Well I dipped my toes in at the 34, but every time the big money starts saying buy the dip, buy the dip, it sounds to me like some scam. I sure saw a lot of big money selling yesterday in my view, and the dead cat was a bit underwhelming.

Very true. That fact is present with any new tech or even old blunt retail products. That's why I said "minimize". There's not much we retailers can do with China threat.

I'm in the view that the patents are going to minimize that threat.

I see we're starting to get all the clowns over here. Shame, it was being a pretty good technical board, and constructive too.

Agree with unknowns. Almost put some anti in, but held back to wait and see. Article today with one take with what's going on.



Here's the biggest risk from the Evergrande crisis, says Goldman Sachs
Brian Sozzi
Brian Sozzi·Anchor, Editor-at-Large
Mon, September 20, 2021, 11:30 AM·2 min read
In this article:

NVDA
-3.59%


TSLA
-3.86%


SPY
-1.66%


^GSPC
-1.70%


^DJI
-1.78%


AAPL
-2.14%

The biggest fear investors should have with the crisis gripping overly indebted Chinese real estate developer Evergrande is global contagion, argues Goldman Sachs.

"The danger is precisely the contagion effect, should a default occur without clear 'ring-fencing' of spillovers to other parts of the real economy or financial sector. Events over the past week suggest risks of inching toward that direction," said Goldman Sachs Hui Shan in a research note on Monday.

Stay ahead of the market
Shan points out that he is already seeing signs of "contagion" — a word that skyrocketed into financial media lexicon during the Great Financial Crisis when the liquidation of Lehman Brothers pressured all asset markets globally — related to Evergrande.

"Equities and bonds issued by other developers with high leverage have sold off. Protests at Evergrande offices across China may cause reluctance among potential homebuyers more broadly. Financing pressure faced by property developers has contributed to failed land auctions in a number of cities," said Shan.

An initial whiff of contagion blew through U.S. markets to kick off this week's trading.

By early afternoon trading, all major stock indices were at session lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 800 points. The CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) spiked to levels not seen since May.

U.S. companies with outsized China exposure such as Apple and Tesla sold off hard, and were some of the most actively trafficked ticker pages on the Yahoo Finance platform. The concerns around Evergrande also triggered a nearly 10% sell-off in bitcoin (usually seen as a safe-haven play during bouts of stock market volatility), which spread to shares of crypto mining tech seller Nvidia.

"When something like this occurs, it is hard to get your arms around what it is and what contagion means. Think back to that stuff during the European or Asian financial crises," said Baird strategist Michael Antonelli on Yahoo Finance Live.

Goldman's Shan outlined several potential scenarios for China's economic growth from the troubles at Evergrande, all of which will only stoke fears of contagion to global asset markets.

Explains Shan, "In the first scenario, the total negative impact would depress the level of output by 1.4% of GDP, with the direct impact playing the most important role. In the second scenario, the total negative impact increases to 2.5% of GDP. In the third scenario, the total negative impact is as large as 4.1% of GDP, with the financial conditions channel contributing the most to the total impact, highlighting the importance of the financial spillover effect on the economy in this most bearish scenario. Note that this is a partial equilibrium exercise which does not take into consideration potential monetary and fiscal policy easing in response to the property market declines."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-the-biggest-risk-from-the-evergrande-crisis-says-goldman-sachs-173014015.html

Well 400 is yours, anybody else? Would like to hear the opinion of anyone else, just curios on the general sentiment. Today, tomorrow? Looking to come in at the "very bottom". Well somewhere down there. LOL

Yes, that is why I'm here. The numbers that are coming out and indicated are just superb and finding a hard time to find anything else coming close with the stability that they are suggesting.

According to Polariton,

There size is 0.01mm vs 5mm Silicon Photonics
Bandwith > 500 GHz vs 40GHz
Energy Consumption 10 fJ/bit vs 100 fJ/bit
Very High Volume vs just High Volume

https://www.polariton.ch/electronic-optic-modulators

I have the gap at $10.15 for fill, but it gets in to debate of opinion of what number actually fills the gap or what the gap is, I go on close and open price. It's all pretty subjective and pennies don't really make much difference. Like I said before, my gap may not be filled depending on what the future holds, and I don't consider it filled at this point.

More on "over 50 over the hill"


Seven over 70

For over a decade, we’ve celebrated innovators under the age of 35. We choose to write about the young because we want to introduce you to the most promising new technologists, researchers, and entrepreneurs. But I often hear: You really think older people can’t innovate?


MIT Professor Mildred Dresselhaus
Of course they can. We meet extraordinary older innovators all the time, who after a lifetime of creativity are still solving big problems, generating wealth, or expanding our conception of what it means to be human. Below, in reverse alphabetical order, are seven innovators over the age of 70, chosen arbitrarily, because I am attracted to their lives, work, and character, and not according to the formal nomination and judging process that selected the 35 Innovators Under 35.


George Whitesides, 74, is a cofounder of more than 12 companies (including Genzyme) whose combined value is more than $20 billion, and is named on more than 50 patents. Amongst his inventions are cheap paper microfluidic chips, which can be used for diagnostic tests in the poor world. At Harvard, he runs one of the world’s most productive chemistry and materials science labs, whose objective is “to fundamentally change the paradigms of science.”

The electrical engineer Carver Mead, 79, has been responsible for an implausibly long list of innovations in microelectronics, including the first software compilation of a silicon chip. Halfway through his career, he switched his research to how animal brains compute, and established the field of neural networks. After cofounding more than 20 companies, he is only notionally retired; today, he is thinking about better ways to teach freshman physics at Caltech, where he has worked for more than 40 years, by means of a “reconceptualization of electrodynamics and gravitation.”

Barbara Liskov has been awarded both the Turing Award for her work on the programming languages and methodology that led to object-oriented programming and the John von Neumann Medal for her contributions to programming and distributed computing. At 73, she leads MIT’s Programming Methodology Group, which is exploring how to build distributed and fault-­tolerant systems that continue to work even when some of their components don’t.

The physician and biologist Leroy Hood helped create the fields of genomics and proteomics by inventing the protein sequencer, the protein synthesizer, the DNA synthesizer, and, most important of all, the automated DNA sequencer. He later founded the Institute of Systems Biology in Seattle and, at 74, is still its president; the institute seeks to understand diseases by considering human biology holistically as a “network of networks.”

Nick Holonyak invented the first practical light-emitting diode in 1962 when he was a researcher at General Electric, but his innovations are not limited to the replacement for the incandescent lightbulb. He also created the electronic element of the light dimmer switch and the laser diode, which is used in DVD players and cell phones. ­Holonyak, 84, is still a full-time researcher at the University of Illinois, where he works on quantum-dot lasers, which could be used for a variety of novel display and medical technologies.

The nanotechnologist Mildred Dresselhaus, 82, was the author of 39 papers in 2012 and most days is in her office at MIT by 6:30 a.m. Her research involves the physics and properties of carbon nanomaterials, including nanotubes and graphene. Among her many accomplishments, Dresselhaus was the first scientist to exploit the thermoelectric effect at the nanoscale, which could allow for devices that harvest energy from temperature differences in materials that conduct electricity.

Stewart Brand’s contributions to technology have been as an intellectual and founder of organizations, rather than as an inventor. But Stewart (who is a friend) has been tremendously influential: he was the publisher of The Whole Earth Catalog; cofounded the first electronic community, the WELL; and is today the president of the Long Now Foundation, which promotes “slower/better thinking.” At 74, he is working on the revival of extinct species.

I’ll conclude this list with an extra name, from my own profession. Now 83, Robert Silvers has edited the New York Review of Books for more than 40 years. His is my favorite publication, because it is reliably surprising, delightful, witty, and humane. When asked why he doesn’t retire, Silvers once joked, “I don’t have a very full sense of time.” He then more seriously added that work was an extraordinary opportunity, and that “you’d be crazy not to try to make the most of it.”
https://www.technologyreview.com/2013/08/21/176715/seven-over-70-4/

Great Inventions Come Later in Life

Over the past century the average age at which individuals produce notable inventions and ideas has increased steadily.

Innovative thinkers are innovating later than they used to. While conventional wisdom holds that creative thinkers do their best work when they are young, a study by NBER researcher Benjamin Jones shows that over the past century the average age at which individuals produce notable inventions and ideas has increased steadily.

In Age and Great Invention (NBER Working Paper No. 11359), Jones considers data on Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, and Economics over the past 100 years, and on outstanding technological innovations over the same period. For comparative purposes, Jones also considers the ages of track and field record-setters and ball players who have received Most Valuable Player awards.

The data on the innovators reveal three initial characteristics. First, there is large variation in age: 42 percent of innovations came about when their creators were in their 30s, while 40 percent occurred when the inventors were in their 40s, and 14 percent appeared when the inventors were over 50. Second, there were no great achievements produced by innovators before the age of 19, and only 7 percent were produced by innovators at or before the age of 26 (Einstein's age when he performed his prize winning work). Third, the age distributions for the Nobel Prize winners and the technologists are nearly identical.

The most striking finding, however, is that the age distribution shifts over time, with the mean age of great achievement rising by five or six years per century. This parallels another study showing a similar upward trend in the age of persons receiving their first patents (NBER Working Paper No. 11360). Jones finds the trends among great innovators are significant and robust, even after controlling for nationality and field of study. Indeed, these controls strengthen the age trend, causing it to rise to about eight years over the course of the twentieth century. This suggests a compositional shift in great innovation towards fields and countries that favor the young.

One possible explanation for this age shift is a decline in the productivity of younger innovators in favor of older innovators. It may well be that the younger innovators are devoting themselves to an increasing amount of education and training. Or, it may be that the productivity of older innovators is increasing in relative terms simply because innovators are living longer. If we accept that raw ability declines over the life cycle while experience increases, then the shift in the distribution may indicate the rising importance of experience over ability. Alternatively, improved health care may spell increased ability and effort at later ages.

However, Jones urges caution in interpreting these distributional shifts. The shifts, he suggests, may reflect a simple demographic effect. If the population of innovators is getting older, then the older innovators will be more likely to produce substantial innovations even if the relationship between age and innovative potential is fixed. That is to say, the greater the ratio of 50-year-old innovators to 25-year-old innovators, the more likely the Nobel Prize-winning work or the groundbreaking technological development is to come from one of the 50-year-olds. Such demographic effects may be important, because life expectancy and the average age of the population have risen substantially throughout the twentieth century.

By subjecting these various hypotheses to econometric analysis, Jones concludes that the upward trend for productive innovators does not merely reflect the aging population, but in fact is a result of a substantial decline in the innovative output of younger individuals. Meanwhile, there appears to be no relative increase in the innovation potential of those beyond middle age. Other things equal, the less time innovators spend successfully innovating, the smaller will be their lifetime output. In fact, estimates point to a 30 percent decline in life-cycle innovation potential over the twentieth century.

Jones notes that, unlike athletes, who do not require increased training demands over time, innovators appear to spend increasingly significant portions of their early years in education - a kind of human capital acquisition that might well explain the age trends in his study. Because the rules and requirements of their fields of endeavor remain fixed, athletes are not obliged to increase their human capital; accordingly, the data show no distributional shift in the ages of top athletes over the years. But thinkers must increasingly invest in acquiring intellectual capital, and the accumulation of knowledge - the rising distance to the frontier - can explain increased educational attainment.

Jones notes that economists have not focused much on the human capital investments of innovators. Because innovators customarily devote their youngest and perhaps brightest years to acquiring their education, understanding the tradeoffs at the beginning of the life-cycle may be of primary importance for understanding the ultimate output of these individuals - and for understanding why great innovation is steadily declining among younger thinkers.

--Matt Nesvisky

https://www.nber.org/digest/dec05/great-inventions-come-later-life

A possible trend line developing and only one scenario (there are multiple possible patterns forming) shows where that gap can be filled within the next two weeks and still be a great positive chart and solid organic upwards trend. Of course everyone interprets stock numbers to different price points in drawing patterns, I do it for me, myself, and I and my way of trading or investing and someone may take a different view. There is support at some SMA's, etc along the way short term that still allows the gap to be filled along with the possible trend line shown. What I'm thinking possible is it being like a blue light special with a 100 widgets on sale and 500 customers all trying to get one, me included. LOL Of course if more news or something makes the price solidly break the resistance line then all bets are off and probability of the gap never filled goes up and another steeper trend might come in play.

That's really putting it on top. I like how after all the good stuff it refers to the old negative review. Sure puts that old opinion piece down the tubes. Bad look for the writer. LOL

On the move
Consumer
Lightwave Logic skyrockets 20% on setting world-record performance for ultra-high-speed modulators
Sep. 16, 2021 3:29 PMLightwave Logic, Inc. (LWLG)By: Manshi Mamtora, CFA, SA News Editor
Businessman analysis stock chart in crisis covid-19 for investment in stockmarket and finance business planning selective stock for Stockmarket crash and Financial crisis
primeimages/E+ via Getty Images
Lightwave Logic (LWLG +19.0%) stock leaps on achievement of world-record performance for a polymer modulator, as demonstrated in an optical transmission experiment by ETH Zurich.

It uses the company's proprietary, advanced Perkinamine chromophores and Polariton Technologies Ltd.'s newest plasmonic EO modulator, a silicon-photonics-based plasmonic racetrack modulator offering energy-efficient, low-loss, and high-speed modulation in a compact footprint.

"Our mission at Lightwave Logic is to continually push the frontiers of high-speed performance for electro-optic polymers, shaping the 'impossible' into reality and a new normal for the industry. Through our collaboration with Polariton, we have achieved a new world-record for a racetrack plasmonic modulator device structure. The acceptance of a post-deadline peer reviewed paper at ECOC 2021 provides third party validation of this incredible result." said Dr. Michael Lebby, CEO.

Last month a contributor gave a Very Bearish rating to the stock and wrote, 'Lightwave Logic Is A Tiny, Glorified Science Lab, Recent 500%+ Runup Is Without Substance'

Well he just got topped by a positive feed, so there's that. LOL WD will have to work a bit harder for his money.

Not at all, just part of the market.

He probably shorted more at the top of the exuberance and then put the tweet out. It's designed to show up in the trading platforms on top so it gets the max effect. Then cover at a later time. Instills doubt and it works. But on the flip side, it gives buying opertunes on the dip depending on stock and personal preference.

putting up a link to his tweet is Exactly What He wants.


Exactly! Right on the money. So good thing NOT to do it.

White Diamond is a short seller. I imagine there were shorts looking at the chart and it was good possibility going to the $8 something support as of yesterday. The news this morning changed the odds completely, so WD trying to change them back a bit and will continue to try to put some pressure downwards.

My account did early this morning before open. But I'm using TorS and not the site, maybe thats it, don't know.

I really wouldn't mind if the tip of the tail to come down and touch to fill the gap so we wouldn't have to have that there moving forward today.

Looks like this is going to be gapping at open. No more getting anything at 9.61 looks like and I can't see it going down to my bids at the low support anymore. Just an opinion. LOL

9/15/21 06:33:00 *MW FuelCell Energy stock price target cut to $8 from $10 at B. Riley

Dow Jones Newswire

So, do we get upgrades from the "professional analysts" tomorrow?

There's Lebby holding the award

I guess that settles it. LOL

I have thoroughly enjoyed your posts and hope you don't get chased away. I believe it is most prudent to question and examine every investment or prospective investment including all the management/employees entry and exit reasons. Who comes and goes and reasons for enter or exit has always been important in the market and for good reason. It DIRECTLY effects what any stock is worth and what it will be worth in the future on the open market. Kudos to Lightwave getting listed, it's a solid achievement, but joining the big boys and girls should expect and deserve big boy and girl scrutiny. How the company addresses and holds up to that scrutiny is the foundation of the quality of the investment. At some point everybody is going to sell (unless one dies and leaves to kids who then sells at some point) for the intention of being most profitable.

I'm not a regular poster or part of any echo chamber and don't invest in "penny stocks" or anything not listed any more, and very rarely even day or swing trade anything that's not listed on the big boards. I always have a small % of my portfolio in a higher risk future looking companies and this might be part of it. I have a small position of 2000 shares now (with being in a hair red right now) and looking now currently to double or maybe even sell depending on what I continually analyze with LWLG.

So kudos also to anyone for having the "tinge of negativity" attachment, I like the way you think, one has to diligently look for and focus on all the factual negatives and see if they surpass or not the factual positives (which are always easy to read and readily "echoed" and hardly any work or time to receive and get muddled by not facts but just exuberance).

I read that they are going to get their own btc mining in Germany.


SEC Filing


Form 4 Riot Blockchain, Inc.
Statement of changes in beneficial ownership of securities
SEC.report Riot Blockchain, Inc. Insider Trading Report Form 4 (Issuer)
SEC.report Northern Data AG Insider Trading Report Form 4 (Reporting)
Published: 2021-09-03 16:08:55
Submitted: 2021-09-03
Filing Agent: EDGARFILINGS LTD
Period Ending In: 2021-09-01
form4.html FORM 4
Zoom In Zoom Out

>
SEC FORM 4
SEC Form 4
FORM 4 UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549

STATEMENT OF CHANGES IN BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP

Filed pursuant to Section 16(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
or Section 30(h) of the Investment Company Act of 1940
OMB APPROVAL
OMB Number: 3235-0287
Estimated average burden
hours per response: 0.5

Check this box if no longer subject to Section 16. Form 4 or Form 5 obligations may continue. See Instruction 1(b).
1. Name and Address of Reporting Person*
Northern Data AG
(Last) (First) (Middle)
AN DER WELLE 3
(Street)
FRANKFURT AM MAIN 2M 60322
(City) (State) (Zip)
2. Issuer Name and Ticker or Trading Symbol
Riot Blockchain, Inc. [ RIOT ] 5. Relationship of Reporting Person(s) to Issuer
(Check all applicable)
Director X 10% Owner
Officer (give title below) Other (specify below)
3. Date of Earliest Transaction (Month/Day/Year)
09/01/2021
4. If Amendment, Date of Original Filed (Month/Day/Year)
6. Individual or Joint/Group Filing (Check Applicable Line)
X Form filed by One Reporting Person
Form filed by More than One Reporting Person
Table I - Non-Derivative Securities Acquired, Disposed of, or Beneficially Owned
1. Title of Security (Instr. 3) 2. Transaction Date (Month/Day/Year) 2A. Deemed Execution Date, if any (Month/Day/Year) 3. Transaction Code (Instr. 8) 4. Securities Acquired (A) or Disposed Of (D) (Instr. 3, 4 and 5) 5. Amount of Securities Beneficially Owned Following Reported Transaction(s) (Instr. 3 and 4) 6. Ownership Form: Direct (D) or Indirect (I) (Instr. 4) 7. Nature of Indirect Beneficial Ownership (Instr. 4)
Code V Amount (A) or (D) Price
Common Stock, no par value 09/01/2021 S 1,850,008(1) D $36.84 9,949,992(2) D
Table II - Derivative Securities Acquired, Disposed of, or Beneficially Owned
(e.g., puts, calls, warrants, options, convertible securities)
1. Title of Derivative Security (Instr. 3) 2. Conversion or Exercise Price of Derivative Security 3. Transaction Date (Month/Day/Year) 3A. Deemed Execution Date, if any (Month/Day/Year) 4. Transaction Code (Instr. 8) 5. Number of Derivative Securities Acquired (A) or Disposed of (D) (Instr. 3, 4 and 5) 6. Date Exercisable and Expiration Date (Month/Day/Year) 7. Title and Amount of Securities Underlying Derivative Security (Instr. 3 and 4) 8. Price of Derivative Security (Instr. 5) 9. Number of derivative Securities Beneficially Owned Following Reported Transaction(s) (Instr. 4) 10. Ownership Form: Direct (D) or Indirect (I) (Instr. 4) 11. Nature of Indirect Beneficial Ownership (Instr. 4)
Code V (A) (D) Date Exercisable Expiration Date Title Amount or Number of Shares
Explanation of Responses:
1. Represents shares of the Issuer's common stock, no par value, sold by such Reporting Person in a secondary public offering as a selling stockholder pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-3 (Registration No. 333-259039), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the Issuer on August 24, 2021.
2. Represents the total direct and indirect ownership of the security held by the Reporting Person immediately following the transaction reported by this Form 4.
/s/ Aroosh Thillainathan, Chief Executive Officer 09/03/2021
** Signature of Reporting Person Date
Reminder: Report on a separate line for each class of securities beneficially owned directly or indirectly.
* If the form is filed by more than one reporting person, see Instruction 4 (b)(v).
** Intentional misstatements or omissions of facts constitute Federal Criminal Violations See 18 U.S.C. 1001 and 15 U.S.C. 78ff(a).
Note: File three copies of this Form, one of which must be manually signed. If space is insufficient, see Instruction 6 for procedure.
Persons who respond to the collection of information contained in this form are not required to respond unless the form displays a currently valid OMB Number.
form4.xml FORM 4
Schema Version:X0306
Document Type:4
Period Of Report:2021-09-01
Issuer
Issuer Cik0001167419
Issuer NameRiot Blockchain, Inc.
Issuer Trading SymbolRIOT
Reporting Owner
Reporting Owner Id
Rpt Owner Cik0001863502
Rpt Owner NameNorthern Data AG
Reporting Owner Address
Rpt Owner Street1AN DER WELLE 3
Rpt Owner CityFRANKFURT AM MAIN
Rpt Owner State2M
Rpt Owner Zip Code60322
Rpt Owner State DescriptionGERMANY
Reporting Owner Relationship Is Ten Percent Ownertrue
Non Derivative Transaction
Security TitleCommon Stock, no par value
Transaction Date2021-09-01
Transaction Coding
Transaction Form Type4
Transaction CodeS
Equity Swap Involved0
Transaction Amounts
Transaction Shares
Value1850008
@attributes IdF1
Transaction Price Per Share36.84
Transaction Acquired Disposed CodeD
Shares Owned Following Transaction
Value9949992
@attributes IdF2
Direct Or Indirect OwnershipD
Footnote
0Represents shares of the Issuer's common stock, no par value, sold by such Reporting Person in a secondary public offering as a selling stockholder pursuant to a registration statement on Form S-3 (Registration No. 333-259039), filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission by the Issuer on August 24, 2021.
1Represents the total direct and indirect ownership of the security held by the Reporting Person immediately following the transaction reported by this Form 4.
Owner Signature
Signature Name/s/ Aroosh Thillainathan, Chief Executive Officer
Signature Date2021-09-03
Additional Files
File Sequence Description Type Size
0001140361-21-030368.txt Complete submission text file 5200
$RIOT

I would guess that is also true with the up listing. I don't think it is a before hrs trading stock until the Market opens and it is officially not an otc stock. I believe it will be ext hrs tomorrow and before hrs the next day. I could be wrong though.

I would be interested in seeing it. The link just goes to log in. I'm not with Fidelity, with TDa. Can you copy and paste it or maybe something else. I'm in for 1800 shares yesterday and this morning.

at this rate it might be soooner. 27.75 and higher as i write.

From the joke board;

Dear God, I think you'd be proud of me! So far today I've done all right. I haven't gossiped, lusted, lost my temper, haven't been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish or overindulgent. I'm very thankful for that. In a few minutes, though, I'm going to get out of bed. From then on I'm probably going to need a LOT of help. Amen.

The rightwing groups behind wave of protests against Covid-19 restrictions
Protesters in Michigan and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, but are also supported by street-fighting far-right groups

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/far-right-coronavirus-protests-restrictions
Coronavirus – latest US updates
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See all our coronavirus coverage
Jason Wilson
Jason Wilson

@jason_a_w
Fri 17 Apr 2020 04.00 EDTLast modified on Fri 17 Apr 2020 11.48 EDT
A woman wearing a face mask holds a placard as supporters of the Michigan Conservative Coalition protest against the state’s extended stay-at-home order.
A woman wearing a face mask holds a placard as supporters of the Michigan Conservative Coalition protest against the state’s extended stay-at-home order. Photograph: Seth Herald/Reuters
Awave of planned anti-lockdown demonstrations that have broken out around the country to protest against the efforts of state governments to combat the coronavirus pandemic with business closures and stay-at-home orders have included far-right groups as well as more mainstream Republicans.

While protesters in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and other states claim to speak for ordinary citizens, many are also supported by street-fighting rightwing groups like the Proud Boys, conservative armed militia groups, religious fundamentalists, anti-vaccination groups and other elements of the radical right.

2:09
Armed protesters demand an end to Michigan's coronavirus lockdown orders – video
On Wednesday in Lansing, Michigan, a protest put together by two Republican-connected not-for-profits was explicitly devised to cause gridlock in the city, and for a time blocked the entrance to a local hospital.

It was organized by the Michigan Conservative Coalition, which Michigan state corporate filings show has also operated under the name of Michigan Trump Republicans. It was also heavily promoted by the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group linked to the Trump cabinet member Betsy DeVos.

But the protest also attracted far-right protest groups who have been present at pro-Trump and gun rights rallies in Michigan throughout the Trump presidency.


Protests against US stay-at-home orders gain support from rightwing figures
Read more
Placards identified the Michigan Proud Boys as participants in the vehicle convoy. Near the state house, local radio interviewed a man who identified himself as “Phil Odinson”.

In fact the man is Phil Robinson, the prime mover in a group called the Michigan Liberty Militia, whose Facebook page features pictures of firearms, warnings of civil war, celebrations of Norse paganism and memes ultimately sourced from white nationalist groups like Patriot Front.

The pattern of rightwing not-for-profits promoting public protests while still more radical groups use lockdown resistance as a platform for extreme rightwing causes looks set to continue in events advertised in other states over coming days.

In Idaho on Friday, protesters plan to gather at the capitol building in Boise to protest anti-virus restrictions put in place by the Republican governor, Brad Little.

The protest has been heavily promoted by the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF), which counts among its donors “dark money” funds linked to the Koch brothers such as Donors Capital Fund, and Castle Rock, a foundation seeded with part of the fortune of Adolph Coors, the rightwing beer magnate.

Protesters rally against stay-at-home orders related to the coronavirus pandemic outside Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia.
Protesters rally against stay-at-home orders related to the coronavirus pandemic outside Capitol Square in Richmond, Virginia. Photograph: Ryan M Kelly/AFP via Getty Images
IFF have added their slogan for the event, “Disobey Idaho”, to stickers which they plan to distribute among the crowd.


Coronavirus: the week explained - sign up for our email newsletter
Read more
The event is also being promoted on a website dedicated to attacking Little for his response to Covid-19. That website was set up by the Idaho businessman, pastor and one-time Republican state senate candidate, Diego Rodriguez.

Rodriguez launched the website at an Easter service held in defiance of the governor’s orders on Easter Sunday, which was also addressed by Ammon Bundy, the leader of the militia occupation of the Malheur national wildlife refuge in 2016 that become a rallying point for the anti-government right in the US.

Bundy has been holding similar gatherings for weeks in Emmett, Idaho, where he now lives. On Sunday, he repeated his opposition to the Idaho orders, writing on Facebook: “We all have a duty to defend what is right and to make sure, that what God has given, man does not take away. Especially that great gift of agency, YES freedom!”

Ada county, Idaho, where the capital, Boise, is located, has so far suffered 541 cases of Covid-19 and nine deaths, in a state which has a far worse outbreak than neighboring Oregon, which is 2.4 times more populous.

Nevertheless, the ad for the rally on Rodriguez’s website advises, “We feel that wearing face masks and gloves is counterproductive to the movement, and should be avoided.”

In Washington state, meanwhile, which for now has brought one of the worst outbreaks in the country under a measure of control, a Republican state committeeman, Tyler Miller, has organized a protest at the state capitol on Saturday.

Miller, who is active in the Kitsap county Republican party, was involved in passing a resolution in January in support of representative Matt Shea, who was excluded from the state house’s GOP caucus after a report commissioned by house found that he had participated in domestic terrorism.

Hundreds of Facebook users have indicated that they will be attending his “Hazardous Liberty” rally, and a parallel event in Richland, Washington.

Included in that number are members of the 3% of Washington, a group which has held a series of open-carry rallies in Seattle, featuring speeches from the far-right protest leader, Joey Gibson.

As for Shea, he is speaking on Saturday at an online “Saving America” conference which will discuss an alleged erosion of rights “that’s been ramped up in unprecedented ways during this Covid-19 crisis”.

He is scheduled to appear alongside the likes of close ally Pastor Ken Peters, who has been holding monthly services outside Spokane’s planned parenthood clinic; the actor, Maga personality and congressional candidate Mindy Robinson; and the New Zealand-based anti-communist speaker and author Trevor Loudon.

Other similar events have been advertised for Saturday by an anti-vaccination activist in Oregon, and for Friday by a Boston group with alt-right connections.

W.H.O., Now Trump’s Scapegoat, Warned About Coronavirus Early and Often

Indeed, significant shortcomings in the administration’s response arose from a failure to follow W.H.O. advice.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/health/WHO-Trump-coronavirus.html

The World Health Organization, always cautious, acted more forcefully and faster than many national governments. But President Trump has decided to cut off U.S. funding to the organization.


Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, at a coronavirus briefing in early March.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organization, at a coronavirus briefing in early March.Credit...Fabrice Coffrini/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Richard Pérez-PeñaDonald G. McNeil Jr.
By Richard Pérez-Peña and Donald G. McNeil Jr.
April 16, 2020
Updated 10:27 a.m. ET

650
On Jan. 22, two days after Chinese officials first publicized the serious threat posed by the new virus ravaging the city of Wuhan, the chief of the World Health Organization held the first of what would be months of almost daily media briefings, sounding the alarm, telling the world to take the outbreak seriously.

But with its officials divided, the W.H.O., still seeing no evidence of sustained spread of the virus outside of China, declined the next day to declare a global public health emergency. A week later, the organization reversed course and made the declaration.

Those early days of the epidemic illustrated the strengths and weaknesses of the W.H.O., an arm of the United Nations that is now under fire by President Trump, who on Tuesday ordered a cutoff of American funding to the organization.

With limited, constantly shifting information to go on, the W.H.O. showed an early, consistent determination to treat the new contagion like the threat it would become, and to persuade others to do the same. At the same time, the organization repeatedly praised China, acting and speaking with a political caution born of being an arm of the United Nations, with few resources of its own, unable to do its work without international cooperation.

Mr. Trump, deflecting criticism that his own handling of the crisis left the United States unprepared, accused the W.H.O. of mismanaging it, called the organization “very China-centric” and said it had “pushed China’s misinformation.”


Image“So much death has been caused by their mistakes,” President Trump said of the World Health Organization during a White House briefing on Tuesday.
“So much death has been caused by their mistakes,” President Trump said of the World Health Organization during a White House briefing on Tuesday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
But a close look at the record shows that the W.H.O. acted with greater foresight and speed than many national governments, and more than it had shown in previous epidemics. And while it made mistakes, there is little evidence that the W.H.O. is responsible for the disasters that have unfolded in Europe and then the United States.

The W.H.O. needs the support of its international members to accomplish anything — it has no authority over any territory, it cannot go anywhere uninvited, and it relies on member countries for its funding. All it can offer is expertise and coordination — and even most of that is borrowed from charities and member nations.

The W.H.O. has drawn criticism as being too close to Beijing — a charge that grew louder as the agency repeatedly praised China for cooperation and transparency that others said were lacking. China’s harsh approach to containing the virus drew some early criticism from human rights activists, but it proved effective and has since been adopted by many other countries.

A crucial turning point in the pandemic came on Jan. 20, after China’s central government sent the country’s most famous epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, to Wuhan to investigate the new coronavirus racing through that city of 11 million people. Dr. Zhong delivered a startling message on national television: Local officials had covered up the seriousness of the outbreak, the contagion spread quickly between people, doctors were dying and everyone should avoid the city.

Dr. Zhong, an eccentric 83-year-old who led the fight against the SARS outbreak of 2002 and 2003, was one of few people in China with enough standing to effectively call Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, a rising official in the Communist Party, a liar.

Mr. Zhou, eager to see no disruption in his plans for a local party congress from Jan. 11 to 17 and a potluck dinner for 40,000 families on Jan. 18, appears to have had his police and local health officials close the seafood market, threaten doctors and assure the public that there was little or no transmission.

Less than three days after Dr. Zhong’s warning was broadcast, China locked down the city, preventing anyone from entering or leaving and imposing strict rules on movement within it — conditions it would later extend far behind Wuhan, encompassing tens of millions of people.


ImageDr. Zhong Nanshan announced on Jan. 20 that local officials had covered up the seriousness of the outbreak.
Dr. Zhong Nanshan announced on Jan. 20 that local officials had covered up the seriousness of the outbreak.Credit...Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The national government reacted in force, punishing local officials, declaring that anyone who hid the epidemic would be “forever nailed to history’s pillar of shame,” and deploying tens of thousands of soldiers, medical workers and contact tracers.

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It was the day of the lockdown that the W.H.O. at first declined to declare a global emergency, its officials split and expressing concern about identifying a particular country as a threat, and about the impact of such a declaration on people in China. Such caution is a standard — if often frustrating — fact of life for United Nations agencies, which operate by consensus and have usually avoided even a hint of criticizing nations directly.

Despite Dr. Zhong’s warning about human-to-human transmission, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general, said there was not yet any evidence of sustained transmission outside China.

“That doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” Dr. Tedros said.

“Make no mistake,” he added. “This is an emergency in China, but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one.”

The W.H.O. was still trying to persuade China to allow a team of its experts to visit and investigate, which did not occur until more than three weeks later. And the threat to the rest of the world on Jan. 23 was not yet clear — only about 800 cases and 25 deaths had been reported, with only a handful of infections and no deaths reported outside China.

“In retrospect, we all wonder if something else could have been done to prevent the spread we saw internationally early on, and if W.H.O. could have been more aggressive sooner as an impartial judge of the China effort,” said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of the MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global Health Security at the University of Washington.

Amir Attaran, a public health and law professor at the University of Ottawa, said, “Clearly a decision was taken by Dr. Tedros and the organization to bite their tongues, and to coax China out of its shell, which was partially successful.”

“That in no way supports Trump’s accusation,” he added. “The president is scapegoating, dishonestly.”

Indeed, significant shortcomings in the administration’s response arose from a failure to follow W.H.O. advice.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention bungled the rollout of diagnostic tests in the United States, even as the W.H.O. was urging every nation to implement widespread testing. And the White House was slow to endorse stay-home restrictions and other forms of social distancing, even after the W.H.O. advised these measures were working in China.


ImageMedical workers removing a patient from his home in Wuhan, China, in late January.
Medical workers removing a patient from his home in Wuhan, China, in late January.Credit...Hector Retamal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
It is impossible to know whether the nations of the world would have acted sooner if the W.H.O. had called the epidemic a global emergency, a declaration with great public relations weight, a week earlier than it did.

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But day after day, Dr. Tedros, in his rambling style, was delivering less formal warnings, telling countries to contain the virus while it was still possible, to do testing and contact tracing, and isolate those who might be infected. “We have a window of opportunity to stop this virus,” he often said, “but that window is rapidly closing.”

In fact, the organization had already taken steps to address the coronavirus, even before Dr. Zhong’s awful revelation, drawing attention to the mysterious outbreak.

On Jan. 12, Chinese scientists published the genome of the virus, and the W.H.O. asked a team in Berlin to use that information to develop a diagnostic test. Just four days later, they produced a test and the W.H.O. posted online a blueprint that any laboratory around the world could use to duplicate it.

On Jan. 21, China shared materials for its test with the W.H.O., providing another template for others to use.

Some countries and research institutions followed the German blueprint, while others, like the C.D.C., insisted on producing their own tests. But a flaw in the initial C.D.C. test, and the agency’s slowness in approving testing by labs other than its own, contributed to weeks of delay in widespread testing in the United States.

In late January, Mr. Trump praised China’s efforts. Now, officials in his administration accuse China of concealing the extent of the epidemic, even after the crackdown on Wuhan, and the W.H.O. of being complicit in the deception. They say that lulled the West into taking the virus less seriously than it should have.


ImagePolice officers patrolling Beijing Station in late January.
Police officers patrolling Beijing Station in late January.Credit...Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Larry Gostin, director of the W.H.O.’s Center on Global Health Law, said the organization relied too heavily on the initial assertions out of Wuhan that there was little or no human transmission of the virus.

“The charitable way to look at this is that W.H.O. simply had no means to verify what was happening on the ground,” he said. “The less charitable way to view it is that the W.H.O. didn’t do enough to independently verify what China was saying, and took China at face value.”

The W.H.O. was initially wary of China’s internal travel restrictions, but endorsed the strategy after it showed signs of working.

“Right now, the strategic and tactical approach in China is the correct one,” Dr. Michael Ryan, the W.H.O.’s chief of emergency response, said on Feb. 18. “You can argue whether these measures are excessive or restrictive on people, but there is an awful lot at stake here in terms of public health — not only the public health of China but of all people in the world.”

A W.H.O. team — including two Americans, from the C.D.C. and the National Institutes of Health — did visit China in mid-February for more than a week, and its leaders said they were given wide latitude to travel, visit facilities and talk with people.

Whether or not China’s central government intentionally misstated the scale of the crisis, incomplete reporting has been seen in every other hard-hit country. France, Italy and Britain have all acknowledged seriously undercounting cases and deaths among people who were never hospitalized, particularly people in nursing and retirement homes.

New York City this week reported 3,700 deaths it had not previously counted, in people who were never tested. The United States generally leaves it to local coroners whether to test bodies for the virus, and many lack the capacity to do so.

In the early going, China was operating in a fog, unsure of what it was dealing with, while its resources in and around Wuhan were overwhelmed. People died or recovered at home without ever being treated or tested. Official figures excluded, then included, then excluded again people who had symptoms but had never been tested.

On Jan. 31 — a day after the W.H.O.’s emergency declaration — President Trump moved to restrict travel from China, and he has since boasted that he took action before other heads of state, which was crucial in protecting the United States. In fact, airlines had already canceled the great majority of flights from China, and other countries cut off travel from China at around the same time Mr. Trump did.

The first known case in the United States was confirmed on Jan. 20, after a man who was infected but not yet sick traveled five days earlier from Wuhan to the Seattle area, where the first serious American outbreak would occur.


ImageThe first major outbreak in the United States occurred in Seattle, at places like the Life Care Center of Kirkland, a nursing home now linked to more than 37 deaths.
The first major outbreak in the United States occurred in Seattle, at places like the Life Care Center of Kirkland, a nursing home now linked to more than 37 deaths.Credit...Andrew Burton for The New York Times
The W.H.O. said repeatedly that it did not endorse international travel bans, which it said are ineffectual and can do serious economic harm, but it did not specifically criticize the United States, China or other countries that took that step.

Experts say it was China’s internal travel restrictions, more severe than those in the West, that had the greatest effect, delaying the epidemic’s spread by weeks and allowing China’s government to get ahead of the outbreak.

The W.H.O. later conceded that China had done the right thing. Brutal as they were, China’s tactics apparently worked. Some cities were allowed to reopen in March, and Wuhan did on April 8.

The Trump administration has not been alone in criticizing the W.H.O. Some public health experts and officials of other countries, including Japan's finance minister, have also said the organization was too deferential to China.

The W.H.O. has altered some of its guidance over time — a predictable complication in dealing with a new pathogen, but one that has spurred criticism. But at times, the agency also gave what appeared to be conflicting messages, leading to confusion.

In late February, before the situation in Italy had turned from worrisome to catastrophic, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and other government officials, citing W.H.O. recommendations, said the regional governments of Lombardy and Veneto were doing excessive testing.

“We have more people infected because we made more swabs,” Mr. Conte said.


ImageAn intensive care unit at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy, last month where critically ill Covid-19 patients were hospitalized.
An intensive care unit at Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy, last month where critically ill Covid-19 patients were hospitalized.Credit...Fabio Bucciarelli for The New York Times
In fact, the W.H.O. had not said to limit testing, though it had said some testing was a higher priority. It was — and still is — calling for more testing in the context of tracing and checking people who had been in contact with infected patients, but few Western countries have done extensive contact tracing.

But the organization took pains not to criticize individual countries — including those that did insufficient testing.

On March 16, Dr. Tedros wrote on Twitter, “We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.” Three days later, a W.H.O. spokeswoman said that there was “no ‘one size fits all’ with testing,” and that “each country should consider its strategy based on the evolution of the outbreak.”

The organization was criticized for not initially calling the contagion a pandemic, meaning an epidemic spanning the globe. The term has no official significance within the W.H.O., and officials insisted that using it would not change anything, but Dr. Tedros began to do so on March 11, explaining that he made the change to draw attention because too many countries were not taking the group’s warnings seriously enough.

Reporting was contributed by Selam Gebrekidan, Javier Hernandez, Jason Horowitz, Adam Nossiter, Knvul Sheikh and Roni Caryn Rabin.

The W.H.O. and the Coronavirus Crisis
Criticized for Pandemic Response, Trump Tries Shifting Blame to the W.H.O.April 14, 2020

What the W.H.O. Does, and How U.S. Funding Cuts Could Affect ItApril 15, 2020

Coronavirus Has Become a Pandemic, W.H.O. SaysMarch 11, 2020

C.D.C. and W.H.O. Offers to Help China Have Been Ignored for WeeksFeb. 7, 2020

W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus SpreadsJan. 30, 2020

The unanswered question is who reimburses the employee for the new office space.

It's been answered, at least so far (not from the banks that I know of). There is no reimbursement, and many people are just starting to find out about expenses that are incurred, from toilet paper and water bill to electric bills to run all the previously unused power hungry tech abilities. This is even ignoring all the mental, emotional, and physical changes that relate to "work from home" with people that have never before experienced it. But at least those people have a job that relatively safer. As to my wife, they were doing hazard pay in addition to her wage, that went away as soon as the employees went working from home.

The way taxes have changed, even the home office expense for some is not really an option. A question that has been on my mind, how are they going to work out workman's comp or basically that seems to have disappeared also. My wife still has to "punch the clock" by logging in and out at certain times. My daughter is salaried, while my wife is hourly wage. Both are considered employees and no 1099 self employed.

I believe your right. My daughter who works for one of the top five financial institutions was already basically working from home as her work base, but traveled up and down the state to different branches for auditing and administration duties all the time. Now of course there is no traveling and has been setting up more advanced technical system for video conferencing and other management processing in her home for permanent forever in any future, not just when this Covid situation "ends".

My wife, who works for a different top five financial institutions, was working in a center that employed a large number of employees at one center (both banks have over a quarter million employees) has been going to home base work and they don't have a time line to go back. It's been rumored sometime next year.

On the note of banks and finances.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/16/coronavirus-cares-stimulus-check/

Also shot of a Quicken note when downloading.

Former DOJ officials back House case for McGahn subpoena

BY HARPER NEIDIG - 04/16/20 01:16 PM EDT

A group of former Justice Department officials is urging a federal appeals court to uphold a House subpoena for former White House counsel Don McGahn's testimony in a case that could have far-reaching implications for Congress's oversight powers.

The group filed an amicus brief with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, arguing that Congress has the power to enforce its subpoenas in court and rejecting the Trump administration's claims that legislators have little legal recourse to investigate the executive branch.

The circuit court is set to rehear the case later this month after a three-judge panel had ruled that the House has no standing to bring legal action against the administration in court.

"That holding was wrong," the former officials wrote. "Not only is the judiciary well equipped to answer a question about testimonial immunity, but prohibiting Congress from enforcing its subpoenas in court will effectively allow not only this Administration—but all future administrations—to avoid legitimate congressional oversight."

The group consists of seven former DOJ officials who primarily served in Democratic administrations. But their filing is notable for the fact that most of them served in the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, which is tasked with offering legal advice to the White House and is known for its expansive views of presidential authority.

When the House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed McGahn for his testimony last year, President Trump directed his former lawyer not to comply, arguing that his aides have complete immunity to congressional subpoenas.

In February, the circuit court panel ruled 2-1 against the committee, with two Republican-appointed judges carrying the majority. They decided that the Constitution prevents the courts from resolving disputes between the branches, a precedent that would render congressional oversight subpoenas legally unenforceable.

The decision was vacated by the D.C. Circuit, but it could offer a blueprint for the Supreme Court's conservative justices if the case reaches the high court, which is also reviewing subpoenas for Trump's personal financial records.

The former officials argued on Thursday that Trump's position in the case is a departure from recent administrations' view that Congress has standing to sue to enforce its subpoenas and from a tradition of presidents cooperating with congressional investigations throughout American history.

"Thus, early Presidents’ cooperation with congressional requests for information largely obviated any need for Congress to go to court, and the disputes that occasionally arose were marginal and occurred in a broader context of accommodation," they wrote. "That history does not mean that the House cannot bring this action in response to this Administration’s unprecedented refusal to comply with the House’s subpoena."

The circuit court will rehear arguments in the case on April 28.

I knew that, I was just agreeing with it, and putting in my little bit. :)

"I am sure it has nothing to do with trump using Vince McMahon as an economic advisor."

Well of course it is directly connected to Trump.

Without going into heavy research on the subject of how much entertainment (movies, sitcoms, shows, etc on tv)that there is out there to watch that no one is capable to watch if they watched 24/7 for their entire life. That doesn't even include other forms of entertainment and interest that doesn't pertain to "tv" (ie: books, nature, safe from Covid activities, Ihub entertainment, etc). I would safely bet that there is literally over 10s of thousands or more things to watch on video mechanisms that has never been watched by any certain individual.

A article here on discussing films made (just one part of everything there is to watch). Link shows graphs and pics.

https://stephenfollows.com/how-many-films-are-released-each-year/

August 14, 2017
How many films are released each year?
In an unusual moment of synchronicity this week, three unconnected people have contacted me to ask how many films are released in cinemas each year. Each had different reasons for asking but all were working from the same basic hypothesis – that the number is increasing.

In the past, I have looked at the number of feature films made (both in the UK and worldwide) but today we’re going to focus on the number of feature films released in cinemas to the paying public. This doesn’t include film festivals, private screenings or other types of content in cinemas, such as broadcasts of opera or theatre productions.

The first thing to note is that there is no one simple answer. Firstly, we need to consider that each country will have its own unique market for movies and so the number of films released in the UK will differ from that of the US. Secondly, there is no one company or body which possesses every piece of data required to report a completely accurate figure. Each company involved in collecting movie data will have its own methods, criteria and biases. Finally, the biggest films are intensively studied, but smaller, independent films can be overlooked, especially if they are released in a small number of cinemas and for a short space of time.

With those warnings in place, let’s look at what numbers are being reported.

How many films are released in US theatres?
We’ll start in the US, where the number of films released has increased massively. In 2016, there were 736 films released in US cinemas; twice the number in 2000.



Let’s break that down into a little more detail. Using data from The Numbers, we can split these numbers into two groups – films by one of the six major Hollywood studios (i.e. Warners, Disney, Fox, Paramount, Sony and Universal) which have a wide release (i.e. in at least 1,000 cinemas) versus all other films.

This shows us that the large growth in film releases has not come from the big Hollywood movies we hear so much about. In fact, they’ve dropped slightly. In 2006 there were 128 such “wide Studio releases” and just 93 in 2016 (a 27% reduction).



How many films are released in UK cinemas?
We see a similar pattern in the UK, with the number of films released in UK cinemas more than doubling between 2000 and 2016. Last year a staggering 821 movies released in UK cinemas – an average of almost sixteen per week. This means that if you saw a new movie every morning and every afternoon on every single day of the year, you would still miss 91 new movies.



Why is this happening?
Is this huge growth being caused by an increase in supply or demand? In other words, is the root cause an increased number of movies being pushed into cinemas, or are cinema-goers demanding ever more movies?

If we compare the change in supply (i.e. movie releases) with the change in demand (i.e. cinema admissions) we can see that it’s very much supply driven. Whilst the number of movies released between 2000 and 2016 doubled, admissions have been fairly flat – both in the US and in the UK.



Technological changes mean that movies are easier and cheaper to make and distribute. In addition, shifts in the industry mean that films spend far less long in cinemas before moving on to other platforms, such as DVD and Video On Demand.

Even the UK’s film public body has called this growth “ridiculous“. In 2014, the head of the BFI’s Film Fund, Ben Roberts, said:

There are too many films being released. That number is ridiculous, and the fact it keeps going up is not sustainable. There’s just too much stuff out there. A real challenge for us is to make sure that films stay on screen for long enough… It’s too much for the market to bear. Financially, it doesn’t make as much sense.

Does the increase in releases mean more money for independent filmmakers?
We’ve already seen how the number of major Hollywood releases is not increasing, meaning that the growth in releases must be due to a greater number of independent films receiving a theatrical release. This could be viewed as a positive change for artists and independents, as they get a greater-than-ever chance to get their film seen and to earn some of that box office income.

However, the data reveals that the studios have managed to keep control of the majority of the cinema market. Over the past ten years, 74% of all the money collected at the UK box office has gone to the top 50 grossing films.



Related articles
If you want to read more about trends in the film industry, then here are a few articles you may want to check out:

Six ways the film business is changing
The state of the UK film industry
Notes
The UK data for today’s article came from the Film Distributors Association, comScore and the BFI; the US data came via the MPAA, The Numbers and Box Office Mojo.

We need to be a little careful about relying on data from the pre-internet age as it has a higher chance of being incomplete than data captured contemporaneously. For example, Box Office Mojo launched in 1999 so all data from that year would have been added in 1999 or later.

Epilogue
A big thank you to Erin, Steve, and Franklin (via Michael), whose questions led to today’s article. To be honest, I thought I had covered the topic already but it turns out that I had only addressed the topic in passing in amongst other articles. I’ve been doing this for so long that I often forget what I have covered. Twice last month I had an idea for a topic, Googled it and found that I had already looked into it. I worry that this is early senility, but it’s a comfort to think I’ll soon forget I have it.

Of course the GOP's crying all the way about it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-tied-groups-challenge-shift-of-bloomberg-cash-to-democrats-11585593458

He did

Bloomberg makes massive $18M transfer from campaign to DNC

More
Mike Bloomberg is sending $18 million from his defunct presidential campaign to the Democratic National Committee, a dramatic investment in the national party that appears to push the boundaries of campaign finance law.

The money will support the DNC’s “Battleground Build-Up 2020” program, the DNC’s initiative in 12 swing states across the country. The money could fund potentially hundreds of organizers in those swing states.

“This will help us invest in more organizers across the country to elect the next president and help Democrats win up and down the ballot,” DNC chairman Tom Perez said in a statement. The DNC has made early, historic investments in our battleground and general election programs, and the additional organizers we're putting on the ground will significantly bolster those efforts and help make sure Donald Trump is a one-term president.”

The massive transfer signals a change of plans for Bloomberg, who is nixing an earlier idea to form his own super PAC to take on President Donald Trump in 2020.

"While we considered creating our own independent entity to support the nominee and hold the President accountable, this race is too important to have many competing groups with good intentions but that are not coordinated and united in strategy and execution,' an unsigned memo circulated by the Bloomberg campaign read. "The dynamics of the race have also fundamentally changed, and it is critically important that we all do everything we can to support our eventual nominee and scale the Democratic Party’s general election efforts."

A press release accompanying the memo said that staff in six battleground states will be "employed and paid" through the first week in April and have "full benefits" through the end of that month.

Bloomberg would not be able to give the DNC such a massive sum of money as a regular donor. But presidential candidates are allowed to transfer unlimited amounts to their national party committee — though usually those candidates have raised the money from donors operating under campaign finance limits. Bloomberg self-funded his whole presidential campaign from his personal fortune.

The memo from Bloomberg’s operation said that it would be transferring the money, and a Democratic official noted that federal candidates’ campaign committees can transfer an unlimited amount of money to a party committee. This, however, has rarely if ever been done with a candidate who exclusively self-funded their own campaign.

“They put money into their campaign with the full intent of winning the nomination, and put it in before Super Tuesday," Graham Wilson, a lawyer for the DNC, said. He argued the transfer was not “not breaking new ground on the law.”

A Bloomberg spokesperson said that the transfer would appear on the campaign’s next FEC filing in April, meaning the money was transferred sometime this month.

The Bloomberg campaign also announced that it would transfer “several” of its former field offices to state parties.

Bloomberg makes massive $18M transfer

Trump threatens to adjourn both chambers of Congress


President Trump on Wednesday threatened to use his executive power to force both chambers of Congress to adjourn if the Senate did not confirm his nominees for vacancies across the administration.

The president, during a coronavirus briefing in the Rose Garden, offered a lengthy diatribe against what he described as congressional obstruction and argued confirming his nominees was more urgent than ever amid the pandemic.

"The Senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or it should formally adjourn so I can make recess appointments," Trump said. "We have a tremendous number of people that have to come into government. And now more so than ever before because of the virus and the problem."

Lawmakers in both chambers are not expected to return to the Capitol until May 4 but both the House and Senate have been conducting pro forma sessions in the meantime. Those sessions prevent Trump from making recess appointments.

"The current practice of leaving town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people can not afford during this crisis," he said. "It is a scam, what they do. It’s a scam. And everybody knows it and it’s been that way for a long time."

Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution grants Trump the power to "on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper."

That means that in order for the president to step in and dismiss both, the GOP-controlled Senate would have to adjourn while the Democrat-held House objected. Senate Democrats also have procedural tools to prevent the Senate from adjourning.

The National Constitution Center noted that "no President has ever exercised" the authority.

"Perhaps it’s never been done before, nobody’s even sure if it has," Trump said. "But we’re going to do it. We need these people here. We need people for this crisis, and we don’t want to play any more political games."

Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor who appeared as a GOP witness during the House impeachment hearings, warned Trump against taking the step.

"The President just said that he may unilaterally adjourn Congress. ... This power has never been used and should not be used now," he tweeted.


Senate Republicans were expected to set up another three weeks of pro forma sessions on Thursday afternoon to last through the chamber's new May 4 return date, after that date was pushed back because of the coronavirus.

Spokesmen for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn't immediately say if Trump's comments changed the GOP plan, or if Republicans would now try to pass an adjournment resolution by unanimous consent sparking a fight with Democrats.

Instead, a spokesman for the GOP leader said McConnell spoke with Trump on Wednesday about "Senate Democrats’ unprecedented obstruction of the president’s well-qualified nominees and shared his continued frustration with the process."

"The Leader pledged to find ways to confirm nominees considered mission-critical to the COVID-19 pandemic, but under Senate rules that will take consent from Leader Schumer," the spokesman added.

The Trump administration has long been plagued by vacancies across the government. Trump has declined to nominate full-time appointees to key positions, instead relying officials in acting capacities.

One hundred and fifty of 749 "key positions" tracked by The Washington Post and Partnership for Public Service do not have nominees, while another 15 are awaiting nomination.

The Department of Homeland Security, a key agency in guarding against the coronavirus and other national security threats, has not had a full-time secretary in over a year. A number of other top positions in the department remain unfilled.

Trump cited the director of national intelligence, two members of the Federal Reserve Board, the undersecretary of agriculture responsible for administering food security programs and the head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media as nominees he has put forward who are awaiting confirmation amid the pandemic.

Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), nominated to be the director of national intelligence, has not yet received a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Judy Shelton, one of Trump's Federal Reserve Board nominees, has not yet received a vote before the Senate Banking Committee, after hitting early skepticism from GOP members of the panel.

Trump's comments are likely to pour new fuel into the fight over nominations, which have emerged as a lightning rod in recent years. Senate Republicans went "nuclear" in 2019 to change the Senate's rules and cut down on the amount of time it takes to confirm most executive nominees and district judges. But Democrats are still able to force McConnell to eat up days of floor time for a single nomination under the chamber's rules.

Trump touted the number of judicial nominations, a top priority for McConnell, confirmed by the Senate: 193. But he argued that nominees for the executive branch were stuck in limbo for up to years because Democrats were "holding this up."

"It's a very unfair system," Trump said. "There's no time for anybody else and many of these people have been waiting for two and a half years. ...We can't get them approved by the Democrats. ...It's just a concerted effort to make life difficult."

It's unclear what prompted Trump to levy his attack on the congressional confirmation process on Tuesday, but it marked the latest instance of the president using his coronavirus briefings to take up political fights as his White House comes under criticism for its handling of the pandemic.

Coronavirus has infected roughly 635,000 people in the U.S. and killed roughly 28,000.

He has previously chastised presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden during briefings, described Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) as a "lightweight" and warned lawmakers against conducting "partisan investigations" after the House convened a special committee to exam the federal response to the pandemic.

Trump has also used the briefings to push other proposals in line with his broader agenda. He rolled out increased narco-terrorism patrols earlier this month and announced on Tuesday that his administration would put a hold on funding for the World Health Organization (WHO), accusing it of being too trusting of China.

Updated at 7:02 p.m.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/493044-trump-threatens-to-adjourn-both-chambers-of-congress

https://www.newsweek.com/small-business-loans-program-run-out-money-this-week-congress-remains-deadlocked-1498133


SMALL-BUSINESS LOANS PROGRAM TO RUN OUT OF MONEY THIS WEEK AS CONGRESS REMAINS DEADLOCKED
BY RAMSEY TOUCHBERRY ON 4/15/20 AT 2:56 PM EDT

The owners of small businesses may soon no longer be able to receive forgivable loans that can help keep the lights on and their employees paid amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Members of Congress and the Trump administration remained at an impasse Wednesday over how the funds should be replenished, as bipartisan discussions between Democrats and the Treasury Department took place.

At the current rate of depletion for the Paycheck Protection Program, which was allotted $349 billion by Congress in the $2 trillion stimulus so that businesses could receive roughly two months of relief for operating and payroll costs, funds will run dry by no later than Thursday. As of midday Wednesday, more than 1.44 million applicants were approved to receive over $311 billion, leaving less than 11 percent remaining.

White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow has warned the small-business funds could diminish by Thursday. Bloomberg News and The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that this could occur as early as later that same day.

The Small Business Administration—the Treasury Department agency which oversees the loans—did not immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment.

The rapid exhaustion of money came less than two weeks since the program launched. Republicans and Democrats are proposing dueling emergency spending measures to appropriate more money, leaving them at a stalemate they've yet to overcome.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke Wednesday morning, while staffers of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Schumer were slated to meet with Treasury officials Wednesday afternoon in an effort to reach a bipartisan deal.

"Hopefully, we are getting closer to an agreement," House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on a conference call. "But I can't guarantee we may get an agreement that we could pass on Friday."


small business loan funding running out
Vehicle traffic is almost nonexistent on Pennsylvania Avenue as the Capitol is reflected in a rainwater puddle on April 13. The coronavirus outbreak has sent lawmakers home and brought the business of the nation’s capital to a nearly total halt.
PHOTO BY CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY
Republicans want to allocate $250 billion more for the small-business relief, no strings attached. Democrats support the additional aid but are demanding that $125 billion of it comes with conditions, such as ensuring it includes community banks so smaller business owners aren't turned away from larger institutions they have no relationship with, as is reportedly occurring. The conditions would also require that portions of the loans go to businesses owned by women, veterans, minorities or farmers.

Pelosi said in a statement that in order for the relief program to "succeed, it must work for everyone." She reiterated that the GOP version would lack support in her chamber.

Democrats also want $100 billion for hospitals and local medical facilities, $150 billion for state and local governments, and a 15 percent increase for food stamp benefits.

On a call with reporters Wednesday, Schumer argued there is "just as much need for" local and state governments, as well as hospitals, to receive more money or else there will be "millions more people" who are out of work. A group of local Democratic leaders from across the country, including city council members and mayors, have pleaded for more help. They've warned that further staff cuts could have to be made.

"Without assistance from the federal government, we will struggle to maintain the vital services that keep our community safe and healthy," the mayor of Dayton, Ohio, Nan Whaley, told reporters on a call Tuesday. She said her city has been forced to furlough 479 employees, or roughly 28 percent of its workforce.

Hoyer characterized Democrats' funding requests as "reasonable" and felt his GOP colleagues were more upset by the "process" of the negotiations than the "substance" of the Democrats' proposal.

"I know there are some Republicans who believe the request for states and local and tribal governments is a reasonable one they could support," he said.

Both sides rejected each other's proposals last week in the Senate, and they've so far refused to budge from their positions. Republicans have accused their counterparts of unnecessarily delaying the emergency funding over a desire to give more sectors of the government and economy money from the $2 trillion stimulus legislation that has yet to run out.

"There is no time to insist on sweeping renegotiations or ultimatums about other policies that passed both houses unanimously," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement Tuesday. "American workers deserve paychecks, not pink slips caused by political games."

If a deal is reached Wednesday, Congress could pass legislation by week's end with a handful of lawmakers giving unanimous consent, as members remain in their home districts and won't return to Washington before May 4. Unanimous consent would require no objections. The Senate next convenes on Thursday, and the House will do so Friday.

This story will be updated with additional information as it becomes available.