• INSTITUTIONAL DEBT, PRIVATE EQUITY, AND NON-EXTORTIVE PERSONAL FUNDING MARKETS ARE INCREASINGLY TIGHTENING, as revenue generation and equity valuations remain strained by office vacancies, hybrid and part-time work, business & family migration, corporate downsizings, and inflationary impacts on capital expenditures, as well as diminished consumer capacity. Today’s financial landscape is consistently shifting, including penalties for even small defaults in meeting debt payment dates, covenants or missed targets impacting credit levels. Strategic planning and operational controls have become, and will remain, even more critical until (and assuming) political and economic climates eventually stabilize. DCG have decades of experience; let us help.
  • NOTE TO PARENTS OF YOUNGER KIDS: Handwriting instruction has not been required past first grade by America’s Common Core Curriculum since 2010, although half the states do mandate some teaching. But most don’t encourage kids to write, and some require kids to tote laptops to class. Meanwhile, high school & college professors complain of rampant distraction, with students reading and messaging instead of paying attention to course instruction. Studies have found that: (1) benefits of using a pen or pencil lie in how the motor and sensory memory of putting words on paper reinforces the material; (2) with improvement in everything from recalling a random series of words to imparting a better conceptual grasp of complicated ideas; (3) and those taking notes by hand performed better on tests when they were able to study from their notes. Writing skills may be more important than reading books to youngsters. [ECONOMIST – 9/16/23]  
  • ‘DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS’ is among the latest slogans (adopted by Washington Post) designed to “keep readers in the dark about a multitude of critical issues – particularly the manipulation of search engines to alter election results. U.S. Senate testimony by Nat’l Academy of Science experts have identified manipulation of opinions & votes controlled by Big Tech companies, including examples like: shifting 2.6M votes to Hillary Clinton in 2016; a Google home page Go Vote Reminder on election day 2018 shifting up to 4.6M votes to Democrats; bias which have shifted 78M votes spread across many political races… The Left is expert at deflections. While encouraging procedures like ballot harvest, mailing ballots to every state resident without tracing, month-long election ‘days,’ registering people based on a driver’s license without proof of citizenship, and legalizing non-citizens to vote in elections, they point fingers at Republicans for imaginary ‘voter suppression.’ The real danger to Democracy may be embedded in search engines like Google.”   [https://www.flashreport.org/blog/2023/09/17/google-is-where-democracy-is-dying]   But, Election Propaganda has always been part of the democratic system. Check out this piece from 1948: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AGpILvdwDM
  • ON ITS WAY: CONCEIVABLE EVENTUAL GLOBAL GOVERNANCE, USURPTING AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY through mandated digital passports and currency, via an “AI-powered infrastructure run by a cabal of unelected, unaccountable elites.”  An accelerating movement is underway at the European Union and United Nations to shift power & policies of all nations to a supranational global governance level. Already: (1) Digital Certification has been adopted by 51 countries on four continents, requiring full Covid-19 vaccination & boosting status for travel and work in the EU, enforced with a digital ID that tracks movements; (2) At the recent G20 Summit, the EU Commission President called for a U.N. panel to “control artificial intelligence and digital public infrastructures, while the Int’l Panel of Climate Change recommended comparable policies (if not dictates); (3) ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’ – a euphemism for communist social policies – is increasingly being applied to companies & firms of all sizes, dictating who they hire, do business with, what & how they produce, and ranking with a Social Credit Score system (ESG) similar to what’s in place in communist China.” Just be aware.  [EPOCH TIMES – 9/15/23] 
  • THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

Wow. A powerful legitimate query by a U.S. congresswoman, formerly Russian, “will give you chills”: https://townhall.com/videos/2023/09/21/soviet-born-republicans-exchange-with-ag-garland-will-give-you-chills-n2628761

The compensation packages of S&P 500 top ten companies range between $50M and $226M; next ten are between $30M – $50M.

 Gen Z workers are leading a shift not only in working hours and workplace dress, but also in language – as casual phrases replace traditional communication. Disappearing phrases include signoffs like ‘yours truly’ or ‘sincerely’ with ‘thanks’ or ‘thanks so much.’  Half of Gen Z surveyed now use instant messaging platforms which, along with email threads, have become blended into conversations where formal openings & signoffs might feel out of place.  [CNBC]