🌞 Skinny Jeans – September 29 2021

*Stock data as of the market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00am ET.

• Markets: Cardano will invest $100 million to fund defi projects worldwide. Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, has announced it will no longer the sale of crypto mining gear on its platform. Meanwhile, Wall Street stocks ended sharply lower on Tuesday in a broad sell-off driven by rising U.S. Treasury yields, deepening concerns over persistent inflation, and contentious debt ceiling negotiations in Washington.

The Lead: Afghanistan Withdrawal

credit: reuters

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley testified with other top Pentagon officials on Tuesday about the Afghanistan withdrawal that went so horribly wrong.

Gen. Milley characterized the withdrawal from Afghanistan as “a logistical success but a strategic failure.” He also said he won’t be quitting any time soon, despite calls for his resignation.

Also on the agenda were future counterterrorism measures and Milley’s China call when he served under President Trump. 

Goodbye Western Union

credit: reuters

Cross-border payments could be joining us in the future. Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can get you those sparkly chinos from Italy much faster (see also: lower fees).

In a pilot program, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) found that CBDCs can cut cross-border transactions to a matter of seconds (rather than three to five days). And CBDCs can cut costs by up to 50%!

The Hong Kong and Thai central banks used blockchain during the pilot trial to get around the complicated way cross-border payments are typically processed: transferring from local bank to local bank to a different local bank and so on.

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Merkel Says Aufweidersein 

credit: getty

Angela Merkel is stepping down after 16 years as chancellor of Germany, but the election on Sunday failed to deliver clear answers about the country’s way forward.

Preliminary results show that the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD) won the most seats, beating Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party. 

The SPD nabbed 26.7% of the vote, the CDU/CSU won 24.1%, and 14.8% went to the Green Party. 

Now we wait for the final result. Then negotiations start, with the SPD negotiating a coalition government in the next days, weeks, and maybe months (Merkel’s government took five months to form).

Astro Go Check On My Dog

credit: giphy

Do you want an Amazon robot in your home? No? Well, THEY CAN’T HEAR YOU. The company unveiled the $1,000 Astro at its event on Tuesday. 

Astro is a home assistant device that has all the creepy camera/recording/monitoring features of devices like the Echo Show and Ring camera. All in one nosy, roaming robot. 

It’s possible I have some robo-phobia.

Other products announced include a $59.99 smart thermostat and the videoconferencing Echo Glow for kids.

News By The Numbers

589. That is how many buildings in the Spanish island of La Palma have been eaten by lava from a September 19th eruption in the Canary Islands. It’s a waiting game to see what happens when the lava reaches the Atlantic Ocean. As long as the flow doesn’t speed up, it should be ok (fingers crossed).

131. That is the number of federal judges who presided over cases (685!) involving companies they or their families owned stock in. Guess who won in about two-thirds of the cases??? This is against the law. And ethics.

5. That is how many life sentences Jarrod Ramos will serve in prison. He killed five people at the Capital Gazette in 2018.

10. That is how many Latin Grammy Awards Camilo is nominated for. He won his first Latin Grammy last year. That number will likely rise this year.

175. That is how many unvaccinated employees were fired from a North Carolina hospital system. It’ss one of the biggest vaccine mandate-related firings yet.

Put Away Your Fat Jeans

credit: giphy

Can you fit into the jeans you wore in college? If not you might be on your way to developing diabetes.

According to new data from the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, if people discovered they could no longer fit into the same jeans they were wearing at age 21 they were at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The study found that these people were “carrying too much fat” for their body type. 

Silver lining: The report found that eight in 12 people managed to “get rid” of their diabetic condition simply by losing 10-15% of their body weight and slipping back into those jeans. Those participants had their diabetes go into remission. 

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