Rupert Macey-Dare on LinkedIn: The must-watch moments of the CNN Presidential Debate (2024)

c.$5Bn Damages Price for NFL in Sunday Ticket Antitrust Class Action Lawsuit Verdict (27 June 2024)...For original 2022 Complaint, see: https://lnkd.in/ehuqbNYWFor overview of Complainants' expert evidence, see: https://lnkd.in/eKJBJFJ7https://lnkd.in/edVJA6qq

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US Supreme Court- Sacklers must face pain of withdrawn legal protection from OxyContin victim civil lawsuits (27 June 2024)..."Held: The [US] bankruptcy code does NOT authorize a release and injunction that, as part of a plan of reorganization under Chapter 11 effectively seek to discharge claims against a nondebtor [i.e. which would otherwise effectively give the Sacklers a "free pass"] without the consent of affected claimants [i.e. of the Oxycontin victims and their survivors]."[Case background:] "Between 1999 and 2019, approximately 247,000 [i.e. c.1/4 million] people in the United States died from prescription-opioid overdoses. Respondent Purdue Pharma sits at the center of that crisis. Owned and controlled by the Sackler family, Purdue began marketing OxyContin, an opioid prescription pain reliever, in the mid-1990s. After Purdue earned billions of dollars in sales on the drug, in 2007 one of its affiliates pleaded guilty to a federal felony for misbranding OxyContin as a less-addictive, less-abusable alternative to other pain medications. Thousands of lawsuits followed. Fearful that the litigation would eventually impact them directly, the Sacklers initiated a “MILKING PROGRAM” withdrawing from Purdue approximately $11 billion—roughly 75% of the firm’s total assets—over the next decade. ""Those withdrawals left Purdue in a significantly weakened financial state. And in 2019, Purdue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. During that process, the Sacklers proposed to return approximately $4.3 billion to Purdue’s bankruptcy estate [i.e. retaining c.$6.7 billion for themselves]. In exchange, the Sackers sought a judicial order releasing the family from all opioid-related claims and enjoining victims from bringing such claims against them in the future [i.e. in exchange each for some small share of the $4.3Bn]. The bankruptcy court approved Purdue’s proposed reorganization plan, including its provisions concerning the Sackler discharge. But the district court vacated that decision, holding that nothing in the law authorizes bankruptcy courts to extinguish claims against third parties like the Sacklers, without the claimants’ consent. A divided panel of the Second Circuit reversed the district court and revived the bankruptcy court’s order approving a modified reorganization plan."The full 9-member panel US Supreme Court has now found, by bare 5-4 majority, for the Oxycontin civil victim claimantsand against the Sacklers...

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Wikileaks + Assange Plea Bargain Deal...Edward Grange's fascinating post below provides background on this case and how the final plea bargain deal was done.N.B. As the UK Horizon Post Office convictions revealed en masse for the 1st time, it can be optimal and perfectly rational for both guilty and innocent alike to accept a guilty plea bargain deal, if the threatened alternative is bad enough and plausible enough...But the Assange case raises key moral and legal question for investigative journalists in democracies, such as the US or Israel, i.e. what to do when likely war crimes are being committed in our name under the cloak of defence secrecy and information blackout and national security, especially when other lives may also be be risked or saved by publication?https://lnkd.in/gVafJird

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UK election date betting- is this the new gambling Spot Fixing?In traditional Spot Fixing, a sports game participant who is also a bet placer, (possibly in conjunction with other participants and bet placers) causes a specific random-timing-looking future event- for example the 1st wicket or 1st throw-in, to occur at a predetermined future time or within a particular given short time window within the game.This allows the Spot Fixer to use their knowledge of future probabilities advantage to reap high proportional payoff returns from what look like to most others including the bookmaker, to be highly unlikely event timings and odds.In the UK political sphere, one of the key optional discretions restored to a UK Prime Minister, following the recent Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022, is freedom to choose when during any 5 year maximum term to call a general election, and this random timing can be gamed optimally by a Prime Minister both to catch opponents off-guard and to maximize potential for success, or minimize the degree of likely electoral failure.Thus any "insider" who somehow gains inside and accurate knowledge beforehand of the forthcoming date of a UK snap general election, finds themselves in an exactly analogous position to the Spot Fix bet placer, if they choose to exploit and benefit from this information via what looks like a random bet.As the landmark "edge-sorting" insider knowledge betting on cards case of: Ivey v Genting Casinos [2017] confirmed, the UK Supreme Court tends to view such behaviour as "fundamentally dishonest", meaning that any winnings and perhaps stake as well are forfeit, and additional criminal dishonesty based offences may have been committed.In Ivey, the gambler's edge sorting technique was spotted on the casino cameras and admitted by the player himself, with the rejected defence that this was a legitimate use of superior gambler's skill and game play.With the UK insider election timing bets, one line of defence is likely to be coincidental timing, but for completely isolated bets placed a few days and less than a week before their excise date, this defence would probably not persuade most British jurors or indeed statisticians...See https://lnkd.in/er4yQJKU and https://lnkd.in/eQxrZU_F and https://lnkd.in/eNqMKmHP

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Japanese Economic Boom + Bust...https://lnkd.in/gPQNTbMW

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Creativity- the Branson Approach...https://lnkd.in/g4ZdvsBz

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AI's electricity Achilles Heel?...Great analysis from Prof Lynne Kiesling:https://lnkd.in/egYAPHp2

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Have We reached the AI Inflection Point?...James Eagle's fantastic graphics below show that NVIDIA has just become the most valuable US company based on its growing supply- to satisfy corresponding global demand- of top of the range high value graphics and AI chips.Because of the huge scope of application of AI systems and the continued exponential rate of progress in their development, and the insights of the godfathers of AI, my own prediction is that the AI chip boom is not going to subside and is not overhyped like the dot com bubble, but rather indicates a permanent phase change in the global economy...In terms of the graph, we may see a "Peleton Effect" where the NVIDIA company value, after this pursuit period, catches up with and without pausing surges past all competitors...Time (+ AI systems) will quickly tell of course...https://lnkd.in/epEF9xFC

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AI Chips Value...https://lnkd.in/e5akGa4r

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