In my honest opinion, there have been few times in history where a book that was turned into a film actually panned out. It’s usually because screenwriters responsible for said terrible movies turned a blind eye to what’s happened in the past, rather than using the past to inform the present and make better decisions. Perhaps it would serve those individuals well to develop a habit where, at the culmination of each week, they review the events that took place and work on changing it up. After that clever introduction, let’s have another round of our world-famous “weekly recap.”
Mueller, What’s The Update?
For what seems like ages now, special counsel Robert Mueller has spent every drop of time in his day to investigate President Trump and the possibility that he colluded with Russia to help him secure the presidency during the 2016 presidential election. Over the weekend, legendary journalist Carl Bernstein informed the press that he was given the word that Mueller’s report, once released, will indicate that President Trump helped Russia destabilize the United States.
“This is about the most serious counter-intelligence people we have in the U.S. government saying, ‘oh, my God, the president’s words and actions lead us to conclude that somehow he has become a witting, unwitting, or half-witting pawn, certainly in some regard, to Vladimir Putin. From a point of view of strength…rather, he has done what appears to be Putin’s goals. He has helped Putin destabilize the United States and interfere in the election, no matter whether it was purposeful or not…and that is part of what the draft of Mueller’s report is to be about…”
–Carl Bernstein
A Serious Problem
Drug addiction is anything but comical, and when a person uses an excessive amount of any substance, it can be fatal. I bring this up, not because I don’t believe this isn’t common knowledge, but because of the overdose epidemic facing the United States. According to reports, on Sunday, one person died and four are in critical condition after a mass drug overdose in Chico, California.
“Upon arrival, Chico police officers found multiple individuals in what appeared to be life-threatening, overdose conditions. Officers began to both administer CPR and also naloxone to those individuals. Every indication is that this mass overdose was caused by the ingestion of some form of fentanyl in combination with another substance. That is yet to be confirmed, but we do anticipate confirmation in the coming days.”
–Chico Police Chief Michael O’Brien
It’s Electric!
According to recent statistics released by InsideEVs, nearly one million electric vehicles have been sold in the US since December 2010 through the end of September 2018. The report projects there will be 18.7 million electric vehicles driving on US roads in the next ten to twelve years. The original plan was for the auto industry to hit one million EVs by 2015, but I believe its fair to say that former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump have different perspectives on the future of our planet’s climate and what it means to be ‘energy efficient.’ This concept is clear when we consider the fact that Trump was so distraught with the loss of 14,000 automotive jobs that he threatened the entire automotive sector by taking away their precious electric vehicle subsidy.
Trump has worked very hard to cement the United States as “the world’s largest crude oil producer” and according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 140.43 billion gallons gasoline are used in America, alone, each year. If automakers and consumers receive incentives for opting towards electric vehicles, this will undoubtedly have an effect on the revenue streams of global oil producers, ultimately resulting in an unhappy President Trump.
Despite President Trump’s attempt to squander any potential moves by automakers that would otherwise disrupt the global crude market, automotive manufacturers have continued to research and put in motion plans for producing the next generation of electric vehicles. One such company, Volkswagen, announced on Monday that it will spend $800 million to expand their Chattanooga, Tennessee location to ramp up production on their line of electric vehicles. Considering that VW was accused of that whole emissions cheating scandal a couple years back, it makes sense that the Company is trying to earn back a favorable public opinion.
“The expansion of the plant will create up to 1,000 new jobs plus additional jobs at suppliers. The first electric car from Chattanooga is to roll off the production line in 2022. Over the next few years, eight MEB plants are to be developed in Europe, North America, and China. Volkswagen is building up the production capacity needed to sell more than 1 million electric cars per year by 2025.”
–VW corporate announcement regarding electric vehicles
Pacific Gas & Arson
Towards the end of last month, investigators had determined that Pacific Gas & Electric, California’s largest public utility was the key suspect in causing the Camp Fire in Butte County, which claimed the lives of at least 86 people, and destroyed 14,000 homes, 500 businesses, and 4,300 other buildings according to CNN. Several media outlets reported that PG&E reported “an outage” on one of their transmission lines located in the area where the fire began, a fact that the company somehow convinced us not to look into. At the time of the investigation in December, fire officials had yet to determine whether PG&E was responsible. Consequently, as many of us know that when playing with, or causing, fires, sometimes one can suffer from serious burns, be they physical or metaphorical. In the wake of the fires, victims of the California wildfires filed claims against PG&E, totaling upwards of $7 billion in punitive damages. As the state’s largest utility, the Company announced on Monday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to alleviate some of their recent debt pressures, pay all those affected by the fires, and remain in business because, you know, Californians still need gas and electricity…
In a press release regarding PG&E’s announcement, representatives from the Company assured customers that business operations would continue as usual.
“…the Company does not expect any impact to electric or natural gas service for its customers as a result of the Chapter 11 process. PG&E remains committed to assisting the communities affected by wildfires in Northern California, and its restoration and rebuilding efforts will continue. The Company also expects that its employees will continue to receive their pay and healthcare benefits as usual.”
–PG&E statement on the bankruptcy filing
Trust Your Census
As if perfectly timed with my opinions above, significant controversy has been increasing surrounding the ongoing trial over the US Commerce Department’s decision to reintroduce a question about citizenship in the 2020 census. Critics of the attempted decision have insisted that reinstatement of the question will warrant inaccurate census data, given the sheer amount of noncitizen living in the United States, ultimately furthering our country’s issue with fairly representing all peoples. Regardless of one’s opinion on the matter, a federal judge in New York blocked the Trump administration’s proposal to reintroduce the controversial census question. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman, the man responsible for rejecting the proposed question, said that “hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people will go uncounted in the census if the citizenship question is included. In arriving at his decision as he did, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated the law and the public trust.”
“…By its terms, therefore, the Constitution mandates that every ten years the federal government endeavor count every single person residing in the United States, whether citizen or noncitizen, whether live here with legal status or without. The population count derived from that effort is used not only to apportion Representatives among the states but also to draw political districts and allocate power within them. And it is used to allocate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal, state, and local funds…Even small deviations from an accurate count can have major implications for states, localities, and the people who live in them — indeed, for the country as a whole.”
–Opinion by U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman
Be A Leader, Not An Instagram Follower
For one reason or another, companies that make both programs also create millions of fake accounts that users, who purchase said service, will gain the following of after they’ve used one of these apps/services. This practice is severely frowned upon in the world of social influence, and most platforms like Facebook (FB), Instagram, and Twitter (TWTR) have banned users for purchasing fake followers to boost the influence of their accounts. In an interesting turn of events, a recent TechCrunch investigation revealed that Instagram hypocritically continues to sell ad space to services that charge clients for fake followers or other apps that automatically follow/unfollow other people to increase followers for the client.
Per the official details of the investigation, TechCrunch found “17 services selling fake followers or automated notification spam for luring in followers that were openly advertising on Instagram despite blatantly violating the network’s policies.” The findings of the report continued to suggest that the companies responsible for displaying these ads on Instagram’s (FB) platform were well aware that their actions were in direct violation of Instagram’s policies, and they even went so far as to justify their spam generation.
“What we’re doing is obviously against their terms of service. We’re going in and piggybacking off their free platform and not giving them any of the revenue. Instagram doesn’t like us at all. We utilize private proxies depending on clients’ geographic location. That’s sort of our trick to reduce any sort of liability. It’s a careful line that we tread with Instagram.”
–Gun Hudson, Founder, Macurex
Find The Nearest Emergency Brexit
After countless months of negotiating the deal between the European Union and the UK Parliament, Theresa May suffered the largest legislative defeat any prime minister has suffered in modern British History, according to Vox. While May is still in the groveling stages of her failure, several political analysts have pointed out that the Brexit deal was destined to be rejected from the very beginning. The terms on which Conservative Brexiteers wanted to leave the EU were far too intense for any EU negotiator to even remotely consider. Imagine a couple going through a divorce, let’s say Jeff Bezos and his wife, and Bezos proposes to his wife’s legal counsel that she doesn’t actually need billions of dollars to be happy, both Mackenzie and her lawyers would think Jeff had gone off his rocker. This was the sentiment felt by EU negotiators throughout the entirety of the Brexit process.
With her pride and literal job on the line, Prime Minister May managed to survive a “no-confidence” vote in Parliament on Wednesday following her Brexit defeat one day earlier. According to several sources, May won by a margin of 325 to 306, meaning that her fellow UK government colleagues still believe that, despite Brexit’s failure, she is still fit to hold her position as Prime Minister, at least for the time being. Following her defeat, May promised to consult MPs on any edits she plans on making for Brexit 2.0, in hopes of making the deal more palatable for Parliament’s taste.
Wait, That’s Actually Really Chill
In perhaps the first noble move for the Trump administration since the government shutdown first started several weeks ago, President Donald Trump signed a bill providing back pay to federal employees affected by the shutdown on Wednesday, according to CNN. The law, referred to as the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019, which the White House said “requires the compensation of government employees for wages lost, work performed, or leave used during a lapse in appropriation that begins on or after December 22, 2018,” is a kind gesture, but the fact is these workers still won’t receive these payments until after the shutdown. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees have no way to pay their bills because of the shutdown, and while this piece of legislation is a step in the right direction, reopening the government would be much simpler and already has bipartisan support in Congress.
Google Watch Is In Full Effect
In the years following the introduction of wearable devices, companies across the tech industry have championed products designed to allow consumers to track their heart rate, send text messages, and even navigate around whatever city they may find themselves in. One such company, Google has yet to enter the wearable space, but rumors about a Pixel Watch have whispered in the wind for quite some time now. Today, the world’s search engine turned rumors into facts as it announced plans to purchase smartwatch technology from Fossil Group for $40 million. As part of the transaction, per the official press release, a portion of Fossil Group’s research and development team currently supporting the transferring IP will join Google.
“Fossil Group has experienced significant success in its wearable business by focusing on product design and development informed by our strong understanding of consumers’ needs and style preferences. We’ve built and advanced a technology that has the potential to improve upon our existing platform of smartwatches. Together with Google, our innovation partner, we’ll continue to unlock growth in wearables.”
–Greg McKelvey, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy and Digital Officer, Fossil Group
Yeah, He Went There
Say what you wish about President Donald Trump, but you have to admit, the man has got some serious moxey. Less than twenty-four Horus after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that Trump should reconsider delivering his upcoming State Of The Union later this month, Trump clapped back with the force of Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir.
“Dear Madame Speaker,
Due to the shutdown, I am sorry to inform you that your trip to Brussels, Egypt, and Afghanistan have been postponed. We will reschedule this seven=day excursion when the shutdown is over. In light of 800,000 great American workers not receiving pay, I am sure you would agree that postponing this public relations event is totally appropriate. I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the shutdown. Obviously, if you would like to make your journey by flying commercial, that would certainly be your prerogative…”
-President Donald Trump
Looking Forward
With the government still very much shut down, President Trump has gone so far as to punish members from the Democratic leadership to prove how serious he is about receiving his funding for the wall. Though market volatility has been relatively stable, updates to the shutdown may adversely affect market conditions in the coming week.
