FondrenRoad

Lol. So people currently getting paid in bolivares should just buy bitcoin? You realize that transactions are two sided, right? For these people to buy bitcoin from someone, the second party has to take the bolivares in exchange. Or maybe you think that the baker can just start pricing bread in bitcoin and it will magically appear. How does one enter a market for something when there is no actual entry point for them? As I said before, you are welcome to be the one to do that. There is nothing stopping you from helping Venezuelans move their money into bitcoin by accepting their bolivares in return. But as it is, dollars are both more stable, more spendable, and easier for them to come by since their market has had physical dollars present for decades. So they can and do try to obtain dollars and hold those instead. And while I'm sure you'd love for them to gamble those hard earned dollars in order to drive up the value of your bitcoin, it would simply be a terrible idea for them to do so. They simply can't afford the yo-yo for some distant possible return when they have in their hands a steady currency with predictable purchasing power. Hell, you won't even sell it to people with dollars much less bolivares. Once people like you start treating it like a currency, maybe others will too.

It won't. Not with bitcoin at least. Any primary currency needs to have safeguards against loss or hoarding. Without a government, this would need to be built into a new coin. The value of bitcoin right now is being set by hoarding (artificially reducing the amount of available currency), loss (permanently reducing the amount of available currency), and speculation (artificially increasing the demand). It would be a terrible idea for them to adopt bitcoin because you would be actively working against them. But I do know you actually mean well on this part. These countries export very little. Even if they managed to obtain a bitcoin starting point for everyone, they would use that to import things from other countries, and the pool of available bitcoin within their country would shrink. And people like you would continue to hoard which would shrink the global pool. So if they are getting paid in bitcoin, every day, everyone's paycheck is going to get lower and lower, nobody is going to lend anyone money, and eventually there is going to be no bitcoin left in country to pay anyone at all. These countries do have a problem with corrupt governance. They need to fix that, by whatever means necessary, and install a government that understands monetary policy and has a plan to fix their currency. They don't need to put their faith in a bunch of people elsewhere who are interested only in accumulating a greater share of global wealth, and who don't really have their best interests in mind. Right, there is crypto that can be more useful as currency. And this is where you keep conflating crypto and bitcoin. I've consistently told you that crypto can be useful. Why would someone hold something in one crypto and spend in another? But this also tells me that I have been exactly right about your true thoughts on bitcoin. You want to hoard a large chunk of the supply and force others to exchange the dwindling supply. You want to be the top 1%. But what you keep missing is that they never have to do that. They don't have to play with your football. They can use a different one and still play the game. Okay, so this tells me that you don't use bitcoin as a currency. You're hoarding because you want it to increase in value. If you want it to work as a currency, and you believe in it as a currency, you need to use it to purchase goods and services rather than artificially decreasing the money supply. It won't stabilize otherwise. Be brave. Pay for everything you can with bitcoin, and demand that others pay for your services only in bitcoin. Because the hoarding end game will be that bitcoin becomes nominally expensive, but practically inconvertible, or worthless. Hoarding discourages adoption. There are potential wild cards though. Maybe Satoshi's holdings get "found" somehow, and all the hoarders will flee freeing up nearly all of it. Of course, even then, it will all start up again because hoarders are going to hoard. Which brings up another potential idea if you truly want a finite currency that works. Create a coin that unlocks idle coins where people would get a set amount of time to spend or transfer their coin or it would drop back into the pool to be mined again. But either way, you're holding something that has no intrinsic value, so if you aren't going to get it moving as a true currency, you are going to have to constantly pump it. And you know this. Its why you're here. But you still haven't made your case for bitcoin being the one other than it being first, you holding it, and it being the most popular to hoard at the moment. I already know how to make dollars using bitcoin. So you're telling me that I can send dollars to someone in a different country using bitcoin as an intermediate, they can convert it to their local currency, and we can semi-avoid the prying eyes of each of our governments while also keeping fees out of paypal's grubby hands? Yes!! This is what I've been telling you all along. This is the primary real use of bitcoin since none of you bitcoinbugs really want it to be a currency. But again, really, any crypto can be in the middle.

Fair point. Counterpoint: That team in the World Series last year still has their GM, Neander. Click and Bloom were under him the year before, but not in 2020. Bloom GM'd Red Sox last year and they finished last in the AL East. I'm not saying Click was just the coffee boy, even if he does make a fantastic latte, but Neander is the one that makes the Rays work. Neander promoted someone in-house to replace both the Red Sox and Astros GMs and went to the World Series with him. Its becoming a GM factory, but thus far, it has produced a disappointing Red Sox season and a mediocre Astros season with a good ending. But I get it. If Shaka/Herman can do that with VCU/Houston, just imagine what they can do at Texas. But some GMs and coaches can actually pull that off and maybe Click is one of them.

I hope not. Gritty can do better than having DeBlasio inside of him. The DeBlasio image rehab aspect of this is interesting though. For the most part, I thought DeBlasio had it right during the covid spats with Cuomo even though he lost almost all of them. But also all the fake right wing complaints about DeBlasio were 180 degrees wrong. My real problem with him is that he was an endgame Bloomberg and exacerbated well meaning but overextended Bloomberg policies when he really needed to shore them up. This includes the glut of luxury apartment buildings, many of which are still breaking ground right now, with tax abatements that allow them to sit vacant. All the while, lotteries for "affordable" units in the same buildings get 1000s of applicants for each one. Same thing for retail rent tax abatements. There are so many empty storefronts and its more profitable for landlords to let them sit vacant than it is to allow the market rate to adjust to the actual market. Rents could and should be down across the board, both before, and especially during covid. He also expanded NYPD but gets knocked for shrinking it. His response to BLM was to move school security guards from the NYPD to the DoE budget which I adamantly opposed, partly because it was a shell game, but mostly because Republicans attack the DoE budget every chance they get, and the NYPD budget barely gets attacked at all. So now we will start to hear "DoE spends so much more money!!" and they'll cut teachers or pre-K instead of moving security guards back to the NYPD budget. But I digress. Cuomo sucks. DeBlasio also sucks. The solution is not a Republican, however. Its a real progressive.

Actually, Chris didn't cover Andrew much specifically during covid. He covered the outbreak. The same one Andrew spoke about every morning. I have no problem with Chris stepping away from the mic as long as he allows other to step up to it. Its his brother. He can let someone else tell it, but he needs to actually do that.

Who said there is no use for it? I've already said what its useful for. You know, you could actually be the savior of Latin America. Right now, there are a bunch of people in Venezuela just waiting to change their bolivares into bitcoin or anything else. They'd actually rather have dollars though. Physical dollars. The only person missing from the equation is you, or anyone else willing to buy bolivares. But you don't really give a fuck about all that because you value your bitcoins in dollars, and it was never about poor people anyway, was it? Also, read up on the negative effects of deflation. Its worse than inflation. Mostly because everyone wants to hoard currency once prices drop. This is the key problem with a finite money supply and the reason why fiat currency is better than the gold standard, and why, if it was really about getting off the government for you, crypto with the potential for constant slow expansion is better than a completely finite system like bitcoin. That type of coin would also maintain the incentive for mining and nodes. I'm not sure any coin like that exists yet, however. And still fiat currency that can be expanded on demand if needed would be better because humans are greedy. If you tell them exactly how big the money supply is going to grow, they are still going to hoard accordingly. He who accumulates the most purchasing power wins, but for that to mean anything to the economy, you actually have to spend it. But I'm willing to believe you're sincere, even though the problems with bitcoin have been well hashed out. Post receipts where you bought something, either a good or service, using bitcoin when you were also able to choose to pay in dollars. In the end, this is what currency is for. It isn't to hold because its dollar denominated value may increase. And as a believer, you should be using bitcoin for purchase transactions every single time the other side is willing to accept it. Otherwise, you're just a hoarder or a speculator of an asset.

Lol. I made plenty of dollars in bitcoin and plan to make more, and that should cause you concern if you really want it to be a long term hold. What occurs with bitcoin trading is not simple forex trading. While it would be nice for a "global market" to actually tell us the long term value of something, the gamestop out front should have told you that market speculation doesn't always value an asset properly in the short term, but it does offer opportunity to obtain more dollars from someone who thinks the party will never end. And I'd say my understanding is pretty good. You weren't even aware of the power consumption issue until this thread. You bought some and its worth more now. Congrats. Will it be worth even more next month or year? Maybe. Maybe not. But I do know you also want it to be something it isn't. Could it be? Sure, if the US, China, and Europe said they were putting their currencies on the BTC standard. But the Mad Max world is infinitely more probable than that occurring. The only reason we aren't in a great depression right this moment is because of available monetary policy. And I have a 1st world attitude? Oh yeah, currency that requires internet access and reliable power is the best bet for the impoverished 3rd world. Plus, I'm sure when they convert their local currency into bitcoin, they're also loving not knowing whether that weekly paycheck is going to buy the customary 10 pound bag of rice, a 5 pound bag of rice, no rice at all, or the whole rice farm next month. If there's anything that someone living in a place with an inflating currency really wants, its an unstable alternative that not everyone will accept, and which they can't even use at all without a smart phone/pc, an internet connection, and power. And if you really gave a shit about this, you'd quit speculating in it. Stability is the single most important thing for a 3rd world situation. We're never going to measure prices in bitcoin. The things you want bitcoin to do require a government. Like making someone accept it for payment who doesn't want to. But you are correct, people can choose to utilize it. They can also choose not to. The second part is what you keep missing.

Again, you are showing deference to the dollar and valuing bitcoin as a dollar denominated asset rather than a currency. Tell me, how much does it cost to buy a McDonald's happy meal today in bitcoin? How much will it cost tomorrow in bitcoin? If you are bitcoin centric, it really shouldn't matter what that happy meal equates to in dollars, and over a 2 day period, the price should be almost identical so that your local drive through can list the price in bitcoins without changing it every day, and so that you are able to live in a world where you are able to plan ahead. But you don't live in a bitcoin world. And to be frank, you don't want to. What you want is to have something that is worth more dollars tomorrow than it was worth today. And bitcoin's "network" has already been reproduced and improved upon by other coins. Why is anything "less important geopolitically." Decentralization is the main "geopolitical" thing. Like any potential store of value, its only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. But what you keep missing, is that there is nobody forcing anyone to use or accept bitcoins. And when the last bitcoin is mined, the last miners are only going to prop it up until they get out. Mining already offers diminishing returns. But those same people are going to get on the ground floor of the "next big thing", mine that, and pump that up. Meanwhile, big banks and governments may decide to run nodes so folks like you don't go broke. Or maybe not if there is more money to make in the "next big thing" for them as well. What you're really doing here is pumping it. And that's okay. A lot of people do that when they are holding a volatile asset and they want it to increase its dollar denominated value. Be smart though. Don't be driven entirely by greed. I know you picture yourself grabbing a substantial portion of a thing with finite supply, and the whole world is forced to be stuck with what's left, and prices are going to be based on that forever. This time I own the gold mine! But not everything with a finite supply is going to maintain value. Especially something that isn't guaranteed by a nation state, isn't material, isn't unique, and isn't particularly necessary for financial transactions. People simply don't have to use bitcoin for anything and never will have to. Which means its use is entirely driven by fanfare and always will be. You need to pump infinitely, and you need whoever the influencers of the day are to pump infinitely as well. But that won't happen because what you and the rest of the pumpers love is not the finite supply or the network of loving nodes and miners. You love the growth. And once the growth stops. Once it "stabilizes," everyone is going to jump ship to something that can still grow, especially if there is still plenty to mine and you're able to skip the investment part and run a bot farm. And that's when the crash happens because nobody ever needed bitcoin to pay rent. They need dollars, euros, yen, or whatever else. Again though, I'm a fan of it. I just see it for what it is. And maybe after the speculators jump ship to the new growth coin, bitcoin will stick around as a medium of transfer. But it won't do that at $50k.

Don't sleep on AEG. 2 years of Dynamo ownerhsip. 2 titles. Been downhill since de la Hoya.

They should have really pushed it a lot further out. Maybe 3/4/2022. They really shortened their grift window. Every huckster who has ever written a doomsday prophecy knows you need to get the book out at least a year in advance.

Yep. Houston sports history is littered with crap owners. Honestly, Bud Adams is probably the second best, if you take away one thing that he did that made him drop all the way from second best to dead last.

Sure you have. The disconnect you are having is that all bitcoin is cryptocurrency, but not all cryptocurrency is bitcoin. Bitcoin eventually being worthless doesn't mean that some other cryptocurrency won't still have value when that happens. For transfers, I'll use whatever is acceptable and transactionally affordable, and I'll speculate too, but I'm not going to hold long term in any of them. That's because I know that government backing will continue to be a more stable proposition than the whims of the people. A lot of people thought they'd still be posting on myspace now. People that loved vine thought it would be around forever too. And do facebook, instagram, or tik tok really offer anything different? In 30 years, the chance of a dollar still being spendable is pretty close to 100%. Now maybe you feel the same about bitcoin, and it may still be spendable then, but the chances are closer to 50% than 100%. But nobody is required to keep propping it up, and that's another value that a government adds that you are missing. And I really see no post-apocalyptic use for any cryptocurrency either. I just can't count on computers to be running in China and my having unrestricted broadband access so that I can buy water as I cross the barren wasteland. Not to mention the fact that ISPs have no interest in allowing you to have unrestricted internet access when they could charge you for every transaction you make in a government free world. "Eating gold's lunch over the next decade" implies a speculative play rather than a store of value as well. So even you aren't convinced completely. You mostly just seem to want it to equal more dollars over time, which is great, but its still showing deference to the dollar as your core way of valuing anything, including bitcoin and gold.

At what point in the euro's life were people's bills within the eurozone denominated in something other than the euro (or their legacy currency while the euro was being phased in)? And even if they could, neither party in a mortgage agreement is going to want it denominated in bitcoin because both will expect to get fucked on the deal at some point. Only one will get fucked in the end, but neither is going to take that chance. Even with exchange rate fluctuations, the cost of things in-country for residents of advanced industrialized nations remain largely stable in that country's currency. In Japan, someone gets paid a million yen a month, a coke costs 100 yen, and their rent costs 150,000 yen. In the short term, the yen tanking against the dollar just makes things cheaper for American tourists visiting Japan. In comparison, bitcoin is a yo-yo. If enough people got paid only in bitcoin and bought everything priced only in bitcoin, it might stabilize. Then it wouldn't matter if they paid the equivalent of $1000 in rent in May and $20000 in rent in June because their rent would always just be .03 bitcoin, and their income .5 bitcoin. But its unlikely that things will ever be denominated in bitcoin for the very same reason that folks like GRHorn love bitcoin. There is no government to make that happen. And when things really fall apart for government currencies versus other government currencies, they are unable to convert out of their currency to maintain purchasing power. None of those currency trading professionals you know are lining up to play in the dollar-bolivares exchange market. Nothing in bitcoin's historical charts look like actual currency. Its almost entirely a speculative tool other than its usefulness in converting between 2 other currencies.

I'm skeptical too. I'm afraid that Click won't be able to drop the lean low budget mindset he had in Tampa. It isnt something unique to baseball. Once a manager gets accustomed to operating in a place that values or necessitates cost control over maximizing output, it is difficult for that manager to break out of that mold when at a place with a higher budget. The best team is rarely the cheapest team or the most efficiently built team. So Click is going to need to learn how to offer big contracts sometimes even if it hurts his soul. Billy Beane knew better than to take that Red Sox offer. If Correa walks, the wind is going to come completely out of the sails of this team, and that will be reflected in the seats and TV eyeballs. So there may even be a financial argument for signing him.

Yep. Season's over. Fire everyone. Try again next year.

You're missing a few things. Nation backed currencies always work within a nation because nations can force people to accept it as legal tender. You can hate the dollar all you want, but if you have a store in the USA, you are required to accept it. Bitcoin has no such backstop and instead relies entirely on consumer perception. There is nothing that prevents other coins from entering the market, or from becoming more popular than bitcoin. In fact, someone like Elon Musk could already tweet that he's dumping all his bitcoin and moving over to a new Teslacoin, and bitcoin value would instantly plummet. And even without it, there is always the potential for something like Ethereum to push bitcoin out. I'm pro crypto, but I don't find bitcoin itself or any other coin themselves to be essential to their usefulness. And bitcoin, being the oldest, is actually worse for anonymity, resiliency, and smart contracts. I've been in and out of bitcoin several times. But this has only been for one of two reasons. To make money, ultimately in dollars, by playing the exchange rates. Or to use it to send someone money, while that person also ultimately uses it to buy the currency of their choice. I certainly don't see it as a long term store of value. Where bitcoin and other crypto really fit in are as an anonymous and deregulated means of transfer. And when another coin takes bitcoin's place as the most trusted coin, those using it primarily for transfer aren't gonna be the bagholders. That's not to say there isn't still money to be made in bitcoin. It will still go up further before it declines, but inevitably, it will also eventually be worth almost 0. And nearly all the boom we see is from people investing in its movement, and not from people that want to keep their money as bitcoin long term. I do also find it interesting that bitcoin bugs and goldbugs are often the same people. Bitcoin requires both the global internet and the global power grid to work in a post "nation" environment. Gold being physical provides more benefit than simple scarcity. Any crypto coin can be scarce. If I need to move east quickly to avoid the prevailing winds and the power is out, a stack of 1's, 5's, and 10's is going to be my best friend. Gold less so, and crypto not at all.

After that happens to Trump, some aggy is going to spend his life savings to buy Trump's stick.

TV news is the only real news. NY Times doesn't count since you have to read it.

Way too many moving parts. Like I said, if the harrassment claims end up being bogus, he won't resign. He will otherwise, but it will require a completed investigation into the nursing homes which will move at a snail's pace. Or it will require the current harrasment claims to be unquestionably true (which may be difficult to prove), or for more harrassment accusers to come forward. One other thing to look at when someone resigns for harrassment is that they always confess to some or all of the allegations. Cuomo isn't going to confess unless the investigation forces his hand. That pushes the timeline out further as well. The wild card is that if either of these scandals occurred by themselves, their being true would end him. But since they are both happening, the harrassment needs to be proven for anything to happen. If one thing is proven false the "out to get me" defense will play across the board. In a way, this is the Trump model. Have infinite scandals, have one be less than true or pay someone off to take back their allegations, and then sweep all the others away with it.

He will resign unless the harrassment accusations are truly proven false. The buildup against Cuomo is still growing. Progressives never really liked him and he has been rapidly losing his white centrist and blue collar base. Oddly, I think having 2 simultaneous scandals about 2 completely different things is buying him time as they are all investigated separately. Additionally, if he is judged clean on one of them, it may save him from the other one even if he is dirty in it. Personally, I hope they are all true because he needs to be gone for the nursing home shell game anyway. And we also need to open investigations into all the states who undercounted deaths entirely which is worse than what Cuomo did. But if the harassment claims end up being bogus, he will use that to play the victim card across the board, and it will work. But I also think Republicans like yourself expect Dems to rally around bad actors because y'all always do. The last time that happened was with Clinton. Franken was gone in 3 weeks. Spitzer was less than a week. But what Spitzer did should be legal, IMO, and was consensual. Clinton would have been toast as a governor or senator in the metoo era. But it is harder to dump a President so he would probably survive. However, Dems would have absolutely removed a Dem Trump. He laps this entire field on sexual transgressions, and that's even before we get to the insurrection, election interference, and selling access. And a lot of yall misunderstand how a 24 hour news cycle works. Cruz is going full buffoon with daily soundbites because it worked for Trump. Cuomo isn't going to tweet nutty things or give a bonkers press conference or speech. He stays composed. Things get investigated. They are reported in a timely manner. It doesn't provide something to talk about for 24 hours. Even if he resigns, it will be a composed letter and press conference. Of course that is going to be reported mildly, unlike a Cruz or Trump resignation who would go out while flinging shit everywhere. You're also wrong about who benefits from the coverage or lack of coverage. There is no such thing as bad publicity. What Cruz has been doing since Cancun is entirely intentional.

Whats that have to do with you making out with your dog? Or that you think exchanging saliva with a live animal is healthier than eating a cooked one. But look, I know you were excited that you thought you had an excuse to be openly racist against Chinese people. But here's the other thing. You think you have a gotcha again, but you don't, even if they actually manage to get it into clinics tomorrow. It really eats you up inside when someone plays your stupid game with you, doesn't it? Some people would take that to heart and try to change. But not you. You are dishonest and disingenuous at your core. These are your defining characteristics. So you're just going to have to keep begging for validation. And lol. You even called me dumb. So you are begging someone you called dumb to tell you that you are right. How pathetic are you?

I know you do. You care a lot about what I think. So much so that you even decided to rekindle this name calling match out of the blue. Do you dream about me every night? I dont really care about gotchas. That's your shtick, but I'll play the game. And the fact that you just can't get it done has been keeping you up at night, hasn't it? You tried to thread the needle and you failed. And now here you are begging me for validation. You truly do share all of Trump's bad personality traits.

Finally admitting to the publicity stunt aspect of it, huh? You're half way to a full admission now. You really have a desperate need for me to validate you, don't you? Might be time for you to start finding friends in real life. You'll need to change your behavior though.

Lol. They should take Mario's name off the Tappan Zee bridge though. Andrew Cuomo is all over the news too, so I dont know what he is bitching about. The real difference is that Dem pols typically face repercussions, and Cuomo will absolutely face them. His support base is falling apart as we speak. Rep pols don't face repercussions and Cruz will never pay any price for supporting an insurrection.

See, you finally learned how to quote. Baby steps. I was wrong about one thing. I initially thought you could change and were capable of honest conversation. But instead, you are simply a fundamentally dishonest person and rotten to your core. Its funny that you accuse me of deflection since deflection is pretty much the entirety of your posting existence, including on this topic. And like I've said before, we could largely agree, but instead you choose to continue being despicable. I do wonder what your motivation for caring about the vaccine at all is since you don't seem truly capable of actually caring about the well being of other humans. Perhaps it's simply a financial issue for you. But no matter. Sunday is the last day of February. The JNJ vaccine will not be available until March. Maybe next time, you won't forget to put the wheels on your goalpost. When you put a deadline on yourself, it's tough to overwhelm it with dishonesty even though you are giving it your best effort. Your other tactic of completely ignoring it would work better. But at this point, do you really have any other interference you can run? The avoided topics are going to start adding up. And speaking of doggy kisses. Its not surprising that I've never seen you backtrack your anti-Chinese racism even as current studies indicate that the wet market was likely a superspreader event with human to human transmission and not the origin.