40 Burst results for "February"
Ethereum Daily
A highlight from VanEck Commits ETF Profits To Protocol Guild
"VanEck, an ETF and mutual fund manager, announced its commitment to donate 10 % of its profits from the forthcoming eFute ETF to Protocol Guild. The contribution is scheduled to continue on a regular basis for a minimum of the next decade. Protocol Guild is a collective comprised of over 150 Ethereum core contributors. Protocol Guild solves funding and coordination challenges for core protocol development. VanEck is set to host a Twitter space with Protocol Guild on October 4th. The VanEck Ethereum Strategy ETF, also known as eFute, is an upcoming ETF centered on investing in cash -settled ETH futures contracts traded on CME. Smart contract auditing firm Chain Security released its audit findings for EIP47AA, a proposal aiming to expose beacon chain routes in the EVM for accessing consensus layer information. The audit revealed no critical severity issues, one high severity issue, and six low severity issues. The high severity issue pertained to incorrect data retrieval. The smart contract's GET function could be queried using the zero timestamp even without a value set. The issue could mislead integrators into recognizing a zero hash as a valid beacon route, posing a risk for potential exploits. The issue has since been recetified by adding an exploit check to block queries with the zero timestamp. Additional improvements from the audit include gas optimizations related to the ring buffer size. A vote to transfer 16 ,000 Ether from the ENS -style treasury to an ENS endowment overseen by Carpetkey is currently underway. The transfer represents the second installment of funds sent to the endowment, a first installment of 16 ,000 Ether, was sent in February which has since been managed to generate a 4 % APY for the ENS -style. The endowment currently holds over $10 million invested in LIDO's SDEth liquid staking token. ENS delegate and member of the staking community SuperFizz voted against the proposal as a portion of the second installment will be converted into SDEth. SuperFizz noted that Carpetkey maintains a relationship with LIDO. The largest staking provider with a 32 % market dominance. The on -chain vote will end on October 4th. Lastly, Ethereum .org announced the second iteration of its Writers Cohort, a three -week online program designed to inspire community members to write about Ethereum. The initiative helps contributors in enhancing their writing and communication skills and in building an online presence. Participants will have access to live workshops, writing resources, and the Ethereum .org community members. Applications are now open with the program starting on October 20th. This has been a roundup of today's top news stories in Ethereum. You can support this podcast by subscribing and following us on Twitter at ethdaily. Also subscribe to our newsletter at ethdaily .io. Thanks for listening, we'll see you on Monday.
Stephanie Miller
Fresh update on "february" discussed on Stephanie Miller
"Patty Vazquez. Patty Vazquez, nights five to seven on WCPT 820, where facts matter. This is a T civil rights snapshot. Most people believe that the most historic thing the Pittsburgh pirates did in 1971 was win World the Series. However, history was made by the pirates back in September by starting an all black lineup, the first in major league baseball history, 24 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier. Despite being a historic event, it largely went unnoticed as the newspapers were on strike and the radio broadcasts drew little attention to event, the not even mentioning it until the second inning and the teams themselves not even knowing they had made history. pirates won that The game 10 -7. Rennie Stennett, Jean Clines, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, Manny Tanguyen, Dave Cash, Al Oliver, Jackie Hernandez, and Doc Ellis pitching. All these men made history that day and helped lead the pirates to win the 1971 World Series. And outfielder Roberto Clemente became the first Latin American player to win the World Series MVP award. Please stay vigilant about our civil rights. is The fight never over. This is a WCBT moment in labor On February 8th, Starbucks in Memphis Tennessee fired seven workers who were
Coronavirus
A highlight from VanEck Commits ETF Profits To Protocol Guild
"VanEck, an ETF and mutual fund manager, announced its commitment to donate 10 % of its profits from the forthcoming eFute ETF to Protocol Guild. The contribution is scheduled to continue on a regular basis for a minimum of the next decade. Protocol Guild is a collective comprised of over 150 Ethereum core contributors. Protocol Guild solves funding and coordination challenges for core protocol development. VanEck is set to host a Twitter space with Protocol Guild on October 4th. The VanEck Ethereum Strategy ETF, also known as eFute, is an upcoming ETF centered on investing in cash -settled ETH futures contracts traded on CME. Smart contract auditing firm Chain Security released its audit findings for EIP47AA, a proposal aiming to expose beacon chain routes in the EVM for accessing consensus layer information. The audit revealed no critical severity issues, one high severity issue, and six low severity issues. The high severity issue pertained to incorrect data retrieval. The smart contract's GET function could be queried using the zero timestamp even without a value set. The issue could mislead integrators into recognizing a zero hash as a valid beacon route, posing a risk for potential exploits. The issue has since been recetified by adding an exploit check to block queries with the zero timestamp. Additional improvements from the audit include gas optimizations related to the ring buffer size. A vote to transfer 16 ,000 Ether from the ENS -style treasury to an ENS endowment overseen by Carpetkey is currently underway. The transfer represents the second installment of funds sent to the endowment, a first installment of 16 ,000 Ether, was sent in February which has since been managed to generate a 4 % APY for the ENS -style. The endowment currently holds over $10 million invested in LIDO's SDEth liquid staking token. ENS delegate and member of the staking community SuperFizz voted against the proposal as a portion of the second installment will be converted into SDEth. SuperFizz noted that Carpetkey maintains a relationship with LIDO. The largest staking provider with a 32 % market dominance. The on -chain vote will end on October 4th. Lastly, Ethereum .org announced the second iteration of its Writers Cohort, a three -week online program designed to inspire community members to write about Ethereum. The initiative helps contributors in enhancing their writing and communication skills and in building an online presence. Participants will have access to live workshops, writing resources, and the Ethereum .org community members. Applications are now open with the program starting on October 20th. This has been a roundup of today's top news stories in Ethereum. You can support this podcast by subscribing and following us on Twitter at ethdaily. Also subscribe to our newsletter at ethdaily .io. Thanks for listening, we'll see you on Monday.
Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
Fresh update on "february" discussed on Spellcaster: The Fall of Sam Bankman-Fried
"Investors and customers to essentially lie about the backdoor. I agreed with Mr. Bankman Freed and others to provide materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders. Then she apologized. I am truly sorry for what I did. I knew that it was wrong and I want to apologize for my actions to the affected customers of FTX, lenders to Alameda, and investors in FTX. I am here today to accept responsibility for my actions by pleading guilty. It was weird for me finding out about Caroline's guilty plea and knowing that she would likely be ending years in prison. This was the person I'd spent a bachelorette weekend with. of At the the end trip, she had given everyone custom tote bags she and her mom had designed. And now she's guilty of helping commit a multi -billion dollar fraud. Caroline had surrendered and she wasn't the only one. The Southern District of New York has filed charges against Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wong, a co -founder of FTX, connection in with their roles in the frauds that contributed to FTX's collapse. Both Miss Ellison and Mr. Wong have guilty pled to those charges, and they are both cooperating with the Southern District of New York. In February, Nishad Singh, the company's engineering director and another one of Sam's closest confidants, also pleaded guilty implicating Sam. By offering their guilty pleas, Sam's friends made his defense much more difficult. Sam faced the prospect of years, if in prison. On the morning of December 21st, 2002, Sam woke up in his cell in Fox Hill, ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and said his goodbyes. As he walked out, he wished everyone a merry Christmas. He shook hands with the commissioner of police. Then, Bahamian authorities drove him to court. Sam Beckwith -Fried just arriving at a Bahamian courthouse in the past few minutes. A source familiar with the matter tells me the former FTX CEO plans to surrender himself to the US extradition process. Sam signed some papers which formally turned him over to the Department US
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from Congressman Warren Davidson Interview - Crypto Regulations, SEC Gary Gensler Hearing & Subpoena, Bill Hinman Ethereum, CBDCs
"Oh yeah, I mean, I think book Gensler should have been subpoenaed already. I mean, I think the amount of patients that chairman McHenry shown, I mean, maybe that's why he's the chairman. He's like more patient study, kind of working it more diplomatic. Like, yeah, I think the subpoena was due like in February. This content is brought to you by link to which makes private equity investment easy. Link to is a great platform that allows you to get equity in companies before they go public, before they do an IPO within their portfolio includes crypto companies, AI companies, and FinTech companies, some of the crypto companies you may recognize include circle ripple chain, analysis, ledger, dapper labs, and many more, if you'd like to learn more about link to please visit the link in the description. Welcome back to the thinking crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews with me today is Congressman Warren Davidson, who's a Republican out of Ohio, Congressman Davidson. It's great to have you on. Yeah. It's an honor to join you. Thanks. Yeah. Congressman Davidson, I've followed you for years and all the great work you've done with legislation around crypto. I think you were boy was maybe the first, if I, as far as I remember going back to the token taxonomy days and things like that. Uh, but before we get to all that, you know, tell us about yourself, where you're from and where'd you grow up. Yeah. So I grew up in Ohio, um, a little North of where I live now. So, um, graduated high school in the eighties, 88 listed in the army and, uh, got sent over to Germany when the wall Berlin wall was up, you know, the cold war was there and there, uh, wall separating the East and the West went through East Berlin and got to be there when that came down. And, uh, I'll just say like the people on the other side, weren't looking for more government. They were looking for more freedom and it was definitely a life -defining experience. Uh, from there, I got to go to West point, which, so that's not the normal way you go to West point, but, uh, it worked for me and, uh, graduated, went back into the infantry, served in range of regiment, 101st airborne division, uh, the old guard, you know, so some great units, but ultimately decided I needed to get out and go into a business. So my wife and I, and two little kids at that point in time, moved back to Ohio and, uh, started manufacturing companies, went to Notre Dame, got an MBA, and we basically had a little group of manufacturing companies. And that was what I was doing. And John Boehner resigned as speaker of the house. And a couple friends stopped in and said, Hey, you know, who are you going to back in the race? And I said, Hey, you know, you guys are the political people. And they cracked really a joke. They go, you know, it'd be great if there was an army ranger business guy in the race. So we just laughed and I went home and told my wife about my day. And she said, well, what'd you tell them? Like, well, we just laughed. Cause it's crazy. And she said, no, it's not. You'd be great at that. Well, here I am. So that's been like, you know, gosh, over seven years ago now. So it says it's pretty crazy. So in Congress, I got here and very few people knew much, very few elected office holders knew much about crypto. And I was new on the financial services committee and, uh, you know, kind of started that kind of army ranger business guy, the business guy, financial services also on foreign affairs. And, you know, that's, it's been a, it's been an interesting time to be in politics. Right. Oh yeah. Uh, well first thank you for your service. And, uh, it sounds like that wasn't, uh, just an incredible experience you had with the Berlin wall and so forth and being over there. Um, that must've been something, uh, life -changing it sounds like. Oh yeah. And look, I mean, the military offers a great opportunity for so many people. I mean, it's not a perfect fit for everybody for me. I just love that I got to be a part of it and it turned out phenomenally well for me, but it really is, uh, a great, a great thing to do and, you know, a lot of phenomenal people they'd go in and give a portion of their lives in service. And then unfortunately for frankly, some of my friends and others, they give their full life, um, you know, lost in combat or occasionally a training accident or something, but, you know, it's a serious commitment, but it is really cool that I had the chance to do it. Wow. Um, so let's talk about, uh, some of the work you've done in the crypto legislation front, because I remember as far as I can remember, uh, I, the token taxonomy act being maybe the first crypto legislation, and you can correct me if I'm wrong there, but, um, you know, tell us about the history of the different bills and things you've worked on. Yeah. So when I first got to the committee, you know, it was January of 2017 and, you know, you remember 2017 was like the ICO market people like, oh, you know, I could just write a white paper and kind of skip everything. And there were really good use cases, people trying to do things honestly. And then unfortunately there were just some outright pump and dump scams where people were being taken advantage of. And I'm like, where's the sec. You should be cracking down on these scammers and, uh, you know, they weren't really, you know, reacting well. They didn't really know who was going to do what. So there was this void and, you know, I was trying to get hearings on this subject and you, as the new guy, you don't get to choose which hearing. So this goes all the way into 2018. And, uh, we really couldn't get focused as a committee on the issue. Uh, so I was like, well, I can at least have a meeting. I mean, we won't be able to call it a hearing, so we'll have a meeting. And we did this thing at the library of Congress and it started out with a goal of getting about a dozen people together. And by the end, we had to cap it at 50 and like, people were like, oh, I want to send my CEO and I want to send my general counsel on, you know, we had some of the biggest names in, in, uh, not just crypto, but, you know, venture capital, you know, the New York stock exchange fidelity state street, I mean, you name it, any Andreessen Horowitz, you name it, the big players, we also are like, look, we got to have some startup companies and some founders that no one's ever even heard of some of those kind of knowing that still is heard of. They kind of went away. Uh, but a lot of them have really turned into some of the biggest names in crypto over time. And it was just an interesting conversation. So the goal was this listening to everybody and say, well, how, if we're looking at a tree, how far up can we go before everybody's interest starts diverging and branching out in a different way? And we want to kind of go up to that first level of branches and say, this is the consensus. If you solve these things, uh, you could provide a really difference making piece of legislation. So that was the token taxonomy act. Darren Soto, a Democrat from Florida, and I led the bill and man, think how different crypto would be if we had passed that bill in like 2018.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
Fresh update on "february" discussed on Mike Gallagher Podcast
"Interesting, interesting. Now here's what the left is doing. They're making it a personal story. Well, he's doing it all for love. He loves his son, he loves his son. That's what it's all about. What is corruption? Apparently he loved his daughter a lot too because he liked taking showers with her as a teenager. That's a story for another day. All right, but listen, Hunter Biden, to some degree, I feel sympathy for Hunter Biden for this reason. Hunter Biden is a product of Joe Biden. Hunter Biden is Joe Biden's son. I don't know this, you don't know this, this is pure speculation on my part, but I don't know that Hunter Biden would be a crackhead, actually, if he was a Trump kid, you know what I'm saying? I don't know that Hunter Biden would be a crackhead, quite frankly, if he was any other politician's son. But you're dealing with one of the most corrupt, I believe are probably the most corrupt, not just president or vice president, but perhaps American politician in American history. November, 2013, hat tip Breitbart. Hunter joined with Chinese investors to create Bohai Harvest RSD, equity investment fund management company, an investment fund controlled by the Bank of China. One month later, then VP Joe Biden traveled with Hunter on Air Force Two to China and met the CEO of BHR, that's Jonathan Lee. Soon after that, BHR's business license was approved and Hunter had become a board member. But Joe Biden didn't know any of his business partners. He didn't ever talk to his son about business. February 5th, 2014, Kamesh Rakashev, a Kazakhstani businessman, met Hunter Biden at a Washington DC hotel. April 23rd, 2014, Rakashev's Singaporean company wired $142,300 through his Latvian company to a Rosemont entity. Soon after that, entity wired 142,300 to a car dealership in New Jersey for a Porsche for Hunter Biden. May 12th, 2014, Ukrainian gas producer, Burisma, announced that Hunter Biden had joined its board of directors. May 21st, 2014, nine days later, VP Joe Biden visited Romania and delivered a speech to the Romanian prime minister, judges, prosecutors, and leaders of the Romanian parliament. September 12th, 2014, BHR invested $1.7 billion in a Chinese Communist Party, linked petroleum and chemical company. Roughly three months later, Hunter Biden and his business associate invested $484,920 into BHR. A few weeks later, Rakashev's Kazakhstani oil company and Burisma joined with a CCP-linked company and announced a transnational financial arrangement. Guys, I would caution you. I do believe that Eric Lindrum is right. He wrote another column. We have to be very careful because the left is playing this emotional game. We've got to make sure that this story does not get so oversaturated that people tune out because quite frankly, I think that's what's happening. I think that's starting to happen. So we got to make sure, James Comer, when you come out with the goods, you got to come out with the goods. We need a connection to Joe Biden. We need a connection to Joe Biden. Let me tell you something, I think Democrats, I think Democrats really would like Republicans to succeed. Not necessarily in the DOJ, but I'm of the belief that they want to get rid of this guy. I really am. And that's just some, that's just some. I've got a whole timeline. I've got a whole lot more. So I'll give you some more of that stuff shortly. Let me go to the lines real quick though. We've got Robin. Robin has been waiting patiently in Pittsburgh. Robin, welcome to the Mike Gallagher Show. You've got the mic.
Crypto Banter
A highlight from The Biggest Bitcoin Selling Event Of 2023! (BEWARE)
"But a few urgent pressing situations that we have to deal with quite urgently. I think the first situation that we have to deal with is, hold on a second, James, it won't let me share screen so you could share the screen. So the first situation that we have to deal with is we have to deal with the looming US government shutdown because now the odds of a government shutdown are 90 % and if we do get a government shutdown, Goldman Sachs actually says that this shutdown could last as long as two to three weeks. I think we actually for now need to start preparing for this US government shutdown. The next thing that we have to start preparing for is a massive seller in the market. So this is not a joke. We do have a seller in the market. This seller owns 10 % of all the Bitcoin in circulation and 1 .8 million Bitcoin and they are going to start selling. In fact, what you can see from this chart over here is that they have already started selling a whole lot of their Bitcoin. So we're going to be talking about the seller when they're going to hit the market and why that's going to impact the Bitcoin price and how much that's going to impact the Bitcoin price. Then what we need to talk about is we need to talk about this little price move that we had yesterday in Bitcoin and what it actually means because we seem to be in a position where every time that we get a pump, we get the pump, but then the pump dies and that's exactly what happened yesterday. So we could understand what actually happened yesterday. What took us to 26 ,800 and brought us back down and is this thing going to continue to bring us down every single time we have a pump. Then I want to go through a knock -by -knock account of how Gary Gensler was taken down in Congress yesterday. Regarding your interactions with FTX and Sandbank and Freed, that's the investigation we started last Congress. Finally, your lack of responsiveness to this committee's legitimate oversight continues to be unacceptable. And I want to finish here. In February, the committee made multiple requests for documents to the Securities Exchange Commission. This is normal congressional oversight. Yet seven months later, the committee has not received a single non -public document that was not part of a FOIA production. As I said, our patience is wearing thin. The SEC is not above the law, nor is it unique. Other financial regulators have routinely complied with congressional oversight. So let me be clear. I do not want to be the first chairman of this committee to issue a subpoena to the Securities Exchange Commission. And you should not want to be the first SEC chair to receive a congressional subpoena. Either we find a path forward where the SEC recognizes Congress as a co -equal branch of government and is responsive to our oversight duties, or my option is to issue a subpoena. All right, so we're going to go for a blow -by -blow account of exactly what happened yesterday. Gary Gensler was absolutely, absolutely, absolutely destroyed in Congress. And then, and then, and then, I've got a massive, massive story for you, but I'm going to keep that story until the very end of the show. So let's go, guys. Big show. All right, we are back and we've got a massive, massive, massive show for you guys today. And I think the best part of the show today is going to be the show, the part where we discuss how Gary Gensler was annihilated yesterday in Congress, because this guy yesterday was absolutely, absolutely, absolutely annihilated. It's actually not, that's actually not Gary Gensler, believe it or not. So this is actually a true story. Gary Gensler has an identical twin brother. His name is Robert Gensler. I thought that this was an absolute joke, but I actually looked it up and it's true. Gary Gensler does have an identical twin brother. His name is Robert Gensler. No, no jokes. Anyway, Gary was the one that was destroyed yesterday in Congress. It wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't Robert. It was actually Gary. But crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy that we actually see these things. All right, listen, welcome back, guys. Huge show today. I want to just thank you all. I see we're very, very, very, very, very close to 650 ,000 subscribers. We are 9, 10 subscribers away from 650 ,000 subscribers. When we get to 650 ,000 subscribers, our next move is to catch up to George from Crypto's Ice, because he's like our next target. We've got him in our sights. He was 100 ,000 subscribers ahead of us before the beginning, in the beginning of the year. What is your now? 17 ,000? 17 ,000 in the banter fam, the banter fam are definitely going. We're going to go after him now. He's our next target. We're going to try and catch up to him. All right, let's go. We've got a big show today. If you haven't subscribed, subscribe to channel, like this content. If we get to what is the number of likes we had yesterday? 1 ,500. If you get to 1 ,600 likes, I'm going to show you the biggest Bitcoin seller in the market. I'm going to show you why this seller is actually going to be selling. I'm going to, we're going to decide together whether or not we should be panicking about this seller selling. And it's a serious seller. The seller has 18, 1 .8 million Bitcoin, which is 10 % of the circulating supply on Bitcoin and they are going to be selling. So yeah, if we get to 1 ,500 likes and we beat yesterday, then we're going to get into that story. In the interim though, let's look at the bubbles. Let's see what's happening on the bubbles. So I see Rune is up. Let's just see how Rune is doing. Rune up at 187. I'm actually, I actually have got quite a big Rune position. I see Rollbit at 12 cents. You would be 20 % up if you actually took our trade. You got Ape moving. Remember that you got the whole banter newsroom here on the side. So everything that we, all the places where we get our news from are actually available to you right here. And if you want to follow any of our researchers, there's 44 of them. You can just click and you can just follow them directly from the newsroom. We're also improving banter bubbles. I reckon in about a month, it's going to be the fastest bubble app in the whole market. I'm also watching the Dixie and I think the reason why we should be watching the Dixie today is because we had the GDP numbers. The numbers GDP came in at 2 .1%. They expected was 2 .1%. So nothing, no surprises when it comes to GDP. And I think that when we talk about, when we talk about GDP, we need to talk about it in context of the looming government shutdown because we've got this, this looming government shutdown. It's a real thing now, you know, we were first saying that the shutdown wouldn't happen. But now Goldman Sachs is saying, look, if the White House don't resolve their differences by the end of tomorrow, that would make it the end of Friday. And by Sunday, they would have a government shutdown. Now, that would be, I think, the fourth government shutdown in the last decade. And it would be, it would have a whole lot of effects. I think what we need to do today is actually just look at the effects of a government shutdown. And, you know, do we need to prepare for it? Like, do we need to start stocking up on toilet paper, like we did in COVID? Do we need to start stocking up on food, on rice and oil? We need to, we need to make sure that we understand exactly what's happening. But before we get there, I want to talk about yesterday's little Bitcoin pump. So we had the pump yesterday and then we had a little bit of a dump and it keeps happening every single time. We keep losing momentum. Now, I think the pump is probably expected and I do think we're going to start getting a whole lot more pumps. And I'll tell you why I think we're going to start getting a whole lot more pumps because there is more money coming into the Chinese economy. So remember that China's in big trouble now and the way they're going to get themselves out of trouble is they're going to start stimulating the economy and getting more money into the economy. Well, you can see that liquidity in China is starting to go up because of all these things that China is doing. So I am expecting the price of Bitcoin to start moving upwards because of this liquidity.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "february" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"In signs of a possible power struggle over the right to regulate Bitcoin, Gensler, the top U.S. securities regulator, repeated his past assertion that Bitcoin isn't a security. However, Gensler stopped short of identifying the asset as a commodity, which could be seen as admitting another regulator, the U.S. Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, might actually have more authority here than he'd like to admit. The SEC chair's comments and the agency's delays have heightened tensions at the crypto industry seeks clearer regulatory guidelines. Showcasing the stark difference in approach taken by other jurisdictions, representative of Hong Kong's Securities and Future Commission said in a speech Tuesday that they're preparing to release near-term guidance authorizing the use of blockchain to create tokenized versions of good old-fashioned traditional investment products. In a complex legal tangle, Joe Kwan, the former CEO of defunct Terraform Labs, is evading the SEC's legal pursuit. In February, the SEC sued Kwan for allegedly misleading investors in Terraform Labs' Terra-USD stablecoin scheme that resulted in a $60 billion collapse when its underlying Luna asset lost nearly all its value. But before the SEC could arrest Dokwan, Montenegro authorities snatched him for using Ford's passports and sentenced him to a four-month prison term. While Kwan serves his sentence, the SEC hopes to have the former CEO questioned on their behalf while reserving the right to extradite him and dispose him themselves. As his lawyers put it in the statement, the SEC, quote, seeks to have its cake and eat it, too. After Binance briefly halted support for deposits from Visa and MasterCard issues in Russia, the world's largest crypto exchange says it is exiting the Russian market altogether. The firm's chief compliance officer, Noah Perlman, raised eyebrows, though, when he said in a statement that Binance would sell its entire Russia-based operations to a little-known firm named ComX. Though the statement describes ComX as, quote, venture back, its backers remain as of yet unknown. Fueling speculation this could be another case similar to Binance U.S., which was purportedly also separate from Binance. Changpeng Zhao, or CZ, Binance's CEO, denied ownership ties to ComX, writing on social media, quote, I'm not their UBO or ultimate beneficial owner, nor do I own stock shares, end quote. He added that some former Binance staff may work for ComX in the future. The lack of transparency around the deal continues to fuel skepticism and questions on social media. The new leadership in charge of beleaguered crypto exchange FTX has filed yet another lawsuit, this time against former employees of the exchange's Hong Kong affiliate, Salamata, seeking to recover an The suit alleges that in the days leading up to FTX's filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2022, the employees, including two brothers and their mom, quote, leverage their connections at FTX group personnel to ensure that they would be authorized over other customers, end quote. FTX's lawyers claim in the suit that more than 123 million dollars was withdrawn on or after November 7, just before the exchange suspended withdrawal. This week, creditors of the embattled crypto lending platform Celsius Network overwhelmingly approved a two billion dollar restructuring plan. That's despite reservations from U.S. trustee William Harrington. Over 98 percent of creditors back the plan, which promises to return at least 67 percent of assets to investors and offers stakes in a new entity provisionally named NewCo. This entity aims to broaden Celsius's existing Bitcoin mining ventures and explore new business avenues. The plan's final approval hinges on a bankruptcy court hearing set for October two in a parallel development block by another of the crypto companies structured similarly to Celsius that collapsed last year received court approval for its liquidation plan. New York based block size unsecured creditors could receive between 35 percent and 63 percent of what they are owned.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from Congress Demands Bitcoin ETF NOW! (Gary Gensler Accusations)
"Good morning. It is time to discover crypto. Today is September 27th. It's my late mother's birthday today and it is 11 .31 Eastern Standard Time. How are you doing today? We got Tim and someone else at Andrews, BJ on the ones and twos today. How are y 'all doing? I'm doing fantastic. Great, great morning so far. Excited about this show. Excited to have BJ sitting in our production seat. Looking forward to it. Yeah, BJ. BJ, how was Vegas? BJ just got from Vegas for Magic the Gathering. How was it? I mean, it was epic. It was fun. Were you the one hacking the casinos for $100 million? No, but I do have some very funny footage when we went to the MGM. Okay. We might do something with that later. All right. Did you jump into the lion pit and you rode a lion? I don't want PETA coming after me. All right, guys, make sure you hit the like button if you haven't already. We're going to talk about Gensler's speech in front of Congress, what's going on. We got a couple clips from that as well. We also have a breakdown of his speech. We're going to talk about Bitcoin jumping in price. We're going to talk about CCP. We're going to talk about Binance as well and Ethereum staking as well. All right, let's just get right into it, folks. All right, so we do have, you know, Gary, he's in front of Congress right now. There's a harsh notice to the SEC from a large group of US representatives led by Tom Emmer, approved Bitcoin spot ETFs, immediately. He said, I like to think there was an exclamation point after the end of that as well. Representatives Mike Flood, Tom Emmer, Richie Torres, and Wiley Nickel. What the heck is up with the name Wiley Nickel? That is a cartoon character that's going to shoot you at the saloon, correct? That or it's a superhero's, you know, real name. I would take superhero sidekicks, real name. You know, Batman and his sidekick, Wiley Nickel, because Robin fell down the shaft. But no, yeah, Wiley, we love Wiley, I guess, maybe, I don't know. They sent a letter to Gensler on Tuesday arguing that a regulated spot Bitcoin ETF would increase investor protection. Congress has the duty to ensure that the SEC approves investment products that meet the requirements established by Congress. Here are requirements. Okay, crypto ETF fits that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if we can prove that you're not doing your job representatives here, or you're not doing your job, SEC. The court specifically addressed the SEC's disparate treatment of spot Bitcoin ETFs and similar funds based on a regulatory approved futures contracts. Representatives point out this inconsistency saying a spot Bitcoin ETP is no different than a Bitcoin futures ETP. Therefore, the SEC's current stance is untenable going forward. So that was the statement. Okay, then. So what did the SEC say in response? Well, the SEC is delaying a decision on Art21's proposed spot Bitcoin ETF until January 2024. They also postponed the decision on GlobalX's Bitcoin ETF until October. This isn't saying a no, this is just a classic kick the can down the road here. So Cebo BZX had earlier proposed a rule change aiming for approval listing of the Art21's ETF, although they submitted April 25th. It was not published for comment until May 15th. They then designated a longer approval period on June 15th. Well, you fast forward to today, they're expected to approve or reject within 181 days or by November 11th. However, the regular setting is current. Finally, it is allowed to extend the approval deadline by an additional 60 days. So not only do they get to increase the amount of time, hey, guys, we need 180 days. All right, we're on 179 days. Oh, yeah, I need another 60 days. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. As such, they have now postponed until January 10th, 2024. Many asset management firms submitted similar filings for ETFs after BlackRock submitted its own application in mid -June. However, ARK submitted considerably earlier. They can only delay until January of next year where it can delay some of these other ones until March of next year. But then you know what happens on February 28th? Wait, is next year a leap year? February 29th, what's going to happen? Oh, we need another 60 days. So even though you're seeing March 24 is the latest deadline there, I wouldn't be surprised if March 2024 gets increased. If I have a video clip from the SEC hearing chat, they can hear it, right? The audience can hear? Yeah, we can play around or if you send it to me. Okay, well, I have to hit refresh here. This is breaking. I haven't had time to send it to you. This is just getting uploaded within the last hour. This one, Matt will we know? Do we know? Let's try. Let's try.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
Fresh update on "february" discussed on Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
"Oh yeah, I mean, I think book Gensler should have been subpoenaed already. I mean, I think the amount of patients that chairman McHenry shown, I mean, maybe that's why he's the chairman. He's like more patient study, kind of working it more diplomatic. Like, yeah, I think the subpoena was due like in February. This content is brought to you by link to which makes private equity investment easy. Link to is a great platform that allows you to get equity in companies before they go public, before they do an IPO within their portfolio includes crypto companies, AI companies, and FinTech companies, some of the crypto companies you may recognize include circle ripple chain, analysis, ledger, dapper labs, and many more, if you'd like to learn more about link to please visit the link in the description. Welcome back to the thinking crypto podcast, your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews with me today is Congressman Warren Davidson, who's a Republican out of Ohio, Congressman Davidson. It's great to have you on. Yeah. It's an honor to join you. Thanks. Yeah. Congressman Davidson, I've followed you for years and all the great work you've done with legislation around crypto. I think you were boy was maybe the first, if I, as far as I remember going back to the token taxonomy days and things like that. Uh, but before we get to all that, you know, tell us about yourself, where you're from and where'd you grow up. Yeah. So I grew up in Ohio, um, a little North of where I live now. So, um, graduated high school in the eighties, 88 listed in the army and, uh, got sent over to Germany when the wall Berlin wall was up, you know, the cold war was there and there, uh, wall separating the East and the West went through East Berlin and got to be there when that came down. And, uh, I'll just say like the people on the other side, weren't looking for more government. They were looking for more freedom and it was definitely a life-defining experience. Uh, from there, I got to go to West point, which, so that's not the normal way you go to West point, but, uh, it worked for me and, uh, graduated, went back into the infantry, served in range of regiment, 101st airborne division, uh, the old guard, you know, so some great units, but ultimately decided I needed to get out and go into a business. So my wife and I, and two little kids at that point in time, moved back to Ohio and, uh, started manufacturing companies, went to Notre Dame, got an MBA, and we basically had a little group of manufacturing companies. And that was what I was doing. And John Boehner resigned as speaker of the house. And a couple friends stopped in and said, Hey, you know, who are you going to back in the race? And I said, Hey, you know, you guys are the political people. And they cracked really a joke. They go, you know, it'd be great if there was an army ranger business guy in the race. So we just laughed and I went home and told my wife about my day. And she said, well, what'd you tell them? Like, well, we just laughed. Cause it's crazy. And she said, no, it's not. You'd be great at that. Well, here I am. So that's been like, you know, gosh, over seven years ago now. So it says it's pretty crazy. So in Congress, I got here and very few people knew much, very few elected office holders knew much about crypto. And I was new on the financial services committee and, uh, you know, kind of started that kind of army ranger business guy, the business guy, financial services also on foreign affairs. And, you know, that's, it's been a, it's been an interesting time to be in politics. Right. Oh yeah. Uh, well first thank you for your service. And, uh, it sounds like that wasn't, uh, just an incredible experience you had with the Berlin wall and so forth and being over there. Um, that must've been something, uh, life-changing it sounds like. Oh yeah. And look, I mean, the military offers a great opportunity for so many people. I mean, it's not a perfect fit for everybody for me. I just love that I got to be a part of it and it turned out phenomenally well for me, but it really is, uh, a great, a great thing to do and, you know, a lot of phenomenal people they'd go in and give a portion of their lives in service. And then unfortunately for frankly, some of my friends and others, they give their full life, um, you know, lost in combat or occasionally a training accident or something, but, you know, it's a serious commitment, but it is really cool that I had the chance to do it. Wow. Um, so let's talk about, uh, some of the work you've done in the crypto legislation front, because I remember as far as I can remember, uh, I, the token taxonomy act being maybe the first crypto legislation, and you can correct me if I'm wrong there, but, um, you know, tell us about the history of the different bills and things you've worked on. Yeah. So when I first got to the committee, you know, it was January of 2017 and, you know, you remember 2017 was like the ICO market people like, oh, you know, I could just write a white paper and kind of skip everything. And there were really good use cases, people trying to do things honestly. And then unfortunately there were just some outright pump and dump scams where people were being taken advantage of. And I'm like, where's the sec. You should be cracking down on these scammers and, uh, you know, they weren't really, you know, reacting well. They didn't really know who was going to do what. So there was this void and, you know, I was trying to get hearings on this subject and you, as the new guy, you don't get to choose which hearing. So this goes all the way into 2018. And, uh, we really couldn't get focused as a committee on the issue. Uh, so I was like, well, I can at least have a meeting. I mean, we won't be able to call it a hearing, so we'll have a meeting. And we did this thing at the library of Congress and it started out with a goal of getting about a dozen people together. And by the end, we had to cap it at 50 and like, people were like, oh, I want to send my CEO and I want to send my general counsel on, you know, we had some of the biggest names in, in, uh, not just crypto, but, you know, venture capital, you know, the New York stock exchange fidelity state street, I mean, you name it, any Andreessen Horowitz, you name it, the big players, we also are like, look, we got to have some startup companies and some founders that no one's ever even heard of some of those kind of knowing that still is heard of. They kind of went away. Uh, but a lot of them have really turned into some of the biggest names in crypto over time. And it was just an interesting conversation. So the goal was this listening to everybody and say, well, how, if we're looking at a tree, how far up can we go before everybody's interest starts diverging and branching out in a different way? And we want to kind of go up to that first level of branches and say, this is the consensus. If you solve these things, uh, you could provide a really difference making piece of legislation. So that was the token taxonomy act. Darren Soto, a Democrat from Florida, and I led the bill and man, think how different crypto would be if we had passed that bill in like 2018.
The Garden Question
A highlight from 129 - Gardeners Never Retire: Overcoming Challenges in Your Senior Years - Duane Pancoast
"The Garden Question is a podcast for people that love designing, building, and growing smarter gardens that work. Listen in as we talk with successful garden designers, builders, and growers, discovering their stories along with how they think, work, and grow. This is your next step in creating a beautiful, year -round, environmentally connected, low -maintenance, and healthy, thriving outdoor space. It doesn't matter if you're a beginner or an expert, there will always be something inspiring when you listen to the Garden Question podcast. Hello, I'm your host, Craig McManus. In this episode, we talk about adapting to various gardening challenges. We explore making tough decisions in gardening throughout the latter seasons of life. Also, having the best attitude toward tough decisions. Mobility restrictions began taking a toll on 84 -year -old Dwayne Pankost. His gardening abilities were changing, but not his knowledge. He began sharing his and other senior gardener's experiences in his blog, The Geriatric Gardener, in February of 2017. After posting bi -monthly adaptive gardening stories, Dwayne decided to compile the best of his post into a self -published book, The Geriatric Gardener. Dwayne feels having the garden information at your fingertips is a benefit for every senior gardener. Dwayne continues to work in the family marketing communication business, which he started in 1985. The firm serves tree, landscape, and lawn care businesses. This has been episode 129, Gardeners Never Retire, Overcoming the Challenges in Your Senior Years, with Dwayne Pankost. Dwayne, why did you decide not to give up on gardening? I didn't really decide to give up on gardening. Old Edge crept up on me. One day when I couldn't get up from kneeling, I decided I was going to have to garden a bit differently. I thus started my second career preaching about adaptive gardening. What is it about gardening that keeps you wanting to go with it, no matter what age you are? I like plants, and plants seem to like me. When I could no longer do outside work, I was fortunate enough to have a mature, mostly woody plant landscape at my home, which I was able to hire out the maintenance work. So, I've concentrated on indoor gardening, especially tillandsia air plants, because they're fun, they're curious, they're easy to maintain. I have about 30 of them, and another 30 of regular soil and pot plants. Would you explain what adaptive gardening is, and how it differs from traditional gardening practices? Sure. Adaptive gardening is simply adapting your garden and your gardening to your changing physical conditions. If your knees hurt, you have to find a way to garden without kneeling, with raised beds, containers. I'm particularly fond of elevated beds, because I like to garden sitting down, and there's a place to put your legs underneath elevated beds. How does adaptive gardening contribute to the well -being and mental health of individuals facing physical limitations or health challenges? As you grow older, your knees wear out, your back wears out, your shoulders wear out, and Adaptive gardening is simply finding ways in which you can continue gardening with minimum pain, minimum disturbance to your health. It may start with just a pair of strap -on knee pads, and then it may go to getting one of these kneelers that you tip it over and it becomes a seat, or one of the other gardening seats that are available online or at some garden stores and home centers, and then going to raise beds, elevated beds and containers, eventually, perhaps concentrating on your indoor gardening. Do you find that it keeps promoting an independent spirit and self -sufficiency by continuing to garden? Oh, it sure does. Some people retire and all they do is sit in front of the television, and they're dead in six months. I'll be 85 in November, so I figure I can thank gardening for some of that longevity because it keeps me busy. I can get up in the morning, and I know I've got something productive to do. How I do it or how anybody does it is adapting is a matter of time management, only working blocks that are comfortable for you, maybe 20 minutes or maybe a half hour, and then take a rest break. If you're working outside, go into a shady spot. I used to go into my garage and sit and watch people walk their dogs up and down the street. Well, while you're there, always have a cooler of nice cold water and drink plenty of it because staying hydrated is very important to your well -being. Dehydration is one of the major causes of falls because people can get lightheaded and their balance goes crazy when they are dehydrated. Falling is one of the things you don't want to do out in the garden. I didn't realize that. I didn't know that dehydration led to dizziness. A doctor told me that I could always tell when I was dehydrated because my balance went wonky. I drank enough water and an hour or so, it was back to normal. Would you tell us about some of the decisions you had to make in your latter years? You said you're 85, but what are some of the decisions you faced going through that time period? First of all was downsizing and this can be a trauma for some people. I thought it was going to be for my late wife because she liked our house and I didn't like our house because it was a money pit from the day we moved in. It was a half -acre lot with a two -story colonial on it. It was great for raising our four sons because they had plenty of grass to play ball and do kid stuff. When walking the stairs became difficult for both of us, she was the one who decided, I think we ought to downsize. So we built a house that is about the same size as a two -story, but one story on a quarter -acre lot. One of the things I tell people, if you're going to downsize, bring something from your old garden with you. Dig up some plants that you especially liked in your old garden that may have a story. That goes with it or something with the family. I happened to bring a ginkgo tree. It was about four or five inches caliper and 15 or 20 feet tall. I didn't just dig it up and put it in the back seat of the car and bring it over. I had a client who had a big tree spade and he moved it for me. Downsizing is the first decision. I used to do my grass. I timed it, not by the clock. I did the back and one side, and then I would sit down and rest for 20 minutes or so, drink a bottle of water. Then I'd go out and do the front and the other side, and then sit down for a while before I'd go on to the next gardening job. I was convinced at a certain point that I ought to hire a lawn cutting service, which I did. When I found that I couldn't get up from a kneeling position, that's when I hired the lawn care service to also do things like weeding and trimming my shrubs. I have a tree and landscape client. He does stuff like the heavy pruning, any tree climbing, because he has a pre -care division. It wasn't a matter of whether I was going to quit gardening or not quit gardening. It was a matter of how I was going to do the gardening and still have a relatively painless life. This was at the old house. No, the new house. You were cutting the grass at your new house? Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, you talked about the pain. What do you suggest to continue gardening when your knees do start causing you trouble? I suggest, first of all, anybody of any age, go get a pair of strap -on knee pads. A lot of gardeners get the cheapest ones, and they complain that the strap goes around the bend of the knee, go to the next quality up, and it'll have a strap that goes above the knee bend and another strap that goes below it. Look into one of these kneelers or combination kneeler bench or something to sit on. If you're younger, use the knee pads to help prevent or put off the knee problems. Knees, for some reason, they just calcify. You get arthritis. I asked my orthopedic doctor, what causes it? He said, wear it out. I said to him, maybe it's too much genuflecting in church. And without missing a beat, he said, well, come on over to the Episcopal Church. We don't do that.
Milk Crates and Turntables. A Music Discussion Podcast
A highlight from Time Travel to 1994: A Journey into the Music and Movies of that year.
"Well, here we are, episode 119. And on this episode, myself in the wrecking tube, Mark Smith and Lou Colicchio from the Music Relish Show. We'll be talking about the year 1994, in music and movies I think, it's always interesting. So sit back, relax, break out your flannel shirt, your grungy jeans, and enjoy 1994 music. It was an interesting year, so I think you'll enjoy it. More interesting than what Todd Zauchman thinks it is. He thinks it's nothing, so we'll see. The KLFB studio presents Milk Crate and Turntables, a music discussion podcast hosted by Scott McLean. Now, let's talk music, enjoy the show. Thank you, Amanda, for that wonderful introduction, as usual. Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends, and welcome to the podcast. You know the name, I'm not gonna say it. We're streaming live right now over Facebook, YouTube, Dlive, Twitch, and X, formerly known as Twitter, and I don't know how many other live platforms. Well, it's gonna be a good show tonight. It's gonna be an interesting show tonight. Yeah, 1994. As I said in the intro, my friend Todd Zauchman just absolutely sent me a text destroying the year 1994. Oh, I just looked up 1994, I don't know what you're gonna talk about, there's a few things and I don't know how you're gonna make a whole show out of it, and good luck with that, because that's how he talks. That's exactly how he talks. I'm just gonna do this, and you know, it's not gonna be a good, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's how he talks. Now, he'll deny that, and you'll never know if that's the way he talks or not. He'll just have to take my word for it. I'm Todd Zauchman, and I don't know about 1994. Well, enough about him. He'll probably be piping in pretty soon, but yeah, 1994, it's a good year. It was a good year for Mark Smith from the Music Rellers Show and Luke Colicchio from the Music Rellers Show. That's for damn sure. It was. What's up, gentlemen? It was a really good year. How you doing? I was just guessing. I figured for 94, listen, we were all younger, so it was better. It was a big year. Hey. So I have to stop right here. Dave Phillips, who's been watching the podcast from pretty much day one, Patty Yossi. Hi, Patty. Good evening. I love you. Dave Phillips, for the last couple of weeks, he's piped in at the end, and he's like, I missed it. Like something's changed. Ah, Tiffany Van Hill. That's my buddy. That's my buddy, Tiffany. She's one of the people that teaches me how to work with horses. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. And she knows what she's talking about. She's modest, but she's very good at what she does. As are all of my friends and teachers, trainers, mentors from The Herd Foundation in Delray Beach, Florida. It's a nonprofit if you're in the mood to donate today. Look them up. Herd Foundation. Give us some money. Nah, I'm not going like that. No. No, we do. We help veterans. We help veterans, and so it's a good cause. But back to Tiffany. Yep. That's my buddy. Good evening. The Herd Foundation teaches us so much. That's right. That's right. Maybe I'll do a Herd Foundation podcast. You should. Since I'm pretty good at it. You're going to have horses on? What's the horse named after the cookie? Huh? Isn't there a horse named after a cookie? What are some of the horses' names? Oh, Fig Newton. Fig Newton. Yeah. Fig Newton. That's my boy. That's my boy. Good looking horse. Yes. Yes, he is. And we have Stitch. Fig Newton is a retired dressage horse, dancing horse, right? Echoes of Echo and the Bunny Men bring on the dancing horses. We have Stitch. He's a retired racehorse. We have Miss America. She's a retired jumper. Then we have two mini horses. We have Cinnamon. She was a cot horse. You know, pulls the kids around. As would be Sammy. Sammy's the one that looks like Kaja Gugu for you people from the 80s. Looks like Lamal. It looks like Lamal from Kaja Gugu. Gotta do. And he was saved from a kill pen. Yeah. But he's a mini, but he thinks he's a Clydesdale. What do they do with horses after that? Is that the proverbial glue factory? All right. You know what? Right away. Penalty box. Oh. He's raining on my parade. I'm in a good mood. Now I'm all bummed out. Thanks. You feel sad for the drummer now. This is going to be a horrible show now. Leave it to the drummer. Right, Mark? Leave it to the drummer. Get out. It's always the drummer's fault. That's right. See, Tiffany says, that does not exist past our gates, Lou. Because nobody wants to talk. Back to the penalty box. Great start to the show. Lou is just in a mood tonight. I think he's been hitting the whistle. What's going to happen? You're going to come back and it's going to be an empty chair. He's very ornery tonight. Right away. He's very ornery. All right. He's filling his oats, as they would say. Yeah. All right. Lou's back. I'm all right. I'm all right. Okay. Enough about horses, although I could now, at this point, talk about horses for two hours. I love it. I love it. But instead, gentlemen, first of all, how's things on the music relish show? You. Take it away, Lou. Sure. It's fine. It was such an awful show. I thought I said the wrong show for a second there. It's been nothing short of amazing. Don't jump over each other to answer that question. It's always fun. Last week was fun. We got knocked down a bit by Warner Brothers because we played a clip of an America song featuring Dan Peake. Yeah. You're going to watch that. Yeah. We talked through the whole thing, but Spotify is much cooler than YouTube. YouTube sucks like that. YouTube, they have a very strong algorithm. They can kiss my rosy red ass over that. That's right. You tell them, Lou. Fuckers. That's right. Get me kicked off YouTube. That's right. Let me see. John Morris, he was our shift commander. When I met him, I was, I think, a two striper, and he was what they called a butterbot. He was a second lieutenant, I believe. He said, tell them stories from the Nipah Hut in the Philippines. That's a big no. That's a whole other podcast, but they would never make it on the air. Just leave it at that. It's like a chain of Nipah Huts? No. It was a bar slash club called the Nipah Hut. Tell one story. No. They had a giant spaceship that would come down from the top. It's kind of like George Clinton in parliament. At the end of the show, this big spaceship came down from the top. Smoke. Like you said, parliament fucking pelican. Then the thing went open, and everyone would walk up and get up on stage, all those drunk GIs. Like, yeah, I'm going in the spaceship, and you go down these stairs, and you're in a fucking basement. I don't think it was a basement. It's like something from a fucking horror movie. How do you get out? And then somebody goes, this way, this way, go, go, go, go. That's the cleanest story I can tell you. It's the cleanest story I can tell you. Sounds like fun. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. I got a story for you off the air one of these days. So okay, music relish show's going good. Excellent. I just wanted to say, Lou brought up, he made the show. His segment on bad love songs. That will go down in history as some of the best podcasting ever. Bad love songs? Really bad love songs. The worst love songs of all time, like in rock. It's a deep vein. Is that something, is that like content I could probably like borrow with Perry Mind? Because I'd love to hear that list someday. We voted him off the board. We're no longer a false triumvirate democracy. Wait a minute. We toppled the AI monarchy. There's three of us on this one. Are you two going to overthrow me too? Are you like rebels? None of those stories you're told, no. They're wrecking too. Instead I'll start calling you the Sandinistas. The hostile takeovers. You go on podcasts just to take them over? Like Amiens took over the White House. Really, yeah. Yeah, we could do that. I would love to. Maybe next week we'll do, we'll take a break from the years and we'll do like a, kind of a jambalaya, you know, of stuff. Like throw some music news in there. We'll do some trivia. Maybe I'll come up with some questions for you guys. You could give us that deep vein of worst love songs ever. And it's funny, we noticed that several of them made everyone's list of worst love songs. So it's got to be universally bad. Okay. If everyone said that, that fucking song. Then there were a couple where I said I liked the song, but Lou and Perry were like, what? I'm always, you know, on the one side. Yeah, the one. When it falls into like that kind of metal, metal category, you have a soft spot. Air metal. Metal ballads. Oh my God. How I grew up. Yeah, yeah. As young as Ron Mark, you didn't have to deal with those 70s ones. Yeah, that's true. I did. This fucking guy. Blah. See what I mean? He's setting the bar high. Remember, this is how he talks. I don't think there's anything good about 1994. Blah. So he talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Yeah, well, an American Arnold Schwarzenegger. He talks like Arnold Schwarzenegger without the accent. We're going to pass the bar on this one. I am here. Let me see if you can entertain me. 1994. Blah. All right. So let's actually get right into 1994. Yeah. So we'll start on January 19th, 1994. Bryan Adams becomes the first major Western music star to perform in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War. Oh, shit. Bryan Adams. Bryan Adams, yeah. Wow. On January 21st to February, as it's spelled, the Big Day Out Festival takes place, again, expanding from those previous years. Blah, blah, blah. Auckland, New Zealand. The festival is headlined by Soundgarden, Ramones, and Bjork. Nice. That's an interesting... Probably each night there were headlines. I would love to see Bjork. Me too. I would never want to see the Ramones. They'll never get back together again. Unless they perform in the Pet Sematary. Yeah. Hey, Lou, can you put him in the green room? No, I'd like that one. That's a good one. Come on, there's a little crossover. Put him in the green room. Put him in the green room. Okay, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's going to be a long show. It's going to be a long one tonight. I feel better about myself now. Got a little redemption? The redemption song? Yes. I got a Buffett story for you. Oh, yeah? His one song was The Pirate Looks at 40. He would segue into Bob Marley's redemption song. Oh, jeez. And it didn't quite... Wait a minute. Buddy, that is the quickest way to get to the penalty box. I'm not playing it, though. I know you're not. You're poking the rhino right now. I'm a guitarist. You're poking the rhino right now. You're not a rhino, you're a nice guy. Come on, we went through that last week. And so, as I've been saying each week, I'm just going to say right now, where's Jack? Okay, and we'll move on from that. Hey, Jack. Hey, Jack, please come back. He didn't listen before, so I don't think he's listening now. Let's see. January 25th, Alice in Chains released their Jar of Flies album, which makes its U .S. chart debut at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the first ever EP to do that. Right? But they still are always talked about as like number three or number four out of the big four. Big four being? Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden. And Alice in Chains. Alice in Chains is never getting that kind of... Whereas... That first album, the record company made them sound like another band. Yeah. And that's not their fault. They were produced that way. Dirt was a great album. Yes, yes. And Layne Staley was one of the greatest frontmen ever. Just as cool as the other side of the pillow, as they say. Yeah. voice Very unique also. Today we were talking about what we were going to talk about in the show. And he goes, when I saw the videos, he goes, I didn't match his face with the way he looked. Right? He said he was expecting like a grungy, more... No, he was slick. He was slick. In the Man in the Box video, he's got the kind of long... But then he changed it up. He slicked the hair back, he wore the shades, you know. Just turned into a... Suzanne McPhail. Another one of my horse people. She's the one that introduced me to that whole thing. And she said, who's Jack? That's right, I guess. At this point. On January 29th, The Supremes' Mary Wilson is injured when her Jeep hits a freeway median and flips over just outside of LA. Wilson's 14 -year -old son is killed in the accident. What a good day. Ah, this fucking... I saw this and I was like... Dead horses was a bummer. I know, I know. I saw this and I'm like, there's no way around this. February 1st, Green Day releases their breakthrough album, Dookie. Ushering in the mid -1990s punk revival. Dookie eventually achieves diamond certification. Now, I did like them back then. I actually did. I was stationed in Southern California in Riverside. And I decided to get like a side job. You know, I was in the Air Force. But I was like, I want to make a little more money. I want to do something. So I got a job at a record store. Cool. Was it Spencer's or something? Forget the name of it. Oh, Spencer's. They sold all the trinkets, too. No, no, it wasn't Spencer's then. It was something like that. It was a chain. Hot topic. They sold DVDs, too. FYE. No, it wasn't that. I'll remember it. I was working there when Dookie came out and the fucking whole wall was covered with Dookie CDs and they were flying off the shelves. It had a pretty fresh sound. It was fresh then. And coming off the 80s were kind of slick in a lot of ways, except for some of the real heavy alternative. But to hear a song like that on the radio, that was like hearing Smells Like Teen Spirit on mainstream rock radio. Good drummer, too. As a band, whether you like him or not, I think he's really good. Billy Joe Armstrong. Oh, Trey Cool. Trey Cool, yeah. February 7th, Blind Melons lead singer is Shannon Poon forced to leave the American Music Awards ceremony because he is loud and disruptive behavior. Poon is later charged with battery assault, resisting arrest, and destroying a police station telephone. Now, this is the dude that sang, you know, And I don't really care if I sleep all day And he's in the daisy field, so you think he's like this really, like, chill dude. And like, you know, me and the B -girl, man, you know. The B -girl, yes. And the tap -dancing B -girl, and like, I'm just this dude's a fucking lunatic. He was taking substances that made him. Oh, yeah. That was a short career. Was it him that did a duet with Guns N' Roses? What was the video, a song from Guns N' Roses with a video where they're up on like a water tower and they jump into the water or something. I forget what it was called. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they did it with him.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Chokepoint Across the Pond: Chase UK Says No Crypto Transactions
"We've got election season coming up, remember? And if the Dems win and Gensler comes back to the same office, he doesn't care because he has the wind at his sails. And if he loses, he also doesn't care because he's out of the job. I would expect, in other words, for every court decision that goes against the SEC to be answered not with a rational shift in policy and approach, but instead two blazing middle fingers from a bureaucrat potentially on his way out the door. Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Wednesday, September 27th, and today we are talking about this crazy, strange Chase UK letter banning people from accessing crypto from their bank accounts. Before we get into that, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find the link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, I have to start the show by eating some crow. In the morning yesterday, a letter started going around that people were, of course, breathlessly posting as fact long before it was confirmed, and it just did not read right to me. So much so that as more and more people started tweeting about it, I actually posted it saying, I think this letter is fake. Let me just read the whole thing to you. So it's not long, so you have a sense of why I was skeptical. The header says Chase, and it says our policy around crypto is changing. Here's what it means for you. Hi. To help keep your money safe from fraud and scams, we're changing the type of payments you can make from Chase. From 16th of October, 2023, if we think you're making a payment related to crypto assets, we'll decline it. If you'd still like to invest in crypto assets, you can try using a different bank or provider instead, but please be cautious as you may not be able to get the money back if the payment ends up being related to fraud or a scam. Please head to our website for more info about how to protect your money. We've made this decision because fraudsters are increasingly using crypto assets to steal large sums of money from people. Declining these payments is one of the ways we're help keeping you and your money safe. All the best, the Chase team. So a couple of things that really stood out to me. One was the tone in general non -professionalism of the letter. The use of the word fraudsters seemed very, very strange from an official corporate communication. This is obviously quite a colloquialism and so the idea that it was being used as a formal explanation for why a bank would be denying an entire category of payments options to its users seemed a little crazy. Continuing that questionable tone was the ending, all the best. That's how I sign off my emails. That's not how a major bank signs off its emails. Now, of course, there was also the general grossness of the policy if it were to become real, but that really wasn't even what I was thinking about initially. And yet, shockingly, it was confirmed to be real. I was wrong and somehow a bank associated with Chase had sent out that letter. Now, later in the day, it became clear that the policy was for Chase UK rather than the broader US or international banks. But even if it was only a domestic UK policy, the aggressive move still rubbed many people, perhaps most people, I would say, in the industry the wrong way. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong tweeted, Now, Andrew Griffith is the UK Economic Secretary to the Treasury and Minister for the City of London and Rishi Sunak is, of course, the Prime Minister who was formerly the Chancellor of the Exchequer who said while he was at that post that he wanted to make the UK a crypto hub. LightSpark CEO and former head of the Libra project at Meta, David Marcus, added, Now, UK commenters were surprisingly quiet and that's perhaps because Chase is a relatively minor player in the UK despite being a major global banking brand. Chase has, in fact, only had a presence in the UK for around two years and has less than two million customers. They're also limited to offering online services, so are, in practice, a lot closer to a fintech platform than a traditional bank. Just by way of comparison, relative to the population, Chase UK has a similar footprint to Huntington National Bank in the US. Now, if Huntington banned crypto transactions in the US, you can bet we would be chattering about it, but it wouldn't ultimately be seen as that big of a deal which perhaps explains the lack of outrage from UK crypto investors. That said, of course, Chase isn't Huntington. Regardless of whether they have a large customer base, Chase UK is still a subsidiary of the largest western bank in the world and because of that, the important part of the policy change is unpacking whether this is an idiosyncratic decision of an insignificant bank or speaks to a broader policy outlook at JPMorgan Chase. Now, the reason given in the letter for this policy change was, of course, to prevent fraud. When fielding questions from media throughout the day, a Chase spokesperson doubled down, saying, Austin Campbell rightly points out, quote, Bitcoin attorney Crypto Hat responded, Austin, eminently reasonable as he always is, responded, and other financial institutions to fight said fraud, not turtling. Now, of course, even if this policy change only affects a couple of million Brits, it still matters in the broader fight to ensure crypto investors and firms have fair access to banking services. This has, of course, been one of the biggest themes throughout this year. The pushback from the US crypto community matters in order to ensure that banks can see that these sort of blanket bans are simply not an acceptable way to deal with issues around fraudulent transactions. And for a place that said it wants to be a crypto hub, the UK in particular has had a string of larger banks rejecting crypto payments over the past year. In February, a group of CEOs from major UK banks appeared at a parliamentary hearing. Multiple CEOs said their banks were blocking crypto payments, and although they listed fraud as a major concern, they also mentioned the volatility of crypto investments. The problem became so large that the UK's Financial Conduct Authority published a report on de -banking earlier this month. The report stated that the regulator had facilitated conversations between banks and crypto firms to ensure that they would be able to open and maintain accounts. Still, some large UK banks, including NatWest, are currently refusing to service crypto firms across the board. Now, one alternative opinion came from Francis Pulio, the founder at Bull Bitcoin. He said, via video chat, and essentially interrogate them to make sure they aren't being sucked into a yield, cloud mining, or other crypto ponzis. Still, as you might imagine, even among Bitcoiners who share Francis's disgust with crypto scams, this wasn't the primary opinion out there. Indeed, by and large, the sentiment was, and this is the end -then -they -fight -you phase. So what to do? Well, some, like dGen Spartan, basically say vote with your feet. They write, but getting banks to open accounts for crypto individuals and companies is another. Just vote with your money. My crypto -friendly banks get my highest share of account. The others? Meh. Now, another response is the entrepreneurial opportunity. Rama Lawalia, the CEO of Lumida Wealth, said, Although, indeed, later he tweeted, I don't know, man. All in all, it feels a little choke pointy to me. Remember, the whole point of Operation Choke Point and why it's problematic is that it creates a scenario where government and regulators don't have to ban anything because they just make it so economically untenable and politically risky for big service providers like banks to work with crypto companies that a de facto ban is the natural response. And speaking of de facto bans, let's turn now to the intransigent SEC, a bipartisan group of House Financial Service Committee members have written to SEC chair Gary Gensler calling for the regulator to immediately approve spot Bitcoin ETF applications. Mike Flood, Tom Emmer, Willie Nickel and Richie Torres penned the letter, which asserted that, The SEC's current posture is untenable moving forward. Following the Court of Appeals decision, there is no reason to continue to deny such applications under inconsistent and discriminatory standards.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from SBF TRIAL: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's Trial Defense Episode 2
"The most important thing is, you know, just because a lawyer tells you something is okay, that's not a defense. Geez, he said it. He seemed to think everything was okay. Yeah. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent, that's an excuse. In part two of our series digging into SPF's defense, we dissect Sam Bankman -freed's claims that his lawyers played a larger role in FTX's collapse than he did. It might sound like a stretch, but there is legal precedent behind it. SPF also says he was pressured by counsel into turning FTX over to their hand -picked successor. In this episode, we sit down with Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff, Travis Kling, a fund manager who still has millions of dollars tied up in FTX, and Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor and fellow FTX victim, to see if there's any legitimacy to SPF's claims that lawyers who were there for FTX's rise are now primed to rake in hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees. Money that SPF says should be used to pay back depositors. I'm Zach Ousman, you're listening to the SPF Defense Podcast, a coinage investigation. SPF's position is that FTX would have made it through the crisis if not for his lawyers, which conspired to steal the company out from under him, cover up their role in its operation, and siphon hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees from the bankrupt estate. SPF even names one lawyer in particular, Ryan Miller, who joined FTX US from the law firm's Sullivan and Cromwell, and planned on returning there after his time at the exchange, according to an affidavit from FTX's top lawyer. SPF says Miller conspired to hand the company over to Solcrom and their chosen agent, John J. Ray III, who also handled Enron's bankruptcy. And whether you come to believe Sam's claims or not, Solcrom and Ray clearly won. If FTX's bankruptcy process takes the two years like Enron's did, it's on track to cost over $800 million. And Solcrom's relationship has already been called out by more than just Sam. It's even been raised as an issue by senators and 18 state regulators. But could SPF be right about Ryan Miller and Solcrom's nefarious motives? And even if they did do some evil lawyer shit, will it be enough to get SPF off the hook? To fully understand this defense strategy, it helps to start with SPF's story behind his attempt to plug the now notorious multi -billion dollar hole at FTX back in November's collapse. As the story goes, he was preparing to handle the liquidity crisis by courting Nomura, Japan's largest investment group, and the crypto company Tron, who had pledged billions of dollars in liquidity to FTX, while other investors were still deliberating. SPF had said he planned on giving away most of his equity in the company, and therefore most of his wealth, in an attempt to make customers of FTX International whole. SPF has always maintained that FTX US remained completely solvent right up to the end. But SPF says his rescue plan failed because Ryan Miller and Solcrom agents at his company, including Tim Wilson, another FTX lawyer with a past at Solcrom, pressed him repeatedly to sign the company's over to John Ray in bankruptcy, and even implied that if he refused, they could have him arrested and quote, change control in order to authorize a proper insolvency process. SPF said he changed his mind within 10 minutes of signing, but it was already too late. And he says his lawyers reneged on their promises to let him select a board share, blocking him out of his accounts and refusing to communicate further. As soon as John Ray was installed, he chose Sullivan and Cromwell as FTX's primary counsel. To be fair, SPF actually has a point when it comes to the sketchiness of that process. Even outside legal observers have taken issue with Solcrom being tapped as the firm to manage FTX's bankruptcy. In fact, a bipartisan group of two Republican and two Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to the judge overseeing the case, urging him to appoint an independent examiner rather than Solcrom, which worked with FTX and Alameda before the collapse, bringing in $8 .5 million in legal fees. The senators argued, quote, given their longstanding legal work for FTX, they may well bear a measure of responsibility for the damage wrecked on the company's victims. Regulators from 18 states echoed that issue, saying appointing an independent examiner wasn't just right, it was also legally required. But back in February, the judge in the case threw out those requests, saying it would cost too much money, though we should note FTX's lawyers also charged the bankruptcy estate $21 ,000 over 20 days just for meals, which apparently isn't too much to spend. And if you ask the victims in FTX's collapse, this is all pretty important, considering it's their deposits and claims at stake. And if their money is being drained in broad daylight by a law firm who also helped FTX pre -collapse, that might not sit any better than Sam spending it. We talked to Travis Kling, who lost his crypto investment fund in FTX's collapse, and asked him to weigh in. If you ask me at the very beginning, do you think this is going to be one of the most expensive bankruptcies in U .S. history, I would say yes. Yes. You know, it's enormous. There's a ton of fraud, and it's magic internet money. Trying to kind of Monday morning quarterback this and say, oh, Sam would have been better off not filing for bankruptcy. That's not something that I feel very strongly about. And Solkrom's outrageous fees aren't the only reason for concern. SPF also claims Solkrom gave a clean bill of health to Alameda's trading accounts on FTX in a report with the CFTC just months before the collapse. Furthermore, in his affidavit, Dan Friedberg, who was both FTX's chief compliance officer and Alameda's general counsel until he stepped down following the crisis, says Miller only included FTX U .S. in the bankruptcy proceedings precisely because Miller knew it had the funds to pay Solkrom for its work, which backs up what SPF said about how FTX U .S. was never insolvent. So this may be a case of the fox guarding the henhouse. Solkrom denies any of this, of course. The firm's top bankruptcy lawyer, Andrew Dietrich, who told other lawyers FTX was rock solid in an email just days before the bankruptcy, said he only spoke with SPF twice. The FTX debtors also countersued Friedberg to seek damages, alleging he breached his fiduciary duties. We can't say much more beyond that because Solkrom never got back to us when we asked for a comment. But one thing is clear, what guidance Sam's lawyers gave him, and particularly what they knew about the business, will become integral to SPF's defense at trial. Even if you asked Ryan Miller before the collapse, the laws are pretty simple for any business, crypto or otherwise. Here he is explaining that concept at an MIT Bitcoin meetup in July 2022. Don't do fraud, don't lie, don't release materially incomplete statements. That then creates a basis for liability, liability from a criminal authority, be it a Department of Justice or liability in a civil context. Yet according to Caroline Allison's guilty plea, they had trouble following even those rules. In her sworn testimony, she said, quote, I agreed with Mr. Bankman, Fried and others to provide materially misleading financial statements to Alameda's lenders. Could Miller or any of SPF's lawyers, for that matter, be one of those others? Sam's other allegation that Miller contacted the DOJ to turn over documents that led to his indictment days before SPF linked, which controlled the company, makes Miller start to look even sketchier. But even if Solkrom really does have a true conflict of interest, could SPF really use their role in everything that happened to get an acquittal? Given that I'm not a lawyer, we pose that defense to Mark Litt, the prosecutor who took down Bernie Madoff. Can a lawyer be a criminal? Sure. Yeah. Can a lawyer be part of a criminal enterprise? Yes. Do they often go down? I don't know a lot of reputable lawyers who are going to bless lying to investors, lying to banks, intermingling funds, lying to auditors. If he happened to find one who knew all that was going on and blessed it, then maybe as a defense. But I tend to doubt it. You can't think of it as, well, oh, well, you know, Sullivan and Cromwell was involved or a former Sullivan and Cromwell lawyer was involved and, geez, he said he seemed to think everything was okay. That's not an advice of counsel defense that negates criminal intent. That's an excuse masquerading as an advice of counsel defense. Advice of counsel defense is very specific and narrow. You need competent counsel and they'll stipulate that any lawyer at Sullivan and Cromwell is competent in the subject area that they're being asked about. Second, every material fact has to be disclosed to them. Third, you have to seek their legal opinion on a subject. And fourth, you have to follow the advice. So if the defense can make out those elements, I would think they'd be able to present the defense and it might have a shot of winning. So Sol Cromwell might not be saints, but as we covered last time in episode one, SPF isn't exactly facing a trial over FTX's collapse. He's charged with a lot of things that led up to FTX's collapse. Arguably, what's alleged to have happened post -collapse matters more for FTX's victims. And if you ask them, the reviews are mixed on exactly what's played out thus far. If I'm going to judge Sullivan and Cromwell and John J. Wray from my purview of being someone who's seen these things in bankruptcy, I would give them a very low grade because you can say, oh, this is crypto, it's difficult, but it's not that difficult. And sometimes the devil you know is better than the one you don't. I will say that these debtors are extremely bad in my professional experience. That was Mr. Purple, a pseudonymous crypto investor who has experience following bankruptcy proceedings. For former FTX customers like him, Sam's spat with Sol Cromwell matters very little, as long as the firm can help achieve a meaningful recovery of their funds. And despite the fact that legal fees are stacking up, the bidding market for FTX customer claims is showing a growing hope they might not be stuck with pennies on the dollar. Another way to frame it is, you know, there's a claims market for FTX claims, trade claims, trade actively. There's a little niche of traditional finance that all they do is go around to different bankruptcies in all industries and they buy claims. This is this is a, you know, a subsector of of investing. And this is a huge bankruptcy. So this has been a very big liquid market. Right. And the first, you know, we're a very big creditor in this. So, you know, I'm in active conversations in this claims market. First, first bid we saw was in Thanksgiving and it was like six cents. That was the first bid. Six cents on the dollar, six cents on the dollar. And now now it's like 40 cents. And so it's gone from six to 40 cents. So then I'm like, OK, well, that feels quite good. Yeah. And OK, these guys are charging a load of money for that, but they have taken us from six cents to 40 cents. With both FTX's bankruptcy case and SPF's criminal case unfolding in real time, one may very well impact the other. We filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the CFTC to share the report. Sam says Solkrom filed to support that FTX's structure was above board. The agency denied our request, saying it's unable to share documents that, quote, could interfere with the conduct of federal agency law enforcement activities. And of course, as long as Solkrom selected John Ray is running the show at FTX, it's unexpected anything comes out to support SPF's case. FTX, too, didn't get back for comment. So unless SPF has direct evidence of lawyers being aware of FTX's shaky financials and helping for years to cover it up, it's hard to judge SPF's advice of counsel defense or the idea that he thought he was in the clear leading up to the collapse just because his lawyers said it was fine. As Litt said, that sounds more like an excuse than a defense. As a community owned Web3 media outlet, Coinage will be breaking down everything we've learned together through this series and curating still unanswered questions at Coinage .Media. I'm Zach Guzman. This was the second part of Coinage's investigative series covering SPF's defense. Stay tuned for episode three, where we'll explore another pillar. Of SPF's defense. You've been listening to the SPF Defense on the Coindesk Podcast Network. Follow the Coindesk Podcast Network to get all the Coindesk shows in one place and head over to Coindesk .com for all the Sam Bankman freed coverage. Thanks for listening.
The Tennis.com Podcast
A highlight from Eric Diaz's Journey From the University of Georgia to Coaching Rising American Alex Michelsen
"Welcome to the official tennis .com podcast featuring professional coach and community leader Kamau Murray. Welcome to the tennis .com podcast. We are here with Eric Diaz. You remember the name? Eric is son of Manny Diaz, coach of Alex Mickelson, Werner Tan, and right now has his own thing called tier one performance out in the Irvine area. Welcome to the show, Eric. How's it going? Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me. It's great to be on. Great to be on. So I interviewed your dad probably about 2 months ago. That was, you know, we were poking fun about him redshirting Ethan Quinn, you know, not choosing not to play Ethan Quinn later. You know he wins NCAA the next year. It was kind of like, what were you thinking, right? Yeah, one of those tough ones. Oh yeah, it was kind of like, did you think he wasn't ready? Was he, did he think he wasn't ready? Like, you know, you probably could have won NCAA twice. That kind of thing but you obviously came from good tennis pedigree. So, I guess the first obvious question was what was it like growing up with your dad being Manny? You know, because I, it's hard not to take work home, right? Let's just put it that way. You're a tennis coach and a child of a tennis dad. Yeah. You know, I don't know. I think anybody that's been in tennis for a long time knows it's kind of a lifestyle a little bit. You know, there's definitely being the tennis coach and kind of, you know, working toward things but it's also, I don't know, the sport takes so much of you that sometimes, you know, it just feels like, you know, it's second nature. It's kind of a part of it. So, I mean, growing up in Athens, growing up around Dan McGill Complex was always a treat. That was back when NCAA's were kind of always hosted in Athens. So, I got to watch, you know, all the college greats. I grew up watching the Bryan brothers get, you know, sadly then they were kind of pegging some of our guys in doubles matches but, you know, it was really cool being able to sit court side, watch those guys and then, you know, be able to watch them on TV a little bit later. Really cool. Really cool experience growing up. Now, from a junior career, did your dad coach you your whole career or did he hire private coaches to sort of teach you technique? Because I know, you know, coaching at a program like UGA, it is very demanding and sometimes the children of the tennis coach lose out to the actual players and the people who are paying. So, did he coach you? How was that? You know, he coached me. I think he tried to coach me but at the same time, he also didn't want to put too much pressure on me to like, you know, really play tennis and go in. So, he kind of let it be my own thing. I started, I actually went to Athens Country Club, great little spot on the outside of Athens. Alan Miller was the main coach there. So, he helped me out a lot. He actually, he was on my dad's first, you know, assistant coaching team where they won a national title. I think he paired with Ola who now obviously has been with USGA for a while. I think they played doubles and I think they won a doubles title as well. So, I think Alan was a part of the first team championship and then he was also, you know, he won a doubles title there too. I think he might have won two. So, I spent a lot of time around him which was also, it was really cool. You know, it was a guy who was a part of the Georgia tennis family. Athens is really tight -knit like that and so it's special to be a part of that family both, I guess, through blood and through, you know, the alumni. It's cool. Now, let me ask you, did you ever consider going anywhere else, right? I mean, successful junior career, one of the top players in the nation, tons of options. You know, it could be like, you know, there's always sort of the, oh, his dad's going to give him a scholarship, right? You saw with Ben Shelton, you know, Brian Shelton. Obviously, he's going to look out for his kid. Did you ever aspire to like go to another top program or UCLA or Texas or Florida? I think growing up, you know, because I got to see all those teams play. You know, I remember in 1999, I looked up this guy who, he played number one for UCLA. I don't know, this guy showed up. I'm a little kid and he had half of his head was blue and the other half was gold and, you know, UCLA was firing it up. They were really good at the time. I remember that was my dad's first national title in 99. And, you know, ever since then, I really, you know, I looked up to the guys. Every now and then, I got to sneak on to a little travel trip and, you know, I got to see what it was like. But, I mean, for me, it was always Georgia. I thought Athens was a special place, you know, getting to see the crowds that they get there and being able to kind of just see the atmosphere of everybody caring about each other. You know, it was cool looking at other teams. You know, the Brian brothers had the cool Reebok shoes, you know, the UCLA guy with the different hair. But at the end of the day, it was always the dogs. It was always Georgia. So, I was really lucky when I got to be a part of that team and I got to kind of wear the G that, you know, through my junior years, I was always wearing it, you know, but I guess it was a little bit different when you're actually, you know, on the team and representing. I think it's a different feeling. Yeah. So, if you didn't go into tennis, what else would you be doing? Like, you know, I didn't, you know, I'm obviously coaching now, but I didn't go right into coaching. I went to work into pharmaceuticals like marketing, sales, you know, finance. It's always, I always find it interesting to say if I wasn't coaching, I got my degree, I would be doing this. Yeah. You know, if I was a little bit more prone, I think to just loving schoolwork and loving studying, you know, everybody's always told me that I would make a pretty good lawyer just because I'm a bit of a contrarian. I like to argue. I like to challenge everybody that's kind of around me. So, I'm always looking for a good argument. So, I'll go with that. Everybody's always told me, you know, maybe you should have been a lawyer. You argue a Hey, lot. well, I'm sure, I'm sure your tennis parents, right? The parents of the academy probably don't like that one, right? They like to be in control. They have the last say and be contrarian. A lot of the time they do. A lot of the time they do. Yeah. So, you're sort of like stepping out, right? Out of the shadow and you're now on the west coast out there in the with Irvine area tier one performance and quite honestly, making your own name. I know you've had opportunity to coach Alex Mickelson as well as, you know, Lerner, Tan who are both like doing real well, both like main draw this year at US Open. Tell me about the process of moving way west. Yeah. And starting your own thing. Well, you know, it kind of started with, you know, I took that leap and I moved away from home for, you know, the first time because obviously being born and raised and going to school at UGA. I took my first chance and I went to Boise State and I worked under Greg Patton for a year who I'd heard great things about and, you know, all were true. He's a great guy. I thought it was a fantastic experience. So, I did that for a year and then over the summer, the UGA swim coach's son that I kind of grew up with, he was in Newport and so I kind of came to visit and then, you know, all of a sudden the opportunity to be coaching out here, you know, came about and, you know, I did my due diligence a little bit. You know, I looked at the old tennis recruiting pages and, you know, I'm looking at all the talent over the last like 20 years and, you know, statistically, you look at the list and you're like, okay, you know, if I'm in this area and I give myself, you know, the right opportunities and I, you know, learn how to coach properly, you know, I feel like I've had some pretty good experience from some good mentors. You know, then I kind of thought, you know, okay, maybe I can kind of control my own destiny out here a little bit and, you know, over time, it's taken a lot but, you know, over time, I feel like I did get myself some pretty decent opportunities. So, when you first laid eyes on Mickelson, how old was he? He was 12. He was coming out to some point place. It was the first place I kind of rented courts. It was this old rundown beat up club but beautiful. There were some trees there. Nobody wanted it. The courts were kind of run down and everyone's like, oh no, nothing there and I was like, I'll take it. So, you know, it gave me space. It gave me courts. It gave me the ability to kind of try and market. I made things cheap so I could get a lot of kids out there and try and get a competitive environment going and luckily, you know, had a good bit of talent out there where, you know, the kids kind of attracted the kids and I was this young coach, 23, 24 and, you know, over time, you know, people started to kind of gain trust and realize, you know, this guy isn't that bad. So, you know, over time, it kind of, you know, worked in my favor and, you know, everything kind of worked out. I eventually switched clubs to a nicer one and, you know, you move up. You earn your stripes. Now, when you saw him, did you initially see, you know, like super talent because he won our ADK this summer and, you know, it was full of Steve Johnson, Su -Woo Kwong. It was Ethan Quinn. It was other names, right? Kanee Shakuri. And Alex, okay, you know, he got the USTA wildcard. He's a young kid. You know what I mean? Like, sort of under the radar and then he wins the whole tournament in finals Newport on the grass like a week later. So, did you see it right away? Was he like a typical kind of 12 -year -old throwing his racket, having tantrums? What was he like at 12? Alex has always turned on tantrums. But, you know, when he was 12, he was good. But, you know, I'll be honest, there were a handful of kids out there that, you know, Kyle Kang, who's had a lot of success. I saw him. Sebastian Goresney, who Alex won doubles with. There were a handful of others and, I mean, Alex, they were, he was good. If I thought that he would be this good, you know, at this point, I think I'd I don't think I saw that. But, you know, you definitely see that this kid's capable of playing at a pretty good level while he's young. And then, you know, as the years kind of go and then as you sort of see him and his personality kind of develop, you kind of recognize, you know, this, you know, this isn't too normal of a 16, 17, 18 -year -old kid. And then, you know, sure enough, eventually the results followed, which was pretty fun to watch. Yeah, I mean, I felt it was interesting because he was here with like his friend. Yeah. You know, not even like a coach, trainer, physio, nothing. Like him and his homeboy. Yeah. He didn't look like he played tennis. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it was like, it was interesting to show up without, you know, completing against guys who are here with like coaching that they're paying six -figure salaries and who are scouting, right? And for him to kind of move through the draw, honestly, I mean, you know, maybe he split sets once. Yeah. It was actually really interesting. He's an extremely competitive kid. And so, you know, throughout the last few years kind of as we've traveled to some events and as he's gone to some like by himself, you know, the whole understanding is, okay, how well do you really understand, you know, your day -to -day process? How well are you able to, you know, nowadays, you know, with challengers, everything you can stream, you can watch. So, you know, both myself and, you know, Jay, the other coach that's here and helping him out, you know, we watch, we communicate. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, it was one of those big decisions, okay, are you going to go to college or are you going to go pro? And he's kind of weighing those two things. And it's, you know, if you really think you want to be a pro, show me. And so it's one of those things, luckily, when he's young, you know, you have the, you know, it's kind of freedom. If he loses some matches, okay, you're young. If, you know, you win some matches, okay, great. You're young. So it's one of those things where, you know, we really kind of wanted to see, you know, what he's able to do sort of on his own. How well can he manage emotionally? How well can he, you know, create some game plans and stick to his day -to -day routines? And he, I would say he passed. And did he officially turn pro? He officially turned pro, yeah. Yeah. So I know UGA was going to be where he was going. I know he was undecided this summer, but UGA was going to, was there a little bit of an inside man kind of happening here, right? You know, I mean, you know, I think that, you know, I'll definitely say, I think he had some exposure to hearing about, you know, some Georgia greatness. I think that for sure. But, you know, I'll say it was his decision. Ultimately, I tried to not put too much pressure or expectation on where he was going to go. You know, I think Georgia has a lot to offer. So I think, you gone that route, I think it would be, you know, I don't think we can really fail if, you know, you're going and you're trying to be a tennis player and that's a place you choose. I think it's a pretty good place. Now tell us about Lerner Tan. I'll admit as a player that I hadn't had the opportunity to watch too much. I had not watched him in the challenges at all. But was he also sort of in the program at a young age or did he just sort of come later on? My partner actually, you know, kind of helped him when he was young because Levitt Jay used to be incorporated at Carson, which was kind of where Lerner kind of had his, you know, beginnings. He was a little bit more, I guess I'll say, you know, his talent was Federation spotted, I guess you could say as to where Alex was kind of, you know, the guy on the outside a little figuring his own way. Lerner was kind of the guy that everybody kind of thought was, you know, the guy. Right. And so, you know, it's been fun kind of watching him, you know, see his transition, you know, from juniors to now, you know, kind of becoming, you know, the top of juniors, you know, winning Kalamazoo the last two years and his transition. It's been fun to see. So, you know, I've seen a lot of him out of the last, you know, two and a half to three years. So it's been, it's definitely been a different transition. I feel like, you know, it's a little bit fire and ice there. You know, Alex is the fiery one screaming a good bit and Lerner is the silent killer. So it's, they're definitely different, which I think, you know, is pretty refreshing and it's kind of cool to see them both have success in their own accord. So tell us about Tier 1 then. So how many courts, obviously you grew up, I mean, like, you know, I started in the park years ago, right? In Chicago Park, right? And now I got 27 courts. But tell us about Tier 1 performance now. Where are you? How many courts do you now have? How many kids are you serving? Yeah, we're in Newport Beach right now, which is great. Weather's nice. We have, right now, we're running our program out of only five ports. It's not that big. You know, we take a lot of pride in just kind of being individually, you know, development based. I feel like if you're in our program, you're going to have, you know, a good bit of time from the coaches. You're probably going to have a chance to hit with some of the top guys. We try to be really selective with who we kind of have. Just because in Southern California, it's really difficult to, you know, get your hands on a ton of courts. There's so many people in tennis. There's only a few clubs now. You know, pickleball, even at our club right now, you know, pickleball is booming. You know, so many people are playing. It's keeping clubs alive, which, you know, I think is nice. But at the same time, I would love to see, you know, a lot of tennis courts and tennis opportunity. But, you know, it is what it is. Yeah, man, pickleball is definitely taking over. You see clubs getting rid of one court, two courts, and they think that it's not that big of an impact. But I mean, two courts really makes a difference in terms of being able to spread kids out, get them more time, get more balls and more balls at the time. But it's, you know, I think in tennis, if we want to fight them off, we've got to market better and we've got to grow, right? They're in this growth sort of stage and we're sort of stagnant, you know, so it's not like we're not leaving the club with a lot of choices other than to diversify, you know what I mean? Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So, let me ask you that. So, you've obviously had two kids that are going on. What do you tell that next parent, whose kid's 14, right, may get to see learner Alex come to the academy and number one, they want to homeschool, right, or ask you whether or not they should homeschool or B, you know, whether or not they should choose to go to college or, you know, turn pro. How are you advising parents? Because I get the question all the time. Should we homeschool, right? Should we do whatever? And I always, you know, the answer is always, it depends. Yeah. But what would be your answer in terms of homeschooling to train? Well, look, I definitely think that if your primary goal is to be a tennis player and I think, you know, if you're an athlete and that's kind of what you want to do, I think there's a lot of benefit in homeschooling just because, you know, it enables you to travel. You know, if I get to the ITF level, you know, I need to be able to travel. Those tournaments start on Monday and they go through Friday. So, you know, if I'm in a regular school, if I'm a high school kid, you know, that's a pretty difficult life for me to be able to justify or to, you know, be able to get my excused absences and stuff like that. You know, we're definitely big. You know, if you show me a 14 and under kid and I feel like I had pretty good experience in this just because I saw a lot of kids from the age of 12 to 14, you know, I got to see an entire kind of generation out of SoCal and a lot of them were pretty good. You know, the one thing I think, you know, when you're 12, 13, 14 years old, I think the primary thing kind of for level, obviously it matters how you're doing it, but I think the primary thing is the repetition. You know, I saw a ton of kids where they had a bunch of practices and I knew that that kid probably, you know, had 30%, 40 % more time than some of the other kids. And, you know, sure enough, that kid is more competent at keeping the ball in play. You know, they're able, you know, they've just seen and touched more balls. So, you know, they're going to make more balls. I think it's a balance. I think it really depends on the parents. I think it really depends on the kid. And I think it depends on the environment that they'll be in if they are going to be homeschooled. You know, I will say that, you know, we've had a handful of kids kind of switch from high school to homeschooled and they're in our program. But I feel like there's still strong social aspects in our program. You know, all the boys are tight. They compete a lot. They, you know, I feel like they get their social, you know, they go to lunch. And just kind of our standards are really high. I think this past year we had five kids that graduated that all went to IVs. So, you know, it's totally possible whether you're homeschooled or whether you're in school, I think, to, you know, kind of pursue academic excellence. I think, you know, just because you're doing one thing and not the other, I don't think that that necessarily, you know, takes that away from you. I think tennis can open a ton of doors. And I think I kind of, you know, we've kind of seen that in the last few years. I've seen a lot more tennis kids choosing IV ever since 2020, I feel. I feel like the IVs have been pretty hot, especially for some blue chip players, which I think, you know, if you look prior to 2020, I think the percentages took a pretty drastic jump, which is interesting to see. Yeah, you know, it's funny, you know, in some markets you see people playing for the scholarship and in some other markets you see them playing for entrance, right, into the Princeton, the Harvards. And one of the myths, like, I think if you think about basketball or football, right, the better basketball football players are obviously choosing the SEC, right, Pac -12, whatever that is. But in tennis, you know, I think that, you know, your academics and your tennis have to be, like, at the top scale to go, just because you're not like a bad tennis player if you go to Harvard, you know what I mean? Like, the kid that goes to Harvard or makes the team probably could have gone to PCU, right, or Florida or whatever, you know what I mean? And so it is interesting to see the number of people who say, yes, I've spent 30 grand on tennis for the past eight years and I'm still willing to pay for college, right, because I got into Princeton, Harvard, Yale, etc. But I think it's a big myth where, you know, the United States is so basketball focused, we see Harvard basketball as, like, okay, that's everyone that didn't get chosen by the Illinois, the Wisconsin, the Michigan. And it's not the same, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's different for sure. So when you think about, like, the Ivies, right, you see a lot of kids go to East Coast and you think about, you know, COVID obviously changed something with the home school, you know, sort of situation. People who never considered that it was possible were like, okay, well, we've been living at home for a year and a half and doing online studies, it's not that bad, you know, they're more focused with their time. Did you see more people from families who you thought would not have done it try it post COVID? Yeah, definitely. I think the really popular thing that a lot of people are doing now is kind of a hybrid schedule, which I actually really like a lot. At least in California, I don't know if the schooling system is different everywhere else. I know it was different where I was from. But a lot of these kids, you know, they'll go to school from 8 to 1130 or 8 to 12. And, you know, they have their three hours where, you know, I don't know how they stagger their classes and stuff like that. But I know that pretty much every kid at every school in SoCal is at least able to do this if they so choose. And so they're able to get released around 12 or something. And, you know, they're able to be at afternoon practice and get a full block in. You know, for me, that still enables you to get the hours you need on court and to be able to maintain some of that social. And, you know, if you become, you know, really, really good, I guess, okay, by junior year, maybe you could consider, okay, maybe I should take this a little bit more seriously, maybe I should go full time homeschool. Or, you know, a lot of these kids are in a place where it's, you know, I'm comfortable with my tennis, I like where it's at, I feel like it'll give me opportunity in college. My grades are great. And, you know, maybe that person's a little more academically inclined. And, you know, they want to have a career and they feel like tennis is that great stepping stone. Which I think is a really cool thing about our sport is it just opens a tremendous amount of doors. I feel like if you figure out how to develop and be a good tennis player and how to compete well in tennis, you can you can apply that to almost everything in life. Yeah. So you talk about opening doors, right? When Alex or Lerner were sort of deciding whether to walk through door number one, which is college, or door number two, which is which is obviously turning pro. Right. How did you advise them? You know what I mean? If I say, hey, you know what? Take a couple wildcards. If you went around or two, maybe you go to college. If you win a tournament, maybe you stay out there. If an agency locks you into a deal, right? Then, you know, they normally know what good looks like and they normally have like the ear of the Nike, the Adidas, right? Then you turn pro. What was your advice in terms of if and when, right? Yeah. For those who ask. Well, they were both in different places. I'm gonna start with Lerner cuz he's younger. He actually, you know, did a semester in college. You know, Lerner finished high school, I think, when he was sixteen, sixteen and a half. And so, obviously, your eligibility clock starts, you know, six months after you finish your high school. So, for him, it was, you know, he was so young, he didn't really have much pro experience at that time. You know, he did great things in juniors. You know, he won Kalamazoo. He got his wild card into the men's that year and then, you know, he played a little bit of pro kind of and then, you know, that that January, he went in and and did a semester at USC which I think was a good experience for him socially. He had some eligibility problems which, you know, only let him play about five, six matches toward the end of the year which was kind of disappointing and then, you know, he won Kalamazoo again and so, you know, that was the second trip there and then, you know, by then, he had a little bit more exposure with, you know, agencies and brands and kind of, you know, the stuff that you'd like to see that'll actually give you the financial security to kind of, you know, chase your dream and pass up, you know, the the education, I guess, for the time being. So, you know, I felt like that was really the security was a big was a big thing for him. You know, prior to winning Kalamazoo for the second time, you know, he still had Junior Grand Slams to play. He wasn't playing men's events. So, for him being that age, you know, it was, well, you know, I'm I'm not in a massive rush so why not get a semester in and I think he had a great time. He really liked it. I mean, he he speaks pretty positively about the dual matches. He actually follows college tennis now a little bit more. You know, he will talk about some dual matches which I think is pretty cool and you know, I think it gave him some confidence getting to play for university, getting to represent, you know, seeing that university promotes you. I think there's a lot of benefits there and now, you know, he's got an alumni base. You know, people talk about all, you know, he's a USC Trojan and stuff like that. You know, you see it at all different tournaments. You know, guys are wearing a USC hat and, you know, hey, learner, da da da and you know, I think that that's pretty cool to be a part of, you know, a big family of people who are proud that, you know, they can say they played in the same place and then Alex. Alex was, you know, he was a little old for his grade and he was one that he committed and, you know, the whole time him and learner kind of, you know, talking and, you know, about going pro and da da da da. You know, obviously, it was their dream. You know, I just kept telling Alex, you know, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it until, you know, it's a real problem and so, you know, he gets to 400 in the world and, you know, it's what you do. You get to 400. You know, it's good but at the end of the day, you know, you're not, your life's not changing because you're 400 in the world. You know, so he's 400 in the world and he's, you know, saying stuff to me and I'm like, I could not care less you're going to college and then it was, you know, this was probably in January, February, you know, he starts to kind of do a little bit better and I think at that point, I recognized that he was better than a lot of the guys kind of at the challenger level. You know, just from my perspective, I was seeing kind of what it was, what it was to be 300, what it was to be 200 and I think at that point, like February, March, I fully knew that he was good enough to be there and to be winning those matches but at the same time, you know, having financial security, having set, you know, all of those factors that kind of go into whether I'm going to pass up my education and go pro. You know, it's a big decision and so I remember we were putting it off. I just said, you know, nothing till US Open. I was like, we're not, we're not talking about college till US Open. I said, you know, when we get to US Open, you finish US Open, you have that exposure, you know, we see what happens in those two weeks and then, you know, then we'll kind of make a decision but until then, like, don't even think about it. Don't talk about it. Don't care. You're going to school and I think that mentality really helped him kind of just play free. He was, you know, I'm not playing to go pro. I'm trying to do my job in school, finish my high school. I'm going to tournaments, playing great, just trying to compete and, you know, lucky for him, you know, well, I guess it's not lucky at all. That kid worked his absolute tail off but, you know, he had that success in Chicago at your club and then, you know, he made that little Newport run and I think by then, that was his third or fourth former top 10 win and, you know, he won his challenger. He final the challenger. He'd semied another one. He had kind of shown and, you know, some people have gotten attention and they started believing in him and so then, you know, that's when that big decision kind of came but I feel like for him, he really established himself, improved himself amongst pros which I think is an interesting thing because a lot of the time when you see these juniors kind of go pro sub 18, a lot of the time, it's because they had tremendous junior success which then made them, you know, they had grand slam success and stuff like that but Alex didn't have any of that. You know, Alex was kind of the late bloomer that, you know, in the last year when he was already 18 and aged out of ITF, the kid really just took it to a new level and, you know, I think he really showed that he's kind of ready for what the tour has to offer.
Bitcoin & Crypto Trading: Ledger Cast
A highlight from Rate Pause
"Hello and welcome to Ledgercast. My name is Brian Crossguard here, as always, with one and only Josh Olsowich. Hey Josh. Mr. Brian. How you doing? How are you? I'm good. I'm happy to be with you today. You're already cards pulled up, ready to go. I got my best podcast hoodie on, you know. Only the best Ledgercast family. Getting the hoodie season, depending on what part of the country you're in. For sure. My dear Alabama, I mean, this is the weather that you live here for. Like, most of the year is incredibly humid, but September, October, November, that's when it's the good stuff. Well, people didn't come on this podcast to hear about the weather. They came to hear about head and shoulders. We always start with the weather. I know. It's like a podcast faux pas, but we do it anyway. It's the human experience. There's a head and shoulders on like every market on all timeframes. Like, you can't not see it. ETH, Bitcoin, S &P, Qs, any risk market, we'll put it like that, any risk market looks very, very toppy still to me. What are your thoughts on, you know, as we enter our 37th week as macro LARPing traders? Yeah, well, this continues to tell a story, right? Dollar legitimately been up only on a weekly basis for more than two months. Hold on, hold on. Jeff in the chat said. Jeff, were you listening for your show? We were just discussing the accelerated aging of Ryan in the show. I feel like I feel like the bear market is hitting me in every possible way right now. Sorry, continue. Yeah, I'm I'm going to be very gray and old and wrinkly if I make it through another cycle. Anyway, the Dixie is up. Yield. You know what I realized this week? Back to the Dixie for a sec. I realized that the Euro chart, Euro USD is basically the Bitcoin chart. So if you're rooting for Bitcoin, you're basically rooting for the Euro chart. I don't know how that's going to work out. It's not the team I want to be on right now. No, I agree. I don't know how that's going to work out for us because that Euro chart looks bad, quite awful. Yeah, that's bad. So I keep that in mind generally for people, you know, if you see some good news or positive news in Euro land, which I think is rare these days, it should generally signal wellness for Bitcoin. Yeah. Well, it's mostly that dollar strength. It's just not. Yeah, it's all it's all just the same thing. Right. Yeah, exactly. We titled the show Rate Pause because rate hikes were paused. So this is the first time in quite some time that we've gone into FOMC with no change. The result of that was you start to see the 30 year kind of catching up to the two year because they also said that they are planning on staying high for longer. So we're not going to do the thing where we just immediately start going into cuts. And so, yeah, it may not have the desired effect that people might expect by a rate pause. At this point, holding rates at this level is restrictive eventually, right? It gets more and more restrictive as the lower interest rate that like rolls into this new environment, you know? Right. But I think it's honestly, I agree with the Fed. I think keeping it here and doing a wait and see type attitude makes more sense than keep raising and then panic cutting when the time comes. I think you have a potential to break a little less in this regard. I think they should have paused a while back and should have started way before they did. But nevertheless, the idea of pausing but not committing to a cut, I think is reasonable. Well, the markets didn't get angry at pausing. The markets got angry because they hinted at two more hikes still. So if that actually happens, I don't think it will. Look, I'm a chaos agent. I say go all the way, right? Pedal to the metal, no half measures. If you want to kill the economy, go for it. So yeah, let's do two more. Let's do one in November, one in February, whatever. I don't know. I think the consensus, though, is that markets aren't going to last that long. Markets being the economy, I guess. But the economy just isn't going to last and hold up through that. So unemployment is going to tick up considerably. That's the expectation. You're not going to get your soft landing. And Paul basically said as much that that wasn't his base case during the meeting. So you got to keep that in mind when you're looking at risk markets like crypto and alts especially are just still obliterated and continue to look terrible. Two -year looks like it wants more. The three -month yields look like, all the yields look like they want more. Yeah, they're all acting like it. Especially if you take today out of the picture, which I'm not sure I'm going to read too much into what's happening on a Friday. Well, we had, so yesterday we had a negative 1 .6 % day on S &P. And there were already legacy analysts coming out saying, oh man, Paul's going to have to cut this year. It's been one day. You people are so soft, so pathetic. Pillsbury Doughboy over here asking for cuts after a down day. Give me a break. Just absurd. The chart on the S &P does look like it has room for more downside like that. Oh, for sure. Pretty clean breakdown, but it's not in panic mode. It's in the middle. It's in the chop zone. 4200 makes all the sense in the world based on some basic technical analysis. Look at the 200 -day moving average. All this is just meaner version. You have people panicking that the number is going down instead of up and they're pathetic. I mean, that's legacy for you. Even when you look at non -technical analysis, if we were in price discovery for the stock market right now, it would not make sense. It just does not make sense relative to the economy. But ledger, price is in the forward future. It doesn't look at what's happening now. We're not going to get a recession. We're going to get a huge GDP print, man. Forward future looks like we got another year or two of grinding. Like grinding economically, trying to figure out this balance of wage inflation, commodities inflation, cost of goods. There's a balance that has to exist there. Life is more expensive for people. Their homes are more expensive and their business loans are more expensive. are Their wages up, but they're not caught up to that. And so the economy needs to figure itself out. It needs to find its Zen zone. I agree. That could take time. But that's not the S &P. The S &P is eight companies who have billions of dollars, don't need to borrow, don't need debt at this interest level. But now the problem, I think Apple especially, I don't expect their new phone to sell gangbusters because the economy is... It's one of the easiest things to not upgrade. Right. Well, that as well. But USB -C, right? Welcome to the 21st century, everybody. So I'm expecting those numbers to be soft. The Nvidia story seems to be softening, even though it's hard to really know what's going on there. There's still lots of lots of demand for those checking news. Yeah. But I guess the point is, who cares about the rest of the S &P, the 493, right? It's all about the top seven right now. And if those are weak, which they are, just in the charts, the markets are going to turn lower because you're not getting any help from the other 493. All right. I want some of what Andre is drinking in the chat. I'm just going to plop this onto the show. Here we go, Andre. This is your moment. Fed waits another year to lower rates than the BTC happening. The presidential election and lower interest rates are all going to be happening at the same time as we go into the next bull run. Space exclamation point, which is another way of saying triple exclamation point. Where do you put that space in front? Andre, I'm with you. I hope you're right. I think people believe that if they cut, then that will be bullish, but they won't cut until things look terrible. So if they're cutting, then we have a different problem, right? We have a recession if they're cutting, right? It's over if they're cutting. We just have to dodge a recession. You just have to dodge a recession. Around halving, whatever. And then there's this other school of thought, which is kind of what Andre is hinting at. Maybe the halving doesn't matter. Maybe it's just a coincidence that we've been in these four -year business cycles, and it's just lined up perfectly. I've seen that narrative growing recently, which is surprising to me, but it makes sense. Look, if you look at the data and you just don't pay attention to halving, I agree. But I think the halving brings eyeballs. It brings people understanding the asset a little differently because they're like, oh, wait, what do you mean? The supply is going to be cut in half or whatever, the daily emissions. Anyway. And meanwhile, Bitcoin and ETH both basically at their 200 -week moving average. This was okay. So that's the tweet you have up. This was my engagement bait last night. This is if anybody was paying attention. It's comparing the 200 -week and the 200 -day moving averages on Bitcoin. The last time... They're converging. Yeah. So they're converging. And the last time it looked like this was 2015 for a bull cross. It technically didn't cross bearish in 2015. I just want to highlight, though, Josh. We are both getting rejected by that right now, if you look at this weekly. Yeah, but that's okay. It's September. It's key three. I don't care. But yes. They're just winding around in there. They're meandering. It's not good. Also, one other comment. Yeah. Gotta work on this hashtag. 250k or bust. Gotta work on that. Well, that's the target. We need some ideas. That's the 8000 % target from here is 250k. That's where that came from. Yeah, we gotta do better. 250 by 25 is too much of a mouthful. I feel like the phrase millie needs to be in there. Millie? Quarter millie? Quarter millie. Maybe just full millie. Look, I've been on the record. 250k is the target for the next run. Okay. Even before this tweet, the stars are aligning. Yeah. People are saying what's happened to me. I'm using a different camera. I'm in a different place. And I got a haircut today. And everyone says you look old. I look weird and old. I am old. Here, I was I was puffing you up early. You're telling me I look good. And I was telling you how old I felt. And now the whole chat's like, hey, you look old. You look terrible. I think you look fine. But you know, maybe it's the rates, you know, the rates are just killing everybody. It is the rates. I'm gonna go ahead and go out on a limb and say that I'm affected by that. Sure. So yeah, if we look at if we look at Bitcoin, also, We've also got if you don't like the head and shoulders, at the very least, you have to admit there's some sort of double top there. Yeah, double top, lower, lower low by a smidge. Rejected by the fast and long moving averages potentially. There's a there's reason to be concerned here. If we're above 28, at any point Q4, I think we're good for move higher, which doesn't like logically make sense based on what's going on in the world with rates and everything. So if this then that if we get above 28, we're good. Until then, I expect lower lows, ETH especially. What's going on with ETH, man? You're the ETH fanboy, the ETH cheerleader. What's happening? It's even better than BTC in terms of rejection off the 200. That's clean. It's nice and clean. That's a dump it. Let me translate that for everybody. That means it's even more bearish. I think this tells some of the story like there's not many people in the ecosystem that don't consider pair trades, you know, like opportunity cost or a risk profile of being in one thing versus the other. And a lot of people are dancing on like long tail of altcoins. Like they'll play on those playgrounds. But the people that are in big assets are looking at this where ETH BTC is breaking down further. It looks like it might be escalating. It looks like it might be going from breakdown to a steady progression to the downside. And I don't know, maybe that also looks double toppy to me. Yeah, but maybe another 10 -15 % on ETH is on that relative to BTC and people just don't see the upside as worthwhile. I get it. I understand. I like 05. And if 05 doesn't survive around the ETF stuff, assuming the ETF stuff is going to be bullish, I like 03. I think a 200 week tap at a minimum would make sense. So, you know, you're looking at another 10 % relative in that scenario. And that would probably be a bullish bottom. Bullish, she says. A bullish bottom if it maintains that. I'm sure, I don't know harmonics well enough to just like eyeball it, but I'm sure there's some sort of harmonic. Batwing harmonic, yeah. Yeah, there's something there where you could draw like a crab or something. If this one's a 0 .03, that would be concerning. Well, what's the breakout level of the head and shoulders? Like 0 .035, 0 .036? Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I think that would put ETH people, myself included, just in Jordan tier mode. Look, if ETH doesn't get an ETF and Bitcoin does and it actually sees flows. It could happen. It could happen. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Hit your targets, Josh. 0 .053 before 0 .035. That's true. I mean, we need to spot ETF first, which... That's just math, just so you know. And dyslexia. It's just kind of interesting that it has not made a higher high since going proof of stake. Kind of weird, right? The Real Dangles asks, can we do a mini series on learning macro fundamentals? I've only ever looked at crypto, so half of what you guys talk about is foreign to me. No, but there's some people that you can learn from. One of the best, in my opinion, and I was... Jeebus was giving me crap about this, but Ray Dalio is, I think, the greatest macro mind that actually takes their information and then shares it. Big Debt Crises is a book. It's a study of cycles, basically. It's a study of deflationary, inflationary cycles, and they're very good. I would read that. That's a great start. Like, that'll be good. That could teach you more than I ever could. There's many, many other things, in addition to what he talked about, that go into what he talks about. But at the end of the day, it's all about cycles. And that's a terrific book. I would listen to a bunch of podcasts on macro stuff. Blockworks does a billion of them. Yeah, but don't worry. If you listen to those, you'll end up a bear. So you gotta know that going in so that you don't end up a bear. I don't care if you're bullish or bearish, but being able to form your own opinion, that's the end goal. But people that do nothing but talk macro are all bears. They're all dirty bears, Josh. I agree with you. They're doomer macro people. But just knowing the language and knowing what people are looking at definitely helps you understand what the hell is going on. If you listen to them, just know that you need to protect your beautiful, bullish beauty. Don't take their advice, air quotes here. Don't take their advice. Your beautiful, bullish innocence needs to be protected when you listen to the doomer bears. You'll learn all about the SPR and why it's the end of the world. What is it about macro that makes people perma bears? I don't know. I think all this cyclical stuff, the raining down of potential for bad makes you think it's imminent. Yeah, they're very pro -commodity, pro -being anti -market. That's their whole personality and identity. Now I'm thinking of Sven specifically, for those of you who know who that is. But the macro people will be wrong for years and years and years. And then we'll finally get a down move. And they'll be like, yes, I told you so. Now I've lost all my money and the market 10xed at that time. But I told you so. We would get a correction. But I like that about them. The macro people also generally don't like Bitcoin. Some of them do, certainly. But most of them don't. So that tells me we still got time. It's still early. There are very few Lynn Alden's of the world where I simultaneously massively respect their macro analysis. And they don't discount crypto. She does discount everything but Bitcoin. But I'll forgive her for that. Because she's already really good at two things. That most people can't combine their goodness of that. Yeah, she's great. That's another easy listen as far as trying to pick up. She just wrote a book about money, too. I'm sure it's got some good macro stuff in there. There you go. So we'll stop that. Rate's up. Murray, I don't know what we're saying is like Michael Murray. But if he's a doomer bear, then yes. Yeah, this is a doomer bear that he was right at the right time on the right cycle as the media fell in love with such characters. So that carries a lot of weight. Like he can now be wrong for the rest of his life, but he was still right in 2008. But I respect people that have these opinions. I just think it's a lot easier to make money if you're a bull over the long period of time. I agree. Tripsy says he thinks the TA makes a better bear case than macro. I agree. I pay attention to the macro because it's kind of interesting. And having the ability to discuss it is powerful. But if all I do is pay attention to the TA, then I'd be fine. If you see the macro and you make this great bear case and then you see the chart and the chart looks like it wants to explode to the upside, don't make the trade. Not financial advice, but don't sell everything in that scenario. I wouldn't. But if the chart looks like doo -doo and the macro looks like doo -doo, then maybe it's just doo -doo. Well, knowing yields and rates helps you understand the DeFi angle a little bit. Knowing risk premium helps you understand like if I'm not getting paid an insane amount in DeFi right now, it's just not worth participating. You know? Yeah. Assuming a risk -free rate in U .S. government bonds, treasuries, whatever, you're not getting paid that differential in DeFi. Typically, you are seeking yield growth balance, right? There's some combination or you're looking for either or, but there's a balance of yield and growth. If your available yield today is high, so let's say you can earn 5 % in a money market or something like that, then two years ago, you could only earn 1%. Then your need for growth is even higher to make up for your annualized compounding year -on -year returns because when you're seeking growth, you're compounding that growth to make up for the lack of yield. So when the yield is higher, you need even more growth so people get less interested in the growth because the growth needs to be so severe to replace easy yield that's available today. So that's why risk assets that focus on growth look less attractive when yield is high. That's a general concept that can be useful. I always like to think about the extremes. So they used to say, Tina, there is nothing else when you're talking about allocating capital. So if there was no yield before, you get all this crazy VC shit and altcoins and NFTs. Because it's growth at all costs. Because that's it. That's the whole game, right? Now that there's a balance, it'd be much harder to create something like FTX in this environment where you can get a yield, you know? Yeah, there is demand for return on those dollars that's not just growth, that's not just bring it back to me more valuable. Did you hear that NFT story? The NFTs are 95 % worthless thing? Yeah. Yeah, there's some really good replies from NFT people that I thought were worthy. I've retweeted one of them. I don't remember who it was. I think it was the punk person that works, that does the streams all the time. Pink haired punk. You know, most of them always have been worthless is what they mentioned. And I think that they're doing a classic throw the baby out with the bathwater thing. Like the speculation on JPEGs was always going to pop. The underlying technology does have inherent value, it's just who's going to win from that. Like, will all the current market participants, collections, companies, whatever, will they all go away and then somebody will rise from the ashes and win the technology emergence where game the underlying technology can be taken advantage of to create real business value? I think that's what will happen, but which of us will be there to survive it? And then some stuff will get Lindy effects of art, digital art. There was product market fit, there is product market fit for that. But like, you can't just mint 10 ,000 pineapples and expect to make millions of dollars now when there's nothing else. If your denominator is infinity, then yeah, 95 % are useless.
Home Gadget Geeks
A highlight from Christian Johnson with Reliefband, the MGM/Caesars Hack and an Update on Windows 11 HGG585
"The, I looked up this vagus nerve, because I hadn't heard it before, and it said, The vagus nerve is involved in regulating important body functions, including breathing, heart rate, digestion and immune response. It also plays an important role in controlling mood, I'm sorry, mood, emotions and social behavior. Did you see any positive side effects beyond, you know, helping you, and maybe this was part of getting through it, but did you sense any of those other benefits of it as you were, as you were wearing it as well in those areas? You know, I think it's certainly mood, not, not particularly. I mean, my mood was very focused on trying to fly the aircraft, trying to control the, the response. But I would say I wouldn't be surprised if it helped quite a bit with the actual, that, it's like the anxiety climax drop off phase of the motion sickness. And so if that's kind of the contour in which they mean mood, I think absolutely, because that is a big part in what holds you back from feeling like you can go through that experience again. Social behavior, not so much, emotions, not so much. Definitely, though, the breathing and the ability to handle the kind of, that stomach response. Yeah, they say in this article here, and I'll have all these links in the show notes if you want to go out and look at them, but it says the vagus nerve is sometimes called the wandering nerve because of many of the different parts of the body it interacts with. Stimulating vagus nerve can also have calming effects on the body, which I think is what you were looking for, right? That recovery, because you were going into it while it was still happening, you were going into it. Man, I think about, for folks who, you know, in boating or in, you know, maybe any of those situations where that's debilitating, this could be, you know, this could be one of those things. And so how long, how long did you use the watch? You're off of it now, right? At this point, you're not, you're not using. Would you consider bringing it back for, for any reason at some point? Or, or you're good, you feel like you're good at this point? I mean, unless I was like in hurricane conditions out at sea and felt like, gee, this might be a good thing to have just in case, like maybe. But I mean, my goal with it was to not have it become a crutch where, Oh, I'm only going to be in the plane if this thing is zapping my arm. But I keep it in the flight bag as like an honorary, like it's there. It's pretty small to stow. So like, there's no harm in having it and keeping it. But no, I mean, for me personally, like I said, it was about 20 to 25 hours of use of flight time of the 61 hours that I've logged. So about a third of my journey. And if I were to put out on like a chart, because my pilot journey has been around November 16th of last year was my first flight. And I did a couple of flights in November and December. The first kind of experiences with motion sickness were a bit enough for me. So work and other stuff was pretty busy and that on top, I was kind of thinking about, OK, what's my next move here? So I took January, February and most of March off. And then in the last week of March, I got back into it and had the relief band. And, you know, you can plot out like what was my kind of productivity or advancement against the hours I was doing the logbook. And you can see just how much the relief band accelerated that. So even though I've been flying for almost a year in November, really my core training to get where I've gotten today has been six months of very focused two times a week. I'm out there flying. I'm working with the instructor. I'm doing ground instruction at home, et cetera. And that definitely wouldn't have been possible without the relief band. But definitely for a good third of that journey, it was the way that I was able to get to that six months of really core focus in, in doing the pilot training. Yeah. Now, that sounds cool. I wonder if you could compare that to your, do you, do you get any watch data? Are you wearing any kind of, any watch that's doing any kind of health? I'm not. You know, it's funny. My wife wears the Apple Watch every day and loves it and has all the health data. And I guess I'm, I'm an old fart in that respect. I just don't have one. It would be interesting to correlate, you know, to have the relief band on one side and the Apple Watch on the other, whatever. There's, there's a variety. Apple's not the only one in this space. But to kind of see what kind of health conditions that would, that would bring. Maybe even, oh, yeah, can you get, you got me kind of thinking on this thing now. It's kind of cool. From like, even from just a regular wear on a regular basis of, or you're sleeping with it. I wonder what that, you know, if that, maybe first time it would keep them awake, right? Because obviously, do you feel it? Do you feel the physical stimulation as it's happening? On the higher power settings, definitely. It's, you know, if it's on like full power setting, it might even be a little uncomfortable, depending on your weight, how tightly you have it installed, how much gel you have, etc. But certainly on a low power setting, it, you know, after a while, you would, you would forget it's there. I Yeah, just think of maybe for individuals who have, and sometimes I have a tendency, I'll mess with my, like I'll pinch my fingers in a, in a response to just, if I'm agitated or if I'm stressed, you know, I kind of, and that's a obvious pain response. I'm doing that to stimulate something in, on my body, wondering if this could be one of those devices for stress, where, you know, you might, if you're feeling, if you're feeling stressed, that may be one of those things with something like this and a little meditation practice or something along those lines. I don't know. Sounds interesting. Yeah, no, right on. But it was a, it was a cool gadget to introduce, only because I just feel that a lot of people, even in my own life, didn't know about it. And it certainly has a lot of applications outside of flying. Well, and you've got a story, like, I mean, just think, fill in bags to, to not at this point. Yeah, I think John asked, John asked earlier if the, if the CFI charged extra for that service. And yeah, he's been very kind and patient and Zip it up and put it back in the bag. Oh, cool. Just can't imagine. Brian says, figure if you buy meds for nausea enough, buying this device would pay for itself. And, and to your point, I mean, man, if you can have a mechanical device that would help you overcome that, as opposed to, to, to, you know, to drugs, right? I, yeah, I mean, I, for me, the drugs was really like, it was a red line for me. I mean, maybe if I really got beat down that like nothing else is working, I would try one of the FAA -approved drugs just to see if that would be enough to jumpstart me. But it's really so awesome that, yeah, you don't have to ingest anything in your body to get the benefits. It's like, there's really not many things out there that, that can do that for you. So. A little bit of gel, put it on, set, set the, dial it in. I'm assuming those numbers are what, what, yeah, the power level. How does it charge? Is it a, it's got the batteries? Is that where you were showing earlier? Yeah, so there's different models. So the higher -end models have like a USB -C charger, and the base model, like the one that I have, is just two CR2032 batteries. So once they're done, you're replacing them much like you would replace a CR2032 battery in your watch.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Could Oil and a Gov't Shutdown Screw Up Powell's Plans?
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Friday, September 22nd, and today we are talking oil, macro, everything that could throw the economy off. But before we get to that, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link at the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends, well, we are sort of continuing the macro story today that we picked up around Powell and the FOMC this week. And one of the questions that Powell was asked was about risks that threatened to knock the economy off course. Two that he mentioned that we're going to spend a little time on today include oil prices and a potential government shutdown. Let's start with oil first. The price of crude oil has steadily increased over the past four months. From a low of around $70 in June, oil reached almost $90 a barrel for the US -based WTI benchmark contract and $95 per barrel and $95 per barrel for international Brent crude earlier this week. The price increase for crude has driven US gas prices back above $3 .80 per gallon, the highest level since last October. Overall, gas prices have ramped up by 20 % since the beginning of the year, according to AAA. Now, there are a number of factors all contributing to steadily increasing oil prices since the June lows. The first is OPEC+. The economic group of oil producing nations led by Saudi Arabia and Russia have recently curbed output. Production cuts, which were agreed to late last year, have been gradually implemented over the past six months. In July, Saudi Arabia voluntarily cut an additional 1 million barrels per day from its production quota, about 10 % of its previous output. Existing production cuts across OPEC have already been extended into next year and analysts expect Saudi Arabia to extend their voluntary cuts until March. On Thursday, Russia further constrained supply by banning the export of diesel and petrol. Russia is one of the world's largest suppliers of diesel alongside their status as producing around 12 % of the global supply of crude oil. The International Energy Agency said last year that Russian refineries produce, quote, roughly double the diesel needed to satisfy domestic demand and typically export half their annual production. Analyst opinions focused on the simplest explanation for the ban, retaliation for sanctions. Henning Gloestien of the Eurasia Group said, Russia wants to inflict pain on Europe and the U .S. and it looks like they're now repeating the playbook from gas and the oil market ahead of the winter months. They're showing that they're not finished using their power over energy markets. The Kremlin said the ban was temporary and aimed at addressing rising energy prices in domestic markets. However, they gave no timeline on when the ban might be lifted. U .S. and European policymakers have largely banned the importation of Russian refined fuel since February, which has required Russian supply to be routed through third party regions including Turkey, North Africa and Latin America. Now, OPEC cuts over the past year were predicated on a weakening demand profile heading into this year. At the time they were announced, recessions were expected across Europe and the U .S. China was an open question with the potential of reopening pushed back in the midst of additional pandemic waves. But since then, the European economy is sputtering along, albeit with dismal manufacturing data out of Germany. The sanctioning of Russian supply has caused European demand to be displaced to other regions with refining capacity, largely India and the Middle East. In the U .S., recession has been continuously pushed off into the future and oil demand is now back at all time highs with no signs of slowing. Although the Chinese economy has hit some turbulence recently, oil demand remains robust. Analysts expect China's oil demand to remain high as Beijing secures strategically important resources. What's more, analysts expect China's oil demand to remain high as Beijing secures strategically important resources in part to mitigate geopolitical risks as well as to shore up its manufacturing and transportation industries. So with oil prices spiking, many are wondering whether the White House will once again intervene in markets using the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Between November 2021 and September of last year, the White House authorized a number of SPR releases. The final policy saw one million barrels per day provided into the market over six months. A small amount of oil was restocked earlier this year, but the SPR still sits at a little over half its pre -pandemic level. Earlier this week, a headline circulated proclaiming that quote, Biden says depleting SPR is on the table. This was later found to be a hoax with no legitimate source, but it demonstrates how difficult high oil prices could be for the U .S. economy heading into election season. To wit, many saw the SPR release as a political decision rather than an economic decision heading into the 2022 midterms. In the private sector, U .S. oil inventories have recently hit 40 -year lows of 46 -day supply, well below the longer -term average of 65 days. And while August's inflation reports already showed a small uptick due to oil -related prices, the effect is expected to be more profound across this month. Dario Perkins, an economist at T .S. Lombard said, That said, it is important to keep these recent inflationary developments in context. We are not yet in danger of undoing 12 months of solid disinflationary progress, not even close. Others suggested that high oil prices would have a greater impact on growth rather than inflation. Maya Bhandari, head of multi -asset at BNP Paribas Asset Management said, It really impacts the growth side of the Goldilocks equation rather than the inflation side of things over the long term. Theory is that sustained high oil prices begin to eat into disposable income for households alongside higher costs of production for manufacturing and logistics. These combine to reduce growth and potentially tip the economy into recession. Overall, this situation in the oil markets has, to some, many parallels to the liquid natural gas spike in the winter of 2022. Prices in some markets rose more than tenfold, European energy companies scrambled to secure supply at any cost, and multiple firms went bankrupt due to the volatility in markets. This week, Bloomberg reported that the trading arm of French supplier Total Energies has played a major role in bidding up the price of U .S.-based oil. Their source claimed that the firm is paying a premium for physical U .S. barrels, pushing the spread against futures to levels not seen since last November. With all of that said, there are some signs that the oil market is beginning to cool off. On Thursday, Brent crude futures fell to $92 per barrel, which represented the third straight day of price declines, which is the longest streak in almost a month. Warren Patterson, head of Commodity Strategy at ING, said the Fed's hawkish messaging has quote, put some pressure on risk assets, including oil. The dollar index has risen by 0 .8 % since Chair Powell left the podium, a large enough move to weigh on asset markets. Patterson said he still expects Brent crude to move above the $100 mark in the near term, but that he doesn't anticipate the move will be sustainable. So that is the view on oil overall. The thing that I am definitely going to be watching more than anything else is the political dimension of this. We are now entering the period where everything, even more than usual, is going to be completely wrapped up in what it means for the election season. If prices at the pump keep trending up, it seems very likely that the Biden administration will be willing to do what it takes, including SPR releases, to get those prices down. But that's just something we're going to have to keep an eye on. Now what about that other factor that Powell mentioned? Well yes, indeed, my friends, the US government is once again hurtling towards a shutdown after efforts to pass a short term spending bill were scuttled on the House floor on Thursday. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy attempted to marshal Republicans to vote through a package to keep the government funded past the end of September. Closed door negotiations continued late into Wednesday night, but were apparently unconvincing. The bill currently being considered is the $886 billion Defense Appropriations Act. The bill was stifled in the House after five GOP representatives refused to allow debate to begin by voting against a preliminary procedural rule. Democrats also voted against the measure and appeared to taunt Republicans apparently reveling in seeing the GOP's slim majority descend into chaos. Among the Republican dissenters was Marjorie Taylor Greene, who opposed the inclusion of $300 million in funding to the Ukrainian war effort. On Thursday, Politico reported that Pentagon sources have said Ukrainian operations have been exempted from any shutdown, making that part of the dispute rather moot. McCarthy sent House members home on Thursday night to return to Washington on Tuesday. He told reporters after the failed vote, quote, two people flipped, so I got to figure out how to fix that. That wasn't the impression they had given us. Now, this was McCarthy's third attempt at bringing the bill to the House floor. The current proposal on the table is a 31 -day stopgap funding mechanism to forestall a shutdown to begin next weekend. McCarthy remarked on the change in tone in Congress among that extreme element of the Republican Party, stating that, quote, this is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. Now, even if a 31 -day stopgap is passed in the House, it seems unlikely to make its way through the Democrat -controlled Senate. The bill includes a 30 percent temporary cut to domestic agencies and immigration law changes, neither of which are likely to get the seal of approval from Dems. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said instead of decreasing the chance of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that cannot become law in the Senate. House Democrat leader Hakeem Jeffries remarked that the situation was playing out as a, quote, Republican civil war. Now, if it comes to pass, this would be the 11th government shutdown since 1980. The logic is that hard -line positions that don't enjoy support in the Congress can be put directly to the American people by shutting down the government and drawing attention to the impasse. Republican Ralph Norman said last week that, quote, we're going to have a shutdown. We believe in what we're doing. The jury will be the country. Still, the record on government shutdowns doesn't really support that strategy. Not one of the 10 previous shutdowns resulted in the dissenting group extracting concessions. Typically, the American people quickly turn on the party they view as blocking access to government services over a petty squabble. Alex Conant, a Republican strategist, said, This is such a dumb fight because there's no principle that we're standing on here. It's just bad tactics. While the dispute is nominally over excessive government spending, with Republican dissenters pushing for funding to be reduced back to 2022 levels, the underlying problem is, of course, the level of discord within the Republican Party. McCarthy was voted in as House Speaker after a record 15 attempts. The process took four days and frequently descended into a farce. This was only the second time in the post -Civil War era that a House Speaker had failed to be elected on the first attempt. Conant noted the terrible optics of a government shutdown of the Republicans' own making heading into election season, stating that, quote, Biden didn't win because of his political skills and soaring oratory. He won because Republicans blew themselves up with Trump. I'm afraid we're seeing history repeat itself, with the GOP once again helping Biden by shooting themselves in the foot. Of course, never one to shy away from controversy, Trump fanned the flames on Wednesday, posting that, quote, Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden's weaponized government that refuses to close the border and treats half the country as enemies of the state. He added that, quote, This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other patriots. They failed on the debt limit they must not fail now. Use the power of the person to defend the country. Now, zooming out and trying to get away from the politics of the situation, which obviously is not the focus of this show. The reason that this was brought up at last week's FOMC press conference is that a government shutdown would halt the publication of government data. This would include employment, inflation and growth statistics, which are currently playing a key role in guiding Fed policy. Now, given how much the Fed has said over and over again, their policy is going to be driven by data, presumably not having access to that data would be a fairly big deal. Yet in spite of that, Powell tried to put on a brave face, saying, If there is a government shutdown and it lasts through the next meeting, then it's possible we wouldn't be getting some of the data that we would ordinarily get and we would just have to deal with that. Now, by way of some history, the longest ever government shutdown lasted 35 days. The dispute was around funding for the border wall and quickly turned public sentiment against the Trump administration. Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate, but the administration failed to convince their own party to fund the wall. At the time, Democrat Senator Jon Tester called it the most stupid shutdown I have ever seen in my life. However, if this week's display is anything to go by, that 2019 shutdown could soon have some competition for that title. Now, what does this all have to do with the crypto sphere? Well, I think in many ways these are just exemplary of the state of politics in general. And given that, perhaps it's not surprising that former Senator Pat Toomey is not optimistic about the chances of crypto legislation being passed during this Congress. Just prior to retiring from Congress at the beginning of the year, Toomey introduced his own crypto bill, which focused on stablecoin regulations. Now, the House currently has two major crypto bills eligible to be brought for a vote. One would establish a stablecoin framework while the other introduces more broad crypto regulations. While speaking at a Georgetown Law Seminar on Thursday, however, Toomey said, I don't see a path forward in the Senate regardless of how the vote goes in the House. He added that of the two, he sees the stablecoin legislation as having the best shot. The sticking point will likely be Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown. While Brown has been outspoken about the risks of crypto and the need to bring the industry to heel, he has so far remained extremely quiet on exactly what form of legislation would meet his approval. And of course, any crypto legislation would need the support of Democratic senators to pass a vote to become law. Still, during an interview on Thursday, Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad said that she thinks that Brown's lack of commitment to a legislative position might actually be a good thing. Shirzad said, Now, last week, Brown wrote a letter to head regulators at multiple agencies urging them to use their existing powers to crack down on non -compliant crypto firms. This of course seems to be the clear intention, at least at the SEC. On Tuesday, the head of that agency's crypto assets and cyber unit, David Hirsch, warned that more enforcement actions would be coming against crypto intermediaries, including DeFi protocols. Still, Toomey, who serves now as an advisor to Coinbase, views stablecoin legislation as the solvable problem. At the moment, Democrats are pushing for the Fed to serve a central role in regulating issuers rather than granting oversight power to state regulators. This preference is believed to be driven by the White House. Toomey said, He thinks that senior Democrats will get on board once the White House is satisfied with the stablecoin proposal. Although that proposal might have to wait until after the election, as Toomey said in the next Congress, I think it's quite possible to get something done.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Socrates in the City: Eugenia Constantinou (encore)
"Welcome to the Eric Metaxas Show. I shouldn't tell you this, but Eric hired someone who sounds just like him to host today's show. But since I'm the announcer, they told me, so I'm telling you, don't be fooled. The real Eric's in jail. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a special edition, Holy Thursday special edition of the Eric Metaxas Show, where we're going to be airing, starting right now, my conversation from Socrates in the City. We did it on February 28th with the extraordinary Eugenia Constantino. The woman is obviously Greek, but she is, if you've read her book, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, an utter genius. Not just in her scholarship, but in communicating with super clarity the events of Holy Week, what happens on Good Friday. We thought it was appropriate to air it today because it's just that wonderful. I can't recommend her book, The Crucifixion of the King of Glory, highly enough to anybody interested in what happened that week. It's the latest scholarship. It is brilliant. It is powerful. And it's a devotional thing. So that's why I wanted to air that today. So coming up in a couple seconds, my conversations. Don't miss it. Share it. Here it is. Eugenia Constantino, welcome to the stage of Socrates in the City.
The Bitboy Crypto Podcast
A highlight from MAJOR Mt. Gox Update! (Bitcoin Sell Date Delayed)
"Let's discover some crypto news today. September 21st, it's 1130 AM because we always start on time here, and we got Drew and AJ on the ones and twos. How are you two doing? I'm doing great. Nice white tee, DZ. Nice white tee. Yeah, thank you. Well, I got the V. You got the regular, right? Yeah, you got the regular. Alright, so tomorrow, I'm going to have a deeper V, okay? We were just talking before the show. I want such a deep V that Salt Bae would be embarrassed. He would turn beet red from wearing the deep V, so maybe we have to get it that cut. Drew, your wife actually makes clothing. Will she make a custom deep V for you so we can match? This is absolutely going to happen. Top D with the deep V. Yours has to be in camo. Alright, guys, we're going to talk about Jerome Powell, some of the remarks after. They didn't change the rate hikes, what they mean. Also, we got Bitcoin at Mt. Gox has been moved. What's going on with that? When are these coins going to hit the market? When is this Mt. Gox Bitcoin going to hit the market? Is it going to dump Bitcoin's prices? Is it going down 10K, 1K? So we're going to talk about that as well. We got to talk about Maxine Waters and X potentially turn into a payments platform. Linda Yaccarino, the CEO, tweeted out something last night. We're going to look at that as well. And we got some XRP news. It's going to be a great episode, so please hit that like button, everybody. Are you all feeling good? Are we feeling red? You know, the market's down, but I still feel pretty good. You feeling good? I'm feeling good. Alright. Let's go to blue. Alright, alright. We're also going to have charts with Kelly at the end, too, so it's towards the beginning. Alright, well, let's talk about Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. He spoke at a critical press conference after the interest rates decision. Here are the details. We're just going to break down some of the key takeaways. As expected, they did not increase the interest rate, kept it constant between 5 .25 and 5 .5. And here are the important excerpts from Powell's statement, everybody. We cannot have strong employment market without price stability, so we got to get the price stability in line. Consumer spending is quite strong still. Rebalancing in the labor market is expected to continue. We keep scrolling here. There's a long road ahead for reducing inflation to 2%. And the fact that we decided to keep the policy rate constant does not mean that we reach the policy stance we wanted or not, so they're still leaving themselves open for an interest rate hike. A lot of people think there is going to be an interest rate hike, not the next one, maybe the one after that, maybe in the beginning of the year. And last but not least, we're pretty close to where we need to be. I wouldn't attach greater importance to an interest rate increase. So they're trying to minimize any market impact. I wouldn't attach greater importance to an interest rate increase. I wouldn't care that much if we increase rates. Does that signal that they are going to increase maybe one or two pauses from now? I think that's signaling a strong maybe with a capital M. Yeah, I think a big takeaway from this is where it says the full effects of the Fed's tightening have yet to be felt. And that is definitely the sentiment here. Like this isn't the first time we paused on the interest hikes and the markets have fallen. You know, the past two days on the live stream, everything's going up. Everyone's saying, oh, the price is going up. I'm sitting here saying, I think this is a bull trap. I think the price is coming down because I was looking at the stock market charts, looking at the DXY charts, DXY still going up because of the previous interest hikes coming into play, stock market coming down. But crypto is pumping. I'm thinking to myself, oh, this isn't this isn't going to hold up at all. We're going to come back down the reality. And that has started to happen today. So there you go. Right. All right. Well, let's talk about Japan's economy as well. Japan's economy on the brink as the end stumbles to 148 year low bond yields. So that's a decade or almost 15 decades right there. As Japan contends with depreciating in and rising 10 year bonds, its economy stands at a unique crossroads. The yen's fall to a nearly 150 year to date low against the U .S. dollar brings with it a mixed bag of economic implications. I'm surprised they had the yen that long, you know, throughout all the world wars and everything. Yeah, true. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's I mean, but still 150 year low, 150. The Bank of Japan now faces the intricate task of maintaining currency stability and keeping yields low amidst a high public debt environment. Complicating the test further is the yen dollar carry trade, which could intensify the pressure on the yen as the interest rate difference between Japan and the U .S. widens. So we're going to be keeping an eye out on that. We did lose the Internet, but it looks like we got it back. All right, Russia. Let's talk about Russia here. Let's rush into this next area. Russian Central Bank replenishes gold reserves to 2023 highs amid economic sanctions, according to a report by Kitco. That's where I use all my silver pricing data. Data from the IMF's international financial statistics reveals that Russia's central bank increased its gold reserves in August, apparently returned to the initial levels at the start of the year. Twenty three hundred tons. It was later confirmed by the World Gold Council. That just sounds like a shadowy group right there. The World Gold Council sounds like a bunch of bond villains. Kitco also reports that Russia is bolstering its reserves to mitigate the impact of Western economic sanctions, particularly those related to its invasion of Ukraine in February. Often we see Ray Dalio made this big, bold prediction as we see an empire on the decline. Debt is relative. And so, yeah, America's debt's terrible, but Japan's is worse. China's is worse. You know, everyone else is worse. So a lot of people use that data point, say America's debt can just get as bad as it wants to be, as long as it's not that bad relative to the rest of the globe. We're in no worry whatsoever. The other side of that coin would be, well, people will eventually stop buying debt and what are they going to start buying? They're going to buy gold, maybe some digital gold as well. So I'm expecting gold to go up. But silver silver price still lags gold. Have you ever done a deep dive on gold versus silver? I wonder if people even want that. Just would you want gold, silver data or you just want only crypto? I remember like a year ago, we were talking about doing a video that was I think we did a video that was like Bitcoin compared to gold and then Bitcoin compared to silver and then silver compared to gold. And it was it wasn't the most interesting video, in my opinion.
The Financial Guys
A highlight from Growing Unease: Current Administrations Approach to Security and Travel with David Bellavia
"What do you think they're doing with cash, right? What deal do you make where someone says, I'll bring a box of money to you? Yeah. What do you, it's, this is a state sponsor of terrorism. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and my fellow citizens. America's comeback now. starts right Welcome back Financial Guys podcast. Mike Speraza in studio live today with a guest in the studio. I haven't had this in a long time. Staff Sergeant medal of honor recipient David Bellavia joining me for about a half hour today. David, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Absolutely. So I'm going to stick based on your background. I'm going to stick with a lot of military stuff today and I want to start, we'll go all the way back to the beginning of the Joe Biden presidency. The Afghanistan withdrawal, in my opinion, did not go very smoothly. I'm sure many people listening agree. What were your overall thoughts of that withdrawal and how it actually ended up happening? I know we lost, you know, sadly lost 13 soldiers in that, in that withdrawal. People say we went off the wrong air base. People say that we shouldn't have gone out in the middle of the summer. There was a lot of different things there. What were your overall thoughts on that? I think it's like the worst day in American history since Market Garden. Just absolutely. And the reason why it was so difficult was it was totally unnecessary. So let's rewind to the Obama trade, Bull Bergdahl and the three first round draft picks. They get Marshall, they get MacArthur and they get Patton that end up the resurgence of the Taliban. These men not just go back to the enemy, they go back to the battlefield. They're in power when the government falls. You have misinformation coming from the White House that the president of Afghanistan is leaving with billions of dollars on his plane, which wasn't true. And then you leave the equipment, the cash. There's no recovery. We're getting reports of sales of American equipment left in Afghanistan in Southeast Asia. We're moving material across the globe. Our children will fight and pay and have to atone for these miscalculations. Let's talk about that. You being in the military and you knowing that area too, why did they just find it the easiest way out to just say, you know, just leave that billion dollar billions of dollars of equipment there and not think, again, if it was me and I'm speaking that someone that's never been in the military, but if it's me and I'm the president, I'm thinking, OK, I don't want to leave all our weaponry there. I don't want to lose any of my men. Number two. And number three, I want to make sure that everybody knows when and how we're getting out of there. And it just felt like poof. One day they said we're getting out of here. Well, it's because the military didn't make any of those decisions. I mean, look, Millie, it can criticize him. You can criticize Secretary of Defense worthy of criticism. However, none of these individuals are making decisions. This is about NGOs on the ground. This is about the State Department. So you've got Bagram Air Base, the equivalent of JFK. You've got Karzai International Airport, the equivalent of Teterboro. Right. Why would you ever do an exfil out of Karzai International Airport? It makes absolutely no sense. It's tactically unsound. But and then you've got all the ISIS -K. We retaliate from the murder of 13 of our bravest and we drop a bomb on a guy delivering water. He's on our payroll and we kill children on that. Then we take out Borat on a tuk tuk driving around like that wasn't even really what was happening. It's just a den of lies. And Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, all the heroes that brought us, you know, the Bergdahl deal, the Iran nuke deal. This is these. They the State Department is running all foreign policy, including what the DOD used to run. Well, that's I was going to say. I mean, I know Biden's the president, but do you blame him at all or is it everybody underneath him that, you know, maybe was giving him bad information? And again, some of these decisions, David, is Biden even involved in some of these decisions? Like, I don't even know anymore. Is he around? Is he paying attention to anything going on? Well, I mean, just from the press conferences, it was apparent he didn't know what was going on. And the great irony is that they actually were predicting that Ukraine was going to be invaded and, you know, no one believed them. So it's like you can't influence your friends. The allies don't trust you. The enemy doesn't respect you. You know, I mean, you've got Ben Rhodes is really proud of this State Department. Susan Rice loves what they're doing. But, you know, again, Americans died. And, you know, and what is the perfect culmination of the adventure in Afghanistan? Looking at your watch at Dover Air Base when bodies are coming home. I mean, nothing could you couldn't ask for a just it's it's a debacle. Yeah. And it's sad that that's that's the leader of our country there. Let's move in. You brought up the Ukraine there. So the Russia Ukraine conflict will get to Zelensky in a minute. He is as we speak in New York City right now. But so Trump's in office. We don't see many of these conflicts or any conflicts actually started under his watch. And then we have the Biden administration come in. And a year later, we have Russia invading Ukraine. Why did this happen and why? Why the timing of February of 2022? So let's go back to when we were fighting ISIS. Trump engaged and destroyed estimated some say 300 members of Wagner forces. But those were Russian nationals. We engaged. We destroyed them. What was the response from Putin? Nothing at all. So what do people in that section of the world, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, what do they respect? They respect power. They respect authority. You're not going to get any respect if you don't engage the enemy when they present themselves. I don't understand the calculus of again, I'm trying hard to figure it out. I don't get it. I don't. You know, Romania and Hungary and Poland, you're letting them unilaterally decide whether or not they want to send reinforcements into Ukraine. That's an act of war. If NATO members engage the enemy, all of NATO is engaged against the enemy. Poland doesn't unilaterally make that decision. Hungary and Romania don't unilaterally make that decision. We can't even articulate what the mission is. And if you look, go to the Institute for the Study of War, there's a plug for them. Check out their overlay from when the battle started, when the war started with Russia. And tell me what success this offensive in Ukraine has produced. I mean, let me ask this question, because I get confused. The answer is nothing. I asked this on Twitter, X, whatever it's called, all the time. What is the end game and how do we get there? Because all I see the answer is, hey, just blank checks. Hey, just write a check. Hey, here's a billion. Hey, here's 20 billion. Hey, here's another 10 billion. I don't actually see a look. I mean, like anything, right? If I write a business plan of what I want to do in 2024, my goal is X. I write down my steps to get X. I don't just write down X and say it's going to happen. I don't really know. And then the answer always is, well, we have to fight. We have to back Ukraine. Okay. But when does that end? Because the Afghanistan war and the war in Iraq lasted 20 years plus, right? And was there a real end to it? I don't know. That's where it gets frustrating for me, Dave, where I'm like, how do we know what the end game is? Do you win or lose? When does that happen? I don't know. I don't know. At least you're thinking about it. And I have fear that our leaders aren't, and that's the problem. So here's what this comes out. You're going to get a negotiated settlement out of Ukraine, right? But you talked about the billions of dollars that we're spending and giving to Ukraine as a blank check. First of all, Zelensky visited Ukrainian soldiers in the United States. Did you know that there were wounded Ukrainian soldiers in the United States? I did not know that. Well, today he visited them. So what's happening there? So that's a cost that no one is putting on the ledger. So now let's look at the blank check that Ukraine is getting. And by the way, I'm pro Ukraine. I want to fight communists all day and night. So let's punch Putin hard in the face. However, you're giving them a blank check and you're giving them munitions. Now here's the problem. We have to replace those munitions. Those munitions were purchased for 20 year global war and terror. And let's be honest, inflation is involved. So what you purchased for $10 is now $17. So you're not just giving them the money. You're giving them the equipment and the munitions that you have to replace yourself at the value of what is valued today. We haven't scratched the surface for the amount of money. CBO absent at the wheel. No one is tracking this. 2024 can't get here fast enough. How does this work, though, when you talk about some of these NATO nations coming together and making decisions, but us not just giving weaponry, giving everything money, whatever we're giving there? Is that not an act of war, too, though, David, at some point? We're continuing to fund Ukraine continuing the war in Ukraine. I mean, that to me seems like we're backing a war. Well, I mean, by the letter of the law and NATO charter, it's not. But here's the problem. It's schizophrenic because we were told that what was an offensive weapon was going to mitigate, you know, that wasn't going to help peace at all. So we went from, I don't know if they should get tracked vehicles to I'm not sure an artillery piece is what they need to high Mars rockets being launched. And let's be honest. I mean, the Ukrainians are I mean, the payload that they're going through, what you would have to have cataclysmic casualty numbers to be able to to the spandex that they're doing on the ground that they need to replace Patriot. If you're going through thirty five Patriot to, you know, missiles, I would expect to at least the C 20 makes that are shot down. They're using them for air artillery. They're using there for indirect fire. I don't know what they're doing, but this is going to end with Don Boss going to Russia. This is going to end with that land chain that Putin wanted through Crimea. And again, our friends in NATO, what are they even doing for Ukraine? What? Look, if you they said that Trump wanted to kill NATO, Biden did it. Right. Biden did it. And now Germany. And so Putin was selling oil at thirty dollars a barrel. What's it at ninety six? Yeah. He's making more money than he did before. And he's financing a war and killing innocent people. You mentioned before, too, and I think this is a good point. Everybody on the left and I'll say the media, the establishment, whoever you want to say, says that if you don't agree with the war in Ukraine, you're like pro Putin. Right. And that's just the most outrageous thing in the world, because I agree with you. I feel for the people of Ukraine. I don't want this for them. I don't want this for innocent people. However, at some point, the world's every every one of the world's problems can't be America's problem when we have a border crisis. And then I think they said yesterday ten thousand people came across. They got, I think, eight thousand of the ten thousand. But you see the numbers day over day. It's a problem. We have crime that's rampant. We have overdoses that are at record numbers. We have we have suicides at record numbers. At some point, we have to maybe just think about ourselves and not everybody else, because if we fall, sadly, I think the world falls at that point. Amen. The thing that I would add is I love the way the Ukraine refugee has been crowbarred into the migrant crisis in the United States. New York leaders from the city to all over Kathy Hochul, the governor of the state of New York, mentioning that, you know, like the Ukrainians in Poland, the the Polish have no intention to keep Ukrainians forever. That's a temporary you know, they're leaving a conflict to return to their country after the conflict is over. Again, this is just we're we're putting a round peg into a square hole and just hammering it away. But but there's no the media. There's you're our destroying military. I go to parents all the time around this country and ask them to give us their sons and daughters to join the military. And the one thing they bring up is Afghanistan. It's not about anything. It's Afghanistan. How are you going to assure us that you're going to maintain your commitment to our son and daughter when you betrayed us in Afghanistan that has lasting effects? And there's not a I'm trying to find a segment of our of our of our nation that's functioning. I don't know what it is. I saw in Chicago, they're going to have municipally owned grocery stores. Maybe that will figure it out there. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Real quick, do you think and we'll finish up on this topic, but do you think that they will we will ever have boots in the ground on Ukraine? I mean, I hope not, because I just don't know what the I mean, look at I'm I'm we're getting ready for China. We're trying to revolutionize everything. I don't know what the what the plan is. I mean, again, if you want to put a base in Ukraine, and you want to make that a sustainment operation going forward, that I here's the point. I don't understand what the inactive ready reserve call up was for. Why are you bringing those troops in the non combat support? Why are they going to Ukraine? What are you building infrastructure there? Here's what I do know. We're talking a minimum of $11 trillion to build Ukraine back. That is cataclysmic amounts of money. There isn't water, electricity, internet, you know, you want to help Ukraine. You're going to Russia is not paying for that if you negotiate a settlement. So I don't know what the plan is. But I hope we never see boots on the ground. I could guess what the plan is. I won't I won't say for sure. But I could guess that we'll be paying a chunk of that. And I do have one last one. So I did interview Colonel Douglas McGregor a few months back. And he talked about he's a real optimist. But he is really very, very bullish on Ukraine. Yes, very, very optimistic. I'm dropping some all over the place. But he brought up some staggering numbers, though. And even if they're half true, it's a problem. The amount of casualties and wounded soldiers on the Ukrainian side that we're not hearing about the media. I don't know if you agree with some of those numbers or not. But he's saying, I mean, it's people are acting as if this is an even war right now. And it's not even close. First of all, McGregor's a stud. I mean, he's an absolute, you know, that we're glad he's on our side. He's a military mind. I don't know if those numbers are accurate. I could tell you they're juxtaposed to almost everything we're hearing from every institution that we have, including a lot of our intel from Germany and England. But again, I don't know what to believe. So when you don't have when you don't have transparency, when you're not holding regular press conferences, when your Pentagon spokesman is now working in the White House and now you're getting a triple spin. I mean, the U .S. Open double backspin. You've gotten so many spins on the narrative. I don't know what to believe. But if he is even close to what is a segment of truth, you know, then look, Ukraine needs an investigation. There's a lot of investigations. We've got to start on Afghanistan. We were promised that by Speaker McCarthy. We need a hot wash on Afghanistan. And then we need to go to what who is oversighting the money that's going to Ukraine. And what have we got for our return on investment? Yeah, I'm not asking for much. Really, all I'm asking for in this conflict is can we just talk about what the end game is? And to your point, can we get an accounting of where the money's going and what's being spent in a real accounting of it? The Iran deal that just happened last week. First off, the fact that that was negotiated and completed on 11th September to me is just the ultimate slap in the face. But you again, you know more about this than I do. We do a five for five trade. OK, I'm going to use sports analogies. We trade five for five. And then we also approved of six billion dollars that apparently wasn't ours, but it was in a fund that now they can release to Iran. How are we winning on that one? Well, first of all, I was hoping that at least it was a digital transfer. The fact that it went as euros in cash through Qatar. And OK, so what happens the 24 hours after that deal is made? We're now getting issues in the West Bank. We're now hearing about issues in Yemen. We've now got Hezbollah that's reinforced. I mean, look, what do you think they're doing with cash? Right. What deal do you make where someone says, I'll bring a box of money to you? What do you it's this is a state sponsor of terrorism. They haven't changed. By the way, their president is now in New York City addressing the United Nations. This guy's killed 6500 of his own people. He admits to it. He killed the students that revolted and wanted democracy when we did nothing. He killed 5000 of his citizens in 1988. He's killed over 300 Americans. There's no accountability whatsoever. I don't understand what it is about Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken that believe that Iran is a partner. All you've done 10 years ago, they were refining 10 percent of their oil. And now they're a force. Now they're working with Maduro in Venezuela, and they're a huge part of their members of of the international community. They're in good standing there. I don't get it. Does anyone believe that the Iran nuke deal? Look, we got hit with cruise missiles under Trump in Iraq. How did they have those cruise missiles? Those cruise missiles were illegal under the Obama nuke deal. So how are you refurbishing missiles in two years? Do we believe that their centrifuges have stopped? That they won't have a program if they don't have one already? No, I mean, I guess my question, David, is how I mean, I know that you pay a lot of attention to this stuff, but how do people like in the media not ask these questions? Right. I mean, these are legitimate. I mean, we just traded to I put this on my notes here. This is on the heels of trading a WNBA basketball player for the Merchant of Death like six months ago. Right. I mean, and again, I'm glad Americans are coming back to America. I don't want to sound pessimistic on that. That's great news. But we also I mean, this this stuff just seems like I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. It warrants questions, but nobody seems to care. I'm in the world that if you take hostages, we take hostages. You want to exchange people? We'll exchange people. You know, we definitely have the partners in the area to do that. For whatever reason, this administration, they're they're they're contrarians. They're contrarians to you know, they claim Bush and Cheney are their best friends, yet they just go 180 degrees from that doctrine. I don't know what the Biden doctrine is. I don't know what Bidenonomics is either, but I could tell you that they believe that Iran is a partner. Now, here's another thing. Our envoy to Iran not only is no longer the envoy, he doesn't have a security clearance. Does anyone curious at The New York Times as to what happened to the lead negotiator in Iran that is escorted off a bus, taken into American custody, given a job at Yale or Princeton or wherever he's working now? I've never heard of a person going from top secret classified negotiations to no clearance whatsoever and in the custody of American intelligence community. No one cares. No one cares at all. It's fascinating. And again, for me, I mean, these are big decisions that we're making. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it used to be, you know, maybe we did a two for five deal and then we made the six billion. Now we're like, we're giving stuff away and we're on the losing end. Correct me if I'm wrong, but America was never, you know, America losing. It was always America winning, right? America getting the best of deals. At least McDonald's has a five for five. We didn't even get that. You know what this does though? Honest to God, if you're thinking about traveling overseas, things go sideways, cartel, South America, Mexico, wherever you're going, you have a price in your head now. No one in their right mind is going to bring you back whether it's Haiti or wherever you are, you're worth $1 .25 billion. And thugs and scumbags are going to take advantage of that. I mean, that's a great point too. Do you think about leaving the country? I don't know anymore. That's a little bit concerning. I don't care where you're going, right? That's concerning. This one I just had to bring up because it happened two days ago or yesterday. How do we lose a plane? And I heard that's like a third one in the last six weeks that something like this has happened. How are we losing $80 million planes? Well, they're not $80 million anymore because they've got a new engine and all this other stuff. Look, the F -35 program is a complete disaster. You want to talk about why our allies think we're crazy. We sold them a plane. This program has been around since the early 90s and we've got nothing on return for it. So basically two planes are flying in a buddy team. They're doing training and a guy punches out. We don't even know why he punched out, but that plane could have easily hit a building. It didn't, thank God. But the wingman didn't follow where his buddy went. So what is he doing? He just kind of went on and did his own thing. And now the Marine Corps put a Facebook post like a dog is missing. We're expecting the Ukrainian farmers to carry the F -35 out with their tractors. I don't know what the point of it's wild. Look, stop embarrassing us. Just stop humiliating us. That's all I'm asking. Just be the army and the Marine Corps that we know our men and women are capable of being. Get out of their way. This gender garbage, this social experiment nonsense, stop humiliating our military. That's all I ask. Why can we not get the... I mean, I know why we can't get the answer, but I'm asking this to you. But why can't we, at a press conference at the White House, why can't we say, I want to talk to the guy that was in the other plane, or you can tell us the transcript of what happened when that happened. Talk to the guy who jumped out of the plane. Why did you do that? And again, I'm not trying to put our military on the spot, but these are kind of big questions to ask, right? I mean, if I do something in my business, I have to go face the music on that. Why doesn't everybody have to face music for their decisions or why things are happening? I think it's kind of important. Well, you don't want to talk to generals because they're going to tell you the truth and they won't be generals anymore. True. And you don't want to talk to enlisted people. Because look, I mean, let's be honest. How many people are... Is this a merit -based military anymore? Do we have a meritocracy? Are we promoting people based on pronouns? Go figure. When we're putting politics above military strength, accidents happen. We don't know the facts, but the fact that nobody cares about getting to the bottom of it, the day of the Pentagon paper reporters are gone. Yep. Yep. Let's just talk about the 2024 race quick, and then we will wrap up for today. So your thoughts on the Republican primary so far, I'll stay away from the Democratic side till the very end, but your thoughts on, you know, there's obviously Trump who is now in a, has a huge lead. Ron DeSantis seems to be crumbling underneath himself. Vivek Ramaswamy has jumped up in the polls. Nikki Haley's there. Tim Scott's there. A few others that probably aren't going to get a lot of votes. Chris Christie's the anti -Trump candidate. Mike Pence is, I don't know what Mike Pence is. I'm not really sure. Your thoughts about the whole field so far? I mean, look, it's impressive. They've got a deep bench. There's a lot of diversity. I, you know, none of it matters. Trump is the guy. The more you indict him, the more you empower him. You know, I'd like him to work on his communications a little bit better. You know, but if Trump is Trump, Trump is a Frankenstein monster of Barack Obama. As long as you have that faction, you're going to get, you know, Trump is going to be empowered. I just don't want to see Governor Noem anywhere near the White House. And I, if he's going to pick a running mate, you know, it's hard to find an ally here, you know. But it would be nice to find a governor. I don't want to take anyone from the Senate. I don't want to take anyone from the House with the margins that tight. But I mean, the idea that Governor Noem is being floated right now. I mean, I'd rather take North Dakota. Yeah. A little sled there. You know, it's funny you mentioned that because I saw a lot of that this weekend. I mean, can we just, for lack of a better term, keep it in our pants for about a year and then do what you got to do? It really is. I mean, every time you turn, somebody's doing something idiotic, whether it's Boebert. And again, I say this, David, a lot of people know who you are. A lot more know who you are than they'll ever know who I am. But when you go out in public into a movie theater like that, and I'm going to Boebert, not Noem for a second, you're, you're extremely well known. I don't care if it's dark or if it's as light as it is in the studio right now. What are you thinking? I, you know, she's, she's, she's an embarrassment. She is. She's bad, too. Who would have thought that Marjorie Taylor Greene would have been the, the oasis of the Maryland? I mean, seriously, I, again, you're, you're in Congress every day. You're out in public, you're on the job. You know, at least she wasn't wearing a hoodie, you know, that's all in shorts. She was at least dressed for the occasion, but I, it was, it's wildly embarrassing. Vaping, singing, whatever you're doing. Getting groped. Yes. Who is your VP candidate then? Because I think, you know, you have names thrown around. There's, there's, the vague has been thrown around in there. You know, Byron Donald's has been thrown around in there. Carrie Lake has. I don't know. I love Carrie Lake. I just don't know that Trump needs to go with somebody so divisive there. I think he's got to go with somebody that's, that's firm in their beliefs, but also not maybe going to turn off half the country. Well, you know, it's, it's impossible. One of the, one of the problems with making Trump, you know, the, the enemy of the state that the left has done is that you've really made it difficult for him to even put a cabinet together. You know, I mean, what are you going to do with it? You've got a lot of loyalists out there. You know, the vague is, is I think maybe the most intelligent dynamic candidate we've ever seen run for president, but experience does matter. But you know, I love the way he thinks. I love the movement. I don't know if he would even take the job to be honest with it. I don't think he needs it. But you look at a Tim Scott, I think Tim Scott is, you know, there's a whole lot to his message and I think he's, he's got the experience in the Senate, but honestly, you could literally take the Clint Eastwood chair and, and throw it in there as vice president. I'm going with that because this, this from top to bottom, we have to have seismic change in 24. Do you think he would ever choose Kristi Noem at this point with all that now? Yeah, no one knew Mike Pence was a, was a 24 hour story and then he was the vice president candidate. So who knows? I mean, a lot can happen between now and then, but I just, I don't need, you know, let's just pick people on their merit. Let's pick people that are ready to be the president. Imagine this, imagine picking a vice president that can lead the country. If something happens to a 75 year old president, you know, like Kamala Harris. Yeah. Someone like that.
Milk Crates and Turntables. A Music Discussion Podcast
A highlight from Ep.118 - Rewind to 1967: The Year That Changed Music Forever
"Well here we are episode 118 I think I think I forgot to list a few this might be like episode 120 or 121 I don't know I guess that's a good thing when you do so many you lose count anyway on this episode we're gonna be talking about the year in music 1967 and as usual I have the wrecking two in the house Mark Smith and Lou Colicchio of the music relish show very interesting yeah a lot happened sit back relax it's gonna be another two and a half hour podcast but we love it enjoy the show the KLFB studio presents milk rate and turntables a music discussion podcast hosted by Scott McLean now let's talk music enjoy the show yes let's talk music thank you Amanda for that wonderful introduction as usual welcome back my friends to the show that never ends welcome to the podcast you know the name I'm not gonna say it was streaming live right now over Facebook YouTube X formerly known as Twitter twitch D live and again I always I don't know how many other things and this podcast will be heard on every podcast platform yeah yeah 1967 so it was quite a year think you're in for a little little ride tonight yeah and you know who wasn't born in night oh he was three in 1967 marksmen from the music relish show good evening I was two years from being on this earth so you weren't even really thought of no you thought of it 67 think of that think of that yeah you weren't even thought of you weren't even like a sparkle in as they say in your father's eye there might have been the beginning of a sparkle who knows so let me see I'm looking at my is my screen still fuzzy on my end but I'm not even seeing it on YouTube right now I'm seeing it's live but I just got the image of the vinyl really yeah what the hell wait wait wait wait yeah no it's on it's on I see it I see it but my screen looks fuzzy right yeah that's how I'm seeing you from my end yeah what the hell let me check something here hold on okay let's do a little in show my you know that smooth little March of colors next to you when you open up the show yeah happy it's all like gone really weird I'm looking at this right let's go back to this see what happens I'm supposed to be in 1080 and I'm looking at it right now now you're sharp you just got sharp it goes back and forth it's a strange see like hearing yourself huh I guess I don't know what do a refresh here I'm playing it right Tom Benwald says it looks good patty says it's blurry that was in the beginning and it looks like it's sharp now so it goes back and forth you're starting to get blurry again it's strange got any storms down there no this this would this will drive me crazy now this is it's not supposed to be like this come on it's like a Grateful Dead show warts and all rice we're talking about 1967 there's no digital so it was still waiting for Luda come on so you know I'm going to do I hate doing this but I'm going to do it to you buddy what's that no don't cut me I'm not cutting you I'm gonna I'm gonna hit a refresh which might take me off the screen so the show is yours for about I don't know 60 seconds let's see what happens here let's see reload I'm gonna reload it so I'm going off the screen I guess it's time to advertise the music roll show with my friend Perry and my friend Lou we discuss opera we have fun how am I now you look better look yeah yeah looks better yep and I just advertised my podcast is that the opera I'll pay you I'll give you the money later on then I lose my this is like okay here we go you look better though all right good yeah good you know me I the technical stuff drives me crazy especially you know it's not only sound it has to be oh it's this is a live stream so it has to look yeah good and you don't want to drop out in the middle of the show no like me and Lou do once in a while race right let's see is the chat working let's see now I'm not seeing any I'm not seeing any comments so let me try this well sorry for the podcast listeners but I gotta get this shit right hey it's okay I should be seeing I should be seeing comments because people have already made three comments you over here maybe they're bored and they don't want to comment anymore no it's there it should be showing up on my screen over here right we know that my boss you busting balls only Bono does that let's see public so it should be getting huh this is crazy seven minutes in and I'm here we haven't done anything yet let me see send comment test I just sent a text to message I see I see you as I see mine okay good we're good we're good let me switch over to my other account and do the same thing I just want to make sure yes just our audience is bored they don't want to comment actually this is all Lou's fault yeah yeah always the you know I would probably lost the other comments is because I rebooted so hmm all right well you know what we're gonna start without Lou right as I say that as I say that does he have what does he what do you let's get the full screen nose is that why you were late you had to clean your nose and he's back in Paris again you brown nose er I've been a bad dog my laptop and he's back in pair you left here in Paris you must have left it back in the United States I did I left on the plane how you doing Lou I'm doing alright how are you guys doing well I just had a little technical difficulty and we blamed you because you weren't here so you left me alone and I had to talk opera with myself talked opera yeah rigoletto did you talk about rigoletto this time I'm just really boring you know I'm like all right this is why this is a two and a half hour podcast some of us have to work tomorrow all right here we go let's jump right into 1967 musical events in 1967 and the year kicks off right away with a bomb a bomb on January 4th the doors release can arguably one of the greatest debut records ever arguably if you had a top 25 greatest debut that albums would have to be in the top 10 it would have to be yeah you know if you had a top 50 that would have to be in the top 10 right even if you don't like them you have to say that was so ahead of its time oh it's so different nothing out there was like the needle and all you hear it kicks I mean fucking what a way to start an album it's a heavy song it with a bossa nova beat yeah I mean that's pretty clever yeah 67 so you know bossa nova was pretty hip again John Densmore over underrated underrated underappreciated I think you are you are so correct you know never gets the the the consideration that I I don't know you can't put him in greatest of all time but could he be okay if there's a top there's a top 25 drummer top 25 drummers is he in it good question and in rock we'll just say in rock I think he could be I could see him making so I don't know if he's a universal pick but I could see him on some list I mean he's something you'd have to think about like you said like it doesn't get noticed so much you know yeah yeah or it I mean although his drumming wasn't shy I mean he's jazzy as hell I heard um writers on the storm yesterday and his adjustment playing is great in his adjustments during the shows just for that yeah yeah the unpredictability of you know how the how the song was gonna go right because they could rehearse it all they want once Morrison got into that zone well in the drama keeps the beat right yeah yeah the drummer has to stay up with that yeah and played to the clown so to speak right you know and my my problem is if some of the clowns don't have the beat you know at one point they've got to give in like I said Morrison or even Dylan they'll set the tone but they've got to be steady themselves you know it's yeah otherwise it's just erratic but you know yeah guy like Dan's more I mean I had skill I had a lot of a lot of technical ability right feel yes cool so obviously his drums always sounded good yeah on the earlier on the other records even you know three years worth of music whatever I guess I would be who produced some Jack Holtzman was the producer did a good job Jekyll or now wait so no what was it Paul Rothchild yes yes yes I'm sorry Holtzman was he on the record company yeah yeah was that it was that chrysalis or chrysalis I think or just like yes that's a lecture a lecture weren't they on chrysalis though also I thought they were yeah maybe maybe chrysalis was a subsidiary but uh yeah Jack Holtzman's son is Adam Holtzman he's a keyboardist right now he plays with here we go Stephen Wilson but he does a little blog on Facebook and he talks about growing up and he was like six years old and his father brought him to a club to see the tour Wow at six years old he just talks about like yeah it's a great little blog Wow all right and four days later on January 8th Elvis Presley turned 32 on January 14th the human be in right the human be e -i -n human being takes place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park polo fields with spoken words from Timothy Leary Allen Ginsberg Gary Snyder in others live music was provided by Jefferson Airplane the Grateful Dead Big Brother in the holding company and Quicksilver Messenger Service speeches from Jerry Rubin and others were also given at the event although it's one band there I liked yeah Quicksilver Messenger Service who was it on January 15th 1967 who is your favorite poet of all them I know you're not asking me Arthur Rimbaud who influenced Jim Morrison good answer good answer way to bring that first opening segment rough full circle we're getting better Scott we're good now you guys get a lot of good trust me I'm getting a lot of good feedback so let's keep it at that I don't want you son ask for more money and on January 15th 1967 the Rolling Stones appear on the Ed Sullivan show at Ed Sullivan's request finish it he asked them to let's spend sing let's spend some time together is that the one there you go yeah and then he told him a really big shoe I hate to do this I mean I come back on penalty box I don't say just he beat my record okay look he just got on the show after late and these are either he's stuck he's frozen put the dog nose back on where'd it go are you throw it at the camera like your headphones on January 16th 1967 the monkeys begin work on headquarters the first album to give them complete artistic and technical control over their material and it was fucking horrible fucking horrible what were they thinking they know they were thinking the egos got too big they thought they were the music well the argument can be made that you know Mike Nesmith did write different drum yeah so he could write songs but I don't think he was a pop songwriter you know headquarters and they try to be all fucking like 60 ish and shit they weren't looking for pop were they they're trying to be like more psychedelic yeah I think so there were their channel on the Beatles with those quirky little yeah with anti -grizzelles on that I don't know some weird shit I'll tell you what though I don't care about it myself but it was surely a harpsichord on it because that's what all those records had they had to have a harpsichord and I have the book this the 100 best -selling records of the 60s the monkeys got a they've had quite a few albums on there oh they do yeah they were they were but I mean I thought it was just a condensed period of the show which it probably was but it's still I mean they've got I mean most of their albums sold really well yeah yeah ah you like the show what's it is like the show I did I still like it I still love it I love that that that's so that humor is great like dumbed down brilliantly done though humor yeah way was what they were supposed to act like that yeah you know what I mean there was no like these guys are bad actors they knew exactly how to do that they pulled it off great it was campy it was great for its time it's still great to watch now yeah I do think that banana splits were a better band yeah that's I'll give you the banana splits were a kick -ass band yeah yeah kick -ass man did you see the movie recently came out it's a horror movie with the banana splits the banana splits movie it's a horror movie yeah yeah it takes place in an amusement park and they're they're robotic and in Dyson and slicing baby Dyson and slicing I have to say oh man that's yeah okay yeah Dyson and slicing it's good it's kids again campy movie but I couldn't not watch it yeah I have to say I'm sure Fleagle is a total psychopath well I'm not gonna give you any and no no no spoilers here those was it just Dyson and slicing on January 17 1967 the daily mail newspaper reports four thousand potholes in Blackburn Lancashire and Guinness air Tara Brown is killed in a car wreck these articles inspire lyrics for a day in the life a day in the life yes on January 22nd 1967 Simon and Garfunkel give live can't give a live concert at Phil harmonic Phil harmonic call in New York City some of this concert is released on October 4th 1997 on their box set old friends but most is not released until July 2002 that's some more okay January 29th mantra rock dance the quote ultimate high of the hippie era is organized at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco featuring Janis Joplin grateful dead big brother in the holding company for three Moby grape quirky that would've been interesting that's the best man that's the best as though for they're almost like the MC five kind of I think they were just kind of but they're they're a San Francisco band and beat poet once again Allen Ginsberg shows up to do his spoken word I heard he was a member of NAMBLA I wouldn't the National Association of Marlon Brando look -alikes I heard I'd someone I remember he actually he was a sponsor of NAMBLA but anyway on January 30th 1967 the Beatles shoot a promotional film for the forthcoming single strawberry fields forever at Noel Park in Seven Oaks have you seen it I have seen it I haven't seen it in a long time it's really cool yeah yeah it's kind of dark speaking of dark on February 3rd 1967 UK record producer Joe Meek murders is it his landlady and then commits suicide by shooting himself in the head in Holloway North in London it's kind of dark didn't he produce sleepwalk yes letter Telstar some early we talked we did it bit of a genius really yeah let's see February 7th Mickey Dolan's no let me stop February 6th Mike Nesmith and Mickey Dolan's of the monkeys fly into London Dolan sees till death do us part on British TV and uses the term Randy's scouse grit from the program for the title of the monkeys next single release Randy's scouse grit not releasing it is an offensive term Britain's British census forced the title to be changed to alternate title and then the next day Mickey Dolan's meets Paul McCartney at his home in st.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Courts Hand SEC Half an L in Binance US Case
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world. What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, September 19th, and today we are talking about Binance and their SEC court decision yesterday. Is it significant? And is it just kicking the can down the road? We will go through all of that. Before we do, however, if you are enjoying The Breakdown, please go subscribe to it, give it a rating, give it a review, or if you want to dive deeper into the conversation, come join us on the Breakers Discord. You can find a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Well, friends, it is a day that ends in Y, so there is, of course, another Binance story. Binance had a fairly big day in court on Monday in their legal battle with the SEC. Leading into the hearing, the allegations and speculation had started to reach a fever pitch. The SEC had begun to hone in on the theory that Binance U .S. did not and never had exclusive control over customer assets. That if true would be a big deal as Binance had always maintained that U .S. customer assets were strictly segregated from the international exchange. Indeed, they used this argument to defend an SEC injunction shortly after the legal proceedings commenced in June. If granted, the injunction would have frozen assets at Binance U .S., which would have functionally been a death sentence for the domestic exchange. In deciding that injunction, the court ordered the parties to come back with an agreement that they could both live with rather than making a decision on their own. As part of those consent orders, Binance agreed that they would ensure that only local U .S. staff would have access to customer assets. However, as the SEC dug further into their investigation, they claimed that Binance U .S. which they viewed as intimately linked to Binance International. Cefu was launched under the name Binance Custody in December 2021. It was renamed in February of this year, around the same time that rumors of an in -depth government investigation into Binance first emerged. On Friday, Cefu asserted in a press release that they were entirely separate from Binance International and that they don't even service BAM Trading, which is the company that operates Binance U .S. They wrote, We strongly reject this claim. As a custody technology services provider under Cefu Holdings, we are committed to servicing institutional clients with digital asset custody solutions in select jurisdictions, excluding the United States, among others. Furthermore, Cefu's operations and services are distinctly separate from BAM and Binance Holdings Limited." A Cefu spokesperson added that, Unfortunately, earlier in the week, Binance U .S. had contradicted parts of that claim in a legal filing. Rather than denying the use of Cefu in their operations, Binance U .S. acknowledged that the service was developed by Binance International and licensed to the U .S. entity. And while the specific origin of the Binance U .S. custody system might seem like a minor detail, this is the main focus of the lawsuit at the moment. The SEC is claiming that Binance International had de facto control over customer funds at the U .S. exchange. If that's the case, then Binance could be viewed as deliberately misleading the court surrounding this issue. It would also advance the SEC's argument that Binance U .S. was nothing more than a front to allow U .S. customers to access the international exchange and provide a veneer of domestic regulatory compliance. So that's a bit of the background. Now on Monday morning, the SEC filed additional material to support their order, which asked the court to compel Binance to cooperate with the discovery process. They said, quote, Indeed, in earlier filings, the regulator had raised issues surrounding the lack of disclosure. They noted that Binance had only produced 220 documents, many of them characterized as quote, unintelligible screenshots and documents without dates or signatures. Further, according to the SEC, Binance U .S. were resisting the deposition of a number of key executives. In a court filing in August, Binance claimed that the deposition of CEO Brian Schroeder would be, quote, You'll remember that Schroeder was confirmed to have left the company in early September, although his lack of social media presence has led some to speculate that his departure was closer to the beginning of the year. The SEC appears to have been informed of Schroeder's departure only recently and clearly haven't recruited him yet as a cooperating witness. They said that this strange turn of events and Binance's continued resistance to producing Schroeder, quote, Now, the SEC was primarily concerned that Binance U .S. was continuing to use SEFU for its custody, which could be used to shift customer assets offshore. They said that Binance U .S. had failed to convince the regulator that they had control over customer assets, adding that these claims were, quote, Binance U .S. had provided, quote, They said that, quote, BAM insists that this court, like the SEC, should accept packaged counsel narratives, carefully drafted declarations, and small curated sets of documents regarding control of BAM's customer assets, and that any lingering concerns are much ado about nothing. To top it all off, the SEC warned that Binance CEO CZ is, quote, The SEC claimed that they have demonstrated that, quote, Binance has a long history of controlling BAM to serve Binance's own unlawful purpose. Ultimately, the regulator asked the court for an order, quote, Now, in their opposing court filing placed on the record on Monday morning, Binance U .S. reiterated their claim that SEC demands were unreasonable. They called the documents requested overbroad and too much of an inconvenience. Binance U .S. further alleged that many of the documents requested are either not in the exchange's possession or fall outside the scope of the lawsuit. At 3 p .m., the parties entered the courtroom for what would be a tense hearing. Binance U .S. called the demand for documents so broad they would be impossible to produce. A lawyer representing the exchange said that, quote, The judge indicated that Binance U .S. really would need to provide a bit more documentation of their custody arrangements. They said, adding that they weren't, quote, The SEC lawyer, meanwhile, explained that the problem at the moment was that, quote, They argued that the SEC needed much more information about the wallet set up at Binance U .S. than they currently have. At one stage, the attorney for Binance exclaimed, They said that the exchange had responded to every targeted request from the regulator. The lawyer added that, quote, So what came out of all of this? Well, ultimately, the judge declined to make any orders to compel discovery from Binance, but it was made clear that the exchange would need to increase its cooperation, let's say. The judge said that they were not, adding that, quote, I'm not going to order from the bench right now that they produce or not produce things. Let's continue to try to work this out. I just want to keep things moving. The judge also noted that, quote, As investor Adam Cochran summed it up, the judge did deny the inspection but also said they needed Binance U .S. to comply and produce more documentation as the judge was not convinced of the asset backing. This is saying the inspection is overkill for now and giving Binance the chance to comply. Now, ultimately, these issues around Sifu are largely still about litigating whether the assets of Binance U .S. should be frozen to prevent customer funds from being sent offshore. However, given that volumes on the exchange have collapsed by more than 99 percent over the past six months, it seems likely that users have largely taken that issue off the table already. The matter is scheduled to return to court on October 12th for a follow -up hearing. Now, outside of the hearing, the court docket continues to bloat with additional evidence gleaned by the SEC. Much of this evidence was originally filed under seal or in a heavily redacted form, but the regulator is currently in the process of unsealing documents. Earlier this month, the SEC obtained the cooperation of the former auditor for Binance U .S., which produced in excess of 6 ,500 pages on the accounting at the exchange. The document was unredacted on Monday, revealing the auditor's conclusion that it was, quote, very difficult to ensure the company was fully collateralized at specific points in time. One of the SEC's requests for further information filed in June related to a 250 million dollar intercompany loan given to Binance U .S. by the international exchange in December of last year. The convertible note was funded using BUSD, 183 million of which was sent to Paxos to convert into dollars. The SEC wanted some additional details about the reason for this transaction. The topic was initially flagged as confidential by Binance, but that designation was apparently successfully rebutted by the SEC. Now, there was a lot of chatter on this on Twitter. With many people taking it as evidence of some smoking gun, Binance had been less than honest about their dealings with Binance U .S. Perhaps the most intriguing tidbit, however, filed recently was a declaration given by J. Emmett Murphy of the SEC's trial division. The document, again filed on Monday, introduced into evidence three additional depositions. All three were filed under seal, but were used to support the need for further examination of the SEFU system. The declaration identified one witness as Eric Kellogg, BAM's chief information security officer, but the other two identities were redacted. All three depositions occurred over the last month, with the latest taking place last Wednesday. So here's the way that Adam Cochrane summed this all up, which I think is a pretty good TLDR. He tweets, SEC seeks court order for inspection of Binance U .S., now expressly calling out that SEFU is indeed a Binance -related entity and that Binance U .S. has been misleading the court. The SEC calls out that this violates the consent decree that required new wallets expressly away from Binance International Control and Access, but interestingly specifically notes this is important as Binance has controlled BAM for its quote, own unlawful purposes. That's a claim we've not seen the SEC lobby here before, at least not outside of anything sealed or redacted. We also learned for the first time that the SEC sought the testimony of Brian Schroeder, U .S. CEO, and Jasmine Lee, U .S. CFO, but have been denied and fought on that and only just got told that Schroeder is no longer CEO, despite Schroeder being missing for eight plus months. They had argued that Schroeder's testimony would be too disruptive to business and now got told he isn't on the job, which is wild, as I think we all assumed he pulled a Catherine Coley Brian Brooks and gave testimony. Seems he's just disappeared and gone silent? Either way, the SEC here is suggesting, one, there is evidence of crimes, two, there is indeed evidence that SEFU is Binance International, three, SEFU is not simply a wallet provider, and four, BAM executives themselves lack insight on Binance U .S. assets and tooling. Now, for completeness, Adam Cochran also tweeted about the deposition from the auditor that said that it was impossible to tell whether Binance U .S. had been fully collateralized at specific points in time. He said, if your own external auditor can't say you are fully collateralized when you are supposed to be a 100 % reserves exchange and have your own proof of reserves that claim you're over collateralized, that is a problem. Binance uses the SEFU wallet custody system, previously Binance Custody, for both Binance International and Binance U .S., as noted in their filings. If this system is not capable of managing the small Binance U .S. numbers, how could it keep track of International? And if Binance U .S., its more compliant exchange, never commingled or misused client funds and was isolated from International as they claim, then it would be literally impossible to have a gap. The only way this is possible is the misuse of customer funds resulting in losses. I believe at some point in their scaling, they had material losses when misusing customer funds and exposing themselves to leverage via BNB. They've continued to misuse customer funds to try and cover this hole, but a declining market has made that an ongoing shell game. Whether you think that is a fair assessment or not, there should at this point be absolutely no doubt that the correct risk model is to move your assets off of Binance. Now, for the sake of a counterpoint, Bruce Fenton tweeted this morning, Binance is perhaps the most scrutinized and attacked company in modern history. The United States has investigated them and thrown everything they can at them. Yet, despite all this, we don't have a single accusation, let alone evidence, that Binance has lost customer funds. Now, trying to wrap this all up, a lot of the commentary around this is trying to figure out if the SEC won or lost this court trip. Will Clemente from Reflexivity Research tweeted, courts have been handing the SEC L after L lately, but others aren't so sure. CZ certainly didn't think so, retweeting someone who wrote, seems like they can't find anything but they want to continue making headlines. Maybe the most middle of the road interpretation came from the headline from Bloomberg, which read, SEC fails to win immediate inspection of Binance US software, and I think that that fails to win is probably a better representation at this point than actually getting the loss. But my friends, as you can tell, we are well in the minutia of this, but the details matter. There certainly is a feeling of crescendo to this story. And either way, it's hard for me to imagine that the industry isn't better on the other side of it. Better because Binance has vindicated, or better, unfortunately, because the last giant has fallen, and we can finally move on, largely rid of what came before. In either case, I will be sure to keep you updated. So until next time, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.
Monocle 24: The Globalist
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Globalist
"Of talking about the issues of the day. Obviously that's much more difficult now and there have been moments of tension both between the Pope and patriarch kirill over their things that were said. And it's not easy, but we try to exploit those channels that are still available to us. And just finally, I know it has been spoken about and speculated about and I don't expect you to announce it right now, but just as a theoretical prospect of the Pope visiting Ukraine or visiting any country at war. How difficult a conversation is that within the Vatican? What kind of factors are taken into consideration? Well, obviously, the first thing that is important is that assessing the will and determination of the Pope to visit I can assure you that when he was going a number of years ago now to the Central African Republic, there was a consensus amongst some of us as advisers. This was a very dangerous prospect and undertaking. And we sat around a table. And well, the Pope listened to us and he thanked us and he said, I'm going. And he has actually said on one occasion, I'm not sure he said, well, I'm going. If you don't want to come, you don't have to come. His basic spiritual horizon is completely ignition Jesuit. So he looks at the things, he prays about it, he makes the settlement, and he makes up his mind. And God help anybody he wants tries to change his mind after that. That was archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher talking to Monaco's Andrew Muller at the Munich security conference. He would the globalist on monocle 24.
Monocle 24: The Briefing
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Briefing
"And welcome to today's edition of the briefing with me Andrew Muller. One year ago today, Europe awoke to the beginnings of the biggest state on state land war to have been unleashed upon the continent since 1945. Though Russia's invasion of Ukraine had really commenced in 2014, Russian president Vladimir Putin had seemed more or less satisfied with the seizure of Crimea and the installation of a permanent frozen conflict in the Donbass. This, despite Putin's protestations that it was merely a special military operation, was an attempt to seize a country bigger than France and home to 44 million people. One year later, Ukraine endures and I'm joined from Kyiv by lado rositi, founder of black trident, a defense and security consulting group in Ukraine. Lada, we've been speaking to you pretty regularly for a year and more now. If you think back to February 24th last year, what was your first indicator that this was really happening? Well, it was a morning phone call informing me that the war has started. And I started arguing with the person who called me and I said the war started 8 years ago. And then people started calling me from all over the world. And then I realized, okay, we're prepared. We knew this was going to happen and now it was really a bit of a panic moment. But then once I had realized that things, this is not unexpected, it became livable. I think it's impossible to imagine for people who have not had this sort of threat unleashed upon their country, their city, their home. What that might feel like. So I don't know at the time whether you were thinking terribly far ahead, but maybe in that first week of war at some point, did you have a thought about what this might look like one year from now and how different was that to the situation Ukraine is now in? Well, it's exactly in this situation that I expected it to be in. And thank goodness because it could have been much worse. And the international community has a huge responsibility to bring this Russian aggression to a halt. And focus on constructing a global security system which will prevent this type of genocidal barbaric behavior once and for all. Are you surprised so you're not surprised then by how well Ukraine has held up and the stiffness of the resistance that Ukraine has mounted. No, I'm not surprised. I'm a very proud of the Ukrainians. I'm surprised quite frankly by the apparent fear and bureaucracy or that is being used as an excuse from Ukraine's allies to really move. That surprised me. I thought that the west was stronger. The where do you see the balance in the Ukrainian mood now? I mean, I guess the two elements of it on the one hand, whatever gratitude there might be for the quantities of money and weapons that have been provided to Ukraine versus that what you were alluding to there, that bureaucracy that hesitation, which we've seen most recently over issues like battle tanks and fighter planes. Yes, it's a very fine line between appreciation and anger and peace and an outright World War three. And we're walking that fine line right now. The Ukrainians are certainly frustrated, but give us credit because we have been under daily terrorist attacks bombings, it's horrific living here. So the amount of positive energy the high level of the feeling of community is really contagious and something that I don't even think anybody let alone Putin expected that Ukraine had. Well, among the other things that Vladimir Putin does not seem to have expected is the leadership of Ukraine's president volodymyr zelensky. I think it's pretty clear now that Putin thought that zelensky was unpopular that he wasn't serious and that he probably wouldn't be a factor. He has, of course, become one of the best known and most admired people on earth in the last 12 months, but from the perspective of inside the country, how important has his individual leadership been in holding Ukraine together? Well, here's the leadership is the really honest psychological level. So really keeping the mood up and saying the right things at the international conferences and meetings that he's having. The general who's running the show at the general staff and his illusion is also somebody who has to really receive a lot of credit for keeping this country together. So the entire team has a lot of work to do. They're doing a great job, but there are certain issues and fissures in Ukrainian society and the international society that if they do not address correctly could lead to extremely dangerous violence internally in Ukraine. We are now nearly out the other side of the first winter of this war and what we can only hope will be the last winter of this war. Ukrainian winters are long and they are cold. What's your assessment of how well the morale of Ukraine's people has held up during this winter. Well outstandingly amazing and strong. Of course, thousands of Ukrainian soldiers have lost their toes and fingers. If not even entire parts of their feet because they froze off. And many, many cities, hundreds of thousands of people, at least in the southern areas and eastern areas of Ukraine continued to be with no heat and no electricity. So people are dying. It's a very gruesome manner to be living in. And also they don't have not only access to electricity, but water is something that people in Ukraine are still really hunting for. We in Kyiv are quite lucky if you would like to call it that the electricity was actually finally turned on just a couple of days ago. But it's cold and everybody is nervous because we don't just because the lights went on doesn't mean that they won't be off in 30 seconds. So it's a very unstable environment. It is called the international community's humanitarian aid has just done an. Effort to save millions of lives and they continue to do so every single day. So defense military aid aside the humanitarian without this good vibration from people with integrity, Ukrainians probably wouldn't be as strong as they are. In key thank you very much for joining us. You're listening to the briefing. Here is monocles Emma searle with the day's other headlines. Thanks, Andrew. The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution condemning Russia, it calls for an end to fighting and a withdrawal of Moscow's troops, and overwhelming majority of countries voted in favor Ukraine's foreign minister has urged those who abstained, including India, to change course. North Korea has test fired four strategic cruise missiles into the sea during a drill, state media reports the exercise was designed to demonstrate Pyongyang's ability to conduct a nuclear counter attack against what it calls hostile forces. And the U.S. federal aviation administration says Boeing has temporarily stopped deliveries of its 7 8 7 Dreamliner jets as the company conducts
Monocle 24: The Briefing
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Briefing
"Today actually adds a special video. And we have a special guest in studio Georgina. We certainly do it's our entertainment correspondent. Hello, everybody. Keep it coming. And why are you here though? Well, I'm here because I actually interviewed the frontman of the said band that we were just listening to, trust to polio because he is in London and I got a chance to speak to him about the concert that he's going to do that the band is going to play in order to raise funds for kids whose fathers and whose parents have been killed in battle in Ukraine and we got to chat to about what he'll be doing in London and including in Trafalgar Square and also he'll be heading to the U.S. embassy house. He's been invited there as well. And he was just telling us about they went basically from being he went from being a frontman to being on the front line the whole band. They were paramedics on the front line for a while. And then they were told by the commanders that they could better serve their country by spreading the message about the war and Ukraine and creating music and putting music out into the world. And so they've been traveling mostly through Europe but throughout the world spreading the message appearing on TV shows. They appeared on a Finnish TV show that he spoke about and how important that was for him because he said they recognized that Finland had also once had troubles with Russia and they had overcome that and so it was really important to him. So it was really incredible to speak to him. He said that they invited a few famous guests so you may know that the band has collaborated with, for example, the likes of Ed Sheeran in the past. At Kent come to the concert because he's an Australia, but they have invited Bono and also James blunt. Wow. And you have to tell us when can we listen actually to the interview? All right, so the full interview will be playing tomorrow night on the daily with entrepreneur. Laura, thank you. That's Monaco's Fernando Augusta. And Laura Kramer. And that's all for this edition of the briefing which was produced by Marcus hippie. Our researcher was Andre Nikolai Peninsula and our studio manager was Adam heaton and of course special guest appearances by Fernando Augusto Pesci and Laura Kramer. The briefing is back tomorrow at the same time. I'm Georgina Godwin, and I'll return on the globalist at 7 a.m. London time tomorrow. But for now, goodbye and thanks for listening.
Monocle 24: The Briefing
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Briefing
"Program, that is the sound of a gear shift, because Monica's Laura Kramer has joined me to round up some of the weeks more interesting cultural stories, Laura good afternoon. Good afternoon Tom. Where shall we start? Let's go stateside really interesting story from the West Coast. What's this one about? That's right. So in LA, we're seeing that more and more museums are having free admission. And it seems like it's becoming the biggest free admission kind of experiment in the United States. A few museums had done it, so the museum of contemporary art had started at the start of 2020 before that the hammer museum in Westwood was free from 2014, and now the latest one to join this club is the Orange County Museum of Art, which has promised ten years free admission. And now what's interesting is that they are seeing a massive influx of people going to the museum shocking once you believe, believe it. For example, The O.C. Museum of Art has seen more people come through in the past three months than it has in the past four years to more than 90,000 people have kind of come through. The Getty museum is also free, but it has been free for a while, but they are also charging a little bit of extra parking fee. So the question is, how are they affording this? Because not only are they losing the money in the tickets, but also the annual subscriptions for people coming through are also not being subsidized. So what is happening is we're seeing a lot of donors and big donations from big names being offered up to these museums in order for them to keep this going for a little bit. And it's putting pressure on some of the other museums in the area to potentially consider going free going the free route. It's really interesting. And I guess that point about funding is particularly interesting. If you look at the sort of municipal story for Los Angeles a city under a great deal of pressure and there may be those who say, well, you know, we shouldn't be worrying about access to culture, but it's interesting earlier in the program we're hearing about the critical import of that cultural story and Ukraine, for example, during a time of war, in straightened times, people must enjoy their culture and those numbers are amazing, presumably these museums are also getting smarter at leveraging that huge increase in football to make money in other ways, concessions and products and all the rest of it. So hugely interesting. I guess I wonder, Laura, is this something that we could see, I don't know, elsewhere in the U.S.. I'm in LA is an outlier in so many ways, isn't it? Maybe hard to extrapolate, we'll need to wait and see what the free admission experiment tells us over maybe a slightly longer time frame, do you think? Absolutely, because I think the annual membership aspect of it is worrying places like in Chicago, San Francisco and New York where we do have some of these other really big museums that we look at, but it is nice to see that they, for example, the Orange County Museum of Art has raised two and a half million from lugano diamonds and they're getting all these big, big grants in order to make this happen. It's actually putting a little bit of pressure on George Lucas of all people who's got a museum opening in 2025 and two years here, the Lucas museum of narrative art. So far, they've not announced that it's going to be free, but we could see what happens down the line. I believe George Lucas has a bubble too. He could probably pay for that himself. He's a billionaire. If you're listening, George, come on, pony up the money. Let's change tack. A new exhibit went on a new exhibit, but an exhibit that's going to Tokyo. I like this one. Yeah, so Wes Anderson, you know the filmmaker. Are you a fan of his films? I'm a big fan of his films of his aesthetic of his general vibe, Laura. And that's it. It is kind of an exploration and a love letter to this to his vibe. So there's this Instagram account that when viral accidentally, what Sanderson, where people send in travel photos, that kind of look like they would fit in a west Sanderson film so they are symmetry, they're bold, their eye catching, colorful, pastel, colors, and basically people send in these photos, and it's got huge millions of followers, and basically they took this on the road, these photos and they put them in a museum in Korea in 2022. And it was at the time that people were really longing to travel, obviously, post pandemic. And it did incredibly well very luckily for the people in Japan. It is coming to Tokyo. This April, it's going to be there until May, so featuring really beautiful artistic photos that inspire you to think about Wes Anderson films. So particularly for our Tokyo listeners, maybe you've not quite got back on the plane yet. You can travel around through the medium of great photography at highly recommended. Let's keep things well, let's keep looking a bit east. Laura, this is a story that I am very excited about. I was put on to this program by colleague. Here, at maduri house, I then tried to pay it forward. And I know essentially compelled you to watch it as well, it's white lotus, and we know a bit more now about the much anticipated third season. Yeah, it's definitely spread, so the much anticipated third season. It looks like it's going to be taking place in an Asian hotel. Yes, it's been revealed so the Berlin International Film Festival is happening now, one of the series executive producers, David Bernard is there. And he's basically confirmed that they've tried to work in Asia a lot and hopefully season three will be their chance to make something happen there. How exciting. And now we can start dreaming about the casts about the ideal cast listing for this. Well, this is a funny thing because of course Fernando, who's a bit of a connoisseur. Of all things television at white loads in particular. He seems to know this stuff even before, even for the trades get wind of it. And I guess that is the point who's going to be, there'll be some characters we know won't be reappearing. Spoiler alerts, if you haven't finished season two yet. Do you have any particular favorites you want to see again? This kind of does give it away, so do forgive us, if this ruins it for any. I love listeners. I love Aubrey Plaza in it. I thought she was fantastic. I would love to see her kind of leaving Ethan. And exploring what's happening in Asia. There you go. I don't know if they've written the scripts yet, but try and try and keep your happy factor in some of these plot points. Laura excellent tales. And a couple of stories we've got to keep a close eye on as well. From the cultural realm, that was Monaco's Laura Kramer, my thanks to her as always. That brings us to this edition of the briefing. A big thanks to our team behind the glass our producer Marc recipient researcher Andrei Nikolai Pam and our studio manager, Nora hold the briefing is back at the same time. Tomorrow, that's noon here in London 1300 CET bright and early in the a.m. if you are listening. Stateside, I'm Tom Edwards, goodbye, and thanks for listening.
Monocle 24: The Briefing
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Briefing
"18 in Tokyo 1418 in Helsinki and 1218 here in London, you are back with a briefing on monocle 24. Here in the UK, the personal language TV channel Iran international has been advised to move out of their London studio by counter terrorism police. Due to the high level of threat against their journalists from the Iranian state, the independent TV network suspended broadcasting from its site at the weekend. Seems November the West London studio has been heavily guarded after the MI 5 discover to what it described as severe and credible dead threats against them. The station will continue to operate from its offices in a Washington D.C.. Joining us now with more is Adam Bailey leads media liaison at volunteer media which owns Iran international TV. And I'm welcome to the program. Could you first tell us what has been happening over the last weeks and months? Well, as you said, we had to suspend operations, but we didn't suspend broadcasting. Over the weekend because of the threat level against our staff in chiswick business park and the police who have been guarding us very effectively since November with armed response vehicles and barriers, they do have to consider the other people working in the business bar. I think there are about 10,000 working in all, not just Iran international. And so we were advised that we suspend the actual operations, which doesn't mean we shut down. We just carry on working from home and all the technical stuff is still done through the studios, and we broadcast from our studios in D.C.. So there's no interruption. To what we do. How did you experience the threat and how well do you know who was threatening your journalists? Well, we live with the level of threats. Really, since we sort of began in 2017, but it's sort of gone up massively. Because of our reporting of the unrest. We are the principal source of news for people in Iran. Because we're editor of the independent and there's no such thing as that coming from within that country. So the level of threats being severe and the head of the IRGC Brigadier general salami went so far in October saying we're coming from you and we're coming for you rather. Threaten staff with kidnap all sorts. There were death threats. Issued against two senior journalists of ours. So that was it, really. That's the kind of level of threat we're under. And it just increased massively till. It's not as though the police can't contain it. It's just the practical way of containing it. You know, so that we can carry on. And other people in the area aren't threatened. Exactly. Do you think do you think these station is an individual case or is this just an example of how the Iranian regime is trying to wage war against independent media outlets around the world? I think just what she said, I think it is part of a campaign to intimidate and threaten Iranian journalists, dissidents, I mean, we're not a dissident organization. We're not a political organization in any shape or form. But we're part of where we are at the news source, along with BBC Persian radio farda, Voice of America. And the Iranian authorities would dearly love us not to be, as it were. So obviously, you've been feeling these threats for months already. How was all that reflected in the discussions you had in the in the editorial floor for example about how to continue and how you can keep yourself safe. The question we have a directorate security who is a big team who are responsible for our safety, apart from the Metropolitan Police, our internal safety, if you like. So people are well trained well looked after, you know, no one is allowed to flounder around without being aware of risk and so forth. But I mustn't exaggerate that. People didn't move around thinking they're about to be hurled under a tube line or anything like that. People are careful, cautious, it limits what people can do. You'd have to be careful going to gatherings and so on. But people don't live in a sort of state of fear, cowering behind doors. And it didn't really affect anything editorially, it's something we're all used to. And it doesn't really affect our editorial decisions. We don't think, oh, we can't do that because it will increase the risk, but we can't do this because, you know, it's the wrong thing to do in case we upset someone. The very nature of reporting from Iran means you're going to upset the Islamic Republic authorities. How big of an operation was it for you, obviously, as you mentioned already many of your staff members are working from home at the moment and also more operations are happening taking place in Washington, D.C., how big of an operation was it to move some of further operations to the U.S.? Well, we've already got a big set up in D.C., you know, we've got studios there. We've got our sister channel, Afghanistan, international there, as well as our own. It's a pretty big operation. We've several presenters from London doing that. A few ancillary staff flown in as well. That's quite a big deal because of course it's short notice, but there was no interruption to serve as if you like. And then there's some issues with technical equipment, not biggest use, but you have to make arrangements for people to work at home. Though, if you remember the lockdown, people worked at home quite successfully. In a way, it's a bit like the lockdown. There's an awful lot you can do because of modern technology from home. Output editing, editing, and the actual news gathering stuff is uninterrupted. We have reporters around the world in the field. Aside from London in the field and they just carry on. Very important to work. And I'm just finally what are your final thoughts? Do you think there are any lessons that should be learned from all this? What you've gone through? Well, I think the final thought came yesterday with the security minister in Britain, Tom tugan Hart, making a extraordinary strong statement, not only a support for this channel, but for other Persian media. In fact, for all or media in the UK, for press freedom and the freedom of people live and work in Britain. And threatened, obviously, there are things in the pipeline. You know, there won't be, it's not a question of reprisals. But I don't think there's any doubt that the government of Britain like in Europe and elsewhere, you know, then they will not allow the Islamic Republic to intimidate its own citizens or anyone else's.
Monocle 24: The Globalist
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Globalist
"Now global leaders descended on Germany for the Munich security conference the world's leading forum for debating the most pressing challenges in international security. Amongst the attendees, benedetta Bertie alberti, who is head of policy planning at the office of the secretary general at NATO. She sat down with Monaco's Andrew Muller and the foreign desk team to discuss how the alliance's priorities have changed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Andrew began by asking her what benefits arise from attending the Munich security conference. I think the Munich security conference is that place you come to every year to just hear what everybody else is working on, what people are thinking, so you check your assumptions, get fresh ideas, network, test the temperature of the room in terms of listening to the high profile speeches, see what are the changes in the main policy messages. So it's a bit of a tradition to come once a year and see where the security broader European and transatlantic security communities are. I mean, this one obviously has the feeling of a milestone because it was only four days after last year's that Russia launched its full scale assault on Ukraine. Is it possible to explain how much your job has changed in that year? What was it a thing of what had long been theoretical suddenly becoming very practical or what changed did it make for you? Right. So I think very practically when it comes to the job that I have a NATO, which is policy planning. Surprisingly, I wouldn't say everything changed, right? Because the job remains to look at how the security environment is changing, what are we not thinking about, what are the potential disruptive events? So it remains a function horizon scanning function looking at everything. And trying to understand what are the policy dilemmas, the policy choices, the policy implications. So the function that I have a NATO hasn't changed. But of course, the war has changed. And the entire security environment has changed. And of course, from a NATO point of view, this was a disruptive, deeply consequential event, but it wasn't a surprise. It's something that we had been thinking about preparing for for a long time prior to the beginning of this war of aggression because the intelligence was telling us that it was going to happen. Because in a way, from a military adaptation point of view, NATO really started readjusting the way of its way of thinking when Russia legally and next Crimea in 2014. So it's part of a pattern of destabilizing behavior that we had seen and in that sense, yes, of course there is a before and after because of the scale, the brutality of this war, but in terms of how we're thinking about our job and how we're thinking about our mission, it's less of going back to a drawing board and rethinking everything, it's more about how do we accelerate the adaptation that is already ongoing, how do we keep going? How do we fully implement all the decisions that we've taken since 2014 at the political and military level? So in that sense, of course, there is a greater sense of urgency, sense of speed. There is, of course, a general atmospherical deep understanding of this war is incredibly consequential when it comes to the European security order and ultimately I would say when the rules based international order and all of that, of course, plays a role in shaping our thinking. But it's not as if we started perceiving the security environment as more dangerous and more fragile and more unpredictable only on the 24th of February. Unfortunately, that trend had been playing out for a long time before. I just want to go back to that remark you made about things that we're not thinking about or things that we're not looking at. How big a danger is that in the context of their being a very big thing we obviously have to pay very close attention to. I think that is always a risk and that's why in different organizations, governments you have functions like policy planning or foresight. It's obvious that we're spending a lot of political capital energies and resolve on our responding to Russia's aggression against Ukraine. That's absolutely our priority in the right thing to do. But of course, you don't live in a world where you have luxury to only focus on one issue, one threat, one theater, no matter what big extensive and impactful that might be. So it is a risk. I think it's serious that we mitigate by actively reminding ourselves that there is a big word out there that threats and challenges our interconnected, that there is a, of course, there is the return of full scale war in Europe and that's incredibly, as I said, consequential, but we can not afford to lose sight of all the fact that our neighborhood remains characterized by fragility. The fact that there is a nexus between climate change, weak governance, force displacement, and also produces security challenges just to name another important trend. We can not forget about. So it's really important. And I think as in my job, but really more importantly, as NATO, we never shifted focus to all the dealing with the response to Russia's war against Ukraine. So of course as a priority, but it doesn't mean that we are not continuing to work on innovation when our continuing to work on climate change. We are continuing to work on energetic security, where continuing to deepen our partnerships with our partners in the indo Pacific region because we understand very well that the two indo Pacific and your Atlantic have are related when it comes to security development. So it's about keeping a balance and not forgetting about everything else that also affects our security. And that was Benedict Bertie alberti, whose head of policy planning at the office of the secretary general at NATO and do listen out for more coverage of the Munich security conference throughout the week here on monocle 24.
Latest Sunday Audio
"february" Discussed on Latest Sunday Audio
"If the harsh
Monocle 24: The Globalist
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Globalist
"He went as almost a private citizen as he was, that's exactly right. He was there as a private citizen former vice president and I think Pence had spoken and was horrible, and he was just mouthing off the trumpian line on things. Such a dark time and Biden spoke. And he was fabulous, telling everybody hang in there. You know, it wasn't a campaign speech. It was more of a American former official saying, look, we're coming back. Don't give up. That was right before he announced because he then asked a bunch of us who had been in the Obama days. Staff had us all meet in a one of the rooms there. And he came in and said, I'm thinking about running, what do you guys? And it was real dramatic moment. So yeah, this is a Biden kind of thing. I mean, backslapping. He knows everybody from his time in the Senate on this tailor made for him. So I'm sure you would love to go, but I think, you know, you don't want to dilute the presence. You describe that this event will be sobering, the mood, but it will also probably be a show of an alliance between Europe and the U.S.. We've seen that over the last year, the strengthening of the NATO alliance. What do you think next year will be like, do you think that mood is going to hold that it feels like this is a critical year where it might fracture? What is your sense? It's a great question because next year, what will the mood be? And I don't think the mood will be shaped by fracture. I think it will be shaped by what happens on the battlefield. This summer and fall. It could be that we meet next February and there's some relief because the battlefield has tilted. Maybe in Ukraine's favor, we would all hope. And maybe we're starting to see the makings of the end of this. Maybe it's frozen. Maybe the summer results summer fall results and not a whole lot of movement. But a lot of deaths. And so we meet in February and it's agony because we are stuck in this in this meat grinder. It could be a long war. You know, everyone thinks wars are going to be short. You know, so be over by Christmas. We'll be in Paris in the next, you know, that's not the way these things go. I've been involved with everything since Grenada. And you just have to know that we can't afford for Ukraine, not to win this. We can't afford to allow Russia to achieve its political goals. If that happens, the uncertainty and the danger in Europe will skyrocket because you'll have a large Russian army with a bloodlust on the border at whether in Ukraine or with Ukraine at its feet. So, you know, in this on a dark note that I mean, I hope that when we all meet next year, maybe it'll be some relief because we're starting to see the outlines of an agreement of some type. My thanks to Monica's Washington D.C. correspondent Chris chermak for that report. You're listening to the globalist arn monocle 24 in a moment, Andrew Muller will bring us his version of the news, but first, a quick summary of the latest headlines.
Monocle 24: The Briefing
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Briefing
"The world is to show that the Russian army is not actually as strong or as powerful as it tried to project its image in the years leading up to the war. It's actually been shown to be a second rate army. And so if it was second rate in the early days of the war, bring in a whole lot of conscripts who don't want to be there, that we know there's been squabbling amongst the army and the so called private military company Wagner and others. This is not a healthy army. This is not an army which is actually enjoying the combat. Now, Ukraine has been asking for faster deliveries of military equipment. There's wide concern. About what is happening next week when it's going to be the first anniversary of the invasion and Russia is expected to have a new massive push are worried are you. I am worried as someone who I nail my colors to the mast. I think there's any sensible person does. The realizing that this was an unprovoked attack by Russia on Ukraine. And yes, I want to see Ukraine win. I wanted to see Ukraine drive the Russians out of their country. So yes, I'm worried in the fact that there is all this talk, but I'll take you back to another point last year. Before May the 9th, which of course is a huge holiday in Russia, the anniversary of the victory in the Second World War for the Soviet Union. There was a lot of talk then that might be a nuclear attack might there be a massive push. There were a lot of words actually more than anything else and Putin tried to play up the war. He hadn't got what he wanted when he invaded three months before. Again, I think that people have latched on to this anniversary and when I say people, I mean the Ukrainians as well, not surprisingly. It's coming up on the 24th of this month. To say, well, Russians like to latch on to these particular dates. If the Russians try a massive push and they're not properly prepared for it, they will be repelled at the same time, Ukrainians undoubtedly could do with those promises of particularly of the tanks which they've been having they promise has been coming from the west now for three weeks. They need them. They need them as soon as possible. That undoubtedly is the case. And once they have them, particularly the German leopard twos, if they have those in large numbers, a hundred or so would be a really good start. Then they are going to be in a position to resist any Russian attack. How much more equipment can the west provide in the long run? The rest can provide quite a bit. Of course, all the equipment at the moment is weakening western stocks, but they'll say, well, you know, we're not actually fighting a war at the moment so we can afford to do that. The crucial question and I think it's one that will be answered in the next few weeks is fighter jets, particularly the American F-16 fighters. Do you think that's going to happen? I think it is. I think the reason I think it is is because for months, the Germans in particular were saying, no, no, no, we're not going to send tanks, we're not going to send out, and suddenly the tanks are on their way. I think the fighter jets, particularly the F-16s, are the next step, and I think the fact that the barrier was broken by having the tank said, I think the west doesn't want to advertise too much to the Russians, but I think we will see fighter jets going to Ukraine before too long. Just quickly, how big of a game changer would that be? Oh, huge. It would be, I mean, we've already seen with the tanks. The kind of rhetoric that came out of Moscow changed. They were terrified. Terrified of these tanks. They said, oh, they burn like any other. No, no, no. They're much better than anything the Russians have got. And the F-16s are better than anything the Russians have got. And a combined arms push back by Ukraine with those tanks with F-16s really would be a game changer. Steven deal, thank you very much for joining us today. It's 12, ten here in London. Here is Monaco skeletor rebel with a day's other new set lies. Thanks, Marcus. Turkey has turned his focus to reconstruction where president Recep Tayyip encouraging those in earthquake hits areas whose buildings have been deemed safe to return home. The combined death hole in turkey in Syria has climbed over 41,000 and millions are in need over humanitarian aid. Australian and European Union negotiators believe they are getting closer to a free trade agreement as they race to meet a midyear deadline. It's understood officials are finalized to each chapters of the agreement on competition telecommunications and maritime services, but prime minister Anthony albanese's government warns it will not sign a deal for the sake of it. And Air India has struck a record aircraft deal which has put the tatter group owned airline in the league of aspiring global carriers. It provisionally agreed to acquire almost 500 jets from Airbus and Boeing to take on domestic and international rivals. Those are the days headlines back to you Marcus. Thank you very much, Carlos. Scotland's first minister Nicholas sturgeon personalist she will resign after more than 8 years as head of the Scottish government, Stewart June has been the first minister in the November 2014 when she took over from Alex summons, following the independence referendum. For the latest, I'm joined by teres Diaz ne political journalist and author welcome to the program and good afternoon. Terry, what did sturgeon say when she announced her resignation? Well, this resignation really came quite unexpectedly today. Only a few weeks ago, Nicholas sturgeon had been saying the tank was full that she wanted to continue. But she said she was proud to be there as the first female first minister, the longest serving incumbent. But she said also that it was part of serving well to know she said almost instinctively when the time has come to stand down and she said that she in her head and her heart she knew that the time was now. She will stay in politics, there will be a process of electing a new party leader she'll stay on until her successor is elected. But she really had some quite interesting words about the toll that the job has taken on her personally about not having privacy about the brutality of life as a politician and really the physical and mental toll that the pandemic had taken on her as a leader personally. It's the impression that this resignation is not in connection to any reason controversies we've seen. Well, I think she was really trying to give the impression that this was primarily a personal decision that she'd done something out of duty and out of love and she said it wasn't a reaction to short term pressures because she said, well, there are always short term pressures in that job. However, we should point out that there have been two really difficult issues for the Scottish government recently. One of those is the UK Supreme Court which said that Scotland couldn't hold a second independence referendum unilaterally without the agreement of Westminster and the second has been over the controversy about gender recognition. So Scotland passed a law on this making gender recognition changing gender easier. The UK Rishi sunak said he wasn't going to accept that Scottish law and he was going to block it. So obviously our two big obstacles there in the way of greater Scottish independence and things that have been big debates in Scotland. So certainly those political pressures are there. How would you describe the reaction in the UK to her announcement? Well, I think it's interesting quite how much the SMP under Nicholas sturgeon has dominated Scottish politics, she's been on the scene for a long time. I think one of the things that she showed today was that she is really a pretty good communicator. I think people thought during the pandemic that she was able to talk to people quite sort of clearly and in quite a personal manner. You know, she was talking today about how she was never off duty. But then she also admitted that herself as a personality could be quite sometimes override the merits of the arguments that people had a fixed view of what she was like, whether they like to whether they dislike her. And she's saying that that actually made debate about some of the issues more difficult. So I think she's been certainly a big personality in Scottish and in British politics, and it's not quite clear to see who will succeed her. Couldn't just tell water will happen next. So yes, what happens next is the SNP will go through the process of electing a new party leader to replace Nicholas sturgeon. As we know, it's not very clear that at the moment is likely to be. She says she will remain in office until that selection successor has been chosen. She says, some people will cope with that news just fine. But she said that she will stay on in politics as a member of the Scottish parliament. She believes she's still got a lot to contribute. But she just feels that she has really given the job everything for a long time and doesn't feel able to carry on doing that over the next few months and years.
Monocle 24: The Globalist
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Globalist
"Much a drama of the age. It's a multinational drama with the main character based in Norway. And it's going to reinvent a novel from a decade or so earlier. The premise of that drama, the swarm, is that a series of seemingly unconnected events have scientists race around the try and figure out what's going on various disasters around the world. And I think that reflects another point about what audiences are now ready to see. I think in the week of things like the pandemic and other complex phenomena, audiences now seem willing to take a bit more science on board as part of the dose as the broccoli if you like, in addition to all the drama. So I think that's something to look out for as well. I mean, as you say, these stories are very much of the moment they're very current, but also some of these themes are as old as storytelling itself. That's right, interestingly with the swarm, the premise of that is something going on at the depths of the ocean. And the scientists are trying to figure out why Microsoft changes in the ocean's bed are having these massive effects. And I think, yeah, as you say, there's a long-standing history of the ocean being a dark and dangerous place for since at least Homer's Odyssey. What's different now, potentially, is that the morality of it is a bit different. It's not necessarily the human hero who's traversing the dangerous waters. Actually, it's the ocean trying and other parts of the natural world trying to tell us something about what we're doing, which I think flips the equation on its head in quite an interesting way. I mean, do you think that shows about our imminent self destruction could be classes a form of self punishment? I think it's tempting to see it anyway, isn't it? Yeah, I think certainly the idea of having a completely utopian drama with nothing goes wrong has never been very dramatically interesting. But the closer you can get to the truth of the situation, the more uncomfortable you can make audiences feel, the better. I think the trouble with climate change is that it has historically been quite a gradual phenomenon. You know, it's not like a nuclear disaster such as Chernobyl or a terrorist attack or anything like that. Generally, it's been a case of slowly increasing temperatures, but only now are we seeing the real impact of those slowly increasing temperatures now fast increasing on the natural world and all these different ways. I think the fact that we have these multifaceted dramas emerging like this now is really a sign of the times. Absolutely. And just briefly, Josh, how useful are films like this in terms of educating the public? Well, I think it really does get a message across and the ideas contained in things like the swarm and the last of us do speak to some quite complex phenomena, such as how different seemingly disparate systems of the world interlock in ways that we may not yet understand, which I think at the very least shows us the limits of a knowledge, even if it's not teachers anything necessarily new. Josh calls, thank you very much, indeed, and if I could just recommend a book to you, it's called bernan wood. It's by the Booker prize winning Eleanor Catton, and it features a billionaire tech giant drones and a guerrilla gardening group and so it sort of brings together everything that you Josh are interested in. I have to say it's the best book I've read all year, although it is only February. Do look out for an interview with Ellen coming soon on meet the writers. That's all for today's program. Thanks to our producers, Emma Sel and Sophie monaghan coombs are researchers Lillian fawcet and Andre Nikolai parmigiana and our studio manager at norah. After the headlines, there's more music on the way, and the briefing will be live at midday in London. The globalist returns at the same time tomorrow. I'm Georgina Godwin. Thank you for listening.
Monocle 24: The Briefing
"february" Discussed on Monocle 24: The Briefing
"That would need to be discussed between these defense ministers among these defense ministers. And then they need to go back to their defense industry. And present a plan. Elizabeth, how concerned are you about the future there has been very much focus on how much equipment military equipment Russia has at the moment and, for example, how many missiles, it can still fire to Ukraine. But what about on the western side, how much equipment is there left and how difficult can the situation get eventually when this conflict may well continue four months or even years? That is indeed the challenge. So I think that the first months were relatively easy because Ukraine's western Friends did have equipment they could easily give including equipment that they didn't really need all that much themselves anymore. And the further the more the war has dragged on, the more they've had to give of the equipment that they really wanted and needed for themselves and we have seen countries like Estonia essentially just giving what it has and scraping its own defense forces down to the bare bones in solidarity with Ukraine. But that's where we are today. And defense companies order books are full because all kinds of countries in recent years have been beginning to increase their defense spending and buying more weaponry. So you can't just in a market economy, you can't just go to defense companies and say, now I need this. And I need to get ahead of everybody else who's waiting. And that's not our private companies work. So there is a way. And that is the dilemma for western defense ministers at the moment. How united does NATO seem to you at the moment? Let's, for example, look at Sweden of Finland's pending NATO membership applications, all other NATO member states have approved the applications. Hungary and turkey haven't. That's right. So there is enormous unity within NATO regardings within Finland. I think it's two countries that have received a warmest welcome in the history of NATO. Everybody wants them, except turkey. And I think for turkey, it recognizes the benefit, the strategic benefit of having swing and Finland in NATO, but president Erdoğan is also a clever negotiator. He knows that because his and turkeys ratification is needed, he can get something in exchange for it and he's willing to bargain, which is what he's doing. And the stakes constantly keep shifting. So Sweden of Finland committed to certain steps they needed to take. They did that in negotiations with turkey last summer, then when Sweden, which is really the country is trying to block. When Sweden had fulfilled those obligations, he said, well, what about this? And that's where we are at the moment. And now he has, of course, raised the prospect of admitting Finland, but not Sweden. And it's really a very difficult situation for Finland. Nothing has said that it will not join without NATO. But if this continues, I could sort of see voices within Finn and suggesting that perhaps we should join after all and it's really Sweden's problem. I don't think that will happen. But it's a clever negotiation style that he has and it keeps everybody on tender hooks at the very delicate moment. I think it's interesting that he installed did say, as I mentioned already, that it's more important that Finland and Sweden's application is to join NATO, our ratified quickly than that they are ratified together, so he's hinting at the possibility that we're Finland would go first. If that were to happen, I know you think it's unlikely, but if that were to happen, how difficult what the situation be for Sweden and Finland? Finland would have a very easy ride into NATO. It's like Sweden's already very heavily integrated into NATO, including the NATO military cooperation. So Finland would be in a very good place. So it would be in a very bad place because there's already committed itself to join the NATO as it wouldn't even be able to pretend anymore that it's neutral. But there would be no immediate timeline for adjoining. It did apply like Finland on the basis that the application process would be very swift because nobody likes to be in the limbo of having applied for NATO membership without having the benefits of NATO membership. They're put to that makes it very vulnerable. And Sweden and Finland have been vulnerable now for a number of months. And if this splitting up of their accession were to work to occur, then Sweden would be even worse of than if the two countries had essentially decided to remain outside together now the U.S. and the UK have declared that they will support Sweden and Finland while they're waiting for NATO membership. Solidarity declaration. So it does have that protection, but that's hardly as all encompassing as being a member of NATO. And of course, that's what that's a fear that Erdoğan is playing at in the hope of getting concessions from Sweden. Elizabeth brought there. Thank you very much for joining us today. You are listening to the briefing on monocle 24. It's
Startuprad.io - Startup Podcast from Germany
"february" Discussed on Startuprad.io - Startup Podcast from Germany
"News interviews and live. Hello and welcome everybody. This is joe from star rated a whole year startup podcast that youtube block from germany again in transatlantic news recording welcome to this month in german startups again with christian in new york. And if you're watching this youtube you will totally notice and hopefully also when you're listening that we do have a neutral so basically you can. We don't have the issue that somebody's That we cannot do cross talk but we can talk at the same time we can edit it together no more doing stupid stuff and making the other laugh. Right chris yeah so yeah definitely a feature that so many people were lacking wondering one can these two dudes finally talk simultaneously apart from that. Welcome from new york after. Apologize for my really weird mask near think. I should like sit like this time for people watching this out more people. Just listen to audio anyway. that that also means you get out a lot right talked to blow you do a lot of reporting out there with with masks at least yes and nonetheless correctly appreciate it there. You go yes. Let's start let's start today. We are wrapping up february. Twenty twenty one on the twenty third of february. Yes it's not the whole month but the next the news we still find would go into the march news this news. Jim startup scene the much anticipated of other one generated to new tech billionaires in dobie debts. I in a very long time. Your first europe's first tech spec special acquisition company listed frankford more wake-up details merch. Talk about right. Tried to republican game. Stop as well as the billion exit of berlin-based at just you can find us here on instagram linked in on twitter. If the to you're using this to watch or to listen to this. And we now have google calendar where we post even a few weeks ahead all the content we'll be publishing housekeeping. Time to brag. First and foremost stay safe everyone. This is the We were cutting this that it became public knowledge. That half a million americans passed away From corona so guys..
The JV Sports Show
"february" Discussed on The JV Sports Show
"Both of them. You know a little more detail yeah You know with caveat. I keep telling people kind of funny i mean. I'm starting to notice a little bit. Hey man cave on playing better and better each game or you know. He had a great game the other night this that third and i always tell people he keeps getting better and better every game we play. He's he's bringing something on the table You know getting in better shape Getting them better position to rebound the basketball. You know the disrupting shot on the defensive end or just you know. Put an easy two points in there. It's funny you mentioned the dunk Obviously not making here. Maybe but he has. He got the ball and transition. I said layup layup way up. And then he dumps it in and you know one of my the turns to me and says how about that for your layup. Those funny moment you know in the heat of the battle and and You know spotty that changed the momentum for us for sure that's what dunks do But man oh man. I wish we had students action and at that juncture. I mean the place with a gun. I've been around basketballs. You guys know for a long time but that was a pretty powerful jam. I haven't seen powerful like that in high school of what they can and Sloughs getting caleb. I can't speak enough about him. You know he's he's been dialed and and and he's grown up a lot. You know these past few months you know and and It keeps playing better and better basketball's well he's becoming more and more patient ease You know playing harder on defense little by little You have to keep reminding play defense too. But he he Has been playing great basketball. Ailey probably june twenty points or so little over twenty points. The last three games He's playing his best basketball right now. But again it you know. He's doing it while being patient. Still being a good teammate. You know he's going up the stats sheet with this But you know again. I can't speak enough about those guys. They work hard every day. They show up on time. They do what they gotta do. And and i mean the results show you do the do the right things and So i'm proud of both young men coach currently your team sitting at at seven one overall. And it's kinda crazy to think but we are vastly approaching the midway point of the season. Already what what would you give as a report card so far to your team in that first half of the season and and what do you hope to see improvement wise as we quickly approached the second half a year season. Ooh report card. Grade midterm putting in my aunt. Grades amount classrooms nine. Giving me an extra grade to put on but shoot man I would say Actually i'm not gonna give you leonard great because you know. I just don't complain about this stuff. I'm superstitious about it. you know. i'm i'm pleased with where we're at You know we have a lot of work to do. We have a very high ceiling. We have a chance to be a very very good team I think our best basketball ahead of us. I think if you ask people Whether they be inside or outside the organization there's people who were surprised With the early success. But you know when you have kids by in You're gonna be in a position to to to have a chance to win and we've been in those positions. Unfortunately we've done little things along the way to pull out those games But you know overall I'm very pleased. But i think our basketball ahead of us coach. We've been well we. I've been talking about this a lot. And i know that you're probably getting sick of hearing this but when to hear you speak about your philosophy and coaching and the whole xs and os. You sound like a guy. That's been doing this for thirty years but you know let's let's call it what it is. You're young guy. This is your first head coaching job. You've worked under some great coaches in the past and you've got a roster full of guys you got eleven out of thirteen on your roster are seniors now you got you got a team that has won all four games last year and all of a sudden you got them to buy in and and that doesn't happen doesn't happen with a group of guys that have been together that have been let down that that have you know that have experienced disappointment in the past and all of a sudden somebody to come in all. Here's another new head. Coach is saying you know he's saying all this stuff you know rescue us in and and teach us how to win but it's happening how Again you know. Like i told them from the very beginning and I'll tell anybody this you know i. I don't have all the answers. I don't know everything there. Is we have a really great staff We have a really great. And i think most coaches wouldn't say this is very important though. We have an administration that cares. You know miss a mr. harrison's pain mr mulligan. I mean it starts with them like there's a vision of like we wanna win. It's not just we want to support you do whatever weekend but it's no like we need to win. These boys need to win. They deserve to win. you know if they do the right thing so their visions the lines. You know with that as well In in on top of that You know i. I think that you guys made them something else. But these kids were hungry to win. These kids were hungry to be coach. i'm not saying anybody could have done it. But you know credit goes kit You know because. I think it's a great perfect storm of of you know people involved adding seats at the table And you know. I can't get enough credit coaching staff. They do such a good job. They make make me look good. You know my name goes on the but.
Labor Relations Information System
"february" Discussed on Labor Relations Information System
"Doesn't send in demand the bargain in two thousand fifteen when those letters of counseling occur instead it files. An unfair labor practice charge in august. Two thousand thirteen sixteen three years after krona's started on a trial basis in two years after it's been an effect and The bpa takes the position that really You know we didn't know about this until those letters. Counseling started coming out in january of two thousand and fifteen And so are unfair. Labor practice charge is timeline and the administrative law. Judge says well wait a minute. First of all we have a four month statute of limitations in new york. I'm filing unfair labor practice complaints. Even if you're right that the letter of counseling was the first time that triggered your obligation bargain are filed an unfair labor practice. You're late you know. It's we're now in two thousand sixteen. The letter of counseling came out in two thousand fifteen january. Two thousand fifteen so even if you have even if we mark the start of the timeframe for your demand bargain as the letter of counseling Your untimely but we don't. That's not where we start the clock. Ticking here here's the administrative law judges words it's undisputed that discipline in fact prior to the Two thousand sixteen was outlined in the timekeeping policy in two thousand fourteen. It's states violations of this policy may result in discipline up to an including discharge the town statements to that effect triggered the pba's obligation to bargain so the other part of our advice to our clients that What you had. Pba and orchard park Followed this advice. What have produced a different result in this case. The other part is you need to monitor your employers changes in rules and regulations anytime the employer suggests that it is even thinking about a rule change. You need to be asking yourself. Is there anything negotiable here. Does this impact wages hours and working conditions ever does. Don't wait for the rule. Change to go into effect much less disciplined being imposed under the modified rules. You banned the bargain within days or weeks of learning of the possibility that the rule can be changed. So that's an those roles by the way That i've just imagined them. Those standards for turning in a demand a bargain very common And i would expect those to apply in all states around the country. I'll right that's it for the february. Twenty twenty one addition of first thursday. Thank you for joining us. I hope to see you over on our webinar series. That we're doing right now. We are doing a six part webinar series on wellness and fitness programs. And next week we're also going to be starting a four part webinar series on a discipline and in particular. That's a focus on discipline of a police officers. Where will we will be talking about. Things like Brady and just 'cause and body hammers in the like you can find out information on all those things through our website at elleray s dot com. Hope to see you next month and without this as well aitchison signing off..
Labor Relations Information System
"february" Discussed on Labor Relations Information System
"Have created very modest exceptions to the atwells employment rule Of those exceptions is whether there is a dominant public policy that would be violated if the employer were allowed to terminate the employees. But that's a very very narrow exception when you hear all these discussions right now about police reform and the need to take arbitrators out of the equation and the employer should have the final decision as to whether a police officer corrections officer keeps their job. What those people are arguing for. Is that everybody who subject to those standards should be an at will employee that that a for example police chief should have the right to make a completely incorrect decision about firing an employee. A baseless decision a politically motivated decision. Whatever it might be and that decision should be appel. So when this north dakota case came down and i saw what the court held in the case i thought this would be a wonderful example to everybody of what life is like in the at will employment world. This is the case involving detective brandon pots and detective pots. Worked for the devil's lake. police department. Small police department in north dakota in february of two thousand and nineteen is employer. Fired him why it was july eighteenth incident where pots was attempting to arrest a subject and in the process there was a tussle and his service. Weapon a discharged. It's not clear whether he intentionally from pinon whether intentionally fired the weapon or whether it was an accidental discharge question that occurred in the course of arresting the suspect and a resist versus resistance to that arrest The bullets struck the suspect in the head. And the suspect died as a result When pots was fired for that incident. He sued devil's lake for wrongful termination. He's an employee. This is north dakota and so he's a legend. He doesn't have civil service either to answer that question. Our police commissioner fire commission doesn't have any of that stuff he's a pure at will employees and alleges that his termination in his lawsuit is against public policy..
ABA Inside Track
"february" Discussed on ABA Inside Track
"Okay the next topic that we were going to be discussing. We have a special guest for and that is dr megan heineke and we will be discussing traumatic and acquired brain injury. Which is a topic bet. She's been researching for quite some time so we have three articles of which she is an author on all three. I believe did another hat trick here. Just like dr. Megan boyle dead and these articles are using differential reinforcement to decrease academic response latency of an adolescent with acquired brain. Injury knows by heineke and car published in job. Two thousand nine next up expanding. The consumer base for behavior analytic services meeting the needs of consumers in the twenty th century by leblanc heineke and baker. And that was published in bath in one of the years in which they did not include dangerous thirteen but there were at least twenty past twenty. Twelve telling me twenty thirty. I'm hearing i'm hearing two thousand thirteen So it must be twenty thirteen. Roy brings you out of here. Diana going back to you. Rob all right and then finally applied behavior analysis in acquired brain injury rehabilitation a meta analysis of single case design intervention research. That's by heineke and car published in behavioral interventions. Two thousand fourteen. And that is thick one so the lot of stuff that's a meta-analysis but also behavioral interventions has the widest margin. The margin's no autism. Do this much ish. Like one third of the page as the writing on it. i think That's so between dr meghan boyle dr megan heineke. That's to all megan articles. We've done xavier analysis. So if you are a researcher in the field of bayern houses and you name is meghan. We have not had you on the show. Get in touch with us in sidetrack gmail.com. We're going to do it. We're going to get meghan published research in babe analysis on this show. We gotta do that first. One put us on the map with that on the map. That's right okay. That's with remember us for all right. Now we're gonna take a detour away from megan's but we will have a special guest for a third episode In february and in this one of the topics to be higher education in the college setting the working title. And we have dr darlene chrome. Todd who's gonna come on to talk to us so that's gonna be exciting and we have three articles here again They are assessment of for. Oh i'm so. Sorry for articles assessment thinking in learners published by crown todd and that was in the behavioral development bulletin two thousand seven.
Mornings With Gail - 1310 KFKA
"february" Discussed on Mornings With Gail - 1310 KFKA
"In phase one b dot to one be to. How confusing can they make all of this. Many many in the seventy and above age group are still still having trouble getting their covid. Nineteen vaccine appointment. And we've talked about this numerous times. Colorado department of public health and environment said those seventy and above will indeed remain a priority adding we expect many seventy plus year olds to get vaccinated. This week. our goal continues to be toback. Sonate at least seventy percent of colorado and seventy and older by twenty eighth statement goes on say that colorado needs to have a larger population than just the remaining seventy and older colorado and to use all vaccines. The state will receive between february eighth and the end of the month governor. Jared polis over the weekend said that half of the population is already received of that population. We're talking seventy and over has already received their vaccines and well the that haven't should receive them in a week or two but the stand underscoring the difficulty that many are having consider. Joe colton boxers experience now he falls into the phase. One b category of colorado's a vaccine distribution plants. Not one point two but one be he said. I swear. I filled out at least ten different forms. They would tell me. The weight was anywhere from fifty. Three seventy six minutes before someone would come on the phone. And i'm not gonna sit on the phone. That long counting bacher said he finally did receive a callback and scheduled his vaccine appointments now state announced on friday that those in phase one b point to can begin registering for appointments but those that nations won't start until february eighth and they are looking forward to and i know this is also convoluted and so dung confusing isn't it but they are looking forward. They anticipate that educators and those older than sixty four age sixty five and older Can begin receiving vaccinations on february eight. About a third of the state's vaccine nation. Beginning on february eight will go to the state educators and to those who qualify that are age sixty five and older by the way while the state's focused to this point has been on those seventy and older governor. Police said that forty percent of that group has been vaccinated seven thirty nine thirteen ten. Kfi a thirteen ten k. f. k. a. dot.