand the durability of the dominance of Apple and Microsoft, and it’s hard to see how Tesla could ever achieve something similar, no matter how brilliant its leadership. Both Apple and Microsoft benefit from strong network externalities — loosely speaking, everyone uses their products because everyone else uses their products.
In the case of Microsoft, the traditional story has been that businesses continued to buy the company’s software, even when it was panned by many people in the tech world, because it was what they were already set up to use: Products like Word and Excel may not have been great, but everyone within a given company and in others it did business with was set up to use them, had I.T. departments that knew how to deal with them and so on. These days, Microsoft has a better reputation than it used to, but as far as I can tell, its market strength still reflects comfort and corporate habit rather than a perception of excellence.
Apple’s story is different in the details — more about individual users than institutions, more about physical products than about software alone. And Apple was widely considered cool, which I don’t think Microsoft ever was. But at an economic level it’s similar. I can attest from experience that once you’re in the iPhone/iPad/MacBook ecosystem, you won’t give up on its convenience unless offered something a lot better.
Similar stories can be told about a few other companies, such as Amazon, with its distribution infrastructure.
The question is: Where are the powerful network externalities in the electric vehicle business?
Electric cars may well be the future of personal transportation. In fact, they had better be, since electrification of everything, powered by renewable energy, is the only plausible way to avoid climate catastrophe. But it’s hard to see what would give Tesla a long-term lock on the electric vehicle business.
I’m not talking about how great Teslas are or aren’t right now; I’m not a car enthusiast (I should have one of those bumper stickers that say, “My other car is also junk”), so I can’t judge. But the lesson from Apple and Microsoft is that to be extremely profitable in the long run a tech company needs to establish a market position that holds up even when the time comes, as it always does, that people aren’t all that excited about its products.
So what would make that happen for Tesla? You could imagine a world in which dedicated Tesla hookups were the only widely available charging stations, or in which Teslas were the only electric cars mechanics knew how to fix. But with major auto manufacturers moving into the electric vehicle business, the possibility of such a world has already vanished. In fact, I’d argue that the Inflation Reduction Act, with its strong incentives for electrification, will actually hurt Tesla. Why? Because it will quickly make electric cars so common that Teslas no longer seem special.
In short, electric vehicle production just doesn’t look like a network externality business. Actually, you know what does? Twitter, a platform many of us still use because so many other people use it. But Twitter usage is apparently hard to monetize, not to mention the fact that Musk appears set on finding out just how much degradation of the user experience it will take to break its network externalities and drive away the clientele.
Which brings us back to the question of why Tesla was ever worth so much. The answer, as best as I can tell, is that investors fell in love with a story line about a brilliant, cool innovator, despite the absence of a good argument about how this guy, even if he really was who he appeared to be, could found a long-lived money machine.
And as I said, there’s a parallel here with Bitcoin. Despite years of effort, nobody has yet managed to find any serious use for cryptocurrency other than money laundering. But prices nonetheless soared on the hype, and are still being sustained by a hard-core group of true believers. Something similar surely happened with Tesla, even though the company does actually make useful things.
I guess we’ll eventually see what happens. But I definitely won’t trust Elon Musk with my cat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/opinion/tesla-stock-elon-musk.html?
LUV I doubt many of their customers are feeling the love.
Are you looking into Finviz? I'll add that there is also a paid (about $300) version, called Finviz Elite that targets active traders, which I'm not. The free version has some ads in it. The Finviz screener is owned by a company in central Europe so I've been hesitant to trust it with my credit card. Data is delayed by a few minutes in the free version. Note too Finviz doesn't support some obscure stocks or funds, and I don't think it's updated very often. But all-in-all, it's one of the web's best bargains.
https://daytradingz.com/finviz-stock-screener-review/
If you're willing to spend money for a more full-featured screener, Yahoo's Finance Plus is interesting. I've been tempted to get that because it has some features I'd like, but they're certainly not essential.
https://www.yahoo.com/plus/finance
I use the free version of Finviiz for my many "paper portfolios" and some real portfolios that track my actual holdings, tho not in the actual dollar amounts. There's a definite learning curve to setting up your portfolios.
http://finviz.com/
I'm very impressed that Fidelity and Vanguard too don't allow their clients to trade the sleaziest junk... like crypto and most leveraged ETFs. No one needs that junk. It's just for gambling. IHUB has lots of profoundly troubled gamblers.
Overall I'm down 7.5% for the year so I'm not really complaining. Before I moved to Fidelity it was much worse. They have done a remarkable job getting me back in the game.
My play money accounts are back in the black so I'm feeling good about that.
I'd be interested in how your spreadsheets work since you sent me a link earlier and I never followed up.
Merry Christmas.
Reviewing stocks discussed here in '22, most were dismal losers. As I expected, Portillo's has tasty food but poor stock performance. PTLO is off 48% this year. DOUG Ellman Realtors had possibilities, but it was crushed by Hurricane Ian. DOUG fell 65% YTD. Berkshire Hathaway rose about 2%.
I always review investments over year-end breaks, and reboot my spreadsheets as of January 1.
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
Inside the school that trains the country's best service dogs
Since 1975, Canine Companions has placed 7,200 dogs with needy participants -- all free of charge. Dogs are trained for over two years to learn more than 40 commands that help better peoples' lives. For Izzy Sherman, a ten-year-old using a walker, her new service dog will be a "game changer."
04:05 - Source: CNN
https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2022/12/02/canine-companions-service-dogs-training-wellness-cprog-orig-nb-ch.cnn
Crypto is considered to be a highly volatile asset that is subject to unpredictable price fluctuations and falls. For this reason, financial experts typically advise against investing more into crypto than you’re willing to potentially lose.
Great investment advice. lol.
Bitcoin lost over 60% of its value in 2022—here’s how much 6 other popular cryptocurrencies lost
Published Fri, Dec 23 20229:30 AM EST
It’s been a brutal year for the cryptocurrency market.
In the latest blow to the crypto space, Core Scientific, one of the largest publicly traded crypto mining companies in the U.S, which primarily mints bitcoin, filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 21, citing falling crypto prices and rising energy costs.
And the implosion of FTX, a now-bankrupt crypto trading platform that was once valued at $32 billion, has shattered investors’ confidence as the ripple effects of the company’s collapse continue to spread throughout the crypto industry.
“Many Americans are coming to realize that cryptocurrency is just a speculative mania and the industry is rife with crooks,” James Royal, principal reporter at Bankrate, tells CNBC Make It.
To that point, about 60% of Americans now believe investing in digital currency is highly risky — up from 45% in 2021, according to the recent CNBC Make It: Your Money survey, conducted in partnership with Momentive. Another 26% believe it is moderately risky.
Just 8% of Americans have a positive view of cryptocurrency as of Nov. 2022, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey.
Overall, the crypto market has lost a little over $2 trillion in 2022 and popular digital coins such as bitcoin have fallen far below their 2021 highs.
Here’s how much the value of seven popular cryptocurrencies changed in 2022 as of Dec. 22, per CNBC’s calculations.
Terra: -100%
Solana: -93%
AMP: -93%
Cardano: -80%
Ether: -67%
Bitcoin: -63%
Dogecoin: -55%
Prices are likely to fall further when “traders and crypto companies begin to see that they don’t have an unending stream of marks willing to prop up crypto prices,” Royal says.
In fact, Royal warns against investing in crypto at all.
Crypto is considered to be a highly volatile asset that is subject to unpredictable price fluctuations and falls. For this reason, financial experts typically advise against investing more into crypto than you’re willing to potentially lose.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/23/bitcoin-lost-over-60-percent-of-its-value-in-2022.html
Speaking of the Mazers who have already said you can't trust our financial statements in our audits.
Read how much Trump paid — or didn’t pay — in taxes each year
PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 20 202211:22 PM ESTUPDATED 13 MIN AGO
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Dan Mangan
KEY POINTS
The amount of income, deductions and taxes paid by former President Donald Trump as disclosed in his annual federal tax returns while serving in the White House was detailed in a new report.
The report by the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation was posted online shortly after the House Ways and Means Committee voted to make public redacted versions of Trump’s full income tax returns, and those of eight related business entities for the tax years 2015 through 2020.
How President Trump may have reportedly paid only $750 in taxes
The report identifies different areas that the staff thought warranted further examination, such as documentation of nearly $506,000 in charitable donations claimed by the Trumps in 2019.
Highlights of the report include:
On their 2015 federal return, Trump and his wife declared negative income of $31.7 million, with taxable income of $0. The couple paid federal income taxes of $641,931.
The 2016 return declared negative income of $31.2 million, with zero dollars of taxable income. The Trumps paid $750 in taxes.
The 2017 return declared negative income $12.8 million, with $0 in taxable income. The couple paid $750 in taxes.
The 2018 return declared total income of $24.4 million, with taxable income of $22.9 million. The Trumps paid $999,466 in federal income taxes.
In 2019, the Trumps declared $4.44 million in total income, and $2.97 million in taxable income. They paid $133,445 in taxes.
The 2020 return shows negative income of $4.69 million, with zero dollars in taxable income. The tax paid by the Trumps was $0 and they claimed a refund of $5.47 million.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/21/trump-income-tax-returns-detailed-in-new-report-.html
$78M in negative income and zero audits. The tax code is seriously broken.
Nuts. I'm 2-0 and leading.
Pain in the rectum trying to reinstate old ESPN info and even more a pain trying to get into site. Missed first game & now frustrated....sitting out !
GL to you ----- you are the pick 'em champ in all leagues this year.....kick ass !!!
Hurry. First game is this morning.
Plan on joining...just have to find my old ESPN site info...hate to start all over again.
Thx. for reminder.
Congrats ~~~ good game !!
GO NAVY !!!!
Read this and thought of Mrs. Sherman ~~~ just an FYI !
Democrats invented ballot harvesting. Now they’re on to 401(k) harvesting.
Biden’s rule eventually will be challenged in court and probably struck down. The Labor Department characterizes it as a mere clarification of the 1974 law Congress enacted — the Employee Retirement Income Security Act — that requires 401(k) retirement-plan sponsors to act “solely in the interest” of savers. In truth, the new rule reverses ERISA. The Labor Department is trying to do what only Congress has the power to do.
In the meantime, employees should avoid getting stuck in an ESG plan unless they’re willing to sacrifice their retirement to advance a left-wing political agenda. Elon Musk nailed it, tweeting: “ESG is the devil.”
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey
https://nypost.com/2022/12/06/team-bidens-401k-heist-could-raid-your-retirement-for-a-woke-agenda/
Why bar1080 outperforms 99% of IHUBBers. Because I know stuff like this:
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"Created in March 2021, the fascinating VanEck Social Sentiment ETF [symbol: BUZZ] was created for the wrong reason, to track stocks enjoying current buzz on the web. It's performed dreadfully, consistently underperforming the S&P by about 40%.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4517696-vaneck-social-sentiment-etf-dont-buy-into-the-buzz
"BUZZ tracks an Index of 75 large-cap growth stocks with positive online sentiment. Fees are 0.75% annually, and the ETF has $118 million in assets under management."
"BUZZ is an ETF you should avoid at all costs, and it gets one of my rare "strong sell" recommendations today." More important, Investors should learn to avoid... The Buzz"
Just about everyone's stock picks, especially blue chips like Caterpillar, are doing well lately. Even my very few bowsers are continually increasing their dividends. Again we see: "The More You Trade, The More You Lose."
CAT is up 12.30% YTD with a dividend yield of 2.07%. Very nice for 2022.
Rock and Roll !!!
Things are going well. I've gotten over the high hurdles of my various illnesses and now on the mend.
Incredibly my college picks and stock picks continue to impress me. lol.
How 'bout dem LIONS !!!!
Wow, my NFL and college picks this year suck....continuing dismal trend from NASCAR...where I also sucked !
Hope everything well / better in Duke land. Boy, watching a game a couple of days ago...and just felt empty without Coach K there !
Look again at the chart. It has it's ups and downs but doesn't pay a dividend. Which is why I say it trades sideways.
The only stocks I "shill" are index funds, not BRK. My kids own lots of index funds. They don't own BRK. I do think Buffett and Munger are brilliant and I quote them often (mostly because they voice views on many vital investing topic -- like crypto). Most of the time, Charlie especially leaves no doubt about his feelings. Click to watch video.
Hard to be clearer than this: "Bitcoin is stupid 'cause it's very likely to go to zero,' said Charlie Munger" about six months ago.
That is part of BA's problem. People look at the aircraft that they will be flying on.
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Today's large cap can quickly become tomorrow's small cap or vice versa. That said all stocks are fair game here except pinks.
What size is "small"? There are many definitions. Some people define a small public company as one with a market cap under $1 billion. Others define small cap as under $2 billion. And there are yet other definitions. Over the last two decades the word "small" has come to mean larger and larger companies! To confuse matters, NASDAQ's small cap market system continues to list truly small public companies, many of which would be classified as nano-cap by the definitions, below. Here are some current definitions from Investopedia and Investor Words.
Market Cap Investopedia Investor Words
Mega-Cap over $200 billion over $250 billion
Large-Cap $10 billion - $200 billion. $5 billion - $250 billion
Mid-Cap $2 billion - $10 billion $1 billion - $5 billion
Small-Cap $300 million - $2 billion $250 million - $1 billion
Micro-Cap $50 million - $300 million under 250 million
Nano-Cap under $50 million --
Some T/A sites:
http://www.americanbulls.com/
http://www.stockta.com/
http://www.stockconsultant.com./
A screener that may be useful:
http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/finder/deluxestockscreen.aspx?query=Institutional+Ownership+Up+....
http://www.secform4.com/index.php
Please- No Pink Sheet Stocks on the board and don't disparage others and their trading. Thank you!
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