S10.E09: Cryptocurrency

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Main topic: Cryptocurrency 

Also:  Tennessee House of Representatives - Scotty Campbell resignation; reaction to Bud Lite's partnership with a trans woman; a look at a few more of Jim Cramer's great calls

Original air date 2023.04.23

[Annber03]

Gosh. I am just so incredibly shocked at the news of that story about Campbell resigning because of a sexual harassment scandal. Look how totally shocked I am by that news. 

Also loving the "WAAAAAAAAH CANCEL CULTURE WAAAAAAAAH MUH FREE SPEECH!" crowd having a total meltdown over a freaking Bud Light ad. I loved John analyzing that video of Kid Rock, LOL. What an idiot. 

Seriously. Imagine thinking this is something worthy of your anger. Imagine how lame your life has to be that this is what you have to get all riled up about. I love the alternate ad, yes, seriously, tell these overgrown babies to grow the fuck up and get over themselves. 

As for the main story, god, Jim Cramer is such a two-faced slimeball. Why the hell does anyone still listen to him? 

That pool explanation sounded like either one of those word math problems I hated doing in school or some aspect of a training video that you don't pay any attention to 'cause your eyes just wind up glazing over. 

But god, yeah..."It's fun watching a company die", "I don't debate the poor on Twitter", "banks are not your friends", and the jail conversation...gosh, who could've imagined those kinds of attitudes would lead to a super messy system that could fall apart so easily? I've got, like, zero financial knowledge/experience, and I knew these ventures screamed "Ponzi scheme" before John even stated as much. 

Anyway, it's been five years and I know and understand about as much about cryptocurrency now as I did then, which is nothing. The whole thing just seems stupidly overcomplicated and messy and fragile and I really don't get why it's even a thing other than for people to push scams, which seems to be all I ever hear about whenever it's mentioned. Maybe there are legitimate things about it, but I never seem to hear them - though, granted, the news will always focus on the bad, so...who knows. 

(People needing to Google the fall of Enron because they don't know about it. Thanks, John, way to make me feel old :p.)

[PrincessPurrsALot]

I found the actual Budweiser commercial funnier than the LWT version, but I did enjoy the way the parodied it.  That horse ran all the way from the Brooklyn Bridge to wheat fields in the Midwest to what was likely meant to represent the Pacific coast.  No wonder it's so "fuckable".   Them showing that Child Rock needed help exploding the warm cans of Bud Lite - priceless.  

Everyone I have worked with who has been excited about investing in crypto has been someone for whom I have had no respect or trust.  There are a few of the bigwigs that I hope lost a lot in these scams, purely because they think they are superior to the people who work for them.   I do think there were people in the crypto space who had high ideals to create better equity and access.  However, scammers gonna scam and unregulated/barely regulated financial products are ripe.  

I was glad he mentioned Enron because so many of the things said brought back the "yay, we're scamming grandma!" type statements from that scandal. 

[possibilities]

I had no idea that 20% of the country invested in crypto. I thought from the start that it reeked of bullshit, and was just a joke, like a meme or something. That it so many people got involved in it, is really sad.

Edited April 24, 2023 by possibilities
typo

[ahisma]

I had not seen the slowed down version of Child Rock’s shooting spree before. Was that a rocket launcher off to the side? Hilarious how fragile his manhood is!

So out of all those cryptocurrency names, Monkey Jizz was not the one that caused my brain to implode…

It continues to astonish me that Jim Cramer is still on the air. I love every time John roasts him—it’s so well deserved.

[Lantern7]

Lots to unpack. I bet John wishes he could invent an emoji for actual use. To represent total failure: Jim Kramer hawking a Bud Lite. Hey, why stray from John’s fave targets? Other than those handsome Clydesdales, of course.

Nice bit at the end with John drinking from the Tennessee-branded canteen. Man, their legislature is a shitshow. At least the guy wasn’t busted with a “cousin-mistress.”

[DoctorAtomic]

I never got the concept of destroying things that you already bought. AB already got your money, Bobby. And shoot better. 

Crypto is a scam. It always has been. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. 

I don't know why anyone would listen to Kramer. Jon Stewart destroyed him on the Daily Show years ago. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by DoctorAtomic

[Lantern7]

1 hour ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I never got the concept of destroying things that you already bought. AB already got your money, Bobby. And shoot better.

Maybe he stole it? I dunno . . . perhaps the destruction of Bud Lite is based on swiping beer from someone who isn't anti-"woke" and destroying it (or at least the can/bottle).

Does Bud Lite taste as bad as John says? Worse than Bud Lite Lime?

[Welshman in Ca]

14 hours ago, possibilities said:

I had no idea that 20% of the cuntry invested in crypto.   That it so many people got involved in it, is really sad.

Why? I'm pretty sure that a lot more than 20% of the country is invested in shares and they could also lose all of their money if they put everything they have into one company that suddenly dies or screws up.

Crypto currency itself isn't the issue, of the 3 things he majored on only 1 was an actual crypto currency that hardly anyone has heard of, I never have anyway. As with stocks & shares or anything of value their worth can go down as well as up & like anything else the issue is stupid gullible people thinking they could get rich quick by buying crypto and then plowing their life savings into it just before it crashed.

[peeayebee]

14 hours ago, PrincessPurrsALot said:

Them showing that Child Rock needed help exploding the warm cans of Bud Lite - priceless.  

I hadn't watched the whole video before, but did no one from Kid Rock's camp watch it before they released it? Couldn't they see that the rocket launches were visible? So incredibly stupid.

As for cryptocurrency, yeah, a big 'ol Ponzi scheme. My sister got into crypto several years ago. She has a subscription to some investment newsletter, and they have been saying it's the way to go because the dollar will soon have no value. My sister is convinced this is truth. I recently said it was a Ponzi scheme, and she vehemently disagreed. As far as her experience, she had a bunch of coins worth thousands of dollars hacked away from her. She's lost some coins when various blockchains or wallets or whatever said they wouldn't handle U.S. accounts anymore. She has had headache after headache with keeping track of stuff and, oh, I don't know. But she's a believer. 

[swanpride]

Yep, it was so obviously a ponzi scheme, I was honestly confused how it could run that long unhindered. Aren't Ponzi schemes illegal? 

The funniest aspect about the anti-woke crowd is that they used to call left leaning people "snow flakes" and similar names, and now they are the ones who nearly get a heart attack over pretty much everything. You just want to tell them "chill the f... out, it is just an add". 

I am kind of confused about the state of the Tennessee House of Representatives...If all those people are forced out or resign, how will they be replaced? will there be an election soon?

[ShadowKnight2]

The fact that Anheuser-Busch supports the LGBTQ community should be enough to give them kudos, no matter what John Oliver thinks about them. He seems to needlessly find ways to pick apart anything because he just seems like someone with a bad outlook on life.

As for Kid Rock, he's just an opportunistic poser with no fucking logic or common sense. He tried to start his music career as a white rapper, ala Eminem. But nobody was buying it, as he came from a very wealthy family. He also tried to start his own microbrewery called Bad Ass American, or something along those lines, and he even got Guy Fieri to feature it on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. But not long after that, the brewery went belly up. That guy is just living off the fumes of his ten minutes of fame, and not worth taking seriously.

And that feature on crypto? Yikes! It's just my opinion, but those "super geniuses" seem to come off more as fucking imbeciles than criminal sociopaths - not that there wasn't anything to that. I was dumbfounded that the people running FTX were using QuickBooks as a tool to handle money. It may be useful if you're running a mobile wedding chapel, so that people can get married easily, but NOT when your handling trillions in other's money. Crypto was always suspect, at best. And this episode showed why.

8 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I don't know why anyone would listen to Kramer. Jon Stewart destroyed him on the Daily Show years ago.

And last night's show reiterated that!

[bilgistic]

14 hours ago, ShadowKnight2 said:

The fact that Anheuser-Busch supports the LGBTQ community should be enough to give them kudos, no matter what John Oliver thinks about them. He seems to needlessly find ways to pick apart anything because he just seems like someone with a bad outlook on life.

He didn't "pick apart" Anheuser-Busch. He was lambasting them for coddling/pandering to the angry white men after they cried about AB sponsoring a trans woman. AB literally walked back their sponsorship by putting out that ridiculous sexy horse ad along with their social media message about "freedom, hard work and respect", among other white supremacist dog whistles.

 

[DoctorAtomic]

46 minutes ago, bilgistic said:

He didn't "pick apart" Anheuser-Busch. He was lambasting them for coddling/pandering to the angry white men after they cried about AB sponsoring a trans woman. AB literally walked back their sponsorship by putting out that ridiculous sexy horse ad along with their social media message about "freedom, hard work and respect", among other white supremacist dog whistles.

Justifiably from my pov. John also was pointing out that these 'dudeflakes,' as I call them, are going bonkers over *Bud Light*. I mean, sure, I bought 30 packs on the regular in college, and kegs. It's a cheap, low end beer to have around. I buy a local, cheap beer now to have around that's way better, but I also have a selection of fancy beers. Because I'm an adult with a job. 

Are there some people my age that still drink Bud Light? I'm sure there are. People probably buy them at baseball games and the like. To the point where they're acting like they're losing their soul? This whole backlash is pearl clutching and just not real.

Even with his ten minutes of fame, Bobby sold a lot of records. He's well off. He's not drinking Bud Light either. And I'd lay good money down that in his hardcore partying days, he probably threw down with some trans chicks. Maybe he didn't know at the time, but he rolled with it. 

This whole issue is completely wrapped up in dainty man fragility. Because they all know they would. Just admit it. No one cares. 

[ShadowKnight2]

1 hour ago, bilgistic said:

He didn't "pick apart" Anheuser-Busch. He was lambasting them for coddling/pandering to the angry white men after they cried about AB sponsoring a trans woman. AB literally walked back their sponsorship by putting out that ridiculous sexy horse ad along with their social media message about "freedom, hard work and respect", among other white supremacist dog whistles.

 

If it's between A-B and the right wing crowd losing their shit over Bud Light, then I'm siding with A-B. They're probably not the most progressive corporation in America (who is?), but when you've got a movement that wants to strip and destroy people's hard earned rights and freedoms just because they despise them, you'd want to side with those that will give those under attack a voice. I would like to think John Oliver would see that. But, as I stated, he always goes out of his way to see the downside of anything.