u/truthandfreedom3

I don't think crypto like bitcoin was designed to replace government fiat currency. There are supply limitations, high energy usage, and limits to frequency of transactions. It will continue to serve a niche market.

Promising are stablecoins. A token that is pegged to the dollar, like Tether, uses collateral like treasuries. I think if you want to create an independent private currency, it should be pegged to something else, like gold. I know what you are thinking, the era of private currencies ended in the 19th century. But stablecoins are global, and generally collateralized.

I don't believe the negative press on crypto and stablecoins. They represent competition for the banks, including commercial banks and central banks. According to the professor, there will be tokenization of other assets, like stocks, in the near future. I am looking forward to digital decentralisation of finance and currency.

Reference: Understanding Stablecoins / Duke University (Coursera)

Edit: You can downvote me, if you don't understand what stablecoins are

Sovereign citizens do not believe in paying taxes. They reject the law and government authority They do not respect intellectual property rights.

I think that these three concepts overlap with anarchy. Of course there are many flavours of anarchy. Many believe in cooperation and society, which many sovereign citizens do not.

I believe that the individual is supreme. And must have freedom, truth, privacy, and security. Are my beliefs more compatible with sovereign citizenship or anarchy?

I am not completely against government or organisation. If the government respected and protected my human rights, I would respect their laws. But I have studied and worked in three countries, and all three governments failed.

Financial Times: Long-dated bonds across Japan, the UK and the US sold off, dragging stock markets lower. The 30-year US Treasury yield — a key benchmark for global long-term interest rates — jumped 0.1 percentage points to 5.12 per cent, its highest closing value since July 2007.

My Opinion: I have been telling people not to invest in government bonds for a long time. I sold off all my bonds years ago. As inflation continues to rise, and some central banks raise interest rates, bonds may continue to go down in value. Also we don't want to encourage governments to borrow, with high fiscal deficits.

The president wants to raise defence spending by about 50%. Where's he going to get the money? The government will need to borrow, as taxes aren't enough. Do we really want to allow the government to be killing, torturing, and damaging people? Don't encourage the government's criminal conduct: don't buy government bonds.

Reference: Financial Times

Phys.org: Researchers examined how companies operate across geopolitically risky regions and identified a pattern called corporate military activity. Instead of lobbying politicians for favorable regulations or funding social initiatives for reputation building, firms actively engage with the military ecosystem to obtain protection, talent, technology and contracts.

To understand this, the team analyzed previous studies and corporate practices across sectors such as energy, finance and logistics, compared them with established business strategy theories and mapped how firms interact with defense bodies, private security companies and military personnel. They then built a framework showing how these relationships translate into profit, resilience and market access.

My Opinion: Many of the biggest corporations are openly or covertly influenced or controlled by the military. Not just the big defence contractors, but also small technology startups. And the military is the origin of the hierarchical organisation, and is also leading the way to transitioning to flatter network organisations.

It is a fact that foreign operations of businesses are infiltrated by the intelligence services for their activities. Which might include intelligence gathering or other covert operations. Therefore multinational corporations are not neutral players in the geopolitical game. So you must carefully consider before allowing entry of foreign businesses into your country, and if you do, watch them carefully.

Local businesses also can be used by the local security and intelligence services to implement government policy, including targeting dissidents or critics.

Those businesses that are involved in criminal activities like violating privacy, security, or freedom, can be treated as criminal organizations.

Reuters: Netherlands-based ASML (ASML.AS), the world's dominant supplier of deep ultraviolet immersion lithography, is viewed as a target of the legislation and risks new restrictions for ⁠the China market. Japanese equipment maker Tokyo Electron (8035.T), is also viewed as among companies in the crosshairs. An ASML spokeswoman declined comment, and Tokyo Electron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

My Opinion: USA is bullying Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chip making equipment. Nothing new. But this time it is the federal legislature that is trying to rush through the law. This will be bad for all parties involved. As China takes counter measures to restrict exports of rare earths. Hopefully the big economies will constrain each other. Leaving room for the smaller economies to survive and grow.

Reference: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/china-criticizes-us-chip-equipment-bill-run-up-beijing-talks-2026-05-13/

"He shall make the high places low, and the low places high." - JC

Financial Times: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to Indians to save fuel by working from home and using public transport, as the world’s third-largest oil importer tries to halt escalating economic disruption from higher energy prices.

My Opinion: Why don't the authorities lead the way by doing the same? Work from home and use public transport. And avoid long distance travel and buying gold.

About one third of the legislature has been charged with crimes at some time. Therefore both the executive and legislature include people who have gotten away with crimes.

So don't listen to the criminals. If you are allowed to work from home one to two days a week, do so. If you have metro lines near your home, and near your destinations, you can use it. But don't worry about a weaker currency, as it boosts exports. And if you can afford private transportation, spend on it, as it boosts consumption and GDP.

Futurism.com: This is the eleventh recall the Cybertruck has faced since it first started being sold in late 2023, which speaks for itself. Previous recall issues include its accelerator pedal getting stuck in the down position, and losing power while driving.

My Opinion: Tesla is rushing out vehicles without sufficient testing or quality control. I don't think that the cheapest Cybertrucks are very profitable. Demand is weak and margins are poor. So Tesla continues to rely on expensive EVs like the Cyberbeast for profits. If you are paying a lot, they should have higher quality.

Sales of Tesla are recovering in Europe. But how they handle the recalls and quality issues of Cybertruck can have a large impact on Tesla's reputation, and future sales.

Futurism.com: “When people say, you know, ‘data centers are the root of all evil,’ we’re just saying, ‘look, they do create a hell of a lot of construction jobs, which we live and work in your communities,'” president of the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council Rob Bair told the AP.

My Opinion: Data Centers are creating thousands of jobs in construction. Creating temporary labour and permanent jobs. So trade unions are working with tech companies and conservatives to support data center construction. This article doesn't mention the thousands of jobs created in data center operations. Like data, compute, and networking professionals. And also jobs in energy, like local energy generation and storage jobs. And I assume that they have to pay federal and local taxes.

Financial Times: The rising global dominance of Chinese industries, including ships, chips, cars and robots, has sparked criticism from trading partners over excess capacity in China and Beijing’s deep state support.

A flood of low-cost and high-tech products from China is disrupting economies across the world. Economists are increasingly questioning whether other countries can absorb China’s exports.

My Opinion: China's exports grew 14% while imports grew 25% in April yoy. So while China has a large trade surplus, imports grew faster than exports. Chinese offerings of low cost high tech products are largely benefiting consumers around the world, especially middle class consumers in developing economies.

Startups generally sell products or services below cost to gain market share. American companies like Tesla and Uber did that. And the computer industry began with state funding in USA, including from defense and NASA. There is nothing particularly unethical about state support. State support is common, especially for infant industries.

And protectionism has returned, to protect domestic industries, from foreign competition. As a consumer and global citizen, I am against protectionism in general. Because free trade benefits consumers, and is a net benefit for the global economy.

Financial Times: BlackRock’s Rachel Lord has warned that some €14tn of retail money in Europe is sitting in deposits for the benefit of banks, leaving individuals potentially missing out on greater returns in the markets.

Lord, the head of international at BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said that Europe needs to address the issue of mounting cash piles and under-investment in capital markets, noting “how do you take those savings and channel them into productive investments?”

My Opinion: In India, cash in savings accounts generally return about 4%. Fixed deposits return about 7%. But the stock market is down this year in single digit percentages. However over the long term equities return ten to fifteen percent annualized.

If you are buying stocks in the secondary markets, you are generally not channelling your money to productive investments. If you want to fund businesses, you should look at IPOs, venture capital, and private equity and credit.

Even saving accounts and fixed deposits channel money to businesses through bank loans. The main beneficiaries of these are banks and borrowers, including personal and business borrowers. However cash savings accounts give low returns to savers.

Financial Times: China’s efforts to curb a brutal price war between its dominant solar-panel makers have started lifting prices, raising the prospect of the end of the era of ever-cheaper cells that drove surging uptake of the technology.

Module prices have steadily climbed from 9 cents per watt at the end of December to 11.4 cents per watt as of April 15, according to data from BloombergNEF, InfoLink and Bloomberg BGN.

The increase is the result both of a rally in silver, a key constituent of solar panels, and China’s efforts to curb fierce price competition that led to billion-dollar losses at some of the country’s biggest producers.

My Opinion: Good news for solar panel companies, in China and around the world. Not so good news for buyers of solar panels across the world. But as long as solar energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy, there won't be that much of a negative impact on solar panel demand.

Reference: Financial Times

Financial Times: Their initial analysis identified pre-screening for job candidates as a task that could be handed to AI. The resulting agent operates 24/7, unlike human recruiters, who keep office hours. Turner-Harding says she and her team were initially “shocked” to find that 50 per cent of candidates’ conversations with the agent took place outside the typical working day, peaking between 11pm and 3am. “It meant that previously we were missing out on 50 per cent of candidates,” she says. Time saved in the recruitment process, so far, is 20 per cent. The company says it has focused extra staff time on coaching and supporting candidates, rather than reduced headcount.

My Opinion: Adecco, one of the world's largest recruitment and human resource companies, is trialing AI agents. As the article highlighted, the agents were able to be active during the night, when it had conversations with candidates. So if you are a worker, and you are busy during the day, with AI agents, you can communicate with them at night.

And Adecco has not reduced any headcount with the introduction of AI agents. So each staff member has more time for higher quality interaction with candidates.

Financial Times: “This is so unprecedented,” said Jason Grumet, chief executive of the ACP. “The fact the administration is telling private landowners they’re not allowed to pursue economic activity and generate value from their property is hard to reconcile with conservative values.”

My Opinion: The president is working with the department of defence (offence) to deny approval to wind farms or projects. I don't see how wind farms on private land are a national security risk. And I don't think private citizens should be constrained from creating private operations for public benefit.

The current administration cannot be considered conservative, as it has betrayed the conservative ideology. Neither is it liberal. It is authoritarian, plutocratic, aristocratic, and totalitarian.

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely"

I am not optimistic about the future of the human race. It is to be a dystopia, a surveillance state, where those in power use their power to control access to resources.

Cooperation is necessary to build things at scale, whether technology products or essential public services. But cooperation has a dark side. In a theoretical meritocracy, those individuals who can contribute the most are rewarded the most. Whereas in any kind of cooperative society, the larger groups, including businesses and government organisations, conspire to enslave and experiment on talented individuals, to extract everything from them.

If cooperation is part of anarchy, it won't solve the problem. A society of isolated individuals, without any large groups controlling or oppressing them is best. But it is not stable. As they will be overrun by organized military or police forces from cooperative societies. Even if there is no external threat, criminals with no respect for human rights, may capture and enslave the most creative and productive individuals, and seize power.

What is the solution to this problem?

“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” - Keynes