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From a historical gambling perspective, betting on whoever the cleveland browns are playing might be a winning strategy for the upcoming 2018 season. The browns went 0-16 last year in 2017 (0 wins and 16 losses) and didn't do well in 2016. The same could be said of the 49'ers and other losing teams if they haven't changed too much in their lineups. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the patriots could be a good team to bet on if they're serious about playing this year.
Betting against the worst teams and with the best is the most obvious strategy, from my perspective.
I haven't kept up with draft picks or current events. I look forward to seeing how serious the Eagles are this year after pulling off an upset against the Patriots in 2017.
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What are the odds that we are really heading towards another financial crisis? The best time for an economic crisis is when people can't remember the cause of the last economic crisis. Enter the present. Few can cite contributing factors leading to the 2008 economic crisis. And perhaps fewer are aware toxic assets associated with subprime mortages and the housing bubble may have constituted approximately 15% of the liability bubble which demanded big bankers be bailed out to avoid filing for bankruptcy. Not many know the 1999 repeal of glass steagall may have removed legal regulation created after the great depression, designed to prevent economic crisis. Or that key portions of regulation could be broken and may never be repaired. The swiftness with which looming financial crisis around the world was generated could imply it was engineered. Like the tv show "I, Robot" someone may have intended to crash the world's financial/economic systems. Possibly to impose their own mandate and new world order. |
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As I remember it, trickle down economics date back to Bush being President, before Obama took office. Economists falsified fake research concluding the wealthy receiving exclusive tax cuts would constitute a benefit to civilization and society as the wealth "trickled" down the food chain from the wealthy and one percenters to everyone else. Of course its no secret many wealth individuals and enterprises hoard money. They're content to stockpile billions of dollars which are never redistributed towards producing jobs, benefiting the economy or producing tangible goods for society. Its not difficult to analyze the topic in a way which throws into question the effectiveness of the methodology.
This issue has become increasingly muddled and confused over the past decade. There's a lot of misinformation. The worst of it involves the media claiming Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump's tax policies are both offshoots of trickle down economics. It should be mentioned that trickle down economics gives greater tax cuts to the wealthy to shift the burden of taxes further onto the shoulders of the rich to middle class. The policies Reagan and Trump proposed are the opposite. They give greater tax cuts to the poor to middle class in order to shift the tax burden more firmly onto the shoulders of the wealthy.
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People say the dot com and tech bubbles popped but last I checked the majority of newly made millionaires and billionaires are involved in some type of tech or internet business. There are still many great opportunities and hot investments in tech even though investors aren't throwing ridiculous sums of money into random tech or internet start ups anymore. I can't say if facebook's stock decline is related to backlash from its recent surveillance expose. I think social media sites like livejournal, myspace and perhaps facebook have a set lifespan and potentially an expiration date. We do know that facebook chose to unblock advertisements related to crypto currencies and ICOs. That unblocking of crypto ads could represent a 1st indication facebook was in need and money and searching for ways to boost revenues to meet estimates. I thought snapchat's stock was overvalued when it opened near $20. Its down near $13 today. The market is so oversaturated with social media networks and private messaging apps. Perhaps it was time for a market correction. |
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Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency platform in the world, has seen its currency plummet 36% this year. But some major crypto investors think it has more room to fall, and they're betting aggressively against it.
New York-based Tetras Capital, a crypto hedge fund that launched last summer and is known for in-depth analyses of cryptocurrency prices, has shorted ether, borrowing the coins and hoping they tank so it can buy them back at a lower price. Tetras started shorting ether in May 2018, when the price ranged from $572 to $659. Ether currently hovers around $470.Last week, Tetras published a 41-page report explaining its reasoning. Forbes estimates the six-person hedge fund has $30 million in assets under management. The ether short is one of its two high-conviction positions—the other is its bitcoin investment, says founding partner Alex Sunnarborg. Timothy Young, a former entrepreneur who sold tech startup Socialcast for more than $100 million in 2011, is shorting ether through his San Francisco family office, Hidden Hand Capital. Hidden Hand has more than $100 million in crypto assets under management. And Bay Area hedge fund Neural Capital also has a short position, according to a person familiar with the matter.Ethereum aims to be a global computing platform, but investors like Tetras and Hidden Hand are concerned that its $48 billion market cap isn’t justified, largely because the network can only handle about 15 transactions per second. By contrast, Visa can handle 24,000 transactions per second. “Ethereum has an incredible talent pool of developers,” Young says. “In the long term, I think they’ll solve a lot of scaling challenges. But in the short term, there’s a disconnect between the price and underlying technology.” Sunnarborg agrees, saying, “Just because something is a good idea doesn’t mean it’s a good investment.” Ethereum isn’t controlled by a single company, and decentralized applications (DApps) run on top of it. None of these apps have more than 5,000 daily active users, yet the network is nearly at full capacity. Network congestion can cause the fees required to use the platform to skyrocket.For example, to perform a simple step in the Ethereum-based game CryptoKitties, where users can create digital memorabilia, it might cost $3. Those costs rose higher than $20 at the end of 2017. “An application call can be roughly 1 million times as expensive on Ethereum as compared to a centralized service like AWS [Amazon Web Services],” Tetras wrote in its report.Ethereum developers are working on several solutions to improve network capacity. The Tetras team thinks significant improvements are too far off. “The most optimistic estimates suggest that Ethereum’s Layer-2 and other broad scaling solutions will not be fully functional, tested, or capable of supporting the most popular DApps for roughly another two years,” Tetras’ report reads. Jake Brukhman, founder of Brooklyn-based crypto asset manager CoinFund, disagrees. He has been holding ether since July 2015, and the asset has historically made up between 20% and 42% of his firm’s first fund. Among Ethereum's nearer-term scaling solutions like “state channels,” which allow transactions to happen more quickly, off the Ethereum blockchain, “a ton of improvements are coming to market this year,” Brukhman says. “As a blockchain technology, Ethereum still remains the largest ecosystem of technologies, tools and developers.”
Some data suggests that few investors are closely monitoring Ethereum’s technological progress. Casper and Plasma are two technical updates that will help speed up Ethereum transactions. “Casper and Plasma publish their meetings, and they still have less than a few hundred views on YouTube,” Young says. “I don't think most people are either taking the time or have the technical background to really understand.”Other big-name investors are on the fence about ether. Kyle Samani, managing partner at Multicoin Capital, says he’s “seriously considering” shorting it, but is already betting against ripple and litecoin and isn’t ready to add more short exposure. Longtime crypto investor and CoinShares chief strategy officer Meltem Demirors is “neutral” on ether. “We are nowhere near a bear market yet,” she says, although she thinks demand for Ethereum-based tokens and applications is largely speculative. “In the absence of more Enterprise Ethereum Alliance announcements in 2018, I won’t look to add more exposure.” Tetras goes into many other reasons for its short in its report. Other well-funded Ethereum competitors like EOS, Dfinity and Tezos have recently come online or are planning to launch later this year. “EOS just raised $4 billion, and you can pay teams to build applications,” Sunnarborg says. “I don't think people with big bags [investments] are going to let that die.”
Tetras also thinks the ICO boom has driven ether’s price up, since many ICOs accepted only ether from interested investors. Those ICOs are at risk of a regulatory crackdown, “which will dry up most of ETH demand,” the report predicts.
Sunnarborg believes ether would need to become a better store-of-value asset to live up to its valuation. He sees bitcoin as the more likely winner as the top store-of-value crypto asset, due to “crucial characteristics, including: security, political and architectural centralization, monetary supply, regulation, and liquidity,” he says.What would it take for Tetras to change its mind and exit its short? “If Vitalik and Vlad came out tomorrow and said, ‘In our sleep we developed the perfect sharding [scaling] solution,’ we might change our view,” Sunnarborg says. Or if a regulatory ruling gave Ethereum a competitive advantage—for example, if other platforms like NEO or Dfinity were classified as securities—he would rethink the position. He doesn’t see the SEC’s recent statement that Ethereum isn’t a security as an indicator of a competitive advantage, because the ICOs that launched on top of Ethereum are still at risk of being deemed securities. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2018/07/25/why-major-cryptocurrency-investors-are-betting-heavily-against-ethereum/ .... Some interesting analysis and breakdowns on ethereum's platform. The majority of ethereum content posted on this forum is pro eth. There isn't much said on eth from the opposite perspective and so I hope people will not mind me sharing this. I tried to bold most of the relevent points but tbh the whole thing could be worth reading for anyone interested in these topics. It looks as if the majority of investors are shorting ethereum under the expectation that it is overvalued and overpriced. They could majority wise expect the price to decrease. Over the short term that could be the trend we'll see, especially if a majority of larger institutional investors have formed a consensus on this. Note how the quoted portions attempt to support their stance with facts and analysis. I think this attempt @ a rational overview is what was missing from the "bitcoin is a bubble" and "bitcoin is a tool for criminal and money launderers" hysteria which pervaded the media awhile ago. Could be something to consider in the days to come when media stories are aired without much if any attempt at verification. |
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Hackers used phishing emails to break into a Virginia bank in two separate cyber intrusions over an eight-month period, making off with more than $2.4 million total. Now the financial institution is suing its insurance provider for refusing to fully cover the losses. According to a lawsuit filed last month in the Western District of Virginia, the first heist took place in late May 2016, after an employee at The National Bank of Blacksburg fell victim to a targeted phishing email. The email allowed the intruders to install malware on the victim’s PC and to compromise a second computer at the bank that had access to the STAR Network, a system run by financial industry giant First Data that the bank uses to handle debit card transactions for customers. That second computer had the ability to manage National Bank customer accounts and their use of ATMs and bank cards. Armed with this access, the bank says, hackers were able to disable and alter anti-theft and anti-fraud protections, such as 4-digit personal identification numbers (PINs), daily withdrawal limits, daily debit card usage limits, and fraud score protections. National Bank said the first breach began Saturday, May 28, 2016 and continued through the following Monday. Normally, the bank would be open on a Monday, but that particular Monday was Memorial Day, a federal holiday in the United States. The hackers used hundreds of ATMs across North America to dispense funds from customer accounts. All told, the perpetrators stole more than $569,000 in that incident. Following the 2016 breach, National Bank hired cybersecurity forensics firm Foregenix to investigate. The company determined the hacking tools and activity appeared to come from Russian-based Internet addresses. In June of 2016, National Bank implemented additional security protocols, as recommended by FirstData. These protocols are known as “velocity rules” and were put in place to help the bank flag specific types of repeated transaction patterns that happen within a short period of time But just eight months later — in January 2017 according to the lawsuit — hackers broke in to the bank’s systems once more, again gaining access to the financial institution’s systems via a phishing email. This time not only did the intruders regain access to the bank’s STAR Network, they also managed to compromise a workstation that had access to Navigator, which is software used by National Bank to manage credits and debits to customer accounts. Prior to executing the second heist, the hackers used the bank’s Navigator system to fraudulently credit more than $2 million to various National Bank accounts. As with the first incident, the intruders executed their heist on a weekend. Between Jan. 7 and 9, 2017, the hackers modified or removed critical security controls and withdrew the fraudulent credits using hundreds of ATMs. All the while, the intruders used the bank’s systems to actively monitor customer accounts from which the funds were being withdrawn. At the conclusion of the 2017 heist, the hackers used their access to delete evidence of fraudulent debits from customer accounts. The bank’s total reported loss from that breach was $1,833,984. Verizon was hired to investigate the 2017 attack, and according to the bank Verizon’s forensics experts concluded that the tools and servers used by the hackers were of Russian origin. The lawsuit notes the company determined that it was likely the same group of attackers responsible for both intrusions. Verizon also told the bank that the malware the attackers used to gain their initial foothold at the bank in the 2017 breach was embedded in a booby-trapped Microsoft Word document. THE LAWSUIT In its lawsuit (PDF), National Bank says it had an insurance policy with Everest National Insurance Company for two types of coverage or “riders” to protect it against cybercrime losses. The first was a “computer and electronic crime” (C&E) rider that had a single loss limit liability of $8 million, with a $125,000 deductible. The second was a “debit card rider” which provided coverage for losses which result directly from the use of lost, stolen or altered debit cards or counterfeit cards. That policy has a single loss limit of liability of $50,000, with a $25,000 deductible and an aggregate limit of $250,000. According to the lawsuit, in June 2018 Everest determined both the 2016 and 2017 breaches were covered exclusively by the debit card rider, and not the $8 million C&E rider. The insurance company said the bank could not recover lost funds under the C&E rider because of two “exclusions” in that rider which spell out circumstances under which the insurer will not provide reimbursement. The first of those exclusions rules out coverage for any loss “resulting directly or indirectly from the use or purported use of credit, debit, charge, access, convenience, or other cards . . . (1) in obtaining credit or funds, or (2) in gaining access to automated mechanical devices which, on behalf of the Insured, disburse Money, accept deposits, cash checks, drafts or similar Written instruments or make credit card loans . . ..” The second exclusion in the C&E rider negates coverage for “loss involving automated mechanical devices which, on behalf of the Insured, disburse Money, accept deposits, cash checks, drafts or similar Written instruments or make credit card loans . . ..” “In its Coverage Determination, Everest further determined that the 2016 Intrusion and the 2017 Intrusion were a single event, and thus, pursuant to the Debit Card Rider, National Bank’s total coverage under the Bond was $50,000.00 for both intrusions,” the bank said in its lawsuit. Everest National Insurance Company did not respond to requests for comment. But on July 20 it filed a response (PDF) to the bank’s claims, alleging that National Bank has not accurately characterized the terms of its coverage or fully explained the basis for Everest’s coverage decision. Charisse Castagnoli, an adjunct professor with The John Marshall Law School, said the bank’s claim appears to be based on a legal concept known as “proximate cause,” a claim that usually includes the telltale term “but for,” as this lawsuit does throughout. “Proximate cause tries to get at where’s the legal liability associated with the original element that caused the loss,” Castagnoli said. “Take the example of a car crash victim whose master cylinder in the vehicle ran out of fluid and as a result the driver ran a red light and hit another car. The driver at fault might make the claim in a lawsuit against the car maker ‘but for your failure to manufacture this part correctly, this accident wouldn’t have occurred.'” In this case, Castagnoli said what the bank seems to be claiming is that the Debit Card Rider shouldn’t apply because — but for the computer hacking — the losses wouldn’t have occurred. Indeed, the bank’s lawsuit claims: “All losses related to the 2017 Intrusion were the result of and would not have been possible but for the hacking of National Bank’s Computer Systems which resulted in the entering or changing of Electronic Data and Computer Programs within the Computer Systems.” “Therefore, even though the losses were physically sustained through ATM extractions, the Debit Card Rider limits shouldn’t apply because that kind of a rider doesn’t contemplate the dynamic changes in credit limits, and overrides of fraud monitoring, were only possible through computer hacking to which the C&E Rider should apply,” Castagnoli explained. The bank’s complaint against Everest notes that the financial institution doesn’t yet know for sure how the thieves involved in the 2017 breach extracted funds. In previous such schemes (known as “unlimited cashouts“), the fraudsters orchestrating the intrusion recruit armies of “money mules” — usually street criminals who are given cloned debit cards and stolen or fabricated PINs along with instructions on where and when to withdraw funds. Castagnoli said establishing and proving these fine lines of proximate cause can be very difficult in insurance claims. “While it is fairly easy to write a policy around data breach liability, when it comes to actual intrusions and managing intrusions, it’s a wild wild west,” she said. “The policies and definitions they use are not consistent across carriers.” Castagnoli advises companies contemplating cyber insurance policies to closely scrutinize their policies and riders, and find an expert who can help craft a policy that is tailored for the insured. “The serious brokers who are out there selling cyber insurance all say the same thing: Have an expert help you to write your policy,” she said. “It’s mind-numbingly complicated and we don’t have standard language in insurance policies that help insurance clients decide what policy is right for them.” She added that although there have been a handful of cases where cyber insurance providers have denied coverage to the insured, most of those disputes have been settled out of court. “This is a rapidly growing area and a profit center for a lot of insurance companies,” Castagnoli said. “But there is not a lot of published case law on this, and you have to wonder if something public comes out like this what it’s going to do to the reputation of the industry.” https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/07/hackers-breached-virginia-bank-twice-in-eight-months-stole-2-4m/.... Here's an interesting story not so different from bitcoin exchanges being hacked in 2018. I think this case wouldn't have made the news if there wasn't a legal dispute between the bank and their insurance company. The bank has an $8 million insurance policy & needs $2.4 million in insurance to cover their losses. The insurance company wants to pay them only $50,000. Statistically its been said that phishing is the number #1 method utilized in funds being stolen from ICO's. Here too this bank in virginia was targeted via phishing not once but twice in 2016 and 2017. It looks as if phishing is the go to favored method for security intrusions and breaches in this day and age with even banks succumbing to it. I know that some look @ crypto exchanges being hacked and believe them to be amateurish and subpar in their security measures. Interestingly it looks as if banks aren't necesssarily better off. |
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I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.
-Warren Buffet I don't know how I feel about that quotation. Warren Buffett didn't invent that concept or mentality. Its a fundamental observation many investors, traders and businessman have repeated over the centuries. Some of the best investment opportunities were to be found during the crisis of 2008 when bank stocks were severely underpriced--before the bailout bill was announced. Bitcoin would have been a good investment around 2014 when silk road was closed and china cracked down on exchanges. The idea that opportunities abound under circumstances where people are fearful like the 2008 crisis or bitcoin's 2014-esque crash is a common theme throughout history. AFAIK Buffett made his fortune utilizing long term HODL investment strategies based on market and business fundamentals. He wasn't someone to make spur of the moment deals or profit from times when the market was at its lowest and future prospects were bleak. What happens when people are both greedy and fearful? That's a question which interests me. It could be something to be answer in order to accurately anticipate which direction markets and economies are headed. |
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The UK pays billions more in tax revenue towards the european union in contrast to whatever monetary or fiscal benefits the european union provides the UK with. The EU wants the money the UK pays it to enable its mandate of empowering failed bureaucracies of nations like greece who are a drain on the EU and remain unable to address fundamental economic issues to eventually pave the way towards economic prosperity. I think the UK at this point realizes bleeding funds to prop up the dysfunctional status quos of nations with failed economies like greece isn't sustainable over the long term. How that conflict is resolved could have dire consequences for the EU and its longevity.
All other issues with high personal debt and increasing cost of living offset by stagnant wages can be traced back to overprinting of fiat currency and wealth/wage inequalities. Venezuela, turkey, argentina and similar nations are crashing their economies under a burden of fiat overprinting, which will likely lead to hyperinflation over the long term. The united states, china, european union and other nations who are overprinting fiat carry a potential to do to their own economies what venezuela has done. The potential is always there if circumstances aren't addressed.
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I haven't been particularly active in either crypto or stocks.
My view is markets denominated in fiat currencies aren't as lucrative investment opportunities as they used to be. Markets are becoming more centralized and monopolistic which deters the type of growth necessary for significant ROI. Regulation over the last decade has restricted the growth and credit of small businesses which makes it less likely for small startups to rival the historical growth displayed by google, amazon or apple.
Crypto could be the better overall investment with higher growth potential and perhaps higher potential profit ROI. The lack of regulation in crypto with deregulated markets could contribute towards producing the type of growth stock markets are known for but not structured towards producing in this day and age.
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Bitcoin is like Blade, the vampire/human hybrid who slays vampires. Bitcoin is similar to a hybrid between gold and credit cards. It has most of the strengths of both, with none of their weaknesses. An example of this is bitcoin having more intrinsic value than a credit card due to it being deflationary and algorithmically printed. This guarantees responsible and ethical production of funds which cannot be hyperinflated. This form of intrinsic value represent traits historically associated with gold. On the opposite end of the spectrum, bitcoin can conduct electronic transactions via point and click operations similar to credit cards. This ease of use and convenience represents traits historically associated with wire transfers and credit cards. Bitcoin thus represents the best of both worlds with very few if any of their limitations. It has the intrinsic value of gold without the physical constraints or difficulties of storing gold or using it to conduct transactions. And the speed and convenient user experience of credit cards without their lack of intrinsic value. Anyways, I was trying to think of a way of communicating bitcoin's features within a decent marketing framework that would allow it to connect better with the general public. And this silly idea is the best I could come up with.  |
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I disagree with large corporations like mastercard being awarded crypto patents.
Patents can be utilized to repress technology. Oil companies owning the patents to nickel metal hydride batteries and repressing battery technology is one main reason why electric cars did not become mainstream until after lithium battery technology was developed. In that instance the patenting process stalled innovation and progress on electrically powered vehicles for literal decades.
There is a potential for mastercard or another financial institution to repress crypto technology by being awarded patents which grant them exclusive use over the technology then opting not to do anything with the technology for the next 20 years. If anyone used the crypto technology covered by their patent, they could sue them in court and they would win.
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.... Well, imagine if you had a degree in economics. Where would you find a job or someone willing to pay for your services? I think a good chunk of economics jobs are offered by banks, hedge funds, investment firms -- institutional finance. Now imagine you're an economist and you say good things about bitcoin publicly. Your remarks conflict with the views of your boss who is a banker. He fires you. All of the banks that are likely to hire you as an economist refuse to give you a job as you're the only "pro bitcoin" economist in the country and they decide to make an example out of you. Maybe you see where I'm going with this? Anyways, there aren't many independent economists in the world who aren't employed banks or institutional finance. And independent economists who are likely to be honest about bitcoin are never given a media platform where their words are likely to reach many ears. And so it could be safe to say that the only thing about bitcoin economists are saying are what their banker and institutional finance bosses want them to say? If that's a fair analysis. |
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Banks are closing ATMs and branches in an attempt to ‘nudge’ users towards digital services – and it’s all for their own benefitAll over the western world banks are shutting down cash machines and branches. They are trying to push you into using their digital payments and digital banking infrastructure. Just like Google wants everyone to access and navigate the broader internet via its privately controlled search portal, so financial institutions want everyone to access and navigate the broader economy through their systems. Another aim is to cut costs in order to boost profits. Branches require staff. Replacing them with standardised self-service apps allows the senior managers of financial institutions to directly control and monitor interactions with customers. Banks, of course, tell us a different story about why they do this. I recently got a letter from my bank telling me that they are shutting down local branches because “customers are turning to digital”, and they are thus “responding to changing customer preferences”. I am one of the customers they are referring to, but I never asked them to shut down the branches. There is a feedback loop going on here. In closing down their branches, or withdrawing their cash machines, they make it harder for me to use those services. I am much more likely to “choose” a digital option if the banks deliberately make it harder for me to choose a non-digital option. In behavioural economics this is referred to as “nudging”. If a powerful institution wants to make people choose a certain thing, the best strategy is to make it difficult to choose the alternative. We can illustrate this with the example of self-checkout tills at supermarkets. The underlying agenda is to replace checkout staff with self-service machines to cut costs. But supermarkets have to convince their customers. They thus initially present self-checkout as a convenient alternative. When some people then use that alternative, the supermarket can cite that as evidence of a change in customer behaviour, which they then use to justify a reduction in checkout employees. This in turn makes it more inconvenient to use the checkout staff, which in turn makes customers more likely to use the machines. They slowly wean you off staff, and “nudge” you towards self-service. Financial institutions, likewise, are trying to nudge us towards a cashless society and digital banking. The true motive is corporate profit. Payments companies such as Visa and Mastercard want to increase the volume of digital payments services they sell, while banks want to cut costs. The nudge requires two parts. First, they must increase the inconvenience of cash, ATMs and branches. Second, they must vigorously promote the alternative. They seek to make people “learn” that they want digital, and then “choose” it.
We can learn from the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci in this regard. His concept of hegemony referred to the way in which powerful parties condition the cultural and economic environment in such a way that their interests begin to be perceived as natural and inevitable by the general public. Nobody was on the streets shouting for digital payment 20 years ago, but increasingly it seems obvious and “natural” that it should take over. That belief does not come from nowhere. It is the direct result of a hegemonic project on the part of financial institutions.We can also learn from Louis Althusser’s concept of interpellation. The basic idea is that you can get people to internalise beliefs by addressing them as if they already had those beliefs. Twenty years ago nobody believed that cash was “inconvenient”, but every time I walk into London Underground I see adverts that address me as if I was a person who finds cash inconvenient. The objective is to reverse-engineer a belief within me that it is inconvenient, and that cashlessness is in my interests. But a cashless society is not in your interest. It is in the interest of banks and payments companies. Their job is to make you believe that it is in your interest too, and they are succeeding in doing that. The recent Visa chaos, during which millions of people who have become dependent on digital payment suddenly found themselves stranded when the monopolistic payment network crashed, was a temporary setback. Digital systems may be “convenient”, but they often come with central points of failure. Cash, on the other hand, does not crash. It does not rely on external data centres, and is not subject to remote control or remote monitoring. The cash system allows for an unmonitored “off the grid” space. This is also the reason why financial institutions and financial technology companies want to get rid of it. Cash transactions are outside the net that such institutions cast to harvest fees and data.
A cashless society brings dangers. People without bank accounts will find themselves further marginalised, disenfranchised from the cash infrastructure that previously supported them. There are also poorly understood psychological implications about cash encouraging self-control while paying by card or a mobile phone can encourage spending. And a cashless society has major surveillance implications.Despite this, we see an alignment between government and financial institutions. The Treasury recently held a public consultation on cash and digital payments in the new economy. It presented itself as attempting to strike a balance, noting that cash was still important. But years of subtle lobbying by the financial industry have clearly paid off. The call for evidence repeatedly notes the negative elements of cash – associating it with crime and tax evasion – but barely mentions the negative implications of digital payments.The UK government has chosen to champion the digital financial services industry. This is irresponsible and disingenuous. We need to stop accepting stories about the cashless society and hyper-digital banking being “natural progress”. We must recognise every cash machine that is shut down as another step in financial institutions’ campaign to nudge you into their digital enclosures.https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/19/cashless-society-con-big-finance-banks-closing-atms .... A different perspective on "cashless societies". There haven't been updates on india's "war against cash" that I know of. Not ones which have been publicized. I suspect the reason for this involves every negative point made in this article about cashless societies being accurate. If we're lucky, nations other than india will not attempt to replicate the poor policy made there by waging an economically damaging war against paper money. |
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President Trump defended Google — "one of our great companies" — after the European Union hammered the search giant with a $5 billion fine for abusing the dominance of its mobile operating system, Android.Why it matters: Silicon Valley has not been a friend of Trump's. Google execs have spoken out about his administration's policies and its employee base is largely liberal. But for all the speculation that the Trump administration has contempt for Big Tech — especially Amazon — he appears to dislike the EU's actions aggressive actions even more.  https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1019932691339399168Be smart... As Axios' Sara Fischer points out: "In defending Google, it makes it more clear that Trump’s aggressive attitude towards Amazon’s dominance is targeted, likely due to its ownership by Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post." The big picture, per Axios' David McCabe: "Policy concerns about the bloc’s regulatory action toward U.S. tech companies go beyond Trump. For example, in 2015, Barack Obama said the EU’s aggressive position towards tech was an attempt to level the playing field for European companies who otherwise couldn’t compete with American rivals."https://www.axios.com/trump-defends-google-european-union-fine-7885deda-df09-4eee-af1d-319bd206a47d.html .... Looks as if google may not pay the EU fine after all. If google deserves to be fined for having a monopoly over search engines then do banks and credit card companies likewise deserve to be fined for having virtual monopolies over massive portions of electronic payment services? In 2015, Barack Obama accused the EU's aggressive targeting of tech sector giants like google & microsoft as protectionism of the EU tech industry who otherwise "wouldn't be able to compete". In a perfect world google would buy $5 billion worth of bitcoin and offer the EU a $5 billion dollar loan when the price of 1 bitcoin reaches $15,000 and the euro further inflates due to EU overprinting. |
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Reminder, UFC Fight Night Mauricio "Shogun" Rua vs Anthony "Lionheart" Smith is live around 8-10 hours earlier than normal this sunday morning for US residents.
Maurício Rua vs. Anthony Smith
Glover Teixeira vs. Corey Anderson
Vitor Miranda vs. Abu Azaitar
Marcin Tybura vs. Stefan Struve
Danny Roberts vs. David Zawada
Nasrat Haqparast vs. Marc Diakiese
Nick Hein vs. Damir Hadžović
Emil Weber Meek vs. Bartosz Fabiński
Khalid Taha vs. Nad Narimani
Justin Ledet vs. Aleksandar Rakić
Davey Grant vs. Manny Bermudez
Jeremy Kimball vs. Darko Stošić
Damian Stasiak vs. Liu Pingyuan
Dana White's "Contender" series has also been airing on tuesdays.
Not much news in MMA. Looks like Valentina Shevchenko and Nicco Montano will fight for the 125 lb title. Tyron Woodley and Colby Covington are supposed to fight for the 170 title later this year. Khabib Nurmagomedov isn't fighting until after ramadan. Max Holloway is being checked out by doctors to figure out what his health condition is. The UFC didn't pay Brian Ortega anything as he didn't fight Jeremy Stephens on short notice. Brendan Schaub and Dana White got into a twitter beef. Conor McGregor met Vladimir Putin in russia. Etc.
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$25 for an uber ride? $50 round trip?  How much do they charge per mile/kilometer?  Maybe I've been living under a rock but that sounds crazy to me. Cool story. I didn't realize you lived in vegas or near to a place where gambling is legal enough to be savvy @ house games. Is it based on a true story or personal experience? Also how has MMA betting been going for you? I have not seen you post in any of the recent UFC threads for awhile. I've never been to Vegas but it could be cool to visit someday to gamble on MMA etc. |
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Some political deals involving large sums of fiat could be money laundering schemes in disguise.
A politician could conspire with the private sector to funnel taxpayer funding into an innocuous seeming project(like 275 buses). The politician and bus supplier could split the money. (Perhaps this is similar if not identical to how some shady ICOs scam people out of their investment money.) There are offshore tax havens which hide these types of large, illegal, transactions & hold sums of money in trust (perhaps as leverage against political figures). Profiteering may sometimes be a main motive behind state projects which don't make sense. Detectives say: "follow the money" and the motive will often be revealed. It is sad how often that could be true.
Its also worth noting corruption and bribery become more difficult under a financial system utilizing an open public ledger like bitcoin. Perhaps we have found yet another reason to use bitcoin: cut down on bribery and corruption in politics.
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I hate to be negative on blockchain. But there is a chance blockchain "trust less" software applications could kill many jobs similar to how kiosk machines @ McDonald's are currently doing. That could be a big part of the reason why bankers and governments are so high on the technology. They know it'll allow them to fire many workers over the long term and replace them with blockchain robots.
A single person with a blockchain wallet could technically start and operate their own bank, send money across borders to make loans and collect payments. They could achieve all of this functionality on their own without hiring a single employee. That could be one of the key points of blockchain technology--it eliminates workers and middle men.
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well yeah , I'm not inviting for people to follow other guys blindly but it would be nice to see professional gamblers here as well
the point is to discuss different matters , not only following what the other guys say and maybe sharing some arbitrage in case one of the guys find it Most of the arbitrage opportunities I know of were misprints or typos. An example of this is the Yankees being a +400 underdog with the Astros being -500 favorites on one book and another book accidentally reversing the odds with the Astros being +400 underdogs and the Yankees being -500 favorites. That would make it easy for someone to arbitrage bet $100 on the Yankees as +400 underdogs on one book and $100 on the +400 Astros on another book to guarantee they profit no matter which team wins. I think those types of bets are normally not honored and would be cancelled. There are hedge bets available off of betting props. Parlays/accumulators can be another form of hedging. Pure arbitrage could be a bit rare in betting afaik. I'm not certain you would ever find one but good luck.  |
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