Monday, August 4
In The NEWS
The Watergate scandal, explained
The Watergate scandal was a major US political event in the early 1970s, triggered by a break‑in at Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate complex by operatives associated with President Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign.
The subsequent investigation uncovered serious campaign finance violations and a cover-up by the Nixon administration, resulting in nearly 50 criminal convictions and Nixon’s resignation—the only time a US president has resigned. Federal prosecutors adopted the name "The Big Cheese" to refer to the president.
The scandal spurred significant reforms: new campaign‑finance laws, stronger ethics oversight, and tighter limits on presidential authority.
... Read our full deep dive on the scandal here.
Also, check out ...
> Gerald Ford is the only president not elected to the office. (More)
> Scandals that got the "-gate" treatment. (More)
> The wife of Nixon's attorney general was kidnapped. (More)
Going Public
A 101 on IPOs
An initial public offering, or IPO, is the process of a private company becoming public. In an IPO, a company puts up shares of the company on the stock market for the public to purchase.
IPOs often have all the pomp and circumstance of a graduation ceremony, as they are one of the biggest milestones a company can achieve. From Apple in 1980 to Reddit in 2024, every public company has gone through an IPO at some point.
To begin the process, a company hires investment bankers (who earn roughly 7% of the IPO’s gross proceeds) to help set the organization’s target valuation range—an estimate of how much the company is worth—and schedule an IPO date. From there, the bankers market the IPO to hedge funds and other large potential investors.
Transitioning from a private to a public company allows an organization to more easily raise a significant amount of capital. This helps the company expand.
... Read our full take on IPOs here.
Also, check out...
> The 25 biggest IPOs of all time. (More)
> Inside the circus that is the opening day of an IPO. (More)
> How private companies can bypass the IPO process. (More)
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Retired
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It is important, before you retire, to plan out your retirement income. For instance, you can receive full benefits at age 67 which average $1,500/month nationwide. Then you can look at any retirement plan that you might have with your employer.
If I had stayed working at the Community College in TN, I would be receiving another $2,000/month in addition to my Social Security. Unfortunately, I was not that smart... instead, I was more interested in trying to increase my salary than planning for my retirement.
Looking back, that was a mistake.
Another option for you if saving money while you are working and then when you retire you can invest that money into a mutual fund or into a high-rate CD at your bank or credit union.
Mutual Funds historical earn 8-10% annually over a twenty-year period of time for the last 60 years. High-rate CDs are about half that amount and you receive about $400/$100,000.
At any rate, one must plan for retirement and the sad news is that most people don't so when they are eligible to retire, they are always caught off guard, and many are forced to continue working or work parttime to cover expenses.
One achievement that made a difference for my wife and I was becoming debt free 10 years before we retired, so we learned to always pay off our credit card debt before any interest was earned.
Be like a carpenter... measure twice, cut once
Scientists Find Secret Code in Human DNA
One person's junk is another's treasure.
An international team of scientists have found that strings of "junk" DNA in the human genome that were previously written off as having no useful function are actually pretty important after all.
The work, published as a study in the journal Science Advances, focuses on transposable elements, a class of DNA sequences that can "jump," via a biological copy-and-paste mechanism, to different locations in a genome. These "jumping genes" take up nearly 50 percent of human DNA; in other organisms, the proportion is even higher.
Sunday, August 3
Silver staffers aren’t leaving the office
Jacoblund/Getty Images
The promise of midday golf games and spending three hours drinking one cup of coffee at a McDonald’s is not enough to keep older Americans retired. As of last year, workers over the age of 75 are the fastest-growing group in the workforce.
Baby boomers (anyone in the 61–79 age range) are either refusing to retire or, increasingly, reentering the workforce. In some cases, they need to, as the cost of living increases and the Social Security eligibility age creeps higher. Additionally, only about 24% of boomers have defined pension benefits, and only half of private sector workers have access to employer 401(k) plans.
But some, especially white-collar workers, are choosing to spend their golden years in an office:Industries like nuclear energy are desperate for seasoned experts as the country starts to bring plants back online.
Less labor-intensive jobs mean older people can work longer with more flexible schedules. Doing a desk job for extra money might be more attractive if you’re doing it from a nice office with central air.
Older Americans are also becoming entrepreneurs: As of 2023, nearly a third of new founders are 45+, and the percentage of businesses founded by people 55–64 is rising.
Looking ahead…nearly 11 million older workers are employed right now, and that number is expected to jump by ~97% in the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.—MM
Robert Reich
Sunday thought: Where can we find hope?
Here's where you might look
Friends,
It gets bleaker and bleaker. He’s eviscerating environmental protections. He accuses Obama of treason. He’s ripping up labor protections. He wants to privatize Social Security. He fires the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he doesn’t like the job numbers. He forces the Smithsonian to take down an exhibit that includes his two impeachments. The European Union, Japan, Columbia University, and CBS are all surrendering to him.
Many of you ask me where I get my hope from, notwithstanding.
Three sources.
First, from all the young people I work with every day. They’re enormously dedicated, committed to making the world better. They’ll inherit this mess, and they’re ready to clean it up and strengthen our democracy. They also have extraordinary energy. And they’re very funny. It is impossible not to be hopeful around them.
At A Glance
Why cartoon characters wear gloves.
Nine unusual festivals in the US.
What was it like to ride the Transcontinental Railroad?
Roughly 10 million people get sick from food annually in the US.
How to teach kids emotional regulation.
Funeral for 92-year-old showcases the 3,599 books he read over 60 years.
The 50 most valuable private companies in the world.
What the music of the Romantic era was like, with examples.
Disease was responsible for two-thirds of the deaths in the Civil War.
Cameroon's peculiar tradition of spider divination.
Inside a mosquito factory fighting against global disease.
How a Russian bot factory is taking over online poker.
A Kenyan activist's bold plan to feed millions of students daily.
The 25 most populous cities in the Americas.
The mystery of the declining birth rate in the US.
In The NEWS
Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it will shut down.
The CPB subsidizes over 1,500 local media stations, including those affiliated with PBS and NPR; it was created by Congress in 1967 (see timeline of history). CPB announced Friday it will begin shutting down operations and cut the majority of its staff by Sept. 30. The move follows Congress' decision last month to claw back nearly $8B in previously authorized funding for foreign aid programs and $1.1B in funding for the CPB over the next two years.
"Fire clouds" over Arizona and Utah wildfires create their own climate.
Wildfires in the Grand Canyon and Monroe, Utah, are creating pyrocumulus and pyrocumulonimbus "fire clouds," which can generate their own dangerous weather, including strong winds that threaten to spread the fires rapidly. Pyrocumulus clouds are smoke- and ash-filled clouds formed by rising hot air from fires; if conditions allow, they grow into pyrocumulonimbus clouds, which are intense fire-driven thunderstorm clouds. The clouds have been observed for several days, with some producing fire tornadoes (see overview) and contributing to the hazardous conditions amid ongoing drought and extreme heat.
South African rhino horns turned radioactive to curb poaching.
The Rhisotope Project in South Africa has developed a safe method to embed low-level radioactive isotopes into rhino horns to combat poaching. The horns are detectable by radiation scanners at borders and ports worldwide, including through 40-foot shipping containers. The project aims to deter illegal wildlife trafficking by offering a tool to protect endangered rhino populations. Last year, 420 rhinos were killed in South Africa; see poaching stats here.
Pre-Incan tomb with 1,000-year-old remains unearthed in Peru.
Utility workers expanding underground gas networks in Lima, Peru, uncovered two pre-Incan tombs, one empty and the other containing the 1,000-year-old remains of an individual along with four clay vessels and three pumpkin shell artifacts. The discovery adds to over 2,200 archaeological findings made during more than 20 years of similar excavation work by the gas company, Cálidda, in a city known for having more than 400 archaeological sites from the Inca era or earlier periods.
Ghislaine Maxwell moved from Florida federal prison to Texas.
Maxwell, convicted of sex trafficking minors tied to late financier Jeffrey Epstein, has been transferred from a Florida federal prison to a minimum-security facility in Texas. The move comes as Maxwell pursues a deal to lessen her sentence or obtain a pardon, reportedly negotiating with the Justice Department for potential revelations about Epstein and his associates.
SOURCE: 1440 NEWS
Robots and Purchasing Power
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What we must consider is that it is not just jobs that will be replaced but AI alone will demand, at the rate it is growing, twice our current electrical output.
Electric Vehicles will not grow as rapidly as predicted, but humanoid robots will.
It will all be over but the shouting by 2030 or earlier where just a year or two ago, experts were saying not until 2040 or beyond. Obviously, they were WRONG.
Without jobs, Americans CANNOT BUY much of anything unless the government provides them with a minimum level of income that is survivable. In order to do this appropriately, the wealthy will be forced to pay a lot more taxes and higher tariffs must be initiated.
This will screw up our international trade deals and make the US the enemy of the rest of the world.
However, the rest of the world will be in a similar situation because robots will be replacing their jobs as well.
Technology will PUSH US INTO A POSITION where the governments with the help of corporations will provide for the people even if the people do not work.
How can this happen?
If robots replace workers because it is cheaper to manufacture that way, then who will buy the product if the worker is not working - they will have no money.
So, why manufacture, if a majority of the people don't have the money to buy.
THEREFORE, somebody must provide the people with the means to buy as they are not working...
Somebody did not think this through very well.
In a first, quantum entanglement is made reversible with the help of unique battery
For more than a century, the laws of thermodynamics have helped us understand how energy moves, how engines work, and why time seems to flow in one direction. Now, researchers have made a similarly powerful discovery, but in the strange world of quantum physics.
Scientists have shown for the first time that entanglement, the mysterious link between quantum particles, can be reversibly manipulated just like heat or energy in a perfect thermodynamic cycle.
The researchers support their findings using a novel concept called an entanglement battery, which allows entanglement to flow in and out of quantum systems without being lost, much like a regular battery stores and supplies energy.
Saturday, August 2
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