'Rick and Morty' Is Actually Righteous Science Fiction

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all the time. Even after they set the bar really high, where they’ve done these amazing things, they still manage to do it.”

Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy host David Barr Kirtley agrees that episodes like “Total Rickall,” about aliens who pretend to be old friends by implanting false memories of themselves, are excellent examples of science fiction. “Even if you took all of the humor out of it, and told it just as a straight, serious science fiction story, it’s a good enough story on its own to get published in a science fiction magazine,” he says.

Parallel worlds are a familiar idea in science fiction, but Rick and Morty pushes the concept almost to the breaking point, with dozens of versions of its main characters scheming against each other. Author Matt London loves the show, but acknowledges that the story is at constant risk of spiraling out of control.

“I can understand why it took them years to write Season 3,” he says, “because once you open this box it’s very hard to get it closed again.”

Such mind-bending antics aren’t for everyone, and Rick and Morty also has a streak of wild misanthropy that will alienate some viewers. TV critic Carli Velocci gives the show a strong recommendation, but warns that it should be approached with caution.

“It’s definitely not a show for the faint-hearted,” she says. “There’s so much gore and violence. So yeah, there’s a lot going into Rick and Morty that you just need to be aware of.”

Listen to the complete interview with John Joseph Adams, Matt London, and Carli Velocci in Episode 265 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

John Joseph Adams on Doc and Mharti:

“It’s kind of fun to hear that we have yet another example of someone creating fanfic and then filing the serial numbers off, and it results in something amazing, and way better than it would have been if they had stuck to the original thing that they were riffing on. Because once you file the serial numbers off, now you have no boundaries, you don’t have to adhere at all to anything that previously existed, and I think that really fueled the creativity behind the show. … You hear about this in novels a lot, like Cassandra Clare started off with Harry Potter fanfic, and then she filed the serial numbers off and changed it into something original. So it’s really interesting when those things happen.”

Matt London on serialized storytelling:

“I wonder how much of it is a result of advances in technology allowing us to binge-watch entire seasons of TV, having every episode on CartoonNetwork.com, on Hulu, being able to watch the whole show. Because I think back—speaking of these early Adult Swim shows—I think back to Sealab 2021, because those people went on to make Archer, which is an incredibly serialized show that has a lot of continuity from episode to episode, and tons of references back to things that occurred in previous seasons. I can’t imagine that if those creators felt back then that people would be able to watch every single episode of the show—in sequence, from start to finish—that they wouldn’t have put more content like that into the show back then.”

Carli Velocci on character development:

“I think a lot of the problem is trying to figure out what the end conclusion of Rick and Morty is, because I don’t think there is one. But I think that with Season 2 having so much character work involved with all this other crazy science fiction stuff, I think that’ll definitely drive it going forward. I don’t think Rick really needs to change his personality in order to care more about his grandkids. I think that eventually he’ll come to some sort of understanding with himself and with—especially—his grandkids. I don’t know if we’ll learn anything about how he feels about Beth and Jerry or anything. But I think that eventually something has to come of it, otherwise it’s just going to get a little stale.”

Carli Velocci on Adult Swim:

“It has a very specific audience, and it’s not really considered ‘highbrow’ or anything. I’ve been watching Adult Swim since it was on one night a week and it showed a lot of anime. Over the years it’s had great shows like Home Movies and Metalocalypse, and now Rick and Morty, but I think that before Rick and Morty a lot of that stuff was still relegated to late night—’Oh it’s these weird cartoons for a younger male audience, or people who are into weird stuff.’ So I think it’s interesting watching Rick and Morty become a thing, and watching people who don’t normally engage in cartoons because they’re ‘for children’ or ‘for stoners in college’ or whatever, watch it and get a glimpse of it and realize that it’s a very smart show.”

Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


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New Macbook PRO? Don't Go There Friend

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I met Steve Jobs several times back in the MySpace days... Oh Steve, oh Steve. You would not be happy with what is going down in Apple land.

Did you ever make a purchase you regret? Probably. I'm sure I've made a few. Do I remember any of them? Not so much. Not until now!!! Usually I would just return the bad purchase. Unfortunately, I'm out of luck when it comes to this new Macbook. It's the most money I've spent on anything that really did not work out. What a buzz kill.  You're supposed to feel wonderful... MAGICAL when you buy an Apple product. I feel duped. 

Things I dislike about this new machine:

  • It's SLOW. Like slower than my 2012-era Macbook PRO. How is that even possible!?
  • The battery life sucks. It loses charge so quickly. Just as bad as my old MacBook, which also sucked.
  • USB-C dongle madness. Nothing plugs into this thing without an adapter. I literally carry 3 adapters (USB, iPhone, Lightning)
  • The new, large touchpad doesn't feel like the old, smaller touchpad that was more responsive. DOH!
  • The Touchbar looks neat but is annoying to use -- girls come up to me frequently and say "COOL, can I touch that?" (That part I like) 
  • The price - I paid nearly $4,000 for a fully loaded machine 16GB memory, 1TB Flash storage, Intel HDGraphics card

What I spent is immoral. I should have built a library in Nepal with that money. Instead, I bought a junky computer that is slower than the one already have which really was kinda OK.

Why oh why did I not return this Lemon? Well, first I didn't use it right away. It took me awhile to load all the software, and migrate everything over. (I use a lot of stuff for my photo processing workflow.) Then I went on a trip to Japan. A trip where I was constantly visiting Apple stores to pick up dongle after dongle. Having no foresight, I visited a store every time I discovered another device I could not plug in. After all this, I was in some remote location where there was no Apple store. By the time I realized I did not want this laptop, it was too late. Plus I'd filled my new Mac up with all kinds of photos that would be a pain to migrate. 

GRRR Apple. GRRR.

If you must have an Apple, I'd recommend getting a used one that came out before all this dongle madness. Maybe by the time it feels slow (a few years), Apple will have converted all their products to USB-C, fixed the battery issues in the current Macbook PRO, and sped this thing up.  Thumbs down Apple. I like your phone at least.




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'Splatoon 2' Review: Nintendo's Inkstained Shooter Is Great, But It's Not Exactly New

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Bless the sound designers and Foley artists who worked on Splatoon 2: the hypercolored team-based shooter boasts a squish-per-minute count that has got to be the highest in videogame history. In one illustrative sequence, I sink into the ground and burrow along a path of luminescent purple ink of my own creation—then burst back to the surface in the middle of an industrial arena and start firing my gun. Globs of that same ink cover the ground, the walls. Every shot delivers a hollow-but-not-entirely-dry plahh as it exits the barrel, and then a wet shloip! as it splats against a surface. I fling them toward my opponent, who bursts into their own shower of ink. It's like a deathmatch designed by mess fetishists.

The sequel to Splatoon, the Wii U's surprise 2015 hit, is effortlessly witty, light, and fun. It cloaks its premise—a world dominated by children who can transform into adorable cartoon squids—in a broad pastiche of punk and skater subcultures. It takes more joy in style than perhaps any other contemporary game, revelling in music and fashion; its in-universe heroes are pop stars, not warriors. And beneath that style is a thrilling, frantic competitive shooter reworked into a party game worthy of the Nintendo pedigree. These kids shoot ink, not bullets, which somehow transmogrifies the game's violent impulses into youthful mischief.

Of course, all of the above is also true of the first Splatoon. When the squid shooter hit the Wii U, it singlehandedly ushered in a brief revitalization of Nintendo's misunderstood console. No one ever really got the Wii U, and it never fit comfortably into the ecosystem of videogame consoles, but a game like Splatoon, with this much verve and originality, had the potential to save it.

That didn't happen; the Wii U withered, and the Switch (a much better console by all accounts) seems here to stay, leaving fans of the first game in an odd situation. Splatoon 2, which comes out on Friday, is a sequel that feels more like a reboot, refining and re-introducing what works in the series without changing much. The additions—including a more fleshed out single-player mode—are welcome, and the Switch's portability is an excellent match for the game's quick, dynamic matches. But if you spent time with the original, don't expect to be surprised.

Repetition isn't entirely without merit in this case. Splatoon's brilliance is in its pedagogy, the way its multiplayer maps worm into your brain. In any multiplayer shooter, the stages in which you play are everything, and determine your experience and your performance; if you're cartographically minded enough to internalize these arenas, you'll be better prepared to respond to your enemies. It's so ingrained in the culture of shooters that we don't call them "levels" anymore, or "arenas." We call them maps, and you need to learn them if you want to be a part of the conversation.

But Splatoon makes this learning process central to the in-game action. Competitive matches here aren't won by killing—or "splatting", as it's called—your enemies. Instead, they're won by covering the arena itself in ink; the team that covers more of the map wins. That means a meaningful part of each match is spent shooting at, and keeping track of, the scenery itself: Making sure every wall, floor, and environmental obstacle is covered with your ink, and attacking opponents for the sole purpose of creating more space to mark your territory. (You travel via those ink-pools in squid form to get places quickly, as well as to reload your weapons.)

Nintendo

This has the crucial side effect of teaching you the maps quickly. What this means is that anyone playing is going to become conversant in the game's language fast. Cleverly, the game also limits online multiplayer to two maps per day, feeding them to players via a slow drip of new environments over their first few days of play. This structure makes Splatoon 2 an accessible entry point for players who aren't familiar with shooters—and a fun diversion for those who are. There's depth in these matches, if you want it, but they sing as lighter fare, a candy to munch on for a few minutes every so often. Splatoon 2 is wise to leave that core unchanged, to avoid the temptation to try to make itself more elaborate to satisfy returning fans.

If only the Switch's online infrastructure was as intuitive. Don't get me wrong, getting online and playing is easy—pre-release, I've even been able to get a stable, playable connection via tethering my Switch to my cell phone's 4G—but playing with friends is considerably harder. To do so easily requires a separate phone app. That phone app is also the only means of in-game voice chat, engendering absurd solutions to game audio like this branded splitter, meant to let you get in-game sound and voice chat in the same headphones. The phone app wasn't available before launch, so I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. But even if it works swimmingly, it's still a terrible solution. Nintendo has been framing the use of cell phones as part of the Switch's online infrastructure as a common sense measure; after all, everyone owns a phone, right? But everyone playing Splatoon 2 online also owns something else: a frickin' Nintendo Switch.

That gripe aside, Splatoon 2 subtly refines its predecessor, glossing it with a fresh coat of ink and adapting it to the flexibility of the Switch. If the Wii U was a successful console, with a big user base, that might not be enough. But chances are, most people who have the chance to play Splatoon 2 never played the original. And for those players, it's absolutely worth the dive.



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Low Carb vs. Low Fat Diets

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For every patient I have who comes to me believing that a low-carb diet is the way to be healthy or control weight, I have another who has been unable to shrug off the vestiges of the low-fat era, convinced that eating more fat will lead to heart disease or weight gain.

I remind them that the evidence strongly suggests that when you reduce something in your diet — such as carbs or fat — it’s important to be mindful of what you replace it with. For example, when the public was advised to lower fat decades ago, most people swapped it for foods high in sugar and white flour, rather than with fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Not ideal.

When it comes to weight loss, the past several years of research show that low-carb diets may have a slight short-term edge on average, but that neither can claim true superiority, especially given that about 95 percent of dieters end up regaining. A decade ago, a group headed by nutrition scientist Christopher Gardner, professor of medicine at Stanford University, published a study comparing the Atkins, Zone, Ornish and LEARN diets among a group of 311 women. After a year, average weight loss was only a few pounds, but when you looked beyond that, the difference between losers and gainers on each of the four diets was huge: some lost 55 pounds, others gained 10 to 20 pounds. Why?

Gardner’s group decided to try to answer that question, focusing not on which diet was best, but which diet was best for whom. Some preliminary research — including one study from Gardner’s group published in 2012 — suggested that how someone’s body responds to the hormone insulin may be key. And then there’s our individual genetic makeup — could it predispose us to thriving on less fat, or less carbs?

I had been looking forward to hearing the results of Gardner’s more recent DIETFITS study at a conference a few months ago. When I did, what first struck me was how relatively “real world” this study was, designed to help participants stick to their randomly assigned plan, while following it in a sustainable way. I’ve had a few patients who went on months-long food benders after participating in highly restrictive diet studies, so I consider “sustainable” a critical detail.

Because there’s no standard definition of “low-fat” or “low-carb,” Gardner asked the 609 participants to aim for 20 percent carbs or fat, depending on their diet assignment. After a few weeks, they could adjust upward if needed. “Please help define for the American public what is low-carb and low-fat, not just lower,” he said to them. “What’s the lowest you can tolerate so you can look us in the eye and say, at the end of this period, ‘Yeah, I think that this place where I ended up is something I could do for the rest of my life.’ ”

In the end, “low-carb” meant about 30 percent carbs and 45 percent fat, while “low-fat” was about 29 percent fat and 48 percent carbs. Despite not being required to cut calories, participants were eating an average of 500 calories less, and what they were eating was high quality. The low-fat group was encouraged to choose whole grains, a variety of beans and lentils, seasonal organic fruit, organic low-fat milk and lean meats. The low-carb group was pointed toward high-quality oils and fats, organic avocados, hard cheeses, nut butters, grass-fed meat and pasture-raised eggs. “Everyone was supposed to have vegetables all day long as much as they could, have a salad every day, and no added sugar and as little refined flour as you could get,” Gardner said.

The participants lost a cumulative 6,500 pounds, but Gardner and his team found that there was no difference between low-carb and low-fat diets. The average weight loss for each group only differed by about two pounds, and each group had individuals who lost 65 pounds and others who gained 20 pounds. Neither group had an advantage when it came to metabolism slowing or fat loss vs. loss of lean muscle. The hypothesis that people who had insulin resistance (cells that resist insulin’s cue to take up glucose from the bloodstream) would do best on the low-carb diet, while those who did not would do better on a low-fat diet? That turned out not to be universally true. There was no pattern based on genetic makeup, either. Analysis based on participants’ gut microbiotas is pending.

The takeaway? Don’t pin your hopes on reducing fat or carbs. Instead, consider this overarching theme from the participants who did best on either diet: “Regardless of low-carb or low-fat, we helped them change their relationship to food,” Gardner said. “They didn’t eat in the car, they didn’t eat in the library, they didn’t eat while they were walking. They went to the farmers market more, they cooked more meals with their family.”

While you’re at it, think about what way of eating will satisfy you. Gardner never asked participants to cut calories, but they did, overall, and he thinks satiation may be the key. “Maybe the energy deficit prescription makes them feel uncomfortable and challenged and hungry,” he said. “Maybe if you just say ‘Eat as much as you want until you’re satiated, but eat this way until you’re satiated’ … I’d really like to look into that.”

Dennett is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Nutrition by Carrie.



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Cybersecurity Humble Book Bundle

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Safe and secure bundling. We've secured a new collection of tech ebooks for you, straight from the libraries at Wiley/Sybex. The Cybersecurity Book Bundle includes Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, Applied Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms and Source Code in C, The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security, Social Engineering: The Art of Human Hacking, and lots more!

Pay what you want. All together, these books would cost over $726. Here at Humble Bundle, you choose the price and increase your contribution to upgrade your bundle! This bundle has a minimum $1 purchase.

Read them anywhere. These books are all available in PDF format, and some in ePUB and MOBI too. Instructions and a list of recommended reading programs can be found here.

Support charity. Choose where the money goes – between the publisher, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and, if you'd like, a charity of your choice via the PayPal Giving Fund. If you like what we do, you can leave us a Humble Tip too!



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Greenlight Capital Q2 Letter: New Toshiba Position

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David Einhorn's hedge fund firm Greenlight Capital is out with its second quarter letter.  During the quarter, they lost 4% and thus far for the year are down 2.8% net.  Their average exposure was 111% long and 79% short.

Their five largest longs in alphabetical order are: AerCap (AER), Bayer (Germany: BAYN), CONSOL Energy (CNX), General Motors (GM), and Mylan (MYL).

They also point out short positions in their 'bubble basket' include Amazon (AMZN), athenahealth (ATHN), Netflix (NFLX), and Tesla (TSLA) that have moved against them.

The letter walks through some of their thoughts on each.  While Greenlight is long one auto manufacturer (GM) and short another one via Tesla, they don't do pair trades.

Also, the letter highlights that Greenlight started a new long in Toshiba (Japan: 6502) and outlines their thesis there.

Lastly, they also note they've sold their longs in Altice and Time Warner (TWX), as well as covered their decade-long short position in the credit rating agencies and their short of Mallinckrodt (MNK).

Embedded below is Greenlight Capital's Q2 letter:

 

For more from this manager, be sure to check out Einhorn's presentation on shorting Core Labs.



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“Bigger Systemic Risk” Now Than 2008 - Bank of England

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“Bigger Systemic Risk” Now Than 2008 - Bank of England

 - Bank of England warn that "bigger systemic risk" now than in 2008
- BOE, Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) concerns re financial system
- Banks accused of "balance sheet trickery" -undermining spirit of post-08 rules
- EU & UK corporate bond markets may be bigger source of instability than '08
- Credit card debt and car loan surge could cause another financial crisis

- PRA warn banks returning to similar practices to those that sparked 08 crisis
- ‘Conscious that corporate memories can be shed surprisingly fast’ warns PRA Chair

Bank of England sees bigger financial risks than in 2008

Editor Mark O'Byrne

Stark warnings have been issued by the Bank of England and its regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA).

In less than one week the two bodies issued papers and speeches to warn industry members that many banks are showing signs of making the same mistakes that led to the 2008 financial crisis - the outcomes of which are predicted to be worse than those seen just nine years ago.

Increased risks have been noted at different ends of the financial system, from the European corporate bond markets right through to retail lenders.

The Bank of England’s ‘Stimulating Stress Across the Financial System’ was released last week. It looks at how it will assess risk in future studies on the European corporate bond market. It concludes that the corporate bond market could create more instability during the next financial shock than it did in the crisis of 2008.

Just two days before this stark warning, the PRA’s chief-executive Sam Woods told lenders that they were on thin ice with their innovations designed to reduce their capital requirements and buoy earnings. Woods said that whilst their innovations “might meet the letter of the regulation” they must not be “designed to circumvent the spirit” of banking rules.

Bank of England's Woods accused banks of engaging balance sheet trickery to “circumvent the spirit” of post-financial crisis rules.

Both warnings over both sets of practices is yet another reminder of the stark difference of interests between taxpayers, regulators and the banking industry.

News of institutions circumventing regulations and non-bank corporate lenders creating more risk in the system begs the question if the financial system as we know it will ever be fit for purpose in terms of looking after the needs of borrowers and savers. It also rises concerns about how safe the banks are for depositors and whether banks are 'safe for savers?'

Balance sheet shenanigans

One of the ‘innovations’ being used by banks is the very same that was used in the run-up to and exacerbated the 2008 financial crisis. It is the use of special purpose vehicles which are used to hold riskier assets in order to free up capital.

Woods told the news conference:

“We have noticed that some institutions are now moving on-balance-sheet financing to off-balance-sheet formats using special purpose vehicles, derivatives, agency structures or collateral swaps.”

Practices such as these are being done in order to reduce the burden of new rules which have come or are coming into play. The Bank of England and the regulatory authorities are close to completing and implementing the reforms that were agreed to following the 2008 crisis.

However the changes designed to make banks less risky have meant margins are being squeezed from two directions, both by new regulations and record low interest rates.

The regulators’ concerns over these practices are that they circumvent a regulation designed to protect taxpayers from yet another bank bailout. These are the ring fencing rules much lauded about following the financial crisis. They require that those banks and building societies with more require financial institutions with more than £25bn of deposits to tie off their retail divisions from the riskier investment banking units by 2019.

This is the most costly of the reforms being put into place, rumoured to have a price tag of billions of pounds.

Widespread illiquidity leads to panic

Meanwhile, on the other side of the market (but still as entwined and as risky as banks’ circumvention tactics) the Bank of England study has shown that they have some significant concerns about the effects of non-bank lenders in a stressed market, particularly on corporate funding rates and their impact on the real economy.

The central bank is primarily concerned that those dealers making markets in bonds will not be able to cope with panic-selling levels by investors. The study found that 2008 levels of weekly mutual fund redemptions  (1 percent of assets under management) could increase corporate bond interest rates for companies with high credit ratings by about 40 basis points.

Dealers might struggle to absorb these sales if redemptions are only a third higher, an event which the study described as "an unlikely, but not impossible, event”.

Whilst the study states that this was an incomplete exercise in assessing the risk in the system, it was clear that it had raised cause for concern namely due to such risks creating a feedback loop between individually safe parts of the market that amplified the shock.

"Nevertheless, it has allowed a scenario to be explored in which large-scale redemptions from open-ended investment funds trigger sales by those funds, with resulting spillover effects to dealers and hedge funds."

Concerns over how widespread illiquidity can lead to panic amongst investors is fresh in regulators’ and institutions’ minds following the episode post-Brexit vote when there was a run on real estate funds and a temporary ban was placed on withdrawals following the surge in redemption requests.

There is little reason why, given the right set of economic circumstances, such an event wouldn’t happen in the corporate bond market.

Currently there are two events in the near future which could prompt a sell-off in corporate bonds.

The first is a potential reduction in the monthly €60 billion of securities the ECB currently buys. Should they decide to reduce these then investors may dump bonds in favour of equities, cash or gold.

The second potential problem is of course Italy. The general election is due to happen before next May and should Eurosceptic party, the Five Star Movement, win then we are likely to see panicked bond selling.

Worries about corporate bond markets or balance sheet shenanigans by banks do not seem to be causing much concern amongst the UK electorate and savers. But a quick snapshot of how finances look at a household level should be provide a much needed wakeup call.

A decade on, what damage can be done

Woods’s speech about the state of banks’ clever balance sheets was ultimately about their desires to return ‘to the punchbowl’ as they try to boost credit and risk. The chief executive said that his organisation had seen"a shift in credit risk appetite as lenders compete with each other to find ways of widening the pool of available borrowers, increasing the size of loans available to them, or reducing the credit premium charged for inherently more risky loans.”

The state of the things at a retail level is somewhat terrifying. Household lending is growing at 10.3% a year – outpacing the 2.3% rise in household income. The total credit owed by UK consumers at the end of April 2017 was £198 billion, with credit card borrowing at a record £67.7 billion. The BOE is so concerned that it has told lenders to set aside £11.4 billion to protect against defaults.

More concerning about the state of household debt is that Bank of England data shows 15.75pc of all new mortgages taken out in the first quarter of 2017 were for terms of 35 years or more.

But, the latest growing area of debt is car financing. £58 billion of car dealership finance. Just £24 billion of this comes from banks. The rest is from other lenders, such as dedicated motor finance firms. They do not have to follow the strict lending rules on having capital buffers to cover losses like banks do – a development the Bank of England is concerned about.

It has been ten years since the last interest rate hike. A decade is a long-time, enough time for the market to welcome in a new generation of borrowers who are unfamiliar with higher interest rates and the dangers of borrowing. Most concerning is it seems no matter who they borrow from, they are disinterested in the state of regulatory demands.

It has been more than a decade since 60+ banks and building societies were issued a similar warning in 2004. Many failed to listen to the warnings given.

"As survivors, societies here today ought to be well aware of the warning signs, but I’m conscious that corporate memories can be shed surprisingly fast…I would observe that part of the reason why only 44 societies are attending this conference rather than the 60+ that came to its equivalent in 2004 lies in the fact that many of those societies were unaware of, or failed to control, the risks they were taking."

- Sam Woods of PRA

Similarly aware of this lack of insight, the Bank of England recently asked lenders how these new borrowers affected the banks’ credit-scoring models, as the banks themselves are the first line of defence when it comes to protecting the economy (and taxpayers) against increased risk.

Sam Woods’s speech last week suggest that banks and building societies are most likely unconcerned with the risk these new borrowers bring to the system.

In May, the British households borrowed £1.7 billion in May, higher than the £1.4 billion that forecasters expected and the £1.438 billion borrowed in April. This rapid growth of consumer credit will pose a risk to banks when the economy falters and borrowers struggle to repay the loans.

Conclusion

These warnings from the Bank of England and the PRA just serve to remind us that there is little in the financial system which is not exposed to the highly speculative and risky lending practices of those charged with looking after our savings and investments.

Even if some banks are listening to the warning cry of the regulators, the level of debt in the financial system in the UK and most western countries is completely unsustainable.

Ultimately all of the above means that your personal finances and your savings held in deposit accounts are at risk. The risk is that when authorities move to bailout the next bank who enjoyed the punch a bit too much, your savings may be confiscated in bank deposit bail-ins.

Why do we like physical gold and silver? Because when you buy it in the right way, you own it outright.

When you own physical gold and silver coins and bars which is allocated, segregated and in your name, it cannot suffer a 'haircut' or be confiscated by bankrupted financial entities. Bullion coins and bars are yours and carry no counter party risk if you take insured delivery or store in the safest vaults in the world.

Protecting-Your-Savings-In-The-Coming-Bail-In-EraAccess Bail-in Guide

 

Sources

Credit market a bigger systemic risk than during 2008 crisis: BOE - Reuters

Bank tackles lenders balance sheet trickery - FT Adviser

Related Content

“Financial Crisis” In 2017 Or By End Of 2018 – Prepare Now

UK At ‘Edge of Worst House Price Collapse Since 1990s’

UK Inflation is no longer in stealth mode

 

  

News and Commentary

Gold inches up as prospects for slower U.S. rate hikes weigh on dollar (Reuters.com)

Gold marks highest settlement of the month, up 1.5% for the week (MarketWatch.com)

Asia shares rise on accommodative Fed (Reuters.com)

Dollar Bears’ Case Grows Stronger as Wagers on Fed Hikes Fade (Bloomberg.com)

ECB Expected to Use July Decision to Quell Investors’ Taper Temper (Bloomberg.com)

Gold and Silver Gain Over 1% and 2% on the Week (SilverSeek.com)

Speculators Sour On Gold And silver, Which Means The Bottom Is Near (DollarCollapse.com)

Hedge Funds Are Losing Faith in Precious Metals (Bloomberg.com)

Financial-Crisis-Style Carmageddon Descends on Houston (WolfStreet.com)

Chinese Silk Road Advances - Purchases Ports Worth $20B In Year (FT.com)

Gold Prices (LBMA AM)

17 Jul: USD 1,229.85, GBP 940.71 & EUR 1,074.03 per ounce
14 Jul: USD 1,218.95, GBP 940.54 & EUR 1,067.92 per ounce
13 Jul: USD 1,221.40, GBP 944.51 & EUR 1,071.05 per ounce
12 Jul: USD 1,219.40, GBP 947.60 & EUR 1,064.29 per ounce
11 Jul: USD 1,211.90, GBP 938.98 & EUR 1,063.68 per ounce
10 Jul: USD 1,207.55, GBP 938.63 & EUR 1,060.11 per ounce
07 Jul: USD 1,220.40, GBP 944.47 & EUR 1,068.95 per ounce

Silver Prices (LBMA)

17 Jul: USD 16.07, GBP 12.30 & EUR 14.02 per ounce
14 Jul: USD 15.71, GBP 12.11 & EUR 13.76 per ounce
13 Jul: USD 15.95, GBP 12.34 & EUR 14.00 per ounce
12 Jul: USD 15.83, GBP 12.31 & EUR 13.82 per ounce
11 Jul: USD 15.51, GBP 12.02 & EUR 13.61 per ounce
10 Jul: USD 15.22, GBP 11.82 & EUR 13.36 per ounce
07 Jul: USD 15.84, GBP 12.29 & EUR 13.88 per ounce


Recent Market Updates

- Video – “Gold Should Probably Be $5000” – CME Chairman Duffy
- India Gold Imports Surge To 5 Year High – 220 Tons In May Alone
- “Silver’s Plunge Is Nearing Completion”
- China, Russia Alliance Deepens Against American Overstretch
- Silver Prices Bounce Higher After Futures Manipulated 7% Lower In Minute
- Precious Metals Are “Best Defence” Against Bail-ins In Economic Crisis
- Buy Gold Near $1,200 “As Insurance” – UBS Wealth
- UK House Prices ‘On Brink’ Of Massive 40% Collapse
- Gold Up 8% In First Half 2017; Builds On 8.5% Gain In 2016
- Pensions Timebomb In America – “National Crisis” Cometh
- London Property Bubble Bursting? UK In Unchartered Territory On Brexit and Election Mess
- Shrinkflation – Real Inflation Much Higher Than Reported
- Goldman, Citi Turn Positive On Gold – Despite “Mysterious” Flash Crash

Important Guides

For your perusal, below are our most popular guides in 2017:

Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Switzerland

Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore

Essential Guide to Tax Free Gold Sovereigns (UK)

Please share our research with family, friends and colleagues who you think would benefit from being informed by it.

 

Special Offer - Gold Sovereigns at 3% Premium - London Storage

We have a very special offer on Sovereigns for London Storage today. Own one of the most popular and liquid of all bullion coins - Gold Sovereigns - at the lowest rates in the market for storage.

sovereign.png

  • Limited Gold Sovereigns (0.2354 oz) available
  • Pricing at spot + 3.0% premium
  • Allocated, segregated storage in London
  • Normally sell at spot gold plus 6.75% to 10%
  • One of most sought after bullion coins in the world
  • Mixed year, circulated bullion coins
  • Minimum order size is 20 coins

These coins are at a very low price and with limited amounts at these record low prices we expect them to sell out very fast.

Call our office today

UK +44 (0)203 086 9200
IRL +353 (0)1 632  5010
US +1 (302)635 1160



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There Has Been Just One Buyer Of Stocks Since The Financial Crisis

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When discussing Blackrock's latest quarterly earnings (in which the company missed on both the top and bottom line, reporting Adj. EPS of $5.24, below the $5.40 exp), CEO Larry Fink made an interesting observation: “While significant cash remains on the sidelines, investors have begun to put more of their assets to work. The strength and breadth of BlackRock’s platform generated a record $94 billion of long-term net inflows in the quarter, positive across all client and product types, and investment styles. The organic growth that BlackRock is experiencing is a direct result of the investments we’ve made over time to build our platform."

While the intention behind the statement was obvious: to pitch Blackrock's juggernaut ETF product platform which continues to steamroll over the active management community, leading to billions in fund flow from active to passive management every week, if not day, he made an interesting point: cash remains on the sidelines even with the S&P at record highs.

In fact, according to a chart from Credit Suisse, Fink may be more correct than he even knows. As CS' strategist Andrew Garthwaite writes, "one of the major features of the US equity market since the low in 2009 is that the US corporate sector has bought 18% of market cap, while institutions have sold 7% of market cap."

What this means is that since the financial crisis, there has been only one buyer of stock: the companies themselves, who have engaged in the greatest debt-funded buyback spree in history.

Why this rush by companies to buyback their own stock, and in the process artificially boost their Eearning per Share? There is one very simple reason: as Reuters explained some time ago, "Stock buybacks enrich the bosses even when business sags."  And since bond investor are rushing over themselves to fund these buyback plans with "yielding" paper at a time when central banks have eliminated risk, who is to fault them. 

More concerning than the unprecedented coordinated buybacks, however, is not only the relentless selling by institutions, but the persistent unwillingness by "households" to put any new money into the market which suggests that the financial crisis has left an entire generation of investors scarred with "crash" PTSD, and no matter what the market does, they will simply not put any further capital at risk.

As to Fink's conclusion that "investors have begun to put more of their assets to work", we will wait until such time as central banks, who have pumped nearly $2 trillion into capital markets in 2017 alone, finally stop doing so before passing judgment.



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Fox News' Shepard Smith: 'Why is it lie after lie after lie?' on Russia meeting - USA TODAY

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Fox News Channel chief news anchor Shepard Smith on

Fox News Channel chief news anchor Shepard Smith on the Fox News Deck before his "Shepard Smith Reporting" program, in New York. (Photo: Richard Drew, AP)

Fox News host Shepard Smith slammed what he called "lies" and "deception" pushed by Donald Trump Jr. in a fiery Friday rant over emerging details of Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer last summer.

On Friday's Shepard Smith Reporting, the host launched into a tirade over Trump Jr.'s stance the meeting equated to nothing even as new details showed it included eight people. Several congressional committees and a special counsel are investigating whether Trump associates colluded with the Russians during the presidential campaign.

"We're still not clean on this, Chris," Smith told fellow Fox anchor Chris Wallace. "Why all these lies? Why is it lie after lie after lie? If you clean, come on clean."

Smith, who has chided President Trump for his treatment of the media, continued.

"The deception, Chris, is mind-boggling," he said. "And there are still people out there who believe we're making it up and one day they're going to realize we're not."

The diatribe left Wallace speechless. 

"I don't know what to say," he said. "I think there's a lot of truth to everything you've said." 

Smith's statements quickly spread across the Internet, where some called for his firing.

Smith went on the offensive against Trump and his administration earlier this year. In February, Smith defended CNN as "not fake news," an accusation often lobbed by the president and his supporters.

Follow Sean Rossman on Twitter: @SeanRossman

Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2uukVmx



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Scheme Programming Lessons from Tarot

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Scheme Programming Lessons from Tarot: 1 - sequences

The append problem

(define (append x y)
  (if (null? x)
      y
      (cons (car x) (append (cdr x) y))))

When you calculate (append '(a b c) '(1 2 3 4)) the result is (a b c 1 2 3 4). This requires copying the first 3 elements which attach onto the second list. This can become a problem if we use append to build up a large list, consider:

(define example-a (append '(a) (append '(b) (append '(c) (append '(d) (append '(e) '()))))))
(define example-b (append (append (append (append (append '() '(a)) '(b)) '(c)) '(d)) '(e)))

example-a is okay, it does 5 copies O(n).

example-b is very inefficient, it does 10 copies O(n^2).

In the tarot scheme compiler we need to build up all sorts of long lists in various directions. So we cant allow this sort of quadratic inefficiency to creep in. If we are creating a list of 10 elements we should only do 10 copies at most.

So how can we achieve this efficiency?

Sequences

So we created a list-creation DSL. A seq data type that represents the list we want to construct, along with a function used at the end to ‘bake’ it into a real list. This data type has two constructors:

<seq> ::= (elt <element>)
        | (cat <seq> ...)

we can use it like this:

(define example-a (seq->list `(cat (elt a) (cat (elt b) (cat (elt c) (cat (elt d) (cat (elt e) (cat))))))))
(define example-b (seq->list `(cat (cat (cat (cat (cat (cat) (elt a)) (elt b)) (elt c)) (elt d)) (elt e))))
(define example-c (seq->list `(cat (elt a) (elt b) (elt c) (elt d) (elt e)))
(define example-d (seq->list `(cat (cat (elt a) (elt b)) (elt c) (cat (elt d) (elt e)))))

The sequence library makes use of scheme’s quasiquote operator and this gives us huge flexibility for compiling lists.

Implementation

To efficiently implement this, we are using difference lists. That’s a key technique in functional programming where instead of working directly with lists (that end with nil '()) you instead work with lists whose tail is left undecided and could be any other list.

(define (seq->dlist seq tail)
  (cond ((elt? seq) (cons (elt-get-elt seq) tail))
        ((cat? seq) (fold seq->dlist tail (cat-get-seqs seq)))
        (else (error 'seq->dlist "?" seq))))
(define (seq->list seq) (seq->dlist seq '()))

Essentially what this recursion does is walk through a seq data structure threading each element together into one final list. Allocating the fewest number of cons cells that it needs to!

Example

Here’s just a snippet of what its use might look like in a program, this is a section of the ‘flatten’ compiler pass processing an ‘if’ construct:

(define (flatten-exp exp into tail? info stk)
  ...
  ...
  ...
        ((if? exp)
         (let ((test (if-get-test exp))
               (consequent (if-get-consequent exp))
               (antecedent (if-get-antecedent exp)))
           (let ((lbl-skip-then (gensym "skip-then"))
                 (lbl-skip-else (gensym "skip-else")))
             `(cat ,(flatten-exp test 'reg:acc #f info stk)
                   (elt (branch ,lbl-skip-then))
                   ,(flatten-exp consequent into tail? info stk)
                   (elt (jump ,lbl-skip-else))
                   (elt (label ,lbl-skip-then))
                   ,(flatten-exp antecedent into tail? info stk)
                   (elt (label ,lbl-skip-else))))))
  ...
  ...
  ...)

If you’d like to use seq in your own programs here’s my version. You’re also welcome to reimplement it in your favorite language!



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