Bitcoin is deflationary because a fixed amount of currency is inherently deflationary. Deflation is caused by there being a decrease in currency relative to economic activity. So if economic activity increases and the supply of currency remains the same, you have deflation.

A simple (and grossly simplified) example. There are 10 people with 10 dollars each and 10 apple sellers with 10 pounds of apples. If the apple sellers set their price at $1 per pound the buyers can buy all the apples at $1 per pound. The next year the amount of currency hasn't increased. There are 10 people with 10 dollars each. But the apple producers all doubled their production so they each have 20 pounds of apples to sell. To sell all of them, they need to set the price at $.50 per pound. That is deflation even though the supply of currency has remained static.

Economists fear deflation more than inflation because the inevitable result of that deflationary condition is a downward spiral in economic activity. There is less advantage in investing since future prices will be lower and there is an advantage to waiting since the cost of investment will decline in the future. There is an advantage in not buying things now because they will be cheaper in the future.(The apple buyers decide to wait a year since the ten dollars they save now will buy twice as many apples next year.)

The issue with government borrowing, like the issue with any borrowing, is how was the money spent. Virtually every successful company in the world is in debt. The folks who talk about the debt are almost always making an argument against spending they don't approve of. Its tough to find one that wants to raise taxes to deal with it and none that think we should cut government services that they find useful.

We seem to be talking about different things. He claims that we can produce the same amount of energy at less cost. Theoretically that would reduce the GDP because the energy is worth less than the energy it replaces.

But the larger issue is the electric car problem. If you trade in your ICE car for an electric car you have not reduced emissions at all. The car you traded in will just burn gas for someone else with no change in emissions. You need to junk the ICE car to reduce emissions. But then the cost of making that change is a LOT higher and not many people will make it. The same is true of the larger emissions picture. Solar is cheaper than burning coal, but often not enough cheaper to account for the cost of junking an existing coal plant. So when you set the standard that reducing emissions has to have an economic benefit whether its corporate bottom lines or GDP, you have set us up for failure.

Statistically, average and mean should really be precisely the same. The problem with almost all uses of statistics these days is that even supposed experts don't seem to stick to any precise meaning or understand what that meaning is.

In this case, it appears to be just meaningless math. They took the entire world GDP and divided it by the estimated number of people. This is a click-bait /propagandist trick to make dry numbers sound more interesting and relevant to the reader's own situation. But its doubtful is actually measures economic activity per person which is what they seem to be assuming.

Its also doubtful that GDP measures anything useful in this context. For all we really know, the catastrophic results of climate warming may raise the world's GDP. Hurricane's generally result in a bump in GDP because of all the economic activity from cleaning up and repairing the damage. Its hard to see how extreme weather would lower economic activity, much less lower the economic activity per person. And even more doubtful that there is any way to accurately measure it if it does.

This is "useless and pointless knowledge" since there is no realistic path forward that will prevent climate change while creating profitable business opportunities that grow the GDP. So we will just need to accommodate whatever consequences there are. Because our ruling elite is not going to lower the GDP today in order to avoid having it lowered in the future.

Bloomberg is unreliable. Who knew? You can apply that to any news source on the internet whether they use AI or not.

One last thought. If crypto did collapse, government would step in to prevent it. There are some very wealthy and powerful interests with skin in this game. And the US government is now one of them.

Yes, but how much crypto do they own? And will they sell for a loss or go back to the pawn shop if they need money. I think the bulk of crypto is owned by people with pretty deep pockets who are unlikely to be forced to sell at a loss. If you set the capitalization of crypto based on what people paid for it, I don't think it would amount to much.

This is people gambling with paper money. To stay in the game there needs to be some exchange rate with real money. The gamble is on how that rate will change in the future. But the amount of that exchange isn't really important within the game except to the extent it increases or decreases. Your winnings are all on paper until you sell. And your losses are all on paper until you sell.

That isn't really different than the stock market. The difference is that stock prices reflect some intrinsic value. If Tesla goes bankrupt, the players in the game lose their money and will never get it back. Game over. There is no way for that to happen with crypto.

I think that is true for the vast majority of crypto holdings. I am sure there are people who are buying crypto with money they will someday really need. Just as there are people who play the lottery with the milk money. But I don't think those people hold enough to make any significant difference.

Stock goes to zero because the company goes out of business. Bonds go to zero because there is no one to pay either the interest or the principal. These things represent intrinsic value that no longer exists. What would make crypto go to zero? It has no intrinsic value to begin with. Its market value is the lowest price anyone is willing to sell for. What is going to convince people not to buy because they won't be able to sell again at that same or better price.

I am not saying crypto will hold its value. I just think the pump and dump process we see happening is central to its nature. I don't see any reason why it can't continue for the forseeable future unless making a transaction becomes so expensive that it can't cover the costs of a sale.

Let me suggest this is a list chosen to make a point. I.e its Trump mania.

The real things a dictator needs:

A professional army that will take orders.

During the civil war when Lincoln fired General McLellen who was popular with the army there were rumors about him leading a march on Washington to "save the union." One version of that story was he abandoned the idea when he was told that while the soldiers loved him, they loved the Republic more. That was why they had volunteered to begin with. They wouldn't follow him. I doubt that was talking about the soldier boys, it included most of the officers who had also been drawn from civilian life.

A small ruling elite that is contemptuous of the common citizens' ability to govern themselves collectively.

You need a small group of people who see themselves "divinely chosen" to rule either because of their intelligence, their experience, their knowledge or their position. In short, a group of people who are contemptuous of self-government and whose primary concern is their own place and authority within the government. This allows the dictator to reward friends and punish enemies with neither having a recourse to popular opinion and both seeing self-government as a threat to their personal interests.

Tools to inflame passions in the population and to destroy any opportunity for reasoned discussion that might lead to effective opposition.

To create a dictatorship you need to make any challenge to your authority not only attack on you but an attack on your supporters. You need to divide people emotionally into friends and enemies. Whether they are a supporter or opponent becomes an identify issue rather than a calculated decision of what best serves their personal interests. By keeping people focused on personal identity and emotional issues you are free to act without fear of losing support.

You need to create a small cadre of elite whose fortunes are entirely dependent on yours.

While you need a wide range of friends in the elite whose interests you serve. You need a dedicated few who will do whatever is necessary to support your position and will share your fate if you lose power.

You need to be a "wannabe"

You have to make remaining dictator the priority over all other values. It is keeping the position, not any accomplishments are important.

My guess is the "plan", if there is one, is that people who buy crypto will only sell it for more than they paid for it. Like all markets, the market price for crypto is set by willing sellers and willing buyers. If sellers only sell at a higher price, over time the market price is going to increase. As the price falls, the number of sellers able to sell at a higher price than they paid also falls.

Eventually the number of sellers declines to the point where there are very few sellers and there are buyers who think they can buy and still sell for more in the future. Then the price goes back up with people making "money" hand over fist and everyone wanting to get in on the action.

The key to this is that since there is no intrinsic value to crypto, people are never forced to sell at a loss. Or very few people are. As long as the market goes up over time, no one needs to take a loss and the paper profits can continue to soar. Its a money machine, as long as no one spends the money or at least they spend less than the new money coming in. And, of course, they can't spend more. Because for someone to spend they have to sell and someone else needs to buy..

I don't think there ever needs to be a "rug pull", people can slowly bleed money out as long as everyone doesn't try to do it at the same time..The bottom is self-limiting since almost nobody will be willing to sell at a loss.

The weakness in the plan may be the miners. They need real money to spend and the only way to get it is to sell.

People who are pardoned aren't usually innocent. As to fairness, the question is whether they were charged because of their support for Trump. Would someone in similar circumstances who was not a Trump supporter have been charged. Biden pardoned people he was afraid would be targeted. Trump is pardoning people he claims were targeted. Of course in both cases those claims may not be the real reason. Biden pardoned his son because he is a loving father. Trump pardoned people because they paid for his love with campaign contributions.

The lack of skilled trades people is not limited to electricians. There is a shortage of carpenters, plumbers etc. almost any building trade. Its the reason a lot of immigrant labor is in the construction business.

I don't know that the problem is wages. I just finished a biography of Benjamin Franklin who was the only founder who didn't start out at a "gentleman". He was a printer, became rich as one and stopped working so he could become a "gentleman". The definition of that class included not working with one's hands. I am not sure that has changed. Going to college was a way to establish your social class. Being an apprentice electrician isn't. The opposition to industrial arts is driven by parents who don't want their kids to assign themselves to a lower social class.

Higher education is a highly lucrative business. Like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google, the College Board is a very lucrative monopoly. The people who manage the non-profit corporations in that business pull down salaries just like the folks that manage for-profit corporations in other industries.Same can be said of the health care industry. You can whine about it, but there isn't much you can do about it short of a revolution or trying to position yourself to get a share of the take.

Not when you are driving on it. But you make it clear they need to make the penalty a lot steeper if they want to make the rest of us safer from people like you. They ought to stop writing tickets and just impound cars that are going over the limit. Let people who speed walk home and have to figure out how to retrieve their vehicle from the pound. One purpose of legal penalties is to deter people and clearly speeding tickets are seen by some people as just another cost.

No. As far as I know "normal" has no statistical definition and even if it did what would it have to do with models' figures? The idea that numbers to something can somehow create a definition of "normal" human figure is kind of weird.