If I remember right all of the gold in Fort Knox is only worth only around $200 billion usd.

That's not a lot of collateral to back a countries currency, economy or debt.

For gold standards to be effective and functional, the value of gold needs to increase. This might be accomplished by more support for buying/selling/trading of goods & services via a gold standard. To be honest, its not something I've given a lot of thought to or researched. If demand for gold increased, and buying/selling volume for gold raised, the value of gold could increase via supply/demand. Gold being more valuable could make it more effective as a backing.

Some other form(s) of collateral might also be developed which were more effective at backing a countries currency/economy/debt than gold currently is. Instead of a gold standard, perhaps a precious metals standard could be introduced where a variety of precious metals were used to back currency/debt/etc. The gold standard is tried and true in the eyes of many. But that doesn't mean it couldn't be improved upon(or regressed lol).

There could be conspiracy theories regarding how much gold banks actually hold. In many instances they seldom or never do visual inspections. Fort Knox is an example of this where there are conspiracy theories all the gold in Fort Knox was emptied decades ago. Since Fort Knox never does visual inspections to make certain the gold is present, there are many who believe the gold was removed or stolen.

Increased scrutiny of gold holdings could represent creditors demanding better vetting of bank collateral against loans/bailouts.

With many banks being crushed chasing credit bubbles down the drain as their investments in toxic assets/derivatives meltdown. Standards to determine liquidity being raised makes a lot of sense in this day and age.

Did anyone notice Mayweather suddenly wanted to switch from 10 ounce gloves to 8 ounce gloves?

It makes me wonder if Malignaggi leaked information to Floyd Mayweather and showtime.

Conspiracy theory: Floyd pushed to use lighter gloves once he heard from Malignaggi that Conor wasn't that great of a boxer.

 

I watched the leaked episode. The quality was ok. Not great but passable. It had some good moments/scenes. Battle scenes in game of thrones are always great. Leaked episode contained some of the best action sequences of the entire franchise.

There's a weird effect I've noticed where sometimes video clips with lower quality make a movie seem better than if it'd been seen in HD. Has anyone experienced something similar to this?

Looks like nearly every fighter who didn't take 2 weeks to acclimate to the high elevation lost their fights. 

I didn't bet this card but I wonder if it would be possible to follow fighters instagrams/twitter/social media to figure out which fighters acclimated to the high elevation and which did not in advance.

Not certain if Brandon Moreno took this fight seriously. I think his boxing looked better when he worked with Saul Canelo Alvarez boxing coach. Sergio Pettis looked very good. Much improved. Not a lot of great fights on this card. Many fighters looked as if they were afraid of tiring due to high elevation.

I'm expecting the price of real estate to decline. There aren't enough buyers in markets to maintain prices. Governments resort to a number of programs to finance loans(even knowing they're statistically likely to fail).

There are claims that Donald Trump created 1 million jobs since taking office. If that continues real estate prices might be maintained on average higher spending in the economy. I can't say I've looked at stats or tried to calculate how much of a bubble real estate is.

It seems natural for prices to decline. The buying power of economies is being reduced due to tax hikes, low wage growth against inflation/average cost of living and other variables. Buying power usually translates to decreased demand in sectors like real estate and that usually translates to reduced prices once state sanctioned real estate loan programs run out of steam.

That's my guessestimate. Can't say I've looked into it much. If I planned to buy real estate, I might consider waiting awhile for the bottom of the markets to drop out again.

The higher the price of BTC the more feasible mining becomes for independent or low budget miners. In theory this could further decentralize mining hash power. In reality I have no clue what the actual real world stats look like. Mining becoming more viable and profitable however could be the main impact of a higher sell price.

Higher sell price can also lure long time holders into selling off all their BTC and looking for new investments.

Its little different from spending $0.48, €0.48 or £0.48.

Most grew up using fractional amounts of fiat.

Fractional sums of crypto are a new format they have less experience with.

Give it a few years, it'll become as mundane as using decimal amounts of fiat cash.

Under capitalism, everyone has the freedom and the right to own property, start a business, own the ideas or inventions they patent. There are many benefits to capitalism which celebrities, schools and media ignore due to them all having pro-socialist/anti-capitalist bias. Many immigrants from foreign lands move to a capitalist country, start a business which they use to buy a house & put their children through college.

Under socialism, people do not have the freedom or right to own property, patent their ideas or inventions or even start a business. The state owns and controls everything. These limitations restrict progress, development and innovation in civilization. The united states being a hotbed of inventions and R&D is due to it being a capitalist society.

As bad as capitalism can be in some instances, socialism is always worse.

To some bitcoin has a reputation for being a safe haven for money launderers, terrorists and drug cartels. Looking at the number of criminal cases, one might say, there isn't much evidence of it though.


Ross Ulbricht's biggest charges might have been conspiracy to commit murder. Silk road users threatened Ulbricht. Other silk road users suspiciously offered to murder the people who threatened Ulbricht. The murder never happened. Probably because both the threat and the offer were made by undercover agents.


Reminds me of this little statistic.



I'm sure no one cares though.

If bitcoin is "used" by terrorists, money launderers and criminals.

Why is this the only case where someone was "identified" for "money laundering"?

 

BCC is Bitcoin Unlimited 2.0.

Antpool and other minining pools which strongly supported BU moved on to BCC.

Its the latest attempt to centralize bitcoin mining and get rid of developers who are unwilling to concede to all demands laid out by miners.

Sometimes when currencies devalue/hyperinflate like the bolivar, they have massive price gains when they recover. The also have massive price devaluation which might be profitable with short options.

Here's a chart of the zimbabwe dollar hyperinflating.



Its characterized by massive percentage price movement.

It could mean potential for big gains similar to what early adopters in btc experienced.

I don't know how far in advance WWE determines its script.  

I would guess the script was not determined at the time Brock Lesnar made those comments.

Jon Jones is known for doing well in sparring with heavyweights at JacksonWink(Greg Jackson / Mike Wineljon's MMA gym).

Only heavyweights I can think of that train there were Travis Browne, Andrei Arlovski and Anthony Hamilton. Those are good heavyweights but none of them bring the wrestling or athleticism that Brock has.

If state surveillance groups tracked down BTC-E money laundering, they should also be able to track down money laundering transactions in crypto by terrorists, drug cartels and other illicit groups.

The claim of crypto obfuscating transactions making them impossible to track no longer applies, assuming it ever did.

If an evil genius deigned the perfect currency for criminals, it likely wouldn't have a public ledger the way bitcoin does. The arguments of bitcoin being designed for use by criminals reflects more propaganda than real world data.

With ICO's and alts there seems to be a coordinated effort to pump & dump made by whales.

If you can deduce their plans and get in, when they get in, someone could make money.

Otherwise, buying and holding long term could be the best strategy.

What are good investments outside of crypto?

It is very unfortunate what is happening in venezuela. I wish the united states would forget about north korea for a second and make some attempt to re-establish stability in south america.

As things stand there is nothing I could do to help venezuelans.

Looking at venezuela's currency devaluation there could be opportunities for profit there. Shorting the bolivar. Buying bolivar when its nearer to making a recovery could both yield decent gains if someone could get the timing right.

What are good opportunities for investment outside of crypto? Is it moral to profit off of the unfortunate conditions of people in venezuela and other countries? What do ppl think about this?

Cersei took down or immobolized all of Daenerys allies.

The only target left for Cersei to attack is Daenerys herself.

Euron Greyjoy was able to move fast enough to take down Asha Greyjoy's fleet then sail to Casterly Rock to destroy GreyWorm's ships. That could be a plot/continuity error depending on the distances involved.

Awhile ago there was a leak (in germany?) claiming Cersei would be winning the war when the current season ends. From the way things are going, looks like that could be true.

Typical MMA fight camp is 3 months / 12 weeks.

USADA gave Brock Lesnar an exemption on entering the USADA testing pool the last time he fought Mark Hunt. If Jon Jones didn't care about Brock being tested and Brock was given another waiver they could fight soon.

Brock Lesnar said he'll only consider doing MMA & fighting Jon Jones if he doesn't have the WWE belt after their next big event. That could be the key point determining whether or not they fight.

Prior to 1913, when the income tax was passed in america, there were years where the economy grew 10%.

With taxes much higher today, we're lucky to achieve 1% economic growth per year.

Not many know that taxes and state regulation can cripple innovation and progress.