- Just keep putting more zeroes on those bills, eh
Venezuela? If your country is coping with triple-digit inflation and a currency
meltdown that have left your nation’s largest note worth just around two U.S.
cents on the black market, drastic measures are needed and thus, Venezuela is
issuing higher-denominated bills in an effort to stem the tide and turn its dismal
fiscal situation around. The South American non-power’s central bank said in a
statement that six new bills ranging from 500 to 20,000 Bolivars will begin
circulating on Dec. 15, adding some more commas and zeros to the mix and maybe
a nice dash of additional color to the wallets of Venezuelans who still have a
hard time finding and buying many basic food and personal health necessities on
a daily basis. As part of its brilliant fiscal strategy, Venezuela tightly
controls access to American dollars, believing that America is evil and blah,
blah, blah. This oil-producing nation all but forces the average Venezuelan to
turn to the black market to acquire hard currency, along with simple hygiene
products and other everyday household staples. At present, the
largest-denominated bill is 100 bolivars and in a discouraging comparison,
single U.S. dollar is worth as much as 4,400 bolivars. To further compound the
currency crisis in a place where compounding interest is but a distant dream, cash
has become harder to find within Venezuela’s borders and late last week, the
nation's credit card payment system froze up. It’s almost enough to make a
person wonder if maybe the country’s totalitarian regime is actually competent
and able to do its job with even a modicum of proficiency……..
- There is nobody hitting more pop music home runs right now
than Toronto native Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd. His recently-released
third album, ‘Starboy,” is about as hot a commodity as there is in the pop
music world right now and after the album dropped Nov. 25, every single from
the project has hit the Billboard chats. The album features collaborations with
the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Daft Punk and Lana Del Rey and with 18 tracks from
the project in the Billboard Hot 100 - a.k.a. the singles chart - it’s pretty
clear that Tesfaye knows what the musical masses like to hear. The album itself
elbowed its way to the top of the Billboard 200 album charts in its first week
with 348,000 in equivalent album units, as well as breaking the record for the most Spotify streams in a
single day last week. All of that adds up to a whole lot of exposure and dollar
bills for Tesfaye and at this point, the only mountain left to conquer is
uprooting Rae Sremmurd’s ‘Black Beatles,’ which has a distinct advantage because
it has become the unofficial anthem of the Mannequin Challenge ridiculousness
sweeping the world. Oh, and if Tesfaye had simply included three more songs on
the album, he could have wrested the record for most singles from a single
album in the Hot 100 away from noted attacker of people in rehab for suicidal
thoughts and depression Drake, who had a whopping 20 tracks from his latest
album, “Views,” on the chart when it was released earlier this year. Still, not
a bad run for a guy whose stage name is in desperate need of buying a vowel……..
- Props to the unidentified thief who struck a blow for
opponents of Christmas over-decorating everywhere by storming the porch of a
Glendale, Arizona family and giving this southwestern city something to be
known for other than hosting College Football Playoff games. Now, Glendale can
be known as the place where an individual some may pejoratively call a thief
walked up to the front door of a simple residential dwelling and swiftly,
ruthlessly grabbed a decorated tree right near the front door of the home. Why
any family would stick a Christmas tree on its front porch - even in a warm,
sunny place like Arizona - is unclear, but Dina Fimbres and her family made
that fatal decision to make their Christmas tree an outdoor tree and in a
wonderfully ironic twist, the whole family was home having breakfast when this
anti-holiday hero carried out his covert mission in broad daylight. Maybe the
Fimbres family was lulled into a false sense of security because they have a
home security system that captured footage of the theft, but for now, they have
no idea who took their tree. "My heart just sank. I just froze. I didn't
think someone would do that," Fimbres said. "Completely violated … to me he was like
an intruder." Yes, except he didn’t come into your home and he didn’t take
anything of value….just a damn tree with some bulbs and tinsel on it. The
family hopes that with the police report they filed and the video they’ve made
public, someone will recognize the thief and bring this holiday home decoration
wrecker to “justice.” Until then, this iconoclast is free to terrorize the
front porches of families across the greater Glendale area……
- California Dreaming seems to be the underlying theme for
the just-released Los Angeles bid committee for the 2024 Olympics. The
committee comprised of the only Americans who actually want the Olympics
anywhere near these here United States have released details of a nearly
unheard-of budget plan and these pie-in-the-sky kooks actually believe that
$5.3 billion will be enough to cover both operational and infrastructure costs
for an Olympics that won't need any new, permanent stadiums. To put that number
in perspective, it represents less than half the money spent/wasted on the
recently completed Rio Games and about a quarter of Tokyo's ballooning budget
for the 2020 Olympics. It flies in the face of the bribery-laden bidding
process that envelops most Olympics, as cities traditionally deal with two
figures -- one for operational costs and one for "non-Olympics" costs
that cover capital and infrastructure. The aspirational ass hats on the
committee believe they can actually pull this magic act off because more than
30 venues already exist in the L.A. area and those that don't will be built as
temporary structures. Their bid also folded in $1.2 billion for infrastructure,
which would primarily be used for temporary venues and to bring existing ones
up to Olympic standards. "If L.A. is chosen to host the 2024 Games, the
IOC does not have to worry about changing or evolving budgets, shifting
competition venues or uncertainty about the delivery of the Games," bid
chairman Casey Wasserman said. For the rest of America - including Los
Angelinos who want not part of even worse gridlock and logistical issues that
come with hosting the Games - the hope is that Paris and Budapest, Hungary don’t
wise up and pull out of the bidding, allowing one of them to snag the 2024
hosting gig so America can enjoy them from afar and take pride solely in
winning the most medals and gold medals like we always do, without having to
invite the world to hang out in our house for two and a half weeks……..
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