Podcasts about american ceos

Lathan Gil delivers the news on Donald Trump having a lunch with over 30 American CEOS in Saudi Arabia & him stating how he collected $600 Billion in investments, AMC announcing 50% off tickets on Wednesdays starting in July, and Donald Trump saying the new Pope is surprising. On 5/15/2025.

Stocks edge higher as the S&P 500 gains a high-profile new member: Coinbase. Phil Camporeale of J.P. Morgan breaks down the market action, while Supermicro's AI positioning draws fresh Wall Street attention—Raymond James' Simon Leopold explains his bullish call. CyberArk CEO Matt Cohen joins to discuss earnings, enterprise IT spend and security sector consolidation while Saira Malik of Nuveen shares where she's seeing new opportunity in equities and fixed income.   Our Bertha Coombs tracks UnitedHealth's rough day, Eamon Javers reports on the president's visit to Saudi Arabia alongside high-profile American CEOs. Plus, Michael Santoli's dashboard signals a return of risk-on sentiment and what it means for Coinbase to be added to the S&P 500 and Robert Frank spots cracks in the high-end art market. 

04:00 Postjournalism and the death of newspapers. The media after Trump: manufacturing anger and polarization (2020), https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=159114 20:00 Christopher Caldwell On Trump And Europe, https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/christopher-caldwell-on-trump-and 24:00 NYP: Disaster in the Oval Office: Dems lead Zelensky, Ukraine off a cliff with pressure to reject mineral deal, https://nypost.com/2025/03/01/opinion/dems-lead-zelensky-ukraine-off-a-cliff-with-pressure-to-reject-mineral-deal/ 34:00 John Podhoretz on the Trump v Zelensky blowup, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKb6RW-xra0 37:00 Michael rejoins the show, https://x.com/real_machera 40:00 Michael's blog and his pro-Russian attitude, https://michaelmacherablog.com/ 42:00 Rush Limbaugh, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_Limbaugh 45:00 Howard Stern, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Stern 1:04:00 Zero Day, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Day_(American_TV_series) 1:18:00 Running Point - Netflix sports comedy, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_Point 1:21:00 George Friedman: Trump, Putin and Changing Global Realities, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-knLXnai3Mk 1:28:00 Steve Sailer analyzes Trump's foreign policy, https://www.stevesailer.net/p/trump-speak-loudly-and-carry-a-smaller 1:44:00 Kip joins to wonder why I never married 1:51:00 How my dad protected me against kiddie fiddlers 1:53:30 When parents become friends with their adult children 2:20:00 People feel righteous 2:23:00 George Friedman on the Ukraine war 2:25:00 How gay were 1970s rock stars, https://www.stevesailer.net/p/how-gay-were-1970s-rock-stars 2:27:00 Kleptogamy, https://dragonflyissuesinevolution13.fandom.com/wiki/Sneaky_F*uckers 2:44:00 FT: How the Oscars went quiet on Trump: Apolitical is the new look in Hollywood as rows mar this year's Academy Awards and studios shrink from dissent, https://www.ft.com/content/80fcb377-8133-46b7-83ec-f83484944244 2:50:00 Video: Trump and Zelenskyy Heated Oval Office Exchange: Body Language Analysis, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0AIFIK8yKM 3:02:30 Baltimore Bridge Collapse | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE7i201jc_A 3:05:00 Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Scott_Key_Bridge_collapse 3:09:00 Victor Davis Hanson on What Trump Thinks of Zelensky and Predicting Geopolitics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LoQu2x-XZc 3:11:00 News: ‘It's all been scrapped': Women in wildland firefighting bootcamps canceled after DEI cuts, https://19thnews.org/2025/02/dei-women-wildland-firefighting-bootcamps-canceled/ 3:12:45 Axios: American college chaos, https://www.axios.com/2025/03/02/trump-universities-dei-research-funding 3:16:00 WSJ: BlackRock's ‘Woke' Era Is Over: Asset manager has exited climate groups and eliminated diversity targets as it tries to end ESG controversy, https://www.wsj.com/business/blackrocks-woke-era-is-over-ebdbd6e7?mod=hp_lead_pos10 3:25:00 Jeff Bezos Shakes Up The Washington Post, Media Collapse, and Reddit Is Pro-Terrorist, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY6Vzd1mYDM 3:28:00 Why is Kara Swisher sounding insane? 3:39:30 Trump II says DEI is racist against white people 3:46:00 NYT: Trump Threats and Mexico's Crackdown Hit Mexican Cartel: Several cartel operatives said that for the first time in years, they genuinely feared arrest or death at the hands of the authorities. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/world/americas/mexico-cartel-fentanyl-trump-tariffs.html 3:52:00 Ukraine is the primary cause of its own suffering, https://www.ft.com/content/fcfbfc20-a1c7-4992-a2cd-83b688d349d0 4:07:00 How to Slash the Pentagon Budget | NonZero World feat. Julia Gledhill, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSTnJG_sF54 4:09:30 Believe beautiful young women who tell us how to reduce Pentagon spending 4:26:00 MAGA's working class base and Trump's new tech friends

After the assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO some "wanted"posters have been popping up around New York City

In this week's episode, we consider how the Nintendo Switch does the simple things well, and examine how writers can likewise do the simple things well to write excellent books. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 223 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October the 18th, 2024 and today we are discussing five lessons for writers from the Nintendo Switch, of all things. Don't worry, the analogy will make sense later in the show. Before we get into that, let's have an update on my current writing projects. I am pleased to report that Ghost in the Tombs is completely done and is currently publishing on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. The links are already live on some of those stores. This episode should go out on the same day as my newsletter, so by the time this episode goes out, the book should be available at all ebook stores. If you are subscribed to my newsletter, you will also get a free ebook copy of the short story Ghost Tablet. So that is one of the many excellent reasons it is a good idea to subscribe to my newsletter. You can find the details how to do that on my website right at the top. My next main project now that Ghost in the Tombs is out will be Cloak of Illusion, the 12th Cloak Mage book. I am 31,000 words into that. I'm hoping to have that out before the end of November, if all goes well. After that, I am 11,000 words into Orc Hoard and hopefully that will be out in December, if all goes well. As I mentioned earlier, the audiobook of Shield of Darkness is out, as excellently narrated by Brad Wills. You can get that at Audible, Apple, Google Play, and all the usual audiobook stores. We are also working on Shield of Conquest right now, and that is being recorded as we speak. Hollis McCarthy is also recording Cloak of Spears and that should hopefully be out before the end of the year, if all goes well. This week, we're not doing Question of the Week because all my time was going to finishing Ghost in the Tombs, but we will be doing another Question of the Week next week, so watch for that on my website and social media. 00:01:54 Main Topic: 5 Lessons Writers Can Learn from the Switch Now let's go to our main topic for the week, five lessons that writers can learn from the Nintendo Switch. So what can writers learn from the Nintendo Switch? A common complaint I sometimes see among newer writers is that all the stories have been told already, and that there are no truly original stories. Why try writing a mystery novel? Haven't they all been told? Why try writing a romance novel? How many different ways are there for a woman to meet a man and fall in love? Why attempt to write an epic fantasy when there's already Lord of the Rings and Mistborn and Shannara? Haven't all the stories already been told? That is a fair question, but it misunderstands the nature of stories. It's as profound a misunderstanding as saying that just because you've eaten one cheeseburger in your life, there is no need to ever have another or saying that since Pizza Hut makes pizzas, there is no need for anyone else to ever open a pizza restaurant or even to sell frozen pizzas. To dispel this misapprehension, let us turn to the Nintendo Switch. It is not unfair to say that the Switch is one of the most popular game consoles in the world and is likely Nintendo's second best-selling device of all time. The Switch is also significantly less powerful than its chief competitors, the various Xbox and PlayStation models offered by Microsoft and Sony. For that matter, the Switch has only received moderate updates in the seven years it has been on the market. Its internal components are basically those of a decent smartphone from 2017, yet despite that, the Switch has significantly outsold both the Xbox and the PlayStation over the last seven years. It was a remarkable reversal of fortune for Nintendo. The Switch's predecessor, the Wii U, did so badly that the CEO of Nintendo at the time took a 50% pay cut to help avoid layoffs. One thinks American CEOs could stand to learn from this example, but that's a different topic. So to go from that to the best-selling console of the last seven years is quite a swing of fate's pendulum. So let us then ask the obvious question: why did the Switch do better than its competitors, especially when it was so relatively underpowered compared to them in terms of hardware? The answer is simple. The Switch did the basics, but it did the basics exceptionally well and doing the basic simple things exceptionally well is often much harder than people imagine. The Switch doesn't have a lot of the more advanced features from the PC, Xbox, and PlayStation ecosystems, but it doesn't really need them. The Switch is easily portable. It has a strong library of first-party titles. The loading speed isn't great, but it's adequate. It has Switch Online for all the old Nintendo classics. You can play it handheld or docked. It's popular enough that developers want to bring their games to the console whenever possible, including some that some that were very technically difficult, like Skyrim or The Witcher 3. All that sounds simple, but it's much harder to do than it sounds, and the basics done well are always a good thing, regardless of the field. In fact, that is traditionally part of Nintendo's design philosophy. Nintendo has a thing they call “withered technology” (another translation from the Japanese would be “lateral thinking with seasoned technology”), which means rather than trying to use cutting edge technology, they use tried and true older technology and think about developing unique experiences with it. In other words, they used well established basic technology to build the Switch (which wasn't exactly cutting edge even in 2017) and then just tried to use that established technology well. So how does this apply to storytelling and writing? This is, after all, a writing podcast and not a video game podcast (even if I do talk about video games a fair bit). The same approach taken to writing can work out quite well. Don't try to be excessively fancy or flashy. Focus on the simple things and do them as well as you can, and that will probably work out better than trying to be flashy or creative in a way that only ends up being off putting to the reader. So when it comes to writing fiction, what are the simple things that you can do well? What is the “lateral thinking with seasoned technology” you can employ with writing a novel? I think there are five lessons we can take here. #1: Understand the genre you are writing in and try to hit the appropriate tropes for that genre. A lot of writers when they are first starting out try to do too much, like a fantasy author tries to write a 12 volume epic fantasy series as their first writing attempt, or someone tries to fuse a bunch of genres and write a book that is simultaneously romance, a magical realism coming of age story, and somehow also a memoir. If you can't clearly state the genre of your book, you're going to have a hard time selling it. You might also have a hard time even finishing it. What do I mean by the appropriate tropes for the genre? That's just a way of saying that the storytelling conventions that readers come to expect in specific genres. For example, in a happily ever after clean romance, the readers will expect no explicit scenes and that the heroine and the love interest will end up together by the end of the book. Romance tends to have a lot of very specific subgenres, but the rule holds for many other genres as well. Epic fantasy readers typically expect a quest, some journeying, and a band of arguing adventures. Mystery readers expect a mystery with an actual solution at the end. Thriller readers look forward to some well executed fight scenes in a secret government building. Some writers dislike the idea of writing to genre tropes but think of it this way: If you go to an Italian restaurant and order spaghetti carbonara, but the waiter instead brings out a steak burrito bowl with a side of French toast sticks and maple syrup, you're going to be disappointed. Are there people who would enjoy a lunch of a burrito bowl and French toast sticks? Almost certainly, but you ordered spaghetti carbonara. The vast majority of people who go to an Italian restaurant are going to expect Italian food. The same thing applies to genres. If you buy a mystery book, you will expect a mystery novel and not an experimental cross genre thing. If you dislike writing to genre tropes, remember that readers only dislike tropes written to genre conventions if it's done badly, but if you do it well, they appreciate it and that could be one of the simple things that you focus on doing well. #2: A protagonist with relatable problems. Another important basic in genre fiction is the protagonist with problems that the reader can find compelling. There's an endless tedious discussion about whether or not the protagonist should be likable or not, and frankly, it often degenerates into the standard Internet discussion about gender politics, whether or not a female protagonist has to be likable when a male one does not. But in my opinion, that discussion completely misses the point. What makes a character relatable, or more accurately sympathetic to the reader, is the character experiencing a conflict or some sort of emotional pain that allows the reader to sympathize with them. Whether their character is likable is less important than sympathy. Let's take two examples from recent television, specifically Disney properties. The characters of Syril Karn and Dedra Meero from the Star Wars show Andor are unlikable but sympathetic characters, while Jennifer Walters from She Hulk is both unlikable and unsympathetic. The difference between them is instructive for writers. Syril Karn and Dedra Meero are both essentially unlikable villains. Karn is a wannabe mall cop with puffed up delusions of his own importance and Meero is working for the Empire's sinister secret police as a mid-level officer. Yet Karn's circumstances make him emotionally sympathetic. He is stuck in a dead-end job and living with his cruel mother. Meero is trying to do the best job she can in the secret police and is fighting against her obstinate and clueless colleagues within a cumbersome bureaucracy, something many office workers can sympathize with. Indeed, it's clever how the show sets her up as a strong woman making headway in the male dominated secret police, only to yank away the sympathy when she brutally tortures one of the show's protagonists. By contrast, Jennifer Walters is both unlikable and unsympathetic. She's a rich lawyer who has rich lawyer problems, which is generally not sympathetic to most people. Indeed, she strongly establishes herself as unlikable in the first episode when she lectures Bruce Banner (who in past movies tried to kill himself in despair, was hunted by the US government, held as an enslaved gladiator for two years, brutally beaten by Thanos, and fried his right arm with the Infinity Gauntlet) about how much harder her life has been than his, which is objectively not true. As we mentioned with Karn and Meero, it's very possible for unlikable characters to be sympathetic, but Jennifer Walters is so unsympathetic that the best episodes of She Hulk were the ones where she becomes the unsympathetic comedy protagonist like David Brent from the UK Office or Basil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers and she suffers the comedic results of her own bad decisions. What's really compelling is when you have a likeable character who has a sympathetic problem. As an added bonus, it's usually easier to write a likeable character with a sympathetic problem. Striking the balance between an unlikable character with a sympathetic problem is often a challenge for even experienced writers. But if the reader likes your protagonist and the protagonist's problem inspires emotional sympathy in the reader, then that's half the battle. What is the other half of the battle lesson? #3: A strong conflict. I've said on the podcast many times before that conflict is central to storytelling. If you have a sympathetic protagonist who has a serious conflict, you've got yourself the potential for a strong book. Another way of saying conflict is “the problem the protagonist must solve, face, overcome.” If the protagonist doesn't have a problem, he or she might as well sit at home playing well, Nintendo Switch. Fortunately, it is easy to think of a suitable conflict for your story, because in Real Life, the potential causes of conflict are sadly infinite, and you can easily apply that to fiction. Like if you write epic fantasy, you could have the conflict be the quest to stop the Dark Lord, or if you write sci-fi, it could be defeating the invasion of the space bugs. Mysteries have a conflict built in for the genre. Solving the crime, finding a missing person, etc. Thrillers tend to be all about violent conflict, but conflicts don't have to be violent or even high stakes to be emotionally significant. It could be a conflict with a rival at work, or not even involve a person at all, like trying to survive the aftermath of a natural disaster. It boils down to that the protagonist must have a conflict and the protagonist must take some sort of action to resolve that conflict. Stories where this doesn't happen tend to become boring quite quickly. #4: A satisfactory ending. The ending is really, really important. You know how a joke isn't funny if it doesn't have a good punchline? A story with a bad ending, unfortunately, almost always turns out to be a bad story that leaves an unpleasant taste in a reader's mouth. What makes for a good ending? The story's central conflict has to be resolved in a satisfactory way, in a way that generates emotional catharsis. In fantasy, the quest needs to be achieved. In science fiction, the space bugs need to be defeated. In mystery, the killer has to be caught or the mystery resolved in a satisfactory way. In romance, the heroine needs to end up with her love interest. Bad endings are ones that don't resolve the conflict or resolve the conflict in a way that feels like cheating to the reader. This can include the protagonist solving the conflict through no effort or struggle or a Deus Ex Machina style ending where the conflict is solved simply because the author wants to hurry up and finish the book. Granted, this doesn't mean that a good ending is a happy one. The Lord of the Rings had a famously bittersweet ending. Sauron is defeated and the One Ring destroyed, but the Elves leave Middle Earth forever, and Frodo is too wounded to return to his homeland, instead choosing to accompany the Elves into the West. There are many other examples. The mystery could have the detective solving the crime, but at the cost of his career and his marriage. The protagonist of a military science fiction story could win the battle but be the only surviving member of his squad. The ending must resolve the conflict in an emotionally satisfying manner that doesn't leave the reader feeling cheated. #5: The fifth simple thing you can do: write clear prose. Writing clear prose that unambiguously conveys your meaning is one of the vital basics for storytelling, and this is harder than it seems. An anecdote from this topic about this topic: back in 2023, Wired magazine ran a hit piece on fantasy author Brandon Sanderson about his Kickstarter. One of the criticisms in the article was that Sanderson's books were written at a sixth-grade level, which is debatable, but that's not the point. The point is the writer of the article and many other people have the profound misapprehension that simple, clearly written prose is somehow easier to write than more dense or complex prose. It's really not, and this fact is easily proven. Think about how many people you know in real life who struggle to communicate through written communications such as emails or text messages. Think how many times you've gotten an e-mail from a manager or client only to have no idea what the person in question is trying to ask for, or even say. Or how much family drama can be created by a badly written text message or social media post that is easily misunderstood. In all of these examples, people failed to communicate effectively through written prose and would have benefited from the ability to write simple, clear, not easily misunderstood prose. Therefore, developing the ability to write clear, transparent prose that precisely conveys your meaning is a useful skill for anyone, not just fiction writers. It just happens to be especially useful for writers of fiction. When writing fiction, it is probably best to remain as clear and concise as possible. So in conclusion, these are the five simple things you can do well to have a good book: #1: Understand the genre #2: Have a protagonist with a sympathetic problem #3: A strong conflict #4: A satisfactory ending #5: As clear of prose as possible All relatively simple things, but if you do them well, I think you are well on the way to writing a good book. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes of the podcast on https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Send us a textJoin us on the Future Print Podcast for a thought-provoking exploration of future technology trends as we welcome Roman Weissfeuer-Schauppel, the dynamic director of Future Candy. Roman, a visionary who transitioned from being an innovation advisor to establishing his own company in Silicon Valley, shares his unique insights on fostering optimism and creativity in Europe. Get ready to navigate the VUCA world of 2024 and beyond as Roman emphasizes the importance of innovation as a survival toolkit. With his Hamburg-based agency, Future Candy, Roman is pioneering hands-on approaches to help companies adapt and thrive amidst rapid technological changes.Explore the intriguing differences in decision-making and risk-taking between European and American CEOs, especially when it comes to launching new products and embracing innovation. Discover how cultural attitudes towards optimism and risk shape business strategies, and why a mindset shift is essential for European leaders. Roman sheds light on the latest technology trends reshaping our world, from AI as our new electricity to the promise of humanoid robotics and the emergence of spatial computing. With innovations like the Apple Vision Pro leading the charge, this episode is a must-listen for those eager to embrace the future with open arms and a forward-thinking mindset.Listen on:Apple PodcastGoogle PodcastSpotifyWhat is FuturePrint? FuturePrint is a digital and in person platform and community dedicated to future print technology. Over 15,000 people per month read our articles, listen to our podcasts, view our TV features, click on our e-newsletters and attend our in-person and virtual events. We hope to see you at one of our future events:FuturePrint TECH: Digital Print for Manufacturing 6-7 Nov '24, Cambridge, UK FuturePrint TECH: Packaging & Labels 2-3 April '25, Valencia, Spain

President Joe Biden is hosting Kenyan President William Ruto at the White House for a historic three-day state visit, marking the first such honor for an African nation since 2008. The visit comes as Kenya prepares to send 1,000 police officers to Haiti as part of a UN-led mission to combat gang violence. The White House emphasized the deep and broad partnership between the U.S. and Kenya, noting their collaboration on counterterrorism and regional security efforts. Today's events include a meeting with American CEOs. A formal state dinner will take place tomorrow, along with a joint news conference. The visit underscores the Biden administration's commitment to enhancing diplomatic and economic ties with Africa, building on the U.S.-Africa Summit held in December 2022. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mar 28, 2024 – Are US-China relations thawing? China's President Xi told American CEOs this week, including prominent chipmakers Qualcomm and Broadcom, that the US and China must work together and encouraged further...

Just a few years ago, it would have been inconceivable that a Chinese company would disrupt the automotive industry by exporting vast quantities of cheap, reliable electric vehicles. But the Chinese company BYD has overtaken Tesla in terms of overall sales and it is determined to win market share from long-established car giants, such as Volkswagen and Toyota. Does BYD's success result from generous government subsidies? Or, as its bosses claim, it is just better at taking risks than its rivals? In this podcast, Dr Mercy Kuo, Executive Vice President and geopolitical risk advisor at Pamir Consulting, offers her analysis of BYD and other Chinese companies to regular host, Duncan Bartlett.

Will AI play the ace in the upcoming elections? Can deepfakes sway Indian voters? Have political parties begun deploying AI as a strategic weapon in their campaigns? In today's episode, we're joined by one of India's leading election campaign consultants Shivam Shankar Singh, who answers all these questions and more.  In other news, American CEOs are busting some moves in China.  Lastly, because it's Friday, we've got a bonus story lined up: This V-Day hotels are focusing on heartbroken singles instead of couples. What are they offering? Tune in to this episode of The Signal Daily and find out yourself!CREDITS:The Signal Daily is produced in association with IVM.The episode was researched, written and produced by Anup Semwal and ManaswiniEdited by Venkat AnanthMastered and mixed by Manas and Nirvaan See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

American CEOs are often paid hundreds of times more than their company employees. Is that a problem? / Young Chinese explore uninhabited islands (21:35). On the show: Heyang, Xingyu & Brandon Yates

Megyn Kelly is joined by Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch, hosts of The Fifth Column podcast, to talk about the breaking news that the Koch network will be backing Nikki Haley, whether the GOP megadonors will make a difference in actually beating Trump, the value of being the final Trump alternative standing, "snot-nosed kids" anti-Israel protesters glueing themselves to the road and blocking traffic, the Deadspin writer who attacked a child and the NFL for the child's facepaint that was half black during a football game, the absurdity of getting offended at everything while making everything about identity, the Biden administration is facing an internal revolt over the Israel-Hamas policies and public statements, the ridiculous ways they are going about trying to appease the young snowflakes in the White House, political fallout for not being anti-Israel enough for the far-left progressives, the embarrassing American CEOs giving China's President Xi a standing ovation, the hypocrisy of these CEOs and their past woke pushes, Chris Cuomo announcing he's joining Substack, the therapy talk that fuels his podcast, and more.More from The Fifth Column: https://wethefifth.substack.com/ Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Megyn Kelly is joined by Victor Davis Hanson, author of "The Dying Citizen," to discuss President Joe Biden taking credit for the release of Israeli hostages by Hamas, how the Biden administration is trying to argue it can reason with Hamas terrorists, the media's ridiculous spin about the criminal Palestinians being released in the hostage exchange, the left's nonstop focus on DEI as demographics change the West, how universities are driving anti-Israel sentiment in America, a new push by the Biden administration to make sure border patrol agents use proper pronouns when encountering illegal migrants crossing the border, a scary situation at Hillcrest High School with a pro-Israel teacher, American CEOs giving a standing ovation to China President Xi, and more.  Then former prosecutor Marcia Clark and defense attorney Mark Geragos join to discuss whether Elon Musk has a legitimate chance of winning his lawsuit against Media Matters over claims about X advertisements and anti-Semitic content, the significance of where it was filed, bombshell lawsuits against Mayor Eric Adams, Harvey Weinstein, and more as the New York law waiving the Statue of limitations on sexual assault ends, whether it's fair to those accused, a hockey player being charged with manslaughter over a throat slashing death on the ice, Derek Chauvin being stabbed in prison, and more.VDH: https://victorhanson.comGeragos: https://geragos.comClark: http://www.marciaclarkbooks.com Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

It's Monday, November 27th, A.D. 2023. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Communist Xi gets royal treatment despite China's persecution record China's President Xi Jinping recently visited the United States to meet with President Joe Biden, the first visit on American soil in six years. Their conversation included topics like the fentanyl crisis, artificial intelligence, and even the return of pandas to the United States.   Yet one issue was painfully neglected in their conversation – China's blatant violation of human rights and persecution of religious minorities, reports International Christian Concern. Since the Chinese Communist Party seized power in the 1940s, religious freedom conditions have deteriorated. China has kept its efforts to silence and, in some cases, eradicate ethnic and religious communities, such as the Uyghurs, Tibetan Buddhists, and Christians. Disappearances, forced organ harvesting, controlled press, and surveillance of its citizens are just the beginning in terms of China's human rights abuses. And these issues were largely ignored during Jinping's visit.  Shortly after the heads of state met, dozens of American CEOs socialized over dinner with Chinese government officials. High-profile CEOs such as Elon Musk of Tesla and X, Stanley Deal of Boeing, Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone, and Marc Benioff of Salesforce were seen in attendance, paying up to $40,000 to dine with Communist dictator Xi Jinping. Many have criticized this large gathering, including Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, who said, “It is unconscionable that American companies might pay thousands of dollars to join a ‘welcome dinner' hosted by the very same Chinese Communist Party officials who have facilitated a genocide against millions of innocent men, women, and children in Xinjiang.” The attendance of Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, should also be of notable concern. Two years ago, Apple removed a Bible app from the Chinese version of the app store at the request of government officials.   For a country that brought in $74 billion in revenue in 2022 for Apple, it is possible that Tim Cook and many of the CEOs in attendance have traded their “commitments” to universal human rights in exchange for cash, filling their pockets while letting China's religious minorities continue to suffer.  200 trucks of goods enter Gaza Strip Two hundred trucks of goods were offloaded by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency reception point in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the biggest humanitarian convoy received since October 7, reports the Jerusalem Post. This was done within the framework of the truce and the schedule for the release of the hostages that was agreed upon with the US through the mediation of Qatar and Egypt. The temporary truce between Israel and Hamas came into effect early on Friday, ahead of the exchange of dozens of hostages held by terrorists in Gaza for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, reports Jewish News. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tweeted: “This humanitarian pause is critical to end the terrible ordeal of hostages held by Hamas and get life-saving aid into Gaza.” Instagram has become a “vast pedophile network” According to recent testimony during a U.S. Senate committee hearing, while social media giant, Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, was focused on cracking down on conservative speech in coordination with the Biden administration, pedophiles were not only operating “vast” networks on the company's platforms, but were often connected with each other via the company's own algorithms, reports LifeSiteNews. Listen to this soundbite from the November 7 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “social media and the teen mental health crisis.” Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri asked Arturo Bejar, Facebook's former Director of Engineering for Protect and Care, a question. HAWLEY: “This is from the Wall Street Journal's report earlier this year. This is June of this year. They found the following. I'm going to quote.  ‘Instagram helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of under-age sex content. Pedophiles have long used the internet. But, unlike the forums and file transfer services that cater to people who have an interest in illicit content, Instagram doesn't merely host these activities, Instagram's algorithms promote them. Instagram connects pedophiles and guides them to content sellers via recommendation systems that excel at linking those who share these interests, the [Wall Street] Journal and academic researchers found.' “This is a stunning, stunning report, Mr. Bejar that more than bears out what you were telling, trying to tell, the executives who ignored you. In your own view, why do you think this is happening? Why has Instagram become, in the words of the Wall Street Journal, ‘a vast pedophile network'? Why are people, like your daughter, every time they get on Instagram, they're being bombarded with unwanted sexual advances, sexual content? Why is this happening?” BEJAR:  “Most of the resources, close to all, that they invest in this go towards this very narrow definition of harm.” Read Arturo Bejar's 15-page testimony. In Matthew 18:6, Jesus warned, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in Me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” Celebrities revealing they aborted their children in memoirs And finally, it's the year of abortion memoirs, reports LifeSiteNews.com.   In Paris Hilton's memoir, entitled Paris, she revealed that when she was 22 years old she had an abortion.   She wrote, “In November 2003, after we had filmed the first season of The Simple Life and before it premiered, I was living my best life. … It all came crashing down when I realized I was pregnant at 22. Choosing to have an abortion can be an intensely private agony that's impossible to explain. The only reason I'm talking about it now is that so many women are facing it, and they feel so alone and judged and abandoned. … And you do it, even though it breaks your heart.” She's had thoughts like, “What if I killed my Paris?” Actress Kerry Washington  also released an autobiography this year, entitled Thicker Than Water: A Memoir, and writes about her own abortion.  She never imagined that she would be in an abortion clinic, “surrendering my insides to a surgical vacuum.”  Ironically, Washington is famous for a scene when her character on the TV show Scandal had an abortion, literally, to the tune of “Silent Night,” a Christmas hymn celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. And singer Britney Spears revealed in her memoir, entitled The Woman in Me, that she experienced a brutal abortion at the behest of her then-boyfriend Justin Timberlake, a man who desperately did not want to be a father. Spears wanted to keep the child, but she caved under pressure, and lay sobbing on the bathroom floor after taking the Abortion Kill Pill for fear of being recognized outside an abortion mill. Despite being worth tens of millions of dollars, they, too, were “not ready” to have children. The woman in Spears wanted to keep the baby; the baby in her died because Timberlake refused to welcome the baby that he had fathered. Isaiah 59:7 says, “Their feet rush into sin; they are swift to shed innocent blood. They pursue evil schemes; acts of violence mark their ways.” Close And that's The Worldview in 5 Minutes on this Monday, November 27th in the year of our Lord 2023. Subscribe by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Or get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

This week, Eric and Dan are joined by Philip Booth, professor of finance, public policy, and ethics at St. Mary's University, Twickenham, England, to discuss his essay in the Fall 2023 issue of RELIGION & LIBERTY, "Creating an Economy of Inclusion.”  Catholic Social Teaching has, for decades, provided both guidelines and cautions for market economies that exclude marginalized populations. The question is, however, are those populations excluded by markets or from markets? Eric and Dan then discuss the alleged surge in popularity for Osama bin Laden's “Letter to America” on TikTok. Is this justification for the 9/11 attacks really as pronounced of a phenomenon as it was made out to be? Or were the people expressing horror and outrage about the trend helping to boost it into a bigger problem than it originally was?Is there a case to be made to ban the TikTok app? And finally, a number of American CEOs gathered in San Francisco to celebrate Chinese president Xi Jinping. How should we think about the interplay — and the apparent inextricable link — between the American and Chinese economies? Creating an Economy of Inclusion | Philip Booth, RELIGION & LIBERTY Subscribe to RELIGION & LIBERTY Videos About Bin Laden's Criticism of U.S. Surge in Popularity on TikTok | New York Times How Osama bin Laden's ‘Letter to America' reached millions online | Washington Post When Product Markets Become Collective Traps: The Case of Social Media | University of Chicago Dinner with Xi in San Francisco: A Who's Who of America's Beijing-Friendly Elite | Jimmy Quinn, National Review

News

The U.S. and Chinese Presidents meet in California and agree to reduce fentanyl production and renew military-to-military communications. But will the meeting overcome underlying disagreements? Plus, American CEOs look bad when they give President Xi a standing ovation, and Congressman George Santos chooses not to seek re-election after a critical report by the House Ethics Committee.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carl Quintanilla, Jim Cramer and David Faber led off the show with retail earnings and the consumer: Walmart shares fell after the company raised full-year guidance that ended up short of analyst consensus, overshadowing a Q3 beat. The anchors explored the similarities and differences between Walmart and Target – and what they mean for investors. Carl, Jim and David also reacted to Cisco shares tumbling after the Dow component cut its full-year revenue outlook. Also in focus: The summit meeting between Presidents Biden and Xi, the Chinese president's message to American CEOs, earnings winners and losers including Palo Alto Networks, Alibaba and Macy's, Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman on inflation. Squawk on the Street Disclaimer

The attrition of women in India's tech industry has doubled compared to that of men. What could be causing this trend?In other news, top CEOs have been flocking to China. The latest to join the party is Bill Gates. Why China though? Tune in to The Signal Daily to know more!The Signal Daily is produced in association with IVM.The episode was written, researched and produced by Akshaya, Chaarmikha and ManaswiniEdited by Dinesh NarayananMastered and mixed by Manas and NirvaanYou can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android, iOS or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at https://ivmpodcasts.com/. Do follow IVM Podcasts on social media. We are @IVMPodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. Follow the show across platforms: Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts,  Amazon Prime Music. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford (R-OK), the ranking member of the Border Management Subcommittee, joined Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) in visiting Arizona's southern border last month to address policy gaps and identify lasting solutions to better secure the nation's southern border. The visit comes just weeks after Title 42, the pandemic-era policy allowing the United States to expel migrants on the basis of public health concerns, ended. As a result of the end of this policy, even more migrants were able to enter the country and claim asylum. Senator Lankford joins the Rundown to talk about why it is essential for the country to secure our border and reform immigration policy. Later, he explains why he believes the debt limit deal was bad for America and weighs in on the state of the 2024 GOP primary. American CEOs like Tesla's Elon Musk, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, and Apple's Tim Cook have each made trips to China recently. These trips underscore U.S. corporations' intentions to maintain a friendly relationship with China to enjoy the economic benefits of their market. On the other hand, lawmakers in America see how the Chinese Communist Party has consistently stolen U.S. intellectual property and positioned itself as adversarial on the international stage. FOX Business White House Correspondent Edward Lawrence joins the Rundown to break down this concerning trend of friendly relationships between American businesses and the CCP, explaining how this could pose a national security threat and expose U.S. businesses to the risk of having their intellectual property stolen by China. Plus, commentary by Jimmy Failla, host of "Fox Across America with Jimmy Failla." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford (R-OK), the ranking member of the Border Management Subcommittee, joined Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) in visiting Arizona's southern border last month to address policy gaps and identify lasting solutions to better secure the nation's southern border. The visit comes just weeks after Title 42, the pandemic-era policy allowing the United States to expel migrants on the basis of public health concerns, ended. As a result of the end of this policy, even more migrants were able to enter the country and claim asylum. Senator Lankford joins the Rundown to talk about why it is essential for the country to secure our border and reform immigration policy. Later, he explains why he believes the debt limit deal was bad for America and weighs in on the state of the 2024 GOP primary. American CEOs like Tesla's Elon Musk, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, and Apple's Tim Cook have each made trips to China recently. These trips underscore U.S. corporations' intentions to maintain a friendly relationship with China to enjoy the economic benefits of their market. On the other hand, lawmakers in America see how the Chinese Communist Party has consistently stolen U.S. intellectual property and positioned itself as adversarial on the international stage. FOX Business White House Correspondent Edward Lawrence joins the Rundown to break down this concerning trend of friendly relationships between American businesses and the CCP, explaining how this could pose a national security threat and expose U.S. businesses to the risk of having their intellectual property stolen by China. Plus, commentary by Jimmy Failla, host of "Fox Across America with Jimmy Failla." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oklahoma Senator James Lankford (R-OK), the ranking member of the Border Management Subcommittee, joined Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) in visiting Arizona's southern border last month to address policy gaps and identify lasting solutions to better secure the nation's southern border. The visit comes just weeks after Title 42, the pandemic-era policy allowing the United States to expel migrants on the basis of public health concerns, ended. As a result of the end of this policy, even more migrants were able to enter the country and claim asylum. Senator Lankford joins the Rundown to talk about why it is essential for the country to secure our border and reform immigration policy. Later, he explains why he believes the debt limit deal was bad for America and weighs in on the state of the 2024 GOP primary. American CEOs like Tesla's Elon Musk, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, and Apple's Tim Cook have each made trips to China recently. These trips underscore U.S. corporations' intentions to maintain a friendly relationship with China to enjoy the economic benefits of their market. On the other hand, lawmakers in America see how the Chinese Communist Party has consistently stolen U.S. intellectual property and positioned itself as adversarial on the international stage. FOX Business White House Correspondent Edward Lawrence joins the Rundown to break down this concerning trend of friendly relationships between American businesses and the CCP, explaining how this could pose a national security threat and expose U.S. businesses to the risk of having their intellectual property stolen by China. Plus, commentary by Jimmy Failla, host of "Fox Across America with Jimmy Failla." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. Also in this brief, Infosys makes an ecosystem play in banking and financial services with a new report; fintech is estimated to hit $1.5 trillion in India by 2030; and Kazam, an EV infrastructure management platform provider, has raised $3.6 million from Avaana Climate Fund. Notes: Google has started rolling out passkeys as an alternative to passwords for signing into its platform, the internet search giant said in a blog post yesterday. Passkeys are easier and more secure than passwords as they allow users to sign in using a fingerprint, face scan or screen lock PIN, instead of relying on memorable but easy-to-guess phrases like “password123”. Passkeys are also resistant to online attacks like phishing, making them more secure than SMS one-time codes. Google Workspace administrators will soon be able to enable passkeys for end-users during sign-in. However, passwords and two-step verification will still work for Google accounts. And among Google's billions of users are its massive Android user base in India. According to the 'Internet in India Report 2022' by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and KANTAR, 52 percent of Indians (759 million) are active Internet users, with rural India driving much of the growth. The report predicts that by 2025, the number of active internet users in India will reach 900 million, with 56 percent of new users coming from rural India. However, there is a significant digital divide between states, with some having much lower levels of internet penetration than others. As mobile internet expands further into India, fintech is an area that is expected to continue to grow strongly. According to a report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and QED Investors, financial technology revenues are expected to increase from $245 billion to $1.5 trillion by 2030. In some IT services news, Infosys and HFS Research conducted a study titled "The ecosystem imperative: How to create new sources of value in BFS enterprises," which found that creating collaborative ecosystems is the new hope for driving growth and creating new forms of value for BFS enterprises. While revenue growth and profitability are still top business objectives for firms, the creation of ecosystems is a new contender. However, without an interim stage of enterprise modernization, efforts to create ecosystems may fail. Acquiring and retaining talent, lack of centralized data governance, and legacy tech are the biggest roadblocks to ROI from innovation investments. In some startup funding news, Pando, a supply chain software company, has raised $30 million in its Series B funding round, bringing the total capital raised to $45 million. The funding was led by Iron Pillar and Uncorrelated Ventures and included participation from existing investors Nexus Venture Partners, Chiratae Ventures, and Next47, as well as several American CEOs and angel investors. And Kazam, a platform for managing electric mobility infrastructure, has raised $3.6 million in a funding round led by Avaana Climate Fund, the company said in a press release yesterday.

Ambassador Lana Marks joins Liberty & Justice Season 2, Episode 1. Matt and Lana discuss her childhood, successful luxury brand and her experience as the US Ambassador for South Africa. Follow Ambassador Marks on Twitter @lanamarks. Watch every episode of Liberty & Justice at http://www.whitaker.tv.Ambassador Lana Marks was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa in 2019, and served until 2021. South African-born, she possesses a deep knowledge of South Africa and its diverse peoples, cultures, languages, customs, and politics. Growing up in the Eastern Cape, Marks learned isiXhosa and Afrikaans, and eventually attended the University of Witswatesrand. Marks' skills, knowledge, and accomplishments gave her rare insight into serving as the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa.While serving as ambassador, Marks championed womens' and youth rights, while pursuing an apolitical agenda of advancing the American cause in South Africa. While leading a complex mission that included three consulates and over 1,400 staff, Marks helped further cultivate the bilateral relationship between South Africa and the United States, with groundbreaking achievements in the realms of agricultural trade, automobile production, alternative energy, water reclamation, and multi-billion dollar infrastructure projects, to name a few.Prior to her appointment, Ambassador Marks served as the Chief Executive Officer of the LANA MARKS fashion brand, which she founded in 1987. Over the course of 30 years, she developed the label into an international brand, operating throughout the United States and across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Ambassador Marks is a member of the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America, and, in 2000 and 2002, was selected as the handbag and accessory consultant to the Academy Awards. In 2001, she was one of 50 American CEOs – and the sole fashion representative – invited to the White House for the Women Business Leaders' Forum.A longtime advocate of women's empowerment, Ambassador Marks has served on Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government's Women's Leadership Board and as a distinguished speaker at Georgetown University's Women's Leadership Initiative. She represented the United States twice for the Women Business Leadership Summit in Helsinki and is a supporting member of the Council of Women World Leaders. In 2002, the Star Group selected her as one of 40 businesswomen to be honored as a leading woman entrepreneur of the world. Ambassador Marks has joined forces with dozens of charities to advance breast cancer research and support children and the arts.A former competitive tennis player, she is married with two children and is the proud grandmother of three grandchildren.Matthew G. Whitaker was acting Attorney General of the United States (2018-2019).  Prior to becoming acting Attorney General, Mr. Whitaker served as Chief of Staff to the Attorney General. He was appointed as the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa by President George W. Bush, serving from 2004-2009. Whitaker was the managing partner of Des Moines-based law firm, Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP from 2009 until rejoining DOJ in 2017. He was also the Executive Director for FACT, The Foundation for Accountability & Civic Trust, an ethics and accountability watchdog, between 2014 and 2017.   Mr. Whitaker is the Author of the book--Above the Law, The Inside Story of How the Justice Department Tried to Subvert President Trump.  Buy Matt's book here: https://amzn.to/3IXUOb8Mr. Whitaker graduated with a Master of Business Administration, Juris Doctor, and Bachelor of Arts from the University of Iowa.  While at Iowa, Mr. Whitaker was a three-year letterman on the football team where he received the prestigious BigTen Medal of Honor.

Episode 63! The hosts welcome Jeffrey Beyer, Managing Director, Zest Associates, a Dubai-based consultancy that develops sustainability solutions for governments and private companies for the low carbon economy. First, the hosts discuss Richard's one big thing this week, which is Saudi Arabia's forthcoming Saudi Games, the largest single sporting event ever in Saudi Arabia. Lucien's one big thing this week in Saudi Arabia is the progress on the Red Sea with major milestones reached for The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), headed up by John Pagano. The hosts conclude the program as always with Yallah! 6 top storylines to get you up to speed headed into the weekend. 2:02 - Richard's one big thing this week is Saudi Arabia's forthcoming Saudi Games, the largest single sporting event ever in Saudi Arabia. The games take place with the participation of more than 6000 athletes and 2,000 technical and administrative supervisors representing more than 200 clubs across the Kingdom, competing in 45 sports as individuals and teams including 5 games dedicated to Paralympic sports.10:42 - Lucien's one big thing this week in Saudi Arabia is the progress on the Red Sea with major milestones reached for The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), headed up by John Pagano. Earlier this summer, Rosewood hotels said it would open one of its high-end hotels in the area. That was just the start of a slate of news on the progress at the Red Sea resort area. Foster + Partners released designs for the “world's first fully immersive experiential marine life center.” Authorities also announced the official opening of the Shura bridge, a 3.3km crossing (so just over 2 miles) from the Saudi mainland to the hub island Shura. 18:36 - The hosts welcome Jeffrey Beyer, Managing Director, Zest Associates, a Dubai-based consultancy that develops sustainability solutions for governments and private companies for the low carbon economy. The hosts talk with Jeffrey about sustainability and climate, ESG, and more with COP27 and COP28 taking place in the Middle East region. Links to the reports mentioned in the conversation are here: Financing a Green Transition in the Middle East: Link UAE-UK Clean Hydrogen Collaboration: Link 1:05:48 - Yallah! Qatar World Cup ticket sales near 3 millionTicket sales for the soccer World Cup are approaching the three million mark ahead of the tournament kicking off in Qatar on Nov. 20, FIFA president Gianni Infantino and event organisers said on Monday. The top 10 purchasing countries of the 2.89 million tickets sold are Qatar, the United States, Saudi Arabia, England, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, France, Brazil and Germany, FIFA's World Cup Chief Operating Officer Colin Smith told a news conference in Doha.US officials not invited to Saudi's 'Davos in the Desert'The organisers of the Saudi investment conference known as 'Davos in the Desert' said they will not invite US government officials, in a major departure from previous years which comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Riyadh. The Future Investment Initiative (FII), a three-day conference set to begin on 25 October in Riyadh, typically draws Wall Street titans and high-ranking officials from around the world, and up to 400 American CEOs are expected to participate this year, said Richard Attias, CEO of the group behind the event.   Saudi Crown Prince announces $400 million in humanitarian aid for UkraineSaudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has announced $400 million in humanitarian aid for Ukraine, the official SPA news agency reported. It followed a phone call between the Crown Prince and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday where the Crown Prince emphasized “the Kingdom's position of supporting everything that will contribute to de-escalation, and the Kingdom's readiness to continue the efforts of mediation,” SPA reported. The humanitarian aid package for Ukraine will contribute to alleviating the suffering of Ukrainian citizens in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Saudi Crown Prince Launches National Industrial StrategySaudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz launched the National Strategy for Industry, which aims to promote industry and attract investment, leading to economic diversification and growth of non-oil exports and GDP. The National Strategy for Industry will increase growth in the sector, bringing the number of factories to about 36,000 by 2035. The Strategy focuses on 12 sub-sectors to diversify the industrial economy in the Kingdom while identifying more than 800 investment opportunities worth $266 billion, beginning a new chapter of sustainable growth for the sector. It seeks to achieve ambitious economic returns for the Kingdom by 2030, including increasing industrial GDP threefold and doubling the value of industrial exports to reach $148.5 billion. Making waves and skirting sharks: Mariam bin Laden on her Saudi Arabia-Egypt swimSaudi endurance swimmer Mariam bin Laden has made history again — this time as the first woman and first Arab to swim from Saudi Arabia's Tiran Island to Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Bin Laden, a dentist and advocate for Syrian refugees, joined fellow endurance swimmer and UN Patron of the Oceans Lewis Pugh in the Coral Swim event in the Red Sea. They were aiming to bring attention to the devastating effects of climate change on coral reefs ahead of Cop27.   Saudi Arabia to host WTTC Global Summit next monthThe 22nd World Travel and Tourism (WTTC) Global Summit is set to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 28 November to 1 December 2022. The event will host industry leaders and key government representatives with the goal of driving support for the travel and tourism sector's ongoing recovery, moving it to a safer, more resilient, inclusive and sustainable future, according to the WTTC. The event will include a lineup of speakers, including Arnold Donald, chair of World Travel & Tourism Council and HE Ahmed Al Khateeb, Minister of Tourism for Saudi Arabia.

According to a report from CNN Business, the nation's total public debt outstanding closed at $31.1 trillion on Monday, according to Treasury Department data published Tuesday. This particular milestone comes at a time of historically high inflation, rising interest rates and growing economic uncertainty. Incredibly, outstanding debt has climbed nearly $8 trillion since the beginning of 2020, and it's increased by $1 trillion since February of 2022. In today's episode of The Higher Standard, Chris and Saied take a deeper look into this news and the reasons behind it (looking at you, Inflation Reduction Act). They discuss the reasons why you shouldn't buy real estate in some major markets unless you see a 10% drop in value from where you were. Chris and Saied look at the issue of real estate numbers, such as home values, mortgage application volume, etc. and why the amount of interpretation involved means that the trends become more important than the specific numbers. They also discuss an article stating that a recent report from KPMG shows that over 50% of American CEOs are considering workforce reductions over the next six months, possibly as a response to the increase of remote workers during the pandemic. Join Chris and Saied for this fascinating conversation. Enjoy! What You'll Learn in this Show: Why the Inflation Reduction Act is one of the key factors that caused national debt to jump by over a trillion dollars in the last eight months. The reasons why homebuyers should hesitate to purchase in major markets, unless they see a 10% drop in value from where they were. Why the amount of interpretation involved in real estate market data aggregation means that trends become more useful than the specific numbers. How many companies are responding to the hybrid workforce that was born from the pandemic. And so much more... Resources: https://www.pgpf.org/analysis/2022/09/higher-interest-rates-will-raise-interest-costs-on-the-national-debt ("Higher Interest Rates Will Raise Interest Costs on the National Debt") (article from Peter G. Peterson Foundation) https://www.realpage.com/analytics/us-apartment-demand-plunges-3rd-quarter/ ("U.S. Apartment Demand Plunges in 3rd Quarter as New Leasing Stalls More than Expected") (article from RealPage Analytics) https://www.instagram.com/p/CjVhcwXhcn9/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D ("US home prices are now posting their biggest monthly drops since 2009") (Bloomberg BusinessWeek via Instagram) https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/04/whats-happening-with-home-prices.html ("High mortgage rates, tight supply and economic uncertainty: Here's what's happening with home prices") (article from CNBC) https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/05/weekly-mortgage-applications-plummet-14percent-as-higher-interest-rates-and-hurricane-ian-crush-demand.html ("Mortgage applications plummet 14% as higher interest rates and Hurricane Ian crush demand") (article from CNBC) https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-job-openings-post-biggest-drop-nearly-2-12-years-august-2022-10-04/ ("U.S. job openings drop sharply, labor market starting to loosen") (article from Reuters) https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/feds-bostic-wants-to-pause-after-december-rate-hike-11665003566 ("Fed's Bostic wants to pause after December rate hike") (article from MarketWatch) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/more-than-half-of-ceos-consider-workforce-reductions-over-the-next-6-months-and-remote-workers-may-be-the-first-go-to-11664907913 ("Over 50% of CEOs say they're considering cutting jobs over the next 6 months — and remote workers may be the first go to") (article from MarketWatch)

In this episode, find out about why Google has taken CCI to court, also find out why Accenture reported better than expected Q1 nos Business Term of the Day: Delisting

The philanthro-capitalists who funded the anti-slavery movement, and Christian CEOs in the 1600's Can business practices and profits change society? Alan Crippen, Executive Director of the Faith and Liberty Initiative talks with us about two little-known Christian business owner stories from early American history.  We unpack how the Tappen brothers, Arthur and Lewis, helped to transform American society through their business practices and their radical generosity.  Then we discuss whether John Winthrop, perhaps one of the first Christian CEO's in American history, helped cast a vision for what would later become the United States.  Plus, listen in to hear what it means to create a city on a hill through your business. Conversation highlights: --How have Christian business owners contributed to the story of American liberty? --Arthur and Lewis Tappen had a “bigger transformative effect on America than any other brothers in our history.”  --The Tappen brothers took a radical approach to business, using their business to both lower the cost of goods, and to deploy their profits to bring about social change. --Their business wasn't without its struggles—they even experienced bankruptcy.  But they cared so much about business ethics that they started a business credit and reputational agency to improve business ethics and practices across the country. --Arthur Tappen's intense time-management strategy resulted in no seating in his office. --“The Tappen brothers had big hearts in addition to keen business acumen.” --They founded Oberlin College, which mandated racial integration and the admission of women, in the early 1800's before the Civil.  --Learn how the Tappen brothers bankrolled the early anti-slavery movement and funded the legal defense of the enslaved people on the Amistad, plus brought the gospel to their community in Africa. --What price did the Tappen brothers pay for living out their faith and standing up for biblical principles in their business and with their wealth? --Was John Winthrop one of the first great American CEOs? --John Winthrop came to American in pursuit of religious freedom AND business profits, as leader of the Massachusetts Bay Company. --He planted a business, a church and a state in the new world. --Despite being a businessman and governor, some have said Winthrop preached the “most influential sermon of the millennium” in 1630 (despite being a lay person). --His famous sermon was “casting a social vision of the possible.”  It contained within it “the DNA of what would become the United States of America.” --Multiple American Presidents have cited and built up Winthrop's sermon and his vision of what was possible in a just and harmonious society established upon God's laws: a shining city on the hill. --How we succeed (or fail) in business is of greater importance than whether we succeed (or fail).  Are you creating a city on a hill through your business?   Connect & Learn more: Connect with Alan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alancrippen/ Learn more about the Faith and Liberty Discovery Center: https://www.faithandliberty.org/ Check out Alan's podcast Faith and Liberty Rediscovered. Read John Winthrop's famous sermon. Connect with Aaron: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-groen/

Retailers are reporting a boom in consumer demand in their quarterly results; Walmart and Home Depot impressed Wall Street with their most recent financials, and they’re betting that the shopper appetite is healthy and here to stay. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) considers the country’s post-Covid employment realities as job opportunities grow faster than hiring. Plus, CNBC’s Eamon Javers reports on the group pushing back on American CEOs getting involved in politics; he explains “woke capitalism” and why this cohort of conservatives is campaigning against it.

American CEOs are doubling down in their fight against legislation they say will restrict voting rights. The Washington Post reports that more than 100 executives recently got together on a conference call to talk about leveraging their influence. And NPR explores the surprising history of political boycotts. Editors of medical journals get to decide what research gets a wide audience, making them some of the most important gatekeepers in medicine. Stat spoke with cardiologist Dr. Raymond Givens, whose investigation has revealed a striking lack of racial and ethnic diversity among editors of these influential publications. Carbon credits have been touted as a way to use market forces to reduce emissions, but an investigation by Bloomberg casts doubt on their effectiveness. French tacos are not tacos as anyone familiar with authentic Mexican cuisine would know them, but the overstuffed panini-burrito hybrids have become a beloved fast food in France. The New Yorker takes an in-depth look at this puzzling creation.

Join us to gain insight on the biggest issues that will keep business leaders up at night in the new year. We will discuss the findings of the 2021 C-Suite Challenge™ survey, which asks executives around the globe to identify the key strategies they intend to use to meet their critical business challenges and grow their companies. Globally CEOs expressed concerns about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and recession but are hopeful about the widespread availability of a vaccine as a game changer in 2021. US CEOs ranked concerns about higher corporate taxes and increased regulation higher than their global peers but ranked global political instability and disruptions to global trade lower than did CEOs worldwide. Unlike leaders outside the US, American CEOs are placing a high priority on employees returning to the physical workplace. The C-Suite Challenge surveyed more than 900 CEOs and 600 C-suite executives in late 2020.

My guest this week has a global reputation for his leading edge thinking about how companies can out-perform in today's highly dynamic and complex business system. He has been a Visiting Distinguished Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan where he formed a powerful partnership with the late, great, CK Prahalad. He is widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading authorities on "competitive disruption" and "game changing strategy". Please welcome my guest this week, Gordon Hewitt. Bio Dr Gordon Hewitt is one of the world’s top business school professors, with a truly global reputation for his leading edge thinking about how companies can out-perform in today’s highly dynamic and complex business system. He has been a Visiting Distinguished Professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan where he formed a powerful partnership with the late CK Prahalad. Gordon is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on “competitive disruption” and “game changing strategy”. In his native city of Glasgow, he was appointed Honorary Professor of Strategy at the Adam Smith Business School in the University of Glasgow. As a consultant, he has extensive experience for over 25 years of working at CEO and Board level with many major corporations. He has been involved in business strategy advice and top leadership development programmes for corporations such as Pfizer, Time Warner, PwC, Zurich Financial, IBM, Sony, Honeywell, Shell, Verizon, Adobe, Diageo, Bosch, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Post/DHL, and Humana. Gordon is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on competitive disruption, and the challenge facing business leaders of competing and creating value in dynamic, complex markets. Recently he chaired meetings of European and American CEOs and Board Directors to discuss the future of corporate strategy and corporate governance. In the last year he has been a keynote speaker on these topics at major business conferences in the USA, Europe, Singapore, Indonesia, and Brazil. Born and educated in Glasgow, Gordon now works extensively throughout the USA, Asia and Europe. His principal home in still in Scotland, and he has been a member of the International Advisory Board of Scottish Enterprise. He also served as Chairman of Court, the Governing Board, at the University of Abertay Dundee from 2003 to 2010, and was a Global Business Adviser to Scotland’s First Minister. Gordon was given the 2007 International Distinguished Faculty Award for Best Global Educator by the Institute of Management Studies whose members comprise leading academics and consultants worldwide. His many academic awards include the title of Honorary Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow, where he started his career. Gordon also holds the title of Distinguished Professor of Corporate Strategy at Duke Corporate Education. Gordon Hewitt was awarded the title of CBE (Commander of the British Empire) for services to international business in the Queen’s 2007 New Year’s Honours List. He has also been elected to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s national academy of science and letters. Gordon is a former Scottish international amateur golfer and supports charities for the theatre and journalism professions. Recorded on: 15th December 2020 Links: More about Gordon Hewitt More about Maria Franzoni Ltd Connect with Maria on LinkedIn Connect with Maria on FaceBook More about London Speaker Bureau Connect with London Speaker Bureau on LinkedIn To book any of the speakers featured on the Speaking Business podcast, click here To book any of the speakers featured on the Speaking Business podcast, click here Listen here: Libsyn  Itunes  Stitcher Spotify

One of Silicon Valley's first female African American CEOs - How to Embrace Ambition and Achieve Your Goals --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/winatlife/message

The National Institutes of Health has halted one of Eli Lilly’s coronavirus antibody trials, having found that the combination of Lilly’s antibody drug and Gilead’s remdesivir does not result in a marked improvement in hospitalized Covid-19 patients. Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks discusses what’s next for the antibody that’s proven successful in treating milder Covid cases, and he addresses the company’s third quarter financials. CNBC’s All America Survey reveals that while Joe Biden is leading President Trump in the election polls, both candidates must now rely on niche populations for victory. Senior Economics Reporter Steve Liesman unpacks the survey findings and shares which voting groups are crucial to which contender. Boston Consulting Group CEO Rich Lesser shares what c-suites are doing to encourage employee voting, and discusses how American CEOs may think about democracy going forward. Plus, the tech industry has thrown $200 million behind a campaign for California voters to support Proposition 22, the legislation that could preserve independent contractor status for gig economy workers.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Four months after the 200 American CEOs in the Business Roundtable committed to combating racial injustice in this country, the group has released a set of policy recommendations to hold themselves accountable to their goals, and to encourage other business leaders to do the same. Walmart CEO and BRT Chairman Doug McMillon discusses strategies for keeping the spotlight on racial inequality amid the current news cycle. McMillon underscores the real economy’s need for stimulus, his expectations for Black Friday and Cyber Monday amid the pandemic, and his hopes for a deal with TikTok’s parent company ByteDance. Plus, Covid cases are rising in Europe, and Wells Fargo has had another bout of internal fraud--and subsequent firing.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent Fortune Magazine survey shows that nearly two-thirds of American CEOs have committed to taking meaningful action to advance racial equity within their organizations . Just this week, JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, committed $30 billion dollars in support. But, it's not just money that organizations must spend in order to attain greater diversity and […] The post Minda Harts: A Conversation With The Author Of “The Memo” appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

A recent Fortune Magazine survey shows that nearly two-thirds of American CEOs have committed to taking meaningful action to advance racial equity within their organizations . Just this week, JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, committed $30 billion dollars in support. But, it’s not just money that organizations must spend in order to attain greater diversity and […] The post Minda Harts: A Conversation With The Author Of “The Memo” appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

It's a perverse question, but what's an acceptable number of unarmed people that the police may accidentally shoot every year? Of course, many people's knee-jerk answer will be, "Zero!" If you answered that way, it's time to take a deep breath and relax. We're going to embark on a cold-hearted exercise that requires rationality, logic, and a heavy dose of realism. The implications are profound and important, so please bear with me. After reading this long article, you're welcome to write a constructive comment at the bottom. Include what you think is a reasonable number of annual unarmed deaths and why. I will update this article as I get thoughtful and intelligent feedback.  The Black Lives Matter Thesis A central argument in the Black Lives Matter movement is that (white) cops are disproportionately killing Black men, especially unarmed Black men. It's Exhibit A in a long list of exhibits that prove systemic, structural, and institutional racism in America's police. This argument has been repeated so many times that it has become an axiom. Thus, questioning the Black Lives Matter thesis is tantamount to questioning whether our planet revolves around the sun. We won't question it. Instead, we will seek to do is to quantify it.  Metrics: Quantifying success and failure Metrics allow us to objectively measure the size of a problem. Metrics help us measure our progress.   Metrics also help us answer crucial questions: when can we declare victory? When will we know that we've solved this crisis? In other words, when can we put down our signs, stop protesting, hug, give each other high-fives, and scream, "Mission accomplished!"? Declaring victory ought to be based on facts and evidence, not a group's feelings or one man's opinion. Therefore, we must set reasonable benchmarks.  We must quantify where we want to be. What does a fair and just world look like, numbers-wise? Assuming the current number of police killings of Blacks is disproportionately high, then what number would be disproportionately low? And what number would be tragic, but understandable? To understand what I mean, consider other tragic numbers. Every year, hundreds of babies die at daycare centers, thousands die in traffic accidents, and millions die of preventable diseases.  Since society is not vigorously protesting all these deaths, one could conclude that these deaths, while sad, are understandable. Our society deems that all those preventable deaths are tragic but tolerable. Therefore, the aim of this article is to help you calculate 3 numbers regarding the number of US police killings of unarmed victims: A shockingly high number that's worth protesting about. An expected number that we can begrudgingly live with and accept. A remarkably low number that's almost worth celebrating. Great. Now let's analyze the data. USA police kill way more people per capita than any other rich nation In a list of 62 random countries, the USA ranked slightly below the median in the per-capita police caused fatalities. This is embarrassing. High-income countries outperform the USA handily. It's humiliating that the DRC beats the USA. Why isn't the USA in the top 10? Why isn't it clumped next to its rich allies instead of several poor and dysfunctional nations?  Doesn't this prove the US police are excessively violent? Before we jump to that conclusion, we must consider two critical facts. 1. America's gun-filled environment The USA is the only country that has more firearms than people. Indeed, it has 20% more guns than people. We have twice as many guns per capita than the next country on the list: Yemen. The USA has four times more guns per capita than the next two major countries on the list: Serbia & Montenegro. We have approximately 10 times more firearms per capita than Somalia, Russia, Chile, Albania, as well as the homicide-happy Guatemala and El Salvador. We have approximately 100 times more firearms per capita than the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guinea Bissau, Mali, Palestine, Tunisia, and Chad. And we have nearly 1,000 times more firearms per capita than South Korea. Knowing that, imagine you're a police officer, patrolling a country that is literally overflowing with firearms. Ask yourself: Would you be more nervous and quicker to reach for your gun than a cop in the Netherlands?  Do you think it's statistically probable that police killings in the USA would be comparable to South Korea? Would you expect and predict that if Country A has 100 times more firearms per capita than Country B that they would both have the same level of police shootings? Should we be shocked that the US police kill far more people per capita than Sweden?  2. The USA is unusually murderous for a high-income country Not only does the USA have far more guns per capita than anyone else, but it's also a remarkably murderous country when compared to other high-income countries. When you examine the intentional per capita homicide rate of 230 countries/territories, the USA is just below the global median, which lines up with where it falls in the police shootings rate.  Meanwhile, the homicide rate of other high-income countries is also much lower than in the USA.  In other words, the USA's ranking on the global homicide scale is roughly the same as our ranking of police shootings: slightly below the median. Meanwhile, high-income countries have far better rankings on both metrics. You plot the two stats together, you get this: Should we be surprised that our law enforcement officers end up killing criminals and suspects in their effort to stop the carnage? Given all the firearms, should we be surprised that American cops are more likely to encounter an armed and dangerous suspect than a Japanese cop? Watch this short video. I've watched it 10 times and I still can't believe how this female police officer didn't get killed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0SsIZbkQGQ After watching that video, you can get a sense that an American cop must make life-or-death decisions in milliseconds. Do you think you could have done what this female cop did? I sure couldn't.  Imagine you're in a tense situation, perhaps responding to a 911 call. You have a suspect a few meters away. It's night and hard to see. The suspect reaches behind his back. What do you do? Wait for him to shoot you? In theory, yes. Officers are trained to not fire on someone unless there's evidence that the cop's life is threatened.  However, in the heat of the moment, humans may forget their training. Their instinctual desire for self-preservation may override their training.  Have you ever been in an extremely fast-paced and stressful situation where you, in retrospect, made a lousy decision?  If not, do you know anyone who has made a poor decision when under stress? Or at least can you imagine that some people would, in a split second, make the wrong call?  Some panicked people involuntarily freeze or feint, which is often a terrible idea in a bad situation. We can't always control ourselves. When my friend was assaulted by 4 men in South Africa, his fight-or-flight brain told him to fight. In retrospect, he says, it was an extremely stupid thing to do. He miraculously scared them away. A pair of Cameroonian thugs nearly strangled me to death because I wasn't giving them my wallet and phone. My instinctual reaction was to fight. While I was being strangled for 30 seconds, it was impossible for me to say, "I can't breathe." I thought I might die, but my instincts told me to resist. I was foolish, even though I "won" that battle and kept my phone (my wallet only had $10 so I let it go). Which profession kills more people accidentally: cops or physicians? Although it's been declining over the decades, for the last five years, US cops kill about 1,000 people per year. According to a recent study by Johns Hopkins, more than 250,000 people in the United States die every year because of medical mistakes, making it the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer. Given that Blacks are 13% of the population, that means physicians kill 32,500 Blacks every year. Since Blacks are generally poorer than the average American, they disproportionately get physicians who are cheaper, less competent, and more error-prone than average. For the same reason, Blacks probably also get inferior medical equipment and technology. Therefore, perhaps 26% of the 250,000 physician-caused deaths are Blacks. That would mean that 65,000 Blacks die at the sloppy and careless hands of a physician. Those Blacks entrusted their doctors to protect and save their lives in a similar way that we all trust our police to protect and save our lives.   Society doesn't revolt when we hear that physicians kill 65,000 Blacks every year. Indeed, few even know that statistic! Nobody says that there's "systemic racism" among physicians. Nobody is burning down clinics.  When a physician enters an operating room, it's unlikely that he is planning to kill his patient. It is also doubtful that when a cop pulls someone over that he plans to kill him. It's a bad analogy because patients enter into operating rooms naked, sedated, and unarmed. Police often deal with hostile, belligerent, and armed suspects. Metrics matter. We ought to celebrate if physicians "only" accidentally kill 50,000 people in a year because that would be an amazingly good year on a relative scale since they consistently kill 250,000 without society flooding the streets. "But physicians aren't trying to kill Blacks!" you scream. "Those are mistakes! Malpractice! Accidents! When the police kill, it's MURDER!" Calm down. Let's analyze this morbid topic. The psychopaths among us Neil deGrasse Tyson told Coleman Hughes that it's possible to screen police applicants so well that we'll get rid of all the bad apples. Hughes disagreed. Here's why Hughes is unfortunately right.  According to psychologists, one percent of the population is a psychopath. A psychopath isn't what you probably think he is. Although 25% of male inmates are psychopaths, psychopaths are rarely violent. You probably know a few psychopaths. There's a 1% chance that you are one. There are 1 million physicians in the USA. That suggests about 10,000 physicians are psychopaths. A few are diabolical. Here are just a few of the many doctors who were caught and convicted: Dr. Death was accused of killing or maiming 33 patients and was condemned to life imprisonment. The Angel of Death killed about 250 patients, mostly elderly women.  Jayant Patel was an American surgeon who was convicted of three counts of manslaughter and one case of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment (later overturned). Michael Swango was a physician who admitted killing 4 of his patients, but some believe he killed as many as 60 patients. He's serving 4 consecutive life sentences. Dr. John Bodkin Adams had more than 160 of his patients die of suspicious causes—132 of whom had put Dr. Adams in their wills before passing away. Like a police officer whose wrist gets slapped and continues working, Dr. Adams had his license stripped and then later reinstated. Although she's not a physician, a nursing assistant murdered 7 military veterans. (That news broke as I was writing this article in July 2020).  Imagine if one cop had systematically killed as many people as one of these murderous doctors. Boy, would we hear about it! Did we condemn all doctors when we learned about the callous way those evil doctors murdered people whom they were supposed to protect and serve? Of course not.  Should we conclude that there's systemic racism in our healthcare system that is killing Black bodies? Why aren't people torching hospitals and beating physicians?  Nobody is chanting, "Abolish hospitals! Defund medicare!" We know it's wrong to condemn an entire profession because a few "professionals" were immoral or exercised horrible judgment. Why? Because we've done a simple mental calculus: we know that in a large sample size, there is a statistical certainty that there will be some who will be crazy, cruel, incompetent, or immoral.  Police universally condemned Derek Chauvin's killing of George Floyd just as physicians universally condemned Dr. Death. In our polarized country that struggles to agree on anything, we ought to be grateful that we had a universal agreement that Floyd's death was tragic and wrong.  If you're skeptical about psychopathic physicians, answer this question: Can you imagine that among 1 million US physicians that 1 in 1,000 is an extreme racist?  If so, that's 1,000 racist physicians who have opportunities to "accidentally" kill Blacks. Given that physicians accidentally kill 250,000 people each year, isn't it plausible that 1 in 10,000 of those deaths was not an accident? That's 250 murders a year. Almost one every day. Sticking with our 26% number above, that means diabolical, racist physicians murder 65 Blacks per year or about one per week. We can debate about the number of psychopaths or the number of white supremacists among our 1 million physicians, but we know it's not zero. There will always be bad apples among a large sample size. With 250,000 annual deaths, there's a high chance that some of those were murders that were covered up with malpractice insurance claims. Now, back to cops. . .  Police psychopaths There are 800,000 police officers in the USA. Since 1% of our population is a psychopath, we can assume that there are 8,000 police officers who are psychopaths. In fact, it's probably higher than that. According to Dutton, the police is #7 on the list of careers with the highest number of psychopaths. Thus, we could have 20,000 psychopathic police officers on our streets.  However, let's be conservative and assume it's "only" 8,000.  Although few psychopaths are violent, handing them a gun is probably unwise. CEOs are far more likely than police officers to be psychopaths, but they don't go to work with a pistol on their hip. American CEOs are the highest paid people around. They are heavily scrutinized by their Board of Directors, investors, and employees. Before they are hired, the Board of Directors will dig up as much dirt as they can about the CEO candidate. They will probe everything because they're about to pay him millions of dollars and entrust him with an enormous corporation.  Despite all that intense pre-hiring scrutiny and a battery of tests, 21% of CEOs are psychopaths.  Imagine how the hiring process of a cop differs from that of a Fortune 500 CEO. Do you really think the government is going to delve that deeply into a potential cop's psyche? Do you think the police leadership will be better at catching psychopaths than the army highly paid and trained people who are analyzing the next possible leader of Ford? Just to be stupidly optimistic, let's assume that we institute an insanely good screening process that is superior to the expensive and time-consuming CEO screening process. As a result, we manage to weed out 90% of the psychos from the police force. That still leaves us with 800 armed psychopaths patrolling the streets.  Another problem: people change Being a cop can be stressful and cause PTSD. You're surrounded by more negativity than the average person. You're constantly dealing with the worst of society. It can warp your worldview. It can change you. It can make you callous. Think of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Therefore, even if we only accept mentally stable people, some will degenerate while serving. Sure, we can do annual screenings in an attempt to catch such an ethical drift, but it's hard to fire a police veteran. After 10 years of service, how easy would it be to fire a police officer because he failed a psychological exam? Moreover, won't that veteran, who passed multiple annual screenings, know how to answer the psychological questions "correctly" and fool the government psychologists? Here's an even bigger problem: even if you screen people perfectly, it's almost impossible to predict how people will behave in life-and-death situations when you have microseconds to react. Training helps, but even well-trained soldiers can freak out when live bullets fly. An intense situation can temporarily hijack our ethics or clear thinking.   A cop could go for many years (or his whole career) without ever drawing his gun. Suddenly, after eight years on the job, he must respond to an emergency situation in milliseconds for the first time in his life. Will the training he did years ago kick in automatically? Or will he panic, shoot first and ask questions later?  Are cops infallible? We all make mistakes: Coal miners accidentally kill their fellow miners due to negligence.  Bus drivers accidentally skid schoolchildren off a cliff. Planes crash due to human error. We accept that every year, such tragic things will happen. When I say that we "accept" such tragedies, I mean that we don't riot, assault innocent bystanders, and protest for weeks when such things happen. We don't abandon Uber, become atheists (when priests sin), pummel bus drivers, or burn down hospitals. Instead, we punish the individual who made an inexcusable mistake. We accept that despite our best efforts to weed out the bad apples: Uber will accidentally hire a rapist or a murderer. A few doctors are murderous psychopaths. Teachers and priests will be pedophiles That's because we know that we are all humans and therefore imperfect. We know that it's impossible for everybody in a large profession to be error-free saints. What if none of the 800,000 cops were psychopaths or white supremacists?  Even if none of the 800,000 police officers are mentally unstable or racist, you still have 800,000 cops who make mistakes. Obviously, most mistakes are not deadly. For instance, this cop put a guy in jail because he thought he had found meth in his car (the "meth" was actually part of a glazed donut). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8XqYkrlntA This cop accidentally tased another policeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tz8Q3ajmI0 There are many incidents where a cop accidentally shoots another cop with a pistol. That's what happened here when three Black cops stormed into the wrong home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3pjNCXlVbE  Should we be surprised that cops are also capable of making a far more serious error: killing an unarmed person? Whether you believe in slips and capture or not, it's obvious that in the heat of the moment, mentally stable humans can make grave errors.  Friendly fire: with friends like these . . .  Humans with firearms accidentally kill people all the time. According to the CDC, in the USA, there are about 500 accidental firearm fatalities per year.  According to the International Hunter Education Association, in an average year, fewer than 1,000 people in the United States and Canada are accidentally shot by hunters, and of these, fewer than 75 are fatalities. Since the USA has about 10 times more hunters than Canada (and the Canadians have better aim), it's safe to assume that every year, about 65 American hunters accidentally kill a fellow hunting buddy.  Unlike police shooting accidents, hunting accidents are situations where there are no adversaries. You're out there with your buddies. Wildlife isn't armed with AR-15s. In the military, up to 23% of all battle deaths are friendly fire incidents! For example, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the US Department of Defense reported that the US forces suffered 148 battle-related deaths (35 to friendly fire). Nearly a quarter of all deaths were from US forces accidentally killing a fellow soldier!  Shooting a fellow soldier is like shooting your own brother. It's one of the worst tragedies of war. But friendly fire tragedies happen all the time. Why? Because we are human beings. We are imperfect. If enough people play with deadly toys, people will get hurt - it is a mathematical certainty. Moreover, in the heat of battle or any fast-paced emotional situation, humans are even more likely to make grave mistakes.  Here's a police officer who accidentally shot an undercover police officer whom he been working with for two years 9 TIMES! That's right. In the heat of the moment, the boss didn't realize that he was shooting nine bullets into his fellow employee. They knew each other well. Not only had they worked together for two years, but they had also gone on 20 drug stings together. They probably ate many donuts together.  They were at point-blank range in broad daylight so they could easily see each other. But the boss still pumped his fellow employee full of lead! In this disturbing video, you will see the cop shoot Jacob (the undercover cop) 9 times, and then the cop says, "Oh shit! That was Jacob! Are you OK? I'm sorry man! I didn't know it was you! Come here, Jacob! Jacob's been shot! I thought you were the bad guy!" He says all this as he is sobbing.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fQcjmt2Q_o Are you beginning to understand just how error-prone and dangerous policing in the United States can be?  If armed people accidentally shoot their best buddies, should we be surprised our police might accidentally kill unarmed criminal suspects? Fine. But what about George Floyd's killer? That cop was calmly resting on Floyd's neck! It's true that Officer Derek Chauvin (the cop who killed George Floyd) wasn't faced with a life-and-death, split-second decision. He had over eight minutes to contemplate what he was doing.  First, it's quite possible (likely) that Officer Chauvin was one of the 8,000 psychopathic cops. Psychopaths have impaired empathy and no remorse. They are callous. They are cold-hearted people. Such a description seems to fit Officer Chauvin. That would explain his actions. Case closed. On the other hand, it's also possible that he was not a psychopath. "WTF?" you say. Yes. I've been trying to imagine what Chauvin's lawyer will argue in court. He may argue that Officer Chauvin accidentally killed Floyd. The defense will argue the following. . .  With 20/20 hindsight, we can all self-righteously claim that it was obvious that he was snuffing Floyd's life out.  However, it's also obvious that Chauvin knew he was being filmed from multiple angles. It's also obvious that, given his age, Chauvin knew about the Rodney King riots, the Ferguson riots, and the outrage that comes whenever white cops kill Blacks. Did he really think that, with all the cameras rolling, it was a marvelous time to lynch a Black man? It's possible that Chauvin had done this restraining technique many times in his career. Other cops have. At the time of Floyd's death, the Minneapolis Police Department's Policy & Procedure Manual said that trained cops were allowed to use "neck restraints" and "chokeholds."   It's possible that Chauvin was just as surprised that Floyd died as these cops were when they killed Tony Timpa in almost the exact same fashion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-E_i8Q5G0 Indeed, one could argue that the cops who killed Tony Timpa were even more callous than those who oversaw Floyd's death because Timpa's cops were joking around as Timpa was dying. However, few know about Timpa's tragedy (which happened a few years ago) because he was white.  What's telling is the reaction of the cops when Timpa stopped breathing. They became concerned and wondered if they had just accidentally killed him. It's possible that Chauvin was equally surprised that he killed Floyd.  The officers who killed Timpa were acquitted. Timpa had cocaine in his system. Meanwhile, Floyd had fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cannabinoids in his system when he died. Perhaps that cocktail made Floyd have a heart attack (which is what the County Medical Examiner's controversial autopsy concluded).  Frankly, I don't know if Chauvin murdered Floyd on camera on purpose or by accident. Nor do I know if he is a psychopath or a racist. That's for the courts and jury to decide. I'm not defending Chauvin. I'm simply imagining how Chavin's defense team will explain Floyd's horrendous death.  My point is that somewhere along the line, someone made an unforgivable error. Either a police chief accidentally hired (and for 20 years kept on the payroll) a murderous psychopath or Chauvin accidentally killed a man. My other point is that, statistically speaking, such a barbaric event is guaranteed to happen. 3 billion annual police interactions The Wall Street Journal estimated that there are "375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians." It's unclear how they calculated that, but it could be an underestimation. I suspect a "contact" means a documented contact, where a cop logs an official incident.  However, I've often asked cops questions on the street and I doubt they logged my encounter down, but it was an interaction with the public. Every single day, 800,000 cops are interacting with the public. Let's assume 10 interactions per day (e.g., traffic stops, chatting, responding to non-emergencies, and emergencies). That's 8 million interactions per day.  That's 3 billion interactions per year. If there's a one-in-a-million chance of something going terribly wrong, then that means 3,000 things a year will go terribly wrong. That's 8 times per day! If we accept the WSJ's 375 million figure, then that means a one-in-a-million tragedy would happen about every single day. You can adjust the assumptions, but the point is clear: in any given year, many tragic, heartbreaking events will happen. To expect perfection is utterly unrealistic. Six Sigma Robocops In business school, I learned about how Motorola and other major companies implemented six sigma operations. That means that 99.99966% of all opportunities should be defect-free. In other words, they aimed for defect levels below 3.4 defects per million opportunities. This is an extraordinarily high standard. Companies usually implement six sigma in operations that involve computers and robots, not humans, since a human is often going to make more than 3.4 errors per million tries. However, given our intolerance for police mistakes, it seems that we expect all our cops should be Robocops. And yet even Robocop would make 3.4 errors per million tries. With 3 billion interactions, that means our Robocops would make 10,200 errors per year.  Once you begin to consider the number of firearms the US has, the unusually high murder rate, the 20,000 psychopaths in our police, and the statistical possibility that armed humans will make grave mistakes in high-pressure situations, then what's remarkable isn't that cops kill 1,000 people per year, but that they only kill 1,000 people per year. More importantly, 96.7% of the 1,000 people that the police killed were armed and dangerous. As Heather MacDonald wrote: But in light of the number of arrests that officers make each year--around 11 million–and the number of deadly weapons attacks on officers—27 a day in just two-thirds of the nation’s police departments--it is not clear that 1000 civilian deaths, the vast majority occurring in the face of a potentially deadly attack, show a law enforcement profession that is out of control. None of this is meant to suggest that the police don't unjustly harass and target Blacks. Without a doubt, it's hard to be Black in America, especially if you're Black and poor. Blacks deal with daily frustrations and injustices that are exhausting and humiliating.   I wish I could wave a wand and make all Blacks be a cop for one year and cops be Black for one year. At the end of the year, both Blacks and cops would say, "Ohhhhhhh! Now I get it!" The often unmentioned data that changes everything A Washington Post opinion piece wrote, "A study of police-shooting databases published by the National Academy of Sciences found that African American men were about 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police. . . . The Post’s own comprehensive examination of police shootings showed that Black Americans account for just 13 percent of the population but one-fourth of shooting victims. Among unarmed victims, the disparity was even greater: More than one-third of those fatally shot were Black." Does reading such statistics make your blood boil? We've all read similar data that shows how Blacks are disproportionally imprisoned and killed by police.  Now, let's see how your blood boils when you read these statistics: Men get 71% of the traffic citations  93% of prison inmates are men. 96% of those that the police kill are men. 99.6% of those state prisoners convicted of rape are men. You are not outraged, right? Why not?  Because intuitively you know the other side of the equation. Compared to women, testosterone-driven men are far more likely to drive recklessly, murder, rape, and commit violent crimes. You don't know the exact numbers, but you don't jump to the conclusion that there's systemic sexism in the police and justice system because the numbers are skewed against men. The same logic ought to apply when we evaluate police shootings. We must consider the Black crime rate before we jump to the conclusion that lynching squads are targeting Blacks.  Blacks, who are less than 13% of the US population: Commit about half of the homicides, violent crimes, and burglaries. Are seven times more likely than whites to commit homicide. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Reports, black youths, who make up 16% of the youth population, accounted for 52% of juvenile violent crime arrests, including 58.5% of youth arrests for homicide and 67% for robbery. When faced with such facts, activists may answer: "Those stats are misleading because racist police and bigoted judges conspire to falsely accuse and convict Blacks!" That certainly happens. But does it explain everything? As we saw with men vs. women, whenever you categorize people, we're never perfectly proportional. 91% of nurses are female. Is that evidence of discrimination or sexism? 75% of NBA players are Black. Is that evidence of racism against whites? Asians are 5.6% of the USA population, but only 1.5% of prisoners are Asian. Is that evidence of sinister Asian Supremacy?  If our goal is that our prisons match US demographics perfectly, we will always fail miserably. To succeed, we'll need to round up more senior citizens, women, Jews, Asians, doctors, lawyers, nuns, professors, and so on until we get a prison system that matches America's demographics. The same applies to police shootings. Some groups will always outperform or underperform other groups. To expect perfect equality of outcome and performance is unrealistic and naive. Even communists couldn't achieve that goal. Racism explains a lot. But it doesn't explain everything. Now that we're considered many facts, let's get back to the question that started this long article . . .  How many unarmed deaths should the police be allowed to commit before our society says, "That's an unreasonably high number"? A similar question: how many unarmed victims is a "good" number that shows that cops are exceeding reasonable expectations? And what's an "acceptable" number? Whether we're aware of it or not, our society calculates what's a reasonable number of tragedies we're willing to put up with in every profession. If that profession dramatically exceeds that number, then we need reforms or perhaps a revolution. That's what happened in the airline industry. When I was a kid, society deemed that thousands of airline deaths were unacceptable and that we could do better. Over the decades, we got deaths down to a couple of hundred a year. We will probably never get it to zero, but we can celebrate our progress.    Have you come up with your three numbers (i.e., remarkably low, acceptable, and protest-worthy)? Write them down. CONSIDER: Every day, about 40 people shoot at police officers. That's 14,600 armed encounters per year. Knowing that, is 1,000 police-caused fatalities a shockingly high number? Of the 1,000 police killings, only 3.3% of them were unarmed.  In other words, nearly twice as many US hunters accidentally shoot their hunting buddies as the US police accidentally shoot unarmed suspects. Remember that wildlife hunters are not confronting hostile and belligerent foes.  How many Blacks do the police kill? Among those 1,000 police killings, let's see how the WSJ summarizes The Washington Post data: In 2019, police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015.  That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population. In other words, you might expect that the group that commits half of the homicides would represent half of the police killings, but they only represent a quarter. How many unarmed Blacks do the police kill? First, let's define "unarmed." The Washington Post, which tracks nationwide police killings better than the federal government, defines “unarmed” loosely. The Washington Post considers the following suspects "unarmed": A suspect in Newark, N.J., who had a loaded handgun in his car during a police chase. Suspects who have grabbed an officer’s gun. A suspect who fled from a car stop with a loaded semi-automatic pistol in their vehicle. Originally, the Washington Post reported that in 2019, the US police killed nine unarmed Blacks. Realizing that some would find that number relatively underwhelming, the Post scrambled to boost the numbers retroactively: After the tally of nine unarmed black victims was reported in certain news outlets last week, the [Washington] Post reclassified over a dozen of its armed victims of police shootings as unarmed. This reclassification occurred six months after the Post had already closed its 2019 data base. The reclassification was not done on the basis of any new information; it was undoubtedly done to get the black victim numbers up. The Post is now showing 15 unarmed black victims in 2019. To put those 15 tragic unarmed Black fatalities in 2019 in perspective, they represent: 3% of the 500 accidental firearm fatalities per year.  0.2% of all Black homicide victims. A 60% reduction of the unarmed Black victims in 2015 (when the police killed 38 unarmed Blacks) Here's another noteworthy statistic: "A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than Black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed Black suspects." Admittedly, this is one (albeit big) police department in the USA. We need more data. But let's not ignore the little data we have. The Black Harvard economist, Roland Fryer, carefully researched 1,000 police killings and admits that he was surprised to discover there was zero evidence of racial bias in police shootings.  Neil deGrasse Tyson told Coleman Hughes that a recent study showed that the chance of "an unarmed person killed by the police (or dying in police custody) is about the same regardless of your ethnic group." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKklcL1WNec Let's review the key points The USA is by far the most heavily armed nation. We're extremely murderous for a high-income country. There are 800,000 cops, of which 20,000 are psychopaths. Even if we reduce the psychopaths by 90%, we still have 2,000 psychopathic cops. There are between 375 million to 3 billion police interactions every year. The police face 14,600 armed encounters per year. Of the 1,000 people that the police kill, 96.7% are armed and dangerous. Only 3.3% of police killings are unarmed and most of the victims are white.  45 million Blacks cause about 50% of the homicides and robberies. About 25% of the victims of police shootings are Blacks, which is disproportionately lower than their proportion of the homicide rate. Unarmed Blacks killed by the police represent 0.2% of all Black homicide victims. In 2019, 800,000 police accidentally killed 15 unarmed Blacks while 1 million physicians accidentally killed about 65,000 unarmed Blacks. Everyone makes mistakes, and those mistakes can be deadly when you're playing with firearms in high-pressure situations. Everyone is now walking with a video camera and a social media account, which amplifies every tragedy. A one-in-a-million tragedy could happen every day.  Given these numbers, one can imagine that the police could shoot an unarmed person every day.  However, in 2019, it happened "only" 44 times. With all the abolish-the-police rhetoric nowadays, it seems absurd to applaud the police for their restraint, but, given the facts above, it is unfair and inaccurate to depict cops as a bunch of bloodthirsty murderers.   We need benchmarks Based on the facts above, here's what I think are reasonable benchmarks: Too many deaths: Over 1,500 police killings overall and/or 100 unarmed deaths. An expected number of deaths: 750-1,500 police killings overall and/or 20-100 unarmed deaths. A remarkably low number of deaths: Fewer than 750 police killings overall and/or fewer than 20 unarmed deaths. We must also have a benchmark for the percentage of those police killings who are Black. For example, if 10% of airline passengers are Black, then we should expect that that 5-15% of airline fatalities would be Black. Any number that deviated much more than that should spark an investigation. With police killings, we could use the homicide rate as a proxy for violent crime. Therefore, if Blacks cause 50% of the homicides, then it should not surprise us if 40-60% of the police killings are Blacks. Currently, it's about 25%, so we're below the expected percentage, which is good news for Blacks, but bad news for whites.  I'm not saying that my proposed benchmarks are right. I'm simply encouraging everyone, especially the leaders of the Black Lives Movement, to think reasonably and logically about this issue and come up with realistic benchmarks. We effectively do with every profession. We "accept" deaths in every profession. The police should be no exception. Benchmarks would change if our firearm ownership and homicide rates would fall (or rise) dramatically. For instance, if Blacks commit only 10% of the murders, then we would expect that they would be 5-15% of those killed by the police. Or if our gun ownership and murder rates collapse to match Germany's rates, then we could expect our per capita police killings to be +/- 20% of Germany's rate. We're setting ourselves up for failure I didn't want to write this article. I know it will ignite a firestorm of controversy and anger. However, if we ignore statistics and logic, we're doomed to always fail because, given our level of gun ownership and murders, our expectations of police shootings are unreasonable. Get this through your head: Unless 80% of our firearms vanish and our homicide rate (especially our Black homicide rate) drops by 80%, then there is no hope of getting the 15 police shootings of unarmed Black men down to zero. In 2015, it was nearly three times that number, and we could easily revisit those levels in the 2020s.  If we want our per capita police killings to match other high-income countries, then we must copy key aspects of other high-income countries: dramatically reduce our firearms and lower our homicide rate so that it equals their levels.  If we're unwilling or incapable of doing that, then we must recalibrate our expectations. We must learn to live with the police killing 20-100 unarmed people and about 1,000 armed people every year. Every year, we live with hundreds of passengers dying in plane accidents, thousands dying in car accidents, and 250,000 dying at the hands of an incompetent physician.  Focusing on other techniques (de-escalation, defunding, no chokehold, no knee on the neck, etc.) are BandAids. They will hardly move the needle especially since 96.7% of police killings are armed suspects. With a herculean effort, perhaps we can cut police killings in half, but we'll still have traumatic numbers unless we adjust our expectations. Cutting the statistics in half means 500 police killings per year. That's still 22 unarmed killings per year. That's still one unarmed Black killed every other month. That means that just as one protest dies down, another protest will pop up. We'll be outraged all year. Forever. Either we change our gun ownership and homicide levels or we change our expectations. Given our passion for the Second Amendment, it's unlikely that our firearms will decrease. Calls to defund or abolish the police have only spurred more gun sales: we added 3 million guns to our country in the Spring of 2020. Given that nowadays everyone walks around with a video camera, that means that about once a month, you're going to get footage of a policeman killing an unarmed Black. If you don't see it, the media will proclaim the tragic story. During the Jim Crow days, the media would amplify any story where a Black man hurt a white person. The media ignored stories of Blacks who coexisted peacefully with whites. The Jim Crow media also ignored stories of whites lynching, hurting, or discriminating against blacks. It was just one story all the time: Blacks are a menace to whites. This demonized Blacks.  We're making the same mistake. We're amplifying police shootings of unarmed Blacks while ignoring other relevant facts. Have you ever heard of: Brandon Stanley Daniel Shaver James Scott Derek Cruice Dylan Noble I doubt it. They are some of the many unarmed whites that the police killed. Have you heard of: Trayvon Martin George Floyd Tamir Rice Michael Brown Breonna Taylor Of course, you have. That proves that the Blacks Lives Matter movement has succeeded in shining the spotlight on Black lives. Two-thirds of Americans support Black Lives Matter:   But don't you want to be on the right side of history? One of my friends has repeatedly told me, "Francis, you're on the wrong side of history."  If carefully analyzing statistics and using logic puts me on the wrong side of history, then crucify me.  If being on the right side of history involves brushing important facts under the carpet in the name of "social justice," then I'm uninterested in being on the "right side of history." If we manage to reduce police killings by 80% without corresponding firearm and homicide reductions, then I will be on the wrong side of history.  I believe that the US will ultimately come to terms with the reality I've presented. Society will have to adjust its expectations once we realize that an infallible police is an impossibility, especially in a country that overflowing with weapons and murders.  But you're tone deaf! A few people hurl the 21st-century insult of "being tone-deaf" against me. This suggests that I'm being callous, insensitive, and unempathetic to the plight of Blacks. On the contrary. Each time a white police officer kills an unarmed Black, our nation (and even the world) suffers intense trauma. Like any sensitive person, I want the trauma to stop. Moreover, I don't want the police to shoot my Black wife. However, what if, after running the numbers, it becomes obvious that it's extremely unlikely for the trauma to stop by simply defunding, abolishing, or retraining the police? Should you ignore those numbers and keep protesting? What if every time a plane crashes, the world ignites in a firestorm of protests, burns airports, and attacks the TSA employees? In that case, I would say, "Folks, expecting zero airplane fatalities when we have 5 billion airline passengers annually is unrealistic. Given all the moving parts and all the humans involved, a couple of hundred airline-related fatalities is remarkably low." Those who have lost loved ones in an airline crash would accuse me of being "tone-deaf." I would accuse them of being blind to the statistical reality.  We're suffering from groupthink Groups are usually right. I love talking about the wisdom of the crowds. On the other hand, sometimes the crowd gets it wrong. Sometimes we succumb to groupthink. In the 1950s, groupthink said that interracial marriages were wrong. Only 4% approved them. I'm sure independent thinkers were bullied by the majority for their contrarian thinking.  Of course, contrarians are often wrong. I don't believe in being a contrarian just for the sake of getting a rise out of people. On the contrary, being a contrarian is exhausting.  I'm not suggesting I'm right. I could be wrong. I am often wrong.  So if you think I am wrong, I welcome your intelligent criticism. Just be aware I'm not swayed by tragic stories or sincere feelings. I demand evidence. Logic. Statistics. Careful analysis. Call me a cold, heartless asshole. But I prefer being realistic and fair, even if the answer is counterintuitive and politically incorrect.  If you base your beliefs on emotion, stories, and anecdotes, then you will find this article incomprehensible and offensive. I wrote this article a couple of months after George Floyd died. I wrote it because I'll need to share this article throughout the 2020s because it's a statistical certainty that there will be more George Floyds, Trayvon Martins, and Ahmaud Arberys just like I know there will be more airline accidents, malpractice deaths, and daycare deaths. Sadly, I'll have to keep sharing this article until either we adjust our expectations or we adjust our gun ownership and murder rates. People are horrible with math We're emotional creatures. We more easily swayed by rousing stories than dry numbers.  We exhibit our awful understanding of statistics when we get nervous about boarding an airplane, but calm when we enter a car.  After September 11, 2001, we became hysterically concerned about terrorism. Thanks to groupthink, we spent trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of people half a world away because 3,000 Americans tragically died. Even 15 years after 9/11, terrorism was America's second greatest fear, which was completely delusional. From 2008 through 2015, the annual chance of dying in a terrorist attack on U.S. soil was 1 in 30 million. Now, groupthink is twisting reality again. In 2019, we amplified the 15 unarmed Blacks that the police killed while ignoring the 29 unarmed whites who were killed. As a result, we've managed to traumatize Blacks so badly that they're more likely to resist the police because we've convinced them that they will get lynched. Resistance escalates a benign situation and increases the risk of another heartbreaking story to hit the news. Even megastars who live in mansions with tight security are caught up in the mass hysteria:      The reality is that an unarmed Black has a 1 in 3 million chance of being killed by the police. That means a Black is twice as likely to be killed by a wild animal in any given year.   How do we reduce Black deaths? If someone ordered you to dramatically reduce the number of Black killings, would you focus most of your effort on police killings? No. That's not where the low-hanging fruit lies. Every year, about 7,500 Blacks are murdered. Therefore, even if we miraculously eliminated all unarmed police shootings, 99.8% of Black homicide victims would remain. It's depressing that Blacks die of homicide at eight times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. Black Lives Matter focuses on police killing Blacks, but if they want any hope of lowering that number, they will need to focus on the elephant in the room: Blacks killing Blacks. According to comments submitted to the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives in response to the Oversight Hearing on Policing Practices and Law Enforcement Accountability: Blacks between the ages of ten and 43 die of homicide at thirteen times the rate of whites, according to the CDC. In New York City, Blacks make up 73% of all shooting victims, though they are 23% of the city’s population. In Chicago in 2016, there were 4,300 shooting victims, almost all Black. So does this mean that systemic racism is a myth? No. Roland Fryer revealed that the police are 50% more likely to rough up Blacks and Hispanics. Here are more points from the Washington Post: A study of nearly 100 million traffic stops by police departments nationwide found that Black drivers were far more likely to be pulled over than white drivers. African Americans are far more likely to be arrested for petty crimes. A 2018 study exposed “profound racial disparity in the misdemeanor arrest rate for most — but not all — offense types.” The Black arrest rate was at least twice as high as that for Whites for disorderly conduct, drug possession, simple assault, theft, vagrancy, and vandalism. A 2020 study of marijuana possession arrests by the American Civil Liberties Union concluded that even in an era of legalization and decriminalization, there were “stark racial disparities” in possession arrests, with a Black person more than 3 1/2 times more likely to be arrested for possession than a white person, even though rates of usage are similar. The disparities exist “across the country, in every state, in counties large and small, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, and with large and small Black populations.” There is evidence that Blacks are historically prosecuted more harshly for the same crimes as whites. There is evidence that sentencing for killing Blacks is usually less harsh than it is for killing whites. There is evidence of redlining and various other types of discrimination.   Here is an exhaustive list showing evidence of police bias. At the bottom of the list, there are contrarian case studies that show no bias. The list indicating bias is much longer than the list that shows no bias.  Therefore, there is ample evidence that indicates that the police have plenty of room for improvement. shooting unarmed Blacks should not be Exhibit A in one's effort to prove systemic racism.   I have focused on police shootings because that's what Black Lives Matter (and the protesters) focus on. The data tells us to focus elsewhere. 6 Solutions We must not waste money and attention. Black Lives Matter is a remarkably powerful movement. Unfortunately, it's directing much of its power, attention, and money at the issue of unarmed Blacks killed by the police. Although it's symbolically important, there are many issues that are more impactful. If we want to dramatically improve Black lives, we ought to pursue these causes: Legalize all drugs (including heroin) and free everyone who is in prison on drug-related crimes. Nearly 50% of inmates are there for a drug-related crime. With legalization, we could, overnight, drain our prisons and reunite drug-offenders (who are disproportionately Black) with their families.  Encourage a two-parent household. Fatherless boys too often get into trouble (both academically and legally).  Stop Black-on-Black crime. This is the elephant in the room. The group that kills the most Blacks are the Blacks themselves. Gun buy-back programs may help. Flooding Black communities with (Black) cops would decrease Black-on-Black crime. Follow the advice that Black community leaders have for reducing crime in their neighborhoods.  Free education up to any degree level. There's resistance to paying reparations. There is also resistance to offering free college education to all Americans. I'm skeptical too, but why not do a 10-year pilot project with Black Americans and see how it goes? If a Black person wants to get a STEM degree, or a JD, or an MBA, or a Ph.D., then let's see what happens if taxpayers foot the bill. If the results are good, then we can roll the program out to more disadvantaged groups. Require police body cams. They're useful for a number of reasons. Reduce firearms. Obviously, this is extremely unlikely, but it's worth a shot, so to speak. It's not a panacea. Just because we drop gun ownership in half, doesn't mean that homicides will drop in half. There are many ways to kill a human. Still, if we want our homicide rate to approach the homicide rate of other high-income countries, then we must adopt some of their habits. These solutions would improve Black lives and minimize the number of police killings. Clearly, there are many other solutions we ought to consider. We must think of solutions that will change 45 million Black lives not just 15. And by improving their lives, we all benefit.  Here's what Pew Research learned when they proposed four solutions to improve Black lives: If you think it's important to change our groupthink, share this article. More info and comments Coleman Hughes's reflections of race, riots, and police shootings are worth reading. Sam Harris has an excellent podcast on this issue. On social media, my username is always ftapon. Follow me on:  http://facebook.com/ftapon http://twitter.com/ftapon http://youtube.com/user/ftapon http://pinterest.com/ftapon http://tumblr.com/ftapon My Patrons sponsored this show! Claim your monthly reward by becoming a patron at http://Patreon.com/FTapon Rewards start at just $2/month! If you prefer to do a one-time contribution, you can send it to my PayPal at FT@FrancisTapon.com If you prefer giving me Bitcoin, then please send BTC to my tip jar: 3EiSBC2bv2bYtYEXAKTkgqZohjF27DGjnV What do you think? In your comment below, write what you think is an acceptable number of unarmed people that the police may accidentally shoot every year - and please explain why you think it's a reasonable number. If you believe that number is zero, then please explain why you think that's possible given the current environment and how you propose we can make that happen.

As a leadership and culture coach, I’m often asked: what is the hardest part about being a CEO? Although as a CEO you get to shape a company in your image, hire people to work with you, and receive recognition for your accomplishments……It’s also incredibly lonely.CEOs claim the biggest leadership challenge they face in their roles is not having anyone to confide in. Given the overwhelming responsibility and pressure to appear calm for employees, to consistently deliver results and to be where the proverbial buck stops, it’s no wonder CEOs have a tendency to isolate themselves.And it’s a problem.The Loneliness DilemmaAccording to the Harvard Business Review, half of CEOs express feelings of loneliness, 61% of which believe loneliness hinders their job performance. The office environment is intense enough… But then there’s the media.CEOs are now seen as public figures, more so than they ever used to be. In 2015, Fast Company published an article comparing the best and worst leaders, with CEOs making both sides of the list. Then Business Insider joined the conversation and detailed the worst American CEOs of all time.Unfortunately, technology has blurred the lines between private and public life. Feeling a strong lack of privacy contributes to deeper feelings of isolation… And that’s not good for the brain. Loneliness can make you sick. How? It’s been proven that social isolation affects behavior and brain operation. Isolation and loneliness trigger that fight-or-flight response, which can lead to ill health and even death. Loneliness can affect your sleep patterns, stress hormones, and even the production of white blood cells. It’s crucial to learn how to overcome these feelings of loneliness at work so you can be healthier and work more efficiently.Here are my top 3 tips for overcoming the leadership challenge of loneliness as a CEO.1. Join A Support GroupSupport groups for CEOs are on the rise. Many of our clients find Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) to be terrific networking communities as well as support systems, as many of them are facing the same leadership challenge of loneliness.Joining a support group will give you the safety, belonging, mattering you crave in a community of those who are similar to you, and aren’t afraid to give you some tough love and honest feedback. Forming connections with others also strongly alleviates stress. People with strong social ties live longer and have better mental health than those who feel isolated and lonely.2. Balance Work And Home LifeAs a CEO, it can be impossible to ever feel ‘done’ with work. When work begins taking over all aspects of your life, it can be difficult to have time to form crucial social connections. There are a few ways you can cultivate a balance between your work and personal life.Leave the Office Before Dark: Leaders like Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook), Spencer Rascoff (Zillow), and Hiroshi Lockheimer (Google) all make an effort to be home for dinner. They say it gives them more time to spend with their families and allows them to create boundaries between work and home life.Stay Present: Do you ever find yourself not entirely present in the moment? Your mind can wander anywhere, from a business meeting to the family dinner table. Sometimes, creating a necessary balance can be as simple as staying in the moment.3. Vulnerability Is Actually StrengthWhat would it look like to allow yourself to be vulnerable? To Swiss Life’s Patrick Frost, the ability to be vulnerable means not being afraid to show weakness. In fact, Frost believes weakness is important in a business setting because it fosters discussion about key problems. CEOs lead by example… Letting your team know you’re open to discussing important issues will make them feel more comfortable coming to you. Start by being in touch with how you feel at any given time.Allowing others into your personal world cultivates trust and respect, and is the perfect solution to loneliness. If you’re confiding in others, and letting them really see you, you’re breaking that barrier of isolation that comes with the job title.The Net-netIt’s lonely at the top — but it doesn’t have to be. Let people in, confide in support groups, and take time to yourself to reconnect with those most important to you.Resources mentioned:Harvard Business Review research: https://hbr.org/2012/02/its-time-to-acknowledge-ceo-loScience Daily research: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090215151800.htmEmotion Wheel: https://smarttribesinstitute.com/emotion-wheel/Stress/Change/Isolation Infographic:https://smarttribesinstitute.com/stress-change-isolation/Excluded Infographic: https://smarttribesinstitute.com/what-being-excluded-does-to-your-brain/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joe Kernen and Becky Quick break down the intricacies of the U.S.-China trade war, from the basketball court to the C-Suite. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) dials in from Taiwan. Plus, CNBC contributor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and A.T. Kearney’s Greg Portell map out the challenges for American CEOs with business in China. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Late on a Thursday evening in February 2017, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s plane landed at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for his first visit with President Donald Trump. A few hours earlier, the casino magnate Sheldon Adelson’s Boeing 737, which is so large it can seat 149 people, touched down at Reagan National Airport after a flight from Las Vegas. Adelson dined that night at the White House with Trump, Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, were among Trump’s biggest benefactors, writing checks for $20 million in the campaign and pitching in an additional $5 million for the inaugural festivities. Adelson was in town to see the Japanese prime minister about a much greater sum of money. Japan, after years of acrimonious public debate, has legalized casinos. For more than a decade, Adelson and his company, Las Vegas Sands, have sought to build a multibillion-dollar casino resort there. He has called expanding to the country, one of the world’s last major untapped markets, the “holy grail.” Nearly every major casino company in the world is competing to secure one of a limited number of licenses to enter a market worth up to $25 billion per year. “This opportunity won’t come along again, potentially ever,” said Kahlil Philander, an academic who studies the industry. The morning after his White House dinner, Adelson attended a breakfast in Washington with Abe and a small group of American CEOs, including two others from the casino industry. Adelson and the other executives raised the casino issue with Abe, according to an attendee. Adelson had a potent ally in his quest: the new president of the United States. Following the business breakfast, Abe had a meeting with Trump before boarding Air Force One for a weekend at Mar-a-Lago. The two heads of state dined with Patriots owner Bob Kraft and golfed at Trump National Jupiter Golf Club with the South African golfer Ernie Els. During a meeting at Mar-a-Lago that weekend, Trump raised Adelson’s casino bid to Abe, according to two people briefed on the meeting. The Japanese side was surprised. “It was totally brought up out of the blue,” according to one of the people briefed on the exchange. “They were a little incredulous that he would be so brazen.” After Trump told Abe he should strongly consider Las Vegas Sands for a license, “Abe didn’t really respond, and said thank you for the information,” this person said. Trump also mentioned at least one other casino operator. Accounts differ on whether it was MGM or Wynn Resorts, then run by Trump donor and then-Republican National Committee finance chairman Steve Wynn. The Japanese newspaper Nikkei reported the president also mentioned MGM and Abe instructed an aide who was present to jot down the names of both companies. Questioned about the meeting, Abe said in remarks before the Japanese legislature in July that Trump had not passed on requests from casino companies but did not deny that the topic had come up. The president raising a top donor’s personal business interests directly with a foreign head of state would violate longstanding norms. “That should be nowhere near the agenda of senior officials,” said Brian Harding, a Japan expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “U.S.-Japan relations is about the security of the Asia-Pacific, China and economic issues.” Adelson has told his shareholders to expect good news. On a recent earnings call, Adelson cited unnamed insiders as saying Sands’ efforts to win a place in the Japanese market will pay off. “The estimates by people who know, say they know, whom we believe they know, say that we're in the No. 1 pole position,” he said. After decades as a major Republican donor, Adelson is known as an ideological figure, motivated by his desire to influence U.S. policy to help Israel. “I’m a one-issue person. That issue is Israel,” he said last year.  On that issue — Israel — Trump has delivered. The administration has slashed funding for aid to Palestinian refugees and scrapped the Iran nuclear deal. Attending the recent opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, Adelson seemed to almost weep with joy, according to an attendee. But his reputation as an Israel advocate has obscured a through-line in his career: He has used his political access to push his financial self-interest. Not only has Trump touted Sands’ interests in Japan, but his administration also installed an executive from the casino industry in a top position in the U.S. embassy in Tokyo. Adelson’s influence reverberates through this administration. Cabinet-level officials jump when he calls. One who displeased him was replaced. He has helped a friend’s company get a research deal with the Environmental Protection Agency. And Adelson has already received a windfall from Trump’s new tax law, which particularly favored companies like Las Vegas Sands. The company estimated the benefit of the law at $1.2 billion. Adelson’s influence is not absolute: His company’s casinos in Macau are vulnerable in Trump’s trade war with China, which controls the former Portuguese colony near Hong Kong. If the Chinese government chose to retaliate by targeting Macau, where Sands has several large properties, it could hurt Adelson’s bottom line. So far, there’s no evidence that has happened. The White House declined to comment on Adelson. The Japanese Embassy in Washington declined to comment. Sands spokesman Ron Reese declined to answer detailed questions but said in a statement: “The gaming industry has long sought the opportunity to enter the Japan market. Gaming companies have spent significant resources there on that effort and Las Vegas Sands is no exception.” Reese added: “If our company has any advantage it would be because of our significant Asian operating experience and our unique convention-based business model. Any suggestion we are favored for some other reason is not based on the reality of the process in Japan or the integrity of the officials involved in it.” With a fortune estimated at $35 billion, Adelson is the 21st-richest person in the world, according to Forbes. In August, when he celebrated his 85th birthday in Las Vegas, the party stretched over four days. Adelson covered guests’ expenses. A 92-year-old Tony Bennett and the Israeli winner of Eurovision performed for the festivities. He is slowing down physically; stricken by neuropathy, he uses a motorized scooter to get around and often stands up with the help of a bodyguard. He fell and broke three ribs while on a ferry from Macau to Hong Kong last November. Yet Adelson has spent the Trump era hustling to expand his gambling empire. With Trump occupying the White House, Adelson has found the greatest political ally he’s ever had. “I would put Adelson at the very top of the list of both access and influence in the Trump administration,” said Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’ve been studying money in politics for 40 years.” ***** Adelson grew up poor in Boston, the son of a cabdriver with a sixth-grade education. According to his wife, Adelson was beaten up as a kid for being Jewish. A serial entrepreneur who has started or acquired more than 50 different businesses, he had already made and lost his first fortune by the late 1960s, when he was in his mid-30s. It took him until the mid-1990s to become extraordinarily rich. In 1995, he sold the pioneering computer trade show Comdex to the Japanese conglomerate SoftBank for $800 million. He entered the gambling business in earnest when his Venetian casino resort opened in 1999 in Las Vegas. With its gondola rides on faux canals, it was inspired by his honeymoon to Venice with Miriam, who is 12 years younger than Adelson. It’s been said that Trump is a poor person’s idea of a rich person. Adelson could be thought of as Trump’s idea of a rich person. A family friend recalls Sheldon and Miriam’s two sons, who are now in college, getting picked up from school in stretch Hummer limousines and his home being so large it was stocked with Segway transporters to get around. A Las Vegas TV station found a few years ago that, amid a drought, Adelson’s palatial home a short drive from the Vegas Strip had used nearly 8 million gallons of water in a year, enough for 55 average homes. Adelson will rattle off his precise wealth based on the fluctuation of Las Vegas Sands’ share price, said his friend the New York investor Michael Steinhardt. “He’s very sensitive to his net worth,” Steinhardt said. Trump entered the casino business several years before Adelson. In the early 1990s, both eyed Eilat in southern Israel as a potential casino site. Neither built there. Adelson “didn’t have a whole lot of respect for Trump when Trump was operating casinos. He was dismissive of Trump,” recalled one former Las Vegas Sands official. In an interview in the late ’90s, Adelson lumped Trump with Wynn: “Both of these gentlemen have very big egos,” Adelson said. “Well, the world doesn't really care about their egos.” Today, in his rare public appearances, Adelson has a grandfatherly affect. He likes to refer to himself as “Self” (“I said to myself, ‘Self …’”). He makes Borscht Belt jokes about his short stature: “A friend of mine says, ‘You’re the tallest guy in the world.’ I said, ‘How do you figure that?’ He says, ‘When you stand on your wallet.’” By the early 2000s, Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands had surpassed Trump’s casino operations. While Trump was getting bogged down in Atlantic City, Adelson’s properties thrived. When Macau opened up a local gambling monopoly, Adelson bested a crowded field that included Trump to win a license. Today, Macau accounts for more than half of Las Vegas Sands’ roughly $13 billion in annual revenue. Trump’s casinos went bankrupt, and now he is out of the industry entirely. By the mid-2000s, Trump was playing the role of business tycoon on his reality show, “The Apprentice.” Meanwhile, Adelson aggressively expanded his empire in Macau and later in Singapore. His company’s Moshe Safdie-designed Marina Bay Sands property there, with its rooftop infinity pool, featured prominently in the recent hit movie “Crazy Rich Asians.” While their business trajectories diverged, Adelson and Trump have long shared a willingness to sue critics, enemies and business associates. Multiple people said they were too afraid of lawsuits to speak on the record for this story. In 1989, after the Nevada Gaming Control Board conducted a background investigation of Adelson, it found he had already been personally involved in around 100 civil lawsuits, according to the book “License to Steal,” a history of the agency. That included matters as small as a $600 contractual dispute with a Boston hospital. The lawsuits have continued even as Adelson became so rich the amounts of money at stake hardly mattered. In one case, Adelson was unhappy with the quality of construction on one of his beachfront Malibu, California, properties and pursued a legal dispute with the contractor for more than seven years, going through a lengthy series of appeals and cases in different courts. Adelson sued a Wall Street Journal reporter for libel over a single phrase — a description of him as “foul-mouthed” — and fought the case for four years before it was settled, with the story unchanged. In a particularly bitter case in Massachusetts Superior Court in the 1990s, his sons from his first marriage accused him of cheating them out of money. Adelson prevailed. Adelson rarely speaks to the media any more, with occasional exceptions for friendly business journalists or on stage at conferences, usually interviewed by people to whom he has given a great deal of money. “He keeps a very tight inner circle,” said a casino industry executive who has known Adelson for decades. Adelson declined to comment for this story. ******* Adelson once told a reporter of entering the casino business late in life, “I loved being an outsider.” For nearly a decade he played that role in presidential politics, bankrolling the opposition to the Obama administration. As with some of his early entrepreneurial forays, he dumped money for little return, his political picks going bust. In 2008, he backed Rudy Giuliani. As America’s Mayor faded, he came on board late with the John McCain campaign. In 2012, he almost single-handedly funded Newt Gingrich’s candidacy. Gingrich spent a few weeks atop the polls before his candidacy collapsed. Adelson became a late adopter of Mitt Romney. In 2016, the Adelsons didn’t officially endorse a candidate for months. Trump used Adelson as a foil, an example of the well-heeled donors who wielded outsized influence in Washington. “Sheldon or whoever — you could say Koch. I could name them all. They’re all friends of mine, every one of them. I know all of them. They have pretty much total control over the candidate,” Trump said on Fox News in October 2015. “Nobody controls me but the American public.” In a pointed tweet that month, Trump said: “Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to [Marco] Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!” Despite Trump’s barbs, Adelson had grown curious about the candidate and called his friend Steinhardt, who founded the Birthright program that sends young Jews on free trips to Israel. Adelson is now the program’s largest funder. “I called Kushner and I said Sheldon would like to meet your father-in-law,” Steinhardt recalled. “Kushner was excited.” Trump got on a plane to Las Vegas. “Sheldon has strong views when it comes to the Jewish people; Trump recognized that, and a marriage was formed.” Trump and his son-in-law Kushner courted Adelson privately, meeting several times in New York and Las Vegas. “Having Orthodox Jews like Jared and Ivanka next to him and so many common people in interest gave a level of comfort to Sheldon,” said Ronn Torossian, a New York public relations executive who knows both men. “Someone who lets their kid marry an Orthodox Jew and then become Orthodox is probably going to stand pretty damn close to Israel.” Miriam Adelson, a physician born and raised in what became Israel, is said to be an equal partner in Sheldon Adelson’s political decisions. He has said the interests of the Jewish state are at the center of his worldview, and his views align with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-of-center approach to Iran and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. Adelson suggested in 2014 that Israel doesn’t need to be a democracy. “I think God didn’t say anything about democracy,” Adelson said. “He didn’t talk about Israel remaining as a democratic state.” On a trip to the country several years ago, on the eve of his young son’s bar mitzvah, Adelson said, “Hopefully he’ll come back; his hobby is shooting. He’ll come back and be a sniper for the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces. On domestic issues, Adelson is more Chamber of Commerce Republican than movement conservative or Trumpian populist. He is pro-choice and has called for work permits and a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, a position sharply at odds with Trump’s. While the Koch brothers, his fellow Republican megadonors, have evinced concern over trade policy and distaste for Trump, Adelson has proved flexible, putting aside any qualms about Trump’s business acumen or ideological misgivings. In May 2016, he declared in a Washington Post op-ed that he was endorsing Trump. He wrote that Trump represented “a CEO success story that exemplifies the American spirit of determination, commitment to cause and business stewardship.” The Adelsons came through with $20 million in donations to the pro-Trump super PAC, part of at least $83 million in donations to Republicans. By the time of the October 2016 release of the Access Hollywood tape featuring Trump bragging about sexual assault, Adelson was among his staunchest supporters. “Sheldon Adelson had Donald Trump's back,” said Steve Bannon in a speech last year, speaking of the time after the scandal broke. “He was there.” In December 2016, Adelson donated $5 million to the Trump inaugural festivities. The Adelsons had better seats at Trump’s inauguration than many Cabinet secretaries. The whole family, including their two college-age sons, came to Washington for the celebration. One of his sons posted a picture on Instagram of the event with the hashtag #HuckFillary. The investment paid off in access and in financial returns. Adelson has met with Trump or visited the White House at least six times since Trump’s election victory. The two speak regularly. Adelson has also had access to others in the White House. He met privately with Vice President Mike Pence before Pence gave a speech at Adelson’s Venetian resort in Las Vegas last year. “He just calls the president all the time. Donald Trump takes Sheldon Adelson’s calls,” said Alan Dershowitz, who has done legal work for Adelson and advised Trump. Adelson’s tens of millions in donations to Trump have already been paid back many times over by the new tax law. While all corporations benefited from the lower tax rate in the new law, many incurred an extra bill in the transition because profits overseas were hit with a one-time tax. But not Sands. Adelson’s company hired lobbyists to press Trump’s Treasury Department and Congress on provisions that would help companies like Sands that paid high taxes abroad, according to public filings and tax experts. The lobbying effort appears to have worked. After Trump signed the tax overhaul into law in December, Las Vegas Sands recorded a benefit from the new law the company estimated at $1.2 billion. The Adelson family owns 55 percent of Las Vegas Sands, which is publicly traded, according to filings. The Treasury Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. Now as Trump and the Republican Party face a reckoning in the midterm elections in November, they have once again turned to Adelson. He has given at least $55 million so far. ***** In 2014, Adelson told an interviewer he was not interested in building a dynasty. “I want my legacy to be that I helped out humankind,” he said, underscoring his family’s considerable donations to medical research. But he gives no indication of sticking to a quiet life of philanthropy. In the last four years, he has used the Sands’ fleet of private jets, assiduously meeting with world leaders and seeking to build new casinos in Japan, Korea and Brazil. He is closest in Japan. Japan has been considering lifting its ban on casinos for years, in spite of majority opposition in polls from a public that is wary of the social problems that might result. A huge de facto gambling industry of the pinball-like game pachinko has long existed in the country, historically associated with organized crime and seedy parlors filled with cigarette-smoking men. Opposition to allowing casinos is so heated that a brawl broke out in the Japanese legislature this summer. But lawmakers have moved forward on legalizing casinos and crafted regulations that hew to Adelson’s wishes. “Japan is considered the next big market. Sheldon looks at it that way,” said a former Sands official. Adelson envisions building a $10 billion “integrated resort,” which in industry parlance refers to a large complex featuring a casino with hotels, entertainment venues, restaurants and shopping malls. The new Japanese law allows for just three licenses to build casinos in cities around the country, effectively granting valuable local monopolies. At least 13 companies, including giants like MGM and Genting, are vying for a license. Even though Sands is already a strong contender because of its size and its successful resort in Singapore, some observers in Japan believe Adelson’s relationship with Trump has helped move Las Vegas Sands closer to the multibillion-dollar prize. Just a week after the U.S. election, Prime Minister Abe arrived at Trump Tower, becoming the first foreign leader to meet with the president-elect. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were also there. Abe presented Trump with a gilded $3,800 golf driver. Few know the details of what the Trumps and Abe discussed at the meeting. In a break with protocol, Trump’s transition team sidelined the State Department, whose Japan experts were never briefed on what was said. “There was a great deal of frustration,” said one State Department official. “There was zero communication from anyone on Trump’s team.” In another sign of Adelson’s direct access to the incoming president and ties with Japan, he secured a coveted Trump Tower meeting a few weeks later for an old friend, the Japanese billionaire businessman Masayoshi Son. Son’s company, SoftBank, had bought Adelson’s computer trade show business in the 1990s. A few years ago, Adelson named Son as a potential partner in his casino resort plans in Japan. Son’s SoftBank, for its part, owns Sprint, which has long wanted to merge with T-Mobile but needs a green light from the Trump administration. A beaming Son emerged from the meeting in the lobby of Trump Tower with the president-elect and promised $50 billion in investments in the U.S. When Trump won the election in November 2016, the casino bill had been stalled in the Japanese Diet. One month after the Trump-Abe meeting, in an unexpected move in mid-December, Abe’s ruling coalition pushed through landmark legislation authorizing casinos, with specific regulations to be ironed out later. There was minimal debate on the controversial bill, and it passed at the very end of an extraordinary session of the legislature. “That was a surprise to a lot of stakeholders,” said one former Sands executive who still works in the industry. Some observers suspect the timing was not a coincidence. “After Trump won the election in 2016, the Abe government’s efforts to pass the casino bill shifted into high gear,” said Yoichi Torihata, a professor at Shizuoka University and opponent of the casino law. On a Las Vegas Sands earnings call a few days after Trump’s inauguration, Adelson touted that Abe had visited the company’s casino resort complex in Singapore. “He was very impressed with it,” Adelson said. Days later, Adelson attended the February breakfast with Abe in Washington, after which the prime minister went on to Mar-a-Lago, where the president raised Las Vegas Sands. A week after that, Adelson flew to Japan and met with the secretary general of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party in Tokyo. The casino business is one of the most regulated industries in the world, and Adelson has always sought political allies. To enter the business in 1989, he hired the former governor of Nevada to represent him before the state’s gaming commission. In 2001, according to court testimony reported in the New Yorker, Adelson intervened with then-House Majority Whip Rep. Tom DeLay, to whom he was a major donor, at the behest of a Chinese official over a proposed House resolution that was critical of the country’s human rights record. At the time, Las Vegas Sands was seeking entry into the Macau market. The resolution died, which Adelson attributed to factors other than his intervention, according to the magazine. In 2015, he purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the state’s largest newspaper, which then published a lengthy investigative series on one of Adelson’s longtime rivals, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which runs a convention center that competes with Adelson’s. (The paper said Adelson had no influence over its coverage.) In Japan, Las Vegas Sands’ efforts have accelerated in the last year. Adelson returned to the country in September 2017, visiting top officials in Osaka, a possible casino site. In a show of star power in October, Sands flew in David Beckham and the Eagles’ Joe Walsh for a press conference at the Palace Hotel Tokyo. Beckham waxed enthusiastic about his love of sea urchin and declared, "Las Vegas Sands is creating fabulous resorts all around the world, and their scale and vision are impressive.” Adelson appears emboldened. When he was in Osaka last fall, he publicly criticized a proposal under consideration to cap the total amount of floor space devoted to casinos in the resorts that have been legalized. In July, the Japanese Diet passed a bill with more details on what casinos will look like and laying out the bidding process. The absolute limit on casino floor area had been dropped from the legislation. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has made an unusual personnel move that could help advance pro-gambling interests. The new U.S. ambassador, an early Trump campaign supporter and Tennessee businessman named William Hagerty, hired as his senior adviser an American executive working on casino issues for the Japanese company SEGA Sammy. Joseph Schmelzeis left his role as senior adviser on global government and industry affairs for the company in February to join the U.S. Embassy. (He has not worked for Sands.) A State Department spokesperson said that embassy officials had communicated with Sands as part of “routine” meetings and advice provided to members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. The spokesperson said that “Schmelzeis is not participating in any matter related to integrated resorts or Las Vegas Sands.”  Japanese opposition politicians have seized on the Adelson-Trump-Abe nexus. One, Tetsuya Shiokawa, said this year that he believes Trump has been the unseen force behind why Abe’s party has “tailor-made the [casino] bill to suit foreign investors like Adelson.” In the next stage of the process, casino companies will complete their bids with Japanese localities. ****** Adelson’s influence has spread across the Trump administration. In August 2017, the Zionist Organization of America, to which the Adelsons are major donors, launched a campaign against National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. ZOA chief Mort Klein charged McMaster “clearly has animus toward Israel.” Adelson said he was convinced to support the attack on McMaster after Adelson spoke with Safra Catz, the Israeli-born CEO of Oracle, who “enlightened me quite a bit” about McMaster, according to an email Klein later released to the media. Adelson pressed Trump to appoint the hawkish John Bolton to a high position, The New York Times reported. In March, Trump fired McMaster and replaced him with Bolton. The president and other cabinet officials also clashed with McMaster on policy and style issues. For Scott Pruitt, the former EPA administrator known as an ally of industry, courting Adelson meant developing a keen interest in an unlikely topic: technology that generates clean water from air. An obscure Israeli startup called Watergen makes machines that resemble air conditioners and, with enough electricity, can pull potable water from the air. Adelson doesn’t have a stake in the company, but he is old friends with the Israeli-Georgian billionaire who owns the firm, Mikhael Mirilashvili, according to the head of Watergen’s U.S. operation, Yehuda Kaploun. Adelson first encountered the technology on a trip to Israel, Kaploun said. Dershowitz is also on the company’s board. Just weeks after being confirmed, Pruitt met with Watergen executives at Adelson’s request. Pruitt promptly mobilized dozens of EPA officials to ink a research deal under which the agency would study Watergen’s technology. EPA officials immediately began voicing concerns about the request, according to hundreds of previously unreported emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. They argued that the then-EPA chief was violating regular procedures. Pruitt, according to one email, asked that staffers explore “on an expedited time frame” whether a deal could be done “without the typical contracting requirements.” Other emails described the matter as “very time sensitive” and having “high Administrator interest.” A veteran scientist at the agency warned that the “technology has been around for decades,” adding that the agency should not be “focusing on a single vendor, in this case Watergen.” Officials said that Watergen’s technology was not unique, noting there were as many as 70 different suppliers on the market with products using the same concept. Notes from a meeting said the agency “does not currently have the expertise or staff to evaluate these technologies.” Agency lawyers “seemed scared” about the arrangement, according to an internal text exchange. The EPA didn’t respond to requests for comment. Watergen got its research deal. It’s not known how much money the agency has spent on the project. The technology was shipped to a lab in Cincinnati, and Watergen said the government will produce a report on its study. Pruitt planned to unveil the deal on a trip to Israel, which was also planned with the assistance of Adelson, The Washington Post reported. But amid multiple scandals, the trip never happened. Other parts of the Trump administration have also been friendly to Watergen. Over the summer, Mirilashvili attended the U.S. Embassy in Israel’s Fourth of July party, where he was photographed grinning and sipping water next to one of the company’s machines on display. Kaploun said U.S. Ambassador David Friedman’s staff assisted the company to help highlight its technology.  A State Department spokesperson said Watergen was one of many private sponsors of the embassy party and was “subject to rigorous vetting.” The embassy is now considering leasing or buying a Watergen unit as part of a “routine procurement action,” the spokesperson said. A Mirilashvili spokesman said in a statement that Adelson and Mirilashvili “have no business ties with each other.” The spokesman added that Adelson had been briefed on the company’s technology by Watergen engineers and “Adelson has also expressed an interest in the ability of this Israeli technology to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans who are affected by water pollution.” ***** Even as the casino business looks promising in Japan, China has been a potential trouble spot for Adelson. Few businesses are as vulnerable to geopolitical winds as Adelson’s. The majority of Sands’ value derives from its properties in Macau. It is the world’s gambling capital, and China’s central government controls it. “Sheldon Adelson highly values direct engagement in Beijing,” a 2009 State Department cable released by WikiLeaks says, “especially given the impact of Beijing's visa policies on the company's growing mass market operations in Macau.” At times, Sands’ aggressive efforts in China crossed legal lines. On Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Trump took office, the Justice Department announced Sands was paying a nearly $7 million fine to settle a longstanding investigation into whether it violated a U.S. anti-bribery statute in China. The case revealed that Sands paid roughly $60 million to a consultant who “advertised his political connections with [People’s Republic of China] government officials” and that some of the payments “had no discernible legitimate business purpose.” Part of the work involved an effort by Sands to acquire a professional basketball team in the country to promote its casinos. The DOJ said Sands fully cooperated in the investigation and fixed its compliance problems. A year and a half into the Trump administration, Adelson has a bigger problem than the Justice Department investigation: Trump’s trade war against Beijing has put Sands’ business in Macau at risk. Sands’ right to operate expires in a few years. Beijing could throttle the flow of money and people from the mainland to Macau. Sands and the other foreign operators in Macau “now sit on a geopolitical fault line. Their Macau concessions can therefore be on the line,” said a report from the Hong Kong business consultancy Steve Vickers & Associates. A former Sands board member, George Koo, wrote a column in the Asia Times newspaper in April warning that Beijing could undercut the Macau market by legalizing casinos in the southern island province of Hainan. “A major blow in the trade war would be for China to allow Hainan to become a gambling destination and divert visitors who would otherwise be visiting Macau,” Koo wrote. “As one of Trump’s principal supporters, it’s undoubtedly a good time for Mr. Adelson to have a private conversation with the president.” It’s not clear if Adelson has had that conversation. According to The Associated Press, Adelson was present for a discussion of China policy at the dinner he attended with Trump at the White House in February 2017. In September, Trump escalated his trade war with China. He raised tariffs on $200 billion Chinese imports. China retaliated with tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. products. Adelson has said privately that if he can be helpful in any way he would volunteer himself to do whatever is asked for either side of the equation — the U.S. or China, according to a person who has spoken to him. ****** Torossian, the public relations executive, calls Adelson “this generation’s Rothschild” for his support of Israel. In early May, the Adelsons gave $30 million to the super PAC that is seeking to keep Republican control of the House for the remainder of Trump’s term. A few days later, Trump announced he was killing the Iran nuclear deal, a target of Adelson’s and the Netanyahu government’s for years. The following day, Adelson met with the president at the White House. Five days later, Adelson was in Israel for another landmark, the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem marked a major shift in U.S. foreign policy, long eschewed by presidents of both parties. Besides dealing a major blow to Palestinian claims on part of the city, which are recognized by most of the world, it was the culmination of a more than 20-year project of the Adelsons. Sheldon and Miriam personally lobbied for the move on Capitol Hill as far back as 1995. In an audience dotted with yarmulkes and MAGA-red hats, the Adelsons were in the front now, next to Netanyahu and his wife, the Kushners and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. A beaming Miriam, wearing a dress featuring an illustration of the Jerusalem skyline, filmed the event with her phone. She wrote a first-person account of the ceremony that was co-published on the front page of the two newspapers the Adelsons own, Israel Hayom and the Las Vegas Review-Journal: “The embassy opening is a crowning moment for U.S. foreign policy and for our president, Donald Trump. Just over a year into his first term, he has re-enshrined the United States as the standard-bearer of moral clarity and courage in a world that too often feels adrift.” Adelson paid for the official delegation of Guatemala, the only other country to move its embassy, to travel to Israel. “Sheldon told me that any country that wants to move its embassy to Jerusalem, he’ll fly them in — the president and everyone — for the opening,” said Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce CEO Duvi Honig, who was in attendance. Klein, the Zionist Organization of America president, was also there. The Adelsons, he said, “were glowing with a serene happiness like I’ve never seen them. Sheldon “said to me, ‘President Trump promised he would do this and he did it.’ And he almost became emotional. ‘And look, Mort, he did it.’

Welcome to 'Business News and Other $#!T', I am your host Amer and thank you so much for tuning in to a show that has been called the perfect listen for busy fifth graders with ADD. I am an aspiring stand up comedian, improvisor and stay at home dad. In a previous life I graduated from the University of Chicago (cough - the Harvard of the midwest) with an A.B. in Economics and for 10 long years I worked as an Executive director for JP Morgan (cough - selling my soul). You may be asking why someone in their right mind with a wife and two kids would give up such a prestigious and profitable position to become a lowly comedian? And to that I would say uh because it's way more fun and maybe don't be such a jerk about it.... Our goal with the show is to entertain you with funny stories, jokes, and one liners about investing and hopefully make you a stronger and more financially secure young person. Basically we want to help you increase the size of your back up stash. Back up stash being that secret stash of money that keeps you afloat after you tell that horrible boss to get effed and/or you want to travel around South East Asia for 6 months. So join us every Thursday as we tell some funny stories, some jokes, have a good ol time, and maybe learn some important things. 1:00 Why do we avoid money making decisions? 4:00 What exactly is a tariff? 9:00 Why a trade war? A 3rd of our economy is at stake. 17:00 Why did Facebook nosedive? 20:30 Huge signs that technology is about to shrink from an information first perspective 23:00 The time Amer had a hit put out on him when he was 7 31:30 Recession watch - American CEOs are at the highest level of optimism ever 39:00 Personal finance chat 44:00 Reframing - don't look at it as a financial decision look at it as a lifestyle decision 47:00 Mark Duplass’s artist investment philosophy 49:00 Easiest way to get started investing --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/business-news-and-other-sheet/support

Bio Elissa Shevinsky (@ElissaBeth) is a successful serial entrepreneur, focusing on cybersecurity and cryptocurrency companies. An early employee at Geekcorps (acquired) and Everyday Health (IPO) she was most recently Head of Product at Brave. Shevinsky is also the author of "Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Startup Culture."  Little known fact: her first job out of college was as a lobbyist in DC, working to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Resources Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture by Elissa Shevinsky (OR Books: 2015) Mastering Bitcoin: Programming the Open BlockChain by Andreas Antonopoulos (O'Reilly Media: 2017) Mastering Ethereum by Andreas Antonopoulous (O'Reilly Media: forthcoming, 2018) News Roundup Online sex trafficking bill has 60 votes The Senate bill to combat online sex trafficking has the 60 votes it needs to prevent a filibuster. The bipartisan bill, which met initial resistance and then acceptance by large tech companies, seeks to limit an exception in the Communications Decency Act that shields web hosts from liability for illegal content, such as prostitution ads, posted by third parties. The Senate bill would eliminate the exception for websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking. Ben Brody has more in Bloomberg. Apple announces security flaws Apple announced last week that all Mac and iOS devices are susceptible to processing system flaws called Spectre and Meltdown. Apple said that, to avoid the possibility of hackers exploiting these vulnerabilities, consumers should avoid downloading anything from anyone other than trusted sources. Selena Larson reports for CNN. Effort to overturn FCC's repeal of net neutrality gains first Republican supporter Senator Ed Markey's effort to overturn the FCC's reversal of the 2015 open internet rules gained its first Republican supporter last week: Senator Susan Collins from Maine. Markey's resolution could now pass the Senate with just one more Republican vote. On Monday, Democrat Claire McCaskill joined the list of the bill's sponsors, bringing the total number of sponsors to 30. John Brodkin has the story in Ars Technica. CEOs urge Congress to protect DREAMERS With the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) set to expire on March 5th, more than 100 American CEOs sent a joint letter to Congress urging it to pass a bill to allow Dreamers--the children of undocumented immigrants who brought them to the U.S.--to remain in the country. The CEOs, who represented companies as diverse as Google, Apple, Best Buy, Levi Strauss, Facebook, Target, Verizon, Visa and others wrote that the impending expiration of DACA is a crisis. Harper Neidig has the story in the Hill. The Internet Association will sue the FCC over net neutrality The Internet Association--the trade group that represents major tech companies such as Google, Netflix, Facebook and others--announced last week that it would be suing the Federal Communications Commission over its repeal of the 2015 net neutrality rules. Fired Google memo writer sues the company James Damore--the fired Google employee who wrote a controversial memo that played into stereotypes about women, sued Google for treating employees with conservative political views differently from the way it treated liberals working at the company. Harper Neidig reports in the Hill. Pew: Half of Women in STEM jobs experience discrimination Half of women in STEM jobs experience gender-based discrimination at work, according to a new Pew survey. Some 50 percent of women in STEM fields reported that they had been victims of discrimination, compared to 41 percent of women in non-STEM jobs. Cary Funk and Kim Parker wrote the report for Pew. VTech settles with FTC for $650,000 Children's electronic toy maker VTech settled with the Federal Trade Commission for $650,000 on Monday. The FTC alleged that the company had collected kids' private information without the consent of their parents, and then failed to secure the information against hackers. White House sent Car nomination to Congress The White House has nominated Brendan Carr to a five-year term as a Federal Communications Commission Commissioner. Carr's current term expires in June.                

American manufacturing is in need of a reboot. Steven L. Blue calls it ''Manufacturing 2.0.'' That's the title of his new book, in which he imparts guidance on how to create a competitive yet humane manufacturing environment. His experience in the matter is more than academic; Blue is chief executive officer of Miller Ingenuity, a global producer of locomotive and freight-car parts. He takes a dim view of the concept of ''Smart Manufacturing,'' at least to the extent that it overlooks the human element in crafting an optimal work environment. Blue also talks about why many American CEOs have become ''fat, dumb and happy,'' and why companies should strive to build cultures ''by design, not default.'' Maybe there's hope for a resurgence of American manufacturing after all.

It turns out there’s some element of truth to the Despicable Me movies where the villain is transformed from being Super Bad to Super Dad after he has to father three little girls. Now new research has shown that having a daughter also impacts the way CEOs run their companies. A study of some of the largest companies in the US shows that CEOs with daughters spend an extra $59.5 million per year on corporate social responsibility (CSR). They also tend to lean towards more diversity in the workplace when it comes to gender and minorities, show greater concern for employees, and do more to ensure work-life balance. In fact, having a female child makes a male CEO almost a third more likely to make CSR decisions similar to those made by a female CEO. The new research was done by CEIBS Finance Professors Henrik Cronqvist and Frank Yu. They looked at the decisions made by almost 400 American CEOs who, between them, have a total of almost 1,000 children. Previous research had shown that judges with daughters tend to vote more liberally. So too are congressmen with daughters, especially when it comes to reproductive rights issues. This is the first time, though, that the effect on the behaviour of CEOs from large corporations has been examined. “Male CEOs with at least one daughter show a stronger attachment to society at large and concern for the well-being of stakeholders other than their shareholders. This may be expressed as increased concern for not only diversity, but also the environment, employee relations, and similar issues,” says Prof Frank Yu. The paper is available for download at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2618358

Compensation for American CEOs has soared over the past decade far exceeding inflation and wage gains of ordinary workers -- and leading critics to charge that self-serving insiders have tilted the playing field at shareholders' expense. In response the Securities and Exchange Commission on January 17 took the first step toward adopting rules to better show shareholders how much their top executives and directors are paid. Will that drive executive pay down? Probably not say several Wharton professors arguing that executive pay is not necessarily as excessive as the most extreme cases suggest. Still they agree that more complete disclosure would improve the system. As one expert puts it: ”When people are forced to undress in public they pay attention to their figures.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.