Call me a conspiracy theorist all you want but you can't just go there and build a system that is a potential threat to the USD world reserve currency and to the power of the FED.
Silk Road doesn't pose a potential existential threat to the USD, and neither does Bitcoin. This vastly underestimates the strength of the existing global economic structure, and overestimates the impact of what is, essentially, a slightly higher-tech way to launder money and buy drugs on the internet.
I understand some Bitcoin fanatics of the cryptolibertarian and anarchist persuasion would like to believe that anything not a blockchain is a house of cards destined to tumble, but everything Ulbricht is charged with would still be a crime if the Silk Road ran entirely on dollars and cents, so to me, invoking conspiracy doesn't really pass the smell test.
If the government weas really that afraid of dark markets, or bitcoin, one would expect it to take heavier action against sites like Coinbase, or other open businesses which accept it, since they have far greater potential of spreading Bitcoin to the masses than inherently illegal sites like Silk Road, which would make most people uncomfortable even to know about. Yet, merely holding Bitcoins, or transacting in BTC, is not a crime.
I said "porentialy". As an example: China, Russia, other countries like Iran could start demanding bitcoins for their oil and gas in the future. There is limited number of bitcoins. Limited by an algorithm. The numer of usds is potentially unlimited. I could come up with other examples that could be unrealistic today but possible in 5 or 10 years. So kill the cryptocurrencies while it is still easy. I dont own and have never owned any cryptocurrencies.
I can't even conceive that China, Russia, etc. would one day demand payment for anything exclusively in bitcoins unless they're well aware that the countries they're selling to have enough bitcoins and are willing to deal in that.
Also, there's nothing stopping the US government from simply using BTC itself, or whatever cryptocurrency it sees fit, as it might any foreign currency.
I've never seen any sign that the Fed or the USG actually see cryptocurrencies as a threat.
Again: cryptocurrencies have built in anti-inflation mechanism: you can have just these many bitcoins. You can't inflate out your debt using printing press. Very good feature for a creditor nation, like China. Very bad for debtor nation like the US. Ie The USD monetary base at least doubled since 2008. To deal with the debt. Impossible to do with bitcoins. Or gold for that matter.
"The religion's association with illegal file sharing has been said not to be a sign that illegal file-sharing will be excused from Sweden's zero-tolerance approach to the controversial matter."
"Der formale Status der Kirche ändert jedoch nichts an der strafrechtlichen Belangung von Mitgliedern bei Urheberrechtsverletzungen, wobei Gerson jedoch hofft, dass der Glaube der Kopimisten in der zukünftigen Gesetzgebung berücksichtigt wird."
Trying to translate:
"The formal status of the church makes no difference of the criminal arraignment of members for violation of copyright [note: "Urheberrecht" means something different than "copyright", since "Urheberrecht" is centrally based on the concept of "Urheberschaft" (authorship), but this is probably nevertheless the best word to use for the translation], where Gerson nevertheless hopes, that the faith of the Kopimist will be considered in the future legislation."
Sometimes we are labeled. You may label yourself Harvard graduate as much as you want but if Harvard says you aren't then you aren't. You may call yourself a Catholic but if thevCatholic Church says you aren't, you simply aren't.
Pregnant mother obesity and giving birth well over 30 contribute not only to autism but also plethora of other issues. On average 20 year old pregnant woman has one hundred times lower chances of delivery complications than 30 year old. 300 pound 35 year old behemoth on the McDonald's diet is the reason for crazy autism statistics in the West.
You would think logical people are here. If 80% of crimes is done by Blacks in a neighborhood isn't it more efficient to look for criminals in this group even if it is just 15% minority?
Why males don't complain about being targeted by the Police compared to women?
That would be a good argument if you have a legal system based upon efficiency. But most legal systems are based upon _correctness_, so you cannot effectively make that kind of argument. I'm not saying it's a useless argument: I'm saying a justice system making decisions that are inconsistent with its goals and with societal expectations is going to be inefficient no matter how you slice it.
Charged isn't convicted. Somehow Blacks are 70% of prison population. So it looks like the cops are right. Unless we will buy now into a conspiracy theory that Blacks are convicted based solely on the skin color.
Those are not necessarily inconsistent. They will throw down the book at you and say you face 199 years in prison unless you plead guilty. Have you already forgotten Aaron Swartz?
If you want to go that way, you really should think of some compensation for being over targeted. It shouldnt be free for a society to over target an individual for being part of a minority.
I was treated by the byc cops really bad. I can easily imagine how much more worse I would feel if I were Black with all that PC propaganda fed into my head since birth
Medvedev. Just admitted very recently that a country occupying half the globe with 130m population can't even grow enough apples. They need to be imported from Poland. The same is true with everything else. Are you kidding me? And then Over 50% of the Russian budget comes from gas and oil exports. The country gdp size is the same as Spain's... So all it really took was to drive oil prices below 60usd a barrel. And the Russian economy is ruined. Wow...
>a country occupying half the globe with 130m population can't even grow enough apples. They need to be imported from Poland. The same is true with everything else. Are you kidding me? And then Over 50% of the Russian budget comes from gas and oil exports.
Agriculture everywhere is a 1. low margin 2. labor intensive enterprise that requires 3. careful planning, 4. careful execution combined with 5. good stable investment climate and 6. property rights protection. In the relatively harsher climate of Russia the 3. and 4. becomes extremely important while Russians are among the worst people in the world when it comes to the 3. and 4. The 5. and 6. in Russia are among the worst due to its people's general contempt for entrepreneurship and due to dis-functionality and corruptedness of its government at all levels. While when it comes to oil/gas, piping it from the ground beats apple growing by the orders of magnitude wrt. the 1. and 2. :), and the 3. and 4. are partially solved by having foreign companies perform the complex drilling (and kicked out of the country after that :), and giving such high margins the 5. and 6. are solved in oil business by merging with the state which isn't an option for farmers. In short - having oil/gas is a big misfortune for Russia in the long run.
> giving such high margins the 5. and 6. are solved in oil business by merging with the state which isn't an option for farmers.
Also, let's not forget the last time merger of farming with the state happened in Russia. The problems with 3 and 4 wound up causing a significant number of deaths.
Whatever. Each and every country in EU produces much, much more food it can consume. Poland produces 100% more food Poles can eat. The same is true for basically whole of EU and the USA. Of course Russia has its excuses, like "it is hard", but dude! Population lower than Pakistan or Japan with soooooo much land. Still can't do it. Apparently all they can do is dig up some oil and gas. Everything else needs to be imported. I understand Saudi Arabia is the same way, but they are on a desert! Pathetic... With all this land, all these resources, all this human capital 60% income dependant on oil and gas exports.
>Of course Russia has its excuses, like "it is hard", but dude! [...] With all this land, all these resources, all this human capital ...
let me tell you a story. In 1996 a Dutch farmer came to Russia to farm potatoes. His plan seemed flawless - availability of a lot of cheap good for potatoes land plus his skills. He rented the land, planted and tended the potatoes on it. By the harvest time his potential harvest seemed very great. Almost miraculously great - like several times compare to the potential harvest from the nearby fields of the Russian individual farms and remnants of collective farms. And his potatoes were just better in size/shape and overall quality. Well, people from nearby villages and towns started to come to his fields en mass and harvest the potatoes for themselves. Including local police people coming and loading the potatoes into their official police SUVs :) A Russian national TV crew came and filmed a story about it right during daytime :) I'd say that was a Russian specific "force major" the farmer failed to plan for :)
Well... right now, Europe pretty much depends on Gazprom et al. They are working fast trying to introduce alternatives (gas from US, new gas pipes under the Mediterranean and from the middle east, fracking in the UK), but there is a long way to go.
