Yesterday there were multiple major ‘glitches’ on the New York Stock Exchange, United Airlines, Wall Street Journal and one more place that no one knew about. Everyone involved kept saying that it was just a coincidence. Tell it to the marines.
Today it was revealed that anonymous sent out a cryptic threat the night before the NYSE went down for hours – “Wonder if tomorrow is going to be bad for Wall Street…. we can only hope.”
United Airlines briefly grounded all of its flights due to a system-wide failure and what went relatively unreported was a power outage in Washington DC affecting some 2500 people.
One glitch we could buy. Maybe even two. But four? Let’s wait a few days and see what emerges. We bet that someone is responsible for this. The bigger threat of course is that all the water and electrical systems are run by computers. If those go down… Let’s just say all those people who have stockpiles of emergency food, water and cash will be sitting pretty.
Sunday, July 12 is the drop-dead date for Greece. Somehow we have heard that story before. Aside from trying to broker a deal, Europe is also making contingency plans for a ‘black scenario’ where Greece leaves the EU. They will do so with no money and virtually no infrastructure to start their economic engine.
The banks have been shut down for more than a week and ATM machines empty. Small businesses have begun issuing parallel scrip currencies to cope with the liquidity squeeze.
Without any fresh injection of emergency funds, Greece is set to default on a €4.2bn payment to the European Central Bank in 12 days, putting it on the inexorable path of issuing an alternative currency and a chaotic eurozone exit.
If the EU does give Greece money, we venture a guess that nothing will change because one cannot change the mindset of people. It will take at least one generation to do that. The Greeks are set in their ‘we deserve’ mode of living. We say let em go and let the chips fall were they may.
If you went to university to get a degree to be, say a social worker, you are most likely eking out a meager living. Now, had you gone to electrician school and then got a job with Hydro Quebec, you would be making a bundle of money.
Some hardworking employees of Hydro Quebec managed to more than double their salaries by doing overtime last year. It seems that ten Hydro workers pulled in overtime and resulting bonuses topping $100,000 in 2014.
The worker doing the most hours pushed his salary from its base of $71,000 annually to $188,000.
Maybe it’s time to think about going back to school…
Donald Trump is certainly adding some much needed spice to the long, long, long and rather boring US election campaign. We watched some of his more ‘interesting’ press conferences and the first thing we noticed is that he does the ‘comb over’. You know when men are losing their hair and comb it from the very back all the way to the front. Not a pretty sight. But we digress.
Here are a three of Trump’s more quotable quotes. After you read the last one you may agree that Trump could use a filter.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.
It’s freezing and snowing in New York. We need global warming.
We saved the best for last. We caution you to hold on to something when you read this: Black guys counting my money? I hate it. The only guys I want counting my money are little short guys wearing yarmulkas all day.
Despite bikers riding around with the confederate flag draped around them, South Carolina is removing the confederate flag from the state capital grounds. After a long, drawn out session in the House of Representatives, a vote was finally taken at 1:00 am. Our fear? There are many nutcases out there who may do something very nasty once this bill actually comes to fruition. They can take down the flag but they can’t take what the flag represents out of the people. We would suggest staying away from London for the next few days. There is a total strike of their ‘tube’ aka subway system. Chaos is the operative word. The mayor of London, Boris Johnson gave an interview in his bicycle helmet. We are not sure if people knew this was coming or were taken by surprise. Either way, the hordes of people waiting for buses is causing fights in the streets. Nasty.
If you happen to be in Oregon any time soon and decide to fly within the state you can now take some weed with you on the plane. Just don’t fly out of Oregon with it or you’ll get nailed. Well maybe not in Colorado. Chill dude…
Good Shabbos We’ll talk…