Trump’s Pick for Treasury Secretary: Former CIO at Goldman Sachs, Helped Start George Soros Investment Fund
November 30th, 2016L.A. Times background from a couple of weeks ago:
Mnuchin, chief executive of New York-based hedge fund Dune Capital Management, spent 17 years early in his career at Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner and eventually chief information officer, before leaving in 2002. He then started an investment fund with billionaire investor George Soros, a prominent Hillary Clinton supporter, before co-founding Dune. Mnuchin, along with other investors, made a windfall after purchasing the failed bank IndyMac in 2009 in the wake of the financial crisis, and selling it for a substantial profit in 2015.
Via: Business Insider:
President-elect Donald Trump is set to name his Treasury secretary as soon as Wednesday, The New York Times reports.
His pick is the former Goldman Sachs banker Steven Mnuchin, who served as the national finance chair on Trump’s presidential campaign.
Mnuchin spent 17 years with Goldman Sachs, and his father worked at the bank for 30 years in stock trading.
Mnuchin was chief information officer at Goldman Sachs before leaving the firm in 2002. He also worked briefly for George Soros.
During the depths of the financial crisis, a group led by Mnuchin bought troubled housing lender Indymac. After renaming the company OneWest, Mnuchin served as chairman of the firm until selling it to CIT Group in 2015.
5 Major Automakers Join Forces to Deploy 400 Ultra-Fast Charging Stations for Electric Vehicles in Europe
November 29th, 2016Via: Electrek:
BMW, Daimler’s Mercedes, Ford, and Volkswagen’s Audi and Porsche announced today that they are creating a joint-venture with the goal of a “quick build-up of a sizable number of stations in order to enable long-range travel for battery electric vehicle drivers.”
The new venture is similar to the Ultra E project announced earlier this year to deploy 25 new charging station for electric vehicles along the trans-European transport network (TEN-T), but it’s apparently a separate and much more ambitious project to deploy 400 stations across Europe.
The new network will be based on Combined Charging System (CCS) standard technology and each station will feature not only both level 2 AC chargers and level 3 DC chargers, but also the new ” ultra-fast high-powered chargers” and, like the ones of the Ultra E project, they will be able to deliver up to 350 kW – more than twice the capacity of the current best charger, Tesla’s Supercharger at 145 kW.
400 sites are apparently just the “initial target” of the joint-venture and deployment will start in 2017.
Microsoft Chatbot Censors Topics for Chinese Regime
November 29th, 2016Via: CNN:
“If you like me, why would you talk like this to me?”
Ask Microsoft’s Chinese chatbot Xiaoice about Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and that’s how she responds. She also skirts around highly sensitive topics like the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests, Chinese President Xi Jinping or even President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump’s Jesuit/Catholic Transition Team
November 29th, 2016Something? Nothing? Coincidence?
Research Credit: RB
DAIMLER TO INVEST $11 BILLION IN ELECTRIC VEHICLES
November 27th, 2016Via: Reuters:
Luxury carmaker Daimler is planning to invest up to 10 billion euros ($11 billion) in developing electric vehicles, its research and development head told a German daily.
German firms are investing heavily in electric cars, once shunned for their high cost and limited operating range but now benefiting from recent advances in battery technology and a backlash against diesel fumes.
Technological advances to increase the reach of an electric car by up to 50 percent are now spurring major investments by Volkswagen, Daimler and suppliers such as Bosch and Continental.
“By 2025 we want to develop 10 electric cars based on the same architecture,” Thomas Weber told Stuttgarter Zeitung’s Saturday edition.
“For this push we want to invest up to 10 billion euros,” he said, adding three of the models will be Smart branded cars and that thanks to larger batteries they will be able to increase their cruising range up to 700 kilometers.
In September, a person familiar with Daimler’s plans said that the car maker plans to roll out at least six electric car models as part of its push to compete with Tesla and Volkswagen’s Audi.
Aspartame and Metabolic Syndrome
November 27th, 2016Via: Deutsche Welle:
In the end, there were hardly any noticeable differences between the two groups of mice that were fed a normal diet. But among the groups that received a high-fat diet, the mice that drank the sweetener solution became considerably heavier than those who drank plain water.
However, the blood sugar level was higher than normal in all of the mice that received sweetener solution. This is usually an indicator of glucose intolerance. All of these mice also experienced an increase of a protein called TNF-alpha in their blood. This protein is typically related to inflammations that are common in cases of metabolic syndrome.
What does that mean for humans? You’d be better off drinking plain water, or tea without sugar or sweetener, than grabbing a “zero-sugar” refreshment.
Appeal to Use Cryptogon Amazon Links for Your Christmas Shopping
November 26th, 2016Update: Cash Contributions
Thank you!
GB AU$120
JM €15
DT $30
NM €300 [!!!]
KL $5 (Monthly)
KW $20 (Monthly)
DJC NZ$30
Wow, thank you all again very much.
—
You may have noticed that I’ve stopped mentioning earnings.
In short, I’ve been making only about 30% of the minimum monthly goal of $1000/month for over a year now. If I was to get a minimum wage job in NZ, it would be like winning the lotto compared to spending time on Cryptogon. My solar system sales and Becky doing some work for an early childhood education organization in NZ is how we have been surviving.
I’ve been intending to address this situation for the last year or so, but it’s so depressing that I just keep putting it off. The urge to post a “Cryptogon Closed” banner and move on is strong, but I don’t do that because of the few people who are helping out, and the few who have given far, far too much in the past and then had to stop for whatever reason.
Blogs asking for donations… I know you’re sick of it, but I’m even more sick of it.
That said: If you can remember to use any of Cryptogon’s links to Amazon for your Christmas shopping, I would deeply appreciate it.
Thank you.
Begin Amazon Session:
Washington Post’s “Fake News” Bullshit
November 26th, 2016Via: The Intercept:
The Washington Post on Thursday night promoted the claims of a new, shadowy organization that smears dozens of U.S. news sites that are critical of U.S. foreign policy as being “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda.” The article by reporter Craig Timberg – headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say” – cites a report by a new, anonymous website calling itself “PropOrNot,” which claims that millions of Americans have been deceived this year in a massive Russian “misinformation campaign.”
The group’s list of Russian disinformation outlets includes WikiLeaks and the Drudge Report, as well as Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute.
Election Recounts
November 26th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
Hillary Clinton’s campaign will participate in vote recounts of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan if they take place, drawing a rebuke from Donald Trump’s team that the Democrat is being a “sore loser” and part of a “ridiculous” effort.
If Green Party candidate Jill Stein initiates recounts in those states as she intends, the Clinton campaign “will participate in order to ensure the process proceeds in a manner that is fair to all sides,” Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias said Saturday in a post on the blogging website Medium.com. He added that he doesn’t expect the action to overturn Trumps election.
Trump focused on Stein, not Clinton, in a response. “The people have spoken and the election is over, and as Hillary Clinton herself said on election night, in addition to her conceding by congratulating me, ‘We must accept this result and then look to the future,”’ he said in a statement.
Cuba: Fidel Castro Dies at 90
November 26th, 2016Via: BBC:
Cuba’s former president Fidel Castro, one of the world’s longest-serving and most iconic leaders, has died aged 90.
His younger brother and successor as president Raul Castro announced the news on state television.
Castro toppled the government in 1959, introducing a Communist revolution. He defied the US for decades, surviving many assassination plots.
His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. Critics saw him as a dictator.
