Tag: money

Bitcoin ETF QuadrigaCX Jennifer Robertson
News

Jennifer Robertson of QuadrigaCX Burnt Out from Scrutiny
Rafael Augusto B.L. de Oliveira | @ancient_scrolls

With the unexpected death of Gerald Cotten, CEO and founder of Quadriga Fintech Solutions Corp., his widow Jennifer Robertson has found herself in the middle of a complicated legal battle. She is facing off in defense of her husband’s legacy against former QuadrigaCX investors and customers. Robertson never thought this was going to be a simple process. She has admitted that she has little to no experience dealing with Bitcoin, let alone running a company. But what came as a surprise for her was the amount of blowback she is receiving.

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Bitcoin quadrigacx cryptocurrencies
News

Law Firms Rush to Represent QuadrigaCX Clients
Rafael Augusto B.L. de Oliveira | @ancient_scrolls

Cryptocurrency often breeds a great deal of uncertainty. After all, many places still view it as the new kid on the block(chain). Clearly, respect for cryptocurrencies has increased. After all, some governments and companies are going through great lengths to attempt to control it and profit from it. There is still a lot of bias against using these paperless currencies; some still look down at cryptocurrencies with suspicion and distrust. This is especially due to the fact that cryptocurrencies are decentralized and often anonymous. Nevertheless, the adoption and value of those currencies have skyrocketed. But soon, Canadian company QuadrigaCX may not find much of either.
Continue reading “Law Firms Rush to Represent QuadrigaCX Clients” →

Opinion, Politics

Libertarians Need to Embrace Bitcoin to Succeed
By Mason Mohon | @mohonofficial

Libertarianism is clearly a pipe dream. The state co-opts libertarianism with seeming ease. The bastions of libertarianism in American politics now are seemingly willingly ignorant of some of the most important issues facing society: an economy that is clearly a facade and wars that will not end any time soon. And the only way out is Bitcoin – but more on that later.

Hopeless Libertarians

Instead of focusing on these precarious features of our present reality, libertarians have decided to take Gary Johnson’s approach. They focus on real issues, like gay marriage (which has been legal since 2015, mind you) and marijuana legalization. Not to downplay the fact that these issues are somewhat important and both should be legal everywhere, it makes no sense to be prioritizing such issues over far more pressing and oppressive institutionalizations that the United States government has decided to implement. Libertarians pair social liberalism with fiscal conservatism. Johnson cleverly called his tax plan the fair tax, so as to virtue signal to everyone that he believed in “fair” taxation, while the numbers chosen for the plan were completely arbitrary and fair is ultimately a completely subjective term.

So things seem pretty hopeless for libertarianism, and this hopelessness is intensified by the nature of democratic governance. The masses, the NPC’s, or the herd, as Nietzsche aptly termed the horde of zombies that consume the latest Kylie Jenner post with feverish enjoyment and meaningful desire, choose who rule us. And what do they choose on the basis of? Whoever makes them the most promises. Trump promised that he was going to impose trade restrictions for the blue collar worker, and they took the bait even though protectionism will ultimately hurt them in a roundabout manner. Candidates like Ocasio-Cortez willingly ignore facts (and defend themselves doing so) while promising truckloads of free stuff to those who have wasted their time and money on useless pursuits and degrees.

Libertarians don’t promise anyone anything. The proper libertarian preaches personal responsibility and strength in your ability to organize your life without the help of a coercive body parading as a mother. But this idea would not appeal at all to the masses. People want to be coddled and escape the harsh reality of owning your own life. And this is why the masses will never elect a libertarian.

It is clear that we should appeal to their self-interest – and on a very basic level. The self-interest of the masses is a simple one. People don’t care about abstract self-interested ideals. Concepts like the importance of time preference and the roundabout benefits of helping entrepreneurs ring hollow. People prefer easy short term gains.

And that is where libertarianism can leverage Bitcoin as a get rich quick scheme to fight back against globalism and liberate the individual.

The Crypto Solution

Bitcoin could be very good for the world. It has a chance to solve both of the very serious issues mentioned beforehand. The ability for Congress to utilize the Federal Reserve in pursuit of endless war means that Bitcoin could sweep the rug out from right under them. No central bank controls Bitcoin. This means that the banks cannot use it as a method for monetary stimulus. This solves the fatal boom-bust cycle. And the only way that this can happen is through mass adoption.

And for mass adoption, there needs to be demand. Some believe that Bitcoin and crypto can be utilized as a form of peaceful resistance. This resistance has already manifested in France. Amidst ATM withdrawal limits and bank runs, the Yellow Vests have become unlikely allies in the fight against the global monetary elites.

Promotion of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as the newest way to get rich quick, paired with its use as an anti-status quo tool, would provide Bitcoin a serious opportunity to begin making real change. Crypto isn’t dead. It’s asleep. And it’s only a matter of time before it becomes a serious threat to the status quo. This means that the libertarian movement needs to give up on the dream of getting a 5% vote. Real political change doesn’t happen inside the boundaries of politics. The only way that we can truly make a change is through transcending the political boundaries that have been marked down for us.

All political Libertarians should hear the words of Slavoj Zizek:

Authentic politics is … the art of the impossible—it changes the very parameters of what is considered ‘possible’ in the existing constellation.

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Uncategorized

Envy is Evil, not the Desire for Wealth
Thomas Calabro | United States

The desire for money is often viewed with disdain by those who believe in a more altruistic approach. They believe themselves to be noble in their morals, and while that may be so, they usually believe in using more government controls to enforce their altruism. They intend to enforce desired actions to reach certain end goals, either with tighter controls of small fines, regulations on how something is made, or with the complete seizure of the means of production. These end goals usually look to end or reduce inequality of income and distribution of resources, and their morals are seen as enough reason for action.

When talking about capitalism, one must see how greediness for money energizes most of the system in an efficient way. The greedy strive for profits push businesses to create and distribute products where it is demanded by their customers. While there are some organizations whose main goals are to give back rather than making money, the desire for wealth ultimately allows scarce resources to be allocated appropriately with very little to no waste. This approach, while rooted in individual self-interest proves far better at not only distributing the resources where necessary but helps create jobs, raise wages and increase the standard of living.

But why is such a system of economic freedom and prosperity, as well as it’s drive to make profits seen as horrific to one group, but not the other? Perhaps it is that many libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, and objectivists do not see the desire for money as the issue. Rather they see the desire for someone else’s earnings as the true face of evil: envy.

Before we begin talking about envy, we must first define what envy is, as well as any misconceptions that may create confusion. Envy can be defined as the “painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage. However, many in the libertarian camp see this approach as an issue when the government is used as a force to obtain the fruits of other’s labor.

One could make the argument that envy is what drives entrepreneurs to maximize profits in a free market system, those who use voluntary exchange are not only supplying market demand but also working hard to create wealth.

While we may consider ourselves in a free market where hard work can create profits, we have many controls in our government that stifle economic growth for many people. The most prevalent of which is the war on drugs, which perpetuates a cycle of poverty towards the victims of those policies of mass incarceration. Any government controls that prevent profitable innovations should be removed.

A paper from the Cato Institute’s Brink Lindsey recognizes 4 areas of interest: copyright and patents, occupational licensing, land use restrictions, and restrictions on immigration, as being subjected to “regressive regulations” and government controls that hinder income equality, as well as the free market. These deregulations can help the US to continue to be a melting pot of ideas and innovations that create jobs, raise wages, increase the standard of living, but also reduce inequality and combat the envious urges to take from hard-working Americans.

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Opinion

Democracy: Perpetually at Odds with Unmolested Capitalism
Tu Lee | United States

America was birthed not just as a reaction to expensive tea, but as part of a more bedrock fight to preserve unfettered capitalism. As such, it should be expected that any notion to undermine this with socialist ideals would deeply offend even the most flimsily rooted patriots. As to not offend these types, welfare was initially pitched as “the opportunity to live in decency and dignity” by LBJ or even adherent to a more adequate “second Bill of Rights” by FDR. As a stale Democratic Party struggles to maintain their hold on an American public which increasingly views Revolutionary era capitalism as a decorative fantasy we are merely obligated to include in high school history textbooks, these niceties have been quickly abandoned. Just recently Democratic Senator Kamala Harris introduced $6,000 lump-sum checks to the poor and Democratic Senator Cory Booker flashed plumper $50,000 cash prizes to those who elect to prop up him and his regime. Our political discourse has reached a tipping point; politicians have ditched the previous sensitivity to blatantly bribe the remaining non-voting poor on the taxpayer’s dime. The politicians offer these bribes out in the open with their backs turned to those still expecting better acting on the American Playhouse stage. Disappointed as we may be as spectators, this new jump from our politicians erodes away a crucial truth about the relationship between Democracy and Capitalism.

Seemingly out of a Bernie Sanders daydream, the Pareto principle describes a widely present phenomenon where a small section of a population controls a vast majority of a resource. More commonly this is called the 80/20 rule, and it can apply to anything from wealth to consumption of healthcare resources. Essentially, most people are more or less mediocre producers, and those who happen to be good producers are exponentially amazing producers (think the Bill Gates or Trumps of the world). Interestingly, this general distribution occurs in wealth-generating economies regardless of historical or geographical context. If Democracy is equally representative, the Pareto principle tells us it will advocate for the worst 80% of contributors to the economy in disregard to the exceptionally great top 20% of contributors. While the advocation for the lazy majority could be peaceful, it’s often too effective for politicians to resist energizing the lower class against the upper class to maximize voter turnout. Jealously is stirred up and the democratic mass easily swallows the narrative of a rigged playing field or even the scapegoating of unrelated everyday problems. So long as historically inevitable Pareto distributions continue to exist in society, then Democracy, if truly representative of the masses, will fundamentally serve to throttle the economy’s greatest producers and therefore the fuel of the economy itself.

Why should the genius working day and night for the bettering of the society, his only roadblocks the laws vomited out of his country’s legislative belly have no recourse against the bum and his mindless kin? What is usually pitched as a loophole in our Democracy is actually one of it’s greatest unintended features. It makes sense that someone intelligent enough to sit on the peak of a Pareto distribution would be smart enough to tweak the governmental game when unfairly pressed. Whether it be through Super PACs, lobbying, or revolving doors, the nudging is not boundless and must happen within a degree reasonable enough to stay under the public radar. The natural tendency of those at the top to weasel into power over politics is a healthy restraint of Democracy, even if this assertion occurs in largely unsavory ways. Regardless of this, in Democracy’s immutable quest to serve the unconstrained will of the masses there will always be inherent toxicity, economic asphyxiation, and demonization of those who serve the country most by the very same masses who are simultaneously surrendering their own wealth voluntarily to those demonized.

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