Money & Finance

Look, it just got $3 billion in funding from SoftBank. 
With the new investment, the coworking startup is valued at no less than $42 billion. And if you feel like you've got déjà vu, you don't—SoftBank just really likes WeWork.
We present to you as evidence...
1) The Japanese conglomerate is WeWork's biggest investor, and the rest of the pack isn't particularly close.
2) WeWork raised $1 billion from SoftBank in August in a convertible note.
3) SoftBank tossed in ~$4.4 billion in a WeWork funding round last year.
So what makes SoftBank so bullish on WeWork? The financials WeWork released yesterday could be a clue.
WeWork's Q3 revenue totaled $482 million, up from $241 million last year...but adjusted earnings for the first nine months of 2018 came in at a loss of $415 million (widening from a loss of $108 million last year). WeWork said the losses were expected, given its plans to set up more desks in Q4 than it did in the entirety of 2017. And if it stays on track with sales, WeWork expects revenue to sprint past $2 billion over the next year.

The Tyndall F-22 problem is part of a larger F-22 problem. The USAF has a little over 180 F-22s in inventory. Of that 180 only about 120 are flyable. The other 60 or so are long term hanger queens that are useful for cannibalizing parts. Of the 120 that can fly, there is an availability rate of about 50% versus a Pentagon mandate for 80% availability. We probably only have around 60 F-22s to cover the entire world on any given day. That is part of the reason why the F-22 platforms hang around the US in places like Washington DC, Panama City, Honolulu, and Anchorage. They are in a defensive posture, guarding the US. There are hardly enough F-22s flying for the pilots to get the flight hours that they need to stay proficient.
This F-22 readiness issue is caused by money. The USAF doesn't have the budget to operate at full capacity, so they cut operating budgets where they must. The F-22 hasn't been a full fledged weapons system since Congress cut the build order to 187 units, and they are so expensive to maintain that there is good savings by not doing the repairs, so the F-22 is an operational component that is ripe for cuts.
The F-22 inventory is scheduled for major upgrades to each platform over the next few years. During that time, Pentagon budget officials and Congressmen are going to look at the F-22 for justification for those upgrades. The US Navy and US Marines have no reason to support F-22 upgrades because the F-22 upgrades take money out of their budgets.
In the aftermath of the 187 platform decision, the Pentagon fully funded the F-35 program because that program could supply the number of new, 5th generation fighters that the USAF, US Navy, and US Marines need. All three services that fly fighters could get behind the F-35 program because they each have a variant or two of the F-35. Yes, the F-35 program eats cash like crazy. By the end of 2018, there will be about 350 operational F-35s. Around 250 of them will belong to the US. All parts for F-35s are in mass production at this time, so there shouldn't be F-35 hanger queens. Even the old F-35s at Eglin AFB will be upgraded to block 3F or 4F capability. As the ALIS support system starts functioning properly and maintenance units get experienced, the F-35 availability rate and flight hours per platform will start to approach the levels of previous platforms. More money will be needed for the F-35 program to be fully implemented.
When everything is right, the F-22 is a beautiful airplane. It looks great at airshows when it does that quick turnaround that totally kills its airspeed. There aren't enough of them for the program to ever be fully functional. They will continue to sit around in WWII hangers with inadequate protection.
I would love for a high level Pentagon official to shed some light on this situation. The American taxpayer needs to know.
Why did we lose 17 F-22 fighters in Hurricane Michael? Why were they not evacuated?

Here is a snapshot from 2020 during the pandemic:

Amazing to see it go down to 21 a couple days ago.
I see the phrase above "Global economic softening"..... LOL..... can you say CLIFF?!?!
 

This is surprising.... I wouldn't have guessed this outcome from The Who

What would these women have told Nike? See link below
 

Here is a short paragraph from Berkshire’s 1993 letter:
“In many industries, of course, Charlie and I can't determine whether we are dealing with a "pet rock" or a "Barbie." We couldn't solve this problem, moreover, even if we were to spend years intensely studying those industries. Sometimes our own intellectual shortcomings would stand in the way of understanding, and in other cases the nature of the industry would be the roadblock. For example, a business that must deal with fast-moving technology is not going to lend itself to reliable evaluations of its long-term economics. Did we foresee thirty years ago what would transpire in the television-manufacturing or computer industries? Of course not. (Nor did most of the investors and corporate managers who enthusiastically entered those industries.) Why, then, should Charlie and I now think we can predict the future of other rapidly-evolving businesses? We'll stick instead with the easy cases. Why search for a needle buried in a haystack when one is sitting in plain sight?”
---------------------------------------------
“Severe change and exceptional returns usually don't mix. Most investors, of course, behave as if just the opposite were true. That is, they usually confer the highest price-earnings ratios on exotic-sounding businesses that hold out the promise of feverish change. That prospect lets investors fantasize about future profitability rather than face today's business realities. For such investor-dreamers, any blind date is preferable to one with the girl next door, no matter how desirable she may be.
Experience, however, indicates that the best business returns are usually achieved by companies that are doing something quite similar today to what they were doing five or ten years ago. That is no argument for managerial complacency. Businesses always have opportunities to improve service, product lines, manufacturing techniques, and the like, and obviously these opportunities should be seized. But a business that constantly encounters major change also encounters many chances for major error. Furthermore, economic terrain that is forever shifting violently is ground on which it is difficult to build a fortress-like business franchise. Such a franchise is usually the key to sustained high returns. “
 
1987 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders
Warren Buffet understands value investments and is exceptional at it. Also, value investments deal with hundreds of millions of dollars, and return hundreds of millions as well. These amounts make a difference to Buffet. 

For a big investor like Buffet, a seed investment of $1 Mn which returns $5 Mn is nothing more than pocket change.
Berkshire generates $20-25bi per year in cash. Hard to invest this amount of money in startups.
   

The most common misconception about Ethereum is that it's a massively parallelized, distributed computing network. In actuality, it's a massively redundant, distributed computing network. Since every node performs every computation, the overall speed of the distributed computer is not a function of the amount of computing power in the network but is actually equal to that of the slowest node in the network. That's not very interesting from a computer science perspective.

Consumer prices edged up 0.1%, according to new CPI data. That effectively cancels out the wage growth from June. 
But you already knew this.....

https://www.bitcoinbeach.com/
The remittance market has to realize their days are numbered.... and with establishing a community of businesses that have real-world uses, the people theree don't have to convert to fiat at all.
I am going to be keeping an eye on this for sure.
LN is such a huge win for BTC.

 

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Goldman Sachs has issued a request for information (RFI) to explore digital asset custody, according to a source inside the bank. The RFI was circulated to at least one well-known crypto custody player toward the end of 2020. The bank's digital assets initiative is "part of a broad digital strategy," the source said.
https://www.coindesk.com/goldman-sachs-to-enter-crypto-market-soon-with-custody-play-source

Un joven de 28 años apareció sin vida en su departamento de Puerto Rico y todo apunta a que se trató de un suicidio. Familiares de la víctima aseguran que el muchacho padecía una persecución por parte de Testigos de Jehová, culto del cual participaba pero que luego decidió apartarse. 
https://misionesonline.net/2021/01/21/un-joven-de-puerto-rico-se-quito-la-vida-y-familiares-responsabilizan-a-una-iglesia-por-discriminarlo-y-hostigarlo/

The rapid spread of a new variant of coronavirus has been blamed for the introduction of strict tier four mixing rules for millions of people, harsher restrictions on mixing at Christmas in England, Scotland and Wales, and other countries placing the UK on a travel ban.
So how has it gone from being non-existent to the most common form of the virus in parts of England in a matter of months?
The government's advisers on new infections have "moderate" confidence that it is more able to transmit than other variants.
All the work is at an early stage, contains huge uncertainties and a long list of unanswered questions.
As I've written before, viruses mutate all the time and it's vital to keep a laser focus on whether the virus' behaviour is changing.
Why is this variant causing concern?
Three things are coming together that mean it is attracting attention:
It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus It has mutations that affect part of the virus likely to be important Some of those mutations have already been shown in the lab to increase the ability of the virus to infect cells All of these come together to build a case for a virus that can spread more easily.
However, we do not have absolute certainty. New strains can become more common simply by being in the right place at the right time - such as London, which had only tier two restrictions until recently.
But already the justification for tier four restrictions is in part to reduce the spread of the variant.
"Laboratory experiments are required, but do you want to wait weeks or months [to see the results and take action to limit the spread]? Probably not in these circumstances," Prof Nick Loman, from the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium, told me.
Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55388846

via .ORGWorld News

Jennifer Aniston and Charlie Schlatter, 1990 

Waymo is set to launch the world's first commercial driverless car service in the coming months.

And this would be a good thing? 
Have you ever seen a movie where this ends well? 

That's nothing...
In 1985 I was in San Francisco, and in broad daylight was robbed by a blind armed robber, with sunglasses, and a .38 caliber pistol in one hand, and a white tipped cane in the other hand.
I stil remember those chilling words ...
"Stick 'em up!"
" ... are they up?"