Business

What We Know About

Caught 5 days after the shooting in a Pennsylvania McDonalds, still carrying the alleged murder weapon and a manifesto.

It didn’t take long to find the shooter from last week’s assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was arrested for the killing, after he was spotted in a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles from New York City, on Monday. Photos released showed him in the corner of the McDonalds, with his mask down, holding hash browns, while donning a winter jacket and beanie.

[By the way, what an advertisement for McDonalds. Especially their hash browns. Even a murderer on the run couldn’t resist stopping off for some Mickey D’s.)

Mangione, who was recognized by both customers and an employee, reportedly had the gun, silencer and matching fake ID used to check in to the New York Hostel on him, along with a manifesto. When arrested, Mangione did not say anything to the police until he was facing the judge, where he claimed the $8,000 they found in his bag was planted there. 

When Mangione was led into the court on Tuesday, he was heard shouting that something “is completely out of touch and an insult to the intelligence of the American people!”

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a public safety news conference on Wednesday that the casings from the shooting matched the gun recovered on Mangione. Additionally, his fingerprints were a match for those found on a water bottle and protein bar wrapper near the scene of the crime.  

Mangione is originally from Maryland. He graduated as the valedictorian of an elite private high school in Baltimore, where he reportedly played soccer (and tuition was apparently $40k a year), before studying at the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Ivy League, where he earned a degree in computer science. 

According to a former roommate, Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life (i.e. surfing and romance). After six months, Mangione left Hawaii in the summer of 2022 to get surgery on the mainland. He then returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment.

According to those from his life who have been speaking with the media, Mangione changed in the last year or two. That former roommate, Josiah Ryan, said he hadn’t talked to Luigi in 6-12 months. Reports also state that Mangione hadn’t been in contact with his family for the same amount of time. 

Part of Mangione’s manifesto was released:

“To the Feds, I'll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn't working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allowed them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

According to TMZ, Mangione was originally considering a bomb to kill Thompson, but was worried about harming innocent people.

Mangione's lawyer, Thomas Dickey, said his client intends to oppose extradition to New York and plead not guilty to the charges against him, including the count of second-degree murder.

"We're going to fight this along the rules and with the constitutional protections that my client has," Thomas told reporters.

Stellantis CEO “Lost Control of the Automaker”

Arrogance is the word being used to describe the CEOs downfall.

It’s been a tough stretch for Stellantis (the manufacturer of Chrysler, Dodger, Jeep and others), as U.S.-traded shares are off 43% in 2024, while Ford Motor is only off 9% and General Motors is up 55%.

The culprit? Apparently arrogance. Former Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares cited arrogance in June as the reason for the mistakes that have led to the company's issues. Meanwhile, many former/current leaders and employees said it was Tavares’ arrogance that was the problem. As the portuguese-born executive often blamed U.S. executives for the issues, while ignoring his own mistakes. 

Tavares was also obsessed with cost-cutting, his goal of achieving double-digit profit margins under his “Dare FOrward 2030” business plan, and his unwillingness to listen to those aforementioned U.S. executives about the American market - all to the extreme detriment of the company. Other issues included a lack of support for new products, squeezing supplier costs and the mismanagement of plants and products in North America. 

“If you think you know everything, you’re not going to listen to anybody else,” one source told CNBC.

Tavares’ departed the company last week. As they say - ego (arrogance) is the enemy.

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Economy

Gold is Rising

Geopolitics are driving demand in a chaotic year.

Gold prices increased this week, continuing recent gains that have been driven by the growing tensions in Syria and a selloff on Wall Street. 

With Syria potentially at odds with Iran, and Israel launching an attack against Syria, many investors were put on edge over this tension in the Middle East, pushing them into traditional safe havens like gold. 

Anticipation of several key economic cues in the coming days are expected to keep investors on edge. Such as central banks in Canada, the European Union and Switzerland decided on interest rates this week, followed by the Federal Reserve next week.

Other precious metals were less upbeat than gold, as platinum futures fell 0.6% and silver increased 0.1%.

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Tech

AI Video is Officially Here

OpenAI’s Sora is flooding the virtual streets with AI generated Video.

OpenAI announced this week that they are making Sora, a powerful video creation tool, available to anyone who pays for ChatGPT… opening the door to a plethora of deep fakes.

This will now allow people to create large(r) quantities of video content that is realistic, but ultimately fake. You will have to make sure to double, and maybe even triple, check the content you now consume online (if you weren’t already).

Apparently this is all part of the plan, as OpenAI is doing this to see how this experiment plays out. Like a mad scientist. 

“We’re introducing our video generation technology now to give society time to explore its possibilities and co-develop norms and safeguards that ensure it’s used responsibly as the field advances,” the company wrote, while introducing the new product.

Used responsibly? We’ll see about that… 

OpenAI gave a sneak peek into Sora last February, which caused some consternation in Hollywood. Now only for potentially stealing jobs down the road, but also for copyright issues.

“We don’t want the world to just be text,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explained. Video is “important to our culture,” he said.

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Global News

Israel Bombs and Seizes Territory in Syria

What a week they’re having in Syria

Israel is taking advantage of the opportunity, following the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, as they have launched airstrikes at military targets throughout the country. Israel struck 480 times over a two day period, while also deploying ground troops into and beyond a buffer zone for the first time in 50 years. The strikes were aimed towards weapon stockpiles.

Israel seized territory, while their Defense Minister, Israel Katz, said the Israeli navy destroyed the Syrian fleet overnight in an operation that he deemed “a great success.”

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told journalists that they were bombing Syrian military facilities housing chemical weapons stocks and long-range missiles to prevent them from falling “into the hands of extremists.”

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Politics

Government Involvement Driving High Healthcare Prices

Healthcare, more topical than ever it seems.

The celebrations of Brian Thompson’s murder online, as well as turning Luigi Mangione into a hero, is the latest proof that many Americans are frustrated with the health insurance industry in this country. 

However, some experts are saying that the government, and not the health insurance companies, deserves much of the blame. 

“The murder is, of course, horrible, but it is good that policymakers are waking up to just how frustrated people are,” said Dean Clancy, senior health policy fellow at Americans for Prosperity (AFP). 

Clancy blamed many of the problems on the 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare.” Clancy explained that it “turned the health insurance industry into basically a massive recipient of taxpayer subsidies.” Clancy said that health insurers have been the most profitable companies in America for the past decade, as a direct result of Obamacare, yet people haven’t seen a corresponding improvement in the quality, access or convenience of care (which is actually similar to what Mangione had written in his manifesto).

Clancy acknowledged that the health care system was not perfect prior to 2010 (this is not a new problem), but at least then patients could get insurance that was affordable and tailored to their needs - something that is much harder now. 

“We need a William Wallace ‘Braveheart’ moment where the American people say ‘Freedom!’” Clancy explained. “To hell with all the bureaucracy and paperwork and prior authorization and skinny provider networks and endlessly rising premiums. Let’s just have freedom.”

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