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HamsterHookah

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Posts posted by HamsterHookah

  1. 37 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

    Has this been mentioned yet? When reporting expenses to the FEC, anything over $200 requires a receipt. Santos reported an unusually large number of expenses in the amount of exactly $199.99.

    https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2023/01/24/the-improbability-of-george-santos-199-expenses-00079334

      Reveal hidden contents

    The rarity of campaign expenses falling so close to the legal limit for retaining receipts has raised concerns that the Santos campaign’s disbursements were “deliberately falsified,” a complaint from the Campaign Legal Center alleges. Major questions about Santos’ campaign financing remain unanswered, including the source of $700,000 that the New York congressman ostensibly loaned to his campaign despite questions about his personal finances.

    “This was a multi-hundred-thousand dollar operation,” said Adav Noti, a former FEC attorney and senior vice president at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center, which filed a complaint against Santos. “We don’t know where the money came from, we don’t know where the money went to.”

    Santos’ lawyer, Joe Murray, declined to comment, citing ongoing investigations. The congressman has previously admitted to exaggerating components of his biography but denied breaking any laws. Both local and federal prosecutors are investigating whether he may have broken the law, but has not been charged with a crime and has bucked calls to resign from fellow GOP members of the state’s congressional delegation.

    Most of the Santos campaign’s $199.99 transactions — including the eight Italian restaurant charges — date back to 2021, according to FEC reports. But like the fabricated aspects of the now-congressman’s biography, they went largely unnoticed until after the election.

    Under FEC regulations, campaigns are required to report all disbursements and maintain receipts or invoices for those valued at $200 or more. The sheer number of expenses reported as being just under the threshold for retaining receipts was among the subjects of the CLC’s complaint against the Santos campaign. The complaint also cited the $700,000 that Santos reported as a personal loan to his campaign despite questions about his finances.

    Of the more than 4,300 House and Senate campaigns that filed any FEC reports during the 2022 election cycle, fewer than 9 percent reported one or more expenditures costing between $199 and $199.99.

    Not all campaign expenditures in that narrow range raise questions. A relatively common expense this election cycle: subscriptions to the web-conferencing platform Zoom, which has a business plan priced at $199.90 per month.

    But only 25 campaign committees reported any single expense costing exactly $199.99, POLITICO’s analysis found. No campaign other than Santos’ spent that specific amount more than four times. And Santos’ campaign spent that exact figure 37 times, according to his campaign finance reports, totalling just shy of $7,400. In addition to the Italian restaurant and Miami hotel, he reported spending exactly $199.99 on 10 distinct Uber rides, four Delta Airlines flights and two Amtrak trains, among other expenses.

    These reported expenses are still a relatively small share of the more than $2.6 million that Santos’s campaign spent last cycle. But CLC’s complaint alleges that they raise questions about the accuracy of his reported disbursements.

    The FEC, which is tasked with enforcing campaign finance laws, sent more than 20 letters to Santos’ campaign asking about mathematical errors and other inconsistencies throughout the 2022 election cycle. While such letters are fairly commonplace, that number is atypical, said Noti of the Campaign Legal Center.

    The agency is not equipped to flag transactions that are suspicious based on the amounts and vendors.

    Santos’ campaign has repeatedly amended its filings both before and after the election in response to FEC letters. That included filing several updated forms on Tuesday to denote previous large contributions that should have been reported in November, as well as amendments to several quarterly reports. The amendments did not touch on the $199.99 disbursements.

     

     

     

    33 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

    Change the threshold from $200 to like $50 and say it’s because of him. Every member and staffer will be pissed at him for 2 years. Maybe change it back once he’s out of office. 

    This is probably more common that just Santos. Maybe someone who works in/around The Hill can comment.

    But even when I was at Deloitte, you didn't need a receipt for anything under $50 so naturally every personal meal and everything was $40-49.99 range. That was common practice.

    • Fuck You 8
  2. On 1/25/2023 at 11:34 AM, 'stache said:

    Yes, although I've done more reading from more direct sources, not this article necessarily which I pulled up quickly on Google. I'm focused on the economics, not the sociology. His prediction was that people who not be required to work more than 15 hours a week, and could pursue other fulfilling activities without the stress of needing to work to meet bare minimum survivability standards. The number was probably off, but it was an economic thought experiment. It's not like the alternative is sitting around binging Netflix all day every day. I for one would pursue areas of interest that are not necessarily lucrative financially. And even recognizing wealth disparities in the past, his work was during an age where that was lessening, and instead it's turned back to upward redistribution. I doubt he would have ever predicted that people in the world's lone super power would be working 80 hours a week and still struggling to feed their families. 

    Interesting and topical read based off our conversation yesterday, I saw today:

    High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

    While most U.S. workers are putting in fewer hours, men in the top 10% of earners cut back their time on the job the most, according to a new study:

    https://www.wsj.com/articles/high-earning-men-are-cutting-back-on-their-working-hours-11674697563?

  3. 5 minutes ago, Captainant said:

    Eh, it's been building with the news releases over the weeks: railroads with record profits - after crushing a strike out of fears for their shareholders, MS laying off ten thousand and then partying in Davos while spending $10,000,000,000 on another company, businesses raising prices FAR beyond inflationary rates, etc etc etc. 

    Just sort of pointing out how the economy is very much haves and have nots. Growth and stability doesn't go to the people doing the work, it goes to the shareholders and STAYS in the shareholders. Growing wealth gap out front shoulda told ya

    Fair enough.

  4. 1 hour ago, C-Man said:


    It was a basic story, yes, but I still loved it. Gleason and Farrell have an insanely alluring on-screen camraderie and I’ll watch them do anything together.

    I’ve never seen In Bruges (which I think has them both?) by the same director but was pleasantly surprised to see this director did 3 billboards which was one of the best movies of the last decade in my book.

  5. I can’t quantify this, but it feels like Elvis has suffered from “famous musician biopic fatigue”, post-Rami’s Mercury and Rocketman (and even Weird Al and Pam and Tommy to a lesser extent). Not boring well for Amy Winehouse in FY24.

  6. 4 hours ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

     

    Having a really good QB like Burrow or Hurts on a rookie deal is so clutch. Jamar Chase, Tee Higgins, Devonta Smith also on cheap deals. Allows you to load up everywhere else on the roster.

    Cowboys are locked into mediocrity. Yay.

    We all belabored this point when we said you can't give Dak a big deal. You have to do one of the binary things: Draft a QB who is awesome and win or pay an elite QB who is awesome to win. You can't pay a guy like Dak and win because the money needed to buy the elite talent at other positions is then gone.

    As you've said, we made our bed.

  7. On 1/23/2023 at 5:06 PM, wild_turkey said:

    I watched this over the weekend and was somewhat disappointed. Great acting, beautifully shot with great scenery, and some dark humor at times.

    The plot was pretty one dimensional and felt entirely pointless. One absurdly depressing character dragging others down into his despair. I was waiting for redemption that never came. If there’s a deeper message, I missed it.

     

    1 hour ago, mchookem said:

    this was close to my reaction. i didn't know anything about the movie, halfway thru i was thinking/feeling 'this isn't just depressing, it's pretty basic!'

    it wasn't until after when i was trying to figure out why it was getting so much critical buzz that i started thinking there had to be more, some sort of political/historical allegory subtext that i whiffed on bc i don't know shit about Irish history. 

    i'll probably rewatch it at some point now that i 'get it'... but i'm not sure that movies that require homework are my favorites 🤔🙃

    I can see where you are coming from, but ultimately I disagree and I liked it.

    The movie felt like an adaption of a play. Maybe it was because I had just watched and fawned over the Coen Brotheradaption of MacBeth, starring Gleeson as King Duncan, or maybe it was because the movie had strong "Waiting for Godot" vibes (which, Beckett was an Irish playwright, after all), but it was undeniably crisp, beautifully shot, scored, and acted.

    Ultimately it's a story about a 1923 Irishman's mid-life crisis and wrestling with his life. It's "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" but before having to be on your deathbed to contemplate a life well-lived and the use of one's scarce energy, time and resources to leave your mark. It's about a very flawed, pride-filled/egotistical (confessed as much to the father) man who isn't all that special or uniquely talented or smart. In that sense a lot of us can relate; I know I can, at least.

    I think the self-mutilation was a little lot much and drove it to the absurdism, but it also reflected the despairs and the mental illness that was probably just as prevalant but undisclosed or discussed in 1923 Ireland.

    What am I missing about Barry Keoghan's acting that was superb and masterful? He played a young abused man with some mental slowness well enough, but for me it was Colin Ferrell who was the MVP. His character demanded more of him by struggling through a broader range of emotions and mindsets and Ferrell killed it.

     

    • Hook 'Em 4
  8. 1 hour ago, 'stache said:

    Yes, although I've done more reading from more direct sources, not this article necessarily which I pulled up quickly on Google. I'm focused on the economics, not the sociology. His prediction was that people who not be required to work more than 15 hours a week, and could pursue other fulfilling activities without the stress of needing to work to meet bare minimum survivability standards. The number was probably off, but it was an economic thought experiment. It's not like the alternative is sitting around binging Netflix all day every day. I for one would pursue areas of interest that are not necessarily lucrative financially. And even recognizing wealth disparities in the past, his work was during an age where that was lessening, and instead it's turned back to upward redistribution. I doubt he would have ever predicted that people in the world's lone super power would be working 80 hours a week and still struggling to feed their families. 

    Interesting read on the topic from NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/21/business/dealbook/demographic-crisis.html

     

    Today’s 5-year-olds have it even better than you think.

    In the wealthiest nations, more than half of these tykes will live to at least 100, the Stanford Center on Longevity expects.

    But a society full of centenarians poses a profound challenge for the world’s advanced economies and many of its companies: How do you adapt to an older world and pay for the inevitable pension time bomb ticking in the background as this super-ager cohort approaches retirement age?

    As the Stanford center puts it: “The 100-year life is here. We’re not ready.”

    The real-world effect of the worries about the long-life paradox were on full display this week: In France, nationwide strikes and protests brought the country to a standstill at the government’s deeply unpopular attempt to reform pension rules; in China, authorities reported that the population was falling for the first time in six decades; and at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, business leaders and policymakers grappled with the consequences of this demographic conundrum.

    The ticking time bomb

    In France (life expectancy: 82), workers and students took to the streets to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s push to overhaul the pension system and raise the minimum retirement age to 64 from 62 by 2030, an attempt to tame the country’s ballooning social welfare costs. (In the United States, where the life expectancy is 77, the typical retirement age is 67, but workers as young as 62 can begin collecting Social Security benefits.)

    France spends just over 14 percent of its GDP on pensions, one of the highest rates among the group of rich countries that comprise the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. “We need to work more,” Macron said in a New Year’s address, to “pass on to our children a fair and durable social model, because it will be credible and financed in the long term.”

    The situation is more grim in China (life expectancy: 78), which is confronting a shrinking population. One reason: It costs more to raise a child in parts of China than it does in the United States, a reality that’s pushing families and professional women to choose not to have children (despite a number of government inducements to get them to do so). The not-too-distant impact: a shortage of workers could imperil economic growth and torpedo Beijing’s ability to raise sufficient funding through taxation of the younger, working population to support the biggest population of pensioners on the planet.

    and

    At the World Economic Forum, organizers tried their best to change the gloomy Malthusian narrative about aging. Talk of time bombs or a “silver tsunami” were out, replaced by high-level discussions on what the forum calls the “longevity economy.” A central theme: If we’re expected to live longer, we’re going to have to adjust some life goals and work longer, too.

  9. 1 minute ago, 'stache said:

    Yes, although I've done more reading from more direct sources, not this article necessarily which I pulled up quickly on Google. I'm focused on the economics, not the sociology. His prediction was that people who not be required to work more than 15 hours a week, and could pursue other fulfilling activities without the stress of needing to work to meet bare minimum survivability standards. The number was probably off, but it was an economic thought experiment. It's not like the alternative is sitting around binging Netflix all day every day. I for one would pursue areas of interest that are not necessarily lucrative financially. And even recognizing wealth disparities in the past, his work was during an age where that was lessening, and instead it's turned back to upward redistribution. I doubt he would have ever predicted that people in the world's lone super power would be working 80 hours a week and still struggling to feed their families. 

    Probably, because as yourself stated, he wasn't looking at the entire problem in a holistic way (which is to say, economics + sociology/psychology). Talking about anything number driven (economics, data modeling, forecasting) without adding in the human judgment impacts is a worthless exercise in my opinion.

    Your article does a good job of going into the drivers of why people still work their fingers to the bone, the various advances in technology, products and qualities, as well as the innate brokenness of human beings that amplifies greed and selfishness and self-satisfaction. IMO.

  10. 2 hours ago, Celery Man said:

    I applied to a place the Friday before Thanksgiving, and they immediately responded (evening) asking me to schedule a meeting on their calendar which only extended into the next week. Which was Thanksgiving. I told them I was traveling out of state with little kids and could try and find a block but the next week would be better, they responded on Monday saying no problem, but then never responded again when I asked for a new calendar link that had options for the following week. No big deal because… it was mostly a whim and it was probably not a good fit, but I’m not sure if they’re chaotic or if they felt that not interviewing while on family vacation was a red flag. Lol.

    Probably more to do with 200,000 really talented, impressive resume'd folks are on the street right now who are hungry and desperate and the competition is as fierce as it has been in a long time. 

    I do wonder if the inflated salaries, perks and equity days are over for a long while or if this is just a blip. I can't imagine being able to get to an offer stage and being able to materially negotiate as a lot of people will take offers as is to get insurance, pay bills, etc.

  11. And since this might be a catchall thread for Google, there is a discussion to be had that is more existential to Google's existence than a small layoff. The DOJ trying to dismantle them and unwind some of the M&A that made them a monopoly. From the DOJ's suing them and their complaint:

    Competition in the ad tech space is broken, for reasons that were neither accidental nor inevitable. One industry behemoth, Google, has corrupted legitimate competition in the ad tech industry by engaging in a systematic campaign to seize control of the wide swath of high-tech tools used by publishers, advertisers, and brokers, to facilitate digital advertising. Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies.

    Google’s plan has been simple but effective: (1) neutralize or eliminate ad tech competitors, actual or potential, through a series of acquisitions; and (2) wield its dominance across digital advertising markets to force more publishers and advertisers to use its products while disrupting their ability to use competing products effectively. Whenever Google’s customers and competitors responded with innovation that threatened Google’s stranglehold over any one of these ad tech tools, Google’s anticompetitive response has been swift and effective. Each time a threat has emerged, Google has used its market power in one or more of these ad tech tools to quash the threat. The result: Google’s plan for durable, industry-wide dominance has succeeded…

    By deploying opaque rules that benefit itself and harm rivals, Google has wielded its power across the ad tech industry to dictate how digital advertising is sold, and the very terms on which its rivals can compete. Google abuses its monopoly power to disadvantage website publishers and advertisers who dare to use competing ad tech products in a search for higher quality, or lower cost, matches. Google uses its dominion over digital advertising technology to funnel more transactions to its own ad tech products where it extracts inflated fees to line its own pockets at the expense of the advertisers and publishers it purportedly serves.

  12. 2 minutes ago, immamac said:

    This is exactly what is happening. When growth slows in a down cycle and you are a behemoth making fuck loads of money you hire to keep anyone from ever competing or innovating again. What is happening here is a bunch of activist investors getting involved with companies that are public wanting them to hit some metrics they have defined even though they don't know shit about tech. 

    Right now these companies aren't growing because they lack innovation and they are entirely stagnant with their product set and consumers are not looking to spend money for the sake of spending money anymore. 

    Look at Apple and their move to their own silicon. Brilliant then they plateau hard because the big difference was actually moving to ARM and putting your own shit on the SOC not because Apple actually knows how to do silicon. Now the M2 is iterative at best and no one gives a shit about slightly better. They didn't fix any of the x86_64 compatibility outside of their hokey ass emulation and that would have been a huge win. Apple does a lot of things right but they really fucked this one up for the long term success. Betting that you are better at silicon than Intel is a big fucking bet. 

    I see this as a terrific opportunity for people to start innovative companies and get acquired really quickly relative to normal time and/or for a challenger to really go after the giant even harder while their guard is down. 

    100% agree with the bold and I think it's been proven time and time again that recessions/bear-markets birth a lot of the unicorns and eventual winners in their categories years later. The founder of Okta's interview years ago has stuck with me in that way where he credited to being started in 2008-2009 recession as the only reason they were successful. I'll have to find it and post it for entertainment sake if anyone is into getting their jollies by reading about this kind of stuff like I am.

    That said, I think there is a lot of shareholder value to be had at some of these big techs and activist investors are right to buy a material % of the business and advocate for change (and thus enriching themselves when the price goes up). Salesforce has something like 4 activist investors right now. Disney is fending off one, and will probably end up winning that one. GE just divested, Honeywell divested before due to activism and has been better for it. The list goes on. 

    An interesting one to watch right now is Gutuam Adani getting pestered by the same activist investors who blew the whistle on Nikola (EVs) who got their CEO in criminal trouble.

  13. 5 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    Growth for growth's sake is ridiculous. Judging everything by GDP is equally ridiculous. If there are enough people to make a country successful, why do we need more? Population growth since the advent of modern medicine is fine, but ultimately unsustainable. We're also not an agrarian society anymore, you don't need 8 kids to help work the farm. With respect to automation, John Maynard Keyes speculated that we'd all work 15 hour work weeks and live comfortable lives with plenty of time for leisure. Of course he failed to account for greed and that the people at the top would rake in all of the profits from automation and tell everyone else to fuck off, and certainly could not have predicted that people would be so utterly stupid in the future that they would vote for people promoting this upward redistribution of wealth. Our species has failed.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/sep/01/economics

    I assume you read the article you posted, but this seems pretty spot-on, even if it's 15 years old (truth is timeless, after all), which implies that working a 15 hour week or semi-retirement hours is probably not fulfilling to human beings:

    Quote

     

    One possible explanation is that many of us actually enjoy work, despite what we say to pollsters and to each other. To be sure, work can be boring, repetitive or exhausting, but it is also an arena where people get pleasure out of their achievements and enjoy mixing with other people.

    Gary Becker says Keynes based his predictions on the behaviour of the rich gentry of Britain, who tended to hold their wealth in the form of land, property or financial assets. When the value of these assets rose, they could earn the same income by working less hard. Wealth creation in the modern world, by contrast, has more to do with the use of human capital, and there is a price - lower earnings - when that human capital is left idle. Becker says that rich individuals in the Gulf states, who live off revenues from oil, are the only group that conforms to Keynes's ideal of a 15-hour working week. Imported labourers, who do not share in the oil wealth, work much longer hours.

     

     

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