Intriguing Money Quotes

The money we spend to help you is really to help ourselves. We invest in you because you will do great things, and we want to be part of it.

Let me tell you, you either have chemistry or you don't, and you better have it, or it's like kissing some relative. But chemistry, listen to me, you got to be careful. Chemistry is like those perfume ads, the ones that look so interesting and mysterious but you dont even know at first what they're even selling. Or those menues without the prices. Mystery and intrigue are gonna cost you. Great looking might mean something ve-ry expensive, and I don't mean money. What I'm saying is, chemistry is a place to start, not an end point.

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and it's issuance.

Barack intrigued me. He was not like anyone I’d dated before, mainly because he seemed so secure. He was openly affectionate. He told me I was beautiful. He made me feel good. To me, he was sort of like a unicorn—unusual to the point of seeming almost unreal. He never talked about material things, like buying a house or a car or even new shoes. His money went largely toward books, which to him were like sacred objects, providing ballast for his mind. He read late into the night, often long after I’d fallen asleep, plowing through history and biographies and Toni Morrison, too. He read several newspapers daily, cover to cover. He kept tabs on the latest book reviews, the American League standings, and what the South Side aldermen were up to. He could speak with equal passion about the Polish elections and which movies Roger Ebert had panned and why.

There are several ways of making quick money but in the general list, writing a novel rates well below robbing a bank.

Adventure is important in life. Making memories matters. It doesn’t have to be a secret sea plane and an historic sports moment. But to have a great life, you need great memories. Grab any intriguing offer. Say yes to a challenge, and to the unknown. Be creative in adding drama and scope to your own life. Work at it, like a job. Money from effort comes and goes. But effort from imagination and following adventure creates stories that you keep forever. And anyone can do it.

A journalist should never join the Establishment, no matter how tempting the blandishments. It is our job to hold power to account, not join it. In a world that increasingly obsesses over the gods of power, money and fame, a journalist and a writer must remain detached, like a bird on a rail, watching, noting, probing, commenting but never joining. In short, an outsider.

Adventure is important in life. Making memories matters. It doesn't have to be a secret seaplane and a historic sports moment, but to have a great life you need great memories. Grab any intriguing offer. Say yes to a challenge and to the unknown. Be creative in adding drama and scope to your lfe. Work at it like a job. Money from effort comes and goes, but effort from imagination and following adventure creates stories that you keep forever. And anyone can do it.

The mention of money did intrigue him, since he did prefer wine, women, and song to beer, whores, and accordion music.

Any woman who has devoted herself to raising children has experienced the hollow praise that only thinly conceals smug dismissal. In a culture that measures worth and achievement almost solely in terms of money, the intensive work of rearing responsible adults counts for little. One of the most intriguing questions in economic history is how this came to be; how mothers came to be excluded from the ranks of productive citizens. How did the demanding job of rearing a modern child come to be termed baby-sitting? When did caring for children become a 'labor of love,;' smothered under a blanket of sentimentality that hides its economic importance?

Foras Road has a sordid reputation (…) Old crones sat in doorways, while their daughters were pushed out to earn money. It is intriguing that a society which is very covert with sexuality should be so straightforward about prostitution.

to have a great life you need great memories. Grab any intriguing offer. Say yes to a challenge and to the unknown. Be creative in adding drama and scope to your life. Work at it like a job. Money from effort comes and goes, but effort from imagination and following adventure creates stories that you keep forever. And anyone can do it.

One of the most bizarre and intriguing findings is that people with brain damage may be particularly good investors. Why? Because damage to certain parts of the brain can impair the emotional responses that cause the rest of us to do foolish things. A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and the University of Iowa conducted an experiment that compared the investment decisions made by fifteen patients with damage to the areas of the brain that control emotions (but with intact logic and cognitive functions) to the investment decisions made by a control group. The brain-damaged investors finished the game with 13 percent more money than the control group, largely, the authors believe, because they do not experience fear and anxiety. The impaired investors took more risks when there were high potential payoffs and got less emotional when they made losses.7 This

In the course of your life you will be continually encountering fools. There are simply too many to avoid. We can classify people as fools by the following rubric: when it comes to practical life, what should matter is getting long term results, and getting the work done in as efficient and creative a manner as possible. That should be the supreme value that guides people’s action. But fools carry with them a different scale of values. They place more importance on short-term matters – grabbing immediate money, getting attention from the public or media, and looking good. They are ruled by their ego and insecurities. They tend to enjoy drama and political intrigue for their own sake. When they criticize, they always emphasize matters that are irrelevant to the overall picture or argument. They are more interested in their career and position than in the truth. You can distinguish them by how little they get done, or by how hard they make it for others to get results. They lack a certain common sense, getting worked up about things that are not really important while ignoring problems that will spell doom in the long term. The natural tendency with fools is to lower yourself to their level. They annoy you, get under your skin, and draw you into a battle. In the process, you feel petty and confused. You lose a sense of what is really important. You can’t win an argument or get them to see your side or change their behavior, because rationality and results don’t matter to them. You simply waste valuable time and emotional energy. In dealing with fools you must adopt the following philosophy: they are simply a part of life, like rocks or furniture. All of us have foolish sides, moments in which we lose our heads and think more of our ego or short-term goals. It is human nature. Seeing this foolishness within you, you can then accept it in others. This will allow you to smile at their antics, to tolerate their presence as you would a silly child, and to avoid the madness of trying to change them. It is all part of the human comedy, and it is nothing to get upset or lose sleep over.

Not to mention that a crown is too high a reward ever to be given to merit alone, and will always induce the candidates to employ force, or money, or intrigue, to procure the votes of the electors: so that such an election will give no better chance for superior merit in the prince, than if the state had trusted to birth alone for determining the sovereign.

Kandiaronk: I have spent six years reflecting on the state of European society and I still can’t think of a single way they act that’s not inhuman, and I genuinely think this can only be the case, as long as you stick to your distinctions of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’. I affirm that what you call money is the devil of devils; the tyrant of the French, the source of all evils; the bane of souls and slaughterhouse of the living. To imagine one can live in the country of money and preserve one’s soul is like imagining one could preserve one’s life at the bottom of a lake. Money is the father of luxury, lasciviousness, intrigues, trickery, lies, betrayal, insincerity, – of all the world’s worst behaviour. Fathers sell their children, husbands their wives, wives betray their husbands, brothers kill each other, friends are false, and all because of money. In the light of all this, tell me that we Wendat are not right in refusing to touch, or so much as to look at silver?

The history of Germany is a history of wars between the emperor and the princes and states; of wars among the princes and states themselves; of the licentiousness of the strong, and the oppression of the weak; of foreign intrusions, and foreign intrigues; of requisitions of men and money disregarded, or partially complied with; of attempts to enforce them, altogether abortive, or attended with slaughter and desolation, involving the innocent with the guilty; of general imbecility, confusion, and misery.

These examples should be models for communication, precisely because they inspire curiosity. “How does money influence politics?” is not an especially engaging question, but “If I were running for president, how would I raise lots of money with few conditions and no scrutiny?” is much more intriguing.

Can anyone imagine that the masterfulness, the overbearing disposition, the greed of gain, and the ruthlessness in methods, which are the faults of the master of industry at his worst, would cease when he was a functionary of the State, which had relieved him of risk and endowed him with authority? Can anyone imagine that politicians would no longer be corruptly fond of money, intriguing, and crafty when they were charged, not only with patronage and government contracts, but also with factories, stores, ships, and railroads? Could we expect anything except that, when the politician and the master of industry were joined in one, we should have the vices of both unchecked by the restraints of either?

A government of the rich prevailed in all the free cities of the Middle Ages, and survived in Venice until Napoleon extinguished it. Such governments have been, on the whole, more enlightened and astute than any others known to history. Venice, in particular, steered a prudent course through centuries of complicated intrigue, and had a diplomatic service far more efficient than that of any other State. Money made in commerce is made by cleverness which is not dictatorial, and this characteristic is displayed by governments composed of successful merchants. The modern industrial magnate is a totally different type, partly because he deals largely with the technical manipulation of materials, partly because his dealings with human beings are preponderantly with an army of employees rather than with equals who must be persuaded, not coerced.

I heard a few men in a restaurant talking about a bayou legend," Savannah said suddenly.She leaned ont he side of the boat,presenting him with an intriguing view of her tight jeans. They clung lovingly to every curve. Gregori moved, a flowing of his body, gliding silently, and his large frame was blanketing Savannah's, blocking out the captain's enticing view.Gregori leaned into her,his arms coming down on either side of the railing to imprison her against him. You are doing it again. His words brushed softly in her mind even as his warm breath teased the tendrils of hair at her neck. Savannah leaned back into him, fitting her bottom into the cradle of his hips. She was happy, free of the oppressive weight of the hunt,of death and violence. THere were only the two of them. Three, he reminded her,his teeth scraping her sensitive pulse.He could feel the answering surge of her blood, the molten lava spreading in his. My mother thinks my father is a cave man.I'm beginning to think you could give him a run for his money. Disrespectful little thing. "Which legend?There are so many," Beau said. "About an old alligator that lies in wait to eat hunting dogs and little children," Savannah said. Gregori tugged at her long braid so that she tilted her head back.His mouth brushed the line of her throat. I could be a hungry alligator, he offered softly.

Happiness found me alone one day and took me by the hand. He showed me how the sun gave out its warmth across the land. Sadness found me content and smiling upward at the sun. He talked of droughts and blindness and what burning rays had done. Happiness found me alone again and pointed to the sky. He showed me how the storms created rainbows way up high. Sadness found me intrigued and took me to the rainbow’s end. He showed me how it disappeared to ne’er return again. Happiness found me alone and taught me how to sing a song. He sang a dozen melodies as I chirped right along. Sadness found me singing out and covered up his ears. He said the noise was deafening, and wished he couldn’t hear. Happiness found me alone and gave me seven coins of gold. He showed me many fancy things that merchants often sold. Sadness found me admiring the pretty things I’d bought. He pointed out my empty purse and money I had not. Happiness found me alone and helped me talk to someone new. He called the boy my friend and said that I was his friend too. Sadness found me together with my kind, attentive friend. He whispered of betrayal and how broken hearts don’t mend. Happiness found me alone and held me tight in his embrace. He whispered kindness in my ear and kissed me on the face. Sadness found me with Happiness but before he spoke at all, I told him he’d have better luck at talking to the wall.

Adventure is important in life. Making memories matters. It doesn’t have to be a secret seaplane and a historic sports moment, but to have a great life you need great memories. Grab any intriguing offer. Say yes to a challenge and to the unknown. Be creative in adding drama and scope to your life. Work at it like a job. Money from effort comes and goes, but effort from imagination and following adventure creates stories that you keep forever. And anyone can do it.

The house belongs to us. James and I grew up here. That mansion is our home," Mia replied with a sweet smile. "Or, well, it was. James and Lily have their own little cottage now." The Dursleys looked dumbfounded, which Mia discovered was not very difficult for them. "Grew up here?" Petunia gaped at Mia. "So, it's just you here, then? That big house all to yourself?" Mia could tell by the tone of voice that the woman was trying to be polite now that she was aware the Potters had money. "Oh no, I moved to London." She then pointed to Sirius and Remus standing beside James, pouring drinks for one another. "I live with those two handsome men." Petunia blushed furiously, looking scandalised. "You live with two men?" Mia grinned, half tempted to tell her, in detail, what she and those two men had done right here in this very orchard. The particular shade of red on Petunia's face was intriguing, to say the least, but nowhere near as amusing as the purple that Vernon was turning as he muttered, "shameful" and "scandalous" under his breath.

Peter is still amazed at the degree to which a certain widening gyre of accolades can change an artist's work, literally change it, not just the new stuff but the old as well, the pieces that have been around for a while, that have seemed "interesting" or "promising" but minor, until (not often, just once in a while) an artist is by some obscure consensus declared to have been neglected, misrepresented, ahead of his time. What's astonishing to Peter is the way the work itself seems to change, more or less in the way of a reasonably pretty girl who is suddenly treated as a beauty. Peculiar, clever Victoria Hwang is going to be in Artforum next month, and probably in the collections of the Whitney and the Guggenheim; Renee Zellweger - moonfaced, squinty-eyed, a character actress if ever there was one - was just on the cover of Vogue, looking ravishing in a silver gown. It is, of course, a trick of perception - the understanding that that funny little artist or that quirky-looking girl must be taken with new seriousness - but Peter suspects there's a deeper change at work. Being the focus of that much attention (and, yes, of that much money) seems to differently excite the molecules of the art or the actress or the politician. It's not just a phenomenon of altered expectations, it's a genuine transubstantiation, brought about by altered expectations. Renée Zellweger becomes a beauty, and would look like a beauty to someone who had never heard of her. Victoria Hwang's videos and sculptures are about, it seems, to become not just intriguing and amusing but significant.

If education causes better economic understanding, there is an argument for education subsidies—albeit not necessarily higher subsidies than we have now.62 If the connection is not causal, however, throwing money at education treats a symptom of economic illiteracy, not the disease. You would get more bang for your buck by defunding efforts to “get out the vote.”63 One intriguing piece of evidence against the causal theory is that educational attainment rose substantially in the postwar era, but political knowledge stayed about the same.64

But magic could make the world better,” Nicholas tried. “No, it couldn’t,” said Maram, her voice sharp. “Your uncle understands this. You need to understand it, also. That is whywe keep commissions small and personal, why you will never write for governments or corporations or leaders of political rebellions,no matter how intriguing their cause or how much money they offer. We are not here to change the world with these books, Nicholas.Part of the reason we collect them is to keep them from the world, because the world misuses power and the Library participated in that misuse for centuries. Do you see what I amsaying?

For years, the suspicion that Mr. Putin has a secret fortune has intrigued scholars, industry analysts, opposition figures, journalists and intelligence agencies but defied their efforts to uncover it. Numbers are thrown around suggesting that Mr. Putin may control $40 billion or even $70 billion, in theory making him the richest head of state in world history. For all the rumors and speculation, though, there has been little if any hard evidence, and Gunvor has adamantly denied any financial ties to Mr. Putin and repeated that denial on Friday. But Mr. Obama’s response to the Ukraine crisis, while derided by critics as slow and weak, has reinvigorated a 15-year global hunt for Mr. Putin’s hidden wealth. Now, as the Obama administration prepares to announce another round of sanctions as early as Monday targeting Russians it considers part of Mr. Putin’s financial circle, it is sending a not-very-subtle message that it thinks it knows where the Russian leader has his money, and that he could ultimately be targeted directly or indirectly. “It’s something that could be done that would send a very clear signal of taking the gloves off and not just dance around it,” said Juan C. Zarate, a White House counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush who helped pioneer the government’s modern financial campaign techniques to choke off terrorist money.

We always want what is not ours. It’s intriguing. We think if we can just get that, we’ll finally be happy. The lure of what we do not have is deceptive. True freedom, however, is found in being content with what we already have. Can you imagine it? Can you imagine being whole, complete, fulfilled - content with what you already have? It sounds too good to be true. Utter satisfaction? That is freedom. That is what everyone is searching for. Where, though, can you find this kind of contentment? I've noticed that the more I’ve come to know Jesus, the less I've desired material things. Materialism is what happens when you find your joy in things. Contentment is what happens when you find your joy in Jesus. They’re complete opposites. You can easily differentiate a materialistic person from a content person.

God’s goodness comes to us amidst the battle and dust of our own suffering, our own long defeat. God always arrives with healing. But he is humble and meek, a king who comes in through the back door of our hearts not to conquer and raze our imperfections away but to hold and heal us by the intimacy of his touch, his presence here with us in the inmost rooms of our suffering. The power of God is radically gentle, never rough with our needs or careless with our yearning. God is fixed upon the restoration of our whole selves and souls, not just the bits that everyone else can see. Yet the very tenderness of his power is something we sometimes treat as his weakness or cruelty because we crave a more visible result. The healing kind of power is not the sort we’ve been taught to respect by existence in a fallen world where power just means brute force. We want the swift and the visible: illness zapped away, money in our hands, brilliant doctors, prosperous lives, and conversion stories by the thousands. We crave visibility and approbation and health and big crowds that make us feel important enough to forget the frail selves we used to be. When we pray for God to come in power to save us, we often picture a scenario in which God invades our lives as the ultimate mighty man to banish our frailty and make us something entirely other than we are, capable of the will and force whose lack we so deeply feel. But God cradles and cherishes our frailty, and that is where the true power of his love is known. I always think it intriguing that in the Gospels Jesus seems far less interested in the faith and hope at work in broken people than merely the healing of their bodies. For I think God knows there is no real healing until our hearts are healed of their fear, our minds cleansed of doubt. Broken bodies, shattered hopes, suffering minds, terrible pasts - they leave us deathly ill with the twisted belief that love can never be great enough to encompass the whole of the story. We feel that we must subtract or conceal part of ourselves if we are ever to win the love of other people or God himself. We are diminished in our own eyes by our suffering, taught to despair of our dreams, to give up our hope that God will come with goodness in his hands. So God creeps in, gentle, and we know his touch because we are not discarded or dismissed, but healed. He comes to unravel our self-doubt, to untangle the evil we have believed, to call us back from the dark lands of our insecurity. He calls us by name and wakes us from sleep so that we rise to ask what this kind and precious King commands, and so often his command is simply to open our hands so that they may be filled with his goodness. For when God arrives as the healer, we learn anew that the anguished hopes we carry are held within God’s hand like the hazelnut of Mother Julian’s vision. The story he weaves for us may look radically different from what we thought we desired, but when it arrives, we will recognize it as the intimate gift of a love whose will for us is always so much greater than our own.

I have one priority in life and it’s not making millions as it once was. I have all the money I could ever want, too much, India claims. I’m business driven but it’s my girl who is the most important part of my life. My whole life. It’s that very reason I’m reluctant to bring any shift in our happy bubble. We both work hard. We play hard together. That woman is my equal in every aspect of life. She thrills me, and intrigues me. I’ve loved peeling back India’s layers. She’s vulnerable is my mean girl and I love the place we’ve gotten to where she trusts me with all her sad, unsure moments. She will grieve for her brother for the rest of her life. She’ll always worry about her mom becoming manic depressive again. She’ll forever be a woman who puts everyone else before her own needs. But what’s different in India’s life is she now has me who makes sure she’s first. In everything. It’s going to kill me to see the happiness drop from her eyes. She’ll go into fix it mode and when she can’t, she’ll get angry and stressed.

In the course of your life you will be continually encountering fools. There are simply too many to avoid. We can classify people as fools by the following rubric: when it comes to practical life, what should matter is getting long-term results, and getting the work done in as efficient and creative a manner as possible. That should be the supreme value that guides people’s actions. But fools carry with them a different scale of values. They place more importance on short-term matters—grabbing immediate money, getting attention from the public or media, and looking good. They are ruled by their ego and insecurities. They tend to enjoy drama and political intrigue for their own sake. When they criticize, they always emphasize matters that are irrelevant to the overall picture or argument. They are more interested in their career and position than in the truth. You can distinguish them by how little they get done, or by how hard they make it for others to get results. They lack a certain common sense, getting worked up about things that are not really important while ignoring problems that will spell doom in the long term. The

It doesn't take ten years of study, you don't need to go to the University, to find out that this is a damned good world gone wrong. Gone wrong, because it is being monkeyed with by people too greedy and mean and wrong-hearted altogether to do the right thing by our common world. They've grabbed it and they won't let go. They might lose their importance; they might lose their pull. Everywhere it's the same. Beware of the men you make your masters. Beware of the men you trust. We've only got to be clear-headed to sing the same song and play the same game all over the world, we common men. We don't want Power monkeyed with, we don't want Work and Goods monkeyed with, and, above all, we don't want Money monkeyed with. That's the elements of politics everywhere. When these things go wrong, we go wrong. That's how people begin to feel it and see it in America. That's how we feel it here -- when we look into our minds. That's what common people feel everywhere. That's what our brother whites -- "poor whites" they call them -- in those towns in South Carolina are fighting for now. Fighting our battle. Why aren't we with them? We speak the same language; we share the same blood. Who has been keeping us apart from them for a hundred and fifty-odd years? Ruling classes. Politicians. Dear old flag and all that stuff! Our school-books never tell us a word about the American common man; and his school-books never tell him a word about us. They flutter flags between us to keep us apart. Split us up for a century and a half because of some fuss about taxing tea. And what are our wonderful Labour and Socialist and Communist leaders doing to change that? What are they doing to unite us English-speaking common men together and give us our plain desire? Are they doing anything more for us than the land barons and the factory barons and the money barons? Not a bit of it! These labour leaders of to-day mean to be lords to-morrow. They are just a fresh set of dishonest trustees. Look at these twenty-odd platforms here! Mark their needless contradictions! Their marvellous differences on minor issues. 'Manoeuvres!' 'Intrigue.' 'Personalities.' 'Monkeying.' 'Don't trust him, trust me!' All of them at it. Mark how we common men are distracted, how we are set hunting first after one red herring and then after another, for the want of simple, honest interpretation...

But his (Pericles’) successors were more on an equality with one another, and, each one struggling to be first himself, they were ready to sacrifice the whole conduct of affairs to the whims of the people. Such weakness in a great and imperial city led to many errors, of which the greatest was the Sicilian expedition; not that the Athenians miscalculated their enemy's power, but they themselves, instead of consulting for the interests of the expedition which they had sent out, were occupied in intriguing against one another for the leadership of the democracy, and not only hampered the operations of the army, but became embroiled, for the first time, at home. And yet after they had lost in the Sicilian expedition the greater part of their fleet and army, and were now distracted by revolution, still they held out three years not only against their former enemies, but against the Sicilians who had combined with them, and against most of their own allies who had risen in revolt. Even when Cyrus the son of the King joined in the war and supplied the Peloponnesian fleet with money, they continued to resist, and were at last overthrown, not by their enemies, but by themselves and their own internal dissensions. (Book 2 Chapter 65.10-12)

Foreign nongovernment organizations (NGOs) that support Russian democratic civic groups are a particular target of Russian accusations of foreign economic intrigue. In 2004, President Putin accused Russian NGOs of pursuing "dubious group and commercial interests" for taking foreign money. FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev told the Russian State Duma in 2005 that the FSB had uncovered spies working in foreign-sponsored NGOs. He further claimed, "Foreign secret services are ever more actively using non-traditional methods for their work and, with the help of different NGOs educational programs, are propagandizing their interests, particularly in the former Soviet Union." Patrushev accused the United States of placing spies undercover within the Peace Corps, which was expelled from Russia in 2002, the Saudi Red Crescent, and the Kuwaiti NGO Society for Social Reform. Patrushev attributed an economic motive to these perceived foreign plots, alleging that industrialized states did not want "a powerful economic competitor like Russia." Echoing Soviet-era accusations of nefarious Western economic intent, he claimed that Russia had lost billions of dollars per year due to U.S., EU, and Canadian "trade discrimination. Pushing for stronger regulation of NGOs, Patrushev said, "The imperfectness of legislation and lack of efficient mechanisms for state oversight creates a fertile ground for conducting intelligence operations under the guise of charity and other activities. In 2012, Putin signed the "foreign agent law," which ordered Russian civil rights organizations that received any foreign funding to register as "foreign agents.

Good luck. For most of my generation, it would just go to student debt and cocktails. If anything came to me (an impossibility), I would dump it into a poorly managed career in edgy luxury items. You can’t make opera money on perfume that smells like cunts and gasoline. At any rate, I didn’t usually make an appearance beyond the gala. Or, I hadn’t until recently. But Joseph Eisner had promised me a fortune, and now he wouldn’t take my calls. He did, however, like his chamber music. It had been an acquired taste for me. In my distant undergraduate past, when circumstance sat me in front of an ensemble, I spent the first five minutes of each concert deciding which musician I would fuck if I had the chance, and the rest shifting minutely in my seat. I still couldn’t stand Chanel. And while I had learned to appreciate—indeed, enjoy—chamber ensembles, orchestras, and on occasion even the opera, I retained my former habit as a dirty amusement to add some private savor to the proceedings. Tonight, it was the violist, weaving and bobbing his way through Dvořák’s Terzetto in C Major like a sinuous dancer. I prefer the romantics—fewer hair-raising harmonies than modern fare, and certainly more engaging than funereal baroque. The intriguing arrangement of the terzetto kept me engaged, in that slightly detached and floating manner engendered by instrumental performance. Moreover, the woman to my left, one row ahead, was wearing Salome by Papillon. The simple fact of anyone wearing such a scent in public pleased me. So few people dared wear anything at all these days, and when they did, it was inevitably staid: an inoffensive classic or antiseptic citrus-and-powder. But this perfume was one I might have worn myself. Jasmine, yes, but more indolic than your average floral. People sometimes say it smells like dirty panties. As the trio wrapped up for intermission, I took a steadying breath of musk and straightened my lapels. The music was only a means to an end, after all.

The scheme began to unravel following the Panic of 1873 when railroad investments failed. The bank experienced several runs at the height of the panic. The panic would not have affected the bank if it had been a savings bank, but by 1866, the business of the bank had become…reckless speculation, over-capitalization, stock manipulation, intrigue and bribery, and downright plundering…. In a last ditch effort to save the bank, the Trustees appointed Frederick Douglas as Bank President in March of 1874. Douglass did not ask to be nominated and the Bank Board knew that Douglass had no experience in banking, but they felt that his reputation and popularity would restore confidence to fleeing depositors….Douglas lent the bank $10,000 of his own money to cover the bank’s illiquid assets….Douglass quickly discovered that the bank was full of dead men’s bones, rottenness and corruption. As soon as Douglass realized that the bank was headed towards certain failure, he imposed drastic spending cuts to limit depositors’ losses. He then relayed this information to Congress, underscoring the bank’s insolvency, and declaring that he could no longer ask his people to deposit their money in it. Despite the other Trustees’ attempts to convince Congress otherwise, Congress sided with Douglass, and on June 20, 1874, Congress amended the Charter to authorize the Trustees to end operations. Within a few weeks’ time, the bank’s doors were shut for good on June 29, 1874, leaving 61,131 depositors without access to nearly $3 million dollars in deposits. More than half of accumulated black wealth disappeared through the mismanagement of the Freedman’s Savings Bank. And what is most lamentable…is the fact that only a few of those who embezzled and defrauded the one-time liquid assets of this bank were ever prosecuted….Congress did appoint a commission led by John AJ Cresswell to look into the failure and to recover as much of the deposits as possible. In 1880, Henry Cook testified about the bank failure and said that bank’s depositors were victims of a widespread universal sweeping financial disaster. In other words, it was the Market’s fault, not his. The misdeeds of the bank’s management never came to light.

The story of Cassius Clay’s lost bicycle would later be told as an indication of the boxer’s determination and the wonders of accidental encounters, but it carries broader meaning, too. If Cassius Clay had been a white boy, the theft of his bicycle and an introduction to Joe Martin might have led as easily to an interest in a career in law enforcement as boxing. But Cassius, who had already developed a keen understanding of America’s racial striation, knew that law enforcement wasn’t a promising option. This subject—what white America allowed and expected of black people—would intrigue him all his life. “At twelve years old I wanted to be a big celebrity,” he said years later. “I wanted to be world famous.” The interviewer pushed him: Why did he want to be famous? Upon reflection he answered from a more adult perspective: “So that I could rebel and be different from all the rest of them and show everyone behind me that you don’t have to Uncle Tom, you don’t have to kiss you-know-what to make it . . . I wanted to be free. I wanted to say what I wanna say . . . Go where I wanna go. Do what I wanna do.” For young Cassius, what mattered was that boxing was permitted, even encouraged, and that it gave him more or less equal status to the white boys who trained with him. Every day, on his way to the gym, Cassius passed a Cadillac dealership. Boxing wasn’t the only way for him to acquire one of those big, beautiful cars in the showroom window, but it might have seemed that way at the time. Boxing suggested a path to prosperity that did not require reading and writing. It came with the authorization of a white man in Joe Martin. It offered respect, visibility, power, and money. Boxing transcended race in ways that were highly unusual in the 1950s, when black Americans had limited control of their economic and political lives. Boxing more than most other sports allowed black athletes to compete on level ground with white athletes, to openly display their strength and even superiority, and to earn money on a relatively equal scale. As James Baldwin wrote in The Fire Next Time, many black people of Clay’s generation believed that getting an education and saving money would never be enough to earn respect. “One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear,” Baldwin wrote. “It was absolutely clear the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else—housewives, taxi

Aureliano Segundo thought without saying so that the evil was not in the world but in some hidden place in the mysterious heart of Petra Cotes, where something had happened during the deluge that had turned the animals sterile and made money scarce. Intrigued by that enigma, he dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to fund the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.

When money and morality intersect, the results can illuminate intriguing truths about human character.

The practical possibilities presented by a machine that could replicate human conversation, both in writing and, eventually, aloud, were intriguing and manifold: Customer service could be made more efficient. Knowledge could be imparted, languages taught. Companionship could be provided. In the event of a catastrophe, medical advice could be broadly and quickly distributed, logistical questions answered. The profitability and practicality of a conversant machine were what brought grant money into the Steiner Lab.

August Murder creates a fast-paced thriller about terrorism, murder, politics, and one man who doesn't believe the report of events surrounding his son's death in Puerto Rico, and who assembles a posse of lawyers and investigators to uncover the truth. The focus on political investigations and a web of intrigue and conspiracy, combined with a heavy dose of Puerto Rican politics and cultural insights, lends to a creation which serves to both entertain and enlighten. It takes a talented hand to wind nonfiction facts into a fictional mystery, grapple with a myriad of characters which prove compelling and recognizable in their own rights through the story line, and maintain a flow of action and drama that easily holds reader attention. August Mystery succeeds in all these aspects, and is a compelling saga of conflicting evidence and motivations for murder, crafting an especially astute eye to capturing Puerto Rican daily lives and experiences: "Mr. Miller, policemen in Puerto Rico don’t make a lot of money. The average salary for a police officer is around $30,000, about the same as the average salary for a teacher. For that kind of money, they risk their lives in dangerous places. They have to deal with young delinquents in the projects who may make $30,000 in one week, and who are much better armed than any policeman. It’s amazing that more of them are not taking money to look the other way or do worse." T. Miranda's ability to enlighten readers about the underlying culture, social issues, and political pressures in Puerto Rico contributes to an outstanding thriller especially recommended for modern readers who would gain a sense of the island's processes and peoples. D. Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest Book Review

Anna had seen enough intrigue to know that people did crazy things where money and status were involved. Some fell into committing crimes for survival, while others saw crimes as opportunities. And when crimes become the law, it becomes much easier.

I have money. Lots of it. Which means if I’m intrigued I can indulge in the occasional pro bono case.” “So you’ll take me on?” The flutter of her heart now had more than one reason to stutter fast. “Oh, never fear, little rabbit. I fully intend to take you.” How did he make that sound both ominous and promising at the same time?

Congress shall have power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” It is most evident that by this provision, Congress alone should be the money-creating agency of the nation.[78] Although the Constitution has been set aside through the intrigue and power of the Illuminati, the Congress of the United States is authorized by the Constitution to do as Abraham Lincoln did in order to finance the Civil War, to-wit: “issue the money required against the credit of the nation, debt-and interest free”. Lincoln didn’t want to borrow money from the Rothschilds and Co. The interest rate set by the banks was twenty-eight percent. For Lincoln Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 was sufficient authority to disregard the powerfully entrenched bankers. So, in spite of the greedy bankers’ protests he caused to have printed in the Bureau of Printing and Engraving a total of $450,000,000 of honest money, constitutionally created on the credit of the nation.

It is understood that the Bank need not relinquish the bonds it holds, but will continue to collect interest on them. The Bank then loans the new printed currency into circulation to anyone who can provide it with satisfactory collateral. In less than twenty years the Federal Reserve brought the money system, banks, exchanges and economy to utter ruin.[77] Every dollar in circulation in the United States is a borrowed dollar and pays its toll of interest to the Illuminati bankers. Nearly eleven trillion dollars in debt has been created since 1913. The American people cannot even pay the interest! Every month more than two billion dollars interest has to be paid. It is madness that a government hands over so much power to a private bank that is not controlled by anybody. A power that can create money out of nothing! Why the United States borrow its own money, based on its own credit, at interest, from private bankers? Please bear in mind the fact that the founding fathers made sure that provisions were made by the Constitution for an honest and debt free money system. In part Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution states: “Congress shall have power to coin money and regulate the value thereof.” It is most evident that by this provision, Congress alone should be the money-creating agency of the nation.[78] Although the Constitution has been set aside through the intrigue and power of the Illuminati, the Congress of the United States is authorized by the Constitution to do as Abraham Lincoln did in order to finance the Civil War, to-wit: “issue the money required against the credit of the nation, debt-and interest free”. Lincoln didn’t want to borrow money from the Rothschilds and Co. The interest rate set by the banks was twenty-eight percent. For Lincoln Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 was sufficient authority to disregard the powerfully entrenched bankers. So, in spite of the greedy bankers’ protests he caused to have printed in the Bureau of Printing and Engraving a total of $450,000,000 of honest money, constitutionally created on the credit of the nation.

As a professional speaker, Susanne travels all over the country and practically lives on airplanes. One day as she entered security to board yet another flight, she was struck by the poise, posture, and gestures of the man in front of her in line. As a communications expert, she observed his excellent presentation with appreciation and awe. The gentleman was dressed impeccably in a crisp white shirt and well-fitted suit and he sported a new haircut. She watched him as he removed his flawless leather belt, his gold money clip, and well-polished shoes. (And of course, he had Listerine in a baggie to ensure fresh breath!) The care with which he dismantled was impressive. His poised and fluid movements were deliberate and respectful of his personal possessions. As he regrouped and proceeded down the concourse, she was struck by how his stance and carriage intrigued and impressed her. His projection of elegance created a presence of pride and dignity. He left a remarkable impression.

A pair of researchers named Kristen Schilt and Matthew Wiswall wanted to systematically examine what happens to the salaries of people who switched gender as adults. It is not quite the experiment we proposed above—after all, the set of folks who switch gender aren’t exactly a random sample, nor are they the typical woman or man before or after—but still, the results are intriguing. Schilt and Wiswall found that women who become men earn slightly more money after their gender transitions, while men who become women make, on average, nearly one-third less than their previous wage.

You’re profiling me, for one, which would likely put you to be somewhere in that field, given the ride and attire. Your friend has an expensive suit that he wears to impress, but yours is less flashy. Your posture around him and good-natured ribbing towards him leads me to believe you’re equals, despite the financial difference. So I’m assuming he comes from money, and you’ve earned your own way. The SUV isn’t a standardized version. The blacked out windows are too dark to be legally tinted, but I know the FBI are given certain leniencies due to security risks. So am I right?” I really hate the way he continues to smile, as though he’s only more intrigued instead of freaked out. I wanted to freak him out. “You’re not a paid profiler, not FBI, and not affiliated with any military unit,” he says, confusing me. “Your outfit is bohemian chic, meaning you’re less worried about your outward appearance and more concerned with comfort. You sit alone by choice, and dismiss any attention sent your way. At first glance, you’re too feminist for your own good. At second glance, you’re someone who is hard to get close to because trust isn’t something you share too often. It keeps you from being hurt by people, but it also keeps you from having anyone in your life. At night, when you close your eyes and allow yourself to be vulnerable…that’s the only time you dare to wonder what it’d be like to be with someone.

You do, but there’s not one here now, so just rein it in. My cousin Claude was here today. He’s going to be bunking with me for a while.” “Claude, the mouthwateringly beautiful asshole?” Claude’s fame preceded him. “Yes, that Claude.” “Why? Why is he staying with you?” “He’s lonely,” I said. “Do you really believe that?” Pam’s pale brows were arched incredulously. “Well . . . yes, I do.” Why else would Claude want to stay at my house, which was not convenient to his job? He certainly didn’t want to get in my pants, and he hadn’t asked to borrow money. “This is some fairy intrigue,” Pam said. “You were a fool to be taken in.

The faker things seem the more intrigued we are by them - that was what Mark loved above point of view: the ways it was obviously fake or tried so hard to be real, which was, weirdly, another way of showing how fake it was. 'The way you look at something changes what you see,' he said.

And if I am in a position to help this organization, should I not help them? I have the money, I’m willing to part with it, and I’m intrigued by the cause. Should I not donate?

At the Roman Court good Fortune generally prevails, and there is but seldom room for talent or honesty; every thing is obtained through intrigue or luck, not to mention money, which seems to hold supreme sway all over the world.” - The Facetiae or Jocose Tales of Poggio: Now Translated into English with the Latin Text Volume 1

Aureliano Segundo thought without saying so that the evil was not in the world but in some hidden place in the mysterious heart of Petra Cotes, where something had happened during the deluge that had turned the animals sterile and made money scarce. Intrigued by that enigma, he dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of loving each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out old people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.

The year 423 was a turbulent one for politics. Court intrigue began shortly after the mid-winter death of King Atraxerxes. The eldest son, Xerxes II, seized the throne, only to be murdered 45 days later by his half-brother Sogdianus, who, with one treacherous act suddenly held in his grasp the entire Persian Empire, from the Zagros Mountains to the Mediterranean Sea. While Sogdianus may have had the throne, another son of Atraxerxes had the support and sponsorship of some of Persia’s most powerful landowners. Ochus, son of the Babylonian concubine Costmartidus and satrap of lower Mesopotamia, was living in a spacious rented residence in Babylon when his half-brother ascended the throne. One of Sogdianus’s first imperial acts was to summon his powerful half-brother to the imperial city of Susa—perhaps to put him under the sword and consolidate his own power. When the summons came in the form of an official cuneiform tablet delivered by royal messenger, Ochus had to work fast. His supporters urged him to fight, but they could not immediately provide the means for him to do so—they were land rich but cash poor, and the mercenaries and supplies to fight Sogdianus could only be obtained with silver. With Sogdianus pressing for a reply, they turned to the Murašu family for help. Ochus’s backers mortgaged their vast property holdings in the Euphrates valley to the Murašu and used the proceeds to hire an army. Deserters from the disaffected Persian regulars soon joined them, and when Ochus rode into the city of Susa, it was not as Sogdianus’s prisoner but as his successor. The usurper was usurped. Ochus took the royal title of Darius II.

he is clearly referring to laws of a coercive or punitive nature. He goes on to dissect the failings of the French legal system, dwelling particularly on judicial persecution, false testimony, torture, witchcraft accusations and differential justice for rich and poor. In conclusion, he swings back to his original observation: the whole apparatus of trying to force people to behave well would be unnecessary if France did not also maintain a contrary apparatus that encourages people to behave badly. That apparatus consisted of money, property rights and the resultant pursuit of material self-interest: Kandiaronk: I have spent six years reflecting on the state of European society and I still can’t think of a single way they act that’s not inhuman, and I genuinely think this can only be the case, as long as you stick to your distinctions of ‘mine’ and ‘thine’. I affirm that what you call money is the devil of devils; the tyrant of the French, the source of all evils; the bane of souls and slaughterhouse of the living. To imagine one can live in the country of money and preserve one’s soul is like imagining one could preserve one’s life at the bottom of a lake. Money is the father of luxury, lasciviousness, intrigues, trickery, lies, betrayal, insincerity, – of all the world’s worst behaviour. Fathers sell their children, husbands their wives, wives betray their husbands, brothers kill each other, friends are false, and all because of money. In the light of all this, tell me that we Wendat are not right in refusing to touch, or so much as to look at silver?

I do not know if my mother broke off her studies at Charles University only because her parents’ money had run out. How far was she pushed to emigrate to Palestine by the violent hatred of Jews that filled the streets of Europe in the mid-1930s and spread to the universities, or to what extent did she come here as the result of her education in a Tar-buth school and her membership in a Zionist youth movement? What did she hope to find here, what did she find, what did she not find? What did Tel Aviv and Jerusalem look like to someone who had grown up in a mansion in Rovno and arrived straight from the Gothic beauty of Prague? What did spoken Hebrew sound like to the sensitive ears of a young lady coming with the refined, booklearned Hebrew of the Tar-buth school and possessing a finely tuned linguistic sensibility? How did my young mother respond to the sand dunes, the motor pumps in the citrus groves, the rocky hillsides, the archaeology field trips, the biblical ruins and remains of the Second Temple period, the headlines in the newspapers and the cooperative dairy produce, the wadis, the hamsins, the domes of the walled convents, the ice-cold water from the jarra, the cultural evenings with accordion and harmonica music, the cooperative bus drivers in their khaki shorts, the sounds of English (the language of the rulers of the country), the dark orchards, the minarets, strings of camels carrying building sand, Hebrew watchmen, suntanned pioneers from the kibbutz, construction workers in shabby caps? How much was she repelled, or attracted, by tempestuous nights of arguments, ideological conflicts, and courtships, Saturday afternoon outings, the fire of party politics, the secret intrigues of the various underground groups and their sympathizers, the enlisting of volunteers for agricultural tasks, the dark blue nights punctuated by howls of jackals and echoes of distant gunfire?

The three of us were wearing flat caps, green jackets, plus fours, as if we played for the same sports team. (In a way, I suppose, we did.) Pa, driving us out into the fields, asked about Meg. Not with great interest, just casually. Still, he didn’t always ask, so I was pleased. She’s good, thanks. Does she want to carry on working? Say again? Does she want to keep on acting? Oh. I mean, I don’t know, I wouldn’t think so. I expect she’ll want to be with me, doing the job, you know, which would rule out Suits…since they film in…Toronto. Hmm. I see. Well, darling boy, you know there’s not enough money to go around. I stared. What was he banging on about? He explained. Or tried to. I can’t pay for anyone else. I’m already having to pay for your brother and Catherine. I flinched. Something about his use of the name Catherine. I remembered the time he and Camilla wanted Kate to change the spelling of her name, because there were already two royal cyphers with a C and a crown above: Charles and Camilla. It would be too confusing to have another. Make it Katherine with a K, they suggested. I wondered now what came of that suggestion. I turned to Willy, gave him a look that said: You listening to this? His face was blank. Pa didn’t financially support Willy and me, and our families, out of any largesse. That was his job. That was the whole deal. We agreed to serve the monarch, go wherever we were sent, do whatever we were told, surrender our autonomy, keep our hands and feet inside the gilded cage at all times, and in exchange the keepers of the cage agreed to feed and clothe us. Was Pa, with all his millions from the hugely lucrative Duchy of Cornwall, trying to say that our captivity was starting to cost him a bit too much? Besides which—how much could it possibly cost to house and feed Meg? I wanted to say, She doesn’t eat much, you know! And I’ll ask her to make her own clothes, if you like. It was suddenly clear to me that this wasn’t about money. Pa might have dreaded the rising cost of maintaining us, but what he really couldn’t stomach was someone new dominating the monarchy, grabbing the limelight, someone shiny and new coming in and overshadowing him. And Camilla. He’d lived through that before, and had no interest in living through it again. I couldn’t deal with any of that right now. I had no time for petty jealousies and Palace intrigue. I was still trying to work out exactly what to say to Granny, and the time had come.

The contrast in their points of view, particularly about money, was so extreme that I grew curious and intrigued.

Hillary Clinton spent her whole life trying to become president. She began her final campaign nearly two years before the election, cutting off at the pass anyone within her party who might seriously challenge her. She raised more money than you could ever possibly need. Donald Trump was under prepared, erratic, constantly in his own way. But it cannot be said that he did not want to win very badly. He wanted to win even more than Hillary. The last few weeks of the election made that fact look indisputable. She had already won in her mind, she felt she deserved it. Trump, on the other hand, was willing to do anything, go anywhere, bear any shame, tell any lie, ally with any group if it meant he could take it from her. And he did. p207

I returned to Denmark in 1975 and was part of a group trying to set up an international lesbian front. To my surprise all kinds of new lesbians were “coming out” of the women’s movement. Although we had wanted this to happen it was surprising when it did, and difficult to adjust to. I had known some of the women as heterosexual feminists and it was hard to accept them as the new experts on lesbian political theory. They seemed in some way to lack what I felt was a lesbian identity, though I was unable to analyse quite why. I went to a lesbian conference in Amsterdam, with women who didn’t know and couldn’t have cared that there had been one there ten years before, and how important it had been. I sought out some of the 1965 lesbians and found them now quite anti-political. “We can’t stand all these new lesbians,” they said, “they’re so negative.” I disagreed, of course, on principle, but somehow there was less joy in the air. Unemployment was starting to happen in Europe, political discussions seemed different, we talked more about rape and violence, about men and what they were doing to the world. We talked less and less about sisterhood until finally we didn’t talk about it at all, because none of us could really believe in it quite the way we had when the sun shone and it was always summer, and the whole world was poised on the brink of change. I asked one of the new lesbians to dance at a social after a meeting. Then I tried to kiss her, gently, as we had been doing for the previous five years. She pushed me away roughly and said I was behaving like a man. I felt hurt and didn’t understand. I got drunk in a corner with some twenty-year-olds, crying into the schnapps bottle and trying to explain to them that there was something happening now that wasn’t what I thought I’d fought to achieve. Something uptight, critical, rejecting. Something not quite— lesbian. I was only 35, but I was beginning to feel like an old woman of the movement. Most of the lesbians my age were not to be found in the lesbian movement. Many were back working in the mixed homophile organizations, now changing their names to associations of gay men and women. Or they were branching out to start women’s refuges, getting involved in the peace movement, active in the political women’s movement. I had moved to Norway and found that the only lesbian group I wanted to work in was called The Panthers, involved in social and cultural activites of lesbian poetry, discussions, and sing-alongs. I got involved with the Norwegian F48 and a huge split over Marxist-Leninist politics, which resulted in the formation of the Worker’s Homophile Association (AHF)— which turned out to be not at all marxist anyway. It all made for interesting political intrigues, but I grew tired and began working very hard so that I could spend part of each year back in Aotearoa/New Zealand. My work as a tour guide made saving money easy, especially doing lots of trips through the USSR, where there were few consumer temptations. I did, of course, and dangerously, search for Soviet lesbians whenever I could.

Tell me what you can bring to this family. Does your father agree with this union?" Casca didn't waver. "He does. He has remarked to me many times how much he would like to see our families united." Apicius responded with an incline of his head and his mouth turned up at the edges in a thoughtful smile. "Explain to me, then, why are you here instead of him?" "He doesn't have my conviction- that you would find me more suitable than Dolabella or Narses." I was surprised at the audacity of this young man. Apicius was also surprised. He didn't respond right away, which was unusual. When he did, he sounded amused and- although Casca couldn't know it- impressed. "And why do you think I would find you more suitable?" "It is quite simple." Casca looked at me, then at Apicius. "I love your daughter. They do not." Apicius snorted. "Love is not a prerequisite to marriage." "Quite true. However, I bring to you both power and influence- through my father now, but also in my future as I follow in his footsteps. I will continue to bring you and your family honor, and precious votes in the elections. And what I can do that Dolabella and Narses cannot is assure you I will take care of your daughter with every fiber of my being." "Go on," Apicius said, intrigued. I was glad I had decided to bring Casca here on such impulse. "I have watched you with Apicata over these many months. I know how you dote on her, how you hold her close to your heart. She is as important to you as your love for culinary delights," he remarked. Good, I thought. The boy had a sense of how to stroke Apicius's ego, though I knew the truth that Casca- and likely even Apicius- did not. Food and fame would always be first in Apicius's heart. "I can promise you that your daughter will have love and laughter. Narses and Dolabella care not for her as much as they do for your money. My motives are pure. Few in this world have the chance to marry for love. Let your daughter be one of them.

But fools carry with them a different scale of values. They place more importance on short-term matters—grabbing immediate money, getting attention from the public or media, and looking good. They are ruled by their ego and insecurities. They tend to enjoy drama and political intrigue for their own sake. When they criticize, they always emphasize matters that are irrelevant to the overall picture or argument. They are more interested in their career and position than in the truth. You can distinguish them by how little they get done, or by how hard they make it for others to get results. They lack a certain common sense, getting worked up about things that are not really important while ignoring problems that will spell doom in the long term.

Casper makes mattresses and distributes them directly to consumers via their website. I was always intrigued with how Casper could be considered a tech company, raising substantial money from Silicon Valley venture capitalists and fetching tech-like valuations in the process. Could there be an industry that feels less like technology than the pile of springs and fabric you sleep on?! But indeed Casper is a tech company. The technology isn’t about the product itself, but about how they acquire customers, how they distribute the product, and ultimately how they make the customers feel throughout the whole process of buying and using the product. Because of technology, they can do it at scale with minimal investment. They use digital engagement strategies to grow incredibly fast. Just five years since their founding, they’re doing nearly $500 million in revenue with fewer than one hundred employees. By contrast, Tempur Sealy, the largest mattress company in the world, employs seven thousand people to generate $2.7 billion in revenue.

His path was in some ways traditional—Stanford to Stanford Law to judicial clerkship to high-powered law firm—but it was also marked by bouts of rebellion. At Stanford he created and published a radical conservative journal called The Stanford Review, then he wrote a book that railed against multiculturalism and “militant homosexuals” on campus, despite being both gay and foreign born. His friends thought he might become a political pundit. Instead he became a lawyer. Then one day, surprising even himself, he walked out of one of the most prestigious securities law firms in the world, Sullivan & Cromwell, after seven months and three days on the job. Within a few short years, Thiel formed and then sold PayPal, an online payments company, to eBay for $ 1.5 billion in July 2002, the month that Nick Denton registered the domain for his first site, Gizmodo. With proceeds of some $ 55 million, Thiel assembled an empire. He retooled a hedge fund called Clarium into a vehicle to make large, counterintuitive bets on global macro trends, seeding it with $ 10 million of his own money. In 2003, Thiel registered a company called Palantir with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2004, he would found it in earnest. The company would take antifraud technology from PayPal and apply it to intelligence gathering—fighting terrorism, predicting crime, providing military insights. It would take money from the venture capital arm of the CIA and soon take on almost every other arm of the government as clients.

In the years he conspired against Gawker, Thiel would come to see the U.S. legal system differently. He later said that, before the case against Gawker, he had believed that the problem in America was too many lawsuits and too many lawyers. Like many media outlets, Gawker’s legal strategy had been to lean into that understanding—to be the black hole of time and money whose event horizon no one could afford to confront. With his immense resources, Thiel believed he had simply changed the equation. The fact that Hulk Hogan, a “single-digit millionaire” as Thiel put it, would not otherwise have had the funds to pursue a case like this means that there might be many other legitimate legal precedents or cases that have otherwise gone unpursued out of intimidation or lack of funds (it cannot be said with a straight face that A.J. and Nick did not have “legal protection”). Having actually gone through the system, Thiel would come to believe that maybe there weren’t enough lawsuits. That people should try more. And so he puts more money behind the idea, funding in 2016 a start-up called Legalist, conceived by a Thiel fellow, dedicated to bankrolling lawsuits with a high probability of winning and possibly setting new precedents.

Peter thought he’d be greeted as a liberator, that Gawker was a scourge that once eliminated would allow for open, collaborative discussion. If anything, the opposite has happened. The candidate he helped put in office embodies many of the bullying traits that Thiel claimed to abhor. Trump would also come to actively stymie expression, threatening to “open up” the libel laws in this country and pressuring NFL owners to fire the players who kneeled during the national anthem. This must hit Thiel sometimes, perhaps in the quiet cabin of his Gulfstream, that the man in the White House is essentially the opposite of everything he had spent his life believing in, that Trump threatened the very libertarian freedoms and open civil discourse that Thiel had spent his money protecting. To know he is associated with that, in certain ways responsible for it, might be the most unintended consequence of all.

primarily in the field of medical devices. Intriguingly, while at Dow Corning in the 1960s, he helped to invent the first generation of silicone breast implants. Today, he owned two companies: MediCor and Southwest Exchange. MediCor’s breast implant business had looked promising for a while. But the success enjoyed there was short-lived, and McGhan turned desperate. To keep MediCor solvent, McGhan began siphoning money from Southwest Exchange. Southwest Exchange, which McGhan bought in

Exactly!” you shot back, finishing your last pattern. “The stock really is a screaming buy down here!” Then you pause for a brief instant and switch to your mystery and intrigue tonality, and you say, “Now, Bill, let me ask you another question.” And now you switch to your money-aside tonality. “If I’d been your broker for the last three or four years, making you money on a consistent basis”—and now you switch to your implied obviousness—“then you probably wouldn’t be saying, ‘Let me think about it right now, [your first name].’ You’d be saying, ‘Pick me up a block of at least a few thousand shares.’” And then you switch to the reasonable man tone and you add, “Am I right?

Their society was deeply marked by the years under corrupt Ottoman rule. Rumanians had a saying: “The fish grows rotten from the head.” In Rumania almost everything was for sale: offices, licenses, passports. Indeed, a foreign journalist who once tried to change money legally instead of on the black market was thrown into jail by police who thought he must be involved in a particularly clever swindle. Every government contract produced its share of graft. Although Rumania was a wealthy country, rich in farmland and, by 1918, with a flourishing oil industry, it lacked roads, bridges and railways because the money allocated by government had been siphoned off into the hands of families such as Brătianu’s own. Rumanians tended to see intrigues everywhere. In Paris they hinted darkly that the Supreme Council had fallen under the sway of Bolshevism or, alternatively, that it had been bribed by sinister capitalist forces.280

Pair 3: American Home Products Co. (drugs, cosmetics, household products, candy) and American Hospital Supply Co. (distributor and manufacturer of hospital supplies and equipment) These were two “billion-dollar good-will” companies at the end of 1969, representing different segments of the rapidly growing and immensely profitable “health industry.” We shall refer to them as Home and Hospital, respectively. Selected data on both are presented in Table 18-3. They had the following favorable points in common: excellent growth, with no setbacks since 1958 (i.e., 100% earnings stability); and strong financial condition. The growth rate of Hospital up to the end of 1969 was considerably higher than Home’s. On the other hand, Home enjoyed substantially better profitability on both sales and capital.† (In fact, the relatively low rate of Hospital’s earnings on its capital in 1969—only 9.7%—raises the intriguing question whether the business then was in fact a highly profitable one, despite its remarkable past growth rate in sales and earnings.) When comparative price is taken into account, Home offered much more for the money in terms of current (or past) earnings and dividends. The very low book value of Home illustrates a basic ambiguity or contradiction in common-stock analysis. On the one hand, it means that the company is earning a high return on its capital—which in general is a sign of strength and prosperity. On the other, it means that the investor at the current price would be especially vulnerable to any important adverse change in the company’s earnings situation. Since Hospital was selling at over four times its book value in 1969, this cautionary remark must be applied to both companies. TABLE 18-3. Pair 3. CONCLUSIONS: Our clear-cut view would be that both companies were too “rich” at their current prices to be considered by the investor who decides to follow our ideas of conservative selection. This does not mean that the companies were lacking in promise. The trouble is, rather, that their price contained too much “promise” and not enough actual performance. For the two enterprises combined, the 1969 price reflected almost $5 billion of good-will valuation. How many years of excellent future earnings would it take to “realize” that good-will factor in the form of dividends or tangible assets? SHORT-TERM SEQUEL: At the end of 1969 the market evidently thought more highly of the earnings prospects of Hospital than of Home, since it gave the former almost twice the multiplier of the latter. As it happened the favored issue showed a microscopic decline in earnings in 1970, while Home turned in a respectable 8% gain. The market price of Hospital reacted significantly to this one-year disappointment. It sold at 32 in February 1971—a loss of about 30% from its 1969 close—while Home was quoted slightly above its corresponding level.*

If any of the above real world, national or regional currencies starts losing its value or falls victim to currency speculators or face any other dangers, not only would the central bank which backs that currency will take action to protect it, the government of that nation too would take supportive action too. Cryptocurrencies are not backed by any central bank, government or financial entity. In fact, and as a consequence, cryptocurrencies are viewed by governments and central banks with trepidation, scepticism and intrigue. Cryptocurrencies by their very concept are beyond the purview of traditional governmental-central bank currency framework, though not outside the economy, nor illegal.

The Mysterious Letter You get an anonymous letter on January 2nd informing you that the market will go up during the month. It proves to be true, but you disregard it owing to the well known January effect (stocks have gone up historically during January). Then you receive another one on Feb 1st telling you that the market will go down. Again, it proves to be true. Then you get another letter on March 1st –same story. By July you are intrigued by the prescience of the anonymous person until you are asked to invest in a special offshore fund. You pour all your savings into it. Two months later, your money is gone. You go spill your tears on your neighbor's shoulder and he tells you that he remembers that he received two such mysterious letters. But the mailings stopped at the second letter. He recalls that the first one was correct in its prediction, the other incorrect. What happened? The trick is as follows. The con operator pulls 10,000 names out of a phone book. He mails a bullish letter to one half of the sample, and a bearish one to the other half. The following month he selects the names of the persons to whom he mailed the letter whose prediction turned out to be right, that is, 5000 names. The next month he does the same with the remaining 2500 names, until the list narrows down to 500 people. Of these there will be 200 victims. An investment in a few thousand dollars worth of postage stamps will turn into several million.

To be clear, 83 per cent of images in the porn image section of Usenet were pornographic. That means 17 per cent of the images in the porn groups were not pornographic, and I’m sorry, that is far more intriguing. What were they? Cats? Birthday cakes?

It took two months, but I was finally able to recover my lost funds. Earlier this year, I found myself caught up in a situation that began innocently enough but quickly spiraled into a financial nightmare. WhatsApp info:+12723 328 343 I had been chatting with a military doctor stationed in South Korea via a hookup site. We connected over a few weeks of casual conversation, and during that time, she introduced me to cryptocurrency. She claimed to have made a significant amount of money through it, offering me an opportunity to get in on the action. At the time, I was going through a rough patch financially, still reeling from a chaotic divorce. I was desperate to rebuild my finances, and her convincing words and success stories piqued my interest. She spoke of massive gains, the kind that promised to turn my situation around. She assured me that I could invest safely and earn substantial returns in a short amount of time. It was tempting, especially considering the money I had from my divorce settlement. In a moment of weakness and hope, I invested $83,000 USD into the crypto venture she recommended. As the weeks passed, my initial excitement turned to confusion and frustration. Every time I tried to withdraw my earnings, I was met with excuses and delays. The so-called "investment platform" kept asking for more money to release my funds. It didn't take long before I realized that I had been swindled. The doctor, whom I had trusted, was no longer responding to my messages, and I was left with nothing but a significant financial loss. Months went by, and I felt hopeless. I had accepted that the money was gone until, by chance, I stumbled upon a testimonial online about ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST. It was a story just like mine, where someone had successfully recovered lost funds from crypto scams. Intrigued but skeptical, I decided to reach out to them. To my surprise, ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST was professional and reassuring from the start. Email info: Adwarerecoveryspecialist@ auctioneer. net They guided me through every step of the process, showing me the best way to recover my Bitcoin. Two months later, after thorough investigation and diligent work, they were able to get my money back. I never imagined this day would come, but thanks to their expertise, I regained my lost funds and can finally move on from this painful chapter. If you're ever in a similar situation, don't give up. With ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST there is hope for recovery.

BITCOIN RETRIEVAL SPECIALIST DIGITAL HACK RECOVERY Once upon a time, in the bustling city of New York, I decided to take a chance on Bitcoin investments. I had heard from friends and colleagues about the potential for immense profits in the cryptocurrency market, and I was eager to get in on the action. I started small, investing a few hundred dollars in Bitcoin and watching as the value of my investment soared. I was thrilled with the returns I was seeing and quickly poured more and more money into my Bitcoin portfolio. As the weeks passed, my investments continued to grow, and I began to dream of a life of luxury and financial independence. I quit my job and devoted all of my time and energy to managing my Bitcoin investments, eagerly watching the markets and making trades to maximize my profits. However, what I didn't realize was that the cryptocurrency market is incredibly volatile and unpredictable. One day, disaster struck - the value of Bitcoin plummeted, wiping out a significant portion of my investment. Panicked and devastated, I scrambled to salvage what was left of my funds, but it seemed like all hope was lost. Desperate for a solution, I turned to the internet for help. After hours of searching, I stumbled upon Digital Hack Recovery, a company specializing in Bitcoin investment recovery. Intrigued, I reached out to them for assistance, hoping against hope that they could help me recoup my losses. To my relief, Digital Hack Recovery responded promptly and assured me that they could help me recover my lost funds. With a renewed sense of hope, I eagerly handed over all of my information and waited anxiously for news of my recovery. Days turned into weeks, and I began to lose faith in Digital Hack Recovery. But just when I was on the brink of giving up, I received a call from the company with incredible news - they had successfully recovered a significant portion of my lost funds. Overjoyed, I couldn't believe my luck. With the help of Digital Hack Recovery, I had managed to turn my devastating losses into a second chance at financial security. Grateful beyond words, I vowed to never again take such risks with my investments and to always seek out professional help when needed. From that day on, I became an advocate for responsible investing, urging others to learn from my mistakes and to never underestimate the dangers of the volatile cryptocurrency market. Thanks to them, I’m not just back on track with my Bitcoin journey, but I’m also more informed and confident in my future investments. For fast assistance contact Digital Hack Recovery through⁚ WhatsApp⁚ +19152151930 Website⁚ https : // digital hack recovery . com Email⁚ digital hack recovery @ techie . com

If you devote one evening’s study to the quantity theory of money, the next evening to the problem of the freedom of the will, the next to incidents in the life of Theodore Roosevelt, the next to historic types of lampshades, your mind may eventually become an interesting depository of stray bits of knowledge, arousing the same sort of quaint enjoyment in the minds of your associates as an old curiosity shop, or a second-hand bookstore in which yellow-backed novels of passion and intrigue rub shoulders with scientific treatises and religious sermons.