Block and an expanding roster of fintech rivals have all come to see that their moats aren't strong enough in their core markets to keep the competition away, and that the path to growth is through a diverse set of financial services traditionally offered by banks. They're playing to an audience of digital-first consumers who either didn't grow up using a brick-and-mortar bank or realized at an early age that they had no need to ever set foot in a physical branch, or to meet with a loan officer or customer service rep.
“Longer term, we see a significant opportunity to grow actives, particularly among that digital-native audience like Millennial and Gen Z,” Block CFO Amrita Ahuja said on the earnings call.
As part of its expansion, Block has encroached on Affirm's turf, with an increasing focus on buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings that it picked up in its $29 billion purchase of Afterpay, which closed in early 2022. Block's market share in BNPL increased by one point to 19%, while Affirm held its position at 17%, according to a recent report from Mizuho. Both companies are outperforming Klarna in BNPL, the report said.
Block's BNPL play is now tied into Cash App, with an integration activated this week that gives users another way to make purchases through a single app. With Cash App monthly active users stagnating at 57 million for the last few quarters, the company is focused on engagement rather than rapid user acquisition.
“We think that there is significant opportunity for growth longer term, but there are some deliberate decisions we've made as part of our banker-based strategy in the near term" that have kept user numbers from increasing, Ahuja said. "This is a part of our continuous enhancements to drive healthy customer engagement as we bank our base."
Compared to Block, Wall Street had a very different reaction to Affirm's earnings earlier this month, pushing the stock up 22% after the company's results sailed past estimates.
Affirm founder and CEO Max Levchin, who was previously a co-founder of PayPal, built his company with the promise of giving consumers lower-cost and easy-to-tap intstallment loans for purchases like electronics, jewelry and travel.
In its latest earnings report, Affirm posted a 35% increase in gross merchandise volume to $10.1 billion. Revenue surged 47% to $770 million, while its active consumer base grew 23% to 21 million.
Beyond BNPL, Levchin has pushed Affirm into debit with the Affirm Card, which now has 1.7 million active users, up 136% year-over-year.
"Anything we can do to personalize the experience, to give people a chance to feel like this is the best alternative they have to their debit or their credit card is what we're busy with," Levchin said on the earnings call. He said the goal is to get the card to 20 million users, spending on average $7,500 per year.
Elon Musk sets the record straight on rumors of Tesla investing in Nissan
Elon Musk set the record straight about rumors of Tesla investing in Nissan. While the billionaire CEO did not outright deny the rumor or even reject the alleged Nissan proposal, Musk did hint at the inherent flaw of the rumored investment.
The Rumor & Elon’s Reply
According to Fortune, a few influential people in Japan prepared a proposal for Tesla, suggesting an investment in Nissan. The report suggests that Tesla might be interested in acquiring Nissan’s factories in the United States.
Affirm is also partnering with FIS to bring its debit card functionality to traditional banks.
Levchin left PayPal in 2002, after the company was acquired by eBay. It was a decade before he'd start working to help popularize the modern day BNPL market.
Now his former employer, which spun back out from eBay in 2015, is in on the BNPL game.
Irrigation became more broadly utilized which facilitated settlement of the grassland areas. By 4,000, an economy was well-established in Susa (see map). Lowlands were not established in a substantial way until irrigation techniques had advanced to the point of insuring a consistent harvest and water-born transportation was able to supply the lowlands with raw materials.
Two cultures evolved: agriculture only in the lowlands and mixed agriculture and pastoralism of the grasslands areas. By 3,500 B.C. the area known as Sumer had grown significantly and created the world’s first urban environment. A good example of a Formative Period settlement is at Eridu, where reed and clay huts have been excavated. Date palm and fish were in the diet, along with cereals. Sheep and goats were herded. Pottery was excavated along with kilns.
The village organizations were chiefdoms and theocratic. Each village contained a temple.
Under the leadership of CEO Alex Chriss, who took over the company in September 2023, PayPal is in the midst of a turnaround that involves working to better monetize products like Braintree and Venmo and joining the world of physical commerce with a debit card inside its mobile app.
Investors responded positively in 2024, pushing the stock up almost 40% after a brutal few years. But the stock dropped 13% after its earnings report, even as profit and revenue were better than expected. PayPal's total payment volume for the quarter hit $437.8 billion, slightly below projections, while transaction margins rose to 47% from 45.8% — a sign of improving profitability.
3,500 – 3,000 B.C. – Florescent and Proto-literate Periods
Florescent in this case refers to a period of rapid growth in the civilization. Sumer’s development accelerated with many new villages becoming prominent. One of the most notable was Erech, which has been well excavated. Crafts were well-developed – pottery, carpentry, and metallurgy. The presence of wood and metals from great distances indicates advanced trade.
Writing began with the form of pictographs but advanced along with numerical notation. The plow was improved, wheeled carts were constructed, and sailboats put into use. Bronze weapons and tools were seen after 3000 B.C.
Last year, the company launched PayPal Everywhere, a cashback-driven initiative designed to boost engagement within its mobile app. Chriss said on the earnings call that it's "driving significant increases in debit card adoption and opening new categories of spend."
As with virtually all financial services products, the new offerings from Block, Affirm and PayPal are designed to produce growth but not at the expense of profit. Banks operate at low margins, in large part because there's so much competition for lower-priced loans and better cash-back options. There's also all the costs associated with underwriting and compliance.
That's the environment in which fintechs have to operate, though without the costs of running a network of physical branches.
Levchin talks about helping customers spend less, not more. And Block acknowledges the need for hefty investments to reach the company's desired outcome.
"This is a part of our continuous enhancements to drive healthy customer engagement as we bank our base," Ahuja said. "We've made investments in critical areas like compliance, support and risk. And as we've done that, we've progressed more of our actives through our identity verification process, which in turn, unlocks greater access to those actives to our full suite of financial tools."
This period gets its name to describe the emergence of secular, hereditary, military kingdoms in Sumer. This political trend was accompanied by an increase in militarism and warfare. Fifteen to twenty Sumerian cities had grown more urban by concentrating themselves defensively. Kish and Erech had as many as 20,000 inhabitants. There was evidence of a class society: well to do, poor, and slaves.
There is much speculation about what caused the militancy: competition over scarce resources? Competition over unoccupied land? Lack of a buffer zone? War become chronic and kingships followed. Is this a history lesson?
The kings found their position extremely difficult because there were two types of enemies: like cities in close proximity and raiding nomads. The nomads were particularly difficult to defend against because of their mobility. There was no way to find peace against them except by buying them off. Those caught in the buffer zone had to choose between joining the urban communities and becoming nomads themselves.
Mesopotamia – The Geography
It’s time to go back, way back, 5000 years before the Greeks to look at the mankind’s original civilization -- Mesopotamia. The word is Greek for “between the rivers”, describing the ancient settlements between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq. Before we discuss the ancient culture, let’s review the geography, which is fundamental to the development of human society in this particular location.
The rivers not only provided the food to sustain the lives of the people, but were also transportation arteries providing access to the world through trade and the ability to ship important raw materials to destination cities.
While the plain was protected from invasion to the west because of desert, the Zagros Mountains were not high enough to prevent invasions from the north and east. This vulnerability would have a significant impact on the future development of the Mesopotamian Civilization.
Baghdad is shown on the map as a geographical reference only. It was not founded until 700 A.D.
How the Framers of Our Constitution Debated the Roman Republic
The American Constitutional Convention was authorized on February 21st, 1787, for the sole and express purpose of modifying the Articles of Confederation. By the time of the initial committee meetings on May 6th, however, the delegate’s philosophy had shifted toward a completely new government for the United States. Opinions had changed because the lawlessness of Shay’s Rebellion had emphasized the weaknesses in the Articles.
Committee meetings were held until June 19th, for the purpose of creating a governmental model that could be presented to the whole convention. The entire committee agreed that two legislative bodies should be created: an Assembly and Senate modeling the Roman Republic. Debate on the method of electing members from these two bodies proved to be long and difficult, however. One extreme favored members of both bodies be selected by the states; the other favored members be elected by the people.
On June 6th, Madison argued for direct election of the assembly by the people, using the example of Rome and its factions to show how power could be accumulated for selfish purposes. Madison argued that the only way to avoid the accumulation of power is to divide power into small pieces by letting the people vote directly. No consensus was reached that day, and the discussion of assembly elections was tabled.
On June 16th, the committee took up its discussion regarding the executive magistrate’s position (President). Most delegates agreed that an executive was needed, because they had suffered through the gridlock of a leaderless Articles of Confederation. All feared tyranny, which could result if a single executive were able to accumulate power, so a dozen members proposed the two executive system of the Roman Consuls. After much debate, the number of was fixed at one based on concerns that two presidents with veto power would stifle government action.
The Convention began on June 20th, and five days later debate began on article four, which was the method of election of Senators. Mr. Pinkney of South Carolina made an impassioned speech about why the Senate should not be a copy of the English House of Lords because there were no titled classes in the United States. Portions of his speech follow:
“The people of the United States are more equal in their circumstances than the people of any other country – and they have few rich men among them.”
“The people of this country are not only very different from the inhabitants of any state we are acquainted with in the modern world; but I assert that their situation is different from either the people of Greece and Rome, or any other state we are acquainted with among the ancients. Can the orders introduced by Solon be found in the United States? Can the military habits and manners of Sparta be resembled in our habits and manners? Are the distinctions of Patrician and Plebian known among us? I apprehend not – because they are perfectly different.”
“Our true situation appears to me to be this – we are a new extensive country containing within itself the materials for forming a government capable of extending to its citizens civil and Religious liberty.”
“This is the great end of Republican establishments.”
Pinkney was right. The United States was unique. It had come together as thirteen colonies with mutual interests, and different agendas. In the end all agreed to create a political system combining the states with a federal government that would act for the good of the whole.
A couple of facts need additional clarification. The name Assembly was changed to House of Representatives in the August 6th revision of the Articles of the Constitution. I found no evidence of the name change being suggested during debate, so I'm not sure of the origin. The number of Senators from each state was changed to two on July 23rd. The convention debated two versus three, but decided three would be too expensive.
War, Peace and Morality
One of the most valuable tools to anthropologists is the study of micro-cultures (my term). I am referring to isolated cultures whose development helps us understand the way human beings behave in groups. Examples of these analogs are the Cherokee Indians, Zulus, Peruvians, etc. These cultures contribute to our understanding of the people of European antiquity when knowledge about them is lost or incomplete.
Fundamental to Christianity is the concept of morality in life and in war, so in the United States, were religion is separate from government, the morality of war becomes a sharp debate when our justifications are weak. The historical notion of attacks on our culture have been replaced with an abstraction. Attacking Viet Nam was designed to block the designs of China – a step the government felt necessary to assert superiority in the cold war. Now we have a terrorist enemy who has no borders, and we don’t know how to attack him.
This means that a unifying perception of an outside threat to our culture is missing! We’re not threatened as Americans; we’re threatened as individuals – whoever happens to be close by when the explosion occurs, suffers. In other words, a physical threat has been replaced with a psychological threat, something that is less direct and harder to deal with from a moral standpoint.
Conflict and Change in Political Systems
I continue to admire the work of Elman Service and his efforts to lay out the anthropological aspects of human society and political systems. In Origins of the State and Political Systems, Service spends a chapter on theories of government – surveying writings on the subject back to the original authors. These early political theorists included Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) of Tunis, Machiavelli, and Jean Bodin (1530-96), who influenced Montesquieu.
Khaldun’s fundamental belief was that conflict drives governmental change in a positive rather than negative way. In other words, conflict purifies political development in the way natural selection purifies species. If two political philosophies are in conflict within a state, the stronger will win, push the state forward, and make it better.
Bodin is like-minded on the importance of conflict in government, but had a more developed approach. He believed that statis (stability) in a culture is unattainable because of the character of man, so good political systems must be able to adapt and change.
I wonder whether the United States is too stable and unable to make itself better. The founding fathers felt (and stated), at the end of the Constitutional Convention, that the resulting document was imperfect, so they built in the amendment process to improve the system to correct any errors or omissions that revealed themselves later. Washington was quoted as saying he would be happy if the document survived for twenty-five years.
How has this theoretical flexibility served us? Take a look at a list of the amendments added since the Bill of Rights.
11th Immunity of states from suits from out-of-state citizens and foreigners not living within the state borders. Lays the foundation for sovereign immunity, 1794
This is a pretty sorry list, because it contains zero structural changes in our government for two hundred years. Seven of the amendments extend rights or freedoms making us more democratic. The rest are procedural.
Lately, we have been discussing the Polis which as we have seen was an dynamic and adaptive political system over 350 years. The Roman Republic experienced a conflict of the classes from 509 B.C. to 287 when Lex Hortensia was adopted. The Republic continued on for another 200 years before it collapsed. Changes in the Republican government were dramatic: whole new legislative bodies were added, new magistracies created, and rights to govern extended to the Plebian Class.
At the present time, conflict in the United States is ideological, operating below the level of government, and unable affect change in the political system. The conflict Bodin requires is not possible because our political system is inert. The theoretical solution to this problem is the amendment process but amendments are too difficult to pass, so real change is impossible.
I dismiss quotations that venerate the Constitution as the perfect document because even the founders didn’t believe that. I also dismiss quotations that rave about how stable our political system is, because too stable is not a good thing. The fundamental problem is that no one represents all the people. When elected officials represent all the people, the whole country moves forward. When they represent only special interests, progress is diluted or not achieved at all.
There are only two forces that can change things: a push for changes in governmental structure so that the interests of all the people are represented, or some external factor that would unify the country. When the country is unified, the people as a whole force their elected officials to take action.
He believes collapse is the result of expansion and a resulting conservatism that makes a civilization less flexible. When a civilization expands, it encounters its neighbors and adapts to that new interface. Success in adaptation eventually breeds conservatism and makes the dominant power less flexible. Meanwhile the dominated cultures seek to overcome domination through their greater flexibility for innovation and experimentation. As Trotsky said, “the dominated suffer from the privilege of backwardness.” In this condition, they can borrow the latest techniques from advanced civilizations AND skip developmental steps that take time, resulting in the ability to create in themselves an enormous revolutionary potential. That power eventually becomes competitive with the dominant civilization allowing them to free themselves or become dominant over their complacent neighbor.
I attended a family-event today earler today. . While we adults were drinking coffe after eating a meal I stumbled into a short discussion/argument with one of my sisters in law, the real boss-babe among them. She sighed when her husband tried to explain something completely obvious to her, and then complained how tired she was of "mansplaining" in general. . Then she said that if he had "mansplained" a lot to her when they were starting their relationship, , she would have vanish from the relationship back then, over 20 years ago. I almost choked on my coffe.
Cause back then my brother was an 8 year younger than her very ambitious, intelligent and hard working guy with a bright future ahead of him. While she was a fivorced soccermom with three kids in tow, nursing her trauma from a trainwreck of a marriage and domestic violence. My brother loves idealisticly and settled like a MF when marrying her sorry ass. Hearing her whining about the most trivial feminist bullcrap, complaining about my saint brother was extremely annoying. Still, I was very appreciative of her, cause she reminded me once again how lucky and blessed I am being single, childless, debtfree and able to come and go as I please. Im the captain of my own life, taking only advice, not directions.Walking away from everything and everyone I wont interact with.
Democracy and Republic in America
We all know the terms Democracy and Republic, but may not know their history and the context of their definitions. Let’s take a look at them in more detail -- you may be surprised by what we discover.
The original usage as defined by the Romans and Greeks are not the same as those in use today, so it is instructive to follow the history. Once we understand the words, we’ll relate them to the political system of the United States which isn’t a Democracy or a Republic.
Republics live in fear of tyranny so they create a structure to lower the risk of revolution. In Rome, two consuls were elected for one year terms and had veto control over each other. Other magistrates, such as tribunes, were also elected for a single year. Proconsuls were administrators of foreign territories and as military leaders were not allowed to bring their army onto the Italian peninsula – a rule broken by Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon.
Republics were only marginally more successful than Democracies in the period between antiquity and the modern age. One could cite Switzerland in the middle ages and Florence during the renaissance as examples. Again, innovative political models with equality and freedom were stifled by the medieval monarchical view.
Washington was essentially a figurehead. The battle over the philosophy of the new government was waged between Hamilton and Jefferson, the former wanting a centralized government and the latter embracing the principles of Democracy. This was the Romans versus the Greeks redux. Jefferson eventually won the battle when he was able to build his Republican (his term for the opposite of Federalist) party through grass roots efforts in the states. The Federalists never won an election after 1796 and the government became more Democratic. Still, the vestiges of the Oligarchic Republic remained for a long time. The property ownership requirement for voting lasted until 1850 and Senators continued to be selected by the states until 1910.
Today, the American model sits somewhere between the Greek and Roman – maybe more on the side of Rome. Nowhere in America are officials nominated or elected by lot as the Greeks did. Broad public participation in government has been replaced by lobbyists who influence legislation by acting for large corporations or groups - the new oligarchy. The people have been removed from the process and even though Americans take pride in the voting franchise, they have less and less ability to control the way government operates.
While previous videos exist of cars using a runway to take off or soaring while tethered, this was the first footage of a roadster both driving and achieving straight-up liftoff, per the release.
“This drive and flight test represents an important proof of technology in a real-world city environment,” said Dukhovny, who said the trial proved to “humanity that new transportation is possible.”
The prototype in the clip was a special, ultralight version of the Alef Model Zero. For the commercial version, the firm will use a two-seater Alef Model A flying car that will have a flying range of 110 miles and a driving range of 200 miles — and is expected to have autopiloting flight capabilities as well, DesignBoom reported.
To stay as long as we have, is to ignore geography and history. This geography is uncontrollable and of little value. Afghanistan is covered with mountains and only 12% of its land is arable. It's also landlocked and for centuries has been overrun by hordes passing back and forth through Asia. The current social structure is tribal because the geography cannot support a higher socio-economic system. In the classical anthropological model, clans become tribes which become agrarian societies and then industrial states. It can’t happen everywhere because of geography and other factors, but Afghanistan was never in the model – it’s stuck in the Neolithic Age.
We ignored history there too. The English fought two Afghanistan Wars in the nineteenth century and lost an entire army in the first. The Russians fought the Afghans from 1979-92 and gave up. We should know that the same can happen to us if we continue to ingore the history.
By 2035, Alef hopes to unveil an updated version called the Alef Model Z, which will be a four-person drivable flying sedan that can fly a maximum of 200 miles with a driving range of 400 miles.
Reflections on Pericles and Democracy
Let’s take an objective look at Pericles defense of democracy and separate political rhetoric and the occasion of a funeral from the reality of the Athenian Polis in 431 B.C. It was a stirring speech, designed to honor the dead and motivate the living in a time of war – a war that would last another twenty-seven years.
When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law: when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.
The Athenian Polis was a balance between branches of a government -- Archons, Council of 500 and Assembly. The Archons were the “wise men” elected from the aristocratic class for one year. The Council of 500 were chosen by lot from nominees of the people and also served for one year. The Assembly was made up of all male citizens. The council introduced new laws which were voted on by the assembly, while the archons acted as government administrators. This system was designed to allow broad participation and prevent the accumulation of power.
The court system was made up of non-professionals organized to facilitate fair trials of accused citizens. Common citizens served as jurors and members of the appeals court.
Did Pericles correctly describe Athenian society? Yes, if we’re speaking of the rights of citizens. I would say its as accurate as labeling the United States as a democracy. Not all citizens and classes are satisfied with their political system at any one time, but when the many classes can be balanced in a way that creates stability, it becomes successful.
!summarize #trump #usgeneral #navy #chief
Block and an expanding roster of fintech rivals have all come to see that their moats aren't strong enough in their core markets to keep the competition away, and that the path to growth is through a diverse set of financial services traditionally offered by banks. They're playing to an audience of digital-first consumers who either didn't grow up using a brick-and-mortar bank or realized at an early age that they had no need to ever set foot in a physical branch, or to meet with a loan officer or customer service rep.
“Longer term, we see a significant opportunity to grow actives, particularly among that digital-native audience like Millennial and Gen Z,” Block CFO Amrita Ahuja said on the earnings call.
As part of its expansion, Block has encroached on Affirm's turf, with an increasing focus on buy now, pay later (BNPL) offerings that it picked up in its $29 billion purchase of Afterpay, which closed in early 2022. Block's market share in BNPL increased by one point to 19%, while Affirm held its position at 17%, according to a recent report from Mizuho. Both companies are outperforming Klarna in BNPL, the report said.
Block's BNPL play is now tied into Cash App, with an integration activated this week that gives users another way to make purchases through a single app. With Cash App monthly active users stagnating at 57 million for the last few quarters, the company is focused on engagement rather than rapid user acquisition.
“We think that there is significant opportunity for growth longer term, but there are some deliberate decisions we've made as part of our banker-based strategy in the near term" that have kept user numbers from increasing, Ahuja said. "This is a part of our continuous enhancements to drive healthy customer engagement as we bank our base."
Compared to Block, Wall Street had a very different reaction to Affirm's earnings earlier this month, pushing the stock up 22% after the company's results sailed past estimates.
Affirm founder and CEO Max Levchin, who was previously a co-founder of PayPal, built his company with the promise of giving consumers lower-cost and easy-to-tap intstallment loans for purchases like electronics, jewelry and travel.
!summarize #nyyankees #worldseries #mlb
!summarize #crazyeddie #cfo #fraud #bankruptcy
!summarize #quantumeraser #quantum #retrocausality
In its latest earnings report, Affirm posted a 35% increase in gross merchandise volume to $10.1 billion. Revenue surged 47% to $770 million, while its active consumer base grew 23% to 21 million.
Beyond BNPL, Levchin has pushed Affirm into debit with the Affirm Card, which now has 1.7 million active users, up 136% year-over-year.
"Anything we can do to personalize the experience, to give people a chance to feel like this is the best alternative they have to their debit or their credit card is what we're busy with," Levchin said on the earnings call. He said the goal is to get the card to 20 million users, spending on average $7,500 per year.
Elon Musk sets the record straight on rumors of Tesla investing in Nissan
Elon Musk set the record straight about rumors of Tesla investing in Nissan. While the billionaire CEO did not outright deny the rumor or even reject the alleged Nissan proposal, Musk did hint at the inherent flaw of the rumored investment.
The Rumor & Elon’s Reply
According to Fortune, a few influential people in Japan prepared a proposal for Tesla, suggesting an investment in Nissan. The report suggests that Tesla might be interested in acquiring Nissan’s factories in the United States.
!summarize #entropy #thermodynamics #physics
Affirm is also partnering with FIS to bring its debit card functionality to traditional banks.
Levchin left PayPal in 2002, after the company was acquired by eBay. It was a decade before he'd start working to help popularize the modern day BNPL market.
Now his former employer, which spun back out from eBay in 2015, is in on the BNPL game.
5,000-3,500 B.C. – The Formative Period
Irrigation became more broadly utilized which facilitated settlement of the grassland areas. By 4,000, an economy was well-established in Susa (see map). Lowlands were not established in a substantial way until irrigation techniques had advanced to the point of insuring a consistent harvest and water-born transportation was able to supply the lowlands with raw materials.
Two cultures evolved: agriculture only in the lowlands and mixed agriculture and pastoralism of the grasslands areas. By 3,500 B.C. the area known as Sumer had grown significantly and created the world’s first urban environment. A good example of a Formative Period settlement is at Eridu, where reed and clay huts have been excavated. Date palm and fish were in the diet, along with cereals. Sheep and goats were herded. Pottery was excavated along with kilns.
The village organizations were chiefdoms and theocratic. Each village contained a temple.
Under the leadership of CEO Alex Chriss, who took over the company in September 2023, PayPal is in the midst of a turnaround that involves working to better monetize products like Braintree and Venmo and joining the world of physical commerce with a debit card inside its mobile app.
Investors responded positively in 2024, pushing the stock up almost 40% after a brutal few years. But the stock dropped 13% after its earnings report, even as profit and revenue were better than expected. PayPal's total payment volume for the quarter hit $437.8 billion, slightly below projections, while transaction margins rose to 47% from 45.8% — a sign of improving profitability.
3,500 – 3,000 B.C. – Florescent and Proto-literate Periods
Florescent in this case refers to a period of rapid growth in the civilization. Sumer’s development accelerated with many new villages becoming prominent. One of the most notable was Erech, which has been well excavated. Crafts were well-developed – pottery, carpentry, and metallurgy. The presence of wood and metals from great distances indicates advanced trade.
Writing began with the form of pictographs but advanced along with numerical notation. The plow was improved, wheeled carts were constructed, and sailboats put into use. Bronze weapons and tools were seen after 3000 B.C.
Last year, the company launched PayPal Everywhere, a cashback-driven initiative designed to boost engagement within its mobile app. Chriss said on the earnings call that it's "driving significant increases in debit card adoption and opening new categories of spend."
As with virtually all financial services products, the new offerings from Block, Affirm and PayPal are designed to produce growth but not at the expense of profit. Banks operate at low margins, in large part because there's so much competition for lower-priced loans and better cash-back options. There's also all the costs associated with underwriting and compliance.
That's the environment in which fintechs have to operate, though without the costs of running a network of physical branches.
Levchin talks about helping customers spend less, not more. And Block acknowledges the need for hefty investments to reach the company's desired outcome.
"This is a part of our continuous enhancements to drive healthy customer engagement as we bank our base," Ahuja said. "We've made investments in critical areas like compliance, support and risk. And as we've done that, we've progressed more of our actives through our identity verification process, which in turn, unlocks greater access to those actives to our full suite of financial tools."
2,900 – 2,500 – The Dynastic Period
This period gets its name to describe the emergence of secular, hereditary, military kingdoms in Sumer. This political trend was accompanied by an increase in militarism and warfare. Fifteen to twenty Sumerian cities had grown more urban by concentrating themselves defensively. Kish and Erech had as many as 20,000 inhabitants. There was evidence of a class society: well to do, poor, and slaves.
There is much speculation about what caused the militancy: competition over scarce resources? Competition over unoccupied land? Lack of a buffer zone? War become chronic and kingships followed. Is this a history lesson?
The kings found their position extremely difficult because there were two types of enemies: like cities in close proximity and raiding nomads. The nomads were particularly difficult to defend against because of their mobility. There was no way to find peace against them except by buying them off. Those caught in the buffer zone had to choose between joining the urban communities and becoming nomads themselves.
Mesopotamia – The Geography
It’s time to go back, way back, 5000 years before the Greeks to look at the mankind’s original civilization -- Mesopotamia. The word is Greek for “between the rivers”, describing the ancient settlements between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now Iraq. Before we discuss the ancient culture, let’s review the geography, which is fundamental to the development of human society in this particular location.
The rivers not only provided the food to sustain the lives of the people, but were also transportation arteries providing access to the world through trade and the ability to ship important raw materials to destination cities.
While the plain was protected from invasion to the west because of desert, the Zagros Mountains were not high enough to prevent invasions from the north and east. This vulnerability would have a significant impact on the future development of the Mesopotamian Civilization.
Baghdad is shown on the map as a geographical reference only. It was not founded until 700 A.D.
How the Framers of Our Constitution Debated the Roman Republic
The American Constitutional Convention was authorized on February 21st, 1787, for the sole and express purpose of modifying the Articles of Confederation. By the time of the initial committee meetings on May 6th, however, the delegate’s philosophy had shifted toward a completely new government for the United States. Opinions had changed because the lawlessness of Shay’s Rebellion had emphasized the weaknesses in the Articles.
Committee meetings were held until June 19th, for the purpose of creating a governmental model that could be presented to the whole convention. The entire committee agreed that two legislative bodies should be created: an Assembly and Senate modeling the Roman Republic. Debate on the method of electing members from these two bodies proved to be long and difficult, however. One extreme favored members of both bodies be selected by the states; the other favored members be elected by the people.
On June 6th, Madison argued for direct election of the assembly by the people, using the example of Rome and its factions to show how power could be accumulated for selfish purposes. Madison argued that the only way to avoid the accumulation of power is to divide power into small pieces by letting the people vote directly. No consensus was reached that day, and the discussion of assembly elections was tabled.
On June 16th, the committee took up its discussion regarding the executive magistrate’s position (President). Most delegates agreed that an executive was needed, because they had suffered through the gridlock of a leaderless Articles of Confederation. All feared tyranny, which could result if a single executive were able to accumulate power, so a dozen members proposed the two executive system of the Roman Consuls. After much debate, the number of was fixed at one based on concerns that two presidents with veto power would stifle government action.
The Convention began on June 20th, and five days later debate began on article four, which was the method of election of Senators. Mr. Pinkney of South Carolina made an impassioned speech about why the Senate should not be a copy of the English House of Lords because there were no titled classes in the United States. Portions of his speech follow:
“The people of the United States are more equal in their circumstances than the people of any other country – and they have few rich men among them.”
“The people of this country are not only very different from the inhabitants of any state we are acquainted with in the modern world; but I assert that their situation is different from either the people of Greece and Rome, or any other state we are acquainted with among the ancients. Can the orders introduced by Solon be found in the United States? Can the military habits and manners of Sparta be resembled in our habits and manners? Are the distinctions of Patrician and Plebian known among us? I apprehend not – because they are perfectly different.”
“Our true situation appears to me to be this – we are a new extensive country containing within itself the materials for forming a government capable of extending to its citizens civil and Religious liberty.”
“This is the great end of Republican establishments.”
Pinkney was right. The United States was unique. It had come together as thirteen colonies with mutual interests, and different agendas. In the end all agreed to create a political system combining the states with a federal government that would act for the good of the whole.
A couple of facts need additional clarification. The name Assembly was changed to House of Representatives in the August 6th revision of the Articles of the Constitution. I found no evidence of the name change being suggested during debate, so I'm not sure of the origin. The number of Senators from each state was changed to two on July 23rd. The convention debated two versus three, but decided three would be too expensive.
War, Peace and Morality
One of the most valuable tools to anthropologists is the study of micro-cultures (my term). I am referring to isolated cultures whose development helps us understand the way human beings behave in groups. Examples of these analogs are the Cherokee Indians, Zulus, Peruvians, etc. These cultures contribute to our understanding of the people of European antiquity when knowledge about them is lost or incomplete.
!sumarize #atoms #orbitals #physics
Fundamental to Christianity is the concept of morality in life and in war, so in the United States, were religion is separate from government, the morality of war becomes a sharp debate when our justifications are weak. The historical notion of attacks on our culture have been replaced with an abstraction. Attacking Viet Nam was designed to block the designs of China – a step the government felt necessary to assert superiority in the cold war. Now we have a terrorist enemy who has no borders, and we don’t know how to attack him.
This means that a unifying perception of an outside threat to our culture is missing! We’re not threatened as Americans; we’re threatened as individuals – whoever happens to be close by when the explosion occurs, suffers. In other words, a physical threat has been replaced with a psychological threat, something that is less direct and harder to deal with from a moral standpoint.
Conflict and Change in Political Systems
I continue to admire the work of Elman Service and his efforts to lay out the anthropological aspects of human society and political systems. In Origins of the State and Political Systems, Service spends a chapter on theories of government – surveying writings on the subject back to the original authors. These early political theorists included Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) of Tunis, Machiavelli, and Jean Bodin (1530-96), who influenced Montesquieu.
Khaldun’s fundamental belief was that conflict drives governmental change in a positive rather than negative way. In other words, conflict purifies political development in the way natural selection purifies species. If two political philosophies are in conflict within a state, the stronger will win, push the state forward, and make it better.
Bodin is like-minded on the importance of conflict in government, but had a more developed approach. He believed that statis (stability) in a culture is unattainable because of the character of man, so good political systems must be able to adapt and change.
I wonder whether the United States is too stable and unable to make itself better. The founding fathers felt (and stated), at the end of the Constitutional Convention, that the resulting document was imperfect, so they built in the amendment process to improve the system to correct any errors or omissions that revealed themselves later. Washington was quoted as saying he would be happy if the document survived for twenty-five years.
How has this theoretical flexibility served us? Take a look at a list of the amendments added since the Bill of Rights.
11th Immunity of states from suits from out-of-state citizens and foreigners not living within the state borders. Lays the foundation for sovereign immunity, 1794
12th Revises Presidential election procedures, 1803
13th Abolishes slavery and Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime,1865
14th Defines Citizenship and deals with post-Civil War issues, 1866
15th Prohibits the denial of suffrage based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, 1869
16th Allows federal income tax, 1909
17th Direct election of Senators, 1912
18th Prohibition of Alcohol (Repealed by 21st amendment), 1917
19th Federal recognition of women's suffrage, 1919
20th Term Commencement for Congress (January 3) and the President (January 20). This amendment is also known as the "lame duck amendment", 1932
21st Repeals the Eighteenth Amendment; state and local prohibition no longer required by law, 1933
22nd Limits the president to two term, 1947
23rd Representation of Washington, D.C. in the Electoral College, 1960
24th Prohibition of the restriction of voting rights due to the non-payment of poll taxes, 1962
25th Presidential succession, 1965
26th Voting age nationally established at age 18 (see suffrage), 1971
27th Variance of congressional compensation, 1992
This is a pretty sorry list, because it contains zero structural changes in our government for two hundred years. Seven of the amendments extend rights or freedoms making us more democratic. The rest are procedural.
Lately, we have been discussing the Polis which as we have seen was an dynamic and adaptive political system over 350 years. The Roman Republic experienced a conflict of the classes from 509 B.C. to 287 when Lex Hortensia was adopted. The Republic continued on for another 200 years before it collapsed. Changes in the Republican government were dramatic: whole new legislative bodies were added, new magistracies created, and rights to govern extended to the Plebian Class.
At the present time, conflict in the United States is ideological, operating below the level of government, and unable affect change in the political system. The conflict Bodin requires is not possible because our political system is inert. The theoretical solution to this problem is the amendment process but amendments are too difficult to pass, so real change is impossible.
I dismiss quotations that venerate the Constitution as the perfect document because even the founders didn’t believe that. I also dismiss quotations that rave about how stable our political system is, because too stable is not a good thing. The fundamental problem is that no one represents all the people. When elected officials represent all the people, the whole country moves forward. When they represent only special interests, progress is diluted or not achieved at all.
There are only two forces that can change things: a push for changes in governmental structure so that the interests of all the people are represented, or some external factor that would unify the country. When the country is unified, the people as a whole force their elected officials to take action.
He believes collapse is the result of expansion and a resulting conservatism that makes a civilization less flexible. When a civilization expands, it encounters its neighbors and adapts to that new interface. Success in adaptation eventually breeds conservatism and makes the dominant power less flexible. Meanwhile the dominated cultures seek to overcome domination through their greater flexibility for innovation and experimentation. As Trotsky said, “the dominated suffer from the privilege of backwardness.” In this condition, they can borrow the latest techniques from advanced civilizations AND skip developmental steps that take time, resulting in the ability to create in themselves an enormous revolutionary potential. That power eventually becomes competitive with the dominant civilization allowing them to free themselves or become dominant over their complacent neighbor.
I attended a family-event today earler today. . While we adults were drinking coffe after eating a meal I stumbled into a short discussion/argument with one of my sisters in law, the real boss-babe among them. She sighed when her husband tried to explain something completely obvious to her, and then complained how tired she was of "mansplaining" in general. . Then she said that if he had "mansplained" a lot to her when they were starting their relationship, , she would have vanish from the relationship back then, over 20 years ago. I almost choked on my coffe.
Cause back then my brother was an 8 year younger than her very ambitious, intelligent and hard working guy with a bright future ahead of him. While she was a fivorced soccermom with three kids in tow, nursing her trauma from a trainwreck of a marriage and domestic violence. My brother loves idealisticly and settled like a MF when marrying her sorry ass. Hearing her whining about the most trivial feminist bullcrap, complaining about my saint brother was extremely annoying. Still, I was very appreciative of her, cause she reminded me once again how lucky and blessed I am being single, childless, debtfree and able to come and go as I please. Im the captain of my own life, taking only advice, not directions.Walking away from everything and everyone I wont interact with.
Democracy and Republic in America
We all know the terms Democracy and Republic, but may not know their history and the context of their definitions. Let’s take a look at them in more detail -- you may be surprised by what we discover.
The original usage as defined by the Romans and Greeks are not the same as those in use today, so it is instructive to follow the history. Once we understand the words, we’ll relate them to the political system of the United States which isn’t a Democracy or a Republic.
Republics live in fear of tyranny so they create a structure to lower the risk of revolution. In Rome, two consuls were elected for one year terms and had veto control over each other. Other magistrates, such as tribunes, were also elected for a single year. Proconsuls were administrators of foreign territories and as military leaders were not allowed to bring their army onto the Italian peninsula – a rule broken by Caesar when he crossed the Rubicon.
Republics were only marginally more successful than Democracies in the period between antiquity and the modern age. One could cite Switzerland in the middle ages and Florence during the renaissance as examples. Again, innovative political models with equality and freedom were stifled by the medieval monarchical view.
Washington was essentially a figurehead. The battle over the philosophy of the new government was waged between Hamilton and Jefferson, the former wanting a centralized government and the latter embracing the principles of Democracy. This was the Romans versus the Greeks redux. Jefferson eventually won the battle when he was able to build his Republican (his term for the opposite of Federalist) party through grass roots efforts in the states. The Federalists never won an election after 1796 and the government became more Democratic. Still, the vestiges of the Oligarchic Republic remained for a long time. The property ownership requirement for voting lasted until 1850 and Senators continued to be selected by the states until 1910.
Today, the American model sits somewhere between the Greek and Roman – maybe more on the side of Rome. Nowhere in America are officials nominated or elected by lot as the Greeks did. Broad public participation in government has been replaced by lobbyists who influence legislation by acting for large corporations or groups - the new oligarchy. The people have been removed from the process and even though Americans take pride in the voting franchise, they have less and less ability to control the way government operates.
While previous videos exist of cars using a runway to take off or soaring while tethered, this was the first footage of a roadster both driving and achieving straight-up liftoff, per the release.
“This drive and flight test represents an important proof of technology in a real-world city environment,” said Dukhovny, who said the trial proved to “humanity that new transportation is possible.”
The prototype in the clip was a special, ultralight version of the Alef Model Zero. For the commercial version, the firm will use a two-seater Alef Model A flying car that will have a flying range of 110 miles and a driving range of 200 miles — and is expected to have autopiloting flight capabilities as well, DesignBoom reported.
To stay as long as we have, is to ignore geography and history. This geography is uncontrollable and of little value. Afghanistan is covered with mountains and only 12% of its land is arable. It's also landlocked and for centuries has been overrun by hordes passing back and forth through Asia. The current social structure is tribal because the geography cannot support a higher socio-economic system. In the classical anthropological model, clans become tribes which become agrarian societies and then industrial states. It can’t happen everywhere because of geography and other factors, but Afghanistan was never in the model – it’s stuck in the Neolithic Age.
We ignored history there too. The English fought two Afghanistan Wars in the nineteenth century and lost an entire army in the first. The Russians fought the Afghans from 1979-92 and gave up. We should know that the same can happen to us if we continue to ingore the history.
By 2035, Alef hopes to unveil an updated version called the Alef Model Z, which will be a four-person drivable flying sedan that can fly a maximum of 200 miles with a driving range of 400 miles.
Reflections on Pericles and Democracy
Let’s take an objective look at Pericles defense of democracy and separate political rhetoric and the occasion of a funeral from the reality of the Athenian Polis in 431 B.C. It was a stirring speech, designed to honor the dead and motivate the living in a time of war – a war that would last another twenty-seven years.
When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law: when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.
The Athenian Polis was a balance between branches of a government -- Archons, Council of 500 and Assembly. The Archons were the “wise men” elected from the aristocratic class for one year. The Council of 500 were chosen by lot from nominees of the people and also served for one year. The Assembly was made up of all male citizens. The council introduced new laws which were voted on by the assembly, while the archons acted as government administrators. This system was designed to allow broad participation and prevent the accumulation of power.
The court system was made up of non-professionals organized to facilitate fair trials of accused citizens. Common citizens served as jurors and members of the appeals court.
Did Pericles correctly describe Athenian society? Yes, if we’re speaking of the rights of citizens. I would say its as accurate as labeling the United States as a democracy. Not all citizens and classes are satisfied with their political system at any one time, but when the many classes can be balanced in a way that creates stability, it becomes successful.