The central banks purposely target inflation to be at 2 percent, so even in a perfect world the money supply coincided perfectly with GDP, it'd be difficult to pull off. You're one economic dip away from ruining the entire system before the central banks panic and begin injecting money into the economy to save industries that would have probably crashed had it not been for intervention. Just use COVID as an example, debt of most countries began to sky rocket. The US in particular has their inflation rate out of control so it isn't merely just a problem with supply chains.

That's the issue with centralized economics, the entity in control inevitably loses control.

We do know about COVID. The world was introduced to SARS-CoV-1 back in 2003, and SARS-CoV-2 is 90 percent homologous to the original virus.

And these viruses act similar to most other viruses in history, the structure is generally the same, the replication mechanism, and the illness pathophysiology is the same. We know that once you get infected, you remain immune from reinfection, unless there's infection from a distant strain that is unrecognized by your adaptive immune system.

The vaccines were approved after a 6 month trial, boosters were approved with even less data. Yet the recommendation is that all those above 5 years of age get vaccinated, and all those about their mid teens get boosted. There is no data for any of this stuff, and their blanket recommendations are being shoved down the throats of law abiding citizens who are expected to use these therapeutics when they might not need it. If they refuse, in some countries they are treated as second class citizens, unable to enjoy basic liberties.

Someone at a high risk category, say 60 years old, obese, would be better off with the vaccine and boosters given their health profile. The risk of severe illness from COVID clearly outweigh the risk of adverse vaccine effects, or any unknown long term effects. But change the health profile to someone, say, 14 years old and healthy. The chance of someone of this demographic having a serious COVID illness is virtually zero, therefore you're taking a gamble forcing them to get vaccinated.

A final note -- some of the side effects of the vaccine are fairly harsh, though people eventually get over them.

It was common thinking that the side effects originated from the spike proteins that were produced by the mRNA based vaccines. Turns out, the side effects might be caused by the lipid nanoparticles that encapsulate the mRNA (used as a delivery vehicle to reach the target area).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221014504

It's only now, over a year later, that we are having these conversations. There's a lot still unknown about the vaccines, which is why it's best reserved for those who need it and are at high risk of COVID.

On a related note in regards to the Canadian trucker convoy, there was a gofundme that raised over 10 million for this event, then gofundme paused the fundraiser for manual review.

https://globalnews.ca/news/8590302/trucker-convoy-gofundme-stopped/

Article says 1M was already released from the fundraiser, but who knows, they might nuke it. We know the platforms don't like anything politically inconvenient.

Also doesn't seem like a great idea to piss off the truckers, the folks that keep the supply chain moving.

The Baltic countries aren't as big as Ukraine, don't have the historical significance that Ukraine does (Ukraine was previously part of the USSR, after all). And Ukraine cooperates with the US intelligence communities, which is one of the things Putin contests.

Sure, missiles could fly from the Baltic countries, but they're not militarily active, and chances are they'd stay neutral in any sort of conflict. Ukraine is a justifiable target, a country like Estonia or Lithuania is not.

John Hopkins meta analysis and review released on lockdowns - https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

See p. 38, table 7.

Little to no effect on COVID mortality as a result of lockdowns overall. Slight benefit from locking down "non-essential" businesses, though that depends on what one might consider essential.

The cost benefit analysis also must be considered within the context of prevented deaths, meaning an analysis of the number of cancer screenings, drug OD's, depression rates, domestic abuse, etc. and seeing how they compare.

The lockdowns didn't work, and the benefit was not worth it.

This is useless conjecture, but I've suspected a lot of depression can be caused specifically on Instagram (vs. Facebook or Twitter) because it causes unrealistic expectations. I'm sure research would support this, if someone has studied it. It's very toxic on the human psyche for those that might be susceptible to that type of influence.

Now imagine young impressionable children on the platform. Recipe for disaster.

Interesting paper on the lipid nanoparticles/mRNA-LNP complex that the Pfizer/BioNTech & Moderna vaccines are comprised of: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221014504

My understanding of the side effects were strictly from the side of spike protein creation induced by mRNA, but there are cytotoxic effects from the lipid nanoparticles that might explain the immediate side effects (pain/soreness at the injection site, some inflammation).

LNP's were the delivery vehicle for mRNA because mRNA is not very stable to begin with, so the notion that that the mRNA floats around unchecked is false. The LNP's seem to stick around though, and activate some inflammatory cellular pathways and induce proinflammatory signaling molecules (IL-1β and IL-6 according to the article).

What happens if he forgets to take his Alzheimer's pills? Hope you have a contingency plan.

On a similar note, there were also vax lotteries that were going around. Anyone that got vaccinated got entered into a random drawing for some large prize.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2022/01/06/another-study-shows-covid-vaccine-lotteries-didnt-work-why-not-16045

They did not even do anything. Didn't incentivize vaccination, only wasted a bunch of money by giving people who were already going to get vaccinated a chance at winning.

A few things to discuss regarding Biden and Bitcoin.

First of all, you can generally get the feeling of what his thoughts are on Bitcoin via proxy -- Janet Yellen, someone Biden believes is doing a great job.

Janet Yellen was appointed by Biden to be the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury department and has previously referred to crypto as inefficient, citing her concernsabout the stability of crypto. She's an open advocate for regulating crypto into the ground. Perhaps Biden could plead ignorance on her crypto stances because I question his cognitive function, but I save this for another discussion. Buck stops with the President, therefore Biden is responsible for this.

Moving onto the general premise of the U.S. economy -- debt to GDP ratio is not sustainable, and neither is the inflation rate the US has at 7 percent and no longer transitory. In addition quantitative easing in which the central banks have taken on trillions in liabilities has irreversibly increased the money supply. The incentive for Biden is to limit divestments from USD, raise revenue to pay for the debt, and prevent individuals from circumventing p2p transactional taxes. His answer to these issues, of course, is regulating crypto to lower the usage and milk every penny of tax revenue possible.

Biden administration has already navigated the narrative on regulating crypto. They claim it's for national security considerations. Complete nonsense. National security, as many of you all will recall, was the scapegoat for 9/11 privacy invasion and NSA/CIA overreach into the monitoring/tracking of U.S. citizens. Americans readily go along with anything as long as if it makes them feel safer, so the pitch will be clear -- regulate crypto, and this keeps the homeland safer (again, nonsense, but this is the pitch).

And coincidentally in this discussion of regulating crypto, the federal reserve has discussed digitalizing the US dollar into a CBDC. How awfully convenient.

You see what's happening...crush crypto and then put people on a CBDC system where the total money supply can be electronically controlled with the pressing of a keypad. And then any digital USD holders will rely on the federal government to sustain their purchasing power. Eliminating the competition makes adopting of a CBDC much easier.

Selling to the poor ensures you have a large market of generally uneducated buyers. Sounds harsh, but it's true. Appeal to the masses of the poor and uneducated with an affordable product, and your business model is quite successful. Though I'd offer an alternative and suggest that any business model that can insert itself into the middle class plus lower class is bound for success.

Wouldn't seem worth it for Russia to launch cyber attacks against the US when they've said they won't get involved IMO. Doesn't make sense to poke a bear with a stick, especially when Russia has oil as leverage against the European countries.

There was a mass killing in Waukesha Wisconsin where some terrorist (my words, not the media's words of course) drove down a parade line and killed 6 people, some children.

He had a massive criminal record, was out on bail, and posted anti-white rhetoric on his social media pages. Overall, just a pleasant guy.

The district attorney in that locality is a person named John Chisholm, a radical progressive that believes in fundamental changes in criminal justice, which translates into not holding criminals accountable. The blood is on his hands.

https://twitter.com/DAJohnChisholm/status/1218021655131443200


I notice a pattern -- all the soft on crime district attorney are affiliated with the progressive far left movement. I suppose crime increase is a core tenet of their belief system.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/01/28/president-joe-biden-is-going-after-bitcoin-cryptocurrencies-and-nfts/?sh=424c574657b9

Take this article with a grain of salt, no one can verify what exactly any proposed executive order might accomplish, but given the expanded powers of the executive, the overreach through executive action generally isn't something that's challenged through the courts. Biden administration is planning on regulating Bitcoin, NFT's, etc.

In this case, as we all know, "regulating' merely means excessive taxes on anyone who decides to hold/trade Bitcoin. We all knew it was coming.

Seems like you're asking two different questions -- the costs associated with mining and the value of BTC within the context of mining costs...so you're essentially asking what the profit is?

There isn't anyone that can answer that -- BTC's price is not at a fixed position, setting aside the varying costs of mining. A bit of a pointless question to ask. The "true" value of BTC is not calculated by taking the asking price subtracted by the mining cost because you're assuming the asking price is fixed.

Seems like you're right. I was under the impression Bitcoin as legal tender would operate as a new currency, but if they can classify Bitcoin as a commodity perhaps they could get around the constitutional barrier. But again, as you alluded to, these sort of attention grabbing headlines are designed to give these state senators some publicity. It doesn't take any effort to introduce a bill, anyone can do it. Then the state senator can go back to his/her constituents and brag about how pro-crypto they are citing the introduction a bill that went no where in the legislature.

I don't think it even has a chance of passing the Arizona legislature, let alone surviving the court system after it were to get challenged. This senator isn't the only U.S. politician to say they want to legalize Bitcoin, there's been plenty before her -- they know they can't do it, it's just to pander so they present themselves as being outside of the establishment. We've all heard the script before.

I've seen plenty of Americans that are right leaning that would take Hillary Clinton over Joe Biden, but only to the extent that Clinton is a capitalist and isn't afraid of pissing the progressives off.

Recalling an excerpt from HRC's book where she ripped all over Bernie Sanders and the progressive agenda, it gave me quite the laugh to see people get upset over a democratic capitalist, as if it's somehow controversial.

Maybe Clinton should run again in 2024, and even better if Trump did so to. There wasn't enough suspense the first time, round two will be much better. The Republican party would be in shambles trying to pick between DeSantis and Trump, and the Democratic party would implode trying to pick between Clinton and a progressive (and Kamala Harris, but she is in her own category).

This paper is far too long to debunk step by step. I've read it, it's nonsense. Point number three in particular is not even a good faith argument.


How hilarious...

This wouldn't be an issue if there was mass adoption. Reason there's market volatility is because there aren't enough users involved in crypto (thanks to government over regulating crypto or outright banning it). And the lack system maintenance is a great thing. Ask yourself -- when has the government ever shifted fiscal policy that's resulted in a net benefit for its citizens? If centralized banks act irresponsibly and manufacture a crisis because they have the control, they do not get credit for creating a fix. Driving yourself into a ditch and then patting yourself on the back once you get out is not an accomplishment. There wouldn't be much need for "system maintenance" with a decentralized currency because the supply doesn't depend on how the government feels on a particular day.

Good for Substack for not bowing down to the cancel culture mob. The appeal of substack is that they generally allow a hands-off approach to moderation, so the folks that were banned on Facebook/Twitter get a platform. And as a side note -- the social media platforms consider anyone that might be concerned about side effects for the vaccine an "anti-vaxxer." Anyone against the mandating of such vaccines is also considered to be an "anti-vaxxer."

I don't use substack for crypto commentary because as of now, crypto is not ostracized from most platforms of discussion. Though when mainstream governments (US, EU, China) begin their disinformation campaigns on crypto, you might find more crypto commentary on platforms like substack after crypto commentary becomes tightly regulated. Jack, CEO of twitter, was a Bitcoin advocate until they booted him for another radical. Not sure what his stance on crypto is but if the US government were to approach him and ask him to limit crypto discussion on the platform, he'd oblige.