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not sure if i could pull this off

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A reported merger between Dow Chemical and DuPont would be one of the largest deals in a year that’s already seen $4 trillion worth of mergers and acquisitions.

On the surface, the deal looks like it would create one massive chemical company, but it could actually be an attempt by both to become leaner and more focused. Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross school of business, said the move is in line with many of the other mergers this year.

“Well, the fashion these days is that companies focus themselves instead of diversify,” he said. “You’re out of fashion even if you’re in different segments in just one industry. These companies are in a lot of segments in the chemicals industry.”

The plan could break the company up into three distinct businesses – one in commodities, one creating specialty products like Kevlar and Teflon and a third for agriculture chemicals.

Neither company would comment on the talks and the deal is by no means final.

A deal of this size might also have trouble getting past antitrust regulators. Case in point: GE had to back off the sale of its appliance division to Electrolux earlier this week.

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Australian Police swarmed a suburban Sydney home Wednesday belonging to academic and businessman Craig Wright.

Gizmodo and Wired have both named Wright as the likely creator of Bitcoin, the real man behind the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Authorities insist the raid is "unrelated" to reports about Wright.

Nakamoto was the first to publish an academic paper about Bitcoin and — after participating in forums and email lists in its early days — has largely disappeared. The identity of the person or people has inspired wild speculation among fans of the virtual currency.

Part of Nakamoto's legendary status is due to the legendary amount of money involved; each Bitcoin is worth about $410 today, and Satoshi — whoever he/she/it is — has about a million of Bitcoin in an account that has remained untouched.

"I am sure that this is the most compelling case for Satoshi Nakamoto's identity ever published," said Sam Biddle, who with Andy Cush, co-wrote Gizmodo's story on Wright's potential connection to Nakamoto.

What's strange, Biddle says, and why the mystery remains so tantalizing, is the magnitude of the technical achievement.

"Whatever you think of Bitcoin," he said, "it is an incredible piece of software. And whoever made it, or whichever people made it, would be heroes in the field. And so it's bizarre that they would remain completely anonymous. That's never happened before."

Biddle spoke with Wright directly, as well as his current and former colleagues. Gizmodo also interviewed former colleagues of the man the site names as Wright's co-creator, Florida security researcher Dave Kleiman, who died in 2013.

That said, Biddle isn't sold on Bitcoin as the technology that will upend the financial system.

"The ability of this open source software to bring the big banks and Western Union to their knees, I think it's safe to say, has not panned out. There was always an element of scifi, William Gibson dreaming to the Bitcoin story."

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every time that she finds a minute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mof0dEKT_9Q

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$17B

The government of Colombia has announced that it’s found a 300-year-old shipwreck packed with treasure worth possibly $17 billion — as well as incalculable historical value.

One late spring evening in 1708, the San Jose was sailing off the coast of what’s now Cartagena, according to one report. It was carrying 600 people and more in emeralds, gold and silver than the entire national income of Spain at the time.

“Billions in today’s money,” said Ted Folkman, an attorney with Murphy King who has written about the legal conflicts surrounding the ship.

The treasure was bound to help France fight the British in the war of Spanish Succession, but a British squadron got to it first and unleashed a hail of cannon fire. According to one account, there was so much blood on the deck that sand was put down to keep people from slipping. Just after sunset, the ship went down with almost everyone and everything aboard.

“People have been looking for it ever since,” Folkman said.

A contractor, Glocca Morra Co., found a likely location of the wreck in 1981. It was operating under an agreement with the Colombian government to split the value 50-50. The contractor transferred the rights to an American company, Sea Search Armada. Later, Colombia passed a law changing the share available to treasure hunters to 5 percent. Where the number lies in an ongoing dispute, Sea Search Armada says. Meanwhile, Spain says it may also have a claim to the treasure.

“The legality of shipwrecks has been an issue for hundreds of years,” said Frederick Hanselmann, chief underwater archaeologist at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University.

In Texas, for example, treasure hunting is illegal. In Florida it is as well, but certain treasure claims prior to 1988 are grandfathered.

“The Dominican Republic has an agreement where the government or private company will split 50 percent of the artifacts they get,” Hanselmann said, noting his disapproval of such agreements. “They have a point system where, for example hypothetically, an emerald cross is worth 400 points and a silver coin is worth 10. So they say we’ll give you 40 silver coins and keep the cross. It all depends on what the setup is.”

Not only are laws different in every country and every state, the facts are often murky.

“So if you have a Spanish ship that sank in Mexican waters, carrying gold and silver mined in modern day Peru, who owns it?” Hanselmann said.

Courts in different places have divvied up treasure in many different ways. In one high-profile case in 2012, a U.S. court awarded $500 million worth of Spanish silver coins found by American treasure hunters to the government of Spain.

Mariano Aznar, professor of law at University of Jaume in Spain, has sharp words for those who get too enchanted by riches.

“I don’t like the word treasure,” he said. “It reduces the wreck to monetary value; we are talking about heritage.”

In the case of the San Jose, it’s also the grave site of 600 people.

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i was like, who is Alphabet?

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mmmm cookie

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MJ makes $100M a year.

Nike and Lebron James have just agreed on a lifetime endorsement, an unprecedented move for Nike in spite of its many athlete partnerships. The deal, according to ESPN sources, will easily surpass Kevin Durant's $300 million, 10-year deal signed last year.

While other sports giants Adidas and Reebok have signed lifetime deals with the likes of David Beckham, Derrick Rose, and Allen Iverson, this marks the first time Nike has slapped that label on one of their stars.

With this deal already breaking the mold for Nike, here's a look back on some other massive contracts for a picture of the landscape in which this deal takes place:

Kevin Durant

Last summer, Under Armour had entered the fray with a massive offer to the Oklahoma City star, but Nike had the opportunity to counter anything Under Armour put down. In the end, terms were reached for a $300 million/10-year deal.

David Beckham

David Beckham was one of the first athletes to sign a lifetime endorsement deal, which cost Nike rival Adidas around $160 million.

Derrick Rose

Derrick Rose signed on with Adidas for life, which for Adidas meant 14 years, for $260 million.

Lebron James

While his new contract blazes new paths for Nike, "the King" is no stranger to big money from them. His first deal with the shoe giant in 2003 was a 7-year $90 million contract.

There is one name that probably comes closest to what you might call a lifetime deal: Michael Jordan. Jordan's relationship with Nike is unlike any other athlete, even if it doesn't sport the "lifetime" tag in a formal way. Many years removed from his basketball career, Jordan's annual earnings still average around $100 million, largely because of his Nike royalties. The Jordan brand commands 58 percent of the US basketball shoe market.

While Jordan remains the shoe king, James' new deal is setting a precedent all its own.

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y now, any reasonable sports fan has seen the headline: David Price — $217 million. Welcome to the Major League Baseball arms race, in this case a race for a left arm that throws a fastball 95 mph. The Boston Red Sox are the winning bidder.

All of which raises the question of how inflated baseball salaries really are.

To geek out on sports inflation, it’s useful to look at the concept of money supply. Really. The more money in any economic system, the higher prices want to go. And baseball teams have more money than ever; the average club is worth $1.2 billion, according to Forbes.

“The biggest reason has basically been these television contracts,” said analytics researcher Jesse Wolfersberger, who writes for Hardball Times. He said TV stations pay so much to teams because advertisers pay so much to stations.

“In live sports, people don’t skip the commercials,” Wolfersberger said. “So a whole bunch of money is getting funneled into sports networks.”

By one estimate, in the last dozen years, baseball salaries have inflated 60 percent. But team revenues have gone up 120 percent. So all this baseball money supply is chasing a few select men who stand on a hill and throw. Preferably lefties.

“Every market, there’s supply and demand considerations,” said Patrick Rishe, director of sports business at Washington University in St. Louis and founder of the research firm Sportsimpacts. “But a top-flight, left-handed starter is in short supply. Most of us are not as in short supply in terms of how unique we are to our employers.”

The average baseball player salary is reportedly 66 times the average American household income. And the next big contract for the next David Price will be more inflated than the last.

Is there no price stability? Is Janet Yellen listening?

Actually, there is something in the baseball market that holds down rising paychecks: a luxury cap that taxes high-spending clubs.

“If there was not a luxury cap, David Price would be earning more money, I would assume,” said sports economist Robert Baumann at College of the Holy Cross. “And so it’s stopping teams from paying even larger salaries."

This year that luxury cap gives teams an incentive to pay its players $189 million or less every year. Still, as the late Yogi Berra put it, salaries seems to be rising so fast, “a nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”

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hot ride

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oh man i need to unsubscribe. they only let me see 7 before wanting me to buy a subscription!

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interesting stock photo

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With the return of Daniel Sturridge and Jurgen Klopp in charge, there is a new mood of confidence that the team can clinch the title, only not quite.

Liverpool fan Nathan Muir said: “I really believe that this season we can do it, but won’t do it.

“I can see us going all the way, three points clear with two games to go, only to lose to Watford at home after Mignolet throws the ball into his own net with no player near him.

“This is what Liverpool Football Club is all about. Passion. Heart. Desire. The shirt. Wanting it more than the other team. Wanting it so much you become paralysed with fear at the thought of not getting it.”

Muir added: “We’re like a man who’s desperate to impress the woman of his dreams on a date, and it’s all going brilliantly until he vomits on her pudding.”

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The average price of a property in locations like London or Bristol is expected to rise by six per cent in 2016, causing a housing crisis apart from in areas where nobody particularly wants to live.

Property expert Carolyn Ryan said: “What am I supposed to tell first-time buyers? That they can achieve their dream of home ownership if they just give up hope of living anywhere they’re not ashamed of?

“When we talk about the housing crisis, we’re talking about real places like Brighton or Leeds or the Cotswolds, not the blasted hinterlands like Swansea or Dundee that make up the vast majority of the UK.

“House prices are rising uncontrollably in areas that matter. There. Happy now?”

Self-employed electrician Norman Steele said: “Here in Derbyshire, all £300k buys me is a detached six-bedroom house with gardens front and rear set in stunning countryside.

“This crisis is absolutely out of control.”

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hey kevin its your GF

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The prime minister said war offered a ‘fantastic opportunity’ to return to sensible, 1940s-style portion sizes, especially for people on low and average incomes.

He added: “Bland, grey, suet-based foodstuffs will also help to build the character you will need for the dark days ahead.

“Those on benefits will be served in large, draughty halls on trestle tables by meaty-armed women who will whack them with a ladle if they take more than their share.

“What an adventure it will be.”

The relaunched Ministry of Food will distribute rations including powdered Sunny Delight, four ounces of cheese strings for children and a block of compressed turkey-based product for an average family.

As the war continues, the turkey rations will be replaced by domestically-reared products such as road badger and neighbour’s dog.

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he billionaire Facebook founder is now wondering if he can get out of his pledge to hand over $45 billion on the grounds that he had drunk two bottles of red wine.

Zuckerberg said: “I woke up with a splitting hangover and remembered I’d been on the computer till quite late, so naturally hoped I hadn’t said anything embarrassing on social media.

“I decided I’d probably just put up some music links and maybe written a few comments that weren’t nearly as funny or interesting in the cold light of day.

“But when I logged on I realised I’d promised to hand over my vast wealth to ‘good causes’. I went out into the garden and repeatedly kicked a tree while saying ‘fuck’.”

After checking his browser history, Zuckerberg believes his insane generosity may have been inspired by repeatedly listening to The New Seekers’ 1971 hit I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing in a state of alcohol-induced sentimentality.

He continued: “I can’t go back on it without looking a complete bastard. My wife’s going to have a fit when I tell her she can’t have a tropical island and a space shuttle for Christmas.”

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who wants to go in on a leg with me?

$193 quintillion
That's the estimated cost of building the Death Star in the first Star Wars film, according to a new report by Washington University assistant professor Zach Feinstein. And when he crunched the numbers, Feinstein concluded that the second Death Star (also destroyed) probably cost double to build. Meaning the next Star Wars film may very well be about an intergalactic bailout.

$670
That's about how much a single leg of Ibérico ham costs in Spain. It costs about twice as much in the U.S., and even more in China. Even so, the Chinese markets have proven hungry for the specialty product, with pork imports from Spain ever increasing. But as the New York Times reports, makers of the ham are wary of sharing trade secrets, should the Chinese decide to try entering the market.

18.11 billion
That's how many gallons of renewable biofuel must be mixed into the nation's gas supply in 2016, according to a new rule from the EPA. And the new requirement has been met with frustration from multiple sides of the debate. That number is less than Congress had intended based on goals set in 2007. On the other hand, the American Petroleum Institute argues that consumers have rejected higher ethanol fuels.

27
That's the percentage of homes in the UK that now have super-fast broadband, up from last year's 21 percent. The BBC has coverage of the Ofcom report that looks at UK wireless networks. Also included in the report: as many as six million homes are slowing down their own wi-fi with items like Christmas lights.

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Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has been under increasing pressure to get some growth going at the venerable and seemingly constantly troubled Internet pioneer, and it's not like the company hasn't tried just about everything. Almost everything.

Yahoo's board is meeting this week amid rumors it might put its core internet business up for sale. So why'd anyone want to buy?

In the plus column for Yahoo there's traffic, traffic and more traffic. 210 million people visited Yahoo sites in October, according to comScore, making it the third most popular website in the country.

The company still turns a profit, but the long promised turnaround hasn't come.

"Someone else may have an idea that figures out how to build a profitable business, and build a growing business off of it," said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal Research.

A media or telecom company might be interested in buying Yahoo to extend its own reach, to distribute its content to more people. The Wall Street Journal is dropping names like Verizon and News Corp. Analysts have also mentioned Comcast and Amazon as potential suitors.

"I think the issue for the investors and Wall Street is growth," said Greg Sterling of Search Engine Land. He said a buyer that's less focused on Yahoo's growth might make for a good fit.

Maybe also a buyer that's not as focused on Yahoo's fading brand.

"Yahoo was one of the original internet companies, it was enormously powerful and successful for a long time," Sterling said. "And then it got superseded by some of the new players."

Yahoo has tried to catch up: it bought Tumblr, it got into original programming — and lost tens of millions of dollars in the process.

In the words of Yogi Berra, what we might have here is an "insurmountable opportunity.

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The pledge by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Dr. Priscilla Chan to give away most of their wealth — some $45 billion — to promote social good is getting headlines around the world. But beyond the eye-popping number (which will be given over time) is an important detail that could have major implications for the future of giving.

Zuckerberg and Chan are doing this in a way quite different from other billionaires, such as Bill and Melinda Gates, who launched a foundation, or Warren Buffett, who gave a pile of money to the Gates Foundation. The new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is not a foundation. It’s an LLC. This may sound like a mere legal and accounting distinction, but to those who follow the charitable world, it is hugely important and could be very influential.

“What we’re seeing here could be the end of philanthropy as we have known it,” said Leslie Lenkowsky, professor of public affairs and philanthropy at Indiana University. “This is going to be by far the biggest effort of the sort to really think of philanthropy more as a business than simply giving away money.”

Lenkowsky describes himself as “a big champion” of this kind of thinking, but adds that many others in the philanthropic world aren’t so sure.

An LLC is a business. It can give money to nonprofits, but it’s not legally required to. And it can do a lot more because it doesn’t face tax restrictions nonprofits do. That can include investing in for-profit companies. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative says it will to do just that with companies that fit the mission of “advancing human potential and promoting equality.” It says any profits will be reinvested in projects that align with that mission. Creating an LLC gives them more flexibility on how they can put their money to work.

Zuckerberg and Chan also plan to jump into public policy debates. That gets to another difference: LLCs can lobby.

“People have been looking at [the LLC] as an interesting tool that has not yet quite found its home,” said Norah Jones, who advises clients on charitable giving as a partner at Quarles & Brady. “Maybe this is the start of that next chapter.”

There’s excitement about the potential for this move to shake up philanthropy in positive ways. But there are also concerns about transparency. Nonprofits face various requirements to report their activities and finances. LLCs do not. Lenkowsky would like to see the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative report publicly on the impact of its giving and its finances, even though it doesn’t legally have to.

The philanthropic world is trying to be more entrepreneurial. But apparently a traditional nonprofit structure is not entrepreneurial enough for one of the world’s most famous entrepreneurs

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Stephen Malley, a graphic designer originally from Cambridgeshire, had a moment of clarity while ordering a flat white from an artisan bakery that used to be a fried chicken shop.

Malley said: “I was just complaining to my accountant that it was getting harder to find cheap avocados when I was seized by a horrifying self-awareness.

“I looked down at my pale, bourgeois hands, uncalloused by honest work, and in that moment I knew the truth. I am the enemy within, the bringer of blandness, the reason our cleaner has to live 50 miles away.”

A dazed Malley staggered out into the street, which was full of his tastefully bearded doppelgangers, and vomited against a gourmet burger bar.

Malley’s wife Daisy said: “We moved to Peckham two years ago because it was cheap and vibrant, and I could give Reiki massages at home while setting up an online juice business.

“Now my husband tells me I am a monster in a yoga-honed body.

“My first instinct was to jump off the multi-storey car park that is now a Campari bar. But then I realised how much money I could make selling ‘Save Peckham from me’ organic cotton tote bags so, swings and roundabouts.”

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As well as filing daily reports to the North Pole detailing whether childrens’ behaviour means they deserve presents, the elf is monitoring adults’ bad habits for its own amusement.

Elf Tom Logan said: “The kids are right little shits – two days into December, and they’re down to a tub of felts and a pirate Lego – but you can see where they get it from.

“He’s watching porn on the iPad as soon as the room’s empty for five minutes.

“Meanwhile she’s back on the fags as well as vaping and that’s no spa weekend with the girls she’s going on. Not unless the girls are called Federico.

“They’re knocking back three bottles of vino a night, they’ve ordered two grams of coke for the weekend and I swear I saw her swigging Bailey’s before the school run.

“I have to admit, I’m hooked. This is better than True Detective.”