🌎 Swifties Cause Earthquake

Good morning. The late, great, NBA Commissioner David Stern once said “Sports are a microcosm of society,” which seems to remain true today.

As MLB phenom Shohei Ohtani continues his incredible season of homerun hitting, Aaron Judge, who broke the American League single-season home run record of 62 (just last season), appreciates the competition. “Records are meant to be broken,” Judge tells MLB.com with a smile.

Competition fuels Sports, Business, Tech, Joe Schmoe at the office working for that promotion, and the Fam of this Newsletter. Going into the weekend, let’s strive to get better and remember, it can’t be your turn until you clap for those in front of you.

_{-Bailey Hepler}

POP

Earthquake at Taylor Swift Concert… Kind Of

When Taylor Swift told her fans to “Shake it Off” during her Eras Tour in Seattle, the Swifties took it to heart.

Understandably excited, Swift’s mega-fans jumped and stomped their white leather boots so loud at Lumen Field, they shook-the-ground instead of shook-it-off, registering a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.

⌚This isn’t the first time for Seattle

Back in 2011, during a wildcard game against the Saints, the Seattle Seahawks lead 34-30 late in the game. Marshawn Lynch, AKA Beast Mode, broke free for his career-defining 64 yard touchdown run while breaking 9 (NINE) tackles. Nick Schwartz at USA Today described the event as “so deafening that activity caused the equivalent to a magnitude 1 earthquake.” Now known as the “Beast Quake”, Marshawn is responsible for one of the loudest moments in sports history.

💡Why is Lumen Field so LOUD?!

Designed by Ellerbe Beckett and LMN Architects, Lumen Field is designed to be loud. With it’s clamshell-shaped roof, it covers 70% of it’s 67,000 seats. The parabolic shape of the stadium allows it to collect noise and direct it back to the field. Paul Allen, the former owner of the Seahawks, asked the architects to design CenturyLink Field (renamed to Lumen Field) to capture noise to create a home-field advantage. Seahawks fans even broke a world record in 2013 for noise level hitting 136.6 decibels, nicknaming them the “12th Man” for the Seahawks.

Let’s do some math. Swifty Earthquake: 2.3 Magnitude. Beast Quake: 1 Magnitude. You decide who you want as your 12th man.

POLITICS

Third Indictment on Trump

Former President Trump was indicted for the third time on Tuesday on federal charges for his attempts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election and expose voter-fraud. Here are the four counts Trump is accused of:

1. Conspiracy to defraud the United States

2. Witness tampering and conspiracy against the rights of citizens

3. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding

4. Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights

On top of his federal charges for obstructing an investigation into classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump now faces a total of 78 criminal counts and a $40 million legal bill.

But despite the negative press, a New York Times/Siena College poll found that Trump has a large lead in the Republican Nomination. Leading second-place Ron DeSantis 54% to 17%.

SUPPLY CHAIN

Yellow Goes Black

Founded 99 years ago and once a big time giant in the trucking industry, Yellow Freight permanently parks its trucks on Monday, laying off all 30,000 employees. This comes just a week after the trucking company’s union, Teamsters agreed to give Yellow an extra month to contribute to pensions and health insurance or they would go on strike.

Yellow sued Teamsters in June for “blocking the company’s attempts to restructure its business and refinance debt that included federal government loans.

🙅‍♂️Nobody is surprised.

Alarms started ringing 15 years ago when Yellow acquired a number of business that it failed to integrate. As these problems snowballed over the years. Yellow warned that it was close to going out of business in May 2020, when the U.S. government loaned the freight company $700 million; which wasn’t part of the CARES act to protect small business, but was meant for companies critical to national security.

“Today’s news is unfortunate but not surprising. Yellow has historically proven that it could not manage itself despite billions of dollars in worker concessions and hundreds of millions in bailout funding from the federal government…” said Teamsters President Sean O’Brien in a statement.

🟡How this affects you.

The government bailout in 2020 stipulated that U.S. taxpayers own 30% of the company’s outstanding stock and Yellow still owes the Treasury Department $700 million according to the company’s last quarterly earnings report. The shares closed at $1.76, which will be wiped out in a bankruptcy filing, though the meme-stock crowd could flare-up the stock for a hot minute.

Supply Chains are safe… mostly. Yellow is a less-than-truckload (LTL) shipper meaning they handle shipments larder than a parcel but light enough that it doesn’t require a full truckload. Although yellow claims to be the 3rd largest LTL shipper in the country, they only handled about 7% of the nations 720,000 daily LTL shipments. So, unless you’re a Yellow customer, you should get your last minute birthday present on time.

Yellow was very close to its 100th birthday, so we were curious what other notable companies will celebrate one century of business next year:

• Ace Hardware

• Duracell

• Milwaukee Electric Tool

• Zale Corporation.

FALL FROM GRACE

Popstar Lizzo Sued by Dancers (Reader Discretion is Advised)

Three former back-up dancers for Lizzo are suing her for creating a hostile work environment. In the filed lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that the “Big Grrrl Small World” artist forced them to endure weight-shaming, sexually degrading behavior, and pressuring them into participating in disturbing sex shows.

🚨 Reader Caution: below contains graphic descriptions of he incident.

During a concert trip to Amsterdam, Lizzo invited the Plaintiffs to the red light district, a town popular for their live sex shows and prostitution, after the show. The lawsuit states, “… things quickly got out of hand. Lizzo began inviting cast members to take turns touching the nude performers, catching sex toys launched from the performers’ (private parts), and eating bananas protruding from the performers’ (private parts).”

One Plaintiff also claims that she “feared the repercussions” of excusing herself during auditions so she soiled herself on stage.

Two Plaintiffs quit, while the other resigned out of solidarity.

STOCKS

Tupperware ($TUP) Surges 700% in 2 Weeks

Only explained by investor’s FOMO, Tupperware stock surged 16% on Tuesday in route to a whopping 700% over the last 2 weeks, closing at $5.38 on Tuesday.

Similar to Gamestop ($GME), Bed Bath & Beyond ($BBBYQ), and AMC Entertainment ($AMC), meme traders are teaming up to squeeze investors taking short positions in the stock. They’re basically betting against the people betting against a company’s stock price.

For background, Tupperware announced on April 3rd that there was a serious chance of bankruptcy, and you could hear investors lick their lips reaching to short the company. Meme traders took advantage of the low stock price and quickly began to buy up Tupperware stock.

🚨Buyer beware, sold As-Is, $TUP is worth keeping an eye on, but may not hold it’s value much longer as the company could declare bankruptcy.

THURSDAY SHORTS

• Spectators at an eastern Chinese zoo suggest their bears are actually humans in costume. Hangzhou Zoo in Zhejiang denies allegations of their Malayan Sun Bear being fake.

• Wastewater is getting a new breathe of life by means of brewing. You heard that right, Epic OneWater Brew is a Kölsch-style ale made from greywater recycled from showers, laundry and bathroom sinks in a 40-story San Francisco apartment building.

• Watch this Sea Otter execute its best Grand-Theft-Paddle-Board attempt along the shores of Santa Cruz. Authorities have shooed her off, but it won’t keep her away… dun dun dunnn.