It's Monday.
Or, as I like to call it.
"Day one of the hostage situation."
*.*
Bob Barker, the host of almost 6,000 episodes of The Price Is Right, died of natural causes at his longtime Hollywood Hills home at the age of 99.
Many are quick to point out how he came so close to 100 without going over.
*.*
Oneliners:
I wear a fake ankle monitor to the gym so people won't talk to me.
A lot of damage in Georgia from Hurricane Idalia, but it denies doing anything wrong.
Seriously, if you're home-schooled, do you really need name tags at your reunion?
Here's to all the kids who have never found their name on anything in a souvenir store.
The older I get, the tighter companies are putting lids on their jars.
I wish there was an even lazier way than social media to wish you a happy birthday!
You think you love your family, but then suddenly, there are three of you and only one piece of pizza left.
When a cashier asks if you have a rewards card, look down, sigh, and say, "My wife took everything when she left."
I hate it when I'm singing along and the artist gets the words wrong.
Why do they call it beauty sleep when you wake up looking terrible?
*.*
Russian President Putin is said to have put new security measures in place, just in case anyone else tries a mutiny.
He's added a bodyguard for the food taster of the official car starter.
*.*
Burger King is being sued for showing pictures of Whoppers in their restaurants that are 35% bigger than the actual burger.
What about fishing rules; the actual size of the fish we caught is much smaller, but we still call IT "a whopper!"
Quote of the Times;
“The reason the Founding Fathers specified both “enemies foreign and domestic” is because they were well-read in history and they understood that the enemy within is every bit as dangerous, and quite often more so, than the enemy without.” - Vox Day
Link of the Times;
Tucker Blows the Lid Off the Narrative About the War in Ukraine:
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2023/08/22/tucker-interview-ukraine-n2627338
Issue of the Times;
Retail Shrinkage by Stuart Schneiderman
As you know, organized retail theft has become rife across America. More and more young people walk out of stores with whatever they want, not to be caught, not to be prosecuted. The companies tend to absorb the loss through accounting gimmicks. At worst, insurance pays for it.
Now, the Wall Street Journal editorializes this morning, some companies have resorted to euphemism. They refuse to call what is happening by its name; they erase the evidence of the criminal gangs; and they have rebranded it all as… Shrinkage.
One is reminded of the primitive activity known as head shrinking, and of the unflattering term used to describe mental health professionals. Calling it shrinkage means failing to think clearly about the problem.
In the retail world, the word has become ubiquitous:
Foot Locker executives likewise noted on Wednesday that inventory “shrink” has been increasing. Target CEO Brian Cornell last week said that “shrink” remained “well above the sustainable level where we expect to operate over time,” and that the company was facing “an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime.” Home Depot execs last week also flagged “pressure from shrink” on earnings. As did Walmart execs. “Shrink has increased a bit this year. It increased last year,” its CFO noted, adding that “shrink” was “uneven” across the country. “There needs to be action taken to help protect people from crime, including theft,” said CEO Doug McMillon.
Calling it shrinkage feels like denial, denial of the reality of what is going on, denial of the damage that this insurrectionary activity is doing to retail establishments, and to everyone else. Because, as you know, someone has to pay for this, and those who are first in line are consumers.
The Journal argues:
Shrink isn’t PC jargon used only by these companies. It’s an industry term that wraps in other losses such as value lost or damaged in transit. But plain language about theft, rather than the euphemism, would help the public better understand how bad criminal theft is and maybe build political support for policies that would do something about it.
Calling it shrink obscures the criminality and makes it seem like something other than an insurrection. Since no one seems to be getting hurt, using a bland term like shrinkage dulls everyone’s moral sense, and excuses local officials from cracking down on it.
For now, as you know, certain officials, like Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, have declared it all to be unacceptable. She has rallied a task force to study the problem.
This sounds good, but talk is cheap. The proof lies in whether or not it stops. As of now, optimism is unwarranted.
It’s common in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia where so-called victimless crimes are rarely enforced. Retailers in some cities now lock up items as basic as toothpaste and shampoo to prevent criminals from clearing out shelves.
Progressives ignore theft out of hostility to corporations. But mom-and-pop stores are pillaged too, and the costs of theft are borne by consumers and workers. Modern corporate culture shrinks from saying anything that might offend anyone, apparently including criminals and organized theft rings. Time for CEOs and CFOs to speak plainly.
But, is organized retail theft a victimless crime? Certain public prosecutors do not want to prosecute certain crimes, because they want to say that the crime rate is going down. And, as the Journal points out, we certainly do not want to offend the delicate sensibilities of our criminal underclass.
In the meantime, in New York City, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani got crime under control by enacting a broken windows policy. He decided that failing to prosecute fare jumpers on the subway was creating an environment of disrespect for the law, and was contributing to a crime wave.
It turns out that he was right. It turns out that the current policy, which supposedly ignores victimless crimes, leads to crimes that hurt victims.
News of the Times;
After watching millions die, FDA now admits doctors had every right to prescribe Ivermectin:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-08-13-fda-admits-ivermectin-legitimate-treatment-covid-19.html
Over 25% of elderly residents of a SNF died within a 20-day period after getting jab:
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/breaking-over-25-of-elderly-residents
Starbucks ordered to pay an additional $2.7 million:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/starbucks-settlement-rittenhouse-white-shannon-phillips/
Putin’s attitude to Western sanctions shocked Scholz:
https://www.rt.com/news/582022-putin-scholz-macron-ukraine/
Animal Rights Activist Guilty of Animal Cruelty:
https://humanewatch.org/animal-rights-activist-guilty-of-animal-cruelty/
Elon Musk 'likes' trending #BanTheADL posts:
https://mashable.com/article/x-twitter-elon-musk-white-supremacist-ad-ban-adl-hashtag
Mother Desperate For Answers After FBI Busts Down Door, Fatally Shoots Disabled Veteran Son:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/grieving-mother-desperate-answers-after-fbi-busts-down/
Utah and Oregon Now Require GPS Trackers on EVs:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/benbartee/2023/08/13/techno-hell-utah-and-oregon-now-require-gps-trackers-on-evs-in-lieu-of-registration-fee-tax-drivers-by-the-mile-n1718751
Mercedes disconnects Russian customers:
https://www.rt.com/business/581240-mercedes-disconnects-russian-customers/
What happens after the collapse of a 99-year-old trucking company:
https://cbsaustin.com/news/nation-world/what-happens-after-the-collapse-of-a-99-year-old-trucking-company-yellow-bankruptcy-shipping-logistics-supply-chain-consumer-spending-economy-pandemic-loan
Man who killed Texas deputy in traffic stop sentenced to death:
https://thenationaldesk.com/top-videos/man-who-killed-texas-deputy-in-traffic-stop-sentenced-to-death-facundo-chavez-peter-herrera-2019-el-paso-county-socorro-governor-greg-abbott
Private school teacher accused of molesting teen in park:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/22/wisconsin-teacher-accused-of-molesting-teen-gave-him-a-gun/
Finnish Grandmother Is Back In Court:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/11/finnish-grandmother-is-back-in-court-facing-hate-speech-charges-for-tweeting-bible-verses/
79 Arsonists Arrested Amid Deadly Greek Wildfires:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/08/26/79-arsonists-arrested-amid-deadly-greek-wildfires-n1722308
SCARY Message about the 1930's Going viral now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw3C4KxV6xY&ab_channel=BuddyBrown
Retail?
Straws?
We still don't have a name of the big MegaMillions $1.5-billion jackpot winner from last week.
However I've got my Ancestry.com open and ready to search.
*.*
Alexander Graham Bell: “I invented the telephone!”
His brother, Taco: “I’m working on some pretty big stuff too.”
*.*
Teacher: "Now, Susan, how may fingers have you?"
Susan: "Ten."
Teacher: "Right. Now if you lost four of them, what would you have?"
Susan: "No more piano lessons."
*.*
The average woman will own 111 purses in her lifetime.
The average man will be asked to hold 110 of them.
*.*
98.9% of people use fictitious statistics to back up their claims.
Quote of the Times;
“If liberals wanted their children to have access to gay porn books, they could just buy them on Amazon. They want YOUR children to have access to gay porn books.” - @RevolverNews
Link of the Times;
Guardian Angels Founder Curtis Sliwa Arrested in New York:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/guardian-angels-founder-curtis-sliwa-arrested-new-york/
Issue of the Times;
Study Shows Paper Straws More Harmful to Planet than Plastic by John Nolte
In today’s chapter of… Everything Environmentalists Tell Us Is Wrong … and I do mean … wrong … we will look at how paper straws do more damage to the planet than plastic straws.
Remember all that empty-headed virtue-signaling over freaken straws in 2018?
Paper straws are good!
Paper straws are virtuous!
Unless they are used to suck out the remains of a dead baby after an abortion, plastic straws are eeeevil.
Only Nazis use plastic straws … said celebrities, politicians, and media elites.
Yes, all of a sudden, and from out of nowhere, plastic straws became the Biggest Threat To Mother Earth Ever. This was one of those nonsense narratives schemed over in secret conference calls among the top one percent coordinated to hit America like a Blitzkrieg. No time for debate. No time to use science to justify the New Good Thing. It was this simple: bad people use plastic straws, and good people use paper straws.
President Trump trolls the Left over their obsession to ban plastic straws. pic.twitter.com/VJPVKC6ybu
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 19, 2019
Remember how USA Today, CNN, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the New York Times screamed out headlines about how America uses 500 million plastic straws per day—500 million—per day! The source for this number was a literal fourth grader, but let’s not let sourcing get in the way of a good narrative.
Remember how Democrat-run California banned plastic straws and wanted to imprison waiters who offer people plastic straws?
Remember how Her Vice Fraudulency Kamala “DumDum” Harris called for a national ban on plastic straws?
Remember how Democrat-run Washington DC banned plastic straws?
Meanwhile, these same Democrat-run cities have no problem passing out plastic hypodermic needles to junkies.
Anyway, guess what…? Yes, the inevitable has arrived. These fascist liars are wrong again—and I do mean … again.
You’re gonna love this…
“Straws made from plant-based materials, such as paper and bamboo, are often advertised as being more sustainable and eco-friendly than those made from plastic,” Thimo Groffen, PhD, author of the study and an environmental scientist at the University of Antwerp, said in a press release. “However, the presence of PFAS in these straws means that’s not necessarily true.”
Researchers on the study examined 39 brands of straws in Belgium from supermarkets, toy stores, fast-food chains, drug stores, and e-commerce stores. The straws were either made of paper, bamboo, glass, stainless steel, or plastic, and the researchers tested each brand for concentrations of PFAS. Sixty-nine percent of the brands contained PFAS, with paper straws more likely to contain the chemicals. The researchers found 90% of paper straws had PFAS, compared to 80% of bamboo straws, 75% of plastic straws, and 40% of glass straws. Further, a paper straw brand was the brand with the highest PFAS concentration.
*throws head back, laughs, burns tire under baby bird nest*
I don’t care about any of this environmental stuff. I don’t litter. I’m kind to animals. I leave things as I found them. Other than that, no.
Recycling? No way. I’m no sucker. Everything comes from the Earth. And despite repeated requests, no one can explain to me how putting back in Mother Earth what came from Mother Earth harms Mother Earth. Recycling is stupid. Sure, you can make the planet less inhabitable for human beings by electing Democrats to run your city or manage your forest, but all these chemicals and whatnot come from the Earth, so what’s the big deal putting them back where they came from?
Back to the straws… How many times will America’s idiots fall for these lies?
These “experts” are 0-53 https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/09/20/nolte-climate-experts-are-0-41-with-their-doomsday-predictions/ with their predictions.
Who trusts someone who is 0-53, who has been wrong 53 times and correct zero times?
I would never use a paper straw because paper straws are stupid and inconvenient and have a taste. After 2018, I also used plastic straws because it was an easy way to feel like an outlaw.
But now that we’re being told not to use paper straws, I might use them.
You see, I’m an American, and that’s how Americans roll.
News of the Times;
Livid Hawaiians Slam Biden For Cracking Jokes, Lying About Wife:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/children-were-incinerated-ash-livid-hawaiians-slam-biden-cracking-jokes-lying-about-wife
Extent Of De-Banking Revealed:
https://www.technocracy.news/extent-of-de-banking-revealed-nearly-one-million-uk-accounts-shut-in-past-four-years/
Russia Releases 2,000 Page Report Proving Deep State & Big Pharma Manufactured Covid:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/russia-releases-2000-page-report-proving-deep-state-big-pharma-manufactured-covid-pandemic/
FLOODED, Just Months After Mocking God:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/los-angeles-dodgers-stadium-gets-flooded-just-months/
Flash mob loots LA Nordstrom in wild smash and grab style robbery:
https://www.outkick.com/flash-mob-loots-los-angeles-nordstrom-in-wild-smash-and-grab-style-robbery/
Russia is Creating a Village for White South African Refugees:
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/russia-is-creating-a-village-for-white-south-african-refugees-to-escape-black-terrorism/
Assault of Asian family investigated as hate crime:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/anti-asian-nyc-subway-attack
Seven officers drag 'autistic' girl, 16, kicking and screaming from Leeds home for committing a 'hate crime':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12392871/Autistic-girl-16-arrested-dragged-screaming-home-Leeds-12-officers-saying-female-cop-looked-like-lesbian-nana.html
Antifa just “gamed” our crooked justice system and got away with murder:
https://www.revolver.news/2023/08/antifa-just-gamed-our-crooked-justice-system-and-got-away-with-murder-portland-andy-ngo/
Asylum seeker allegedly raped woman in front of 3-year-old:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/asylum-seeker-accused-of-raping-woman-in-front-of-3-year-old-in-ny/amp/
Gov. Kim Reynolds deploys Iowa National Guard to border:
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2023/08/04/gov-kim-reynolds-deploys-iowa-national-guard-to-border-n569185
Organized crime and the homeless:
https://truthonthestreets.substack.com/p/organized-crime-and-the-homeless
Executive warns demise of Oxford Street is fuelling crime including US-style flashmob looting:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12396279/Oxford-Streets-demise-fuelling-rising-crime-M-S-boss-warns.html
Top Conservative Commentator: ‘White People Should Seriously Consider Walking Away from the Military’:
https://www.unz.com/sbpdl/jesse-kelly-top-conservative-commentator-states-white-people-should-seriously-consider-walking-away-from-the-military/
Spain's Women's World Cup controversy explained:
https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/spains-womens-world-cup-controversy-explained-why-coach-jorge-vilda-is-under-fire-despite-winning-title/
However I've got my Ancestry.com open and ready to search.
*.*
Alexander Graham Bell: “I invented the telephone!”
His brother, Taco: “I’m working on some pretty big stuff too.”
*.*
Teacher: "Now, Susan, how may fingers have you?"
Susan: "Ten."
Teacher: "Right. Now if you lost four of them, what would you have?"
Susan: "No more piano lessons."
*.*
The average woman will own 111 purses in her lifetime.
The average man will be asked to hold 110 of them.
*.*
98.9% of people use fictitious statistics to back up their claims.
Quote of the Times;
“If liberals wanted their children to have access to gay porn books, they could just buy them on Amazon. They want YOUR children to have access to gay porn books.” - @RevolverNews
Link of the Times;
Guardian Angels Founder Curtis Sliwa Arrested in New York:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/guardian-angels-founder-curtis-sliwa-arrested-new-york/
Issue of the Times;
Study Shows Paper Straws More Harmful to Planet than Plastic by John Nolte
In today’s chapter of… Everything Environmentalists Tell Us Is Wrong … and I do mean … wrong … we will look at how paper straws do more damage to the planet than plastic straws.
Remember all that empty-headed virtue-signaling over freaken straws in 2018?
Paper straws are good!
Paper straws are virtuous!
Unless they are used to suck out the remains of a dead baby after an abortion, plastic straws are eeeevil.
Only Nazis use plastic straws … said celebrities, politicians, and media elites.
Yes, all of a sudden, and from out of nowhere, plastic straws became the Biggest Threat To Mother Earth Ever. This was one of those nonsense narratives schemed over in secret conference calls among the top one percent coordinated to hit America like a Blitzkrieg. No time for debate. No time to use science to justify the New Good Thing. It was this simple: bad people use plastic straws, and good people use paper straws.
President Trump trolls the Left over their obsession to ban plastic straws. pic.twitter.com/VJPVKC6ybu
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 19, 2019
Remember how USA Today, CNN, the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and the New York Times screamed out headlines about how America uses 500 million plastic straws per day—500 million—per day! The source for this number was a literal fourth grader, but let’s not let sourcing get in the way of a good narrative.
Remember how Democrat-run California banned plastic straws and wanted to imprison waiters who offer people plastic straws?
Remember how Her Vice Fraudulency Kamala “DumDum” Harris called for a national ban on plastic straws?
Remember how Democrat-run Washington DC banned plastic straws?
Meanwhile, these same Democrat-run cities have no problem passing out plastic hypodermic needles to junkies.
Anyway, guess what…? Yes, the inevitable has arrived. These fascist liars are wrong again—and I do mean … again.
You’re gonna love this…
“Straws made from plant-based materials, such as paper and bamboo, are often advertised as being more sustainable and eco-friendly than those made from plastic,” Thimo Groffen, PhD, author of the study and an environmental scientist at the University of Antwerp, said in a press release. “However, the presence of PFAS in these straws means that’s not necessarily true.”
Researchers on the study examined 39 brands of straws in Belgium from supermarkets, toy stores, fast-food chains, drug stores, and e-commerce stores. The straws were either made of paper, bamboo, glass, stainless steel, or plastic, and the researchers tested each brand for concentrations of PFAS. Sixty-nine percent of the brands contained PFAS, with paper straws more likely to contain the chemicals. The researchers found 90% of paper straws had PFAS, compared to 80% of bamboo straws, 75% of plastic straws, and 40% of glass straws. Further, a paper straw brand was the brand with the highest PFAS concentration.
*throws head back, laughs, burns tire under baby bird nest*
I don’t care about any of this environmental stuff. I don’t litter. I’m kind to animals. I leave things as I found them. Other than that, no.
Recycling? No way. I’m no sucker. Everything comes from the Earth. And despite repeated requests, no one can explain to me how putting back in Mother Earth what came from Mother Earth harms Mother Earth. Recycling is stupid. Sure, you can make the planet less inhabitable for human beings by electing Democrats to run your city or manage your forest, but all these chemicals and whatnot come from the Earth, so what’s the big deal putting them back where they came from?
Back to the straws… How many times will America’s idiots fall for these lies?
These “experts” are 0-53 https://www.breitbart.com/environment/2019/09/20/nolte-climate-experts-are-0-41-with-their-doomsday-predictions/ with their predictions.
Who trusts someone who is 0-53, who has been wrong 53 times and correct zero times?
I would never use a paper straw because paper straws are stupid and inconvenient and have a taste. After 2018, I also used plastic straws because it was an easy way to feel like an outlaw.
But now that we’re being told not to use paper straws, I might use them.
You see, I’m an American, and that’s how Americans roll.
News of the Times;
Livid Hawaiians Slam Biden For Cracking Jokes, Lying About Wife:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/children-were-incinerated-ash-livid-hawaiians-slam-biden-cracking-jokes-lying-about-wife
Extent Of De-Banking Revealed:
https://www.technocracy.news/extent-of-de-banking-revealed-nearly-one-million-uk-accounts-shut-in-past-four-years/
Russia Releases 2,000 Page Report Proving Deep State & Big Pharma Manufactured Covid:
https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/russia-releases-2000-page-report-proving-deep-state-big-pharma-manufactured-covid-pandemic/
FLOODED, Just Months After Mocking God:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/los-angeles-dodgers-stadium-gets-flooded-just-months/
Flash mob loots LA Nordstrom in wild smash and grab style robbery:
https://www.outkick.com/flash-mob-loots-los-angeles-nordstrom-in-wild-smash-and-grab-style-robbery/
Russia is Creating a Village for White South African Refugees:
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/russia-is-creating-a-village-for-white-south-african-refugees-to-escape-black-terrorism/
Assault of Asian family investigated as hate crime:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/anti-asian-nyc-subway-attack
Seven officers drag 'autistic' girl, 16, kicking and screaming from Leeds home for committing a 'hate crime':
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12392871/Autistic-girl-16-arrested-dragged-screaming-home-Leeds-12-officers-saying-female-cop-looked-like-lesbian-nana.html
Antifa just “gamed” our crooked justice system and got away with murder:
https://www.revolver.news/2023/08/antifa-just-gamed-our-crooked-justice-system-and-got-away-with-murder-portland-andy-ngo/
Asylum seeker allegedly raped woman in front of 3-year-old:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/09/asylum-seeker-accused-of-raping-woman-in-front-of-3-year-old-in-ny/amp/
Gov. Kim Reynolds deploys Iowa National Guard to border:
https://hotair.com/karen-townsend/2023/08/04/gov-kim-reynolds-deploys-iowa-national-guard-to-border-n569185
Organized crime and the homeless:
https://truthonthestreets.substack.com/p/organized-crime-and-the-homeless
Executive warns demise of Oxford Street is fuelling crime including US-style flashmob looting:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12396279/Oxford-Streets-demise-fuelling-rising-crime-M-S-boss-warns.html
Top Conservative Commentator: ‘White People Should Seriously Consider Walking Away from the Military’:
https://www.unz.com/sbpdl/jesse-kelly-top-conservative-commentator-states-white-people-should-seriously-consider-walking-away-from-the-military/
Spain's Women's World Cup controversy explained:
https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/spains-womens-world-cup-controversy-explained-why-coach-jorge-vilda-is-under-fire-despite-winning-title/
Estate?
Exercise works best first thing in the morning.
Before your brain figures out what you're doing.
*.*
As I get older, I notice that my wife and my hamstrings have a lot in common.
Both inflexible.
*.*
The burgeoning food and grocery delivery market is setting its sights on a lucrative niche as DoorDash has announced its new pickle jar-opening service for single women.
"DoorDash's new JarDash service provides a much-needed solution for women who lack the male spouses required to open jars of pickles, peaches, jams, and more," said a DoorDash spokesman. "With a tap of the app, women are minutes from having a man walk through their door and pop open that jar of hamburger dills with barely a strain."
DoorDash isn't the only company making their foray into helping single women with services typically provided by husbands. In fact, all major food delivery services are diving in:
Uber Prints - Single, female, and can't get your printer to work? Let an Uber Prints-certified man get that printer spitting out those backed-up recipes for one.
Postmates: Trash - As a single woman, drown in heaps of kitchen rubbish no longer and let a Postmates: Trash agent haul it all out for you. (For a nominal fee, he'll even drag the trash bin out to the street for pick up.)
Grub Hub: Basement Noise Check - Did you just wake from your twin bed to a sound that may or may not have come from the basement? Let our masculine Basement Noise Check team check it out for you. (Baseball bat upgrade available.)
*.*
Oneliners:
The only exercise I did this month was running out of money.
I'll be honest, I thought growing older would take longer.
It takes a lot of courage for a man to admit his wife is wrong.
Never trust a Facebook page with only one profile picture.
I don't always have time to study, but when I do, I don't.
The tongue must be heavy indeed, because so few people can't hold it.
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
Centipede: An ant built to government specifications.
Waiting in the car is a pretty important part of being a Dad.
*.*
I'm actually not funny.
I'm just really mean and people think I'm joking.
Quote of the Times;
"The barbarian will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.” - Hilaire Belloc, This and That and the Other, 1912
Link of the Times;
Photos Leaked of Horrific January 6 Prisoner Abuse:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/national-disgrace-photos-leaked-horrific-january-6-prisoner/
Issue of the Times;
Real Estate Disaster by https://market-ticker.org/
Yeah, it’s coming.
Let's preface a bit: All Real Estate is local.
But -- it got a lot less specifically-local in the last three years, and bifurcated basically two ways: Blue and not-Blue.
The problem is that the dynamic of virus restrictions along with wildly ridiculous fiscal and monetary policy drove a dynamic that was utterly unsustainable and, fundamentally, stupid as a whole although for the people doing it the act looked smart at the time. There were several elements of this:
Work-from-home on a near-universal basis was forced by many employers. This, in high-cost areas, drove employees to think they could arbitrage their higher salary (a result of the high cost of living where they were, such as in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and similar) and keep it while moving somewhere much cheaper, such as Tennessee or Florida. For those who pulled this it was a massive windfall, provided they could sell their home in the high-cost place.
Forced-low interest rates meant mortgages were extraordinarily cheap. The brokers of same -- banks, independent shops and similar -- feasted on the fees, both for purchase money (see above for the flow on that!) and refinances. Many of those refinances were strategically wise, being committed just a few years after origination and not materially-lengthening the amortization clock. All of them wildly increased available consumer funds for spending, however, by reducing the monthly payment amount.
These two dynamics skyrocketed home prices. The All-US index went from ~450 to 625, a roughly 40% increase in two years. That is much greater than the explosion higher during the last couple of years of the housing bubble; that was a mere 14%. There were plenty of areas, including where I live, that prices of "real" (not AirBNB friendly) single-family homes roughly doubled and some of those "short-term rental opportunities" were even more-obscene with some of them tripling in three years time.
All of this was ridiculously stupid. The premise that employees operated on -- that they'd never have to set foot in an office again -- was crap. As the pandemic ended so did the curtailment of occupying office space and the cities could not survive with all that office space empty; the tax revenue plus all the retail business activity associated with those people being in the buildings during the day is utterly essential to their fiscal survivability.
Those who thought they could arbitrage their cost of living while keeping their "bonused up" salary are now getting a rude shock: Come back to the office, which we have leased and have to pay for, or be fired. Except..... those employees now live hundreds or even a couple thousand miles away! Worse, they bought houses on <3% mortgages and spent the rest and, while their "price paid" is what it is nothing is moving.
Around here I looked at recent sales. Among single-family homes there are an effective zero from roughly April forward. The top of the Realtor.com page for this county comes up with sales from March, February, May, a couple the first two weeks of June and a couple of (wildly-overpriced cabins) recently. This is the second week of August and Memorial Day to Labor Day, which is a couple of weeks away, is prime closing season here because the kids are out of school and similar.
The market is basically locked up and the reason is quite-clear: Those who bought at the top can't move; they have 3% mortgages and that $500,000 place has a $2,100 payment. The same $500,000 house at 7% carries a payment of $3,326!
The net present value of that payment on their house today is $316,000, a $184,000 loss!
It would be bad enough if they sold out and made the $180,000 profit, banked it, now have the much lower payment and thus the loss is basically a recapture of the profit they made on the other place. But nobody did that; you've seen the consumer sales figures, never mind truck prices shooting moon yet nobody seems to have trouble buying them. How many of those people spent the entire $180,000 and thus its gone?
Never mind wild increases in property tax that have come with those price increases. Some areas (this being one of them) have had that blunted but not all. Florida is one of the "not all" and on top of it, Florida has been monkey-hammered with insane insurance cost increases as well -- both in car and homeowners. The often-used excuse is "climate" but that's BS; hurricanes are not new, but what is new is taking what was a $500,000 house and turning into a million dollar one, so when it gets destroyed the value of the property destroyed and thus the claim size doubles too. What do you think that does to premiums? Now contemplate what happens when the $40,000 truck costs $80,000 and they get destroyed in storms as well. Why have insurance prices skyrocketed? Uh....... yeah.
If you are stuck you ought to contemplate what happens when the guy down the street is forced to sell. Someone in your area will be. One or more of them will be told "come back to work or be fired" and either have to leave irrespective of the financial damage or get fired, find they can't get a job that pays the mortgage anywhere near where they live now (this is an enormous problem here, for example) and thus be forced to puke up the property.
If you think you're immune from that think again. Once the first person does it all the comps within a few miles immediately fail appraisal if that next person tries to sell. The next person is then forced to lower their price lest the deal collapse -- and remember, they have to sell because they either have to return to their old area or get a new job -- and the cycle repeats.
The unwind on this is going to be ridiculously vicious; if you think 2008/09 was bad go back and look at the top-line changes over the two years .vs. the last two of the bubble again. This distortion was three times as bad on a national average basis and double what we saw in many areas during the 05-07 bubble years.
Everyone always tries to tell themselves "oh that can't happen again."
Well, you're right. It won't happen again.
It'll be three times as bad as it was last time and it is coming whether you like it or not.
News of the Times;
CIA and FBI have been modifying Wikipedia articles since 2007, admits Wiki’s co-founder:
https://tfiglobalnews.com/2023/08/03/cia-and-fbi-have-been-modifying-wikipedia-articles-since-2007-admits-wikis-co-founder/
Report Shows GBI Strategies as Part of Massive Left-Wing Dark Money Voting Operation:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/report-shows-gbi-strategies-as-part-massive-left/
Biden administration has given $2.35 BILLION to the Taliban since the withdrawal:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12386035/Biden-administration-given-2-35-BILLION-Taliban-withdrawal-Damning-report-reveals-huge-wastes-taxpayers-funds-20-years-Afghanistan.html
Soccer Coach Arrested for Drugging and Raping Multiple Children Identified as an Illegal Immigrant:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/update-tennessee-soccer-coach-arrested-drugging-raping-multiple/
FBI agent lied under oath about knowledge of Hunter Biden laptop, talks with Facebook
https://nypost.com/2023/08/07/fbi-agent-lied-about-knowledge-of-hunter-biden-laptop-talks-with-facebook/
Hunter Biden tax charges dismissed by federal judge:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/hunter-biden-tax-charges-dismissed-by-federal-judge-following-plea-deal-breakdown/ar-AA1fq6KU
Ecuadorian Right-Wing Presidential Candidate Fernando Villavicencio Assassinated:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/developing-ecuadorian-presidential-candidate-fernando-villavicencio-assassinated-campaign/
8-year-old arrested in Alabama for stealing car at gunpoint, getting into police chase:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/12/8-year-old-arrested-in-alabama-carjacking-police-chase/
Judge Aileen Cannon “Comes Out Swinging” and Delivers Blow to Jack Smith:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/just-judge-aileen-cannon-comes-swinging-delivers-blow/
The U.S. Has Just 22 EV Charging Points Per 1,000 Road Miles:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-US-Has-Just-22-EV-Charging-Points-Per-1000-Road-Miles.html
China's Economy Is A House Of Cards As Cracks Show In Finance System:
https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/asia/2023/08/08/chinas-economy-is-a-house-of-cards-as-cracks-show-in-finance-system/
Los Angeles Has a Growing Typhus Problem:
https://gizmodo.com/los-angeles-has-growing-typhus-problem-thanks-to-fleas-1850708660
Radical Group Targeting Conservatives and Their Advertisers Plays Victim:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/imran-ahmed-lawsuit-silence-ccdhate-research/
Harry's Razors just partnered with this trans influencer to sell shaving gear:
https://notthebee.com/article/harrys-razors-partners-with-trans-influencer-to-sell-razors-and-lgbt-propaganda-ceo-refers-to-moms-and-dads-as-birthing-and-non-birthing-parents
This lady says out loud:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/6iDfhJUfEW96/
Before your brain figures out what you're doing.
*.*
As I get older, I notice that my wife and my hamstrings have a lot in common.
Both inflexible.
*.*
The burgeoning food and grocery delivery market is setting its sights on a lucrative niche as DoorDash has announced its new pickle jar-opening service for single women.
"DoorDash's new JarDash service provides a much-needed solution for women who lack the male spouses required to open jars of pickles, peaches, jams, and more," said a DoorDash spokesman. "With a tap of the app, women are minutes from having a man walk through their door and pop open that jar of hamburger dills with barely a strain."
DoorDash isn't the only company making their foray into helping single women with services typically provided by husbands. In fact, all major food delivery services are diving in:
Uber Prints - Single, female, and can't get your printer to work? Let an Uber Prints-certified man get that printer spitting out those backed-up recipes for one.
Postmates: Trash - As a single woman, drown in heaps of kitchen rubbish no longer and let a Postmates: Trash agent haul it all out for you. (For a nominal fee, he'll even drag the trash bin out to the street for pick up.)
Grub Hub: Basement Noise Check - Did you just wake from your twin bed to a sound that may or may not have come from the basement? Let our masculine Basement Noise Check team check it out for you. (Baseball bat upgrade available.)
*.*
Oneliners:
The only exercise I did this month was running out of money.
I'll be honest, I thought growing older would take longer.
It takes a lot of courage for a man to admit his wife is wrong.
Never trust a Facebook page with only one profile picture.
I don't always have time to study, but when I do, I don't.
The tongue must be heavy indeed, because so few people can't hold it.
Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.
Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.
Centipede: An ant built to government specifications.
Waiting in the car is a pretty important part of being a Dad.
*.*
I'm actually not funny.
I'm just really mean and people think I'm joking.
Quote of the Times;
"The barbarian will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. We sit by and watch the barbarian. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.” - Hilaire Belloc, This and That and the Other, 1912
Link of the Times;
Photos Leaked of Horrific January 6 Prisoner Abuse:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/national-disgrace-photos-leaked-horrific-january-6-prisoner/
Issue of the Times;
Real Estate Disaster by https://market-ticker.org/
Yeah, it’s coming.
Let's preface a bit: All Real Estate is local.
But -- it got a lot less specifically-local in the last three years, and bifurcated basically two ways: Blue and not-Blue.
The problem is that the dynamic of virus restrictions along with wildly ridiculous fiscal and monetary policy drove a dynamic that was utterly unsustainable and, fundamentally, stupid as a whole although for the people doing it the act looked smart at the time. There were several elements of this:
Work-from-home on a near-universal basis was forced by many employers. This, in high-cost areas, drove employees to think they could arbitrage their higher salary (a result of the high cost of living where they were, such as in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and similar) and keep it while moving somewhere much cheaper, such as Tennessee or Florida. For those who pulled this it was a massive windfall, provided they could sell their home in the high-cost place.
Forced-low interest rates meant mortgages were extraordinarily cheap. The brokers of same -- banks, independent shops and similar -- feasted on the fees, both for purchase money (see above for the flow on that!) and refinances. Many of those refinances were strategically wise, being committed just a few years after origination and not materially-lengthening the amortization clock. All of them wildly increased available consumer funds for spending, however, by reducing the monthly payment amount.
These two dynamics skyrocketed home prices. The All-US index went from ~450 to 625, a roughly 40% increase in two years. That is much greater than the explosion higher during the last couple of years of the housing bubble; that was a mere 14%. There were plenty of areas, including where I live, that prices of "real" (not AirBNB friendly) single-family homes roughly doubled and some of those "short-term rental opportunities" were even more-obscene with some of them tripling in three years time.
All of this was ridiculously stupid. The premise that employees operated on -- that they'd never have to set foot in an office again -- was crap. As the pandemic ended so did the curtailment of occupying office space and the cities could not survive with all that office space empty; the tax revenue plus all the retail business activity associated with those people being in the buildings during the day is utterly essential to their fiscal survivability.
Those who thought they could arbitrage their cost of living while keeping their "bonused up" salary are now getting a rude shock: Come back to the office, which we have leased and have to pay for, or be fired. Except..... those employees now live hundreds or even a couple thousand miles away! Worse, they bought houses on <3% mortgages and spent the rest and, while their "price paid" is what it is nothing is moving.
Around here I looked at recent sales. Among single-family homes there are an effective zero from roughly April forward. The top of the Realtor.com page for this county comes up with sales from March, February, May, a couple the first two weeks of June and a couple of (wildly-overpriced cabins) recently. This is the second week of August and Memorial Day to Labor Day, which is a couple of weeks away, is prime closing season here because the kids are out of school and similar.
The market is basically locked up and the reason is quite-clear: Those who bought at the top can't move; they have 3% mortgages and that $500,000 place has a $2,100 payment. The same $500,000 house at 7% carries a payment of $3,326!
The net present value of that payment on their house today is $316,000, a $184,000 loss!
It would be bad enough if they sold out and made the $180,000 profit, banked it, now have the much lower payment and thus the loss is basically a recapture of the profit they made on the other place. But nobody did that; you've seen the consumer sales figures, never mind truck prices shooting moon yet nobody seems to have trouble buying them. How many of those people spent the entire $180,000 and thus its gone?
Never mind wild increases in property tax that have come with those price increases. Some areas (this being one of them) have had that blunted but not all. Florida is one of the "not all" and on top of it, Florida has been monkey-hammered with insane insurance cost increases as well -- both in car and homeowners. The often-used excuse is "climate" but that's BS; hurricanes are not new, but what is new is taking what was a $500,000 house and turning into a million dollar one, so when it gets destroyed the value of the property destroyed and thus the claim size doubles too. What do you think that does to premiums? Now contemplate what happens when the $40,000 truck costs $80,000 and they get destroyed in storms as well. Why have insurance prices skyrocketed? Uh....... yeah.
If you are stuck you ought to contemplate what happens when the guy down the street is forced to sell. Someone in your area will be. One or more of them will be told "come back to work or be fired" and either have to leave irrespective of the financial damage or get fired, find they can't get a job that pays the mortgage anywhere near where they live now (this is an enormous problem here, for example) and thus be forced to puke up the property.
If you think you're immune from that think again. Once the first person does it all the comps within a few miles immediately fail appraisal if that next person tries to sell. The next person is then forced to lower their price lest the deal collapse -- and remember, they have to sell because they either have to return to their old area or get a new job -- and the cycle repeats.
The unwind on this is going to be ridiculously vicious; if you think 2008/09 was bad go back and look at the top-line changes over the two years .vs. the last two of the bubble again. This distortion was three times as bad on a national average basis and double what we saw in many areas during the 05-07 bubble years.
Everyone always tries to tell themselves "oh that can't happen again."
Well, you're right. It won't happen again.
It'll be three times as bad as it was last time and it is coming whether you like it or not.
News of the Times;
CIA and FBI have been modifying Wikipedia articles since 2007, admits Wiki’s co-founder:
https://tfiglobalnews.com/2023/08/03/cia-and-fbi-have-been-modifying-wikipedia-articles-since-2007-admits-wikis-co-founder/
Report Shows GBI Strategies as Part of Massive Left-Wing Dark Money Voting Operation:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/report-shows-gbi-strategies-as-part-massive-left/
Biden administration has given $2.35 BILLION to the Taliban since the withdrawal:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12386035/Biden-administration-given-2-35-BILLION-Taliban-withdrawal-Damning-report-reveals-huge-wastes-taxpayers-funds-20-years-Afghanistan.html
Soccer Coach Arrested for Drugging and Raping Multiple Children Identified as an Illegal Immigrant:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/update-tennessee-soccer-coach-arrested-drugging-raping-multiple/
FBI agent lied under oath about knowledge of Hunter Biden laptop, talks with Facebook
https://nypost.com/2023/08/07/fbi-agent-lied-about-knowledge-of-hunter-biden-laptop-talks-with-facebook/
Hunter Biden tax charges dismissed by federal judge:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/hunter-biden-tax-charges-dismissed-by-federal-judge-following-plea-deal-breakdown/ar-AA1fq6KU
Ecuadorian Right-Wing Presidential Candidate Fernando Villavicencio Assassinated:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/developing-ecuadorian-presidential-candidate-fernando-villavicencio-assassinated-campaign/
8-year-old arrested in Alabama for stealing car at gunpoint, getting into police chase:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/12/8-year-old-arrested-in-alabama-carjacking-police-chase/
Judge Aileen Cannon “Comes Out Swinging” and Delivers Blow to Jack Smith:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/just-judge-aileen-cannon-comes-swinging-delivers-blow/
The U.S. Has Just 22 EV Charging Points Per 1,000 Road Miles:
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-US-Has-Just-22-EV-Charging-Points-Per-1000-Road-Miles.html
China's Economy Is A House Of Cards As Cracks Show In Finance System:
https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/asia/2023/08/08/chinas-economy-is-a-house-of-cards-as-cracks-show-in-finance-system/
Los Angeles Has a Growing Typhus Problem:
https://gizmodo.com/los-angeles-has-growing-typhus-problem-thanks-to-fleas-1850708660
Radical Group Targeting Conservatives and Their Advertisers Plays Victim:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/08/imran-ahmed-lawsuit-silence-ccdhate-research/
Harry's Razors just partnered with this trans influencer to sell shaving gear:
https://notthebee.com/article/harrys-razors-partners-with-trans-influencer-to-sell-razors-and-lgbt-propaganda-ceo-refers-to-moms-and-dads-as-birthing-and-non-birthing-parents
This lady says out loud:
https://www.bitchute.com/video/6iDfhJUfEW96/
Cool?
A zoo in China is being accused of, instead of having real bears, having people dressed up in bear costumes.
People got suspicious when they spotted one of the bears on a smoke break.
*.*
His wife returned from the morning shopping expedition and called her husband into the room from the garden.
"Frederick," she said heavily, "When you came home last night you told me you had been to the Grand Hotel with Mr. Wilson. I just met Mrs. Wilson, and she said you were both at the Trocadero. Why did you lie to me like that?"
Hubby groaned. "When I came home last night I couldn't say 'Trocadero.'"
*.*
Oneliners:
Go now, or forever hold your pee.
There is no way to smell your fingers without looking suspicious.
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
That moment when you miss one step on the stairs and you think you're going to die.
Every few years, you reevaluate your definition of old.
Why do they call it beauty sleep when you wake up looking terrible?
Golf is a game invented by the same people who think music comes out of bagpipes.
When I was a kid, I literally thought, "This little pig went to market" meant it went shopping.
I'm getting tired of waking up and not being at the beach.
The best time to call me is text message.
*.*
Top 5 Rejected Slogans for Cambell's Soup:
"I burned my tongue!"
"Because nothing is better on a summer day!"
"When you heat up lunch in a pan, everybody wins!"
"Because it's too far to drive to Panera."
"Too lazy to make a sandwich."
*.*
A new study says that the average man will spend 4 months of his life shaving.
I've gotta imagine that must also include a couple of weeks trying to stop bleeding.
Quote of the Times;
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority; It's time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain
Link of the Times;
7 Signs of Controlled Opposition:
https://postcardsfromtheageofreason.com/2023/07/20/7-controlled-opposition/
Issue of the Times;
Confirmed Again: The Green Agenda Is Taking Us Backward by I & I Editorial Board
All the cool kids say humanity has to abandon fossil fuels and rely on wind and solar for our electricity and battery-operated cars (which remind us of the toys we played with as kids) to get around. It’s the future, they say. So why does it seem more like the past?
Let’s begin with a fascinating “fer instance”:
“Classic Cars,” says a Motorious headline from late last month, “Are Greener Than Electric Vehicles.” The story below the headline refers to a study from British insurance company Footman James, which is “refreshing,” says the article’s author, “because it doesn’t talk emotional rage, sticking instead to the inconvenient facts.”
And what are those facts?
• “A classic car notching up the national average of 1,200 miles emits 563kg of CO2 a year. By comparison, a new Volkswagen Golf has a carbon footprint of 6.8 tonnes of CO2 the day it leaves the factory, a figure it would take our average classic 12 years to match.”
• “For an electric vehicle, the footprint is even greater. A battery-powered Polestar 2 creates 26 tonnes of CO2 during its production, emissions that would take a typical classic more than 46 years to achieve. By which time, the EV’s cutting-edge lithium-ion battery would have long since lost its ability to hold a charge and been consigned to the nearest recycling facility.”
• “Footman James rightly points out that within that 46-year period, the Polestar 2’s battery will need to be replaced, maybe even swapped for a new one twice or more,” writes Steven Symes for Motorious.
• “And what happens to the battery? Can it really be recycled? The answer for now is no. Meanwhile, the classic car keeps running without contributing significantly to a landfill. But you should feel bad for driving such an awful pollution machine, or so we’re told.”
The narrative says EVs are greener but that’s because the true-believers “just look at tailpipe emissions, behaving as if that’s everything in the equation. They don’t consider pollution generated by the manufacturing process,” says Symes.
That’s not something Symes has made up. It’s the reality. EVs are dirty … and racist. So what else have the Green Shirts given us?
Blackouts. “Rush toward green energy has left U.S. ‘incredibly’ vulnerable to summer blackouts, expert warns,” says a Fox News headline from Monday. “I think the entire country is incredibly vulnerable, because the entire country is facing a huge energy shortage and I don’t think there is any place that is truly safe,” Daniel Turner, founder and executive director at Power the Future, told the network.
Power rationing. Things are so bleak in Great Britain due to high energy costs (always a hallmark of renewables) and the war in Ukraine, that the government might have no choice but to ration electricity “in a manner similar to Edward Heath’s three-day week in the 1970s,” reports the Daily Mail. The scenario could have been avoided, says Watts Up With That, “if Britain maintained coal capacity and developed shale gas reserves.”
Famine. A presidential ban on chemical fertilizers last year wrecked Sri Lanka’s harvest. Even though the ban was lifted “after widespread protests,” says Reuters, “only a trickle of chemical fertilizers made it to farms, which will likely lead to an annual drop of at least 30% in paddy yields nationwide.” Other media reports indicate that a “spiraling food crisis looms,” in the country. Similar environmental nincompoopery is threatening food production in the agriculturally rich Netherlands, where the government has proposed cutting nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions by half by 2030.
While the political-activist-media industrial complex continually promises a grand future of green energy powering a clean planet, our world is becoming more primitive. This is a rotten tradeoff, but it’s how things are and will be until more of us realize the “cool kids” aren’t so cool after all.
News of the Times;
Bidenomics Delivers First US Credit Downgrade Since Obama:
https://www.libertynation.com/bidenomics-delivers-america-first-downgrade-since-obama/
Video of Black Man Saying All White Children 'Need to Die' Goes Viral:
https://www.newsweek.com/video-black-man-saying-all-white-people-need-die-what-we-know-1816922
They Voted for it:
https://www.revolver.news/2023/08/they-voted-for-it-situation-in-new-york-city-is-starting-to-look-apocalyptic/
Over half of America’s beaches are covered in poop and unsafe to swim in:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/10/over-half-of-americas-beaches-covered-in-poop-unsafe-report/
Zero Amish Children Diagnosed with Cancer, Diabetes or Autism:
https://slaynews.com/news/zero-amish-children-diagnosed-cancer-diabetes-autism/
Elderly Lowe’s Worker Fired After Getting Repeatedly Punched in the Face:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/elderly-lowes-worker-fired-after-getting-repeatedly-punched/
Pope Francis Places Controversial Argentinean Bishop:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/pope-francis-places-controversial-argentinean-bishop-as-new/
New study confirms previous research showing that liberals are statistically uglier and unhappier:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-06-22-liberals-statistically-uglier-and-unhappier-than-conservatives.html
Rowling Congratulates Anti-Trans Activist After Judges Award $127K For Wrongful Firing:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jk-rowling-congratulates-anti-trans-activist-after-judges-award-127k-wrongful-firing
Race relations in Zimbabwe crater without white presence:
https://www.revolver.news/2023/07/myth-dispelled-race-relations-in-zimbabwe-worsen-without-white-presence/
Rev. Al Sharpton's pastor brother is jailed for 30 months:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12284243/Rev-Al-Sharptons-pastor-brother-jailed-30-months-drug-trafficking-income-tax-evasion.html
Town finds out its bank accounts are closed down:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/08/town-finds-bank-accounts-closed/
California man sentenced to life in prison for killing 3 teens:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4099396-california-man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-killing-3-teens-over-doorbell-prank/
The Rampant Black Violence On American Military Bases:
https://nationaljusticeparty.com/2023/07/22/the-rampant-black-violence-on-american-military-bases/
Brazilian Faith Healer ‘John of God’ Is Sentenced To Additional 99 Years for Sexual Crimes:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/brazilian-faith-healer-john-god-is-sentenced-additional/
People got suspicious when they spotted one of the bears on a smoke break.
*.*
His wife returned from the morning shopping expedition and called her husband into the room from the garden.
"Frederick," she said heavily, "When you came home last night you told me you had been to the Grand Hotel with Mr. Wilson. I just met Mrs. Wilson, and she said you were both at the Trocadero. Why did you lie to me like that?"
Hubby groaned. "When I came home last night I couldn't say 'Trocadero.'"
*.*
Oneliners:
Go now, or forever hold your pee.
There is no way to smell your fingers without looking suspicious.
I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
That moment when you miss one step on the stairs and you think you're going to die.
Every few years, you reevaluate your definition of old.
Why do they call it beauty sleep when you wake up looking terrible?
Golf is a game invented by the same people who think music comes out of bagpipes.
When I was a kid, I literally thought, "This little pig went to market" meant it went shopping.
I'm getting tired of waking up and not being at the beach.
The best time to call me is text message.
*.*
Top 5 Rejected Slogans for Cambell's Soup:
"I burned my tongue!"
"Because nothing is better on a summer day!"
"When you heat up lunch in a pan, everybody wins!"
"Because it's too far to drive to Panera."
"Too lazy to make a sandwich."
*.*
A new study says that the average man will spend 4 months of his life shaving.
I've gotta imagine that must also include a couple of weeks trying to stop bleeding.
Quote of the Times;
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority; It's time to pause and reflect.” - Mark Twain
Link of the Times;
7 Signs of Controlled Opposition:
https://postcardsfromtheageofreason.com/2023/07/20/7-controlled-opposition/
Issue of the Times;
Confirmed Again: The Green Agenda Is Taking Us Backward by I & I Editorial Board
All the cool kids say humanity has to abandon fossil fuels and rely on wind and solar for our electricity and battery-operated cars (which remind us of the toys we played with as kids) to get around. It’s the future, they say. So why does it seem more like the past?
Let’s begin with a fascinating “fer instance”:
“Classic Cars,” says a Motorious headline from late last month, “Are Greener Than Electric Vehicles.” The story below the headline refers to a study from British insurance company Footman James, which is “refreshing,” says the article’s author, “because it doesn’t talk emotional rage, sticking instead to the inconvenient facts.”
And what are those facts?
• “A classic car notching up the national average of 1,200 miles emits 563kg of CO2 a year. By comparison, a new Volkswagen Golf has a carbon footprint of 6.8 tonnes of CO2 the day it leaves the factory, a figure it would take our average classic 12 years to match.”
• “For an electric vehicle, the footprint is even greater. A battery-powered Polestar 2 creates 26 tonnes of CO2 during its production, emissions that would take a typical classic more than 46 years to achieve. By which time, the EV’s cutting-edge lithium-ion battery would have long since lost its ability to hold a charge and been consigned to the nearest recycling facility.”
• “Footman James rightly points out that within that 46-year period, the Polestar 2’s battery will need to be replaced, maybe even swapped for a new one twice or more,” writes Steven Symes for Motorious.
• “And what happens to the battery? Can it really be recycled? The answer for now is no. Meanwhile, the classic car keeps running without contributing significantly to a landfill. But you should feel bad for driving such an awful pollution machine, or so we’re told.”
The narrative says EVs are greener but that’s because the true-believers “just look at tailpipe emissions, behaving as if that’s everything in the equation. They don’t consider pollution generated by the manufacturing process,” says Symes.
That’s not something Symes has made up. It’s the reality. EVs are dirty … and racist. So what else have the Green Shirts given us?
Blackouts. “Rush toward green energy has left U.S. ‘incredibly’ vulnerable to summer blackouts, expert warns,” says a Fox News headline from Monday. “I think the entire country is incredibly vulnerable, because the entire country is facing a huge energy shortage and I don’t think there is any place that is truly safe,” Daniel Turner, founder and executive director at Power the Future, told the network.
Power rationing. Things are so bleak in Great Britain due to high energy costs (always a hallmark of renewables) and the war in Ukraine, that the government might have no choice but to ration electricity “in a manner similar to Edward Heath’s three-day week in the 1970s,” reports the Daily Mail. The scenario could have been avoided, says Watts Up With That, “if Britain maintained coal capacity and developed shale gas reserves.”
Famine. A presidential ban on chemical fertilizers last year wrecked Sri Lanka’s harvest. Even though the ban was lifted “after widespread protests,” says Reuters, “only a trickle of chemical fertilizers made it to farms, which will likely lead to an annual drop of at least 30% in paddy yields nationwide.” Other media reports indicate that a “spiraling food crisis looms,” in the country. Similar environmental nincompoopery is threatening food production in the agriculturally rich Netherlands, where the government has proposed cutting nitrogen oxide and ammonia emissions by half by 2030.
While the political-activist-media industrial complex continually promises a grand future of green energy powering a clean planet, our world is becoming more primitive. This is a rotten tradeoff, but it’s how things are and will be until more of us realize the “cool kids” aren’t so cool after all.
News of the Times;
Bidenomics Delivers First US Credit Downgrade Since Obama:
https://www.libertynation.com/bidenomics-delivers-america-first-downgrade-since-obama/
Video of Black Man Saying All White Children 'Need to Die' Goes Viral:
https://www.newsweek.com/video-black-man-saying-all-white-people-need-die-what-we-know-1816922
They Voted for it:
https://www.revolver.news/2023/08/they-voted-for-it-situation-in-new-york-city-is-starting-to-look-apocalyptic/
Over half of America’s beaches are covered in poop and unsafe to swim in:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/10/over-half-of-americas-beaches-covered-in-poop-unsafe-report/
Zero Amish Children Diagnosed with Cancer, Diabetes or Autism:
https://slaynews.com/news/zero-amish-children-diagnosed-cancer-diabetes-autism/
Elderly Lowe’s Worker Fired After Getting Repeatedly Punched in the Face:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/elderly-lowes-worker-fired-after-getting-repeatedly-punched/
Pope Francis Places Controversial Argentinean Bishop:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/pope-francis-places-controversial-argentinean-bishop-as-new/
New study confirms previous research showing that liberals are statistically uglier and unhappier:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2023-06-22-liberals-statistically-uglier-and-unhappier-than-conservatives.html
Rowling Congratulates Anti-Trans Activist After Judges Award $127K For Wrongful Firing:
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/jk-rowling-congratulates-anti-trans-activist-after-judges-award-127k-wrongful-firing
Race relations in Zimbabwe crater without white presence:
https://www.revolver.news/2023/07/myth-dispelled-race-relations-in-zimbabwe-worsen-without-white-presence/
Rev. Al Sharpton's pastor brother is jailed for 30 months:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12284243/Rev-Al-Sharptons-pastor-brother-jailed-30-months-drug-trafficking-income-tax-evasion.html
Town finds out its bank accounts are closed down:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/08/town-finds-bank-accounts-closed/
California man sentenced to life in prison for killing 3 teens:
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/4099396-california-man-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-for-killing-3-teens-over-doorbell-prank/
The Rampant Black Violence On American Military Bases:
https://nationaljusticeparty.com/2023/07/22/the-rampant-black-violence-on-american-military-bases/
Brazilian Faith Healer ‘John of God’ Is Sentenced To Additional 99 Years for Sexual Crimes:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/brazilian-faith-healer-john-god-is-sentenced-additional/
Valley?
Laugh at your problems.
Everybody else does.
*.*
The doorbell rang and the lady of the house discovered a workman, complete with tool chest, on the front door. “Lady,” he announced, “I’m the piano tuner.”
The lady exclaimed, “Why, I didn’t send for a piano tuner.”
The man replied, “I know, but your neighbors did.”
*.*
"Jill," a teacher reprimanded the teenager in the hall, "do you mind telling me whose class you're cutting this time?"
"Like," the young teen replied, "uh, see, okay, like it's like, I really don't like, think like, that's really important, y'know, like because I'm, y'know, like I don't get anything out of it."
"It's Mrs. Dull's English class, isn't it?"
*.*
Oneliners:
When you think about it, doesn't waking up every day seems a little excessive?
If I say "I'm hungry", you've got around 27 minutes until I become a completely different person.
It's so hot, the Jehovah's Witnesses have switched to telemarketing.
If you and I are ever in a "Don't laugh" situation, please don't look at me.
I think my problem is that I have really fantastic bad ideas.
A pretty important part of being a dad is waiting in the car.
Not doing anything with my life is surprisingly time consuming.
By the time I realized my parents were right, I had kids that didn't believe me.
Remember, it's only embarrassing if you care what people think.
Didn't Selfie Sticks used to be called Friends?
*.*
Top 5 Not Cool Summer Pranks:.
Throwing frozen water balloons.
Giving your friends dissolvable bathing suits.
Give someone really thirsty a nice, ice cold glass of unsweetened lemonade.
Run through a sprinkler you set up in the coffee room at work.
Putting Super Glue on the Slip 'n Slide.
Quote of the Times;
There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance. - Auchincloss
Link of the Times;
Analysis of Election Night Reporting and the Companies that Manufacture Election Results:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/shocking-analysis-election-night-reporting-companies-that-manufacture/
Issue of the Times;
The end of faking it in Silicon Valley by Erin Griffith
Faking it is over. That’s the feeling in Silicon Valley, along with some schadenfreude and a pinch of paranoia.
Not only has funding dried up for cash-burning startups over the past year, but now, fraud is also in the air, as investors scrutinize startup claims more closely and a tech downturn reveals who has been taking the industry’s “fake it till you make it” ethos too far.
Take what happened in the past two weeks: Charlie Javice, the founder of the financial aid startup Frank, was arrested, accused of falsifying customer data. A jury found Rishi Shah, a co-founder of the advertising software startup Outcome Health, guilty of defrauding customers and investors. And a judge ordered Elizabeth Holmes, the founder who defrauded investors at her blood testing startup Theranos, to begin an 11-year prison sentence April 27.
Those developments follow the February arrests of Carlos Watson, the founder of Ozy Media, and Christopher Kirchner, the founder of software company Slync, both accused of defrauding investors. Still to come is the fraud trial of Manish Lachwani, a co-founder of the software startup HeadSpin, set to begin in May, and that of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who faces 13 fraud charges later this year.
Taken together, the chorus of charges, convictions and sentences have created a feeling that the startup world’s fast and loose fakery actually has consequences. Despite this generation’s many high-profile scandals (Uber, WeWork) and downfalls (Juicero), few startup founders, aside from Holmes, ever faced criminal charges for pushing the boundaries of business puffery as they disrupted us into the future.
The funding downturn may be to blame. Unethical behavior can largely be overlooked when times are good, as they were for tech startups in the 2010s. Between 2012 and 2021, funding to tech startups in the United States jumped eightfold to $344 billion, according to PitchBook, which tracks startups. More than 1,200 of them are considered “unicorns” worth $1 billion or more on paper.
But when the easy money dries up, everyone parrots the Warren Buffett proverb about finding out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. After FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, updated the adage for millennial tech founders: “It feels like we were in a nightclub and the lights just turned on,” he tweeted.
In the past, the venture capital investors who backed startups were reluctant to pursue legal action when they were duped. The companies were small, with few assets to recover, and going after a founder would hurt the investors’ reputations. That has changed as the unicorns have soared, attracting billions in funding, and as larger, more traditional investors including hedge funds, corporate investors and mutual funds have entered the investing game.
“There is more money at stake, so it just changes the calculus,” said Alexander Dyck, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto who specializes in corporate governance.
The Justice Department has also been urging prosecutors to “be bold” in its pursuit of more business frauds, including at private startups. Thus, charges for founders of Frank, Ozy Media, Slync and HeadSpin and expectations of more to come.
IRL, a messaging app that investors valued at $1 billion, is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly misleading investors about how many users it had, according to reporting from The Information. Rumby, a laundry delivery startup in Ohio, allegedly fabricated a story of financial success to secure funding, which its founder used to buy himself a $1.7 million home, according to a lawsuit from one of its investors.
News outlets have also reported unethical behavior at startups including Olive, a $4 billion health care software startup, and Nate, an e-commerce startup claiming to use artificial intelligence. A spokesperson for Olive said the company has “disputed and denied” the reported allegations.
All of this creates an awkward moment for venture capital investors. When startup valuations were soaring, they were seen as visionary kingmakers. It was easy enough to convince the world, and the investors in their funds — pension funds, college endowments and wealthy individuals — that they were responsible stewards of capital with the unique skills required to predict the future and find the next Steve Jobs to build it.
But as more startup frauds are revealed, these titans of industry are playing a different role in lawsuits, bankruptcy filings and court testimonies: the victim that got duped.
Alfred Lin, an investor at Sequoia Capital, a top Silicon Valley firm that put $150 million into FTX, reflected on the cryptocurrency disaster at a startup event in January. “It’s not that we made the investment, it’s the year-and-a-half working relationship afterwards that I still didn’t see it,” he said. “That is difficult.”
Venture capital investors say their asset class is among the riskiest places to park money but holds the potential for outsize rewards. The startup world celebrates failures, and if you’re not failing, you’re viewed as not taking enough risks. But it is unclear whether that defense will hold as the scandals become more humiliating for everyone involved.
Investors are increasingly asking consultants like RHR International to help identify the telltale signs of “Machiavellian narcissists” who are more likely to commit fraud, said Eden Abrahams, a partner at the firm. “They want to tighten up the protocols around how they’re assessing founders,” Abrahams said. “We had a series of events which should be prompting reflections.”
Startups have many of the conditions most associated with fraud, Dyck said. They tend to employ novel business models, their founders often have significant control and their backers do not always enforce strict oversight. It is a situation that’s ripe for bending the rules when a downturn hits. “It’s not surprising we’re seeing a lot of frauds being committed in the last 18 months are coming to light right now,” he said.
When Javice was trying to sell her college financial planning startup, Frank, to JPMorgan Chase, she told an employee not to share exactly how many people used Frank’s service, according to an SEC complaint. Later, she asked the employee to fabricate thousands of accounts, assuring her staff that such a move was legal and that no one would end up in “orange jumpsuits,” the complaint said.
After JPMorgan bought the startup for $175 million in 2021, Frank’s investors were quick to take a congratulatory victory lap on Twitter. “So many more students & families will now have greater access to financial aid & #highered opportunities,” an investor at Reach Capital wrote. “It’s so exciting to know you will now have an even bigger platform to make a positive impact on the lives of so many people!” was the praise from an executive at Chegg, which invested.
Javice faces four counts of fraud. This past week, JPMorgan accused her of transferring money to a shell company after the bank uncovered her alleged fraud.
Outcome Health, which sold drug ads on screens in doctors’ offices, raised $488 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, the Google-affiliated fund CapitalG and the family of Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois while making public claims of breakneck growth and profitability. In reality, the company had missed its revenue targets, was struggling to manage its debt load and was overbilling its customers.
Yet investors plowed money in anyway and even allowed Outcome Health’s co-founders, Shah and Shradha Agarwal, to cash out $225 million worth of shares. One of the company’s smaller investors, Todd Cozzens of Leerink Partners, said he was not deterred by red flags like missing revenue targets and other “sloppiness,” because “they could have cleaned that up.” The company crossed into fraud when it altered a sales report, which would have been difficult for outsiders to detect, he said.
“This was a great business model and the product was working, but these founders got really greedy,” he said. “They wanted more.” Cozzens’ firm lost 90% of its $15 million investment.
Shah was convicted of 19 counts of fraud and Agarwal of 15. A spokesperson for Shah said that the verdict “deeply saddens” him and that he plans to appeal. Agarwal’s counsel said they were reviewing the verdict and considering her options.
Slync’s founder, Kirchner, lied to investors about Slync’s business performance and used the money raised to buy himself a $16 million private jet, among other misappropriations, according to an SEC complaint. When one investor dug into Slync’s finances, Kirchner told the person that Slync was in the process of switching to a new financial service provider, the complaint said. The investor wired $35 million.
A Slync spokesperson said the company has appointed a new CEO, is cooperating with the government’s investigations, and “looks forward to a just resolution of this matter.”
FTX raised nearly $2 billion from top investors including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Thoma Bravo, giving it a valuation of $32 billion. The company was so poorly run that it didn’t even have a complete list of people who worked there, according to a report issued by the company’s new management this month. Bankman-Fried told colleagues at one point that FTX’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, was “unauditable” and that the team sometimes found $50 million in assets lying around that they had lost track of. “Such is life,” he wrote.
Sequoia, which commissioned a glowing profile of Bankman-Fried to publish on its website, apologized to investors after the company collapsed. It also deleted the profile.
Lin explained at the startup event that venture capital industry was ultimately a business based on trust. “Because if you don’t trust the founders that you work with,” he said, “why would you ever invest in them?”
News of the Times;
Tucker Carlson Makes Chilling Prediction About 2024:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/06/28/tucker-carlson-makes-chilling-prediction-about-2024-n1706985
Who Is Really President? Hint, It's Not Crooked Joe:
https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffcrouere/2023/07/03/who-is-really-president-hint-its-not-crooked-joe-n2625242
US farmer warns ‘China is quietly taking over’ food security:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-farmer-warns-china-quietly-110052576.html
Yellen and her close ties to the CCP:
https://gnews.org/m/1437813
Joe Biden Terrorizes a Young Child at NATO Summit by Licking Her Repeatedly:
https://thinkcivics.com/watch-joe-biden-terrorizes-a-young-child-at-nato-summit-by-licking-her-repeatedly/
Researcher dead after experimental hybrid electric car explodes:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/researcher-dead-experimental-hybrid-electric-car-explodes-driving/
Pfizer Vaccine Batches in the EU Were Placebos, Say Scientists:
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/28/pfizer-vaccine-batches-in-the-eu-were-placebos-say-scientists/
Mysterious white powder in White House that prompted evacuation tests positive for cocaine:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/mysterious-white-powder-in-white-house-that-prompted-evacuation-tests-positive-for-cocaine
Electric Cars Are An Expensive Scam:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/29/electric-cars-are-an-expensive-scam/
Joe Biden’s White House Payroll at Historic Highs:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/joe-bidens-white-house-payroll-historic-highs-524/
The Unsayable Truth About the Housing Crisis:
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/29/the-unsayable-truth-about-the-housing-crisis-is-that-it-is-driven-by-mass-immigration/
Climate Terrorists Vs Gender Occultists:
https://redstatenation.com/video-climate-terrorists-vs-gender-occultists-the-clash-weve-been-waiting-for/
American Banks Closed 273 Branch Locations in May Alone:
https://discernreport.com/american-banks-closed-273-branch-locations-in-may-alone/
Stabbing of Canadian professor and 2 students:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/30/stabbings-in-gender-studies-class-was-motivated-by-hate/
7-year-old injured after first socialist Boston city council member crashes uninsured car:
https://thepostmillennial.com/7-year-old-injured-after-first-socialist-boston-city-council-member-crashes-uninsured-car-while-driving-with-suspended-license
Everybody else does.
*.*
The doorbell rang and the lady of the house discovered a workman, complete with tool chest, on the front door. “Lady,” he announced, “I’m the piano tuner.”
The lady exclaimed, “Why, I didn’t send for a piano tuner.”
The man replied, “I know, but your neighbors did.”
*.*
"Jill," a teacher reprimanded the teenager in the hall, "do you mind telling me whose class you're cutting this time?"
"Like," the young teen replied, "uh, see, okay, like it's like, I really don't like, think like, that's really important, y'know, like because I'm, y'know, like I don't get anything out of it."
"It's Mrs. Dull's English class, isn't it?"
*.*
Oneliners:
When you think about it, doesn't waking up every day seems a little excessive?
If I say "I'm hungry", you've got around 27 minutes until I become a completely different person.
It's so hot, the Jehovah's Witnesses have switched to telemarketing.
If you and I are ever in a "Don't laugh" situation, please don't look at me.
I think my problem is that I have really fantastic bad ideas.
A pretty important part of being a dad is waiting in the car.
Not doing anything with my life is surprisingly time consuming.
By the time I realized my parents were right, I had kids that didn't believe me.
Remember, it's only embarrassing if you care what people think.
Didn't Selfie Sticks used to be called Friends?
*.*
Top 5 Not Cool Summer Pranks:.
Throwing frozen water balloons.
Giving your friends dissolvable bathing suits.
Give someone really thirsty a nice, ice cold glass of unsweetened lemonade.
Run through a sprinkler you set up in the coffee room at work.
Putting Super Glue on the Slip 'n Slide.
Quote of the Times;
There is a charm, even for homely things, in perfect maintenance. - Auchincloss
Link of the Times;
Analysis of Election Night Reporting and the Companies that Manufacture Election Results:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/shocking-analysis-election-night-reporting-companies-that-manufacture/
Issue of the Times;
The end of faking it in Silicon Valley by Erin Griffith
Faking it is over. That’s the feeling in Silicon Valley, along with some schadenfreude and a pinch of paranoia.
Not only has funding dried up for cash-burning startups over the past year, but now, fraud is also in the air, as investors scrutinize startup claims more closely and a tech downturn reveals who has been taking the industry’s “fake it till you make it” ethos too far.
Take what happened in the past two weeks: Charlie Javice, the founder of the financial aid startup Frank, was arrested, accused of falsifying customer data. A jury found Rishi Shah, a co-founder of the advertising software startup Outcome Health, guilty of defrauding customers and investors. And a judge ordered Elizabeth Holmes, the founder who defrauded investors at her blood testing startup Theranos, to begin an 11-year prison sentence April 27.
Those developments follow the February arrests of Carlos Watson, the founder of Ozy Media, and Christopher Kirchner, the founder of software company Slync, both accused of defrauding investors. Still to come is the fraud trial of Manish Lachwani, a co-founder of the software startup HeadSpin, set to begin in May, and that of Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, who faces 13 fraud charges later this year.
Taken together, the chorus of charges, convictions and sentences have created a feeling that the startup world’s fast and loose fakery actually has consequences. Despite this generation’s many high-profile scandals (Uber, WeWork) and downfalls (Juicero), few startup founders, aside from Holmes, ever faced criminal charges for pushing the boundaries of business puffery as they disrupted us into the future.
The funding downturn may be to blame. Unethical behavior can largely be overlooked when times are good, as they were for tech startups in the 2010s. Between 2012 and 2021, funding to tech startups in the United States jumped eightfold to $344 billion, according to PitchBook, which tracks startups. More than 1,200 of them are considered “unicorns” worth $1 billion or more on paper.
But when the easy money dries up, everyone parrots the Warren Buffett proverb about finding out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out. After FTX filed for bankruptcy in November, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, updated the adage for millennial tech founders: “It feels like we were in a nightclub and the lights just turned on,” he tweeted.
In the past, the venture capital investors who backed startups were reluctant to pursue legal action when they were duped. The companies were small, with few assets to recover, and going after a founder would hurt the investors’ reputations. That has changed as the unicorns have soared, attracting billions in funding, and as larger, more traditional investors including hedge funds, corporate investors and mutual funds have entered the investing game.
“There is more money at stake, so it just changes the calculus,” said Alexander Dyck, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto who specializes in corporate governance.
The Justice Department has also been urging prosecutors to “be bold” in its pursuit of more business frauds, including at private startups. Thus, charges for founders of Frank, Ozy Media, Slync and HeadSpin and expectations of more to come.
IRL, a messaging app that investors valued at $1 billion, is being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly misleading investors about how many users it had, according to reporting from The Information. Rumby, a laundry delivery startup in Ohio, allegedly fabricated a story of financial success to secure funding, which its founder used to buy himself a $1.7 million home, according to a lawsuit from one of its investors.
News outlets have also reported unethical behavior at startups including Olive, a $4 billion health care software startup, and Nate, an e-commerce startup claiming to use artificial intelligence. A spokesperson for Olive said the company has “disputed and denied” the reported allegations.
All of this creates an awkward moment for venture capital investors. When startup valuations were soaring, they were seen as visionary kingmakers. It was easy enough to convince the world, and the investors in their funds — pension funds, college endowments and wealthy individuals — that they were responsible stewards of capital with the unique skills required to predict the future and find the next Steve Jobs to build it.
But as more startup frauds are revealed, these titans of industry are playing a different role in lawsuits, bankruptcy filings and court testimonies: the victim that got duped.
Alfred Lin, an investor at Sequoia Capital, a top Silicon Valley firm that put $150 million into FTX, reflected on the cryptocurrency disaster at a startup event in January. “It’s not that we made the investment, it’s the year-and-a-half working relationship afterwards that I still didn’t see it,” he said. “That is difficult.”
Venture capital investors say their asset class is among the riskiest places to park money but holds the potential for outsize rewards. The startup world celebrates failures, and if you’re not failing, you’re viewed as not taking enough risks. But it is unclear whether that defense will hold as the scandals become more humiliating for everyone involved.
Investors are increasingly asking consultants like RHR International to help identify the telltale signs of “Machiavellian narcissists” who are more likely to commit fraud, said Eden Abrahams, a partner at the firm. “They want to tighten up the protocols around how they’re assessing founders,” Abrahams said. “We had a series of events which should be prompting reflections.”
Startups have many of the conditions most associated with fraud, Dyck said. They tend to employ novel business models, their founders often have significant control and their backers do not always enforce strict oversight. It is a situation that’s ripe for bending the rules when a downturn hits. “It’s not surprising we’re seeing a lot of frauds being committed in the last 18 months are coming to light right now,” he said.
When Javice was trying to sell her college financial planning startup, Frank, to JPMorgan Chase, she told an employee not to share exactly how many people used Frank’s service, according to an SEC complaint. Later, she asked the employee to fabricate thousands of accounts, assuring her staff that such a move was legal and that no one would end up in “orange jumpsuits,” the complaint said.
After JPMorgan bought the startup for $175 million in 2021, Frank’s investors were quick to take a congratulatory victory lap on Twitter. “So many more students & families will now have greater access to financial aid & #highered opportunities,” an investor at Reach Capital wrote. “It’s so exciting to know you will now have an even bigger platform to make a positive impact on the lives of so many people!” was the praise from an executive at Chegg, which invested.
Javice faces four counts of fraud. This past week, JPMorgan accused her of transferring money to a shell company after the bank uncovered her alleged fraud.
Outcome Health, which sold drug ads on screens in doctors’ offices, raised $488 million from investors including Goldman Sachs, the Google-affiliated fund CapitalG and the family of Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois while making public claims of breakneck growth and profitability. In reality, the company had missed its revenue targets, was struggling to manage its debt load and was overbilling its customers.
Yet investors plowed money in anyway and even allowed Outcome Health’s co-founders, Shah and Shradha Agarwal, to cash out $225 million worth of shares. One of the company’s smaller investors, Todd Cozzens of Leerink Partners, said he was not deterred by red flags like missing revenue targets and other “sloppiness,” because “they could have cleaned that up.” The company crossed into fraud when it altered a sales report, which would have been difficult for outsiders to detect, he said.
“This was a great business model and the product was working, but these founders got really greedy,” he said. “They wanted more.” Cozzens’ firm lost 90% of its $15 million investment.
Shah was convicted of 19 counts of fraud and Agarwal of 15. A spokesperson for Shah said that the verdict “deeply saddens” him and that he plans to appeal. Agarwal’s counsel said they were reviewing the verdict and considering her options.
Slync’s founder, Kirchner, lied to investors about Slync’s business performance and used the money raised to buy himself a $16 million private jet, among other misappropriations, according to an SEC complaint. When one investor dug into Slync’s finances, Kirchner told the person that Slync was in the process of switching to a new financial service provider, the complaint said. The investor wired $35 million.
A Slync spokesperson said the company has appointed a new CEO, is cooperating with the government’s investigations, and “looks forward to a just resolution of this matter.”
FTX raised nearly $2 billion from top investors including Sequoia Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Thoma Bravo, giving it a valuation of $32 billion. The company was so poorly run that it didn’t even have a complete list of people who worked there, according to a report issued by the company’s new management this month. Bankman-Fried told colleagues at one point that FTX’s sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, was “unauditable” and that the team sometimes found $50 million in assets lying around that they had lost track of. “Such is life,” he wrote.
Sequoia, which commissioned a glowing profile of Bankman-Fried to publish on its website, apologized to investors after the company collapsed. It also deleted the profile.
Lin explained at the startup event that venture capital industry was ultimately a business based on trust. “Because if you don’t trust the founders that you work with,” he said, “why would you ever invest in them?”
News of the Times;
Tucker Carlson Makes Chilling Prediction About 2024:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/06/28/tucker-carlson-makes-chilling-prediction-about-2024-n1706985
Who Is Really President? Hint, It's Not Crooked Joe:
https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffcrouere/2023/07/03/who-is-really-president-hint-its-not-crooked-joe-n2625242
US farmer warns ‘China is quietly taking over’ food security:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-farmer-warns-china-quietly-110052576.html
Yellen and her close ties to the CCP:
https://gnews.org/m/1437813
Joe Biden Terrorizes a Young Child at NATO Summit by Licking Her Repeatedly:
https://thinkcivics.com/watch-joe-biden-terrorizes-a-young-child-at-nato-summit-by-licking-her-repeatedly/
Researcher dead after experimental hybrid electric car explodes:
https://www.wnd.com/2023/06/researcher-dead-experimental-hybrid-electric-car-explodes-driving/
Pfizer Vaccine Batches in the EU Were Placebos, Say Scientists:
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/28/pfizer-vaccine-batches-in-the-eu-were-placebos-say-scientists/
Mysterious white powder in White House that prompted evacuation tests positive for cocaine:
https://www.theblaze.com/news/mysterious-white-powder-in-white-house-that-prompted-evacuation-tests-positive-for-cocaine
Electric Cars Are An Expensive Scam:
https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/29/electric-cars-are-an-expensive-scam/
Joe Biden’s White House Payroll at Historic Highs:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/07/joe-bidens-white-house-payroll-historic-highs-524/
The Unsayable Truth About the Housing Crisis:
https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/29/the-unsayable-truth-about-the-housing-crisis-is-that-it-is-driven-by-mass-immigration/
Climate Terrorists Vs Gender Occultists:
https://redstatenation.com/video-climate-terrorists-vs-gender-occultists-the-clash-weve-been-waiting-for/
American Banks Closed 273 Branch Locations in May Alone:
https://discernreport.com/american-banks-closed-273-branch-locations-in-may-alone/
Stabbing of Canadian professor and 2 students:
https://nypost.com/2023/06/30/stabbings-in-gender-studies-class-was-motivated-by-hate/
7-year-old injured after first socialist Boston city council member crashes uninsured car:
https://thepostmillennial.com/7-year-old-injured-after-first-socialist-boston-city-council-member-crashes-uninsured-car-while-driving-with-suspended-license
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And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.