#147 -Maslow’s Hierarchy Guides Politics, Alberta’s Employment Boom and Paying For Past Mistakes
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In this week's episode of Reformed Millennials, Joel and Cam talk Alberta’s Childcare plan and its impact on women’s unemployment, Political Policy changing as we move down the rungs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and all things inflation.
It’s a long-term game. Stay the course.Listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.
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👉 For specific investment questions or advice contact Joel @ Gold Investment Management.
📈📊Market Update💵📉
Remember, inflation will come down when no one can afford to buy anything. The best cure for high prices, is high prices.
After the index entered a bear market yesterday, dropping more than 20% from highs, S&P 500 futures are pointing to a relatively small rise at the open.
Fed Fever
Traders in the bond markets are fully prepared for the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark rate by 75 basis points on Wednesday. While Chair Jerome Powell had vowed to increase the Fed funds rate by 50 basis points this month, a report in the Wall Street Journal suggested that policy makers were considering a bigger move after inflation accelerated in May. Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said there was a "non-trivial risk" of a 100-basis point increase.
Bitcoin drops
Liquidity draining out of financial markets sent Bitcoin to the the lowest in about 18 months. But crypto’s trouble isn’t all external, with the freezing of withdrawals by the Celsius lending platform adding to concern that systemic risk in the crypto ecosystem will accelerate the digital-asset market meltdown. Meanwhile, MicroStrategy Inc. may need to post additional collateral for a loan as Bitcoin tests a key price range flagged by the company last month.
10yr 3.3%
U.S. 2-year yields spiked the most since 2008
FOMC decision is tomorrow
Powell has communicated a 50 bps increase but don’t be surprised if its 75
JPMorgan said “non-trivial risk” of a 100-basis point increase
I think the street is now at 75 bps
Crude 122
Oil YTD +62%
Biden to visit Saudi Arabia in July 13-16
Can he convince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) to increase production?
Disney
Disney won the local TV broadcast rights to India’s Premier League cricket matches
5 year deal worth ~$3 billion
Viacom won the streaming rights worth $2.6 billion
Streaming rights would have gone on Disney+ Hotstar in 2024
Disney CEO has said that the cricket matches are “not critical” to achieving its 2024 subscriber targets.
Elon Musk is to attend an all-hands meeting with Twitter employees on Thursday
Good sign Elon wants the deal but at a lower price
Continental Resources
Shale oil billionaire offers to take Continental private
$4.3 billion, $70 all-cash offer, 8.5% premium
Earnings
Oracle +12%, 10% organic revenue growth
CRYPTO
Major crypto lender Celsius froze withdrawals, swaps, and transfers yesterday due to “extreme market conditions”
Here’s Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky 2 days before:

The Celsius freezer helped spark a massive sell-off with major cryptocurrencies declining 15% on average
Total liquidations totaled over $1B
Here’s a look at the spike in Bitcoin liquidations:
Bitcoin held long-term support around in the $20-22k range:
💸Reformed Millennials - Post of The Week
Many companies are now facing a Hobson’s choice between trying to maintain the high-flying valuation they’ve established over the last year — no matter the contortions necessary to do it — or conducting a “down round,” a financing that results in a lower valuation. And industry experts suggest the latter often makes more sense.
Brad Feld, who has been a venture capitalist for more than 25 years, is among those who advocate for embracing the down round in cases where a company needs capital and hasn’t yet grown into a previously established valuation. Feld says that he has participated in financing rounds for startups so married to a particular number that they’ve agreed to anything to maintain it. He has also participated in deals where the company and its board agreed to bite the bullet and readjust the company’s valuation downward.
Based on both experiences, he says his “strong belief” that “just doing a clean resetting — at whatever the valuation so that everybody is aligned and dealing with reality — is much, much better for a company.”
He’s not alone. “As a young investor in the early 2000s, I ended up spending a lot of time restructuring cap tables” after the dot com bust, says Frederic Court, founder of the early-stage firm Felix Capital in London. Court says he learned then that “trying to readjust things or maintain an artificially inflated price through structure is a recipe for disaster.”
Maslow’s and its impact on political policy and market direction.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory of motivation which states that five categories of human needs dictate an individual's behaviour.
Those needs are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs.
🐦 Twitter Thread of The Week 🐦
BITCOIN IS DEAD! - from my most trusted name in Crypto, Ari Paul of BlockTower Capital
