Diogenes Shrugged
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The panacea envisioned for cute little farming operations everywhere might be a tad myopic.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/06/why-are-americas-farmers-killing-themselves-in-record-numbers
Not that a lot of us won’t be forced by necessity someday to give it a shot.Why do sea levels remind me of Russians influencing U.S. elections and other poltergeists?
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/12/06/tidalgate-climate-alarmists-caught-faking-sea-level-rise/Finally, this whistleblower will either make your day or ruin it completely. Prepare to be astonished, and if you’re like me, vindicated.
Finally, finally, finally, somebody finally comes clean. I’d pretty much given up.Dr. D,
Thanks much for your Bitcoin tour de force. The inexorable transition from debt based fiat is accelerating, so I hope V. Arnold, for one, sees the light soon.It seems to me that the comparison between Bitcoin and debt-based fiat is a lot like the comparison between fuel injection and carburetors. When fuel injection took off, was it in a bubble? Clearly not. Did a lot of weekend mechanics howl and rail against the loss of carburetors? Inevitably. Debt based money systems are obsolete. It’s just going to take some time for everybody to recognize the superiority of the alternative.
A lot of people see the rapidly rising price and say, “I can’t even afford one Bitcoin now.” So they resign themselves to being spectators rather than speculators. But their choice not to participate is based on an understandable misconception. A Bitcoin will soon be akin to a $20,000 note. Imagine if the only denominations for dollars were $1 notes and $20,000 notes. People would complain, “I can’t even afford one $20,000 note.” So it’s important to stress that conversion from dollars to BTC always preserves purchasing power, regardless of the price of BTC.
I saw a reference to a crowd of women in an article posted somewhere the other day. They were described as “tons of women” who participated in some event. I had to laugh. When did the standard unit of measure for women become tons?
“Hi, Dio, what can I get for you today?”
“Hi, give me a ton and a half of women.”
“You want that bagged?”I read somewhere that a millionth of a BTC is being called a “Bit.” That’s a potentially ambiguous term, so I hope it changes, but nearly everybody would be able to afford to buy a useful stash of “Bits.” Your request that everybody buy “just” 0.01 BTC (= 10,000 “Bits”) was nothing short of humanitarian.
I’m unable to discern Steve Keen’s final words at the very end of the video. It almost sounds like “It’s all Russia’s fault.” I’m laughing because I know that isn’t what he said. Somebody please help me out here.
The sole bone of contention seemed to be where the price of Bitcoin will “end up.” They both seemed to agree that blockchain and BTC are here to stay.
I like Steve, but his obligatory climate change pitch at the end doesn’t fly.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-29/about-sensationalist-bitcoin-electrical-consumption-story
https://dailycaller.com/2017/11/29/study-satellites-show-no-acceleration-in-global-warming-for-23-years/olo530:
Nodes are the computers that remain updated with the full blockchain. Most nodes aren’t involved with mining. The energy-intensive mining nodes use very expensive computers built specifically to mine cryptos. At $10,000 per BTC “earned,” their energy cost isn’t as much of an issue as the heat they generate.
I don’t know what a malicious participant could possibly do to hijack the blockchain. He’d need to control 51% of all outstanding BTC to have any affect at all, and then it would be against his interest to engage in mischief. Anybody trying to buy 51% of BTC will drive the price up dramatically along the way. I suppose it could happen, but sellers would exit rich and the buyer would be left with millions of BTC for which there would be no bid.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/b/blockchain.asp
Again, Bitcoin might yield market share to better-designed cryptocurrencies as time goes on. When you sense that possibility, trade your BTC for one of the others. There are well over a thousand altcoins available now, mostly Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s). A lot of those are scams, and most don’t exhibit any new or superior features. Shop wisely.
olo530:
It’s certainly possible to lose your Bitcoin or altcoin in various ways, and a ZH article the other day estimated 4 million Bitcoin lost forever already. So the total BTC supply when it’s all mined out will not be 21 million, but something less than 17 million coin. (That’s 1,700,000,000,000,000 Satoshis).
You’re correct that blockchain will be used to keep track of debts, but that will merely be a function of smart contracts. Blockchain is used for currencies (Bitcoin and Litecoin, among others), but also for smart contracts (Ethereum, for instance). Bitcoin isn’t set up for smart contracts, and therefore functions exclusively as a currency. Of course, a lot of people have been buying Bitcoin with bank credit, but that has nothing to do with Bitcoin.
Confiscation is simply impossible unless you’re careless with your private key(s). There are several highly secure software wallets available, several highly secure hardware wallets (e.g. Trezor), and a paper wallet properly hidden cannot be discovered by anybody — even you, if you forget where you put it.
Oxymoron:
There are remedies in the works for the growing electricity consumption by “mining” operations. Lightning Network, for one. Forking to a fee-based system based on proof-of-stake rather than proof-of-work, for another. It isn’t an insurmountable concern. Nassim has posted enough about AGW here, mostly unchallenged, to show that CO2 generation from BTC mining shouldn’t be a concern, either.
This doesn’t address energy consumption, but it’s important. David and Goliath.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-03/all-worlds-money-and-markets-one-visualizationYour activities with bees wax and open fires sound enviable, but I’m tellin’ ya, she’s gonna someday demand Bitcoin.
https://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/life-cycle-men-women/212655I really wish everybody here would spend their evenings all next month investigating and learning, if for no other reason than to become conversant. Some say this is the biggest advance for mankind since the Internet. I personally see distributed ledgers (decentralized control) as the biggest advance for our species EVER. The technologies are also becoming more secure and easier to use, so you’ll know the transition is complete when your shoeshine boy says he only accepts Bitcoin.
It would be humorous were it not so tragic. Bitcoin is the only WORLD currency that’s ever existed. And it has arisen in a world that’s going to be downsized and made more local! Please don’t tell me you’re putting all your hopes on the SDR. Haven’t you had enough of criminal banking systems?
People think money should have backing. Sorry, that makes it a proxy for what is commonly viewed as barter. Money itself should be divorced entirely from tangible value because its sole kinetic function is intermediation / facilitation of trade. Bitcoin can’t be devalued, can’t be inflated, can’t be confiscated because control is permanently decentralized.
Dollars are said to be worthless — just digits in accounts and paper slips. But that’s not true. Dollars have negative value, not zero value. They’re debt instruments. Bitcoin is not a debt.
I commented yesterday that all mediums of exchange are forms of barter. That’s not precisely correct. Cryptocurrencies may indeed be the first forms of actual “money” ever devised.
Look, kids, you can have a centrally controlled money supply or you can have a money supply nobody controls. Take your pick. Millennia of central controls have brought us to our current predicaments, but you still tout that as “viable?” You’re still stuck in the Matrix. So inured to controls and controllers that you can’t handle the wild west of free markets? Like animals that spend their lives in cages, and when the door is opened, can’t bring themselves to step out into the sunshine.
What you’re witnessing here is actual free-market price discovery in an otherwise rigged world. And you’re all casting aspersions at it. P/E ratios don’t apply here. There is no bubble. Mark my words, we’re witnessing the slowly accelerating abandonment of all historical economic and political systems. Distributed ledger technologies are the future. The old systems are no match for what’s coming. See the one-minute video:
You will soon be able to trade the FX from your home computer. Well, maybe not you, but I will.Rothschilds and Rockefellers are headed for the dustbin of history. A new elite is rising. Their value systems are not predicated on dominion over mankind. “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes its laws” — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild. We don’t have to kill the dinosaurs; all we have to do is abandon them. We certainly don’t want to replace them with bigger dinosaurs, do we?
Distributed ledger technologies ARE the invisible hand. The tables of the Moneychangers are being overturned once and for all. My only concern is that the rush to cryptos will eventually overwhelm the existing systems. The curve is clearly parabolic. If Venezuelans are buying Bitcoin, they’re going to be richer than you. Don’t wait ten years to finally figure this out.
It’s = a contraction of “it is” or “it was.” The apostrophe replaces the “i” in the word “is” or the “wa” in the word “was.” The only time an apostrophe should ever appear in that particular three-letter word is when it’s used as a contraction.
The possessive sense is written “its” and has no apostrophe.
Its’ = not a word.
“Myself” cannot be used self-referentially unless your sentence has already been self-referential. For instance, “I hurt myself.” It’s becoming increasingly popular to use “myself” in place of “I” or “me.” Instead of “three people in the room, including me,” I read “three people in the room, including myself.” Maybe “myself” makes the speaker feel more important than if he said “me,” but he’s shown his lack of education.
There are other bumps in the road that readers have to contend with, but those two are the ones that annoy me the most. There is a difference between a language evolving and a language trashed. THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO TEACH THIS SHIT IN JUNIOR HIGH, but public schools … hey, don’t get me started.
Anticlimatic:
A few tidbits, hard won. First, according to X22 Report, the new currency that will be introduced to replace the dollar will not be able to compete with Bitcoin unless it has “something” going for it to generate confidence. As there will be no alternative, that “something” will be gold backing. So gold will be revalued upward — worldwide — and the predictions mostly hover around $10K / Troy oz, or more. Silver is nice for making coins, but it will not serve as a backing for currencies. I will caution you, however. The rationale for replacing the dollar is predicated on the notion that loss of international reserve currency status will cause a flood of dollars to return to the U.S, and this will presumably cause hyperinflation. Personally, I doubt that will happen rapidly, if at all, and because deflation strengthens the dollar, it’s quite possible the dollar will never require replacement. So don’t hold your breath for a new currency backed by gold. Also, if history is any guide, the first currency to replace the dollar could easily fail within a few years after the replacement. Think Lincoln’s
greenbacks, but there are other examples.Second, the energy consumed by Bitcoin mining is a red herring. Bitcoin will likely be streamlined eventually by the Lightning Network. “Proof of work” mining could yield to “proof of stake,” as well.
Third, something like 0.3% or 0.03% of the world’s population even knows what Bitcoin is. The price rise is not due to speculation so much as it’s due to increasing confidence. Some exchanges and wallets have been hacked. Chalk it up to growing pains. Bitcoin has never been hacked. As the world catches on, the price will continue to skyrocket.
Fourth, look at the chart. Bitcoin has averaged about a $1,000 gain each and every month for the last seven months. As Bitcoin becomes the currency of choice around the globe, it will fly past $150,000 without blinking.
Fifth, and you probably know this already, Bitcoin is divisible to eight decimal places. A one-hundred-millionth of a Bitcoin is called a “Satoshi.” It will eventually work perfectly for small purchases, especially if one Bitcoin is worth a million dollars. The price of Bitcoin will flatten in the future, i.e. the s-curve will glide into a purchasing power resembling today’s million dollars, plus or minus any number of hundreds of thousands. But here’s the beauty. The last people to convert dollars (or any other currency) to Bitcoin will not lose purchasing power. Even if they spend a million dollars for one Bitcoin at that point, their purchasing power will not be reduced by the conversion.
Finally, some people think criminality (e.g. money laundering, ransoms, bribes) gave Bitcoin its start. This is obviously untrue. Bitcoin wasn’t worth much for years. Somebody is said to have spent 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas in the early days. How much money can one launder into such a worthless currency?
Note: it’s certainly possible that other cryptocurrencies could displace Bitcoin along the way.
Personally, I think nearly everybody has the definition of money wrong. Money is barter. Yes, it’s portable, fungible, and a store of value. But it’s merely an intermediate form of barter. Instead of trading your cattle for a new house, you’re trading your cattle for clamshells first, and then trading the clamshells for a house. I can’t understand why people don’t see that. If I want cattle, but want to sell my house, and if you, a cattle baron, want my house, then houses and cattle are money. There is no reason that dollars, gold, silver, Bitcoin and clamshells can’t all serve as money (i.e. barter) simultaneously. Especially after banks, brokerages and governments get starved OUT OF BUSINESS by distributed ledger technologies (i.e. blockchain technologies like Bitcoin).
There is much more to say, but that’s enough encouragement for now. Bitcoin is less than $10K now. Or you can wait a year and pay a hell of a lot more. But even if you wait until it’s a $million, you’ll have lost nothing except the opportunity to become rich along the way.
“Why do they borrow? Is it for essentials?”
Limits will be eventually reached,
and starving debtors will then be told:
“Sorry, but you already ate that.”Good article, Nassim, and I agree with your comment.
You’d think he must be Jesus Christ.
Or more likely, the administrator of the Sampson Option.
Rand Paul was called on the carpet by American Jews afterward for not clapping enthusiastically enough.
From its inception, Israel has practiced and sponsored terrorism, a subject Rudd doesn’t appear to understand. Or maybe she understands perfectly. After all, every single Zionist Goy I’ve ever seen looks terrified inside. Say “holocaust” and they immediately freak out. Whatever it is that terrifies them so is certainly a well kept secret.
My attachment was over the 512 KB limit. It was something from Investment Watch dated around July 3.
To quote,
“Is the health insurance business a racket? Yes, literally. And this is why the shameless pandering to robber baron corporations posing as ‘health providers’ is such an egregious …. and obvious … tactic to do nothing more than plump up insurance company profits.
“And do you know who’s to blame? Believe it or not, the downfall of the American health insurance system falls squarely on the shoulders of former President Richard M. Nixon.”
I just don’t want you to get too carried away, JD 🙂
If Google ever manages to provide single responses to every Internet search, tech will have established itself as a religion by default, with the Internet its Bible.
Quoting from Naughton’s article:
“The audacity of Luther’s 95 Theses on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences came from the fact that in attacking the theology underpinning the doctrine of purgatory they were also undermining the business model built upon it.
The principal business model of the Internet is advertising. Blockchain technology can undermine that business model (e.g. Steemit). Is Satoshi Nakamoto Martin Luther reincarnated?
” … so worrisome it should make people think of leaving the country.”
Not being bilingual, I’m held back in spite of being told it’s unnecessary to have command of the native tongue in many countries. Trouble is, the first bestseller I read as a kid was “The Ugly American” by Lederer and Burdick (1958). It left a lasting impression. I know times have changed, but migrating to another country without thoroughly understanding the customs and language would strike me as being — at the very least — impolite. I know, I know. I should just go. Things aren’t that way any more …
No one else seems to have any qualms about being part of the problem, so why should I? An American with manners must be some kind of oxy moron. And to boot, if I stay here in the U.S., I’m going to have to learn Spanish anyway.
Then again, I’m not sure I want to be playing musical countries when the music finally stops.
I’ve attached a couple of videos that some might think reveal Israel’s double standards / hypocrisy. I’ll go a step further and say they reveal Israel’s state-sponsored, deeply racist political agenda.
Israelis welcoming immigrants into Greece:
Israelis jettisoning immigrants from Israel:
A great advantage the medium of the Internet has over television, radio and print media is comments sections like this one. When uncensored, they function as a sort of peer-review. Except, of course, when the commenters fail to rise to the level of “peers.” It’s not unusual to see informed, thoughtful remarks alongside utterances better suited to an old AOL chat room.
Incidentally, the second video (above) derived from the comments section after an article Nassim linked the other day. Indeed, I feel I’ve learned a lot from comments sections.
That said, I’m reminded of The Grateful Dead:
I see you’ve got your fist out,
Say your piece and get out,
Guess I get the gist of it, but it’s alright.
Sorry that you feel that way,
The only thing there is to say,
Every silver lining’s got a touch of grey.R.I.P. Jerry
Differences in people’s thinking result directly from differences in the sources we choose to inform our mental databases. In other words, the credibility / lack of credibility of your sources determines what you think and who you are.
Quoting from the essay, “Well-informed leaders from President Obama to Pope Francis agree the greatest threats facing humanity are climate change and wealth inequality.”
The author has identified Obama and Francis as credible sources. By doing so, he undermines his own credibility. Everything said by Obama and Francis is agenda driven. These men never state the truth unless it happens to fit their agendas. That’s the nature of power. If you want truth, carefully sort through the alternative media on the Internet. Carefully sort through the videos on YouTube posted by ordinary people. I say “carefully” because a lot of ordinary people have adopted their favorite leaders’ agendas for themselves!
The sources I consider credible tell me we’re headed into a long cold spell. Also, that extreme wealth inequality is an ever-present feature of mankind, not an anomaly. It’s the game, it’s always been the game, and it’s certainly no game changer. If you’re serious about identifying the causes of the problems our species is faced with, look at those who run the show. Nothing but a pack of thieving, lying power junkies who’d like nothing better than to convince you that a relatively inert 0.04% of the atmosphere is about to burn us all alive. And they’d also like nothing better than to convince you that poor people are a greater threat to your property and health than they are.
Only a relative handful of people have figured out that the U.S. officially fell to a foreign power on 9/11. And even fewer people have figured out that the new government that arose from those ashes is attacking us now. Got that? We are ruled by a clandestine operation called the Deep State, and their war against the U.S. population is presently occurring on our own soil. This is why people calling themselves “Truthers” keep yelling at you to “wake up!”
Again, the mainstream media sometimes tell the truth, but only when it fits their agenda:
Quoting again from the essay, “In other words, the longer we choose to ignore inconvenient truths the greater will be their negative impacts.” The author certainly got that one right.
A “new system” to be presided over by “leaders” who demolish 110-story skyscrapers into tiny piles of rubble, burn down California neighborhoods with directed energy weapons, and who poison us with chemtrails, vaccines, pesticides, GMO’s, fluoride and toxic pharmaceuticals. Governed by people intent on indoctrinating our children in prison settings. People who murder civilians in foreign countries with reckless abandon. Who subject us to back-scatter x-rays, random blood draws, and body cavity searches before confiscating our wealth under the banner of “civil asset forfeiture.” When they aren’t confiscating, they’re extorting, fining and taxing. And imprisoning.
Yes, our beloved “leaders.” Faithfully representing somebody’s needs and desires. Aren’t they just great? Let’s have a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen. They serve us selflessly, tirelessly, and (REDACTED).
They’re crony criminals, bribers, blackmailers, liars, rapists, child traffickers, illegal organ harvesters and active pedophiles. These people practice torture, defend torture, relish in torture and drink blood from severely tortured infants.
Why do we tolerate people like this? Isn’t that a form of suicide? We’ll later claim it was genocide, but in reality, we committed suicide. Amazingly, people devote time, energy and wealth to these monsters, HOPING to put them in charge.
How can I be proud of my country when I’m so deeply ashamed of my species?
During the presidential campaign of 1928, a circular published by the Republican Party claimed that if Herbert Hoover won, there would be “a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage.” Well, it’s 1928 all over again, and I think the Republican Trump shouldn’t be too chicken to give us pot, and sex robot car mechanics in every garage. Just add pot and robots to the growing list of entitlements, and presto!
Capitalism isn’t the problem, numbskulls.
Let’s start by being fair to those who need it most. For instance, to all those people scavenging garbage dumps in India. Now, a fair system would ensure an iPhone for each of them. Along with health insurance and an education. And a basic income, decent shelter and the right to vote.
If the people in the U.S. had any empathy, we’d at least be sending all our garbage to India. Or generating it there the way we do in the Middle East and northern Africa.
EREOI is falling. All grand plans for “new systems” are Towers of Babel. How an atheist like me finds himself at the very point in history when Armageddon is about to occur remains a bit of a fascination. I feel like I’ve won a lottery of some sort with infinitely lower odds.
Darwin’s coming, nobody can stop him, and he’s not very happy.
C-section makes it possible for women to bear children with heads too large to fit through their birth canals. It’s artificial childbirth, not natural childbirth. Everybody cheers that mankind has slapped the face of Darwin, so to speak, and made viable the most helpless and imperiled. Never mind that the longer this “system” continues, the greater the number of people will be carrying genes for big-headed babies. Or, if you prefer, the greater the number of women with too-narrow birth canals.
Quoting from the essay, “Unless we would agree that Darwin-on-Steroids is a good idea. We don’t and won’t, because it would mean Stephen Foster’s “frail forms fainting at the door” all over the place. A market ideology that causes widespread misery has no future.”
You can have a continuous, unbroken trickle of “frail forms fainting at the door” or you can circumvent and postpone that trickle, but postponement only means that someday there will be a flood. We’re still debating how to prevent the trickle while ignoring the imminent flood.
Quoting Milton Friedman, ““There are only two ways of co-ordinating the economic activities of millions. One is central direction involving the use of coercion—the technique of the army and of the modern totalitarian state. The other is voluntary co-operation of individuals—the technique of the market place.”
Varoufakis says the market place has failed. Sounds like a pitch for the alternative. Except that we’ve been practicing the alternative all along, a fact he seems not to realize.
If a couple semesters of college physics taught me anything, it was that I’m no physicist. But from all I’ve read, I’ve had to formulate a tentative picture of some sort to explain directed energy to myself. So I’ll tell you my tentative picture so you have at least one broken hook to hang your hat on while you rummage around.
This won’t make sense to anybody not paying any attention, and it frankly makes no sense to me, but here goes. You have NexRad and HAARP working in conjunction with chemtrails, the result being clouds with standing waves (clouds that look like the face of a washboard). The point of this is somehow to dilate a portion of the ionosphere, far above the clouds, to create a bubble in that highly charged atmospheric layer. Then, and I’m just guessing, an array of satellites in geosynchronous orbit focuses microwaves (or ion beams?), perhaps along laser beams, at targets on Earth (after reading license plates and home addresses).
In an old-fashioned tungsten filament light bulb, the glow comes from electrical resistance, not combustion. Fluorescent and LED bulbs don’t even get hot. Those homes might have “flared up” in tandem with their disintegration from outer space. All I know for sure is that “we’ve never seen anything like it before” means they’ve never seen anything like it before.
But I’m not frightened. I’m terrorized. The chemtrails along the Front Range corridor between Colorado Springs and Fort Collins have been absolutely thick the last few days, and not a drop of rain is forecasted for the next ten. Since they’ll be able to link my comments to my IP address, and possibly my home, maybe now’s the time to pack a suitcase?
Excellent comments, Diablo.
Food and fuel (barter) could also someday challenge cash, gold, Bitcoin, etc., especially if falling EROEI leads to a collapse in delivery systems and/or power grids. Oh, and add attractive daughters to food and fuel. So keep doing what you’re doing.
Let’s just hope the directed energy weapons used on 9/11 and the California fires can be harnessed for constructive purposes before falling EROEI ends civilization.
Caused by directed energy weapons:
Same as 9/11:
Why is directed energy only used as a weapon? Who makes those decisions?
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” -Voltaire
I learned yesterday that it is now against the law in seventeen countries to criticize Israel or question the so-called “Holocaust.” They’re currently trying to make the U.S. #18. Remarkably, most people are too cowed to even dare to ask why.
Sorry, in the second paragraph I meant one-hundred-millionth, not one-hundred-billionth. One-hundred-million Satoshis in one Bitcoin.
Think of a Bitcoin the same way you’d think of a ten-thousand dollar bill. Imagine buying ten-thousand dollar bills for a little less than $5,632 (the current price of one Bitcoin). Ten-thousand dollar bills aren’t much good for buying packs of gum, either.
That’s why the dollar price of Bitcoin is stated to eight decimal places. One one-hundred-billionth of a Bitcoin is called a Satoshi. A Satoshi is currently worth $5,632 divided by one-hundred-billion, or 0.0056 cents. You’d need an awful lot of Satoshis to buy a pack of gum.
Bitcoin is PERFECT for small purchases. When the dollar price of Bitcoin gets too high, the world will start using Satoshis for pricing goods rather than Bitcoin. Note that for one Satoshi to be worth a penny, the price of single Bitcoin would have to be one million dollars.
I suggest you buy one BTC now before the curve goes vertical. Less than one percent of the world population currently owns any cryptocurrency at all. That is going to change.
It’s my understanding that the problem of energy usage for mining is being addressed, but I’m not qualified to explain how. Importantly, “mining” verifies and records valid transactions on the Blockchain, and denies invalid transactions. Miners are occasionally rewarded for their expenditures on hardware and electricity with Bitcoin in exchange for providing that verification.
The secondary virtue of Bitcoin, as I understand it, is the minuscule fee charged for transactions. A couple of orders of magnitude less than the few percent charged for credit card transactions. Bitcoin may not eventually put banks and governments out of business entirely, but they’re likely to become seriously humbled.
The primary virtue of Bitcoin, as I understand it, is the ability to carry your wealth with you wherever you go. No confiscation at borders.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-19/cryptocurrency-concentration-just-4-own-over-95-bitcoin
So, 95% of Bitcoin are owned by 4% of the buyers. This is my concern, and explains why I’ve dragged my feet buying Bitcoin. The volatility in the price is due to relatively few Bitcoin being in circulation — 95% parked in digital wallets, waiting to see how high the price goes — so the VELOCITY as a money supply is quite low. I’m worried that I’ll buy now, and then a member of the 4% will cash out a million Bitcoin tomorrow, doubling current liquidity overnight. And bringing a huge (though temporary) crash to the price.
I’m waiting for another Mt.Gox – level shake-up. A successful hack of an exchange somewhere, for instance. But waiting could very well turn out to be the dumbest investment move I’ve ever made. Best of luck if you decide to buy. And best of luck if you don’t.
How many libraries’ worth of tomes have been written about the various political and economic systems? Theocracy, democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, communism, capitalism, crony capitalism, feudalism, and on and on. Almost as many variations as there are sexual orientations these days.
What I’ve come to realize is the system is rarely to blame. Joe Sobran used to write about the relative virtues of monarchy compared with a democratic republic. Monarchy came out on top except for one thing: the nature of the king himself. What I’m saying here is that the problem is people, not any particular system. There is simply no conceivable system more complicated than a tribe of primitives in the jungle that our species is mature enough to make work. We are not up to the task of producing a larger system that functions productively and peacefully over the long term. We’ve got some evolving to do, and there isn’t a shred of evidence that we’re doing it.
Why are people the problem, and not the systems? Isn’t it obvious? All people are liars and thieves, just not equally so. And proficient liars and thieves always rise to the top. For this species to thrive into the future, a selective pressure must be applied against nearly all who govern. Currently, those who govern are increasing the selective pressures against all those who don’t.
The risk here is that the compulsion to subjugate others might well be a genetic disorder. We can banish it to the fossil record, but only if it doesn’t banish the rest of us to the fossil record first.
All choked up. It never used to occur to me that I might outlive these guys.
Now that it’s commercially available, I’m contemplating taking C60.
Anybody else here struggling with that? Not the sort of question one should answer quickly, IMO.If it isn’t grown, it’s mined. Then you have something with which to manufacture.
“Money isn’t *required* to make anything.” -SteveB
– True, if you’re vertically integrated and 100% self-sufficient (I’m thinking of undiscovered tribes in the Amazon).
– True, if all labor is slave labor.
-True, if barter doesn’t qualify as “money.”
– True, if distributed ledger technology “coin” doesn’t qualify as “money.”
The struggles between socialism (all forms), capitalism (all forms), and caste systems (all forms) are “soon” coming to a close due to worldwide deflationary collapse. Those systems all require money. Thus, the Cabal is already well underway preparing for a wholesale return to slavery (technocracy).
The Cabal will fail. Distributed ledger technologies — outside the current systems — will prevail. It’s a struggle between permanent tyranny and permanent freedom. So, here’s a riddle. What does John McAfee’s prediction for the price of Bitcoin have in common with Ilargi’s prediction for deflationary collapse? Hint: “soon” is a relative term. (Wincing while I laugh.)
V. Arnold: There are three possible ways to win an argument. Persuade your adversary, kill your adversary, or educate your adversary’s children and wait. The U.S. has had mixed results with the first two, but the third is now bearing fruit. Or should I say, bearing snowflakes. HIstory will show …
History will show whatever the government educators want it to show.
Doc R: $5.48 is no doubt an average of some sort. Debt assumed for constructive purposes (e.g. business expansion) is completely different from debt assumed for speculation (e.g. margin accounts) or consumption (e.g. most social programs, most military spending, residential real estate, stock buy-backs, automobiles, credit cards and many student loans). For the last half century, banks have set us up for eventual deflationary collapse with a growing preponderance of loans to Whimpy:
We are experiencing what futurist Alvin Toffler called “information overload” in his 1970 book, “Future Shock.” Rapid cultural changes accompanied by an explosion of choices.
For just one example, we all witnessed the events of 9/11, but a smorgasbord of accounts, explanations, and accusations to choose from sprang up afterward.
Accept or reject, mix and match to suit your own personal preferences: bin Laden, box cutters, jet fuel fires, pancake collapse, pulverization, controlled demolition, thermite-thermate, mini-nukes, drones that looked like commercial jets, no planes, art students, inside job, pools of molten steel, stolen gold, hurricane Erin, directed energy weapons, cold fusion, vaporization, dustification, explosions, Larry Silverstein’s “pull it,” no toilets, toasted cars, Mossad, CIA, terrorists, Enron, short selling airlines, tiny rubble piles, $2.3 trillion missing, conspiracy, “let’s roll,” holograms, drills, stand-downs, Saudis, dancing Israelis, and whatever else that might pop into your head, including acts of God.
In a time of bewildering changes, we see … bewilderment. And we’re not even talking about predictive bewilderment, as for financial and political topics, but rather bewilderment over what we all just saw happen with our own eyes, over and over again, thanks to video replay. Everybody knows what he saw and everybody self-righteously thinks he knows the truth, but to varying degrees every single one of us is flat wrong. Some are so misguided they might just as well be living in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
I keep hearing people flatter themselves for being “awake” after recognizing official lies. But the official liars anticipated that, and deliberately created official “conspiracy theories” to keep their adversaries on false paths and snoozing. Never in history has truth been more elusive. We are all taking stabs in the dark with incomplete data sets. It’s so much easier to ignore the world, to trust authorities, to place short-term personal gratification above all else, and to throw tantrums in defense of our misconceptions. After all, aren’t those the fundamental freedoms they hate us for?
What’s a person to do? Stand in front of it all and take a selfie. It shows you were here, sort of.
Six itchy men are shipwrecked on a small, mosquito-infested island. Their names are Wark, Bink, Det, Guv, Prece and Robby. Wark spends all his time working: cutting bamboo, building huts, tending a garden, hunting, fishing, cooking for the group and singing everybody to sleep at night.
Bink searches the island for seashells, and loans them to Det in exchange for any new seashells he might run across. Guv shouts orders at everybody and beats them with a broken strand of rigging when they don’t listen. Robby steals food, seashells, bamboo and anything else the others haven’t hidden from him. Prece writes about it all, but fibs and distorts a lot. With the exception of Wark, everybody spends the bulk of their days horsing around in the itty-bitty jungle and lying on the beach telling bad jokes.
Bink is prosperous, as he says he has more seashells than the rest combined.
Det is prosperous, having borrowed large quantities of shells from Bink.
Guv is prosperous, as he screams at the others to surrender a “fair portion” of their shells.
Prece is prosperous, as he’s bribed by Guv and Bink.
Robby is prosperous, too, as he’s expert at stealing the others’ shells.
Wark is stressed out, nearly broke, and in pain from blisters and abrasions.Then one day a seventh man floats to shore on a piece of driftwood. His name is Doct, and he offers to numb Wark’s blisters with wads of algae and sea snake oil. Before long, Doct is also prosperous, but Wark is now penniless. Sorry, shell-less.
Bink, Det, Guv, Robby, Prece and Doct are all out celebrating their prosperity one day when Wark strolls up and tells them about the distant hurricane he sees coming. There is a traffic jam as they all try to escape on Doct’s little chunk of driftwood. During which time Robby is busy stealing from the huts. Guv shouts at Bink to loan him more shells. Bink just gave himself a bonus and finds himself momentarily out of seashells, but promises more later if Guv promises to save him. Det needs just one more loan.
Wark quietly passes away that night. And with one less mouth to feed, the rest dance in celebration. Life has never been better.
Two days later, everybody’s starving, and shocked to discover that seashells are hard to chew. Two more days pass and Guv is the lone survivor, a cannibal. Next day, the hurricane wipes the island clean. Then a week passes and another shipwreck brings six more itchy men to the island.
Five of whom immediately express their strong contempt for all the bloodsucking mosquitoes.
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“America can’t afford to rebuild.”
Why am I not surprised?
Nine-eleven seventeen, or a similar moniker, promises to enter the lexicon for generations to come. If I understand correctly, this train of storms after years of hurricane quiet is solely attributed to slightly warmer Pacific Ocean water temperatures. To distinguish between 9/11 disasters, maybe “boxcutter 9/11” and “bathwater 9/11” will help with future ambiguity.
Except that boxcutters had absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to do with dustification of the three WTC skyscrapers.
Something tells me ocean temperatures only account for a portion of what we’re witnessing now. And the rest is here:
https://csat.au.af.mil/2025/volume3/vol3ch15.pdf
Are the unelected fascists running this show merely managing their adversaries before financial Ice-9 is triggered?
“The printing presses are hot.”
Prices will rise on petroleum, petrochemicals and food for awhile, but on net, I would expect hurricanes like these are deflationary. How many people, do you suppose, without homes and jobs to return to, will keep paying on their mortgages? When a state loses a big chunk of its tax base while being suddenly faced with massive, unexpected expenditures … $15B only buys a couple of fancy get well cards.
The U.S. Bill of Rights is a list of explicit limitations on government power, not corporate power. Google (including YouTube) and Facebook can LEGALLY trample all over the “free speech rights” of everyone consuming their services because the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply to them. Seeing this, the government circumvents its own First Amendment legal constraints by nurturing a fascist partnership between itself and corporations, providing itself the ability to wear a corporate mask while violating human rights. Government / corporate partnerships have already enabled extreme levels of surveillance. They’ve also made it possible for government to commit war crimes using corporate mercenaries. Not to mention inroads made into a compliant quasi-corporate NRA to limit gun rights. And now we’re dealing with increasing Internet censorship as Google, YouTube and Facebook succumb to the same government / corporate forces that increasingly captured the mainstream media over the last half-century.
But the most egregious example is the relationship the U.S. government has with the Federal Reserve. In that government-corporate alliance, the borrower inexorably and perhaps unwittingly became servant to the lender. Which relegated government to becoming the enforcement arm of unelected corporate oligarchs who, among other things, manipulate the world’s reserve currency. Until recently, most of the rest of the world functioned in various degrees as appendages on the world’s reserve currency. In response to those appendages’ growing independence, the oligarchs now prepare for war. Possibly a world war that 99.99% of the world’s population doesn’t want and cannot possibly benefit from.
V. Arnold: just my long-winded way of saying I agree.
Tabarnick: Your observations are a breath of fresh air. Except for, “Oh, it was well-meaning policy, absolutely.” Sarcasm? Soros and his ilk meant well?
Two things are coming soon: 9/11 and hurricane Irma.
Sixteen years ago, two things were coming soon: 9/11 and hurricane Erin.
I might even subscribe to cable again for a month or two.https://allnewspipeline.com/Hurricane_Irma_New_York_Remember_911.php
Texas was the target of Jade Helm, and now the military is moving in.
All they needed was a manufactured hurricane.
Skip to the homeless guy at the three-minute mark:It might still be a little early to quote Hugh Hendry: “I would recommend you panic,” but it might not be too early to recommend we start paying closer attention.
V. Arnold,
Interesting. Thanks for that. Integrity seems to come naturally to some people, others have to work at it, and the rest need Mom to ride whip over them. But once they’re whipped, they at least tend to avoid Mom.
I searched LOS and only got references to the Los Angeles Country Club. Something tells me you don’t call a place like that home.
You know, since I’m feeling so musical today, here’s another hint as to why men are wary of marriage. Marriage always involves three parties, one being the state, and most American women eventually find that when choosing between the two, their favorite partner is the state. After all, the state “cares for” their children. In so many ways, I might add.
I’ve long maintained that marriage is nothing more than promises made between two human beings. Not two human beings, two attorneys, some cops and a judge. Which makes me wonder why gays, et. al. are so interested in marriage rights. Clearly, it’s to enjoy that sacred and intimate bond with government.
Borrowing from Stoneleigh, we find ourselves at the top of a tall ladder, frantically trying to add one more rung. And failing that, our overlords deceive us into thinking another rung’s been added anyway. But gravity eventually beats the feeble structure and the descent is long and horrifying, as we foolishly kicked out the rungs behind ourselves during our ascent.
Lucky for mankind, there are still a few hunter-gatherer societies around. Who could have predicted that THEY would be the way of the future, not the brave new technological world envisioned by Look and Life magazines back in the 1960s. At least Stoneleigh hopes to preserve agriculture, but even that level of civilization might eventually prove overly optimistic.
Steve St.Angelo wrote something a few weeks ago that impressed me almost as much as some of the things Stoneleigh’s written. He wrote, “Debt equals unburned energy obligations.” So, even if they add another rung or two to the financial ladder, it won’t matter. We will simply lack the EREOI to lift our bloated asses up onto it.
“If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will.”
St.Angelo predicts a 5-10 year time frame before the EREOI hits the wall. Stoneleigh would have us use that remaining energy to replace the ladder rungs for our unhappy descent. But our overlords have a better idea. Let’s prematurely burn those unburned energy obligations on the military-industrial complex and war. Let’s not walk away from doom, let’s run headlong into it.
Would you still maintain that government – any kind of government — is a good thing? If so, don’t blame the Fed. Look in the mirror, chump. Dependency is something to work your way out of, not something to institutionalize and enshrine.
