Jeb Magruder, on Watergate.

Ain't history grand? At least Magruder had the integrity to cooperate and served time for his role.

It's called The Economy, where many more numbers than profit and loss factors into stock price, see. And why depressions happen: People think they can outguess people with decades of experience and do better as Mom & Pop... happens enough, a lot of people lose their shirts when control is reasserted. That said, I will miss the old Motorola. But that's the 21st Century Economy: Profit, profit, PROFIT! or die.

It actually doesn't let you do stuff cheaper, faster, and safer. More expensive because from day to day you have no real idea what the value for that day will be in your home currency, just as if you are trying to pay with or into any other foreign currency (except that BTC is foreign to all. i.e. the volatility problem *directly* affects whether it is cheaper to use.) Slower, because it is not as ubiquitous as the dollar - it is accepted in relatively few places. More unsafe because there is no way to cancel a transaction which turns out to be purely fraudulent (i.e. you just bought a brand new iPad Air Box for $300 instead of an iPad.)

Crypto currency is clearly worse. The problem is Bitcoin is not backed by the full faith and credence of any authority. Most people don't realize the money system they are using has the foundation of some government behind them. Those pieces of paper are valuable because if you try counterfeiting them, many large men with firearms will come and handcuff or shoot you; said men to not have to worry about being prosecuted the way you would if you tried entering someone's home with a gun over Bitcoin somehow. People are indeed worried that if they get involved with Bitcoin, a state's Attorney General will order aforementioned men with guns to come to handcuff them for being involved with what will soon become an unlawful currency.

This is entirely separate from nations establishing their power to print currency by having standing armies and (sometimes) nuclear weapons, inflation making the rich richer and poor poorer, etc.

It may have been a *long* time since Bill Gates has coded, but let's see how long it takes Gates and Carlsen to write a reasonably simple subroutine, function, or module. Even in pseudocode, my money would be on Gates. (Though I would be prepared to be surprised.)

A) Plead guilty and they "consider how to handle his case???" B) Plead not guilty or remain in exile and they won't consider how to handle his case????? And the B answer is probably true - they'll probably throw down for maximum sentences. Which reveals the stupidity of the DOJ/AG/Executive Branch.

What does he deserve? He exposed the stupidity of having a secret intelligence gathering organization in a society that supposedly values free and open exchange of information and presumes all human beings have inalienable rights and limits upon the government. Which the government has broken. He couldn't do that without releasing embarassing facts in an illegal manner.

He deserves pleading guilty and a complete suspended sentence (asking for a pardon is a little much but not completely undeserved,) and the Nobel Peace Prize. And possibly expungement of his conviction upon serving the suspended sentence - not that anybody who matters will ever forget his name, but may for his rights.

The more interesting question is what the government deserves. Something with a hell of a lot more teeth than the Church Committee, for starters. And a new constitutuional amendment, criminalizing those governement officials and workers who violate the contsitution as currently amended, making such crimes of turpitude equivalent to treason or espionage.