40 Burst results for "Theft"
The Breakdown
A highlight from The Sam Bankman-Fried Trial Begins - Everything You Need to Know
"Welcome back to The Breakdown with me and LW. 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, October 3rd. The SBF trial has begun. This is all the background that you need to know. Of course, before we get into all of 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 in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello Breakers. As you can imagine, this is a fairly weird time for me. A year ago at this time, I was deep in the midst of planning FTX's second Super Bowl ad. And yet a month later, I had resigned, the company had declared bankruptcy, and the world had discovered a rotten core of fraud around Sam and his closest consigliaries. Now, I did a very long episode about the experience of the week of the collapse from the inside last November 14th. It was called Sam Bankman Fraud to give you a sense of how I felt about it. Since then, I've been covering the FTX bankruptcy and Sam's legal battles as I would any other crypto story. In other words, just part of the necessary cleanup of the last cycle, but ultimately something that is hopefully for the past and not for the future. When it comes to the trial, I've spent a long time deciding about how to approach it. The reality is, for the next five or six weeks or however long this takes, this is going to drown out a lot of other things that are happening in the space. I have to imagine that most products will choose not to launch during this time for fear of being outshined because everyone is just laser focused on this. The question then of course is how much time to give it. Is there a risk of over focusing on it? You bet. It's going to have lots of drama. But does it need to be covered? I think that the answer is also ultimately yes. This is something that has to get concluded for the industry to fully move on. It is in many ways an exorcism that just has to be done. And on top of that, I think that this trial and everything that surrounds it will have some impact in shaping how much the external world sees the crypto space as itself inherently fraudulent versus Sam as specifically fraudulent. So how is the breakdown going to cover this? Well, I talked to a lot of you listeners and the general request mirrored my own thoughts, which is to every few days do an update, sometimes with a guest discussion. This won't be then an everyday thing. At least there won't be some big feature every day. But you will get all the salient details as they come up. And with that in mind, I thought it would be valuable to try to create a bit of a definitive primer, something that if you haven't been paying attention at all, if you were barely watching last year, you could pick up and listen to and feel pretty well prepared to get into what you're going to see over the coming weeks. What that means is that today we're going to go over the charges, the rough timeline of events, the key witnesses, what we expect from the defense, the latest procedural news and info from the bankruptcy and the trial schedule. I don't think we'll have time to get into people's very strong feelings about Michael Lewis's book that just came out, but I imagine that that will be on the docket for later this week as well. However, where we begin is with the charges of which Sam faces seven. Those include two charges of wire fraud, two charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, as well as charges of securities fraud, commodities fraud and money laundering. More generally, Sam is accused of fraudulently dealing with customer funds in a multitude of ways. The most damning allegation, and the one prosecutors will likely focus on establishing, is that Sam knowingly diverted customer funds to FTX -affiliated hedge fund Alameda Research. Alameda, of course, served as the primary market maker on FTX. Now, FTX is widely understood not to have been able to obtain bank accounts, and so in many cases used accounts held by Alameda Research to receive funds from customers. The thing that prosecutors will seek to demonstrate is that Alameda not only held customer funds, but that it racked up billions of dollars in debt to FTX, which it could not repay. Evidence has been put forward that Alameda did not have the same risk controls as other entities when it traded on FTX, and that the lack of limits allowed Alameda to continue to operate while carrying a large negative cash balance. To put a fine point on it, the prosecution will allege that this large negative cash balance represented improperly using customer funds to trade and lose on the exchange. Now of course, Alameda had a significant balance sheet of assets held against this negative cash balance, but these assets were crypto tokens largely created by Sam and FTX. They were far too illiquid to realize it anywhere close to their full book value. The SEC summarized the allegations in their separate lawsuit by stating that Sam, Put more simply by Bloomberg's Matt Levine in an article published yesterday, It was pretty much entirely because Alameda had lost it. Now the key to proving these allegations will be establishing that Sam was aware of this financial artifice being run using Alameda. Fraud isn't fraud if it was caused by a mistake or an oversight. Prosecutors will need to show that Sam was either aware of the fraud or willfully blind to it. As the judge put it during a hearing last week, Now let's move on to the timeline of events. Much of the DOJ's case will center around the fateful final weeks as the FTX empire came crashing down. The beginning of the end came on November 2nd when Coindesk's Ian Allison published an expose on the Alameda balance sheet. There had been some rumors of trouble at Alameda prior to that, but with a partial copy of the balance sheet, this piece of reporting blew the lid off the situation. TLDR, what the balance sheet showed was that a huge portion of Alameda's holdings, the were pretty illiquid tokens and in particular, the native exchange token of FTX, FTT. Now in terms of a huge portion of their assets being in FTT, there were also a bunch of other Sam coins from DeFi projects that barely got off the ground, which in some cases had Alameda representing up to 95 % of the overall token supply. According to the Financial Times, just $900 million in assets on this balance sheet could be easily sold. The next major event was the very public sparring between Binance CEO CZ and Sam. Binance had been an early investor in FTX, but at that time had been bought out of their stake for $2 .1 billion. That repurchase, a theoretically pretty good return on an $80 million investment, had been paid out in a mix of stablecoins and FTT tokens. On the Sunday following the Coindesk article, CZ tweeted that quote, Due to recent revelations that have come to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books. He said the firm would attempt to do so in a way that quote, minimizes market impact over the next few months. But of course, when you have CZ, the single biggest player in the industry, saying dump FTT and run for the hills, guess what happened next? Within the hour, Carolyn Ellison absolutely pissed gasoline all over the situation. She had taken over as sole Alameda CEO just a couple months prior and tweeted to CZ quote, If you're looking to minimize the market impact of your FTT sales, Alameda will happily buy it all from you today at $22. The market immediately plunged, with FTT's price being very visibly defended against Throughout the week before, FTT had traded around $25 and a market cap of $3 billion. By Tuesday night, with Alameda's traders and balance sheet exhausted, the token settled at $5 and FTX closed withdrawals. Now like I said, I gave my account of being on the inside. And while Tuesday when FTX closed withdrawals was clearly a final moment in the coffin for many of us inside, for me when it was clear that something very nefarious had gone on was on Monday, when I started getting hit up by other friends outside of FTX in the industry who were asking if I had heard anything about an FTX emergency fundraising round. Now of course, as an exchange that was supposed to be fully backed and given Sam's recent statements to the team that we had around $2 billion in cash and liquid assets thanks to trading revenue as well as recent fundraising, the only way in the world that we would need an emergency fundraising round was if Sam had been using FTX customer funds for purposes other than sitting on FTX's books waiting for those customers to reclaim those funds. Anyway, in the middle of that week after withdrawals were closed, there was also a weird sham sale announced to Binance, which they very quickly backed out of. And by Friday, with most FTX staffers having already fled the Bahamas, Sam finally capitulated to bankruptcy. Now to this day, Sam claims that he was forced by external lawyers to place the FTX empire into bankruptcy and appears to continue to be holding onto the idea that the exchange could have raised an emergency fundraising round to make customers whole. For most people, that might be where the event ended, but not so much for Sam. What followed was a bizarre string of press interviews, an incredibly disjointed Twitter thread, and basically an odd media tour that attempted to paint Sam as a wayward and naive CEO in over his head rather than a perpetrator of criminal fraud. This tour was capped off by a live broadcast interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times on November 30th. During that sprawling interview, Sam claimed that he, quote, didn't ever try to commit fraud on anyone. Authorities disagreed, and on December 12th, Sam was arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the US government. Although initially defiant, Sam ultimately agreed to be extradited to face charges and was released on bail. Once again, for any normal person, that might be the end of the story until we get to trial, but not for Sam. Although he was confined to his parents' house in California, Sam managed to continuously test the boundaries of his bail conditions. February, Sam was hauled before the judge on allegations that he had used encrypted messaging apps to contact the General Counsel of FTX US as well as using a VPN, which Sam claimed was just to watch NFL games. To the former General Counsel of FTX US, Sam had reached out to see if it was possible to, quote, have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other. The DOJ characterized this communication as an attempt to taint a potential witness. At that point, the judge decided not to revoke Sam's bail, but instead expressly forbid Sam from using encrypted messaging apps and VPNs. And yet, in July, Sam stepped over the line once again by leaking the private journal of Carolyn Ellison to the New York Times. The judge agreed that providing this material to journalists was, at best, an attempt to embarrass Ellison, if not a brazen attempt to intimidate her and discredit her in the public eye. During the course of that hearing, it was uncovered that Sam had held more than 1 ,000 phone calls with journalists, including over 100 with the New York Times reporter who published the story. And thus, by early August, Sam had his bail revoked and was locked up at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center to await his trial. Since then, it's basically just been a never -ending set of appeals to try to get Sam out of jail, but alas, jail is where he remains. Next up, let's talk witnesses. What became clear quite fast was that there was a cohort of around four people, including Sam, that seemed to know about the extra special privileges that Alameda enjoyed and the fact that for all intents and purposes, customer funds on FTX were just used as a slush fund for their hedge fund traders. And it turns out that while Sam was still in the air being extradited from the Bahamas, multiple FTX executives were revealed to be collaborating witnesses. Of those, Carolyn Ellison is the one likely to get the most attention. As well as being the CEO of Alameda, Ellison was also Sam's former girlfriend. The couple split prior to the collapse of FTX and there will no doubt be extensive cross -examination which questions Ellison's motives in giving evidence against Sam. Although Ellison was only at the helm of Alameda for a little over two months, recent reporting describes her as essentially in charge of the trading firm for much longer, at least as much as anyone could be in charge of the firm relative to Sam himself. Nominally, Ellison and Sam Trabuco, another Sam in this story, had been appointed co -CEOs of the firm in October of 2021 when SPF stepped away from the role. However, Trabuco had recently been described as almost entirely checked out at that point, leaving Ellison in charge of day -to -day operations. Ellison is expected to give evidence regarding the inner workings of FTX and has acknowledged that she knew about the hole in Alameda's balance sheet prior to the collapse of the exchange. Nishad Singh and Gary Wang are the other two executives known to be cooperating with prosecutors. Singh acted as engineering director while Wang was the exchange's CTO and co -founder. These two basically built all of FTX from the ground up, so anything going on with the codebase is basically going to be mostly just their work. Nishad is expected to give a first -hand account of how the Alameda backdoor was enabled in the code. Nishad was reportedly extremely distressed and wracked with guilt during the final weeks at FTX and was confrontational with Sam during that time. Gary was one of the last employees left in the Bahamas as the exchange collapsed and famously coded almost the entire platform by himself. Some have speculated about how he will be as a witness given that he is notoriously quiet. Now, each of these three key witnesses have already pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges and have agreed to testify in exchange for a lighter sentence. Prosecutors will need to demonstrate that each one is presenting an honest account of events rather than merely throwing Sam under the bus to save themselves. There are also complicated personal relationships between each of these executives and Sam, which could be used by the defense. All three cohabitated with Sam in a Bahamas penthouse and were some of Sam's closest friends as well as employees. To give an indication of how hostile cross -examination could become, last week a DOJ motion to prevent the defense from asking questions about recreational drug use was denied. The defense will need to provide notice to the court before asking witnesses about their drug use, but the subject was not ruled to be out of bounds. Another FTX executive who has pleaded guilty to criminal charges is Ryan Salem, who served as CEO of FTX Digital Markets. FTX Digital Markets was the operating company for the Bahamas. Now, Salem was particularly involved in the political campaign side of things for Sam and was charged with violations of campaign financing law in relation to making straw donations to politicians on Sam's direction as well as operating an unlicensed money -transmitting business. Unlike the other three, Salem is not cooperating with prosecutors as part of his plea deal, but could be called to testify as a non -cooperating witness. Alameda co -CEO Sam Trabuco has not been heard from since he stepped away from the company last August. He has not been disclosed as a witness and has not been charged at this stage. The DOJ has also flagged that they have at least two additional witnesses set to testify under a grant of immunity but have not publicly identified them at this stage. By and large, speculation about who those witnesses might be include not only Trabuco who we just mentioned, but Daniel Friedberg who served as FTX's chief compliance officer and who had formerly been implicated in a major online poker scandal, and Constance Wang who was FTX's COO and was described as Sam's right hand during fundraising efforts. Now in addition to FTX executives, the DOJ will also call multiple customers and investors to give brief testimony. Prosecutors have flagged that they will call upon retail customers who traded tens of thousands of dollars on the platform, as well as institutional clients who traded millions of dollars. The high range could imply notable industry figures will make an appearance on the witness stand. Several high profile market makers are listed as top creditors of FTX and are no doubt none too happy about their funds being locked up in the bankruptcy process. Both customers and investors are intended to present their understanding of the FTX terms of service and representations made about the use of customer funds, which could be crucial in refuting possible defenses. Which indeed brings us to that section of this primer, what are the defense strategies that Sam might try to employ? SPF's legal team have flagged a few potential arguments. In a filing on Monday, they sought clarification on a few issues they may wish to present. The filing asked whether the defense could argue that FTX International was not regulated in the US and therefore did not have to follow applicable rules. They also asked whether Sam could discuss the likelihood that creditors could see massive returns from the bankruptcy process. Still, the primary defense expected from SPF relates to instructions from legal counsel. In August, SPF's team flagged a plan to argue that he relied on advice from both in -house attorneys as well as lawyers from Fenwick and West in basically all elements of FTX's operation. Sam sought to introduce advice from lawyers on topics ranging from his use of self -deleting messages, unconventional banking relationships, and intercompany financial arrangements. The DOJ objected to this defense, claiming that not enough detail had been provided, but the judge reserved their decision on this point until later in the trial. The judge said that they would make rulings on individual advice of counsel arguments on a case -by -case basis as they come up. Outside of what indications we've gotten from Sam's team, the industry and the wider world at large have had no problem speculating about how he might defend himself as well. Bloomberg's Matt Levine paraphrased his view of a likely defense as The crypto market crashed, there was a run on the bank, and the run on the bank is what evaporated the customer's money. It was an accident, perhaps a careless accident but not theft. Certainly, in media commentary, SPF has been focused on the bank run, rather than the hole in Alameda's balance sheet as the cause of FTX's collapse. Now, of course, there are some obvious issues with that defense, particularly if witnesses establish that Alameda had effectively commandeered customer funds in contravention of the exchange's terms of service. Another plank of Sam's defense will likely be to rely on prosecutors being unable to In a New Yorker article published last month, the journalist wrote, Going back to his article, Matt Levine again sketched out a plausible way that Sam could brush off an $8 billion balance sheet hole as a careless oversight rather than willful fraud. He suggested Sam could claim he thought FTX had so much money that $8 billion was a rounding error. From Levine's back of the napkin math, at its height, FTX had somewhere approaching $100 billion in crypto assets on its books. Finally, it's also expected that Sam will seek to blame Caroline for mismanaging Alameda. The publication of excerpts from Caroline's journal was an attempt to paint her as a naive child way out of her depths, and some of Sam's leaked writings also showed a belief that Alameda had failed to hedge correctly, as if that was the main issue here. Now, one thing that's important to note is that when considering defenses, SPF does not need to prove his innocence. He only needs to introduce a shred of doubt in the minds of the jury. To convict, the 12 jurors must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Sam is guilty and reach a unanimous decision. Prosecutors often fail to get their cases over the line due to being unable to entirely convince each juror of the defendant's guilt. This can be even more of a difficulty when the case involves complicated financial crime which can be difficult to fully understand. And yet, many commentators are convinced that the case is damning. Daniel C. Silva, a former prosecutor who participated in the BitConnect case, said, Now, in terms of the latest from the bankruptcy, as the trial gets underway, the FTX bankruptcy process is entering its 10th month and has had no shortage of intrigue. The current focus has been on pursuing clawbacks from people and organizations that had been, in the estimation of the bankruptcy estate, unjustly enriched by FTX. On the very top of that list are Sam's parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried. Two weeks ago, the estate sued Bankman and Fried, claiming that they had received over $26 million in gifts from FTX, including a luxury property in the Bahamas. The lawsuit alleges that Bankman was intimately involved in the operations at FTX and used his position to enrich himself. You may have seen the now -famous email where he tried to raise his salary to a million dollars by threatening to involve Sam's mother. Now, speaking of Sam's mother, Barbara Fried is alleged to have directed political donation efforts at FTX. This instructing included Sam on how to structure donations to avoid donation limits. She is also alleged to have knowledge of loans made to FTX executives, which were then used to fund election campaigns. All in all, the lawsuit alleged that the pair, quote, Now, for their part, Sam's parents immediately hit back at the lawsuit through lawyers saying, A last note on the bankruptcy, while current FTX CEO John J. Wray has no doubt been cooperating with prosecutors in providing internal documents, he is not currently expected to testify as a witness. Now, in terms of the latest trial procedural stuff and timeline, today was technically the first day of the trial with jury selection the goal. Both sides have alleged the other is attempting to bias the jury pool. The DOJ claimed that Sam's questions for the jury about effective altruism, political donations and ADHD are intended to paint him in a sympathetic light. In particular, prosecutors are concerned that asking about charitable and political donations could improperly introduce the idea that Sam's actions were justified outside of evidence. The defense, meanwhile, have complained that the DOJ are treating Sam's fraud as an established fact in their jury questioning by omitting the word allegedly. They also claim a question about being stopped or questioned by the police is intended to racially filter the jury in a manner irrelevant to the case. Last week, as I intimated before, SPF placed a last minute appeal to be released from jail for the duration of the trial. Sam's team claimed that his incarceration would be an unreasonable barrier to adequately preparing for each day's hearing. Unfortunately for him, the judge found this argument insufficiently convincing and stated that they consider Sam to be a flight risk. They said, Sam was granted some concessions to be allowed to meet with his lawyers early at the courthouse each day, as well as during jail visiting on off days. Now, while a decision is yet to be made on exactly how Sam can introduce the concept that he relied on the advice of lawyers, limits were placed on what can be said during the defense's opening arguments. Specifically, Sam's lawyers have been prohibited from mentioning any advice of counsel arguments while presenting their case. The judge ruled that this argument may confuse or prejudice a jury when presented without specifics and evidence. The trial is currently scheduled to take six weeks. Jury selection is expected to be completed by the end of today's hearing, although before I was recording this, there were some indications that it might go into tomorrow morning as well. In either case, tomorrow we will likely see the beginnings of opening arguments. After that, the prosecution will present its case and call its witnesses. The DOJ has estimated their case will take four to five weeks. The defense will then have an opportunity to present their case, which they have estimated will be much shorter, taking around a week and a half. Now, the defense is not compelled to present a case and can simply choose not to if they are confident the charges have not been proven. We don't yet have any indication of whether SPF will speak in his own defense. Traditional legal strategy suggests that defendants should never take to the witness stand to avoid giving prosecutors an opportunity to cross -examine them. However, this is no ordinary trial and SPF is no ordinary defendant. Judging from how extensively Sam has defended himself in the media, I would not be surprised if his lawyers have a tough time keeping him out of the witness box. Hearings will be held four days a week with a short break after three weeks. If the trial takes longer than six weeks, it will be extended, but the consensus seems to be that it will be all over by Thanksgiving. And won't that be something to be thankful for? Now, even if Sam escapes a guilty verdict, his legal troubles will continue well into next year. The DOJ will present additional charges related to bribery of Chinese officials, as well as political donation violations during a second criminal trial, which is scheduled for March. Sam will also face civil lawsuits from the SEC and the CFTC after the first criminal trial is concluded. Beyond that, there's still the possibilities of lawsuits from the FTX bankruptcy estate, as well as from former customers and investors. So my friends, that is the lay of the land. That is what we are going into. Like I said at the top, for me, the most interesting thing, the thing that I will be watching most closely, is actually the meta -narrative analysis around this. I want to know how much, especially mainstream media looks at this and treats this like what it is, which is Sam Bankman -Fried going on trial, versus what I fear it might become, which is the entire crypto industry being put on trial. But in any event, this truly is a scenario where the only way out is through. So get on your boots, friends, because we are getting into the muck. Until next time, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.
News and Perspective with Tom Hutyler
Fresh "Theft" from News and Perspective with Tom Hutyler
"Clark. Cloud skies and we've got a sunbreaks few around the Puget Sound area now at 205. Current temperature 61 in downtown Seattle. As we continue, a man was found shot to death in a trailer near Paul's Bowl this morning. Ken Dixon with the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office tells COMO4 it's a very quiet rural town. This isn't something you expect to see at early morning on a Tuesday in Paul's Bowl. The crime scene is along the 3000 block of Northeast Lincoln Road. The two suspects are described as men in their 20s who took off in an SUV. Detectives say they are armed and dangerous and knew the victim. They are identified as 29 year old Caleb Sloan and 26 year old Axel Strom. you can see their pictures on x formerly known as twitter at news radio nw A judge says a 16 year old boy poses an extreme risk to the public for his alleged role in a series of home invasions that targeted Asian families in Seattle. Coma Force Jeremy Harris reports that the judge has ordered that teenager to be kept in custody appearing in juvenile court this 16 year old pleaded not guilty to robbery and burglary charges. Police say he is linked to four adults all now charged in connection to targeted home invasions of Asian families in Seattle. The respondent poses an extreme risk to the community and therefore will be ordering him to remain in secure detention. The judge ordered the held in youth detention. There was a sigh of relief there, but it's not sufficient enough to make us all feel at ease. Will and Lou is an Asian American community advocate with OCA Seattle. Wrong is wrong and right is right. And if guilty, they deserve what the law administers. Police and prosecutors stress their investigation is still active and they're piecing together the 14 home invasions of Asian families. Jeremy Harris, KOMO News. The owners of a comic story in West Seattle say burglars stole more than $25 ,000 worth of items and this is the second time that store has been hit in less than two months. KOMO 4's Hannah Knowles reports the shop is preparing to reopen today. A dream that became reality. That's how Nicole Duff writes her husband's passion project tales to astonish the only comic book store in West Seattle. Just gives you that sick feeling in your gut to see them all gone. Security footage shows three people wearing hoods and masks enter the front door to the store. They then grab almost every single book from the shelves on the wall, stealing the cash register while they're at it. So many of the books have so much meaning behind them. They're the books that people like save up for to get to finish their collection. Hannah Knowles, Como News. The Maple Leaf hardware store in North Seattle deals with attempted thefts every other week. According to the manager, their police believe a group of armed teens were responsible for the most recent incident that happened Friday night. Three teens in what appears to one be gun. Seattle police tell me they have now identified all three suspects and this case is active and open. The latest hit came a few days ago at closing time. The teens loaded bags and their coats with all police departments are are short of officers. Crimestoppers Jim Fuda insist a lack of cops leads to less arrests and less accountability. A vicious cycle. He says until that changes businesses and homeowners must take security precautions. That's Como Force Michelle Esteban, a woman now behind bars after Seattle police say she stole a car crashed and then tried to get away. Police say it started after the the scene. Stolen from Northeast 75th Street Saturday morning, it was tracked to a parking lot near second Avenue in East Pine. Police say that's when the 26 year old who allegedly stole it stole it tried to escape in the car before crashing. She was booked into the King County Jail after trying to run, but according to police then got the car. Residents in Medical Lake and Elk Washington, northeast of Spokane, are still sifting through what's left of their homes after last month's destructive wildfires. The loss of hundreds of homes and two lives there was the worst of the wildfire season in our state. Commissioner of Public Lands Hillary Franz. You know one gentleman I talked to he was taking a nap 2 30 in the afternoon on a Friday. He was just resting and he was woken up by the sheriff saying to you got go now and he's like okay I'll be a little I was like no you got to go now. With more than 1800 brush and land fires this year by counted by the State Department of Natural Resources less than 5 % were larger than 10 acres about 145 000 acres all told burned far less acreage burned than in recent fire northwest news time 210 check on sports now over to bill swartz at the beacon plumbing sports desk and spoon helping the Seahawks stick a fork in the Giants. It was a spectacular Monday night football debut for Seattle's first round draft choice Devin Witherspoon a huge part of the Seahawks 24 -3 romp over the New York Giants the rookie defensive back with two of the Seahawks franchise -high 11
The Financial Guys
"theft" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"Amazing. Wow. That's wow. Let's hear about it. What an asset. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. Somebody should let him know that the Russians were our allies in world war two, not to German. I don't know if he got that memo. Maybe not standing ovation for this guy. Let's see if they go here. Wait. So he talks more here. His name is Yaroslav Hunka. And uh, I was going to say he's in the gallery, but I think you beat me to that. I'm very proud to say that he is from North Bay and from my writing of Nipissing to Miskaming. Yeah. So you got a nice, you got SS Nazi, but fought against the Russians living in Canada, being celebrated. Yeah. He was part of the, yeah, this is great. He was a unbelievable, he's a hero. Hey, you know what? Maybe next time he can help with the mask mandates. Yeah. I mean, just unbelievable. I mean, really, really can't make this stuff up. Like, I don't know. Again, let's just go back to history. So there was the allies and the axis of evil, right? Now the evil ones that was Germany, Japan. That was that guy today is our ally. Yeah. That guy, that guy right there, that guy out there. And the Italians, right? So you had Italy, Japan, and Germany. That was the axis of evil that we were fighting against right now today, all three of those countries are allies and Russia is our enemy. But Russia was a huge part of us defeating the Nazis, right? They fought on the, on the Eastern front against the Germans, Nazis, not good guys, Nazis, not good guy. So the SS guard that they're celebrating in Canada, commie Justin, you would think though, Justin Trudeau would be a bigger Russian fan considering he's a, you know, he's a commie himself. Yeah. No, it's, it's Russia, Russia, Russia. The best part is taking a lot of heat for that, but the best part is though, when they ask them about it, they ask them about it. Here's the answer to this cloud. This is great. This is, this is, this is great. The speaker speaker has said, Oh, this is, obviously it's extremely upsetting that this happened. Yeah. The speaker speaker has acknowledged his mistake and has apologized. But this is something that is deeply embarrassing to the parliament of Canada by extension to all Canadians. But I think particularly Jewish MPs and all members of the Jewish community, you idiot country or celebrating commemorating Yom Kippur today.I think it's going to be really important that all of us Russian propaganda. All Russians continue steadfast unequivocal support for Ukraine. So the, you guys celebrated a Nazi SS a military person, 98 year old on Yom Kippur, but it's, but it's a Russian's fault. Yeah. Russian problem. You are, you are, you have reached peaks. Good luck, Canada. You have reached peak stupid. Honest to God. Good luck, Canada. Exactly. Good luck. Holy smokes. All right. That's going to do it for us folks. If you like what you heard, do us a favor, give us a like and share this with your friends. If you haven't downloaded our app, it's awesome. Download the financial guys app. You can listen to our radio shows live. You can go back and listen to our podcast. You can listen to the morning mic program. You can go back and get replays. You can get links to all the different stuff that we have. So again, go to the app store, Apple app store or the Google Android store. You can download the financial guys app and listen to our podcast each and every week. And we do appreciate it. So we will see you, I guess on Saturday. Don't forget morning. Mike's on Friday. Another interview podcast drop tomorrow and more content coming each and every day through our social media sites. Go to financialguysmedia.com for all of our links to Twitter and Facebook and all those cool places. And we'll see you on Saturday right here on the financial guys media network. Thanks again for listening. Appreciate it. Amy rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of this show without the express written consent of the financial guys. LLC is strictly prohibited securities offered through peak brokerage services member FINRA SPC investment advisory services offered through independent solutions, wealth management, or Black Ridge asset management financial guys, independent solutions and Black Ridge asset management are not an affiliate of peak brokerage services, Inc.
Morning News with Manda Factor and Gregg Hersholt
Fresh "Theft" from Morning News with Manda Factor and Gregg Hersholt
"Describes her husband's passion project tales to astonish the only comic book store in West Seattle. It just kind of gives you that sick feeling in your gut to gone. see them all Security footage shows three people wearing hoods and masks enter the front door to the store. They grab then almost every single book from the shelves on the wall stealing the cash register while they're at it. the So many books of have so much meaning behind them. You know they're the books that people like save up to get to finish their collection. Hannah Knowles, Como News. Northwest News Time 1208. The Maple Leaf Hardware Store in North Seattle has dealt with attempted thefts every other week they say. That's according to the store manager and police believe a group of armed teenagers were responsible for the most recent incident Friday night. Three teens in what appears to be one gun. Seattle police tell me they have now identified all three suspects in this case is active and open. The latest hit came a few days ago at closing time. The teens have been charged with murder. They say this is a crime stopper's Jim Fuda insist a lack of cops leads to less arrests and less accountability. A vicious cycle. He says until that changes businesses and homeowners must take security precautions. Como force Michelle Last of on residents in Medical Lake and Elk Washington, northeast of Spokane, are still sifting through what's left of their homes after last month's wildfires. The loss of hundreds of homes and two lives was the worst of the wildfire season in our state. Commissioner of lands, public lands Hillary Franz. You know, one gentleman I talked to he was taking a nap. 2 30 in the afternoon on a Friday. He was just resting and he was woken up by the sheriff saying, You gotta go now. And he's like, Okay, I'll be a little. I was like, No, you gotta go now more with than 1800 brush and wildland fires this year counted by the State Department of Natural Resources. Less than 5 % were larger than 10 acres, with about 145 ,000 total acres burned, far less acreage burned than recent fire seasons. Northwest News time 12 10 sports and 40 at 10 past each hour from the Beacon Plumbing Sports Desk. Here's Eric Heintz. The Seahawks have won three in a row following last night's 24 3 road victory over the New York Giants. A team record tying 11 sacks and two interceptions by Seattle's defense was too much for the home team. A strip sack by defensive end Mario Edwards set up a short TD drive and cornerback Devon Witherspoon scored another on a 97 yard interception return. The UW Oregon game on October 15th at Husky Stadium will be nationally televised. ABC will carry the game with a 12 30 kickoff. playoff. Until then the Huskies have a bye week and head coach Kalen DeBoris says it'll help with getting their injured players back. Guys I mean the bye week is definitely helpful for a few that you know right are kind of on home the stretch there or maybe even like a Thule who got dinged up the bye week is really critical for him because you know maybe this next week it might have been tough. The Ducks are also on a bye. Coming off a bye are the Washington State Cougars. The 4 -0 and 14th ranked Cougs visit UCLA. Georgia's hold on number one in the Associated Press college football poll loosened as the Bulldogs received a season -low of 35 first -place votes out of a possible 62. The rest were divided by four other teams and the Major League Baseball playoffs begin today with wild the -card round. Sports of 10 and 40 past the hour, Eric Heintz, Northwest News Radio. Northwest News Time 12 11. Our life expectancy in the United States continues to degrade. There's a new study from the Post Washington that found chronic diseases are the greatest threats people between the ages of 35 and 64. Akilah Johnson covering this for the Post and spoke with Northwest News Radio's Frank Lenzi. Akilah, what qualifies first of all as chronic disease. You know chronic illnesses are typically what we think of as chronic disease, hypertension, cardiovascular diseases, diseases that persist over years, sometimes decades. And these illnesses even outpace gun violence, opioid overdose, and the COVID -19 pandemic, is that right? Yeah, so we found that you know amongst people ages 35 to 64, chronic illnesses erase twice as many years of life as overdoses, homicides, suicides, and car accidents. How does the United States compare with other wealthy countries when it comes to fighting chronic disease? Not so well. So we have gone from the middle of the pack to the last to when we are comparing ourselves to pure nations in the life expectancy race. Well any reason for that? Why are we dropping like that? You know when you speak to experts, a lot of experts say a lot of it has to do with how we think of health in this country and that we quite often conflate health with medicine and health with health care. And it's different in different parts of the country, is that right? Most of the 35 to 6 year olds who are dying are in what parts of the US? So there is a regionality to this, right? And so you quite often will see people who are living now, because it has changed over the last 40 years, we looked at it 40 over years, people who live in urban areas tend to have better life expectancy and better lifespans and the last 40 years and folks who are living in more rural communities. And so also you will find that state politics plays a large role in who lives and dies and life expectancy and life spans. And so states that tend to have more Republican leaning red state kind of legislatures, they expectancies. That's Akilah Johnson from the Washington Post speaking with Northwest News Radio's Frank Lenzi. tend to have better life COVID vaccine. The White House is acknowledging there have been issues in the rollout of the new COVID vaccine. Press Secretary Jean -Pierre on Monday telling me, certainly we are aware of what consumers have experienced these unexpected issues of point of service. In the first few weeks since the shot was approved, Americans have reported problems with insurance covering the new shot and a lack of supply. This is the first shot to be distributed through the private market as opposed to the government. Jean -Pierre said the Department of Health and Human Services is quote, on it. They're going to work with work at the issues that we're currently seeing to resolve this quickly. Karen Southwest Tritan. news radio is your home for breaking news and traffic and weather every 10 minutes on the fours at 1214. Here's Kimmy Klein in the high performance homes traffic center. Well, heads up if you're around the Fife area, we're just hearing that both directions of Pacific
The Financial Guys
"theft" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"And I used the analogy of garbage. I don't know if you remember this, but that morning before we did the radio show, I had taken a jog. And every time I run, whether I'm in Alma by my house or in Jupiter, Florida down by our office, I bring a garbage bag and I pick up the garbage. And every time somebody will say, Hey, thanks for doing that. But these are the same people that walk by the garbage. Right. And I'm like, okay, literally who's throwing the garbage on the ground. Well, that's the, that's a very small group of people, right? Very small group of dirt bags that think it's a good idea to take their stuff and just throw it wherever they want. Right. But there's this huge group of people that know it's wrong. They look at it, they see me and I'm like, shake your head going, man, somebody should do something, right? Somebody should clean it up. It's literally eight out of 10 people. So you've got one out of 10 of us cleaning this stuff up. You've got one out of 10 throwing the garbage on the ground and you've got eight out of 10 going, yep. Somebody should do something about that. Like really, I'm thinking, holy crap. Am I the only one that just bends over and grabs it? Yep. That's, that's, that's a perfect microcosm of life right there. Exactly. I thought the whole world is garbage. Really. It's all about that. It's like, and most of the people are just going to sit around and make it happen. Exactly. All right. Oh, don't forget Medicare season, by the way, tis the season for that turning 65. You got to think of the financial guys and get, if you want a complimentary review of your Medicare, and I would encourage you to do that almost every year, you should spend a few minutes and just make sure you're in the right plan. Make sure you're playing the what if game. What if this happens? What if I go to Florida for a few days? Am I covered? Where, what if the, if I get sick with this, am I covered? Do I have the ability to change throughout the year? Did I sign up the right way? Right. All that kind of stuff. We have a hip certified reps. That's what they focus on throughout the year. That's all they do and a good opportunity to get on the list. Now every time this year, you know, October hits and people wait until December. I could tell you the last few weeks are just brutal to get in. So get on the list now. 833 fin guys. We got to end with this. Can I borrow the, uh, so this is really unbelievable. This is, um, this happened in Canada and uh, you know, this is what happens folks when we don't teach history anymore, I guess. Um, this is, uh, the celebration of a SS Nazi guard today, Ukrainian Canadians, Ukrainian Canadian world veteran from the second world war who fought the Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today. Even at his age of 98.
The Dan Bongino Show
Fresh update on "theft" discussed on The Dan Bongino Show
"Ain't following the bankruptcy unless I owed a million dollars something crazy then I'm like if that makes sense people be filing for bankruptcy for some old ten thousand dollars no there are other alternatives to file for bankruptcy that won't curtail your ability to make money you want to know some of them here you go there's credit counseling Brown Ambition wherever you listen. Ever wonder why your business doesn't show up on online search maps but your competitors do it's hundreds of things things that Cumulus Boost can identify and fix and that's how we boost your findability. Cumulus Boost dot com C -U -M -U -L -U -S Boost dot com. Trying to protect your identity by yourself is a lot like trying to be a quarterback without an offensive line lifelock alerts you to blindside threats you may miss on your own even if you're monitoring your credit if a threat happens to get through a dedicated US -based restoration specialist is there to help. Join now and save up to 25 % your first year at lifelock dot com slash aware that's lifelock dot com slash aware to save twenty five percent lifelock identity theft protection starts here. Ben for the high energy action packed thrill ride of the superhero
The Financial Guys
"theft" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"I don't get it. But I get, if you're homeless though, I get most of these homeless people in California. Yeah. They're mentally ill, the drug addicts. I mean, I don't, I can't imagine the drugs that we've talked about. The drugs have been, it went from welfare being the number one problem to drug abuse. And it's, you know, it's, it's. You see some of these videos with this, just like zombies. Oh my God. It's like, I mean, and the fact that the government is not doing anything for these people. I mean, at least the city, the town, the community should be saying, whoa, whoa, full stop. Like we, we should be, if we were serious, we'd be built. You, I mean, honestly, we should be building hospitals all over this country right now for those people, clinics, city Buffalo, the, uh, the psych ward member, the psych ward is now being returned, turned into a hotel hotel. It should be a psych ward. Make it a psych ward. I mean, that's the thing you need. These people need psychiatric help. Now the reason that we have all these psych wards that closed was we back in the sixties, again, with the government, they abuse a lot of these people. Sadly, they were doing experiments and things like that. I'm CIA looking at you. Um, but this, you know, again, it doesn't mean you. So we had this, we went through a big wave in the sixties and seventies. That was a deinstitutional deinstitutionalization where we shut these places down and said it was more humane to put them out on their own people to have that stigma. I will say though that I had family members. These are older family members. Many of them have passed, but that did get the help they needed those places. And they did go out and become productive members of society with the right medication and with the right help. And I do believe some of these people are born with mental illness problems that are, that are, uh, that, that can be fixed with medicine. I've seen it happen. I've seen it. I've seen relatives come out of these places and go, wow, you look totally different. Yeah. Well, I've got the right medication now. As long as I take this every day, my, my chemistry in my brain is good. And they're out productive members of society working and doing great things. Right now we're saying, well, we can't put them in that institution because they're going to be marked forever. And guess what happens? They go out, they abuse drugs, they become homeless. It's a tragic, tragic story. So we mentioned Rochester before, and you mentioned I think what their number one or number two in auto theft. So yeah, again, now probably a good time to mention that this show again has been brought to you by our home and auto department, TFG home and auto. Talking about all the abuse out there every week. To your point, if you can save money shopping home and auto and shopping over 25 companies to do so, you do that. Yep. And these, uh, these, uh, smashing these windows, I mean, it's been repeat in Rochester, by the way, I used to work in downtown Buffalo, Mike and I used to work down in pain Weber in the three years, two and a half years that we worked downtown. I had my car broken into four times car smashed the window, smashed four times to the point where I called my insurance agent, Eileen, Mary, she's, she's great. She's retired. Obviously long. I retired Eileen. I said, Eileen, I need, I got my windows back. She goes, God, I don't think you can claim another one. You're going to get dropped. Like you got to just pay for this. I'm like, really? She goes, yeah, you're gonna have to just pay for this. At the time. At the time we were, we were sort of poor. So I didn't have, I was driving a little Omni. I just used to leave the thing sort of poor. We were very poor. I used to leave it open. And I remember the one time I did that. I had a whole thing of change. And on the way home, I'm like, I'll grab a cup of coffee. I look at my change. It's all gone. And so they, I forgot. Yeah. Duh. I left the door open, but they'd helped themselves all the change and you feel violated. I mean, even without your window, it's like, what are you doing in my car? You know, you dirt bike just frustrating. We'll get real wrap up your Elon Musk to visit Southern border in Texas as migrant numbers hit new records. So Elan, I give them credit. Uh, at least somebody's going to visit the border. Now it's not his job. She's in charge of the border, right? She's now in charge of gun control by the way. So if that goes as well as the border has gone, then it's going to be though everyone's going to be packing heat and there'll be the wild west out there. It's amazing though. You listen to these Democrats. I'm like, there's no problem at the border. New drone footage reveals hundreds of migrants on trains headed for Eagle pass Texas was even worse. You got the day. They're saying 4,000 a day. You got the feds on video cutting the barbed wire that Texas has put down. Yeah. That's treason. Now I know some of those feds are probably sick to their stomach cause they've signed up. They shouldn't do it. They shouldn't do it. I gotta be honest with you. If you, if you're not making that much, if you hired me and said, Glenn, I need you to go out there and stop this puppy's head in. I'm not doing it. If you say to me, Glenn, I want you to go out there and do something unethical. I'm not doing it. I remember being up paying Weber when the off manager said, Glenn and Mike, I want you to go out and sell this strategy fund. And we said, no, it's garbage. It's unethical. We didn't do it. I don't understand. Look at, if you want to know how, how evil people could be, go read the, uh, it was at a common man. I think it's called a book about, you know, Nazi Germany and the normal people that they just bakers kind of shoe makers, normal people in the community that they recruited to become the killing machines. If you ever have the children, listen, listen to some of the trials. That's really amazing. Crazy people are like, yeah, but the government forced me to do this. Like you're putting me on trial to do this and the government, and to your point, it's like, man, you mean to tell me none of you thought this was a bad idea? Well, there was three groups of people and what they did was this book, uh, common man. It was, was basically written, um, from the, uh, notes. So they did a bunch of interviews of these, uh, officers on these, you know, this police troop. It was about this, you know, police troop that they put together and the way that they organize it. And, um, and they, there's all these interviews of the people that were part of this one troop and they took from those interviews and basically pieced together what they did. And it was, so you ended up having within this group, three different groups of people, right? There were the people that were happy to do it, right? Those are the ones that are the police officers that are, you know, you see them that are arresting mom for pushing their daughter on a swing because the park is closed. Yeah. Those are the people that are, we don't want them anywhere near power. Honestly, those are the people that need to be weeded out of every, those are the ones that are the, that give every police department a bad name in the country. Those people need to be removed from any sort of power over other people completely. That was one group. You had another group that were basically, I'm not going to participate to the best of my ability, but I'm not going to say anything either. Like they were just, you know, they were the useful idiots. Sadly, that's half of our country. I'm just going to close my eyes and you know what? It doesn't, yeah, I know, I know kids are getting raped and we, we've lost 87,000 kids, Mike, 87,000 children that have come across the Southern border. We cannot account for and half the country's going, man, I don't know. I don't think there's a problem down there. I'm going to turn a blind eye. It's sad. And then the third group of course it was the smallest group. And those are the ones that actively said, I'm not doing this. I am not doing this. Right. Find me another position. And they didn't participate at all. And they were even objectors to it. So. I do remember we talked about this. I said it reminds me of everything in life by the way.
News, Traffic and Weather
Fresh "Theft" from News, Traffic and Weather
"7 stay connected stay informed good morning on this tuesday it is october 3rd and at 531 we have cloudy skies in downtown seattle and 55 degrees along with brian calvert factor and here's what's happening members of the saint nicholas greek orthodox church have new concerns that homeless camps are returning after the community already spent years dealing with violence related to camps the church is in the hilltop neighborhood in takoma in recent years that church added security measures and gates spending thousands dollars of to prevent overnight camping on church grounds as they prepare for the annual greek festival members have noticed a new camp starting to form we are compassionate and our job is to to help and to to nurture our community so we want to keep that door open not closed that's the most important thing but for that we have to have at least one level of safety the city has a camping ban in effect within ten 10 blocks of city shelters city officials told us in an email this camp location has been on the schedule and will be addressed this week at least one person has been shot to death near near polsbo so this shooting happened about two miles east of the polsbo cemetery information very limited this home along northeast Lincoln Road the suspects took took off before deputies arrived that's como four steve mccarron five thirty three here at northwest news radio the maple leaf hardware store north seattle deals with attempted thefts every other week according to its store manager police believe a group of armed teenagers were responsible for the most recent incident on friday night three teens in what appears to be one gun seattle police tell me they have now identified all three suspects in this case is active and open the latest hit came a few days ago at closing time the teens loaded bags in their coats with tools all police departments are are short of of officers crime crime stoppers jim fuda insists a lack of cops leads to less arrests and less accountability a vicious cycle he says until that changes businesses and homeowners must take security precautions of course michelle esteban seattle's new action plan against climate change includes calls for more electrification in pursuit friendly of climate travel options get a closer look now from northwest news radios corwin hague electrify seattle among is the battle cries in the new eighty page seattle department of transportation climate change response framework i think there's tremendous opportunity for us increasing options to get around your for neighborhood without needing to use the car but when a car or bus is necessary estad director stouts greg spots greater availability of electric personal vehicles and transit plus the electrification of the growing trucking and delivery industry in other words options that not only reduce carbon emissions but also actually create a more livable walkable bikeable greener sustainable climate resilient city the new document points out transportation is seattle's largest contributor to greenhouse gas gas emissions and therefore the area where estad's influence can make the most meaningful change corwin hank news northwest radio it's five thirty four and coming up on the morning news i'm carlene johnson the f o in the sumner bonnie lake school district getting major props for increasing the fun balance tenfold old i'm carlene this is northwest news radio your home for breaking news coverage and traffic and weather every ten minutes over the high -performance homes traffic center we find kiera jordan we're having a tough morning getting into south seattle right now first we had a crash on north on i -five near the four oh five interchange that's now been cleared but we're still working with the second crash near mlk junior way that have been blocking multiple lanes we're down to just one right lane that is blocked but this is now causing a backup that starts as you're coming out of that north end of federal way and travel travel time from federal way into downtown seattle is running you about 45 minutes now i'm hearing of problem blocking in lakewood this is going to be a crash that is fully blocking our ramp from westbound 512 to fourth bound i -five uh so gonna need to find another way to uh get to i -five from area that south dakoma way over 74th that could be one way to do it and then outside of that we're just watching our volumes build on eastbound 512 we are busy between 94th and pioneer southbound 410 still getting back up between valley avenue and 167 then on northbound 167 lighter slowing is going to start just north of highway 410 and it's basically following you almost all the way to willis street with really heavy slowing through the auburn area but you're not done yet you're going to slow down again between 212th and 405 and now northbound we're looking at 405 those brake from lights the valley freeway into newcastle southbound i -5 continues to build in marysville starting around 528 the state route 529 our next northwest traffic at 544 our report this time is sponsored by the washington department state of health get your flu vaccine and help create a flu -free washington more information at flu -free wa .org message from a the washington state
The Financial Guys
"theft" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"Masks have controlled the pandemic. No. Where did that happen? There is not one shred of evidence that the masks have done anything except for make it worse. That's it. Quite the contrary. This is actually a New York times. This is back in February 21st of 2023, earlier this year in 2023, they did a study of studies. Okay. They did the end all be all study of studies. They reviewed all the studies and all the random control, everything they could possibly do. And they came up with the bottom line that the mask mandates did nothing, nothing. There's not a shred of evidence that the mask did anything. The most rigorous and comprehensive New York times, the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis of scientific studies conducted on the efficacy of masks for reducing the spread of respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19 was published late last month. It's conclusion said Tom Jefferson and Oxford epidemiologist and its lead author were unambiguous. There is just no evidence that they masks make any difference. He told the journalist, Marilyn Damisi full stop, but wait, hold on. What about N95 masks as opposed to lower quality and surgical mask makes no difference. None of it said Jefferson. What about the studies that initially persuaded policymakers to impose mask mandates? They were convinced by non randomized studies, flawed observational studies, and that's what they did. I can go on and read the article, but that's what they did. This is what, see, look, that school there didn't have as much of it because they were wearing masks. It was, it was this, this is what they called science. Everything that they said, well, trust the giants. We got to six feet follow the science. There was no science regarding any of this stuff. Everything made it all up. Anything the Democrats say, assume the opposite is true. If they say we're following the facts, assuming that the facts are false. If they say follow the science, assuming they're following fiction. Okay. All this stuff is fiction. Six feet fiction mask work fiction. I'm telling you, they're going to go back at some point. I loved it. Channel four. Oh, that's the the the the could these conspiracy theories are swirling again. I'm like, no, I'm going to bookmark this channel for the conspiracy theory of the mass. Come back on plays next month. Article that just referenced channel two four seven. That would be a good story. That would be the one to print. That'd be a good story. That'd be the one to put out there. That would be the one that, Hey, sorry. You know, remember all those fights you got into at the grocery store? Yeah. It was all for bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, speaking of bullshit, James Comer, I just subpoenaed and obtained two bank wires revealing hunter Biden received payments originating from Beijing in 2019 when Joe Biden was running for president to the house. Yeah. Joe Biden's Delaware home is listed as the beneficiary address for both wires from China, from China. Now they're going money wires from China, which is why that, which is why Trump got the, uh, they're going after Trump, by the way, for apparently inflating his real estate, which if you look at the real estate that they said he inflated, I actually think he didn't put it down as being worth enough. Well, they're saying that the Mar-a-Lago place is only worth $18 million. Are you out of your mind? There are 6,000 square foot homes. I'll tell you what, hold on the street for 60 if that, if that, if Mar-a-Lago tomorrow, I'm in, if that's where, if you can sell me Mar-a-Lago $18 million, I put together an investment group tomorrow deal. Yeah. You get, I don't even need to just boom. I'll sign the papers. I'll I'll find a couple other folks. I'll tell you what, boom. I'll double that. I'll double that. I'll pay, I'll pay 36. I'll pay 40 million all day long for that property. Considering the freaking house down the street at 6,000 square foot sold for $60 million. I'll buy that all day for $40 million. This is an absolute disgusting joke. And it's the judiciary. That's the scary part. So now the, so now the judges can shut down businesses in New York state. That's what you're saying. There'll be nothing left. That's what you're saying. So now if the judge doesn't like what the financial guys are saying or doing, you're telling me a judge can, can, can, can issue an order that says, I don't like the financial guys where we're going to dissolve their businesses in this state. This is nuts. It's there. There will be nothing. By the way, speaking of nothing left, Florida just passed New York state as the second highest wealthy real estate market in the country. California is still number one, but New York, New York is now three. Let me tell you, Florida real estate is not worth more. Yeah. But let me tell you the big difference by the way, the big difference. No, but yeah, freedom, the big, the, no, no, but the real estate market is more handsomely divided in Florida. What happens in the state of New York is you are paying for your safety and you're fleeing these places. And the same is true in California, by the way. So you've got shitholes like Compton now where, where you're, you can literally have San Francisco. Well, yeah, but here's what's happening. You want to be in a nice place. Downtown San Francisco is a perfect example of that. Do you want a commercial real estate there? 93% vacant right now. They cannot freaking give you, they cannot give you. So what you're happening is you're looking at averages, right? So you're saying, okay, well, these homes in this really safe neighborhood are $3 million here, but these homes over here on the East side of Buffalo, you can have for $5,000. Right. And that's what's happening. When you look at the state of Florida, the shitholes and there was crap holes there and there still is. But I'll tell you what, we do a lot of business down in Jupiter, Florida, Palm beach area. Look at Riviera beach. You know what's happening now? It's starting to clean itself up. There was some, there was some bad places in Palm beach, actually. The city itself was really good, but right outside of that. But it's funny now you drive through those communities and they're all these homes are being redeveloped. You know why? Because the people couldn't afford to be in Jupiter. So they said, I still want to be down there. And these neighborhoods are cleansing themselves up. That's how you clean up neighborhoods, by the way, through free market capitalism through freedom, as you pointed out. What's going to happen is mark my words. You know what the slum will be? Freaking New York state. That's what it'll be. It won't be Florida. You'll drive through Florida and be like, wow, that's a beautiful neighborhood. Mom, remember that was a shit neighborhood. That's a good neighborhood. Where did the slum move? Oh, it moved to Florida. It moved to Philadelphia. So moved to New York and moved to Philadelphia. I tell you what really, what were the people that get hurt the most. I'll never forget this. We were earlier in our career. We had a client and she's long passed away. I think her name was Natalie actually. Um, you might remember her. She was, she lived on the East side of Buffalo and she beautiful house, beautiful, you know, old brick stone, cut the real nice, nice street, but it was on the East side. It was dangerous. No, no question. But she grew up there. She had been there for 80 years. She had been there for a whole life basically. And you know, the sad thing is when you have people like that in a city of Buffalo, she watched a home that, you know, she probably paid, you know, back in the 1940s for 30 grand. And today instead of being worth 300 grand, it's worth five grand or 10 grand. Now you contrast that with, to your point, like Riviera beach and that same person who's been living there a long time now gets to actually experience some wealth. You know, they're there now. They have value in their home. You know, they have been able to participate in the growth of the economy, right? When you talk about including, you know, they, Oh, it's all, you know, everything is racism and equality and people being left behind. That's why they're being left behind because the Democrat policies oftentimes destroy the value of those communities. How about this, Glenn? You take that $5,000 house that you paid for and now it's worth $300,000. You go to the bank and you say, I want an equity line of credit for a hundred grand so I can start my own pizzeria, right? You can't do that. If you live on the East side of Buffalo, cause the bank's saying, I'm sorry, there's no equity in this house. The things that you can do. I mean, I was talking to my daughter actually about this and you know, the people talk about, well, the rich get rich, you know, the wealthy, you know, the rich get richer and the poor, it's tough. You can't get ahead. And there's some truth to that. You know, when it comes to things like, you know, bank fees, ATM fees, like if you don't have money, if you don't have some level of wealth, you got to be able to break through that. So you've got to, you're paying higher rates for cars cause you don't have the credit score. You're paying, you know, ATM fees, wherever you go. I don't pay any ATM fees. All my ATM fees are reimbursed because I have a high enough balance with your car. Right. And so the, you know, the more money you were able to gain and the wealth you're able to get, the easier kind of things become from a financial standpoint because of those benefits. And again, I go back to Natalie on east side of Buffalo, there's no equity in your home and you go to buy a car. You don't have that credit. You don't have that net worth. You know, you don't have that score that you need. You're paying more in interest now. You've got to pay a higher loan rate. You know, that hurts all the way around. Again, contrast that to with Natalie in Revere beach who now has $300,000 in equity. Maybe she does take a home equity line of credit mic and uses her line of credit to buy that car. Cause now as that's deductible, it might be a lower rate. How about Natalie just needs more income and she can now afford a reverse mortgage. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, look at how would you like $2,000 a month for the next 30 something years or as long as you live. That's wonderful. Okay. All kinds of options there for people, right? Cause when, when the tide rises, all boats rise with it. And that's what Republicans used to say. That's what could, that's what the conservative message used to be. I don't even know what the message Republicans is today. I don't know what it is. We're not, we're not Democrats. We're not, we're not as, we're not as crooked. We don't steal as much. What is it? I don't even know. We talked about that for awhile. I want to get back to, let's get back to Reaganism and conservatism and you know, the benefits of a, of a rising economy, the benefits of a growing pie that everybody could experience that growth so that everybody has an opportunity to get ahead. Whether you're, you know, black or Hispanic or wherever you're, wherever you're starting in life, whatever your position is, you know, when the economy improves and values rise and whether the home values or whatever, everybody wins in that case. But man, if you are stuck in a Philadelphia, a New York city, a Rochester, I mean Rochester, I mean, I'm talking about Rochester like it's Compton now for God's sakes. I mean it's Rochester. Rochester used to be a sleepy little city in upstate New York, right? It was a nice, you know, Iran, the koi bay and a beautiful, it's a beautiful area used to be. Now it's like, you know, I locked my doors. If I'm going to the office of Rochester, it's a shame. It's a shame. It's a shame. It's just tragic opportunities everywhere to your point. The answer is always with these communities, more government intervention. And uh, and the, and the fact of the matter is, uh, it's the opposite, right? Look at the state of Florida, look at what they're doing and look at the opportunities limiting, by the way, things like welfare. Uh, you know, San Francisco is just talking about drug testing. Guess who's been doing that for a long time. The state of Florida. Guess what happened when they did that? 30% of the people dropped out. Well, why did they do that? Well, look at, if my brother-in-law who works at a car parts store needs to get drug tested, I would think as a taxpayer, we should be demanding that if we're going to hand these people free handouts, they should get drug tested too. Right. I don't think the most of the homeless people, are they getting any handouts? Are they getting anything? Oh yeah. Are they, in the state of, well, first of all, I don't even get it. I mean, they're not even, they don't have a home. I mean, what are they, what are they going to go to? They pick up at the office. The state of New York, 30 something percent of the welfare checks are actually cashed out of the state. So they're borrowing mailboxes. I was talking to a buddy of mine, who's a mailman, and he heard us talking about it. He goes, Mike, I've got one better for you. If you go on the East side, go to the vacant lots, they will put a mailbox up on that vacant lot for the first week of the month, just to get their check. They'll grab the check out of the mailbox, take the mailbox with them.
Evening News with Art Sanders
Fresh "Theft" from Evening News with Art Sanders
"State Route 161 and I -5 near Lakewood the right lane is closed for another half hour so or for road work our next Northwest traffic at 444 thanks Jay now your forecast sponsored by Northwest Crawl Space Services from Como 4's Shannon O 'Donnell beautiful weather as we toward head the end of the week first we have to get through the beginning of it we're scrubbing out the last of the cloud cover in the showers the next couple today of still some spotty drizzle Tuesday and Wednesday morning for the commute but each day a little bit brighter than the last we'll keep the temperature sure climb going as we hit the end of the week upper 60s by Thursday 70s this weekend in the Como 4 Weather Center I'm meteorologist Shannon O 'Donnell currently 53 degrees with cloudy skies in downtown Seattle it's now 435 staff members at the maple leaf hardware store in North Seattle believe a trio of teenagers caught on camera running away were armed police believe they're connected to a theft investigation
The Financial Guys
"theft" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"These are beautiful trees, big, big, beautiful trees, Mike. The best trees Mike can buy. Who owns the nursery? Seven foot tall trees. You're not talking about little sticks. Seven foot, right. Planted, beautiful, staked in the ground. Right. Now we spent $1,000 and got four trees. They're spending $13 million estimating it's going to cost them $1,000 a tree. I guarantee that if Wiggle and Loma's negotiated that contract, we'd be getting those trees for about a hundred bucks, I bet. Planted in the ground. But somebody is politically connected, owns the, owns the contract, or is getting the contract to supply the trees. You can ask Park Hamster about that. The nursery and they'll, they'll make, you know, they'll, they'll be selling these, normally the trees would cost $250 and sell them for $250. They're going to sell them to the town for a thousand or a city for a thousand. They're going to pad their pocket and make a ton of money. I mean, this is how government works folks. At some point we have to go along with these six or so Republicans that are the right-wingers and say, a fiscal responsibility needs to be the number one thing. Enough is enough. Sorry. No more. No more. No more shrimping shrimp on a treadmill. We just don't have the cash. I mean, we need, we need someone who's going to be able to step up in the Washington and say, we're going to, we have a $7 trillion budget now. Our goal by next year, give me a, go to Congress and say you give me a $5 trillion budget or this government will be shut down for as long as it takes. I'll tell you what. Go back to Bill Clinton's budget and then you add a 3% rider in it. Here's where we need to be from, to keep up with it for $4 trillion today, $4 trillion today, $3 trillion last. That's where we should be honestly because we've had zero inflation for a long time, not 3%. Right. But the fact of the matter is they want to spend more and more and more and more because the bigger it gets, there's so much more fraud that can be, you know, perpetrated when the, when the thing is ginormous, right? The bigger it gets, the easier it is for people to walk away with port shops and things like that with their order on government money. Mark Poloncar is looking at you, right? This is how they do it. They make it bigger and bigger and bigger and the numbers don't even mean anything anymore. You're talking about billions and trillions and trillions of dollars. It's outrageous. We need to have somebody who has the literally the art of negotiation, right? You walk into Congress. Here's what I would do. If I'm the president or I'm somebody trying to negotiate to speak of the house, okay, you want to play ball? Let's play ball. Let's find some common ground. All right. I'll tell you what, we won't shut down the government. However, we're going to shut down parts of the government. Okay. We're going to fund the things that you don't want to fund. I like Matt Gates idea piece by piece, bill by bill, right? We're going to fund the military. We're going to fund border security. We're going to fund veteran affairs. We're not going to fund welfare. We're not going to fund the permitting process for, for things like haircuts and bullshit, right? We don't need that stuff. Wipe that stuff out. You can negotiate this to say, here's the half the government willing to keep open as long as we're willing to shut this half down. By the way, the half that could shut down doesn't get back pay. This bullshit of we're going to get all our back pay because everybody, nobody lost a nickel last time. Right. It was, it was a, it was a four week paid vacation, which is garbage. Here's the other way you negotiate. We talked about this with a college loan guy, right? How about this? All right. You want to, we understand the college loan debt. A lot of kids got entrapped in this because the guidance counselors and the predatory colleges, and that's what they are. These colleges in a lot of cases are predatory because they're giving kids advice that they shouldn't be giving, right? There's kids look up to these, these, these professors. They look up to these counselors. They look up to these guidance people. They're supposed to say, look, here's what it's going to cost versus your return. Yeah. But they could stick at host because these are not the people that are looking out for their best interest. They're looking out for the college's best interest that that should be disclosed. Yeah. That, and they were forced to take Spanish instead of understanding what debt does and how to, how to balance a checkbook. Yeah. But we get it. How about going to those folks who look at, I'll tell you what, make you a deal. We will tell, we will reduce or eliminate some of this college debt. Maybe we bought, however, that college, that goes to fund the education department. So we have to then shut down the education department. Okay. Is that, is that a deal? If you, you could, you would get, you would get, you would get honest to God, you'd get 80% of Americans on board with that. Yeah. I mean, when you look at some of these numbers, you know, when you look at the, the, the, the police state, a poll that was just done, 72% of all voters, 67% of Dems, 72 of independents, 76 of the Republicans all agree that the police states, there are things that we agree upon in this country that were 75, 80% agreed upon. Yeah. Most, most, I think how is that and wiping out the, if we could do that and make a deal, I think 80% would be good. Talk to most people about welfare. It's funny. I'm most democratic really. You know what? One of the biggest things I have an issue with is the mass amount of welfare out there. Me too. Me too. I worked as a UAW employee 50 hours a week for the last 30 years. Oh, well your money went for that welfare. I know it sucks. It's terrible. How about voting Democrat? How about, how about the border? How about the border? You want to make a compromise? I'll tell you what, let's talk about the dreamers. These kids that were brought over here with two, three years old, they don't know anything different. It would be almost inhumane to ship them back to El Salvador. So we'll make you a deal. Okay. We'll make you a deal. All right. However, the, before we do anything as far as amnesty or anything else for dreamers, here's the deal. I want a big, beautiful wall. I want a 30 feet high. I want the top barbed wire and fricking razors. I want the bottom electrified underneath it. I want to, I want, I want, you know, a electrode so that when they try to dig underneath it, they explode. I want a minefield on the other side of that can fill it with gators, fill with gators. I want to, I want a long search. I want to, I want a secure border. Okay. I don't care what it takes to secure it. I want to put the military there, put up checkpoints like goddamn North Korea. For all I care, secure the border. They secure the border first. Then, then and only then, once we get our handle on that, can we talk about the people that are here and what do we do with them? Many will have to go back. That's to be honest with you. Yeah. The ones that are coming in from the, you know, the refugee camps and whatnot, and then, you know, the ones that are a little bit too rapey maybe. Yeah. Could we send them back one smuggling fentanyl over the border? Yeah. Maybe those, you know, maybe the, maybe the, maybe the 21 year old, uh, you know, working age male with no wife and no kids. Maybe he should go back and build his own country. That's right. Maybe, maybe, maybe he belongs back in, in this, in South America, rebuilding your own car. Absolutely. 100%. We should support that. We should support them. Right. We should help them to do that. Which we completely abandoned. Mexico's a great example of how we should support them. You know how we support them. We go over and get those drug cartels. Yeah. We send America's finest over and within a half an hour we fricking rip those things apart. Done, done, done. You send America's finest over there. I guarantee within a half an hour. Now, we know that a lot of them are Hunter Biden's are a don't want any of that to happen. you look at a big problem with Mexico as a corruption in government because they're paid off by the drug cartels and in our country, our government's paid off by the drug companies. That's right. Well, I mean it's really not that much different to be honest with you. Don't forget, by the way, Obama gave him a lot of guns to protect themselves. Well, that's true. That's true. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. So maybe, maybe I re rethinking, maybe it'll take more than a half an hour. Oh, by the way, they got, they have the replacement for, uh, Dr. Fauci. Her name is Janine Marazzo, and she's a fanatical and outspoken supporter of COVID lockdowns. Oh, good. World health organization, vaccine and mask mandates for adults and children. Here you get to listen to her voice. Can you not read a fricking study? Yeah. This is the. Please consider wearing a mask when you go out. You don't need to wear one when you're at home. Masks in young people going to school over the age of six, all the things we've been talking about, mask wearing, hand hygiene. This is the new Fauci by the way, look forward to this. It sounds like Gail Burstein. He's better.
The Financial Guys
"theft" Discussed on The Financial Guys
"Well, you see how easy this is now. Now you look at how they move money around and how the in your face money laundering folks, this is what this is. This is corruption and fraud. Some of the Bidens are great at the money laundering part. They got 20 shell corporations, but guess who's getting the guess who's going to be controlling the funding to rebuild Ukraine. We pay to destroy it. And guess what? The Hillary Clinton Foundation gets paid the rebuild right. Welcome to the podcast. We are in the same studio today, which is kind of nice. So thanks again for downloading. If you're just listening, if you're watching or watching the clips, uh, thanks for watching as well. And just for a quick mention, so I don't forget, if you haven't downloaded our app yet, I'm noticing we're getting a lot of downloads and the cool thing is when the morning Mike's program is going Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm seeing the, the view count go up and up and up, which is awesome. So I know we're only, you know, we're still in the dozens. I'd like to get into the hundreds and eventually thousands, um, but it's a cool program. If you haven't listened to it, it's a quick 15 minutes to quick by morning, run down three days a week of the top five topics, three minutes each. Do a great job. They do an awesome job when we're, when we fill in the stuff. We screw the whole thing up. Yes. Yeah. We, we blow the whole, the whole, uh, the schedule, but, um, but they do awesome and they're funny. I love it. It's a quick, you know, down and dirty 15 minutes, top five items of the day. And now you get your day started off on the, uh, they, you know, I think on the right foot, they were saying this week, like, Oh, it's so negative all the time, but I think they're hilarious. They take the negative stuff that's going on, but of course the negative stuff isn't the news. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're seeing. I mean, carjackings again, Rochester had another, you know, record night. I mean, it's incredible how that was going on. And so it's amazing is, is like the Democrats just sit around and watch this happen in every city and every city. It's insane. Yeah. I sent you an article earlier this morning about Philadelphia. Let's see. I can find it. It's, uh, not that it's anything out of, you know, anything that we don't know about, but let's see here. Philadelphia swarmed by alleged juvenile. Come on, come on. Juvenile looters targeting the Apple store, Lulu lemon and footlocker. Yeah. So, cause they're starving. They're starving. They just, just need a little piece of ham and some Turkey. They need clothes and food. That's, that's only fair. I mean, they, you know, and once again, I know we've all heard this joke, but footlocker is not missing one pair of working boots. No, no, all the Nike's, all the Nike. Yeah. Well, some of those Nike's, I mean, Oh my God. Crazy. You know, talking about like, you know, thousands of dollars for a pair of, thousands, thousands of dollars. I was talking to my daughter and she said to one, one of her friends has a, as a pair of shoes were $1,200. I'll never forget the most expensive pair of shoes I ever bought. We were just starting a business. This was like 30 years ago now. Right. Crazy to think. And I remember somebody told me that maybe my dad was like, you got to have a decent pair of shoes. Right. And so I went up and I bought a pair of Justin and Murphy's. They're like 120 bucks at the time. Yeah. The most money I have ever spent on a pair of shoes. Now boots, I've spent more money on since because boots are more expensive, you know, hunting boots. Well, there's a purpose to them. I still don't spend more money on shoes. Like I'm wearing like Skechers or like $40. Like some of these Nike's $500. You can't tell me you're running faster. It's different when you're going to go out and buy a pair of like waders or something. You're going to use them. First of all, you're going to use them for the next 30 years. Right. And there's a purpose to them, right? Like, okay, they're more expensive, but I can walk through the water with them. Right. But if I bought like, if I had five, 600 hour pairs of shoes, I'd be afraid to leave the house. I wouldn't, I wouldn't get off the carpeting. Well, they're targeting the Apple store here, Glenn, because they'll buy jobs. And that's the only way to get a job is to make sure you've got an Apple iPhone. So it'll be like Chicago. We talked about this the other week with, with, uh, with Mike Speraza, Chicago is now forced to open or, or just talking about opening, you know, a, a government run grocery store in the inner city because they've all that. Well, they're going to, so they're going to, they're going to, the plan is to fight the communism with more kind of communism, right? That's going to work really well. But could you imagine how inefficient, first of all, Walmart's pulled out, Costco's pulled out, all the stores have pulled out because now target, have you heard targets now closing stores across the country? So target is now going through and discussing all the stores across the country, liberal target, liberal target. They put a black lives matter that they ripped down the smash of the window. I thought that'd be some sort of a shield or that we're just going to put up this, uh, this plywood and we're going to spray black lives matter on it. Hashtag hashtag BLM. And we'll be safe as they rip it out and use that same plywood to smash the window with. It's pathetic. There'll be nothing left in these inner cities. The problem is when it starts to spill over into the, into the, Oh yeah. This is, this is where it gets ugly. Well, they want it. That's what they want. That's, that's why people like, uh, the governor of New York, uh, you know, Kathy, the ice queen, Kathy Hochul is, is, you know, they first tried the push for section eight housing in the suburbs because that was only fair. Yeah. Now they couldn't get that through because the people in the suburbs are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now they're busing in illegal immigrants in the middle of the night. And I tell you something, if these Democrats like Mark Poland cars were proud of what they were doing, they would have a welcoming party at noon at noon, high noon. They'd have a press conference welcoming our newest community members off the bus so that the whole community could see these family units that are getting off. You got the husband, the wives, the two kids, you know, the things that we see in our country, right? No, it's not happening. They're bringing them in at two o'clock in the morning. So nobody sees, they're all, they're all 23 year old males, right? Or 18 to 25 year old males. Some of which are from the Congo. I don't know about the, uh, you know, the, some of the social norms in the Congo, but I'm just thinking that maybe they're a little bit different than the Western world. I don't know. I'm just thinking maybe not. Maybe they're exactly like us. I don't know. But they're exactly like us. Why would they want to come here? Why are they aspiring to come here? I don't know. Anyway, it's a fentanyl fentanyl up again, by the way, there was another report. I think it was on a Fox news. Well, good for the Republicans. I mean, at least part of them, I should say good for the five or six Republicans that are the extreme right wing, according to the media, that's holding this garbage up. No, shut the government down, shut it down, shut it down until there's no more money. Take the money, go into Ukraine and send it to Texas, which they did right to the border, which they didn't do last time. Right. Kept it open. That's what do you need? What do you need? We're out of control. The founding fathers gave the power of the purse to Congress and the, and the Pentagon, the Pentagon goes, yeah, you know what? We're just going to exempt Ukraine funding from the budget. So ha ha. We just went over 33 trillion. If you go online and look at the clock, it's moving fast, right? So we're on our way to 34 or 35. Can you even see the numbers anymore? They just blur blur now. So, so fast. Oh no. And, and good news, by the way, we're refinancing this debt at 5% now, not at 1% or zero like we were doing. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It'd be great. Yeah. The fence talk about keeping rates higher for longer. I don't know. They're not going to be able to do that. They'll be cutting interest rates by next year. Mark by where? And the number one reason I say that is because when you talk to every economist, I say, that's not going to happen. And they are typically wrong. So if you take the, it's like saying betting against the casino, it's like saying, you know what? I don't think MGM is going to make money in the sporting books next year. Ma, they're going to figure out a way to make money. They'll rechange the lines, right? Well, you, all you need to do is look at it and get a bunch of economists in a room and ask them where they think the market's going to be and then do just the opposite and you would be way better. Yeah. Pretty much that's usually the way to go. No doubt about it. So the, the, the, the Pelosi, we were talking earlier about the Pelosi stock trader. Yeah. You can follow online. Now, some of these folks, we did the game show game last week. We talked about the, uh, the net worth. I picked the poor ones too. They were like 23, 21, you know, $20 million. Some of these folks are amazing. I mean, really just, you know, the wizards of smart on some of these are just really, timing is impeccable up here. This is somebody who is selling some software that I'll track it, which you can, you, you've pointed out, you can get it for free online, but, but the, the numbers are really astonishing. This Democrat Senator sold her Aspen vacation home for $25 million. That was just after she sold her Lake Tahoe vacation house for $36 million. Well, by the way, why, why do they own these big $25, $36 million homes? Well, a big, big part of it is because the taxation of it, right? So a Feinstein who's telling you your ordinary income tax rates are too low. She's shifting that to a capital asset, which is going to create a capital gain in the future or no gain. Or no gain. I mean, they're 10, 10 31. This is why when Donald Trump looked at Hillary Clinton right in the eye and said, you will not get rid of the carry interest deduction and you know it because all of your, I use it, of course, all of her bigger donors donate money to Hillary Clinton. And this is exactly the truth, right? They will never get rid of some of these things. Like they talked about, we're going to get rid of the 10 31 exchanges. Yaha. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. So the big developer strokes a giant check to the, to the Democrats off the table. Let's listen to her success though. Amazing. A Senator sold her Aspen vacation home for $25 million just after she sold her Lake Tahoe vacation house for $36 million. Only two years earlier, Diane Feinstein has been a member of the political scene for 32 years and her salary is only $130,000 per 130 grand a year. Now it's more now. That's a little bit dated, but it's up, it's up to probably 180 now. But, but listen to this. First of all, if it was up to 580, you're not buying $23 million homes, $36 million homes. No, no, we're going to put in multiple homes. We're going to, we're going to put the Paul Pelosi onto our research committee. You make a million dollars a year. First of all, most of, most business owners that make that kind of money, they didn't make it throughout their whole life, right? They didn't start making a million dollars at 20 years old. They started making a million dollars at 50 years old and it took 30 years to get to that point. Right? So my point is, you're not at a million dollars a year at age 50. If you did it the right way, the hard way, and you did it yourself, you're still not affording a $23 million home, right? Multiple ones. Yeah. Multiple, multiple. Right. Those aren't even her primary residence. Those are her vacation homes. She lives in, she lives in California. Listen to this though. And it's, it's all of them. It's all of them now. This is a, this is from Nancy Pelosi, stock trader. Uh, this is a tweet, uh, a Twitter feed. You can follow Pelosi tracker is what it's supposed to track or underline or something like that. You'll find it. Anyway, uh, three weeks ago, sitting politician bet against the U S economy so far. He's been right. Tom Carper bought $45,000 of PSQ and inverse ETF on the tech sector on eight 23, August 23rd. Since then he's plus 3% while the market is negative 4%. Go figure. Wow. Go figure. Man, these guys are so good. Yeah. And they're not by, they're, I mean, these are, that's some pretty technical strategy. You started getting into options strategies and stuff. I mean, yeah. Yeah. These guys have become very, very slick. It's not just about buying a, you see, it used to be, okay, I'm going to buy X, Y, Z. Then I'm going to vote for or against something. You know, I'm going to short the stock and then I'm going to vote against them for both that, that, that. So the stock goes down or I'm going to vote for something, knowing that it will benefit the company. The stock will go up and in a sense front running. No, they're, they're in the options strategies now. They're in the market. Yeah. They're doing butterfly spreads. Yeah. Crazy stuff going. They're very sophisticated. They shouldn't be allowed to two things. When you go into Congress, I, you know, I would love to have a Congress person run on or present around the following platform, right? Number one, term limits, term limits, top of the list. Number two, though, while you're in Congress for the eight years, or wherever we allow you to serve 10 years, 12 years, whatever it is, you could not invest in a stock market at all. All your investments are frozen or your choices, a model, some kind of a model liquidated go to cash, or you could buy the fidelity balance to counter. You could buy the, you could buy the T-rope price, you know, target retire, whatever, you know, or you go to goes into a blind something or other where you have no idea. Right. It just goes into what you picked a one through five tolerance for risk and somebody else invest. Maybe it's just broad indexing. Maybe that's it. Right. Something that doesn't allow this kind of garbage to go on where, you know, they buy, you know, Tesla stock and then approve a huge, you know, oh, we're going to, guess what? We're going to build a, you know, for government funded battery stations all the country. Of course, Elon comes out and goes, we already got those, you idiots. I did that like four years ago, you morons. Amazing what Elon can do and what the, what the government can. Going back to target for just a second, not to digress, but I found WGRZ, thankfully came up with a list of the, uh, the target stores that will be closing, Mike, the full list of locations all in, all in Republican run. You'll be shocked. Yeah. Yeah. Right in the, uh, the thriving, the, uh, you know, thriving, the Minneapolis, uh, location, the retailer said the decision, the close was really difficult. I wonder if that was after half. That was the one they put the BLM on. Yeah. Oh, that was the one they put the sign on that said, please don't burn our store down. We love you. I hashtag BLM lit it on fire. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Uh, let's see. I'm shocked though. I wouldn't, I'm surprised you wouldn't stay. I mean, you know, like just collecting, you love them. You love, you support them. This is what you supported. Remember you, you, you raised money, you gave money. Yeah. And guess what they did with that money. They hired agitators to whip up people in the community to smash and burn down your store. You idiots. So there you go. There you go. Nice, nice work. What else do you think, Mike? Uh, New York city's East Harlem neighborhood. That's going to be one that's goes down. I wonder why. Chicago, San Francisco for sure. San Fran. Yeah. San Fran. Uh, by the way, before I forget San Fran, Democrat San Francisco mayor, announces plan to require drug testing, which is good in an effort to, if you're going to receive homeless benefits. Right. But the funny thing was in this same passage, they're going to Texas to try to recruit police officers. The funny thing is is that the people they sent from San Francisco to try to recruit people. They didn't come back. They defected like North Koreans. Some of them got jobs. They get over the wall. They come out, they get over the wall. It was hilarious. No, they didn't go back. Well, the other five stores, Mike, three in Portland, Oregon and two in Seattle, five, three in Portland. They're pulling out of Portland together. All of these inner cities folks will be food deserts. You're going to hear that term. It'll be business deserts. It'll be nothing. Well, business deserts, nothing left, but there'll be, but target, don't forget target. Does target sell food? Yeah. Well, yeah. They sell food. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Well, I don't go on target. So Walmart I know does Costco for sure. Costco is a food store. I don't think target is as big as Walmart as far as like fresh fruit, but definitely frozen food, all that kind of stuff. You know, aisles of pop and water and chips and right, right, right. And all that kind of stuff. But you can definitely frozen food. You can buy bulk frozen food there. So, so there's going to be food deserts, all over the place, business deserts, whatever you want to call them. You know, it's amazing because you know, the, there's no policing. And the sad thing is that is the problem. It's not, there's no policing. I shouldn't say that. Excuse me. No, you're policing your asses off. I get it. There's no ability. There's no prosecution. There's no bill. You guys are arresting people, putting them in and they go right back on the street. They're getting, they're getting appearance tickets. It's a joke. Your point is no, there is no policing anymore because of the system, the Democrats put together where the police officers aren't going to bother. If you're a police officer and you know that somebody is going to be this, this carjacking or whatever is robbery. And you know that there's a potential, you're going to get an altercation where you're in New York state. There's two police officers that have been brought up on charges recently with almost a hundred percent chance that if you do catch that person, that person will be right back. Yeah. A hundred percent. Why would you bother? Why would you bother? You're not going to put your life in line. No way. You want to go home to see your wife and kids too, and your mother or your husband or whatever. You want to be able to spend your Christmas with your family. Why would you do that? And they know that, right? The Democrats know that. This is, you can't be this stupid. I mean, who allows these people to go right back on the streets and say, this is a good idea without correcting this right away. You can say, okay, bail reform. Our intentions were one thing, but when you look at the fact that in New York state, we are now breaking records in towns like Rochester and Buffalo for the most amount of vehicles being stolen. We can say, okay, look at bail reform, put it in place. It clearly did not work. It's been a total disaster. These towns have turned to shit. We absolutely need to go back in the other direction. They're not doing that. They don't care. They want to, and they're doubling down, tripling down on it, tripling down. We invited this liberal on, you actually were on the show with him and he said, things are actually safer since bail reform. That's what his argument was. His argument was, and by the way, his argument was if we have even less police officers, cities like Buffalo will get safer. Well the thought was less police officers, less arrests. Less arrests means less crime. Dude, you got the whole thing backwards, bro. And not only that, but now we know that, right? Now we know, now you can, I mean, literally auto thefts are up 360% in Rochester. They're not up 3%. You can say, well, you know, in Buffalo and we're in second place. And they can't play, they can't play in COVID. They're trying to like, well, it was a lockdown. People were at pent up, whatever. Remember that was the, that was the reason for the rioting and the ballooning and burning like, well, people had a lot of pent up. We probably should have locked them down. That was a little bit of the reason for the increase in suicides. You guys, you guys increased suicides because you locked kids in their homes, but it wasn't the reason that they went and decided to steal Nike sneakers from a footlocker. So check this out. Speaking of COVID, this is huge. This is, I don't know if you saw this or not, but this is absolutely ginormously huge. Dr. Fauci was smuggled into CIA headquarters without a record of entry where he participated in the analysis to influence the agency's COVID-19 investigation according to the house select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic. Did he need to do much with these left-wing CIA agents? Probably not. No, no, no. That's what they're smuggling him in for. Well they smuggled him in because they didn't want anybody to know that he was part of the PSYOP operation, which was hydroxychloric. By the way, the I think it was a Mayo clinic and some other hospitals now have come out as well as the CDC and said hydroxychloroquine, yes, indeed is an effective treatment for COVID. Oh, by the way, ivermectin also an effective treatment. The CDC now approving that. Now mind you, we're going to keep in mind that if there was any other treatments that couldn't get the emergency use authorization for these vaccines that clearly don't work. Amazingly, I'm still seeing people online go signing off my sixth booster on our way for the sixth shot, proud to get our sixth shot. How about how about one the other day, local left-wing nut job got her sixth booster shot, six shot and she still got COVID and then she said, well, I was so good hiding and it got all my shots and then I went to a concert and I got it at this concert. Well, first of all, you don't know that, but second of all, if you have six shots and you six shots and you still got COVID and you actually think that was a good idea, you don't need a vaccination. You need a mental, you need a mental check. I tell you, I know people during the during the COVID, the height of the COVID that were older, some of our clients actually that were prescribed by a doctor a hydroxy quirk when they were taking it once a week as a as a preventative measure. Yeah. And they, to this day have never had COVID. Yeah. And it's, it's, I mean, so it, but the sad thing is again, you know, we couldn't, it's all about the money now. And that's, you know, when people talk about the evils of capitalism, you're seeing some of that. Now, capitalism is the best thing on the planet, right? As far as, you know, lifting the masses out of poverty and creating amazing amounts of wealth. But the problem is this isn't, this isn't capitalism. What's going on. This is cronyism is what's going on. It is, Hey, look at, I will give you these government dollars. You're going to get this patent. You're going to get this. Unholy marriage between business and government. Mark my word. We were talking about Feinstein selling 25, $30 million homes. This Fauci will be on the board of Pfizer. He'll be on the board of Moderna. He's going to get shares of those companies. He will be blessed with with with millions and millions of dollars. His family watch and see, we'll be talking if we're, if you and I are fortunate enough to be around 20, 30 years from now, we'll be talking about the Fauci trust and watch and monitor that trust and see how big that family trust. Well, you see how easy this is now. You look at how they move money around and how the in your face money laundering folks. This is what this is. This is corruption and fraud. Some of the Bidens are great at the money laundering part. They got 20 shell corporation, but guess who's getting the, guess who's going to be controlling the funding to rebuild Ukraine. We pay to destroy it. And guess what? The Hillary Clinton foundation gets paid to rebuild it. Right. And guess who's going to get the contracts to rebuild. Oh, that'll be probably one of the Biden family members or somebody else's politically connected. Right. Remember it was, it was a Joe Biden's brother who got the contract, the multi-billion dollar contract to rebuild Iraq. No building experience, never been a contractor, right? No idea. Right. This is why these projects cost 500 times what they're supposed to cost. This is why when money comes into Buffalo, for example, $25 million to build homes, five get built. And you were, wait a minute, five, are these $5 million homes in the East side? Each of those homes would have been built for a quarter million dollars or less. And yet where did the rest of the money go? And the, the answer is never, we don't know. We don't know. We can't account for it. Or we'd have no idea. Or I mean, how many times have we've seen that in so many places that whether right down the local level or God forbid at the federal level between, you know, Iraq and others. I was telling you last week on the radio, I was reading an article about the grants that were coming into the city of Buffalo to plant trees. And I thought, okay, wow, like this could be sweet. Okay. You know, like I'm a big tree guy. I love trees. I plant trees every year. I do think, okay, that's one way to, first of all, I think it's one way to make a community look great. When you, when you drive around, let's say North Buffalo, all the streets are all tree. They look beautiful. You drive around the East side, it looks like shit, right? So, okay. You're going to take some of my tax money and you're going to directly plant trees. Okay. It's a win for the environment. It looks nice. It's going to bring things together. I'm like, well, where's the catch? This is a government agency. Where are they going to screw it up? You read through and you find out that they're paying $1,000 a tree. Now you and I both know that if they're saying it's $1,000 a tree, by the time it's done, it'll be two to $3,000 a tree. Now you, you're talking about $13 million worth of trees. You and I just planted trees. Every year we plant a few trees around our office, you know, three, four in the spring, three, four in the fall, just so they can start to grow and work their way in. And then, you know, plant more. We pay $250 a tree, plant it. Right.
The Financial Guys
A highlight from Rising Auto Theft Rates: Urban Consequences and Solutions
"Well, you see how easy this is now. Now you look at how they move money around and how the in your face money laundering folks, this is what this is. This is corruption and fraud. Some of the Bidens are great at the money laundering part. They got 20 shell corporations, but guess who's getting the guess who's going to be controlling the funding to rebuild Ukraine. We pay to destroy it. And guess what? The Hillary Clinton Foundation gets paid the rebuild Welcome right. to the podcast. We are in the same studio today, which is kind of nice. So thanks again for downloading. If you're just listening, if you're watching or watching the clips, uh, thanks for watching as well. And just for a quick mention, so I don't forget, if you haven't downloaded our app yet, I'm noticing we're getting a lot of downloads and the cool thing is when the morning Mike's program is going Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm the, seeing the view count go up and up and up, which is awesome. So I know we're only, you know, we're still in the dozens. I'd like to get into the hundreds and eventually thousands, um, but it's a cool program. If you haven't listened to it, it's a quick 15 minutes to quick by morning, run down three days a week of the top five topics, three minutes each. Do a great job. They do an awesome job when we're, when we fill in the stuff. We screw the whole thing up. Yes. Yeah. We, we blow the whole, the whole, uh, the schedule, but, um, but they do awesome and they're funny. I love it. It's a quick, you know, down and dirty 15 minutes, top five items of the day. And now you get your day started off on the, uh, they, you know, I think on the right foot, they were saying this week, like, Oh, it's so negative all the time, but I think they're hilarious. They take the negative stuff that's going on, but of course the negative stuff isn't the news. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we're seeing. I mean, carjackings again, Rochester had another, you know, record night. I mean, it's incredible how that was going on. And so it's amazing is, is like the Democrats just sit around and watch this happen in every city and every city. It's insane. Yeah. I sent you an article earlier this morning about Philadelphia. Let's see. I can find it. It's, uh, not that it's anything out of, you know, anything that we don't know about, but let's see here. Philadelphia swarmed by alleged juvenile. Come on, come on. Juvenile looters targeting the Apple store, Lulu lemon and footlocker. Yeah. So, cause they're starving. They're starving. They just, just need a little piece of ham and some Turkey. They need clothes and food. That's, that's only fair. I mean, they, you know, and once again, I know we've all heard this joke, but footlocker is not missing one pair of working boots. No, no, all the Nike's, all the Nike. Yeah. Well, some of those Nike's, I mean, Oh my God. Crazy. You know, talking about like, you know, thousands of dollars for a pair of, thousands, thousands of dollars. I was talking to my daughter and she said to one, one of her friends has a, as a pair of shoes were $1 ,200. I'll never forget the most expensive pair of shoes I ever bought. We were just starting a business. This was like 30 years ago now. Right. Crazy to think. And I remember somebody told me that maybe my dad was like, you got to have a decent pair of shoes. Right. And so I went up and I bought a pair of Justin and Murphy's. They're like 120 bucks at the time. Yeah. The most money I have ever spent on a pair of shoes. Now boots, I've spent more money on since because boots are more expensive, you know, hunting boots. Well, there's a purpose to them. I still don't spend more money on shoes. Like I'm wearing like Skechers or like $40. Like some of these Nike's $500. You can't tell me you're running faster. It's different when you're going to go out and buy a pair of like waders or something. You're going to use them. First of all, you're going to use them for the next 30 years. Right. And there's a purpose to them, right? Like, okay, they're more expensive, but I can walk through the water with them. Right. But if I bought like, if I had five, 600 hour pairs of shoes, I'd be afraid to leave the house. I wouldn't, I wouldn't get off the carpeting. Well, they're targeting the Apple store here, Glenn, because they'll buy jobs. And that's the only way to get a job is to make sure you've got an Apple iPhone. So it'll be like Chicago. We talked about this the other week with, with, uh, with Mike Speraza, Chicago is now forced to open or, or just talking about opening, you know, a, a government run grocery store in the inner city because they've all that. Well, they're going to, so they're going to, they're going to, the plan is to fight the communism with more kind of communism, right? That's going to work really well. But could you imagine how inefficient, first of all, Walmart's pulled out, Costco's pulled out, all the stores have pulled out because now target, have you heard targets now closing stores across the country? So target is now going through and discussing all the stores across the country, liberal target, liberal target. They put a black lives matter that they ripped down the smash of the window. I thought that'd be some sort of a shield or that we're just going to put up this, uh, this plywood and we're going to spray black lives matter on it. Hashtag hashtag BLM. And we'll be safe as they rip it out and use that same plywood to smash the window with. It's pathetic. There'll be nothing left in these inner cities. The problem is when it starts to spill over into the, into the, Oh yeah. This is, this is where it gets ugly. Well, they want it. That's what they want. That's, that's why people like, uh, the governor of New York, uh, you know, Kathy, the ice queen, Kathy Hochul is, is, you know, they first tried the push for section eight housing in the suburbs because that was only fair. Yeah. Now they couldn't get that through because the people in the suburbs are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Now they're busing in illegal immigrants in the middle of the night. And I tell you something, if these Democrats like Mark Poland cars were proud of what they were doing, they would have a welcoming party at noon at noon, high noon. They'd have a press conference welcoming our newest community members off the bus so that the whole community could see these family units that are getting off. You got the husband, the wives, the two kids, you know, the things that we see in our country, right? No, it's not happening. They're bringing them in at two o 'clock in the morning. So nobody sees, they're all, they're all 23 year old males, right? Or 18 to 25 year old males. Some of which are from the Congo. I don't know about the, uh, you know, the, some of the social norms in the Congo, but I'm just thinking that maybe they're a little bit different than the Western world. I don't know. I'm just thinking maybe not. Maybe they're exactly like us. I don't know. But they're exactly like us. Why would they want to come here? Why are they aspiring to come here? I don't know. Anyway, it's a fentanyl fentanyl up again, by the way, there was another report. I think it was on a Fox news. Well, good for the Republicans. I mean, at least part of them, I should say good for the five or six Republicans that are the extreme right wing, according to the media, that's holding this garbage up. No, shut the government down, shut it down, shut it down until there's no more money. Take the money, go into Ukraine and send it to Texas, which they did right to the border, which they didn't do last time. Right. Kept it open. That's what do you need? What do you need? We're out of control. The founding fathers gave the power of the purse to Congress and the, and the Pentagon, the Pentagon goes, yeah, you know what? We're just going to exempt Ukraine funding from the budget. So ha ha. We just went over 33 trillion. If you go online and look at the clock, it's moving fast, right? So we're on our way to 34 or 35. Can you even see the numbers anymore? They just blur blur now. So, so fast. Oh no. And, and good news, by the way, we're refinancing this debt at 5 % now, not at 1 % or zero like we were doing. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah. It'd be great. Yeah. The fence talk about keeping rates higher for longer. I don't know. They're not going to be able to do that. They'll be cutting interest rates by next year. Mark by where? And the number one reason I say that is because when you talk to every economist, I say, that's not going to happen. And they are typically wrong. So if you take the, it's like saying betting against the casino, it's like saying, you know what? I don't think MGM is going to make money in the sporting books next year. Ma, they're going to figure out a way to make money. They'll rechange the lines, right? Well, you, all you need to do is look at it and get a bunch of economists in a room and ask them where they think the market's going to be and then do just the opposite and you would be way better. Yeah. Pretty much that's usually the way to go. No doubt about it. So the, the, the, the Pelosi, we were talking earlier about the Pelosi stock trader. Yeah. You can follow online. Now, some of these folks, we did the game show game last week. We talked about the, uh, the net worth. I picked the poor ones too. They were like 23, 21, you know, $20 million. Some of these folks are amazing. I mean, really just, you know, the wizards of smart on some of these are just really, timing is impeccable up here. This is somebody who is selling some software that I'll track it, which you can, you, you've pointed out, you can get it for free online, but, but the, the numbers are really astonishing. This Democrat Senator sold her Aspen vacation home for $25 million. That was just after she sold her Lake Tahoe vacation house for $36 million. Well, by the way, why, why do they own these big $25, $36 million homes? Well, a big, big part of it is because the taxation of it, right? So a Feinstein who's telling you your ordinary income tax rates are too low. She's shifting that to a capital asset, which is going to create a capital gain in the future or no gain. Or no gain. I mean, they're 10, 10 31. This is why when Donald Trump looked at Hillary Clinton right in the eye and said, you will not get rid of the carry interest deduction and you know it because all of your, I use it, of course, all of her bigger donors donate money to Hillary Clinton. And this is exactly the truth, right? They will never get rid of some of these things. Like they talked about, we're going to get rid of the 10 31 exchanges. Yaha. Yeah. Uh huh. Yeah. So the big developer strokes a giant check to the, to the Democrats off the table. Let's listen to her success though. Amazing. A Senator sold her Aspen vacation home for $25 million just after she sold her Lake Tahoe vacation house for $36 million. Only two years earlier, Diane Feinstein has been a member of the political scene for 32 years and her salary is only $130 ,000 per 130 grand a year. Now it's more now. That's a little bit dated, but it's up, it's up to probably 180 now. But, but listen to this. First of all, if it was up to 580, you're not buying $23 million homes, $36 million homes. No, no, we're going to put in multiple homes. We're going to, we're going to put the Paul Pelosi onto our research committee. You make a million dollars a year. First of all, most of, most business owners that make that kind of money, they didn't make it throughout their whole life, right? They didn't start making a million dollars at 20 years old. They started making a million dollars at 50 years old and it took 30 years to get to that point. Right? So my point is, you're not at a million dollars a year at age 50. If you did it the right way, the hard way, and you did it yourself, you're still not affording a $23 million home, right? Multiple ones. Yeah. Multiple, multiple. Right. Those aren't even her primary residence. Those are her vacation homes. She lives in, she lives in California. Listen to this though. And it's, it's all of them. It's all of them now. This is a, this is from Nancy Pelosi, stock trader. Uh, this is a tweet, uh, a Twitter feed. You can follow Pelosi tracker is what it's supposed to track or underline or something like that. You'll find it. Anyway, uh, three weeks ago, sitting politician bet against the U S economy so far. He's been right. Tom Carper bought $45 ,000 of PSQ and inverse ETF on the tech sector on eight 23, August 23rd. Since then he's plus 3 % while the market is negative 4%. Go figure. Wow. Go figure. Man, these guys are so good. Yeah. And they're not by, they're, I mean, these are, that's some pretty technical strategy. You started getting into options strategies and stuff. I mean, yeah. Yeah. These guys have become very, very slick. It's not just about buying a, you see, it used to be, okay, I'm going to buy X, Y, Z. Then I'm going to vote for or against something. You know, I'm going to short the stock and then I'm going to vote against them for both that, that, that. So the stock goes down or I'm going to vote for something, knowing that it will benefit the company. The stock will go up and in a sense front running. No, they're, they're in the options strategies now. They're in the market. Yeah. They're doing butterfly spreads. Yeah. Crazy stuff going. They're very sophisticated. They shouldn't be allowed to two things. When you go into Congress, I, you know, I would love to have a Congress person run on or present around the following platform, right? Number one, term limits, term limits, top of the list. Number two, though, while you're in Congress for the eight years, or wherever we allow you to serve 10 years, 12 years, whatever it is, you could not invest in a stock market at all. All your investments are frozen or your choices, a model, some kind of a model liquidated go to cash, or you could buy the fidelity balance to counter. You could buy the, you could buy the T -rope price, you know, target retire, whatever, you know, or you go to goes into a blind something or other where you have no idea. Right. It just goes into what you picked a one through five tolerance for risk and somebody else invest. Maybe it's just broad indexing. Maybe that's it. Right. Something that doesn't allow this kind of garbage to go on where, you know, they buy, you know, Tesla stock and then approve a huge, you know, oh, we're going to, guess what? We're going to build a, you know, for government funded battery stations all the country. Of course, Elon comes out and goes, we already got those, you idiots. I did that like four years ago, you morons. Amazing what Elon can do and what the, what the government can. Going back to target for just a second, not to digress, but I found WGRZ, thankfully came up with a list of the, uh, the target stores that will be closing, Mike, the full list of locations all in, all in Republican run. You'll be shocked. Yeah. Yeah. Right in the, uh, the thriving, the, uh, you know, thriving, the Minneapolis, uh, location, the retailer said the decision, the close was really difficult. I wonder if that was after half. That was the one they put the BLM on. Yeah. Oh, that was the one they put the sign on that said, please don't burn our store down. We love you. I hashtag BLM lit it on fire. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Uh, let's see. I'm shocked though. I wouldn't, I'm surprised you wouldn't stay. I mean, you know, like just collecting, you love them. You love, you support them. This is what you supported. Remember you, you, you raised money, you gave money. Yeah. And guess what they did with that money. They agitators hired to whip up people in the community to smash and burn down your store. You idiots. So there you go. There you go. Nice, nice work. What else do you think, Mike? Uh, New York city's East Harlem neighborhood. That's going to be one that's goes down. I wonder why. Chicago, San Francisco for sure. San Fran. Yeah. San Fran. Uh, by the way, before I forget San Fran, Democrat San Francisco mayor, announces plan to require drug testing, which is good in an effort to, if you're going to receive homeless benefits. Right. But the funny thing was in this same passage, they're going to Texas to try to recruit police officers. The funny thing is is that the people they sent from San Francisco to try to recruit people. They didn't come back. They defected like North Koreans. Some of them got jobs. They get over the wall. They come out, they get over the wall. It was hilarious. No, they didn't go back. Well, the other five stores, Mike, three in Portland, Oregon and two in Seattle, five, three in Portland. They're pulling out of Portland together. All of these inner cities folks will be food deserts. You're going to hear that term. It'll be business deserts. It'll be nothing. Well, business deserts, nothing left, but there'll be, but target, don't forget target. Does target sell food? Yeah. Well, yeah. They sell food. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Well, I don't go on target. So Walmart I know does Costco for sure. Costco is a food store. I don't think target is as big as Walmart as far as like fresh fruit, but definitely frozen food, all that kind of stuff. You know, aisles of pop and water and chips and right, right, right. And all that kind of stuff. But you can definitely frozen food. You can buy bulk frozen food there. So, so there's going to be food deserts, all over the place, business deserts, whatever you want to call them. You know, it's amazing because you know, the, there's no policing. And the sad thing is that is the problem. It's not, there's no policing. I shouldn't say that. Excuse me. No, you're policing your asses off. I get it. There's no ability. There's no prosecution. There's no bill. You guys are arresting people, putting them in and they go right back on the street. They're getting, they're getting appearance tickets. It's a joke. Your point is no, there is no policing anymore because of the system, the Democrats put together where the police officers aren't going to bother. If you're a police officer and you know that somebody is going to be this, this carjacking or whatever is robbery. And you know that there's a potential, you're going to get an altercation where you're in New York state. There's two police officers that have been brought up on charges recently with almost a hundred percent chance that if you do catch that person, that person will be right back. Yeah. A hundred percent. Why would you bother? Why would you bother? You're not going to put your life in line. No way. You want to go home to see your wife and kids too, and your mother or your husband or whatever. You want to be able to spend your Christmas with your family. Why would you do that? And they know that, right? The Democrats know that. This is, you can't be this stupid. I mean, who allows these people to go right back on the streets and say, this is a good idea without correcting this right away. You can say, okay, bail reform. Our intentions were one thing, but when you look at the fact that in New York state, we are now breaking records in towns like Rochester and Buffalo for the most amount of vehicles being stolen. We can say, okay, look at bail reform, put it in place. It clearly did not work. It's been a total disaster. These towns have turned to shit. We absolutely need to go back in the other direction. They're not doing that. They don't care. They want to, and they're doubling down, tripling down on it, tripling down. We invited this liberal on, you actually were on the show with him and he said, things are actually safer since bail reform. That's what his argument was. His argument was, and by the way, his argument was if we have even less police officers, cities like Buffalo will get safer. Well the thought was less police officers, less arrests. Less arrests means less crime. Dude, you got the whole thing backwards, bro. And not only that, but now we know that, right? Now we know, now you can, I mean, literally auto thefts are up 360 % in Rochester. They're not up 3%. You can say, well, you know, in Buffalo and we're in second place. And they can't play, they can't play in COVID. They're trying to like, well, it was a lockdown. People were at pent up, whatever. Remember that was the, that was the reason for the rioting and the ballooning and burning like, well, people had a lot of pent up. We probably should have locked them down. That was a little bit of the reason for the increase in suicides. You guys, you guys increased suicides because you locked kids in their homes, but it wasn't the reason that they went and decided to steal Nike sneakers from a footlocker. So check this out. Speaking of COVID, this is huge. This is, I don't know if you saw this or not, but this is absolutely ginormously huge. Dr. Fauci was smuggled into CIA headquarters without a record of entry where he participated in the analysis to influence the agency's COVID -19 investigation according to the house select subcommittee on the coronavirus pandemic. Did he need to do much with these left -wing CIA agents? Probably not. No, no, no. That's what they're smuggling him in for. Well they smuggled him in because they didn't want anybody to know that he was part of the PSYOP operation, which was hydroxychloric. By the way, the I think it was a Mayo clinic and some other hospitals now have come out as well as the CDC and said hydroxychloroquine, yes, indeed is an effective treatment for COVID. Oh, by the way, ivermectin also an effective treatment. The CDC now approving that. Now mind you, we're going to keep in mind that if there was any other treatments that couldn't get the emergency use authorization for these vaccines that clearly don't work. Amazingly, I'm still seeing people online go signing off my sixth booster on our way for the sixth shot, proud to get our sixth shot. How about how about one the other day, local left -wing nut job got her sixth booster shot, six shot and she still got COVID and then she said, well, I was so good hiding and it got all my shots and then I went to a concert and I got it at this concert. Well, first of all, you don't know that, but second of all, if you have six shots and you six shots and you still got COVID and you actually think that was a good idea, you don't need a vaccination. You need a mental, you need a mental check. I tell you, I know people during the during the COVID, the height of the COVID that were older, some of our clients actually that were prescribed by a doctor a hydroxy quirk when they were taking it once a week as a as a preventative measure. Yeah. And they, to this day have never had COVID. Yeah. And it's, it's, I mean, so it, but the sad thing is again, you know, we couldn't, it's all about the money now. And that's, you know, when people talk about the evils of capitalism, you're seeing some of that. Now, capitalism is the best thing on the planet, right? As far as, you know, lifting the masses out of poverty and creating amazing amounts of wealth. But the problem is this isn't, this isn't capitalism. What's going on. This is cronyism is what's going on. It is, Hey, look at, I will give you these government dollars. You're going to get this patent. You're going to get this. Unholy marriage between business and government. Mark my word. We were talking about Feinstein selling 25, $30 million homes. This Fauci will be on the board of Pfizer. He'll be on the board of Moderna. He's going to get shares of those companies. He will be blessed with with with millions and millions of dollars. His family watch and see, we'll be talking if we're, if you and I are fortunate enough to be around 20, 30 years from now, we'll be talking about the Fauci trust and watch and monitor that trust and see how big that family trust. Well, you see how easy this is now. You look at how they move money around and how the in your face money laundering folks. This is what this is. This is corruption and fraud. Some of the Bidens are great at the money laundering part. They got 20 shell corporation, but guess who's getting the, guess who's going to be controlling the funding to rebuild Ukraine. We pay to destroy it. And guess what? The Hillary Clinton foundation gets paid to rebuild it. Right. And guess who's going to get the contracts to rebuild. Oh, that'll be probably one of the Biden family members or somebody else's politically connected. Right. Remember it was, it was a Joe Biden's brother who got the contract, the multi -billion dollar contract to rebuild Iraq. No building experience, never been a contractor, right? No idea. Right. This is why these projects cost 500 times what they're supposed to cost. This is why when money comes into Buffalo, for example, $25 million to build homes, five get built. And you were, wait a minute, five, are these $5 million homes in the East side? Each of those homes would have been built for a quarter million dollars or less. And yet where did the rest of the money go? And the, the answer is never, we don't know. We don't know. We can't account for it. Or we'd have no idea. Or I mean, how many times have we've seen that in so many places that whether right down the local level or God forbid at the federal level between, you know, Iraq and others. I was telling you last week on the radio, I was reading an article about the grants that were coming into the city of Buffalo to plant trees. And I thought, okay, wow, like this could be sweet. Okay. You know, like I'm a big tree guy. I love trees. I plant trees every year. I do think, okay, that's one way to, first of all, I think it's one way to make a community look great. When you, when you drive around, let's say North Buffalo, all the streets are all tree. They look beautiful. You drive around the East side, it looks like shit, right? So, okay. You're going to take some of my tax money and you're going to directly plant trees. Okay. It's a win for the environment. It looks nice. It's going to bring things together. I'm like, well, where's the catch? This is a government agency. Where are they going to screw it up? You read through and you find out that they're paying $1 ,000 a tree. Now you and I both know that if they're saying it's $1 ,000 a tree, by the time it's done, it'll be two to $3 ,000 a tree. Now you, you're talking about $13 million worth of trees. You and I just planted trees. Every year we plant a few trees around our office, you know, three, four in the spring, three, four in the fall, just so they can start to grow and work their way in. And then, you know, plant more. We pay $250 a tree, plant it. Right.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 15:00 09-26-2023 15:00
"Right now, aviation companies like Lufthansa Technik are using virtual reality training to help their mechanics practice crucial engine maintenance skills, helping them prepare for real repairs. Learn more at meta .com slash metaverse impact. Marah? Talking of regulators. Good lord. All right, let's head down the hall and check this out. You want to stay with us and listen or watch on YouTube. Lina Khan is straight ahead with Kaley Lines. I'm Joe Matthew in Washington. This is Bloomberg. And of course, on Bloomberg Originals, it is Tuesday, September 26, 2023. And Tim and I are getting ready, as you just heard from Joe Matthew. We are going to be hearing from the FTC chair. This as the US FTC sued Amazon in a landmark and long anticipated antitrust case. They definitely have Amazon in their crosshairs. Yeah, we're looking forward to hearing from FTC Commission Chair Lina Khan, who's going to be sitting down with our own Bloomberg News, DC Bureau Chief Peggy Collins in just a few minutes. In the meantime, Carol, I'm seeing a redhead here across the Bloomberg terminal. We've got a lot to get to, but I got to get to this breaking news. Target is set to close nine stores across four different states, this due to theft and crime. What do they call that? Shrinkage? Shrinkage is what they call it in those earnings reports. And I wonder if we're going to start to see this from more and more companies. That is very interesting. I also wonder what it says about kind of the overall economic environment and consumer environment. All right, we're going to get to that. Keep on that. We're also going to get the latest on the auto strike and the growing pains and stresses of the EVAs.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from Europe's Anti-Bitcoin Bill Reveals Plan to Stop Adoption | EP 829
"It's all going to zero against bitcoin it's going up for ever more you're against bitcoin you're against freedom yo welcome to simp with bitcoin live we're the number one source for the peaceful bitcoin revolution we will be your guide through the separation of money and state speaking of the separation of money and state interesting news coming out of Europe kind of not as bad as the proposed bill by Elizabeth Warren that we covered on one of simply bitcoins simply bitcoin lives episode this week but it's something very similar right this idea that every single transaction needs to be KY seed right and then I think that will inevitably lead to the any host unhosted wallet needs to be KY seed all right the the wording specifically in the Elizabeth Warren bill included any minor any validator any software wallet so you know it's just of course the powers that be that tremendously benefit from having a monopoly on the creation of money having controls on money of course to benefit themselves of course they're not going to be okay with this and this was the theory that was originally you know put out back in the 90s in the book the sovereign individual I'm going to read you guys a passage from that book because I think it correctly predicted exactly the reactions from governments I don't think governments have been able to they're not used to this environment where they have competition and most importantly not only do they have competition but they can't shut down the competition right because we remember we saw Facebook try to launch their own you know digital currency and they got shut down real quick the thing with Bitcoin right and Bitcoin only right because aetherium is inherently centralized meaning it will inevitably be co -opted so they have no choice but to ally with the state and they were in order to survive but with Bitcoin can't be stopped and because it can't be stopped it creates a forcing function in the long term as more and more individuals choose to opt out of inflationary money into deflationary money so yes of course times are changing but it's not only on the money front right we're not only living through the disintermediation of money but we're also living through the disintermediation of information and yesterday was a historic day I've never seen this in my life the UK Parliament sent Russell Brand an extremely popular independent content creator a letter to rumble we love rumble by the way we're on there subscribe to us on there and shout out to our rumble audience as well it's been growing by the day so we appreciate you all they sent a letter to rumble asking rumble to demonetize Russell Brand like YouTube did so we have governments that are directly asking platforms to demonetize content creators of which they don't did they don't agree with that is absolutely absurd and these are the same governments that want you to trust them with central bank digital currencies if they had central bank digital currencies in place they wouldn't even have to ask the platforms they could just flick the switch themselves so when we say Bitcoin or slavery or how beauty on said it and I'm starting to lean this way to Bitcoin or death we are not exaggerating and you have to choose what world do you want to live in in the future and most importantly what world do you want the future generations your children your children's children to live in so it's gonna be a great episode I'm really looking forward to it you have to stay on top of what's going on anyways we also we also have a very special treat for you guys we have the head of customer experience from foundation devices the maker of the passport hardware wallet and he's gonna do a live demo for us during the culture cement segment so I'm really really pumped about that let me bring up let me bring him up on stage Bitcoin Q &A you're quite well known on Bitcoin Twitter as well how you doing buddy yeah doing very well thank you very much for having me I'm psyched to shoot the shit with you guys this evening well even in my time but yeah certainly some interesting goings on especially around the Russell brand thing so I'm sure we'll be able to share some insights on that one but not a good look yeah I completely agree man it's it's some some interesting times we are living through people some people call it the fourth turning I don't know man but the phrase that sticks with me the most is weak men create hard times hard times create strong men strong strong men create good times we're definitely going through this era and then I think it was actually Vladimir Lenin that said the very very famous quote right where there are decades that nothing happened and then there are weeks that decades happen I think we're definitely living through this moment of time anyways no more delay let's bring up my legendary co -host not optimistic today no smile oh there's this smile sorry I was caught reading the channels optimistic fields how you doing bro well I am doing wonderful and I'm actually really excited for this culture segment today guys I got a sneak peek of the demo that we're going to see and I think there's gonna be awesome this might be a simply Bitcoin first for the live show but to the news stories and stuff it really just goes to show that if you speak the truth you are the enemy of the state and I think more and more and more people are waking up to this because they either continue to de -platform you from your banks or de -platform you from social media for saying what they don't want to be said you know for saying the quiet part out loud and you know this is why we do our show in a very particular way so that we can survive on YouTube but man it really just goes to show that the powers that be are completely terrified of people talking about the truth hence why you guys need to talk about it more and continue to spread that signal but it just goes to show that this is the the last I don't know the last gasp of the great Leviathan you know what's them saying like darker before the dawn like this is their last grasping at straws to control the truth and and I mean I've been saying for a while I think the monopoly on truth is slowly and dwindling they're going to try to make examples of this so you know just be prepared we know what's coming so protect yourselves protect your family and continue to spread the Bitcoin truth the Bitcoin signal actually just truth with a capital T I suppose anyways Niko let's let's get into this one let's get into this one let's get into the show man I'm really really excited alright guys let's get to the numbers we have a lot to talk about today and I'm super is your Bitcoin in cold storage really secure is your seed phrase really secure stamp seeds do -it -yourself kit has everything you need to hammer your seed words into commercial grade titanium plates instead of just writing them on paper don't store your generational wealth on paper papers prone to water damage fire damage you want to put your generational wealth on one of the strongest metals on planet earth titanium your words are actually stamped into this metal plate with this hammer and these letter stamps and once your words are in they aren't going anywhere no risk of the plate breaking apart and pieces falling everywhere titanium stamped seeds will survive nearly triple the heat produced by a house fire they're also crush proof waterproof non -corrosive and time proof all things that paper is not allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin with peace of mind for the long haul stamp your seed on stamp seed alright guys I literally made it super easy for you guys you can scan the QR code on your screen it will take you directly to stamp seed website you can get you could store your generational wealth on titanium so you don't have to explain to your children why you lost your Bitcoin because you stored it on paper you can use promo code simply get 15 % off anything on the stamp seed website at the time of recording the Bitcoin price is twenty six thousand five hundred and seventy sats per dollar three thousand seven hundred sixty four block height eight hundred eight thousand seven hundred twenty nine blocks to having thirty one thousand two hundred seventy one having estimate April 21st 2024 total lightning network capacity four thousand eight hundred fifty five Bitcoin capacity value one hundred twenty nine million US dollars realized monetary inflation one point seven five percent the market capitalization of Bitcoin currently sitting at five hundred and seventeen billion dollars Bitcoin versus gold market cap four point zero one percent in the grand scheme of things Bitcoin is still a baby if Bitcoin reaches not if when Bitcoin reaches the gold market cap that is five hundred thousand dollars per coin and I think that's just getting started anyways we played you guys a video yesterday of a member of the United Nations talking about how we are in an information war we played you guys the video and she was basically recommending that that that they no longer have people to call on on Twitter to censor information she was also saying how there's an army of people that are propagating United Nations approved information well you know she's she's talking about as if the information that's coming out of the United Nations is a matter of fact right she's talking about the problem of disinformation disinformation well my question to you guys is who gets to decide what is disinformation and what is information right well we advocate for on simply Bitcoin is individuals not central planners not governments using their own critical thinking abilities right to dictate okay this is a good idea this is a bad idea right this is how the American this how the American Constitution it's literally written like that that there's a reason that the First Amendment is the way it is right the government or Congress should make no law you know basically censoring or stopping the freedom of the speech of people right and they made it that way for a reason because if there is a central authority if there's a government that gets to dictate what information is true what information is not true history has shown that they'll use that power to protect their own political mode right so thank God for the internet thank God for technologies like Bitcoin thank God for technologies like Noster for example they can't do this anymore and because they're not able to do that they're freaking out number one and number two and number two it becomes a forcing function over a long period of time but that doesn't stop them from trying here is the former New Zealand Prime Minister at the United Nations saying that that words are weapons of war right weapons of war if so if you say something against the government that all of a sudden becomes a weapon of war and again this has escalated it is escalated to the point where the UK Parliament has asked rumble to demonetize Russell Brand who's a very popular content creator who goes against the legacy corporate media's narratives right and it kind of embarrasses them so what are they doing they're attacking his money they're saying rumble okay they can't they've tried to deplatform people before they've gotten a lot of pushback so what they do instead is that they attack his pocketbook obviously YouTube complied they demonetize Russell Brand's content but rumble said no we're not doing that so love that of rumble we're on rumble we support rumble that's awesome but another thing that I want to say is that the allegations against rubble Russell Brand are just that they are allegations they have not been proven so something that has not been proven is a justification to shut off someone's living that is insane anyways let's check out this letter and this is a letter by part by the UK Parliament the specifically the cultural culture media and sport committee to the CEO of rumble Chris Palavoski who says dear Chris I'm writing concerning the serious allegations regarding Russell Brand in the context of of his being a content provider on rumble for more than 1 .4 million followers the cultural the culture media and sports committee is raising questions with the broadcasters and production companies who previously employed mr. brand to examine both the culture of the industry in the past and whether that culture still prevails today however we are also looking at his use of social media including on rumble where he issued his preemptive response to the accusations made against him by the Sunday Times and Channel 4 his dispatches while we recognize that rumble is not the creator of the content published published by mr. brand we are concerned that he may be able to profit from his content on the platform did you hear what they said the government is concerned that Russell Brand might be able to profit from his content because there was some allegations made against him conveniently a lot of Russell Brand's content is criticisms of the government so I mean big coincidence I guess you would you could say we would be grateful if you could confirm whether mr. brand is able to monetize his content including his videos relating to the serious accusations against him is so we would like to know whether rumble intends to join ryu tube in suspending mr. brand's ability to earn money on the platform we would also like to know what rumble is doing to ensure that creators are not able to use the platform to undermine to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potential potentially illegal behavior so they asked rumble to demonetize a content creator an independent content creator that's the key word when we had Parker Lewis on the show and I was talking about the legacy corporate media he didn't say no Nico it's not the legacy corporate media it's the legacy government media so anyways why is this happening I think Jeff Booth said this perfectly we read this to you guys the other day and this all boils down to the money this is why we say as Bitcoiners fix the money fix the world here's Jeff Booth he says because broken money Elon Musk said how did most of the legacy media go from superheroes of free speech to supervillains of speech suppression and Jeff Booth says because broken money ensures the centralization of power by stealing the productivity through inflation that should flow to society in the form of lower prices then those enriched by that theft and subsequent power must control the messaging to keep it but it all it wasn't only Jeff Booth that said this here's an article from our friends over at Bitcoin magazine of nine Bukele the president of the country shining on the hill the Savior El Salvador the first country that made Bitcoin legal tender the beachhead for the Bitcoin movement around the world he goes on to say the most vocal detractors the ones who are afraid and pressuring us to reverse our decision are the world's most powerful elites and the people who work or benefit from them they used to own everything and in a way they still do the media the banks the NGOs international organizations and almost all the governments and corporations in the world and with that of course they own the armies the loans the money supply the credit ratings the narrative the propaganda the factories of food supply they control international trade and international law but their most powerful weapon is their control of the truth and they're willing to fight lie smear destroy confiscate print and do whatever it takes to maintain and increase their control over the truth and everything and everyone I think come from Nico or simply Bitcoin that came from the president of El Salvador name Bukele so what is happening here two things are happening here thing number one the internet has empowered individuals and those individuals can now use the internet to uh to grow these massive platforms themselves and because they're individuals they're a lot harder to co -opt and at the same time we are witnessing the distance remediation of money that internet has allowed Bitcoin and Bitcoin has empowered individuals to choose their own money too so government states NGOs international institutions right that have had this privilege of having not only having the monopoly in the control over money but also the monopoly in the control over information it's quickly diminishing in front of their eyes and of course that system is fighting back they can't take that they've been used to operating in a system where they've been able to control the narrative they've been able to control the truth and that is slipping through their fingers and they don't know what to do and that's why they're short -circuiting the way they are that's why we've gotten to a point where the UK Parliament is literally asking a platform to D monetize an independent content creator not to mention all the stuff that was revealed during the Twitter files where it was exposed that the US government even though that is explicitly against the US Constitution the government should not be censoring speech was asking Twitter to D platform D boost and censor certain speech and these are the same governments that also want you to trust them with central bank digital currencies and they expect you to believe that they're not going to use central bank digital currencies as a weapon as a forcing function in order to control your actions as a individual and this was all predicted I might add in the book the sovereign individual which we'll get to during the new segment but this is some crazy times now what can you do to protect yourself in this particular situation do your own research pick what information sources you choose you you want to choose I love Twitter because it's like a news aggregator and the the news that you know pops up pops up Noster is a great platform rumbles a great platform YouTube is is good to do your own research don't rely on a single information source and then most importantly the most empowering thing you could do is to opt out of state money opt into Bitcoin I think that's the most powerful thing you could do look the most important the most important vote you can make that voting for a Democrat or Republican it's not to say that it's not important to vote but the most powerful vote that you can do that will actually change things is voting with your wallet opt out and the way that you do that is you buy Bitcoin earn Bitcoin mine Bitcoin and take that said Bitcoin into self custody the moment you do that you're part of the peaceful Bitcoin revolution whether you are aware of it or not and that is how we win if enough people take self custody we win and there's nothing they could do about it speaking of self custody we have the head of customer experience with us today Bitcoin QA and you guys make it super fucking easy to take self custody with the hardware wallet that you guys make and not to mention the awesome application that you guys make so Bitcoin QA what's your take on this whole Russell brand stuff I can't believe we've reached this point if I would have been told this five five six years ago I would have said that's impossible there's no way that's that that's so ridiculous what's your take on all this yeah before I enter you I've just got to say that was one hell of a fucking monologue I take my half to you that was fantastic yeah kudos and yeah the whole Russell brand thing man just completely shocking another example yet another example of government overreach Russell brands been a thorn in the side of the UK government if you can't tell by the action by the way to anybody's listening that I'm from the UK and he's been a thorn in their side for years and he's a very well educated man he's very well spoken and he has drawn a lot of following by speaking out against money printing against government policy he was rabid about the whole covert thing pharmaceuticals getting rich because of you know yeah you know all of the corruption that went on over those couple of years and I see this recent letter as that them seeing the opportunity as they're into trying you know get one back on him you've touched on earlier that the fact that all of these are just allegations at the moment and the fact that they're going around trying to take money off him from you know he's not been convicted of anything at all that's not see won't be but right now they're just allegations and they're trying to take his money off him it's just completely shocking and they're just trying to lash out because he's been a pain in their ass royally for years so yeah I mean they're just they're just overreaching and leveraging their powers wherever they can just to kind of deep platform and then hurt his wallet as well unfortunately yeah 100 % they attack his money they attack and again like they attack his money and they're also like hey guys these CBDCs like we'll respect your privacy you could trust us what are you talking about anyways Opti what's your take well I actually I kind of want to ask Q &A question because there is some talk about this in the chat what's your thoughts on Russell Brand being like controlled demolition Q &A whoo how do you mean like basically that this is like an orchestrated attack you know once everyone's talking about this maybe Russell Brand isn't necessarily as much of a truth speaker as people are making him out to be like does he actually believe what he's saying or is this just kind of one of those things where you know you create a figure and then you kind of tear him down to discredit the whole movement in general the whole truth movement yeah possibly I think I think most of what he says is genuine he before he started doing all of the YouTube stuff like he was he was a you know some form of a celebrity he had a big following and could have monetized himself as a product in many many other ways by coming out and being as outspoken as he has against the the prickly topics of like money printing and you know COVID etc he must have known you know he's smart enough to know that would have been incredibly divisive to people that followed him so I lean towards the fact that he's genuine and the fact that they're probably gonna try and use him as a scapegoat to warn ward off other people that kind of speak out against any government policy etc etc yeah I'd agree I mean like especially considering what his status was it's hard to follow the incentives and be like yeah he's got a lot to gain from this when in reality he's on the verge of losing everything so I'd agree with you and then just kind of going back to the beginning of this rant and and people are saying epic daily Nico Jones rant today so good job Nico I like when Nico gets get animated remember growing up guys when I grew up I had a saying and I'm sure your mother told it to you as well and we all probably said it in kindergarten you know sticks and stones but words may never hurt me and now we grow up in a world where words are violence like what is going on guys and that's a convenient it's a convenient way I know Nico I was getting there I'm asking rhetorical questions on the show now okay I'm learning some Nico Jones tactics but as we know guys as we know guys you know if you can stop words from being said then you can stop thought and if you can stop thought then you can ultimately stop behavior and this is where they're going they want to ensure that you guys sell censors so that you guys don't lose everything and this is where we are guys that they are absolutely afraid of people speaking the truth they're absolutely afraid of the average person waking up and exposing all of their lives because that's all they have they have lies and favors and they have the monopoly on truth as we think now is more important than ever to speak your minds to make sure you're having these conversations to as the saying goes you know speak truth to power and all that good stuff because there's been a constant theme throughout 2023 or actually rather since 2020 basically is that if your voice is too big and you talk against the establishment then the powers that be will do anything they can to put you back in line and whether that means you know breaking your reputation taking all your money dragging you through the court of public opinion we know what their tactics are and if you're following along closely then you know what the playbook is and it's almost like they're doing the same thing over and over and over again but I think the silver lining of this is that it seems like their playbook isn't working as well as it used to which in some sense should be absolutely terrifying because then they're going to go to even more extremes and you know I'm not gonna say what everyone's thinking but it's gonna get crazy guys and so I think it's just becoming very very clear that as an individual just even a normal person that doesn't have a platform like you want to do whatever you can in your power to protect yourself and hence why we always say that it always boils down to the money guys so protect your money protect your livelihood by taking your Bitcoin into self -custody by saving in Bitcoin and because remember guys this is always about theft they want to take your wealth and put you back in your place and then distribute it and make everyone feel good and we're seeing this happen in real time and it isn't lost on me that this is done via a letter you know it's just like hey how nefarious can a letter be but if you're reading in between the lines then you know how nefarious this letter actually is and that this is a coordinated attack on someone that's talking against the establishment and if people like Russell Brand you know say what you want about him but if people like him can't speak about the truth and they also get run through the grinder like imagine what would happen to an average individual like there's no hope for us if people of that stature can't talk about what's actually going on in the world and hence why it's so important to continue to double down on independent content creation spreading the truth talking about all this stuff because this is all we have we have the truth on our side and as the saying goes you know the truth will set us free so just just don't be afraid you know be brave but also be smart out there and the best thing you can do is just protect yourself and protect your money protect your family and I think as more people do this then the world will slowly but surely start to fix itself anyways you know amen we'll see what happens amen preach brother all right everybody let's get to the news we got a lot to talk about today let's check it out no no no no no no before we do that before we do that I have to give a shout out to our awesome sponsor Bitcoin 2024 it's gonna be the largest Bitcoin conference on planet earth it's gonna be in Nashville Tennessee it's not gonna be in Miami this year July 25th through the 27th 2024 you definitely want to get your tickets quickly before the prices go up for a GA it's 349 for an industry pass it's 849 for a whale pass it's four thousand seven hundred forty nine Opti and I are gonna be there it's gonna be awesome check out Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville Tennessee the year of the having Opti and I are gonna be there some other simply Bitcoin members are gonna be there it's gonna be awesome use promo code simply to get a 10 % discount on the already discounted tickets to Bitcoin 2024 all right now let's hit the news the daily news I want to give a shout out to our sponsor foundation devices it's self -custody done right they built a premium grade hardware wallet called passport right here in the u .s.
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
A highlight from News Block: Bitcoin Outperforms Other Assets, FTX's SBF Jury Questions, Binance vs SEC, Anti-CBDC Bill, Grocery Inflation
"Welcome to the CoinStories news block. I'm Nathalie Brunel and in the span of just 10 minutes, roughly the same time it takes to mine a new Bitcoin block, I'll provide you with concise, insightful updates on Bitcoin and the global financial landscape so you're well informed on the week's top stories. Everything you need to know in one place in one block. Let's go. Bitcoin started the week with a nice little green candle. But zooming out, Bitcoin is officially the best performing asset class in seven of the last 10 years. That's according to data shared by market strategist Charlie Bilello. Between 2011 and 2023, Bitcoin's annualized return was about 145 percent. Compare that to the Nasdaq 100 index at 17 percent, the S &P 500 at 12 .5 percent and gold at just 2 percent. Sorry, Peter Schiff. And for those lucky enough to buy Bitcoin in 2011 and hold, their cumulative return exceeds 8 million percent. Wish that was me. More institutions are eyeing a spot Bitcoin ETF, the latest being Franklin Templeton, another giant asset manager with 1 .5 trillion dollars in assets under management. Franklin Templeton's application joins BlackRock, Fidelity, ARK Invest and several others. As I've reported here on the news block, a spot Bitcoin ETF would make getting exposure to Bitcoin as easy as buying any other stock or bond in a traditional brokerage account. It would increase access to Bitcoin and make it easier for funds to flow into the space. But of course, that's dependent on approval from the SEC, led by Chairman Gary Gensler. The SEC's main complaint for why it has rejected spot Bitcoin ETF applications is market manipulation and fraud. In a Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs hearing last week, Gensler answered questions related to the SEC's oversight of the entire crypto industry. Gensler testified, quote, given this industry's wide ranging noncompliance with the securities laws, it's not surprising that we've seen many problems in these markets. Thus, we have brought a number of enforcement actions, some settled and some in litigation, to hold wrongdoers accountable and promote investor protection. Gensler is continuing to hold the court decisions for him in the SEC's lawsuits against Grayscale and Ripple Labs. And when pressed in the hearing about how the SEC will protect investors from crypto fraud, Gensler responded by saying these companies need to be compliant with existing securities laws, adding this. But right now, unfortunately, there's significant noncompliance and it's a field which is rife with fraud, abuse and misconduct. We saw some of that fraud and misconduct with the high profile downfall of FTX. FTX founder Sam Bankman -Fried's case is set to go to trial October 3rd. But this week, a story gaining attention is related to the proposed questions SPF's lawyers want to send to potential jurors. And prosecutors are trying to stop this. The would attribute a crypto firm's failures to the owner of the firm and why, and whether they think it's wrong to donate large sums to political candidates and lobbyists. Another question was about SPF's effective altruism, the idea that he only wanted to amass wealth to give it away and improve the world. And yet another was about whether the juror had experience with people with the medical condition ADHD. Now, the DOJ's prosecutors are worried these questions are aimed at getting jurors that would see SPF in a sympathetic light and have written a letter to the judge to remove these questions entirely. SPF faces more than 100 years in prison if convicted of a number of charges, including fraud, conspiracy and money laundering after he allegedly stole and lost billions of his customers' funds. Meanwhile, Binance, another exchange in hot water with the SEC, also made headlines this night, including the CEO, the head of legal and the chief risk officer. Binance US has also cut a third of its staff. Binance issued a statement blaming, quote, the SEC's aggressive attempts to cripple our industry. Now, the layoffs arrived just as the SEC is accusing Binance of not cooperating with its ongoing investigation. The SEC says Binance US has failed to hand over proper documents that ensure that its customer assets are safe and in sole control of the organization. The recent resignations of Binance US leadership, including CEO Brian Schroeder, only added to the growing concerns. Binance CEO CZ responded saying, quote, there has been some speculation regarding recent management changes at Binance US. Brian Schroeder deserved a break after accomplishing what he set out to do two years ago. Ignore FUD. Keep building. Binance makes up about half of Bitcoin's trading volume, so the government complaints and investigations could delay any spot Bitcoin ETFs from being approved. So I'll be staying on top of this developing story. Now, in other news, in an industry first, Swann Bitcoin announced its plans to launch a Bitcoin only trust company with crypto custodian BitGo. This comes after Swann's former custodian Prime Trust filed for bankruptcy in August, and its current custodian partner, Fortress Trust, was acquired by Ripple Labs. The creation of a Bitcoin only trust company is a positive development given the risks that we've seen arise when custodians hold other cryptocurrencies or do business with companies that handle them. Let's turn now to a bill reintroduced by House Republicans that would outlaw a central bank digital currency or a CBDC. Last week, Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, along with forty nine co -sponsors, reintroduced the CBDC Anti -Surveillance Act. The bill aims to prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a digital dollar due to the risk it imposes to privacy and individual freedoms. Tom Emmer tweeted, quote, if not designed to emulate cash, a government digital currency would dismantle Americans' right to financial privacy and embolden the administrative state. I won't let that happen. Specifically, the updated bill prevents the Federal Reserve from issuing a, quote, intermediated CBDC, which would be a digital currency issued by the Fed but managed by retail banks. This is a similar system to what's currently being deployed by China with its digital won. Congressman Emmer adds that this bill puts a check on unelected bureaucrats and ensures the U .S. digital currency policy upholds our American values of privacy, individual sovereignty and free market competitiveness. Whereas Republicans are focused on stopping a CBDC, the Fed is only concerned about bringing down inflation. But this past month, inflation was on the rise again. CPI rose to three point seven in July, and that's mainly driven by rising energy and food prices. But don't worry, economist Paul Krugman, the guy who famously said the Internet was a passing fad, notes that if you exclude everything people actually need, like food, energy, shelter and used cars, inflation is actually down. But here in the real world, people continue to struggle with the rising cost of essentials like groceries and gasoline. And instead of taking responsibility for their inflationary policies, some politicians are identifying scapegoats for the rising cost of living. In a speech last week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed grocery stores for price rises and said the companies could be hit with new taxes if they do not take steps to control food prices. And let me be very clear. If their plant doesn't provide real relief for the middle class and people working hard to join it, then we will take further action and we are not ruling anything out, including tax measures. Leaders of the Canadian grocery store chains responded by saying they are not profiting from inflation because although prices have risen, so have their costs. Grocery store profit margins remain razor thin. In fact, the CEO of one major Canadian grocery chain, Loblo's, said that on a customer's $25 grocery basket, they earn just $1 in profit. Performing price controls or taxing these companies would only negatively impact the available supply of food even more and risk putting these grocers out of business. But once again, government policies are threatening to worsen the problem they helped create in the first place. This is true in America, too. Grocery store profit margins remain some of the lowest in the economy, averaging about 1 to 3 percent. Some grocery stores are struggling to keep their doors open here, especially in big cities amid massive waves of theft. This has even led to cities like Chicago proposing to open government -run grocery stores. Will this help the inflation picture? Doubtful. Of course, inflation isn't the result of grocery stores profiteering. It's the result of central banks and governments injecting trillions of dollars into the economy since 2020. As politicians continue to blame inflation on everything but their spending and central banks continue to raise interest rates to try to bring it down, inflation continues to erode the savings of every household holding the currencies that these institutions manage and control. Bitcoin fixes this. All right, let's wrap up this news block with the craziest Bitcoin headline of the week. It was reported that Paxos accidentally paid more than $500 ,000, that's more than 19 Bitcoin, in a transaction fee. Bitcoin fees are up in 2023, but not by that much. Now, the good news is the mining pool that won that block is going to refund that payment to Paxos. That's got to be a relief. If you want to learn more about Bitcoin fees, full blocks, and what Bitcoin block scarcity means for your investment, don't miss my latest Coin Stories episode with Bitcoin miner Bob Burnett. That's it for the news block, your weekly Bitcoin and economic news update. I'm Nathalie Brunel. Make sure you're subscribed to Coin Stories so you never miss an episode. This show is for educational purposes and should not be construed as investment advice. Until next time, keep stacking.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Missions and Evangelism 101: The "What"
"Word of God. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him, and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast, for we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Thus far the reading of God's Word, brothers and sisters in Christ, you probably know that the word gospel means good news. You, most of you probably know this. When this concept is used in the Bible, it speaks of the proclamation that whatever was wrong has now been made right. And just a very brief survey of this in the Old Testament, perhaps the most famous passage and well -known passage for the concept of the gospel is found in Isaiah 52 verse 7. It goes like this, how beautiful upon the mountains, now keep a, put a pause on that phrase right there, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who says to Zion your God reigns. It's upon the mountains. You get this picture that's there that the runner is taking his position on perhaps the tallest peak of whatever mountain is around Jerusalem and he's shouting to everybody your God reigns. In other words it's a very public thing. It's not a private thing. It has to do there with the announcement that the exiles are returned from captivity. Yay! It's a very public thing. He's got thousands of people right there right behind him or a couple hours they're gonna storm your city and it's a good thing. This is how we know that your God reigns. In the time of the New Testament it refers to a person who was designated to run or sail in front of an army that just won the battle against the enemy. And the guy would call out to the city in very similar terms, we've won! I don't know if he would fist pump or anything like that but this person who would bring good news, he was referred to in the New Testament times as an evangelist, the one who brings good news. He would bring good news of victory for the good guys, good news of defeat for the bad guys and there'd be this kind of nonverbal understanding that everybody okay if you're not a part of that city if you're not a part of that country there would be this nonverbal understanding that y 'all better get your act together right and get in line with this king who just won this victory. This message of victory would then bring confidence that you belong to the right king and he can defend you and he can fight your battles for you. I mean what a good news, what a sense of confidence that you would have in your king who just fought for you. We've been thinking about how the church heralds this gospel of Jesus Christ for a number of weeks now largely because of the Boardwalk Chapel trip and if you were here last week you kind of got a little snippet of what our students did out there. They sang the gospel, we showed a little program of a little bit of what we do there with singing of the gospel, they did skits that are based upon the gospel, you've seen how they've evangelized to me, even as I played the role of someone who they, an average person who they would normally find out in the boards and stuff like that, and how they led me to Christ. This is something of the product of what we've been meditating on for a bit now. Firstly we've seen the why of missions and evangelism. Why is it that we do missions and evangelism in the first place? We saw firstly that that it has to do with the mission itself. We also saw that it has to do with, which by the way the mission as we saw in Ephesians 1, it begins firstly primarily in the mind of God. Okay and then moving out a little bit farther we've seen this because of the mandate that that we have and the means that we have in order to do it. And then we moved on to think of the how of missions and evangelism, just how is it that this is to be done? Well we're to do it with confidence, with readiness and joy. Oh tonight we're going to be looking at the what of missions and evangelism, particularly evangelism for us. In other words okay pastor I get I get it. I get the philosophy of it. I get the theology behind it. I understand kind of the head knowledge that the conversion of the sinner is on God's terms and it's according to God's provision. It's according to his means. Okay I get I get this. And I also get the sociology. I also get the psychology of that it that I need to be confident. I need to be sure in the success of God's plan that I should be ready, that I should be joyful in doing this. Okay I get that. But what do I say? What is it that that I say or what are the basic kind of basal concepts that are in that that should be in my mind to inform me or kind of orient me towards evangelistic activity? Just what do I do? What do I say? Well that'll be on tonight's agenda. The what of missions and evangelism. And there's many ways to do this, many programs available. I suppose you could get kind of just pick one that suits you best. But what we'll be doing just tonight is to survey the most basic, the three most basic concepts that should be on your mind in the work of evangelism particularly. Firstly as it is written in your bulletin, the power of the law. Secondly the problem of the heart. And then thirdly the provision of the gospel. And to start our first point I want us I want to emphasize something to you. Take a look again at Ephesians chapter 2. I want to overemphasize this to you that Ephesians chapter 2 is my personal go -to location for whenever I share the gospel or whenever I have to think about something with a gospel lens. Ephesians 2 is my go -to. This is perhaps my number one passage that I most often go to for all things gospel related. So if you want to put a star on this page or perhaps put a perpetual bookmark here or whatever you will be very well served in knowing this passage, knowing the address of this passage. I've turned to this passage many times on many occasions with all manner of people coming from all kinds of backgrounds. Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, so -called progressive Christians, many many others. I found that this passage at least for me most sufficiently expresses the end the essence of the gospel. I've also found that it handles a lot of errors and misunderstandings about the gospel as well. We can say that Ephesians chapter 2, this passage that we just read out of just a second ago, gives us a fulsome and yet digestible survey of the entirety of the Christian experience which makes this passage fit the book of Ephesians rather well actually might I say. It fits the book of Ephesians as a whole very very well. This book, mind you, doesn't have a specified reason for it being written. It's about the basics of the Christian life and our unity with with Christ, our union with Christ, and our unity with one another. And so this passage fits this book very well. So all that to say that I highly commend to you this passage for your reference. There's other passages like this but please have this very passage for your quick reference memory. But for the power of the law, we're looking at the power of the law right now, we come to Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1, our passage which says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Well the first order of business in terms of the what of evangelism, at least when I do it, is the exposure of a life that's lived in defiance of God. You got to expose, we got to expose a life that is lived in defiance of God. In other words, we start with what's most obvious, that there are trespasses and sins in which the unconverted currently walk and by which they are characterized. They're known in the Bible as those who commit trespasses, those who commit sins. Now the technical difference, mind you, between trespasses and sins is something of the knowledge and their wilfulness. A sin in the Bible is a missing of a target, that's what a sin is. It's when someone tries to do the right thing but can't quite get there because of some default, they fall short of what they're supposed to do, they fall short of the glory of God, they fall short of what they're striving for, it's a missing of the target. A trespass on the other hand is an overstepping of a known boundary, it's an overstepping of a known boundary. It's an awareness that something is right and yet they want to do whatever is opposed to it anyways and they end up doing that. In short, technically, sins are when people don't do what they're supposed to do and trespasses are when people do what they're not supposed to do. Now the authors of the Bible don't always bring this distinction out all the time, mainly because they're making other points. I'm thinking of 1st John 3 verse 4. John there says sin is transgression of the law, he doesn't make that distinction as apparent right there as Paul does in this this passage. He's making another point in that very passage but here in our passage Paul highlights the relationship between the two. Now the big question that underlies this very passage is the question, what determines sin? What determines sin? How do you know what constitutes a transgression? And this is where the power of the law comes in really handy. Just as in verse 2 you see you're following the course of this of this world, the spirit is now at work and the sons of disobedience. Just as disobedience can only rightly be demarcated by whatever obedience looks like, sins can only be known in reference to the law of God, specifically in the Ten Commandments. Okay, sins can only be known in reference to the law of God, particularly in the Ten Commandments. So what we have here is that any lack of conformity unto or transgression of the law means that something is sinful. And so how do you apply this to evangelism? Well we start with the power of the law that exposes sin. Usually I say something like this to someone, have you ever lied? It's a very cut -and -dry sort of question, have you both have told lies before? Okay, have you ever hated someone? Matthew chapter 2 chapter 5 verse 22, Jesus says that if you've hated anyone, as a matter of fact if you've even called them a fool, you've committed murder in the eyes of God. So we've lied, we've also committed murder in God's eyes. Have you ever used God's name in vain? God calls that blasphemy, right? So we've lied, even if it's a if the of use the name of God as something that's a throwaway statement. That's tantamount to blasphemy. It's taking the name of God in vain in the Hebrew literally means as though it were nothing. It were a thing of vanity. It's just like anything else. So using the name of God as a throwaway term, which our culture is very, it's a very popular thing to do nowadays, that's the essence of breaking that commandment to take the name of God, to not take the name of God in vain. That's called blasphemy. So we've lied, we've murdered, we've committed blasphemy in God's eyes, and we could keep going I suppose in order to show that we've done all manner of things according to the Ten Commandments. We've committed adultery, we've coveted, we violated the Sabbath, we've dishonored our parents and so on. The law of God is able to expose sins for exactly what they are. Now this is a tactic that I do. I kind of hang out there for a little bit, okay. I kind of hang out there for a little bit in order to drive the sentence of guilt to their hearts from the from the mouth of God himself, from the very law of God. I kind of hang out there in order so that they they know they come into personal contact with the sins that they've committed. So the law therefore is a base indicator that kind of equalizes everyone out and determines that all people everywhere have sinned, all people everywhere have transgressed the law of God, and all people everywhere are in need of grace and mercy. This is where you start with the power of the law. Secondly we move on to the next related point, the problem of the heart. Verse 3, here we see something of a progression of sorts. It continues from the previous verse where we read of the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. In the last couple of verses that that we considered understand we that the law of God has the ability to call sin exactly what it is. The law of God has the power to call sin, sin. Therefore we know that our actions are sinful in some way. In other words we've either not lived up to the commands of God or we've willfully broken it. However I want you to see that there's a progression here in that verse 3 diagnoses the reason why we've acted in disobedience it's because it's what comes most natural to us. And the reason why it's most natural to us is because there is a problem with our hearts. That's the reason. There's a problem with our hearts, the innermost aspects of our being. God doesn't merely recognize us outside of Christ as quote people who commit trespasses and sins, right? Even particular ones. As much as he recognizes those outside of Christ as sinners, transgressors. In other words as Saint Augustine says we don't we're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. Again we don't sin I'm we're sinners. In my version of it sin indicates that someone is a sinner. It's far worse to be a sinner than it is to have committed sin in God's eyes. And we can see this in our passage here. Namely that we all as the passage says once lived in the passions of our flesh. Now that doesn't mean that you know the body is a bad thing or you know to have a desire is is a bad thing or something like like that. He means when he says this this phrase he means that the passions of our flesh stand in stark contrast to the will of God. And it's the passions of our flesh that produce the transgressions and the sins in which we once walked. In other words the corruption of the heart is the very standpoint from which all actual sins take place. Most commonly we refer to this as original sin which is the problem of the heart. Original sin is the problem of the heart. That is we inherit or we are imputed with as the theological term the guilt and the corruption of Adam's first sin to us. His sin nature becomes ours by being from Adam's line under his headship. And this means that when we sin we sin out of our own sin nature. Again original sin is the position of the heart. It is the problem of the heart that all of us had which affects all aspects of all of our being. I say I usually say this that that sins are not as great as sin is. And this forms for us mind you one of the strongest standpoints that again flattens the whole of humanity out so that every single one of us are in one box. Makes really it makes things very convenient that sins the sins that are pointed out by the law of God indicates that we are sinners. The problem has never been any one sin. The problem has never been any one transgression that has kept us from the grace of God. It's our whole sinful nature that is itself the problem. And so long as the sin nature is there as long as verse 3 says as long as we are by nature children of identifies us as rebels and therefore we're we become worthy recipients of his wrath and curse. So how do I bring this to people? I'm glad you asked. How do we know what do we say? I begin something by saying yes if you've lied you've stolen you've blasphemed in God's eyes you've murdered you probably have done a lot more things and you've most likely done them knowing that they're wrong. You know why that is? You know why you've acted in this way? You know why you have done this? It's because that you have a heart that produces wickedness. Jesus says in Mark chapter 7 verse 21 out of the heart comes evil thoughts out of the heart comes sexual immorality theft murder adultery coveting wickedness deceit sensuality envy slander pride foolishness all these things come from within and they defile a person.
The Crypto Overnighter
A highlight from 672:North Koreas Russian Crypto Strategy & Indias Dollar Rejection
"Why do tacos get their own day of the week? Is it because Mondays are so rough, we need a Tuesday filled with beefy tortillas shared with good friends? If so, why don't we have Wellington Wednesdays stroganoff Saturdays, and heck, beefball Mondays? Then Mondays would just be another reason to enjoy our favorite beef with our favorite people. Together, we bring more. Beef. It's what's for dinner. Funded by beef farmers and ranchers. Good evening, and welcome to the Crypto Overnighter. I'm Nick Ademus, and I will be your host as we take a look at the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis. So sit back, relax, and let's get started. And remember, none of this is financial advice. And it's 10pm Pacific on Sunday, September 17th, 2023. Welcome back to the Crypto Overnighter, where we have no sponsors, no hidden agendas, and no BS. But we do have the news, so let's talk about that. Tonight we're diving into North Korea's cozy relationship with Russian crypto exchanges. Are they laundering money, or is it something far more sinister? We'll also look at India's ambitious plans to cut the dollar out of its trade equation. What does this mean for the future of fiat, and how might it impact the crypto landscape? Then we'll discuss the Hong Kong Monetary Authority's stern warning to crypto firms misusing the term bank. And don't think we're ignoring the bankruptcy saga of FTX and their reopened claims portal. Last but not least, some big names weigh in on the future of fiat and crypto. Fasten your seatbelts, it's gonna be a ride. Hacking groups linked to North Korea are increasingly using Russian exchanges to launder stolen cryptocurrency. Chainalysis noted this shift in strategy. The blockchain analysis firm also highlighted a recent transfer of $21 .9 million stolen from the Harmony Protocol to a Russian exchange known for illicit transactions. This move coincides with the summit between Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin. UN sanctions monitors are also noting North Korea's evolving cyber tactics aimed at funding its nuclear programs. Elliptic, another analytics firm, reported that North Korea's Lazarus Group is responsible for the theft of almost $240 million in crypto in just 104 days. The group has been linked to five major crypto hacks in the last three months, including a $54 million hack of the global cryptocurrency exchange CoinX. Chainalysis data shows that the value of stolen cryptocurrency associated with North Korean hacking groups exceeds $340 .4 million so far in 2023, compared to $1 .65 billion last year. Despite the decrease, North Korea remains a significant threat in the cybercrime landscape, accounting for 29 .7 % of the cryptocurrency stolen through hacks in 2023. The DPRK -Russia cryptolink is more than just a financial loophole. It's a geopolitical chess move. While the world focuses on sanctions and arms talks, North Korea and Russia are quietly building a financial alliance in the crypto underworld. This isn't just about money. It's about power, influence, and a shared disdain for Western sanctions. Chainalysis and Elliptic aren't just telling us about hacks. They're exposing a growing alliance that could reshape the crypto landscape. Russia's noncompliance with international efforts gives North Korea the perfect cover to continue its operations. It's a symbiotic relationship where both nations benefit at the expense of global financial security. The drop in the value of stolen assets this year could be a smokescreen. North Korea's share of crypto hacks may have decreased, but let's not forget they still account for nearly a third of all stolen crypto this year. In a world increasingly dependent on digital assets, the DPRK -Russia cryptolink is not just a financial concern, it's a security crisis. It's a glaring example of how decentralized finance can be weaponized. As long as Russia turns a blind eye, the crypto world will remain a battlefield where the DPRK can operate with impunity. We've just unraveled the shadowy links between North Korea and Russian crypto exchanges. From one geopolitical chessboard to another, let's pivot to India's audacious move to cut the U .S. dollar from its trade equations. How's that for a change in global power dynamics? But first, if you're enjoying this deep dive, hit the subscribe button.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Ripple's Fortress Acquisition Shows the Brittleness of Crypto Infrastructure
"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 12th, and today we are talking about all of this dust up with fortress and the Ripple acquisition and what it means and who you should be mad at. 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 a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. All right, friends. Well, today we are talking about one of the biggest discussion points for the last week or so on Twitter, which has been the issues surrounding fortress trust. Let's begin our particular slice of the story on Friday when Ripple announced that they had acquired fortress trust. Now, the deal was pitched as an expansion of Ripple's regulated crypto offering as they built out a vertically integrated blockchain services product suite. And Monica Long, the president of Ripple, said in a statement, licenses are a powerful enabler to build and deliver best in class customer experiences for enterprises using Ripple's crypto infrastructure across our payments and liquidity solutions, which she was referring to as the fact that fortress trust holds a Nevada state trust license, which allows it to custody crypto and act as a financial intermediary with the traditional financial system. This would add then to Ripple's existing strategy of accumulating licenses. Between Ripple and its subsidiaries, the corporate group now holds 30 state money transmitter licenses, a New York state bit license and a major payment institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. So commentary over the weekend on this fell into two camps. On the one hand, this could have simply been Ripple buying a company to add a custody service to its one stop shop approach to crypto. On the other hand, many viewed this as a quiet bailout of fortress. And indeed, the Friday acquisition announcement was slightly strange in tone. Executives asserted that fortress could add a key piece to Ripple's vertically integrated crypto offering. However, the deal announcement was a little bit out of sync with previous announcements from Ripple. Specifically, the acquisition valuation was not mentioned, which was out of character for Ripple who had brashly announced a 250 million dollar deal to acquire crypto custodian Medeco in May. And of course, we have to put it in the context into which it happened. Fortress itself was already viewed with skepticism. The licensed crypto custodian had been founded by former prime trust CEO Scott Purcell in December of 2021. Purcell had left prime trust in January of that year. That was around the same time that prime trust mishandled wallet storing customer funds, leading to an 83 million dollar shortfall. Several key executives left prime trust to follow Purcell into his new venture. The firm was also aggressive in hiring former banking regulators to their team. The rift between companies was so acrimonious that there were even allegations of IP theft in taking software systems built at prime trust across to fortress. In June of this year, the shortfall in customer funds at prime trust came to light. Around this, the company was first placed into receivership by the Nevada regulator and later declared bankruptcy. Now prior to prime trust acknowledging their insolvency, numerous high profile customers fled for other custodians. It was already widely suspected that prime trust was insolvent at the time. The most impactful departure from prime trust was swan bitcoin. In June, swan announced that they would be transferring all customer funds held in custody to fortress. The transfer took over a week and involved a shutdown of automated transactions with swan. To many, it felt like an emergency operation more than a normal business decision, although throughout the process, swan executives assured customers that funds were safe. So this is where we were over the weekend. Lots of speculation, lots of questions around fortress, lots of questions around ripple. And on Monday, new information came to light around the circumstances surrounding the fortress acquisition. The day before the acquisition, my birthday, September 7th, fortress had posted a disclosure about a security incident which they tried to make seem relatively innocuous. On that day, they tweeted, Thankfully, there is no breach within fortress technology or systems, impacted accounts were fully restored. And most importantly, of course, there is no loss of funds. We immediately terminated the vendor integration and out of an abundance of caution paused all accounts to assess and ensure system wide security. We are taking all necessary measures to make sure the vendor is held accountable. Although this has been resolved, transparency and security are of the utmost important to us and our customers. We also have some big company news we are excited to share later this week. Now, Ryan Weeks, a reporter at the block received a tip that the incident had been far more impactful than it was made out to be. Indeed, he was told that 450 Bitcoin worth around 11 .3 million had been stolen from fortress trust, although that specific amount has been unable to be verified. What has been verified is that the ripple deal was much more of a bailout of fortress than it initially seemed. A ripple spokesperson said, Conversations accelerated last week following the security incident via a third party analytics vendor, but this opportunity makes sense for Ripple in the long term. Luckily, Ripple was in a position to act quickly to step in and make customers whole, and there have been no breaches to fortress technology or systems. Fortress notified customers immediately of the incident when it happened, as they mentioned in their tweets. Now, for those of you eagle eyed observers out there, or I guess eagle eared as the case may be, owl eared, whatever, you'll notice that fortress's Thursday statement said, This technically is consistent with Ripple swooping in to make customers whole, but also somewhat misleading if in fact Ripple had had to bail fortress out to make those customers whole, but also somewhat misleading if ripple indeed had to come in to make sure that those customers didn't actually lose their funds. Now what was also made clear on Monday is that the ripple deal is still pending regulatory and due diligence approvals. Given that we already saw the Bitco acquisition of prime trust fall apart during the due diligence process earlier this year, there is certainly no guarantee that it actually goes through. Now, of course, as you've already heard, there are numerous other companies tangled up in this mess. Swan Bitcoin is, of course, one of fortress's most well known customers. They have been in an absolute narrative battle and have claimed throughout that they were completely unaffected by the issue and the client funds remain safe. The other companies impacted are the custodian services subcontracted by fortress. Their role in the industry is mainly as the holder of a relevant trust license rather than as a tech provider. We know, for example, that hot wallet services are provided by fire blocks, while cold storage is provided by Bitco. And indeed, with the behind the scenes detail now made public, Bitco CEO Mike Belshi wrote a Twitter thread outlining his disappointment with how the entire debacle was handled. On Monday, Mike wrote, they are still at risk and whether Bitco was somehow involved. Spoiler alert, we were not. When fortress lost funds, they chose to omit facts about what happened, downplay the event and conclude, quote, most importantly, no funds were lost. Obviously, we now know this was not true. I guess what they meant to say is we believe we fixed the problem and we have taken steps to make sure clients are made whole. But those two statements are not even close to being the same. Ripple has done the right thing and disclosed that a breach did occur. But fortress still has not made a real statement about what actually happened. So, summarizing what is publicly known, along with what we know from Bitco, one, fortress suffered a breach through some third party integration, not Bitco, two, via fortress's platform and some third party integration, the attacker was able to drain funds from fortress's hot wallet system, three, fortress used fire blocks for its hot wallet system, four, fortress noticed the failure and says they have fixed the problem with the third party, five, although fortress did use Bitco to custody some of its Bitcoin and digital assets, Bitco was not affected. None of the fortress assets held at Bitco were at risk from this third party integration or taken. After the breach, fortress reached out to Bitco. Bitco strongly advised fortress to disclose what happened immediately. Fortress did not do that. Eventually fortress decided to sell to Ripple. This is a great outcome because Ripple was able to make all clients whole and will hopefully help fortress with resources to correct the security weaknesses which led to this event. Ripple is a good actor here and should be applauded. The real victims here are fortress's clients who deserve enough respect to get the whole truth. They are not to be blamed. The whole situation is exactly why we need decentralization. We can't continue to be dependent on the honesty of custodians, bankers or trusted third parties acting with integrity when bad things happen. Bad things will happen and most humans don't have enough courage to be honest through it. So there are a lot of things that people are upset about here. One of the biggest strands of conversation has been around Swan. On September 11th, the company tweeted, Swan client coins are in insured cold wallets at Bitco and did not move during the reported incident at fortress. The coins are protected by video calls and physical access and are not subject to any incidents at fortress. Swan set up this agreement with fortress to use Bitco as a cold storage sub -custodian precisely to prevent such a scenario. Swan has direct on -chain visibility to funds at Bitco. When someone asked what kind of insurance Swan was referring to, Corey Clifton the CEO said, It's $250 million per wallet, with no wallet holding more than $250 million, provided by Lloyd's of London. It's the best setup we've seen. As always, take self -custody if you're willing and able. Now, responding to the critique in general of Swan being associated with these companies, which now have a less -than -stellar record handling customer assets and are now owned by a company that is anathema to many Bitcoiners, Corey wrote, Separation of brokerage and custody is the model for traditional assets for good reason, and there's a good probability it becomes law for digital assets in the U .S. I am not a fan of the trust -me -bro model of brokerage and custody under the same roof, like Mt. Gox and FTX. The goal is to have no single company able to unilaterally move user funds. We very intentionally set up Fortress and BitGo with that model. Now, I understand the narrative frustration here, but at the end of the day, the reason that Swan had to work with these companies is that there just wasn't anyone else. This is why as much as some Bitcoiners are worried about the entrance of traditional financial actors into the space, many others view it as necessary to just have more market options for crypto -native brokerage companies like Swan to actually work with. Anyways, the whole thing is a mess, reflective of how bad the infrastructure is for crypto and Bitcoin right now in the U .S., and a reminder of just how challenging digital assets are, even for companies that have big history in the space. The one other big story from yesterday that I want to cover was the FTX creditor update. The FTX bankruptcy team reports that they have marshaled around $7 billion in assets. Using updated valuations from the end of August, the estate holds $3 .4 billion in major crypto tokens. This includes $560 million in Bitcoin, $192 million in ETH, and $1 .1 billion in Solana. Now, of that, it appears that only $137 million worth of Solana is listed as vesting, meaning a much larger portion of the tokens may be eligible for sale than previously thought. The non -crypto assets include 38 properties in the Bahamas worth around $200 million, as well as $529 million worth of securities primarily made up of grayscale Bitcoin trust shares, $2 .6 billion in cash, and $4 .5 billion in venture investments, although no current valuation of those investments was provided. The firm's liabilities show $65 billion in non -customer claims. That figure is massively inflated by a $43 .5 billion claim from the IRS, which is presumed to be subordinated to customer claims. The IRS generally submits the largest possible tax claim during bankruptcy proceedings, but often negotiates down significantly or differs entirely to a creditor distribution. Of the remaining liabilities, a $9 .2 billion claim from FTX Digital Markets is assumed to be invalid or redundant, which leaves $4 .1 billion claim by Genesis and $2 billion claim by Celsius as the major non -customer claims to deal with. So far, a little over 36 ,000 customers have filed claims totaling $16 billion. Of the claims that have been scheduled so far, around 10 % of customers have agreed to their scheduled claims, while 18 % have disputed their claims and 72 % have yet to respond with either an agreement or a dispute. Now, easily the most discussed part of the news dealt with the firm's clawback strategy. Transactions done within a 90 -day window of the bankruptcy filing can be eligible for a clawback, but in practice, not all claims are pursued. The estate has successfully pursued $588 million in claims so far, and they identify an additional $16 .6 billion in clawbacks that could be pursued. The estate is currently considering how to deal with customer clawbacks where users withdrew from the exchange close to the bankruptcy being filed. Several options being looked at included the full 90 -day window for clawbacks as well as a shorter 15 -day window which captures the major public news surrounding the FTX collapse. Travis Kling tweeted about this saying, This brings up a big question of executability. How feasible is it for the estate to go sue people in every corner of earth? This is a really surprising turn in this deal. Everyone was thinking this outcome was quite unlikely the entire time. If the estate ends up doing what it looks like they want to, it will change the nature of this bankruptcy process. We'll learn more at the 9 -13 hearing. Indeed, the estate is due in court tomorrow Wednesday for an omnibus hearing which will cover numerous aspects of the case including the potential liquidation of crypto holdings as well. You might remember that three weeks ago FTX asked for permission to appoint Galaxy Digital as a selling agent. Selling would initially have a limit of $100 million per week which could increase to $200 million if creditors agree. The market has obviously begun to price in significant fear of this FTX liquidation. Sunday for example saw a liquidity breakdown in Solana as rumors of imminent dumping spread. And yet many think that the market is overreacting. Jeff Dorman, the CIO at ARCA said, The way crypto market makers and traders are front -running the FTX supply shows a complete misunderstanding of how a syndicated sale process works. This isn't an every -man -for -himself VC unlock. This is a court -ordered process that Galaxy will sell very slowly and opportunistically. Lastly, the potential reboot of the exchange remains a possibility. According to the report, 75 bidders have been contacted. The report stated that Proposals are being evaluated. Transaction timing will depend on nature of transactions, readiness of bidder, and other considerations. So, friends, if there are currently two archetypes of breakdown episodes, with one being legal battles that are increasingly poking towards a positive direction for this industry, and the other being cleanup from the excesses of years past, this unfortunately was one of the latter. But, as they say, the only way out is through, and so until next time, be safe and take care of each other. Peace.
The Breakdown
A highlight from Crypto 2023: Even Vitalik Is Getting Hacked
"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 Monday, September 11th, and today we are catching up on everything in the cryptosphere from last weekend, including the founder of Ethereum getting hacked. Before we dive 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 a link in the show notes or go to bit .ly slash breakdown pod. Hello friends, hope you had a great weekend. Like I said, today we are doing a grab bag, catching up on just a ton of news, and let's start with the weird one. On Saturday, Ethereum co -founder Vitalik Buterin's Twitter account was compromised. The attacker used the account to tweet about a time -limited NFT promotion. Users that followed the link that tried to mint the NFT instead had their wallet drained. Around 700 ,000 in crypto tokens and NFTs were stolen. Now, the attack followed a similar pattern to many SIM swap attacks which have plagued high -profile crypto figures recently. An attacker fraudulently obtains control over the target's phone number and then uses two -factor authentication to gain access to Twitter or other services. The attacker then posts a link to a poison transaction for victims to sign. According to Unchained Sleuth's ZackXBT, there have been more than 53 SIM swap attacks over the past four months which have led to the theft of over 13 .3 million in crypto assets. Now, at this stage, we don't know exactly how the attacker gained access to Vitalik's Twitter account. Some assumed that Vitalik would be using more complicated security design than simple phone number based 2FA. If so, this attack speaks to much more sophisticated attacks targeting crypto figures. What was particularly insidious about this attack was how believable the fake communication was. The attacker's fake message was promoting a Q &A on a forthcoming Ethereum feature known as proto -dank sharding. Numerous high -profile industry figures were taken in by the fake message and signed transactions with their wallets. The highest profile NFT that was drained was the very first crypto punk to be claimed, valued at around $250 ,000. To some, the attack demonstrates a clear change in targets for scammers. DC Investors said, Still, others pointed out that it could have been a lot worse. Coin Bureau tweeted, Putting it more simply, CL207 tweeted, While Mac's short ETH, dude would have made $100 million, not $1 million. Still to others, this was just an example of how difficult it is still for normal people in the cryptosphere. Harrison at PompPunk on Chain wrote, Next up, staying in and around the Ethereum ecosystem, consensus -owned blockchain infrastructure firm Infura have announced plans to release a decentralized version of their service by the end of this year. Infura provides a range of blockchain infrastructure but are most well known for their Ethereum RPC nodes. As much as 50 % of Ethereum transactions are routed through Infura infrastructure, making their centralization an ongoing risk. As regulatory efforts move from enforcement to compliance, it's anticipated that regulators will look for intermediaries within the crypto ecosystem to deputize. And to many, a centralized Infura would be a natural fit for compliance enforcement. Indeed, we've already seen multiple instances of Infura being used as a tool for compliance. Last November, the firm announced that some 20 million Metamask users would have their wallets and IP addresses tracked using Infura. Consensus pushed back on the controversy by noting that Metamask allowed users to opt out by switching to a different RPC provider. In March, consensus blocked IPs from certain regions in an effort to comply with sanctions requirements. Also, in March, consensus blocked IPs from certain regions in an effort to comply with sanctions requirements. Users from Venezuela and Iran were among those who complained they could no longer use Metamask through Infura. At the time, consensus were criticized for restricting access more broadly than the sanctions called for, including blocking some U .S. residents who had emigrated from sanctioned nations. Still, it appears that consensus and the Ethereum ecosystem at large have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the censorship risk of RPC nodes. And Infura have been working on this decentralization project for over a year now. Now, the project will be rolled out in a number of phases. Infura refers to the first stage as the quote federated phase, where trusted partners will be brought on to run redundant versions of key infrastructure. Tom Hay, decentralized infrastructure product lead at Infura, said in a statement, We're looking to launch something later this year, and that is going to be a federated phase. The federated phase will last at least six months and will provide the network with the insight on how to build a sustainable model before introducing further decentralization. Now, according to the team at ConsenSys, aside from censorship resistance, adding more diversity and redundancy in RPC infrastructure could also improve the robustness of Ethereum in general. ConsenSys head of strategy Simon Morris said, If you have different people setting up their infrastructure in different ways on different cloud providers using different node software, then you can start to build antifragility into the system. Next up on this breakdown, a regulatory roundup. On Friday, the SEC filed their response in the Ripple lawsuit, arguing that the case should be allowed to proceed to appeal. Ripple had previously objected to the appeal, stating that the regulator had not made a sufficient argument to ground an appeal. The SEC is filing hitback, stating that, quote, The defendants themselves say that the issues have industry -wide significance and are of special consequence. They claimed that this pivotal decision should be subjected to the scrutiny of an appellate court to ensure a clear precedent is made. The SEC is filing hitback, stating that, quote, The defendants themselves say that the issues have industry -wide significance and are of special consequence. End quote. They claimed that this pivotal decision should be subjected to the scrutiny of an appellate court to ensure a clear precedent is made. The SEC noted that one judge has already rejected the Ripple decision as a persuasive precedent, opening the door to contradictory rulings. The regulator further argued that halting the rest of the Ripple case to deal with the appeal immediately would, quote, preserve the resources of the court. They even went so far as to take a swipe at Ripple, claiming that the firm was deliberately dragging out court proceedings. Speaking of the SEC, Republican House Whip Tom Emmer has introduced an appropriations amendment to rein in the SEC's crypto enforcement agenda. In a tweet, Emmer wrote, "...Gary Gensler has abused his authority to grow the administrative state to the detriment of the American people. Congress must use all our tools, including the appropriations process, to restrict Chair Gensler from further weaponizing taxpayer dollars." The appropriations amendment would limit the SEC from utilizing funds to pursue digital asset enforcement until comprehensive rules and regulations are put in place. Now, of course, Emmer has long been critical of the SEC's approach to crypto regulation. In June, he supported fellow Congressman Warren Davidson's SEC Stabilization Act proposal which would limit the authority of the SEC chair by introducing a sixth commissioner to require bipartisan support for regulatory actions. Gensler is scheduled to appear at an oversight hearing before the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday. The House Financial Services Committee, meanwhile, will hold their SEC oversight hearing on September 27th. So we should get a chance to hear more about whether there has been any shifts in the Gensler -SEC attitude since some of these court proceedings have gone through. Now, moving over to the Fed. In a speech given at a fintech event on Friday, Fed Vice Chairman of Supervision Michael Barr made a number of comments about CBDCs and stablecoins. When it comes to CBDCs, Barr emphasized that the Fed is still firmly in the quote basic research phase and is far from making any decisions. Barr said that quote, Investigation and research are very different from decision -making about next steps in terms of payment system development and we are a long way from that. By way of detail, he explained that the research is currently focused on system architecture and tokenization models. Barr continued to reinforce the idea that the Fed won't make any decision on CBDC issuance without quote, clear support from the executive branch and the authorizing legislation from Congress. On stablecoins, Barr said quote, I remain deeply concerned about stablecoin issuance without strong federal oversight. If non -federally regulated stablecoins were to become a widespread means of payment and store of value, they could pose significant risks to financial stability, monetary policy, and the U .S. payment system. It is important to get the legislative and regulatory framework right before significant risks emerge. Now, Barr has recently spearheaded the Fed's Novel Activities Supervision Program, which requires banks to obtain a written non -objection before they can interact with stablecoins. He claimed that the safeguard was in line with previous guidance issued by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Barr argued that strong federal oversight of dollar -backed stablecoins was in the Fed's interest, arguing that the tokens quote, borrow the trust of the central bank. Now, of course, federal oversight of stablecoin issuers has become a line in the sand for establishment Democrats who sought to hold up the progress of stablecoin legislation back in July. Barr also reflected on the July launch of FedNow, which is the new instant gross settlement system operated by the Fed. He said that FedNow has been made available to depository institutions of all size, but quote, while current volumes on FedNow are small, I expect that participation will grow over time. Now, next up, one we talked about a bit in the weekly recap, but giving the details just for completeness. On Thursday, the CFTC announced enforcement actions against three D5 firms — Open, 0x, and Derridex — all settled lawsuits for offering unregistered derivatives products to U .S. customers. The fines were relatively small — $250 ,000, $200 ,000, and $100 ,000, respectively — but the message was clear. CFTC Director of Enforcement Ian McGinley said in a statement, Somewhere along the way, DeFi operators got the idea that unlawful transactions become lawful when facilitated by smart contracts. They do not. The DeFi space may be novel, complex and evolving, but the division of enforcement will continue to evolve with it and aggressively pursue those who operate unregistered platforms that allow U .S. persons to trade digital asset derivatives. Now, while both Open and Derridex were offering derivatives trading, the situation around 0x was a little more complex. 0x is an Open DEX platform which allows anyone to list tokens. They attracted the attention of the CFTC by simply having derivative tokens with embedded leverage listed. The CFTC claimed that simply retaining the ability to draw fees from the trading, though not actually profiting from the platform and having access to shut down the platform, was sufficient to be held liable for how other developers use the platform. Now, one CFTC commissioner offered a scathing dissent to the enforcement action. Commissioner Summer Mersinger wrote, Although each case presents different facts, they have been lumped together for commission consideration and vote, presumably for messaging purposes, as quote -unquote DeFi cases. She added that, I am concerned that the Commission in these cases is taking another step down the path of bringing enforcement actions when we should be engaging with the public. It is important to emphasize that Enforcement First has not always been the CFTC's default position. These cases are especially concerning in that they represent a significant shift in position on the merits of engagement with DeFi market participants. Finally today, over in the UK, the United Kingdom Financial Conduct Authority have pushed back the commencement date of some elements of strict new crypto advertising rules. The core rules will come into force on October 8th. They require advertisements to be clear, fair, and not misleading. In addition, risk warnings will now be mandatory in incentivizing platform use with both monetary and non -monetary rewards is prohibited. Other parts of the regulations could be pushed back to as late as January according to the FCA. Individual firms would need to apply for additional time on a case -by -case basis. The regulator explained that firms are running up against technical issues implementing some parts of the new rules. In particular, a 24 -hour cooling -off period which would allow customers to ask for full refunds is proving difficult to comply with. It would require programming changes to platforms at a minimum, if not an overhaul to business models. Lucy Casseldine, Director of Consumer Investment at the FCA said, As a proportionate regulator, we're giving firms that apply a little bit more time to get other reforms requiring technology and business change right. We'll maintain our close eye on firms during this extended implementation period. Now, the FCA's strict new rules have been criticized for their broad scope and draconian punishments. Foreign firms that advertise to UK customers would be covered by the regulations, which capture social media posts, websites, and in -app advertising. Influencers would be held liable for their promotion of crypto products, and the failure to adhere to the new regulations could result in criminal charges. The maximum punishment for breaches includes an unlimited fine or even jail time. The FCA has said that the strict rules are designed to Prevent harm to consumers from investing in crypto assets that do not match their risk appetite. The regulator added that It is up to consumers to decide whether they buy crypto assets, but they should do so based on fair and accurate information that helps them make effective investment decisions. So friends, this is the other side of the prepping for the next bull run. It is going to be a much tighter environment, certainly for any types of promotions. Although whether that will end scams given where we started this episode, I think that remains to be seen. However, that is going to do it for today's episode. I appreciate you guys listening as always. Until tomorrow, be safe and take care of each other.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
A highlight from The Mike and Mark Davis Daily Chat - 09/11/23
"There stars are in the southern sky and if ever you decide... If my research is correct, this was what the Madison Square Garden crowd heard to begin the show that Mike was in attendance for when he was in New York. I'm just watching guys play tennis, but this is what Mike did. I bet it was awesome. Mike and I were in New York City at the same time doing very different things. Wait a minute. Don't say Mike and I were in New York City. You created quite the drama by your refusal to spend even a second of time with me when you and your beautiful bride were celebrating your anniversary. Well, excuse me for not peeling away for schmooze time on an anniversary event. It took Peg Hudson to set Joe and me straight. Let me give you the backstory. Yes, there's always backstory. Your research is spot on. That was what they opened with. They all lined up across the front of the stage, including the great Vince Gill. Oh my God. That show was unbelievable. I mean, when's the last time you've gone to a concert and for two hours you hear the band just do hit after hit after hit after hit? Who can do that? It's not a long list. The Eagles can do it. And they did it. Opened up by Steely Dan. And in fairness, there's an example, three quarters of the songs, I don't remember it. I never heard of, but there's a couple of hits there for some of the great Steely Dan. And then of course, the Eagles with what was an incredible night at Madison Square Garden. But anyway, you're here, you're in town. I'm in town with Joey and Peg. We're seeing the Eagles and we saw a couple Broadway shows and I figured when Mark and Lisa go do stuff, it's Mark and Lisa time. And I should have known that. So I delicately said, hey, you want to get together for lunch or dinner while you're here? I mean, we don't see each other in person very much. And of course, as predictable as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, oh, we're slammed. Thank you. We're very busy. We're very busy. We're slammed. We're a little maxed out here. We're maxed out. And so Joey and I got all up in arms about it Saturday night. My man, my man, buddy card is being revoked. We went to dinner at a place called Centurion, New York, and I had a table set for you and Lisa. I mean, we were in a private room on the 55th floor of one Wondervelt. I'm not kidding you. It was unbelievable. It's this brand new dining experience. And we had a room with a table of six with three of us. And I kept saying, gosh, what, how perfect that would have been for Mark and Lisa to have joined us. And Joey and I started bellyaching about your rudeness. And then Peg says, it took a woman to point out, are you guys high? Right. Well, she says, do you think they want to spend their anniversary weekend with you talking shop? And I said, well, first of all, we're more than just shop. It's not just work. We're friends. Exactly. There's all kinds of commonalities and tastes and the culture in our lives. And we're intertwined, of course, it would have been lovely. But it wasn't because you didn't give us the time of day. I know my priorities. Well, you're right. Okay. I mean, good for you. And I hope you had a lovely weekend. So what exactly should I have given up? Should I have, well, here's a weird story because we thought that one night was going to be at the Arthur Ashe Stadium for tennis purposes. And the other one was going to be at Elio's in the Upper East Side, the restaurant where I proposed to her in March of 2002. So which of those should I have cashed in, you know, go hang out with y 'all as much as wonderful as that would have been. I mean, is the proposal restaurant all that significant? Come on. Yes, it is. But here's what's weird. Here's the weird thing that happened on tennis day. Do you know how weird tennis is trying to attend it? If you want to go to the Cowboys and the Eagles on December 10th, you can get a ticket right now for the Cowboys and the Eagles on December 10th. But if you want to go see Novak Djokovic, which is what my bride wanted to do, because from 10, 15 years ago, we're watching Nadal and Federer, and she just loves these guys. And we have loved watching tennis together on the TV box. And I said, for this anniversary, I'm taking you to the U .S. Open. It's like, great, we'll go see Djokovic or other great players, Daniel Medvedev, the young Carlos Alcaraz, who may be the next Nadal. But if you want to see Djokovic, you can't. He's not guaranteed to play on a particular day at a particular time. You can nail down the day. We did not know until hours ahead of time that Djokovic and Ben Shelton, the American, would be the early match. And silly me, I thought, there's no way. He's got to be the late match. So I bought tickets to the late match at no small expense. But then all of a sudden it's like, ding, ding, ding. Nope. That is Medvedev. He'll be playing Alcaraz at night and beat him, of course, because it was Djokovic and Medvedev. And Djokovic won in the final that we watched last night. It was great. So here's what I had to do. I've never done this before. I'm a big fan of the secondary market. So I had these tickets on Ticketmaster. In the old days. You tell me you sold tickets because I was desperately trying to get tickets to go. I'm going to kill you. What? No. I wanted to go so bad. To the open? I wanted to go to the open so badly I could taste it. And I went on the secondary market. You know, God's been good to me and I have a pretty good living. I ain't spending $14 ,000 a ticket. Okay. You want to talk real dollars? I'm going to do this. I am going to do this for my bride. She doesn't do mink coats or huge jewelry. You know, she's just one of the million reasons I love her. We were in unbelievable seats for the night, for the night one in the hundred level, the loge level. And they were $1 apiece. ,700 $1 ,700 apiece. So $3 ,400 to put my wife and me in these magnificent seats. Then we learned, guess what? Djokovic ain't playing at night. He's playing in the daytime. So now I got to go get seats to that. But here's the thing, since the world expected Djokovic to be at night, that's why those seats were $1 ,700. The moment it was announced, I flip immediately to the day session, got the exact same seats on the other side of Arthur Ashe Stadium for $600 apiece. Boom. Then I sold, with my phone still in my hand, sold the ones that I had bought. Obviously, their price went down a little bit. So I didn't make it all back. But I essentially paid for the other ones with the sale of the first ones. It is a crazy modern world, man. It is a crazy modern world. And heaven forbid you would have said to your talk show buddy, you want a couple tickets to the open because I would have bought them from you direct. I wouldn't even know. Funny, I don't know how to transfer them to another actual human being. Well, there's a way. There's got to be a way. All right. I think there's enough about that. Here's my proclamation. If I come to Dallas for a weekend, I'll make time to see you and Lisa, okay? And I will find a restaurant with a private room and a seat for anybody you want to bring. All right. We'll replicate it, Texas. Let me share with you the sights and sounds of what I experienced this morning walking into work here at 111 Broadway in lower Manhattan. All the police activity as the commemoration, the bell is ringing, observing the moment the flight hit the North Tower. Twenty -two years, Mark. The moment you know well. Boy. You were in the Empire State. Sure was. And we're going to relive that today on the show as we always do. We're also going to play that beautiful faith -filled tribute called Silent Night that our friends at KRLA in Los Angeles made many years ago where God, you just don't believe it, but he has a plan and he is always, always with us, even in our darkest hours. So, you know, Axios had an interesting piece this morning about how young men and women enlisting today and joining the military. They don't have that sense of understanding or recognition of 9 -11. So many people became members of the military because of 9 -11. It was such a movement in this country and it was beautiful and it continues to be. And they're in their mid -forties now. Correct. You know, ish. And you think about, I mean, there are people of legal adulthood, 21 years old now, who were not alive for 9 -11. Absolutely. For them, it's not like it's Pearl Harbor or anything, but it's just something that happened before I was born. I got to wrap my head around that. It's interesting that I heard, that's a second time today, though, I've heard somebody say, well, it's not like Pearl Harbor. I really feel it is. Just to me, it's, maybe it's because of our age and, you know, we run around. Here's the crazy thing. You and I were both born less than 20 years afterward. Correct. After Pearl Harbor. So it was just something that had recently happened. That's right. Had a certain stigma and, you know. So I think about the people who joined the military on behalf of those who died on 9 -11 and fighting for our freedoms, fighting against tyranny. And Mark, I am stunned at the rapid way tyranny has come to our own governance. I read an article the other day in the New York Times. It's an opinion piece, to be fair. Trump indict Trump's indictments, the key players in the 2020 election effort. And Mark, they did one of these and I read it online, one of these comprehensive articles about how everybody who questioned in any way, shape or form the outcome of the 2020 election is a co -conspirator in the election denialism that is traitorous, that is traitorous, that's treason. Now, attack on democracy. Right now, never mind all the Democrats, including Hillary on down, who lined up in question the outcome of 2016. I guess that doesn't count. I'm sure the New York Times didn't do, you know, an extensive piece on this, but they've got everybody ensnared in this, Mark. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley. We saw Lindsey Graham almost got indicted in Fulton County. And all they were doing was saying, what happened here? And exactly daring to inquire. And that has become a tactic of the left. And I think COVID, tell me if you agree with me, COVID broke the door open on this. If you dared question the vaccine or if you dared question the lockdowns, you were shut down. You lost your social media status. Some people lost their jobs. Look at the, look at all the airline pilots we lost because they wouldn't get vaccinated. And that kind of opened the door. And now it comes to the, to election integrity and the New York Times and people who think like them want to weaponize our free speech right to question anything. And criminalize it. And so your metaphor is apt. It absolutely is. And I hope it goes a similar way that the COVID extremism did. And that is that the pendulum swings. And now we have relative rationality, even though I did see in New York City, people walking around by themselves in Washington Square Park, wearing a mask outside. But not many, right? Not very many at all. Listen, I almost wanted a mask to keep away from the weed smell. I asked a New York City cop, what's with the weed? And he told me, he said, look, it's legal. You can't have enough where you're trying to sell it. You can't give it to kids, blah, blah, blah. But it's pretty, and I said, has it been a problem? He said, not really. He said, I don't like it either, but it's people doing, so, but not to divert. So your metaphor is apt. I hope that the pendulum swings, as it did with COVID, and I hope it does it maybe even quicker because the, because the Fauci's and the various other people who hit us with this have been proven so terribly, terribly wrong and corrupt so relatively quickly. I hope that can happen on weaponization of election. Well, Mark, there's reason to be optimistic. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling, huge win for free speech where this appeals court upheld the prohibiting government officials from communicating with social media companies. There was a preliminary junction. The defendants include Joe Biden, the U .S. Surgeon General, the Health and Human Services Secretary, and the courts are agreeing that it is absolutely unlawful for government officials to try to censor speech on social media. Of course it is. Well, it took a long time. Sure. Well, listen, justice delayed is justice denied. But that's the pendulum swinging. And I hope you, speaking of New York, I hope you saw the New York -based shrews over on The View Friday, Anna Navarro and the rest of them now complaining about the illegals in New York City saying they need to be resettled elsewhere. Anna Navarro and the rest of them on The View want to kick illegals out of New York. How unwelcoming. Oh, how well, how unchristian -like of them. But listen, I heard somebody say this somewhere else and it's true. People like Greg Abbott and others have called Eric Adams bluff. Yep. We've called their bluff. We've said, all right, you want to be a sanctuary city? Here's what it looks like. This is it. Welcome to Texas. Every day, the amount. Welcome to El Paso. And, you know, so golly, I hope the pendulum is swing. Great to have you back. It is wonderful to be back. Great to kick off a big, big week. I'll be in Philly tonight for a big event with Dennis Prager and Pastor Robert Jeffers. Faith and Freedom Coalition event. And then back here on in New York Tuesday and then back to Florida. So, OK, this is crazy. Mr. Acela corridor. You're in Philadelphia for an event tonight. I'm on the 115 Acela. I love that train. In the morning? 115 this afternoon. To get there. But where are you doing the show tomorrow morning? From Philly, from AM 990. And then taking the Acela back. And I have to admit, I'm not a big train travel fan. Yep. I like that Acela. Yep. Pretty cool. And, you know, I think I've got to be in first class just so I can, as an observer, experience what that first class experience must be like. If you're going to do it, do it. You might as well go up front, you know, and or actually in the back. Sometimes the first class on the Acela is on the way in the back. But I still like walking over to the cafe car and getting a hot dog. Kicking it old school. Absolutely. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Big week. All right. Happy Monday, my friend. Happy Monday. Mike Gallagher there for you on this very. I'm just. Think identity theft won't happen to you? Think again. There's a new victim every three seconds in the U .S., over 15 million this year alone. And many don't even know their victims. LifeLock alerts you to identity threats you could miss, even when you monitor your credit. If your identity is stolen, your dedicated U .S. based restoration specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all identity theft, but everyone can save up to 25 percent their first year at lifelock dot com slash Salem. Identity theft protection starts here.
The Hugh Hewitt Show: Highly Concentrated
A highlight from Hugh talks "Code Red: A Mitch Rapp Novel" with Kyle Mills
"Think identity theft won't happen to you? Think again. There's a new victim every three seconds in the U .S. Over 15 million this year alone. And many don't even know they're victims. LifeLock alerts you to identity threats you could miss, even when you monitor your credit. If your identity is stolen, your dedicated U .S.-based restoration specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all identity theft, but everyone can save up to 25 % their first year at lifelock .com slash Salem. Identity theft protection starts here. Welcome to today's podcast, sponsored by Hillsdale College. All things Hillsdale, hillsdale .edu. I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there. And of course, to listen to the Hillsdale Dialogues, all of them at q4hillsdale .com, or just Google Apple, iTunes, and Hillsdale.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 15:00 09-10-2023 15:00
"In with America former USTA chief Katrina Adams. Plus, why there's literally a trillion dollars at stake as global companies search for the correct return to office strategy, and the story of digital marketplace FlashFood, whose founder is on a mission to reduce waste and save grocery shoppers money. This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Tim Stenebeck, stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now. Broadcasting 24 hours a day at bloomberg .com and the Bloomberg Business Act. This is Bloomberg Radio. This is a Bloomberg Money Minute, as you've probably been hearing about, rising theft is stealing profits from many retailers. Organized retail crime is certainly a part of it. Dana Telsey is founder, CEO, and chief research officer at Telsey Advisory Group. It is a real headwind. It's probably the highest rate of shrinkage that we've seen in quite some time. Telsey herself says she witnessed retail theft on the West Coast that surprised her. You better be careful and be aware of your surroundings. Nordstrom, Dick's Sporting Goods, Ulta Beauty, Target, and Walmart, all saying theft or shrink is hurting the bottom line. The National Retail Federation says theft cost retailers almost $95 billion in 2021, but Telsey says retailers are determined to keep brick and mortar stores open in key locations. Retail and physical footprints have more relevance than ever in order to create the environment and the engagement. Telsey also says retailers are in discussion with high -level government officials on clamping down on retail theft. Denise Pellegrini, Bloomberg Radio. Sometimes it seems the crises just keep coming for children. COVID, war, drought, and famine. They can seem downright relentless. But you know what? So can our response.
Daily Crypto Report
A highlight from "Founder of defunct Turkish crypto exchange Thodex faces life in prison." Sep 08, 2023
"It's 8am eastern September the 8th, and this is your daily crypto report. Bitcoin is down slightly at $25 ,798, ETH is down slightly at $1 ,625, and Binance Coin is down slightly at $214. The FBI says the North Korean Lazarus Group is responsible for the $41 million theft from crypto -based sports betting platform Stake .com. The Lazarus Group has been involved in several other significant virtual currency thefts this year, totaling over $200 million. The Lazarus Group is known for targeting the blockchain sector using methods like spearphishing and malicious software to steal crypto. The founder of the now -defunct Turkish crypto exchange Theodex, Farouk Fati Ozair, has been sentenced to 11 ,196 years in prison. A court in Istanbul found him guilty of various crimes, including aggravated fraud, money laundering, and leading a criminal organization. Ozair, along with his two siblings, received similar jail terms for their involvement. Theodex abruptly halted trading in 2021, causing substantial losses for over 400 ,000 users. Ozair disappeared at the time and fled to Albania, but he was later extradited to Turkey. Chainalysis estimated the losses for the exchange at $2 .5 billion. Former FTX executive Ryan Salameh has pled guilty to conspiracy charges related to unlawful political contributions and operating an unlicensed money transmitter business. He has been released on a $1 million bond. Salameh admitted to making $10 million in political contributions that he disguised as loans. As part of his plea agreement, he will surrender $1 .6 billion in assets, including two properties and a Porsche. This marks the fourth guilty plea in connection with the collapse of the crypto exchange FTX. Salameh's guilty plea implicates FTX, Alameda Research, and co -conspirators in an unlawful political influence campaign. Prosecutors revealed that over 300 political donations totaling tens of millions were made unlawfully through straw donors or corporate funds to evade contribution limits. Salameh had stated that he won't testify at former FTX CEO Sam Bankman -Friede's upcoming trial, but we'll see. And finally, Bitcoin mining and data center hosting company Riot Platforms received a record $31 million in energy credits in August by cutting its power usage by over 95 % during peak demand. This helped support the Texas energy grid during a summer heat wave. While Riot sacrificed some potential revenue from its Bitcoin mining operations, it still earned Bitcoin 333 from mining revenue in August along with 40 million, including the energy credits. Riot's energy credits significantly reduced its Bitcoin mining costs, making it one of the lowest cost producers of the industry. The company expects to expand its mining capacity further and the firm shares have risen 222 % year to date. Well, that's all for us today. Visit us at dailycryptoreport .io for sources and links and listen to us everywhere else you under podcast Daily Crypto Report. Hey, my name is LoVon Roompf and I've been working my ass off as a celebrity stylist by day and a podcast host by night at the Low Life podcast. It's all about keeping it real. We're talking fashion, beauty to religion, sex, drugs, mental health. I mean, there's no topic off limits here and vulnerability is mandatory. You can find my podcast, The Low Life, that's L -O -no -W everywhere and anywhere you listen to your podcasts. New episodes are out every Thursday. We'll see you then. It's pretty eerie, you know, you're in a place that no human's ever been before. This is Armchair Explorer, where the world's greatest adventurers tell their best stories from the road. And four of us were swept down the side of the mountain and then I knew there was no way out of this thing. From the heart pounding to the inspiring and the downright insane. Find Armchair Explorer, a part of APT Podcast Studios, wherever you get your podcasts. Go and find what it is in the world that matches that wildness in yourself.
Mike Gallagher Podcast
A highlight from FULL INTERVIEW - Ashley Moody, Florida Attorney General
"The United States Border Patrol has exciting and rewarding career opportunities with the nation's largest law enforcement organization. Earn great pay with outstanding federal benefits and up to $20 ,000 in recruitment incentives. Learn more online at CBP .gov slash careers slash USBP. You know, I've had the benefit of living a number of places in my life around the country. Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and now Florida. You know, proud Texans often talk about the Texas miracle. But I would maintain that there's a Florida miracle. There are things happening in Florida that are so impressive and so inspiring that the rest of the country could really learn a thing or two from the governor of Florida, from the attorney general of Florida. And I've wanted to tell this Florida story for some time. So it's good to welcome to The Mike Gallagher Show the attorney general for the state of Florida, Ashley Moody. She is the 38th attorney general in the state's history. She became attorney general on January 8th, 2019, and she has been recognized in her relatively short tenure as an incredible force for good in this sunshine state. Madam attorney general, it's a real honor to meet you. Welcome to The Mike Gallagher Show. It's an honor to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Well, I've been wanting to talk to you for some time because we're looking at the state of the country, and particularly in blue cities and in blue states, where Soros installed prosecutors are looking the other way and are not enforcing laws that are on the books. They're not prosecuting people. They're not incarcerating people. And frankly, here in Florida, Governor DeSantis and the team, the legislative team, say we're not going to be that way. We're going to have none of that. Can you kind of walk us, let's start there, if you don't mind, since crime is on the hearts and minds of so many people around America right now, tell us why Florida has been different. And as it should be, I mean, you're seeing these crime trends in cities and states across the nation, and you sometimes wonder, whether you're seeing footage or you're listening to stories, you sometimes wonder, is this the country we're living in? And sometimes it's unrecognizable. What we've done in Florida is start pushing back very fiercely, consistently against the trends we're seeing nationally, whether that's organized retail theft, where retailers are not only shutting down at record rates, they are losing inventory to shrinkage at historic rates. They say they've never lost this much. And what does that mean for the everyday citizen, the law -abiding citizen that's just trying to provide for their family? That means your costs go up. Or whether it is repeat or violent offenders just revolving throughout a criminal justice system because they don't have a prosecutor in place that's going to make sure that they stay there. These are all trends, and we're not immune to these trends here in Florida. But what we are good at, and what we will remain good at as long as I am in this office, and Governor DeSantis believes this firmly, is that you have to consistently, aggressively, creatively push back against these trends so that they can't take root in our state. And there are a myriad of ways that we are doing that, but I just left an announcement this morning where we've partnered with John Walsh and Crime Stoppers to make it easier for law -abiding citizens to help us catch criminals and put them behind bars. So you've got to continuously push back these national trends, and as long as you're making those policies a priority, you'll see results. What I like is that you and Governor DeSantis and other state leaders have exhibited a sense of fearlessness, and by that I mean the mainstream media is a beast. In fact, I call them the beast. I have a nickname for media and academia and Hollywood and all of that, the inside the beltway journalists. They're a beast. I mean, they're brutal. And I'm looking at a headline here in response to you sending a letter to state attorneys from areas here in Florida that were affected by Hurricane Idalia. You basically said, listen, we've got to keep people behind bars who are looting, because guess what? If they're not locked up, they're going to keep looting. And the headline here from one of these left -leaning websites, Ashley Moody tells local state attorneys to lock up the looters as if that's a bad thing. And that's what I mean about that sense of fearlessness that you've been able to exhibit during your time as attorney general. Right. I think people are sick and tired and now see right through these narratives, the things that make common sense to us, that you would take people that are repeatedly victimizing others or harming others in the community and separate them out from a community to keep that area safe and secure and stable. That's common sense. But you've got these narratives being pushed out there that what we know is right and wrong and black and right, black and white, they are trying to muddy the waters, make people doubt themselves. No, you go back to your core instincts. And you know, look, I am a mom of a young school -aged child. I'm the wife of a law enforcement officer. When I entered into this role, I had to resign from the bench. I'd been a judge for over a decade. I didn't know how I was going to keep up my number one job of being a mom and making sure my child was taken care of at this age and travel the state and make the state better using my experience as a prosecutor and a business lawyer and a judge. But you know what I thought was going to be the most challenging aspect, which was balancing that motherhood with this demanding job, drives me in a way that every day I wake up, I'm looking at how our children might be vulnerable, how our communities are vulnerable, how our law enforcement men and women are just taking a pounding unnecessarily, unjustifiably. And those personal experiences of mine that I thought might be difficult, they just drive me in a way I do not care if I'm pushing up against a narrative that they don't like because I have a sense of what it takes to have a stable and safe community and how I can bring my own experiences to bear in those discussions. And that does not mean that we don't all want better government, better criminal justice systems. That does not mean we don't consistently on a daily basis try to improve, just as I hope every human being does. But in no way, shape, or form does that mean that we put our citizens at risk, our communities are destabilized, that our men and women of law enforcement that sign up for these jobs, laws that they feel devalued or dehumanized, none of that makes sense. None of that is good for a strong state. And while we continue to improve, we have to make sure that whatever policies we put in place, whatever laws that we pass, in no way jeopardize those things. And so I have really, really treasured that the Florida citizens gave me the opportunity to do this job at this stage in my life. I've never felt more determined and passionate about making sure we're doing right by this state. We're on a successful path here in Florida, and we don't want that trajectory to be altered in any way.
Coin Stories with Natalie Brunell
A highlight from Ricardo Salinas: Mexican Billionaire on Bitcoin, Building Wealth, Capitalism and Legacy
"This is not a question of left and right, it's free and slavery. It's freedom and irresponsibility or irresponsible theft. Welcome to the Coin Stories podcast, where we get to explore the future of money, business, technology and Bitcoin's revolutionary promise to boost economic prosperity around the world and mend our broken financial system. I'm Natalie Brunell, and I'm here to learn with you. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only, none of the discussions should constitute as official investment advice, and you should always do your own research. Please make sure to subscribe to the show so you don't miss out on any new episodes. This podcast is made possible through partnerships with companies I trust, and I'm very picky about who I choose to partner with, so I hope you take the time to listen to the ad reads throughout the show. Thanks for joining me, and if you like this type of content and want to see more of it, make sure to hit that like button. All right, it's time for the show. Ricardo, first of all, it is such an honor. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, Natalie. I just learned, actually, that Ricardo Salinas -Pliego, it's because the first last name is your father, second is your... I didn't know that that's how you worked in Mexico. Well, in Mexico and in general, Latin countries, we have this big family tradition and a way to respect the families, to recognize that your mother also counts. Love it. I love that. Yes. Well, I want to hear a little bit more about your upbringing. I want to start the story at the beginning. Can you tell me what it was like growing up here in Mexico? I was a very bad boy. You were a bad boy? Very bad boy. Very unruly and like a savage, wild guy looking for adventure. Why? I liked adventure. What can I say? In terms of your understanding of money, what was your sense of money growing up? Did you feel always comfortable? I was always poor. Okay. I had no money. I hate that feeling. Yeah. It's terrible. As a matter of fact, I have a story about that when I think I might have been like 10 or 12 years old, and my father sent me out on a trip to Disneyland and to the US, and then fly across to New York and the World Fair, and he gave me $100 for a one -month trip. I think after three days, I spent it all, and I spent the rest of the trip feeling like a beggar with my other friends who had more money. It was a terrible feeling. I don't like it, and I'm not planning on going back to that. Did you always strive to achieve great wealth? What was your path in terms of achieving success in your career? Well, it took me a long time, because even though I started working first on my own, then with other companies, and my father offered me a job in his company, and that company belonged to my grandfather and my father, and it was their company, not my company. I started working for them, and both of them, especially my father, they're very stingy, miserable with their money, so they pay me a miserable salary. Then after the 80s, disaster here in Mexico when, as I mentioned, the price of the dollar went from 20 pesos to one dollar, to today, which is 17 ,000 pesos per dollar. But in the 80s, just between 1982 and 1988, it went from 20 to 3 ,000. So everybody was wiped out.
The Crypto Overnighter
A highlight from 659:SECs ETF Trap, Binance Exodus, and Chinas CBDC March
"Good evening and welcome to the crypto overnighter. I'm Nicodemus and I will be your host as we take a look at the latest cryptocurrency news and analysis. So sit back, relax and let's get started. And remember, none of this is financial advice. And it's 10pm on Monday, September 4th, 2023. Welcome back to the crypto overnighter where we have no sponsors, no hidden agendas and no BS. But we do have the news, so let's talk about that. Tonight we take a look at the growing exodus of key executives at Binance and what it means for the crypto titan. The SEC finds itself in a quagmire over Bitcoin ETFs and JP Morgan thinks they're cornered. Meanwhile, China's push for its digital wand raises eyebrows and concerns. Down under, Australia's Senate hits the brakes on a critical crypto bill. And in a tale of two Koreas, the Republic of Korea gears up to crack down on the North's crypto theft. Lastly, FTX's star -studded advertising is under the legal microscope. Stay tuned. It's going to be a time. Binance is facing a significant loss of key executives. Mayor Kemet, the global head of product, resigned after more than a year with the company. Kemet was responsible for overseeing product launches that contributed to a user -based expansion from 80 million to over 150 million in 18 months. Leon Fung, who oversaw operations in the Asia -Pacific region, has also left the platform. Fung was responsible for the company's growth in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand. The departures are closely linked to regulatory scrutiny, particularly from U .S. authorities. Binance faces increasing pressure from regulators, including the U .S. Securities Exchange Commission, which filed a lawsuit against the exchange and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao, in June. The departure of key executives from finance is more than just a staffing issue. It's a symptom of larger problems that the company is grappling with. Regulatory pressures are mounting, and the SEC's lawsuit against Binance is a clear sign that the exchange is under the microscope. This isn't just about Binance. It's about the crypto industry at large. When the world's largest crypto exchange is facing this level of scrutiny, it sends a message to the entire sector. The loss of key executives, especially those responsible for product development and regional growth, could have a ripple effect on Binance's future strategies and its standing in the global crypto market. The company may be the world's largest crypto exchange, but they're not invincible. This is a wake -up call for anyone who thinks crypto companies can operate outside the reach of regulators. The departures also raise questions about Binance's ability to maintain its rapid growth trajectory in the face of increasing regulatory challenges. The crypto space is still in its early stages, and these departures signify potential roadblocks in the path of Binance's global expansion. Alright, from a crumbling titan to regulators stuck in the mud, if Binance's issues had you concerned, wait till you hear about the SEC's Catch -22. Hit that notification bell so you never miss an episode.
The Charlie Kirk Show
A highlight from The Rising American Caste System: My Speech at PHP Las Vegas
"Think identity theft won't happen to you? Think again. There's a new victim every three seconds in the U .S., over 15 million this year alone, and many don't even know they're victims. LifeLock alerts you to identity threats you could miss, even when you monitor your credit. If your identity is stolen, your dedicated U .S.-based restoration specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all identity theft, but everyone can save up to 25 % their first year at lifelock .com slash Salem. Identity theft protection starts here. Hey everybody, happy Monday, happy Labor Day. My conversation at PHP, we talk marriage, we talk Jesus, the Gospel, Trump, and more. And I encourage all of you to get involved with Turning Point USA. That is TPUSA .com. We have some very exciting campus tour stops coming up this fall. We have Amfest coming at Amfest .com, America Fest in Phoenix, Arizona. Start a high school or college chapter to join our nationwide educational movement at TPUSA .com. Turning Point USA is making hope happen on the front lines, TPUSA .com. That is TPUSA .com. Also consider becoming a member of our program. You could do that at charliekirk .com and follow the queues. It's affordable for all income levels. We are adding exclusive interviews, ad -free episodes, and more. That is charliekirk .com. And click on that member button and follow the queues. I love hearing from all of you, so email me freedom at charliekirk .com. That is freedom at charliekirk .com. Buckle up everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.
The Charlie Kirk Show
A highlight from Ask Charlie Anything 158: Why Observe Shabbat? Is Vivek Trustworthy? Low Class Mugshots?
"Think identity theft won't happen to you? Think again. There's a new victim every three seconds in the U .S. Over 15 million this year alone. And many don't even know they're victims. LifeLock alerts you to identity threats you could miss, even when you monitor your credit. If your identity is stolen, your dedicated U .S.-based restoration specialist will work to fix it. No one can prevent all identity theft, but everyone can save up to 25 % their first year at lifelock .com slash Salem. Identity theft protection starts here. Hey everybody, happy Monday. Ask Me Anything episode. Did we catch something in the R &C rules? We review it in real time. We talk about why I honor the Shabbat. I think you'll love it at the end of the episode. It could bless your life. Consider it. Maybe it's for you, maybe not. Also, Vivek for what role? Here's a role I think Vivek should take immediately. I think you'll love it. Email us freedom at charliekirk .com and subscribe to our podcast. Get involved with Turning Point USA at tpusa .com. That is tpusa .com. Start a high school chapter today. Start a college chapter today. All of that at tpusa .com. That is tpusa .com. Buckle up everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here. Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's an incredible guy. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created. Turning Point USA. We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"We love getting your feedback. Now, doctor Mike, you have a couple of things you said you were going to give advice on the poker tournament. Was that one thing? And you're going to talk about it. There's a few things. All right, I can't remember everything you said you were going to talk about. So just do it. All right, well, not yesterday, but this Saturday before I went down to diamond Joe because as you remember on our last podcast, big layer and Neil said they were going to be there. Right. So I went down there and I was playing and there's big layer and he joined me and we were doing pretty well and after a little bit I saw Neil and he came over and then just on a coincidence, Kevin and Chris who live up in the Minneapolis area were there too. So we were all there and we happened to get on the same side of the crabs table. And the rules were great, Mark. I mean, we were doing so well. Ended up being a big wind for me and everyone else went home winners. So we were all very happy, had a really good time. But a couple of things to report about that, number one, for some reason, there were players on the table who wanted to go to dinner around dinnertime. Oh, God. So I gave them a big lecture about being prepared. And what you do is you eat this big lunch right before you come to the casino so you don't have to eat again until about two or 3 a.m. and then you stop at quick trip on the way home and get a bunch of food to eat. Yeah, that's just good advice. There's a 24 hour quick trip near there. Hopefully they took that to heart because they all wanted to eat dinner. I just didn't get it. But anyway, every time somebody said, oh, we're going to go to dinner. I'm like, look, like I've told everyone else. It's the same with the tournament, right? You don't need breaks. Before the tournament, you go to the bathroom, you don't drink anything during the tournament. And you eat a big meal right before you're good for four or 5 hours. It's true. And you know, if you need to use the restroom, just take your computer with you. Right. We will have breaks. We will have breaks on the tournament everybody. Anyway, it was a really, really fun time. Can't tell you the last time I enjoyed myself so much. Oh, that's great. And so, you know, I was winning really big, and I was tipping pretty heavily, and I was giving money to the other players just to boost their odds up and stuff. And they were all hitting.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"My first foray into video poker and learning more about that. Traditionally, it more of a crap, blackjack player, but I said, hey, what the hell? I've been listening to these guys long enough and they can't hit a royal flush. Maybe I'll get lucky. So I went out there and was playing 25 cent 9 6 jacks a better. And started to get a little good, started getting on a little roll. And bumped it up to 50 cent level. So with that, you know, a royal would be $2000. Lo and behold, right before I was about to leave and cash out, I hit redraw and yeah, it was a complete throwaway hand and was dealt a royal flush. I'll send that to you just so I can prove my worth here, but that was pretty crazy hitting my first royal on an absolute nothing garbage hands. The other thing I want to say about Hollywood lawrenceburg is our second largest casino in the state that got a lot of video poker, a lot of slots, but also a bunch of table games. I haven't tried craps table there, but it's a $10 crap stable. They also have a crap less table and a bunch of blackjack games all seem to be in about the ten to $15 range, 3.2 with some not so great side bets, which I'm kind of sorry about that too, and my Friends were out there with me. We are sitting in a blackjack table with a couple of other folks that were playing the side depth. And they were not thrilled with us, not playing the side bets and telling us, oh, you get a one so much more money if you had just played beside that and well, I was watching this guy hit one of the big ones. Like a straight flush or something and he bled all that money back. So it just goes to show you. Maybe they were wrong. All right, well, it's great to finally give a call into the show. I'll probably give you another call here on my next trip up to you got cut off there. That's pretty good getting your first royal ever by discarding all 5 cards. Yeah. Yeah, he sent me a picture. Yeah, that's something else. I saw it. I saw it. He talks about VP free two dot com again, a great resource for finding good pay tables on video poker at casinos.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"Hey, Mark. And doctor Mike BT since had nougat just wanted to call in with a double trip report that made two trips in January. One, we went to Vegas, stayed on the strip at Paris. I'd never stayed there, usually playing Hollywood, but one to try it out and absolutely loved it. Maybe I'm getting older, but the carpet just felt so good to welcome him. After you've been walking for 12 to 16 hours one day walking on patty carpet at Paris versus that hard concrete that feels like at the planet Hollywood made a big difference believe it or not. But the tables for whatever reason were cheaper at Paris. They were mostly ten and 15 versus what seemed like 15 and 25 at point of Hollywood, even at $25 baccarat all day at Paris. So we had a really good time for whatever reason tables just couldn't get hot for us, but we played slots again and one two hand pace at two different places. So I had a good time and then took a birthday trip with a buddy of mine down to the Luxe for the first time. We did stay at Harris because that's where the comps are asked for us and we had a different experience with the room than you had. We actually got the elevator noticed how clean it did smell it's almost like they had just shampooed the carpets. The rooms were typical room, not awful, not great. Just be able to okay, room was clean. No real gripes, nothing surprising there. But the casino there was probably one of the worst casinos I think I've been in. It was just like being in somebody's basement that had a big basement full of some gaming devices. Once you go out to Beau rodge and hard rock and you see what they have to offer, I just can not see staying in gambling at Harris there. So that was a little disappointing, but overall we absolutely fell in love with biloxi, maybe more than Vegas just because we can drive there. It's 7 hours from Chattanooga. Tables were cheaper. People were nice. The local theme there were a lot of nice bars we went to, a lot of restaurants, people were nice. Overall, we had an amazing trip. I will say while we were there at the golden nugget, which we also loved, the guy at the table next to his blackjack won the progressive. He had two ace of spades and then the dealer had an ace of spades turned up and he won the jackpot at $418,000. So that was pretty exciting to be a part of to be able to see that. Oddly enough, the guy only left a $100 tip afterwards. You guys have been talking about tipping a lot lately. And we found out actually through the dealers, we stayed there for several hours and to do this for Thomas, that they couldn't believe the only a $100. Lot to see your thoughts on that. Personally, I would think somewhere around 5000 would be a good tip for a win at that. Yeah, you got cut off there. Mike, you were telling me that you got like a round of applause or something from I'm going to save that for the end, Mark. You're going to tell us how a story. It has to do with tipping. Well, tipping people who gambled with me. Okay. That's the whole story. Oh, yeah, you'll have a big story here at the end. You know what BT would like now? What's that? BT would like to go to the flamingo because there's like about 6 to 8 inches of dirt and sand under that carpet. So comfort. But no spilled drinks. Just dirty. And desert saying that he was saying that. It is true though.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"Hey, Mark, and doctor Mike Anthony from Missouri here. Just calling in married in July and am going on my bachelor party to Vegas in mid may bring in some guys that have never been before, don't really gamble as much.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"I mean, they probably have a really good marketing strategy, and I'm sure that works well for them. Yeah. Next time we go to Vegas though, we need to go to the palm. We talked ourselves out of it last time we were there. It was like, should we go to palms? Or the new virgin? Run by. Mohegan sun, right? Well, that was a mistake. We hate about it. That was not a good experience. All right, let's hear from Jason. He has a little more information about this Venetian offer that people have been getting. Hey, Mark, doctor Mike. This is Jason from Atlanta. I just wanted to call about the guy who got the Venetian offer. I'm a Caesar's player. I go at the Cherokee all the time. I take advantage of their partnership with Atlantis every year, sometimes I take another trip to Atlantis in The Bahamas. Well, just last week on the flyer length is sent me a flyer for the Venetian offering for free night and a $100 and free play. Maybe the gentleman didn't actually see on the floor that it came from The Bahamas if the has ever taken the Caesars partner to The Bahamas, maybe their players club at cinema. But I just wanted to call and comment on that. Went out to Southern California for the college playoff championship and we stayed at air as well as the property, which we couldn't play with y'all anyway. And I hope you all have a nice day in our past reload. All right, thanks, Jason. So this Venetian offer was being sent by Atlantis coming from The Bahamas. Atlantis is not owned by Caesars. They have a deal with Caesars. People can get these trips here. Who owns Atlanta? Well, I think it's a separate location, but I don't think it has any direct association with Venetian. That's why it's sort of interesting. It's like, okay, it Landis is sending a Venetian offer so now I'm even more confused, right? It's like, you know, getting an offer from Caesar's four MGM Grand, right? I don't know. Yeah, that's odd. Well, Jake or Hoover, why do you have to die? Yeah.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"And we've gotten a lot of people contacting us like, hey, is the poker tournament happening? Yeah, we are kind of waiting here to the last minute because as we record this, it's a week away, so it's coming up here. Yep, on Sunday, march 12th, we're going to have our 6th semiannual you can bet on that poker tournament on poker stars. As usual, it is going to be at 1 p.m. Eastern Time and don't forget it is the first day of daylight saving time. So, you know, for us, old folks, make sure you set your clocks before you go to bed. Set it forward too. Yeah, make sure. So again, 1 p.m. Eastern Time, that's ten Pacific time. I want to say something upfront. You don't need to register early for the tournament. There is no limit on the number of players who can play. The reason we mention this is because in the past, we've had a lot of players who have registered for the tournament, but then end up not showing up. But they're still taking up a seat. You know, if you don't unregister, you still show up, and it just, you're seeing in your seat as not having logged in. And yeah, you just get blinded off, but it affects the way players who do show up play, especially if you've got a lot of no shows on a single table. So you can register any time before the tournament starts. In fact, you can even register up until 20 minutes after the tournament starts. We've got a little grace period there. So no reason to register early if you're not sure you're going to play. And if you do register for the tournament and it ends up, you can't play. Please unregister. Okay, let's get on to the details.
Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"theft" Discussed on Gambling Podcast: You Can Bet on That
"To you can bet on that. A podcast for the recreational gambler. I'm Mark Duvall, and I'm doctor Mike. Doctor Mike, how are you doing? Over there and Minnesota, staying warm. How about you guys in California? Are you drowning? It's been actually pretty nice here. We haven't suffered like a lot of the people who have been snowed in and things like that. Although we did have a hailstorm earlier this week that's the biggest hailstorm I've ever seen here. Having lived here. It just went on for a long time and piled up quite a bit. So yeah, it's a little unusual, but the weather's actually very nice today. Good, good. Yeah, we're expecting some wintry mix starting tonight for a couple of days. What does that mean? A wintry mix. Well, you know, kind of snow and then it'll be sleet and then it might be rain, and then it's back to snow. Okay, so just to cycle. In other words, a mess. Good for driving conditions. Yes, right. All right, well, let's go ahead and get started. A topic that's come up on our show a few times is double deck, blackjack games being dealt from a shoe. And we thought that was kind of strange. Usually double decks are pitch games. And we were trying to figure out why casinos would move to a shoe. Listener Mark did a little investigating for us. He went to horseshoe Bossier City to see if he could get an answer. I'll just read what he said here. One answer was that they speculated that it prevented people from cheating because the players couldn't hold the cards. I'm personally not confident that's the reason. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a good reason to me too, because if cheating the problem, well, that's an issue with single decks. Any pitch game. People hold the cards. Okay, I guess it's easier to cheat when you can hold the cards versus them being dealt face up.
WGN Radio
"theft" Discussed on WGN Radio
"Theft and protecting your financial information and don't clicking on links. And don't give out yourself security number to anybody who calls you. But sometimes you could be doing nothing like I You know, I've been a victim like that. Except this, I told many times and so's previously loitering, Charlie. So Madigan She was the victim of identity theft, so it's just rampant with identity theft with the what all these. You know these breaches of security systems all over the world, and if they take your information today may not use it for a year or two years down the line, you know, three years and it's so important that they still kids identities, too, because they have a clean bill of health. So It's important. Check your child. Still security number, you know, with the annual credit report dot com to make certain you know your credit reports not altered in any way or have anything on there because that's usually the first wait. Oh, Find out if your victim identity theft is pulling your credit report and seeing what's on there. Steve. As I'm speaking with you. My phone just lit up, it says potential spam. Springfield, Illinois. I'm even going to guess that's not Springfield, Illinois. Because I've talked to you about this before, and you say they make it look like there are local number or their nearby, but at least her phone's not our kind of helping with that. It doesn't mean it's foolproof. But we student at those spam alerts and on a lot of the phones. They're working the families I work. I see those families as well. But unfortunately, Connor's bodies, you know, disposable phones and buy time that they regulators catch up to them if they don't realize the stand right away, so even just don't trust this fan completely. That doesn't say ST Span doesn't mean it's not spam. So we actually we tell consumers not dancing or phones anymore. Let it go to voicemail, you know, and And then you could do to checking in the number and a lot of scammers. Don't leave messages. Some do so I'm not gonna say that Cause I get tons of calls. I had my call my phone ever since. You know, cell phones were invented some on every list possible, so I get you know 2030 calls the day I was let go to voicemail. They never leave messages. It's better that way. They did leave a message. You could check the phone number and Google search reverse searches like you mentioned to see if it's a scam number now. Good stuff to know. Thank you, Steve. Okay. Enjoy the weekend. Thank you so much. All right. Take care of that. See burns from the better business Bureau. You can check it out to they got the scam tracker. Awesome resource there to try to see if if something comes up and you're like, Hey, is this a scam? You can go there and kind of see if it if it is, it's bottom of the hour time. That means it's time for the news from the North Western medicine newsroom. 21 degrees have 1 32. Good afternoon. I'm Steve Roxton. The news sponsored by news nation. City and county leaders opting out of the governor's plan to expand covert 19 vaccine eligibility. WGN traffic Here's Mary Vandeveld and traffic is sponsored by indeed dot com looks good on the Eaton's inbound Kennedy, though about 32 from O'Hare and 25 from the Edens. It's now slow from Fullerton and an accident now reported outbound at Central Eisenhower is slow inbound just into Mannheim as well in an impound into First Avenue. The Stevenson looking good, along with the Ryan accident south on Tri State now cleared before 47th and still slow on. I 80 just into Larkin. Northwest side of Grand east of Ogden and accident south side of Racine, just north of Pershing. And in Oakland. It's Cicero at Southwest Highway with..
WTMJ 620
"theft" Discussed on WTMJ 620
"Windows. Decks, of course, citing pick the next step, check them out at sighting and limited. Com, citing unlimited's Siding and a whole lot more. Welcome back to Jeff. Wider on Wtmj. Welcome back so very glad to have you with us. How can I say this nicely? A slap on the wrist is not solving the problem. And city leaders need to wake up to that journal Sentinel has a very interesting piece today. Motor vehicle thefts in Milwaukee car thefts Now we're not talking about Carjackings, which are up as well. I mean, but this is this isn't you know you go up and you stick a gun in somebody's face and you take the car. This is just your straightforward car theft, Whether it's breaking into the car and hot wiring it or finding the car running or whatever car thefts in Milwaukee are up 152%. And that's from that's from Ah high last year as well. I mean, here's the deal. The numbers are just Absolutely amazing. As of Tuesday, 808 vehicles have been stolen in Milwaukee. That's 152% increase when compared to the same time in 2020. Okay, What is today's date today is February 3rd 808 vehicles. Stolen 808 vehicles. Vehicle thefts are up 140% or more in five of the seven walkie police district's downtown. 48 car thefts. That's 140% increase District three, which is the city's West side. 94 car thefts. 141% Increase District four, which is the Northwest corner 141 car thefts. That's 152% increase District five, which is the north side of Milwaukee. 147 car thefts. That is a 259% year to year increase 259% District seven, which is on the city's northwest side 239 car thefts. That's a 219% increase District two which is the near South side. They win the prize, the lowest percentage of car thefts. 74. That's only 21% higher. It is a heck of a statement. When you look at what is going on in the city of Milwaukee, and you say, Hey, we've got a district that on Lee has a 21% increase in car theft. Hey, they win the prize for being the safest. Authorities say that they're seeing a rash of Keith Thefts of Kia's 100 eyes and Honda's mostly Kia's. Because some late model Kia's apparently are a relatively easy to steal. And the punks. The young people have figured it out. Apparently with Kia's you can break this is with a not giving thieves any sort of, you know, special insight. They know this already. Currently, Kia thieves know that they can break out the back window without setting out on alarm. Unlock the door, Peel back the steering column and used a screwdriver. U. S P. Port to crank the car. So other words hot wiring it. It's so bad. That Enterprise rental car has even started hiding Kias on their lots because they're so afraid that they're going to be stolen. Nationally. Milwaukee is 12 on the list of all the metropolitan areas with the highest rate of vehicle theft now. Sometimes. Sometimes when these cars were stolen, they are taken on joyrides. That's it. We're just going to steal somebody's car. We're taking a joy ride. Other times the cars were stolen, and then they're used to commit other sorts of crimes. So it's it's a variety of this. And the other thing that they are finding is no surprise. Ah, large number of the people who are stealing the cars. Are wait for it. What's the word? Juvenile's. It's kids that are out there stealing cars, and in many cases, they're stealing cars over and over and over again. And so the question becomes. What do we do in this particular situation? And who should we care about? Do we care about the car thief, or do we care about the victim? Now for some people, If you have your car stolen, it is invasion at you. You feel like you're invaded, But it's not the end of the world because maybe you've got car insurance. Maybe you come from a two car family, so your car gets stolen and it's going to be an inconvenience. But you're gonna call your insurance carrier and what they're gonna do is they're going to pay for your rental car and you're gonna replace the car and it's again. It's an inconvenience. You've been victimized, but it's not the end of the world for other people. It is because, for example, if you don't have access to another car, how are you going to get to work? And if Maybe the car from the theft perspective. It is underinsured or whatever. All right, you're you're really hurting because you have to try to figure out okay. Where am I going to get the money to replace this? So it's a big deal for the victims in Milwaukee, though we don't give a rat's rump about the victims. What we are apparently more concerned about is the people that are stealing the cars. In the Journal Sentinel story. They quote Reggie Moore, who's the director of Milwaukee's Office of Violent Pro Prevent Violence Prevention, and he says, Well, okay, there's a lot of reasons why this is happening. We've got kids who are going on a juror joyride summer, stealing them to commit other crimes. But then he says, we've got to get them to understand. If they're putting their lives in danger when they participate in negative behavior, And then this is the money quotation of the whole story More and this is the guy who runs Milwaukee's Office of Violence Prevention. Says he is opposed to charging young car thieves in adult court. Because studies show that developing adolescent brains don't assess risk and consequences of an action. Clearly some of the mistakes made by young people arm or outside of their control, then we think Okay, Well, keep your 16 years old. You've just stolen your ninth car. Well, I We've got to be sorry because you're only 16. And you can't process this is that you can't process the risks and consequences clearly, and it's beyond your control that you're taking a crowbar or a baseball bat breaking in the window of somebody else's car. Finding in hot wiring and driving off at 95 miles an hour and blowing through a red light, more says. I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished, but we need to understand that there are other factors in play when we're talking about young people. Yeah, there's other factors. Maybe it's poor parenting. Maybe it's a lack of impulse control. Maybe it's the fact that they just don't care at all about anybody beside themselves. But the bottom line is this slap on the wrist approach this we're not going to send people to adult court this we're on Lee going to say OK, what? You you've only stolen eight cars now. Here, we're gonna put you on double secret probation. It's not working 85561616 20 that is the accurate mortgage talk and text lines. We don't need to charge car thieves and adult court, at least according to the director of Milwaukee's Office of Violence Prevention. I say nuts to that. Let's start being all about protecting victims and anybody who's ever had their car stolen can undoubtedly tell you the horror stories in the frustrations that you go through this And you feel that we should just be slapping the perpetrators on the risks and saying risks and saying, Hey, you're 15 or 16 years old. I know you don't understand the consequences of taking that baseball back, breaking out the window, stealing the car and driving through an intersection at 90 Miles an hour 85561616 20 that second mortgage talking text line. We discuss in a minute? For Jeff Wagner, right after this director's can spot great deals from a mile.
The Security Ledger Podcast
"theft" Discussed on The Security Ledger Podcast
"Staff from companies in sectors like retail travel and hospitality whose businesses have been up ended by the pandemic. Millions of americans have lost their jobs. Since the onset of twenty twenty and if data compiled by our next guest is to be believed. Many of those departing workers are taking company data and intellectual property with them out the door. Sheriff ben is the executive director of field engineering at the company. Secure on expend notes. That evolving technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence are making it easier to spot patterns of behavior that correlate with data theft in this discussion sharon. I talk about secure onyx. Study on data theft and data loss. How common the problem is. and how. Covert and the layoffs stemming from the pandemic are exacerbating the insider data theft problem. My name is sharon. then i'm the executive director of field engineering at secure onyx. The second onyx is a next gen. Sim and euboea company You know we've been doing this for the last ten years. We started as a company even before that we were looking at just identities and profiling identities and behavior and that started while naturally in dude looking at other types of lock sources such as mail proxy endpoints infrastructure in a sense Next sim is has the standard traditional capabilities. Plus the euboea capabilities built into it and also sore capabilities for automation and so on. So that's that's company in a nutshell and you're welcome to security ledger. Podcast thank you and Happy happy to be. We're talking to you Because we're we're digging. Deep on the problem of insider threats and particular the risk that employees pose you know in that period where they may have decided to move on to another job or are leaving or government getting fired for some reason secure onyx came out with a report on insider threat behavior. This was Data that you'd kinda it from across your customer base and analyze particularly around this issue. Can you kind of give us a high level on What that report found some of the kind of high level takeaways from from that report. Yeah so let me start by answering the question. What we've observed is that most often. When an employee leaves the company they end up taking some data with them right. I think it has just human tendency to do. So because the employee feels a sense of entitlement ownership especially if particular artifacts or document is Is something they worked on So this has always been an a problem with respect to whether that particular action is is benign or serious. it really depends on the impact. For example legislate employees ended up taking an excel sheet with mackerels built into it so that they can be more efficient than the next job they go to. Is that a big deal. Yes or no that depends right but let's say you have a a a high profile researcher who ends up taking with them the formula on how to make a leading drug anti the next competitor and uses that for accelerating their time to market now. Is that a big deal. Obviously i think it is so it's not just a matter of what they take. It's a matter of the impact that it actually has and who determines that is. Obviously you know. The working group within each company has to determine that's hr legal in all these parties. We need to come together to to have that kind of discussion. And i think your your report found something. Close to like thirty percent of the data.
KLBJ 590AM
"theft" Discussed on KLBJ 590AM
"6 34 time, Jeffries and don prying. Good morning so glad you chose to join us. So your tickle you could jump in at 51283605 90 toll free 87759055 to 5 in the world. A tech news. This is really interesting says a lot about us too. More than 100 billion hours were spent watching gaming contents on YouTube could or just on YouTube in the year 2020. That's just on YouTube. That's not mention mentioning twitch or any other streaming service out there. Minecraft leading the way and, according to this report, from YouTube, culture and trends is the same amount of time that would take to travel to Neptune and back 475,000 times. I can't get my head around that Minecraft was the single most watched game. Roll box coming in 2nd 3rd on that list was General free fire, followed by Grand Theft Auto and Fortnight's. So there you go. That zoo and this story indicates a lot of kids. Not just a lot of kids, man. It's a lot of grown ass men and women that play these games. Ah, lot of families but 100 billion hours spent watching gaming content on YouTube alone in 2020. That is crazy. What's that could rival that? What could come close to them? Some of that? Maybe, you know, pandemic induced a swell. Yeah, Yeah, no doubt about that. I'm sure that the numbers have increased, but For it to get to 100 billion hours. You have to think already the time spit must have just been astronomical Salute. Lee, This is a world that is I'm so removed from I can't I'm not being critical of it. I just don't. I don't understand. Why don't I? It's not my world. It's the opposite of how you and I were raised. You know, our parents told us to go outside. Get outside. Come back when the streetlights come on, still climb trees. I know you do bright shoulder kids these days. Don't do that. As much as some do lot do But not as much. I mean this right now, Obviously, it proves the potential. For people taking well, they already are the millions and millions of dollars being made around this when you have 100 billion billion hours spent watching. What's a lot? Yeah, it is 6 36 that that story on my linked in page at Tai Jeffries. So one of the other big stories this morning and please feel free to jump in and get your reaction. Senator Ted Cruz will lead an effort this week Wednesday. Challenge the electoral votes from certain states, where there have been numerous allegations of election fraud. Yeah. Cruz just a few minutes ago, says he wants to convince Congress to investigate certain states within 10 days, and Cruz says this process is legal. It happened in the presidential election in the 18 hundreds..