They note that Silah Report, a research group studying the use of firearms in the middle east had been banned from Pay-Pal for violating Pay-Pal's policy on "NO FIREARMS SALES!"
In this case, the firearm in question consisted of a patch with a woven image image of a Krinkov on it.
A roboticist by trade, in addition to Mythbusters, he was at one time the chief model maker at Industrial Light and Magic who oversaw all their animatronics.
He was also an unrepentant nerd, playing Sulu in the fan made series Star Trek Continues.
My question is this: While a majority of shares does imply control, how much influence do smaller percentages indicate? Does a 20-40 percent share have real influence? It might get one on the board of directors, and of course the immense lure of the Chinese market is always going to be a severe temptation to those of weak conscience in making creative decisions or censoring content. Given the deep pockets of the CCP, less direct influences on board members are certainly likely and probably influence shareholder votes to a great extent, but I'm curious as to how much straight up power such share percentages might represent.
References on such matters seem to be very opaque on this particular point, but I probably just don't know what references to check out in this field as it outside my bailiwick.
1
In modern day it's rare for most large corporations to have a majority shareholder. Each of the minority shareholders will have their own agenda. This means that most boards function more like Parliament than Congress. The CEO, much like a Prime Minister, needs to keep support from a majority of the board to keep his job.
Short form, a major minority shareholder will have considerable influence, even if they aren't controlling.
Posted by: StargazerA5 at Mon Jul 13 18:07:59 2020 (SdLmn)
2
It's going to depend a lot on the company. If you have 51% of the company, you can tell the other 49% to go jump in a lake; you're obliged to give them information but not to actually do what they want.
But if you have less than that, and you're in charge through agreement with other shareholders... you might come in one day to find out that your minority stake partner has been talking with the other shareholders, or that they bought the shares from those shareholders, and now someone else is in the driver's seat. This is often followed by the previous company's management rapidly being shown the door. You get a lot of "I invented something, created a company to market it, and was then pushed out by the VC folks" stories.
For a publicly traded company, it's not uncommon for most of the shares to be held by institutional investors who don't, of themselves, give a crap about the company in question, except that its stock may go up in value. A minority shareholder can often get their way in that kind of environment just by saying "look, this isn't a big deal, and if we don't get it we'll sell our stock and the price will take a hit". The guys representing mutual funds and public sector retirement funding aren't going to care about minor issues of creative direction.
I don't mean to say that you can go "okay, the next project must be hagiography of Xi OR WE SELL EVERYTHING", but say you were doing a zombie plague game, you could probably say "can we make the disease NOT have come from rural China?" and get results.
Posted by: Avatar at Mon Jul 13 19:31:12 2020 (v29Tn)
3
In my experience, percentage doesn't really matter, all that matters is that a shareholder can get in contact with a manager in say, storywriting, and say "as a shareholder, I would appreciate it if you didn't do xxx", and in all likelihood, xxx won't happen. It's pretty darn rare for a dept to say, "no, that's compromising our integrity, kick that back to the board for a vote."
Posted by: David at Tue Jul 14 02:02:18 2020 (UmjNG)
Corona-Chan and Unknown Kazakhstani Pneumonia Chan. Art by IkkiMay. Support them on Patreon.
There are a lot of reports that CoronaChan has a rival in the pestilence follies of 2020. Reportedly "Unknown Kazakhstani Pneumonia" has killed 1772 people in over the last few months.
But do keep your eyes on this. You should stockpile ammunition, but as pointed out in the post before last, you should always stockpile ammunition just like I didn't.
The reason the Chinese are involved is because Chinese workers on Belt and Road Initiative construction projects are making up a lot of the fatalities and, reportedly, the Chinese are a little paranoid at the moment about ignoring mysterious respiratory infections.
This is possibly of more concern than the recent emergence of a new Swine Flu in China. That has potential to cause problems but it is literally "just a flu bro". This weeks Bubonic plague outbreak (also in China) is of basically no concern as it is spread by fleas and, honestly, it's plague season there anyway. The plague story, which is ONE person, with plague in inner Mongolia is just pandemic year click bait.
Today I finally got time to go to the big downtown gun store, which I've been trying to do for months. Previously I'd been thwarted by their change in hours due to the WuFlu, some minor civil unrest which resulted in a cordon of police cars around the store and my own insane work schedule.
The second floor of the building is all ammo and previously had consisted of multiple rows of shelving fairly close together, like a used bookstore but with boxes of cartridges instead of bound volumes.
When I entered the ammo room I noted that the shelves in the middle were all gone save for a single waist high shelf. The shelves were mostly empty.
A few observations, keeping in mind that this is one data point.
If I owned a .32, I'd be in tall cotton as there was a vast selection of .32 ACP ammo. There was also a wide selection from .32ACP to .327 magnum.
There was not a round of .380ACP to be had.
5.56mm and .223 does not seem to be in especially short supply.
I picked up one box frighteningly cheap Tula 9mm hoping to see if it would feed reliably in my P-89, but....
...alas the range is only open to those who bought multi-month memberships before they stopped selling them.
I spoke to the owner who said that he'd never seen anything like this.He said that unlike a few years ago getting the ammo in stock, while slow, is fairly straightforward. It just blows off the shelves when it comes in.
I have ammo, enough for a range day or two and frankly if I have to run through more bullets than I have there will be an entry in Wikipedia about my demise, but, as Tam points out, I did not do due diligence. My grasshopper-fu was weak.
I DID however, finally get .38 snap-caps. I don't know why those were so hard to find last year.
1
A P-89? Wow, it sure fits perfectly.
1. Anime gun from Cowboy Bebop
2. Heavy, steel frame
3. Ruger, inexpensive
I think Coasties had P226 back in the day but those are expensive, and the only anime they appear in is Monster.
BTW, I'm still draining my stores from before the WuFlu. My daughter visited around Memorial Day and we went to a new local range that just opened. It didn't look like anything unusual, except it was very new and clean. I forgot to take a notice of ammo availability.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Jul 10 09:03:00 2020 (LZ7Bg)
2
I used to have a P-85 that would feed anything. There was a local reloader who sold some goofy-looking full wadcutters, and he wouldn't even sell them to you unless you had a P-85.
3
Reloading components are also in short supply. I'm having a devil of a time getting primers. Midway just got some Large Pistol Primers in stock, so I ordered a brick, because I don't have any for reloading 45 Colt. And now they finally got my preferred 9mm bullets in stock, but their free shipping offer ended last week, and it's $15 just to ship that much lead. (So about $100 to buy 1000 bullets)(That's just the bullet, not the whole cartridge). Downside, I've got less than 100 small pistol primers, and they've been out of stock for months.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Jul 12 20:02:12 2020 (Ix1l6)
I don't normally frequent Twitter as it is generally a dumpster fire floating in a cesspit of stupid. However, the stupid occasionally manifests itself in less pestiferous ways such as the channel named Inhuman Anime Girl Sounds, the contents of which are exactly what it says on the tin.
Those who compose the soundtracks of visual media are not generally remembered by name. There are a few exceptions though, John Williams, Alexander Courage, Max Steiner, and one of the most well known of that select club is Ennio Morricone, who just passed away at 91.
The country is coping with a variety of issues, the news coverage of which might well be causing some stress. But as we celebrate the nation's birthday, it bears remembering that over the last 244 years the country has faced greater challenges in every category of problem that we deal with today. Most of the issues we now face can be solved at the ballot box and, happy coincidence, this is an election year, in which we can do the very thing denied the countries founders.
more...
Well yeah. I'm OK. I had just finished watching a stream when someone rang the doorbell A LOT for a short moment which coincided with both the yard and porch light going out. So there was some stress as there had also been sporadic gunfire earlier in the evening (though nothing like two weeks ago) . This was added to about 30 minutes later when THE PHONE RANG.
Start time had changed...could I come to work?
I'm off now at 09:55. There was no damage to the house. The porch light seems to have burnt out and the yard light just isn't working. The city has been doing some construction in my yard and street for about 147 years so that might be related.
The doorbell seems to work. I imagine it was just kids, which makes me glad it did not escalate since it would be unfortunate for them to acquire 00buckshot or .38 caliber piercings, fashionable as body metal may be nowadays.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Fri Jul 3 00:19:17 2020 (sF8WE)
3
Well, that's a relief to hear.
Several years ago the perp in a domestic violence case wound up at my side door, pounding on it (thinking someone would let him in to get away from the cops; as if). I didn't have, uhhh....a form of defense...at that time (other than kitchen knives, I guess) so I was glad when the police dispatcher said "yeah, the cops are headed up your street, put on your porch light so it's easier for them to know which house to stop at"
I've kept a porch light on at night since that time. The new one I have has a nifty sensor that turns it on automatically.
Perp left BLOOD on my door (his own) and believe me, I moon-suited up to wash that stuff off with bleach the next day.
Posted by: fillyjonk at Fri Jul 3 17:56:54 2020 (+MBAo)
2020: The Year That Brought to Life the Epidemic Movie, the Societal Breakdown Movie...and the Heist Movie
In the last thrilling post we noted that "Gold is gold". Well it turns out that we erred.
Kingold Jewelry, a corporation that is one of the largest, if not THE largest gold dealers in the world. They also deal in real estate and hospitality but mainly are a precious metals trader. The are based in....Wuhan China.
"I can already see this is going nowhere good."
Well, they just got a 2.8 billion dollar loan from various creditors in China and the U.S. which they used their gold as collateral for.
83 tons of gold turned out to be fake. It was gilded copper!
It is unclear if the collateral was fake from the beginning or if this was a heist and the copper(!) was substituted at a later date. However, multiple stashes of the ersatz aurum held by creditors turned out to be spurious specie. Unless ALL the creditors got hit, and their stashes swapped with copper it seems likely that this was the state of the collateral from the beginning.
Which leads to a question.
Lead, which I have some familiarity with, is roughly 50 percent denser than copper. If I have a bunch of copper wire or pipes in one hand (don't ask) and a similarly sized bit of lead in the other, the difference is going to be quite obvious to even an untrained weeb like me. Gold is just under twice as dense as lead. They substituted plated COPPER for gold. How in the HELL did this not get picked up on when the 'collateral' was delivered?
This fiasco has some implications.
There is the actual possibility that China's gold reserves and financial stability may be at risk. This article suggests 4% of China's gold reserves may be fake.
That has economic implications for financial stability at a moment that China, having burned bridges internationally by being imperialist commie racists and which is reeling under the economic and social trust effects of the Wuhan Coof of Death That Came out of Wuhan China really does not need any more black swans. Indeed the negative economic potential and the very profound blow to credibility in the eyes of the public that having a chunk of their gold reserves turn out to be fake could imply might well presage a certain amount of domestic unrest. Chinese dynasties that do not fall to mongol invaders or Limey drug dealers tend to be most vulnerable to preference cascades when they lose "the mandate of heaven" in the eyes of the people. Domestic unrest in a totalitarian nuclear power has the potential for much mischief and unpleasantness.
There's also the question of why Kingold would do this. I looked up the company and found little about who owns them beyond 68% is in the hands of shareholders and that the CEO is a former PLA general. The company was founded in 2002 and there does seem to have been some concern regards the company in 2018 as I found two stories that were asking questions about the company then. With this disaster, their whole business model just blew up...no one will trust them in the capacity of gold dealer again. One option is that they were incompetent and got robbed some time ago, and transferred the fake gold in exchange for the loan unwittingly. Given that gold is their core business, this bespeaks a profound and almost unbelievable level of incompetence for no one to notice that THE GOLD WAS COPPER (and not gold plated tungsten, which has almost the same density as gold and which costs 24 dollars a kilo...in the US and not China which is the worlds leading producer of tungsten).
A more troubling notion is that the company thought that everything is about to blow up and liquidity and the versatility that having lots of money portends for survival is more important than long term business reputation, which is basically irrelevant in post-apocalyptia.
That's probably not likely, but the year thus far does not support dismissing it out of hand.
There is another troubling implication that is less potentially consequential but annoying nonetheless.The inevitable "Bitcoin is better" argument is probably not strictly speaking, valid, but it is making the rounds and will make certain individuals insufferable for the foreseeable future.
1
I'm not sure this event is so much a black swan as a gray pigeon. I think there's a lot of this going on in China all the time.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Tue Jun 30 18:26:26 2020 (PiXy!)
2
"There's also the question of why Kingold would do this."
One of those links ties gold-backed loans like these to the financing of all those ghost cities. So we have fake gold being used to get financing for construction of buildings that will never be occupied. Brilliant.
Posted by: Rick C at Tue Jun 30 20:31:42 2020 (Iwkd4)
3
Two posts about gold in a row. A coincidence, I'm sure.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Tue Jun 30 22:46:41 2020 (LZ7Bg)
4
Another data point in my "This must be the last season of our show, the writers have gotten REALLY lazy" conspiracy theory
Really hoping a nice afterlife awaits all of us once this computer simulation shuts itself down.
Posted by: fillyjonk at Wed Jul 1 20:53:58 2020 (+MBAo)
5
Is there Nothing that China won't fake instead of doing properly?
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Jul 2 00:47:27 2020 (Ix1l6)
6
The reason for using Copper is that that the Copper was associated with the mining or processing of the gold. Copper is usually what is mined and the gold, and silver, along with other precious metals, extracted. Most gold is not from "Gold" mine. When it is, copper is used as anodes for the electrochemical extraction of the gold. So, at a gold mine or gold processing plant, there is a lot of copper around. Lead, or Tungsten, purchased in quantities, would probably raise some eyebrows. The rest is Chinese culture and the man in charge. I would be a rather embarrassing thing for a high official if you did not take his word that the gold was not what he said it was. The general would have lost a significant amount of face if his integrity was questioned. That is until somebody did check. The general must be on his way out.
Posted by: Jccarlton at Tue Jul 7 17:18:47 2020 (ziQnx)
I just got in. I'm tired and have to be to work in 4 hours. The sewer had backed up into the shower, I've cleaned that and am awaiting the shower curtain and mat to come out of the washer. As I do so, I noted this.
And you're thinking "What's he going on about? Au=gold. Gold is gold right? Why is this an issue?"
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Mon Jun 29 23:53:24 2020 (PiXy!)
3
It does seem like the software eats one newline when it finds them.
One newline before this line.
Two before this line.
Three before this.
Four before this.
Posted by: Rick C at Tue Jun 30 09:38:13 2020 (Iwkd4)
4
Wattle, Matilda
Wattle, Matilda
You'll come a-waddlin', Matilda, with me
You're as wide as a house,
My thighs ripple like a billabong.
You'll come a-waddlin', Matilda, with me.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Tue Jun 30 21:03:33 2020 (sF8WE)
In which a fellow who literally named his channel "RAGEAHOLIC" implores everyone to 'just relax and calm down' and provides references and perspective (but with swear words interspersed).
Someone sent this J-List link to me saying, "I found that game you got that cute snake girl from!"
Uhh? What?
Oh.
Actually, I've never played the game and got the image from Danbooro, which was how I was able to credit the artist when I used Hygieia the cute snekgrrl as a reaction image or something....years ago.
But that's not important now. We live in a world where there's actually a category for Tsundere Lamias. I don't know how to think about that.
