What's even more bizarre is that on top of Euro reaching parity with USD, USD inflation still isn't stopping. New CPI has the USD inflation rate at 9.1 percent. The interest rate hikes aren't reflected in this report, nor are lowering energy costs, but it still is absurd that nearly 10 percent of the value USD holders had a year ago was lost. There aren't many stable currencies left, which is unironically "good for Bitcoin."

If you live in civilized society you've probably already gotten the virus and not even known about it. The newer variants are mild anyways

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Those that still believe the vaccine is effective against new variants, I'd point you to this chart: https://covid19.who.int/region/wpro/country/nz

There are more cases and deaths associated with COVID-19 in New Zealand with a 95% vaccinated population over the last 7 months than there were in 2020 and 2021 combined. The vaccines that were once effective, are no longer effective.

The CDC is now recommending that anyone older than 6 months get vaccinated: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/children-teens.html

Based on what evidence?

Mass adoption would make the price more stable. Complete stability does not exist in any financial market. I could go on a tangent on the philosophical notions of stability, but for the purposes of the financial sector -- stability doesn't actually exist. The traditional currencies that you might think are stable actually aren't. Their value is decaying constantly, and the rate of decay (inflation) varies.



As I mention, mass adoption would help. Stablecoins aren't stable. If they're pegged to a currency, the stablecoins's purchasing power decays at the same rate the currency it's pegged to does. And whatever centralized authority issues out the stablecoin, you better hope they remain solvent.

Oil's usually taken out of the inflation calculations but energy can essentially cause the price of other consumer goods to inflate if the entire energy sector takes a hit. If Russian oil is scarce for Eastern Europe, the price of all goods go up because it takes energy to create goods.

Venezuela and Libya can't solve this. Ukrainian war needs to end.

Tyranny is what China does in the name of "COVID safety," ie taking Shanghai residents and forcibly confining residents to their apartment buildings and even in some cases, euthanizing their pets.

https://www.businessinsider.com/china-langfang-district-says-kill-covid-patients-pets-2022-3

I believe they canceled the kill order, but nonetheless not before some pets were murdered.

China is the outlier, we already know the CCP was horribly tyrannical.

Perhaps developed countries would fare a bit better: Forced vaccinations, vaccine passports, and removal of private enterprise under the guise of "lockdown regulations," driven by unscientific and unsubstantiated claims about COVID spread.

Read here, a literature review and metanalysis of COVID-19 lockdown strategy: 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

There were no statistically significant differences between free populations and populations under lockdown measures. The politicians knew this from the start, but they let their own personal fears and emotions dictate COVID policy.


Protect those who are vulnerable. The virus does not affect a geriatric the same way it would effect the young.

Crazy person does crazy thing is possible, but unlikely.

Was surprised to see such little security surrounding Shinzo Abe which even allowed the assailant to get so close with whatever homemade device he had.

Japan has a death penalty and their system will only allow for the condemned to be informed of their death the morning of. So the prisoner is just waiting around and has no knowledge of when they'll actually be killed. Guess there would have to be larger motive if hanging by death was worth it. Abe was was a nationalist and on the right, is that enough?

The conditions were nonsense from the start. Of course Twitter has some problem with bot accounts, every social media platform does. He's afraid that he overpaid at 54 USD a share when the reality is twitter is probably worth half of that. They aren't very profitable for a social media giant so he isn't going to get any major ROI.

Elon let his ego get in the way. Shocking for a billionaire, I know.

Elon Musk terminates deal with Twitter: https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-4193a27d86458952542dfa2176150a01


He cites a lack of information/transparency on bot accounts as his reason. Sure, I suppose people might buy that excuse.

I'm wondering if the economic downturn had anything to do with his decision not to sink over 40 billion dollars into a miserable social media enterprise filled with college aged children complaining about how they were oppressed because they were misgendered at the coffee shop. He's claimed that he's losing billions of dollars on his car factories due to supply chain shortages, and he's cut staff at Tesla citing economic concerns. It would be a horrible move to overpay for twitter at his buying price, especially with recession on the horizon.

Well, all of the inflation was somewhat to be expected because of quantitative easing that happened years ago but it's not easy to tell exactly how much inflation is due to QE in combination with the COVID social welfare state countries decided to set up in combination with the war.

It's important to note that even in a bitcoin-only world that wars breaking out would cause you to lose purchasing power due to limited supply and either consistent or higher demand. But, price stabilization occurs once the war ends and production increases back up again, ie supply increases. When the war in Ukraine ends, it's not as if the purchasing power you have with EUR/USD or whatever currency will return back to pre-war days so your point is probably correct, but the real reason inflation is so absurdly high is because of the war so you can't minimize it's contribution.

Inflation is everywhere now due to the war. The U.S. inflation problem was partly due to money printing, but plenty of European countries themselves had borrowed too much from themselves in 2020 when they shut down their economies for COVID restrictions so they were bound for some inflation regardless of the war. The current supply chain issues and product shortages just compound a much more complicated issue.

This also highlights how important energy is. You can completely tank a currency by sending energy prices higher because it makes the country's ability to operate (ie ability to produce economic output) more expensive.

The revulsion I had for people, particularly the green climate change activists, who argued that the only effects of the war on Europe for countries choosing to avoid Russian oil was increased prices at the pump. Well, Europe is finding out that isn't particularly the case.

Isn't it interesting how Russians mysteriously die with the traditional, unsuspicious, two shots to the back of the head suicide death with at typed suicide note? Coincidence, surely. Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning was really the epitome of Russian brazenness. Having no respect for borders and pushing their assassins to carry out the dirty work of the Kremlin in foreign lands means they wouldn't hesitate to kill a few energy execs if it mean preserving their precious oil enterprise. Not much of a conspiracy anymore.

Wartime efforts require a lot of resources. They can't stimulate their economy using oil alone. They need extra output from their workers.

The draft seems a bit sensationalist. There is enough manpower from the Russian army, it just seems morale is low. There isn't anyway to fix this unless Putin just plans on cycling soldiers out using a draft system. It'd be counterintuitive to ship untrained draftees out into war.


This is not even close to WW2. Ironically enough it's the Ukrainians that have a problem with neo-Nazism. That doesn't justify invasion, obviously.

This is not investing, this is gambling. This is no different than shorting stocks except you have at least have a maximum amount of funds that you can lose.


Seems awfully unethical, doesn't it? Lying to the banks about a business plan you have when you throw the money in crypto instead? The interest calculation would have been different if you told the bank the truth.

Perhaps if you had told them the truth they wouldn't have given you the loan?

Wait till you realize that most politicians are rotten to the core. Boris Johnson wasn't terrible. Conservatives are already perceived as morally corrupt therefore worthy of contemptuous attacks so once you peel that notion off of him, he isn't like Trump at all. Trump isn't even a conservative, he just pretends to be one.

Boris Johnson could be pretending too, he might be a better actor 

Nearly every country in the world taxes crypto gains. Most places allow private enterprises to compensate via crypto as well. Legal tender status isn't the biggest hurdle as long as p2p transactions between consumer and sellers aren't tightly regulated. In the future the government could ban businesses from taking Bitcoin if they wanted (I imagine because they would fear tax evasion) which would eliminate crypto entirely within the jurisdiction, but that isn't likely.

Most governments just hope that businesses stick with fiats.

Since March countries began hoarding grains/wheats in anticipation of food costs rising. It's not that big of an issue if you happen to be lucky enough to live in a wealthy developed nation. You'll only see marginal increases in the price of food. The people that will suffer famine and starve to death are people living in poorer countries.

The cost of war isn't just having gasoline become more pricey -- a lot of people will die.

CBDC's aren't crypto currencies and this is exactly what the fed is looking to install, among other central banks with out of control inflation. It centralizes power even further and makes it easier for the banks to control the money supply than the current methods. U.S. government will further regulate Bitcoin in a desperate attempt to save their miserable currency.

If you invested in Bitcoin earlier than the last two years, you've gotten a positive ROI. Since creation, Bitcoin has well outpaced any currency in existence.

The reason Bitcoin is tied to the financial markets is because of how heavily institutional investors are involved in the crypto market. Any time the global market is on a downturn, they'll remove their funds out of all markets and buy in at a lower price. Only way to prevent these folks from making large changes in the price is for mass adoption, which hopefully will come in the future.

With fiat currency, they're designed to inflate at least 2% per year (targeted by the central banks). Does that sound reasonable?

I doubt it. If institutional investors are involved in Bitcoin, they'll view the crypto market akin to the stock or housing market and pull out their funds if they see the market taking a downturn. Unless Bitcoin reaches stability through mass adoption, Bitcoin will move in tandem with other markets. If the global economy crashes, every market tanks too -- crypto no exception.

Volatility is the only reason we haven't seen mass adoption IMO, which is unfortunate because generally the only way to fix volatility is for mass adoption.

Price should stabilize in the long term with more users. It'll take decades, though. It's why I find it so bizarre for people to panic when there are sudden shifts or corrections in the price. If you're someone that's holding, expect to be holding for a while. Your patience will be rewarded.