throwaway20875

We're well beyond your cognitive capabilities in this discussion if you're suggesting that a comparison between powerful ex-directors of the US intelligence apparatus landing post-gig jobs as political commentators at media organizations and "Marines" at McDonalds is apt (or even relevant).

There is no defense of BTC inherent to my point, quite the contrary. BTC is largely irrelevant. What's relevant is that this leader in a South American country has thumbed his nose at the empire and the empire will seek to undermine him through all means at its disposal, media hit pieces included.

There are clear conflicts of interests between an independent press and the press being owned by large corporate entities.

Aside from that, note the revolving door and cozy relationship between the intelligence arm of the government and media:

William Brennan - CIA to MSNBC

James Clapper - NSA to CNN

Michael Hayden - NSA to CNN

Asha Rangappa - FBI to CNN

Chuck Rosenberg - DEA to MSNBC

The above are just a few, and clearly a new flavor of the military/intelligence industrial complex.

Then consider that the Washington Post is owned by an individual that has also competed for billions of CIA and NSO business (going back many years before 2020): https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/cia-awards-multib...

Or consider the overt yellow journalism that was used to justify invasion of Iraq in 2003 - the New York Times was one of the most culpable outlets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War...

>I doubt any theories of “the media” having anything to gain from conspiring against the country

Aside from your sweeping and snide remarks on Americans, this is a woefully naive take. The US derives a lot of its power through the global monetary system. It can essentially isolate an entire country from large segments of global trade by simply sanctioning it (severing SWIFT transactions and threatening any banks with loss of settlement/SWIFT access/penalties for dealing with the country). Most of global trade is settled in dollars and a lot of reserves are held in dollars. The US exports dollars. The US takes advantage of those circumstances for its own benefit and seeks to preserve this system. BTC doesn't really pose a threat (not enough of it, slow throughput, too volatile).

Further, the US has a long history of interfering in South America (United Fruit, for example). Or: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Bottom line: There is clear incentives for the US to have its way in El Salvador and elsewhere. There is also a clear track record of the US doing anything it can, legal or illegal, to achieve its desired outcomes in South America. Leveraging a largely US based mega-corporate-owned media to assist in those endeavors is only natural (and blithely dismissed by midwits like yourself). The president of El Salvador has disrespected the empire, so El Salvador delenda est.

Bitcoin isn't the lone currency in the country and the dollar is still widely used there. Expect more of this as the president of El Salvador has invited the ire of the US government by exposing the US's involvement in corruption in his country: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1469045510442864642

The media is about to go full court press on this guy, BTC is just one angle they'll use.

No greater example of the decline of our society: the contrast between HN's focus and attention to this product announcement and the NSA leaks.

Not included in article: photos relevant to the actual mysteries.

It's a political move and power grab.

This whole circus is about as contrived as it gets, complete with the "think of the children" gimmick. The timing, the theatrics, the manufactured celebrity of a middle manager at Facebook who is doing the "right" kind of whistleblowing that the establishment likes.

Facebook's predatory business model isn't unique or new. This is about raw power to censor.

This reads like a hit piece.

>Even with the recent rise in prices, energy prices are still way to low to actually influence choices most people make.

No revolution was ever made with silk gloves kind of mentality right here.

Good.

>All this speculation and capital going a little crazy searching for yield are side effects of an overabundance of capital.

The stock market is where savers have been forced to. Pensions included. ZIRP/negative real rates have consequences. There "isn't too much capital". It's being misallocated due to misguided policy. It will get worse.

You need to start thinking in second and third order effects.

>The causality is reversed for public debt though - governments react to deflationary environments by increasing public spending to compensate for the private sector's propensity to save - as a "spender of last resort" as it were.

Again, we're at levels record levels of global public debt. There is no free lunch. Debt financed spending is only possible through financial repression (real default through inflation in this case and in the 1940's following WWII, the last time US debt reached 130% of GDP) which ultimately drives speculation as capital searches for yield. Rinse repeat deflationary shock as a result.

Though there are similarities, the US and Japan have very different circumstances. The US runs twin deficits, has extreme inequality compared to its peers, and extremely high costs for healthcare and education. This is not a recipe for stability.

I don't think it's as straightforward as you propose. Debt is itself deflationary and dampens growth. Public and private debt are already at global highs. Every dollar of debt is far less effective at stimulating the real economy than in decades past. Further, how much infrastructure spending would stay in a local economy without a significant manufacturing base?

I don't have the answers, but this seems to be borrowing from a playbook written for a different era.

Perhaps this is intended to improve under-employment numbers.

The leadership does, but their interests are political so that they may end up in the ranks of the private contractors selling materials and services to the military. It's beyond dysfunctional and isn't well recognized. The military industrial complex has converged into a self-defeating feast of taxpayer's money.

The slippery slope is real.

The power to veto anyone's speech is toxic. Entrusting it to anyone, particularly those in power, is the implicit agreement to forfeit liberty.

"Yes, he attended then-President Donald Trump’s rally in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, but he never entered the Capitol. He was in a friend’s room at the JW Marriott a 30-minute walk away when the Capitol breach occurred.

Nonetheless, he was raided in February by the FBI anti-terrorism task force, handcuffed, paraded and detained for three hours while his apartment was ransacked and all his devices confiscated. Four months later, he hasn’t been charged and doesn’t have his devices back, but his neighbors are shunning him, and he’s had two strokes from the stress."

Great War on Terror 2.0, as we wrap up our costly engagements in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, our corrupt agencies and contractors will try to sell some new way to make a buck. Hint, it's kicking down your neighbors' doors like this. You cannot have an empire abroad and not at home.

It has far less to do with "everybody silently sit in this room and read the paper at the beginning of this meeting" and more to with forcing the driver of meeting with articulating their thinking in writing form. Few understand that the 6-pager isn't about the reader but about the writer.

Thank you Notepad++ for standing against censorship. We need to see more of this.

Not true.

This hall of mirrors is only beginning. This is truly terrifying.

The most disgusting aspect is the blatant lying and hypocrisy: https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/topic/defending-dem...

>will be resolved if it ever harms (rich) humans in any meaningful way.

I think you're not thinking critically enough on who it will be solved for.

Tesla isn't special. Tesla and all other growth companies benefited from the macro landscape of the 2010's. Zero interest rates drove capital out of (low) interest bearing treasuries and bonds and into tech. Look at foreign purchases of each over the last 10 years. I don't think we'll see this trend continue into the 2020's.

>What a sensationalist title. Technically correct, yes, but misleading in spirit. Most people will see the title and not read the rest of the article, which results in the sentiment: "the only reason why Tesla is still afloat is because of XYZ." Would you want to invest in a company like that?

I wouldn't invest in Tesla because it's valued at a price/market capitalization worth more than all other car companies combined. This is before we get into the crypto currency hijinks or Elon's market manipulating tweets.

The valuation is insane and not supported by the current or future business.

Whatever your brand of politics, events like these are dark clouds on the horizon. We are observing proxied repression of things that run counter to the narrative by private enterprise on behalf of the powerful.

They both reference the same CSIS study.

One of the quotes from the most recent study which seems to contradict there's a rise in violence:

"White supremacists, extremist militia members, and other violent far-right extremists were responsible for 66 percent of domestic terrorist attacks and plots in 2020—roughly consistent with their share in other recent years. For example, on June 7, Harry H. Rogers—a self-proclaimed leader of the Ku Klux Klan—intentionally drove his pick-up truck into a crowd of Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Henrico, Virginia. One protester was injured, and Rogers received a six-year prison sentence. In addition, anarchists, anti-fascists, violent environmentalists, and other violent far-left extremists conducted 23 percent of terrorist attacks and plots in 2020—an increase from the previous three years, in which violent far-left incidents comprised between 5 and 11 percent of all domestic terrorist attacks and plots. For example, on August 29 in Portland, Oregon, Michael Reinoehl—an Antifa extremist—followed two members of the far-right group Patriot Prayer and then shot and killed one of them, Aaron “Jay” Danielson."

These are important trends and I pay close attention to them as I believe we're going to be facing a sharply decreasing quality of life for the average American in the coming years which will provoke anger and unrest. These are going to be ingredients to serious problems, some of which will trigger a broad increase in violence. Unfortunately I have little faith in our current leadership or system to deal with these challenges.