I printed the four in the first row and the green Christmas tree in the back. I created these with the Dremel 3D45 printer. The tall snowman was quite a project. It has 17 printed parts. Happy Holidays to all.
It’s All About Attitude
All six books now have updated covers and all are now available in Kindle, Paperback, and Hardcover formats. Three are available in audible including the newest: Reflection Attitude: Past, Current, and Future. The narration was done by Mr. Hal Maas. He has the perfect voice for the attitude books. If you would like to do a brief review of one of the three audible versions (Health Attitude, Election Attitude, or Reflection Attitude), I still have a few promo codes to offer a free Audible copy. No signup required. If you are interested, just drop me a note at [email protected]. The Audible version of Robot Attitude is completed and is in final audio review at Audible. I expect it to become available for sale by end of the month.
Ukraine
President Zelensky made a daring trip to the U.S. by train to Poland and then non-stop on a U.S. Air Force plane to Joint Base Andrews and from there to the White House. It must have been a long ten-hour visit and then back to the war zone.
Zelensky made it clear he is in the fight to win and for the long haul. Axios did some excellent reporting on the visit and shared some great quotes. “Your money is not charity,” he said. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.” “The Russians will stand a chance to be free only when they defeat the Kremlin in their minds. Yet, the battle continues and we have to defeat the Kremlin on the battlefield.” “Brave American soldiers held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944. Brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin’s forces this Christmas.”
His contrast with Putin is clear in so many ways including his attire of olive-drab sweater and cargo pants.
Crypto
Axios’ Dan Primack interviewed Brian Armstrong, co-founder and CEO of Coinbase this week. Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S.
Primack asked if the crypto industry in an existential crisis? Armstrong said, “No, not existential. It basically has a black eye, because it’s attracted its unfair share of scammer[s] and fraudulent people over the years. Some of it was just bad management, if you look at something like [collapsed Bitcoin exchange] Mt. Gox.”
Armstrong further said, “But with FTX, it appears to be actual fraud. But that’s not representative of the entire industry, and crypto isn’t going anywhere. It’s just like Bernie Madoff or someone like that in the traditional financing system — it’s frustrating and makes everyone look more closely at everything.”
Referring to SBF, Armstrong said, “That’s one of the frustrating things — that sometimes the people who are the most attention-seeking, or flamboyant, get too much of the attention. But for every one of those [100+ crypto] companies, there’s so many doing good work — heads down computer science. They’re nerds, so they’re not the most outgoing people.
With regard to regulation, he said, “I think we’re going to have to see Congress pass new legislation that forces clarity so [the SEC and CFTC] stop having a turf battle.” As I have been saying. Coinbase released a blueprint on how a regulatory framework can be established. You can read it here.
I like one of Armstrong’s final comments. “I hope that FTX is a catalyst — just like after Enron we saw Sarbanes-Oxley, and after the 2008 financial crisis we saw Dodd-Frank.” I am optimistic. Disclosure: I am an investor in Coinbase.
Wall Street
You can’t win. Weak economic numbers beget recession fears and strong numbers beget Fed fears
The market is in a tizzy about inflation, interest rates, various economic indicators. GAMMAT stocks down to $6.7 trillion. Tesla under a lot of pressure. One analyst thinks it will drop 80% after it has already dropped 60% this year. I think investors should stop looking at Twitter and Tweets and look at what Tesla is doing. They plan another dozen gigafactories and delivering millions of EVs. Tesla market share will drop for sure but the pie is going to get much bigger. Delivering its first electric semi is a big deal in my opinion. A lot of controversy about the Cybertruck. I may be wrong but I think it will be successful. Congress is doing a lot of talking about big tech regulation but has done nothing. One thing Congress is good at is getting out of town for the holidays.
