#on a day when we’d be unlikely to get enough customers to make £200. no way they’ll open; and if they do they won’t want me to come in

[fingertipsmp3]

I should neverrr have accepted this shift. Literally every problem I have would be irrelevant if I didn’t have to go to work today

[fantabulousfunnelweb]

Spider-tober prompt response dump part 2 (Parts 7-11)

200+ Words per prompt, Critique/Feedback Appreciated! (Warning: Vulgar Language use in Day 10)

Day 7: Snack

Convenience stores. The height of suburban dining… At least that was the thought on Funnels brain as they hopped right through the worn-out sliding doors. “Evening Mr Phil!” a mock salute bouncing off their forehead towards the cashier by their right. The entire establishment bore an almost old charm, its middle-aged guardsman standing for what seemed eternally behind the reinforced glass as tired eyes perused whatever customers it had, the novelty of an urban icon in his store fading long ago, leaving the costumed kid just another customer. “What's good today?” The Spiders voice rang from the cold drinks aisle in the far back, eyes perusing the glowing display of drinks as if it were a beacon of hope. Phil perked up attentively at the mention of his name, peering over the counter to catch a view of the inquiring Spider, “Restocked the Candy a day or two ago, no more stale caramel chews.” Funnels cheek let loose a dry huff at the hearing of such news, “Thank god, Ms Marvels been this close to cracking at me about always buying her the stale stuff.” Thankfully the Spider had only himself to look out for tonight, happily spending a portion of his small allowance on a bag of chocolate almonds. “You know the drill kid, I keep quiet about you…” “And I’ll keep quiet about your partner, are they okay?” Phil's brow furrowed, the dense lines of grey hair curving as his eyelids dropped to half-way, a lip-curling on one side like a man who knew too many secrets and wished not to share them with you. “He’s doing okay, My boss would kill me if he caught me with Phil Jr. at work, Pet Policy & all, but he's the only thing that keeps me company.

Day 8: Arms

“Wait, You’ve been making what?” “A Nanotech extension for the suit Kyles, are you even paying attention?” Silence washed over the young man’s expression, answer enough to the Scientist prodding at his suit-clad back incessantly, tweaking minute elements of the metal harness that compressed his shoulder blades. “Wait, why aren’t we just using that suit Stark made for you ages ago?” Maydays grip pushed itself further up his shoulder, grasping at his padded shoulder to provide ample support for their next little check-up, “I dismantled that thing like, last month, where do you think I even got all this Nanotech from?” Kyles tried his best to break what would no doubt be another bout of silence, issuing the first response that comes to mind, “Ahh, Charity? That or you stole it all from SHIELD.” “Shut up Jonathan.” The unmasked Spider perked his brow high, expression fraught with a mix of amusement & frustration, channelling it into a weird scoffing laugh that ultimately leads to his somewhat malicious compliance, “Whatever, you’re the boss, Aunt May.” The nickname came from a place of earnest, and the history behind the mere title was already one in the books, so it put May in a tough spot when it came to receiving it. “Alright, We’re all set.” sealing the harness shut and stepping herself back, the nanotech cylinders submerged within the reinforced plastics & steels that coated Kyles backside, “Put on the mask & hook up the suit, we’ve got tests to run.”

Day 9: Eyes

The deafening crack of wood upon the Spiders impact with the vintage walls echoed around the studio like thunder, giving way to the dull thud that followed moments later. Funnels eyes twitched as they peeled themselves off the concrete bound pool of splinters and onto their feet, hazy vision darting around as they attempted to make heads or tails of where they just ended up. “Ugh… If you’re gonna fight me in an old place like this, can we at least use some rinky-dink music? Like Ragtime or something? I could’ve worn my trilby if I knew this is where we’d end up.” Beck had a lovely habit of being seen soon after being heard, the trudge of his metal, servo clad boots slowly growing louder & louder before silence rocked the old studio once more.

“Oh? You’d love an audience, wouldn’t you?” the regulated fog billowing from the dented valves around the armoured man's jugular, obscuring his face to seem as if the smoke were devouring him. Funnel could barely realize his rhetoric before the building lit up with a spark, cameras spreading out & littering the scene as the supposed studio had much more to than meets the eye, “Well, I’m always courteous to my adversaries, besides, when was the last time someone apprehended a criminal on live television?”  

Day 10: Snap 

Funnel winced at the visceral sound of splintering bone, from his hiding place ontop the shadows of the ceiling, he closed his eyes as their ears became polluted with the informants wailing cries, his raw shrieks of pain sending Funnels senses into alarm. It guilted him to observe such mindless torture, even on those who deserve it, but May’s orders were strict, and unlike most occasions, they couldn’t cheekily skirt the lines for fun. If the Debt Collectors knew that they were being tailed, there would be no chance to find their headquarters. “Good God.” his quiet plead to higher forces stifled under the growing arguments between the animals he observed. “Randy, get your shit together or else I’m gonna break another bone, you understand!?” “The Moneys in the goddamn cabinet upstairs, please!” Adjusting their grip on the steel bar they used as a weapon, the collector let it sway below by his feet, “Better be, Don’t go anywhere.” Disappearing up the stairs to their right in a matter of moments.

“They’re collecting the money now Mayday, just a bit longer before we can find out where they’re stationed.” The Spider was left only to observe the remaining debt collector & their victim, whose continued sobs of sheer pain echoed across the old office complex.

Day 11: Demon

“Demons, huh? Weren’t these the guys wh-” “Had a hand in the Devil’s Breath tragedy back in 1987, Yes.” Jonathan's lips pursed in exhale, somewhat calming the latent fear within him as his mind was far too busy consuming the information provided. “But didn’t they supposedly putter out sometime back in the 2010s?” Dragging a daggy sleeve across the desk, Maydays hands held out another file, pinched & printed straight from SHIELD Records & Archives. “After Mr Negative disappeared, Yes.” “Okay, are you gonna say anything other than yes?” “Ye- I will just keep reading.” Letting out a huff, Kyle’s hazel eyes fell on a particularly recent entry listed within the reports, bringing the fine, freshly printed text up close to examine, its contents prodding at his interest like a child tugs a grown-ups coat for attention. “Surveillance personnel have concluded in their most recent report that inactive financial assets for the Demons have recently been drained to several off-shore accounts, attempts to retrieve location deemed unsuccessful”. Rolling his broad shoulders, the Spider used whatever excuse of deductional abilities they had at their disposal to make a guess, “Maybe they’re finally salvaging the wreckage? With all this asset moving to unknown locations before SHIELD could drain them, it could just be some former manager wiring all these up into his own pocket.” May Parker shrugged, typing away at her keyboard as their mind too weighed up options. “If I could guess, you’re going to need help on this, you said Patriot was good with computers, right?

[the-darkness-does-not-bargain]

Gay Sailors Are Gay AU?  Yes?  No?

“Do you ever think about getting out of here?”

“Hmm?”

“Off this old tub, I mean.  Do you ever just… think of leaving?”

“Mm, sometimes, I guess.  You?”

“I…” A sigh. “I want to be captain of my own ship. I want to sail under my own flag, as far as I want, wherever I want.  I don’t want to be a deckhand for the rest of my life.”

She smiles at Catra in the dim light of the moon.  “And what will the illustrious Captain Catra do on a ship of her own?” She says it teasingly, but she’s genuinely curious.

She sees her cot mate’s face and ears perk up as she flashes bright white fangs.  “I’d become the best pirate that’s ever sailed!  I’d rake in enough loot to buy an island from the Crown and make it a home. I’d have the best and fiercest crew and together we’d have the most feared and respected rig on these seas.”  She wiggles closer to Adora, as much as she can without jostling their small cot too much.  “And you’d be there with me,” she whispers, her mismatched eyes glowing in the dark.

“As your first mate?”

“As my co-captain,” Catra corrects, her fingers playing with Adora’s under their thin blanket.  “It’ll be you and I in charge for a change.  Making decisions, leading a crew.”  She presses their foreheads together.  “Fighting side by side, with all the wealth and glory in this world ours for the taking.”

“I’d like that a lot,” Adora whispers against Catra’s mouth, so close to her own.  She is grateful for the night when their lips meet. The privacy and intimacy of this moment is a greater treasure to her than a dozen chests of gold.

The kiss is sweet and slow, and she can’t seem to get enough of it.  Catra’s tongue against her own is so tantalizing that she can only deepen the contact.  It’s only when she feels the need for oxygen that she breaks away.  She tries to breath, but her mouth is filled with blood and saltwater.  She coughs, gasps, but she can’t seem to get any air, only succeeding in spluttering out more salt and copper and bile onto the deck as Catra looks on in horror. Her side is burning.  She looks down and watches red gush from her stomach and ruin her linen shirt and jerkin.  She’s freezing, all the warmth in her bones leaking out of the place where the lead shot pierced her skin.  She holds her wound with one hand and reaches out to Catra with the other. Catra just stands there, stock still, mouth agape.  There’s the percussion of a flintlock, and she gasps as the second shot punctures her chest, right between her ribs.  The force knocks her back, and she’s falling, falling, falling forever until she feels the unforgiving bite of the ocean all around her.  She sinks beneath the waves that beat against the side of the ship, down and down and down.  A tendril of inky darkness is pulling her further below, until she can’t even see the refracted light of the moon.  There’s nothing but darkness now, darkness and a pain that lessens as the cold gets worse.

There’s nothing, nothing…  Except she feels her body shaking.  There’s nothing at all.  “Captain! Yo, Adora!”

She jerks awake, her eyes snapping open.  She’s met with a wooden ceiling, with sunlight streaming through round windows, and with the face of Bow, her first mate.

“What is it?” She asks him, shaking her head to ease her disorientation.  “Is something wrong?”

Bow shrugs.  “Dunno about wrong, but interesting would cover it.  We need you up on deck.”

“Alright, I’ll be up in a minute.  Go keep a handle on whatever it is until I get there.”

“Aye, Captain!” He says brightly as he exits her quarters. Adora sits up in bed, rubbing her eyes and stretching.  Messy locks of blonde hair fall in her face, and she hastens to pull them back into a ponytail with a sturdy piece of twine.  Old wounds twinge as she climbs from her bed, and she rubs them absently, trying to put the dream out of her mind.  She changes her shirt and tightens up the laces on her breeches.  She exits her quarters and climbs the stairs up to the deck of her ship, and resolves not to dwell one moment on the past today.

On deck her crew is already hard at work preparing for their voyage.  They had docked in Bright Moon three days ago to deliver a shipment of sugar from way down south in Half-Moon.  Adora had spent most of those three days securing another job for them, and had finally gotten an offer last night, to ship lumber as well as valuable black powder down to the islands of Salineas far to the Southwest.  A long trip that would pay well; Adora’s favorite kind of job.  She surveys her crew loading on fat piles of wood and large barrels of gunpowder before she turns to address what is so “interesting”, as Bow puts it.

Standing in the middle of her deck is the Queen of Bright Moon and an entire retinue of guards, servants, and other nobility.  The Queen, Angella, is an impressively tall and slender woman---a beanpole, if you listened to the rabble---who commands attention like being noticed is her natural state.  Maybe it is.  She is dressed elegantly, but more importantly, expensively, and her translucent wings fold behind her with effortless grace.  She watches the sailors at work with a stoic expression that betrays just a hint of suspicion, or perhaps appraisal.  Next to her is a significantly shorter and younger girl, who, unlike the Queen, is wingless, full-figured, and cute.  Her sparkling hair is short and poofy, and while her clothes are just as expensive and well-crafted, she doesn’t seem as comfortable in them as the Queen. Adora takes this girl to be the ever-mysterious Princess Glimmer, who is rarely seen but frequently discussed in the streets and taverns of Bright Moon.  Beside mother and daughter are a gaggle of people Adora doesn’t care to worry about right now.  She’s wary of the Royal Guard, armed with spears and pistols, but they don’t make a move against her as she approaches.

Bow is already there speaking to the Queen, who doesn’t look especially impressed but is nevertheless conversing politely.

“Ah, here’s our captain!”  Bow says as he turns around to see her.  “Captain Adora, this is---”

“Her Royal Majesty, Queen Angella of the kingdom of Bright Moon. As well as her Royal Highness, Princess Glimmer of Bright Moon,” a mousy little man on the right side of the Queen spouts.  Bow, while his back is turned to the royal party, rolls his eyes ever so slightly at Adora before stepping back to let her handle things.

Adora dips into a bow, just low enough to be respectful.  “Your Majesty, Your Highness, to what do I owe the honor of your presence?”  Even though she generally detests them, she can play nice with the noble types when she has to, mostly when it’s going to get her paid.

“Captain Adora,” says the Queen, in her smooth voice and high society accent.  “You are held in high regard amongst my people and my court.  Your services and conduct have been deemed exceptional by many a merchant in my capital.”

“I am pleased to hear it, Your Majesty.  We here on the Swift Wind strive for efficiency and excellence.”

“That being said, what I am here to ask of you today is not a matter of transporting goods.”  She indicates her daughter.  “This is my daughter, Princess Glimmer.  She has recently turned 18 years of age.”  A big thing, that, when the heir to the throne comes of age.  Adora remembers that they had docked on the same night as the grand ball held for the occasion.  Being a bunch of lowly seafarers, they hadn’t been invited, but they’d made due in the taverns that were celebrating the event with women and ale.  “As a foreign-born woman, you might not be aware of the customs in Bright Moon when a royal child comes of age.”  There’s no obvious judgement or distaste when the queen calls her foreign-born, which earns her a point in Adora’s book.  She gets called foreign-born (and other less pleasant synonyms) no matter where she docks, so she’s used to the descriptor.  “When a Prince of Princess of Bright Moon turns 18, they are granted a particularly special request, which must be answered. My daughter,” and she says that with a touch of irritation.  The Princess frowns but hold her head high.  “Has requested to travel aboard a mariner’s vessel.  In order to… broaden her horizons.”

Adora holds back a smirk.  She’s sure her pretty, oh-so-refined Royal Majesty has much less courtly words she could use, judging by the lime-licker expression on her lovely face. That she doesn’t use them seems a great testament to her willpower.

“And you would like her to travel aboard the Swift Wind?”

“I have vetted you, your crew, and your vessel extensively. I will only accept the best for Glimmer.”  She picks up her many skirts and steps directly in front of Adora.  Now, Adora isn’t short by any stretch of the imagination, but still the Queen towers over her when she stands this close.  Her dark eyes are deadly serious.  “My daughter wishes to travel for one year.  In exchange for her safety and good health, I am willing to pay you a sum of 200,000 gold pieces, 50,000 now and the rest upon her return.”

Adora controls her expression, but she can’t stop her eyes from widening. 200,000?  200 fucking thousand gold pieces?  Just for ferrying some royal lass around the South Sea for a year? She hears Bow whistle softly in the background.  “However,” the Queen says, her eyes narrowing.  “You will only receive the second part of your fee IF my daughter returns safe and happy.  Do you understand what I am offering you, Captain Adora?”  Every syllable is sharp and pronounced, adding extra bite to each word.

“It seems right clear to me, your Majesty,” Adora says, holding her ground.  “Aye, we’ll take the Princess, and she’ll sail with us for a year.”  She finally steps aside to gesture courteously towards her quarters.  “If you would prefer, we can discuss the finer details in my study.”

“There will be no need,” says the Queen imperiously.  “I would prefer that you instead guide my daughter and I in inspecting your vessel.  I must be satisfied with her accommodations before we can finalize our arrangement.”

“As you wish, my Queen,” Adora says neutrally with another quick bow.  “Bow, with me,” she says to her first mate, and he falls in step behind her, the Queen, and the Princess.  She leads them on a tour of the Swift Wind.  There isn’t much to see, but the Queen is meticulous, checking everything for the slightest sign of potential risk.  She pesters Adora with questions that she and Bow tag-team to answer.

When they reach the crew sleeping quarters, Adora is left somewhat awkwardly rubbing the back of her neck.  It wasn’t that the quarters were bad, per se.  They were plenty good enough for sailors, but she didn’t have to check to know that the Queen was displeased.  “These are the crew’s quarters.  The Princess will sleep down here while we are at sea.”

“This is highly unseemly, Captain Adora.  How can I trust that my daughter will be safe amongst your crew while she is sleeping?”

“Ugh, Mom!”  The Princess groans.  “It’s fine, stop worrying!”

“It will not be fine until I receive a satisfactory answer, Glimmer,” the Queen says crossly.

Adora hides her gulp and tries not to think of the heavily armed guards still on her deck.  “With all due respect, Your Majesty, you’ve looked into me and my crew.  You’ve heard what our associates say about our conduct. If you didn’t already trust that we would keep your daughter safe and well-treated, you wouldn’t have made the offer to begin with.”  She gestures at the bunks and hammocks.  “These beds are good for sleepin’ and mendin’, and whatever else.  We keep ‘em clean and tidy.  My crew are all of an honorable sort, who would only treat Princess Glimmer with the utmost respect.”  Sensing that she wasn’t quite there yet, she adds, “You have my word that on my honor Princess Glimmer will be perfectly protected and cared for during her time with us.”  She meets the Queen’s gaze steadfastly, allowing her honesty to come through clearly.

The Queen stares at her for a long, tense moment.  Then her shoulders relax, and she sighs.  “Very well.  I am satisfied with the Swift Wind and with you, Captain Adora.”  She wastes no time turning around and exiting the belly of the ship, with Adora, Bow, and Glimmer following behind.  Back on the deck, the Queen rejoins her entourage.  “I have been informed that you disembark for Salineas tomorrow morning, correct?”

Adora nods.  “We’ll be settin’ sail round 10 o’clock.”

“That is acceptable.  Tomorrow at 9 o’clock I will be here with my daughter and the first part of your fee.  Until then, Captain Adora.”

“Until then, Your Majesty, Princess.”  The Queens and walks primly down the boarding ramp, but the Princess turns around before she goes and smiles tentatively at Adora and Bow. Adora grins politely back at her, and she knows without looking that Bow is beaming.  After she disappears after her mother, she feels her first mate’s burly arms clap down around her shoulders.

“200,000 gold!  200,000 gold, Cap, can you believe it?”

“Pfft, not really no.  But that was the real Queen presenting it to us, so I’m inclined to take her word.”  She steps out of Bow’s arms and turns around to face him.  “Listen up, Bow,” she says, using her authoritative captain voice.  “Here’s what’s going to happen.  We get the 50,000 tomorrow and take the lass on board. We’ll add into the crew’s pay as a bonus, but we are not saying where it came from.”

“Why not?” Bow asks, scratching her head.

“Too much of a liability.  People will do a lot for money if they want it or need it badly enough, and the fat heap of money the Queen is promising will tempt even the best of them. We won’t get a copper if some idiot gets it into their head that they can force an advanced payment by, say, takin’ the girl hostage and running off to the slave markets, or worse, tryin’ to mutiny and then demanding a ransom.”

“Ooo, yeah, I get your point,” Bow says, wincing.

Adora nods.  “So, your lips and mine are sealed.  I’ll talk to the lass too once she’s on board.  If anyone asks, downplay the sum.  We’ll divvy up the whole fee fairly once the princess is back in her tower.”

“Aye, Captain!” Bow says with a jaunty salute.

 The rest of that day goes without issue.  Her crew, hard workers that they are, finish loading up their cargo just before sunset.  And when the sun rises again the next morning, Adora is already up and waiting by the rail for the Queen and the Princess.  They are remarkably punctual, stepping onto the docks just as the church bells ring for 9 o’clock.  The Princess is less elaborately dressed this morning, but Adora would still wager that her coat cost more than the Swift Wind.  The Queen, of course, is still dressed to the nines.

Adora watches from the deck as mother and daughter make their goodbyes, sharing a long and tight hug as the Queen whispers into the Princess’s ears.  The sight is… unsettling to Adora.  It makes her chest feel somewhat tight.  She knows why, even though it’s silly.  She’s long past wondering who her real mother is or where she might be now, but seeing such fervent parental affection makes her wish, just for a moment, that she had had at least one chance to meet her.  The closest she’d ever had to a maternal figure was Shadow Weaver, the sea witch, back when…

The old scar between her ribs twinges again, and she takes it as a warning.  She sighs. There’s no need to go down that path, unless you want more nightmares tonight.  Her Sword, strapped to her hip, offers comfort, the peculiar thing. She hears It whispers in her mind’s ear as it attempts to soothe her.  She isn’t sure what It thinks to accomplishes because she is most certainly not soothed by hearing disembodied voices.  She pats the hilt lamely to shut it up, especially now that the Princess is marching up the ramp toward her.

“Good morning, Your Highness,” she greets cordially, offering her hand.  That’s something you do for princesses, right?  Glimmer takes her hand delicately and lets Adora guide over the last bump in the walkway and onto the deck.  

Glimmer lets go of her hand and turns, dropping into a curtsey that looks uncomfortable.  “Good morning, Captain Adora.  Thank you ever so much for allowing me to sail with you.”  What’s that sour little twist on her mouth for?  A chest carried by two servants comes up behind her, their pay no doubt.  Bow, quick lad that he is, hastens to direct them to stow the gold out of sight before any of the rest of the crew see it.

The Princess turns to wave goodbye to her mother while those same castle servants come back to bring up a heavy-looking trunk, no doubt full of things a princess of Bright Moon can’t live without.  Adora wants to roll her eyes, but doesn’t.  Once the servants are off the ramp, they draw it up, and her deckhands undo the ropes mooring the Swift Wind.  Bow takes the helm, and he guides the ship carefully off the dock and into the larger harbor.  Glimmer waves to her mother once more as she gets further and further away, and then she turns to Adora with a bold and businesslike expression on her face.

“Okay, so, Captain,” she starts, crossing her arms over her chest. “I know my mom gave you a hard time about your ship and about keeping me safe, but honestly, it’s fine.  I mean it, you don’t have to give me any special treatment.”

Adora grins because she can’t help it.  This girl is cute and poofy and powdered, wearing a silver-trimmed velvet coat no less, and she’s asking for “no special treatment”.  “With all due respect, my Princess, your mother made it… quite clear that you must only receive our best.  I’m not inclined to test her temper.”

“Ugh, don’t listen to her, she was just trying to scare you,” Glimmer says.  She grunts in annoyance.  “She’s so overprotective, but I’m not made of glass and I can handle sleeping on a cot with some sailors for a year.”  She places both her well-manicured hands on her shapely hips.  “And, I’ll have you know, Captain, that I can pull my weight around here.  Don’t expect me to just sit around like some layabout.  I can work, and I will work, if you give me a job to do.”

Adora snorts, another involuntary reaction.  “What’s so funny?!” Glimmer barks, eyes narrowing.  Suddenly, the resemblance between Princess and Queen is very prominent.

“Ah, you’ll have’ta forgive me, lass,” she says, still giggling. “It’s just, ahem, with all due respect, you’re a princess.  Have you ever done work in your life?  And I mean real work, not whatever tricky games you lot play in your fancy palaces.”

“W-well,” Glimmer sputters.  “Not as such, but don’t think me incapable!  I’m a fast learner, and I work hard.  I excelled in all my studies.  And I was the best rider on the royal polo team, so I can do physical things too.”

The best rider on the royal polo team, Gods preserve them.  But she takes a moment to consider this unusual princess seriously. “So of all the things you could have asked for on your 18th birthday, you asked to work on a trading ship?”

“Uh, well, Mom doesn’t really know about the working part, but, essentially yes.  I need something like this.  To go out and see the world, not just look at paintings of it in my room.  To meet people like you who actually have real work to do. One day I’m going to be Queen, and when that day comes, I want to be prepared.  I want to know what it is to really labor on something, I want to know what normal people do with their lives, so I can rule from a place of experience with those things and better know what’s best for my people.  Does… does any of that makes sense?”  The Princess is blushing, rosy pink suffusing tan cheeks, and it’s a fair distraction to Adora.  But she does answer.

“That’s quite a noble quest you’ve gone and set yourself, Your Highness.  I can respect drive and honorable ambition.  As you will’t then.  You’ll work, earn your keep with the rest of my crew, and do so without complaint like they do.  Understood, Princess?”

“Understood, Captain.  And, please, call me Glimmer.  It would be a little weird if my boss called me princess all the time.”

“Alright, have it your way.  You’ll start with going over the ledgers.  Follow me.”

“What?  Ledgers?”

“Aye,” Adora says turning back around.  “They’ve been needing a look-through now that we’ve finished our old job and got two new ones.”  She raises an eyebrow.  “Unless that’s not the kind of real work you’re interested in?”

“N-no!” The Princess quickly protests.  “I’ll do it, and better than anyone you’ve had before! I just… was expecting something more exc… ah, involved.”

Adora softens her smirk into a pleasant smile.  “You’ll start with that.  Show me you can do it, and then we’ll see about more involved work.  Deal?”

Glimmer sighs, but then grins confidently.  “It’s a deal.”

“Then follow me, Glimmer.”

[bigyack-com]

Exclusive Details on Michael Bloomberg’s Plan to Rein in Wall Street

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Bloomberg leans left and takes aim at Wall Street

Exclusive: We’re the first to report Mike Bloomberg’s proposals for changing how the financial industry is regulated, which he is planning to announce this morning. The plan features ideas that wouldn’t be out of place for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.Among Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals:• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent• Toughening banking regulations like the Volcker Rule and forcing lenders to hold more in reserve against losses• Having the Justice Department create a dedicated team to fight corporate crime and “encouraging prosecutors to pursue individuals, not only corporations, for infractions”• Merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac• Strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”• Automatically enrolling borrowers of student loans into income-based repayment schemes and capping paymentsMany of the proposals are a reversal from Mr. Bloomberg’s previous stance on financial regulation. In 2011, he complained that Democrats were taking “punitive actions” against Wall Street that could harm the economy. And comments he made in 2015 linking the financial crisis to the end of banks’ so-called redlining practices have drawn fierce criticism in recent days.It’s a sign of how far left Democratic presidential hopefuls feel they need to go to succeed in this year’s primary — even with a multibillion-dollar war chest. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax plan is remarkably similar to one that has the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Progressive critics are likely to argue that it doesn’t go far enough. Many Democrats have proposed some sort of wealth tax, while Ms. Warren has called for a complete overhaul of the private equity industry and Mr. Sanders wants to break up the big banks.Bloomberg’s campaign insists he isn’t flip-flopping: On the Volcker Rule, for instance, a spokeswoman said: “When it was introduced, as now, Mike was skeptical of regulators’ ability to divine traders’ intent.” His new plan would focus “on the outcome of speculative trading — big gains and losses — rather than on traders’ intent.”

Apple cuts sales guidance over coronavirus

The iPhone maker was one of the first big companies to reveal how the coronavirus outbreak was affecting its business. The company said yesterday that “a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated” forced it to scrap its guidance for revenue this quarter.There is more to come. China’s central position in global supply chains — and as a huge market in itself — means that the outbreak could ripple through company’s financials for months.Good luck, analysts! The virus outbreak’s negative but uncertain effects are coming up often in earnings calls: “Coronavirus” has been cited in 170 investor presentations by S&P 500 companies in the past month, according to a search of transcripts in S&P Capital IQ. Apple’s forecast for future profits was already more vague than usual “due to the greater uncertainty,” Tim Cook, its C.E.O., said last month.Taking a different approach, Walmart said this morning that its forecast for the current financial year didn’t take into account any potential effects of the virus outbreak.

HSBC makes ‘ruthless’ cuts in U.S. and Europe

The London-based bank said this morning that it planned to cut about 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it retreats from the West to focus more on Asia.“We are intending to exit a lot of domestically focused customers in Europe and the U.S. on the global banking side,” Ewen Stevenson, the bank’s C.F.O., told Bloomberg Television. He said the lender would make “surgical and ruthless” cuts to underperforming businesses.The plan is to accelerate investment in its Asian and Middle Eastern businesses, which already generate nearly half of its revenue. That’s the strategy that Standard Chartered, another London-based, Asia-focused bank, has followed.The initiative may not be enough. Shares in HSBC dropped 3 percent this morning. Alan Higgins, the chief investment officer of Coutts & Company, told Bloomberg that the strategy was “on the conservative side.”

Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion on climate change

The Amazon chief has announced his biggest charitable donation to date, a fund to study and fight climate change, Karen Weise of the NYT writes.Mr. Bezos is a latecomer to large-scale charitable giving, starting in 2018 with a $2 billion program to combat homelessness created with his then-wife, MacKenzie.Amazon has been under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. It revealed in September that it emitted about 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, making it one of the world’s top 200 emitters. And employees have called on the company to stop providing services to oil and gas industries.“One hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers protesting the company’s environmental practices.

Europe’s venture capitalists are getting serious

Atomico said this morning that it had raised Europe’s largest-ever independent tech venture fund, worth $820 million. The London-based venture capital firm’s founder, Niklas Zennstrom, told Michael in an interview that it was a sign of how the European start-up industry is coming into its own.There are now 99 “unicorns” — VC-backed start-ups worth at least $1 billion — in Europe, compared with 22 five years ago. “Companies are taking on bigger challenges, and there’s more ambition and experience,” Mr. Zennstrom said.That enabled Atomico to raise more money for its fifth fund than the $750 million it had originally planned. Among the investors in this fund are founders and early employees of Atomico-backed companies like Spotify, the payments company Klarna and the game maker Supercell. Mr. Zennstrom himself is a Swedish billionaire who co-founded Skype.But Mr. Zennstrom sees hurdles ahead:• Valuation multiples for European start-ups aren’t as high as those for U.S. companies. (There are twice as many V.C.-backed unicorns in the U.S., according to PwC.) Even so, Mr. Zennstrom said that unlike their American rivals, European start-ups were more focused on creating businesses that can become profitable.• Although Europe has plenty of gifted coders, getting them to come to a particular start-up — often in a different country — is a challenge.

Mark Zuckerberg calls for global rules for online content

While on a trip to Europe, the Facebook founder suggested that new rules and standards were needed to promote public trust in tech platforms.“I believe good regulation may hurt Facebook’s business in the near term, but it will be better for everyone, including us, over the long term,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an FT opinion piece. Facebook also published a white paper with “guidelines for future regulation.”E.U. officials rejected his proposals. “It’s not enough. It’s too slow, it’s too low in terms of responsibility and regulation,” said a European Commissioner. And in response to Mr. Zuckerberg’s opinion piece, George Soros wrote a letter to the FT calling on the C.E.O. to “stop obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation” and urging him to resign.

The speed read

Deals• Pier 1 Imports filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (NYT)• Univision is reportedly in talks to sell itself to an investor group for about $10 billion, including debt. (WSJ)• Alstom agreed to buy Bombardier’s train division for up to $6.7 billion to take on China’s CRRC. (Reuters)• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a third of its stake in Goldman Sachs and a fifth of its shares in Wells Fargo. (Reuters)Politics and policy• The millennial goal of retiring early would be bad news for the Fed if they could manage to do it. (NYT)• Some employees at Oracle are protesting plans by their C.E.O., Larry Ellison, to hold a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Business Insider)Tech• Germany is poised to let Huawei into its 5G wireless network, a blow to the Trump administration’s fight against the Chinese telecom giant. (NYT)• The SoftBank-backed hotel platform Oyo reported a fourfold increase in revenue and a sixfold rise in its annual loss. (Bloomberg)• Palantir revamped its compensation to give employees bonuses in restricted stock, to save cash ahead of a potential I.P.O. (Bloomberg)Best of the rest• BlackRock has become a symbol for anticapitalist fervor in France (NYT)• The N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, said that the league’s rift with China could cost it up to $400 million in lost revenue. (CNBC)• Have global carbon emissions peaked? The short answer is probably not. (Bloomberg)We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com. Read the full article

[geeksperhour]

via Screaming Frog

I got a job offer to be an SEO Consultant for Screaming Frog while I was sat in a rather goofy graduation hat and gown.

My parents then humiliated me by running around telling all the other parents of my uni pals (who we’d literally just met for the first time) about how I now had some fancy job at Google.

Me coping with the realisation that I was going to be an SEO

That was five years ago this month, so now is an excellent time to put that history degree to good use (It cost me enough!) with some musings on how the SEO industry has changed in the last half-decade.

1. Becoming Lord of the SERPs Is Harder Than Ever

Google’s been following their own advice.

The search engine has been gradually expanding the content of results pages with more and more useful features. Their bounce rates must be at an all time low, with users increasingly finding everything they need within the SERP itself.

The age of ’10 blue links’ is long over.

And it’s not just the distracting new bits and pieces they keep adding, such as user-uploaded video-answers to questions about ginger:

Everything you ever wanted to know about ginger. RIP Ginger-Facts.com.

FAQ Mark-up below existing organic listings, as one example, can also be a killer for sites just off the first page:

Yuck.

Roast Agency do a really good list of all the possible SERP features, but honestly my finger aches trying to scroll down all of it, there’s just so many.

Paid placements are also increasingly chipping away at organic real estate- especially on mobile.

The shift in gear from ‘Sponsored Links’ in a big blue box, to the much more concise ‘Ad’ in a yellow box, to ‘Ad’ in a green box that is conveniently the same green as the URL in the snippet; has undoubtedly reduced our organic CTRs.

Does this mean SEO is dead? No.

It just means smart SEO is more necessary than ever- the huge opportunities for traffic and sales are still out there, they just require more brains and budget to access.

2. Link Building Got Wayyyyy Tougher

I have a confession to make.

Not all the content I made for links in 2015 was ground-breaking, newsworthy, data driven #content that shook up the media landscape, went viral, and built 2,000 DA 99 followed links.

Much of it was infographics, which are now synonymous with low quality ‘link bait’ content.

But that was okay, content back then didn’t have to set the world on fire.

Times have changed, and the big dogs are investing more of their Xmas TV ad budget into this whole ‘digital’ thing. This is starting to trickle down into SEO and link building- which is pushing standards up.

When a journalist has 400 press requests in their inbox, and many are well researched, innovative interactive assets; they are sadly unlikely to go for your infographic on the top 10 fictional books that appear in fiction.

Formats come and go, so innovation is key if you want to stay ahead.

Really scientific slide I presented to BrightonSEO about how link building tactics are getting more complex. You had to be there.

But that’s not to say you always need a huge interactive map to win big links. The story is what journalists are interested in. Even small brands with small budgets can be nimble, and outflank those glitzy campaigns you see from the big retail giants.

Outreach has changed a lot too.

You can’t just blast the same email to 200 journos, sit back, and watch the links flow in.

It’s a game of cat and mouse, and (sometimes frustratingly) we have to do the hard work for ’em by tweaking our content so that it’s bespoke and relevant for each publication.

The alliance between PRs and SEOs, especially at agencies, is stronger than ever. Agencies need personal people who can establish long term relationships with the key influencers in the right niches, as much as they need competent SEOs who can establish the right link building strategy for the client.

SF PR Manager Amy carries me every day.

Link building in 2020 is no easy feat, but it’s definitely still undervalued by a lot of brands. Work with the people who value it and you will still succeed.

3. Not Everything Has Changed

Despite the doom and gloom of those timely and well targeted yearly SEO prediction lists:

Google is still the dominant search engine.

Voice search still hasn’t transformed the landscape.

The Yahoo! Toolbar still exists.

Most content still isn’t video.

Users still trust organic results more than ads.

People still use ‘content is king’ in blog posts.

The Apple Watch didn’t transform local SEO… why would it have..?

The web isn’t 100% AMP and all held ransom in some dark Google-owned server.

There will come a time when SEOs no longer post memes on Twitter, but it is not this day.

You can’t (yet) automate good SEO.

I still have much to learn.

Hindsight still makes writing history easy.

Even in a global pandemic we keep getting results, attending virtual SEO conferences, and Friday beer o’clock is stronger than ever.

The Screaming Frog ‘Guess That WFH Desk!’ Quiz. Hours of fun.

4. Tech SEOs Have Had to Understand People Too

As with the macarena at the year 6 disco, algorithms are getting more complex, and so must our work to keep up with the crowd.

After real-time Penguin 4.0 launched in October 2016, Google’s fight against spam was largely over. They then turned their attention to improving how they understand website quality.

The speed and mobile friendliness revolutions have come and gone. Moves toward ‘page experience’ will be the next battleground, and this time they’ve been kind enough to give us a heads-up.

SEOs need to go beyond reviewing copy and 301 redirects if they want to stay ahead of the game.

We now need to be working with in-house marketing teams, designers, and developers to ensure that site design moving forward not only satisfies technical best practices, but also improves on what’s offered by competing sites to deliver a superior experience for users.

Searcher intent too, especially post-Medic Update, is an area that Google’s gotten much better at.

Through properly researching what sort of content is ranking for generic keywords that were previously exclusively ‘commercial’ or ‘informational’, we can do a better job of serving users exactly what they’re after.

Google often discuss the importance of ‘Micro-Moments’, which are the most crucial ways users interact with search before they take an action which might be beneficial to your business. There are four main micro-moments that Google highlights:

I want to know- about ways I can find love

I want to do- a course on writing persuasive text for billboards

I want to buy- a billboard to advertise that I’m single

I want to go- to the best bar in town with my date

If you’re only going for landing pages around ‘I want to buy’ then you’re missing out on a lot of your potential customer’s time and attention.

Google have always pushed that we should build sites for users. Previously you could skirt around this with black/grey hat techniques- but in 2020 it’s next to impossible to see long-term success without just focusing on what will make users happy.

5. You’re (Still) All A Bunch of Legends

This list has been a little depressing.

But the only reason SEO is becoming more challenging is because everyone in the industry is maturing and getting smarter.

And that’s largely due to the crazy amount of collaboration and support given out, even amongst rival agencies and freelancers.

Whether it’s detailed analysis, actionable advice, creative inspiration, inclusive career support, or ideas for blog posts to rip off, SEOs have always gone above and beyond to support each other. And a lot of it is free.

(But no, I will not update this post to give you a link. That’s where I draw the line.)

Frogs after a long day of drinking up knowledge at our fave conference

My IT teacher told 15 yr old me: “Most of you lot will have jobs that haven’t been invented yet.”

At the time I thought that was nonsense, but now I am a (Senior) Search Engine Optimisation Manager. That was never a thing before!!

For a young industry with not much in terms of ‘official’ recognition, it’s humbling to see the staggering amounts of resources, talks, and blogs available to help newcomers learn and improve on what has been written already. I can only imagine where we’ll be in another five years time. Especially on the meme front.

My dad’s an accountant. Can you imagine a bunch of accountants on Brighton pier sharing ideas over a beer?

Neither can I.

The post Five Ways SEO Has Changed In the Last Five Years appeared first on Screaming Frog.

[jumpchain-drop]

Chapter 3.31: 6.91 Years

Year 7, day 333: Humba has contacted us. The posters for the ad on the milk carton have finally managed to respond. A letter was delivered to her with a meeting location where the tip could be heard: Witchyworld’s Crazy Castle Stockade, a week from now right after the park closed. Come alone, it said.

Define “alone,” assholes.

Year 7, day 334: We have one chance at this. If they’re having the meeting to get the tip on Tooty, they wouldn’t probably bring all their gear and potions to bear like they did in the raid on Spiral Mountain. However, it was very unlikely that all of them would show up to just get some information, and it definitely wouldn’t be the boss. If these guys were that stupid, they wouldn’t have evaded the underground for so long.

The detaining of the entire Police force, I had to remind myself, was the ideal outcome. Ultimately, what mattered was that we got the contract targeting Tooty canceled.

Today I got Banjo, Kazooie, and Jamjars briefed on the news. There are a lot of preparations to make.

Year 7, day 340: Dilberta walked nervously into the Stockade surrounding the massive yellow bouncy castle. The sky on the inside was still painted in daylight, but with most of the lights off it looked anything but.

A henchmen was there, in the back. Not as bulky as Klungo, but by no means skinny.

“You the one that knowsss where girl bear isss?” he asked. “Better have come alone, or I’ll have to sssmash you...”

“P-Please don’t…!” she stuttered. “I-I’m the one that called, a-and there’s no one else with me…!”

“Ssso I sssee… Then ssstart talking before I-”

And then I, from my hiding place underground, Dug a hole under him and pulled him down to his shoulders.

“We got him we got him!” Bitbit squawked from his perch at the top of the bouncy castle where he had been hidden since noon.

“You tricked me!” he yelled at Dilberta as he struggled to escape my sinkhole, but she was already scampering away home, as we agreed, and the rest of us were around him in moments.

For a drill sergeant, Jamjars is one mean interrogator. Having Kazooie and Bitbit around to peck his head didn’t hurt either. Well, it didn’t hurt us.

The gun was the most junior of the ten mercs that make up the Police. Only about five of them were Klungo-brand; the rest were various other animals, including the chief whose identity he didn’t know, he swore. The chief chose the jobs, and was the only one that would be able to enforce a cancel.

He did, however, know the current location of the Police hideout; a warehouse in the far outskirts of the Quagmire.

I left Jamjars and his team to gift-wrap the guy for the underground. I took mine, along with Banjo and Kazooie, and we went to catch a few quick winks before the big showdown.

Year 7, day 341: Seeing as fighting nine guys armed with weapons and numerous potions on their home turf when four of them managed to hold us (without B-K) to a standstill was the stupidest idea since Canary Mary (fuck Canary Mary), we opted for the stealth approach to their hideout. Terra, Piddle, Bitbit, Shadow, Banjo, Kazooie, and I went in in the early morning hours, but not quite at dawn because Witchyworld closes pretty dang late.

The Police weren’t locked and loaded, mostly cleaning their weapons with some chatter about how the guy probably should’ve been back by now. I didn’t like the vibe; they were suspicious and not in any way off-guard, like the consummate professionals they were.

I pulled the team back outside. “I don’t know how to say this, guys, but I’m certain in a straight-up fight, we’d be completely destroyed.”

“Just let me Wonderwing through the lot of them!” said Kazooie. “They can’t be any harder than Beaker Boy.”

“You didn’t have to fight upwards of five ‘Beaker Boys’ at once before,” I said. “Sorry, Kazooie, but we’re gonna have to go with plan B. Terra, you have the stuff I talked to you about earlier?”

A couple minutes later, I knocked on the warehouse door.

“Hey, I come in peace.”

It’s terrifying having more than one giant knife pointed at you. I kept my hands where they could see them.

“Who’re you?” one of them asked.

“Hmm, you look a little familiar...” said another. Now that I think of it, I was a Sandslash for pretty much that entire original fight so long ago. My pangolin form was visually distinct enough that, at least for these brainiacs, one wasn’t immediately connected to the other.

“What do you want?” the third asked. “You better not be with the underground; they’ve given usss nothing but trouble lately.”

“I assure you, I’m not with the underground.” Officially, I added in my head. “I just need to talk with your boss about something important.”

“We’sss not just sssome band of mercs, dillo-boy,” the second said, which made my temper spike a good bit. “We’sss the Rubbisssh Character Policcce. We have channelsss for ssstuff like thisss if you want sssomeone rubbissshed.”

“Now hold on there, blokes.”

That voice came from an approaching figure in the back. Emerging from the shadows was a sizable looking stoat, almost a Banjo and a half tall at full height.

“Name’s Breakline,” he introduced himself. “Breakline the Boss. I’m the chief of this here Police. And if you sought us out so badly you came directly to us, well then, you must really need us.”

“Come on, chief, can’t we just rubbisssh him a little…?” one of the others whined.

“Hey, what do I tell you?” Breakline replied. “We don’t rubbish anyone for free, not even if we want to. You’re going to have to pay for it, and we don’t take credit.”

The merc just growled.

Breakline turned his attention back to me. “So, I hear you have something important to talk to me about. So speak up before I start charging you for my time.”

“I understand that you have a job out on my friend,” I said, trying my best to not let the sizeable stoat intimidate me. “One female bear named Tooty.”

“I think I remember someone by that name that got away,” he replied. “But so what? Why you bringing up something that ain’t nothing to do with you?”

By now, I had a good handle on the value of a Note. For example, each of those ten Jinjo plushies were roughly 18 inches tall and had cost 5 Notes each. A plushie of that size on my world would be about $20, so a Note was about equal to $4, a value that held in comparison to other items whose Earth prices I remember. By that logic, the 20-Note silo trips cost $80, which seems ludicrous, but those silos were meant to evade witches, magical detection, and all other sorts of things. They were not cheap to maintain, and were the primary way for the underground to fund itself as far as I knew. Not to mention vehicle parts in Showdown Town could (would?) run into 40 Notes and higher pretty easily.

So I knew the full weight of what I was about to say.

I looked Breakline square in the eye. “I will pay you 300 Notes to cancel that contract.”

Silence filled the air, and then all at once, almost everyone shouted and exclaimed in complete shock and disbelief, even my teammates that were hiding nearby in case things went wrong. The only one that didn’t was Terra, as I cleared the amount with her first this time. I had originally planned to spend 500, but she talked me down.

Well, Breakline didn’t react with shock either. Instead, he stared at me. I’ve played enough poker to know why; he was sizing me up, seeing if I was bluffing. It was a little freaky, but paled in comparison to the terror from being around an embodiment of nightmares.

And then suddenly, he burst into laughter, as if he just remembered a really funny joke.

“Oh man. You’re serious, kid. Tell you what, the entire Spiral Mountain gig was only worth 200 to us! And I hate having that sword over my head! Looking for years and never able to pin her down! I’d be glad to get rid of it! You got the money?”

Slowly, to avoid setting of the jumpy and clearly more vicious mercs (of course, Breakline had to keep them in line with more than money somehow), I pulled a smallish sack of Notes from my backpack and tossed them to him. He held the bag for a while, giving it a few tosses, as he gauged the weight before peeking inside.

“You just keep on surprising me, kid.” I didn’t feel like telling him I was like twenty-seven. “You hang tight and let me sort this out. And don’t you blokes be causing any trouble for the customers, or I’ll cut your pay and SUPLEX YOU TO THE DARK SIZE OF THE MOON!”

I covered my ears quickly as Breakline suddenly roared like a wild animal just long enough to finish his sentence before snapping back to his original demeanor. His employees flinched significantly.

“N-Not a problem, chief…!” one of them said.

“I thought not.”

And so Breakline went back deeper into the warehouse. The other mercs stopped aiming their weapons at me, but mostly kept a perimeter up to keep me from following him.

The wait was excruciating and quite odorous, but eventually he came back.

“OK, your friend is off our to-do list,” he announced. “And if any of my blokes try to bother her again, they know what’s coming, don’t they?” He gave them a massive stink-eye for a moment.

“Y-Yesss, chief...”

“Fun fact: I have them call me that because the droning when they said ‘boss’ took forever to stop. Anyway, pleasure doing business with you.”

“A pleasure as well,” I replied. “Say, if I may ask, who made the contract on her in the first place?”

“Well, since you made my day and I watched him die, I’ll tell you free of charge,” said Breakline. “You know that really fat witch that used to live on the mountain?”

“Blobbelda, yeah.”

“It was her cat.”

“...Huh. Didn’t see that coming.”

“Yeah, surprised me too. Cats are tricky types. Way too quiet, they are.”

I dismissed myself from their company and headed back. I reconvened with the others in front of Grunty Industries, as we planned if they didn’t need to come out.

Year 7, day 345: I managed to pass the news to Tooty today. She was actually a little disappointed, as she wanted to kick their butts. Banjo was with us, and he could tell that she was still happy she didn’t have to hide anymore. She, in returned, noted that he had been gaining a good bit of weight.

With who she was hiding from no longer a problem, she was free to go, but she volunteered to keep going for a few more years. “I’m not tired of this adventure yet!” Her leave time would still be increased significantly.

I’ll have to remember to get in on some of that.

[mastcomm]

Exclusive Details on Michael Bloomberg’s Plan to Rein in Wall Street

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Bloomberg leans left and takes aim at Wall Street

Exclusive: We’re the first to report Mike Bloomberg’s proposals for changing how the financial industry is regulated, which he is planning to announce this morning. The plan features ideas that wouldn’t be out of place for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Among Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals:

• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent

• Toughening banking regulations like the Volcker Rule and forcing lenders to hold more in reserve against losses

• Having the Justice Department create a dedicated team to fight corporate crime and “encouraging prosecutors to pursue individuals, not only corporations, for infractions”

• Merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

• Strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”

• Automatically enrolling borrowers of student loans into income-based repayment schemes and capping payments

Many of the proposals are a reversal from Mr. Bloomberg’s previous stance on financial regulation. In 2011, he complained that Democrats were taking “punitive actions” against Wall Street that could harm the economy. And comments he made in 2015 linking the financial crisis to the end of banks’ so-called redlining practices have drawn fierce criticism in recent days.

It’s a sign of how far left Democratic presidential hopefuls feel they need to go to succeed in this year’s primary — even with a multibillion-dollar war chest. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax plan is remarkably similar to one that has the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Progressive critics are likely to argue that it doesn’t go far enough. Many Democrats have proposed some sort of wealth tax, while Ms. Warren has called for a complete overhaul of the private equity industry and Mr. Sanders wants to break up the big banks.

Bloomberg’s campaign insists he isn’t flip-flopping: On the Volcker Rule, for instance, a spokeswoman said: “When it was introduced, as now, Mike was skeptical of regulators’ ability to divine traders’ intent.” His new plan would focus “on the outcome of speculative trading — big gains and losses — rather than on traders’ intent.”

Apple cuts sales guidance over coronavirus

The iPhone maker was one of the first big companies to reveal how the coronavirus outbreak was affecting its business. The company said yesterday that “a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated” forced it to scrap its guidance for revenue this quarter.

There is more to come. China’s central position in global supply chains — and as a huge market in itself — means that the outbreak could ripple through company’s financials for months.

Good luck, analysts! The virus outbreak’s negative but uncertain effects are coming up often in earnings calls: “Coronavirus” has been cited in 170 investor presentations by S&P 500 companies in the past month, according to a search of transcripts in S&P Capital IQ. Apple’s forecast for future profits was already more vague than usual “due to the greater uncertainty,” Tim Cook, its C.E.O., said last month.

Taking a different approach, Walmart said this morning that its forecast for the current financial year didn’t take into account any potential effects of the virus outbreak.

HSBC makes ‘ruthless’ cuts in U.S. and Europe

The London-based bank said this morning that it planned to cut about 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it retreats from the West to focus more on Asia.

“We are intending to exit a lot of domestically focused customers in Europe and the U.S. on the global banking side,” Ewen Stevenson, the bank’s C.F.O., told Bloomberg Television. He said the lender would make “surgical and ruthless” cuts to underperforming businesses.

The plan is to accelerate investment in its Asian and Middle Eastern businesses, which already generate nearly half of its revenue. That’s the strategy that Standard Chartered, another London-based, Asia-focused bank, has followed.

The initiative may not be enough. Shares in HSBC dropped 3 percent this morning. Alan Higgins, the chief investment officer of Coutts & Company, told Bloomberg that the strategy was “on the conservative side.”

Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion on climate change

The Amazon chief has announced his biggest charitable donation to date, a fund to study and fight climate change, Karen Weise of the NYT writes.

Mr. Bezos is a latecomer to large-scale charitable giving, starting in 2018 with a $2 billion program to combat homelessness created with his then-wife, MacKenzie.

Amazon has been under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. It revealed in September that it emitted about 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, making it one of the world’s top 200 emitters. And employees have called on the company to stop providing services to oil and gas industries.

“One hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers protesting the company’s environmental practices.

Europe’s venture capitalists are getting serious

Atomico said this morning that it had raised Europe’s largest-ever independent tech venture fund, worth $820 million. The London-based venture capital firm’s founder, Niklas Zennstrom, told Michael in an interview that it was a sign of how the European start-up industry is coming into its own.

There are now 99 “unicorns” — VC-backed start-ups worth at least $1 billion — in Europe, compared with 22 five years ago. “Companies are taking on bigger challenges, and there’s more ambition and experience,” Mr. Zennstrom said.

That enabled Atomico to raise more money for its fifth fund than the $750 million it had originally planned. Among the investors in this fund are founders and early employees of Atomico-backed companies like Spotify, the payments company Klarna and the game maker Supercell. Mr. Zennstrom himself is a Swedish billionaire who co-founded Skype.

But Mr. Zennstrom sees hurdles ahead:

• Valuation multiples for European start-ups aren’t as high as those for U.S. companies. (There are twice as many V.C.-backed unicorns in the U.S., according to PwC.) Even so, Mr. Zennstrom said that unlike their American rivals, European start-ups were more focused on creating businesses that can become profitable.

• Although Europe has plenty of gifted coders, getting them to come to a particular start-up — often in a different country — is a challenge.

Mark Zuckerberg calls for global rules for online content

While on a trip to Europe, the Facebook founder suggested that new rules and standards were needed to promote public trust in tech platforms.

“I believe good regulation may hurt Facebook’s business in the near term, but it will be better for everyone, including us, over the long term,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an FT opinion piece. Facebook also published a white paper with “guidelines for future regulation.”

E.U. officials rejected his proposals. “It’s not enough. It’s too slow, it’s too low in terms of responsibility and regulation,” said a European Commissioner. And in response to Mr. Zuckerberg’s opinion piece, George Soros wrote a letter to the FT calling on the C.E.O. to “stop obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation” and urging him to resign.

The speed read

Deals

• Pier 1 Imports filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (NYT)

• Univision is reportedly in talks to sell itself to an investor group for about $10 billion, including debt. (WSJ)

• Alstom agreed to buy Bombardier’s train division for up to $6.7 billion to take on China’s CRRC. (Reuters)

• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a third of its stake in Goldman Sachs and a fifth of its shares in Wells Fargo. (Reuters)

Politics and policy

• The millennial goal of retiring early would be bad news for the Fed if they could manage to do it. (NYT)

• Some employees at Oracle are protesting plans by their C.E.O., Larry Ellison, to hold a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Business Insider)

Tech

• Germany is poised to let Huawei into its 5G wireless network, a blow to the Trump administration’s fight against the Chinese telecom giant. (NYT)

• The SoftBank-backed hotel platform Oyo reported a fourfold increase in revenue and a sixfold rise in its annual loss. (Bloomberg)

• Palantir revamped its compensation to give employees bonuses in restricted stock, to save cash ahead of a potential I.P.O. (Bloomberg)

Best of the rest

• BlackRock has become a symbol for anticapitalist fervor in France (NYT)

• The N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, said that the league’s rift with China could cost it up to $400 million in lost revenue. (CNBC)

• Have global carbon emissions peaked? The short answer is probably not. (Bloomberg)

We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com.

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[sixgoldensuns]

Murphy’s Law

It seems like everything is working against me.

In the first week, I did not understand how the car’s immobilizer worked and I couldn’t get my car to start- twice. Stranded, I sent it to the nearest mechanic and had to get it serviced. “That’s okay”, I told myself. “It’s probably for the best to make sure everything is fine”. $200. Then I was told that I needed to send it to another mechanic to get the air conditioner checked out because they couldn’t do it. So I did- I sent my car to the OTHER mechanic and it turned out that it would cost a fortune to get it fixed up. Defeated, I spent the three weeks driving in Broken Hill’s 41 degree summer heat. I remember there was once it was so hot that I only had about four fingers on my steering wheels the whole time. 

In the second week, I developed a sharp, radiating pain in my right foot that was so painful it woke me up at night. I had no panadol with me and the pharmacy was closed. “Oh great”, I sighed and grit through it. I had a peek into a life where I lived with chronic pain. As my tiredness overpowered my pain, I tried to make light of the situation, thinking “Guess God likes me fat. So much for being healthy and going for a run!”.  When I finally cobbled to the GP the next morning, I was told to get an ultrasound to find out what was wrong. When I made my way to the radiologist, I was told I had to wait a day to get an appointment to do the scan. I survived on painkillers to get through the day. When I finally got in to do the scan, I was told that I had to wait at least a week to get an appointment with the doctor to review the scan. “No wonder mortality rates are so much lower!”, I muttered under my breath and I continued to limp everywhere. I lamented about how much I missed Singapore and Sydney and the relative efficiency of the healthcare system. Thankfully, by God’s grace, it resolved itself in a few days. 

In my third week, I haven’t gotten any notice of my placement allocation and started to worry. I sent an e-mail enquiry and was told that if I haven’t already been allocated, the chance of being allocated would be “unlikely”. This made it difficult to plan and move my life forward. I made a choice to shift myself into the semester, albeit not my first choice, and comforted my heart that it meant I would be able to spend more time with family.  I also tried to sell my car off this week. Within seconds of posting up an ad for my car, someone enthusiastically replied. She seemed genuine and sincere. It was a lovely, middle-aged couple, who wanted to buy a car for their son. They came to view the car, and asked if it was okay if I could put it on hold for 24 hours and for them to get a mechanic to check it out. “Of course!”, I replied. Anything for a sincere buyer. When he returned my keys, I asked, “How was the car?” and my heart sank when he said, “Unfortunately, we wouldn’t be purchasing it.” He proceeded to point out all of the flaws in the car. He was really kind and nice about it, reassuring that it was “no fault of mine” repeatedly, and he was just attempting to make me aware of the true condition of the car. But at some level, I seem to take it all personally. I felt being called out for poor judgment and not being more judicious with my purchase. I felt like my trust in the previous buyer in not revealing the whole truth was betrayed too. I began to get anxious and worried about not being able to sell off the car before I left. I put up more ads, and I got many replies- offering less than half of what I was asking. I even had a scammer e-mail me. Even through that I prayed that God would help me respond in kindness and love. I wrote him back and said that if he needs a listening ear, he could email me. Eventually I sold it at a great loss. I comforted my heart again, “At least it was way cheaper than what you would have paid for if you rented a car! And at least you did get rid of it before you left! And at least the buyer was really kind, nice and really likes the car!” 

In the fourth week, I called in with the airline to try to change my return flight to Sydney after discussion and thinking through what the best course of action would be. What appeared to be a straightforward task that could be resolved in 5 mins, turned out to be a nightmare of repeated explanations of the situation to a myriad of customer service officers, being placed on endless hold, and a slew of bad news- I have to pay close of $500USD just to change my return flight; I could actually buy a round trip ticket with less. I didn’t understand the logic of everything. I was confused, hurt. I just wanted to go home. I just wanted to spend more time with family. 

Through all of this, I resolved to remain calm and patient. I resolved not to let my anger get the better of me. These people, though the bearer of bad news, had no part to play in it. I resolved to show love and grace. I prayed over all these with which I struggled. I submitted them in prayer. I asked God to help me. With each hurdle, I thought, “As long as I take it into my stride, focus on things I can change and surrender to God things that I cannot control, things will pick up”. 

 But it didn’t. 

 Another wave of bad news. Chaos, confusion, grief and slowly, anger seeps in. “What did I do wrong?” was the question I asked myself. It seemed as if I was making up excuses for God and his “bad behavior”. It became difficult to trust that God works for the good of His people when I felt so abused by life and all its circumstances. 

 After receiving the news of the situation with my flights this morning, I felt completely overwhelmed and cried. I wondered if God saw how hurt I was and if He was going to do anything about it. I wondered if God knew how hard I have been trying to love others, and trusting in His will and direction in my life. I wondered if He knew how confused I was with all that was happening. 

 And then the song playing over my earphones reminded me 

What if your blessing comes through rain drops? What if your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near? What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love As if every promise from Your word is not enough  And all the while, You hear each desperate plea  And long that we’d have faith to believe.

I wiped my tears and allowed for the gentle comfort of the truth to soothe me. I will continue to trust and have faith that God knows and sees more than I do. That even when it feels like the whole world is working against me and I am completely overwhelmed right now, my all-knowing God knows and will use it in ways that are beyond me and my understanding.

[robertkstone]

Interview: Inside PSA’s Plans for Global Mobility Domination

Earlier this month, France’s PSA Group officially launched its mobility service Free2Move in the U.S. market. Instead of offering its own version of Lyft or Zipcar, PSA created Free2Move as an aggregation app, partnering with service providers that already exist and allowing users to pick whichever one best suits their needs at the moment.

But PSA isn’t interested in simply getting Americans hooked on a mobility aggregation app. It sees Free2Move as a way to eventually bring its cars back Stateside. It’s a daring plan, especially considering how difficult it’s been for Fiat to gain traction in the U.S. again. To get a better idea of what PSA’s plans are, we sat down with its North American CEO, Larry Dominique, at the U.S. launch event for Free2Move.

Larry Dominique, president and CEO of PSA North America

Perhaps the biggest question I had was why he thought people would use Free2Move to access the services they already had on their phone. Dominique sees it about being an easier comparison between services. “If you have one app, you can see all the choices you have to get from point A to point B,” he says. “So the opportunity is to provide in one application a myriad of solutions that help you however you need to deploy transportation.

“Within a year or so, you’ll be able to take the Free2Move app, hit the voice button, and say, ‘I want to get from where I am right now to X,’ and Free2Move will offer you the solutions. It might take seven minutes if you take a bike, three minutes if you use a ride-hailing service, or if you want to hop in a Car2Go, you can do that as well. The idea is to offer you the best solution for what you’re trying to do and give you choices.”

Currently, though, U.S. options are relatively limited. It works with Car2Go, Zipcar, and a few bike-share services, but Uber and Lyft, the most popular ride-hailing services here in the States, have yet to sign on. But if PSA is eventually able to get more providers on board like it has in Europe (and at the moment, that’s a huge “if”), the app sounds like it could be remarkably useful, partly because you won’t have to open multiple apps to compare pricing or availability.

“In the solutions we offer you, you could ask it to [sort options by] price or time,” Dominique says. “Because it depends on what’s important to you. Sometimes time is more important to you than money. Other times money is more important than time.”

So if, say, taking one ride-hailing service home from the bar costs significantly than another, it sounds like you could theoretically take advantage of that within the Free2Move app. Dominique says he’s also working to simplify the way you sign up for new services.

“One of the things we’re working on with the providers, and this should roll out in the next couple months, is to allow us to be a single sign-on/login relationship,” he says. “So you could go to the Free2Move app, register who you are, your driver’s license, your credit card information, etc., and you can start to pick which partners you want to engage with. Our goal is to make it as simple as possible.”

Of course, PSA didn’t create Free2Move simply to help people compare other companies’ services. That’s certainly one part of it, especially because PSA’s agreements allow it to take a cut of the profits once it refers enough trips to each provider. But it’s also about building a relationship and gathering data.

“Free2Move allows us to establish an understanding of how U.S. consumers are changing their desires for car ownership, car usage, and mobility consumption,” Dominique says. “The way I think of it today is 17 percent of the U.S. industry today is fleet, 83 percent is retail. Let’s fast forward 15 years from now. It might be 17 percent fleet, 15 percent mobility, and 68 percent retail sales. Retail sales is never going to go away, and there are going to be markets where we sell cars to consumers who just want a Peugeot or a Citroen or a DS. But there are going to be markets where people say I don’t really need a car anymore. Or I only need a car on the weekends. Or I want to rent by the hour or the minute during the week, but I need a car for the whole weekend. We want to be the provider who provides the solution for any combination of services you need.”

But Dominique says he doesn’t see the app ever getting to the point where the only cars it offers are PSA products.

“I get asked all the time, ‘Oh, so you’re going to establish all these mobility operations, but the moment you bring Peugeot, Citroen, or DS here, you’re going to throw all your cars in?’ And the answer is ‘No.’ Because if somebody wants a full-size pickup truck, I don’t have one. But I want to make sure you’re satisfied, so I’m going to buy a Ford, a Chevy, or maybe a GMC or a Dodge,” he says. “Our goal is to promote our products, our brands, and our service, but at the same time, we know we’re going to be multibranded in the future, and that’s the way you’re going to satisfy customers.”

In time, though, he does see PSA creating its own versions of services like Lyft and Zipcar. But even those won’t exclusively offer PSA products.

“We are going to be launching our own physical mobility services over the next couple years,” he says. “We’re looking at ride-sharing, ride-hailing, micro transit, and subscription-based models. So you’re going to see us operating businesses ourselves. We talk about our three-phase approach: mobility, mobility with our cars, and then our cars themselves. So as we talk about phase two, putting our cars in mobility services, we’ll certainly put some in ZipCar if they want some. And we’ll put some in our own car-sharing program. For example, we may end up making 30 percent our own vehicles. But the other 70 percent will be whatever vehicles it takes to make a successful car-sharing company.”

Speaking of those cars, he says the next generation of PSA products will be designed to meet U.S. regulations, and he’s already decided which brand to introduce first. When asked which one that is, though, Dominique wouldn’t say. “I’d have to be on my deathbed [to tell you],” he says. He did, however, give me a few details on what type of cars he’ll bring over.

“This country revolves around two segments: C and D. Specifically C-hatch, C-sedan, D-hatch, D-Sedan, and D-SUV,” he says. “And full-size pickup trucks. But the great news is, PSA’s EMP platform, which is our global C and D platform, is being homologated for North American markets. So I have all of those segments to choose from. With the brand that we’ve chosen, I have products in every one of those categories that we’re going to eventually bring to the U.S. We’ll launch with a couple of those segments and then very quickly follow with the rest of the vehicles.”

Those also happen to be some of the most competitive segments in the United States. The C-segment is what we call compacts such as the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. The D-segment is midsizers such as the Camry and Accord. Those are the same segments Fiat Chrysler recently gave up on when it canceled the Dodge Dart and Chrysler 200. So why does Dominique think PSA can break into those segments?

“The first level of that is that we’re French,” he says. “We’ve reviewed all of our brands with American consumers, and the great news is that the positive association with being French is very strong. It’s about design. It’s about innovation. It’s about emotion. A lot of people associate French brands is with luxury. I’m not saying we’re positioning a luxury brand, but people recognize that all of our brands are distinct.”

Dominique also thinks that, unlike some of FCA’s recently introduced brands, PSA has the advantage of being able to offer the types of cars that already sell well here.

“Let’s talk about Fiat for a second,” he says. “What segment do they compete in? B-segment, which is a disaster in the U.S. Alfa? The jury’s out on whether Alfa will be successful.”

From the sound of it, he wants to do things differently with the dealerships, too.

“I have the opportunity to think about a customer journey in a completely new way,” he says. “How digital can I make it? How integrated with what the customer wants to do on their smartphone can I make it? Do I need full-size dealerships? Do I need to service it at the dealership, or can I service it at their house? Can I have separate service facilities that service the vehicles? It’s about convenience. It’s about making the system and a process that’s as comfortable for the customer as possible. And we all know that dealers get a bad rap. The dealer franchise system is what it is.”

But does that mean PSA plans to buck the dealer system altogether and try to establish direct sales? Not necessarily.

“Tesla’s bucking the trend at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in legal fees,” he says. “I don’t look anything like Elon Musk. I don’t have as many zeros on my bank statement as Elon Musk. Tesla’s unique. Tesla’s different, and they can be different. But we want to be a high-volume brand eventually.”

Still, it sounds like Dominique might try something like the program Hyundai recently announced, perhaps even experimenting with a fixed-price model.

“When I was at TrueCar, I learned that price transparency matters to consumers,” he says. “Different OEMs have different approaches on price transparency. My point of view is that the more consumers know about what a brand is worth, the better it is for the brand and the easier it is for the dealer to sell the car. When I was running Automotive Lease Guide, I had a lot of OEM executives tell me ‘If I could just keep my own dealers from eating each other’s lunch, we’d be able to sell cars at $500 or $1,000 more a car. But my dealers eat each other every day and don’t pay attention to competitors.’”

And that goal of doing things differently is apparently a directive from the global head of PSA himself.

“Carlos Tavares has been very clear with us,” Dominique says. “Understand the market. Develop the market. Develop the products that are going to fit right in the marketplace. Launch when you’re ready. Develop the right distribution strategy that doesn’t have the distribution cost that exists in the U.S. today. Make it more efficient for the consumer and for us.”

But before Dominique gets to the point where he can build out his dealer network, he needs to make sure Free2Move actually takes off in the States. And in that regard, he has some lofty goals.

“Our objective is to become the dominant mobility provider in North America,” he says. “Globally, actually. Our goal would be that no matter what kind of mobility you need, we are the brand you think of to provide that.”

The post Interview: Inside PSA’s Plans for Global Mobility Domination appeared first on Motor Trend.

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[itsworn]

Car Craft’s 20 Favorite Things From the Mopars at the Rock Show

The roar of horsepower is fairly constant during Rockingham Dragway’s annual season, with promoter Steve Earwood providing plenty of eighth- and quarter-mile action in the scrub-laden pinelands of the central North Carolina hills. Since Earwood bought the track in 1992, he has set aside an event for Chrysler racing. That is now condensed into a single day in early April, with tons of great cars coming in from local enthusiasts and a lot of action on the dragstrip. While this may not be the largest event of the year in the East, it’s a season-opening experience in the land of Sox & Martin, the Petty family, Don Carlton, and Roy Hill.

We made the trek this year in a car that was featured here in Car Craft many years ago: Dale Mathews’ 1971 383 Road Runner. Worked up with Edelbrock, Comp, TTI, and MSD parts, it is a highway star. We put more than 200 round-trip miles on it during a backroad run from Morganton to the event, and with a factory Go-wing and added Air Grabber hood, the car got thumbs-up accolades from everyone.

However, our hearts were heavy when we later learned that noted Super Stock Hemi racer Bob Reed passed away just two days later. Reed, who was dedicated enough to Earwood’s program that he sent two cars from his stables out for the Hemi Shootout. Despite his ongoing fight with cancer, Reed was always a hardscrabble racer’s racer. The last time I’d talked to Ronnie Sox was here at this same event, when he and Reed showed up with the last of the 1968 Barracudas that Reed had created for Sox to drive.

But a sunny day and lots of cars made this event memorable. Here are 20 great things that rocked the piedmont this year. Following tradition, next year’s Mopars at the Rock will likely remain on the first Saturday of April at Rockingham Dragway. Join us!

With a wheels-up roar and onlookers checking them out, two 1968 model drag cars faced off in the Hemi Challenge finale, with Tank Crosswhite’s new Dart beating Lenny Melton in Bob Reed’s Barracuda. Reed succumbed to cancer two days later.

1) Richard Petty Barracuda

The original No. 43 Jr. Barracuda from 1965 resurfaced a couple of years ago, and owner Ron George hired Petty’s Garage to restore it. Part of the deal was that Petty’s would get to display it for a year. They had it here in the pits as part of the event.

2) The Best Way to Store Chrome Trim

This caught our attention in the swap meet. Need to store all the hard-to-keep-nice window and edge trim? Using sliced-open foam swimming noodles looked like a great fix to that.

3) 10-Second Street Cars

The Hellcats are proving to be some pretty serious race machines, considering that most can be driven in by their owners, raced, and driven home. The big trick is traction and how capable you are at rowing the manual transmission.

4) Real 1960s Hurst Wheels

On sale by Mike Daniels, these were once on his father’s Hemi car. His dad is Barnes Daniels, a former member of the legendary factory Ramchargers team who now lives in North Carolina. He had all four of them (we didn’t ask the price).

5) 1968–1969 Charger Drag-Race Cars

With so many of these cars previously trashed by the movie guys and now restored and worth a lot of money, we enjoyed seeing several second-gen Dodge Chargers in action at the Rock, like the “Tool Time” 1969 Charger, seen getting a little air under the nose.

6) Grudge Racing

One aspect of the yearly Mopar show is the likelihood of a grudge race between two attendees. Earwood makes room between rounds in the race program for these guys to go at it, letting the machine speak.

7) Cutaway Hemi Head

The gentleman selling these is a former machinist by trade; he had an old 426 Hemi head that ate a valve, and making lemonade out of lemons, offered this professional-looking, detailed segment cut from it.

8) Big Trucks in the Car Show

Unlike some events in more urban settings, this one usually brings out some big guns from the rural surroundings, including customized Rams and special editions. The show has classes for them, and they get their own row in the show field.

9) More Blower, Please

There is a lot to be said for old-school cool. On this year’s show field were even a couple of GMC-huffed street machines, including Jeff Eaton’s nasty 1971 Road Runner with a chromed big-block under its Jimmy.

10) Perfect Photo Location

For those of us who get to go trackside, the short section of concrete barrier near the starting line is the spot to get that perfect head-on race image that makes you feel like you are laying on the track apron—like this one taken through the big opening for the 60-foot timers.

11) Primer as Race Paint

We know that sometimes we have to make hard choices. Tom Lauber, who won the Trophy class, put his money under the hood with a freshened-up 440 and then went consistent rounds in this primer-red Belvedere to win. Some of that sheetmetal may have even once been “acid-dipped,” thanks to DOT salt trucks.

12) Maserati Mopar

This K-car–styled machine from the Lee Iaccoca era wouldn’t likely warrant a second glance, except that it’s a TC model, a hot little number the company brewed up with Maserati back in the late-1980s. An imported Italian body powered by a 2.2L turbo four-cylinder and priced similar to the Buick Reatta, the cars were not big sellers, but hey, it’s a great conversation starter! Fiat now owns both companies.

13) The Real Jeep

We had to give Nat Wolfe of Sherrills Ford, North Carolina, real credit. This reworked CJ-7 was able to win its class in the car show, and went all the way to the final round in his racing class, with violent launches looking like some altered on knobby-tired steroids.

14) Mini-Mopars

There were lots of classic muscle cars in the drag program, but they were complemented by a bunch of 1980s-era Chargers that looked more like refugees from the bygone era of Pro Stock. This is Kenny Booth’s version, in full technicolor paint, laying rubber across the line during time trials.

15) Fury-iously Ready For Us

Semi-stock in appearance, this 1965 Sport Fury drop-top in the show field looked the part of a vintage pace car, and in our minds was just begging to get some Car Craft mods to replicate something along those lines. At least we thought so!

16) Vanishing Point Late Model

This creation by Neal Antony was transformed from a modern Challenger into a customized version of the vehicle Kowalski drove in the motorhead cult flick Vanishing Point. He even had a custom display board and told us he owns a nice collection of artifacts promoting the film. No bulldozers, please.

17) Swap-Meet Eye Candy

With NASCAR action so much a part of the region, we figured we would see a hood or fender in the parts corral. Instead, how about a complete Challenger nose from one of the Xfinity Series cars ready to hang from the garage roof?

18) A Caliber? Really?

Again, digging the late-model stuff at the show, we got a chance to check out this SRT4 2009 Caliber that Gavin Thomas owns. Sticking out like a lunch box in the sea of hot LX-platform Challengers and Chargers, this one is turbo-powered and ready for a little curvy pavement with big wheels and wide rubber. Yeah, we’d chase parts in it.

19) Bob Reed Memorial

Lenny Melton and Dan Miele came in with both of “Bullet Bob” Reed’s 1968 Barracudas. Reed, a legendary Southeastern Hemi racer and record-holder who would succumb to cancer just two days later, sent the cars to the event in support of Steve Earwood’s scheduled Hemi Challenge. Melton pulled a nice wheelstand and went 8.40 at more than 160 on the hot racing surface to take top qualifier, but Tank Crosswhite’s Dart would win in the final.

20) And Just One More

This is our ride into the show, Dale Mathews’ 1971 Road Runner, which let us road-trip across part of the Tar Heel State with no issues whatsoever—and got a lot of appreciation from onlookers, even here in the parking lot at the event.

Source

Rockingham Dragway 910/582-3400 RockinghamDragway.com

The post Car Craft’s 20 Favorite Things From the Mopars at the Rock Show appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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[bigyack-com]

DealBook: Exclusive Details on Michael Bloomberg’s Plan to Rein in Wall Street

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Bloomberg leans left and takes aim at Wall Street

Exclusive: We’re the first to report Mike Bloomberg’s proposals for changing how the financial industry is regulated, which he is planning to announce this morning. The plan features ideas that wouldn’t be out of place for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.Among Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals:• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent• Toughening banking regulations like the Volcker Rule and forcing lenders to hold more in reserve against losses• Having the Justice Department create a dedicated team to fight corporate crime and “encouraging prosecutors to pursue individuals, not only corporations, for infractions”• Merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac• Strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”• Automatically enrolling borrowers of student loans into income-based repayment schemes and capping paymentsMany of the proposals are a reversal from Mr. Bloomberg’s previous stance on financial regulation. In 2011, he complained that Democrats were taking “punitive actions” against Wall Street that could harm the economy. And comments he made in 2015 linking the financial crisis to the end of banks’ so-called redlining practices have drawn fierce criticism in recent days.It’s a sign of how far left Democratic presidential hopefuls feel they need to go to succeed in this year’s primary — even with a multibillion-dollar war chest. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax plan is remarkably similar to one that has the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.Progressive critics are likely to argue that it doesn’t go far enough. Many Democrats have also proposed some sort of wealth tax, while Ms. Warren has called for a complete overhaul of the private equity industry and Mr. Sanders wants to break up the big banks.Bloomberg’s campaign insists he isn’t flip-flopping: On the Volcker Rule, for instance, a spokeswoman said: “When it was introduced, as now, Mike was skeptical of regulators’ ability to divine traders’ intent.” His new plan would focus “on the outcome of speculative trading — big gains and losses — rather than on traders’ intent.”We’ll have more soon on nytimes.com/dealbook. Breaking: This morning, Mr. Bloomberg qualified for the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, the first time he will appear onstage with his rivals for the nomination. ____________________________Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York, and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London.____________________________

Apple cuts sales guidance over coronavirus

The iPhone maker was one of the first big companies to reveal how the coronavirus outbreak was affecting its business. The company said yesterday that “a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated” forced it to scrap its guidance for revenue this quarter.There is more to come. China’s central position in global supply chains — and as a huge market in itself — means that the outbreak could ripple through company’s financials for months.Good luck, analysts! The virus outbreak’s negative but uncertain effects are coming up often in earnings calls: “Coronavirus” has been cited in 170 investor presentations by S&P 500 companies in the past month, according to a search of transcripts in S&P Capital IQ. Apple’s forecast for future profits was already more vague than usual “due to the greater uncertainty,” Tim Cook, its C.E.O., said last month.Taking a different approach, Walmart said this morning that its forecast for the current financial year didn’t take into account any potential effects of the virus outbreak.

HSBC makes ‘ruthless’ cuts in U.S. and Europe

The London-based bank said this morning that it planned to cut about 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it retreats from the West to focus more on Asia.“We are intending to exit a lot of domestically focused customers in Europe and the U.S. on the global banking side,” Ewen Stevenson, the bank’s C.F.O., told Bloomberg Television. He said the lender would make “surgical and ruthless” cuts to underperforming businesses.The plan is to accelerate investment in its Asian and Middle Eastern businesses, which already generate nearly half of its revenue. That’s the strategy that Standard Chartered, another London-based, Asia-focused bank, has followed.The initiative may not be enough. Shares in HSBC dropped 3 percent this morning. Alan Higgins, the chief investment officer of Coutts & Company, told Bloomberg that the strategy was “on the conservative side.”

Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion on climate change

The Amazon chief has announced his biggest charitable donation to date, a fund to study and fight climate change, Karen Weise of the NYT writes.Mr. Bezos is a latecomer to large-scale charitable giving, starting in 2018 with a $2 billion program to combat homelessness created with his then-wife, MacKenzie.Amazon has been under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. It revealed in September that it emitted about 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, making it one of the world’s top 200 emitters. And employees have called on the company to stop providing services to oil and gas industries.“One hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers protesting the company’s environmental practices.

Europe’s venture capitalists are getting serious

Atomico said this morning that it had raised Europe’s largest-ever independent tech venture fund, worth $820 million. The London-based venture capital firm’s founder, Niklas Zennstrom, told Michael in an interview that it was a sign of how the European start-up industry is coming into its own.There are now 99 “unicorns” — VC-backed start-ups worth at least $1 billion — in Europe, compared with 22 five years ago. “Companies are taking on bigger challenges, and there’s more ambition and experience,” Mr. Zennstrom said.That enabled Atomico to raise more money for its fifth fund than the $750 million it had originally planned. Among the investors in this fund are founders and early employees of Atomico-backed companies like Spotify, the payments company Klarna and the game maker Supercell. Mr. Zennstrom himself is a Swedish billionaire who co-founded Skype.But Mr. Zennstrom sees hurdles ahead:• Valuation multiples for European start-ups aren’t as high as those for U.S. companies. (There are twice as many V.C.-backed unicorns in the U.S., according to PwC.) Even so, Mr. Zennstrom said that unlike their American rivals, European start-ups were more focused on creating businesses that can become profitable.• Although Europe has plenty of gifted coders, getting them to come to a particular start-up — often in a different country — is a challenge.

Mark Zuckerberg calls for global rules for online content

While on a trip to Europe, the Facebook founder suggested that new rules and standards were needed to promote public trust in tech platforms.“I believe good regulation may hurt Facebook’s business in the near term, but it will be better for everyone, including us, over the long term,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an FT opinion piece. Facebook also published a white paper with “guidelines for future regulation.”E.U. officials rejected his proposals. “It’s not enough. It’s too slow, it’s too low in terms of responsibility and regulation,” said a European Commissioner. And in response to Mr. Zuckerberg’s opinion piece, George Soros wrote a letter to the FT calling on the C.E.O. to “stop obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation” and urging him to resign.

The speed read

Deals• Pier 1 Imports filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (NYT)• Univision is reportedly in talks to sell itself to an investor group for about $10 billion, including debt. (WSJ)• Alstom agreed to buy Bombardier’s train division for up to $6.7 billion to take on China’s CRRC. (Reuters)• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a third of its stake in Goldman Sachs and a fifth of its shares in Wells Fargo. (Reuters)Politics and policy• The millennial goal of retiring early would be bad news for the Fed if they could manage to do it. (NYT)• Some employees at Oracle are protesting plans by their C.E.O., Larry Ellison, to hold a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Business Insider)Tech• Germany is poised to let Huawei into its 5G wireless network, a blow to the Trump administration’s fight against the Chinese telecom giant. (NYT)• The SoftBank-backed hotel platform Oyo reported a fourfold increase in revenue and a sixfold rise in its annual loss. (Bloomberg)• Palantir revamped its compensation to give employees bonuses in restricted stock, to save cash ahead of a potential I.P.O. (Bloomberg)Best of the rest• BlackRock has become a symbol for anticapitalist fervor in France (NYT)• The N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, said that the league’s rift with China could cost it up to $400 million in lost revenue. (CNBC)• Have global carbon emissions peaked? The short answer is probably not. (Bloomberg)Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com. Read the full article

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DealBook: Exclusive Details on Michael Bloomberg’s Plan to Rein in Wall Street

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Bloomberg leans left and takes aim at Wall Street

Exclusive: We’re the first to report Mike Bloomberg’s proposals for changing how the financial industry is regulated, which he is planning to announce this morning. The plan features ideas that wouldn’t be out of place for Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Among Mr. Bloomberg’s proposals:

• A financial transactions tax of 0.1 percent

• Toughening banking regulations like the Volcker Rule and forcing lenders to hold more in reserve against losses

• Having the Justice Department create a dedicated team to fight corporate crime and “encouraging prosecutors to pursue individuals, not only corporations, for infractions”

• Merging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

• Strengthening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and “expanding its jurisdiction to include auto lending and credit reporting”

• Automatically enrolling borrowers of student loans into income-based repayment schemes and capping payments

Many of the proposals are a reversal from Mr. Bloomberg’s previous stance on financial regulation. In 2011, he complained that Democrats were taking “punitive actions” against Wall Street that could harm the economy. And comments he made in 2015 linking the financial crisis to the end of banks’ so-called redlining practices have drawn fierce criticism in recent days.

It’s a sign of how far left Democratic presidential hopefuls feel they need to go to succeed in this year’s primary — even with a multibillion-dollar war chest. Mr. Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax plan is remarkably similar to one that has the backing of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Progressive critics are likely to argue that it doesn’t go far enough. Many Democrats have also proposed some sort of wealth tax, while Ms. Warren has called for a complete overhaul of the private equity industry and Mr. Sanders wants to break up the big banks.

Bloomberg’s campaign insists he isn’t flip-flopping: On the Volcker Rule, for instance, a spokeswoman said: “When it was introduced, as now, Mike was skeptical of regulators’ ability to divine traders’ intent.” His new plan would focus “on the outcome of speculative trading — big gains and losses — rather than on traders’ intent.”

We’ll have more soon on nytimes.com/dealbook.

Breaking: This morning, Mr. Bloomberg qualified for the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, the first time he will appear onstage with his rivals for the nomination.

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Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in New York, and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London.

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Apple cuts sales guidance over coronavirus

The iPhone maker was one of the first big companies to reveal how the coronavirus outbreak was affecting its business. The company said yesterday that “a slower return to normal conditions than we had anticipated” forced it to scrap its guidance for revenue this quarter.

There is more to come. China’s central position in global supply chains — and as a huge market in itself — means that the outbreak could ripple through company’s financials for months.

Good luck, analysts! The virus outbreak’s negative but uncertain effects are coming up often in earnings calls: “Coronavirus” has been cited in 170 investor presentations by S&P 500 companies in the past month, according to a search of transcripts in S&P Capital IQ. Apple’s forecast for future profits was already more vague than usual “due to the greater uncertainty,” Tim Cook, its C.E.O., said last month.

Taking a different approach, Walmart said this morning that its forecast for the current financial year didn’t take into account any potential effects of the virus outbreak.

HSBC makes ‘ruthless’ cuts in U.S. and Europe

The London-based bank said this morning that it planned to cut about 35,000 jobs over the next three years as it retreats from the West to focus more on Asia.

“We are intending to exit a lot of domestically focused customers in Europe and the U.S. on the global banking side,” Ewen Stevenson, the bank’s C.F.O., told Bloomberg Television. He said the lender would make “surgical and ruthless” cuts to underperforming businesses.

The plan is to accelerate investment in its Asian and Middle Eastern businesses, which already generate nearly half of its revenue. That’s the strategy that Standard Chartered, another London-based, Asia-focused bank, has followed.

The initiative may not be enough. Shares in HSBC dropped 3 percent this morning. Alan Higgins, the chief investment officer of Coutts & Company, told Bloomberg that the strategy was “on the conservative side.”

Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion on climate change

The Amazon chief has announced his biggest charitable donation to date, a fund to study and fight climate change, Karen Weise of the NYT writes.

Mr. Bezos is a latecomer to large-scale charitable giving, starting in 2018 with a $2 billion program to combat homelessness created with his then-wife, MacKenzie.

Amazon has been under pressure to reduce its carbon footprint. It revealed in September that it emitted about 44.4 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2018, making it one of the world’s top 200 emitters. And employees have called on the company to stop providing services to oil and gas industries.

“One hand cannot give what the other is taking away,” said Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, a group of workers protesting the company’s environmental practices.

Europe’s venture capitalists are getting serious

Atomico said this morning that it had raised Europe’s largest-ever independent tech venture fund, worth $820 million. The London-based venture capital firm’s founder, Niklas Zennstrom, told Michael in an interview that it was a sign of how the European start-up industry is coming into its own.

There are now 99 “unicorns” — VC-backed start-ups worth at least $1 billion — in Europe, compared with 22 five years ago. “Companies are taking on bigger challenges, and there’s more ambition and experience,” Mr. Zennstrom said.

That enabled Atomico to raise more money for its fifth fund than the $750 million it had originally planned. Among the investors in this fund are founders and early employees of Atomico-backed companies like Spotify, the payments company Klarna and the game maker Supercell. Mr. Zennstrom himself is a Swedish billionaire who co-founded Skype.

But Mr. Zennstrom sees hurdles ahead:

• Valuation multiples for European start-ups aren’t as high as those for U.S. companies. (There are twice as many V.C.-backed unicorns in the U.S., according to PwC.) Even so, Mr. Zennstrom said that unlike their American rivals, European start-ups were more focused on creating businesses that can become profitable.

• Although Europe has plenty of gifted coders, getting them to come to a particular start-up — often in a different country — is a challenge.

Mark Zuckerberg calls for global rules for online content

While on a trip to Europe, the Facebook founder suggested that new rules and standards were needed to promote public trust in tech platforms.

“I believe good regulation may hurt Facebook’s business in the near term, but it will be better for everyone, including us, over the long term,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote in an FT opinion piece. Facebook also published a white paper with “guidelines for future regulation.”

E.U. officials rejected his proposals. “It’s not enough. It’s too slow, it’s too low in terms of responsibility and regulation,” said a European Commissioner. And in response to Mr. Zuckerberg’s opinion piece, George Soros wrote a letter to the FT calling on the C.E.O. to “stop obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation” and urging him to resign.

The speed read

Deals

• Pier 1 Imports filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (NYT)

• Univision is reportedly in talks to sell itself to an investor group for about $10 billion, including debt. (WSJ)

• Alstom agreed to buy Bombardier’s train division for up to $6.7 billion to take on China’s CRRC. (Reuters)

• Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway sold a third of its stake in Goldman Sachs and a fifth of its shares in Wells Fargo. (Reuters)

Politics and policy

• The millennial goal of retiring early would be bad news for the Fed if they could manage to do it. (NYT)

• Some employees at Oracle are protesting plans by their C.E.O., Larry Ellison, to hold a fund-raiser for President Trump. (Business Insider)

Tech

• Germany is poised to let Huawei into its 5G wireless network, a blow to the Trump administration’s fight against the Chinese telecom giant. (NYT)

• The SoftBank-backed hotel platform Oyo reported a fourfold increase in revenue and a sixfold rise in its annual loss. (Bloomberg)

• Palantir revamped its compensation to give employees bonuses in restricted stock, to save cash ahead of a potential I.P.O. (Bloomberg)

Best of the rest

• BlackRock has become a symbol for anticapitalist fervor in France (NYT)

• The N.B.A. commissioner, Adam Silver, said that the league’s rift with China could cost it up to $400 million in lost revenue. (CNBC)

• Have global carbon emissions peaked? The short answer is probably not. (Bloomberg)

Thanks for reading! We’ll see you tomorrow.

We’d love your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to business@nytimes.com.

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