Business Travel Woes, Most Remote Bars, Crypto Shilling, Bank Transfer Partners

Another TBB post featuring the most eclectic links around the web such as the business travel woes, the most remote bars, hideous celebrity crypto shilling, all the bank transfer partners, countries are opening and we have entered the acceptance phase of the pandemic, “technical” analysis in investing, a bizarre tale involving scammers starting a ballet school, all about boosters and tests, how it is tripping on psychedelic substances, why the Afghan army did not fight, farmland in the US and all the languages out there, book Hyatt properties now with your points, more on shutdowns and we catch up on some personal news. Thanks to the two monthly Paypal donors and the two readers who got the 100k Chase Sapphire Preferred card with my links (sadly, the 100k offer is dead unless you are visiting a Chase bank branch).

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TRAVEL

The theme today may well just be that we are entering the acceptance phase of the pandemic…

As I just said: U.S. to Reopen Canada, Mexico Land Crossings for Vaccinated Travelers.

This is an excellent illustrated guide about how important business travel is for the airlines: Why airlines need business travel to return. Yes, some of it is coming back. No, a big part of it is likely never coming back so adjust accordingly and be prepared for higher airfare going forward…eventually.

Another site to keep track of the changes in the pandemic travel rules around the world: When Will International Travel Resume? A Country-by-Country Guide to Reopening Borders.

Beer in these places anyone? Planes, Trains and Yaks: Five of the World’s Most Remote Bars. An Irish pub at Mount Everest and a totally hipster type “bar” somewhere in Sweden just south of the Arctic circle, oh my!

 

PERSONAL FINANCE

I personally feel that investors using charts (or, technical “analysis” to make it sound more sophisticated) is a bunch of malarkey. But if it works for them, you know, it is a free country I guess. Anyway, this is pretty good “Reading Tea Leaves“.

The obvious question: If technical analysis doesn’t work, why do so many folks still use it? I think there are three key reasons.

First, we’re hardwired to search for patterns—an instinct we inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors—and technical analysis appeals to that instinct

Second, we hunger for a sense of control.

Third, for investments that don’t kick off a stream of income and never will—and hence there’s no way to calculate a fundamental value—technical analysis is all that’s left. Holders of stuff like bitcoin and gold are stuck looking at their charts and asking, “Is there any reason to imagine the price will rise, so I can unload this turkey at a profit to some greater fool?”

Sometimes, when I watch TV (which is very rarely these days), a washed up celebrity short of money will appear in an ad to pump some worthless shit. Or even current celebrities will do the same thing because I guess they just can’t say no to more money? It is beyond pathetic imho! And then we get another level of assholes that just could not say no to the latest mania with the juiciest promotion fees…crypto! This article’s headline captures my feelings towards this: Celebrity Crypto Shilling Is a Moral Disaster. Why are the regulators letting all this obvious scam non sense going on is beyond me.

Celebrities are lending their names and promotional talents to everything from NFTs to crypto exchanges to their own custom coin offerings. Together they are communicating something clear but terribly misleading: that cryptocurrencies, and the many shady areas of this gray-market economy, offer a path to sustainable riches. The truth is almost always the opposite. Scams are practically endemic in the crypto world. One recent report estimated losses in DeFi (or decentralized finance, a booming crypto subindustry) at $681 million in the first seven months of this year. That follows billions of dollars in crypto losses in recent years to criminal behavior—hacks, frauds, or “rug pulls,” in which crypto project leaders simply abscond with funds.

Just be careful out there, okay?

This is a bizarre tale full of weird people, “love”, God, Trump, guns, dead bodies, scams and, you know, “real” life: When Doug and Ashley Benefield Started a Ballet Company, It Wasn’t Supposed to End in Death. For a little while I feared my daughter would choose ballet for a career, phew!

The Charleston-based evangelicals had much in common: guns, God, Trump. What went wrong, only one of them could say.