Rayvin

Christ. So he fancied himself as a player, gave up - fancied himself in sport management, couldn't hack it despite all his advantages in life, gave up... and now fancies himself as a football club owner. He's exactly what you say he is.

You can only assume he'd never actually been to Sunderland when he made the decision. Otherwise I agree with Howay - I'm tempted to say that he picked them because he had been given a small sum of money (relatively) by his mum to spend on a club and he went looking around for one that was 'undervalued' in order to maximise his potential success from it. I can't believe for a second that some rich trust fund kid specifically went out of his way to choose Sunderland Football Club to invest in despite have billions in the bank.

They imposed a salary cap or something like that though, at club level? i.e. you have to have your overall salary spend within defined parameters consistent with the rest of the league. That fact alone should make bankrolling more difficult. It makes them more sustainable longer term though, arguably - but means they need to escape L1 by being a well constructed and managed team - something they've not managed to be in decades.

That's an incredible drop in revenue, mind. You have to wonder at what point that does lasting damage to the club tbh. I suppose the consequence is that they're now very much reliant on their fans - but with their attendances so low the potential impact of even that is greatly diminished. I think Dreyfus is going to have to bankroll them out of the league really.

So I guess they enjoyed that experience so much, they wanted a re-run

Why on earth did they offload Suarez out to a title contender? I see he scored 21 goals this season. Fucking mental decision.

Thanks for sharing that. For all we can criticise Hamas for the part they play in perpetuating the cycle of violence, I do sometimes wonder if we wouldn't be doing the same and worse if what had happened to Palestine had happened to us. Absolutely hopeless state of affairs for the Palestinian people, they're being persecuted just for being alive.

Followed some of this on RTG. Several on RTG pointing out that their 'fans' were totally invisible in the second half when the team needed them - and then apparently piped up again after the final whistle to applaud the team and sing 'Sunderland till I die'. How the fuck does that work? When your team needs them, fucking silent. When the team has been beaten and condemned to another year in league one - "starting singing marra, we need to prove that unlike the mags, we get behind the team when it matters!". 4 years in League One. The humiliation man. The shame they bring, frankly, on the whole region ffs. I'm tempted to say we just forget about them and move on to Boro being the local rivals, it's actually fairly embarrassing to claim that our derby is meant to be with them. Absolute trash. I don't understand why Toonraider has shown his face either tbh, he must be a glutton for fucking punishment. Spends 3 years taking all manner of shite on here for being an obvious mackem, all the while presumably planning to have his 'moment' where he can get some dig in against us for something and yet time and time again his club have failed him. Despite this, here he is, lubed up and bent over for everyone. We don't even have to go over to RTG to take the piss, we have a mackem prepared to come over and take it. Thanks for your services, Toonraider.

Gonna be an interesting one tonight. Will be a real test of character for that Sunderland team, to see if they can pull out a performance despite the shrill bleating and whining of 10k locals.

Fair.

So my logic was more that if they opened it up to public ownership as per royal mail, and gave priority to average citizens, that there might be enough people who think like us to grab a controlling stake.

The BBC seems to be in something of a shitstorm this morning - fresh calls for privitisation following it. Just wondering on that though - if it was privatised, could it end up actually impartial? So for instance, both the left and right believe it to be flawed against their own ends. What if it was largely bought into by the left/centre? If we ended up with a controlling stake in it, we could make it fully factual, could we not? Then we'd have a huge platform as a counter to all the right wing nonsense. I find it unlikely that the right wingers would take the same approach.

They're investing in it and some are, apparently, trying to be "part" of it due to the threat to their relevance. XRP is sorta built for those ones, it's not decentralised and is owned by a company. Their angle is to be the halfway house option that the banks can take up easily. And indeed, banks are keen. The US government is currently suing them though, so who knows where that ends up. I will pay my taxes though, guaranteed. Although if ewerk is right, it sounds like it'll more be the case that the whole thing will be a tax deductible loss..!

Weird one. I've not got an open position on ETH at the moment (closed earlier to boost my ADA position, trying to max out on the volatility). That sounds like... well idk. Transferring to a wallet isn't selling though.

Just reading back through this thread from when it was about $11k

I also invest in gold fwiw, and that has been pretty fucking mental in recent times as well. You'll just be sitting there watching the numbers day to day and suddenly some national reserve will dump or buy a great whack of it, and then it's just a frenzy. That actually happens less in crypto, in my experience..! Well, until the other day.

I think it hinges on the notion that the bubble will eventually burst and whoever is left standing holding the commodity at the end gets burned. Which is exactly the same as all the other movements I see on the stock and commodities markets tbf Although I suppose you could claim that with crypto, if you do believe it's going to die eventually, that will be a reckoning greater than any of the more established commodities. It's still the same principle though.

All of us here are capitalists, last I checked I prefer to view it as intelligent money profiting from stupid money. Which cuts both ways, and which I have been on both sides of the line on in my experience so far

We're not early adopters tbf - long missed the boat on that, this stuff has been going solidly for years now. Well actually, Quiff might be - I'm not though, I can claim about 6 months at best. I'm 'third wave' apparently. What do you think happens on the "non-ponzi" markets incidentally? People buy, trade and short gold, shares, commodities... and those people aren't also guilty of exactly the same thing?

Maybe not, but it's sure as shit getting bigger than it was. Growth is growth. The major banks have been indicating that they're paying more and more attention to it this year and if they do decide to jump in, then it's going to be a step closer to 'mainstream'. The question I'm asking myself in general terms, is whether $2tn worth of investment is going to disappear in the next 3 years. I think probably not. I'll revisit the view in 3 years time.

I'm just comparing the market caps. Crypto isn't a 'small' thing. Exactly what I was thinking.

Based on the googling I've just done, if crypto were a bank, it would be placed at 11th biggest in the world based on market cap. And 4 of the top ten are Chinese state owned banks.

It has a $2tn market cap at the moment mind. That's not exactly a kitten either.

I mean, I agree. I fundamentally agree with that. But then, I'm not investing into Bitcoin. My 'belief' is that the currencies I'm investing into will have functional utility in the medium to long term. XRP for instance has already lined up a number of banks to start working with it. If that's still not enough to persuade you then fair enough, but I don't really see how it's any different to gold or national currencies, other than that they are established and crypto is not.

It's the arrogance of it that gets me - why does she feel entitled to watch this man get arrested? To stand in his yard? To make a PR stunt out of his moment of humiliation? She's a fucking bitch.