Latest posts of: Gyfts

Putin allegedly treated for cancer in April: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-putin-treated-cancer-april-us-intelligence-report-says-1710357

The clear and obvious mental decline and oddities associated with Putin's physical behavior gave everyone the indication that his health wasn't in a great place. His time is limited and the only question remains is who will take his place, and whether that person will continue war efforts. How long do you all think Putin has until his own officials throw him over or he dies of cancer?

First world countries won't experience a legitimate crisis. I consider a legitimate food crisis to be famine and starvation. Wealthy countries can hoard food imports or afford to pay a premium price for food exports. They might also limit some of their own food exports to stock up. The poorer countries won't be able to afford the premium price tag on food, and those are the countries that will suffer from extreme famine.

It's unfortunate that in a world where many in the developed world are obese or overweight that people can go without food and starve to death, but these are issues with logistics more than actually having a shortage of food.

Quote from: Betwrong on June 01, 2022, 08:34:55 AM

Quote from: Israelgogo on May 31, 2022, 02:11:50 PM

Nearly 60% of youths are prone to drug abuse and are been influenced by peers group ,who make them indulge in this act ,this makes the youth have a higher ratio of drug addiction ,this is why they dominate a higher population at the correctional centers facilities, mental homes facilities,prison facilities due to drug influence reaction.
There have been increase in the cases of rape ,robbery ,homocides,depression, suicide, gang fight and this cases have shown a large number of youth engagement in this crimes.
Increase in domestic abuse ,marriages are caused by this drugs influence and anger management problem faced by many of this youths ,both male and female gender.

What can the government, communities and parents do to cure this situation .

Legalize everything, that's my answer. I must say, I'm neither a lawyer nor a doctor, it's just my personal opinion based on what I read and see with my own eyes. Drug abuse is bad, no doubt about it, but so is alcohol abuse, tobacco abuse and many other things. Legalize drugs and you'll make them less attractive to the youth who always wants to do something illegal. Make broccoli illegal, and the youth will start using it more.

What about cocaine, methamphetamine, and fentanyl? Fentanyl is particularly deadly and is responsible for deaths among young people. Does the government not serve the purpose to maintain a healthy and drug free society for the common good?

I'm okay with less potent and deadly drugs being legalized as long as they aren't detrimental to the health and safety of the general population. Marijuana, LSD, shrooms are some particulars.

Legalizing everything just means poison in the blood of the youth. It won't solve anything.

Unless Japan is running out of geography, the solution is for a higher birthrate which would increase the younger population. The retirement age is probably going to have to increase as well. People are living longer and the Japanese economy can't support people for decades of no productivity. Japanese work culture is also very extreme -- very little emphasis on starting a family. You would think there would be more focus on increasing the population instead killing off the helpless.

Quote from: lovesmayfamilis on May 08, 2022, 03:01:49 PM

I would put it a little differently. I don't like the word "save". For me, this word is associated with poverty. But the expression "spend wisely" is more suitable. If a person has a goal or an idea for which they are going to save money, then there is motivation. But to deprive yourself of a lot to invest in the future, to be honest, I don’t see the point. No one knows how long your life will last, and depriving yourself of everything, constantly saving, at some point may seem very stupid.

For most of the world, large portions of the population live at or below the poverty line. Post COVID, plenty of middle income earners aren't able to keep their wages above the inflation rate. That is if their job was not eliminate due to COVID lockdowns.

You might not like save, but it describes a lot of people's situation right now.

Remember the unfounded allegation of sexual misconducted against Elon Musk? Following day $TSLA sunk 6%. It only took a single allegation, with no evidence, mind you, and it sent the investors scattering. If he were to amount wealth to surpass a trillion, there'd be relentless attacks on him to make sure he doesn't get to reap any benefits. Tesla would be regulated into the ground before they let Elon hit a trillion.

After all, billionaires are alleged to be inherently evil. If that's the case. What's a trillionaire supposed to be?

So the 23 house members that sent out the letter were all democrats, of course.

They've adopted a wild "green" energy policy platform which is anti-oil and gas. So even if crypto usage were to be relatively small compared to other payment processors, they'd still demonize it because it might contribute slightly to global emissions. They'll describe bitcoin using pejorative talking points, none of which make any sense.

Green energy lobby is powerful in the U.S -- they're not needed. A few radical environmentalists in congress is enough, they don't need to be paid off.

People upset at Twitter should also look towards facebook and particularly google for manipulating user search results along the political leanings of executives that run the company, who on top will take user data and sell it to the highest bidder. When something is free, you are the product. If politicians weren't spineless they would regulate these large tech corporations, but they realize political campaigns become easier with big tech censoring the opposition.

Quote from: 9thsky on May 21, 2022, 05:40:18 PM

This downtrend has been detrimental to my health (mental health). Exactly %70 just now. No lunch money type of money either.

Have we ever experienced this kind of downtrend before?? What's the latest on how long this might last, or if it's even going to recover.

Your portfolio isn't down anything until you sell. Rule number one of investing: losses are not losses until you realize them by selling.

The market will recover, it always will. Panic selling or selling out of depression to cover your losses at a time when all the markets are down is foolish. The only circumstance in which you should liquidate any asset is if you're in desperate need of funds to cover immediate expenses. At that point, I'd argue that you've invested too much into the market if you don't have enough cash left over without forcing yourself to take funds out of the market. Unfortunately I saw this with COVID. People lost their jobs and were forced to pull their funds out in a crashed market because they didn't have any income. Hopefully you're not in this same predicament.

Point being, HODL.

Quote from: merchantofzeny on May 27, 2022, 05:34:26 PM

Hard to predict when China would actually pull through with it but it's inevitable that it would attack. It would not allow Taiwan to remain free. I do saw some vids that for reasons, China have to do this within this decade.

Quote from: Gyfts on May 26, 2022, 05:07:14 PM

Even without the chip monopoly I doubt the US would take lightly the "reunification" of Taiwan with China. It basically allows China power projection into the Pacific and would compromise US positions there. From hereon nothing stands in the way into America.

Ukraine in NATO on the other hand is just something that would be nice to pester Russia with but something the guys in Washington wouldn't lose sleep over.

Perhaps. These invasions don't exist in vacuum so it's difficult to gauge what sort of things are actually pertinent in the decision making process for the folks in Washington. If it's money at the end of the tunnel, then that might be a good indicator of immediate action. Hong Kong was taken by China without much push back from the U.S. I wouldn't expect them to get militarily involved, for obvious reasons, but hardly any condemnation. Taiwan isn't a Hong Kong, and Taiwan isn't a Ukraine. It might be an instance of waiting to see what happens because I'm a firm believer that China will make an attempt at Taiwan within the next 10-20 years, if not sooner. We will find out eventually.

Quote from: Haunebu on May 26, 2022, 04:18:32 AM

Quote from: Darker45 on May 26, 2022, 02:48:03 AM

What's happening in Thailand is probably more bad than good. But not the worst, of course. I hope I'm not really updated with the current status of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency there, but it seems the ban on the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as payment had just taken effect in April. That's just last month.

So this must be a step backward rather than forward.

Have traded personally several times in Thailand on P2P exchanges like LocalBitcoins where the volume is pretty high and never faced any issues despite the ban that you mentioned though I can understand why it's a step backward.

Their government banning crypto only for payments didn't really affect the market much overall, but it was still a bad decision in my opinion. It's a good thing that they didn't try to ban them completely though.

Treating cryptocurrencies as just assets(Not payment methods) won't help improve adoption in the long-term.

I offer a more optimistic view.

Gold could be used as a currency the same way it's used as an asset. There used to be a system of currency backed by gold which acted in place of lugging around pieces of metal to trade with. Bitcoin's convenience bifurcates the utility as a currency and an asset. Whether people store their coins for long term appreciation or whether they use it as a currency, there are still funds allocated to crypto that would have otherwise been utilized for other assets or currencies. A win for crypto either way.

Quote from: Hydrogen on May 27, 2022, 03:24:00 AM

If global markets are devastated by a crisis, russia is (in my opinion) the number #1 prospect to emerge as the next dominant superpower.

To avoid this, I think the united states would do well to keep its economy strong. As a hedge against russian encroachment. There isn't much alternative deterrent.

While russia's invasion of ukraine has stalled. Russia isn't trying very hard. They don't have to. They simply have to wait for the next big economic crisis when free money and support thrown at ukraine can no longer be funded. Then resistance may well crumble.

I don't think the U.S. is in a position to keep its economy strong, but neither is China. Russia won't enter the mix unless they increase their GDP. Their nuclear weapons count is the only reason that they remain a player on the global stage.

On that note, the economic crisis looming within China and the U.S. will cause Russia's economy to suffer too. The sanctions will look like nothing in comparison. The likelihood of the U.S. and China recovering their economy quicker than any other country seems like the most probable.

Quote from: The Cryptovator on May 26, 2022, 06:17:59 PM

Who cares? Even I don't have time to see any kind of talk show lol. How would I hear their advice? They are fiat financial advisors and of course, they are doing their job. Nothing wrong, very rarely do they have knowledge about Bitcoin or they can't go against fiat. In a country, there won't be two currencies, to be honest. So fiat financial advisors should only focus on advice based on fiat.

However, we are alive in the Bitcoin world since we are active forum members. We don't need to hear the lecture from a fiat advisor nor its much useful for us lol. We believe in decentralization and Bitcoin, we will continue with that.

These financial advisors have a lot of power. They're dictating where people put their money. The high net worth individuals are the ones that will seek out professional counsel on their finances. They're the ones that can afford it. So it's large volumes of money that are potentially being diverted because of traditionalists that are allergic to innovation. I've seen some financial advisors that would recommend high net individuals put some portion of their funds into crypto. This isn't a slight at them. They don't believe Bitcoin to be a currency so they treat it as digital gold. I'm okay with that. Others don't treat it as a currency nor a commodity.

Quote from: be.open on May 26, 2022, 05:58:46 PM

I am not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but looking at the lockdown in Shanghai due to the relatively harmless omicron, the thought creeps involuntarily that China's "zero tolerance" policy regarding covid-19 has as one of its goals to create an artificial break in supply chains, because Shanghai is the center of container shipping from China. In fact, China now supplies goods only by land, and sea freight is blocked by 80%. Both China itself and the whole world, which is used to receiving goods from China by sea, suffer from this. This can be regarded as an act of China's soft economic warfare in its confrontation with the West.

The COVID supply chains are only part of it. There were some videos circulating around of China killing people's pets and confining them to their apartment buildings not even allowing their citizens to go to the grocery store unescorted, if at all. I can't verify these videos, but they seem legitimate and aligned with the CCP. IMO, they weren't too vulnerable from COVID, they just forced themselves into a position that allowed them to be economically fragile.

It's also why I laugh at folks that think China would be on board with Russian sanctions. As if they would pass an opportunity to conduct trade with an oil producing region.

Most people don't realize why Taiwan is more important to the U.S. than Ukraine was. See the immense chip production Taiwan is responsible for: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/26/us/politics/computer-chip-shortage-taiwan.html

You can't expect moral superiority with China. They're brazen enough to keep modern concentration camps against millions of muslims so their aspirations and intentions for Taiwan certainly seem in line with reality. Meaning -- a military invasion is plausible. If China wanted to take a lesson from Russia, it would be that a lackluster international response should be expected.

Quote from: Majestic-milf on May 23, 2022, 09:23:12 AM

lawyers, software engineers and blacksmiths, but then, the imminent threat of China to invade their city has had them changing course; men are now engaging in military training to enable them prepare for a possible attack by China.

Taiwan doesn't seem like a formidable opponent for China, wouldn't you agree? Do the lawyers and software engineers turned military infantrymen stand a chance against the Chinese army?

They will get slaughtered absent of U.S. intervention.

Quote from: be.open on May 26, 2022, 03:55:43 PM

Quote from: StanCrypt on May 26, 2022, 12:24:05 PM

How do you think China would respond to this crisis? your thoughts please.

China has made its impressive economic breakthrough on cheap coal. Then coal deposits in China began to run out and now China is the most energy-deficient country in the world. Western sanctions are pushing Russia to turn its back on Europe and divert more oil and coal to Asia, including China. If the sanctions last long enough to destroy the economic ties between Russia and Europe, China will become one of the main beneficiaries of this crisis.

China's economy isn't doing great at the moment. They're far from collapse but their economic growth appears to be slowing a bit.

They might look to Taiwan to ease any economic woes if they have them. Not that the Ukrainian war would have offered them any pause in their intentions to take Taiwan, but it certainly has reaffirmed their ambitions seeing the miserable response by most EU nations and the U.S. The only difference is that Taiwan is worth more to the U.S. than Ukraine. So if compelled, the U.S. might use military force to protect Taiwan in the event of an invasion (I'm still a bit doubtful thought).

China are the real winners here.

There isn't yet a positive ROI associated with solar panels when you factor in initial cost, maintenance, and geographical variance with some places not being exposed to a lot of sunlight. It's another one of the "feel good" measures that attempt to shift the conventional forms of energy into the green renewable energy utopia (which isn't actually attainable at the moment). It's comical that they cite the reliance on Russian imports as a reason for this. Imagine not diversifying the energy sources, becoming self reliant, or modifying the energy trading partners but instead electing to choose technology that's under developed and doesn't meet energy demands. Nuclear energy seems more sustainable, but for obvious reasons, the Europeans use it.

Quote from: Abiky on May 10, 2022, 01:56:22 PM

Quote from: uneng on May 09, 2022, 10:41:40 PM

I understand your point. But as I see, there are too many people offering their services online for too few individuals hiring those services. In other words: there is too much supply for low demand. Freelancers offering their services and asking to be paid in bitcoin isn't enough to push adoption upside. Employers dropping big money in bitcoin market are needed in order to make the masses adopt crypto efficiently through working online. Payrates don't even need to be large. Any extra income would be enough for incentivizing more people to use bitcoin.

The challenge is how to make employers adopt bitcoin. I guess only people willing to help bitcoin worldwide usage above any other interest could make this happen for real. That is: idealistic employers and entrepreneurs.

I seriously doubt employers are going to adopt Bitcoin, simply because it's extremely risky to use as digital cash. There's volatility everywhere, making it quite challenging to earn a fixed income by simply working for Bitcoin. With Fiat, that's not an issue due to its stability and reliability. Employers will trust Fiat more than anything else simply because it's backed by the government. Imagine what would happen if employers started paying in BTC instead of Fiat. The government will think they're evading taxes, forcing them to close their business for good.

For this and many other reasons, Bitcoin's adoption has been limited. While I'm certain it will become more popular over time, it'll never be as widely adopted as traditional Fiat currencies. I'm fine with that as long as decentralization wins at the end. Just my thoughts Grin

Employers would adopt Bitcoin if it meant leaving the fiat currency system in which political actors can send the entire system crashing down. There's volatility in crypto, I don't dispute that -- but also consider the volatility with fiat in which the inflation rate can systematically reduce your purchasing power every year, something that is induced by design (min. 2% year, often exceeds that). Plenty of incentive for an employer to adopt crypto. They just haven't realized it until more recently with most fiats experiencing insane inflation rates.

Quote from: _BlackStar on May 23, 2022, 02:51:17 PM

Starting from a topic started by Ratimov: Why has bitcoin adoption failed in El Salvador? so my inspiration to start this thread suddenly appeared where right now i really am would like to know what you think and expect if your country decides to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender.

We all know that El Salvador boldly announced to the world that they adopted bitcoin as a currency as well as legal tender. Many of us agree that this is an expected development, but in the end we can learn from the country ^{[El Salvador]} that to achieve successful adoption, the country and its government must also have a good approach and take the right steps. It is clear that this approach will have an impact on the success of the adoption, but so far El Salvador has failed with the adoption because their approach is not as perfect as expected based on the research.

Well, if El Salvador is considered to have failed with its bitcoin adoption so far ^{[perhaps they have never failed 100%]} then what do you expect if one day your country also decides to adopt bitcoin as a currency and legal tender especially regarding the approach and steps your government should take?

El Salvador hasn't failed. Bitcoin adoption takes years, if not decades, to come to fruition. I don't understand why people believe it is reasonable to expect someone to give up fiat currencies, something they've depended on for ages, for a digital currency with technology they most likely do not understand. Education is the biggest hurdle once government bureaucracy has been surpassed.

Give it time before calling El Salvador's experimentation with Bitcoin a failure. Perhaps the bitcoin community could benefit greatly with patience.

There was a "learn to code" campaign that would get people removed from social media if you dared to tell someone that had been economically displaced due to their occupation being outdated that they might learn to code in order to get a job.

It, in fact, was more than a joke. Information technology, computer science, and software related coding are basic skills you can learn to lift yourself out of extreme poverty granted you have basic equipment and internet access.