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"Within the last 30 days, Farouk has granted import licenses to bring in products of about averaging of 50 million liters per day. 50 million liters per day. About 1.8 billion liters of product. 1.6 billion dollars has been brought into Nigeria within the last 30 days." 𝙏𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪...

91,173 görüntüleme • 9 ay önce •via X (Twitter)

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CRUDE SHORTAGE WHIPLASH: WHY OIL PRICES WILL SPIKE AFTER THE BACKLOG CLEARS IN DAYS Troy Eckard of Enterprises Oil & Gas Investing has just revealed why the headlines about record crude oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz are misleading at best. What looks like a sudden flood of supply is actually the release of oil that has been loaded and waiting for nearly four months. This temporary surge is masking a much deeper supply problem that the world has been papering over with strategic reserves. Once the backlog is gone, the real supply picture will come into focus fast. THE HORMUZ BACKLOG REALITY ➡️ The recent movement of 19.1 million barrels per day is not new oil from opened wells or increased production. ➡️ It is not coming from storage tanks sitting at the ports ready to go. ➡️ Every single barrel was loaded onto tankers before the strait closed and has been stuck waiting for safe passage. ➡️ The main body of the strait is still not open and remains full of mines. ➡️ Only a narrow pathway is being used to let these long-delayed vessels through. THE SCALE OF WHAT JUST MOVED ➡️ When the strait closed, estimates show 110 to 120 million barrels of oil were trapped on vessels behind the gate. ➡️ That amount equals just one day of total global consumption at 104 million barrels per day. ➡️ At the pace seen recently, that entire backlog will clear in roughly five to six days. ➡️ After those days pass, there will be no equivalent volume of new oil taking its place. THE FOUR-MONTH SUPPLY HOLE ➡️ The closure created a massive 1.2 to 1.5 billion barrel deficit over almost four months. ➡️ The world responded by draining strategic reserves, pipelines, and every available storage to prevent prices from reaching 150 or 200 dollars. ➡️ That emergency action suppressed prices and created the current calm at around 70 dollars and fifty cents. ➡️ But those reserves cannot be drained indefinitely. THE PRICE ILLUSION ➡️ Oil trading near 70 dollars today exists because traders are dumping positions on the back of this one-time inventory release. ➡️ The media is calling it a solution and record progress through the strait. ➡️ In truth, production has not ramped up and new infrastructure is still months away from delivering. ➡️ This is a pretend moment of adequate supply that will not last. THE COMING WHIPLASH ➡️ In five to eight days the extra 100 million barrels of backlog oil will be absorbed into the global supply chain. ➡️ Physical buyers needing real barrels for customers will then enter the market in force. ➡️ A daily shortfall of 8 to 12 million barrels could become clear within three to four weeks. ➡️ The shift from trader covering losses to genuine physical demand will create a sharp reversal. THE BOTTOM LINE The recent drop in oil prices is riding on the final escape of oil that was already in the system long before the recent disruptions. That temporary relief is ending fast, and the underlying four-month supply hole remains unfilled. The market is about to discover that celebrating this surge was premature. This is the sound of the real supply picture reasserting itself. HT: YouTube Eckard Enterprises | Oil & Gas Investing #OilPrices #HormuzBacklog #CrudeOilReality #SupplyShortage #EnergyMarkets #OilWhiplash

Mark

73,869 görüntüleme • 3 ay önce

"The last time a major LNG project was developed in this country was 42 years ago, that was a Nigeria LLG project." Nigeria's gas sector has recorded a major breakthrough with the advancement of the $3 billion UTM Floating LNG (FLNG) Project, unlocking stranded offshore gas resources and strengthening the country's drive for industrial growth and energy security. Key Highlights: - The project secured a 15-year gas supply agreement, clearing the path for a Final Investment Decision (FID) expected later this year. - It is Africa's first indigenous-led Floating LNG (FLNG) project, fully developed by a Nigerian company. - The project represents Nigeria's first major LNG development in over 40 years, since the launch of the Nigeria LNG project. - The initiative aligns with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's gas development agenda, with officials crediting the administration's policy direction for unlocking the project. - A joint venture between NNPC Limited and Seplat Energy will supply 200 million standard cubic feet of gas per day under the 15-year agreement. - The FLNG facility will produce 1.8 million tonnes of LNG annually, monetising stranded gas from the Yoho Field. - About 30% of production, equivalent to over 300,000 metric tonnes of LPG annually, will be supplied to Nigeria's domestic market to support the Federal Government's clean cooking initiative. - The project is expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue, create thousands of jobs, and deepen local participation in the oil and gas industry. - Financing for the project is being led by African Export-Import Bank, which has also provided preparatory funding and is coordinating debt and equity financing. - Project promoters disclosed that the investment is oversubscribed, attracting strong interest from global energy traders and investors, including companies from the Middle East. - The project further demonstrates the growing capacity of indigenous Nigerian companies to deliver large-scale energy infrastructure while positioning Nigeria as a key supplier of LNG to regional and global markets.

Daddy D.O🇳🇬

29,183 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce

Joe Rogan explains how Floyd Mayweather went broke: "Imagine making $750 million and you're 49. You're broke." Joe: "Do you see all the stuff that's going on with Floyd?" Tony: "Yeah. I can't wrap my head around it. I don't understand how someone makes that much money and doesn't pay taxes or whatever." Joe: "Yeah. Well, I could tell you how.. you run out of money. You know, you spend so much money on things." Tony: "Do you think he has a business manager?" Joe: "Maybe he wasn't looking out for his best interest" Tony: "I mean, you got to put somebody in charge of that amount of money." Joe: "You would think $750 million would last you a while. He's not even 50." Joe: "Put some away. But the thing is, it's like that lifestyle. His lifestyle was all about showing you his wealth. He's 49. Imagine making $750 million and you're 49. You're broke." Joe: "That's crazy. But Tyson talks openly about how he spent hundreds of millions of dollars, just went through it. You know, if you're living that life where you're just wearing diamonds everywhere and you're buying crazy watches, and you know, Floyd does these things. You ever seen the way he'll go into a hotel room when he's traveling and he talks about the watches that he brought, and so he opens up suitcases with millions of dollars in watches? He just opens suitcases. You ever seen these?" Tony: "No." Joe: "Find them because they're kind of hilarious." Tony: "He's just trying to figure out which one he wants to wear. He brings them all with him." Joe: "Yeah. He's just showing off. He's showing off that he's got two suitcases filled with diamond-encrusted Patek Philippes and the most high-end watches. Look at this. Do you have the clip?" Joe: "Here it is. Look. Play, put some volume on this. Look at this." Floyd: "People are always in my business, worried about what I'm doing, what Floyd is doing, what Floyd ain't doing, what I do got, what I don't got. Just know I'mma stay in my lane. I ain't going to [__] with nobody. And I don't want nobody [__] with me. If I go on vacation, my fault. When I go on paycation for 30 days, I take 30 watches with me." Floyd: "But you know what? What's crazy is this: if we add 10 more days, I take 10 more watches. But then I say, 'Fuck it. If I want to bring out the one and only, then I bring out the watch that cost $18 million.'" Floyd: "Matter of fact, you know what I'm going to do for you [__] haters today? I'm going to go [__] off $50,000 cuz I ain't got [__] else to do. Money made all [__] day." Joe Rogan: "That's the problem. So that you can only do for so long. So if you have one $18 million watch, like, okay, let's not get crazy. Let's not get crazy. You wanted to get it, you got it. You have $750 million. You have one $18 million watch. You can't have 18 watches that cost millions of dollars, because you're going to need more. You're going to keep wanting to buy more. You're going to run out of money. How many Rolls-Royces do you have? Okay. Each one of those is a half a million dollars. You have four or five of them. How many Ferraris? You got 10 Ferraris. Okay. what? Some of those Ferraris are almost a million dollars. You have 10 almost a million dollar cars. Okay. So, just in watches and cars alone, we're looking at 50, 60 million. And then you have to make 120 plus to actually have 60."

Tony Jacob | FindaClip.com

694,037 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce

Something very significant happened in Africa today. Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote launched a public offer for shares in his 700,000-barrel-per-day oil refinery, creating what is set to become the largest initial public offering in African history. Dangote is offering approximately 3.3% of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals to the public in a deal expected to raise about ₦2.15 trillion, approximately US$1.6 billion or R25.5 billion. The refinery has been valued at roughly US$47 billion, approximately R730 billion, making the offering one of the most significant events ever recorded in Africa’s capital markets. The Dangote Refinery is the world’s largest single-train oil refinery, it has the largest refining capacity in the world built around one crude-distillation unit. It is currently designed to process about 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Shares are being offered at ₦525 each, approximately US$0.40 or R6.20, with a minimum investment of 10 shares costing ₦5,250, approximately US$4 or R62, designed to allow ordinary Nigerians to participate. Dangote said he does not want to be referred to as the richest African, but as the wealthiest, because he wants to create wealth for other ordinary Africans. The public offering transforms Dangote’s flagship refinery from a privately controlled industrial project into a company partly owned by Nigerian citizens and eligible investors. It also signals a major shift in how African businesses can raise capital, expand production and give local people a stake in the continent’s industrial future. Built at a cost of US$20 billion, about R310 billion, the refinery began operating in 2024 and is now producing at full capacity. Its output has helped Nigeria move away from dependence on imported refined petroleum products and towards becoming a regional exporter of fuel. Dangote plans to use the proceeds from the offering to expand the refinery’s capacity to 1.4 million barrels per day over the next three years. The public offer also forms part of Dangote’s wider ambition to build African companies capable of competing on a global scale, something that is still a pipe dream in many African countries. His group of companies already operates across cement, sugar, salt, fertiliser, petrochemicals, logistics, power generation and shipping in more than a dozen African countries. This is why Dangote’s achievement matters beyond Nigeria. Africa has spent decades exporting raw materials, importing finished products and sending its capital abroad. Dangote’s refinery represents an attempt to reverse that pattern by building large-scale manufacturing capacity on African soil, creating jobs, supplying regional markets and keeping more value within the continent. The offering has been marketed as a “people’s IPO”, and demand from retail investors has reportedly been strong, with some digital investment platforms struggling to cope with the interest. The refinery’s eventual expansion could make it one of the largest in the world and strengthen Nigeria’s position as a major energy hub. There are also important lessons here for countries such as Zimbabwe. Dangote’s success was not built on political slogans or investment summit announcements. It required long-term capital, industrial planning, infrastructure, technical expertise, policy support and a market large enough to sustain production. In May, Dangote named 10 African countries he considered promising investment destinations, but Zimbabwe was absent despite his recent visit to the country. That omission should prompt serious reflection on whether our leaders are serious at all about the country’s growth. A visit by a wealthy investor, a photograph with government officials or a public promise of cooperation does not amount to investor confidence. Investors look for consistent policies, reliable infrastructure, political stability, transparency, enforceable contracts, functional institutions and the rule of law. Dangote’s refinery shows what African capital can achieve when it is directed towards production rather than speculation and conspicuous consumption. It also demonstrates that ordinary Nigerians and other eligible investors can become shareholders in major national enterprises when governments and business leaders create credible public markets. The larger message is that Africa’s future will not be secured by exporting raw materials and begging foreign companies to build everything for us. It will be secured by African entrepreneurs building serious industries, African governments creating conditions that attract and retain capital, and African citizens acquiring a meaningful stake in the wealth produced on their own continent. Well done to Dangote. He gives hope to African entrepreneurs and to ordinary citizens. It is truly inspiring and deeply emotional to see the wealthiest Black man in the world, an African, reaching out to fellow Africans and giving ordinary Black Africans an opportunity to own a stake in his wealth. This is the direction Africa must take: building African-owned industries, expanding public participation and ensuring that ordinary citizens can share in the continent’s economic success. It has always been embarrassing that Nigeria and many African oil-rich countries export crude oil and import petrol and diesel. It was even more embarrassing for me as an African, when I was in Nigeria, to see fuel queues due to shortages in an oil-producing country. Thanks to Dangote, Nigeria’s dependence on imported refined fuel has been reduced, and the country now has the capacity to supply its domestic market and export refined products.

Hopewell Chin’ono

83,725 görüntüleme • 13 gün önce

My fellow Kenyans, Many of you have seen my recent posts about the deadly cancer that is corruption in our country. In my last post, I tried to paint a picture of the disconnect between our potential as a country and the economic circumstances we find ourselves in today, and the connection between corruption and the incalculable pain and suffering and cruelty that is meted out every single day to the most vulnerable among us by thieves operating out of public office. And after covering the goings-on in Mandera County, I told you that in my honest opinion, our governments exist to cater for the filthy-rich lifestyles of the vilest and most corrupt among us, at the expense of everyone else. I received tremendous support from all of you, for speaking on behalf of so many struggling Kenyans who don’t have a voice, or the audience necessary to spark the much-needed discussion about where we are heading as a country. But even with all that support, I have received messages asking me to be careful. One compatriot told me: “prepare to be relentlessly pursued, threatened, enticed, guilt-tripped, and gas-lit”. This is from a someone who knows how our government operates, and how it uses violence and its monopoly on power to silence those who question why politicians are stealing so much. I am not naive about the dangers of speaking up and calling out thieves who control state machinery, and who possess the ability to shut me up in a few seconds. But I will tell you why we CAN NOT and MUST NOT keep quiet. In November of 2023, I stumbled upon the story of a young man from Turkana, Calvin Esekon Esewit , who, despite scoring an A-, and getting an acceptance into medical school, spent two years not knowing whether his dreams of becoming a doctor would ever come true. I was moved by that story in a way that I can never adequately explain. I could not understand how it is possible that, in our country, a young man who appears to be every parent’s dream child can spend two years in limbo while we as a country possess the ability to invest in our best and brightest. And so, I spent weeks trying to chase down Calvin to see how I could help him attend college. After a lot of searching, I finally found Calvin, and by this time he had managed to get some help and is now in college. While this story has a great ending, it did not to be this way. And we know that the number of cases that end like this, with some success, are a small fraction of those ones which end tragically, with broken dreams. This is what happens when corruption consumes anything and everything in a country. It destroys lives. See attached video to learn about Calvin's story. I tell you all this story because it provides context to today's topic. For one story like this one that you see on the news, there are millions that never make the news. But they are real situations, nonetheless. There are millions of your compatriots who are devastated by this killer cancer of corruption that is perpetuated by people that you and I have put into public office ostensibly to improve our lives. They go into these offices and abuse the trust you bestowed upon them and deny you and everyone else a decent opportunity in life. You see, Calvin and millions of other victims of this shameless level of corruption and plunder have no voice, and no real ability to look the thieves that are destroying lives and generations of Kenyans in eye and tell them to stop this unbearable pain and the cruelty. This is the reason I embarked on this journey to attempt to expose this shameful situation. Watch the attached video of Calvin’s situation, and I am sure that you will agree that the millions of Calvins in our country need a voice, NO MATTER THE RISK. The thieves that are destroying the futures of millions of children just so they can have beachside homes in Miami, Dubai and other places count on the idea that most people will fear for their lives, and therefore not speak up. They count on the growing apathy in the Kenyan psyche. But we cannot give in to that. We cannot cower to thieves. We must look them straight in the eye and tell them that they MUST STOP. If we don't, our children and their children are guaranteed the same level of cruelty. And so with that, today I want to talk about the utterly insane crime scene that is Turkana County. I don’t know any other way to describe it, other than, it is a “shit-show”. Just follow along, and let me know if you disagree. As I did in my previous commentary, I will ask you to indulge me a little bit, and allow me to use a couple of pictures, because pictures speak louder than a thousand words. The first picture shows the state-of-the art County Government offices, that the County Government of Turkana decided to invest an ungodly amount of money on. Close to a billion shillings. The second picture is a classroom in session. In Turkana County. These two realities are occurring in parallel in the same county, at the same time. Ladies and gentlemen, let me just tell you that I do not go out of my way to find bad news. I want stories that would help re-affirm our belief in the fundamental decency of human beings. When I find good news as I review these Counties’ decisions and how they behave with our resources, I will be the first one to report it to you. But I don’t have any good news today. I have bad news. If you read my commentary yesterday and were offended by what you saw, I am afraid you might not make it to the end of this article, because what you will hear will be quite shocking. The cancer of corruption, particularly at the County Government level, is worse than your wildest imagination. And so, as I like to do, I like to start off by putting some numbers on the table for us to use as reference points. Bear in my that all the information I put in this article is publicly available. Nothing came to me through a whistle blower. The first number is KSH 100 Billion. With a B. In the last decade or so, you and I, through the National Government, has sent over KSH 100 billion to Turkana County. To support recurrent expenditure, and development. For example, in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, we sent KSH 12.6 billion. In the 2021-2022 fiscal year, we sent KSH 11.4 billion. And on and on and on. The second number is 1 million. This is the population of Turkana County. The third number is KSH 18.4 billion. This was Turkana County’s budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. The fourth number is KSH 190 million. This was the amount of money that Turkana County was able to generate on its own accord within the county, from all its investments and other activities in the period in question. This number is an important proxy, in my view, for the value of the county’s economic prospects for the foreseeable future, and to people that are not driven by greed and corruption, would be an important consideration when they are thinking about how and where to deploy your money as taxpayers. If you are doing the math, Turkana County, for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, was only able to raise 1% of the funds needed to keep the lights on. 99% came from you and I, and a tiny amount from grants. The next number is KSH 129, 040. This is the average ANNUAL [emphasis added] income of a resident of Turkana County ( Keep that number in mind when we are discussing the massive theft of public funds by Turkana County leaders. The next number is 80%. 80% of the residents of Turkana County live below the poverty line. They have a really difficult time putting food on the table. ( The next number is KSH 12 Million. This is the basic salary of the Governor of Turkana County before other benefits that, as I explained yesterday, can often double the salary. Remember the “housing allowance”, the “hardship allowance”, the “commuter allowance”, the “risk allowance”, the “extraneous allowance”, etc.? Remember that? I still cannot figure out, for the life of me, what “extraneous” means in the context of County business, but we don’t time to dwell on this. The next number is 93. The Governor of Turkana County makes 93 times the average Turkana County resident’s annual income. 93 times! The next number is 82%. This was the percentage of people that were illiterate in Turkana County in 2013 ( Could not read or write. A point to note about the above literacy figure. Ten years later, and despite over KSH 100 billion is spent in Turkana County, including many billions for education, that literacy rate HAS NOT CHANGED ONE BIT. Only 20% of the population can read or write today. ( KSH 829 million. This is how much it cost to build the County Government offices. Yes, the ones shown in the first picture. KSH 120 million. The County Government decided that it was prudent to pay a contractor KSH 120 million to construct the Governor’s personal residence. Get this, even after this payment, no construction took place. The money was stolen. All of it. KSH 90 Million. This is the amount that the County Government paid to another contractor, to build the Governor a mansion, having previously lost KSH 120 million. So, the tally for the Governor’s residence now stands at KSH 210 million. Never mind that the limit allowed by law is KSH 45 million. KSH 5 billion. In the last days of his term in office, an outgoing Governor of Turkana, Koli Nanok, EGH. , sought to inflate pending bills by adding KSH 5 billion so that it can be paid to his criminal cartel. KSH 5 billion. We have our key numbers, ladies and gentlemen, so let us discuss. So, we have a county that is dead last in literacy, and in the top 2 of the poorest counties in the republic. Only 20% of the population can read. The Governor earns 92 times the average citizen. The Governor lives in a house that cost over KSH 200 million. When he leaves his house in the morning, he goes to his office that cost KSH 829 million. And this is all happening when 80% of the County residents struggle to put food on the table. Those are the facts, and they are not in dispute. During the same time, the County Government geniuses decide to build the Speaker of the County Assembly a house. And a home office, and a garage. The house was initially estimated to cost KSH 75 million. But due to circumstances that not a soul in the government could explain to auditors, the contract expired before the house was completed, and the County Government found a new contractor to complete the job for an additional KSH 29 million. But this palace in the jungle worth apparently worth over KSH 100 million in Turkana County was not enough. The County proceeded to build the Speaker a guest house for another KSH 19 million, and a few other amenities, and so the whole cost went to KSH 276 million! The legal limit for a Speaker’s house is KSH 35 million, and they spent close to KSH 130 million just for one residence. By this time, I am sure you are getting tired of these obscene numbers. You and I work, and pay taxes. Nobody pays you 92 times the income your average neighbor is making. And for sure nobody will drop KSH 100 million to build you a house. These are the perks of working in government in a poor country. Go figure. And so, as a country, we need to answer for ourselves the question I posed yesterday, which is, what is the point of government? What is its role in our lives. If this level of criminality and pillaging can occur in our country in the midst of so much poverty, questioning the need for government is a totally valid question. I said in my last post that, when the average citizen looks at the thug on the street and the government, and is unable to discern any meaningful difference between them, that society from that point on is on its journey to becoming a failed state. A journey to anarchy. Over the last two months or so, Kenyans have been shouting at the top of their lungs, begging for their government to listen. To hear them out. Kenyans have asked that their government stop this unbelievable level of plunder. Dozens of Kenyans have died, thousands injured, and many more are missing today. To this day, the people that govern us continue to use the power of the gun to subdue Kenyans, until they can take everything in their sight. And so, as a society, we all have to ask whether today there is any difference between the thug on the street and our governments. Every Kenyan will have to answer this question for themselves. And before answering this question, everyone needs to remember the many Calvins in our society. Smart, upright children whose only crime is to be born in an unforgiving, lawless, and corrupt purgatory that is Kenya today. For myself, I have concluded that there is no difference between the thug on the street and our governments, county and national alike. If you can see any meaningful difference, let me know. I am willing to listen. So despite over KSH 100 billion in money sent to Turkana County, there is almost no measurable improvement in people’s life today. None. And it makes sense, when you look at how that money is spent. I want you to forget for a second the obscene obsession by the County Government with spending ungodly amounts of money on themselves. The houses, etc. If you step back and look at how the government is actually spending the hard-earned money on other things, you will be depressed. I am telling you that I wept three times in the middle of the night trying to make sense of this crazy situation in Turkana County. Three times. I have never imagined that human beings can be so greedy and cold-blooded. Think about this: In the couple of years I reviewed, the County spent around KSH 400 million annually in “tourism” initiatives, including marketing, and apparently upgrading certain facilities. KSH 400 million for tourism. In Turkana County. In 1 year. KSH 400 million per year in marketing and other money pits. The government’s own website says that the county gets around 3000 visitors per month. Around 36,000 per year. That’s them saying that, on their website. Are you curious to know the return on that KSH 400 million investment? I have an answer for you. Remember that I told you that the County has never raised more than KSH 200 million in a year within the county, despite its KSH 18.4 billion budget? Let me walk you through the breakdown of the absolutely embarrassing shit-show that is the County Government’s “own source revenue” operations. In 2022-2023, the County Government collected KSH 190 million locally against their KSH 18.4 billion budget. 1% of the budget. Remember, there is absolutely no requirement on the County to cut costs, or achieve certain local revenue targets today. So they raised KSH 45 million in single business permits, KSH 72 million in CESS, KSH 8 million in market fee, KSH 9 million in “slaughter fees”. And then finally, there is the return on the tourism investment that you were looking for. A whopping KSH 209, 000 in “park fees”. KSH 209,000 in fees, after investing KSH 400 million. And so, take this as an example and extrapolate it across the entire budget, and you can see how one can spend KSH 100 billion and get NOTHING in return. You don’t need to be a genius to see the absurdity of this situation. Let me explain using an example that should illustrate the utter dimwittedness of this situation. Remember the KSH 100 billion sent to Turkana by you and me? Part of this amount is supposed to be for “service delivery”, or “recurrent expenditure”. Usually about 70% of the budget. The balance, 30%, is designed to go to development projects. With that in mind, from KSH 100 billion, the County apparently has made KSH 30 billion worth of investments, right? 30% of the KSH 100 billion. Now, if you employed someone to run a business for you, and they asked you to invest KSH 30 billion, which is no small fortune, at some point you would have to start seeing returns, right? That’s common sense, isn’t it? So, when we look at the revenues streams that make up this paltry sum of KSH 190 million, and see things like “slaughter fees’ and “market fees”, what does it tell you? It tells me there is no real “development” happening in that county. Trust me, if you had real development totaling KSH 30 billion, you would have corporate taxes in the hundreds of millions or billions, a booming real estate market, rising wages and standards of living, etc., low unemployment, etc. You would not have 80% of the people living hand-to mouth, and a County Government that can not afford to support itself for 5 days out of the year that has 365 days! We do not have enough time, trust me, to deal with the shit-show that is Turkana County. Dealing with that mess would require a forensic team. I will just highlight a few of other “in your-face” type of theft of public funds, and then conclude my submission. A government that has a budget of KSH 18.4 billion annually, and which has never raised more than 1% of its budget had the wisdom to do the following with your money: · Spend KSH 222 million on a project building something that NOBODY uses. You got that right. They spent KSH 222 million on a facility that NOBODY uses. KSH 222 million gone to waste, in a county that is dead last in pretty much all measures of human progress. · Remember the County Government offices that cost KSH 829 million? The County spent KSH 82 million on “air-conditioning” for that building. · Despite the County Spending hundreds of millions for the top three officers of the County, the Governor and his Deputy, in the 2022-2023 year, illegally charged the county (you and I) KSH 2.2 million in housing allowance! · Built two facilities for KSH 16 million, that were completed, but NOBODY uses them. · Entered into a contract for the construction of a plastic use facility for KSH 13 million in 2021. The contractor gets paid KSH 4.9 million, and has never been seen since. · Paid out KSH 62 million in salaries that were not supportable in just one year. They could not point to anybody and say, that is who we paid. · Paid out KSH 27 million in legal fees that nobody could say what they related to. And the County’s Legal Advisor, who, in 2022-2023, had a budget of KSH 123 million, apparently did not know anything about it! · Had an outstanding bill at Kenya Revenue Authority in the amount of KSH 486 million, that did not show up on the County Government’s financial statements. Think about that. KSH 486 million owned to the Kenya Revenue Authority, and that liability is not on the financial statements! This only means that someone took those funds for themselves, which is why the liability would be missing from the county’s books. · Could not account for KSH 367 million in expenditures for 2022-2023. KSH 367 million, in unexplained expenses. · Awarded a contract worth over KSH 200 million to a bidder with no bank statement, against the law. This contract was entered into and approved before the statutory time after the bidding process lapsed. Someone was in a hurry to get paid. KSH 200 million, illegally awarded to a bidder who did not have a 6-month bank statement. · Apparently purchased KSH 1.5 billion in assets in 2022-2023, but kept no records of the said assets. For this reason, NOBODY can verify where these assets are located. KSH 1.5 billion. Let me just say this. In my last article, the most common critique was that it was too long. Too many words. I did not intend to make another long article. Trust me when I tell you this, we do not have the time to detail half of the problems in Turkana County. For just 1 year! We do not. Now, you recall my point about how societies descend to madness and anarchy. In our country today, our leaders are accusing those of us who are agitating for honest and transparent governance of being traitors to the country. They call us anarchists, criminals, and merchants of chaos. They are questioning our patriotism. You have all seen the government and its horde of propagandists threatening the Ford Foundation and others because they may have helped civil society keep the lights on, and investigative journalists to have the capacity to continue to do the Lord’s work of investigating criminality in government. As though citizens are so dumb and ignorant, that they cannot see what is going on. The reason why millions of Calvins in this country will never graduate from college and earn a decent living is not because of the Ford Foundation. No. It is because of the thieves we have in office today, like the ones in Turkana County. In this post, I copy our leaders, the President and his deputy. I copy them because I want them to help Kenyans understand the following conundrum, about crime and criminals. There is nothing so special or peculiar about criminals or where they pop up. There are criminals in the US, Canada, France, and other places. Just like we have criminals in Kenya. The difference between banana republics and failed states, and civilized societies, is WHAT we do to and about criminals. In civilized societies, criminals are prosecuted and punished heavily. They are shunned. In some places, those charged with serious crimes such as corruption are executed. These are societies that are committed to sending the message that corruption, which robs citizens of their rights, is not acceptable. And they demonstrate this commitment by heavily punishing those who steal from the most vulnerable in society. In Kenya, we see the opposite. Criminals are exalted. They are promoted and embraced in government. It was just last week that the president unveiled his nominees for his Cabinet. Among them, are the likes of Hassan Ali Joho, EGH. , @GovWOparanya , and Davis Chirchir, ALL people who have been accused or charged with massive corruption against Kenyans. And am sure you remember that I mentioned Koli Nanok, EGH. , the man who tried to steal KSH 5 billion in his last days in office. Would you believe it if I told you that he works in government, at State House? He plunded billions of your money, got no measurable improvement in the lives of his subjects, and now has a government job in State House. Let that sink in. And so, the question is, how is it that in a country of 55 million people, with thousands of highly qualified people who have never ever stolen from Kenyans, he ends up with the criminals and thieves in the government, despite the fact that their crimes are in the public domain? How is this possible? Is it possible that these thieves possess a certain unique ability to run government, save Kenyans billions, and solve problems in a way that the president performs a cost-benefit analysis, and the benefits outweigh the costs of their theft? If not, what message does it send to Kenyans, when their own president puts into office known thieves? I think that is a fair question, don’t you? Dr. Ekuru Aukot Rigathi Gachagua William Samoei Ruto, PhD Okiya Omtatah Okoiti Citizen TV Kenya Nation Breaking News TI-Kenya CNN County Government of Turkana

Bonnie Mwangi, CPA, LLM, MBA

107,583 görüntüleme • 2 yıl önce

OpenAI just admitted Anthropic is KILLING their business. Their own applications chief told employees it was a "code red." Said Anthropic was a "wake-up call." Then admitted OpenAI had been "spreading efforts across too many apps" and it was "slowing them down." This is an internal confession. Here's why Anthropic is eating up OpenAI: 12 months ago, OpenAI owned 50% of all enterprise AI spending. Today it's just 27%. Anthropic went from nearly ZERO to winning 70% of every first-time enterprise AI deal. Seven out of ten companies buying AI tools for the first time are choosing Claude over ChatGPT. A year ago, one in 25 businesses on Ramp paid for Anthropic. Today it's one in four. OpenAI just had its biggest single-month adoption decline ever recorded. And Anthropic literally charges MORE than OpenAI for roughly the same performance. And businesses are STILL choosing them. In enterprise software, that never happens. The cheaper product usually wins. But Claude became something OpenAI never figured out how to be: Cool. Celebrities publicly switched to Claude. Senators are tweeting about using it. Engineers are shipping entire products with Claude Code in hours that used to take weeks. It started to became an identity signal. Like blue bubble vs green bubble in iMessage. Choosing Claude says something about you now. Meanwhile OpenAI went the opposite direction: They took the Pentagon contract that Anthropic refused. Greg Brockman donated $25 million to fund wars. ChatGPT uninstalls jumped 295% in a single day. Reddit posts saying "Cancel and Delete ChatGPT" got 30,000 upvotes. Anthropic said no to mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Got blacklisted by the Pentagon. Trump called them a "Radical Left AI company." And their downloads went to #1 on the App Store the next day. Turns out refusing to build weapons is good marketing. But the real damage isn't consumer downloads. It's the MONEY. Claude Code hit $2.5 billion in annual revenue in six months. OpenAI's competing product Codex just barely crossed $1 billion. And Anthropic literally cannot meet demand. They're turning away paying customers because they don't have enough compute to serve them. A company REJECTING revenue because it's growing too fast. While OpenAI scrambles to consolidate. Last week OpenAI announced they're merging ChatGPT, Codex, and their browser into one "superapp." But what this really means: "We launched too many products, none of them worked well enough alone, so now we're cramming everything together and hoping it sticks." And remember their video tool Sora? Launched standalone. Hit #1 on the App Store. Usage flatlined within weeks. Now they're forced to shut it down. Their browser Atlas? Still hasn't launched publicly. Their IPO? Polymarket odds dropped from 55% to 35%. OpenAI has 900 million users. Anthropic has maybe 10 million daily actives. But here's the thing... OpenAI won the consumer war. ChatGPT is where your mom asks about recipes and your cousin makes memes. Anthropic won the war that actually MATTERS. The developers. The engineers. The enterprises writing 7 figure checks. OpenAI built the biggest chatbot on Earth. Anthropic built the tool that companies can't stop paying for. This is Yahoo vs Google all over again. Yahoo had the users. Google had the product. And we all know how that ended. OpenAI has 12 months to prove the superapp works, land the IPO, and stop the enterprise bleeding. If they can't, the most valuable startup in history becomes the most cautionary tale in tech. 900 million users don't mean anything if the people who actually pay are walking out the door. What do you think?

Ricardo

35,020 görüntüleme • 6 ay önce

Walmart is selling you an unprofitable TV that watches everything you do and reports it back to their $6.4 billion advertising machine. And the TV literally won't turn on until you give them permission. This is one of the most sophisticated consumer surveillance operations in history and 150 million people walk into their stores every single week with no idea it's happening. Here's the full story: In December 2024, Walmart bought Vizio for $2.3 billion. Everyone assumed it was about selling more TVs. But it had nothing to do with TVs. Vizio's TV hardware business was actually LOSING money, posting a $6.7 million loss in its final quarter as an independent company. The advertising division made $115.8 million in profit that same quarter. Walmart bought 19 million living rooms - not a TV company. In March 2026, Walmart flipped the switch. Every new Vizio TV now requires a mandatory Walmart account before you can access any smart features. No account, no streaming apps. Without signing in, your TV is useless. The moment you create that account, something called Automatic Content Recognition activates. ACR runs silently in the background, taking screenshots of everything displayed on your screen and comparing them against a database to identify exactly what you're watching, second by second, across 700 TV networks and over 100 streaming apps. It knows what you watched, when you watched it, how long you watched it, and what you did afterward. Now here's the part that makes this genuinely unprecedented in the history of retail: Walmart ALREADY knows what 150 million Americans buy every week. They know your grocery habits, your clothing preferences, your pharmacy purchases, your financial behavior through Walmart Pay, and your location data from the app. But what they couldn't see was the 4 to 6 hours a day Americans spend staring at their television screens. By connecting your Walmart account to your Vizio TV, they've closed that loop. They can now prove that you saw a 30 second ad for gardening soil Sunday night and bought that exact brand at Walmart Monday morning. L'Oréal is already signed on as a launch partner for this kind of targeting. The math on this is just insane: Walmart Connect, their advertising arm, generated $6.4 billion last year with 46% year-over-year growth. Advertising runs at 70 to 90% profit margins compared to traditional retail's 3 to 4%. Their CFO admitted that ads and membership fees already account for one-third of Walmart's total operating income. The advertising business is now more important to Walmart's bottom line than entire product categories in their stores. And they're just getting started. Analysts calculated that Walmart's ad revenue currently represents only 1% of total sales. Amazon's ad business runs at 8% of sales. The gap between where Walmart is and where Amazon is represents roughly $50 billion in untapped advertising revenue. The Vizio deal is the bridge to get there. This is WHY they're selling certain TVs at a loss. When you break down the $2.3 billion acquisition across 19 million households, Walmart paid $121 per living room. A lifetime of behavioral viewing data from a household that also shops at Walmart is worth infinitely more than that. The cheap TV is a trojan horse. Vizio has already been fined $2.2 million by the FTC for secretly collecting viewing data on 11 million TVs without consent. The Texas Attorney General sued them for "spying on Texans." Walmart bought them anyway and made the surveillance MANDATORY. The company that built its empire promising everyday low prices is becoming the most powerful advertising platform in the world, and the TV in your living room is the entry point. What do you think?

Ricardo

426,984 görüntüleme • 4 ay önce

Xinjiang, where over 90% of China's cotton is grown, has kicked off this year's planting season. It is also one of the largest cotton-producing regions in the world, with approximately 5.69 million tonnes of cotton harvested in 2024 alone. Last year, I visited Xinjiang twice for work, though both trips focused on pastoral communities and archaeological sites. However, I've been curious about the lives of local farmers, especially those who grow cotton, naturally due to some noises and debates concerning this topic over the years. So I reached out to colleagues familiar with the field-and their insights offered some perspectives I hadn't delved into before. Today, cotton planting in Xinjiang is not even labor-intensive. It has been replaced by highly mechanized and intelligent farming practices. Take Xayar County (沙雅县) in southern Xinjiang's Aksu (阿克苏) for example-one of the first places in Xinjiang to start planting cotton each year (Incidentally, over 50 years ago, my father, then just a primary school student, moved from Beijing to Aksu with my grandparents. Life there was much tougher than in the capital, but he still recalls it as one of the happiest and most unforgettable periods of his life. He witnessed firsthand the harmonious ties between different ethnic groups and made several Uygur friends. The ties are so profound that he has returned several times to visit his old buddies). According to 2024 data, Xayar has a population of 261,257, with 225,938 Uygurs, accounting for 86.48% of the total. Uygur farmers make up about 80% of all cotton growers in the county. One of them is Ababekri, who farms alongside his father and four brothers. They use a driverless cotton planter equipped with BeiDou satellite positioning technology. While one person usually remains in the cabin as a precaution, the machine moves in perfectly straight lines according to its programmed route, performing sowing, laying drip irrigation tubing, and applying plastic mulch-all in one go. The efficiency of driverless planter is 30% to 40% higher than manual seeding machines and can even operate at night. For the Ababekri family, they manage 320 hectares of cotton fields (equal to over four times of the Forbidden City), and it takes just over 10 days to complete the entire planting process. "We chose to grow cotton to live a better life-and we're getting there." The 37-year-old farmer told my colleague. That choice, however, didn't start with him. Ababekri's father made the switch to cotton around 2003, replacing about 1.33 hectares of wheat after observing neighbors earned strong profits from the cash crop. At the time, Ababekri was still a teenager and didn't appreciate the decision at all. He found cotton-planting exhausting, especially during harvest season when the entire family had to manually pick cotton in the fields (Yes! Before automation, aside from melons, cotton was probably the most labor-intensive crop in Xinjiang. During harvest season, large numbers of temporary workers had to be even recruited from other provinces across China to help pick cotton up). Yet, that very first year, their household income exceeded 20,000 yuan-a considerable sum even in Beijing at the time, let alone in Xinjiang. He quickly realized that cotton offered a path to a better life, with returns several times higher than any other crops. Over the years, the family steadily grew their cotton operation into a thriving business. Not only has planting become automated, but cotton harvesting in Xinjiang has also largely moved away from manual labor. According to the Xinjiang Cotton Association, as of 2024: ✅100% of cotton planting in Xinjiang is mechanized ✅Approximately 90% of harvesting is also done by machine Ababekri has, for the past three years, hired a Han Chinese driver, around the same age as him, to operate a cotton harvester during the autumn season. The machine can pick about 33 hectares per day, and it takes also only 10 days to complete the entire harvest on his land. In a place where western media headlines often dwell on "ethnic tension," the quiet, seamless cooperation between farmers like Ababekri and his team speaks to a different truth. He employs dozens of workers, several of whom are Han Chinese. Being asked if he had heard about the portrayed division, he replied simply: "I don't care what ethnicity someone is. I only care who can help me grow better cotton." A few statistics help paint a clearer picture of cotton production in Xinjiang: ✅In 2024, Xinjiang's cotton planting area reached 36.72 million mu, accounting for 86.2% of the national total ✅Total production reached 5.686 million tonnes, or 92.2% of China's total output ✅There are 327,000 smallholder cotton farmers in the region, over 70% of whom are ethnic minorities ✅The industry provides employment and livelihoods for over 2 million people from all ethnic backgrounds For many families, cotton farming is the main source of income. However, many export-oriented enterprises have faced serious challenges due to America-led sanctions. Dozens of companies in Xinjiang have been blacklisted over labor allegations. Some companies had to cut production, lay off workers, or even shut down entirely, leaving many employees jobless. A lost job is never just a number-for me it's how they put decent food on the table, send their children to better education, and build a future. The irony is stark: Xinjiang's cotton industry has been fundamentally transformed by modernization. Accusations of "forced labor" are not only baseless, but also deeply disrespectful to the people whose lives depend on this honest work-people like Ababekri and his family, who work hard make the life better. There has been no shortage of headlines and discourse surrounding Xinjiang cotton. But to truly understand this land, we need to look beyond the noise-to the fields, the machines, and the hands who guide them. Their stories aren't about politics. They're about dignity. Not about labels, but about livelihoods. Not ideology, but about effort. Let facts be louder than prejudice, and let truth travel farther than rumors.

Zhai Xiang

84,185 görüntüleme • 1 yıl önce

"900,000 BARRELS JUST ARRIVED IN JAPAN": President Trump's Truth Social Post Lands as Beijing's Hormuz Strategy Officially Implodes — Inside the Tanker That Just Rewrote the Indo-Pacific Energy Map The M/V Otis didn't just dock in Tokyo Bay. It docked on top of the CCP's entire wedge-strategy thesis. "HUGE MOMENT! Asia is getting their oil from the United States now. 900,000 barrels just arrived in Japan. America will lead the charge on oil dominance." President Trump's post — accompanied by an ANN News screenshot of an American crude tanker easing into Tokyo Bay at dawn — is doing the kind of work that ten policy white papers cannot. It is taking a moment of strategic transformation and stamping it onto the public consciousness in a single image: U.S. oil. Japanese port. Middle East bypassed. And for once, the substance behind the showmanship checks out. What Actually Happened in Tokyo Bay The tanker is the Suezmax-class M/V Otis (IMO 9408217). On the morning of Sunday, April 26, she eased up to an offshore jetty in Tokyo Bay carrying approximately 910,000 barrels of Texas light crude oil bound for a refinery in Chiba Prefecture. The cargo was transferred through an undersea pipeline to a facility operated by Cosmo Oil, a subsidiary of Cosmo Energy Holdings, where it will be processed into petroleum products including gasoline for domestic distribution. The voyage itself is the part that matters strategically. The Otis loaded in Texas on March 22 and completed a roughly 35-day voyage through the Panama Canal — one of the largest direct U.S. crude deliveries to Japan in years. The alternative routing — Cape of Good Hope, which takes about 55 days — was bypassed in favor of the Panama Canal, cutting transit time by roughly 20 days. This is the operational answer to a question Beijing assumed had no answer: Can American crude actually reach Japanese refineries fast enough, in sufficient volume, to matter when Hormuz is contested? The Otis is the receipt. The Real Number Is Not 910,000. It's 4x. A single tanker, as honest reporting from noted, amounts to less than one day's consumption in Japan. Taken in isolation, 910,000 barrels is a symbol, not a strategy. The strategy lives in the trendline. According to Japanese government documents reviewed by Reuters, Japanese imports of U.S. crude oil for May will be four times higher than they were a year earlier — up from a May 2025 baseline of 189,000 barrels daily, which represented about 8% of total imports that month. Tokyo also expects that by May, it will have secured half of its imports from suppliers outside the Middle East, with the United States the largest among those alternative suppliers, joined by Malaysia, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Nigeria, and Angola. For a country that historically sourced as much as 95% of its oil from the Middle East, this is the fastest reorientation of a G7 energy supply chain in the post-Cold War era. The Otis is the first tanker in a queue, not the last. The $56 Billion Bet Behind the Tanker None of this is happening on autopilot. On March 14, at the Asia-Pacific Energy Security Forum in Tokyo, Japan signed agreements worth up to $56 billion with the United States covering oil, natural gas, and LNG purchases and investments — sitting inside the broader framework from the 2025 U.S.-Japan trade agreement, under which Japan pledged $550 billion in U.S. investments, with energy as a key pillar. Five days later, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi — Japan's first woman prime minister and one of the most China-skeptical leaders Tokyo has produced in a generation — walked into the Oval Office and, in front of cameras, embraced President Trump. The visit had a few rough edges: Trump's unprompted Pearl Harbor reference, made when a Japanese reporter asked why allies hadn't been warned about the February 28 strike on Iran, appeared to take Takaichi aback. But on substance the meeting did exactly what an alliance summit is supposed to do — it pre-positioned the energy pivot the Otis would later make material. By May 19, that pivot had widened into a trilateral. In Seoul, President Lee Jae-myung and Prime Minister Takaichi agreed to expand LNG cooperation under the bilateral Supply and Demand Cooperation Agreement signed in March, and to deepen information sharing and communication channels related to crude oil supply, demand, and stockpiling — explicitly framed by Seoul as a vehicle for South Korea–Japan and South Korea–U.S.–Japan cooperation for regional peace and stability. The Hormuz shock was supposed to fracture this triangle. Instead, it welded it. What Beijing Got Wrong — And Why It Matters The Chinese Communist Party's strategic miscalculation in the Hormuz file was not merely tactical. It was conceptual. For roughly a decade, Beijing's working thesis on Asian energy security has been that the United States cannot credibly underwrite the region from outside the Persian Gulf, and that any Middle East flashpoint would therefore translate into political leverage for China — the buyer of last resort with the deepest stockpiles, the longest supply contracts, and the most flexible sanctions tolerance. The thesis has just failed three stress tests at once. First, the logistics held. Alaskan crude can reach Japanese refineries via Pacific routes about a week faster than Middle Eastern shipments, and Texas crude via Panama — as the Otis proved — gets there in 35 days. Tokyo is now actively weighing expanded Alaskan imports and a joint U.S.-Japan strategic crude reserve arrangement. Second, the political will held. Takaichi did not hedge. She unilaterally began releasing 15 days' worth of private-sector reserves from March 16, followed by a month's worth of state-held oil, and committed Japan to participating in the IEA's coordinated 400-million-barrel release, with Japan contributing 80 million barrels — 54 million in crude and 26 million in oil products. Third — and most damaging to Beijing's strategic narrative — China's own position deteriorated. While Tokyo was diversifying westward across the Pacific, Iran continued sending the bulk of the crude still moving — roughly 1.22 million barrels per day — to China, after a record 2.16 million bpd in February that was entirely destined for Beijing as it amassed reserves. The CCP's "energy security" turned out to be a deeper handcuff to a sanctioned, militarily degraded supplier whose primary export terminal — Kharg Island, the departure point for roughly 90% of Iran's crude exports — has been struck by U.S. forces. Beijing did not de-risk. It concentrated risk. And when Trump publicly pressured Beijing to help secure Hormuz on the grounds that 90% of Chinese oil flowed through it, Chinese state spokespeople were reduced to publicly emphasizing that the country had "enough" energy reserves — an answer that managed to be both defensive and, in strategic terms, an admission. The Honest Caveats Serious analysis requires acknowledging what the headline glosses over. The Otis cargo is, by Japan's own ministry, less than one day's consumption. U.S. crude exports cannot fully substitute for Middle Eastern barrels: industry analysts cited by Axios put the realistic monthly ceiling for U.S. crude exports in the 5.5 million bpd range, with Gulf Coast port and terminal capacity acting as a hard infrastructure limit. The Iran war has been genuinely costly — Brent crude topped $110 a barrel in late March before retreating to roughly $98 by late May — and the global growth picture has been marked down accordingly. There are also legitimate technical questions about crude grade compatibility (U.S. light sweet vs. Middle Eastern medium sour) that Japanese refineries will need to manage. The diversification away from Hormuz is real, but it is not free, not frictionless, and not complete. These caveats sharpen the conclusion. They do not invert it. The Strategic Bottom Line Three months ago, the Hormuz file was supposed to be the lever that pried Tokyo loose from Washington. The arithmetic looked plausible on paper: Japan and South Korea are the third- and fourth-largest destinations for crude moving through the Strait of Hormuz, behind only China and India. Pain there should, in theory, have created political space for Beijing. It didn't. The pain became the catalyst. A $56 billion energy package. A four-fold surge in U.S. crude bound for Japanese refineries. A Suezmax tanker easing into Tokyo Bay at dawn carrying 910,000 barrels from Texas. A trilateral Tokyo–Seoul–Washington cooperation framework formalized in the middle of a war Beijing was counting on to crack it. There is a lesson here for anyone still treating CCP economic statecraft as inevitable: leverage that depends on your rival having no alternative evaporates the moment one is built. Tokyo built one. Washington underwrote it. Trump is now broadcasting it. And the manifests in Yokohama harbor are the proof. The alliance held. The wedge failed. The map has been redrawn — and the next tanker is already loading. Original article by me Aric Chen. Views are my own — welcome to discuss! © 2026 Aric Chen. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized use will be reported under the DMCA.

Aric Chen

17,007 görüntüleme • 4 ay önce

🚨 SEVEN MONTHS AGO BARRY SILBERT SAID $TAO CAN GO 500X. HERE IS WHAT HIS OWN COMPANY HAS DONE SINCE. February 11, 2026. Bitcoin Investor Week. Barry Silbert, founder of DCG and chairman of Grayscale, on stage: "I think a Zcash, I think Bittensor can go up 500x. And so our portfolio is allocated accordingly." Plenty of people say things on stage. What matters is what they do after. So I pulled Grayscale's own daily data for GTAO, the Grayscale Bittensor Trust, and checked. THE CALL CAME NEAR THE BOTTOM Every GTAO share holds a fixed amount of $TAO, 0.01889 today. Divide NAV by that and you get TAO's price from Grayscale's own books. • February 11: NAV $2.81. TAO roughly $147. The lowest NAV of 2026 • September 21: NAV $5.78. TAO roughly $306 • NAV up 22% on September 21 alone, and about 33% since August 31 He said 500x within days of the low. $TAO has roughly doubled since. MORE THAN JUST A PRICE Shares outstanding only rise when accredited investors put new money into the trust. • June 2024 launch: 72,200 • February 2026: 1,907,800 • August 21: 2,474,800 • September 21: 2,845,800 Up 49% this year. Up 15% in the last month. Nearly 40 times the launch count. That money came in while $TAO sat between $150 and $230 and the timeline said it was over. Institutions accumulated through the exact months retail capitulated. THE ETF IS ALREADY FILED On December 30, 2025, Grayscale filed an S-1 with the SEC to convert GTAO into a spot ETF on NYSE Arca under the same ticker. The first proposed US exchange-traded product for $TAO. An amendment has since been filed in 2026. What the filing lays out: • NYSE Arca listing as Grayscale Bittensor Trust ETF • TAO held directly, custodied with Coinbase Custody and BitGo • In-kind creations and redemptions through authorized participants • BNY Mellon as administrator and transfer agent • Staking permitted by the trust documents, pending regulatory clearance Silbert's line when they filed: decentralized AI is developing quickly, and Grayscale is pioneering access. Europe already has TAO products, including a staked TAO ETP on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The US does not. GTAO is first in line. CHANGES THE BUYER On September 21, GTAO closed at $8.55 against $5.78 of underlying TAO per share. A 48% premium. Without redemptions, the OTC trust can drift far from its holdings’ value. An ETF’s creation and redemption mechanism helps keep that gap tighter. Exchange access could also expand eligibility across advisors, retirement platforms and model portfolios. The trust is roughly $16.4 million today. The potential buyer pool is much larger. And DCG’s involvement extends into the network: its company Yuma operates a root validator. The group is pursuing both investment access and participation inside Bittensor. WHAT 500X MEANS From $147, 500x means $73,500 per TAO. Approximately $1.54 trillion at the full 21 million supply. My Take is: • ETF filed, not approved. • GTAO’s premium can collapse even while TAO rises. • The trust charges 2.5% annually, paid through TAO sales. • Through August 31, NAV remained down 37.5% since launch. THE POINT The investment case extends beyond the price chart to who can access $TAO, through which accounts, and at what cost. An ETF would not guarantee demand. It could remove barriers standing between that demand and said asset. The paperwork is important because access changes the buyer. DYOR. I hold $TAO and multiple subnet positions.

Andy ττ

17,480 görüntüleme • 5 gün önce

My wife and I own a pharmacy. Last month we spent days trying to pry one prescription loose from a company that did everything it could to hold onto it. The drug was everolimus. A generic. It treats cancer and protects transplant patients from rejecting their new organ. Not exotic. Not rare. A pill. The patient wanted it filled with us because we're cash-pay and cost-plus. No insurance. No PBM. No secret markups, no games. Our price was $318. That's not cheap by our standards — most of what we fill runs under $20 — but it was honest. Here's what that same prescription looked like on the other side of the counter. In 2023, Medicare was paying about $6,645 for it. That's roughly 21 times our price for the identical medication. Medicare spent around $240 million on everolimus alone that year. If they'd paid our price, they'd have saved roughly $230 million. On one generic drug. So how does an insurance company profit off a drug that expensive? Don't they pay for it? No. You pay for it. In your premiums. Their job isn't to spend less — it's to keep your healthcare dollars circulating inside their own companies. And the tool they use is called spread pricing. Spread pricing works like this: the middleman bills the health plan one price, pays the pharmacy a lower one, and keeps the difference. You never see it. On TRICARE, they pay an independent pharmacy like mine about $311 to fill everolimus. That barely covers our cost of the drug. Meanwhile the plan gets billed thousands. That gap — north of $6,000 on a single fill — is pure margin the middleman pockets. Now here's the part they'd rather you not think about. The pharmacy we were fighting was Accredo. Accredo is owned by Express Scripts. Express Scripts is the pharmacy benefit manager owned by Cigna. Same company, three masks. That nesting-doll structure isn't an accident — it's the whole design. When the pharmacy, the PBM, and the insurer are all one entity, they can shuffle money between their own pockets and call it whatever they want. The confusion is the product. And this isn't a story about one weird drug. It's the business model. The FTC has been digging into exactly this. In its January 2025 report on the three biggest PBMs — CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx — staff found those companies marked up specialty generic drugs by hundreds and thousands of percent when dispensing through their own affiliated pharmacies. Just those markups generated more than $7.3 billion above what the drugs actually cost to acquire, from 2017 to 2022. One in five of the specialty generics they studied was marked up over 1,000%. Some cancer generics: over 3,000%. On top of that, the FTC pegged spread pricing on those same drugs at another $1.4 billion. One example straight from the FTC's files: dimethyl fumarate, a multiple sclerosis drug. Costs about $177 to acquire. The PBMs paid their own pharmacies close to $4,000 for a 30-day supply. Same trick. Different drug. And they steer the profitable ones to themselves on purpose. Pharmacies affiliated with the big three took in 68% of specialty dispensing revenue in 2023 — up from 54% in 2016. The prescriptions marked up more than $1,000 disproportionately end up at their own pharmacies, not independents like mine. So when we called to transfer this patient's everolimus to be filled without insurance, it landed like we were asking them to set $6,000 on fire. Of course they stonewalled us. That's why we fired them. No insurance means no invisible $6,000 charge buried in a premium you can't itemize. It means the price you see is the price. Ours was $318. Theirs was thousands. Same pill.

Forest Park Pharmacy

59,474 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce

From Creator to Founder: The Rollercoaster Journey of Building Chatter Social Man, what a journey it’s been so far. Four years ago, I was just another creator, spending late nights on Clubhouse during the height of the pandemic. Like so many others, I was searching for connection, for community, for something meaningful. But what I found there wasn’t just connection—it was purpose. Alongside my brother, Jonathan Bing, we built a nightly show that reached over 5 million people. Imagine that: 5 million lives touched by conversations that felt real and unfiltered, all on a platform that at its peak had 10 million monthly active users. Clubhouse was magic. But then the decline began. Watching the platform struggle, I couldn’t help but reflect: what made it great? What went wrong? And what could the future look like if we did things differently? The Spark of Chatter As a content creator, I understood the needs of both creators and users. I knew what excited people, what kept them engaged, and what made them leave. Clubhouse had tapped into something special, but it had missed the mark on scalability and sustainability. By September 2023, I couldn’t stop thinking about the potential for something new—something that brought back the magic of real-time interaction but made it scalable, engaging, and sticky. And so, I set out to build Chatter Social. But I wasn’t a tech founder. I didn’t have a background in software development or a network of Silicon Valley insiders. What I did have was determination and the belief that if I could bring the right people together, we could build something extraordinary. Building the Team The journey to build Chatter started with assembling a team. Through my network from my days on Clubhouse, I found Samir, my first CTO. He believed in the vision and was instrumental in getting the project off the ground. Shortly after, I connected with Tyler, our Head of Design, whose creativity brought life to our ideas. A developer joined us soon after, and we were off to the races. By the end of 2023, Samir had to step away due to other commitments, and we promoted the developer to CTO. At the same time, I brought on Banko, a Sony music executive, as our CMO. Banko’s connections led to one of our biggest early wins: landing Davido, a global superstar, as an owner-ambassador. To this day, I still marvel at the fact that Davido believed in our vision when all we had were Tyler’s Figma designs. From Dream to Reality Early 2024 was a whirlwind. We hired Yurii and Vasyl, two developers from Ukraine who brought incredible skill and dedication to the team. Vasyl, in particular, stood out as a leader and has since earned an equity position in the company. But despite these wins, we were facing growing pains. Our new CTO struggled to meet deadlines, and as a result, I found myself constantly pushing back the launch date. What started as a January release turned into February, then March, then April, then May. By then, people on Twitter Spaces—where I had been hyping up the platform—started doubting if we even had a product. Launch and Lessons June 1, 2024, marked a turning point. It was the day my son Noah was born and the day we launched Chatter in private beta. We started with just 40 users, but by the end of the month, we had grown to 1,000. The engagement was unbelievable. Users loved it, even though we had launched with just one feature: live rooms. This represented less than 20% of what we had planned, but it was enough to show that we were onto something big. In July, we launched our public beta on the App Store as an invite-only platform. Within 48 hours, Chatter ranked as a top 30 social app in over 30 countries. But our invite system throttled access, and most users couldn’t get in. While engagement metrics soared for those inside, our AWS costs exploded. In August, our AWS bill hit $10,000. By September, it had climbed to $15,000, and we were drowning in bugs and glitches. The breaking point came when our CTO became unresponsive, often disappearing during critical moments. Users were dropping off, frustrated by the issues, developers were confused and the team was also growing increasingly frustrated, I made the tough decision to let him go. A New Beginning Enter Horane, a long-time user of Chatter who had been with us since private beta. He was the first to discover some of the most innovative use cases for the platform and had a deep passion for its potential. After meeting him in person at a Chatter event, I knew he was the right person to step into the CTO role. When Horane took over, we discovered just how bad the situation was. Key areas of the codebase were locked, and there were no separate environments for development and production. Every fix seemed to break something else. But through sheer determination and countless 18-hour days, Horane stabilized the platform. Today, Chatter is far from perfect, but it’s stable. The bugs that plagued us have been reduced to moderate issues, and our core users—those who stuck with us through the chaos—are still engaged on the platform. Looking Ahead: Chatter V2 While the platform is stable now, we’ve shifted our focus to Chatter V2. This is where the magic really begins. V2 isn’t just an improvement; it’s a complete reimagining of the platform. It includes all the features we couldn’t release in V1 because we were too busy putting out fires. Imagine this: Chatter V1, with only one live feature, was incredibly sticky. Now think about what happens when we release a fully loaded platform with all the innovative features we’ve been working on behind the scenes. The possibilities are endless. V2 is slated to hit TestFlight by the end of December, with a public release in January 2025. And this time, we’re ready—not just with the product but with the lessons we’ve learned. The Hard Lessons This journey has taught me more than I ever thought possible: 1) Your Team is Everything: The right people can make or break your vision. Finding people who believe in your mission is just as important as finding people with the right skills. 2) Adaptability is Key: As a non-technical founder, I had to learn about development, DevOps, and product management on the fly. Challenges will push you to grow, whether you’re ready or not. 3) Trust the Process: Every setback, every delay, every bug—it all taught us something. Without those lessons, we wouldn’t be building the incredible V2 product we are today. 4) Resilience is Non-Negotiable: From technical disasters to predatory investors who tried to exploit my desperation, I’ve had to fight for this vision every step of the way. What’s Next December is shaping up to be an exciting month. We have some amazing events planned on the platform to close out the year, bringing our core community together as we prepare for the V2 launch. When V2 drops, it will mark a new era for Chatter. This isn’t just a social audio platform or a social audiovisual platform. Chatter is all about interactive experiences—making social media social again in ways that are truly unique. The public launch is slated for February 2025, and for the first time, we’ll have the marketing dollars to tell the world about Chatter. Our core community has been our biggest cheerleaders, and I can’t wait to see how the world reacts when they experience what we’ve built. Final Thoughts This has been the hardest year of my life, but also the most rewarding. To other founders, or anyone thinking about starting a company: know this—it will test you in ways you can’t imagine. You’ll face betrayal, doubt, and moments where you feel like giving up. But if you believe in your vision and refuse to quit, you’ll find a way forward. Thank you to everyone who has supported me, my team, and Chatter. We’re just getting started. Let’s talk about it. 🚀 If this story inspired you, please like and share it so others can learn from my experiences. The journey is far from over, but I’m more excited than ever for what’s to come.

Nelson Epega

43,574 görüntüleme • 1 yıl önce

I’ve been using GPT-5.6 Sol internally for the past two months, I've spent probably 25+ billion tokens. Here’s my review and comparison to Fable 5: > Let's start with the analogy because everyone seems to be giving theirs - GPT-5.6 is likely the last version of the GPT-5 training run series. It's kind of like an athlete at their peak. Through years of experience in the game, they've become the most reliable player and has the highest game IQ. But, there's no more room to grow. Fable on the other hand, being essentially the first version of a new training run, is the first round draft pick rookie. Raw talent mixed with the energy only a young person would have results in some incredible plays we didn't think possible, but also mistakes due to lack of experience. But that rookie will only improve and likely will be better than the veteran ever was because it's a new game and a new era. > GPT-5.6 is genuinely better at long, sustained work. With /goal, I've had it running complex projects for days with almost no intervention. It built a Minecraft-style game, kept adding features and mobs after the core game worked, and only stopped because I stopped the run. I never felt as though I had to jump in and guide it back to the right path. > It keeps finding useful work when you give it a concrete finish line. I had it recreate Excel with a loop. It inspected the real desktop excel app with Computer Use, comparing that against its own build, and closing the gaps. I stopped it after six days after it had built an incredible amount of functionality. > It's faster than other models in two different ways. The raw generation speed is higher, something OpenAI has been putting effort into. But it also takes a shorter path to solutions. It wanders less, changes less code, and generally knows how to get things done directly. In daily use, it feels about 2-3x times faster than Fable. That's my impression, not a controlled benchmark. The difference is large enough that I notice it constantly. > It works well across a wide range of tasks. I use it for one-line edits, quick questions, browser chores, and multi-day builds without changing my prompting style. Speaking of browser control, its the best ever I've used. To the point where I actually use it often. If a task lives on a website, GPT-5.6 usually opens the browser and does it there instead of asking for an API key or forcing everything through the terminal. When I switched back to GPT-5.5, it went straight to the command line even when the browser was clearly the better tool. > And it can handle real browser work, not just toy demos. During a data import, I had it monitor Supabase and resize instances as the load changed. It stayed on the dashboard, adjusted capacity, and checked the result without an API or a custom script. > I also gave it a full Google Workspace migration. It moved Forward Future from to preserved the old aliases, and configured MX, SPF, and DKIM. Before a consequential save, it stopped, explained exactly what would change, and waited for confirmation. > The reasoning setting matters a lot. Light is good for questions and small edits. High and Extra High are the sweet spots for serious work. Ultra usually takes longer than the extra thinking is worth and burns tokens. > I love that 5.6 is split into 3 sizes. Not only can you control speed and cost that way, but you still also have the thinking effort setting for each of them. Very precise controls. I just wish Codex automatically routed my prompts for me. > Its personality is blunt and a little bland. Claude feels warmer and more natural to talk to. GPT-5.6 is more clinical, but I like that for work. It gives me enough explanation and rarely pads the answer. I usually have to ask Fable to explain things more simply and/or more concise. > Its front-end taste has improved, but the default is predictable. Left alone, it turns websites into PowerPoint decks with huge statements and hard section breaks. The good news is that it takes design direction well and can revise without destroying the parts that already work. > It still makes confident mistakes. I asked it to rebuild parts of a system, and it told me the job was finished. Later, I found out it wasn't. Bits of its internal process also leak into the answer occasionally. > Claude Fable is more naturally autonomous on large, open-ended projects. GPT-5.6 is easier to reach for. I don't need to invent a huge project to justify using it. It works just as well for a small edit or browser chore. > GPT-5.6 is also cheaper. Sol costs $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output tokens. Fable costs $10 and $50. Cached input is cheaper too. Still, cost per finished task matters more than cost per token. > GPT-5.6 isn't the best at everything, and it still needs supervision. But it generates faster, wanders less, works at almost any scale, and wastes less of my time. It's the model I have the most confidence in to get the job done right the first time. I put together a full breakdown with all the tests, prompts, and examples on a site. You can read it here:

Matthew Berman

188,148 görüntüleme • 2 ay önce

I am the Director of Summit Outcomes for the Presidential Advance Team. My job is to land in a foreign capital and leave with a word the President can say on the tarmac. We landed in Beijing 6 days after rolling back the tariffs we spent 4 years imposing. 145% to 30%. The average rate before the trade war was approximately 3%. In Geneva, we called this "creating the conditions for productive dialogue." The conditions were that we had already conceded. I want to be clear: Beijing was a success. We went in with 7 objectives. We left with 3 photo categories, a tentative agreement China has not confirmed, and a bag of burner phones we threw off Air Force One on the tarmac. Diplomacy. My team prepared the deliverables matrix in March. 241 line items organized by urgency, feasibility, and what we call "headline potential." The President reviewed it for 4 minutes. He circled "big deal" and "historic" and wrote "MORE" next to the Boeing section. That became the strategy. Boeing was the centerpiece. 500 aircraft was the White House number we briefed to reporters before departure. 300 was the floor. The Chinese offered 200. Their commerce ministry released the number before we could brief the press. Boeing stock dropped 4.73% that afternoon. Boeing referred questions about the order to the White House. The company receiving the aircraft could not confirm it was receiving aircraft. We called it "fantastic." In Washington, "fantastic" means the other side named the number and the market already priced in your failure. I should note: in 2017, the President announced $250 billion in deals during his first China trip. 300 aircraft. An $84 billion shale gas investment in West Virginia from China Energy Investment Corporation. I can tell you the exact amount of that investment that materialized. Zero. The shale facility was never built. The 2017 Boeing order was renegotiated twice and partially canceled during the trade war the President started 8 months later. There is a binder in my office labeled "2017 OUTCOMES: DO NOT REFERENCE." It is 3 inches thick. It has not been opened in 4 years. We do not reference it because the outcomes are the reference. The agricultural package was what we call a "scaffolding commitment." Billions in purchases over 3 years, structured so the announcement is front-loaded and the verification is someone else's administration. U.S. Trade Representative Greer said "double-digit billions." Beijing's Commerce Ministry issued a statement about "deepening cooperation in agricultural trade." Those are not the same sentence. By design. My deputy maintains a glossary of every term we have invented for agreements that are not agreements. It is 41 pages. He updates it after each summit. Last quarter he added "scaffolding commitment," "streamlined licensing framework," and "mutual recognition of shared concerns." He is in line for a promotion. NVIDIA was the quiet win. H200 chips approved for approximately 10 Chinese companies. We don't say "approved." We say "under a streamlined licensing framework." The chips ship. The export controls remain "in effect." The framework is the loophole wearing a lanyard. The controls exist because these chips in Chinese hands threaten American national security. The chips are shipping to Chinese hands. The controls remain in effect. Both of these are true. Fentanyl was discussed for 9 minutes. Both sides agreed it was a problem. Both sides agreed to continue discussing it. We added it to the deliverables matrix under "ongoing mutual engagement." The previous version of the matrix also listed it under "ongoing mutual engagement." That was in 2023. I copied the line item from the 2023 matrix into the 2026 version. Changed the date. The language was identical. But Taiwan. Taiwan was the deliverable we didn't put on the matrix. I watched the Taiwan exchange from the overflow room on a 12-second delay. I had the contingency statement drafted in 3 versions: "productive exchange," "frank discussion," and "both sides reaffirmed their respective positions." I used none of them. There was no contingency for silence. Chairman Xi released his remarks before the meeting was over. While the President was still seated across the table, Chinese state media published the transcript. "Clashes and even conflicts." His bluntest language on Taiwan in the history of the relationship, released to 1.4 billion people while we were still pouring tea. We called this "sequencing." The President was asked whether he would defend Taiwan if China attacked. He chose not to answer. We wrote that down as "a strong listen." The $14 billion arms sale. Already approved by Congress. The largest in the history of the Taiwan Relations Act. Taiwan's parliament spent months appropriating the $25 billion to proceed with this package and the $11 billion tranche approved last year. They finally secured the funding this month. The President told Fox News it was "a very good negotiating chip." He used the word "chip." Referring to the defense of 24 million people. Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense sent our office a letter requesting clarity on the delivery timeline. 3 pages. It referenced specific weapons systems by name: F-16V Block 70 fighters, HIMARS launchers, Harpoon coastal defense missiles. The letter was addressed to me. I filed it under "pending." On Air Force One, a reporter asked about the 1982 Six Assurances, the framework in which the United States committed not to consult with Beijing before selling arms to Taiwan. The President said: "What am I going to do, say I don't want to talk to you about it because I have an agreement wrote in 1982? No, we discussed arms sales." 44 years of bipartisan Taiwan policy, dismissed in 2 sentences at 38,000 feet. We are calling this "a modernized approach to alliance management." Our readout mentioned trade, agriculture, energy, and regional stability. It did not mention Taiwan. I wrote it. Their readout opened with Taiwan. I have staffed 7 summits across 2 administrations. This is the first where I could not draft a single deliverable as a success without a qualifier. In my office there is a laminated card that lists every synonym for "undecided" that polls above 40% approval. "Active review" is 3rd. "Determination" is 7th. Both tested well with independents in the Midwest. He also said: "Taiwan would be very smart to cool it a little bit. China would be very smart to cool it a little bit." He was eating a cheeseburger. He said this while eating a cheeseburger. Secretary Rubio told NBC that Taiwan arms sales "did not feature prominently." This is accurate in the same way that the iceberg did not feature prominently in the Titanic's itinerary. Representative McCaul, Republican of Texas, former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the United States must "arm Taiwan so they can defend themselves." He said Xi was "very aggressive" regarding Taiwan during the summit and that "most of what Xi talked about was Taiwan." Representative Meeks, Democrat of New York, ranking member of the same committee, said Xi has "leverage over the president" but not "over the United States Congress and the American people." He noted that Congress already approved the package. "The president is the one that's holding it up." Representative Fitzpatrick, Republican of Pennsylvania, compared Taiwan to Ukraine. He called both "fortresses of democracy on the front lines." Speaker Johnson said Taiwan needs to "stay independent and secure." The bipartisan consensus was that something had gone wrong. The bipartisan action was press quotes. No vote. No resolution. No hearing scheduled. 4 members of Congress from both parties said the right words to reporters and then went to lunch. That's how the system processes alarm. I monitor 14 accounts we classify as "aligned messaging amplifiers." Within 4 hours of the Taiwan exchange, 9 went silent. 2 pivoted to fentanyl. 1 posted 3 words: "Not like this." It received 280,000 impressions in 90 minutes. He deleted it and posted about the border instead. The President patted Chairman Xi on the back 7 times during the Zhongnanhai garden walk. We counted. He called him "my friend" in 4 languages, 2 of which he does not speak. He asked if other world leaders had been invited to the compound. They had. Putin was there last year. The President asked if his tour was longer. 15 CEOs flew with us to Beijing. Their combined net worth approaches $1 trillion. Cook. Musk. Jensen Huang. Larry Fink from BlackRock. Jane Fraser from Citigroup. David Solomon from Goldman Sachs. Stephen Schwarzman from Blackstone. Kelly Ortberg from Boeing. The CEO of Visa. The CEO of Mastercard. The CEO of Qualcomm. Illumina. Micron. Cargill. GE Aerospace. Musk and Huang rode on Air Force One. The others flew commercial. Tesla's Shanghai factory produces approximately half of the company's vehicles worldwide. Musk's presence on Air Force One was noted by my counterintelligence liaison. No further action was taken. We organized the state banquet seating chart by net worth. I am told this was the President's suggestion. They came for market access. Xi told them China would "open further to American business." That was the deliverable. Those 5 words. No specifics. No timeline. No sectors named. 15 chief executives flew to Beijing and received a sentence. Chairman Xi has delivered this sentence at every summit I have staffed. It has not once been followed by a named sector, a timeline, or a specific commitment. It is received as news each time. 43 lobby badges in a Ziploc bag. That's what my team collected from the CEOs after the garden tour. Standard protocol. The badges were embossed with the Great Hall of the People seal. Several executives asked if they could keep them. We said no. One asked twice. 15 executives with combined access to American financial, defense, and technology infrastructure had spent 3 hours inside the Great Hall of the People. We secured the lobby badges. The S&P 500 futures dropped 1% on the morning after the summit. The KOSPI fell 6.12%. China's CSI 300 fell 1.12%. UBS told clients that "much increasingly scarce jet fuel has been burned to produce nothing of real substance." Fortune's headline was "Wall Street sees nothing of real substance." The markets liked the anticipation. The markets did not like the deliverables matrix. Iran was the item we listed as "mutual recognition of shared concerns." The President told reporters they "feel very similar." Xi sat in silence. China's Foreign Ministry did not comment on any commitment regarding the Strait of Hormuz. The President then told reporters the United States "doesn't need the Strait of Hormuz open at all." Oil hit $109 per barrel. Deutsche Bank flagged it as a market-killing statement within the hour. The President described Iran as "a little bit crazy." This was during a toast. Over Peking duck. Rare earths. I prepared a 40-page brief on critical mineral dependency. Supply chain maps for 14 minerals. $1.2 trillion in dependent U.S. industries. Roughly 4% of GDP. The President circled the GDP figure and wrote "big." In the meeting, he asked Chairman Xi if rare earths were "the things in magnets." They are. They are also in every F-35, every Patriot missile battery, and every MRI machine in the country. The discussion lasted 11 minutes. 3 of them were about magnets. No agreement on export licenses. China exposed our dependency last year and has not let us forget it. The Supreme Court struck down our tariffs separately, which was helpful context for the discussions. Fentanyl received 9 minutes. Magnets received 3. We are calling the rare earth outcome "a foundation for continued engagement." There is a poster in the Advance Team office that says "A foundation is not a building." It has been there since my first summit. No one has removed it. On the flight home, my team collected every item the Chinese government had distributed. The credentials. The pins. The keepsakes. The rose seeds Chairman Xi offered for the White House Rose Garden. Standard counterintelligence protocol. All of it went into a bag and off the plane before wheels-up. We threw away the roses. We kept the talking points. The Boeing order grew on the flight home. 500 before departure. 200 in Beijing. 750 somewhere over the Pacific. Boeing had not confirmed 200. The President told reporters on Air Force One it was "a pretty historic couple days." I wrote the line that preceded it: "Tonal reset with significant forward momentum." He used "fantastic" instead. In previous administrations, a tonal reset preceded the deliverables. In this administration, the tonal reset is the deliverable. He has used "fantastic" for every summit since 2017. I have not checked whether the word still polls well. I am told it does. Beijing has not confirmed any of the agreements announced by U.S. officials. This is consistent with the 2017 visit, where $250 billion in deals were announced and an estimated $10 billion materialized. It is consistent with the October summit, where pledges were also made and also not fulfilled. We have a term for this in the Advance Team. We call it "precedent." I have already labeled the binder for 2026. We go back in September. Same matrix. New line items. The verification will be someone else's administration. The President has already asked for the word "monumental." I am told it polls well.

Peter Girnus 🦅

97,655 görüntüleme • 4 ay önce

They Turned It Into a Weapon. He Turned It Into a Token. The memecoin “$LAPTOP,” launched by Hunter Biden, was meant to be a joke and a message. One hour after launch, it was just like any other celebrity token: the typical spike, drop, market makers selling, and people debating whether the politics were as important as the chart itself. The official token launched on Base on September 9th. It started trading at a price level that suggested a multibillion-dollar valuation and crashed shortly after. The meme dropped 98% within the first hour. Limited liquidity turned the first minutes of trading into a fireworks display rather than market activity. This is one part of the story… The interesting part is that people believed a 2019 laptop could be monetized in 2026 and that the launch would be as routine as the launch of “$TRUMP”, which this memecoin was meant to mock. The computer that just wouldn't die In April 2019, Hunter Biden dropped a MacBook off at a Delaware repair shop. It got seized by the FBI. The laptop became a political issue when the New York Post reported on information from it in October 2020, with one person's emails and business documents becoming a political controversy for some and a morality story for others. For many years, the term “Hunter’s laptop” served two purposes. Firstly, it was a short way to refer to allegations of influence and foreign business dealings. Second, it was a name for Hunter Biden himself, a man who became a character in others' storylines. This is the asset that he attempted to tokenize. Hunter made his case explicit on Wednesday. He said he has been sober for seven years. He said that Trump's token had left more than a million wallets holding onto $3.8 billion in losses. He added that 20% of $LAPTOP would be airdropped to the community, including those who have lost money on $TRUMP. He added the phrase that would be associated with the LAPTOP meme: “They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token.” Building the token The $LAPTOP token is a memecoin on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 platform. The total supply will be 1 billion. Around 350 million tokens were in circulation at launch. The project describes it as a digital collectible with no equity, voting rights, yield, or business to claim. The allocation is more complicated than your average meme coin: - Founders, including Biden 30% 6-month lock, then monthly vesting over 24 months - Event/prediction pool 30% Burned if named events happen; sent to charity if they do not - Airdrops 20% 10% at launch, 10% later - Liquidity/listings/legal ~10% Market plumbing - Foundation treasury 5% Project-controlled - Charity regardless of outcomes 5% 50 million tokens “no matter what” The launch was over before the story began Imposters were not waiting for Base. After the story in the Journal, tokens called LAPTOP surfaced on the Robinhood Chain, Solana, TON, and BNB Chain. A single report said there were at least 14 different fakes trading for millions of dollars one hour after the news went live, and there was not yet even an official contract address, since the official token had not launched yet. This loophole has become common practice: announce your ticker, announce your date, leave your contract address blank, and let snipers and impersonators take advantage of the buzz. The official launch was not without its issues. The first prices varied wildly by location and timestamp, with quotes of $200 opening up, a spike reaching into the hundreds of dollars, and then a crash back to under ten dollars. One hour after the open, CoinDesk quoted the price at $4.77, down 98 percent from its peak, despite a market cap that still appeared large because of the initial print of 350 million tokens. Hunter Biden’s memecoin was almost -100%, and Wintermute was unloading $LAPTOP. The figures weren’t as neat as “100%,” but the curve was correct. The meme token followed the pattern that all political memecoins follow when the sole buyer of last resort is publicity. The crypto Twitter mob knew which side their bread was buttered on before any tokens were involved. Coffeezilla advised not buying the coin. Kraken removed a tweet that was promoting it. Various people in the Base community and one journalist who got called out for being on his mailing list distanced themselves. The outrage was not only politically motivated. This one is still different because its tail end is longer than most other memes Most celebrity coins only survive for a weekend but they leave behind a contract address. $LAPTOP, on the other hand, has a lot more story to tell than that. First, the underlying symbol is greater than Hunter Biden. “The laptop” remains a partisan Rorschach test. Second, the burn-or-charity pool turns supply into something driven by real-world developments. As long as the conditions are openly known and mechanically enforced, every election headline, legal case, and New York Post headline can become an event on the token economy. Third, the lockup generates a second act. For six months, the founders could claim they were not selling. Following that period, every unlock would be treated as a true sale. No political tokens get the benefit of the doubt. Fourth, Base is not some random chain. The launch on Coinbase’s L2 puts this project close to a public company, a compliance brand name, and more retail than the Solana community. Honest review $LAPTOP is not a protocol. It is not a recovery program. It is a political relic with a vesting schedule. The story of redemption is very much true in Hunter Biden's case. But seven years in sobriety is not a ticker. The laptop was his private tragedy that became public property. Making it a token will not resolve the conflict. All it does is price his nickname. If you remove the talk, the day is quite predictable: - Famous name. - Pre-arranged ticker. - Impersonators before the contract becomes official. - Vertical candle with poor liquidity. - Snipers first. - Market makers selling their shares given to them by the team. - The community is told to interpret the dump as an opinion. According to Joe Biden, $LAPTOP was all about making a statement. And the market responded the only way these tokens understand. They purchased the first print, got rid of the metaphor, and put the laptop back into its old place…

BSCN

25,088 görüntüleme • 18 gün önce

A Watch and Investment Story I have been a watch enthusiast since my dad got me interested in watches decades ago. About three years ago, I was in London and walked by a watch boutique called Bremont. I stepped into the store, fell in love with the watches, thought they were fairly priced if not somewhat inexpensive for the quality, and bought a number of them as gifts for friends and one for myself. As I was completing the purchases, I asked the store manager: ‘Who owns the company?’ He said, “The English brothers” – Nick and Giles English – and then he proceeded to tell me Bremont’s origin story that begins with a tragic plane crash of a 1942 Harvard trainer aircraft (an American plane purchased by the British beginning in 1938) which killed their father and almost Nick. In their ‘What does not kill me makes me stronger’ new world, Nick and Giles were inspired to pursue their dream of creating and building a British watch company, and Bremont thereafter was born. The manager gave me their contact information and I sent an email congratulating the brothers on the company, the brand, and the watches. I also offered to invest and help the business grow. Sometime later, I did a Zoom with Nick. He explained that my timing was good, as a long-time investor in the company was looking to sell some of their shares. Within a couple of months, an affiliate of mine invested coinciding with the purchase by a legacy Bremont shareholder of primary shares to provide the company with additional growth capital. I thereafter bought more shares of stock from other selling shareholders and I invested a substantial amount of additional growth capital in the company just this past week. Affiliates of mine and The Bremont Long Term Trust, a trust I recently established, now own 63% of the company. Bremont is a luxury British watch company that produces adventure and exploration watches. About one-fourth of Bremont’s sales are to the military, where the company has made custom-designed watches for more than 500 British, U.S., and other American ally squadrons around the world. While today there are very few British watch companies, the British actually created the watch industry – Rolex, notably, was a British company before it moved to Switzerland – with many of the most important technical innovations and complications of the industry having been invented in England in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. For the watch industry, the Swiss can be thought of like the Japanese of the U.S. auto industry, where in the early days, the Swiss made cheap imitations of British watches, but eventually by the 20th century, came to dominate the industry. For compliance reasons, I have been limited in my personal investments to private situations, principally startups, real estate, and private equity, directly and through funds. Because of my personal time limitations, I spend very little time on these investments, but through a combination of good luck, investment experience, and a good eye for talent, my collective private investment outcomes have been excellent, with a few huge successes outweighing some disappointments. I have always viewed my non-Pershing Square investments as an opportunity for learning and insights that I can apply to my day job. For example, I have found that closely following the venture investment world has provided important insights into disruptive technologies and companies that can soon become serious threats to even the largest and best capitalized public companies. Experiences at small companies also very often apply to big ones, so in my hobby of making personal investments, my returns have been both financial and educational, from my successes and from my failures. Other than tennis, I don’t have any real hobbies, but perhaps my personal investing qualifies as my second passion. To date, I have been a passive investor in Bremont, but perhaps the activist in me caused me to step forward, to recently seize the opportunity to materially increase my investment in the company, and become the non-executive chairman of a newly refreshed board. I don’t expect my chairman role at Bremont to take much of my time as it is a private company of limited scale, but I do expect my experience here will provide some helpful learnings and insights. I also thought it would be fun, interesting, and rewarding to take the X community along for the ride – at least those that are interested in watches, operations, and investing. I intend to provide periodic updates of the company’s progress on X, about our successes, our struggles, and our failures – so that we can learn and have some fun together. Think of my periodic updates as “Drive to Survive,” but for watches on X. “Time to Succeed”? You can probably come up with a better name for the series, and perhaps then I should reach out to Netflix to see if they are interested (while holding back my tears as I have watched the stock massively appreciate since our exit!). Bremont can greatly benefit by your feedback so I strongly encourage you to share your insights, critiques, and other ideas about the company and its watches on X so we can learn and improve. We will periodically award the best ideas with Bremont watches so you can have an opportunity to earn an appropriate in-kind return on your time invested in helping us succeed. In the modern era, building an independent watch company into a major company, let alone one in the U.K., has rarely if ever occurred. The watch world is littered with many such failed attempts so it is far from guaranteed that we will succeed in building a profitable and sustainable company, let alone a major independent player. My Investment History to Date with Bremont Prior to my investment in the company, Nick and Giles had taken Bremont to a reasonable scale for an independently owned watch company at about £21 million in revenues with a modest operating loss, which is an incredible accomplishment for two young men with no watch industry experience. Nick and Giles accomplishment is particularly significant in an extremely competitive industry characterized by well capitalized incumbents that control many of the top brands, e.g., Richemont, Swatch, LVMH, as well dominant, independently owned companies like Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars and Piguet, and a few others. Despite their progress, both Nick and Giles and the other shareholders agreed that bringing in an executive with watch industry experience would help to take the company to the next level. Shortly after I invested, we hired a search firm to identify and ultimately recruit our new CEO, Davide Cerrato, who joined in May of 2023. Davide’s entire career has been spent in the industry at Panerai, Tudor – where he famously created the Black Bay, Montblanc, and with a brief stent at HYT. Davide in turn hired other industry notables to round out the executive suite, and then the team went to work with the ambitious goal of transforming Bremont into a global industry leader. Bremont has some important competitive advantages. First and most importantly, the watches are handsome, extremely well designed, and overengineered. Davide’s team has materially upgraded materials (for example, the company now uses 904L steel for all of its steel watches – the same as Rolex – unprecedented for watches at Bremont’s price point), parts, and movements from what was already a good standard to a level comparable to watches at multiples of the price. The watches are developed, designed, manufactured, and serviced in Henley-on-Thames using principally Swiss movements. While making its own movement is an aspirational goal for Bremont, the Swiss still make the highest quality movements so that is what Bremont uses. Bremont has a unique brand story and heritage, particularly for a 23-year-old company, with two decades of credibility in war zones and air combat missions with the best war fighters and military pilots in the world. Bremont also makes a limited number of watches, around 10,000 per year, compared with more than 1.2 million for Rolex and 70,000 for Patek Philippe, and scarcity drives value in luxury goods. The combination of battlefield credibility, rarity, quality and a fair price make Bremont an extremely attractive alternative to the typical Rolex or Patek, which everyone seems to be wearing in my industry, a ubiquity in my view that loses its luster over time. Over the past 23 months, Davide and team have redesigned and focused Bremont’s range around three core offerings in Land, Sea, and Air – the Terra Nova, the Supermarine, and the Altitude – while upgrading materials, movements, and quality, updating the logo to reflect the new Land and Sea offerings (Bremont was previously perceived to only be an aviation brand), and dramatically improving manufacturing and service. The company has extended its warranty from three to five years on its new watches reflecting these improvements. Bremont benefits from having overinvested in its spectacular 35,000 square foot combined headquarters, manufacturing facility, and showroom in Henley-on-Thames, aka “The Wing” (email [email protected] to arrange a superb tour), with the capacity for substantial growth without the requirement for incremental capital investment. Lastly, Bremont now has a well-capitalized long-term major owner who would like to see Bremont become a big success and achieve its vision of returning watchmaking to the UK, and who is not looking for dividends or a liquidity event in this lifetime. I have learned over time that permanent capital and a truly long-term orientation are enormous competitive advantages for any business, and they should be very helpful here. With respect to the product, later this morning in Geneva at Watches and Wonders, the industry’s most important trade show, the company is launching its new Altitude aviation line, which builds from the company’s highly successful Martin Baker offerings. The company will also be introducing some complicated new watches including two unique, jumping hour models, a 12-piece new tourbillion model (the company's first 30-piece tourbillion watch sold out shortly after its launch last year), and the company’s first perpetual calendar (limited to 50 pieces). I will be back with further updates as we continue to make progress. In the meantime, please check out and visit the Wing ([email protected] ) and our boutiques in Mayfair and throughout the U.K., on Madison Avenue and 53rd Street, in Hong Kong, and in Melbourne. Pictures don’t do Bremonts justice so you should go in person and tell the store manager that I sent you. Also, please take a look at our new launch video, and don't forget to let me know what you think.

Bill Ackman

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