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Your argument is nicely laid out. If you're correct in your assessment, he's more Madoff and Holmes than dangerously inept and incompetent. His trial starts tomorrow.
Unfortunately, many people are governed by faith as it takes little to no work to accomplish, and not science, or at minimum a semi-rigorous scientific method to reach their conclusions. Charlatans of every stripe depend on this rather common human weakness. Some of them believe what they're saying, the current Pope is a good example and others are just grifters. SBF seems to be somewhere in-between.
Michael Lewis is one of my favorite non-fiction authors. Over the years I've suggested several book ideas here and directly to Mr. Lewis. He, as you might expect, doesn't listen to me. His new book, Going Infinite, is an investigation into flash billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried. Coming out Tuesday. This should be a fun read.
Blocking aid to Ukraine of course means they were able to do Russia's bidding. I'm sure there's some dark money headed their way. Roberts should be proud that he's made money speech. And since it's speech, and corporations are people, this money can have billions of secret conversations. Now we'll deal with these Quisling weasels again in 6 weeks.
Maybe? Better late than never? Possibly the House has passed a 45 day funding bill that the Senate will support and allow politicians to ignore the elephant in the room until mid-November. Or is that the elephant at Mar-a-Lago?
So how can we get people to work for as little as possible? This is not unlike what some states are doing with teaching. It's difficult to get a person with five-six years of education to work for under $50k a year. Solution? Undercut these money-grubbing thankless miscreants by changing the standards..:).
Of course this is exactly what the Reagan, et. al. crowd has wanted for over 40 years. Privatize education so we can "teach" American rug-rats for as little money as possible and pocket as much money as possible. It works really well in the health care system. Same model here.
Ha, ha, I just don't see him testifying against Putin but it would make some great TV.
None of us know a Georgia bail bondsman named Scott Hall but Mr. Hall just did a Watergate level flip. He's no longer a defendant he's a cooperating witness in the Fulton County case who is no longer going to jail, he's going to testify. Now there are 17 more defendants not named Donald Trump. What's the over-under on flipper count? Really reminds me of Watergate. If so, it's going to get a lot worse for the ex-pres. And unlike Nixon, he doesn't have a sweet deal with his VP for a pardon.
Kevin and the Crazy Caucus played the Biden impeachment chorus at the House Chamber. Apparently they were so unprepared that most of the backup band left the stage in embarrassment. As soon as they did Democrats began voting to subpoena Rudy Giuliani. At least there was some entertainment as remaining Republicans had to call the backup band back for an encore to ensure Rudy, who dug up all the dirt on Hunter, did not show up and sing.
So much hope this morning and market disappointment this afternoon. The SPX is down over 5% for the month of September. As I noted at the beginning of the month, the last half of September is almost always worse than the first half and this year was no exception with over 2/3s of the downside happening after the 15th. It doesn't look to be much better in October unless McCarthy shows some backbone...yeah...it doesn't look good.
I think Google's position on the Level 3 vs. Level 4 is fairly well understood. Here are two, more complete, explanations. One assumes Google decided it was bad for business to simply say Americans are too dumb and self-absorbed to be trusted with Level 3.
From the article posted by semi_infinite:
Dedicated autonomous vehicle companies like Cruise and Waymo have said they will skip over Level 3 entirely in favor of Level 4 systems, arguing that Level 3 can be too dangerous and confusing to drivers and that humans can’t be trusted to be ready or alert enough to take back control.
Google/Waymo ceased the testing of so-called Level 3 self-driving vehicle systems — where drivers are expected to take control quickly when the need arises — after some drivers literally started falling asleep during testing, the company’s CEO John Krafcik has revealed.
The decision followed experiments back in 2013 involving the filming of self-driving vehicle drivers/users, which showed some users sleeping, quite a few staring endlessly at their smartphones, and some even putting on makeup — all while traveling at speeds of up to 56 mph.
The comments were made as part of a revelation that Google/Waymo had originally been planning to release a highway-only self-driving tech system in order to rapidly get a product to market — before then deciding that such systems are too dangerous, and would involve too much liability.
Interesting article, thanks. We'll have to see how this works in the US. Who will be the first American to fall sound asleep on the Santa Monica Freeway and not wake up in 10 seconds? As Waymo has concluded, Americans will get "confused" by Level 3..:).
The system has been available to customers for more than a year in Germany, and Mercedes says there have been zero accidents so far.
Support didn't hold on the SPX and it appears we're headed down to the 4,200 area. Same for O which got a nice bounce yesterday at the psychological support area of $50. It's broken down this afternoon and trading at $49.46 with a 6.12% dividend. MO is holding it's own even though they own ~200MM shares of BUD which has been struggling for a decade. UPRO is down more than a dollar and trading at $40.
Very rare for me.
He was. Biden is a student of US political history and he likely understands where we are in this long political cycle. I'll offer this story of the unfortunate WWI soldiers who protested in DC their delayed "bonus" for fighting during the war and the end of the previous fascist cycle in America. I believe this is the beginning of the end of this fascist cycle started by Reagan.
This story is republished here from that radical left group, the National Park Service..:).
Bonus Expeditionary Forces March on Washington
In the years after World War I, a long battle over providing a bonus payment to WWI veterans raged between Congress and the White House. Presidents Harding and Coolidge both vetoed early attempts to provide a bonus to WWI veterans. Congress overrode Coolidge’s veto in 1926, passing the World War Adjusted Compensation Act, otherwise known as the Bonus Act.
The act promised WWI veterans a bonus based on length of service between April 5, 1917 and July 1, 1919; $1 per day stateside and $1.25 per day overseas, with the payout capped at $500 for stateside veterans and $625* for overseas veterans. The catch was this bonus would not pay out until each veteran’s birthday in 1945, paying out to his estate if he should die before then. Although veterans were allowed to borrow against the bonus certificate beginning in 1927, by 1932, banks were short on credit to give.
In May 1932, jobless WWI veterans organized a group called the “Bonus Expeditionary Forces” (BEF) to march on Washington, DC. Suffering and desperate, the BEF’s goal was to get the bonus payment now, when they really needed the money. Led by Walter W. Walters, the veterans set up camps and occupied buildings in various locations in Washington, DC. The largest camp was a shantytown on the Anacostia Flats, across the river from Washington’s Navy Yard.
By summer, at least 20,000 people had joined the camps, with some estimates putting the total number above 40,000. Many were joined by their families. But the camps attracted an undesirable element as well. President Hoover later claimed “the march was largely organized and promoted by the Communists, and included a large number of hoodlums and ex-convicts bent on raising a public disturbance.” Using scrap wood and other salvaged materials, the protesters constructed a vast field of shacks in view of the Capitol dome, prepared for a siege of Congress.
Taking up the veterans’ cause, Congressman Wright Patman (D-TX) - himself a WWI veteran - sponsored a bill that would immediately provide a $2.4 billion bonus payment to WWI veterans. During the debate over the bill on June 15, 1932, Congressman Edward Eslick (D-TN) was making an address on the floor of the House of Representatives when he suffered a heart attack and died. The House carried on with its business, though, and with hundreds of veterans cheering from the gallery, the House passed the bill that same day.
Republicans opposed the Patman bill mainly because it required the government to spend money it did not have in the treasury. The government was no exception to the hard times that had befallen the nation. Although the bill had passed in the House, the bill did not have the votes to pass in the Senate. The Senate voted down the bill on June 17. No immediate relief would be coming to the veterans. Even if the bill had passed the Senate, it most likely would have been vetoed by President Hoover, just as the bonus itself had been vetoed by Coolidge and Harding in the preceding years.
The bill had come to a vote and failed, but many in the Bonus Expeditionary Force refused to pack up and go home. Instead, they continued their occupation of the Anacostia Flats and vacant buildings in the District of Columbia into July.
On July 28, Attorney General William Mitchell ordered the DC police to remove the protesters from government property. At the time, about 50 protesters occupied buildings along Pennsylvania Avenue. When police arrived to move them out, a riot erupted, and police shot and killed two protesters. After that, the Army was called in to restore order.
General Douglas MacArthur led the Army troops, along with his aide Major Dwight D. Eisenhower and an able tank commander, Major George S. Patton.
Bet no one knew these three turned on their own. One should always remember a 12th Century observation: No good deed goes unpunished.
Realty Income, (O), was trading down below $50 and yielding just over 6%. It's getting a little boost in the last half hour.
Known as Dimonisms. He's certainly correct often enough that people listen to him but as I've said before, Jamie talks his own book so it's sometimes difficult to know why he's making these statements. It could simply be that his brokerage guys are shorting the idea. It wouldn't be the first time he's veering to port while extoling the sunrise to starboard.
Clearly I don't see it but if UAW can get a 40% wage increase maybe it is a 1970s redo.
Biden spoke to striking UAW workers and backed a 40% pay increase. Ford shut down building of a battery plant in Michigan. Ford says the two are not related....It's OK to laugh out loud at that idea.
I have no dog in this fight as I don't know what unionized labor is making today but clearly the Big 3 aren't running their businesses well enough to absorb the cost while building out their "electric future" and still keep investors happy.
According to the Fed, the bottom 80% of income earners in the US have gone through all of their pandemic savings - and that was as of June. As I've been saying forever, Q1 2024 looks good for a recession.
Markets are just ugly today. The SPX is down 65 pts. or 1.5%.
The SPX failed to get back above the resistance area outlined yesterday and traders are more pessimistic this morning. The chart attached below is one I used during the Spring when the SPX was trading in a channel. The upper area in the 4,200 range should provide some support if we continue down. If one were a gambler and thinks this will be settled before midnight Saturday then backing up the truck with UPRO $41 calls, (currently $1.10), would be a good move. Of course you'd want to wait until Friday when the real hand wringing should start and UPRO might be down closer to $39.
One of my favorite quotes which should be a tag line one of these days is from Michael Burry:
Wall Street is able to delude itself because it's paid to delude itself.
I appreciate what Ford has attempted to do with electric vehicles but what few understand is that electric cars are still a cult in the US. And that cult is the TSLA cult. It's not unlike the early iPhone. They have problems, they don't really perform the way they say they perform and there are serious issues at the edges. The question is; will TSLA prove to be another AAPL or will the legacy companies overtake them. I've no dog in this fight but I find it quite interesting.
Maybe this Supreme Court will finally go so far over the line in their rulings next June that even overly-cautious Uncle Joe will agree to expand the court and put these people out of business. Of course that would mean that Dems would actually show up and vote. Hope springs eternal, (stolen from Alexander Pope). I also occasionally steal "damn with faint praise".
Without Medicare few Americans over the age of 65 could afford any medical care.
Or they may be like Alaska, it's simply running out of oil retrieved at a reasonable cost.
Putin is planning on Trump in 2024 to bail him out of his horrible miscalculation regarding Ukraine. The disinformation on the next election cycle will be epic.
But how long will they hang around this level? I'd certainly like to know. I'll be adding to my preferreds over the next few weeks as I think we're getting close to a pinch-point in consumer spending for this cycle.
I was listening to How I Built This today and the entrepreneur was a Cal Tech grad that decided to build an AI vision assisted robot to sort recycled items. It's taken 10 years, but now his robots are 95-99% correct in sorting, (based on the client's requirements), where people are closer to 90% because it's a disgusting, horrible job no one really wants. His company can fully automate a line over a weekend. Currently only 35% of possible recyclable products actually get recycled. He thinks he'll cut the cost by 50-80% by the end of the decade. Although he didn't specifically recommend it, he did mention that money from recyclables was a growing income area for WM. For my investing style, WM is a bit expensive today but then I've thought that about John Deere for a long time..:).
The link redirected me to WSJ comments. Appreciate your direct thoughts. Thanks.
If I were still supporting any Republicans I would need many a "doubled-barreled Scotch whiskey". Of course, David Brooks has always been one of the NYT diversity morons. The rest of the staff has to have someone to laugh about in the lunch room.
I think it's important to distinguish between Elon Musk the liar and all around jerk and Elon Musk the entrepreneurial genius. I thought the Wired article posted by biocqr made an excellent point; the three traditional majors are still trying to build ICE vehicles with batteries instead of gasoline powered engines. I understand that's a bit unfair but he's been building a software company that also builds cars from day one. These three are still building cars that attempt to use software to provide some modern features.
Agree or disagree with the UAW and their employees, it's a gift to Musk. As if he needed a mulligan.
On top of student loan payments beginning again, another pandemic era program is ending for child care assistance. It's estimated that as many as 30% of licensed child care facilities will shut down as they will not be able to raise prices enough to cover expenses. Child care cost averages just over $10,000 a year.
The $24 billion Child Care Stabilization Program, passed through the American Rescue Plan of 2021, allocated funding to more than 220,000 child care programs and covered as many as 9.6 million children, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Assistance was awarded to more than 80% of licensed child care centers across the country, which used the money to cover expenses like personnel costs, rent and utilities, and personal protective equipment.
Still fighting the ghost of the 1970s.