Category Archives: finance

Academy

Economic Issues, finance, Food, News, Opinion, Social Issues, , ,

Like a scene from the sci-fi movies Arrival or Close Encounters of the Third Kind, National Guard Black Hawk and heavy twin-blade Chinook helicopters fly over my house inbound to and outbound from the Academy corporate headquarters that is adjacent to my subdivision. The top floor of the parking garage serves as a makeshift heliport. Other floors of the parking garage serve a sleeping areas for a variety of first responders, including Texas State Troopers, who have come in from all over the state. Elsewhere in the parking lots, the National Guard has established bivouac with tents, trucks, and communications equipment. Several fuel tankers are also deployed.

Academy Sports and Outdoors (http://www.academy.com/shop/en/store/company-info) is a sporting goods and outdoor equipment company headquartered in Katy Texas next to my subdivision. The first Academy store opened as a tire shop in San Antonio in 1938. It turned into a military surplus store, then began offering sports and outdoors equipment as it evolved into the present day Academy Sports + Outdoors. They have more than 230 stores in 16 states, supported by more than 23,000 team members throughout the South, Southeast, and Midwest. My next door neighbor is the director (manager) of one of the nearby stores. Several of their IT folks also live in my subdivision.

I recently spoke to one of their corporate accountants who estimated that Academy had already donated over a million dollars worth of supplies, equipment, and services to the ongoing Hurricane Harvey relief effort. The photos below attest to part of this contribution. In addition to providing lodging and logistics for first responders, the Academy corporate headquarters and distribution center has also opened their cafeteria to their guests providing both room and board. 

I am very proud to have Academy as my neighbor. If you live near an Academy store, stop by and thank them for the support they are giving the greater Houston area in this time of need.

View of the Academy headquarters from the south

 

View from the west (street view)




 
 One of the back parking lots

I Alone | Līve

finance, Health, History, Music, Relationships, Stuff, Video, , , ,

Nostalgia

Twenty years ago (circa 1997), Number One Son and I went to a Līve concert at the Cynthia Woods Mitchel Pavilion. Number One Son was 14. The forecast was for rain. Our seats were in the uncovered part of the Pavilion. We brought rain ponchos and a large umbrella. We needed them. We sat in a torrential rain throughout the concert.

The Mrs had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis the year before. My life, all of our lives, were changing in unpredictable ways. The Mrs was going downhill and I was grieving the loss of her quality of life, our quality of life. The medical bills and hospitalizations were taking a toll. Little did I know that it would get worse.

We sat in the pouring rain listing to Līve blast out their songs. I have very fond memories of that concert. I bought two of their albums, Throwing Copper and Secret Samadhi  (I think I even bought Secret Samadhi at the concert). I used to listen to those albums in the CD player of the Ford Windstar we owned at the time. Perfect music for grieving. I actually own a large collection of CDs that I no longer listen to because we have switched to iTunes. I should probably invest in an external CD drive for my MacBook and begin ripping my old CDs to iTunes, but have avoided doing so.

I heard I Alone earlier this evening in the playlist of a local sporting goods store’s PA system. It brought all those memories back with a vengeance. Music has a way of doing that for me.

Epilogue (Twenty years later …)

The Mrs and I have been married forty-one years. She still battles MS and the diabetes she developed as a result of massive dosage steroid treatments she has received over the years. Twenty years of MS have eaten up all of our finances … and continue to do so. If you and your family are in good health you have no idea how fortunate you are. If you are battling a life altering illness, you know what we have been going through.

I may go dig out my Līve CDs and put them in my car to listen to. I still have grieving to do …

The waiting …

Economic Issues, finance, Health, Music, Relationships, Social Issues, Stuff, Video, , ,

I have been dealing with a variety of issues over the past year and a half that have been stressful, to say the least. My life has been plagued with, let us say … uncertainty. I used to say it was like being on a roller coaster, but now I think it is becoming more like a ride on the Vomit Comet.

To quote Arlo Guthrie (totally out of context) … “you may know somebody in a similar situation or you may be in a similar situation, and if you’re in a situation like that, there’s only one thing you can do … sing it the next time it comes around on the guitar …”

Goldmoney Q3 Results

Economic Issues, finance, gold, News, Technology, , , , , , ,

TORONTO – (February 2, 2017) – Goldmoney Inc. (TSX:XAU) (the “Company”), a financial technology company and operator of a global gold-based financial network, today announced financial results for the third quarter ended December 31, 2016.

Selected Highlights

  • More than 1.35 million user signups with $1.7 billion in customer assets as at December 31, 2016.
  • Added the Royal Canadian Mint’s secure precious metal storage facility in Ottawa as a vault on the Goldmoney Network, and entered into an agreement with the Mint to explore future co-marketing activities that aim to boost awareness and accessibility of precious metals.
  • Completed the Schiff Gold Acquisition and entered into a Marketing and Service Agreement with Peter Schiff; results reflect 47 days of Schiff Gold operations.
  • Launched the new Goldmoney App for iOS and Android.
  • Entered the lending space with the launch of the Goldmoney Maximizer tool, which enables verified Canadian Goldmoney Network users to borrow select currencies against up to 85% of their fully-reserved gold assets.
  • Extend P2P transfer capabilities to Goldmoney Network users residing in the U.S and registered a U.S. subsidiary with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FinCEN”).
  • Reduced Goldmoney Network fees by 50%, enabling users to deposit, redeem, and make vault-to-vault gold transfers for 0.5% above the spot gold price.
  • Doubled user referral rewards for the Goldmoney Personal Golden Heart™ Program
  • Introduced a connection between Goldmoney Network and Wealth that enables Wealth clients to fund their Holdings with gold balances stored in their Goldmoney Network accounts.
  • Extended peer-to-peer transfers to 49 U.S. states, enabling verified Network users in the U.S. to send and receive gold transfers to and from verified Goldmoney Network users worldwide (excluding residents of the U.S. state of Vermont).
  • Announced Goldmoney Network accounts and Wealth Holdings had been endorsed as Shariah-compliant by the Shariah Supervisory Board of Amanie Advisors, which issued the fatwa in accordance with the Shariah Standard on Gold set by the Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions (AAOIFI) and developed in cooperation with the World Gold Council.
  • Launched additional payment integrations allowing for direct-to-bank redemptions and credit card processing in Indian rupee for Goldmoney Network.

 Click HERE for the complete report

 

View the Real Time Audit


https://www.goldmoney.com/newsroom/investor-relations

 
Learn more and signup using the special URL   https://Goldmoney.com/r/niKIos   to earn a bonus of 5% additional gold on your first deposit (up to a maximum of 0.5 grams of bonus gold) if you make that deposit within 7 days of signing up.  Please note that wire transfer deposits are not eligible for the first deposit bonus.

 

Hidden Secrets of Money Episode 2

Economic Issues, finance, gold, History, Social Issues, Video,

By Mike Maloney (2013)

 

Seven Stages of Empire (30 minutes)

 
Episode 2 of a series. These are excellent primers on money, the history of money, and an analysis of where we stand today. At a half hour it is well worth the time to watch. I hope that you will find these as enlightening as I have.

 

 
I plan to post the entire series on a day-to-day basis. If you are impatient you can find them on YouTube at 

 
http://www.youtube.com/user/whygoldandsilver

 
or at https://goldsilver.com/hidden-secrets/

Hidden Secrets of Money Episode 1

Economic Issues, finance, gold, History, Social Issues, Video, , ,

By Mike Maloney (2013)

Money vs Currency (26 minutes)

Episode 1 of a series. These are excellent primers on money, the history of money, and an analysis of where we stand today. At under a half hour it is well worth the time to watch. I hope that you will find these as enlightening as I have.

I plan to post the entire series on a day-to-day basis. If you are impatient you can find them on YouTube at 

http://www.youtube.com/user/whygoldandsilver

or at https://goldsilver.com/hidden-secrets/