How does it feel to be involved with technology to such a degree so as to be reading and commenting on hacker news and yet you entirely missed any opportunity so far with Bitcoin ?
CPI is a cooked up government statistic, used in contracts and agreements (including social security) that unconditionally favors the governments position. For example it does not include energy or housing costs.
They also add and remove items from the CPI index, to remove ones that inflate and add ones such as consumer electronics that deflate.
Check out the chapwood index or a different unbiased inflation metric.
The 'ponzi scheme' argument reeks of desperation when entire generations of Americans are going to witness the greatest ponzi scheme of all time, state sponsored social security, collapse.
Hey! look at this (maybe a) truck far off in the distance that might hit you while a different truck is 5 feet away from hitting you from behind.
Don't be flippant - both sides of the political spectrum work together under the facade of opposing sides. Now Trump just pulled a pied piper and led these people into the capital with which both sides will now try to use this manufactured situation to consolidate power.
How is it that everyone here is all about game theory except when it matters ? And yes, America is in distress.
speaking of jumping the shark, have you seen what governments have been up to lately ?
interest rates at a 5,000 year low, moral hazard abound & global fiat collapse imminent in the best case and in the worst case we have banks/elites/governments who are going to be looking to further enslave those in debt and forced out of business/work with some dystopian debt forgiveness scheme involving a 'vaccine' schedule and travel restrictions or whatever else (use your imagination).
the truth is that everything mentioned in these comments was an argument that had already been had years ago - the markets reflect that - but i did enjoy reading the last sentence of your original comment and thinking to myself "am I reading Time Magazine ?"
And there is the hint to the rational mind that you ought to take notice of the sector.
Why is the status quo 'elephant' saying anything at all about the crypto 'ant' ?
Let the states that will never get their way in a "fixed" elector college, secede.
To mess with the electoral college in this point in time - when its basically 49% vs 51% - and at such a level of divide in the country is not exactly a testament to how empathetic the two sides are. It would be a disaster.
Everyone thinks Trump himself is the problem but this awful idea to change the goalposts literally to win elections would do way more damage than Trump could ever do but I guess it doesn't come in an 'easy to hate' package with agenda serving talking points, etc.
I don't know where these idiots think this whole "OK - we'll follow these laws, but not those" thing is going but it is incredibly damaging and at the moment only one side is picking and choosing which laws to obey and not obey (then writing publicly about it) but soon enough the other side will be picking and choosing which laws to ignore.
Get your helmets on once we are on _that_ slippery slope.
[1] "The result is a massive run-up in debt. Though the MTA spent only $848 million on debt service in 2004, according to RPA, it is projected to spend more than three times as much, $2.67 billion, in 2014. Debt alone will eat up 17.6 percent of the MTA’s operating budget by 2014; worse, RPA says that an alternative calculation shows the 2014 debt load at 23.1 percent of the operating budget."
[3] "By way of comparison, Syria has $30.1 billion in debt. Cuba has $28.9 billion. Twenty-eight other countries, from Ecuador to Jordan, Jamaica to Kenya, have less debt than the M.T.A."
I like how they try to blame subversion and propaganda on the "current divide" in politics.
Most people know good and well whats happening, its more the intellectuals who are making out well in this current environment who are doing (in good faith) the mental gymnastics to put the fault of the american media's decline on some abstract idea as if tree's didn't bear fruit.
All kinds of excuses will be made to increase the taxes in this system where NO amount of money will add up to enough for this government.
New York City in particular has a MEDICAL ONLY section of its pension benefits for city employees that adds up to $100 Billion. Medical, only. Not including pension payouts.
Puerto Rico defaulted on $71 Billion worth of debt, which was all of it, just recently.
This reckoning that is on its way is going to be epic. Nothing in NYC government makes a profit or operates properly without gigantic losses and pathetic performance in every metric when compared to the past city performance.
absolutely.
dont you enjoy these painfully long and out of breath explanations on why this inconvenient majority of voters must be further disenfranchised ?
and all of the appeals to the authority of the EU's rules and regulations and why that makes it "impossible" ?
what hogwash. we all played by the same rules which were agreed upon beforehand and now the economically well off (and isolated) minority seek to invalidate the vote.
I think if the 'vote' is taken away from those who voted for Brexit then they'll do you one better and choose to ignore more fundamental aspects of our "social agreement", namely ones involving physical safety.
This whole driverless car thing reeks of more vaporware, more public-yet-profitless unicorn companies promising to promise to change the world and aside from surface level consideration of edge case accidents with pedestrians (hasn't one of them already killed or seriously injured a pedestrian??) there isn't much deep talk about less straightforward issues such as (former) members of the trucking industry sabotaging these new fleets or how liability and insurance is REALLY going to work out.
File the promises and the problems under fiction because it appears to be more important to keep the world order, its financial system and these ridiculous media darling fluff piece corporations alive while they bleed money.
And no, im not closed to the idea of successful work being done on automated driving but 30 fps, WTF? too much going on in the larger context of the world, this shit isn't happening in 2020 or 2024 or whatever else many might say.
The citizenry in the USA (im assuming you are being specific to) are a good deal worse off than in the 1950s in regard to household families and being overtly manipulated and jerked around in regards to the political process with whatever little time they have to engage with it.
The governments (its actors, known or unknown) are the ones with considerable resources and power consolidated in a few hands and intelligence agencies leaders who write books about deceiving their own people saying "we'll know our job is complete when everything the american people believe is a lie".
USA is mired in military action in 76 countries that we know of - USA was at war for every single day of all 8 years of Obama's presidencies - Drone Strikes, Mass Heroin overdoses, San Francisco homeless & human feces poop map's but we finally got those plastic straws replaced with good old american democracy and know how.
What a contrast.
What prioritizing.
With every passing day, more and more people are starting to realize it's not ineptitude, it's deceit. And the more heed paid to the government, the more reliance on and guidance from the government - the worse.
> Seems like just another case of a guy arguing without having understanding on the topic?
At best he is ignorant, at worst he is perpetuating the current monetary system(s) which is in a macroprudential[1] policy mode - not good - as many of us can see around us daily.
Aside from the truth of there being more money owed with interest (as a debt) than current money in circulation with which to pay that debt off (results in either #1 forced defaults on loans at some time in the future or #2 a feedback cycle with bursts of new loans created to pay off the previous debts without the forced defaults of #1) the current dollar system and all modern currencies are directly harmful to the population and indirectly harmful in a number of ways. I cant stay on here all night but seek elucidation elsewhere if you are interested. Macro voices the podcast does a pretty good job.
I don't think all the kings horses and all the kings men will be able to stop bitcoin from success or the dollar from failure but what always astonishes me are the endless arguments for inflation being good for the economy when its basically how the government pays off its outrageous debt by stealing from the elderly, disabled and anyone with a fixed income. And its not just the benefactors of the system, there are volunteer robot numskulls repeating this hypothetical garbage every day on the internet about inflation when really it just allows the government to sustain itself by getting senior citizens to eat dog food.
People need to stop letting themselves be tricked into exchanging their time, youth, skills and labor for tokens that are guaranteed to be devalued, its been over 100 years now and none of us know anything different. :(
My understanding is that the movie was not once mentioned by the hacker(s) or the victim (Sony) but rather the first mention of the movie was by a popular American news outlet.
In this context the two narratives of "north korea did it, okay?" and "perhaps one of the 8,000 laid off tech department workers at Sony did it" are easy to understand.
Sony's multiple layoffs of its digital unit workers gave certain employees time to orchestrate this.
And on the cry wolf side, the big 3 American media companies started going down their own rabbit hole of speculation and fear mongering.
Do you remember the last time (if ever) any of these "News Outlets" have rescinded their accusations (especially regarding 'war') after making such strong accusations for so long ?