US Calling: Maine Shooting, Swiftmania & Swiftonomics, Tiktok on the Campaign Trail and Cryptocurrency King Bankman’s Trial | Chandigarh News
On October 25, 2023, at two locations in Lewiston, Maine, the northernmost state in the United States, 18 people were killed and 13 others were injured. Authorities said the shooter was 40-year-old Robert Card of Bowdoin, a US Army reservist, who opened fire at a bowling alley and restaurant.
A US official said Card was assigned to support training with the Army Reserve’s 3rd Battalion, 304th Infantry Regiment in West Point, New York, when commanders became concerned about him.
Card had been committed to a mental health facility for two weeks this past summer after “hearing voices and threats to shoot up” a military base. A ‘Shelter-in-place’ order was issued, since lifted on Friday, and a manhunt launched. Forty-eight hours after the shooting, the suspect had still not been arrested, but late on Friday evening he was found dead.
Maine doesn’t require permits to carry guns and has a culture of gun ownership given its traditions of hunting and sport shooting. The state passed a “yellow flag” law in 2019 that requires the police to seek a medical evaluation of anyone believed to be dangerous, before trying to take their guns away. This is a weaker version of the tougher “red flag” laws that President Biden signed into law, in June 2022 under “The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act”.
The ‘Safer Communities Act’, the first gun safety legislation passed by Congress in 30 years, focused on school safety and mental health and included incentives for states to pass “red flag laws”.
These allow groups to petition courts to remove weapons from people deemed a threat to themselves or others. It also expanded background checks on people between the ages of 18 and 21 trying to buy a gun.
Further, it closed “the boyfriend loophole” i.e., it expanded an existing law that prevents people convicted of domestic abuse from owning a gun, to include dating partners rather than just spouses.
The Right to Bear Arms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. Approximately one third of US adults personally own a gun. Most Americans think it’s very easy to legally obtain a gun.
Swiftmania, Swiftonomics and The Taylor Swift Effect
Taylor Swift, the 33-year-old American songstress, just finished ‘the Eras Tour’ that kicked off in March 2023. The tour’s valuation was estimated to be $5 billion, higher than the GDP of 50 countries with a projected economic impact as high as $80 billion globally.
The fan frenzy associated with the tour has been dubbed “Swiftmania” the 21st-century equivalent of “Beatlemania”. The economics of the Eras Tour has been termed “Swiftonomics” by economists, a term first used by economic analyst Augusta Saraiva, to explain the tour’s unprecedented ticket sales as representing a “post-Covid demand shock” in the US, with consumers prioritising entertainment over an imminent recession.
Academic Melissa Kearney has written that Covid-19 affected the public’s views about “what’s really important to them, and what brings them joy”. On Friday October 27, Taylor broke her own record for the most streamed album ‘1989’ in a single day in Spotify history. The movie version of ‘The Eras Tour’, released October 13, has become the highest grossing concert film of all time.
Taylor Swift has a carefully nurtured fan following and her fans call themselves Swifties which Taylor got trademarked in March 2017. Taylor recently started dating two-time Super Bowl champion Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs.
She has been attending his football games, appeared on Saturday Night Live (SNL) with him and the level of interest in their relationship is overwhelming. After he started dating Taylor, Kelce jersey sales have spiked nearly 400 per cent, while his podcast “New Heights” with brother Jason Kelce who plays for Philadelphia Eagles, reached No. 1 on Apple.
Its been called ‘The Taylor Swift effect”. It led Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban to suggest that Swift date one of the players on his NBA team. Travis Kelce had a quick comeback to Cuban and said “Just sign me to a 10 day” so he could play for the Mavericks on a limited contract.
Banned on US Government Devices but Young Democrats are using TikTok on their Campaign Trail.
TikTok is the leading social media platform among the young in the US with 47 per cent of their users under thirty. Everyone with an opinion, however, has a problem with TikTok. Concerns stem from the platform’s addictive qualities and or its effects on mental health of users but most significantly fears that the Chinese government could harvest TikTok user information.
Members of Congress from both parties have called for a ban and many US states and colleges have taken steps to regulate the platform. But TikTok has become a part of American lives and even a community with approximately 122 million Tiktokers.
In the US, from being a TikTok influencer to a political candidate is becoming a trend. Young Democrats with large followings have recently launched campaigns for federal and state offices.
Averie Bishop, a 27-year-old former Miss Texas, with over 8,36,000 followers, is running for a seat in the Texas’ state house. Isaiah Martin, a 25-year-old with over 98,000 followers, is running for Congress in Houston, Tx.
The latest to use the platform is Cheyenne Hunt, 26-year-old, with 91,000 followers, who is running for Congress from Orange County, California. She is reported to see the platform as enabling “conversations with people” and has said that “If it’s a tool in our tool belt, then I’m absolutely going to use it”.
The majority of the Democrat party, however, isn’t on the platform. National security concerns remain manifested over the Chinese company Byte Dance, which owns TikTok, and hence there is no White House presence and the app is banned on government devices.
Biden’s re-election campaign is also staying away from TikTok. It may be recalled that India had banned TikTok in June 2020 over national security concerns.
Cryptocurrency King Sam Bankman’s Trial: Hype and Unaudited Financials
Cryptocurrency exchange FTX’s collapse reduced market capitalization from over $1 trillion in October 2022 to under $800 billion in November 2022. Bankman-Fried, the co-founder and former CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was arrested in December 2022 and extradited to the United States from the Bahamas in January 2023.
The trial of Sam Bankman is currently ongoing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The prosecution has alleged that Bankman-Fried and his co-defendants defrauded investors out of billions of dollars by misrepresenting the financial condition of FTX and its sister company, Alameda Research and used customer funds to engage in risky trading and to make personal investments.
He has been charged with wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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Alameda Research CEO, Caroline Ellison, has testified that she doctored internal balance sheets sent to companies, including Genesis and BlockFi, who had loaned funds to Alameda. The crypto firm has the motto “don’t trust, verify” but its best practices are the opposite, relying instead on hype and the unhealthy practice of relying on unaudited financials.
BlockFi CEO Zac Prince has testified that most cryptocurrency companies had trouble getting audits, so his team mostly looked at unaudited financials or “effectively any and all financial information that the potential borrower was willing to share with us. FTX’s rapid growth and hype was a factor in a firm like Paradigm investing $278 million. The outcome of Bankman-Fried’s trial will have a significant impact on regulation of the cryptocurrency industry going forward.
(The writer is a former IRS officer presently in the US. She can be reached athttps://twitter.com/punamsidhu)
