This is fascinating and a stroke of brilliance by the embattled record industry. With everything going digital, their millstone was being taken away, stolen in many cases. After years of toiling with iTunes and then assholes like Spotify and Pandora, finally, they figured out a way to reinvent the industry to spur record sales growth.
They went retro. Don’t give me the absurd rationale that vinyl records sound better. I don’t think so. But, like old leather bound books, there is something artistic and unique about having a vinyl record collection. It says something about a person. It’s an expression of individuality, as well as respect for history and the art of producing records.
Anyway, that’s my take. I’ve been collecting old leather bound books for years and have thought about collecting vinyls for sometime. Believe it or not, sales of vinyl records are on pace to break all time highs, the zenith of sales accomplished in the 80s.
“Vinyl is no longer the preserve of baby-boomers who grew up with the format. It now also appeals to a new generation of engaged younger fans and millennials,” said Geoff Taylor, Chief Executive of BPI, the representative body for UK record labels.
Figures produced by the BPI show that LP sales between January and March this year increased by over 60 percent from the same period last year.
Demand for LPs has continued to grow uninterrupted for the last 8 years, with sales now at their highest level since 1995.
If sales continue to grow at the same rate, demand for records could equal that seen in the late 1980s when vinyl was at its peak, the BPI said.
I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.
No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice.
On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.
A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined.
In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules” can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.
Let me ask America a question: How has the “system” been working out for you and your family?
I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.
No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice.
Responsible leaders should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide.
The only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.
Why should we trust the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for America’s will in this presidential election?
Mr. Cruz has toured the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado. For a man who styles himself as a warrior against the establishment (you wouldn’t know it from his list of donors and endorsers), you’d think he would be demanding a vote for Coloradans. Instead, Mr. Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.
Likewise, Mr. Cruz loudly boasts every time party insiders disenfranchise voters in a congressional district by appointing delegates who will vote the opposite of the expressed will of the people who live in that district.
That’s because Mr. Cruz has no democratic path to the nomination. He has been mathematically eliminated by the voters.
While I am self-funding, Mr. Cruz rakes in millions from special interests. Yet despite his financial advantage, Mr. Cruz has won only three primaries outside his home state and trails me by two million votes—a gap that will soon explode even wider. Mr. Cruz loses when people actually get to cast ballots. Voter disenfranchisement is not merely part of the Cruz strategy—it is the Cruz strategy.
The great irony of this campaign is that the “Washington cartel” that Mr. Cruz rails against is the very group he is relying upon in his voter-nullification scheme.
My campaign strategy is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.
What we are seeing now is not a proper use of the rules, but a flagrant abuse of the rules. Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is being rigged by party operatives with “double-agent” delegates who reject the decision of voters.
The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.
Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of the American people.
We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.
How have we gotten to the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?
Perhaps it is because politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing their country.
My campaign will, of course, battle for every last delegate. We will work within the system that exists now, while fighting to have it reformed in the future. But we will do it the right way. My campaign will seek maximum transparency, maximum representation and maximum voter participation.
We will run a campaign based on empowering voters, not sidelining them.
Let us take inspiration from patriotic Colorado citizens who have banded together in protest. Let us make Colorado a rallying cry on behalf of all the forgotten people whose desperate pleas have for decades fallen on the deaf ears and closed eyes of our rulers in Washington, D.C.
The political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs.
J. Grant, the only person in the media worth listening to with regard to the banks, repudiates the gov’t in this clip for being wanton assholes, extorting the banks and for being backward looking. His singular point is the government’s onerous position against the banks is cauterizing them, almost nationalizing them like our European comrades, which in turn is hurting the economy.
It was subtle, but he inferred the Chinese economy would slow down again– when asked if the Chinese economy would bottom at 6.7%. The chief China economist for JP Morgan, Haibin Zhu, is sanguine on these GDP numbers, which missed estimates of 6.8%. Once Chinese easing policies begin to wane, most likely in Q3 of 2016, GDP will begin to slow again. Moreover, he believes China will need to establish an American styled chapter 11 system to deal with the looming debt crisis.
He was impressed by the manufacturing numbers. Bottom line: take a shot each time he says “stabilization” and you will be drunk by the end of this video.
I’ve never seen such a disgraceful and humiliating IPO as the one purported upon the good people of America back in 2012.
In what can only be described as the single worst IPO in the history of the stock market, BATS Global tried to trade its stupid stock on their own stupid exchange, back in 2012, only to bear witness to the horror of it collapsing to virtually nothing at all within seconds.
Not only that, their exchange withered into dust on that fateful morning, taking stocks like AAPL with it. It was an unmitigated disaster. They were forced to cancel the trades, the IPO, and pray to their satanic idols that people would forget about this fuckery.
Guess what? Four years later, with a valuation more than double of what it was in 2012, the fuckers from BATS are going to whore their shares again for the explicit benefit of selling shareholders.
Yes, demand it strong. Yes, the IPO is being priced at the high end of the proposed range. And, yes, they upped the offering to appease rabidly hungry investors.
Zero dollars will go to the company. Why bother going public then? What sort of chicanery is at play here?
Bats Global Markets Inc. priced its initial public offering at the top end of its marketed range, valuing the company at $1.8 billion.
The deal raised $253 million after 13.3 million shares were sold for $19 each, compared with its estimated price range of $17 to $19, according to a statement Thursday. The share sale, which doesn’t include the underwriters’ option to purchase an additional 1.995 million shares, is the biggest U.S. listing so far this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Proceeds from the sale won’t go to the company, but will instead go to investors including Bank of America Corp., KCG Holdings Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Bats increased the deal’s size after demand for shares exceeded the 11.2 million originally offered by 20 times, a person familiar with the matter said.
Ah, good old Vampire Squid and the Confederates at BAC need to get liquid. I understand. Do you?
Engulfed with losses Ensco just filed a 50 million share offering, in an effort to stay alive and to take advantage of the lemmings who’ve bid the stock up in recent weeks.
During the Feb lows, ESV touched down in the 8’s. Smart money says that after diluting investors to this degree, raising $500 million on a market cap of $2.4 billion, it’s heading back there in short order.
Double pleasure. ESV earnings.
Operating revenues expected to be $812-817 million ($788 mln Capital IQ Consensus), benefiting from estimated reported utilization between 64% and 66%, as compared to the low-60% range in our first quarter 2016 outlook disclosed on our February 25, 2016 conference call, and average day rates that declined by approximately 3% to 4%, as compared to a 7% to 8% decline in our prior disclosed outlook.
Contract drilling expense is anticipated to be between $361 million and $366 million, as compared to our prior disclosed outlook of $385 million to $390 million.
Expected capital expenditures for the year ended December 31, 2016 has been revised to $400 million.
As of March 31, 2016, our total debt, cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments are expected to be $5.9 billion, $1.1 billion and $295 million, respectively.
I’ve gotten insight from industry professionals who’ve told me that today’s drop in the NASDAQ was ‘a bit too much to bear’. Moreover, and this goes without saying, there will be an avalanche of redemption requests following yet another arduous day in the markets.
Tragic tragedies abound.
At the forefront of today’s decline was retail, down an earth shattering 0.6%. The blood letting in big oil is just around the bend too, with that index up a paltry 0.15%.
Inside Exodus, the algorithms haven’t flagged oversold just yet. However, should we get another ‘blood in the streets’ day tomorrow, I will not question whether or not we will see one. I am certain of it.
As a teenager I interned at the NYC comptrollers office. During my career managing money, I’ve done business with pension funds and a relative of mine was the administrator for his union, whose job it was to oversee investments, many of which were tossed into fucked up hedge funds. I recall looking at his union’s investment performance, circa 2002, and it was dreadful-20-30% declines across the board.
When I was at the comptrollers office, they were very conservative, only investing the people’s money in bond fund and super conservative mutual funds.
Alas, 2008 hit them like a bag of bricks and they got scared. They ran to the hedge fund industry, who, incidentally, doesn’t hedge anymore, and invested billions–only to find out later that they were all drug addled morons.
NYC joins California in revoking their commitment to the lackluster hedge fund industry. This is the beginning of this trend, not the end.
The move by the fund, which had $51.2 billion in assets as of Jan. 31, follows a similar actions by the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers), the nation’s largest public pension fund, and public pensions in Illinois.
“Hedges have underperformed, costing us millions,” New York City’s Public Advocate Letitia James told board members in prepared remarks. “Let them sell their summer homes and jets, and return those fees to their investors.”
Luxor Capital Group, a long-time favorite with many pensions, lost an average 18.3 percent a year for the last two years.
New York city’s public pension system has five separate pension funds with individual governing structures. The system has total assets of $154 billion, with about $3 billion invested in hedge funds as of Jan. 31.
NYCERS had $1.7 billion invested in hedge funds at the end of the second quarter 2015, according to its financial report. That amounted to 2.8 percent of total assets and was the smallest portion of its ‘alternative investments’ portfolio, which included $8.1 billion in private equity.
Unaudited data from the city Comptroller’s office showed NYCERS’ hedge fund exposure was $1.4 billion as of Jan. 31.
Comptroller Scott Stringer, a trustee, said eliminating hedge funds would a help NYCERS construct a “responsible portfolio that meets our long-term investment objectives”.
NYCERS paid nearly $40 million in fees to hedge funds during its 2015 financial year, while its hedge fund portfolio returned 3.89 percent over the year, according to its financial report.
“Hedge funds are charging exorbitant fees for high-risk and opaque investments,” said James.
Public pensions started to invest heavily in hedge funds after the financial crisis in 2008-2009 to diversify their assets. A CEM Benchmarking survey of public pensions with a total of $2.4 trillion in assets found 5.2 percent of assets were invested in hedge funds in 2014, compared to 1 percent a decade earlier.
Poor hedge funders. How will they afford their $150 mill beach homes without tax payers dollars to slush around?
Regulators want to ban Elizabeth Holmes for 2 years for the sins she’s committed in the blood testing field. Her license to operate in California is under scrutiny and may be revoked. A giant storm has hit her shores and Bill George from Harvard is here to take away her safety vest.
Here are some of the reported bagholders for Theranos, whose valuation swelled to $10 billion in early 2015.
Other rumored investors include: BlueCross BlueShield Venture Partners, Continental Properties Co., Esoom Enterprise (Taiwan), Jupiter Partners, Palmieri Trust, Partner Fund Management, Dixon Doll, Ray Bingham and B.J. Cassin.
The new safety regulations proposed the Obama administration has made the House of Saud very happy indeed. It will cost American producers of oil billions of dollars, at a time when they could least afford it. This is the final checkmate in a game played very patiently by President Obama. The complete and utter destruction of energy independence is underway.
“What we’re worried about is how do we make the industry do what they’re putting on paper,” said Cheryl MacKenzie, a CSB investigator.
She said safety gaps could be filled by giving the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement — the offshore regulator — more power to “challenge companies and verify that they are doing what they said they would do.”
CSB also recommended getting workers more involved in safety decisions, for instance by letting workers elect worker representatives to be part of discussions over safety.
“These are the people who have their hands on the equipment,” MacKenzie said. “They need to be involved … This is not a CSB tenet, this is a well-known concept.”
The CSB report said there were lessons to learn from places like Norway and the United Kingdom.
In a statement, Vanessa Allen Sutherland, the CSB chairwoman, called on the industry and the federal government to take “a tripartite” approach where workers, companies and regulators are entwined in improving safety.
“Ultimately, this will require a culture shift for everyone,” Sutherland said.
Ken Arnold, an expert on offshore drilling and member of the National Academy of Engineering, said the industry, through an American Petroleum Institute committee, is looking at revising the industry’s safety standards. He said more oversight of contractors is being considered.
However, he questioned the practicality of some of the CSB’s recommendations.
For instance, he said U.S. offshore workers are not unionized and are “culturally anti-union.” He said it would be difficult to duplicate the safety regimes of Norway and the U.K.
“In the U.S. we have a system that is a blame culture,” he said. “Norway and the U.K. have a culture of working with industry to make things better rather than focus on who to blame. We have to work within the culture of the United States.”
Yes, indeed. We need to be like Europe and have all competitive advantages stripped from the playing field. God forbid the United States become energy independent, how would the House of Saud fund terrorist groups that force us into brainless wars?
