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I think Ronda Rousey showed any female sport can blow up in popularity. They only need an athlete who can be a star to bring excitement and attention to the game.
People want to see greatness. On some level, it makes them feel great.
Watching WNBA is more like watching unmotivated employees show up to a 9 to 5 job than it is something likely to garner mainstream attention. There isn't much excitement or urgency people can relate to. Which could be the norm as far as woman's sports go.
Even female boxing lacked good paydays until the Paul brothers began promoting Amanda Serrano. Before that happened, female boxers like Claressa Shields were transitioning to MMA due to the pay being better.
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My question is what is the relationship linking Tesla corporation and the COVID lockdowns in china? Components, parts and electrical items used to build tesla cars are manufactured in china. Tesla and other US automakers and industries, rely upon a steady stream of container ships from china containing manufactured parts. This is known as the global supply chain. During the 2020 pandemic, tesla faced semiconductor shortages from china. Elon Musk looked into buying or building his own semiconductor plant to enable tesla to produce its own semiconductor chips in house. Unfortunately, the start up costs of producing a semiconductor foundry are so expensive. (Reportedly around $50 billion, if I remember correctly) That even the richest man in the world couldn't afford to finance it. Attention given to TSMC semiconductor foundry in taiwan shows the worldwide power and wealth the silicon chip industry enjoys atm. Elon tried to buy twitter. If he had more money and wealth, he may have bought a semiconductor foundry instead. |
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There is a high percentage of stolen content circulating on social media platforms.
Most of the smart content is published by accounts with fewer than 1k followers. Then reposed by accounts with more than 50k followers. It is a strange dynamic.
Everyone is scrambling for clout and credibility. Trying to increase their follower count and marketability. All of the clickbait angles and begging for retweets, likes and followers seems to have devalued and cheapened some of the relationship between content creators and their followings.
And after decades of being bombarded by commercials and advertisements. A high percentage of people appear to have stopped blindly believing everything they see on a screen. And on some level, began to think more for themselves, independently.
Having lots of views and follower interaction translates directly to more money from ads. And so yes it does seem that profiteering motives and business is a leading motive behind much of it.
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The classic clash between Keynes and Hayek appears to be in a decline.
MMT (modern monetary theory), socialism and libertarianism appear to be the main economic ideologies of today.
Bitcoin and its supporters are usually classed under a libertarian heading. Which some of them might be offended by considering some of the questionable views libertarians have. I know I feel offended when someone assumes I'm libertarian for supporting bitcoin and crypto. There isn't anything libertarians and I share in common.
Economists are funded and employed by their own special interest group, which lies outside of crypto's funding cycle. There aren't crypto initiatives which throw money at economists globally. Which could be one motive behind most of them refusing to support it. Over time that could change. Economists could lean more towards crypto as more of them are hired and funded by crypto based firms. But that would take time.
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Thorium nuclear plants have been pitched as a potential successor to conventional nuclear energy. The technology has yet to materialize however. Despite much being published about it over the past 15 years. The united states no longer has the capability to manufacture large concrete structures like the hoover dam or the shells of nuclear power plants. When a nuclear plant is built in the USA. The massive concrete shell is usually manufactured abroad in japan. Then shipped overseas to america at enormous cost. With the rising cost of oil and shipping, these costs become even more unaffordable. Thanks to the enormous start up costs of nuclear plants. They typically search for ways to cut costs. The most popular cost cutting method is building the nuclear plant on the cheapest land that can be found. In a poor and sparsely populated neighborhood. Which is usually on a fault line in an area that is high risk for earthquakes and tsunamis. If you look at the location of nuclear plants in the world. A trend emerges where a high percentage of them are located in areas high risk for earthquake and tsunami. Here is a classic example of nuclear plants typically being built on a fault line:  Image link: https://i.imgur.com/anbHUqm.jpgIf future nuclear plants are built, maybe they could be constructed in areas less prone to natural disasters. |
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With long term food storage, it is important to have a supplementary source of long term vitamin C. Methods of preservation like food dehydration are known to completely eliminate vitamin C from foods. Dehydrated fruits and vegetables will not contain the vitamin C one might expect which can complicate things over the long term. Freeze drying might also reduce vitamin C, I'm not 100% certain. It could affect freeze dried food items like MREs.
Another key factor is ambient temperature. Storing food at lower temperatures will cause them to last significantly longer. Having a basement or wine cellar that is cooler than norms, is the best place to store food items for the long run. Regions with higher average temperatures can expect food items to spoil and go bad at a faster rate.
Fermented foods are a good method to create long term food items for storage, using common grocery store items, without special skills or equipment.
Bottling and canning are both obtainable skills in this day and age. With plenty of information, support and resources.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday charged former Rep. Stephen Buyer (R-Ind.) with insider trading, including purchasing stocks based on nonpublic information. The SEC filed the insider trading charge in a Manhattan federal district court, accusing Buyer of making illegal stock purchases in at least two instances, according to an agency press release. The SEC is seeking to force Buyer to disgorge profits he made from the alleged schemes. The charges were brought as part of an investigation into Buyer and nine other defendants, who were also charged on Monday with insider trading schemes. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York on Monday filed criminal charges in a parallel case against nine defendants, including Buyer. SEC Enforcement Division Director Gurbir Grewal said those who monetize nonpublic information not only violate federal law but “undermine public trust and confidence in the fairness of our markets.” “We are committed to doing all we can to maintain and enhance public trust by leveling the playing field and holding Buyer accountable for illegally profiting from his access,” Grewal said in a statement. Buyer, who served in Congress from 1993 to 2011, founded his own consulting group called the Steve Buyer Group shortly after leaving public office. The former congressman is accused of acquiring $568,000 in Sprint shares after he learned through nonpublic channels in March 2018 that T-Mobile was planning to merge with the then-rival telecommunications company. T-Mobile was a client of Steve Buyer Group. Buyer immediately pocketed more than $107,000 via the stock exchange after news of the merger leaked in April 2018, the SEC said. In another instance, the SEC says Buyer purchased more than $1 million in shares in Navigant Consulting ahead of an announcement that one of his clients, Guidehouse LLP, would purchase the firm. He allegedly spread purchases of the shares across several accounts, including ones belonging to his wife and son. Buyer then sold his shares for a $227,000 profit the day the Guidehouse-Navigent merger was announced, the SEC charges. At a press conference on Monday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Southern District announced the criminal charges filed against Buyer and eight other defendants, including a former FBI agent trainee and an investment banker, were part of broad effort to crack down on financial fraud. At the press conference, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said he assumed office last year to “be relentless in rooting out corruption in our financial markets.” “Nearly one year later, those priorities have not changed one bit,” Williams said. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3572973-former-congressman-charged-with-insider-trading/.... Are they finally giving the people what they asked for by filing insider trading lawsuits against politicians, FBI agents and investment bankers? The timing of this move is interesting. The suit being filed in new york is interesting as well. Looking at specifics of the case, there are other interesting trends which emerge. The general indication I get from reading forums and social media is the public approves of insider trading crackdowns on the political sector. They support closing loopholes which allow for politicians to receive lobbyist funds from corporations and the private sector legally. On a superficial level, does anyone see similarities between the gamestop lawsuit on retail traders and this recent move to crackdown on insider trading from politicians? |
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Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday that growing consumer spending, industrial output, credit quality and other economic indicators don’t suggest the economy is in a recession, although she acknowledged that “way too high” inflation is straining the system. “This is not an economy that is in recession,” Yellen told moderator Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Businesses and consumers are seeing the economy slow after a rapid growth spurt last year, which brought the labor market back to life after the COVID-19 pandemic, the secretary said. But this transitional slowdown is “necessary and appropriate” given the rapid changes. “You don’t see any of the signs. Now, a recession is a broad-based contraction that affects many sectors of the economy. We just don’t have that,” Yellen said, but she acknowledged the impacts of uncommonly high inflation numbers. She said she expects federal government policies aimed at controlling inflation to be successful, putting downward pressure on record gas prices, rising food costs and other economic problem areas for everyday Americans, with help from the Biden administration. “We’ve cut the deficit by a record one and a half trillion dollars this year … We’ve seen gas prices just in recent weeks come down by about 50 cents and there should be more in the pipeline. And hopefully we will pass a bill that will lower prescription drug costs and maintain current levels of health care costs.” https://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/3572111-yellen-says-economy-shows-no-signs-of-recession/.... No signs of recession. And they... cut the deficit, by a record half trillion dollars. How long will it take these claims to be validated or disproven I wonder. Weeks or months. The clock is ticking. While these articles are printed on the internet. It would seem that TV news follows a completely different format in terms of what they publish. Sometimes, I catch a glimpse of what is being said on televised news. And it is like a completely different world from the articles published on the internet. The content is completely different Has anyone had this experience? Would be curious to know what the public thinks about claims of there being no recession. Certainly prices are rising significantly more than they did during the 2008 economic crisis. Is there anyone who will remember this, though. |
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The best tip is to use big data algorithms to sift historical gambling data.
That would appear to be the biggest advantage that can be gained. Similar to HFT algorithmic trading by hedge funds and investment banks being the biggest thing.
I think there are free courses which teach someone to do this step by step on websites like coursera and udacity. They might have to pay money for access to historical sports data. But I think the software and methods can be acquired for free.
Speaking of which, that is something I planned to get into for a long time but never got around to. Maybe the time is ripe.
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If inflation is 8%.
And rates on loans are 0%.
Its a losing proposition for banks and loan markets by default.
They are forced to raise rates to match inflation. The same as every other aspect of the economy.
2022 being an election year. They will probably wait until after the elections to begin quantitative tightening in earnest.
Once the elections are over, I think we could see some significant changes made.
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Europe tried to increase the value of its tech sector by imposing steep anti trust fines on google, microsoft and american big tech. The declining value of the euro would appear to imply this strategy is not working. Declining values of real estate in european nations would also seem to concur.
Europe lacks the high influx of engineering and science talent that america enjoys. Everyone wants a silicon valley megacorp on their job history. Europe has no brand name recognition or big dollar start up capital in emerging tech fields. It also doesn't have much in the way of raw materials, commodities or a manufacturing sector. In contrast to other emerging world economies, europe isn't taking the proper steps to be competitive or influential in global markets.
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The essence of gambling is a game. Not so different from chess, jeopardy or reality TV. The main difference is money being involved. And some betting more than they can healthily afford in an effort to become filthy rich.
Like many games gambling can involve critical thinking, math, statistics, pattern recognition and other academic trends. There is a computational and intellectual side to gambling. Which is one of the reasons why fantasy sports tends to blur the lines separating games of skill from our traditional definition of what gambling is.
Hobbies like gambling can be healthy in moderation, and unhealthy when taken in excess. Like practically everything people encounter in life.
The wrong way to approach gambling is purely as a money making enterprise. Greed and money have a powerful negative influence on decision making. Approaching gambling with the intent to make money will often result in emotions influencing people into making irrational decisions. The goal is to separate things like emotions, money and greed which cloud judgement, from the act of gambling. To enable choices to remain logical and rational.
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It could be fair to say gambling, crime and drugs are wealth building strategies for those who lack better options.
Gambling addiction isn't the first career choice for most. Its simply the best hustle they can scrape together with the skills and knowledge they have on hand. Show a person with gambling addiction a better way to earn a living and they'll have no more need to make bets.
Necessity is the mother of all invention. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. People select what they deem to be a path of least resistance to achieve their goals. There's nothing particularly clever or deceptive about addiction. Those who suffer from gambling addiction simply see gambling as their last best hope to become wealthy and successful in life.
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BlackRock management was quick to invoke the first-half market carnage when revealing the investment performance last week.BlackRock Inc is used to breaking records. The world’s largest asset manager was the first firm to break through $10 trillion of assets under management. But the bigger they are, the harder they fall. This year BlackRock chalked up another record: the largest amount of money lost by a single firm over a six-month period. In the first half of this year, it lost $1.7 trillion of clients’ money. BlackRock management was quick to invoke the first-half market carnage when revealing the investment performance last week. “2022 ranks as the worst start in 50 years for both stocks and bonds,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said on his earnings call. While few firms are able to avoid what the market throws at them, some at least try to overcome it. BlackRock is increasingly giving up: At the end of June, only about a quarter of its assets were actively managed to beat a benchmark — rather than track it seamlessly as passive strategies are designed to do. That’s down from a third when BlackRock acquired Barclays Global Investors in 2009 to become the leading player in exchange-traded funds. Within the equities business, the divergence is especially pronounced. Across the industry, assets have leached away from active strategies and into passive. In BlackRock’s case, around $21 billion has flowed out of active equity in the past decade, with $730 billion flowing into indexed equity. The firm’s passive equity holdings are now 10 times larger than its active business, although it does operate some active multi-asset and alternatives strategies that narrow the gap. For portfolio managers on the fixed-income side, the evolution of the business portends an ominous future. BlackRock’s roots lie in active fixed income. Fink founded the company in 1988 around strategies that “emphasize value creation through security selection…and are implemented by a team of highly qualified portfolio managers employing a strictly disciplined investment process,” according to the 1999 listing prospectus. Although the firm also launched the first US-domiciled bond ETF in December 2002, it didn’t catch on the way stock ETFs did. In BlackRock’s case, $280 billion has continued to flow into active fixed income in the past 10 years. Fixed income is the biggest slug of what’s left of the firm’s active-management businesses — it had $954 billion of actively managed bond funds as of June 30, compared to $393 billion of actively managed stocks. Passive has grown, but it’s only 1.5 times bigger than active in fixed income – a much smaller gap than in equity. All that may be about to change. The collapse in bond markets this year has shaken money out of active fixed-income funds. BlackRock saw clients pull more than $20 billion during the first half of the year in a rout that has seen over $200 billion leave the industry. Some of that is rolling into passive funds, in particular ETFs, where BlackRock is picking up more than its fair share. So far this year, it has gained $39 billion of new money in ETFs and $25 billion in other indexed strategies. The shift toward passive that started in equity is now accelerating in fixed income. Until recently, bond ETFs were viewed with suspicion. Back in 2015, investor Carl Icahn, sitting alongside Fink on TV, called BlackRock “an extremely dangerous company.” His rationale was that the firm’s ETFs embed illiquid bonds in unsuitably liquid wrappers. “They are going to hit a black rock,” he said. Yet during the panic of March 2020, when bond markets froze, ETFs performed efficiently. They moved to a discount to the value of the underlying bonds, but that didn’t lead to a fire sale of the securities. Rather than transmitting stress, bond ETFs absorbed it while providing investors with much-needed liquidity. This real-life stress test validated the structure, and now that bonds are sagging, money is flooding across. On his earnings call, Fink explained the benefits. He observed that investors are using ETFs to quickly and efficiently gain exposure to thousands of global bonds and recalibrate their portfolios. “The challenges associated with high inflation to rising interest rates are attracting more first-time bond ETF users and prompting existing investors to find new ways to use ETFs in their portfolios,” he said. For now, BlackRock’s fixed-income portfolio managers are mounting a solid defence. Unlike their colleagues in equities, their performance has been relatively strong. In the first six months of 2022, the funds they oversaw declined by 10.6 percent, marginally better than the firm’s fixed-income ETFs. According to the company, about half of taxable fixed-income assets are performing above their benchmark on a one-year view, compared with about a third of traditionally managed equity assets. But if fixed-income follows the path of equities, the divergence between passive flows and active flows will only grow. “This is the early days of a major transformation of how people invest in fixed income,” said Fink last week. “We expect the bond ETF industry will nearly triple and reach $5 trillion in AUM at the end of the decade.” By then, BlackRock could be a lot larger, but its fortunes will remain firmly tied to the markets. https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/how-blackrock-lost-1-7-trillion-in-six-months-8858251.html .... This appears to indicate ETFs performing better than stocks and bonds 2020 to 2022. Interesting statistic cited here: BlackRock management was quick to invoke the first-half market carnage when revealing the investment performance last week. “2022 ranks as the worst start in 50 years for both stocks and bonds,” Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said on his earnings call. Is it accurate and safe to say US stocks and bonds are taking as much of a beating as bitcoin has in 2022? If ETFs are doing marginally better. Perhaps this strengthens a case for crypto ETFs receiving a greenlight? |
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Loan based gambling is identical to asset trading with leverage.
It increases the dollar amount of both wins and losses, proportionately.
A gambler with a 49% win average. Can expect to be unprofitable. Whether they gamble on loan based leverage or without it.
With trading or gambling it all comes down to consistency.
While there is insider gambling it is not always accurate.
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For many years, people believed banks were the safest and most secure place to store their wealth. I wonder if that is changing. Banks have accumulated a significant amount of negative headlines recently. Once bankers made great efforts to align their reputation and name brand with integrity and stability. It seems the ethics of banking could be cyclical in the way that some claim climate change is. They go through phases of being somewhat moral followed by phases of the inverse opposite.
If the reputation of banks is damaged. I wonder how long it would take them to recover. Could it create a vacuum for other emerging upstarts to topple banks from their places on the top of the economic mountain. There are some who predicted this could occur.
Can a culture of business or banking be sustainable over the long term, if it is built on a foundation of greed and corruption. This may be a crucial question that will be answered in the future. The concept of friendship being magic is a bit too cringe for most. What do people think of greed and corruption being magic. Maybe not a good type of magic, I'm thinking.
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Sri Lanka could be one to keep an eye on. Protestors there stormed the capitol building. The President of sri lanka fled the country, taking a plane to the maldives.
‘This is a huge moment’: Sri Lankans vow to continue protests until demands are metHe had been elected on the back of a chauvinistic roar of ultranationalism. But in the end Sri Lanka’s strongman president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, was reduced to making a meek, humiliating escape under the cover of darkness, refusing to even address his own people before he fled. As Sri Lankans awoke to the news on Wednesday morning that their beleaguered president had departed to the Maldives on an air force jet on the day he had promised to finally resign after months of protests, the mood in the country was one partly of relief, and partly of rage. “What an absolute coward,” said Sineth Hindle, 27. “Gotabaya filled his pockets with our money, bankrupted our county and then ran away. He must be held accountable.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/13/this-is-a-huge-moment-sri-lankans-vow-to-continue-protests-until-demands-are-metHow events unfold from this point forward could be relevant to the rest of the world. Can sri lankans organize enough to elect a new President or establish a new government? Their current deposed President is said to have run under a banner of supposed ultra nationalism. There would seem to be a severe disconnect between campaign promises made by politicians and their actual allegiances. Sri lankans have some obstacles to overcome, if they're to re establish the functionality of their state. Many around the world would appear to have similar problems. |
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I glance at MLB game scores every so often. And try to figure out how much steroid usage has increased or decreased since the Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire era. And whether I can use that trend to chart a better prediction of total game scores and point spreads.
To an outsider like me, baseball seems like a psychologically intensive sport. I would be interested to know how much the mental training side of things has progressed over the past few decades.
It seems to me that teams are scoring more average points in the current era. In contrast to previous ones. Something similar is also happening in the NBA. Betting points over might be worthwhile.
Not certain about the level of motivation or competition in all star games. I would guess athletes are more focused on the playoffs. MLB all star games are like the pro bowl. Its more a social event than a game. Athletes could be more focused on resting and not injuring themselves in preparation for the big games to come. Rather than focusing on winning.
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Most questions casual investors have about markets and bitcoin were answered years ago. It has long been known that more than 80% of US stock market trends since the economic crisis of 2008 are attributable to a single demographic. The same can be said of bitcoin's latest decline. Neither Elon Musk nor tesla have the investment liquidity to save crypto in the face of those numbers. Pulling out was their only option.
Elon Musk and many others in tech and science have always been big fans of crypto. The founder of virgin galactic planned to sell tickets to spaceflights in bitcoin. There were discussions on whether bitcoin or another crypto token might be used as a native currency on mars. Apple co founder Steve Wozniak always had many interesting points to make on crypto. Now it seems things are changing. The amount of intelligent and honest commentary available on the internet is diminishing significantly. But I think the underlying sentiment remains the same.
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Sparring footage of Jake Paul and Hasim Rahman Jr was released. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDICORuXuxYNot certain how hard Hasim Rahman was trying there. Sparring partners are paid to take a beating and lose so the person preparing for a fight can get good work in. Rahman's basic fundamentals need work. The way he lazy steps with his feet in slow motion is a terrible habit for a professional fighter to have. His punching technique however is good. Tommy Fury was a strange match up and Hasim Rahman Jr is yet another in a long line of oddball matchmaking choices. I would guess Jake Paul and his handlers see things in Hasim Rahman they think they can exploit. It will be interesting to see what approach and gameplan they take for this fight. |
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