I bring you eclectic content around the web such as a coronavirus variant tracker, leverage blowup, vaccine cards, IHG Rewards blows even more, travel to Australia and northern Michigan, meet some amazing storks, how to risk less and make more, an update on the unemployment tax refund situation, the amazing mRNA technology, some really odd and amazing stuff today in the Oddz and Endz section and more, enjoy the week!
TBB Blog Mission: To Educate. Entertain. Inspire. In That Order!
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TRAVEL
I have not stayed in a tru by Hilton brand before and now there is one a drive away: Hilton opens new hotel in Northern Michigan. And another Michigan development, something I was planning to visit Chicago to see but now I may just have to wait for it to get here: Michigan getting Van Gogh floor-to-ceiling multi-sensory experience as seen in Paris.
This is mesmerizing to watch, wow! Dolphin Haze, Esperance Australia.
I almost skipped this…and I am so glad I did not! A Biologist, an Outlandish Stork and the Army of Women Trying to Save It. Amazing birds, wow!
PERSONAL FINANCE
If you are going to click one link today, make it this one: Risk Less Make More. I could excerpt the whole thing but that would take too much space.
Poor IRS, it is just getting pounded on non stop by Congress lately instead of letting it alone to catch up with millions of unprocessed returns from 2019! Unemployment tax adjustments by IRS in the works, with first refunds to go out in May. I hope they do this without screwing things up.
Some people just can not help themselves, they are just addicted to risk taking: The Dumbest Financial Story of 2021.
The swift fall of Archegos Capital Management is one of the most embarrassing financial plotlines in years, not just for a handful of banks but for an entire financial and governance system that really shouldn’t have let any of this happen. It takes a lot of malfeasance for giant banks to do something in 2021 that would make a neutral observer think, Wow, it’s legitimately shocking they did that. But life is full of surprises.
COVID-19
I am getting the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine tomorrow, yeah!
Are you as confused about all the variants out there as I am? This can help: Coronavirus Variant Tracker. Here in Michigan we are having a hell of a third wave, we are talking leading the nation caliber. The governor said she is done with the covid measures. This is affecting younger people as most seniors have now been vaccinated. We are closing in to having 40% of the adults fully vaccinated here…and still. But we should be getting around the bend…soon. Sometimes I feel…what if this virus is not done with us and has more surprises up its sleeve?
This is a must read: How mRNA Technology Could Change the World. mRNA’s story likely will not end with COVID-19: Its potential stretches far beyond this pandemic.
The triumph of mRNA, from backwater research to breakthrough technology, is not a hero’s journey, but a heroes’ journey. Without Katalin Karikó’s grueling efforts to make mRNA technology work, the world would have no Moderna or BioNTech. Without government funding and philanthropy, both companies might have gone bankrupt before their 2020 vaccines. Without the failures in HIV-vaccine research forcing scientists to trailblaze in strange new fields, we might still be in the dark about how to make the technology work. Without an international team of scientists unlocking the secrets of the coronavirus’s spike protein several years ago, we might not have known enough about this pathogen to design a vaccine to defeat it last year. mRNA technology was born of many seeds.
I am not laminating mine by the way. What You Need to Know About Your Vaccine Card. I think we are going to have to come up with a better system than this…and not sure exactly what it is going to be. Other link.
ODDZ & ENDZ
I swear you have never seen anything like this! A herd of reindeer in Russia’s Cola Peninsula, in the Arctic Circle. You won’t believe what will happen next after you click it!
This article is so much fun! The Five Universal Laws of Human Stupidity.
Law 1: Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
Law 2: The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
Law 3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
Law 4: Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
Law 5: A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person. And its corollary: A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.
This is a really sad tragic story about a dude named Steve Carroll. Death of a (Really Good) Salesman. You know, a lot of heartache is derived when people do stupid things with their money. If this guy had a good financial advisor to put a stop in such dangerous/reckless behavior with his money…he would probably never spread such pain. Okay, I AM biased here as what I do for a living is help people with their money and their…issues.
MILES & POINTS
HOT CREDIT CARD OFFERS: 80k Chase Sapphire Preferred (& $50 Grocery store credit), 100k CAPITAL ONE Venture Rewards, 75k CHASE Ink Cash, 75k CHASE Ink Unlimited, 100k CHASE Ink Business Preferred, 60k CHASE Sapphire Reserve, 60k CITI Premier, 20k CHASE Freedom Flex & CHASE Freedom Unlimited, 70k AMEX Business Gold, 75k AMEX Platinum, 85k AMEX Business Platinum, 130k AMEX Hilton Business & Hilton Surpass, 150k AMEX Hilton Aspire, $300 AMEX Blue Cash Preferred, 140k CHASE IHG Rewards Club Premier, and many more! Please use my Affiliate links.
If you do not see a credit card with my affiliate links, perhaps I could refer you? Contact me!
This section is about my hobby addiction of collecting frequent flyer miles and hotel points since the early 1990’s! Feel free to skip this section and parts of the next one if this is not for you.
Newbies: To get started, it is perfectly fine if you choose ONE program to focus on. Bank proprietary programs (the main three are Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points) are preferable than airline or hotel programs. Mainly because they can be more flexible in how you can use these bank points. Unless, for example, you live in a city with a dominant airline and your main GOAL is to amass enough frequent flier miles on that airline. Or you work for a company that exclusively uses one airline. Or one hotel. Again, I will make this point again and again…Maybe the best AND simple thing to do is just use one credit card that earns 2% cash back and you can save yourself all the aggravation and mental bandwidth trying to maximize several programs…
The big news in this hobby was another devaluation. As warned, there are more coming. It is very depressing that these companies can not hold themselves back devaluing their currency when we are not even out of the pandemic yet! This did not affect me, I have stopped caring about this hotel company…I do have close to 200k IHG Rewards points left and they are on burn watch for a while: IHG Rewards Devalues Dynamic Award Pricing By 30%.
I usually use my Amex Hilton Aspire card at restaurants to earn 7 Hilton Honors points per dollar. But I was targeted for a 5x promotion for up to $1,500 of spend on groceries and restaurants on my Hyatt Visa card so I guess I need to change it temporarily to this card. My plan was to hold off crossing the $15k spend on my Hyatt Visa to earn another free night cert so I can have it extended further into the future but it looks like I am going to cross the mark much sooner and still holding out hope that Hyatt will extend the life of these certs for another six months at least. I use son’s Chase Freedom Flex for groceries earning 5x which is good until October 2021 (one year anniversary of the card). Other than that, I am taking a break from new credit cards for a while as I have been focusing on the spend on daughter’s Southwest card trying to earn her the famous Southwest Companion Pass. She should have the 80,000 points in her account soon and we are well on our way to hit that (reduced due to Covid) 100,000 point mark for the Companion Pass sometime in May (I have been paying some estimated taxes with it so it is not all free of course). And these mental gymnastics we all do to maximize our bang so to speak very likely has beneficial impact to keeping our brains sharper…some scientist should research this! Or maybe messing all us in the process lol!
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
I am anxiously awaiting for The Points Guy and all other credit card sales blogs to adjust the valuation of IHG Rewards points down but I think instead they are preparing more “XX reasons I love the IHG Rewards card”, “Best offer ever hurry!”, “Time Limited Offer, this won’t last!”. If I was doing this I could…never mind.
So, some big blogger wrote about how you can now book one way ANA awards using Virgin Atlantic points and all I can think of is how soon it will be before another devaluation hits….In the meantime, do something more useful which may last a little longer: Why and How: Booking Japan Airlines Award Flights with Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles.
It was a beautiful weekend in Ann Arbor, Michigan…maybe Spring is almost here. Of course, as always, I am pretty sure we have another snowstorm in store for sure, maybe two or three.
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Wonderful links today!
I wonder if there is competition for being on the outside of the reindeer circle. The tough ones wolves don’t want to mess with.
It is now really clear that Long Term Capital shoud not have been bailed out.
Just booked my first rewards trip in a year and a half! A few nights at the beach with some family members in late May, and all the adults will be fully vaccinated by then.
Domestic coach has never been this exciting. My last plane ride was on Spirit airlines March 13th last year.
Wow. Crazy story about the salesman. Was just discussing medical debt with friends and they were shocked to hear your spouse inherits the bills, even if you die! What happens to the wife? I suppose she can claim innocent spouse to the IRS but what about the other creditors? Is it possible to discharge them via BK without affecting her credit? A sticky situation for sure.
So did Gary and Fivehead flip a coin on who would be the anti-vaxx heel and who would get to write the rebuttal admonishment post linking to the original? Seems like a symbiotic clickbait bonanza.
This seems up your alley, George: a report on stock trading by members of Congress. Apparently they’re beating the market, who knew we were so good at electing gifted traders to office?
https://unusualwhales.com/i_am_the_senate
A woman was at her hairdresser’s getting her hair styled for a trip to Rome with her husband. She mentioned the trip to the hairdresser, who responded:
“Rome? Why would anyone want to go there? It’s crowded and dirty. You’re crazy to go to Rome. So, how are you getting there?”
“We’re taking Continental,” was the reply. “We got a great rate!” “Continental?” exclaimed the hairdresser. “That’s a terrible airline. Their planes are old, their flight attendants are ugly, and they’re always late. So, where are you staying in Rome?”
“We’ll be at this exclusive little place over on Rome’s Tiber River called Teste.” “Don’t go any further. I know that place. Everybody thinks it’s going to be something special and exclusive, but it’s really a dump.” “We’re going to go to see the Vatican and maybe get to see the Pope.” “That’s rich,” laughed the hairdresser. “You and a million other people trying to see him. He’ll look the size of an ant. Boy, good luck on this lousy trip of yours. You’re going to need it. ”
A month later, the woman came in for a hairdo. The hairdresser asked her about her trip to Rome.
“It was wonderful,” explained the woman, “not only were we on time in one of Continental’s brand new planes, but it was overbooked, and they bumped us up to first class. The food and wine were wonderful, and I had a handsome 28-year-old steward who waited on us hand and foot. And the hotel was great! They’d just finished a $5 million remodeling job, and now it’s a jewel, the finest hotel in the city. They, too, were overbooked, so they apologized and gave us the owner’s suite at no extra charge!”.
“Well,” muttered the hairdresser, “that’s all well and good, but I know you didn’t get to see the Pope.” “Actually, we were quite lucky, because as we toured the Vatican, a Swiss Guard tapped me on the shoulder, and explained that the Pope likes to meet some of the visitors, and if we’d be so kind as to step into his private room and wait, the Pope would personally greet us. Sure enough, five minutes later, the Pope walked through the door and shook my hand! I knelt down and he spoke a few words to me.”
“Oh, really! What’d he say?”
He said: “Who fucked up your hair?”
@DML: That reindeer video is sure something! Different era back then in the LTCM days…it does feel like centuries ago!
@ NIckPFD: Congrats…it does feel cathartic, doesn’t it? I added the link to the queue, thanks. What if they have savvy advisors and not involved in the actual trading themselves? 🙂
@Sexy_kitten7: Wait, there are six more sexy kittens? Meow 🙂 Sticky for sure, I think there are non profits out there specializing in wiping out such debt for survivors.
@Bill: You got it, clickbait material all the way. I am sure they were both refreshing their page views. Word from the inside is that GL does this a lot every day 🙂
@TBBIntern: Get back to your job, increase conversions asap or your ass is toast! 🙂
The 80k Chase Sapphire Preferred referral link is finally here. It was held back for so long to sabotage tiny blogs like mine. Maybe your third cousin does not have one yet? Don’t make me do a “69 reasons I love the CSP card” 🙂
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/6a/I1UWPCYMDG
Today is Pfizer shot #2, let’s go, eeer, let’s get stabbed!
4M a day. I’m still waiting for the PR push (ads etc) to get “everyone” except Brian Cohen (@BA) vaccinated.
Hey TBB & Crew – I tried to apply for the Chase Ink Business Preferred through your links yesterday afternoon, but I couldn’t get the application to submit. I tried Chrome, Safari and then even on my iPhone – but it just kept on staying on the same page when I hit submit. Anyone else having any issues?
No idea!
Maybe Chase is pulling the 100k deal? I sure hope not! Not like I have made a single sale of this card yet 🙂 Was so hoping you are first! Maybe the vendor was doing some shit behind the scenes at THAT time…maybe try again?
Thank you.
I had a new REFERRAL link in my inbox…which DOES pull up the 100k IBP offer:
https://www.referyourchasecard.com/21f/70NI17HEM0
My guess is they were doing something behind the scenes to update all these links.
ok, excellent – I’m going to give it another go this evening. I have a large business expense coming up, so may as well pickup a nice bonus while I’m at it.
Whelp, I’ve tried a couple more times from various browsers, my iPhone and then even tried for wife’s macbook – no dice. It’ll just stay on the submission page, but no confirmation of any sort. Anyone else running into this issue?
Southwest’s stock price is higher today than pre-COVID. The future of aviation is bright!
I am no stock picker, the last time I bought a stock was Ford when it was under $2 🙂
I thought some time ago to open an account at Robinhood just to get the feel of this app, for research purposes. And add some money and buy 4 stocks that I can keep for 10 years. And guess what…Southwest was one of those stocks! And then…boom, the price started to go up…and up…and up. And then I lost interest 🙂
That was me…accidentally pressed on the Enter button.
What were the other three stocks? Twitter, Bumble and Schwab….If I had only pulled the trigger when I first came up with them instead of watching them go, wait for it, up and up 🙂
Maybe I stick with what I know and do best…boring low cost broad based Vanguard ETFs…I let the excitement (and leverage) to dudes like that Archegos guy LOL.
One year and two weeks since the last FTG post. Is it officially dead? The asset value must now be zero for Internet Brands.
I should probably be put in a bid to buy it for $9.99 🙂
Maybe they’ll toss in Pointchaser?