A Bold Statement Indeed!
For what one person finds fascinating and endlessly intriguing is, to another, tedium that would only be bettered if it was interrupted by sudden death. Conrad, to take a large and hefty example, knows nothing about the ballfoot game and cares less about it. There are people out there who are the complete opposite; who name their first-born after the entire ballfoot team they support; who have a £1,200 season ticket; who go to all the home and away matches; who purchase all the new strips that come out fifteen times a year far too often; who gladly divorce because Wifey won't allow their first-born to be a human sacrifice for the Cup Final. You know the types. Art!
THIS is more Conrad's area of interest. What you see here IS NOT A TANK. Just to be clear. It's a Challenger Armoured Repair & Recovery Vehicle, based on the hull of the Chally, because only something this big and beefy has the horsepower to recover a Chally in trouble. It has a winch at the rear that can pull a vehicl
ANYWAY this Intro is not about ballfoot or tanks. It is about interest, that being the amount of money that accumulates as a percentage against time elapsed for an original amount utilised or borrowed, to be a bit pedantic. To give a nice simple example, if you borrow £100 and are charged 1% interest annually, then you have to pay back £101. In the world of finance, inevitably, things are rarely if ever this simple and you get all kinds of variable rates and returns and conditions and exemptions. Art!
The Bank of ENGLAND MIGHTY ENGLAND
What I have to say in this Intro concerns Beef Jerky Face, so if you're bored of him and his lying pie-hole flappery, you still have to read on. Because I shall know if you skip anything. ANYTHING. Art!
Make up your own horrifying caption
We have already hauled him over the financial coals for the $83.3 million judgement. He's now looking at $370 million being imposed any day now by Judge Engoron, who seems to be stretching things out purely from spite, in order to make Pimpkinhead sweat. Well, sweat more than usual, that is. At a couple of recent rallies he's looked more like a glazed ham than a human being.
As my mate Jose Pagliery over at "The Daily Beast" has discovered, that total of $370 million is only the beginning. You see, if that is the amount - and it may well be even higher <sniggers and tweaks moustache ends> - then it will get backdated to when the investigation began.
Back in 2018.
At 9% interest per annum.
This is what's called 'simple' interest, which is only charged against the original sum, not against the annually-increased sum thanks to interest. It comes in at $33 million per year, for a combined total of $200 million*. On top of the $370 million, or $570 million in total. Ol' Jose didn't mention the requirement of any appeal in a New York civil case like this having to put up a bond of 120% of the amount in question; if this is the case we're talking $684 million. Art!
The alternative to DJ Tango putting up his own money is going via a surety firm, who would put forward an affidavit to the court stating that they were good for the money.
However - my favourite word again! - Donald Buck would still have to pay them a premium of 1%, which is millions of dollars at this point. He also has to come up with collateral for their bond, and these institutions don't accept real estate or flash cars: they want cash. Cash is what Trump doesn't have a lot of, so he'd have to sell off a few of his properties to raise the money for the surety firm.
Except it's, once again, not that simple. Judge Engoron may decide to expedite the requests of Attorney General Letitia James and seize Grumpy Trumpy's real estate assets, meaning he can't get the cash from selling them.
AND - this is assuming any of these firms would want to do business with an already-convicted crook guilty of fraud on a massive scale, who is known for stiffing people over what they are owed. Art!
Come on, Ol' Engy, get a move on, February's a-wasting!
Feeling Seedy
And a bit greedy, as I got two remaindered pizzas at Morrison's last night, each the size of a dustbin lid. They are onl
ANYWAY what I meant was another kind-of bottleneck that Big K of "Inside Russia" mentioned concerning the Ruffian economy - seeds. He gave it an 'honourable mention' because it came in late as a contender and he needed to research further to be grounded. Art!
Conrad is pre-empting this. Having done a quick perusal of teh Interwebz, I have thrown together a quick item, and here it is.
Konstantin - Big K, do keep up! - said that this issue is one that will have consequences almost immediately in spring, when seeds are planted, because so much of Ruffia's seeds are imported. Art!
The labels didn't transfer over, so allow me to explicate. This is Ruffian seed imports by value over time, in millions of dollars, and they make it the world's 10th largest importer of seeds. Things have been mostly marching upwards since 2015. I shall give you a further breakdown of import source and value.
NATION VALUE % OF MARKET
Netherlands $84 million 31%
Germany $53 million 20%
France $17 million 6%
So 56% of all Ruffian seeds are now embargoes thanks to sanctions.
Can they find alternative sources by spring? Because if not then it may not merely be a case of not being able to earn from exported crops, there may be trouble getting enough for the Ruffian population.
Food for thought.
Going "Commando"
You may yet live to regret that Conrad recalled this comic, as there are something like 6,000 copies published, a consequence of being in print since 1961. They did have a kind of bait-and-switch policy, the swine! because they'd have a cover illustration by a proper comic artist, and then the strip inside would be by a hack able to churn content out on a weekly basis.
ANYWAY I would like to bring up yesteryon's illustration. Art!
A mind like a skip is still a mind. Your Humble Scribe reckoned he'd seen the original photograph this is taken from, and went digging around in Ian Hogg's "Encyclopedia Of Infantry Weapons Of The Second World War", and what do you think I found? Art!
You can't deny it, this is the source. For Your Information, Ian identified this picture as a couple of Teuton soldiers in a shell crater at Stalingrad, wielding a couple of MP40 submachine guns.
You're welcome. Or Cu Plãcere, as they say in Romanian.
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor's cunning, if rather brutal, plan has been revealed.
The group stood in awestruck silence for minutes before Glynn cocked an
eye at the cloudless blue sky over New Eucla and the giant plume of water to
the south that had begun to lose cohesion and disperse into the heavens.
‘The wind’s going to carry all that water inland, hey? So these alien Lithy-things get wet.’
A silent nod came from the Doctor as confirmation, before he realised
another warning was due.
‘The blast wave will arrive before the rain, and it’s going to hit
hard. Best get to open ground and lie
down.’
Within minutes a blinding sleet of warm rain, carried horizontally by a
furious gale, buffeted the township.
Windows could be heard breaking and other structures collapsing under
this brief but vicious weather assault that suddenly vanished as quickly as it
arrived. The seven men got up from a
nearby cattle-pen, drenched and tousled yet unharmed.
‘Better get spread out,’ warned Mike.
He looked at the small stranger with respect. Rain and waves together out of nowhere.
Perhaps they might be able to tackle the water-hating aliens successfully. Even the cynical and dismissive Denny had
stopped being so pessimistic.
Rain, rain, hamper the Lithoi on the plain, as it were.
Finally -
I am going to nick a photo that Donna put up on Facebook this morning, a picture of Manchester taken from the 17th floor of Arndale Tower when we were both working there in Sainsbo's HR Ops. Art!
December 2021, according to her. Whenever I tried to get a picture like this, I always managed to spoil it with the office lights reflecting in the window.
This vista is perhaps the only thing to be missed if Working From Home.
Chin chin!
* I rounded it up by $2 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment