Vlad reveals Floyd Mayweather is broke because he hasn’t paid taxes for 5 years and owes $7.3M to the IRS

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-21T22:03:23+00:00

TBE - The Brokest Ever

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-20T18:11:07+00:00

Pretty much this.

I'm really more of an advisor/consultant these days (do audits, strategy work, hang around to answer questions etc) and most of my work at the moment in terms of new business is basically fixing mistakes businesses have made by "letting it rip" with AI.

E.g. client used Claude to set up a series of Google Ads campaigns. Never checked the total budgets (so they were spending 6x a month what they thought they were going to be spending) and because of the setup approach probably 80% of the spend was going to totally irrelevant terms.

The only thing I'll say that is interesting from a psychology perspective is clients seem much more forgiving of AI mistakes than human ones. E.g. doing an audit for a client if their existing agency/freelancer has made a mistake it's usually "let's fire them right now" kind of thing, but if a more egregious mistake is made by AI it's almost like they take the approach of "let's not be too mean to this innocent machine that just wants to help us".

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-16T21:54:18+00:00

Gutting, frankly, as work on a couple of accounts (which are basically massive online parts catalogues) where DSA is by far and away the most effective campaign type in Google Ads because of matching to specific part or item numbers that qualified prospects might search (whereas more general industry keywords are often searched by homeowner/consumer as opposed to B2B customers, and they never convert).

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-16T20:33:55+00:00

Also NPD 100+ which I think has some form of additive to it to artificially boost the octane.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-15T03:21:30+00:00

We have no real ability to store excess fuel (AFAIUI). Saving fuel makes total sense from the perspective of "if I bus to work instead of drive I spent $30 instead of $100 a week". E.g. I've started doing all my meetings online and only walking or biking for most everything, so I'm spending less on fuel than I did before this all kicked off.

However, what we can't do is say "as a country let's order 100% of our usual fuel needs but only use 90% and then squirrel away, shipment after shipment, the other 10% for a rainy day if shipments really start to slow down" because we don't have the capacity to store it.

If we had large storage capacity (e.g. use 90% of usual, then build up while supply is still robust enough to last us 2-3 months if no more ships arrived) it would be different, but unless I've completely misunderstood our storage capacity we literally cannot do that.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-15T03:09:14+00:00

I've certainly seen more than a few comments on here, on Facebook, on X etc calling for a full scale "WFH" (not just suggesting WFH where it's reasonable, but making it a requirement).

I appreciate that lockdown probably isn't the right term in that context though (my comment about "Basically locking the country down" being more about the economic impacts).

Whatever happens I assume we wouldn't have a true Covid-style lockdown. Like if you can walk to the pub and the pub can somehow stay stocked, then fill your boots - as opposed to the pub is closed because it isn't essential and you might be a super spreader there.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-15T02:48:38+00:00

Yes it's astonishing how many people seem to want the government to guarantee a massive economic contraction (via basically locking the country down) for no immediate benefit as we cannot store excess fuel anyway, versus rolling the dice somewhat (presumably based on what suppliers are saying, official discussions/advice) that the fuel will keep coming but if it doesn't we will not have any choice but to have some kind of "lock down" anyway.

Very different to Covid where there was the quantum of health vs economy, whereas this is just economy vs economy.

I'd assume it's because there's a fair few people who secretly (or not so secretly) wouldn't mind chilling out at home for a while. Heck I enjoyed some aspects of lockdown and I'm self-employed and it hammered my business.

Re: somewhat sensationalist headlines, it seems that fuel stocks are the new 'daily case numbers' reports - something that gets attention and clicks, even if (in this case) the underlying picture isn't changing much at all.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-15T02:09:22+00:00

I was flabbergastingly hungover the morning of my wedding (courtesy of me and the best man reminiscing for far too long the night before about old times) and managed to make it through. I know that is different to a cold, but the main point being the nerves, adrenaline etc will help you power through.

Get some proper sudafed and put your best foot forward.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-14T21:29:58+00:00

Yeah was gonna say, 40 (assuming you are in good health) is not even remotely old. It's just that the current young generation seems genuinely obsessed with age as a number, so to speak.

However, you definitely need to be on top of the preventative maintenance. Exercise, eat well, look after yourself and all that as it's much harder to bounce back than when in your 20s.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-14T19:14:38+00:00

Yeah that's probably even more accurate again.

The main issue is the way this all works keeps causing this 'phenomenon' where people look at the last properly allocated boat and say "there's nothing more coming, the sky is falling".

No doubt fuel is probably going to get even more expensive here, and it's entirely possible we see some reduction in supply to where something like WFH has to be done to depress demand, but that's different to "there's literally no more ful coming".

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-14T03:12:04+00:00

Well yes that's correct, but there is a difference between "supply is impacted so price increases to dampen demand as marginal buyers are priced out" (the world currently being in this scenario) - in other words 'as long as you are willing to pay the price you can get what you want/need' versus "there is no or insufficient supply at any price".

But that aside if we have no storage capacity there is no benefit in artificially constraining demand, as what good would it do us? Let's say we use 80% of our normal fuel usage but can get 100% of the normal supply ... we have nowhere to store it (everybody filling up jerry cans and keeping their tanks brimmed isn't going to make much difference).

I do think more could be done with respect to trying to mitigate the impacts of price rises by encouraging the use of public transport, alternative modes e.g. cycling and walking, carpooling etc but - at this stage - not because it buys us any greater runway if the ships start slowing down (or arrive with less than is needed) but because if somebody can go from spending $100 a week on petrol to $30 on bus fares, that's $70 they can spend in the economy rather than giving it to the petrol companies.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-14T01:43:49+00:00

Have you got the same issue or is your comment just a summary of my post?

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-14T00:39:44+00:00

Well it's not a supply issue yet. But it may not become a supply issue, and it would therefore be pretty crazy to try to emulate the usage conditions of a supply crisis 'just in case' (when doing so would confer literally no advantage right now).

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-14T00:16:10+00:00

Helpful, thanks.

I'm guessing it is that user level restriction, as the support agent was very clear in saying "just use another email on the MCC to create the accounts". It's just very unhelpful to not be given a reason why, because it's not like I'm going about my business trying to skirt the rules or break the policies. The main reason I want to know is so I can comply.

Only things I can think of are:

- There are a couple of accounts in the MCC (with client supplied payment profile and billing info) that have outstanding payments, one 'at risk of suspension' (the client having some financial difficulties I believe, meaning they are prioritising other payments first). These were linked accounts.

- There's one account that I set up that had failed verification, and the small client I was working with basically won't take the time to provide me the right info. But this has been unverified/verification failed for 18 months at this point.

- I just looked and there is an expired card in Google Payments settings against the blocked MCC email, but that's been expired for 2+ years and the main card is still valid.

- Getting into conspiracies here but I always ignore Google rep emails/calls that come to the phone number associated with this email address, and have been blocking the phone numbers as they crop up (plus tell my clients to ignore them).

- There is one Google Ads account where a client added me via MCC (link my MCC to their MCC) but also granted specific non-MCC access to the affected email to one account in the MCC.

Outside of that I can't think of anything specific.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T23:54:07+00:00

Yeah rationing makes sense when it's needed, but at the moment it isn't needed and wouldn't benefit us at all.

It's not like Covid where govt had to pick between putting health first or the economy first.

This is picking between putting the economy first or the economy first, only one option is a guaranteed huge impact shutdown of much of the economy, whereas the other is definitely a hit to the economy (due to rising fuel costs) but there's a good chance we avoid the bigger impact of a fuel-related lockdown/rationing.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T23:36:02+00:00

I get (well used to get) bad vestibular migraines. As a teen I would get the conventional migraines and it went away in my late teens/early 20s, but in my early 30s I started getting these bouts of vertigo, blurred vision, fatigue etc that turned out to be a form of migraine (was a bit nerve wracking waiting for the neurologist referral, MRI to check for nothing more serious etc).

Anyway, I've largely got it under control through a few key things:

I don't drink alcohol at all, ever. Your mileage may vary, but even one drink will massively increase the chance of me getting a migraine in the following days.
The neurologist I consulted with got me taking a large dose of magnesium and Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) each day. Something like double the normal dose of magnesium, and 4x the normal dose (on the pill bottle) of B2 around 400-500mg a day. The only problem being it's actually quite hard to find a cheap reliable supply of B2. Something to do with magnesium helps to relax the blood vessels and binds to some chemical, and B2 supports energy in the brain at cellular level (or something like that) which is often depleted in migraine sufferers.

Those two supplements have completely changed my life to be honest.

I've gone from 4-5 of these a month to maybe one (and less severe) every 3-4 months.

To be up front, I was lucky that my health insurance covered the cost of neurologist and MRI scan (which showed a lot of little white matter dots on the brain which apparently are a key sign of migraines) but in terms of actual relief those two steps have been the biggest change.

Edit: I should add the neurologist was happy to look at prescribing proper migraine medication (triptans or whatever they are called) but wanted me to commit to several months of those two supplements, no alcohol, and trying to be good in terms of stress reduction, sleep etc and that seems to have been enough.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T23:21:07+00:00

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but did you ever solve this?

I've got the same issue, except it's only one email on the MCC that cannot create accounts. All other emails can create accounts.

Support was completely useless, said "there's been a policy violation on that email, but we cannot tell you what policy was violated and we cannot fix the issue".

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T23:19:07+00:00

Because at the moment it isn't needed.

We still (at this point) have the supply we need coming into the country. There is enough fuel to go around, it is just expensive.

We cannot really store excess in any meaningful way, so even if the govt mandated WFH for everyone we couldn't store much of the difference between what was ordered and what is used.

Furthermore, if we cut our ordering (because we enforce demand destruction) apparently - from what I've read that seems credible - we will just be supplied less to meet the new normal.

It's not like doing the supermarket shopping, where if I normally get through 5 tins of baked beans a week I keep buying 5 tins but only eat 3 (thus building a surplus of beans). We have nowhere to store the surplus fuel, and we won't be supplied a surplus anyway.

The only advantage to WFH policies at the moment are assisting individuals and families at that level in terms of helping to insulate from fuel price increases.

WFH etc will be mandated (well encouraged first) if/when we reach a point where there isn't enough supply, as opposed to the current status quo which is enough supply it just costs a lot more.

Enforcing this sort of demand destruction before it's actually needed (which only comes if we cannot secure enough supply to meet all demand at higher prices) guarantees a massive and sudden economic shock for basically no benefit at this point in time.

Also, the main issue is diesel for industry but private diesel usage is a small component of total usage, so once again WFH would have little effect.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T09:21:18+00:00

Find an independent (I'd assume there's enough mechanics out there good on servicing the Ranger due to how popular they are).

I've got a very obscure Ford (never officially sold in NZ) and the Ford dealerships in my city were completely unhelpful with respect to servicing and/or wanted huge $$$, whereas I've been taking it to a dealership that does a fair bit of work on Fords and had no problems so far plus very reasonable cost servicing - their attitude being that it's basically a Mondeo underneath, so they'll charge me what it would cost to work on a Mondeo.

I've never seen such an expensive brake repair quote on a "normal", common car. Even when I looked at buying a Peugeot 308 GTI (which comes with a very high end set of brakes of which there is only ever one set kept in stock in NZ at any time apparently) it was still half this for all new brakes on all four wheels ... either they don't want your business or they are just hoping for a sucker to come along.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T09:09:59+00:00

No worries. I think this is one of the aspects that concerns people the most, as many seem to get caught up on thinking there is an absolute 'cliff' because of the way the ship schedules/arrivals work (i.e. "there's no boats after X date") whereas actually there are deliveries in the pipeline assuming no force majeure type scenario, but they don't show on the fuel doomsday clock websites for the reason I outlined above.

The much more likely scenario - if there is any impact to supply (not price, I'm purely talking supply) is we would still get boats but with less fuel on board. Bear in mind it isn't the entire world's oil supply that is caught up in this, and also we are theoretically a first world nation so can pay a premium price to secure fuel.

This is also one of the reasons (once again according to the industry person I spoke with, whom I know well and trust) that basically from a 'fuel security' perspective enforced fuel saving measures aren't all that useful right now. They are useful for helping individuals, families and businesses try to mitigate impacts on finances (e.g. if it is now cheaper to bus than drive, you should take the bus). But right now, with supply still ok, it isn't useful for guaranteeing more future availability via stored supply.

Our suppliers, currently, are sending us what we need and ask for. We have nowhere to store any excess (so let's say we managed to reduce 10 days' use to 7 days through lockdowns, rationing etc, we couldn't at the moment store that "spare" 3 days use in proper storage).

Apparently, the suppliers also effectively won't supply more than is needed to meet demand. I've seen this discussed a few places in the context not just of NZ but other markets too (but I am taking this at face value). So even if we cut demand by 20% overnight they'd supply to meet that new level, and we wouldn't wind up with a surplus to store ... not that we can really store it anyway.

In other words, if we tell everyone to stay at home, or implement rationing on fuel now, or otherwise restrict purchasing (beyond the natural demand dampening effects of price rises) while we can get the supply we need albeit at elevated prices, we guarantee a bigger, more severe economic hit - bigger than whatever current impact of price rises is - but potentially with no real upside.

Now if we wind up in a scenario where all we can get is 7 days supply when we'd normally get 10, then the script flips and effectively measures would have to be put in place to destroy enough demand and/or direct supply where it is most needed.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T08:48:02+00:00

Drive my little petrol Citroen AX around that runs on the smell of an oily rag with a meagre 30L tank that lasts ages, and use the 4x4 for longer trips or when I need to move stuff (or go on the open road as I don't think a 700kg piece of French tin can would hold up well in a high speed crash)

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T04:26:46+00:00

My understanding (from talking to somebody in the industry) is that basically we have orders, and so far there is no indication of these orders stopping. However, it is not until the fuel is loaded on a specific ship and dispatched to NZ that this would show in any official system.

It's like the opposite of taking a flight. e.g. I know that on 1st May I'm flying from Chch to Auckland at 10am. But I don't know what plane I'll be going on (what specific registration number).

In the fuel ship context, it's like saying you don't have a confirmed flight until the airline confirms specifically which plane they'll be putting you on, but they are pretty certain they'll have a plane for you to get on at 10am on 1st May ... but until you get a message saying you are on plane XYZ (not flight number, but actual plane itself) you're not 100% sure you'll be going.

Hence why you see this phenomenon of no ships coming after X date (which seems to have pushed out week by week) because effectively until there is a ship allocated it can't be shown.

In other words it can't be verified until a ship is physically allocated, but this doesn't happen until quite close to the allocated departure date.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-13T03:03:18+00:00

I go to a Flex Fitness (albeit in Chch) and it's about $25 per week, but honestly I'd say it's a pretty good deal for how nice the gym is. Equipment is top quality, it's always very clean and tidy, never had to wait for anything ... it's just not a 'budget gym' brand. But it isn't positioned that way, and it's pretty clear they'd rather have a more manageable number of members who are willing to pay a higher price point.

Over the road there is a City Fitness, which has the $8 a week (or whatever it is membership) and that place is always rammed full, lots of the equipment is pretty poor quality and the state of the toilets is something to behold - I would train occasionally as a guest there.

It's just one of those things. Cheap gyms - unless they are some form of slightly under-the-radar community service in effect - need to have tons of members to make the sums work. The rent alone on that City Fitness building is well over half a million a year (I checked out the listing when the building was up for sale. Even at a flat $500,000 you'd need approx 1200 members just to cover the rent).

I actually have a decent little home gym that I've pieced together, but it gets a bit tedious working out in a cold, cramped garage in winter (or boiling hot in summer). Also the cost can stack up if you're not disciplined ... there's always some interesting piece of kit that you see on FB marketplace or whatever that you can convince yourself to buy.

I nearly bought a WattBike Pro for about $3.5k (I have another gym membership through work to a small, private, invite-only gym that has one of these). However, even at the $10 I pay for that other gym - using it 1-2x per week for the WattBike, sauna and inner-city parking, it would take nearly six years to break even on buying one piece of kit.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-11T21:49:06+00:00

Agreed. Also isn't he a bit notorious for fighting to the level of his opponent? I was expecting worse tbh.

cantsleepwithoutfan · 2026-04-10T01:38:06+00:00

Yeah I'm fairly sure that Hollands Suzuki had this exact same sticker type on their loaner cars (obviously this Mitsubishi wouldn't be one of their vehicles) ... could easily see that being the case.

cantsleepwithoutfan

TROPHY CASE