Artist: Run The Jewels
Album: RTJ4
Date Released: June 3rd, 2020
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Artist Background
The duo consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, and legendary underground produceMC El-P, known together as Run The Jewels, originally came together as a result of Adult Swim executive Jason DeMarco who introduced the two in 2011. After his 2011 album PL3DGE peaked at #115 on the US charts, Killer Mike told Jason that he wanted to make his own AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted. Jason informed Mike, “If you want AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted modernized, the only producer I know who comes close to the Bomb Squad-level of production is El-P”. The duo’s chemistry was immediate, as El-P went on to produce all of Killer Mike’s 2012 last solo album R.A.P. Music, and Mike featured on El-P’s final solo album Cancer 4 Cure. Mike and El’s respective albums released within a week of each other in May 2012, and the two embarked on a twenty-city US tour in the following months. After returning from tour, the pair had found a friendship growing between themselves, and made the decision to put other projects on hold and focus on the chemistry that had been sparked. Recording at an upstate NY studio beginning in April 2013, the duo re-appropriated the phrase “Run The Jewels” from the LL Cool J track “Cheesy Rat Blues", and released their self-titled collaborative album, for free via digital download, only a mere 2 months later in June 2013.
36” Chain vs. Pistol & Fist
Run The Jewels discography currently exists in a distinct pairing. With Run The Jewels as their debut, this record set the group's tone as a light-hearted, braggadocious duo with as much confidence in their abilities as swag in their punchlines. Just over a year later, the sequel Run The Jewels 2 took the foundation set from their freshman effort and dialed the insanity up to 11. RTJ2 pushed the boundaries of their aggression and flows to new heights; with incredible energy in their verses, and absolutely impeccable beats, blending El-P’s signature industrial sound with sharp synth arpeggios, chopped Zach De La Rocha vocals, and absolutely bonkers Travis Barker drums.
It was then nearly 3 years before Jamie and Mike followed up their breakout RTJ2, with Run The Jewels 3 being released again ahead of its scheduled release date via free digital download, this time on Christmas Eve 2016. Instead of these two attempting to outdo the pure insanity and in-your-face attitude found in their predecessor, Mike and El decide to evolve themselves as a group. The duo had noticeably pulled back on the swag and dick jokes which made such a splash on RTJ2, instead choosing a more subdued, electronic approach to their beats, as well as a clearly stronger political approach in their lyrics. This change in sound and style is demonstrated in the album cover’s artwork. The first two records featured the distinctive RTJ “Pistol and Fist”, with the fist tightly gripping a chain. The chain, in my opinion, represents the swag and braggadocio that drove the aggressive nature of their first two albums. In RTJ3 the chain is removed, leaving only hands that have transformed from bleeding and bandaged, to a pristine gold.
This brings us to early 2020. It’s been nearly 4 years of living in a post-Trump America, and El-P announces that Run The Jewels fourth record has been completed. Mike and El live-stream the first single “yankee and the brave” on Instagram on March 22nd, 2020. Lyrically and sonically, RTJ4 exists as the successor to Run The Jewels 3, with Mike and El again taking the good from their previous effort and launching it into the creative stratosphere. El-P’s beats are again leaning towards the synthetic, electronic side, this time with the intensity dialed all the way up to 11. From a lyrical perspective, RTJ takes the politically-charged lyrics from their predecessor, and again, up the ante, laying down some of the hardest hitting and politically poignant bars either of these two have ever spit.
Album Review
2020 was a year that none of us will soon forget. An unprecedented global health crisis kept the majority of us inside for months at a time. RTJ4 was announced on May 12th, 2020, with a release date slated for June 5th, 2020. However, with 2020 as the gift that won’t stop giving, the end of May was highlighted by the unjust killing of George Floyd. The phrase heard around the world, “I can’t breathe” instantly became a rally-cry for the oppressed to finally take to the streets to demand systemic police reform, as Floyd’s death was not the first time this phrase was uttered in an unjust police killing. In fact, a 2020 study by the New York Times showed that at least 70 people have died in police custody after using the same phrase over the past decade. As millions of American’s began organizing protests and demonstrations in the wake of Floyd’s death, Run The Jewels made the decision to release their latest chapter two days ahead of the scheduled release. El-P tweeted, just minutes ahead of the drop, “Fuck it, why wait. The world is infested with bullshit, so here’s something raw to listen to while you deal with it all. We hope it brings you some joy. Stay safe and hopeful out there and thank you for giving 2 friends the chance to be heard and do what they love”. In line with all past Run The Jewels releases, the album was made available for free digital download, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, on June 3rd, 2020.
THE RETURN (we don’t mean no harm but we truly mean all the disrespect)
RTJ4 opens with the first single, “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)”. Using the team names from their respective hometown baseball teams, Mike and El use the opening track to prove that they’re not just a hip-hop duo, they’re brothers, for better or worse. El-P kicks this installment off with rapid-fire, machine-gun esque snares, matching Killer Mike’s aggressive flow and tightly packed rhymes, before El jumps in to trade some dense rhymes as well. Mike and El depict themselves as outlaws, with Mike surrounded by cops with only one bullet remaining. He contemplates suicide instead of allowing the police to take him alive, until El-P jumps back in, offering Mike a way out, with a getaway car waiting outside. This tense situation is depicted lightheartedly in this song’s music video, which was released via Adult Swim and features the duo animated.
The trade-off between Mike and El’s short verses are reminiscent of late-80’s EPMD flows, while the production sounds like boom-bap that’s been sent to us from the future. This distinctive blend of old-school rap roots and forward thinking production is what continues to separate Run The Jewels from absolutely all of their contemporaries. While so many artists are continually playing catch-up with the latest trends, RTJ are side-stepping the trendy and moving forward with the mind-bending.
FLEXIN’ (ayo one for mayhem, two for mischief)
The second single “ooh la la” samples a Gang Star track "DWYCK (feat. Nice & Smooth)" as the basis for the chorus. I say “samples” as that’s how it is credited in the album’s liner notes, however it’s truly an interpolation of Greg Nice’s bar, slowed down slightly, and sung by El-P and Greg Nice himself. El-P is a true old-head at heart, and it’s abundantly obvious in his work, even going as far as to recruit legendary producer DJ Premiere to handle the scratching on the back end of this banger.
Out of key piano chords are looped to quickly create an unsettling aura surrounding the track, before El-P’s voice cuts through the infectious piano like a whip. Pounding, up-tempo drums are introduced after the chorus’ first iteration, creating what is possibly El-P’s first danceable beat. Lyrically, Mike and El-P initially seem scattered on this track, however the music video quickly makes their point very obvious.

”we imagined the world on the day that the age old struggle of class was finally over. a day that humanity, empathy and community were victorious over the forces that would separate us based on arbitrary systems created by man.
this video is a fantasy of waking up on a day that there is no monetary system, no dividing line, no false construct to tell our fellow man that they are less or more than anyone else. not that people are without but that the whole meaning of money has vanished. that we have somehow solved our self created caste system and can now start fresh with love, hope and celebration. its a dream of humanity’s V-DAY… and the party we know would pop off.”

The video envisions a society celebrating the fact that the class system we currently exist within has finally imploded. Money is worthless, and we have rejected the desire to bind ourselves to the constraints of capitalism. All creeds and colors unite to burn the system that has so effectively controlled us for over a century. It’s a party, and if there was a song to celebrate the end of the world as it is currently known, “ooh la la” is that song.
Mike’s last verse features a few metaphors and comparisons celebrating the destruction of capitalism, saving the most poignant for last:

I used to love Bruce, but livin' my vida loca
Helped me understand I'm probably more of a Joker
When we usher in chaos, just know that we did it smiling
Cannibals on this island, inmates run the asylum

Premo’s expertly cut scratches lead us into the equally hard hitting sample flip of “Misdemeanor”, by Foster Stevens as the basis for the beat to “out of sight”. Lending yet another nod to the old-school greats that laid the foundation for RTJ, “out of sight” samples the same track as The D.O.C.’s “It’s Funky Enough”, only adding a bouncy, electronic synth atop the inverted chord hits, and uptempo, industrial drums, to create an absolutely infectious groove for Mike and El’s dynamic chemistry to shine, rapidly jumping between each other’s two line flows in the first verse.
“out of sight” shows each MC providing insight into how each of them earned a living and achieved their current status. Mike and El’s opening verse each details themselves robbing people in order to eat. El alludes to the fact that he crossed his accomplices in crime for the whole bag, while Mike details the fact his assailant tells him it’s an “honor” to be robbed by his mother’s only son.
While El-P’s production is the obvious stand out on first listen, Killer Mike comes through with one of the most sonically pleasing and technically proficient verses of 2020.

We the motivating, devastating, captivating
Ghost and Rae relating product of the fuckin' '80s
Coke dealin' babies, never regulating, bag accumulating
It would not be overstating to say they are underrating
The pride of Brooklyn and the Grady, baby
We don't need no compliments or confidence
Our attitude and latitude is "fuck you, pay me"

The dense, intricate rhyme schemes smack you in the face, almost distracting you from Mike’s delivery and blistering flow on the verse; flexing his legendary status while paying homage to his drug-dealing past. This absolutely stunning display of technical skill, story telling, and complex rhyming illustrates how RTJ seamlessly integrates the best of both old school and new school hip-hop.
“out of sight” also features a guest verse from 2 Chainz, and he continues to lay the braggadocio on thick. Considering Tity Boi’s dedication to trap stylings, his verse feels right at home on the flex track, despite it’s late 80’s tribute sample, a considerable departure from his usual sound palette.
Up until this point, I haven’t mentioned any of the El-P’s lyrics specifically. El-P is a great rapper, but Killer Mike… Well, Killer Mike is an incredible rapper. He’s the guy who draws you in. El-P is the one who lays the foundation for greatness and Mike is the show stopper, and that’s generally the case for most RTJ tracks. But on “holy calamafuck”, El-P seems determined to make people stop and ask, “Who the fuck is this?!”.
A sharp, yet nearly minimalistic drum kit backing a heavily distorted synthesizer melody lays beneath rhymically knocking cow-bells. This aggressively set stage allows Mike and El to flex as the dynamic duo they are, until the beat suddenly takes a turn for the chaotic. A gnarled, ultra-menacing synth overtakes everything while Mike screams into the abyss, until a distorted snare, enormous 808s, and skeletal hi-hats cut through and launch the beat switch into another dimension. The minimal, yet incredibly dark soundscape allows El-P to snap in a way I have never heard from him previously. His rhymes schemes are reminiscent of an old MF DOOM lyric notebook, while his topics flawlessly combine flexing, psychedelic use, and his well-cemented legacy in the hip-hop community. Cutting and pasting a few of his bars into this review could not convey a fraction of how stunning El-P’s performance on “holy calamafuck” is.
Slightly later in the track list, making liberal use of the Ether song “Gang of Four”, “the ground below” samples and loops the sharp guitar riff and adds aggressive, pounding drums as the basis for the beat; this is finally reminiscent of the forward-thinking, stridulous production El-P has built his reputation on. Capitalising on the classic RTJ moment, Mike and El both flex in their own unique ways. Mike compares himself to Godzilla taking on Tokyo, and El-P demands respect for his name as the legend he is, threatening to smack dying children for mispronouncing his name with his middle finger to the world; his complete disregard for human life and confidence in his abilities are summed up at the end of his verse.

You see a future where Run the Jewels ain’t the shit
Cancel my Hitler-killing trip
Turn the time machine back around a century

SO¢IAL JU$T-ICE (until my voice go from a shriek to whisper...)
While the first few tracks aren’t without their social and political themes, the back-end of RTJ4 is where Mike and El start to bust out the heavy topics. “goonies vs. E.T.”. starts off light, with El-P pointing to the irony of how once he finally started to make it “big” in the industry, the world began to descend into chaos due to climate changes, increasingly obvious social injustice, and political madness. He culminates his frustration with our disregard for the Earth with a fantastic quotable.

Fuck y’all got, another planet on stash?
Far from the fact of the flames and our trash
That is not snow, it is ash, and you gotta know
The past got a wrath, it’s a lover gone mad

Mike’s verse takes the light-hearted frustration expressed by El-P, and turns the aggression to the next level. Aiming his sights against the ruling class and their society that’s been designed to oppress people for profit, who have very meticulously painted themselves as celebrities and idols to the American public. Mike accepts that he will be villainized by these people for speaking against them, but he welcomes the nefarious role, knowing that the working class will eventually eat the rich, no matter how much they are stomped into the dirt.
And this is just the warmup.
If it’s possible for a song to represent a moment in time that captures the absolute shit storm that has been 2020, “walking in the snow” is that song. It’s release coincided perfectly with the protests for George Floyd which were sweeping the nation. Killer Mike’s verse directly references the phrase “I can’t breathe”, the last words of Eric Garner, which also happened to be the last words of Floyd as well. The fact that this verse was reportedly written in November 2019 perpetually underscores the importance of the content and perfectly represents how persistent this problem is. “walking in the snow” is a true encapsulation of both a defining moment in time and an ever-persisting issue.
But he doesn’t just stop at the racial injustice. Mike goes on an absolute rant about the American education system; how it’s not designed to teach people, but to discriminate against poor populations, limiting their legitimate opportunities, and therefore disproportionately leading them into a criminal lifestyle. He calls out the media as fear-mongers, and the apathy of the American public in the face of indecency. Fortunately for Mike, by the time we finally had the chance to hear this masterpiece, we were already on our feet, using this album as a war cry to mobilize against a tyrannical government that militarized against its own citizens simply for asking that we recognize systemic racism and demanding change. Killer Mike has the best verse of the year, no doubt in my mind.
The only drawback is that Mike’s verse is so fucking good that it completely overshadows El-P’s, which is also amazing. A menacing guitar riff and haunting synths kick the track off into a bouncy groove, where El-P unleashes a flurry of internal rhymes that does not relent for about half his verse. Even adding layers of social commentary within the densely packed bars, El refuses to quit and continues on his political tirade; criticizing ICE’s detainment center practices and the “pseudo-Christians” who support them, with a bar that now lives in my head:

Pseudo-Christians, y’all indifferent, kids in prison ain’t a sin? Shit
if even one scrap of what Jesus taught connected you’d feel different
what a disingenuous way to piss away existence, I don’t get it
I’d say you lost your goddamn minds if y’all possessed one to begin with

The combination of two of the best verses spit by any rapper(s) this year and production help from El-P and long time RTJ collaborator Little Shalimar, create a bouncy, aggressive, deeply truthful banger. “walking in the snow” not only encapsulates the crux of 2020 with lyrics that will become more powerful as they age, but will also forever be associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and the determination to expose continuing racial and societal injustices.
The sonic palette of RTJ4 holds an extremely unique place in El-P’s discography. Jamie is the definition of a self-made 90’s hip-hop legend. This is the dude who put New York underground hip-hop on the map with Company Flow, and he did it with his unique flavor of dark, noisy, dense, boom-bap. Whether he was doing it with the help of Rawkus, or completely independently during his Definitive Jux run, El-P has never made music with the intention of becoming famous. Funcrusher Plus, Fantastic Damage,I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, and Cancer 4 Cure are all highly revered as industrial, technical, abrasive, and completely unsuitable for the radio or a party. The fact that three songs on RTJ4 could easily be heard on the radio, at a party, or in a TV series credits scene is frankly, astounding. In a 2002 interview/documentary on El-P’s budding record label Def Jux, he stated that his friend bet him $500 that he could not make a beat that was “happy”. At the time of the interview, El-P said that he had not won that bet yet. While I might not qualify the beats on RTJ4 as “happy”, if you showed El-P the beat for “JU$T” in 2002, I believe he might have won that bet.
Pharell opens “JU$T” with the pre-chorus, spitting varied examples of how we’re all slaves to our current system throughout the track, over echoing snares and bouncy 808s before bright synth chords and up-tempo hi-hats burst in while Killer Mike delivers the chorus, pointing to the fact that the majority of the people featured on American currency owned slaves at one point in their lives. Mike’s verse touches on the fact that he has committed crimes to get where they are today. Mike is publicly open about his past as a drug dealer. So why is he a criminal, but Benjamin Franklin isn’t? These are the people who built our country, and they built it on the backs of slaves. He illustrates this theme with a more recent examples:

You believe corporations runnin marijuana? Ooh (how that happen?)
and your country gettin ran by a casino owner (ooh)
pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin’ racist bastards (they do)

When corporations are able to sell cannabis legally, but the government continually incarcerates people who trap, our president is a notoriously fraudulent businessman, and the people who helped put him in power run a pedophile ring, yet none of them face consequences and are allowed to continue to profit and remain in power while people suffer; well, we might be closer to slaves than previously imagined.
Rage Against The Machine frontman Zach de la Rocha also makes his mandatory feature appearance at the end of “JU$T”. As the only artist to feature on three Run The Jewels albums, Zach is essentially an unofficial member of the group at this point. His fiery verse is spit with the same “Rage” energy that set him apart in the mid-90’s, ending the track questioning his place in a capitalist society as a recipe for his inevitable demise, since his “breath”, or art, as his weapon to express himself is still being exploited for other’s profit.
Continuing with RTJ4’s heavily synthetic sonic palette, “never look back” features wavering synth leads resting above the slow-jams snappy snares and thumping bass, while a haunting voice echoes in the background. This unsettling aura provides additional gravity for Jamie and Mike to continue self-reflecting on defining moments in their childhood, and as well as how far they’ve come from those moments. Mike and El are both self-made men, and while they have a certain fondness for those gritty moments that defined them, moving forward in life is undoubtedly more important.
Skeletal drums reminiscent of a slowly pounding heart opens “pulling the pin”, before rhythmic hi-hats and textured, watery synths fluttering in the upper register resting above a bouncy synth lead, and punchy 808s, burst in. The track digs itself into a slower, marching groove and shows the duo figuratively doing exactly what the title implies. Painting a portrait of a society that has turned on itself, Mike and El are ready to pull the pin and start over.
The duo both detail their despise for the ruling class, pointing out multiple examples of how the elite have designed our society to keep poor people in their class. Simultaneously recognizing their own hypocrisy for profiting in a system that inherently discriminates; Mike reflects on his own success, knowing that living the lifestyle he enjoys is one built on oppression, and expresses the guilt that has caused him. El-P opens with a brutal metaphor for police, implying that they’re the root cause of the “wretched state of danger” our society exists within, and that the only effective corrective action is to numb yourself with drugs. Despite his advice, Jamie knows this is not a permanent solution, but one that causes more self-inflicted wounds.
The final piece of the puzzle that is RTJ4, “a few words for the firing squad” begins to close the album with ever crescending strings, and loud, thunderous drums which never seem to resolve, continuing throughout their verses. While the drums that lead to nowhere can be sonically unpleasant, the unresolved melodies are intentionally representative of their current mindsets. Their verses are reflective and grim, but simultaneously optimistic and envisions a world where tragedy is a less common occurrence.
El is grateful for what he has now but recognizes his entire life has been skewed by traumas, so out of place feels normal for him. He reflects on his current success, noting that the worst people tend to end up with the most, which makes becoming “rich” something not as desirable as it once was.
Mike opens up about the death of his mother who died while he was on an airplane, admitting his struggles to not cope with his trauma with opioids. However, his wife provides him the most important reason to stay clean “but my queen/say she need a king/not another junkie rapper fiend” while a heartbreaking saxophone solo highlights the gravity of his lyrics.
The track ends with what sounds the like wrap-up voiceover to a TV show, a conceptually satisfying ending, as the opening track “yankee and brave (ep.4)” began with El-P stating:

”This week, on Yankee and The Brave”

This voiceover paints the duo as brothers on the run from the law and crooked cops, and while this does close this “episode” out as intended, the critic in me is bothered by the slightly kitschy outro to such a spectacular album. The voices singing over and over, “Brave, brave, braaaaaave, Yankee and the Brave” would be, simply put, better left on the cutting room floor. The ending of this track alone is what knocks my score of this album down a few points. Despite its stellar lyrical content, with drums that never seem to reach that “holy shit!” moment, and the easily skippable outro, it’s upsetting to me that an album this great ends on such a low note.
Overview
RTJ4 is by far my favorite album of the year. El-P’s cutting edge approach to their sound, blended with lyrical content that continues to be more relevant by the day, the duo have come together with what is objectively their most accessible album to date. RTJ4 is the natural evolution of sound and subject matter for the duo; taking the foundation set by Run The Jewels 3 and evolving it into a more concise, more accessible, and more conceptual album. While I still personally prefer the “fuck the world” intensity and experimental nature of Run The Jewels 2, RTJ4 opens themselves up to a whole new world of exposure, and when you’re as talented as these two, you know they’re going to capitalize on it. RTJ is currently at their apex, and they’ve created an album that will make many new life-long fans going forward.
9.2/10
Discussion Points

• How does this compare to other RTJ releases? How about in comparison to the member’s solo works?
  
• Does the overwhelmingly positive critical reception of this album surprise you?
  
• How will this be looked back on in 5 years?
  
• What are your favorite lyrics?
  

RoyalRoad
First
Next
Jen and Sarah spent the next week doing research. The Internet was filled with contradictory information about monetary theory and economics, and neither of them really had the background to evaluate the arguments that everyone was having.
However, Sarah reminded them both, they didn't need to look at a perfect system, just one that worked. So, they started digging through Wikipedia articles and online textbooks on the history of money and how they came to be.
"Hey, did you know they used to use salt as currency?" Sarah asked as she skimmed through a particularly fascinating documentary about Middle Age East African economies.
"Is this some kind of joke about mining salt?"
"No, it's real, look. And apparently the word salary is from the Latin word salarium for money used to buy salt," Sarah continued fascinated.
Of course, they couldn't use something as simple as salt to represent money. In fact, they couldn't use any commodity either.
Over the last week, one of the alien traders caught wind that gold was extremely valuable on Earth, so they'd brought them in by the ton load. Gold was still useful for electronics and some dentistry, but the price of gold, mostly propped up by its value in rarity, crashed hard.
The problem with currency in galactic trading, as Sarah discovered, was that there wasn't a single commodity that was equally rare in every system.
No, whatever alternative they come up to the laughably outdated barter system had to be built on something far more rare and valuable than gold.
Something that even the most powerful human empires in history have struggled to collect.
It had to be built on trust.
"That's the system most modern currencies are based on," Sarah claimed, "you only accept dollars for work because you trust that you're going to be able to wake up tomorrow and spend it on… everything you need."
"Hmm well, we can't just ask them to take US dollars," Jen giggled. This would be so much easier if that weren't true.
"Why not?" Sarah asked, playing the devil's advocate.
"Well… well, like you said, they won't trust it! I certainly wouldn't if I were a trader! Furthermore, who knows? Maybe they have a printer in their ship that can duplicate money! Maybe we should ask them for that next time we bring Zarko some pears," Jen said, thinking out loud.
"I doubt it. The government keeps a lot of secrets about how they make Dollars , and I don't want the Secret Service knocking on my door," Sarah said. Until this week, she hadn't known that this was one of the lesser known duties of the USSS. Now that she knew it, it made the thought of attracting their attention even less palatable, "you're right. What about digital casino tokens? We can produce something that translates to Dollars and have our own system that tracks it all."
"Sure, that's not too hard to make. We would have a centralized money supply, where we don't trust each end point…" Jen continued on the brainstorm, thinking in terms of the technical system, "ok, so say we make SarahBucks, and peg its value to the US Dollar. One pound of pears would be worth 1.5 SarahBucks, one pound of sirloin steak is 6.99 SarahBucks at Safeway. That still doesn't explain how we'll get people to use it."
"I'm not sure. I need to think about this more," Sarah yawned, tired. "And I hate that name."
They agreed that they were stuck, and that SarahBucks was absolutely a terrible name.
Livermore Spaceport, Earth
A month after the spaceport opening, Sarah noticed that it had become less of a tourist attraction. There were far fewer people standing around gawking at the aliens, and a lot more companies trucking their best-selling products into the spaceport for trade.
After their abuse of Jen's cousin's employee pass got discovered by the spaceport authorities, Sarah and Jen had started placing their own bids on getting into the spaceport through the official channels. Thanks to their existing connections with the managers at the spaceport and a growing bank account of value, they could still get in to continue their lucrative trade for magical alien goods.
A bit of a rich-get-richer type of situation.
The flavor of the month were these Bohor magical air filter machines that aggressively scrubbed the air of… anything you want them to.
The Bohor planet is basically the planetary equivalent of a toxic dump.
Sure, it had biomes; it wasn't a Star Wars sci-fi planet where the entire planet is either a desert or an ice-cold tundra or a forest. But the entire planet had been polluted so heavily by its occupants that it lowered the life expectancy by half before the Bohors found a solution:
They simply filtered their entire atmosphere through air filter machines and then buried the toxins and garbage they got out of it in a very deep landfill, somewhere where very few people lived. Pretty much the kind of solution you'd expect out of a species that created the original problem in the first place.
Zikzik, the alien that was the same species as Zarko, overheard a human asking about their rocket fuel and climate change, and brought in a cargo hold of them.
It was a massive hit.
Earth's climate change problem wasn't nearly as bad as Bohor, but it was relatively simple to program these machines to suck carbon out of its atmosphere and… bury them in a landfill.
At first, few of the human traders bought them, thinking that it was going to be at least a while before the problem became big enough that big governments were going to come to them to try to address the issue, but they had it all wrong.
Soon as word got out this was an option, big companies and philanthropists started lining up at their doors. As it turned out, literally sucking the carbon dioxide out of the air was easier and cheaper than modifying many of their industrial practices to actually be environmentally green. They didn't need to run more efficient factories to claim to be carbon-neutral; just pump as much carbon into the air in exchange for undoing that by sucking it out of the atmosphere after!
Some bean counters at a think tank in DC predicted that a few more shipments of these air filters will fix Earth's climate problems by themselves in about a decade, so every trader had a waiting list of corporations with PR problems willing to buy them.
Sarah and Jen had a couple vehicle manufacturing companies on their list who were trying to get Bohor air filters to use in lobbying for looser emission standards for their dirty gasoline cars.
Today, there were traders on all the landing pads, and they were all carrying air filters. Zarko's ship was there, and he was loading fruits into his spaceship with an alien looking forklift. Sarah and Jen approached his ship and noticed the truck driver standing there.
"Hey Benny, tempting the poor aliens with cherries this time?" Sarah waved good, grinning and looking at his cargo.
Technically, Benny is a competitor, or at least he drives for a competitor. The massive fruit conglomeration he worked for, Chuckita, had not neglected to notice the massive business opportunity sitting right here as many others have, and are now delivering straight to the aliens in exchange for massive profit margins.
But Benny was a good guy. One time Jen and Sarah were having some trouble finding a buyer for a bunch of legally dubious alien psychedelics. Benny was in his late 50s, not that great with the Internet either, so he'd introduced them to whom he referred to as "my money launderer". Aka, his 22-year-old son, Benny Jr, who had a habit of buying weed and other less than legal items off the deep web. Benny Jr had found a buyer for them within minutes and even generously offered to handle the deal for them to spare them the risk of meeting some psycho hopped up on an alien high in a dark alley somewhere.
"Heh! One of the bat aliens loves sweets but has a low tolerance for sour, so they treat cherries as some kind of an odd challenge fad. They eat a random cherry, and it's either so incredibly sweet they start drooling out of the mouths, or it's a sour one, and they freak out," Benny replied, in a low voice as if he were trying to keep it a big secret. "Zarko showed me a video, and it's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen".
"I think I've seen that one, have you seen the one where they drink wine?" Sarah chuckled at the memory. Alien videos have been a big hit on YouTube. Some human merchants were trading fruit for aliens to take videos of the galaxy. Which they monetized, of course.
"No," Benny's ears perked up. Chuckita doesn't make wine, but if selling wine to aliens was going to be a thing, they were a big supplier of grapes… "Is it gonna be a thing?"
"Well guess what we brought today?" Jen also grinning from ear to ear, and holding up a big carton of low-quality box wine.
"Awww seems like I'm always one step behind you guys," Benny moaned in exaggeration, "I tried to get my money launderer to tell me what aliens would want but all he does is play video games on the Internet, kids these days."
Luckily, Zarko chose this moment to step out to spare them from more good-humored ribbing from the boomer. "Ah Sarah and Jen, you brought the grape wine this time!"
"Yup," Sarah beamed, "and I see you've run out of air filters to trade again!"
"Sadly yes," Zarko tilted his head in shame, "my ship is overdue for a cargo space upgrade, but I haven't found a port that would do it for fruit yet. Next time?"
"Alright! Alright! We'll leave our special wine with you, but you better get us some extra good filters next time!" Jen scolded mockingly. Zarko has gotten a lot more comfortable doling out IOUs since the first time.
"Of course. Only the best for you two," Zarko said with a greasy human smile imitation that almost made Sarah laugh out loud. It reminded her of a ridiculous cartoon sloth.
"By the way," Sarah asked casually, "how much is a spaceship worth on your planet?"
Zarko sobered up his expression and looked at her curiously. It was a question that other humans had asked before. To him, it was a good sign. This meant that they all dreamt of the stars. But he didn't expect such a question from someone as seemingly practical as Sarah. She had a lot of fruit, sure, but fruit doesn't build spaceships.
After thinking for a while, he replied honestly, "ships aren't traded for one single item. My family traded for the parts to build mine for generations."
He pointed at his spaceship.
Zarko proudly explained, "this is the work of eighteen generations of trading. My family was one of the richest on Zeep-zep. For thirteen generations, they traded for each of the parts on this beauty. Then, for the last five, my ancestors traded excess food from the tenant farmers on their land to expert craftsbeings that could put it together."
"Wait, eighteen generations?" Jen gasped. Eighteen generations ago, her family were probably peasants on a farm in Korea or something…
"Yes," Zarko said, looking at them with a little of pity. "After getting the spaceship, my family has traded in it for twelve generations, through civil wars and disasters."
He did some math on his hands, and said, "that's about four hundred of your years. That's why it's very unlikely that you will never go to space."
Looking at the stunned expression on their faces, he tried to lighten the mood. Zarko said mischievously, "unless you're willing to part with some more of your fruit, in which case I'll let you sit in the back seat for a whole route!"
"Hold on, back up, I'm still stuck on the multiple generations part," Sarah said seriously. "You're saying you're flying on a spaceship that started to be built thirty generations ago? That's… about a millennia for us."
"Yes," Zarko answered, "and that's why only thirteen families on my planet have had the privilege of owning one in our long history. No offense, but that's why I think no human will ever own their own spacecraft for at least fifteen more generations."
Something is wrong here, Sarah thought. The budget for NASA's FTL spacecraft was in the hundreds of millions. Yes, for a fruit farmer, that would be many generations of work if all their descendants worked in the same industry. But there were over three thousand billionaires on Earth, not including the tens of thousands of corporations that had assets or market value over a billion. And the prices for the spacecraft would surely go down as time went on…
For a planet like Zarko's to only have thirteen spaceships over generations of their development…
As they were walking away, Benny asked, "have you guys noticed something weird about the way these aliens do business?"
"Yes." "God yes." They said in unison.
"We've been thinking about it for a while, but these guys not having money is a major problemo," Sarah said, looking around surreptitiously, "Zarko and Zikzik keep talking about not being able to find someone who can upgrade their hulls for fruit. And sometimes they come with nothing good, and we're supposed to just drive our fruits all the way back!"
"And if you think about it, if they were human ships, think about truckers who don't own their trucks. We'd have loans or something to deal with the cargo space problems, and they'd be paid for by profits in a few trips," Jen added.
"The numbers he gave us for spacecraft ownership seem insane," Sarah agreed. "Your company could probably afford to order one right now, not to mention hundreds of others. They must all be dirt poor!"
Benny seemed relieved that he wasn't the only one who was thinking this, "exactly! I'm thinking we just introduce them to the concept of Benjamins and solve all their problems and ours. Would certainly make the return trip a lot easier for me if I didn't have to drive all the way to Berkeley for junior to launder all this crap!"
"We thought of that too," Sarah said as Benny pretended to groan again, "but we couldn't figure out how to get them to take money with no intrinsic value."
"Oh that shouldn't be too hard," Benny said, who's clearly already thought through this problem in his head, "we play a little game called good cop, bad cop."
"Good cop bad cop?"
"Sure, it's a mind game the cops play, where they put you in a room-"
"Yeah we know what it is, but how does that help us?" Sarah said impatiently, an idea tugging on her subconscious.
"Well you see," Benny clearly smugly enjoying this moment where he's thought of something that the duo did not, "you two come with an empty truck next time, and you tell Zarko that you'll give him a wad of clean crisp cash, fresh from the bank, for some of his air filters. And when he asks you why he'd take the cash, you just tell him that he can give it to me in exchange for some of my fruits."
"What does that have anything to do with good cop bad cop?!" Jen asked.
"That has nothing to do with good cop bad cop," Sarah chimed in, but the idea was beginning to form in her head, "but it's a good start. We don't want to deal in cash. It's too risky. It could get the feds onto us and there's a bunch of laws around it that I'm not sure about."
"But what we can do is have an internal money system for traders pegged to the US Dollar!" Jen completed.
"Yup, so when Zarko comes back next time, we tell him he has an account with the Bank of Benny, we give him a fancy looking card that has his bank account number and give him a pin code, and we deposit a certain amount of BennyBucks into his account for giving us air filters. Then when you come around, Zarko gives you his card and pin, and gives you BennyBucks for your fruit," Sarah finished.
"Aha. And then I come to you two, say, I would like to convert BennyBucks in my Bank of Benny account to good old American dollars," Benny extrapolated, completing that final step.
"Yeah! We'll just wire you the money and everyone gets theirs," Sarah exclaimed, happy they've finally thought through the loop and gotten someone on board.
"BennyBucks is a terrible name though," Jen said, calming everyone down a little, "and why are we getting so excited over the basic concept of currency? And why haven't aliens figured this out? Maybe it's against some kind of space trading code."
"Who knows? Maybe we just try it on Zarko and see if it works out," Benny said, a glint in his eyes, "and then we expand, galaxy-tically."
"Galactic credits!" Sarah exclaimed, "that's what we'll call it."
They agreed that it was the least worst name that they'd come up with so far. It was boring, but when it came to finances, maybe boring and cliché was a good choice after all.
"Explain again. I am trying to understand," Zarko said two days later as he offloads the air filters he'd promised.
"C'mon dude, for the fifth time," Sarah exasperated, "it's not that hard. We give you a bank account card and have you set up a secret number…"
Jen had spent the last two days coding up a storm. Technically, a simple debit system wasn't that hard, but she had to make a website interface that Benny could go up to and enter his account, Zarko's card information and amount, then let Zarko type in his code…etc. She'd mused that it would have been easier to just do this all in a cloud-based spreadsheet, but that wouldn't scale up if they had more customers.
Sarah had the account cards laminated and designed a logo: the letters GC, for Galactic Credit, and a stylized version of a Milky Way in the background. Part of the value in a trustworthy system is to look official, and you can't get much more official than laminated cards.
"Yes, I understand that part," Zarko said, clearly displaying his frustration on his facial expression as well, "but I don't understand why Benny would give me his fruit for just entering a number."
"Because we have an agreement with him that he'll take it in exchange for fruit!" Sarah was sure this was the umpteenth time she had to explain this, but clearly Zarko was not getting it.
"Is it similar to a debt?" Zarko said suspiciously, as if debt was this dark magic that the humans were performing on him, "I have never heard of this kind of debt before."
"Yes, it's a debt, of sorts," Jen cut in. The last time he had asked this exact question, they'd said no, and that led to fifty other questions and explanations that went nowhere, so nothing could go worse if they said yes-
"Ok. I don't understand," Zarko did his sloth version of a sigh, it was cute, but at the same time frustrating for Sarah and Jen, "But I can try it. I know you two are not trying to trick me. Do I get my fruits before I take off?"
"Yes! You go to Benny-" Sarah started.
"Yes! And that's it. Benny gives you his fruit," Jen cut her off, knowing that this was about to launch into yet another long, long line of questions they just can't deal with right now.
Sarah set up a new account for Zarko, asked him for a 6 digit base ten pin code (thank god Zarko was a ten digit species) which he promptly memorized, and hoping that Jen's prototype website wouldn't fail, showed him how they were "giving" Zarko 40,000 Galactic Credits for 8 Bohor air filter machines into his account ("No, you can't have my iPad. It's on your account card now. Show this to Benny later.")
"Well that worked out great," Benny said as he watched them wire him the $25,000 for his truck shipment of fruit. Though his costs were in the low thousands, he could have easily fleeced Zarko for his full 40k. But they all agreed that wasn't the point, which was to get Zarko to see the benefits of using a currency system abstracted from goods and services.
"Dude, you weren't there," Sarah complained, "I don't understand why he had such a hard time understanding money. Money equals goods. Bing bang boom. It's like these guys don't have the capability for abstract thinking."
"No they definitely do. You can't build spaceships without abstract math and science," Jen said, "but he clearly had a deathly aversion to using money. I think it's tied to some taboo to debt somehow. All the other species must have it because none of the aliens we've met have even mentioned anything close to a real economy."
"Whatever it is," Benny sighed happily, "I'm just happy I didn't have to go home with my truck full of weird alien toys."
"Yup. The next step is to get all the human traders to take credits. At least they'll have no problems understanding the benefits."
Sarah made some calls to the trader licensing office at the spaceport. There she found a manager willing to part with phone numbers and contact information for the other human traders, for an "information fee" of course, and started making calls to the other human traders.
It wasn't easy. Some traders were representatives of bigger food companies, and didn't have all the flexibility to make these kinds of decisions. And others no doubt were thinking of copying their system for their own profit. But they all saw the benefits of a unified network of currency debiting because they've been suffering the same problems that Sarah, Jen, and Benny had been.
Over the next few days, all the human traders agreed to take galactic credit from the aliens, which they knew they could exchange for cash with Sarah and Jen.
"We are officially in business."
In economics, there's a distinction made between different kinds of money. There's commodity money, usually gold or silver. There's representative money, which is currency backed by commodities like gold or silver. And then there's fiat money, which is not backed by any intrinsic value, but rather by government decree, hence fiat.
Galactic Credits fall into some kind of weird hybrid category between representative and fiat money. They're backed by the Dollar, which is fiat money, but also which makes them representative money. This means that the people issuing them, in this case Jen and Sarah, are not supposed to create them without also having a corresponding US Dollar in their bank account.
Of course, Sarah and Jen hadn't signed an ironclad contract with the other human traders that they're always guaranteed to take their galactic credits and exchange for money, so technically that meant that one day Sarah could simply "deposit" a large number of credits in her account and buy all the goods she wanted from Zarko, or potentially the other traders.
That would, however, be slaughtering the golden goose for the meat.
After all, they didn't want to sell fruit or Bohor air filters.
They wanted to sell the concept of money.
"Why would I take this over fruit?" Zikzik sniffed. He was known as a sharp one by all the human traders. If there's any new alien fad coming down the pipeline, chances are Zikzik is the first one to touchdown with a cargo hold full of it.
Unlike many of the other traders, he was fairly consistent in his dealings. This much fruit is for this much air filters. He knows his price, and he lets you know it too. Everyone suspected he kept careful records of all his selling and buying somewhere in his ship, but he's never brought them out. Maybe he just had a sharp memory.
"It's very consistent," Sarah insisted, trying to appeal to his affinity for a stable and predictable exchange, "one pound of fruit today is the same as one pound of fruit tomorrow, and you can deal in fractions."
Completely ignoring that most fruits are seasonal, and price changes, and inflation, she thought, let's start here.
"Fractions, you say?" Zikzik seemed thoughtful, or maybe he's just scratching an itch on his snout, Sarah could never tell with these aliens.
"Yes, fractions," said Jen detecting the slightest bit of opening, "you can trade your air filters for credit. Then you can trade maybe three quarters of your credits to fill your cargo with fruit. The next time you come down here to Earth, you would only need to bring half the amount of air filters as the first trip, combined with the credits you have left, you can leave with a full cargo load anyway!"
Is that how that math goes, Sarah thought, but didn't cut in, as Zikzik seems to be nodding, an oddly universal gesture for affirmation.
"Five eighths of the credits," Zikzik argued, "The air filters are harder to get now because the Bohor are running low, and they need time to make more."
Bargaining! There we go! That's what we're talking about! Sarah almost pumped her fists in the air and gave him a high five, not a great idea given how sharp his claws are as she found out when trying to shake his hands a couple of weeks ago.
"Ok, you would still have to negotiate that amount with each human trader," Sarah replied adding, "but they all deal in Galactic Credits."
They signed him up for an account, gave him a card, and set up his pin code. It had only taken half an hour to get Zikzik on board, which was significantly faster than the hours they'd taken to explain this to Zarko, despite them being the same species. Was it xenocist that she'd assume it was going to take just as long, Sarah wondered.
Looking at the line of traders, she sighed. This was going to be a long day.
Luckily, Zikzik accepting the credits made for great advertising. He was known for being a sharp trader, so if he doesn't think it's a scam, it must not be, right?
Sarah and Jen managed to get two other traders that day onto credits, and one more who was dipping his proverbial toes into the water.
It was a good day.
Jen had been working hard. The Galactic Credits website was now on its 16th major iteration. She'd beefed up the security on it, to make sure none of the other human traders got any funny ideas. Backups became more automatic and frequent, and there was now a rollback and dispute mechanism, not that it was being used yet.
Sarah had also been working hard. She'd been sitting in meetings all day with legal, finances, and now they had a small army of people who were ready to help out if they got into trouble there. Galactic Credits is now officially a tax paying LLC incorporated in the great state of Delaware.
Benny Jr, who had just finished college, had come in as well. He was no good at talking to clients, but he's what the duo would refer to as "street smart". Occasionally, the alien traders would bring in some exotic or ahem, dubiously sourced items, and he would know exactly where to convert that into cold hard cash. On the spreadsheets, his dealings were adding up to a nice fat padding on the margins for Galactic Credits, which to this point, hasn't been making any money other than in the fruit and air filters exchange business.
They were now working out of a rented office in downtown Livermore, with a very nice view of a brick-lined pub that offers numerous craft beers and the old railroad that runs through the heart of town.
Ironically, there's a Bank of America branch across the street, not far from the office itself, the company that had invented the BankAmericard and started the credit card revolution, seemingly oblivious to this new competitor moving into town, literally and figuratively.
They had many brilliant finance experts who were working on something, surely, but established financial institutions are not always great at moving fast and adapting to changing technology. There were many regulations to worry about, and the stakes were a lot higher.
There's something very quaint about the town itself. Some people didn't consider it part of the Bay Area metro area itself, but with the latest BART expansion station they recently built, that's been less and less true.
Now, it was literally the town where the train tracks ended. And where the final frontier began.
For the people in the office, it's also where they dreamt about a new financial revolution in the galaxy.
Some people have critiqued this chapter on the grounds that established financial institutions would have thought of this idea on day one. I appreciate the feedback, but that is a rosy view of the velocity at corporations in my opinion. I've personally worked in some of these companies, and if someone brought up this idea, it would probably have taken at least a month to get the idea through various risk audits and legal reviews.
In terms of technology, much of banking still operates on software that predates the modern Internet. This is one of the reasons why fin-tech startups have been able to beat them on time-to-market, despite massive institutional or financial disadvantages. It's why companies like PayPal, Square, Stripe, Venmo… etc could compete with the incumbents with the development of the Internet.
Sure, an intern in engineering or tools would have a semi-working prototype by week three, but the first line of code would be pushed to production by… month three. A much more likely scenario: some startup beats them to the punch, exactly as it happens here, and the large company offers their founders or investors an obscene amount of money to buy them out.
RoyalRoad
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This is part 2 out of 3 explaining Brazil's current political crisis. This section is the first portion of Bolsonaro's April 22nd cabinet meeting.
This meeting was one of the last meetings attended by Sérgio Moro. This was a full cabinet meeting, held April 22nd in the Presidential Palace. I will first highlight some key things said, and then make a small analysis of what this means. Translation is mine. I have abridged a few transcriptions. Bolsonaro is fully translated, but the ministers are not, as some of the topics held in the meeting are not directly related to the current investigation.
The first topic of the meeting was the creation of a recovery plan, the Pró-Brasil. First minister to talk is Paulo Guedes.
"The government is broke! In all levels. Cities, governors, and the federal government. What did we do? We signalled the opposite. We deleveraged public banks, reduced debts, lowered interest rates, and Brazil was about to recover. So if we launch a public investment process is the same talking point as always, "reduce regional inequality" Paulo Guedes follows the Chicago school of economic thought, and has supported reductions in Brazilian government spending as much as possible, being one of the forces behind Brazil's new pension plan. "It looks good on paper, but it's the same thing Lula and Dilma had been doing. If we want to end like them, we do this". This is followed by some more detailed breakdowns of government investments, and Guedes defending how the government can't spend to leave the Corona recession, but it also has to help the previous economy recover.
Jair Bolsonaro then criticizes the media, and how they twist his words to make his aides disagree and fight. Mainstream media criticism has been a key point of Bolsonaro's government.
Onyx Lorenzoni, Bolsonaro's chief of staff adds that they received 36 government projects that were mid construction and halted under Dilma's PAC, an infrastructure growth program under Dilma and Lula that supported additional government spending to trigger economic growth. This additional spending is considered to be one of the factors that resulted in the 2014 recession. Lorenzoni adds some more comments on how the government has been looking for foreign investment lately. "We are having to deal with something very serious, which is a disease, which has been brought to history because it serves the interest of many which I won't be mentioning here".
Ricardo Salles (Minister of the Environment) "We have the unique possibility right now that the media is focused almost exclusively on COVID [...] So for this there has to be a group effort while we have a tranquility in media coverage, as they only talk about Covid, and pass the entire cattle changing the rulings and simplifying regulations. Of the IPHAN (National Heritage), of the Agricultural Ministry, of the Environmental Ministry. Now is the time to unite efforts to get a quick move and simplify regulations in all aspects."
Bolsonaro soon after follows up (emphasis mine): "The disaster that's coming up, I think Guedes is being nice, huh Guedes? I'm no economist. It's going to be hit bigger than even you can only imagine. It's not only the informals. I think we already hit ten million jobs, all gone. And the state governments don't have how to pay salary for the guys. May, half of the states don't ha.. won't be able to pay salaries again. The disaster is there. They will try to push this shit onto us, these people right next to us will try to push it, and we will react because it's not an infinite bag. Ok? So this worry we will need to have. At the same time there's the BAR association, annoying the Supreme Court to open my impeachment because I didn't present my virus exam, all this bullshit, which everybody has to be paying attention.
It's not only taking care of your ministry in these questions we are talking about, it's talking about the political issues also. All right? So ... this is what we should be worried about, as the fight for power continues. At full steam. No neurosis by my side, ok? The field is fertile for a ... some pieces of shit to show up, huh? Raising the flag of ... of ... of the people by my side, it costs nothing. And the fertile terrain is this, unemployment, chaos, misery, social disorder and other things. This is the worry, all should have it, huh? None of this "all good?", the ministry earns money, "shit happened?", on the president's lap. It can't be like that. Today I saw Magno Malta defending me. Magno Malta, I'm sorry, was treated a long time ago to be the vice president. Later he decided not to be, all right. Later he got contact to be minister, all right.
Não politically he never attacked me, and always is defending with the problems he has. So he is not the minister to open his chest, challenge, enter the lions' lair, but he can't, huh? For example, when we talk about a possible impeachment, action in the Supreme Court, based on watermarks, I'll go in any part of national territory and that's it! The day it's prohibited to go ... anywhere of Brasil, by the Supreme Court, there goes the term. I hope they don't decide, or he, right? Monocratically, wanting to take certain measures because from there we will have a ... a true political crisis. And I won't keep my tail between my legs. That's it ... zero, zero, all right? Because if I'm wrong, they ever find a connection of mine with a construction company, Swiss bank account, I'll take the beating with no issue. It goes to impeachment, it leaves. Now with bullshit, no!
On top of what I said, in front of the Apache Fort. I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Full stop. The people were there, I went there. Army day. And said something I don't think is a big deal. The repercussion is huge. "Look, the AI-5" (the AI-5 was a decree by the military government that closed the Congress in 1968) Where's the AI-5? En ... nded (sic) with the ... the AI-5 doesn't exis (sic) ... there is no more institutional act in Brasil anymore. Some bullshit. Article one, four, two. It's people who can't interpret the Constitution. Now over that make a wave? "Let's listen to Congressmen, businessmen", whatever it is. Now when Congress does there a tribute to Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, and whatever, it's not a problem. When the Communist Party does a convention and praises Fidel, between others, it's no big issue. When a poor person raises an AI-5 sign, that I don't give a shit, because there isn't ... there isn't AI-5. There isn't. Article one, four, two: we want to follow articles one, four, two, everybody wants to follow articles one, four, two. (The article 142 of the Brazilian Constitution establishes the military for national defense)
And given necessity, all the powers, can, right? Ask the armed forces to intervene to reestablish order in Brazil, that place with no issues. Now all of them, huh? You need to worry with the political issue, and of who's right, take your head out of the whole, fuck! It's not just staying inside the whole all the time, no! "All right, I'm taking care of my image, the image is here, I am looking good, and fuck the rest" No! You have to do your part. So this is what I try, I hav ... ha ... have to talk to you, as after a certain momento, where it gets to th ... the ... the ... mind of these people, it's hard to go back, then they want a crisis, it's a crisis. I have no love for this ... for this ... for this term the ... for ... for ... the President's chair. Ne ne ... zero, zero! I'm not provoking nobody. This is how the defense makes a good defense note saying it will follow the constitution, liberty, and co ... ten! And it won't take an attack, ten! Won't take a defensive move from the guys, fuck!
You're going to have some crazy guys, they know who they are, they will be in the fervor of "Oh, oh the president is irresponsible, he is crazy, he commits genocide". It's not like that. Don't go ... what works for one side works for the other, what doesn't work for one side, doesn't work for the other. This is what we should be worried about. With what we have here, the Pró-Brasil, but also with the political question. If we start talking with confidence, and there's pe ... lots of people who speak better than me, and know more than me, have the talk, fuck! Discreetly, but they have to talk, not to let the temperature rise, as it's only punches all the time up on me. And continue going anywhere of Brasil and full stop, that's my problem. All right? If I don't have the right to come and go. Mayor from the end of the world, a jaguapoca (dog with no breed) of a mayor says to arrest. The Justice has to position ... to position itself about this, fuck! Has to position itself, openly! We don't admit arrests from mayor, it's the decree!
You have to talk, not stay in silence. And who is right here, all the ministers have to say this, not only Justice. All have to say. Not staying, leaving the BO (police report) ... sail on isn't it ... and we'll go ahead. Ok? This is all I ask you, fuck. This worry. Wake up to politics and expose yourselves, after all, the government is only one. And if I fall, everybody does. Now come on ... if I have to fall one day, we'll fall fighting, a fair fight. Not for some bullshit of ... of ... of exam of ... antivirus, fuck. For the love of God, fuck. Ok? Even I ... to leave this clear, from some eight years from now, when I asked for specialized pharmacies any medicine I asked the doctor "Use a fake name", because if my name goes there, as it was, always was a known guys, isn't it, there are three four that are going to make the medicine, they can poison me, fuck! It's the same thing with the virus question, among others. According to interest, the guy either tests negative or positive. After it gives a result, it goes to the countertest, but gives a problem.
And we know, all right? That we have a compromise with the truth. I'd never lie if I didn't really have a negative test. I'd never lie that my negative was positive or vice-versa. Never. The truth above all. So it's an appeal I make to all, to worry about politics, so you are not surprise. I'm not going to wait until the boat starts sinking to take away the water. I'm taking away the water, and will continue taking water from all ministries if it's required. The person has to understand. If you don't want to understand, ok then, fuck! I have the power, and will interfere in all ministries, no exceptions. With the bank I speak with Paulo Guedes, if I have to interfere. Never had a problem with him, zero problems with Paulo Guedes. Now the rest of you, I will! I can't be surprised by news. Fuck, I have the Federal Police that doesn't give me information.
I have the intelligence of the Armed Forces that I don't have the informations. ABIN has problems, I have some informations. I don't have more because it's missing, really, we have problems, fuck! Equipment, etc. But we can't live without information. Without info ... co ... who never stayed behind of ... of ... of ... of ... of ... of ... of ... of the door listening what your son or daughter is ... talking about. You need to check and ... later she's pregnant, no using talking to her anymore. Need to check before ... after the kid filled his brains with ... with drugs, there's no use talking with him, that's it. Information is like that. I was watching studying on the weekend here how is the Chinese service, secret, works in the US. What's our worry here? [Redacted] It's simple, "Ah, just don't talk publicly". Who should I speak about it? Everybody sees what's happening. [Redacted] All right, ok? [Redacted] You get from the [redacted] fuck, of [redacted] you don't get.
It's a reality. No need to hide more, cover the sun with a sieve, right? There's, isn't it ... then go ... in some ministries there's their people, inside here, right? So we don't want to fight with [redacted], zero fights with [redacted] (note: the female article here strongly implies China). Do we need them to sell? Yes. They also need us. Because if they didn't they wouldn't be buying our soy. They need it. It's a business, fuck. And we need to ally with who has ... some affinity with us. So we can do ... make worth our will at the moment. No need to hide here, then after there's a problem, you call your uncle, "the Uncle". I'll say "Fuck man, you ignored me all the way to today!". You didn't only call me an imperialist, like the "esquerdalha" (a pejorative term for the left wing) and FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president) used to say in the past, the rest ... now there's nowhere to go. So this is the worry we need to have. The strategic question, which we aren't having. And I'm sorry, our information service, all, it's a ... they are a shame, a shame! I'm not informed!
You can't work like this, it gets hard. That's why, I'll interfere! Full stop, fuck! Not a threat, not a ... an extrapolation by my part. It's a truth. Like I said, right? Gave you sirs the ministries. The veto power. It all changed. It has to changed, fuck. And I want, it's really, it's govern Brazil. It's not the problem of all of the ones here, as Marinho said, right? It's the same boat, the same boat. If anybody digs the fu ... digs the basement here, we will, we will all go into the bag, we will all drown. So this ... this is what we need, think ahead of what to do internally here. When INMETRO (certification agency) I talked to Paulo Guedes. A, sorry for the language, a whorehouse! INMETRO is a whorehoue! Switching tachographs, taximeters, putting chips on the fuel pumps, a whorehouse! Just like the three pin plug. It's very good there now. The media beat the shit. "Ah, put in a colonel". Colonel is formed by IME (Military Institute of Technology). Wouldn't put in a colonel without a ... without a degree, ok?
[...] The question of the armament, right? The questions of ... but why? Wait there! Minister of Justi ... Mr. Minister of Justice, please. It was decided some time ago you couldn't handcuff almost nobody. Why are they handcuffing the working citizen, the woman in a park, and the Justice does nothing?
You have the speak, fuck! How long will you be quiet? Or do I have to continue exposing myself? You have to speak, get out, pressure them! Can't handcuff, decision of the Supreme Court. And we will stay quiet until when? Keep humiliating our people, why? This is growing. People kep pointing at me, "voted for you to do something!", "voted on you because you have to take decision, for you to fight!". And it's true. I don't give a shit about the reelection. What I want the most is some gets re ... someone is elected, if I'm coming as a candidate, ok? So I can bring ... I want to have peace in Brazil, nothing else. Because if its the left, me and a bunch of you will have to leave the country because you will be arrested. I am sure they will arrest me for homophobia, eight years for homophobia. Then they make up some racism, like they did for (Abraham) Weintraub. Sorry, sorry for the ... the rant: puta que o pariu (literally translates to the bitch that birthed you, basically the strongest swear words)! Weintraub could've said the biggest shit in the world, but racist? We'll have to react people, it's another fight.
We need to be a government with ... with activity. Expose yourselves, show that we have the people on our side. That we follow the people. What we really want, as it's said, if I'm not mistaken, Thatcher, right? Or Reagan, I'm not sure? So we ... it has to be conducted by the Brazilian public, and that's it. Where the people is, we'll be together. I didn't invite anybody to go to the front if the ... the ... the Apache Fort, nobody, zero! I was in my sons house, found out: "Go there!" The media is now talking that, I don't know, that two military ministers didn't accept my invitation. The day that ... either I invite the minister to a barbecue at my house or I'll pay a mission!
Bolsonaro is interrupted, but then resumes speaking
Ok? I don't know, ok? Or I'll pay a mission. If the mission is absurd, the minister says "hey, goodbye, I'm out," all right? Or he goes and gets pissed, but go, fuck! And I'll never pay a shit mission for whoever it is, not even in the military base I would do that to a recruit, not even in the military base, all right? Not even imagining our relationship here which is very good, it's ... going towards that line.
We're not panicking, we are fine. We are not accused of swindling money, of corruption, nothing. In th ... nothing, all clear! We have problems up ahead. We'll try to solve it, like I have talked to various ministers. And we'll solve it because the future of Brazil is at the hand of this privileged group here. And I would be nothing without you. You wouldn't be ministers without ... without me ... I doubt it! Hardly anybody would be minister if there was a Haddad here. I doubt it! Could accept for a few days, right? Later see the bullshit it would be, wouldn't be any different than the two previous year of PT, right? Would ask to leave. So an appeal to you, everybody worry about the future of Brazil, with the political question, criticise an act of a person or another isn't ... it's not to criticise the Supreme Court. It's ... it's a ... who doesn't stay ... who doesn't stay became revo .... saw Moro become revolted ... with the liberty these people have. Because of a ... a ... a virus, they let rapists go free.
Imagine if they were raping a daughter of our, a son of a bitch like this be set free. Now we have to put ourselves in those person's shows, of the father who had the daughter raped, and the ... the fucker was set free. With a decision, fuck whoever it is, have to go hard on top ... hard on top of that. It's not rant, folks. It's a reality. Our boat is leaving, but we don't know yet, at the moment given the last case, thi... virus, where our boat is going. Can be heading towards an iceberg. We'll go down. So let's pay attention, let's worry. Who can do it right, make yourself present, with good language, alright? But have a position! Because everything can't, everything, come for my ass, all right? You have to get beaten together with me, logically when there's a reason to get beaten or a reason to fight.
Braga Netto explains the following speakers, and Sérgio Moro speaks
Moro: No, it's ... well ... first the question of the plan that was there presented, make my compliments registered. Certainly it has details that have to be filled in, there are the economic questions to be resolved at the Ministry of Economics, to be worked together with other economic areas. And ... just would give a suggestion, minister, if you could put in since early in some part of the plan, some reference important also about ... the public safety and ... control of corruption. They were two central themes, right? In the last elections.
Yeah ... they are two themes that, although, obviously, the plan will be subjected there to ... the necessary detailing, but it's important ... to have a benchmark so it seems we aren't moving away from these specific aspects.
Braga Netto and Moro discuss a bit more on whether or not details are on the meetings scope
Moro: You have to point out that also ... what was a victory of the government, the president, last year was a noticeable fall in main crime indexes. Although this might be more tied into the question of life and safety of people, it's also a key factory for economic investment, to attract, improve, the economic environment. And the control of corruption is assumed, right? So I'd do, there ... exclusively this specific suggestion.
Gustavo Montezano (head of the State Development Bank is introduced and starts speaking)
Gustavo Montezano: He begins by saying there needs to be an emphasis on the importance to focus on the reconstruction, as advised by Paulo Guedes. "One of the ... the critical parts is this legislation, or operation of the public machine. It's a very opportune moment for us to make use of this, and this makes a big difference of the price of a project, the speed, it's a big difference. So here I subscribe to what Minister Salles said." He follows up by explaining the restructuring of BNDES from a focus in loans to investments.
Nélson Teich (Health Minister) is introduced, I will put it entirely as it explains Brazil's COVID policy
Teich: He begins by mentioning how controlling the disease is key, as if you're not able to control it, fear will impede economic recovery. "And controlling the disease doesn't mean we'll cure it in a week, but that we're not a lost boat and that we have a strategy to work with this disease, right? So there are three things that we will work. First the information, to understand what is the disease, what's the evolution, how's the infrastructure to treat it because o ... o ... o ... one of the great issues we have today, if you look at Brazil today, it's one of the best countries in relation to mortality (as of May 23rd, Brazil has a CFR of 13%, with around 130k recovered). What's scary is when you see that the hospital can't take in patients, it's the morgue workers, it's that we're opening graves anywhere to bury, and this brings fear. And the fear impedes any other activity from having success. Because as long as this isn't solved, the rest will have no chance of being bought into by society. The next thing is to structure the care operations. So we will invest in logistics, invest in the purchasing process, and try to improve it.
Why? Because I have hospitals working, I'll have patients treated, I don't have the feeling of a crisis, the fear improves and the rest can come in. And the third thing we need to keep clear is a process to leave the isolation, the distancing. Not that it will end tomorrow, but we need to have a plan. Then we can show that the ... situation is under control. It may take a little, but we are controlling this process, that we are not a lost boat. So basically what I wanted to s ... say to you is that this is the method that we will treat and will ... we are going to be interacting with all ministries that will be necessary for this to happen in the quickest way possible. Basically it's that and it's a pleasure being here with you.
Bolsonaro: Yesterday I called the head of the Brazilian Highway Patrol. I found out, a note, from him, about the passing of a patrolman. And he insisted that it was COVID-19, I called him
"Please, what else? He was obese, it was that, was it" well, had, how do you call it? (asks Braga Netto about)
Braga Netto: Comorbidities
Bolsonaro: Comorbidities. But in his statement it only put out COVID-19. So let's alert the responsible, of the respective ministry, you can put COVID-19, but then put that he had fibrosis ... lots of things, I don't understand that stuff. There was a bunch of stuff there exactly not to bring fear to the population. Because we look, died an Army sergeant, for exemplo. On first look it's a healthy guy, right? A federal policeman, right? Whatever it is, this can't happen. So we ask for this care with the coworkers, right? At whoever is responsible, to the respective ministry, there someone in charge of that, right? To take this care to not bring fear to the population.
Teich and Braga Netto discuss on how long it would take to create the exit plan to the isolation
Teich: So we can speed up this process. Because in reality we are ... running against the clock. While we can't control the perception we have today that we can take care of the people, it will be hard, right? The problem of the disease is that you get a system that if you talk about efficiency, the hospitals have to be efficient. So when you talk about efficiency, you ... you go almost in the limit of care. You don't have ... you don't have spares, you don't have fat. When you get a disease that arrives, that has many people at the same time, you can't have the agility to prepare the system to take care of it. And we have an additional problem that we have to be careful, that's the following, as you have the hospitals with few ... you have many people talking about COVID, but hospitals are reducing intakes. Which means they will have financial problems. If this continues, they will have even more challenges, you will have a hospital that is in a worse state or a hospital closed.
What's happening today? Let's put it in numbers today, that we have four million people with COVID. Brazil today has two hundred and twelve million inhabitants. There are two hundred and eight million that are, that aren't, that aren't having adequate care. For you ... it's cancer, it's cardiovascular. This all is dammed, it's restringed demand. When you control COVID, the not COVID will come in strong, and you can risk a damaged structure.
Then you will only transfer the fear. What will be the fear of COVID to the fear of the not COVID. Then we have to be prepared for all that. So it's not only working the ... the short span. We have to prepare for this second stint in which this will all come together. We are doing all of this, just so you know what we are thinking of all this. Just so you can know this is all planned.
Braga Netto introduces Tarcísio Gomes, Minister of Infrastructure. He mentions using the Pró-Brasil recovery plan to invest in infrastructure, and how the money is drying up. The Central Bank has been injecting liquidity to help finish some construction projects.
Braga Netto then introduces Pedro Guimarães, head of Caixa (one of Brazil's government banks). This will be abridged
Guimarães: [...] I mean, all of those thieves, PT, PMDB, PSDB, all that thievery, twenty five percent (interest) per month. And nobody cares. [...] This morning, the people from Band (Bandeirantes, a TV channel) wanted money. The point is is this, will you or won't you give money to Band? Ah, won't give money to Band? Spent half and hour getting beaten up, but replied. And said "Look, are you at home? I have thirty thousand employees on the street. There's not deal, this bullshit of home office. I visited fifteen agencies, and you're at home?" Then they calmed down. [...] know how many people Caixa pays today? Seven million people, and everybody in home office. What bullshit is this?
Note: Band has demanded an explanation, and has said that it has not asked for no official payments. If there was a secret request of money, tell who it was and he will be fired, or else they threatened to take legal action
Guimarães: [...] Luis Lima, who swam with my father, was an Olympic athlete, had his wife and daughter of fourteen years of age arrested yesterday, in the police wagon. What the fuck is this? Sorry ... What the fuck is this? The guys goes in the wagon with his daughter. If it was me, I'd get my fifteen weapons and ... I'd give a ... I would go ... I would die. Because if my daughter went in the police wagon, I would kill or be killed. What is this? Was swimming in the ... the ... she's an Olympic athlete. You take the person, the person is swimming at fourteen years. I have a daughter that's fourteen. If my daughter goes into the police wagon either I'll kill or be killed
M (not sure who this is): Yeah, and Luiz Lima's wife didn't say she's the wife of a Federal Congressman
[...]
Guimarães: And that governor stealing
Guimarães then mentions that out of the 120 high ranking positions he purged 105. He then continues defending about how Caixa is having issues providing credit.
Guimarães: There's people from the TCU (Federal Accountability) of the emergency funds? Know what's happening? There's people there saying we give to much and people saying we give too little. We're fucked!
G continues explaining how Caixa is the one of the largest banks, and is suffering with works coming down with COVID. He continues "I told my wife: if anything happens I'll go there myself ... take a liter of hydroxychloroquine all that crap. So this way, I think we are, just the last thing, in, in a question of collective hysteria. I mean, I can have thirty thousand employees at Caixa, paying seven million today, two million on fri ... yeah, monday. Yesterday we opened 800 agencies, will open saturday, will open sunday, two hours earlier. And what does the media want? That you pay and fuck the employees. But if two die, 9 o'clock news". He goes back to the Luiz Lima case, "And then you set a rapist free?" He then thanks Moro for allowing Caixa security guards (technically federal employees) to work outside the agencies, so that they can help coordinate the lines outside.
Braga Netto introduces Ernesto Araújo, minister of foreign relations
Ernesto Araújo: [...] I'd like to mention the following, I think it's fundamental that this international dimension not be simply an adaptation of us to the international scenario, but that it takes into account the capacity Brazil has today to influence the design of a new international scenario. I am more convinced that Brazil today has the condition, the opportunity to sit in the table of the four, five, six countries that will define the new world order. [...] And this scenario is, ... I think he has to take into account the following ... we are there reviewing the last thirty years of globalization. There will be a new globalization.
What happened in these thirty years? It was a globalization blind for the theme of values, for the theme of democracy, of liberty. It was a globalization that, we are seeing now, creating a model in which the center of the international economy is in a country that isn't democratic, that doesn't respect human rights, etc, right? [...] That brings the project of, of the, the president, that's not only efficiency, economic growth, but there's liberty, the fight against corruption, the reinvention of Brazil, it's free, it's a Brazil free of these issues that we know. Thank you.
Braga Netto introduces Roberto Campos (President of the Central Bank)
Campos: I'll go back a bit here, and remind that at the end of the Dilma government the interest rate was 14.5%, short term. But the long one was 20%. And then we look at what happened and caused the interest rate that fell. [...] The rates fell up to the level of 6.5%, stabilized, had the uncertainty of the elections with the uncertainty of PT coming back, got worse, and when the market understood the pension reform was coming, was when there was space to cut rates again. [...] We have done meetings between ... meetings between the central bankers of various countries in the world, it's ... almost every week. I think there are three key points. First, there is a consensus, today, it's ... that the private world is afraid of taking risk. So, it won't ... there won't be a quick exist without the government coming in, in some way, taking risk. Because the private world is afraid to task risks due to the fear factor. [...] If you allow everybody to watch a football game tomorrow, will everybody leave their house and go?
Campos then goes explaining the fear factors, and how it has a multiplier effect to a degree.
Braga Netto then introduces Damares Alves, Minister of Human Rights, Family and Women
Damares: [...] This government has the pillar of values. [...] We received a government that didn't have data, and the data we had was false, lied. A Brazil of guesswork, a Brazil of maybe, "I think it is", "maybe yes maybe no". [...] When we went looking for traditional groups to building the fight against the coronavirus, we discovered, ministers, that we have 1.300.000 Ukrainians in Brasil and nobody every said anything about them to us. [...] We have 1.5 million gipsies and I spoke of 1.3 million. [...]
She follows up with some extra data disparities, such as rubber tappers, descendants of escaped slaves, children and elderly in care homes.
Damares: In this moment of the pandemic we see the joke of the Supreme Court bringing back abortion, and there was the question of ... are the women victim of zika will abort, and now of the coronavirus? Will they allow all that had coronavirus an abortion in Brazil? Will they allow everybody? Minister, it's filled with feminists that have a single issue that is allowing abortion. I want to remind you minister, that's arriving now, this is a pro-life government, pro-family. [...]
Follows up explaining how they are dealing with native populations and Covid
Damares: Do you know why we went there president? Because we received the news that there would be deliberate contamination in Roraima and Amazonas in natives, to kill them and blame them on Bolsonaro. I had to go there with the head of the Funai and met with generals of the region and the head the PF, so we could do a covert operation, because they had to kill more natives to say that our policy wasn't working.
Damares: So president, just to wrap up. Yeah, I'd like to say that your nervousness has a reason. There has never been so many violations of human rights in Brazil such as during this period. Fundamental rights have been violated. In our hotline there are over five thousand registries of human rights violations. But you sir have a very brave staff and minister of Human Rights. There are over five thousand proceedings and actions being made. Governors and mayors will respond to legal action.
The elderly are being arrested and thrown inside police vans in Brazil. Women thrown to the floor and being handcuffed for doing nothing ... doing nothing. We are seeing priests being fined 90 thousand reais because they were inside church with two worshippers. The greatest violation of human rights of the history of Brazil in the last thirty years of Brazil is happening right now, but we are taking action. The pandemic will pass, but governors and mayors will respond and we will ask for the arrest of governors and mayors. [...] the governor Wellington (Piauí) today, yesterday, determined that the police will be able to enter houses.
Bolsonaro asks if he signed the decree
Damares: Signed! The police will be able to enter houses without warrants. So, this way, the biggest violations are happening now. So, we are preparing, over five proceedings our ministry has taken initiative and we are asking for the arrest of a few governors.
Braga Netto introduces Marcelo Antônio, Minister of Tourism. Not much happens, with the exception of him defending the legalization of casinos, to Damares' anger. He believes it to be possible to do so with proper police work guaranteeing that it is done properly and legally.
In Damares' words "Deal with the devil"
General Mourão, vice president, invites Damares to play the roulette
Marcelo follows up with a proposal to rent hotels to isolate medical professionals and reduce exposure.

Hi guys, I am back with some good news. Back in February 10th, 9 days before the market began its crash, I wrote a thesis about why an impending serious global economic downturn was inevitable unless two things happened: 1) immediate treatment is developed 2) vaccine developed by next flu season:
https://www.reddit.com/China_Flu/comments/f1fm6y/the_world_economy_will_enter_a_serious_downturn/

So if my logic and assumptions are correct, we are looking at an inescapable catastrophe for the Asian tourism industry at the very least. Just in Time manufacturing keep about 2 weeks worth of parts. Most businesses already adjusted their supplies to account for the normal Chinese New Year shutdown. We are now coming up on the limits of most JIT supplies. So expect some pretty bad news to be coming out this week and especially by later this month. I'm seeing pretty big dips in the stock market by April. Probably -15% by April and up to -35% by the end of the year. This will be our "dip".

I also wrote a follow up literally a trading day before the oil war started between Russia and Saudi Arabia and prices went crashing that went into further details about what will be unfolding in the coming weeks/months. I detailed trouble for oil industry and oil communities, needed government policies (bailouts, stimulus, helicopter money to consumers), hidden losers like casinos (will be trading cents on the dollar) and private prisons, etc. All of this developed literally within days after the thread was posted.
This will be my third post in this series but it will be a brief post:
I believe that the market decline is quickly coming into sight because we have increasing evidence of efficacy of various widely available drugs in treating covid19.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/186Bel9RqfsmEx55FDum4xY_IlWSHnGbj/view
This is the latest peer review study showing that drugs like hydroxychloroquine has been shown to cure (test negative) 90% of patients after 6 days vs 96% still positive for virus after 6 days in the control group.
This builds on what we've seen reported in countries around the world:

• China just approved chloroquine, an old drug to treat malaria, as an effective treatment of nCov. https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bjd.com.cn%2Fa%2F202002%2F17%2FWS5e4a436be4b00949486814d8.html&sandbox=1
  
• "It would be a medical mistake not to give chloroquine against the Chinese virus" Didier Raoult, expertscape #1 expert on communicable diseases. https://www.20minutes.fsante/2727411-20200226-coronavirus-faute-medicale-donner-chloroquine-contre-virus-chinois-selon-professeur-didier-raoult
  
• hydroxychloroquine seems to work too "20 patients with new crown pneumonia as of February 17th. The clinical symptoms of patients with 1-2 days were improved significantly after treatment with hydroxychloroquine. After 5 days of use, 19 cases of chest CT showed significant improvement in absorption" https://www.jqknews.com/news/388543-The_novel_coronavirus_pneumonia_has_short_term_curative_effect_on_the_treatment_of_new_crown_pneumonia.html
  
• earlier update on 21 Feb of 135 cases that generally got better http://www.china.org.cn/china/2020-02/22/content_75732846.htm
  
• One of the top french specialist on the subject announced that chloroquine might be the medicament we needed and results from the tests in china are amazing youtube link not allowed: /watch?v=8L6ehRif-v8
  

So here's some info on what's happening:
Drugs like Chloroquine works in treating the virus because they are Zinc Ionophores. Zinc inhibits viral reproduction but zinc has a hard time making it past our cell walls. Zinc ionophores solves this problem and has been shown to work for other viral infections as well.
Data coming out of countries like China and South Korea shows that case fatality rates dropped immensely after adopting widespread use of these drugs. France is following their lead and the data coming out of France in the coming weeks will help confirm the efficacy of using zinc ionophores.
Chinese data are rightfully criticized for being unreliable, but South Korea's case fatality rate is an order of magnitude lower than countries like Italy where the zinc ionophores has not been reported being widely used.
The discovery of this existing cheap and widely available treatment is what will help return us to normal. The next step will be a rushed vaccine by the next flu season to hopefully permanently put covid19 behind us.
I should note that the early studies have "flawed" methodologies. The most recent peer reviewed study has a very small sample size. But this is the nature of emergency crisis situations. You need to use incomplete and often flawed data, apply a giant margin of safety on it, and then draw conclusion about what will likely develop.
My opinion is that there has been enough data to show that we can probably dramatically decrease the scary case fatality rate to something manageable. All studies are showing the efficacy of these drugs and CFR data from countries using these treatments show drastically fewer deaths.
Another good news is that my feared "paradigm shift" may be alleviated as well. I warned that the most important news to look for is the mutations of this virus. This virus's spreading characteristics makes it very unlikely evolutionary pressures will heavily favor more benign versions of the virus. This is because other viruses like SARS burn out quickly and prevent its own transmissions. They show symptoms too quickly and kill too quickly making it easy to detect/contain. This virus with its multiweek asymptomatic spread means the deadliness of it will not be easily selected out through evolutionary process. So it can evolve deadlier strains and propagated almost as easily as it can evolve more benign strains.
And with rapid mutation of new strains, this will hamper efforts to vaccinate against it.
However, with zinc ionophores, we may have a more general treatment option that will work on subsequent mutations and strains. This may help us stomp the virus out and prevent a paradigm shifting reality where we have "seasonal flus" of various strains of covid19 that kills 15x-20x more people than our current seasonal flus.
Once news of this starts circulating through America, and more data comes out of countries like France, I believe that the market will reach its bottom.
I should note that there are a lot of "lagging indicators" like unemployment that will continue to worsen for months after the market finishes nose diving. Just because the market bounces back doesn't mean a lot of layoffs, bankruptcies, and foreclosures won't continue to happen.
For this third post, I had originally wanted to create a thorough discussion on the 35 or so crucial leading indicators I believe will predict and even pin point he exact turning point in our financial markets. There are some fascinating data points from other countries/regions/industries that leads our financial market remarkably consistently. But I have repeatedly warned against using models based on previous crises to predict what will happen with this virus because of its unique and unprecedented effect on our markets. We can't use past models of previous diseases to model this because those previous diseases have vastly different characteristics (rates regarding spread, hospitalization, death, effect on economic actors). So I'll put those leading indicators off for now and stick with my original thesis. We almost certainly have the treatment now, the next step is a vaccine before the next flu season. The end of this market bloodshed is likely in sight.

(Main Series) Friendship is Magic #1-4 The Return of Queen Chrysalis (Major Storyline)
Main Characters - Mane 6, CMC, Chrysalis
Summary - Queen Chrysalis has returned, replaced all the citizens of Ponyville with changelings, and kidnapped the CMC. Will the our heroes be able to stop her before it is too late? Or will rising tensions between the friends spell out their doom?
Quick Review - A worthy introduction to the comics with some fun character moments. Any comic drawn by Andy Price is worth checking out for the art alone. Chrysalis literally throws a kitten at a wall and it explodes into blood. 6/10
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FiM #5-8 Nightmare Rarity (Major) (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Rarity, Mane 6, Luna, Spike
Summary - Rarity is overcome by insecurity and the fear that she doesn't provide enough to the group, and allows herself to be corrupted by Nightmare. As her friends rush to save her, Luna must overcome her own guilty past in order to defeat it again in the present.
Quick Review - Nightmare Rarity's design is superb. So are the moon denizens. Katie Cook's writing style can lean into the absurd sometimes, but she knows how to do an emotional moment. We see how Luna earned her flowing mane. Spike saves the day. Trixie gets a few lines. 8/10
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FiM #9-10 Zen and the Art of Gazebo Repair (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Big Mac
Summary - Big Mac has to find nails to fix his gazebo during the Summer Wrap-Up festival. But the world has other plans for him.
Quick Review - Big Mac plays a wonderful comedic straight man. Seriously, the comic is hilarious, the art is amazing, and Big Mac is a chad. Dude has to fight off like four different mares fawning over him, including Luna. He just wants to repair his gazebo, for god's sake. 9/10
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FiM #11-12 (Neigh Anything)
Characters - Cadance, Shining Armor, Biff Tannen
Summary - Discover the romantic tale of how Cadance and Shining Armor came to be. Can Shining Armor prove himself worthy to Cadance? Will she choose him over High School Gigachad Buck Withers? Probably.
Quick Review - I enjoy it. Not much to say. Shining Armor belts out some Oingo Boingo for Cadance, and lord knows there is nothing more romantic than singing about how much you love little girls. (6.5/10)
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Annual 2013: Equestria Girls (The Fall of Sunset Shimmer)
Characters - Sunset Shimmer, Celestia
Summary - Sunset Shimmer is a magical prodigy. But Celestia will not further her teachings, because despite her prowess, the young sorcerer has much to learn. Sunset believes otherwise.
Quick Review - To everyone clamoring for a proper Sunset backstory and motivation I am proud to announce that this is not it. It's unbelievably vague and generic. It pains me as a massive Shimmerfriend. Also, all the human designs look like ayy lmaos. More so than the show. Hopefully they pick it up in the next EqG comic... (3/10)
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FiM #13-14 (My Little Pirate)
Characters - Fluttershy, Mane 6, Hoofbeard
Summary - Fluttershy has become too attached to a fish she rescued, and regrets letting it go. So when a dangerous pirate arrives looking for a crew, she take it is an opportunity to reunite with her fish. Also a pirate adventure thing, Hoofbeard seeks a treasure behind a perilous journey.
Quick Review - Utterly forgettable. I really cannot be bothered to reread it for a review. It was okay I think? (5/10)
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FiM #15-16 (The Book Worm)
Characters - Twilight, Mane 6
Summary - A magical bookworm begins devouring his way through Twilight's library. That wouldn't be such an issue (except to Twilight), if the characters from to books didn't begin popping up in the real world. Now Twilight and co must take down the bookworm in it's own domain: The Realm of Books.
Quick Review - I like Pinkie's fantasy world. Another just okay one. Lotta references to other media. Marvel, LoTR, Disney shlock, you get the idea. The void had some solid character moments for Twilight and Rainbow. (6/10)
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Friends Forever #1: Pinkie & Applejack
Characters - Take a guess
Summary - In the issue, Applejack and Pinkie Pie enter a baking contest, and culinary hijinks ensue.
Quick Review - Rough start for FF. Predictable and silly. Art here is really not good. However, it does have Guy Fieri pony. (3/10)
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Friends Forever #2: CMC & Discord (Highly Recommended)
Characters - CMC, Discord
Summary - Discord takes the crusaders to increasingly dangerous dimensions in their search for a cutie mark.
Quick Review - This one is super sweet. Some of the best Discord showing in the series. The CMC being some of the only ponies to understand and show gratitude towards Discord for his effort is so damn heartwarming. (8/10)
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Friends Forever #3: Celestia & Spike (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Celestia, Spike
Summary - Spike wants to get Twilight something nice for her birthday, but the gift he settled on turns out to be slightly hard to come by. He enlists Celestia's help in getting the gift for her student, a gift found deep in the dangerous Crystal Mountains.
Quick Review - By far my favorite portrayal of Celestia. Lot of nice and touching dialogue between her and Spike, and some insight on Celestia's mindset as a ruler and teacher. Shame they went further down the "Celestia is an incompetent and petty klutz" route later on. (8/10)
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FiM #17-20 (Reflections) (Major) (Recommended)
Characters - Mane 6, Celestia, Starswirl, Sombra
Summary - Celestia has been secretly visiting another dimension for quite some time. A world where good is evil, and evil is good, and she has fallen madly in love with the benevolent King Sombra. A world where she and Luna are villains threatening to take over both dimensions. And it's all her fault.
Quick Review - This one is super polarizing. For me, it's a collection of great ideas utilized poorly. The mirror dimension is a very interesting concept that I wish would be re explored. And i'm content with all the characters. But the climax, touching as it maybe, kinda dampens this one for me. Still, (7/10)
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Friends Forever #4: Twilight & Shining Armor
Characters - ^^^^^
Summary - Twilight Sparkle is worried her and Shiny have drifted apart since their foalhoods. An opportunity presents itself to rekindle when her and Shining Armor team up to catch a ghost that haunts the Crystal Empire palace.
Quick Review? - Turns out, there are a lot of FF comics, and a lot of them are pretty inconsequential. There are only so many times I can say, "It was cute. I liked it." before that gets redundant. So unless I have something more to say, i'm gonna reduce these to just Rating and Summary. Pretty good tho. (6/10)
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Friends Forever #5: Fluttershy & Zecora
Summary - Fluttershy and Zecora try to figure out why Fluttershy can suddenly hear her animal friends talk. Spoilers: It was Discord. Go figure.
Rating - (4/10)
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Friends Forever #6: Rainbow Dash & Trixie
Summary - Rainbow Dash is called upon by a newly crowned Queen Trixie to perform for a kingdom of Diamond Dogs. Turns out being Queen isn't all its cracked up to be.
Rating - I mean, it's got Trixie. (6/10)
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FiM #21-22 (Manehattan Mysteries) (Recommended)
Characters - CMC, Babs, Trixie, AJ, Rarity
Summary - Doesn't need one. Trixie and Babs are in it. Go read it.
Quick Review - The relationship between Babs and Trixie here and they parallels they draw from each other are pretty great. I always love those kinds of strange character interactions. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #7: Pinkie & Luna
Summary - Princess Luna seeks Pinkie Pie's help in making ponies laugh so she can participate in a Royal Event.
Rating - (6/10)
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Friends Forever #8: Applejack & Rarity
Summary - Typical Rarijack episode, road trip edition.
Rating - It introduces those stupid bull cowboys. For that (4/10)
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FiM Issue 23 (Pets to the Rescue)
Characters - Angel, Winona, Opalescence, Owliscious, Gummi, Tank
Summary - When there owners are nowhere to be found, the pets team up and must set out to find their owners and assist them in whatever magical conundrum they may have found themselves in.
Quick Review - I think the villain here would have been really interesting in almost any other scenario. Other than that, minimal dialogue, and the art isn't exceptional, so (5/10)
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Friends Forever #9: Granny & The Flimflam Bros
Summary - Granny Smith helps Flim and Flam patch things up after they have a falling-out over a mare.
Rating - This one is pretty wholesome. (7/10)
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FiM Issue 24 (Discord in Time)
Characters - Discord, CMC, Flutters
Summary - Discord take the CMC and Flutterbutter on an a journey through time to show them some animals. Hijinks ensue.
Quick Review - Another really nice Discord issue. He isn't use to having all these friends and watching out for them in his chaos, so he drags them along in his dangerous adventures. He then immediately forgets this lesson. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #10: Fluttershy & Iron Will (Major)
Summary - Fluttershy helps Iron Will with has marital problems.
Rating - (6/10)
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Friends Forever #11: Rainbow Dash & Spitfire
Summary - Rainbow Dash helps Spitfire overcome her greatest fear: Children.
Rating - Art style is cute, but super jarring. (6/10)
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FiM #25-26 (The Good, the Bad and the Ponies)
Characters - AJ, Mane 6, Bulls
Summary - Doesn't matter.
Quick Review - Don't read this one. Seriously, it's bad. Nothing really makes sense. Applejack has some sort of brain defect. Twilight arbitrarily cannot use her magic on Equestrian citizens. Even when they are dangerous criminals, apparently? (1/10)
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Friends Forever #12: Pinkie & Twilight
Summary - Twilight tries to help Pinkie overcome her harrowing cocaine addiction. When that fails, Twilight starts doing coke herself to make the guilt go away. Pinkie stops doing coke for like five minutes, and Twi considers that a success.
Rating - (4/10)
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Equestria Girls Annual 2014: Holiday Special
Characters - Humane 6, Sunset Shimmer, CMC
Summary - The holidays are nearing, and Sunnybun is feeling pretty down in the dumps. The girls try to cheer her up by inviting over for a few nights of debauchery. This cheers her up a bit. So, the Humane 5 go home on the shortbus and Sunny walks home, finally content with herself. Meanwhile the CMC decide that Sunset is keeping them from spending time with their sisters(?) and start a social media account in her name, called Anon-A-Miss, which they use to spread explicit photos of their sisters from the "sleepovers" and frame Sunset. Everyone in the school begin to tragically suffer from severe mental deficiencies and buy it immediately. Because the chick who just saved all of your sorry asses from soul sucking harlots like a week ago is going to post shit about her friends with her fucking face attached to the account.
Quick Review - I really wish I could shit on this more, but I got quite a bit to get through. (-3/10)
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Friends Forever #13: Rarity & Babs Seed
Summary - In the issue, Rarity must entertain Babs Seed when Sweetie Belle falls ill. Turns out Babs idea of entertainment is different than Rarity's.
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FiM #27-28 (The Root of the Problem) (Major)
Characters - Mane 6, Bramble, King Aspen
Summary - The Everfree spontaneously begins protruding into Ponyville. At the root of this problem, the druid-esque Deers who wish to reclaim the parts of their forest that were lost.
Quick Review - The Deer are really neat, and having them be the night elves of Equestria is a fun concept. But the deer people kind of get the shaft, and most of the story focuses on the avaricious minotuar Well-to-do. (6.5/10)
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Friends Forever #14: Luna & Spike
Summary - In the issue, Princess Luna enlists Spike's help in solving a dragon problem in Fillydelphia.
Rating - Luna and Spike spend three pages together, and the rest of the story is focused on an annoying pink fangirl dragon. (4/10)
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Friends Forever #15: Applejack & Mayor Mare
Summary - In this issue, politics are boring.
Rating - (5/10)
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FiM Issue #29 (Ponymania XXIX)
Characters - Cheerilee, Cherry Blossom
Summary - Cheerilee reunites with her twin sister—one of the most famous wrestlers in Equestria. But when Cherry Blossom gets injured, Cheerilee is forced to take her place in the ring.
Quick Review - As with most Jay Fosgitt's stuff, cute, but a lot of fluff and not much to carry an interesting story. (6/10)
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FIENDship is Magic #1: King Sombra (Major) (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Sombra, Radiant Hope
Summary - Twilight Sparkle and Princess Cadance discover King Sombra's diary and learn of his rise to power. But before that, how he was a sickly outcast, a troubled young amnesiac whose only friend was the equally strange Radiant Hope, who still had imaginary friends.
Quick Review - Much needed backstory for Sombra, and very well done at that. His connection to Radiant Dawn feels genuine, and his corruption by way of shitty crystal ball is absolutely tragic. My dude just wanted to go the Crystal Faire ): Also Princess Amore fucking dies. (9/10)
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FIENDship is Magic #2: Tirek (Recommended)
Characters - Tirek, Scorpan, Sendak
Summary - Tirek, young and ambitious, sneaks out of his royal families castle to visit the unhinged sorcerer Sendak to learn more about magic. Scorpan is worried about his brothers ambitions.
Quick Review - Doesn't add much character depth to Tirek, but it's suitable. Presents a lot of cool ideas not explored as thoroughly as they could be. Leaves a lot up to interpretation and head canon. (7/10)
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FIENDship is Magic #3: Sirens (Non-Canon)
Characters - The Dazzlings, Starswirl
Summary - The fate of the world is determined by a music battle, and if the Dazzlings win, all is lost. This is not Rainbow Rocks.
Quick Review - Not a single character acts in character, and while the other Fiendship issues are take themselves pretty seriously, this one is drastically different tonally and opts for comedy. Which really sucks, because I wanted actual backstories for the Sirens. Humor falls flat as well. (2/10)
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FIENDship is Magic #4: Nightmare Moon
Characters - Nightmare Moon, Nyx (Not that Nyx)
Summary - A recently banished Nightmare Moon attempts exacts revenge on Princess Celestia through the world of dreams. The Nyx, the keepers of the dreams, will not allow it.
Quick Review - I much prefer Nightmare Moon as a manifestation of Luna's negative emotions over depictions a corrupting parasitic entity. Story is serviceable, a bit sad, nothing noteworthy. (6/10)
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FIENDship is Magic #5: Queen Chrysalis (Major)
Characters - Twilight, Chrysalis
Summary - The Mane Six visit the imprisoned Queen Chrysalis, who recounts her past exploits.
Quick Review - Case of unreliable narrator here. Chrysalis implies that changelings are made of pure dark magic, which is an idea I actually quite like, but having them reform like they did would say otherwise. Story is sorta all over, like a Chrysalis anthology short. (6/10)
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Friends Forever #16: Diamond Tiara & Silver Spoon
Summary - Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon compete against the Cutie Mark Crusaders in a scavenger hunt.
Rating - Smokin' hot goth pony makes an appearance. (7/10)
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FiM #30-31 (Ponyville Days)
Characters - Rarity, AJ, Twilight
Summary - Civil War over a land dispute or something, can't really be bothered with this one.
Quick Review - As far as I remember, this is one of the issues that gives everyone in Ponyville a crippling case of "has to wear a helmet while outside". Dumbing down characters to make a story work is obnoxious. (3/10)
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Friends Forever #17: Twilight & Big Mac
Summary - Twilight takes a trip into Big Mac's brain to learn how to focus as well as he does.
Rating - (7/10)
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Friends Forever #18: Rainbow Dash & Fluttershy
Summary - Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy go to their flight camp reunion.
Rating - Pretty adorable. (7/10)
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FiM #32-33 (Night of the Living Apples)
Characters - Mane 6, Spike
Summary - Apples take over Ponyville. Our heroes turn into bats. This is not a crackfic.
Quick Review - Batpony designs are pretty damn cool. Story is whatever. (5/10)
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FiM #32-33 (Night of the Living Apples)
Summary - Rarity gets carried away when she goes into business with Mr. and Mrs. Cake.
Rating - (6/10)
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Friends Forever #20: Luna & Discord (Recommended)
Summary - Princess Luna helps Discord when he has trouble sleeping.
Rating - Neat character dynamic. Good stuff for Luna and Discord. (8/10)
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FiM #34-37 (Siege of the Crystal Empire) (Major) (Non-canon) (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Sombra, Mane 6, Chryssi, Umbrums
Summary - A mysterious new villain brings several of the series' past antagonists together to attack the Crystal Empire.
Quick Review - I want to keep my gushing about this one brief. The umbrum design and lore are some of the best things to come out of the comics. This Sombra is infinitely better than the one in the show. I definitely didn't cry at the end because i'm a big boy. (9/10)
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Friends Forever #21: Spike & Zecora
Summary - Spike and Zecora save Ponyville from a disease, and only they are immune.
Rating - (7/10)
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Friends Forever #22: Celestia & Pinkie
Summary - Princess Celestia tasks Pinkie Pie with making the perfect cake for Princess Luna's birthday party.
Rating - Barely any Celestia. (4/10)
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Friends Forever #23: Applejack & Fluttershy
Summary - Applejack and Fluttershy become involved in the search for a legendary creature called the Pigasus. They must keep its existence a secret.
Rating - No Kirin (5/10)
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Friends Forever #24: Rarity & Gilda
Summary - Gilda enlists Rarity's help in designing uniforms for a new sports team in Griffonstone.
Rating - (6/10)
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FiM #38-39 (Don't You Forget About Us)
Characters - CMC, Diamond Tiara, Snips, Snails
Summary - The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Diamond Tiara, Silver Spoon, Snips, and Snails become lost in the mountains during a class field trip. AB and Diamond Tiara are forced to learn how to work together.
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Friends Forever #25: Rainbow Dash & Twilight
Summary - Rainbow Dash seeks Twilight Sparkle's help after her wings mysteriously vanish.
Rating - Weird body horror. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #26: Shining Armor & Prince Blueblood
Summary - Shining Armor is forced to work with Prince Blueblood on a diplomatic mission to Yakyakistan.
Rating - Holy shit they made Blueblood redeemable. (8/10)
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FiM Issue #40 (Twilight meets Spike)
Characters - Twilight, Spike
Summary - You know, it's exactly how it sounds.
Quick Review - Very cute. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #27: Pinkie & Granny Smith (Recommended)
Summary - Pinkie Pie offers to help Granny Smith after she breaks her hip right at the start of cider season.
Rating - Precious. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #41 (Rainbow Dash and the Very Bad Day)
Characters - Zecora, Rainbow
Summary - Rainbow Dash is being a c**t, and enrages literally everybody else in Ponyville. In other words, they captured her character just right in this one.
Quick Review - I like rhyme schemes, but I hate bluefast. (4/10)
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Friends Forever #28 Princess Luna and the Cutie Mark Crusaders
Summary - The Cutie Mark Crusaders assist Princess Luna during a foal slumber party at Canterlot Castle.
Rating - I like bone pony. (6/10)
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FiM Issue #42 (A Pinkie Pie Story That Pinkie Pie Kinda Sorta Remembers) (Recommended)
Characters - Rarara, Ponker Po
Summary - Pinker Pop, still cooling off from her ten month long cocaine binge, tries to help Rarity make a gift for a friend very special to her.
Quick Review - Very cute, very funny, cried. (8/10)
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Friends Forever #29 Rarity and Maud Pie
Summary - Rarity assists Maud Pie in her rock science interests and helps her discover her inner enthusiasm.
Rating - Nice Maud character development. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #43-45 (Ponies of Dark Water) (Major) (Recommended)
Characters - Mane 6, Luna, CMC, Spike
Summary - The Mane 6 bathe in cursed waters and become distorted versions of themselves. Pinkie Pie becomes a domestic terrorist.
Quick Review - I like the part where Pinkie bombs a movie theater potentially killing dozens of ponies. Hilarious. (8/10)
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Friends Forever #30 Twilight Sparkle and Princess Cadance
Summary - Twilight Sparkle helps her sister-in-law Princess Cadance when she suffers from an unexplained lack of self-esteem.
Rating - I quite like this little arc for Cadance. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #31 Rainbow Dash and Little Strongheart
Summary - Little Strongheart seeks Rainbow Dash's help in finding a legendary creature called the Rainbow Crow.
Rating - Little Strongheart, where ya been for six years dude? Beautiful art. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #32 Fluttershy and Daring Do
Summary - Daring Do enlists Fluttershy's help in uncovering an ancient treasure. She must also face her arachnophobia.
Rating - Better than the actual Flutters/Do episode. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #46-47 (Election)
Characters - Twilight, Mayor Mare, Donald Trump
Summary - Mayor Mare struggles in her bid for reelection, against definitely not Donald Trump guys I swear.
Quick Review - Haha I lied, but like I totally got you though right? Like it was super subtle? I bet you didn't even catch on. (5/10)
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Friends Forever #33 Applejack and Cherry Jubilee
Summary - Applejack learns the secret history of Cherry Jubilee.
Rating - Cherry Jubilee is pretty hot. (6/10)
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FiM Issue #48-50 (Chaos Theory) (Major) (Recommended)
Characters - Discord, Starlight, Mane 6
Summary - An astronomical event causes Discord to transform from a creature of chaos to a being of pure order. But not all is at seems with the newly minted Accord.
Quick Review - Starlight gets one arc throughout all of these comics. luckily it's pretty good. She gets some good character growth. Accord is pretty god damn terrifying. Actual sound logic is used to best the villain, which is pretty rare. (8/10)
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Friends Forever #34 Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich
Summary - Pinkie Pie and Cheese are eaten by a possessed party house. Seriously.
Rating - (6/10)
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Friends Forever #35 Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer
Summary - Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer's attempt to organize the books in the Castle of the Two Sisters turns into a battle of egos.
Rating - This would have been much better is not illustrated by Fosgitt. It doesn't suit this more weighty type of story. (7/10)
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Friends Forever #36 Rainbow Dash and Soarin (Recommended)
Summary - Rainbow Dash follows Soarin to a remote location to help him with a dangerous mission.
Rating - Great Soarin and Spitfire moments. (8/10)
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Friends Forever #37 Rarity and Trixie
Summary - Dude, it's got two of the best pones. Read it.
Rating - (7/10)
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FiM Issue #51-53 (From the Shadows) (Major)
Characters - Mane 6, Donut Steel
Summary - The edgiest OC to ever exist begins to erase Equestrian history from books and minds, in fear of his heritage catching up to him.
Quick Review - Super interesting villain motivation, terribly generic villain design. (7/10)
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My Little Pony: Deviations
Characters - Prince Blueblood, Mane 6, Nightmare Moon
Summary - Have you ever wondered what would have happened if Prince Blueblood was sent to Ponyville instead of Twiliight? No? Too bad, dude.
Summary - I would have loved to have gotten more deviations. Read about Blueblood being an arrogant prick for half an hour. It's fine. (6/10)
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Friends Forever #38 Princess Celestia and Princess Luna (Recommended)
Summary - Princess Celestia and Princess Luna's minor squabbling escalates just before they plan to participate in the Sisterhooves Social.
Quick Review - Friends Forever Finale. Andy Price outdoes himself yet again. Hilarious and Heartwarming. (8/10)
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FiM Issue #54 (I Didn't Read This One)
Summary - No seriously, didn't read it. Fosgitt, Fluttershy, fluff, the three F's of i'm going to be fucking bored. Maybe it's a masterpiece. I'll never know.
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FiM Issue #55-56 (Wings Over Yakyakistan)
Characters - Rainbow, Rutherford, Ember, Spike, Pinkie
Summary - When the dragons invade Yakyakistan over an ancient treaty, it's up to heroes to defend the Yaks and try and diffuse the situation. Spike doesn't like the idea of fighting his own kind.
Quick Review - Let it be known that I would have been totally cool with the Yaks getting destroyed. Typical let go of the past, look to the future stuff. Rainbow's parents are here, and they are fun, and Spitfire gets a bit of extra love, so (7/10)
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FiM Issue #57 (Apinkalypse Now)
Characters - Pinkie, Mane 6, Discord
Summary - Pinkie Pie accidentally becomes trapped in Discord's realm. If you wanted to see more of Chaos Pinkie, then here you go.
Quick Review - I really like the how the chaos dimension is shown in the comic, in that adapts to the current owner if they themselves can't be turned. You'll notice by this point the writers will do whatever in their power to make sure Starlight can be written out somehow. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #58 (The Vines That Bind)
Characters - Twi, Flutts, Zecora, Cattail, Aqua Vine
Summary - Twilight Sparkle, Fluttershy, and Zecora follow the notes of Mage Meadowbrook search for a flower said to cure any ailment. The search soon becomes an obsession for Twilight, determined to get her name in the history books.
Quick Review - Dude, Twilight, you already saved the world at least seven times. That Magenta Bloom shit would just be a footnote. Overall pretty forgettable. (5/10)
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FiM Issue #59 (Pie in the Sky)
Characters - Rainbow, Pinkie
Summary - Jesus Christ Pinkie she doesn't fucking like pie. We had a whole episode about just this. We didn't need a comic to teach the same lesson. That's a;lso your review. (3/10)
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FiM Issue #60 (The Stars on Our Ponies)
Characters - CMC, Gilded Lily
Summary - The Cutie Mark Crusaders help a filly who doesn't want to follow in her family's footsteps. But she is scared to disappoint them if she does pursue her own interest.
Quick Review - Gilded Lily's design is absolutely adorable. She also looks like she tastes pretty good, like Oranges n' Creme. Solid one-off. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #61-62 (Convocation of the Creatures!) (Major)
Characters - Twilight, Raven
Summary - Twilight Sparkle makes a discovery during the largest assembly of creatures in history that threatens to redraw the map of Equestria.
Quick Review - Glenda canonically has a stutter, making her best changeling. Good bit of overbuilding in this one, without falling into the common trap of making the convocation feel too modern. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #63 (All in Marederation)
Characters - Twilight, Pinkie, Temperance
Summary - Ponyville gets swept by an anti-sugar movement that threatens to put Sugarcube Corner out of business.
Quick Review - MLP's thinly veiled take on the Temperance Movement. Another one where all of Ponyville is turned into exceptional individuals. (4/10)
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FiM Issue #64 (Everything Old) (Recommended)
Characters - Rarity, Fluttershy, Coco Pommel
Summary - Fluttershy and Rarity travel to Manehattan, where Rarity discovers that old, ugly fashions are back in style.
Quick Review - I absolutely adore the message here. Things you made when you were younger that you maybe embarrassed of now don't have to be cast aside and forgotten. Rather, look to them to see how you have improved and how you can still improve. Coco is a QT. (8/10)
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My Little Pony: Legends of Magic Annual 2018 (Major) (Recommended)
Characters - The Pillars, Pony of Shadows
Summary - The Pillars of Old Equestria face a new danger that tests their skills as a team. One that they may find feels a bit like a deja vu.
Quick Review - I really like the relationship between Stygian and Rockhoof here. I wonder if Starswirl was always meant to be a dickhead? Green Pony of Shadows looks badass as fuck. Also, Somnambula is cute as hell. (7/10)
Edit - Consider there are twelve of these. I am not awake enough to add them all. Read' em. They're pretty good lore stuffs.
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FiM Issue #65 (Queen for One Less Day) (Recommended)
Characters - Celestia, Scarlet Petal
Summary - Princess Celestia disguises herself to live among ordinary ponies for a day. But when her magical necklace is stolen by a thief, she may lose the ability to turn back into herself for good.
Quick Review - I love this comic. Shows off the best parts of Celestia's character. I'm running out of synonyms for heartwarming, so just go read this one. (8/10)
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FiM Issue #66 (Applewood Follies)
Characters - Mane 6
Summary - Twilight Sparkle and her friends discover that a film is being made about them. But when the director hands them the reins, they discover it's harder to make a movie than they thought.
Quick Review - I'm really not a fan of more modern tech in Equestria. I don't mind it at all if it's used as a background gag, but here, where it's the plot of the comic, I just find it obtrusive.
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Ponyville Mysteries Issue 1
Characters - CMC, Nurse Redheart
Summary - "Welcome to a new series of mystery and intrigue! The Cutie Mark Crusaders discover their inner detectives and solve crimes nopony else can! Will they be able to discover who is stealing supplies from Ponyville hospital and get their schoolwork done at the same time?"
Quick Review - None of these are particularly engaging, so I won't review the rest. When I figure these mysteries out all by myself like the grown man I am I feel particularly proud, like I just solved a crossword puzzle they have on those Kiddie menus at iHop.
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Ponyville Mysteries Issue 2
Characters - CMC, The Dude
Summary - "There's a major mystery at the... bowling alley? Ponyville's team is set to break a bowling record, but the alley keeps being ransacked by a mystery criminal! Will the Cutie Mark Crusaders be able to set the pins right and solve the caper?"
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Ponyville Mysteries Issue 3
Characters - CMC, Old People
Summary - "The Cutie Mark Crusaders must solve a dangerous mystery at the Ponyville Retirement Village before it's forced to close! Is one of the curmudgeonly residents to blame or could it be a villain from their past?"
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FiM Issue #67-68 (Tempest's Tale) (Major) (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Tempest, Cadance, Glitter Drops
Summary - Tempest Shadow travels across Equestria to learn more about friendship and comes face-to-face with her past.
Quick Review - These issues do wonder for Tempest's previously scarce character. If your a fan of Tempest, or especially if your not a fan of Tempest, check these out. Smug Cadance is best Cadance. (8/10)
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Ponyville Mysteries Issue 4
Characters - CMC, Applejack
Summary - "The Cutie Mark Crusaders are trying to solve the case of the missing spa water! But what happens when all signs point to a member of a Crusader's own family being the culprit?"
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FiM Issue #69 (Magical Apple)
Characters - Pinkie, Mane 6
Summary - Pinkie gets god powers. Again. Didn't we do this already?
Quick Review - Oh, Pinkie, maybe someday somebody will figure out how to write you well again. (4/10)
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Ponyville Mysteries Issue 5
Characters - CMC, Rarity
Summary - "The Crusaders have their biggest case yet when a priceless artifact belonging to superstar Songbird Serenade is stolen!"
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FiM Issue #70 (Extreme Bingo)
Characters - Golden Horseshoe Gals, Rainbow, AJ
Summary - Grannies Gone Wild 2!
Quick Review - Grannies Gone Wild 2! (5/10)
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FiM Issue #71 (Happy Haunts)
Characters - Student 6
Summary - Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship students experience Nightmare Night in Ponyville for the first time. Things don't exactly go as planned.
Quick Review - I hate this issue. Not because it's bad, but because we are teased with infinitely more interesting stories. I want to see the princesses on Nightmare Night, like the cover! I want to see Shim and Glim's NN, like on the first page! Fucking cocktease. (4/10)
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FiM Issue #72 (Pie in the Sky, Again)
Characters - Pinkie, AJ, Pear Butter
Summary - Applejack discovers an old Apple family pie recipe and seeks to recreate it for Granny Smith. Along the way, they meet ponies who her mom has touched in her life. I wouldn't mind being touched by Pear Butter.
Quick Review - Standard. Wholesome. Sweet. (7/10)
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My Little Pony: Nightmare Knights (Major) (Highly Recommended)
Characters - Luna, Stygian, Trixie, Capper, Tempest, Daybreaker, Eris
Summary - Princess Luna assembles a team of former villains to face a new threat to Equestria.
Quick Review - I cannot recommend this arc enough. Every single character gets a chance to shine. Stygian gets much need development. Eris and Daybreaker make a menacing evil duo. The villain casino makes a great setting. Sunset Shimmer gets a cameo. (Even though her and Starlight are once again shafted.) Capper absolutely steals the show. Tempest is a bit more brutish than she usually is, but as we don't know much about her anyway, that's a very minor gripe. (9/10)
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FiM Issue #73 (Copycats)
Characters - Fluttershy, Twilight
Summary - A magical amulet causes Fluttershy to become more animalistic.
Quick Review - I have no idea what the fuck what went on in this issue or why. It's a mess. (3/10)
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FiM Issue #74 (On the Mane Stage) (Recommended)
Characters - Zephyr, Fluttershy, Silverstream, Pixie Cut
Summary - Fluttershy's brother Zephyr Breeze attends the All-Equestria Mane Styling Conference.
Quick Review - Even Zephyr Breeze can snag a qtπ hairstylist gf. There is hope for us yet, bros. Could you tell i'm down a third of a bottle of Grey Goose by this point? (7/10)
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FiM Issue #75-78 (Major) (Recommended)
Characters - Cosmos, Twilight, Discord, Fluttershy
Summary - The Mane Six's quest for the fallen stars of a missing constellation puts them on a collision course with their most galactic adversary yet. Discord's clingy ex wife who still hasn't received any child support.
Quick Review - They don't even bother to write Starlight out anymore. She just doesn't exist. Cosmos isn't as fun of a villain as Eris or the Storm King, but she's serviceable. I do like her design. Discord puts his past behind him for good physically and metaphorically. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #79 (The Ponyville Anniversary Spectacular) (Highly Recommended) (Major!)
Characters - Sunset Shimmer, I don't know I don't remember the rest
Summary - Fuck you it has Shim Sham.
Quick Review - Sunnybutt jams out on a guitar at the end. (11/10)
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My Little Pony: Spirit of the Forest
Characters - CMC, Filthy Rich, Diamond Tiara, Mayor Mare
Summary - Something about a forest mystery?
Quick Review - Lackluster follow up to the amazing Nightmare Knights. Stop giving the CMC mini series you hacks. (4/10)
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FiM Issue #80 (Live-Action Role Pony!)
Characters - Mane 6, Bulk Biceps
Summary - The Mane Six play a live-action role-playing game. The usual Pinkie hijinks ensue.
Quick Review - I'm so use to using LARP as an insult now, it's weird to see it in an endearing manner. Fun little adventure issue. (6/10)
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FiM Issue #81 (Pretty Fly)
Characters - Scootaloo, Rumble, Rainbow, Wind Sock
Summary - Scootaloo and Rumble learn about the only Earth pony to become a member of the Wonderbolts.
Quick Review - Heartwarming. Seriously, someone get me thesaurus. (6.5/10)
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FiM Issue #82 (Dog-Dog-Dogged Determination)
Characters - Rarity, Mane 6, Celestia, Cerberus
Summary - Rarity is tasked with giving Cerberus obedience training after he leaves his post at Tartarus again.
Quick Review - Dude, Rares, never change. (6/10)
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FiM Issue #83 (The Strange Case of Silver Blaze)
Characters - Twilight, Spike
Summary - Twilight Sparkle and Spike investigate when a famous racing tortoise goes missing.
Quick Review - Less Sherlock Holmes and more Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. This is a good thing. (6/10)
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My Little Pony: Feats of Friendship (Major) (Recommended)
Characters - Student Six, Swift Foot
Summary - Come one, come all, to the School of Friendship's very first sporting event-the Feats of Friendship! As Sandbar, Smolder, Gallus, Ocellus, Yona, and Silverstream prepare for the new competition, they realize they're going to need one more pony to round out their team. Enter Swift Foot, a mysterious new exchange student! But will she help strengthen the Young Six's bonds of friendship-or just drive them apart? Jealousy threatens our favorite youngsters in this brand-new miniseries!
Quick Review - This is by far and away my favorite Student 6 depiction in the franchise. It shows off very well how far they have come and how well they work together as friends and individuals. Swift Hoof makes for a great antagonist, trying to plant seeds of resentment but realizing that it doesn't work on the students and realizing her own faults. Dom Athenian Warrior waifu also included. (8.5/10)
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FiM Issue #84 (Identity Crisis)
Characters - Ocellus
Summary - Ocellus struggles to complete a big project for the School of Friendship midterm.
Quick Review - Man, I wish my problem was that I was so booksmart I had trouble fitting it all into my creative outlets. What a fucking struggle that would be. But I understand wanting to be a perfectionist, and that sucks. Amazing insight as usual by me. (5/10)
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FiM Issue #85 (Apple Bobbing)
Characters - AJ, AB, Big Mac
Summary - Applejack teaches Apple Bloom the meaning of courage by telling her the story of how she conquered her fear of the water when she was little.
Quick Review - A whole lot of touching moments between AJ and AB. A very cozy little story if you ignore the giant spider. (7/10)
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FiM Issue #86 (Marble and a Hard Place)
Characters - Maud, Marble Pinkie
Summary - Pinkie Pie and Maud Pie help their sister Marble make friends by helping her throw a party.
Quick Review - I love the Pie family, dude. The chemistry between them is something we don't get to see often enough. (6.5/10)
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FiM Issue #87-88 (The Fast and the Furriest)
Characters - Big Mac, Rainbow, Angel
Summary - Rainbow Dash and Big McIntosh take part in the Draytona Breach 500, which an antiquities dealer uses as cover to smuggle a priceless artifact.
Quick Review - Meh. (6/10)
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I can finally pass out now.