2020 US Presidential Election

[Juan]

Wasn't there violence in France, Yellow jacket protests and such?

France is already close enough to police state status. There's not enough people resisting.

Actually the French made the government take back their reform of pensions which would have pushed back the retirement age. In Spain retirement age was extended this July and no one moved a finger. This country is a disgrace, really.

I'm very curious about the French. They consistently vote for the worst politicians and immediately dislike them, right after being elected, and then the French furiously hate their politicians for their full term in office.

The French deserve to be admired, I reckon that.

 

[Juan]

Actually, it seems that most Republican run states are harsh for more than 2 million poor, uninsured people who fall in the coverage gap. It's the result of states that chose not to expand on Medicaid. It basically means that ''their income was above Medicaid eligibility but below the lower limit for Marketplace premium tax credits'' (KFF, 2019). This doesn't support your statement that people with very low/no income are eligible for (affordable) healthcare coverage, whatever the circumstances. And again, it's the Republican Party that hurts the people who need help the most.

Here's a link if you want to know more about it:

The Coverage Gap: Uninsured Poor Adults in States that Do Not Expand Medicaid

People are poorer every day, and the middle class is disappearing, but Americans must congratulate themselves, because their fake philanthropists, the ones controlling pharma companies and making billions out of the pandemic, become richer and richer every day.

Those billionaires dictate the FED what to do, so the FED is acting in favour of a privileged class and in detriment of 99.9% of the population.

In the meantime, normal people do not have access to public healthcare.

 

[Lilah]

I know lower-middle class people (receptionists, secretaries, etc.) who make more to qualify for Medicaid, but are also not paying anything (or hardly anything, below $100/month) for ObamaCare. I believe it depends on the plan they choose. Blue Cross Blue Shield is probably one of the most expensive but they can go with a cheaper unknown plan and still have medical coverage. Of course, with the high deductibles prevalent under most ObamaCare plans, people will still think twice before going to the doctor. The people who are suffering are probably in the solid middle class such as contractors, IT professionals, etc., not lower middle class, as paying for ObamaCare will cost a large chunk of their paycheck, comparable to rent/mortgage when purchasing a family plan.

 

[Luman]

Ok, first we talked about divisiveness and now it's like you try to move to other topics as if creating divisions by Republican politicians is a complete nothing burger.

Since when are we talking about who's right and wrong here? I thought that this thread was created to talk about ideas and the merits of those ideas. If I'm proven wrong, I'll be more than glad to admit it. Nobody has the wisdom about how what kind of policy is best of people, or else we wouldn't be here conversing with one another here in the first place.

There are many articles about mile long food lines. Just have a look. It doesn't only concern, NY, it's really a nationwide problem and the huge hit against the lower class took place during the Trump era:

Food Lines a Mile Long in America's Second-Wealthiest State

Sign of the times: Mile-long line of cars outside California grocery giveaway

Long lines form at food banks across country ahead of Thanksgiving

And what about unemployment rates? It's good that the US has pretty stable rates. But let's be honest, most European states had more forcefully imposed lockdown rules than several American states like Texas & Florida. Of course this has impact on unemployment rates. It's a matter between protecting people's life as much as possible vs. protecting the economy and most European states chose for the first option.

Actually, it seems that most Republican run states are harsh for more than 2 million poor, uninsured people who fall in the coverage gap. It's the result of states that chose not to expand on Medicaid. It basically means that ''their income was above Medicaid eligibility but below the lower limit for Marketplace premium tax credits'' (KFF, 2019). This doesn't support your statement that people with very low/no income are eligible for (affordable) healthcare coverage, whatever the circumstances. And again, it's the Republican Party that hurts the people who need help the most.

Here's a link if you want to know more about it:

The Coverage Gap: Uninsured Poor Adults in States that Do Not Expand Medicaid

The "mile-long" food lines are B.S., it's rich people in late model cars taking advantage of free Thanksgiving dinners in East Rutherford, New Jersey, an affluent community. I reposted your link, under the screenshot of the woman in the video.

This woman cries crocodile tears, while she appears to weigh 250 pounds. They are not "lower class" - they all have good cars and homes, none of them need free food, but since they are not asked to provide proof that they're poor, they just took what they could get for free. Does she look like she has been out of food? Give me a break, lol.

Source

 

[PeteJ]

Actually the French made the government take back their reform of pensions which would have pushed back the retirement age. In Spain retirement age was extended this July and no one moved a finger. This country is a disgrace, really.

I'm very curious about the French. They consistently vote for the worst politicians and immediately dislike them, right after being elected, and then the French furiously hate their politicians for their full term in office.

The French deserve to be admired, I reckon that.

Lol. That would be an example of stupidity but then practically all countries who have democracy do that.

 

[Juan]

The "mile-long" food lines are B.S., it's rich people in late model cars taking advantage of free Thanksgiving dinners in East Rutherford, New Jersey

Stingy rich people then... or maybe they just have those car for looks and they are indeed broke.

 

[Luman]

Stingy rich people then... or maybe they just have those car for looks and they are indeed broke.

My point is that a bunch of well-off fat people, burning gas in late model cars while waiting for free Thanksgiving dinners in an upscale city in New Jersey is not evidence of widescacle hunger in America and is not what anybody in their right mind would consider a "food line".

These are not needy people and they deserve no sympathy.

The notion of widespread hunger and 1930's depression-era food lines as existing today, is wrong. I don't think that there are any such food lines at all and if there are, I've never seen them. Most people are overweight, and the obesity rate is over 40%. with nearly 10% of the population "severely" obese.

From Google:

What is the obesity rate in America?
42.4%

The US obesity prevalence was 42.4% in 2017 – 2018. From 1999 –2000 through 2017 –2018, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 42.4%. During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%. Jun 7, 2021

 

[Juan]

What is the obesity rate in America?
42.4%

Yes, we all know Americans are fat.

 

[Luman]

Yes, we all know Americans are fat.

Way too many are, but not all of us, lol.

This should put a lid on the incorrect notion that Americans are underfed and on "food lines'.

 

[Juan]

Way too many are, but not all of us, lol.

This should put a lid on the incorrect notion that Americans are underfed and on "food lines'.

I actually watched a documentary featuring an American mother who had killed two of her sons by feeding them to death.. one of them died aged 18. She fed them enormous amounts of food, rich on fat.

 

[Juan]

Central banks, central banks... those fools.



Why central bankers keep their cool over rising house prices | Financial Times (ft.com)

Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, spoke last month of her concern over "the pressures that higher housing prices will create for families that are first-time homebuyers or have less income".

She followed European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, who acknowledged in June that "the disconnect between housing prices and broader economic developments during the pandemic entails the risk of price corrections".


The New Zealanders took a further step in the path of denial: they are in fact saying that central banks have created a real estate bubble, but they just dont care.

"In practice, however, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has interpreted its new mandate narrowly: to intervene when house prices are deemed unsustainable. In its May monetary policy statement, it defined sustainability as not being in bubble territory and declared that "structural factors explain high house prices" and low interest rates made higher prices sustainable." (really? can a central banker say something so stupid and pretend to be taken seriously? that statement could have been produced by a 3 year old!)



I reproduce some users comment, which seem more insightful than the usual excuses of Janet Yellen, Powell and that disgrace for Europe which is Christine Lagarde:


"The whole debate assumes CBs have only one tool, a big hammer (interest rates) that will smash everything if they dare to use it. But CBs can be far more surgical and intervene in specific sectors. They could put a limit on aggregate mortgage credit growth, linking it to the size of the housing stock for example, to cool the housing market only. Why not do this immediately, to prevent a generation being cut off?"

(Right now the FED purchases every single month 40bn US dollars worth of mortgage backed securities, that financial rubbish that triggered the 2008 real estate crisis and the Lehman collapse).

"So central banks remit is to ensure that carrots, coffee cups and H&M clothes don't increase more than 2% a year as otherwise the population of the country it serves would feel impoverished. In the mean time, housing prices in London have increased 7 to 10 times in 30 years resulting in a uninspiring 3 bed semi in zone 5 trading at £1m+. But fear not, if avocado prices are contained, surely this 250k deposit will stack pretty quickly. It is questionable whether central banks have done any good at all since 2008."

"Should be fairly obvious that if CBs don't have the mandate of controlling housing inflation then they shouldn't be mucking about with MBS and CMBS markets either. But of course moral hazard has been taken out of most of these markets so perfectly that they have no choice but to jump in at the slightest flutter."

"If housing prices double in 10 years you need twice as much money to buy one. Your money has lost 50% of its purchasing power. If that's not inflation ..."

"Just include housing costs in the basket. Even if you don't rent there is still an opportunity cost to living in your own home, or a mortgage payment. Retirees therefore often downsize. It's an old but monumental failure not to include the most important household outlay into the cost of living. The only challenge is the huge geographical variance. Today it looks like a bad faith argument to avoid recognizing the negative side-effects of QE, an intellectual failure of historical proportions induced by blind faith in monetarist theory and thrown off the rails by a tiny virological event. We need an alternative index, next to the official ones."

"If CBs can't figure out how to measure and include housing inflation then they should close shop and go home. The need to split land and dwelling is not rooted in reality. Most homebuyers don't care for that separation- they simply buy somewhere to live. Even crude measures such as average household income to average house prices point to runaway inflation in housing."



Central banks are a tool used by billionaires to screw up 99% of the population and specifically young people who wont be able to afford a home to live in.

Powell and Lagarde prefer that Blackstone and Berkshire Hathaway own thousands of homes and we pay rent to them. This is absurd for those companies and it is absurd that property is unaffordable for ordinary people. Companies should invest their money on businesses that can grow and change the world, and provide great returns. Homes do not provide great returns. However, companies are putting their excess liquidity on homes because those stupid central bankers keep interest rates at an artificially low level, which is an economic disaster by itself.

 

[Luman]

Former Vice President Joe Biden criticized President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic during the final presidential debate held on Oct. 22, saying that "anyone who is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America."

He said that he had a plan, which he would implement if elected. Why, then, has there been the same number of new deaths during the first six months since Biden has taken office, as there were before the vaccines were available? Obviously, his administration has failed, miserably, to deal with the crisis.

This man should not be the President of the United States, and his VP should not be his replacement.

 

[Christiaan]

The "mile-long" food lines are B.S., it's rich people in late model cars taking advantage of free Thanksgiving dinners in East Rutherford, New Jersey, an affluent community. I reposted your link, under the screenshot of the woman in the video.

This woman cries crocodile tears, while she appears to weigh 250 pounds. They are not "lower class" - they all have good cars and homes, none of them need free food, but since they are not asked to provide proof that they're poor, they just took what they could get for free. Does she look like she has been out of food? Give me a break, lol.

View attachment 45866

Source

It feels like this is another ''welfare queen'' frame, one of the golden oldies of our dear Republicans. Reagan (or someone from his White House team) cooked up the idea that the best way to get rid of a governmental (or subsidized) program, is to look for outliers and pick them out as a display why such a thing doesn't work. What we're seeing here, is that particular cases are being generalised. As if everyone living on governmental subsidy is trying to enrich him or herself.

Well now, we can say the same thing about food programs like food banks. Should we get rid of food banks, because other people are using the services because of certain loopholes? Of course we shouldn't dupe people who can't afford food because of other people. And to make a program of system fair, it's basically up to voters and politicians to come up with ideas & laws to improve services and facilities that serve the common good.

 

[Luman]

It feels like this is another ''welfare queen'' frame, one of the golden oldies of our dear Republicans. Reagan (or someone from his White House team) cooked up the idea that the best way to get rid of a governmental (or subsidized) program, is to look for outliers and pick them out as a display why such a thing doesn't work. What we're seeing here, is that particular cases are being generalised. As if everyone living on governmental subsidy is trying to enrich him or herself.

Well now, we can say the same thing about food programs like food banks. Should we get rid of food banks, because other people are using the services because of certain loopholes? Of course we shouldn't dupe people who can't afford food because of other people. And to make a program of system fair, it's basically up to voters and politicians to come up with ideas & laws to improve services and facilities that serve the common good.

You can give away all the food you want, to rich and poor people, I don't care - as long as I don't have to pay for it.

There were, and still are, Welfare Queens, who have numerous children, usually with different fathers, who collect all kinds of benefits. Fortunately, since Reagan, the country has gotten fed up with this behavior and it has become far less prevalent than it was at that time.

When you have a job and are fired and replaced by a minority person simply because the government is subsidizing their pay, you will sing a different tune. When you have health care that is expensive, and a man like Obama takes it away and replaces it with something inferior, that you pay more for, while others get better help for free, you will sing a different tune. Unless, of course, you are independently wealthy and do not need health insurance. You will never understand these things because you're immune from them in a small, wealthy, socialistic country where the vast majority is white and taken care of. I've visited there, I have Dutch ancestry, but they do not understand American life, and are told a lot of left wing B.S. in their media, regarding America.

 

[Luman]

Why are these people laughing?

 

[Ed209]

Central banks, central banks... those fools.

Why central bankers keep their cool over rising house prices | Financial Times (ft.com)

Janet Yellen, US Treasury secretary, spoke last month of her concern over "the pressures that higher housing prices will create for families that are first-time homebuyers or have less income".

She followed European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde, who acknowledged in June that "the disconnect between housing prices and broader economic developments during the pandemic entails the risk of price corrections".

The New Zealanders took a further step in the path of denial: they are in fact saying that central banks have created a real estate bubble, but they just dont care.

"In practice, however, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has interpreted its new mandate narrowly: to intervene when house prices are deemed unsustainable. In its May monetary policy statement, it defined sustainability as not being in bubble territory and declared that "structural factors explain high house prices" and low interest rates made higher prices sustainable." (really? can a central banker say something so stupid and pretend to be taken seriously? that statement could have been produced by a 3 year old!)

I reproduce some users comment, which seem more insightful than the usual excuses of Janet Yellen, Powell and that disgrace for Europe which is Christine Lagarde:

"The whole debate assumes CBs have only one tool, a big hammer (interest rates) that will smash everything if they dare to use it. But CBs can be far more surgical and intervene in specific sectors. They could put a limit on aggregate mortgage credit growth, linking it to the size of the housing stock, for example, to cool the housing market only. Why not do this immediately, to prevent a generation being cut off?"

(Right now the FED purchases every single month 40bn US dollars worth of mortgage backed securities, that financial rubbish that triggered the 2008 real estate crisis and the Lehman collapse).

"So central banks remit is to ensure that carrots, coffee cups and H&M clothes don't increase more than 2% a year as otherwise the population of the country it serves would feel impoverished. In the mean time, housing prices in London have increased 7 to 10 times in 30 years resulting in a uninspiring 3 bed semi in zone 5 trading at £1m+. But fear not, if avocado prices are contained, surely this 250k deposit will stack pretty quickly. It is questionable whether central banks have done any good at all since 2008."

"Should be fairly obvious that if CBs don't have the mandate of controlling housing inflation then they shouldn't be mucking about with MBS and CMBS markets either. But of course moral hazard has been taken out of most of these markets so perfectly that they have no choice but to jump in at the slightest flutter."

"If housing prices double in 10 years you need twice as much money to buy one. Your money has lost 50% of its purchasing power. If that's not inflation ..."

"Just include housing costs in the basket. Even if you don't rent there is still an opportunity cost to living in your own home, or a mortgage payment. Retirees therefore often downsize. It's an old but monumental failure not to include the most important household outlay into the cost of living. The only challenge is the huge geographical variance. Today it looks like a bad faith argument to avoid recognizing the negative side-effects of QE, an intellectual failure of historical proportions induced by blind faith in monetarist theory and thrown off the rails by a tiny virological event. We need an alternative index, next to the official ones."

"If CBs can't figure out how to measure and include housing inflation then they should close shop and go home. The need to split land and dwelling is not rooted in reality. Most homebuyers don't care for that separation- they simply buy somewhere to live. Even crude measures such as average household income to average house prices point to runaway inflation in housing."

Central banks are a tool used by billionaires to screw up 99% of the population and specifically young people who wont be able to afford a home to live in.

Powell and Lagarde prefer that Blackstone and Berkshire Hathaway own thousands of homes and we pay rent to them. This is absurd for those companies and it is absurd that property is unaffordable for ordinary people. Companies should invest their money on businesses that can grow and change the world, and provide great returns. Homes do not provide great returns. However, companies are putting their excess liquidity on homes because those stupid central bankers keep interest rates at an artificially low level, which is an economic disaster by itself.

I've read a lot of your recent criticisms of central banks, but why the sudden change of heart? I had this debate with you around Christmas time regarding cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, but you were firmly on the side of the bankers.

What has changed, if you don't mind me asking, as I find it interesting?

You were giving me quotes from Charlie Munger before, who clearly supports traditional finance and the old-school banking methods.

 

[Juan]

I've read a lot of your recent criticisms of central banks, but why the sudden change of heart? I had this debate with you around Christmas time regarding cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, but you were firmly on the side of the bankers.

What has changed, if you don't mind me asking, as I find it interesting?

You were giving me quotes from Charlie Munger before, who clearly supports traditional finance and the old-school banking methods.

The current FED policies are not old school banking methods. It's basically never ending QE, which has not being tried before, with the possible exception of Japan, and we already know how Japan has fared..

QE does not work. It only puts deeper problems temporarily under the rug, and it creates bubbles in real estate and the stock market.

People are travelling and things are getting back to normal, so it's time for monetary policy and interest rates to go back to normal.

In Europe this QE experiment has been pretty much running non-stop from Draghi times, like 8 years ago. The original plan of Draghi was raising interest rates in 2018, and there was absolutely no reason for not doing that, since the economy was performing well. However, the ECB has kept finding excuses to postpone this decision year after year...

I'm on the side of capitalism, which is NOT what central banks are displaying now. This is just an under cover bail out program for billionaires, including those in the fields of "technology".

 

[Juan]

Why are these people laughing?

View attachment 45937

What do you think of the $3,5tn spending bill?

Spectre of inflation stalks debate on $3.5tn US spending bill

 

[Luman]

What do you think of the $3,5tn spending bill?

Spectre of inflation stalks debate on $3.5tn US spending bill

Too much is being spent on family leave and child care. Just because people want to pop out children like it's going out of style, the rest of us should not have to finance it or do twice as much work when pregnant women and new mothers have the right leave for extended periods.

I would kill this:

• $726 billion for the Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee with expansive instructions to address some of Democrats' top priorities. Those areas include universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, child care for working families, tuition-free community college, funding for historically black colleges and universities and an expansion of the Pell Grant for higher education.

I would use the $726 billion from the above, to better fund this:

• $198 billion for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including instructions largely related to clean energy development.

 

[Ed209]

The current FED policies are not old school banking methods. It's basically never ending QE, which has not being tried before, with the possible exception of Japan, and we already know how Japan has fared..

QE does not work. It only puts deeper problems temporarily under the rug, and it creates bubbles in real estate and the stock market.

I agree with you. QE in the UK involves the BoE buying government bonds which expands the circulation of money. As I said to you before, one of the risks of doing this is hyperinflation as it is effectively debasing the currency. This has been going on for millennia, though. It is nothing new (as I said in our previous debate), but we never learn. They papered over the cracks with QE (treasury bonds) in 2008 after the subprime mortgage fiasco when the bankers should have been held to account, but weren't. They were bailed out, and shortly afterwards they were back to their old ways rewarding themselves millions in bonuses. The world really got to see just how corrupt our monetary system is.

Once the US dropped the gold standard and went to fiat it's been in a steady decline, and the traditional financial system, as a whole, is starting to crack. It is completely unsustainable. One only has to research this stuff to see how bad the situation really is. The debts that are held by governments are spiralling so rapidly that there is no way that all these countries can pay each other off. Bitcoin was created to be the antithesis to this as it provides a way to decentralise the monetary supply. This means there is no need for central banks and their manipulation. However, whoever controls the money controls the power, and governments know this. This is why they hate Bitcoin and crypto so much, but rest assured, they are creating their own digital coins by effectively copying the same concept, which only goes to show how hypocritical these people are.

The reason I'm confused a little bit is that you were previously laughing at Bitcoin calling it fake money, and yet, you are now making the same arguments against the old financial system as I did - and rightly so - because it is utterly broken and beyond repair.

Where do you stand now, just out of curiosity? Do you still see Bitcoin and crypto as fake money?

 

[Juan]

Too much is being spent on family leave and child care. Just because people want to pop out children like it's going out of style, the rest of us should not have to finance it or do twice as much work when pregnant women and new mothers have the right leave for extended periods.

If people do not have children, who will pay the pensions? Or who will pay taxes in the future, to finance public services?

If people do not have healthcare and they get sick, how are they going to work and pay taxes?

Most people face those issues in their lives, with the exception of some American billionaires, who are just exploiting the system and getting cheap money with cheap interest rates at the expense of others (savers, if there's still any in the US).

 

[Juan]

Where do you stand now, just out of curiosity? Do you still see Bitcoin and crypto as fake money?

I think Bitcoin and crypto are speculative. I see it as a very risky option, I would not even call it an "investment", since it is pure speculation.

Maybe governments can taper successfully and increase interest rates.

Tapering and raising rates would not bankrupt the economy or banks. It would just contain inflation and redistribute wealth a little. It would mean a higher cost for technological companies. I think it would be fairer for everyone. The economy should work perfectly well even if interest rates were increased by 150 or 200 basic points.

My understanding is from 2013 central banks have effectively been financing the tech billionaires and their companies through QE and artificially low interest rates, allowing them to consistently lose huge amounts of money till they started turning profitable. Think of how those platforms have exploded after losing thousands and thousands of millions, for years and years.. the only way to put up those companies has been with cheap money and cheap interest rates.

Now the general population is seeing the outcome:

- Precarious jobs. Lack of stability. Lack of benefits. Lack of healthcare. Workers who will not be entitled to unemployment subsidies if they lose their jobs. And so on.

- Lack of democracy. Those billionaires are now ruling the world, manipulating people, trying to manipulate elections, lobbying governments and central banks in a way unseen before, to a level unseen before.

- Lack of freedom.

There's people saying that Amazon for instance creates jobs, but I seriously doubt it, since it has destroyed many jobs too, and a lot of business. I think it is great to have a company that changes the game, but it has to comply with the rules, like the rest of corporations.

My personal feeling is that technological companies have received a special treatment by politicians and central banks. Some of those companies have broken labour laws and have not been held accountable. Of course they have evaded taxes. They are worse than Wall Street banks, but people have taken time to realise this.

 

[Luman]

If people do not have children, who will pay the pensions? Or who will pay taxes in the future, to finance public services?

If people do not have healthcare and they get sick, how are they going to work and pay taxes?

Most people face those issues in their lives, with the exception of some American billionaires, who are just exploiting the system and getting cheap money with cheap interest rates at the expense of others (savers, if there's still any in the US).

Everybody has access to healthcare in America, if they cannot afford it, the taxpayers foot the bill for them.

Where did you get the idea that our pensions are paid for by younger people? Private employers and the employees themselves pay for pensions, not taxpayers.

We have plenty of people already, to pay taxes, we don't need more.

I have a small pension which I worked for, investments and retirement account, and social security which I paid into my entire working life.

It is not my fault that many people, with little or no money, buy luxury items that they cannot afford, which they do not need, and go into debt. It's their own fault. And if they have too many children, which they cannot afford, that's not our problem - they will have to work and not expect the rest of us to pay for their hobby of creating babies.

 

[Ed209]

I think Bitcoin and crypto are speculative. I see it as a very risky option, I would not even call it an "investment", since it is pure speculation.

The reason I asked this question is that I find it interesting to hear people's opinions on this matter, especially when one doesn't agree with their government's fiscal policies and/or central banks' decisions.

I suppose going from saying it's fake money to saying it's speculative is somewhat of an upgraded opinion I think part of the problem is that your average Joe on the street really has no idea about money, and so it's quite easy for the banks - via the media - to manipulate the public opinion in regards to crypto. Unfortunately, people have their heads in the sand. Wages haven't changed in a realistic way for over 40 years, and yet, house prices and other meaningful assets have sky rocketed. The boomers could comfortably afford to buy a house with about a years' salary, for example. They could throw a dart at a board randomly marked up with stocks and bonds, invest in wherever it landed, and still make a ton of money. It was easy. Labour is now being replaced by technology, so jobs are being lost. The opportunities are just not available to the younger generations coming through. Our currencies are ballooning faster than the reported inflation rates because we can see the runaway effect it is having on various essential assets.

Blockchain technology is a massive disrupter to this stale industry. Financial systems have been notoriously stagnant for decades, and it's only now that the bankers are losing their minds trying to improve things because their hands have been forced. It's reactionary rather than pro-actionary, and the Millennials and other generations are tired of being dumped upon. Crypto has the potential to disrupt everything, not just our financial systems. You'll see that a lot of smart money is already flowing into it as it has the fastest adoption rate of any technology in human history. All investments are speculative, but I strongly believe that those who avoid putting a proportion of their portfolio into this sector will be kicking themselves when they see the ridiculous numbers that can be achieved. Raoul Pal once said that it will be the biggest redistribution of wealth we'll ever see.

We need solutions to the problems we are seeing otherwise we could be on the brink of a global financial collapse. Just my two cents.

 

[Juan]

We need solutions to the problems we are seeing otherwise we could be on the brink of a global financial collapse. Just my two cents.

I think central banks will just apply the classical solutions, and they should work: (i) tapering, and (ii) raising interest rates.

Just read this article on cryptocurrencies today, which talks about the prospect of being regulated and subjected to closer tax monitor and tax reporting:

The crypto crowd gets loud and proud on Capitol Hill | Financial Times (ft.com)

"The crypto crowd piped up as the US Senate was finishing work on President Joe Biden's $1tn infrastructure plan. In the days before the proposal passed on Tuesday, the debate stalled as the industry furiously protested tax reporting requirements being proposed for crypto "brokers" in the interest of helping to pay for all that upkeep."

It's baffling that governments are pretending they do not know where to get taxes from, or how to balance their public deficits, when the answer is so obvious:

- Taxing the technological companies
- Wealth tax for those billionaires
- Monitoring speculative investments and making sure taxes are paid

However, Biden just asked the EU to postpone the Google Tax, which has been debated for at least 5 years (yeah, those politicians in Brussels are really slow), because he, in theory, is now peddling this idea which is impossible to apply, the global corporation tax.

Things are simpler. Politicians and states have tools to fight tax evasion. They should just use them.

If the US can request extradition of a Huawei executive from Canada, alledging that Huawei somehow broke an international embargo on Iran (????), is the US president seriously saying he cannot grab Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and Zuckerberg and make them pay taxes?

Just think for a moment about the Huawei case... the US, a country like any other country, trying to enforce some far-fetched US created regulation (embargo on Iran, I think it was) on a Chinese citizen living in Canada. It looks like Canada, China, Iran are not sovereign countries in the US view, which can have their own laws and regulation... the thing is so ridiculous. Almost unbelievable.

And Biden does not know where to find the money for his absurd spending plan Just go to Silicon Valley and make them pay taxes!

 

[Juan]

Where did you get the idea that our pensions are paid for by younger people? Private employers and the employees themselves pay for pensions, not taxpayers.

In Europe they are.

It is not my fault that many people, with little or no money, buy luxury items that they cannot afford, which they do not need, and go into debt.

That's the idea in which the whole US economy is founded! Go tell the FED

 

[Ed209]

I think central banks will just apply the classical solutions, and they should work: (i) tapering, and (ii) raising interest rates.

Just read this article on cryptocurrencies today, which talks about the prospect of being regulated and subjected to closer tax monitor and tax reporting:

To be honest, so many of the articles that are pushed by the MSM are so wildly inaccurate at times that it's almost embarrassing. The louder they get, the more I take notice, because if crypto didn't represent a threat to the status quo and it really was useless, then they wouldn't bother reporting anything at all. It wouldn't be news worthy.

Fiat currencies around the world are in a right mess at the moment. National debts are so astronomical that there's no way they will ever be repaid. Their ongoing solution is to kick the can down the road; this has been going on for years and it's not sustainable.

The current governor of the Bank of England took the time to release a story to the press to say that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value . I thought it was hilarious, the outright hypocrisy. So, what he was saying is that their imaginary money, that they print out of thin air, has value, but Bitcoin doesn't? How does that work? The problem is that people are so uneducated on this matter that they eat those stories up. I believe you fell victim to this kind of reporting as well because last time we spoke you told me that Bitcoin was worthless because you couldn't spend it anywhere, and you then compared it to a crappy coupon that you could only use in certain stores. I pointed out that that was flat out wrong, and you didn't believe me. To me, this demonstrates how easily manipulated the public really are on this issue. It's fine to not understand something, but it's dangerous when people think they do when they absolutely don't.

I don't think it's a solvable situation (look at the history on this. Once currencies start getting debased, it never ends well). It will be a case of kicking the can down the road until it's no longer sustainable, and then you'll have a collapse. There's a strong case to be made that blockchain technology could take over and there could be a great reset. The issue I can see, though, is the power vacuum that would be created. How would that be resolved? It would be a problem. Either way, governments will soon be pushing their own centralised coins based on blockchain technology.

 

[Greg Sacramento]

There were, and still are, Welfare Queens, who have numerous children, usually with different fathers, who collect all kinds of benefits. Fortunately, since Reagan, the country has gotten fed up with this behavior and it has become far less prevalent than it was at that time.

When you have a job and are fired and replaced by a minority person simply because the government is subsidizing their pay, you will sing a different tune. When you have health care that is expensive, and a man like Obama takes it away and replaces it with something inferior, that you pay more for, while others get better help for free, you will sing a different tune. Unless, of course, you are independently wealthy and do not need health insurance. You will never understand these things because you're immune from them in a small, wealthy, socialistic country where the vast majority is white and taken care of. I've visited there, I have Dutch ancestry, but they do not understand American life, and are told a lot of left wing B.S. in their media, regarding America.

Too much is being spent on family leave and child care. Just because people want to pop out children like it's going out of style, the rest of us should not have to finance it or do twice as much work when pregnant women and new mothers have the right leave for extended periods.

I would kill this:

• $726 billion for the Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee with expansive instructions to address some of Democrats' top priorities. Those areas include universal pre-K for 3- and 4-year-olds, child care for working families, tuition-free community college, funding for historically black colleges and universities and an expansion of the Pell Grant for higher education.

I would use the $726 billion from the above, to better fund this:

• $198 billion for the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, including instructions largely related to clean energy development.

Agree with all, except I would use most of the $726 billion for the responsible working middle class that have been used and abused in every way possible, including taxes. I would care for those especially that don't have State and Federal insane pensions. Care for the working middle class that became disabled after paying high taxes during their lives.

 

[Juan]

To be honest, so many of the articles that are pushed by the MSM are so wildly inaccurate at times that it's almost embarrassing.

In Spanish we do not use many acronyms so I ended looking up MSM, which according to the search results could be "mainstream media" or "men who have sex with men"

if crypto didn't represent a threat to the status quo and it really was useless, then they wouldn't bother reporting anything at all.

Governments just want to tax it. Simple as that. It will be regulated because they want crypto taxed. Just another piece of info to see how unsophisticated tax filings are: in Spain there is not even a specific place to declare trading with index futures. There are general categories, but there is not even a specific category for something so simple.

When people are caught trading crypto or betting online etc... they are going to face huge fines here, as most of them do not declare that on their tax filings. It has to be included in any of the broad "investment" categories, but it is not clearly spelled out on the tax forms, so one would have to check with a tax adviser, and most of them would not know either.

I am still one of the "believers" that think that central banks could still do the right think, if they start tapering this autumn and raise interest rates next year. Or maybe it is more a hope than reality, since central banks are run by crooks and professional liars.

last time we spoke you told me that Bitcoin was worthless because you couldn't spend it anywhere, and you then compared it to a crappy coupon that you could only use in certain stores.

I still think it's a crappy coupon. A currency is basically a means of payment. I would not trade my hard earned euros for any crypto.

Anyone would think that if cryptocurrencies were such a great thing there would be no need to be peddling them everywhere, and constantly paying for publicity on the "MSM" (not men who have sex with men!)

 

[Ed209]

In Spanish we do not use many acronyms so I ended looking up MSM, which according to the search results could be "mainstream media" or "men who have sex with men"

That made me laugh I definitely meant the first one.

Governments just want to tax it. Simple as that. It will be regulated because they want crypto taxed. Just another piece of info to see how unsophisticated tax filings are: in Spain there is not even a specific place to declare trading with index futures. There are general categories, but there is not even a specific category for something so simple.

When people are caught trading crypto or betting online etc... they are going to face huge fines here, as most of them do not declare that on their tax filings. It has to be included in any of the broad "investment" categories, but it is not clearly spelled out on the tax forms, so one would have to check with a tax adviser, and most of them would not know either.

Yea, this has to happen. Regulation is coming and it's already begun.

I am still one of the "believers" that think that central banks could still do the right think, if they start tapering this autumn and raise interest rates next year. Or maybe it is more a hope than reality, since central banks are run by crooks and professional liars.

Fair enough. It's hard to say what will happen with any kind of certainty, so I respect your opinion. I just don't trust the banking system whatsoever. Crypto is still like the Wild West, but it's moving at a rapid rate. I think it will change a lot of things, like the supply chain industry, governance of documents like passports and driving licenses, the entertainment industry, the financial infrastructure, how data is shared, etc, etc. The scope is massive.

I still think it's a crappy coupon. A currency is basically a means of payment. I would not trade my hard earned euros for any crypto.

Anyone would think that if cryptocurrencies were such a great thing there would be no need to be peddling them everywhere, and constantly paying for publicity on the "MSM" (not men who have sex with men!)

You could make the same argument about many things, though. El Salvador will be using Bitcoin as their national currency along with the dollar. I don't necessarily think it's a good idea for them to do this, but it raises a point. What I'm trying to say is that your argument breaks down and I'll explain why. If I was to go to the US for a holiday, I'd have to exchange some of my pounds for dollars to use in their stores. I couldn't walk in with a £20 note and expect them to accept it. However, if I can get Visa or MasterCard to do the exchange for me, then I'm good to go. What this means is that enough people in the world accept that the pound has a value. This is why we have currency exchanges. I can spend Bitcoin in any store in the world in the same way. I wouldn't, because it's not a stablecoin; it's more like digital gold, so I personally wouldn't spend it in that way (but it doesn't mean that I can't).

Right now, I can directly spend any of these coins anywhere in the world (or exchange them for any other national currency):

It's all backed by Visa and I have a metal card in my wallet to spend on. I can also transact via PayPal.