Sanctions won't eliminate the Russian economy. Fuel costs are spiking all around the world for the reason of sanctions. If people wanted cheap oil, they know where to go. The fuel cost increase are entirely by choice and by stubbornness. As long as India and China are buyers and traders with other commodities, Russia will stay above water. There is no guess as to how long sanctions will last so no more wars, or proxy wars, from Russia within the next 20 years minimum. Ukrainian war has the potential to last a decade if Russia wanted it to. They just need to hold the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine.

So what is the ideal CEO to median worker's wage ratio that would be satisfactory? I've never seen anyone answer the question with any degree of certainty above pulling an arbitrary figure out of thin air. A single CEO can derail a multi-billion dollar corporation, of course they should be compensated for having such responsibilities.

The pandemic made the rich gain wealth because smaller businesses were not allowed to operate due to lockdowns. The most predictable result was large corporations gaining market share and wealth being transferred directly to the top. That isn't greed, that's taking advantage of government ineptitude. People should really hold their politicians more accountable instead of blaming the CEO's for doing what's in their company's best interest.

The entire market is down, no matter the industry. Real estate seems to be the only market that hasn't taken a massive hit yet, and there's a lot of speculation amongst the experts that there's an artificial bubble being created even in tangible assets which will eventually pop. USD/EUR hasn't experienced this type of inflation in decades. Bitcoin didn't exist yet when this type of inflation was last seen. We don't actually know how crypto is supposed to react with high inflation rates, the data is not there.

The dollar is not strong with an 8.6 inflation rate with sign of slowing down. Biden has compounded the federal reserve's ineptitude by incentivizing lockdowns through COVID fear/hysteria, large unemployment checks, and unnecessary spending to the tune of trillions. He's made the situation worse and the pitch for Biden was "not Trump." No one legitimately thought he could save the U.S. economy or reverse the spending that happened before his presidency during the 2020 COVID lockdowns.


How so? You mean a currency that is, by design, expected to depreciate by 2 percent yearly if the federal reserve can do its job? 2 percent is the target by design. The reality is 4x that amount using May's inflation report. With this much USD cheerleading you should ask the fed to hire you for their marketing initiatives.

The problem is middle income folks that had their money in the markets don't have enough funds to reinvest. Rich people always have the funds to reinvest and come out on top during the recovery. To the extent middle income earners can save their funds, it would be to not sell. Panicking and trying to cut your losses in a bear market is essentially a donation of your funds to rich people.

COVID panic selling was probably the worst examples I've ever seen of it. Tons of people sold off despite a market recovery in less than a year.

I'm not sure why you're comparing Bitcoin energy consumption to the airline industry or marine transport. Those have nothing to do with financial systems. I agree with the sentiment that Bitcoin is not as energy demanding as other financial systems, it serves no use making false equivalencies.

They don't need any reason to ban Bitcoin. If they wanted to ban bitcoin, they could and wouldn't need to cite environmental concerns. What you're currently seeing is Bitcoin regulation for security concerns as their excuse.

Politicians don't understand energy consumption and so they have false notions that Bitcoin mining requires copious amounts of energy. It doesn't when compared to other financial systems and payment processors, and of course they wouldn't know that because they haven't done the most basic amounts of research.

Abortion works only if the fetus isn't identified as a person. A fetus becomes a person at some point, perhaps at heart beat or further along with brain development. Abortion activists don't identify a person at any stage of development -- the abortion is just removing "clump of cells."

Life begins at conception, personhood begins at some point in between conception and birth, and abortion for most is okay from conception to personhood.

Post-personhood abortion is killing a person, pure barbarism.

Most voters get involved in politics without actually knowing anything about the issues, then cast their vote like it's a sporting event and they want their side to win. The only accountability that ever happens is for the other "team," the political adversaries. When things don't work out, it's never the person or party you voted for, it's someone else because it's difficult to admit to buyer's remorse.

I'd rather have someone sit out from politics if they haven't done the absolute minimum of educating themselves about the issues opposed to getting involved and voting for whoever runs the most campaign commercials.

The entire market is down, not just crypto. USD is at a 40 year inflation high, we don't know how Bitcoin is supposed to coincide with inflation quite yet during a time where the U.S. economy is on the verge of recession. Most investors don't know where to put their money so you need to give it more time before making conclusions.

Seems a bit unfair IMO that Bitcoin is taking so much critique as if during a period of stagflation crypto should be the only asset to rise in a market where every asset is doing poorly.

New York did nothing to get serious about Bitcoin. The market decided that Bitcoin was something that deserves attention, and NY is stepping in the way with their lunacy and far left policies of green energy.

Green energy is not sustainable with the current technology, let alone in a place like New York. It isn't feasible to mine crypto using green energy. You have to pay for the infrastructure and the maintenance, and hope you might come out with a profit. Why force crypto miners to take that large of a gamble?

Nobody should look towards NY as jurisdiction that's doing anything right.

No. Anyone who was already infected with the virus should have been free to live their lives. Even if they weren't infected -- risk remained low for the vast majority of people. Doesn't warrant the government forcing you to stay within your home.


Like monkeypox? CDC are already recommending masking for a disease that primarily effects homosexual men having close sexual contact. Wearing a mask during sex might be their next recommendation.


Nope. The amount of deaths related to reduced economic activity (depression driven suicides, famines, etc.) outpace the deaths related to COVID.


Probably not, but possibly. The gun grabbing is a simple issue. Use dead children, drag their lifeless and still warm bodies across the stage and fully display them for the world to see. Then, use emotional appeal to call any gun supporters heartless bigots who enjoy seeing children get slaughtered. And this has world-wide appeal, in fact. Canada has announced gun restrictions for a shooting that happened in the U.S., not even within their borders. It's not part of a larger conspiracy theory, just people that don't understand gun-death related statistics and find guns to be scary.

U.S. is already too committed. This would have been the best strategy in March when the invasion began, but they slowly began the "harsh" rhetoric campaign against Putin that was not supported by actual arms. Then the arms came, and the U.S. entered a proxy war with Russia. Even the conservatives in the U.S. house/senate were split on sending 40 billion worth of aid to Ukraine. The isolationists against the warmongers. How much of that 40 billion will end up in the briefcase of a corrupt Ukrainian official? Something like 16 billion of those funds were sent for economic relief, not military aid. Would be great to know exactly how those funds were being spent.

First of all, we are in unprecedented times with inflation. Bitcoin has not existed long enough to have coexisted in a market with 40 year high inflations. You need to give it more time for the analyists to draw conclusions. There isn't enough data. Secondly, the global economy isn't doing well, and plenty of institutional investors are not involved in crypto assets due to fears of recession. Investors are putting their money into tangible investments (precious metals, housing, etc.) That's going to drive the price down, obviously.

Don't panic.

I don't think CBDC's can compete with crypto. My concern is government backed efforts to go paperless and install CBDC's in place of fiat currencies while trying to oust crypto at the same time. It's not that CBDC's on their own can be successful when applying free market principles. There's no chance a consumer would voluntarily choose a CBDC without their being other factors involved (like government coercion).

It's not much of a conspiracy when you realize the steps a lot of countries have been taking to curtail crypto growth. Their intentions have been clear from the start.

We're in a period with stagflation. Most currencies are inflating, and the global economy is slowing down. China and the U.S. are having deep economic troubles, the war in Ukraine are effecting the prices of energy and food, and that is on top of a shaky recovery from COVID lockdowns.

Not technically in a recession, but most economists believe one is coming. By the way, all this is in context with today's USD inflation report of 8.6%, a 40 year high. Not great for business.

I think the logic they're aiming for is that the U.S. should support crypto currency usage and expand the industry, which would promote other countries to use crypto.

Even then, it doesn't make much sense. Do the folks living in countries of oppression and human rights abuse really free themselves by having access to Bitcoin? Would people in Afghanistan benefit from using Bitcoin under the leadership of the Taliban? It's possible. The penalty for circumventing traditional currencies in these regimes might be death so I don't expect many Afghanistan residents to be liberated by having crypto in their wallets. It could help, just minimally if at all.

Both, more likely a currency being the primary usage. I don't expect fiat to be completely eliminated in the future. It's possible that fiat currencies will compete with crypto to fight for the consumer's business (and given the government's track record on managing fiscal policy, it wouldn't be a difficult choice.) There might be a few currencies that can sustain consumer confidence, though Bitcoin will most likely come out on top.

Those using Bitcoin for a commodity and holding the currency just makes the supply less and increases the price by demand. It doesn't regress the coin.

No, government should not be in the business of modifying their money supply. It never works. The centralized authority that the government-backed banking institutions have, at the direction of the federal reserve or whatever financial body, have proven themselves to drive economies into downward spirals.

The inflation pre-Ukrainian war was a result of money printing and COVID lockdowns. Government knew they could shut down the economy if they just asked the banks to print more money.

Capitalist system sure beats what happen with Venezuela. Their currency used to be one of the most valued currencies in the world supported by all the oil they were producing. Problem was, they elected a socialist that taxed high income earners and poured money into welfare programs ie wealth redistribution. Then oil prices crashed and they couldn't sustain their economy anymore. You need more than just oil to create a successful economy. It apparently takes some effort not to crash the country into an economic ditch if Venezuela is any indication.