I find it incredibly hypocritical for someone to criticize others for living above their means, when that someone is doing exactly the same thing. Why is it okay for someone to get a loan to buy a sports car, but not okay for someone else to have an iPhone?
agip wrote:
Dr. Racket wrote:
Great example of how some people are born into systems of support. The Mormon Church is one of the wealthiest institutions in the world with a close-nit group of worshipers who tend to lookout for their own. It's like being born into a country club.
But yeah, tEaChInG MiDdLe cLaSs iDeAs
read the story if you can get it somehow.
It changed the way I look at these things.
It's actually thrilling and heartwarming - much good is being done in Utah.
And don't get the idea that they are only helping Mormons. That's not how it works.
I'll read it later when I have time.
btw Firefox with uBlock Origin can bypass all paywalls pretty easily these days
Dr. Racket wrote:
agip wrote:
that's fair - I should define my terms better.
although by legal definition, a family of 5 making $31,000 is living in 'poverty.'
With $2-$3,000 coming in per month plus government aid...that's enough cash flow for an adult in a low cost of living place to buy some fancy stuff.
But sure the bigger problem is lower middle class people trying to live like actual middle class people by boosting their discretionary spending. Cars, tech, eating out, vacations.
Consumerism is bad cycle but let's also not pretend that scraping together $500 a month into a .000001% interest savings account is going to be any kind of salvation. Medical debt is the #1 reason for bankruptcy. College tuition - one of the most tried and true ways towards social mobility - rises to astronomical heights YoY.
These are just some of the middle class issues, but the point is that their are systemic barriers in social mobility in every class.
only a small number of people go bankrupt from medical debt. Around 350,000 per year. Blaming that for lack of social mobility in a nation of 330 million seems...a stretch.
college costs are often quite low for low income people, depending on where you live. 17 states have some form of free college. But that's an issue, no doubt.
agip wrote:
Dr. Racket wrote:
Consumerism is bad cycle but let's also not pretend that scraping together $500 a month into a .000001% interest savings account is going to be any kind of salvation. Medical debt is the #1 reason for bankruptcy. College tuition - one of the most tried and true ways towards social mobility - rises to astronomical heights YoY.
These are just some of the middle class issues, but the point is that their are systemic barriers in social mobility in every class.
only a small number of people go bankrupt from medical debt. Around 350,000 per year. Blaming that for lack of social mobility in a nation of 330 million seems...a stretch.
college costs are often quite low for low income people, depending on where you live. 17 states have some form of free college. But that's an issue, no doubt.
What about the states that don't? What about the people that don't go bankrupt but pay huge sums every month to avoid it? What if these issues are compounding? It's too much for a simple discussion board really. We should just go back to stocks, which look like they're gonna have a rough day
The Unkle wrote:
Bitcoin getting hammered
Eh, had the finger on the trigger for pulling out at 41k and waiting for a pullback. But whatever. I think just hold through. As long as the system holds and as long as the govs don't crack down on it, it's gonna go up. People are gonna want to beat the expected higher inflation. Although the USD went up against EUR recently.
Dr. Racket wrote:We should just go back to stocks, which look like they're gonna have a rough dayMaybe... I feel like last week or two we had some days that started bad and ended up or close to even. Maybe I'm misremembering...
Swaglord_the_real_one_1_one_1 wrote:
The Unkle wrote:
Bitcoin getting hammered
Eh, had the finger on the trigger for pulling out at 41k and waiting for a pullback. But whatever. I think just hold through. As long as the system holds and as long as the govs don't crack down on it, it's gonna go up. People are gonna want to beat the expected higher inflation. Although the USD went up against EUR recently.
the volatility is the problem...a currency or store of value...isn't supposed to double in a few months or drop 20% in a few days.
That kind of volatility suggests this is speculation right now and not a true store of value. That you are owning it betting a greater fool will buy it from you down the road...rather than using it as a place to store your wealth.
Of coure volatility can be an opportunity to make money, not just a problem.
I'm just saying that for BTC to be a true fiat currency replacement, it has to get really boring first.
agip wrote:
the volatility is the problem...a currency or store of value...isn't supposed to double in a few months or drop 20% in a few days.
That kind of volatility suggests this is speculation right now and not a true store of value. That you are owning it betting a greater fool will buy it from you down the road...rather than using it as a place to store your wealth.
Of coure volatility can be an opportunity to make money, not just a problem.
I'm just saying that for BTC to be a true fiat currency replacement, it has to get really boring first.
The currency usecase for BTC is pretty much dead, not even the shillers are saying that anymore. The usecase that seems to be starting to have consensus is a deflationary digital gold. And I could totally see that, given no 51% attacks (fairly unlikely) and heavy government crackdown.
The volatility at this point could be attributed to the increased acceptance as that store of value.
For instance, gold would've seen a rapid appreciation in "human currency value" when it was beginning to be valued. At some point in time, gold had absolutely zero value for a human - it was just a shiny rock. Then it started gaining value and has increased to where it is today, hitting a general equilibrium.
Same with BTC. It was worth zero, and has rapidly appreciated with ups and downs.
Long string of numbers (with better deflationary properties) vs a shiny rock.
Swaglord_the_real_one_1_one_1 wrote:
Long string of numbers (with better deflationary properties) vs a shiny rock.
Intrinsic and extrinsic value - like I told Mas, this is a highly ontological/axiological concept that has been debated for thousands of years so I doubt DGTD will settle it.
I think agip is right though - volatility like this almost always implies high degrees of speculation. It's being used as a casino more than anything else.
Dr. Racket wrote:...volatility like this almost always implies high degrees of speculation. It's being used as a casino more than anything else.
Well, if anyone has read Didier Sornette's book about financial bubbles (Igy recommended to me a year or so ago), he talks about looking for harmonic patterns with the price chart scaled logarithmically in both space and time. Here is a regular plot of the full BTC price history with time and price at natural scales:
https://ibb.co/bLzML78Here is the same plot showing both time and value scaled by taking the natural logarithm:
https://ibb.co/ZhZVCzYI'm highly suspicious of reading charts to "predict" future value, but if you have any faith in Didier Sornette, my read of this chart suggests the current holders of BTC are about to take a hard ride down. Best of luck to Giles/Unkle and mas!
Ghost of Igloi wrote:
In regards to the general tone of my statements, I have less of deterministic view of man. Sure, in many developing economies your lot in life is largely determined at birth. I was talking about United States food banks, and poor decision making.
In my area there are weekly food handouts exclusively for military families and veterans. I guess defending the Constitution is an example of “poor decision making”.
Swaglord_the_real_one_1_one_1 wrote:
agip wrote:
the volatility is the problem...a currency or store of value...isn't supposed to double in a few months or drop 20% in a few days.
That kind of volatility suggests this is speculation right now and not a true store of value. That you are owning it betting a greater fool will buy it from you down the road...rather than using it as a place to store your wealth.
Of coure volatility can be an opportunity to make money, not just a problem.
I'm just saying that for BTC to be a true fiat currency replacement, it has to get really boring first.
The currency usecase for BTC is pretty much dead, not even the shillers are saying that anymore. The usecase that seems to be starting to have consensus is a deflationary digital gold. And I could totally see that, given no 51% attacks (fairly unlikely) and heavy government crackdown.
The volatility at this point could be attributed to the increased acceptance as that store of value.
For instance, gold would've seen a rapid appreciation in "human currency value" when it was beginning to be valued. At some point in time, gold had absolutely zero value for a human - it was just a shiny rock. Then it started gaining value and has increased to where it is today, hitting a general equilibrium.
Same with BTC. It was worth zero, and has rapidly appreciated with ups and downs.
Long string of numbers (with better deflationary properties) vs a shiny rock.
leave aside the idea of BTC being used to buy stuff.
I'm talking a store of value. Your money in the bank is in dollars.
For people to have bank accounts in BTC...BTC has to move in tenths of a percent per month, not 20% in a day.
agip wrote:
Swaglord_the_real_one_1_one_1 wrote:
The currency usecase for BTC is pretty much dead, not even the shillers are saying that anymore. The usecase that seems to be starting to have consensus is a deflationary digital gold. And I could totally see that, given no 51% attacks (fairly unlikely) and heavy government crackdown.
The volatility at this point could be attributed to the increased acceptance as that store of value.
For instance, gold would've seen a rapid appreciation in "human currency value" when it was beginning to be valued. At some point in time, gold had absolutely zero value for a human - it was just a shiny rock. Then it started gaining value and has increased to where it is today, hitting a general equilibrium.
Same with BTC. It was worth zero, and has rapidly appreciated with ups and downs.
Long string of numbers (with better deflationary properties) vs a shiny rock.
leave aside the idea of BTC being used to buy stuff.
I'm talking a store of value. Your money in the bank is in dollars.
For people to have bank accounts in BTC...BTC has to move in tenths of a percent per month, not 20% in a day.
It just occurred to me that Mas is almost certainly a petrodollar conspiracy theorist
Lots of reading to do regarding the plight of the poor and what to do about it, will be digging into that later.
Yes, discouraging regarding the btc volatility. DId a bit of both buying and selling in the last 24 hours. At this point, i am a tad bit ahead on paper over all, but will probably sell if it turns down again to hopefully liquidate at a break even price or close to it.
I guess the markets are a bit dicey due to all this unsettled political mess...
On btc, I always think “who gonna call” if something goes wrong. SOL.
I wouldn't have guessed this.
According to this, since the March bottom, you'd make more in energy than tech,
wild. This is why I love this business. It's endlessly surprising.
https://twitter.com/conorsen/status/1348727804389687296?s=20
seattle prattle wrote:
Lots of reading to do regarding the plight of the poor and what to do about it, will be digging into that later.
Yes, discouraging regarding the btc volatility. DId a bit of both buying and selling in the last 24 hours. At this point, i am a tad bit ahead on paper over all, but will probably sell if it turns down again to hopefully liquidate at a break even price or close to it.
I guess the markets are a bit dicey due to all this unsettled political mess...
The markets are being manipulated by the Big Players and the Insiders. AS always.
Was up $100k for the year of 2021 at noon on Friday. $38k has said bye by since then.
of all the crazeballs structural economics items....this system has to be up at the top.
As I understand it:
The Fed creates 'money' out of thin air
With this new 'money,' the Fed buys US Government debt
US Government pays billions of dollars of interest on the debt to the Fed
The Fed remits the billions of dollars of interest payments to the US Government.
clean as a whistle circle.
It's insane. Something out of a sci fi satire.
Das Unkle wrote:
seattle prattle wrote:
Lots of reading to do regarding the plight of the poor and what to do about it, will be digging into that later.
Yes, discouraging regarding the btc volatility. DId a bit of both buying and selling in the last 24 hours. At this point, i am a tad bit ahead on paper over all, but will probably sell if it turns down again to hopefully liquidate at a break even price or close to it.
I guess the markets are a bit dicey due to all this unsettled political mess...
The markets are being manipulated by the Big Players and the Insiders. AS always.
Was up $100k for the year of 2021 at noon on Friday. $38k has said bye by since then.
yeah you go with that.
invest in highly, highly volatile and fashionable assets and then when they go against you, blame the big boys for your losses.
Good strategy. That will get you far.
/sarcasm
agip wrote:
Das Unkle wrote:
The markets are being manipulated by the Big Players and the Insiders. AS always.
Was up $100k for the year of 2021 at noon on Friday. $38k has said bye by since then.
yeah you go with that.
invest in highly, highly volatile and fashionable assets and then when they go against you, blame the big boys for your losses.
Good strategy. That will get you far.
/sarcasm
Agip, there's some statistics out there how a small number of "whales" own a disproportionate share of the available coins. It is astounding and frankly calls out to suspect that manipulation occurs if not outright collusion in this unregulated market. I have been saying this all along, btw.
And on another note, i hope you saw my reply on the Trump thread that my disparaging comment was intended squarely at Trump, not you. Appreciate your contributions on that discussion.
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