Gambling is haram according to the Quran and Bitcoin could be considered gambling by some interpretations of crypto currency and its instability. I don't believe this to be true, but you can cherry pick whatever Islamic scholars you want and go with their subjective interpretation of Islamic readings. The more you go further away from the literal meaning of the text, the more subjective the interpretation is.


If you're buying and selling cryptocurrency for profit, then it wouldn't be halal anymore. If I'm being brutally honest, crypto will only thrive in western cultures that are more willing to accept modern technology. The majority muslim countries that are more on the progressive end might take up Bitcoin, it will just take a while. The extreme Muslim countries (Iran, Pakistan) won't be doing so any time soon.

The dollar is only getting stronger because GBP/EUR is getting weaker, that is to say that the dollar is not actually getting stronger at all. I'd agree that USD is stronger than any other currency right now, but that's only attributable to the energy crisis in Europe.

US economy in recession, trillions of dollars in debt, 8.3 inflation rate. I don't think "surging" describes the current state of USD.

The answer is actually a bit more complicated than it might seem because the core of inflation is bifurcated with respect to supply and demand.

The war in Ukraine resulted in an artificial shortage of energy and subsequent supply that caused prices to go up because demand either remained stagnant or increased. Commodities predictably went up in price which caused the inflation rate in most European countries to increase given the increased price of goods. Presumably when the war ends, prices go down as supply increases and demand maintains itself to 2021 levels (pre-war).

However, the above analysis is predicated on demand remaining stagnant which you cannot assume. The COVID-19 related spending spree saw a demand increase because the money supply was injected with nothing more than a bunch of worthless paper. Essentially, the government saw it more prudent to keep economies shut and instead provide economic stimulation to the tune of trillions across Europe and the U.S combined. If money supply is increased, then demand will go up. Combine an increase in demand with a decrease in supply, then you get double digit inflation levels.

Only expect the the rate of price increases (aka inflation) to go down to the extent the supply shortages can correct itself post war. COVID-19 money printing demand increases cannot be controlled and will drive inflation. Don't anticipate the absolute prices to go down, of course. They never do.

It's why I suggested earlier in this thread that there be a disclaimer marked for anyone that is displaying any gambling content. A quick search tells me that the minimum age required to sign up for a Twitch.tv account is 13 (this is absurdly young, but to each his own I suppose). If they haven't already, ban any account that is under the age of 18 from accessing any form of gambling content videos/livestream, and then put a manual waiver or user agreement for all other accounts that force the user to accept the risks of gambling, and perhaps even put a support resources for gambling addiction in there as well.

They're allowing sports betting and gambling providers in the U.S., so it doesn't make sense why they would target out game operators outside the U.S.

I suppose anything is possible but consider how much food is gone to waste every single year, and that in developed countries there's hundreds of thousands of deaths associated with overconsumption (obesity) ranging from heart disease to hypertension to diabetes. You couldn't even begin to list the adverse effects of having too much food around.

Energy is the biggest concern. No energy, no food. For food shortages resulting in famine of large and rich countries, you would need some sort of intervening and destabilizing global event that's even greater than war, almost something out of science fiction.


If civil society ever fell apart it'd be long before we run out of food. I think nuclear war resulting in famine would be the most probable outcome. But in that case, most of us would be dead long before we thought about where we would get our next meal from.

It's not uncommon. There are cherry picked studies that suggest remote work is more or equally as effective than in-office work but the studies are limited and have small sample sizes. The inconvenient truth is people enjoy remote work because it allows less constraint from supervisors, which means productivity goes down.

An employee in a free market has the liberty to decide what they're worth and move on from a position if the conditions aren't suitable for their needs. If people want to resign to so they can have a better work-life balance, I don't see any issues.

The record breaking profits are just a propaganda line that's regurgitated over and over again without any context. The profit margin on oil is the only number that would add any context to the "greed" narrative that's being disseminated by the anti-oil anti-capitalist advocacy groups. I don't know what that number is, and I doubt private corporations would be willing to divulge such analytics of their business to be picked apart by the climate radicals. Any profit is too much for these folks.

Oil production cut by millions of barrels due to unprovoked war, energy prices begin to sky rocket. Is this some sort of corporate conspiracy or the probable result of supply and demand?

USD goes down in value because of less demand. The currency inflation was major part of USD being dumped from currency reserves, the other factor is the U.S. implementing sanctions on a whim and freezing assets from country's recklessly.

Russia and China, many months ago, began conducting their transactions with their own assets and currencies instead of using USD for the transactions. Wasn't economically feasible for them to have to use intermediates if the currency continued to become worthless.


Yes, but the impact of USD on the global economy is reduced. If you can't trade with countries using USD, you empty out your USD holdings because they become less useful.

I saw this coming years ago prior to all the war nonsense. U.S. has been sanction heavy over the last many years and it goes both ways.

Would that entail much benefit? What privileges does a permanent resident not have oppose to a citizen? Participation in Russian elections doesn't seem to be the greatest privilege considering they're rigged.


Probably. The folks that seem him as a traitor just take their privacy rights for granted. Seems like a lot of people don't remember the Vault 7 leaks a few years after Snowden's leaks. Arguably a bigger story, no one cared.

There wouldn't be any way to purchase BTC anonymously if you're using CBDC's. Theoretically if you purchase the coins from a 3rd party, it wouldn't be within the purview of the government to monitor the contents of the transaction if you disallowed them to (mark a transaction as being for related to something else other than crypto, assuming it would be legal).

Other than this, your only choice to purchase crypto anonymously is through tangible asset trades or go through an intermediary and pay off the fees entailed.

But prices come down as a result of supply shortage driven inflation. When demand increases because of too high of a money supply, the money that enters circulation is never going to be taken out. The Ukraine war is responsible for the energy prices being driven up in Europe, causing high inflation when the cost of goods go higher. That's not to say their COVID spending spree's didn't have a massive impact either.

Had the Ukraine war not occurred, you would have still seen a large inflation increase, just not to the degree we see now.

The highly valued citizens, ie doctors, engineers, IT/Computer science related specialties, will not face conscription. Their skills are more valued in the home country rather than being shipped off to war. Conscription's usually been relegated for the people that bring man power, not technical knowledge. To the extent of the war, your core competency is that you be able to hold a gun and follow orders. There's plenty of Russians to choose from.

It shouldn't affect the economy anymore than a costly war and sanctions are already affecting the economy.

This is just a formality for media headlines. Snowden was integrated essentially as a Russian citizen and has no intentions of ever leaving. Nor was Russia interested in deporting him.

I recall back to Jan. 2021 when Trump had the opportunity to pardon Snowden but was dissuaded by his colleagues, instead pardoning the usual relatives of political donors. If there was anyone to pardon Snowden, it would've been Trump. No future President would be willing to do it.

It does involve a shift of firepower, or the emergence of new firepower to go against the long standing firepower of the military. Seems like a lot of Asian countries have high compliance from the government so it doesn't really matter. I think why China was so successful with their lockdowns was this urgent sense of compliance. Their population conforms to whatever demands the CCP has for them even if they're treated as inferior.
 
The Western way of doing things, or so at least I thought until COVID happened, was a giant middle finger to the government when they engage in tyranny. The West caved in like a house of cards to the government's demands in 2020 so I don't have as much admiration. It took something like 6 months until they finally began to resist.


How would Taiwan do so?

This sums up exactly why central banks shouldn't be interfering with free market forces. It becomes a balancing act until a correction happens and the central banks can't control the economy anymore. You're in for much less pain if you take a hands off approach, but of course, that would mean the government can't put their thumbs on the scale in order to enrich themselves.


The inflation reports for USD suggest that it'll come down, but it will be a slow and painful burn for USD holders. The U.S. has a economy, and equally as important a strong military, so you won't be seeing the federal reserve having to hike up interest rates to absurd levels any time soon. That's not to say it couldn't happen. I've long said USD is a sinking ship. It just won't sink today.

I think it's fake news. I saw the story developing a bit after flights from Beijing were canceled and the airspace was emptied. Turns out that wasn't entirely true as there were some flights over Beijing. They said public transportation was also canceled but I haven't seen any reputable news agencies confirm whether that was true either. Looks only to be twitter speculation.

You'd need a lot of firepower to remove Xi Jinping.

This is the patriarchy that exists in all Islamic regimes. Saudi Arabia is slightly more "progressive," allowing women the basic luxuries like not wearing a hijab without arrest. Islam is extremely restrictive. For all the grief Christianity gets, it's much more adherent to modern values than Islam is.


Even if some Iranians resist, it's not enough.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/

Seeing how many muslim dominated countries support sharia law is appalling. Iran won't even allow pollsters so we don't have some of the data for them. Goes without saying they support sharia.

It's the usual social scientists screeching racism at every corner ranking the U.S. as a developing country. The reality is racism doesn't play much of a role in the American democracy. Fueling tensions between races is how politicians make their money. Making minorities the perpetual victims ensures that those voters will keep reelecting the same politicians who promise change.


At no point are people allowed to question what precise effects real systemic racism had (Jim Crow law) apart from the individual choices someone might make, and how those individual choices affects someone's socioeconomic status.

In fact, most immigrants arriving to the U.S. are poor by nature. Does that indicate any system issue that would suggest a fundamental flaw to democracy? If a particular black American makes individual choices that are detrimental to his/her financial success, would this reflect poorly on the system or on the person?

The global economy is dependent on the larger economies and their stability. So U.S.A, EU, and China are all the major players. Other economies don't matter as much. EU has an energy crisis that needs to be solved, and the U.S.A has had one of the worst days in the stock market since Joe Biden took office: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/22/futures-inch-higher-following-another-day-of-losses-after-fed-rate-hike-sell-offs.html

Yep, federal interest rates rise, wall street detects sharks in the waters, and you have the worst closing in 2022, and the lowest of the Biden administration.

Unfortunately it's bad government policy that's leading to the decline of the greatest economies we've ever seen.  Self inflicted, all of it. I don't know if I see any solutions.

A CBDC that's pegged to an actual asset to prevent creation of new currency would never work because it defeats the purpose of why these banks want to create the currency in the first place. I don't know if there's any benefit for a country with, what they believe to be, a strong currency to create their own stablecoin. It would delegitimize their pre-existing currency by having two currencies in the same country compete with each other. It'd create economic instability if everyday consumers began to fragment. If the U.S. was interested in creating a stablecoin, I think they'd make their intentions more clear. Their intentions for now is just digitalizing USD so it allows them more control over people's finances. It becomes easier to account for versus paper cash.