We have a lot to be thankful for. We enjoyed eight years of relative peace. Yes, even though the stock market has reached new all-time heights, mostly only the top 25% within the world economy are affected by that. However, during the Obama administrations many people in the middle class and even the impoverished have made small strides. More
Hope that we can improve our own lives.
The housing crisis and the cost of education problems have not been adequately addressed, but at least everyone knows about it. People are no longer suffering in silence, all alone. There are amazing new companies who are working hard on addressing it. For instance the Khan Academy provides assistance for free that literally change people’s lives. Here is one example of their many Thank You letters the Khan Academy deservedly received. Robyn, December 4, 2013: “I am currently in high school, trying to get into university for engineering. I just recently started using Khan Academy, and I am already hooked. I just wanted to say that it is truly amazing what you are doing. If there was ever such a thing as a saint: you would be one. Providing the world with easy access to education is something that nations upon nations have failed to do, yet you accomplished starting with just some simple videos available for any one to access. Thank you for restoring my faith in people.” More
Amazing scientific breakthroughs that will change our future
In 2016, Scientists have tested the world’s first minimally invasive brain-machine interface, designed to control an exoskeleton with the power of thought and gets people with paralysis back on their feet. More
In 2016, 3D Printing research shows promises for medicine and manufacturing that are mind-boggling. In the future organs and bone may well be printed from your own tissues and thus move medicine into an entirely different sphere. More
Artificial Intelligence had several major breakthroughs, not least of which is that Google’s AI engine reorganized “itself” to write a better translation system. And this indicates that AI is here to stay at an entirely different level. More
Social Trends that bring families together
At the home front things have changed as well. Now for the first time in since the year of 1880 more children and young adults (18 to 34 year olds) live with their parents than live away from their parents. More The economy that squeezes the life-style of most Westerners (75%) financially, combined with the aging of the baby boomers is moving families closer together.
Yes, the share of the middle class has been shrinking and unless corporate officers start waking up to the fact that a shrinking middle class means a shrinking customer base, this trend will continue for years to come. More
We enjoy enough food, clean water (most of us, ahem, Flint), a roof over our heads and more of us have our families with us. Life is good, we can always go online and improve it ourselves. So now think about all the good things in your life and share them with your family over some cookies. Merry X-mas or Happy Holidays, whichever you prefer.
Trump fan and cover song singer Beau Davidson agrees to entertain at Trump Inauguration
Trump proves at inauguration that he is “one of the people.”
The International Business Times: “A bank established by President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, once tried to foreclose on a 90-year-old Florida woman over a $0.27 payment mistake, reported Politico Thursday. Critics in the story allege that OneWest, founded by Mnuchin and partners, took advantage of the 2008 housing collapse by buying out risky loans from mortgage lender IndyMac and, in turn, getting help from Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to cover the costs.” (full article)
And now they report: “Democrats are focusing on Mnuchin’s tenure at OneWest, a bank he took over at the height of the financial crisis that has been dubbed a “foreclosure machine” that profited from the real estate collapse. The Wall Street Journal said no Republicans have expressed any opposition to Mnuchin, who likely will be vetted by the Senate Finance Committee. Bloomberg reported Mnuchin, 53, already has met with Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Chuck Grassley of Iowa.”
Clearly this proves that Mnuchin is the best possible person to “Make America Great Again.” Those old ladies don’t need their homes and the value their husbands created while the husbands were still alive can “trickle down” much easier when the Banks repossess the properties, instead of allowing the survivors to remain in her home until their deaths. Sure she could have gifted the property to her 40 something year-old grandchildren, who may be able to pay off some of their student loans. Anyway, a Bankers’ job is to keep as much money as they can and Mnuchin is so worthy of being admired for his “sticky fingers.” He took a 27 cents error and gained all the equity for the bank from that 97 year old lady’s home. What astounding commitment to business!
Trump is also proving that he is sincere about saving money, by hiring the lounge lizard Beau Davidson, who already has enchanted him at his private estate in Mar-a-Lago, a twenty acre membership club that offers dining, bridge, croquet, tennis, spa and entertainment shows. If Beau, who looks a little like a man who previously worked for the Chippendales in LA, is good enough for the millionaires and billionaires at Mar-a-Lago, he is good enough for Trump’s inauguration party. A Choir from Utah will sing as well to bring a type of Christian atmosphere to the celebrations. They will probably do it for (their) god, so it is in the budget. Surely the Trump children will be there but they will not set up meetings about gaining access. Just like they will do in their non-profit set up for the very purpose they will request that the donors provide proof of funds prior to having a lunch with them where they will hear them out about their concern that they hope their daddy can help them with. They are absolutely aware of the need to keep up appearances.
Obama meanwhile recently had his last extravaganza at the White House in October 2016. It was quite amazing and “élite.” Here you can watch it for yourselves, it was awesome, and the line up shows that Obama has a lot of amazing friends, it was all “Love and Happiness” there.
Trump signals with his celebration that times, are going to focus on the “economy” – kicking out 97 year old ladies from their homes for $0.27 errors in their checks. Trump has drained the swamp and has installed his oligarch friends at every corner. Judging by the celebratory tone of McConnell who forbade the voters to find out about the Russian hacking before the election, Times they are A’Changing. So go home and hug your family and know that you best enjoy your life right now. Happy Holidays and we’ll see you at the other side.
Icahn and Trump are well known for expressing their feelings and opinions without filters.
Bravo? They are not politically correct and that is what their voters wanted, right?
It is obvious for people in the know to see what attracts them to each other. They are both single-mindedly focused on their own profit. They are both honest about it and have a devil make care attitude. They are completely unapologetic about any trails of victims they may leave in their wake. They are bullies and they are honest about it. If they can get away with something they not only will try the practically must try. They love the “Game of Business.” Trump promised to get rid of lobbyists and by golly he sure seems to keep his promise. Instead of having lobbyists who want who appeal to Congress to create lenient laws that allow for more profit for the 1%. They indeed get rid of the lobbyists and replace them with the 1%. What a practical idea. The Trump voters must be so very pleased. Trump is keeping his promise to drain the swamp of middle men. The swamp of government is now honestly run by and for the corporations and venture capital firms and banks, and the 1% who have paid for everything anyway. The honesty that Trump brings to government is laudable indeed. No more pretense. Just making sure that the hyper-wealthy get what they need and want more efficiently and faster than ever.
Just one thought. We know that these old men don’t care about the future because in the future they are most likely dead. They are old and they will die and this is one last fling before they go. But what about the 40, 30, 20, 10 year olds in the world?
A world that run by people who lack humanity typically erodes healthy middle class. The old men may not care, but without a middle class you have no stability. If we look at countries who lost their middle class we are always looking at war. Trump wants to spend a $1 Trillion dollars on improving the nuclear arsenal – without even getting intelligence briefings. We wonder what Mnuchin, Gingrich, Tillerson, and Icahn think about that? We hope to find out soon what vision these creators of the new gilded age have in mind for the US and the world. Hopefully they have a vision that goes beyond their own bank accounts.
Hillary Clinton is gone and many agree that her loss was due to due to a confluence of factors and successful efforts to sabotage her campaign. People just didn’t like her very much. The FBI didn’t like her, Putin didn’t like her, the Public didn’t like her, even Democrats didn’t like her, her campaign staff fought about her, and the media certainly didn’t like her. She was a hard worker, but people didn’t warm up to her. The warmed up to Trump. They were amused by Trump. No one was amused by Hillary, not even SNL. Her portrayal was often nasty and a bit weird. Trump’s portrayal was that of an all familiar American Uncle, reminiscent of Rob Reiner’s politically incorrect TV dad in the show “All in the Family.”
Not many people really know Hillary as she keeps very private and opens up to very few people, many of whom are also intensely private. The acclaimed and award-winning Investigative Reporter for the New York Times and The Washington Post, Ronald Kessler, sheds light on how she how Hillary Clinton was perceived by the service details who spent much time with her. It could explain why the Secret Service seemed so adamant that she ought not be president unless it was unavoidable: Why the West was Lost – First Family Detail
Whatever we may think about Trump at least he is honest about being corrupt. Maybe that is a step forward? Or, perhaps we will have Trump, the politically incorrect man and his politically incorrect friends run the country into the ground – honestly.
Huffington Post now committed to attracts Fox News audiences.
Huffington Post under Verizon Board’s management now targets media toward Fox News Audiences
Today the Huffington Post had a live Facebook interview with Linda McMahon of Worldwide Wrestling Fame. It seems confusing to people who used to think that the Huffington Post was a “liberal” media that reported on culture and politics. It greatly delighted the new audiences of “Winners who are making America Great Again” through their vote for the Trump administration. This pivot toward the middle class and investors and the Democratic Party mistakenly calls the working class is understandable when you read AOL’s mission. Code the company is all about code – measuring audiences, gaining audiences, redirecting audiences and undoubtedly listening in to audiences every move. The CEO of Verizon was in charge of NSA’s largest listening program. Naturally, the number of people must expand, and the editorial has to be low brow indeed.
But why is that confusing? If you keep up with the news, AOL purchased the Huffington Post years ago for $350,000,000 dollars. Currently AOL serves 500,000,000 people globally. AOL’s mission, according to their website, is:
"We live in a time when culture defines code and code defines culture. Code is about the evolution of technology, the natural force of human ingenuity that moves culture forward. Culture is about the content experiences that make technology meaningful, enhancing our lives both online and off. Culture + Code is our North Star — the philosophy that guides the way we organize, run and grow our business."
AOL has always been part of the world in which ethics don’t necessarily mean as much as earnings. AOL started as a services provider that overcharged people. They still owe me close to $700 that were deducted from my Bank Account automatically. I only could stop the monthly theft them by closing the Bank Account, back in 1996.
Then later they fancied themselves a “Unicorn” and “bought Time Inc.” during a time when every other media company paid millions for small tech companies, like AOL. AOL purchased Time Inc. for $162 Billion, but allowed them to keep their name and their board of directors, and most of their managers. Only one of my very good techie media friends and I thought it was funny when they fell for that brilliant Time Inc. move. Most people were very impressed. Needless to say, my funny friend and I, thought it was equally funny when AOL was spun out again from the company they had “bought.”
Their first success was more a matter of being at the right place at the right time and squeezing money out of their customers with vastly overpriced product offerings and illegally taking money that was not theirs. I still want my close to $700 dollars back, that AOL deducted from my bank account for several months after I cancelled their overpriced service.
After they were spun out from Time Inc. they went through a lot of reiterations and finally were led by a very good CEO, Tim Armstrong. Before joining the “Cable Business and Telecom” Industry he used to be a formidable media / new media guy. Tim spent almost a decade at Google, where he served as President of Google’s Americas Operations and Senior Vice President of Google Inc. as well as serving on the company’s global operating committee. Tim started in his career by co-founding a newspaper in Boston, MA before moving into the Internet industry, where he has worked as a team member, investor or co-founder at many companies, including Starwave (sold to Disney / ESPN / ABC Internet Ventures), Snowball (IPO), Associated Content (sold to Yahoo), and Patch (sold to AOL). Tim has also been an active investor in the start-up community, both on and offline.
Tim Armstrong is smart, hard-working and has vision. Living in the world where he is undoubtedly in a bit of a creative straight jacket, reporting to military, telecom and “healthcare” executives must be hard sometimes. He is channeling his “good man” energies by supporting an amazing amount of causes. He works with a Charter school, the United States Olympic & Paralympic Foundation, IAB Education Foundation, and more. Tim was honored by the Ad Council with their 60th Annual Public Service Award in 2013. The past few years must have challenged him, despite the amazing financial success he brought to his investors. Buy-outs are always challenging.
He reported to a board that consisted a few old media execs and large corporate advertisers (Knight Ridder and PepsiCo, etc.) and of Eve Burton, a lawyer who grew her chops at Hearst Corporations and perhaps more importantly at a legal firm called Weil, which has extensive experience working with international media and entertainment companies and investors in transactions as diverse as mergers and acquisitions and related financings, cross-border transactions, spin-offs, IPOs, intellectual property licensing and counseling, royalty, debt and equity offerings, and restructurings. Their experience encompasses all areas of global media, publishing and telecommunications in matters of industry-wide significance. Their media and entertainment transactional practice involves particularly close collaboration among our M&A and Private Equity, Capital Markets and Technology & IP Transactions practices.
Essentially Weil attorneys are a team of globally connected mercenaries who wrote the book on Restructuring, Chapter 11, Buy Outs, with an army 1100 lawyers strong and an alumni group that stretches into 150 government agencies, financial sector, etc. Weil is an amazingly knowledgeable firm that helps private equity investors make the most of their money and assists families keep their money while dancing knowledgeably around the laws, often having their Alumni’s create the laws. Ms. Burton surely had a lot to do with the sale to Verizon since Weil advised Verizon on the $4.4 billion dollar buy-out. What ana amazing return of investment. Under Tim Armstrong’s leadership AOL grew quite a bit. Weil also has a prominent white-collar defense unit.
In 2012 the rest of the board of AOL consisted of actual media executives and officers in large corporations who were typically very large advertisers. Now he reports to a telecom based intelligence firm.
Down the Rabbit Hole we go.
Verizon is run by an ex Naval Officer, Lowell C. McAdam, who most likely oversaw the creation of one of the most in-depth surveillance program for the NSA, initially at Pacific Telesis under the Bush Administration, and eventually via AirTouch, under the Obama Administration. Other members of the board include:
Karl-Ludwig Kley, a German Industrialist, who held leading positions at Merck, E-On, Deutsche Bank, Bertelsmann, and now Lufthansa. Martha Francis Keeth, an attorney who was previously employed as Independent Director by Peabody Energy Corp., Executive Vice President-Chemicals by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, President & Chief Executive Officer by Shell Chemicals Ltd., President & Chief Executive Officer by Shell Chemicals LP, and Chief Accounting Officer & Controller by Mobil Corp.
Shelley Archambeau is Chief Executive Officer of MetricStream, Inc., a leading provider of governance, risk, compliance and quality management solutions to corporations across diverse industries. Prior to joining MetricStream in 2002, Ms. Archambeau served as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Sales for Loudcloud, Inc., Blockbuster, and IBM. Interestingly Loudcloud is told to have been the server provider for the initial NSA surveillance program.
Mr. Mark Bertolini is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aetna Inc., a Fortune 100 diversified healthcare benefits company. Prior to assuming the role of Aetna’s CEO in 2010 and Chairman in 2011, Mr. Bertolini served as President from 2007, responsible for all of Aetna’s businesses and operations across the company’s range of healthcare products and related services, and as Executive Vice President and head of Aetna’s regional businesses before that. He joined Aetna in 2003 as head of Aetna’s Specialty Products after holding executive positions at Cigna, NYLCare Health Plans and SelectCare, Inc.
Mr. Carrión has served for over 20 years as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Popular, Inc., a diversified bank holding company. He also served as a director of NYNEX Corporation, one of Verizon’s predecessor companies, from 1995 to 1997. Mr. Carrión provides our Board with financial, operational and strategic expertise developed during his long tenure as Chairman and CEO of Popular, Inc. This experience, combined with his board service at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2008 to 2016, also provides our Board with deep risk management expertise.
Verizon’s Executives are teaming with members of GSMA an organization that specializes in “intelligence” gathered about Mobile Customers around the globe. Data Driven content will play a relatively minor part of the new Bot, AI, and machine learning world. From now on AOL will be all about the Code that holds, influences and tracks a global audience – legally.
So good-bye Huffington Post,and hello “Brave New World” Aldous Huxley Style.
