On Monday, HSBC announced its deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had expired, removing the threat of criminal prosecution for money laundering which had been hanging over the company for five years. From the Financial Times. The US Department of Justice has given HSBC a major boost by seeking dismissal of the deferred criminal charges that have been hanging over the bank since it was fined for money laundering and sanctions breaches five years ago. The move by the DoJ lifts the threat of criminal prosecution that had been a “sword of Damocles” hanging over London-headquartered HSBC, as its new management team looks to put its misconduct-plagued past behind it.
HSBC said the DoJ would file a motion with the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York seeking the dismissal of the charges deferred by the agreement it reached as part of a settlement with the bank in December 2012.The deferred prosecution agreement meant the DoJ could have reopened the criminal case against HSBC if the bank had been caught breaching the rules again during that period.  To recap, in December 2012, HSBC agreed to pay the largest fine ever - £1.2 billion ($1.9 billion) - to settle charges of money laundering after a US Senate investigation concluded that the bank had acted as a conduit for “drug kingpins and rogue nations”. HSBC was found to have violated the Bank Secrecy Act, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act. From the DoJ’s press release. “HSBC’s blatant failure to implement proper anti-money laundering controls facilitated the laundering of at least $881 million in drug proceeds through the U.S. financial system. HSBC’s willful flouting of U.S. sanctions laws and regulations resulted in the processing of hundreds of millions of dollars in OFAC-prohibited transactions. The bank admitted to poor money laundering controls and its CEO, Stewart Gulliver apologised, stating “We accept responsibility for our past mistakes”. At the time, the BBC summarised the key points from the Senate’s report. HSBC in the US had not treated its Mexican affiliate as high risk, despite the country's money laundering and drug trafficking challenges
The Mexican bank had transported $7bn in US bank notes to HSBC in the US, more than any other Mexican bank, but had not considered that to be suspicious.
It had circumvented US safeguards designed to block transactions involving terrorists drug lords and rogue states, including allowing 25,000 transactions over seven years without disclosing their links to Iran.
Providing US dollars and banking services to some banks in Saudi Arabia despite their links to terrorist financing.
In less than four years it had cleared $290m in "obviously suspicious" US travellers' cheques for a Japanese bank, benefiting Russians who claimed to be in the used car business. HSBC’s share price surged up to 2.1% after trading opened in London on Monday, hitting an intra-day peak of 748.9 pence. In its 2016 annual report, the bank had warned that an independent assessor appointed by the DoJ had expressed “significant concerns” about the pace of HSBC’s attempts to address the shortcoming highlighted in the Senate report. The media is portraying the announcement as a victory for outgoing CEO, Stuart Gulliver, an HSBC lifer, and the recently appointed Chairman – never mind that the bank has paid $13-14bn of fines for all manor of misconduct since 2011. From Bloomberg. The expiry of the DPA is a vindication for Stuart Gulliver, who is due to hand over his role as chief executive to his retail banking and wealth management head John Flint after the bank’s full-year results in February. Mr Gulliver said: “HSBC is able to combat financial crime much more effectively today as the result of the significant reforms we have implemented over the last five years.” The move also provides an early success for Mark Tucker, who took over as non-executive chairman of HSBC in October having been chief executive of Asian insurer AIA for almost a decade.  HSBC was “lucky” to receive a deferred prosecution after DoJ prosecutors recommended criminal charges. In 2013, the Financial Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Jeb Hensarling, a Republican of Texas, investigated the 2012 decision to settle with HSBC. We will leave readers to ponder on this July 2016 report from CNBC. Senior U.S. Department of Justice officials overruled internal recommendations to prosecute global bank HSBC for money-laundering violations because of concerns about the stability of the financial system, according to a congressional report released on Monday.
The report, which relies on internal records from the Department of the Treasury, said the U.S. attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, "misled" Congress about the Justice Department's reasoning for declining to prosecute.
Internal emails cited in the report show the Justice Department's Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, represented by then-chief Jennifer Shasky Calvery, was "considering seeking a guilty plea from HSBC" as early as September 2012. Shasky Calvery earlier this year joined HSBC in a senior global financial crime-fighting role, a source familiar with her plans told Reuters in April.
Senior leadership at the Justice Department, including Holder, ultimately overruled criminally charging the bank, even though Holder had testified in front of Congress that "banks are not too big to jail," the report said. Too big to fail, too big to jail, plus ca change. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-11/hsbc-share-surge-us-doj-removes-sword-damocles-money-laundering.... Long story short, HSBC Bank was caught laundering money for terrorists, drug cartels and shady russians back in 2012 in an investigation which had been ongoing since around 2002. What amounts to their statute of limitations defining a time period in which they could be prosecuted for these crimes expired recently. This somewhat parallels big pharma being caught directly supplying drug cartels with ephedrine and pseudo ephedrine allowing them to make meth and other illicit substances. If there's money to be made by helping terrorists or drug cartels, it seems there will are people in positions of power who will take advantage of it. Interesting point - while the news and media constantly attack bitcoin due to the potential for it to be used by drug dealers or terrorists, there has never been a confirmed case that I know of where terrorists used bitcoin. However we have seen many confirmed cases of banks like HSBC being guilty of laundering money for terrorists in fiat, which strangely the media never mentions. |
|
|
|
In my mind, tax rates are far more important than interest rates. The methodology utilized by the Fed where they work hard to convince everyone interest rates are of greater importance than taxes or regulation could represent a diversion from real issues. The concept of the fed influencing widespread economic conditions from adjusting interest rates half a percent, could be described as a smokescreen. One or two percentage points from an interest rate could be absolutely nothing in comparison to the divergence of taxes and other fees on an international scale. Maybe if global markets were less connected, US interest rates might have a big impact on a regional north american market. These days with global markets being a real thing, investors are probably more concerned with corporate taxes than they are with interest rates:  |
|
|
|
Excellent info. Thanks for posting that. I still think David Kleiman who passed away in 2013, was Satoshi: https://gizmodo.com/the-strange-life-and-death-of-dave-kleiman-a-computer-1747092460I always thought that bitcoin's supply would be a number that was an exponent of 2 or devised to fit inside standardized variables, or some other unit of measure. It makes sense from an IT engineering perspective. I never knew that addresses were a hash of a public key though, rather than the public key itself. The part about elliptic curves is also very interesting although way over my head. |
|
|
|
Hello guys, I often read news about poor countries and a new idea came to my mind.
Imagine countries which have budget not more than 10 billion (milliard). Usually these countries import products from other countries and use USD for this. So some of them has national currency and their exchange rate to USD often changes (sometimes on bad side). If their economy fails on some steps, it will affect a lot to people + they depend on nat currency/usd exchange rate. National bank has to sell some usd in order to lower exchange rate and make it a little bit stable but it isn't fix.
I want to say that if they officially invest in bitcoin (they had to do it some months ago).. Imagine price is 2000$, budget is in bitcoin and after some months it rised to 6000$, they get 3x budget.
But no one cares about that.. Bitcoin is a way for them to develope quickly in an ultra fast way.
.... I remember reading years ago about the united states government devoting a small portion of its budget towards turning a profit to generate funding for certain programs. States may already engage in speculation to a degree. It is known that the US federal reserve made a profit of billions from the TARP bill (troubled asset relief program aka bank bailout). Banks like JP Morgan turn a profit from running food stamps and I wouldn't be surprised if other taxpayer funded welfare programs were run by private institutions which profited financially by running them. One neglected aspect of this may be, governments owning or running machines which literally print money. Building on that type of financial platform, a team with good leadership could potentially achieve all types of incredible feats which might benefit humanity. For whatever reason that never seems to happen. I think that a lot of governments will hold bitcoin confiscated from criminals. There is a news story about bulgaria holding billions of bitcoins seized from criminal raids. Governments will likely hold and sell billions of bitcoins, although it wont be because they invested in it. |
|
|
|
|
I feel like there's another side to this discussion which might need representing.
Divergence from a gold standard, in terms of fiat being printed without limit could encourage inefficiency, wastefulness and fraud on the part of governments. The illusion of being able to tax and print ones way out of debt could enable the extreme levels of deficit and debt we're witnessing today.
On that front, both bitcoin and gold with their limited supplies could represent a throwback to responsible spending and accountable in terms of governments and institutions not being able to spend money they don't have. This could incentivize more responsible spending and consumption of natural resources, eliminate waste and fraud and otherwise lead to more stable economies, better job markets and overall healthier living over the long term.
There's a school of thought which says gold and precious metals are not viable due to their value proportional to spending. However if gold were re-introduced as a legitimate currency and given greater utility and function in the world other than a store of value, it may be safe to say the value of gold could increase dramatically. There is a possibility the value of gold could increase enough for it to be utilized alongside fiat if it were adopted as a legit currency or token of exchange.
The real reason for the opposition to gold could be reducing competition to fiat and the irresponsible spending, wastefulness and otherwise vicious cycle of hyperinflation producing overprinting which goes with it.
|
|
|
|
Bitcoin is not becoming less volatile
Why do you people not read the OP? I mentioned there that Bitcoin is going even more volatile as the price rises. And yes, I mean relative changes, I think in relative changes if you please, i.e. changes in percentages specifically. I've even given an example above which proves that. Now we just need Bitcoin to go down as low as 6-7k dollars to prove me right. Or we could at first surge as high as 25k and then fall back to 10k dollars. This is not because of external factors affecting Bitcoin (though they certainly do). This is due to Bitcoin limited supply and the inverse relationship between Bitcoin supply and its price, most of the time
Here are specific arguments for bitcoin becoming less volatile. #1 Fork announcements and deployments are having a smaller percentage effect on bitcoin price as time goes on. Bitcoin's price is moving less and less everytime news of a new fork emerges. Back in the days of Bitcoin Unlimited and during the first fork known as Bitcoin Cash, BTC's price fluctuated wildly. As time goes on, and we see new forks emerge such as bitcoin gold, we see a less volatile bitcoin. #2 SEC announcements regarding bitcoin ETF's are having less of an effect on price. Earlier this year, the SEC ruled not to approve a bitcoin ETF. I think that may have had a 10% to 20% effect on bitcoin price. There may have been a second ruling which had a far reduced effect on bitcoin volatility although I'm going purely from memory here. #3 Criticism of bitcoin from Jamie Dimon and others is having less of an effect on price. I think years ago when Paul Krugman criticized bitcoin it may actually have had an effect on price. Today when Jamie Dimon and economists awarded nobel prizes in their field criticize bitcoin, it appears to have little or no effect. #4 Events such as china banning bitcoin exchanges is having less of an effect. When china banned bitcoin around 2014 it had a massive effect on bitcoin's value. Compare to 2017 when china banned exchanges once again with a far more limited effect on price. As time goes on and things like forks are better quantified and better known phenomena. It would appear that bitcoin's value fluctuates less. There is less fear and anxiety from traders and it might be fair to say bitcoin is more stable as a result. Bitcoin becoming more decentralized and evenly spread throughout the world (rather than centralized in china) could also contribute more to stability and lower volatility over time. There's a generic statement I used here which says: "less of an effect on price". That is to imply a reduced net percentage effect, rather than measured in dollars, euros, rupies, etc. |
|
|
|
I want to see every single bank - central, private, or public, moneylenders, etc. wiped off the face of the earth.
I want to see every person earning less than $2 a day (10% of the world, definitely more as hidden figures and ever falling fiat value) have food, clothing, and shelter.
I want to see human beings transact across borders without any fear or market manipulations.
I want to see every human being live the life of dignity, as a free, sovereign individual, who takes care of his own food, clothing, shelter, and healthcare. .... There are anarchists with anti-government stances that believe they can create a utopian existence by eradicating or opposing governments in all shapes and forms. I think that historically, what we've seen is when governments fall, usually organized crime takes over. There are organized criminal organizations like the taliban, the muslim brotherhood, ISIS and other groups which are poised to takeover entire countries if they can overthrow existing regimes. Eliminating governments or banks could create a power vacuum which needs to be filled. The organizations which fill the vacuum left behind are not necessarily responsible or benevolent. They aren't necessarily people who value human life. While I support bitcoin and very much hope it succeeds, I don't know that I would go so far as to support banks being wiped out or eradicated. That would leave behind a power vacuum and the people who filled it could very well be worse than the current generation of bankers we have now. I think if we are to live in a better future, it may be defined more in terms of what we are able to build than what we are able to destroy or tear down. A big part of that could rely upon people being educated and informed and making the right decisions. |
|
|
|
|
Many have claimed bitcoin's adoption is fueled by the public losing faith in economists, experts, governments and corporations. As institutions people rely upon fail, they may increasingly resort to extremism and other alternatives. This could explain a rise of extremist groups and alternate lifestyles prevalent in this era.
What some deem human culture may simply reflect necessity and need. Bitcoin may not adapt nor change human culture. It could emerge as a preferred option if it solves problems relating to currency transaction, store of value and limited supply better than its competition. In that crypto's success in the world could be one of "survival of the fittest". Bitcoin survives and perhaps succeeds as it is the best suited to do so in a world where those living in poverty often have few or no options.
Bitcoin may not be perfect, but its transfer fees and taxes are still far lower than its competition. That could be a primary reason for its success and why it may be someday recognized around the world?
|
|
|
|
This makes no sense.
If people would stop eating meat there would be no demand so no more energy spent on growing livestock.
If cryptos would get banned across the world (and we consider an all out ban with prison terms) the value would drop back to the closure of SR levels and mining will not be profitable until 90% of them quit, resulting in a drop of energy consumption.
I don't know where you get your logic...change the supplier. The issue with meat is, demand greatly surpasses supply by a considerable margin. If a considerable proportion of the population quit eating meat there would still be overwhelming demand. There are many people and families who would eat steak dinners every night if they could afford to. Meat is a luxury food item for many and that isn't likely to change anytime soon for the same reasons people aren't likely to give up sharkfin soup or other food items which threaten endangerment or extinction of animal species on the endangered list. Electrical energy consumption is constantly rising.  Bitcoin doesn't change the world's energy needs increasing on an annual basis and its impact on this historical trend is negligible at best. If those miners would not consume green energy, that energy would be consumed by others and coal generated energy would drop.
And California is importing energy , close to 33% of their entire demand. Here's an interior picture of a bitcoin mining facility in china.  Exterior photo of the same mining facility(blue roof), it is powered by a small hydroelectric plant harnessing power from the river.  Hydroelectric power is slightly cheaper (and more environmentally friendly) than coal and so could represent a natural progression for bitcoin mining ops. One issue with the media's claim of "bitcoin being bad for the environment" is there is zero effort to quantify how many bitcoin mining ops utilize hydroelectric or other forms of power. They simply assume "coal" which is the worst case scenario. China has been credited with having 14 of the top 30 most polluted cities in the world long before bitcoin mining went mainstream. There is no objective breakdown of the biggest wasters of electricity, or largest contributors to climate change. Only assumptions being made about bitcoin's role in contributing to both. .... Here's a source for california paying neighboring arizona to take their excess electricity to avoid damaging their power grid from the excess power produced: California invested heavily in solar power. Now there's so much that other states are sometimes paid to take itOn 14 days during March, Arizona utilities got a gift from California: free solar power. Well, actually better than free. California produced so much solar power on those days that it paid Arizona to take excess electricity its residents weren’t using to avoid overloading its own power lines. It happened on eight days in January and nine in February as well. All told, those transactions helped save Arizona electricity customers millions of dollars this year, though grid operators declined to say exactly how much. And California also has paid other states to take power. The number of days that California dumped its unused solar electricity would have been even higher if the state hadn’t ordered some solar plants to reduce production — even as natural gas power plants, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, continued generating electricity. http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/ The article above seems to indicate that power generation is so high in some regions they might actually benefit from the higher energy consumption of bitcoin mining enterprises as it would reduce their need to outsource power to neighboring states. |
|
|
|
By the way, ShortCoins. If you read my post above, I made a few counterpoints to the articles you're posting. On the surface issues like energy consumption might appear simplistic and easy to quantify. But lurking beneath the surface there may be several principles which are counter intuitive and go against the grain in terms of public perception. To say that bitcoin consumes energy and energy consumption contributes towards negative precedents like climate change is a bit of an oversimplification. Power plants will not spontaneously shut down if bitcoin mining comes to an end. Every year electrical energy consumption increases, whatever surplus exists would be utilized as a hedge against future energy consumption growth and bitcoin mining versus no bitcoin mining likely would not have an impact. There are many facets to this topic which are not being acknowledged by authors of some of the articles being posted. I think there are two sides to this debate. If anyone cares to address the topic, I would be glad to respond. |
|
|
|
|
On the contrary, the value of bitcoin should rise consistently as it proves itself a more reliable and cost effective means of storing value than other investment vehicles. By the time, bitcoin's limited supply becomes an issue we will probably have seen multiple recessions and economic meltdowns, we'll likely have seen multiple stock market crashes and possibly even the crash of the dollar and euro.
If bitcoin holds steady without any major malfunctions during what could be a difficult future in terms of economic and financial forecast, its value should climb steadily in comparison to other stores of value.
Introducing infinite supply is to invite the same economic maluses venezuela is experiencing at the moment with the bolivar. Hyperinflation is a real thing. Satoshi's vision was to implement an algorithmic method of currency supply and it might be said that bitcoin's current success is derived from this. If bitcoin had infinite supply and an arbitrary subjective method of supply, it would likely never have enjoyed the success it has.
|
|
|
|
|
I think part of what made bitcoin volatility high were the unknown factors. No one could predict how bitcoin's price would respond in the event of a fork. What effect would SEC verdicts on bitcoin ETF's have? There were many unknown variables which caused its price to fluctuate wildly.
As time goes on and variables relating to bitcoin price become greater quantified, we will likely see reduced volatility. Forks won't have as large of an influence on price. SEC announcements and other news which we've seen before will have less of an effect.
With higher bitcoin prices, it could be a good practice to look at percentage shifts rather than quantity of dollars or other btc might be exchanged for. While the dollar amount of price shifts increases as bitcoin's price rises higher, the percentage rates of price shifts appears to be stabilising. Bitcoin is becoming less volatile over time, in terms of percentage shifts, as it becomes a more known phenomena and things like forks are better known and understood with a prior historical precedent.
|
|
|
|
|
The energy consumption criticism of bitcoin reminds me of vegans criticisms against the meat industry. Even if most people converted to a vegan lifestyle, the same number of animals might be slaughtered every year to meet demand. This argument could apply to btc and crypto. Even if bitcoin and all crypto were banned and illegalized across the globe, it wouldn't necessarily imply electrical energy consumption would decline significantly enough to make a difference.
Miners typically target the cheapest supplies of electricity which is usually defined by industrial use rather than consumer usage. This implies that things like hydroelectric plants may be tapped, rather than electricity generated by coal or other sources which have a net negative effect on climate as is often mistakenly claimed.
Some of the main driving force behind energy generation are things like solar panels mounted on homes by residents. There are states like california which generate such a massive surplus of power they have to pay neighboring states to accept the additional energy to avoid damaging their electrical grid. In some regions the generation of electricity already far exceeds demand and due to many factors including the adoption of renewable energy sources, generation may exceed demand for well into the forseeable future.
Power consumption isn't the most critical topic. Power generation may be far more important as eliminating bitcoin and crypto from the equation wouldn't necessarily have an affect on the way we generate power, nor the quantity of power generated.
|
|
|
|
|
There may not be a great hedge against bitcoin. A few options that come to mind.
#1 Bank stocks Crypto and banks are business competitors in many regions, similar to coke versus pepsi. If bitcoin ever fails, banks stand to gain the most from it. This could make bank stocks a decent hedge but given their already high market saturation and low growth potential there may not be much room for profits, there.
#2 Bitcoin short plays The obvious choice, needs no explanation.
Rather than opting for a hedge, it could be better to invest in other things which look like solid investments. Hedges could perform better as short term strategies under risky conditions. Hedging over long(er) 5-10 year timeframes as potentially with bitcoin could be too long of a window for hedges to be particularly useful.
|
|
|
|
@ the african exchange http://golix.com. Bitcoin is trading as high as $30,000+ per BTC there. Arbitrage plays between exchanges where bitcoin is trading high, and ones where its trading low, could be playing a role in pushing bitcoins price higher. Selling btc for $30k on golix, moving fiat to another exchange to buy btc for $17k Moving btc to sell for $30k again is a win/win trading strategy. The implications of it could be an uptrend in crypto prices as arb traders are able to sell at increasingly higher prices while still managing to maintain their profit margins. Arbitrage is probably the most neglected cause of the recent increase in btc price. Chinese and south korean exchanges which charge no commission on trades could also play a role. I wouldn't go so far as to say btc is a bubble yet, although we may be witnessing something like a "perfect storm" of variables aligning to produce the price movements we see now. Bitcoin has often peaked at the end of the year during its history. Countries are dropping the dollar as a reserve currency to protect themselves in the event of worst case scenarios. People no longer trust fiat and are seeking alternatives. Bitcoin is outperforming central banks in africa and other nations which puts it in high demand. The number of bitcoin traders is said to double every 12 months. There are many different forces behind the recent price uptrend. |
|
|
|
Good thing I skipped betting this card, I would have gotten wrecked. Can't agree with some of the judges decisions. Brian Ortega got busted for steroids awhile ago. Don't know if that has anything to do with his guillotine squeeze being powerful. But yeah Brian Ortega was one of the blackhouse guys who tested positive for steroids. He's in that group with Anderson Silva, Lyoto Machida, Kevin Casey and I think there might be a few others from that MMA gym who tested positive. Not to throw shade or say anything negative about Ortega, but for those who bet on MMA, or want objective analysis it is a valid point. The reason Ortega has so many 3rd round finishes could be due to him using steroids and pacing himself to avoid gasing out or tiring prematurely the way some steroids users do. If Brian Ortega is in a 5 round fight, we'll be able to see what his cardio looks like & maybe see if that positive steroid test to his name has an effect. I just saw Aldo vs Holloway yesterday, and it was a good fight but what the hell was Aldo thinking at the end? he thought he was Mayweather with all these dodging, but he ended up eating too many punches. I think Jose Aldo was tired by the end of round 1. He tried to slow down the pace of the fight with his leg kicks to make his cardio last all 5 rounds but it didn't work. In the 2nd Jose Aldo versus Frankie Edgar fight, Aldo only fights the last 1-2 minutes of all 5 rounds. Aldo coasts the first 2-3 minutes of all 5 rounds and Frankie lets him get away with it, which is why Frankie loses the fight. Aldo has had cardio issues for years now. If someone presses Aldo and doesn't give him time to rest, it seems like he'll definitely hit a wall with his endurance where he'll tire out & have nothing. |
|
|
|
|
Central banks know bitcoin would allow people to pay for things electronically with lower taxes and fees than is possible with their own banking systems. Bitcoin could also boast quicker transfer times, higher reliability and greater protection against identity theft, electronic attacks or hackers in comparison to competiting services offered by central banks.
This has nothing to do with "unhealthy business practices". Its central banks being afraid of competition. They're scared bitcoin could do the same job they do at lower cost with higher reliability and speed. Central banks can't compete with bitcoin and so banning btc is the option they are pursuing.
There is a precedent for this in africa where bitcoin was trading as high as $30,000 per bitcoin due to africans preferring crypto to central bank electronic payment systems which typically have hideously high fees, poor service and are uncompetitive in comparison to btc.
|
|
|
|
|
That's another good breakdown for you. One facet which might be worth focusing on is potential for destruction of wealth, productivity, innovation and time. Money and cashflow could represent these four paradigms. Money that doesn't exist is being burned at record rates with future generations left to pick up what may be an insurmountable bill. The wealth rich(er) nations enjoy could be directly correlated with rights and freedoms they have.
It is possible destruction of wealth parallels destruction of rights and freedom. Having a strong middle class and a high(er) average riches lends political influence. In countries where average wealth is high politicians, governments and the private sector are forced to listen to the opinion of the people. If that wealth were to be destroyed, that could eliminate one of the primary reasons anyone in power has to take us seriously.
I'm sorry to always err on the side of negative analysis and worst case scenarios btw but it could be a scenario worth considering.
|
|
|
|
|
GDP, economic growth, inflation and other variables relating to the economy have a high potential to be misleading statistics. The sad truth is every nation on earth tries to exaggerate the size of their GDP. This contributes towards GDP not being the most reliable statistic.
A huge chunk of "economic growth" in the USA is attributed to real estate and finance sectors, which some might say doesn't represent true economic growth. This could imply to some degree that america's GDP stats are exaggerated. To begin to make an accurate assessment the US GDP numbers of real estate and finance might have to be subtracted.
Then there are other countries like china which take things further into extremes via construct "ghost cities" which have no residents to artificially boost the size of their GDP via exaggerating the value of buildings that have no residents.
Its tough to compare economic stats like GDP on a 1:1 basis. Details really do matter when it comes to analysis breakdowns.
|
|
|
|
|
Today DIY (Do It Yourself) is a big business. In the age of the Industrial Revolution, I think DIY wasn't a gimmick it was moreso a way of life. If people wanted something they had to build it themselves, there was no amazon back then.
Due to the DIY nature of the era, many were homebrew engineers, architects and builders with more specialized skillsets than today's work force. There weren't as many distractions as there is today with video games, movies, tv, professional sports.
People were probably bored, didn't have much to do and so they were inventors who built things like steam engines, trains, railways and whatever else. I would guess that was one of the main driving forces behind the Industrial Revolution where some of the greatest inventors were people like the Wright Brothers who made bicycles for a living.
|
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
