Anyone? Anyone? July 11, 2025July 11, 2025 I’ll get to whether to sell SQNS (it tripled this week) and to an amazing WEIGHT LOSS speculation (and to an effective weight loss strategy) . . . . . . but first: Anyone blocked from reading The Apprenticeship of Frank Yablans should now be able to reach it. (Thanks, Brian! Thanks, Way Back Machine!) Anyone not yet using AI — it’s truly amazing — could do worse than to sign on to chatbotapp.ai for $59.99 a year. It gives you access to a whole bunch of different AIs all in one. Anyone with an email list — or looking to spread a little DIS-disinformation on rightwing websites — should consider cutting, pasting, and sharing these two graphics: Anyone who’d like a little more ammo in this regard can thank Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund (sister to Americans For Tax Fairness) for these links: [1] Trump ‘big beautiful bill’ gives top 1% biggest tax cuts in these states [2] Sanders points to Nebraska medical center closure after GOP bill passes: ‘Dark day for rural America’ [3] Based on new CBO findings the number of uninsured resulting from the Senate bill is nearly 17 million — more than the 16 million whom CBO found would lose coverage under the House bill. [4] Ten Bizarre Things Hidden in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (And to remind you . . . if you do go on rightwing sites, I don’t think it would hurt to let people assume you’re one of them — maybe you sign on as @iLUVamerica1776 — and to ask how they think you should respond to this stuff. By looking to them for guidance, you might get them to read it . . . and thereby perhaps plant a seed of doubt.) Anyone on yesterday’s weekly Indivisible call, came away with at least these three ideas: Collectively, we CAN reverse the cycle of anticipatory obedience. Collectively, we CAN shatter the aura of inevitability. It’s up to us (in this case, me) to invite all our friends (in this case, you) to join the calls, find their local Indivisible chapter, or form one of their own. Anyone who missed that call can watch the whole thing here. Anyone who bought SQNS for perhaps as low as 55 cents a share when suggested here less than a year ago (though most of us paid more) probably noticed it tripled in the last three days, touching $4.90 in after-hours trading. I’ve sold a good bunch and hope to sell more today if the rally (madness?) keeps running . . . which could leave me feeling rotten if it turns to be the next GameStop or AMC and soars to $70. But those meme stocks were propelled by short-sellers covering. I’m not sure, but I can’t imagine there was a large short interest in SQNS. And the reason this stock is booming (as best I understand it, which may not be very well) is that it sold a zillion new shares at $1.40 or so, borrowed an equal amount of money that it will have to pay back in a few years, and is using it all to buy Bitcoin. The bet (though not stated this way) seems essentially to be that Trump will so weaken faith in the dollar and so cave to the interests of his crypto mogul pals (he is now a crypto mogul himself, so has a vested interest arguably at odds with America’s interest) that Bitcoin will continue to soar . . . so that the $1.40 it raised, plus the $1.40 it borrowed, to buy $2.80 of Bitcoin, is now worth even more than the $4.90 someone paid last night just before midnight (or else why would he or she have bought it?). I’m oversimplifying, but you get the gist. Yes, the company still has its actual business, which may one day be profitable. But it’s now basically just a levered bet on Bitcoin. You could buy $2.80 worth of Bitcoin for $2.80; or you could buy it, via SQNS, at $4 or wherever it opens for trading this morning. I may be missing something here. And Bitcoin could double or triple or tentuple over the next three years until the cash SQNS borrowed comes due, in which case its shareholders will make out great. But if you buy some SQNS tomorrow at $4.75, it may be from me. VERU A lot of people I know have lost a lot of weight recently. I was talking with one of them — who absolutely didn’t need to lose weight but injects himself with Wegovy or one of the others anyway. He’s down from 159, I think he said, to 135. “Apparently,” I told him, “some of the weight people lose on these things is muscle mass.” “I know!” he said. “I’m going to the gym more than ever, but it’s really hard to put on muscle.” I told him that we own shares, you and I — with money we can truly afford to lose — in a company (VERU) developing a drug that seems to solve about 97% of the muscle-loss problem.” And that, unlike two of its potential competitors, it’s taken as a pill rather that intravenously or by injection. “Oh my God,” he said, “where can I get it?!” “It’s not on the market yet and may never be.” “Can I get into a trial?” “I own a lot of shares but not that many.” Yet based solely on his reaction, with some of my SQNS profits, I bought more.