Icahn and Trump are well known for expressing their feelings and opinions without filters.
Bravo? They are not politically correct and that is what their voters wanted, right?
It is obvious for people in the know to see what attracts them to each other. They are both single-mindedly focused on their own profit. They are both honest about it and have a devil make care attitude. They are completely unapologetic about any trails of victims they may leave in their wake. They are bullies and they are honest about it. If they can get away with something they not only will try the practically must try. They love the “Game of Business.” Trump promised to get rid of lobbyists and by golly he sure seems to keep his promise. Instead of having lobbyists who want who appeal to Congress to create lenient laws that allow for more profit for the 1%. They indeed get rid of the lobbyists and replace them with the 1%. What a practical idea. The Trump voters must be so very pleased. Trump is keeping his promise to drain the swamp of middle men. The swamp of government is now honestly run by and for the corporations and venture capital firms and banks, and the 1% who have paid for everything anyway. The honesty that Trump brings to government is laudable indeed. No more pretense. Just making sure that the hyper-wealthy get what they need and want more efficiently and faster than ever.
Just one thought. We know that these old men don’t care about the future because in the future they are most likely dead. They are old and they will die and this is one last fling before they go. But what about the 40, 30, 20, 10 year olds in the world?
A world that run by people who lack humanity typically erodes healthy middle class. The old men may not care, but without a middle class you have no stability. If we look at countries who lost their middle class we are always looking at war. Trump wants to spend a $1 Trillion dollars on improving the nuclear arsenal – without even getting intelligence briefings. We wonder what Mnuchin, Gingrich, Tillerson, and Icahn think about that? We hope to find out soon what vision these creators of the new gilded age have in mind for the US and the world. Hopefully they have a vision that goes beyond their own bank accounts.
Hillary Clinton is gone and many agree that her loss was due to due to a confluence of factors and successful efforts to sabotage her campaign. People just didn’t like her very much. The FBI didn’t like her, Putin didn’t like her, the Public didn’t like her, even Democrats didn’t like her, her campaign staff fought about her, and the media certainly didn’t like her. She was a hard worker, but people didn’t warm up to her. The warmed up to Trump. They were amused by Trump. No one was amused by Hillary, not even SNL. Her portrayal was often nasty and a bit weird. Trump’s portrayal was that of an all familiar American Uncle, reminiscent of Rob Reiner’s politically incorrect TV dad in the show “All in the Family.”
Not many people really know Hillary as she keeps very private and opens up to very few people, many of whom are also intensely private. The acclaimed and award-winning Investigative Reporter for the New York Times and The Washington Post, Ronald Kessler, sheds light on how she how Hillary Clinton was perceived by the service details who spent much time with her. It could explain why the Secret Service seemed so adamant that she ought not be president unless it was unavoidable: Why the West was Lost – First Family Detail
Whatever we may think about Trump at least he is honest about being corrupt. Maybe that is a step forward? Or, perhaps we will have Trump, the politically incorrect man and his politically incorrect friends run the country into the ground – honestly.
Huffington Post now committed to attracts Fox News audiences.
Huffington Post under Verizon Board’s management now targets media toward Fox News Audiences
Today the Huffington Post had a live Facebook interview with Linda McMahon of Worldwide Wrestling Fame. It seems confusing to people who used to think that the Huffington Post was a “liberal” media that reported on culture and politics. It greatly delighted the new audiences of “Winners who are making America Great Again” through their vote for the Trump administration. This pivot toward the middle class and investors and the Democratic Party mistakenly calls the working class is understandable when you read AOL’s mission. Code the company is all about code – measuring audiences, gaining audiences, redirecting audiences and undoubtedly listening in to audiences every move. The CEO of Verizon was in charge of NSA’s largest listening program. Naturally, the number of people must expand, and the editorial has to be low brow indeed.
But why is that confusing? If you keep up with the news, AOL purchased the Huffington Post years ago for $350,000,000 dollars. Currently AOL serves 500,000,000 people globally. AOL’s mission, according to their website, is:
"We live in a time when culture defines code and code defines culture. Code is about the evolution of technology, the natural force of human ingenuity that moves culture forward. Culture is about the content experiences that make technology meaningful, enhancing our lives both online and off. Culture + Code is our North Star — the philosophy that guides the way we organize, run and grow our business."
AOL has always been part of the world in which ethics don’t necessarily mean as much as earnings. AOL started as a services provider that overcharged people. They still owe me close to $700 that were deducted from my Bank Account automatically. I only could stop the monthly theft them by closing the Bank Account, back in 1996.
Then later they fancied themselves a “Unicorn” and “bought Time Inc.” during a time when every other media company paid millions for small tech companies, like AOL. AOL purchased Time Inc. for $162 Billion, but allowed them to keep their name and their board of directors, and most of their managers. Only one of my very good techie media friends and I thought it was funny when they fell for that brilliant Time Inc. move. Most people were very impressed. Needless to say, my funny friend and I, thought it was equally funny when AOL was spun out again from the company they had “bought.”
Their first success was more a matter of being at the right place at the right time and squeezing money out of their customers with vastly overpriced product offerings and illegally taking money that was not theirs. I still want my close to $700 dollars back, that AOL deducted from my bank account for several months after I cancelled their overpriced service.
After they were spun out from Time Inc. they went through a lot of reiterations and finally were led by a very good CEO, Tim Armstrong. Before joining the “Cable Business and Telecom” Industry he used to be a formidable media / new media guy. Tim spent almost a decade at Google, where he served as President of Google’s Americas Operations and Senior Vice President of Google Inc. as well as serving on the company’s global operating committee. Tim started in his career by co-founding a newspaper in Boston, MA before moving into the Internet industry, where he has worked as a team member, investor or co-founder at many companies, including Starwave (sold to Disney / ESPN / ABC Internet Ventures), Snowball (IPO), Associated Content (sold to Yahoo), and Patch (sold to AOL). Tim has also been an active investor in the start-up community, both on and offline.
Tim Armstrong is smart, hard-working and has vision. Living in the world where he is undoubtedly in a bit of a creative straight jacket, reporting to military, telecom and “healthcare” executives must be hard sometimes. He is channeling his “good man” energies by supporting an amazing amount of causes. He works with a Charter school, the United States Olympic & Paralympic Foundation, IAB Education Foundation, and more. Tim was honored by the Ad Council with their 60th Annual Public Service Award in 2013. The past few years must have challenged him, despite the amazing financial success he brought to his investors. Buy-outs are always challenging.
He reported to a board that consisted a few old media execs and large corporate advertisers (Knight Ridder and PepsiCo, etc.) and of Eve Burton, a lawyer who grew her chops at Hearst Corporations and perhaps more importantly at a legal firm called Weil, which has extensive experience working with international media and entertainment companies and investors in transactions as diverse as mergers and acquisitions and related financings, cross-border transactions, spin-offs, IPOs, intellectual property licensing and counseling, royalty, debt and equity offerings, and restructurings. Their experience encompasses all areas of global media, publishing and telecommunications in matters of industry-wide significance. Their media and entertainment transactional practice involves particularly close collaboration among our M&A and Private Equity, Capital Markets and Technology & IP Transactions practices.
Essentially Weil attorneys are a team of globally connected mercenaries who wrote the book on Restructuring, Chapter 11, Buy Outs, with an army 1100 lawyers strong and an alumni group that stretches into 150 government agencies, financial sector, etc. Weil is an amazingly knowledgeable firm that helps private equity investors make the most of their money and assists families keep their money while dancing knowledgeably around the laws, often having their Alumni’s create the laws. Ms. Burton surely had a lot to do with the sale to Verizon since Weil advised Verizon on the $4.4 billion dollar buy-out. What ana amazing return of investment. Under Tim Armstrong’s leadership AOL grew quite a bit. Weil also has a prominent white-collar defense unit.
In 2012 the rest of the board of AOL consisted of actual media executives and officers in large corporations who were typically very large advertisers. Now he reports to a telecom based intelligence firm.
Down the Rabbit Hole we go.
Verizon is run by an ex Naval Officer, Lowell C. McAdam, who most likely oversaw the creation of one of the most in-depth surveillance program for the NSA, initially at Pacific Telesis under the Bush Administration, and eventually via AirTouch, under the Obama Administration. Other members of the board include:
Karl-Ludwig Kley, a German Industrialist, who held leading positions at Merck, E-On, Deutsche Bank, Bertelsmann, and now Lufthansa. Martha Francis Keeth, an attorney who was previously employed as Independent Director by Peabody Energy Corp., Executive Vice President-Chemicals by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, President & Chief Executive Officer by Shell Chemicals Ltd., President & Chief Executive Officer by Shell Chemicals LP, and Chief Accounting Officer & Controller by Mobil Corp.
Shelley Archambeau is Chief Executive Officer of MetricStream, Inc., a leading provider of governance, risk, compliance and quality management solutions to corporations across diverse industries. Prior to joining MetricStream in 2002, Ms. Archambeau served as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Sales for Loudcloud, Inc., Blockbuster, and IBM. Interestingly Loudcloud is told to have been the server provider for the initial NSA surveillance program.
Mr. Mark Bertolini is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Aetna Inc., a Fortune 100 diversified healthcare benefits company. Prior to assuming the role of Aetna’s CEO in 2010 and Chairman in 2011, Mr. Bertolini served as President from 2007, responsible for all of Aetna’s businesses and operations across the company’s range of healthcare products and related services, and as Executive Vice President and head of Aetna’s regional businesses before that. He joined Aetna in 2003 as head of Aetna’s Specialty Products after holding executive positions at Cigna, NYLCare Health Plans and SelectCare, Inc.
Mr. Carrión has served for over 20 years as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Popular, Inc., a diversified bank holding company. He also served as a director of NYNEX Corporation, one of Verizon’s predecessor companies, from 1995 to 1997. Mr. Carrión provides our Board with financial, operational and strategic expertise developed during his long tenure as Chairman and CEO of Popular, Inc. This experience, combined with his board service at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 2008 to 2016, also provides our Board with deep risk management expertise.
Verizon’s Executives are teaming with members of GSMA an organization that specializes in “intelligence” gathered about Mobile Customers around the globe. Data Driven content will play a relatively minor part of the new Bot, AI, and machine learning world. From now on AOL will be all about the Code that holds, influences and tracks a global audience – legally.
So good-bye Huffington Post,and hello “Brave New World” Aldous Huxley Style.
President Vladimir V. Putin and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said they would proceed with a natural-gas pipeline under the Black Sea. Credit Emrah Gurel/Associated Press
Both Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan have had recent troubles with Washington. Putin has been accused of war crimes in Syria for killing hundreds of civilians. Erdogan is killing Kurds and escalating the conflict, whereas the US is relying on Syrian Kurds to stem the Isis tide.
On December 19, 2016 the Russian Ambassador, Andrei Karlov, was shot and killed as he gave a speech at an embassy-sponsored exhibit in Ankara. Eye-witnesses were reported to have heard eight shots. The gunman shouted out: ‘‘Don’t forget Aleppo, don’t forget Syria!’’ referring to the Syrian city where Russian bombardments have helped drive rebels from areas they had occupied for years during the war. He also shouted ‘‘Allahu akbar,’’ the Arabic phrase for ‘‘God is great’’ and continued in Arabic: ‘‘We are the descendants of those who supported the Prophet Muhammad, for jihad.’’ The attacker also smashed several of the framed photos hung for the exhibition and an additional three people were injured during the attack.
‘We consider this to have been a terrorist attack,’’ Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. ‘‘Terrorism will not pass. We will fight it decisively.’’
The attack comes a day before a meeting of Russian, Turkish and Iranian foreign and defense ministers in Moscow to discuss Syria. Russia and Iran have backed Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout the nearly six-year conflict, while Turkey has supported Assad’s foes. The Kremlin suggested Turkey, Russia and Iran should come together for a solution, initially over Aleppo, but which could also be enlarged to include other parts of Syria, Reuters quoted a Turkish official as saying.
Melih Gokcek, the mayor for Ankara, told reporters outside the exhibition center that the ‘‘heinous’’ attack aimed to disrupt newly-re-established relations between Turkey and Russia.
Presidents Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan have co-sponsored the evacuation of civilians and rebels from Aleppo and also discussed the prospect of organizing a new round of peace talks in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana. Now this incident threatens to derail the evacuations of civilians from Aleppo.
The last time a diplomat was killed in Turkey was in an attack in 1971. Israel’s consul-general to Istanbul, Efraim Elrom. Until recently Turkey has been considered a relatively safe place for diplomats. This streak has been broken after the assassination of Ambassador Karlov, however, in view of the fact that the Erdogan administration is entirely dependent on Russian energy, relations will continue among the governments. Recent instability in Turkey and the fact that it is dangerous to be there has severely curtailed the tourist trade. Revenue from tourism fell by 32.7 percent to $8.28 billion in the third quarter of the year.
Despite the death of the Russian’ Diplomate we expect Putin to continue to guide Erdogan’s foreign policy.
Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has been characterized as increasingly undemocratic marked by attacks on freedom of expression. Despite outlawing competitive political parties, and a declining economy, he seems popular among the rural undereducated Turks. Turkey will stay in close collaboration with Russia for many years to come, despite their “hot-headed” relationship. Erdo?an is completely dependent on Russia for natural gas. Over the past 30 years the imports of natural gas from Russia into Turkey have nearly doubled. After Germany, Turkey is Russia’s second-largest natural gas client in Europe.
Gas imports into Turkey, Natural Gas World
According to Natural Gas World: “After the European Union’s stance about competition on Russia and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Russia declared its intention to diversify its demand route by creating a new direct pipeline that runs through Turkish territory. The construction of the Turkish Stream pipeline was first discussed between Gazprom and BOTAS in December 2014. With an annual capacity of 63 billion m3, this pipeline will replace the South Stream, since the construction was suspended over the European Union’s stance about competition. According to initial plans, the Turkish Stream will extend from Russia, through Turkey and stop at the Greek border, giving Russia access to the southern European market. 14 billion m3 natural gas was planned to be consumed in Turkey.” (full article)
Putin and Abe meet about Japan / Russia Relationships
Japan and Russia’s world leader meeting promises to foster close European-Asian economic and cultural ties.
Putin announces in a press release through his TASS new agency that the meeting Abe was a great success:
“Russia and Japan signed more than 60 various deals in which Japan will invest over $2.5 billion during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to the country, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported citing a senior Japanese government official. Abe said he and Putin had agreed the two countries have “unlimited opportunities for development of relations in all areas in case of common effort.”
The talks between the officials reiterated their commitment to continue discussions about economic cooperation on the four Kuril islands that both countries claim. However Russia will still call the shots. According to Peter Shelakhaev, the head of the Russian Far East Investment and Export Agency, Japan is expected to pay taxes and fees for any money earned on the four islands that are in dispute since the end of the war.
After World War II in 1945 Russia seized four Japanese islands as they call it the “spoils of war.” Japan has tried to have these islands returned ever since then. Now Abe and several of his Russia-Japan Relations experts have decided that after 60 years of occupation it is time to accept reality with a new perspective.
Nobuo Shimotomai, Russia-Japan expert at Hosei University in Tokyo, recommended: “Getting the four islands back was a Cold War slogan for the Japanese, but after 60 years, we need a new approach towards Moscow. It could be some kind of shared sovereignty.”
Trans-Siberian Railroad courtesy Daily Mail (full article)
Economic, Scientific and Cultural ties will be supported by the Trans-Siberian Railroad
The Japan Times informs that the areas of cooperation between Russia and Japan will include the fields of the countries’ health ministries in the fields of medicine and health care; expanded cooperation on development and production in the energy sector, including oil and gas; cooperation on the peaceful use of nuclear power; cooperation in promoting diversity and raising productivity in Russian industry; cooperation in promoting industry in the Russian Far East and turning it into a base for exports to the Asia-Pacific; Cooperation in the fields of information and communications and postal services; Enhanced cooperation in agriculture and fisheries; Cooperation between the countries’ patent offices on industrial property rights; and hygiene standards for Russian livestock farms exporting products to Japan. (full article)
This is one of the most expansive cooperation between Russia and Japan since the 19th Century. One of the most life changing and culturally interesting developments is that Russia agreed to expand the Trans-Siberian Railroad to Japan. If both countries follow through, these new agreements will usher a new historic era that will impact the world economy and political landscape for many decades to come.
