Government agency overseeing stock exchanges
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6 episodes with securities exchange commission
2 episodes with securities exchange commission
3 episodes with securities exchange commission
2 episodes with securities exchange commission
2 episodes with securities exchange commission
2 episodes with securities exchange commission
6 episodes with securities exchange commission
2 episodes with securities exchange commission
2 episodes with securities exchange commission
Should the United States delist Chinese stocks? At first thought with all the craziness of the trade war it sounds like delisting all the Chinese companies from the American stock markets may be a good idea. It is important to know that there are 286 Chinese companies listed on major US stock exchanges. You'll recognize some of the names like Alibaba, Baidu and JD.com. It is estimated by analysts at Goldman Sachs that US institutional investors currently own about $830 billion worth of Chinese stocks. That is more than two times what the Chinese own of US stocks as that is estimated around $370 billion. But a quick sell off could bring down stock valuations and make it difficult to get out of many of these stocks on both sides. An important piece of information I brought up a couple years ago was the Accountable Act which came to be in 2020. This allows the Securities Exchange Commission to ban foreign companies from trading if American regulators are not allowed to inspect the auditors for three years in a row. I always worry about Chinese companies because of what I call government accounting. They are not held to the same accounting standards there and I believe companies may list financial statements based on what the government tells them. There have been some Chinese companies that delisted themselves rather than going through an audit. I think that tells you quite a bit. My feeling is we should not delist all the Chinese stocks that trade on American stock exchanges under what is known as ADRs, but be sure that the Chinese companies have the same transparency as American companies when it comes to their financial statements. If we can't get that transparency, then those companies should be delisted. Jobs report shows more evidence the economy is in good shape US nonfarm payrolls grew by 177k in the month of April, which easily topped the estimate of 133k. Jobs remained robust in health care as the sector added 51k jobs in the month of April and employment in transportation and warehousing and financial activities was also strong as the groups added 29k and 14k jobs respectively in the month. Other categories like construction, manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and retail trade saw little or no change in payrolls, while government declined by 9k jobs in the month. Government jobs are now down by 26k since January, but remember employees on paid leave or receiving ongoing severance pay are still counted as employed. This likely means we will continue to see losses accelerate in this category as the year continues. Negatives in the report included the fact that employment numbers were revised down by a total of 58k in the previous two months. Also, April's reading was lighter than March's reading of 185k, but considering the unemployment rate remains at 4.2%, I still see these jobs gains as impressive, especially with all the negativity that people have been discussing. With that said, I still do anticipate weaker numbers in terms of the payroll additions in future months, but if the unemployment rate remains low I don't see that as a problem. On the inflation front, we also got good news with average hourly earnings rising just 3.8%. I see this as a healthy increase that does not put pressure on inflation like when wages were growing over 5% in 2022. Job openings look problematic on the surface In the March Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, job openings totaled 7.2 million. This was below February's reading of 7.5 million and the estimate, which also stood at 7.5 million. This is still not super concerning to me. We tend to forget how strong the labor market has been and while we continue to see a softening, there is plenty of room before I see cause for concern. Just for reference, job openings in 2019 averaged approximately 7.2 million, in 2018 they averaged approximately 6.8 million, and in 2017 they averaged approximately 6.2 million. Compare that to where we are today and that should give you more comfort. Another area I saw as positive in the report was the fact that quits totaled 3.3 million, which produced a quit rate of 2.1%. This is important because if people were truly concerned about a major slowdown and thought they would not be able to find work elsewhere, I don't believe they would be quitting their jobs. These quit numbers are still quite close to 2019 levels, which many considered as a very strong economy. That year quits averaged approximately 3.5 million and there was an average quit rate of about 2.3%. Also in the report, we saw layoffs remained quite low at 1.6 million. Back in 2019, layoffs averaged around 1.8 million per month. There is no doubt that uncertainty remains and that will have some impact on businesses and their hiring plans, but in terms of it pushing the economy into a major recession, since we are coming from such a healthy level, I just don't see that happening. Are we in the middle of a recession? The first reading of Q1 GDP showed a decrease of 0.3%. A recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of declining GDP, so some may argue we are half way there. Let us not forget in 2022 we did see two consecutive quarters of declining GDP as Q1 declined 1.4% and Q2 showed an advance estimate that was down 0.9%. After further research the second quarter ended up seeing a total reversal and it is now reported to have actually grown by 0.3%. Even with the difficult start, that year ended with a 2.1% growth rate. We also can't forget that the National Bureau of Economy Research (NBER) makes the official call on recession and they use a broader set of indicators that led them not to declare a recession in 2022. I say all of this because I still believe even if we hit a technical recession, if employment remains strong, I don't believe we would have an “official” recession. I am still unsure that we will even see Q2 GDP decline and we could also see revisions to Q1 that lift it to a positive reading. I say this because if you look at the actual underlying numbers in the report, it is not nearly as bad as the headline decline. On the positive front, consumer spending actually grew 1.8% in the quarter as services showed a nice increase of 2.4%. Also, private domestic investment saw a surge of 21.9%, this was led by investments in equipment as they grew 22.5% in the quarter. You might be asking with numbers like these how did we see a negative GDP? To start, government spending fell 1.4% in the quarter. This was led by a decline of 5.1% in spending by the federal government. The group as a whole ended up subtracting 0.25% from the headline GDP number. While this was impactful, the real reason for the decline in GDP was trade. Companies were trying to get ahead of looming tariffs and imports surged 41.3%. This compared to an increase of just 1.8% for exports. The huge discrepancy caused the trade component of GDP to decrease the headline number by 4.83%! While the economy is no doubt digesting these trade conversations and the tariffs, I still believe the economy is in alright shape when you look at the underlying numbers. I did also want to mention more good news on inflation as the March headline PCE showed an increase of 2.3%, which compares to last month's reading of 2.7% and core PCE came in at just 2.6%, which was a nice decline from February's reading of 3.0%. I believe these numbers will likely increase with the tariffs, but underlying inflation looks to be quite healthy. Financial Planning: Protecting Yourself from Home Title Theft Home title theft is a type of real estate fraud where someone illegally transfers the ownership of your home by forging your name on title documents. This is often done using stolen personal information to file fraudulent deeds with the county recorder's office. Once the title appears to be in their name, the thief may try to take out loans against the property, sell it to an unsuspecting buyer, or use it in other schemes that could put your home and finances at risk. This crime can go undetected for months if property owners aren't actively monitoring their title. Having a mortgage or HELOC on your house can make it more difficult for a thief to steal your title since the bank has a lien against the property, but it is still possible. There are private companies that charge monthly fees to alert you of changes to your home title, but they do not prevent the title from being stolen. You can also purchase home title insurance that will help pay for legal fees if you have to go to court if your title is stolen. Homeowners in San Diego County can access a free alternative called “Owner Alert”. Jordan Marks who is the San Diego County Assessor/Recorder/County Clerk was behind this, and it is a great benefit that all San Diego property owners should take advantage of. This service works by notifying you by email whenever a document is recorded against your property, helping you catch potential fraud early. Signing up is simple and can be done on the San Diego County Assessor's website. You just need your name, email address, and parcel number and it provides the same type of monitoring offered by paid services, making it unnecessary to spend money for peace of mind when this tool is already available for free. Companies Discussed: Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Inc. (ZBH), Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (TTWO), Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC)Alphabet Inc. (GOOG)
In this episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned podcast, host Jarrod Musick dives into the changing landscape of interest rates and how entrepreneurs can strategically utilize debt to fuel business and personal growth. With interest rates gradually declining after years of rising costs, Jarrod explores various types of debt—ranging from mortgages and portfolio-based loans to SBA and private lending. He offers actionable insights on refinancing, optimizing credit, and preparing for future opportunities as the financial environment evolves. Tune in for valuable tips on leveraging debt as a component of your long-term success! ----- ABOUT JARROD Jarrod was born into financial planning and solving financial problems. With his financial advisor father Steve telling stories about finance around the dinner table from an early age, the idea that everyone has a different financial situation was always there. After an early professional career spent in nonprofit and government, Jarrod came back to his roots helping people plan and invest in 2011. Since then, he has worked with individual clients, led internal teams and ultimately became partner and the CEO of Destiny Capital in 2017. With a passion for helping entrepreneurs change the world, Jarrod ultimately oversaw the creation of Entrepreneur Aligned in 2020. With both Destiny Capital and Entrepreneur Aligned, Jarrod leads teams that help people live lives of abundance where money is simply a tool to let everyone be a positive force for the world around them. When he isn't working with the talented teams for EA and DC you can find him chasing his twins, wily trout or a podium spot at an OCR race. WANT TO LEARN MORE? Subscribe to our Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast for new episodes posted every week OR click below to check out more new content from Entrepreneur Aligned. Wealth Digest - weekly articles delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our YouTube channel Connect on LinkedIn Follow on Twitter Follow on Instagram Check out our Linktree REACH OUT TO US! If you have a question or simply want to talk through your financial planning, we are here to help. SEND US A MESSAGE or call 720-715-7570 DISCLOSURE: Jarrod Musick is an officer of Destiny Capital and Entrepreneur Aligned, a DBA of Destiny Capital. All opinions expressed by Jarrod are solely his own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Destiny Capital or Entrepreneur Aligned. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. We recommend consulting with your wealth advisor, CPA/tax advisor and/or attorney, as applicable to your situation, prior to implementing a new investment strategy. Advisory services offered through Destiny Capital Corporation, an Investment Adviser registered with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
Deezy goes over the latest comments submitted to the Securities Exchange Commission. Then, what do the charts say? ➡️ Trade Bitcoin - https://lbank.one/join/uF8QEKK ➡️ Join Telegram - https://t.me/+vS5uDtG57XpjNDA1 ➡️ Arculus - https://www.getarculus.com/products/arculus-cold-storage-wallet ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● All of our videos are strictly personal opinions. Please make sure to do your own research. Never take one person's opinion for financial guidance. There are multiple strategies and not all strategies fit all people. Our videos ARE NOT financial advice. Our videos are sponsored & include affiliate content. Digital Assets are highly volatile and carry a considerable amount of risk. Only use exchanges for trading digital assets. We never keep our entire portfolio on an exchange. #bitcoin #crypto
In this episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, host Jarrod Musick delves into the complexities of purchasing vacation properties, particularly for entrepreneurs. Using the example of a ski house in Vail, Colorado, Jarrod offers advice on securing a mortgage, choosing the right lender, and understanding the nuances of your tax return as a business owner. He also explores the benefits and challenges of managing the property for personal use, occasional rentals, or as a short-term rental investment. Whether you're considering a beach house, rural getaway, or mountain retreat, this episode provides valuable insights to help you make informed decisions. ----- ABOUT JARROD Jarrod was born into financial planning and solving financial problems. With his financial advisor father Steve telling stories about finance around the dinner table from an early age, the idea that everyone has a different financial situation was always there. After an early professional career spent in nonprofit and government, Jarrod came back to his roots helping people plan and invest in 2011. Since then, he has worked with individual clients, led internal teams and ultimately became partner and the CEO of Destiny Capital in 2017. With a passion for helping entrepreneurs change the world, Jarrod ultimately oversaw the creation of Entrepreneur Aligned in 2020. With both Destiny Capital and Entrepreneur Aligned, Jarrod leads teams that help people live lives of abundance where money is simply a tool to let everyone be a positive force for the world around them. When he isn't working with the talented teams for EA and DC you can find him chasing his twins, wily trout or a podium spot at an OCR race. WANT TO LEARN MORE? Subscribe to our Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast for new episodes posted every week OR click below to check out more new content from Entrepreneur Aligned. Wealth Digest - weekly articles delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our YouTube channel Connect on LinkedIn Follow on Twitter Follow on Instagram Check out our Linktree REACH OUT TO US! If you have a question or simply want to talk through your financial planning, we are here to help. SEND US A MESSAGE or call 720-715-7570 DISCLOSURE: Jarrod Musick is an officer of Destiny Capital and Entrepreneur Aligned, a DBA of Destiny Capital. All opinions expressed by Jarrod are solely his own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Destiny Capital or Entrepreneur Aligned. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. We recommend consulting with your wealth advisor, CPA/tax advisor and/or attorney, as applicable to your situation, prior to implementing a new investment strategy. Advisory services offered through Destiny Capital Corporation, an Investment Adviser registered with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission.
By Christopher Mason, who is a Silicon Valley native currently located in County Cork, Ireland, Christopher Mason is a cryptocurrency industry insider. He is a Bitcoin enthusiast, and close follower of all things crypto. DISCLAIMER: the end of this article features an affiliate marketing link. You wouldn't need to be a crypto watcher to have heard the term "Strategic Bitcoin Reserve." It's been talked about quite a lot lately, and not just in fringe crypto publications. So, what is it? What would its purpose be? What are the chances it'll actually happen? Most people will be familiar with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It's a large stockpile of crude oil held by the United States government, specifically, the Department of Energy. It's stored underground in Louisiana and Texas; these facilities have a combined capacity of 727,000,000 barrels. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve was created by President Ford in 1975 in response to the oil embargo of 1973-1974 (when OPEC cut off oil shipments to the United States in response to aid sent to Israel during the Yom Kippur War). The basic idea behind the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve was that it could serve to soften future oil-related price shocks to the US economy. Why an United States Strategic Bitcoin Reserve? So, why a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve? Oil is an essential enabler of the US economy - without it, a large portion of economic activity would grind to a halt. But Bitcoin? It depends who you ask, but there wouldn't be many that would classify it as essential to the US economy. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R, WY) would argue through her proposed BITCOIN Act of 2024 - a bill that is being considered by the United States Senate - that a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve is vital. The bill aims to reduce US government debt without raising taxes (simultaneously strengthening the US dollar); it also proposes that the US government acquire 5% of outstanding Bitcoin (similar to the portion of global gold reserves held by the US government). U.S. President Donald Trump has suggested that such a reserve would help ensure that the US dominates the cryptocurrency market and that there is growing interest in China to do just that. Whether or not this will ever come to fruition is still quite unknown, but Trump took a potential first step toward it on January 23rd, when he signed an executive order which established a cryptocurrency working group. This group will explore new cryptocurrency regulations, the protection of banking services for crypto companies, and the creation of a national cryptocurrency stockpile. The order also banned the creation of US central bank digital currencies, which would have been seen by industry followers as a potential rival to Bitcoin. The working group is not short of heavy-hitters, featuring the Secretary of the Treasury, as well as the heads of the Securities Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The chair of the group will be David Sacks (venture capitalist and former executive at PayPal). According to the wording of the executive order, the group will "evaluate the potential creation and maintenance of a national digital asset stockpile… potentially derived from cryptocurrencies lawfully seized by the Federal Government through its law enforcement efforts." It's possible that the fund could be created via another executive order, directed at the Treasury Department's Exchange Stabilization Fund, often used to buy and sell foreign currencies. Critics of the strategic reserve concept have said that there is no utility in it; that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. They say that the price fluctuations of Bitcoin mean that a strategic reserve would pose a risk to taxpayers and to the economy and that government purchases and sales of Bitcoin would have a big impact on it's value. The legality of transferring Bitcoin seized by the Justice Department into the U.S. Treasury is very much in question. And will creating a strategic rese...
Richard Breeden is former Chair of the Securities & Exchange Commission, former advisor to President George HW Bush, and now founder and CEO, Breeden Capital Management, where for the last two decades he has overseen funds for victims of unlawful conduct, including the victims of Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme which was discovered in 2008. He joins Michael now that the fund has finished paying out money to over 40,000 Madoff victims, who recouped 94% of losses, to the tune of $4.3 billion. Original air date 23 January 2025.
We've never had a situation where the world's richest man has essentially joined the White House as a co-president of sorts. What might this mean, especially when we consider Elon Musk's history of unchecked power? Kate Conger is a New York Times reporter based in San Francisco, covering X and other technology companies. She's also a co-author, along with Ryan Mac, of “Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter” Conger joins WITHpod to discuss what has happened to X under Musk's stewardship, Musk's growing political influence, the SEC suing him, why his role is so peculiar and more. We should note that Conger and Mac requested to interview Musk for their book, but mentioned that no response was received.
Matt Crawford speaks with author Dr. James Gregory about his novel, Zephyr's War. Zep Zephyr cultivated sunflowers in the shadow of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, yearning for a life beyond the fields. Determined to escape his humble beginnings, Zep flees his family farm and sets his sights on New York City, driven by a burning desire to amass wealth. As he delves into finance, Zep discovers the tantalizing promise of riches through a lucrative initial public offering on Wall Street. Brimming with ambition, Zep spares no effort in identifying vulnerable companies to conquer and mold into his entrepreneurial vision. Yet, his triumphs draw the attention of a sinister syndicate—the Russian mafia—who desire a slice of his success. Their ruthlessness mirrors Zep's relentless pursuit of wealth. To solidify his IPO's legitimacy, Zep enlists the services of Crocker & Stackhouse, a consultancy renowned for their expertise in navigating Wall Street's treacherous waters. Under the guidance of Steve Stackhouse, these corporate brands flourish, their presence on the market soaring to unprecedented heights. Meanwhile, the Securities Exchange Commission and the FBI have launched a relentless investigation into the surging criminal underworld seeking to infiltrate Wall Street's impregnable fortress. Time becomes the enemy as the clock ticks ominously, propelling Zep and Steve into a high-stakes battle for their reputations, their futures, and their very lives. Will Zep and Steve emerge unscathed from the crucible of Wall Street's underworld? Or will they become mere casualties in a war fought on the bloodstained battleground of finance?
Recent Supreme Court decisions, such as the opinions in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce that overruled the long-standing Chevron doctrine, will likely impact how federal agencies interpret ambiguous statutes when regulating the pharmaceutical industry. And in Securities & Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, the Court established a right to a jury trial for defendants facing civil monetary penalties in agency enforcement actions, which may affect how industry stakeholders respond to enforcement actions. In addition to these cases, which are not specifically focused on the pharmaceutical industry, ongoing manufacturer challenges to the Inflation Reduction Act's negotiation provisions and to state 340B contract pharmacy laws will likely have a significant impact on the pharmaceutical industry. In this episode of Connected with Latham, Washington, D.C. partner Chris Schott and associate Danny Machado review recent and ongoing cases and explore how they could affect the pharmaceutical industry. Also tune in to the Latham webcast “The Demise of Chevron Deference and Its Impact on the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industries” for a deep dive into Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce. This podcast is provided as a service of Latham & Watkins LLP. Listening to this podcast does not create an attorney client relationship between you and Latham & Watkins LLP, and you should not send confidential information to Latham & Watkins LLP. While we make every effort to assure that the content of this podcast is accurate, comprehensive, and current, we do not warrant or guarantee any of those things and you may not rely on this podcast as a substitute for legal research and/or consulting a qualified attorney. Listening to this podcast is not a substitute for engaging a lawyer to advise on your individual needs. Should you require legal advice on the issues covered in this podcast, please consult a qualified attorney. Under New York's Code of Professional Responsibility, portions of this communication contain attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Results depend upon a variety of factors unique to each representation. Please direct all inquiries regarding the conduct of Latham and Watkins attorneys under New York's Disciplinary Rules to Latham & Watkins LLP, 1271 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, Phone: 1.212.906.1200
The other pitched Poober. They are not the same. And just in case there were any lingering debate over who's cooler – Freddy Brick or Mark Zuckerberg – it's all been settled over 4th of July wakeboarding. Freddy and Carson go on to discuss President Biden's disastrous debate performance and whether it marked the end of his re-election campaign. Politics aside, Carson points to the cheating scandal at Nathan's July 4th Hot Dog Contest as the singular moment that will mark the decline of our empire. And while Freddy tried to give his best King George impression from Hamilton by asking, “What have you won?”, we can at least rest easy that our national forests are safe from investment bankers. The US Supreme Court has had a busy few weeks and its most recent Chevron Deference ruling has Carson pondering what this might mean for the Securities Exchange Commission and hedge fund regulation. Blackstone's SRT's are giving off vibes of credit crises of the past, while the drop in commercial real estate values are uncovering increasing cases of mortgage fraud. TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 - Intro 00:41 - US vs. UK 08:13 - Hot Dog Eating Contest Scandal 12:12 - Investment Banker Caught In Treesome? 13:54 - Supreme Court Updates 20:43 - Blackstone Gets Risky? 27:17 - Real Estate Crackdown 33:40 - Outro
In a major ruling announced on June 28 by the Supreme Court of the United States, the power of the executive branch of the federal government in carrying out regulatory policies placed into effect by agencies such as the Federal Communications Commission has been diluted, giving more power to the courts.One day earlier, in another case, the Supreme Court ruled in a matter involving the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that has put federal agencies such as the FCC on notice that their reliance on Administrative Law Judges could soon be coming to a conclusion.To help explain how these very important rulings could impact radio and television broadcast station owners, Frank Montero, the esteemed Partner at Fletcher, Heald & Hildreth in Arlington, Va., sits in on the InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM, to best explain to radio and television industry executives what could transpire for broadcasters in the wake of these two decisions.
Welcome to the Great Women in Compliance Podcast. In this episode, visits with Christina Marshall, is an experienced Ethics and Compliance leader with extensive experience working with US and foreign regulators. Her expertise is in fraud and corruption investigations, risk assessments and operationalizing compliance in complex global organizations. She currently leads the Oracle EMEA Compliance team that is responsible for driving compliance through Europe, Middle East and Africa. She is a US trained litigator with a Juris Doctor from Fordham University School of Law. Christina has worked in private practice as well as a Senior Counsel within the Division of Enforcement at the Securities Exchange Commission which was responsible for investigating violations of the FCPA. Her extensive experience also includes teaching as professor of Securities Regulation, White Collar Crime, Corporations and American Law. Based on her extensive experience, Christina is highly skilled in investigating procurement fraud, money laundering and corruption, leading risk assessments, and creating preventative compliance practices. Christina's perspective on compliance best practices is that it should function as a partnership with the business, focusing significantly on transparency and support for business leaders, rather than acting as the 'police'. Her knowledge in this area has been shaped by her prior experience at the US Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Enforcement and her extensive engagement with regulators worldwide. Additionally, her time spent teaching law in Russia has enriched her global perspective. She emphasizes the necessity of involving business partners in risk mitigation, with an emphasis on fostering trust and respect, particularly during challenging investigations. Key Highlights · Collaborative Approach to Achieving Compliance Goals · Efficient Risk Management Through Practical Prioritization · Fostering Trust Through Investigative Transparency · Encouraging Curiosity and Open Communication Culture · Global Compliance Strategies in Multinational Operations · Tailoring Compliance Programs for Regional Teams · Enhancing Compliance Practices Through Root Cause Analysis · Enhancing Efficiency Through Clear Communication Resources Join the Great Women in Compliance community on LinkedIn here.
The United States is in the process of rolling out a sweeping regulation for personal data transfers. But the rulemaking is getting limited attention because it targets transfers to our rivals in the new Cold War – China, Russia, and their allies. Adam Hickey, whose old office is drafting the rules, explains the history of the initiative, which stems from endless Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States efforts to impose such controls on a company-by-company basis. Now, with an executive order as the foundation, the Department of Justice has published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that promises what could be years of slow-motion regulation. Faced with a similar issue—the national security risk posed by connected vehicles, particularly those sourced in China—the Commerce Department issues a laconic notice whose telegraphic style contrasts sharply with the highly detailed Justice draft. I take a stab at the riskiest of ventures—predicting the results in two Supreme Court cases about social media regulations adopted by Florida and Texas. Four hours of strong appellate advocacy and a highly engaged Court make predictions risky, but here goes. I divide the Court into two camps—the Justices (Thomas, Alito, probably Gorsuch) who think that the censorship we should worry about comes from powerful speech-monopolizing platforms and the Justices (Kavanagh, the Chief) who see the cases through a lens that values corporate free speech. Many of the remainder (Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson) see social media content moderation as understandable and justified, but they're uneasy about the power of large platforms and reluctant to grant a sweeping immunity to those companies. To my mind, this foretells a decision striking down the laws insofar as they restrict content moderation. But that decision won't resolve all the issues raised by the two laws, and industry's effort to overturn them entirely on the current record is also likely to fail. There are too many provisions in those laws that some of the justices considered reasonable for Netchoice to win a sweeping victory. So I look for an opinion that rejects the “private censorship” framing but expressly leaves open or even approves other, narrower measures disciplining platform power, leaving the lower courts to deal with them on remand. Kurt Sanger and I dig into the Securities Exchange Commission's amended complaint against Tim Brown and SolarWinds, alleging material misrepresentation with respect to company cybersecurity. The amended complaint tries to bolster the case against the company and its CISO, but at the end of the day it's less than fully persuasive. SolarWinds didn't have the best security, and it was slow to recognize how much harm its compromised software was causing its customers. But the SEC's case for disclosure feels like 20-20 hindsight. Unfortunately, CISOs are likely to spend the next five years trying to guess which intrusions will look bad in hindsight. I cover the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) release of version 2.0 of the Cybersecurity Framework, particularly its new governance and supply chain features. Adam reviews the latest update on section 702 of FISA, which likely means the program will stumble into 2025, thanks to a certification expected in April. We agree that Silicon Valley is likely to seize on the opportunity to engage in virtue-signaling litigation over the final certification. Kurt explains the remarkable power of adtech data for intelligence purposes, and Senator Ron Wyden's (D-OR) effort to make sure such data is denied to U.S. agencies but not to the rest of the world. He also pulls Adam and me into the debate over whether we need a federal backup for cyber insurance. Bruce Schneier thinks we do, but none of us is persuaded. Finally, Adam and I consider the divide between CISA and GOP election officials. We agree that it has its roots in CISA's imprudently allowing election security mission creep, from the cybersecurity of voting machines to trying to combat “malinformation,” otherwise known as true facts that the administration found inconvenient. We wish CISA well in the vital job of protecting voting machines and processes, as long as it manages in this cycle to stick to its cyber knitting. Download 494th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@gmail.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets
The United States is in the process of rolling out a sweeping regulation for personal data transfers. But the rulemaking is getting limited attention because it targets transfers to our rivals in the new Cold War – China, Russia, and their allies. Adam Hickey, whose old office is drafting the rules, explains the history of the initiative, which stems from endless Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States efforts to impose such controls on a company-by-company basis. Now, with an executive order as the foundation, the Department of Justice has published an advance notice of proposed rulemaking that promises what could be years of slow-motion regulation. Faced with a similar issue—the national security risk posed by connected vehicles, particularly those sourced in China—the Commerce Department issues a laconic notice whose telegraphic style contrasts sharply with the highly detailed Justice draft. I take a stab at the riskiest of ventures—predicting the results in two Supreme Court cases about social media regulations adopted by Florida and Texas. Four hours of strong appellate advocacy and a highly engaged Court make predictions risky, but here goes. I divide the Court into two camps—the Justices (Thomas, Alito, probably Gorsuch) who think that the censorship we should worry about comes from powerful speech-monopolizing platforms and the Justices (Kavanagh, the Chief) who see the cases through a lens that values corporate free speech. Many of the remainder (Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson) see social media content moderation as understandable and justified, but they're uneasy about the power of large platforms and reluctant to grant a sweeping immunity to those companies. To my mind, this foretells a decision striking down the laws insofar as they restrict content moderation. But that decision won't resolve all the issues raised by the two laws, and industry's effort to overturn them entirely on the current record is also likely to fail. There are too many provisions in those laws that some of the justices considered reasonable for Netchoice to win a sweeping victory. So I look for an opinion that rejects the “private censorship” framing but expressly leaves open or even approves other, narrower measures disciplining platform power, leaving the lower courts to deal with them on remand. Kurt Sanger and I dig into the Securities Exchange Commission's amended complaint against Tim Brown and SolarWinds, alleging material misrepresentation with respect to company cybersecurity. The amended complaint tries to bolster the case against the company and its CISO, but at the end of the day it's less than fully persuasive. SolarWinds didn't have the best security, and it was slow to recognize how much harm its compromised software was causing its customers. But the SEC's case for disclosure feels like 20-20 hindsight. Unfortunately, CISOs are likely to spend the next five years trying to guess which intrusions will look bad in hindsight. I cover the National Institute of Standards and Technology's (NIST) release of version 2.0 of the Cybersecurity Framework, particularly its new governance and supply chain features. Adam reviews the latest update on section 702 of FISA, which likely means the program will stumble into 2025, thanks to a certification expected in April. We agree that Silicon Valley is likely to seize on the opportunity to engage in virtue-signaling litigation over the final certification. Kurt explains the remarkable power of adtech data for intelligence purposes, and Senator Ron Wyden's (D-OR) effort to make sure such data is denied to U.S. agencies but not to the rest of the world. He also pulls Adam and me into the debate over whether we need a federal backup for cyber insurance. Bruce Schneier thinks we do, but none of us is persuaded. Finally, Adam and I consider the divide between CISA and GOP election officials. We agree that it has its roots in CISA's imprudently allowing election security mission creep, from the cybersecurity of voting machines to trying to combat “malinformation,” otherwise known as true facts that the administration found inconvenient. We wish CISA well in the vital job of protecting voting machines and processes, as long as it manages in this cycle to stick to its cyber knitting. Download 494th Episode (mp3) You can subscribe to The Cyberlaw Podcast using iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Pocket Casts, or our RSS feed. As always, The Cyberlaw Podcast is open to feedback. Be sure to engage with @stewartbaker on Twitter. Send your questions, comments, and suggestions for topics or interviewees to CyberlawPodcast@gmail.com. Remember: If your suggested guest appears on the show, we will send you a highly coveted Cyberlaw Podcast mug! The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect the opinions of their institutions, clients, friends, families, or pets
Episode 46: Sticking to Calling Balls and Strikes – Talking OCIO Performance Integrity with Brian Schroeder Outsourcing the CIO or OCIO function at a university endowment, corporate pension plan, or healthcare system has become commonplace over the past 10 years. In the early days, the deciding factors were operational efficiencies, meeting a target goal objective, and cost. Today, these same organizations want to make sure they made the right decision to outsource, and did they select the right OCIO. Today's guest is Brian Schroeder, who is the founder of OCIO Monitor, a specialty consulting firm that provides due diligence of investment consultants and outsourced chief investment officers. He has over 30 years of investment experience, as both an institutional manager and consultant, and is one of the leading experts in benchmarking and performance reporting transparency. He has been consulted by academics and recently presented to the Securities Exchange Commission's Division of Exams' investigators on how to spot performance reporting fraud when conducting routine firm inspections. His forensic analysis is novel by quantitatively scoring the value-add of investment consultants and OCIOs in their five main duties- strategic asset allocation, tactical asset allocation, rebalancing, active manager hiring and active manager firing. Schroeder has a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Cal State University – East Bay and a Master of Science degree in financial analysis from St. Mary's College. Growing up, he watched Wall Street Week with Luis Rukeyser. In 7th grade, he read Adam Smith's Money Game. On this episode, Brian shares his professional journey, why/how he ended up worrying so much about the performance of OCIO providers, and the importance of mistake-based learning.
This Day in Legal History: Jamaican Independence On this day in legal history, February 9, 1962, marks a significant milestone for Jamaica as it achieved full independence, breaking away from the Federation of the West Indies. This pivotal moment in Jamaican history was the culmination of a long journey towards sovereignty, reflecting the island nation's desire for self-governance and control over its own destiny. Despite its newfound independence, Jamaica chose to remain a member of the British Commonwealth of Nations, signifying a continued, albeit altered, relationship with the United Kingdom.The transition to independence was not merely a political formality but a transformative legal and social shift that laid the foundation for Jamaica's future. As a fully independent nation, Jamaica adopted its own constitution, which established the legal framework for the government and guaranteed the rights and freedoms of its citizens. This constitution reflected Jamaica's unique identity and aspirations, incorporating both the legacy of British legal traditions and the influences of Jamaican culture and values.The decision to remain within the Commonwealth underscored Jamaica's commitment to maintaining ties with other nations that shared a common history and set of values, while also asserting its autonomy on the world stage. This dual approach allowed Jamaica to forge its path in international relations, trade, and legal cooperation, benefiting from the solidarity and support of the Commonwealth network.Jamaica's independence day is not only a celebration of its past struggles for sovereignty but also a recognition of the legal and democratic principles that continue to guide the nation. It serves as a reminder of the importance of self-determination, the rule of law, and the ongoing quest for justice and equality. As Jamaicans reflect on their journey since 1962, they celebrate the resilience and spirit that have defined their nation's history and look forward to a future shaped by their own hands.In the years following independence, Jamaica has made significant strides in developing its legal system, economy, and social structures, striving to address the challenges that face a modern nation while preserving the rich cultural heritage that is uniquely Jamaican. The anniversary of independence is not just a moment to reflect on the past but an opportunity to renew the commitment to building a just, prosperous, and equitable society for all Jamaicans.The recent affirmation of the suspension of 96-year-old Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman has sparked debate over the ethics laws governing the evaluation of federal judges for potential disability and misconduct. This decision, upheld by the US Judicial Conference's Committee on Conduct and Disability, marks only the third written decision in over three years by the panel, emphasizing the rarity of such actions. The Committee found no error in the investigation led by Chief Judge Kimberly A. Moore, indicating thorough compliance with procedural standards. However, this has led to discussions about whether the deference shown to the Judicial Council's decision was appropriate, particularly in the context of suspending an Article III judge.Legal experts are divided on the matter. While some, like Professor Arthur Hellman of the University of Pittsburgh, suggest that the standard of review might need to be more stringent when suspending a judge appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, others like Professor Paul Gugliuzza of Temple Law School see the Committee's deferential standard as fitting within typical appellate review practices. The case has also highlighted concerns over how the judiciary handles investigations of its own, with some arguing that there is generally too much deference to judges investigating peers, yet acknowledging that the Newman case is an example of the judiciary attempting accountability.Aliza Shatzman, from the Legal Accountability Project, pointed out broader issues related to the aging federal judiciary and the silence often maintained by judicial clerks and employees due to fear of reputational damage. The Newman case involved complaints from a former judicial assistant and a clerk about being assigned personal tasks, which Judge Newman allegedly dismissed as insignificant.Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge, suggested that the judiciary lacks a sophisticated system for assessing judges' cognitive functions, leading to ad hoc and confrontational situations. He proposed a regular assessment protocol to avoid personal conflicts and ensure fair evaluations. The controversy surrounding Judge Newman's suspension underscores the need for a more refined system to address the challenges posed by an aging judiciary, balancing the need for accountability with respect for the complexities of judicial service.Judge Newman's Upheld Suspension Has Some Questioning Ethics LawAt the U.S. Supreme Court, former President Donald Trump's legal challenge against being disqualified from the Colorado ballot for his alleged role in the 2021 Capitol insurrection appeared likely to succeed. During the proceedings, justices from both conservative and liberal wings expressed skepticism toward the argument that Trump could be removed from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, which prohibits individuals who engaged in insurrection against the U.S. from holding office. The case, triggered by a Colorado court's decision, has significant implications for the 2024 presidential election, where Trump is a leading Republican contender.The justices grappled with the application of the 14th Amendment's Section 3, questioning whether a state could unilaterally impact the national election outcome by disqualifying a presidential candidate. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan highlighted the potential for a few states to dictate election results, emphasizing the national scope of presidential eligibility. Meanwhile, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointed out the democratic principle of allowing people to choose their candidates, suggesting that disqualifying Trump could disenfranchise voters.The attorney for the plaintiffs, Jason Murray, argued that Trump's actions to undermine the 2020 election results justified his disqualification, whereas Trump's lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, contended that even if a candidate admitted to insurrection, Section 3 would allow them to run and potentially win, leaving any sanctions to post-election congressional action.Trump, speaking in Florida, expressed confidence in the Supreme Court and his legal arguments, viewing the case as part of a broader attempt to exclude him from the ballot. This Supreme Court case echoes the institution's critical role in the 2000 presidential election, with the justices revisiting historical precedents to interpret Section 3's enforcement.The debate also touched on the nature of the January 6 Capitol riot, with Mitchell asserting it was a riot rather than an insurrection, a point challenged by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. The case underscores the complex interplay between constitutional law, electoral politics, and the judiciary's role in adjudicating disputes that have far-reaching consequences for American democracy.Trump ballot disqualification bid gets skeptical US Supreme Court reception | ReutersGenesis Global, a cryptocurrency lender, has reached a settlement in a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James, marking a significant step in resolving its legal challenges amid bankruptcy proceedings. The lawsuit, filed last year by James, accused Genesis, along with its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) and the crypto firm Gemini Trust Co, of defrauding investors out of over $1 billion through the Gemini Earn program. This program allowed customers to lend their crypto assets to Genesis in return for interest.The settlement, pending approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, entails Genesis agreeing to halt its business operations within New York state. This development follows closely on the heels of Genesis settling another lawsuit with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission concerning the same Earn program. As part of that settlement, Genesis agreed to a $21 million fine, contingent upon its ability to fully reimburse its customers during the bankruptcy process.These legal resolutions represent a crucial phase for Genesis as it navigates through bankruptcy, aiming to alleviate its legal entanglements and financial obligations. The outcomes of these settlements could significantly impact Genesis's future operations and its efforts to address the claims of its creditors and customers. Bankrupt Genesis Global settles NY Attorney General's lawsuit | ReutersThis week's closing theme is by Luigi Boccherini. Born on February 19, 1743, in Lucca, Italy, Boccherini was a distinguished composer and cellist of the Classical era, celebrated for his significant contributions to chamber music. His rich musical legacy is characterized by elegance, lyrical beauty, and the sophisticated use of the cello, an instrument he profoundly mastered and elevated in the classical music canon. Boccherini's extensive body of work includes over one hundred string quintets, quartets, and trios, alongside numerous symphonies and concertos. Despite his substantial output and unique style, Boccherini's compositions were somewhat overshadowed by his contemporaries, such as Haydn and Mozart. However, his works have gained increased recognition and appreciation over time for their inherent grace, inventiveness, and the delicate balance he achieved between melodic and harmonic elements, marking him as a pivotal figure in the development of chamber music in the Classical period. He is said to have evolved chamber music from the format developed by Haydn, elevating the cello to an equal place with the violin and viola. Today's piece is brought to us courtesy of The Internet Memory Foundation (formerly the European Archive Foundation) which is a non-profit foundation whose purpose is archiving content of the World Wide Web. It supports projects and research that include the preservation and protection of digital media content in various forms to form a digital library of cultural content.The piece we'll be closing out with is the minuet from his Quintet in C. Major, we hope you enjoy. Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe
with @cdixon @rhhackettWelcome to the web3 with a16z crypto podcast. I'm Robert Hackett, an editor here at a16z crypto, and I'm here with Chris Dixon, founding partner of a16z crypto and author of the new book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet. I had the privilege of editing Chris throughout the book writing process, and I'm thrilled now to talk to you about what went on behind the scenes, the big themes of the book, the challenges, and also about the crypto industry at large as well as what we can expect from it in the future.Learn more at https://readwriteown.com/.Resources for references in this episode:Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas TalebThe Tipping Point by Malcolm GladwellSpider-Man: Across the Spider-verse"'It's a canon event' TikTok trend, explained"Chris Dixon's blog at cdixon.org"Come for the tool, stay for the network""The next big thing starts out looking like a toy""Can't be evil"The Cold Start Problem by Andrew ChenOn Andrew Chen's writing habitsOn investing in Coinbase in 2013Guidance from the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in 2019: "Framework for 'Investment Contract' Analysis of Digital Assets"On blockchains as "a programmable computer that lives in the sky" via a16z crypto head of research Tim RoughgardenGödel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstader"How Aristotle Created the Computer" by Chris Dixon for The Atlantic"A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits" by Claude ShannonPrincipia Mathematica by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North WhiteheadAn Investigation of the Laws of Thought by George BooleThe End of Education by Neil Postman"Inside out vs. outside in: The adoption of new technologies" by Chris Dixon"The Inevitable Showdown Between Twitter and Twitter Apps" by Chris Dixon"Elon Musk says X is discouraging links in posts" by Sara Fischer"Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again" by Vitalik Buterin"What Will Happen in 2024" by Fred Wilson"A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by McCullough and PittsCrossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. MooreOn "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" and Hegel's DialecticsAs a reminder, none of the following should be taken as business, legal, tax, or investment advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.
with @cdixon @rhhackettWelcome to the web3 with a16z crypto podcast. I'm Robert Hackett, an editor here at a16z crypto, and I'm here with Chris Dixon, founding partner of a16z crypto and author of the new book Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet. I had the privilege of editing Chris throughout the book writing process, and I'm thrilled now to talk to you about what went on behind the scenes, the big themes of the book, the challenges, and also about the crypto industry at large as well as what we can expect from it in the future.Learn more at https://readwriteown.com/.Resources for references in this episode:Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas TalebThe Tipping Point by Malcolm GladwellSpider-Man: Across the Spider-verse"'It's a canon event' TikTok trend, explained"Chris Dixon's blog at cdixon.org"Come for the tool, stay for the network""The next big thing starts out looking like a toy""Can't be evil"The Cold Start Problem by Andrew ChenOn Andrew Chen's writing habitsOn investing in Coinbase in 2013Guidance from the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission in 2019: "Framework for 'Investment Contract' Analysis of Digital Assets"On blockchains as "a programmable computer that lives in the sky" via a16z crypto head of research Tim RoughgardenGödel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstader"How Aristotle Created the Computer" by Chris Dixon for The Atlantic"A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits" by Claude ShannonPrincipia Mathematica by Bertrand Russell and Alfred North WhiteheadAn Investigation of the Laws of Thought by George BooleThe End of Education by Neil Postman"Inside out vs. outside in: The adoption of new technologies" by Chris Dixon"The Inevitable Showdown Between Twitter and Twitter Apps" by Chris Dixon"Elon Musk says X is discouraging links in posts" by Sara Fischer"Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again" by Vitalik Buterin"What Will Happen in 2024" by Fred Wilson"A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by McCullough and PittsCrossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. MooreOn "thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" and Hegel's DialecticsAs a reminder, none of the following should be taken as business, legal, tax, or investment advice; please see a16z.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.
On January 10, 2024, the first US-listed Bitcoin Exchange Traded Funds were approved by the Securities Exchange Commission, representing a significant step towards greater institutional acceptance of Bitcoin. Here to talk more about the impact of this approval is Benjamin Dean, Director of Digital Assets at WisdomTree - one of the leading fund managers to have its spot Bitcoin ETF application approved by the SEC.
Is DeSantis going to drop out of the race on Jan. 15? A proposed rule by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission would allow a new type of company with the rights to manage public and private lands to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of these companies could then potentially be purchased and controlled by anti-agriculture interests or foreign adversaries. 'Dirty voter rolls' slammed, 131% of eligible DC voters registered. Plus more on this episode.
For this week's news episode, Jacquelyn dove back into the latest developments on spot bitcoin ETF applications in the U.S. as anticipation builds. Fred Thiel, the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings, a digital asset technology company and largest publicly traded bitcoin mining firm, joined to help break down the latest developments on spot bitcoin ETFs. As it stands, there's 14 asset management firms including BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale and VanEck, hoping to individually win approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for their spot bitcoin ETFs. And some reports are now saying it might happen soon given the frequent meetings and updated filings in recent weeks. We also discussed what a spot bitcoin ETF could mean for investors, institutions and miners, as well as bitcoin's price. Chain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.
Welcome to Chain Reaction. A podcast that unpacks and dives deep into the latest trends, drama and news in crypto with some of the biggest names in the industry to break things down block by block for the crypto curious. For this week's news episode, Jacquelyn interviewed Craig Salm, chief legal officer at Grayscale Investments.Grayscale is a digital asset investment firm that aims to provide products and services, like its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), to institutional and individual investors. The company was founded in 2014 and is one of the world's largest digital asset currency managers. It currently owns 3.4% of outstanding bitcoin, “worth tens of billions of dollars,” according to a recent legal filing. The firm was making headlines this week after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Grayscale in a lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the matter of a bitcoin ETF. This ruling is in response to the SEC denying Grayscale's application to convert its GBTC product into a bitcoin spot ETF in June 2022. We discussed why the ruling matters for Grayscale and its GBTC investment vehicle; as well as what it could mean for the crypto ecosystem and other firms like BlackRock, Citadel and Fidelity that also filed applications for bitcoin spot ETFs. We also talked about the SEC's argued difference between bitcoin futures ETFs, which have been approved by the agency, and bitcoin spot ETFs, which have not been approved by the agency. Not quite caught up on bitcoin ETFs? Here's some TechCrunch coverage:The SEC rejected bitcoin spot ETFs again. Now what?A bitcoin spot ETF could open the floodgates for wider crypto demandAs appeals court rules in favor of Grayscale, a bitcoin spot ETF could be on the horizonChain Reaction comes out every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. ET, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite pod platform to keep up with the action.
#BRNSunday #1304 | Regulatory scrutiny: Coinbase sued by the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission | Oliver Renick, TD Ameritrade Network | #Tunein: broadcastretirementnetwork.com or your #favorite #streaming / #podcast / #smarttv / #localtv / #digital #platform
Grayscale Investments Global Head of ETFs Dave LaValle joins Natalie Stoberman from the Proactive studios to discuss the latest trends from its Future of Finance UCITS ETF, including the impact the Securities Exchange Commission may have on volatility in the cryptocurrency and digital assets market. The Grayscale Future of Finance UCITS ETF seeks to provide exposure to the transformative companies that are, and could be, building the future of finance and our digital economy. The companies are categorized across three core pillars: financial foundations, technology solutions, and digital asset infrastructure. #ProactiveInvestors #GrayscaleInvestments #ETFs #FutureOfFinance #FinanceTrends #MarketPerformance #DigitalAssets #Bitcoin #Volatility #DigitalEconomy #InvestmentOpportunities #invest #investing #investment #investor #stockmarket #stocks #stock #stockmarketnews #hanetf #etfs #futureoffinance #crypto #cryptocurrency #digitalassets #fintech
Are you missing out on Alpha?!? Join the Mission: DeFi community: https://t.me/missiondefi Coinbase filed a narrow action in the U.S. Circuit Court to compel the SEC to respond “yes or no” to a rulemaking petition https://md1.to/h7a8s Binance Sensei AI Chatbot. https://md1.to/95krb Bridge Volume - DefiLlama https://defillama.com/bridges Arbitrum Overtakes Ethereum in Daily Transactions https://md1.to/ev45y One Billion Users will Flood Crypto Markets this Cycle, Says Former Goldman Sachs Exec https://md1.to/mw3zb S&P Global Puts Decentralized Finance at the Forefront https://md1.to/7nc2p CoinCenter - Comments to the Securities Exchange Commission on Amendments Regarding the Definition of ‘Exchange' and Alternative Trading Systems https://md1.to/5d3ey Waves founder Ivanov is a nut job — ‘I'll find you if I want to' – DL News https://md1.to/obrti Joe Cawley and Brad Nickel cover the DeFi news of the day, new opportunities in the space including liquidity pools, yield farming, staking, and much more. This is not financial advice. Nothing said on the show should be considered financial advice. This is just the opinions of Brad Nickel, Joe Cawley, and our guests. None of us are financial advisors. Trading, participating, yield farming, liquidity pools, and all of DeFi and crypto is high risk and dangerous. If you decide to participate, do your own research. Never count on the research of others. We don't know what we are talking about and you can lose all your money. Never invest more than you can afford to lose, because you probably will lose it all. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/missiondefi/support
Energy is not something we have covered before and so it is an honour to have Dave Walsh join us to unpack this huge topic. Dave is known as the 'Energy Guru', with a lifetime in the industry and his status as Steve Bannon's go to man on 'War Room: Pandemic' for energy makes him so well positioned to explain how this will negatively impact our lives. We have seen a three fold increase in the cost of energy which has had a knock on effect on food items, manufacturing and household bills. Dave gives us a better understanding to what lies behind these increases and why we are seeing a geopolitical change in energy control from West to East. We also unpack the dangerous rise of the green push to renewables which simply does not work and will lead to a dystopian collapse in our societies as energy becomes the preserves of the rich and powerful. Dave Walsh was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Americas, Inc. (MHPSA) in April 2014, with responsibility for the Western Hemisphere electric power generation business of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Hitachi Ltd. of Japan. Mr. Walsh was the first non-Japanese corporate officer of MHPSA's parent company, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, Ltd., in Japan. He was also the first American Board member of the America's company, MHPSA. Mr. Walsh retired from Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems in 2016, now serving as an advisor to various clients in the energy industry. Prior to his appointment as President & CEO at MHPSA, Dave had been Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Projects and Services. He joined the company in 2001, and initially established the service and manufacturing business for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in the Western Hemisphere. Previously, Dave had been a senior executive at Westinghouse Electric Corporation in both power generation and industrial service roles as General Manager and Chairman of the Westinghouse global industrial and power generation service subsidiaries, with primary operations located in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Poland, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, Thailand and Australia. He later became the senior executive and Vice Chairman responsible for the Westinghouse Electric power joint ventures in China, in partnership with the Shanghai Municipal Government and with the Chinese Ministry of Electric Power. Dave received his BS Commerce degree from The University of Virginia, and did Graduate Study in Finance at The University of Pittsburgh and at Northwestern University. He was an Enterprise Florida Board Member, and has previously been a Board Member of the Seminole County Foundation for Public Education, and served on the Seminole State College of Florida Foundation Board. Dave has also been appointed Honorary Consul Japan, Orlando, by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 2016, Governor Scott appointed Mr. Walsh to the University of Central Florida Board of Trustees with a term ending January 2021. Dave and his wife Terri reside in the Central Florida area. Follow Dave on social media.... GETTR https://gettr.com/user/davewalshenergy TRUTH https://truthsocial.com/@davewalshenergy Interview recorded 17.4.23 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20 To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more... https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Please subscribe, like and share! Transcript (Peter) Hello, Hearts of Oak, and welcome to another interview coming up with Dave Walsh, who, of course, you will know from The War Room, anyone who is Steve Bannon's go-to man on an issue is well worth having. And we delve into energy. He's an energy consultant, former president of Mitsubishi Power Systems, along with many other accolades, and he has lived and breathed energy all his life. And we delve into this, a topic that we haven't actually touched on before, I was quite surprised, but we start by looking at actually the cost of energy. It's now 30% of GDP up from 4% traditionally, originally over the last 100 years. So massive changes in the cost of energy, why that is happening. Look at some of the anomalies in the States of energy costs, and then we go into looking at renewable energy, green energy, net zero, and the push towards having electric vehicles and the impact that will have on the US. I think the call was to raise it from 5% to 67% in 10 years. Is the world able to charge all these new electric vehicles? So Dave goes into that and talks about the impact on infrastructure, on costs, and whether the world. Can cope with that. We also discussed the change in the geopolitical change, I guess, from the West, from the US, from Europe, over to China, India, Turkey, Japan, and they're the ones now buying Russian oil and gas. The West have embargoed and we so freeze Europe just so other countries can buy oil and gas at a lower price. So we talk about that change in, I guess, power and whether that leaves the US and Europe actually toothless in regards to energy productivity and energy policies. So Dave Walsh is the person who can go into this and unpack this and I'm sure you'll enjoy his analysis of all of these areas in terms of energy. Dave Walsh, thank you so much for joining us today on Hearts of Oak. (Dave Walsh) Good to be with you, Peter. Good, it was good to bump into you at CPAC. Obviously, the viewers will know you from your many times on War Room as someone who unpacks energy issues and something that we've never gone into before so I'm looking forward to having your wisdom with us unpacking that. Obviously, people can find you @DaveWalshEnergy is your handle. That's on GETTR. Anywhere else you're on? Dave Walsh Energy. Truth Social on the same handle. Same handle on Truth Social. Dave Walsh Energy on Truth Social as well. Okay, so people can find you on GETTR or on Truth. And obviously, Dave, you're an energy consultant and former president of Mitsubishi Power Systems, along with many other accolades to your name. But if we can jump in and look at, as I said, energy is not something we've touched on before, but I've always enjoyed your many pieces on War Room. And I think I remember reading a headline middle of last year that said global energy spending set to hit 13 trillion in 2022. I think that was 13% of global GDP. I remember reading another thing talking about traditionally energy has been like over the last 100 years, maybe 4% of GDP, which seems to be it's increased in cost and I guess how important it is. But do you want to just let us know why should those figures are probably out of the ballpark for most people. Do you just want to set the scene on why I guess we should be interested and see energy as an important aspect. Well, over a hundred year period, the concentrated use of energy, fossil fuels, nuclear power in the main has been endemic to just monstrous reduction in human labour necessary to get through life. I've got maybe four or five data points in that. You go back already by 1870, the coal burn in Britain replaced caloric intake of nearly nearly 850 million laborers. And also already by then, the use of coal for steam powered engines displaced 6 million horses. So it was up to 1870. But if you look at the global population from the birth of 1750 to 2009. Global population grew by a factor of eight from 1000 AD to 1750, 750 years, by a factor of only three. And that largely related to the lack of fossil fuels, nuclear power, and modern means of doing work, human activity. And in the US, for example, in 1860, half of the population was involved in agricultural endeavours. Today, it's only 3%. Western Europe is the same. Actually, Holland leads the world, and well, led the world until we're in this present crisis. Farming productivity per person, Holland leads the way until we're gonna take farms away from families that were hard at there, unfortunately. But if you go back like here in 1875, 74% of disposable income was spent on food, shelter and clothing, now it's like 13%. So the, and if you want less energy concentration value in 1900, per capita income globally was about $1,500. By 2010, about $8,000 had expanded by 5.3 times. Across the whole time from the birth of Christ to 1900, per capita income grew around the world by a factor of three times. And that was an entire period with basically wood burning and the beginning of the use of coal for energy. So the use of fossil fuels, which has emerged really largely since about 1860, has really, really escalated the global population, global wealth, and global food production extensively. And in another area, if you look at places like Ethiopia, the concentration of labour per acre is still like 30 times more than Holland, the UK, or here, because of the lack of fossil fuels in farming machinery and the lack of advanced fertilizers, ammonia-based and nitrogen fertilizers that come from natural gas. So no, energy utilization has propelled mankind massively, in the last 100 years. Now, there are some unusual things happening with cost in the last 10 or 15 years that we should discuss that really aren't good for productivity, human productivity. And do you want to, because we've seen, I mean, we'll touch on that. And what are my thoughts looking at the US is, having been the US quite a bit in the last year and being on the East Coast and West Coast, and you look at the poor people on the West Coast, California paying probably double what the East Coast are paying over in Florida or Texas. That's an anomaly and that probably feeds into that kind of conversation about maybe some of the issues which are increasing the cost of energy, I guess, more or less exponentially. Well, yeah, the US a little bit curious. Energy policy here is really a mixed thing. It's more dominated by the states and state policies, state governments, state policies. It's physically a huge place. These states tend to be, most of them, very large physically. So the concentration of electricity generation tends to be a state by state thing, given the size, but given the way the government works, the state public service commission, usually appointed by the governor, maybe approved by the state Senate, mainly directs the energy policy and costs in various states. So, you've pointed out California in extreme, they're typically the fourth or fifth highest, energy cost state in the country when it comes to electricity. Florida's actually about in the middle. But just give you an idea of the disparity that the top 10 cost states in the US have electricity costs of about $0.27 per kilowatt hour. The top 10 cost states, the lowest 10 cost states about 10.5 cents a kilowatt hour. So the top 10 states are 2.6 times more costly, on electricity. And if you look, the two major characteristics of the best 10 or lowest cost are the fact that they tend to be 27% net exporters of electricity to other states. The states with the highest cost tend to be 16% net importers of electricity because over the years, again, places like California, now increasingly New York, Hawaii, and the high cost states have really become high cost because of abandonment of initially nuclear power, and then coal power, and now even in California, increasingly combined cycle natural gas power, which environmentally is very clean and very efficient. They've begun to abandon that as well. So they get, what they wind up doing is there really is no near-term displacement for those sources. So they wind up becoming, Steve Bannon would say, beggars of their neighbours or importers of electricity from neighbouring states. And the state public service commission in a given state doesn't control the cost of what happens in other states. So they become victimized by whatever, specifically California, whatever Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, utilities decide to charge them per year is what they pay. Because that state, for example, a hideous example, 37% of their electricity is imported. As over time, they've stopped building nuclear plants, they've closed down coal plants, now they've stopped building advanced combined cycle plants. California imports 37% of its electricity. So really the state government has virtually no control over the cost of that, nor what it consists of. So that becomes a huge factor in why the costs are so high. New York is headed the same way. They just announced a decree there that within 10 years they're going to be 70% renewable. That's going to cause, by my calculations, they're now about 23% renewable because in the West there, Niagara Falls does produce a fair amount of their electricity. But all this delta from 23% to 70 is going to be wind and solar. That's going to mean a 27% electricity shortage in New York. Because wind and solar only operate respectively, wind about 38% of the time onshore, offshore about 42% of the time that it runs. Solar up there is about a four-hour-a-day thing. It's getting pretty far north, not quite as far north as you are, but up where New York is, solar is about a four-hour-a-day effective resource, 20 hours a day. You have no value from Therefore, if New York makes that shift in 10 years, it's going to have a 27% shortage of electricity. They're already an importer of 13% of their electricity already because of these types of policies. Costs there are already the third highest, fourth highest in the country. They're going to escalate radically with these kinds of policies. So it's very unique. It is kind of unique to each state and the politics of each state and whether they're, run by a more conservative government or run by blue democratic governments. And if I look at the 10 highest cost states, eight of them are consistently run by democratic governments. So- We obviously have the same issue in Europe, where fuel is taxed horrendously high. And at the fuel pump in the UK, it's probably around 75% tax, probably, with VAT and then fuel duty. And I guess that Democrat-controlled states are probably going the same way as Europe. Well, yeah, I mean the Democrat-controlled ones, the first bizarre set of decisions, many of them made, like California, more lately New York, the states of New England, the abandonment of allowing fossil fuel plants in those states to be there at all. California went down this road in the late 80s. Nuclear before that, they abandoned. Now gas-fired plants. New England, New York has been the same. Fracking in this country is basically illegal, New York and North. So while there are tremendous natural gas resources up there, they've elected not to harvest them. And you wind up with massive importation of electricity from Canada, a lot of hydro, and now growingly from Pennsylvania and Ohio that do have heavy, heavy natural gas resources. Well, those states in New England, New York, for example, have elected to not have power plants any longer, excepting for solar and wind, which are very, very low, very low density energy resources. Again, I'll go to the reciprocal. Solar in those markets is not there for you 86% of the time. It doesn't produce electricity. Wind if offshore, 58% of the time, doesn't produce electricity. And also, by the way, the costs of installing that stuff, far from free, are massively expensive. Offshore wind, for example, New York's on a big binge for offshore wind, is 11 times more costly than the capex of building a combined cycle plant. 11 times more costly. The cost of the transmission from 20 miles out in the sea to inland, plus the towers, plus the huge wind turbines that are on them now, you're talking 11x the capital cost. Stuff is far from free, it's actually far more expensive. And the life cycle cost of offshore wind is about three and a half times more costly than, the whole life cycle cost with fuel of advanced combined cycle natural gas power plants. So there's a myth that this stuff is free because it's nature based as far from it is far more expensive when you factor in the long time periods that it's not usable it doesn't produce anything. Let me, I want to get in more on the renewable side but for the us as an entity I think you put a recent post saying that all natural gas related products are fifteen percent of all us exports and then of course you have what the country uses itself. So energy is a massive industry, the US is sitting on so much reserves and yet the US energy plan seems to be a mess. I mean, tell us about that because the US should be the, I guess, one of the big producers and suppliers and yet, well of course, I guess with the Democrats, they're trying to punish themselves and stop that. But yeah, explain some of that. Well, the mess is to the extent the federal government controls energy supply, they do it here. The Democrats have attempted to do it through the Environmental Protection Agency, has been their main weapon to weaponize against fossil fuels and before now against nuclear power. But now aided and abetted by the Securities and Exchange Commission on all this ESG mantra of, investing in renewables is a great thing, investing in carbon fuel sources should be penalized, and by incentive policies that have only the last 15 years incented investments in renewables and not incented any investment or new investment in nuclear power or in fossil fuels. So you've had this tremendous skewing of investment to the extent the federal government can be influential. That's how they've done it, through the EPA, with punitive measures to make emissions of anything fossil fuel enormously punitive, driving the cost way, way up of operating a coal plant or a gas turbine-fired plant. And then the incentive structure they put in place on taxes to make renewables, you, And I give them a huge advantage financially with massive incentives. So that's driven policies. And this administration, all of its executive cabinet-level leadership, from the SEC to the Securities Exchange Commission, the Fed, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, all on the same, the Department of Energy head, Jen Granholm, we're going to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in this country, every single one of them. It's in their mantra consistently given, consistently articulated. So this great energy resource here is, and this, unfortunately, I've got a story about the UK as our model. We're going to follow the same. If you listen to these guys, we're going to follow the same model. We're going to abolish the use and production of fossil fuels. It's a complete disaster. The US has a huge balance of trade negative. We're a net importer of about a trillion of goods and services. China leads the way as the exporter here in the balance trade deficit we have. But it's been helped heavily the last 15 years with the emerged massive growth of natural gas and oil exports from the US. We're now like $315 billion. We're a net exporter of oil and gas at 15% of our exports. To the extent we export about $2 trillion a year of goods and services, 15% of it plus is now gas and oil. So that's a huge, huge thing with respect to the currency being stable and the budget being, it's not being balanced here, but any effort to balance the federal taxation budget. It's largely dependent on the tax receipts coming from oil and gas, and these folks on the left running the government want to abandon that as rapidly as possible. And there's no replacement for it, not even on the near term nor intermediate term. You know, displacing fossil fuels with the nature-based part-time renewables is just, mathematically doesn't work. And solar, even here in Florida, solar does not work 82% of the time. If you take a given 8,700 hour power generation year, the sunshine is effective here. I mean, right now it's noon, it's nearly dark here. From this time of the year through September, very common thing by about 11 o'clock through four, you've got thunderstorms, you've got dark clouds, you've got no solar resource, not to mention the night. Night, really it's effective between about nine and four on a good day. So even here, it's about an 18% of the time thing. In much of the Northeast and up in the Midwest, it's a four-hour a day thing. So it can't be the solution. When you're talking about that kind of energy deficit, wind, even offshore where it's most productive is not there for you to produce electricity 58% of the time. So I know in the North Sea and UK, talking about the massive offshore wind, well, I'm going to say in the vernacular here, good luck the other 58% of the time, especially when you factor in the cost of installing that against the minimal energy supply. You're talking about driving the cost of energy up to human beings by factors of five and six times. I mean, it sounds great, but it's not free. It's far from it, far more costly. Well, I'll touch on that. Well, actually, when even driving through parts of the English countryside, you see whole fields covered with solar panels now. The UK isn't really the brightest or sunniest or warmest country. And that seems madness, because again, that takes away agricultural land, which is more and more for premium and bigger demand as a population grows. But that's, it's not something which we discuss back and forth, but it's another part of it, you mentioned in Holland, that I guess clash between energy and agriculture, between feeding people and actually turning on the lights. And it's a curious clash that we're having, not only with fields being covered over, but also with farmers being told they need to farm less and feed people less because it's bad for the environment. Well, I'll go back to the UK just quickly. My wife and I were there a couple times the last year or so, and we're up by the Stonehenge. Within eight miles of there, eight kilometres, there's a solar farm. It's, the day we were there, it's the winds howling 30 miles per hour, and it's probably, maybe it was 10 C, but there was no sunshine. And I have to know, having been there many, many times, that this must be a three and a half hour day. And I think that is the typical Germany, UK, the same. Solar is about a three and a half hour a day thing, on average, across the year. It's just, I mean, it's utterly, horrendously misspent money. Now, the Holland thing, this is again, the untold story of fossil fuels. Ammonia fertilizers, nitrogen-based fertilizers in the world have promoted farming productivity across most products, wheat, corn, soybeans, potatoes, by a factor of three to four times per acre over the last 50 to 60 years in the world. And a couple of things have really pushed that productivity forward, and they are nitrogen and ammonia-based fertilizers, which are now deemed to be sinful because their origin is natural gas. So that's being used by the left to consciously diminish food supply and make it far more a challenge. I mean, the other factor has been mechanized farming machinery, which is all diesel and gas powered, has been the second thing, but behind ammonia and nitrogen-based fertilizers. I mean, just to give an example, the farming productivity, again, I think I might have mentioned, this country, Holland, UK, very high on wheat production per acre, is 30 times more productive in human terms than Ethiopia. For example, Ethiopia still has 74% of its population involved in farming. In the UK, in the US, it's about 3%. To give you an idea of the benefit of fossil fuels delivered in fertilizers and in the production equipment, heavy machinery, tractors, et cetera, harvesters to make farming cost-effective for allow massive food supply for billions of people. And now we're resisting this through wanting to diminish and end ammonia and nitrogen-based fertilizers. It's, and the use of gas-powered and diesel-powered farming machinery. This is insanity. When you're talking about sustaining 7.2 billion people, This is just not, it is not a sustainable thing, to borrow one of their phrases. It's the opposite, the polar opposite of that. And of course when we talk about those solar panels, actually we're talking about wind farms, the UK building all those wind farms and none of it actually built in the UK, so there's no manufacturing benefit, but then the solar panels, that seems to all be Chinese built and it seems as though the world, I guess on the left, the Democrats over there, many parts of Europe are rushing to award their control of their energy system over to China. And that's not a conversation I don't think the public has really had. I guess the same for the states. Well, our, I'll say collectively, our Western G7 leadership just convened over the weekend in Sapporo, yours and ours, abandoning our shores to have meetings about our sovereign countries in Japan about CO2. And what they've concluded, they collectively have signed up with each other, again, outside of the realm of where our voters are over in Japan. They've reached one of these agreements to develop collectively across the G7 a million thousand gigawatts of additional solar by 2030. This would be $670 billion investment by the G7 nations in added solar resources, of which, based on the current fact that 85% of thin film PV panels come from China, would be about a $580 billion spend in China between now and 2030 by our new G7 government, putting it that way. Having their meetings in, not here at home, nor in the UK, but in other places where these guys fly to convene and make these brilliant decisions. And then another half a million or 500 gigawatts of offshore wind, which is, again, offshore wind is 11 times more costly in capex than building a conventional combined cycle plant of the type my company built in my day at Damhead, Salt End, in I think Raglan Road in Dublin. In Spain, we built seven or eight combined cycle plants. The cost of those is one-eleventh of an offshore wind farm when you factor the 58% of the time that that offshore wind farm isn't going to produce anything for you. And then compounded with the construction cost, which is huge. That even then, the all-in life cycle cost, that the present cost of natural gas, which has now fallen quite a bit, is still four times more than a combined cycle plan, even accounting for the gas use. So we're talking about stuff that is way, way not cheaper, but is far more expensive and creates a lack of access of our citizenry in the UK and here to energy, which is way in the interest of the Chinese. Most of the supply of utility scale batteries, and as I mentioned, the solar panels, comes from there. So we're taking a dependence. We had a marvellous self-dependence in the UK on North Sea oil, which has declined by 70%, not because it's not there, but because of political pressure to go and get it. You know Norway has not participated in ceding to that pressure, doing great financially, a heavy importer to the UK. The oil's still out there, but on our side of that pond, we've decided let's not pursue it. 70% down. The US, since the election of Biden has now been about a million two barrels a day deficit of oil production, because of all the restrictions on federal land. So we've shifted over to this ideation of displacing that with dependence on China, solar panels and batteries. I mean, this is lunacy. I mean energy strategy is at the core of national defence, whether it's Western Europe or here, at the core of a sustainable lifestyle for our people. And we're handing self-sufficiency that we enjoyed over to, programmatically over to China, who are an enemy. They're aligned with Russia on this Ukraine activity that they've been from day one. There's no secret about that, but our media very reluctant to actually acknowledge that, but they are. And then this, the boycott that we've got in Western Europe on buying their oil within six weeks was almost entirely displaced with procurement from Turkey, India, and China, from Russia. So that hasn't worked out well for us. We've actually forced China and Russia together, which strategically is just a horrendous set of decisions pushed by more by this government than the Western European government, but collectively. We've created an energy disaster in the outcomes of this in a very short time. Well, that's really interesting watching that and the shift with the West, actually Europe wanting to freeze after building a Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 into Russia and then wanting to turn that off and wondering why people are angry that the cost of electricity has soared. And yet, as you said, the other side is China, India, especially and then into Turkey and elsewhere. And Japan, I think as well, actually they're happy to buy Russian oil and gas, and they've filled that gap. So it's strange because that's a power shift, I guess, away from Europe and the US. And it really leaves them toothless in terms of energy control. No, it does. The West's conscious decision to abdicate self-sufficiency and self-reliance, I would complain about the UK. We're on exactly the same page here now by the constant outcries of this government to abandon fossil fuels as rapidly as possible, going down the same path, creates a massive dependence now on China. Years before was the Middle East, before North Sea oil was discovered in abundance and harvested, before the fracking boom here, we were unfortunately heavily dependent on OPEC, which was a disaster. And now we're making them relevant once again in their alliance, first with Russia, when the kingdom sought out Russia right about the moment of the Biden inauguration, January of 21, we had the alliance begin building of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with Russia, on collective decisions on production to drive prices up, very successfully done all through 2021 and early 2022 before the invasion that we've suffered from. Now we've forced China together with Russia based on the boycott and our handling of that situation and to our horrendous detriment, energy costs here are going through the roof, as we attempt to displace, do something that's not, it's mathematically not doable. You can't displace fossil fuel use with four hour a day solar. And if on land, nine hour a day, if on sea, 10 hour a day wind. You mathematically can't do it because also those resources are regionalized in the large area. it's the same time of day that you have them. I mean, like, for example, Florida, you could put, you know, everyone thinks it's so sunny here, you could populate every square inch of Florida with solar panels, and you'd still be at 19.6 hours a day, have nothing, because it's the same moments. It's only the same, night is the same. It's not very big, east to west, night is the same time. So up till nine in the morning, you've got nothing. And after 4.30 in the afternoon, you've got nothing, which is the California issue because their peak in addition to this 38 percent uh importation of energy electricity a lot of what they use is solar even from Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Cal, I think about 35 percent of their power supply imported and made in state is renewable, and it kind of comes to an end at 4.30. Their peak power need begins at 4.30 when everyone gets home, gets off the freeways in LA, San Diego, and turn up the air conditioning, begin to use the appliances, cook, whatever, until 10 at night. That's the peak demand. Well, that's when the solar ends. That's like 30% of their electricity, at least what they have, which they're in shortage of to begin with. So you've got an intractable mathematical issue. And now we're talking about mandating EVs out there by 2035, well, now across the country, which would elevate here national electricity supply by 25%. If you got to 75% EV adoption by 2035, which this government claimed to be the new target just last week, would be about 250,000 megawatt power plants would need to be built to be running all the time from right now, start building them now, because you'll have them in four to five years. There's no plan to do that. The energy supply scenario of squashing base load, continuous duty fossil power is not connected to this, let's electrify everything. The two things aren't even connected together by this government. It's going to need a huge amount more electricity should these things happen. That push, because you reposted a story in New York Times and talked about an increase of, I think the current 5% of vehicles sold being electric up to within 10 years, 67%. The figure was mind-blowing. That's not just a case of whenever everyone plugs their car in that the energy goes up. That's a case of there is no energy. That's right, because all of the electricity production measures, these states that are blue, and this government have taken through its rhetoric for two years now, are all about adopting more and more, excuse my plain speaking, of stuff that doesn't work most of the time, solar and wind. So net, net, you've got no increase of energy resources. And I'm looking at one of the dominant business forecast that I would, in the power generation business, would use here between now and ... This is like the commonly accepted forecast. Between now and 2030, we'll have 341 more gigawatts of wind installed and 383 more gigawatts of solar installed in this country by 2030. And also take away another 828 gigawatts of coal, basically make it go away. That's the consensus business forecast, which is a collection of what utilities are telling OEMs that make power generation equipment, T&D equipment. This is the forecast. Well, if this be the case, when you take the deficiency, the time that wind and solar don't work, the net net increase in generation assets, it's about 1% across that time. When you factor down, you take out the fact that coal operates 24 hours a day, and you're displacing it with massive quantities of a five-hour-a-day thing and a nine-hour-a-day thing, the reciprocal, you've got nothing. When you take all that into account, the energy electricity plan for the US is to grow electricity production by about 1% across the next 10 years. And we're going to electrify everything in the meantime. The mathematics don't even work on this. So a frightening thing happened late last week in California, often a sign of what's to come here, the rest of the country. For some reason, the three major utilities who were regulated by the state approached the state, and I'm believing they were gigged by the state to do this, with a new billing practice of using a percentage of income, to pay for electricity instead of a per-use basis. I mean, right now, in most of the, all of the developed world, in the West for sure, your electricity bill is a use-based thing. You use X kilowatts, you pay a certain rate, that's what you pay based on use, which promotes efficient use of it and penalizes those who use the most. It's not a penalty, it's use the most, you pay for the most. California now wants to embrace converting this to an income percentage tax. That if you make X, you pay X dollars a month. If you make Y, you pay Y plus 10%. A scale based on income only, delinking utilization of electricity from the cost of it. They're putting this before the public service commission to get this approved, creating displacing use fees for electricity, which are completely common and make logical common sense with an income tax kind of percentage of income. So independent of what you use, you pay a percentage of your income for electricity. Now, what this will do for them is we'll de-link the massive fact of their shortages, and the massive fact of their very, very high cost electricity, it'll hide that. Because now you can make these comparisons of one state to another, that'll go away. Because now that they'll have, if this gets passed, they'll have an income tax, that the utilities are able to charge, which that's a whole nother, how do they get to look at your income? That's not legal here, but according to what California wants to do, that's what the utilities will begin to charge you a fixed fee based on your income, independent of it. So then you'll have demand go through the roof because efficiency won't matter anymore, but it'll hide the real cost of the electricity. and the fact that once it becomes, incrementally, it becomes free in that sense. The complaining about the lack of it would tend to diminish. You get to then the Russian food model of years ago with the bread lines. Hey, that which is free from the government, don't complain about it when it's not there. That's where they're headed. Acknowledging they have no plan whatsoever to displace the huge shortage of electricity that that state has. They're talking about a way of obfuscating cost to make it seem like incremental use of it is free, Therefore, when the big brownouts and blackouts really kick in, which are going to increase and increase, well, since you're not paying anything for this anyhow, no complaints necessary. This is frightening. This was announced late last week, Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern Cal Edison, looking at an income percentage fee collection instead of a per use for electricity consumption. How does this, how does it play out as people go and spend their crazy amount of money on EVs, electric vehicles, and then with not being able to power them? Is that just a movement towards, I mean, we've seen a movement towards red states simply because of the higher crime rates, higher tax rates, higher cost of living in the Democrat areas. Will that just continue? Is that just a bigger divide in the US? I mean, how does it play out? It plays out as a massively increased divide between the haves and the have-nots. Because the typical EV over here is still $65,000 to $70,000 to buy one. The typical medium to lower end gas powered vehicles are about $25,000 to $28,000. The business model is in the EV, about 40% of the cost structure of that thing is the battery. Essentially, you're prepaying in that high price, 65 to 70 grand, you're prepaying the, 30 grand or so for the fuel equivalent being the battery, you're prepaying for about 150,000 miles of the fuel, if you will, in the model. Then at 150,000 plus miles, you're also exposed to the liability to replace that again for another prepaid 30, $35,000 for a new battery that can go another 150,000 miles. Paid up front, we're presently liquid fuel, you're paying on a pre-use basis, and it's domestic. So now you're prepaying for Tesla's cars. The cost structure is 40% China. That's where his batteries come from. His lithium ion comes from there. So you're transferring an obligation that was in the days gone by, the Middle East became domestic, a great thing. We want to get off domestic oil and gas production, now let's transfer that to a lithium-ion battery supply from China. But the chasm that this develops between the average citizen making $65,000, $68,000, $70,000, the chasm between that person even being able to afford a vehicle and those who can actually afford them, which is maybe then your 15% of the population can actually afford a vehicle, it grows massively. It just grows massively. It's exactly as you pointed out, it grows the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, as do all of these renewable energy sources when electricity bills go through the roof because of them. And of course, one of the other factors in it, which isn't discussed whenever the Green Lobby are pushing for this. They're not mentioning the finite resources that go into the batteries. No one mentions cobalt mining in Africa where children are used as slave labour. But that's not a part of the conversation. And that really confused me where a group claim to be environmentally conscious and also concerned of the impact of the individuals in the work market. And yet they're happy to have children going down mines for them for their latest battery car. It takes us right back to, okay, we are what we criticize others of being colonialists. This was the critique of the UK, the Dutch, our own behaviour here with forced labour. Well, guess what? Total dependence on the developing world for any resources extraction of any kind, be it oil, lithium, cobalt, is another form of colonialism. Or there's another one, yellow cake for uranium supply. This country was 100% self-sufficient on uranium supply as recent as 1992. And now we're 52% dependent on Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan for uranium, which has continued unabated throughout this entire war. We haven't changed that policy one iota, where we are in Wyoming and Utah still full of uranium, easily mineable, but no, we hate resource extraction. We don't want to be around that any longer. We'll throw certain indigenous Native Americans in front of that, who actually like the fact of it happening, but you pay certain groups, they'll step out in front and prevent that, plus various treaties that the Clinton administration made with Russia to arguably stop their conversion of uranium to nuclear weapons. We could do that by buying it from them. Unenforceable, unverifiable. So to this moment, we still do that. But this hatred of resource extraction is thrown out there as a rationale to outsource the Biden administration on oil, as opposed to ramping up domestic production. When this OPEC Plus was formed, began crushing cost here, where did they go? First stop was Iran. The second stop was Iraq. And the third stop was Venezuela, Arabia was in between. We go to OPEC to get oil instead of producing our own. When we, hit a Trump administration peak in November of 2019, 13.6 million barrels a day. We're the top producer in the world. And we abdicated that position within months of this administration taking place. And then all of its rhetoric, communicating to OPEC, oh, we're really on board with your production reductions. We're going to have our own here of a million two barrels, reduction. Basically, going along with their, the way they manage prices is not through raising the price. It's through toggling up and down the production level. We joined that. We basically joined that. We cut our production under the blanket of CO2 reasons rationale by 1.2 million barrels a day. And then who do we go to looking for the excess? We go to them. This is, It's a set of insane policies geared at making the country, as Western Europe has become, totally dependent on others for energy. Well, let me just finish on a piece that just came out in the UK, I think it was The Telegraph, for UK connection with what's happening in the States and it was the UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt who oversees the Treasury here in the UK has just said that Joe Biden's flagship green energy policy risks plunging the world into the economic dark age. Now that was quite phenomenal because normally Western governments have been falling over themselves to say how wonderful they think Biden is and it was actually the first criticism I've seen of Biden. And this was, I guess, to do with subsidies. That's the concern, I guess, from Europe. But that just intrigued me, that, I guess, change in tone, change in rhetoric from Europe towards America, that Biden is no longer the great one. Actually, there's criticism. And I guess that's on subsidies. But I don't know if that's the beginning of maybe a wedge between how Europe look at energy and how the States does. Well, I mean the trouble I mean what he said is really, the net result is plunging the West into economic decline. Because I'm gonna suggest about a hundred and sixty countries aren't on board with this. And I'll mention a few that would surprise you Japan, Japan after Fukushima between 2015 and 2019 commissioned 13 count them 13, large coal plants, 10,000 megawatt supercriticals and 300, 400 megawatt coal plants. Why? They need to industrially compete with China. It's in their interest to do that. They did the right thing for the Japanese people. Here we're celebrating this meeting the G7 had in Sapporo. Well, the Japanese talk about, you know, renewables and all this decarbonization. Look at what they're doing. Doing what's necessary to promote their economy. And then their commitment to the renew the Sakhalin Island LNG deal at only 13 bucks a dekatherm that Russians committed prior pricing in this day and time, they had to continue that. That's about 9% of their gas supply. Half of that comes from here, half quantity, double the amount from Russia. They continue that. It's in their interest to do that. So, you're looking at this very weak alliance on this war thing. The entirety of Western Europe and Japan have not really been aligned with the US on that. India has doubled down on its, the Indian Oil Corporation has now doubled its consumption of Russian oil in the last three months. There is no unanimity of actions on this, either one, the CO2 front, which I'm going to suggest 160 countries are not on side with moving in this direction, led by the Chinese, who have double the CO2 emissions of all of the OECD countries combined. They don't believe in this, by their actions. Now, what they're selling, lithium ion cobalt batteries and PV cells, yeah, they're promoting a Macron visit so Xi Jinping takes, oh, yes, Macron, we're working together on sub-Sahara CO2 abatement. That's complete nonsense. That's nonsense to pander to the West. Oh, here, well, yeah, we're going to tell you we agree with you. Look at what they're doing. 60% of their power generation is coal-based. He has no plans of changing that. He has a plan to keep his country competitive industrially and have a strong military. That's what his plan is. Such as we had in prior days in this part of the world, but we've abandoned. Dave, I really appreciate you coming on. It's an honour to have anyone that Bannon goes to as his go-to person. And I've thoroughly enjoyed your many times of War Room over the last two years. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your thoughts on energy. Well, Peter, thanks for having me. And one of these days I'll come back and we can go further into it, but deeply appreciate, it.
On March 22, 2023, Coinbase was served a Wells Notice from the Securities Exchange Commission. The stock dropped 20% on the news. They are the latest target of Operation Chokepoint 2.0 even after trying to work with regulators over the past few years. Will this push founders overseas or slow innovation in The United States? Here's my take! ----------------------------------------------- This is not investment advice or an endorsement of the securities or property mentioned. Please Press FOLLOW on the platform you're consuming this on and LEAVE A 5 Star Review to help support the show. Official Website: http://www.hotwallet.ca Follow Scott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scottrades Send me some SATS on Fountain.fm: https://fountain.fm/hotwallet?code=645358d750 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
FTX, at one point the world's third largest cryptocurrency exchange, went bankrupt, causing the entire cryptocurrency industry to crash. In this episode, hear highlights from Congressional testimony that will explain how FTX was able to grow so large while committing blatant fraud, how it's possible that the government didn't know and didn't do anything to stop it, and hear about a Senate bill that's branded as a solution but has concerning flaws of it's own. Please Support Congressional Dish – Quick Links Contribute monthly or a lump sum via PayPal Support Congressional Dish via Patreon (donations per episode) Send Zelle payments to: Donation@congressionaldish.com Send Venmo payments to: @Jennifer-Briney Send Cash App payments to: $CongressionalDish or Donation@congressionaldish.com Use your bank's online bill pay function to mail contributions to: 5753 Hwy 85 North, Number 4576, Crestview, FL 32536. Please make checks payable to Congressional Dish Thank you for supporting truly independent media! View the show notes on our website at https://congressionaldish.com/cd265-policing-ftx Background Sources Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes CD264: Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain CD235: The Safe Haven of Sanctions Evaders What is FTX? “What is FTX?” Timothy Smith. Dec 22, 2022. Investopedia. Crypto Regulation “U.S. Senate Is Still Confused About How to Regulate Crypto After FTX Collapse.” Kyle Barr. Dec 1, 2022. Gizmodo. “Congressmembers Tried to Stop the SEC's Inquiry Into FTX.” David Dayen. Nov 23, 2022. The American Prospect. “We Already Have Laws to Stop Crypto Fraud.” David Dayen. Nov 17, 2022. The American Prospect. “Why Is Congress Still Writing Crypto Regulations?” David Dayen. Nov 10, 2022. The American Prospect. “Letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler Regarding Cryptocurrency Inquiries.” Tom Emmer et al. Mar 16, 2022. “Letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler Regarding Cryptocurrency Inquiries.” emmer.house.gov. Lead-up to FTX Collapse “In about-face, Crypto exchange Binance pulls out of FTX acquisition.” Elizabeth Napolitano. Nov 9, 2022. NBC News. "Crypto exchange FTX saw $6 bln in withdrawals in 72 hours." Tom Wilson and Angus Berwick. Nov 8, 2022. Reuters. “Crypto exchange FTX saw $6 bln in withdrawals in 72 hours.” Tracy Wang and Oliver Knight. Nov 6, 2022. “Binance to Sell Rest of FTX Token Holdings as Alameda CEO Defends Firm's Financial Condition.” Tracy Wang and Oliver Knight. Nov 6, 2022. CoinDesk. “Divisions in Sam Bankman-Fried's Crypto Empire Blur on His Trading Titan Alameda's Balance Sheet.” Ian Allison. Nov 2, 2022. CoinDesk. “Re: Potential Violations of Section 18(a)(4) of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act.” Seth. P Rosebrock, Assistant General Counsel, Enforcement, FDIC. Aug 18, 2022. FDIC. Tom Emmer “SEC Chair Gary Gensler Must Testify Before Congress, Says Rep. Tom Emmer.” André Beganski. Dec 11, 2022. Decrypt. “Meet Tom Emmer, a powerful crypto advocate in a crypto-wary Congress.” Tony Romm. Dec 8, 2022. The Washington Post. “House GOP picks Emmer as GOP whip, Scalise as leader.” Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell. Nov 15, 2022. The Hill. FTX Collapse “FTX Effort to Save Itself Failed on Questionable Assets.” Shane Shifflett, Rob Barry, and Coulter Jones. Dec 5, 2022. The Wall Street Journal. “FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Can't Account for Billions Sent to Alameda.” Alexander Osipovich. Dec 3, 2022. The Wall Street Journal. “5 major revelations about the collapse of crypto giant FTX.” David Gura. Nov 23, 2022. NPR. “FTX says it owes more than $3 billion to creditors.” Steven Zeitchik. Nov 20, 2022. The Washington Post. “Declaration of John J. Ray III in Support of Chapter 11 Petitions and First Day Pleadings” [Case 22-11068-JTD] Nov 17, 2022. PACER. “Exclusive: At least $1 billion of client funds missing at failed crypto firm FTX.” Angus Berwick. Nov 11, 2022. Reuters. “FTX chief Sam Bankman-Fried resigns as firm files for bankruptcy.” Jacob Bogage and Tory Newmyer. Nov 11, 2022. The Washington Post. “FTX Tapped Into Customer Accounts to Fund Risky Bets, Setting Up Its Downfall.” Vicky Ge Huang, Alexander Osipovich, and Patricia Kowsmann. Nov 11, 2022. The Wall Street Journal. Lobbying and Campaign Donations “Lawmakers who benefited from FTX cash probe its collapse.” Tory Newmyer and Steven Zeitchik. Dec 1, 2022. The Washington Post. “Inside Sam Bankman-Fried's courtship of a Washington regulator.” Tory Newmyer and Peter Whoriskey. Nov 28, 2022. The Washington Post. “Congress took millions from FTX. Now lawmakers face a crypto reckoning.” Tony Romm. Nov 17, 2022. The Washington Post. “FTX Collapse Sets Back Crypto Agenda in Washington.” Paul Kiernan. Nov 14, 2022. The Wall Street Journal. “Washington lobbyists sever ties with FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried after crypto exchange implodes.” Brian Schwartz. Nov 14, 2022. CNBC. “Sam Bankman-Fried charmed Washington. Then his crypto empire imploded.” Tory Newmyer. Nov 12, 2022. The Washington Post. “Meet the mega-donors pumping millions into the 2022 midterms.” Luis Melgar et al. Oct 24, 2022. The Washington Post. “A young crypto billionaire's political agenda goes well beyond pandemic preparedness.” Freddy Brewster. Aug 12, 2022. Los Angeles Times. Aftermath of the FTX Collapse “Factbox: Global regulatory actions against FTX.” Dec 12, 2022. Reuters. “FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Is Said to Face Market Manipulation Inquiry.” Emily Flitter, David Yaffe-Bellany and Matthew Goldstein. Dec 7, 2022. The New York Times. “Clashes Over FTX Bankruptcy Go Global.” Alexander Osipovich, Alexander Saeedy and Alexander Gladstone. Dec 4, 2022. “Hot Wallets vs. Cold Wallets.” Mar 10, 2022. Cryptopedia. December 13 Hearing “Memorandum To: Members, Committee on Financial Services From: FSC Majority Staff Subject: December 13, 2022, Full Committee Hearing entitled, “Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part I.” Dec 8, 2022. House Financial Services Committee. “Chart: Four Silos for Recover Purposes.” House Financial Services Committee. Sam Bankman-Fried Indictment “Here is the criminal indictment against Sam Bankman-Fried.” Dec 13, 2022. The New York Times. Bills S.4760 - Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022 Audio Sources Investigating the Collapse of FTX, Part I December 13, 2022 House Committee on Financial Services Witness: John J. Ray III, CEO, FTX Group Clip Transcripts Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO): Have you read the full testimony that was planned by our missing guest [Sam Bankman-Fried]? John Ray I have not read his full testimony. Some pieces of it been relayed to me, but I've not read it. I've not read one word of it actually. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO): Yeah, I don't know him personally and probably don't want to. But this testimony is so disrespectful. I mean, there's not a person up here would like to show this to their children. In line two of this message, he says, and I quote, "I would like to start out by firmly stating under oath...* And yeah, I can't even say it publicly. The next two words, absolutely insulting. This is the Congress of the United States. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): So when when customers deposited funds into their FTX accounts, where did the cash go? John Ray: Well, sometimes the money wasn't deposited in the FTX account it was sent to Alameda to begin with. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): It was misdirected from from the start straight to Alameda. John Ray: There was certainly some time period where there's no bank account at .com and then ultimately, if you look at the structure of this, Alameda is essentially a customer on that .com exchange, and effectively, you know, borrowed money from or just transferred money from FTX customers to take its own positions on the Alameda hedge fund. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): So Alameda research and the venture capital business, what did Alameda research do? John Ray: Essentially made crypto investments, engaged in margin trading, took long and short positions in crypto, essentially invested in crypto. But of course, we now know also invested in over $5 billion of other assets which are in a variety of sectors. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): Can you describe the differences between the FTX.com and FTX.us silos? John Ray: Yes. Very simply FTX.us was for US citizens who wanted to trade crypto; FTX.com, US citizens were not allowed to trade on that exchange. That's very simple. And I would make one other comment, which is separate apart from any of those two silos. It was ledger x, which is a regulated entity regulated by the CFTC, solvent and separate from the FTX.us silo. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): Okay, and that is a distinct silo, that's a distinct company? John Ray: That is a distinct company within the US silo, yes. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): Okay. Patrick McHenry (R-NC):: What was the relationship between FTX.com and FTX.us? Was is there a distinction between the two? John Ray: There was a public distinction between the two. What we're seeing now is that the crypto assets for both ftx.com and for FTX.us were housed in the same database. It's called the AWS system, which is just an acronym for Amazon Web Services. It was all housed in the same web format. Patrick McHenry (R-NC):: And is that distinct from Alameda's assets? John Ray: Yes, it is. John Ray: In essence you know, Alameda was a user, effectively a customer, of FTX.com. That's how it was essentially structured. John Ray: There was no audit at Alameda, no audit at the venture silo. There was audit at the US silo and also audit at the the .com silo. I can't speak to the integrity or quality of those audits. We're reviewing, obviously, the books and records. And as I've said earlier, you know, much of those books and records were maintained on a fairly unsophisticated ledger ledger which works workbooks. John Ray: It's an extensive list, it really crosses the entire spectrum of the company, from lack of lists of bank accounts, hundreds of bank accounts dispersed all over the world, lack of a complete list of employees and their functions by group or name, extensive use of independent contractors as opposed to employees, lack of insurance that you'd normally would see in certain businesses, either inadequate insurance or complete gaps in insurance. For example, the Alameda silo had no insurance whatsoever. So those are I mean, there's, the list goes on and on. You know, we could spend all day on them. John Ray: While many things are unknown at this stage, we're at a very preliminary stage, many questions remain, we know the following. First customer assets at ftx.com were commingled with assets from the Alameda trading platform. That much is clear. Second, Alameda used client funds to engage in margin trading, which exposed customer funds to massive losses. Third, the FTX group went on a spending binge in 2021 and 2022, during which $5 billion was spent on a myriad of businesses and investments, many of which may only be worth a fraction of what was paid for them. Fourth, loans and other payments were made to insiders in excess of $1.5 billion. Fifth, Alameda's business model as a market maker required funds to be deployed to various third party exchanges, which were inherently unsafe and further exacerbated by the limited protections offered in certain of those foreign jurisdictions. John Ray: I accepted the position of Chief Executive Officer of FTX in the early morning hours of November 11 [2022]. It immediately became clear to me that chapter 11 was the best course available to preserve any remaining value of FTX. Therefore, my first act as CEO was authorized the chapter 11 filings. John Ray: It's virtually unlimited in terms of the lack of controls: no centralized records on banking, no daily reconciliations of crypto assets, silos where there's no insurance, inadequate insurance, no independent board, no safeguards that limit, who controls and asset. So senior management literally could get access to any of the accounts in any of the silos. No separateness between customer money and other customer money or other other assets. It's virtually unlimited in terms of the lack of controls. And that's really the point of the unprecedent comment. I've just never seen anything like it in 40 years of doing restructuring work and corporate corporate legal work. It's just a dearth of of information. John Ray: But again, users had multiple accounts. For example, if they had a different trading position, they may have opened multiple accounts. We know it's a big number. It's in the millions on the customer accounts, and we know it's several billion dollars in losses. Assigning those losses to customer accounts will be our next challenge. John Ray: The FTX group's collapse appears to stem from absolute concentration of control in the hands of a small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls that are necessary for a company entrusted with other people's money or assets. Some of the unacceptable management practices identified so far include the use of computer infrastructure that gave individuals and senior management access to systems that stored customers' assets without security controls to prevent them from redirecting those assets; the storing of certain private keys to access hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets without effective security controls or encryption; the ability of Alameda to borrow funds held at FTX.com to be utilized for its own trading or investments without any effective limits whatsoever; the commingling of assets; the lack of complete documentation for transactions involving nearly 500 separate investments made with FTX group funds and assets. In the absence of audited or reliable financial statements, the lack of personnel and financial and risk management functions, and the absence of independent governance throughout the FTX group, a fundamental challenge we face is there in many respects we are starting from near zero in terms of the corporate infrastructure and record keeping that one would expect in a multibillion dollar corporation. John Ray: The FTX group is unusual in the sense that, you know, I've done probably a dozen large scale bankruptcies over my career, including Enron, of course. Every one of those entities had some financial problem or another, they have some characteristics that are in common. This one is unusual. And it's unusual in the sense that literally, you know, there's no record keeping whatsoever. It's the absence of record keeping. Employees would communicate, you know, invoicing and expenses on on Slack, which is essentially a way of communicating for chat rooms. They use QuickBooks, a multibillion dollar company using QuickBooks. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO): QuickBooks? John Ray: QuickBooks. Nothing against QuickBooks, it's very nice tool, just not for a multibillion dollar company. There's no independent board, right? We had one person really controlling this. No independent board. That's highly unusual in the size company this is. And it's made all the more complex because we're not dealing with, you know, widgets or, you know, something that's tangible. We're dealing with with with crypto, and the technological issues are made worse when you're dealing with an asset such as crypto. John Ray: I've just never seen an utter lack of record keeping. Absolutely no internal controls whatsoever. John Ray: The operation of Alameda really depended based on the way it was operated for the use of customer funds. That's the major breakdown here of funds from ftx.com, which was the exchange for non US citizens, those funds were used at Alameda to make investments and other disbursements. John Ray: There's no distinction whatsoever. The owners of the company could really run free reign across all four silos. John Ray: The loans that were given to Mr. Bankman-Fried, not just one loan it was numerous loans, some of which were documented by individual promissory notes. There's no description of what the purpose of the loan was. In one instance, he signed both as the issuer of the loan, as well as the recipient of the loan. But we have no information at this time as to what the purpose or the use of those funds were. And that is part of our investigation. John Ray: At the end of the day, we're not going to be able to recover all the losses here. Money was spent that we'll never get back. There will be losses on the international side. We're hopeful on the US side. He'll answer to others related to what happened here. Our job is just to find the assets and try to get customers their money back as quickly as possible. John Ray: Essentially, they had two exchanges that allowed users to trade crypto, and then there was the hedge fund. It's as simple as that. The users were allowed to make a variety of investments. They had a more expansive ability to trade crypto if you are a non-U.S. citizen on the .com exchange, but I know what's been described publicly is very complex. It is to some extent, but essentially, you had two exchanges, and you had a hedge fund. Inside both the US silos I've mentioned and inside the silos for .com there were regulated entities. We have regulated entities that are, for example, in Japan that are solvent, we had a regulated entity, ledger X, that was solvent. Those are sort of distinct from the other basic operations that we had, which are the two exchanges. John Ray: The principal issue that the company is facing in the crypto area, and from a technology perspective, it is different from the other bankruptcies because it's not a plane, not a boat. It's this crypto asset and it has inherently some difficulties. You know, the assets can be taken or lost. We have assets there in what are called Hot wallets, and those are in cold wallets. Hot wallets are very vulnerable to to hacking. If you've done any looking on the internet, you'll find that hacking is almost ordinary course in this business sector. They're very, lots of vulnerability to the wallets. So that's this company, unfortunately had a very, very challenging record here. You know, for some transfers there was no pathway for it. Our keys aren't stored in a centralized location. We don't know where all of our wallets are. Passwords were sometimes kept in just plain text format. So this company was sort of uniquely positioned to fail. John Ray: So funds were taken from customers, funds were invested, trading losses incurred in Alameda and then funds were deployed, that will never be valued at the same dollar amount. There was over $5 billion of investments made. Certainly, there's some value there and we'll try to get that value and sell those assets. But oftentimes, even when he made those sorts of investments, whether it was directly or through others in management, sometimes he would do that really without any pro forma or any valuation. Not really quite sure how some of the purchase price numbers were derived. So it gives you a sort of worry obviously, that the purchases were overvalued so there's a concern there as well. John Ray: Alameda was a customer, if you will, of the exchange and it's through that customer relationship, plus other arrangements, that allowed Alameda to borrow those funds, and then pick positions on the exchange like anyone, you know, who would hedge an asset in the market. He had unusually large positions, of course, and sometimes they were wrong in those positions, and they resulted in big losses. But ultimately, the commingling issue is the same in a different issue. He took the money from FTX to cover those positions and ultimately, when customers went to get their money back from .com there was a run on the bank. John Ray: The Alameda fund, well that's just the fund that drew resources from the exchanges, so it's really separate, it was not for customers per se, it was just simply a hedge fund. John Ray: For structural purposes and just for ease of presentation, we tried to take the over 100 entities and we put those in four silos. To demystify that, it's very simple. There was a U.S. silo, which was the FTX.us exchange for US investors. There was an international exchange called FTX.com. Again, for non-U.S. persons that invested in crypto. There was Alameda, which is purely a crypto hedge fund, which made other investments, venture capital type investments. Then there's a fourth entity which was purely investments. And although our investigation is not complete, those investments were most likely made with either Alameda money or money that originally came from ftx.com. But that fourth silo is just purely investments Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC): And who owned those four silos? John Ray: All those entities are owned or controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA): Now I've heard from some on the other side criticizing the SEC and in July in this room I criticized the Head of Enforcement at the SEC for not going after crypto exchanges. But the fact is that without objection I'd like to put on the record a letter signed by 19 Republican members designed to push back on the SEC, a brushback pitch if you're familiar with baseball, attacking the SEC for paying attention to and I quote, "the purported risks of digital assets." And I'd like to put on the record without objection comments from eight members made in this room that were designed to attack the SEC as being Luddite and anti-innovation for their efforts. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): Mr. Ray, a number of their debtors in the FTX group are located in offshore jurisdictions. Will this complicate the efforts to retrieve the assets of those there? If so why? John Ray: No, I don't think it will complicate it at all. The various jurisdictions, historically in bankruptcy, and I've been in a number of cross border situations, the jurisdictions will cooperate with each other. The regulators in all these jurisdictions, I think, realize that everyone's there for a common purpose, to protect the victims and recover assets for the victims of these situations. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): How much have you been able to secure and where are most of these assets located? John Ray: We've been able to secure over a billion dollars of assets. We've secured those two cold wallets in a secure location. It's an ongoing process, though, which will take weeks and perhaps months to secure all the assets. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-NY): Are most creditors located in the US or foreign jurisdictions. John Ray: The majority of the creditors trade through the .com silo and are outside of this jurisdiction, although there are some foreign customers that are on the US silo, and vice versa. Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO): Reports suggest that ftx.com transferred more than half of its customer funds, roughly $10 billion, to Alameda research. Is that accurate, sir? John Ray: Our work is not done, we don't have exact numbers for you today, but I will say it's several billion dollars, in that range, so we know that the size of the harm was significant. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): Have you seen evidence of such a cover up? Have you seen evidence that there was any independent governance of Alameda separate and apart from that of the exchange? John Ray: The operations of the FTX group were not segregated. It was really operated as one company. As a result, there's no distinction virtually, between the operations of the company and who controlled those operations. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA): Did FTX have sufficient risk management systems and controls to appropriately monitor any leverage the business took on and the interconnections it had with businesses, like again, Alameda. John Ray: There were virtually no internal controls and no separateness whatsoever. Why Congress Needs to Act: Lessons Learned from the FTX Collapse December 1, 2022 Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Witness: Rostin Behnam, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Clip Transcripts 18:30 Debbie Stabenow (D-MI): I've said this before and I'll say it again: the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act does not -- does not -- take authority away from other financial regulators. Nor does it make the CFTC the primary crypto regulator, because crypto assets can be used in many different ways. No single financial regulator has the expertise or the authority to regulate the entire industry. 24:30 John Boozman (R-AK): Many have asked why is the Ag Committee involved in this? The Ag Committee is involved because this committee and no other committee in the Senate is responsible for the oversight of the nation's commodity markets. Bitcoin, although a crypto currency, is a commodity. It's a commodity in the eyes of the federal courts and the opinion of the SEC Chairman, there is no dispute about this. If there are exchanges where commodities are traded, be it wheat, oil, or Bitcoin, then they must be regulated. It's simply that simple. 32:45 Rostin Behnam: I have asked Congress directly for clear authority to impose our traditional regulatory regime over the digital asset commodity market. 33:00 Rostin Behnam: I have not been shy about my encouragement of bills that contemplate shared responsibility for the CFTC and the Securities Exchange Commission, where the SEC would utilize its existing authority and reporting regime requirements for all security tokens, while the CFTC would apply its market based rules for the more limited subset of commodity tokens, which do not have the same characteristics of security tokens. 41:00 Rostin Behnam: I can though share with this committee with respect to me, my team and I have taken an initial review of my calendar and what we've observed is that my team and I met with Mr. Bankman-Fried and his team. Over the past 14 months, we met 10 times in the CFTC office at their request, all in relation to this DCO this Clearinghouse application. Nine out of the 10 times we were in Washington, one was at a widely held conference in Florida earlier this year. In addition, there were two phone calls, I believe, and a number of messages, all in relation to the DCO application, providing us updates suggesting that they were answering questions from different divisions, and trying as I said, to doggedly move the application along and to get it approved. 48:00 Sen. John Boozman (R-AK): If ftx.com had been a registered U.S. exchange, would the CFTC have been able to mitigate what happened. Rostin Behnam: Senator, you know, with our current authority, the answer is now. We need the authority to get into a CFTC registered exchange, as you point out. If we had that authority, and they were registered, given what we know from the facts about conflicts of interest, commingling funds, books and records, we would have been able to prohibit it. And I would point to what we're doing with Ledger X. On a daily basis our staff is in direct communication not only with Ledger X, but the custodians themselves, able to identify customer property, and customer money. Imagine that scenario with FTX.us if we had a daily lens into the location of customer money and customer property, you can imagine, given what we've learned about what's happened with FTX, we could have certainly prohibited many of the actions that we're hearing about. 1:16:00 Rostin Behnam: In terms of regulation of cash markets, right, the spot market, we simply do not have authority to register cash market exchanges or any intermediary broker dealer entity within that structure and that's what concerns me, this is the gap. 1:59:30 Rostin Behnam: Unfortunately, when we act, it's often after the fact because the information that allows us to bring an enforcement action in digital asset cash commodity markets, is only because information is coming to us from outsiders, from referrals, from tips, from whistleblowers, and this is in stark contrast to some of the surveillance tools and examination tools that we would have if we had a comprehensive regulatory framework over digital asset commodities. 2:07:00 Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL): There'll be a reporter waiting in the hall -- I've already talked to her this morning -- who will ask you, "Did he ever contribute to your campaign?" I said "Oh, no, I never heard of the man." She said "You're wrong, Senator, he contributed to you." So the cryptocurrency people are active politically. And they are trying to achieve a political end here. It is their right as citizens of this country to do that. But it really calls on us to make sure that whatever we do is credible under those circumstances. 2:22:30 Rostin Behnam: I can't speak to what Mr. Bankman-Fried or anyone at FTX was thinking when they were advocating for regulation, but the remarkable thing is to think about it in the context of compliance and what we've learned about the FTX entities and just thinking about the bill that Senator Stabenow and Boozman introduced, they would have been so far out of compliance that it just wouldn't have even been possible. Legislative Hearing to Review S.4760, the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act September 15, 2022 Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Witnesses: Rostin Behnam, Chairman, Commodity Futures Trading Commission Todd Phillips, Director, Financial Regulation and Corporate Governance, Center for American Progress Shelia Warren, Chief Executive Officer, Crypto Council for Innovation Christine Parker, Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Coinbase Heath Tarbert, Chief Legal Officer, Citadel Securities Denelle Dixon, Chief Executive Officer, Stellar Development Foundation Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States December 8, 2021 House Committee on Financial Services Witnesses: Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Circle Samuel Bankman-Fried, Founder and CEO, FTX Brian P. Brooks, CEO, Bitfury Group Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-Founder, Paxos Trust Company Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director, Stellar Development Foundation Alesia Jeanne Haas, CEO, Coinbase Inc. and CFO, Coinbase Global Inc. Clip Transcripts 23:30 Sam Bankman-Fried: We are already regulated and licensed. We have many licenses globally. Here in the United States, we are regulated by the states under the money service business and money transmitting regime, and we are regulated nationally by the CFTC where we have a DCO, a DCM, a swap execution facility, and other licensure. 1:13:30 Sam Bankman-Fried: One of the really innovative properties of cryptocurrency markets are 24/7 risk monitoring and engines. We do not have overnight risk or weekend risk or holiday risk in the same way traditional assets do, which allow risk monitoring and de risking of positions in real time to help mitigate volatility. We've been operating for a number of years with billions of dollars of open interest. We've never had customer losses, clawbacks or anything like that. Even going through periods of large movements in both directions. We store collateral from our users in a way which is not always done in the traditional financial ecosystem to backstop positions. And the last thing that I'll say is if you look at what precipitated some of the 2008 financial crisis, you saw a number of bilateral bespoke non-reported transactions happening between financial counterparties which then got repackaged and releveraged again and again and again, such that no one knew how much risk was in that system until it all fell apart. If you compare that to what happens on FTX or other major cryptocurrency venues today, there is complete transparency about the full open interest. There is complete transparency about the positions that are held. There is a robust, consistent risk framework. 1:34:00 Sam Bankman-Fried: In addition to a bunch of international licenses in the United States, we are participating in that system you referenced with the money transmitter and money service businesses license is in addition to that, however, we are also licensed by the CFTC. We have a DCO, a DCM, and other licensure from them through FTX.us derivatives and we look forward to continuing to work with them to build out our product suite. We just submitted a 800 page, I believe, proposal to them a few days ago, which we're excited to discuss and we're also happy to talk with other regulators about potential products in the United States. 2:37:00 Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN): Now it's my understanding that FTX uses surveillance trade technology akin to the technology national Securities Exchanges use to protect investors and ensure sound spot markets. What does this technology and any other tools FTX uses to protect the spot market from fraud and manipulation look like? Sam Bankman-Fried: Yeah. So, you know, like other exchanges, we do have these technologies in addition to the, you know, new customer policies that we can identify individuals associated with trades. We have surveillance for unusual trading activity. We have manual inspections of anything that you know, gets flagged either by the automated surveillance or by manual inspection. And we do this with the trading activity with deposits and withdrawals and everything else. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN): Sounds like you're doing a lot to make sure there is no fraud or other manipulation. Thank you Mr. Bankman-Fried, again, for helping us understand the extensive guardrails a cryptocurrency exchange like FTX has in place to ensure sound crypto spot markets for investors. 2:52:30 Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Mr. Bankman-Fried, I'd like to start by asking you the first question. FTX.us has a derivatives platform and recently bought ledger x as part of that. Is that correct? Sam Bankman-Fried: Yes. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Okay, thank you. And that platform is registered with the CFTC. Is that correct? Sam Bankman-Fried: Yep. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Okay, perfect. So I just want to clarify something. And this isn't to say anybody's doing any wrong. It's just to get the lay of the land. You also have an exchange for Bitcoin and other tokens, but that is not registered with either the CFTC or the SEC. Is that correct? Sam Bankman-Fried: That's correct. Currently, neither of them are primary markets regulated for spot Bitcoin to USD markets. Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Okay, thank you. And I know you're registered as a money transmitter, but that's not the same kind of oversight that we'll see from a federal market regulator. I also sit on the Agriculture Committee, which oversees the CFTC, so a gap like this is especially concerning to me. And the big problem that I see here, from what I understand, is that the CFTC doesn't have regulatory authority for spot trading of commodities, just their derivatives. So that leaves consumers with inconsistent protections, which is a concern that I have. 2:55:00 Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa): Bitcoin, which has almost a trillion dollars invested in it, has CFTC oversight for people who are trading futures and options, but not for people who are trading the currency itself. Is that right? Sam Bankman-Fried: That is essentially correct. Full FTX Superbowl Commercial with Larry David Tom Brady FTX Commercials Steph Curry FTX Commercial Cover Art Design by Only Child Imaginations Music Presented in This Episode Intro & Exit: Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito (found on Music Alley by mevio)
Jobs Job gains showed a nice increase of 263,000 in November which easily topped the estimate of 200,000. Leisure and hospitality remained a major leader with job gains totaling 88,000 in the month as the sector continues to battle back from Covid. This sector still remains 5.8% or 980,000 jobs below February 2020. Retail trade and transportation and warehousing were the standout losers in the report as both sectors saw a decline in payrolls. Retail trade fell by about 30,000 jobs as general merchandise stores saw employment decline by 32,000 jobs and electronics and appliance stores saw employment decline by 4,000 jobs in the month. Transportation and warehousing had a decline of 15,000 jobs in the month. I was somewhat surprised to see these two sectors decline considering it's the holiday season, but the excess inventory levels could be weighing on employment as retailers could be trying to focus on expenses including labor and transportation and warehousing. The item I believe weighed most on the markets was the increase of 5.1% in average hourly earnings. It surpassed the estimate of 4.6% and it could give the Fed more ammo to continue on its rate hiking path as it tries to bring down inflation. I do believe this should not be a major concern for the Fed because, like inflation overall, I think wage gains will begin to slow to a more normalized level next year as the job market decelerates. Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) The PCE, which is known as the Personal Consumption Expenditures, came out at 6% for October over the last 12 months. As we had predicted months ago these inflation indexes would show signs of easing. This is why there has been some recovery in equities. The PCE is what the Federal Reserve looks at in regard to interest rates so there probably will not be any surprises going forward. We continue to believe that inflation will slow down and if you've been out of the market and in particular the right equities since summer you have missed out. There are still some opportunities to get back in for quality long-term investors but sitting on the sidelines for the next 6 to 12 months based on current data will be a mistake. National Retail Federation (NRF) You've probably heard that this is not going to be a great Christmas for retail. But as we say many times in our posts and other commentary, it's important to understand what is being said and how it is being said. The estimate by the National Retail Federation (NRF) for holiday sales is expected to be between $942 billion to $960 billion, an increase of 6-8% over the $889 billion in 2021. This was a 13.5% increase over 2020. If we look back to 2019 when the economy was pretty strong, and everyone felt good, the NRF said holiday sales were $716 billion. Comparing the low end for 2022 of $942 billion, that's a 31.6% increase from 2019. It does appear holiday shopping has gotten off to a good start considering the record of 196.7 million shoppers from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday. This topped last year's level of 176 million shoppers and easily surpassed the NRF's estimate for 166.3 million shoppers. I don't know about you, but I think those are pretty good numbers, all things being equal. SEC The SEC, also known as the Securities Exchange Commission, had a busy fiscal year, which ended September 30th. Their penalties were up 67% from the previous year, hitting an all-time record of $6.4 billion. I wonder where that money will go, or will it get lost in the tangled web of government administration? The money is supposed to go to a fund that either protects investors, a fund that refunds investors who lost money, or the third option, the US treasury general fund. Harrison – “Change for charitable donations this year”
In today's episode we discuss the SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission. We explore how and when it was created, what its supposed to do, and its rich history of failures and corruption... Join us! Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Securities_and_Exchange_Commission
Shampa Bagchi comes from a family of entrepreneurs who all value living life to the fullest as well as helping to improve our world. Shampa, born in India, moved to the United States after getting a Masters's degree in computers. In the mid-1990s she saw a need to improve the way companies worked with customers and developed one of the first easy-to-use and inexpensive customer Resource management systems, CRM. Throughout her career, as she tells us in our episode, she has worked throughout her work life to improve processes and make products and systems to simplify systems. Shampa's stories are fascinating and insightful. I believe you will come away from this episode realizing more than ever that being unstoppable is really something that is available to all of us if we choose the path to drive ourselves just a bit harder to accomplish goals. About the Guest: Shampa Bagchi is the Founder and CEO of ConvergeHub (www.convergehub.com), a Customer Lifecycle Management CRM software that powers business growth. Shampa specializes in taking ideas from concept to reality and is passionate about helping businesses grow by utilizing the power of technology to solve complex business challenges. She also founded Corelynx (www.corelynx.com), a boutique software development and strategy agency providing innovative business solutions to growing organizations. Shampa holds a Master's degree in Computer Science and has been at the forefront of the technology revolution in Silicon Valley for more than two decades. She has worked with large enterprises such as Cisco Systems, Siemens, etc. as well as hundreds of small and medium businesses to build software products and applications that empower businesses and change lives. Being a ‘woman in tech' long before #womenintech became a movement, Shampa is passionate about technology education for women. She has founded Onward Academy (www.onwardacademy.in), a software training institute in India, with the goal to increase the participation of women in the tech industry. Shampa writes a blog called ‘The Spark' (www.thespark.work) where she explores the intersection between business, technology, and people… and the power of little things to make a massive difference in any of these areas. She also writes and posts videos on a regular basis on LinkedIn and can be followed on https://www.linkedin.com/in/shampabagchi/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is an Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson 01:20 Yep, it is that time again. Welcome to unstoppable mindset. I am Michael Hingson, your host glad to be here. Hope you are happy to be here probably are because you're here, right. So wherever you are welcome. And we really appreciate you and hope that you enjoy the next hour. We have a fascinating guest. We're actually starting the recording of this podcast 10 minutes late because we've just been sitting here chatting Shampa Bagchi is a woman very involved in tech, she has formed a company called convergehub. And she, and actually convergehub is a software. Well, not a software product specifically, but it is a customer resource management tool. And she'll tell us about that. So I don't want to mess up my description more than I have. But she's also formed a company called core links, which is a system by which she helps other customers write software and do things that they need to do to make their company work the way it should. And she has a great amount of experience in the world of computer science. She's been involved in Silicon Valley Tech for a while. She has a master's degree in computer science. We're jealous, and lots of other things. So Shampa Welcome to unstoppable mindset after all of that. And Shampa Bagchi 02:42 Michael, thank you. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me. Michael Hingson 02:46 And you notice that I didn't use queen to the world, which I said I could use. And Shampa Bagchi 02:51 then thank you for that too. Michael Hingson 02:53 You're safe? Well, I really am fascinated to learn. Let's start with more about you and what you did growing up and how you got to the point of being so interested in involved in tech. Shampa Bagchi 03:04 Yeah, of course, I actually started software programming in college. And like, Well, initially, I always had an interest in science and my initial interest, I wanted to go into nuclear physics. So physics was my first love. And then. And then Michael Hingson 03:27 my master's degree is in physics. Oh, wow. Shampa Bagchi 03:30 So I have a bachelor's in physics. And then I went on to do a master's in computer science. So wonderful. Yeah, it's a really great subject. That's Michael Hingson 03:40 fair. Yeah. Shampa Bagchi 03:42 And but then in a while, I know when I just started taking some computer courses. And once I wrote my first software program, I was totally hooked. And the main reason I really liked it is because it gave me this ability to take a complex problem. And then kind of, you know, break it down into little bits, and then solve it and kind of put the solution back together again. So I really, really was interested in that. And then that was a time when computers as a career, it was just opening up, it was just beginning. And I wasn't thinking so much as career itself. But more in terms of it was really because in that time when you go into a career, most of the time, you could only influence a certain amount of people, right? Only the people around you. But what I realized is using computers, you could build a program with somebody sitting on the other corner of the world use to solve this problem, which you probably won't even think about. And just that idea of being able to touch people whom you don't even know you know, whom you haven't heard of. It was so fascinating to me that I had to get into that, and I had really to do it so so and even today, even though I don't write software code anymore, but just that idea of building software products, which people all over the world use to solve their problems, it's, it's really interesting to me, I feel like I'm touching their lives. Michael Hingson 05:14 There you go, Well, what do you do specifically today, Shampa Bagchi 05:19 but today, I'm the CEO of convergehub. So I check of all trades, really in the company. So I'm handling the product development. I do oversee that I do some marketing, and even the other financial stuff that I have to do on a daily basis. So Michael Hingson 05:39 not boring stuff. Yeah, Shampa Bagchi 05:41 exactly. My very necessity. Michael Hingson 05:44 Yes, yeah. It is part of what has to be done. And at least you Well, I don't know whether you have the patience or not. But you certainly seem to be able to, to put up with it all. Not always. But I tried, Does, does your coding experience help you in doing all the other things that that you have to do in the company? Or maybe a better question would be how does that past experience help you? Shampa Bagchi 06:14 That's actually very interesting. Now that I think about it, it really does. Because when you are coding, you are taught to kind of look at a problem, I kind of step away from it, and just look at it as a problem and then start breaking it down or tinkering with it, you know that as a challenge itself, you cannot solve the whole thing. But when you break it down, and we address it one by one, you are able to solve it and you without really getting too involved with with taking a step back. So if you take that approach to any other work that you have to do any other experience or challenge that you're going through, I think that really helps you solve it in a better way. Michael Hingson 06:58 Yeah, that's that's kind of what I was thinking that you would say I remember when I was in undergraduate physics, and of course it it then followed on but an undergraduate physics, oftentimes, professors would say, pay attention to the details. It's all about the details. It isn't just the math, for example, it's the units. And if the units don't work out, right, then you probably are doing something wrong. So you really need to look at the details. And I've always felt that that background in physics, even though I am not doing anything specifically in physics, the background has helped a great deal for me in everything that I do, because I've learned to pay attention to a lot of the details and appreciate the value in doing that. Shampa Bagchi 07:47 Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's what it is. And I had, I had read somewhere that no education is what survives after what you learned has been forgotten. So I guess that what it is it kind of builds into you and then you know, you keep using it and other experiences in your life. Michael Hingson 08:05 Yeah, I've talked to a number of people on this podcast who say, the reoccurring theme is you should never stop learning. Shampa Bagchi 08:14 Absolutely. I totally agree. But yeah, it's Michael Hingson 08:17 kind of one of those things that that one needs to do. Well, you went off and where do you get your Masters from? By the way? Shampa Bagchi 08:24 Well, I did my masters from India. Okay. Yeah. And Michael Hingson 08:28 then you then you came over here at some point. And, and you you started working now, did you code when you first came over? How did what brought you over here? Shampa Bagchi 08:39 Yeah. So in India, after I did my masters, I started working in a company and that company was then I know, deploying some, you know, software programmers here. So I came as a part of that. And I literally landed in us with what, less than $150 or so. And a job of course, and went from there. So I know after I worked. Initially, I started working with a large enterprises like Cisco Systems, pyramid technologies, which was a part of Siemens. And yes, I was doing programming in Cisco Systems, I was part of the sales, the customer facing side of the software, really, you know, the sales, customer service. And in those days, there was no such thing as customer relationship management software, it didn't even exist. So what we were doing is we were taking Oracle Applications, the ERP package, and we were customizing it to build those pieces in and Cisco eventually, you know, it came it became the first company who did the online ordering the entire online ordering, where an order from a customer would go in and to be fulfilled without the touch of human hands. So and this was Very, very early days, and I was really fortunate to be a part of that big hole team. Michael Hingson 10:05 What kind of what timeframe was that? Shampa Bagchi 10:07 So this was kind of mid to late 90s, actually 9099 kind of timeframe. Yeah. So and then after that, I started working on a few startups, but then always wanted to open my own company. So that's when I launched core links. And well as part of callings, what we do is we build custom software. We are a software strategy firm. So we provide like a fractional CTO services, strategy services, software development for both products as well as software applications. So and we did that, and even while we were doing that kind of note, notice that a lot of the requests that we were getting for building the software center around the same thing about New Customer Relationship Management, how do I handle my customers war? How do I support my customers? How do I do lead management? So we were building constantly, we were building software for that for all our clients, and it began to occur to me, you know, I started digging in and found out that really, you know, there was no product in the market which suffice that need for customers, there were really two types of customer relationship products in the market at that time. One was really huge, big blood scale software, you need a PhD to implement that. And other than that, there was these no small little contact management systems really no dumbed down products, which really didn't suffice the need of, you know, small and medium businesses, because they had their complex processes, but at the same time, they can spend that kind of money, you know, to, to implement such a large scale software. So that's why we decided to build convergehub, which would service these kinds of customers. And yeah, so we started building convergehub, and which is right now, complete customer lifecycle management system, it serve right from the beginning of the customer journey, till the end is supported within convergehub. Michael Hingson 12:18 So is it is a web based system then? Or? Shampa Bagchi 12:21 Yes, it is. SAS product software as a service product? And yes, it's completely online. Michael Hingson 12:28 Cool. How does it? Well, so now we have other things like Salesforce and so on, how does it compare with those kinds of products? Which of course didn't exist back in the early days? Shampa Bagchi 12:40 Yes, no, when I was working in those, Cisco and those other large enterprises, Salesforce didn't exist. By the time I had to know founded convergehub, Salesforce did start up. But Salesforce was in that category of large scale software, which needs a lot of effort to implement, which small businesses didn't necessarily have. So yeah, so convergehub is kind of isn't the same space does similar things, but in a much more simpler way. So that you can get that you are able to, you know, establish you are able to serve your complex business processes, but you really didn't have to put in so much effort to implement them. The implementation is much simpler. Michael Hingson 13:26 I remember when selling tape backup products for quantum Corporation and others before it, and so on, working with Wall Street, of course, they used both Oracle and Sybase and Sybase was very unformatted fields and so on. But those firms essentially created their own software within those database structures, to do the same kind of work in terms of managing customers, managing orders, managing all of the things related to that. And the Securities Exchange Commission required it of course of Wall Street, because they needed you to have a way where you track all your orders, which Wall Street firms would want to do anyway. And then to keep them for seven years off site. So we provided the tape backup products, and they would work with products like Elgato and other kinds of tools that would communicate between their systems and the backup products that we provided. So a lot of moving parts. Shampa Bagchi 14:26 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, it's come a long way since then, but it's always fun to think back to how quickly we've changed how much Michael Hingson 14:37 yeah, as I was saying to somebody not too long ago, I remember when a disk crash was a real disk crash. Yes. Where you had a 16 inch platter and they had was micro centimeters above it, and if it fell, it was a very noisy situation and all your data was lost. was pretty amazing. We've come a long way. And we'll continue to that's what kind of makes this technology era fun. On the other hand, even with you starting in India, and so on, tell me a little bit about how women were viewed in tech. And I would think that you were kind of a breakthrough person to deal with some of that. Shampa Bagchi 15:19 Yeah, actually, when I started, in college, when I went into software, we didn't have that many, you know, women in technology at that time, but it's not like I faced a lot of resistance to it. But there just weren't that many software, it was a very new subject at the time. And, but then I was so fascinated with it, I wasn't really looking at the gender, I just wanted to build software. So I wasn't really looking at, you know, how many you know how easy or hard it would be for me to get in? But yeah, since then, even after coming, you'd be surprised, or even after coming into Silicon Valley, I did face some challenges. There. It's not so much as I don't think people really resist you, because you're a woman. It's not that people say that, okay, you know, she's a woman, I'm not going to listen to what it what she does, I'm not going to give credit or and I'm going to cause resistance, not really, but it's more sort of a mindset, you, there's this assumption kind of a thing, and that you probably aren't as good, you know, you probably won't be able to do it. And then you know, you have to keep proving yourself all the time. So and then, you know, it's when you prove yourself, it's not that people won't accept it, you know, people do. So I would think it's more a matter of just education and getting used to it, rather than you're actively making sure. Women don't get the chance. Michael Hingson 16:47 But I think that's true of people who are, are different than what is viewed as the norm in general. I mean, in terms of blindness, for example. There's, there's resistance. And the general assumption is that if you're blind, you can't succeed nearly as well as sighted people can. And that that view has been around for a while, it does take a lot of educating. And you do have to continuously prove yourself to be able to accomplish tasks and and grow in the industry. It isn't that you can't, but it certainly tends to be harder, because, as you said, it's the mindset of what people believe you can and can't do. And unfortunately, in the case of well, and in some ways with women, too. But in the case of blind people, for example, the unemployment rate among employable blind people is still in the area around 70%. And it's not because people who are blind, who happen to be blind can't work. It said, others think they can't work in that prejudice still exists. Shampa Bagchi 17:58 Oh, I totally don't get that. And, you know, interestingly, I had had an encounter, which this was, this was a while ago, I was in college at the time, and I was kind of, you know, I think I had gone down for some internship returning home, got down from the bus. And there was this blind person who had traveled with us who also kind of got on from the past, and there was this road to cross. And He was looking around and he asked for help. He said, Can somebody please help me cross the road? And the house was full of people. So so many people had not on boarded the bus, but it was kind of really strange that although he was asking, and he was asking confidently, but nobody, it's people were hearing it, obviously, they were hearing it, they were sort of pretending not to hear it and going their own way. And it took me by surprise, not just the people's reaction, but even that person's reaction because he was very confident he was not he, there was no kind of he was not submissive. He was not even if although he was asking for help. He was doing it so confidently. I thought it was the other side. The people who should have been more confident probably weren't not confident. They didn't even have the confidence to step forward and just helping him cross the road. So I watched that for a little while. And then I decided to step up. So I went to him. I said, Okay, come on. I took his hand, and I just had to cross the road I want I asked if he wanted help just getting home. And he said, Oh no, I live close by I can manage from here. I just needed help crossing the road and he just went about his way confidently. You couldn't even tell that he was blind unless you actually looked at his stake. So that experience really stayed with me that really, you know, this person was so confident why he was all he needed was a little bit of help, you know, why wouldn't I know anybody do that? Michael Hingson 19:56 Chris, the other thing that would be helpful is he could You're out how to cross the road. I mean, I used to live in Winthrop, Massachusetts, and every day, both going to the bus and getting off the bus coming home. We had a bus stop that was across the road from the entrance to my apartment complex. And it was just in the middle of the road, right. So there wasn't like a major street that the bus stopped at, there was a bus stop, and it was right in the middle of the street. And there are tools to use it, it was a little bit daunting until I figured out that, hey, one thing I can do to cross the road is to follow other people and listen to them as they are crossing. And the other is to wait until the bus leaves so it's quieter, and then listen to traffic. And when I don't hear traffic coming across in front of me for at least a little bit a period of time, and I don't hear anything that sounds like it's close then to go across the road. But it it is a it is a process. And it can be it can. It can be scary. But it can be daunting if you really don't learn to you know, to do that. So I'm I'm a little bit curious why he had some issues with being able to cross the road. And perhaps he didn't have enough hearing to be able to do that. Who knows? Shampa Bagchi 21:26 Oh, actually, I think I know, it's probably because of this. Was it India? Yeah, it's so loud and so noisy and so much traffic. Michael Hingson 21:35 And there was no, no low in the noise. Shampa Bagchi 21:39 Yes, exactly. Yeah. So that was very, very chaotic and very, very noisy the entire time. So he couldn't use noise as a as a market news Michael Hingson 21:46 noises. Yeah. So the only thing he could possibly do if he could hear it is to just listen to other people. And as they're going across, stay right behind them. But still it's an issue. Did he use a cane or anything like that? Yeah, he Shampa Bagchi 21:58 used a cane. Michael Hingson 22:00 Good that because that would would certainly help. But you know, everyone is different. And certainly the noise factor is a big issue. I've been in New York, on street corners where there are well defined crosswalks and well defined ways to go. But it's so noisy, that it's even here hard to hear the traffic going the way I want to go. And you know, what we do is we listen, and when the traffic is going the way we want to go, then we cross. But sometimes the noise can be so loud around us. And even that's hard to hear. So there are always challenges. But it doesn't mean that we can and that's part of the problem is that sometimes people would go well, you just could never do that. Because you're lying. Well, I can but let's let's talk about the sun being in your eyes, and how well you're able to see when the sun's coming right at you. You know, we all have challenges, of course. So good for you for helping. Thank you. But it is an issue and it is a challenge that we have. Well, so you went off and you got your your master's degree in computer science and you came over to the US. That must have been maybe the the way I would put it is quite an adventure. Just getting here at all. Oh, yes. It was totally new for you. Shampa Bagchi 23:20 Yes, it was absolutely new for me. And then yeah, getting into tech industry and immigrant brown woman starting to work in the tech industry. It wasn't easy. But then you learn as you go, it was you know, there are challenges, you know, you start looking at? Yeah, and then there are there are challenges. And then there are solutions. And it's, you know, people to help out. And it's just, I think a lot of it is also about how much you like the subject and how hard you're willing to work. And if you have that, I think all other challenges, you know, you're you're proud to be able to work out. Michael Hingson 23:58 But you had a mindset that you were going to work it out you were going to try to do that as opposed to letting it all overwhelm you. Shampa Bagchi 24:06 Oh, yeah, absolutely. That's, I think it's also a little bit about being able to know that yes, you will be able to do it. And ultimately, it's going to work out it maybe you can just try to look a little bit into the future and say, you know, here I am going to do it. This is just a process, you know, just a few challenges, which I will have to go through. Everybody has their own challenges. These are mine. Michael Hingson 24:30 Yeah. And that's the real point, isn't it? Everyone has their own challenges and, and challenges aren't the same for everyone. Shampa Bagchi 24:40 Absolutely. Yeah. Totally agree. Michael Hingson 24:42 So you, you made it over you started and you started doing doing technology stuff and, and all that. So how how long was it before you started working essentially for yourself? Shampa Bagchi 24:56 Oh, I started working for myself or Round, let's say 2000 to 2003, I think timeframe. So that's when I started kind of consulting, no going solo started working on smaller size project and a year or so after that I launched callings. So that's when, yeah, so slowly that grew. And we started getting more projects. And then I started having a team. We formed a team in India too. So, and I started off loading some of my work to them. And slowly the team grew. And yeah, so that's how things took off. Michael Hingson 25:39 What were some of the early projects like that you started? And that you use core links to develop? Shampa Bagchi 25:46 Well, we were always working in the beginning, we were mostly working on software applications or so yeah, one of the interesting one was in the insurance industry, I remember this was this was way back. But in a we were kind of, you know, comparing different insurance products. And this was for car insurance, if I remember correctly. And and it was really advanced for its time, too. And we were kind of, you know, giving there was some hundreds of points on which, you know, you could compare insurances. So usually, when you're reading an insurance, you don't even know you don't even look at the fine print. And this was kind of a technology where, which would help you compare insurance without really having to look at the fine print. So. So there's that that was one, there was another one for the FinTech industry that we were building the entire end to end process for fintech. So yeah, some for some very interesting projects. But in the beginning, Michael Hingson 26:41 what kind of language or coding did you use to develop those? Shampa Bagchi 26:45 At that time? We were using PHP, and we use MySQL, as a database, Michael Hingson 26:52 SQL servers and all that. Yeah. What do you use now? How's it evolved over the years? Shampa Bagchi 26:59 Yeah, now, I'm not coding anymore. But my team user uses Node we use young Angular. So yeah, there's MongoDB, we use. So a lot, it's changed significantly, even the way you code has significantly changed significantly, it's a lot more modular. And at that time used to write 1000s of line, of course, a lot of very, very monolithic kind of code. Now, it's so much more modular, it's a distributed, so things have changed completely. But it's kind of fun to watch my team, although, you know, I don't get fat involved into the day to day process anymore. Michael Hingson 27:39 You do you have enough and you keep up with it. So you could if you needed to be involved in the process, I would assume? Shampa Bagchi 27:45 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I still have my, you know, kind of, you know, and in there, I'm have daily meetings with the team. But right now, my perspective is more from that of a user from that offer no customer how the customer experience, what will an user go through. So that's my perspective, rather than Wow, this is cool. You know, this is nice bit of technology, let's use it. I don't think of thinking of it like that anymore. Michael Hingson 28:10 But it's good to be able to take the user perspective, and it's good to have that in a company, because then you, you really get to understand it from the standpoint of those who are going to be directly involved with an encounter of your products, as opposed to just creating them and pushing them out the door without having that understanding, I would think, Oh, yeah, Shampa Bagchi 28:29 absolutely. And that's somehow you mature, because, in the beginning, that's how you kind of know, especially from from a tech background, you can do you not think, no, take a school, and, yeah, so just try to use anything, and I see my team, still trying to do that I have to push back on it, just because it's the user who is the most important person here, and you know, whatever that takes, technology is good, as long as it's serving the customer. And really, I would say, you know, we are we are coming up with a new release of convergehub. And what we are trying to do here, you know, I'm really trying to put in the human perspective into it more than anything else, because from my experience in the software industry from a very long time, what I'm seeing is there is really no b2b or b2c, or you know, anything like that anymore. It's really a matter of a human being using a product, it's a person using a product, you know, whatever else, you know, from whomever, to whomever, it's still ultimately your person using it. So that kind of knowledge really comes with experience. And that's what how we are building convergehub. So our idea is that using convergehub, you know, sales and marketing and customer service, all that is wonderful. And our users will be doing all of that the features are there, but more so what we would like our user to do is to be able to use the product to make a difference. So he is able to make a difference right Ah, where he is at, you know, whatever he or she is doing, he should be able to do it better do it in such a way that no maybe do it quicker and do it to build better businesses and I hope, better communities, ultimately, Michael Hingson 30:13 one would hope. Yes. So when did you if you will graduate from quarter links, and so on to convergehub, although you do both, but when did when did converge on first come into existence? Shampa Bagchi 30:29 converge jobs release was the first release was somewhere around I think we started getting customers around 2017 or so although it was released a little bit earlier in the market around 2015 2016. But that's when we were it was the very first release, we started ironing out all the bugs, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I didn't really wanted to push and sell the product until the bugs burning out the or the features were built in. So then we started getting customers in the 2016 2017 timeframe, and it went from there. And now we are getting into the next release the next version of convergehub. Michael Hingson 31:06 I will bet however, that no matter how much you did to perfect it, and ironed out all the bugs, that once you actually released it, your users started finding things that you guys didn't discover. Shampa Bagchi 31:20 Oh, yeah. You would have been that better. So yes, there was our software is basically a work in progress. You know, you can never have 100% Perfect software by the time you have the bugs and there are more features, you're building it and those new features will have some bugs. It's always work in progress. No, no company, no software ever built as an IT person. Everything all bugs ironed out. But you try. And what you really do really hope is that the bugs that you do still have aren't hampering the main activities of your users. So if it's, you know, really hampering their productivity with not letting them do what they would like to do in the software, that's that's when it takes priority. And that's how we prioritize bugs to know which ones to fix versus which ones to kind of put on the backburner. Michael Hingson 32:14 You're now you're in California, right? You're in the Silicon Valley? Yes. So you watch some of the same TV commercials that I do if you watch TV at all. And actually, I saw it again this morning. There is someone who has been putting out some commercials that are just slamming Tesla, because they say that the autonomous vehicle software in Tesla is dangerous, and Congress should stop it and so on. And he's made that his primary focus in his Senate campaign. It's It's fascinating, not withstanding the fact that Tesla hasn't, as I understand it, at least the last time I checked, released a totally autonomous vehicle version of the software. But the reality is, it's always going to be a work in progress to do what Tesla has already done so much of to make their vehicle work in, in a way to greatly assist drivers. And it's just fascinating to see that kind of a mindset that just wants to put a stop to all of that kind of stuff, when that makes no sense at all. Shampa Bagchi 33:20 Oh, yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you there. Because if it's a software, there's always going to be bugs. So that's for sure. But it is true that in certain industries, those bugs have a bigger impact. Because if you are not careful, you know, when you're driving a car about code, you know, injure somebody, or worse. But at the same time, not similar to that is medical profession. And so anything, any software in the medical profession, you have to test very, very thoroughly because there are human lives involved. But at the same time, you at some point, you have to do your best, and you have to completely test thoroughly. And I think incrementally you do have to release the software, otherwise, it just doesn't happen. Right. So and knowing that it is software and there will be bugs, and we just do our level best to make sure that that bug doesn't have the worst kind of impact. Michael Hingson 34:17 While being an equal opportunity abuser. Of course, my immediate reaction is if we're going to talk about what goes on with Tesla, let's talk about people driving in general, and there's some value in replacing them. Exactly. You know, the I don't know, my I'm amazed at my wife. Now my wife uses a wheelchair. She uses hand controls and she drives really well. We have had one accident in the almost 40 years that well. We've had a couple but there was one accident that we were probably more responsible for than anything else. We had one where we were actually going to anniversary dinner, and we came over a hill and there was a place where a car should not have been stopped on the road and there was no way to see it ahead of time. But this young lady who was a teenage driver had just stopped in the middle of the road. And we we bumped her before we could stop. So it was a brand new car and a dent in the car. But we had a time where we were driving, and actually, we, a gust of wind kind of blew us over. And we brushed against a piece of heavy equipment and then went back across the road. But partly she was also trying to avoid a trailer that had come up on us. We had we had, she saw the truck that was pulling the trailer but didn't see the trailer was in her blind spot. Well, anyway, but she but she dealt with it. But there are so many people on the road that are so impatient drive so aggressively. And I don't know how they survived because they they don't do anything to recognize the courtesy and that what we used to call in the world defensive driving, you know, we don't do that anymore. No. Yeah, yeah. So I'm all for taking the driving away from drivers. And in as soon as we can, putting it into a much more autonomous vehicle kind of environment, because too many crazy people are out there driving on the road. Shampa Bagchi 36:14 Yeah. And I think you're absolutely right. So when once you know we get into that autonomous driving becomes the main thing. You know, what, what I see here, what kind of the research says that they are way safer than just these crazy people or drunk people is not driving a car, at least the machine want to drive drunk driving? You know, Michael Hingson 36:35 we are kind of in the forefront of it. And we're new into it. But it's going to happen. It has to absolutely it has to happen. So in so there's a lot of artificial intelligence and machine learning that goes into all that. And speaking of that, how does that play into both you and convergehub, and quarter lengths and so on? Do you use much artificial intelligence to help in the development or testing of your software and so on? Shampa Bagchi 37:03 Yes, it's not so much in the development itself. But we are planning the new version of convergehub, we are planning to put artificial intelligence in there and have this AI to do a lot of automated stuff, which initially would have to be manual. And then of course, now there is so much data, data analytics, and all of that is going to be built into the new version of convergehub. So all the definite features are not ironed out yet. And what we are going to give, but there is no one thing for sure is that we are going to have a completely channel, less conversations. So regardless of you know, like like today's users, they could be using one channel at one point of times, and you know, completely switch channels, the other point of time. So you know, from email, to phone, to Twitter, to, you know, to texting. So all of these channels should appear as if it's still a conversation as if it's a one conversation thread the whole time. So that's and there is so much insights that you can figure out from those conversations, and you know, many other companies have started working in it on it. It's not perfect, nobody has perfected it. But you know, we are definitely not going to work on that and see, you know, where that leads us. So, for me as a tech person, it's like both ways. And one is, of course, no, this is the latest technology, this is where we are going to be we have to be there. But that ain't the model remain the same, you know. So it's ultimately it's about how the technology will help you do a better job at whatever it is that you're doing. So as long as we can do that, we balance that, you know that that's the ideal way to go. I would say, Michael Hingson 38:48 again, we're in a bleeding age environment, where so many of these things are new, and we're just learning about the minute you're in 100 years, it's gonna be a totally different world. And then we'll have other things that are new, but But what we're talking about today, as kind of in the formative era will all change. Yeah, yeah. Shampa Bagchi 39:09 And it's, and the change is coming faster and faster. You know, it's exciting to see a little bit scary, too. But as time goes by, it's just it's the pace is accelerating. You know, you don't even know I mean, why 100 years, we don't really even know what's coming up in the next five or 10 years from now. So that's exciting and scary at the same time. Michael Hingson 39:30 Sometime in the next 100 years. Somebody's going to probably develop antigravity and maybe we'll even get Star Trek transporters. Shampa Bagchi 39:38 You know, I'm just waiting for that, you know, beat me up, Scotty. Michael Hingson 39:42 Yeah, I'm waiting for that. That would certainly take care of a lot of the driving issues. Shampa Bagchi 39:48 That's it. That's it. No more driving. I'd love that. Michael Hingson 39:53 Oh, yeah. Well, we could use the roads for other things. Robert Heinlein wrote, a short story called The roads must roll back In the early 1950s, and instead of driving, roads all moved, and were long, almost like conveyor belts and even going from one end of California to the other. It was a it was a fascinating story. It's a it's a really interesting story to read, because everyone used rolling roads to go anywhere and off of the main roads. There were other roles that took you roads that road that took you where you needed to go. It's a fascinating story. Shampa Bagchi 40:25 Yeah. Wow. That's an interesting concept. So cars don't need to drive. It's the roads that are doing the driving for you. Michael Hingson 40:32 Right. Yeah. To go hunting. It's called the roads must roll by Robert Heinlein Shampa Bagchi 40:37 definitely look at it. Yes. Michael Hingson 40:39 It's a short story. You can read it in 15 minutes. Shampa Bagchi 40:41 Oh, look it up. Yeah. I was reading about another fascinating concept to somewhere is that you know, a car start charging themselves as they drive. So you know, you have some sort of, you know, I don't even know if that's the real roads are going to be built such that in the cars while they're driving, they get charged. So you really don't need to charge the cars anymore. Michael Hingson 41:02 I think? Well, I know, somewhere in this area around San Diego, I think it is there was a road that had some sort of cable going through it that helped provide guidance for the car. But I don't remember whether it charged or not. I think it was pre a lot of the electric vehicles. But I wouldn't be surprised if there wouldn't be a way coming along that charge cars could charge themselves. Of course, there's always solar, but you probably need more than what we can do with solar today on a small car. Shampa Bagchi 41:34 Right, exactly. So yeah, I would say the technology problem getting it out into the world in a more cost effective way building the infrastructure, that would be the challenging part. Michael Hingson 41:44 That's going to be a lot of what happens with software is it's all about making it more efficient, making a cost efficient and getting things out in an efficient way, isn't it? Shampa Bagchi 41:53 Yes, yes. That's a hands on. Yeah, how how cost effective we can make it and in callings when our clients come in, that's what we tell them to, you know, we can do it very fast. We can you can build a huge, I don't know, aeroplane for you. But do you really need that? And how much budget do you have? So we have to build according to your needs and your budget, we do our best work, you know, otherwise, everything is possible. Michael Hingson 42:17 You talk a lot both about convergehub and quarterlies. about efficiency, and the importance of that and what you do and what you're bringing to your customers. Shampa Bagchi 42:29 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think efficiency is, especially you know, both in converge I've been calling so although you know, in different ways. But for convergehub, it's a matter of, I would say productivity. So it's it's how it's not just about what you can do, it's, I would say it's a matter of how well you can do it, how quickly you can do it, and what results you can get doing it. You know, that's what I would say no makes the software special. Otherwise, it's not about building a lot of features, a lot of new wonderful tools that nobody uses. Michael Hingson 43:08 Where do you see, we talked about artificial intelligence? But where do you see that? And what other kinds of things do you see coming along in the next five or 10 years that you can look at and talk about in terms of how some of the ways we think of software, and some of the ways software will interact with our lives are going? Shampa Bagchi 43:30 Yeah, that's that's an interesting question. I would say, software slowly will stop becoming something that you're kind of, you know, sitting at your desk or even you know, looking at it on the mobile phone, it's going to become everywhere, it's everything is going to be software. So your your and right now we do have that you know, your your TV has software, your Frasier software, but it's just going to become such that, and especially not you are going to be able to like not talk to it and redo it again, it's all there right now. But it's going to become ubiquitous, it's going to be you know, your car, your home, your, your washing machine, and every single thing that you do is going to become software, it's you, we won't call it software anymore, I think you'll just call it Life. So it's just there. And so, in terms of technology, if you will, I think voice as a technology, voice activation talking to your machines, you know, that's going to become you know, more and more important, the insights that it gives you in terms of, you know, sales software, or no customer software that we're looking at, even now, next conversion, that's our aim to, you know, bring about is that looking at your past data or whatever work that you're doing, it's telling you a future direction, and again, that is that efficiency that you talk about the productivity you talk about so there are this hunt 100 200 things that you could do today, but which 10 that you do will bring an impact which 10 of those should you focus on to get the maximum impact the maximum out of your day, so that those kinds of insights are going to become important and are right now, again, you know, everybody's trying to do it. I wouldn't say, you know, we are where we, you know, at where we should be. But we're getting there. And those are the kinds of things that I foresee, you know, happening other than the fact that, you know, we are going to probably have humanoid kind of, you know, robots and we are going to interact with then. Yeah, who knows? So those are on the rise and coming up soon. Michael Hingson 45:40 We should have Ray Kurzweil who talks about the singularity, the time when computers, if you will, and humans merge, and we through our brains can access all of it directly. Yes. Shampa Bagchi 45:56 The thought interface that sometimes we don't talk about, and yet those are, I don't know, it's exciting and scary at the same time, right? Just something we can't even think about. But it's slowly creeping upon us. It's happening so slowly, probably, that we are not even noticing. But we are getting there. And we just have to figure out ways and probably even laws to deal with it. Michael Hingson 46:20 Well, and that's going to be part of it is, is the laws and trying to definitely put a standard to it, do you. But I but it seems to me and I mentioned the senator campaign, and so on, it strikes me that those kinds of, of commercials, and that kind of discussion really represents a fear of change and a fear of what these products are really bringing to us, which shouldn't be there, but it still is. Shampa Bagchi 46:49 Yeah, absolutely. I would totally agree on that. I think it's more about the fear of the unknown in another form. So you don't really know where this is going, which is true. I mean, it's scary. But at the same time, you cannot ignore the enormous amount of value that is adding to our lives. So I would say that the way to get through this is to you know, not really ignore it, and not to shy away from it and say, hey, you know, Tesla software is buggy, so we never go autonomous, driving way. But to kind of look at it right now and say, what standards should we set to what law should we set? What is it that we need to do to make sure all of this works out? Well, for us, it doesn't end in disaster, it works out such that, you know, rather than, you know, being seen as a flaw it it's seen as something that saves lives? Because autonomous driving ultimately will save lives? If done, right. Michael Hingson 47:48 How do we get people to go from where they are to recognizing what you just said, which is the value of a lot of these kinds of improvements? It seems like it's an ongoing battle, but how do we get people to move past? No to? Yes, if you will? Yeah, that's Shampa Bagchi 48:06 an interesting question. I would say the only way to do it is with education, right? So it's always the fear of unknown and education is what's going to make that unknown unknown to you. So the more we can educate people, the more we kind of bring it a little more to the masses. And say that, you know, you bring it such that we can, you know, touch and feel it and see, there's really nothing to be afraid of. I think the more it works, I remember when I was in Cisco, I had, they had this big lab where they were testing out all these different things. And this was very, very initial days of, but I remember they were testing out things like technology, like you could order milk, you could ask your refrigerator to order milk for you. You know, you could turn on the oven while you're driving home, in your car, you could switch on your oven. At that time, that seems like Oh, my goodness, you know, what if my house burns down? Now, it doesn't seem so absurd anymore. So it's just a matter of education, how much we have accepted it. And it's a matter of time and education. I think it's a factor of both of them. Michael Hingson 49:17 Yeah, and how we can get people educated more quickly, to be more adventurous. And that's what it really is, right? You You came over from India, into a pretty unknown situation. And I've experienced some of those things in my life, going from one side of the country to the other with no family and no support system and developing a whole new thing. But life is an adventure. And all too often we don't we don't think about the fact that it's an adventure and a great learning experience. And if we could get more people to view it that way, we probably would also have a lot less fear. Or at least we would be open to exploring new things even though the fear might be there. You know, again, it would be something that we can start to work to control. Shampa Bagchi 50:03 Yeah, I would, I would totally agree with that. Because there is always risk. I mean, even in life, I mean, you don't know, you go out of the home, there is stress, you know, there's always a risk of facing. But how do you, it's just that somehow, you know, people think there is more risk in the unknown. But you know, maybe the rewards are greater in the unknown to, you just don't know that you just have to take that risk to find out what it is all about. And, to me, again, I think that's a lot about I call that the entrepreneurial mindset. And I've recently started talking about this too, because I think the entrepreneur mindset has that that thing to, you know, that spark where you can step up, you can take a little bit of risk, you can look at any challenges and say that, I'm going to solve this. It's not just about entrepreneurs, it's not that it's just in entrepreneurs, I think it's in it, regardless of what life situation isn't, whether you're in a business or whether you have are going solo or not, you know, whatever it is that you are doing right now you can bring that mindset into it. And, you know, experiment a little bit, you know, step up into it, take a little bit of risk and learn a little bit more. And that would, I think, would help, like, become a lot more interesting. Michael Hingson 51:21 Well, tell me more about that you you are an entrepreneur, obviously by kind of any standard. But tell me more about your your thoughts about being an entrepreneur? How do we get more people to do that? How do we get more people to accept that they can possibly do the same sort of thing? Shampa Bagchi 51:37 Yes, sure, yes, I have always been an entrepreneur, I think because I come from a family of entrepreneurs. And I always wanted to have my own company. And so it's, to me, it's more so because I love to build things, you know, whether it's a product, whether it's a company, I like to kind of you know, see the little bits coming together to form a hole, and then impacting, getting bigger than yourself. It becomes you know, initially when you're looking at it, you know, it's a vision, it's completely within you, and nobody else can see it. But slowly, when it comes out into the world, and then goes out into the world, it becomes so much so many other people get involved in this, start sharing your vision, and it becomes so much bigger than yourself. So I think it's just a matter of if somebody would like to become entrepreneur, and I think they're everyday entrepreneurs who don't necessarily have to, or have a company, they don't necessarily have to have, you know, go solo, or have their own startups raise venture capital, I think entrepreneurs are whoever are willing to step up. I think in there's this book, called I think, if I'm not mistaken, the name is daring, greatly by brainy Brown. And she said, she does really well, where you are kind of into the arena where you're willing to go into the arena, and, you know, face off your challenges. So that thought process I would think is more about becoming an entrepreneur than anything else. So if I think you are ready to take on responsibility, take ready to learn new things. That mindset is what we know people need to bring in Michael Hingson 53:22 what excites you about going to work every day? Shampa Bagchi 53:26 That's that's a really nice question. I think, I think what really excites me is that I have the tools to make a difference, that I can structure my day in such a way and build things that someday will probably, you know, touch somebody's life, with an especially probably will touch with somebody's life, even when I don't know about it. So that's why I often love hearing about, you know, convergehub from users, when users reach out to me saying, yeah, how do I solve this problem? Or, Hey, I used it, you know, in this particular case, and it worked for even saying that, you know, if you just improve this thing a little bit, it will help do this. So it's just kind of know people have taken something that we envision visualized, which was this small and they're using it in their own doing their own thing, which is completely different from what we visualized, and it still works. So that's really exciting. You know, how I'm able to touch people's life and improve their livelihood in whatever little bit Michael Hingson 54:30 you know, a lot of people say, well, it's all about making money, we got to be more very successful because we make more money, but I'm not hearing you say that's the biggest priority. It's really Shampa Bagchi 54:40 never been that really it's never been that because if so I would probably go out I'm here in the Silicon Valley. We started our company pretty early in the day would have gone out raised a lot of capital, you know, gone IDI pure road and not done that and made a lot of money, but it's a little more are in a complex than that to me. So I would like to go in my own pace, do my own thing and make my own mark in the Michael Hingson 55:06 world view. You mentioned Brene Brown and her book, have you thought about writing a book? Shampa Bagchi 55:11 I actually have Yes. I have thought about it. A lot of times haven't found the time yet. But someday, I'm going to read a book, Michael Hingson 55:23 you have a lot of insights that I think people would like to hear, and which is one of the reasons I thought it would be great to have you on this podcast. But you do have a lot of insights that I think would inspire people and motivate people and the lessons that you have learned. And the things that you teach to your employees and your customers are all valuable insights that I would think, would make a fascinating book. And of course, I have written two books and working on our third now talking about fear. But I am a firm believer in something that you said, which is it's all about telling stories to. So it isn't just preaching at people, it's it's using stories to illustrate what you talked about. And you've done, you've told a number of those stories in what we're doing here, which I think is great, because it really shows in real life examples. What's happening. Shampa Bagchi 56:20 Great. Yeah, thank you, Michael, I really, really appreciated that. And I'm so thankful you said that, because it's been on my mind for a long time, I would love to share my experiences in a book, I love writing to. So it's one of my passions. And if I find the time when I find the time, I don't have a blog, though. So I write very short blogs, whatever I can manage. But someday, hopefully, I'll be able to sit down and you know, you narrate these experiences, Michael Hingson 56:48 and do you do videos or any other ways of communicating with people outside? Shampa Bagchi 56:53 I recently started doing that. I actually yesterday, I put out my first video on LinkedIn. And I'm planning to do that and more and more, because what I'm seeing is, that's another really another different medium for somebody who was not that fond of reading to still be able to go out and, you know, put your ideas forward in front of that person. So I intend to do that more and more. Michael Hingson 57:17 What was your first video about Shampa Bagchi 57:18 entrepreneurship? Course I was actually talking about what it means to be an entrepreneur, believe it or not. So that was one topic very fresh. On my mind, when I started talking about Italy, well, it Michael Hingson 57:29 makes makes perfect sense. And again, I think is you work toward a book, and you can always get people to, to help do some of the writing. But just just to save time, or free up some of yours. But in the books that I've written, I've worked with two writers and I'm working with the third professional writer in the book that we're writing now. And the working title of it is a guide dogs Guide to Being brave, because we're talking about controlling fear, which is of course what happened to me on September 11, being in the World Trade Center in escaping, it was all about for me be knowing in advance what to do in the case of an emergency and being as prepared as one could be, which kept the fear away. I was certainly always concerned about what might happen while we were going down the stairs because there was fire above us. And we had no idea it was an airplane or anything that hit the building at the time. None of us did. It wasn't a blindness issue. But clearly something was very seriously wrong. And at the same time, the preparation that I had made in advance was very helpful until we finally decided during the pandemic to write about that. And so I'm working with a writer Carrie, why can't and we're putting the book together. And what I find is that she does a lot of the writing, I do a lot of the writing. But I also because we want to put it in my story, even then take what she writes in and tweak it some, but it's still a whole lot less time than if if I did it all. So it's another another way to go. But for me, it does help to get the message out there to put it in a book form. And people have appreciated what we've written so far. So I guess it's a good thing. Shampa Bagchi 59:15 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And your story is is so so inspiring. I read about it and your website, I do plan to get your book and read all about it, you know, in more detail. But you know what you went through and how not with your dog, it's very, very inspiring story. Michael Hingson 59:33 Yeah, what people often miss is that it's a team effort. The dog has a job to do, and I have a job to do that. The dog doesn't leave the dog guides and there's a big distinct difference between those two. But thunder dog is the title of the book and it it is out there and I think that it helps to teach people a lot about what blindness is really like as opposed to what we think it is. And it's the usual myth that people have Ms. conceptions, whether it's about blindness or technology or whatever, it is all about education and getting people to, to move forward and recognize that maybe we have the wrong idea about what this is about. Shampa Bagchi 1:00:11 Yeah, I absolutely am going to read your book. And do you know, when your new book is coming out? Did you set a date yet? Michael Hingson 1:00:20 The tentative date is, by the time all is done, we get it edited, and everything else is going to it's, it's a while away as a way yet, probably in the first, well, probably in the second quarter of 2024. So it's not going to be soon. Shampa Bagchi 1:00:36 It's been a while. Yeah, it's going to be a while, but I'm looking forward to it already. Definitely going to read that one too. Michael Hingson 1:00:42 Well, we were blessed to get a contract signed with a publisher. And so we're working with their timeframe. We've we've talked about when to publish it, and why to publish it then. So I think it'll be kind of fun. But we at this point where there's thunder dog and running with Roselle, so definitely get them and running Anthony center dog especially is also available in audio format, which is an easy way to get it if you do much driving here. Yeah, sure. Yeah, in an autonomous vehicle. Shampa Bagchi 1:01:10 I was very good for that. But I just love reading. So I'm definitely going to get that and your book was bestseller too, right? Michael Hingson 1:01:19 Yeah, it was the number one New York Times bestseller. Again, we were very blessed with that. So that's impressive. We like that. Well, Shamp, I'm going to let you go back to doing some of the creative things that you do. We've been talking for an hour, and it's been fun. already. I know. Isn't that fun? You are welcome. You are welcome to come back. Anytime. If you want to talk further. I would love to do that. And definitely I want to stay in touch. I love what you had to say about artificial intelligence and so on. And I'm glad that you did check out excessively we talked about that very briefly briefly. It's it's also a bleeding edge type of technology. Shampa Bagchi 1:01:57 It is it is yes, it was I was very impressed with it. I did take a look at it. And I look forward to talking to them again. Well, we'll Michael Hingson 1:02:04 help facilitate that and, and anytime that we can be of help them. And if you want to talk more to folks here, don't hesitate. We can even use some of these podcasts to help with your book. Shampa Bagchi 1:02:17 Oh, yeah, that would be wonderful. Thank you so much, Michael, thank you for that idea. It's been a pleasure talking to you. It's been a lot of fun. Michael Hingson 1:02:24 I've enjoyed it very much. And I hope all of you who are listening, have enjoyed it. Wherever you are, I hope that you enjoyed the last hour. If you would like I want to hear from you. But before I give you my contact information Shampo how can people find you and maybe learn more about what you're doing and about convergehub and so on? Shampa Bagchi 1:02:44 Yeah, I have a bl
In this new episode of the refocused, rebranded, new direction of Enterprise Now, Elzie is joined by Joe Cecala Founder & CEO at Dream Exchange. Joe was a lawyer who worked on many small capital transactions for more than fifteen years. In that time, he saw that small capital transactions, however good, always lack a clear exit. Answering the investor question “How do I sell my investment?” was a constant problem. This, and other problems in raising capital, were especially pronounced in the black community as his firm worked with the Chicago Urban League attempting to help the “Next One” entrepreneurship program. Listen to this episode as Elzie and Joe talk about the stock exchange, specifically for small businesses, and how businesses will benefit from it. Joe explains how to participate in the stock exchange, and shares resources to close the knowledge gap, as well as current hurdles of the stock exchange. Highlights: 03:13 - There's only 2 ways to actually sell shares of stock today. One is to take your shares and prepare all the documents needed, registration documents, send them to the government, to the Securities Exchange Commission. 07:55 - A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step so we`re taking the first step in the right direction regardless of what the history has been. 13:01 - If you give a man fish he has food for a day, if you teach a man to fish he has food for a lifetime. But if you build a man both or you help him finance both, now he can feed a city. 19:58 - Focus on your dream, focus on what you`re imagining and focus on how big it can be. 31:01 - Never quit. You can't just give up in anyway. Don't entertain the thought. Maybe it won't work. Those doubts and those reservations, just ignore all of them. Connect with Elzie https://www.podcasttown.net/ (Website) Connect with Joe https://dreamex.com/ (Website)
The Securities Exchange Commission recently levied a $100 million fine against the public accounting firm Ernst and Young. EY employees were found to be cheating on ethics exams and EY reportedly deceived the SEC about the cheating. "It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams," ... The post The Ironic Ethical Scandal appeared first on Unconventional Business Network.
Nicole Rolf of Ag NewsWire discussed the Securities & Exchange Commission advocating for the green economy, and how CO2 emission tracking would impact agriculture.
Daniel and I start today's show by discussing the biggest risk to the market: inflation. While some data shows inflation is peaking, we break down why consumers will see elevated prices for a while. Next, we highlight the government's blame-shifting narrative around inflation and soaring costs… what's really driving higher food and energy prices (hint: it's not Putin)... and the best way to bring prices back down. And we explain why you don't need to wait for a market bottom to start picking away at the best stocks. We also discuss the Securities & Exchange Commission's (SEC) proposed changes to “payment for order flow”... and whether this game-changing proposal is good or bad for individual investors. Finally, I share why I believe Bitcoin will go over $100k. In this episode: It's time to start picking away at great stocks [1:05] Government leaders are shifting the blame for higher prices [3:45] The real cause of—and solution for—soaring food and energy costs [11:00] Big market changes could be coming from the SEC [17:05] Why I'm bullish on Bitcoin [25:35] Enjoyed this episode? Get Wall Street Unplugged delivered FREE to your inbox every Wednesday: https://www.curzioresearch.com/wall-street-unplugged/ Wall Street Unplugged podcast is available at: --: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wall-street-unplugged-frank/ -- : https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/curzio-research/wall-street-unplugged-2 -- : https://www.curzioresearch.com/category/podcast/wall-street-unplugged/ : https://twitter.com/frankcurzio :. https://www.facebook.com/CurzioResearch/ : https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-curzio-690561a7/ : https://www.curzioresearch.com
#Bitcoin #Ethereum #MichaelSaylorI'd like to welcome everyone to my new PODCASTDave's Daily Crypto TakeIn this channel I will be providing you with news on a daily basis about cryptocurrency, bitcoin, blockchain, FIAT. My main purpose is to share UNBIASED news and updates. Ultimately I learn and hopefully you learn while I go on this journey.ARTICLES used in today's video:https://ambcrypto.com/ethereum-despite-breakdown-below-3k-why-eth-still-holds-upward-potential/Ethereum: Despite breakdown below $3k, why ETH still holds upward potentialEthereum price shattered in the previous days after crossing the holy $3500 barrier in early April. In the past 36 hours, the ETH prices have fallen below $3000 after anticipations of the FOMC got through.The crypto ecosystem had been worried about the Federal Chair meet on Thursday which did not end well. To arrest inflation, the Fed has been under pressure to raise interest rates after resisting it throughout 2021.https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/143228/twitter-could-ink-a-deal-to-sell-itself-to-elon-musk-this-week-wsj?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rssTwitter could ink a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk this week: WSJThe Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that Twitter could complete a deal to sell itself to billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk as soon as this week.The Journal's report said that "the two sides met Sunday to discuss Mr. Musk's proposal and were making progress, though still had issues to hash out," citing sources with knowledge of the process.https://ambcrypto.com/factors-affecting-bitcoins-topsy-turvy-way-amid-market-capitulation/Factors affecting Bitcoin's topsy-turvy way amid market-capitulationThe last five days witnessed the rise of Bitcoin's price from $38,779 to $42,736, only to witness a drop, with the price of BTC standing at $39,584 at the time of writing. Post 6 April 2022, the king coin has been majorly resting below the neutral 50 mark on the RSI.https://finbold.com/microstrategy-ceo-dismisses-rumors-about-the-company-selling-its-bitcoin-holding/Microstrategy CEO dismisses rumors about the company selling its Bitcoin holdingMicrostrategy (NASDAQ: MSTR) chairman and CEO Michael Saylor has dismissed rumors that the company is secretly selling its Bitcoin holding.Through his Twitter account, Saylor stressed that as a publicly listed company, Microstrategy is obligated by the law to file any transactions with the Securities Exchange Commission.https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-funding-rates-show-demand-to-short-btc-as-40k-becomes-resistanceBitcoin funding rates show demand to short BTC as $40K becomes resistance“Extreme fear” accompanies Bitcoin's descent to $39,200Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView followed a bearish BTC/USD after the pair touched $39,200 on April 22's Wall Street open.Falling in line with stocks, Bitcoin now faced the prospect of resistance that cemented itself at the $40,000 mark, with traders showing their lack of confidence in a short-term rebound. https://alternative.me/crypto/fear-and-greed-index/https://coinmarketcap.com/Please subscribe, like, and share so that more and more people can view this content.DISCLAIMER: I will never give any financial advice. And my channel is not considered official Financial Advice. Please do your research before purchasing any cryptocurrency.Thank you very much DaveSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/daves-daily-crypto-take/donations
Today's guest on the Fortune Teller Podcast is Jay Fraser, Head of Strategy for BSTX. The goal of BSTX, a regulated exchange, is to make a way for a public exchange that is less tangled and with less resistance. BSTX is powered by tZERO technology and is jointly owned by BOX Digital Markets and tZERO. At the moment, the way to take a company public is complex and the benefits for small businesses does not always surpass the expenses that are involved with taking the business public. While the technological advancements have brought a lot of progression, it has overlooked the chance to improve on the process. Current technology companies are still following the procedures to go public in a near congruent method that the old rail and industrial companies have used for decades, which is a complicated and ineffective process. BSTX will use blockchain for making an easy exchange with price discovery to potentially encourage more firms to go public, allowing them to reach new investors. In return, investors profit in gaining admittance to previously closely held assets. A regulated exchange, like BSTX, allows for the future to better the current incumbent options and permit the offering of price discovery, corporate governance and investor protection, and a simpler path to an IPO. A securities exchange is open to all individuals and not limited to merely accredited and institutional investors. This provides issuers exposure to a larger number and a more diverse amount of investors. BSTX will operate as a facility of BOX Exchange LLC, a national securities exchange that is registered with the Securities Exchange Commission. BSTX shall be a fully automated, price/time priority execution system for the trading of select equity securities, such as exchange traded products (“ETPs”). The current system for companies to take their firms public, like via IPO (Initial Public Offering) is way too complicated to navigate and often too expensive for the average small to medium business owner to use. The entire process does not lend itself to smaller firms seeking investors. BSTX will make a way for them to publicly list their shares that is less complicate and with less resistance. Securities traded on BSTX will usually be obligatory in being registered with the SEC under both Section 12 of the Exchange Act and Section 6 of the Securities Act of 1933. To become a BSTX Participant, the applicant will complete a BSTX Participant Application to be approved by BOX Exchange. Upon approval, the participant will start the onboarding process with the technical team. For more: https://bstx.com/ https://twitter.com/bstxllc https://www.linkedin.com/company/bstx-llc/ -- The Fortune Teller podcast is a discussion between industry leaders in blockchain and financial technologies. The podcast focuses on the development of blockchain-based financial services and outlines the current state of the industry and future predictions for the adoption of decentralized finance. Go to www.teller.finance/
Professor Sanjai Bhagat is a recognized expert in finance who has worked with Fortune 500 companies and with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission and expertly explains financial theories to students at the Leeds School of Business.In this episode, Sanjai talks to us about the rippling economic effects of the war in Ukraine. EPISODE QUOTES:On hard choices over energy[00:17:27] So we have a choice here to make. Either we can decide to focus more on cutting back on carbon intensive electricity sources – that will be cutting back on natural gas and coal – but then that would have to be offset by nuclear because even the best scenario, going out for the next 30, 40, 50 years, does not suggest that wind and solar can provide us with the majority of our energies.On how regulators can lower oil prices[00:12:21] The EPA regulators and other energy industry regulators, they can actually impact the oil prices today by simply declaring in a credible manner that they are not going to ramp up regulations. In fact, they're going to start ramping down their regulations and that's going to lower the price today, even though it'd be several years from now, before the, you know, those oysters start coming out from the ground. So that's something that I think is not widely appreciated or even understood, but you know, that's the way that the markets work.The link between the price of oil and Russia's invasion[00:04:54 ] When the brand crude oil prices are at a relative high, that fills up the Russian treasuries coffers, and that makes Mr. Putin feel economically strong. And when he feel economically strong, then he goes out on his military adventure.SHOW LINKS:Guest's Profile:Profile at Leeds School of BusinessSanjai Bhagat on LinkedIn
Zach Stein, cofounder of Carbon Collective, how to the company's Climate Index can help investors identify ESG investments that accelerate progress toward the zero-carbon economy. Investors can have influence that can reshape business practices. It takes time and energy to understand how companies are changing to reduce their environmental impact, create positive social outcomes and improved transparency and accountability. We also discuss the potential impact of the Securities & Exchange Commission's recently proposed rule that would require companies to disclose greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks with their regular finacial reporting.The Carbon Collective's basic approach suggests divesting from 20% of companies responsible for 85% of emissions, particularly fossil fuel companies, to reallocate those that capital to climate solution companies. Their tools are open for anyone to learn from, offering insights into companies based on Project Drawdown analysis of their environmental and social performance. Carbon Collective also plans to launch managed Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) focused on climate and the social safety net. You can learn more at https://www.carboncollective.co/.
Richard Epstein discusses mission-drift from the Securities Exchange Commission and the wider push for climate change action at executive agencies.
Richard Epstein discusses mission-drift from the Securities Exchange Commission and the wider push for climate change action at executive agencies.
Hello! We hate Elon Musk as much as the next person, so we thought we would do an episode this week for the reasons why we do, and maybe educate some listeners about the Securities Exchange Commission at the same time. This man should really be grounded by his parents or something, he is dangerous.
The Rising Edge D&O Podcast returns for a second season with Owen being joined by a stellar cast of gusts from the law firm Steptoe & Johnson to discuss the increasing prevalence of cryptocurrency in the corporate world and how this is manifesting itself in risks to directors and officers. Our expert speakers on cryptocurrency and the emerging risks associated are Alan Cohn, Co-lead of Steptoe's Blockchain & Cryptocurrency practice, advising clients on a range of blockchain and cryptocurrency related issues, from regulatory practices for cryptocurrency companies to legal issues associated with novel uses of blockchain technology. He has also previously served as a career official in senior policy position at The Department of Homeland Security in the US for almost a decade during both the George W Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Rachel Cannon, Partner with a focus on trial work, investigations, white-collar criminal defence and complex litigation. She works extensively in cryptocurrency matters and advises entrepreneurs about regulatory issues surrounding cryptocurrencies, initial coin offering, and blockchain technology. Rachel previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago where she supervised the bankruptcy fraud program and worked in the securities and commodities fraud section. Nate Kritzer, Partner and a seasoned trial attorney whose practice focuses on litigating investment disputes covering topics such as securities and shareholder litigation, real estate litigation, bankruptcy litigation and class action defence. Nate has represented all manner of clients ranging from household name corporations and major financial institutions to start-up companies and high net worth individuals. Charles Michael, a litigation Partner specialising in high stakes disputes and arbitrations. He has represented clients in regulatory and criminal investigations by the Securities Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and The Department of Justice. He is also founder and editor of the SDNY blog which covers civil litigation and trial practice in the Southern District of New York. The Rising Edge D&O Podcast is presented by Owen Dacey, Head of Claims at Rising Edge, and Richard Cutcher, Executive Producer, and founder of the Global Captive Podcast. For more information on Rising Edge to sign up for updates and new episodes of the podcast, visit: risingedge.co/rising-edge-podcast-blog/ You can subscribe to the Rising Edge D&O Podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcast app.
Diversity, equity and inclusion with Vivian Greentree In this episode of the CrossLead podcast, host David Silverman speaks with Vivian Greentree. Vivian is the Senior Vice President of the Head of Global Corporate Citizenship at Fiserv. Resources Vivian Greentreehttps://bluestarfam.org/https://www.fiserv.com/en.htmlWant to discuss some of these topics directly with Dave? Join the CrossLead LinkedIn Group. Episode Transcript DaveWelcome to the CrossLead Podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman. At CrossLead we exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimum performance. In today’s episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Vivian Greentree. Vivian is a senior vice president at Fiserv, where she’s the head of global corporate citizenship, as well as the Care Foundation.Prior role at Fiserv Vivian had the same role at first data, and prior to that, she was a co-founder and ran research and policy for Blue Star families. Blue Star Families is a phenomenal nonprofit that strengthens military families and connects America to the military.Vivian has a Ph.D. in public administration and urban policy. She’s a passionate Navy veteran where she served for eight years as a supply chain officer, and she is also a proud military spouse and mother and her nearly two decades of leadership experience across public, nonprofit and private sectors.She has been a constant champion of community and employee engagement. Vivian was one of the first leaders that I met who had the passion, skill and mandate to operationalize DNI initiatives at scale inside of a large organization. Her ability to connect these efforts to business value was the inspiration to have her on today’s podcast.In our conversation, we discussed diversity, inclusion, future of work, gender pay gaps, how you measure the effectiveness of such initiatives, and so much more. Thank you for tuning in. I hope you enjoy the conversation with my guest and friend Vivian Greentree. Welcome to the CrossLead podcast. I’m your host, Dave Silverman at CrossLead. We exist to help teams, individuals achieve and sustain optimum performance. So I’m super honored to have Vivian as our guest today. She comes to us with a massive amount of amazing experience.Vivian, welcome to the show. I’d love for you to spend a little bit of time educating the audience here on yourself. You know, give us a little background who you are, where you’re from, what sort of shaped and made and informs the way you think about leadership going forward.VivianSure. And I think I’m a big believer that kind of hard work and luck. Hard work increases your surface area for luck. And because I do feel very lucky to be where I am doing what I do now for a living, but I also know that a lot of that, even if it was hard work, but also it was a lot of luck. It was a lot of other people helping me. And so I think that definitely informs my view of, of leadership.And teamwork, and I feel a level of responsibility commiserate with how much I do think I’ve been given or how much people have helped me to get where I am based on that. And so my position right now is I’m the head of global corporate citizenship at Pfizer, which is one of the world’s largest fintechs. And we’d like to think one of the best in my position with global corporate citizenship really looks at how we align or create a culture around diversity and inclusion, associate and community engagement, philanthropy, sustainability because we know that those areas of diversity and inclusion, associate and community engagement, philanthropy, you know where we invest time treasure talent, whether it’s for business or community, when those areas are coordinated and aligned, that’s really where you create high performing teams where everyone can say I am a valued member of a winning team doing meaningful work in an environment of trust. And that’s a good place to be right now because we need we need trust more than anything to to sustain high performing teams through. The unprecedented times, hopefully back to precedented times.DaveYeah, we do. We absolutely do. So where did you grow up originally?VivianSo as a Georgia fan, Georgia. And went to The University of Georgia. On the Hope Scholarship, which again, I think, you know, just thinking of early things that that informed my my outlook. You know, the Hope Scholarship was created to allow students who couldn’t have afforded it otherwise to attend state preeminent state schools in the in the state of Georgia.DaveSo I don’t think I knew about the Hope scholarship. So is that for every every resident of Florida, that that’s qualifies academically for the school, they are eligible too.VivianEligible, right? So the state of Georgia pays the tuition for qualifying students to any state university, which really, you know, when you think of meritocracy, expanded the opportunity for people like me to go to Tier one research institutions like the University of Georgia, which I think is right and which I think it just continues on because I knew that I was going to school based on taxpayer money. The same, you know, being in the Navy you know, being paid by taxpayers, you want to really earn that. And then when you have a good experience somewhere or you know to whom much is given, much is expected, you want to turn around and do that for others.DaveWhat did you major in at Georgia?VivianOh gosh, that was so long ago political science and journalism.DaveOK, and then and then you joined the Navy after after college that we did or.VivianI did, ironically, to get out of the state of Georgia.DaveI’m Georgia to my core, but I want a little break.VivianI I really it was like Dorothy after the Navy took us around for 20 years. There is no place I wanted to be more. But then then the back in Georgia.DaveSo you joined the Navy. What year to join the Navy?VivianSo right after I graduated 2000, 2001.DaveTo right before 9:11?VivianYes, I’m a pre pre-nine eleven.DaveWow, OK. And what did you do in the Navy Supply Corps?VivianAnd so I saw the supply for school, funnily enough, was actually in Athens at the time, though I didn’t know it. That’s not why I chose this course, but my husband was aviation and Pensacola. And now both of those schools are up in Rhode Island. I think so. I served on active dDuty in and in the reserves and the supply corps. Mike, my husband, was aviation. He did his his 20 years. So I was lucky when I transitioned out that, you know, I had things like my health care was, had continuity. I had a my spouse was still earning a paycheck. I use my G.I. bill to go back to school for public administration and really focused on that. That public service aspect, why? Why people want to go into public service in the first place, how we can increase the antecedents towards that and then support them when they do.DaveAnd you got a Ph.D., is that right?VivianI did, like many transitioning service members, use my G.I. bill but also at like military spouses. When you’re moving around, you have small kids, your your spouse is constantly deployed. It’s hard to find. It’s hard to go to. Employers and really sell that. So I put my eggs in the basket of if I can show that I have. This forward trajectory that I have been doing continuous learning. And then started. I did help to found blue star families during that time. But really it was around, you know, several military spouses getting together with these backgrounds in policy or research to say, if we can present a cohesive view of the impact of service on military families to political leaders, military leaders, we can make the all-volunteer force sustainable because we’re supporting the families who choose to serve.DaveYou got out of the Navy in what year in 2013 or something in 2014.VivianSo I I got off active duty around two, I think 2005 and then did the reserves well, because at the same time, Mike, my husband, was taking different orders and so we moved around.DaveOK, sorry. So you got out in 2005. When did you start your Ph.D. program? 2007 2007. OK, and you were doing that while moving around?VivianWell, by then we had. We had moved back to Norfolk. So Old Dominion University is where I received my Ph.D. They actually at the time were sixth in the nation for students utilizing their G.I. bill, which isn’t surprising. I think given that Norfolk’s the largest naval base in the world is right right there, but they had a part time program which I think, you know, just force for service members that are using their GI Bill or military spouses using the transferability of the GI Bill. Universities that do have that flexibility in, they’re recognizing that more and more students are nontraditional are the ones that are going to attract that you know, that talent?DaveAwesome. And then how long it takes to get your see, I know for a lot of people, it takes a long time.VivianIt seems like that, right? It’s an endless. But I think it took me about five years for the coursework and for my dissertation. So when I was pursuing my Ph.D., it was the same time. Around 2007 2008 when military families were really being impacted by the post-9-11.DaveYeah, by then it’s real, right? I mean, it’s go through multiple cycles, right?VivianAnd so it was. Really it was impacting military families, the likes of which had never been seen before. At the same time, there was little research, little data to actually back up. If you went to your congressmen or you went to your military leadership to talk about the workouts, the deployment cycles, the time between deployments, the impact on military kids, things like that. So I was able to structure my research within my Ph.D. program to align with the founding BlueStar Families, which is the country’s largest nonprofit designed to support, you know, connect and empower military families. And so my kind of piece of the puzzle was to create a national survey of military families that went through kind of the wellness, military, spouse, employment, mental health, military children and the impacts of service so that we could create a global. Network of military families, regardless of branch or rank or active or reserve components, so that in totality there was recognition that there is an impact to service on the service member and our families past the immediate deployment cycles. Sure.DaveThat’s amazing. So Blue Star families, you started, you know what year was that.VivianRight? And we, you know, it was again right when President Obama was elected and really made military families. You know, our research was a precursor to their joining forces.DaveForces.VivianEmphasis on wellness and and employment.DaveYeah. And it still endures today, right? Blue Star families are still endures.VivianIt does. And so it is joining forces under the Biden administration.DaveDid it take a sabbatical during the Trump administration? Probably not, right. But a lot of certainly Blue Star families did. So that’s good. Awesome. That’s that’s amazing. Thank you for that. By the way, I know I know a lot of people that have been very positively impacted by some of the work that you that you helped start and found back in 2009. And that’s a remarkable service and the country owes you debt for that. So then after blue star families, because you were kind of running that I first met you, I think you were just being hired by by first data right at the time. Is that right?VivianRight, right?DaveI can’t remember.VivianNo, it was because we which is which was funny, because you said, you know, talk about a little bit when you grew up know, I always thought, you know to me, was Southeastern Conference. Now it’s the Securities Exchange Commission.DaveYeah, it’s a it’s a governing body that regulates our banks.VivianAnd they’re both governing bodies.DaveConference of Presidents, football and basketball and swimming and soccer and everything else. Yeah.VivianRight. So it shows, you know, kind of perspective. Where are you, where you come from it and then just even your own bias, you know, since I know we’re talking about. Diversity and inclusion today, we all have. These unconscious biases. You know, mine was the first time. I heard when I was at a New York meeting, I thought, Why do they care about.DaveGeorgia football?VivianAnd I thought, Wow, we really are right. And I thought, Why do they care so much? I mean, I think. Are important, but I don’t know that that has have.DaveThe stereo. Gone? Yeah, awesome. OK, so so what year was that? I try to remind me when.VivianIt was 20. So 2014, which you know, at the time, a lot of companies based on the impacts and recognition of just huge amounts of service members that were transitioning out. We’re looking to start military programs but had never really before, you know, thought or looked at that community as anything, really. Maybe then other than if they had a guard or reservists who had activated and how to calculate that leave or turn out turn or pay on or off, but really hadn’t considered that that talent pool. And then. You know, as we built that program, it really taught us how to relook. At human capital management because, you know, when you’re recruiting, when you want to show up holistically in the military community to recruit transitioning.VivianService members and their spouses, you have to have done. That’s kind of like the tip of the iceberg. You have to be military ready to to show up in a way that’s authentic and really can speak to you. Why would a service member or veteran pick your company over other companies, you know, based on the benefits, policies, culture of your company?DaveYeah, that’s amazing. So you first data was really at the time leading, in my opinion, the P.A.C. on progressive ideas and around, you know, some of these these these different diversity groups and veterans, obviously, having been of that and going to New York and seeing some of the work that you guys are doing, I was always really impressed. You guys sort of seemed at the forefront of a veteran friendly organization that saw the value reach maybe talk about, you know, I feel like a lot of people do it because it feels it feels right, right?DaveIt feels like morally and patriotic. We just decided we’re right. But I think what amazed me about what I saw the work that you guys were doing for and now five serve is that you really saw it as like a differentiator in how you approach business. And I thought that to me, that makes it more enduring love for you to talk a bit about that.VivianWell, I mean, even you know how quickly we met when I came to first, first data and we reached out to CrossLead to be our leadership development partner. It just shows how integrated the thinking is and really wanting, you know, our C.E.O. Frank Bisignani, wanted look to the military.VivianFor leadership. You know, the benefits of the lessons learned from the military community in a way that, like you said, many other companies want to. Get involved. They want to do the right thing, but they don’t really see it at the very basis as a value add. And I think that’s the that’s the difference because, you know, just expanding on that view. When we started recruiting veterans. And military spouses, we brought in more women, more minorities. And then it’s not just about what is your guard and reserve leave policy, but it’s what your family forming benefits policies. Where is your representation? Do you have employee resource groups that allow them outlets for expression and kind of aligning their purpose with your profit? Because we do know that diversity is a fact, but that inclusion piece is the choice and that. If the systems that a company. Has are set up that create obstacles or challenges for anyone to show up kind of at work desk ready discretionary effort at the ready, then that’s on that’s on the company. And we know that talent is just distributed equally. But what’s not is that opportunity, access and exposure. And again. If it’s the systems that are set up that are reducing your. Space in place in the. In the mind view of the generations that are coming out of school or coming out of the military.They just won’t see you because they don’t see themselves represented in your leadership or in your products or in your services or, you know, and your in your community investments.DaveSo, so yeah, that’s that’s it feels exactly right to me. Can you talk about how you guys have sort of, you know, mobilize these groups to drive your purpose and ultimately, you know, value for the firm? My assumption is to address the issue you just talked about, which is like, how do you get people showing up every day, get being their best selves, right? So you’re unlocking that latent potential that exists across the workforce? I think that’s phenomenal. You’re talking about how you guys structure and think about it and incorporate it into into to Pfizer’s operating model.VivianYeah, I mean, I love that you. Operating model, because it really D.N.I. has to be in the D.N.A. of the organization, and as much as we talk about diversity of thought and experience. You really can’t have diversity of thought and experience until you have physical representation of diversity at the table. And when you’re operating and governance structures, those are essential when you’re thinking about how you set up your systems for recruiting internal mobility leadership, inclusive leadership models, even product development and innovation. And that’s where those employee resource groups come in. They’re not the only lever, but I would say arguably one of the most. Vital, because again. It’s it’s your human capital management, it’s your talent. It’s allowing them and creating space for them to have opportunities for meaningful engagement in a way that meets them where they’re at. And if you channel and target that towards. Whatever that thing is. That your company or organization’s mission is like for us, small businesses is what we do every day. You know, start scale, grow from Main Street to Wall Street, and our employee resource groups are right, and they’re coming up with ideas for how to engage small, diverse businesses, how to support small, diverse businesses or social innovators within large businesses. How can we help our large scale enterprise clients support small, diverse businesses, whether it’s through their supply chain or whether it’s through their products or services? And that’s really it’s. That, you know, the systems view.DaveYeah, no, I think I think that’s that makes a ton of sense. So as we think about, you know, just some of the questions that typically come to mind around that diversity inclusion topic, a lot of companies are putting a lot of effort into how they recruit, specifically trying to create a more diverse workforce. Everything from that senior executives like you were talking about earlier down to, you know, entry level talent. But they they’re struggling. And it’s it’s not just to find those people, but it’s also to retain them once they get them because it’s become a very competitive love for you to talk about about that. Why does that happen? Why is it so hard?VivianI mean, that’s like the. Crux I think of where we are, because in the past companies have said they’re military friendly. But are they military ready? And I would I would evolve that conversation now to say companies want to be diversity friendly. But are they. Really diversity ready and addressing.DaveWhat do you mean by by ready?VivianRight. So in the same way, when you show up, it’s I’m showing up at a, let’s say, a women in tech recruiting event. Is it all males that are with me? Do I know the open positions? Do I know our family forming policies? Do I know our benefits? Do I know if we have pay equity or we’ve had a pay equity review in the past three years? It’s because that’s what women graduating from colleges with their coming out of the military with choosing between companies. That’s what they’re going to be asking for because they’re it’s, you know, it’s a hot labor market right now. And to differentiate yourself when you show up in an organ in. The same way that we expect potential hires to come. With a general knowledge about our company when we show up in our recruiting, we need people, you know, our recruiters to have a general working knowledge. About. Diversity and inclusion and what our culture is, what our our employee resource groups, what community partners do we invest in? What have we done? What’s our representation on the board? And I’ll tell you too. That comes up not just with talent, but with clients and several, you know. Several meetings over the past year that has. Been the crux of the, you know, the questions are have you had a pay equity review? What is your representation on the board? What are what are your sustainability policies and how or how are you responding to social justice? It’s really it goes back to if you’re looking at the recruiting process, the opposite side of that coin is retention, and it’s looking at not just tracking new hires, but engagement, performance, internal mobility, satisfaction and your pipeline. And that’s where, again, the benefits in the culture are huge. Do you have guard and reserve leave policy, paid parental leave, domestic partner coverage, anything that shows your employees that you are investing in who they are as a person outside of work so that they can show up at work as their best self? And it’s. You know, publicly. Facing statements but that are backed up with substance. That’s why so many peer groups or Criterion Nasdaq Stock Exchange Business Roundtable are requiring publicly facing statements that link to documents around human rights or around social justice around your board diversity.DaveYeah, you’re talking about the larger sort of E.S.G. movement. We’re seeing this. Even with access to capital, right, there’s some of these institutional investors and obviously large family offices that are allocating capital to these various funds that then make it available through various instruments are saying, Look, there needs to be an E.S.G. bent here, and if there isn’t, then we don’t want to support or basically have our money be loaned or leveraged for for these organizations. So it’s actually to me having driving a massive sort of movement positively, you know, towards some of these these issues, which which are no longer sort of niche, they’re becoming more mainstream. Can you go back, though, to on the diversity side? I’m running a business, small business or large, but it doesn’t matter, and I take a self on it and I go, OK, my pay, my pay is is equal. Hopefully, if not, I sort of fix that, but I don’t have the numbers I want, right? Like the composition makeup still feels, feels up to me, whatever that whatever right looks like, but it’s not there. OK, where we’re underrepresented and we don’t look like maybe the communities that we operate in the services that people would provide. How do you fix that? How would you advise that that leadership group to really try to address that? Would you do almost like like like a quota system or or how do you think about that?VivianSo, you know, it’s a marathon and. A sprint. Because it really for most companies. It’s it’s it’s not an and or but it’s a both or it’s multiple. Because it’s there’s. Lack of representation at the top for sure. And you can’t you can’t hire at L1 and expect in the next 20, 20 years that something is going to be different on the L10 level. And so you really need a you need a strategy for both.DaveAnd then it’s that and right. You’re saying you’re saying yes, let’s make sure our hiring practices at the entry level are obviously unfair. But there’s but that we’ve got to do something to address the mid and senior levels at simultaneously.VivianRight. And that’s where it’s, you know, it’s percent of new hires, but it is percent of retention. And it’s also it’s it’s comparing. Groups and having enough representation that you can compare between groups to say, you know, is there something significant, you know, statistically significantly different in the way that women are voluntarily attracting from the from the labor force? Because we know that right, that that did happen over COVID. So within a particular company, you can look at that and say voluntary versus involuntary attrition to.DaveGive some of those stats. I don’t know that anybody’s aware of that. I mean, when I heard this stat a while ago, I was actually pretty surprised. It made sense once I thought about it. But like initially I was like, well covered. If anything is helped drive adoption around like things around work flexibility that previously were sort of we’re sort of relatively small time or niche like, you know, now I think it’s much more widely accepted that, you know, you don’t have to physically be in a space from a certain amount of time like that. We’ve got we’ve demonstrated the ability to be productive still and in a more flexible environment. Flexibility should lead to more inclusive work. Opportunities should, should do.VivianAnd yeah, because there you know, there’s a lot of there’s several, I think themes that that did emerge. You know, going through COVID one was that more women are traded from the from the labor force. So even though we were learning lessons during that time and even now on. Just the effects of, you know, your life external to your job, affecting your ability to show up, whether it’s in the office physically or virtually in your in your home, but that it did disproportionately affect women. But even, you know, we serve small businesses and we had. Numbers coming out of COVID that. Survive COVID for another variety of reasons. one Just all small businesses were affected the ability to go. Go out physically, but they also were less likely to be able to access capital through traditional means or even the P.P.P. loans that were designed to. Help small businesses. But they didn’t have accounts large enough with large enough banks to take advantage of it or couldn’t. Dedicate. The full time person towards filling out all the paperwork. And so there were these themes where, you know, we all go through the Same life events, but they are affecting as an impacting us in different ways based on, you know, our individual circumstances. And if there’s enough of a population that is marginalized or unrepresented that is not able to, then, you know, experience and come out at the same pace and we have systems set up that are promulgating that, that that is kind of the the crux of where we are right now. So we don’t want to lose women from the labor force. We don’t want to lose small minority owned businesses and if you have your time treasure. Talent of what your company does can is at this inflection point can make a difference because of your benefits, because of your policies, because of. Even a focus on. Mental health, which again, you know, I think the military drove that way earlier based on, you know, combat experience. But now. I’ve heard mental health and wellness mentioned more times over the past year than I have in the past ten years.DaveI know it’s a it’s really everybody now, right? I mean, everybody, everybody’s going through. I mean, this has been this has been emotionally draining COVID for sure. And so I think people are much more acutely aware of the impacts of Saddam. Go back to the women, if you would, because I mean, I think this is this is concerning. I feel like to the extent that we’ve made progress on these fronts, it feels like Kobe was a massive setback on gender equality and representation in the workforce. If what you’re saying is that disproportionately the people that left their jobs were where were or female? And is it getting better now or how do we address that? I mean, how do we how do we make up for that?DaveBecause to me, that’s I mean one. That’s awful. I’ve seen some stats that says, Hey, the effects of this downstream are going to are significant, like ten or 15 years from now. It’s going to be even worse, like the fact that we had this major setback.DaveI’m curious to see your thoughts on what you’re seeing people do and try to to counterbalance that. Knowing that Pfizer particularly mission is to help small businesses thrive and address some of these. These these challenges. I’m curious to see you know how you’re thinking about this?VivianWell, I mean, we know so the gender gap existed pre-COVID. Any you know, anything else equally did did nothing but kind of enlarge that gap.DaveSo one thing that got made it worse.VivianIt may, right? It made it worse. And you’re right, there’s like that. It’s a lagging indicator and it will take years to to catch up to it. But then I also at the same time have great hope because of COVID did make as I think, more vulnerable. We were certainly, you know, we’re in each other’s homes in ways that we had never been before or hurt people’s dog bark or their children come in. Some people didn’t even know or. Acted like people didn’t have children before COVID, and. The reality is that that impacts our ability to show up. And so just recognition that people are whole beings, they want to pursue purpose and profit and. Don’t necessarily see it with millennials. And younger generations. Don’t even really see a delineation between that. They actually think that they actually think. But I mean, they think that they. Should be able to pursue purpose within their profit seeking job. So you see these because coming up, I certainly think CrossLead is one of those where you’re providing value more than. You know, leadership training. It’s also opening. The door to. Discuss things like, you know, how integrity and and shared consciousness and trust, you know, so that you can have psychological safety on teams, which again, the military has done for years because you know that that does show up. In your every day. It does show up in how you, you treat your team members. But I don’t think that the corporate sector had that recognition. And certainly that. Benefits everyone, right? Whether you are a parent or a caregiver. For for your for your parent, you know that sandwich generation that is caregiving children, but also their own parents and. And that again, you know, it shows up in in your productivity and your satisfaction and your engagement. And ultimately, whether you choose to stay to work at a company that helps you be the best you Lacob.DaveIt’s been been really hard on a lot of a lot of businesses. I know it’s disproportionately affected small businesses and and from the employee standpoint, it’s disproportionately affected, affected women. Could you could you maybe talk about what you’re seeing, both working at a large global, you know, 500 company as well as the small business you serve and how executive group should think about tackling this near-term problem and solving the more the more systemic problem of of diverse and inclusive workforces?VivianYeah, because there are thematically lots of lots of trends. That are emerging. Some, you know, like you mentioned, negatively disproportionately affecting certain populations. But I want to also put a pen and I do think that’s an every challenge is an opportunity. But first, looking at the negative or populations that have been disproportionately affected by COVID, I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics just put out that there were 2.2 million less women in the labor force in October of 2020 than there were of 2019. Which which definitely tracks. Within themes within the Great Exodus. The disproportionate effect of women. Probably for things that Have always been there around caregiving for children, but also parents or just the, you know, the second shift that’s talked. About about additional work at home. And we know that COVID as you mentioned the effects on small business that it also disproportionately affect minority owned businesses. So while everyone experienced the same inability to have in-person physical gatherings or shop in person, some of the some of the small businesses that were least able to react as quickly because they didn’t have larger lines of credit or didn’t have online or e-commerce options, which we happened to know about because those are our clients. So when we started to see the numbers and heard that up to 40% of minority owned businesses might not make it through COVID. In addition to the client services that we already had, that’s when we. Actually came up with our back to business grant to be the inflection point to connect those small, diverse businesses with access to capital lines of credit e commerce order delivery to pick up setting up online shopping carts, anything that we could do to to be there. And that’s where when I said there is a positive coming out of COVID, I do think that there is an opportunity for companies to look at work life balance. So if you’re looking at your employee base, looking at work life balance, understanding that people do have lives outside of work that do affect their ability to show up at their best. And then design operating. Models that are more inclusive and holistic so that you can unlock. The whole idea is that high performing teams, right whenever you draw the line of why does any of this matter at the very base? It’s to make money to sustain your business operations. But to do that, you really have to take a long term view of not just output, but outcome.VivianWhen you talk about succession planning, recruiting market share, investor relations, all of that really depends on your employer value proposition. And so I’m hoping that we come out of COVID as a culture, but also globally. Where we’re more progressive thinking creative about how we create opportunities for people to meaningfully engage while pursuing. Both purpose and profit. And I think that that’s exciting there. There’s a huge upside there with know unlocking productivity. You know, there’s a lot of. Money to be made there. If we do it right. But there’s also some very significant problems short term that we have to deal with because companies are losing people every day.DaveYou know, I just find it fascinating. This is obviously something that we obsess over at cross. I mean, our whole goal is is to make organizations more effective, you know, help them sort of unlock latent potential. And the exciting thing about about COVID. The upside is executive teams are able to reimagine the way they work. They’ve had to just to survive. And so they’ve built muscles that they didn’t previously have. They discovered technology and tools that they previously were weren’t leveraging, and those tools themselves have gotten significantly more effective. So I’m optimistic that, you know, the executive teams that are meeting in the boardroom as they try and discuss how they’re going to to establish an operating model that continues to drive value is now much greater than it was even even two years ago. And so my hope, my hope in all this is that with those added tools, with those added that capabilities, it’s going to create a more flexible and inclusive work environment which potentially could start to take on those more systemic historical issues of of misrepresentation by gender or disenfranchize minority populations in the workforce. Because flexibility should be should be a key tool in helping, helping keep some of those groups engaged for longer periods of time and continuing at the ladder, which I think will net just benefit our society and our individual companies tremendously. an you? Let’s switch now to how you basically assess an organization’s effectiveness when it comes or die programs. I mean, if we take the actual the composition aside, how else what other metrics do you use to look at D.N.I. programs and see if they’re actually working or not?VivianYou know, there’s a lot of different. KPIs, and we’ve hit on some of them. And certainly representation is is a is a base. But there’s also. It shows up in your products, it shows up in your tracking, it shows up. You know, not just tracking.VivianThough, for employees, but suppliers and vendors, clients, community investment partners. It shows up in publicly facing statements. You know, going through just doing a catalog of of a company’s website is their diversity and their marketing materials. What conferences are they showing up at and who’s speaking at the conferences that they’re showing up at? And then you mentioned definitely. On the investor side, what indices are they showing up on? Because it definitely you can draw a direct. Line for financial impact or you. Can have the one or two kind of removed because engaged employees are more productive employees, they delight clients and then you have client retention and maybe client gain. That’s market share increase of market share, which then increases and delights your shareholders and so there is this virtuous cycle. That that is created between that return on investment, that return on inclusion for employee engagement, client engagement, which makes more money so that you can pay your associates and increase your share price. And so I think those areas, it’s everything in between. It’s it’s your it’s your leadership programs. I too am excited about some things that are coming out of COVID one because leadership. Trainings and leadership courses like, you know, in an organization. Like Crossley, you’re focusing on inherently an inclusive leadership model, and I don’t think we’ve always talked about inclusive leadership, more leadership. And it’s it’s really baked into the, you know, to have empowered execution to have shared consciousness and trust. There’s those things you have to attain first, and one of them is is diversity. And then to me, you’re inclusive leadership model is what drives the inclusivity where everyone feels like they have an equitable chance to join, belong, contribute and progress. And we need that now more than ever, because people are feeling dissociative with what they do for a living versus how they exist outside of what they do for a living. And they do need to build trust through geographic spacing because we’re not physically together. We do need to address and talk about mental health and wellness and keeping ourselves and our bodies functioning so that we we can show up at work. And I think.DaveYou’re looking at performance more holistically, which, you know, it’s something in special operations we’ve done for a long time and we still got a long way to go. But the idea that like how you physically show up and mentally show up has a massive impact in those mission critical situations.VivianRight? And not every leadership program really talks about that. And I know, you know CrossLead does, and that’s something that, again, the corporate sector can. Benefit from learning from the military on that.DaveWhat’s interesting for me personally in this journey is, you know, in the military, probably it’s because I was overseas so much. I was sort of desensitized to some of these, like larger social movements that were going on. I mean, it’s just take, for instance, like social media, like, I wasn’t allowed that U.S. access to social media when I was in the Philippines, right? So like, I come back and everybody’s on Facebook and Twitter and and like LinkedIn and all these applications, I’m like, Yeah, I would never put any stuff on that stuff, just given what I was doing and where I was operating. In fact, I was always being monitored by good guys and bad guys. I just didn’t. I just didn’t do it right. And so I was always desensitized to these themes. And then, you’re right, when we got into the foundations of how you create high-performing teams and things like shared consciousness and trust and common purpose and empowerment. You know, they and then how we think about operationalize it became obvious to me that like we had a massive premium on things like inclusive work environments. The fact that we have after action reviews, after every op where everybody, regardless of rank, title background, whatever is obligated to give people their honest perspective. What happened on that op so we could figure out to learn and then move forward. And we, you know, and then like, there’s fancy words like psychological safety that says this is what’s happening there. I don’t know what that stuff for me, it was just, that’s how you operate, because that’s what high-performing teams did. Right. That’s how that’s how you behave. And so it’s been interesting to see like, you know, D.N.I. is a social movement. I think a lot of times where leaders struggle to figure out like where it fits into their into their business models, they go, Wow, this feels like something I’m being forced to do because it’s larger social movement that I may or may not be be, you know, sort of attuned to. And for me, the way we came out, it was like, No, if you’re if you come back from something or you’re about to go on something, you want to make sure you’ve got all the best possible information perspective possible. Because if you don’t and something goes wrong, then how do you how do you, you know, how do you reconcile that? How do you rationalize that? How do you explain it? Some kids, mother or father, why their son or daughter is at home? Because, you know, we didn’t do our part and making sure we had the best possible plan that had the best collective of experiences sort of sort of yielded. So to me, I think just rethinking that in terms of that, I think goes a long way in saying, Hey, you know, wherever you fall in the social spectrum like discount for a second. This has real value to your to your business and it’s upside, and you should probably do it for all of social reasons. But like the value, you have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders who do not like you find a way to to make that happen. So if you think about like the leverage that that you guys currently pull in Pfizer specifically to around your E.S.G. programs to basically sort of address some of these changes, what are those? Maybe talk about some of the unique levers that you’ve seen that are, like, you know, pretty effective both for measuring it and sort of driving, you know, improvements around around those areas.VivianRight? I mean, the KPIs, just. Like like any other parlor or any other operating model, it has to be integrated into and baked in to the very performance. And I think so one, having a culture of continuous learning. And really focus on leadership because when times, you know, progress. Does move at the speed of trust to everything you just said and you really can’t build trust. And in these inflection. Points of confusion and ambiguity and challenge, that’s when you rely on the trust so that it kind of greases the skids for, you know, when people don’t know what’s going to happen, but they trust that your company, your manager, your team has your best interest and has the best interests of the company and you’re kind of commiserate. With the level of service that you’re giving that you’re getting that back and so you see that show up. And I always said before, you know, the levers are within every single aspect of the organization and you can look at it as clients and external learning and development, certainly talent management. And that hits on a lot of that retention piece and an employee resource groups, internal mobility, professional development, your vendors and supplier diversity. There’s a reason again, why we met so early because we want it to benefit from the lessons learned from the military community when we were building our own leadership and talent development program and then ensure community engagement. Your strategic philanthropy.What are you doing volunteering your time, treasure and talent? And it’s always best when those are aligned because it’s the first best use of whatever the company or organization’s purposes. Don’t divorce that from the profit or the ability to have meaningful engagements for four employees and then it’s your those easy things like code of conduct, your total rewards, your benefits packages. And it’s it’s less about. Although I’m, you know, I’m jealous of companies where they can bring dogs to work or they have beer on tap. But I think more substantial investments in pay parity, family forming policy benefits, guard and reserve leave policies. Because what they’re really saying. When you invest in those high value things is that you’re saying that I’m not as an employer forcing you to choose between serving your country and coming to work. I’m not forcing you that.DaveYou’re saying, you’re saying we say guard and reserve. You mean National Guard.VivianNational Guard and Reserve Military Service.DaveThe policies are the company let you go and you keep your job and that you can go serve your country and then you.VivianAnd pay them. And of course, I have to say, because I serve as one of I always like to say the most expansive, I would love for a company to come back. And say, actually, our policy. Is more expansive. You know, we pay full, full salary. That’s amazing. For a while there, while our guard and reservists are on their orders. And so again, it’s saying that we’re not making you choose between serving your country and working here. But it’s the same with starting families. And there’s many ways to start a family and there. And it could be, you know, either parent or caregiver could stay home or so it’s a it’s just a more, if, like you said, progressive, expansive way to look at.DaveI love that. Yeah. And how we can expand that. Like if military is not your thing, you can expand that into any type of community or national service, right where you’re serving and making a difference in the community. And you’re saying this aligns with the values of principle.VivianAnd then. Well, and I have to make you know, when you said levers or ways to measure, I have to also mention because CrossLead helped us so much with our with our culture building and the way we looked at the pillars of where we time treasure talent. But looking at employee engagement surveys and having questions that have to do and directly ask your employees, do they think they’re treated fairly with respect? Do they think that they have a path to career – professional mobility? Those are very important to ask on those employee engagement because that’s, you know, asking the people of the population that you’re you’re trying to reach. So even if you do have the policies, process governance, whatever it is, but you’re not seeing that reflected. Then there’s still a disconnect there.DaveYeah, no, that makes total sense. So, so last question on this and I have some fun questions for us. So you’re the C.E.O. of a net new global conglomerate that’s a top five, top ten country in the world. What position are you creating on your executive team for to, to basically address these issues holistically? What are you calling it in like? And how would you describe the role and the responsibilities of that executive?VivianYou can call me anything, don’t call me late for dinner is, is how I look at this question because it is such a topical question that comes up. Across regions, across companies, across industries. I think the important thing is to have a seat at the table and the idea that there’s going to be.DaveA seat at your table for an executive, there’s there’s going to be executive on your team. That has this as their core mission.VivianCertainly, and it would look across dimensions of, you know, the entire enterprise H.R. product operations, marketing, procurement, strategic sourcing because depending on what industry you’re and or what market, you might be driven more by sustainability or environment, like with the energy, with energy companies or gas. Whereas in financial services, financial inclusion, financial literacy is, is really what we do best. And so we know that part of diversity of inclusion is ensuring that everyone has equitable access to financial literacy. And so whether it’s and it could be driven out of our D.N.I., it for for talent acquisition or it could be driven out of marketing as a brand or philanthropy, a foundation for social innovation or social impact. The important thing to me is that there is that seat at the table and someone looking strategically across the enterprise looking at how to have impact past economic outcomes and you know. Larry, Fink if you think, you know, that’s kind of a bright-eyed way of looking at it. Larry Fink and issues that letter every every year for BlackRock and and has led the charge at saying there is economic impact, past immediate outcomes and that companies when you’re talking about sustainability, whether it’s environmental or workforce sustainability, you have to include this triple bottom line valuation to a company. And again, that’s where it’s coming from. Investors, it’s coming to be included in the stock exchange or Nasdaq, or to be listed on the S&P different indices. I think more and more these these multinational. Companies that we’re coming up with top five. They are creating a seat at the table on their executive management committee for it.DaveYeah, I think that’s right. I mean, ultimately, everybody’s in competition for talent. And increasingly, the talent that’s that’s both, you know, new talent coming into the workforce and or talent that’s decided to make a shift. And what they’re going to focus on and do is increasingly more aware of these issues. And they’re going to see organizations that take this seriously as a differentiation and where they want to go, spend their time, their energy and their efforts. And that’s going to be a massive differentiator. So it’s something that people have to get at. All right. So so I want to wrap this up. So given that I’ve done previous ones, I want to ask, I’ll say two words. They are things are they are people and you have to say you have to pick the name that that is right. So if I said olive oil and butter, which one would you pick.VivianSunflower seed oil?DaveSome fancy? OK, that wasn't one of the options now. If you’re if you’re if you’re a chef and you got a choice between an olive oil or butter, what are you picking?VivianNo, I mean, I sunflower seed oil because I saw it on a tick tock. I mean, I don’t have to choose.DaveOK, so you’re going to pick oil then over butter, but you’re just going, not olive oil. You’re kicking. Some of us, OK, got oil. We’re about. OK. Michael Jordan or LeBron James?VivianLeBron James? No, I’m kidding.DaveThat’s what I said. We’re sticking with the Lebron James.VivianThat’s true. That’s from the office because I was going to say Michael. Michael Jordan, because my son is MJ. So everyone assumes. That it’s Michael Jordan. but, it’s Mike Junior. But LeBron James.DaveLeBron James, OK, good, Messi or Ronaldo.VivianIs it bad? I’m not even sure who that is. Is that that’s.DaveOK, that’s OK. Just it messier another. No, I mean, these are football players, soccer players.VivianWell, I think that tells you my unconscious bias.DaveNeither. OK, I did my Louie, Louie Hamilton or Max Verstappen.VivianSo this is another hard one, and I know you want one answer. Louis Hamilton, for sure. Except that when I first heard Max Verstappen’s name, I actually thought that. Matthew Stafford, who is a prior University of Georgia bulldog, had taken up Formula one racing and that he was in competition with with Louis Hamilton and. The last that came out of my husband from that. But so I like them both. I love Lewis Hamilton, though he’s going to win.DaveThe national title on on Monday. Is it going to be Georgia?VivianAlabama Bulldogs hand down, hands down? It’s our year.DaveBulldogs. all right. We’ll hold you to that. Vivian, thank you so much for joining our program. I. This is one that’s a timely conversation, but two, it’s just so critical to how people and leaders need to think about about some of the today’s toughest challenges and how we address them. Can’t thank you enough for coming on board. It means a lot to you. Thank you.VivianThanks, Dave.Daveone more thing before we finish the episode, the CrossLead podcast is produced by the team at Truth Work Media. I want to make this the best leadership podcast available, so I would love to get your feedback. Our goal this season is to have authentic conversations with special operators, business leaders and thought leaders in the topics of leadership and agility. If you have any feedback, suggested topics or leaders that you want to hear from these, email me at contact@crosslead.com. If you found this episode interesting. Please share it with a friend and drop us a rating until next time. Thank you for joining.
In the past decade, America's big businesses have increasingly moved to the political left. For evidence, take a look at their actions and stances on critical race theory indoctrination, vaccine mandates, radical climate change agendas, boardroom “diversity”, doing business and making common cause with a hostile China, etc … on issue after issue they align with the “woke” left. Now even the Federal Reserve and the Securities Exchange Commission are weighing in to support these agendas. What does this mean for ordinary Americans, and what can be done to push back? Joining me to explore this are: Matt Schlapp, Chairman of the American Conservative Union, which sponsors CPAC, founder of Cove Strategy, and long time advisor to major corporations, and Justin Danhof, Executive Vice President of the National Center for Public Policy, who has been waging a courageous battle against creeping corporate socialism for years. If you feel like American lovers of liberty are fighting against mounting odds, you are right. Even the big money management firms like Blackrock and Vanguard are pushing the left's agenda. Whether cynics, or true believers, they are putting their agenda ahead of investors as you will learn as we explore the dirty little secret of “ESG” investing. Also in this episode: Ford Foundation's backing Black Lives Matter, the “degrowth” people behind the climate change agenda, shareholder proposals that have nothing to do with companies … and other alarming things that you need to know about. There's a lot to unpack here, and Justin and Matt are outstanding guides to this terrain. We offer several lines of action. We can push back and must.
Climate change poses a "slow motion" systemic threat to the stability of the U.S. financial system requiring urgent action from financial regulators, including the Federal Reserve and the Securities Exchange Commission. That is one of the findings of a recently released landmark report commissioned by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission and put together by a panel convened about 10 months ago by CFTC Commissioner Rostin Behnam. In this episode Commissioner Behnam discusses the report's recommendations and next steps with Duke Law professor Sarah Bloom Raskin. Report: https://www.cftc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-09/9-9-20%20Report%20of%20the%20Subcommittee%20on%20Climate-Related%20Market%20Risk%20-%20Managing%20Climate%20Risk%20in%20the%20U.S.%20Financial%20System%20for%20posting.pdf
Jillian Sidoti, Esq. is one of the country's leading experts on Regulation A+. Since 2008, Jillian has submitted multiple Regulation A Offering Circulars to the Securities Exchange Commission for approval making her one of the few attorneys familiar with the law prior to the changes under the JOBS Act. Since the JOBS Act, Jillian has assisted multiple companies and entrepreneurs realize their fundraising goals through Crowdfunding, 506©, and Regulation A. Jillian also continues to specialize in transactional legal matters such as private placement memorandums, S-1′s/S-11's, and Regulation D filings. Jillian also spends her time speaking at seminars educating real estate investors on how to legally raise capital for their real estate investment projects. Jillian is the author of the highly rated book, The Crowdfunding Myth which debunks the multiple myths surrounding crowdfunding and teaches the reader how to effectively crowdfund their securities offering. Prior to her legal career, Jillian owned and operated a record label enabling her to tour worldwide with artists, including visiting South Africa, Canada, Europe, and the United States. Using that experience, Jillian has been commissioned to write articles and contracts for many music industry entities. For several years, Jillian taught Finance and Accounting for the BS and MBA programs at the University of Redlands, drawing on her experience as Financial Analyst, Controller, and CFO for many companies from manufacturing to real estate development. Jillian also teaches a Small Business Management class where students are taught the anatomy of a business plan. To buy Jillian's book use this link. or click on the image below. Resources: Jillian Sidoti Founding Partner, CCIM P: (323) 799-1342 E: jillian@crowdfundinglawyers.net Link to Private Money Rockstars https://www.privatemoneyrockstar.com/
TechGC WebsiteChris Sands TwitterTechGC LinkedInTechGC Twitter ABOUT THE GUESTGeorgia Quinn is an American entrepreneur and lawyer. She is the general counsel of CoinList a platform that provides services to top token developers including compliant offering, distribution, and liquidity services. She is also the co-founder of iDisclose, a legal technology company focused on the disclosure and legal document needs of small business and startup entrepreneurs. Ms. Quinn began her practice in capital markets at Weil, Gotshal and Manges and later moved to Seyfarth Shaw before founding iDisclose. Ms. Quinn received a Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School, and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from New York University. ABOUT THE HOSTChris Sands leads content and communications for TechGC. Prior to joining TechGC in 2018, Chris was an executive legal and compliance recruiter in Silicon Valley, specializing in high-growth FinTech firms. Chris runs the Jobs by TechGC newsletter and job board which connects legal professionals with today's top startups and venture funds. He also spends around half the year working and living in various parts of the world.
Not all are mindful of the laws that go along with private lending since some lenders base their transaction on relationships and trust. Although it all boils down to trust, being well-informed of the legal aspects of private lending will not harm anyone. In today's time, there is a practical reality that people trying to raise a small amount of capital have limited ability to be compliant with securities laws, and this is what Attorney Amy Wan delves into. Founder and CEO of Bootstrap Legal, Amy breaks down the types of rules, regulations, and securities in private lending. As she explains when an investment loan becomes security, Amy reveals that lenders are much less regulated when you lend your own money to another investor. She goes in-depth on the event when you need to have a license when making loans, the legal documents required with investors, the process she does that make legal matters and paperwork less stressful to clients, and how she has brought digital and legal to smaller investors. On the side, she shares details about her podcast show, Law and Blockchain. — Listen to the podcast here: Private Lending And The SEC with Attorney Amy Wan Syndicating, Private Lending And SEC Compliance I’d like to welcome you to this episode. I’m very grateful to have the pleasure of speaking with an attorney who happens to specialize in helping investors handling the paperwork and the filings required by the SEC, Securities Exchange Commission. My guest, http://www.amywanlaw.com/ (Amy Wan), has an impressive resume to say the least. She lives on the leading edge of the financial and legal tech world and was named one of the Ten Women to Watch in Legal Tech by the ABA Journal, that’s the American Bar Association. I’m honored and grateful to have her on the show. I have a new slogan that I actually put on a Private Lender Podcast t-shirt. The back says, “Never trust, always verify.” Nonetheless, never trust, always verify is a perfect segue into an interview with an SEC attorney. Let’s go ahead and get down to the brass tacks and let’s get to the interview with Amy Wan. — I’ve got a special treat for you. Our guest is Amy Wan, Founder and CEO of https://www.bootstraplegal.com/ (Bootstrap Legal). I am excited to have her on the show. Amy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming out and being interviewed. You deal in an area of expertise of the law that’s beyond my scope of understanding. You’re bringing it down to where people like me can participate, and I definitely want to get into that part of it. I promise we’ll keep this about 30,000 feet as much as possible and we’ll drill down when we need to because I know the law. You can go down some rabbit holes. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became the securities and syndication guru that you are. I actually started my career in the federal government. We were doing interesting things in DC, international trade and international regulatory affairs. When I moved back to LA, there’s not much of an international trade law industry out in LA except for import-export compliance paperwork which was very different from negotiating free trade agreements. I started over. I became general counsel of an early stage real estate crowdfunding platform at that time. The interesting thing about that crowdfunding platform is that I had to deal with two different areas of law, one on the real estate lending side and then one on the actual security side. We did private lending. We would make hard money, private money loans to folks flipping houses and then we would fractionalize those loans and turn it into a security and sell it to accredited investors through our marketplace. I spent a couple of years there and I learned the ins and outs of both of those different sides of the industry. I went on to become a partner at a boutique law firm that
Not all are mindful of the laws that go along with private lending since some lenders base their transaction on relationships and trust. Although it all boils down to trust, being well-informed of the legal aspects of private lending will not harm anyone. In today's time, there is a practical reality that people trying to raise a small amount of capital have limited ability to be compliant with securities laws, and this is what Attorney Amy Wan delves into. Founder and CEO of Bootstrap Legal, Amy breaks down the types of rules, regulations, and securities in private lending. As she explains when an investment loan becomes security, Amy reveals that lenders are much less regulated when you lend your own money to another investor. She goes in-depth on the event when you need to have a license when making loans, the legal documents required with investors, the process she does that make legal matters and paperwork less stressful to clients, and how she has brought digital and legal to smaller investors. On the side, she shares details about her podcast show, Law and Blockchain. — Listen to the podcast here: Private Lending And The SEC with Attorney Amy Wan Syndicating, Private Lending And SEC Compliance I’d like to welcome you to this episode. I’m very grateful to have the pleasure of speaking with an attorney who happens to specialize in helping investors handling the paperwork and the filings required by the SEC, Securities Exchange Commission. My guest, http://www.amywanlaw.com/ (Amy Wan), has an impressive resume to say the least. She lives on the leading edge of the financial and legal tech world and was named one of the Ten Women to Watch in Legal Tech by the ABA Journal, that’s the American Bar Association. I’m honored and grateful to have her on the show. I have a new slogan that I actually put on a Private Lender Podcast t-shirt. The back says, “Never trust, always verify.” Nonetheless, never trust, always verify is a perfect segue into an interview with an SEC attorney. Let’s go ahead and get down to the brass tacks and let’s get to the interview with Amy Wan. — I’ve got a special treat for you. Our guest is Amy Wan, Founder and CEO of https://www.bootstraplegal.com/ (Bootstrap Legal). I am excited to have her on the show. Amy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for coming out and being interviewed. You deal in an area of expertise of the law that’s beyond my scope of understanding. You’re bringing it down to where people like me can participate, and I definitely want to get into that part of it. I promise we’ll keep this about 30,000 feet as much as possible and we’ll drill down when we need to because I know the law. You can go down some rabbit holes. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became the securities and syndication guru that you are. I actually started my career in the federal government. We were doing interesting things in DC, international trade and international regulatory affairs. When I moved back to LA, there’s not much of an international trade law industry out in LA except for import-export compliance paperwork which was very different from negotiating free trade agreements. I started over. I became general counsel of an early stage real estate crowdfunding platform at that time. The interesting thing about that crowdfunding platform is that I had to deal with two different areas of law, one on the real estate lending side and then one on the actual security side. We did private lending. We would make hard money, private money loans to folks flipping houses and then we would fractionalize those loans and turn it into a security and sell it to accredited investors through our marketplace. I spent a couple of years there and I learned the ins and outs of both of those different sides of the industry. I went on to become a partner at a boutique law firm that
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