🌞 Stressed Out – April 05 2021

Today’s Live Show

BETTER HIDE YOUR BITCOIN FROM THE US GOVERNMENT

Join us on today’s live morning show. We’re looking at the alarm around Bitcoin as governments look to take their cut. Amazon apologizes for letting workers pee in bottles. And 3 alt coins I’m bullish on right now. Click here to RSVP and I’ll see you at 9 AM Eastern.

The Lead: Gov. Desantis Pay to Play?

credit: getty

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is on the ropes today after “60 Minutes” exposed the state of vaccine rollouts in Florida.

Public records show that the grocery chain Publix donated $100,000 to the Governor’s Political Action Committee (PAC) called “Friends of Ron DeSantis.” The family that owns the chain has also recently donated hundreds of thousands of dollars. Shortly after those donations in December, the Governor announced that Publix would be the exclusive vaccine distribution site in Florida.

Which is alright for Publix! “60 Minutes” points out that “under federal guidelines, Publix can charge Medicare $40 per shot to administer the vaccine.” Even if it is free to recipients.

The problem is, most minority and poor communities have no Publix stores. Publix is an upscale grocer with high-end products that are largely out of reach for poor people.

When asked about this, Governor DeSantis got prickly.

“It’s wrong, it’s wrong, it’s a fake narrative. I just disabused you of that narrative. You’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong,” he said.

Is he 7 years old?

In another wealthy community, the governor rolled out thousands of vaccines to seniors after the community developer donated $135,000 to the same PAC. When questioned about this the governor threatened to end the program.

“If Manatee County doesn’t like us doing this, we are totally fine to take this vaccine and put it in counties that want it.”

State Democratic leaders are calling for the Justice Department to investigate this pay-to-play scenario which has allowed wealthy people access to vaccines and wealthier people to profit from it while poor and minority communities are left out.

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Move Over Santa, Russia Comes To The North Pole

credit: getty

Satellite images show that Russia is beefing up its weaponry in the Arctic with a “super-weapon,” the Poseidon 2M39 torpedo.

The Arctic weapon site used to be frozen over but climate change has led to the thawing of that land. Russia now uses this territory to build the nuclear-powered torpedo that is intended to get past defenses on the seafloor and can cause radioactive tsunamis.

We did not previously know that “radioactive tsunamis” were a thing and we’re not happy to know it now.

Retail Investors Leave The Market

credit: giphy

Stock market trading by retail investors is down 60% since last year but the stock market is trending to record highs. Who needs ‘em, huh?

“Retail investors” is a term that refers to the average person with a stock trading account. They are the opposite of “institutional investors” – people who make a career trading for themselves and others.

The institutional investors are doing just fine with the S&P 500 up 7% in 2021 alone. But retail investors were disillusioned by the GameStop fiasco when retail investors started to win over institutional investors and trading app Robinhood shut down their ability to continue to buy the stock. Now Robinhood activity is down 63%.

Will this last and has Wall Street lost some of its retail investors forever? Hard to say. Some speculate that retail investors are using their money to go live a life that they could not live during lockdowns but it will eventually come back to The Street.

News By The Numbers

credit: independent

10 feet. That was the length of a snake that was removed from a toilet in Malaysia after it bit a man in the bum.

1.5 million. That is how many people traveled through U.S. airports this weekend, the most since the pandemic began.

500 million. That is how many Facebook accounts had their data published on a website for hackers. The data was old but it still exposed a vulnerability in Facebook accounts.

15,900. That is how many LinkedIn employees have this week off. The company gave a paid week off to all employees to avoid corporate burnout. They are calling it “RestUp!” We object to the exclamation point if the point is to get people to relax.

2017. That was the last time a town in New Zealand hosted the Great Easter Bunny Hunt where people actually go out to shoot and kill rabbits on Easter in support of local farmers who hate them. The event was held again this weekend and 11,968 bunnies were killed along with 555 stoats, possums, turkeys and other animals deemed as “pests.”

Japan Flips Its Coin

Japan’s Central Bank credit: reutuers

The Bank of Japan began issuing its own digital currency today. This is an early experiment where the bank will begin issuing, distributing, and redeeming a central bank digital currency, or CBDC.

Many people have thought that governments could replace paper currency with CBDC. It is not an additional currency that the government simply makes up. It is a digitized version of existing money.

CBDC is inspired by Bitcoin and blockchain technology but it is not the same. Bitcoin has no government backing or government database, by definition. CBDC runs on blockchain technology but the government controls the database.

Paper currency is incredibly inefficient. It is based on old banking infrastructure and printing money is costly to governments. But the learning curve with digital currency is steep. Many people simply don’t understand it. Many governments want to use this technology but they know they have to move slowly. The first phase of a rollout in Japan will last through March of 2022.

Stressed Out And Bald

credit: pbs

Stress is a major contributor to baldness, according to a new study. Scientists studied the effect of stress on mice and found that stressed-out rodents had more hair loss and less regrowth.

When the stress hormone was removed from the mice, however, the hair began to grow back more rapidly, even in older mice.

Of course, genetics, age, and diet all play a part in hair loss too but stress can be incredibly debilitating to the body so if you want to grow out your locks, try to stress less.

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