Author: Joel Gross

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/-roaring-kitty-sued-for-securities-fraud-over-gamestop-rise

A licensed security broker being sued for his involvement in a massive pump and dump scheme online. Strangely, the victims of this scheme still mostly defend him.

Is this power outage truly such a bad thing? It seems like a decision that the elected representatives of Texas have chosen to make. They basically said we would rather have much lower utility costs on a regular basis and have a risk that we lose our power every 9 or 10 years in a big storm.… read more “Texas Power Outages – A Conscious Decision By Texans?”

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26149754. Interesting thread and article on the huge amounts of fake reviews on Amazon. I have run into this as well. Most Amazon reviews are fake now. I prefer to buy from sites run by brands or manufacturers I trust instead and will avoid buying from Amazon unless I have no choice.

https://www.lynalden.com/economic-japanification/

I read recently that Governor Inslee was going to try to shut down some of Washington State’s hydro power dams. Washington state needs a lot MORE hydro power, not less. Hydroelectric power is probably the single cleanest source of power on the planet – oil and coal cause pollution that kills millions of people with lung cancer and other problems, solar is still pretty inefficient and requires lots of oil to produce, and people are afraid of nuclear waste (though it’s not a serious problem if you have political willpower to dispose of it properly).… read more “Washington State Needs More Hydro Power”

“Jon Rubinstein, a senior vice president for hardware engineering during Jobs’s second tour at Apple, recalls almost having a heart attack in 2005 when he went with Gou to see a new factory in Shenzhen for the iPod Nano—a tiny device 80% smaller than Apple’s original MP3 player—only to find an empty field. Within months, though, a large structure and production line were in place.… read more “Why America Lost It’s Manufacturing”

The bailouts are tragic as it undermines the natural garbage collection in democracy – bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is an incredible positive because it allows for the safe and sane dismantling of bad organizations.

The question is – how do we apply a mechanism like bankruptcy to government organizations?

Warning to all of my friends out there who may be interested in investing in the hot new investment category called SPACs. These are scams against the people who invest in them. Basically, here is how it ends up working:

1. Famous random person raises big money from investors in order to buy out an as yet unknown company.

https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article249126100.html