Category: Money Makes The World Go Round

Toy Story 4 is finally going to happen, almost 20-years after the original Toy Story hit the screens and wowed big and small kids alike. Everyone remembers Woody, Jesse, Buzz, the wimpy dinosaur and that potato thing with the bushy mustache. It looks like we’re about to hook up with old friends for one last adventure.

Toy Story 4 will be released across movie theaters in the US in June 2019. Those who watched the original back in 1995 and the late-90s when they were 12 years old are now well over 30 and probably have kids of their own.

New Toy Story 4 Teaser

When you think about the list of names who did the voices for Toy Story back in the day, they were big names at the time. We had Tom Hanks doing Woody’s voice, Tim Allen bringing Buzz Lightyear alive and Joan Cusack as Jessie.

The animation movie’s original creators, Pixar, with Disney are set to bring you Toy Story 4, which has been a long time coming.

Do you remember the last time we saw the toys? They were passed on by their former owner Andy to a young girl playing in the yard called Bonnie. Although she inherited the toys, there are new additions to the team.

New Characters for Toy Story 4

There will be a new character for the fourth installment of Toy Story who is called Forky. He is set to cause chaos for the team as expected. Forky, whose voice is played by Tony Hale of Arrested Development fame, doesn’t see himself as a toy and is hellbent on causing trouble for the other toys.

Tony Hale’s performances as Buster Bluth in Arrested Development are hilarious. Anyone who knows Hale’s style will tell you he’s a perfect fit for a quirky animation character.

Obviously, at this stage, we’ve just received a small teaser from Pixar, but what we do know is that Toy Story 4 will be directed by Josh Cooley, who previously worked in a storyboard and screenwriter capacity for another Pixar classic, Inside Out.

Toy Story 4 will be released in theaters in June 2019. It will be interesting to see if the franchise can keep it’s now more mature audience with a younger generation of kids who have pretty much seen it all when it comes to animation movies.

Featured image from Pixabay.

Do you know the term ‘snitches get stitches’? It seems that if you snitch to the US government, you don’t need surgery to repair your face. You actually get paid a bundle. It has been reported that the US government has paid out over $100 million to snitches since the mid-1980s.

Are you a snitch, a grass, rat, turncoat, telltale, betrayer, blabbermouth, informant, nark, a stool pigeon, a double-crosser or even a modern-day Judas? If so, maybe you can monetize your snide ways by making a deal with the US government to rat out your friends who just happen to be drug kingpins. It works even better if they are Mexican or some other ‘foreigner’.

US Government Paid Bounties to Apprehend Drug-Lords

In an interesting article in the South China Post, the newspaper discusses the US government’s reward programs for snitches, which is believed to have offered massive bounties for information that lead to the arrest of drug kingpins and the like.

The article went onto say that the US government had paid informants $108 million since the 1980s. The wide scope of the US government and DEA is truly astounding. The multi-billion-dollar war on plants, I mean drugs, is well and truly alive and kicking.

The Narcotics Reward Program (NRP), as it is succinctly named, has paid out $32 million to 33 people in past five years alone. It is believed that some snitches received single payments for as much as $5 million. They say that loose lips sink ships, but it seems they can also buy them.

The information comes directly from the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.

The Wide Scope of the DEA and US Government

The ‘program’ is said to have netted the arrest of nearly 70 foreign major violators since 1985. The program was put back in the spotlight last month when the US government announced that the ‘snitch’ bounty on the infamous cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes had now risen to $10 million.

The wide scope that the US government has, even outside its own borders with the DEA, is pretty remarkable when you think about it.

In the autobiography of international cannabis smuggler Howard Marks, entitled ‘Mr. Nice’, he once told of a bizarre case involving his RICO predicate. As part of the case to arrest Marks in the 1980s, a non-American was caught on non-American soil, selling a non-American passport to another non-American person and was actually indicted to the US to face charges as part of Marks’ RICO case. This is how the US government, and more precisely the DEA gets down.

If you have any information on your drug lord family and friends, make sure you contact the US government for your prize. You’ll be the envy of communist Soviet Union supporters from the 1980s.

Featured image from Pixabay.

Have you checked your EuroMillions lottery ticket from November 2? If not, you could be the owner of approximately $100 million. The EuroMillions lottery jackpot has gone unclaimed, so go and check your laundry basket fast, because you could be sitting on a fortune.

It’s been over a week since the EuroMillions $100m draw was made and the search is on to find its winners.

It Could Be You

The unclaimed EuroMillions ticket was bought from a National Lottery retailer in the United Kingdom. Players of the popular lottery game are being urged to rustle through their laundry and to check under their beds to find the estranged ticket.

The lucky winner, or should we say unlucky at this moment in time, matched all five numbers and the two Lucky Stars numbers in the draw that took place on November 2. The winning numbers were 5, 15, 17, 37, 44 and the Lucky Star numbers were 7 and 11.

Although it’s a big figure, it pales in comparison to the recent MegaMillions $1.5 billion-prize that was scooped by one ticket in America earlier this month. America is known for being bigger and bolder than everyone else, and this is definitely true when it comes to fast-food consumption and lottery jackpot prizes.

EuroMillions Jackpot Is 4th Largest this Year

The company that runs the EuroMillions lottery, Camelot, are currently waiting to hear from the holders of the winning ticket, which is the 12th largest lottery prize pot in UK history and the 4th largest this year in Europe.

The largest ever EuroMillions jackpot prize was in April his year and was a massive $190 million. The jackpot was won by two tickets and both winners remained anonymous.

It’s been a big month for lottery winners across the world. Not only did one ticket scoop the Mega Millions prize, but also 2 people shared the $687 million Powerball jackpot in the US in late-October.

If you played the EuroMillions lottery on November 2 and haven’t checked your ticket yet, what are you doing sat here watching me rant on? You could be a millionaire!

Featured image from Pixabay.

The speculation is over and fans of the Philadelphia 76ers had the rumors confirmed yesterday afternoon as the blockbuster deal was announced. The Minnesota Timberwolves will give up their star player Jimmy Butler in exchange for the Sixers forwards Dario Saric, and Robert Covington.

But Jimmy is worth more than two players it seems since the Timberwolves will also be receiving a 2020 second-round draft pick and guard Jerryd Bayless in the deal, although this is unconfirmed.

LeBron James Says Trade Will Be Good for Both Sides

Lakers power forward and legendary Lakers player Lebron James said that the trade will be good for both sides. The Sixers have been coveting Jimmy Butler for some time now after his shining performance with the Timberwolves. Butler was traded in June 2017 to the Minnesota side from the Chicago Bulls.

The talented baller averaged 22.2 points per game last season, helping propel the Timberwolves to their first playoffs since 2005. But not everyone was happy with the deal and Butler had expressed his malaise with his contract status and also turned down a four-year extension in July.

Jimmy Butler Demanded a Trade

It seems that the lonely swamps of Minnesota didn’t suit the Texas-born shooting guard and he demanded a trade in the preseason. There were also mounting tensions between the star player and Coach Tom Thibodeau.

He didn’t let this show on the court however and joins the Sixers averaging 21.3 points over the last 10 games. Minnesota will also be sending teammate forward Justin Patton to Philadelphia.

The Sixers for the Finals?

Butler’s move to Philadelphia will certainly raise the stakes–and the hopes–of a spot in the conference finals along with the Toronto Raptors, the Boston Celtics, and the Milwaukee Bucks. The deal is set to finalize on Monday with Butler’s debut game likely to be on Wednesday against Orlando Magic.

While it’s likely that the Sixers will offer Butler a long-term contract, formal negotiations can’t begin until the star opts out of the final year of his $92-million contract with the Chicago Bulls initiated in 2015. As it stands, Butler is set to make $18.7 million this season.

Featured image by Catherine Salaün.

US media company Meredith Corporation offloaded Fortune magazine to Bangkok-based businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon for $150 million in cash, according to an official press release from the company.

Jiaravanon is an international businessman affiliated with Asian conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group (CP Group), owned by the Chearavanont/Jiaravanon family, one of the largest producers of livestock. He also serves on the board of communication conglomerate True Corporation, SVI, Finansia Syrus Securities, and a host of other firms.

The sale of Fortune, which is still subject to approval from regulators, becomes the second sale from Meredith after it sold Time Magazine to Salesforce founder Marc Benioff earlier this year.

According to the statement from Meredith, Jiaravanon will own the media company as a personal investment under his name not to be affiliated with any of his numerous businesses. Jiaravanon stated in the release:

“The demand for high-quality business information is growing, and with further committed investment in technology and brilliant journalism, we believe the outlook for further profitable growth is excellent both for the publication and the events business.”

Meredith, which is backed by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, had purchased Time Inc. last year for $1.8 billion to consolidate its stake in the publishing and broadcasting business.

The Time Inc. acquisition, which also consists of Sports Illustrated, Money, People and Fortune, and others, at the time of purchase, was rumored to give Meredith an extensive reach for paid members and internet-focused millennials.

Created during the Great Depression in 1929, Fortune was positioned as a media outlet for the influential and wealthy in the society, but like all media companies, dwindling newsstand sales led to the company cutting print production, which led to a reduction in its circulation and sales to its online properties.

These days, Fortune is notable for its franchise the Fortune 500, its published list of the largest companies in the US and around the world. The media outlet currently reaches 20 million people monthly through its online platform and print publication.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Remember when rich people used to buy small dogs they could perch in their handbags as fashion accessories? In this day and age, the ultra-rich buy football clubs, not pet rats. If you are looking to buy a football club, Liverpool is apparently for sale.

The word is in the British and American media that Liverpool is up for sale, although no official statements have been released by the club or its owners at this time.

Liverpool For Sale at the Right Price

If you’re a billionaire looking to buy a British football club, not many are more prestigious than Liverpool. According to reports in The Sun newspaper and the NY Post, Liverpool’s billionaire owner John Henry is seriously considering selling the club and the word is the club is “quietly up for sale.” It’s not quiet anymore since The Sun found out.

John Henry is also the owner of the prestigious Boston Red Sox and is apparently looking for in the region of $2 billion for the Merseyside football club.

Henry initially bought Liverpool for a cool $470m back in 2010, so if a sale did go through for $2 billion, it would be a massive piece of business.

Sources apparently close to Henry told the NY Post that the billionaire was in the “passive sale process” and “It’s for sale if he can get the right price.”

The Trend of Buying a British Football Club

The trend of buying a British football club has been rife over the past decade or more. Liverpool was recently valued at approximately $2 billion by Forbes, so is a solid starting point for potential buyers.

Back in August, Sheik Khaled Bin Zayed Al Nahayan, along with a Chinese bidding consortium, supposedly made an offer for Liverpool of around $2.3 billion, which was unsuccessful because the Chinese could not find the sufficient funding.

The Sheik’s cousin owns Man City, which shows that buying a British football club is a growing trend amongst the filthiest rich people on the planet.

We will have to see how things pan out in regards to the sale of Liverpool. But no doubt the fans would be happy to accept a billionaire owner who is willing to throw the cash around on the transfer market to help the club win a league title for the first time in over 30-years.

Featured image from Pixabay.

If Sting likes 220 Central Park South in Manhattan, it has to be pretty good. The massive apartment building is nearing completion, and some of the apartment buyers’ names are starting to leak out.

When the project was sold back in 2015 there was a lot of secrecy surrounding the investors, but now it looks like that has all changed.

The Manhattan real estate market isn’t looking great. It’s hard to point to one reason why sales are off. The nascent global economic crunch may be playing a role, and the increased attention of law enforcement authorities could also be a factor.

When the apartments at 220 Central Park South were being marketed, the Manhattan real estate market was booming. September sales were down almost 40% from the same month in 2017, and the prices fell by almost 10%. That isn’t great, but one “country” seems to be in a class of its own.

220 Central Park South Is Rocking It

The buyers at 220 Central Park South are an elite bunch.

People like Andrew Zaro, who is the chairman of Cavalry Portfolio Services signed on to buy in the building. His wife Ofer Yardeni, CEO of Stonehenge Management, is also there, along with hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin who is on the hook for more than $200 million USD worth of apartment space.

Despite the softness in the overall Manhattan real-estate market, according to Donna Olshan of Olshan Realty:

“This building cannot be considered a proxy for the market. It’s its own country.”

The building does have some amazing amenities to offer its jet-set apartment owners. 220 Central Park South was designed by Robert A.M. Stern and features an athletic club, basketball court, golf simulator, as well as a play area for the kids and private dining rooms.

Robert A.M. Stern also designed 15 Central Park West, which has attracted some of the same buyers.

Changing Market Conditions

Outside of a few bastions of strength, the high-end real estate market isn’t looking so hot. The post-2008 free money party that bailed out the global financial system is in the process of unwinding. That means falling asset values, and higher interest rates.

Then, there is the graft.

Between 2008 and 2014 around 30% of the apartments in large-scale Manhattan developments were sold to foreigners, or LLC’s. A foreign investor or LLC isn’t inherently a dishonest entity, but many are looking for a way to stash big cash in something secure (especially the LLC crowd).

Incidentally:

“The Census Bureau estimates that 30 percent of all apartments in the quadrant from 49th to 70th Streets between Fifth and Park are vacant at least 10 months a year.”

The buyers at 220 Central Park South seem to have gotten in on a sweet deal. Given the fact that many of them are hedge-fund and investment managers, it probably shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that is the case. The rest of Manhattan, on the other hand, could be in for a rough couple of years.

An Uncertain Future Is Here

The boom years were great, but now it looks like the good times have come to a halt. Places like Hong Kong, London and Manhattan are beginning to see cracks in their real estate markets, which could get worse as the US-led trade war starts to bite hard.

There’s no telling where the floor is in terms of prices, but the ceiling is probably in.

Featured image from Curbed NY.

Time is money, or so they say. This is literally true when we talk about the world’s most expensive Rolex watch which was sold last year for $17.8 million.

Even most billionaires would think it’s obscene to spend so much money on an item so small. But perhaps it is the ultimate show of decadence that you can strap so much cash around your wrist while flipping the bird at the playa-haters.

World’s Most Expensive Watch Belonged to Paul Newman

In a recent article detailing the 10 most expensive Rolex watches ever sold, former acting megastar Paul Newman’s 1968 Cosmograph Daytona Rolex came in at number-1.

Although Newman’s Rolex might not have the same sentimental value as ‘the watch’ belonging to Butch in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, it does have the monetary value to kick-start a military coup in a backward banana republic.

Paul Newman’s watch became the world’s most expensive Rolex to ever be sold back in 2017 when it was bought for an unprecedented $17.8 million by an anonymous bidder at a New York auction.

The watch was originally a present from Newman’s wife, Joanne Woodward, and was purchased back in 1968 from Tiffany & Co in New York for an undisclosed fee. She engraved the watch with “drive carefully” as Newman was getting into motor racing at the time.

The actor went onto wear the watch for the next 15-years before giving it to his daughter’s boyfriend at the time, James Cox, as a present.

Although details are sketchy about the watch’s story since and why it was for sale, I would guess it’s because someone would pay in the region $17.8 million for it. At the end of the day, it’s just a watch!

Has the World Gone Money Mad?

Yesterday I wrote about the world’s most expensive car, which is the $13 million Sweptail by Rolls Royce. It seems that the limitless wealth and spend-ability of some people know no bounds.

Although it is still an extraordinary show of wealth to buy a car that costs upwards of $10 mil, rocking a $17.8 million Rolex is taking it to the next level.

Has the world gone mad? One would assume it had to be sane in the first place for that statement to be true. If someone is willing to spend so much money to own the world’s most expensive Rolex watch, fair play to them I say.

Featured image from N Business.

In what seems like poetic justice, another interesting occurrence to come out of the US midterms was that San Francisco voters supported Proposition C (Prop C) yesterday, an initiative to introduce a tax on the city’s companies with revenues of more than $50 million.

The money is intended to help reduce homelessness, one of San Francisco’s most pressing problems over the last few years.

The companies that will have to contribute to combat homelessness include financial services companies and tech giants, like Uber Technologies, Airbnb, and Cisco Systems. Prop C passed with 60% of votes in favor.

The Tax Will Raise $300 Million a Year

The annual tax can vary from 0.175% to 0.69% and adds between $250 and $300 million to San Francisco’s homelessness relief budget.

San Francisco has been spending $250 million per year to overcome the housing crisis. And the city’s spending on preventing and reducing homelessness is expected to rise by 80% next year.

Authorities will use the money to provide housing options for nearly 5,000 people. Besides paying for beds and shelters, they will fund services like mental health, addiction treatment, and housing aid.

San Francisco has almost 7,500 people who experience homelessness. Many blame it on the tech industry, which generated a significant increase in real estate prices.

The average rent for a one-bedroom apartment is $3,261 per month, while the price for a median house in the city is higher than $1.5 million. Way too much for people who don’t work for the tech giants.

The Tax Generated Hard Debate in the Tech Industry

Proposition C divided the tech industry. Salesforce, on one side, sustained the measure, spending $6 million promoting the initiative, and CEO Marc Benioff spent other $2 million from his fortune to market the “Yes on C” campaign.

Benioff told CNN Business:

“This is a city with 70 billionaires. We have some of the most successful companies in the world. We need a lot more funding, and we need a lot of action now.”

Not all billionaires running successful businesses in San Francisco share the same values as the Salesforce boss. For many of them, the initiative isn’t going to solve the homelessness problem. Among the people who spoke against the action, the most vocal were Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, and Mark Pincus, CEO of Stripe.

They also pointed out that the new “Robin Hood” tax wouldn’t treat all companies the same. Financial companies will have to pay more than tech businesses. Jack Dorsey used Twitter to complain about the effects the tax could have on fintech startups.

Hypothetically Square could pay over $20m more in 2019, while Salesforce (4x bigger than Sq) pays less than $10m. Taxes would grow at rates multiple times our adj. revenue, which no company can sustain. Not an issue for Salesforce/Twitter, but unfair to Sq and fintech startups.

— jack (@jack) October 19, 2018

In the third quarter of 2018, Square registered net revenues of $882.12 million, a 51.7% increase from last year.

Featured image from Shutterstock.

Do you want to own the world’s most expensive car? Well, even if you did, you can’t! It’s not for sale. The earth-shattering Sweptail by Rolls Royce is worth a seizure-inducing $13 million and it doesn’t even have furry dice in the window. And it’s only got two seats.

Even the world’s keenest luxury automobile flexer, rapper Lil Wayne, doesn’t have something quite this expensive in his car collection. This is a car that someone such as Mike Tyson would’ve bought to take his Siberian tiger to the vets.

World’s Most Expensive Car Is a Roller

Lamborghini this, Bugatti that, but when it comes to the world’s most expensive car, the $13 million Sweptail by Rolls Royce has blown them all out of the water in dramatic fashion.

Did you know that in 2016 there were only 4,000 Rolls Royce’s manufactured? This is why the iconic luxury car brand is continually one of the most sought-after by all car collectors.

The Sweptail by Rolls Royce is a one-of-kind model, customized and tailor-made for a customer that will remain nameless. The custom coach-work looks similar to what you would find on royal carriages. It’s all about the blue blood luxury lifestyle baby.

It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts

The car comes equipped with two seats, a fully panoramic sun-roof, handcrafted wooden and leather interior features, hidden attaches for laptop computers and stashing other things, and has a sleek design that mimics the tapering you might expect to see on a luxury yacht.

That is quite handy because the owner is apparently a collector of super-yachts and private planes.

There’s not much information on the world’s most expensive car at this time because it is not a mass-produced piece, so we have no idea how fast it goes.

The car is said to have been modeled on some Rolls Royce vehicles from the 1920s and 30s and does definitely have a stately yet modern feel to it.

Although the world’s most expensive car is not for sale, it blows away the previous most expensive, which was the $4.8 million Koenigsegg CCXR Trevita.

Featured image from Auto MThai.