So I tried to explain the GameStop situation to some of my students using Pokémon. And I think what I said is mostly true so I figured I would share here (A thread)
#GameStop

Sources : This author has been continuously maintaining that the Brahminical hegemonic forces are surrounding Tamil Nadu from all sides and they are seeking revenge for Periyar’s social justice.

One Sridhar Vembhu, @svembu is the CEO of Zoho Corporation. He is 1/n

High Net Worth individual. He is the founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation. According to Forbes, he is the 59th richest Indian in the world with a net worth of US$2.5 billion as of 2020

Vembu runs the in-house Zoho University, which provides training to students who have 2/n

completed 12th grade and have certain math and tech skills.
Vembu has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Princeton and started his career at Qualcomm in 1994. Zoho is building a new 375-acre campus in Austin, Texas, which will also house its Zoho University. 3/n

Recently, he announced the release of a new Messaging App called “Arattai” and said this is an alternate to WhatsApp.

Vembhu owns a palatial house in Pleasanton California. With such huge money and wealth, the said Vembhu is purchased 4 acres land in Mathalamparai, Tenkasi under the guise of improving villages. In an interview to Forbes India, the said Vembhu had this to say 5/n

#irrationalebullience If you want to understand the nature of this asset bubble and the epic capital mis-allocation at it’s heart, look no further than rates. CB’s only tool to push an uber-levered financial system that is highly interconnected through derivatives
(1/N)

away from it’s natural convergence path towards collapse is to create opposing forces to push it towards divergence. Meaning: force, through financial repression, market participants to rely on price continuation, in a way that makes it self-fulfilling.
(2/N)

The tool used is rates as it is the basis off of which all other financial assets are priced. Today any buyer of $UST across the curve up to 30Y is guaranteed a loss given reals are negative throughout. So the only hope of escaping this GUARANTEED loss
(3/N)

is to angle for capital gains, i.e a continuous move downwards in real rates to push for some capital gains in real terms. The longer the financial repression lasts, the further investors are pushed out the maturity and credit risk curves.
(4/N)

Here are examples to understand what exactly is happening. If an investors buys a 5 Y UST he is guaranteed to lose almost 2% in real terms, so making that up in capital gains is much harder given the v short duration.
(5/N)

2018 was almost the year we won the #RightToRepair.

Instead, 2018 turned out to be the year we lost #R2R: 20 bills defeated in 20 state houses, and it was mostly @apple's fault.

1/

Apple has a problem. As CEO Tim Cook warned his investors at the conclusion of his company's repair-killing lobbying spree, Apple's profits depend on people throwing away their devices, not fixing them.

By monopolizing repairs, Apple doesn't just get to gouge you on parts and service - the real action is in pronouncing your device DOA, beyond repair. Then you have to buy another one.

3/

Other companies lobbied hard against R2R: John Deere, GM, and other monopolists backed Apple's play. But Apple wrote the playbook, coming up with risible bullshit like claims that blocking independent repair is essential to protecting

Apple's anti-repair FUD got picked up and amplified by Big Car in 2020, when they spent millions fighting an automotive R2R ballot initiative in Massachusetts, claiming that letting independent mechanics at your car would lead to your actual MURDER.

Thread:
An explosive new criminal complaint against Martin Inacker, the former CEO of @wpmeurocom in #Germany shows Inacker potentially double crossing his #Saudi clients by colluding with #Qatar to cover up Doha's #Hezbullah's sponsorship in exchange for hush money.

According to the complaint, Inacker had kept the terms of his initial agreement with the #Saudi Ministry of Information (following his work with the Saudi Embassy in Berlin) secret from @wmpeurocom 's Board of Directors.

He had used unethical methods to promote a hyperbolized, if not outright mendacious, brochure that was supposed to improve the image of #KSA and the royal family. He had promised a list of high level political and business context to the Saudis as part of his business.

A strategy paper developed by Inacker was leaked to the papers showing unethical, and possibly illegal pressure on ten journalists to switch their "tone" on #KSA as a result of Inacker's lobbying efforts.

However, despite throwing these journalists under the bus, by his own admission Inacker did not appear to have succeeded in pressuring them to "switch their tone". This shows Inacker's duplicity: 1) he lied to his Saudi clients about his alleged success.

"Small deals rely on promises and contracts. Big deals rely on alignment and trust."

@naval