Power is egregiously concentrated in the hands of a few, and that’s never going to change.

Time is favoring the wicked. It’s the way of the world.

It took years and years (we started here 10 years ago) for a reclusive corner of the academic world to come to the conclusion I came to 10 years ago: that accounting and earnings fraud is pervasive in America and goes, for the most part, undetected.

From NYT”

Dyck is a professor of finance at the University of Toronto, who just published a provocative new study on the pervasiveness of corporate fraud. The study has been passed around in the world of academia in recent weeks, and has become a fascination among general counsels, corporate leaders and investors.

It suggests that only about a third of frauds in public companies actually come to light, and that fraud is disturbingly common. Dyck and his co-authors estimate that about 40 percent of companies are committing accounting violations and that 10 percent are committing what is considered securities fraud, destroying 1.6 percent of equity value each year — about $830 billion in 2021.

“What people don’t get is how widespread the problem of corporate fraud is,” Dyck said about his study, which was published in the Review of Accounting Studies this month.

Dealbook, January 14th, 2023

A professor from the University of Ontario did this study this month…It’s not about Sam Bankman-Fried…It’s about the hundreds of them out there no-one knows about…

The tech meltdown has just begun…hold on tight

People have asked me what do I make of the crypto downfall…Sequoia Capital marks down its crypto investment down to zero dollars it’s all part of life…what goes up, must come down.

Crypto heads have been emailing me non-stop…we’ve all on the akashic platform, people.

Sadhguru on the akashic records..

I will acknowledge, however, that the golden age of blogs and journals is behind us. That’s one of the reasons I incudes a video in most posts, whether directed related to the writing or not. Blogging is a losing business monetary wise, and those of us still writing are just happy to share our thoughts and discoveries with the world.

“First, to calculate the expected value of an investment don’t use the average (also called the arithmetic mean); use the geometric mean. The difference is simple, but powerful.

Imagine you have three investment options, each equally likely. They return 100%, 50% and 0%. The arithmetic mean/average/expected value is 50%: (100+50+0)/3. The geometric mean is 0%: cubic root of (100500). The Kelly criterion says don’t invest. Quite a different result.

Second, size your investment properly. Invest too much and bankruptcy looms. Bet too little, and your returns won’t amount to a pile of beans.

How do you calculate how much to bet? Kelly criterion says to bet more the greater your edge and the likelihood of success.

KC = W - (1-W)/R

KC = kelly criterion (the percentage of your balance sheet to invest) W = probability of winning R = win/loss ratio…”

Tom Tonguz

Professional venture capitalists use it…

Until next year,

You Man,

Max Cantor

When you have some spare time, I invite you to listen to this talk

“If you are going to be an expert archer,

You must shoot before you think.

Otherwise I’ll be too late.”

Alan Watts

Meanwhile, in investment banking… Steve McLaughlin of Financial Technology Partners LP is “comfortably the highest paid investment banker in America [WSJ, Dec. 5th, 2021]

In this book you learn language patterns and covert hypnosis.

Quick rules for field operators

“Drive emotion using fear, regret, sex, fulfillment and social acceptance.”

Always mimic breathing speed first.

Accidental body contact causes immediate, short-lived insecurity in just about everyone.”

The Ellipsis Manual

Deprogram society’s thoughts

“There’s a part of everyone, I guess, that just knows how to let go and enjoy.”

the ellipsis manual

Environmental shifts

“Changing your tie in the bathroom. Correcting a person you’ve just met on your name. Shifting which hand you eat with midway though a meal…Changing types of pens or notebooks in a meeting.

the ellipsis manual

Join hundreds of military veteran entrepreneurs and venture capitalists who are building the future at the Military Veteran Startup Conference hosted by Context Ventures on Fri. Feb 4th, 2022  in San Francisco, CA 

The book is written with the operative and subject instructions and has rich scenarios with Ericksonian hypnosis flavors and not coincidentally, is the Number 1 bestseller book on Amazon in the Hypnotherapy category in 2021.

Let’s look at some more thoughts on the subject: “I don’t believe there’s a reason for everything, and having faith doesn’t mean I’m blind. I believe people make poor choices. I believe bad things happen to good people. I believe there’s evil in the word that I will never understand, but will never stop fighting. – Tammara Webbe

Peter Kreeft says there are no good people: “That’s what’s so striking about the title of Kushner’s book: When Bad Things Happen to Good People. How is that fair? Well, the answer to that is that there are no good people.”

Nicola Yoon is getting closer:

“People just want to believe. Otherwise they would have to admit that life is just a random series of good and bad things that happen until one day you die. – Nicola Yoon

“Don’t Expect What Goes Around to Come Around. Total jerks and evil people often get all the good breaks. Being nice guarantees nothing. Good things happen to bad people. Sometimes, things just don’t “balance out” or “work out for the best.” – Paul Pearsall

Paul Pearsall hit a home run. Let me explain. I know, as do you, plenty of rotten people are not only wealthy, they live glamour lives: money and health galore. Yes, their dog and squirrel sometimes die and they cry out for their misfortune, but let’s face it, they’re like Tesla, their stock only goes up. You’re asking yourself: “Is their karma this f-ing good ? Is my karma this f-ing poor ?

Myself and the 19th Century mystic G.I. Gurdjieff are the only people who said that time does not exist.

Here’s what I do:

I shit on rich and powerful front lawn (hopefully, not literally). I stand up for the underdog. Not like fake underdogs (hello, Chamath Palihapitiya). Welcome to the only website in the world for the oppressed, underserved, unappreciated and unlucky.

I am Spartacus [hello, Grand-Father]

For the girls in our lives we have a video today:

In returning to the post-pandemic work schedule it seems that most top white collar professionals, the main audience of this blog are set for the hybrid, at-the-office and out-of-the-home, work schedule model. Of course, dentists and doctors aren’t able to do that. (although telemedicine is growing). But lawyers and other service workers are digressing.

This weekend WSJ’ article “”Lawyers Want to Bill More of their Hours From the Sofa” (Te Ching Chen) tell how lawyers are looking to cut down their office work hours.

“Ms. Koopersmisth [chairperson of Akin, Gump Staruss Haeur & Feld LLP] Akin Gump doesn’t expect laweyrs to go back to a traditional five-day office workweek. Instead it is offering flexibility on work location, and is asking its lawyers to spend the majority of time in the office starting next fall.

“We learned efficiency” says David Boies, chairman of Boies Schiller Flexer LLP, whose firm plans to require lawyers put in time at the office, but won’t mandate specific attendance requirements. And our clients have too.”

Now a major partner at legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, Ms. Fivel is brokering signing bonuses of up to $100,000 for associates who have the leverage to demand further perks, including the ability to work from the beach or the backyard. “This is a different word.”

WSJ, Aug 6, 2021

It is not just tech firms who have embraced the remote work model, but the legal profession also. Remote work is here to stay.

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