LONDON — A successful British "venture-builder" business is expanding to New York, hoping to show off Britain's expertise in financial technology in America.
Blenheim Chalcot, which was founded 20 years ago in London, is opening its first US office in New York. The office will act as a "beachhead" for Blenheim Chalcot-backed businesses looking to expand to the states.
Blenheim Chalcot sets up startups and then provides support services to them such as legal, recruiting, IT, and other admin-type tasks, allowing entrepreneurs to focus on building their businesses. Blenheim Chalcot currently supports around 20 companies across fintech, education services, and media. It has assets of over $600 million under management and reinvests money from successes into its other businesses.
"One of the real strengths of the Blenheim Chalcot model is that we have a team of some 200 people that work across London, India, and now the US to create an ecosystem that helps our businesses to win," Dan Cobley, the managing partner of fintech at Blenheim Chalcot, told Business Insider.
A recent success is ClearScore, a free credit checking service that Experian is in the process of buying for $383 million, although UK competition regulators are probing the deal.
"We decided we wanted to go into the US and formerly put that capability on the ground so that as our businesses in London and Nottingham want to go to the US, they've got a beachhead, a landing pad, that gives them a lot of support," Cobley said. "We think that's really powerful."
Cobley was previously the managing director of Google in the UK, and cut his teeth at Capital One before that. He joined Blenheim Chalcot in 2014.
The US is already well served for tech startups, but Cobley believes Blenheim Chalcot's businesses still have something to offer.
"While there are some areas in which the US is well served, there are some areas in which the UK is leading," he said.
"In fintech, London does have incredible strength. London's the only place where you've got the tech, the regulator, and the banks all in the same geography all supporting each other and you've got a big unified UK market, which helps them get to a reasonable scale, versus the US situation where you've got Silicon Valley, New York, and Washington as three important geographies all quite well separated. And you've got different regulation in the different states which makes it harder for fintechs to get to national strength as quickly."
Blenheim Chalcot's new office will help launch two of its fintech businesses in the US initially: SalaryFinance, which lets staff borrow against future paychecks; and small business lender Liberis.
SalaryFinance is already working with Legal & General in the US, and Cobley said part of the rationale for expanding to New York was client demand.
"We've got a number of clients who are international and they're asking if we can serve them in the US. That gives us an obvious bridge," he said.
Blenheim Chaclot is helping to bring over seven of its 20 UK businesses to the US initially. Others include training platform Avado Learning and publishing business Contentive.
A massive typhoon is ripping through Japan, leaving at least two dead and injuring more than one hundred others.
As of Monday afternoon, local time, powerful Typhoon Trami has been categorized by Japan's Meteorological Agency as "strong." According to the agency the eye of the storm is now approaching northern Japan at 95km/h (59 mph) with maximum sustained winds of 126 km/h (78 mph) and gusts of 180 km/h (112 mph).
Warnings were issued across several prefectures in central and northern Japan. On Sunday afternoon, more than 3.7 million people were ordered to evacuate, according to national broadcaster NHK.
On Monday morning, trains experienced major delays, and hundreds of flights have been cancelled. The storm passed through Tokyo overnight, bringing record-strength winds that toppled trees and damaged buildings.
According to NHK, more than 390,000 homes in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures remain without power.
One man died following landslides in the western prefecture of Tottori, according to Kyodo News. Another was found dead in river in Yamanashi, west of Tokyo, and at least 100 others have been injured.
The typhoon marks the 24th to pound the area this year, according to Kyodo. Last month, Typhoon Jebi, considered to be one of the strongest in decades, slammed Osaka, leaving 17 dead and hundreds injured, and causing at least $2.3 billion in damages that the country is still recovering from.
And in early September, a 6.7 magnitude hurricane killed over 40 people in the northern Hokkaido region, causing massive power outages and widespread destruction.
Engineers and manufacturers have been working to automate the homebuilding process for years, and some startups have already released prototypes of their designs. Until this year, however, nobody has lived in any of these prototypes.
This summer, a five-person family in France became the first to permanently live in a 3D-printed home. The 1,022-square-foot home, part of the "Yhnova" project, is located in Nantes.
Below, take a look at the building's construction process and photos of other startups' designs for 3D-printed homes.
Facebook may be fined as much as $1.63 billion by an EU privacy watchdog for a recent data breach announced Friday that compromised the personal information of more than 50 million users.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Ireland's Data Protection Commission, Facebook's lead regulator in Europe, said on Saturday it demanded more information about the nature and scope of the hack, which may have violated the EU's new privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation.
The strict new regulation went into affect in May, and aims to safeguard user data for individuals within the European Union. Under the law, companies that don't sufficiently protect user data face maximum fines of €20 million ($23 million), or 4% of the company's global annual revenue from the prior year, depending on which sum is larger.
In Facebook's case, the maximum fine would be $1.63 billion, according to the Journal. The case would likely center on whether Facebook took appropriate steps to safeguard its user data before the breach, it added.
Companies are also required to notify regulators within 3 days of a potential breach, facing a maximum fine of 2% of their global revenue. Ireland's Data Protection Commission said Facebook notified it of the breach within that time frame, though the report "lacked detail," the Journal added.
But the occurrence of a security breach is not enough to warrant a fine, and the new privacy law's fines have yet to be tested. According to the Journal, EU regulators often decline to issue a maximum fine when a company has cooperated, in part of fully, with an investigation.
On Friday, the tech firm revealed it had detected a security breach in which attackers gained access to the personal information of around 50 million Facebook users.
The hackers also gained access to personal information from third-party apps and services, like Tinder, Spotify, Airbnb and Instagram, which allow users to sign up using their Facebook login.
It remains unclear who was behind the attack, and whether specific persons were targeted.
But we know of at least two high-profile victims in the data breach: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and COO Sheryl Sandberg. A spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the company's two top execs had been affected.
Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau and US President Donald Trump Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Trade negotiators for the US and Canada are putting the finishing touches on a deal to reshape the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, Sunday evening. The agreement would seal the largest trade-deal rewrite of President Donald Trump's tenure.
The agreement, which should come just hours before a deadline set by the Trump administration, will pave the way for a vote in Congress to approve the deal after more than a year of negotiations among the US, Canada, and Mexico over the trilateral agreement.
Negotiators for the US and Canada were able to overcome major sticking points between the two countries, including Canada's protection of its dairy market and a system for settling trade disputes.
The dairy issue was a longtime target for Trump, who insisted that the high protective barriers for US dairy farmers trying to export to Canada were unfair.
On the other hand, Canada wanted to maintain Chapter 19, a key element of NAFTA that allowed countries to bring a grievance against another NAFTA member regarding unfair trade practices or tariffs. The procedure was essentially a fast-track version of the World Trade Organization's dispute settlements but only applied to the three NAFTA members.
The agreement also comes after the US and Mexico came to a separate handshake deal that strengthened rules around auto production in August. The Trump administration repeatedly threatened to move forward with the bilateral deal, excluding Canada.
(Read more: Here are all the details of the US-Mexico trade agreement»)
The new NAFTA deal also came on the last day before a Trump-imposed deadline to reach an agreement. Trump is renegotiating NAFTA under what is known as Trade Promotion Authority. While TPA gives Trump the ability to send a deal to Congress for a simple majority vote, it also includes a statutory 60 day notification period.
The timeline of the notification period has provided urgency to spearhead a NAFTA deal through Congress and onto the desk of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto before President-Elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes over in December. While López Obrador did have representatives present during the US-Mexico talks, there was concern about possible political upheaval around the changeover that could force more talks.
In addition to opening the door for a NAFTA rewrite, the deal could also ease trade tensions between the US and Canada over Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs.
Trump announced that the US would impose a 25% tariff on imports of Canadian steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum in June, which in turn prompted Canada to respond with retaliatory tariffs on a slew of US products in July.
Seattle Seahawks safety Earl Thomas suffered a broken leg in his team's 20-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. Thomas is likely out for the season.
As Thomas was carted off the field, he appeared to flip off the Seahawks bench, likely a gesture about his contract status.
Warning: Video contains explicit gesture.
Thomas held out of training camp this season to try get a new contract. Thomas is slated to make $10.4 million this year, the final year of his deal.
Thomas, like many other players who hold out of camp, wanted a bigger salary and more security in his contract. When the Seahawks held firm, he reported to the team, all while trade rumors circulated around his name.
Now Thomas will become a free agent while recovering from a major injury, turning 30 next season. Thomas proved he's still an elite safety this year, but his free agent market will likely take a hit because of the injury.
Warren Buffett has long said that short-termism is bad for companies, but many didn't seem to concur last year.
Companies on the S&P 500 issued quarterly earnings guidance 444 times in 2017, the most since 2008, according to a report by S&P Global Market Intelligence released on Thursday.
Forward guidance remains a cornerstone of the quarterly ritual of earnings reporting. Public companies are not required by law to give investors hard estimates for the future, unlike their results. But many companies do so anyway to give analysts and shareholders a sense of their outlook, sometimes by popular demand.
But Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has refrained from this practice. In fact, his company's earnings statements are so unorthodox that they don't include any quotes from him or other executives — he reserves those for his annual letter and shareholder meeting.
Buffett told CNBC in 2016 that earnings guidance "can lead to a lot of malpractice." That's because if companies know they are going to miss earnings expectations, they might try to find ways to make up for the shortfall.
Several other chief executives — including JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon, BlackRock's Larry Fink, and General Motors' Mary Barra — weighed in on the topic in 2016 in an open letter titled "Commonsense Corporate Governance Principles." They wrote, among other things, that markets were too obsessed with quarterly earnings forecasts and that companies should issue guidance only if it would benefit shareholders.
Even President Donald Trump weighed in, tweeting in August what he said was a quote from a business leader that companies should "stop quarterly reporting & go to a six month system."
Buffett, Dimon, and nearly 200 CEO members of the Business Roundtable narrowed in on the issue again in June. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed article, they said that quarterly earnings contributed to a shift away from long-term investments.
If the trend in 2018 is anything to go by, companies might be coming around to this viewpoint. S&P's data shows that guidance in the first and second quarters fell from a year ago. And according to a FactSet report released on Monday, companies were issuing third-quarter guidance at a pace below average.
LONDON — The UK would crash out of the EU without a deal rather than pursuing a soft Brexit, Dominic Raab will warn today.
Speaking at the Conservative conference in Birmingham, the Brexit secretary will warn the UK will be "left with no choice" but to pursue a no-deal Brexit if the EU fails to offer a favourable agreement.
"Our willingness to compromise is not without limits," Raab is expected to say.
"We are leaving the European Union in fact, not just in name. If we can't obtain a deal that secures that objective ... if an attempt is made to lock us in via the back door of the European Economic Area (EEA) and customs union ... or if the only offer from the EU threatens the integrity of the Union, then we will be left with no choice but to leave without a deal."
Theresa May has repeatedly ruled out remaining in the EEA because it would force the UK to retain the EU's freedom of movement policy, while a customs union would limit the UK's ability to strike independent trade deals.
Raab will insist that his approach to negotiations is "pragmatic, not dogmatic" and say the UK's proposed divorce deal "manages the risks of Brexit." Notably, however, his speech does not appear to name-check the "Chequers," which refers to Theresa May's divisive Brexit blueprint.
Several Cabinet ministers have stopped using the word because it is so unpopular among party members.
Raab's speech comes at the early stages of a party conference in Birmingham which is straining already tense relations within Cabinet to breaking point.
In an interview on Sunday, Boris Johnson launched a broadside at the prime minister, describing her plan for leaving the EU as "deranged."
May subsequently gave a standing ovation in Birmingham at a speech where Digby Jones, the former director-general of the CBI, described Boris Johnson an "an irrelevance" and an "offensive person."
Raab, who campaigned to leave the EU, was appointed as Brexit secretary in July following the resignation of David Davis.
A questionable decision on 4th down in overtime cost the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, as they lost, 37-34, to the Houston Texans.
After trading field goals in overtime, Andrew Luck got the ball with 1:50 left to play and got the Colts up to their 43-yard line. Facing 4th-and-4 with 27 seconds left, the Colts decided to go for it rather than punting the ball. That turned out to be a bad decision.
On 4th down, Luck's pass to Chester Rogers was incomplete, turning the ball over to the Texans on the Colts' half of the field, with 24 seconds to play.
On the first play of the drive, Deshaun Watson hit DeAndre Hopkins for a 24-yard pass, setting the Texans up for a 37-yard field goal. Texans kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn nailed the field goal as time expired to give Houston the win.
The announcers for the game were both stunned, openly questioning the Colts' decision. Though going for it on fourth down has become more popular across the league, in the Colts' case, opting not to punt gave the Texans a great chance to get the win, rather than settling for a tie.
Many in the NFL world questioned the decision.
After the game, Colts head coach Frank Reich told reporters, "We're not playing to tie. We're going for it 10 times out of 10."
While a tie may have been unsatisfying, the Colts made things easier for the Texans. Both teams are 1-3.
On Monday, Instagram cofounders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger made the unexpected announcement that they would be leaving the company in the the coming weeks.
They didn't provide a reason for quitting, but in the last interviews he gave before announcing his departure, Systrom may have hinted at why he and Krieger decided to leave the company.
Systrom recently made an appearance on the Masters of Scale podcast hosted by Reid Hoffman, where he discussed his visions for Instagram and how the company came to be. In the interview, Systrom spoke about his decision to sell Instagram to Facebook, and how he was initially optimistic about the relationship.
"The decision to sell was mostly about whether or not we were aligned in our vision of Instagram, and I think Mark and I both saw at the time that Instagram was a special thing," Systrom said in the interview. "It wasn't going to be like, 'Oh, we'll buy this thing and it'll just be Facebook Photos.' Like, 'We'll rebrand it as Facebook Photos.' It's a unique community and had a unique angle and he wanted to invest in it."
Systrom also explained how Facebook's infrastructure had a huge effect on Instagram's growth, and the relationship between the two companies was mutually beneficial. However, according to Recode, this relationship began to decay as Facebook began to take Instagram in a different direction — a direction that was antithetical to Systrom's vision of keeping Instagram "simple" and distinct from Facebook.
"The whole idea of joining Facebook was that we could scale way more quickly than we would independently," Systrom said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal Magazine, which was conducted before his departure announcement. While the ability to quickly scale the Instagram platform was an upside to selling to Facebook, Systrom may have come to disagree with how the parent company was treating that relationship.
However, it's been rumored that the duo's departure came as a result of some headbutting with Facebook executives over their conflicting visions of what Instagram should be, and whether the social media app was competing with Facebook's userbase. Multiple sources told Recode that Systrom and Krieger were frustrated with how Facebook had been dealing with Instagram lately, after an initially smooth and co-beneficial relationship for the first six years.
In the last year or so, Facebook lessened its promotion of Instagram, according to Recode, removing the Instagram label when pictures from the platform were shared to Facebook and decreasing the amount of Instagram promotion from within Facebook, in addition to testing Instagram notifications that would send people to Facebook. Recode is also reporting that there was conflict over the introduction of Instagram TV, and that Facebook was worried it would draw users away from Facebook's own in-app video service. Given the sum of these actions, Recode's sources claim Instagram executives were worried Facebook may have been intentionally slowing Instagram's growth.
For now, Systrom isn't setting the record straight one way or the other, but that could change once the executive officially departs the company in coming weeks — or perhaps the next time he sits down with a reporter to talk about whatever new project he's working on next.
You can listen to or read Systrom's interview with Hoffman on the Masters of Scale podcast here. You can read the full WSJ Magazine article here.
The former FBI director, James Comey, weighed in Sunday on the recent firestorm surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the decision to order an FBI investigation into the sexual-misconduct allegations against him.
In an op-ed published by The New York Times, Comey wrote that "the FBI is up for this," referring to the background check. "It's not as hard as Republicans hope it will be."
Comey continued, "FBI agents are experts at interviewing people and quickly dispatching leads to their colleagues around the world to follow with additional interviews. Unless limited in some way by the Trump administration, they can speak to scores of people in a few days, if necessary."
But multiple media reports this weekend have suggested that the FBI's inquiry is far more constrained than previously known.
Initially, Republicans set just two parameters: that the investigation had to be complete in under a week, and that it had to be limited to "current credible" allegations against Kavanaugh.
But on Saturday, NBC News and The Times reported that the White House and Senate Republicans gave the FBI a list of just four witnesses to interview. Investigators are also reportedly barred from pulling records that could be critical to corroborating parts of the testimony given by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, to the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this week.
Republicans and Kavanaugh's defenders have argued that because the alleged assault happened 36 years ago, Ford may be remembering it wrong, and that it should carry less weight compared to Kavanaugh's standing since then.
"But FBI agents know time has very little to do with memory," Comey wrote. "They know every married person remembers the weather on their wedding day, no matter how long ago. Significance drives memory."
Comey also alluded to the apparent discrepancy between statements Kavanaugh made to the committee about his drinking habits in high school and college, and what some of his former classmates remember based on their encounters with him.
In particular, Kavanaugh claims that he was not a heavy drinker when he was young and that he never drank to excess or had gaps in his memory. His former classmates, conversely, have said that they recall multiple instances when Kavanaugh was heavily intoxicated and likely blacked out.
Kavanaugh's high school yearbook also appears to contain multiple references to partying and heavy drinking. But the Supreme Court nominee said under oath that they were innocent references to inside jokes that had nothing to do with what the common meanings of those terms typically are.
FBI investigators "know that little lies point to bigger lies," Comey wrote. "They know that obvious lies by the nominee about the meaning of words in a yearbook are a flashing signal to dig deeper."
It's unclear how deep the FBI will be able to dig, however, given the additional limits that have been placed on the scope of the investigation.
"There isn't a finder of fact in the country that would hamstring investigators like this," said Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor in Chicago. "It would be comical if it wasn't so important."
Gergely Dudás' viral (and adorable) works of art challenge people to pay attention to details. He's hidden a panda among snowmen, a card among gift bags, a heart among elephants, a lollipop among ice cream, and a bunny among cats.
He's also released two books of brain teasers — one of holiday puzzles called "Bear's Merry Book of Hidden Things," and another called "Bear's Spooky Book of Hidden Things."
With Halloween on its way, Dudás shared one of the illustrations from "Bear's Spooky Book of Hidden Things" to see if people could spot a magic wand hidden within closely-packed Halloween candy. Can you find it?
Take a look at the image:
Where's the wand?Gergely Dudás/Dudolf
Can you see the magic wand?
If you can't, try again.
Still no sign of it?
That's okay.
The answer is below.
If you want to see where it is, keep scrolling.
Or if you want to look one more time, now's your chance to scroll back up.
Ready to see the answer?
Here it is:
There it is.Gergely Dudás/Dudolf
The wand looks like another piece of candy, but it has a star on top.
When you become stressed, your body releases stress hormones such as cortisol and epinephrine. Depending on the level of your stress, these can inhibit your ability to think clearly, said David Parnell, a legal consultant, communication coach, and author.
"Ensuring that you remain calm, collected, and cool in the minutes leading up to the interview is necessary to avoid this hormonal elixir, and keep your mind clear," Parnell said.
Career coach Anita Attridge added that staying calm before and during an interview allows you to listen better and to stay focused on how to best respond to questions.
"In addition, you are better able to think how you can best present your accomplishments in alignment with what is important to the interviewer — and being calm also demonstrates your ability to deal with stressful situations," Attridge said.
It was a close race for the top spot at the domestic box office this weekend, as Universal's "Night School" finished the weekend below industry projections and Warner Bros' "Smallfoot" kept a steady pace.
But when the smoke cleared, "Night School" was the winner, raking in an estimated $28 million.
The latest comedy from the director of "Girls Trip," Malcolm D. Lee, the equalizer for "Night School" was that it has Tiffany Haddish and Kevin Hart as its stars, two of the most popular actors working today.
Despite coming in under its projected $30 million opening, Universal can't frown with a $28 million start for "Night School." Most studio comedies would beg for that kind of box office coin its opening weekend.
WB's family friendly "Smallfoot" — featuring the voices of Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, LeBron James, and Danny DeVito — came out at the right time as there hasn't been an attractive kids title in theaters for a while.
That led to a $23 million opening, which is stronger than the studio's 2016 animated release, "Storks" ($21.3 million).
Holdovers "The House With a Clock in Its Walls" and "A Simple Favor" continue to make good bank. "Clock in Its Walls" had an impressive $12.5 million second weekend, just a 53% drop after winning the box office last week, and "Simple Favor" has been impressive since its September 14 opening, taking in $6 million this weekend and a domestic total of over $43 million.
In an email, Elon Musk told Tesla employees on Sunday they have "one more day of going super hardcore" to close the quarter and the company is "very close to achieving profitability and proving the naysayers wrong."
Musk assured investors that Tesla would turn a profit in the third quarter in a conference call in August. The company has never turned an annual profit, and has had only two profitable quarters in its history.
From: Elon Musk Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2018 1:08:45 AM To: Everybody Subject: One more day of going super hardcore and victory is ours!!
We are very close to achieving profitability and proving the naysayers wrong, but, to be certain, we must execute really well tomorrow (Sunday). If we go all out tomorrow, we will achieve an epic victory beyond all expectations. Go Tesla!!! Thanks for all your hard work,
Elon
This comes just after Musk came to a $20 million settlement with the SEC, which filed a lawsuit against him on Thursday that alleged he tweeted false and misleading statements about Tesla.
The SEC accused Musk of knowingly spreading false information about Tesla to manipulate its stock price. In August Musk tweeted that he was taking Tesla private for $420 a share with "funding secured." He did not have funding secured, and Tesla announced there would be no deal a few weeks later.
As part of the settlement, Musk will have to step downs as Chairman of Tesla's board for at least three years, and there will be more oversight of his communication with investors, including how he uses Twitter.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the email.
(If you are a Tesla employee or customer who has a story to share about a car or experience with the company, give me a shout at llopez@businessinsider.com.)
Nearly half of Americans don't brush their teeth enough. This opens the door for a bacteria invasion, leading to tooth decay and gum disease. Even worse, you might increase your risk for issues like kidney disease and dementia. The following is a transcript of the video.
Meet Streptococcus mutans. He's a bacterium and…a bit of a slob. But this isn't just any mess. It's what's on your teeth! You see, "Strep" and all his roommates live inside your mouth, feeding off the sugar and protein in your food. When they're done they excrete a slimy substance all over your pearly whites.
The end result is a bacteria-ridden pigsty, called biofilm. Now a little biofilm isn't going to hurt you. It's only when you stop brushing it away that things can get ugly. And not only for your teeth. It just so happens that "Strep" and his friends are a downright threat to your life.
Nearly half of Americans don't brush their teeth enough. And when food builds up in those nooks and crannies, you're inviting a host of bacteria to the party — including your gum line. The perfect place for bacteria to camp out in even greater numbers! Which irritate and inflame your gums, causing tenderness and bleeding.
But that's just the start! Soon enough, that infection will trigger your immune system. Which sends fighter cells to battle the bacteria. This creates a hostile environment for the bacteria, which is what you want. But it can also damage the cells in nearby tissue and bone.
6 months to years later, that tissue and bone will eventually die. At this point, you don't have gingivitis anymore. You have something much worse: periodontal disease. No more tissue and bone means no structural support. So, your gums separate from your teeth forming pockets that quickly become extra space for "Strep" and his friends. Which further infects your gums, causing your teeth to fall out.
Now, you may think this could never happen to you but about 10% of Americans between ages 50-64 have lost not just one or two, but ALL of their teeth! And to make matters worse, "Strep" and his buddies may enter your bloodstream, where they'll wreak havoc on your organs, too.
For example, in one study, people with periodontal disease were 4.5 times more likely to have chronic kidney disease than people with healthy gums. And another study found that people in a retirement community who didn't brush their teeth daily, had up to a 65% greater risk of dementia. Last but not least, there's the increased risk of developing certain cancers:
To be fair, these risks can also be the result of poor hygiene in general, but the message remains clear: Brush. Your. Teeth. It's worth the extra 4 minutes a day.
The restaurant industry is battling to keep kitchens full and tables served as chains struggle to find people willing to work.
"I do believe moving forward the biggest challenge in the industry is going to be the war for talent," Gene Lee, the CEO of Olive Garden parent company Darden, said in a recent call with investors.
Lee isn't alone in his concerns. Dunkin' Donuts executives have been discussing the problem for years, with former CEO Nigel Travis saying that a franchisee told him he could only fill 60% of the positions he needed.
Analysts are also calling a lack of employees one of the biggest problems in the restaurant industry today.
"You've got an environment where, really, the economy is strong," BTIG analyst Peter Saleh told Business Insider. "People are trading up into better jobs. There aren't as many employees or capable employees to do the jobs these companies need."
Unemployment is low, at 3.9% in August. Despite the tight labor market, restaurants still rely on workers to wait on customers, make food, clean locations, and much more. If positions cannot be filled with qualified employees, it is difficult for executives' big-picture strategies to actually succeed.
"For some brands, it's actually capping their sales potential," said John Hamburger, the founder of industry trade publication Franchise Times Corp.
"If you can't find enough people to fill a shift, you just can't possibly do the potential volume of what some of these restaurants are supposed to be doing," Hamburger continued. "There's a lot of brands that are having a lot of trouble trying to find workers."
'If you want a job, you have a job.'
People can now work in the gig economy, instead of at fast-food chains. Jeff Chiu/AP Images
In 2018, workers have the option to simply opt out of fast-food jobs instead of being stuck flipping burgers at minimum wage.
"For the first time in the history of the world, if you want a job, you have a job," Mizuho analyst Jeremy Scott said, referencing Uber drivers specifically.
The gig economy may not provide health care, but it can be an appealing alternative for people choosing between working in a fast-food kitchen and having the freedom of picking their hours and driving their own vehicle. And, with retail giants like Macy's, Target, and Walmart desperate for seasonal workers, there are also plenty of more traditional options for people who are dissatisfied at fast-food jobs.
"The labor market is getting tighter and tighter," Saleh said. "There are less folks willing to take those, call it, 'starter' jobs or 'lower-end' jobs."
The brands that will likely be hit hardest by the war for talent are the chains where workers are already unhappy, UBS analyst Dennis Geiger wrote in a February note to clients.
UBS Evidence Lab's analysis of Glassdoor data found that Wendy's, Sonic, and KFC had the lowest employee satisfaction ratings in 2017. McDonald's and Dunkin' Brands were also poorly rated.
These chains are scrambling to find solutions. A number of companies used tax breaks earlier this year to give workers bonuses or provide new benefits, such as training and education opportunities.
Another solution is to simply cut the positions that chains are struggling to fill. When it is almost impossible to hire competent workers, replacing roles such as cashiers with robots likely becomes not only appealing, but necessary.
"The only way to truly deal with this is to reduce the number of labor hours that are required to run your concept," Saleh said.
The Paris Motor Show is traditionally one of the most glamorous and important shows on the industry calendar.
The biennial Paris Mondial de l'Automobile showcases the latest concepts and the hottest exotics from the world's leading automakers. Although concept cars are traditionally the stars of the show, plenty of headliners from this year's event could soon be on offer at a dealership near you.
The Paris show will be headlined by French auto giants Renault Group and PSA (Peugeot, Citroen, and DS).
Several international brands are also expected to make major news this year including BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Both are expected to launch new production models at the show.
Unfortunately, though, the biggest news coming out of the show is the distinguished list of global auto brands that are set to skip Paris.
These include Ford, Fiat, Chrysler, Aston Martin, Bentley, Alfa Romeo, Lamborghini, Jeep, Rolls-Royce, McLaren, Volkswagen, Opel/Vauxhall, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi, and Volvo.
With the growth of non-traditional auto shows like CES, Pebble Beach, and Goodwood, car makers have found new avenues to spend their advertising budgets.
The 2018 Paris Motor Show will be open to the public from October 4-14 at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles.
About 1% of people are a psychopaths, and there are more men with the traits than women in the general population. To be diagnosed as one, you have to score highly on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. But essentially psychopathy means being impulsive and thrill-seeking, while feeling no empathy for other people.
There isn't much research on the differences in how psychopathic men and women behave. But as psychopaths are more likely than the rest of the population to be incarcerated for crime, and about 93% of the prison population is male, it's not farfetched to suggest male psychopaths may act more violently.
According to one study from 2012, published in the International Journal of Women's Health, female psychopaths are more likely to flirt and use their sexuality to manipulate people. They're more likely to be verbally aggressive and mean, and less likely to violently attack people. Psychopathic men, on the other hand, are more physically aggressive and more likely to commit fraud — perhaps why there are many more in prisons.
Adrian Raine, a professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania and expert of psychopathy, said he hasn't seen a lot in terms of research about how male and female psychopaths behave. But he told INSIDER the causes for psychopathy in men and women tend to be pretty much the same.
He calls psychopathy a neurodevelopmental disorder, because it is characterised by behaviour but is partly down to the structure of someone's brain.
How a psychopath's brain is different
The amygdala is largely where people process emotions. In psychopaths, this area is up to 18% smaller. When regular people are given a moral dilemma to consider, such as the trolley problem, the amygdala fires up and lights up on brain scans. In psychopaths, this doesn't happen to the same degree.
"We know that there's strong genetic contributions to the brain areas, but we also know that the social environment can impact the brain," said Raine. "People who are abused early in life or who are neglected for example, they have a reduction in the volume of the amygdala. That's at least true in children. So it can be genes and it can be the environment. Most likely, it's a contribution of both."
Raine didn't want to make any claims about male and female psychopaths, but he did say female psychopaths are definitely antisocial, like their male counterparts.
"I think if I had to speculate, if there is a general male female divide, that males are more aggressive physically than females," he said. "And if you look at women in prisons, a lot of it is drugs and a lot of it is prostitution. And I'm suspecting that in respect to female psychopaths, you'll see a similar reflection there."
Female psychopaths probably dabble in all sorts of criminal offenses too, he added, but they're usually not the ones raping people.
"And they're much less likely to be committing homicide," he said. "When it comes to the sex differences in ratio it's really large — nine males for every female murderer. So I would think you'd get that with male and female psychopathy too."
Women are less likely to murder than men, but it does happen.dubasyk / Shutterstock
Women, of course, do kill sometimes. In an article for The Conversation, Marissa Harrison wrote about her research looking at 64 female serial killers.
The results of the study found that most female serial killers were middle and upper class. Almost all of them were white, and had a degree or college education. Most of them also knew their victims — two thirds were related to them, a third murdered their significant other, and 44% killed their own children.
Primarily, Harrison's team found that female serial killers would murder people over money, rather than sex or rage, which are more likely to be motives for male murderers.
Psychopaths aren't all obsessed with killing
There is a strong sex difference with psychopaths in general, said Raine, but more research is probably needed to know the specific details.
It's a myth that all psychopaths are obsessed with death and homicide anyway. Due to their blunted emotions, psychopaths are more likely to be thrill-seekers, but they're not all that much more likely to commit murder than the rest of the population, Raine said.
"Most psychopaths don't kill," he said. "Most psychopaths are not violent. However, they are perhaps more likely to be violent, and more likely to commit homicide than other offenders."
It sounds contradictory, but that's because the rate of homicide is so low. If 1% of the normal population considers murder, then a psychopath may be two or three times more likely to, at 2-3% of them. That number is still relatively small.
"I wouldn't think psychopaths generally speaking have an unusual fascination with death more than the average person," Raine said.
"Male psychopaths, if they are going to kill, they are far more likely to than a female psychopath. But you'll always find examples of female psychopaths who kill. There's always exceptions."
The United Grand Lodge of England is the site of Freemasons in England.
Freemasonry is a fraternal order that was born out of the medieval stonemasons' guilds. What's spoken about in its meetings is shrouded in mystery and only Freemasons can attend their ceremonies.
There are three 'degrees' to Freemasonry, you begin as an Entered Apprentice before becoming a Fellow Craft and finally a Master Mason. Each of these degrees has a separate initiation ceremony.
The lodge holds regular meetings, and there are 6 million Freemasons worldwide.
A strange anomaly has been brewing in the stock market over the past few months.
Defensive stocks — or those in the healthcare, telecom, utilities, and consumer staples sectors — have been keeping pace with the broader market.
It's a relatively new phenomenon, as the chart below shows. Defensives have only been market performers since about early July.
Leuthold Group
Market history suggests it's not supposed to be like this. Not when the economic is allegedly roaring. Considering the US unemployment rate has been below 4% for the past five months — the lowest in 18 years — the economy appears to be firing on all cylinders.
Jim Paulsen, the chief investment strategist at Leuthold Group, has taken notice — and he's not too encouraged by what he sees. In fact, he argues that this aberrant outperformance could be signaling rough times ahead for both the market and the supposedly bustling economy at large.
"For a stock market supposedly driven by some of the best economic performance of the entire recovery, its leadership seems out of whack," said Paulsen. "It might be worth paying attention to this oddity."
That's because the rare combination of defensive outperformance and economic strength has historically been a warning sign that a recession is near. And since recessions are accompanied by market crashes, anyone who owns stocks should be on high alert.
Paulsen notes that in the modern era from 1988 to 2018, every single US recession was preceded by the strong relative performance of defensive stocks. This can be seen in the chart below.
Leuthold Group
Paulsen's historical study actually goes all the way back to 1948 and reaches a similar conclusion. While he's found it difficult to identify a specific unemployment threshold to serve as a surefire recession indicator, the area between 4% and 6% has usually been the sweet spot for imminent economic pressure and the market declines that accompany it.
As an interesting caveat, Paulsen also finds that defensive stocks beat the broader market when unemployment is high. This all begs the question of why the market's safe havens outperform when joblessness is at either end of the spectrum.
Paulsen surmises that when unemployment is high, the economy is struggling. That, in turn, makes defensives nearly indistinguishable from riskier stocks, since growth is suppressed across the board. And when unemployment is low, investors start to get worried the recovery is in its final innings.
So what's an investor to do? Paulsen says not to overthink it. Defensives are keeping pace right now, and will only keep outperforming as economic conditions slip from peak levels.
"Should defensive stocks outperform in the coming year, history also suggests recession risk may soon be on the rise," said Paulsen. "Perhaps it is time for investors to consider tilting the portfolio in a more defensive direction."
LONDON — Boris Johnson is less popular than Jeremy Corbyn and would lose a general election to Labour if he were Conservative leader, according to a new poll.
The poll, carried out by BMG for HuffPost UK, also found that Labour has taken a 5-point lead over the Conservatives as Theresa May's party meets for their annual conference in Birmingham.
Boris Johnson is the public's preferred candidate, should Theresa May step down, according to the poll, with 20% backing his leadership. The next most popular alternative was Jacob Rees-Mogg, on 7%.
However, when asked who they would prefer as the next prime minister, 29% backed Corbyn, compared with 25% who said Johnson. In answer to the same question, May narrowly beats Corbyn by 27% to 25%.
Boris Johnson has been openly critical of the prime minister's Brexit plans since he resigned from Cabinet in July, with talk of him triggering a leadership challenge against the prime minister mounting. On Sunday, he launched his most explicit challenge against the prime minister in a newspaper interview, suggesting her Chequers plan to leave the EU was "deranged."
Johnson told the Sunday Times that "unlike the prime minister I campaigned for Brexit" and suggested that the party could win the next general election if it had a popular leader, as it did when he twice won the London mayoral election.
He also criticised the prime minister's attempts to move the party into the same policy territory as Corbyn's Labour, saying the Conservatives must instead argue for a small state.
Boris's popularity is descending very quickly. I think his behaviour, his comments, his language, his utter disloyalty, is going down really, really badly with the parliamentary party - Conservative MP.
The former Foreign Secretary is to speak at a hotly-anticipated conference rally this week. However, his actions in recent weeks have angered many Conservative MPs, including his former Foreign Office colleague Alan Duncan.
"I think that what he doesn't realise is that whereas he used to be an electoral asset, that is now waning," Duncan told the Times.
One moderate Conservative MP told Business Insider that Johnson's chances of becoming Conservative leader were now "less than 5%."
"I think Boris's popularity is descending very quickly. I think his behaviour, his comments, his language, his utter disloyalty, is going down really, really badly with the parliamentary party," they said.
They added: "I don't think Boris will do it in the end because he will realise he doesn't have he doesn't have the support and it will be embarrassing what poor support he has."
The poll, which surveyed over 1,000 people, was also grim reading for the Prime Minister, with 51% of those polled saying they do not want her to stay in Number 10 until the 2022 general election, compared to 23% who think she should.
Conference bounce?
Jeremy Corbyn Leon Neal/Getty Images
Labour also appeared to have secured a conference bounce from their get-together in Liverpool last week, with the poll indicating a 5-p
oint lead over the Tories following the party's gathering in Liverpool last week.
The poll comes as Tory MPs head to Birmingham for their own conference, which launched disastrously on Saturday after a major security flaw in the conference's official app allowed anyone to access the private information of cabinet ministers.
Senior ministers including the Home Secretary Sajid Javid and the Environment Secretary Michael Gove had their private contact details published and altered on the app.
. image was altered to a picture of News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch and Boris Johnson's photo was briefly changed to a hardcore pornographic image
Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov, the two most high-profile rivals in the UFC today, will throw down in what is expected to be a bloody war at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday, October 6.
The UFC 229 main event pits McGregor, the knockout striker with the celebrity appeal, against Nurmagomedov, the wrestler with a violent ground-and-pound game.
UFC 229 could shatter UFC pay-per-view records as company boss Dana White anticipates 2 million purchases in the American television market alone. And those who watch are being told to expect one thing — an early and brutal finish.
The closer we get to fight night, the more we'll see analysis appear that predicts two outcomes.
On one hand, McGregor could execute an expert knockout, with Nurmagomedov lying concussed on the canvas having been dropped by an Irish left cross. On the other, Nurmagomedov could take McGregor to the floor to gain top position, bounce his knuckles off of his opponent's nosebone, and then force McGregor to tap because he has him tied up in a triangle choke.
There is no third way this fight could go, and there is no chance this bout lasts the distance. There will be an early finish — that much is clear.
What else is clear is that the fighter who gets that early, conclusive, finish will be Nurmagomedov.
McGregor is going to lose — and there are three reasons why.
'When Khabib gets you on the ground … you're not getting up'
Khabib Nurmagomedov is a lethal weapon when fighting on the ground.Photo by Ed Mulholland/Getty Images
Both athletes have one clear advantage in this fight. For McGregor, his striking is his go-to strategy. It is an equaliser, and that game-changing left cross of his is a proven fight-winner — just ask Jose Aldo, whom he knocked out in 13 seconds in 2015.
It was a testament to how highly his power is regarded when Eddie Bravo, founder of 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu, praised McGregor for possessing "the heaviest hands in the game, pound for pound, no doubt," when he was analysing the Nurmagomedov bout on a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast.
Nurmagomedov, in contrast to McGregor, has an elite ground game. While McGregor will look to fight on his feet, Nurmegomedov would prefer to fight off the mat.
What will likely determine this fight, though, is how well each athlete performs when it comes to secondary assets rather than their primary, go-to tactics.
For McGregor, this means enforcing a tight takedown defence, while Nurmagomedov's punch resistance and evasion will be put to the test against McGregor's power punches.
When McGregor has fought on the mat against he has experienced danger — against the wrestler Chad Mendes, who he was able to overcome, and against jiu-jitsu expert Nate Diaz, who submitted him.
Nurmagomedov has been troubled by a strike in the past — Michael Johnson is one fighter who has tagged him — but the Russian weathered the storm and shook off the shot. Nurmagomedov has also been able to foil fighters who have a superior takedown defence than McGregor and this means that, eventually, this bout may find its way to the floor — and when that happens, it will be all Nurmagomedov.
If that happens early, in the first round for example, there is one clear outcome. If Nurmagomedov can "grab him early, ragdoll, boom, side control, elbows, knee on belly… punch! punch! punch!," Rogan himself said we could "just see a mauling."
Even John Danaher, the renowned coach for former two-weight UFC world champion Georges St-Pierre, told Joe Rogan on a separate podcast that, "When Khabib gets you on the ground … you're not getting up."
Weight matters
Nurmagomedov and McGregor.Photo by Steven Ryan/Getty Images
McGregor's unstoppable run at the start of his UFC career was largely fought at featherweight. His first bout in UFC, a first round technical knockout win over Marcus Brimage in 2013, was fought at lightweight, as was his famous 13-second drilling of Jose Aldo two years later.
It was only when McGregor jumped up to welterweight to fight Nate Diaz, where he suffered his third career loss and his first in UFC, that the impact of his punches had less of an effect, and where his strength was out-matched by Nate Diaz, who submitted him with a rear-naked choke at UFC 196 in 2016.
McGregor won the rematch six months later with an improved performance, and even knocked out Eddie Alvarez when he dropped down to lightweight for a UFC title match in 2016 — but in Nurmagomedov, he is fighting a man who is big at 155 pounds.
Nurmagomedov has been a career lightweight in UFC, but before he campaigned in America, he fought at welterweight in Russia. He is a naturally big and strong lightweight.
"He's shockingly big for his weight division," Danaher said, adding that he's in what is "probably the best wrestling programme in the world" with "a tough, tough, group of people."
"His wrestling is extremely good," he added.
McGregor has too many distractions
McGregor slugging whiskey at the prefight press conference in September.AP Photo/Seth Wenig
McGregor has not fought a UFC fight in almost two years, so it is to his credit that he's coming back to the sport with no mid-level tune-up bout, but instead straight into a bear-pit title fight against an unbeaten beast.
McGregor was involved in the second-best-selling pay-per-view fight (US audience only) when he lost in the 10th round to Floyd Mayweather last year.
But 2018 has served him multiple distractions. McGregor was seen on video throwing guard rails at a bus carrying UFC fighters (an extraordinary attack that hospitalised two athletes in an incident earlier this year). UFC boss Dana White later claimed McGregor was motivated to confront Nurmagomedov, who had slapped McGregor's close friend Artem Lobov and was on the bus at the time of the attack.
McGregor was arrested. He was charged with three counts of assault and one count of criminal mischief, and was later charged with menacing and reckless endangerment, according to the BBC.
The matter was cleared up when McGregor pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct, and was slapped with five days of community service and told to attend anger-management classes. However, there is still fallout as Michael Chiesa, a fighter on the bus at the time of the attack, announced a lawsuit against the Irishman, a suit that still lingers over McGregor's head.
Meanwhile, McGregor has also been investing in his personal brand. In the two years since his last UFC appearance, he has been working on his Proper No. Twelve whiskey, which he launched this month. He was even seen slugging the drink at the UFC 229 prefight press conference earlier this month, just two weeks before fight night — hardly optimum preparation.
On Friday, McGregor also dropped the first collection of his clothing line August McGregor, which includes T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats.
Fighting is a full-time occupation — and for every hour McGregor has worked on his own brand, that is an hour he has not been training.
He may have been able to get away with this had he booked a tune-up bout against a lesser combatant, but against Nurmagomedov in a five-round title fight, he'll quickly find out that part-time fighters get put to sleep.
LONDON — The latest innovation in the fast-moving world of cryptocurrencies is the "stablecoin" — cryptocurrencies pegged to real-world assets such as the dollar or gold.
A report from crypto wallet provider Blockchain released this week found that "the number of active stablecoin projects has dramatically increased over the past 12-18 months and more than a dozen project teams have stated they plan to launch in the coming weeks/months." There are now over 50 in development globally.
Here's everything you need to know about the hottest new area of crypto:
What is a stablecoin?
"Stablecoins" are cryptocurrencies whose prices are linked to a real-world asset. In theory, they could be linked to anything, but the majority are linked to currencies such as the dollar or euro.
How do they work?
There are two main types of stablecoins: reserve-backed and algorithmic.
Reserve-backed stablecoins function a little like paper money used to when it was linked to the gold standard. Just as cash used to be ultimately backed by gold reserves in a central bank, reserve-backed stablecoins are backed one-for-one by reserves of the currencies they are pegged to.
Issuers of coins like USDC or Tether "tokenize" dollars by exchanging them for a stablecoin and depositing the dollars in a bank. Those dollars are then left untouched until somebody redeems the stablecoin for the dollars. It's this confidence that the stablecoin can be redeemed that maintains the price peg.
The second type of stablecoin is one that is not backed by any reserves but instead controlled by an algorithm. BlockchainGarrick Hileman, head of research at Blockchain and author of the recent stablecoin report, told Business Insider: "They're really using software rules to try and match supply with demand to maintain a peg to something like the US dollar.
"As demand for an algorithmic stablecoin increases, supply also has to increase to make sure there's not an appreciation in the value of the stablecoin. At the same time, as the value decreases, there needs to be a mechanism by which supply can be reduced again to try and bring the price of the stablecoin back to the peg.
"That's really the class of stablecoins that are much more challenging to design. They're really unproven at this point."
Examples of algorithmic stablecoins in development include Basis, Terra, Carbon, and Fragments.
Why do people need stablecoins?
Cryptos have been plagued by price volatility, with swings of 5% or even 10% in a day not unusual. This volatility has led critics to say that cryptos are speculative investments rather than currencies or assets.
Stablecoins are an attempt to harness the benefits of cryptos — value can be transferred digitally — and combine them with the stability and trust in mainstream currencies.
Hileman told BI: "For millions of individuals, tens of millions in our view, as well as institutions, the volatility of crypto assets that we saw last year really is keeping a number of people's on the sidelines of the cryptocurrency movement.
"Stablecoins can address that and enable a number of use cases that bitcoin or ether or other more volatile cryptocurrencies are suboptimal for — things like insurance."
What are they used for?
The most common use case for stablecoins at the moment is as a liquidity tool for cryptocurrency exchanges. Many exchanges have been shut out of mainstream banking because banks are wary of dealing with anything crypto-related for compliance reasons.
As a result, many exchanges can't accept dollar or euro deposits. Clients want to buy with dollars and to be able to trade out of cryptos into dollars at times of high volatility. Stablecoins offer an elegant solution to this problem.
However, proponents of stablecoins think the technology could allow for more complex financial products to be built on crypto — things like insurance, smart contract dividend payments, and loans.
Which are the biggest stablecoins?
Tether is by far the most popular stablecoin and is used primarily by exchanges to offer dollar-like liquidity.
"Tether (USDT) is the second most actively traded cryptocurrency (~60% of BTC daily trading volume) and earlier this year entered the top-10 crypto asset rankings by market value," Blockchain said in its report.
Hileman said: "Certainly, last year we saw Tether really demonstrate that there was a real demand for a stablecoin. We saw use of Tether on exchanges like Poloniex that did not have access to US dollar deposits really take off. It helped facilitate the rise of a number of exchanges that were either cut off or chose not to integrate with the existing banking system."
Who's developing them?
Stablecoins are being developed by both new startups and existing crypto businesses such as Circle and Gemini, the crypto exchange run by the Winklevoss twins.
There are currently 57 stablecoins in development according to Blockchain's report. 23 are already live.
Recent examples include the Winklevoss twins' Gemini coin, Paxos Standard, the US Dollar Coin, developed by Goldman Sachs-backed Circle, and the LBXPeg.
The number of stablecoins in development has boomed over the last 18 months. Blockchain
Venture capitalists are also betting big on the space. Blockchain's report said: "$335 million in venture funding has been raised by all stablecoin project teams to date." A notable investment in the space came from Silicon Valley fund Andreessen Horowitz, which recently invested $15 million into stablecoin project MakerDAO.
Why are so many appearing?
Hileman said that the success of Tether "really set off a whole load of innovative teams to think about: how can we do this better?"
Despite its popularity, Tether has been beset by criticism of its auditing standards, corporate opacity, and claims of manipulation. As a result, many in the industry feel there is an opportunity to provide a better solution.
The potential for stablecoins to be used in everything from crypto insurance to lending and savings means entrepreneurs also hope there can be room in the market for many successful stablecoins.
What are the challenges stablecoins face?
Heilman told BI that one of the biggest challenges facing stablecoins is scaling. For reserve-backed stablecoins to reach a level where liquidity is deep enough to support interesting applications of the technology, backers will have to invest millions or even billions in each coin.
This could create "a cap on how fast the stablecoin can grow," Heilman said. "When you're talking about use cases in the trillions, having any upward limit or friction on how quickly something can grow is potentially a huge problem."
Heilman also believes that stablecoins looking to replace Tether as a liquidity proxy may end up having a tougher time than some may assume.
"Tether, for all the complaints and criticism and concerns, has generally been pretty reliable at holding its peg to the US dollar. It's worked well enough," he said. "Tether had a huge head start. It has a network effect — it has a love of exchanges, over 150 that have listed it, it's a top 10 cryptocurrency."
The Winklevoss twins are developing their own stablecoin. REUTERS/Stephen Lam
Another potential hurdle is regulatory scrutiny. Heilman believes that central banks may be quicker to act on stablecoins than they were on cryptos like bitcoin because stablecoins more closely resemble fiat money and could have effects on monetary policy.
Not everyone believes in the promise of stablecoins either. Bitfinex'd, a prominent crypto Twitter account that attacks what it sees as bad practice in the space, recently said: "Essentially the only application for them is for scam exchanges to use it," in relations to those outside the banking system.
Preston Byrne, a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute and the former COO of blockchain company Monax, has also expressed skepticism, calling stablecoins "doomed to fail" in a lengthy blog post.
Finally, the emerging asset also faces a variety of technical challenges. Blockchain's report concludes: "The technology is still nascent and it is highly unlikely that the perfect stablecoin design exists at present; we expect further experimentation and innovation."
"Saturday Night Live" kicked off its 44th season with a cold open mocking the Brett Kavanaugh Senate Judiciary Committee hearing from earlier in the week.
It was little surprise "SNL" addressed the day-long Thursday hearing in which both Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford testified on Capitol Hill. Ford accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when the two were in high school.
But it was unexpected to see Matt Damon make a surprise appearance playing Judge Kavanaugh.
The "Jason Bourne" actor didn't hold back as the cold open touched on everything from Kavanaugh's repeated statements of liking beer to sharing and discussing his personal calendar from the '80s and yearbook entries.
"I'm gonna start at an 11. I'm gonna take it to about a 15 real quick!" Damon said as he sniffled and poured water all over himself during the over 13-minute sketch. "I'm a keg-is-half-full kind of guy, but what I've seen from the monsters on this committee makes me want to puke and not from beer."
Matt Damon's Kavanaugh shows off a calendar from 1982. Pages from Kavanaugh's '82 calendar were published in USA Today.NBC
"I've got these calendars. These beautiful, creepy calendars," he added, citing pages that were published in the USA Today showing his schedule from 1982.
No one was safe as Aidy Bryant played prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, Cecily Strong appeared as Diane Feinstein, and Kate McKinnon played South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
An Alyssa Milano cardboard cutout made an appearance after the actress was seen in the crowd behind Kavanaugh. The actress was seen at the hearing sitting behind Kavanaugh.
The variety show even brought back "SNL" cast member Rachel Dratch to play Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.
