Podcasts about Consumer

“Buy now, pay later” companies have been around for decades, but not in the form they take today. You may have noticed that when you check out from an online store, a little prompt asks you if you want to purchase your goods for just “four easy payments of…” It seems like a good deal, doesn't it? You can buy the same goods, for less, today, with no interest payments! Before you add those shoes to your cart, think twice before selecting the “buy now, pay later” option.Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi, NPR reporter and host of Planet Money, was interested in how this type of interest-free internet shopping is affecting consumers. Through his research, he found numerous examples of online shoppers overspending, getting into debt, and not knowing their total purchase price. The ease of paying just a fourth of a product's price and getting it delivered in days became too much for many consumers to resist. And now, they're paying the price.If you don't want to fall prey to this type of split-up pricing, you'll want to hear what Alexi, David, and Mindy have to say. Using this type of “interest-free” credit could put your financial freedom in jeopardy—and no one wants to trade early retirement for a new swimsuit.In This Episode We CoverThe “buy now, pay later” programs and how they target online shoppersHow buying now and paying later could affect your credit score in the long runWhat happens when shoppers can't pay their future installment loans?Why US legislators are taking “buy now, pay later” companies to court The marketing tactics used by these companies to get you to spend more at checkoutWhy saving now and buying later will help your future financesAnd So Much More!Links from the ShowBiggerPockets Money Facebook GroupBiggerPockets ForumsFinance Review Guest OnboardingMindy's TwitterListen to All Your Favorite BiggerPockets Podcasts in One PlaceApply to Be a Guest on The Money ShowPodcast Talent Search!Subscribe to The “On The Market” YouTube ChannelListen to The “On The Market” Podcast: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, BiggerPocketsCheck Out Mindy's 2022 Live Spending Tracker and BudgetInterested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Check out our sponsor page!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Consumer prices across the rich world are rising by more than 9% year on year, the highest rate since the 1980s. Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize-winning economist, talks to host Anne McElvoy and Henry Curr, The Economist's economics editor, about how governments and central banks should respond. We also ask if a recession can be avoided, and whether the era of big government spending is over.Please subscribe to The Economist for full access to print, digital and audio editions:www.economist.com/podcastoffer See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Marc Mathieu, the Co-Founder of Web3 Studio at Salesforce, discusses how web3 will change how brands acquire and interact with consumers. Plus, he explains the hype around NFTs and digital goods – whether they are trends to watch or fads that will fade – and the mindset shifts that need to happen to get the most out of them.Tune in to learn:Key moments in internet history: from the invention of the cookie to the shift toward first-party data (6:00)How to find customers in a new digital world (8:45)Why your brand is your community and how to keep your community the right size (11:00)What commerce companies should be most excited about when it comes to web3 (23:15)Digital goods — Are they a fad, trend, or long-term opportunity? (27:25)Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Learn more at http://www.salesforce.com/commerce Mission.org is a media studio producing content for world-class clients. Learn more at http://www.mission.org.

No-one lost power as a result of this morning's grid emergency - but how close did we come to a repeat of last winter's infamous August blackout? Consumer advocates are calling on electricity companies to put power in the hands of the people and roll out smart-meters to avoid future outages. Ruth Hill reports.

Mike Gelb is the host of the Consumer VC Podcast, where he interviews venture funders and CPG founders. On this episode of ITS, Mike shares the themes and tenets he's gathered from over 200 interviews, including the importance of an organic sales engine, why retail-focused CPG investors are a great bet, the end of cheap digital ads, and why truly unique brands will make it through the rough patch ahead.Heritage Radio Network is a listener supported nonprofit podcast network. Support In The Sauce by becoming a member!In The Sauce is Powered by Simplecast.

The SMBesties are back as John and Reg Zellers hop on to cover a few topics on today's show. They'll jump into economics and how low demand even in the home services industry has forced some strategy changes. Business to Business is still doing good, but John talks about the struggles of Business to Consumer during Q1. Reg talks about how his businesses are starting to get busier. He touches on his struggles to find people with the labor shortages. The guys also discuss the shipping and freight issues and how they try to deal with it. Jobber: Jobber is a mobile and online app that helps keep your business organized, efficient, and professional. Get paid on time, go paperless, and impress your clients. Try it free today at: https://getjobber.com/im/oao/

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT The prevailing impression of Google and digital signage is that the tech giant came briefly into the sector a few years ago, made some noise, and then quietly left. But the reality is that the tech giant has continued to be active in digital signage, and there are numerous screen  networks out there running on Chrome OS devices through different CMS software vendors. Then there's Android, the Google-developed operating system used on a pile of smart displays and separate play-out boxes. But now Google is again getting visibly active in the digital signage and related kiosk ecosystem, extending an existing program called Chrome Enterprise Recommended to software vendors who use Chrome OS. It's also introduced a Chrome OS device management license,  for narrow-purpose uses like screens and kiosks, that works out to just a touch more than a couple of bucks a month. And there's Flex, an application that can extend the life of a Windows box by running Chrome, and enable screen networks using a blend of playback hardware. I think a lot of the early interest in Google, back in 2015, was with the relatively low prices of the software and hardware. These days, it likely has more to do with scale, manageability and security. I spoke with Naveen Viswanatha, Google's product lead on Chrome OS. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT Naveen, thank you for joining me. What's your role at Google?  Naveen Viswanatha: Hey, thanks for having me. I am the Chrome OS Product Lead for our solution areas and our solution areas include virtualization, contact center, and very recently we've beefed up our kiosk and digital signage solution area.  Are you at the main campus out in Silicon Valley?  Naveen Viswanatha: I am, indeed. Yeah, right here in the heart of the main campus in Mountain View. How long have you been with Google? Naveen Viswanatha: I have been with Google for 16 years but I haven't been spending the whole time in Chrome OS. I've been using Chrome OS for about 7 years, I believe. So you're almost a lifer in Google terms?  Naveen Viswanatha: I guess so, it seems like that.  I'm gonna talk about Chrome OS. Can you give me a sense of the installed base globally for Chrome OS? I don't need like today's number, but just like … it's many millions, right?  Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah. We don't break out specific details, but yeah it's in the millions and that kind of spans, I would say across three broad areas. Education is one area. So students and student Chromebooks and boxes. Consumer, and then Enterprise and, within Enterprise, that's where my focus is in the solution space. So yeah, that's how we look at the overall market, but yeah it's seen a tremendous amount of growth, especially in the last several years. Yeah, the pandemic really put a push on Chrome for Education, right?  Naveen Viswanatha: It did. I would actually say that it increased an already healthy appetite for Chrome devices within the education space. I actually used to be part of the education team, and we went from devices that were primarily purchased by schools and districts to devices that were now starting to see adoption in the home and that was the kind of recent trend that we saw over the course of the pandemic is really devices being used in the home, remote for delivery of curriculum.  Would that be driven in part by just the simple fact that the kids are learning at home now, and the parents are seeing the Chromebooks and thinking, okay these are perfectly workable laptops? Naveen Viswanatha: That's entirely right, and in addition to that, some of the unique capabilities allow students to use their education profiles. So the same profile that they use on their Chromebooks at school, they can log into a personal Chromebook at home and all of their data, all of their bookmarks, their applications, everything is synced to them pretty uniquely. And so, that ability of having this kind of floating cloud profile was another reason that it became really easy to simply adopt Chrome devices at home.  Okay, so on the enterprise side, you know, this is a digital signage podcast so we talk about digital signage. I assume that relative to education and to consumer, the percentage of the installed basis for digital signs of kiosk would be still pretty small, right?  Naveen Viswanatha: It's smaller. It's growing though, and in fact, I would actually say that we saw a lot of acceleration, arguably more acceleration broadly in the Enterprise space, over the pandemic in terms of growth, relative to the other verticals I was talking about, and a lot of that had to do with unique capabilities of Chrome that aligned really well with some of the challenges that businesses had during the pandemic to really maintain business continuity, whether that was remote work or whether that was increased concerns around security, data protection due to being remote.  These are all things that Chrome OS was really designed for, and so over the course of the pandemic, we saw a huge acceleration in these trends, and as a result Chrome OS was really the platform and endpoint of choice for many organizations. When I wrote last week about the announcement that, of the the recommended track for kiosk in digital signage. I said that Google made a big splash in the digital signage space in 2015. They took a big booty in the middle of the primary trade show for the industry and had all kinds of people looking at that booth and going, “oh, interesting, these guys are involved. I wonder what that means and will they take over and so on…” and it didn't really happen, there would be suggestions that Google got into the space and then got out of the space but what I wrote was basically, maybe they stepped back a little bit visibly, but they've continued to be in the digital signage and kiosk space and have a pretty decent footprint that isn't known.  Is that a fair statement?  Naveen Viswanatha: I think that is a fair characterization and I'm glad you brought that up because, as we've seen the trend over the course of the last couple of years, some of the trends that I was talking about with regards to the pandemic, those trends around moving to cloud and web are significant. Those trends in moving to remote and hybrid work are significant, increased data protection and controls are significant, and that primarily those three things really accrue primarily to end user computing so Chrome books and Chrome boxes used by employees.  But in addition to that, I think this kind of ties back to your point, we did see a lot of interesting trends as people started moving back into physical spaces. So increased expectations from customers for self-service options, increased expectations from employees for more engaging physical environments when they do return to the office, and these kinds of latter two trends are unique to kiosk and digital signage. So that's where we started really leaning more into this business that we have had for some time, as you mentioned, but really on the backs of what our customers and our partners were doing and what we're seeing as broader trends, we really wanted to lean into this area and really help drive more growth and drive more value into the overall ecosystem znd so recently we have really beefed up our efforts around kiosks and digital signage.  You know, when you work in a very niche industry like digital signage, you have this distorted idea that it's actually a pretty big industry, but in the the overall scheme of things, it's tiny, and I wondered if Google, going back a few years, looked at digital signage and continued to look at it and thought this is interesting stuff.  Signage and kiosks, it's got some possibilities, but it's so small compared to education. How much focus have you put on it? Naveen Viswanatha: I think that's a fair question. The reality, I think is that we have always maintained that we want to be an enterprise computing platform, or commercial, basically anything that requires a business or an organization or an NGO or a government to purchase devices and be the primary buyer. So it's a very broad space, and over the last several years, we have endeavored to really beef up our capabilities around end user computing. That was somewhat timed coincidentally with the pandemic. So that was an area of focus for us starting in 2018-19, really to emphasize these focuses on these solution areas, as I was mentioning, to really go after distinct sections of the enterprise market, and then very recently, starting to invest in kiosk and digital signage because we're starting to see additional trends driving that and those trends being lined up with ChromeOS capabilities. So I wouldn't say it was due to the size of the market in particular. I think it's just in terms of when we think about our overall strategy and where we saw our customers really taking the platform, we wanted to really lean into those areas, and so that's really been the main driver is trying to meet our customers where they are, and identify areas that have a strong product market fit in the enterprise space and you see that as a reflection of the key solution areas that we're investing in, including kiosks and signage now.  So when Google as a company takes an interest in something like this, how does that manifest itself in real terms? Is there like a dedicated team or is this one market that a broader Chrome OS team pays attention to and puts some work into? Naveen Viswanatha: That's a really good question. So I keep referring to these solution areas and maybe it'll help a little bit because I think that'll help frame the answer to your question a bit more to talk about what these solution areas are.  A few years ago we started looking at where we were seeing product market fit and where we were seeing our customers adopt Chrome OS beyond education, and really noticed that to deliver a robust solution built on top of this platform, you really needed to have an end to end solution that customers and organizations knew was just gonna work and work really well, and so what that meant was there's really four components to these solution areas. So there's underlying features and capabilities of the operating system itself, so security, APIs, core functionality that the operating system provides, even for enterprises, things that are unique to the solution areas and I can list off a few new features and capabilities that we have as an example that are unique to the kiosk and signage solution area but that's another part of that.  The second component is around management. So how can these solutions areas and their administrators and the folks that manage these solutions, manage the platform easily? And then there's an ecosystem component to this too, and this is really what I think rounds out our notion of a solution area. An ecosystem includes devices so endpoints and OEMs, as well as peripherals and then ISV partners. So solution providers that actually build their products on top of Chrome OS and we ensure that they're optimized and integrated into the operating system. So that's what constitutes a solution area, and as we saw increased focus and investment in those solution areas, we started really orienting our teams to deliver against that.  On the product and engineering side and the UX side within Google, that means that we still rely on broad platform capabilities that you think of more as foundational layers, but increasingly we have teams that are focused on delivering features capabilities, management capabilities, specific to solution areas. And we'll talk a little bit about that or what we did for the kiosk, and then in addition to that, we really started focusing our partner teams on the partners, both the devices, peripherals, as well as ISV partners that we wanted to work with to really bring these solutions to life, and so there's increasing focus around these areas and we're really organizing ourselves across the stack to really deliver towards these solutions. So you have this Chrome enterprise recommended track for “kiosk and digital signage”. When I saw that, I wasn't familiar with it and I thought, okay, they've created this, but in doing a little bit of digging, it looks like you have Chrome enterprise recommended tracks in other areas already. So this is something you already do and you've added digital signs and kiosks?  Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah, that's exactly right. The solution tracks that you saw prior to the recent announcement for the kiosk track were really built around the end user computing growth that we were seeing in the last several years that I was alluding to earlier, and very recently, last week we announced the kiosk and signage Chrome enterprise recommended solution track, and so nine partners that we worked with, their solutions are validated, they're optimized, they're integrated into Chrome OS. That means that our partner engineering teams have worked with these organizations to ensure that everything that they build on our platform works. They are regression tests every release that comes out. So we're really tightly working with these organizations, and we only expect, especially in the kiosk and signage space, this category to grow over the coming quarters and years.  And this whole validation process, is that to keep your engineers sane or is it in certain respects, a marketing tool to say this is kind of Google approved and Google validated? Naveen Viswanatha: It's a bit of both actually. We actually go through and test these solutions within our own test labs, and then these providers also will be testing their solutions with every Chrome OS release, and as a result of that, we badge these providers, these ISV partners of ours, and that badge effectively denotes that level of confidence for any organization that's going to adopt an end to end solution. Some of the companies that are involved in this are pretty small in relative terms. Are they getting involved, to use a term a colleague of mine used to use, “to bask in reflected glory that we're working with Google” or have they made a business decision based on the technology that this is where things are going and we wanna get ahead of it? Naveen Viswanatha: I've spoken to many of these partners and really a lot of it boils down to their alignment either from a business or technology standpoint that they want to really align their solutions with a platform that they feel is going to help them scale their business. These are organizations that are typically developing web-based applications that are lightweight, robust and work well on Chrome as a web-based operating system. Security is a big concern for them, and I think it's a growing concern in the signage space. We've spoken to many customers having concerns about their screens taken over. If you have more and more screens in your physical spaces, your brand and your operations are potentially at risk, and so a lot of these partners kind of align to that element of Chrome, and I think the simplicity in being able to remotely manage devices, that's another area that these partners have really embraced and benefited from.  So I think it's really around looking at what technology and platform they want to align with and that's where we've started our conversations with them and as you mentioned they represent a specific segment of the market, and I think over the coming quarters and years, we're really looking to add more partners to our kiosk and signage Chrome enterprise recommended track. I got a sense back in 2015 that when the first iteration of this came out and you had a whole bunch of partners really quickly that a lot of the energy and interest around Chrome devices was, here's low cost management software and relatively low cost playback hardware versus the PCs that were out in the market then and it was just at a point when you were starting to see set top boxes and things like that being used.  I sense that's changed, that the partner marketplace is a lot more sophisticated, and as you've alluded to, they're looking more at things like security and ease of management?  Naveen Viswanatha: A hundred percent, that is absolutely right. The kiosk and signage landscape has shifted dramatically, I think, in the last, 18 to 24 months really, kind of emerging out of the pandemic as well, and I think it was shifting before and then I think what happened was that a lot of physical spaces started really being underutilized during the early part of the pandemic, but then that really set customer expectations and business expectations a lot around how they can be use technology to really digitally transform their businesses, and so as people started moving back into physical spaces, customers started moving back into physical spaces, it came with a fervor that I think has really accelerated some interesting opportunities in the signage space. Opportunities and threats too, as you mentioned, security and data protection and these things are becoming more and more of a concern. Updating, if you have more screens and more kiosks in your physical space, the kind of traditional operating systems that were being used, don't lend themselves well to that, right? They don't lend themselves well to being updated, being patched, being managed remotely. I think we've all seen blue screens in airports and different types of signs before. That's becoming more and more challenging, just the reliability and remote management.  So as these trends are starting to really put pressure on a lot of businesses, that's where Chrome OS is starting to really be considered more and more as a robust platform that can really help accelerate the next phase of digital transformation in these physical spaces. I get the argument for Windows and the bloatware and the crap on there and the updates you can't control and all those sorts of things. It's less of an issue with Linux but there's still an issue?  Naveen Viswanatha: Linux is an interesting platform. We don't see it too much ourselves but I think one of the challenges with Linux has to do with that it can do anything you really want it to, but in order to get it, to do what you want, it takes a lot of tuning, a lot of configuration, a lot of setup, and so I think you'll be spending the cost as an organization on either building up the technical capacity and knowing how to do that and really piecemealing a solution together, and at some point you're probably gonna ask yourself, is it worth it for our business to really become a Linux expert for our digital signage and kiosk strategy? Is that really core to driving the customer experience or should we rely on a platform like Chrome OS to give us a lot of that as part of its core capability?    And if you're using something like Chrome OS as a software firm, is there less demand to have in-house expertise around an operating system, if you're using something like Chrome versus Linux?  Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah, I would say that's one of the common benefits that we've seen. Recently I spoke to a retailer abroad in Asia, and they were saying that they saw an 80% reduction in staff having to focus on updates and management of the platform, and I asked the question because I wasn't sure if they said 80% or 18% because 80% sounded really startling and in fact they said no 80%, and now these individuals, they're effectively being focused on higher order capabilities with higher order needs within the organization rather than just going out and servicing screens and devices that needed to be updated, they're focusing more on higher value business objectives. And so absolutely, I think this is one of the areas where businesses need to ask themselves is this core, or is it context? It means core to obviously incorporate digital signage and service options within your business, but is it core for your organization to understand exactly how an operating system is gonna work? One of the arguments that a very successful company in the digital signage space called BrightSign makes … they are spin out of Roku and the CEO is saying that one of the reasons there's a lot of attraction to our hardware is we don't really have an operating system. It's our own proprietary operating system. So there's nothing to really hack. There's nothing you can do with it.  I understand the risk with Windows and to a lesser degree with Linux are, and I know you do harden Chrome, but what are there ways in? And if there are, please explain them to me. (Laughter) Naveen Viswanatha: That's actually one of the areas that I think we have a very strong track record around, and I will add that systems will get compromised over time, and unless you have a security team, a large robust security team, actively monitoring and ensuring that exploits and vulnerabilities are gonna be patched consistently, that turnaround time needs to be very quick, and that's exactly what we do on the Chrome OS side, and I think you can look at our track record. We have zero ransomware attacks ever reported on Chrome OS.  It's also another component that if you double click into the security piece of Chrome OS, it's really baked into the operating system. Many other operating systems out there will think about security as a bolt on afterthought. It's core to exactly how Chrome OS works. I'll give you a couple of examples.  Executables are blocked from running on the operating system, they're just blocked. And so that's a huge vector of vulnerability that is just removed entirely. Timely security updates, like I was talking about before. We have the ability to roll out updates on a four week cycle. Even if you're part of our long term stable channel so organizations that don't choose to get four week updates on the operating system, they wanna actually get six month updates instead, even if you're on that six month long term stable support channel, we will still roll out critical security updates to you. So you get the best of both worlds, right? And again, we have a whole team of people that are watching and monitoring what kind of vulnerabilities are out there on a consistent basis, and I'll mention one more thing really quickly and that is that the operating system files are kept in a complete, separate partition, so they can't be modified at all. So let's say with kiosk, your app is hacked in some way, or there's a vulnerability in the application that you're building, the operating system itself is hardened and entirely isolated from the application session itself. It's just a handful of things to think about.  I think any chief information security officer or CIO or organization that's really looking at security needs to evaluate it broadly, and we have a lot of great material that can tell you beyond what I've said here. Why Chrome OS is a very hardened and safe operation. I suspect you've also learned a lot through the years too. I know that some of the companies who were early on with Google using Chrome OS, they were frustrated by new versions that would break their software, and I think you got to a point pretty quickly where you started to pin the OS versions and a company could stay on that until they're ready to move to the next one instead of being auto-updated.  Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah, and we have learned a lot over the last several years, and you bring up a good point. One of the design principles that we really try to anchor on, when you think about what a business wants, they want predictability and control. They wanna know when things are gonna change, they wanna have the control to be able to initiate those changes.  Even if we have this release train rolling out great new updates, security updates, new features. As a business, you want to be able to throttle that, and yeah, we have a number of different controls that have allowed organizations to do that. A long term stable and support channel, which I mentioned expands the actual stable channel that the operating system is on for six months. So that was a big one that we announced earlier this year. But in addition to that, the ability to, like you said, pin different application versions and be able to know exactly when you wanna roll those out, there's a number of other controls that allow you to better understand how you're gonna update your fleet.  So tell me about Flex.  Naveen Viswanatha: Ah, we're super excited about Flex. So that was one of the three big announcements we had around CER. The first one was the Chrome enterprise recommended solution track that you alluded to earlier. The second one was a brand new SKU that's focused specifically on kiosks and digital signage, and we can get to that in a moment too, and the third one was the incorporation of Flex.  So Flex is something that we announced earlier this year and what it allows organizations to do is install Chrome OS on any device they already have. So if you have an existing investment, say in Windows devices, they're aging, you're not sure when you're gonna refresh them, maybe you wanna refresh part of them but you wanna get the benefits of Chrome OS, the security, the built in updates, everything we've been talking about thus far, remote management, you can now install Chrome OS Flex on those devices and get all of the benefits from Chrome OS. So we've seen that as a really interesting opportunity in the kiosk space as many customers are starting to use that as an. Chrome OS. So they'll maybe extend the life of their existing infrastructure for a couple of years, and then we'll see them roll onto Chrome devices in the future, but we've also seen organizations look at Chrome OS Flex as a way to really tailor what they want in terms of device capabilities for their signage solutions based on the breadth of different hardware and endpoints that exist out there today. So for example, if you wanted an existing device that is not a Chrome OS device, either based on the aesthetics of it, based on the form factor or performance, is it ruggedized, fanless, et cetera. You can look at that and say I wanna use that device. It's not a Chrome OS device, but with Flex now, I can transform that into a Chrome OS device and incorporate it into my overall device strategy. So why can you extend your life? Is that because it's a leaner application and strips out a lot of stuff? Naveen Viswanatha: It's because we're able to really look at the hardware and separate the hardware from the software, and so rather than relying on Microsoft's operating system support and when that's gonna be EOLd (end of lifed) or when the device itself be becomes EOLd, Chrome OS Flex allows us to effectively say, look, that's an end point and we're gonna separate the software and the operating system from the actual device components. As an organization there creates an abstraction layer for you to utilize Flex as a way to extend the life of that infrastructure.  I assume you could also run a blended network as well, so that you could have Chrome OS devices and re refurbed windows or reclaimed windows devices as Flex devices and run concurrently. You don't have to have a network, that's just all pure Chrome OS devices.  Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head and that's what we're starting to see with many of our customers who will start with Chrome OS flex, but then they'll say … a lot of organizations, especially larger organizations, they don't necessarily have one device on one operating system or one endpoint or one operating system, they have a plethora of them and these devices might be on different refresh and end of life cycle.  So when there might be one coming up, say, at the end of next year, Chrome OS Flex is a great way to evaluate Chrome OS capabilities. Most of the time customers overwhelmingly are happy with Chrome OS and start using that as an onboarding mechanism for other Chrome devices or then rolling out Flex to other parts of their fleet that might be the end of lifting and subsequent years. And so during that time, they will have, like you said, a hybrid model of Chrome OS devices, as well as Flex devices, and you can absolutely manage those through the single pane of glass, like via the partner pane of glass, one of the nine partners that we just announced, or even our own admin console. You mentioned a new SKU. What is that?  Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah we're very excited about that. The new SKU is called the kiosk and signage upgrade, and what it does is it unlocks all of the signage capabilities that an organization wants, but none of anything else that you need. And what I mean by that is that Chrome OS is an operating system that serves end user computing, as well as signage. On the end user computing side, you need capabilities to manage users, user profiles, logins, different types of login modalities. But on the signage side, you don't really need that, right? Even if there's end user interaction, there's a lot of user modes and user capabilities that are not part of that overall management… Because it's a dumb end point in a hell of a lot of cases?  Naveen Viswanatha: I wouldn't use the word dumb, but because it's a highly focused endpoint, and as a result of that, we tailored a SKU which is $25 per device per year. So that's half off, two bucks a month basically, enterprise SKU, and for that, you get this 50% off SKU and very focused functionality, still gives you all the security, all the device controls, cloud management, reporting and insights. You just don't get the user controls that you get with the Chrome enterprise upgrade SKU, and that's the full SKU.  But if you did want those user controls, for whatever reason it may be, could you use those? And could you run a blended network with both kinds of licenses?  Naveen Viswanatha: Absolutely and we have a lot of customers that that, that are doing exactly  One thing that came up a few years ago and there was some buzz around it, but I don't know where it went. There was chatter that Android, which is pretty widely used in digital signage as well, was going to converge with Chrome OS and it was going to be the same thing that didn't really happen or did I miss it?  Naveen Viswanatha: No, it didn't happen. I've been on the team for seven years, so I'm not sure if what you're referring to is before my time, but we do have Android and Chrome OS as a company, two operating systems that serve different parts of the overall market. Now you're right that there is going to be some overlap. We see Android in the signage space. We see Android focusing a little bit more on mobile kiosk type of use cases. So a customer associate in a store walking around with a tablet style device, so things along those lines, whereas Chrome OS feels like it's a bit more focused on fixed facility types of infrastructure, and that's how we see the segmentation today. And we obviously worked very closely with the Android team.  Over time I think, as things evolve somewhat organically, if there are opportunities to bring these two capabilities or two operating systems together, that's something that we will consider but today we see a pretty natural segmentation. One thing I will add is that you were talking about managing a blended environment. With the Chrome OS capabilities and Android management capabilities, many organizations are managing both Chrome OS and Android endpoints through their universal endpoint management solutions. So that is a way that these two solutions can coexist even today.  This has been great. I could have talked for at least an hour or more, but we committed to a certain time window, so I should honor it. The last question I wanted to ask is just very simply if software companies and solution providers wanna get involved, or at least look into this how do they start? Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah, so you can go to our website. We have a lot of great information on our website. For customers, we have a wayfinding guide. We have information about the different solutions that we have for kiosk in terms of both devices that they can use at as endpoints, as well as peripherals that they can also utilize.  On the partner side, on the solution provider side gets in contact with our business development team. I know we are actively looking at working with more and more partners. I mentioned earlier that we listed nine and that's just a starting point, and what we've seen is that on the solution provider and ISV side, as you scale out globally, there are a lot of kinds of localized partners that do a lot of work in different regions, and so we expect this area to really build out significantly over the coming years. So get in touch with our BD team and our business development team, and be happy to work with you, figure out ways to incorporate you into our Chrome enterprise recommended program. As you dug into this, were you surprised by how many CMS software companies are out there?   Naveen Viswanatha: Yeah, I absolutely was. Especially considering where we were just five years ago or so. It seems like this has been one of the areas where we've seen a lot of hyper specialization and hyper localization. So unlike other solution categories like contact center, as an example, you tend to have a number of global players and then a few localized players within each market.  In this particular arena, in kiosks and digital signage, it feels very different because you look at APAC. I can't even talk about APAC as a market because each country, and sometimes even within countries, different specializations with retail versus employee spaces and workspaces has created a huge ecosystem around kiosks and signage. So yes, long answer in terms of in terms of your original question, but absolutely.  That's good for me because a crowded market means there's more to write about and talk about. (Laughter) Well, thank you very much for spending some time with me! Naveen Viswanatha: Thank you, and appreciate the time and opportunity, and I look forward to talking to you again at some point. 

Consumer Confidential – real estate broker Stefani Berkin explains the new trend known as “house hacking.” Plus, dermatologist Dr. Marnie Nussbaum shares the do's and don'ts to protect your skin this summer. And, catching up with David Hyde Pierce – all the important cause that's very personal for him, Alzheimer's.

In today's podcast, Kiri shares the poll results around what brands plans are for Prime Day and projections on this year's event. Amazon's Prime Day has been set for July 12 and 13th this year, giving brands a short window to put in place the best advertising strategies to boost sales and support their brands. Consumer demand will be dampened this year, and the current inflation rate, as well as macroeconomics, will possibly impact the demand on this year's Prime Day. 

Happy LGBTQ+ Pride Month! Jayzen is excited to have Brad Baumoel as his guest on the show. After thirty years in banking at JPMorgan Chase, Brad moved into an amazing role with the firm that aligns his professional leadership talents with his passion for his community. As the Global Head of LGBT+ Affairs, Brad leads the firm's center of excellence that develops executives who identify as LGBT+, helping to further their careers by bringing their full selves to work everyday. In celebration of Pride Month, the Lead With Your Brand!™ Podcast has partnered with Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, the premier organization working exclusively on LGBTQ+ workplace equality. Each week in June, we'll be featuring an out leader each with an amazing career story to share. In addition, we've assembled an entire collection of shows with LGBTQ+ guests from the past three seasons, including two special roundtable episodes where we explore issues around the trans experience and intersectionality of race and LGBTQ+ in the workplace. The team at Out & Equal has created free downloadable discussion guides, so we encourage you to use the podcast as a virtual “book club” with your ERG or group of friends. Listen to the episodes, download the discussion guides and schedule your group discussion! Check out www.leadwithyourbrand.com/pride for more information. Happy Pride! Guest Bio Brad Baumoel Global Head of LGBT+ Affairs JPMorgan Chase Brad Baumoel is the Global Head of LGBT+ Affairs for JPMorgan Chase, where his career has spanned the last 30 years,. At JPMorgan Chase, Brad has held key roles in Corporate Finance, Asset & Wealth Management and Consumer & Community Banking. Brad came out as a Gay Man at work, 10 years into his professional career and has worked hard on leading aspects of the firm's LGBT+ agenda and their PRIDE Business Resource Group over the last 25 years. In 2021, Brad established and built-out the Office of LGBT+ Affairs, where he's merged his day job with his gay job and now leads their unified, global strategy focused on promoting equity and inclusion for LGBT+ Employees, Clients, Business Partners and Communities. Brad, his husband and their son (an 11 year old German Shepherd), live in New York. Links To learn more about Lead With Your Brand system, please visit: LeadWithyYourBrand.com To book Jayzen for a speaking engagement or workshop at your company, visit: JayzenPatria.com

The FBI is worried about crypto scams on LinkedIn. Amazon is running out of workers to hire. Politicians in the USA are grumbling about a common charger on gadgets. Google is trying to lighten the mood on #TextsGoGreen. And what do we think about the Nothing? Is it something? Let’s get OUR tech week started … Continue reading "#SGGQA 256: LinkedIn Crypto Fraud, USA Common Charger, is the Nothing Something?"

Preet Banerjee is in the house today.  One of the country's leading personal financial advisors drops by to help demystify living in a period of rising inflation.  From housing to gas to food, what's the best way to handle the situation -- Preet offers some suggestions.  Plus some interesting new stats on trust in the media.

Today's guest has some pretty deep knowledge of human behaviour, and he brings it together with the magic of creativity - it's Adam Ferrier - consumer psychologist and founder of the highly awarded ad agency Thinkerbell. He's also a keynote speaker, a regular panellist on Gruen, The Project and is co-host of my new favourite podcast (apart from this one of course) Black T Shirts. He's created two conferences and sits on three boards, including social influence platform TRIBE. A board game creator and 2x author for the ever-relevant books titled The Advertising Effect: How to change behaviour and Stop Listening to The Customer: Try hearing your brand instead. If this is your first introduction to Adam's work and way of thinking, you're welcome! Buy the books and follow the creativity of his ad agency Thinkerbell, and if you know his work, you know you're gonna love this chat. We talk about why it doesn't matter if you f*ck things up, finding the aligned people that will strap in for the journey with you, and being less hard on ourselves. It's a good one, let us know what you think by leaving a review (hopefully 5 stars! I really do love it when that happens) and here's the links to his work… Adam's ad agency Thinkerbell His booksThe Advertising Effect: How to change behaviour and Stop Listening to The Customer:Try hearing your brand instead. His excellent podcast on creativity in marketing Black T-Shirts And that boardgame he once made  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's Shopify ecommerce podcast, my guest is Akhilesh Srivastava the Founder and CEO from Fenix Commerce. They are a SaaS platform that helps eCommerce retailers provide an amazon like delivery experience.Consumer expectations around shipping are changing. The number one reason consumers don't buy from your Shopify store is related to shipping. In order to gain material advantage retailers need to provide fast, cheap and on-time shipping options. To help Shopify brands deliver a better customer experience Fenix Commerce have built an ecommerce delivery operations system that utilizes upstream data and AI to optimize shipping operations, costs and delivery dates based on real-time product, inventory, customer and carrier info. This allows brands to deliver a superior pre and post-purchase shipping experience while increasing customer satisfaction. It turns shipping from a cost-center to a profit-center all while helping brands see a 17% increase in conversion and an 8% reduction in shipping costs. Profitably GROW and SCALE your Shopify store with the resources mentioned in today's ecommerce podcast episode.CLICK HERE > eCommerceFastlane.com or eCommerceFastlanePodcast.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Tampons are the latest addition to the growing list of out-of-stock items in states all across the country. Supply chain woes have left many shelves sparse, and the products have become more expensive, making it equally hard to find affordable alternatives. Sharon Terlep of The Wall Street Journal joins Lisa Desjardins to discuss what's behind the shortage. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

In this mega episode, I'm breaking down some of the best tips from the world of sustainable living to help you save money during these unprecedented times. Then, I'm going to delve into becoming a conscious consumer to help you understand what that means, how to do it, and the lessons I've learned in my journey to detach myself from consumerism. There are lots of tips here and ideas to help shift your thinking! Here are some resources to help you on your way (Visit simplesustainablehome.com for links to all of these things!) The free Roadmap to Sustainable Living to simplify your journey Simple Living Collection's Summer issue with my workbook Becoming a Conscious Consumer - Only available until 6/20! (affiliate link) Related resources Questions to ask yourself before buying something new How to Go Zero Waste on a Budget 30+ frugal sustainable living tips --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/simplesustainablehome/support

Americans are starting to break out the plastic again, and that means consumer debt is once again on the rise. Today on MoneyWise, Neile Simon with Credit Counselor with Christian Credit Counselors joins us to discuss how you can get help with getting out of credit card debt. Neile Simon is is a Certified Credit Counselor with Christian Credit Counselors. Simon shares the latest figures on U.S. personal debt. SURGING PERSONAL DEBT In one month alone debt levels jumped by over $40 billion to a total of nearly $4.5 trillion. That's an annual increase of 11.3%, far higher than was predicted and setting a new high. There are two types of consumer debt: Non-revolving debt, which includes things like car and student loans. That debt grew by about 8.5% to nearly $3.5 trillion in February alone! But revolving debt shot up far higher. Credit cards and other types of revolving loans jumped by over 20% to more than $1 trillion in a single month! This is a fast-rising trend. The January increase was only about 4% WHAT'S CAUSING THIS? Analysts believe inflation, now at a 40-year high, is a major culprit. Prices for almost everything have shot up, putting a strain on budgets. Prices at the pump are especially painful right now. WHAT'S THE SOLUTION? Most people will have to tweak their budgets to adapt to the new reality of rising prices. Some categories will need to be cut to account for higher costs in other categories. The important thing is to stay on a spending plan and find a way to spend less than you earn. PLEASE do not think of credit cards as a solution to an income shortfall. That will only make the problem worse. But what if you're already buried under substantial credit card debt. What's the solution? IS DEBT SETTLEMENT THE ANSWER? We're getting more calls these days about debt settlement. But Simon says debt settlement (which is different from credit counseling) is not the solution either. Debt settlement may lower your monthly payment, but it often leads to paying more interest overall. It also puts you at risk of continuing to use consumer debt to make ends meet, ultimately digging an even deeper hole. CHRISTIAN CREDIT COUNSELING Christian Credit Counselors doesn't do debt settlement. When people sign up with Christian Credit Counselors, they will work with their creditors to dramatically lower interest rates and arrive at one affordable monthly payment. CCC has existing arrangements with all major credit card issuers to lower your interest rates. Clients ultimately pay less interest and are typically able to pay off card debt up to 80% faster than by doing it themselves. For more information, visit their website at ChristianCreditCounselors.org or call 800-557-1985. On today's program, Rob also answers listener questions: ● How much actual cash should you keep on hand? ● Does it make sense to take money out of retirement investments to pay for moving costs when going into full-time ministry? ● Can you move 401k funds into an I-bond? Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000 or email them to Questions@MoneyWise.org. Also, visit our website at MoneyWise.org where you can connect with a MoneyWise Coach, join the MoneyWise Community, and even download the free MoneyWise app. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1085/29

On today's episode, Kunle is joined by Kosmo Khosravi, CEO of Kosmo's Q, an omnichannel American barbecue spices brand that started out as a passion project with one spice. Now, it sells 30 different products across the UK, Switzerland, and the US. It's time to pull out the cold drinks and enjoy a get-together with some barbecue. The burning charcoal, the savory fragrance of the marinade and the sizzling sound of cooking meat. It brings back memories and pulls us out from the heaviness of the world. It's the perfect cure from a long lockdown period.  BBQ isn't complete without the perfectly blended spices that bring out the meat's optimum flavor. Don't struggle to find the perfect recipe in some cooking book. Instead, head on over to Kosmo's Q. Kosmo's Q helps barbecue fanatics and beginners make the most badass BBQ on the planet by giving you 30 tried and tested spices to complement the meat of your choice.  In this episode, Kunle and Kosmo talk about how he grew his brand from a seed investment value of $500 to over $500 million in gross margin value. You will get to hear about how customer centricity has always driven his brand. This is a great episode for business owners. -----------SPONSORS:This episode is brought to you by:Wayflyer As you continue to grow your eCommerce business, access to growth capital will increasingly play a significant role in achieving and surpassing your financial goals. Why should you give up equity or pay high interest rates to grow your business? There is a new way to access growth capital that transforms eCommerce businesses.Wayflyer has shaken the way eCommerce operators access working capital. With a dedication to only DTC eCommerce businesses, Wayflyer will fund you on a fairer “fund as you grow” model, meaning if your sales slow down, so does the amount you transfer back.. There is just a simple fee and the funds you need to grow are deposited to your account instantly. It's worth checking out – Wayflyer.com Klaviyo  This episode is brought to you by Klaviyo – a growth marketing platform that powers over 25,000 online businesses. Direct-to-Consumer brands like ColourPop, Huckberry, and Custom Ink rely on Klaviyo.  Klaviyo helps you own customer experience and grow high-value customer relationships right from a shopper's first impression through to each subsequent purchase, Klaviyo understands every single customer interaction and empowers brands to create more personalized marketing moments.  Find out more on klaviyo.com/2x. Gorgias  This episode is brought to you by Gorgias, the leading helpdesk for Shopify, Magento and BigCommerce merchants. Gorgias combines all your communication channels including email, SMS, social media, live chat, and phone into one platform.  This saves your team hours per day & makes managing customer orders a breeze. It also integrates seamlessly with your existing tech stack, so you can access customer information and even edit, return, refund, or create an order right from your helpdesk.  Go to Gorgias.com and mention 2x eCommerce Podcast for two months free. Recharge This episode is brought to you by Recharge, the leading subscriptions payment solution for Shopify merchants. Recharge helps eCommerce merchants of all sizes launch and scale subscription offerings. Recharge powers the growth of over 15,000 subscription merchants and their communities—turning one-time transactions into long-term customer relationships. Turn transactions into relationships and experience seamless subscription commerce with Recharge. Find out more on rechargepayments.com/2x.

This week: Crazy fast Cadillac Escalade Downsized Lincolns Strange Pop Tart flavors Frustrated listener shares EV-charger costs Thanks to John Biel of Collectible Automobile for joining us.

This episode is brought to you by Sendlane.   One of the mantras of Robin Wilson, chairman and founder of A Blue Egg Corporation, is asking people when they last washed their pillows.   With Blue Egg's brands in the clean home product space, it's a question that's important to get across to customers, she says.   "They're so embarrassed - the average answer was six years," Robin says. "That's drool dander. If you put oils on your hair and have a pet sleeping in your bed, anything you can imagine is on that dirty pillow that now weighs more than when you bought it."   In 2015, she published a book on home health called "Clean Design: Wellness for Your Lifestyle." Another book is in the works.   Robin's company also has a social justice campaign called Project Lilac that supplies bed sheets to safe houses or shelters for victims of domestic violence.   "That's just a simple gesture that can put someone on the road to believing in themselves again," she says.   The company's mission is to be an affordable luxury brand for the allergen-aware consumer.   "You don't have to have allergies to get our product," she says. "It's something you can get, though, if you want to prevent and protect yourself because it's woven at a 0.5 micron. So bedbugs and dust mites can't penetrate through the fabric, so it's almost like a tech play on sheets and sheeting."   When sharing wisdom, Robin first cautions about how life advice is dispensed.   "I want to remind people that anyone who gives you advice, often it's from their perspective," she says. "You should take a piece from this and a piece from that and make it your piece. Make it your vision."   What Robin hopes will happen soon is that we'll emerge from the pandemic and get back to the basics of coming together as a community, especially when it comes to socializing with friends and mentors.   "Have people in your life who are connectors," she says. "Those people get great joy from telling and talking to all their friends and saying, do you know about? Did you know about? And make sure there are a few people like that in your world because they will tell everybody what you're doing and why it's so great."   In Part 2, Robin talks about:   * The importance of pillow health. * The words of wisdom in her book. * Her brand's social justice campaign - Project Lilac. * Where you can find Clean Design Home products. * Why sleep is so vital to your health. * The perils of taking just one person's advice. * The importance of socializing with connectors.   Join Ramon Vela and Robin Wilson as they break down the inside story on The Story of a Brand.   For more on A Blue Egg Corporation, visit: https://ablueegg.com/    For her book, “Clean Design: Wellness for Your Lifestyle,” visit Amazon.   Subscribe and Listen to the podcast on all major apps. Simply search for “The Story of a Brand,” or click here to listen on your favorite podcast player: Listen now.   *   This episode is also brought to you by Sendlane.   If all DTC companies were forced to turn off Facebook ads, they'd be dead on arrival. Why is that?   They over-invest in paid acquisition and under-invest in retention.   Luckily, Sendlane makes it easy to solve this problem. Sendlane is an E-Commerce Customer Experience Platform helping hundreds of DTC brands to tighten their existing customer relationships.   Sendlane automates personalized customer experiences through Welcome and Abandoned Cart workflows, SMS, Deep Data Integrations with Shopify and WooCommerce, multi-store functionality, and much more.   Plus, they don't stand for lazy customer support. Their San-Diego-based team has an average 1-minute response time from a live human, making sure you never get stuck in a chat queue ever again.   Curious about how Sendlane can help your DTC brand grow? Schedule a demo with a Specialist. Visit https://www.sendlane.com/story 

Meet Bob “Sully” Sullivan, long time radio host and one helluva stock picker who happens to be in the business of personal finance and investing with an unmatched ability to deliver bar room style conversation with business flair. The Big Biz Show is business talk for the rest of us!More info at - https://bigbizshow.com/

It’s Friday once more and there’s no time like this moment to begin to tell you about information that’s been waiting for you to read or listen to. The purpose of Charlottesville Community Engagement is to bring you as many stories and articles about the community as possible, on as frequent a level as possible.  I’m the host Sean Tubbs, and I want to make sure you know no Sean Tubbs were harmed in the creation of this episode. This work is free to read or listen to, but needs financial support. If you subscribe through Substack, Ting will match your initial payment!On today’s show: Former Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney files suit against the city alleging she was fired for trying to reform what she calls a racist departmentThe General Assembly meets today to act on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s amendments to the state budget A quarantine on moving some materials around parts of Virginia to stop the spread of the Spotted Lanternfly will soon be extended to Albemarle and CharlottesvilleCharlottesville’s Board of Zoning Appeals upholds a determination related to a future Wawa The Albemarle County Service Authority reports it’s ready to guard against “forever chemicals” in their drinking water supply First Shout-out is for the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards In today’s first subscriber-supported shout-out, have you ever wanted to learn as much as you can about how to preserve and protect trees? The Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards are opening up registration for their fall series of online training sessions and field activities running from August 9 through November 19. Full tuition details are at charlottesvilleareatreestewards.org and if you want to get a feel for what you may learn, there’s a public tree identification walk through the grand trees spanning the front areas of the University of Virginia on Sunday, June 26. Attendance is limited, so register today!General Assembly to consider Governor Youngkin’s budget amendmentsThe House of Delegates and the Senate convene this afternoon in Richmond to finalize budget amendments recommended by Governor Glenn Youngkin. “I approve the general purpose of this bill, but I am returning it without my signature with the request that thirty-five amendments be adopted,” Youngkin wrote in his recommendations for HB30.(the paragraph below was edited to make a correction)One of the largest amendments is a three month suspension on the state tax on gasoline and diesel beginning July 1. Legislation to accomplish this goal did not pass the General Assembly in the Special Session in April. A bill introduced by Youngkin did not make it out of either the House of Delegates Appropriations Committee or the Senate Finance Committee. Another amendment would make it a class 6 felony to picket at the residence of a judge, juror, witness, or court officer. The amendments cover both the current fiscal year and the next one that begins in two weeks, so financial amounts listed below are split over the biennium. These include:Two full time positions to support the Lieutenant Governor An additional $300,000 in salary increases for staff in the Office of the Attorney General$300,000 in state funds to the Virginia Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services to add staff to expand inspections for new meat processing facilities An additional $3 million for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership Authority An additional $4 million to expand the Early Reading Specialists program to schools that rank lowest in performanceThe redirecting of $5 million in financial aid assistance to students at Norfolk State University and Virginia State UniversityTwo million in additional funding for an Innovation Center to be built an a historically Black College of University as well as another four million over two years for increased security at all of the Commonwealth’s HBCU’s. Four million in funds would be redirected to support the University of Virginia’s Program on Constitutionalism and DemocracyThere’s $160,000 going to the Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University to “research ways to increase opportunities for K-12 students”Two million over two years for the Hampton Roads Proton Beam Therapy Institute at Hampton University $2.35 million in each year to hire 36 security guards at state-operated mental health treatment centersAnother $200,000 would go to the families of the security officers killed at Bridgewater College earlier this yearan appropriation of $50,000 would be made to prepare more prison beds for those arrested for picketing at a judge’s house There are also new policies that have been introduced into the budget.All public universities will have to demonstrate an “official commitment and set of policies and practices to support freedom of expression and inquiry, free speech, academic freedom, and diversity of thought.”The University of Virginia at Wise is authorized to offer graduate programs All state funding for any abortion-related service would be prohibited unless required by federal lawBail would be waived for certain criminal offensesParticipation in the new Community Lab School program would be expandedYoungkin made three amendments to HB29 which is known as the caboose bill as it looks back at previous budgets including the current fiscal year. These include a $26.5 million increase in revenue for FY22 and a $15 million for site preparation work in Richmond in an account called the Property Analytics Firm Infrastructure Fund. VDACS to expand Spotted Lanternfly quarantine to Charlottesville areaThe state entity that oversees management of invasive species will expand a quarantine on the movement of certain products to help slow the spread of the Spotted Lanternfly. The Virginia Department of Consumer and Agricultural Services has sent a letter to localities including Albemarle and Charlottesville notifying them of the new rules. “The Spotted Lanternfly Quarantine requires a permit to ensure that businesses are taking steps to guarantee regulated articles are free from spotted lanternfly,” reads a June 15 letter from David Gianino, the program manager for the Office of Plant Industry Services. “To obtain a spotted lanternfly permit, completion of an online training course is required and businesses must then apply for the permit with VDACS.”According to the letter, the spotted lanternfly is known to feed on “grapes, peaches, apples, maples, walnuts, hops, cucumbers, and basil.” The insect was spotted in Frederick County in January 2018 and a quarantine has been in place there, Clarke County, Warren County, and the city of Winchester. However, surveys conducted by VDACS indicate the bugs have been found in the cities of Buena Vista, Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Lexington, Lynchburg, Manassas, Staunton, Waynesboro and the counties of Albemarle, Augusta, Carroll, Page, Prince William, Rockingham, Rockbridge, Shenandoah, and Wythe. A wide range of materials are regulated including live or dead trees, lumber, vegetation, shipping containers, outdoor construction materials, equipment trucks, recreational vehicles, and more. A complete list is available in that letter. Information on how to get a permit is available on the VDACS website.Albemarle County Supervisors were briefed on the spotted lanternfly back in February, as reported here. Board of Zoning Appeals upholds city zoning in Wawa Officials with Tiger Fuel attempted yesterday to overturn a decision by the city’s zoning administrator that affects the future layout of a proposed Wawa on Fifth Street Extended. This one gets a little technical. “The applicant contends that the prescribed front setback for gas stations in Section 34-931(h) of the zoning ordinance are more lenient than the front setbacks for structures in the Highway Zoning district,” said Genevieve Keller, the chair of the Board of Zoning Appeals. Keller said that Tiger Fuel believed Zoning Administrator Read Brodhead should have used Section 34-738 instead. Tiger operates a convenience store immediately to the south. The details are way above most people.“It’s a little complicated, I know,” Brodhead said. Gordon Sutton, president of Tiger Fuel, tried to simplify the argument.“We are asking you to determine which of the two standards is more restrictive,” Sutton said. “The Highway Commercial regulations or the gas station regulations.” Sutton said the highway commercial zonings should apply, and he said his company has had to work under those rules in the past. Attorney Valerie Long with Williams Mullen represented the property owner, RBD Bent Creek LLC. “Virginia code specifically provides that the Board is to presume that Mr. Brodhead’s determination is correct and that the appellant, Tiger Fuel, has the burden of proof of proving otherwise,” Long said. Long said their scope of review was solely whether Brodhead was correct.“This is not the appropriate venue for a business owner to be attempting to stifle competition from a prospective business owner or property owner,” Long said. Long said the zoning rules for gas stations are written specifically to safely govern such a use, and that Tiger Fuel’s interpretation was not germane. After a public hearing and brief discussion, the BZA voted unanimously to uphold Brodhead’s determination. Albemarle County Service Authority officials: No PFAS in municipal drinking waterOn Wednesday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued non-binding health advisories on the presence of certain chemicals that do not break down. Yesterday, the environmental compliance specialist for the Albemarle County Service Authority told that entity’s Board of Directors that the municipal water supply is set up to filter out per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. But first, Tim Brown explained there are thousands of different chemical combinations that were created to make products that are water-resistant, heat-resistant, and grease-resistant. “Every chemical is distinct by the fact that the element fluorine is a component of the chemical, and the carbon-fluorine chemical bond is a very very strong one,” Brown said. “What does that mean? It means this chemicals do not break down in the environment.”Brown said health risks include liver failure, hormone imbalances, cancers, and suppression of immune systems.“A lot of nasties in there potentially,” Brown said. The EPA is currently promulgating new regulations to require monitoring and to seek to lower the acceptable level of PFAS compounds to near zero. “It was almost borderline startling information,” Brown said. Brown said the current acceptable standard is around 70 parts per trillion for PFAS and the new regulations could take that down. “Now going down into the fractions of parts per trillion which is in essence at the parts per quadrillion level,” Brown said. Brown said one issue will be that current test equipment may not be able to detect those levels. He said he felt the EPA advisories are intended to signal water producers across the country to take the issue seriously. He said the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority have been testing for PFAS twice a year since 2019. “Eighteen PFAS compounds were tested at all six of our treatment plants, both in the raw water and in the finished or treated water,” Brown said. “There were zero detections.” Brown said the new standards will be announced in September to be effective in the fall of 2023. He said the ACSA and the RWSA will continue to monitor the situation. Second shout-out goes to Camp AlbemarleToday’s second subscriber-supported public service announcement goes out to Camp Albemarle, which has for sixty years been a “wholesome rural, rustic and restful site for youth activities, church groups, civic events and occasional private programs.”Located on 14 acres on the banks of the Moorman’s River near Free Union, Camp Albemarle continues as a legacy of being a Civilian Conservation Corps project that sought to promote the importance of rural activities. Camp Albemarle seeks support for a plan to winterize the Hamner Lodge, a structure built in 1941 by the CCC and used by every 4th and 5th grade student in Charlottesville and Albemarle for the study of ecology for over 20 years. If this campaign is successful, Camp Albemarle could operate year-round. Consider your support by visiting campalbemarleva.org/donate. Brackney sues the city of Charlottesville, other partiesFormer Charlottesville Police Chief RaShall Brackney has filed a lawsuit in federal court against multiple parties alleging that, among other things, the city of Charlottesville acted unlawfully when former City Manager Chip Boyles fired her last September 1. She’s seeking ten million dollar in damages. (read the suit and its exhibits)In addition to Boyles, Brackney’s complaint in the Western District of Virginia also includes: former city Communications Director Brian Wheeler; city attorney Lisa Robertson; acting police chief Latroy “Tito” Durrette; former assistant police chief James Mooney; current Councilors Sena Magill and Lloyd Snook, former Councilor Heather Hill, and former Police Civilian Review Board chair Bellamy Brown. She also named Mike Wells of the Police Benevolent Association as a defendant. The suit builds on a claim filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission soon after she was fired by Boyles. In a series of facts, the complaint seeks to establish that Brackney was hired in June 2018 to “bring empathy, community-oriented training, and years of law enforcement methodology to the table” following distrust after two specific incidents in the summer of 2017. “As Chief of Police, Dr. Brackney’s priority was to stabilize [Charlottesville Police Department] by building rapport with its employees, whilst simultaneously empowering them to challenge their personal assumptions, regarding policing in the 21st Century,”  reads paragraph 31. As part of that work, Brackney collected data on all divisions of the Police Department and according to the complaint concluded that members of several of them including the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team were not up to the task. “Assignments were not based on strengths, but decades-old, archaic practices such as nepotism, favoritism, genderism, and racism,” reads paragraph 36. The complaint describes Brackney’s attempts to reform, such as converting four positions to civilians rather than sworn in officers. One of these was the public information officer. More trainings sessions were to be held, as well as taking minutes at department meetings.“These actions angered those who resented having a Black female at the helm of a police department, particularly one in the South with a conservative undercurrent,” reads paragraph 47. On June 3, 2021, Brackney received an email and video from a community member claiming police conduct by a specific officer and she took action on the complaint. That action included dismantling the SWAT team and firing or suspending officers she found to be involved through a subsequent investigation. In paragraph 61, the complaint states that Bellamy Brown and Mike Wells in early August put together a survey for Charlottesville police officers that Brackney claims was “intentionally negatively worded and targeting Plaintiff as a result of the investigation and disciplinary actions described above.” Paragraph 66 alleges a conspiracy between Brown, Hill, Wells, Snook, Boyles, Mooney and Magill to out Brackney as chief. The next one states that Boyles expressed confidence in Brackney’s leadership on August 26, 2021, as evidenced in a secret audio recording she made of their meeting. Brackney was fired on September 1 and paragraph 76 of the complaint quotes Boyle’s September 3 press release in the first of many iterations used to advance her complaint. “In order to dismantle systemic racism and eliminate police violence and misconduct in Charlottesville, we need a leader who is not only knowledgeable in that work, but is also effective in building collaborative relationships with the community, the department, and the team at City Hall… and [w]hile very good work and progress has been made, I ultimately decided new leadership was required to continue the City’s progress towards building a new climate and culture within the department,” Boyles wrote. The complaint continues to list specific incidents that Brackney considers libel. Paragraph 89 accuses Roberston and Boyles of falsifying documents, and offers that Brackney has secret recordings. Brackney seeks a trial by jury for all of the counts, including one alleging “tortious interference with employment contract.” Another claims unlawful retaliation and another claims that Brackney acted as a whistleblower and another alleges defamation and another claiming business conspiracy that involves Wells, Brown, and the named City Councilors.  Support the program!There’s a lot of information in this installment of this program, which is the 397th edition of the program. About a quarter of you are paying something to help keep Town Crier Productions in business. I have never been a very good salesperson, and won’t overly pitch. But, if you are benefiting from this newsletter and the information in it, please consider some form of support. I am not a nonprofit organization and most of my time is spent in putting the newsletter together, which includes producing the podcast. Supporting the program through a Substack contribution or through Patreon makes it very easy for me to get paid and every single dollar that I get makes me want to work that much harder to serve the community. In just under two years, I’ve produced hundreds of stories that seek to give you information about how decisions are made in our community and in the Commonwealth of Virginia. For more information on all of this, please visit the archive site Information Charlottesville to learn more, including how you too can get a shout-out! Thank you for reading, and please share with those you think might want to learn a few thing or two about what’s happening. This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe

VLOG: US v. Schulte, description from in sealed courtroom, FBI Guccifer follies. Also, #TorontoDominion hit for abusing consumers, but FederalReserve does nothing as on Citi in Russia. UN celebrates (its) sexual abuse in conflict

AP correspondent Norman Hall reports on Biden-Shipping Costs

With home prices hitting new highs and inventory hitting new lows, the differences between now and the last housing bubble may help ease investors' worries that the market is about to burst. Co-Heads of U.S. Securitized Products Research Jim Egan and Jay Bacow discuss.-----Transcript-----Jay Bacow: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Jay Bacow, Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research here at Morgan Stanley. Jim Egan: And I'm Jim Egan, the other Co-Head of U.S. Securitized Products Research. Jay Bacow: And on this episode of the podcast, we'll be discussing the path for both housing prices, housing activity and agency mortgages through the end of the year. It's Thursday, June 16th, at noon in New York. Jay Bacow: Jim, it seems like every time we come on this podcast, there's another record in the housing market. And this time it's no different. Jim Egan: Absolutely not. Home prices just set a new record, 20.6% year over year growth. They set a new month over month growth record. Affordability, when you combine that growth in home prices with the increase we've seen in mortgage rates, we've deteriorated more in the past 12 months than any year that we have on record. And a lot of that growth can be attributed to the fact that inventory levels are at their lowest level on record. Consumer attitudes toward buying homes are worse than they've been since 1982. That's not a record, but you get my point. Jay Bacow: All right. So we're setting records for home prices. We're setting records for change in affordability. With all these broken records, investors are understandably a little worried that we might have another housing bubble. What do you think? Jim Egan: Look, given the run up in housing in the 2000s and the fact that we,ve reset the record for the pace of home price growth, investors can be permitted a little anxiety. We do not think there is a bubble forming in the U.S. housing market. There are a number of reasons for that, two things I would highlight. First, the pre GFC run up in home prices, that was fueled by lax lending standards that really elevated demand to what we think were unsustainable levels. And that ultimately led to an incredible increase in defaults, where borrowers with risky mortgages were not able to refinance and their only real option at that point was foreclosures. This time around, lending standards have remained at the tight end of historical ranges, while supply has languished at all time lows. And that demand supply mismatch is what's driving this increase in prices this time around. The second reason, we talked about affordability deteriorating more over the past 12 months than any year on record. That hit from affordability is just not as widely spread as it has been in prior mortgage markets, largely because most mortgages today are fixed rate. We're not talking about adjustable rate mortgages where current homeowners can see their payments reset higher. This time around a majority of borrowers have fixed rate mortgages with very affordable payments. And so they don't see that affordability pressure. What they're more likely to experience is being locked in at current rates, much less likely to list their home for sale and exacerbating that historically tight inventory environment that we just talked about. Jay Bacow: All right. So, you don't think we're going to have another housing bubble. Things aren't going to pop. So does that mean we're going to continue to set records? Jim Egan: I wouldn't say that we're going to continue to set records from here. I think that home prices and housing activity are going to go their separate ways. Home prices will still grow, they're just going to grow at a slower pace. Home sales is where we are really going to see decreases. Those affordability pressures that we've talked about have already made themselves manifest in existing home sales, in purchase applications, in new home sales, which have seen the biggest drops. Those kinds of decreases, we think those are going to continue. That lack of inventory, the lack of foreclosures from what we believe have been very robust underwriting standards, that keeps home prices growing, even if at a slower pace. That record level we just talked about? That was 20.6% year over year. We think that slows to 10% by December of this year, 3% by December of 2023. But we're not talking about home prices falling and we're not talking about a bubble popping. Jim Egan: But with that backdrop, Jay, you cover the agency mortgage backed securities markets, a large liquid way to invest in mortgages, how would you invest in this? Jay Bacow: So, buying a home is generally the single largest investment for individuals, but you can scale that up in the agency mortgage market. It's an $8.5 trillion market where the government has underwritten the credit risk and that agency paper provides a pretty attractive way to get exposure to the housing outlook that you've described. If housing activity is going to slow, there's less supply to the market. That's just good for investors. And the recent concern around the Fed running off their balance sheet, combined with high inflation, has meant that the spread that you get for owning these bonds looks really attractive. It's well over 100 basis points on the mortgages that are getting produced today versus treasuries. It hasn't been over 100 basis points for as long as it has since the financial crisis. Jim, just in the same way that you don't think we're having another housing bubble, we don't think mortgages are supposed to be priced for financial crisis levels. Jim Egan: Jay, thanks for taking the time to talk. Jay Bacow: Great speaking with you, Jim. Jim Egan: And thanks for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and share the podcast with a friend or colleague today.

/// Get The National Frac Spread Count on Friday! Primary Vision is now offering a subscription service to the Primary Vision Research Portal with both complimentary and paid tiers available. The complimentary tier will offer access to our YouTube content, program highlights and our National Frac Spread Count. The paid tiers will offer access to our commentary, insights, data, Frac Spread Count products and so much more in the coming months.Get started today: primaryvision.co

As the VP of Loyalty Operations and Customer Experience Strategy at Marriott International, Nikhil Takalkar has witnessed and contributed to the evolution of loyalty programs in the travel and hospitality industry over the last decade. He joins this episode alongside Ramya Murali, co-leader of Deloitte Consulting LLP's Loyalty offering, to discuss the major changes they've seen and where they think loyalty strategy is going next.

Small Biz Florida host Tom Kindred and cohost Dr. Ricardo are joined by the Better Business Bureau on this episode recorded at the JMI Small Business Leadership Conference.  This discussion is all about the best advice for preventing customer fraud, Cliff Kurt who serves as a business consultant for the BBB, and Bryan Oglesby who is the Director of Public Relations and Outreach give us an in-depth explanation of the BBB accreditation process, and what it could mean for your business. Cliff and Bryan also talk about their background and pathway to the BBB.  – Check out the Better Business Bureau: https://www.bbb.org/  For more segments like these, subscribe to Small Biz Florida and Follow the official Small Biz Florida Instagram! This and the following segments were recorded at this year's annual JMI Small Business Leadership Conference hosted at the JW Marriott Orlando, Grande Lakes. These segments were also cohosted by Dr. Herbert Ricardo Professor at the School of Business at Indian River State College. – Connect w/ Dr. Herbert Ricardo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herbert-ricardo-ph-d-91b1ba225/ – To learn more about the JMI Institute, visit their website here – To learn more about the JMI Small Business Leadership Conference, visit their website here

Meet Bob “Sully” Sullivan, long time radio host and one helluva stock picker who happens to be in the business of personal finance and investing with an unmatched ability to deliver bar room style conversation with business flair. The Big Biz Show is business talk for the rest of us!More info at - https://bigbizshow.com/

How well do you understand the role of light in Universe? How about light's role in relation to energy? These may not be things you have considered when you think about your daily meal choices. In this episode, Sensei introduces some scientific facts and deep insights that will elevate your spiritual eating practice...forever. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/plant-powered-buddhist/support

Canada's divisive, punitive, and unscientific travel mandates and restrictions are finally over*! *(Some conditions apply. User's experience may vary. For a limited time only. Subject to change. Consumer beware. Contact the proper authorities to see if it applies to you.)  

Sriram Krishnan is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, investing in crypto/web3. Prior to a16z, Sriram led product teams at consumer social platforms - Snap, Facebook, and Twitter.Together with his wife and cohost Aarthi, he broke the Internet during Covid, hosting the Good Time Show on Clubhouse. Where he brought on guests like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerburg, and Virgil Abloh.Learn more about Sriram and a16z Crypto:Sriram Krishnan Twitter: @sriramkSriram Krishnan Website: https://sriramk.comThe Good Time Show: https://www.thegoodtimeshow.cluba16z Crypto Website: https://a16zcrypto.coma16z Crypto Canon: https://a16z.com/2018/02/10/crypto-readings-resourcesa16z 2022 State of Crypto Report: https://a16zcrypto.com/state-of-crypto-report-a16z-2022/In this episode we discuss:Behind the scenes story of hosting Elon Musk on ClubhouseThe preparation and psychology of preparing live showsJohn le Carre - “In the first minute or so of the host talking to him, the host made le Carre feel like you're going to be okay - we're going to take care of you.”Favorite episode stories: Calvin Harris, Naomi OsakaWhy Sriram moved from investing in Consumer to Crypto at a1z6How to get onboarded into Web3How a16z Crypto team id structuredThe Web2 to Web3 migrationWhy social media is right for Web3Differences between Operator and InvestorDifferences between Angel and VCWhat Sriram looks for in foundersTell us what you think by DM'ing @wiiichang. If you liked this episode, you can find more episodes at wld.show!

Stephen McKeon is a Partner at Collab+Currency and Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Oregon, where is teaches a course on crypto assets. As an investor, Stephen focuses on consumer facing applications of crypto. He was a past guest on the show back in 2018 discussing security tokens. That replay is available in the feed and sheds light on how far the crypto ecosystem has come over the last four years. Our conversation begins with a reflection on Steve's security token thesis, his shift to investing, and his strategy at Collab+Currency. We dive into NFTs, DAOs, the metaverse and gaming, including the latest state of play and his investment thesis around each. We then turn to important transitions to watch across interoperability, digital wallets, price volatility, and use cases for consumers. We close by discussing how interested folks can learn more by covering the syllabus of Steve's crypto course and the websites he encourages others to play around. (fewb3.xyz and rabbithole.gg) Learn More  Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn  Subscribe to the mailing list  Access Transcript with Premium Membership 

Our guest today is Ariana Thacker, founder of Conscience VC. Conscience invests into early-stage & science-led consumer startups. We're going to discuss why science-led consumer startups is contrarian in itself, what are real tangible defensible moats, and her approach to fundraising her first fund. Why did you want to break into VC? Why did you decide to start your own fund? What was the fundraising process like? How do you partner with founders? What's your approach to portfolio construction and fund construction? I.e. are you more concentrated or less concentrated, what are your Gen-Z apprentices role within the fund / scout program What do you mean by the intersection of deep tech and consumer? How do you think about defensible competitive advantages? Walk us through why you invested in Nimbus or gained conviction? How far along does a founder need to be in order for you to be at your stage? Are there specific categories that you mostly focus on?  3 buckets What are some of the challenges investing in deeptech? Why do alot of fund managers stay away? What's your approach to sourcing opportunities?  Go through multi pronged approach What's one thing you would change about venture capital? What's one book that has inspired you personally and one book that has inspired you professionally?  4 agreements - dont personally, dont make assumptions, always do your best, be impeccable with your word Disciplined entrepreneurship -> What's the best piece of advice that you've received?

High Complexity, Low CommodityOnline experiences have become more commoditized over time; low and no-code platforms have displaced the need for a “developer,” and instead require feature configurations and tweaksSoftware development thrives where experiences have high complexity. High complexity often means that there are no de facto “standards” or best practices that need to be employed. This requires developers to build, test, refine, and iterate. This is the best-case scenario for a developer in eCommerce.eCommerce platforms have become increasingly prescriptive in UI and UX as customers have become “used to” certain purchasing patternsEcommerce needs to become more complex in certain industry verticals. Specific sectors such as automotive, food, furniture, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals all have sophisticated requirements, complicated purchase paths, long consideration times, unique regulatory requirements, or other challenges that make them a poor fit for off-the-shelf software, but a great fit for developer innovation.A shopper's identity in high-commodity environments is tied to the retailer. You're not a grocery shopper, you're a Walmart shopper or a Target shopper. However, in high-complexity environments, the identity of the shopper is found in the brand of the product itself. You're not a car driver, you're a Tesla driver.Associated Links:Learn more about Boris Lokschin and SprykerCheck out Excite 2022, Spryker's eCommerce Conference in June

"Everyone should have an intense interest in what money is and how it's manipulated by the few at the expense of the many. Money is crucial for survival. It is necessary for maintaining a free society. A healthy economy depends on it. Limiting political power is impossible without it. Sound money is essential for preventing unnecessary wars. Prosperity and peace in the long run are impossible without it."   Welcome back to another episode of Made You Think! In this episode, Nat and Neil are joined by their official new co-host, Adil Majid! In today's episode, they discuss their key takeaways from End the Fed by Ron Paul, a book which explains the fundamental problems with fiat money and provides a history on banking in the US. If you've never challenged the role of the Federal Reserve, this is an episode you won't want to miss. We cover a wide range of topics including: • Currency vs. money; How are they different? • The shift in power from countries to companies • Money printing, inflation, and the fate of the US dollar • The Cantillon Effect, and who benefits the most from this • Why utility is important in the longevity of currency And much more. Please enjoy, and make sure to follow Nat, Neil, and Adil on Twitter and share your thoughts on the episode.   Links from the Episode: Mentioned in the show: Great Books Program (2:11) Growth Machine (8:22) Audit the Fed, Sanders and Paul (10:04) Taylor Pearson - Cryptocurency and the Turkey Problem (12:28) Luna (19:45) Tether (20:08) Nat's Tokenomics 101 (22:35)  Nat's Tokenomics 102 (22:35)  Starlink (26:46) The Tim Dillon Show (29:16) Reagan tells Soviet jokes (35:04) Flexport (36:50) Bank of North America (39:18) First Bank of the United States (39:23) Second Bank of the United States (39:24) Independent Treasury System (39:27) Jekyll Island (48:14) Cantillon Effect (49:45) Fiat money (54:28) 40% of US dollars in existence were printed in the last 12 months (59:15) Iron (1:00:12) DAI Stablecoin (1:01:11) Russia's "Gold Standard" (1:05:06) Ruble as Year's Best-Performing Currency (1:05:10) Books Mentioned: End the Fed The Revolt of the Public (1:40) The Iliad (2:20) The Odyssey (2:21) Gödel, Escher, Bach (7:23) (Book Episode) (Nat's Book Notes) Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order (23:08) People Mentioned: Tommy Collison (2:12) Aristotle (3:29) Seneca (3:30) (Book Episode) Douglas Hofstadter (7:21)  Bernie Sanders (10:00) Ben Bernanke (10:24) Tim Dillon (29:16) Warren Buffet (32:33) Show Topics: 0:32 We're stoked to announce that Adil Majid (who has joined us for episodes #7, #33, #34, #35, #71, #74, #75) is officially a co-host of Made You Think! Nat, Neil, and Adil talk about what's next for the podcast, and share the Great Books list that will be used to guide their book choices on future episodes. 4:01 Why some books have lasted so long, and why there are very few good philosophy books that have come out in the modern world. These old books were written over a long period of time, covering a wider span of history as compared to books written today. 8:32 The book we're discussing today is End the Fed by Ron Paul. One idea brought up in the book is auditing the Fed to see what exactly it is that the Fed is doing and where the money is going. We use the terms money and currency interchangeably but conceptually they're different things. The U.S. dollar is not money, it is currency. 15:34 Paul makes a case that there should be a free market of currencies, and people should create currencies that compete with the dollar. This ties in well with cryptocurrency where there are numerous coins, all with different rules and tokenomics for each currency. Historically, it hasn't always worked this way. 19:00 Creating stablecoins in crypto, they fail when they don't have a clear and necessary utility. Many projects will create new stable coins pegged to the dollar, but unless there's a specific market where that coin has utility, it falls out of circulation. 23:49 One interesting change that we're living through is the shift of power from countries to companies. Because many of the big and powerful companies are in the US and tied to the US dollar, the dollar retains it value and utility. 27:19 The era that we grow up seems to play a role in how we view and trust the government, as well as our support level of major wars. When things feel the best is when the down trend begins. Likewise, the uptick begins when things are at their worst. 32:54 With a pessimistic attitude, we have to remember how resilient countries are. We also don't have to solely rely on the government to fix the slump that we're in, there are companies that can fix some of these issues we're facing. 38:22 What is the Fed, and what systems were there before it? There were 4 systems before: Bank of North America , First Bank of the United States, Second Bank of the United States, and the US Independent Treasury System. Adil gives a brief history of these systems and how it has led to where we are today. 45:13 When you think about different sectors of crypto, sound money is underrated in the US. Gold for example, Neil shares the significance of investing in gold in Indian culture. Rising inflation rates in the US. 48:14 Jekyll Island and the Cantillon effect. Whoever is closest to the money printer benefits the most. Some people are effected more than others by inflation. How banks benefit from inflation. 54:28 Funding war with Fiat vs. hard money. Once we had the ability to print unlimited amounts of money to fund war, we didn't have to stop due to the economic cost of continuing as we may have had to before. 57:50 We keep having to print more and more money to get out of each economic downturn, and Paul predicts that at one point there will not be any amount of money to get us out, potentially leading to the collapse of the US dollar. What happens if or when we get to this point? 1:04:30 Hypothetically speaking, is there a way for the Fed to transition to having backing for the dollar? Does it have to collapse, and where are we in the current collapse? 1:08:54 Consumer debt crisis- if that all starts to collapse and unwind, the effects of that could be pretty devastating. Parallel economies. 1:11:43 Thanks for listening! Next episode, we will be covering The Revolt of the Public, so be sure to pick up a copy before our next episode! If you enjoyed this episode, let us know by leaving a review on iTunes and tell a friend. As always, let us know if you have any book recommendations! You can say hi to us on Twitter @TheRealNeilS, @adilmajid, @nateliason and share your thoughts on this episode. You can now support Made You Think using the Value-for-Value feature of Podcasting 2.0. This means you can directly tip the co-hosts in BTC with minimal transaction fees. To get started, simply download a podcast app (like Fountain or Breez) that supports Value-for-Value and send some BTC to your in-app wallet. You can then use that to support shows who have opted-in, including Made You Think! We'll be going with this direct support model moving forward, rather than ads. Thanks for listening. See you next time!