It is not just the raw materials. The US government had stockpiled 10 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which they don't intend to use. They have refused to export this stockpile to other countries, saying that they need it for their own country as "reserves". I don't understand the logic, as the United States is mostly using vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. They may never use the vaccine from AstraZeneca, as the efficacy is low.

No point in indulging blame game. Actually no one expected this wave at this point of time, and the neighboring countries are also in similar situation. Vaccination was the key, but it was delayed due to the embargo on the export of raw materials imposed by the United States. On top of that, red tape and bureaucracy is making matters worse in many parts of India. But everyone needs to appreciate the step from Sachin. And not to forget the contributions from Brett Lee and Pat Cummins, as they have donated at a time of extreme need.

These scenarios are applicable only if Sri Lanka wants to win. From the first test, it looked as if they are playing just for formality and have no interest in getting a result other than draw. If they were really aiming for a win, then they would have asked Bangladesh to follow on. And it was not like the bowlers had 150-200 overs of work. Bangladesh in the first innings was bowled out in just 83 overs, and most of these overs were bowled by spinners (Ramesh Mendis and Praveen Jayawickrama bowling 63 overs in total).

Just another baseless rumor and these sort of stories really make Bitcoiners look like buffoons in front of others and make them a laughing stock. If mainstream investors are still hostile to Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies, then you don't need to look too far for the reason. Rumor mongering such as this one is the primary reason. From what I have found the proportion of fake news being spread in the cryptocurrency sector far exceeds those which contain at least some amount of truth.

Bitcoin prices are going up. But a worrying sign for me is that the altcoin prices are going up at a faster rate. And when useless shitcoins can have tens of billions of USD in market capitalization, that is a massive red flag, and the first indication that the bubble is going to burst sometime soon. XRP is back to the previous levels despite no final decision on their lawsuit with SEC, while Doge has gone up by almost 100x in the last 6 months.

Just because Bitcoin added $100 million plus to the Tesla balance sheet for this quarter, I don't expect this to happen every time. Right now Bitcoin is going through a bullish phase and Tesla is also benefitting from it. But my question is what will happen once the bullish phase ends and a correction occurs. Instead of a net gain from Bitcoin sales, Tesla will be showing a net loss. And this may be unpalatable for many Tesla investors.

I find the injury excuse really strange. Pacquiao spoke about the injury issue only after losing the match. Why he didn't asked for a postponement if he was injured? Also, I watched the match, and it didn't looked as if he was injured. Floyd Mayweather won the fight fair and square, and Pacquiao should stop giving stupid excuses. And this may be one of the reasons why Floyd rejected Pacquiao's request for a rematch. But Manny was rewarded handsomely for that fight, earning more than $100 million.

The intention should be to win the match without caring much about the personal milestones. Pakistan is already leading by around 200 runs and I guess another 100 runs should be enough for them to secure an innings victory (i.e a total of 480-500). There is no point in wasting another day to get the total past 600. Anyway, they have already lost 6 wickets so far, and it looks as if getting to a lead of even 300 is going to be difficult.

I enquired about it, and looks like you are right. I was wrong. For capital gains of corporations, the gains are simply added to the "other income" category and taxed as per the prevailing corporate tax rate (rather than using long term/short term capital gains tax in the case of individuals). So the corporations usually pay a higher/lower tax when compared to the individuals on their capital gains (lower tax, in case their overall profit is negative).

I don't have anything to say against the role being played by Elon, although I have to admit that his tweets on Dogecoin gave them underserved publicity and caused a pump with some of the shitcoins. His original intention was to use Bitcoin along with US Dollar as one of the reserve currencies for Tesla. And on this aspect, he has been successful. The recent transaction should also keep some of the critics quite, especially those who criticized the Tesla Bitcoin purchase.

It is not just the distribution of vaccines. Here in India, the topmost manufacturer of the vaccines faced enormous difficulty in production because the Joe Biden administration placed an embargo on the export of raw materials that are needed to produce the AstraZeneca vaccine. The rich countries acted very unethically. On one hand they refused to supply the vaccines to poorer nations, and on the other hand they sabotaged the vaccine production in these countries.

LOL.. I just hope that this defeat doesn't start a new trend for them. The captaincy was very poor. Harshal Patel had proved very expensive during the end overs in the previous matches and still Kohli asked him to bowl two out of the last three overs. And he conceded an eye-watering 40 runs from those two overs. And this was despite Kyle Jamieson having one over left. Even Mohammed Siraj bowled only 3 overs, and had one over left. I don't know what was going on in Kohli's mind at this point. Else Punjab Kings would have got restricted to somewhere around 150.

I am not saying that most of the test matches are like this one. But this series has been disappointing so far. Let's not forget the fact that these two teams rank among the bottom half of the World Test Championship. So in order to improve their ranking, they needed a few wins. I am especially disappointed with Sri Lanka, who are the hosts. If they are so defensive against a team such as Bangladesh, then how they can compete against the big three teams?

OK.. so here is the summary - Tesla purchased around $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in January 2021, which increased in value to around $2.75 billion. They sold $290 million worth of coins a few weeks back and now they are left with $2.48 billion in BTC. So in short, Tesla has a realized profit of somewhere around $125 million (before taxes) and an unrealized profit of more than $1 billion from their investment in cryptocurrency. They should be happy about the numbers, I guess.

They don't need to purchase any BTC from the market. They are already accepting Bitcoin as a payment for their EVs, so there is a net inflow of coins. But these are initial days and we don't know what percentage of the sales are using BTC. In their Q1 statement, they have already made it clear that the value of BTC they are holding is around $2.48 billion. Let's wait until the next statement to see how much their holdings increase during the 3-month period.

Well.. if that was the intention, then I have to say that they terribly failed in it. On one hand, they are saying that Bitcoin can go up to $300,000, when the current exchange rates are fluctuating at $50,000-$55,000 levels. So according to them, very soon there will be a 5x-6x increase in the exchange rates. The correction is going to occur after that. Intelligent investors will concentrate on the initial part of their statement, because that is going to occur first.

Overall, this is another component of the $6 trillion spending plan by Biden. Nowhere in the world, socialist policies have been implemented on this scale. In short, he will be taking $6 trillion from successful people and profitable corporations, and then distributing it to the unproductive population in the form of childcare benefits and other handouts. Being a non-American, I am happy about this. The American economy needs to be destroyed and China needs to emerge as the no.1 economic power. These stupid plans will just accelerate it. The suburban voters who dumped the GOP to vote for Biden/Kamala will be really excited right now. 

A couple of years back, the average fee for an Ethereum transaction was around $0.05. Even if the Berlin hard fork manages to reduce the transaction fee, I am not expecting a very big reduction. At the most, it may come down to $5. Even at this point, making deposits in fiat is far more profitable than doing the same using Ethereum, especially for smaller amounts. So IMO, the Ethereum Berlin update will have only a minimal impact on the gambling sector.

Almost 100 replies so far and almost every one claims that Dubai doesn't permit gambling because they are under Islamic law. If that was the case, then why gambling is not allowed in most of the non-Muslim countries? Also, some of the nations that are 100% Islamic permit gambling, and examples are Morocco and Azerbaijan. The UAE is considered as one of the more liberal Islamic nations and should not be compared on par with conservative nations such as Afghanistan and Somalia.

Tesla cars are very expensive, but that alone won't make them upper class. The quality and specs are not as good as the luxury brands, such as BMW or Mercedes Benz. Tesla vehicles have become some sort of a status symbol among the young, especially who want to show that they are environmentally sensitive. But you will never get the feeling of driving a Lamborghini or Audi with Tesla. And perhaps that is the reason why the EVs still have a very small market share among the overall automobile market.