Any and all tax cuts will likely contribute towards a stronger US economy. The big government system of taxation is inefficient and wasteful. High taxes strangle economic growth, restrict innovation and industry advancement and kill job markets.

One of the major issues with taxes is, large corporations like google and apple receive big tax breaks. They also have the construction of their facilities paid for under tax subsidies. This can make it impossible for small businesses which do not receive these tax cuts or subsidies to compete. This precedent greatly reduces the effectiveness of the taxation system as it functions moreso as a system of wealth redistribution which collects money from the poor and redistributes it to the wealthy, the opposite of what robin hood supposedly did.

I haven't kept up with all of the revisions on the tax reform bill. Originally, Donald Trump wanted the poorest americans to pay around 5% income taxes and redistribute the tax burden to the wealthy with tax cuts intended to reduce the amount of tax evasion, tax loopholes and tax shelters resorted to by one percenters. A tax plan that was effectively utilized by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

Tax cuts empowering a stronger US economy could have a positive effect on the price of bitcoin. Its difficult to say what the net end result would be if any. It might make no difference.

I've seen people on youtube take old washing machine motors from junkyards and turn them into electrical generators that are much cheaper than the regenerative braking system on a tesla. I wonder if anyone is planning to put a small generator and mining rig on a bicycle or something. That could be cool although I doubt it generate much power or earn much btc.

One thing I can't ever remember seeing is windmill powered mining rigs. There could be a potential for mining crypto under circumstances where it wouldn't have high drain on electrical grids or limited natural resources like petrol.

It looks like there was a sell off which dropped BTC below $10,000. A sell off doesn't imply bitcoin is less valuable or that there is a valid reason the price should decrease. The price falls due to simple supply/demand. On a sell off it means there is substantially more selling than buying, under these conditions the price inevitably goes down.

This process is very different from what traders call a "price correction". A price correction occurs when something is overvalued. Bitcon's dip was caused by a lot of people dumping BTC, which has nothing to do with how much it is worth. People dump BTC when they feel satisfied with the price and decide to cash out. It has happened when bitcoin was priced at $2,500 and many other values over past months.

When the price dips on a sell off, the typical thing that happens is it shoots back up, afterward as the dump was the only reason the price declined and once removed the value reverts to what it was.

I like quasi thermoeconomic models which might model money as being energy, with debt representing energy consumption or the conduction/transmission of energy. Then larger abstractions such as finance or economies could be modeled somewhat like abstract engines where the efficiency of energy consumption would need to retain a certain degree viability for economies/finance to function.

To some degree, it is possible the "something for nothing" mentality which is somewhat pervasive in culture right now, is overwhelming tit-for-tat common sense illustrating the limits of things like deficit or debt, which leads to economic instability and reduced living standards for all.

When an engine no longer produces more energy than it consumes, it ceases to function properly. An excess of deficit or debt which contributes towards economic/financial inefficiency could well have a similar effect.

When people say things like "BITCOIN SHOULD BE OUTLAWED". I wonder where their message comes from. Are they speaking from their own attempt at being objective? Or are they merely pushing an agenda on behalf of special interests or another party?

There may be a relevent question about journalism in this day and age where it might do well to question where things people in the media say, come from. In school some teachers said skepticism can be a virtue. Perhaps what they meant is, being skeptical of people like Joseph Stiglitz and not believing everything our purported exports say has potential to represent good policy.

That is very interesting. I hope you win! Here's a brief breakdown.

Elon Musk. I don't think he will win. His company Space X achieved much more than NASA despite having near to one hundred times a smaller budget than NASA. Elon Musk's accomplishments in aerospace embarrass socialist, state run, programs like NASA and there is a chance his rocket launches are being sabotaged as a result.

Emmanuel Macron. Publicly he states he will close borders and reduce illegal immigration. Politicians often have a bad habit of doing the opposite of what they say they will do. I think Macron could win the award to reinforce the potentially false notion that european politicians will follow through on border reform/immigration.

Angela Merkel. She is just like Macron imo. Only less popular as she was in office while many of the things the public are unhappy about occurred. She has done some good in terms of standing up to USA surveillance policies.

Donald Trump. The people that own the media appear to hate him. I doubt he'll win anything.

Pope Francis. This Pope is head of the catholic church in an era when it is experiencing its largest and most public problems with pedophiles and child molestors. I don't think he should win anything but I don't say who wins the award.

There are other options like Justin Trudeau who is a media darling. Also there is a chance that they will give the award to someone who represents islam like Sadiq Khan, someone who represents LGBT's or transgenderism.

Many were calling a US housing bubble as early as 2005. There's a clip on youtube of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQ79Pt2GNJo

If what you're describing represents Shiller's work, it seems more like a deflection than legitimate science.

The best explanation for "bubbles" may be our slow growth of wages which lead to the value of real estate declining. Some of our recessions and poor economic growth may also be attributed to this.

The best explanation for inability to predict bubbles may be lack of employment opportunities or demand in the industry for objective and unbiased analysis in finance and economic sectors.

The best explanation for inabiity to predict asset prices (that I've heard) is brownian motion being utilized as a fundamental force upon which market projections are based on.

Shiller's work in these areas could represent moreso politics and deflection away from causality of true market mechanics.

I'm not 100% current on this. My impression is, the "bitcoin 2.0" or "bitcoin 3.0" transfer fee less implementations are like SETI's distributed computing model. They're similar to the old internet movement where server side functionality was gradually shifted client side via javascript, ajax, flash, html5 and similar frameworks which shift calculations from servers to an end users browser.

Bitcoin uses specialized and dedicated miners to generate hashrate. The inverse opposite to this model may be distributing hashrate across a large number of non-dedicated and non-specialized users in an attempt to compensate for quality with quantity. If that's the approach "bitcoin 2.0" projects are taking then perhaps its accurate to describe them as being similar to SETI where volunteers download software which runs in the background to compile a decent amount of computational power across a large number of end users.

There could also be some key algorithmic differences, like I said I'm not 100% current on it but the differences might be inferred or deduced on a fundamental level without knowing specifics.

This looks to be one of the best UFC cards we've had in awhile. A lot of talent and hot prospects matched up, here.

Notes.

-There is a possibility of Jose Aldo abusing steroids and damaging his body/cardio in the process. Not to imply that Jose Aldo is the only MMA fighter who fits this category. It could be a common thing. If the fight goes past the first few rounds and Aldo starts to slow, don't be surprised.

-Max Holloway is from a town not far from my hometown(s). If he wins I'll be happy.

-Angela Magana used to train out of Alliance MMA. I think she got kicked out of that gym by Brandon Vera after her incident with Cyborg. Could be interesting to know where she trains now and how it might affect her performance.

-Sabah Homasi used to be an erotic male dancer. I don't know if he still does it but it is an interesting career choice.

-Paul Felder used to train at Cowboy Cerrone's Ranch. Then he moved to train with Ricardo Almeida and Mark Henry. Now I think Felder trains out of Roufusport. Whatever he's doing, he only seems to be improving but I don't think we've ever seen his grappling/submission game be tested in the UFC.

I might post a few picks closer to the event, not 100% certain on that.

I don't want to seem negative. I'm trying to avoid political discussion.    I would only like to say a case could be made for nobel prizes being a political tool for bankers.

Paul Krugman has supported many questionable and controversial economic policies over the years as a nobel prize winner in economics. There are some who question whether Al Gore should have won a nobel peace prize for a presentation on global warming. Barack Obama winning a nobel peace prize did raise a few eyebrows, years ago.

It is possible that nobel prizes are given out to those who push political agendas, rather than those who merit it. There used to be excellent scientists and economists like Milton Friedman who deserved a nobel prize. These days, it might be fair to say the quality of work awarded a nobel isn't what it used to be, unfortunately.

Alts function similar to an index fund imo. A massive percentage of alt value is derived from bitcoin. If bitcoin's price increases, alts usually follow in its wake. The opposite is also often true. It may be possible to make an investment similar to a crypto currency index fund by buying bitcoin. Btc being one of the main driving forces determining overall increase/decrease in crypto market capitalization, allows targeting of average market movement to a decent degree.

If an index fund were implemented an interesting conversation might be had regarding how crypto index funds were divided. Bitcoin being a worldwide phenomena could there reasonably be dividing lines via geographic location? There might be a discussion on whether there's a point in dividing or categorizing crypto via some abstraction to make value easier to track. It could have long term potential in terms of legitimizing crypto and being a nice topic to talk about.

This topic could easily turn into a discussion about volatility. Should volatility be measured in percentage points, or thousands of dollars? Does volatility matter if a large percentage of price movements are overwhelmingly in an upward direction? I haven't seen anyone who bought amazon's stock at $18 and HODL'ed until it reached $1,200 complaining about "volatility". Who complains about bitcoin's "volatility" when the price has gone from $200 to $10,000?

I suspect Jamie Dimon is the only one upset about bitcoin's "volatility" & that may be an interesting thought to consider.

Typically good areas to invest are sectors in which high growth is expected or in things that are significantly undervalued. It is good to remember that high potential returns can often be correlated with high risk. Looking at social media, its not difficult to see veganism and organic foods gaining ground. Fast food franchises like burger king, mcdonalds and jack in the box are reported to be losing money as people become more health conscious opting instead for whole food markets and organically grown items.

Targeting emerging social trends could be a decent investment strategy. Rising popularity of veganism may be one example of this but there are others. Legalized marijuana "green gold rush" is rumored to be a hot investment. Americans are becoming more health conscious about the health hazards of processed sugar which could mean healthy alternatives to sugar could be a high growth area in coming years. Of course this will depend heavily upon the FDA, special interest lobbying, import regulation and a host of other factors, some of which could be impossible to predict.

Whatever investment ends up on the table, there can be a lot of variables, a lot that can go right or wrong. I wish good luck to anyone who invests, best of luck in all your endeavors.

Terminology utilized by traders and investors has a potential to confuse people and prevent them from seeing specifics in how market mechanics unfold. If bitcoin's price dips after a rally, most would call this a "market correction" and interpret it as a sign that bitcoin was overvalued. A dip in price could have many causes. It could also be premature selling from inexperienced traders. Fallout from anxiety over the next big fork. There were many "market corrections" after bitcoin hit an all time high of $2,500 which could give an impression btc was overvalued.

Emphasis on market momentum could be valuable as an indicator. There could be cases where btc dipped in price with a majority of momentum swinging in an upward direction, which could indicate the price would continue in an upward trend.

With equities trading slumps or market corrections are often preceded by dips in fundamental performance. Bitcoin doesn't fit inside this paradigm, its more similar to gold and isn't as prone towards some of the tell tale signs and analysis equities traders would normally expect from a market.

This is my 3rd year in trying to guess which NFL teams will be winners each week, and by far the most chaotic. IIRC, there were many injuries last year. Some games had ridiculously high statistics for injury. Players may be more conservative this year, more safety conscious and less averse to taking risks. Politics involved in players kneeling to protest the national anthem could also be creating behind the scenes drama affecting play.

Here are some plays I've done ok with this season.

#1  Fade San Francisco
#2  Fade Cleveland Browns
#3  Cleveland Browns points under (not as effective with the points being lower than in the beginning of the season)

MMA update.

Bellator 189 and The Ultimate Fighter 26 Finale are on friday, december 1st.

            
   

UFC 218 Max Holloway vs Jose Aldo is on saturday, december 2nd.


That's 3 MMA cards in 2 days.

December 2017 will host 5 UFC events and 3 Bellator events.

It should be a good time for gamblers. Although, looking at match ups on the first three big MMA cards of the month, I don't see many easy picks. Matchmakers are progressing at pairing match ups which are deceptive. They're getting better at using their insider information to stage big upsets. There are a lot of fighters who haven't been active in 1-2 years who come back and look completely different than they did before which makes it tough to cap a lot of picks. UFC 218 might be good, other than that the other two cards could be tough to call.

Historically when fiat currencies such as the dollar or euro fail, people buy gold (precious metals) to maintain the value of their wealth in the face of devaluing hyperinflation. If gold or precious metals are unavailable, recently there has been a trend where people have bought big screen TV's and other electronic devices (goods) in an effort to avoid having their fiat denominated wealth be devalued.

Bitcoin's performance over the past year and its supply being algorithmically limited could recommend it as a more desirable option to gold or precious metals. The problem with gold is, it has no point and click electronic utility. It must be physically carried and spent which greatly limits its buying power and application. Precious metals are not supported as a legitimate means of buying/selling in most economies. Without venturing too far into the gold versus bitcoin debate suffice it to say that bitcoin could dethrone gold as the de facto standard in terms of what people buy in times when fiat is in distress.

This is true and a very good point. There are parallels which show the power of small, independent, buyers. Many states in the USA no longer offer tax credits for residents installing solar panels on their homes. There is an overwhelming number of solar panels equipped on residential units in some states, that electrical grids can not handle the load & must pay neighboring states to take their excess power.

Commonly utilized economic theory revolves around "interest rates", policies which mainly affect one percenters, the wealthy & elites. There aren't many economic or financial policies marketed specifically for the remaining 99% of the population. This could create a vacuum whereby the vast majority of our population are neglected.

Bitcoin could be one of few investment vehicles in the entire world that is marketed towards average, ordinary, people. The value or net effect of that should not be underestimated imo.

Proposed implementations of equality carry a malus of focusing primarily upon the tail end of a reactionary state, rather than a preventionary one. If people are to have equal standards, they must have narrower tolerances of intelligence, bravery, critical thinking ability and knowledge et al. Darwins paradigm of natural variation is opposed to this. Nature itself is said to abhor a vacuum which naturally incentivizes differences across our species, towards different end points. This geometric variance is partly responsible for the wide discrepancy between early adopters and late adopters.

Imagine a race where the winners are handicapped such that everyone finishes the race at the same time. Nature and our DNA abhor this result. In terms of social darwinism and survival of the fittest, both speculate upon our survival relying upon there being winners and losers on society. And so while marx's ideal may represent a utopia to some, there are other factors which may always be naturally opposed to that view.

Anyways, I think a decent response might resemble something like this. But to be honest, its not something I think about much.

In a world without transfer fees, what motive would incentivize miners to produce the high quantities of hash power necessary to secure a blockchain? Transfer fees undoubtedly exude a malus in terms of producing electronic payments which are less efficient. However there is an upside to transfer fees in that they incentivize miners to fulfill their role in producing hashpower to keep things secure.

Removing transfer fees from the equation has the potential to produce a chink in the security of crypto. It could be compared to removing a key jenga block from the tower, producing instability which could eventually bring everything crashing down. Earlier this year we saw a number of miners leave bitcoin to mine bitcoin cash. This created a brief period of time when bitcoin was more vulnerable than usual to cryptographic attacks.

The key to alts which claim to have solved transfer fees is how they propose to incentivize miners to devote hashpower to the network. Removing transfer fees creates a vacuum which must be filled for a fully functional alt to work. Of course, I'm only covering the basics. It is possible people have invented methods to compensate. When will we see real world superior alternatives to transfer fees deployed, I wonder?