There is, and has been, a misconception about the economics of free things for a long while now, this movement or ideology started from the premise of government hand-outs to the least economically developed citizens. When we do talk about the economics of free things(which is rarely) we usually associate it with the idea that it involves a regulatory central agency distributing the wealth amongst its people. However when it come to the free market this type of leniency is not available at all. Day to day people don't have access to stocks or derivative markets for example, and that helps to increase the gap between the rich and the poor(which in turn requires the intervention of the aforementioned central authority). New technologies however provide an opportunity for this gap to be closed. When a technology is in its infancy the interest for its development and widespread adoption from the creators is big enough to try and exchange portions of the value of their product for market depth. Put in other words and in regards to token economics, ICO's are so desperate for the widespread use and adoption of their product that they will literally give away portions of the participation of their product, in the form of tokens, in exchange for network effects and market depth. We now have an interesting concept formed from this: airdrops and the difficulty that this companies are going to have to achieve their desired market depth. The question then is:
How could some profit from the economy of free things, and what would the reaction to this opportunity, by the general public, be? I guess one potential method of profit is invoked by the permaculture and off grid movement. At some point productivity and technology could advance to being able to support greater than subsistence level standards of living with a minimal effort. The cost of living and travel could decrease to a point where that value could be produced relatively for free, without a big sacrifice of time and effort in the form of work or having a job being necessary to support oneself or ones family. An example might be the cost per watt of solar panels decreasing to a point where electricity becomes plentiful and cheap. The improvement of 3d printers and CNC manufacturing machines becoming low enough for people to produce their own products which could in turn decrease manufacturing costs to a point where goods become extremely affordable. Basically a reversal to the trend we've seen where wages have flatlined while the cost of food, energy, goods services, etc, have become inflated. Also the trend of off grid living where people have strove to be more independent and self sufficient could reduce labor pools in job markets and have an eventual net effect of raising wages again, as employees have greater difficulty finding workers. Of course, some of these things might not occur for centuries if they happen at all. But any type of positive trend which shows people the raw potential for improvement or what avenues might lead to better living standards could go a long way given how many have lost hope in existing institutions and leaders to provide for them. |
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4:20. Could be someone selling weed out of their local high school.  Is this how the former drug dealers out of silk road 2.0 and alpha bay are selling their wares now that many of those deep web drug markets have been shut down? There could be something similar happening with prostitutes who advertised on backpage and craigslist moving towards snapchat and social media to advertise their services. Also could be law enforcement running a sting. "Hi, do you want to buy weed." Then people get arrested when they show up expecting to buy their 4.20.  |
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I guess I should have outright said in my notes that I thought Ben Saunders and Sijara Eubanks would win.  Don't want to make predictions or have anyone tailing me, unless I'm 99.9% certain I'm going to win. I'm for one am excited to see CM Punk fight in the UFC again. Some are saying he doesn't deserve it and shouldn't be in the UFC but if he can cut the weight (which many UFC fighters seem unable to do) and bring more attention and fans to the sport, I don't understand what people have to complain about. Some claim that mixed martial arts fighters should be paid more and receive more exposure. Well, having cross over promotion like CM Punk fight in the UFC is how you get higher paid MMA and more exposure for the sport. So I don't understand why people are hating on the thing that is most likely to take the sport to the place where people want it to be. It is sadly, a bit backwards. Didn't have much confidence going into this event but somehow nearly all of my picks turned out to be correct. |
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Wage theft—employers’ failure to pay workers money they are legally entitled to—affects far more people than more well-known and feared forms of theft such as bank robberies, convenience store robberies, street and highway robberies, and gas station robberies. Employers steal billions of dollars from their employees each year by working them off the clock, by failing to pay the minimum wage, or by cheating them of overtime pay they have a right to receive. Survey research shows that well over two-thirds of low-wage workers have been the victims of wage theft. In 2012, there were 292,074 robberies of all kinds, including bank robberies, residential robberies, convenience store and gas station robberies, and street robberies. The total value of the property taken in those crimes was $340,850,358. By contrast, the total amount recovered for the victims of wage theft who retained private lawyers or complained to federal or state agencies was at least $933 million in 2012. This is almost three times greater than all the money stolen in robberies that year. Further, the nearly $1 billion successfully reclaimed by workers is only the tip of the wage-theft iceberg, since most victims never sue and never complain to the government.  Nevertheless, few local governments have any resources to combat wage theft, and several states have cut their labor department’s, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation. To learn more about the devastating costs of wage theft for America’s workers and ways to combat it, see EPI’s report An Epidemic of Wage Theft Is Costing Workers Hundreds of Millions of Dollars a Year. https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-bigger-problem-forms-theft-workers/Here is one area where blockchain based software applications could have potential--to cut down on wage theft. The number of hours an employee works could be coupled with the wages they're paid inside a blockchain to make the information difficult to falsify. This could help with cases where wage theft occurs. Although to be 100% honest, wage theft could be too widespread and standard a practice to be defeated at the software level. There could be a real need for state regulated push made to penalize employers for these illicit practices in order for anything else to be mildly effective. I would be interested to know whether nefarious practices like wage theft are becoming more common, in peoples experience? The most obvious and publicized example could be employees in the gaming industry not being paid for overtime. EA games was sued more than once for this. Supposedly its extremely common in the game development industry. But I have not heard about it much in other aspects of life. I think this is an area which could be publicized more and given more attention. |
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Very cool.
That might be the best method I've seen to purchase real estate or cars via bitcoin / crypto.
If anyone does it and has a positive experience please blog it or document the process to make it easier for others to replicate your success. This type of support is excellent and perhaps exactly the type of grassroots level support bitcoin needs to grow and appreciate in value.
I would guess there are a few scams out there & so caveat emptor(buyer beware). Would be interested to know how craiglists crypto support compares to localbitcoins and similar markets. For those who run bitcoin websites please cover some of this material.
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The media appears to have an unlimited supply of "news stories" to depress the value of btc and crypto currencies everytime the price begins to appreciate in value. Some say bitcoin is banned in china and india. Others say bitcoin is not banned in those places. I'm not 100% certain if bitcoin is banned in either of those places, but I do know news of it being "banned" is likely to push the value of bitcoin down.
One of the recent declines came after news of india "banning" bitcoin.
Perhaps the media is the largest opposition to bitcoin's price appreciating as expected. We have a wrestling match between journalists and btc. Hopefully as time passes people will catch on to how the media is one of the biggest causes of market manipulation and negative news sentiment will have a reduced effect.
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No good notes for this card. The info tokeweed posted on some taking fights on late notice could be some of the best info available here. Some fights @ this event could be difficult to call due to many of the fighters on it being inconsistent. Example of this is Nik Lentz. Sometimes he looks terrible, other times he looks great. Its tough to know which version of him will show up.
Main event should be good if nothing else.
-I dislike Murphy. On the ultimate fighter, Eddie Alvarez said Lauren Murphy might not have what it takes to make it in the UFC and rather than take it as constructive criticism, Murphy was super offended as if she was going to not sleep for 7 days or nights plotting revenge. I think Murphy has a bad attitude. On top of that she trains out of MMA Lab which could be one of the worst big name MMA gyms in the world. MMA Lab fighters are good fade material a lot of the time. I haven't kept track of statistics but its possible their win / loss record can be as bad as 4 wins and 12 losses during the times they're doing poorly. Also if you look at some of their fighters like John Moraga, sometimes the only time they have a career resurgence or comeback is when they leave MMA Lab and train out of the UFC performance institute or move to a different gym. Of course the overall level of competition in woman's MMA is often lower so maybe Murphy has a chance. But there are a few things that are against her.
-The biggest weakness in Ellenberger's game are those mental lapses he has where he freezes up in the middle of fights. Its almost like he has wartime flashbacks(being a former marine) in the middle of his fights which lead to him being submitted or KO'ed. Ellenberger was beating Kelvin Gastelum handily. In the middle of the fight Ellenberger froze in a scramble, allowing Gastelum to take his back and get the choke(with no resistance offered on Ellenberger's part IIRC). That was probably the most obvious time where something like that might have happened. Similar things might have happened the times Ellenberger got KO'ed/TKO'ed. TBH I don't remember 100%.
Nothing about this card really sticks out, which makes things tough to anticipate.
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Interestingly enough, the creation of the world currency has been mentioned for over 30 years in The Economist, which belongs to the Rothschilds "World currency" may not be the best terminology. "A monopoly over the entire world's money supply." "A centralized market of currency, bankers like the Rothschilds have 100% control & ownership over, with no competition." It may help to know one world currencies and one world governments have a few things in common. Imagine the entire world is owned and controlled by a single government, which has all of the power. And this single government has full control over the only currency utilized in the entire world. The keyword with this arrangement may be: control. This type of centralization of currency and state makes it easier for a shift towards totalitarian rule. But it could have significant drawbacks in terms of centralized control being a very poor format for producing innovation/progress/etc. Under a totalitarian rule, these and many other types of free market innovations do not occur:  |
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I don't understand why many analysts are predicting economic doom for the united states when europe and neighboring states are probably in far worse shape. Not much mention of european economies being bad, with banks lacking liquidity and still needing to be bailed out by the federal reserve in 2017/2018.
The US economy is actually doing good. The main issue we have is budget growth and spending increases. Some budget hikes may be necessary to maintain infrastructure which has been neglected over the last few decades. There could also be issues with america's nuclear arsenal not being maintained or updated in a long time, which could put america at a disadvantage against russia which has been developing new ICBM's and missiles.
As usual the media demonizes bitcoin labeling it a "safe haven" for money launderers, terrorists, criminals and other shady people--while ignoring all of the real money launderers and criminals. And as usual the media hypes up the US economy as being on the verge of collapse while ignoring all of the real economic dangers lurking elsewhere in european countries.
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Recently, bloomberg and some other cryptocurrency media channel published a news that they have information from the sources in indian govt. that government is planning to apply 18% GST on bitcoin purchasing.
it means people are still buying and trading on cryptocurrencies in india and it is in knowledge of indian govt.
so the govt. is now wants earn from the bitcoin buy sell,
another point of concern is that if the govt. apply the GST on bitcoin buying then to the indian people it would be paying double tax while trading, once when they are buying and later when selling as incometax,
so what do you think, being hard on cryptocurrency trading, now govt. looking for taxation on buying of cryptocurrencies, is it possible in coming time gov. may lift the ban on cryptocurrencies in india?
India is somewhat unique in ways. For one it has waged a war against paper money to invoke a demonetization scheme. An 18% general sales tax(?) on bitcoin could be unfair if other electronic transaction methods aren't taxed @ similar rates. It could make transactions in bitcoin more expensive than transactions utilizing alternative electronic payment methods which could put bitcoin @ at disadvantage. I think demonetization is a mistake and bitcoin is best suited to a role of creating jobs and boosting economies when it is deregulated/unregulated and taxed at very low rates. There appear to be concerns over economic slowdown in europe atm. If recession hits it has a tendency to multiply poor economic policy. If economic slowdown and recession are bad enough, it might well be in governments best interest to lift bans on crypto currencies. Of course, unfortunately legislation isn't always determined by what is best for anyone. |
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My question is about these sports books that have no KYC requirements but might offer say a matched deposit bonus. What stops someone from signing up, using that bonus and then signing up another new account using a VPN and getting the bonus again? Thankyou
Usually there's a quota to qualify for the bonus. A person might need to complete 10-20 bets before they can qualify. Or they might need to fulfill a minimum account balance or some other requirement. Those are the methods I've seen books utilize to keep things in check. It is also known that some books will refuse to honor their bonus if they feel something shady is going down. Some books do not honor their bonus period. Sometimes its good to check reviews of books or find some feedback before committing. I hope that answers your question. |
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"Dividing investment money into two categories:
-Money you cannot afford to lose.
-Money you can afford to lose.
This Harry Browne talks about traditional economy. He made me think about it and I replaced
that traditional with crypto-currencies. Money younot afford to lose should go to main coin`s,
with money you can afford to lose you can risk a bit more.
"Once each year, you rebalance the portfolio. If any part of the portfolio has dropped to less than 15%
or grown to over 35% of the total, then you reset all four segments to 25%."
This is something I didn`t try, but I see the point. In article he explains:
"Because this asset allocation is diversified, the entire portfolio performs well under most circumstances."
Can we claim the same for crypto-currencies? My opinion is yes.
Great article, I hope after reading it you will think the same. Some people already know`s a lot about this
kind of strategies, but as someone new I am still learning about many thing`s.
My current portfolio is:
-60% in real-estates
-10% in banks and precious metals
-30% in crypto-currencies
Do you have any suggestions, comments or proposals how portfolio should look. What would be
a winning combination for the future?
Investment gurus refer to "income you can afford to lose" as "disposable income". There are many investment and financial freedom methodologies for how disposable income should be handled. Whether it should be invested, saved, utilized to start a business or do something different. Its difficult to generalize these abstracts as people tend to have unique DNA and different strengths. Many of the same traits are encouraged: getting out of one's comfort zone. Willing to suffer and be uncomfortable in order to achieve one's goals. Being focused and disciplined in terms of how time is allocated. Generally investors and financial freedom advocates are attempting to beat inflation and multiply wealth via saving/investing/etc. Focusing on areas where difficult problems can be solved in order to create the greatest long term value to humanity may be defined as a decent roadmap to success. Looking at crypto the most difficult issues to solve are things like higher transaction rates, difficulty in confirming identification or obtaining collateral for issuing crypto loans, operating deregulated markets which keep crypto efficient, fast and guarantee low fees. As far as buying crypto goes that could be an extremely good investment over the long term. Deficits and debt held by governments continue to mount. If a crash ensues--people will look for a safe place to store their wealth and fiat probably won't be the first place they look. And so crypto could yet see a massive increase in value if the event of state defaults or crashes occur. It may not be the most moral thing to profit off these types of unfortunate circumstances but whether or not things will ever really change or be addressed who knows. |
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That is very interesting, thanks for posting.
Macau seems similar to Las Vegas in that its a centralized form of legalized gambling in a relatively small area of a much larger nation.
Recently, gambling was legalized within a broader scope by the US federal government. I wonder what the state based implications would be if gambling were legalized more evenly within a more distributed and decentralized format, rather than being centralized mainly within Las Vegas(nevada). Could the same economic and tax revenue growth apply to every state? Or would the centralized economic gains be divided if legalization were more broadly implemented?
I see gambling legalization as being similar to marijuana legalization with good if not better job creation and economic benefits. Of course, there could be negatives which go along with gambling. Greater prostitution and human trafficking. Higher drug and substance abuse. Some of these negative conditions could lead to higher and more violent crime.
Many organized crime and terrorist organizations make their money through gambling, prostitution, human trafficking and drugs. So of course in legalizing gambling it could be important to crackdown on things to prevent terrorists & organized crime from establishing themselves and profiting off of human pain and suffering which comes from the type of illicit business they run.
I think macao could be having issues with this--with organized crime. And so perhaps that is why china is attempting to distance themselves from some of those things. To cut down on their influence. But we will see how things go, hopefully they will go well.
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traditional crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe, Kickstarter etc, make a fortune with their fees, what if some decentralized crowdfunding platform with take the lead. There are potential platforms which are already working toward that position at the moment, do you think they will?
Coinbase said they working towards goals other than crowdfunding atm. I think that there are already social media personalities on twitter, facebook, instagram and elsewhere who accept bitcoin donations. That's likely the closest anyone has come to utilizing crypto inside a crowd funding paradigm. There may be no need for a crypto based crowdfunding platform given anyone with a bitcoin address can post on social media and that in itself is more than enough information for anyone to donate to their cause. The structure of trust-less crypto transactions could eliminate crowdfunding platforms. A website for crowdfunding via crypto could be good in that it could organize and index the various personalities, projects and causes a person can donate crypto towards. Other than that, there may not be much need for a platform and it could be more efficient for individual projects and people to simply utilize their personal bitcoin accounts, rather than give a percentage to an internet platform. |
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Cutting out middle man is overall good for the business and the economy. Products become cheaper if other factors like fuel price and logistics cost supports it. As a result, an end consumer can purchase a product deducting the middleman cost and commissions. Even in India, we have started seeing such payment facilitation companies like Paytm and Jio Money are on rise. Especially the demonetization effort by the government has helped it become mainstream. In my city, even the small roadside vendors accept this payment system. However, here comes the funny part.
This money is essentially going into banking channel at the end of the day. However, not as a bank's revenue but as a liability product. Because every vendor is getting the settlement into their bank accounts only. So banks are getting deposits from the common mass which they can lend out to the society but they are not getting the commissions from such payment transactions, which is effectively reducing their operating revenue.
But these payment companies are again a centralized entity like any other banks. So we are not effectively providing us any freedom on our own money. Everything is seen by the government and we are paying taxes on it. That's where crypto currency can help us. The world of economy is changing at a super fast pace as the technology is constantly evolving. Either we go with the flow or stay behind.
There are some who claimed demonetization was designed to give bankers a monopoly over money(myself included). It would be nice to see 3rd party apps throw a monkey wrench in there and decentralize things. It is also nice to see something other than bitcoin and crypto offering banks competition. Years ago many internet platforms were creating and utilizing their own digital money. Even facebook got in on this. Havent kept track of things, it is possible many of them shut down around the time Liberty Reserve was shutdown after those alleged $6 billion dollar money laundering accusations. I don't know if facebook even offers their own digital currency anymore. I think that cutting out middle men can be good in some circumstances. There are some cases where its done in the short term as a type of predatory business practice aimed at eliminating competition, creating a monopoly and centralized market. In those cases, cutting out middle men could be a bad thing. An example of this could be amazon which is putting retailers out of business and threatens to centralize things to a good degree. China's steel market could be similar as it attempts to centralize the steel industry. Wish I had more information on this, sadly I don't know much about these 3rd party payment apps and this seems like a critical area of things which could determine how the future of crypto goes. |
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I didn't watch the fight but I read the play by play at Sherdog. It looked like it was boring the first two rounds and picked up pace on the third round...? Opinions? Anybody?  Jason Knight spent the entire 3rd round on his back with Makwan Amirkhani outworking him. One judge scored it 30-27 Jason knight. The same judge scored 49-46 in favor of Darren Till. Both of those calls might have been terrible. The entire fight was boring except near the end of round 5 where Wonderboy lost focus and got dropped by Darren Till(almost exactly the same way Wonderboy got dropped by Tyron Woodley in the 5th). Wonderboy has a point fighter mentality where he assumes judges will follow the karate criteria he's used to. He gets lazy and cruises which causes him to look passive in fights, the way Lyoto Machida does. We'll have to wait and see why Darren Till missed weight. Dana White said there was a reason for it. |
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Hydrogen, I generally respect what you write on bitcointalk, but I think this is a load of horse shit and I'll tell you why.
Zerohedge is a collection of basically anonymous doomsday nutjobs (obvious), and my guess is that they also represent the precious metals dealers to some extent (speculation). Their articles sound just like all the other ones--metals are soon going to go up, because [insert fearmongering reason here]. And then gold & silver just keep going sideways for years on end. Gold demand is always increasing in their eyes. Same with silver. And while that might be true, the market sure isn't reflecting it and I trust the market more so than a whacko website like Zerohedge.
You could be 100% right about this article on gold being one of those conspiracy theories that don't pan out. It reads like a parody from theonion. The main I posted it is its the closest thing to a legit article I've read for the price of precious metals increasing so of course I had to post it for the precious metals advocates in here, to give them hope. All I can say is, I looked at my older bookmarks to check how long I've been following zerohedge. Some of their articles I favorited are from 2011 which means I've followed them for at least 7 years. There's a chance zerohedge has a negative reputation for being one of the few financial / economic platforms offering an independent slant on things. I've seen them cover a lot of bs over the years that no one else would touch. Over time they've often proven themselves to be right while other mainstream sources have been the opposite. Over the 7 years I've followed zerohedge, they were one of the few places that said the deficit and debt were real issues while every other mainstream source said those were irrelevent topics. Zerohedge was one of the few places which pointed out issues with social security, healthcare reform and similar topics. That said, the quality of ZH content has declined over the past 1-3+ years. The same happened with fool.com, techdirt and other places which used to offer a more independent perspective but recently the quality of their content has decreased. |
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A major blind spot in U.S. strategic economic doctrine is the increasing use of physical gold by China, Russia, Iran, Turkey and others both to avoid the impact of U.S. sanctions and create an offensive counterweight to U.S. dominance of dollar payment systems. This is the Axis of Gold. This gold-based payments system will dilute and ultimately eliminate the impact of U.S. dollar-based sanctions. Gold offers adversaries significant defenses against these dollar-based sanctions. Gold is physical, not digital, so it cannot be hacked or frozen. Gold is easy to transport by air to settle balance of payments or other transactions between nations. Gold flows cannot be interdicted at SWIFT, the international payment system. Gold is fungible and non-traceable (it is an element, atomic number 79), so its origin cannot be ascertained. We have a lot of data to support the claim that the Axis of Gold exists and is gaining strength. We know that for example, Russia has tripled its gold reserves in the last ten years. It’s gone from about 600 tons to over 1800 tons of physical gold, and is moving very quickly towards 2,000 tons. That’s an enormous amount of gold. China is also amassing physical gold at an astounding rate. Like Russia, it has tripled its gold reserves, officially from 1,600 tons to 1,800 tons. But we have very good reason to believe China actually has a lot more gold than that. China might actually own up to 4,000 tons of physical gold. We don’t know the exact number because China is highly secretive about its gold acquisitions. But that’s a reasonable estimate. China is also the world’s largest gold producer with mining output of about 450 tons per year. Iran also has an enormous amount of gold. Iran received billions of dollars in gold from the Obama administration as bribes to join in the now discredited nuclear deal (the “JCPOA” or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran has also received gold imported from Europe via Turkey, but the exact amount is unknown. We don’t have any insight into how much it has because it’s also highly nontransparent. But in the first quarter of 2018, Iranian gold bar and coin purchases more than tripled. Turkey is also acquiring enormous amounts of gold, which should not be surprising given Turkish president Recep Erdogan’s recent comments questioning the role of the dollar in global trade. The Turkish central bank has almost doubled its gold holdings since last May, according to the World Gold Council. And it was the second largest buyer of gold among central banks for the first quarter of 2018. So that’s the Axis of Gold. Again, evidence for this Axis of Gold is overwhelming. I have contacts in the national security industry community who have, in their own roundabout way, been able to confirm that to me, so it’s very clear that’s what’s happening. This is the type of information you don’t see in the headlines. This is very granular, but it’s all going on behind the scenes. I’ve explored the implications in many financial war games and other meetings as I’ve described in my books. I’m also on the Board of Advisors of the Center for Sanctions and Illicit Finance, which is the leading think tank on this subject. I meet with others who are expert in this area, including current and former government officials. I’ve warned the Pentagon and the Treasury Department about this threat for years. But the message has yet to sink in. The U.S. is still unprepared for this coming strategic alternative to dollar dominance. Meanwhile, U.S. trade sanctions on China, Russia and Europe are just beginning to bite. Trump’s new sanctions on Iran may be the last straw in the world’s willingness to tolerate what is perceived as U.S. bullying through the use of dollar-based sanctions. These headwinds are illustrated in the chart below. This shows the customers for oil exported by Iran. China is Iran’s largest oil customer by a wide margin. China’s need for imported oil is huge and Iran’s need for hard currency from its oil exports is existential.  If the U.S. makes it impossible for Iran to pay or receive dollars or other hard currencies for its oil exports and machinery imports, Iran will have to resort to other payment channels. China would be willing to pay Iran in yuan, but Iran’s appetite for yuan is limited. As mentioned above, an obvious solution is for Iran and China to settle their balance of payments accounts in gold. Trump’s sanctions on Iran are a double-whammy. On the one hand, they impede global trade and growth; especially in Europe where growth was already slowing down before the sanctions. On the other hand, the Axis of Gold will create enormous demand for physical gold as an alternative to dollar payments vulnerable to U.S. sanctions. At the same time, the Axis of Gold creates huge embedded demand for gold as the Axis nations build out an alternative to the dollar payments system. But right now gold mining output is flat, western central bank sales of gold have ceased, and acquisition of gold by the Axis is increasing. With limited output, limited western sales, and huge eastern purchases, it’s only a matter of time before a link in the physical gold delivery chain snaps and a full-scale buying panic erupts. Then the price of gold will soar regardless of paper gold manipulations. Meanwhile, Fed tightening combined with weak growth will push the U.S. economy to the brink of recession later this year. That will cause the Fed to reverse course and pause in their path of rate hikes. The pause will come possibly in September, and almost certainly by December. The perception of the Fed flipping from tightening to ease will remove a major headwind to higher gold prices and create a tailwind. Future Fed easing combined with strong demand for physical gold will result in much higher gold prices by year end. The next few months could still be a bumpy ride for gold, but late summer and fall look promising for much a push to $1,400 per ounce or higher. Last week’s drawdown in gold prices should be seen for what it is, a temporary reversal in a new bull market. The current gold price of about $1,300 per ounce is a classic “buy-the-dips” opportunity that won’t come again soon. But before long it may be too late for investors to benefit because the ready supply of physical gold will be gone. The time to take a position is now. The days of dollar dominance are numbered. The process won’t happen overnight, but the signs all point in one direction. Got gold? https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/axis-gold-will-drive-gold-higher-end-2018Here's an interesting take on things. In a way, reading this almost sounds like a parody. It reeks of those advertisements where investors with precious metals fever try to convince people the price of gold/silver/precious metals will go to the moon. Or the doomsdayish scenarios laid out by those who claim precious metals will takeover after the crash of fiat currencies. Except in this case, the people who are promoting gold are entire nations like russia, turkey, china and others who could very well be hoarding piles of gold. Perhaps they're preparing for the demise of the us dollar or seeking financial independence from the USA who they might feel is attempting to "bully" them unnecessarily. Whatever the reality of this is, there could definitely be evidence for this with Erdogan, china and others visibly pushing for greater support and utility for precious metals. The big question may be whether these many nations who don't appear to trust the united states can themselves be trusted to manage their precious metals holdings responsibly and intelligently in a way which will guarantee economic stability for their respective countries. We could be witnessing a buy in phase blip of precious metals here, which will turn into an upswing later on the virtue of gold having additional utility and transactional/trading volume, which could lead to higher demand. Not certain how crypto currencies might factor in to this, if it turns out to be true. While gold may be feasible as a means of conducting transactions for entire countries, individuals typically are not as well suited to support wide scale precious metals support. If the price of gold rises sharply, its possible it will *pull* the value of bitcoin up with it as bitcoin is essentially similar to gold but also far better suited for average use by the people. |
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The employment pool trend definitely leans in favor of replacing skilled labor with unskilled labor. A highly skilled worker with a difficult to replace skillset is able to secure a good salary, benefits and job security. While workers who are easy to replace and have no specialized skills typically have none of those things.
With recent studies concluding as much as 50% of existing jobs may be vulnerable to automation, it may be better for youth to be encouraged to abandon traditional notions of job security and consider other alternative options. Businessman may need be better informed and more knowledgeable than minimum wage workers. That type of knowledge base could be desperately needed for society to function properly given recent trends where the media and news can't be trusted to inform or educate people as to which policies are best for them.
In the 1950s united states a typical worker could buy a new house, new car and support his wife without her having to work. More than 50 years later, things are very different. The idea of having a job being enough to support a family and live well may be something that will be abandoned in time as wages flatline against cost of living, which is growing at a quick and steady pace.
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Bill Gates is wealthy. Not necessarily due to him having the best business sense though considering he tried to dump his shares of microsoft for other financial assets which would have been worthless in comparison. This quote sums it up well.  I never expected a celebrity callout over this. Bitcoin could use a few good ambassadors and spokespersons, maybe the Winklevoss Twins could excel in this role. Bitcoin and crypto currencies desperately need a face, an image, a symbol--something that is positive for people to associate bitcoin with. Name brand recognition goes a long way but someone who isn't a criminal, drug dealer, money launderer or assorted negative job description being involved with bitcoin could be exactly what it needs. "The hero bitcoin needs but doesn't deserve." |
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