U.S. Vice President tests positive for COVID-19: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/26/kamala-harris-tests-positive-for-covid-is-not-exhibiting-symptoms.html

Exhibiting no symptoms. Some number of weeks ago, the White House press secretary tested positive for COVID a second time. I haven't heard of her symptoms, but she was probably asymptomatic too. COVID reinfections are rare, and COVID reinfections of the same strain are extraordinarily rare. Hypothetically, you could eliminate all COVID by just stopping the tests. Testing the asymptomatic probably has resulted in more false positives than anything else, but the WH couldn't have that. They're suppose to be the adults that show the world how COVID is supposed to be handled.

Elon Musk has no deep understanding of the energy usage associated with doge. He follows the doge strictly for memes and jokes. His following seem slightly neurotic about Elon's dealings with doge, they don't realize he's not serious about any of it. Though, Musk is serious about Bitcoin and its energy consumption, and I'd classify that more as being misinformed because he omits energy costs associated with fiat currencies in his analysis of energy consumption within the context of financial systems.

You can put as much faith into CBDC's are would the central banks' fiat currency. That is to say, you should be no faith into CBDC's, perhaps even less than fiat currencies. CBDC's just digitalizes the money supply allowing for even more control than already exists. Modifying the money supply just requires inputting digits into a keypad, and any holders are subject to adherence by arbitrary regulations that the central banks might impose.

Climate change hippies wanting to ban crypto currencies to save the environment. Sounds about right. They might even have climate change related summits to discuss banning crypto, while taking their private jets across the globe to attend.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN

USD has been on the decline for years. See the above chart. I'd caution that debt is not the entire context. Debt isn't actually a bad thing as long as the potential for economic growth is there. If you have reasonable projections, you can take on the debt for future earnings. So really, this chart alone is not indicative of the full picture or represents an inherent flaw with USD. The issue is that the spending has not kept up with the economic growth, and that's before COVID. Factor quantitative easing into a slow economy, you have high inflation in conjunction with large amounts of debt. Sounds like a sinking ship, doesn't it? Well, most people would agree, which is why many countries are lowering their USD holdings and swapping them out for other assets that don't pose so much risk.

Post COVID was really the point of no return, where the money printer was put in place of a thriving economy. The printer can only run for so long before the currency produced is so highly saturated that people realize it's just paper and not worth anything valuable.

You can personally trust an exchange's security and still be locked out for some minor and obscure TOS violation, happens all the time with people holding their funds on 3rd party platforms even outside of crypto. You don't own any of the coin that you do not control the private keys for.

Those documentation forms can get rejected for any arbitrary reason. Plenty of payment platforms will freeze accounts and request documents, then continually reject any valid document submissions for whatever excuse they feel like giving. I wouldn't trust an exchange with a single satoshi.

US, EU, and now India (I'm sure there are others) all attempting to blame terrorism funding on crypto. You're seeing a commonality when large countries begin to focus on the same false narrative that crypto currency somehow is a national security threat. There isn't a need to address the matter -- terrorism will exist with or without crypto currency.

This isn't a large issue, merely speculative and just being used as an excuse shove down regulations. As long as they can sell the public a false sense of safety, they'll be okay with anything. Terrorism is a great excuse.

On the note of China, they are in fact conducting bilateral transactions with Russia without using USD outputs. So on top of the Russian currency reserves being emptied, China is willing to do business with Russia on their own terms.

Interesting side note, Israel is a major U.S. ally, and for the first time, they've adopted Yuan into their own currency reserves dropping their share of USD. It isn't just Russia that is diversifying their assets.

It's going to be a problem if the CCP's currency becomes the global standard.

He has responded to the poison pill approach. He's at around 10 percent equity and is not able to have more than 15 percent without Twitter flooding the shares. He can just get a few business partners that would get 14.9 of the company and easily have a group of 4 private investors that would have majority control of the company. IIRC he insinuated an approach like this as a plan B. His reluctance to join the Twitter board tells you he wants to buy the entire thing, not just be the largest shareholder.

If you're victim to a drunk driving accident and live, you're entitled to file a civil suit against the person which will result in financial liability. If you die, your family has that right, and in DUI manslaughter cases, or any case for that matter, I believe the U.S. allows for an automatic settlement/victory for the litigants in a civil suit if the same defendant is convicted for the same crime in a criminal court. The law seems a bit redundant because I imagine in civil cases that wages would be garnished if the settlement can't be paid at once.

Wartime or not, it isn't good policy to hold Ukrainians' funds hostage. Hypothetically, what happens if Ukraine loses the war and Russia overtakes the banking system, what happens to UAH? Probably becomes worthless, and citizens that weren't able to withdraw any funds outside of the monthly cap are out of luck. If currency was actually backed by something, or decentralized, none of this would be an issue. This isn't Ukraine's fault, rather an indictment of fiat currencies as a whole. There is no guarantee in sustainability. You aren't really in control of your funds.

How many of those 60 million are victims of capitalism, or victims from their own personal decision making? There isn't a perfect economic system that's ever created 100% prosperity. There never will be. There has to be "losers" in every economy within a particular moment. That's not to say someone from the lower class can't build themselves up to a higher economic level over time -- in fact that's what the tradition normally is as time goes on, wealth increases. Capitalism is the simplest system to help propel someone from a lower class into a higher class, just requires time.

Non-binary just means you don't ascribe a particular identity to a single masculine or feminine facet. The gender fluid people might describe themselves as "male" one day or "female" another day because they think that gender is a spectrum that is free flowing. The term non-binary applies to everything in the middle of absolute "male" and "female" at the far ranges of the spectrum. Someone feels a bit masculine one day, then might feel more feminine another day.

None of these labels are objective in any sense so the verbiage might not even be relevant. I can't keep up with it, to be honest.


Like this lovely lady?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdnBV-S-RXk

Very bizarre. Camera rolls over to Putin and then they try to cut out the hand from the shot. Could be unintentional but hand placement is glaringly peculiar. Notice how he is also hunched back in his chair? Almost appears like he can barely even sit down and support himself.

This picture was taken February 2022, it shows the same posture. Hand on the table, back leaned on the chair awkwardly.

U.S. Dept. of Justice is appealing the decision by a judge to strike down a federal mask mandate on public forms of transportation: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/20/us/politics/cdc-transportation-mask-mandate.html

If the appeal is successful, mask mandates will be reinstated. Very ironic considering the lift of Title 42 which allows for immediate expulsion of illegal immigrants, even those applying for asylum. Title 42 is set to expire in May and the suspected result is a large influx of illegal immigrants. If masking to prevent COVID is still necessary, I'd imagine letting in untested illegal immigrants may seem like quite the contradiction. U.S. COVID policy in a nutshell.

You could get yourself some companions and invest in cattle. Have you seen global beef prices?

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/beef

Not quite the yearly increase as aluminum, but over a period of 5 years, quite the increase 

On a more serious note, commodities aren't the most feasible to trade with. The raw materials that manufacturers use to produce goods have increased over the last two years with COVID and they won't be alleviated until the supply chain fully recovers. High demand by manufactures so the price of commodities seem artificially high and should stabilize eventually. Might put a dent in the aluminum HODLers's profits.

Biden administration signed an executive order that investigates the regulatory framework surrounding crypto currency. I've never seen the U.S. take a step away from governmental control and when there is a regulation, that generally means there is some government revenue to be made. IMO the U.S. won't be feasible for crypto mining for much long if high tax measures are implemented. Energy costs won't factor in the equation if the bulk of profits are paid to the government.

That's probably where the U.S. is head with regulations, but nothing's drafted yet.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/09/biden-orders-cryptocurrency-study-as-traders-await-new-regulations-legislation.html

Lockdowns actually work, just not in any colloquial sense or under democratic republics. If you can physically isolate people within their homes and enforce isolation, then the virus can't spread. The issue with any lockdown the West tried was people were still mobile. People still went to the grocery store, to work, out with friends etc and then most transmission would end up happening in the home. The CCP, like with most communists, are okay with letting people die and violating basic human rights, so confining people to their homes and not allowing them to leave even to go to the grocery store was as close to a true lockdown as possibly obtainable. China lied about their numbers, but there was reporting when Wuhan and other regions went into lockdown and when cities began opening up again back in 2020. Seemed like China may be successful in their lockdown strategy as long as they can drive people to to near suicide by physical isolation. If people starve to death, that's just a bonus to them.

To think there were authoritarians that wanted to adopt China's method.

North Korea sustains its economy on a lot of fraud. They're involved in a lot of USD counterfeiting for some portion of their economy so it's easy to see why they've moved on to crypto fraud. They're being mostly supported by China, because all of their fraud activities would not be enough alone to run the country.


They could sell it on the private market easily, probably to some buyers in China. Crypto currency is massive in China, obviously, and the funds that are rendered from those transactions just go to the top levels of the North Korean government. The folks that are starving or dying from disease won't see a penny of it.

This is the issue, Bitcoin's price hasn't stabilized because it hasn't been mass adopted yet. There's a general acceptance by most people that crypto's serve some sort of role, but when you ask people if they're involved in crypto for day-to-day use, they'll tell you no. People are using Bitcoin as an investment oppose to an actual currency, if they use crypto currency at all, so we're not at the point of mass adoption. I consider mass adoption to be the point when Bitcoin acts as the world's reserve currency, toppling USD. Perhaps a big goal, but not unrealistic if you've seen how other currencies are operating at the moment. Once true mass adoption occurs, then the price stabilizes.