Central Banks Versus Stablecoins

[Shami-Amourae]

Stablecoins are a crypto invention that are making central bankers shit themselves. They are taking away their power and they think they can regulate them out of existence.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhV8hs9nMOY

Thankful the people running Central Banks are retarded Boomers who don't understand what crypto is.
They plan to possibly tax stablecoins out of existence (they're words), or regulate the shit out of it. They will absolutely blow up in their face as there are already algorithmic stablecoins like XHV Haven. That will increase too.


From the Federal Reserve:
tl;dr: https://twitter.com/CaitlinLong_/status/1416775410663182339

Long Version: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3888752


It's amazing the Central Bankers took since 2014 to realize Stablecoins were a threat (they're that stupid) and their primary response is
"LET'S TAX IT OUT OF EXISTENCE AND EVERYONE WILL USE OUR SHITTY CBDC!!!!"


I'm going to start looking into investing heavily into Privacy Stablecoins. Those things are possibly going to be HUGE. Haven XHV had a hack recently so is significantly down but that or something like that could be one of the best investments of your lifetime.

[ziero0]

"Central Banks are retarded Boomers who don't understand what crypto is"

By "understand" I believe you mean consent.

By "retarded Boomers" I believe you mean "my father's generation".

Your statement becomes: Central Banks are my father's generation who do not consent to what crypto is.

This still does make much sense because the statement suggests "crypto is" or "crypto has being". When does the solution of a math problem have a claim to existence.

It is similar to reading a Superman comic and then expecting him to knock on your door. Pure fantasy.

[cheka.]

i dont know much about this stuff. but arent stablecoins designed/promoted to track the value of the federal reserve note?

the place where crypto traders store their 'cash' between trades? so the stablecoin operators must hold federal reserve notes (or derivatives of same) to achieve their goal?

the anti-crypto propaganda says stablecoin operators dont have the frn's they say they do -- ponzi

[Bigjon]

I posted a horror story about Tether a couple of weeks ago where the supposed dollars backing the Tether were no where to be found.

Sounds like another fractional reserve story, come to the crypto land.

[EE_]

Cryptos (aka air coins) are sucking shit!

But gold is shining!

[vacuum]

How would you invest in a stable coin? Since it’s pegged to something like the USD, you can’t really have a price go up situation.

One possibility is to invest in an oracle that the privacy stable coin would use to stay pegged. Would that be Chain link or something else?

[Shami-Amourae]

How would you invest in a stable coin? Since it’s pegged to something like the USD, you can’t really have a price go up situation.

One possibility is to invest in an oracle that the privacy stable coin would use to stay pegged. Would that be Chain link or something else?

Buy USDC on Coinbase. There's no fees when you do this so its basically a free way to get from fiat into crypto. You can then move it to a Metamask wallet and swap it for other things on UniSwap.
USDC currently earns 0.15% APY and soon will earn 4% APY + usable with a debit/credit card. That card will also let you earn more USDC. Coinbase is effectively a bank, and this is far superior to the 0.01% interest you get at your bank now.
https://blog.coinbase.com/sign-up-to-earn-4-apy-on-usd-coin-with-coinbase-cdad79e5f5eb


There are other services that give you higher staking rewards (like interest), but they are riskier, and many are unregulated or automated (you can lose everything).

-----

Another option is Paxos Gold $PAXG which is an Ethereum token backed by physical Gold that is audited and regulated:
https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/pax-gold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raaC1QIawSY

The only stablecoins I'd recommend are $USDC, $DAI, and $PAXG.

[Shami-Amourae]

Cryptos (aka air coins) are sucking shit!

But gold is shining!

Some price changes in $USD over the last year:

Bitcoin: +330%
Lumber: +265%
WTI Crude: +210%
Gasoline: +182%
Heating Oil: +107%
Corn: +84%
Copper: +83%
Soybeans: +72%
Silver: +65%
Sugar: +59%
Cotton: +54%
Platinum: +52%
Natural Gas: +43%
Palladium: +32%
Wheat: +19%
Coffee: +13%
Gold: +3%

Gold doesn't even keep up with INFLATION!
Boomer Economics™, Ladies and Gentlemen!
:rolleyes:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

[Shami-Amourae]

I posted a horror story about Tether a couple of weeks ago where the supposed dollars backing the Tether were no where to be found.

Sounds like another fractional reserve story, come to the crypto land.

Everyone is shifting to USDC right now. It's mostly foreign exchanges that are still using Tether. Most Americans and American exchanges don't touch Tether (it's trash).

[EE_]

Some price changes in $USD over the last year:

Bitcoin: +330%
Lumber: +265%
WTI Crude: +210%
Gasoline: +182%
Heating Oil: +107%
Corn: +84%
Copper: +83%
Soybeans: +72%
Silver: +65%
Sugar: +59%
Cotton: +54%
Platinum: +52%
Natural Gas: +43%
Palladium: +32%
Wheat: +19%
Coffee: +13%
Gold: +3%

Gold doesn't even keep up with INFLATION!
Boomer Economics™, Ladies and Gentlemen!
:rolleyes:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZ8zDpX2Mg

You're a kook!
Going back four months, lumber is down -75%, bitcoin is down -50%
Gold is up and gold is real money!
Millennial Air-Head Economics™, Ladies and Gentlemen!

None of the things you've listed can be held in your hand...not even Millennial Air-Head coins.

[vacuum]

Buy USDC on Coinbase. There's no fees when you do this so its basically a free way to get from fiat into crypto. You can then move it to a Metamask wallet and swap it for other things on UniSwap.
USDC currently earns 0.15% APY and soon will earn 4% APY + usable with a debit/credit card. That card will also let you earn more USDC. Coinbase is effectively a bank, and this is far superior to the 0.01% interest you get at your bank now.
https://blog.coinbase.com/sign-up-to-earn-4-apy-on-usd-coin-with-coinbase-cdad79e5f5eb


Nice, thanks for the heads up

[Shami-Amourae]

You're a kook!
Going back four months, lumber is down -75%, bitcoin is down -50%
Gold is up and gold is real money!
Millennial Air-Head Economics™, Ladies and Gentlemen!

We need people like you to sell Bitcoin to when it hits $1-Million.

You could have just bought it at $4 when I told you to in 2011. You're so bitter you didn't listen to me.
:rolleyes:

[EE_]

We need people like you to sell Bitcoin to when it hits $1-Million.

You could have just bought it at $4 when I told you to in 2011. You're so bitter you didn't listen to me.
:rolleyes:

You are so busy patting yourself on the back that you can't see America is collapsing. Internet/cell service may no longer function reliably in the near future due to electric grid failure, disasters and political unrest.

Guys like you will be mowed down when the riots, revolts and wars begin. Try using and cashing your cryptos when the system breaks. It's coming, there is no doubt!

Not to mention AI and quantum computing will give governments around the world complete control over everything digital.

[ziero0]

New system?

Cons always figure a new way to separate you from your personality.

Crypto is the latest illusion they use.

personalty (n.)
1540s, a legal term, "personal property" (in distinction from realty), from Anglo-French personaltie (late 15c.), corresponding to French personalite, from Medieval Latin personalitas (see personality).

PERSONALITY. An abstract of personal; as, the action is in the personalty, that is, it is brought against a person for a personal duty which he owes. It also signifies what belongs to the person; as, personal property.

There is no personality in crypto currency nor is there any personality in a FRN. There is no personality in anything purchased with these either.

Isn't this what the communist manifesto presumes to outlaw?

$30,000 for a Bitcoin? If you can't own $1 how does 30,000 FRNs give you more personality? And if you exchange something you don't own for something you CANNOT own how have you bettered your condition?

IT DON'T BELONGA YOU (when English is not understood tribal jingo may be used)

[vacuum]

FYI, looks like USDC funds can be frozen through a blacklist:

https://support.usdc.circle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016060352-Can-a-customer-send-USDC-tokens-to-any-address-Can-addresses-be-blacklisted

So even though the currency itself is backed and stable, there is the risk of being targeted, or potentially some really dumb regulation.

I also read that DAI is backed by 50% USDC. Not sure if the blacklist ability is there or not.

[Shami-Amourae]

FYI, looks like USDC funds can be frozen through a blacklist:

https://support.usdc.circle.com/hc/en-us/articles/360016060352-Can-a-customer-send-USDC-tokens-to-any-address-Can-addresses-be-blacklisted

So even though the currency itself is backed and stable, there is the risk of being targeted, or potentially some really dumb regulation.

I also read that DAI is backed by 50% USDC. Not sure if the blacklist ability is there or not.

That's the downside the $USDC. I recommend using a bit of all of them, but use $USDC only if you're planning on paying taxes and not doing shady shit.

For the rest use $DAI.

Paxos does shady shit with Binance, who regulators currently hate, even though Paxos is fully compliant.

[Shami-Amourae]

You are so busy patting yourself on the back that you can't see America is collapsing. Internet/cell service may no longer function reliably in the near future due to electric grid failure, disasters and political unrest.

Guys like you will be mowed down when the riots, revolts and wars begin. Try using and cashing your cryptos when the system breaks. It's coming, there is no doubt!

Not to mention AI and quantum computing will give governments around the world complete control over everything digital.

If there's a part 2 to the bull run I plan on cashing out heavily into physical Gold + digital Gold (Pax Gold (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/pax-gold)).
I'm not anti-Gold, I just understand it's heavily manipulated down. The bankers won't allow the prices to reflect reality to keep the illusion of the Dollar going. I believe that kind of manipulation will happen to Bitcoin too eventually (or already has happened). That's why I believe the next direction is privacy coins. You need to understand Millennials and Zoomers don't view Gold/Silver as viable investments. Literally only Boomers are investing in Gold/Silver anymore. If you remember most of the younger early Crypto people like myself were ALL into Gold/Silver back in 2007-2013, but we switched to Crypto once we discovered it. This caused a split in the Gold/Silver community. This happened to some like Max Keiser, who was 100% into the Buy Silver stuff, but then turned into a Bitcoin Maximalist.

The same thing is happening to the stock market too, as younger people are avoiding it in favor of Crypto. For the value of something to go up over time you need each younger generation to buy into it and that isn't happening. Tell me with a straight face that you believe more Zoomers are buying Gold coins over Dogecoin. (They aren't.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZr165HdhSY
The winds are changing and trends that have been true for thousands of years will change forever. Corporations and Banks are already adopting Crypto, they won't do Gold/Silver payments, but they will/are doing Crypto.

"Just because people have used horses for thousands of years doesn't mean people will drop them for the automobile." ~People 100 years ago

I already bought myself and my mom each a house in part #1. Fully paid off, no mortgage with plenty of acreage for growing food and animal husbandry deep in Mormon country.

The collapse will take longer than most people imagine, so I think we still have time to prepare, but I'm doing it bit by bit. Doug Casey thinks the US splits in 5 countries or so in 5-10 years. I don't believe in the whole "collapse of civilization" thing. I just believe the US empire will collapse with the Dollar. Potentially like the fall of Rome type thing with a new dark age.
I've been mastering gardening both indoor and outdoor. I focus heavily into hydroponics since I like automation/technology I can do with it, but you can do it with kratky is the power goes out too. I also think a heavily overlooked prep is canned meat, which I've focused on a lot too.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTwklxEMhUQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p40gaCou2Qs

[vacuum]

Congrats on buying the property. Canned butter is another thing to look into.

With the blockstream takeover of Bitcoin, it seems like it’s dying. They have this crappy lighting network that doesn’t really work, and no they aren’t improving the technology at all. It’s getting harder to hold it long term.

[ziero0]

Eliminate risk and uncertainty and you eliminate the choice of being wrong!

Cannot that be likened to the difference between drinking stale beer as opposed to carbonated beer? *The savor is in the sparkle. *Remove the risk factor from money and substitute safety instead?

Under these conditions the memories you manufacture achieve the status of a hallucinogenic nightmare.

[EE_]

If there's a part 2 to the bull run I plan on cashing out heavily into physical Gold + digital Gold (Pax Gold (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/pax-gold)).
I'm not anti-Gold, I just understand it's heavily manipulated down. The bankers won't allow the prices to reflect reality to keep the illusion of the Dollar going. I believe that kind of manipulation will happen to Bitcoin too eventually (or already has happened). That's why I believe the next direction is privacy coins. You need to understand Millennials and Zoomers don't view Gold/Silver as viable investments. Literally only Boomers are investing in Gold/Silver anymore. If you remember most of the younger early Crypto people like myself were ALL into Gold/Silver back in 2007-2013, but we switched to Crypto once we discovered it. This caused a split in the Gold/Silver community. This happened to some like Max Keiser, who was 100% into the Buy Silver stuff, but then turned into a Bitcoin Maximalist.

The same thing is happening to the stock market too, as younger people are avoiding it in favor of Crypto. For the value of something to go up over time you need each younger generation to buy into it and that isn't happening. Tell me with a straight face that you believe more Zoomers are buying Gold coins over Dogecoin. (They aren't.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZr165HdhSY
The winds are changing and trends that have been true for thousands of years will change forever. Corporations and Banks are already adopting Crypto, they won't do Gold/Silver payments, but they will/are doing Crypto.

"Just because people have used horses for thousands of years doesn't mean people will drop them for the automobile." ~People 100 years ago

I already bought myself and my mom each a house in part #1. Fully paid off, no mortgage with plenty of acreage for growing food and animal husbandry deep in Mormon country.

The collapse will take longer than most people imagine, so I think we still have time to prepare, but I'm doing it bit by bit. Doug Casey thinks the US splits in 5 countries or so in 5-10 years. I don't believe in the whole "collapse of civilization" thing. I just believe the US empire will collapse with the Dollar. Potentially like the fall of Rome type thing with a new dark age.
I've been mastering gardening both indoor and outdoor. I focus heavily into hydroponics since I like automation/technology I can do with it, but you can do it with kratky is the power goes out too. I also think a heavily overlooked prep is canned meat, which I've focused on a lot too.


Look, I don't begrudge you for making a great hit on cryptos, it's the subtle digs you throw at me I hit back for. I've been around many with real money, I've worked for them, I've partied and traveled with them. You learn early, being jealous of others that have so much is a waste of time and does you no good.

I've had a great life, I've worked hard and retired earlier then most, at 54.
I am rich in ways you will never know. I got to live in one of the greatest periods in history.
We had real freedom and we saw and lived all the great advancements in autos, media, technology etc.
I lived the muscle car era, we owned the streets. There will never be a period like that again, ever!

The world was a much better place to live. Even girls/young ladies were different. They respected guys, unlike today's messed up females.
People were better and not hateful like so many are today, which I attribute that hatred to the internet.

I live in the south now and I will tell you, you will not find more good people then you do here.
I've lived in CA, OH, FL, AZ and NC and you do not find more genuine caring and helpful people anywhere else, like you do here.

I got to live in a part of history that you will never understand. Your future is one of a Big Brother Police State.
There will be much suffering coming in the future for society, and you being young, you will get to spend many years in this communist hell evil people have created. If this country survives at all.

You may have hit for a nice sum of money, but I am truly rich!

[EE_]

America Is Only One Step Away From A South African-Style Social Implosion
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, JUL 24, 2021 - 11:30 PM
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

On the global news front I have been watching one event with special attention, mainly because it seems like almost no one else is – I am speaking of course about the social and economic collapse in South Africa that has been escalating over the past couple weeks. What is strange to me is that certain parallels between South Africa and the US are being summarily ignored.

Basically, the South African situation is a more exaggerated version of what is happening in America, and we need to consider if it is merely a preview of future events as the extra financial protections in the US begin to fall away.

Cultural Marxism And Social Unrest (The Reparations Con)
South Africa’s government under the ANC (African National Congress) was already going full communist in 2018-2019 before the covid pandemic. Under proposed amendments to the constitution, they demanded that “reparations” be taken from white farmers in the form of land grabs, which would then be redistributed to black citizens.

This is the classic critical race theory argument – That because colonialism once existed, all beneficiaries and their supposed descendants owe dues to the descendants of indigenous people who lost their lands. The problem is, only the descendants of WHITE colonists are required to pay dues.

This is exactly the same path that socialists/Marxists in the Democratic Party are pursuing in the US, with some states and cities demanding reparations for blacks be written into law because of slavery nearly 200 years ago. The reparations movement is tiny, but like all other social justice initiatives it is gaining power because politicians and corporations are supporting it artificially. Why? That’s easy: It’s all about divide and conquer.

I think my take on it is simplified, but I feel this needs to be said because CRT and social justice lunatics tend to over-complicate issues in order to distract from certain fundamental realities. Black and brown people invaded each other’s lands and enslaved their neighbors for thousands of years before white people ever showed up on the scene. White people were made slaved within certain civilizations for many centuries as well, and yes, it was just as bad for them as it was for black slaves in America. Slavery and colonialism has NEVER been relegated to only one race or ethnicity. This is historic fact.

But, that’s all forgotten in the bizarre justifications of critical race theorists. Why are white people the only people that are supposed to pay reparations when the whole world has been killing each other for land and resources since the beginning of recorded history?

Frankly, if your ancestors lost a bunch of land centuries ago to colonists, then perhaps they should have fought harder for it. You don’t get to suddenly wave your hand and magically claim it back centuries later by default through government enforced eminent domain just because your ancestors sucked at self defense. Go back in time and tell your great-great-great-grandparents to “Get Good.”

Of course, today’s communists don’t really fight for anything, at least not directly. I might respect them a little if they did. Rather, they loudly whine that they are “victims” even though they are not, and then demand they be given free stuff for life even though they never earned it. And, since free stuff has to be taken from somewhere, the people that have things are attacked through color of law even when they did nothing wrong and earned every cent they own.

Communists steal from others through government proxy and by claiming victim group status. They work hand-in-hand with the very politicians and corporate oligarchs they say they despise. The governments and corporations do it because they can use the Marxist mob as a social weapon to strike fear in their ideological adversaries (conservatives), and the SJWs do it because they can feed on the scraps from the big boy’s table and use government to forcefully redistribute wealth into their own pockets. It’s kind of a win-win, at least for a while. Eventually the low level commies get nailed to a wall or sent to a gulag when they are no longer useful, but that’s a tale for another time…

As international outrage developed over the proposed land confiscation mandates and accusations of reverse racism started to spread, the ANC dialed back their rhetoric and adjusted legislation to confiscate land that was “abandoned, unused or posed safety risks”. Let’s set aside the fact that these requirements are arbitrary and could still be abused by the government to take away land from white owners; for now we just need to acknowledge that racial tensions were high in a country which has been working hard to deal with its recent segregationist history. The social justice communists made things much worse, not better, as is always the case.

As we saw last summer with the $1 Billion in damages caused by the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots, racial conflict is an effective weapon for the elites to create chaos. After all, BLM received most of its initial funding through the Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. They are a fabricated movement built around false critical race theory claims, but they are enough of a movement to enact violence on a nationwide scale.

Covid Lockdowns And Vaccine Totalitarianism
The South African government’s response to covid is brutal and ongoing. The lockdowns are some of the most strict in the world with curfews, zero gatherings indoors or outdoors, alcohol bans and restrictions on travel through certain areas. A large majority of the population has been blocked from participation in the normal economy. The public has been awaiting economic relief for over a year, but the hype and fear mongering around the “Delta variant” has dashed all hope. Lockdowns returned in full force in June.

There is NO EVIDENCE that the Delta Variant is as deadly or more deadly than the original iteration of covid, and covid’s overall IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) is a paltry 0.26% according to the CDC and other independent studies. Meaning, draconian lockdowns are still being implemented over a virus that 99.74% of people will easily survive.

Riots in Johannesburg and elsewhere erupted, with over 200 dead and billions in property damage and theft. In this case, it is hard to outright condemn the looting because the government continues to block citizens from earning a living in the name of stopping covid.

This is on top of South Africa’s already high poverty level and the fact that, unlike the US with its world reserve currency, South Africa does not have the same ability to print stimulus checks from thin air to placate the masses and hide the damage.

Not surprisingly the ANC refuses to acknowledge that the primary cause of the riots has been their own lockdown policies. Instead, they have blamed the the crisis on the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court charges as the trigger. This may have added gasoline to the fire, but it was not the cause. When the government is actively sabotaging the ability of millions of people to work and feed their families the only other option left for most is theft, or revolution.

Supply chains in the country have been completely disrupted and the only retail outlets with stock are those protected by the military or those protected by business owners armed with guns and baseball bats. Only 6% of the population is allowed to own firearms under South Africa’s gun control bureaucracy and red tape. The government has a near monopoly on force and it is unlikely that the mobs will change much in terms of policy, but they do make life hell for the rest of the population.

The civil unrest in this region is, in my opinion, a preview of what is to come in the US and other western nations. We have already seen riots in France, Italy and other parts of the western world over legislation that would make the experimental mRNA vaccines mandatory through vaccine passports. I would point out that the liberty media has warned OVER AND OVER that governments would try to enforce vaccine passports and make vaccines mandatory. We were called “conspiracy theorists” for this; now we are proven right once again.

Covid laws will lead to unrest in the US, just as they have led to unrest in South Africa. The Biden Administration continues to push for total vaccination of Americans despite all science running contrary to his initiatives and claims. As I outlined in my article ‘Biden’s Vaccine Strike Force Plan Stinks Of Desperation’, the facts on covid do not support vaccine mandates or passports, and this is why around half the US population continues to defy the restrictions and refuses to take the jab. The only reason why medical tyranny has been beaten back in the US is because around 50% of US households are armed. We are not yet South Africa because of our gun rights, so be thankful for the millions of gun owners out there creating a deterrent to tyranny.

The goals of the establishment will remain, however. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that Covid’s death rate is a mere 0.26% of those with confirmed infections. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that natural immunity is a part of herd immunity. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that covid infections and deaths dropped off a cliff in January of 2021 well before the vaccines were rolled out in the US. And, they are going to continue to ignore the fact that the experimental mRNA vaccines have no long term testing to prove they are safe for humans.

The science is unimportant to them. Covid is only a tool for gaining control. They do not care about public safety in the slightest.

Economic Decline And The Dark Cloud Of Inflation
There are some differences between the US and South Africa in terms of motivations and economy, but the gap is not as wide and some might think. The US is exhibiting similar signs of decline in terms of poverty, small business closures and inflation.

South Africa’s unemployment rate and poverty rate appears much higher, but the US has the ability to hide real poverty through temporary stimulus measures, welfare programs and eviction moratoriums. When the covid checks run out and evictions return, we are going to see a massive spike in poverty levels in the US once again. Furthermore, core price inflation has hit 30 year highs due to trillions in money printing and dollar devaluation, along with struggling supply chains. For now, increased demand created by covid checks is giving the illusion that the economy is in recovery, but just as home sales are now plunging after a short term spike, so too will demand in most sectors of the economy.

This does not mean that prices will fall with demand, however. For example, lumber prices are in decline as demand lessens, but after rising by 300% in some areas they have a long way to go and will probably never go back to their pre-pandemic levels. We are now seeing the same dynamic happening in housing sales vs. house prices. When demand is falling but price inflation continues to rise or remains high, this is a sign of a stagflationary crisis. And if this is the case, then the US economy will falter dramatically in the coming months, leading to poverty levels similar to South Africa. Money printing is a temporary fix that leads to longer term disasters.

It is also only a matter of time before a covid variant (like the Delta variant) is used as an excuse to bring back lockdowns across the country. And make no mistake, they will attempt harsher and harsher mandates similar to those in South Africa in order to intimidate people into submitting to the jab and the passports. At this stage, the US government will have not only mass riots on their hands, but also an armed rebellion. Undoubtedly, supply chains will crash if they have not already been disrupted by lockdowns or a related financial crisis.

The question at that point will be this: Who will rebuild? If it’s the elites and the covid cult, then freedom will disappear forever. If it’s liberty minded people, then there might be a chance to bring our civilization back from the brink. Everything depends on who is left standing after the chaos subsides.

South Africa is a warning to Americans: Do not get too comfortable. Do not get complacent. Be ready for the next shoe to drop. Prepare accordingly, and understand that a fight is coming.

The establishment will place its bets that the unrest and economic disaster will create manufactured consent. They believe that the public will be sufficiently desperate and will beg for totalitarianism as a solution. Do not find yourself among the desperate, and if you can, organize your community to weather the storm.

Finally, always remember who the people are that caused this mess in the first place. Rioters and looters are going to be a problem, but they are not the true enemy. The people behind the curtain need to be dealt with if we are ever going to find peace again.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/america-only-one-step-away-south-african-style-social-implosion

[monty]

America Is Only One Step Away From A South African-Style Social Implosion
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, JUL 24, 2021 - 11:30 PM
Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

On the global news front I have been watching one event with special attention, mainly because it seems like almost no one else is – I am speaking of course about the social and economic collapse in South Africa that has been escalating over the past couple weeks. What is strange to me is that certain parallels between South Africa and the US are being summarily ignored.

Basically, the South African situation is a more exaggerated version of what is happening in America, and we need to consider if it is merely a preview of future events as the extra financial protections in the US begin to fall away.

Cultural Marxism And Social Unrest (The Reparations Con)
South Africa’s government under the ANC (African National Congress) was already going full communist in 2018-2019 before the covid pandemic. Under proposed amendments to the constitution, they demanded that “reparations” be taken from white farmers in the form of land grabs, which would then be redistributed to black citizens.

This is the classic critical race theory argument – That because colonialism once existed, all beneficiaries and their supposed descendants owe dues to the descendants of indigenous people who lost their lands. The problem is, only the descendants of WHITE colonists are required to pay dues.

This is exactly the same path that socialists/Marxists in the Democratic Party are pursuing in the US, with some states and cities demanding reparations for blacks be written into law because of slavery nearly 200 years ago. The reparations movement is tiny, but like all other social justice initiatives it is gaining power because politicians and corporations are supporting it artificially. Why? That’s easy: It’s all about divide and conquer.

I think my take on it is simplified, but I feel this needs to be said because CRT and social justice lunatics tend to over-complicate issues in order to distract from certain fundamental realities. Black and brown people invaded each other’s lands and enslaved their neighbors for thousands of years before white people ever showed up on the scene. White people were made slaved within certain civilizations for many centuries as well, and yes, it was just as bad for them as it was for black slaves in America. Slavery and colonialism has NEVER been relegated to only one race or ethnicity. This is historic fact.

But, that’s all forgotten in the bizarre justifications of critical race theorists. Why are white people the only people that are supposed to pay reparations when the whole world has been killing each other for land and resources since the beginning of recorded history?

Frankly, if your ancestors lost a bunch of land centuries ago to colonists, then perhaps they should have fought harder for it. You don’t get to suddenly wave your hand and magically claim it back centuries later by default through government enforced eminent domain just because your ancestors sucked at self defense. Go back in time and tell your great-great-great-grandparents to “Get Good.”

Of course, today’s communists don’t really fight for anything, at least not directly. I might respect them a little if they did. Rather, they loudly whine that they are “victims” even though they are not, and then demand they be given free stuff for life even though they never earned it. And, since free stuff has to be taken from somewhere, the people that have things are attacked through color of law even when they did nothing wrong and earned every cent they own.

Communists steal from others through government proxy and by claiming victim group status. They work hand-in-hand with the very politicians and corporate oligarchs they say they despise. The governments and corporations do it because they can use the Marxist mob as a social weapon to strike fear in their ideological adversaries (conservatives), and the SJWs do it because they can feed on the scraps from the big boy’s table and use government to forcefully redistribute wealth into their own pockets. It’s kind of a win-win, at least for a while. Eventually the low level commies get nailed to a wall or sent to a gulag when they are no longer useful, but that’s a tale for another time…

As international outrage developed over the proposed land confiscation mandates and accusations of reverse racism started to spread, the ANC dialed back their rhetoric and adjusted legislation to confiscate land that was “abandoned, unused or posed safety risks”. Let’s set aside the fact that these requirements are arbitrary and could still be abused by the government to take away land from white owners; for now we just need to acknowledge that racial tensions were high in a country which has been working hard to deal with its recent segregationist history. The social justice communists made things much worse, not better, as is always the case.

As we saw last summer with the $1 Billion in damages caused by the “mostly peaceful” BLM riots, racial conflict is an effective weapon for the elites to create chaos. After all, BLM received most of its initial funding through the Ford Foundation and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. They are a fabricated movement built around false critical race theory claims, but they are enough of a movement to enact violence on a nationwide scale.

Covid Lockdowns And Vaccine Totalitarianism
The South African government’s response to covid is brutal and ongoing. The lockdowns are some of the most strict in the world with curfews, zero gatherings indoors or outdoors, alcohol bans and restrictions on travel through certain areas. A large majority of the population has been blocked from participation in the normal economy. The public has been awaiting economic relief for over a year, but the hype and fear mongering around the “Delta variant” has dashed all hope. Lockdowns returned in full force in June.

There is NO EVIDENCE that the Delta Variant is as deadly or more deadly than the original iteration of covid, and covid’s overall IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) is a paltry 0.26% according to the CDC and other independent studies. Meaning, draconian lockdowns are still being implemented over a virus that 99.74% of people will easily survive.

Riots in Johannesburg and elsewhere erupted, with over 200 dead and billions in property damage and theft. In this case, it is hard to outright condemn the looting because the government continues to block citizens from earning a living in the name of stopping covid.

This is on top of South Africa’s already high poverty level and the fact that, unlike the US with its world reserve currency, South Africa does not have the same ability to print stimulus checks from thin air to placate the masses and hide the damage.

Not surprisingly the ANC refuses to acknowledge that the primary cause of the riots has been their own lockdown policies. Instead, they have blamed the the crisis on the arrest of former president Jacob Zuma for contempt of court charges as the trigger. This may have added gasoline to the fire, but it was not the cause. When the government is actively sabotaging the ability of millions of people to work and feed their families the only other option left for most is theft, or revolution.

Supply chains in the country have been completely disrupted and the only retail outlets with stock are those protected by the military or those protected by business owners armed with guns and baseball bats. Only 6% of the population is allowed to own firearms under South Africa’s gun control bureaucracy and red tape. The government has a near monopoly on force and it is unlikely that the mobs will change much in terms of policy, but they do make life hell for the rest of the population.

The civil unrest in this region is, in my opinion, a preview of what is to come in the US and other western nations. We have already seen riots in France, Italy and other parts of the western world over legislation that would make the experimental mRNA vaccines mandatory through vaccine passports. I would point out that the liberty media has warned OVER AND OVER that governments would try to enforce vaccine passports and make vaccines mandatory. We were called “conspiracy theorists” for this; now we are proven right once again.

Covid laws will lead to unrest in the US, just as they have led to unrest in South Africa. The Biden Administration continues to push for total vaccination of Americans despite all science running contrary to his initiatives and claims. As I outlined in my article ‘Biden’s Vaccine Strike Force Plan Stinks Of Desperation’, the facts on covid do not support vaccine mandates or passports, and this is why around half the US population continues to defy the restrictions and refuses to take the jab. The only reason why medical tyranny has been beaten back in the US is because around 50% of US households are armed. We are not yet South Africa because of our gun rights, so be thankful for the millions of gun owners out there creating a deterrent to tyranny.

The goals of the establishment will remain, however. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that Covid’s death rate is a mere 0.26% of those with confirmed infections. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that natural immunity is a part of herd immunity. They are going to continue to ignore the fact that covid infections and deaths dropped off a cliff in January of 2021 well before the vaccines were rolled out in the US. And, they are going to continue to ignore the fact that the experimental mRNA vaccines have no long term testing to prove they are safe for humans.

The science is unimportant to them. Covid is only a tool for gaining control. They do not care about public safety in the slightest.

Economic Decline And The Dark Cloud Of Inflation
There are some differences between the US and South Africa in terms of motivations and economy, but the gap is not as wide and some might think. The US is exhibiting similar signs of decline in terms of poverty, small business closures and inflation.

South Africa’s unemployment rate and poverty rate appears much higher, but the US has the ability to hide real poverty through temporary stimulus measures, welfare programs and eviction moratoriums. When the covid checks run out and evictions return, we are going to see a massive spike in poverty levels in the US once again. Furthermore, core price inflation has hit 30 year highs due to trillions in money printing and dollar devaluation, along with struggling supply chains. For now, increased demand created by covid checks is giving the illusion that the economy is in recovery, but just as home sales are now plunging after a short term spike, so too will demand in most sectors of the economy.

This does not mean that prices will fall with demand, however. For example, lumber prices are in decline as demand lessens, but after rising by 300% in some areas they have a long way to go and will probably never go back to their pre-pandemic levels. We are now seeing the same dynamic happening in housing sales vs. house prices. When demand is falling but price inflation continues to rise or remains high, this is a sign of a stagflationary crisis. And if this is the case, then the US economy will falter dramatically in the coming months, leading to poverty levels similar to South Africa. Money printing is a temporary fix that leads to longer term disasters.

It is also only a matter of time before a covid variant (like the Delta variant) is used as an excuse to bring back lockdowns across the country. And make no mistake, they will attempt harsher and harsher mandates similar to those in South Africa in order to intimidate people into submitting to the jab and the passports. At this stage, the US government will have not only mass riots on their hands, but also an armed rebellion. Undoubtedly, supply chains will crash if they have not already been disrupted by lockdowns or a related financial crisis.

The question at that point will be this: Who will rebuild? If it’s the elites and the covid cult, then freedom will disappear forever. If it’s liberty minded people, then there might be a chance to bring our civilization back from the brink. Everything depends on who is left standing after the chaos subsides.

South Africa is a warning to Americans: Do not get too comfortable. Do not get complacent. Be ready for the next shoe to drop. Prepare accordingly, and understand that a fight is coming.

The establishment will place its bets that the unrest and economic disaster will create manufactured consent. They believe that the public will be sufficiently desperate and will beg for totalitarianism as a solution. Do not find yourself among the desperate, and if you can, organize your community to weather the storm.

Finally, always remember who the people are that caused this mess in the first place. Rioters and looters are going to be a problem, but they are not the true enemy. The people behind the curtain need to be dealt with if we are ever going to find peace again.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/america-only-one-step-away-south-african-style-social-implosion
Ice Age Farmer posted a copy of a letter from a person living in the city of Durban. The man say the USA & Europe will suffer the same if changes are not made. https://t.me/iceagefarmer/1709
The last paragraph of his letter:

So this is my point, without pretending to be ignorant of the politics and history that inform the crisis in South Africa, the vulnerabilities of the political and economic systems we essentially share are not unique. Basically overnight my existence and that of the people of our city and province went from the familiar routines of modern industrial society to the reality of supply chain breakdown, social violence and fear and the absolutely real prospect of state collapse. And allthough order has returned we all know it’s not over yet. Friends talk of emigrating but I’m not yet convinced that the traditional escapes of Europe or the US will fare much better if they continue to ignore the social malice of unemployment and poverty and also I think a crisis of agency and meaning amongst the masses of people effectively disenfranchised by this neoliberal disorder.

Joe Guy, Durban

[Shami-Amourae]

Congrats on buying the property. Canned butter is another thing to look into.
I heard about that but don't see a major point. I mostly use lard which is shelf stable for years. I could look into getting a little though.


With the blockstream takeover of Bitcoin, it seems like it’s dying. They have this crappy lighting network that doesn’t really work, and no they aren’t improving the technology at all. It’s getting harder to hold it long term.
That's why I'm a Monero person. A vast majority of the crypto people I know from 2011 are Monero/privacy coin fans. We're the true Cypherpunks. 99% of people into crypto are NUMBER GO UP. They don't care about the technology. I care about both. If you gave me a billion dollars I use it to develop privacy and help end taxation once and for all to separate State from Money. That was the original plan of crypto.

I actually do think we need public blockchains and private blockchains. Both serve uses. Like lets say if governments/corporations use Bitcoin as a national reserve. Guess what, everyone can see what they are doing! This public stuff works both ways. Another thing, like you can have NFTs for house titles, that could be on Ethereum for everyone to see. That's a great way to do a legal document that could eliminate title companies. When you sell a house, you just send the person the NFT token.

Blocksteam is a confusing bunch. Adam Back, the head of Blockstream identifes as a Cypherpunk on his Twitter bio. I think he's just very naiive, or controlled op. Likely the first, since Max Keiser I think it legit, just naiive (they think Bitcoin is the solution to everything). I'm not a maximalist, even with Monero. Monero is my 3rd largest holding.

[Shami-Amourae]

Look, I don't begrudge you for making a great hit on cryptos, it's the subtle digs you throw at me I hit back for. I've been around many with real money, I've worked for them, I've partied and traveled with them. You learn early, being jealous of others that have so much is a waste of time and does you no good.


I'll try being nicer.
The main thing is my generation and younger generations were brought up on computers so it's just like breathing to us. Its easier for us to trust it than older generations.
I've been a tech developer for most of my life so I understand it extremely well. I trust the virtual over the physical. It goes really deep. Deeper than you can imagine.

There is a frustration/disconnect between generations with the technological adoption/acceptance gap. The main thing is Millenials and Zoomers have no gap since we were brought up in the Information Age. The gap with Millenials and Zoomers more has to be with shorter attention spans, which is why Zoomers prefer sites like TikTok (short videos), and Millenials prefer YouTube (medium/long videos).

[vacuum]

I heard about that but don't see a major point. I mostly use lard which is shelf stable for years. I could look into getting a little though.

In Weimar Germany:

From when money dies:


“In the eight years since 1913, the price of rye bread had risen by 13 times; of beef by 17. Those were the commodities which had fared best. Sugar, milk (at 4.40 marks a litre), pork and even potatoes (at 1.50 marks a Ib.) had risen between 23 and 28 times; butter had gone up by 33 t imes.


These were only the official prices — real prices were often a third higher — and all these prices were roughly half as much again as in October, only two months before.”


Excerpt From
When Money Dies
Bob Wolf

More:

“Over most of Germany the lead was beginning to disappear overnight from roofs. Petrol was syphoned from the tanks of motor cars. Barter was already a usual form of exchange; but now commodities such as brass and fuel were becoming the currency of ordinary purchase and payment. A cinema seat cost a lump of coal. With a bottle of paraffin one might buy a shirt; with that shirt, the potatoes needed by one's family. Herr von der Osten kept a girl friend in the provincial Capital, for whose room in 1922 he had paid half a pound of butter a month: by the summer of 1923 it was costing him a whole pound. 'The Middle Ages came back,' Erna von Pustau said.


Communities printed their own money, based on goods, on a certain amount of potatoes, or rye, for instance. Shoe factories paid their workers in bonds for shoes which they could exchange at the bakery for bread or the meat market for meat.


Those with foreign currency, becoming easily the most acceptable paper medium, had the greatest scope for finding bar”


On the technology side of things, I would get this if I had the time and space for it:
https://harvestright.com/product/home-freeze-dryer/

You can preserve your own food, even meat, with a shelf life of 20 years and the quality can be very good. Not sure if you’ve had freezer dried food before, I’d not buy some mountain house and try it out. Don’t get any other brand, trust me. I have a lot of mountain house stored up which I’ve got on deals. Costco has the best prices.

[Shami-Amourae]

I've tried freeze dried foods and a lot of them don't do good with my stomach lets say.
I probably should experiment with them more to see which ones my body can handle.
I've mostly been trying to master gardening, that's my primary focus right now.

I'm experimenting a lot with kohlrabi right now and it's turning into one of my favorite veggies. It can last months in a root cellar too. Its easy to grow, and highly productive. You can substitute it out for potatoes and many other veggies. Makes great pickles too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MDKiDYsQTs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIxzgDNg9mU

[vacuum]

I’ll check out the Kohlrabi. We have a garden here too, can try that out.

For freeze dried food, only ever eat Mountain House. If you tried another brand, I’m not surprised it was borderline indigestible. Mountains House is the only freeze dried food worth buying. I’ve tried a lot of different brands.

[Shami-Amourae]

I’ll check out the Kohlrabi.

Here's how to break it down. It's very unique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sclulbRk3EU

[vacuum]

Buy USDC on Coinbase. There's no fees when you do this so its basically a free way to get from fiat into crypto. You can then move it to a Metamask wallet and swap it for other things on UniSwap.
USDC currently earns 0.15% APY and soon will earn 4% APY + usable with a debit/credit card. That card will also let you earn more USDC. Coinbase is effectively a bank, and this is far superior to the 0.01% interest you get at your bank now.
https://blog.coinbase.com/sign-up-to-earn-4-apy-on-usd-coin-with-coinbase-cdad79e5f5eb


The Coinbase card is now available in my area and I signed up for it and got it. I’m assuming they will mail a physical card, but for now I have an immediate virtual card.

https://www.coinbase.com/card

You earn 4% rewards in XLM.

[Shami-Amourae]

The only stablecoins I'd recommend are $USDC, $DAI, and $PAXG.

$DAI has recently changed how it works and is partially backed by $USDC. This means it's vulnerable and no longer decentralized based around math.
I no longer endorse $DAI.


The community has switched to $UST as the new decentralized stablecoin.
https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/terra-usd

[vacuum]

https://blog.coinbase.com/the-sec-has-told-us-it-wants-to-sue-us-over-lend-we-have-no-idea-why-a3a1b6507009

The SEC has told us it wants to sue us over Lend. We don’t know why.

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Sep 7 (https://blog.coinbase.com/the-sec-has-told-us-it-wants-to-sue-us-over-lend-we-have-no-idea-why-a3a1b6507009?source=post_page-----a3a1b6507009--------------------------------) · 4 min read

By Paul Grewal, Chief Legal Officer
https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*3ityM_nBV4RVmP5eGiWqzg.png

Last Wednesday, after months of effort by Coinbase to engage productively, the SEC gave us what’s called a Wells notice about our planned Coinbase Lend (https://www.coinbase.com/lend) program. A Wells notice is the official way a regulator tells a company that it intends to sue the company in court. As surprised as we were at the SEC’s threat to sue without ever telling us why, we want to be transparent with you about the course of events leading up to it.

Background

Coinbase has been proactively engaging with the SEC about Lend for nearly six months. We’ve been eager to hear their perspective as we explore innovative ways for our customers to gain more financial empowerment on Coinbase. Specifically for Lend, we’re seeking to allow eligible customers to earn interest on select assets on Coinbase, starting with 4% APY on USD Coin (USDC). We could have simply launched the product but we chose not to. This is far from the norm in our industry. Other crypto companies have had lending products on the market for years, and new lending products continue to launch as recently as last month. But Coinbase believes in the value of open and substantive dialogue with our regulators. So we took Lend to the SEC first.

What we’ve provided to the SEC

Coinbase’s Lend program doesn’t qualify as a security — or to use more specific legal terms, it’s not an investment contract or a note. Customers won’t be “investing” in the program, but rather lending the USDC they hold on Coinbase’s platform in connection with their existing relationship. And although Lend customers will earn interest from their participation in the program, we have an obligation to pay this interest regardless of Coinbase’s broader business activities. What’s more, participating customers’ principal is secure and we’re obligated to repay their USDC on request.
We shared this view and the details of Lend with the SEC. After our initial meeting, we answered all of the SEC’s questions in writing and then again in person. But we didn’t get much of a response. The SEC told us they consider Lend to involve a security, but wouldn’t say why or how they’d reached that conclusion. Rather than get discouraged, we chose to continue taking things slowly. In June, we announced our Lend program publicly and opened a waitlist but did not set a public launch date. But once again, we got no explanation from the SEC. Instead, they opened a formal investigation. They asked for documents and written responses, and we willingly provided them. They also asked for us to provide a corporate witness to give sworn testimony about the program. As a result, one of our employees spent a full day in August providing complete and transparent testimony about Lend. They also asked for the name and contact information of every single person on our Lend waitlist. We have not agreed to provide that because we take a very cautious approach to requests for customers’ personal information. We also don’t believe it is relevant to any particular questions the SEC might have about Lend involving a security, especially when the SEC won’t share any of those questions with us.

State of play & next steps

Despite Coinbase keeping Lend off the market and providing detailed information, the SEC still won’t explain why they see a problem. Rather they have now told us that if we launch Lend they intend to sue. Yet again, we asked if the SEC would share their reasoning with us, and yet again they refused. They have only told us that they are assessing our Lend product through the prism of decades-old Supreme Court cases called Howey and Reves. The SEC won’t share the assessment itself, only the fact that they have done it. These two cases are from 1946 and 1990. Formal guidance from the SEC about how they intend to apply Howey and Reves tests to products like Lend would be a big help to regulating our industry in a responsible way. Instead, last week’s Wells noticetells us that the SEC would rather skip those basic regulatory steps and go right to litigation. They’ve offered us the chance to submit a written defense of Lend, but that would be futile when we don’t know the reasons behind the SEC’s concerns.
The SEC has repeatedly asked our industry to “talk to us, come in (https://www.ft.com/content/fb126d79-2e60-4002-8aba-b08887fca609).” We did that here. But today all we know is that we can either keep Lend off the market indefinitely without knowing why or we can be sued. A healthy regulatory relationship should never leave the industry in that kind of bind without explanation. Dialogue is at the heart of good regulation.
The net result of all this is that we will not be launching Lend until at least October. Coinbase continues to welcome additional regulatory clarity; mystery and ambiguity only serve to unnecessarily stifle new products that customers want and that Coinbase and others can safely deliver.
We will keep our customers informed at every step as things progress.