Down goes the Dow

seattle prattle wrote:

test post wrote:

Hi Seattle I said “their basic needs”—ie food, clean water, lodging, etc. Exceptions are some in certain places have no security. Also those who are old and alone, that is a problem, especially if also sick. Even those in shelters have basic needs met. I volunteer at one.

“Everyone” means effectively everyone. Mind, I am talking about the most basic of needs. Not sure why this seems to have been the main takeaway.

I never gloss over “the poorer classes”. My parents were refugees from a real war, half their families died, they lived in a bunker for years, they scavenged off dead bodies. We had very little growing up, relying much on child subsidy and tax policy.

During my first undergrad, I was at a military college. In my second, I lived outside for an entire year, in a tent. All winter. All through my grad, my wife and I lived in a converted school bus. Never had any bad vices.

Don’t talk to me about shiitting in a bag, and doing your few dishes while you shower.

Also, I said nothing about “the Trump base”, I spoke of only “the capitol invaders”. Yes the dems are now the party of money, no doubt about it.

Monday I will be further increasing btc position.

Mas, thanks for that, and the more i learn of you the more interesting it becomes.

It's just that you seem a bit dismissive with statements like this one you made:

"Everyone in the US has their basic needs met. Unrest is young kids with nothing else to do. The capitol invaders were a bunch of morons."

In a nutshell, would the people you are talking about even recognize one kernel of what you are talking about? Would the guys living in vans or unemployed for most of a year or who can't afford health care agree that they have their basic needs met? Of course not. They would punch you in the face for even suggesting such a callous metric to judge all the dignity and life they have lost in the last few years.

And the unrest is just a bunch of kids? Really? Who in their right mind would suggest that after witnessing the marches that swept across this country all summer? Their was a deep rooted social injustice being taken on by people of all ages, all colors, and all walks of life. It was epic and not seen in this country in our lifetime. Sorry, but somehow your characterization doesn't capture that for me and i doubt for them, either.

And lastly, the capitol invaders are a symptom of a much larger problem we face about a portion of society who feels that the system doesn't work for them anymore and hasn't for a long time, and in fact, may be specifically rigged to see that they don't get a fair chance. I think some have used this belief to manipulate them but the fact that so many feel that way is not good.

I understand that the bulk of your original message was about the pursuit of preserving capital in a time where it may be rapidly eroding in certain sectors and commodities, and being redistributed in asymetrical ways. And my point is that all sectors of society are concerned with this, not just the well-off, and it's not just about fiat, it's about power and preservation of a way of life each has grown up with and come to expect.

Dr. Racket wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Mas, thanks for that, and the more i learn of you the more interesting it becomes.

It's just that you seem a bit dismissive with statements like this one you made:

"Everyone in the US has their basic needs met. Unrest is young kids with nothing else to do. The capitol invaders were a bunch of morons."

In a nutshell, would the people you are talking about even recognize one kernel of what you are talking about? Would the guys living in vans or unemployed for most of a year or who can't afford health care agree that they have their basic needs met? Of course not. They would punch you in the face for even suggesting such a callous metric to judge all the dignity and life they have lost in the last few years.

And the unrest is just a bunch of kids? Really? Who in their right mind would suggest that after witnessing the marches that swept across this country all summer? Their was a deep rooted social injustice being taken on by people of all ages, all colors, and all walks of life. It was epic and not seen in this country in our lifetime. Sorry, but somehow your characterization doesn't capture that for me and i doubt for them, either.

And lastly, the capitol invaders are a symptom of a much larger problem we face about a portion of society who feels that the system doesn't work for them anymore and hasn't for a long time, and in fact, may be specifically rigged to see that they don't get a fair chance. I think some have used this belief to manipulate them but the fact that so many feel that way is not good.

I understand that the bulk of your original message was about the pursuit of preserving capital in a time where it may be rapidly eroding in certain sectors and commodities, and being redistributed in asymetrical ways. And my point is that all sectors of society are concerned with this, not just the well-off, and it's not just about fiat, it's about power and preservation of a way of life each has grown up with and come to expect.

Seattle - paragraphs and indentation, please.

test post wrote:

Not just physical, with value—high value density, low volatility, hard to destroy, very divisible, etc.

The key was value—all of the other attributes were related to tradability and security, which included things like portability anonymity, fungibility.

Value is nothing but an agreement between people. “Worth” can be intrinsic—food, water, heat, medicine, weaponry, etc. Gold has no intrinsic worth—it does not directly sustain life. Its only value is relative to other things that can be used for the same purposes—making a cup, soldering contacts, making radiation shields, making jewelry, trade/exchange.

Gold price reflects a myriad of specialist value propositions to a myriad of actors—CB’s, traders, hoarders, jewellers, fraudsters/fixers, etc. Its value proposition to the average Joe is increasing relative to USD, but decreasing relative to btc. Gold is expensive to transact, the supply is elastic, it is manipulated, it is forged, it is easily stealable, and if not then expensive to store. Etc.

Btc also has no intrinsic worth, but is superior to gold in almost every respect that is important to the average Joe value proposition. One big problem will come when banks start buying it in earnest. I am sure some already have. Iran is probably using its oil revenues to buy it. Maybe the tracking systems being developed will permit one to choose transferees—ie to not permit it to be transferred to a CB. The price really needs to skyrocket fast, to ensure the democracy of future exchange and transfer.

The physicality of gold is a drawback—easily identified, cumbersome, fungible. We crossed the physicality/incorporeality rubicon long ago, with the advent of fractional reserve banking. USD, all fiat, photos, documents, titles and deeds, etc are all stored in digital format. Those digits can sometimes be decoded and transferred to physical things to produce an effect—aesthetic, or functional—but sometimes, the value lies in the digital encoding itself.

Your bank account, for instance. Your stocks and bonds. The digits encode an agreement, which agreement is subject to change without your consent or even awareness. The digits might not change, but what they represent does.

Similarly btc. Those who believe btc to be some sort of utopia are morons. If btc became a world currency, then everyone, good and bad, would be involved. The value proposition can change dramatically as a result of gamesmanship, same as with gold, stocks, bonds, fiat, etc.

I am no pie-in-the-sky fool. I will ride btc, and when the time is right, convert it into an orchard, a conservatory, an olive grove, etc—things of inarguable actual intrinsic worth. My plan for any btc gains will be to acquire land to leave in its natural state.

There’s a saying: “There is nothing so obvious that it cannot be made inaccessible through scholarship”. In a broader sense, there is nothing so pure that it cannot be corrupted by humanity. Including btc. Look at world reserve currencies, instruments of war and inequality. Look at gold, diamonds, nice and shiny right? Sourced by slaves and used to rip off good people. The same human constructs will shape btc’s future, as have shaped everything before btc.

Humanity has not been changed by btc, and I doubt that it will be.

test post wrote:

At least the summer rioters here burned down a cop shop. These capitol invaders get in and do what? Some jackoff sits in Pelosi’s chair and gets a photo snapped? Give me a break. They didn’t even send a signal that Congress is vulnerable, because they were essentially unopposed. A classic example of be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Morons with no plan, no experience, no organization, no real vision, no understanding, no overall strategy, no specific tactics...nothing.

They were expressing themselves, like recalcitrant teenagers. Contrary to what they were trying to convey, I took away the above instead. They didn’t even burn the Reichstag, let alone sack Rome.

Seattle I was right in the thick of things here, observing. It amounted to nothing more than an extended Burning Man. I was there with some younger black friends from football, two Jewess trust funders, a native artist girl, two of her slack-line friends, and a retired bureaucrat. Ages from 17-74.

Only the reckless willing to actually do anything, most often drunk or high. No kidding. This great malaise you describe is a crisis of self in the USA—people are ignorant and dependent, and they know it, and hate it. They think that the route to more satisfaction is to achieve power over others, rather than a mastery of themselves, because they don’t know the powerbrokers, and have no contact with the power structure.

I am not apologizing for that power structure—it is dirty, nepotistic, parasitic, and opportunistic—but neither do I applaud any rise of ignorance. The Seattle zone was as much of a joke as the capitol invasion.

If you have no specific affirmative plan, your only alternative is to burn down the existing structure—otherwise it will just continue, wiser and stronger for its experience with your protestations. These morons on all sides are making everything WORSE and not better, by their own standards. Now we lock down perfectly healthy and invulnerable populations, and put more people on the direct dependency rolls, with the classic swamp-dwellers in charge, who have presided over the decades-old downfall of which you speak. This is the antithesis of liberty, freedom, self-determination, self-expression, and prosperity.

trbcx up only 1.08% on the day. Not nearly enough or rapid enough to compensate for the upcoming tax increases.

seattle prattle wrote:

test post wrote:

At least the summer rioters here burned down a cop shop. These capitol invaders get in and do what? Some jackoff sits in Pelosi’s chair and gets a photo snapped? Give me a break. They didn’t even send a signal that Congress is vulnerable, because they were essentially unopposed. A classic example of be careful what you wish for, you might get it. Morons with no plan, no experience, no organization, no real vision, no understanding, no overall strategy, no specific tactics...nothing.

They were expressing themselves, like recalcitrant teenagers. Contrary to what they were trying to convey, I took away the above instead. They didn’t even burn the Reichstag, let alone sack Rome.

Seattle I was right in the thick of things here, observing. It amounted to nothing more than an extended Burning Man. I was there with some younger black friends from football, two Jewess trust funders, a native artist girl, two of her slack-line friends, and a retired bureaucrat. Ages from 17-74.

Only the reckless willing to actually do anything, most often drunk or high. No kidding. This great malaise you describe is a crisis of self in the USA—people are ignorant and dependent, and they know it, and hate it. They think that the route to more satisfaction is to achieve power over others, rather than a mastery of themselves, because they don’t know the powerbrokers, and have no contact with the power structure.

I am not apologizing for that power structure—it is dirty, nepotistic, parasitic, and opportunistic—but neither do I applaud any rise of ignorance. The Seattle zone was as much of a joke as the capitol invasion.

If you have no specific affirmative plan, your only alternative is to burn down the existing structure—otherwise it will just continue, wiser and stronger for its experience with your protestations. These morons on all sides are making everything WORSE and not better, by their own standards. Now we lock down perfectly healthy and invulnerable populations, and put more people on the direct dependency rolls, with the classic swamp-dwellers in charge, who have presided over the decades-old downfall of which you speak. This is the antithesis of liberty, freedom, self-determination, self-expression, and prosperity.

trbcx up only 1.08% on the day. Not nearly enough or rapid enough to compensate for the upcoming tax increases.

The break-in at the Capitol wasn't just a photo op for the disgruntled. They disrupted proceedings, put Congress officials at risk, an explosive device was reportedly found, and i have heard rumors about a plot to kidnap Pence and hang him. *

What was it you were saying?

* Note, this taken from Yahoo news: "Jim Bourg, a Reuters journalist, said he heard “at least three different rioters at the Capitol say that they hoped to find Vice President Mike Pence and execute him by hanging him from a Capitol Hill tree as a traitor”."