Re: The Viral Economy
Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:19 am
Eastman Kodak gets a $765M federal DPA loan for vaccine supplies. It was a 115M market cap company at the time. Now it's around $460M after shares went up over 300%.
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
Fund payroll, take care of employee benefits, pay the mortgage, cover utilities, buy a Lambo?
Apparently, that last one doesn’t quite qualify as a permissible cost under the Paycheck Protection Program, but that didn’t stop one Florida man — yes, Florida man — from putting some of his coronavirus aid money toward buying a $318,000 Huracán EVO.
David Hines, whose business was in the red by more than $30,000, received a $4 million loan from the government and soon took to the streets of Miami Beach in his fancy Italian sports car.
...
“David is a legitimate business owner who, like millions of Americans, suffered financially during the pandemic,” he told the Post, while acknowledging the severity of the allegations.
The Miami Herald reported that federal investigators linked Hines with the sports car after he was involved in a hit-and-run accident earlier this month. When the bank froze Hines’ corporate accounts, they showed a balance of $3,463,162 but no repayments on the loans.
There was a sudden 25% bump in the price just prior to the big jump. I'm sure the market regulators are right on top of it.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:19 am Eastman Kodak gets a $765M federal DPA loan for vaccine supplies. It was a 115M market cap company at the time. Now it's around $460M after shares went up over 300%.
The U.S. economy shrank at a dizzying 33% annual rate in the April-June quarter — by far the worst quarterly plunge ever — when the viral outbreak shut down businesses, throwing tens of millions out of work and sending unemployment surging to 14.7%, the government said Thursday.
The Commerce Department’s estimate of the second-quarter decline in the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, marked the sharpest such drop on records dating to 1947. The previous worst quarterly contraction, a 10% drop, occurred in 1958 during the Eisenhower administration.
Last quarter’s drop followed a 5% fall in the January-March quarter, during which the economy officially entered a recession triggered by the virus, ending an 11-year economic expansion, the longest on record in the United States.
Full treatment here.Here’s a pic of Jim Continenza, shown here on a magazine cover touting Vivial, the other company where he’s also Chairman and CEO. Vivial is a digital marketing company, which is Jim’s particular forte.
Oh, wait, you thought Jim had a background in manufacturing or pharmaceuticals? Hahahahahahaha. Hooo, boy, that’s rich. No, no … Jim is a marketing guy. Shocking, I know.
Based on yesterday’s closing price of $33.20 for the stock, I figure Jim and George and Philippe have made about $400 million over the past 48 hours.
The numbers looked even better when Kodak hit $53 earlier earlier in the day, but easy come, easy go.
I’m focused on Jim and George and Philippe, each of whom were granted tens of thousands of shares in Kodak just over the past 60 days, because this is where the real money from crony capitalism grift is made. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the effort of the small-fry Kodak grifters who covered their tracks and tipped their buddies about the deal, sparking 1.65 million Kodak shares trading for $2 and change on Monday, about 25 times the average trading volume of the prior week, in advance of the Tuesday announcement.
But the stock market's still fine, so who cares?Holman wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:40 am US Economy Contracted At Head-Spinning 33% Rate Last Quarter.
The Plunge Protection Team is on it. No, really.RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 12:54 pm We all already know that the drop is temporary, and we know that when the results for the next quarter come out, it will be the largest quarterly increase ever. This drop is insane, but we’ve known about it for months, and we know that the cause of it wasn’t the economy, so nominally, it’s temporary.
And Trump will take credit for it.we know that when the results for the next quarter come out, it will be the largest quarterly increase ever.
Temporary problems have never been obstructions to the stock market bucking and kicking wildly.
Don't forget school and sports (entertainment and recreational travel). COVID is not done the economy or the market. We may get a huge rebound from 30% down being baked in, but to metameme "Say the new normal one more time, motherfucker."
Senate Republicans and Democrats traded blows for yet another day and then left town as a federal enhancement of unemployment benefits that has been utilized by millions was all but certain to expire.
"If you are a person deciding today what bill to pay, I wouldn't trust us," Sen. Kevin Cramer, a Republican from North Dakota, said of the partisan fight that had captured the hill Thursday.
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In remarks on the Senate floor earlier Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer took turns lambasting the other side for the inaction before the looming deadline, ramping up the rhetorical heat to negotiations that have for days been cold as ice.
Personal income decreased $222.8 billion (1.1 percent) in June according to estimates released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (tables 3 and 5). Disposable personal income (DPI) decreased $255.3 billion (1.4 percent) and personal consumption expenditures (PCE) increased $737.7 billion (5.6 percent).
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The decrease in personal income in June was more than accounted for by a decrease in government social benefits to persons as payments made to individuals from federal economic recovery programs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic continued, but at a lower level than in May (table 3).
SEC has announced an investigation into the loan and trades. I wished I had faith it won't end up being a cover up.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Thu Jul 30, 2020 9:45 amFull treatment here.Here’s a pic of Jim Continenza, shown here on a magazine cover touting Vivial, the other company where he’s also Chairman and CEO. Vivial is a digital marketing company, which is Jim’s particular forte.
Oh, wait, you thought Jim had a background in manufacturing or pharmaceuticals? Hahahahahahaha. Hooo, boy, that’s rich. No, no … Jim is a marketing guy. Shocking, I know.
Based on yesterday’s closing price of $33.20 for the stock, I figure Jim and George and Philippe have made about $400 million over the past 48 hours.
The numbers looked even better when Kodak hit $53 earlier earlier in the day, but easy come, easy go.
I’m focused on Jim and George and Philippe, each of whom were granted tens of thousands of shares in Kodak just over the past 60 days, because this is where the real money from crony capitalism grift is made. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the effort of the small-fry Kodak grifters who covered their tracks and tipped their buddies about the deal, sparking 1.65 million Kodak shares trading for $2 and change on Monday, about 25 times the average trading volume of the prior week, in advance of the Tuesday announcement.
The 27th!?! That is really brazen. I'm sure we'll get the usual planned buying bullshit.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:08 am Cover up in plain sight. Wish I had faith in enforcement.
Don't worry, they're not even bothering.malchior wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:05 amThe 27th!?! That is really brazen. I'm sure we'll get the usual planned buying bullshit.LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Wed Aug 05, 2020 9:08 am Cover up in plain sight. Wish I had faith in enforcement.
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co on Monday [July 27] granted its executive chairman options for 1.75 million shares as the result of what a person familiar with the arrangement described as an “understanding” with its board that had previously neither been listed in his employment contract nor made public.
One day later, the administration of President Donald Trump announced a $765 million financing deal with Eastman Kodak, and in the days that followed the stock soared, making those additional options now held by executive chairman Jim Continenza worth tens of millions.
The decision to grant Continenza options was never formalized or made into a binding agreement, which is why it was not disclosed previously, according to the person familiar with the arrangement.
Put it all together and the expiration of emergency aid could produce a 4 percent to 5 percent fall in G.D.P. But wait, there’s more. States and cities are in dire straits and are already planning harsh spending cuts; but Republicans refuse to provide aid, with Trump insisting, falsely, that local fiscal crises have nothing to do with Covid-19.
Bear in mind that the coronavirus itself — a shock that came out of the blue, though the United States mishandled it terribly — reduced G.D.P. by “only” around 10 percent. What we’re looking at now may be another shock, a sort of economic second wave, almost as severe in monetary terms as the first. And unlike the pandemic, this shock will be entirely self-generated, brought on by the fecklessness of President Trump and — let’s give credit where it’s due — Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader.
The question is, how can this be happening? The 2008 financial crisis and the sluggish recovery that followed weren’t that long ago, and they taught us valuable lessons directly relevant to our current plight. Above all, experience in that slump demonstrated both that economic depressions are no time to obsess over debt and that slashing spending in the face of mass unemployment is a terrible mistake.
But nobody in the White House or on the G.O.P. side of Capitol Hill seems to have learned anything from that experience. In fact, not having learned anything from the last crisis almost seems to be a requirement for Republican economic advisers.
So at the moment we seem to be headed for a Greater Recession — a worse slump than 2007-2009, overlaid on the coronavirus slump. MAGA!
We'll see now that he has done it. The insanity is off the charts. He is redirecting $44B of disaster aid to provide a $400 a week unemployment benefit...and wait for it...he is asking the states to kick in 25%. It isn't clear what that means. Is it voluntary? Who knows? It's pure lawless madness.RunningMn9 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 07, 2020 7:15 pm Pretty confident that he can’t do any of those things. That only matters if someone tries to do their job and stop him.