Sunday, January 26, 2020
Meet the Cannabis Lawyer Beating Trump at His Own Game - POLITICO
Meet the Cannabis Lawyer Beating Trump at His Own Game - POLITICO
...It’s not exactly Perry Mason. But Bondy, who says he looks at all of his cases like a chess board, is focusing on the endgame—in this case, the sentencing judge, who he hopes will take into consideration Parnas’ willingness to cooperate with Congress.
“I usually think very early on about how to create or identify the brightest favorable light that I can find in a client,” Bondy says. “And with Lev, the brightest light, the most favorable light, is his truth.”
...“He’s using the media to speak to the people in power,” Franz said. “Sometimes you have to do that to deliver the message.”
...It’s not exactly Perry Mason. But Bondy, who says he looks at all of his cases like a chess board, is focusing on the endgame—in this case, the sentencing judge, who he hopes will take into consideration Parnas’ willingness to cooperate with Congress.
“I usually think very early on about how to create or identify the brightest favorable light that I can find in a client,” Bondy says. “And with Lev, the brightest light, the most favorable light, is his truth.”
...“He’s using the media to speak to the people in power,” Franz said. “Sometimes you have to do that to deliver the message.”
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Nose Blind to Inflation
https://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/pdf/TFTF_Jan_24_2020_3.pdf
Hedonic Fantasies
Today I’m talking about price inflation, i.e., changing prices of the goods and services we all
must buy.
Hedonic Fantasies
Today I’m talking about price inflation, i.e., changing prices of the goods and services we all
must buy.
Friday, January 24, 2020
2 Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company
Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company
You can pick almost any nine-digit number that doesn’t start with nine at random and it could be a legitimate social security number. Say you then go apply for a loan. The first time, the lender will ping the credit bureau who will return “No, we’ve never seen this person.” But the next time you apply for a loan, the lender will ping the credit bureau, and the credit bureau will recognize that yes, there’s been an inquiry. Chances are, you can find a lender that, for a high enough cost and a low enough dollar rate, will give you a loan. These synthetic, made-up people pay back the loan, ladder up, and borrow more and more money until they bust out.
This is a very difficult type of fraud to catch. But now we have a company like Sentilink, which does it as a service. Turns out that fake people take out loans at much different rates than real people. And if you’re focused on it, you can stop this kind of fraud much more effectively.
You can pick almost any nine-digit number that doesn’t start with nine at random and it could be a legitimate social security number. Say you then go apply for a loan. The first time, the lender will ping the credit bureau who will return “No, we’ve never seen this person.” But the next time you apply for a loan, the lender will ping the credit bureau, and the credit bureau will recognize that yes, there’s been an inquiry. Chances are, you can find a lender that, for a high enough cost and a low enough dollar rate, will give you a loan. These synthetic, made-up people pay back the loan, ladder up, and borrow more and more money until they bust out.
This is a very difficult type of fraud to catch. But now we have a company like Sentilink, which does it as a service. Turns out that fake people take out loans at much different rates than real people. And if you’re focused on it, you can stop this kind of fraud much more effectively.
Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company
Every Company Will Be a Fintech Company
...Why has the status quo persisted for so long, despite extreme levels of customer dissatisfaction? While innovation in any industry is hard, innovation in financial services is particularly difficult. Many of these existing institutions have been around for more than 100 years and have a large brick and mortar retail footprint. As a result, it’s hard to cut costs and roll out new products quickly—think about the many long-term leases and thousands of employees that need to be trained across the country.
...Why has the status quo persisted for so long, despite extreme levels of customer dissatisfaction? While innovation in any industry is hard, innovation in financial services is particularly difficult. Many of these existing institutions have been around for more than 100 years and have a large brick and mortar retail footprint. As a result, it’s hard to cut costs and roll out new products quickly—think about the many long-term leases and thousands of employees that need to be trained across the country.
While many of these institutions may have billion-dollar-plus IT budgets, at some of the larger banks, 75 percent of those dollars is spent solely on maintaining existing products. This is a highly regulated industry, with multiple regulators across state and federal. It has a very complex infrastructure. So while this is a big opportunity for startups, there are huge challenges, too.
... There’s a parallel here: It used to be really hard to start a software company...Today, anybody can start a software company with a credit card and a laptop. Why? Amazon Web Services brought all of this infrastructure as a service. AWS dramatically reduced cost and complexity and unleashed thousands of experiments.
......This is not just a consumer phenomenon. It’s also happening in B2B. Take Shopify, for example, which provides website services for any merchant for a monthly subscription fee. Or Mindbody, a company that helps fitness studios like yoga studios manage their businesses, also for a monthly fee. Turns out both of these companies make nearly 50 percent of their revenue through financial services.
...So, why is this fintech explosion happening now? The “as a service” infrastructure is coming to banking. To understand why this is such a big deal, we need to look at how complex the banking stack is today.
Ever wondered what it takes to start a bank? Here’s a simplified version of what it looks like on the consumer side. In this highly regulated industry, first you need to apply for a license, which could take years. Instead, most of the new companies are finding a sponsor bank (effectively borrowing a license). But that’s just your first required partnership.
...
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
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