Greatly enjoyed Top Gun Maverick and Avatar 2 at the cinema though.
Both had minimal agenda in my opinion. It probably says something.
These days, I'm starting to think if it doesn't have Tom Cruise and isn't directed by James Cameron it's a 50-50 gamble it will suck. On streaming the odds are worse in favour of it sucking.
Top Gun: Maverick was the surprise highlight of the year. Tom Cruise is seriously crushing it. Avatar 2 -I haven't seen yet, but will probably catch it later as a rental stream. Not really that enthused because Cameron is a bit of a non-creative hack. I mean, he said Fire Na'vi for Avatar 3? C'mon, seriously? Amazon surprised with shows like The Terminal List and Reacher. But reached new lows of ESG agenda-bait garbage with The Rings of Power and Wheel of Time. Disney+? Oh hell no (ESG everywhere - see Marvel phase 4 garbage, Star Wars garbage, Willow, Disney live action garbage) Netflix assassinated The Witcher series, then stomped on its grave with the horrid The Witcher: Blood Origin. I'm so done with Netflix. Keeping Amazon Prime only for the free shipping thing. I beg to disagree...Ridley Scott is just as good as a director, but as far as commercial success-yes, maybe a bit more patchy.
Scott's movies that i liked: Alien (the original one), Black rain (M. Douglas), Gladiator (with Russel Crowe), The Martian (with M. Dimon).
Albeit, he is 85 and started making "historical" movies, although Napoleon could be good.
Ridley Scott is a great director, but both The Last Duel and House of Gucci were recent commercial failures. Perhaps at 85 it might be time to call it a day? I dunno. |
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OT: Torque's New Years Resolution
To watch all the programs on Netflix that interest me over the next few months (mostly documentaries), and then cancel my subscription.
Reason: I am so done with their bullshit agenda-pushing, bait-and-switch garbage shows. Just not worth it anymore.
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Yep, came here to post the same.
Amazon will lay off more than 18,000 workers https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/business/amazon-layoffs/index.htmlLike no one saw more layoffs coming from a galaxy away. I like how Jeff Bezos was telling the public in December to "hold off buying televisions and electronics, in order to have some dry powder." Yeah, we know why now Jeff.  |
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OT: I had a cocky neighbor that rushed into building a very expensive second garage project during 2020-2021, when lumber and materials prices went 4X. I spoke to him last year, and he said to me "Well ya know, lumber prices are never going to return to what they were (pre-Covid era). Because inflation." Just checked. Lumber prices are back to 2016-2017 levels: https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/lumber-price?op=1Oops. Like with most things I think demand vs supply eventually re-balances things somewhat in most non BTC markets. We saw ridiculous prices for stupid second hand Teslas, even higher than brand new orders at times, due to demand. Now they are far more realistic. I guess the only thing that the west are managing to con people in with now are energy prices. There was a recent warning from the Dutch Shell CEO that they will struggle to re-fill gas reserves in Europe for next winter. This seems to have gone unnoticed in most major news outlets. And if that happens and the Ukraine war continues (some possible routes to negotiations we've heard recently but no certainties) things could get pretty bad / unaffordable. You would have thought eventually a complete lack of demand would plummet energy prices here in Europe, but the stupid ridiculous bets on green energy, which often don't work at all in winter and the stupid sanctions and energy caps on Russian oil (and gas soon probably - only leads to less production) probably means it is the only market where that type of re-balancing isn't going to happen, no matter how sky high the prices go. Who knows. The thing is, here in the U.S. people just don't get it. They first gave Americans huuge amounts of free stimmy money (thousands of $$$ per household). Then second they proceeded to run up the price of everything that people would actually WANT to spend that money ON: Houses, new cars, used cars, luxury goods, luxury watches (Rolexes, etc.), lumber/building supplies, appliances, natural gas, petrol, etc. The MSM said it was "unprecedented demand" that was running up the prices of those things. It wasn't. It was the establishment creating artificial supply constraints, and also artificially running up the price of all those things, in order to fleece the very people they just gave free money to. The FOMO that was created didn't help. |
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OT: I had a cocky neighbor that rushed into building a very expensive second garage project during 2020-2021, when lumber and materials prices went 4X. I spoke to him last year, and he said to me "Well ya know, lumber prices are never going to return to what they were (pre-Covid era). Because inflation." Just checked. Lumber prices are back to 2016-2017 levels: https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/lumber-price?op=1Oops. |
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Glad I didn't buy any Tesla shares. Fuck sake. It's in a total death spiral now. starts to look like a shitcoin chart When Elon was complaining that Tesla was on the verge of bankruptcy when Fed rates were at 0%, just imagine what sustained rates at 5%+ are going to do for his company if things don't change soon. 🤷 Also let's not forget that Elon sold a shit ton of Tesla stock (as well as bitcoin) at the end of 2021, supposedly for "tax purposes". Was he an absolute financial genius with expert market timing? No. He was tipped off by insiders of where markets were going to go in 2022 and beyond. |
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WELP, they destroyed The Witcher, don't even try to watch it unless you want to puke.
Even though I know it's Henry Cavill's last season on it, I'm not even about to watch that hot mess, or ever again. Nor any of the "spin offs". Season 2 was bad enough. It's about sending a message. Full boycott. Down with the bullshit agenda that Hollywoke is pushing. |
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Here is the ultimate irony though:Once mass layoffs being in Jan/Feb and the MSM confirms that "We are *definitely* in a recession now!", all markets (including bitcoin) will rally. Yep, rally. Makes total sense.  my take: btc either already bottomed or might do so by March. Somewhere during q1 we will get a large surprise in inflation (on the downside). Stocks would initially crash fearing deflation and interest rates being too high. Fed will dilly dally for a month or so, then succumb and cut short term rates (Cramer would be screaming on CNBC again how "they just don't get it"). Of course, before doing so they would declare victory, alas, markets would respond to the cut with a ferocious downswing that would indicate that Fed was wrong again and raised too much. Bottom by Q2 in equities (bitcoin flat), then a gigantic rally in "everything" with bitcoin going up at least 2-3X (from today's prices). After that...hard to say. It could play out like that. Also note that markets normally front run *ahead* of what the Fed will do (with insider info, of course). I.E., they will rally 3-4 months ahead of a Fed rate cut because they are expecting a return to (fake) growth again. If the market temporarily tanks on a Fed cut announcement, it just means one last washout to rekt margin longs before moving up again. |
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Here is the ultimate irony though:Once mass layoffs begin in Jan/Feb and the MSM confirms that "We are *definitely* in a recession now!", all markets (including bitcoin) will rally. Yep, rally. Makes total sense.
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Hey, how is that supposed "Santa Claus Rally" looking so far, eh? You know, the one that the MSM financial news has been croning on about? |
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Yep, fuck Gary. He has been a crypto ponzi scam enabler ever since he took office at the SEC. Hasn't done shit to curb crypto corruption, in fact he supports it with non-policy action. I'm sure he takes bribes/kickbacks to turn a blind eye. |
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What is it with the USA and 80+ year old politicians. Maxine Waters. Fucking 84 years old.
Off your fucking heads over there.
We can't vote them out, and like zombies they just won't fkn die. |
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It's amazing to me how the Average Joe public doesn't see how neatly controlled and managed our world markets are. After the amazing up year in markets during 2021, this year the Fed flipped into rate hike mode precisely starting in January (supposedly to "tame inflation"), and now inflation looks tamed...precisely by end of December. All neatly within the same calendar year. Gee, how precise. Much managed. I imagine that Jerome Powell has a sign hanging in his office. On one side it says "Up year" and on the other it says "Down year". He flips the sign over every new year on January 1st when needed. And sends a photo snap to all the Wall Street insiders. |
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If we aren't at complete bottom yet, then we are very close now. The tell: the MSM (in particular, CNBC.com) posting "crypto" or "bitcoin" hit piece articles, and making sure that there's always one stuck to their home page every single week for fkn weeks now. Here's the latest one: Police in China arrest gang who laundered $1.7 billion via crypto even after Beijing’s crackdownhttps://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/12/chinese-police-arrest-gang-who-laundered-1point7-billion-via-cryptocurrency.htmlThey do this shit at the very bottom of the market. Every. Single. Time. If you guys aren't buying/DCA'ing bitcoin right now then you're NGMI. Don't know what else to say. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
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