UK

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/13/crypto-exchange-binance-temporarily-halts-usdc-stablecoin-withdrawals.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-14/crypto-s-binance-seeks-to-reassure-over-reserves-says-debt-free?srnd=premium-europe

https://www.wsj.com/articles/inflations-cold-case-11670949172 Moreover, that gain was driven by an increase in shelter costs. These largely reflect rents, since the Labor Department measures homeowners’ housing costs by calculating what it would cost them to rent their homes. Lately rent prices have been cooling, with data from rental marketplace Apartment List showing them falling during each of the past three months, for example. But because the Labor Department’s rent measures reflect not just newly signed rents but existing leases, it is slow to pick up such shifts. So the Labor Department’s shelter-cost measure seems destined to slow in the months ahead—something of which the Fed is well aware. Exclude shelter costs and core prices fell by about 0.1% in each of the last two months. Those were the first declines since May 2020. Meanwhile, the combination of easing supply-chain problems, cooling consumer demand, weakness overseas and many retailers’ still too-high inventories should continue to put downward pressure on goods prices. And while there is some worry that rising labor costs could lead to protracted services inflation, services prices excluding rents have eased in each of the past two months. It isn’t a given that every inflation report in the months ahead will show such unambiguous signs of cooling as Tuesday’s, but inflation’s temperature will keep dropping all the same.

https://stratechery.com/2022/ai-homework/

Very bizarre indeed, maybe after everything what has happened or for some other reasons he/they do not care about how everything looks like to the world anymore.

A company I used to work for and me personally always used insurance brokers for reasons you described, but thar was like more than 10 years ago. Nowdays I just put some basic numbers in some brokers or agregators website or app and instantly receive up to 6 different offers. You could stop here, but ussualy I pick the lowest offer and go directly (to save some commision) to insurers website to make a final deal. I understand that insurer brokers still provides value for more complex products, but in case of auto insurance, at least in my countr, this business line seems like was very disrupted by internet.

Time to rewatch this movie: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-05/the-worst-of-europe-s-energy-crisis-isn-t-over-electricity-blackouts-loom The other is that although prices are lower than in July and August, they remain high enough to kill the manufacturing sector. When Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, many executives braced themselves for a six-week energy crisis; soon, they realized it would last at least six months. Now they fear it’s going to be six years. Last week, Thomas Schaefer, one of the most senior executives at Volkswagen AG, publicly said what many other business people and policy makers had only raised in private. “When it comes to the cost of electricity and gas, in particular, we are losing more and more ground,” he said, warning that unless prices fall quickly, investment in Europe will be “practically unviable.” The reality is: Energy prices remain extremely high, the continent is at the mercy of the weather, the cost of subsidies is rising at an unsustainable pace, and companies are warning of deindustrialization. Call me a pessimist, but it doesn’t sound like the worst is over to me. That’s because it isn’t.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraine-drone-warfare-russia-732jsshpx “We’re still using the same escalatory calculations but the fear of escalation has changed since the beginning,” a US defence source told The Times. “It’s different now. This is because the calculus of war has changed as a result of the suffering and brutality the Ukrainians are being subjected to by the Russians.” Washington is now less concerned that new long-range strikes inside Russia could lead to a dramatic escalation. Moscow’s revenge attacks have to date all involved conventional missile strikes against civilian targets. Previously, the Pentagon was warier of Ukraine attacking Russia because it feared the Kremlin would retaliate either with tactical nuclear weapons or by targeting neighbouring Nato nations. However, Washington does not want to be seen publicly giving the green light to Kyiv attacking Russian soil. Its position on Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia was defined this week by Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, who said: “We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia.” However, a US defence source said: “We’re not saying to Kyiv, ‘Don’t strike the Russians [in Russia or Crimea]’. We can’t tell them what to do. It’s up to them how they use their weapons. But when they use the weapons we have supplied, the only thing we insist on is that the Ukrainian military conform to the international laws of war and to the Geneva conventions. The drone Ukraine wants more than any other is the American MQ-1C Gray Eagle, which has a range of 250 miles, is armed with four Hellfire missiles or eight Stinger missiles, can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and is equipped with sophisticated reconnaissance systems. Eric Edelman, who was a top policy specialist at the Pentagon and worked with the state department as ambassador to Finland and Turkey, believes the delay in supplying such weapon systems is no longer sustainable. “The administration is excessively self-deterred by the prospect of an alleged escalatory spiral which is largely illusory,” he said. “The best thing for all concerned is for the Ukrainians to be able to win as quickly as possible. Hence it makes sense to give them ATACMS and Gray Eagles and help them to put together a package of main battle tanks as well.” The prospect of waves of Ukrainian drones heading towards Russian military bases raised concerns among the Russian military. “We are not in a position to effectively counter these drones,” an unnamed Russian soldier told the Volya Telegram channel. “There will be massive raids on air bases inside Russia, as well as on other military and infrastructure targets. In theory, they can even get to Moscow.” The British defence ministry said the Kremlin was likely to consider the drone attacks to be among Russia’s “most strategically significant failures” since the start of the war. “Psychologically, I think it strikes a blow,” a western official said. The attacks, together with setbacks on the battlefield, look certain to further undermine the Russian public’s support for the invasion. Only one in four Russians want their army to continue fighting in Ukraine, according to leaked Kremlin polls. State television has even discussed the prospect of Russia losing the war, warning of “catastrophic” consequences for the country if that happens. In public, Putin and other Kremlin officials continue to insist that their “special military operation” will be a success. Yet in private, the president and his henchmen are thought to have begun to make plans for an escape. “Putin’s entourage has not ruled out that he will lose the war, be stripped of power, and have to urgently evacuate somewhere,” Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter who is now a political analyst, wrote on Telegram. Citing an unnamed insider, Gallyamov said the Kremlin was considering Argentina or Venezuela as safe havens. Igor Sechin, a senior Putin ally, is thought to be overseeing the project, which is codenamed Noah’s Ark. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-09/putin-says-russia-may-add-nuclear-first-strike-to-strategy?srnd=davos Vladimir Putin said Russia may consider formally adding the possibility of a preventive nuclear first strike to disarm an opponent to its military doctrine, just days after warning that the risk of atomic war is rising. “We’re thinking about this,” the Russian president told reporters after a summit in Kyrgyzstan. “If we are talking about a disarming strike, perhaps we should think about using the approaches of our American partners,” he said, citing what he called US strategies to use high-accuracy missiles for a preventive strike.

I agree with this, still looks fun and impressive for me. I watched some video were it was producing some working code, just from simple words. Now I can really imagine myself beeing able "to code" in the future:). I hope and expect Google is well awere of this and maybe in possesion of something even more exciting.

I finaly managed to sign up and try it a little (now not working again), thanks god it answered that it can not pick shares or offer investment advise:))), and that financial analysis is still to hard for it to do, so sofar I feel safe:))). It explained perfectly for me, why people love cats more than wild boars and who Kaizer Soze is:). Then I asked my wife to test it with some serious mathematical/statistical questions (language of birds for me) and she said its quick answers were really good and would be helpful at her work! So while I find a lot of fun with it, it also seems that it could be realy helpful in some cases.

I understand there are natural tensions, but what specific risks are you seeing, especially from UMG point of view? SPOT is great and largest service, UMG cooperates with them and I believe even owns some shares, but there are other distributors and some new players are emerging (Tiktok). Labels could still do well with or without one of them, but no major distributor could do well without labels or even one of them, becouse conumers expect all music to be available. So I think the balance of power is obvious, and distributors could also still grow and do well enought under current arangement?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-says-western-allies-shouldnt-fear-russia-falling-apart-11670505120?mod=hp_lead_pos7 Some of these allies worry that such an outcome could profoundly destabilize the nuclear-armed Russian state, potentially leading to its fragmentation and wide-scale unrest, with unpredictable consequences for the rest of the world. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Washington’s focus is on supporting Ukraine to take back territory seized by Russia since launching its invasion on Feb. 24. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who expressed confidence in continuing U.S. backing for Kyiv, said fears about preserving Russia reminded him of the so-called “Chicken Kiev” speech of 1991. Then, President George H.W. Bush in a speech to Ukrainian lawmakers warned against “suicidal nationalism,” urging Ukrainians to preserve the Soviet Union and abandon their quest for independence from Moscow. “I’m calling on the world not to be afraid of Russia falling apart. If the wheels of history begin to turn, no human will change it,” Mr. Kuleba said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in Kyiv. “Instead of thinking of how to help Russia survive and become a normal member of the international community, it’s time to accept the fact that this Russia cannot be a normal member of the international community,” he said. “I don’t think the world will fall apart if Russia falls apart. But it will be the people of Russia who will make their country fall apart, as it happened with the Russian Empire” in 1917. “We are first and foremost focused on striking targets in the occupied territories of Ukraine, on liberating our own territory. But of course the notion that Russia can do whatever it can technically afford doing in Ukraine while Ukraine doesn’t have the same right is conceptually, morally and militarily wrong,” Mr. Kuleba said. “Ukraine should not be endlessly victimized. We are a country that is fighting on all fronts for its survival, for its territorial integrity,” he added. “The most important thing is that no one treats Ukraine’s behavior—as long as it complies with international laws of warfare—from the perspective that Russia can do everything it wants while Ukraine has to respect certain red lines in defending itself.” Ukraine has pledged to the U.S. not to use American-supplied weapons to strike Russian soil. That agreement, Mr. Kuleba said, doesn’t apply to Crimea, which is internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory. The U.S. has also refrained from supplying Ukraine with the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, which has a range of some 200 miles, and has modified the Himars artillery systems that it has provided to Ukraine so that they couldn’t fire ATACMS missiles into Russia should Ukraine obtain them from another source. Mr. Kuleba said Russia’s behavior suggests Moscow still seeks a military victory, including the conquest of all of Ukraine. “Putin and his closest entourage are hoping for a miracle that will happen and turn the tables,” he said, reiterating Ukraine’s call on allies to provide it with more weapons, including Western-made tanks, jet fighters and ATACMS missiles. In the past, Mr. Kuleba said, the U.S. and allies lifted longstanding taboos and supplied Ukraine with the weapons that they refused to provide in the past, such as 155 mm howitzers or Himars, when the tide of the fighting turned against Kyiv. Mr. Kuleba said that at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization foreign-ministers meeting in Bucharest late last month he urged his counterparts to “completely change the optics: Instead of waiting for a crisis in order for them to make a decision, they have to make decisions now in order to avoid a crisis.” Asked about the response to the proposal, Mr. Kuleba said the NATO governments need time to reflect.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russians-march-on-foot-to-advance-yards-in-bloody-eastern-ukraine-battle-11670406883?mod=hp_trending_now_article_pos3 “We shoot at them, they send more. It doesn’t end,” said Lt. Matviyenko, 26, a yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flag patched onto his olive-green uniform. “There’s so many of them.” The battle for Bakhmut has become a bloodbath for both sides as Russia steps up its attempts to take what used to be a quaint, tree-lined city. Ukrainian defense officials said Moscow is losing around 50 soldiers a day to maintain a slow, bruising advance to reach the city’s easternmost gates. If the Russians break through to take control of Bakhmut, it would open a path to the political and economic centers of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk in the Ukrainian-held portions of the Donbas area, once one of the country’s main industrial regions. Moscow tried to seize the area in a pincer movement in the early days of the war and into the summer. After a lightning offensive, Ukraine regained much of the lost ground. Now, as Russia slowly burns through its artillery stockpiles, defense analysts said, its troops are advancing once again but on tank and foot. This time it is so President Vladimir Putin can tout a rare victory to the Russian people after a succession of withdrawals, most recently in Kherson, giving it outsize importance to the Kremlin, analysts said. “The costs associated with six months of brutal, grinding, and attrition-based combat around Bakhmut far outweigh any operational advantage that the Russians can obtain from taking Bakhmut,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. defense think tank based in Washington, D.C. Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the Ukrainian military’s Eastern Group of Forces, said 50-70 Russians were dying a day in the battle. Russia has already redeployed troops from the southern region around Kherson to the front in Bakhmut, while Ukraine is similarly trying to get more forces to the area, a task that some analysts said could have been complicated by a recent missile strike on the railway network in Kryvyi Rih in the center of the country. Earlier this week new Ukrainian troops were arriving. A staggered column of T-72 tanks with reactive armor drove into the city. Units of the 58th Brigade, which has been in the city for weeks, were rotating out, and fresher units were coming in from the 71st Brigade. As the tanks drove in, some residents waved. Others kept their heads down. Of the several thousand residents still left in the city, many said their nerves had been shot by constant shelling, shooting and missile fire that has pummeled the city’s center. Bakhmut’s central covered market has been reduced to a jumble of aluminum. Streets are littered with broken glass, telephone and electric cable dangle and window frames lie randomly on street corners. Dogs with collars sniffed at piles of trash that lay in piles of small shopping bags.

https://fortune.com/2022/12/07/microsoft-cto-kevin-scott-on-how-ai-language-models-can-democratize-education-it-creates-a-bunch-of-opportunity/ Scott emphasized that one important aspect of AI models is its ability to help individuals and businesses create complex code without necessarily having to get a degree in computer science. Microsoft, GitHub and OpenAI partnered to build GitHub Copilot, which is a coding assistant. “You don’t need to have a PhD in computer science anymore to build an AI application, which I think is really, really exciting,” he said. “I went back home to rural Central Virginia, where I grew up, and I talked to a bunch of people who had an entrepreneurial mindset, and given these tools, even without computer science degrees, these folks will be able to see the opportunities and they will absolutely be able to incorporate them into their businesses,” he said. “To me, that feels really exciting.” He also emphasized the potential for AI language models applies to an array of professional uses beyond coding. “You will have lots and lots of these [models], helping people with a pretty wide range of tasks, whether you are a video editor or trying to pull together a piece of content or you’re a journalist doing research or writing an article.” While AI language models sound impressively human, Scott emphasized that these models are tools, not replacements, for human workers and educators. Scott explained that AI language models can function using tools like Chat GPT is to help articulate information more clearly, which Scott referred to as prompt engineering. He acknowledged that these chat bots can be wrong, and therefore it is up to the user to give the model accurate information to work with. To Scott, the fact that users must have context and information to correctly prompt engineer is a boon for students using AI to cheat on essays and other homework assignments as the tools become more advanced. He argued that to create an accurate essay using AI, the student still has to learn the material. “So in a sense, like, nothing really is changing here,” he explained of using AI in education. “You have this tool, and now the student themselves has to become the teacher to the model,” he said. “I think it will be a more much more accessible way for people to get real power out of their technology,” he added

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/05/technology/chatgpt-ai-twitter.html The potential societal implications of ChatGPT are too big to fit into one column. Maybe this is, as some commenters have posited, the beginning of the end of all white-collar knowledge work, and a precursor to mass unemployment. Maybe it’s just a nifty tool that will be mostly used by students, Twitter jokesters and customer service departments until it’s usurped by something bigger and better. Personally, I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that ChatGPT — a chatbot that some people think could make Google obsolete, and that is already being compared to the iPhone in terms of its potential impact on society — isn’t even OpenAI’s best A.I. model. That would be GPT-4, the next incarnation of the company’s large language model, which is rumored to be coming out sometime next year. We are not ready.

I think if I was told not to touch it for more than 20 years, the best way for me, also psichologically, would be to just buy SNP. It would be hard to have high conviction on many individual names for more than 20 years for me, but it woud be mostly the same holdings I own currently: BRK, FFH, JOE, maybe less than I own currently of big tech (currently GOOGL, META, AMZN, some MSFT) and maybe I would add some consumer good companies (which seems like never are cheap enought to buy). And also my favourite individual company to answer this question would be UMG, which I see as durabale consumer business with tech growth characteristics:). But to own for more than 20 or 50 years I would like company to be able allocate capital like BRK. Now a problem with BRK is that 20+ years is also perhaps too long period to be sure how succesful it will be after WB.

I agree with this and am tired from all these questions about not implementing precision railroading at BRK agm. 3g already has prooven that it could be not necessarily good idea even in unregulated consumer staples business, I think it is dangerous in somewhat regulated oligopolly market, providing essential services. I had so many painfull expierences with regulated business outside US, that sometimes it is almost unbelievable, how good these regulated companies are treated in US. Better it stays this way:)))

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-moves-to-bolster-defenses-after-airfield-strikes-11670415197 Igor Girkin, a former Russian militant commander and an influential voice among Russian hard-liners, also visited troops in Donbas recently, he wrote Tuesday on Telegram. He said that what he found there was a poorly motivated Russian army, especially compared with Ukrainian forces. “The troops are fighting ‘by inertia,’ not having the slightest idea of the ultimate strategic goals of the current military campaign,” he wrote, adding that fighters from Luhansk and Donetsk were better motivated. Efforts to break Ukrainian will, he added, weren’t working. “‘Ukraine’ will NOT freeze in winter, will NOT rebel and will NOT fight worse. Vice versa. Its soldiers, who have already believed in their strength as a result of the autumn victories…will only fight angrier and more stubbornly,” he wrote. “And they will be met only by apathetic performance of duty, behind which many fighters and commanders have long been [asking] the unresolved question: ‘What are we doing here?’”

Interesting story about Bahamas: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-12-07/ftx-s-bahamas-headquarters-was-the-first-clue

800 or 900 pound gorilla? which expression is right?

I understand and also generally suffer from some reverse Midas touch with timing:)

Hmm...a second stock you are selling recently which is almost still if not a a buy then a hold for me:)