A Rollercoaster Ride Of Risibility

NO!  That Is Not A Typo

We're not talking about being visible or invisible, rather about being risible.  Although, having raised the spectre - if that's the right noun - of invisibility, I think we can plunder the cinema archives of John Carpenter to bring in a clickbait image.  Art!

     I recall Ol' John, interviewed about this film, stating how he hated doing special effects work, because it was such a bore and required such intensive prolonged work to do properly, a process ak

     ANYWAY I would like to explicate that 'Risible', meaning 'laughable or ridiculous' comes from the Latin <spit hack> 'Risibilis', meaning 'To laugh'.  The 'Rollercoaster' part of today's title is also very apt, as it describes the NASDAQ late performance of the Orange Land Whale's Twitter rip-off, "Trump Media & Technology Group", which has exactly one asset: "Truth Social".  Art!

So much orange!

     Donold Judas Trump seems to miss the point - and also the door handle - that it's very unwise to associate yourself and your political campaign with rubbish, or garbage, as they have it over in South Canada.  That waspish Twitter wit George Takei, always ready with a bon mot, explained that it's not really a Trump garbage truck unless it's on fire.

     ANYWAY, as you may be aware, we have often mocked and scorned the NASDAQ values of DJT's stock, which falls squarely into the category of 'meme stock', in that it has absolutely no intrinsic value.  Art!

BOOJUM!: If You Were To Hear "Pac Man"

     There you can read David Pakman's excellent demolition of TMTG, which has no physical assets, a rip-off product, negative revenue, inverted profit margins and dodgy staff hiring practices.  Art!

     This is the stock value as of 18th April 2024.  It rallied a little, occasionally, before continuing to fall - until the beginning of October, when things began to look verrrrry suspicious.  Conrad has forborn to comment either in bewilderment or moustache-tweaking glee, before seeing if the damned thing would finally either plateau or do the decent thing and drop faster than a thermometer in the British summertime.  Art!

     Imagine that, it climbed rapidly to $51.51 per share, entirely against the trend prior to Elong Tusk getting involved in promoting DJ Tango, as the cynical amongst us might suppose.  Or Putinpot was trying to pimp his puppet and reward him indirectly, rather than just delivering a shipping container full of used notes.  Art!

     Suddenly! the value dropped catastrophically on 30th October, wiping out $18 per share, for absolutely no reason.  Experts like Conrad blame the pistachio harvest in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar being late this year.  Art!

     These kind of wild swings in value cause the regulators at NASDAQ to sweat copiously, and TMTG has already been stopped from trading seven times this week, amid fears about what the market calls 'Volatility' and what Conrad calls 'yoyoing'.  There is speculation that, apart from Eastern European nut harvests, other issues affecting the stock are people gambling on whether Pumpkinhead is going to get back into the Whitehouse.  Well, he could always join the queue and pay for a tour like everyone else.  Art!

     As a comparison, this is the current share value for Paramount, which is valued at about $7 billion dollars, or $3 billion less than TMTG at it's recent peak.  The thing is, TMTG has brought in $1.6 million in revenue this year, as compared to Paramount, which has brought in $14 billion.  So, overall the Orange Land Whale's meme-stock company has been out-performed by eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty times by a company with a sound business model, backed by assets and a very positive revenue flow.

     If Pimpkinhead loses the election next week, as looks increasingly likely, TMTG share prices will instantly plummet to perhaps as little as cents per share.  Tee hee!

 

Further Financial Farragoes 

I wasn't sure there was a plural of 'farrago' but here we are.

     You should surely remember BOOJUM!'s gleeful coverage of the FTX cryptocurrency con, because it exemplified the scamble that is typical of the unregulated crypto industry, a business that has more cowboys than ever appeared alongside John Wayne.  Art!

Samiserable Bankman Fried

     Sam proved that, whilst he may be intelligent, he's not very clever, choosing to go to trial rather than try and stab his accomplices in the back by doing a deal with the Feds.  His end result was a 25 year sentence, hence his stunned expression above.  Art!

Nishad Singhslikeabird

     Here's FTX's ex-engineering director, Nishad Singh, who was spared a prison sentence this week after the trial judge praised his 'co-operation' with the prosecution.  Also claiming he only found out - gasps in shocked horror!- of the fraud a couple of months before it broke.  I think the rest of us would call it 'self-preservation' rather than anything high-flown, matey.

"The War Illustrated Edition 197 5th January 1944"

We've already done the front cover, so let us dive inside and see what it what.  A few blogs ago there were pictures of snow in the north of Italy in December, so be aware that this edition pays more attention to the Far East than usual, where they had monsoons on top of the usual incredibly humid wet heat.  Art!

     Yes, these are scenes from the Land Of Clog, where the bally Hun had blown up the Lower Rhine Dam on 4th December.  This caused a flood that halted operations by the forces of Perfidious Albion, as can be seen in top port photograph, where they are busy writing letters home.  You had to do this in pre-internet days, the horror! the horror!  To starboard is a party of Dutch kids being treated to a Christmas Eve ride in the traditional Bren Carrier (it says here), accompanied by Sint Niklaas and Schwartze Pieter.  The Sint for passing out presents to good children, Pieter to give carry the bad ones off into eternal damnation and hellfire for a severe telling-off.
     To lower port is a young Dutch citizen warning his British liberators that this particular shop is known for gouging foreigners.

     At bottom is one of the more miserable occupations, sentry-go on a load of flood timber at Elst, keeping a weather-eye on the Teutons and what they are or are not doing.  Art!

This is the only relevant picture I could find, and it was the Ooijhuis dike the Teutons blew up, rather than a dam, which is neither here nor there as water is still wet, wherever it originates from.

Talking Of Rollercoasters .....

Unlike stock markets across the world, international exchange rates do not sleep, meaning you can get live data about any currency you wish when you want it.  Yes, even for that international pariah the ruble.  Art!

    You have to admit that it looks remarkably like a Big Dipper.

      No, it hasn't yet hit 100 to the dollar - but it will, it will!

When Mathematics Is Amusing

Tensor calculus is not a subject matter one associates with hilarity, nor the rest of mathematics for all that.

     However - a word that was guaranteed to sneak in here at one point or another - I just laughed out loud at a sidebar item on the BBC's website.  Art!

     A pair of Ocker mathematicians with more time on their hands that they knew what to do with have calculated that, yes, 200,000 chimpanzees typing nonstop will eventually churn out the works of Shakespeare, apart from the minor caveat that it would take longer than the universe's lifetime.

     Ooops.

     We are imagining immortal monkeys who need no sleep, food or water, too.

     What made me chortle is that, in real llfe, it would take a single chimp it's entire lifetime to merely eventually type out 'Bananas'.  Or - is that just me?

Finally -

November has arrived, bringing with it a funereal chill allied with a certain dankness that seeps into the bones.  Terrific.