May be out of the woods for now. The negative pressure seems to have backed off and we have a pretty decent chance of settling out to the $32k-$33k range. Dipped down to $31.5k a couple times and then the pressure seemed to just dissipate. Weird Weird, & weird!


Doh! Spoke too soon, Downward pressure is back and we may be headed to $$32k territory.

Somebody Really wants the price to go down below $33.2k! I'm watching 5 & 10 BTC bids being dropped one after another. All of the buys are accumulations of smaller orders, but there is clearly Somebody willing to sacrifice quite a few coins to see more downity!

By all my indicators, the current downing is not yet done downing


$33.2k trying to hold, but not looking good...

If it were in fact possible by some yet to be invented technology, do we really believe then, that our current point in time is SO utterly boring that no future time travelers have been interested enough to travel back to this point in history? I mean certainly we'd recognize some indicators that our distant progeny has come to visit! Right?

OK guys, I've been looking at the depth charts for my chosen exchange. (I know, mediocre tool for predictions at best.) But what I'm seeing is we keep bouncing back and forth between the 1k buy and sell orders in the range between $33k & $35k. These look like traders, ie same coins being bought and sold repeatedly by the same people.
But if you zoom out a little bit, around $27.5k it spikes up to 5k+ buy orders currently on the books and doesn't look like stop loss sell orders really start until about $24k. And in the other direction, the furthest I can zoom out to see is $70k and the sell orders are relatively flat (between 1k-2k) up to that point. So my thinking is, if we can get a good dippening down to the $27.5k range, and pick up those 5k+ buy orders (plus the unscheduled market buy orders of unknown volume) It looks like it would create the momentum to carry us clear up to the $70k-$75k range in a sustainable way.

But hey, I'm still relatively new to all this so what do I know... right?

Got 3 calls.today to notify me that my Social Security number was being suspended due to suspicious activity. The 2  Lls from people concerned that my warranty was about to expire on my 14 yr old car that I bought outright as  person to person cash transaction.  Then somebody apparently changed my Netflix password (I don't have one) and my AT&T account was suspended (don't have one of those either. That's not even counting the 3 calls that were recordings of  pleasant sounding young lady reading a Mandarin Chinese script. It's reached the 0oint where if their number isn't already saved as a contact, and they don't leave a message or a text, I just add them to the blocked numbers list. I currently have 3,800 contacts saved with phone numbers, but the blocked list is catching up fast!

Whoa!!! Careful! Op Sec!!!

Repeatedly testing the $34k bottom support...

So if we've such a horrible system that doesn't mandate vacations, why do people from all over the world want to come to America? You said earlier that Romania and other EU countries are trying to encourage and subsidize paternity due to shrinking populations. This is so strange to me.

As to your point about Corporate Welfare, I agree, it's a serious problem that has no place in a free society.  It is one of many examples of our Constitutional Republic being destroyed by political greed. If we don't correct the course quickly I fear our Land of the Free that our forefathers fought and died to create will sink into abysmal death spiral called Corporate Oligarchy. They call it Progressive, I call it Unconstitutional Theft of Freedom & Public Funds.

Oh, BTW... Numbers been UPpity all weekend! Seems to be a pretty solid wall at $36k. We've fallen off a bit for now, but keep slamming against that $36k top and I expect it to become a bottom support in the next day or so. Then it will be the $40k wall to bash against. If we break through that, we may very well be on an extended upward climb!


Or we might drop back to the $30k range to accumulate a bit more momentum for the $40k+ push. Guess we'll just have to wait & see.

I think you completely missed my point. There are many companies offering extensive maternity & paternity leave as part of their benefits packages to draw the best and brightest employees! My company offers 5 weeks paid vacation plus 10 days paid sick leave / personal days as well as 95% Health Insurance Premium. (employee pays 5% of annual premium split across their weekly payroll, comes out to about $8/week pre tax)

But if it is Required of all employers by government legislation, then there is no benefit to being the schmuck that makes the investment blindly. In that case, it would be my responsibility to be biased against hiring young females. It's the unintended consequences of feel good government policy. It secures the politicians election prospects because it sounds good, but when the reality sets in it's actually most destructive to the very ones it claims to be helping.

There was mention of Welfare Queens. So the cradle to grave multgenerational welfare machines is proclaimed to be a safety net to help poor single moms rise out of poverty right? Except by design, if there is a father figure present the payments are not only stopped, but charged back to the fathers. The number one contributing factor in poverty and crime statistics is unwed mothers raising children with no father figure. But yet the very system "designed to help" is actually paying mothers to stay single and penalizing fathers who want to take responsibility for their own children! It's feel good policy designed to keep the politicians in power by intentionally perpetuating the problem and creating more and more dependent cradle to grave poverty. To understand policy, it's necessary to study the results rather than fighting over the intentions.

See, now that is an unfair portrayal of the compensation packages of wait staff & bartenders. First of all, if the $2.79/hr wage was a serious problem, they would not be able to keep enough staff to keep the doors open. Second, as one who started out in the restaurant business 25 years ago, I can tell you... there's not much out there that will beat a job that sends you home every night with free dinner, and $75-$125 cash in your pocket. At 17, 18, & 19 with no degree, no special skills, and no resume, being able to make $800+ per week cash money off of tips and mileage (pizza delivery, $3.50/hr plus $0.15/mile and 100% of tips) Minimum wage was $5.85/hr but I was doing OK! Ended up leaving that job to work 3rd shift full-time in a grocery store. Even though I had a family member in management that got me in the door at their top payrate, I was still making about 20% less than my below minimum wage restaurant job. Only reason I took it was because it came w/ health insurance and being 3rd shift, it allowed me to finish my education during the day.


Employment and wages are an ongoing negotiation between the employees & the employer. A) If the employer does not have enough hours to offer, that unexpected time off should be devoted to finding more secure employment. B) In my experience, when business is slow and I'm over staffed, it's not the employees that have proven to be the most productive and reliable that I send home. Those employees get as many hours as I can give them even though they are probably paid a little higher wage. They are the valuable ones that I want to keep! It's the less productive employees that often spend their time complaining about being slow rather than using the downtime to do things that just can't be kept up with during a rush. (folding napkins, scrubbing the bottoms of tables, rotating the cooler and tossing out expired produce) These are the minimum wage earners that really aren't worth the wages they take. That's why I send them home first, and wouldn't be overly concerned if they ended up finding another job.


Obligatory Training time is on the clock and should be reimbursed at regular pay rate (in all states I'm familiar with anyway) Employers that break the law should be reported to the labor board and charged accordingly. Law breakers don't represent a problem with the system, it represents a problem with morality and enforcement. Now optional self paced training videos and online courses is a different matter. These are often offered as free resources to advance your career potential and although not always directly reimbursed, for the "go getter" they nearly always pay off in the long run.

I have been advertising an entry level $18/hr part time job with on job training and clear growth potential to become a full time career for the right candidate. The position has been open for 18 months, and last week I got my first resume in over 6 months. After a short interview I hired the candidate at $18/hr even though he has no formal education or training.
We don't have a shortage of entry level jobs offering quick advancement beyond PT minimum wage. What we have is a shortage of self driven workers with the moral character & work ethic to succeed.

OK, so I have lived here my entire life and have Never heard US referred to as the "land of productivity."
"Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" Yes, but not productivity.
Wow! Talk about a law of unintended consequences! As an employer, this kind of legislation would definitely cause a serious wage disparity. If I had a young man and a young woman both of equal capabilities applying for the same position,  based on this legislation, I would certainly be encouraged to hire the man, and may even be willing to offer him a little more in starting pay. Plain and simply the long term costs of employing the man would be lower, and he could therefore likely negotiate a higher salary and faster promotion through the ranks. It would be irresponsible for me to do otherwise. My responsibility is to my total staff, my customers and my investors. None of them get any advantage from me willingly signing up to pay people to reproduce and not come to work!

Now the root of the relationship between employees & employers is a negotiation. The employee is selling their labor, skills, and reliability and the employer is looking to get the highest value employees with the highest retention rate possible at a reasonable and justifiable cost. Any time government imposes themselves into these negotiations it has consequences for both parties. If government makes it less profitable to hire young women, obviously less young women will be employed and those that are will make less. This is the same reason forced minimum wages achieve the opposite of their intended result. At first, there is a reduction in the number of minimum wage jobs available. If you can't afford to hire low skill workers for a low skill job, then you find other ways to get that job done, whether that be by automation or by dividing up the workload between your existing staff. (Therefore, the true "minimum wage" is and always has been $0) But over time, as the company grows or as higher paid tenured staff leaves or ages out, new employees will inevitably be hired at the legal minimum wage, but chances for advancement beyond that minimum wage will be greatly reduced as it will require more minimum wage workers to achieve the same production at a profitable overall rate. So the immediate result is to suppress employment, and the long term result is to suppress wages.
That's why we are called the Land of the Free, because we are Free to negotiate our own way through life. Government cannot create wealth, they can only suppress it. Therefore, government encroachment on our Freedoms is antithetical to our productivity as well as our freedom.

Happy Independence Day to all! 250 years ago a rag-tag bunch of farmers, tradesmen, & pioneers rose up against the trained soldiers and paid mercenaries of an oppressive foreign crown. They put their lives and their fortunes on the line to fight for the basic freedoms of Life, Liberty, & Pursuit of Happiness! They won against all odds, a way of life we enjoy to this day. This is what we Celebrate.

I  Love the Independence Day celebration skin, but Damn that's hard to read!
What if the Red & White stripes flipped at the make line? Does that ruin the flag appearance?

So I have been watching what I can only assume is a Whale bot playing out in a wave stabilization scheme on the order books of my exchange of choice. It's been fascinating, exhilarating, revolting, scary as fuck, and any number of other adjectives and descriptive phrases...

His MO is that he chooses a time when the market is relatively stable in a sidewardly mood. He places 50 BTC buy order at say 34,501.01 and another 50 BTC Sell order at 34,999.99. In a low volume time on the exchange this creates a set of walls in a $500 range. He then sets a Sell order of 10 BTC at market (let's say $34,601.01) and immediately places a buy order at $34,549.99. Now what makes me think it's a bot and not just a high-roller daytrader is the fact that every order being filled is immediately followed by an order being placed. And if the price bounces off of the 50BTC walls, it ends up creating an additional set of 10BTC bouncing orders that follow the same $50 spread pattern simultaneously with the first. At first, my thought was "why would he be executing these buys and sells at just a $50 spread?" Bit then I did the math, and watched. Every pair of buys and sells gets him $500 profit. And over a period of time, the algorithm actually seems to capture the market causing a very smooth sideways motion with very little variances outside of the $50 ping pong ball bounce. Over a period of 2.5 hrs Thursday evening, I counted 56 trade pairs, and I'm quite certain I didn't catch them all. So if we round that out to 50 trades at $500 each, that's $25,000 profit in 2.5 hours!
(Not bad in most people's perception) So I was really marveling at this and thinking "Well, Damnit! The game is rigged! If you've got enough cheese to trap the mice, you can't lose!"
Of course, that immediately led to the thought, "As a freezer burned leftover popcorn shrimp, what chance do I have of EVER accumulating THAT kind of volume!?!"
And then tonight, I saw the Bot get toasted. (I know, it'll probably all work out in his favor in the end, but let me laugh for a minute!)
I noted that the market had started to really smooth out in a sidewardly motion with a very slight Downward lean, so I started skimming through the order book, and there it was, a Buy Order for 50BTC at $34,501.01. And as I watched, the Red Candle suddenly started growing, and it went from $34,545 quickly down to $34,501 and as I watched the 50BTC buy got chewed away in seconds and the price continued down to $34,443. At this point as I scan through the order book, there are 2 50 BTC Sell orders $450 apart, but the price is still $75 below the bottom one. King Daddy escaped from the trap and not sure the Whale is even paying attention to cancel the bottom order and try to get the price back into the walls. Obviously the bot was not designed with contingency to do so automatically. 😕😟☹😲😵


-Cope

Ain't Bored... Buying!


Sit Down N00bie!

(Looks like we're in for some Downtime)

BTW, Money is NOT the root of all Evil. It's the Love of Money that IS the Root of All Evil.
And Love... And Hate... They's just two Sides of the Same Coin. Either way, it's passion. Anything you are Passionate about is Loved/Hated... Just depends how the toss lands today.

Money is the storage of value. And those who just want to find another way... most times just haven't realized their resentment is based on a lack of anything of value to store. Those who declare that all has gone wrong and that you should follow a different path, if they don't offer clarity of what that path is, and the responsibility you bare by following it... well, they're just trying to grasp more power by appealing to emotional whims of the adolescent mind.

Money is nothing but the tool. The craftsman can use that tool to make the world a better place. But the grifter, the charlatan, just uses that tool to grasp more power. Don't blame the tool, blame the grifter! And find, or better yet BE the craftsman that fixes it.

Glad to hear you're holding the line!
Vit-D is a very important part of the Equation, and I know you said you didn't tolerate it well in supplement form. Just wanted to make sure you knew supplement D is pretty useless in comparison with what your body generates itself when out in peak hour sun. Not sure what hemisphere you're in, but if you can spend about 1/2 an hour sunbathing each day you'll be better off for it! Sunlight, the best disinfectant!
Also, there is something to that old "chicken soup" remedy. Ground black pepper is a great decongestant and when combined with a hot broth or soup it really brings the relief straight to the chest & sinuses.
And Sweat Baths! To break a fever, bundle up in blankets & sweat it out. This should be followed with a hot shower and bedding change though because once all those toxins are released from the skin, you don't want to just lay in 5hat filthy stew.
But most importantly, rest. Your body uses a lot of energy fighting off viral or bacterial invaders. Give it the rest it needs to keep pushing the bugs back!
Take care of you!

-Cope

Jest Sayin'...

(CB Block)

And this is something I've been pondering recently... A maybe yet to be realized mitigating factor in the long-term course of this new currency.
We've already mentioned coins lost to forgotten keys and typos... but what about the generational wealth transfer that breaks down far more often than it succeeds as our first generation of HODL'ers fail to properly secure a means of passing coins on in the inevitable unfortunate demise.

With paper Fiat it's not uncommon to find out years later that old Uncle Festus had hidden thousands of $$$ under his floor boards. Or that Grandpa Irving had an old savings account or safety deposit box with forgotten fortunes waiting to be claimed.

But if a whale dies in an untimely manner, all those coins are likely to be gone forever. And as a first generation of sharks, fishes and even the thousands of shrimp age out and pass, how many coins are burned on a funeral pyre with no means of recovery? Sure we know BTC is deflationary, but this could bring in a whole new magnitude of deflation that I'm not really sure has been recognized.

Once they're gone, they're gone... right?

Jest Sayin'
Red dripping candles
6:00

In case some may have looked away for a moment...

Observations made.

(beeyitch)