🌞 Lovely Latte – April 19 2022

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm AM. 

• Markets: Markets continued their post-Easter dive with growing fears over further covid outbreaks and war in Ukraine. Travel and leisure stocks led the sell-off. Crypto markets bounced back.

The Lead: Small Businesses Screwed Again

credit: getty

The U.S. government seems to think that small businesses are out of the woods from the pandemic. Congress is proposing to take unspent pandemic money that was meant for small businesses and redirect it back to itself. 

The notion that the government did right by small businesses is a joke. Paycheck Protection loans went to big businesses first. Many small businesses were left holding the bag. 

Now Congress has $5 billion that it budgeted for small business aid but somehow they did not spend it on small businesses. They are proposing to take it back for the federal government’s own “health response, including vaccines and therapeutics.” 

“People say ‘business is back open, why would you need money now?’ We were shut for 16 months and those of us that are still left are carrying phenomenal debt,” Michael Strickland, founder of Bandit Lites, a Knoxville, Tenn., lighting company told the Wall Street Journal.

Considering that vaccine makers have seen record profits while small businesses are reeling, all the while considering that the vaccines are proven not to prevent the spread of Covid, an honest debate should be had about whether or not the government needs to kick more money to big pharma.

Cyber Warfare Games

credit: reuters

NATO is kicking off a cybergames event today called the Locked Shields conference. Countries that are aligned with NATO will get together and practice cyber drills and share vulnerabilities that could lead to devastating hacks. 

This year Ukraine will be involved and join Estonia’s team. Ukraine was hacked in 2017 by Russia and caused devastation to the country’s economy. Finland was hacked just last week after the country announced that it is considering NATO membership. 

All countries seek out software vulnerabilities from hackers and pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars for them. Just in case, right? At this event, these countries will share the vulnerabilities that they are aware of and ask their hackers to find more. It’s gamified warfare. 

But why wouldn’t these countries find the bugs and report them to, say, Microsoft or Apple to fix them for everybody so that everybody is safe? And are we to believe that countries that spend billions on buying up these bugs are now going to share them all? They won’t. The Snowden documents proved that governments keep the most dangerous ones for themselves and we are all more at risk because of it. 

Cyberweapons are on par with real weapons. It’s not a game. 

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Biden Moves to Drill Baby Drill 

credit: giphy

The United States is moving to "drill baby drill" even more than they were before. The government will reopen new leases for oil and gas drilling soon. 

When President Biden took office, he canceled all new leases for drilling. A federal judge later reinstated those leases. The administration went on to open up more land in the Gulf of Mexico for drilling just days after the President went to a climate summit in Europe. 

So, about the environment? What about it? Sure, this is killing the planet but the government says that it has to drill more to combat rising oil prices. 

But the government is also giving itself a nice raise on these new leases. The royalty rate will go from 12.5% to 18.75%. Those are royalties TO the federal government. Mother Nature did not offer a better deal so she doesn’t get a say. 

News By The Numbers

credit: bbc

209,906. That is how many people were arrested along the U.S.-Mexico border in March alone, making it the busiest month in two decades. Meanwhile, 5,000 Ukrainians were allowed to enter on temporary grounds. No arrests. 

2031. That is when a comet the size of Rhode Island will fly by our sun. Astronomers say it is not a concern for us earthlings. 

62%. That is how much the wealth of American billionaires went up during the pandemic. Meanwhile, the average workers’ wage went up an average of 10%. 

10. That is how many Jeopardy! games 23-year-old Mattea Roach has won. Her winnings now exceed $227,000. 

Lovely Looking Latte

credit: unsplash

The prettier the latte, the better it tastes. That is according to science! 

The study was conducted in Australia and the U.K. and it showed that art on lattes improved the “prediction of taste” and the “tasting experience.” Not only that, some foam shapes seem to change the perception of the drinker. 

For example, when drinkers saw a star, they expected a more bitter latte. When they saw rounded shapes, they expected sweetness. Researchers call this “shape-taste symbolism.” If you take your coffee black, I guess you miss out! 

What's Trending?

credit: page six

Jaden Smith is trending for being on a podcast recently and insisted that he preferred adults to children, even when he was a child. It does come off as smug and the world likes discussions about his family as of late. 

Ilhan Omar is trending because of this Tweet which shows a video of Christians singing Christian songs on a plane and asks what would happen if her Muslim brethen conducted a group prayer like this on a plane. 

Tim Curry is trending because of this Tweet. I know him from the 1982 film version of Annie so what does that say about me? 

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