Major crypto supporter & tech billionaire Mark Cuban has reportedly sold most of his bitcoin because “it didn’t act as an inflation hedge” during a time of crisis, which we have now due to Trump’s war on Iran. The Trump tariffs haven’t helped crypto/bitcoin, contributing to higher mining & maintenance costs with higher interest rates.
In the past few years there has been a massive wave of consolidations, layoffs & bankruptcies in the crypto industry. The narrative of bitcoin as “decentralized finance” has now been proven a fiction, as a few billionaires control bitcoin and through it the entire crypto industry. The derivatives market is manipulating bitcoin’s price through futures betting. Bitcoin is so thin on liquidity (meaning no one wants to buy it) that derivatives traders can now control the price (exert downward pressure) through shorting.
When we speak of crypto, and bitcoin in particular, it’s very important to understand that it’s a handful of billionaires & financial swindlers that are running the entire show. Adam Back is Satoshi Nakamoto, the largest individual bitcoin holder with an estimated 1.1 million bitcoins. Adam Back is the crypto king because he acquired his bitcoin at the lowest cost, before most people ever heard of bitcoin.
Michael Saylor’s Strategy & Blackrock ETF each hold ~818,000 bitcoins according to Google. Michael Saylor has paid ~$76K per bitcoin, which makes his financial position more precarious because he levered-up so much to acquire his stash, and has virtually no equity at this point with bitcoin currently at ~$77k. His borrowing costs are huge compared to Adam Back. Blackrock also bought high on bitcoin.
Crypto exchanges Coinbase (~958,000 BTC) & Binance (~634,000 BTC) rule the industry through their bitcoin holdings, which gives legitimacy to everything crypto– according to Kool-Aid drinkers. Interestingly, the US government holds ~328,000 BTC through seizures, while the Chinese government holds ~190,000 BTC.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to its IPO disclosure just made public, holds 18,700 bitcoins purchased at ~$35k each. Tesla currently holds ~11,500 BTC, after Elon Musk sold 75% of Tesla’s bitcoin stash in July 2022 at a huge loss in order to cover costs.
And finally, Trump Media originally acquired 11,542 bitcoins at an average price of $118,522, which Trump Media is now dumping at a huge loss. What does that tell you?
Recall that president Donald Trump stated (over & over) he wanted Fed Chairman Jerome Powell gone because he wouldn’t lower interest rates– which is what the crypto industry always wants. Now Trump has ignited global inflation, and new Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh whom Trump handpicked has already been told by the bond market that interest rates must go up again– soon.
Credit is being tightened mostly for consumers & small businesses in need. The coming taxpayer bailout will be for the rich who caused all this mess. Pundits will proclaim with heated exasperation, “Who could have predicted all this?”
Wed 27 May 2026 11:00 AM CDT
Addendum: Huge outflows on Blackrock’s ETF. Meanwhile, Michael Saylor’s Strategy is burning through cash to pay his debts, after claiming bitcoin would now be trading at $40,000-$50,000 if he hadn’t been making such huge buys. In other words, one person has been propping up this entire house of cards.
Victor Wembanyama is something new & amazing in basketball. The Spurs-Thunder Western conference finals match-up has been much-anticipated throughout the NBA season. The OKC Thunder feature the reigning two-time league MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who looked like just another player on the court with no answer for Wemby in Game 1.
Victor Wembanyama is a problem for all NBA teams. His 7-4 frame, commitment to strength & flexibility, and basketball skill & IQ make him the most unstoppable force in the game today. Wemby is the most feared rim protector in the NBA since the era when Wilt Chamberlain was allowed to goal tend & basket interfere.
Due to his strength & mobility, Victor Wembanyama can rebound over any opponent on both ends. Wemby always wins the jump ball, and doing that twice in the Game 1 overtime win over OKC shows what an advantage that can become. The Spurs got an extra possession at the beginning of each overtime because Wemby always wins the tip.
It’s just another “not since Wilt” aspect to his game that astounds basketball fans. Wilt did it in an era where his only competitive peer was Bill Russell. Today, outside of the bottom third of the league tanking, the NBA is extremely competitive from top-to-middle. Basketball is also a much more global game, with Victor Wembanyama as an example of that coming over from France.
Victor Wembanyama obviously knew he was going to the NBA at a young age, so he learned English and did everything else he needed to do to become successful with his talents. The best comparisons for Wemby in the modern era probably start with Hakeem Olajuwan, Kevin Garnett & Giannis Antetokounmpo. Those players were/are athletic big men who could really defend the painted area, as well as close-out on perimeter shooters.
On the offensive end, you need to be able to score everywhere to be the best. Free throws are often an Achilles Heel for big men. I’ve divided a list below into two eras, with Kareem being the end of ‘old school’, and Olajuwan marking ‘new school’ for basketball big men. Here are their comparative NBA FT%.
Wilt Chamberlain 51.1%
Bill Russell 56.1%
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 71.2%
Hakeem Olajuwon 71.2%
Shaquille O’Neal 52.7%
Tim Duncan 69.6%
Kevin Garnett 78.9%
Giannis Antetokounmpo 69.1%
Victor Wembanyama 81.7%
Only Kevin Garnett is close to Wemby in FT%. For the record, Nikola Jokić shoots 82.5%, but isn’t the active defensive force of Olajuwon, Garnett or Wemby. Kareem, Russell & Wilt played in an era before intentional fouling was widely used as a tactic on defense.
Conversely, an unstoppable force like Shaq in the 1990’s & 2000’s was fouled as soon as he caught the ball in scoring position and forced to make his free throws. If the targeted big man can’t do that consistently, then he’s of limited value offensively at the end of close games. Missing too many free throws means empty possessions for his team. That’s why Shaq needed closers like Kobe & D-Wade to win a title.
Jim Valvano at NC State in 1983 used NCAA Tournament pressure with perpetual 1-and-1 free throw situations for targeted players to great success. That rule was since changed, to 1-and-1 on non-shooting team fouls 7-9, and two shots on 10+. NC State upset Houston and won the national championship as a lesser team with that strategy.
In the NBA, Phil Jackson with the Chicago Bulls & coach Larry Bird with the Indiana Pacers created Hack-a-Shaq. Phil Jackson had three big guys he rotated in to foul Shaquille O’Neal and send him to the line. Larry Bird would have a player with no fouls (usually Reggie Miller) pull down Shaq’s Lakers shorts as a signal to the refs to call a foul away from the ball.
But you can’t do that if the big man shoots 82% from the line like Wemby does. He also shoots logo 3’s, can get to the basket off the dribble, and has unstoppable low post moves. He can dunk over other players with either hand. It’s hard for most basketball players to imagine being able to do that.
Victor Wembanyama is a freak, and if he stays healthy will become the dominant player of this era. This is the up-and-down, shoot-the-three era. Defense & rebounding is critical as always, just in different ways. Wemby can close out on any shooter and at least distract them. FG% against the Spurs while Wemby is on the floor tells you everything about his impact on the game. It drops to approximately to half of what it is while he’s on the bench.
Wemby discourages shooters from shooting, and it’s hard to find stats that measure that, but that’s the case and it has a major affect on the Spurs winning.
For basketball fans, this was the most-anticipated NBA series since the Warrriors-Cavs 2016 NBA Finals. Everyone anticipates the winner of the Thunder-Spurs series to win the NBA Finals. Most thought it would be a 7-game series, but the truth after Game 1 is if the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder don’t win Game 2, they’re getting swept. That’s what Wemby does for the San Antonio Spurs.
Sat 23 May 2026 12:30 PM CDT
Update: The OKC Thunder have come back strong to win games 2 & 3 to take a 2-1 lead in the series. This series is coming down to injuries & depth. Injuries are the X-factor in the playoffs. If a main guy gets hurt, his team has little-to-no chance of winning a title– see Jayson Tatum & Tyrese Haliburton in 2025.
For the Spurs this series it’s De’Aaron Fox & Dylan Harper getting hurt that’s created a depth issue at guard which OKC is exploiting. Overwhelming OKC pressure is creating turnovers before Wemby can get the ball in scoring position. The hamstring injury to OKC guard Jalen Williams can be covered with bench depth, which the Spurs don’t have. The disparity in production off the bench is the difference in this series.
Like Michael Jordan coming up with the Chicago Bulls in the 1980’s, Victor Wembanyama needs a little more time for the roster to fill out around him before he can lead his team to a title. One of the biggest reasons Magic won more titles than Bird was because the Lakers always had better bench depth. That and Kareem.
One man can’t do it by himself, and it appears the Spurs are going to come up short in Wemby’s third season. It’s been a meteoric rise for the Spurs who had struggled since Tim Duncan retired. The OKC Thunder are a young team with management that knows what it’s doing. They have a great head coach who knows his players and what his options are in all situations. These two teams are going to be competing for NBA titles for the foreseeable future.
In other sports news…
Kyle Busch 1985-2026
Kyle Busch was a jerk who won a lot of races. No one outside of NASCAR cared about this dickweed or even knew who he was until a few days ago. Amongst drivers he competed against sentiment is mixed at best. Apparently he died of pneumonia, and it’s a big loss for NASCAR because Kyle Busch invested so heavily in their racing series. NASCAR wants & needs good ol boys like Kyle Busch and now he’s gone. Danica Patrick was always a much better bet as a racing ambassador, but NASCAR didn’t want her. Watch the Indianapolis 500 this Memorial Day weekend and decide for yourself on this. Kyle Busch v Danica proves that winning isn’t everything.
Since I am a doctor and a man of science I can’t gloat over the death of another. From an atheist perspective, Kyle Busch has simply joined the great majority, as someday we all will. But letting an illness such as pneumonia go undiagnosed & untreated until it was too late is inexcusable for age-41 Kyle Busch. He had all the necessary resources to prevent this tragedy from happening, so it all falls on him. It’s a bad way to die and it becomes a big part of his legacy. The lesson is don’t overlook early warning signs that your body isn’t well. Money, fame, and racing wins can’t buy Kyle Busch one more breath of life– which is what matters most.
Life is what you do with it. What did you dedicate your soul to? This is how people remember those among the great majority. It’s not how much money & glory you accumulated, but how much you loved & helped others– especially those less fortunate. Racking up wins in the lesser Xfinity & truck NASCAR series is like a varsity team rolling the JV. Kyle Busch was the best driver with the best equipment and most money to spend in these series. What’s left now? In hindsight, which we now have, it’s a hollow legacy. That’s what we mourn.
If you are going to be successful as an act, you need management & a producer.
Brian Epstein was an ambitious music entrepreneur who managed the Beatles from 1961 until his death in August 1967. Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI’s Parlophone label, which became Capitol Records, and today is owned by Universal Music Group. Beatles songs were all produced by George Martin and remain a huge money maker, testifying to Brian Epstein’s ability to recognize talent, which itself is a talent, and then pair it with the necessary recording talent.
For the record, Brian Epstein was gay and like many stars & others of his era he died young (age 32) of a combined alcohol & barbiturate overdose, ruled accidental. Being gay is a difficult lifestyle, because apparently at some point there becomes an overwhelming need to separate from the mainstream. None of that conventional stuff satisfies. Beyond that, much of the conservative mainstream rejects gay, openly declaring its hostility.
Drugs & alcohol can become a refuge. Gay parties are different from straight parties. In my experience, there are much more drugs & sex going on at gay parties. Much of it is reckless & unprotected, as the attitude among many who are gay is to live it up today & die young. Many don’t want to live into old age, as they are in pain over their sexuality, and once it diminishes, their mental agony can become excruciating. Sadly this emotional pain leads to many early deaths.
Relationship building is an area where many people have issues. It’s especially hard for gays who have come out of the closet to trust straight people, because all straights said or did something offensive to their sensibilities at some point. It’s tempting for gays to become snowflakes on this, which doesn’t help anyone. Rehabilitation & education need to work together for there to be progress in sexual healing, but currently that is being cut out in favor of quackery, prejudice & identity politics. The real work that needs to be done is being actively resisted by all this.
After Epstein’s death, the Beatles attempted to manage themselves with Apple Records and it was a disaster. It wasn’t until after they officially broke up in the spring of 1970 that the Fab Four got they legal & financial issues in order so they could all get paid. Northern Songs was the famous Lennon-McCartney publishing company created under Epstein’s guidance. This got John & Paul paid equally on all their compositions.
George founded Harrisongs in 1964 which ensured he would get paid for his music. Ringo founded his own music publishing company, Startling Music Ltd, in 1968 after his deal with Northern Songs expired. Before the Beatles had begum to disintegrate as a band, each member was legally taken care of as far as songwriting, publishing & royalties. Those are the typical issues that break-up successful bands, and the Beatles showed the world how to handle it as it happened. “Creative differences” between band members is often rooted in legal issues that affect the commerciality of the act, along with who gets paid.
I’ve written in earlier posts that the Beatles wouldn’t be allowed to be successful in this 21-century era. The music industry has learned from the Beatles, punk rock, and 1990’s alternative rock/hip-hop. Those were times when popular music got out of their control and the industry doesn’t like that, even though it makes them billions of dollars. The industry wants to bottle everything up and endlessly sell it back to new generations of consumers, while never allowing another revolution in popular music. Historically, losing Frank Sinatra’s audience to rock & roll in 1955 started all this upheaval for the music industry. Charlie Parker & Sun Ra did the same in jazz.
You can’t stop history, which is metaphorically a raging river with unstoppable momentum & overwhelming power. Rock & roll is here to stay, and you can’t kill it. Same for reggae, rap, salsa, electronica, etc. Once a genre conquers the world, it becomes immortalized and can’t die because too many people, particularly kids, love it. It just keeps growing & flowing, increasing its influence as it goes along. All one can do is attempt to direct the flow. A revolutionary artist finds the best channel and directs all his/her energy into that historical task.
If the Beatles came along today and got their big audition on American Idol, Simon Cowell & company would listen for a bit, then insist to Paul that John be fired. Brian Epstein would be pushed out over a drug/sex scandal, etc, and Universal would handle all management through one of their preferred star agencies. This means Paul would be represented by CCA and be recognized as the undisputed band leader who gets all the songwriting & publishing money, while George & Ringo are a step above session musicians in this gig. If either protest they can easily be replaced. Drum machines that sample Pete Best & AI guitarists work much cheaper, making these new & improved Beatles more cost-efficient to the industry. This is the only way these new Beatles could be economically viable.
George Martin’s talents wouldn’t be applicable to these Beatles. Industry braintrust would surely prefer the guy who produced the Black Keys or Foo Fighters. New Beatles music would need that production edge with everything they’re missing, and George Martin is too subtle and respectful towards the artist to work in contemporary rock music which is now a top-down corporate-controlled project.
Under these conditions, John will struggle to get another opportunity as he’s too outside-the-box for this corporate era of music. He’s not sponsor friendly, so how can you market him? This is how all the gatekeepers & industry experts would understand a young John Lennon today. In this industry-created world, Paul McCartney & his New & Improved Beatles could become more popular than One Direction featuring Harry Styles. Of course, there wouldn’t be 1/10th the great songs from this new UK supergroup, but that’s just a cost of doing business.
Conclusion: There are great aspiring artists with the ability to make meaningful music, but it’s all being suppressed by ruling-class corporate which controls marketing, distribution & sales through its network of business partners, to which outsiders have no access. If you’re reading this, then you’ve discovered a real musical artist of the 21st-century. We’re all underground, censored & blacklisted by the establishment which has near-complete control over TV & the internet. It’s all dirty politics & big money that keeps us suppressed. Eventually the river of history will wash away all their detritus. This will happen when youth & working people unite in action, using music as a tool for revolutionary inspiration.
Beauty is blessing with a curse. Physical beauty attracts the opposite sex & gay. If you are attractive, you are going to have to deal with gay.
For the record, I’m 100% straight. Don’t believe that nonsense which declares everyone has gay in them. I have no desire for gay sex. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it’s merely my sexual preference. Some snowflakes get jealous and attempt to persecute me for that. Anti-gay reactionaries are always looking for political cover for themselves, and a scapegoat to point their dirty fingers at. When you’re a real socialist, you get attacked from all sides politically.
I grew up in the 1980’s, when ‘coming out’ starting becoming in vogue. MTV & Madonna were a big influence on that, and it was certainly needed. I had Wisconsin high school friends (boys & girls) who came out after graduation, and I was among the first of the straights to be told by them. The gay boys were attracted to me, and the lesbian girls knew I was cool and would still be their friend. The ex-jocks & elitists were always the most reactionary towards gay, often claiming they were “betrayed” when they found out so-and-so was gay. That’s why most gays move out of the small towns and to the cities.
Those homophobic bigots were the people I soon lost touch with after high school, as they went on to become cops & local attorneys according to their aptitude. I soon lost touch with my new gay friends too, as that world became a culture that organically excluded straights who were unwilling to “experiment.” The only reason I was being invited to gay parties was because they wanted to have sex with me, not to be my friend.
I was kidnapped into a gay house sleepover in college. I thought I was being taken back to my dorm in downtown Milwaukee, but was instead taken to a rented home in Menominee Falls. I was introduced to all these new gay friends of my high school classmates, and was told we are having dinner & sleeping over here. [!!]
After this deception, I was uneasy about drinking alcohol, or anything else I didn’t serve myself. The meal was well-prepared, but hardly enjoyable. When it was time for bed, I slept alone on the living room couch, while everyone else went into a bedroom to have gay sex. It was my job to deal with all this like a man by waiting until morning to be taken to my desired destination, and not be a jerk about this. That’s a tough spot to be put in.
When gays are amongst themselves, they speak much more openly. After dinner, my just-came-out-of-the-closet male high school friend is examining the CD collection and is excited to see the Pet Shop Boys, Erasure, etc, well represented. The flaming-gay home resident says loudly to me with a wink & a laugh, “He’s going through his fag rock stage.”
Since then, all that 1980’s goth music has been ‘fag rock’ to me, because that’s what the fags call it– I heard it myself. That doesn’t make me anti-gay, it means I understand gay MUCH better than most straight people. Gay people need a few more straight people like myself who are honest about all this sexuality, because everyone else it lying about it for their own purposes.
For the record, my ‘gaydar’ is exquisitely sensitive, as it needs to be. I am usually the first straight man in the room to know there is a gay person in the area. This has been happening to me since I was a child, so what’s speaking here is a lifetime of experience & learning. If you are attractive, gay is going to find you. It’s all about how you deal with it. What you must do is:
1) Determine your sexual preference and don’t allow any unnatural forces to influence it 2) Determine you social attitude towards a group with whom you are not sexually attracted 3) Set healthy boundaries & limitations and maintain them
This is pretty advanced stuff for most people, as much of today’s society is failing Sex Ed 101. If you aren’t physically attractive, then you don’t have this problem of gay kidnappings, or being lured to their parties, gay bars, etc. Many heterosexual reactionaries are jealous of me because they are ugly. They want to pretend they know better, when in fact they know nothing on this. They claim to be protecting the public interest, when in fact they are fascist haters looking to scapegoat artists & leftists so their crimes can stay hidden from public accountability.
Jealously is the most dangerous emotion. It leads to contempt & uncontrollable rage. Nothing good can come from that. When politics get hyper-sexualized, everything gets distorted because most people are out-of-control when it comes to sex. Most people are never comfortable with their sexuality, and that becomes a root of many disorders– mental, physical, social, economic & political.
I have always turned to music in the face of such difficult & substantive issues. If you love the Velvet Underground & Nico produced by Andy Warhol (1967) they way I do, then you can’t be anti-gay. If you respect David Bowie, etc, in your music listening, then you are a friend of the gay community. With these tools at your disposal, you have all you need to connect with gay people on amenable terms– anytime, anyplace.
