Category Archives: Donald Trump

As the Manhattan District Attorneys criminal investigation into potential bank, tax, and insurance fraud by Donald Trump ramps up, there are a number of key figures whose names likely sends shivers down the ex-presidents spine (or would if his handlers had actually explained the seriousness of the situation to him, rather than keeping him in a hermetically sealed bubble wherein hes only told the election was stolen from him and some day soon hell be crowned President for Life). Obviously, one of those people is Cyrus Vance Jr., the veteran D.A. running the investigation who obtained Trumps tax returns in February. Another is Mark Pomerantz, the prosecutor brought onto the case who helped put John Gotti behind bars. Additionally, theres Morgan Magionos, who helped bring down former Trump aide Paul Manafort. Yet perhaps the most worrisome figure is an individual who hits closer to home, whom Trump has known for yearsJennifer Weisselberg, the former daughter-in-law of longtime Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg.

As The Washington Post reported last month, Vances office has been delving deeply into the personal and financial affairs of the senior Weisselberg, with the goal of getting him to flip and become a witness against Trump. The D.A. is said to be focused on two of Weisselbergs adult sons, a tactic that could be an effort to increase pressure on the elder Weisselberg. One of those sons is Jack Weisselberg, who works at Ladder Capital Finance, which, according to The Washington Post, happened to loan the Trump Organization more than $270 million. Another is Barry Weisselberg, a Trump Organization employee who managed the Wollman ice rink for the company before the city ended its contract. On Thursday, Barrys ex-wife, Jennifer Weisselberg, reportedly turned over a trove of financial documents to Vances office, which, according to Jennifer, contain information for her ex-husbands bank accounts and credit cards, as well as his statements of net worth and tax filings. My knowledge of the documents and my voice connect the flow of money from various banks and from personal finances that bleed directly into the Trump Organization, Jennifer said last week. And according to a new report, those documents contain some extremely interesting information with regard to laws that may have been broken.

Per the Post:

Those records were entered into the couples divorce proceedings, which began in 2017, and some were obtained by The Washington Post this week along with a transcript of the deposition Barry Weisselberg gave as a part of that legal process. The documents show an array of payments and perks that BarryWeisselberg and his family received as a result of his employment for Trumps company over 18 years, likely raising key questions for investigatorsanalyzing the financesof the cash-only skating rink and working to ascertain whether the proper taxes were paid. In the deposition, Weisselberg acknowledged making errors in explaining information about his finances. He said, for instance, that he had forgotten that he shared an investment account with his father and he misstated his salary, prompting interjections from his attorneys when repeatedly confronted with contradictory information, the transcript shows.

He could not answer some questions about his taxes, the transcript shows. When asked whether taxes had been paid on the corporate apartment where his family previously lived, he said he wasnt sure. Asked how the company determined the size of his bonuses, which tallied about $40,000 annually from 2015 to 2017, he said he had no idea. When pressed in the deposition to explain discrepancies between what he said he earned and what he reported on tax forms for the Internal Revenue Service, he said: Im not an accountant. I know what I make. Im not too sure of certain things.

Despite earning $200,000 a year for as long as he could remember, Weisselberg said in the deposition, according to the Post, that he and Jennifer lived rent-free in Trump-owned apartments, adding that he did not know how taxes on the property were handled. (In addition, his father paid most of his living expenses, including $7,900 in monthly rent for a non-Trump-owned apartment where the couple later lived, $49,000 a year for each of his kids to attend private school, $25,000 each for overnight camp, $2,200 for his daughters Hebrew school, and $546 a month for a leased Range Rover.) Speaking of Barry Weisselbergs financial situation, the documents Vances office got a hold of last week have raised a number of questions, according to Air Mail:

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Meet the Woman Who Could Send Donald Trump to Prison - Vanity Fair

Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/Shutterstock / Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

Well before he became president of the United States, Donald Trumps money and business savviness were the most interesting things about him at least from a global perspective. The public fascination was in part owed to the fact that hes always presented himself in the way that one might imagine a billionaire tycoon in a cartoon about billionaire tycoons, living in a penthouse tower surrounded by easy symbols of wealth: pure gold, rare marble and dazzling chandeliers hanging from impossibly high ceilings.

Read: 65 Splurges of the Filthy Rich

But then there was the mysterious side of Trump. He knew how to master money in a way that we pedestrians couldnt help but ogle. By 2011, hed filed for corporate bankruptcy no less than four times. Hed been cornered into selling some of his most spectacular assets, including his Trump Princess yacht. He rolled out business ventures that would eventually fail like Trump Steaks and Trump Mortgage. Yet no matter how much he bombed in the financial sense, he still remained filthy rich. It appeared he could trick the system in ways that the average person heck, even the average wealthy person seemingly could not.

Then he achieved the greatest feat one that money ostensibly could not buy: He became president of the United States. And thats when the previously smooth-looking money maneuvers started to look very, very rocky. Blasted by critics, Trump was revealed to the public as someone whod been spoon-fed his wealth by his father. There was a debacle about his tax returns and why he wouldnt release them. Speculation mounted that Americas most infamous rich guy wasnt as rich as he claimed.

See: How Rich Are Joe Biden, Donald Trump and All the Other Living US Presidents?

Now that his presidency has ended, theres even more information surfacing on Trumps financial standings. Trumps not exactly smooth sailing (or yachting?); in fact, hes up against some serious problems that could have serious repercussions. For instance:

Story continues

In July 2020, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist and the niece of Donald Trump, published a nonfiction book about the most dangerous man in America, aka her uncle Donald. In September, Mary filed a lawsuit alleging that Donald and his siblings committed fraud in a ruse to strip her of her interests in the Trump real estate empire. Trump is urging for the case to be dismissed, but if it is not and it goes to trial, Trump could have to cough up compensatory and punitive damages were talking millions of dollars.

Check Out: Trumps Tax Tricks and 12 Loopholes Only the Rich Know

For billionaires, there are legal loopholes to dodge paying tons in federal taxes. Trump is the best example of this, paying just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017. But you cant get cagey with the IRS when it comes to audits. For more than 10 years, Trump has been warring with the IRS over the viability of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed after declaring colossal losses. If he doesnt win the battle, hes out somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million.

Inheritance money only lasts so long at some point, the well runs dry. Trump received the final multimillion-dollar share of his lucrative family inheritance in or around 2018. Income that Trump had streaming in his entire life has been bluntly severed. Its much harder to launch a business venture or settle a debt when you dont have old money pumping new life into your bank account.

More: 16 Money Rules That Millionaires Swear By

MAGA is alive and well but historically, thats not the brand that has pulled in vast riches for Donald Trump. Its his eponymous Trump brand that has long been the cash cow. In his pre-presidency times, when bankruptcies were shadowing his finances, Trump could always resort to the money-making brand he launched with his fathers multimillion-dollar endowments or cash in on his TV and real estate celebrity status. But two impeachments, criticized management of a pandemic that claimed hundreds of thousands of American lives and erasure from social media following a MAGA-inspired insurrection at the Capitol might have made the once-impervious Trump brand a pariah that few, if any, investors want to touch. Only time will tell if he can find the financial support he might want.

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Last updated: April 12, 2021

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Heres Everything We Know About Donald Trumps Personal Finances

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Heres Everything We Know About Donald Trumps Personal Finances - Yahoo Finance

from the 2016-election-was-the-tipping-point dept

InOctober 2016, I pitched USC a research proposal about the techcoverages non-investigative nature and the influence ofcorporate PR. I thought that at the end of this project, Idhave indictive documentation of how the tech media is too promotionaland not tough enough. When I sat down to analyze a full year of techcoverage, the data presented quite the opposite. 2017 wassuddenlyfull of tech scandals and mounting scrutiny. The flatteringstories about consumer products evolved into investigative pieces onbusiness practices, which caught the tech companies and theircommunications teams off guard.

Likeany good startup, I needed to pivot. I changed my research entirelyand focused on this new type of backlash against Big Tech. Theresearch was based on an AI-media monitoring tool (by MIT andHarvard), content analysis, and in-depth interviews. I had amazinginterviewees: senior tech PR executives and leading tech journalistsfrom BuzzFeedNews,CNET,Recode,ReutersNews,TechCrunch,Techdirt,TheAtlantic,TheInformation,TheNew York Times,TheVerge,and Wiredmagazine. Together, they illuminated the powerdynamics between the media and the tech giants it covers. Hereare some ofthe conclusions regarding the roots of the shift in coverage and thetech companies crisis responses.

Theelection of Donald Trump

Afterthe U.K.s Brexit referendum in June 2016, and specifically,after Donald Trump became the president at the end of 2016, the mediablamed the tech platforms for widespread misinformation anddisinformation. The most influential article, from November 2016, wasBuzzFeedspiece entitled, Thisanalysis shows how viral fake election news stories outperformed realnews on Facebook.It was the firstdomino to topple.

WhenI asked what was the story that formed the Techlash, allthe interviewees answered, in one way or the other, that it was theelection of Donald Trump. Even though it wasnt thestory that people wrote about the most, it was the underlying theme.Then, new revelations regarding the Russian interference with theU.S. election evolved into a bigger story. On November 1, 2017,Facebook, Google, and Twitter, testified in front of the U.S.Congress. Thealarming effect was from combining the threetestimonies together.

Inthe tech sector, theres a sentence that you hear a lot:change happens gradually then suddenly. There wereyears and years of build-up for the flip, but the flipitself was in the pivotal moment of Donald Trumps victory andthe post-presidential election reckoning that followed it. The maindiscussion was the role of social media in helping him win theelection.

IfHillary Clinton had been elected in November 2016, the Techlash mighthave been much smaller. We would not have seen the amount ofnegative coverage. It is not just because almost every techjournalist is reflectively anti-Donald Trump; it is that almost everytech person is anti-Donald Trump. As a result, Silicon Valleybegan to regret the foundational elements of its own success. Themost dire warnings started to come from inside the industry asmore sources spoke up and exposed misdeeds.

Then,in 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal unlockedlarger concerns about social medias influence and the carelessapproach toward user privacy.It also shed light on the fact that technology is progressing fasterthan consumers ability to process it and faster than thegovernments ability to regulate it.

Thecompanies bigness and scandals around fake news, databreaches, and sexual harassment

Therewere more factors at play here. It was also the tech companiesscale and bigness, being too big to fail. All the tech giants are ata place where they are getting scrutiny, if nothing else, because ofhow big and powerful they are. On the one hand, growth-at-all-cost isa mandate. On the other, there are unforeseen consequences of thatsame growth.

Accordingto the tech journalists, those unintended consequences are due to thecompanies profound lack of foresight. They were blind, andthis blindness came back to bite them. Thus, its thecompanies fault for not listening to the journalistsconcerns.

However,the big data analytics and content analysis showed that focusing onlyon the post-election reckoning or the tech platforms growingpower wont fully explain the Techlash. A large number ofevents in a variety of issues shaped it. Their combination led to theIts enough feeling, the mounting calls fortougher regulation, and the #BreakUpBigTech proposition.

Wehad cases of extremist content and hate speech, andmisinformation/disinformation, like the fake news after the Las Vegasshooting; privacyand data security issues, following major cyber-attacks, likeWannaCry or data breaches, like Equifax, but also atFacebook, Uber, and Yahoo, which raised the alarm about data privacyand data protection challenges; and also allegations of ananti-diversity, sexual harassment, and discrimination culture. It wasin February 2017 that Susan Fowler published her revelations againstUber (prior to the #MeToo movement). It symbolized the toxicity inSilicon Valley. All of those time-bombs started to detonate at once.

Thetech companies responses didnt help

WhenI analyzed the tech companies crisis responses, I haddifferent companies and a variety of negative stories, and yet theresponses were very much alike. It created what I call TheTech PR Template for Crises. The companies rolled out the sameplaybook, over and over again. It was clear; bigtech got used to resting on their laurels and was not ready to givereal answers to tough questions. Instead, they published theresponses they kept under open in case of emergency.

Onestrategy was The Victim-Villain framing: Wevebuilt something good, with good intentions/ previous good deeds andgreat policies -but- our product/ platform was manipulated/ misusedby bad/malicious actors.

Thesecond was pseudo-apologies: Many responses included messages of weapologize, deeply regret, and ask forforgiveness. They were usually intertwined with we needto do better. This message typically comes in this order:Whileweve made steady progress we have much more work todo, and we know we need to do better. Every techreporter heard this specific combination a million times by now.

Theysaid, sorry, so why pseudo-apologies? Well, becausethey repeatedly tried to reduce their responsibility, with all theelements identified in number one: reminder strategy (past goodwork), excuse strategy (good intention), victimization (basicallysaying, We are the victim of the crisis), scapegoating(blamingothers). They emphasized their suffering since they were anunfair victim of some malicious, outside entity.

Thethird thing was to state that they are proactive: We arecurrently working on those immediate actions to fix this. Lookingforward, we are working on those steps for improvements, minimizingthe chances that it will happen again. Its CrisisCommunication 101. But then, they added, But our work willnever be done. I think those seven words encapsulateeverything. Istheworknever done because, by now, the problems are too big to fix?

Itis the art of avoiding responsibility

Oneway to look at the companies PR template is to say: Well,of course, that this is their messaging. They are being asked to stopbig, difficult societal problems, and that is animpossiblerequest.

Inreality, all of those Techlash responses backlashed. Tech companiesshould know (as Spider-Man fans already know) that with greatpower comes great responsibility. Since they tried to reducetheir responsibility, the critics claimed that tech companies need tostop taking the role of the victim and stop blaming others. Theapology tours received comments such as dont ask forforgiveness, ask for permission. The critics also said thatactions should follow words. Even after the companiesspecified their corrective actions, the critics claimed the companiesignore the system because they have no incentive fordramatic changes, like their business models. In such cases, wherethe media push for fundamental changes, PR cant fix it.

TheTechlash coverage is deterministic

Onthe one hand, theres the theme of: We are at a pointwhere the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater. There was aperhaps ridiculous utopianism. But it has become just as ridiculous -if not more so - on the flip side now, of being dystopian. Thependulum has swung too far (EvilListarticles, for example). On the other hand, theres the theme ofJournalisms role is to hold power to account. We arejust doing our job, speak truth to power, revealwrongdoing, and put a stop to it.Whoever is saying that the media is over-correcting doesntunderstand journalism at all.

WhileI articulated both themes in the book, one of the concepts thathelped me organize my thoughts was technological determinism.In a nutshell, some argue that technology is deterministic: the stateof technological advancement is the determining factor of society.Others dispute that view, claiming the opposite: social forces shapeand design technology, and thus, it is the society that affectstechnology. I realized that we could describe the Techlash coverageas deterministic: technology drives society in bad directions.Period.

Then,perhaps what the few tech advocates are pointing out is that thisnarrative doesnt consider the social context or human agency.A good example was the SocialDilemma.The tech critics targeted the scare tactics used to enrage people ina documentary filled with scare tactics used to enrage people. Andthey didnt even notice the irony. Sadly, since theyexaggerated and the arguments were too simplistic, they made iteasier to dismiss the claims, even though they were extremelyimportant. My fear here is that the exaggerations overshadow the realconcerns, and the companies become even more tone-deaf. So, perhaps,we deserve a more nuanced discussion.

Itscool -- its evil saviors -- threats

Fromthe glorious days and the dot-com bubble to todays Techlash,there were two pendulum swings; the first between Itscool and Its evil, the second betweensaviors and threats. Moving forward, Iwould suggest dropping them altogether. Tech is not an evil threat,nor our ultimate savior. The reality is not those extremes, butsomewhere in the middle.

Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt is the author of The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication

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Filed Under: donald trump, journalism, narrative, techlash

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Donald Trump Caused The Techlash - Techdirt

Pastor Johnny Enlow, a conservative Christian who has been described by some as a "prophetic leader," said that people will understand and "respect" former President Donald Trump more once they get to Heaven.

Enlow and his wife Elizabeth Enlow are the founders of Restore 7 ministry based in Tennessee. Johnny Enlow appeared on a recent episode of The Elijah List program, discussing Trump and how people view the former president. Right Wing Watch first reported the pastor's remarks.

"The weaker, more imperfect that a vessel isthe more glory God gets from using him to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. Having said that, we are going to respect and honor President Trump a whole lot more in Heaven once we understood the courage and bravery of what he's had to do and put up with," Enlow said.

The pastor went on to compare Trump to the biblical king of Israel, David, who defeated the Philistine giant warrior Goliath, according to the narrative recorded in the Book of Samuel. "There is that same caliber of steeliness, of resolve and of knowing that he is put there by God that is in President Trump," Enlow said.

Newsweek reached out to Enlow's Restore 7 ministry for further comment.

American Christiansand particularly white evangelical Christianshave been a key base of support for Trump and Republicans. In 2016 and again in 2020, exit polls showed that approximately eight in 10 white evangelical Christians voted for the former president. Evangelicals have been largely politically animated by their opposition to women's reproductive rights, as well as further legal protections for the LGBTQ community. They see Trump, and other Republicans, as championing their conservative concerns.

A number of self-described evangelical "prophets" and religious leaders have repeatedly praised the former president. Many continue to promote baseless conspiracy theories that Democrats and President Joe Biden "rigged" or "stole" the 2020 election, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked by many Republican leaders, among others. Dozens of election challenges brought by the former president and his supporters have been rejected or dismissed in state and federal courtsincluding by judges appointed by Trump or other Republicans.

Earlier this spring, Enlow claimed that Trump "won the election in numbers by far," suggesting the truth will be revealed "very soon." The pastor went on to claim that military intelligence had allowed the alleged rigging to proceed as "a sting operation," saying that he had "inside military intelligence information." He said that even the state of California had actually gone for Trumpa claim that defies common sense, considering a Republican presidential candidate has not won in the deep-blue state since 1988. In the 2020 election, Biden carried the western state by nearly 30 percent.

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Pastor Johnny Enlow Says People Will Understand Donald Trump's Bravery When They Get to Heaven - Newsweek

Evan El-Amin / Shutterstock.com

Although the current presidential salary is not too shabby at $400,000 a year, many former presidents make the bulk of their money after leaving the White House through speaking engagements, book deals and other business deals. Of course, this is not always the case Donald Trump was already a very rich man when he entered the Oval Office and was the first billionaire to become president, Forbes reported.

Read More: All the Ways the Biden Family Has Made Money Over the Past 20 Years

But, is he the richest president still alive? See how Trumps wealth stacks up to all of the other living U.S. presidents.

Last updated: April 6, 2021

Joe Biden, democratic party, presidential candidate

President Joe Biden has had a decades-long career in politics but it didnt make him super-rich until he landed in the White House as vice president. His net worth skyrocketed after he finished his term thanks to lucrative book deals and speaking engagements, Forbes reported. That includes a 2017 book deal worth a reported $8 million, according to Publishers Weekly.

Click through to see how much Biden is worth now.

Find Out: What a Biden Presidency Means for Your Wallet

Mandatory Credit: Photo by Alex Brandon/AP/Shutterstock (10338009d)President Donald Trump smiles during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House, in WashingtonTrump, Washington, USA - 16 Jul 2019.

Before he became president, Donald Trump had made a name for himself as a businessman. The majority of Trumps current fortune comes from his real estate holdings across New York City, Forbes reported.

Click through to see just how rich his prime real estate and other business ventures have made Trump.

Read: Trumps Tax Tricks and 12 Loopholes Only the Rich Know

President Barack Obama

Post-presidential life has been lucrative for Barack Obama. Hes commanded $400,000 speaking fees and signed book deals worth $65 million, Newsweek reported. Obama, along with his wife Michelle, also signed a production deal with Netflix in 2018 for an undisclosed amount, Variety reported though based on previous deals the streaming giant had made, its likely worth north of $100 million.

Click through to see just how rich all of these deals have made Obama.

Story continues

George W. Bush

Like Trump, George W. Bush was already wealthy when he took office. He earned millions as the founder and CEO of an oil and gas exploration firm and as part-owner of Major League Baseballs Texas Rangers, Fox Business reported. He continued to add to his wealth after his presidency was over through book deals and speaking fees.

Click through to see how much Bush is worth now.

Find Out: How the Stock Market Performed Under Each President

Bill-Clinton net worth

Bill Clinton left the White House poorer than when he went into it. Because of defense attorneys fees for scandal investigations, impeachment proceedings and an action to suspend his Arkansas law license, Clinton ended his term as president with $16 million in debt, CNBC reported. However, he was able to turn things around with income from speeches and book deals. In his first year out of the Oval Office, Clinton earned $13.7 million from his speaking and writing business, according to his tax return. And by 2016, Clinton and his wife, Hillary, had racked up $153 million in speaking fees, CNN reported.

Click through to find out how much Clinton is worth today.

Read More: The Average Social Security Check the Year You Were Born

Jimmy Carter net worth

Unlike many other former presidents, Jimmy Carter eschewed the big-money speeches and corporate board invitations after leaving the White House, choosing instead to return to his simple life in Plains, Georgia, The Washington Post reported. According to The Post, Carter is the only president in the modern era to return full-time to the house he lived in before he entered politics a two-bedroom rancher assessed at $167,000, less than the value of the armored Secret Service vehicles parked outside. Still, he has added to his post-presidency wealth with book deals, plus the over-$200,000 annual pension all ex-presidents receive.

Click through to see how much this modest former president is worth.

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: How Rich Are Joe Biden, Donald Trump and All the Other Living US Presidents?

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How Rich Are Joe Biden, Donald Trump and All the Other Living US Presidents? - Yahoo Finance

Now with light dawning on the border crisis and on the delusion in the White House, it is time to expose the truth of this policy and this administration.

Given his cognitive ability, no one expects Biden to understand, but surely the media and Congress can recognize the mindlessness of allowing immigrants endlessly streaming through an open border, while granting full benefits of a welfare state, a formula for disaster any person with common sense recognizes as reckless and unsustainable. Democrats are moving swiftly -- through vaccination passports, voting changes, establishing a "military uniformity," approving censorship, eliminating any opposition to their views -- to establishing their socialist takeover of America. But they need to hear once more it isn't going to happen.

God is in control of His world, and the United States is His nation, established by Him, by people who loved and cherished and love Him still -- and we will not be moved or silenced -- and our faithfulness in having elected President Trump will be recognized and rewarded. Donald Trump will yet be inaugurated into the presidency, which is his. These United States of America will be preserved -- with all the freedoms, liberties, justice and equality, harmony and brotherly love intended and given by our Divine Creator from the beginning. May God bless the USA.

Stacker used the most recent U.S. Census Bureau Five-Year American Community Survey data, last updated in December 2020, to pull crucial information about each town, including the unemployment rate and median household income. The locations are ranked by the median household income, and ties Click for more.

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Donald Trump will again be inaugurated as president - The Albany Herald

Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. soared above a $112 billion valuation in its trading debut Wednesday, then slipped back below its opening price as Bitcoin fell from record highs and tech stocks fell across the board.The massive valuation, which dwarfs more traditional financial companies including Intercontinental Exchange Group Inc. and Nasdaq Inc. itself, is a landmark moment for the crypto industry and for Coinbase, which was started almost a decade ago when few people had even heard of Bitcoin, and many exchanges were run by amateurs from their garages and homes.Coinbase shares traded at $332.99 apiece on Nasdaq at 2:56 p.m., after earlier climbing as high as $429.54. Bitcoin, which along with Ethereum made up 56% of Coinbases 2020 trading revenue, dipped below $62,000 after earlier hitting a record price.The early rally isnt just a mark of success for Coinbase, which was valued at just $8 billion in its most recent funding round in 2018. Its also a win for Nasdaq, which hosted its first direct listing after beating out the New York Stock Exchange for Coinbases debut. Coinbase is the biggest company to take the direct listing route to market.Coinbase Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas said in an interview Wednesday morning that one of the reasons that the company picked Nasdaq was because the bourse offered the ticker symbol COIN, which wasnt part of the New York Stock Exchanges pitch.Ultimately that they had the ticker COIN, and that was a really great ticker for us to get, Haas said.Nasdaq on Tuesday set a reference price of $250 a share for Coinbases direct listing, a number thats a requirement for the stock to begin trading, but not a direct indicator of the companys potential market capitalization. Every major direct listing has so far opened significantly above its reference price, with Roblox shares debuting at $64 each - 42% higher than the number set by the exchange.Coinbase shares changed hands at a roughly $90 billion valuation in early March, Bloomberg News reported at the time, in what was one of the last chances for investors to trade its private stock before the company went public.Digital Currency Group founder Barry Silbert, whos built an empire that spans the crypto world, tweeted Tuesday that his shares would definitely not be changing hands at the reference price, in an early sign that the stock was set for a pop at the open.Direct listings are an alternative to a traditional initial public offering that has only been deployed a handful of times. Until Wednesday, every company to pursue one -- including Slack Technologies Inc., Palantir Technologies Inc. and most recently Roblox Corp. -- listed on the New York Stock Exchange.As well as the ticker, Nasdaqs ability to provide a private market for the shares, as well as services it offers such as investor relations work, were among its selling points to Coinbase, according to a person familiar with the matter.Appropriately for a company that in May said it was committing to a remote-first work culture and doesnt list a headquarters on its filing, Coinbases pitch meetings with Nasdaq happened virtually, the person added.We evaluated both NYSE and Nasdaq and ultimately felt that the Nasdaq platform was aligned with our value as a tech company, Haas said.In a direct listing, a companys shares begin trading without it issuing new shares to raise capital. That avoids diluting the shares and also, unlike a traditional IPO, often allows the companys existing investors to put their shares on the market without waiting for lockup period -- typically six months -- to expire.Luring Coinbase was a win for Nasdaq, whose years-long fight for a larger share of mega listings gained traction in the past year. Half of the 10 largest U.S. IPOs, excluding blank-check companies, were on on Nasdaq, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That included the third largest, Airbnb Inc.s $3.8 billion IPO in December, which was the biggest listing on Nasdaq since Facebook Inc.s $16 billion monolith in 2012.Crypto UpstartsPutting his trust in the stock exchange is Coinbase Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong, who started the company with Fred Ehrsam in 2012. Unlike most rivals, Coinbases founders always envisioned strict regulatory compliance as a cornerstone of the operation, which has helped the exchange to grow in the U.S., where many early Bitcoin traders and investors were located.Ehrsam left the company in 2017, and is now investing in crypto startups. Both Armstrong and Ehrsam own huge swaths of Coinbase.Coinbase last week said it expects to report a first-quarter profit of $730 million to $800 million, more than double what it earned in all of 2020.They are going to build out a full financial services company, said Barry Schuler, a co-founder of Coinbase investor DFJ Growth who until last year sat on the companys board. Like a crypto version of a Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley.Skeptics, RegulationThe companys rapid growth hasnt been without controversy, ranging from frequent outages during periods of heavy trading to new restrictions Armstrong placed on employee discussions of politics last fall. In March, Coinbase also settled with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for $6.5 million, after the agency said the company reported inaccurate data about transactions and that a former employee engaged in improper trades.Then there are the crypto skeptics, as well as the regulators around the world who are stepping up oversight and casting doubt on Bitcoins usefulness as a currency.European Central Bank executive board member Isabel Schnabel, in an interview this month with Der Spiegel, called Bitcoin a speculative asset without any recognizable fundamental value.A publicly traded Coinbase was unimaginable several years back when Wall Street was full of crypto bears including JPMorgan Chase & Co.s Jamie Dimon, who once called Bitcoin a fraud.Dimon later said he regretted saying that. His bank as well as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised on Coinbases direct listing.I dont think we sought Wall Streets approval but we did seek to bring more transparency to crypto and to introduce crypto to more and more users, Coinbases Hass said.Crypto PartnersWall Street can become trader of crypto. They are going to be partners of us going forward, she said.Coinbases early investors are celebrating.I think Coinbase is this decades Microsoft, Netscape, Google or Facebook, Garry Tan, founder and managing partner at Initialized Capital and an early-stage Coinbase investor, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Tuesday.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.2021 Bloomberg L.P.

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Just How Rich Are Donald Trump, President Biden and These Other Big Names? - Yahoo Finance

For all the predictions and talk of a slump in support among evangelicals, it appears Donald Trumps election loss was not at the hands of religious voters.

As an analyst of religious data, Ive been crunching data released in March 2021 that breaks down the 2020 U.S. presidential election results by faith. And by and large there was very little notable change in the vote choice of religious groups between 2016 and 2020 in fact, for most faiths, support for Trump ticked up slightly. Instead, it was among those who do not identify with any religion that Trump saw a noticeable drop.

Despite exit poll data initially pointing toward a drop in white evangelical support for Trump in 2020, the latest data shows this not to be the case. The data is based on the Cooperative Election Study, which has become the gold standard for assessing vote choice because of its sample size and its ability to accurately represent the voting population of the United States.

In fact, with 80% of white evangelicals backing Trump in 2020, support actually ticked up from the 78% who voted for him four years earlier.Trump also saw two-point increases in the vote of nonwhite evangelicals, white Catholics, Black Protestants and Jews compared with four years ago.

These differences are not statistically significant, and as such it would be wrong to say it definitively shows Trump gained among religious groups. But it indicates that among the largest religious groups in the U.S., voting patterns in the November 2020 vote seemed to hold largely steady with four years earlier. Trump did not manage to win significantly larger shares, nor was winner Joe Biden able to peel away religious voters from the Trump coalition.

However, there are some interesting and statistically significant trends when you break down the data further. Nonwhite Catholics shifted four points toward Donald Trump. This fits with what we saw in places like the heavily Hispanic and Catholic Miami-Dade County, Florida, where Trumps overall vote share improved from 35% to 46% between 2016 and 2020.

Trump also managed to pick up 15 percentage points among the Mormon vote. On first glance this would appear a large jump. But it makes sense when you factor in that around 15% of the Mormon vote in 2016 went to Utah native and fellow Mormon Evan McMullin, who ran in that years election as a third-party candidate. Without McMullin in 2020, Trump picked up Mormon voters as did Joe Biden, who did slightly better than Hillary Clinton had among Mormons.

There is also some weak evidence that the Republican candidate picked up some support among smaller religious groups in the U.S., like Hindus and Buddhists. Trump increased his share among these two groups by four percentage points each. But it is important to note that these two groups combined constitute only about 1.5% of the American population. As such, a four-point increase translates to only a very small fraction of the overall popular vote.

What is clear is that Trump lost a good amount of ground among the religious unaffiliated. Trumps share of the atheist vote declined from 14% in 2016 to just 11% in 2020; the decline among agnostics was slightly larger, from 23% to 18%.

Additionally, those who identify as nothing in particular a group that represents 21% of the overall U.S. population were not as supportive of Trump in his reelection bid. His vote share among this group dropped by three percentage points, while Bidens rose by over seven points, with the Democrat managing to win over many of the nothing in particulars who had backed third-party candidates in the 2016 election.

Looked at broadly, Trump did slightly better among Christians and other smaller religious groups in the U.S. but lost ground among the religiously unaffiliated. What these results cannot account for, however, is record turnout. There were nearly 22 million more votes cast in 2020 than in 2016. So while vote shares may not have changed that much, the number of votes cast helped swing the election for the Democratic candidate. A more detailed breakdown of voter turnout is due to be released in July 2021 by the team that administers the Cooperative Election Study; that will bring the picture of religion and the 2020 vote into clearer focus.

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Ryan Burge, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Eastern Illinois University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Numbers show Donald Trump lost big with non-believers, but many religious voters stuck with him | Opinion - pennlive.com

Now with light dawning on the border crisis and on the delusion in the White House, it is time to expose the truth of this policy and this administration.

Given his cognitive ability, no one expects Biden to understand, but surely the media and Congress can recognize the mindlessness of allowing immigrants endlessly streaming through an open border, while granting full benefits of a welfare state, a formula for disaster any person with common sense recognizes as reckless and unsustainable. Democrats are moving swiftly -- through vaccination passports, voting changes, establishing a "military uniformity," approving censorship, eliminating any opposition to their views -- to establishing their socialist takeover of America. But they need to hear once more it isn't going to happen.

God is in control of His world, and the United States is His nation, established by Him, by people who loved and cherished and love Him still -- and we will not be moved or silenced -- and our faithfulness in having elected President Trump will be recognized and rewarded. Donald Trump will yet be inaugurated into the presidency, which is his. These United States of America will be preserved -- with all the freedoms, liberties, justice and equality, harmony and brotherly love intended and given by our Divine Creator from the beginning. May God bless the USA.

Stacker used the most recent U.S. Census Bureau Five-Year American Community Survey data, last updated in December 2020, to pull crucial information about each town, including the unemployment rate and median household income. The locations are ranked by the median household income, and ties Click for more.

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Donald Trump will again be inaugurated as president - The Albany Herald

BRUSSELS (AP) At its start, Americas war in Afghanistan was about retribution for 9/11. Then it was about shoring up a weak government and its weak army so that Osama bin Ladens al-Qaida could never again threaten the United States.

Now its about over. With bin Laden long since dead and the United States not suffering another major attack, President Joe Biden is promising to end Americas longest war and move on to what he believes are bigger, more consequential challenges posed by a resurgent Russia and a rising China.

Even so, by withdrawing the remaining few thousand U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, Biden is taking a calculated risk that extremists in Afghanistan can be countered by U.S. and partner forces elsewhere in the region and that he wont become the president who underestimated the resilience and reach of extremists who still aim to attack the United States.

CIA Director William Burns told Congress on Wednesday the U.S. unavoidably will lose some intelligence leverage against the extremist threat, although he suggested the losses would be manageable.

The U.S. governments ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. Thats simply a fact, Burns said. It is also a fact, however, that after withdrawal, whenever that time comes, the CIA and all of our partners in the U.S. government will retain a suite of capabilities, some of it remaining in place, some of them that we will generate, that can help us to anticipate and contest any rebuilding effort.

There were 2,500 to 3,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan when Biden took office, the smallest number since early in the war. The number peaked at 100,000 during President Barack Obamas first term. As U.S. war casualties have declined, so has the American publics attention. The war was barely mentioned during last years presidential contest, and pulling the plug may prove politically popular.

Yet worries remain. Stephen Biddle, a Columbia University professor who has advised U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, says its possible al-Qaida could re-establish its base structure in Afghanistan once the Americans and their coalition partners leave. The Taliban in Afghanistan pledged in a February 2020 agreement with the Trump administration that they would not allow al-Qaida or other extremist groups to use Afghan territory to threaten the United States. But that deal may be imperiled by Bidens decision not to complete the withdrawal of forces by May 1, as the Trump administration had promised.

The bigger peril, Biddle said in an email exchange, is that the withdrawal could lead to the collapse of Afghan security forces and multi-sided civil warfare involving Taliban factions and others in a more-lethal version of the civil war of the 1990s.

This would be a humanitarian disaster for Afghans far worse than todays insurgency, he said.

More broadly, the absence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan could lead to further instability in a region with two rival nuclear powers Pakistan and India, which have insurgencies of their own to contend with.

This is already a dangerous part of the world; making it worse by allowing the collapse of the Afghan government is the biggest risk here, Biddle said.

At a previously pivotal moment in the war, Obama took a similar view. When he announced a surge of 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan in December 2009, he argued against trying to contain extremist threats in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region only with what the U.S. military calls over-the-horizon forces troops and aircraft positioned beyond Afghan borders.

To abandon this area now and to rely only on efforts against al-Qaida from a distance would significantly hamper our ability to keep the pressure on al-Qaida and create an unacceptable risk of additional attacks on our homeland and our allies, Obama said.

So Obama went ahead with a troop buildup aimed at hitting the Taliban so hard that they would agree to negotiate a peace deal. It didnt work. The Taliban kept fighting. Even after President Donald Trump authorized a more muscular military approach to the Taliban in 2017, the hard-hit militant group did not give up. It agreed to negotiate with the Afghan government, but those talks have stalled.

Its difficult to judge what has been gained in the 12 years since Obama escalated the war. Afghan security forces likely are stronger, although their resilience will be tested in the absence of U.S. support they grew to rely upon. The Afghan government has not strengthened its authority across the country, and the Pentagon argues that its intense focus on countering insurgents there and in the Middle East has been such a drain on resources that the U.S. is losing ground against China and Russia.

The war has cost more than 2,300 U.S. lives and immeasurable suffering among Afghans since the United States invaded in October 2001. Ten years into the war, in May 2011, U.S. forces killed bin Laden in Pakistan, and for a short time it seemed possible that Washington would see an opening for ending the war.

A few weeks after bin Ladens death, a young American soldier at a dusty outpost in eastern Afghanistan asked visiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates what effect the al-Qaida leaders demise would have on the war, suggesting hope that it would hasten its end and allow troops to go home.

It is too early to tell, Gates replied.

Ten years later, Biden has decided the time has come, although for Afghans the war may be far from over.

Robert Burns has reported on the war in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. invasion and has covered national security issues from Washington since 1990.

AP writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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Bidens gamble: Will pulling troops revive extremist threat? - KXAN.com