#buy crypto suckers

[jillyb2004]

Happy 52nd Birthday to Craig Robinson!

Based on this image from Dorbees

[sanctuarynurse]

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[irregularbillcipher]

wait wait wait i watched a TON of season 33. man i REALLY jumped around

[mypannessiseverywhere]

Night drunk quote of the night

"I like eating pine cones, they give me *insert gravity falls theme music*"

[secretly-a-trickster-goddess]

I…I don’t know how I feel about this…

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Biden wants to ban ripoff “financial advisors”

I'll be at the Studio City branch of the LA Public Library on Monday, November 13 at 1830hPT to launch my new novel, The Lost Cause. There'll be a reading, a talk, a surprise guest (!!) and a signing, with books on sale. Tell your friends! Come on down!

Once, American workers had "defined benefits pensions," where their employers promised to pay them a certain amount every year from their retirement to their death. Jimmy Carter swapped that out for 401(k)s, "market" pensions where you have to guess which stocks will be valuable or starve in your old age:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

The initial 401(k) rollout had all kinds of pot-sweeteners that made them seem like a good deal, like heavy employer matching that doubled or even tripled the value of every dollar you put into the market for your retirement. But over the years, as Reaganomics took hold and workers' power ebbed away, all these goodies were clawed back. In the end, the market-based pension makes you the sucker at the poker table, flushing your savings into a rigged casino that is firmly tilted in favor of finance barons and other eminently guillotineable plutocrats.

Neoliberalism is many things, but most of all it is a cult of individualism. The fact that three generations of workers are nows facing down retirement without pensions that will provide them with secure housing and food – let alone money to see the odd movie, buy birthday gifts for their grandkids, or enjoy a meal out now and then – is framed as millions of individual failures, not a systemic one.

In other words, if you are facing food insecurity and homelessness after a lifetime of hard work, it's because you saved wrong. Perhaps you didn't save enough (through a 40-year run of wage stagnation and skyrocketing housing, health and education costs). Or perhaps you saved wrong, making the wrong bets on the stock market. If you can't afford to run your air conditioner during a heat dome, that's on you: you should have been better at stocks.

Apologists for this system will say that you don't have to be good at stocks – you just have to pay an Independent Financial Advisor to pick the stocks for you and you'll be fine. But IFAs don't work for free! What if you can't afford one?

Enter "predatory inclusion" – the practice of offering scammy, overpriced and substandard products to poor people and declaring it to be a good deed, because otherwise, those poor people would have to do without. The crypto bubble relied heavily on this: think of Spike Lee and others shilling for pump-and-dump scams as a way of "building Black wealth":

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/business/media/cryptocurrency-seeks-the-spotlight-with-spike-lees-help.html

More recently, Intuit and other scammy tax-prep services have argued against the IRS's plan to offer free tax preparation as bad for Black and brown people, because it will deny them the chance to be deceived and ripped off with TurboTax:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/27/predatory-inclusion/#equal-opportunity-scammers

Back in 2018, Trump won the predatory inclusion Olympics, when his Department of Labor let the Fifth Circuit abolish the "Fiduciary Rule" for Independent Financial Advisors:

https://www.investopedia.com/updates/dol-fiduciary-rule/

What was the Fiduciary Rule? It said that your IFN had to put your interests ahead of their own. Like, if there were two different funds you could bet on, and one would pay your IFN a big commission, while the other would be a better bet for you, the IFN couldn't put your retirement savings into the fund that offered them a bribe.

When Trump killed the Fiduciary Rule, he proclaimed it a victory for poor people, especially Black and brown people. After all, if IFNs weren't allowed to accept bribes for giving you bad financial advice, then they would have to make up the difference by charging you for good advice. If you couldn't afford that advice, well, you'd have to make bad retirement investments on your own, without the benefit of their sleazy self-dealing.

The Biden Administration wants to change that. Biden's Acting Labor Secretary is Julie Su, and she's very good at her job. Last spring, she forced west coast dockworkers' bosses to cough up the contract they'd stalled on for a year, with 8-10% raises for every worker, owed retroactively:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/16/that-boy-aint-right/#dinos-rinos-and-dunnos

Su has proposed a way to reinstate the Fiduciary Rule, as part of the Biden Administration's war on junk fees, estimating that this will increase retirees' net savings by 20%:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-11-07-julie-su-labor-retirement-savers/

The new rule will force advisors who cheat their clients to pay restitution, and will require them to deliver all their advice in writing so that this cheating can be detected and punished.

The industry is furious, of course. They claim that "The Market (TM)" will solve this: if you get bad retirement savings advice and end up homeless and starving, then you will choose a different advisor in your next life, after you are reincarnated (I guess?).

And of course, they're also claiming that forcing IFNs to stop cheating their clients will deny poor people access to expert (bad) advice. As the Financial Services Institute's Dale Brown says, this will have a "negative impact on Main Street Americans’ access to financial advice":

https://www.fa-mag.com/news/legal-challenge-predicted-for-new-dol-fiduciary-proposal-75257.html

Here's that rule – read it for yourself, then submit a comment expressing your views on it. The government wants to hear from you, and administrative law requires them to act on the comments they receive:

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/11/03/2023-23782/proposed-amendment-to-prohibited-transaction-exemptions-75-1-77-4-80-83-83-1-and-86-128

Su is part of a wave of progressive, technically skilled regulators in the Biden administration that resulted from a horse-trading exercise called the Unity Task Force, which divvied up access to top appointments among the progressive wing and the finance wing of the Democratic Party. The progressive appointments are nothing short of incredible – the most competent and principled agency leaders America has seen in half a century:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/23/getting-stuff-done/#praxis

But then there's the finance wing's appointments, like Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, who ruled against Lina Khan's attempt to block the rotten Microsoft/Activision merger (don't worry, Khan's appealing):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

Perhaps the worst, though, is Biden's Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, a private equity ghoul who did a stint for the notorious wreckers Bain Capital before founding her own firm. Raimondo has stuffed her department full of Goldman Sachs alums, and has sidelined labor and civil society groups as she sets out to administer everything from the CHIPS Act to regulating ChatGPT.

As Henry Burke writes for the Revolving Door Project and The American Prospect, Raimondo's history as a corporate raider, her deference to the finance sector, and she and her husband's conflicts of interest from their massive stakes in companies she's regulating all serve to undermine Biden's agenda:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-11-08-commerce-secretary-gina-raimondo-undercutting-bidenomics/

When the administration inevitably complains that its popular economic programs aren’t breaking through the media coverage, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

The Unity Task Force gave us generationally important policymakers, but ultimately, it's a classic "pizzaburger." If half your family wants pizza, and the other half wants burgers, and you serve them something halfway in between that makes none of them happy, you haven't made a wise compromise – you've just made an inedible mess:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/17/pizzaburgers/

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/08/fiduciaries/#but-muh-freedumbs

[daydream-the-demon]

Bill is Based???

(Also says the guy who said, "Buy crypto, suckers!" in the Simpsons-)

[emeraldspiral]

I know we all love to imagine Tallest Miyuki as a competent Girlboss, but if we roll with the idea that the Tallest are always unqualified idle rich figureheads what would GirlFailure Miyuki look like?

I like to think that she's maybe something like a Lucille Bluth type. Like, she might strut around confidently in a way that commands respect and she can certainly be witty and cleverly manipulative. But she's been so privileged all her life due to having always been taller than her peers, even in childhood, that she's incredibly out of touch and lacking in any practical skills or common sense. Not to mention extremely bigoted and tactless with her casual remarks toward shorter Irkens, Vortians, and others she considers her inferiors regardless of the position they might be in to screw her over.

She oversees the scientists on Vort and makes decisions about whose projects get greenlit and whose don't while being completely scientifically illiterate herself, and because she overestimates herself she's easily swindled. The exact type of person who'd get suckered into throwing money at Theranos or buying into a crypto/NFT pyramid scheme. Basically, no different from Red or Purple, just carries herself with the appearance of more dignity and maturity.

[shirkshingatumadre]

Listo.

*Procede A Verse El Capitulo Solo Por Bill*

In English He Say "Buy Crypto, Suckers!"

[chaifootsteps]

Over a 130 dollars for: trading cards that you may or may not be able to trade with other people (quality of the art may vary) , pins that clearly must've been designed by the creator herself since they're hard to look at, a keychain you don't get to pick, a q&a with a vindictive colorblind peacock-collecting unprofessional woman and the poor souls who have to tolerate her and two episodes of a show that doesn't have the fluid animation or beloved voice talent that made people like it in the first place. What a steal!

Why, you'd be a sucker not to buy it! Just like crypto and timeshares!

[eldragon-x]

The funny thing is Bill encounraging people to invest in crypto is sorta canon-compliant considering his Simpsons cameo. Appears on the TV screen again five years after dying just to call you a sucker and telling you to buy crypto. king

[melonba11s]

A Tempting Offer (Re-Upload)

Strade receives a message from a fan!

Minors and Ageless blogs do not interact, you will be blocked!

Contains: Strade, mentions of Asphyxiation

If Strade was asked to be honest about the reason he truly streamed on the dark web, he would have to admit it was not for the fun of entertainment. It merely provided him a way to obtain an income whilst doing what he loved. And hey, they said if you loved what you do for a living, you’d never truly work a day in your life. 

He lived by that rule, though he couldn’t deny that sometimes it annoyed him how his viewers saw his “guests” as just a piece of meat to torture. How rude they could be to the shivering college girl or the loud mouthed trust fund brat. He put up with as much as he could though. He depended on that money after all. And some of them donated very generously to see him gut a poor sucker.

In his “office”, he cracked open a beer as he booted up his computer, sipping on it slowly as it slowly turned on. Thus was the cost of being so entrenched in the dark web. Special software in order to access it was quite bulky. Devices that moved his IP to some other random place in the world often, making him untraceable. Especially useful for his line of work. Couldn’t have someone tracking him down. A heavy stack of RAM, SSD, and other type things so that he could host a stream on his own network, not tied to the garbage low quality that many of these sites offered. 

B3GCRY knew his way around computers, and he knew how to keep himself anonymous. He didn’t exactly go out of his way to seem approachable on streams, which was for the better. He didn’t need people bothering him “off the clock” for silly requests. Or dick appointments which they naively thought would not end in them being eviscerated. 

Which is why seeing a little red number pop up on his host site. A direct message. A rarity, but was probably spam. He hovered over it, expecting to see a “Fuck a HOT MILF today!” or “Buy Drugs” type message, instead, it started simply. 

“Hello :)” that little emoticon seemed to stare into him. Narrowing his eyes, Strade sighed, taking a deep swig of his beer now. He clicked on it, ready to block them at the drop of a hat. Something he usually did with anyone who messaged him. It was better for them if he blocked them. 

He was met with a quick, yet to the point message. 

“Hello :), Uh, I stumbled across your stream the other day. I have this fantasy of being on camera in that kind of situation. I could pay you. I just kinda wanna die, lol.” 

Now, that was something he hadn’t seen before. He had the odd silly girl saying she was into freaky stuff, asking him to cut her, choke her, etc. Or that one weirdo who’d asked for a sperm sample. But someone coming to him asking to be killed? It intrigued him. But it could also be another silly person, thinking it would be a kinky little game and they’d be able to go back home. He could never let anyone who came into this house leave alive. 

He pulled his keyboard close, setting his beer down and typed a message back. 

“What did you have in mind?” he asked simply, leaning back. He was surprised to see them begin responding almost immediately. 

“Oh! You replied! Oh, well. See, I’ve always been into hangings… I’ve never seen you do one, closest thing was when you choked out that one guy while you fucked him. Let me get to the point. I’ll offer myself as a sacrifice. You can torture me on camera for money, and then hang me at the end.” 

Strade had to read that several times over, what kind of masochist had he found? He watched as they began to type another message. 

“No one else knows this about me. I’m living a lie, it feels like. So I may as well go out being true to myself and my desires. My life savings would be yours, I can convert them to whatever crypto you prefer.” 

Strade’s mind was racing, as he thought it over. This could be a fun victim to play around with for a while. See how they’d react to different stimuli. Maybe he’d bring down Ren to suck him off while they perished. He sat up though, as reasoning came into play. 

This would mean telling someone where he lived. Having them drive or book a flight out here. Telling others where they were going. 

He had spent too long covering all his tracks, ensuring he was untraceable, moving out of his home country, to be caught like this. 

His mouse hovered over the block button again.

[voroxpete]

OK, so this post is actually from 3 years ago, but it's getting shared around again, so let's talk about what's happening with crypto.

Is it actually dead? Well, yes and no.

2023 was, for crypto, the awful no good very bad absolutely terrible year. Basically, the SEC got to reeeeaaallly busting heads on all of the illegal bullshit that the crypto industry is propped up on (they claim its not illegal because they used a different kind of software to do the illegal things; this is, obviously, bullshit). So, thanks Joe Biden for that one I guess. You're a soulless neoliberal ghoul, but god damn did you get a lot of really good shit done (genuinely, if you guys don't know, he's quietly been one of the most effective presidents you guys have ever had... And the "quietly" part - combined with his utterly reprehensible support for Isreal - means you're all gonna stay home this year and let Trump get in instead).

The upshot of this is that the CEO of Binance is facing criminal charges, Sam Bankman Fried of FTX is in jail for 20-something years (and FTX is still a smoking crater) and Coinbase are trying desparately to not get kicked out of US markets.

So why did Bitcoin just post its highest price ever? Well, the long and short is that the whales are really, really desparate to cash out. Anyone who knows whats going on can see that the whole system is dying. Unless they can get a much more favourable regulatory environment very very quickly they're basically locked out of American money, and even that won't fix the fact that consumers are just generally done with crypto.

The price is higher than its ever been (well, kinda... it's basically stalled at the previous all time high), but the actual number of transactions, and especially the number involving real dollars, is lower than its ever been. In other words, the price doesn't reflect what someone will actually pay in real money for crypto. It is, more than ever, a made up number, largely created through price manipulation by Tether.

Tether, for those who don't know, is a crypto that's always supposed to trade 1:1 for a US dollar. This is backed by... well... bullshit. Tether claims to be backed by real reserves, but these claims are blatant lies. In practice, they just print fake money out of thin air, claim its just like real money, then use that fake money to buy other crypto (mostly bitcoin) which pushes the price up. And because so few people actually buy or sell bitcoin now, one big customer can move the price by a lot.

So, the all time high price right now is mostly down to Tether working overdrive to push the price up. This big push has been spurred by two things; Bitcoin ETFs, and the halvening.

Bitcoin ETFs are basically a way to trade bitcoin as an asset without actually holding bitcoin. Instead, someone else holds the bitcoin, and you just buy notional shares of what that bitcoin is worth. Crypto enthusiasts have been treating these as the coming of Jesus, though in reality they just give institutional investors even less reason to actually touch crypto directly. But they are a big marketing opportunity to tell the remaining suckers that this is it, this is when crypto finally goes to the moon (ie, a chance for the people who run the whole scam to cash out their remaining crypto on another injection of idiot cash, or so they hope).

The halvenining is this thing where every four years the crypto payouts to miners drop by half. Miners don't actually create (ie, "mine") bitcoin, that's a myth. What they do is move it; their computers validate transactions so that money can move, and they get paid new bitcoin in return. With payouts halving, the price needs to go up in order for the miners to even keep the lights on. If they start shutting down their systems, the whole system could just seize up, or become vulnerable to takeover by one determined group. Miners are also heavily intertwined with the exchanges and the stablecoins like Tether. So, the price is being manipulated up to keep miners in business.

Right now it's still floating around that all time high, and has struggled to maintain any sort of upward momentum past that point. I suspect it's going to tumble back down soon enough, but I could be wrong. Again, this "market" is so heavily manipulated that price action has no connection to reality.

Is crypto dying? Basically, yes. There's the appearance of life in the corpse, but it's just the big players puppeting the body to make it seem alive. Institutional money (big investment firms) bailed a while back, and they're just trying to trap as many retail (regular Joe) suckers as they can before the whole becomes pointless and they all pivot to shilling AI products.

[wyrmfedgrave]

Trump, the most trustworthy businessman, is teaming up with crypto, the ...

Another day, another Rump scam - using crypto to steal idiots' money.

If you're dumb enough, buy this crypto coin - which doesn't make you any money!!

It just allows you a 'vote' in another failing Rump business...

Maybe you can keep him afloat - with your life savings!

I'm sure that the Rapist Con Man would be real appreciative of your monetary 'sacrifice'...

After all, he did promise that he only needed your vote...

So long, sucker.

End?

[blasooch]

Professional Bag Holders

The internet is rife with crypto "Alpha Bros" pumping the next Kanye Coin and full-time FFIE bag holders waiting to dump their positions onto whoever they can sucker.

It's all too easy for a passive investor with a brokerage account to YOLO a portion of their 401k into oblivion based on hype and FOMO.

However, the odds of a retail trader beating the market are worse than tourists at a roulette table. While the S&P 500 averages 8-10% returns per year, approximately 90% of day traders lose money.

Do yourself a favor and avoid FOMO...

It's easy to get caught up in the hype, especially when you scroll past a 25-year-old crypto bro on TikTok dancing on the hood of his Lambo, telling you he's buying call options on Putin Coin.

Everyone is trying to buy the rumor and sell the news. Do yourself a favor and conduct your own due diligence. Take the time to read financial statements and make investments in organizations/leaders you believe in. Spend less time following Crypto Alpha Homies and more time creating a long-term investment strategy.

Just my two cents for the day, which is apparently worth more than Kanye Coin.

[gregg-reuben]

The network scam

The network scam https://seths.blog/2023/11/the-network-scam/ Lana Swartz coined this term in her breakthrough paper on crypto. A scam always involves a transaction. In the traditional fraud, the scammer tells a lie and the buyer, either with or without diligence, believes it and loses everything. You buy the magic beans, but they don’t grow. But modern scams have a network component to them. Either there are conditions present where the scams are far more likely to occur (because of the magnification media and other forces can offer to the scammer) or, in this case, because the gullible buyer has a hunch it’s a Ponzi scheme, but plays along because he believes he can then pass the buck to the next sucker and come out ahead. If someone bought an NFT in the belief it was going to go up, without regard for its actual utility, they are participating in a network scam. Without a society of others sharing the same belief, it wouldn’t work. Perhaps climate denial is also a kind of network scam. If you can pump oil or sell cheap disposable fashion or benefit from subsidized cheap beef, it’s only because other people are joining you in sharing a short-term outlook on the world. Sooner or later (probably sooner), the delusion fades, and people (all of us) are left holding the bag. In a well-lit and rational world, we could see network scams for what they are, and do something about them before they spiral out of control. Alas, the alternative is something Swartz quotes a hustler as saying: “If it’s a Ponzi, get in early.” PS Black Friday is a network scam.