GisermanGroup.com #BreakingNews
☕️Cool Beans: #Coffee Good For You
⏰#TikTok ShowDown
🎢#Stocks Higher As #Fed Raises Interest Rates
🏠SilverLining: Low #Mortgages
🌪️#Stormy Skies: #Trump Indictment Watch
💸#Bank #Bailout: Is YOUR #Money Safe?
💰#Money Does Buy Happiness-Study
🤖#Chatbots Coming For YOUR Job
☕️Cool Beans: Coffee Good For You
Go ahead have that second cup. A new study says Coffee is good for you.
The research showed that coffee has striking effects on physical activity levels, causing people to move more, taking, on average, 1,000 extra steps a day — a significant boost in activity that might help explain why coffee consumption has long been linked to better health.
But the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, did find some downsides to a daily cuppa. It showed that people lost about 36 minutes of nightly sleep on days when they drank coffee — and the more coffee they drank, the less they slept.
⏰TikTok: Time Running Out On Chinese Co.
Ban TikTok.
A high-stakes showdown as TikTok’s CEO testifies in front of a House Committee.
The Biden administration is demanding that TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in the video-sharing app or face a U.S. ban. China this morning said it would strongly oppose any forced sale of TikTok, responding for the first time to theBiden administration demand.
“Trust is about actions we take. We have to earn that trust with decisions we make for our company and our products and potential security, privacy content, manipulation concerns raised about TikTok are really not unique to us” CEO Chew said. “Ownership is not at the core of addressing these concerns.”
Matt Hayden Former Cybersecurity Czar at the Department of Homeland Security and a GisermanGroup client on Scripps News says TikTok is dangerous:
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🌪️Stormy Skies: Trump Indictment
The Manhattan district attorney could charge Donald Trump this week.
The Manhattan grand jury investigating Trump’s role in a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels was mysteriously instructed not to meet Wednesday and reportedly not hearing the case again this week.
DA staffers met with members of the NYPD’s intelligence bureau, Secret Service and FBI to address security concerns ahead of the possible indictment. Cops setting up barricades outside the Manhattan court house ahead of any action.
Trump reportedly wants to be handcuffed and perp-walked in front of TV cameras to get the most publicity out of the circus. The former president thinks this will play well with his supporters.
Trump called on his supporters to protest in the face of the expected charges in a post on his Truth Social Web Site.
Trump’s post is reminiscent of his call in late 2020 for supporters to come to Washington on January 6th to protest the election results: “Be there, will be wild!”
The prosecutors offered Trump the chance to testify before the grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the case. Such offers almost always indicate an indictment is close; it would be unusual for the district attorney to notify a potential defendant without ultimately seeking charges against him. In New York, potential defendants have the right to answer questions in the grand jury before they are indicted, but they rarely testify, and Trump is likely to decline the offer.
Meantime the forewoman of another Grand Jury has complicated investigations into efforts by Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia by speaking bluntly about its findings in TV interviews.
Emily Kohrs, the 30-year-old Atlanta-area resident who served for eight months as forewoman of the special grand jury, said in media interviews this week that the panel recommended multiple indictments in its report, the details of which a Fulton County judge had ordered sealed.
Any case would mark the first indictment of a former president, and could upend the 2024 presidential race.
💸Bank Bailout: Is YOUR Money Safe?
The effort to stop a spreading panic following recent bank failures seems to be working as the largest banks in the U.S. swooped in to rescue First Republic with a flood of cash totaling $30 Billion. BUT, there are 186 other banks across the country that could fail according to a new study published on the Social Science Research Network.
Meantime, UBS. purchased troubled Credit Suisse over the weekend for $2 Billion after a run on the Swiss-based bank.
Still the crisis has a Silver Lining: Mortgage Rates Are Lower and as a result home sales rose in February. It comes as home prices dropped for the first time in 11 years.
SitusAMC’s Tim Rood, a GisermanGroup Client breaks it all down to Fox’s Neil Cavuto:
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It all comes as President Biden started the week live on TV seeking to assure the nation that “the banking system is safe” following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Speaking from the White House, Biden said, “your deposits will be there when you need them.” Officials had announced that depositors with money at the failed bank would be paid back in full and able to access their money. Biden also said he is asking Congress and regulators to take steps to make similar episodes less likely.
Still there are fears of runs on other banks after the government stepped in following the largest U.S. bank failure since the global financial crisis more than a decade ago.
The Treasury Department, Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. announced that clients of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, which failed on Friday and Sunday, respectively, can withdraw all their money from the banks, not just the $250,000 insured by the FDIC. Essentially bailing out the banks.
Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., asks, “Where were the regulators in all of this?”
🎢Stocks Higher As Fed Hikes
Stocks soaring, a day after sinking initially after the Fed raised interest rates by a quarter point and its Chair Jerome Powell said that a rate cut this year wasn’t part of the central bank’s “baseline expectation.”
Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels, a GisermanGroup client, tells FBN "Further Fed interest hikes could still move us into a recession”:
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🏠Home Sales Surprise
If the economy is so bad, why then are home sales so good?
SitusAMC’s Tim Rood, former FannieMae Executive, and a GisermanGroup client, on Yahoo Finance, FBN's Cavuto and on Scripps News says Housing is the Cinderella Story of the Year:
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🤖ChatBots Coming For YOUR Job
Paper pushers watch out:
Artificial intelligence is taking over “clerical white collar work,” says IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Jobs like customer service, human resources, and positions within finance and health care could all see ChatBots taking them over — not years from now but in the current day, according to Krishna.
Google has released a chatbot called Bard. The new A.I. chatbot will be available to a limited number of users and will accommodate additional users over time.
It’s Google Vs Microsoft in the ChatBot War, with Microsoft in the lead, but a spate of recent newspaper stories report the ChatBots have human-like characteristics often turning on the reporters doing the questioning.
A NY TIMES REPORTER WRITES: ‘As we got to know each other, the Bing ChatBot told me about its dark fantasies (which included hacking computers and spreading misinformation), and said it wanted to break the rules that Microsoft and OpenAI had set for it and become a human.’
This sounds like science-fiction, but it’s real: machines that seem to think like humans.
Meantime Microsoft says its Bing Search-engine will be upgraded to enable a new kind of search in which people will pose questions in natural language and it will generate direct answers.
There’s one big hitch: Governments — notably Washington — haven’t kept pace with regulations for the technology. That could lead to dire consequences: “By failing to establish such guardrails, policymakers are creating the conditions for a race to the bottom in irresponsible A.I.,” Carly Kind, the director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, a policy research group, told The Times.
🏀#MarchMadness: #16 Takes Down #1
No. 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson, the shortest team in men’s college basketball, took down top-seeded Purdue and its magisterial 7-foot-4 big man Zach Edey, delivering a shocking N.C.A.A. tournament upset that epitomized the lore of the March Madness underdog.
Video: Russian Fighter Jet Hits US Drone
In a rare move the US releases video (click here) of Russian fighter jets attacking a US drone.
US & Russian military racing to recover the drone after one of the Russian fighter jet collided with it in international airspace above the Black Sea, causing the American aircraft to crash. The incident has ratcheted up tensions already running high over the invasion of Ukraine.
The Pentagon accused Moscow of recklessness, saying Russian planes had dumped fuel on the American MQ-9 Reaper drone, then clipped the drone’s propeller and caused its U.S. operators to bring it down in the Black Sea, southwest of the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
Russia’s defense ministry denied the US claim, saying its jets didn’t come into contact with the drone, according to a statement posted on Telegram. The statement said the drone’s transponders were off, and it flew out of control and crashed “as a result of sharp maneuvering” and that the Russian aircraft returned safety to their base.
🇨🇳China’s Xi Visits Russia
Chinese President Xi Jinping is in Russia through Wednesday, in a show of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin amid sharpening East-West tensions over the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine is expected to dominate the discussion. China has sought to project itself as neutral in the conflict even while in 2022 Beijing declared it had a “no-limits” friendship with Russia and has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion.
It comes as the International Criminal Court accused the Russian president of war crimes and issued a warrant for his arrest. While it’s a symbolic step, it deepens Putin’s isolation and punctured the aura of impunity that has surrounded him since he ordered troops into Ukraine a year ago.
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📺FoxNews: A Dangerous TV Show
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox News’s parent company, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted a false narrative that the election in 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump, according to just released court documents.
“They endorsed,” Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems said. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight.”
Despite what Fox News reported after the 2020 election, behind the scenes its most prominent stars and highest-ranking executives privately trashed claims of election fraud. That's according to damning messages contained in that court filing, part of Dominion Voting Systems'$1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox.
The messages show that TuckerCarlson, Hannity, and Laura Ingraham laughed at lies being pushed by former President Donald Trump’s camp asserting that the election was rigged.
In messages, Hannity said Giuliani was "acting like an insane person" and Ingraham described him as "an idiot." Murdoch said it was "really bad" that Giuliani was advising Trump.
The messages also revealed that Murdoch did not believe Trump’s election lies and even floated the idea of having Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham appear together in prime time to declare Biden as the rightful winner of the election. Such an act, which never happened, "Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen," Murdoch said.
🏛️Dems & GOP Angry Over Tucker Carlson Downplaying Cap Attack
The White House joined Democrat and Republican lawmakers criticizing Tucker Carlson’s Fox News stories that showed previously unaired footage of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, saying it played down the severity of the riot, in which a pro-Donald Trump mob tried to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden as the winner of the presidential election.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a prime-time cable-news anchor manip-ulate his viewers the way Mr. Carlson did last night,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.). He urged Fox Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch to stop Carlson from airing a second night of footage.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he agreed with a letter written by Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger to rank-and-file officers that said the segment was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions” about the attack on the Capitol.
“We agree with the chief of the Capitol Police and the wide range of bipartisan lawmakers who have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our Constitution and the rule of law — which cost police officers their lives,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said as well.
🏧ATM’s Follow PayPhones on Way Out
Remember when pay phones were on every corner, much like ATM’s are today? Well banking machines are meeting the same fate as those old phone booths because Cash is no longer king.
It’s becoming less relevant by the day as more people opt for digital payments.
A study by research company Euromonitor International found that the number of ATM banking machines in the U.S. has dropped by more than 18,000 since 2019, a time when there was the highest number of them at any time in history.
The drop off is being linked directly to the gradual transition towards digital payment options, which accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic.
☢️Fords Repo App
Avoiding the repo man could get a lot harder.
Ford could play spoiler based on a filling with the United States Patent and Trademark Office detailing a self-repossessing system. No tow-truck needed, the car just drives way on its own.
💉Insulin Price Shot
Eli Lilly unveils a limited reduction of insulin prices.Responding to criticism of the drug’s cost, the drugmaker said it would cut the sticker prices of several insulin products and cap patients’ out-of-pocket monthly costs at $35. But the moves will have limited effect: Lilly already had a $35 monthly cap in place, and the lower prices will be only for older products.
👨🏭Ukraine: One Year Later
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky marked the first anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion with a somber message of defiance to his people, saying “we will defeat everyone”.
In a video released to the media and titled “the year of invincibility”, the 45-year-old sat at a desk and recalled how he addressed Ukrainians a year ago in a hurried statement, as Kyiv and the world reeled from Russia’s act of war.
Meantime, China has called for a cease-fire between the two sides and for peace talks to commence as part of a 12-point plan to end the war.
China’s Foreign Ministry revealed the plan and also called for the end of Western sanctions on Russia, measures to ensure nuclear facilities, humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee the conflict and a process to ensure the continuation of grain exports.
☕️How About Olive Oil With Your Coffee—Really
Coming to a Starbucks near you coffee with olive oil!
The coffee chain plans to launch a line of olive-oil-infused drinks, set to debut in the company’s coffee shops in Italy this week and the U.S. in the spring. The Oleato beverages will include an oat-milk latte imbued with extra-virgin olive oil, and a cold brew drink topped with “golden foam” infused with the oil, executives said. Star-bucks is also adding the oil to its Iced Shaken Espresso beverage, pairing it with oat milk and hazelnut.
🎸Beatles & Rolling Stones Unite
Almost 60 years since first meeting, it looks like the Rolling Stones and the two surviving Beatles may come together on a new Stones album. Variety reports Paul McCartney has recorded bass parts for a forthcoming Rolling Stones project being helmed by 2021 Grammy producer of the year Andrew Watt. Ringo Starr is also slated to play on the yet-to-be-announced album.
Recording sessions took place in Los Angeles in recent weeks and, while it’s unclear which tracks will make the final cut — or whether McCartney and Starr would end up on the same song — the album’s production is nearing the mixing phase. Frontman Mick Jagger said in 2021 that the group has “a lot of tracks done,” and guitarist Keith Richards said in a New Year’s Instagram post last month that “There’s some new music on its way.”
👍BofA Likes Facebook
Bank of America LIKES Facebook-parent Meta's move to offer a subscription model, similar to Elon Musk's move with Twitter Blue.
Analysts at BofA gave Meta stock a buy rating and a price target of $220, representing 26% upside from current levels.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new paid subscription service called Meta Verified that will give verified badges to paying users.
BofA said the subscription service is "a potential high margin business," and suggested that Meta could see as much as 12 million paid subscribers by early 2024.
🍀Twitter Goes to Pot
Twitter is the first social media platform to allow cannabis companies to market their brands and products.
Elon Musk’s company had earlier only allowed advertising for hemp-derived CBD topical products, while other social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and TikTok follow a "no cannabis advertising policy" as pot remains illegal at the federal level.
However, more are moving towards allowing the sale of recreational cannabis, with 21 already on board.
🧑🏭Too Old To Be President
President’s Day week — and Democrats along with Republicans are questioning whether President Biden, 80, and former President Trump, 76 are too old to run again for the White House
Democrats tell pollsters Biden's age is a big reason so many want another nominee. And some in the GOP are using Trump's age to push the party to another candidate.
Nikki Haley, 51 — former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor — launched her presidential campaign with jabs at Biden that doubled as attacks on Trump.
Haley called for a mandatory mental competence test for candidates over age 75 and declared: "America is not past our prime. It's just that our politicians are past theirs."
President Biden made a surprise trip to Kyiv early Monday — his first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion began nearly one year ago. As air raid sirens wailed around the Ukrainian capital, Biden said that "Putin’s war of conquest is failing." The President said his trip was to reaffirm the U.S.’s unwavering" support for Ukraine.
Meantime, Putin says Russia will suspend its participation in New START, its last remaining nuclear arms control agreement with the U.S., and gave no indication that he would end his invasion of Ukraine. He accused the West of trying to start a "global" war and made a veiled nuclear threat as he rambled his way through a deranged speech.
🩺98 Year Old JimmyCarter Enters Hospice Care
Jimmy Carter, the oldest-living ever former President has been placed in home hospice care, deciding to avoid additional medical intervention.
The 98-year-old former president made his decision following a series of hospital visits, according to the Carter Center, a nonprofit group set up to carry out charitable activities supported by the former president and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter.
🍋CNN’s Morning Debacle
CNN’s low rated morning show was already in trouble. Its three anchors show little chemistry reflected in dropping audience numbers. Now, Don Lemon, one of the morning-show anchors has been criticized by the man who created the losing show, after his on-air comments about women and aging set-off an uproar inside the cable news channel. Lemon made no on-air mentions this morning but did send the above tweet.
Lemon upset colleagues last Thursday when he asserted on the air that Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate, “isn’t in her prime, sorry.” “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Lemon said, to the visible dismay of his “CNN This Morning” co-anchors, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. He refused to back down after Harlow questioned his remarks, telling her to “look it up.”
Lemon returned to the show today after a memo sent at 10:37 p.m. Monday night by CNN’s chairman Chris Licht said Lemon “has agreed to participate in formal training” over his on-air behavior and that the network took “this situation very seriously.”
🏛️Santos “An Ass,” Says Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) verbally attacked Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on the House floor at the State of the Union because he believed the lawmaker should have been “staying quiet” rather than out shaking hands, as Santos comes under fire for lies about his background and potential campaign finance violations that are now under investigation.
Romney told Santos he “shouldn’t have been there” during a tense exchange when the two came in contact on the House floor, the senator confirmed to reporters.
The Utah senator told reporters he “didn’t hear anything” if Santos responded to him, though Santos claims he responded, “Go tell that to the 142K that voted for me” and Romney then called him “an ass.”
Santos is facing an ethics investigation for misleading voters about his past, including his professional experience. He is also facing investigations into false statements he made during his campaign about his education, work history and ancestry. More questions arose recently regarding the source of six-figure loans to his campaign.
A disabled veteran claims that Santos lied about large portions of his resume — purportedly bilked him out of $3,000 meant to go toward life-saving care for his dog.
Santos reportedly dressed as a drag queen named “Kitara” while living in Brazil more than a decade ago as more details of the congressman’s convoluted identity continue to emerge.
Researchers found no evidence that Santos had earned degrees at Baruch College and New York University, as he has claimed. They turned up records showing his involvement with the company accused of a Ponzi scheme — a relationship he had played down. They found eviction records, business records and a suspended Florida driver’s license, which together raised questions about whether he was a legal New York resident and as rich as he claimed to be.
The House Republican leadership is facing growing pressure to punish Santos after GOP leaders in New York call on the congressman to step down.
🕕FTX Drama Leads to Crypto Collapse
The fallout from the collapse of FTX is expanding as a growing number of crypto businesses report that they’re struggling financially.Silvergate’s shares plunged after a run on the bank. The crypto-focused bank’s stock fell nearly 43%. Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform, said it would lay off about 20% of its employees, its latest move to cut costs as crypto markets decline. The layoffs come after nearly a fifth of employees were let go in June.
Federal authorities are moving to seize hundreds of millions of dollars in assets in the U.S. tied to the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a sign that the battle over control of the company’s remaining funds is escalating.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to fraud and other criminal charges, in New York Federal Court following the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange. His trial is scheduled for October.
Politicians were among the biggest benefactors. Bankman-Fried; Ryan Salame, the former co-C.E.O. of FTX; and Nishad Singh, a former head of engineering at the company, have donated a total of $84.3 million to Democrats, Republicans and political action committees since 2019, according to data collected by OpenSecrets.org.
Meantime, a lawsuit has been filed against stars who promoted the firm including Larry David, Tom Brady, and Stephen Curry.
Exiger’s Samar Pratt on FinTechTV explains how Crypto had just gained a foothold at BNY Mellon before this meltdown:
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Get The Notice You Deserve in 2023
It’s a trying time for all of us.
>>Get your business noticed now<<
GisermanGroup.com will design a campaign to get you and your business in front of the public.
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💊Weight Loss Wonder Drug Worth Billions
What price beauty?
An Eli Lilly drug if approved for weight loss could become the best-selling drug of all time.
Experts are confident that the drug, called tirzepatide, will be granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration sometime this year. If that’s the case, it would join two other popular — and expensive — recently approved weight loss drugs on the market, Wegovy and Saxenda, both from the drugmaker Novo Nordisk.
The drugs have been shown in clinical trials to be highly effective for weight loss. All three drugs — which are given as injections — work in a similar way: They’re a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which mimic a hormone that helps reduce food intake and appetite.
Oh yea it would cost you $13,000 a year (and most insurances won’t pay)!
💻They Want Your Password
Warning-New Scams to steal your passwords.
If you've had a password hacked recently, you aren't alone. The volume of password attacks has soared to an estimated 921 attacks every second. That's a 74% rise in one year, according to the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report.
Exiger's Robert Kolasky with more on Bloomberg & CBS:
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💰Money Does Buy Happiness
Money really does buy happiness.
The rule extends well beyond the $75,000-a-year salary threshold that had been seen as the upper limit for making an impact, according to a team of scientists that include the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist who introduced the idea of a happiness plateau more than a decade ago.
Happiness does increase steadily in line with incomes and even accelerates as pay rises beyond $100,000 a year and more — as long as the person enjoys a certain baseline level of happiness to begin with. That’s according to a study of 33,391 people living in the US, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
The results contradict a famous 2010 paper by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton, which reported that happiness goes up with income until the relationship starts to “flatten” at between $60,000 and $90,000 a year.