“Major gym chains are offering new classes where participants act like animals by getting down on all fours and imitating apes, donkeys, crabs and scorpions. Another teaches caveman calisthenics.”

WSJ, Jumping Like a Bunny Is America’s Wildest Fitness Trend, Mon, May 15th, 2023

According to PInterest Predicts 2023 report, primal movement is the fitness trend of the year.

WSJ

I guess paying attention later is better than never. I know this “trend” is here to stay in stark contrast to our fake, distorted and increasingly anti-masculine modern society.

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…

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.

“

Of course, Elon countersued

So, where is all going ? You can’t force food down anyone’s throat. I don’t see Twitter being able to enforce the buyout.

We’ll be watching more of Musk and Twitter, certainly.

The WSJ this weekend touched on these numbers: Pandemic Pet Boom has legs.

Spending on pets grew 19.3% to $123 Billion last year, a much faster pace than the 7.3% growth seen in 2019.

And the trend could be inflation-proof: Early indications show that people might be more inclined to trade down on their own food than their pets’ kibble.

WSJ, Jimjoo Lee

“While the pet category is still a growing pie, the fight for those dollars is as fierce as ever. Both Petco and Chewy are making investments in healthcare as a way to boost their dollar share with customers. Petco is remodeling stores to expand the footprint of hands-on services such as vet care and grooming. Chewy, which already runs a pharmacy business, recently announced it will launch a wellness and insurance business. Petco is expecting to increase its capital expenses by 25% this fiscal year, while Chewy is aiming to spend 40% more. BarkBox, which started by selling a monthly dog-toy subscription, is adding food and dental like pet toothpaste to its assortment to make its client base stickier.”

WSJ

I’m going to argue here that the following solo activities, as opposed to these popular, white-collar, “after-work” activities, are better. No, it’s not jogging or biking, although there is a time in your life when these activities are perfect. With time, jogging and cycling put a strain on your main joints, and depending on care, you may not be able to do them, or do them at a high performance level.

So what it is that get you moving at any age…100, 90, 80, 70, 60…even at 20 years young ?

1. Stretching in in various forms: calisthenics, gymnastics, yoga and Pilates. The yoga practiced in the West is a form of gymnastics consisting of passive and active stretching, fancy-packaged as yoga. Yoga is gymnastics for non-professional athletes. Another form of active stretching is dancing, where the music element is present. Why do you see so very few people in old age dancing ? Dancing eliminates age barriers.
2. Sailing. Sailing can be done in solo or in teams; maneuvering a sailboat is complex. It is alternating between action and rest…with plentiful of rest if you’re not in rough waters. So if you live near a body of water, give sailing a try (of course, after you’ve been properly trained). And you better know how to swim if you ever capsize. Hiking on water is a pretty difficult skill.
3. Gardening and fishing. Gardening and fishing are therapies for the mind. Some people with acreage go as far as animal farming. Taking care of animals, animal husbandry, is more complex than taking care of plants, especially decorative plants.

So here you have it: stretching (yoga, dancing), sailing and gardening/fishing.

You know that was coming, didn’t you ?

“Everyone wants a piece of the growing retail market.” – ExecSum

“Titan takes the professional services provided by hedge funds and offers them to anyone. They are filling the gap for retail traders that want an actively managed portfolio, but don’t have time to research and track their investments themselves.”

ExecSum

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with titan or ExecSum and make no particular representation or investment advice of any sort.

Video of the Week: The Most Powerful Exercise You are Not Probably Doing

From the Wall Street Journal:

“Charli D’Amelio, who started posting videos of herself dancing on TikTok in 2019, brought in $17.5 Million last year, according to Forbes…By comparison, median pay for chief executives of S&P 500 companies was $13.4 million in 2020. Ms. D’Amelio’s compensation was higher than several CEOs of big publicly traded companies, including Exxon Mobil’s CEO Darren Woods ($15.6 million in 2020), Starbucks’s Kevin Johnson ($14.7 MM), Delta Airlines’s Ed Bastian ($13.1 MM) and McDonald’s Chris Kempczinski’s ($10.8 MM).

Charli’s older sister, Dixie brought in $10 MM. That rivals the pay of Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly. “

Joseph Pisani, The Wall Street Journal

“They’re really building business empires”, said Mae Karwowski, CEO and Founder of influencer marketing agency Obviously.

“Analysts say brands find the millions of followers of TikTok stars irresistible. Their followers are obsessive.” said Krishna Subramanian, CEO and co-founder of social media data company Captiv8. He said TikTok influencers at times have stronger followings than fans of Hollywood stars.”

WSJ

We should ask these girls about NY Resolutions (we gave up resolutions years ago) and I’m sure they will sell us some of their products.

In remembrance of our roots, I’ve enclosed a link to Corporate Investor’s Official Guide to Aircraft Registration 2022. But our business now is far removed from business jets and aircraft.

We tackle a world upside down where everything is stacked up against the honest and hard-working man. When I talked about the fraudster Elizabeth Holmes four or five years ago, there were only unicorns in the tech jungle of Silicon Valley. Now there’re talking about “dragons”, private companies valued at $12 billion or more, net of capital raised. Axios The current U.S. dragons are: Stripe, SpaceX, Instacart, Epic Games, Databricks, Chime, Fanatics, Plaid, OpenSea, Miro and Grammarly. China has six, led by ByteDance. Dragons also are based in Australia, the Bahamas, India, Indonesia, The Bahamas and the U.K. [Axios]

I truly believe those fleeced nvestors who put money into Theranos did so to the extent they did because the Founder was female. The company lost most of the $945 MM it raised from investors when it dissolved amid regulatory probes and civil sanctions in 2018.

It’s all water under the water at this point. Look forward to more and egregious frauds coming out of Silicon Valley.