Siegel: Nothing in the Bond Market Is Attractive

$PORT$ BU$INE$$ ARIZONA: Phoenix Suns Sharp-Shooter Devon Booker Sets His Sights on Being A Billionaire Investor

Profile in Forbes

Where -- "The 25-year-old has picked up stakes in seven startups since signing a five-year, $158 million contract extension with the Phoenix Suns in 2018, including deals last year with sports video companies Overtime and Buzzer and convenience store delivery app GoPuff.

Most recently, Booker, who is making $31.7 million in salary this season and another $8 million annually from endorsement deals with brands like Nike and video game Call of Duty, participated in a funding round for luxury watch marketplace WatchBox, announced in November.

The shooting guard, named to Forbes’ 2022 30 Under 30 list in the sports category, has already shown he can be a quick study.

Daily Cover|

Jan 2, 2022,06:30am EST|Devin Booker, Already An NBA Star, Is Heating Up As An Investor

 

Devin Booker, Already An NBA Star, Is Heating Up As An Investor

The Phoenix Suns guard has turned his basketball career into a crash course on business.

Now comes the fun part.

 

Brett Knight Forbes Staff Sports Money | the business of sports

Forbes | 2022-01-02 

 

"When Devin Booker was joining the Global Ambassador hotel project in Phoenix last year, he was invited onto a call to go over the business plan. It was his first commercial real estate investment, but as an NBA All-Star and one of the city’s most famous faces, he wasn’t expected to do much more than offer a quick hello.

As the discussion of legal minutiae stretched past an hour—then two, then three—he certainly would have been forgiven if he’d left his manager or lawyer to mop up. Booker, though, stayed on. And stayed on. And stayed on—even while taking a Covid-19 test and then for at least another 30 minutes in his car as he waited to head into practice.

“His desire to be a businessman and learn about business and investments at that young an age was something I had not heard before, not seen before,” says Jim Reynolds, Booker’s advisor and business partner. “Not like that.”

Now, having invested his time learning about business, Booker is starting to invest his dollars...Starting with virtually zero financial knowledge, Booker knew that he would have to work just as hard off the court. Almost from the moment he turned pro, he has asked his older teammates for business advice. He sought out Reynolds, the CEO and chairman of Chicago-based investment banking firm Loop Capital. . .

[...] Johnson says Booker was a “sponge.” And he is starting to act on the advice, with a particular interest in playing a hands-on role in his investments. Reynolds lays out the template going forward: “Every company that he buys he will have a significant stake in. He will fully be integrated into the finance and operations and leadership of that company. He’ll sit on the board of directors, if not be chairman of the board of directors.”

> They have put that plan into practice as co-owners of coconut-water sports drink COCO5, with Booker making a seven-figure commitment as one of the lead investors in a deal that closed over the summer. They immediately moved the startup’s headquarters from Chicago to Arizona, to be closer to Booker, and he has stayed busy interacting with local retailers and weighing in on marketing campaigns and a packaging redesign, in addition to promoting the company on social media and in stores. He will also play a part interviewing and hiring the new leadership at the company, which Reynolds says projects to grow rapidly from less than $5 million in revenue in 2021.

> Booker tracked down Sam Fox, an 11-time James Beard Award semifinalist for outstanding restaurateur who has major street cred in Phoenix, when he learned he was developing the Global Ambassador, a 141-room food-focused hotel that is on track to open in late 2023. Fox hopes to attract visiting NBA players and baseball players in town for spring training as guests and has solicited Booker’s input about tailoring rooms to athletes, including the size of the beds and the height of the shower heads and doorways. Booker, who signed on in the spring with a seven-figure investment, has also shared feedback from his travels on the elements of a successful private members’ club. Best of all for Booker, the hotel is being built next door to the Suns’ practice complex, so he can check on his investment every day.

Even with his more traditional endorsements, Booker wants to roll up his sleeves.

“You get approached by all these companies that try to, I’d say, control the narrative or push out what they want to,” he says.

> That led him to launch a creative studio, Book Projects, in October to route his brand collaborations through and ensure the products that bear his name maintain a consistent design aesthetic. The first project was a couple of basketball courts he renovated in his hometown, Moss Point, Mississippi, with the backing of 2K Foundations, and he’s now working on his fourth, a collaboration with SCUF, which makes high-end gaming controllers.

Booker says he’s always aspired to be an entrepreneur, and to avoid being labeled a “dumb jock.” . .“He really wants to make sure that his money lives as long as he does,” Reynolds says, adding, “What he’s learning and where he’s starting, there is no doubt in my mind he’ll be a billionaire.”

Booker isn’t setting his sights quite so high—not yet, anyway—but he is thinking seriously about his future.

“I want to play for a very long time,” he says. But, he adds, “I’m worried about life after basketball and building businesses that will be here once the ball stops bouncing.”

                    

 

 

 

 

 

IT HAPPENED! Elon Musk & NASA FINALLY Reveal New Light Speed Engine 2022

KISS-AND-DO TELL: Both Sides Now for Arizona Senator Sinema | Blog for Arizona

Intro: A report by Larry Bovine doing a switch-up from the lavender-haired fashionista persona to a more mainstream image adopted for a year-end review... Spoiler Alert: She's no John McCain!

Image change for public consumption

Senator Sinema Takes Credit for Biden Accomplishments, Most of Which She Blocked

By Larry Bodine|2022-01-01T17:13:36-07:00January 2nd, 2022|AZ Politics|

In a galling year-end video, Senator Kyrsten Sinema recounts her accomplishments in 2021, taking credit for the Biden Build Back Better agenda, which she actively sabotaged.

Sinema is noticeably dressed-up for a grown-up audience, abandoning purple hair, skin-tight dresses, and “fuck off” ring.

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• She takes credit for Katie Hobbs’ work as Arizona Secretary of State, who certified Arizona’s election results.
• She takes credit for President Biden’s work promoting vaccines.
• In a slap to Biden and a nod to Republicans, she says she wants “to help solve this crisis on our border and hold the administration accountable.” Last May, she had the nerve to say she wanted “Biden to ‘actually address’ the ‘Border Crisis.'”
• She wrapped herself in John McCain’s “big legacy,” saying she introduced the Rio Reimagined project, to improve water systems and connect Arizona river communities.
• Remember when 5 Veterans Quit Kyrsten Sinema’s Advisory Council in disgust? They were appalled at Sinema’s kowtowing to corporate donors instead of ordinary Arizonans. In the video, Sinema has the audacity to talk up her support for providing telehealth to veterans.

To be sure, she helped pass the historic infrastructure law, but only after blocking the rest of the Biden agenda while kissing up to Republicans.

She does not mention supporting the Senate filibuster, which has stymied the Build Back Better agenda. She ignores the protestors who charge that she catered to fossil fuel executives and undermined the reconciliation package to combat the climate emergency. She says nothing about how she used the filibuster to block the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

Sinema is no John McCain. instead, she is a right-wing Democrat who has betrayed what Arizonans want for the country.

Excuse me while I throw up."

JOLTING DIS-ENGAGED PEOPLE...this feels like a justifiable response to current politics

Intro: Critics panned Don’t Look Up as ‘shrill’, but it was superb – and caught outlandish reality

OK and that could indicate that the public has a relatively higher tolerance for angry, broad, insulting [ etc ] material, at least when this feels like a justifiable response to current politics.

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PAUSE: Implicit in the professional objections to this film – it is “angry”, “smug”, “sad”, “shrill”, “condescending”, “scattergun”, “disastrous”, “insensitive”, “unfunny”, “depressing”, “heavy handed” but also “toothless” – is the proposal that, if McKay wanted to jolt disengaged people into noticing, even talking about, collective complacency on global warming, some sort of gentler, more immersive approach could have been more effective.

Lighten up the satire?

That’s a tall order when life is out-crazying the most vivid fiction

(Image credit: Meryl Streep as President Janie Orlean in Don't Look Up. Photograph: Niko Tavernise/AP)

 

Catherine Bennett

the Guardian

 

"In 1944, George Orwell got a letter from TS Eliot, a director at Faber, rejecting his political satire, Animal Farm. There were several reasons.

First, it was not the right time. Also, said the creator of The Waste Land, “the effect is simply one of negation”. The poet took issue, too, with the wholesale disrespecting of pigs, since they were logically the “best qualified to run the farm”, being the cleverest. “What was needed (someone might argue) was not more communism but more public spirited pigs.”

So, if some leading film critics watching Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up (currently most-watched on Netflix) have hankered for a less satirical kind of satire, they are in distinguished company. TS Eliot might well have agreed with these reviewers that McKay’s savaging of a society too corrupt and deluded to save itself from an urgent threat to life on Earth, in the film’s case, a comet, could have been more cheerfully done. For instance, echoing Eliot on pigs, some of the more cartoonish leads could have been made more relatable.

How about humanising lead villain Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance being mesmerising), a creepy tech billionaire who, absurdly, intends to live forever?

Meanwhile, McKay’s US president, the preposterous Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) has appointed her dreadful son chief of staff.

Why can’t these grievous weirdos with their silly dialogue be more like, say, Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk?

Even the obscure scientists (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) attempting to convince an irresponsible leader and a clicks-obsessed media that the Earth truly is in danger, should, it’s been suggested, have been awarded intriguing personal journeys that would offset the more apocalyptic content. Implicit in the professional objections to this film – it is “angry”, “smug”, “sad”, “shrill”, “condescending”, “scattergun”, “disastrous”, “insensitive”, “unfunny”, “depressing”, “heavy handed” but also “toothless” – is the proposal that, if McKay wanted to jolt disengaged people into noticing, even talking about, collective complacency on global warming, some sort of gentler, more immersive approach could have been more effective. 

How would that work? 

[...] “It was already a crazy script but I would say reality out-crazied us by like 10 to 15%,” McKay said. “Well done, reality.”

It’s largely because of this routine out-crazying by the usual suspects that satire became the subject of repeated obituaries. But given the professional bollocking administered to McKay’s death-defying production it could also be that old-school, Swiftian satire – that is, not nice and not nuanced – has itself dwindled in appeal. . ."

IMMERSE YOURSELF MORE: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/01/lighten-up-satire-tall-order-life-out-crazying-even-science-fiction

FATAL ATTRACTION IN CONTEXT: After Ducey In Arizona, Trump has endorsed Kari Lake for Governor

Here in Arizona a former local FOX10 News teleprompter talking-head is the featured image in this report from The Guardian today.

Apparently she knows how to read the prepared script

Trump acolytes vie for key election oversight posts in US midterms

Swing state races for governor and secretary of state are the most consequential midterm contests

(Image credit: Former Fox News anchor Kari Lake has called for ‘decertifying’ the 2020 election and is running for governor in Arizona. Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

 

Sam Levine

the Guardian |

"When Americans go to the polls in the 2022 midterms, the most important elections won’t be for office in Washington. The most high-stakes races will be statewide contests, in some cases for long overlooked offices, that have profound consequences for the future of free and fair elections in America.

The races for governor and secretary of state, the chief election official in many places, will determine which officials have control over setting election rules and the post-election certification process.

Allies of Donald Trump and others who have spread baseless conspiracy theories about the election have launched campaigns for several of those offices, both at the statewide and local level, in an effort to take control of election machinery. Trump is expected to run for president in 2024, and if his allies are successful, there are fears they could use their positions to block Trump’s opponent from taking office should Trump lose. . ."

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Is Democracy a Charade? | PUPPET REGIME | GZERO Media