If You Owe A Bank $100 That's Your Problem, If You Owe The Bank $100 Mllion That's Their Problem. But If

Anthropic is going to end up owing the Banks $10 Billion, I expect it may become everybody's problem.

Fintech Blueprint:  AI: Banks scramble to lend $10B to Anthropic

Anthropic is asking Wall Street for more than $10B of credit.

Reuters reported that Anthropic is arranging a revolving credit facility expected to exceed $10B ahead of its IPO. The largest banks have reportedly been asked to commit around $1.25B each, second-tier banks around $1B, and others $750MM or less.

What could possibly go wrong?  

A Taxing Insult Added To Injury In Minneapolis

Minneapolis Businesses got hammered in the BLM riots, with over 100 business properties destroyed or heavily damaged in the riots.

But in order to get a demolition permit in the city, you have to first prepay your property taxes, money that is supposed to be spent on things like police protection that was rather absent during the riots.

The Star Tribune: Landscape of rubble persists as Minneapolis demands taxes in exchange for permits

 Waiting for the property taxes to be paid when they come due in October, would give the victims of the riots an opportunity to rebuild and actually attempt to recover and perhaps make some money so they can pay the property tax.  But no, Minneapolis is requiring they pay it before a demolition permit is issued so they can't rebuild until that happens.

It's yet another great way to drive business out of the city - if the riots didn't tell you it was time to go, the taxman demanding his due before you can even clean up the damage form the riot surely will.

Gov Half-Whit Facing A Loss In Court Relents On Barber Shops

Sometimes better late than never is better than nothing. Michigan along with New Jersey are the last states to allow barber and hair salon facilities to open. Governor Half-Whit finally allowed Michigan to join the rest of the union with open barber shops.

Of course, she doesn't just announce they can open, she set a nice arbitrary ten days from the date of her announcement to let them do so, so she gets ten more days to keep fining and harassing Karl Manke:

The Detroit News: Whitmer set to reopen hair salons, barbershops June 15; gyms, theaters to reopen in northern Michigan

One of the obvious reasons she announced this is the Michigan Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals ruling against Barber Karl Manke.

Typically, when Big Gretch gets sued, as happened with realtors suing her, she folds. So this will potentially moot out the case at least as far as it goes with her order banning barbers from opening, possibly Manke's attornrey can keep it going due to the fines and punishments hes facing under her closure orders.

Unfortunately this pandemic is letting governors get their control freak on, and even with allowing things to open (but not all facilities can open yet and she's still insanely socking it to drive-in theaters for some pernicious reason) there's a score of regulations, impositions, costs, and controls on business all in a one-size-fits-all model and woe betide any business that fails to comply.

We'll see if these controls start to relent or its a new wave of regulations on business that are here to stay - and given that she just created and appointed a "Coronavirus Work Safety Director", you can expect government micromanagement to continue now that she allows businesses to once again open.

Obama's Spokesman's Latest Career Move.

Legal Insurrection reports that former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs is taking a job as Global Chief Communications Officer for McDonald's.

Too bad it wasn't Burger King.

If Gibbs had, he would've been going from Telling Whoppers to Selling Whoppers.

SIN Studios Grand Opening

Yesterday I attended the grand opening of Strength In Numbers Studios in Lansing Michigan.

SIN Studios is a video game development company that I'm proud to have as a client.

They're developing a hot new online video game, Project Tuebor.

This game is going to seriously rock.

They've got quite a team of very talented developers and the animation modelling is exquisite. The game should be released next year and it's going to be one to watch - and play.

If you're wondering what Tuebor means:

It also happens to be the motto of the State of Michigan.

Entering the studios you see these signs:

It's setup like a startship - each colored line lead you to that designated area in the office. Command Bridge being the president, marketing and such, Engineering being the coding aspects, Science being the secret development area and the Holodeck being the break room for entertainment.

Each sign has a catchy little tagline at the bottom, here's the one for the science deck sign:

As you might figure, its a fun place to work and they're quite enthusiastic about what they're doing. The opening party was very well attended.

Yes, that is an Imperial Stormtrooper in the crowd. Elements of the Great Lakes Garrison of the 501st Legion attended the grand opening.

Hey! That is the lawyer we're looking for!

Among the activities at the opening there was the opportunity to play a pre-release level of the game. You could also be motion captured by their animation system and your movements loaded up in the computer in 3D. There were also some wings on display:

Even if you got them on, you still wouldn't look as good as this wearing them though:

That will be one of the player characters the players can play in the game. Like I said, it's going to be pretty awesome.

It's going to be a great game and I strongly believe that based on their vision and effort they're going to have a major success on their hands.

It's good to see a new Michigan-based business poised to take off.

Some Good News Out Of Detroit

A good story about an American manufacturing business taking hold in Detroit, and an excellent beer, which is always a good combination.

The Detroit News: Deal brewing between Detroit Bikes, Fat Tire ale

The Detroit Bike Co seems poised to manufacture a special run of bikes for the New Belgium Brewing Co, which is famous for their excellent and tasty Fat Tire amber ale. A good deal all around, and nice to see a positive story of business success coming out of Detroit.

Obamacare Helping Make Sure Small Business Stays Small

Small Businesses, as claimed by politicians of all stripes, help drive America. Indeed Obama himself lauded them as as “the lifeblood of our economy".

So the Obama administration, courtesy of Obamacare, is driving them into the ground with increased costs and administratrivia.

The Detroit News: Small business already sick of Obamacare

Read the whole article, but here's the rub: To keep offering the same health plan to their employees that they were offering before Obamacare would cost American Gear & Engineering Inc an additional $107,000 per year.

For a small business, an additional $107K is not an affordable added expense to bear and be able to keep in business, especially in this economy.

As Emerson says:

“That’s a helluva change. I’ve got some guys out in the shop whose wives have serious health conditions. How do any of us get ahead? How do you get motivated to come to work? How do I get motivated to come to work?”

Motivation will likely be in the form of an IRS audit after daring to speak out about this unaffordable Obamacare train wreck.

I Do So Appreciate Brownells

Waiting for me when I got home was a nice small and well packed box from Brownells.

Inside, the order date on the enclosed invoice read 12/31/2012. Yes, 12/31/2012.

Contained in the box were 6 new S&W M&P standard capacity magazines. The back-order for them had finally come through after over a year due to the panic buying over Obama's Great-Gun-Control-Push-That-Failed.

It's been awhile, but Brownells dutifully kept the back-order in place and never jacked up the prices unlike some other vendors - I'm looking at you, Lower Than Dirt.

Brownells even called back in August 2013 when my back-ordered PMags were ready to ship with a status update on the entire order. Most of the status update consisted of we don't have x yet but we hope to get x in soon, but it was some great customer service all around to actually call and let people know some of their order was ready and they weren't being forgotten.

Brownells, as usual, delivered the product as soon as it was available with their standard excellence and efficiency, and no, they're not payin' me to say that.

They've now got me as a loyal customer for life and they certainly do right by their customers.

If you haven't ordered from them before, I highly recommend them based on not only their great selection but their outstanding customer service.

A Qwik About-Face

Via Instapundit, we learn that Netflix has backed away from its ill-concieved spin-off of its DVD business to the goofily named Qwikster.

This is a good decision on Netflix's part. The reckless speed in dumping their DVD line onto the hastily and unfortunately named Qwikster line right after a hasty and hefty price increase certainly was damaging their brand.

Of course, they could have saved themselves some time, money, and embarrasment by first carefully considering the ramifications of such a split before charging blithely ahead with it.

Hasten slowly is rather timeless good advice, and it applies to many of today's decisions and decision-makers, and not just Netflix's Qwikster folly.

Why You Need Checks and Balances on Those Writing the Checks

Accountant pleads guilty to $1.1M foundation theft

A woman who was an accountant at Munson Healthcare in northern Michigan has pleaded guilty to embezzling $1.1 million from a hospital foundation.

Lots and lots of embezzelment schemes are being detected now that the economy is weak and businesses are keeping closer track of their expenses, and the IRS is noting missing tax payments.

A lot of the fraud happens in the accounting department, because that's where the money is.

I had a client who was ripped off over $300,000 due to the bookeeper's writing checks to herself and falsely entering the checks into the books as going to payroll taxes and rent, which certainly helped destroy the company.

This creates a double whammy: Not only are you out the money they've stolen, you're also liable for unpaid federal taxes and penalties (and unpaid payroll taxes can result in personal liability for the owner of the business), and the federal taxes don't go away.

Often, the first sign businesses get when they've been embezzled in this manner is a federal tax lien for the taxes they up until then believed they had paid.

Businesses really need to have mechanisms in place to distribute the accounting functions of bill payment so that one person alone isn't handling the bookeeping and check writting without some oversight. There always has to be confirmation that the money is actually going where it needs to be paid rather than in a dishonest but trusted employees's pocket.

It is much better to prevent embezzlement before it starts than have to chase after money that is most likely already gone and spent.