Political Regime Change in Washington Pours Kerosene on an Inflation Fire
Jan 06, 2021 | News
politics
On Dec. 17, we wrote to you with the following headline: “The Stars are Aligning for Inflation’s Grand Return — and Bitcoin’s Dominance as an Inflation Hedge.” Bitcoin was trading around $23,000 at that time. A few weeks later, it is up more than 52% (pushing $35,000 as we write this note). Perhaps needless to say, the TradeSmith Decoder portfolio…
The Fate of Jack Ma, and Alibaba’s Reversal of Fortune, is a Warning for the U.S. Tech Giants
Jan 05, 2021 | News
Imagine the U.S. government deciding that a visionary entrepreneur like Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk was too rich and too outspoken. Then imagine Bezos or Musk being kidnapped — and completely removed from the public eye — even as the government openly and aggressively put their tech empire under siege. This is apparently happening to Jack Ma, the e-commerce visionary…
Apple is Still Serious About an Apple Car
Dec 23, 2020 | News
Apple still wants to disrupt the electric vehicle (EV) industry, and it could have some form of EV in production as soon as 2024. This comes from a Reuters scoop, as told to Reuters by an inside source. No matter how you slice it, Apple getting into the EV space would be a seriously big deal. Nor would they be…
The Solarwinds Hack Looks Increasingly Like an Act of War
Dec 22, 2020 | News
The Solarwinds hack that broke into U.S. government agencies, along with hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, is increasingly looking like an “act of war” per various sources in the U.S. government and Congress. “It’s pretty hard to distinguish this from an act of aggression that rises to the level of an attack that qualifies as war,” Sen. Chris Coons of…
A Super-Contagious New COVID-19 Strain Overshadows Stimulus Success
Dec 21, 2020 | News
Republicans and Democrats finally got their act together and came to agreement on a $900 billion stimulus effort for struggling Americans and small businesses. Congress is rushing to finalize the bill alongside a last-minute effort to fund the U.S. government for the remainder of the fiscal year. There were compromises galore, and many were disappointed with various aspects of the…
One of the Biggest Hacks in History Puts the U.S. and Russia on a Collision Course
Dec 15, 2020 | News
Russian government hackers broke America’s cybersecurity defenses. They got into high-level departments like the U.S. Treasury and the Department of Commerce. They may have infiltrated hundreds of Fortune 500 companies, along with other sensitive areas both public and private. They may have accessed email accounts and who knows what else. Worse yet, the breach may have gone undetected for nine…
The Federal Trade Commission and 46 States Threw the Book at Facebook (and Missed)
Dec 11, 2020 | News
On Wednesday, Dec. 9, another tech juggernaut weathered a firestorm in the form of two major lawsuits. In October, as we explained on Oct. 22, the Department of Justice (DOJ) went after Google in one of the biggest trust-busting actions in decades. But the case appeared weak, and the share price of Alphabet, Google’s parent, shrugged off the news and…
The Week the Pandemic Started to End — as the Depths of Covid Winter Begin
Dec 10, 2020 | News
“But soft, what vaccine through yonder needle jabs?” The second person in the U.K. to officially receive the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine was an 81-year-old man named William Shakespeare. He didn’t say those words, but he should have. There is a long way to go, and darkness dead ahead. For the United States, the worst is yet to come in terms…
Uber is Giving Up Self-Driving Cars (and Flying Ones, Too)
Dec 09, 2020 | News
For Travis Kalanick, the prior CEO of Uber, self-driving cars were an inevitable destiny. For Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s current CEO, they are an expensive distraction to get rid of. Uber has a five-year-old self-driving car unit known as Advanced Technologies Group (ATG). The unit has roughly 1,200 employees, many of them in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (a self-driving mecca due to the…
Hydrogen is Finally Getting Past the Hindenburg
Dec 07, 2020 | News
Is hydrogen the fuel of the future? There are deep-pocketed players who believe so, and national governments are providing the carrot-and-stick incentives to potentially make it happen. For hydrogen to take off in the 2020s, it will have to overcome a dark past. The Hindenburg disaster of 1937 was one of the most famous aviation accidents of all time, and…
