Cryptocurrency, Teslas and an endorsement of Uber
According to Dennis Kelleher (president and CEO of Better Markets) in a world based on facts the events of 2022 would have been the end of cryptocurrency and here’s a quote from him about that:
“The only reason 2022 wasn’t the end of crypto is because of the access and influence crypto has bought on a bipartisan basis.”
And if you’re wondering just what Better Markets is (and I did) here’s what they have to say about themselves: “Better Markets is a non-profit, non-partisan, and independent organization working to build a more secure financial system for all Americans.”
Now here’s what Kelleher was talking about:
According to the internet which never, ever provides inaccurate information; in the last election Sam Bankman-Fired (which may or may not be a typo) and other employees of FTX contributed $71.5 million to campaigns and political action committees and individuals associated with FTX companies donated at least $44.2 million to Democrats and at least $23.7 million to Republicans because if you bet on both sides one of them has to win and then you’re theoretically safe because those politicians you bought off will cover for you.
Now here’s an article from early December about some members of Congress who sent a letter to the Chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission criticizing the SEC’s investigation of cryptocurrency firms, calling it a waste of time and essentially asking the SEC to back off.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/09/crypto-scandal-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-00073178
Unfortunately for Sam, a lot of politicians are so sleazy that an honest politician is a politician who accepts a bribe and then stays bribed; a dishonest politician is one who takes your money and then stabs you in the back anyway. And now that the spotlight is on them, the dishonest politicians might be willing to burn Sam Bankman-Fried at the stake if that’s what it takes to keep their jobs.
As the cartoon suggests; the value of cryptocurrency depends on people believing cryptocurrency has value and all it takes is one smartass kid (or the collapse of a cryptocurrency exchange) to point out that a lot of people are walking around with their asses hanging out.
According to a Washington Post column that eventually made it into the Kansas City Star after spending nine hours at a charging station, Tesla stock took a nosedive in part because stockholders worried that Elon Musk has been distracted by what now seems to be his main concern, ruining Twitter.
The column’s author – Megan McArdle, who I briefly and mistakenly believed was married to Prince Harry – said maybe Musk was seduced by the fallacy that if you’re successful in one area it means you’re probably good at everything else, too.
And if you want evidence of that I’m-probably-good-at-everything fallacy you don’t have to look any further (and/or farther) than sports franchise owners who think running a successful shipping company also means you know how to run the New York Yankees.
According to a book called Lords of the Realm, as a group, over the years the brilliant business people who owned baseball teams opposed in no particular order: radio, TV, lights for night games and the selling of team paraphernalia.
OK, so now we’re off track and we need to get back to Elon Musk and Tesla and Twitter and I depict him not paying attention and getting in a head-on collision with a Twitter telephone pole while Tesla was on Autopilot.
Which is an apt metaphor because here’s a story from June of 2022 that says Teslas on Autopilot had been involved in 273 crashes over the previous year and accounted for nearly 70 percent of the driver-assistance systems crashes and a self-driving Tesla was just involved in crash on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge and just in case you’re not already cynical, the following article says Tesla vehicles have been found to shut off the Autopilot about one second before impact.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/15/tesla-autopilot-crashes/
And why would the Autopilot system be programmed to do that?
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued an order requiring car manufacturers to disclose crashes where the system was in use within 30 seconds of the crash, partially because they’re worried that car manufacturers will hide crashes by claiming their system wasn’t in use at the time of impact.
After a record 972 votes (and you might want to double-check that number because I just made it up) Kevin McCarthy became House speaker, but did it by compromising his principles (which might erroneously assume he has some) by making concessions to a small group of Far Right Wingnuts and election deniers.
A Republican consultant said after his compromises McCarthy was now “incredibly weakened” and feel free to speculate just how far McCarthy will go to keep the Wingnuts happy.
Why I’m not drawing about Biden and the classified documents
Joe Biden got caught with classified documents he wasn’t supposed to have and I read three stories about and all three went to the trouble to point out that Biden’s situation was totally different than Donald Trump’s, but if I were a Trump fan I’d be thinking this was yet another example of media bias and I’m not 100 percent sure those Trump fans are wrong.
If I was back home I’d definitely be drawing about it and maybe making that exact point, but I’m not home, I’m in LA and here’s the latest on that.
After I finally made it to LA despite the best efforts of a Clueless Diabetic, I went to the rental car company to pick up the KIA I’d reserved – a car the approximate size of a skateboard, but with less horsepower – and the rental agency said they had run out of cars and nobody explains that situation better than Jerry Seinfeld:
Instead of the smallest car they had, I was offered a Dodge Ram pickup which I accepted because the other option seemed to be waiting for them to get a new shipment of cars from Korea and initially I was impressed and thought I got a good deal because the Ram pickup was large enough to land helicopters on, a favorable impression that changed quickly once I tried to park it.
Also…
Traffic here is a fucking nightmare and I had a long list of places I thought I might go, but then you realize going anywhere is a pretty much a day-long proposition and you’re going to spend most of that day sitting in a car, staring at someone’s tail lights so the aircraft carrier the rental agency gave me has spent most of the week, sitting in a Santa Monica parking lot.
Live and learn…and what have we learned today?
Cryptocurrency might not be the most solid bet you could make, maybe you don’t want to use Tesla’s Autopilot system and if you’re coming to Los Angeles, Uber.